Hotaka is pleased to be alone. He loves Osamu and Sakura, but sometimes their company is like being in a pressure cooker. It’s good to have time-out from them now and then. Time to think.

He looks over the town, Sakura’s comments in his head. They have unsettled him, and he needs to think things through a bit.

Of course she’s right about the housing problem, and how ugly and soulless the town is. Dirt, gravel, bitumen and concrete – that’s Omori-wan. The harbour has been repaired, with a new marina, a wide road and new buildings along the front. But the marina is badly built, a rushed job of poor craftsmanship. The road is bitumen rather than cobblestones, and the buildings are concrete blocks, functional but charmless. And all the tiny temporary housing units are simply hideous.

One building does stand out – the Town Hall. Money has been lavished on it, especially the upper level which houses Mayor Nakano’s office, a palace of glass and concrete. They say an entertainment facility is planned for that level, too, with bars, a restaurant and maybe even gambling. So Sakura is probably right about the corruption as well.

What of the seawall, though? Is she right about that? Hotaka wonders.

He gazes past the harbour to the far side of the marina, where work has begun on the wall. Only three panels are in place, but in six months the structure will stretch across the bay. It will be massive and ugly, sure, but absolutely necessary according to government experts. Such walls are being built right up and down the Tōhoku coast, a vast project being proclaimed as the only way to tsunami-proof towns like Omori-wan for the future.

Hotaka understands what upsets Sakura so much. With all that money spent with so little to show, and so much more still to be spent on the seawall, she despairs of there ever being anything for proper housing, for ordinary people.

What can be done, though? Hotaka wonders. Matters like these have always been decided by the government and their advisors, big companies and so on. They’re the experts, surely, not ordinary people. What do ordinary people know of such things?

Hotaka sighs. He really wishes he knew what to think.

He stares across the bay, the water a sombre dark blue. Ever since his grandfather started taking him sailing at a very young age, Hotaka has been keenly aware of the sea and its many moods.

‘The sea is part of us,’ the old man once said. ‘We of the Tōhoku coast can never fully escape its grip.’

Hotaka feels the sea’s sullenness, as thoughts of his grandfather gather round. How would Grandpa feel about what’s happening to Omori-wan? What would he say? The old man had loved the little town and would’ve wept at the havoc harvested by the wave that took his life, along with many others.

Hotaka’s grandfather had returned to Omori-wan that dreadful March day in 2011. He’d come on the worst possible bus, the one that arrived just before the earthquake hit. But he didn’t run for the hills, it seems, as he’d always told Hotaka to do.

You must have gone to the harbour, Jīchan, after the earthquake? Why? You knew there’d be a tsunami. You of all people knew. So why did you go there? What did you think you could do? Help people in your little sabani?

Hotaka’s grandfather loved that Okinawan boat. He’d built it with his own hands, under the watchful eye of a master boat builder. He kept it in perfect condition, and sailed it every chance he got, even at eighty years of age.

‘It was his way of being at one with the sea,’ Hotaka’s mother told him through her tears when they found the old man where the tsunami had dumped him, twisted and broken, three kilometres inland, bits of his boat scattered nearby.

‘If only you were here, Jīchan,’ Hotaka whispers. ‘You’d know how to rebuild the town.’

Uncle Yori would also know what to do, Hotaka thinks, and peers down at the harbour, picking out his uncle’s trawler at once. The big blue and white boat is famous in Omori-wan, a symbol of survival, just as Uncle Yori is a kind of hero. He took on the wave and won. And they say he helped so many at sea in the turbulent, treacherous currents that accompanied the tsunami.

Hotaka makes a mental note to call on his uncle – they’ve not spoken in over a week – then turns and begins walking down the hill.

He’s in no hurry, though. In fact he wouldn’t care if he missed school completely. He began the day feeling upbeat, but that’s faded now and he can feel himself sinking. Sakura’s comments about Omori-wan haven’t helped, but the Shaman Lady is mainly to blame. Her talk of the untethered one has really got under his skin. Hotaka doesn’t want to go there; that’s where sadness lives, unbearable sadness, the very last thing he wants.

If only he could snap his fingers and bring on tomorrow with its big soccer game. He doesn’t want to be in today anymore. He decides to run, buoying himself with visions of victory on the morrow, scoring a goal at the very least. He sets off at a brisk pace, knowing that sadness is never far behind.

The rest of the day drags horribly for Hotaka. He does end up sinking to the low spot he’d hoped to avoid, and everything becomes hard work. Teachers get on his nerves, and he on theirs; the Maths teacher loses his temper and yells at him for not trying. Lessons are a bore, but time with his peers is even worse. Sakura tells him to take some happy pills. At least Osamu keeps his distance; they’ve both seen each other in their dark places, and know the need for personal space.

Even talking with Miss Abe doesn’t help. She’s delighted that the Shaman Lady will contribute to the Memorial Concert, and does a great impersonation of the old woman that makes Hotaka laugh. But it’s not enough to keep the darkness at bay. She notices.

‘What’s wrong, Hotaka? You seem flat.’

That’s one word to describe how he feels – the air has been sucked out of him. Scared is another word; terrified is best, terrified that if he’s not careful every last breath of air will be stolen from him. It takes all his strength to stop himself from sinking further, into that truly suffocating blackness – a place of despair that many who’ve lived through the tsunami know only too well.

Everyone copes in different ways with what the tsunami did to them. Some are consumed by their ordeal, even to the point of ending their lives. Some rise above their grief. Some merely muddle on. Others learn to hide their pain behind a front, a mask; Osamu is one of those.

What of Sakura? How does she cope? Hotaka can’t be certain because he knows so little about her, she’s so secretive. Maybe that’s it – secrecy. She keeps it all a secret.

And why not? After all, it’s what he’s done with Takeshi: kept him a secret. He thought it was such a well-kept secret, safe from prying eyes. But the Shaman Lady blew that one.

Far more difficult to deal with, though, is the Shaman Lady’s insistence that he break his bond with Takeshi. She had no idea what she was asking. That would mean betrayal.

Takeshi is a lost soul. His body has never been found. He is still out there somewhere – his spirit in turmoil, wandering, untethered, unable to find peace. He needs an anchor. Without one his spirit would blow into oblivion. Hotaka is that anchor; if he broke the bond between them he would be abandoning his friend. He’s already done that once, on the day of the tsunami; Hotaka still blames himself for allowing Takeshi to be stolen by the wave. He can’t let it happen again.

After school, Hotaka avoids Osamu and Sakura, and rides home alone. He’s pleased that his mother isn’t back yet. She would pick up on his mood and pester him, when all he wants is to forget. He soaks in a long hot bath, then retires to his room with some food, leaving a note on the door:

Getting a good night’s rest in prep for tomorrow’s big match

He buries himself in bed and hopes that sleep will visit him for at least some of the night.