Heaven

Heaven is the afterlife Shun enters after being struck by a car, but it is not the comfortable refuge he imagined. It is a star-filled expanse in which he has no body, little idea how to live, and no immediate way to reach the people he loves. As he discovers companionship and freedom there, Heaven also makes the distance between the dead and the living painfully visible. Its decisive role is to bring Shun to a choice: he can remain in a peaceful place, or accept the loss of his memories and be born again to help his mother.

Arrival in an Unfamiliar Afterlife

The old man leads Shun west and tells him they are going to Heaven. Shun has only just learned that he died: on his way to a supermarket, a car ran a red light and hit him after he froze while trying to dodge it. The knowledge leaves him in tears, and even after they dry he has no sense of what is to come. Being dead has not made him fearless. He follows the old man while still afraid of death, asking where they are going and admitting that he has never been to Heaven before.

After collapsing, Shun wakes to find himself in a different encounter: an ancient man in white robes, whom he recognizes as God, stands before him. The sudden loss of his body frightens him; he expects to find feet, then realizes that his whole body is gone. God tells him that he no longer needs it, since the things that once tied him down have disappeared. The reassurance does not immediately settle him. When Shun asks what will happen, God explains that he is already in Heaven and leaves him free to do what he wishes while he works through his attachment to his former life.

Heaven first appears as darkness scattered with pulsing stars. Shun has never seen so many, and their beauty holds his attention long enough for thoughts of his death to recede. But wonder gives way to disorientation: he can see the Earth, piercingly blue below him, and realizes that he is standing in space. He does not know how to live without a body or what to do alone. His old picture of Heaven—a place full of good food and enjoyable activities, free of suffering—does not match what he finds. When he shouts to be taken home, he is immediately sent hurtling away at extraordinary speed.

Freedom, Company, and Distance

Heaven is not only a place of isolation. Back there after visiting his family, Shun hears a boy's voice and calls out. The boy introduces himself as Kazuo, and Shun's relief at discovering someone else breaks through his loneliness. Kazuo advises him to do the things he could not do while alive, then disappears. Soon afterward, numberless lights surround Shun like a shimmering blanket; he feels comforted as if rocked in a cradle and, for the first time in many days, falls asleep.

With time, Heaven becomes more familiar. Shun makes many friends, and its inhabitants live peacefully together despite differences of language, ethnicity, and era—differences that had been associated with conflict and quarrels in their earthly lives. He discovers the bliss of owning nothing, visits every corner of the Earth, and speaks with many people in Heaven. These freedoms fulfil Kazuo's suggestion: Shun can now experience things unavailable to him while alive, and the afterlife opens into a world of exploration rather than a static reward.

That expansion does not remove his attachment to home. Shun visits his parents, though he cannot speak to them directly. Seeing their faces and hearing them talk about him is enough to help him stay brave and continue. Heaven lets him remain close in feeling, but not in ordinary conversation or touch. The gap between presence and communication becomes most painful when Shun sees his mother grieving.

A Bond That Heaven Cannot Satisfy

During a visit, Shun finds his mother staring at his photograph, crying and seemingly unable to eat. She says that she does not think she can go on living without him and wants to be where he is, then collapses over the table. Shun is shaken and cries too. He had believed she was beginning to recover and that things would be all right; now he pleads with her not to cry, though he knows she cannot hear him. He hugs her shoulders and remains beside her until dark as she continues weeping.

The visit gives Heaven a double meaning. It is a place where Shun has friends, freedom, and peace, yet those comforts cannot make him happy while his mother suffers beyond his reach. He tells God that it is impossible for him to live happily in Heaven knowing the pain his parents are going through. God acknowledges the difficulty and offers one way to help: Shun may be born to his parents again as their child.

The offer is not a simple return. God warns that once born, Shun will no longer be Shun: all his memories of his former identity and life will cease to exist. Heaven therefore makes the cost of reunion explicit. Shun's choice is not between staying dead and returning with everything intact, but between preserving his memories in the afterlife and going back to his family without them.

Choosing to Return

Shun's resolve takes shape as he sees the depth of his mother's despair. When her voice cannot reach him, he understands that his presence in Heaven does not relieve the anguish of separation. He believes that his mother has lost her spirit and will to live, and that the grief he caused is now his responsibility to answer. The thought that the family might be together again in Heaven someday offers no comfort against her present suffering. Shun makes up his mind and calmly asks God to return him to his mother.

The request closes the distance between the freedom Heaven offers and the responsibility Shun feels toward the living. He does not choose rebirth because Heaven has failed to provide company or wonders: he has friends, has travelled across the Earth, and has learned to feel at home there. He chooses it because those benefits cannot substitute for his mother's recovery, and because simply watching over her is not enough. The decision accepts the memory-loss condition as the price of acting on a bond that persists even when he can no longer be recognized.

The ending gives that continuing bond a visible sign in the world the family must inhabit. As Shun's parents try to begin again, the year's first snow falls lightly at their window. The narrative describes its crystals as formed from Shun's tears and as God's proof that a boy called Shun once lived in the world. His parents recognize the snow and remember his love for it. Heaven's part in the story is thus not to reunite the family through a conversation or restore Shun's old life unchanged. It makes possible his self-erasing return, while the snowfall leaves his existence present in his parents' shared remembrance.