13
What made him willing to meet with that woman again was that he'd detected a simple sense of gratitude in her message. He'd always avoided second contact with people related to past jobs, but when he tried giving her a call, it turned out she had also, like Ogami, quit doing work on matchmaking apps recently. She too seemed surprised to hear that Ogami had quit.
"What are you doing now?", Miwa asked.
"I'm doing nothing," Ogami answered. And he really wasn't.
"In that case, we can meet right away."
Miwa said she'd be waiting at the same café as their last meeting and hung up. Ogami put a light jacket over his T-shirt, got in the car, and headed for the café.
The rain that had gone on for days finally cleared up that morning. The trees along the road were dripping water from their leaves, and puddles on the pavement brightly reflected the sunlight. It was humid in the car, so Ogami opened the driver's-side window all the way. But he was still sweating, so he parked the car on the way and took off his jacket. Then he was finally comfortable.
Miwa had arrived at the café before Ogami. Meeting her again after months, Ogami felt her cheeks were a bit more plump than in his memory. Maybe it looked that way because she was smiling.
She greeted Ogami with a more favorable attitude than when they last met. Ogami returned the greeting.
"I called you to thank you directly," Miwa said, then quickly explained the circumstances that led to her quitting.
After receiving Ogami's advice, Miwa diligently put it into practice. She strove to observe "anxious-looking men," and trained to perceive the anxieties users were having. She traced men's thoughts, and earnestly imagined what sorts of words they were most wanting to hear right now.
And as she did that, she said she started to empathize with the users.
"An honest man showed up who just made me feel too apologetic to be deceiving," she recounted happily. "So despite being a Sakura, I got the urge to go to meet him in person..."
How things went from there needed no explanation. She quit her job and was thanking Ogami, so the rest was obvious.
"Congrats," Ogami commended. "Guess you being a Sakura will be a lifelong secret."
"No, I spilled the beans right away. I'm not skillful enough to keep someone's company and hide something like that."
"What was his reaction?"
"He said he didn't care."
"Glad he's a tolerant guy."
"I knew he was that kind of person. That's why I wanted to meet him."
Miwa continued to brag about her lover for a while afterward. Ogami listened and nodded along. He hadn't heard a voice directed at him in a while, so it almost felt like listening to music from a foreign country. A song sung in a very distant part of the world, yet it was by no means bad to listen to.
"Come to think of it, you also quit your job, Mr. Ogami."
"Yeah."
"Why'd you quit? It was your calling and all."
"Got tired of it."
"Hmm," she mused. "At any rate, I guess we're both going from being deceivers to being the deceived."
"Guess so. I'll be careful."
"So will I," she agreed, then thought of something. "That said, being deceived isn't all bad."
"Like in the case of your boyfriend?"
"Like that," Miwa said with a smile.
Miwa was right that being a Sakura on matchmaking apps had been Ogami's calling in a way. He could deeply understand the feelings of love-starved people and accurately select the words they wanted to hear - that was one of the reasons.
But it wasn't just that. Ogami had gotten a kind of healing from that work. Being able to artificially fill in a loneliness that wasn't looking for anyone in particular, and above all, realizing that there were many others besides him who were starved for love yet only able to obtain forgeries, eased his pain just the slightest amount.
The biggest reason he decided to quit was because he no longer required that healing.
Ogami turned his thoughts to all the people he'd deceived as a Sakura. There were many honest people, but just as many dishonest people. Some couldn't abandon their pride and put on a bluff, while others abandoned too much pride and became self-debasing. Some were half-mad from being starved for love, while others had gone past starvation, no longer able to even imagine what it was like to love or be loved.
Even so, they were still several steps ahead of me, Ogami thought. At least they were reaching out. They were trying to grab hold of something. Even that simple action took an unbelievable amount of courage for me. Indeed, my emotions have only just started to walk past where they were at age 15. Right now, I can't imagine how far I'll need to walk before I even see their backs.
But there's no rush, Ogami told himself. All I can do is take it at my own pace. Even if all I do is make it back onto the same course as them, I'll just have to be grateful for that.
He left the café and said goodbye to Miwa in the parking lot. While parting, she gave him a little wave with her hand around her shoulder. Like the one Sumika gave him every morning.
Her Handcuff sparkled in the sunlight along with he movement of her arm.
"Goodbye, Mr. Ogami. Take care."
