The scent of the sea brought him home. The scent of sweet bean paste brought him back to him.
Ten years ago, Minato left the sleepy seaside town of Shiomi-cho with a camera in his hands, three words caught in his throat, and a roll of film he never developed. He made it in Tokyo—his photographs are flawless, published, praised. But flawless isn't the same as alive, and lately his camera feels heavier than it should.
Now he's back, ostensibly on assignment. Really, he's back for the boy he left
Scent of Sea Breeze and Sweet Bean Paste - Homecoming — The Sound of the Sea After Ten Years
I caught the scent of the sea.
The moment the train doors slid open, it came rushing in on a lukewarm breeze—salt, and something sweet, and beneath that, a faint note of rust. Minato resettled the strap of his camera bag on his shoulder and stepped out onto the platform of Shiomi-cho Station for the first time in ten years.
The June sun was stronger than he'd expected, bleaching the old roof of the single-track terminus a brilliant white. Apart from Minato, the platform held two elderly women with shopping bags and an older man with a fishing-rod case slung across his back. All of them ambled unhurried toward the exit, where there was no ticket gate at all.
Minato let the wind play through his unkempt black hair and slowly took in the town spread out beyond the station, his deep brown eyes moving from rooftop to rooftop.
*Nothing's changed... no. It has.*
The station building was exactly as he remembered it—a wooden structure from the early sixties. Photographs of old offshore fishing trips lined the waiting-room wall. Minato stopped in front of one of them: a black-and-white shot of Shiomi Harbor from some fifty years ago.
It showed a forest of fishing boats, fishermen hauling nets. Wooden crates packed with fish were stacked along the wharf, and children ran laughing across the frame.
*This photo's been here forever, hasn't it.*
Minato's hand drifted unconsciously to the old film camera hanging at his chest. The cold of the metal seeped into his fingertips. With this camera, he'd taken thousands of photographs. Beautiful, flawless photographs—the kind that ran in Tokyo magazines.
But lately he hadn't been able to take a single picture with the kind of heat in it that spilled over, like the black-and-white photo in front of him.
Minato let out a small breath and left the station.
The rotary out front held only two weathered taxis, parked and lonely. Both drivers were dozing in their seats. Minato walked past them and started down the slope toward the Shiomi Ginza shopping street.
Early June, a clear day between the rains. Heat shimmered up off the asphalt, making the shuttered storefronts waver and warp.
Minato walked slowly, scanning the shops on either side.
*Tokiwa Barber.* Open.
*Marusho Butcher.* Open.
*Shiomi Books.* Open.
But every shop between them was sealed behind silver shutters. Only the faded signs remained, some still just barely legible. This street had once held thirty-six storefronts; now the open ones could be counted on two hands.
*Ten years, and it's gotten this quiet.*
Something heavy spread slowly through Minato's chest.
He'd made it as a photographer in Tokyo. Been featured in magazines, published a collection. And yet some part of him had always stayed hollow. To fill that hollow, he'd come back to this town for the first time in ten years—ostensibly on assignment.
No. That wasn't the truth.
The assignment was just an excuse. Minato was still dragging around the words he hadn't been able to say that summer. Ten years gone, and he still couldn't say them, still hadn't started anything, still couldn't forget.
He kept walking.
Around the middle of the Shiomi Ginza, a sweet fragrance drifted toward him out of nowhere.
The gentle smell of simmering azuki beans. The sweetness of sugar, and just a hint of salt. His body reacted before his mind did—his feet stopped, his face turned toward the source of the scent.
Matsuba-ya.
An old Japanese confectionery in a two-story wooden building painted black. A deep-indigo noren hung over the entrance, swaying slowly in the sea breeze. The white characters on the curtain read *Matsuba-ya*.
Minato's heart gave a single, heavy thud.
*That shop's still here.*
Of course it was. The person he wanted to see was there, keeping it alive. That alone made this shop a special place to him.
He started to step forward.
He couldn't.
Through the open doorway, past the earthen floor, he could see a figure in the kitchen. A tall man in a white cooking apron. Soft chestnut hair, slightly damp from the steam. His head tilted down as he stirred a copper pot, slow and deliberate, with a large wooden paddle.
Kajiwara Yuuma.
The person Minato had carried in some corner of his heart for ten years.
Yuuma's profile was almost exactly as it had been a decade ago. Gentle almond-shaped eyes, light brown. The serious set of his face as he cooked the bean paste. The way he tilted his head now and then to peer into the pot.
All of it, exactly as Minato remembered.
*Yuuma...*
He wanted to call the name. To walk in and say, *It's been a while.* But his feet wouldn't move.
The resolve to confess a feeling ten years in the making—he still didn't have it.
Minato backed away slowly, and left.
A sharp little ache twisted in his chest. The thought that he'd run away made his legs feel heavy.
---
That night, Minato sat in a room at a business hotel near the station.
Through the narrow window, the lights of the harbor dotted the dark, one by one. Out on the aquaculture rafts in the bay, a single workboat's lamp swayed gently to and fro.
Minato sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the film camera from around his neck. Its solid weight stayed in his hands.
*Something I want to photograph, huh.*
When you worked as a photographer in Tokyo, a shoot always began with someone else's instructions. A magazine editor, an ad agency director, a model. You took the "correct" photograph that everyone wanted. Minato was good at that. His eye was sharp, and he had a gift for capturing the subtle shifts of human feeling.
But the photographs that gift produced were always for someone else.
He set the camera gently on the bed and stood by the window.
The summer of ten years ago. The summer break of his third year of high school.
At the photography club's final shoot, Minato and Yuuma had climbed to the lighthouse at Shiomi Cape together.
