Chapter 28

When Kento told the TV crew that he would be having dinner with Ishizaka, they sent him off willingly. Perhaps they had figured that they could enjoy their celebratory drinking party more freely without a minor like Kento around. Ishizaka took him to a restaurant that served Sawachi style cuisine, a Kochi specialty.
The restaurant was located inside a multi-storey building, but the interior was decorated to look like a rural house with a thatched roof. Beams carved out of whole trees spanned across the ceiling.
“Apparently they dismantled a hundred-year-old house and rebuilt it here.”
“Wow, it looks like a filming set.”
Ishizaka burst into laughter. “You sound just like someone in the entertainment business.”
Among the restaurant guests were businessmen as well as younger people who looked like tourists. Ishizaka made for a seat close to a group of young college-age women. Kento hastily tugged at Ishizaka’s jacket.
“Oh, right. I almost forgot you were a celebrity.” Ishizaka asked a server in a happi coat for a private booth. The booth had a wood-panel floor and a sunken hearth, with rattan floor cushions placed around it. Once they sat down, trays were brought in front of them with appetizers. Ishizaka gave his order to the server.
“I know you’re a minor, but you can still drink beer, right?”
“No, I can’t.” Those were the rules at his management office. Ishizaka shrugged at Kento’s staunch refusal.
“Well, I guess no means no. You’re a pop icon, after all.” He ordered one Japanese sake instead.
A big platter arrived with servings of seared bonito and sashimi.
“Eat,” Ishizaka encouraged. “You’re a growing young man.” He then drank his sake as he began his story.
“Both Orihara and I weren’t sprinters. We were long-distance runners.” Ishizaka was born in Kochi, but had been granted a scholarship for his performance in junior high school and had moved into a dorm for senior high. He was a ten-kilometre race runner, and his most immediate goal was the inter-high-school championships. He eventually wanted to enter the senior high-school Ekiden relay race, and finally, as a matter of course, the Hakone Ekiden relay race once he entered university.
During autumn of their second year, Orihara and a few other runners accidentally tripped over one another and ended up falling. That was when Orihara hurt a ligament in his knee.
“The injury itself wasn’t serious, but he was worried that he wouldn’t make the cut for the high-school Ekiden race. So he trained in secret without telling the coach.”
Ishizaka had been worried about Orihara running on the roads alone at night, so he decided to practice with him.
“That’s when I got into the accident.” A truck had edged into the oncoming traffic lane as it attempted to veer clear of an illegally-parked trailer in the lane. To avoid an oncoming car, it had ploughed right up onto the sidewalk, hitting Ishizaka,
“It was a pretty bad accident. I ended up quitting high school and coming back here to focus on my treatment.”
Kento waited for Ishizaka’s next words with bated breath.
“I had a few operations, but ultimately the doctor’s verdict was that I should amputate my leg and switch to a prosthetic limb if I wanted it to function at its best.”
Ishizaka sighed and drained the rest of the sake in his cup.
“I was devastated, to be honest. I’d had so much encouragement from everyone in rehabilitation, after all. But I decided to place my best on that prosthetic leg.”
He had also strengthened his resolve not to give up running even after he had lost a leg.
“I thought, if there aren’t any good prosthetic legs out there, I’ll just make one.” So he had taken a university entrance qualification exam and entered the computer engineering department at his local university.
“He came to visit me in the spring, when he’d just graduated high school. Around the same time of the year as now.”
He had gotten a few letters from Orihara, but had refrained from contacting him back until after he had firmly established his academic path. He also hadn’t mentioned his amputated leg, since he didn’t want to worry Orihara more than necessary.
“And eventually, we drifted out of touch.”
That day, Orihara had visited him out of the blue. He had been shocked to see Ishizaka with a prosthetic leg.
“But I ended up yelling at him,” Ishizaka sighed. “All because when I asked him if he was still running, he said he’d quit long ago.” Ishizaka covered his face with his hands, as if the painful scene were replaying in his mind.
“I said to him, ‘Whose fault do you think it is that I can’t run anymore? You were supposed to run in my place after the accident’.”
But of course, that hadn’t been out of hatred.
“I thought he’d quit running because he felt guilty about what happened to me.” He had thought his words would give the push that Orihara needed to start running again. “I wanted him to run the Hakone Ekiden race.”
That way, he could cheer Orihara on from afar.
“How was I supposed to know that he’d quit so he could study to get into medical school? He’d never even told me.”
Ishizaka cradled his head in his hands. Although Kento felt like he was making things somewhat worse, he told Ishizaka what Orihara was going through at home?including his complicated relationship with his older brother. Ishizaka lifted his face and widened his eyes in surprise.
“I had no idea. So that’s what was happening to him, huh?” He looked up in exasperation at the ceiling and its sooty beams. Now that he thought of it, perhaps Orihara had come to tell Ishizaka that he would become a doctor so he could make his leg better. But after Ishizaka had yelled at him, Orihara had simply left looking dejected, not saying another word. There had been no contact from him since then.
“To think he’d applied for medical school just so he could make me better. I had no idea that was what was going through his mind.”
Ishizaka had not even known that Orihara had become a doctor until Kento told him.
“I sent out letters a few times, you know.” But he had only gotten a simple postcard once from Orihara that said he was doing well.
“He can be pretty stubborn and prone to jumping to conclusions.”
Kento almost burst out laughing because Miyashita had said the exact same thing. But he could not laugh when he thought of how Orihara must have felt at the time.
He had chosen the path of medicine to make his best friend better, but in turn had undermined his older brother’s position. And when he had finally gotten into medical school, his friend had already lost his leg.
Ishizaka knocked back his replenished glass of sake, then looked intently at Kento.
“So, what do you want me to do?”
Kento looked him straight in the eyes.
“I want you to see Yuri.”