"Hana to Minato" Chapter 16 Epilogue

I will become a forest that nurtures lacquer

"Hello there."
A bright voice echoed from the entrance. It was Sakutaro. Suzuya and her mother went to the entrance to greet him. "Saku-chan, it's been a while. Thank you for coming."
"Saku-taro, how are you doing? Thank you as always."
While Suzuya spent four years earning credits at a correspondence high school, Sakutaro had already begun walking the path of a creator. A student in the product design department at university, Sakutaro was using his spring break to come and help Suzuya move.
"Oh, the room looks clean. What, are you taking everything in the room with you?"
"No, I took this opportunity to organize a lot of things."
"Knowing you, Suzu, I thought you'd be spacing out and getting distracted again."
"I left the big things because I wanted you to help me take them apart, Saku-chan."
Suzuya's gaze was fixed on the pipe bed.
"Alright, leave it to me."
Sakutaro rolled up his sleeves like in a manga and immediately started dismantling the pipe bed. Suzuya opened the tea chest in the guest room. She picked up a lacquer bowl. Her mother called out to her.
"Are you taking that bowl with you?"
"Is that okay? I'll treasure it like a charm."
"That was expensive, you know."
Her mother smiled mischievously.
"We bought it together at Otuya-san's shop, remember?"
"You've been calling him Otuya-san since you were little, haven't you?"
"Mom, did you dislike Otuya-san?"
"Dislike him? I don't even know who Otuya-san is."
"Huh? In my memory, I climbed Mount Kono with you when I was little and bought this bowl at a shop on the summit..."
"I've never climbed a mountain as far away as Mount Kono with you. Aren't you confusing it with somewhere else?"
"Then, what about Otuya-san?"
"I don't know. Besides, I bought that bowl when I was young, so Suzuya shouldn't know about it."
"Eh...?"
"Wait a moment. This bowl has a paulownia box. If you're taking it, you should put it in that."
Ignoring the bewildered Suzuya, her mother stood in front of the closet in the guest room.
"Suzu, can you check the top shelf of this closet?"
"Yeah."
Suzuya brought a step stool and climbed up. When she opened the sliding doors of the top shelf, the smell of paper and earth dust made her choke.
"Don't fall, be careful."
"Yeah. So much dust."
"I haven't touched it in a long time, so I think it's in the back. Isn't it around the top of the tea kettle box?"
"Which one is the tea kettle box in the first place?"
"The square one, probably."
The top shelf of the closet is rarely opened. Looking where her mother pointed, it was full of similar-looking boxes.
"You can tell, right?"
"I can't. It's like Tetris."
"It's not that big because it's the size of the bowl. It has a yellow cord tied around it."
"A cord, huh. Hmm... Oh. Maybe this one. The color is different, though."
There was a box jammed into a small gap. Even when she pulled it out, the other boxes were packed so tightly that it didn't seem like it would tilt.
The box she took out had a flat cord with green and cream stripes tied around it. Dust had accumulated so thickly that her fingerprints remained where she touched it. She wiped the dust off with a tissue.
"If it will support you, Suzuya, then take this bowl. I'll teach you how to tie the cord, so remember it."
After putting the bowl in the paulownia box and closing the lid, her mother crossed the flat Sanada cord in a cross shape, top to bottom and left to right.
"My hands aren't moving well. Suzu, can you tie this so the cord lies flat?"
Suzuya made a bow, and as instructed, she tightened it carefully, making sure the cord didn't twist.
"This is a knot called 'Shiho-gake' (four-way tie). If you forget, look it up and tie it."
"Yeah."
At that moment, Suzuya was drawn to and stared at the characters written in ink on the box.
<Otuya Akiko>


<Kagami-ga-fuchi>


"..."


This is...
"Do you like lacquer?"
The image of the woman who spoke to her at Gallery Soramitsu came back to her.
"This, you see, I bought and brought with me before I got married. When I got sick, I often gazed at this bowl. It felt like it made the pain a little easier to bear."
"Me too."
Her mother's journey up to this point must have been long. Her mother was a path for Suzuya. They had walked the path her mother created together. From now on, her mother would walk her own path, and Suzuya would create her own path toward the light.
Kagami-ga-fuchi and Otuya were Suzuya's mirrors. At times they were a place of rest, and at times they shook her heart. Suzuya grew up in this endless, small world.
"Someday, I want to be able to make works like this."
Born into this world by her mother, reborn at Kagami-ga-fuchi, and reborn as a creator. Lacquer is harvested from the trunks of wounded trees. Trees drained of their sap wither and are felled. The felled trees become the base for lacquerware and are reborn. Light shines anew on the forest after the trees are cut down. Receiving the light, new life sprouts from the stumps, and the forest is regenerated. Suzuya thought, I will become a forest that nurtures lacquer.
"I see. So Suzuya is going to be a creator."
Her mother gently stroked Suzuya's hair.
"Do your best."
"Thank you."
Her nose tingled. It was the scent of lacquer. The scent of Minato-ya. The scent of the tea chest. The scent of the new lacquer she would encounter from now on. Her heart felt warm. She could see the scene of water flowing from the sluice gate at Kagami-ga-fuchi. Time began to move forward. Now that her heart was released and she had decided on her own path, she could believe that both the breath of this moment and the light of the future were her own.
"I'll go get the wrapping cloth, too."
Her mother went to her own room where the Japanese chest was.
Suzuya felt Otuya and her younger self deep in her heart and hugged herself.
The little Suzuya smiled happily as she watched the Suzuya who was about to become an adult. Suzuya spoke to her.
"I love you. I love you more than anyone."
End

Reference book: "Understanding Orthostatic Dysregulation" by Satoko Nakazawa (Hoken)

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