Chapter 1

I didn’t know about these things until I started high school, Takao Akizuki thinks. Some stranger’s umbrella is getting the hem of his blazer wet. He can smell the lingering traces of mothballs locked in the fibers of a suit. His back is too warm where someone is pressed against it. An unpleasant wind from the air conditioner is blowing right in his face. It’s been two months since he started riding the crowded morning train, and the idea that three more years of this purgatory await him is like a hopeless weight on his soul. In an attempt to keep from touching the other riders, he plants his feet and grips the ceiling strap hard enough to make his fingertips go numb. I don’t belong here, he thinks, irritated. He once read a manga that belonged to his brother about a killer who mowed people down with a machine gun, and right now he envisions himself doing the same. After all, it’s just a thought. If there was a killer, though… Takao promptly reconsiders. I’d be one of the victims. Just a fifteen-year-old kid. Nothing special. Outside the small train window and partially blocked by sullen, silent heads, the rain-soaked city streams past. The landscape is dulled by thick rain clouds, except for the sharp lights of the condominiums and mixed-use buildings. Thin slices of other people’s daily lives flicker past him in an unceasing river—the reflection of a TV information program in a table, a tight skirt moving through a kitchenette, faded posters on walls, an umbrella dashing out of a bicycle parking lot—and the unknown world beyond him is overwhelming. And infuriating. He’s fifteen years old. He knows so little. Before long, the car leans into a gentle right curve. When he begins to see the ranks of skyscrapers through the gaps between the mixed-use buildings, Takao closes his eyes. He knows what’s coming. One, two, three, four… When the slow count in his head reaches eight, a low rumble builds to a burst of wind pressure that rocks the whole car. He opens his eyes as the windows of the Chuo Line flash by like a strip of film, just beyond the windows of his own train. The same time as always. Two more minutes until I’m out of this hellbox. He can’t wait. “Shinjukuuu, Shinjukuuu.” Takao is ejected onto the platform just as the announcement sounds, and he sucks in short, deep breaths of cold, rainy May air. As the mindless human current washes him toward the stairs, he thinks, This is it, and looks up. Beyond the long, thin ribbon of sky between the platform roofs, the Docomo Yoyogi building looms like an uncharted mountain peak, blurred by the rain. His steps slow, and a few people bump into his back, including a businessman, who makes his frustration known. But Takao ignores him and spends two more seconds there, drinking in the sight of the rain and the tower. The falling water carries the scent of the distant, unreachable sky down to him. This is no day to be riding the lousy subway, he decides, and the frustration inside him begins to unspool and dissolve. Going down the Sobu Line stairs, he turns his back on the Marunouchi Line transfer gate, walks quickly through the JR Central East ticket gate, and runs up the stairs by the Lumine EST building with newfound cheer. Popping open his clear vinyl umbrella, he steps out into the downpour, and the plastic above his head becomes a surround-sound speaker playing the sound of rain. Patter patter patter. It’s so pleasant as he makes his way through the crowd at the southeast gate. This early in the morning, the Shinjuku commuters are joined by all sorts of other people. Men and women, probably nightclub staff who were drinking up until just a little while ago; a line of about a dozen people waiting for the pachinko parlor to open; a group of similar-looking Asian tourists, perhaps a large family; an odd couple wearing cosplay-style uniforms, whose ages and occupations are impossible to guess. It’s so weird, he thinks. If today had been sunny, I’d be so angry to see them here. I would’ve wished death on all of them, and yet… Maybe it’s because they all have umbrellas up—because the rain falls on all of them equally. On a rainy day, when he walks along by himself in his high school uniform, he’s just another part of the scenery. Somewhere along the way, the curses and hatred he held on the train have dispersed completely. He crosses the congested Koshu-Kaido Avenue and passes the permanently unfinished construction site for the Loop 5 road, and a dark, dense forest rises before him. The enormous national park straddles the boundary between Shinjuku and Shibuya Wards. On rainy mornings, it’s practically deserted, almost as if it’s there just for him. The clack of the automatic gate sounds oddly loud in the empty park. The gate eats his ¥200 park entry ticket. I really need to get an annual pass next time, he thinks, and then he steps into the park. He’ll need to take an ID photo and pay ¥1,000, but