Blossoming
That May, Satoru wore his simple blue nagagi folded left-over-right to meet Hinazuki at the station at noon. However he had to double take when he saw her walking up in a kimono colored a solid deep red save for the half below the pale yellow obi which swirled with dozens of pink and white blossoms. Satoru had to remind himself to calm down lest he turn as bright red as her kimono. The pair rode the bustling train to Biei together, excitedly chatting about classes, what they would do at the festival, and which school clubs they planned to join. Kayo continued, "Grandmother got the teachers to put me in self-defense classes in middle school, so I was thinking of joining the judo club. What about you?"
"That's a great idea! I don't know about me... maybe I should join a defense or sports club. Honestly, I'm not much stronger than I ever was. I hope I can go on some hikes in the mountains, so maybe the cross-country team? I can't imagine the track club will ever race against many other schools way out here though," Satoru said. He was caught waffling between ideas because he had no idea if joining judo would impede Hinazuki's growth or if she would actually need him there with her. His first time through high school he had mostly joined a club to slack off or steal time sketching. Rather convenient now, since his illustration skills persisted with him through revival while the shape he was in wouldn't.
"Well I'm sure whatever you decide will be a good experience," she said with uncharacteristic cheer.
"Oh um, youuu look really beautiful today, Kayo... You and your grandmother really went all-out, huh?"
"Hehe thanks. The festival's only going to come once this year, so I didn't want to have any regrets–C'mon, we're here!" she said and skipped off ahead.
Kayo and Satoru stepped off the train last at the Shikisai no Oka gardens and followed the crowd up a hill. As they crested it they gasped at the farmland before them which had been woven into a quilt of red, blue, orange, pink, and white flowers. Each color of flower was cultivated in a stripe that stretched across the rolling landscape under the vivid blue sky and drifting pale white clouds. Festival stalls were lined along either side of a manicured gravel path that led between the flowerbeds and into the bordering cherry blossom woods. The breeze through the trees lifted petals onto the wind and littered the ground with pink pinpricks, but the pink flowers were cleverly planted along the border of the woods so spring wouldn't tarnish the garden's neatly divided colors.
"Wow… did you know this was here?" Satoru asked, pretty much stunned by the hyperreal colors of the land.
"Yeah I did, but... I've never seen it myself before. My grandmother said I should go with my friends this year. Haha, that's pretty much just you isn't it?"
"Guess so. Let's hurry up and get some food. The place looks packed and something tells me they don't want us to step on the flowers."
The schoolmates slowly walked down into the festival in their kimonos, weaving between other florally dressed revelers, walls of traditional demon masks, tanilizing steam rising from outdoor kitchens, and kingyo sukui pools where children tried to fish out goldfish with fragile little paper nets. They bought multicolored dango and sesame seed-strewn yakitori skewers and carried them into the blossoming woods where many people were heading. Long, wavering boughs zig-zagged over the two of them, shading them beneath bright pink cherry blossoms illuminated blooming white around the edges from above. As the pair walked beneath the pink-filtered afternoon light eating and chatting soft pink petals drifted down all around them, tickling down their faces at times.
Soon it was late afternoon and Satoru found himself tiring of flower viewing. But he kept up so as not to douse Hinazuki's enthusiasm. They were far from the festival now, much further down the path running through the forest parallel to the rows of flowers. They could see the festival stalls lighting lanterns as the forest's shadow stretched out ever longer. But nearer to them there was an old cherry tree grove standing alone in the middle of the flowering field where none of the festival-goers were.
"Let's go see the grove over there, the trees in the middle look huge," Kayo said.
"I don't think we're supposed to walk through the flowers... Why don't we just go back to the festival and get something to drink?"
"You dragged me up that mountain with you when we were kids, so this is payback! Don't fall behind!" She laughed as she ran out into the nearly waist-high prismatic flowers.
Dammit, she knew him too well. He was going to follow her around just like a loyal dog. Satoru shook his sharp-black haired head, smiling, and took off after her. They made it to where the old growth roots pushed the ground up into a mound that the flowers tried to grow up before dying out at the grove's edge. An old stone torii gate stood as the entrance into this ancient stand of trees, hiding in the cherry trees' umbra as their branches wove around its horizontal beam. Satoru and Kayo exchanged a glance and briefly bowed before she suddenly grabbed his hand and started running into the shaded grove with him in tow. In their navy blue and crimson kimonos, they ran down a meandering earthen path between the trees scattered with cherry blossoms and lined with lumpy roots half dug into the earth.
The short path ended in a clearing beneath the boughs of an enormous, sacred Shinto cherry tree with an old straw shimenawa rope spotted with deep green moss that wound around its gnarled trunk. Rooted in the earth at the center of the grove, its rosy branches stretched out over the entire clearing, slowly raining pale pink petals and shafts of deep orange sunlight down.
As they came to a stop in front of the grand tree, Kayo turned to face Satoru and gently took both of his hands in hers. Her deep brown eyes looking up into his, Kayo said, "I never stopped thinking of you. I don't care about who you were in the past or who I'll be in the future, I just know that every day you spend with me, you make me stronger. And that I love you, Satoru."
Shocked, Satoru's pulse thrummed in his ears, his vision drew in to just the two of them, and time seemed to slow as she held his hands and warmly smiled up at him. No, he couldn't do this to Hiromi – to Kayo herself. He hadn't returned to upset the future. ...And yet, he loved her more than anything in any of the lives he had lived.
"I love you more than anything," Satoru said breathlessly, without thinking, unable to look away from her wide brown eyes. She rose up to him and pressed her rose lips to his in a long, tender kiss. Her arms reached up around his shoulders, her fingers tracing down the back of his neck, drawing him down to her with a shiver. His arms wound around her upper back and over her kimono's obi, lightly pulling her into him and stretching her back up to his lips. Finally he drew away, time unfroze, and he heard the wind rustling through the flowering trees again. They stood together, staring into each other's eyes with faces blooming as brightly as the grove itself.
"Kayo… wow."
"Yeah hehe."
"I'm surprised myself."
"Ahaha… I'm sorry for inviting you without telling you why I wanted to come… but I'm glad I did," Kayo said with a teary, joyful smile.
"I guess we could pick up where we left off. It's just like before you escaped," Satoru said.
"I'd like that. It'll be the same and completely different at once. I'm not that bruised, pitiful little girl anymore. You should know that you don't have to save me from anything. Just… be with me," she said reassuringly.
"Y-Yeah, of course I know that."
Did he, he wondered?
"I don't pity you, Kayo, but I do worry about you a lot. Just promise you'll talk to me if something is really wrong."
"I guess that wouldn't be too bad… Okay."
Satoru felt like he could see into her soul. It should have been obvious to him before, but her trust in him was complete and unwavering. The thing was it wasn't really fair, because revival had eventually allowed him to befriend her without making a single misstep. It wasn't right because in his first life he had left her standing in that park. Shunned her like all the others to her death. At least now she understood that he had tricked her to protect her, he just… had no idea what he was gonna do now that they were in a relationship.
The couple walked out of the cherry grove together and up the flowered hills as the light receded from them. They rode the train home to Furano sitting next to each other in amiable exhaustion, their hands clasped together between them as the lights flashed by their darkened window.