By the time the Red and White Song Festival ended, the two girls sitting in the living room were already nodding off. They struggled to keep their eyes open, but their energy was completely spent.
"Let's call it a night. Get some rest, and in the morning we can go to the shrine," Haruto said.
"Mm… but, the sunrise…"
Sekai's words were slurred with drowsiness. She wanted to see the first sunrise of the year, but her head was heavy and her vision blurred.
"There's a sunrise every day. You don't have to force yourself. Staying up all night isn't good for you anyway. If you sleep now, you might still wake up in time to see it," Haruto reassured.
Sekai didn't argue further. Holding onto a stubborn resolve was hard, but giving up was easy. Her head felt foggy, her thoughts muddled. As she swayed, Haruto stood and stretched out both hands to her and Setsuna. Both girls, exhausted and half-asleep, instinctively reached out.
He helped them into the bedroom, guided them to lie down, and pulled the blankets over them. Then he turned toward the door.
"Haruto?"
"I'll head back and rest. I'll come by in the morning," he said quietly.
"…."
Neither girl wanted him to leave, but in their fatigue, his reasoning sounded too practical to resist. Watching him wave and step out, they exchanged a look before getting up to wash their faces and finally collapse into sleep.
Haruto himself was just as tired. He slipped back into his own apartment, showered off the heaviness of the day, and felt a little more awake. Sitting down at his desk, he glanced at the clock.
0:46.
It was nearly one in the morning. Normally he would already be asleep, but it was New Year's Day, so he let himself linger awake. The digital clock blinked back at him: 2015/1/1.
A sigh escaped him. Another long year had passed, and a new one had begun.
"Do not question the flowers at the tide's edge....they too are signs of spring by the sea."
A haiku by Bashō drifted through his mind. With that thought, he closed his notebook and lay down, soon drifting into a restless sleep.
He only woke again when the doorbell rang.
Still groggy, he shuffled to the entrance and opened the door, where Setsuna and Sekai stood in elegant, brightly-colored kimono. He finally remembered... it was New Year's morning. His foggy mind began to clear, and he invited them in, boiling water for tea before changing into his own clothes.
"Sorry, I overslept," he admitted.
"We didn't see the sunrise. Setsuna and I were waiting for you, but when we woke up it was already nine. Now it's almost ten nearly noon."
Sekai sounded frustrated. She had been excited about the first sunrise, and missing it felt like a small but bitter loss.
"Yeah… I was too tired and overslept," Haruto said with a faint smile.
"You're not unwell, are you?" Setsuna asked softly.
He shook his head to reassure her, poured the tea, and sat with them.
Sekai's kimono was patterned with purple butterflies, while Setsuna's was adorned with soft pink peonies.
"How do we look?" Sekai asked, noticing his gaze. She turned slightly, showing off her outfit without the faintest trace of shyness.
"You both look great," Haruto answered honestly. "Haven't gone to the shrine yet?"
"Not yet," Setsuna replied.
"Morning might've been busy, but it'll be worse at noon. Should we go now?"
The girls exchanged a look and nodded together.
The three of them set out, choosing a smaller shrine nearby rather than the famous and overcrowded Kanda Myojin. They ended up at Hakusan Shrine, one of Tokyo's ten official shrines, though modest in scale.
"Still crowded…" Haruto muttered when they saw the line of worshippers, mostly elderly.
After waiting their turn, the three made their prayers quickly and returned to Haruto's apartment, drained from the walk.
For Sekai and Setsuna, wearing kimono was beautiful but also inconvenient... each step had to be small and careful, their strides restricted. Pretty as they were, the outfits were tiring to move in.
"Not going home today?" Haruto asked.
"No," Sekai shook her head. "Our mothers had things to do, probably visiting family elders. They won't be back."
Her tone carried resignation. She hardly knew those relatives, and her mother only made the visit once a year, out of obligation.
"Then… I'll make lunch," Haruto said, rising. He pulled ingredients from his fridge and began preparing the meal.
The afternoon drifted by uneventfully. The three sat in Haruto's apartment, phones in hand, sending New Year greetings to classmates and friends.
Sekai and Setsuna double-checked with each other to avoid repeating the same messages to mutual friends, while Haruto who had very few contacts simply used a generic template without even filling in names.
Meanwhile, across town, Eriri lay curled on her bed in a tracksuit, her once silky blonde hair dull and slightly tangled. She stared at her phone for a long while, then set it down with a heavy sigh.
"He doesn't care about me at all…"
"It's already been a year. Not only did we fail to return to the way things used to be, but we've grown even more distant."
"I'm so popular, and I was the one who reached out first, so why…?"
"I've had enough of this kind of life. He's not the only man in the world. There are better choices out there... I'm not going to keep fixating on him!"
"I'll return to my own life. I'll start over..."
