ETERNAL SUMMER
⸻   燃える願いの軌跡

( 2007 )

     Leaving him is never easy. Every bitter parting is a dagger that plunges into her chest. The fates are cruel but she is crueller still. Sayuri is a fool to think that she can unravel the universe and put it back together however she wants it to. Gullible enough to believe the lies she feeds herself, that she can change the course of destiny when it's already been laid in motion. Of course the gods would take pleasure in her anguish.

The name Kurosawa has always been accompanied by the words evil and blasphemous. Whichever poor child that inherits that coveted technique to open the gates of heaven and hell is both revered and reviled. They had been humble exorcists at the beginning of time, sending unruly spirits to rest within the void. Shinigami collecting their due, servants of Yama himself.

The declining estate of her clan is starting to become overgrown with weeds and creeping ivy, weeping sakura trees hiding withered faces behind a veil of fading blooms. She remembers a time when she knew every grain of wood and stone within the compound of her paper prison. Even back then, there was always an overcast shadow from the sky. As if Susano-o himself is watching vigilantly over them, waiting for any minor trespass to unleash his wrath.

There has been many a tall tale surrounding her family within the sorcerers' society. It is widely known that the Kurosawas turned their backs on the world, letting humanity fend for themselves against the onslaught of cursed spirits that they unwittingly create every day. But the truth is far simpler and pettier than that. It is a blood feud that binds the entire Kurosawa clan to their perpetual purgatory. A thousand-year-old grudge that has long festered within the hearts of every successor and descendant.

The morning of her father's funeral is ashen grey. Sayuri receives the condolences bestowed by the other family members as they gather around the hall of the main house. A sea of black mourning garb floods her vision with flitting eyes of disapproval directed towards her. Their dark murmurs fill the room, of betrayal and mistrust. It matters little anyway in the grand scheme of it all, she is the one who inherits the power of their ancestors. She alone will be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of their cursed gods.

Her older brother shifts restlessly beside her, his lips fixed in a scowl with brown eyes glaring harshly beneath his lashes. "Stop it, you don't need to do that," she tells him in a hushed whisper.

"They're being disrespectful," Homura hisses back. A hand clenches around the folds of his knee. "Is it true though? Are you—"

She sighs. "This isn't the place to discuss it."

"—really leaving the clan again?"

Words perish upon her tongue. Whatever excuse she has in mind drops stone-cold dead from the heavy disappointment lacing his voice. She had discarded her cloak of duty long ago when she first walked out the gates of the estate. Now muddied and soiled, she can never pick the mantle back up again. No matter how loud the voices call out to her for deliverance.

"I can't stay," she tells him with a tone of finality.

"You're father's successor," he starts with gritted teeth. "Don't tell me you're going back to him?"

She turns sharply, crimson eyes holding a dangerous glint in the cold light of the misty morn. Homura clicks his tongue with displeasure but she can't fault him for it. Sayuri is a traitor to both her family and heart. Torn between the two then left adrift like seafoam. Stubbornness is a common trait that runs through the Kurosawas.

"Don't you know why—"

"Of course, I know why." She has to force herself to bite back the scorn that coats her mouth. "And it's the very reason I need to leave. You don't know—"

"Sayuri-sama," one of the household staff calls meekly and they immediately cease their bickering. "There is someone outside the gate looking for you."

"What?" Homura snaps in annoyance. "Who would even dare to come here?"

Sayuri gasps under her breath. "It can't be..."

Completely ignoring decorum, she rises from her kneeling position on the tatami mat and runs to the doors. She's painfully aware of everyone's stare against her back but she cares little of what they think of her. Not when her entire life has been ruined by their venomous tongues. Her heart drums carelessly against her rib cage as she makes her way down the path of the main courtyard. Satoru must have lost his mind. Though a part of her is thrilled by the thought of seeing him again.

Sayuri throws open the black gates of the estate, crimson eyes wide and searching. Her heart falls to the bottom of her wooden sandals, however, as it's not Satoru after all. But still, a familiar face that she does not expect to see. His long hair swishes over his shoulders as he walks forward to greet her like the old friends they are. She blinks in confusion and shock. "Suguru? What are you doing here?"

"Do you have some time?" he asks. "There's something I need to talk to you about."

She steps through the gates and closes it behind her. After the scene she made, she's not looking forward to returning anyway. "Let's talk somewhere more private. I would invite you inside but my family might kill you on sight. They're not very fond of visitors."

"They sound great," he remarks wryly. She starts down the dirt path and he follows after her, glancing at her face with a teasing smirk. "You look disappointed, were you expecting someone else?"

