It had been four days since my talk with Tokiwa on the bridge. I continued to stalk him as usual; I was having coffee at a café at the station, waiting for him to show up.
Every single one of them was deeply entrenched in conversation. I seemed to be the only loner.
It would be fair to say it was impossible for me to act out against him now.
It was bad enough that if I wasn’t paying attention, I could even forget that this was my second time living these years.
Or perhaps I would have been happier that way. When I had a point of reference, it made me keep seeing my second life as so much worse.
If I could look on the bright side, even my life now wasn’t bad enough to throw it all away. The college I went too wasn’t so bad, and there were lots of books to read and songs to listen to.
So what if I was a shut-in for a year? I could just think of it as a gap between high school and college.
Alas, it was impossible for me to think that way. If I could just forget my first life, it would be easy.
No matter what, I wanted to remember that the world, my life, had had such wonderful things in it.
Double stalking… I wondered if the “friend” Tokiwa had asked to follow me could have been Tsugumi.
Even the way she cordially talked to me could have all been to hide her intentions, I considered.
In a few minutes, Tokiwa appeared on the plaza. When Tsugumi saw him, she held up the bag and proudly showed it to him. Tokiwa reacted with exaggerated surprise.
If Tokiwa’s birthday was the same as mine, December 24th, then it wouldn’t be odd if Tsugumi gave him a birthday present a week early to prevent overlap.
After taking the present, Tokiwa looked in some direction as if noticing something. Indeed, it was in my direction - it seemed he’d noticed I was here standing guard.
I hurriedly lowered my head, hiding in their blind spot. My face was hot all of a sudden, and I clutched my head.
Truly, what on earth was I doing?
* 53 *
I didn’t lift my head up for a while. After about ten minutes, thinking they would have left the plaza by now, I was about to raise it.
A man and a woman sitting in a café, quite a distance apart, and yet acting in just the same way. How odd.
It seemed even odder when I realized it was Hiiragi.
Then I remembered, that’s right, she was stalking Tokiwa too.
He had told me “My stalker had to be you,” but it seemed to me that it could have been Hiiragi, too.
She was wearing an unfashionable white sweater, her outfit yet again completely different from what I last saw her in. Yet it strangely suited her.
I wish you could’ve seen it. It was like her objective was to make a thick soup.
It’s like the feeling when you listen to a hit song all the time, then don’t listen to it for years, and then you hear it on the radio again a decade later.
My eyes were fixed on Hiiragi drinking her coffee for a while. But I really didn’t have a clue what my brain was so nostalgic about.
But that just made it stranger. Why such a sudden longing over someone who’s stayed around me for so long?
Deja vu.
I had seen this very sight once before.
It wasn’t a memory from my second life, so by necessity it was a first-life one.
Something overlapped with Hiiragi. Immediately, I was struck with great unease.
No, we never spoke up to each other. We’d gotten good at communicating intentions with our eyes alone in our third year of high school.
Hiiragi’s eyes spoke volumes. Just two or three seconds of contact told me a great many things.
Indeed, it was true she satisfied the characteristics I remembered: “Sleepy eyes, long eyelashes, always thinking.”
It went without saying. Her eyes were always sleepy. Her eyelashes were long. I didn’t know if she was thinking behind those sleepy eyes or not, but she got along with me rather well.
I finally understood everything.
That my choices were even more foolish than I thought.
In short - I was not the only one who had my role taken away.
Not just Tokiwa. Tsugumi, too, was the same kind of doppelganger.
And my real girlfriend had always been right there beside me.
In fact, it only seemed to deepen my despair.
Why? Well, even if Hiiragi here was my real girlfriend, the one I loved more now was Tsugumi, the “fake" who better resembled her from my first life.
The genuine article had changed, so I had little interest in her anymore. The right answer isn’t always right, you could say.
There was no longer any foundation for her and I to get together now, was there?
I knew to a dreadful degree how people who knew me in my first life would react to seeing me now.
And just this one time, I feel like I wasn’t mistaken.
But I didn’t speak to her, and left the café.
