“Are you sure I can’t come?” he tried again. “I’m retired, so I have lots of free time. To pretend to be your grandpa, see?”
“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me or anything. I’m used to it,” said Hikaru. “Well, bye.” The boy raised one hand lightly and left.
“You’re a fool,” said Takiji to himself, watching the boy’s bicycle leaving the car park. It should have been obvious to him that he’d be rejected. Was the boy supposed to take the ravings of a strange old man seriously? He should have just scolded them all for fighting.
Except, he thought, it wasn’t pity that had caused him to call out to those boys. He was surprised to learn it was so painful for the child that his parents couldn’t come to the school field day. Takiji, as Nanao was only too happy to remind him, had no real memory of actually attending any of her field days. On the other hand, he had a definite recollection of skipping one, in favor of a round or two of golf to entertain clients. Of course, Junko had been up early in the morning for their daughter’s field day each year, making a picnic lunch for the event, and she would take the girl’s grandparents as well. So at least his daughter never had the experience of eating lunch alone with the staff. But somehow, Hikaru’s face and the face of his daughter in her youth seemed to overlap in his mind. Nanao might very well have had the same distraught look on her face as this boy, waiting for a father who never came…
Takiji tossed his empty can of coffee into the rubbish and returned to his apartment.
The following day, a little after noon, the situation changed. He went down to the ground floor to get a can of coffee, and who should be standing in front of the lift but Hikaru.
“Oh, good! I found you.” Hikaru smiled.
“Why?” Takiji asked.
“You looked sort of familiar, so I thought you might be from the building. I hung around here, thinking I might see you.”
Hikaru said this a little proudly, and then, “So…” He looked away for a moment. “Maybe you can come to field day with me after all?”
Takiji murmured in surprise, “You changed your mind. Why?”
“They all came to my house this morning and wanted to practice together. They didn’t believe me about yesterday. I tried to ignore them, but they were really bugging me.” Hikaru shrugged. “Finally I told them not to worry about it, that we were doing a special secret training routine, just the two of us. So, um…if it’s okay with you, I mean, I was wondering, could we?”
Hikaru looked up at Takiji nervously.
“Just the three-legged race would be enough. It’s in the afternoon, so you’d only have to come for a little while then.”
“Might I come in the morning as well?” Takiji said, and Hikaru looked at him in surprise.
“I haven’t been to a field day in ages. I wonder if you’d let me come to yours and enjoy it as your grandfather, just for that one day?”
“Um…you’re sure you wouldn’t mind?” Hikaru’s cheeks blushed red. Looking at his face made Takiji very happy, somehow. Someone is glad that I’ll be there. “Good. Now, I have a favor to ask you. You’ve told your friends that we’re doing some kind of special training together in secret, haven’t you? Shall we practice a little together starting now?”
“Really? Yes! Let’s do it!” Hikaru’s voice was suddenly sounding a whole lot louder.
“Well then, wait over there in the dine-in space for me while I change into some gym clothes. And I’ll need trainers for this.”
With light steps, Takiji returned to his room and dug around in the closet. When they’d moved here, they decided to declutter their lives, and he had ditched all his suits and golf clothing. But there was probably at least an old tracksuit around somewhere.
“Aha! Got it.”
He pulled out a tracksuit that hadn’t seen the light of day for a long time and put it on. He also stuffed an old necktie into his pocket to use as a tie for the three-legged race, and after wrestling for a while with the trainers, he returned to Hikaru.
Oimatsu Park was a quiet, peaceful place near the apartment building. With no shortage of free time on his hands, Takiji had wandered over to the library in the park once or twice, but this was the first time he’d come here for the purpose of exercise. He looked at it with fresh eyes. People were running or walking everywhere. A group of foreigners posed for a photo with an old man on a red cargo bike. He had seen the fellow around the neighborhood more than once, and always wondered what his story was. Takiji looked at him curiously for a moment, wondering if he might be some sort of local celebrity, but that wasn’t important right now. He shook his head and shifted his attention to the boy.
First things first. Standing by the Manneken Pis fountain in the center of the park, Takiji and Hikaru turned to each other and made their introductions.
“Minakata Hikaru. Fifth grader at Moji Elementary School Number Two. Pleased to meet you.”
Takiji watched as the boy bowed his head in formal greeting. He seemed a little small for a fifth-grade student. His face was tanned from the sun and looked healthy. Takiji saw an intelligent gleam in the boy’s eyes as they met his own.