"Very funny," she replies humourlessly. She's used to both Shoko and him teasing her and making her relationship with Satoru the butt of their jokes. "I thought he would be the only insane one to come here. But I guess the two of you are best friends for a reason."

There's a quiet lull as the expression on his face shifts. "Things have changed since you left, Sayuri."

Remorse stirs within her. "Would it not have if I had stayed?" she questions quietly.

"Who knows?" His voice is laden with bitterness as he says, "A lot of things have happened, it almost feels like your leaving was a catalyst for events."

She turns to him with reproachful eyes. "Don't make it sound like I'm to blame for things I'm not even aware of," she says. In her thoughts, she believes that leaving them had been a mercy.

"I'm not," he insists. "It's just an inevitability."

The autumn leaves crunch underfoot as they make their way towards a large wooden pavilion. It used to be a guardhouse for the Kurosawa clan in an age that is now forgotten to time. With rotting beams and mottled red paint, the mountain had reclaimed half of its structure with gripping buttresses and tangling branches. She sits on the edge of the top step that isn't decayed beyond redemption and beckons to Suguru. He seems to have lost some weight since the last she saw of him.

"This will do," she tells him as he joins her. "What did you want to talk about then?"

"Well..." he starts awkwardly. "I just really needed to talk to a friend."

"Friend, huh?" Sayuri gives a smile that's laced with bittersweet nostalgia. "Do I really still deserve to be called that?"

"Of course you do," he answers.

The mountainside slopes steeply into a valley of maple trees before them, offering a picturesque view of the countryside. Further in the distance is the sea, blue waves melting into the horizon as it joins the expansive sky. It feels like a lifetime ago when they were laughing together and eating sukiyaki on chilly nights. Going on missions, vanquishing cursed spirits and playing pranks on one another to chase the boredom of monotonous days away. Sayuri does not regret going to Tokyo Jujusu High. Like a beautiful dream that she wishes she never wakes from, she continues to hold the memories close to her heart.

At the bottom of the melancholic dregs of her soul, she knows that she never should have left them. Though circumstances had given her very little choice in the matter. As if reading her mind, Suguru turns to her with a question that shakes her to the very core.

"Does he know about it? That thing that follows you around."

The autumn chill brings the coming frost and it crawls up her spine, sending goose flesh rising across every inch of her skin. Her heart stops and a painful lump lodges itself in her throat. The mere thought of it would send her into a spiralling, weeping frenzy. Howling into oblivion, screaming at the gods and the stars. The whispers of the damned can be heard on the wind. Murmurs that have haunted her ever since she can remember as a child. A face of such horrendous depravity that it gives her nightmares every time she goes to sleep. Dreading, dreading the day those wretched desires become a reality.

"You can... see it?" she asks carefully.

"We've always known there was something strange about your cursed energy," Suguru tells her. "We just thought it was because of the gate. But I caught a glimpse of it that day when Satoru died."

She bows her head low as the fragmented recollections rouse shame throughout her entire being. "I'm sorry, it must have been terrifying."

"I can still remember it clearly, how ecstatic it was that he was dead," he goes on. There's a pregnant pause before he finally asks, "Is that the real reason you left?"

She remembers the smell of blood invading her senses, sweetly metallic yet pungent and vile. Staining her hands and vision crimson, the gleeful laughter echoing in her ears. The all-consuming hatred and rage that burned through her chest and throat. She would have torn that man limb from limb, plucked his eyes out and severe every tendon in his body. The profound ache in her chest gnaws and bleeds as she looks up at the sky, wishing for it to swallow her whole. If only she could re-ignite the stars and return to that cursed moment where everything went wrong.

She gives a forlorn smile. "That was the first time I opened the gates of hell," she explains. "The reason I've never used it before... it's because heaven's gate is always open. Always. To keep that thing away."

The silence stretches between them as the leaves continue to wither and fall like the faded memories of their friendship. Each one lost to the tide of the season, never to bloom again. "What is that thing?" he asks.

The breeze blows against her skin with a foreboding caress. "A thousand years ago, a woman from the Kurosawa clan was betrayed by her lover. He wanted to use her to destroy the clan and in the end, she killed him before taking her own life. My family has been harbouring her cursed spirit since the day she died, driven to madness by her grief. A vengeful ghost."

Sayuri turns to him with such a heart-rending sadness in her eyes that it almost takes him aback. "History repeats itself once more just as fate spins its treacherous web."

