“Pah.”
Watanabe Toru opened his eyes and what he saw was the blue sky with rolling white clouds.
The sky had been clear since the morning. After noon, a few clouds floated in from somewhere, but the sun was still bright.
He lowered his head slightly, and Kujo Miki snuggled in his arms.
He gently stroked her delicate little face, picked up a strand of hair, and tickled her neck.
"Hmm..." Miki Kujo made a slight sound of dissatisfaction.
She twisted her body and moved closer to Watanabe Toru, burying her face in his arms.
Toru Watanabe put his right hand on her slender waist and held her right hand with his left hand.
Kujo Miki has five slender fingers with thin, pale pink nails like petals. Under the warm sun, her hands are so white that they are almost transparent, and they are slender, beautiful and delicate.
Toru Watanabe held and released her hand as if massaging a baby's hand.
After a while, Kujo Miki woke up.
She glanced at Toru Watanabe, then closed her eyes again and fell asleep in his arms, still letting him play with her hands.
"Don't sleep." Toru Watanabe patted her waist with his right hand and prepared to get up.
Kujo Miki put one leg on him, and Watanabe Toru had to lie down again.
His lips touched her lightly scented hair: "What's wrong?"
"I haven't been sleeping well recently." Miki Kujo closed her eyes.
Toru Watanabe remembered that she had indeed woken up very early this morning.
He wondered if it was because of Asuka Mai and Koizumi Aona.
To be able to make such a decision, Kujo Miki must have thought about it countless times in her mind and thought about it again and again at night.
He didn't ask, but just hugged her tightly.
After a long silence, Kujo Miki's deep voice came:
"After I knew you had a lover, I wanted to kill them directly. It was obviously a simple thing, but I couldn't do it. I hesitated and was worried that you would leave me."
"No." said Toru Watanabe.
No matter what Kujo Miki did, even if they hated each other, he would not allow her to leave.
They had had sex, and she was his for life.
"Later one night, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was sitting in a car and saw you and Qingye Rin walking on the road, talking and laughing."
Miki Kujo didn't say anything else.
Why did I have that dream? Was it because of the estrangement between me and Toru Watanabe? Was it a manifestation of my long-standing worries?
She didn't say whether the dream ended there or how she felt after waking up.
Watanabe Toru didn't ask anything, but just held her hand tightly, put his arm around her waist, and whispered firmly in her ear:
"Meiji, I will always love you."
"What if the dream happened?"
"I don't know what happened in the dream, but even if our lives intersected and you only glanced at me in the car we never had any contact since then, like two perpendicular lines that only intersect once in a lifetime, I would follow the lines, return to the intersection, and look for you."
"Go on."
"Looking for you, thousands and thousands of times."
"Tell me more."
"At that time, you will still be a straight line, and I will become a wavy line. Do you know an electrocardiogram? Up and down, up and down, constantly intersecting with your straight line, and finally the two lines become one line."
"Isn't that death? What a metaphor." Miki Kujo hit Toru Watanabe on the chest and sat up.
Watanabe Toru looked at her face that had regained its vitality and smiled: "We must die in a line. Look how much I love you."
"I love you more."
"No, I love you more."
"If I don't let you support those two women, will you love me?"
"I loved you then, and I love you even more now, twice as much as you love me."
“Isn’t it true that the depth of love cannot be described in words?”
"What's the reason? Why not? Who said that? I will kill him tonight."
Miki Kujo gave Toru Watanabe a fierce look with her charming and noble eyes.
The two men stood up, and they were the only two left on the hillside.
Toru Watanabe bent down to pick up the drawing board from the bushes. The "click" he heard just now was the sound of the drawing board being blown down by the wind.
Kujo Miki threw herself on his back.
Watanabe Toru hooked her legs, stood up, and said with a smile:
"If you rush over suddenly, be careful not to fall. This is a hillside, just roll down."
"Do you want to roll around with your sister on the hillside where wild flowers are blooming?" Miki Kujo bit Watanabe Toru's ear and teased him with a smile in her rippling voice.
"OK."
The blue sky, the white cumulus clouds, the hillside covered with wild flowers, Watanabe Toru holding a drawing board, carrying Kujo Miki who wanted to roll over on his back, walking on the high ridge.
Back at the campsite, Rin Kiyono and the two ladies painted facing the lake on the top of the mountain. The two ladies held paintbrushes in their right hands and fruits in their left hands.
Rin Kiyono struggled to scrape the weeds off the drawing board with a palette knife.
The gust of wind just now blew over her drawing board.
