My Childhood Friend And The Port Town

According to my childhood friend, “Every time I see a beach ball, y’know, it takes me right back — there was this one with a pattern I fell for at first sight, ages ago, and I blew it up in my room to play with… and then I went and used it like a cushion, and it popped. Put a hole clean through the thing in less than a day.”

…apparently. She’s way too much of an idiot.

And that childhood friend of mine, Sakura Ayuri, the one lugging around a full-blown-idiot memory like that… well, as for where she is right now…

◆◆◆

— Clackety-clack.

From inside the gently swaying train, I let my eyes drift out the window. The scenery outside is nothing like what I usually see, nothing like the route to the shopping mall we’ve been to a handful of times either. It all feels unfamiliar, distant enough to really drive home how far we’ve come.

“Next stop iiis~…”

The announcement crackles through the car, and the scenery sliding past begins to slow. The station is apparently a well-known tourist spot; the name rings a faint bell from somewhere, and when the train pulls in, most of the passengers file off here.

“This isn’t our stop, okay, Gin.”
“Yeah, I know that.”

The childhood friend beside me, Sakura Ayuri, Ayu for short, had just handed me the blindingly obvious. I’d only been watching the other passengers get off, but maybe I’d looked envious; not that I had the faintest idea what there’d even be to see at a station like this.

“We get off a few stops past this one.”
“Yeah.”

After that, Ayu popped her earbuds in and dropped her eyes to the novel in her hands, and I turned back to my phone. We’d kept up an idle stream of small talk right until we boarded, but with strangers around us, we’d fallen quiet once the train got moving.

“…”
“…”

The car had thinned out, though a few others still lingered; for the most part the only sound was the train itself running the rails, jolting now and then with a rattle. That, plus Ayu turning her pages beside me, plus the faint music that might have been leaking from her earbuds if I strained my ears, or might have been my imagination.

“…”

My usually-noisy childhood friend is right there beside me, same as ever, and still it feels strange for things to be this quiet. Strange, but somehow calming. Honestly, I don’t mind it.

◆◆◆

“We’re heere!”
“So this is it…”

We step off at our stop, and I take a look around. Compared to the station where all the tourists piled off earlier, this place has no pull to speak of; it’s a rural stop that feels made for locals, nowhere tourists would bother coming. It’s even more country than our own middling-rural hometown; there’s a sense of people about, but only a faint one, something hard to put into words.

“…And now, Lady Ginko? Today, I shall be your escort. Your hand, if you please.”

She held out a hand, all airs, as if she were inviting me to a dance.

“Yeah, yeah.”

It had been a while since I’d walked hand in hand with Ayu like this, or so I thought as I took it.

◆◆◆

Ayu apparently has relatives living in this port town, and partly because of that, she seems to come back pretty often. Once, as a kid, she’d declared she “wanted to do that whole summer-vacation-game thing” and apparently went so far as a long homestay here during her elementary years. Me, I’d been here exactly once, and that time I hadn’t had an ounce of room to spare for sightseeing, so even with her showing me around now, nothing much like nostalgia comes welling up.

“Lunch is here! It’s a diner run by the parents of a friend of mine from around here!”
“Huh.”

At a glance it’s an ordinary diner, the kind you find on any street; and that’s probably exactly what it is.

“Pardon the intrusiooon!” The door clatters open sideways with the shout.

It’s still a little early for lunch, but the place is already bustling with what look like local regulars; come a bit later and we might not have snagged a seat.

“Oh my, Ayuri! I’d heard you’d gone back home — what’s up? Forget something?”
“Auntie, been a little while! I just kinda felt like seeing the sea again, so I brought a friend and came on back!”

…Is Ayu some kind of local celebrity out here? On the way over she’d traded easy greetings and banter with people who clearly knew her, a good two or three times. Though by her account, she’s just “happening to run into folks she knows.”

“The marinated tuna bowl here is really good, y’know.”
“Huh… then maybe I’ll go with that.”
“Cool — ’scuse me! Auntie, one marinated tuna bowl and one curry, please!”
“Hey, now.”
“I had the tuna when I came a little while back, so… and Auntie’s curry is really good too, so…”

Recommend it to me and then not eat it yourself…? A little grumble rises up, but the server who took our order has already vanished into the kitchen, so… eh, whatever.

“Well, if it isn’t Ayuri! What brings you here today?”
“Toy-shop Pops! Today I came on a date with my friend!”
“Oh-ho, is that so! Well, good for you!”

