“You know why I’ve called you here, don’t you?” I’ve made Takao Akizuki stand next to me, and I’m sure my eyes are sharp as I watch him. “Yes sir,” Akizuki answers briefly, with his eyes down like any well-behaved child. Once I’m sure he isn’t going to elaborate, I lower my voice and let a bit of my irritation seep in. “‘Yes sir’ tells me nothing. Tell me what you think the reason is.” “…I think it’s because I’ve been late a lot recently.” “You what?” “Huh?” “You ‘think’?! How many times have you been late just this month?!” I shout, and the teacher in the seat across from mine jumps and looks over at us. Getting called to the staff room and bawled out is enough to make timid students tear up, but Akizuki is barely reacting. His almond-shaped eyes and short-cropped hair make him look intelligent, and his general reticence makes him come off as oddly mature. Nothing cute or vulnerable about him. I take it up a notch. “Do you think high school doesn’t matter? This isn’t compulsory education; we don’t have to keep you here! Do you think you’ll get to move on to the next grade or graduate if you keep this up? …Well?!” I wait, hoping he’ll try to talk back, but Akizuki just looks down and stays quiet. He doesn’t apologize; he doesn’t make excuses or lash out defensively. He’s a pretty tough case, I think, as I realize that something’s bothering me. I have the feeling I’m forgetting something about Akizuki. Something unpleasant. What is it? I can’t remember. I really want a cigarette. Diiiing dooong diiiing doooong. The first bell signaling the end of the lunch recess filters in through the speaker, and everything feels so dull and apathetic. “…Enough. Go. Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll call your mom.” Akizuki doesn’t even look visibly relieved. He just bows once and leaves the staff room. I never did manage to remember what it was. Well, whatever. If I can’t remember, either it was my imagination or it wasn’t important. “Mr. Itou, you can be so scary sometimes.” As I pull together materials to take to the phys ed instructors’ room, the English teacher in the seat across from mine teases me. “You could at least ask him why he’s been late.” She’s older than me by more than a dozen years, and I steal a glance at the wrinkled corners of her kind eyes. She always looks at things from the students’ perspective and treats them like independent adults, which is most likely why she’s so popular. My role’s not the same as yours, ma’am, I grumble inwardly. “Akizuki certainly has been noticeably tardy, but he hasn’t been creating any other problems; he’s a good boy. Besides, if I recall, his family is…” “A single-parent household. But he’s not the only one, and it’s no excuse for being tardy. Besides, it doesn’t matter why he’s late. During the first year, the important thing to drum into them is the fact that rules are rules.” She looks as if she’s about to say something, but before she can, I get up from my chair with an armful of documents. “Excuse me, my next class is tennis.” “Oh, the rain stopped.” The teacher looks out the window, then waves with a rueful smile. “Good luck. If you find time at some point, do eat lunch, please.” She’s right; between getting the papers ready and lecturing Akizuki, I haven’t had a chance to eat. She really is a veteran, I think, a little impressed. She’s got sharp eyes. Leaving the classroom, I walk down the hall quickly, fighting the urge to break into a run. In the five minutes left before my next class, I have to stop by the instructors’ room, give these documents to the chief phys ed instructor, then get to the tennis court behind the pool. I’ll be cutting it close. The hallway is flooded with students returning to their various classrooms, but when they see me, most of them flinch and get out of my way. The only ones who speak to me are what you’d call delinquent types. “Hey, Mr. Itou, did you catch the soccer game yesterday?” “No, I didn’t. Hurry up and get to class!” I respond to one of my former students—a third-year boy who’ll be joining the workforce right after graduation, I grumble to myself in my mind. I wish I had time for at least one cig. After my fifth-period tennis class with first-year kids, sixth period is a track and field class for third-years. One of my coworkers, a female phys ed teacher, came down with something and took the day off, so I have to teach both the boys and the girls today. Letting the girls know what was going on ate up my ten-minute break, so I still haven’t gotten my smoke. Today, we’re measuring the high jump. I set up two mats and bars side by side, one for guys and one for girls, then have members from each group take turns running and record their heights. The first-year boys in the previous group were like a troop of wild monkeys, but for the third-years, the novelty of gym class has worn off, and they’re not invested in it at all. It’s no surprise. These guys are going on to higher education, so