Journey's End

Today, I am at peace.

Up on the stage in the cavernous assembly hall, the student body representative is trying her best not to break down into tears in the middle of her speech. All around me, my classmates are stifling tears as well. All of them except for me. I don't feel anything but tranquility and relief. My journey, after so many years, is finally coming to an end.

Anzu, seated next to me, looks like she's about to break down into a sobbing mess. I don't understand it. The speech is full of meaningless, heartstring-stirring platitudes, the kind that have been repeated by everyone from students to business executives a million times over. Is graduation really such a sad event that you feel the need to sob over it? Are the decades that you'll live afterwards so meaningless that graduation is the highlight of your life?

If anything, I ought to be the one crying. My classmates have many more years ahead of them to become whatever they want to be. But I don't. I sit there, stone-faced, as teachers and students speak about how great of a graduating class all of us were, and then we sing the school song one last time as students to the left and right of me cry like they're children losing their beloved dog. I carry out the motions, but I don't feel a single twinge of any other emotion other than contentedness. It feels like the heavy weight that I've carried across my back for so long has been lifted.

For the first time in years, since I lost Mom, I'm free. I did everything she asked me to.

In our homeroom, the tears turn to shouts of jubilation as Tomura-sensei calls us up to receive our diplomas. That's what I thought. My classmates were only crying because it's a societal expectation. In reality, they were happy that six years of nonstop work and stress were over, and they'll get to enjoy a few short years of happiness before they enter the grind of working life. But I won't be following them.

"Hashigami?" Tomura-sensei stands beside his desk, holding out a navy cardboard tube. I quickly rise from my desk, approach him, and accept the neat package.

"Congratulations, Hashigami." My teacher smiles, the wrinkles on his middle-aged face seeming to disappear as he glows with pride. "Do well in the world. I know you will."

"Thanks," I mutter, giving him a slight smile back. His wish won't come true, but I can't tell him that. I can't tell anyone that.

The diploma presentation only takes a few minutes before the entire classroom erupts in joy.

"Hanabin!" Anzu bounds over to me, clutching both of my hands in hers, practically skipping from enjoyment. "It's over! It's finally over!"

"Yeah. I'm glad."

"All those nights of studying and cram school and crap like that...no more!" She puffs out her chest triumphantly. "Now it's time to have fun in college!" Suddenly, her proud expression changes to sheepishness. "Well...I'm sure you got into a better college than I did...I'm just going to Aomori Public..."

"Well, I don't think Aokou is that bad of a school..."

"Hanabin, you're way too nice!" Anzu launches herself at me, grabbing me around the waist with both arms in an exaggerated pose of despair. "If I was as smart as you I would make sure everyone knew about it! You're going to Todai, right? Kyoto U? Waseda? Harvard? Cambridge?"

"It's not that big of a deal where I go to college..." I'm not going to college. I already know that. But she doesn't. I already betrayed her expectations, and those of my teacher, and those of everyone else in my class. They all think that because I'm one of the top students in the entire third year, I'll go and get my degree from a famous university and have a successful future. But that's not the way my life will turn out.

I don't have a future, and I am at peace.

"Congrats, Hanabi!" The birdlike chirp belongs to Honoka Arizono, all 149 cm of her. I've known her since middle school, but she hasn't grown a bit since then. She's the size of a child, and she's got the build of one too. But on the positive side, she's got a ridiculous amount of energy.

Honoka gives Anzu a disapproving glance. "Can you stop being touchy-feely for one minute?"

"But this is the last time we'll ever see Hanabin! She's gonna leave us idiots behind because she's so smart that she gets to go to Harvard and we're stuck at Aokou..." I think she's actually sniffling with her face buried in my stomach. Maybe the tears at graduation were genuine.

"Oh, shut up, Apricot Brain."

"Don't call me that! You know I hate it when you call me that!"

"Hanabi's not going anywhere. We've got a full summer, and the graduation party is this afternoon." Honoka turns to me, a look of concern in her eyes. "Sorry she's being stupider than usual...I don't know if you know this, but that phone novel author she liked deleted his account and all his stories and she's been all out of whack ever since..."

