Thirty-Three Thousand Feet Away

“Dong… Dong… Dong…”

Somewhere, distant chapel bells. Soft, slanting light. Pink petal rain. Wagtails wagged wings, fluttering off to some new place. Should I be here?

I walked along a canal, and a girl with pretty eyes kept to my pace. Her steps stretched wider to compensate her shorter stature. Skipping, almost. Her fingertips were smudged with yesterday’s paint. Blue and orange. A cherry blossom petal landed in her blonde hair. It stayed there, as if placed by some unseen hand.

Bright eyes met mine. Then a beautiful smile.

“You think cherry blossoms are overrated?” the girl asked. She pointed to graffiti under the bridge. “Personally, that’s so much cooler.”

“Well… if I were a photographer,” I replied. “I’d say the graffiti would look much cooler hanging on a wall.”

She grinned. “Exactly. That’s why I take photos of them.”

I shook my head with a smile, then brought up the fingers. “So, what’d you paint this time?”

“Blue was for the sky. Orange was…” she said, tapping her chin, trying to remember. “I think it started as a sun. Then it turned into a goldfish. Then a can of Georgia Coffee.”

“Sounds like quite the journey.”

“That’s the best part about painting. Even if you mess up, you can always try again tomorrow. Paint over it.”

“But wouldn’t the old painting show underneath?”

“No... And that's the neat thing,” she stated. “Paintings let you lie. But a beautiful lie can still be true, right?”

“You sure you aren’t a politician?” I asked, jokingly.

“Hell no,” she replied, flatly. “Politicians just lie. No beauty in it.”

She brushed some wind-blown strands of hair behind her ear, eyes trailing the canal. “You hear they visited the shrine again?”

“With the media going crazy about it year after year? Who hasn’t?” I replied.

“My Ojiisan used to get so angry when people talked about Yasukuni on the news,” she recalled. “He’d say, ‘They only show up when they wanted to feel proud again, but they never stayed for the names.’”

“What do you mean?”

A pause, then she asked: “Have you seen Grave of the Fireflies?”

“Of course. It’s quite depressing, no?”

“Well, I think it’s one of Miyazaki’s best,” she replied. “A lot of people say it’s too depressing, I think it’s supposed to be.”

She reached out to grab a falling petal. “I never really got why my Ojiisan said that back then, but now I think he meant that remembering something properly isn’t always supposed to feel good...”

“…If it hurts to remember,” she added softly. “Just means it mattered all that much more.”

We continued, strolling along the canal path. Just me and the art student.

“So… where to?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“After this? Now that we’ve officially graduated.”

“I'm thinking Tokyo,” I responded, looking up at the sky. “Somewhere big. Get out of this town. That’s what my Dad would’ve wanted.”

She tiled her head at a bird nearby. “Well, I like this town.”

“Yeah, well… You can only tolerate so much fish and snow for one lifetime,” I said, turning to her. “Or maybe it’s just you.”

“Heyyy!” she whined, giving me a weak nudge. “Meanie!”

I let out a laugh. She crossed her arms like a child.

“What about you?” I finally asked.

“Dunno... Maybe I’ll travel…” she hesitated, eyes on the path. Then she looked up, grin returning. “Or maybe become a singer, or an actress! Life’s more fun when you don’t know.”

“I mean, you have to settle down at some point right? You can’t just paint forever—”

“Says who?” she retorted, almost coolly. “Just because your parents did? And your grandparents?”

I didn’t respond. I sensed she’d taken more offense to that than I realized.

“Sorry…” she whispered. “It’s been a long week…”

“Don’t worry about it. School is stressful. I’m just glad it’s all over, you know?”

“Or… It’s only begun,” she shrugged. “There’s always two way to look at it.”

“Hey,” she said, pointing at something on the other side of the canal. “You wanna go?”

“Go where?”

“Komorebi. It’s my favorite kissaten,” she replied. “A little expensive, but so good.”

Kissa Komorebi wasn’t listed on any map. The sign above the door had lost most of its paint, hiragana barely legible. An aroma of roasted beans and tatami mildew greeted you even before the noren was fully swept aside.

Inside, the kissaten was dark, with the only source of light being the sun which filtered through aged windows. Its wood interior and hinoki pillars felt like a relic from another era. A single old lady sat watching a CRT TV bolted to the ceiling—

A rerun of Kayō Concert played softly on the CRT. Sayuri Ishikawa stood solemnly beneath paper cherry blossoms. The lyrics scrolled below in yellow.