"You've come just in time!" Mrs. Kujo said to the two people who came down the hillside, "Take a boat to the center of the lake and be our models."
Toru Watanabe and Miki Kujo got on the boat and rowed to the center of the lake.
"Your mother is really bossy, just like you."
"You don't like it?"
"Like your mother? At this point, I won't lie to you. I feel average about her."
Kujo Miki kicked him.
When they reached the center of the lake, Watanabe Toru let go of the oars and continued to sail in the boat above the blue sky and white clouds in the lake.
"Are we just going to sit here like idiots?" asked Toru Watanabe.
"You made me get up." Kujo Miki said dissatisfiedly.
"I mean, can I kiss you, Meiji, my beautiful princess?"
"Will you really love me forever?"
"I swear," Toru Watanabe slowly approached and said in his low and gentle voice, "I swear to the blue sky and the mountaintop lake that I, Toru Watanabe, will always love Kujo Miki."
He put his left arm around Kujo Miki and placed his right hand on her shoulder, staring at the delicate little face that was slightly tilted upward.
Kujo Miki closed her eyes.
The sun fell on her face.
The cold and soft lips touched Watanabe Toru's breath.
Her heart seemed to sink into the bottom of a clear lake, and also to fly up to the blue sky with white clouds.
…
By the lake, with the help of a camping lamp, Toru Watanabe admired the oil painting centered on him and Miki Kujo.
Five people sat around the table, with a charcoal fire in the middle and a grill on top of it. On the grill were corn, sausages, asparagus, shrimps, meat skewers, etc.
A bonfire burned nearby, sparks rising like rain and mist.
"How is it, Watanabe-kun?" Mrs. Kiyono pursed her crystal clear lips and blew air on the asparagus, worried that they would be burned.
"It's a realm that I can never reach no matter what." Watanabe Toru put down the painting in admiration.
"No need to be modest," Qingye Rin said as he ate a thin slice of roast beef, "You can also draw apes very well."
"That's right." Watanabe Toru picked up a skewer of meat, bit it with his teeth, pulled it, chewed it with big mouthfuls, and the fat exploded in his mouth. "When it comes to drawing apes, I think Kamikawa is the best."
"Painting of an ape-man?" Mrs. Kujo asked curiously.
"It means ugly." Miki Kujo was eating a brightly colored skewer of meat, green peppers, corn, and asparagus.
"It's fine to say it's ugly, but at least explain what it is. It's the painting that's ugly, not the person," protested Toru Watanabe.
The two ladies laughed.
"Watanabe-kun," Mrs. Kiyono's lips were still burned, "We have drawn pictures, do you want to show your talent too?"
"Are you sure you want me to sing?" Toru Watanabe looked around at everyone and said with a smile.
"Forget about singing!" Everyone refused.
"Oh, I remembered." Watanabe Toru put down the skewer and wiped his mouth with a tissue.
He walked to the lake and broke off a leaf to make a flute.
He sat back in his seat, "When I was back home, I was the best at playing the Kusanagi flute in Mizawamura."
"Are you the only one blowing it?" said Miki Kujo.
"Nonsense, all the kids in the village can play it! It's ready." Toru Watanabe put the flute to his lips.
The long and nostalgic sound of the grass flute erased the surrounding sounds, and the sky, the earth, and the lakeside all returned to silence.
Under the bright moonlight, the sounds of grass flutes, bonfires burning, and lake water lapping against the shore interweave into a soft melody.
When the song
"It sounds nice." Mrs. Kiyono praised.
"Why is it the Kamikawa school song?" Miki Kujo tore off a bit of meat and fed it to the "Queen".
"The Yotsuya hills, the school building where crows fly over, our alma mater, Kamikawa." Watanabe Toru sang the beginning, "This is probably the only song I can sing without being out of tune."
"It's a pity there's no guitar." He added, "Otherwise I'd make the moon fall in love with me tonight."
"Guitar?" Kujo Miki confirmed.
"The oboe doesn't have the same feeling as the guitar." Watanabe Toru laughed, "How about me holding the guitar, crossing my legs, singing beautiful songs by the lake or by the campfire? Will you love me more?"
"It sounds good, but you can't play the guitar, and you can't sing," said Rin Kiyono.
"That makes sense." Watanabe Toru nodded, "Anyone want to sing? I can accompany you."
"We'll sing a song together, and then Rin and Miki will sing a song together." Mrs. Kiyono wiped her mouth with a tissue.
I don’t know if they discussed it beforehand, but Mrs. Kujo agreed immediately.
Without giving her daughter a chance to object, she said, "Watanabe-kun just played the school song, so let's sing the graduation song."
