COLD THE FINAL: Chapter 12

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Spring

The light streaming through the window was orange, casting a dim glow over the desk, the bed, the posters pinned to the wall—all of them once a part of his world. Bathed in the nostalgic, dusty scent of the room, Masahiko Kusuda sat flipping through his high school yearbook. The boy in the photos looked shockingly young and laughed without a trace of restraint. Back then, he may have had a vision of going to university, but beyond that, he’d had no thoughts about the future. The idea that he’d one day be living in New York wouldn’t have even crossed his mind.

He heard the creak of someone coming up the stairs, and then the door to what had once been his bedroom opened a little. Peeking through the crack was his older brother, Masamitsu.

“So, you’re already awake?”

“Just now,” Kusuda replied.

Masamitsu opened the door wide and stepped in. He’d changed out of his funeral clothes—probably because they’d felt too tight—into a sweatshirt and sweatpants. His eyes drifted briefly to the blanket still rumpled on the tatami floor, where Kusuda had collapsed and fallen into a deep sleep after returning from their grandmother’s cremation. He hadn’t intended to sleep long, just to lie down for a bit, but the next thing he knew, someone had covered him with a blanket and he’d woken up feeling strangely warm.

“I feel better now after sleeping a bit.”

“You looked half-asleep the whole time during the funeral,” Masamitsu remarked.

Kusuda gave a sheepish smile. “Got caught, huh. There was this old man snoring next to me on the plane—couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Damn, rough flight,” Masamitsu chuckled, lowering himself onto the old pipe-frame bed, which creaked miserably under his weight. Kusuda returned the album to the bookshelf.

“It was a good funeral.”

“Yeah,” Masamitsu agreed with a nod. They’d been informed five days earlier that their grandmother’s condition had worsened. Kusuda, living in New York, hadn’t been able to return right away. While he scrambled to rearrange his schedule and book a flight, she passed away. He’d missed the wake, but just barely made it to the funeral. Her face in the casket had looked peaceful, as if she were only sleeping. She’d always been kind and soft-spoken, constantly saying, I’m grateful, I’m grateful. The hoarse tone of her voice came back to him, and a wave of sorrow welled up inside.

“I should’ve come back to see her at least once more while she was still alive.”

Like over the New Year’s, for instance. He’d been torn about whether to return or not.

“I didn’t make it in time either,” Masamitsu said. “After they told us she was critical, she stabilized for a bit, and I let my guard down. Then she passed suddenly. She was ninety-two, though—lived a full life.”

He stroked his neatly trimmed beard.

“Hey, did you let any of your friends know you were back in Japan?”

The first face that came to mind was Akizawa’s.

“No. I’m heading back to New York tomorrow, and things have been hectic. I heard there was a reunion over the New Year, and I would’ve liked to go to something like that, but… just didn’t work out.”

“New York’s a long way,” Masamitsu muttered.

“And the plane ticket’s expensive,” Kusuda added.

They exchanged a smile, then the room went quiet again.

“Hey,” Masamitsu said seriously, “why don’t you come back to Japan?”

“You could hire local staff to manage the shop over there. It’s not like you absolutely have to be in New York.”

Masamitsu already knew that Kusuda had resumed contact with Akizawa and that they were working on repairing their relationship. Kusuda had been unsure how to bring it up, but Akizawa had beaten him to it, and he’d received a call from his brother, asking, “Is it true? Are you okay?”

“I do think that eventually I’ll be able to leave the shop to local staff,” Kusuda replied, “but right now, I’ve got a lot of collaborations going with fashion magazines. I’d like to stay over there a while longer.”

Even if he were to return to Japan eventually, it was still too soon. And there was also the matter of Akizawa. Though he’d taken on more overseas work recently, Akizawa’s career was still centered in Japan. If Kusuda were to live domestically again, the frequency of their encounters would surely increase—and that would exhaust him. With New York and Japan, New York and the film hub of Los Angeles, there was a comfortable distance between them, enough that they couldn’t just casually see each other. That space was, emotionally speaking, a relief.

Even now, in fleeting moments—during work, or when he was alone in his room—whether Akizawa was nearby or not, the memory of that time would suddenly surface, and Kusuda’s body would tremble. No matter how thoroughly he applied the medication, no matter how healed the surface looked, just beneath that fragile new layer of skin, the wound still throbbed and stung.

Masamitsu’s phone rang. It seemed to be from his wife, and with a quick “Talk to you later,” he left the room. Kusuda opened the window and gazed out at the familiar landscape, unchanged from his youth. The thought that he wouldn’t see this scenery again for a while made him want to etch it into memory even more deeply.

When he went downstairs and was putting on his shoes at the entrance, their mother poked her head out from the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

The way she asked, so unchanged from his student days, made nostalgia swirl up inside him.

“Just a walk. I’ll be back soon.”

