“Senpai*!!”
I put my attention to look at the direction of the shout and see a girl running from the school building toward me. Her hand is gripping a bag with enough strength to keep it from dropping.
She is Aya, the girl whom I have waited for 15 minutes.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOrrPyGxsmh
I stand up from the bench and wave my hand with a little smile. She stop running as she arrives in front of me. She catches every breath she can; indicating that she ran from where she was. In the meantime I smell the nice flower fragrance coming out from her hair. I assume, it must be an expensive shampoo to be able to maintain a very nice scent for a long time on her silky long hair. It still smells the same as this morning when I met her.
“Senpai, I am sorry. Did I make you wait long?” She asks with a troubled face, still while still catching her breath.
“It’s okay. I just got here too.”
We don’t want to waste any time so we walk out of the gate because we see the sun is starting to set. We drift away from the bench and start following the sidewalk that leads to the station.
The sky with no cloud which is slowly turning orange turn to be somehow more picturesque than ever. Few numbers of cars passing by produce a strangely comforting sound. The only missing thing is the melodic noises that usually come from the strap hanging on her bag.
The strap, it shaped of two red lollipops -which are actually little bells, so when two of them collide it chimes. But today, that strap is not on her bag.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡESK0giilNT
“Hey. Your lollipops strap. Where is it?” I ask with a straight face as not to let her know that I do miss the chimes.
“Lollipops?” She asks me back with a confused look.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFZn4bQoNW4
“You know. The strap that always hanging to your bag. You don’t have it today.”838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgfboN2nf9t
“Oh, that one.” She says with an "ah!" written on her face.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3A6XwwqPNt
“But, it’s not a lollipop.”838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOkEDwuLLEZ
“Huh? Then what is it?”
“It’s a cherry. Two cherries with green straight stems.”
“What?”
I am genuinely surprised with my own misjudgment. I never asked her what it actually was. All this time, I just saw it round and had a straight stick, so I thought it was lollipops. I overlooked the fact that the stick is green and it could be the stem. 838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9MVnJARwBo
“I thought it was lollipops. Besides why would a cherry’s stems straight. It should curve right?”
“I know. But it is a cherry. It says on the wrapping.” She smiles.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnuSbsnS36q
“I gave it to my sister.” Aya continue to talk after a brief pause.
“My little sister went to store where I bought the strap. Then she came back with a sad look on her face and said they ran out of it. And apparently they don’t make it anymore. So I gave it to her.”
“I see.”
And with a surprise on my face and in my voice, I lately react more “Eh?! Isn’t that mean that strap is popular and rare or something?”
“Now that you mention it, some of my friends from my class wanted it too,"
"And there were also my friends from cram school too…” Her head is looking up as if she was remembering something.
“You could probably sell it for a considerable price on the net.” I partly joke.
“That’s alright. I gave it to her as a pre-gift. Her birthday is coming soon and besides,” She pauses for a while and say “To see someone dear to you being sad, is vexing.”
“Especially when you can’t do something about it.” She adds.
She continues to speak with her head looking down at the road in front of her.
“That’s why when I saw her smile . . .” Then she raise her head up and look at me with a candid smile on her face “. . . it’s priceless.”
That is just what you can expect from a girl such as her. She is always like that ever since I first knew her. She always put herself behind others. And she is only 16. I know for sure that she will grow up to be a wonderful person. I feel ashamed inside. When she thought of other person’s smile, I thought of money, even though it came out partly as a joke.
“That is so you, huh. You selfless girl!” I say, while I put my hand on her head and stroke her smooth and orderly-groomed hair.
“Senpai, don’t! My hair will get messy!”
Her face blushed before I take my arm off her head and continue to talk.
“It’s good to be selfless, but sometimes, it’s okay to think about your own self too.”
The only good advice that I can give even though I doubt the “good” part a little bit. Then, I ask her a question.
“Even a girl like you must have something you want, don’t you?”
After that question, she goes silent while walking and furthering ourselves from school. We almost reach the usual first crossroad before many others that leads to the station. Then from there, we will take different train lines.
The thing about this first crossroad is, it always almost full of traffic at this hour. So we must wait for some minutes to cross it. The question is how long this moment will stay awkward. Because she is staying quiet after not answering my last question.
Steps by steps and the silence still remain. I keep looking straight and I don’t have the gut to see her face. I am imagining few possible bad expressions that she could possibly put on her face. Moreover, her head has been looking down at the road. And the sides of her long hair –covering her face so I can’t see it from the side.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlj6SY8KMts
Finally we arrive at the first crossroad. As expected, we have to wait sometimes as we see the green light for the cars and the red light for pedestrians. There are already some people waiting beside us here and some of them looking unhappy. They must also know it is going take quite some time to wait. Judging by the number of the people, the red light for pedestrians has turned up just recently.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6OUtZRj5h
I realize that this awkwardness cannot continue any longer. Since we are not even halfway to the station, the thought of apologizing to her come across me.
“I am sorry. I said unnecessary thing, didn’t I?”
I say it with a moderate sound behind the idle waiting people in front of us. I try to break the awkward silence, which is caused by a question, with another question.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDvwAkeNeg8
“I didn’t mean to lecture you or anything. I just—“
“What would you do, Senpai?” With a soft voice, she cut me off before I finish.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSqLD0lGHBp
“Huh??” I ask for confirmation.
I am glad she decides to talk again but what’s with the sudden question?
“If you want something, but you can’t have it.” She carries on.
“You realize you want it so much, but at the same moment also you realize that you can’t have it. And the desire of wanting it won’t go away, even though you know the fact that you can’t have it.”838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyKMd8IJDKS
She keeps talking while many different cars passing by, swift, like a current of a steady river. It forbids us to cross.
“The desire, it just stays there, lingering, deep, down in the bottom of your heart. What would you do?”
Her voice is not even as loud as a raging thunder but my heart feels like it’s struck with devastating storm. The storm that wreak havoc on a lonely small ship at the heart of a vast ocean. The reason is because I know that this is that moment. The moment when the hourglass that I have been keeping all this time, is dropping the last grain of its sands.
The light finally turns green for us to cross, so we take our first step into the crossroad, side by side. In front of us, walk the others who may have waited longer than us to pass this damned crossroad. And in the brief seconds of crossing, my conscience is busy probing my mind for the right sensible answer for her question -which I personally consider difficult.
What would I do when I want something but I can’t have it?
The incredible thing about human mind is that you can think of something which actually takes a very long duration only to have minutes or even seconds passes by in real-time. Like how they say that all your life flashes by when you’re about to die. People who died at 80 must had had eighty years of their life flashed at the very seconds of their death.
Even though this is not a life-and-death situation, I am trying to remember everything that has happened until now from the event of that Monday while crossing this arguably long crossroad.
The day when the hourglass dropped its first sand.
*Senpai (せんぱい), is a pronoun to address a senior, upperclassmen, etc.838Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE7yaH4NZIQ
