The Last Leaves Falling (25 page)

Hi

Hi :)

All right?

Not really

I hear the
clink
of a new message, but I cannot see the words. Tears fall down my face, wet the neck of my T-shirt, sticky and shameful.

I know Mai’s asking what is wrong, but I don’t know what to say.

That a man I did not know just died?

It’s stupid. And I can’t explain.

And it wouldn’t matter even if I could, because he’s
dead
. Words won’t change a thing.

Clink.

Clink.

CLINK.

Is it possible for those sound effects to become insistent? Louder?

I squeeze my eyes shut to force away the tears.

What’s wrong?

Sora?

All right, that’s it . . .

My cell phone rings loudly, startling me.

It’s Mai.

“Hello?” My voice shakes.

“Sora! What is it?”

“I . . .”

She waits for me to answer, her breathing heavy with anticipation, and I imagine I can hear her heart beating through the phone.

“What on earth is
wrong
, Sora? Talk to me!”

“I . . . I don’t want to die
alone
!” The last word comes out as a wail.

“What?” She’s shocked, and I’m instantly sorry, but I cannot stop.

“I don’t want to die alone, and I don’t want to die like that.”

“Like what? What’s happened?”

“Nothing. I just . . . I’m
scared
, Mai.”

“You are not going to die alone, Sora. I’m not going anywhere, and neither’s Kaito, or your mother.”

“But I’m still going to die, aren’t I? You can’t stop it. And it’s horrible. It’s so
ugly
and
raw
and
I don’t want it
.”

“I know, Sora. I know.”

We sit, saying nothing, and as I cry an ocean’s worth of silent tears, I think she’s crying with me.

55

What are you both doing next Sunday afternoon?

UM . . . I SHOULD BE STUDYING.

Can you study later?

WHAAAT? THE GREAT MAI OF LEGENDARY GRADES WANTS TO ABANDON THE BOOKS?

Yes. Please. It’s important.

Sora? Can you make it?

I’d have to ask Mama if she can take me wherever it is, but I think so.

We’ll pick you up (:

So, 3, at Sora’s apartment?

OKAY.

Okay.

WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT?

You’ll see (:

UM, MAI . . . IS THIS GOING TO BE A BETTER SURPRISE THAN THE LAST TIME.

I promise.

OKAY THEN.

56

“Abe-san.” My friends bow in unison when my mother opens the door.

“Do you want to come in, or are you in a hurry?”

Initially, my mother forbade me from going out without her. “It isn’t safe,” she argued. “What if something happens?”

But for once, I argued back, and in the end, she used my cell phone to call Mai and ask where we’d be going, and what time we’d return.

She actually grinned at the answer.

“We should go.”

“Then I insist you stay for tea on your return. Sora, you have your wallet? Phone?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Okay then.” She moves out of the doorway and lets Kaito take the helm.

•  •  •  •

As soon as our front door is closed, Kaito starts running down the hall toward the elevator.

“Whoa! What’s the hurry?”

“No hurry, just excitement,” he says, breathless, as we’re forced to stop and wait for the elevator.

Mai catches up with us seconds later.

“Maniacs,” she laughs.

In the elevator, Kaito flexes his muscles, posing in the mirrored walls like some sort of cartoon strongman.

“Oh yeah, like you have the physique for that!” Mai scoffs, grinning.

He reels back in mock offense, but he cannot keep up the expression, and his face breaks into a grin.

“Nerd.”

“Thank you.” He bows to her.

Never has the journey out of the building gone so fast, felt so light, and suddenly we’re wheeling out into the autumn sunshine.

“So where are we going?” I ask.

Mai skips excitedly and claps her hands together like a little girl on too much sugar. “I’m taking you both out for ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” I can hear the puzzlement in Kaito’s voice. “What’s so important about ice cream?”

She pirouettes on the spot and fixes him with an intense stare. “Kaito, Kaito, Kaito.
Everything
about ice cream is important. It is a healer. A joy bringer. A magical cure-all.”

“You sound like a crazy old woman,” he laughs. “Three sips of this lizard oil at sundown and your health shall be restored.”

“Haha, it’s exactly like that. I
dare
you to be sad after ice cream.”

“Point taken. Although . . . I’m not sad in the first place.”

Mai’s eyes flick to me and I shake my head, the tiniest of movements. But she sees.

I do not want to have to explain it all again.

“Well, then it’s a preventative measure. I like my friends happy.”

It really is warm out here, and the sweet, sunned air bounces off the pavement.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, Mai. And perfect weather for it too.”

“Yes!”

“So where are we going? Anywhere particular?”

“Nope. I thought we’d just walk along and pick the first place that sells ice cream we like.”

“Okay then.” Kaito marches forward, a spring in his step that I can feel in the way he pushes my chair.

Mai prances around us, almost dancing, and I watch the way her plaited hair bounces off her shoulders, the way her polka-dot skirt flares with every turn. The way her eyes crinkle at the edges when she smiles.

•  •  •  •

“There!” Mai points across the street to a small, brightly lit parlor called The Happy Cone, with a cat painted on the sign. In the window is a poster that reads
EVERY FLAVOR YOU IMAGINE
.

