From now on, please be strong in the city where I no longer exist. And I, I will learn to heal in the city without you. They say that in the loveliest season of every girl's youth, God sends a boy to promise her a wedding that will never come true. I am grateful that I met you that year. I am heartbroken that I met you that year. Because for many years after that, we were separated forever.
Every school has a few people everyone knows by name. In 2011, at Seiran High, there were two legends. One was you, and the other was Shiraishi Kaho. You were the delinquent with the dramatic life, the one people whispered had killed a man and gone to prison, though all of that had somehow been quietly smoothed over by some invisible tycoon. So you still moved through school in all your swagger, your influence stretching far beyond the campus gates. Shiraishi Kaho, meanwhile, was said to be a genius girl, first in the grade, holder of advanced piano and English certificates that seemed impossibly distant to the rest of us. You had one thing in common: you were both beautiful. And more importantly, Shiraishi Kaho was your girlfriend, Matsuda Ryo.
Every winter I bundled myself up like a bear. If I could stay in my room, I absolutely would not go outside. But Mana coaxed and threatened me into going to a basketball game with her. She liked the number five player, so all the way there she kept chattering about the ridiculous things he had done. But that day I never saw number five. Because I saw you instead. You, in a white sweater, playing basketball with the number seven stuck to your arm. I had no idea your obsession with cleanliness was that severe, but even on a court you wore white knitwear. That sweater looked absurdly good on you, warm enough to soften the whole winter. I never had to ask Mana your name. I had seen you before, among the boys smoking on the school rooftop. I had written your name on the big white bulletin board. I had brushed past you in crowded hallways. Most of all, the girls at the side of the court were shouting your name with bright, feverish excitement, cheering for you to score again.
"Look, number seven scored again!" I grabbed Mana's hand and pointed at you. "That waist of his. A once-in-a-lifetime sight." Don't blame me for being so specific. A boy's waist looking like yours was genuinely unbelievable. Mana rolled her eyes at me and said, "Amamiya Arashi, can you stop mangling idioms? Every time you do it I want to pass out." I had no time for her. I joined the girls by the court and shouted for you with them. Mana said I looked a little frightening, waving my arms like that. How could I have explained to her that I was only trying to empty out the nameless feeling I had been pressing down inside me for so long?
The truth was that even before then, you and I had already crossed paths once. A week earlier, the school had carried out one of its surprise inspections. After evening self-study, there were always couples tucked into corners of the teaching building, in stairwell landings, on the roof. To stamp out that sort of "bad influence," and perhaps to make sure those couples were not doing anything too scandalous in the dark, the head of student guidance led members of the student council on a raid. I was one of them. Each of us was assigned a small area to check; mine was the east stairwell on the seventh floor. That night I climbed up from the west side and walked toward the east, flashlight in hand, light-footed as a thief. The moment I reached the stairwell, I snapped the beam on with a flourish, then stamped hard enough to trigger the motion-sensor light. In the sudden brightness, I saw you. You were in a black coat, your brows wild and defiant. One arm around Shiraishi Kaho, you had bent to kiss her. The abrupt flood of light did not rattle either of you. Kaho only looked at me blankly. You simply straightened with maddening ease and studied me with amused eyes. I did not understand what was happening until I heard footsteps behind me and the dean's voice calling out, "Amamiya Arashi, is there anything there?" Only then did I snap out of it. Without thinking, I waved frantically at the two of you. Go. Hurry. Go. Honestly, I knew that counted as neglecting my duty. But at that moment I had no idea why I wanted to let you escape.
Maybe it was because your peach-blossom eyes were smiling, bright as a deep lake. As the dean's footsteps drew nearer, I even felt a ridiculous fear that they would discover you if I did not move fast enough. So I hurried back to them and said, "No, nothing. I didn't find anything." On the walk back to the dorm after the inspection, I actually found myself humming. All because of one line from you. Something like, "Pretty president, you're a real pal." Yes, I was the newly appointed student council president. I just had never imagined you would notice me at all, much less remember what I looked like.
Maybe the way I had cheered for you really had looked a little terrifying. Otherwise, how could I have run into you under the dorm building afterward? "Hi, pretty president," you said. You were wearing a black coat over a white knit top, both hands tucked into your pockets. People flowed around us in noisy disorder. I had delivered speeches in front of the whole school without blushing or letting my heart pound, but the moment you smiled at me, I still went hot all over. You said that to thank me for cheering for you so spectacularly, you wanted to take me out to eat.
