Chapter Text
Japan is lush, towering greenery all around with only the narrow strip of road they are driving down parting the sea of forest. Their solitary, worn pink and white truck navigates the gentle bumps of the road gracefully, under Gawon’s hand on the wheel. Ahead of them and behind, there’s no one else as far as can see. Only them, the road and their music.
When she closes her eyes, she can imagine they’re the last two people left in the world.
—
Gawon pulls over on the road shoulder and they disembark to stretch their legs. She climbs onto the roof of the truck, so Anna lies back on the bonnet, pillowing her palms behind her head and leaning back on the windshield. The glass is cold against her back through her clothes, a nice chill like the one in the air. She studies the sky and the canopy of sparse evergreen and wonders what Gawon is thinking staring at her knees, even though they’re facing opposite directions.
The silence is unbroken and restful.
—
A little up ahead is an enormous field, almost pastoral as a meadow, with a row of suburban houses in the background. But they’re far away enough not to shatter the illusion that both of them are truly together alone for the first time in years. The grass smells nice, like childhood soccer games and the tallest area in the middle comes up to their waists. It would be a waste not to play a game of hide-and-seek.
Gawon lopes away slowly, making a playful, lingering twirl as if she’s hesitant to leave her behind. Anna remains looking at the sky, mesmerised by how different and yet the same it looks from a bright, open space like this; but she somehow still catalogues in her peripheral vision the rear view of Gawon’s denim jacket, blue and black striped shirt and her long corduroy skirt, hands shoved into her pockets as she shuffles forward, watching the ground.
They run into each other right in the centre of all the tall grasses, stopping and staring at one another incredulously. The game ends rather anticlimactically without a winner, and they agree to call a truce.
—
Tired out, they return to the truck. Gawon perches on the bonnet with her legs crossed and takes out her book, so Anna turns and leans against the side of the truck, fishing her dog-eared copy out too.
Gawon eventually slides down into a horizontal position, squinting at her book intently with one hand pillowed behind her head. Anna drops her book and drifts off, thinking about the last scene she perused with chin propped on folded arms.
—
She finds Gawon lying in the middle of the deserted blacktop a distance away from the truck, hand still pillowing scalp. One of her legs is bent at the knee and her jacket off, single blouse button undone. Her face is the picture of serenity with eyes shut, looking as if she’s soaking the mild warmth of the last sun rays from the asphalt.
Anna lies down without hesitation and imitates her posture, closing her lids too.
—
The sunlight catches rainbow prisms as they stroll down the stretch of unbroken road meanderingly, Gawon glancing behind to check for oncoming vehicles. With hands warm and deep in their jacket pockets and the truck in front, barely left their sight, it feels they could be lost in the middle of nowhere, lost together.
—
Gawon drives even slower than before when they get back inside, like she doesn’t want this road to end. The sinking sun illuminates the dull auburn highlights amidst her hair, her side profile concentrating seriously on the road disappearing beneath their tires.
—
They make a detour, bump unsteadily onto a shortcut worn into an alcove of the woods. There’s sky up ahead but the place Gawon parks again is surrounded by dense pines.
‘Get in the back,’ Gawon says in her short way, but hoists Anna gently before climbing after her. Anna hooks her arm over the back of the truck and looks behind toward the miles they’ve made. She feels Gawon glancing at her, but she’s not sure.
—
Gawon has that contemplative expression on her face once more and Anna looks away. She wonders how she herself appears, whether the thoughtfulness and pensiveness she is feeling is visible from her gaze. Perhaps, because Gawon goes away for a little on her own, taking her book with her, but Anna sees her stop reading after awhile under the tree she’s leaning against, lowering her head.
—
Like stumbling upon a miracle, Anna happens upon an ancient TV set abandoned in the middle of a clearing. But what feels more marvellous is the sight of the wintry peaks of Hokkaido in the distance, their tops disappearing into the thick bank of clouds.
’Do you think it still works?’ Gawon laughs gleefully like a child as they carry it together to the truck and dump it in back. Anna feels a twinge of guilt for taking what’s not theirs, but also an illicit thrill that comes only stealing something with the person one loves.
—
It does work, but refuses to show anything but navy-white static on the screen. The pattern causes dizziness, but they don’t switch it off, leaving it buzzing in the background of their motel room as they work on a puzzle. It’s huge, the pieces tiny, the kind of puzzle that seems impossible to complete. And yet, Anna knows that like all things that appear endless, it will arrive at its denouement all too soon.
She has changed into her favourite winter sleepwear, a knitted white sweater Gawon once said made her look like an angel. Gawon’s bangs fall over her conscientious irises as she fits matching pieces together. When they get bored Anna lays back atop her sofa bed and Gawon scoots nearer to the retro TV set, watching the blue-white bars with the occasional black flicker across the screen as if hypnotised.
