Chapter 4

She’s finally made it. Dragging her heavy feet, she turns the knob of her front door. Come on, Yukino thinks, disgusted with herself. Why is coming back to my apartment enough to wear me out this much? Pulling her high heels off her painfully swollen feet, she strips off her nylons in the entryway, then reaches around and unhooks her bra through her blouse. Setting the heavy book she’s just bought down on the table, she makes for her bed, doing her best not to look at the messy apartment. The things she needs to do keep surfacing in her mind, one after another. It’s high time I picked up these empty cans and bottles. And I should get that melted chocolate off the floor and into the trash. And the laundry is everywhere; need to put that away. Need to clean off the oil on the stove. Need to water the plants; they’re nearly dried out. I have to at least take off my makeup. Without doing a single one of these things, Yukino collapses onto the bed. A thick, liquid drowsiness crawls up over her, as if it’s been awaiting her arrival. Through the window screen, she hears the sound of a scooter going by. Somewhere in the distance, a child is crying. The wind carries the faint scent of dinner to her from some unknown house. She opens her bleary eyes, looking at the upside-down sky. The rain has stopped, and clear purple dusk spreads out before her. One or two stars are twinkling with inconsistent light. Will it rain again tomorrow? Yukino wonders like a prayer. When she closes her eyes, she can still hear the heavy rain drumming clumsily on the arbor roof. Tap, tatap, tap, tap, splish, tap. The irregular rhythm mingles with other noises: the distant calls of crows, the twittering of the ever-cheerful wild birds, and the faint hiss of the ground soaking up the rain. And today, they’re joined by the gentle sounds of sleep. When the snores reached her ears, she looked up from her paperback and realized, Oh. He’s sleeping. It was the boy in his school uniform, the one she only met at the park on rainy mornings, whose name she still didn’t know. He’d been drawing something in his notebook until just a minute before. I wonder if he’s not getting enough sleep. Was he up late studying? Or making shoes? He was resting his head against a pillar, and his thin, boyish chest rose and fell in an even rhythm. She realized, for the first time, how long his lashes were. His youthful skin seemed to glow from the inside; his clean lips were slightly parted, and his defenseless ears were as smooth as a newborn’s. He really is young, huh… She was oddly happy that it was just the two of them in this small arbor in the Japanese garden; she could observe him openly as much as she wanted. God, that was embarrassing. As she gazed absently at the boy’s neck, Yukino was remembering the moment he’d eaten that failure of an omelet. She’d messed up breaking the eggs, and she’d thought she’d fished out all the fragments, but nope. That ugly, awful-tasting omelet had even had shell mixed into it, too. Still, it had been fun. As she replayed the moment in her mind, she started to smile. Actually, it had been a lot of fun. She hadn’t joked around like that in a very long while. “Let’s trade sides,” he’d said. “Serves you right,” she’d said. “You’re clumsier than you look.” “Now you’re making fun of me!!” All of it sounded like cheesy lines from a school drama, but it had been really, really fun. My toes are always cold, even in summer—but they weren’t cold then. But Yukino had felt just as much guilt as enjoyment. I can’t believe I’m spending time like this with a high schooler who’s skipping class! Just because we’re sheltering from the rain together, I’m starting to act like we’re accomplices. I’ve deliberately avoided asking his name after all this time together, and yet I buy him coffee and let him offer me lunch and ask him about his dreams. I haven’t told him anything about me; I’ve just been learning about him, little by little. I’m the last one who should be doing this—this is wrong for both of us. There’s something wrong with me… But still. Just a little longer. Just a little more. She looked at the boy’s face. He was still asleep. This wasn’t just a nap; he was out like a light. I’m surprised he can sleep so well in an arbor like this. She was impressed, and also a tad jealous. Yukino knew from experience that sleeping required energy, too. You needed energy to ride the train, to remove your makeup, to taste your meals. When I was his age, I think I had plenty of energy for those things. And yet now… Hey, kid…, Yukino thought, silently. What do you think of me? Tell me: “Am I still okay?” She asked the question aloud, so softly that her voice melted into the rain before it ever reached his ears. “—And I can actually tell what those box lunches taste like,” Yukino says. “I guess that…taste disorder of yours is getting better, then,” a man’s voice responds from the receiver. He says the words with a question mark: “taste disorder?” Although he sounds concerned for her, the skepticism he still feels about the name of that illness is clear even over the phone. She thinks, in passing, that she used to find it endearing. When his call interrupted her doze on the bed, she dragged herself up, feeling more tired than before she went to sleep, and fished her phone out of her purse on the floor. The display showed her ex-boyfriend’s name. For a moment, she couldn’t decide whether to pick up or just ignore it, but then she remembered she’d been the one who’d called first. As she touched the ANSWER icon with her fingertip, she looked up and saw that the sky outside the window was now completely dark. “No, really. Until just a little while ago, chocolate and alcohol really were the only things that tasted like anything.” Yukino is sitting with her knees drawn to her chest on the sofa—her lone, precious boat in a trash-littered pond. “Right, right. Well, if you’re getting better, then the