I think we both understood that neither of us was innocent. If you were inviting me to dinner because I had shouted for you, then with all the girls on the sidelines you would have gone broke. And if I had only been shouting at random, then with so many boys on the court, why had I called only your name? Besides, I had already eaten in the cafeteria. Even so, I accepted your invitation without a second's hesitation.
But what I ate that night was not dinner. It was not loneliness either. It was disaster dropping straight out of the sky. By the time we walked out of the school gates, the streetlights had just come on. The slope outside the gate was lined with ginkgo trees, and the black column-shaped lamps beside them gave the whole road the faint air of old Kobe. Because the school sat out in the suburbs, the street was elegant and usually half empty. I was still walking stiffly beside you, wondering what on earth I ought to say, when a van suddenly pulled up in front of us. A group of boys spilled out of it one after another. Before I had time to react, a pack of yellow-haired youths were baring their teeth at us like something out of a Hong Kong crime drama. You spun around at once and moved to shield me behind you. But that night I did not stay there the way you wanted. The sight of your face covered in blood frightened me so badly that I screamed, rushed to the side of the road, snatched up a broken stool someone had left beneath a tree, and charged straight toward the crowd. The result was simple. I saw blood of my own, and I was sent to the hospital. You, on the other hand, did not have a single visible wound. Later you told me that you had only had a nosebleed. When I ran over, one of the men with a stick dodged aside and brought it down hard across my back, and I went down on the spot.
Before I blacked out, I remember thinking you would at least have to offer yourself in gratitude. At the very least, when I woke up I ought to be greeted by that handsome face of yours. And in fact, when I woke in the hospital, I really did see you there, along with Shiraishi Kaho in a red cashmere coat. Red is the prettiest color in the world and the hardest one to carry; if you wear it well, it makes you look like a goddess, and if you do not, it makes you look gaudy. Kaho was very much the former. The moment you saw me awake, you rushed over and asked, "Amamiya Arashi, do you know who I am?" I shot you a look. "It's not like I've lost my memory." You seemed to let out a breath of relief, then smiled and said, "Rest for a bit. We'll be outside." When your well-matched silhouettes disappeared through the door, the whole room turned empty and cold. I cursed you silently. Didn't you know the first thing a patient wants after waking up is water? I sat up with difficulty and took the teacup from the bedside table. Outside the window, the night sky was black and soundless. Suddenly I remembered how, before I fainted, you had been holding me and asking, "Why are you so foolish?" The truth was, I did not know either. It was just that when I saw your face streaked with blood, something inside me burst into flame, a furious hatred toward those yellow-haired boys, fierce enough to feel almost like the urge to kill.
You did not come back until I was nearly asleep against the pillow, and when you did, you came alone. Shiraishi Kaho was gone. You handed me a bag. "Here. Eat something." I asked how long I would have to stay. You said, "Don't be afraid. I'll stay here with you tonight." I stared in disbelief at the bare sofa you were pointing at. "You're sleeping... there?" You grinned and said, "What else am I supposed to do? There's only one bed." I dropped my head at once and kept eating, pretending not to have heard. But the shape of your smile lodged itself deep inside me. That night, the nurse kindly brought you an extra quilt for the sofa, and only then did I let myself sleep.
In the end, my head only needed three stitches. You had only made me stay the night because you were afraid of infection. The next morning I insisted on going back to school. You teased me, and for a moment I thought perhaps I should say that yes, maybe it really was because of you. In the end I only lowered my head, pretended to read, and said nothing more. You asked softly, almost helplessly, "Then what am I supposed to do?"
When I got home the next day, my mother was so frightened by the sight of me she nearly fainted. I calmly told my parents that I had forgotten to brake while cycling, hit a motorbike, and landed on the back of my head. I had only gone to get bandaged because I did not want them to worry. My mother flew for the phone like Spider-Man to call in sick for me, but I stopped her. "I'm fine. I should still go to school. Otherwise I'll fall behind." Aside from how much effort it took to turn my head, nothing felt seriously wrong. More importantly, for reasons I did not want to examine too closely, I hoped I might run into you again on campus.