He stepped out of the house and walked slowly down the street. Some of the shops along the nearby shopping district had changed, while others remained exactly as they were. In the mirror outside a worn-out clothing store, he caught a glimpse of a man in a wrinkled shirt and a black tie—an old man. It took him a second to realize that the reflection was himself, and his feet stopped dead. In his mind, time had stopped around twenty-five years old. Being confronted with the present so abruptly, he recoiled.

The man in the mirror wore a tired, gloomy face. Kusuda pulled off the black tie and shoved it into his slacks’ back pocket.

As he wandered, the sky darkened. He walked past the end of the shopping district and found himself at the park. Just a tiny patch of ground with a sandbox and a few playground structures—it hadn’t felt big even when he was a kid, but now it seemed even smaller. Two cherry trees stood at the edge of the small grounds, both in full bloom.

No children played there now, the sky was growing dark. Kusuda stepped into the park and sat down on the long, elephant-shaped bench. Though there was no wind, the cherry blossoms were beginning to fall one by one. The quiet atmosphere brought a lonely ache that made him instinctively lower his eyes.

He’d once fallen into the mud, in the mess of it all with Akizawa. He’d scraped and clawed his way out, washed himself clean, pieced his life back together—and yet here he was, foot trembling, stepping back into that same mire. Masamitsu had said only, “As long as you’re okay with it.” But he was probably stunned at Kusuda’s foolish choice. Honestly, Kusuda himself didn’t know what would happen from here on.

The world around him lit up suddenly. A streetlamp must have come on. When he lifted his head, he saw a silhouette standing at the park’s entrance. It wasn’t the size of a child. The figure paused at the entrance, then began walking directly toward him. The pace was smooth and steady. Kusuda squinted—was it someone he knew? The moment he realized it was Akizawa, his heart lurched and began pounding violently. Sweat dampened his palms.

Impossible… What the hell… He hadn’t told him he was back in Japan. And he’d only been wandering around randomly on a walk. How had he found him? This is terrifying…

Just a few meters away now, the man—still one of Japan’s most acclaimed actors—smiled brightly.

“It’s been since December, right?”

“H-How… did you find me?”

Kusuda clenched his throat to keep his voice from shaking.

"You said you were too busy to talk for a couple of days, right? And then I heard from Masamitsu-san that there was a family funeral, so I thought... maybe you came back to Japan too. I asked Miyamoto-san for your home address and came by, and your mom told me you’d gone out for a walk. So I started looking for you. If you were back, you could’ve just told me."

Hearing the simple, almost absurd explanation, the fear receded—if only a little.

"I'm leaving Japan tomorrow morning. There's not much time."

“If I can see you—even if it's just for one minute, one second—I’ll come running.”

That was probably Akizawa's honest truth.

"It’s a family funeral. Times like these are when the family gathers to talk about the person who passed… about my grandma."

“But you’re alone right now.”

There was no mercy in that jab, and Kusuda could only respond with a wry smile.

“It’s been a while since I was back. Can’t I take some time to enjoy the old neighborhood?”

“Oh, right.” Akizawa reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a black condolence envelope, extending it toward him from a short distance away. “When I told Kuma that someone in Masamitsu-san’s family passed away, he told me to bring this.”

There were no words of condolence—just the formality. His grandmother and Akizawa had never met, so it was asking too much to expect him to grieve, but... couldn’t he at least spare a moment of thought for the ones grieving? Kusuda already knew the answer. This was the kind of socially oblivious man he had chosen. That choice, too, was his own.

“Should I go buy some beer?”

That thoughtless man blurted it out without warning.

“Why?”

“Isn’t this like... flower viewing? I figured maybe you’d want some beer or dango.”

What I want more than anything is your consideration… Kusuda thought. But maybe, in his own way, the beer and the dango were Akizawa’s idea of being considerate. And the way he’d said "hanami" had sounded strangely cute.

“Not now. Thanks, though. …Don’t just stand there—sit down.”

Akizawa sat on the tiger-headed bench beside him. The benches were spaced far enough apart that, to a passerby, they probably wouldn’t even look like they were together.

Side by side, they looked up at the cherry trees. Now that Kusuda thought about it, the man who usually fired off words like bullets whenever they met was quiet now. He remembered the time, long ago, when they’d gone to see fireflies together. It had been dreamlike. So beautiful.

“This kind of thing… it’s romantic, huh.”

The cherry blossoms, bathed in the soft glow of the streetlamp, fluttered down gently. Beautiful—and a little sad. Kusuda felt a sudden wave of sorrow, the kind that made you want to cry, and he fought to suppress it. When he glanced sideways, he saw a single tear slip down Akizawa’s cheek.

“The cherry blossoms… they’re so pretty.”

Between the two of them, in the space they still couldn’t quite cross, petals drifted and fell—quietly bridging the distance that remained.

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