The Color of the Sky I saw that Day was also Blue - Chapter 0

Prologue

—Summer.

For me, summer is the most important season where everytime I look around, everything seems to shine.

When I look back on my summer memories now that I’ve reached my thirtieth birthday, I remember one summer in particular that shines with an exceptional brilliance.

As I dug up that summer memory, I intensely recalled all that happened.

It was deep blue. The kind of blue that looked as though the sky and the sea had been compressed into a single color.

It was neither the memory of my first year in Junior Highschool, the first time I had fallen in love, nor was it the memory of when I was twenty-three years old, the first time I had a girlfriend.

It was my memory of the Year 2008.

The time I had crossed paths with that girl. We had spent the summer days together almost everyday, and while it was the shortest and hottest summer I have ever experienced, it was also filled with some truly unusual events.

It was also the time when I had reached a deadlock with my life. Unable to see anything ahead, I was crouched on my knees inside that world of darkness.

What kind of action people would take when they found themselves in such a situation?

Some may become pessimistic, fall into depression, and they might even shut themselves off from others.

Some might even try and struggle to find a way out of the darkness and would manage to get up and move forward.

However, I was different. I had neither considerable wit nor courage to struggle my way out, so instead, I resigned from my job to run away, and just continued living my life like that as a form of escaping reality.

As I left all of my belongings behind in a state of complete nakedness, I had arrived at a scenic spot in Iwate Prefecture, at the sea of Joudogahama. It was then that I had a fateful encounter with a girl that had a mysterious atmosphere, Shirakisawa Honoka.

At that time, she was a nineteen-year-old college student, so would she be angered if I described her as a girl?

She was a needlessly strong, beautiful and free-spirited girl, who had an outstanding presence. And, at the same time, she was also very gentle, fragile, and inconvenient, with a risk of disappearing if not careful.

*

—That was August 1, 2008.

Even now, I still remember that day clearly. It was a very hot summer that even just by staying still, buckets of sweat would form from my back.

The sight of her slender frame, reflected against the piercing blue sky and white clouds as a silhouette.

She held her straw hat with one hand to prevent it from being blown away by the wind, and pulled my hand with the other, then said in a slightly accented voice, “Y’came.”

*

Anyway, I am sure I can clearly say these words that’ll come out from me in a moment. That when the day I met her, she managed to save me, healed my heart in an instant, and made me fall in love again.

With that said, there’s still a certain order of things. First, I’d like to talk about how I had met her.

It happened a little earlier than that. On the 31st of July of the same year. Our story begins in a  hotel room in the center of the City of Saitama.

Now then, please listen for a while.