Byousoku 5 centimetre

(alright, this isn’t very long so don’t complain. I’ve been working this off of a movie called Byousoku 5 centimetre (5 centimeters per second). It’s a great movie and I ask of you, please read my story and please watch the movie on AnimeFever.org.)

Like losing someone you love is to break your own heart. Even if it is the other that is broken. Some people around me think life is where you win, you grow up, you get married, and you have kids. But my life is nothing like that. I lost someone years ago, and I feel that it is my duty to tell you a story. A story that started twenty years before this time. A story of hardship, sadness, and where lies end and the truth begins. My story starts when I was thirteen years old. I met a girl named Akari Shinohara when I was in Elementary school. We were best friends sooner or later. Well, anyway, this is my story.              

 It was the same place I play everyday with Akari.“Hey, I heard its five centimeters per second.” Akari was smiling in my face. The puddle in front of me glimmers the tree above it as I stare across the street to see a pile of trash cans. The pink heart shaped leaves called cherry blossoms seem like a rain storm full of them.“Huh? What is?” I reply with a smile back. “The speed at which a cherry blossom petal falls…” She answered quietly and stared at a white motorcycle sitting in front of the two of us, “…Is five centimeters per second.”             

This was place where our life began together. Where the Cherry Blossom leaves fall down in the spring and the cat named Chobi lies under the shade and purrs delightfully at us as we run up and down the street of Sakuragi-Cho. The double tracks sit behind us, waiting for the whistling train to run by each other. The giant concrete wall that follows the road has an incredible amount of moss growing out of it. I believe that soon, that will become a giant green wall.“Hmm…” I looked over at her seriously, “You know a lot of things like that, don’t you, Akari?”She giggled and looked at a police car sitting on the side of the road we play on, “Hey…” She looked at the cherry blossom tree that stands above us and lifted up her hand, “Don’t you think it looks like snow?” A cherry blossom fell peacefully into her palm and onto the puddle in front of me. The birds chirped loudly around us, I wondered what they were singing at the time.“You think so?” I ask as she ran down the street, her umbrella sitting on her shoulder and her hair flailing around her brown eyes.I chase her at the speed I can, the shadows follow up the concrete wall and the police car, “Hey wait up!” I yell as my breath begins to wear out and my arms begin to become tired.Akari stops at the other side of the double tracks and the large yellow bar comes down. She turns around; she tells me that the blue shirt and the pink overcoat is so she can be prepared for a winter storm. I believe her, but I did not respond to this. She holds her light pink umbrella tightly in her hand while her blue skirt follows her every movement. She grabs the umbrella with another hand tightly when I noticed a red ribbon on her shirt.“Akari!” I yell as the train bells begin to ring loudly, making my ears ring with them“Takaki-kun…” She stops as the cherry blossoms fly past her and she opens her umbrella quickly. The bells begin to ring louder with every second I wait. She spins around her umbrella and looks at me with a smile, “… I hope we can see the cherry blossoms together again next year.” The train flies by her face as I wait for it to stop. The loud rumbling as it rips through the tracks and the loud ringing in my ears, I think waiting for it is worth it anyway.That was the last time I saw Akari again. Well, before she transferred to the middle school in Tochigi Prefecture. The only contact we could receive were writing letters or taking a train. The train was out of the question, it would’ve tooken at least five hours just to get from my place to Akari’s. But writing was good enough until we got old enough to drive or move into a new house.           

The hot simmering day beat down on Takaki as he sulkily walked to the soda machine to buy some more water. As he jammed another dollar inside the machine the ‘clunk clunk’ noise dropped a liter of tap water out of it. Takaki ripped open the cap and drank more than half of it with a sigh of relief. He opened up his wallet to see only one dollar left.“Ah man. I already spent fourteen dollars?” He sighed as he folded his wallet back up and crammed it inside of his back pocket. My name is Takaki Tono, 13 years old, Tokyo Junior High. He sighed again and dragged his feet to the soccer field. The cicadas were making rattling noises in the air, the smell of dust, perfume, and smoke filling in Takaki’s sinuses so much that he felt like sneezing. The day was only about to get worse, but he only had the feeling; he didn’t know how much of his prediction would actually come true. He sat down on the hard gravel and looked at his feet. His best friend was gone, and he wanted to know what she was doing right now. He wanted to see her again. But he really had no choice. It was an hour before school had started, to his belief; Tokyo was steaming hot in the summer no matter how early in the morning it was.“Takaki-kun!” Yelled out a familiar voice behind him, “What are you doing here?” Takaki looked behind him quickly just to see the face of Kanae Sumita. Kanae had brown short hair and brown eyes, reminding Takaki too much of Akari.“Just buying some drinks.” He answered as he sat up and stared off at the sky. The birds flying around him didn’t help him to listen to Kanae.“You should get to class.” She told him, “You don’t want to fail so easily.” She than immediately left and ran down the road. Each footstep she made with each little ‘pat’ on the ground was making Takaki think about Akari even more. “What?” Takaki turned around but Kanae left around the corner. The sounds of the cicadas grew more silent with every second he wasted.            

Takaki lifted his hand up quickly and smiled. He had wasted enough time and walked slowly down the road with his hands in his pockets. The heat in the air made him breathe harder and harder the farther he went. The asphalt crunched underneath his feet like popcorn popping or someone stepping on a fallen graham cracker. The giant skyscrapers that looked like they would reach the heavens made him feel dizzier with every step down the road.           

Takaki put his hand to his forehead, it was warm. “It must be the heat out here.” He mumbled quietly under his breath and stepped in his classroom.             (This is also not finished)