Kimi no Na Wa Afterstory

12: Taki

     The eleventh of April crept upon all of us like a playful dragonfly which would buzz close by but also zip away and out of sight immediately. It was hard to truly anticipate the memorial opening day since we had been on the waiting side for so long. A particularly bittersweet feeling blossomed inside me whenever I thought about it. It would be the first time that all of us on the original memorial design time were reuniting.

That day being today. One year and one month after Mitsuha's official departure from the company, fraught with teeming emotions and unsaid words. So much fear and hesitation carried me through the last day she had been with the team. Overwhelming disappointment still grappled my heart with the occasional reflection I gave it every now and then.

Looking in the mirror, I sighed in more disappointment. I had been picking through my tie collection for over fifteen minutes now and was starting to feel the futility of my hopes and expectations settling in. What was I doing here, thinking that a simple tie could nicely make up for lost time? A sore compensation for nothing in exchange.

It wasn't even a great conversation starter.

Her absence hit hard and crept everywhere in unexpected places. Countless times I've been faced with the embarrassment of a pounding heart at the sound of knocking on my office door, half expecting Mitsuha to magically walk in with another file to review. I found myself missing our lunchtime conversations and easy chats on the commute home more than ever. My hearing became keener than ever with every mention of her name from the team members, only to find out that it had been a mere slip of the mind — Mitsuha was truly no longer with us anymore.

The only way I reconciled with this loss was the idea that I could contact her whenever I wanted to. Her voice was simply one phone call away. The sound of her alert on my phone was one ping away. It filled me with indescribably foolish hope that not all was lost yet as long as I cared.

Finally deciding on a jade green tie, I adjusted the tie and looked over my appearance in the mirror. After running a hand through my freshly showered hair, I gave a sigh and grabbed a plastic bag on the way out.

But it was never just about the ease with which I could contact her. I could have saved myself five times over if things were as simple as one phone call.

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My leather shoes came to a quiet halt a few meters away from the marvel which opened to the public just this morning. I set down the plastic bag next to me. Hands in my pockets, I quietly absorbed in the energy of the park and the fair weather; children were laughing, shoes were being scuffled and run through gravel and grass, wind-blown leaves were melding together in a cacophonous sort of beauty, busy yet incredibly calming.

There was a couple to my left, respectfully gazing in silence at the memorial, taking a few photos, and then finally continuing along hand in hand to the park path and their journey in life.

A quiet moment in life was hard to tune into sometimes, especially with the rapid pace of my lifestyle as a young architect. A sweep of a current in time and suddenly common occurrences become mere memories summoned by the brain. Serenity had never been a value I was able to keep in my life after Itomori but truthfully, I lived quite well until Mitsuha crossed paths with me again. At the same time, I never realized how much I was missing - as if a little hollow carved out in my heart yawned open - until I saw her eyes again and the emotions came flooding back. I had felt the sense that we were meant to see each other again, for why else would our feet pull towards the other in a busy and dense city like Tokyo?

It was with this resurgence of a memory that followed my gaze around the park. The easy smile that had been on my face suddenly slid off like warmed butter when I spotted a familiar silhouette with small, but confident shoulders set apart and an uplifted set of eyes which gazed at the memorial. I came to a still.