that ¥200 per visit has added up to a ridiculous amount already. He’s worried about being questioned about his school uniform during the application process, though, which has given him some pause. With such thoughts running through his head, he strolls down a path among the Himalayan and Lebanon cedars, and then the air and sounds and scents suddenly change. The temperature comes down a full degree, the scent of water and new greenery fills the air, and despite the rain, he can hear the contented singing of wild birds. On the other side of a mixed forest of metasequoias and sawtooth oaks, there’s a traditional Japanese garden with a pond. The sound of raindrops and their innumerable ripples whispers hauntingly from its surface. Seriously, how… The emotion aching in his chest is one he’s felt many times before. This world is so intricate, he thinks, spellbound. Hundreds of millions of raindrops, trillions of ripples, all intertwined with each other—no matter where or when he looks, the interplay never breaks down. It’s perfection. How could someone ever hope to realize perfection like this with skill? And by comparison… As he walks over the arched bridge to the far side of the pond, Takao looks down at his feet. The moccasins he’s wearing are heavy and waterlogged through the gaps in their stitching, clopping awkwardly with each step. I’ll have to start making new shoes this weekend, he thinks, but it doesn’t affect his excitement. He did a decent bit of waterproofing on these handmade moccasins, but they aren’t going to last long in a season as rainy as this one. He’ll make the next pair last two months, he decides, and he looks up from the crest of the bridge at the wide expanse of cloudy sky to the west. The Yoyogi building is visible here, too, and it looks even bigger. It watches him from high above as the tip of the tower gently dissolves into the clouds on the other side of a misty curtain. That’s right. I saw this tower back then, too, from the cold grass at Meiji Shrine. It’s been over two years since then, but all the emotions of that moment rise inside him again—the joy, the pain, the resolve—as if they’ve thawed out of ice. However, he also notices that the sting has turned into something faintly bittersweet. I’m still a kid, but at least… At least I’m beginning to understand what I like, and where I’m headed, he thinks. The thunder rumbles faintly in the distance, as if in answer. * * * Takao Akizuki had started middle school as Takao Fujisawa. About three months after his first year of middle school began, his mother came home early one night—an unusual event. The two of them finished dinner, and not long after his mother’s evening drink had changed from beer to shochu, she asked him a question. “Takao, do you have a girlfriend?” “Huh? No…” When he looked at his mother’s face, mystified, her eyes were red and bloodshot. She looks awful when she’s drunk, he thought, but he held a glass of ice water out to her. She ignored it and instead dumped more shochu and hot water into a ceramic tumbler, stirring them together with a muddler. …Ugh. She’s planning to drink more. “Hey, Mom, should I put out some edamame for you?” “Don’t bother. Say, you wanna drink a little, too, Takao?” Who even has parents like this? he thought with disgust. “No.” “Aw, pull that stick outta your butt. I had my first boyfriend and my first drink in my first year of middle school.” He’d been wondering what she was going to come up with this time, and apparently it was tales of her checkered love life. Right after starting middle school, she’d dated the baseball club member who had the seat next to hers, but a few months later, a senior member of the soccer club had told her he liked her; she hadn’t been able to decide between them, so she dumped the baseball player. After that, she’d fallen hard for a high schooler she saw on the train on the way to school. She’d worked up the courage to ambush him at the station and give him a love letter, and miraculously, he’d said okay. He’d come over to her house from time to time, and their parents had given the green light, too; she’d gotten her first kiss in her bedroom, and she still remembered the pure happiness of that moment, but then a boy from another school had given her a love letter at the station, and— “Hang on,” Takao interrupted. “What?” “Look, most kids don’t want to hear about their mom’s kisses. When Dad gets home, tell him about it. And you really need to drink some water so you can work tomorrow. You’ve been drinking a little too much today, Mom.” After his rant, Takao stood from his chair and was preparing to escape to his room when he noticed his mother had fallen silent. Her eyes were red, and the liquor wasn’t why. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, and he noticed that her voice seemed dark and melancholy around the edges. “I was trying to say that in middle school, you’re basically already an adult. You know things can get complicated.” Takao had a bad feeling about this. His mother was still just a couple of years over forty; her hair softly framed her face with its loose wave. She was wearing a pink sleeveless blouse, and tears were pooling in her large eyes. Even to her son, she looked very young. “Your dad and I have decided to get a divorce.” That night, Takao had his first drink. In the dead of night, he crept into the kitchen alone, lit only by a yellow night-light. He popped open a can of his mother’s beer, complaining to himself the whole time. Are you kidding me? Gimme a break! His mother had told him they’d waited for his big brother to find a job and for Takao to start middle school. “You’re both adults now, so I know you’ll understand.” Are you kidding me? He chugged the beer noisily. Gluck, gluck, gluck. The pungent smell of alcohol almost made him spit it out, and his eyes were tearing up, but he forced it all down. What the hell? This is nasty. But he put the can to his lips again. Sure, my brother’s an adult. He was feeling queasy now. We’re eleven years apart. But I’m—just in my first year of middle school. We aren’t adults. “God, what the hell? Couldn’t you wait three more years?” He didn’t have any solid grounds for thinking so, but first-years in high school were probably adults. Meaning if this had happened three years from now…, he mused through the dull ache beginning in his head. But middle schoolers are kids. Everybody knows that. He felt like he was going to die, but he still emptied two cans of beer, then cut shochu with cold water and drank that, too. It smelled even worse than the beer. Still, the alcohol put Takao to sleep that night. The next morning, of course, he had a roaring hangover, and he ended up skipping school. Another first. He felt dirty. “So, Fujisawa, you’re really Akizuki?” “I guess. My mom’s the one who has custody.” It was December of his first year in middle school. Takao had only just managed to grow past five feet, but Miho Kasuga, who was walking beside him, was still half a head shorter. She was conscientiously wearing their school’s designated duffle coat, even though it wasn’t a school day, and her twin ponytails only deepened her resemblance to an elementary schooler. As for Takao, the navy-blue down jacket he was wearing was a hand-me-down from his brother, but on his feet were a pair of leather sneakers he’d spent forever picking out. They were umber and low cut, and the leather still had an elegant luster to it even though he’d bought them used. Their previous owner must have taken good care of them. “But you’re Fujisawa at school, right?” “She probably thought that getting my name changed in the middle of my first year would’ve been too rough on me. They’re letting me stay Fujisawa until graduation, even on the register. My mom was so proud of herself when she told me about it.” He bitterly remembered that it was all his mother had actually done. “What about your brother?” “He’s with us, too. We don’t see him much now that he’s working, though. He gets home late, and he leaves for work before I get up in the mornings.” He could sense Miho’s mood falling, but he pretended not to notice and injected a bit more cheer into his tone. “Look, that’s Meiji Shrine, right? Pretty easy walk from Shinjuku.” Against the buildings lining the four-lane road and the weighty Metropolitan Expressway overpass, the contrast of the forest looked like a bad Photoshop job. His dates with Miho Kasuga were always walks around parks. Maybe dates wasn’t the word for them—after all, they weren’t even officially a couple—but in any case, they often spent their days off together. When they’d exhausted most of the parks along their train route—Inokashira, Shakujii, Koganei, Musashino, Showa Memorial—Miho had suggested visiting the ones in the city center, too. Takao hadn’t been particularly interested in nature when they started, but he couldn’t spend money on movie theaters and aquariums and the like every time they went out, and Miho’s excitement over the flowers and trees was fun to watch. Thanks to her, he’d learned the names of quite a few birds and plants. Besides, Takao had grown up in the colorless public apartments of Suginami; he wasn’t quite over the discovery that there was anywhere this green in metropolitan Tokyo. “I like these little places, with just trees instead of houses or schools or trees,” Miho had once told him in a carefree sort of way. Even if he didn’t say it, Takao thought she was more of an adult than he was. At least she knew what she liked. He doubted many others at school did. He certainly didn’t. “It’s so warm,” Miho said, holding a plastic cup in both hands. They’d wandered all over the vast precincts of Meiji Shrine together, taken a picture standing side by side in front of the big torii gate, read the prayers written on the ranks of votive tablets that hung outside the main hall, and even lined up to visit Kiyomasa’s Well. All the activity had left them exhausted, and now they were sitting side by side on the dry grass, drinking coffee with milk that Takao had brought in a thermos. The cold winter air was clear as the sound of a bell, and the sugar in the hot, creamy coffee was pleasant on his tongue. For the past few months, he had felt like a child lost at the supermarket—anxious and lonely. His only respite from the constant anxiety and loneliness was the time he spent with Miho, when those feelings disappeared like magic. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky that December afternoon; the blue, transparent canvas overhead was full of light. Beyond the bare tree branches, the lines of the white Docomo Yoyogi building were perfectly straight, as if it had been cut out of the sky. The chill of the winter earth that rose from the grass to the small of his back was equally balanced by the warmth of the bright sun and by Miho’s body heat as she leaned lightly against his arm. Girls are so soft. The moment he became conscious of the sensation, he wanted nothing more than to hold Miho tight and never let go. Then, before he knew it, before he could even think, Takao had kissed her on the lips. The contact didn’t even last a second, but the euphoria of that moment sent a thrill of delight all the way down to his toes. And then he remembered what his mother had said, and everything turned to ice. “I still remember how happy that kiss made me. It was my first year of middle school…” “—Let’s go home.” The irritation had taken over so suddenly that even he was startled, and before he even noticed the words leaving his mouth, his feet were carrying him away. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Miho, still sitting in shock, but his rapid strides did not slow. “Huh? Hey, Fujisawa, wait just a minute!” You need to tell her you’re sorry now. You should stop. You should wait. The thoughts were in his head, but they didn’t transfer to his body. Hastily grabbing the thermos Takao had abandoned, Miho ran after him until her head was alongside his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” She looked up into his face, worried. It made him shut down even harder. He walked briskly and silently back down the road through the park toward Shinjuku Station. Petite Miho almost had to run to keep up; he could tell from the sound of her footsteps. Even without turning around, Takao was painfully aware that she was about to cry. The shadows of the trees along the street streamed under his feet, blurring together one after another. Before he knew it, black clouds had filled the sky; the sun had set behind the buildings, the streetlamps had begun to glow, and the temperature was coming down. They reached the South Gate of Shinjuku Station in less than half the time it had taken them to reach the shrine. Once they were there, Takao finally turned to Miho. She held the thermos out to him, and he awkwardly took it. “…Thanks. Sorry,” he said with some difficulty, staring at the floor by her feet. “Mm-hmm…” Miho’s response sounded like a sigh. That was when Takao noticed her shoes, a pair of low heels with ribbons on them. She was holding one heel off the ground. Had he made her get a blister? There was a faint sheen of sweat on Miho’s forehead; once her breathing had slowed a bit, some of the strength returned to her voice. “I was glad I got to see you today, Fujisawa… It had been a little while.” It was evening, and the crowds in front of the ticket gate were getting even denser, surrounding them with thousands of conversations and footfalls. “Will you be coming to school tomorrow?” Miho’s question sounded a bit like a challenge. Takao didn’t know how to answer; he kept staring at the floor. The temperature had fallen a little further again. His toes were cold. He was pretty sure Miho’s were even colder. “…You know, you’re not the only one who thinks you’ve got it worse than everybody else. It’s pathetic.” Startled, he looked up. For a moment, he thought the words had come from a passing stranger, but Miho was glaring at him with tears beading in her eyes. I have to say something, Takao thought. But what was there to say…? He struggled desperately to find the answer, as if this were a test and he had only one minute left on the clock, and he grabbed the first one that came to mind. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Kasuga.” His voice was shaking a little, and he was surprised by how childish his own words sounded. But Miho didn’t flinch. “You’re right. It doesn’t. But Fujisawa, there must be ten kids in each grade with divorced parents. It’s nothing special, like, at all, and sulking over it like this just makes you look dumb.” Takao’s face flushed bright red before he even identified the feeling as shame. He stared at Miho in disbelief. Who on earth was this slight girl in front of him? “If you don’t want to come to school, you’re free to skip. But don’t think you’re making some sort of statement. I thought you were mature, Fujisawa, but I was dead wrong. You don’t even know how to treat people!” Stunned, Takao gazed at the tears spilling from Miho’s eyes. The Miho I know, the one who walked miles and miles with me, would never have said anything this forceful, he thought. She can see everything I’m feeling, and what have I seen about her? Miho looked down, then walked away with a quiet parting shot. “—And after you finally worked up the nerve to kiss me, too.” Her small form passed through the ticket gate and rapidly vanished into the crowd. He walked all the way home from Shinjuku, about two hours. The idea of taking the crowded outbound train was too much for him right now. It had started to drizzle soon after he set out, and by the time he passed Nakano, it was raining in earnest, but Takao just bowed his head and kept going. The rain was on the cusp of turning to snow, chilling him to the point of pain, while his too-new sneakers made friction sores on his feet. The pain was oddly comforting, and he wasn’t sure how to feel. He almost hoped he’d get lost for real, although he knew it couldn’t possibly count as punishment. Even so, when the public apartment building began to come into view beyond the rain, illuminated by the streetlights, Takao was so relieved, he almost burst into tears. It wasn’t a workday, but no one was home when he got back. But that was nothing new these days. His brother worked late on the weekends as well, and his mom was probably off on a date somewhere with some random middle-aged guy. After a cursory rubdown with a bath towel, he changed clothes. Then, still freezing and emotionally overwhelmed, Takao crouched down in the entryway and opened the shoe rack. A multicolored assortment of women’s shoes reflected the light dully, like shells with curious shapes on display in a museum. Orthodox brown mules, dressy open-toed black heels, ankle boots and knee-high boots, sneakers with chunky soles that seemed too young for her, mustard-colored wedges, deep-purple high heels—every pair in the rack was one his mother wore frequently during winter alone; there were easily five times this many shoes in the hall closet, stuffed into boxes. Takao started taking pairs off the rack, putting shoe trees into the ones that didn’t have them, using a brush to dust them off as best he could when his hands were shaking with cold, working an emulsifying cream into shoes that needed it, then polishing them with a cotton rag. He was used to this work, and little by little, it calmed him down. The heater finally began to warm up the room, and gradually, his shivering subsided. His mother loved shoes, and maintaining them had been Takao’s job since he was very young. As a grade schooler, Takao had been fascinated by women’s multifarious shoes the way other kids his age loved model trains or robots. His feelings toward his mother were completely different from what they had been back then, but this habit still relaxed him. When he focused on shoes, he could clear his mind completely. That was why Takao didn’t hear the approaching footsteps, and he didn’t realize his brother was home until the door opened with a heavy metallic clank. His brother, who was wearing a loose overcoat, startled when he saw Takao in the entryway. “I’m home,” he murmured curtly, folding his umbrella and taking off his leather shoes. Snow slid from the umbrella and plopped down right in front of him. “Yeah,” Takao mumbled, edging closer to the wall without looking up. The standard return greetings used to come easily to him, but now the words wouldn’t come out. After he had finished polishing and was closing the shoe rack, he heard his brother’s contemptuous voice. “You’re still doing that?” His suit had been replaced with a hoodie, and he held a can of beer in one hand. Takao felt as if he’d entered some stranger’s house without permission. “It’s nothing… I just felt like it,” he answered awkwardly. “You’re such a weird kid, you know that?” The moment he heard the words, a violent impulse to yell welled up inside him, but he didn’t know what he should yell or whom to yell at, so he swallowed it all down. It was just like the beer; swallowing just brought tears to his eyes. As his brother receded into the living room, he could see Miho disappearing through the ticket gate and his father walking out the door. Everybody turns into a stranger with me. “That’s what I mean by acting spoil……take this?!” Somewhere in his aching head, his sodden brain, he heard snatches of what sounded like an argument. “…running away because you can’t handle……he’s still just a kid…” “What about me?” “You think I don’t feel like crying, too?!” Heavy footsteps, striding across the floor, then a sharp bang! as the sliding door slammed shut. When he opened his