Chapter 4 – Revelation

Determined to confirm what Mrs. Yamamoto had said, I went down to the lake once more. It wasn’t that I believed in those ridiculous superstitions—curiosity just dragged me along like an invisible rope.

I even joked with myself: I could already picture my next manga… a torii that transported its protagonists into a mirrored world. Surely a best seller.

But the atmosphere wasn’t joking around. The air was heavier than the day before, almost solid. Every breath weighed in my lungs.

Among the undergrowth, I spotted a small moss-covered shrine, its wooden prayer plaques leaning at odd angles from the damp.

“Was that here yesterday?” I murmured.

Maybe I had been too rushed to notice. Or maybe nature itself had hidden it. It didn’t matter.

I kept walking between the pines—identical, endless, lined up like salarymen during rush hour. A vegetal army watching me in silence.

And then I saw it.

The torii.

It stood beneath a small waterfall spilling onto the shore, half-submerged in water. The faded red of its peeling wood looked consumed by time, blending into the landscape.

“Guess I’ll get my feet wet…” I muttered, slipping off my shoes.

The water was freezing. The instant I touched it, a shiver ran through my entire body. Mountain water, pure and sharp.

“Brrr… that old woman just wants me to catch a cold,” I grumbled.

I waded in until the water reached my knees and bent to pass beneath the torii.

“Ta-daaan!” I announced theatrically, as if something magical would happen.

…

Nothing.

Just me, acting like an idiot.

“For a second, I almost believed it… total tourist-brochure nonsense.”

I didn’t know if something pulled me under or if I simply slipped, but suddenly the water swallowed me whole.

I plunged violently. Something dragged me down, and no matter how I struggled, my arms and legs wouldn’t respond. Water filled my lungs with a searing chill.

Was this it? Was my carelessness going to cost me my life?

Little by little, my senses faded. My body grew weightless, swallowed by darkness… until everything changed.

No more water.

The space opened warm, luminous—like floating in an ocean without time. I opened my eyes. My hands, my clothes, all intact. Before me stretched a garden.

A great, twisted sakura tree spread its branches, petals drifting down like a pink snowfall.

“This place…” I whispered. “My husband used to call it our ‘Secret Garden.’”

The laughter of children cut through my thoughts.

I moved toward the sound, step by step, lighter and lighter, almost unreal. We used to come here once a year, ever since we first met. We’d have picnics under that very tree.

And then I saw them.

“You’re late, my love…” My husband’s voice carried like an echo from the past.

He was there, sitting on a large blanket with our children. Laughing, playing, surrounded by food—as if nothing had ever been lost.

“This… this can’t be happening. It has to be a dream…”

I slapped my cheeks, shut my eyes tight.

When I opened them, my little Mari was standing there.

“Are you okay, Mommy? Are the drawings chasing you again?”

“Love, are you tired?” my husband asked gently, in that soft voice he always used at home.

Their faces showed genuine concern. I remembered how Mari used to say the same thing whenever I got trapped in deadlines, chained to the desk all night long.

I stepped closer to my husband and tapped his forehead with my finger, testing if he was real.

“You’re working too hard,” he said at last, hoisting Oda, our youngest, onto his shoulders.

What was this? Heaven? But… it felt too real.

I couldn’t leave it untested. I grabbed a sandwich from the basket and bit into it hastily. The texture, the consistency, the flavor—it couldn’t be a dream.

I choked. Coughed violently, pounding my chest to keep from suffocating.

“You’re so funny, Mommy! Heehee!” Mari laughed, handing me a glass of water.

I drank greedily, swallowing until the food went down. The cold liquid slid through my throat with a painful clarity.

Without a doubt, it was real.

Mari grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the tree. Her brown hair fluttered in the breeze, and every burst of laughter struck me like a distant echo—like a memory that had suddenly taken flesh again.

“Mommy, run faster!” she shouted, while Oda followed us with clumsy little steps, his small legs struggling to keep up.

I tripped trying to catch them and fell onto the soft grass. I stayed there, laughing, sunlight filtering through the sakura petals drifting down like snow. Mari dashed to my side and tossed a handful of blossoms over me. Oda, laughing too hard to balance, tried to imitate her but only managed to tangle himself and roll across the blanket.

My husband approached at an easy pace, wearing that smile I thought I’d forgotten. He knelt beside me and gently stroked my hair, the way he used to in our early years of marriage.

“We missed you, Ayaka,” he said warmly.

“Why don’t you quit work so we can spend more days like this as a family?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The knot in my throat wouldn’t let me.

But something in his tone froze me. It wasn’t just a plea… it sounded like reproach.

The four of us sat on the blanket, sharing the food from the basket. Mari begged for strawberry cake. Oda spilled juice onto his lap and wailed until his father soothed him with a joke. I watched each gesture as if I could carve them into memory: the crumbs at the corner of Mari’s lips, the way my husband glanced at me from the side, Oda’s clumsy laugh when he finally calmed down.

“I don’t want this day to end,” I said before I realized it.

“Then it won’t,” my husband replied, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

We spent the afternoon playing. Oda begged me to lift him up, and though my arms protested, I held him until his laughter burst out in peals. Mari drew on the ground with a stick—childish doodles that struck me as beautiful. I even caught myself thinking I could use those lines in my next manga, as if they were an unexpected gift.

The sun began to sink, painting the sky in shades of orange. We lay down together on the blanket, the four of us, watching the sakura petals spiral slowly through the air.

Mari curled up at my side, her head resting on my arm. Oda fell asleep with his mouth slightly open. My husband laced his fingers with mine.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. The scent of jasmine mingled with the sweet perfume of the blossoms. For the first time in years, I felt at peace.

If this was a dream, I never wanted to wake up.