Ayu’s off chatting with yet another familiar face; how many is that now? Honestly, she might know more people here than she does back home. Sure enough, one acquaintance after another keeps flagging her down from around the place. What does it even take to end up like this? I genuinely have no idea.

“Sorry for the wait, you two — one curry and one marinated tuna bowl.”
“Yaaay!”
“Thanks very much.”
“And here’s a dashi-rolled omelette, compliments of that gentleman over there.”
“Toy-shop Pops!”

They’ve even got her favorite dish memorized.

◆◆◆

“Thanks for the meal!”
“…Thank you for the meal.”

In the end, even after all that, various people kept treating us to things: sashimi, juice, all sorts. “If it were the usual little rascals they’d be badgering us for seconds,” they said, “but today it’s two cute girls, after all!” Between all that and Ayu being such a light eater, I wound up saddled with a fair share of the food; I can still move fine, but it’s a touch rough.

“Bye, everyone!”
“Thank you all so much for everything.”

Ayu strong-arms her way into covering my share, and we cut the farewells short and head out. On the way, on top of everything else, the shop folks even press bottles of ramune into our hands.

“…You. What did you get up to around here?”
“‘What did I do,’ geez — it’s not like I did anything weird? I played with the kids around here a bunch, helped the old folks with errands, one thing led to another and I ended up in the neighborhood association’s karaoke contest…”
“Ugh, okay, forget I asked, yeah.”

Here was a different Ayu from the one bound up in the secret only I know, an Ayu who’d lived out an everyday life I know nothing about. Picturing her a little livelier than her usual self, I felt a fond little smile tug at me and set off toward our next stop.

“It’s so hooot…”
“…Yeah, it is.”

Clear skies. A fine day for an outing, sure, but the summer sun still beats down hot enough to leave me wilting like I’d been boiled. We’ve got a parasol up today, but all it does is form a lid overhead, trapping the heat that rises off the asphalt, so I feel like I’m being steamed alive. Take it down, though, and we’d only bake harder; the sunlight’s fierce enough that my skin would burn through any other precaution, so folding it away isn’t an option either. The handheld fan in my other hand is a drop in the bucket, too.

“There’s a candy store a little further on, so once we cool off there for a bit, our destination’s right nearby.”
“…Sure thing.”

◆◆◆

We cooled off and had ice cream at the candy store she’d led us to, exactly as planned, then set off down a little animal trail winding through a copse of trees close by. The town itself I barely remember, given everything that happened back then, but this path… this one left its mark on me, in more ways than one, and I can’t claim it stirs nothing in me.

“Watch your step, just in case.”
“Yeah.”

Ayu leads me by the hand down the well-trodden dirt path. After how hot the walk over had been, the shade under the trees comes as a surprising cool; the drone of insects and the slivers of sky through the branches stir up something nostalgic.

And then…

“See? We’re here!”

With a washing rush of waves, the real thing opened up in front of me: the very view I’d been picturing from the sound alone. Beyond the copse lay the sea, spreading wide enough to fill my whole field of vision, and a small stretch of shore.

“…It’s been a real long while since I came… but it hasn’t changed much, huh.”
“I was just here the other day, though — but for you, Gin, it’s been since that time, so… three years and a few months, maybe?”
“Yeah.”

The first time I came was around Golden Week, so even the season was different. Maybe that’s the reason. The scenery may not have changed much, but the feelings wrapped around me now are nothing like the ones I carried back then. Back then I hadn’t had an ounce of room in my heart to spare, not even enough to take in the scenery here. But sure enough, the waves and the wind here are gentle. I could see why Ayu loves the place.

“Oh, whoops, the little ones are here… I’ll go say hi for a sec.”
“Sure.”

It seemed we weren’t the first ones here. A cluster of four kids, maybe lower-elementary age, two boys and two girls, were playing there, and Ayu, who evidently knew them, heads over their way.

“Heyy, you little ones doing okay?”
“Ah, it’s Ayuri! What’re you doing here?!”
“Hey, come on, I told you not to just call me ‘Ayuri,’ didn’t I.”

Even the little kids don’t take her seriously, huh.

Or so I thought, and yet, on the other hand…

Isn’t that because she keeps calling them “little ones”?

…was a thought I couldn’t quite dismiss, either.

And the faintly cheeky-looking girl among them, hair loosely tied up, seems to be shooting a bit of a glare my way, too.

“Big sis Ayuri, what’re you doing here…?”
“Bet you forgot something.”
“Your mom said the exact same thing, Rin — like mother, like daughter, huh…”
“…”

— Whap.

