Three Days of Happiness

111
From where we sat, we could look down at the festival grounds.
The narrow road leading up to the shrine was packed with carts,
and two rows of paper lanterns ran straight like runway lights,
illuminating their dim surroundings red.
Everyone passing through looked cheery... in short, it was no
different from that day ten years ago.
That day, too, I - Himeno and I - had sat on the steps like this,
looking at the people walking down below. We conceded we had no
right to mingle among them.
We were waiting for “something” that would acknowledge our
existence and understand us fully.
And then Himeno made her premonition. “Something really good”
would happen, and one day we’d be “glad we lived,” in the summer
ten years later.
Furthermore, she said that if we both hadn’t found someone to
marry in ten years, being that we were both “on the shelf,” we
should be together.
Well, I was in that summer now. And the girl who made that
promise wasn’t on the shelf, but was second-hand goods - and my
life was going to end with me being not only unsold, but unfit to
sell.
But ultimately, we were both without owners. We were once again
left alone.
I wonder where Himeno is now, and what she’s doing?