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"I can't leave the summer."
In the middle of a burning sunset, the girl trails her feet through the waves and says it like that — like the first mirage I'd ever seen. A strange thing that happened, once, in summer.
It was mid-August.
I'd gone back to my father's hometown, a village on the coast of the Sea of Japan, for the holidays.
My parents were busy, and so were my grandfather and grandmother — everyone had something to do but me.
With nothing better to occupy myself, I took my bike and rode along the road that followed the shore.
At the far edge of the fishing village, there was a wide stretch of white sand.
I left my bike and walked down to the waterline.
The beach wasn't deep, but it ran on and on along the coast.
Seawater lapped at the toes of my sandals.
The sea breeze stirred my hair.
The sun burned down against my skin.
So this is summer, I thought.
There was a blue up above, deep in a way the city never managed.
I walked along the edge of the waves, feet growing wet, passing what I guessed were old fishermen's huts here and there.
At the far end of the beach stood one hut that looked different from the rest — more house than hut, really.
If it had been a normal home, you'd have called the part facing the sea an engawa, a porch where you could sit and let the waves wash over your feet.
But the roof had partly caved in, and the walls were pocked with holes.
By any measure, it was a ruin.
And yet — strangely — the open front door and that porch alone stayed clean, untouched by the decay around them.
Curiosity got the better of me before caution could.
I stepped inside, hesitant.
There was no thought in my head of trespassing — it was more like something was pulling me in.
"...Um — excuse me."
I called out from the entryway.
"Is anyone here?"
An old house, a dirt-floored entry leading into wood-plank rooms.
No sign of anyone.
The walls and floor were falling apart, and sunlight — along with the towering summer clouds — poured in through gaps in the roof.
Further inside,
one room was strangely bright.
Something was in there.
I climbed up, sandals still on, careful to step around the holes in the floor, and made my way toward that room, drawn by the light.
It was blinding.
That one room felt unnaturally bright.
I stepped into the light.
The room dazzled me.
Weeds had broken up through the floor of what had once been a tatami room.
The roof over it was entirely gone.
The walls had crumbled away.
From where I stood, I could see clean out to the horizon.
And in the center of the room lay a girl,
naked, bathed in sunlight.
The weeds that had grown up through the floor pierced her — arms, legs, stomach, breasts, face — all of it. They seemed to grow directly out of her.
However I looked at it, she couldn't have been alive.
And yet her face was peaceful, as if she were only sleeping.
She was beautiful.
That room was summer itself.
Crack!
Something snapped,
like a sound breaking apart,
and I blinked without meaning to — and the strange scene was gone.
The roof and walls stayed as they'd been,
but the floor was clean tatami now,
and a girl in a navy-blue swimsuit lay where the other girl had been.
The weeds that had run through her body were gone too.
What had looked frozen, like a doll,
now breathed — rising and falling gently.
Between the eeriness of what I'd seen,
the shame of having glimpsed her bare body, and the whiplash of the scene changing in an instant,
I had no idea what expression I was even wearing.
Before long, the girl stirred, sat up,
stretched with a hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn, and looked at me.
"Hey there."
She tilted her head, her long black hair swaying,
and spoke in a cool, clear alto.
She sat on the porch,
feet splashing idly in the waves as we talked.
"So — Jun, huh? I'm Nanami. Nice to meet you."
She was good at talking.
"Okay, psychology quiz time！ — what's today's date? Year, month, day, all of it."
Talking with Nanami was fun.
"Hey, how long are you around for?"
Nanami was cute.
"I wish it could just be summer forever."
We splashed each other, dove into the sea, swam.
The next day, and the day after that, we played together.
Somewhere along the way,
whatever wariness I'd had disappeared completely
Nanami was always there first,
waiting for me at the eaves of that strange ruined house.
Then the day came when I had to go home the next morning.
Telling the cute friend I'd made here felt genuinely hard.
That morning we played in the sea together until we were worn out,
and by midday we sat down again at the eaves, tired.
We talked less than usual.
"...Mm."
