“Now!” Souta yells sharply enough to shred my nostalgia.

  “We respectfully return them to you!” I scream as I push the key into a keyhole made of light.

  I can feel the lock click into place. A second later, the reddish-bronze flower covering the sky splits open. The air is light, like a heavy lid has suddenly been lifted. A moment after that, a shower washes over the ruins. Even though it’s night, each drop glitters like a rainbow. Finally, the lights in the park go out, as if they’ve spent the last of their energy, and all is quiet and dark once again.

  With a low whine so loud I can feel it in my body, the metal frame below my feet creaks.

  “Oh no!”

  I reflexively hug the gondola and look down. The ground is black and very far away. I feel like it’s going to swallow me up. My knees shake. The frame creaks again.

  “Let’s get in,” Souta says calmly. I open my eyes and dive into the now-quiet gondola. When I close the door, the sound of the wind fades.

  “…That was so scary.”

  All of a sudden, the strength drains from my legs, and I sink to the floor. I was just standing on the top of a Ferris wheel. I belatedly start shivering, and my eyes tear up. I sigh pitifully, while Souta bursts out laughing.

  “Ha-ha-ha! Suzume, you were amazing. Thank you.”

  Outside the window, the lights of Kobe spread like a carpet in all directions. Upon closer inspection, I see that the inside of the gondola is neither big nor small, but carefully calculated to be the perfect size for getting close to a special someone. Souta and I sit across from each other on the plastic seats, watching the ground slowly approach. Souta tells me that Ferris wheels are designed so that even if the electricity goes out, the weight of anyone still inside will slowly pull the wheel around so they can get off.

  When I ask what happened with Daijin, he says with a wry smile that the kitten got away again. They fell off the roller coaster together, and Souta had him pinned to the ground, but then he noticed I was hanging off the Ferris wheel and came running to help me. I tell him I’m sorry, but he just laughs and says there’s no reason to apologize. He declares confidently that he’ll catch the cat next time for sure.

  “Suzume…,” he says quietly, fitting his words between gusts of night wind.

  “Yeah?”

  “What were you looking at inside the Gate…?”

  “Um…”

  I realize the memory is quickly fading, like a dream I’ve just awoken from.

  “There was a blindingly bright starry sky, and a meadow, and…”

  “Ever-After,” Souta says, sounding surprised.

  “Huh?”

  “You can see Ever-After…”

  “What’s that?”

  “The back side of the world. Where the worm lives. The place where all time exists at once.”

  The place where all time exists at once. Far in the back of my mind, something clicks into place for a second. But it’s far too deeply buried for me to reach.

  “…I can see it, but I can’t go in.”

  “They say that’s where the dead go.”

  Souta looks out the window, and I follow his gaze. The city lights sprawl like a dusting of stars before a black sea. There’s an extra-bright factory district, and a cluster of high-rises that are like towers of light, and blinking houses huddled together. It all looks so close, I feel like I could reach out my hand and set the points of light on the tip of my finger.

  “Those of us who live in this realm can’t cross into that one. We’re not meant to. I’m glad you couldn’t. That’s how it should be.”

  For some reason, his voice sounds a little sad as he stares out at the city.

  “We live here, after all…”

  The Ferris wheel spins slowly around, its enormous metal frame creaking. Eventually, black trees rise up to hide the city lights, and they blink out between the leaves. We stare out the window until the last fleck of light disappears.

  A Nighttime Party and a Lonely Dream

  How am I going to explain this? Would it be better not to go back at all? Or would that be even more selfish? My mind is going in circles as I check the time on my phone. It’s already two in the morning. I sigh, take a deep breath, and open the door of the karaoke bar. The doorbell rings cheerfully.

  At the sound of the bell, she looks up from the glass she’s drying. “Well, if it isn’t our teen delinquent,” Miki says with a wry smile. The lights are turned down in the bar, and the customers are nowhere to be seen, although there’s a lingering scent of alcohol. Rumi slowly lifts her face from the counter where it was resting and turns toward me.