for them especially, phys ed is basically just a break. Plus, whenever you put guys and girls together, they always get a little silly. In the lines of kids waiting their turns, several students are whispering together happily, although they’re trying to stay as quiet as possible. “You’re kidding, you’ve never eaten pancakes?” “No, but, like, what makes them different from hotcakes?” “Do you wanna all go there today, then?” “By the South Gate! You know, the one next to the convenience store?” I hear snatches of conversations. A memory of that exhilaration peculiar to adolescence flickers through my mind, when each word from the opposite sex is as enticing as a mystery. These guys have been cramming for tests for the last five classes, starting early in the morning; this final gym class must feel like fun to them. With no warning whatsoever, I kick a bucket by my feet at them as hard as I can. Claaaaaaaaang! The bucket crashes into a field roller, sending a cacophonous clatter echoing over the grounds. The students stare at me, but I say nothing. Their expressions gradually shift from bewilderment to fear. “No talking during class. Sugimura, Yoneda, Nakajima, Kikuji. Five laps,” I bark at them in a flat monotone. The students are a mixed group of four that I picked randomly from among the students who were talking. They were far from the only ones, but in cases like this, punishments don’t need to be fair. They just need to work on the group. “Get moving!” They’re dragging their feet and glancing at each other, but when I yell, the four of them take off running like they’ve been shot. I start writing again, as if nothing happened. None of the students open their mouths again until class is over. I finally get my smoke at almost exactly the same time that I remember what Akizuki’s deal was. After sixth period, I finally ate a late lunch while I consolidated the lifestyle surveys for the first-years; then I coached my basketball club for two hours, and after that I went back to the staff room and put together the action plan for the off-campus study coming up at the end of the month. Now I can finally go home for the day. Exhausted and limp, I lean against the wall of the staff entrance, look around to make sure nobody’s there to see me, hunch over a bit, and put a cigarette between my teeth. And as the smoke is leaving my lungs like a sigh, I finally remember. Oh, right. He’s the student who showed up in my dream yesterday. As I look up at the thin moon slicing open the purple sky, I remember. Right. And what an awful dream it was. There were three of us there in the student guidance office after class: me, Yukari’s mom, and one male student. I didn’t pick up on it while I was dreaming, but now I realize the student was Takao Akizuki. Yukari was quitting her job at school, and I was desperately explaining the reason to Yukari’s mom, whom I’d never met, and Akizuki, who was probably a stand-in for the entire student body. “But you and Yukari were actually dating each other, weren’t you?” her mother said. “Were you lying to us the whole time?” asked Akizuki. Dripping with sweat, I ground my head against the desk and desperately groped for words. “I can’t apologize enough to you. But we were seeing each other seriously, and I do think the school is partially to blame for Yukari’s…um, illness.” “Illness? Are you saying she’s sick?” “You two were dating on the sly, weren’t you, Mr. Itou? Didn’t you love her? Isn’t it your job to take care of her?” “Did you cast Yukari aside because she was ill?” “Nobody’s going to believe what you say anymore, Mr. Itou.” —Long story short, it was a nightmare. Shaking my head, I shove my cigarette butt into my portable ashtray, then start off toward the faculty parking lot. As I begin to put on my full-face helmet, I remember that I’m going to be drinking today. I’ll have to leave my motorcycle at school. I leave the school grounds and make for the subway station on foot. There aren’t any students still around, but the silent crowd of homebound commuters and the clinging, saturated air of the rainy-season humidity are extremely unpleasant companions. Takao Akizuki is a fairly unremarkable student in the new homeroom class I’ve had since April. He’s an extremely ordinary fifteen-year-old, except for the fact that he’s been living with his mom since his parents’ divorce a few years back and his habit of being tardy in the mornings. His grades are a bit above average, he wears his uniform as it’s designed to be worn, and he doesn’t seem isolated from the rest of the class. If I remember right, he isn’t in any of the clubs. A lot of students without an afterschool activity tend to be the problem children, but in Akizuki’s case, he’s just busy with part-time work thanks to his family situation. He’s cooperative even in phys ed, and, according to his other teachers, he sometimes sleeps in class instead of listening, but he never chats. He doesn’t leave much of an impact