"It's a WEB NOVEL, not a PHONE NOVEL!" Anzu's vice grip suddenly detaches from my waist. "Don't you compare the great Kurokami-sensei to phone trash!"

"Whatever. I'm not into that stuff." Honoka shrugs her shoulders while Anzu growls at her. "Hanabi, you're coming to the afterparty, right?"

"I don't know." I hope they don't catch the obvious trepidation in my voice. "The weather's pretty bad today..."

I'm not lying about that, at least. Outside, the wind blows so hard that the old windows in our homeroom rattle, and clouds of snow whip sideways, adding even more layers to the white blanket covering every part of Seishin Academy. It's March, but cherry blossoms aren't falling at our graduation. Only the snow is. Not that I mind. It makes today easier.

"Yeah, you're right..." Honoka stares out the window toward the everlasting snow with a look of sadness in her face. "Kajiwara-kun hasn't said anything about the afterparty being canceled, but I bet it will be...just our luck that today had to have such bad weather."

"That's Aomori for you." Miharu Kotobuki, yet another one of my friends, has joined our small circle, and none of us noticed. She tends to do that. She's a quiet, library sort of girl. How she ended up friends with people as hyper as Anzu and Honoka, I have no idea. And I'll never figure it out. "I'll be so happy when I get to move..."

"YOU'RE betraying us too, Miharun?" From the look of shock on Anzu's face, you'd think someone just shot her pet cat.

"I thought I already told you I was going to college in Nagoya..."

"No you didn't!"

"Yes she did." Honoka doesn't even try to hide her exasperation. "She did about fifteen times. Stop being dumb."

"You-" Before Anzu can respond, the PA system crackles to life with the bell and an announcement for the seniors to line up with their diplomas for the graduation procession. Slowly, all of us coalesce into a line before we march out of our classrooms to parade down the halls of the lower grades to a crowd of admiring juniors. I recognize some of their faces- from the student council and some of the clubs I've worked with, and even Kyou's little sister...they're all looking at us with such fondness. I wonder what they'd think if they really knew.

At the front door of the school, a crowd of juniors wait with pink carnation corsages to pin onto our lapels, and the line of seniors slows.

"Congratulations, Hashigami-senpai!" A breathy-voiced second-year student pins the plastic flower onto the collar of my sailor suit, and I muster up a smile in return. That's Namakura, one of the younger students on the finance committee in the student council. I don't know how she ended up on it, because she was hopeless in math. I ended up having to help her, and because I was good at it, she ended up admiring me greatly.

...Her eyes are so innocent and pure. It feels like she's a little sister who's proud of her older sibling.

I wonder what she would think if she knew what I'm about to do, just like everyone else?

A clump of third-years, me included, huddle up by the shoe lockers, quickly putting our winter coats back on, looking for the perfect opportunity to dash out into the driving snow and head for home. The blanket of white on the ground has gained another half-meter from when we were in assembly. There are no tearful goodbyes under the cherry trees to be had today- the trees in the Seishin courtyard are all bare and covered in white powder.

"Ugh. The afterparty's definitely canceled." Honoka stares out into the snowy unknown as she slips on her down jacket, not even trying to hide the disgust in her face. "See you, Hanabi."

She dashes off into the snowy afternoon as I give her a wave, then Anzu, then Miharu, then slowly, the rest of my class, until it's just me and a tall shadow falling on me from next to me.

"Wow, it's bad out there..." Takahiro sighs. "My brother's coming to pick me up but he's caught in traffic. Someone had a wreck nearby. You need a ride home?"

"No, thanks." I put on my best polite smile.

"Listen...um..." Takahiro suddenly turns slightly pink, stuttering. "I just wanted to say...congrats on graduating...and, you know...I'll still be around this summer. If...you know...I'm still interested in making this work out, and if you are too..." He trails off.

"Sorry, Takahiro. I don't think it'll work."

He looks down at the ground like a scolded puppy, muttering, "Oh. Okay."

A few minutes pass, us standing there in silence, until he finally mumbles, "My brother's here with the car. Are you sure you don't need a ride?"

"I'm sure."

"See you...Hanabi. Good luck…with college. And all that."

"You too."

He departs into the clouds of snow, leaving only me.

He's so earnest. But I know he and I don't have a future together.

Because I don’t have a future in this world.