Suguru frowns as he infers her words. "It wants revenge on the Gojo clan," he states.

"The reason I enrolled to the school," she divulges, "It was to set myself free of this burden. I was prepared to kill Satoru with my very own hands. But who knew..." Her smile finally crumbles and her eyes sting as they roll upwards to the heavens for clemency. "I never expected that meeting all of you... would be the happiest day of my life."

The silence is haunting, filled with fleeting recollections and unspoken sentiments. A festering rot seeps between the cracks of their broken facades. "If I told you that you could get rid of it by killing a thousand souls, would you do it?" he asks quietly.

"I would do anything," she answers without hesitation.

More than her own life, more than her own morals or beliefs or conscience. To see that they would never succumb to the cruel destiny that entwines them. Even if she has to destroy herself in the process, even if it means that Satoru would despise her for it in the end. There is an answer out there somewhere waiting to be found. And she will stand on the banks of the Sanzu River to cross the point of no return.

"Suguru... this world is cruel," she says. "I hate it."

He looks at her with sympathy in his eyes and a swirling darkness that coalesces into a great void. Tragedy is engraved into their very souls, desolation held within the cradle of their hearts. Resolve hardens into steel inside them.

"I hate it too."

Sayuri would not see him again for years to come and no matter how much she wishes otherwise, she knows that she is to be blamed.

( 2008 )

     There is a saying that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. She is a numerator whose denominator is the distance between them. The farther it gets, the smaller she seems to become. Though no matter how many times he divides the fraction until it becomes completely imperceptible, it still goes on forever. Between the empty spaces where she used to be, a lonely everlasting ache fills the void of her absence.

Satoru crosses the school's courtyard towards the medical facilities. It's the seventh day of the seventh month. He can see a mist of flowers surrounding the buildings as summer reaches its zenith. He wonders what Shoko needs him for so urgently, it's rare to see her excited about anything. The doors open on rusted hinges to announce his arrival and Shoko immediately pokes her head out of the office.

"Finally!" she exclaims, beckoning him with a hand. "Hurry, come here!"

He raises a brow and quickens his pace, moving towards the open door where Shoko stands inside. She looks at him with a delighted smile as she points to the corner of the room. A leather sofa is wedged between the wall and desk with a figure lying curled on top. He feels his lungs deflate as all the air escapes his lips, his heart slamming painfully against his ribs.

"It was her first time using the gate to travel," Shoko explains. "Scared the crap out of me. She passed out but she's fine."

"Thanks for letting me know," he mumbles in a daze. The temperature increases uncomfortably, the room becomes stuffy and cramped. He thinks he might be having a fever dream.

"I figured you were the reason she came all this way," she continues quietly before starting back to the door. "I'm going to grab some lunch. The both of you better still be here when I get back."

Even as she says it, she has a knowing smirk on her face and Satoru chuckles. "I can't promise that."

A heavy silence fills the room after Shoko leaves. He turns back to the sofa where Sayuri lays, ebony hair cascading over the smooth leather. Her chest rises and falls softly, her face the picture of serenity. Satoru walks over and crouches beside her, removing the sunglasses over his eyes and letting them hang from his fingertips. At least he can confirm that it's no illusion in front of him. Yet he's afraid to touch her, fearing she might disintegrate before his very eyes.

"Hey, princess, you can wake up now," he says, holding back a laugh in his voice. Though his heart trembles in his throat.

Crimson eyes peer from beneath dark lashes as her lips bloom in a smile that shoots a comet through his chest. She looks at him with the softest gaze painted in strokes of watercolour sunsets and maple leaves. "Now that's a sight to wake up to," she whispers to him.

"Are you still dreaming?" he teases.

"This is a good dream," she replies with a growing grin. "I had to see you one more time. I missed you."

Satoru reaches over and takes her in his arms, entwining in that familiar way where his heart folds back into place like an origami piece. As the magpies build a bridge across the Milky Way, as a wish written in secret burns up in a transient spark of starburst. He thought he might never see her again and now he never wants to let her go. But he knows that the time they have is limited and now more than ever is he aware of her impermanence.

"Let's go somewhere," he says with spontaneous enthusiasm.

"Where did you have in mind?" she asks curiously.

"A place that I know you'll like." Without waiting for an answer, he whisks the both of them away from the school ( and Satoru would later receive an irritated message from Shoko with two crying faces to emphasize her point ). The stretch of beach they arrive on is empty that day. It lends a poignant atmosphere that feels like they're standing at the very edge of the world. The summer afternoon passes in a haze of laughter and the resonance of two souls reuniting as one. Contentment is a balm on his lips and the feeling of her fingers laced between his. The taste of salt on the wind and a million pearls shimmering on the ocean waves.

