Short Story: A Night in Minazuki

◉ Kazemakase Literature Club [June Sleep-talking] Entry

Not knowing if it was reality or a dream, in her sleep-talking,
Asking if the festival has come yet, on a night in Minazuki.

──Renji Oshima

It was a rainy night in June when my grandmother talked in her sleep. She was lying down in the room next to the living room. Outside the window, I could hear the sound of water running through the rain gutters. It was a damp, humid night, typical of the rainy season.
I was about to put away a teacup filled with barley tea when I heard those words.
"Is the festival still not here yet?"
It was a clear voice. I thought she was awake, but when I peeked in, she was asleep. Her mouth was relaxed, and she had the face of a child waiting for something exciting.
The festival around here is at the beginning of July. So, my grandmother's sleep-talking wasn't strange. If she were a child, she might have such dreams because she was looking forward to the festival.
But my grandmother is ninety-two years old. For the past few years, her legs have been weak, and she hasn't gone out to festivals. Even so, why did she have such a happy look on her face?

The next morning, I tried mentioning it to her.
"Last night, you were talking in your sleep, asking if the festival was still not here yet."
My grandmother looked blank.
"Is that so?"
"Do you like festivals?"
"I do."
My grandmother just smiled and didn't say anything more. However, she had a look in her eyes as if she were seeing something far away. Curious, I asked my mother about it later.
"Mom, has Grandma always liked festivals?"
My mother thought for a moment before saying,
"Rather than the festival itself, she might have been waiting for someone."
"Someone?"
"Someone who went to war."
Apparently, my grandmother had an older brother who died in the war. She said they parted ways at the shrine where they had started putting away the lanterns on the day he left for the front.
"Let's come to the summer festival together again."
Her brother left those words behind and never returned. It seems only the news of his death in battle arrived. It was a story I was hearing for the first time.
My grandmother lived a long life after that. Even so, perhaps a path leading back to those days remained somewhere in her heart.

At the end of June, while I was cleaning the Buddhist altar room, I found an envelope in the gap between the altar and the wall. The faded, soot-stained envelope felt like it had been there for years. Inside was a single photograph. It showed a young man in a soldier's uniform and a young girl smiling next to him wearing a yukata.
On the back, it was written only in ink: "On the day of the festival."

It was raining that night, too. I showed the photo to my grandmother. She was silent for a while, but eventually, she smiled faintly.
"How nostalgic."
As she said that, she traced the photo with her fingertips. Outside the window, the rain continued to fall.
It was still a little early for the festival. But my grandmother's eyes were looking somewhere beyond that.
Lanterns lined the approach to the shrine, swaying in the evening breeze. People in yukata were coming and going. Beyond that, a young man... she was seeing a phantom of a summer day from so long ago.

──Sorry to have kept you waiting.

Perhaps she heard a voice like that. My grandmother quietly closed her eyes and smiled, like a young girl waiting impatiently for the day of the festival.

That night, my grandmother talked in her sleep once more.

"Is the festival still not here yet?"

Not knowing if it was reality or a dream, the night in Minazuki quietly deepened.