“How on earth did you learn all that?” he asked. In contrast with Nagare’s troubled expression, Kazu was staring into space vacantly.

Kiyoshi inhaled slowly.

“Kinuyo told me all this before she died,” he said sympathetically, and looked at Kazu.

On hearing his words, she lowered her gaze.

“The last thing she told me was that she thought of you as her daughter,” he said.

Kazu closed her eyes slowly.

“I was very curious. I wondered why there were four people who, despite knowing the rule that you cannot change the present no matter how hard you try, were able to go and meet people who had died.” Kiyoshi turned the page of his notebook.

“There was one woman who went back to meet her younger sister, who had died in a road accident. Her name was Yaeko Hirai. I assume you know her, right?”

Only Nagare replied. “Yeah.”

Hirai’s family ran an old travelers’ inn in Sendai, and as the eldest child she had been meant to take over. But she didn’t want to, and when she was eighteen, she left to make her own life. Her parents disinherited her. Only her sister stayed in contact. Year after year, she had visited Hirai, trying to persuade her to return home. Then, tragically, she had died in a road accident on the way home from one such visit.

Hirai traveled to the past to meet her sister.

“After visiting her sister in the past, she immediately returned to the inn and took it over. I wanted to hear her side of the story, so I went to Sendai.”

Seven years had passed. Hirai was now thriving as the manager of the inn.

“I asked her, ‘Why did you go and meet your dead sister, even though you knew that the present would not change?’ She laughed at my rude and nosy question, and then said this:

“‘If I had led a sad life as a result of my sister’s death, then it would have been as if her death had caused it. So, I thought I mustn’t allow that to happen. I swore to myself that I would make sure that I was happy. My joy would be the legacy of my sister’s life.’

“On hearing this, it occurred to me what I had been missing. I had always thought that because my wife had died, I, on my own, should never be happy.”

After he stopped talking, he slowly looked down at the present he was holding in his hands.

“Your wife is no longer with us, then?” Nagare asked in a soft voice.

Kiyoshi seemed determined not to let this news dampen the atmosphere.

“No. But it happened thirty years ago,” he said, trying to tone down the impact.

On hearing this, Kazu asked, “So it was your late wife’s birthday?”