The Photograph
一枚の写真
That night, the village was , and only a single lamp burned in Haru's room.
He sat on the bed, holding his grandfather's map with careful hands.
Earlier, he had felt something hidden inside the lining of the paper.
Slowly, he opened the , which had been sewn shut many years before.
Inside, he found an old photograph, which had been hidden there for decades.
It showed a young man standing beside a young woman on a cliff.
Behind them stood a white , whose light seemed to touch the sky.
Haru realised that the young man was his grandfather, Kenji, as a young sailor.
The woman, whose smile lit the whole picture, stood close to him.
On the back was a name he had never heard before: "Amalia."
Below the name were a date and a line written in Portuguese.
It read, "Volta para ver o por do sol" - "Come back to see the sunset."
Haru had never known that his grandfather had loved someone so deeply.
His grandfather had kept this for his entire life.
The photograph, which had been pressed flat for years, trembled in his hands.
He had always believed the map led only to a beautiful view.
Now he understood that it led to a person and a .
The , which his grandfather had never kept, suddenly felt like his own.
Kenji had drawn the map so his family would one day finish the journey.
Haru thought of the storm, the sea, and the woman his grandfather had lost.
He wondered what had happened to Amalia after the ship had sailed away.
The map, whose meaning had changed completely, now pointed toward a life.
He knew he had to reach the cape where the land ends and the sea begins.
Only there, in Portugal, could he learn how the story had truly ended.
The last lay ahead, and Haru would cross it at .