on you, really. Personally, he doesn’t strike me as a student I need to keep an eye on, and he hasn’t even really been tardy enough to get us bent out of shape. I only called him out today because I figured it would be wiser to give him a good strict warning sooner rather than later. So given all that, I have no idea why the guy came up in a dream about Yukari. I don’t teach Yukari’s homeroom class, so she and Akizuki wouldn’t even know each other in the first place. Around the time I transfer to the Sobu Line at Shinjuku Station, it starts raining again. The raindrops are scattered across the window glass, hanging on for dear life. Each drop of water holds the lights of the city inside it, and I realize something as they go out of focus. Oh. I can’t put my finger on why, exactly, but the two of them feel the same. Like oil dropped into water, neither of them blends with their surroundings. You wouldn’t instantly pick them out of a crowd, necessarily. They have friends, and they laugh, and they don’t make waves. If you look closely, though, you can tell. When you see hundreds of kids every year, you learn to spot these types. Both Yukari and Akizuki secretly have something in their hearts that’s special to them, that they’d never hand over to somebody else. It may be something strangers would value, or it could be totally worthless. I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter. But that divide between them and everything around them is undeniable and unbreachable. That’s why I’m actually a little uncomfortable around Akizuki, I realize, as I reflect on the matter again. It’s also why I couldn’t resist Yukari. Maybe it’s only natural that they’d show up in my dream together. As I pensively watch the rain, it feels as if my mood will stay dark forever. “Geez, Souichirou, you look more evil every time I see you.” We toast with canned beer, and that’s the first comment anyone has for me. I’m a little more wounded than angry, which catches even me off guard. “You’re already big and intimidating, but that look in your eyes will send the kids running for the hills.” I drink some beer, think about what to say, then say it. “Geez, Natsumi, you get mouthier every time I see you.” Neatly ignoring my brilliant retort, Natsumi eyes me over her beer can. “Rough day at work, huh? Don’t take high schoolers too seriously; you can just make a comment and they’ll get ticked off.” I’m not sure how to respond when somebody’s so openly worrying for me, so I offer an evasive reply and pop a piece of fried chicken into my mouth. Natsumi’s long black hair hangs down to her chest, and she holds it in place with one hand as she leans over the table and scoops some jellyfish salad out of its plastic container and onto a plate. Her bust gently forms a curve in her white summer sweater; I keep catching glimpses of it, and I glance up at the ceiling to avoid the awkwardness. Then I take a look around Natsumi’s apartment under the guise of rolling my neck. It’s my first time visiting, but both the layout and the vibe are a lot like my memories of her old place. Her living room is about seventy square feet and bursting with stuff, but it doesn’t feel cluttered. It’s an apartment where the mess just makes the place feel more comfortable, which is par for the course with Natsumi. The walls are lined with those pasteboard storage cupboards with open fronts, and she’s stuffed them with a jumble of paperbacks and big hardcovers and CDs and makeup and hats and musical instruments. I recognize about a third of the stuff, and have no clue about the rest of it. Some of it clearly isn’t hers; I can see video games in there, for example, and young men’s magazines, and a shochu bottle. I guess her life’s been pretty full, I think with a hint of jealousy. A lot can happen in seven years. My next swallow of beer is a little more bitter than the last one. I met Natsumi during my previous job at a real estate company, and we dated for about two years. I was working to become a phys ed teacher, and the real estate company was supposed to be a temporary gig until I passed the exam to become a teacher in Tokyo. The workload in condo sales was way too heavy, at least for me; I think the only reason I managed to pull through without mental or physical health issues is that I had that goal of becoming a teacher. During those years, condos weren’t selling at all. Every single day, our supervisor would lay into us (“Nobody eats for free here. If you can’t move the properties, buy ’em yourselves, you incompetents!”) or coworkers would quit, their spirits or bodies broken. And despite all of it, Natsumi was always smiling. We’d been hired during the same season, she had sales results that were just as lousy as mine, but she never stressed about it. And it wasn’t a facade or a front; she was just enjoying her life. She was hard to figure out, but her joy was like an oasis in the desert of that savage workplace. As we drank and groused