I couldn’t stop talking, as if I had to get out all the words trapped in my heart. “I had to see Saya, even if it was in a dream. I knew that if only I could see her, I’d finally be able to come to terms with it.”
I apologised in my turn for venting like this when we’d only just met, but Ryoko told me she understood. “I feel the same, like I have to see Yuki, even if it’s just a dream,” she said with painful sincerity.
We stood there awhile in silence.
“Shall we head back now?” Ryoko said finally.
I nodded, and we were about to turn back, when a staticky melody rang out in the peaceful sky.
“It’s the sunset chime,” Ryoko sighed. “Ah, that takes me back. Do you know the name of this song?”
“… It’s the Red Dragonfly.” Something in my chest was slowly unfolding. The same song had always played in my hometown.
One day I’d gotten very upset over something or other and decided not to go home. The park was glowing orange in the sunset when Saya came to get me; I refused to take a single step, so she carried me on her back.
“Hey, Akane,” she said. “You know this song?”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
“It’s the Red Dragonfly. It might come up in one of your school books sometime, you know.”
Saya had to stop and heave me back into the right position quite a few times. “You know what, I’m the older girl carrying the boy on her back in the sunset glow, just like in the song. Akane, I wonder if you’ll still remember this when you’re all grown up.”
In the end, I managed to keep my mouth shut the whole way. But tears formed in my eyes at the gentle melody of the Red Dragonfly and the world enveloped in orange light I saw over Saya’s shoulder.
Ryoko murmured, “It’s a beautiful song.”
I couldn’t say anything. My eyes were burning, my chest ached; I clenched my fists tight.
＊＊＊
In the vivid orange glare we got back on the bus and sat side by side. I kept rubbing my eyes, and Ryoko dropped her cap onto my head.
“Keep it till I can pay you back,” she said, and when I thanked her, she said with a smile, “It suits you, Akane.”
When I glanced at Ryoko again, she looked less like Saya. Definitely a different person, I told myself again.
We shared our stories as if reluctant to part. I told her about Saya, who I remembered now, and she recounted more memories of her grandmother Yuki. Saying the words out loud brought back the past afresh, in all its colours.
“Have one of these.” I offered her the paper bag.
“They’re so beautifully red.” Ryoko picked out a persimmon and smiled at it. The paper bag was lightened by one.
From the window of the bus, which was open a crack, a fresh breeze swept between us.
Translated by Sharni Wilson
5/5
