Chapter 5: There’s no way I could tell her

The next morning.

On the veranda of the shrine, Sayuri sat cross-legged.
Whether she was aware of it or not, her body swayed gently, like grass and trees stirred by the wind.
Her gaze was fixed on the cherry tree, yet what her eyes truly saw was known only to her.

From somewhere, a single petal drifted down and came to rest on her knee.
She gently picked it up between her fingertips.
(…Even I can touch it… It slipped right through me on the day of the hanami…)

Sayuri gave a small smile at the faint sensation of the petal beneath her touch.

A different shadow than yesterday fell across her face.
She was smiling, yet that smile seemed as if it were beginning to crack.

“…You’ve been bewitched.”

With the voice came no sound of footsteps as the nekomata drew near.
Yet its eyes were far more serious than the day before, carrying a look that seemed to pierce through to the truth.

“Ha… Guess I’m in real trouble for the first time in a while.”

Sayuri spoke with a laugh, without taking her eyes off the cherry tree.
But in her voice, there was a faint trace—neither cheerfulness nor bravado, but something quietly seeping through.

The nekomata came to a halt. Before its eyes, Sayuri appeared even more transparent than she had the day before. Her outline blurred, like a shadow floating upon the surface of water.

“…The body—was the place wrong?”

Sayuri gave no reply. Instead, she gently lifted the nekomata into her arms.
It did not resist, only gazed sharply into her vacant eyes.

Then, Sayuri set the nekomata down lightly upon her crossed legs.

She let out a small breath.

“…Didn’t tell her, did I.”
That was all she said.

“But the hana-akari… it was unbelievably beautiful. …It was amazing.”

She looked as though she were still seeing that radiance even now, rather than speaking of the past.

“You mean, that was—”

The nekomata’s words were cut off by Sayuri’s voice.

“Yesterday, I became sure of it—and that’s why it weighs on me.
I don’t want to say it. …I really don’t.”

Still looking up at the cherry tree, she gave a small shrug.

“…Is this really the time to be saying that!”

The shouted voice shattered the silence of the shrine grounds.
But even as she was being scolded, Sayuri kept smiling.

It wasn’t sadness, nor resignation—she smiled as if only her heart had been left behind.

“That girl, you know… she doesn’t show any expression. Even talking seems hard for her.”

Sayuri lowered her gaze toward the nekomata.
Their eyes met—the nekomata looking up, Sayuri looking down.
The eyes it saw now did not seem to be the same ones it had seen in Sayuri on the night of the hanami.

“But you know… while the hana-akari is glowing, that girl smiles.
If I tell her where the body is, her memories will come back—but I don’t know how much she’ll remember, or how much will return.
When I think about taking that smile away from her… I just can’t say it.”

“Your whole existence is on the line here!”

“Yeah… I know. It’s troubling, isn’t it.”
Sayuri gave a faint smile, but there was no emotion left in it at all.