decision to quit your job must have been the right one,” says her ex. Yukino manages to hold back a sigh. “…Maybe. If I was going to quit anyway, earlier might have been better. The end of the year might have been best.” “Mm, maybe so. But it’s understandable. Leaving your job isn’t an easy decision to make. Just don’t push yourself. Treat it like a vacation and take it easy.” Oh, listen to him. Acting sooo kind, she thinks with some disillusionment, as she shifts her cell phone. He’s so gentle, like I’m made of glass. Back when even breathing hurt, though, he never believed me. He only listened to the people around us. I think that was probably natural. I really do think he wasn’t to blame. If anyone is, it’s me. I was the one who invited all of that. Yet she lost all faith in him anyway. He’s taught her that when a certain type of emotion is lost, it never comes back. It happened during the winter of that year. At first, Yukino thought she was coming down with a cold. She’d been getting the sense that food didn’t have as much flavor lately, but she’d had all sorts of other things to worry about. She was sick and tired of everything and everyone she had to deal with every day, and her health was always off in one way or another. She had headaches and stomachaches and swollen legs and abdominal pain, daily work kept piling up despite her difficulties, and worst of all was the silent judgment from the people around her. Compared to that, the taste of her dinner seemed trivial. But when the pasta Bolognese she had at a family restaurant on the way home from work tasted like nothing at all, she was so startled that she spit it back out on her plate. It was disgusting, as if she’d put something completely inedible in her mouth, and she hastily scrubbed at her tongue with her napkin and looked around. It was past nine in the evening, and the family restaurant that faced Shinjuku-dori was about 60 percent full of businessmen on their way home from their offices, noisy groups of college-age students high on the joy of being alive, and couples flirting shamelessly considering they were in public. She watched them for a while, but nobody was making a fuss about their food. In the seat next to hers, a thirtysomething man in a suit was eating a pepperoncino and fiddling with his cell phone. She stared at his lips. It wasn’t clear how good he thought it was, but he was eating normally, at least. Maybe something’s wrong with my order? She put her nose close to the Bolognese sauce. Its aroma wasn’t that intense, but she did smell garlic and onions. Next, she put just one piece of pasta in her mouth and timidly chewed. It really didn’t taste like anything, but she managed to choke it down, then drank water to rinse her mouth out. Abruptly, she realized that the man in the next seat over was looking at her dubiously. Yukino grabbed her pay slip and coat and escaped the restaurant as fast as possible. Still confused, she went into a convenience store and gazed at the shelves of box lunches. What should I do? Should I buy one as a test? There were charcoal-grilled beef kalbi, a filling assortment of fried foods, a chef’s selection rice omelet, premium beef curry. Any of them would do; she’d buy one, take it home, put it in the microwave, and heat it for two minutes at five hundred watts. In the meantime, she’d change into something comfortable, take her makeup off, hear the ding, strip the vinyl off the hot container, and open the plastic lid so the cloud of artificial-smelling steam could kiss her face. She’d scoop up rice with the white, weightless spoon they’d given her at the register, then put it in her mouth. The more she imagined it, the less appetite she had. What if it didn’t taste like anything, either? What if she was forced to admit there was something wrong with her tongue? Tak. The sharp footsteps behind her sounded like a message, and she hastily moved out of the way. An office worker about Yukino’s own age stepped in front of her, as if she’d been watching for a chance. She was wearing a pale pink coat with fur trim, and she was significantly shorter than Yukino’s five feet and four inches; Yukino’s nose caught the sweet scent of perfume. The woman picked up each of the lunches, checking the calorie counts as if it were an instinct peculiar to her kind, and Yukino’s eyes landed on the chocolate in the woman’s shopping basket. Come to think of it, she hadn’t had chocolate for quite a while. The sweet nostalgia mingled with the imagined bitter taste of cocoa on her tongue, reaching down to her in her distress. That night was cold, and sleet fell along with the snow. Back in her apartment, Yukino’s dinner consisted of two chocolate bars and a can of beer. Although it wasn’t as intense as her memories, the chocolate she nervously put in her mouth was as sweet as it was supposed to be. The single beer she was in the habit of drinking at home around that time had the savor of alcohol. But except for sweets and alcohol, she’d lost all sense of taste. After a full week of this, Yukino got scared and went to the hospital. They ran all sorts of tests, but the only thing they learned was that nothing was wrong with her tongue itself. “It’s probably psychogenic,” said a doctor who looked as if he were still in college. “Work to eliminate stressors and eat well-balanced meals with plenty of zinc.” She very nearly yelled back at him—Hell, even I know to do that! The things she could still taste became her lifeline—chocolate, cakes, sweet rolls, beer and wine—and her already-weak health got progressively worse. Even so, every morning, Yukino meticulously did her makeup—more for protection than for her appearance—and left the house. Even as more and more days passed when she was unable to ride the train, she always clung to the ritual of getting dressed. I’m sure I’m not the only one, Yukino desperately told herself. I’m sure everybody’s living through some kind of