Alternate Ending for Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Epilogue

The restaurant she'd chosen was a comfortable Italian one at the more expensive end of the scale, one she'd frequently visited.

"The alla pastora there is exquisite." She'd mentioned over the phone when she called earlier that day. Tsukuru had never been the kind to fuss over what to wear and he'd already decided to don the Burberry suit his sisters had gotten him for his 28th birthday, tailored surprisingly well to fit his frame. He did however have some doubt as to whether or not to wear the blue tie that was Sara's first gift to him. Would it come across as desperate? He had instead decided to go with a clean, simple black one, but just as he crossed the threshold of his front door, he realised that wearing anything other than that blue tie would, for some inexplicable cosmic reason, be unacceptable. Like a gambler going all in, there was no point saving one last chip.

Besides, for better or worse, after tonight, the sentimental value of the tie would no doubt multiply exponentially. Either as a flag billowing in the mountain gale, marking his triumphant ascent on the summit, or the last steel piton hammered into the sheer cliff-side that was only almost enough to keep him from plummeting into the abyss.

He arrived on time, and a Eurasian water received him warmly. "Ah, Mr Tazaki," he beamed, scanning through the restaurant's reservation book. "This way please." The waiter escorted him to his place at the window-seat table she'd reserved. Surveying the restaurant, he basked in the classy, romantic ambience, his olfactory senses rejuvenated by the smells of fresh pasta and lavender scented candles. The waiter propped down the two menus on the table, and reached to unfold the folded cloth napkin for him. Tsukuru raised his hand, motioning for him to stop. Someone had skillfully, intricately folded it, with deft fingers, into an unfamiliar shape which was as elegant as it was mysterious, a most unusual combination which blended particularly well. Like the cotton clouds in the Finnish countryside, one could have called it a dozen different shapes and all of them would have fit. It made him think of Eri and her pottery. Lumps of molten clay transformed and sculpted into works of art, vessels which, although empty, had no want for beauty.

"Let's say you are an empty vessel. So what? What's wrong with that?" Eri's voice returned to his mind. "You're still a wonderful, attractive vessel."

Looking back at the napkin of a dozen shapes lying in his open palms, he decided it would be a painful waste to unmake this work of art it without first taking a few moments to appreciate it as it rightfully deserved.

These few moments of silent admiration ended when Sara walked into the room. It had been only about a week since he had last seen her, and while she was exactly as he remembered at their last meeting, he felt himself catapulted into the very cotton clouds he had been thinking of mere seconds before, floating in a world beyond dreams. He had taken the midnight train away from Tokyo and arrived, it seemed, face to face with a ghost of the past. Except, she wasn't from the past. She was from the present - she was here, at this very moment, where she belonged, where he hoped she wanted to belong. And he hoped even more, more than anything in his life, that she would be his future.

She wore a strapless dress the same deep blue as the tote bag she slung over her right arm, it's folds falling like caresses over svelte frame. An elegant silver necklace hung delicately around her long, slender neck, tracing a subtle yet alluring arc down the peach snowskin of her chest. Tsukuru rose to remove the black, faux mink fur coat that hid the rest of her body,and she let him. As he slid the coat from her shoulders, he was awashed in the misty haze of her Elizabeth Arden perfume and her scent sent his mind into a whirl. He pictured the last time he had undressed her; his nose, his lips, nuzzled against the light of her skin. He wondered if he would ever behold her in her perfect, naked form again.