Omokaru Stone

For the rest of July, Rossi-chan and I spent two days a week at the park like we planned. For the other five days, she was constantly out and about with her friends and family, enjoying herself. Though, that wasn’t to say she was completely healed from her anxiety.

Knowin’ what she's been through, simply hangin’ out with her workin’ on flowers won’t heal her quickly. It may not seem like it to me or most people, but her scars run deep and angled. I’ll need to really try to find the right way to help her.

I paced around my apartment, since I was the only one there. The radio played music that helped me with the poems that laid on the kitchen table.

Hmm, I know she’ll have to tell her dad eventually, but knowin’ nothin’ about him makes it harder to gauge how she should do it. Spendin’ a day plannin’ it might be stressful itself, so I should wait until I get a decent picture of her parents before suggestin’ ideas.

Sometimes, on days when I wasn’t with Rossi-chan, Mitoma-kun came by to play Karuta, or we’d walk to the food truck and hang out there.

➼ ➼ ➼

On a certain day in August, Rossi-chan and I met at Nishidate Park. For a change, I suggested a location for us to visit together. I was shocked to discover she hadn’t gone there yet that summer, and she was more shocked that I’d never been there before in my life.

The location was near our school, located on the same mountain; Mt. Inari. We walked towards a shinto shrine.

The Fushimi Inari Taisha was a world famous shrine in Kyoto. Everyone knew about the shrine and her famous Senbon Torii – corridor of a thousand red gates. For foreigners, that was the main attraction, but for us, we visited the shrine for another reason.

We climbed the steps through the red gates to the very top. It was a hike that took plenty of stamina to get through, and unfortunately, neither of us really had that. Nevertheless, seeing the inscriptions on the pillars and the vibrancy of red and natural green was all the more reason to take my time with the hike.

There weren't that many people, possibly because the weather was more on the warmer side and people didn’t want to sweat a tsunami.

“Look, Verano-kun! This shrine has blue roses at its feet.”

I took out the calendar to find the blue rose page. Once I found it, I did my best to summarize the meaning of it.

“Attainin’ the impossible and uh, mystery? It’s quite a unique color for a rose, since most people envision red or white, so people always wonder the power these flowers hold whenever they’re spotted in the wild.”

“They must’ve put it here as motivation to hike to the top. We’ve been at it for an hour and we’re probably only halfway there.”

After climbing the corridors, we arrived at the Okusha Hoshaisho prayer building. The attendants made a line to view the place, but I led Rossi-chan behind the building. There was the attraction I was looking for, the “Omokaru Stone.”

“I’ve seen that area, but I never got to do it. What is it?”

“Muku’s been here before, and she told me that there’s two stones that can tell you the probability of your wish.”

“The probability of it? Is it a math thing?”

“No no, It’s more like a spiritual thing. She told me how to do it, so follow me.”

There was a queue, but luckily the line moved quickly. The summer’s sun seeped through the trees’ leaves onto us, but we didn’t mind it as much as some of the other people. Once we were near, I explained how the stones worked.

“As you approach the stone, close your eyes and bow your head. While doin’ that, you think of a wish you want to come true.”

Rossi-chan imitated my instructions as I explained them. It felt like I was puppeteering her with strings in my hand.

“Once you’ve made your wish, the next is to pick up the stone with your bare hands. If the stone’s lighter than you expected, your wish had a great possibility of comin’ true; if it’s heavier, maybe there’s only a sliver of hope for it.”

“I see. The simplest thing to do would be to deceive my mind into thinking it weighed similarly to something extraordinarily heavy, like a car. That would guarantee that it was lighter, correct?”
She scratched her head like a student solving a math equation.

“Hmm, deceiving one’s own mind is far more difficult than someone else’s, especially when there’s no confidence in the wish already…”

“You’re not plannin’ on becomin’ prime minister or anythin’ like that, right?”

“Do you believe that's impossible for me?”

“I believe you already have a job lined up after high school.”

“If you support me on my endeavors, I may even hire you.”

“Rossi-chan, you have every last drop of my support!”

It was our turn for the stones. I approached the ball-shaped object and bowed. There were many things I wanted to wish for to see how possible they were, and I realized none of them actually involved me. I merged some wishes together and decided on:

I hope that I can help Rossi-chan overcome her anxiety completely, in order to finish her flower’s new meanin’ together.

I went to pick up the stone.

It’s heavier than you think. It’s heavier than you think. It’s heavier––wait, is that the right way to think about it? Heavier or lighter? There’s no time to decide!

I picked up the stone, and my expression turned sour.

I-It’s…really…heavy!

Doing my best to place the stone back on its podium, I let out a disappointed, yet expected sigh. Out of frustration, I curled my fingers into fist. They were quickly unfurled when Rossi-chan gently grabbed my hand, and I looked up into her doe-like eyes.

“There’s always a sliver of hope, Verano-kun.”

“You’re right. That’s all I need.”

As we walked back down the corridors to the entrance, the orange sky turned darker behind the trees around us. We didn’t do much work on the butterfly weed, but that day was far from a waste. I was also able to find out about her parents.

“How’s studyin’ with your dad goin’?”

“It’s been really fun! One of the reasons I’ve been good at understanding concepts for tests since a young age was because of the way my father retaught the lessons my teacher had just taught.”

“How are you two outside of the business talk? Do you share hobbies or somethin’?”

“Hmm,” she placed a finger to her chin, “I guess so. My mother and I share the flower hobby, but my father used to tell me about his day at work or on days off. I would listen, but sometimes I’d tell him about my day as well.”

“You…never took the opportunity to tell him about your anxieties?”

“I… No. The way he vented and complained about his coworkers and subordinates kind of put me off. They would complain about stress and stuff, and while he understood what they meant, he was also fed up with it. I was worried that if I was also complaining, then he would be fed up with me as well…”

She doesn’t know that for sure, so it’s a confidence thing. She’s overthinkin’ again about somethin’ that might not happen. I guess she needs to build confidence to say what’s on her mind without worryin’ about their reactions. Their reaction isn’t important, it’s their understandin’ over time.

As a person with zero social skills, especially with father figures, I hadn’t the slightest clue what to do, but that wasn’t going to stop me from helping her. Summer was almost over, and more worries would pile up the deeper we got into the school year, so I needed a plan that would gradually help her over time.

At my apartment, she emailed me.

I never told you, but the stone was light for me! I’ll do my very best to get my wish to come true, I hope you look forward to it. Fufu!

I was glad she had a positive outcome, but she left me wondering what in the world she wished for, and why I was meant to look forward to it.