いつしかあなたに しみついた…
(Before I knew it, it was ingrained in you…)

“Trust me,” the girl said, eyes glinting. “You have to try the ‘Komorebi Special.’”

“What is it?”

“Coffee jelly with whipped cream,” she replied, waving for the server. “Just trust me on this one.”

“You’re the boss.”

The server arrived with two ceramic saucers. Each carried a delicate glass cup. The jelly wobbled beneath a soft crown of white cream, topped with a single preserved cherry.

“Isn’t it so good?” she asked enthusiastically, mouth full of cream.

“It’s not bad…” I replied.

“Not bad?” she shot, with disappointment in her voice. “This was handcrafted by the Gods!”

“Maybe… It’s just nostalgia,” I said, taking a bite from mine. “In my psychology course, they said that nostalgia changes how the brain works. It can shape your tastes in music, food, people… Years later, decades even.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, then, my nostalgia is just better than everyone else’s!” she said, with a hint of sarcasm, before promptly stuffing more jelly into her mouth.

After I finished mine—and she finished her second—we sipped on green tea, allowing discussion to flow naturally between us. The TV kept playing in background static—

口を開けば 別れると…
(If I open my mouth, I'll say goodbye…)

“My mom used to play this on cassette,” the girl said, smiling distantly at the TV. “She’d sing it while hanging laundry.”

“You remember all that?”

She nodded. “Of course. That kind of memory doesn’t leave you...”

Outside, the sun shifted orange once more, and the girl’s halo returned to her.

“They don’t write lyrics like that anymore.” Her eyes remained on the old CRT, fingers tracing the rim of her glass.

“You really love this place, huh?”

“Yeah… Mom used to bring me here as a kid. Before she passed away…” she whispered. “I come when I’m afraid I’ll forget.”

She began to hum along with the enka singer. Slowly, yet gracefully. Like a tipsy, backstage performer after an exhausting show.

Her bright eyes glistened ever so slightly more. They were filled with thoughts; with unspoken haikus. Her slim, paint-stained fingers continued to distractedly follow the glass’s edge, as if dancing to the sound of her voice. She did had a beautiful voice.

At that moment, something changed. Not about her, but within me. The girl I was now staring at wasn’t just some girl who’d disrupt my peaceful reading from time to time, or who would drag me out to a field to gaze at far-away stars after class, or who would sometimes speak in words I couldn’t fully understand, but never missed an opportunity to listen anyway. I realized, I cared for that girl. More than any words could ever describe.

I think I loved her.

She stood up from her chair. “Come.”

“Where?” I asked.

She took my hand.

“You’ll see.”

She led me past the beaded curtain behind the register. Past the smell of old coffee beans and sun-battered tatami, out into a space I never knew existed.

Narrow stone steps lead to a little rooftop courtyard. It was vacant. A bamboo spout trickling into a stone basin. Little box gardens adorned with purple Asagao and yellow Yamabuki. Faint chimes of wind bells. A quietly humming AC unit. A moss-covered bench overlooking a setting sun.

We sat. No more than a meter apart.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.

“It is,” I replied.

“This is where I want to be,” she whispered.

“I do too,” I whispered back.

She leaned in closer. I felt myself pulled in too. I could feel her breath on my skin. She could feel mine on hers.

And then a threshold was broken. And suddenly, an eclipse blocked the sunset. And for a moment the world vanished. Heartbeats synced. The sights and sounds which had kept us tethered to the ground beneath our shoes, no longer existed. A cathedral of light.

For five seconds… No kissaten, no TV, no AC units, no nothing…

Just me and the art student.

Her lips slowly left mine. I didn’t want her to pull away. I wished we could've stayed this way forever… But wishes rarely do come true.

And as quickly as the world had vanished, the eclipse parted, and everything returned once more. Our feet once again tethered to the courtyard floor.

She stared at me with bright eyes, full of thoughts; full of haikus. I stared back at them with eyes full of longing. We spoke no words. None were needed. The sun lowered behind the horizon, and the faded stars reunited with the sky above.

“Cha-chong… Cha-chong… Cha-chong…”

A faraway train rumbled over its track. A plane’s green and red lights blinked from thirty-three thousand feet away. Her gaze followed it until it was out of view.

When she spoke again, her eyes were wet with tears. Her lips trembled, as if holding something back. Her messy blonde hair waved to me with every departing breeze. The petal in her hair was now gone.

“Kohei?” she asked softly, eyes not leaving the starry blue. “Promise you’ll remember me?”