heavy eyelids a crack, the light streaming in only made his headache worse. Blurry as she was, he saw his mother sitting across the table from him. Her elbows were on the table, her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. “…Are you crying?” Takao asked in a small voice. His mother raised her head, smiling at him, her mascara streaked and running. “You’re crying, too, silly.” And Takao realized his cheeks were wet. …Oh, right. I didn’t want to go back to our room with my brother, so I was in the kitchen drinking Mom’s shochu, and I fell asleep. “Cut that out already. If you drink any more of my liquor, I’m gonna start charging for it.” “Ha-ha.” Laughing made his head throb. You were the one who offered it to me, remember? Dimly, Takao remembered that there was something he had to say to her. “…Mom.” “Hmm?” “You guys got divorced three years too early. I’m still a kid.” When his mother heard that, tears welled up in her eyes. She smiled and looked down to hide it. “Oh, I know, Takao. I’m sorry.” The heat of his own tears on his cheeks was almost pleasant as Takao slipped back into a drunken sleep. Takao’s worries proved to be unfounded. When he went to school again for the first time in two weeks, none of his classmates gave him strange looks. The most he got was “Hey, you showed,” from his guy friends and “Oh, Fujisawa. It’s been a while, huh?” and some laughter from the girls. Even the teachers only gave him a brief warning not to skip again when they took attendance. To Takao, all the reactions were more embarrassing than reassuring. During lunch, he went to the third-years’ classroom and looked for Miho Kasuga. He didn’t find her, and after school, he looked again to no success. He wondered if he’d made her catch a cold. He’d already decided what he’d say when he saw her. First, he’d apologize for the incident at the park. After that—he’d tell her about his decision. He wouldn’t be able to manage it right away, but he would become an adult by the time he changed from Fujisawa to Akizuki—by the time he graduated from middle school. More specifically, he’d stop drinking and skipping school because he was sulking and wanted somebody to pay attention to him. He’d know what he was looking for, and what he wanted to say to whom, the way Miho did. And he’d tell her that he wanted to go walking in parks together again, if she did. Eventually, he gave up and decided to try again tomorrow, and he was headed for the school gate when he passed a girl he recognized. She was a third-year student he’d seen with Miho a few times. “Um, excuse me.” “Hmm? You’re Fujisawa, aren’t you.” “Huh? How did you know my…?” “You talked to Miho sometimes, didn’t you? She told me about you, too.” “…I see. Um, was Kasuga not in school today?” The girl looked at him with confusion that gradually turned to pity. “You mean she didn’t tell you?” That was when Takao learned that Miho’s parents had divorced, and she’d already moved away. He didn’t have a cell phone, so he had no way to contact her. Miho was two years older, so he didn’t know what she’d seen in him, or wanted to see. After he learned the news, he asked Miho’s friend to send her one brief text from him. I’ve decided to grow up, it said. It was several weeks before he received a response, again through the friend: Give it your best, Takao Akizuki. * * * He’s on the far side of the bridge, and the sound of the rain changes slightly yet again. He can hear the rustling of the leaves, which is louder than the splashes on the water. The clear twitter of a mountain white-eye twines around the noise of his moccasins slowly compressing the soil. He can see the surface of the water beyond the black pines, reflecting the pink of the azaleas, the red bark of the umbrella pines, the dazzling green of the maple leaves. A large-billed crow calls assertively in the distance. Come to think of it, Miho taught me their names long ago, Takao remembers. The memory feels like a distant light, and he has to squint against it. From the far reaches of the sky, another rumble reaches his ears. The thunder whispers. The phrase abruptly surfaces in Takao’s mind, then vanishes. What was that? Had he heard the words somewhere? He can’t even remember the phrase itself now, although it was in his mind only a moment ago. Something like a premonition quietly fills him. Beyond the wet maple leaves, the arbor where he always shelters from the rain comes into view. But it’s already occupied. Takao steps closer, but he feels as if he’s seeing something that shouldn’t exist. The veil of leaves falls behind him, revealing the whole structure. The intruder is a woman in a suit. Takao stops in his tracks. The woman is holding a can of beer near her lips, and her soft hair is trimmed evenly above her shoulders. She casually glances his way. For just a moment, their eyes meet. In that moment, for no reason, Takao thinks, The rain might stop soon.