The Final Puzzle Piece

8. The Final Puzzle Piece

On the first Sunday of August, I stood under the dark blue sky, gradually turning black. From where I was standing, I saw a couple hundred people walking around, some even in yukatas. Somewhere in the distance, I saw a Ferris wheel that didn’t seem to move at all, but after staring for a while, I noticed that it did, terribly slowly.

The more I broad my vision, the more people appeared in my view. My heart started thumping just a little bit harder than before. The couple of hundred people turned into a thousand and more the further I extended my gaze.

As my heartbeat kept rising, I felt all the more uneasy with the thoughts of meddling into the massive crowd here, at the Shimizu Port Festival. When I heard a gentle voice call my name, my heart rate rose to the highest it could.

And then it stopped. The moment I turned around, I felt what they call your heart skipping a beat.

Katsumata Erika stood in front of me, wearing a white yukata—with thin red lines coupled with a few flower patterns and the red obi belt—and holding a colourful drawstring bag in her hands. She took a step forward, stood next to me and said, “…Thank you for accompanying me,” followed by a slight bow, revealing the bigger white ribbon tied in the back of her hair she had talked about a while ago.

I looked at the crowd as if they were the wild waters of an ocean I’d brave. “Shall we?”

Katsumata being Katsumata, she seemed hesitant as well and looked at the crowd with wavering eyes. The more you look, the more people seem to appear. It’s like staring at a sand pile filled with ants, the stars in the night sky or the barely visible freckles on her dimly lit face I never noticed she had.

“Want to wait a bit?”

She nodded. “…I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” I looked around for a nearby, unoccupied bench and sat down with her once we found one.

As we watched the crowd move from afar, I asked her, “So, why are we here tonight?”

She twiddled with the strings of her bag and said, “I’ve always wanted to try going to a festival like this again…” Her pause felt like one where she usually adds something shortly after. “…And on a full moon like tonight, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try.”

Just by looking eye to eye, I could feel her desire to enjoy herself at the festival, but when I looked down at her trembling knees, I understood that she didn’t feel entirely ready yet to face this enormous crowd.

I thought back to the note she had Kazuo hand me. On the top of the note she wrote a poem in haiku format. Underneath that, the question; “Would you like to tag along with me to the Shimizu Port Festival?” and underneath that her phone number. I thought back to her poem and said it out loud from memory.

“Summer’s fleeting warmth, Fireworks’ fading sky-picture, let’s relish the now.”

She tightly clenched her yukata and pressed her lips together as her face got as red as the lines and flowers on her clothes.

“That was the haiku you wrote. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

I realised that even in the areas the two of us look a lot alike, we’re still very, very different. Where she wants to collect her courage, postponing getting the task at hand done, I tackle it head-on, getting it out of the way as soon as possible.

“You want me to guide you, even at times when you’re hesitant, right?”

She looked down, her head perpendicular with her pair of geta sandals. A muffled, “Right,” was mumbled.

“Then—” I stood up and held my hand out, “—shall we?”

Perplexed, she raised her head again, her eyes shifting back and forth between my held-out hand and my eyes. I felt a chill running down my spine as her surprisingly cold hand gently laid in mine. I helped her off the bench and retreated my hand again to my pants’ pockets.

Now, without saying a word, we walked into the crowd towards… towards… Where are we even headed?

We walked through the bustling street, with a couple of food stalls, vendors and games to play. I stood still on the side of the road and asked her, “Is there anything you want to eat?”

She almost intuitively looked over at the Takoyaki stall before saying, “I’ll eat whatever you want…”

“Alright then.” I led her to the stall I was sure she wanted to eat something from. As the two of us stood in line, we turned back to being silent, but pleasantly so. It’s… strange. This sense of peace found in her presence alone, a barrier of solitude broken by merely standing arm to arm.

Being nearly oblivious to the conversations going on around us. That being the case until I heard the mother in front of us say something I should keep in mind to her son, “Still about an hour and a half before the fireworks start.”

It was our turn now.

“Welcome! Welcome!” The stallholder enthusiastically yelled out.

Since I, in some way, was the one who insisted on eating something from this stall and Katsumata was avoiding the stallholder’s gaze, I handled the ordering.

“Good evening. Two servings of Takoyaki please.”

“How many pieces would you like?”