about the company, we got closer, and before we knew it, before the topic of romantic feelings even came up, we were dating. We both liked getting out, so on our days off, we’d go on road trips or camping or we’d travel, blowing off all the steam from the shit we put up with on the weekdays. We were still in our twenties, and marriage and family and old age and illness were all far away; the lives we would eventually settle into were always just a little farther down the road, and that meant we were free of any responsibilities. Now that I think about it, those were happy times. Three years later, I passed the teacher employment exam, and at almost the same time, Natsumi decided to go to Cuba on exchange (anywhere would have done, but apparently Cuba was the cheapest place), and so we decided to break up. No conflict; this was just how it had to be. The hopes we harbored for our new destinations far outweighed our loneliness. About four months back, Natsumi got in touch with me for the first time in several years. I was thirty-two, teaching my eighth year of phys ed at my second high school, after being transferred. Souichirou, how are you doing? It’s been a while; let’s go get a drink. Her nonchalant request had come in from out of nowhere on a messaging app. At the time, I was dealing with some serious trouble that had spilled over into my private life. I took her up on her offer without a second thought, hoping I’d be able to forget about the whole mess for a little while. When Natsumi and I met up in that pub in Nishi-Ogikubo, she’d hardly changed at all; her skin was a little darker than the last time I’d seen her, but her smile and easygoing nature were exactly the same. I’d assumed she had just returned from Cuba, but it turned out she’d been back for five years already and was working for a cell phone game company. Melancholy seemed to be a completely foreign concept to her, and I genuinely had fun drinking with her. It certainly didn’t rekindle our romance, but ever since then, we’ve been comfortable drinking pals who meet once a month or so. Today, we met at our usual pub for the first time in three weeks, but the place happened to be too full for us. Natsumi lived in the neighborhood, and so we decided to go to her apartment and drink instead. We stopped by a sake shop and a deli for groceries, and now, for the first time in several years, I’m at Natsumi’s place. I don’t notice the missed call from Yukari until we’ve gone through the snacks and cans of beer from the store and switched over to Natsumi’s bottle of red wine. I casually open my cell phone, and there it is, from two hours ago. Now that I think about it, I remember telling her I’d call her about a week ago. Work got busy on me, and I forgot. On weekdays, I have a whole lot of administrative work on top of regular classes in the form of allocating school duties, and my weekends are almost entirely taken up by club activities and sports meets and similar events. I’m actually a lot busier now than I was during my time in real estate sales. “What’s this, hmm? Your girlfriend?” Natsumi points at me and smirks, her face flushed with liquor. I’m still almost sober. I couldn’t get drunk on beer if I tried, no matter how many cans I had. “No. I told you before; we broke up before the new term.” “Hmm,” she says with disinterest. Then she stands up, yawning. “…I think it’s about time for some coffee. Souichirou, if you want to smoke, go out on the balcony.” So Natsumi’s place has finally gone nonsmoking, too, huh? After I watch her head into the kitchen, I go out onto the balcony, feeling a little like I’ve been chased out. The space is small, a token attempt at a balcony, really, and the air conditioner’s external unit takes up half the space. The damp concrete reminds me that the rain has stopped. Falling, stopping… That must be a lot of work. I light a cigarette and take a deep drag. When I happen to look to the side, I see a small potted plant and a pink pitcher sitting on top of the external unit. Suddenly, I feel like I’m being unfaithful to both of them somehow, and I shake my head. That’s not true. I’ve already broken up with Yukari, and Natsumi’s just a good friend who keeps coming back. Besides, she’s probably concerned about how her resignation is coming along. I’m calling not as her ex, but as a colleague. I select “Yukari Yukino” from the address book on my phone, then hit the CALL button. Even now, I clearly remember the sight of her when she first came to work, two years ago. “My name is Yukari Yukino, and I’ve been sent to teach Japanese. I’m still a novice; I taught in Kokubunji for three years, and this is my second school. I’d like to learn a lot from my older, wiser colleagues and to grow along with the students.” My first thought was, She doesn’t look real. There was nothing unique about her medium-length black hair and navy suit, yet they couldn’t have emphasized the beauty of her figure more. She had