It pained me to just stand around waiting, but I got the feeling that she wouldn’t want to see me before the designated time. At nine on the dot, I climbed out of a taxi in front of Sunou Sanae’s condo and started swiftly toward the entrance. I had already mailed her duplicate key back to her during our time apart, so instead I entered her apartment number to summon her.
Receiving no reply, I tried ringing her once again. Still nothing. Trying to push down my agitation, I’d just decided to try calling her when I received a text. She was running 15 minutes late.
I waited anxiously for her arrival. I didn’t have it in me to wonder how she might treat me after so long apart. There was really no reason for me to wonder about anything. I loitered in front of the entrance, ignoring the suspicious glances from the residents going in and out. Finally, another taxi stopped. I immediately recognized the rider from the side of her face and had to fight my own feet’s urge to approach.
After she finished paying the fare, Sunou Sanae walked toward me, dressed in relatively formal attire. I’d planned to greet her depending on how she approached me, but she stalked toward me silently, balled up her fist beside her head, and punched me directly in the face.
A punch from someone of such a slight build was not enough to do much damage, but I was still stunned at the wildly unexpected development. “The admission fee,” she stated curtly and unlocked the entrance. Unsure of what I should say, I just followed her inside and boarded the elevator. She didn’t say a word. Following suit, I silently stepped out of the elevator and stood in front of her door for the first time in weeks.
Her place looked the same as it had when we were seeing each other. My things were even still there. I wondered at first if she had some lingering attachment to the items, but perhaps if she had actually done something to me, she had also predicted that we would at some point be here together again.
I put down my bag and heeded her direction to “Sit,” taking what had previously been my assigned seat in a chair on the kitchen side of the table. The owner of the home took off her jacket and boiled some water in a red kettle, preparing two cups of instant coffee and placing them on the table.
I hadn’t really been craving a beverage, but I thanked her anyway and waited for her to sit down opposite me. By the time her butt finally hit the seat, my patience was already at its limits.
“Tell me,” I said. She looked back at me fiercely. “What…did you do to me?”
Not taking her eyes off me, Sunou Sanae breathed in once through her nose, deeply, and replied, “I didn’t do anything.”
“You must have.”
“Seriously, I’ve affected nothing but my own circumstances. I’ve performed no hypnosis, nor said any word of a magic spell.”
“Then why did you invite me here?”
I leaned forward, my entire body tense. Still, she did not avert her gaze, nor even look surprised.
“I haven’t done anything, but I know what happened.”
“If you haven’t done anything, then did he do something?”
I settled back in my chair and recalled my day at work. Sunou Sanae tilted her head.
“He who?”
“One of my coworkers. But I don’t think someone as worthless as him could affect me like that.”
“Listen,” she clipped. “I regret to inform you that everyone is special.”
Ridiculous.
“Like hell they are.”
“They are. Every single person you meet. You’re the one who decides which of those people can affect you.”
“The only one who could influence me was Chika.”
She brought her coffee cup to her mouth and let out a long, thin sigh.
“I’ll tell you what happened to you.”
My heart roiled in equal parts from excitement at finally getting some answers and fear that I might be about to learn something inconvenient. Still, stopping here was out of the question.
“Tell me. Please.”
“You forgot.”
Before I could even process this bleedingly simple answer, an image popped into the back of my mind: myself, throttling the woman in front of me. In reality, though, all I could do was take one stupid, inaudible breath.
“It’s been so long that you’ve forgotten your feelings for her.”
“That’s impossible.”
“But you have realized that you don’t actually have the same feelings for her that you did back then, haven’t you?”
She appeared to be waiting for me to reply. I shook my head.
“You’re wrong. You’re so wrong.”
“But you said so on the phone.”
“This is just temporary, I’m sure that once I know what’s causing this, I’ll get it all right back.”
“I’ve forgotten.” What was she talking about? “I remember in factual terms the passion I felt when I first got into music, and the way that I hated you in high school, but I certainly don’t actually have the same feelings that I had back then.”
“My…my feelings aren’t as half-assed as those.”
I realized that my voice was getting weaker. I wanted to get angry, but anxiety won out, and now I just sounded as though I were asking for help. I wonder how I looked to her in that moment. I got the feeling she pitied me.
“It’s fine to forget.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“None of us can remember anything forever.”
She was being ridiculous. That couldn’t be fine. It couldn’t possibly. I searched desperately for the feelings that I knew should have been blazing within me. How often I thought about her at the time, how precious she was to me, to put it in more fickle terms. How I wanted to make her mine, and for her to make me hers. I believed that as long as she was there, I needed nothing else.