  “…Suzume!”

  She stands and runs over to me, while I reflexively hide the hand that’s holding Souta behind my back. Rumi’s exhausted expression stabs me through the heart.

  “Where on earth did you go?!”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Do you know how worried I’ve been?! You disappeared in the middle of the night!”

  “Now, now,” Miki intercedes from behind the bar as Rumi descends on me like a hawk. “She’s back safe and sound.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I ran away from home plenty of times myself.”

  Just as I’m processing this new information about Miki, my stomach grumbles loudly.

  “Sorry!” I say, pressing it with my palm. I’m blushing. Rumi sighs and shoots me a wry smile.

  “…Anyway, how about something to eat?”

  The three of us stand in the small kitchen and toss out ideas for what to eat. Ramen at this time of night isn’t exactly diet friendly, and yakisoba is just as bad. Ochazuke won’t make us guilty, but it won’t satisfy us, either. We should probably go with veggies. But wait, if we’re honest, aren’t carbs what we’re craving? Ultimately, we settle on fried udon noodles with plenty of vegetables thrown in.

  “Well, that calls for a fried egg on top,” one of them says, and the other says she’ll take a mountain of pickled ginger. When they ask me how I want mine, I say we usually add potato salad at home. Silence. Then—

  “You know, actually…”

  “But what about the calories?”

  “Like I said, isn’t that what we’re craving?”

  This discussion leads us to an official menu of fried udon with potato salad and lots of vegetables, with fried eggs on top. Rumi warms up some sesame oil in a pan while I chop vegetables, and then she steams a few packages of plastic-wrapped udon in the microwave. While Rumi sautés the veggies, I sauté the udon. Miki takes out a bowl of potato salad the bar has on hand and plops a few big spoonfuls on top of the noodles. I mix them in with cooking chopsticks. We’re as efficient as the top team in home ec, talking and laughing the whole time.

  “Thanks for the meal!”

  We sit in a booth in the middle of the shop and eat our fried udon. Rumi and Miki both say it’s amazing, and I’m so proud, I could float off the cushions. Miki says it would taste even better with beer, so Rumi grabs some cans from the refrigerator and hands me a ginger ale. We clink our drinks together in a toast. The bubbly, cold liquid washes the heavy fried noodles down nicely. I feel like I could go on eating and drinking forever. After we demolish the noodles, we get out some of the spicy potato chips, shredded dried squid, and camembert cheese they serve at the bar. I feel like I’m at the wrap party for a school festival. Rumi’s a third-year, Miki’s a second-year, and I’m the newbie first-year. Their showy dresses look like festival costumes. The dim bar with its yellowish indirect lighting is like a decorated classroom after school.

  I glance over and see the kiddie chair standing against the wall like an aloof, handsome older student lost in thought. I get up from the booth and lean close to him.

  “Souta, come hang out with us!”

  “Me?” he whispers. I pick him up before he can disagree. “Hey, what are you doing?” he protests. I ignore him and set him next to the table, then sit on him.

  “!”

  He gasps. The three-legged chair doesn’t so much as creak beneath my full weight. I can hear him muttering “Come on, now” behind my back.

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “It’s cute! Is it a kiddie chair?”

  “Why’d you get it out?”

  “Um…to remember Kobe by,” I answer honestly.

  Rumi and Miki giggle and say they have no idea what I mean. We take a picture together with the chair, and then I quickly wash the dishes using the clean-up skills I’ve perfected over the past two days. I can almost hear the others call out, See you tomorrow at school!

  And just like that, the party’s over.

  “I bet they think you’re a weird kid!” Souta says, laughing. I’m lying down in the booth where we ate the fried udon, and he’s sitting next to my pillow. Rumi let me take a shower and lent me a blanket, and now I’m about to fall asleep, dressed in a T-shirt.

  “Because I sat on a kiddie chair?”