To avoid attracting too many stares, I stayed in the classroom during the routine student-council inspection at morning exercise time, drowsing at my desk, when I heard movement at the door. I thought it was just some classmate who had skipped exercises and come back early, so I did not look up. But after a while I felt a faint breath in front of me. Startled, I opened my eyes and found your face suddenly magnified before mine. You narrowed your eyes and smiled. "I thought you wouldn't come today." "I didn't want to fall behind in class," I said. When you spoke, your peach-blossom eyes looked like rippling blue water, and I nearly blurted out, Were you worried about me? But I caught myself in time. I opened my textbook, suppressed the flutter in my chest, and said coolly, "Looks like you say things like that to girls all the time." The thought made me inexplicably uncomfortable, and I lowered my head and pretended to read. You crouched there beside me without speaking. When the bell ending the exercise break rang outside, you got to your feet and turned to leave. But before you went, you said quietly, almost like a stubborn child defending himself, "I don't talk to other people that way." That explanation of yours was like a light vow pressing down on the tip of my heart. I watched your back vanish around the corner of the classroom and grew melancholy. I liked you. But what was I supposed to do about Shiraishi Kaho?
I was the one who came late. She had been there first.
I ran into Shiraishi Kaho on my way home from school. Her smile shimmered like the surface of a lake. "Do you have time to sit with me for a while?" she asked. I waved my hands at once. "There's really nothing between me and Matsuda Ryo." That was the truth. Even if I had greedy thoughts in my heart, I had no intention of fighting her for him. Besides, Matsuda Ryo did not like me. Kaho kept smiling, confident as ever. "I know," she said. "I only wanted to buy you something to eat. To thank you for letting us off during the inspection the other night. And to thank you for helping Ryo fend off those thugs." "No need. It was nothing," I said, refusing in a hurry and fleeing in a hurry. Shiraishi Kaho truly was a businessman's daughter, always one move ahead. All she had done was remind me of that first time I saw her, kissing you, and I had already retreated in confusion. It forced me to face a simple fact: you and she loved each other. What, then, was I doing standing so awkwardly in the middle?
After that, I began avoiding you. At lunch I no longer passed by the sports field. After class I stopped wandering around. Even during the exercise break I hid in the bathroom instead of going out. Mana said I was dodging you as if you were some wild beast, though she also said, "Amamiya Arashi, I support this. If you try to snatch Matsuda Ryo from Shiraishi Kaho, the whole school will drown you in spit." Even my best friend could already foresee the ugly end waiting for us. And yet when your call came at midnight, I still could not refuse you. You said you had just parted from your friends and happened to be outside my building, and asked if I wanted to come down and see you. I went downstairs and found you there. I think the moonlight that night must simply have been too beautiful, because the moment you held out your hand, I ran into it as naturally as if I had done it countless times before. You pulled me into your arms and murmured, "Amamiya Arashi, I wanted to see you." I lifted my face, and a light kiss brushed down onto my lips, mixed with the mellow scent of alcohol on your breath.
When I woke the next day, I thought the whole thing had been only a sweet dream. But then I touched the small, exquisite cross at my throat and came fully awake. It was not a dream. You had fastened that cross around my neck with your own hands. And with that certainty came confusion, annoyance, grief. What was I, exactly? The kind of third party everyone condemned? I typed one message after another. Ryo, don't contact me anymore. Ryo, I'm sorry. Ryo, I don't want things to be like this. But in the end I sent nothing, only wrote and deleted, wrote and deleted. I could not say those words, because I could not bear to give you up, and because by then I knew the story of your past. It came out one late night at the hospital when I could not sleep and started chatting with you. In those brief moments together, you did not seem like the cruel person people described. So I joked about the rumors at school. "Hey, I heard you killed someone." But you fell silent, and I immediately felt awkward, explaining that I had only said it casually. You answered in a flat voice. That night, I learned who you really were. You told me your family had been in business, that years earlier your father had been an invincible force in the commercial world, swallowing up one company after another and making many enemies in the process. One day he drove to the office and never came home. The brakes of his car failed halfway there, and on a turn he crashed straight into a wall. The police ruled it an accident after their examination, but you never believed it. The car had been a luxury model, newly replaced just two months before. It made no sense. After your father's death, your mother took over the company, and now and then you helped her. Then, at some cocktail reception, your long suspicion was finally confirmed. You had not been feeling well and went out to the balcony to rest, but just as you reached the door, you heard voices outside. What mattered was not that someone was talking, but that he was