After this, Tanaka-sensei led us all in clapping once to signify the end of the ceremony, and that was it! RSJP was over! 5 weeks were over. So long, yet so short. There was a long post-ceremony mingling session with the Buddies who were still around after that and many photos were taken. It was kind of awkward for me and a couple others who didn’t like that sort of thing, but it was also a momentous and bittersweet moment, so it was important to capture that bittersweet taste and remember it. Of Buddies, some of who I knew well and some of who I still have no idea who they are:

Of dear friends, soon to be parted but maybe to meet again in the future:

Of the shining lights that led the way:

Of people taking pictures of people for my collection, of course:

We were soon kicked out of the conference room, but ended up just outside of it doing the exact same thing:

(The last two there are mirror photographs.)

Then we got kicked out of the hallway because there were classes in the building, so we went out to the main yard/quad area and did the same there, yet again:

At this point, we were half an hour into social picture taking, and some of us who were not social butterflies were flagging, while a couple of the Buddies seemed to have boundless energy and wanted to take the same pictures over and over again. Cameron mentioned wanting to go to the store to pick up some Ritsumeikan goods from the co-op store before we dispersed, and Zian and I wanted to do the same, so we departed after exchanging some farewell hugs with some of the others.

Once at the shop, I picked up a red Ritsumeikan T-shirt, a set of metal buttons, and a school badge. Cameron picked up a similar T-shirt and a spiffy tie, and Zian picked up a polo shirt, I believe. I’m not sure what else she picked up. We made our way back up and out of the co-op shop in time to see the main group finally dispersing and the five other cohort mates heading for the bus stop just north of the school, so we said our goodbyes to Cameron and he headed out to meet them too. Zian and I headed the other way — we needed to catch a different bus from one of the bus stops on the southern or eastern main road to get back to Nishioji Shijo, so we walked 10 minutes or so out of the school to the southern stop and caught the 26 home.

While we would not be back to Ritsumeikan, there were still several other pieces to go before the day’s story was done. Firstly, Miyu, who had not been able to attend the closing ceremony, had said that she wanted to meet the two of us at Saiin Station (the Nishioji Shijo Station) at 6 pm, since we both lived by it and she uses that station as a transfer point to get back home to Osaka.

Secondly, I had invited Zian to hang out in my room overnight during the previous night, and she had agreed to this, and I was looking forward to this. We were practically best of friends at this point and seemed to enjoy each other’s company, and were both sad that we were going to be leaving each other soon. I figured we would be able to have a final night having a long, meandering chat and maybe spend some time playing cards (which was an item on her to-do list that we only partially did).

We had agreed on maybe doing it around 9 pm or so after she finished packing and cleaning up her house, which was apparently a thing her contract stipulated that she did, and so I had also gone ahead and informed my housing manager of this and paid them the additional fee for having one extra person sleep over that night (which I had learnt about from almost having Kel sleep over too when she visited Kyoto two weeks prior). We both also knew that we were also preparing a last, long thank you note for each other, and that neither of us were done writing that, and that we were likely going to exchange some gifts as well. We had two and a half hours or so before we met Miyu though, so I figured that we would be good on time.

We met up at 6pm outside Saiin, where Miyu had a little gift for each of us, surprising us with two little bags of stuff. I’m not sure what Zian got, but I got a little cat keychain of sorts. And a card.

That’s a kaomojinuko, I was told, and I have some extra stuff on it to share in his Plushie of the Week post in a couple of weeks. Please look forward to it?

Zian had also prepared a gift bag of stationery for Miyu, which surprised her back in turn. I didn’t have anything of that sort for her though, oops, though I had given her a postcard (from Jerome, Zian, and I) while we were in Osaka on Wednesday, and then another thank you card in the afternoon today on the way back from lunch. I did have a thank you card for Jerome from Zian and I as well though, and requested that she deliver it to him on Monday since he would still be around Ritsumeikan for a couple weeks more. She agreed to that.

