I Thought the Four of Us Would Come Again

Yesterday, I went to a day-use hot spring different from the one I usually visit.

It is about a 20-minute drive from our house.

It was not my first time there.

Many years ago, I visited it with my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my wife, and me.

There were four of us.

⸻

I think it was probably in 2011.

Perhaps it was before we moved to Buenos Aires.

Or perhaps it was in 2012, when we briefly returned to Japan and stayed at the family home in Shisui.

I cannot remember exactly when it was.

But that is not particularly important to this story.

What I remember is that the four of us visited the hot spring, ate soba for lunch, and went home.

⸻

My father-in-law and mother-in-law both loved hiking in the mountains.

To them, a real hot spring meant naturally flowing water drawn directly from the source, somewhere deep in the mountains.

Water lukewarm enough to soak in for a long time.

A hot spring surrounded by nearly untouched nature, with something wild still remaining in it.

For them, a true hot spring was the kind of place you visited after walking through the mountains.

⸻

That was why ordinary day-use hot spring facilities held little interest for them.

It was not that they disliked hot springs.

They simply had very clear standards for what a hot spring should be.

A purpose-built facility near home was probably not somewhere they would normally make an effort to visit.

⸻

Even so, the four of us went there that day.

Since we were all together, I probably said something like,

“There’s a nice hot spring nearby. We might as well go together.”

I must have spoken to my wife and persuaded the two of them to come along.

And so, the four of us went.

⸻

At the time, I did not yet have a driver’s license.

Even if I wanted to go somewhere, I could not simply drive there alone.

Someone else had to drive if I wanted to visit that hot spring.

The four of us got into the car and parked in the lot.

We soaked in the hot spring, ate soba, and returned home.

That was all that happened that day.

⸻

Nothing particularly memorable occurred.

I do not remember what any of us talked about.

I probably bathed with my father-in-law, but I cannot remember what that was like.

I do not remember what my mother-in-law ate.

The only scene that remains in my memory is the four of us sitting together and eating soba.

It was that ordinary a day.

⸻

At the time, I assumed the four of us would visit again someday.

The hot spring was only a 20-minute drive from the house.

It was not far away.

We did not need a reservation.

We could return whenever we wanted.

I took it for granted that there would be many more opportunities.

⸻

Yet more than 10 years passed, and I never visited that hot spring again.

Despite being so close, I did not return even once.

And now, my mother-in-law is no longer with us.

The four of us will never again visit the same hot spring and sit at the same table eating soba.

It never occurred to me that day would be our first and last visit together.

⸻

Yesterday, I drove there alone.

I parked in the same lot where the four of us had once parked.

I have a driver’s license now.

If I want to go somewhere, I can drive there by myself.

As I sat alone in the hot spring, I remembered that I had once visited this place with the other three.

⸻

I wish my memories of that day were clearer.

The conversations we shared.

Bathing with my father-in-law.

The expression on my mother-in-law’s face.

What we discussed while eating together.

But I remember almost none of it.

I did not know that the day would one day feel special.

To me, it was simply an ordinary day, the kind I assumed we would repeat many times.

⸻

Perhaps that is the nature of everyday life.

We assume that a day much like today will come again tomorrow.

We will meet again.

We will go somewhere together again.

We will sit around the same table again.

Yet each moment we spend together will never return in exactly the same form.

Yesterday, as I sat alone in the hot spring, that thought quietly occurred to me.

⸻

Back then, there were four of us.

I thought the four of us would come again.