Ding-dong.
The chime of a new message cut through her muttering. Eriri froze, her words stuck in her throat. Lying sprawled on her bed, she hesitated, then turned her head toward the phone beside her. After a pause, she reached out, picked it up, and saw that the message was from Haruto.
"...I-I don't care."
Her brows knitted tightly as she bit down on her lip. Still, she opened the mail. The long, polite New Year's greeting filled her screen.
"He must have sent this to everyone," she muttered bitterly.
"I don't care."
"I've already decided... I won't respond to him anymore!"
Just as she was about to delete the message, another ding-dong echoed through the quiet room. Her finger stopped mid-air. She opened her eyes again and checked the screen.
It was another mail from Haruto.
"Happy New Year, Eriri."
"..."
Eriri bit her lip so hard it turned pale, then broke open, leaving a tiny bead of blood. She curled up on her side, clutching the phone, her gaze locked on the simple message. She didn't care about the sting on her lip, because in her heart, only one thought was echoing...
I still exist in his heart.
Meanwhile, back in his apartment, Haruto glanced at the two girls still busy sending out their own greetings. He typed out personalized mails one by one, this time carefully adding names, then hit send.
The replies began pouring in. Ding—ding—ding— one after another.
He read each message and sent back polite responses, continuing until it was already past two in the afternoon.
Then his phone rang this time, an actual call. It was Akihisa, inviting him over to play games with him and Yuuji. "Stay the night if you're tired," Akihisa offered cheerfully.
Haruto refused without hesitation.
New Year's was meant for rest... lying around at home if nothing else. Spending it crammed into someone else's house with a bunch of guys felt downright miserable.
Sekai, sitting nearby, couldn't hide her surprise. She had never heard Haruto talk much about school friends before. To learn that he had close companions ones who would invite him so casually sparked her curiosity about the side of him she rarely got to see.
"Do you have many friends at school, Haruto?" she asked.
"Friends? I suppose… not too few."
"You hardly ever talk about school. I almost never see you going out to meet friends."
Haruto thought for a moment, then realized it was true. He rarely went out except for the occasional hangout with Akihisa and Yuuji, or a visit to Ryuuji and Nozaki's place.
"Mm. That's true," he admitted with a nod.
Sekai studied his calm expression, unsure how to respond. She fell silent, eventually exchanging a glance with Setsuna, who looked equally unbothered.
By evening, Mai and Yoko returned. The group headed back to the Kiyoura household, where they shared another family-style dinner, this time with Yoko joining in the preparations.
Unlike last night, no one stayed up late. After the meal, World and Yoko headed home, and Haruto excused himself early as well. The late night had left him drained. He showered, then sat at his desk, staring blankly at the open document on his screen before giving up and browsing news and videos instead.
At 8:23 p.m., his phone rang again.
"Hey, big bro."
The familiar voice on the other end made him sigh.
"Good kids are in bed by now," Haruto said dryly.
"I'm not a kid!"
"You're still underage."
"So are you!"
"What do you want?"
"The day after tomorrow, I want to come to Tokyo."
"Good night."
Click.
Haruto hung up, dropped the phone on his desk, and turned back to his screen. A news headline caught his eye.
"Lottery? Right... the year-end lottery numbers must be out by now."
He slid open a drawer and pulled out the tickets he'd bought on a whim weeks earlier. Scanning the digits, he compared them with the winning numbers in the article.
"Group 51…"
He checked again. His ticket was also Group 51.
His brows lifted slightly in surprise. He hadn't expected even that much of a match. Still, he didn't feel any hope. Lottery wins weren't for ordinary people. That kind of fortune was already decided from the start.
It wasn't something for him to grasp.
"186… 551."
His breath caught in his chest. His mind went blank.
The hand holding the lottery ticket trembled violently as he stared at the printed numbers, then back at the glowing digits on the screen in front of him.
For a long while, silence filled the room. Finally, he refreshed the page again, confirming the date at the top... December 31st, 2014.
"..."
The prize claim period: January 7th, 2015, until December 31st, 2016.
Almost two years.
He lowered his gaze again, double-checking the numbers, then back at the ticket pinched between his shaking fingers. His mind refused to process it, a dizzying blank spreading through his head.
With a ragged breath, he quietly slid open a drawer. Without another word, he placed the ticket at the very bottom, buried it under the weight of other papers, then shut the drawer firmly.
Clicking out of the lottery site, he deleted every trace of his browsing history, then opened another tab... one with an age-restricted video site. The video started playing automatically, but he wasn't watching.
He sat motionless at his desk, lost in thought.
January 1st to January 7th. Just one week.
And yet, to Haruto, it felt unbearably long.
A billion yen. Tax-free.
Leaning back limply in his chair, he felt his arms and legs go numb.
~~~~~~~~~~
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