I'll probably never meet her again, Ogami thought for no particular reason as he watched Miwa go. He felt that was as self-evident as the fact he'd never meet Kasumi, Sumika, or Kujirai again. She symbolized many of the things Ogami had been associated with before his Sakura curse was lifted, and so it felt like she had come at the end to say goodbye.
Being deceived isn't all bad.
While driving home, Ogami thought back on Miwa's words.
Was that really true?
Looking back on his own past, many of his problems had come from being deceived, or trying to avoid deception. And as for the people Ogami deceived for work, he might have temporarily shown them a dream, but in the end he just wasted their time and money. It leading to a positive result like Miwa's was surely an exception among exceptions.
And yet, supposing a world where people always spoke their true feelings without falsehood, Sumika would have never fallen to Sakura Delusion, and thus might not have had any special feelings for Ogami. Kujirai wouldn't have fallen in love with Sumika either, and wouldn't become friends with Ogami.
And all told, Ogami thought, those twisted friendships born of suspicion and scheming were, at the moment, the best ones in my life.
By the time he had dinner and got back to the apartment, it was 9 PM. The living room still had some leftover warmth from daytime. Ogami opened the window, turned off the lights, and went to the bathroom. He took a longer shower than usual on account of how much he'd sweat. After cleaning himself thoroughly with soap, he left the bathroom and dried off with a towel.
Changing into sleep wear and returning to the living room, the heat from the day had left, and the smell of a spring night filled the room instead. He went to the window to close it, but then decided to leave it be. Without turning on the light, Ogami sat on the sofa. The comfortable night wind shook the curtains as it blew into the room. Listening close, he could hear distant bugs in the trees.
Over at the kitchen, he poured some whiskey into a glass and put ice in it. As he headed out to the veranda with it in hand, something broke the silence. It was a ringtone. Ogami looked toward the smartphone on his desk. He thought it was Miwa, but it was a call from an unknown number.
The ringtone wasn't stopping. Ogami put down his glass, picked up the phone, and answered the call. An unfamiliar voice spoke an unfamiliar name. Waiting for them to finish speaking, Ogami informed them they had the wrong number and hung up. Then he laid the phone down on the desk, picked up his glass, put on sandals, and went out to the veranda.
Sitting in a folding chair, he drank the whiskey and looked out at the town. It wasn't much of a sight. Aside from the faint light coming from people's houses, the systematic lines of streetlights, and the cars on the road, the rest was just sprawling darkness. And yet compared to winter, the scenery had become considerably more friendly.
Of course, maybe the change of season isn't the only reason I feel that way, Ogami thought. Until just a while ago, no matter where I was, anywhere I went was a town of Sakura. There was surely a lurking threat of Sakura there, so I couldn't let my guard down for a second.
I recalled the name "Blossom Killer" for the first time in a long while.
To borrow that expression, my "sakura" had indeed been killed.
He took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and took off his Handcuff to place it on the cigarette pack. He took a deep inhale of smoke, then let it out bit by bit. Then he looked toward his Handcuff again. Even that, which had bound him for so long as a symbol of Sakura and the system that produced them, now just looked like a regular bracelet.
Ultimately, even this is just a part of the stage setting that makes up our world.
Because the problem always lies with us.
The smell of the cigarette mixed with the night air. Cigarettes tasted different in spring than in winter. It was actually etched deeper into his memory than the smell of the seasons themselves. The smell of a new season is always fresh, and no matter how many decades he lived, Ogami imagined spring would always bring him a surprise.
The time flew by before he knew it. Apparently he had nodded off. Real sleep would probably be coming soon. He had to get back to the room. He needed to sleep properly in his bed, and cultivate the courage to live another day.
But still, why is it so warm tonight?, Ogami thought with wonder. And before he could arrive at an answer, he fell into sleep as if it were swallowing him up.
*
The first action Ogami took after learning the truth of everything was to burn the notebook, the sole piece of evidence.
Once he'd finished reading through the notebook three times, he had no more need for the flashlight. He put the notebook in his pocket, opened the door, and left the car. In the deep blue known as night, a faint orange was starting to mix in. From the trees surrounding the premises, he heard birds chirping. With an animal's cry from one direction being answered by a cry from another, then yet another, the woods gradually became bustling.
He sat down on the hood of the car and put a cigarette in his mouth. Instantly, he was hit with an intense lethargy. It was like the accumulated fatigue of the past few months caught up with him all at once. He struggled to put energy into his limbs, and his head had a dull ache when he tried to move. He felt like he'd aged a decade in one night.