The vendor is an old man, who nods kindly as we enter.

“What can I get you, young things?”

Kaito pushes me up to the counter so I can see what’s on offer. There are at least fifty flavors, and as many choices again in topping form. There’s coconut, vanilla, and peach-raspberry, and at the far end sweet potato, wasabi-chocolate, tea, and squid ink.

“Chocolate chocolate-chip for me, please,” Kaito says. “With . . . cherry sauce.”

The old man nods and heaps three generous scoops into a bowl.

“What would you like, Sora?” Mai asks.

“Can I mix flavors?”

The man nods.

I scan the rows again, imagining each flavor in turn as I try to decide. “Then . . . a coffee cream, a blackberry, aaaand . . .” Finally my eyes settle on the brightest green tub. “Lime. Thank you.”

“And I’ll have strawberry please. With lemon sprinkles.”

We settle at the table by the window, and for a moment we’re each lost in sensory pleasure of sweet-tart mouthfuls, cold on the tongue, melting as we swallow.

Mai’s right. Nobody can be sad over a bowl of ice cream.

“So,” she says, looking up from her dish, “if you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?”

Kaito leans back in his chair, rests his arms behind his head, and drawls, “Well, since I’ll be roughly eighty percent chocolate by the time I finish this bowl, I think that’s my answer. It’s probably your basic village-boy answer, but it’s true. I
like
chocolate.”

“Okay. Sora?”

“Errr, squid ink. I’m an acquired taste.”

“Hah. I
dare
you to try it!”

“Umm . . . maybe later. Go on, your turn.”

Mai glances at the counter with its rainbow of flavors. “I don’t even knooooow.”

“Come on, you can’t ask us and not have an answer yourself!”

“But there’s so many! And I don’t know who I am, at all.”

“I do.” Kaito’s voice is soft. “You’d be something sweet, but fresh. Peach. With warm buttered-toast croutons on top.”

Her cheeks flare, and she bites her bottom lip, embarrassed.

But he’s right. That is exactly what she’d be.

“Okay, next question. If you could do anything before you die”—they look at me nervously, but I continue—“what would it be?”

“Does it have to be realistic?”

“No. Anything.”

They think for a while, and I scoop up another mouthful of ice cream—a little of each, all on the spoon together. I swirl the flavors around my tongue, until, separate at first, they all melt into one another and become something new.

Mai pulls a pen from somewhere and starts doodling on a napkin as she thinks. I try not to look, but her swift, confident strokes are arresting and I cannot help it.

On the back wall, behind the old man, there is a painted mural of a smiling cat and his canary friends all dining on a giant bowl of multicolored, cherry-topped ice cream. But in Mai’s version, they are standing not around dessert, but around a gravestone.

She sees me looking and shelters the paper behind her arm, but she does not stop. After a while, she speaks. “I’d travel around the world drawing everything I see, and then I’d turn my experiences into an animated film:
Little Monkey Sees the World
.”

“I’d go to see that.”

“Me too.”

She smiles shyly. “Kai?”

“I’d join the circus. Be an acrobat, flying through the air, all muscles and dexterity and grace.” He stops, registering the disbelief on Mai’s face. “Hey! What? He said it didn’t have to be real, and an acrobat is everything I’m not. Besides, it looks like fun.”

“I’m sorry.” Mai bows her head, but I think I see her trying not to laugh. “Sora?”

I have a hundred thousand wishes, but they’re too heavy for a day like this. I will not let them ruin it.

“This.” I shrug. “Sitting in the sun over ice cream with my friends.”

“You wouldn’t . . . oh, I don’t know, travel back in time to meet the samurai? Or go to Paris? Or—”

“No.”

“All right, mister,” Mai comes to my rescue. “Let’s make this day even better. Squid-ink ice cream. Do you dare?”

“What universe do you live in where squid ink makes things better?”

“Hahaha. All right. More interesting then. Memories, Sora, it’s all about forming the memories.”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I will if you will.”

Her nose wrinkles all the way up, but she nods, gathers our empty bowls, and heads over to the counter.

“Three bowls of squid-ink ice cream please.”

“Three?” Kaito protests. “I don’t remember agreeing to that!”

“Oh come
on
. We’re making
memories
, Kai. You can’t miss out on this.”

“I could.”

“No! You’ll regret it, when we’re back at home.”

He sighs, but when she brings over three bowls, he takes his without further complaint.

The ice cream is a silky gray, and sits in the bowl like smooth pebbles.

“Here we go,” I say.

The others dig their spoons into the dessert too.

I lift mine to my nose and sniff. It smells like cinder toffee and the sea. At the same time. My mouth waters.

“Are we sure about this?” Kaito asks, eyeing the lump on his spoon.

“Yes,” says Mai. “One, two, three.”

Spoons raise, mouths open. In.

I watch the others’ faces try to work around uncertainty, revulsion, shock, then pleasure. Like children with sweet lemons.

It is exactly how I imagined, and yet not at all. The saltiness of it fizzes on my tongue, and then there is the weight of sugar. Caramel.