hell that can’t be seen from the outside. She lived through a winter and spring that were worse than anything she’d ever experienced. And nearly half a year after the pasta Bolognese, when she met that boy during the rainy season, her sense of taste finally began to come back. “—All right. We’ll take care of the resignation procedures after the end of summer vacation. I’ll tell the higher-ups for you.” “Okay. I’m sorry to cause you trouble even though we aren’t even together anymore.” Yukino switches her cell phone to the opposite ear again. She hasn’t been to her workplace in more than two months now, but her supervisor is looking the other way and treating it as an absence due to illness. The private sector might have been stricter about this, but she’s taking advantage of her position as a government employee, and of her ex-boyfriend’s goodwill. She knows very well that she can’t do any more of this. “I’m glad, really.” “Huh?” Glad? What about this is good? The unaccountable irritation she feels toward him abruptly rears its head, but he bears no ill will. “That you met that old lady.” She loses the thread of the conversation. Old lady? “Huh? Who?” “You know, from the park. The one who brings the box lunches? It’s a good change of pace for both of you, right?” Behind his voice, she hears a car drive by. She knows intuitively that he’s at someone else’s house. If he’d been at his apartment on Kanpachi-dori, the noise of the car wouldn’t have interrupted that way. He’s eating dinner with some woman I don’t know. After they’re finished, he tells her he’s got a work call to make, and he steps out onto the balcony. As he talks to me, he taps out a cigarette, one-handed, and puts it between his lips. The images rise in her mind with vivid clarity, and she’s startled to find she’s still thinking about these things. No. He’s free to be with whoever he wants, wherever he wants. That’s not it. I forgot the lie I told him myself. I told him I’d started meeting an old lady at the park recently. We’d been talking to each other more often, and lately she was sharing her lunches with me. And they’re incredibly good. “Okay. Take it easy and rest up.” With one last kind remark, he ends the call. Slowly, Yukino’s phone drops away from her ear. It’s already decided. But… But I loved it so much. I’d wanted so badly to work in this field, and I put in all that effort, and… Why? The thought of that boy comes to mind. “—I’m such a liar,” Yukino murmurs, burying her face in her knees. * * * The day arrived with startling alacrity. Either that, or her growing suspicions over the past month that something like this would happen finally came to fruition. That day became an unforgettable one for Yukino, encapsulating radiance and nobility and purity, and every beautiful possibility in existence. Its sweet, sorrowful, painful echoes would probably linger in her heart for the rest of her life. Her alarm is ringing. The moment she wakes, she’s hoping for rain. As she opens her eyes, she slowly confirms that the sound she’s hearing is real. “It’s raining,” she murmurs to herself for encouragement. Curiously, her headache and nausea and lethargy are all fading. She gets up from the bed and stays where she is for a while, listening to the rain. Her hair is frizzing with the humidity that’s built up in the room. At some point, Yukino has come to love everything about the rain. She knows why, but she never puts the reason into words in her mind. She knows she mustn’t. Pulling her bangs back with a headband, she pats on foundation, then applies a pale shade of lipstick. She puts on a freshly laundered off-white blouse, followed by a navy pantsuit and a thin belt, then a spritz of perfume on her wrists. She checks her reflection in the entryway mirror. I wonder how old I look. Would I pass for my early twenties? The next thing she knows, she’s staring at the mirror, seriously mulling over the question. “Don’t be dumb,” she murmurs, then grabs her umbrella and leaves the apartment. As a part of the human tide carrying her toward the station, Yukino realizes with some relief that she won’t be able to board the train today, either. And indeed she doesn’t. She watches one Sobu Line train leave from the platform to prove she tried, then heads for the park and the arbor. It’s a July morning, shining full of promise to dispel the dark clouds around her. Even though it’s raining, half the sky is virtually glowing blue. The low rain clouds are swept along in shreds by the wind, and she can see bright white clouds far above through the gaps. Washed clean by the rain, the green of the garden is especially vivid. Light shines on the rain-wet ground; the moisture in the soil evaporates and turns to mist, and when the rain falls again, steam rises here and there like smoke signals. “Here. It’s a thank-you.” Yukino holds a paper bag out to the boy decisively. Inside is a foreign book, as thick as an illustrated reference manual, that she bought at the bookstore just yesterday. The raindrops tap away joyfully on the arbor roof. “A thank-you?” “I’ve just been eating your lunches all this time. You said you wanted this, didn’t you?” I wonder if that sounded like an excuse, she thinks, carefully watching the bewildered boy as he takes the book out of the bag. It’s an instructive book about shoemaking, apparently a standard for beginners, and the words Handmade SHOES are stamped on its cover in foil. Yukino watches the boy’s expression shift from confusion to surprise, then delight, like clouds in a windswept sky. Beautiful and white, never the same for more than a moment. “—But this book is so expensive! Th-thanks!” he says in a rush, then hastily remembers his manners. “Thank you very much, ma’am!” He’s adorable. It’s contagious; I just might start grinning, too. The boy opens the book right away. I never realized your eyes could actually sparkle, Yukino thinks, impressed by how literal the sight