After lighting the cigarette, Ogami took the notebook out of his pocket and lit it aflame as well. The air was dry, so it burned quickly. Ogami watched intently as it turned to ash alongside the truth of that chain of events.
Sumika had wanted only Ogami up to the end. He didn't know how to accept that reality at this point. Indeed, it was because he had always wished for that to be the case that there were countless "but"s surrounding it. A deep conviction had taken root in Ogami's mind that his greatest wish specifically would never be heard.
However, it had been none other than Kujirai's confession. He had to believe it. I have to accept that head-on, Ogami thought. She wasn't just a mirror reflecting back my goodwill. The Sumika my eyes saw back then was simply the real Sumika. Even after we parted, she continued thinking of me for nearly seven years.
It felt like having an all-too-convenient dream. But in reality, maybe it was more fair to say he'd just woken from a nightmare.
Ogami thought about that nightmare once more. You never really liked me at all, did you? That day seven years ago, how had she felt hearing the words I hurled at her across the train tracks? When forsaken by the one person in this world she could trust, how much despair did she feel?
And despite having just been subjected to such a cruel thing, she wrung out the willpower to reply "Yeah. I didn't like you at all."
May Ogami at least be able to leave me cleanly, with no bitterness.
He wanted to go back to that moment if he could. He wanted to run across the tracks to her and embrace her in his arms. He wanted to tell her it was all just a misunderstanding. He wanted to say that he needed her just as much, if not moreso, than she needed him.
But it had already ended seven years ago. As much as he raised his voice, there was no way of conveying those feelings to their past selves.
Images of another present that could have been came to mind one after another. It was impossible to stop them. Compared to that present, this reality he was in now seemed to have no value at all.
Once his cigarette was mostly ash, Ogami hastily lit up a second cigarette. And he focused his mind on the taste of the smoke. If he didn't distract himself like that, it felt like something swelling up in his chest was going to burst.
To shake away the thoughts, Ogami looked up at the cherry blossoms overhead. Seeing them in the faint light of dawn, they looked to him like common white flowers. Indeed, they were merely flowers. They were appreciated only because they went so quickly; if they bloomed year-round, people would quickly tire of them.
I wonder what Kasumi would say seeing this, Ogami suddenly thought. She liked the botanical garden, so no doubt she would have liked cherry blossoms as much as anyone. She had hoped to go see the botanical garden at night with Ogami. In the end, that promise never came to fruition. She was unable to enjoy this year's cherry blossoms. Those cheap artificial ones must have been the last she saw.
But no doubt her resolve wouldn't have changed even if she'd gotten to see some real sakura. At some point or another, she would vanish from Ogami's sight, and fulfill her original objective with a firm will.
Now that the mysteries of Sumika and Kujirai had been revealed, Ogami could easily imagine the reason Kasumi decided to die alone, too.
"Perhaps I was able to avoid dying until today because I knew you'd become my Sakura someday."
Her last words. By coincidence, they also described Sumika's true objective while she was alive.
When she realized that, she must have also realized the true meaning of the terrible mistake she had made.
I was convinced my sister had changed for the worse, but what if that wasn't it at all?
What if she was just wearing an elaborate mask, and behind that mask was the very same sister I had loved?
What if once she achieved her goal of reuniting with Ogami, she was ready to immediately discard that mask and return to her old self?
And I took that chance away from my sister forever.
There was no path left for Kasumi to turn back to. So the last thing she did was push Ogami, the man which her sister would have done anything to get back, over to the side of the living.
Maybe she realized that if she didn't do that, she would be taking even Ogami from her sister.
Feel free to hate me all you like, Kujirai had said in the notebook. But oddly, I didn't feel any anger toward him. It wasn't because he had received enough punishment, nor because the last lines of the notebook had moved my heart.
It's just if I'd been asked to pick one or the other, I would've picked Sumika without hesitation.
That was all there was to it. We were both in disadvantageous roles, but compared to the fate he arrived at, maybe I had it a little better.
It's a little different from forgiveness. And it's not sympathy, either.
Maybe the closest word for it is "recognition."
Finally, he decided to go back inside the car one more time. When Ogami opened the door, he found it strange that he didn't see Kujirai. It felt as if he'd been talking with Kujirai there all night. But all there was inside the car was a faint smell of rust and oil.
