Where Heaven Is, I Will Find You

Perhaps learning to let go is one way of becoming happy. By the time I rushed into the glittering chaos of the Green forum meetup, light and shadow were crossing everywhere and monsters seemed to be roaming loose. The music was loud enough to split the world in two. I could not tell who was human and who was spirit. Then someone seized my wrist, hard. I turned and found an eager little face smiling at me. "Hi, Hayashibara Hitomi. Do you remember me?" That was the first time I met you. I had seen plenty of beautiful boys before, but the moment I saw you I still went stupid, so I let you drag me along while asking, with my heart beating in confusion, "You are...?" Even as I asked, I was searching my memory frantically. Since when had I ever collided with a beauty like this and forgotten? You lifted the badge in your other hand and said, "I'm Natsuki, the one you've worked so hard to find." I steadied my wobbling heart and looked at you sideways. "Sorry," I said, pretending calm. "I've stolen someone else's badge too." You really were silly. When I posted that grand confession to Natsuki on the forum, everyone knew about it. I had fallen headlong the instant I saw his photo. I had written, shamelessly and magnificently, Natsuki, you are heaven, you are earth, you are the source of light in my life. For the sort of person who could make me say something like that, how could I possibly fail to recognize his face? Just then, the real Natsuki walked over. He was a little thinner than in the photo, but when he smiled he truly did become a source of light. He came to your side, rested a hand on your shoulder, and said, "Stop fooling Hitomi." Then he handed your badge back and exchanged it for the one you had stolen. I stole a glance at it before you pinned it on again. Wakamiya Yo. While fastening it, you said, "If you want to look at me openly, go ahead. I won't mind." I snorted. You tipped your head and gave me a childish smile. "Then whose badge did you swap with?" Natsuki burst out laughing beside us. "Wakamiya Yo," he said, "you're the picture of a clever man making one foolish mistake." You turned and glared at me at once, and I made a face back. You were the one who teased me first.

That day at the gathering, all the girls envied me, because two beautiful boys sat on either side of me. Natsuki sat there with a kind of stillness that made him shine, while you talked to me and, at the same time, shamelessly flirted with every girl around us. You said that ever since I posted that confession to Natsuki, girls had been rising up like rebels and sending him messages, asking whether he was really handsome and whether he would send them a photo. All the while, Natsuki only smiled quietly. You nudged me and said, "When are you going to write me a confession post too? Let me bask in a little glory." I rolled my eyes. "For you? I'm afraid you couldn't take it." Patting your chest, you declared, "Relax. Your brother here can handle that much." You see, right from the beginning you knew exactly what kind of relationship there was between us. I was the fool who got my eyes blurred by your smile and followed your footsteps without a second thought. I always believed what I felt for Natsuki was love at first sight. What I felt for you was the kind of feeling that could begin and end a whole life in a single glance. You were frivolous, holding one girl's hand while smiling at another. Plenty of girls liked boys like Natsuki, boys with a little sadness and quietness in them. Forgive me, though. I could write a public confession to Natsuki, but the one I wanted to hide away for myself and treasure carefully was you. It was an inexplicable, surging kind of love, but I understood one thing very well: the beautiful boy you want to announce to the world is the one fit to be a friend. The one you want to tuck away secretly in the bottom of your heart is the one you love most.

The next time I saw you was at the skating rink in the city. I skimmed up beside you like a bird, tapped your shoulder, and laughed. "What a coincidence." Sometimes all one can do is marvel at the unfairness of creation. Even your skating was flawless. You led me through the rink, forward, backward, sideways, with so many tricks that my head spun. The envious glances from other girls satisfied every small vanity I had. When we finally stopped to rest, both of us slick with sweat, you took a drink, tugged open your collar, turned to me, and said, "Hayashibara Hitomi, I think the two of us would look especially good together." I could hardly believe what I had heard, but before my mind even caught up, my head had already nodded. Later, whenever I thought back on how eager and reckless I had been in that moment, I would blush a little, but I never regretted it. I did not care how many girls you had said similar half-serious, half-ambiguous things to. I only knew that if I hesitated for even a beat, I might lose the young man who could make my mouth water. You watched me nod like a fool, rubbed my hair, and laughed aloud.