talking in a lowered voice, and in those words was your father's name. You listened more closely and heard enough. Yes, his wife is running the company now, which means she's nothing to fear. If we could make him die, we can bring her down too. Huayang will collapse sooner or later. Good. I'll wait for your news. Huayang was the name of your father's company. Through the crack in the door you saw one of your father's old enemies from the business world. You said you had forced yourself not to rush at him on the spot because you did not want to startle the snake in the grass. But afterward, you went out and bought a knife and hid it on your body. A person can be strong enough to endure disasters that seem too large to survive. A person can also be weak. One knife thrust is enough for a life to vanish into the air. You found an excuse to discuss a contract with the man and made sure he came alone. When he sat beside you signing the papers, you chose to risk everything. I still remember your tone that night, the mocking curl in it as you said that sometimes people become fearless for the sake of the ones they love. You had once been your father's obedient son. Even you had never imagined that one day you would become someone who could kill. But when you saw him collapse in front of you, you neither ran nor tried to escape. Instead, you let out a long breath, as if a wish you had carried for years had finally been fulfilled. Even when the police dragged you into prison, you were still smiling. You were sentenced to life, but because you were not yet eighteen, the sentence was suspended for three years. During those three years your mother spent money everywhere to smooth connections, even sold off company shares, all to get you out, because she did not want to lose her son after already losing her husband. And then Shiraishi Kaho's father, who had been one of your father's old family friends, stepped forward to help as well. The "invisible tycoon" people spoke of was him. In the end, you emerged safely, but your father's fortune was gone in a single night, and you ended up with Shiraishi Kaho, your childhood friend, the girl who had liked you since you were young.
The next morning, the moment I arrived at school, I found a text from you. "Amamiya Arashi, I'm going to break up with Kaho."
"Break up?" I called you at once, frantic. "Ryo, don't do this." In pain, you asked, "Then what am I supposed to do?" It was true. The night before, you had told me that after getting together with Shiraishi Kaho, you had discovered how frighteningly possessive she was. You wanted to stay in your hometown, but she insisted you go abroad with her. If hearing you say you liked me had filled me with joy, hearing that you were going to break up with her only filled me with heaviness. I asked to meet you at the school's abandoned basketball court. Without looking at you, I said coldly, "Ryo, the first time I helped you, it was because I thought Shiraishi Kaho studied so well, and being punished would hurt her reputation. The second time was because I'm the student council president. I couldn't just stand there and watch a student in trouble." God knew how false those words sounded, but I had no other choice. I was the third person in all this. I was anxious and ashamed, and even if I sounded artificial and ridiculous, I still had to say it. Before I could finish, I heard a faint sigh beside my ear. You took one step forward and pulled me into your arms. "Don't move," you said. "Let me hold you for a moment." And just like that I stood there, afraid to move, my heart taking over for every motion, beating faster and faster. How I wished time would stop in that instant. In your arms, I felt as though I possessed the whole world. But then a sharp female voice split the air. "How can you do this?" Startled, I turned and saw Shiraishi Kaho not far away. She no longer looked as composed as she had the first time I saw her, only stunned and panicked, like a little white rabbit with a wound, eyes suddenly red as she turned and ran. I nudged you, frozen beside me, and said, "Go after her." You turned back, caught my hand, and said, "Amamiya Arashi, wait here for me. I'll go explain things to her." Then you ran after her. Before your retreating figure had vanished from my sight, I shouted after you, "Matsuda Ryo, don't give her up! I don't like you!" You never looked back. I do not know whether you heard me. I only know that I slowly crouched there and began to cry. Ryo, the moment I saw Shiraishi Kaho's reddened eyes, I knew we could never be together. I was too afraid of our happiness being built out of someone else's hurt.
And that day I went on waiting where I was. You, just as I had wished, never came back. Even after I had told you so bravely that I did not like you, when the sky grew dark and you still did not return, my heart became a wasteland all the same. Maybe you had softened the moment you saw Shiraishi Kaho crying. Maybe your not coming back was your way of telling me you were returning to her. Thinking that, walking on, I felt wetness surge into my eyes again. I kept lifting my head to look at the stars, even though it was still too early for them to appear.
If I could not see the stars, then at least the diamonds in my eyes might stay from falling.
The next day, as soon as I got to class, I found my classmates whispering among themselves. I had barely sat down when Mana leaned over and asked in a low voice, "Amamiya Arashi, are you with Ryo now?" I rolled my eyes at her. "Do you have a fever today?" Mana looked puzzled. "Then that's strange."
