"You gotta cut it someday, you know that right? Think of your dad! He wouldn't want his son to train elsewhere. This precious garden is where you used to train every day, so what would he think when you are slacking off to train in a place god knows where?"
"I like the grass. I feel calm whenever I look at it."
"Calmness isn't what you want. Fight within yourself, Hiryu-kun. We can't be slacking now that we have just gotten recruited by the academy, right? We all have a dream. Your dream is to follow in your family's footsteps of becoming a Repulsor, and I want to live in that dream with you."
"..."
"It's a big promise, I know. You can trust me because I don't go back on my words. Ever!"
"What's your dream?"
"My dream?"
"Yeah. What is it?"
"Becoming a great Repulsor, I told you! I heard many of my dad's stories about the great adventures into another realm... It makes my heart pound every time I imagine that I can be a part of the heroes who would save the world from extinction. The sight of having comrades by your side..."
"That's ambition," I interrupted.
"...What?"
"It's different. Ambitions are shaped by your desire to achieve something. It fuels a fire in your heart whenever you think about it. Sometimes your ambitions tire you out, extinguishing your flames. You can rekindle it however you like, but there is no guarantee that the flames can be set ablaze again. In other words, ambitions are short-term and extinguishable."
"Then what is a dream through your lenses?"
"Following my family's footsteps is a destined circumstance. I don't dream of it because I know it will be a reality. I desire it. I want it. A dream is something more far-fetched, something unfathomable, and something that is possibly unreachable."
"I don't get it. People always dream. What's so unfathomable about it?"
"We dream of the past. We dream of the 'what-ifs.' We dream of everything. While ambitions are the curvy roads of hell, dreams are the soft clouds of heaven. We dream to escape reality. What point is there in dreams if they are to become reality so easily?"
"So a dream has to be something unachievable, right?"
"Not exactly. Dreams are constantly sacrificed for ambitions to thrive. Dreams are foggy and unforeseeable. You imagine it to happen, but you don't think it would happen because your ambitions have taken up most of your time and dedication. Because of that, we dream. We dream in place of things that are believed to never materialize."
To be fair, I had always believed that becoming a Repulsor was my dream. I dreamed about it every night until it stopped completely. I went into my dream world in search of the fragments of that dream, but there was no trace of it.
I realized that I had no dream. It was only a bunch of murmurs and crackles that the flames of ambition disguised as a dream.
"Dreams are unreal imagery, and it can come at you out of nowhere. You don't expect it to happen, so it can either never appear or present itself to you. That's the beauty of dreams."
"Are you really 13? I have a headache following you," Saki sighed. "Well, it's not like I didn't understand what you said."
"Great. Now, search deep within your soul. Desire, aspiration, sense of longing, throw all that away. What is the one thing you dream of?"
Without letting a second pass by, Saki's eyes lit up as if this dream was playing constantly in her brain.
"You and me, together. Together, we go back to our dear home after everything is at peace. We'll then open a small restaurant in the vast field near the streets of our home. I'll be the cook who serves delicious dishes, and you'll become the greatest server ever! After we close our restaurant, we walk slowly while enjoying the sounds of nature, the images of the sky, and the fact that we're together."
The hot wind suddenly blew stronger as the nighttime came around. Our hair fluttered in the air like flags in the sky. It was a simple dream, but it may never take place. Like the stars in the night sky, this dream would only flicker for a while before disappearing into the light, and that cycle would continue.
"Doesn't it sound simple? I think about this scene every day. As fleeting as it sounds, I always dream about it because it's so beautiful."
We both stared out into the open night covered by dark clouds and stars. I looked at the sidewalk and imagined how it would be to live in her dream.
I imagined the figures of us walking home after a bustling day of work. I looked afar and imagined a small shaft in the middle of the meadow as our restaurant. For some reason, I could recreate her dream perfectly in my mind.
It unfolded like a set of plays on a grand theatre, replaying in my mind nonstop until the picture became crystal clear.
I turned to look into her eyes, but strangely it wasn't a reflection of me or the landscape behind me. Under the thread of moonlight shone the exact same dream. The meadow. The shabby restaurant. The two figures.
It might be because we were kids, and kids are known to be rather imaginative and whimsical. We saw the world for its beauty and shut out its ugliness. Right then, the world we saw was the most beautiful dream.
Who knows what would happen in the future, right? Anything could happen, but peace is the most difficult thing to obtain in one's life. People search for years hoping that they can be at peace with themselves, but they don't know that peace resides and hides itself within everyone already.
Money might help, but it only brings temporary happiness. A family might bring you happiness, but it also presents you with tough obstacles.
That's why peace can only be found within our inner self. External factors only amount to this much. It isn't a family itself that would give you peace. The heart will choose to want a family when it knows peace.
'I want a family to lead a peaceful life' is different from 'I'll live in peace with a family of my own.' 'I need a lot of money to live peacefully' is different from 'I'll live peacefully with the money I earn.'
One is the constant need for more to achieve peace. What if a family doesn't bring you peace like you thought it would? What if a vault of gold still doesn't satisfy you, and you want more thinking more money means more peace? Expectations, greed, and desires, all are the enemies of peace.
The other is letting peace lead you the way. Peace knows what it needs, and even if it doesn't have what it wants, peace accepts that reality.
And in that moment, peace drew out that dream for me. I didn't even have to constantly think about it. I didn't actively search for it, yet I was gravitating towards it. No, my inner soul was pulled in.
Our souls told us that this would be our peace.
"I'll share that dream with you."
Saki smiled at me and rested her head on my shoulder. "I'd love that."