I was sure my ears were still playing tricks on me at Tousuke’s proposal.
“About time?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think it’s time to quit.”
“Why?”
He grumbled a “Hmm,” and spun his chair around to face me. “I’ve been thinking about this for a bit now, Kaede, but…are you sure it’s really the best idea to destroy Moai?”
“We’ve been working on that very goal for months, so, yes, I do” I immediately replied. Tousuke made a troubled face, the sort of face that indicated he was only humoring me.
“That may be true, and I know I’ve gone along with this, but…hmm.”
“Spit it out.”
“No, I mean! I really do understand how you feel, Kaede.” Normally very even-tempered, Tousuke was really making a spectacle of himself here. “Someone’s altered something that you made, and I get that you’re angry about that, but like, when you think about what those guys are doing right now, it makes you wonder if it’s really something that needs crushing. I’m just wondering whether you might come to regret it.”
“…I would not.”
And first off, just what about it would he understand? What part of my feelings could he possibly understand? I would never have come this far if this was something I would regret. I never thought that he would say something like this to me now, after everything, nor that he would possibly try to look out for those Moai guys. I tried to imagine why.
“Let me guess, did Ten put you up to this?”
“Obviously not. Or well, maybe, in some way, I guess. We still hang out sometimes, but seriously, he really is a great guy! Though I mean, this register thing is seriously pretty bad.”
“Right? So obviously, we have to destroy them. We never did this.”
The two of us, full of our ideals, had never done anything this bad. Even if I were in the position Ten was in right now, I would have never allowed this to happen.
“So, what, you joining up with them?”
“No, it’s just, when I saw that careless e-mail we got from that HR guy, I started thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“Even I might do something like this, like Ten or that guy. Maybe they just got carried away, or didn’t realize they were doing something wrong, or something like that. There must be some other way to make them understand this. Even if we don’t get rid of the current Moai, there must be people who have made that place their home, like you once did. That’s what I thought after I went to that meet-up and saw the way Kawahara-san was at our takoyaki party.”
I was dumbfounded.
“Like hell they didn’t know what they’re doing! Look at this spreadsheet. They’re giving out people’s personal information! For money, or to solidify the ties between Moai and these companies, or something. In other words, they’re using us as a bargaining chip to further their own goals. There’s no other way to spin this.”
That was right. And even if it wasn’t, what did people like Ten—people who had no respect for people’s boundaries and would tromp all over them—think about people like us?
“I’m sure you noticed it, at the barbecue.”
I recalled the movements of their lips, how little they cared about belittling others.
“They’re making fun of us.”
“But they aren’t.”
I was taken aback at the speed of his reply. Tousuke stared back at me.
“We’re making fun of them too.”
“…”
“It finally occurred to me, recently. We’ve been making fun of them, putting all these labels on them, saying that they’re shallow and annoying. And it’s true, there’s a lot of things that I hate about people like that. But that’s not fair. We aren’t all that different from them ourselves,” he ranted, trying to appeal to me. Perhaps because I fell silent for some moments, he averted his eyes, startled. “Sorry. I’m not trying to lecture you, Kaede.”
“Has that shallowness of theirs rubbed off on you? Is that why you put your hands on your kouhai?”
He did not appear to catch my meaning at first. After he mulled it over for a bit, his brows furrowed, and he let out a quiet sigh.
“That’s not it.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you weren’t going after her?”
“Well, yeah, that wasn’t a lie.”
“But the fact of the matter is that you went after Pon-chan when she was already in a moment of weakness because things weren’t going so well with her long-distance boyfriend.”
Tousuke put his hands on his face, head hung, saying nothing. Perhaps there was nothing that he could say in reply to this. Tousuke was my friend, but when something was wrong, I had to speak up about it. After a while of no reply, whether as a means of raising the white flag or simply because he could no longer bear the tension, Tousuke suddenly smiled, still looking down at the floor.
“Well, yeah, you’re right.” He covered his face with his hands, as if to hide his embarrassment. “But, well, didn’t you say it yourself just earlier, Kaede? That sometimes these things happen?”
His joking words put me at ease.
“I did say that, but it was wrong.”
Tousuke laughed again; I laughed as well. What the hell was this exchange we were having? We had shared trivial debates countless times in the years we had known each other. Every time, at some point, one or the other of us would erupt with laughter, and wonder what we were being so serious for, able to preserve our relationship with a smile. I was relieved to know that this was just one more of those exchanges.
What I needed was for him to understand more clearly what I felt about Moai without misleading, but I was sure that Tousuke would come to comprehend this in time. As I thought about it, Tousuke turned back to the PC and plugged a USB stick that had been sitting on the desk into the machine. Before I could figure out what he was doing, he pulled the stick out and curiously turned back to me.
“I’m sorry, Kaede.”
“Huh?”
“I’m out.”
There was still a faint smile on his face.
“Sorry that I said I could help. Over these last few months though, I’ve come to realize that maybe Moai isn’t so bad. So, for now, this is where I get off.” He looked down, not rising from his chair. “I’m sorry for egging you on.”
The USB stick he held out to me, and the whorl of Tousuke’s hair. I timidly accepted the USB stick from him, feeling that they were a set pair, and that if one or the other was not lost, they both would remain there forever.
“Still, I don’t blame you for being upset,” he said.
“So then…?”
“The way you’re going about this just bothers me. I’m sorry.”
His smile was stiff. I put the memory stick into my pocket and took a step back. My philosophy was never to get close to others, to avoid defying their opinions as best I could.
“Oh, right. Could you please try to keep getting along with Pon? I know she’s a pretty different person from you, but she’s a good kid. Though she is a bit sneaky, and a little too good at pretending to be asleep.”
Seems she knows more than we thought, Tousuke’s laughter implied. I took another step backwards.
“Why don’t you try talking a bit more with Ten too? I’m sure that in terms of Moai, you consider him your enemy, but it might be a little different if you think of him as your schoolmate, Amano.”
I took yet another step back, putting more distance between us.
“And then, maybe even their leader, Hiro. What was her real name again? I’m pretty sure I heard it at that meet-up…”
Already seeming resolved to our parting, Tousuke, cool as ever, looked up to the ceiling, as though he was merely having trouble swallowing something bitter.
“Oh, right, Akiyoshi.”
Tousuke looked me in the eye.
It had been a long time since I had heard anyone speak that name.
“I’m sure if you just sit down and talk to Akiyoshi, you’ll find out she’s a good person too.”
I turned my back on him, wobbled to the front door, and put my shoes on. As I opened the door and stepped outside, I heard only one short phrase from Tousuke, but I had nothing to say in reply and simply closed the door behind me.
“Come back anytime.”
Just like the scent that Pon-chan left behind, I knew that before long, even those words would fade into nothing.