"What is?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear? Last night, Shiraishi Kaho tried to kill herself."
Something inside me collapsed with a crash. Ryo, the image of you that had stood so firmly in my heart was flattened in an instant by that one piece of news.
The news left me unable to sit still all day. But when I got home, another shock was waiting for me. My father had lost the job he had held for twenty years, and he kept sighing in bewilderment, unable to understand why. That night, I received a phone call. On the other end, Shiraishi Kaho laughed softly and said, "You refused the toast, so now you drink the penalty." At once I understood. Furious, I said, "Shiraishi Kaho, what do you want from me? I've never done anything to wrong you. Why are you treating me like this? Was it you who got my father fired?" In answer there was only that light laugh again, and then she hung up. I did not dare tell my father. Because of me, he had lost his job. I hid in my room and secretly called Matsuda Ryo, but his phone was switched off. At that moment I felt utterly hopeless. That night heavy snow began to fall, whitening everything outside the window, and in my dream Matsuda Ryo appeared before me and said with absolute certainty, "Amamiya Arashi, one day in winter, I will marry you." In the dream I asked him in surprise, "How did you know I wanted a winter wedding?"
The dream was beautiful, and when I woke, tears were already sliding quietly down my face. I clutched the small cross in my hand until it hurt my palm.
I thought that was Shiraishi Kaho's revenge: quiet, refined, devastating. She had gotten my father fired and cut off my family's livelihood. I had no idea it was only the beginning. The next day, while I was in class, my father called in panic. "Come quickly. Your mother is in the hospital." I threw down my books and ran out without a thought. At the hospital I demanded to know what had happened. My father said my mother had been hit at the corner by a skidding car while she was out buying groceries. I stared at the light above the emergency room, burning with panic. At last the doctor came out and said, "She's alive. But I'm afraid we won't be able to save one of her legs." Everything went black before my eyes, and I collapsed. When I woke again, my father was feeding me hot water. There was sorrow all through his eyes as he said, "Amamiya Arashi, don't scare me. Your mother is still in there. Nothing else can happen to you now." I forced the corners of my mouth up into a smile. "I'm fine. I was just frightened."
My father being dismissed. My mother suffering that sudden disaster. It was enough to cover our home in a layer of white frost. But I could not stop doubting what had happened to her. When I asked my father, he only said that the snow had been too heavy and a car had skidded. Yet every time I remembered the soft laugh on the phone, my whole body went cold. I did not know whether a girl raised in such an exalted household might possess a heart even more vicious than I had imagined. That night, one more phone call proved I was right. Shiraishi Kaho was still laughing softly when I shouted, "What grudge do you have that you can only take it out on me? How can you be this cruel? Don't you have parents?" At that, she stopped laughing. In an icy voice she said, "Amamiya Arashi, you brought this on yourself. If you keep that attitude with me, then believe it or not, there will be other disasters tomorrow. Ha. If I wanted to make your family of three disappear from this earth, it would be effortless."
In the sixteen years I had lived, I had never known what true despair felt like. In that moment, I did. I had neither power nor money to fight Shiraishi Kaho. Worse than that, I had to fear what fresh accident might happen at home tomorrow. At last I gave in and called her. "Please let us go," I said. On the line, she laughed again, just as lightly as when she had once invited me out to eat, full of certainty that everything was in her grasp. "Beg me," she said. "Kneel down and beg me, and promise you'll disappear from my sight at once. Then I'll let your family go." I held the phone and felt helplessness spread through me. When I had been with Matsuda Ryo, I had felt that I had done nothing wrong. We loved each other. We had nothing to be ashamed of before the world.
That day, after I hung up, I really did go downstairs to Shiraishi Kaho's building. Laugh at me if you want. Pity me if you want. But at sixteen, I truly had no strength left. I did not dare tell my parents that it was because of me they had been dragged into this. I still could not reach Matsuda Ryo. The whole world turned gray before my eyes. As I knelt downstairs, people coming and going pointed at me. I kept my head lowered, tears spilling out, and not only because of humiliation or sorrow. There was fear too, too much of it. If kneeling there could make Shiraishi Kaho spare my parents, what was there I could not do? The snow-covered ground was bitterly cold. The heat of my legs melted the snow beneath me, and icy water soaked through my trousers and into my bones. Fine snow drifted down through the sky as I dialed her number with trembling hands. The moment she answered, my teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak. "Shiraishi Kaho," I said, shaking, "I'm kneeling. I'm only begging you to let my parents go." At last she was no longer laughing softly. This time she laughed loudly, wantonly. "Good," she said crisply. "Let me see your sincerity." So that whole night I never went home. I knelt from afternoon to evening, and from evening until dawn. If you had asked me then who was the loveliest snow figure in the whole apartment complex, I would have told you: me.