""Tabiri no Riに"?" Mrs. Kiyono guessed.
Mrs. Kujo shook her head seriously.
"'Suitachi-chi no Uta'?" Mrs. Kiyono immediately said the next song title.
"correct!"
Mrs. Kiyono laughed happily, and the two seemed to be playing a song title game.
Mrs. Kujo turned around and asked Watanabe Toru: "Watanabe-kun, have you heard of it?"
"I have heard of it, but please wait a moment." Watanabe Toru closed his eyes and recalled the day he graduated from Mizawa Junior High School a year ago.
Remembering the tune, he played it twice on his straw flute.
"That's enough." After saying that, he played the prelude to farewell.
Mrs. Kiyono and Mrs. Kujo looked at each other and started singing at the same time.
"Flowers are colorful, clouds are flowing"
"Unforgettable memories, bringing back thousands of thoughts"
"Leave the memory to yesterday's windowsill"
"Spread your wings and fly into the blue sky today"
The singing of the two ladies is really beautiful.
After the song was over, Watanabe Toru applauded alone, and the two ladies bowed their heads politely to express their gratitude.
"The wives' group is over, it's the daughters' group's turn." Mrs. Kiyono clasped her hands and said, "Watanabe-kun, you will be the judge and see which group sings better."
"no problem."
"No." Qingye Rin refused coldly.
Kujo Miki smiled and said, "That's fine with me."
"Rin~" Mrs. Kiyono puffed up her cheeks like an angry little girl.
Qingye Rin turned a blind eye, picked up the golden roasted pork belly from the grill, dipped it in a saucer, and put it into his mouth elegantly.
"Then what do you want to do?" Mrs. Qingye said dissatisfiedly.
After eating the pork belly, Qingye Rin said, "Recently, the three of us participated in a light novel writing competition. The results will be announced in early June. Now we will recite them to you and see who is better."
"Write novels?" Mrs. Kujo asked curiously, "Does Miki also do this?"
Watanabe Toru told her the reason, but she still pretended to be unaware.
"The loser will wear a maid outfit for a week," said Kujo Miki, looking at Kiyono Rin, "The clothes have been made for you."
"I've also prepared yours." Qingye Rin responded with a smile.
"It looks really interesting," Mrs. Kiyono said impatiently, "Quickly recite it to us!"
Qingye Rin took a sip of barley tea.
“At the end of March or the beginning of April, I was running like crazy at Morioka Station…”
"Wait, why are you carrying me?!" Toru Watanabe asked in surprise.
"My weak stamina made my running movements deformed. You can tell how strange it is from the way other people in the station look at me." Kujo Miki continued to carry me down.
"Meiji, you?!"
"It's a pity that I didn't make it in time." Kiyono Rin said, "The Akita Line from Iwate Prefecture to Tokyo still left me behind."
"Damn it——" Toru Watanabe not only recited the next line, but also shouted out his own feelings.
"The crows flew across the blue sky, passed through Miyagi Prefecture and Tochigi Prefecture, and finally landed on the wire fence on the playground of a high school in Tokyo." Kujo Miki took a sip of juice.
“It blinked its dark eyes and looked towards a classroom on the third floor. Our story began.”
The two ladies listened with great interest, sometimes eating barbecue, sometimes drinking, and sometimes asking about the plot.
"Watanabe-kun, why does the male protagonist always say that he is no longer a human being?" asked Mrs. Kiyono.
“Catering to the market.”
"Why can I see underwear at the stairs? Are the skirts in school very short?" asked Mrs. Kujo.
"I made it up."
"Wow, you actually broke into the women's locker room? And in that instant, you actually remembered all the styles of bras? Watanabe-kun, you're amazing!" Mrs. Kiyono praised exaggeratedly.
[After completing Mission 2, players will receive a "May Gift Pack"*1]
"……Thanks."
It was not until twelve o'clock that they ended the last night of this family trip.
After soaking in the hot spring, Toru Watanabe lay in the tent - Miki Kujo did not really sleep with him.
"When you get back, tell Mai-san and Koizumi-sensei the good news."
"I don't know what the reaction will be, I'm really looking forward to it."
Toru Watanabe thought about going back home, closed his eyes, and prepared to fall asleep with a happy mood.
There was silence all around, the lake water lapping against the rocky shore, and the bonfire was still burning.
The next moment when he emptied his mind, the emotions that had been suppressed by instinct suddenly burst out.
The sadness that almost suffocated him.
It swept over him, and Toru Watanabe's stomach began to twitch.
The space around him seemed to be shrinking, trying to squeeze him out.
