第五章

25 August 2075

Shoichi decided that he was going to brave the heat before it got too fierce and that a walk around the lake would do him some good. It had taken a few weeks following Kimiko’s stroke for him to get over the guilt of doing anything in his life other than being at the hospital waiting for a change in her condition. One of the nurses kindly suggested that as important as it was for him to be there to support his wife, it was equally as important for his own health to take a break from what, in all likelihood, would be a lengthy recovery process.

As he opened the front door, the air hit him like an industrial heater and although still early in the day the sun was getting ever brighter as it rose into the sky, causing him to squint. It smelled much fresher than when he had returned from Tokyo the night before and the fragrance from some sweet honeysuckle growing in an earthenware pot by the entrance caught his nostrils. The honeysuckle was given to his wife as a present by a neighbour in return for the help that Kimiko had given her when she had moved into the neighbourhood from the outskirts of Tokyo following the death of her husband. She had become very good friends with Naomi and over the years had spent many days together scouring the plant nurseries for flowers to brighten up their days as well as their respective gardens. Shoichi closed his eyes to picture their smiling faces and to recall their laughs as they sat in the shade at the front of the house drinking chilled wheat tea and gossiping about the local news which they had heard courtesy of the proprietor of the Beauty Wai Wai hair salon they both frequented.

The cicadas seemed to be increasing in number and subsequently volume as he walked along one of the tree-lined streets from their house towards Lake Semba. Mito was a pleasant place to live; a decent sized city with a population of a quarter of a million that had all the shops and local amenities one could want but at the same time managed to retain a country feel that reminded Kimiko and him of their roots in Ōfunato. However, it was the sheer beauty of the plum blossom trees in Kairakuen Park, to the north east of the lake that had swung it for them when looking for a plot of land on which to build the home that they would live in through to retirement and, if fortunate enough, old age. Three thousand plum trees had been planted in what was still widely regarded as one of Japan’s top three landscaped gardens and home to the annual Ume Matsuri Plum Festival held in March to coincide with the opening of the buds to reveal a variety of blossoms from white through to dark pink. A somewhat more robust flower that the better known sakura cherry blossom, but equally as beautiful and evocative as visitors reflected on the year now coming to an end and cast their minds towards April and what the following year might bring. The trees were now cloaked in dark green leaves and some bore the beginning of what would later in the summer become plums to be picked and pickled in salt with akajiso leaves to give them a blood-red colour.

A light breeze had picked up providing some welcome relief to the heat and humidity that hung in the air. Shoichi stopped at a vending machine and bought a bottle of sports drink to keep himself hydrated before making his way towards the lake that had started to ripple with the wind.

Sitting on a bench, Shoichi thought about the first time that he had paid any attention to Kimiko as a person in her own right and not just identified with her as the best friend of his little sister, Haruka. 

When they had all been growing up, he was already in his third year of elementary school by the time that Haruka and Kimiko had even started in formal education and, for much of his early childhood, his only interaction with her was perfunctory politeness whenever Kimiko came around to their house after school. It was not until he was twenty years old and visiting his parents during the spring holiday from university, that seventeen-year-old Kimiko caught his eye in a very different way.

She had always been a very happy child which somewhat surprised him considering that her father had left when she was young but her mother had done a fabulous job of bringing Kimiko up on her own. She had been heavily into volleyball throughout her time in education and as a result had a very athletic physique from years of training before and after school.  This healthy build together with an attractive face – large tear-shaped brown eyes, a small nose with a flat bridge and broad base and a shapely mouth with pale pink lips – that could be described as almost feline meant that perhaps it was no surprise that he would feel some physical attraction towards her. However, even during his early teenage years when rampant hormones sparked an interest in a variety of girls, many far less pretty than Kimiko, she was always off his radar.

He was at the Ōfunato Tsunami Remembrance Monument paying his respects to friends and relatives who had lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami that had wiped out large parts of the town in 2011, when Kimiko tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Shoichi-san?’ she asked, peering up at him unsurely.

‘Yes,’ Shoichi replied without turning his head, slightly distracted as he was deep in thought, before realising who was standing in front of him. ‘Kimiko-chan. Is that really you? Great to see you, it’s been a while.’

‘When did you get into town?’ Kimiko asked.

‘Oh, I arrived on the train this morning,’ Shoichi replied. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m great thanks,’ Kimiko said. ‘How are you?’ 

‘I’m alright, thank you,’ Shoichi replied.

‘And how are your family? Are they all well?’

‘They’re all fine, thank you.’

‘That’s good. And is your father still fishing?’

‘Well, not commercially, as it was getting too tough for him, but now he spends most of his days sitting by a river with a fishing rod in his hand.’

‘Why am I not surprised to hear that?’ Kimiko said letting out a small laugh.

‘Some things never change, you know.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘They’ve done a great job with this monument, don’t you think? A really beautiful and fitting tribute.’

‘Yes, they have,’ Kimiko agreed. ‘Is this the first time you have been here?’

‘No, I’ve visited a few times now, always in spring,’ Shoichi said.

‘But it’s hard at this time of the year, isn’t it?’ Kimiko said whilst shaking her head. ‘As the blossoms start to open it’s like nature’s way of reminding us all of what happened back then and I can’t avoid feeling a great sadness thinking about so many of the people in our town who lost their lives.’

‘I know. No matter how many years pass, it seems just like yesterday,’ Shoichi added as he turned towards the monument again silently reading the names of those confirmed dead. ‘I walked around the town earlier and there are many buildings that have not yet been rebuilt. How many years will it be before Ōfunato fully recovers?’

‘So, so sad,’ Kimiko said thinking about the event that changed the face of not just Ōfunato but towns and cities up and down the east coast of Japan. ‘Do you know, I’ve considered leaving so many times to make a clean break but this is where I’ve grown up and I want to stay to see out my childhood here. To leave would feel like a betrayal, like I was walking away to forget, which is something I’m not ready to do.’

‘But you can understand those who did move on. So many difficult memories, a town so different to the one that existed before the earthquake,’ Shoichi replied, now looking out across the bay.

As they continued to talk, Shoichi noticed that Kimiko had not got any taller than when he had last seen her, at a distance, a couple of years ago but her body was no longer the slender angular frame of a volleyball player, it had become more curved and soft-edged. He momentarily tuned out of their conversation as his brain started to tingle – experiencing something he would later find out is called an “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” – and focused in on her face as he found himself transfixed, looking at her features with a new and different perspective, noticing things about her like the small freckle on the left side of her nose and the angle of her ears that stuck out ever so slightly through her hair, things that he had never noticed before now. Her face was still unmistakeably Kimiko but the kitten had become a cat. 

Perhaps after the intense experience that they had shared, there was almost an inevitability that the two of them would get together but it was not until he was in his late twenties had Shoichi plucked up enough courage to ask his then girlfriend for her hand in marriage.

They both knew that day in April 2018 that they would not speak about their personal losses. The strong emotion of overwhelming sorrow that lay deep inside them would come rushing out through mention of name alone and they were not yet close enough to share such raw feelings with each other.  

Knowing that they would never again see those whom they had both loved so dearly was still too much to come to terms with.

***

Can’t wait to find out what happens next?

Washing Over Me is available as a download for Kindle or as a printed paperback, both from Amazon:

Kindle Version – Amazon UK
Paperback – Amazon UK
Kindle Version – Amazon US
Paperback – Amazon US

Or search for “Washing Over Me Benjamin Brook” from your country’s Amazon homepage.