For a while, the skating rink, the manga cafe, bars, restaurants, karaoke rooms, all of them were filled with our shadows. I wanted to announce my happiness to the whole world. I posted so many photographs of the two of us on the forum, proudly showing off how happy we were. People always say happiness should never be shown off, because the moment you do, someone will come and take it away. It turned out they were right. Not long after that, I logged onto the forum and received a private message from a stranger. There was only one sentence in it: Hayashibara Hitomi, don't be so arrogant. The one Wakamiya Yo really loves is not you. At first I assumed it was a prank, so I tossed back a casual reply. Then who? The answer came at once: Fujisaki Rin. I drew a sharp breath so quickly I thought my head might float off from lack of air. It was not as though I had never heard the name Fujisaki Rin. Ever since I came to that forum, I had been hearing about her: how she had been admitted to the city's best university with the highest marks, how talented she was, how she outshone every other girl. But there had never been the slightest trace of Fujisaki Rin on the forum. Natsuki told me that deleting every mention of her, even her name itself, had been the only condition she gave when she left.

I said to Natsuki, "I know it takes courage to stay with Wakamiya Yo. But I really can't turn back now. Natsuki, I want to see a photo of Fujisaki Rin." He understood my heart and tried to comfort me. "Hitomi, all that is in the past." But I persisted. "Natsuki, I just want to see her." The instant I did, one phrase leapt into my head: willing to admit defeat. At last I understood the meaning of the DL tattoo on your arm. A girl like that matched you. The two of you were made for each other. Later, when we passed a tattoo shop, desire stirred in me and I said, "Wakamiya Yo, come get a tattoo with me." At first you tried to frighten me. You said my skin was prone to allergies and it might get inflamed. But my stubbornness finally made you impatient, and we started bickering. By then I already believed what that stranger on the forum had told me. I pointed at the DL on your arm and asked in a low voice, "Is it because of her?" That one sentence seemed to take half my life to say. I waited with my heart in my throat, but you said nothing. Silence was answer enough. The truth hit me so suddenly that I flared up in anger. "Wakamiya Yo," I said, "I'm getting this tattoo today if it kills me. One day I'll make you understand that I love you more than Fujisaki Rin does. Heaven and earth can bear witness." At that, you suddenly seized my hand and demanded, with fire in your eyes, "Who told you that? Who told you?" I kept my mouth shut. In the end you flung my hand away and walked off. I went into the tattoo shop. I watched the ink sink slowly into my skin, into my bones. The pain was fine and spreading, and finally my tears came down like rain. From Natsuki I learned the whole story. You and Rin had once been a happy couple, but later a rich boy began courting her, sending necklaces, dresses, bouquets day after day, promising that once she graduated he would get her a job at a television station. In the end the scales in Fujisaki Rin's heart tipped all at once. Wakamiya Yo, from the moment you walked away from me that day, I knew we were finished. Because I had only ever been a piece you used to provoke Rin, to test whether she still cared enough to be jealous. Fairy tales are always right. The one who belongs with the prince is always the damned princess, never the foolish Cinderella who thinks she can put on the glass slipper.

In the end, even the proudest girls cannot bear to see something that once belonged to them tucked into someone else's pocket, even if they were the ones who threw it away. Least of all when it comes back so publicly, showing itself off to the whole world. Not long after that, whenever I called you, the line mostly went unanswered. Natsuki would not meet my eyes when I asked about you, and soon I understood: Fujisaki Rin was back. I sent you a message that said, Wakamiya Yo, I know she's back. I won't pester you. I only ask that you see me once. That day you wore a baseball cap and kept your head down over a cup of cola, while I ordered a hamburger, a chicken wrap, chicken wings, fries, everything I could think of. I ate like a weightlifter, shoveling things in as if a full stomach would give me the strength to face that ridiculous farewell. "Wakamiya Yo," I said, "don't say anything yet. Could you go to McDonald's across the street and get me a box of garlic sauce?" See how awful I was? I was sitting in KFC eating fries and sending you across to McDonald's for garlic sauce. Yet the proud boy you had once been did not say a word. He simply got up and crossed the crowd. Watching your back move away, my eyes turned a little wet. Wakamiya Yo, before I even understood what love was, you had barged into my world, dragged me out to see all kinds of beautiful scenery. And just as I was beginning to linger over that beauty, you shoved me off a cliff. Still, I did not blame you. Even if I had known from the start that the ending would leave me shattered to pieces, I would have gone with you anyway just to see those countless sights. When you came back and the little packet of garlic sauce lay quietly in your palm, I looked at you steadily and asked, "Do you feel guilty toward me? Do you think you've wronged me?" You shook your head, then nodded. I suddenly laughed. I had never imagined that a boy so fond of flirting could be this considerate when it came time to break up. Sipping orange juice, I told you, "Then that's good. Right now I like you so much I can't pull myself out. I can't live without you. If you really have to leave me, that's fine. Just remember forever that you once hurt an innocent me." You caught hold of my hand. "Hitomi, I'm sorry." You lowered your head like a child. "Other girls may be able to say it doesn't matter," I answered. "I can't. I'm not a kind person. I have never known how to forgive."

