Staring at the space where Kurata had vanished, Asami let out a soft sigh.

“I tried to move on, but I couldn’t forget Kurata... I ended up thinking I could never marry anyone else but him,” she said, as her body shook slightly.

Looking at Asami, Fumiko just said, “Uh-huh.” She could imagine being in her shoes.

I would feel the same if it were me.

She clenched her hand on her chest. She couldn’t find the words to say anything else.

“But I remembered what he told me when I had my miscarriage. He told me that little baby had used the seventy days of its life to bring happiness into my life. He said that if I couldn’t find a way out of my unhappiness, then that would have been the result of the baby’s seventy days. But if I could find a way to be happy again, that is what the baby’s life would have brought me. Through that choice, I could allow its life to have meaning. I could create a reason for why my child was granted life. He told me that was why I had to try to be happy. He said that no one would have wished that more than my child.”

She stopped and started, relaying what Kurata had told her in a soft and trembling voice.

“So, it made me think. I might not be able to get married right now, but I absolutely must be happy.”

“Asami...”

“Because if my happiness could become his happiness...”

Asami pulled the borrowed ring from her finger and gave it back to Fumiko. To make Kurata believe that she had got married, she had borrowed Fumiko’s ring and lied.

“I wish that Asami is happy always,” Miki read aloud from the tanzaku that Kurata had left.

Asami didn’t know how that tanzaku existed. But as soon as she heard it, she knew they were Kurata’s words. Large tears began to flow down her cheeks all at once, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Are you all right, miss?” Miki asked, peering down at Asami in puzzlement.

Fumiko put her arm around Asami’s shoulder, and Kazu stopped working and looked over at the woman in the dress.

That day, Nagare closed the café early.

When she returned home, Fumiko told Goro what had happened.

“I think it’s likely that Kurata knew she was lying,” he said after she had finished, taking the cake he had bought out of its box.

“You think he knew? Why?” Fumiko asked, frowning a little.

“She told him that you had told her everything, right?”

“Yes, she did, but what of it?”

“If she had really been happily married, why would there be any need for you to explain it all to her? Based on his conditions, in that scenario, you didn’t have to bring her.”

“Oh...”

“Do you see?”

“Oh no, I hadn’t thought of that. I told her everything... It’s my fault...”