Sky Tree

 “Wow, I don’t think I realized just how tall sky tree was from the ground” Aiko stared upward through the glass ceiling of the elevator as it carried us up thousands of feet in the air.

“Really, you’ve never been to the top?” I asked, surprised Aiko had somehow been all over Japan and never seen the top of sky tree.

“No, I guess I never wanted to do it alone, but now I don’t have to.” She slipped her hand in with mine, and as the elevator slowly reached the summit, we interlaced our fingers.

“You are now arriving

At the Tokyo Sky Tree

Observation deck

At a height of

2080ft”

The elevator spoke in a strange robotic tone before the doors slid open. We stepped out into a circular room full of rotating pastel colors that shone down from the ceiling. It gave the entire floor an other-worldly, almost mystic ambiance.

“Wow…” Aiko said softly, almost in a whisper, as we approached the curved glass windows that ran around the entire length of the dome. “It’s incredible, like a million tiny fireflies…except they’re not fireflies. Every one of those lights down there is someone going through life just like us.” I wrapped my arms around her waist as she spoke, stepping in behind her.

“It’s weird isn’t it… the millions of people right here in Tokyo… all those people living right here in this one city, and I got lucky enough to find you…” Aiko turned around to face me, her eyes were a bit glassy and her lip was quivering.

“Ren, Ren please…” before she could say another word, I leaned in and kissed her. A slow, passionate kiss that made me feel like I was levitating. I wanted to stay there like that for as long as possible, but Aiko pulled away first.

“Damn it, Ren, please…just listen… you’ve already made this so hard for me.” Aiko began to sob, turning away from me as she glanced out the window at the speckled skyline of Tokyo.

“Ai…what are you talking about, what’s wrong? Is it me, did I do something? If I did, I’m sorry, it's just that…” Before I could finish, Aiko shoved me roughly.

“God damn it, Ren! I’m leaving! “ She covered her eyes with her hands and collapsed down onto her knees.

“What do you mean? Leaving where? Leaving When? We’re all going to be leaving when the school year is through…. I thought the whole point of the pact was so that we…”

“No, Ren, I’m not leaving after the school year is out. I’m leaving tomorrow…” My heart sank. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. How… why was this happening?

“Why?! I don’t understand…where are you going?! I thought that we…” I stuttered and stammered with each and every word, unable to think straight, let alone speak.

“I told you that first day we all met…. I move all over Japan all the time because of my Dad, he goes where the work goes… and I get dragged along with him. That’s why I told you I didn’t want to bother trying to make friends anymore, they always end up getting taken away from me!” Aiko couldn’t hold back the waterfall of tears and emotions, breaking down almost entirely.

“How long have you known? How could you keep something like this from me?” I was angry, upset, nauseated, and depressed all at once. I could hardly bring myself to speak.

“Dad told me the other day… I wanted to tell you and Sentaro both while we were in Akihabara…but then everyone was having so much fun and was so happy… I just wanted there to be one last happy moment together, you know?! Before I had to leave it all behind…”

“But I thought we made the pact so that no matter where we are, we~”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Ren! We’ve all known it the whole time. Everyone says things like that and it never happens! People say things like ‘I’ll always love you’ or ‘we’ll always be friends’…or ‘I’ll never forget you. And then they do just that! They forget! You take any two people and split them up for long enough, and they forget! This isn’t some stupid movie where everything works out in the end…, it's real life…. We’re going to be busy with exams, colleges, jobs, careers, bills, taxes, and houses!!! Just all of it! We’re all fighting for something to cling onto…something special! But in the end, we just accept the conditions life throws at us and make the best of it…”

Every word that came out of Aiko’s mouth then and there was true. Up until I met her, I’d lived my life exactly that way. Over and Over again, I accepted the conditions of my life as the only way and I became cold…numb, even. I was a husk of a man, masquerading as a human being. And now the few things that had allowed me to feel truly alive were going to be leaving me.

Who was I kidding? How long after Sen and Aiko left would it take for me to revert to that person I was before? A nobody. A nothing. But what could I do to stop it? How naive could I be to actually believe that I would have any impact on my own destiny? As if I were stronger than fate. What a joke.

“So… what do we do now?” I whispered, feeling as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest and stomped on. The pact had simply been a form of false promise and false hope.

“We don’t fight it, Ren. We accept our condition in life, and we move on.” I helped Aiko stand up, both of us turning around to look at the Tokyo skyline one more time. How could two people together, surrounded by millions of others, feel so alone?

“Aiko….”

“Yeah?…”

“If I really have to let you go, will you at least stay with me until the very last moment?” I could feel the tears welling up in my own eyes now, but I bit my tongue and held out, for Aiko’s sake. She took my hand and held it tightly in her own, it was warm and full of life.

“Until the very last moment…”

Until the very last moment.

The next morning, when I took my motorcycle to Aiko’s place to see her off… she was already gone. I didn’t have the energy or the heart to tell Sen. I didn’t have the energy to do anything. I became reclusive, I turned off my phone and locked myself in my room for days at a time. I barely ate, and I barely slept. I didn’t talk to anyone or do anything. What was the point if everything I have and everything I’m ever going to have will be stripped away from me piece by piece?

What kind of Life would that be, and did I care enough to truly continue an existence that bleak? An existence where at any given moment, the world could strip away what you love most for no reason at all.

I missed several days of school that week, basically showing up just to take and narrowly pass the final exams so my father wouldn’t put me out on the street. I purposely avoided and ignored Sentaro at all costs, I couldn’t stand to see his face, knowing that soon enough we’d grow apart as well.

But I couldn’t just continue to ignore him. The fact he didn’t know what happened, or why it happened so suddenly, wracked me with guilt. So, on the day of our graduation festival, I decided to show my face… just one last time.