When we walked out together, a girl turned at the door and promptly slipped her hand through your arm. For one second I almost thought girls nowadays had really become bold enough to molest people in broad daylight. Then I saw her face. She smiled at me, red-lipped and white-toothed, bright and deceptively sweet. In person, she was even more bewitching than in the photograph. It was Fujisaki Rin. She joked with perfect grace, "Hayashibara Hitomi really is lovely. No wonder she's the current darling of the forum." The guilt that had been in your face inside KFC had vanished. Your sunny smile had returned, and with gentle fondness you said to Rin, "Yes. She's very much like you used to be." Rin laughed, stuck out her tongue, then took your arm and waved to me as you left together. I remembered how you had ruffled my hair in exactly the way you were now ruffling hers. It was all like a dream that vanishes before dawn. And the sentence you left me with hurt more than anything. You said I had her old spirit. Yes. I had asked around indirectly and pieced together what had happened between you. I knew Fujisaki Rin, back then, had also made a grand confession post about you on the forum. So after you lost Rin, when you saw my public confession to Natsuki, you instantly saw her shadow in me. That was why you could use me so handily as a pawn. Wakamiya Yo, you really were clever. You found exactly the right piece. Even if I was only a small pawn crossing the river, I could still turn into a rook and help you win back a round.

After we separated, I began to believe in fate. Every day I pored over horoscope books, daily luck, weekly fortunes, which signs matched mine, which signs were natural enemies. Natsuki said I was pinning my hopes on emptiness. I ignored his laughter and even bought a tarot deck. I told him very solemnly that I had already divined it: my fate with you was not over yet. That very night, you called me. Your voice was low and full of sorrow. "Hitomi, do you know," you said, "right now I miss you terribly. The pen beside me is one you gave me. The jasmine tea in my cup is what you bought. The sugar cubes were left by you. The fruit knife here is one you've used. Even the medicine, there's a whole chaotic pile of it because you, in all your thoughtfulness, were always afraid I might get sick." I had read many fortune charts for your sign. They all said your love life would go badly, but because you never said anything, I never asked. I kept telling myself those fortunes could not possibly be true. After all, there are only twelve signs and billions of people in the world. But when I got your call, my hand would not stop shaking. I clutched the phone tight against my ear, trying to hear your voice more clearly. Then you said, "Rin is still jealous about what there was between us, so she checks my phone records all the time. I have to hang up." The line died into a busy tone. Tears rolled one by one from the corners of my eyes. You said you were afraid I had once worried yourself sick over you. In truth, the sick one then was me. I was burning with a high fever.

Lying in bed, I called Natsuki and told him I was ill. He rushed over, all wind and motion, and took me to the hospital, where I spent the whole night on an IV drip. When I woke the next morning and saw him asleep with his head pillowed against my bed, tears gathered at once along my lashes. Wakamiya Yo, I had imagined countless futures, but the one I loved most had always been the future where I opened my eyes every morning and found you there with the sunlight. Looking at Natsuki then, I thought: why was it that the person I fell for at first sight had been Natsuki, but the one I ended up loving was you? Hearing me move, Natsuki woke drowsily and smiled. "Thank you, Natsuki," I said. He took my hand and said with unusual seriousness, "Hitomi, when you posted that confession to me on the forum, I thought you were the sort of girl who took everything lightly. But after getting to know you, I realized you simply don't know how to look after yourself. You rush at the world headfirst, and yet you also walk as if on thin ice..." I laughed and cut him off. "I know, I understand. So in future don't go looking for a girlfriend like me, so loud and rough and impossible." Natsuki said nothing after that. How could I not understand his heart? When a boy is always at your side, taking care of you in every small way, what else can it mean except that he wants to protect you? Still, after hesitating a long time, I asked the question anyway, though I knew it might hurt. "Natsuki, do you think Wakamiya Yo ever liked me?" Natsuki did not answer. I lay back, gave a sigh, and closed my eyes. "He called me last night," I murmured, almost to myself. "He said he still thinks of me, but he's afraid Rin will find out, because she checks his phone records..." I had only just finished speaking when someone clamped down hard on my wrist. I opened my eyes and saw Natsuki's face, torn and uncertain. "What is it?" I asked. Natsuki swallowed and said, "Hitomi... there's something I have to tell you. Wakamiya Yo... actually has dissociative identity disorder."