is. Even the rain that’s falling behind the boy glitters in the sunlight. She takes a sip from the cup of coffee that she bought at a café near the garden. It tastes as good as it should. With some relief, she lovingly meditates on the bitter aftertaste. When I’m with him, coffee tastes like coffee. Rice tastes like rice, and the rain smells like rain, and the summer sunlight looks warm and bright. “—Um, I…,” the boy hesitantly begins, his eyes still on the book. “I’m making a pair of shoes right now.” “That’s terrific. For yourself?” Oh, that makes me sound old. The boy doesn’t seem to notice Yukino’s worry. “I haven’t decided who they’re for, but…” He falters. Oh. She doesn’t understand the reason, but she suddenly knows this is heading in the wrong direction. “…they’re women’s shoes.” And just like that, the bubble bursts. “I’m having a lot of trouble. So…” At the same time, little by little, a warm emotion begins to seep out of the depths of her heart. As she tries to discern what sort of feeling it is, the boy goes on. “…So I need a reference. Since I can’t use my own feet. So, um, if it isn’t any trouble…would you let me see your feet, please?” Even without looking at the boy’s face, Yukino can tell he’s about to burst into tears. So am I, probably. A wagtail is singing in a clear voice. All sorts of wild birds live in this garden. Yukino doesn’t know the names of most of them, but she does know the wagtails. They appear in the Kojiki, and she remembers Ms. Hinako playing a tape recording of their song during a classics lesson. If she recalls—yes, it was the bird that taught the gods about carnal knowledge between men and women. Some part of her mind is remembering things she really doesn’t need to. I’m so hot on the inside, but my skin is still cold. Absently noting the strange disparity, Yukino slips off one of her pumps. Slowly, she extends her bare right foot to the boy. The two of them are sitting facing each other, with Yukino’s right foot between them. Timidly, the boy touches the tip of her big toe. Her cold toes are startled by the feeling, like a hot sigh. Her heart is pounding. Both her pulse and her breaths are so out of control, she worries the boy may hear them. It’s overwhelmingly embarrassing, and Yukino prays for her body to fall silent. Let the rain fall harder. Let the wagtail sing more. Before long, the boy’s hands gently cup her foot. He lifts it slightly, as though weighing it. Toes, arch, heel—his fingers move, examining her shape and softness. I’m glad I exfoliated my heels the other day, Yukino thinks with relief so heartfelt, she could cry. The boy takes a small blue tape measure out of his bag. When he pulls the white tab out of the plastic disc, a vinyl tape follows it with a series of soft clicks. The idea that he keeps a thing like this in his bag leaves a surprisingly deep impression on her. Gently, he wraps the measuring tape around her foot as if it’s a bandage, then writes some numbers down in his notebook with a pencil. From the tips of her toes to her heel, from her heel to her ankle bones, the boy holds the tape up, measures, and writes. As he works, her pulse finally begins to calm down, and the rain falls harder to make up the difference. Meanwhile, the sunlight also grows brighter, and the wagtail sings louder, rejoicing in it. The skritch of the pencil across the paper joins with the sound of the rain. This place, this garden—it seems like a whole different world. “Could you stand up for me?” the boy asks quietly, from beyond her foot. “I want to get a sketch of the shape of your foot when your weight is on it. And then we’re done.” She wants to tell him yes, but her throat won’t vibrate, and Yukino’s response is nothing more than breath. She takes off her left shoe as well, then climbs up to stand on the bench, bracing a hand on one of the arbor’s beams. The boy slips his notebook under Yukino’s right foot, bends down, presses the top of her foot gently with his left hand, and carefully traces its outline with his pencil. Yukino watches him steadily. From far away, the sound of rustling leaves comes nearer, until the wind is rippling through the rain and the maple leaves and Yukino’s hair all at once. Tiny droplets of rain scatter across her hot cheeks. There’s a light in you, she thinks. And that light may be able to put me back together in a whole new way. “I, um…” The words slip out, and the boy looks up at Yukino. “I can’t walk very well anymore. I’m not sure when.” The boy is watching her, mystified. “…Is this about your job?” “Hmm… It’s about a lot of things.” The boy doesn’t reply. The wagtail sings to fill the silence, and then, just for a moment, the boy smiles. Or that’s what it looks like to Yukino. Still silently, his gaze returns to his hands. The sound of the pencil joins the rain again. This is just like a garden of light, Yukino thinks, watching the glittering curtain around them. What am I losing right now, and what am I about to gain? Is there anything to gain at all? Or am I about to hurt someone and lose even more of myself in the process? Yukino remembers the thoughts she had as she walked toward the park exit, alone, under her umbrella that afternoon. When the morning was over, thick clouds had hidden both the blue sky and the sun, a return to the typical rainy-season weather. Cast-off cicada shells, wet with rain, clung unobtrusively to branches here and there. The time before their calls ushered in the true summer had been a brief pause of a season. And that was exactly why that time was so perfect. In the future, Yukino would quietly remember her time in that garden of light, over and over. When nothing had yet begun, when nothing had yet ended, and yet it was still something. All it held was potential, pure and good—a beautiful, perfect time that would never come again. If the gods gave me the chance to live a day over, just one more time, I’m sure I’d choose that garden of light. Later