“No, we’re getting along,” my classmate answered, to the little girl’s confusion.
Once I’d finished feeding the turtles, we walked down a narrow path running along the pond’s edge before reaching a little restaurant, an old one-story building with an out-of-place concrete façade. She suggested we go inside, so we did. When the air conditioning hit us, we let out a relaxed sigh in unison. Three other parties occupied tables in the spacious interior: a family, a dignified-looking elderly couple, and a somewhat unruly quartet of middle-aged ladies. We sat at a low table by the window.
Soon after we sat, a genial elderly woman came and filled our glasses with water before taking our order.
My companion said, “We’ll each have an umegae mochi, and tea for me.” She glanced to me and asked, “You want tea, too?”
I nodded, and the old woman went back to the kitchen with a friendly smile.
As I drank my cold water, I felt my body cool all the way to my fingertips. It felt nice.
I asked, “So those sweets I saw on the road are called umegae mochi, then?”
“They’re a local specialty. I read about them in my guide book.”
The elderly server returned with two red rectangular trays, each bearing a sweet bean cake and a cup of green tea. “Sorry for the wait,” the old woman said, despite there having been no wait at all. Apparently, the policy was to pay up front, so we each handed over our share in coins.
The round, white dumplings were crisp on the outside. Judging from the speed with which they came, the restaurant must have cooked them constantly throughout the day, rather than made-to-order. I took a bite and found it generously stuffed with sweet, slightly salty red bean paste. It was very good, and the green tea matched it well.
“Yum!” my classmate said. “I bet you’re glad you came with me now.”
“Only a little bit.”
“Don’t be so stubborn. If you keep being like that, you’ll be back to having no friends after I die.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t mind the thought of being alone. My current situation was an anomaly since, once she was gone, I would simply return to my previous way of life. I wouldn’t interact with anyone, instead immersing myself back in the worlds created in my books. That was what every day had been like for me before, and that’s how it would be again. I didn’t consider it a bad thing—but I didn’t think she was capable of understanding that.
We had finished our umegae mochi and were still working on our tea when she spread open her tourist magazine on our table.
I asked, “What’s up next?”
“That’s the spirit.”
“I already decided I may as well lick the plate, after I saw a scarecrow from the bullet train.”
“Oh really? I have no idea what you just said,” she said, not stopping to ask. “Here’s the thing—I made this list of things I want to do before I die.”
I thought that sounded like a good idea. It might help her to realize she had better ways to spend her remaining time than with me.
She explained, “Like going on a trip with a boy, eating tonkotsu ramen here at its home—that’s what made me think of doing this trip. I guess the last thing I want out of today is to have motsunabe for dinner.” Motsunabe was a local offal-based hot pot stew. “If I can have that, this day will officially go down as a success. What about you? Is there anywhere you want to go?”
“Nope,” I said. “I’m not that interested in touristy places, so I wouldn’t even know what’s here. Like I wrote to you last night: We can just go wherever you’d like.”
“Hmmm, well then, what should we—eep!”
She let out a comical yelp. The cause was the sound of shattering ceramics and a woman’s undignified shriek. We looked to the source of the sound: One of the four noisy women, the fattest of the bunch, was shouting hysterically. Next to her, the elderly server was bowing apologetically. Apparently, the old woman had tripped or something and dropped a teacup.
I decided to keep watching to see what happened next. The server apologized profusely, but the customer, whose clothes had been splashed by the tea, continued to rage hysterically, her fury building until she seemed to have lost her mind. I looked across the table and saw my companion keeping a close watch on the unfolding scene as she drank her tea.
I hoped the situation would somehow resolve itself peacefully, but such hopes of mine were often dashed. The woman’s fury crescendoed as she roughly shoved the elderly server. The server staggered backward into a table before toppling to the ground, overturning the table along with her. Soy sauce bottles and pairs of disposable chopsticks scattered across the floor.
I accepted the course of events and decided to remain a spectator, but my companion didn’t.
“Hey!”
She shouted louder than I’d ever heard her before, then she got to her feet and ran up to the raging woman and the woman’s posse.
This didn’t surprise at all. If I hoped to remain an onlooker, then of course she wanted to become involved. I knew she was going to do this, because that was what my opposite would do.
She helped the fallen server back to her feet while yelling at the woman who was now her sworn enemy. Her foe shouted back, but here’s where my companion’s true strength came into play. Some of the other diners—the father of the family and the elderly couple—slowly got to their feet and began allying themselves with my classmate.
Beset on all sides, the entire group of middle-aged women—not just the initial offender—hurled complaints as they fled the restaurant with flushed cheeks. The elderly server showered my companion with gratitude and praise, while I was still seated drinking my tea.
My classmate helped restore the toppled table to order before returning to ours. She still looked angry, and I expected she would scold me for remaining on the sidelines, but she didn’t.
Instead, she said, “The old lady only tripped because that woman stuck out her foot. How nasty can you get!”
“Yeah,” I said. Some people believed bystanders who choose not to intervene are just as guilty as the actual perpetrator. If that was true, it meant I shared equally in the woman’s misdeeds, so I didn’t criticize her too strongly.
I looked at the girl who was still stoking the flames of her righteous anger, and who had so little time left to live, and I thought, Weeds grow faster than grass.
I said, “There are a lot of people out there who should die sooner than you.”
“I’ll say,” she agreed, and I smiled wryly. I reaffirmed my decision to go back to being alone after she was gone.
When we left the restaurant, the old waitress made my companion take six umegae mochi along with her thanks. The girl tried to refuse the gift at first, but she eventually gave in and politely accepted. I tried one, and it was softer than the one before, now that a little time had passed. I enjoyed it this way, too.
My companion said, “Let’s go back to the city for now. We need to find a Uniqlo for you, anyway.”
“Sure,” I said. “I got sweatier than I thought I would. I hate to ask, but could I borrow some money for the clothes? I promise I’ll pay you back before you die.”
“What? No way,” she said.
“You fiend. To hell with you. See if you can find someone to get along with there.”
She laughed. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. That was a joke. And you don’t have to pay me back, either.”
“No, I’m going to pay you back for everything.”
“Stubborn.”
We took a train back to the central station. The train was quiet with old people dozing off and a group of little kids plotting their next exploits through hushed whispers. My companion read her magazine next to me while I gazed out the window. It was evening, but the summer sky was still bright. I wouldn’t have minded if it always stayed that way. My mind began wandering with such thoughts.
Maybe that would have made for a better prayer, I thought to myself. She closed her magazine then her eyes. She slept the rest of the way.
When we arrived at the station, it was more crowded than in the early afternoon. We walked slowly through the hurrying students and office workers making a quick stop before continuing their commute. The people who lived in this prefecture seemed to walk faster than people in other places. This was a violent prefecture, after all, so maybe they moved quickly to evade trouble.
We talked over what to do and decided to head for the prefecture’s largest shopping district. According to my phone, we’d find a Uniqlo there. I later discovered we could have taken a train directly there from the shrine without ever having to exit a station, but given how I’d been abducted, I hadn’t the opportunity to do any research ahead of time. She wasn’t the sort of person to pay that much attention to the details, anyway.
Instead, we took the subway.