Natsuki told me everything. Because of his parents' divorce, Yo had grown up in a cramped, repressed home. His mother was a formidable businesswoman, good at running her company and bad at making time for her son. In high school he had a girlfriend for three years. She had treated him well, but later he fell in love with Fujisaki Rin instead. Rin was clever. Her initial heat and directness captivated him, and then she began restricting every part of his freedom. She deleted every girl's number from his phone, dragged all the girls on his LINE account into the blacklist, and even changed his number for him. By the time he had surrendered everything to her, she had already been dazzled by a rich boy. Yo panicked and tried to pour even more of himself into her, but in the end what he had failed to repay the old girlfriend was made up for on Rin's body instead. Rin still chose to leave him. Then I appeared. Rin came back, wanting to reconcile. Within days she had grown tired all over again and left him once more. After that, Natsuki said, Yo clung stubbornly to the belief that Rin was still there, still checking his phone records, still caring about his ties to other girls. So he began calling every girl he had ever been ambiguous with. I listened in shock. I could not believe that someone like you, all sunlight and smiles, could be a patient with a split mind. Natsuki nodded very seriously. Then he asked, "Do you know what my relationship to him is?" I shook my head. "Wakamiya Yo's father," he said, "is my stepfather." I stared at him, unable to believe it, until he nodded again. I forced my panic into order and said firmly, "Natsuki, you have to help me." His eyes dimmed; he understood at once what I meant. "I'm not a savior, Yo isn't either," he said softly. "But I don't want you to feel as if the whole world has abandoned you. When the whole city turns upside down, I am willing to be the one person still walking toward him."

At my request, Natsuki brought you out to one of the little bars we used to haunt. You did not seem unhappy in the least. You joked with me in that same teasing, flirtatious way as before, so lightly that I almost thought Natsuki must have lied to me. Then a drunk man lurched past the bar, slapped the side of your glass, and sent it wobbling. Before Natsuki or I had time to react, there came the sharp crash of glass. Blood flooded my sight. Your hand, still gripping the broken bottle, hung in midair. Not until I heard the wail of the sirens did I truly believe Natsuki. Later the matter was settled as a civil dispute, and no small part of that was thanks to your mother. After that, I did not see you for a long time. Natsuki said your mother had finally begun to realize something was very wrong and had hired a psychiatrist for you, but the results were terrible. You flew into a rage, smashed things all over your room, shouted that you were not sick, and drove the doctor out. I began searching online for information about dissociative disorders, and in the end I decided to go find Fujisaki Rin. They say the person who tied the bell has to untie it. When I saw her, she was not like the girl in the photo anymore. Her face looked drawn and her fingers trembled a little around the cigarette she held. She gave me a pale smile and said, "I knew you would come." I asked her why. "Because the first time I saw you," she said, "I saw the old me in your eyes. Brave. Unafraid of losing. Capable of loving with your whole heart." She took a drag and said quietly, "You've discovered his illness already, haven't you?" I hesitated, then nodded. Rin told me she had noticed long ago. Their final half year together had not been as sweet as outsiders imagined. They argued all the time. Sometimes they even came to blows. She had not suddenly changed her mind. She had simply grown exhausted after too much fighting. Hearing that, I felt ashamed of all the grand vows I had once made in front of you. So you had always known the real reason the two of you broke apart. That was why, after everything, you had said nothing and quietly let go. "Then why did you get back together with him later?" I asked. Rin pulled one corner of her mouth into a bitter smile. "Possessiveness," she said. "A girl's kind. I couldn't let him go, and I couldn't stand seeing him with you. But once we got back together, it was only the same old cycle, so I broke it off quickly." We talked for a long time. In the end she admitted that your illness had worsened because of her, and I persuaded her to return to your side and do everything she could to convince you to accept treatment.

