To My One and Only Childhood Friend
I can scarcely remember anything Himeno and I said to each other after our reunion. In fact, I can’t even remember how Himeno looked or acted. I was just so excited that I talked without thinking.
She dodged the question of what kind of work she did. All Himeno would tell me is that it was a “person-to-person” kind of job.
“I’d love to talk a little longer, but I have to get up early,” she said, itching to leave, so I invited her to go out drinking or whatnot sometime soon.
Promising to meet for dinner two days later, we parted.
I was so brimming with joy as to forget about Miyagi for a while.
“Me neither. Really seems too good to be true.”
I needed to make some preparations before that.
Back at the apartment, I crossed out the Himeno line on my Things to Do Before I Die, and once I was ready to go to bed, I told Miyagi.
“I don’t drink.”
“I know it’d be pointless to keep anything hidden from you, so I’m gonna be honest. In twenty years, I’ve never really interacted with a girl, ever. So if I just went into this Himeno thing, I know I’d probably bore her and mess up a lot. To hopefully cut down on that, I want to go to town tomorrow and rehearse.”
Miyagi’s face was stuck with a blank look for a few seconds.
“That’s right. Will you take it?”
“…Well, I don’t much mind, but I imagine there would be numerous problems…”
“Yes, that,” Miyagi confirmed.
“…Well, if it’s no problem to you, then very well,” Miyagi nervously replied.
Finding a select shop that seemed to suit my tastes and following Miyagi’s suggestions, I bought a Fred Petty polo shirt, Chino pants, a belt to match, and then at a shoe store, chocolate-colored desert boots.
“I just don’t think you have to wear anything too fancy. As long as it comes off as being clean, that should be enough.”
"You’re free to interpret it however you want.”
“You don’t need to tell me every little thing.”
Once we were done shopping, we went to the salon quite a bit earlier than my appointment.
Now that those were gone, I was like a fresh young guy out of a pop music video.
“Why, you seem almost like an entirely different person from yesterday prior,” Miyagi told me.
“Indeed. Almost as if you have the promise of a happy future.”
“…You’re rather chipper today, Mr. Kusunoki.”
"Just means a graceful and intelligent woman.”
“But her virtues are a different beast. I’m talking about you, Miyagi.”
“Pretty strange,” I said.
We were in an Italian restaurant by the street, and naturally our conversation sounded like me talking to myself.
I was full of alcohol by then, so I held Miyagi’s hand all the while and swung it way back and forth as we walked. Miyagi looked concerned, and I continued to pull her along.
So then I might as well resolve to make myself a weird guy. It’d be a lot easier.
Once Miyagi was getting used to holding my hand, she said with a clear face, “Now, drunk Kusunoki, try to think of me as Himeno and seduce me.”
“So how do you think Himeno would reply?”
"Huh. What if it were Miyagi?”
“Joking. Don’t worry about it,” I chuckled to myself.
“Are you really that kind of person, Mr. Kusunoki? The kind to joke.”
“Everyone likes to think they’re the exception when there’s a depressing statistic.”
We changed buses and got off at a viewing platform, a famous date spot in the town. There were about ten couples holding each other and sneaking kisses, but I kept talking to Miyagi anyway.
She knew more than I did at that point. She had yet to tell me something crucial.
The day came at last. It was a rainy afternoon, and the station was filled with people carrying umbrellas. Looking over the plaza from the second floor, umbrellas of all colors moved around as they pleased.
No hurry, I told myself. Everything’s congested because of the rain, and unlike me, she’s probably busy.
After twenty-seven minutes, just as I was about to leave and look for Himeno, I saw her waving and walking toward me. I’d been starting to think her promise yesterday had just been a polite excuse for her to leave, so I was relieved beyond belief.
Even if Himeno hadn’t been someone I’d been waiting to see for a decade, I still would have said she radiated beauty that day.
“She’ll never be mine, will she. …So then isn’t my life pointless?”, I might even think.
“No, allow me. I invited you this time, so forget about it for today.”
"Yeah. And next time, I’ll probably be expecting one after that.”
That’s definitely something Himeno would say, I whispered to myself. She hadn’t changed in ten years. She was still sarcastic, but still spoke with a hint of warmth.
We went through the tunnel, and when we reached the end and I opened my umbrella, Himeno swiftly snatched it from me and held it between us.
“That’s right,” I said, taking the umbrella back and holding it near Himeno. “So then wouldn’t it be good to reverse it from now on?”
By the way, what were you doing there the other day?, Himeno asked.
Liar, Himeno said, shoving me in the shoulder.
I was telling Himeno my affection for her, and she was showing me her affection for me.
I didn’t really want to know what Himeno was thinking then, deep in her chest.
To be exact, maybe it wasn’t really a mistake. If I were given countless chances to redo the scene, I would have made the same choice every time. There was no other choice.
But in any event, the results of that “mistake” came to save me.
Himeno took a sip of ice water from her glass and said, “I’d like to know what you’ve been up to all these years, Kusunoki.”
How I gradually started slacking on my studies in the second year of middle school. How my perfect memory at ten years old rapidly worsened with each year.
How I had to persuade my parents - who thought that there was no point in going to a college if it wasn’t famous - to pay to get me in, then had to pay for classes and expenditures myself.
“You were drawing all the time. And you made such beautiful, breathtaking pictures like it was nothing. I was always jealous how I could never live up to that, you know.”