Anna forgets to blink for so long her eyes glaze over. She has Gawon’s book propped open facedown on her chest, at a page she found a line Gawon highlighted. She ponders it, ponders the girl behind her.
—
The next morning Anna wakes earlier than Gawon and slips out of the room, getting into the car to warm herself up.
She touches the steering wheel Gawon held and imagines her in this icy blue light of dawn, dressed only in the simple white tank she sleeps in. A montage of memories, some real, some conjured, flashes by her mind like a cinemagraph. Gawon’s chipped fingernails against the chipped pink paint of the bumper, an unlikely aesthetic.
She touches the wheel and thinks of Gawon turning to speak casually to her, pretty smile friendly, sight moving over her naturally to check that her seatbelt was on before she started driving.
Thinks of what Gawon would have done if she had found the TV, beside a picturesque, glassy lake; whether she would have told Anna or kept it a secret. Thinks of herself in the midst of all this green, too deep in the forest for anyone to find, raising her head to the sky to seek an answer. Would she find the end to her searching.
The sky tells her only that autumn is over, winter setting in.
—
The dim orange recessed overhead lights; the sky-coloured windows flashing past—everything about the tunnel is worn and tired, but it seems to signal a premature return to civilisation.
The end is within sight and Anna is gripped by the urge to memorise each last detail of this unremarkable scene: Gawon’s tousled long morning hair; the single earring in her right ear; the steel of the slim watch around her wrist Anna knows from experience will be cold to the touch. The carefree smile draped lazily across Gawon’s face as if they have one more day together, a hundred.
As if they have a tomorrow, when they only have today.
The hazy still-blue cast of morning caresses Gawon’s skin, achingly gorgeous. It’s the perfect juxtaposition of light and shadow, a scene most photographers would kill to capture, but Anna doesn’t touch her camera. She smiles back. The wind rushes by and tosses their hair. She shivers, and Gawon slings an arm around her shoulder in a final gesture of gentleness.
—
The road sign far up ahead tells them that it’s the end of their journey, and the first day of the rest of their lives. The truck speeds towards it, under it, beyond. It slows, almost reluctantly, but Gawon is merely bringing it to a smooth halt.
They get out of the cramped compartment at the same time, close their doors with a crisp sound. Their first reflex is to look around, taking stock of their surroundings, the new space between them, the scene of their parting. Gawon looks back at the sign, slightest hint of unwillingness and retrospection in her gaze. Her throat works.
And Anna—Anna’s eyes are drawn to the salmon pink of the sunrise behind her, turning beautifully into a golden glow at the horizon.
As always, their visions are drawn in different directions. The near-gravitational pull between them is still there, strong as ever, but there are new and invisible forces enticing them gradually but undeniably on opposite paths.
—
Gawon’s lashes veil her eyes when Anna turns back, but she gives Anna a half-smile.
Anna silently expresses the unspoken question that has been on the tip of her tongue the whole trip, but Gawon replies softly, ‘Nothing’s changed.’
Anna looks at her, longingly.
‘We decided that after this last road trip, if we still feel the same in another five years, then we’d come back and consider forever,’ Gawon reminds her.
—
Anna smiles then. ‘I know,’ she says. That I’ll feel the very way I do today, she doesn’t add.
Five years—she can wait that long, she figures. It would be nice to see the world outside this girl’s shadow—even though each other’s shadows are all they’ve ever wanted to be.
After all, they will be different people in five years. Five years—the distance between childhood and youth; youth and adulthood. She, too, wants to confirm these feelings can withstand the test of time.
—
They part ways beneath the two red arrows pointing in opposite directions, ahead just a vast expanse of field. They’ve run out of road, in more ways than one. But as promised, they had driven on until they did. Both walk away with their hands in their pockets, and neither look back.
—
Okay, she lied—she does.
She looks back and remembers last night: their last night together. They spent it in the same room but not same bed, lying on their respective couches at a blind angle to one another. Gawon’s arms were folded over her chest, like she was chilly in her white tank top. The puzzle pieces stayed scattering haphazardly the floor, unfinished like their youth, an open ending like their relationship.
Anna stared at a page in The Catcher in The Rye and pondered the meaning of what she was seeking in life, whether it was as simple as the noises of Gawon behind her, reaching for Veronika Decides To Die and flipping it to a page, closing the distance between them and nudging Anna to read the line she had earlier highlighted.
So she had done it to share with Anna.
Anna dog-eared her book and took the slim volume from Gawon’s hand, their fingers brushing. She arched her neck to see Gawon's easy smile playing at her lips, looking relaxed on her lumpy mattress.
Just for that smile, Anna happily handed her book over to Gawon. She heard Gawon flipping open the well-loved book and smiled to herself, all her secrets safe for that moment in the hands where they belonged.