Natsuki took Rin to see you, and I do not know what she said, only that afterward Natsuki told me you had slowly begun to give in. You had started therapy. Your moods were gradually stabilizing. So when I ran into you by chance in a bar one night after that, I was taken by surprise. Natsuki and I went over to you. Your spirits were low. When I asked what was wrong, you only smiled and shook your head. Because I had read that people with your condition should stay away from alcohol, I kept signaling to Natsuki and together we tried to control how much you drank. Once there had been enough, we got up to leave. Even now, a very long time later, I still do not regret that night, because at least I was beside you. I did not leave you alone with it. We had only just reached the intersection outside when we ran into the same man you had hit with a bottle in the bar before. He had already had his stitches removed, and a long scar ran across his face. He had several men with him, and he smiled viciously. "What a coincidence," he said. "Finally found you." It turned out he had been lurking nearby after getting out of the hospital. I had just opened my mouth to say that if he wanted money we could pay more, when you suddenly roared, "You bastard. If you've got the guts, come at me one on one." The instant the words left you, two men rushed over and hit you, and everything dissolved into chaos. At first you and Natsuki still had the upper hand, because you were both tall and both knew boxing. But there were too many of them. Before long the two of you were pinned down. I slipped a hand into my pocket and tried to press the phone keypad without anyone seeing. The scarred man appeared at my side, snatched the phone from my hand, and smashed it to the ground. "You think you're getting out of here?" he sneered. "Not that easy." Then he caught my arm, twisted it behind my back, yanked my hair, and shoved me against the wall. I screamed and struggled. In the middle of that confusion, somebody suddenly cried out and collapsed. Then I heard a strange voice shout, "Boss, Snake-Skin's dead!" The fighting stopped at once. The scarred man let me go and lunged forward. Nearby was a construction site, with scattered boards left lying around. One of them happened to be studded with a sharp strip of iron. Natsuki and I looked at each other in horror. You only stood there gasping. I touched your hand, wanting to drag you away while the others checked the wounded man, but when you turned your face to me, the hatred in your eyes frightened me to the bone. Then, just as suddenly, that hatred drained out of them and was replaced by a terrible emptiness.

We were taken to the police station. The officer on duty was the same one we had met before. Perhaps he thought we were only another pack of overindulged students making trouble, because he asked coldly, "Who pushed the man they call Snake-Skin?" I looked at Natsuki. Natsuki turned his head and said, "I did. It was self-defense." I lowered my eyes. Human beings are selfish. I knew very well that you had treated our relationship as no more than a lonely game, and still I had thrown myself into it willingly. I knew very well that Natsuki had always liked me, and still I let him shoulder all the blame for you, because by then you were already badly frayed, clawing at your own hair, and I was afraid that if the police held you you would break in some way beyond repair. That is what youthful love is like: blind, absurd, and utterly without retreat. I only wanted to calm the police first. I had not understood how grave a charge killing someone was until Natsuki was sent to court. When I heard the judgment, the world went black in front of me. The court gave Natsuki five years in prison and ordered financial compensation to the dead man's family. Looking at his pale, sorrowful face, I burst into tears as if a floodgate had been broken. I rushed up and seized his hand, whispering, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Natsuki only smiled and patted my hand. "Hitomi, don't cry. I like you best when you're laughing carelessly." I thought of the forty-eight hours I had once spent locked alone in an empty room and could not imagine what prison must really be like. But I knew it had to be far colder than any confinement I had ever known. When I went home, I neither ate nor drank. I only cried in silence. By then your mother had taken you away, and your father insisted on sending you overseas for treatment. Your father, who was also Natsuki's stepfather, was already spending huge sums to pull strings on Natsuki's sentence. When I went to visit Natsuki in prison, I brought him many books, just as he had asked. Across the iron bars I found that in only two days he already seemed changed. He still smiled at me, but now it was a gentle, measured, careful kind of smile.

