“I remember that from an old manga. A past life, isn’t that what they call it?”
Junko seemed interested. Before my memories came back, I would come talk to her about my novels and writing work, so this wasn’t the first bizarre thing I’d told her. Another person might’ve thought I was crazy, but she was used to it. But that also meant that she was making a division between fiction and reality. It was difficult for her to recognize that her own story was “light”. If she did, after all, it would mean she was going crazy.
“...Well, you can think of it as something like a past life, sure. A game we’re playing. But I’m seriously looking for it... So um, play along. Is there anybody that we both remember, in our past memories?”
“There’s no way that I can remember every single person I’ve ever met.” Junko said, stirring her iced coffee with a straw and looking vaguely annoyed.
“For now, let’s just say the people that helped you become a writer.”
“Okay, well...”
Junko took out a notebook, and began to sift through page after page of bookmarked notes. Between two of the pages was sandwiched a little folder, from which she removed a folded up sheet of copy paper. It was a list of names and addresses in tiny font.
“This is the list of people from my gaming group. Her. Her.”
Junko pointed to a strange looking name.
“That’s not her real name, is it? It’s pretty ridiculous.”
“We were young, after all. It’s a pen name. But that’s all anybody ever called her. Thanks to her, I got big into video games. And that’s how I became a writer.”
Junko laughed, thinking back on the memories. I copied down the address.
“What’s her real name?”
“Oh, what was it? ... I forget. Hmm, I used to remember it...”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. So, she’s someone you knew from a game?”
Junko folded up the old, worn paper like it was a treasured memory.
The gaming group she was referring to was a tabletop gaming RPG, where players gathered around a table and participated in a shared story. Part of the fun was enjoying watching the “story” come to life through shared conversation.
“I’d love to play again sometime, but I don’t have the time these days. Are you going to go looking for her? If you find her tell her I said ‘Hi,’” Junko said with a smile.
I understood well that she’d become a writer because she once enjoyed creating stories. I went to the address I’d copied down, but it wasn’t a residential address. A new building was standing there instead. The apartments that had been there before had been torn down.
I remembered that Junko said she’d been into tabletop RPGs in college. Her friend with the strange pen name must’ve lived in a run-down apartment, like many poor college students. It would be a pain to try and track down someone who once lived in a torn-down building. Instead, it would be faster to track down my reincarnated (?) companions first. The next person I was able to get in touch with was Yoshie.
“You want to know why I got into the writing business? Man, you always ask me the weirdest shit.”
She was several times nastier than Junko. Sometimes she went beyond “sarcastic” and crossed the line into “bitch”. She was small, and her build was frail, but her limbs were fast and her voice was loud. She wasn’t a genius, unfortunately, but she was still an oddball with glasses.
She worked for an editing production department in Shibuya, and I’d worked with her once in the past. I’d gotten an appointment to meet her at her office, claiming it was for work. She lacked the ability to listen to anything anybody else said, so I wasn’t going to tell her about memories from past lives, or anything of that sort.
“Stop living in a fantasy world,” she’d said.
But she’d more than happily tell you stories about her favorite idol group, so it was hard to say if she didn’t live in a fantasy world herself. To be honest, it was impossible to understand how she’d gotten into the story business.
“I’m doing research into relationships writers have. Sometimes when writers are the same age, they get influenced by the same things,” I said, lying to her to change the subject.
“Well, for me it was because a friend told me it was an easy way to make money,” Yoshie said.
She had no writing experience, and no interest in books or movies. But a friend of hers, a professional writer, had introduced her to the job.
“There was nothing I really wanted to do, after all. When I got the job, though, it was all office grunt work. Tell the company to raise my salary.”
“I’m just a contractor.”
“Then tell them I’m a hard worker. Also, buy me dinner.”
Conversations with Yoshie always went this way. She never thought too hard about anything, and was always looking for an easy way out. I wanted to end the conversation as fast as possible, so I asked for the name of the person who’d gotten her into the business.
“They live in Yokohama. I think they’re still an editing production writer.”
She gave me the name of the company and I wrote it down.
“Anyway, why’s a writer like you asking something so pointless?” she asked.
Of course, she had no writing talent at all even though she’d originally been hired as a writer. Instead of being fired, she was reassigned to the editorial department (Maybe the person who’d introduced her had some pull?). So normally, her job was to boss around writers, at least according to her, and she was constantly complaining about everything writers did.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, without the slightest doubt in my voice. I couldn’t expect the same brilliance that the old Yoshie had. Right now she was only interested in personal advancement. Or more specifically, money.
She had a man, somewhere, it seemed, but most of her interest was in money. It was a happy thing, in its own way.
“But since you’re in this business, you must’ve been influenced by something a writer wrote, at least once. Or maybe not?”
I asked. Her answer was immediate.
“I watch the drama TV shows on Fridays. I always wonder what’s coming in the next episode, you know? There’s this one side character who’s super cool...”
Yoshie began to chatter on. I waited for her to finally pause, and then ended the conversation. Thinking about it, though... This Yoshie seemed far too uninterested in stories. Or perhaps you could say she was unaware of them.
She responded to “light” stories, but she didn’t realize that the love of money that controlled her was a story itself, and that’s why she hadn’t even succeeded in getting any money. Unless you were greedy enough to know you were greedy, or capable of controlling your greed, saving money was impossible.