Chapter 249 - 249: Graduation Ceremony and Travel Voucher

After half a month flat on his back in the hospital, the day of Tsushima Kagami's discharge finally arrived.

"Tsushima-kun, your recovery rate is honestly hard to believe."

The professor from the First Department of Surgery at Keio University Hospital leafed through the last of the test reports, amazement written all over the eyes behind his glasses.

This was hardly the first time Tsushima Kagami had dealt with the man.

His previous hospital stays had all happened right in Shinjuku Ward, so the ambulances had simply hauled him to the best hospital in the ward, Keio University Hospital.

And every single time, he'd smoothed things over afterward with generous boxes of local specialties.

"From a medical standpoint, this really does qualify as a miracle."

"We were actually hoping to document your recovery for a few more days..."

The professor trailed off, a trace of reluctance in his gaze.

The interns trailing behind him nodded along.

These past weeks, Tsushima Kagami's recovery data had been the hottest topic of discussion in the department.

Tsushima Kagami scratched the back of his head, embarrassed.

"You've all taken wonderful care of me. Sorry for being so much trouble."

"Nonsense."

The professor signed the discharge form at last and handed it over.

Stern and old-fashioned as he was, perhaps because Tsushima Kagami was young, and a celebrated author on top of that, the man couldn't resist a joke.

Before leaving, he clapped Tsushima Kagami's shoulder meaningfully, glanced around the room full of girls, and offered a laugh heavy with fatherly meaning.

"You're discharged, but do get plenty of rest. Don't overexert yourself."

Whether or not Tsushima Kagami caught the implication was anyone's guess.

He was too busy staring at the discharge form with barely contained excitement.

He took the thin sheet of paper, and a lightness he couldn't put into words welled up in him.

Half a month of hospital life. Over. All of it.

Paperwork finished, Tsushima Kagami stood at the hospital's front gate.

Like the hero of The Shawshank Redemption crawling free of the prison walls.

He pulled in a deep breath of cool early-spring air.

Then he turned to the crowd of girls behind him.

"Let's go. Home!"

Tsushima Kagami had spent essentially this entire term on extended leave.

Luckily, he made it back in time for Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko's graduation ceremony.

That day he finally returned to a school he hadn't seen in far too long, and the sight gave him the odd sense of having stepped out of another lifetime.

The temperature was perfect, the sky scrubbed clean and clear as if rinsed with water.

The big cherry trees at the school gate were already seventy, eighty percent in bloom, petals drifting loose on the breeze.

They laid a thin pink carpet across the asphalt.

Students in uniform converged from every direction in twos and threes.

The girls' skirts swayed in the spring wind, and every face carried the same mix of excitement and sorrow.

The graduation ceremony was held in the school's great hall.

The hall was packed, the front rows filled with the departing third-years, the back rows with underclassmen come to see them off.

Sunlight slanted in through the stained glass high above, casting bands of colored light across the interior.

The principal's address, the farewell speech from the student body's representative, the graduates' reply.

The whole program ran its course.

The moment the graduation song began, eyes reddened all through the hall.

Cherry petals drifted in from somewhere, settling on the aisles, settling on the shoulders of every student about to leave.

With laughter and tears filling the campus, and blossoms swirling everywhere overhead, the graduation ceremony came to its close.

The plaza outside the hall erupted into noise.

Graduates and underclassmen hugged, posed for photos, traded contact information.

Some shook hands and laughed, some held each other and cried, some laughed and then cried, then cried and looked at each other and laughed again.

The same scene played out in every corner of the school at once.

Tsushima Kagami walked toward Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko with the other girls.

Sayuri led the way, eyes already red, fighting with everything she had to keep the tears from falling.

Seika Ijichi followed behind her, hands in her pockets, staring blankly at the ground.

But look closely and you'd see how tightly her lips were pressed together.

PA-ko and Hiroi Kikuri kept snapping away with their compact cameras.

