Chapter 1
Spring can always be felt in the air before it is seen. It carries a bittersweet taste that gently scratches the tongue, leaving behind a strange sense of longing. It may still be February on the calendar, or already April. Spring does not care about dates. No one consulted it when they decided how long each month should last. It arrives suddenly, whenever it pleases. Yet it arrival is impossible to miss.
As she finally stepped out of school, Morika drew a deep breath. She licked her dry lips and immediately tasted it. Yes. It was definitely it. Nothing could be mistaken for spring. Especially not this year.
The cold of that winter had been unbearable. Temperatures had dropped below freezing, a rare occurrence in their city. People were so unprepared for the cold that schools and universities had been forced to close for months. So when, in the middle of February, the temperature suddenly climbed to fifteen degrees Celsius, no one could quite believe it. Spring had decided to save everyone from despair. Or almost everyone.
Could it be said that Morika was unhappy about the warmer weather? Not exactly. She loved the feeling of sunlight on her skin. While most of her classmates tried to avoid the sun in order to “preserve their youthful complexion,” Morika would tilt her face toward its warmth whenever she had the chance, never bothering to hide her smile. The sun immediately brought out even more freckles across her cheeks, something her friends considered another flaw to be corrected. Morika always brushed off such comments.
Perhaps it had something to do with growing up in a mixed family. Her father was Japanese and had spent his entire life in this city. Her mother, meanwhile, was Spanish. Apart from her mother’s freckles and wild curls, Morika looked almost exactly like her father: narrow eyes, a sharp nose, thin lips. But her heart carried her mother’s Spanish fire. It was always reaching for something more. The only problem was that she had no idea what that something was.
- I’m home! - she called out as she stepped inside, dropping her sports bag onto the floor and kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief.
- Finally.
Her mother emerged from the kitchen. Inés was holding a letter. With a tired expression, she rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand.
She was teaching Spanish at an international cultural center now, but in her younger years she had been a journalist. Morika had always loved listening to stories about her mother’s adventures abroad. Europe, Latin America, Asia - there seemed to be no corner of the world Inés had not visited. Passionate and endlessly curious, she had chased mountain summits and career ambitions with equal determination. Nothing had ever been enough for her. There was always another country to see, another story to tell, another horizon waiting beyond the next one.
Then she married Aoto, Morika’s father. Not long afterward, she became pregnant. Life slowed down. Far more than she had wanted it to.
Teaching at the cultural center never allowed Inés to fully use everything she was capable of. After so many years, she was no longer certain she possessed that potential at all.
- Here, - she said, holding out the envelope. - It’s from Tokyo University.
Morika resisted the urge to groan. Her mother had been waiting for this letter far more eagerly than she had. The entrance exam schedule. “A good education opens doors to the world,” Inés always said. “You can choose any path you want. But whatever you choose, you must work hard and master it completely.”
The severe winter had forced universities across the country to postpone their entrance examinations. Not only students had fallen ill; professors and administrators had as well. The delay had given Morika extra time to prepare. Now the weather had changed, schools and universities had reopened. Letters like this one were arriving to remind everyone that the inevitable was approaching.
- Alright. - Morika took the envelope and carelessly tore it open. For a moment she froze beneath her mother’s sharp gaze, afraid she might have ripped the paper inside. Fortunately, the letter remained intact. There it was, her sentence. Printed neatly in black ink. - March fifteenth.
- March fifteenth? - Inés pressed a hand to her chest. - Only three weeks left. Oh God. Oh God.
- More than three weeks, Mom.
That’s not enough time. You need to study. You need to give this everything you’ve got. Three weeks is nothing. Go to your room and study right now.
- Mom...
Morika let out a weary sigh. She already spent nearly every free moment studying. She reviewed material until her brain simply stopped cooperating. The kind of exhaustion where your eyes move carefully across every line of a textbook, only for you to reach the end of the page and realize you cannot remember a single thing you just read and then you have to start over. It felt similar to repeating a word too many times. At first it remains perfectly ordinary, like “chair” or “apple”. But after saying “apple” a hundred times, your brain begins to wonder whether it should really be “apple” or “pleap”.
