I won’t report the debate that followed, as I was already tired of those myself. Anyone could see where it was headed: She bulldozed me, and we ended up staying in the same room.
But I don’t want you to assume it was only because I was weak, or that I was a person of loose morals who didn’t think sharing a room with the opposite sex was a big deal. But there was the matter of money, in that she had it and I didn’t. I even offered to stay at a different hotel by myself.
But who am I making excuses to?
That’s all they were—excuses. I could have taken a stand and gone off on my own, and she wouldn’t have been able to forcibly stop me. But that’s not what I chose to do. I don’t know why I didn’t.
In any event, the end result was that we would share a room. But I didn’t feel any guilt or shame, and I knew nothing was going to happen that would change that. Our hearts were pure.
Inside the spacious room, she twirled beneath the chandelier’s soft glow and said, “I have to admit, I’m nervous about sharing a bed with you. But, like, the fun kind of nervous, you know?”
Well, I was pure, anyway. “Don’t be dumb,” I said with a scowl.
I walked past the king-sized bed to sit on a couch at the edge of the Western-styled room. Then I told her the obvious.
“I’ll sleep here.”
“What? Come on, when else are you going to stay in a room as nice as this? You have to experience the bed, too.”
“I’ll try it out once—when you’re not using it.”
“Aren’t you happy to be able to share a bed with a girl?”
“I’d appreciate if you stopped maligning my character,” I said. “I’m a gentleman through and through. If you want to sleep with someone, find a boyfriend.”
“Right, you’re not my boyfriend—that’s what makes it fun. It’s like doing something we’re not supposed to do.”
She seemed to be struck by a thought, and she took Living with Dying from her backpack and wrote something in it. I’d often witnessed her doing that.
Then she went to the bathroom and shouted, “Wow! The tub has jets!”
I opened the sliding glass door to the balcony and stepped outside. Our room was on the fifteenth floor, and while it couldn’t quite be called a suite, the accommodations were more luxurious than two high schoolers should have been able to experience. The toilet and bathtub had separate rooms, and the balcony provided a magnificent panorama of the nighttime cityscape.
“What a view,” she said, having joined me outside without me noticing. Her long hair swayed in the whispering wind. “Looking out at the city at night, just the two of us—doesn’t it feel romantic?”
I said nothing and went back inside, where I sat on the sofa, picked up a TV remote from the round table in front of me, and turned on the TV, which was as oversized as the rest of the room. Most of the channels were playing local shows, different from those I was used to seeing. I found the local dialect and speech patterns of the TV personalities far more interesting than my companion’s nonsense.
She came back into the room, closed the sliding door, and crossed in front of me to sit on the bed. “Whoa!” she said. The bed looked plush and very comfortable. I decided trying it out for myself just once wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
She settled in on the bedsheets and watched TV with me.
She said, “It’s interesting how people talk differently here. They sound like old samurai. It’s funny ’cause this city is super modern. I wonder how some ways of talking persist like that.” That was certainly more thought-provoking than her usual comments. She added, “I think studying local dialects would be a fun job.”
“For once I agree with you,” I said. “I’ve considered doing that sort of research once I’m in college.”
With feeling and not in a jokey way, she said, “That sounds really nice. I wanted to go to college, too.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
I wished she’d stop saying such things. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel when she did.
She asked, “How about you tell me something cool about dialects? Got any trivia?”
“Let’s see… What we hear as the Kansai dialect,” I said, referring to the region surrounding Osaka and Kyoto, “might all sound the same to us, but there’s actually quite a number of variants. How many do you think there are?”
“Ten thousand!”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s annoying if you don’t even try to guess right. Anyway, there’s various opinions, but most people agree there are just under thirty.”
“Huh. Is that so.”
“You know, I wonder how many people you’ve hurt in your life.”
With how many acquaintances she kept, the true number was likely unfathomable. It was criminal, really. But since I didn’t keep any acquaintances myself, I never did anything that would hurt anyone. As for which was the better way to be, I supposed opinions would be divided.
She quietly watched the TV for a while, but then, apparently unable to tolerate being still any longer, she began rolling about on the bed, throwing the sheets into complete disarray. She loudly declared, “I’m taking a bath,” went into the bathroom, and began filling the tub with hot water.
