ABOUT SIX YEARS PASSED SINCE THAT DAY. Yukan had taken to writing music in his spare time, frequently submitting his compositions to various contests, some of which he won modest cash prizes for. One of those, a four-movement piano sonata written when he was 15, won him the first place prize of 6000 haukens. Lars, on the other hand, grew more interested in more physical hobbies like sports and archaeology, but the latter of those wasn’t something he wanted to talk about as often. Of course, by this time, Lars was working for a small business in the nearby town of Kimura.

Oto stood in the kitchen, preparing lunch for his family, while Hana was drinking tea at the table. Lars, being now seventeen years old, came downstairs upon smelling the macaroni boiling in the pot and the chicken tenders that had been taken out of the oven only a few minutes prior.

“Good afternoon, Lars,” Hana said, setting down her teacup. “You forgot to comb your hair and your shirt is on backwards again.”

“It’s fine,” Lars replied, getting on the defensive as he switched his shirt around. “It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone like Yukan. Besides, you know I don’t work on weekends.”

“Lars,” Oto began, “don’t go making fun of your brother just because he managed to get a girlfriend before you.”

“He got lucky!” Lars exclaimed in almost a groan. “I don’t even have the time or money for love anyway. I’d rather save it for things I need than things somebody else wants.” Lars had joined the local baseball team a few years prior, which honed his body greatly, but didn’t do much for his ego.

As Lars carried on, Yukan came into the dining room donning a blue polo shirt and khakis. He wore a slight grin on his face as he sat down at the table in the center of the room.

“Smelling good, Dad,” he remarked. “Good morning, Mom.”

“Yu, it’s the afternoon,” Lars muttered.

“I know,” Yukan replied. “You’re the one who slept in until noon.”

“I did not!” Lars answered. “I’ll have you know I wake up every morning at 11:55 AM!”

Before this bickering could continue any further, Oto brought a pot of freshly made macaroni & cheese and chicken tenders over to the table. Lars and Yukan got up to set out the plates for everybody, taking this as their cue to hush up and dig in.

“Looking sharp, Yukan,” Oto started after he cleared his plate. “You’re ready to go on your date. I’m so proud that my little boy is growing up so fast. Do you remember Hana? It feels like just yesterday and we decided to have these two. I remember reading them bedtime stories and playing in the yard. Now they’re going on dates and finding their own girls.

“Yes, I know dear,” Hana added, teasing Oto. “Please stop crying. You’re making the tenders soggy.”

“It’s fine, Dad,” Yukan joined in. “We’re still kids at heart. I mean, Lars still looks for the Orb of Uxhuz in his free time.”

“I do not, Yukan!” Lars exclaimed almost instantly. He was unusually defensive about this, especially considering how he was planning on being an archaeologist.

“Sure you don’t,” Yukan said in a condescending manner before looking down at his stainless steel wristwatch. “I should probably get going now. If I stay any longer I’ll be late picking up Ite.”

“That’s alright,” Hana said to Yukan. “Be safe out there.”

Yukan grabbed his keys from the hook by the door before rushing out of the door and into his car. He knew the route to Ite’s house well, having driven there several times for previous dates. They’d been a couple for about three weeks now and had been friends for about two years, so he had visited often. It usually took him ten minutes to get there if he drove at the speed limit, but he wasn’t likely to do so. That being said, to say that Yukan had a lead foot wasn’t quite accurate either. More often than not, he just liked having a bit more of a break in his schedule instead of arriving as soon as he needed to be at a certain place.

Keeping this in mind, he arrived at Ite’s house in Kimura in about eight minutes. The house was nearly square in shape and two stories tall, with a shingled roof and a light brown exterior. There was a small front porch made of cement with a few steps leading up to a white screen door, behind which was another wooden door.

Yukan quickly spruced himself up, correcting his hair using the car’s left mirror and discreetly checking his breath before getting out of the vehicle holding a bouquet of flowers. Once he reached her front door, he knocked seven times in quick succession. After a few seconds of waiting, a young woman about the same age as Yukan answered the door. She had long black hair, bright green eyes, and was wearing a green t-shirt and denim jeans. As she saw who had knocked, a smile grew on her face.

“Some beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady,” Yukan proclaimed in a debonair fashion as he presented the bouquet to Ite.

“How sweet of you, good sir,” Ite gushed in a similarly jocular manner before switching to her usual tone of voice. “Thank you. I’m gonna put these in a vase really quick, if you wanna wait inside.”

“Sure thing,” Yukan answered as he stepped inside. Ite then walked into the kitchen, which was in the room just a bit further from where Yukan entered. To his left was the living room, within which Ite’s uncle, Kenzo Sanada. He was all too transfixed by the television set in front of him to bother with anything else in the house.

About a minute later, Ite came out of the kitchen, setting the bouquet down in a tall flower vase on top of the dining room table. She flapped her hands a few times to get the condensation off before turning to Yukan once more.

“So then,” she said to him. “Shall we begin?”

“Of course,” he said as they went back inside Yukan’s car. Ite took her spot on the passenger side as Yukan started the car’s engine. The two of them drove off toward the location of their date. After about a half-hour of driving, they made it to Heiya Fields in Shinku.

The couple exited the car and walked toward a sakura tree a good distance away from where they parked. Once they saw it, they instantly recognized it as the tree that Yukan confessed to Ite under.

“It’s incredible how one spot can mean so much to you, huh?” Yukan started off.

“I remember that day so well,” Ite said, almost as if talking to both herself and to Yukan. “It was a surprisingly cool March morning. You’d told me to meet you under this very tree at eleven.”

“I was running late that day, believe it or not,” Yukan added. “I wanted to get there sooner, but I didn’t know what to give you. But I knew one thing for certain. I couldn’t leave you hanging.”

“I was waiting on the hill,” Ite continued, “seeing you bolting toward the tree, clutching a rose in your hand.”

“I’d just seen a bush of them before going in and grabbed one. I didn’t think you’d notice that it was one of those. I’d hoped that it was little more than a rose with a tint of blue in the petals.”

“But I saw them on my way here. I didn’t mind it much, though. It was the gesture that counts.”

“And then after that, I bowed and gave the rose to you.”

“I accepted the flower and we just sat here for a few hours, enjoying each others’ company.”

The two of them laid down underneath the leaves of the sakura tree, the sunlight barely peeking through the canopies.

“How two years can pass by,” Ite remarked. “We’re so much different now. Back then, our biggest problems were who was dating who and what our favorite celebrities were up to.”

“And now,” Yukan continued, “we have to worry more about ourselves. We have the rest of our lives to think about. We used to be so sure of what we wanted to do, but now nothing is certain.”

“At least we have each other, huh?” Ite added as she gently nudged Yukan.

“That we do,” he replied. “I don’t know what I’d do with my favorite pianist.”

Ite and Yukan had a very natural dynamic with one another, even before they were dating. It was common for Yukan to give Ite the manuscripts of a lot of the music he was working on, one of which was the aforementioned piano sonata.

“I wouldn’t be here without a good repertoire, would I?” Ite added. “I know you’ve been moving over to symphonic work as of late, but if you ever write a concerto I’d be glad to help you just as I always have.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Yukan said. “Lundvaar is taking a long time to finish though, so it might be a while.”

“I can wait,” Ite replied with a smile as the two lay on the hill, enjoying one another’s company.