—But you came running off the train after me.
—Because I was already lured in!
—Well, I’m glad to know that we were both aware of each other from the start, Yuki said, opting for an extremely peaceable conclusion.
The Umeda-bound train was quite empty, perhaps because it was a local, and even though they were only riding it for one stop, Masashi and Yuki took a seat.
While they waited for the train to depart, Masashi had a question.
‘Hey. Do you want to know the reason behind the kanji character on the sandbank?’
Although the kanji character had been washed away and now it just looked like any other sandbank, it was still special to them.
Masashi knew the truth about the stones that had been assembled in the form of a kanji character. He had looked into it after Yuki had pointed it out to him.
Apparently, several years after the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995, the kanji character had been constructed as an art installation on the sandbank, as a sort of hopeful wish for the region’s rebirth. It had gone through a restoration, and that had just happened when the two of them had first seen it together.
‘Uh-uh.’ As she had the first time they met, Yuki rejected the idea of knowing the facts behind it. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I already found out what its meaning is.’
‘Its “meaning”?’
‘It’s our god of matchmaking.’ Yuki pressed her hands together briefly when she said this.
After all, her initial association with it had been a draught beer – which was quite off the wall, compared with the meaning that the original artwork had intended – though it made sense that she would first think of it as a prank and later assign goodwill and affection to it, in keeping with her always positive outlook.
‘Yuki, remember when you said that I was cheating because I could go to both the western branch and the central library?’
‘Yeah, sure, and I still think you’re cheating!’
‘In that case …’ He prayed to the god of matchmaking or the god of the sandbank to come to his aid, as they had for Yuki. ‘What if we looked for a place together in Obayashi?’
Yuki’s eyes widened. ‘You mean …?’
‘Uh-huh, both of us are the right age, aren’t we? You’re not planning on staying single, and you have your future to think about. As for me, I’m in favour of living together before marriage. Not necessarily in order to determine if the other person is “the one” or for any particular ulterior motive. But because everyone grows up in different environments, with different family rules, you know? This way, we can find out whether those differences complement each other.’
‘And then if we do complement each other, maybe, you think, we oughta get married?’
Yuki looked down and then she squeezed Masashi’s hand tightly.
‘Let’s hope we can find a good place to live.’
Yuki’s reply coincided with the announcement of the train’s departure, and Masashi squeezed her hand back in response.
Read on for an extract from
THE GOODBYE CAT
The Goodbye Cat
ASMALL DISH OF SOY sauce sat on the dining table. A couple of grains of rice floated in it, left over from breakfast, no doubt. The dining table was covered by a light-blue tablecloth printed with a random pattern of small flowers.
Kota Sakuraba placed a palm into the soy sauce, then pushed it firmly on to the tablecloth, being careful to avoid the flowers. He left his palm there for a bit, then lifted it to reveal a small, soy sauce-coloured plum blossom print.
Gazing at his work, Kota again dipped his palm in the soy sauce. Then again, and again. More and more soy sauce-coloured plum flowers bloomed on the blue cloth.
He was about to make a fourth and a fifth print when—
‘Hiromi! Stop that!’ Mum scolded.
And then—
‘Did I do something?’
It was Hiromi, in the hallway, peeking uncertainly into the living room. He was the Sakuraba family’s second son.
Kota was the Sakurabas’ third-eldest son – scratch that,