Throw Ourselves to the sea

After my father left that night, I tried to sleep. I tried to wait until morning, but I couldn't. I sat in bed, looking at the photos on my phone of all the moments that led to this point. Aiko’s smiling face… me on Sen’s motorcycle. This couldn’t wait another moment.

I grabbed the letter from Aiko and put the address on my phone. A small bag is all I packed before I grabbed my hoodie and helmet. I took one hesitant glance back at the little apartment behind me, and one look over at Ichi’s door before I closed it behind me.

The cicadas were singing loudly that night, their song intertwined perfectly with the rhythmic thump of my motorcycle’s piston firing back and forth. Each glowing streetlight I passed under seemed like an orange beacon leading me to a place I wasn’t sure existed.

I passed through Shizouka and Hamamatsu, their towering skyscrapers casting an orangeish glow out over the Suruga bay. Each mile seemed like an infinite nothingness that stretched out to an indiscernible nowhere. It was as if time had stopped, and I was alone on a never-ending road, the only friends there to keep me company were the cicadas and the stars.

By the time I reached Osaka, I had already been riding for several hours and the early morning sun had begun to rise. I stopped at a small convenience store to grab a drink, sitting on an old weathered bench just outside. The cicadas began their deep summer song now.

“ Viym, Viym Viym, Viiiiiyyyyyymmm” I sat for awhile and drank my tea, my thumb hovering over Sentaro’s name in my message contacts the entire time.

The warm summer sun made the water of the Yodo river seem to waver and evaporate into a hazy pink mirage. I parked my bike outside the small house in Kemacho where the letter had been sent from. The birds had risen from their slumber and began to sing peacefully, the first sounds there to liven up the quiet little neighborhood.

I saw no one else, standing in the street alone as I looked at the address printed on the stone next to the front door, comparing it to the one on the letter. I took a deep breath and went up to knock, hesitating at the last moment.

“Come on Ren. She said in the letter she wants to see you. You came all this way… just knock on the door.” I quietly reassured myself, bringing my hand up to shakily rap on the door. A few moments passed with no response, the quiet town behind me was wrapped in the pinkish hue of the sun. I’d turned to look around for only a moment when the door in front of me squeaked open.

“Ren!” Before I could react, Aiko flung herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and sobbing into my shoulder. I smiled, wrapping my arms around her, embracing her tightly against my chest. We stayed like that for several minutes, until finally, she loosened her grip to look at me.

“Would you like to…come in?” I nodded, following her into the house. We sat in a small dainty kitchen at a round wooden table, Aiko hadn’t raised the blinds yet so only small slivers of pinkish gold light slithered across the room. She asked me if I wanted breakfast, I nodded, and she began to cook.

We ate together, not saying much of anything. I don’t think either of us had any idea what to say. But both of us were smiling. We eventually settled down on the couch out in the living room, Aiko sat on one, and I sat on the other. We were turned sideways on the couch with our feet up on the cushions.

“I’m sorry, Ren…” She began, but I leaned over to kiss her before she could finish. Her eyes widen, and when I pulled away, she blushed. I reached into my bag, pulling out an old crumpled piece of paper. Aiko looked at it curiously, then shot me a bewildered glance. I unfolded it section by section, and set it down on the couch between us. The writing was old and worn out, but it was there.

“Jump pact”

“ Come with me to Kagoshima.”

Aiko seemed as though she couldn’t believe her ears.

“You really still want to… even after everything… but what about Sentaro?”

I brought up my messages, clicked on Sen’s name, and held it up for her to read. I’d sent the message before when I stopped for a drink.

“If you still want to finish the list, you know where you’ll find me. I’m heading there now, will you meet me? - Ren.”

He hadn’t replied, but the message had been opened and viewed.

“What do you think?” I asked Aiko as she read the message.

“ I think we have a long ride ahead of us.”

To get from Osaka to Kagoshima by motorcycle or car takes about eleven hours. But neither Aiko nor I seemed to mind a single minute of it. We drove through the most beautiful, serene roads of Japan that seemed like they could only exist in fairy tales. Okayama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Kumamoto were all eventually left behind us. We stopped several times to rest, and at about 8 and a half hours in, Aiko and I were both exhausted and decided to spend the night at a small inn out in the countryside of Yatsushiro.

The night was hot and humid, it made it nearly impossible for me to sleep, that and the immense anticipation of what lied ahead. Aiko on the other hand slept like a rock, her back tucked against my chest as we cuddled on a futon in the middle of the inn floor. We woke up extra early the next morning and hit the road, hoping to arrive at Kagoshima before sunrise.

“Ren, look!” as we took a curved road that went around a huge thicket of trees, the horizon line of Kagoshima came into view, with mount Sakurajima smoldering in the distance. I felt Aiko excitedly hold me closer, I pinned the throttle and took off down the road as fast as my little Suzuki could take me.

“Well, is it as beautiful as you thought it would be?” Aiko asked me as I parked the bike down a small little road that led down to the water. An old wooden sign read “Iso Beach”.

I smiled, walking down onto the sand, Mount Sakurajima almost towering over us on the other side of the harbor now.

“It’s not just beautiful, it’s…” I glanced off down the shoreline, a few kids were playing in the sand here or there, and an elderly fisherman had just pushed off a canoe. Near the end of the beach, I saw him. A tall man standing all alone, looking off as the sun rose behind Sakurajima.

I couldn’t restrain myself, I took off into a run down the sand, Aiko following and shouting behind me. I ran faster and faster, my heart pounding as the man got closer and closer. He turned to face me, and he smiled.

“You made it…” Sentaro said, the little smile he always wore was still unchanged.

“Yeah…” We stood there, looking at each other before getting a running start and lunging at one another. I knocked Sen backward, the two of us landing in the water together with a huge splash. We laughed, hugging one another. Aiko had caught up and was looking at us from the shore, smiling.

“Aiko, you know what the rules are… you made them after all!” Sentaro said laughing.

“Huh, what are you talking about?” Aiko didn’t seem to understand. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the pact, handing it to Sen. “It says right here if we didn’t finish the list by the end of the school year, we’d throw ourselves to the sea.”

Aiko grew wide-eyed as she saw Sen and I smile at one another and then suddenly rushed at her, she tried to turn and run but the two of us grabbed her and picked her up.

“No, no, please it's going to be so cold!” Sen and I nodded to one another and dunked Aiko under the water, the two of us laughing as she resurfaced with bits of seaweed in her hair.

“Oh, you are so dead!” she grumbled, splashing the cold water at both of us. We all ran through the shallow water and laughed. Sen and I waded in the water while Aiko went to the bag she’d left on the beach.

“Smile you guys!” We both turned, both of us grinning as we gave each other bunny ears.

*click*