[FESTIVAL – STRUGGLE (AGAIN)]

Only the insects call through the night as a stunned Valerie and a beaming Masaru watch as Sato turns to look up to the temple.

“One thousand steps as part of the crowd,” Sato growls as Masaru accepts his jacket. “But it will only make me less of myself if I let it… I was scared of losing who I was.”

The taiko drummer starts up again at the top of the front float.

“Let’s go!” the masked man shouts, taking a moment between every other beat to point out the final log and mask tied to it.

A few second pass, and others in the crowd join in the chant.

Sato turns slowly around to the float, eyeing the log and mask.

“I’ve… always wanted to be at the front of the parade,” he says.

Masaru says nothing, but scoots over to the wide-mouthed Valerie and gives her a pat on the back as they watch him ascent the float’s wooden steps.

With every step he climbs, the chanting pitches deeper.

“Let’s go… let’s go… let’s go!... let’s go!...”

At the summit of the float, he takes up the mask and looks at it as if it were his own face.

After a pause, he places the fox mask on his face and picks up the massive log tied down with the name Amaterasu inked in bold calligraphy.

“LET’S GO! LET’S GO! LET’S GO!” the crowd cheers as some applaud the final man in the line taking his place.

With a powerlifter’s strength, Sato waddles down the steps with the log set over his shoulder.

Taking his place in line, he pulls in deep through his mask, his chest rising like a proud bird.

“LET’S GO!” he shouts with everything he has, winning a fanatic cheer from the entire parade.

Valerie crosses her arms, her mouth slant as Masaru just grins.

Maybe you’re not such an idiot after all, Masaru thinks with a chuckle.

Sato leads the procession upwards as he and the other log-bearers start upwards to the temple.

With the float approaching the steps, Masaru gently pulls Valerie over as he spots two open spots at the float.

She looks over with a wince.

“You’re kidding.”

“Come on, you came here to ‘see Japan’ didn’t you?”

She pauses, smirks, and starts pulling him over with just as much force.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two push with all they have to keep the float in the air as, slowly but surely, the entire group rotates it to go up the steps. While it’s not a wide float, it’s a tall one, and that makes a huge difference.

“What… the hell is this thing made out of?!” Valerie grunts.

Masaru laughs. “Wood and paper! Sometimes plastic, a few lights…”

Red-faced, the two of them finish the rotation and continue onward with the rest.

It’s a painstaking task. From the first step to the thousandth Masaru goes through the same cycle:

His body tells him to quit.

He sees the others working as hard as he is.

He resolves to continue on because they are.

It’s a psychological rhythm both brutal and inspiring at once as he realizes the only thing that’s truly keeping them going is the expectation of others suffering more without each other’s help. Valerie complains a lot, but like him, she never gives up— he even catches a few pain-stricken giggles from her near the end.

As if upon a stellar river, the logs, float, and parade slowly peak up into the wide temple grounds, with more than enough room for everyone.

“LET’S GO!” The log-carriers scream it out with hollow, but still-powerful tones, as if they’ve just won the right to witness the first day ever to exist.

As Sato and the others place the logs down in their unspoken sequence along the temple, Valerie and Masaru place down the float with the team and approaches Sato.

Masaru gives the huge man a pat on his unexpectedly defined tricep. “Well, looks like you did it!”

Sato, his fox mask gleaming in the torch light, looks up to the stars at the summit of the temple’s roof.

“I… I’m very happy for you, Sato,” Valerie says. “Do you think this is what you needed?”

Sato rotates his wrist and checks.

The one single mark has dissolved into an empty space.

“Yeah,” Sato says.

Masaru lifts up the coat as the night sky begins to swirl into an unspeakable tapestry of light and space. “Here you go.”

Sato raises up his hand. “Keep it. It was time for a wardrobe change anyway,” he says as he takes off his fox mask, revealing the face of a man marked by stress, shared pain, and the pride of brotherhood.

Masaru sees it clearly on the man’s face, and for once, he’s jealous of him.

“Alright,” Masaru says as he stuffs it deep into his briefcase, which can, by some miracle, contain even the massive puffy coat.

“…Thanks,” Sato says, giving Masaru a slow, approving nod before looking back up to the stars with kind, daring eyes. “I guess a change in perspective is all it takes sometimes.”

Masaru shrugs with a grin as their world begins to fall away, the chanting, instruments, and more fading like distant prayer. “Sometimes, yeah.”

“No, I’m sure of it,” Sato says with a nod. “It’s everything that’s important. Every problem you guys have is the same way. You just need to find a way to see through yourselves.”

Valerie puffs her cheeks as Masaru reaches out the shake Sato’s hand. “I’m sure you’re right, but it’s easier said than done.”

“I don’t envy what you guys have to go through… I’m sorry about how I acted earlier.”

Instead of simply taking his hand, Sato leans in and gives Masaru a big hug.

“O-oh! It’s okay, really!” Masaru says.

Sato pulls away and turns to Valerie, who takes a step back as she gives a short wave.

“It’s all good,” she says with a cough.

Sato nods before looking between the two of them. “Do your best. I’ll find you guys later. Maybe we could all be gym buddies!”

Masaru and Valerie both force grins.

“Yeah!”

“Oh, totally!” they say respectively as their world fully fades to white, with the sight of a grinning Sato disappearing from view.

…

Masaru hears the cicadas.

He turns, but once again he’s too slow. The drowning feeling overtakes him again, but by now it hardly phases him. In fact, he feels great.