"These are going to be precious memories someday," they kept saying, though their voices wobbled.

The two of them had received plenty of care from these two senpai over the past months.

Shizuka Hiratsuka came along at the rear without a word, only walking noticeably slower than usual.

Shimizu Nayotake and Yukinoshita Shizuku brought up the very back, carrying a bouquet of daisies bought at some point when nobody was looking.

Clearly meant as a gift for the two graduates.

"Akane-senpai! Sonoko-senpai!"

Sayuri was the first to rush forward, a sob already in her voice. "Congratulations on graduating..."

Kosaka Akane smiled and ruffled Sayuri's hair. "Sayuri, don't cry. It's not like we'll never see each other again."

"But..."

Sayuri held on with all her strength, but the tears were already swimming in her eyes. "But I won't get to see you every day in the Manga Research Club anymore..."

Machida Sonoko stepped up and patted Sayuri's shoulder gently. "We'll come back and visit whenever we're free."

At that, Sayuri threw her arms around both Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko.

"You promised you'd visit! And no sneaking off to join some other club in university!"

Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko laughed and stroked her back.

"Relax. There's no room left in rouge en rouge for outsiders."

"Then you'd better keep your word!"

And with that, Sayuri started crying all over again.

Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others gathered around then, each offering their own words of congratulation.

Some gave handmade cards, some small gifts.

Tsushima Kagami watched it all from the side, and something tangled rose up in him.

He was happy for them, and like everyone else, he didn't want to let these two go.

Just as he was about to step forward and say a few congratulatory words, Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko exchanged a sudden glance.

Then they walked over to him together.

"Kagami."

Kosaka Akane stood in front of him, wearing a smile loaded with meaning.

"Tsu."

Machida Sonoko closed in from the other side, a sly glint in those pretty eyes.

Tsushima Kagami blinked. "Wh... what is it?"

Neither answered. In perfect sync, they took up positions on either side of him.

Kosaka Akane held out a hand and spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. "Hold out your hand."

"Huh?"

"Don't ask so many questions. Just hold out your hand."

Baffled as he was, Tsushima Kagami obediently extended one hand.

"Oh come on, both hands."

Machida Sonoko shook her head.

Tsushima Kagami had no choice but to put out the other one as well.

Both palms open and facing up, his face saying, there, satisfied?

"Close your eyes too!"

"Fine."

Tsushima Kagami obediently shut his eyes.

Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko traded one more look, then bent their heads at the same moment and began undoing the second button of their uniforms.

Behind Tsushima Kagami, Yukinoshita Shizuku and the rest went quiet, every gaze fixed on what the two of them were doing.

Two buttons came free.

Kosaka Akane's still held the warmth of her body, its rounded edges catching a faint sheen in the sunlight.

Machida Sonoko's was just as small and delicate, a short length of thread still trailing from the back, as though it had been torn off in a hurry.

Each holding her own button, the two of them bent down together and laid them softly in Tsushima Kagami's left and right palms.

"All right. You can open your eyes now."

Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko said it in unison, both smiling.

Tsushima Kagami opened his eyes slowly and looked down at the two buttons resting quietly in his hands.

Something struck his heart hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

He remembered the custom at Japanese school graduations.

The second button, being the one closest to the heart, was treated as a symbol of the heart itself.

To give it to someone was to hand that person your heart, to say that they were the most important person to you.

The buttons weighed almost nothing against his palms, and yet they felt like they carried a thousand tons.

He raised his head and looked at Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko smiling in front of him.

Both their cheeks were faintly flushed, but there was no flinching in their eyes, no hesitation.

As if they'd been building toward this for a long, long time, waiting for exactly this moment.

Without thinking, he turned and glanced back at the other girls.

Tsushima Kagami's throat worked. He could feel his pulse picking up speed.

The two buttons in his palms had turned into small flames.

Scorching his skin, scorching his veins, burning all the way to his heart.