on, Yukino would learn that her premonition had been accurate—that she’d hurt someone and lose something. In a way—our time in that garden was the high point of my life. And yet even then, those perfect moments would continue to warm Yukino’s life with an strength that no one could ever destroy. * * * The cicadas are singing up a storm. So many things surprised Yukino when she came to Tokyo, nine years ago, but one of them was the cicada calls. Cicadas sang in Ehime as well, of course, but they were just one of many natural noises, like birds and wind and rivers and waves. In Tokyo, though, they sang at a volume that was almost violent, as if thousands upon thousands of them had somehow managed to orchestrate it together. It overwhelmed all the other noises; even if the wagtail had sung, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it. When they declare the end of the Kanto area rainy season, a few days later than normal, the rain stops just like that, as if someone in the know has flipped a switch. At nearly the same time, summer vacation begins for the students, so the boy stops coming to the arbor in the morning. She remembers what he said on an earlier day: “I decided I’d only skip on rainy mornings.” At the time, she thought he was a strangely diligent delinquent, a trait she found endearing. But now it feels as though he’s broken a promise. It feels unfair, as if her close friend has made another best friend for no reason at all. Yukino is aware these feelings aren’t justified, but she has nowhere else to go. Even on sunny mornings, she keeps visiting the arbor. Today is yet another of those days; the sunlight is sweltering even in the morning. Because the general public is on summer vacation, she’s forgone her suit in favor of a white sleeveless blouse, an aqua cardigan, a green flared skirt, and wedge-heeled sandals. The garden gets a surprising number of visitors on sunny mornings: foreigners with cameras, groups of senior citizens with sketchbooks, and elegant middle-aged lovers walking arm in arm. She’s sitting in the arbor alone with her paperback, hoping her aura says, I’m not waiting for anybody. I’m just enjoying my book. She knows it’s too late, but she tries to reassure herself anyway. Yes, it’s better this way. I’m glad he doesn’t have an excuse to skip high school anymore. But despite her efforts, the knowledge that she doesn’t really mean it creeps up inside her. The truth is, I— I didn’t want the rainy season to end. As an experiment, she softly gives voice to the thought—and the inner corners of her eyes grow hot. No no no, I’m never thinking that again. She frantically returns her attention to her lap. I am enjoying my book. She tries to focus on the strings of letters. The summer sun shone over a beautiful windswept plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. But for Nukata, the sunlight and gentle whispers of the wind were equally hollow. Her joy had vanished, replaced by an inescapable loneliness in the pit of her stomach. Agh, no! Stop that, she almost says aloud. She’s had a copy of Yasushi Inoue’s Lady Nukata no Ookimi stuck on her bookshelf, and she’s picked it up for the first time in quite a while, for no particular reason. The story details the life of Nukata no Ookimi, a court poet and tragic heroine from the time of the Man’yoshu who was loved by two brothers, both emperors. Yukino first read the story at fifteen. Back then, this was the scene she liked best, where the lonely heroine walks across the field of murasaki plants. After this, a famous poem would be born in the most dramatic of ways. As a student, she felt only excitement as she read it, but now certain parts of it strike deeper than she expected. It’s been like this for a while now, and she can’t concentrate on the book. Suddenly hearing footsteps, Yukino smiles and looks up on reflex. “This is such a big park!” “Yeah, you’d never think we were in Shinjuku.” A sporty-looking couple in their early twenties are walking toward her, holding hands. They’re so chipper and companionable as they walk under the trees, even Yukino has to smile through her disappointment. “Oh, excuse us!” As Yukino gets up from the bench, making room for the two of them, the wholesome girl gives a quick nod. “It’s fine,” Yukino responds, smiling back at her. As she sits back down at the edge of the arbor and opens her paperback again, she hears the couple’s animated conversation. “This is the Japanese garden, so…where do you want to go next?” “There’s a greenhouse, right? Want to head over there?” “Ooh, yeah, that sounds neat!” “The map says it’s kinda far, though. Can you walk that?” “Oh, sure, that’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” Meanwhile, Yukino’s eyes skim over the letters on the page. On sunny days, it’s like I don’t know this place at all, she thinks. It’s so lonely. She spends her mornings in the arbor, and in the afternoons, she walks aimlessly through Shinjuku or Yoyogi or Harajuku or around the Outer Gardens. When her toes start hurting in her sandals, she goes into a chain café and rests until she’s recovered, then begins walking again. That’s how she survives the long, long summer days, until the sun goes down. And all of August goes by. As she pretends to read a paperback in the arbor, as she walks over hard asphalt, as she sips iced café lattes, she wonders, again and again, whether she has anyone. Would anyone meet with me? Will someone suddenly get in touch with me, out of nowhere? As she scrolls through the address book on her phone, Yukino thinks. Yori called me a little while ago, but her child is still so small, and it’s probably hard for her to get out. I heard Ms. Marui quit her job, but I’d feel bad asking a newlywed to go somewhere with me. She is surprised by the number of names in her contacts list: classmates from high school who live in Tokyo, friends from university, friends of friends, boyfriends from