The Fading Chalk Message

The Fading Chalk Message,

Episode 3: The 24-Hour Location GPS, the Fading Chalk Message

Swoosh—outside the window, heavy rain beat against the glass of Aomori City Hospital.

“It's really pouring outside, isn't it?”

As Mio spoke, looking at the location-sharing screen on her smartphone, Shun laughed softly on the round stool next to the bed.

“But I'm glad we have this app. I saw Mio's GPS staying still right at the city hospital, so after my seminar ended, I could shelter from the rain and meet up with her without getting lost at all.”

“Totally! With this, we don't even have to bother asking 'Where are you now?' and we can meet without wasting a single second. It's super convenient.”

As the two laughed together, Toki, whose hands had been moving deftly on the bed, suddenly paused her knitting needles and narrowed her eyes mischievously.

“Knowing exactly where the other person is all the time... isn't that a bit boring?”

“Eh, boring? It prevents us from missing each other, and it's easy,” Shun replied, looking puzzled.

“Hehe, in our days, we would be in a total panic when it rained. We loved each other while desperately thinking of one another in the 'inconvenience' where if we missed each other, it might be the end.”

Toki cast her eyes down at the white grid pattern of the wool she was knitting stitch by stitch, and began to recount her memories of the autumn of 1960.

“I believe it was on a day with a heavy evening shower in 1960. I was supposed to meet Shigeru in front of Aomori Station, but his train was delayed. We didn't have mobile phones back then, you know? If you were late, you might not be able to meet at all.”

Mio and Shun listened quietly, drawn into the scene Toki was describing.

“Worried about Shigeru, who was nowhere to be seen, I left a message in white chalk on the blackboard—the message board next to the station gate: 'I've gone ahead. I'll be at Cafe Marronnier. Toki.' But you see, a torrential rain like water poured from a bucket wet the semi-outdoor blackboard, smudging and half-erasing the chalk letters.”

“Wait, so Grandpa couldn't read it?”

Shun raised his voice in surprise, and Toki narrowed her eyes with deep affection, saying, “Exactly.”

“Arriving late, Shigeru desperately decoded the fading letters and searched all over the station area and Shinmachi Street without an umbrella, completely soaked, with a look of desperation on his face. As for me, I was waiting by the window at 'Cafe Marronnier' in front of the station, just as promised. Looking out through the heavy rain beating against the glass, I saw Shigeru, drenched to the skin, frantically looking around for me.”

With the sound of the rain outside the hospital room window, the sound of the heavy evening shower that enveloped "Cafe Marronnier" in 1960 overlapped.

“Seeing him soaked in the rain, his hair plastered to his forehead, looking for me like a lost child, my heart tightened so much... I couldn't bear it, so I ran out of the cafe and into the rain.”

Mio held her breath, waiting for Toki's next words.

“Shigeru was looking around with a panicked face in the rainy, misty street corner. I quietly ran up to his broad back from behind and held on to him tight.”

“Quietly, from behind...” Mio murmured, entranced.

“Yes. Surprised, Shigeru spun around, and the moment he saw my face, he held me back so tightly it almost hurt, without saying a single word. At that moment, held against Shigeru's soaked chest, I felt the beating of our hearts and his surprisingly hot body temperature. That was a real tegotae—something that could never be transmitted through the smooth glass of a smartphone.”

Before they knew it, the sound of the rain outside the window echoed like a gentle melody enveloping the hospital room.

Shun and Mio quietly looked at each other and gently closed the location-sharing screens on their smartphones.

During those inconvenient hours when they couldn't find each other, how desperately they had thought of one another.

As if cherishing the "analog warmth of thinking of each other" that had been taken away by convenience, they quietly grasped each other's hands beneath the bed.

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