- I already went to the library after school.
- Is that why you came home sweaty and carrying a sports bag? - Inés raised an eyebrow and pointed at the bag near Morika’s feet.
- Fine.
There was no point explaining that basketball was the only thing keeping her sane. Once Inés convinced herself of something, changing her mind was nearly impossible. The sound of a basketball striking the floor had always calmed Morika. It didn’t matter whether she was playing with a team or alone, every position felt the same to her. All that mattered was having the ball in her hands and not thinking about exam material for a while. She was actually quite talented, but even when she had been part of the school team, she spent most games sitting on the bench. At first her coach had tried to give her opportunities to prove herself. But eventually her complete indifference toward winning outweighed her natural ability. She simply lacked the desire to compete. During games she could become mesmerized by something as simple as watching the ball bounce against the court before returning to her hands, as though she were under a spell. In basketball, that was unforgivable. Every time it happened, an opposing player would effortlessly steal the ball. And every time, Morika barely bothered to chase after it. So when her coach politely asked her to leave the team, she felt no disappointment. “Can I still come and play sometimes?” she had asked only. When he agreed to let her join occasional practices and use the court afterward on her own, she left with a sense of relief.
Today she had practiced for hours. Long enough for her arms to ache from endless shooting drills. Massaging the stiff muscles in her neck, she headed upstairs toward her room.
- And don’t forget to call your abuela!
- Okay, - Morika exhaled. It took all her remaining energy not to answer more sharply.
Abuela. Her grandmother on her mother’s side. In return for being called abuela, Nuria always called Morika abejita - little bee. They spoke only Spanish together. Whenever abuela overheard Morika speaking Japanese, however, Nuria would laugh. “What kind of language is that?” she would say. “It sounds like a swarm of bees. My little abejita. That language doesn’t suit you at all.” Morika loved her grandmother dearly, but lately, though, she could never find the strength to call. The questions were always the same: university, the future, studying. She heard enough about those subjects from her parents every day. Guilt gnawed at her. Again and again she promised herself she would call. Just not today.
Her room was exactly as she had left it. Clothes lay scattered across the floor. Textbooks and notebooks were piled haphazardly across her desk. The bed remained unmade. Morika tossed her sports bag onto the growing heap of belongings and walked toward the window. The city was still alive outside. Cars honked somewhere in the distance. People hurried home from work, headed to dinner dates, met friends, or disappeared into the evening crowd. Only the wind seemed unhurried. It moved gently through the trees that had yet to recover from the long winter. For a moment, Morika stood there watching. Then she drew the curtains shut and the city vanished. So did the glow of the streetlights. Darkness settled over the room.
She collapsed onto her bed. The sheets smelled faintly of her perfume. Stretching an arm beneath the blanket, she searched through the familiar clutter and eventually found what she was looking for - an old Sony Walkman that had once belonged to her father. She loved listening to music on cassette tapes. Everything sounded different that way, more real. She slipped on the headphones, but nothing happened. The batteries were dead. Morika groaned softly and reached toward the bedside table. She always kept spare batteries in one of the drawers. After fumbling through the darkness, she found two. The old batteries landed somewhere on the floor with a hollow clatter before rolling beneath the bed. A moment later, her finger found the familiar button Play and the tape began to turn. Then came the music, the opening notes of one of the songs from Bella Donnaby Stevie Nicks, her favorite album. In the darkness of the room, only three sounds remained: the quiet rustle of the cassette, Stevie Nicks’s distant voice, and Morika’s breathing.
The clouds never expect it when it rains
But the sea changes color
But the sea does not change
The last dream Morika could remember was one she had when she was still a child. It wasn’t that she didn’t dream. Quite the opposite. While her body lay in bed and her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, her mind wandered through its most hidden corners. The problem was that the moment she opened her eyes, every event her subconscious had conjured vanished at once. She knew for certain that she dreamed, because sometimes she woke up in tears. Her body clearly reacted to whatever she had seen while asleep. This time, however, she woke in a different state. Although her heart was beating faster than usual, it was not because of a nightmare. Her entire body felt warm, and the source of that heat seemed to be spreading from the bottom part of her belly. Yes, she remembered exactly what she had been dreaming about - what had caused such a reaction. Kenshō.