a face so petite that I could have covered it with one of my hands; pure white skin; and large, liquid eyes. Her shoulders, hips, and legs were all so slim, you couldn’t help but notice her chest. Her voice, trembling with nerves, was as sweet as a middle schooler’s. She was… How do I put this delicately? Like a love doll. Even I thought that was a terrible association to make, and yet the more I saw of her, the stronger the thought grew. I’d seen them online or somewhere like that: beautiful vessels, stripped of their wills, nothing but the twisted ideal of men given physical shape. This can’t be good. The students are gonna have a field day with her. Either that, or the guys will fall for her. Still, my worries proved to be unfounded. Everybody liked Yukari, and she was a model teacher. She always did her very best with a smile, no matter what was going on, and although she definitely wasn’t especially clever, her deep sincerity and modesty naturally charmed people. Her classes were popular, too. The public high school curriculum had a tendency to just churn through the work assigned by the Ministry of Culture, but Yukari seemed to love her subject. She told her students about how the worlds of novels and the classics had saved her during adolescence, and her carefully planned classes were backed up by that experience and enthusiasm. Before long, she’d won the kids over. When classes got Yukari as their Japanese teacher, their average grades went up, without exception. She was popular with the male students, unsurprisingly, but from the leaked stories I heard, she seemed pretty well versed in ways of turning them down without hurting them too much. It was simple: Yukari was much better suited to teaching than I was. Well, so much the better. Whenever I saw her among the students, I genuinely thought so. It was much better than a new teacher creating problems, directly or indirectly. On the other hand, Yukari apparently hadn’t thought much of me at all. “I was just startled to see a teacher who looked like a gangster at my school,” Yukari once jokingly told me, after we’d gotten closer. All I could do was smile a little awkwardly. I knew she’d seen me bawling out students in the halls and on the sports fields multiple times. After all, I’d decided that whenever I yelled at students, I’d do it in front of a crowd. It didn’t hurt me one bit to learn that this young, beautiful, and obviously popular new teacher thought of me that way. In fact, I wanted no part of the acquisition race that had abruptly broken out among the single male faculty members over Yukari, so her distaste for me worked out in my favor. We ended up getting closer in September, at the faculty party to celebrate finishing the cultural festival, the school trip, and the parent-student-teacher meetings. There were more than thirty of us there—all completely drunk—in a big room at a cheap chain pub, and the banquet was in full swing. I was sipping bad sake at the foot of the table when, all of a sudden, I heard our vice-principal calling me over. “Heeey, Mr. Itou, got a minute?” I worked my way up between the backs of my coworkers and the wall. At the head of the table, the vice-principal was pleasantly drunk and all smiles, chatting with Yukari. “See, we were talking about who on staff could hold their liquor the best. Now, I would’ve put my money on you, Mr. Itou, hands down, but Ms. Yukino here… She’s been drinking and drinking and she’s not even flushed!” he said cheerfully, watching her. The vice-principal had loosened his tie beneath his double chin (which was a surprising feature, given how skinny he was). Yukari appeared to be looking to me for help. “So we wanted to put the question to rest here and now, see who was the heaviest drinker at our school! Isn’t that right, Ms. Yukino?” “No, um, that wasn’t what I… Look, I’m sure this will make trouble for Mr. Itou, too, and I should probably…” Yukari was desperately trying to talk him down. I felt terrible for her; she was so flustered, she seemed ready to cry. When I looked around at the other staff members, they were all pretending they were too engrossed in their separate conversations to hear. I sighed a little. The vice-principal was a persistent boss, and drinking made him even more obstinate. He’d get drunk after only a little alcohol, but he could last for ages without passing out, and he loved to mess with the people around him. Unfamiliar with his habits, Yukari had failed to make her getaway in time. One of her neighbors really should have rescued her. “All right,” I told the vice-principal. He gave a whoop. Most of our colleagues couldn’t stand this supervisor, but I didn’t feel that way. He could be calm and logical as a manager when he needed to be. I turned to my bewildered-looking companion. “What’s your favorite type of liquor, Ms. Yukino?” “Huh…? I like Japanese sake, but, um…” Without letting her argue, I pushed the button on the table and put in an order. “Let’s go with that, then. Excuse me. Bring us four go of chilled sake and two cups.” A big, 750-milliliter sake decanter arrived. I poured about a quarter of it into each of the cups, then handed one to Yukari. At some point, the faculty around us had begun to look our way with a mixture of interest and worry. Ignoring Yukari’s obvious unease, I just said, “Okay, cheers,” and clinked my glass against hers. Steeling herself, Yukari raised her glass to her lips. I shot her a glance, then knocked back the entire contents of my glass in one gulp. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the shock of my coworkers. I poured the same amount into my glass again, drained it again, then drank down the last quarter. Before Yukari had emptied half her glass, I’d put away three go of sake. Applause and cheers rose around us. The vice-principal was clapping wildly, apparently the most excited of the bunch. Yukari wasn’t even sure what had happened, and our eyes met. Slowly, the tension melted from that delicate face of hers, and then she smiled gently. It’s like watching a flower bloom. As the alcohol reached into the core of my mind, I genuinely thought Yukari was beautiful for the first time. “—All right. We’ll take care of the resignation procedures after the end of summer vacation. I’ll tell the higher-ups for you.” Out on the balcony, I reassure Yukari and end the call. Now that I’ve told her what I had to tell her, I’m just a little relieved. I think it was probably around the third term, after the new year began. Gradually, Yukari started calling out from work more and more often. At first, she was sick once a week or so, but before long, she was out more than she was in. In the end, she made it to school about half the time during the third term, and she hadn’t been in more than a handful of times since April. I think it’s safe to say that under those circumstances, the school was being very generous in letting her submit her resignation herself instead of forcing her to resign. I exhale the smoke on a long breath, letting my whole body relax. I look around the balcony but don’t see an ashtray, so I grudgingly take my portable ashtray out of my pocket. When I step back into the apartment, Natsumi is drinking coffee and watching TV. The blue cheese that accompanied our wine is drying out, and it somehow reminds me of an abandoned village. I haven’t been back home in quite a while, I think, out of nowhere, as I sit down across from Natsumi. She doesn’t even glance my way. Come to think of it, she does tend to focus so hard on things that she loses touch with everything around her. She’s always been that way. I’m staring at the cheese, hesitating between drinking wine and drinking coffee, when— “All right, see you later,” Natsumi says abruptly. I can’t read the emotion in her voice. For a moment, I almost ask her what she said. “—Uh, oh, right… I haven’t cleaned up the mess I made with the snacks…” “It’s fine. I’ll text you later.” Natsumi gives me a very small smile. Well, more of a subtle tilt at the corners of her lips. The smile is more in the eye of the beholder. In other words, “Get lost already.” That doesn’t sit quite right with me, but I might have overstepped and stayed too long when we aren’t even going out. Besides, it’s probably better than accidentally having to stay here overnight and letting something happen. So I thank Natsumi and leave her apartment. Since I left my motorcycle at school, I’ll be in for a packed commute tomorrow morning, too. It’s frustrating, but I don’t have an outlet for it now as I cram myself into the train. I could marry her. I want to marry her. I want her to marry me. I want to marry her and make her mine forever. I’d never thought any of those things about anyone until I met Yukari. Ever since that incident at the pub, we’d started talking at school, little by little. That said, we didn’t want the students to see us chatting, and I did the majority of my desk work in the phys ed instructors’ room. So the only times I could talk to her were brief moments in the morning or when we met in the staff room after school. Once we’d gotten a bit closer, I became keenly aware of just how special a woman Yukari was. Just meeting her eyes was enough to make you forget everything else. It was a power not even she could control. There are some natural sights that create a kind of irresistible awe, and she was the same. Being near her was all you needed. Who could avoid a typhoon that covers the sky or an earthquake that shakes the ground beneath their feet? That was the kind of woman Yukari was. I’d never met anyone like her. She caught me, I thought, and I wasn’t sure whether that made me happy or not. To be honest, I’d known she was an extraordinary woman the moment I first laid eyes on her. I hated being bound by something stronger than I was; the idea was terrifying to me, and I’m sure I’d been carefully avoiding her for that reason…but it was