Trip Planning and Grave Visit

That night – filled with breakdowns – ended with an only recent precedent of a smile to bed. My sleepless nights were something of the past, most likely never to return again.

It was Sunday, which meant we were free from school and had the day to ourselves. We'd typically spend the entirety inside our own rooms, but that time we met up at the pie shop at 10:34:56am.

Something we both discovered was that our schools had our third-year school trip in the same upcoming week, which would include our birthday. To go along with our makeshift and weird philosophy, we decided to not attend the school trip with the rest of our classmates to places like Kyoto and Shizuoka, and instead I pitched her my idea of us going on a trip of our own. To Aomori instead.

I joined Ringomori at a corner table. She brought her laptop and camera to record the planning phase of the trip. I decided on Aomori for the following reasons:

First, It was still outside of Hokkaido. No offense to the beautiful and historical prefectural land, but there were mass similarities between every city and village, so once someone went to one, they had been to them all.

Second, the weather was perfect in that prefecture compared to the prefectures further south. Aomori's weather during the autumn season was nice and breezy in the morning, chill and a little warm during the day, and cool and brisk with the moon.

The third and most important reason was a combination of the first two, it was the hotspot for apple harvesting. Aomori was known throughout Japan as the home for apples, and I wanted to take Ringomori there for her birthday present; mine was tagging along.

The school trip started Tuesday – our birthday – and ended on Friday. Since we'd have to take care of ourselves with limited finances, we planned to go to Aomori on Tuesday, spend the night at a hotel in separate rooms, and leave the following morning. We would have no school for the remaining days, so we figured we could just hang out together. The details for the trip itself was what we discussed as I brought our orders of apple and key lime pies and lattes.

"Alrighty then, we agreed on takin' a ferry to and from Aomori, so our first step should be bookin' reservation tickets. How do we do that?"

Looking up from her laptop screen, she said, "There is a ferry service called Tsugaru Kaikyo and they do trips from Hakodate to other parts of Honshu island, mainly Aomori city. The journey over the strait is three and a half hours long each way, and they operate eight times a day."

She found the ferry's timeframe and we had a look at which hours the ferries would depart Hakodate.
"It'll be a four-hour train journey from here. So if we leave at six, then we'll arrive at Hakodate at ten."

"That'll give us enough time to make the ten-twenty ferry and we'll arrive at Aomori at two in the afternoon. Let's go with that."

We saved up our allowance money – excluding the mall trip – by not buying many pointless things, therefore we had more than enough to pay for the trip. Saying that, we still opted for the cheaper options because we were also sensible and jobless.

The ferry website gave us a weather warning. Our trip was a risky play because we wanted to go on our birthday, but the predicted forecast displayed a high probability of an autumn storm rolling through the Tsugaru Strait, which could shut down the ferries. There was also an underground train system, but those could be shut down too if the storm directly hit the cities.

"Let's assume the trip over the water is possible, what activities should we do in the city? Do we [You] have any idea?"

In order to prevent constant perplexity revolving around our little inside joke, we pointed our hands at the person we were directly referring to. I first pointed to myself, then at her.

"We'll [I'll] let us [You] decide on which orchard and activities to do once we're there. One of our minds is more knowledgeable about stuff like that than the other."

She illuminated the corner of the pie shop with her beaming and amused smile. I ate my pie and watched her rapidly smash the keys on her laptop, occasionally looking at the camera with a raised eyebrow. Once she finally crafted an idea, she showed me the screen.

She said, "It's called the Hirosaki Apple Park, and because it closes at five in the evening, we [I] thought we could also go to a historical place in the city afterwards: Hirosaki Castle."

I agreed with her choice because I trusted her passionate judgment. I did my own individual research of the two locations to see if any ideas sprung to mind. Some did, but there was some waiting to be done before they came to fruition.

"Alrighty, now we need to book a hotel near the two locations."

By this time, we had finished our pies and she was still sipping on her latte. It wasn't intentional, but she did most of the research for the trip while I sat there like the lazy kid in a group project. I did keep myself busy by tiering up the RONDselia event on Ringomori's account; win-win.

"Okay," she said, "We [I] found a relatively cheap and small hotel at the edge of the city."

It wasn't the best of flexes, but I was able to multitask tapping the notes in perfect rhythm and flicker my eyes between the laptop and phone screen until the song finished. We agreed on two hotel rooms on the highest floor.

"Are we goin' to write an entire itinerary for the trip?"

"Perhaps we should follow the river's flow and let our spontaneous choices guide us on that day."

"Yeah, sounds good to us [me]. All that's left to do is reserve those tickets."

We did, unfortunately, skip a step in the planning process, it was necessary if we were going to pull it off. We elected to not tell the orphanage our true plan of going to Aomori.

The head caregivers of our orphanage were already wary of us going to our individual school trips due to our recent breakdowns – they found out about my antidepressant pills intake and messy room. The two of us knew they wouldn't allow us to go on our birthday trip solo, so we made a plan to basically hold off on telling them the truth until after we came back.

For the rest of the day, we packed what we needed for the trip so we wouldn't have to the next day after school.

On Monday, we would inform our schools that we wouldn't participate in the school trip with the excuse that our mental states were deemed not stable enough by the orphanage; it was technically true.

Look, we knew what we were doing was wrong, but it was also fun. Honestly, what was more fun than sneakily leaving the city with an equally depressed and parentless friend? That opportunity didn't come often, and it would make the perfect peer outing. If anything, the orphanage should be encouraging our plan.

On Tuesday's twilight, the beginning of our birthday, we planned to say goodbye to the orphanage with our packed belongings at 5:54:21am and take the bus to Sapporo station. However, I had one secret stop to make before leaving the city with Ringomori.

➼ ➼ ➼

The time was around 5:30am when I left the orphanage on my own to Naebo Cemetery. The area wasn't officially opened yet, but I stepped inside and found my family grave in the northwest corner. Dim lamp posts were at every corner and intersection, and it lit up the tombstone with my parents' names.

I placed a bouquet of orange flowers in an embedded stone vase and used the cemetery's water to fill it up. For the offerings, I left two cans of matcha, one green and one brown – their favorite colors. I clasped my hands together and closed my eyes.

My upcomin' thoughts are directed for my parents.
Mom, Dad, it's my birthday again, and also the seventh anniversary of your death. I'm sorry to start off all blue again, but for once since my new life, I feel grief. I mourn the emptiness in my heart that used to be filled by you two. This was supposed to be another regular mundane day, but with my memories comin' back in a branchin' fashion, I've started to actually feel emotions.
It's not all bad though, I guess. I mean, 'cause of these feelin's, I now have a birthday event planned, which is why I'm meetin' with you now. I hope you can forgive me for my selfishness, but I'd like for you to take care of me durin' the trip this week. Also, I don't know if you know them, but if you can find Ringomori-san's parents in the afterlife, can you ask them to take care of their daughter too? And reassure them that I'll do my very best to keep her safe.
With all the recent events, I feel like I need your guidance for once. Show me which direction I'm supposed to go towards that'll do the least damage to the people around me. I'm sure you're eager to reunite with me, but you'll have to wait a lot longer than anticipated… There's someone here worth livin' for now, and it was her birthday too.