"Blue Sea"

At the beginning of the Taisho era, there was a small fishing village on the coast of Boso.

The sound of waves echoed constantly, and the smell of the salt water filled the air.

A boy stood on a cliff, gazing out at the sea every night.

The 17-year-old was a sickly boy known to everyone in the village.

A lung disease was ravaging him, and every time he coughed, blood would come out.

But his illness wasn't the only reason he gazed out at the sea.

There was a place in the sea where people disappeared.

The villagers whispered, "Those who throw themselves off that cliff will return to the sea."

The boy had heard the tales too.

In recent years, the number of people taking their own lives had been increasing in the village.

A young girl, a fisherman haunted by debt, a man abandoned by his wife.

They all jumped off the cliff into the sea under cover of darkness.

The villagers didn't blame them, but simply gazed out at the sea in silence.

The sea, they said, is a mother who accepts all.

One night, a boy stood on the edge of a cliff.

The moon was waning, and only the sound of the waves enveloped him.

The sea was black, and seemed bottomless.

He wondered.

Why do people throw themselves into the sea?

Are they seeking forgiveness? Dreaming of paradise?

Or do they simply want to be embraced by the mother sea?

The boy had once seen a village girl, Haru. She had jumped off a cliff after being betrayed by her lover.

Her final smile was like that of a maiden longing for the sea.

But the boy could not shake off a doubt.

Is there happiness at the bottom of the sea? Is Haru smiling beneath the waves now, or is he still sinking in the cold darkness?

His heart ached.

His illness was shortening his life, and his family looked at him with pity.

The boy could not find meaning in life.

The sea swallows everything.

Pain, sorrow, and sin.

But what lies beyond?

The boy took a step closer to the cliff's edge.

The waves roared, as if calling to him.

"Come, return to your mother's arms."

The wind blew, ruffling the boy's hair.

He closed his eyes and remembered Haru's smile.

Did she believe in paradise? Or did she simply want to escape?

The boy murmured.

"Sea, tell me. What am I seeking here?"

There was no answer.

Only the sound of the waves continued.

The boy looked to the sea for the last time.

There was neither his mother's kindness nor the splendor of paradise.

Only endless darkness spread out before him.

Even if he threw himself into the sea, happiness would not await him.

The moment he realized this, the boy stepped back.

But his foot slipped, and he fell off the cliff.

The sea silently swallowed him up.

The next morning, the villagers saw that only the boy's shoes remained on the cliff.

No one spoke.

They just stared at the sea and listened to the sound of the waves.

The sea accepts all.

But no one knows what it will give to the lives it accepts.

When night comes, someone else will stand on the cliff.

Mother sea simply waits in silence.