Nanami sat down in the middle of the tatami room, still damp in her swimsuit, and stretched her legs out.
"Jun — let's nap here."
She patted the spot beside her.
Well, I guess there's no helping it, I thought, and sat down next to her.
Nanami lay back, stretching out her sun-browned limbs, and I followed, lying down too.
"...Nanami, isn't it hot?"
"Huh? Doesn't it feel nice?"
Direct sunlight poured through the broken roof, and I could feel it scorching my skin bit by bit. My skin was weak — unlike Nanami's, it just turned red in the sun.
"That's city kids for you,"
she teased, sounding pleased with herself.
Then, her fingertips — still wet from the sea — brushed against mine.
I turned to look at her without thinking,
and found her watching me, looking a little embarrassed.
The contrast was striking: her skin, lightly tanned, against the pale skin peeking out from under the strap of her swimsuit,
slipped slightly off her shoulder.
Without warning, she rolled over — and leaned across me at an angle.
Her head came to rest near my shoulder and neck as I lay on my back.
Through my shirt, I could feel the dampness of her swimsuit against my chest.
My heart jumped.
"Wh— Nanami?!"
Startled by my voice, she flinched, curling in on herself.
Her breath was warm against my ear.
Hot.
The sun, the heat, Nanami's body heat — all of it.
Hot.
Confused, not sure what I was doing,
I reached up with an unpracticed hand and stroked her hair.
Hot.
Nanami let out a long breath and let all the tension leave her body.
Her light weight settled over me.
The sea breeze stirred her long hair.
The scent of the ocean and the scent of her mixed together, tickling my nose.
Hot.
The summer sun was hot.
I felt a dampness on my shoulder.
Nanami was crying.
Her hands gripped my shirt tightly.
I kept stroking her hair.
Eventually, worn out from crying, her breathing slowed into sleep,
and I drifted off too, wrapped in her warmth.
That room was summer.
...The sound of waves.
A soft lapping
The warmth I'd felt against me was gone before I noticed.
When I opened my eyes, it was already evening.
A sky the color of dying embers, towering clouds,
and Nanami with her hair stirred by the sea wind.
"I can't leave the summer."
In the burning light of sunset, feet trailing through the waves, looking out at the horizon,
she said it again.
"It's always like this.
I wake up and I'm here.
I can't leave this beach.
I ask everyone I meet what the date is — the year, the month, the day.
And every time, they all say August twelfth.
And that I'm going home on the sixteenth.
Heh... maybe I've gone a little strange.
I've just been going around and around that same stretch of days.
I don't remember spring at all.
Or autumn.Or winter."
With the sun behind her, I couldn't read her expression.
"Hey..."
She turned to look at me,
a lonely little smile on her face.
"I wonder if we can meet here again next year..."
I wanted to see Nanami's bright smile again.
I wanted to cheer her up.
Whether the impossible things she was saying were even true stopped mattering to me.
I nodded.
Nanami turned back toward the horizon and murmured,
"...Thanks."
That night, I quietly told my grandfather about the strange girl
He went pale for a moment, then said quietly that the old building was going to be torn down before the year was out.
Later, he lit a fire by the front door.
An okuribi,
he called it — a bonfire to send off a spirit.
I set off fireworks.
I wondered if Nanami and I would get to do fireworks together next year.
A week after I got home,
there was a news report — some human remains,
believed to belong to a woman,
had been found underwater near that old building.
A diver had discovered them.
The article speculated they might belong to a girl who had gone missing from that beach, years earlier, one summer.
"I wish it could just be summer forever."
"I can't leave the summer, not ever."
Nanami's bright smile.
Her sun-browned skin.
And the promise.
I put it all together.
I understood.
I cried.
The following year,
I went back to my father's hometown again.
The strange ruined house was gone from the beach now — in its place stood a small memorial marker.
My grandfather handed me a small bouquet of sunflowers and said only,
"Go on."
The waves made their soft,
lapping sound.
"...Hey, Nanami.
Did you make it out of summer? "
The sea breeze answered by stirring the hair across my forehead.