The setting sun was staining the sea red, and Yuuma leaned against the lighthouse's white wall, gazing at the horizon. The sea wind lifted his chestnut hair, and his profile, bathed in the sunset, was so beautiful it was hard to believe.
Minato raised his camera.
Yuuma through the viewfinder. His light-brown eyes catching the sunset, glowing gold.
He pressed the shutter.
A dry *click*.
In that instant, Minato nearly said it.
*I like you.*
Three words.
But they caught in the back of his throat, and in the end, they never came out.
"...What's wrong?"
Yuuma turned, tilting his head.
"Nothing. It's nothing."
Minato lowered the camera and forced a smile.
The words he couldn't say then were still inside him, ten years later.
And the film from that day had never been developed.
*Pathetic.*
Minato stared vaguely at his own face reflected in the window glass. His deep brown eyes looked somewhere far away in the dark pane. His unkempt black hair fell across his eyes, casting a shadow.
On the back of his right hand was a small, old scar. From high school, when he'd fumbled cutting film in the club darkroom and sliced himself with a bread knife. Yuuma had panicked and put a bandage on it for him.
*Still there, huh.*
Minato traced the back of his right hand softly with the fingers of his left.
---
The next morning.
Minato stood in front of Matsuba-ya, his mind made up.
Just as the day before, the sweet scent of bean paste drifted from the back of the shop. The indigo noren glowed translucent in the morning light, the white characters floating up through the cloth.
*It's fine. I'm just going to say hello after all this time.*
Minato took a deep breath and ducked through the curtain.
"Excuse me."
His voice came out hoarser than he'd expected.
The shop's earthen floor was empty. But from the kitchen came a light *clack*—a wooden paddle striking a copper pot.
After a moment, Yuuma appeared in his white apron.
His soft chestnut hair was still a little sleep-tousled from the morning rush. His almond-shaped brown eyes found Minato and went wide.
"...Minato?"
Yuuma's voice echoed quietly through the shop.
"It's been a while."
That was all Minato could manage.
Yuuma stared at his face for a long moment. Then his expression loosened, and he smiled—soft and warm.
"Want some anko?"
At those words, something deep in Minato's chest went warm and tender.
"...Yeah."
He fought to keep his voice from shaking.
---
In the small living room at the back of the shop, Minato and Yuuma sat facing each other.
On the low wooden table sat two *shiomanten*—salt buns—on a white plate. Freshly steamed, still giving off little curls of heat.
"This is shiomanten, right? It's been so long."
Minato touched the pale skin with his finger. Soft and pillowy, faintly warm.
"It's our standard. Give it a try."
Yuuma smiled, a little bashful.
Minato took a bite.
The gentle sweetness of the white bean paste filled his mouth. But it wasn't only sweet. There was just a touch of salt. The exquisite balance of a confectionery near the sea.
"It's good."
He said it honestly.
"Good. I've been worried people would say the taste's gone downhill."
Yuuma laughed and picked up his own bun.
"You run this place alone?"
Minato asked the question that had been on his mind since yesterday.
Yuuma's hand stopped for just a moment.
"...Yeah. Well, pretty much."
He brought the bun to his mouth, his gaze dropping slightly.
"I've been posting job listings, but nobody ever comes."
"I see."
Minato couldn't say anything more.
"My old man died five years ago. Since then, it's just been me."
Yuuma's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. But Minato could tell. He was forcing himself to sound cheerful.
"That must've been hard."
"Well, no job's easy. You're a photographer, aren't you? I saw you in a magazine. The photos were beautiful."
Yuuma looked straight into Minato's eyes as he said it.
In those light-brown eyes, Minato's own reflection.
"...You looked?"
Minato felt his chest tighten.
"Of course I did. If my childhood friend's photos were in a magazine, anyone would look."
Yuuma grinned, mischievous.
That smile was exactly the same as ten years ago, and Minato nearly cried.
*I want to say I'll help.*
*But I can't.*
He had to go back to Tokyo. He had work. He couldn't stay in this town.
And yet he wanted to be beside Yuuma.
"...Yuuma, I—"
As Minato started to speak, Yuuma shook his head.
"Thanks. But your place isn't here, is it."
Yuuma smiled, looking lonely.
The words pierced deep into Minato's chest.
*Right. My place isn't here.*
*I know that. I know it, and yet—*
Minato fell silent, unable to say anything, and quietly put the rest of the bun into his mouth.
It should have been sweet. It tasted a little bitter.
---
Leaving Matsuba-ya, Minato walked along the Shiomi Ginza toward the station.
Before noon, the shopping street had a few more people than in the morning. Elderly folks with shopping bags, a grade-schooler on a bicycle. Time moved slowly here for everyone.
"Oh my, aren't you Minato-kun?"
The sudden voice stopped him in his tracks.
He turned. Outside the Tokiwa Barber stood its owner, Furukawa Masao—white hair neatly parted, a towel hanging at his waist.
"It's been a long time, Furukawa-san."
Minato gave a slight bow.
"It really is Minato-kun! Ten years, is it? I hear you became a photographer in Tokyo. That's wonderful!"
Furukawa clapped him on the shoulder, delighted.
"Well, something like that."
Minato smiled wryly.
"More to the point—did you stop by Matsuba-ya? How's Yuuma-kun doing?"
Furukawa's voice turned a little serious.
"Yes, I was just there."
"I see... That shop's in trouble these days."
Furukawa lowered his voice.
"Trouble?"
"Have you heard about the redevelopment? This whole Shiomi Ginza area is about to be bought up by a big developer. Matsuba-ya's on the list, from what I hear."
Minato's heart gave a heavy thud.
"Redevelopment..."
"It's a town revitalization plan. They're building a marina and commercial facilities
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