Home on the Other Side

The rain had stopped by the time the evening light softened against the window. The air still smelled fresh, the way it always did after a long rain—like the world had been rinsed clean. Kai sat at the table, her empty tea cup resting between her hands. Her father had stepped away, probably to sort through his photographs, leaving the house in a hush of stillness.

She looked at the framed photo on the wall again—the one of them standing under his red umbrella. But this time, her eyes moved past it, settling on a smaller picture tucked in the corner of the frame.

It was a snapshot of the ocean, taken from the window of an airplane. The sky above it stretched wide, endless, like a road leading somewhere far away.

Kai knew where it led.

She reached for her father’s camera bag, carefully unzipping the top. Inside were neatly stacked photographs, some still waiting to be placed in albums. She flipped through them gently—images of trees bent in the wind, puddles reflecting city lights, hands wrapped around warm cups of tea. And then she found one that made her pause.

A beach, golden in the late afternoon sun. Soft waves rolling onto the shore.

Australia.

Kai ran her fingers over the glossy surface. It had been taken the last time her father traveled to Australia, maybe on one of the long walks he liked to take with his camera. She imagined him standing there, listening to the ocean, maybe even humming the same melody he always did.

She held the photo up against the window, comparing the sky outside to the one in the picture. The colors were different—the deep blues of the Australian ocean against the gentle grays of Hokkaido’s evening—but something about them felt the same.

She didn’t hear her father come back into the room until he spoke.

“That was a warm day,” he said, glancing at the photo in her hand. He set down a new cup of tea in front of her, then sat beside her, his own cup cradled between his palms.

Kai turned the picture toward him. “Do you think the sky looks the same from both sides?”

Her father tilted his head, considering. “Maybe not exactly,” he said. “But I think the feeling is the same.”

Kai thought about that as she looked down at the photo again. The feeling of standing under an open sky, the sound of the waves, the steady presence of someone beside you. Maybe that was what home was—not a place, but a feeling you carried, no matter which side of the world you were on.

Her father took a sip of tea. “You’re thinking about Australia, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “She’s on the other side of the sky right now.”

He smiled. “Maybe she’s looking at it, too.”

Kai turned back to the window. The last of the daylight was fading, the sky settling into a deep blue. Somewhere, far away, the same sky stretched over Nami’s home. Maybe she was standing on the sand, listening to the waves, feeling the same steady rhythm of time moving forward.

Kai placed the photograph beside her tea cup, letting its edges catch the light.

Some things stayed with you. Even when you were on the other side.