The film festival was in October when they were both thirty.
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Saki's documentary was called The Last Boats and it was about a fishing village on the north coast that had lost its harbor to a storm in 2019 and had never rebuilt. It was eighty-two minutes long. It was the best thing she had ever made.
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Ren was at the festival because he and Yui had taken the children to Yamagata for a week. The children were four and two. They were staying in a rented house near the mountain and they had decided to go to the festival on the second day because there was a children's animation program in the afternoon and because Yui had heard there was a good restaurant nearby.
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Ren did not know Saki's film was screening. Yui did not know Saki existed.
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He saw the program on the second morning.
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He went to the screening alone. Yui took the children to the animation program.
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The film was about a man named Kozo who had been a fisherman for forty years and who had lost his boat in the storm and who had spent the last six years working at a convenience store in the nearest town. The film followed him through a single year. It did not have a narrator. It did not have music. It ended with Kozo standing on the empty concrete where the harbor used to be, looking at the water.
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Ren cried in the dark and did not know why.
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The lights came up.
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He found her in the lobby.
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She was standing by the concession stand with a paper cup of coffee. She looked older. She had cut her hair shorter again. She was wearing the same kind of jacket she had worn at twenty and it looked like it fit her better now.
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She saw him and did not look surprised.
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"Hello," she said.
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"Hello."
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They stood there for a moment.
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"Your film," he said.
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"Yes."
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"It was—"
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He did not finish the sentence.
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She waited.
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"It was good," he said. "It was really good."
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She nodded.
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They found a table in the corner of the lobby and sat down.
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They talked for an hour.
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She told him she was moving to Canada in three months. She had been offered a position with a production company in Vancouver and she had accepted it. She was going to be there for at least two years. Maybe longer.
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He told her he was still at the architecture firm. He told her about the children. He told her that Yui was pregnant with their third.
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She said congratulations.
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He said thank you.
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She asked about his parents. He told her his father had died two years earlier.
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She said she was sorry. She said it without hesitation and without drama.
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They sat there for a while.
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Then she said she had to go. The festival had arranged a panel discussion and she was on it and she had to be there in twenty minutes.
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She stood up.
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"It was good to see you," she said.
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"It was good to see you."
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She looked at him for a moment.
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Then she took something out of her bag. It was a flash drive.
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"The film," she said. "It's a copy."
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He took it.
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She walked to the door and did not look back.
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He sat at the table for a long time.
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He did not watch the film again.
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He kept the flash drive in a drawer in his office for five years and never plugged it into anything.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2WrJWEIbro
and then Add to home screen.