Past and Present

Sakurako was carrying her backpack up the hill and finally reached the sakura tree. She sat down as she was tired from having to walk uphill in the blazing heat. “Okay, let's go back in time.”, she told herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened it and remained in the present. She felt stupid for even thinking it was true. It must’ve been a dream or hallucination from the heat. "Of course time travelling isn't real.", she thought to herself. "Stupid.”, she muttered.

“Who’s stupid?”

Sakurako was startled at the sound of a voice coming from the other side of the tree. “Who’s there?”

“Future girl?”, Uehara Chiharu turned around to face Sakurako.

“Oh, it’s you.”, she said in a flat tone.

“The hospital finally let you out, huh?”

“I told you I’m not crazy.”, Sakurako was annoyed.

“Why are you even up here today? Don’t you know this is my spot?”

“Hmph, it’s not like this is your tree.”, she muttered to herself, but then she thought, “although I guess it's your tree since your ghost haunts it.” It was silent for a bit before Sakurako answered his first question. “I have to do a history project on the fire that happened this year. I just thought it might be easier to do it if I actually came back to this time.”

“Again with the time travel, maybe the hospital couldn’t cure you.”, he teased.

Sakurako was getting annoyed with his assumption that she was crazy. She went into her backpack to grab her phone out for him. She got up and walked over to his side of the tree and shoved the phone to his face. “Look, know what this is? A phone from 2017!.” She proceeded to try and turn it on but it wouldn’t. “Damn, there’s no signals 50 years ago.”

Chiharu laughed, “You think some brick will prove to me you’re from the future?” 

“You know, I didn’t come here to meet you. I just came because this tree seems to bring me back in time. I don’t have to prove to you anything. I’ll get going. Goodbye.”, she sounded like a kid throwing a tantrum and she realized that what she just said only made her seem crazier. As she walked downhill, she muttered to herself, “to think I was starting to feel sad for him”, but then realized that she was back in the present.

“I don’t understand.”, now she was more confused than ever. “Can I only stay in one place when I go back? But wait, I was able to see my village last time. What did I do wrong?” She was thinking hard about what happened last time until it clicked to her. Last time, Uehara Chiharu was with her. “Could I only stay in the past when I’m with him only?”, she wondered. To prove this point, she turned around and went back uphill. Once she reached the top, she called out “Uehara Chiharu!”

“What?”

“So it was because of him.”, she thought to herself. “I need you to come with me.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, if I go back by myself, I won’t be able to stay in the past.”

Chiharu couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He just wanted to be left alone by himself. He wanted the peace he had before she came back again.

“Just this once. Please. I’ll stop coming back here, I promise. You can be alone here as long as you want after I leave.

Chiharu liked the sound of being left alone and felt that rejecting her will only make her come back and annoy him even more. He hesitantly agreed, “Okay, fine. Only this one time. But don’t come back anymore.”

Sakurako heard this before from Akira’s story.

Both of them walked downhill into the northern village.

“Everything looked so different.”, Sakurako thought to herself. “Whoa, Mr. Tanimoto’s market!”, Sakurako sounded like a happy child. She saw that the market was actually a small restaurant before Akira opened his business there. “This place turned into a market 50 years later. It’s run by your friend in the future.”

“Akira?”

“Mm, he retired here from the big city and opened a market for the village.”

Even if Chiharu didn’t believe that Sakurako was from the future, he couldn’t help but feel proud of his friend. “I knew he could do well on his own.”, he thought to himself.

“Over there.”, Sakurako spotted a small convenience store. “They must have some newspapers I can use.” Sakurako ran to the entrance. “Come on!”, she yelled out and went inside.

“You know they probably throw the old ones away right?”, he called after her. He was annoyed but still followed her in.

Sakurako was at the counter talking to the storeowner. “Hello, I was wondering if you have any old newspapers.”

“Hm? How old?”, the storeowner asked.

“March 15 1967.”

“Oh, a few weeks have already passed since that. I don’t even think we have any extras. But, I can go check for you.”, the storeowner went to another room which Sakurako assumed could be the storage. After a little while, the man came back out holding a rolled up newspaper.”You got lucky, I still had my copy. Disastrous day that was.”, the man handed her the newspaper.

“Sir, how would you describe the event that happened? What do you remember?”, Sakurako sounded like a reporter.

“Well let’s see, I just remember the firemen rushing over to the hill to go help put out the fire in the southern village. I heard they wouldn’t be able to take care of it themselves. Apparently, some families still remain living there but the ones with homes burned down were given support from here.”

Sakurako was immersed in all of this information and was nodding along to what the man was saying. This was something that only she can get because of her “powers”. Newspapers from the time period and face-to-face interviews are the best way to get information about history. “Thank you, this is great information for my project.” Sakurako walked out of the store with Chiharu.

“Are we done now?”, he was getting impatient with her. He noticed the smile that she had on her face. A smile that felt very familiar to him. “Kaori?”, he thought to himself.

“Hey, do you think I can get some interviews with some of your old classmates? Or maybe some people from the southern village? He did say that-”

“No.”, he was visibly annoyed. “You got your information or whatever, I just want to go back.” Being with Sakurako made him think of Kaori. They had the same smile and the same look in their eyes when they’re happy. He felt that his feelings were just messing with his head. He just missed Kaori too much that he thought he was placing aspects of Kaori onto Sakurako. The only person he wants to be with is Kaori, he can’t just replace her with someone else. Then there was a side of him that was telling him Kaori is with him. Sakurako was the first person to make him laugh ever since the incident and he feels comfortable enough to tease her; he felt close to her as if they knew each other for a while even though this was just their second time meeting. 

“Geez, so mean. Fine, I’ll go home so you can get back to feeling sorry for yourself.”

“You don’t understand anything about me so don’t judge.”, he sounded serious and started walking away from her.

The walk back up to the sakura tree was quiet as they were both annoyed at each other.

“Well…thank you.” Sakurako said as they reached the top of the hill.

Chiharu didn’t reply and just sat under the tree in silence. Sakurako walked back downhill to return to her time and go home. The moment Sakurako left, Chiharu felt empty again.

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Miyoshi Resident

Present Day

Sakurako was lying in bed thinking about what Chiharu said before she left. “Don’t understand him? I know a lot about him from grandma and Mr.Tanimoto”, she thought to herself. “Or do I?”, she felt curious about him. “Maybe it’s better to hear from the person themself. Ugh, I can't let my curiosity get the best of me. Why am I thinking about him anyway?”, all of these questions lingered in her mind. Everything she thought she knew about him was only the surface. There’s another side of him that she felt like she needed to understand.