Some of the clubs had set up stands, and I was curious about what the Literature Club was doing, so we went to take a look. A couple of their members were hovering restlessly in the room they were in, and copies of the club magazine were set out on a desk.
“I bet they’d be shocked if they found out you were Keiko Nishikawa’s brother,” I whispered to Tooru. He smiled shyly.
We picked up copies of the magazine and headed for the popcorn stand. We stopped by the ring toss and the haunted house, making the rounds. We had a good time together.
“Whew, I’m tired from laughing so much. Can we take a break?” I asked. I really was tired from laughing, so we slipped into an empty room being used as a rest area. No one else was there, so we kept bantering with each other.
“Kamiya, stop making me laugh!”
“You pick up everything I say and turn it into a joke!”
“I was good at volleyball in gym class, you know. I must be a gifted receiver.”
“A gifted receiver? So you mean a telephone you got as a present?”
“What kind of present is that?”
We couldn’t stop talking, so we decided to take a break by reading the magazines we’d picked up. About halfway through, I realized something.
“Do you write fiction, Kamiya? Your sister and your dad are both writers, aren’t they?”
He looked up from his magazine with genuine surprise.
“You’re right. I’m not sure why, but it’s never occurred to me to write anything.”
“Interesting. You don’t want to?”
“Not now, at least. There are…other things I’d rather do one day.”
Tooru always put his family and Maori first. He prioritized other people over himself. So it was a surprise to hear there was something he wanted to do.
“Really? What is it?”
“Please don’t laugh. I’m kind of interested in photography,” he said a bit reluctantly, like he was embarrassed to admit it.
Photography. He’d never mentioned that before. Maori might not have known, either.
“Of course I wouldn’t laugh. But why photography?”
“Well…photos are like novels in that they take you to other places, right? Because of my family situation, I’ve never been able to travel much… Sometimes, I feel really drawn to photographs. I’ll see a beautiful photo and imagine myself there, which makes me want to go somewhere myself and take pictures like that.”
I was deeply impressed by Tooru’s words. For various reasons, he had probably never been on a trip in his whole life. In a sense, the same was true for me. We knew nothing of the world beyond the place we belonged to. But photographs and novels took us to other worlds. Photos especially, since they were real. They opened windows to unknown places. I could see why he was drawn to that.
“If I told my family or Hino about it, they might take it too seriously,” he went on bashfully. “I’ve never told anyone but you about this.”
His smile and confession left me speechless. I was so happy. So happy that he had shared a secret just with me. He was telling a friend something he couldn’t tell his family or his girlfriend. I was someone special to him.
But I couldn’t let him guess what I was feeling. Instead, I made a joke.
“Hey, you could start taking pictures now. Didn’t you say you were mostly done studying for the civil service exams? You have ideal subjects in me and Maori.”
“I’m more interested in landscapes.”
“But you have something more beautiful than a landscape right in front of you!”
He laughed.
“This is no laughing matter!” I said, pretending to get mad. He apologized. We joked around like that. But…something occurred to me, and it made my heart ache.
One day, Tooru would have the freedom and the money to buy a camera. He would probably use it to take pictures of Maori. My heart pounded quietly but powerfully. Before that happened, couldn’t I have one thing? Before he took photos of Maori with a real camera? Just something simple, something silly—that was enough.
“Would you take a picture of me now, since we’re at the festival and everything?” I said, like I was carrying on the joke. He raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Seriously? But I’m an amateur. Also, I don’t have a camera on my phone.”
“Then I’ll lend you mine. That works, right?”
I opened the camera on my phone and handed it to him. I didn’t intend to make him do it if he really didn’t want to. But he took my phone with a strained smile and looked at the camera app with interest.
“Can I mess around with this?”
“Do whatever you want. It’s not like you’ll break it.”
I showed him how to use it. He brushed his long, thin finger over the screen. He asked me some technical questions. When I asked how he knew that stuff, he said he’d been reading some photography books. I answered the best I could, and he started adjusting the settings.
“Here I go. Are you ready, Wataya?”
“Make sure I look pretty.”
“You’re pretty to start with, so that won’t be a problem.”
“I swear…”
I knew he was joking, but I couldn’t help smiling. I heard the shutter click. Tooru was smiling. He lowered the phone and started reviewing the pictures, still grinning. Then his expression changed to one of surprise.
“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me I closed my eyes.”
“No. It’s just…it must be beginner’s luck. I feel like they came out really good.”
He handed me the phone, and I started looking through the photos. Like him, I was dumbfounded. In the pictures…I looked so happy, I hardly recognized myself.
I was supposed to be cold, someone whose thoughts nobody could guess. But the person in those pictures was different. I looked overjoyed to be with the person outside the frame. You could tell from the warm expression on my face. I seemed different than I did in the usual pictures I took with Maori. So this was how I looked with Tooru?
Calming my trembling heart, I made a joke as usual.
“Don’t you think my face looks puffy?”
Tooru just smiled quietly and said nothing.
After lunch, we checked out the Band Club and Theater Club exhibits in the gym and peeked into the crowded stalls together. We bantered the whole time. The festival ended with a performance by the Pop Music Club and other volunteers in the gym. Neither of us were the type to stand in the front row of a crowd and go wild. Instead, we went to the open, empty school rooftop and listened to the distant music.
It was really fun.
It took me back to when I was six or seven, when my parents still got along. One weekend, the three of us went to an amusement park. We were all so happy. In the evening, my dad put me on his shoulders as we walked back to the parking lot. He was a taciturn, diligent person, not the type to do things like that. It was the first time I’d ever ridden on his shoulders. I hugged his head gently. My mom was a bit worried, but my dad said something to her, and she smiled. I remember very clearly how content she looked.
My father was busy at work and often couldn’t play with me, but I thought he looked handsome and cool in his suit. My mother was young and elegant, and her job as a designer set her apart from most people. I adored them both. When the three of us were smiling together, I had a place where I felt secure. I could simply be happy. A normal kid, free of worries.
As I moved up in elementary school, that secure place disappeared. My dad was too busy with work to come home as much. At a certain point, my mom must have given up on him, because she began pouring herself into work, too. My parents stopped interacting with each other, and when they had to, they fought.
I started junior high. While crying, I tried to mediate between them. They had been so happy together. What had I missed? What had I failed to see? I started to feel afraid of people because I couldn’t see their true selves.
For reasons related to my father’s job, they didn’t divorce. My mother agreed to this. But they both started seeing other people, and they separated. I believed in them less and less, and I mourned the loss of something important to me. But I avoided thinking about it, because I knew when I did, I would become endlessly sad.
Still…I was heartbroken. I had lost the place where I could feel safe. But when I was with Tooru, somewhere within me, I felt at ease. There, all I had to do was innocently experience the world. All I had to do was smile, enjoy myself, and be happy. I was able to be an ordinary girl, free of worries. I was able to forget all my sadness and anxiety and simply be myself.
Is that what love is?
I was too embarrassed to tell anyone these things, but when I was alone with Tooru, that’s what I thought about.
“Thanks for asking me to hang out today, Kamiya. I had a good time.”
We were sitting on a bench on the roof of the school, gazing at the sky and listening to the performance.
“Thanks for going along with it. I had fun as well.”
I looked over at him. He was smiling gently. To keep my love from spilling out, I flashed him an amused grin, the kind a friend would make. “It wasn’t just fun. Today I learned a secret about you.”
“A secret?”
“Photography.”
“Oh…that. But what about you, is there anything you want to do?”
“Me?”
“I’ve never heard you talk about it. Do you want to write a novel?”