Short Story: Only You Are Seventeen

◉ Kazemakase Literature Club [Sparkler] Entry

Grandpa, let's play with fireworks.

Led by the hand by his granddaughter, Takashi reluctantly got up.

Grandpa, you can just watch.

No. We're doing it together.

Fireworks at sixty-three?

Even at sixty-three, you can at least play with fireworks, right?

Told this by his eight-year-old granddaughter, Takashi laughed. It was the end of August. He had come to the nearby beach with his son's family and his two grandchildren.

I'll pass. I'll get bitten by mosquitoes.

Saying that, his wife had stayed home. She was laughing while sipping her after-dinner tea. The beach, which had been bustling with swimmers during the day, was sparsely populated at night. Laughter from young people could be heard in the distance. Waves rolled in and out, and there was the scent of damp sea air.

When his son lit the candle, the grandchildren cheered. Red, green, yellow. Many small showers of light were drawn across the dark beach.

Grandpa, look!

Yes, I'm looking.

Look at this one too!

Don't run, it's dangerous.

Takashi watched from a little distance away. His grandchildren's faces were illuminated by the fireworks. His son was laughing. His daughter-in-law was pointing her smartphone at them. Surely, this is what happiness is, Takashi thought. Married to his wife for thirty-seven years. They raised two children. They had arguments, and there were times when he worked so much he didn't come home. Even so, the children grew up, and now their children were laughing right in front of him. It hadn't been a bad life. No, it had been a more than sufficiently happy life.

This is the last one, apparently.

When his granddaughter turned the firework bag upside down, several thin sparklers fell onto the sand.

I don't like these because they're boring.

Big brother, you said you wanted to do them earlier.

"Never mind, then."

The children, having enjoyed the flashy fireworks to their hearts' content, seemed to have no interest in the sparklers. Ryuji picked up one that had fallen onto the sand.

"Well then, I guess Grandpa will do it."

"Grandpa, do you like those?"

"...I wonder."

His son held out a candle. Ryuji bent down and brought the tip of the sparkler close to the flame, but it wouldn't catch. After a while, the tip turned red, and a small ball of fire was born.

It crackled and sparked. That was the moment.

"You're not supposed to move it, you know."

A girl's voice said. Ryuji looked up. The night sea had vanished. No, the sea was still there. But the person in front of him was not his grandchild. A white blouse. A knee-length skirt. Black hair reaching down to her back. A seventeen-year-old girl was crouching there, holding a sparkler.

"Ryuji, you moved it again."

"I didn't move it."

"You did."

"It was the wind."

"It's unfair to blame the wind."

The girl laughed.

Yumi. It was the summer forty-six years ago. The last summer of high school, the two of them often came to this beach. When they got tired of studying for entrance exams, Ryuji would ride his bicycle to pick Yumi up at her house. They would come to the beach in the evening, sit on the sand, and talk about the future without really doing anything in particular. Talk of university, talk of Tokyo, talk of living together someday.

"You're going to Tokyo, right, Ryuji?"

"Yeah."

"You're going to cheat on me with some city girl."

"I won't."

I will.

Then why don't you come too, Yumi?

Tokyo?

Yeah.

Me too?

Obviously.

Yumi smiled happily.

Then it's a promise.

For the two of them at seventeen, the future was something you could obtain if you just made a promise. There would be next year. The year after that. Twenty. Thirty. And forever after that. They had never once doubted it.
The last day of summer vacation. The two of them set off fireworks on this beach. Two sparklers remained at the end.

Let's see whose lasts longer.

Yumi said.

What if I win?

I'll do whatever you say.

Whatever?

You were thinking of something weird, weren't you?

I wasn't.

It's written all over your face.

They both laughed and lit them at the same time. A small light was born. Sparks crackled and popped. Yumi's face grew bright and then dark.

Let's do this again next year.

Yumi said.

“A sparkler?”

“Fireworks.”

“Sure.”

“Right here.”

“Yeah.”

“A promise.”

“A promise.”

However, the promise was never kept. That winter, Yumi died in a traffic accident. It was just two weeks after she had celebrated with me the news that I had been accepted into a university in Tokyo.
Without waiting for spring, and unable to attend our graduation ceremony, Yumi vanished, remaining seventeen forever.

“...Grandpa?”

I heard a voice. I came back to my senses.

“The spark fell.”

At my granddaughter's words, I looked down at my hand. The sparkler had gone out. A small red dot remained on the sand.

“I see.”

“Do you want to do another one?”

“No... I'm fine.”

I smiled and looked out at the dark sea. The sound of the waves was the same as it had been forty-six years ago.
After graduating from high school, I went to Tokyo. I graduated from university and got a job. I met my wife and got married. My children were born, and I bought a house. When my children left the nest, my grandchildren were born.
Before I knew it, I was sixty-three. I had lived forty-six years of a life without Yumi. It wasn't that I was unhappy. In fact, I was happy.
I love my wife. I love my children. I adore my grandchildren. And that is exactly why I could never tell anyone.
The happier I lived, the more I would sometimes think.

Yumi. I wanted to show you the scenery of this era, too. I wanted you to see me at sixty-three and laugh.
To say, 'You've got more wrinkles,' or 'You've got a belly.'
I wanted you to laugh just like you did back then. And I wanted to see it, too. You at sixty-three. You with gray in your hair. You with wrinkles at the corners of your eyes. You as a grandmother.
The fact that I only know the seventeen-year-old Yumi has become unbearably sad now.

“Grandpa!”

My granddaughter is calling me.

“They’re going to take a picture!”

"Oh. I'm coming now."

Turning around, he saw his son and his wife. His two grandchildren were there, too. If he showed this photo to his wife, she would surely say, "I should have gone, too."
Takashi started walking toward his family. On the way, he looked back at the sea just once. An empty beach.
Even so, for just a moment, he felt as if a seventeen-year-old girl were sitting there.

Holding a sparkler, she looked toward him, smiling with the same face as that summer.
Takashi smiled back. He didn't say goodbye. He felt he had already said it forty-six years ago.
He returned to his family. His granddaughter took Takashi's hand. Her small hand was warm. Behind him, the sound of the waves remained unchanged. Takashi squeezed her hand back.
And deep in his heart, he let his thoughts drift to that distant summer day.

Though the dazzling summer when you were there has passed

My feelings fall, drop by drop, into the night

Even after the light of the sparkler faded, the memories of that summer never faded within Takashi.