That summer, I read the last letter he wrote to me.
It took me seventeen whole summers to read it.
It took me seventeen summers to read the only letter.
Sealed in the center of the earth, the letter that had been buried for seventeen years.
And for the entire seventeen years of summer, the cicadas were chirping restlessly.
Seventeen generations of cicadas kept calling his name for seventeen summers.
Gintoki. Gintoki. Seventeen-year cicada.
[Dear teacher]
Dear child.
[I miss him]
Poor child.
[He left, left my way]
A weak man who is lost.
[Your pain]
Lost young souls.
[Gintoki……]
The child is gone. Left. Gone. Gone.
[…Sakata Gintoki.]