英語で音読　Ao-Bura Literature Club | A Single Flower in a Vase: The Reason for Tears

One day after school, Mio clutched her English textbook, left the dormitory entrance, and
headed as usual to Ms. Akiko's nearby boarding house.

This was a small junior high school in the mountains, where
students who commuted and students who lived in the dormitory studied together.

Ms. Akiko, the English teacher who had moved from the city, was still young and popular with the students, and
Mio looked forward to visiting her boarding house.

Ms. Akiko, who had few acquaintances, welcomed visits from her students. Among them, Mio was especially close to her.

“Teacher, hello!”
She called out cheerfully in front of the teacher's room on the second floor and knocked on the door.
However, there was no response.

(Huh? I wonder what's wrong?)

“Teacher?”
This time, she called out a little more tentatively.

Silence... continued.

Just as Mio began to feel a little uneasy,
there was a heavy click, and the door opened.

The light of the setting sun sinking behind the mountains shone diagonally into the room.
The half-open curtains swayed, and a rich fragrance drifted through the room from the lily in the single-flower vase by the window.

With the window still bright in the background, Ms. Akiko was looking down.

“Mio, today is just... I'm sorry.”
The teacher turned her face away and waved her hand slightly.

Mio was startled.
Feeling as though she had seen something she shouldn't have,
she hurriedly bowed her head and closed the door.

As she walked away,
(Was the teacher crying? I wonder what happened.)

Even after returning to the dormitory, Mio felt uneasy.
In the English class the next day, Ms. Akiko seemed somewhat down, but
Mio could only watch from afar.

In the meantime, summer vacation began, and the dormitory students returned to their homes.
By the time Mio returned for the second semester,
Ms. Akiko seemed to have regained her former cheerfulness.

Without either of them mentioning that day, time passed,
Mio graduated, and her connection with the teacher dwindled to just seasonal letters.

Eventually, more than a decade passed.

Mio, who had moved to the city, ended up visiting Ms. Akiko, who had returned to her parents' home.

“My, Mio, you’ve grown up so much!”
“It’s been a long time. You look well, too, Sensei…”

Akiko welcomed Mio into her house in a residential neighborhood.
The mother she had introduced brought them tea and cookies.

As they reminisced and the conversation flowed,
eventually, Akiko picked up her teacup and began to quietly speak of the reason for the tears on that day.

On that day, Akiko-sensei had received a breakup letter from her lover.
It was not merely a story of a broken heart.

Sensei had a lover in the city with whom she had promised a future.
At first, he had supported Akiko-sensei as she poured her passion into being a teacher in a remote area.
But eventually, he began to wish for her to return home and marry him,

and to Akiko-sensei, who wished for just a little longer—two or three more years—,
he sent a letter forcing her to make a decision, saying he could wait no longer and that she must choose between him or her work.

After agonizing over it, Akiko sent a reply letter.
“I will return to you.”

But in the letter that arrived from him on the afternoon of the same day she had dropped her letter in the post,

it said, “If you are that committed to your work,
then let’s end it here. I cannot wait.”

It was a letter that clearly signaled the end.

The two letters had crossed paths.
The two of them could no longer turn back.

Her decision, made after much soul-searching, had come too late… A feeling that could never be undone.

Was it just a slight misalignment of time that changed her fate?
Or perhaps it was a misalignment of hearts that had grown between them.

That was the reason for the tears on that day.

The Akiko of today laughs without a care.

“Back then, at first, I thought, ‘Oh dear, I’ve come to such a difficult place.’
Everywhere I looked, it was just mountains.”

“I suppose so.”
Mio could only offer a wry smile.

“But gradually, you all became so dear to me that I couldn’t leave.”

“Sensei…”

I was likely the only one who saw Sensei’s tears that day.
And I am surely the only one who knows the reason why.

As the evening sun began to tilt to the west, Mio bid Akiko-sensei farewell.

Sensei saw her off with a smile.
In that familiar single-flower vase, a red rose was blooming.

It was an era when even individual households had few telephones.

If there had been smartphones, LINE, or email,
would their hearts have reached one another?
Would the outcome have been different?

That is something no one knows.