On a morning when the weeping cherry tree stretched its branches toward the water, muddy footprints dotted their way across the plaza's stone pavement.
“Decided. I’m going to become the coolest frog in Amencho Town.”
Kopo drove a wooden stick into a gap in the pavement and tied a handwritten flag to it. The ink had smeared, half-blurring the word “cool,” but he didn’t seem to mind.
“First to declare it wins.”
From an old bench at the base of the weeping cherry tree, Sonchō gave a single “Feh,” and quietly folded up the wrapper of a sakura mochi.
“Kopo. What you wrote on that flag — is it close to a real ambition? It’s not the kind of thing you win just by shouting loudly, is it.”
“I’ve got an ambition, alright. Becoming cool. That’s it.”
“…Then let me ask. On a rainy night, in mud no one was watching, have you ever fallen down alone? A flag, you see, only grows taller by the number of such nights.”
Kopo gripped the stick tighter. No answer came.
At dusk , Minico came running up. In his hand was a rolled-up old newspaper, with a pencil circle drawn around the phrase “Boys, be ambitious.”
“Bro, I was thinking — maybe ambition isn’t about who you want to become, but about how far you can go for someone else.”
Kopo said nothing. The flag in the plaza swayed slowly in the evening spring breeze.
Margin note: That night, Kopo rewrote the flag without telling anyone. The next morning, Minico was the only one who read the new words.
【Today’s Drop】
- “Boys, be ambitious”: On April 16, 1877, Dr. William Smith Clark finished his post at the Hokkaido Development Commission and departed for America. These are said to be the parting words he left behind. He helped lay the foundation of Sapporo Agricultural College, now Hokkaido University.
This is an English translation of “少年と、草の匂いの大志”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).