“This crimson orchid looks really flashy at first glance, but there’s something refined and pure about it,” he told me. Here was someone who understood.
“Everyone keeps saying to make my flowers flashier, but I just can’t come up with eye-popping, gaudy designs. Everything I make turns out cutesy,” I replied.
“You’re right, everyone wants flashy nowadays… The reception dresses people are wearing lately are starting to look like something out of Arabian Nights or those carp streamers people hang on Children’s Day. They’re way too loud. But I guess there has to be something about them. After all, you see people at weddings everywhere from Kushiro in the north to Kagoshima in the south wearing flashy dresses like that. What is with young people these days? Am I right? The modern Japanese person is obsessed with flashy things. Maybe all young folks want to be celebrities?”
Hori joked as if he wasn’t young himself.
I liked the genuine, mild-mannered way he smiled. I liked the reserved way he laughed, too. When I first realized I liked him, it felt like something in my heart had been triggered and there was no way to stop it from escalating. I immediately got the urge to talk to Hori about music, books, movies—just anything, and that’s how it all started.
Hori didn’t act like he knew something when he didn’t like a lot of young people do. That’s why after I first met him, I didn’t think, Wow! That was some fine acting again, Kaori! I could be myself, smile, and laugh when I was with him. We only talked for ten, fifteen minutes whenever he visited, but I was so happy every day he was scheduled to come in. For whatever reason, there was something very comforting and familiar about him, as if we’d met somewhere before. I felt as if I’d known him in a past life.
One day, when I was making flowers, I suddenly felt like looking through a photo book called A Hundred Years of Early Modern Japanese History, which I grabbed off my husband’s bookshelf. When I flipped through the pages about wartime, I found various pictures of the atrocities committed by the Empire of Japan’s army across China. One of the pictures was of a young man—I don’t know if he was a member of some guerrilla force or a spy or just an ordinary farmer, but he had his arms tied behind his back and was about to be executed by Japanese soldiers. He had pin-straight hair and clear eyes with sunken-in cheeks, just like Hori. His bright, clear eyes were calm; it looked as if he were asking the people about to execute him, You sure you wanna do this? You sure you’re really okay with this? There was a hint of derision in his firm, heroic gaze.
But maybe I’m just overthinking things. Maybe he was frozen in fear and despair as he lay on the verge of death, and his eyes were randomly staring off into space as he kneeled in a daze. That tiny photograph burned itself into my mind, and maybe Hori’s delicate frame reminded me of it. But there’s no way I could tell him, Hey, you kind of look just like this one POW who got executed, so I’ve been keeping this to myself.
Having Hori around became very convenient after he got used to coming over to my house. He could handle basic repairs for electronics that my husband wouldn’t even touch, or help clean up—basically whatever I needed help with when he came over on Sundays. My husband is never home on Sunday. Whenever he had any spare time, he’d be entertaining clients or meeting coworkers on the golf course, so I would invite Hori over for a little lunch.
I don’t own a cat personally, but I feed a stray mother and two kittens that hang out in my backyard. When Hori came over, he gently reached out, and they let him pet their heads while they calmly ate. There’s also a weasel that took up residence in my backyard, but when it was passing through my garden that day, it suddenly noticed Hori and froze in place with its eyes locked on him for some time.
“I love animals. I want to get a pet and live in the countryside one day,” Hori said, and I immediately agreed with him. Hanging out with cats and dogs in my bare feet, riding horses—that would be the life, but it was a life that would never happen. I would continue my act with my husband while thinking, My acting was flawless today! and Hori would travel from Kushiro to Kagoshima, selling bridal fashion all along the way.
“A city mouse like me wouldn’t be able to handle it, though,” he joked. I could easily tell he was born in Osaka. He was very nonchalant about everything and highly adaptable.
One night, we went to Tenjin-san together. There were so many people crowding the bridge that we couldn’t see the ritual boat procession, so we decided to go to the main shrine to worship and bought a finger puppet at one of the stalls outside. The festival music in the background was very Osaka-ish, really lively and busy: dum-dum-tss-chiki, dum-tss-chiki, dum-dum-tss-chiki, dum-tss-chiki.
The music at Kyoto’s Gion Festival is slower and more drawn out like: dummm-tsss-chiiiki. People in Osaka always complain that it bores them to death, but the music nonetheless got stuck in my head, which was why I named my new finger puppet piglet Chiki.
We went out for pasta in southern Osaka after that. It was the first time I’d ever wandered the streets of Osaka at night with a younger man. The restaurant was a tiny hole-in-the-wall, but it felt so alive. We drank wine and had so much fun with Chiki as well. Hori’s pale complexion and soft skin became slightly flushed.
Even though I couldn’t do any impressive tricks like ventriloquism, I placed Chiki on my right hand and said: “Hey, I’m Chiki,” in an extremely believable child’s voice. “Quick question. Are you two just friends or…?”
“‘Or’…? What do you think?” I teased him, but Chiki shook his head and asked more directly:
“Are you guys dating? Or not?”
“This fella’s a little too forward, and annoyingly immature,” Hori said.
“He’s still got to learn his manners, huh?” I replied. Chiki then pointed right at my face.
“Don’cha gotta hurry home tonight?”
There was something hilarious about how Chiki said “don’cha” whenever he was trying to lecture me.
“Don’cha think your husband’ll start to worry?”
“That’s nothing a child like you has to be concerned about.”
“But he’s gonna be real mad if you come home late.”
“It’s fine. He’s working late tonight, too,” I replied.
“Huh. You both always go home late?”
“Yep.”
“Why d’you live together, then?”
To keep up the act. For appearances. But would Chiki even understand that?
“What d’you like to do for fun?” Chiki asked me.
“Good question… I guess I like to drink wine and daydream, kind of like what I’m doing now. And I like being with you, Chiki.”
“D’you like bein’ with Hori?”
“He’s really fun to be around.”
“You like him?”
“Oh, well…I—”
“Chiki, quit it. Stop teasing the adults.” Hori smacked Chiki’s peach-colored head in a fluster.
“Owie. Why’d you hit me?”
“Because you don’t know when to keep your mouth shut.”
“Dun pretend you weren’t curious.”
“Shh! Chiki, come on. Stop.”
“Why? You like Kaori, don’cha?”
“Sorry about him,” I said. “He’s being such a brat.”