Dream’s End
1
SHE THOUGHT BACK to the night they slept with one another. Things came to be out of indebtedness and compromise; their hearts weren’t in the act. But to Hotaru, it was still an unforgettable night.
“I’ve whispered sweet nothings to many men in this room,” she had said.
The young man listened without interrupting. She found him strangely easy to open up to. The two gazed at the night sky as they cooled their flushed bodies out on the balcony.
The wind was a bit warmer than she’d have liked, but plenty of stars twinkled overhead. She felt peaceful as she exhaled the hot air in her lungs.
“The other girls have issues with how I talk to men. They say that my words are insincere and I can’t get customers without humiliating myself.”
The starry sky was connected to her memories of a distant romance. This room and its balcony were only given to her as part of her job, but she liked them. Her life at Sakuraba Milk Hall had not been a bad one, and being a sex worker had turned out to suit her nature well. She had lived as a traditional lady of the night, as Hotaru, all the way until her disease took her.
“But I think lies suit a lady of the night just fine.”
Surely she had earned the right to break the rules a little? She had departed the mortal coil long ago, and this was a place that didn’t exist. Her night with the young man was something that shouldn’t have been possible, a dream born out of coincidence piled on top of coincidence. Surely she could be allowed to indulge for a few seconds, for the short time they cooled their bodies and looked up at the stars, and be somebody other than Hotaru, the old-fashioned lady of the night?
She laid her heart bare to the second man who’d shown care to the girl she had once been. “Love from the heart demands too much in return. That’s why insincere sweet nothings that last for only a night are just right… Everyone has times when they find life too much to bear. What’s wrong with giving others a moment of comfort to help ease their pain and let them sleep the night away?”
True love was demanding and cold; that was why ladies of the night deceived men with cheap lies and shallow imitations of love. A lie’s warmth would disappear without a trace by the time one woke up, but at least they would be comforted through their otherwise sleepless nights. As a fatally ill person who could not hope to live long, Hotaru had desired the ability to grant those kinds of comforting dreams.
“Just kidding. I’m sure I don’t really mean any of that,” she said.
“Why not? I thought it was wonderful.”
“No, I…I probably just wanted to comfort myself. I thought becoming such a lady of the night would let me use the warmth of others to ease my own cold heart.”
She saw herself as a foolish woman. She fled from Kajii Takumi but still sought somebody’s warmth and, even more than that, longed to be wanted. She lived and died a foolish woman through and through.
“Doing what is ‘right’ isn’t always what’s best,” the young man said. “You might’ve started sleeping with men for the wrong reasons, to use them to comfort yourself, but there have been people you helped. Even if the love you gave others ended up being no more than a dream, the comfort you provided was real. I’m sure of it.”
Sometimes, good could come from doing something considered wrong.
There’s a saying that went “Dead flowers bear no fruit.” Once you’re dead, nothing was left. But here Hotaru was, in a red-light district that didn’t exist, experiencing a warmth she never found in life. It was too minor a thing to call a miracle, but it was one of the few things to occur in this district that she could call genuine.
Her first love was long over. If there was any lingering regret to be found in her at all, it would have to be this warmth she felt now, she thought. She concealed her feelings and smiled.
“…That’s a nice line. What kind of woman did you pick it up from?” She was too embarrassed to just thank him, so she joked back instead.
“You can tell?”
“Of course. It’s obvious from the tender look on your face.”
The young man awkwardly touched his face; he hadn’t realized the expression on it. “I learned it from the poster girl of this soba restaurant I used to frequent.”
“An old lover?”
“Nothing like that. She was a friend, maybe. Or perhaps an older sister figure. I’m not quite sure what’s the right word. But she was someone dear to me.” His eyes overflowed with affection. He had nostalgic memories he treasured. Hotaru was happy for him, but her chest felt tight.
“I’m jealous.” The words inadvertently slipped right out of her mouth. The young man’s expression didn’t shift, but his brow did move slightly, and he questioned her with his gaze. She smiled and said, “I’m jealous of the way you can say you treasure old memories without a hint of hesitation.”
She wasn’t jealous of the woman he spoke of, but of him. From the sound of things, he clearly hadn’t met this woman in a long time. But there was no sadness in his gaze, only tenderness.
Hotaru had had much taken from her and left behind many things herself. She could do nothing but grieve about all that. That was why she felt jealous of the young man and how he could look back on bygone happy days and say without a hint of grief that they were precious to him.
“Unlike you, I can’t do anything but feel sad over what I’ve lost,” she said.
“I see. I’m rather blessed, then.”
The young man didn’t push her to explain. She appreciated his kindness, but a small part of her wished he had. Perhaps that would’ve been asking for too much, though. She went back to talking about unimportant things.
After some talking, the young man abruptly made a slight smile. “There’s nothing romantic about this at all, huh?”
Having moved on from the soba restaurant’s poster girl, they only talked about inconsequential things like past work, what kind of alcohol they liked, Hotaru’s daily life, and good places to eat. It was fun, but it lacked the spice that would typically follow a night of passion.
“No, there really isn’t. But nights like these aren’t bad,” she replied. The night wore on with no words of passion being exchanged. They were far from the image of lovers, but she didn’t mind.
“Indeed.” He didn’t seem to mind either.
She looked at his face in profile and felt he had become mellower than when they first met. He, too, must have confronted his lingering regrets at some point here in the Dove District. That meant the time to bid farewell was approaching. Although she saw that their end was near, she pretended not to notice. Part of her wanted to, but she hesitated because speaking one’s mind was not the way of a lady of the night.
Ah… In the end, she couldn’t let herself be an ordinary woman.
A wry grin formed on her face. The stars twinkled, as indifferent to her worries as always. Neither of them said those damning words that would end it all.
From time to time, she thought back on this night and how she couldn’t take that last step no matter how hard she tried. That was fine, though. Words left unsaid and feelings never brought to light—both eventually faded like snow. But some things were beautiful precisely because they ended as no more than a dream.