Bright Burning

Oban

The celebration of Oban is scheduled over a three day period. Amy and I had gone out and really got see what it was all about the first two days. We enjoyed every second but being the boring adults we were we didn't feel the need to go out for the last day of festivities, the streets were packed with people that came home to clean the graves of their deceased love ones and we just didn't have the same connection to it like everyone else did.

It was beautiful the way they celebrated life though, there was a certain feeling in the air from the drums and dancing but I didn't have time to stop and observe what exactly that feeling could be. Akira had to be out to show her respects toward her grandfather, hopefully he was out too. Watching her in the crowd of people fanning themselves from the heat.

The sunset was marking the end of the last day but there was still a full night of festivities and no one was planning on shutting it down anytime soon, the thing everyone was currently focused on happened to be a parade of boat shaped floats with pictures of the deceased love ones. Some big, some small but all were celebrated as a man put down small firecrackers in the ground and people followed behind him. I wasn't sure what all the people in the parade did but they seemed to have a purpose as they walked down the street as I did so on the sidewalk.

I didn't want to be rude but I slowly made my way up to the front of the crowd of people and looked down the messy street filled with confetti and candy. There was no way to know where she was and my best bet was to just keep walking. Before I could though, my eyes looked directly in front of me to notice the young girl I needed to see. Her eyes must have been watching me for a minute longer than I because she smiled when my brain clicked that it was her.

There was no way she could have heard me from across the street so I tippy toed and looked over the heads, there was an opening going to the park that could give us some sort of space and that few feet of space was all I needed. Waving at her I pointed the way to go and she nodded almost as nervous as me. Before I could try to communicate anything else a giant float delegated our view. Murming a couple obscene curse words I started pushing through the crowd that refused to move.

My head kept snapping to make sure she was fighting the people as well as I was but I could barely see her through the marching of woman in beautiful kimonos. Only seconds at a time let me see her hair fly between some men and I smiled knowing to keep going.

About the same time we flew out between the excited people another float stopped me from crossing the street, the only hope I had was to run right after it and go towards the park I saw her running to, it wasn't the same way but I just hoped it took us to the same place. It was a horrible thing to be constantly separated by some sort of barrier but I don't think there was any barrier in the world that could keep me from her anymore because as much as I hated running I sure did a lot of it for her.

Stopping when I saw the small river I looked up the current and saw her leaning on the bridge that I wanted to be at. She was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen in my life, even though water separated us the lanterns lit her up and I just watched taking a mental picture with my mind. Going around the stream I jumped from rock to rock until I stood at the other side of the bridge.

This time I couldn't kiss her like I wanted to, people walked around us and I knew that wouldn't go over well so I only stepped over to her and put my hand over hers that was resting on the wooden railing.

"I'm surprised you found me." Her scrunched nose made me drop my head and laugh. "Without my mother too."

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She's dancing at the park." Her eyes studied mine but she didn't let them for long as she looked around at the people that eyed us curiously. "Did you come to say goodbye Sensei?"