school, boys she never actually dated but had meals with a few times, women she hit it off with during training sessions, work colleagues. Hello! It’s been a long time. This heat wave’s been lasting awhile; are you doing all right? I’m writing because I got today and tomorrow off. If you happen to be free, would you like to go get some tea together? I’m sorry to contact you so suddenly. If you’re busy, please don’t worry about it. She types out the text, with no name in the TO line. Ugh, it’s no use. I want to get together with somebody so bad, but I don’t know who I should ask. Who would want to see me? Maybe I don’t have anybody I can just…meet up with when I want. Anybody I could call a friend. She tries to convince herself that this is true for most adults, but she still feels hopeless. When the sun sets, Yukino buys the ingredients for dinner at the supermarket, mingling with the crowds returning from work, and drags herself on aching feet back to her apartment. Without even washing her face, she collapses onto the bed, waiting quietly for her fatigue to dissolve. When she’s finally able to move, she slowly sits up, removes her makeup, changes clothes, and makes dinner in her messy kitchen. She usually sits hunched on the sofa, eating simple, one-bowl dishes that are easy on the stomach. Rice porridge or udon or chicken and egg over rice. They aren’t all that good, but they taste like something, at least. That’s one of the things that boy left for me, she thinks. A breeze carries the scents of summer in through the screen windows and the spaces between her toes. Ever since that day, her feet have felt more special than any other part of her. She touches her big toe, gently. A sweet, sad pain seeps up from her toes to her lower back and out to the rest of her body. This feeling is still here with me, too. There was something like a halo around him; in just a month, he brought about some enormous changes in me. The idea comes as something of a shock to Yukino. Have bars always been this gloomy and dark? Feeling the bite of a salty dog on her tongue, she touches the mixed nuts, which remind her of the bones of some small animal. She gazes at the bottles arrayed on the shelf behind the counter and thinks back. She hasn’t been to all that many bars, but she gets the feeling that all the others were brighter than this one. Or does it only feel that way because I’m alone this time? Yukino has nothing against women who drink alone in bars, but until now, she’s never gone into one by herself. She’s never had the chance. Whenever she drank somewhere away from home, she was always with friends or a boyfriend or people from work. Right now, she’s sitting on a tall stool with her legs crossed, trying hard to hide her nervousness and pretend she’s used to this. She started with something off the “Recommended” menu, a Hoegaarden White; she followed it with a white peach cocktail, and now she’s almost finished her salty dog. The bar has no windows to look out of; the lighting is too dim to let her read a book; she has no interest in the sports broadcast on the muted TV. She has nothing to do except drink. After all the time it took her to even decide to come here, she can’t leave after the length of a single class period. She tells herself this, reminds herself that she has to stay. She sips at the salty dog sparingly, as if she’s been stranded and it’s the very last of her precious water. When she opened the refrigerator to get a beer before bed, there wasn’t a single can in there. What now? She thought for a little while, with the refrigerator door still open. She’d already showered. She couldn’t go out in a T-shirt and shorts. Still… Oh, all right, she thought, making a small resolution as she shut the door. She really did want that beer. She changed into a pale-green dress, applied a little lip gloss, took a small rattan bag, and went out. She took her building’s old elevator down, and once she reached spacious Gaien Nishi-dori and felt the quiet nighttime air, she realized how hard it was to breathe alone in that apartment. She wanted to go out and talk to someone, anyone; it didn’t matter who or where. She would settle for a convenience store cashier. There was very little car or foot traffic, and she saw the green light of a convenience store, small and alone some ways down the street. She slowly started toward it, listening to the measured taps of her sandals. When she happened to glance to the side, she saw a diffuse orange glow at the end of a straight and deserted alley. A shop? A bar? Yukino thought. Nearly entranced, she turned into the alley. It was a bar. A small menu, illuminated by an orange lamp, sat beside the stairway of a mixed-use building. She hadn’t been inside a bar in a long time. With some nostalgia, she remembered complex, sophisticated drinks and compared them to canned beer. What should I do? she thought, following the bar with her eyes as she passed by—until she changed her mind and turned back, but although she slowed down in front of the menu, her resolve was so weak that she nearly changed her mind again. Just then, a woman walking a dog passed by, and the dubious look she gave Yukino was the last push she needed. Yukino went down the stairs beside the menu and opened the heavy door made of iron and wood. “Are you alone, miss?” A voice speaks to her very suddenly from the right, and Yukino jumps. She ordered another salty dog to fill her empty hands, and she’s been counting the grains of salt on the rim of its glass, leaning in so close, her nose nearly touched it. She’s just reached 129. