Episode 90: Poem / Song / Uta

There is too much I want to say, and the words won’t come together. I have woven far more words than any lyric could hold, all of it writing Shion — and the world divided by barlines feels unbearably cramped.

The day after we promised to write a song together — me on lyrics, Shion on composition — Shion had already made the music.

“Thinking about you, it felt like no time at all. I’m always thinking about you, so I just had to turn that into sound.”

She said it without ceremony, and then was every bit as straightforwardly sweet about it as someone who hadn’t just accomplished something extraordinary. Her grip tightening in mine, fingers lacing through mine, the warmth I’ll have to let go of someday.

And so the baton passed from Shion, composition finished, to me.

The melody Shion made was beautiful, radiant. Sound made only for me — my ideal in musical form. Now I have to weave words made only for Shion. A poem that will let her fly far.

A week has passed since then, and I still haven’t found the words I want to give her.

I steel myself, put in my wired earphones, and play the melody I’ve listened to so many times. The flowing piano melody, and Shion’s humming — transparent, like the sound of a little bell. Every time I hear that voice, I remember going to karaoke, playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together. Whatever form it takes when she touches it, I love Shion’s music, it is my ideal of beauty — and nothing but that feeling wells up, too large, too much, refusing to fit inside a melody.

This kind of frustration is something I haven’t felt in a long time. Since meeting Shion, I had this unshakeable thing — writing Shion’s beauty. The fingers writing the novel almost never stopped.

I want to offer that same central thing. Just as Shion is my reason for writing, I believe that if I unravel the feeling that overflows, there is always a core beneath it. I want to sort through that one piece at a time and make it into words, and give it to her.

Though in the end, since every reason I have is Shion, that’s where it gets difficult.

Even so — sinking deeper, one by one, clumsily — I make them into words.

Like the moment I found Shion in the after-school music room. The melody overflowing with grief, and the blunt, dismissive manner. If I hadn’t reached out, it wouldn’t even have become a meeting. To avoid that ending, before I’d even realised it, I was reaching out. I was saying: play piano for me.

Come to think of it — perhaps from that moment, from the very beginning, my words were always for Shion. The image of the child prodigy on the television screen. I had met Shion before we ever met, so no matter how far back I trace, my ideal was never anything but Shion.

I fix that beginning moment in words, hold it there. And then, one by one, what I learned about Shion.

How beautiful her trembling eyes are. How when those violet-indigo eyes look at me, my heartbeat rises past my control. How every time that silver-gleaming hair stirs, my gaze is stolen. How we played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together, and that brightness kept on glittering at the edge of my vision.

How the moment I first learned her name, my world was dyed in the sound of Shion.

Yes — hopelessly, inevitably, every reason I have is Shion. So I want to be a reason for Shion too. I want to be the reason she plays music. For that, I want to weave words that let her take flight. I want every line of the poem I’m writing now to be exactly that.

I want to protect Shion with my words, so she is never tormented by a curse again. I want what binds her pure-white fingertips to be not a curse, but a promise we made together.

“Past and future both — every part of my life, I’ll give it all to you, Shion.”

I want to protect her with words like that.

The past — I’ve already given all of it. The blue of spring, the heat-touched summer — when I reach back, all I find is Shion. But I won’t make Shion into a memory. I’m going to use this autumn too, and winter, and all of the future, for Shion. Because I want to go on living now, together with Shion, always.

I write and write these grand, sweeping things — wanting to give her words sturdy enough to lean on — and then I think: when Shion is gone, in that now, I won’t be able to hold her hand, or embrace her, or kiss her. And the feeling overflows and won’t stop.

I’m lonely. I’m lonely that Shion is going to fly away. But I don’t want her to look back. Because if those violet-indigo eyes look at me, I might say it again — this time I might reach out with the words that would hold her here.

So fly. I’ll be watching, exactly as promised — you can trust that. I’ll keep writing your beauty, always. Until I can embody my ideal, I’ll keep reaching out, again and again.

Such sentimental words. I’ve written that far, and I realise there is only one thing left that I have.

I am hopelessly, helplessly in love with Shion.

◇◇◇

I finish the lyrics and sit staring blankly at the screen, when a notification arrives on the open laptop. The novel posting site — the little red bell icon is lit.

I click it. The work page for I Dedicate This Final Note to You. And there, displayed, is a comment from Otonashi-san.

“Congratulations on the prize. From now on too — your words are my reason for living.”

Straightforward words, so unlike Otonashi-san’s usual manner.

Strangely, it made me just as happy as receiving words from Shion — and feeling just a little guilty that the poem I’m sending to Shion is the one thing I can’t show Otonashi-san, I wrote my reply.