  “Because you disappeared and then showed back up in the middle of the night.”

  “You could be right.”

  Rumi and Miki—and Chika, too—are so easygoing. They couldn’t care less about another person’s eccentricities. It’s like they understand completely that everyone lives in their own world. I’ve only been away from home for two days, but my life has already become so much more vibrant.

  “Souta, do you always travel around like this?” I ask, thinking it sounds like a pretty nice way to live.

  “Not always. I have an apartment in Tokyo.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m planning to become a teacher when I graduate from university.”

  “Wow,” I say, looking over at him.

  “What?” he says, looking back.

  University? Really?

  “No way!! You’re a university student?!”

  “Yes, and?”

  “And you’re going to get a job? But what about being a Closer?”

  So he’s not a professional wanderer?! My mind is suddenly scrambling as the poker-faced chair starts talking like a normal human. I can hear the smile in his voice when he answers.

  “Closing doors is something my family has been doing for generations, and we’ll keep doing it for generations more. But it doesn’t pay the bills.”

  “Oh.”

  Makes sense. You’ve gotta eat. You’ve gotta live. Now that he’s mentioned it, it does seem logical. No one’s going to pay you for shutting doors. Still…

  “…But it’s important work.”

  “It’s better if the important things are taken care of in secret.”

  Goose bumps run down my back. That thought has never crossed my mind before. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. I’ve always assumed that the more important your work is, the more attention people pay and the more money you make. Souta looks me in the eye and says soothingly, “Don’t worry. I’ll get back to my original form and go on closing doors while I work as a teacher.”

  The calm of his voice relaxes me, and soon I’m asleep. But in the brief moments before I doze off, my mind goes back to the Ferris wheel. The very top, where the two of us stood, is a place no one else could have gone. Way up there in the air, we left a sort of secret mark no one else could see. I was so proud of it, my whole body shivered silently. Retracing that feeling, I drift off to sleep.

  My sleep is dreamless, but Souta’s is not. His dream is lonely, unconnected—a dream no one else could share and one that even he doesn’t remember when he wakes up.

  He is sitting on a three-legged kiddie chair, remembering things he’s said. Things he’s said about being back in his original form soon, both closing doors and working as a teacher. But…, he thinks. But what if I already…?

  The moment the thought crosses his mind, his body grows as heavy as lead, as if gravity has abruptly grown stronger. He sinks into the seat, and once his weight exceeds a certain point, the seat vanishes like a bubble bursting.

  “…!”

  He falls down and down. When he looks up in surprise, he sees himself still sitting in the chair, unmoving. His back is bowed with exhaustion, and his eyes are closed. His form, like a cast-off shell, recedes into the distance until it finally melts into darkness. Oh, it’s disappearing, he thinks, giving up hope. He has already accepted it. It isn’t what he’d wanted, but he accepts it as the way things are.

  After a while, a burning town appears on the distant horizon. He knows it is far, far away, but when he squints, he can see it in great detail. Against the roaring flames, he can see bent electrical poles, piles of cars, broken windows with flapping curtains, and laundry dancing on its line, all like elaborate miniatures. He can see it all, but it is merely passing through his field of vision. I can’t even go there? he thinks. Then where can I go? That place must be so far away, like some kind of limbo. As he descends through the opaque water, without color or sensation, he is gradually cut loose from the world. The critical threads tying him to it snap one by one.

  Light vanishes.

  Sound vanishes.

  His body vanishes.

  Then memories.

  Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold—

  The last thread snaps.

  “……”

  But his soul remains. So this place must be…

  He opens his eyes.

  He is sitting on the kiddie chair after all. When he raises his head, he sees an old wooden door in front of him. He looks around and finds himself on a beach, at the water’s edge. The only things on the limitless shore are the door and him, sitting in the chair. At the boundary where the sea meets the sand is an endless line of washed-up bones. He doesn’t know if they used to belong to fish or people, but they are perfectly white, as if the artist who drew the world forgot to paint them. The line of pure-white bones looks to him like a boundary dividing the world in two. He is on this side, and the door is on the other.