A few seconds of silence.

Then Tsushima Kagami gave the two of them a smile of absolute sincerity.

"I'll take good care of them."

He tucked the buttons carefully into an inside pocket, close to his body.

"I promise."

A flicker of shyness and relief crossed both their faces at once, too quick to catch, and then they broke into satisfied smiles.

But the mood shifted right after.

Kosaka Akane drew a deep breath, her expression turning serious.

Machida Sonoko's smile faded too, a thin layer of sadness settling into her gaze.

"Kagami. Sayuri. Everyone."

Kosaka Akane's voice came out far lower than usual. "Thank you."

"Every single day I spent with you these past months was the most precious time of my life."

"From now on..."

Machida Sonoko picked up the thread, her voice trembling faintly. "From now on we probably won't see each other as often as we do now."

"Everyone has their own road to walk."

"University, work, our own separate lives..."

"Maybe one day we'll become strangers. We'll forget today's cherry blossoms, forget each other's faces when we laughed..."

"Sonoko-senpai, don't say that..."

Sayuri's tears finally broke loose.

But Machida Sonoko didn't stop.

"What I want to say is, no matter how things change."

"I won't forget today. I won't forget a single one of you."

Then the two of them looked at Sayuri and Tsushima Kagami.

Kosaka Akane's eyes were red as she went on.

"I won't forget that room where the Manga Research Club met. I won't forget the manga we drew together, the all-nighters we pulled together, every single moment we laughed together."

She blinked hard, and it wasn't enough to stop the tears from sliding down.

"So... please, all of you, take care of yourselves."

"Even if we get fewer chances to meet, even if everyone ends up scattered in different places, please be well."

There was such grief in their voices, as if the two of them were about to leave for somewhere very, very far away.

So far that they'd never be able to meet again.

The air went still.

Then came the quiet sniffling, and the crying.

Sayuri was the first to break. She let out a wail, tears falling like beads off a snapped string.

She lunged forward and threw her arms around Kosaka Akane, then around Machida Sonoko.

"I don't want... I don't want you to go..."

Her words came out in broken pieces, blurred by tears.

"There'll only be me and Kagami left in the Manga Research Club..."

"That big room is going to feel so empty all at once... I'm so sad... I'm really so sad..."

She had genuinely, truly meant to send them off with a smile.

She'd rehearsed it in her head countless times, picturing herself at the graduation ceremony telling her two senpai, congratulations on graduating.

Then waving, watching their backs disappear at the far end of the cherry trees.

But when the moment actually came, every bit of that pretense collapsed.

The tears came whether she allowed them or not, her throat closed up like something was lodged in it, and she couldn't get out one complete sentence.

Seika Ijichi turned her head aside and wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand.

PA-ko and Hiroi Kikuri kept photographing everyone while sniffing hard.

Even Shizuka Hiratsuka couldn't hold up against a scene like this; her eyes glistened.

Shimizu Nayotake and Yukinoshita Shizuku stepped forward without a word and handed the bouquet of daisies to Machida Sonoko and Kosaka Akane.

Then, together and softly, they said, "Congratulations on graduating."

Scenes like this were everywhere on campus.

Under the cherry trees, at the end of the corridors, at the doors of the hall.

Clusters of students stood holding one another and weeping.

Boys and girls alike, closing a chapter of their youth with tears.

Nobody felt ashamed.

Because everyone understood that some partings deserve to be remembered in tears.

When the graduation ceremony was fully over and the crowds began to thin, spring break officially began.

Thirty minutes later, at a dessert shop near the school.

Tsushima Kagami had been here many times.

Warm yellow lighting, natural wood tables and chairs, walls plastered with sticky notes and Polaroids.

The air always smelled of fresh-baked pancakes and butter.

With the graduation ceremony behind them, Tsushima Kagami and the others crowded around two tables pushed together.

Desserts of every description covered the surface.

