Would you choose to live forever?

Chapter 6: Festival and Concert

As the evening slowly encroached and painted the skies of a comforting yellow and orange hue, I felt equally tired and full at the same time. 

As my face was stuffed with a taiyaki filled with green tea paste, I followed along with Riku who was having the time of her life venturing through the festival as if she had never been through it before.

Her eyes of a dazzling gleam, drawn to every attraction and stalls the cherry blossom festival had to offer like a moth to a dancing flame.

Though I felt like I was at my end's wits, I couldn't just pull her away and request that we rest for a moment, only a monster would strip away the smile from someone as joyful as her.

Pulling myself together, we trekked through, and eventually, we met at one of the ends of the festival where but a few stalls and customers were looking around.

It was a refresher to not stand in the middle of the crowds where each and every second is spent waiting in lines, pushing through crowds to get through places, and hearing the chatter of tourists who took pictures at every instance as a memento.

I tried to catch a breath but before I could, I was pulled forth once again for one last purchase standing in front of a stall, I noticed an old lady was managing it; the wares she sold ranged from packaged sweets to what looked to be a variety of mochi.

It was your everyday humble stall selling sweets for children and adults alike; the little exterior presentation of the place with the scare amount of advertising, added to the feeling that we were looking into a hidden store despite it being seen in plain view.

I browsed the wares and as I shot a glance towards Riku, I noticed her eyeing something in front of her; the expression I was all too familiar with already as it has occurred countless times throughout the time I spent with her in this festival.

She wanted to buy something

"Obaasan! Please give me two skewers of Dango!" She exclaimed and immediately, she was handed the two colorful sticks of rice flour dumplings.

"Hehe, I haven't seen this much around from where we live. These are a must when it comes to the cherry blossom festival, they're iconic!"

"How about we end our eating spree with this, I can already tell you're getting full~," She said with a wide smirk as she took a picture of the colorful Dango she held onto.

I looked down at the skewer I held and while the three round pieces of pink, white, and green rice dumplings remained in my hand, I recalled a memory of my sister and I.

It was back when we were little and at around the age of six, my mother took my sister and me to a much smaller scaled cherry blossom festival that was held in our hometown.

I remembered back then and though the memories were cloudy, I could clearly think back to a time when my sister and I were hesitant to share the differently flavored Dango in our hands with each other, simply because of how delicious they were.

It really brought me back the memories of the past and as I bit into the strawberry-flavored Dango, tears then flowed out of my eyes; the wave of nostalgia added to how much I still missed my family all hitting me at the same time.

"Wh- What's wrong!? Is it really that delicious, how about I buy you another? Please stop crying!" She said in a panic, scrambling once more to stop the tears that poured out of my eyes.

Before long, I managed to stop the tears from flowing and as I sniffled whatever was left in my mind, Riku looked toward me with a concerned look at first. The arm was raised ready to pat my vulnerable back and I opened my mouth which was moments away from speaking worlds of consolation switching all of a sudden.

She smiled instead and without saying another word, she stood in front of me expressing a set of eyes full of life and a stance that led me to think there was still a lot ahead of us for the day.

"Sorry about that... A memory just suddenly popped through my mind. I'm fine now..." I said as I rubbed my irritated eyes off its flowing tears.