"Do you know why I became an art teacher?" he asked on the last day of summer break. "Because teenagers are the only people still honest about wanting. Adults learn to hide it. You all wear it on your skin like dew."
When he left for the station on the seventh morning, he pressed a single mikan seed into my hand. "Plant it," he said. "And think of me when it grows." Sei ni Mezameru Shojo -Otokotachi to Hito Natsu...
That was the first time someone looked at me and didn't see a child. His gaze traveled—not lecherously, but curiously, like I was a book in a language he was still learning. He taught me how to hold a senko hanabi (sparkler) without burning my palm. "The fire's prettiest right before it dies," he said. "Do you know why I became an art teacher
"You're sad," he said.
I stayed after class to work on my summer sketchbook assignment: "The Shape of Want." I didn't know what to draw, so I drew hands—my mother's, Kenji's, Haruki's. Mr. Tachibana watched over my shoulder, then took the charcoal from my fingers. You all wear it on your skin like dew
The matsuri (festival) came on the last Saturday of August. I wore a yukata my grandmother had dyed—blue, the color of a shallow sea. My obi was too tight, and my geta pinched my toes, but for the first time, I felt seen in a way that didn't frighten me.
He drew two hands, almost touching. The negative space between their palms formed the silhouette of a woman's profile.