She looked away. Suddenly, she murmured, “Remember your recent plan to rescue that kid being bullied? It was so stupid, but you looked kind of cool. You’ll be fine, Satou. You’ll definitely be fine.”

I was embarrassed.

Time passed. She graduated. Later, in the same club office, Yamazaki and I sat there. I glared at my math book. Yamazaki said, “Satou, you’ll graduate this year.”

“That’s right, so you’ll be the president from now on. Work hard.”

“It’ll be lonely. Everyone’s getting older.”

“Don’t say that kind of stuff while you’re young. Want a smoke?” Taking a cigarette out of my pocket, I offered it to Yamazaki, who took it.

Cautiously, he lit it. He launched into a magnificent fit of coughing. Eyes watering, he said, “I hope it goes well.”

“What goes well?”

“All kinds of things. I hope that I can continue this kind of happy daily life. You should work hard, too, Satou, and so will I. I’ll leave with high spirits, and everything will be okay, somehow.”

Yamazaki was filled with both hope and anxiety. In that shabby club office, filled with the light of the setting sun, we laughed as though we were dreaming.

Then, I went on to college—but I dropped out. Frightened of my futureless life, scared by my foolish anxieties, unable to see ahead and aiming nowhere, I continued ceaselessly living my ridiculously idiotic life. I was beset on all sides by invisible worries.

So, I shut myself in and slept. I slept until sleep exhausted me. Spring passed, summer ended, fall came, and then winter arrived. Then, it turned into another gentle spring.

My forward progress to the future had stopped, and I was at my wit’s end. The cool night breeze felt good, and I continued to sleep.

And then, one day, we met again. Yamazaki and I had met again. He’d been a weak, bullied boy, but Yamazaki was still a pretty good guy. All this time, we’d been inhaling the same city air.

Although neither of us could see anything concrete in our futures, we still were looking forward.

Even now, I could remember it clearly—us in the club office that I missed so much, the setting sun shining through the narrow windows during our innocent conversations.

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“Whatever happens will happen.”

“I guess so.”

That pleasant, gentle time after school.

We had been young and stupid. We were worthless, helpless, and couldn’t even have imagined ourselves four years in the future.

Having run into Yamazaki again for the first time in several years, I asked, “Where are you going to school?”

Yamazaki proudly puffed up his chest at my question and answered, “Yoyogi Animation Institute.”[16]

Life was so strange…

“What are you doing now?” he asked me.

“I dropped out.”

Yamazaki looked away, and an uncomfortable silence passed.