He could not hear any sound, smell any smell, or think of any happy thoughts.
Is that it, the end?
Is this the end of his and Kiyono Rin's life?
That unreachable dream that can never be realized is ultimately just a dream.
Sadness is not because of unwillingness, but because of determination. The stronger the determination, the sadder he is.
Finally, Toru Watanabe suddenly opened his eyes, gasping and taking deep breaths as if he had been holding his breath for a long time.
If this continues, tears...
He stood up, opened the tent, and wanted to take a walk to the lake.
The moonlight is bright, the lake is sparkling, and the evening breeze is blowing.
In front, by the lake, Kiyono Rin stood there alone, gazing at the brilliant Milky Way above her head.
Watanabe Toru looked at her and was about to go back to the tent, but the next moment, Kiyono Rin made a move.
She reached out towards the moon in the lake, trying to grab something.
Toru Watanabe stood there for a long time, unable to take a step forward, whether to move forward or back to the tent.
Qingye Rin suddenly turned around, and her long hair swayed slightly in the night breeze with the fragrance of green grass.
Her skin was as white as the moon, and her dark eyes were like stars, sparkling with bright light.
She looked at Toru Watanabe with those eyes.
"Too excited to sleep?" she asked.
"...Good evening." Watanabe Toru walked over leisurely and stood by the lake, trying his best to behave as if he was relaxed.
Looking closer, the lake on the top of the mountain, which had been sparkling just now, was now pitch black like an abyss except for the moon.
Kiyono Rin stood beside him, and the two of them looked at the lake side by side.
"Can't sleep?" he asked.
"Watanabe."
"Um."
"Once people have expectations, their mood will become uncertain."
"It seems so." Watanabe Toru nodded.
“I still miss that moment.”
"When you were little with Meiji?"
"The tram I took home last Christmas."
Toru Watanabe stared into the distance in silence.
Under the sky, the mountain tops surrounding the lake appeared as black outlines.
After a moment's silence, Qingye Rin suddenly smiled, and the almost frozen and dull atmosphere slightly dissipated.
"I am pleased with your presence here tonight."
"I'm so excited that I can't sleep. What are you happy about?"
"You feel sad and want to cry?"
Without waiting for Watanabe Toru to answer, Kiyono Rin turned around and said to him with a smile:
"Me too."
"..." Watanabe Toru tried his best to pretend that he didn't care, "I thought you wouldn't feel discouraged or sad."
"That was before I met you." Qing Ye Lin looked at the moon in the lake again, "When people have the happiness they want to fight for, they naturally have to endure sadness."
"I have made up my mind, what are you going to do?"
"The world will not be gentle to those who compromise. I will never give up on myself and will not compromise with anyone."
Watanabe Toru remained silent again.
"Watanabe, I have something to ask you."
"Um."
"I want to know if you deliberately exposed the matter between Asuka Mai and Koizumi Aona to Kujo Miki?"
"Why do you think so?" Watanabe Toru was stunned.
"Including what happened to you at Ochanomizu and the gym?"
"How is that possible?" Watanabe Toru tried to smile naturally. "No matter how smart I am, I can't have thought about what would happen a year later at that time, right? Everything is a coincidence. No, it's a bad fate."
"Really?" Qingye Rin said noncommittally, "Koizumi Aona can travel through time and space. Who knows how many times you have restarted your life? Is this the best solution you have tried countless times to completely capture Kujo Miki?"
“…Am I playing a game?”
"Isn't life a game?" asked Qingye Rin.
"If I say yes, it is. If I say no, it is not. Forget it. I am not here to discuss 'what life is' with you in the middle of the night. I am going back to sleep."
Toru Watanabe turned around and walked into the tent.
"Watanabe, you showed up here tonight with sadness in your heart so that I could sleep well. Hearing that I won't give up, can you also fall asleep?"
"I have made up my mind."
"Then I will change your determination with one sentence."
"Impossible." Toru Watanabe walked to the front of the tent.
"You haven't realized how important I am to you." Qingye Rin's cold and pleasant voice.
"I know, but I'm determined." Watanabe Toru reached out to the tent.
"Not everyone is like you, who can meet someone who is soul mate with you, and this person still loves you. Do you really want to give up on her like this?"
There was a pause in the movement of the tent being raised.
"Look?" Qing Ye Lin's voice was full of laughter, "You can't bear to leave me."
"Nothing." Watanabe Toru went into the tent.
Qingye Rin stood alone under the bright moonlight. She raised her face and looked at the moon in the sky.
"That's a lie, Watanabe-san."