We waved to Miyu one last time as she left, and then it was Zian and I left. We walked a few feet over in the direction of our homes, until the usual corner where our roads split, and where there was an okonomiyaki/teriyaki stall on one corner, and a bookstore on the other corner. (I called this Okonomiyaki Street, by the way.) We stood by the outside of the bookstore as she said that she likely wouldn’t be able to make it that night, as she still needed to clean her room and do other things (like packing and finishing the letter). She’d meet for dinner though, and we agreed to go to Aeon Mall for it when she was free. She listed off a bunch of things that she had to do, and I tried to argue that there was no way that they expected her to wash the bedsheets before vacating the house, and that they had to be sending someone in to the unit afterwards to clean it no matter what. She said that she had asked advice from a Japanese friend (actually said friend’s mother) who said that it was better to do that. I did offer to help come over and vacuum and stuff too but I was shot down too. Oh well.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if she was trying to get me to persuade her to come along anyway, or if she was sheepishly requesting for more time to not only clean up but prepare a gift and card too. I wanted her to not worry and come with her luggage and stay to chat overnight like we had said, because friendship and our precious remaining time together would be the most important thing down the road, but that was not a request I could make — that was a request my 14 or 18 year old self might have made, or if I was the younger one, but I was not. And that was not necessarily the wrong decision, since more time together doing something “one last time”, like I wanted to talk about near the start of this post, could also mean that the final parting becomes more difficult. I don’t know.

I went home and started to pen her card. I drafted it out on my laptop, then started to write it — I had 6 small pieces of paper and filled them all, then I stuffed them all in an envelope and gave it to her, along with a booklet I had gotten in Osaka, a pad of paper that I had picked up from Aeon Mall, and the karuta clear file I had gotten a few days prior. She then read it between cleaning and laundry at night, felt moved, and decided to swing by my place at 10 or 11 pm to stay the night anyway. We had a sleepover like girls do and stayed awake all night, the flames of friendship burning brightly with midnight oil as we spent one last night together, reminiscing about our five magical weeks together and strengthening our lifelong bonds.

But that’s not what actually happened. She called for dinner when I was about 15 minutes out from finishing my letter, and when I said that I wasn’t done yet, she said that she was nowhere near done either, so so much for that. Tomorrow, she said. We’d meet at 10 am, just before I checked out at 11 am, and exchange gifts then. Instead, tonight, we went to have a last dinner together.

One of the things she liked doing, and that we had done many times along our shared journey, was that when we couldn’t make a decision, we’d use a die roll to decide instead. She’d pull up Google on her phone and generate a number from 1-10 after deciding what results the dice rolls would have. This was amusing, fun, cute, and very much an inside joke between us. Back at the bookstore exterior, we had been deciding between Aeon Mall and one of the dozen or so izakayas around us, and Aeon Mall had won out.  We had talked on and off about possibly visiting an izakaya (but no alcohol!) after I had brought it up earlier in the week, but when she had floated the idea here, I had become hesitant because I was still processing the cancellation of the girls’ night talk, and because I tend to be a bit conservative and risk-averse, and it felt dangerous to flirt with having a risky experience for our last meal in Japan (as we didn’t really know how to order stuff in an izakaya). So she proposed a dice roll, and the dice said Aeon. But Aeon was equidistant to the south between our housings, whereas the izakaya were pretty much all around my housing. Regardless if it had led to a good or bad experience, would visiting an izakaya have also led to stopping by my place?

But that was a road not taken. Instead, the separate roads from our apartments led to Aeon Mall. She arrived first and went up to the third floor to try to look in the Capcom arcade there for a specific Meitantei Conan machine that she had seen when we had first walked by here four weeks ago. She didn’t find it though. That machine must have circulated out for another set of prizes or something. Zian also pointed out that our last dinner was also in the same food court where our first dinner was that night, so that was a nice piece of symmetry.

She had a dish she wanted to order, as it looked good, but it turned out to be something really spicy, which she couldn’t tolerate. She still tried her utmost best though, aided by a cool drink.

This was partly because I had also ordered something super spicy tonight, not realizing that her meal had the potential of being spicy too, so I couldn’t trade. She had come over to me to say she was going to find a table before I had actually placed the order, so I could have noticed. I didn’t.

Somehow or other we muddled through the meal though, since I could still share the non-stew part of my meal that wasn’t lava incarnate, and we then walked through the arcade again looking for that claw machine she wanted to find. We didn’t, but she saw a taiko machine and took her spice-filled rage out on it.