If I had not made my mistake in love at first sight, perhaps Hiiragi and I, though not living a perfect recreation of our first lives, would be happy together.
I give up now, I thought.
A vehement prayer for everyone who knew me and everyone I knew to just vanish.
I knew how difficult it was to live completely and utterly alone. But to live something incredibly close wasn’t so difficult in this world.
My sister fumed amid the fumes. She told me to stop again and again. I just ignored her.
When she saw how I was acting different than usual, she simply withdrew and said nothing more.
By the time I finished with my twelfth cigarette, my sister asked with hesitation, “Big brother, you always said you hated smoking. Why’d you start?”
But then I quit. Because my girlfriend was worried for me.
It felt ridiculous to willingly shave away at the time I could spend with her, after all.
And yet now, in my second life, I had no one left who worried about me. Not a single person who cared about my life getting shorter.
But, well, she didn’t press it any further. She seemed to understand that I probably wouldn’t answer anyway.
Then she took the cigarette in her fingers and pulled it out.
My sister started hacking and coughing.
I took a piece of paper out of my pocket and gazed at it. It was Tokiwa’s schedule.
Because though it wasn’t much, it did mention things about Tsugumi. Regrettably, even if it was just a scrap of paper, I figured anything to do with her was to be treasured.
I put my cigarette out in the ashtray and took a book from the desk to read. But it wouldn’t stay in my head.
And if I had miraculously succeeded, did I honestly believe Tsugumi would come to love me instead?
As if hoping to induce necrosis in my brain cells, I slept for fourteen hours.
When I woke up the next morning, my sister was gone.
But, irritatingly enough, I came to learn that wishes are always granted just when you stop wishing.
A week passed in the blink of an eye, and the tail end of December arrived.
I wanted to forget a lot of the things that happened. And since I had no reason to tail Tokiwa anymore, I had a lot of time on my hands.
I was asked to do a lot of one-day jobs, like working as a waiter at a packed hotel, helping with stupid holiday events, and doing traffic control - I let these consume my days.
There was nothing fun about it, and it didn’t even help lift my spirits, yet it was better than doing nothing.
When I got home late at night, I’d drink cheap whiskey on the rocks, skim through books my sister left behind, and when I got sleepy, crawled into bed while listening to music.
In no time at all, the memories of my first life grew hazy.
One day, while walking home through piles of snow after work, I looked at my phone to confirm my plans for tomorrow and noticed an answering machine message.
Even now, I had that unfounded hope that Tsugumi would come save me when I was in trouble. I doubt anybody could save me from my stupidity.
Of course, Tsugumi had no way of knowing my number or anything in the first place.
“Big brother, I want you to come home. …Um, it’s really bad between dad and mom right now. It would be fine if they divorced, but… I don’t know if that’s how it’s going to end. …I mean, I don’t really know if you coming home is going to do anything. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Hey, big brother… I really don’t like to do this.”
Neither did I.
* 58 *
I didn’t feel like going straight home, so I didn’t turn at the corners I should have, and did turn at those I shouldn’t.
Miserably, I knew the feelings of that song all too well in my second life. Because I wasn’t someone wonderful who could match with Tsugumi.
While walking down the shopping district to the train station, I saw around ten kids in elementary school uniforms putting on a performance with handbells.
It was some fine music. The apparent teacher conducting them looked like he was having a blast.
Past the shopping district, I reached the residential district.
The children were frolicking, and the parents diligently put up the decorations on the walls, trees, and fences. I watched from a distance.
It was a splendid thing, and it certainly echoed images of Santa Claus and reindeer.
I left the residential district, as if running from it. There were lots of happy houses around, and I wouldn’t be able to stand watching the same thing repeatedly happen.
Fighting the urge to warm my hands with some hot coffee, I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and took it to the register.
At the counter was Hashibami, the usual clerk. She was a tall woman, but definitely not the modeling type, and she didn’t seem to know what to do with that height herself.
I wasn’t fussy. In fact, since I wasn’t fussy, I just bought the cheapest things I could to satisfy me.
Since I bought the same thing so many times, she came to know my face, and after that, took to immediately preparing a box of Pall Malls as soon as she saw me walk in.
