Chapter 1: A Birthday Stroll in Shiga

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“Happy birthday, Kiyotaka! Thank you for everything. It’s not much, but I prepared a birthday gift for you—a voucher for Hino’s guest house. I thought it’d be nice to go on a little trip together, even if it’s not far from here. I made the car-shaped vase and hot-air balloon flowers with the hope that I can continue to travel with you on the journey called life. (I’m sorry for acting suspicious by glancing at you when I was trying to think of a present.) From Aoi”

On Holmes’s birthday, February 14th, I presented him with a voucher for a guest house on the shore of Lake Biwa. It had been given to me by Hino, Holmes’s senior from high school, whose wife’s family owned the property.

Since it was a birthday gift, I had wanted to redeem it right away, but between bouts of bad weather and us both having business to take care of, we ended up not being able to set out for Lake Biwa until a weekend in March.

I sat in the passenger seat of Holmes’s car, a Mitsuoka Viewt. We were currently on the Shiga-goe Pass, a route that connected Kyoto’s Shirakawa Street to Shiga Prefecture. It was also known as the Yamanaka-goe, meaning “mountain pass,” because it passed Mount Hiei on the way.

Along the mountainside, I saw an old-looking building with red flags and