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you all right?” The owner of the voice hastily apologizes at her dramatic reaction. “Ah, no… Um, yes, I’m here by myself.” Yukino’s response is flustered as well. A moment later, her face grows hot. The man beside her smiles. “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure whether I should speak to you. I’m sorry to be so abrupt. I’m here on my own, too.” Yukino nods, but noncommittally; she still isn’t quite sure what’s going on. The man is sitting two empty seats away from her, although she doesn’t know how long he’s been there, and she observes him steadily. He’s wearing a dark-colored shirt and a jacket that has a dull sheen to it. He isn’t wearing a tie. His hair, which is long enough to hide his ears, is swept back, and the width of his shoulders is nicely proportioned. He’s probably a little older than she is; he reminds her of a well-groomed foreign dog. “Do you come here often?” the dog-man asks, raising his glass. “No…not really.” “It’s a nice, quiet place, isn’t it? I work nearby, so I stop in sometimes on my way home.” “…Like today?” “Right.” This probably only feels like he’s picking me up because I’m self-conscious , Yukino thinks as she makes tentative conversation. This is a bar, it is nighttime, and these conversations are probably normal. And I did leave the apartment because I wanted to talk to somebody. “You work very late.” “Yeah. It’s a publisher near here. You know, the building next to the convenience store on the corner of Yotsuya Yonchome? There’s a restaurant on the first floor, and… Well, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about.” Yukino gives a noncommittal smile. She doesn’t know it. “What about you?” he asks. “Um, my company isn’t around here. I live in the neighborhood.” “I figured.” “Huh?” “You’re dressed too casually to be coming from work.” Dog-Man looks diffidently at Yukino’s clothes. Yukino feels as if he’s seen her messy apartment, and she suddenly grows embarrassed. Her face flushes again. “That’s kinda nice,” Dog-Man says cheerfully, sounding more relaxed. “Huh?” “Just stepping out at night on a whim to go drinking by yourself. There aren’t too many women who can do that sort of thing naturally, y’know?” He gives her a very pleasant smile that tickles Yukino with delight. It’s as if her homeroom teacher has praised her for a good deed nobody seemed to notice. “I’m Saitou. And you?” “Oh, I’m Yukino.” “Yukino? Is that your family name or your first name?” “I get that question a lot. It’s my family name,” she answers, laughing, then takes a sip of her salty dog as if she’s just remembered it. The salt grains are rough against her lips. “So basically, she was out walking by herself when she ran into the guy she was cheating with, and then her husband showed up, too, and the other guy had to make a break for it? Damn, what a love triangle—and with two brothers, too. Talk about a mess.” “Mm, I think it was less a mess than a quiet, complicated, emotional affair,” Yukino says with a wry smile. Earlier, Dog-Man asked her what she did on her days off, and she told him she read books in the park. He asked her about the one she was reading now, which led to the conversation about Lady Nukata no Ookimi. Dog-Man hadn’t known that Nukata no Ookimi was a historical figure. Instead of asking if he really works for a publisher, she recites a poem. As I cross the murasaki field / shining madder red, / the forbidden land, / will its guard not see you / wave your sleeve at me? “It was in your textbook at school, wasn’t it?” she asks. “Oh, yeah, I think I have heard that one. I thought that was a guy.” “No, it’s a woman!” She leans forward for emphasis, and he laughs happily. “So after she’s broken up with both Prince Ooama and Emperor Tenji, she walks through a field, feeling lonely. It’s an imperial hunting field full of murasaki plants, spangled with white flowers. Ordinary people aren’t even allowed to enter.” “Hmm.” As he drinks his whiskey, Dog-Man nods with interest. Yukino is drinking a cocktail to moisten her throat. Wait, she thinks suddenly, what have I been drinking? How much? For the first time in quite a while, she thinks she might be a little tipsy. Getting just a bit drunk and talking to somebody about the things she likes might actually be a lot of fun. “The poem just slips out of her mouth as she crosses the field of murasaki, the imperial hunting field.” “Called it like she saw it, huh?” “Well, yes, it was pretty literal.” Yukino laughs, too. “That evening there’s a grand banquet. They drink sake and feast, and each guest recites a poem from that day in the presence of Emperor Tenji. They’re called on randomly, so everyone is nervous, wondering when it will be their turn. Except for her. If she tries, she can come up with any number of poems right then and there.” “She was a talented lady, wasn’t she?” “She was. Although I don’t think it was quite the same as our modern conception of ‘talent.’ She may have been more like a shrine maiden, possessed by the spirit of an idea.” “You’re a bit like a shrine maiden, too, Yukino. Next you’ll tell me you come from a shrine family.” “Goodness, no! We’re ordinary office workers. Anyway, the pillow word ‘shining madder red’ just drifts into her mind. ‘As I cross the murasaki field / shining madder red, / the forbidden land.’ So she already has the whole first section of the poem.” “Hmm… Hey, have you had any experiences like that, Yukino?” “Huh?” “You know. Messes.” Oh, he means the talk about cheating, Yukino slowly realizes. He’s probably bored of all this talk about poetry, she thinks somewhat apologetically. “No, I haven’t really… None at all, actually. Nothing like that. Um…” She tries to say Dog-Man’s name. What was it? Satou, or Katou, or Watanabe…? “What about you, sir?” she asks, covering for herself. Dog-Man laughs. “Aww, you forgot my name, didn’t you, Yukino?” “Uh, no, I… Sorry.” “Ha-ha! Don’t worry about it. It’s a common name, so everybody forgets. They ask if it was Satou or Katou or something. It’s Saitou.” His smile as he takes another sip of whiskey is a relief. “Well, this is pretty fun,” the man says. “What, really?” “Yeah. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed anything like this. What about you, Yukino?” “Yes, me too.” As she responds, she drains the remainder of her cocktail; she isn’t even sure what kind it is. “Bartender, get her some sort of frozen cocktail,” she hears him say, and she listens to him with a sense of unreserved freedom, as if she’s in a club room after class. They decide to change venues and drink a little more, and since there aren’t many places in that area, they get into a taxi. As she watches the lights of Aoyama-dori stream by outside the window, Yukino thinks through an alcohol-infused haze, So this is how relationships start. They didn’t meet at school or at work, and no one introduced them to each other; the independent adults of the world act alone and meet people naturally. They expand their own worlds in an organic way. Yukino feels as if she’s discovered this law of nature through experience. It’s as if she’s finally become an adult. Just after they pass the shuttered Shibuya Station, they get out of the taxi and walk side by side for a while. The damp summer air feels pleasant on her liquor-flushed skin. The back of her right hand bumps against Dog-Man’s arm a few times. She feels as if she’s walked through Shibuya at night with someone like this before, a long time ago. Suddenly, he takes her hand. She suspected he would, so she isn’t too flustered, but when they stop, she’s a little surprised to see that they’ve entered the street of hotels in Dougenzaka. The healthy comfort of sleeping with someone flickers across her heart. “Would you like to rest for a little while?” Dog-Man says, like something out of a drama or a manga. She giggles at the thought, and he takes it as an answer. Dog-Man puts an arm around Yukino’s shoulders, gently steering her toward the entrance to a hotel. Yukino begins walking, accepting the pressure. The automatic frosted glass doors open, a cold air-conditioned breeze brushes her face, and Yukino looks down. For the first time, she notices Dog-Man’s shoes. They’re leather, patterned like lizard skin or snakeskin, with pointed toes and a slick, glossy finish. And the memory of that boy’s shoes bursts into her mind with such vivid clarity that the fog of the alcohol evaporates. She can see the boy’s ragged moccasins come into focus. They weren’t school loafers or sneakers or dress shoes. She abruptly realizes that he made those shoes himself, and she freezes. “…What’s the matter?” Dog-Man asks. What’s the matter? What on earth is the matter with me? “Um… I’m sorry, I—” Dog-Man watches Yukino steadily, silently. The unmanned lobby is deathly silent. As she detects a hint of exasperation from him, she hears a big sigh. “…I’m really, really-really sorry!” With that, Yukino runs out of the hotel. She runs down the hill, gets into an empty taxi, and asks to go to Sendagaya. The moment the taxi begins to move, she realizes she’s incredibly drunk. Her vision spins, and every time the car speeds up or slows down, she feels nausea well up inside her. When the taxi is on its way past Meiji Park, she can’t take it any longer. “I’m sorry, stop, please open the door.” She flies out of the taxi, sticks her face into the shrubbery, and throws up violently. Her hands and knees are muddy, and her whole body won’t stop shaking. It’s like she’s broken. Gradually, every blink of the orange hazard lights starts to feel like an attack. You’re worthless, you’re worthless, you’re worthless, you’re worthless, they remind her. Even after her stomach is empty, Yukino keeps throwing up with tears running down her face. * * * Her alarm is ringing. Even before she opens her eyes, Yukino knows it won’t rain today. Salvation would never come down to her so easily. Ignoring her ferocious headache, she washes her face at the sink. She applies toner, then moisturizer, as if she’s carefully sealing something away inside herself. Sitting down on her boatlike sofa, she picks up her foundation compact. Her weak fingers drop the case. It bounces once, with a small tak against the floor. Automatically, she bends over, picks it up, and opens the compact. The powder cake is shattered. Yukino gazes at the fragments, steadily. Oh, it broke, she thinks, a little belatedly. It feels as though it’s taking longer than usual for the light to move from her eyes to her brain. Without any warning, the inside of her nose twinges, and her eyes sting with tears. Yukino presses her fingers against her eyelids, as if she can push them back in. I’m not sad at all, so why am I crying? she wonders. “Sure hope the weather’s nice tomorrow.” Murmuring the words quietly, she kicks her left foot into the air, tossing her shoe. The pump rolls on the floor of the arbor, falling on its side at the edge of the tiles with a little clunk, like a small, expiring animal. That means tomorrow will be cloudy. Hmm, Yukino thinks, opening the pull tab on her can of beer and gulping down about a third of it without coming up for air. As she drinks, she notices that thousands of cicadas are singing. Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since she brought beer into this park, which charges admission and technically doesn’t allow alcohol. A little while after she met that boy, she started to bring disposable cups of coffee. Well, that’s fine. After all, everybody has their quirks. Alone, Yukino watches the park beneath the brilliant light of an August morning. A garden of light, shining madder red— “The words came to me. Had I wished to write a second half, I could instantly create as many different patterns as I liked—” Or so Nukata no Ookimi had said. Naturally, that’s completely impossible for me. I have no idea what’s beyond the garden of light. I don’t even know what was there, or what was possible. I can’t see any of it. At twenty-seven, I’m no wiser than I was at fifteen. As the sunlight grows brighter and the shadows darker in the garden, Yukino feels as though she’s failing a test. Excerpt: Yasushi Inoue, Lady Nukata no Ookimi (Shincho Bunko)