But that day, when I brought up whiskey and a chocolate bar, no cigarettes, Hashibami seemed a bit confused. She bagged the items a little more awkwardly than usual.
“No Pall Malls today, huh. Did you quit?”, Hashibami modestly asked as she handed me the bag.
Of course, I was just happy to have anyone show some interest in anything I did. Even if it was just some shopping.
“No, I just wanted to surprise you,” I said. I hadn’t joked around with anyone in a while.
She thought for a little bit, then said “Oh well,” and lifted up a little vinyl bag at her feet to give it to me.
“Is this okay?”
While I puzzled over whether it was right to accept them, Hashibami leaned on the counter and tapped me on the shoulder.
“I’m the anti-Santa Claus. Rather than give good children toys, I give bad adults beer and smokes. Because they’re the ones who really need presents, not the good kids. …So go on, take them and leave.”
“No, I love Christmas. Always have, since I was a kid. …The problem is, I’m in no position to take part in what I consider Christmas. When it comes to Christmas in this country, there are some high hurdles for me.”
I stuck my free left hand into my pocket. Because it was cold, yes, but it was also a habit of mine. I couldn’t help putting my free hand in my pocket; if I didn’t, I just couldn’t keep it calm.
Like my hand was lonely. There’s the theory about people smoking because their mouths miss sucking their mother’s breast, so you never know.
I walked around looking for a good spot, then found a great one in the park.
I sat on a bench and put out my cigarette on a handrail. The red embers scattered, a few of them falling to the ground and quickly vanishing.
But… if I fell asleep drunk like this, I really might freeze to death, I began to think.
Thanks to Hashibami, I was feeling just a little better about myself, like I could maybe actually do it.
And if I had been feeling just a little worse, I don’t think I would have been thinking about suicide like this.
It’s strange, but when you get to this stage, regrets are comforting. If it’s a strong enough emotion, anything is comforting.
I tried to seriously face up to the thoughts I’d been avoiding before.
I saw in my mind us talking aimlessly about trivial things, like we had done that day at the library.
I won’t bore you with every single one.
But I was a little surprised to see such a vision.
Yet I was ignorant to them all, or at times even stomped them into bits myself.
I couldn’t stop shivering, and I started to cough like I was sick, but I showed no signs of dying; I was just very cold.
I went outside and smoked the cigarettes Hashibami gave me. I was feeling pretty sluggish, but it wasn’t a cold or pneumonia. I was healthy, just without energy.
By the time I went back inside, my plan was settled.
I thought what I’d do was, I’d continue soaking in part-time jobs like this, and once I’d saved up enough money, I’d leave on a journey.
Essentially, I thought I’d imitate my former best friend Usumizu.
I know it’s crazy, but that’s really what I wanted to do. Yeah, I’d just have the occasional meal to look forward to, and for entertainment I could look at the stars and flowers, and listen to the birds and bugs, and the weather would be my biggest worry in life. That’s what it’d be like.
And I thought while living the vagrant life, I might just meet Usumizu who was doing the same. And then we might be best friends again, like we had been the first time.
Every day, we’d sleep under the stars and wake up with the sun. Then I just wouldn’t care about my first life anymore, just bare necessities.
In the end, I’d probably never meet Usumizu, wouldn’t be suited for a vagrant’s life, and would just die alone kicking and screaming.
Despite appearances, she was a sweet girl who looked out for her brother. Lately I’d come to realize that part of her hadn’t changed.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I like to think I’m free to think what I like.
I wondered what would happen to my family if I were gone.
Or maybe without me, the three of them would come together for each other to fill the gap.
While I thought of “the world I lived my life in” as a good-for-nothing place, when I took away my involvement, it was stunningly beautiful.
A while later, I headed for my part-time job of the day. Even the cheap Christmas decorations I saw on the way were enough to move my heart.
I was like a visitor to the town who had never before seen snow.
It became very clear to me. Even things you don’t hold much value for - as soon as you lose them, or as soon as you realize you did, you start to see them as irreplaceable.
It’s not something people are all that capable of adapting to. Talk about inconvenient.