With the sound of the rushing water providing background noise from the other side of the wall, she retrieved various small things from her backpack and carried them to the sink, which was located between the bath and toilet rooms. She started running the water there, too, maybe to wash off her makeup; not that I was curious.
When the bathtub had filled, she disappeared happily into the bathroom. She foolishly admonished me, “You’d better not peek,” but I didn’t even watch her walk out of the room. See, I was a gentleman.
I could hear her humming a vaguely familiar song, maybe from some commercial or something. How on earth did I get in this situation, being this close to a bathing female classmate? I reflected on the choices and actions that led me here, and whether or not they had been right. I looked up at the ceiling, and I could see the chandelier just in the edge of my view.
I’d made it up to where she punched me on the bullet train when she called my name.
“[Boy I’m Getting along With]-kun,” she said, her voice reverberating off the hard walls in the bathroom. “Could you grab me my face wash from my backpack?”
Obeying without thinking into it, I picked up the sky blue backpack from the bed and looked inside.
I wasn’t thinking anything at all.
That’s why, when I saw what I did, I was rocked as if by an earthquake.
The backpack itself was cheerful, like her.
What was inside shouldn’t have disturbed me at all, but my heart began pounding.
I thought I already knew; I thought I already understood. It was the very basis of her presence in my life. But what I saw stole my breath away.
Calm down, I told myself.
Inside the bag were a number of syringes, more pills than I’d ever seen in my life, and some kind of testing machine that I had no idea how to use.
My mind wanted to shut down, but I somehow forced myself to keep thinking.
I already knew her disease was real. I already knew she was only alive through the efforts of medical science. But when I saw the reality with my own eyes, an indescribable terror flooded over me. All my cowardice I’d been keeping bottled up came rushing out.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I looked over my shoulder and saw her wet arm sticking out from the cracked-open door and gesturing impatiently. She had no idea what I was feeling, and I didn’t want her to find out. Quickly, I located the tube of face wash and handed it over.
“Thanks,” she said. “Oh, and I’m totally naked right now.”
After a moment passed without my reply, she said, “Say something! You’re making me embarrassed!”
The door closed.
I walked over to “her” bed and tossed myself onto it; the mattress was as cushy as I had imagined it. The bed engulfed my body, and the white ceiling seemed like it could engulf my consciousness.
I was confused.
But why?
I thought I already knew. I thought I already understood. I thought I had already comprehended it.
But I’d been closing my eyes to her reality.
Just because I saw a few objects, misdirected emotions were trying to rule over me. They were a monster trying to eat at my chest.
Why?
My thoughts spun, trying to find an answer that never came. It was almost dizzying. I closed my eyes and fell asleep on the bed.
I woke to find her gently shaking my shoulders. Her hair was wet. The monster had gone.
She said, “So you did want to sleep on the bed.”
“I said I’d try it out once, and now I have.”
I got up and returned to the couch. Trying as best I could to keep my expression emotionless and the monster’s claw marks hidden from her sight, I turned my gaze to the TV. I felt relieved that I had regained enough presence of mind to even make the attempt.
She began drying her long hair with a wall-mounted hair dryer. “You should take a bath, too. The whirlpool jets are amazing.”
“I think I will,” I said. “No peeking. I remove my human skin whenever I take a bath.”
“Did you get sunburned?”
“Sure, call it that if you want.”
The clothes I bought with her money were still in the shopping bag, which I brought with me into the bathroom. A sweet scent lingered in the wet air. Ever prudent, I decided to believe it was just my imagination.
I locked the door—just in case—then removed my clothes and took a shower. I washed my hair and body, then got into the tub, turning on the whirlpool jets. My companion hadn’t oversold the bath; it felt exquisite. I could feel the monster’s footprints being washed away. It was amazing what a good bath could do. I relaxed in the tub for a long time—it would probably be ten or more years before I was ever in a hotel room as nice as this again.
When I emerged from the bath, the chandelier had been turned off and the room was dim. The girl sat on the couch where I was supposed to sleep. A few plastic bags from a convenience store were sitting on the round table in front of the couch.
She said, “I bought some snacks and things from the convenience store downstairs. Could you get us a couple cups from the shelf over there?”