I said, "Natsuki, when you get out, let's be together." Natsuki only reached a hand through the bars, ruffled my hair, and sighed. "I really don't know what your head is full of all day." The moment foolish, innocent Natsuki said something like that, I knew he was not angry with me. Those few days I had been terribly sentimental. One stray sentence was enough to make me want to cry. How badly I wished that I had fought beside the two of you that night, so I could have taken every bit of the blame onto myself instead of letting my own selfishness ruin Natsuki's life. Ever since the accident, Natsuki had worn such a blank face that I had thought he would never forgive me. So when he called me silly, I pulled my mouth into an ugly smile for him, and then I cried anyway. When I came out of the prison that day, the sunlight was dazzling, and all at once it felt as if the whole world had been overturned. Yes, I had already made up my mind. Once Natsuki got out, whether he agreed or not, I would stay beside him for the rest of the road, because that was what I owed him. I suddenly wanted to send you a message. I took out my phone and slowly typed, Please be happy. Then, after staring at it, I deleted it word by word. People who have never known hardship do not understand how precious a sentence like that really is. The sunlight was spilling everywhere. I decided I had to keep walking forward, one long step after another. Later your father used his influence to reduce Natsuki's sentence from five years to two.

From then on I began living alone in earnest. Without the old noise of friends and constant company, my heart seemed to age overnight. I started living like an old woman, eating on time, going to class, then to the library. When old classmates ran into me, my clean, emptied-out life startled them. On weekends I went to see Natsuki. He seemed more and more worn down in spirit, but he still smiled and told me not to worry. Every time I visited, he would say, "Hitomi, when I get out, let's go to Tibet." In the travel magazines I brought him there were many photographs of Tibet, and every time I pointed at them he would smile. That night, after one of those visits, I dreamed that I was walking alone across a vast Tibetan grassland. Suddenly a person appeared ahead of me. He turned and smiled, and then I heard a gunshot and he vanished. I woke in the dark, breathing hard, drinking glass after glass of ice water. The face in the dream had not been Natsuki's. It had been yours. I was left with a terrible feeling I could not shake. The next morning I received a call from Fujisaki Rin. She said that when you were first sent abroad for treatment, you had called her and kept asking why she had betrayed you. She had been puzzled, because after returning to your side to help with your treatment, she had already broken up with the rich boy and even returned the car he had given her. She had wanted to ask you what you meant, but the line went dead. After a few more days, your mother called her. Your treatment was not going well. You had locked yourself in your room like a trapped animal, sinking day and night into darkness, and one dawn you jumped from the eleventh floor. I thought of the dream at once. The smile in it had been your farewell. I had barely had time to cover my grief when your father called me again and said that Natsuki had killed himself in prison. He had left a letter for me. I raced to the prison without stopping, crying all the way. The letter had been tucked inside a travel magazine, between the pages showing Tibet's magnificent scenery. Natsuki wrote: Hi, Hitomi. How are you? I'm sorry. I broke my promise. I won't be able to go to Tibet with you. The moment I heard Wakamiya Yo had killed himself, I couldn't calm down anymore. I kept thinking about the sleepless nights he spent suffering because of me, and I hated myself. This prison should have been mine to enter from the beginning. After Fujisaki Rin returned to his side, Wakamiya Yo finally started treatment. By then he had already improved a great deal. The doctor said that if he held on for another half year, he could more or less recover. That was already something hard-won. But I bought a new number and sent him a picture message. It was an old photograph I had once taken by accident, of Rin embracing that rich boy. I wrote to him in the rich boy's voice, only to provoke him. That is why he was drinking in the bar that night. Really, all I had wanted was to punish him a little and get revenge on his father, my stepfather. If not for that man, my mother would never have divorced my father, and I would never have grown up under someone else's roof. I calculated everything, except that we would run into that scarred man that night. I'm sorry. Sorry to you, for making you lose Wakamiya Yo. Sorry to Wakamiya Yo too. He wasn't my blood brother, but he treated me better than a real brother ever could have. It was my selfishness that made all of you suffer. Hitomi, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. After I finished Natsuki's letter, I stood at the prison gates and touched the four characters tattooed on my arm, then cried out like a child. Those four characters were Heaven and Earth Can Bear Witness. I remembered how openly and fearlessly I had once spoken them in front of you. I doubt I will ever have that kind of raw courage again in this life. Wakamiya Yo, you probably never knew that you were my first love. Every time we walked hand in hand down the street and I smiled to myself, you would ask what silly secret joy I was hiding. The truth was that I was imagining the road beneath our feet leading straight to the registry office so we could go in and get married, because every time I looked at your crescent-white smile I felt as if I had made the bargain of a lifetime. But I never made that wish come true. I never even had the chance to tell you.

There is no trace of you left in my life anymore. There is not even, anywhere in this world, a boy called Wakamiya Yo for me to miss from morning till night. And yet I still want so badly to know where heaven is, and how I am supposed to find you there.