Dozens of Secret Summer Twilights

Deep among the moss and rock he walked. Stairs from ancient days led his feet to unknown heights and lost destinations. Damp was the air and heavy was the fog. Grey clouds blocked out the sun and turned the forest into a muted, silent realm of green and mystery. Each step echoed between the tree trunks like a whispered secret. Time felt slow. Hazuki did not know this place.

Deeper and deeper he wandered until the forest opened up before him to reveal an enormous sakaki tree in a secluded hillside. The stone steps made their way to the base of the tree, where roots rose from the ground and opened like a doorway shaped like a woman’s portal of souls. An unfamiliar uneasiness crawled across the back of Hazuki’s neck as the enormous trunk beckoned him forward. It almost seemed as though the tree was pulsing with steady, slow breaths.

Shimenawa wraps encircled the tree, which was at least twenty meters in circumference at its base. Hazuki didn’t want to be there. But now, when he turned to leave, the path was gone. Bamboo and willow blocked his way. He was trapped. She was not there. What was her name? He knew her name.emanrehwenkeh.

Itwasn’tsupposedtobelikethis.sihtebotdesoppust’nsawti

Line and form began to bend and the tree seemed to lurch forward to consume him. Emptiness. The emptiness will haunt you. You will die alone and be reborn alone. That’s what you tell yourself.

Itwasn’tsupposedtobelikethis.sihtebotdesoppust’nsawti

Itwasn’tsupposedtobelikethis.sihtebotdesoppust’nsawti

Itwasn’tsupposedtobelikethis.sihtebotdesoppust’nsawti

Whatwashername?

Now the tree was even larger, or he was smaller. Now it was above him, crashing down like a skyscraper. Emptiness was all that was left, but he didn’t want that. He wanted to wake up.

Wake up. Wake Up. WAKE UP. WAKEUP.WAKEUP!

!!!PUEKAW

Her name was NaoeEOAN

Everything went white.

Hazuki bolted up in a feverish sweat. Heat from the humid summer air hung on the tent’s canvas in tiny beads of water. Drops of perspiration ran down Hazuki’s face, neck, and chest. Another nightmare. It was a welcome, unwanted side effect of the dosage reduction plan he had been on for months now. Clarity was returning to him, but the transition involved his body’s chemicals rewiring themselves within his mind as his essence reset. These days, nightmares were common.

He didn’t know if they were hallucinations and figments of his imagination, or if it was some form of calling from the spiritual realm beckoning him to his aeon fate. Naoe was never in them. Was she hiding from him? Was the spiritual realm blocking her? Was this all just a dream?maerd?

Hazuki shook his head clear and sat up. It was August now. Days moved as slowly now as they did when he had been in the orphanage, though thankfully less full of trauma and abuse. Hazuki had taken to journaling his thoughts and memories to combat the unreliability of his memory. Hopefully, the medicine leaving his system would eventually return capacity to his mind, but deep down he feared that the damage had been too severe. So he wrote. He drew. He documented everything out of the hope that it would help Naoe and himself.

Within the notes was also his plan for propagating Naoe’s tree. If he was successful, it might give them the freedom to travel beyond the park’s proximity. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t know until she returned. In the interim, his notes were there, outlining the steps for grafting and hardwood cuttings. For now, he had started the process of softwood cutting several weeks ago.

Hidden in his tent was a six-inch green cutting from Naoe’s tree that he had retrieved late one night under the cover of darkness. As silently as possible, Hazuki had removed the plums and leaves from an arm’s-length branch with a knife, then had cut the branch into several six-inch pieces. Then he shaved off the bark at the bottom of each piece. Once each cutting was ready, he dipped it into a rooting hormone and planted it in a small cylindrical vile full of moist soil. Now, tucked away behind his pillow, four cylindrical vials sat and grew their secret travel passes.

Each day he would set them in the sun and air to gain nourishment. At night he would return them to the tent. That became his routine. Tend to the cuttings. Tend to the park. Tend to Naoe’s tree. Hide the cuttings. Nightmares. Day after day, that was his existence. Familiarity turned to habit, and soon Hazuki was unable to remember if it was a weekend or weekday. It didn’t matter to him.

One weekday, Hazuki ran into a familiar face. As he approached the employee and volunteer gathering space with his eyes on the darkening clouds overhead, he saw the woman who lived in his childhood home. Her name escaped him at that moment, but she remembered his.

“Hazuki?” she asked as she saw him approaching.

“You live at my grandparents’ old house. Or, it’s your house now, but it used to be theirs,” he replied.

Matsumoto clapped in surprise.

“Really?!” asked Matsumoto.

“Hazuki is one of our best volunteers! I had no idea you two knew one another,” said Matsumoto.

“Sayane,” she said in understanding as she held out her hand in greeting.

Hazuki hesitated then shook it.

“You look well,” she said quietly.

“I’ve been better,” Hazuki said with a tired grin that showed flickers of the boy still there beneath the wounds.

“What are you doing here?” Hazuki asked Sayane as he looked at her and several others carrying black crates.

“I’m on the city’s tourism department now. We were highlighting the parks of the city! This is my production crew,” Sayane answered as she motioned to the people nearby.

“Hazuki, why don’t you join Sayane and her colleagues? You can give them an excellent tour!” said Matsumoto with a smile.

It wasn’t exactly what Hazuki wanted to do, but he understood that Matsumoto thought it would be good for him and for the park. Thus, he agreed, and soon he was walking the grounds with Sayane and her team, explaining the park's history, highlighting the trees and flowers, showing the restaurant and facilities, and answering questions.

“You’re very knowledgeable!” said Sayane after they had concluded filming footage of a large hillside flower bed.

“Matsumoto is a good instructor. I have learned it all from him,” answered Hazuki.

Sayane seemed to want to speak but couldn’t gather the words. After a moment, she gathered her courage.

“Are you safe? Do you need anything? I had heard a person was living here in the park, but I didn’t think it might be you,” she confessed.

“I’m fine,” said Hazuki in an honest, non-confrontational tone.

“You, you could always live with us. We have plenty of space, and it is still your home too. Arthur has mentioned you several times. I know he wouldn’t mind me extending this offer.”

Her words seemed very sincere, and Hazuki appreciated her thoughtfulness. Still, he was not yet ready to leave the park, even if it was the peak of summer. Winter’s chill was more of his concern.

“Thank you,” was all he could answer.

Sayane understood that would be all for now, but at least the offer was made.

August continued on, and the skies became darker as the threat of storms encroached. By now, the cuttings had developed root offshoots and were growing small branches of their own. It was working. A sense of relief and optimism grew in Hazuki’s heart as he observed his small experiment. The relief would not last. As he lay down to sleep, the winds had already begun to build and the rains had begun to fall. Hazuki had heard the warnings of the workers but ignored them. A typhoon was coming.

Even though he was afraid, he couldn’t leave Naoe’s tree to face the storm alone. Tarp snapped and popped as the gusts built force. Leaves snapped against one other like thousands of claps on straining branches. Laying there alone, Hazuki pulled the vials close and prayed the storm would pass without any danger. In his heart, he knew that would not be the case.