Leaving the door open, he lay down in the driver's seat and watched the dawn fully turn into morning. When the sun shone brightly on the sakura, they regained their specialness. Yet Ogami closed his eyes, and gazed upon the scene behind his eyelids instead.
It was the first day of their third year of middle school. When he arrived at school, Sumika was looking at the class roster posted at the entrance, but suddenly hid her face and covered her eyes.
When Ogami asked what was wrong, Sumika shook her head silently, then said "hay fever" in a nasally voice.
"My face is really something right now, so you shouldn't look."
"What kind of pollen sets it off?"
"Cedars, cypresses, rice plants, wormwoods, and dandelions."
It was very clearly a lie, but Ogami just said "sounds rough" and left it at that.
At a later date, he talked about it while alone with Kujirai.
"It startled me since she suddenly started crying," Ogami said. "What was that about?"
"She must've been so happy to be in your class she cried, duh," Kujirai said like it was nothing. "I was real happy myself that the three of us didn't have to go our separate ways."
The frankness he spoke with made Ogami falter.
"Happy, sure, but enough to cry?"
"I was nervous enough to puke that morning. If I ended up separated from you guys, I was thinking of playing dumb, carrying over a desk, and attending your class."
"I'd kinda like to see that."
"What about you? What would you have done if you were separated from us?"
Ogami thought it over for a while. "I might've felt the futility of life and secluded myself."
"Now that I'd like to see," Kujirai said in a raised voice and laughed.
When Sumika appeared later, the two asked her the same question.
Sumika pondered it with a serious expression.
"In that case, I'd have to take Ogami or Kujirai's place each day."
"Dressing up in a boy's uniform?", Kujirai asked.
"Yes. We'd trade uniforms so you could do the same with me."
"With your talent for acting, Kujirai, that might actually work out," Ogami remarked.
"I really wouldn't think so," Kujirai said in an imitation of Sumika. The impression was accurate enough that even Sumika held her sides with laughter.
In that moment, we really were best friends, Ogami thought.
He felt something inside him break. A door he'd firmly closed so as to never open it again was torn open, and he felt the old feelings pushed within flooding out. It was a rush of emotion that felt like dizziness, and he grit his teeth to endure it. But the more he tried to resist, the more it picked up speed, with no limit in sight.
Why hadn't everyone told me the truth sooner?, he wanted to scream. If even one person had revealed the reality before it was too late, things might not have ended in such an awful way. There could have been a world where Sumika, Kujirai, and Kasumi were all just living as normal.
And the biggest fool of all had been me. If I'd had the courage to take another step to confirm Sumika's feelings, if I'd had the guts to confront Kujirai directly, this absolutely wouldn't have happened. Sumika probably would have believed me, and as much as I fought with Kujirai, we could've made up in the end. Even Kasumi could have been an entirely happy girl if she hadn't lost her beloved sister.
And so I was left alone. Maybe I should follow the three of them right away. If I do that, at least I won't be left out. I won't have to worry about or regret anything anymore.
But Ogami knew that in truth, he had no desire to die. Likely the Handcuff on his wrist knew that, too.
As much as he wallowed in sorrow, no Sakura would appear to console him.
A person who'd had two genuine best friends had no need for Sakura.
To stay here by myself, and continue to think of them. That must be the role I've been given.
That's what he felt.
Ogami started by remembering the day Sumika first spoke to him. Then he went day by day, digging up everything he could remember in order. And from each and every one, he went removing the label that marked them as "fake." Like picking the individual petals off a flower.
*
It was about time to return to town. Smoking one last cigarette, Ogami left it in the ashtray and got out of the car. He walked down the shrine road lined with sakura trees, taking each step firmly. The wind, still retaining a slight chill, blew through the premises, rustling the trees and scattering petals.
He went through the torii gate, down the log stairs, and back to his own car. When he sat in the driver's seat, it felt like an awfully nostalgic place considering he'd only been away from it for a night. He slightly adjusted the angle of the mirror, put on his seatbelt, grabbed the wheel, and waited in that position for his senses to get accustomed.
Taking a final deep breath, he turned the key to start the engine. The car shuddered, and the gauges lit up.
The navigation system activated, and asked him his destination like usual.
The Town of Sakura, Ogami replied without thinking.
"I couldn't find "The Town of Sakura,"" the navigation system said after a short pause.