* 60 *
It should go without saying that in my second life, I hated Christmas.
It’s a lot like how you can get disgusted by someone constantly saying “volunteer.” Not that there’s anything wrong with volunteering.
Of course, my first self had no doubt rather enjoyed going around saying “Christmas” like an excuse.
But whether it was bias or envy, I hated it, I hated it. So when I realized what part-time job I’d signed up for on December 24th, I knew I’d screwed up.
My plan was to just apply for any part-time job I saw, only looking at the hours, never at the actual job description.
I could see that either way I’d be feeling awful. So I concluded that it was better to go with the one that got me money, and left the house.
When I entered the employee entrance of the department store, not feeling in any way festive, there was already a crowd of about twenty idly curious people who similarly applied for a part-time the day before Christmas.
One was a man who looked quite accustomed to work, and another was a man with piercings who didn’t seem to care about anyone else.
When she saw me, she bowed her head slightly. I did the same, but as ever, she didn’t appear to know who I really was.
Still, to think we’d meet here. We must have had very similar thought processes. I mean, we had been lovers in our first lives.
Sure enough, neither Hiiragi nor I had anyone to pair up with, so as the remaining two, we ended up together.
There wasn’t a single person on the other side of the table who didn’t look happy.
I thought, looking at Hiiragi next to me, that we would have formerly been on the other side.
The outside was all decorated in Christmas colors, but it was just a regular lunch on the inside.
It wasn’t my first time working here, so I knew they were pretty lax. Walking around as I pleased wouldn’t get me in too much trouble.
It being Christmas, the store was crowded, yet the instrument shop on the fifth floor had hardly anyone in it.
As I gazed at guitars and organs, I recalled the music preparation room I often visited in high school.
It was a ten-holes harmonica made of wood, and I actually kind of liked the design. Same way you can admire the functional beauty of a pistol. I even liked the ring of the name, “Marine Band.”
All of a sudden, I decided I’d buy it for my sister as a Christmas present. Whether she had any interest in instruments or not, I’d be alright if she just pretended to like it for the day.
I only realized after leaving the store, but a harmonica seemed like a perfect fit for my sister.
I hadn’t noticed while inside the building, but it was horribly cold. I didn’t know when it started to snow, but it there was up to ten centimeters of it in places.
It was a car I’d seen often in my stalking days; that is, the car Tokiwa and Tsugumi rode around in. Being a fairly rare model, I knew it immediately.
According to the schedule, they were planning to get dinner at a fancy restaurant after this. Oh, joy.
You can probably guess what happened next; Tokiwa and Tsugumi came by the little raffle Hiiragi and I were running.
I knew, with all certainty, that when he saw me in a place like this on a day like this doing this, he’d wring some happiness for himself out of it. I wasn’t going to be his fodder today.
I fled for the first place I saw, behind a Christmas tree up against the wall. It was a big tree, about five meters tall, so perfect for hiding behind.
Still, we knew. We squatted together behind the tree and waited for Tokiwa and Tsugumi to leave.
Yeesh, it’s not often I feel this awful.
Five o’ clock came, and the end of the raffle approached; the visitors were petering out, too. Hiiragi and I idled together in the break room.
There was nothing else to look at or listen to, so I focused on listening to the radio.
It was playing a song quite familiar to me.
On this day in my first life, I thought, I’d done this too, hummed this same song.
A huge influx of information filled my brain so quickly that I almost fainted.
And that was when I remembered that Tokiwa and Tsugumi were about to die.
* 62 *
If you look at a person’s fortune in the long run, maybe it all balances out.
But in this sole instance, one would look at it the opposite way.
Strangely, I didn’t show much reaction to this realization.
After all, my hate for Tokiwa was unchanging, and Tsugumi couldn’t ever be mine anyway.
In fact, maybe you could consider it a happy thing that they could die in the peak of their happiness.
It was Lennon Legend, and they went from the first song, Imagine, down the tracklist in order.
And by the time it reached the twelfth song, Starting Over, they would die.
I stood up, went to the radio in the corner, and raised the volume.
