Time can sometimes be very short.
So short that the moment the bell rings and the classroom empties, the love and warmth we hadn’t yet treasured are already gently carried away by the evening breeze.
Time can sometimes be very long.
So long that even after two years apart, when someone calls your name in the sunset, the tenderness hidden deep in your heart goes “plop” and lands right back in your palm.
……
[Ding-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling——!]
At 5:30 PM, the dismissal bell of County High School rang out across the entire campus.
“Finally, school’s over!”
“Tomorrow’s the weekend!”
“Seaside Festival! Seaside Festival!”
The classroom, which had been quiet for the entire period, suddenly came alive with a “whoosh.”
The scraping of chairs, the zipping of backpacks, mixed with the excited chatter of girls, filled the Friday evening classroom to the brim.
Sitting in the back row by the window, Kaoru Hoshitani let out a quiet sigh of relief. His shoulders, tense for the whole class, finally relaxed just a little.
Phew… finally made it to the end of the day.
Listening to the growing noise around him, he wished he could grab his backpack and be the first one out of this restless classroom, to hurry back to his safe, quiet world.
However, he didn’t get up right away.
He suppressed the urge to flee, staying quietly in his seat. He neatly stacked his textbooks one by one, aligning the corners, then gently placed his pencil case into the side pocket of his backpack.
His movements were slow and deliberate, as if he wasn’t in a hurry at all.
Not because he didn’t want to leave.
But because—
If he suddenly stood up and walked out while everyone was in this excited chaos, he would instantly draw the attention of every girl in the class.
Leaving now would be too conspicuous.
In this world with more women than men, guys were already easy to notice.
Not to mention someone like Kaoru Hoshitani, a boy whose pure, clean aura was like the first snow in a mountain forest.
Even if he quietly shrank into a corner, there was no way he could be “unnoticeable.”
But he himself seemed unaware of his own looks.
Or rather, it wasn’t that he didn’t know—it was just that whenever he felt overly intense stares on him, he would instinctively pull his shoulders in, soften his breathing, and hide himself deeper into the inconspicuous sunset in the corner of the classroom.
On the blackboard, the white chalk marks left by the student on duty hadn’t been erased yet.
[Weekend Homework]
[Language Workbook P42-P46]
[One Math Test Sheet]
[Quiz on Monday]
Kaoru Hoshitani glanced up, then looked down to check his backpack again.
Language workbook, in there.
Math test sheet, tucked into the file folder.
Lunch box… yeah, it’s empty, taking it home too.
His grades weren’t particularly good, and he didn’t have a strong ambition to go to the big city or make something of himself. But he always did things very carefully.
Careful to the point of being clumsy. Careful enough to double-check even a notice that wasn’t really important.
A few girls were still lingering by the front door of the classroom.
“I heard this year’s festival will have fireworks!”
“Really? By the seaside?”
“Of course! And I heard there’ll be goldfish scooping and takoyaki too!”
They gathered in small groups, chattering excitedly about the summer Seaside Festival, their voices as light and quick as restless little sparrows.
But their glances kept drifting, intentionally or not, toward the boy by the window in the back row.
Then, as if afraid of being noticed, they’d hastily look away.
Kaoru Hoshitani: “…”
He wasn’t oblivious.
At least, he seriously believed that.
But precisely because he wasn’t oblivious, he had no idea what to do.
People at the front door. No one at the back door.
Assessment complete.
Kaoru Hoshitani took a quiet breath, zipped his backpack with a “swish,” and fastened the buckle.
Good, retreat route confirmed.
He shouldered his backpack, lowered his head, and slipped out from beside his seat, trying not to make too much noise with the chair legs against the floor.
Then, while the girls at the front were still excitedly discussing fireworks, he quietly slipped out the back door.
The moment he was out and breathed a sigh of relief, he heard a girl’s suppressed squeal from the corridor behind him:
“Ah, Hoshitani-kun left through the back door.”
“He really is adorable…”
He nearly stumbled.
But he pretended he hadn’t heard anything, clutched the straps of his backpack tightly, and quickened his pace down the stairs.
Outside the school building, the sunset had already fallen to the edge of the field.
County High School was built in a small town by the sea, and the air always carried a faint, pleasant salty scent.
The wind blew in from the distant coastline, carrying dust from the field and the smell of the tide, rustling the leaves of the roadside trees.
As soon as Kaoru Hoshitani stepped down from the school building’s stairs, he suddenly heard someone call his name.
“Kaoru?”
He instinctively stopped and turned around.
Until he saw clearly who was standing there in the sunset.
She was wearing a clean, light-colored shirt with a thin knitted cardigan over it, and a small suitcase sat at her feet.
The sea breeze blew from behind her, lifting her soft long hair and making it flutter gently.
She just stood there quietly, as if she had stepped straight from Tokyo—that distant, bustling, unfamiliar place—right back into this little seaside town.
His body, which had been tensed up from facing the outside world, miraculously softened the moment he recognized her face.
“…A-Aina Onee-san?”
He called out softly.
Even though his subconscious knew that Aina Saita, who had gone to Tokyo, could never suddenly appear in this little fishing village.
But facing her, Kaoru Hoshitani’s heart still “thumped——” and missed a beat.
Even though he knew full well that this sister, who had gotten into the University of Tokyo, absolutely shouldn’t be standing at the gates of County High School at this hour!
Aina Saita.
She had lived next door to the Hoshitani family since childhood, a few years older than Kaoru Hoshitani, and was the town’s universally acknowledged “other people’s child.”
