Falling in love is difficult to explain. A large wave of indescribable emotions corner your heart and, in the most unexpected moment, explodes. 

And after a long long time merging in one single plane, like two parallel lines, in an instant, they touch one another. They caress one another, they kiss, they love each other. 

I think I will never be able to forget the same instant the plane disappeared, and then, void embraced me. Uncomfortable, he smiled. 

“Ayumi” he said when he finished reading my letter, “I don’t know how to say this, but…” he sighed, rubbed his neck and extended to me the sheet, “I’m engaged”.

“What?” I chuckled, feeling nervous, “no, it can’t be…” and stepped back crestfallen. 

The night breeze pinched my skin, but the heat of my body made me immune to the coldness. 

I raised my head and observed him. The face I’ve missed for so many years had changed, but not his voice. It was still the same, I remembered it the same. 

☻☻☻

The voice which, before the bay’s sunset, broke my heart apart in a blink of an eye. 

 “I’ll leave the city this month”.

And, although I remember I tried to push my tears back and stay calm, after hours trying to pump his secret from him, I couldn't help it,  “You’ll leave?”

To not cry for the only man I had loved for 12 long years was impossible. 

Makoto had accompanied me since our first encounter. He had been the only one I had dreamed of marrying. Since that first dazzling smile, I had thought that, sooner or later, our feelings would correspond, without minding our differences.  

“Why now?” I asked, trying to not let my sob out, “so you are not going to fight to stay”.

I heard him click his tongue, “It’s for my own good, Ayumi”. 

Despite being used to his coolness, his answer impacted my ears hard. Was I acting selfishly? I hadn’t even grasped his shirt, nor thrown myself into his arms. Even though I was willing to do it. 

“But” I felt my voice breaking slowly, “I will miss you so, so, so much” embarrassed, I covered my face with my hands and cried my heart out. 

“I’ll also miss you, Ayumin” whispered him, petting my head. 

I was able to see his clear smile sideways while drying my eyes off. That attitude was unfair. He was unfair. 

“I will return someday, though. I’ll come back for you, for everyone ”

“Eh?” I swallowed, “really?”.

“Really” he extended his pinkie, “it’s a promise”. 

The warmth of the sunset mixed with his smile, tender, welcoming, familiar, and feeling a little better, I sealed the promise by intertwining our pinkies.

I thought that all those feelings, the longing to want to be monopolized, would be buried in the sand of that August afternoon, but instead, the hope of reclaiming my most precious person invaded the entire beach.

For two long years every week in August, on the weekends I went back to the bay and, sitting on its sand, remembered that promise. But Makoto didn't come back.

Makoto did not return until 7 years after his promise.

☻☻☻

After two weeks in which we had become inseparable once again, fearing that he would disappear from my life, without being able to share with him everything my heart held, I had decided to write a song and express my feelings. It was a mistake, I did not know what I was doing. 

“I thought you already knew. Everyone knows” he said. 

I did not know my love had ever been unrequited. 

“Did you really think I’d go out with you, though?” chuckling, he patted my head, “you’re still a child”. 

Certainly, for him, those words were innocent judgments from a friend. For me, they were stakes being driven in one after another.

“You should mature, Ayumi. Leave all that dreams of becoming a rock star and start thinking about the future” he stepped back, sighed and turned away. “I’m sorry” were his last words, before closing the door.

Behind my aunt’s bar I had just been rejected for the first time in my life. In my hands, the love letter that had cost me my friendship was making fun of me. Mocking me. 

Pissed off, I crumpled the sheet in my fist and threw it to the road. 

And even though the traffic lights and city billboards blinded me, in my eyes Makoto’s smile when he promised to come back remained untouched. 

“If you were going to return like this…” I savored the first salty tear, “you better not have returned!” crying, I sat on the pavement, hid my face between my knees and stayed there for hours. 

When I entered the bar, everyone had left. My aunt was cleaning the last tables with her friend, Mai. That night, among the three of us, sitting at the bar, we reached the same conclusion: Makoto was right, I needed to mature.

For years, I had been begging for attention from agents and record labels with the intention of succeeding, but without success. I kept getting rejected, all because of a childish dream.

☻☻☻

But I did it, I matured. I searched for a job until I found one as a journalist at a magazine, and after a few months, I moved to Osaka, where I managed to become a serious, responsible, and most importantly, mature person.

And two years later I returned to Tokyo, to my city. 

Nonetheless, when I opened the door of my apartment something was off. There was a strong and alluring scent of men’s cologne, “it must have been my aunt doing” I thought, innocent. 

The hallway had new furniture, “it must have been my aunt doing” I kept repeating myself. 

But as I entered the living room, a trail of clothes greeted me. A bra, a skirt, a pair of pants, some underwear. On the couch, on the floor, the rug, the table. "It must have been my aunt doing?"

In the distance, from the hallway, I heard the shower’s sound of running water, until suddenly, footsteps masked it.

"What the hell…?"

His figure, only covered by a towel tied around his waist, walked confidently towards me. Disheveled hair, the gleam of his piercings warned me.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Paralyzed, I tried to grasp the situation. Had someone just entered my home?

"Our encounter wasn't ideal.

The explosion wasn't planned."

"No, who are you?"

It's difficult to explain what a person feels when they fall in love. So many indescribable emotions corner your heart, and finally, when you least expect it, they explode.