After he left Mojikō, a month passed in the blink of an eye. Yoshirō was leading a boring life at his parents’ house, as he had predicted. At first his elderly parents were overjoyed at their son’s homecoming, but that quickly shifted to a litany of complaints: “Isn’t it about time you found some work?” “You know, this all happened because you’re single.” And so forth. He visited Hello Work, the government employment center, but he couldn’t find the right job, and there wasn’t much he could do about that.
Things weren’t great at home, so he’d go out, but there was nothing much to do within walking distance. How was he supposed to kill time in a place with nothing but mountains, rice paddies, and a few family farms? Mojikō wasn’t a big city, but it had at least been fairly convenient in that respect. Daily life there was free of even the most minor inconveniences, and all the pleasures of Hakata were less than an hour away by train. Tenderness coffee was a five-minute walk from his front door. It had become such a regular part of his life that he had taken it for granted, but he realized how lucky he had been to have that small luxury so close at hand—particularly now, when the nearest convenience store was twenty-five minutes away, and that was by car.
He sprawled on his bed, gazing at the ceiling. He couldn’t stop wondering how this had become his future. Where and how did it all go wrong? What if I had never met Mogi? If I had never had the crazy dream of being a manga illustrator? But no matter how he thought about it, the truth was, he had always loved manga.
“I’m such a fool!”
As he was muttering to himself, his mother, Satomi, called out, “Yoshirō! Are you there? I need your help! We’re throwing out the old reception set in the barn.”
He looked out the window. An orange hue was beginning to steal across the sky. Why were they clearing out the barn at this hour? But if he asked that, Satomi’s good mood would turn bad quickly. With a sigh, Yoshirō went outside.
“Mum, what do you…?”
Scratching his head, he entered the barn. Just then, a loud voice called out, “Yep, that’s the guy!” He looked over. It was none other than the bearded man who was eating curry next to him that time at the Tenderness.
“Gotcha! I thought you’d be somewhere around here.” The man bounded over and gave Yoshirō a few hearty slaps on the back. “I’ve been searching for you.”
“Ow! Um, okay, what the heck…?” That the man remembered him at all was strange enough, but Yoshirō couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the man would want with him.
“What do you mean?” asked Satomi, who was standing in front of a dilapidated faux-leather sofa.
“I’ve been searching! For him,” the man cheerfully replied. “Me, I’ve always been really good at treasure hunts, hide and seek—finding things is my specialty. So I was pretty sure I could find him.” The man gave a deep belly laugh. Then he turned to Satomi and started issuing instructions: “Okay, Auntie—before we do all that, let’s get this into the truck. Hold it right there.”
This is all happening too fast, thought Yoshirō, gingerly rubbing his back.
“M-Mum? You know this guy?”
“Oh yes, he’s the handyman. We call him ‘the whatever lad.’ He comes around from time to time. There are a lot of seniors in the area, so it’s useful to have a young man to come and do some of the heavy lifting, don’t you think? You’re a little too weak and not that much help, so…”
After this cutting remark, Satomi asked, “And you? How do you know Mr. Shiba? Are you friends?” Before Yoshirō could answer, the man gave a calm nod.
“We shared some egg sandwiches.”
Yoshirō wanted to ask if that alone qualified them as friends, but the name that Satomi had called the man drew his attention.
“Shiba?”
He knew that name. Wasn’t that…? But before he could ask, the man responded, “Oh, he’s my brother. My younger brother, the store manager.”
“You don’t look like him.” He blurted out the thought before he could stop himself. They were nothing alike, not at all. He couldn’t believe that they were brothers, this disheveled, shaggy man and the other one, who seemed to have sex appeal baked into his every fiber. The man must have been used to such a reaction; he simply nodded and said, “We have the same two parents. Brothers for sure. Yep, call me Tsugi.”
Before Yoshirō could respond, the man—Tsugi, apparently—carried off the sofa with his mother’s help. From outside the barn came Satomi’s voice: “Yoshirō, you help, too!” Yoshirō hurriedly picked up a small ottoman.
After they had somehow managed to fit all the furniture into Tsugi’s truck, Satomi pointed to a stack of cardboard boxes piled up at one end of the barn, and said to Yoshirō, “Now, what about these? He also takes paper for recycling. Should we have him take these?”
Yoshirō was at a loss for words. The boxes contained all of Yoshirō’s accumulated drafts and artwork. He had intended to burn them in a corner of a field that Satomi was tending, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. So instead he had carried them out to the barn, where at least they’d be out of sight.
“Seems they’re too much for you to handle yourself,” Satomi added.
“Uh, yeah. I guess so, but…”
Looking at the large cardboard boxes, Satomi said, “Even at your age, you still love ’em, don’t you? It would have been nice if you could have made a living off ’em. But it didn’t work out. Life is like that. Only a handful get to put rice in the pot by doing what they love.”
Yoshirō hung his head at his mother’s sober tone. The woman knew her son well. She understood that he had sacrificed both food and sleep to his passion for manga.
Her tone softened. “It’s time to let it go.” Yoshirō tried to nod.
“You don’t have to let it go.”
Yoshirō turned and found himself face to face with the bushy beard. Tsugi was busy guzzling an energy drink, but between gulps he managed to ask, “What if you just kept on doing it? It’s just drawing, right? If you’ve been able to do it this long while holding down a job at the same time, I think you’ll manage.”
“But I…Well, it’s a question of talent…”
“Talent is being able to keep going,” Tsugi said simply. “Successful people all say that. They just had to find a way to keep going, no matter what. If you can do that for long enough without reward, can’t we call that talent?”