Good grades, good personality, good looks.
If it were just that, fine—but two years ago, she really did get into the University of Tokyo.
And that was the University of Tokyo.
The day the news came back, the aunties in town were more excited than the Saita family themselves.
They’d talk about it while buying vegetables, while taking out the trash, and even while drying fish by the sea, pulling passersby aside to exclaim:
[That girl Aina, she’s really something.]
Even the convenience store owner, who usually only cared about the cash register and popsicle stock, had put up a handwritten note by the counter—
[Congratulations to Aina of the Saita family for getting into Toh-Dai!]
Kaoru Hoshitani stood in front of the counter that day for a long time, and finally seriously bought a bottle of sunflower-flavored soda to go congratulate her.
Then, Aina Saita left for Tokyo.
And that was two whole years ago.
Now she stood in the sunset, her gaze as gentle as ever.
But deep in her eyes, the moment she saw the boy before her, a tremor passed through that she herself hadn’t anticipated.
Because in Aina Saita’s memory, when she left two years ago, Kaoru Hoshitani had been a boy in a junior high uniform, not yet fully grown.
Two years ago, Kaoru still had to look up slightly to see her, his uniform sleeves always a bit too long, his backpack always slung crookedly.
But now, he was much taller than she remembered.
His white shirt collar swayed gently in the sea breeze, his shoulders lean.
Standing in the sunset, his features were still as clean as before, yet there was something new—a strange, unsettling quality that made her afraid to look directly at him.
“Kaoru, it’s been a while…”
“Wh-why are you back from Tokyo?”
Kaoru Hoshitani’s tone carried an unguarded familiarity, his clear voice flowing like a mountain spring.
She had been his neighbor since childhood, a childhood friend who watched him grow up.
Though she’d been away in Tokyo for university, keeping them apart for two full years, Kaoru Hoshitani’s trust in her was absolute.
He still clearly remembered when he was little, his father had gently patted his head and told him—
[Sunflowers are amazing plants. They always grow toward the sunlight.]
Back then, little Kaoru was very small, clutching a soft pillow, blinking in confusion as he asked:
[Can I be like a sunflower too?]
His father smiled and placed a small sunflower hair clip into his palm:
[Of course you can.]
From that day on, sunflowers became something very special in Kaoru Hoshitani’s heart.
That image of warmth and growing toward the light had taken root deep in his pure heart.
And in his simple, quiet world, Aina Onee-san—who always took care of him, who always smiled gently at him—was like that unique, irreplaceable sunflower light.
So he could be nervous around others, he could want to run from the girls’ intense gazes, but only in front of Aina Saita could he slowly let down all his defenses.
Looking at this sister he had always deeply relied on, Kaoru Hoshitani snapped out of his initial shock.
Under the golden sunset, the boy’s clear eyes curved slightly, and he gave her a pure, shy smile, completely unguarded.
In that moment of reunion, watching the boy smile at her in the sunset, Aina Saita’s heart gave a sudden “lurch.”
All the words she had rehearsed on the train, all the things she had prepared to say, scattered into chaos.
Tokyo’s trains were crowded.
Tokyo’s nights were bright.
The University of Tokyo’s coursework was heavy.
She had met many brilliant people there and heard many lively voices.
But somehow, the more she was surrounded by crowds, the more she thought of this little seaside town.
Of the salty, damp evening breeze.
Of the small courtyard of the Hoshitani house next door.
Of the boy who would blush and quietly say [Thank you, Aina Onee-san] every time he received a sunflower gift.
For two years, she thought she had gotten used to it.
Used to not looking back, used to burying her longing under thick textbooks and reports, used to telling herself over and over—
Kaoru is still young. He just sees me as an older sister.
Yet, two years of Tokyo’s noise and exhaustion seemed to be completely drained away the moment she met those clear eyes.
The little boy in her memory who always looked up at her, whose uniform sleeves were always too long, had somehow grown into a lean youth who would block the wind for her in the sunset.
She felt the dam of rationality built in her heart collapse with a “crash——” at this boy’s smile.
Facing the boy’s naive question of “Why are you back from Tokyo?” Aina Saita didn’t give the most obvious answer: “Because it’s summer break.”
She greedily traced his grown-up silhouette with her gaze, and finally, like a little girl hiding a secret, she clasped her hands behind her back, leaned forward slightly, and closed a little of the distance between them.
“Because… I suddenly missed the sea breeze of this town.” she said softly.
“Sea breeze?” Kaoru Hoshitani blinked instinctively, his fingers nervously gripping his backpack straps.
“Aina Onee-san’s luggage… shouldn’t you take it home first?”
“No rush.” Aina shook her head. She lifted her gaze and looked at the cloudless, clear orange sky beyond the edge of the field.
Two years of pent-up emotion surged like a tide in the depths of her heart, almost drowning her rationality completely.
But she suppressed the urge to confess right then, afraid of startling this pure boy.
She only fixed her gaze—softer than the sunset itself—back on him, tightly.
“Kaoru.”
She called his name softly, like a melting piece of sugar held in her mouth.
“I checked the weather forecast. Tonight’s sky will be very clear. At the seaside tonight, you’ll definitely be able to see beautiful stars.”
The sea breeze happened to blow between them, lifting her hair tips and brushing them across her cheeks, which were filled with a mix of nervousness and anticipation.
Aina Saita curved her eyes, fine light rippling in them, and asked in a voice so soft it seemed afraid of shattering a dream:
“Will you walk with me by the sea?”
“Just the two of us.”