The next morning, passersby took me to the hospital. I had knelt all night and then burned with fever for two days and two nights. When I woke, the first thing I did was not speak to my relieved parents but look for my phone. Only when I saw the message inside did I finally breathe again. It was from Shiraishi Kaho. Very good. I have seen your sincerity. You may carry out the next agreement now. I had only just sat up when a hard slap cracked across my face. My mother, sitting beside me, grabbed my father's hand and cried out, "What are you doing? How can you hit Arashi?" I stared at my father in shock. Half mad with anger, he shouted, "Do you understand or not? Your body, your hair, your skin are all gifts from your parents. If you don't cherish them, you are dishonoring us!" My mother kept wiping her tears as she caught hold of my hand and said, "You foolish child, how could you do something so foolish?" My father's eyes went red in an instant. He flung off my mother's hand and stalked out of the room. Faced with my mother, who was still in a wheelchair after losing one leg, I broke down and wailed, as if all the grievance of those days had finally found somewhere to go. My mother cried as she reached out to wipe my tears, though her own fell without stopping. I never knew how much my parents had learned. But after I recovered and told them I did not want to stay in that city any longer, they nodded with surprising speed and moved us away almost at once. Before we left, they spoke to me earnestly. If we were going to a new city, I had to live as I had before. I nodded hard. I would. I would live the way I used to. I would not fail them.
That was the winter of 2011. Ever since then, I have been afraid of winter. Every winter brings back, again and again, the things that happened that year and tore me open. I remember your face, your embrace, your smile, your kiss. I have kept that tiny cross like a treasure, because it was my hope for surviving. And so, Ryo, only now have I been able to come and see this wedding of yours in 2017. Six years truly are enough to overturn a life. For instance, I went to a good university, graduated, and found a job with a bright future. For instance, your business marriage to Shiraishi Kaho turned out brilliantly, and her family helped you start a new company, letting you inherit your father's legacy. For instance, this wedding of yours is perfect. You are in a white sweater and a white suit, placing a lovely ring on the bride's finger. Shiraishi Kaho is very beautiful. In truth, if not for the hurt of that year, I might have thought she was a fairy who had fallen into the human world. Perhaps she still is one. After all, no one will ever know what she did that year. Perhaps even she herself has forgotten.
Ryo, I know that after Shiraishi Kaho tried to kill herself that year, you stayed by her side the whole time. She cried and threatened you, forbidding you to contact me again, and you only thought that once she got better, you would explain everything to me. So you agreed. But by the time she recovered and left the hospital, and you went looking for me, all you found was an empty seat. You told Mana all of this later, because you kept asking her where I had gone, and Mana obediently repeated the lie I had asked her to tell. She told you that Amamiya Arashi did not really like you that much after all, that she did not want to make trouble between you and Shiraishi Kaho anymore, that she had transferred schools. You did not believe her. Mana said you tried every possible way to get hold of my file and look up my address, but by then my records had already been transferred out. Faced with my vanishing as completely as air, you cried like a child. Ryo, you will never know what I did that winter. And that is all right. Do you know what I was thinking while I knelt in the snow? Thank God it wasn't you kneeling there.
But on the eve of your wedding, Mana called me. She said you had phoned again to ask whether she had been in touch with me. It turned out that after graduation, you had always asked her to keep some way of reaching me. Following my instructions, she still told you no. During those years, I had heard scraps of news about you too. You were excellent. You started another company, still called Huayang. You had strong backing and had become a rising force in the business world, someone who could summon wind and rain. You see? The love Shiraishi Kaho gave you was far more than anything I could have given.
I closed my fingers around the little cross in my hand, the only gift you ever gave me, and raised my hand to hail a taxi. "Airport," I told the driver. Ryo, forgive these sudden tears. Let them stand as my farewell for your happiness. I know that from now on, you will go on being strong in the city without me. And I, I will heal in the city without you. The promise you once made me in a dream has finally come true as well: a white wedding in winter. Only the bride is not me. Still, Ryo, I bless you.