I looked at Katsumata as I said, “Six—” but the moment I did, I saw her lips part as if she wanted to intervene, “—Sorry, eight.” A slight smile appeared on her face.

“Two, eight-piece servings—coming right up! That’ll be eight-hundred yen please.”

Even though Katsumata appeared to be absent from the scene, she still reached inside her bag, presumably for her wallet. Though before she could pull it out, I already paid for it, feeling a wave of pride wash over me.

She inched a little closer to me, held her hand next to her mouth and softly whispered, “I’ll pay my share when we’re out of the line.”

“Sir, two piping hot Takoyaki servings,” he handed them to me. “Here you go. Thank you very much, stop by anytime!” he bowed his head and served the next customer.

I handed one of the boat-shaped carton plates to Katsumata and walked away from the queue. “It’s my treat,” I said.

“I’ll pay you back. Otherwise… I’ll feel even more guilty for dragging you along,” she murmured.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got over an hour to kill. Anything you want to see?”

This time her gaze didn’t land on anything in particular. “I’m not really sure just yet…”

I continued eating, so did she as we stood on the side of the road, expecting to be safe from bypassing festival goers, though that didn’t appear to be the case when someone accidentally bumped into Katsumata.

“Sorry.”

Caught off guard, she awkwardly took two steps forward to avoid falling over after losing her balance, leaving one of her Takoyaki balls to fly off her plate. Somehow, my hand with the carton plate reached for the airborne Takoyaki in time, landing it together with mine.

She looked even more caught off guard by my capture than her near-tumble to the ground. “Those are some… scary reflexes…”

I held my hand out again, so she could take back what’s hers.

“Thank you.”

Setting out for the energetic crowd once more after finishing our meal, we were headed in the general direction of the shore, where the fireworks would take place at eight.

The closer we got to the port, the bigger the Ferris wheel on the Dream Plaza got as well. As I stared at it, I remembered how it moved so slowly that it took me a second to see that it actually was still moving.

A cabin, circling high above the festival, away from the busy streets. I thought it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. “Say, Katsumata.”

“Yes…?”

“Got any problem with heights?”

She thought about it for a second, then shook her head, “No… at least I don’t think I do.” Her gaze shifted from the crowd we’re following to my face as she anticipated my follow-up question. Her curiosity won the battle against her patience, she asked “Why?”

I pointed at the sky, inhabited by the massive Ferris wheel. “Wanna ride it?”

This time without hesitating, she nodded. “Mmhmm, I do.”

With about an hour left until the fireworks started, we arrived at the Ferris wheel.

Once again as we stood in line, I felt contentment from standing next to her without feeling the need to fill these gaps of silence. I enjoyed them even. Whilst a bustling street was enough to drain me, simply standing next to her was enough to replenish the energy spent.

As I tried to enjoy the calm, the couple in front of us talked so loudly, that I couldn’t help but overhear.

“Babe, aren’t this cabins turning reaaally slow?”

“They sure are,” he agreed as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “I bet they slowed them down just for us. When our cabin reaches the tippity-top, where no one else can see us, we can kiss even longer with the speed of this Ferris wheel.”

“Huh?! Who said I would be kissing you?”

“Aw, so no kissing then?”

She fidgeted with her fingers, “Well… maybe a little.”

After hearing such an embarrassing thing said out loud, I turned to Katsumata who looked me equally embarrassed in the eyes. For some reason, the longer I looked into her eyes, the harder it became to contain this impulse attempting to escape my mouth. I noticed her lips trembling, too. Surely she couldn’t hold it in much longer either.

“Only a little, huh. So, like, a little smooching at the tippity top, or are we talking a full circle make out?”

“Pfft,” I nearly let it escape, but luckily, only a small sound found its way out. When I sealed my hand over my mouth, Katsumata ended up being the one who couldn’t hold her laughter in. Hiding behind the back of her hand, she cutely giggled. Looking at her laughing made me chuckle aloud as well.

I recovered when I looked away, but the very moment we locked eyes again, the both of us started chuckling in our fists once more.

Once fully recovered from the giggles, it was our turn to get on the Ferris wheel. I followed Katsumata into the blue cabin—well, every cabin was blue, to compliment the sea theme the port’s got going.

As we ascended higher, our view of the festival broadened. The streets seemed even busier from above compared to when we found ourselves in the midst of it. A little further away, I saw a bunch of people dancing on the streets.