too late now. Just exchanging a word or two with Yukari would create a warmth in my chest that would last until I fell asleep that night. On the days we didn’t talk, everything around me looked duller than usual. It was like a hopeless middle-school first love. No—it was worse. Before long, just seeing her at school wasn’t enough, and I started inviting her to restaurants and movies on our days off. Yukari was a gentle, reserved woman. Her health seemed relatively delicate, and she sometimes had fevers or spells of anemia. To a guy like me, who didn’t even catch a cold once a year, it was just one more mystery about her. She always seemed vaguely tense, and her voice had a little quiver. Every time I heard it, I was desperate to protect her, so desperate I could weep. I put a helmet on her petite head, set her on the back of my bike, and took her to Okutama and Nikko and Hakone. She said she hadn’t done much sightseeing since she came to Tokyo, and everywhere we went, she seemed to be enjoying herself. It was a smile so beautiful it hurt, like a needle that lanced straight into the softest place in the human heart, and there was no escaping it. I’d found my ideal woman—it was something like a miracle. It felt as if by some astronomical coincidence, I’d been wandering through Tokyo and happened to spot a rare butterfly indigenous to a single remote island. It wasn’t long before I realized with some astonishment that just seeing Yukari talking to students during breaks made me jealous. The kids always flocked to her anyway, but that was around the time one particular girl had virtually latched on to her. She was a first-year student named Shouko Aizawa, attractive and popular, and one of my homeroom students. She was a beauty, her grades were good, and she was a natural leader. Girls like her often become the stars of the school. Several of the guys in the basketball club had gotten shot down. The sight of Yukari and Aizawa walking side by side like sisters in the low light of the corridor—it was as beautiful and striking as film clipped from an old movie. —Yup. Pathetic as it was, I was jealous of a sixteen-year-old girl. I had to make Yukari mine before somebody else took her. It sounds so stupid, but Shouko Aizawa gave me the push I needed. On Christmas night, Yukari and I went out for dinner, and while we were walking back to the station, I pulled her into a hug and said it out loud. “I love you. And I want you to love me back.” To this day, I can still hear her tremulous “All right” in my ears. I was unbelievably happy back then. And now, I sometimes seriously worry that that voice may never leave my ears again. * * * Summer vacation ended, and the second term has begun. It was the rainy season when Natsumi and I drank at her apartment, so it’s been almost two months since then. I’ve spent my days in a constant struggle to stay on top of my work. It might have been summer vacation for the students, but that time is always business as usual for faculty members. In my case, the basketball club had practice and away games, so I was actually busier than usual. I contacted Natsumi a few times, but our schedules never matched up. We haven’t seen each other since that day. Come to think of it, it’s been even longer since Yukari and I met face-to-face like this. When was the last time…? Probably in April, on the last day she managed to come to work. Now, with Yukari standing right in front of me in the staff room, her color seems a bit better than it’s been for a while. Even though it’s summer, she’s wearing dark-navy slacks and a long-sleeved charcoal-gray jacket over a white blouse. I’m in a tracksuit, and somehow I feel even seedier than usual. It’s true; no matter what’s going on, Yukari always dresses impeccably, and no matter what she’s wearing, she wears it better than any magazine model. There’s no emotion in her eyes—but Yukari is transparently beautiful in a way that would make even the hardest heart tremble. “All right. Let’s get going,” I prompt her. “Yes, thank you for your help.” “No, no, don’t mention it. The principal should be waiting for us.” We speak to each other politely. I thought I’d put a tight lid on my heart, but that constant pain is always threatening to show. If only Yukari felt the same, I think as we walk side by side out of the staff room. We’re on our way to the principal’s office to formally submit her resignation. “Ms. Yukino!” someone calls to us in the hallway, and one of the girls runs up to us. It’s Hiromi Satou from year two. She’s a diligent student, but thanks to her vast and varied circle of friends, she ends up being a broadcast center for gossip. As I’m internally rolling my eyes with annoyance, other students spot Yukari and come running over, one or two at a time. “Ms. Yukino, Ms. Yukino,” they all call to her. Look at them; they idolize you. And you’re quitting the school? I think for a moment, feeling an unwarranted, misplaced irritation. And