“Ow! No hitting, Rin!”
“Cheeky, for a big sis.”

Ho. This kid with the loosely tied-up hair… this “Rin” has good instincts. My first read was that she looked a touch cheeky, but she’s got real promise.

“So, really, what’d you come for? Who’s that beside you? Your boyfriend?”
“This is Fujino Ginko, a friend of mine from back home… I mean, boyfriend? Any way you look at her, Gin’s a girl, right?”
“We found out recently there are people like that, too… and since big sis Ayu’s such a weirdo, I figured maybe that was the deal.”
“It’s nothing like that. Still… heehee! Rin, you’re such a precocious little thing!”
“…”

— Whap.

“Owww! Down with violence!”

…Somehow it calls to mind the usual back-and-forth between me and Ayu. Or rather, is this how the two of us look from the outside? Kind of dumb, honestly.

“…Actually, wasn’t the deal that when you play here you call someone to keep watch, since it’s dangerous? Isn’t Yuu around, or someone?”
“Big sis Yuu went to the next town over with her high-school friends. We’re only using here as a spot to hang out — don’t touch the waves, don’t play in them, and if anything happens we tell the big sis at the candy store; we all got our parents’ okay on those conditions.”
“Ooh! Nicely done, everyone!”
“It’s pretty cool here, after all!”

Ayu chatters away with the kids like an old friend. How to put it… out here she’s just, well, being a big sister, plain and normal. Back home she’s more the one who gets doted on, treated like the younger one, and yet.

“So in the end, what did you come here for, big sis Ayuri? If it’s about big sis Yuuka, it’s just like Rin said.”
“Big sis Ayuri just felt like seeing the sea again! So while I was at it, I brought my friend from back home to my number-one favorite spot — that’s the deal!”
“Just to look at it?”
“Yep. That’s just how high schoolers are.”
“Huuh…”

The kids give a scatter of reactions, looking half-convinced at best. Honestly, back when I was their age, the idea of traveling this far out with nobody but other kids my own age wouldn’t have clicked for me either… so yeah, that about tracks.

“Well then, let’s go play!”
“No good, Daichi — this is probably one of those ‘date’ things.”
“Huh? They’re both girls, so neither of them’s got a boyfriend, right?”
“Even two girls who aren’t in that kind of relationship still call it that! …Come on, we’re going!”
“Nah, it’s fine — we’ll be the ones heading off to the edge… you all go on and play.”
“…If big sis Ayu says so.”

With the hellos cut short like that, we head off for the far edge of the beach, into the shade. We spread out the picnic sheet we’d brought and settle in, and the sound of the waves and the sweep of the sea are easy on the senses, the breeze cool against my skin and downright soothing.

“Ahh… it’s cool, and so soothing…”
“Feels like it just about breaks even, considering how much we sweated buckets getting here, though.”
“Well, that’s… also, this is a weird thing to say when I’m the one who invited you, but thanks for actually coming, when really all we did was come to look at the sea.”
“We’re high schoolers now, aren’t we? I just figured it’d be nice to make a trip out somewhere every now and then with nothing but chilling as the goal — and as for coming all the way here, well… it’s your favorite, right? This place.”
“Well, yeah… I really do have attachments to this place, in all sorts of ways.”

I narrow my eyes and gaze out at the vast spread of ocean before us. Sunlight scatters and glitters across the endless water, beautiful, and the wash of the waves braided with the kids’ bright voices brings the very picture of summer up close.

“…Fwaaah~”
“Oh, is Gin getting sleepy?”
“It was a pretty long way here, and we did a lot of walking, so… maybe I’ll lie down a bit.”
“I see… well then, here — come on over.”
“…What.”
“I’ll give you a lap pillow. Come on, come on.”
“…Well, I guess it’s fine once in a while.”

A nap in a setting like this seems like it’d do wonders, and chances like this don’t come around often. I’ll put up with Ayu’s lap for a pillow, just this once.

I chug the bottle of water I’ve got on me to rehydrate before sleeping, then lie down and settle my head on her lap. The instant I do, a drowsiness stronger than I’d bargained for drags me under, my eyelids going heavy on the spot.

“…Thank you, Gin.”

Quit stroking my hair like it’s nothing, I wanted to say, but more than that, my eyelids just kept sinking heavier and heavier, and I gave myself over to the pleasant drowsiness.

With the raw sounds of nature filling my ears, I sank into a deep sleep.