Why had I taken a break at this exact time? Why was there a radio in this room?
By the time the song ended, I had come to one baseless conclusion.
I was being tested again.
To see if I could make the right choice.
* 63 *
I wiped my wet face with a sleeve and looked at myself in the mirror. There I was, in that idiotic Santa getup.
That was enough.
I exited the bathroom, back into the break room.
I looked at Hiiragi (who was listening to the radio with her chin in her hands), took her hand, and flew out of the room.
But I had no other choice, really. I didn’t know if I would be able to do what I was about to do on my own.
Well, it wasn’t something you saw every day.
One kid I passed by on the escalator desperately tried to run against the escalator to follow me, but didn’t make much headway.
And I think I was right to assume so; after all, I felt much the same way.
Going outside, we were met with a fierce snowstorm. I got Hiiragi in the passenger seat, myself in the driver’s, and started the engine.
Luckily, I knew the restaurant they were planning to go to. By taking the shortest route from there to Tokiwa’s home, I should have been able to find the intersection that would have the accident.
Definitely cutting it close; I wasn’t sure if we could make it in time.
And there was more for us to do than just get there. We also needed to make some preparations.
Strobe lights. Traffic control sticks. Lamps. Flashlights. The brighter, the better.
A strong wind sent snow flying up in front of the car, temporarily blocking my vision.
Come on, get a grip, I told myself. What’ll we have to show if we get in an accident first?
It was a tense situation, yet on the other hand, I couldn’t help finding it funny. A strange smile welled up to my lips.
This mainly afflicted me in my second life, but it feels good when you’re able to do “unexpected" things that you can’t yourself explain.
Caught by a red light, I reluctantly stopped the car. I probably could have blown through it, but I took the unlikely into account.
I thought for a little bit, then broke the ice.
Maybe that wasn’t an appropriate way to phrase it.
* 66 *
“That Christmas when we were twenty. That’s today. It snowed terribly in our first lives, too. …Do you remember? The same way Tokiwa and Tsugumi just did, we left the department store with plans to get dinner at a slightly fancier restaurant than usual, then go home and relax.
"But on the way back from the restaurant, that fierce blizzard not only made it hard to see, but caused a power outage for quite a ways around. Romantic, if you want to look at it that way. A Christmas blackout… who knows, maybe Santa tripped on a power wire. But the problem was, the roads we were driving along didn’t even have working stoplights. It was a really large-scale outage.
"We were listening to the Lennon Legend CD in the car when it happened. You’d heard Starting Over on the radio earlier, so you told me you wanted to listen to the very best of John Lennon. It was a pretty Christmasy idea, I’d say. We heard the first song Imagine, the second Instant Karma, Mother, Jealous Guy, Power to the People, Cold Turkey, Love, Mind Games, Whatever Gets You thru the Night, #9 Dream. When Stand By Me ended, and the twelfth song Starting Over began… That’s when it happened.
"With the blackout and the blizzard, we could hardly see anything but snow. I was trying to drive as carefully as I could. But all of a sudden - it was really instantaneous - I felt a huge impact like my body was being blown to pieces. At the same time, I felt like there was this blinding light. Maybe a truck or something collided with us. Maybe it was an intersection, but I thought it was a straight road. With no time to prepare, no time to regret, our lives immediately ended.
”…And yet the next time I woke up, I found time had been rewound ten years. No, to be exact, time had been rewound for both of us. …Maybe we can call it a Christmas miracle. At any rate, we were given a second chance.
“But why was there any need to send us back a decade? Just a minute would have been enough for us to avoid the accident. And yet we went back ten years, with parts of our memories damaged on the trip. You could also consider that damaged memories are just what you get when you rewind that far.
”…Let’s say there is a God, or a Santa Claus, or whatever you want to call it, some absolute entity like that, who decided to give us another chance. Why did they rewind us ten years? Well, this is the conclusion I came to. Maybe they can’t just directly save people in trouble, like poof, you’re saved. Maybe they can only give them a fair second shot at it. They can avert an irrational death, but that’s about all they can do.