  He looks up at the door again. Plant motifs are carved into the wood. The paint is peeling off. It feels familiar, but that familiarity is a dead end. He can’t remember anything. The thread connecting his emotions and his memories is broken.

  “I…,” he mumbles, unsure what to say next. His breath comes in white puffs. Beyond the door, his heart whispers. He tries to stand up, but his legs won’t move. He looks down at his feet and flinches in surprise. His bare feet resting on the sand are coated in ice. The thick covering spreads as he watches, making a small, scratchy sound like an insect’s call. It reaches his knees, freezes his thighs, and spreads across his torso, as if it has a will of its own, as if to fasten him to this faraway place. Ah, he thinks and lets out a long breath. Even his breath comes out as sparkling fragments of ice.

  “So this is as far as I’ll go…”

  He hangs his head, a smile curling his lips. His ice-covered body grows heavier, but the freezing cold numbs even his sensation of weight. The complete absence of sensation is bizarrely sweet.

  “……”

  In the distance, he hears a voice. Disregarding it, he sinks into the pleasant expanding nothingness.

  “……”

  Who is that? He is suddenly irritated. Why won’t they leave me alone? I chose sleep! This time, everything was finally going to disappear.

  “…Souta!”

  As the voice reaches him, the door opens, and he squints into the brilliance on the other side.

  “…Suzume?” Souta says sleepily.

  It worked! He really woke up. Chika, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Souta looks up at me with the eyes on his backrest.

  “Morning.”

  “…You’re finally up.”

  I sigh theatrically, set him on the booth, and show him my phone.

  “Look, it’s Daijin! Someone posted more pictures of him!”

  Souta slowly cranes his backrest to see my social media feed.

  “…Suzume,” he mumbles, still looking at the screen.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you do something to me just now?”

  “If you kiss them, they’ll wake up.” I remember Chika’s knowing voice. She was right.

  “…Nothing in particular.”

  We know our next destination, and we have to get going. I slip on the jean jacket and stuff the kiddie chair into my bag. Outside the window, the sky is a crisp blue.

  Scenery You Can See but Cannot Be a Part Of

  “This is for you,” Rumi says, taking off her baseball cap and placing it on my head. “Now you look even more like a runaway.” She giggles. I guess she’s figured out I’m not on a solo vacation. I blush, though it’s a bit late to be embarrassed. She hugs me tight. Hot tears spring to my eyes, and I bury my face in her soft shoulder.

  “Rumi, thank you so much…!”

  “You’re welcome,” she says, patting my back kindly. “Don’t forget to call your parents.”

  “I won’t!”

  We’re standing outside Shin-Kobe Station. Behind me, the Shinkansen departure bell is ringing incessantly. I keep waving until Rumi’s car disappears into the distance.

  Shoot, I forgot all about Tamaki! I squat down by a column and hurriedly open my LINE app. I had notifications muted.

  “F-fifty-five messages…,” I blurt out. Fifty-five. Fifty-five messages from my aunt in one day. This is bad. I can’t decide if I should open them or leave them untouched for the rest of my life. But can I survive the pressure if the number keeps growing? I steel myself and tap Tamaki’s icon.

  “Wait, what?! She’s coming to get me?!”

  “Suzume!” Souta says, popping his face out of the bag to hurry me along. “We can still make the next train. Hurry up and buy a ticket!”

  “We’re taking the Shinkansen?”

  “That’s the fastest way to get to Tokyo, isn’t it?”

  This morning, the photos tagged #withDaijin showed famous tourist spots like Kaminarimon in Asakusa and Tokyo Tower—places even a country bumpkin like me could recognize instantly.

  “Taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo is gonna drain my bank account…,” I mutter, but I buy the ticket anyway. A zero just fell off the end of the account balance I had diligently socked away from my allowance.