Strawberry pancakes, matcha mille-crepe, caramel pudding, tiramisu, plus several steaming lattes and cappuccinos.

Sayuri's eyes were still red as she jabbed at the pudding in front of her with a small spoon, over and over.

The pudding quivered under the abuse but held its shape with remarkable courage.

Tsushima Kagami picked up his coffee, took a sip, and finally spoke up.

"Um... Akane-senpai, Sonoko-senpai."

"Hmm?"

Both of them looked over at once.

"We already had this get-together planned for right after, so why give that whole tearjerker speech at the graduation ceremony?"

"You made it sound like we'd never see each other again after that second."

Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko looked at each other, then burst out laughing together.

"What's this, Kagami? Are you saying you'll miss us?"

Kosaka Akane propped her chin on one hand, eyes full of mischief. "Just say so if you will."

Machida Sonoko joined in on the teasing. "We won't laugh at you."

Tsushima Kagami went quiet for two seconds, then nodded, plain and honest.

"Yeah. I will."

That caught them off guard.

They'd assumed Tsushima Kagami would put up some stubborn denial. They hadn't expected him to admit it that easily.

Kosaka Akane went still for a moment; Machida Sonoko blinked several times.

Tsushima Kagami missed their reactions entirely, turning instead to Sayuri, who was still poking her pudding.

"Look what you did. Sayuri's been bawling her eyes out. They're swollen."

Every gaze swung to Sayuri.

Kosaka Akane laughed.

"Sayuri, you're about to be a third-year senpai yourself. Crying like this won't do."

"Exactly, exactly. Where's your backbone?"

Machida Sonoko said it with a smile too. "The Manga Research Club is on you and Kagami now. Pull yourself together."

Sayuri lifted her head, the tip of her nose still red, her voice thick and stuffy.

"I... I know that."

"But when I think about the Manga Research Club having just me and Kagami-kun in it, and how empty it's going to feel all of a sudden..."

"I just can't help... it's so sad..."

Her eyes reddened again as she spoke.

Tsushima Kagami quickly passed her a tissue. "Okay, okay, stop crying."

Sayuri took it and blew her nose.

The sound was loud enough that everyone burst out laughing.

But once the laughter faded, the atmosphere turned strange.

The other girls fell silent as one.

Each of them stared at the dessert in front of her, or out at the street.

All of them turning over the same thought.

What if... what if someday.

They and Tsushima Kagami graduated too.

Everyone off to different schools, maybe different cities. Would they still be able to sit around a table like this, talking and laughing?

Kagami would surely make plenty of impressive new friends at university.

He was so dazzling, so singular. Wherever he went, he ended up at the center of the crowd.

And what about the rest of them?

Would distance and time slowly wear the contact thinner and thinner, until it came down to the occasional phone call?

Or worse... no overlap at all, ever again?

Once a thought like that sprouted, it grew wild as a vine.

Coiling around the heart until it was hard to breathe.

It was right then.

"Everyone!"

Kosaka Akane clapped her hands, her voice bright and ringing.

The excitement in it cut clean through the silence.

Every head turned toward her.

Kosaka Akane had apparently seen this mood coming a mile off; she shot Machida Sonoko a smug look.

Machida Sonoko immediately produced a handful of tickets from her bag and spread them across the table.

They were pale blue paper vouchers, printed with snowy mountains and hot springs, along with a line of elegant lettering.

"Echigo-Yuzawa Hot Spring Travel Voucher."

"These are..."

Tsushima Kagami stared.

"Travel vouchers for Echigo-Yuzawa!"

Kosaka Akane waved one triumphantly. "It's in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture. A really famous hot spring town."

"The snow gets incredibly deep in winter. The ski slopes still have snow on them all the way through May."

"February and March are when it's at its most beautiful," Machida Sonoko added, her eyes curving into crescents.

"So we planned this out ages ago."

