#Shirokuma Literature Club: A Smile After Ten Years - A Short Fiction Story -

I am participating in Kosuke Komaki's fun project, "Slowly."

The deadline is Wednesday, 3/18, 23:59. Thank you for your support.

*This story is a work of fiction.

Slowly, she smiled.

That alone felt as if ten years of time were unraveling.

We sat side by side on a hospital bench, watching the light through the window.

The afternoon sunlight was thin, yet it held a hint of spring, with a slight softness mixed into the cold.

We barely exchanged any words.

The more I thought about trying to speak, the more only the silences of the past came to mind.

It was by chance that I heard she was in this hospital.

A small post from a mutual friend just happened to catch my eye, and at first, there was no deeper meaning to it.

But that night, I suddenly remembered.

The moment she smiled with the sunset at her back on our way home from high school.

Back then, I thought I was the only one who was hurting.

Pretending to protect someone, I was more cowardly than anyone else.

As I walked the path from the station to the hospital, I tried to turn back many times.

"What's the point of coming now?" a voice echoed in my head over and over.

Even so, the moment I opened the door, she looked up and smiled a little.

When I saw that smile, I couldn't say anything anymore.

When I said, "It's been a while," she nodded.

Her voice was faint, but it definitely had the resonance of someone alive.

After a while, she slowly pointed outside the window.

In the corner of the courtyard, I could see a small plum tree.

At the tips of its branches, there were just a few blossoms.

"It bloomed," she said.

Her raspy voice dissolved into the wind.

I tried to answer, but the words crumbled in the back of my throat.

The last words we exchanged that day still lingered in my chest.

We had kept each other at a distance with cold words, and only time had passed.

If I apologized, she might only be troubled by it.

No, perhaps such things were no longer necessary.

She looked at me quietly.

Deep in her eyes, there was a light as if she were trying to remember something.

And then, she smiled slowly.

That smile felt like a more certain answer than any words could be.

I felt not so much that I had been forgiven, but that I had never been blamed in the first place.

I just kept staring at that smile.

Something deep inside my chest was quietly unraveling.

When I left the hospital, the evening light was thinly dyeing the city.

On the way to the bus stop, I felt as if two shadows were stretching out side by side at my feet.

I could tell that my own face reflected in the bus window looked somewhat relieved.

The scenery outside flowed by slowly.

I can no longer return to the person I was back then.

However, I felt that it was okay not to go back.

That smile was surely telling me just that.

As the bus turned the corner, I glanced back, and the light hitting the hospital roof felt as soft as spring.

I took a slow breath and closed my eyes.

The world looked a little more peaceful.

- The End -

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