Episode 58 — Summer
Sound fills up the summer break. Like water slowly eroding its way in, the existence called Shion saturates everything around me, and I drown in it.
Early morning, my day begins with Shion’s voice. While I drift in the current of sleep, Shion’s voice is always buoyant — and trading words with her, my consciousness gradually surfaces toward waking.
Then, about an hour after that call ends, Shion’s mother comes to collect me by car. Shion is always in the back seat, and the moment I climb in she squeezes my hand tight.
From there — the Kanzaki house, the basement wrapped in grey, listening to Shion’s sound. Burning the beauty of the existence called Kanzaki Shion into my eyes, until my heart aches with it. Rolling the sweet resonance of the word promise on my tongue. Watching only Shion.
Shion’s playing seems to deepen in power with each passing day. I know nothing about music in general — but when it comes to Shion, I know her perhaps a little too well. From the accumulation of comparisons with what came before, I can tell how dramatically her level is climbing. One proof of it is that Shion’s mother has less and less to interject, less and less to instruct, as the sessions go on.
Shion’s fingers ride the characteristic, unease-stirring rhythm to perfection. And the emotion transmitted through them grows larger day by day. As if asserting watch only me — each small particle of sound takes on greater mass, greater weight. And yet the characteristic delicacy of her tone, its refined beauty, is not diminished by a single shade. Each time I think she must have reached the highest point possible, her sound takes flight and leaves that assumption easily behind. However many times I watch Shion play, however long — I never tire of it.
And before I’ve had a chance to breathe, the lesson is over. Back into Shion’s mother’s car through a sky streaked with evening light, home again. Dropped off at the usual spot — and Shion, as if reluctant to say goodbye, walks me all the way to right in front of my building. The palm pressed tight in mine, the fingers wound through mine, trap the summer between them — always hot. Shion’s cool body temperature seemed to melt together with my heat and the summer itself, becoming one. Under the blazing crimson of the evening sun, what burned was not the sky but my heart, and the fingertips touching Shion.
And that connection — once we reach my building — has to be undone.
Like a small child refusing to let go, Shion resists while I gently, slowly loosen the held hands. And then: bye bye, she says, clinging to the last moment. See you tonight, I say.
And having passed through that exchange, I come home. After the necessary things — dinner, bath — I write. Leaning forward, ignoring the dripping sweat, I transcribe into words the Shion in my memory, the melody she played, the heartbeat she brings me.
Because I keep going through the same motions every day through summer break, the structure of the episodes is repetitive. But in compensation, I write carefully about each small exchange, each unremarkable moment.
For instance: that a chair and cushion were set out in the basement especially for me. That during the lesson break, I ate cold sōmen noodles with Shion and Shion’s mother for lunch. That Shion clung to me so shamelessly even through the meal that Shion’s mother scolded her, and she sulked. That a song I used to listen to during school lunch breaks came on in the car — apparently that band has become popular in the Kanzaki household, and the music I used to hear through earphones alone now fills the car.
Those small, ordinary, precious memories — I hold them close and put them into words. Weave them into language. Through that repetition, I come to like my own words a little more with each episode — not to the degree that Shion improves with each performance, but still. Above all, they are the words Shion said she loved. That fact rings in my heart like a sweetly binding curse. As long as Shion is at my centre, as long as I have the purpose of writing about her — I want to keep writing novels forever, even until I’m an old woman. I found myself thinking that.
And so, having written the day’s memories into fiction, and posted them to the site, just around the time Otonashi-san’s comment arrives —
My phone trembles with an incoming call. When I answer, immediately, a beloved voice touches my ear. The bell-clear voice that calls my name — Uta — like the sound of a chime.
Even though we’d been together only moments ago, something like nostalgia washes over me every time I hear her voice through the phone — and that tells me how much I lean on Shion, that even a single moment apart is enough to feel lonely. And I hope that Shion is the same.
As if tracing that hope, Shion always says the same thing.
“Don’t fall asleep before I do.” I’m happy that she asks this of me, happy that she leans on me like this — the hope that Shion is truly leaning on me too rings sweetly inside. With something almost maternal, the kind that exists only toward Shion, I talk to her about nothing in particular — lulling her toward sleep. I find myself thinking: that Shion’s last sound before her consciousness fades at the end of her day is my voice. And as we go on like this, Shion’s voice melts slowly, and in a faint, hushed whisper she leaves these words behind: “See you tomorrow.”
That see you tomorrow felt as though it would continue forever. The competition that was apparently coming in the last stretch of summer break felt as though it would never arrive. Summer break felt as though it would never end. For the first time, I found myself wishing it wouldn’t.
Shion’s sound fills up the summer break. Every day, woken by Shion, watching Shion play, putting Shion’s beauty into words, watching over Shion as she falls asleep. It was like drowning in the existence called Shion — my chest tightening, my breath growing short, exhaustion accumulating. And even so, I didn’t want to let these days go.
That summer piled up, layer upon layer, like cumulonimbus clouds.