“So I don’t know the specifics of how it happened. But looking at the situation, maybe our role is a supporting one. To support of our doubles. To give the seats we sat in during our first lives to other people in our second. To give it up to that picturesque happy young couple, and resign ourselves to second lives the polar opposite of our first. And naturally, we succeeded. We handed the parts of getting in the accident to Tokiwa and Tsugumi.
”…I honestly don’t know if that’s for the best. Because if we died that day, then it meant our lives were perfect from beginning to end. I feel like that’s the far better choice than living an empty ten years.
“If we ignore them, the same accident will happen, and their lives will be lost. If I’m right, then in theory, that would be exactly what we’d want.”
Hiiragi listened intently, not saying anything.
I think we were able to prepare with so much time to spare thanks to Hiiragi immediately knowing what I was trying to tell her.
We stood together under a streetlight and waited for the power outage.
“No. This is my first time,” I said. “So I wouldn’t say I’m doing such a good thing here. I should have been someone who could save innumerable people’s lives, but I’m only now choosing to save two people I wanted saved. But isn’t everyone like that, more or less? I don’t think I should feel especially guilty.”
“…I see. When you put it that way, you might be right. It’s my first time using my memories to save anyone too,” she said. “Ever since the second time started, I never once thought to use my memories to do anything. You can see how it turned out, but really, I just wished I could copy my past life -”
“…I see,” Hiiragi smiled, her head low.
Her smile was with lips tightly shut, and the corners of her mouth only slightly raised, but it was oddly reminiscent of my own.
“I’m really sorry for getting you involved in this,” I said. “I know I have no right to ask you to help. After all - it’s all my fault in the first place. If I’d driven more carefully in my first life, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t made such a stupid blunder, all the people around me would just be able to live happily.”
Hiiragi raised an index finger. “Hey, can you tell me one thing?”
Hiiragi spoke faintly. “Maybe what we’re about to do, might not be a very good thing to do. Maybe we made an awful mistake competing for the ones we treasured most. Maybe it was your blunder that sent people’s lives in a worse direction the second time. Maybe there’s no going back from everything that’s changed in the past decade. …But still, there’s no reason I can’t be happy, is there?”
I knew my mouth was loosening. “You’re right, you’re right. Okay, well, let’s celebrate our reunion.”
But it was our first time embracing or being embraced in ten years. It was to be expected.
“…I hope you don’t get too mad,” Hiiragi said, burying her face in my chest. “In high school, I looked down on you as someone in a similar situation, to keep some stability in my mind. When times were tough, I’d promptly look over at you and think "I’ve still got it better than him,” comforting me. …That’s awful, isn’t it?“
“In that case,” she said, looking up, “I think we can look at it this way. By you looking down upon me, and me looking down upon you, we were able to weather those years. Even when you weren’t around, when I was feeling lonely or empty, I imagined you beside me. And if you were doing the same thing… In a sense, even when we lost sight of each other, we always supported each other. I think we can look at it that way. In a very contrary way.”
But a line like this, I had to say looking her in the eye. Again, I looked firmly at her.
“Well, we have less than a minute left until the outage. It’s almost time for us to save the people we mistakenly loved - but did indeed love.”
“Check what?”
“I’m sorry,” Hiiragi said. “That’s it.”
Indeed, that was all the checking that needed to be done.
It led me to ignore feelings that I couldn’t put into words. Even the fact that I’d done this was hard for me to express.
I realized that I didn’t remember anything about things I’d wanted to remember forever. I lost sight of what was important and what wasn’t.
Almost the same moment Hiiragi stepped away and turned around to face me, the lights all went out.
True darkness, to which we were utterly indifferent, covered the town.
Two Santa Clauses at night, after a power outage, wielding traffic control sticks to indeed control traffic. Not even your friends would believe that one.
The colorful strobe lights placed all around, from a certain point of view, looked undeniably like Christmas lights.
I shouldn’t have wanted to say it one bit, but the freezing cold and the outfit must have done something to my head.
It really was an awful snowstorm, and just keeping our eyes open was difficult. I was unconsciously grinding my back teeth from the cold, and my jaw hurt.
Nearly my whole body was freezing,