Nearing the “tippity top”, I suddenly thought back to the couple’s conversation earlier. Right about now, if I were with Keito, one of us would’ve surely made a joke about “smooching”… But being here with Katsumata, even thinking about saying the joke aloud makes my face feel hot.

That train of thought sucked my attention out of the festive city and brought it back into the cabin, and nothing but.

My summer painting consisted of identical sky-blue puzzle pieces. A passing of interchangeable, indistinguishable days, broken by the sparse few where things like the fishing trip occurred. Now, at the start of the last month of summer break, I’ve already reached my final puzzle piece. A gleaming white centrepiece, resembling the glistening summer sun; Katsumata in her white yukata.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her smile.

Was she always this overwhelmingly beautiful, or is it simply the festival spirit that’s playing tricks on my mind?

Her gaze also retreated from the city and met mine. When the Ferris wheel shortly came to halt again, our cabin was at the highest point.

Suddenly, Katsumata’s face turned red as she averted her eyes to the floor and covered her face with her hands. Without raising her head, she stood up and sat down next to me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

Through the gaps between her fingers, she looked at me and said, “They’re smoo… smooching.”

My back was facing the couple’s cabin. When I turned around, I saw that it wasn’t the “little smooching at the top” and more of a “full circle make out”. Just by looking at it, I got embarrassed as well. I put my finger inside the collar of my t-shirt and twiddled it back and forth.

Our shoulders touched now that we were sitting next to each other, making me all the more aware of her presence.

With her hands still on her face, she said, “It’s not that I would always get this embarrassed about seeing a kiss…” she said as if she denied such a claim. “It’s just… it’s just that the situation they’re in… and the situation we’re in, is pretty much the same. They sat across from one another when they got into the cabin… we sat across from one another when we did. They are now sitting next to each other after reaching the top.” She looked at me, once again through the gaps between her fingers. “We’re now sitting next to each other at the top.” Her eyes fell down from mine to my lips. “They are smoo… smooching now… We…”

She looked me in my eyes again. Without saying anything else, just by looking eye to eye, it felt as if she was pulling me in. But like sitting in a train about to leave a station, feeling like you’re in motion when it’s actually another train departing… Which one of us is standing still, and which one is actually in motion?

As the cabin suddenly shuddered, she shrieked, about a finger away from my face. The Ferris wheel was turning again. We both peered through our sides of the window without looking at each other again.

Even as we left the Ferris wheel, looked for a spot to view the firework show and sat down together, all of that was done without looking in each other’s eyes again.

Seated beneath the full moon out high in the sky, behind the soon-to-be-fired fireworks, a band of trumpeters played their instruments before the show began.

Katsumata took her notebook and pen out of her bag and started writing something down after staring at the moon.

She was still hunched forward when the trumpeters were nearly finished. I looked at my watch and saw the seconds ticking towards the start of the fireworks.

Ten, nine, eight.

I looked at her, she showed no sign of stopping, “Katsumata.”

Seven, six, five, four.

“Hey, Katsumata.”

Three, two.

Out of habit, I reached for her chin with my thumb and index finger. With Keito, I’d use force to reposition his face when he looked in directions he shouldn’t, but with Katsumata, I gently lifted her head.

One—

The trumpeters stopped playing and the crowd turned silent. Nothing but the distant swish sound in the distance could be heard. When the firework reached its apex, it beautifully exploded into a large cloud of white sparks. Taking that firework as the centre of the show, on both its sides launched a mirrored dozen or so lines of red light, a small wave of blue fireworks, with beneath it a slightly smaller wave of red fireworks exploded one after the other. The dozen red fireworks lingered into a bright ball of light, fading in the pitch black night sky.

Larger fireworks, blue, yellow and red, exploded above the smaller ones sharing the same colour. The tempo of them kept increasing to the point that the entire sky turned blue, then red, then yellow.

The fireworks stopped and the night scene returned to its natural pitch blackness. Until an array of large nature green fireworks blasted off onto the scene. The green light shined so brightly that it turned everywhere I looked green.

When I turned my head, Katsumata was enveloped by the green light as well. Followed by a combination of red and white fireworks, turning her a dazzling pink.

I realised that my summer painting’s colours differed little from a typical spring’s.