"Are we destined to be star-crossed lovers?" Sayuri wonders aloud as she gazes at the horizon. "You know the story, don't you? The seventh day of the seventh month is when the weaver girl and cowherd are reunited once every year."

"Don't say something like that," he remarks. "It's sad, you'll jinx us."

"The weather is good today too," she continues to comment, "I'm sure they're happy to see each other again."

He looks at her, feeling the weight of her words on his shoulders. "Lucky we don't need a bridge to see each other then. You can't depend on fickle birds to get the job done."

She chuckles at his flippant attitude. Suguru used to say that they're polar opposites that are inevitably attracted to one another. But the truth is that they're two halves of the same soul. He understands her better than anyone else just as she does for him. In the distance, the towering kiriko lanterns are starting to float down the river towards the coast. Streaming lanterns twinkle in the fading light as they carry the burden of a hundred wishes in the breeze. "Oh, tanabata," Sayuri states wistfully.

The sky bleeds into the sunset, setting her eyes ablaze. His heart swells to the crescendo of the crashing waves. "Do you want to see it?" he asks.

She nods eagerly and reaches for his hand. "Let's go together."

He would go anywhere she led him to. The festival is teeming with people when they arrive just before nightfall. Strips of coloured paper and ornaments hang from the bamboo branches decorating the pathways, swaying all around them in the glow of the lanterns. Sayuri stops by a stall selling tanzaku and chuckles to herself. "Do you want to make a wish too?" she asks him. "Maybe the heavens will listen to you."

"Why not?" He takes the paper and pen from her, moving away when she attempts to peek at his writing.

"Why won't you let me see it?" she complains and he laughs as he hangs it on the tallest branch out of her reach.

"It's a secret between me and the gods," he tells her.

She huffs, hanging hers on the opposite tree from his. "Then I won't tell you mine either."

He chuckles at her antics, feeling as if they're sixteen again and invincible. Winter had chipped away at him and the frost still clings to the very edges of his heart. She is the beckoning summer that chases the icicles away. Dewdrops and hydrangea mist in the throes of the sun, the warmth of her face in his hand and the taste of her lips on his.

"I can see it right there from here," he tells her and she hides it behind a paper windsock.

"That's not fair," she protests. "You saw it, didn't you? Now my wish won't come true."

"Don't worry, mine will," he says with a grin. Peonies bloom across her cheeks as she gives him a dirty look.

The elderly lady at the stall laughs, catching them both off guard. She calls beckoningly, "Aren't you two just the cutest? Here, take this." She hands them an ornament—a string of paper cranes. "I hope the both of you live long and happy together."

Sayuri accepts the gift and he helps her hang it on the highest branch that they both can reach. It flutters in the air above them as they watch. Maybe if they hang a thousand cranes then they'd find a way to stay together. For now, it's only wishful thinking and he would rather enjoy the few moments he has with her. No matter how far in between they are.

They sit by the shore eating takoyaki, waiting for the kiriko lanterns to assemble along the coastline. The moon glistens in the reflection of the dark waters and the festive glow lights their skin. She catches his eye in a nostalgic way that reminds him of longing gazes across opposite ends of a classroom and secret whispers in the middle of the night. The way she looks at him as if the entire world is melting away.

The lanterns start to go out one by one, throwing them into pitch-black shadows. The sound of drums fills the air as the silhouettes of the kiriko lanterns sail out to the sea. The twangling streamers and ornaments add to the lively noise as they dance in tandem with the wind. Then in a moment of incandescence, they catch within the bonfire that's out in the waves. Pillars of flames erupt in the distance and the spark of a firework punctures the air. Explosions of blossoming sparkles light up the sky like a thousand stars falling into the depths of the ocean.

"How pretty," Sayuri breathes softly. "I wonder if they can see it from up there."

"How can they?" he asks. "The only thing they're looking at is each other."

She turns to him with eyes reflecting the dazzling diamond particles above and he gravitates to her with the magnetic pull of an event horizon, feeling the warmth of her body close to his and smelling the scent of the salted breeze clinging to her skin. Like butterflies in the night, they live in that one moment forever as everything else burns away into darkness. He will wait a hundred lifetimes for her to return to him again, as the faint memories come and go with the passing seasons. As the ghost of her smile follows him in every reflection.

It rained that next year and the magpies built no bridge for the two lovers across the sky.