"The moment spring break started, we'd spend the last spring break of our high school years with all of you!"

"Soaking in hot springs, seeing the snow, eating good food, together!"

Kosaka Akane stood, braced both hands on the table, and leaned forward.

She looked at the group, who hadn't quite caught up yet.

The corner of her mouth curled.

"Well? Let's all go!"

Two seconds of silence.

Then Sayuri came back to life first and smacked the table with a crack.

Loud enough that customers at the next table turned to look.

"Going! I'm going! Akane-senpai, Sonoko-senpai, I'm going!"

The tears were still on her face, but her mouth had stretched into an enormous grin.

Tsushima Kagami picked up a voucher and examined it.

Then he looked over at Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others.

"Want to go for a few days?"

"Akane-senpai's treating, so we'd be fools not to!"

"Food, lodging, transport, Akane-senpai's covering all of it, right?"

Tsushima Kagami grinned at Kosaka Akane.

Kosaka Akane planted her hands on her hips, threw out her chest, and laughed.

"Well, what can I do. As your senpai."

"I'll look after my adorable underclassmen one last time!"

Machida Sonoko chimed in. "Nobody worry about the money. Just find a way to clear your schedules."

Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others glanced around at one another.

Then back at Tsushima Kagami.

Seika Ijichi raised her head.

"Um... I'm free, personally."

"But if I'm not around, Kikuri and PA-ko would..."

Seika Ijichi looked over at Hiroi Kikuri and PA-ko.

Both of them shot their hands up at once.

"Since senpai's inviting us like this, we won't stand on ceremony!"

Then the two of them glanced at Seika Ijichi, ducked their heads, and murmured to each other.

"I've wanted to go there forever. I heard the sake hot spring is the most famous thing they've got."

"Seika, remember not to let Kikuri anywhere near that."

PA-ko got her warning in with Seika Ijichi early.

Shizuka Hiratsuka smiled as well.

"If Seika and the others are going, then I've got nothing on either."

"I'll come along too."

"And I'll chip in for the costs!"

Shizuka Hiratsuka added a glance at Kosaka Akane afterward, as if to say my family isn't hurting for money either.

Seeing that nearly everyone was in, Yukinoshita Shizuku turned to look at Shimizu Nayotake.

And that reminded the rest of them that Shimizu Nayotake's mother was still hospitalized.

Though word was that her condition had improved recently.

The doctors had already begun rescheduling the surgery.

With everyone's eyes on her, Shimizu Nayotake only gave Tsushima Kagami a mild glance.

Then she said, "Mom's been doing pretty well lately. If it's just a few days, I don't think it'll be a problem."

"Yes, that's wonderful!"

"It's only fun when everyone comes along!"

Sayuri said it happily now.

Kosaka Akane smiled too.

"Don't worry, Nayotake."

"I'll arrange things with the professor at the hospital for you."

"There'll be a nurse at Auntie Shimizu's side twenty-four hours a day."

"I'll assign someone to check in at regular intervals as well."

"If anything at all comes up, I'll get a call the second it happens."

Shimizu Nayotake looked at Kosaka Akane with gratitude.

"Thank you, Akane-senpai."

Then Shimizu Nayotake turned to Yukinoshita Shizuku and nodded with a smile.

Yukinoshita Shizuku looked happily over at Tsushima Kagami.

Which meant it was settled: they were all going to Echigo-Yuzawa together.

In an instant the sentimental mood evaporated, replaced by heated debate over activities and food at the destination.

The girls chattered away, taking notes on the clothes and luggage they'd need to prepare.

Watching their faces change, Tsushima Kagami felt the weight that had been hanging over him finally settle.

He reached out, picked up one of the vouchers, and flipped it over to look at the snow scene printed on the back.

On a vast white plain, a few hot spring inns breathed out plumes of white steam.

He'd never seen a snow-covered mountain before, and he figured the view would be a beautiful one.

____

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