“Because I was really antagonistic to you then. All my talents were in studying, so I didn’t want to admit your other talents. But… you probably never noticed, but sometimes I took your pictures home and stared at them, Kusunoki,” Himeno said, her eyes looking far away.
“Yeah, I was antagonistic too. We were about the same in academics, but the praise from adults always went to pretty Himeno. I thought it was unfair someone could be such a capable student and beautiful.”
“Drop out?”, I said with intentional surprise.
“Never showed up to any class reunions. Since I thought you wouldn’t either, Himeno.”
All Himeno said was “I married a graduating senior and dropped out, but conflicts came up, and we divorced.”
“I think I was childish,” Himeno told me with a strained smile. “I just couldn’t move on accepting things as they were. I guess I couldn’t stand the slightest imperfection and messed everything up from the start. Nothing’s changed in my head since that summer ten years ago, when I changed schools and separated from you. …I’m sure I was a smart girl back then. But that made me think that I didn’t need to mature any further. And so I’m still not much different from that ten-year-old dreamer, while everyone else keeps changing.”
Himeno stared at her hands on the table with the eyes of a wounded little girl.
“You’re not the only one who hasn’t changed, Himeno,” I said. “I’ve been the same since the day we separated, too. Years with nothing to live for, passing pointless, lonely days. It felt like the world existed just to disappoint me. Maybe I was already dead, more or less. That’s why just a few days ago -”
I knew what I was saying. I predicted how it would sound to Himeno’s ears. And I understood how foolish it was to do this.
I went from one thing to another. The shop that bought lifespan. Thinking I’d get several million yen a year when it was ten thousand, the minimum price. Despairing over my future and selling off all but three months. And being followed by an invisible observer ever since.
“Hey, Kusunoki? I don’t mean any offense, but… Do you have any idea how completely unreal what you’re talking about is?”, Himeno apologetically asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know how ridiculous it sounds.”
Himeno coughed and put a handkerchief to her mouth, then stood up.
Our food arrived, and I hoped Himeno would come back soon. I had to hear the rest of what she had to say.
But Himeno never came back.
Since she was taking so long, I was worried Himeno had fainted from anemia or something and made a request of Miyagi.
Miyagi silently nodded.
Miyagi came back a few minutes later and informed me that Himeno was gone.
My throat was dry and ached. I tried to grab my glass, but my focus was off and I spilled water on the table.
I ate my cold pasta slowly.
“Quite tasty even if it’s cold,” she said.
“Hey, Miyagi. Be honest with me. Why do you think Himeno left?”
Which in a sense was true.
But the truth was a little more complicated, and Miyagi knew that too.
“The woman you came with asked me to give you this.”
And when I did, I found that Miyagi had been lying to me all this time.
Miyagi answered with her head hung.
“No need to apologize. You let me had my good dream.”
“Correct,” Miyagi said. “Ms. Himeno… did it right in front of your eyes, Mr. Kusunoki.”
To show it to me.
This is what it said.
To my one and only childhood friend.
I had intended to die right in front of you.
Never responding to my cries for help, then casually appearing before me now, I couldn’t hate you more.
So now that I’m useless to you, I thought I’d kill myself.
It doesn’t seem like it’ll do any good getting revenge on you now.
Goodbye.
I’d lived alone all my life to avoid feeling like this.
I went to the bridge by the station, carefully folded Himeno’s letter into a paper plane, and threw it toward the river which reflected the light from the buildings. It hovered in the air for some time, but it eventually touched the water and sank.
For those who definitively turned it down and pushed it back at me, there were those who asked for more.
“You should stop this,” said indifferent Miyagi, tugging my sleeve.
Once I had nothing left to give out, I stood right in the middle of the street.
I realized I’d forgotten my umbrella at the restaurant, but I didn’t care if I got wet or caught a cold anymore.
“You’ll be drenched,” Miyagi said, holding the umbrella high. She was telling me to join her.
“Is that right,” she said, closing the umbrella and stowing it in her bag.
“You don’t have to get drenched, you know.“
Do as you will, I thought, turning my back to her.
I found a bus stop where I could keep out of the rain and took shelter there. There was a bent streetlight right above, that occasionally flickered on as if remembering to turn itself on.
Miyagi was sleeping beside me. She was holding her knees, desperately trying to warm herself.
I wouldn’t say it was very clean, but it still had power, and the front door and rooms weren’t locked.
Certainly it would have to wake up a girl whose sleeping was lighter than mine. But Miyagi feigned sleep all the while.
The room smelled of tatami mats. There was a pile of cushions in the corner. After checking for bugs, I put a few of them on the floor and laid Miyagi down. I did the same thing nearby for my own bedding.
I imagined the best landscapes I could on the backs of my eyelids.
I freely pictured “memories” that I’d never had, a “somewhere” I’d never been, a “someday” that could have been past or future.
That had been my practice every night since I was five years old.
But I was sure that was the only way I could compromise with it.
If it were a dream, then it was a rather embarrassing dream.
I kept my eyes shut. I’m not sure why, but it felt best to do so.
Miyagi seemed to whisper something, but I couldn’t make it out over the rain.
In my drowsiness, I thought: Just how much has Miyagi helped me? How cornered would I feel now if Miyagi weren’t there?
She’s strictly here for her job. She’s kind to me because I’m going to die soon.
I’ll just die quietly. I’ll go back to my usual, self-sufficient, modest life where I don’t count on anyone. Like a cat, I’ll expire silently and in secret.
Miyagi was already up, whistling Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew” and tidying up the cushions.
Yeah, I replied.