I stopped a safe distance away from the Sakura tree. It stood tall and in full bloom, looking exactly the same as that fateful day five years ago. Who knew back then that things would turn out like this, I heaved a sigh and inched closer. A tree this tall somehow always seems to be in full bloom, until it suddenly doesn’t. With a trunk that thick it gives the air of a Queen’s guard as if standing watch outside the Buckingham palace but more from its vanity than perhaps its character. 

It was the Sakura tree that overlooked the sunset, the talk of the whole town. It was everyone's romantic hideout, the thought alone makes an old man like me chuckle.

From the top of the tree, one could see the entire town glazed in the caramel glow of the sun as it threatened to sink below the horizon. I knew because I had sat atop those branches, hung down from them, fallen from them, and even bruised my ego in the process sometimes. The landscape alone was breathtaking but the cherry blossom flowers smelled divine. These were not the reasons why I remembered it, though. I remembered it because of her.

The first time I came here it was on a day just like this, cold and snowy. Standing in front of me, I saw her as still as a sheet of glass. All I could think as I stared at her with unblinking eyes was how beautiful she was. How her smile created the uncanny illusion of time passing by with childish slowness and how her black hair cascaded down her shoulder making hairpin curves at the base. I had never quite felt that cemented in my life until that moment. That day something solidified in me, it had to be her.   

She hadn’t noticed me at first as she stood unwavering under the Sakura as if in its protection. The queen and her royal guard. The air had an unforgiving chill that day and the wind only accentuated it. The cherry blossoms filled the air with their petals and fragrance alike. Then suddenly, I might’ve coughed or sneezed, I couldn’t quite remember which one, or both perhaps, that had made her turn. She didn’t speak, not a word. She simply stared at me with her piercing, puncturing, perforating brown eyes.