Morika and Kenshō had been in the same class during elementary school, and in parallel classes during high school. They were not friends, or even acquaintances. In all the years they had attended the same school, Morika had never once had the chance to speak with him. Only slightly taller than Morika, Kenshō was rather lean, with broad shoulders that always made him stand out in a crowd. She remembered them well from the swimming competitions. Everyone at school was obsessed with swimming. The school’s team always took first place in competitions, and unlike basketball games, every swimming meet filled the stands to capacity. Girls made posters and shouted cheers of encouragement, something Morika had always found a little embarrassing. It made her feel awkward just watching them. The first time her friends convinced her to attend a competition with them, she had not been prepared for the way they squealed at the sight of the boys. They did everything they could to attract their attention, while Morika wished the ground would swallow her whole. The swimmers were just getting ready to dive into the pool when she noticed Kenshō among them. The moment he entered the water, Morika found herself unable to look away. His every movement was precise and refined. The way his strong legs pushed off the walls of the pool, his powerful arms cutting through the surface of the water, and his lips greedily gasping for air. All this was causing a new feeling inside of Morika. The warmth started growing on the bottom of her stomach. Yes, it was quite the same feeling she was experiencing now, lay in her bed. But now this feeling hit some kind of culminating, spreading around not only the belly, but the whole Morika’s body.
Sitting on the bed, Morika pulled off her headphones and pressed her palm against her chest. Her heart was still beating like mad, but her breathing was slowly settling. What exactly had she dreamed about? She knew Kenshō had been there. But where? In the swimming pool? In a school corridor? In a classroom? Morika strained her memory, trying to retrieve as many details as possible, but they flickered in front of her and faded instantly, as if mocking her attempts. Only one thing remained constant in that flickering haze - the eyes of Kenshō. They were directed at her, dark and bottomless, like two wells from her childhood memories.
Every summer holiday, Morika visited her grandmother in Spain. She lived in a small village in Catalonia, far removed from the noise of the city. A modest house, wrapped in grapevines, was quietly hidden among olive trees and tomato beds. Helping her grandmother with the household chores, little Morika loved drawing water from an old well the most. Each time she lowered the bucket into its dark depth, she watched it closely. Without looking away, not even blinking, she tried to catch the exact moment the bucket reached the water, to understand how deep it really was. But no matter how hard she tried, the bucket always disappeared from sight before the splash could be heard. Morika was convinced that if she could only witness that moment, the well would reveal the secrets of its darkness and endless water. There had to be something. Something on the other side of the darkness.
She stared into Kenshō’s eyes with the same intensity with which she had once stared into the darkness of that well. But unlike the old well, the darkness in Kenshō’s eyes was not impenetrable. At its very bottom, something was there. Two lights. At first, small and distant, they slowly grew larger as they approached Morika. They were drawn toward her by some strange force. The lights began to take shape, to gain color, until they became what they truly were. Two moons. One of them was ordinary in every way - white and large, radiating a familiar glow. But the second moon was noticeably smaller, tinted green. Its light was sharp and cold, cutting unpleasantly into the eyes. And the moment Morika looked away from it - she woke up. With trembling heart and wet underwear.
At her eighteen, Morika had no sexual experience. No romantic experience either. Except for those moments when she used to watch Kenshō at the swimming pool, she never felt sexual arousal. But for more than a year now, she had not seen him at competitions. Not in the pool. Not in school corridors. Not in classrooms. He simply stopped appearing in her field of vision. At first, it had worried her. Her eyes would automatically search among her peers for those familiar broad shoulders, but they were nowhere to be found. And yet, when something disappears from our field of view for long enough, we begin to forget it. No matter how hard Morika tried to concentrate, she could not remember when she had last seen Kenshō. Or why this particular dream had remained with her when all the others had faded.
