Chapter Ten: Dead and Crumbling Petals:

Today, I went out to the nearby cemetery. It was the anniversary of the war. I got up, took a shower, got dressed in a suit, and combed my hair. I would be going alone for this trip. Yumi and her parents didn’t mind. I told them at dinner last night.

“Do you need someone to come with you?” her mother asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I can go alone.” I put down my chopsticks.

“Thank you for dinner,” I mumbled. I stood up and walked out of the room. I’m sure my fiancée and her family were whispering about me. But they didn’t push the issue. I thank them for that.

We hadn’t expected to go to war. We weren’t really the military. Just the Self-Defense Force. Japan didn’t have a real military and they still don’t. Why would we go to war in a foreign country? I clicked my tongue as I shook my head. We should’ve known.

I took the bus to the cemetery. She feared the worst for me joining the SDF. I just wanted to give her a good life. I wondered how many of my fellow soldiers thought the same thing. Have they come by and visited the graves? If so, how often have they done it?

I pressed my forehead against the glass. She feared the worst for me joining the SDF. Did she know that she would be right? I vowed that when I got home, I would apologize to her. But first, I needed to come home alive.

That was when I noticed that someone was sitting beside me. I turned my head. A man about eighty years old was staring up at me.

“Uh… hi?” I asked. The old man chuckled.

“You going out to the cemetery as well?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I noticed the dried flowers on his lap. They looked so lifeless in his arms. When was the last time they got any water? I wondered why he hadn’t thrown them out already. The grin on the old man’s face was rather off-putting. I cleared my throat.

“Did you just come from there?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said.

“Your wife?”

“Yes.” The old man cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Who are you going to see?” he asked. I looked out the window at the scenery passing by. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I got on the bus. The clouds were slowly rolling in. Still, it looked like today was going to stay clear.

“Just some old war buddies,” I said.

“Oh. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Same to you.” My mind went back to my dead comrades. We were all young idiots with spoon-fed ideas about patriotism and a better life from the government. Only a small number of us came back alive, in one piece, and with most of our minds still intact. I closed my eyes for a moment and clenched my teeth. I didn’t feel like I was lucky. The only way I started to heal was because of Yumi and her parents. My life has been slowly getting back together since. Even so, I don’t know if I will even be fully back together again.

I opened my eyes and sat up. One day at a time, one day at a time.

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I had not expected to see anyone else at the cemetery. When I got off the bus and walked down the path. Everything was so quiet that it made me shiver. No birds were singing in the trees. I clutched my flowers by my side as I kept walking. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that something wasn’t right. However, my feet wouldn’t let me stop walking.

By the time I made it to the gate, I froze. My jaw dropped at what I saw.

“Yoko-san?” I finally asked. A woman in a long black dress and veil stood with her arms out, like she was waiting for a hug. Dead flowers were scattered around her dainty feet.

“Fancy seeing you here, Toshiki,” she said.