“Takiji Ōtsuka. I’m going to be your grandfather, so would it be all right if I called you Hikaru?”
“Sure. And I guess I should call you Grandpa?”
“Of course.”
Nodding, Takiji repressed a smile. Grandpa. It had a nice ring to it. He had thought the day would never come that he would be addressed in that way.
“Well, Hikaru. Let’s get started on our training, shall we? We can use this instead of the usual hachimaki.” He took out the necktie and used it to bind the boy’s skinny ankle to his own. He took an awkward pleasure in the childlike activity.
“Are you good at sports, Grandpa?”
“I used to be good, but now, well, I wonder…” He had given up golf, and hadn’t done anything remotely resembling exercise in years. His belly had started to protrude and his blood sugar was high enough that he had started taking a little walk in the evenings.
“Well, in any case, let’s give it a try and see, shall we? Today we’ll just focus on our breathing.”
The two of them walked around the park grounds until the sun went down. As they walked, they talked about everything that came to mind. About how Hikaru’s father worked as a care manager at a nursing home. How the staff there was shorthanded, so everyone was always busy. And how that was why Hikaru often had to eat alone.
“I was making a fried egg, and I burned myself. So after that, my father said I shouldn’t cook while I was alone.”
Hikaru still had the scar, like a pink snake on his right arm. “The frying pan tipped over,” he said regretfully.
“And that’s why the convenience store bento?”
“My father says the dine-in space there is clean, and there are always grown-ups watching, so it’s safe.”
“Hmm,” Takiji murmured. With all the store employees and apartment residents coming and going so frequently, that place would certainly be less dangerous for a child.
“Sometimes I get food to go, but when I eat by myself at home, somehow it doesn’t taste so good.”
“That’s very true.” Takiji nodded seriously. He knew well enough the empty feeling of eating alone.
But although Hikaru felt lonely spending time by himself, it seemed he didn’t blame his father for that. When he spoke of his father, not even the hint of a shadow darkened his face.
“He takes care of a lot of elderly people, but he remembers everything about everyone so well, it’s like there’s a computer in his head. Like Mr. Takigawa needs to have his food pureed, and Mrs. Okita has a rubber allergy. People’s lives depend on him, so he can’t just do whatever and think it will be okay.”
Hikaru’s father clearly believed in his work. And Hikaru could see that clearly in him. Takiji watched the boy’s face, radiant with pride as he told his father’s story. They were a good pair, this father and son.
Takiji knew it was an extremely difficult task to manage a full-time job, childcare, and housework, all perfect and all at the same time. Like many others, he had lived his life entrusting everything other than his job to Junko. So it seemed obvious that there was much more to Hikaru’s father than met the eye. Even so, he wanted to tell the man that his boy needed more care. Work was important, but the boy’s field day came only once a year. He should be able to find at least enough time to show his face there.
He’s probably completely unaware of this, Takiji thought. You need to work and earn a living, or it’s no way to raise a child. An old phrase came to mind: “A child must see his father’s back, bent in hard work.” In the grip of such concerns, there was no space to consider a child’s feelings. He had been that way himself. He had believed that earning money and leading a financially unencumbered life was the number one priority. It would never have occurred to him to prioritize his daughter’s field day over a day at work.
“Let’s take first place in this three-legged race, shall we?” Takiji smiled at Hikaru. “And try to top your class, too. Shall we do that? Then you’d really have something to tell your father.”
Hikaru gave him a shy smile. They had been working hard on their pacing for a while now, and sweat was running down the boy’s temples. Takiji’s tracksuit, too, was clinging to his back. His calves were throbbing and would probably be sore in a day or two.
He looked around. The sun had nearly set. The horizon was a blend of orange and purple, while far off in the opposite direction the sky was beginning to turn black. The night’s first star was twinkling above them.
“Well now, it’s getting dark. Shall we call it a day?”
“It’s already evening? Hey, do you think maybe we can practice together again another time?”
“Of course. If it suits you, let’s make a date to meet here late afternoon tomorrow.” Takiji was about to add, “Only if you really want to, that is,” but before he could speak, the boy’s face lit up. “All right!” he said happily. “That’s okay? Then I’ll come right after school.”
“Will you? Well then.” Takiji felt a flush of emotion at the boy’s response. “Then it’s a date. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Takiji returned to his apartment suffused with a pleasant tiredness. Entering the deserted apartment, he felt a little of the old loneliness, but calling to mind Hikaru’s happy face, he soon forgot all about it.