yes, I know I’m the one who moved her resignation process forward. In no time, the students have us surrounded, and Yukari is getting anxious. I pull myself together for a round of reprimands. “Satou, leave it for later, all right? That goes for the rest of you, too.” The students look at me as if they’ve got a bone to pick. Their eyes are more intense than I expected, and I almost flinch. Yukari steps in to mediate. “I’m sorry, guys. I’ll be at school until after fifth period, so come talk to me later. I’ll have time then.” Reluctantly, the students back off. “Let’s go,” I tell Yukari. Just as we begin walking, I catch a glimpse of Takao Akizuki out of the corner of my eye. Out of nowhere, I wonder if he knew about Yukari, too. “Ms. Yukino, I’m sure you’re well aware of this by now, but here’s the thing about teachers: They get to work before eight, they’re tied down here until close to five, but of course they can’t go home at five, and they don’t receive overtime benefits. It’s taken for granted that they’ll work on the weekends, they take salary cuts because people demand that their pay be kept in line with the private sector, and they’re reviled for having pensions that are significantly higher than the private sector’s. They get no respect from students or their guardians, the education they provide is criticized as useless even though they’re only complying with the requirements of the Ministry of Culture, and yet they’re compelled to fly the flag and sing the national anthem together because they’re public servants. They have to keep the Board of Education happy, and the parent, and the students, and the public. This is a worthless job.” What the hell is he talking about? I wonder, watching the vice-principal’s face. Yukari is sitting quietly on the sofa, listening with her head bowed, but when I glance over at her, I can spot a faint smile in her eyes. The principal’s office is well insulated from the outside, and only the slight hum of the air conditioner and the muffled racket of the students on their lunch break reach us. The four of us—Yukari and I, the principal and vice-principal—are sitting on black reception sofas, facing each other across a table. For a while now, the principal has been sipping tea as if he accidentally wandered into the wrong meeting. Meanwhile, the vice-principal keeps talking. “You see, Ms. Yukino, if I were just a little younger, I would love to quit public education once and for all and open a cram school. There’s really no reason for students or teachers to stay in a place that’s treating them poorly. I’m a little too old to quit now, though.” Was that just a joke I didn’t get? No, the vice-principal is just being excessively candid. I can’t say I fully sympathize with him, but his opinion does create some heat in my chest. “It’s a shame to lose you, but I have no choice but to accept your letter of resignation. To tell the truth, I am a little jealous.” After he’s finished speaking, the vice-principal sends the principal a silent signal with his eyes. The principal picks up the resignation request from the table. “Thank you for all your hard work, Ms. Yukino,” he says briefly. “I’m terribly sorry for all the trouble I caused you. Thank you very much for everything these past two and a half years.” Yukari bows her head deeply, her voice full of dignity. The short version is, Yukari quit because her mind and body fell so out of tune that she couldn’t come to school. To put it in familiar terms, it was burnout. But the reality of it wasn’t so easy to put into words. I can share my side of it, and so can everyone else involved with the whole thing, but I’m pretty sure nobody really understands exactly what happened. The first sign I remember came up last September, about nine months after I’d hugged Yukari on Christmas. Naturally, we’d been keeping our relationship a secret from both the students and the other teachers. “Mr. Itou, do you know Shouko Aizawa in my class?” Yukari’s question came after we’d had dinner at my apartment. For a former salesman like me, the custom of calling each other Mr. or Ms. (the way our students did) felt strange, and I’d started calling Yukari by her first name in private. Meanwhile, Yukari kept on calling me Mr. Itou. “It’s a habit,” she’d once told me. “I just can’t seem to correct it.” I didn’t like the distance it created, but at the same time, that clumsiness was endearing. “Sure, I know her. I was her first-year homeroom teacher. She was hard to forget with her looks and personality, but there weren’t any real problems with her.” As I said it, I remembered that Aizawa had provided me with that initial impetus to confess my feelings to Yukari, but of course I couldn’t tell her that. “I see… Miss Aizawa is in my class now, and—” According to Yukari, when the second term began, Aizawa’s attitude had abruptly changed. Up until then, she’d had a puppylike adoration for Yukari, but lately she’d started lashing out. “She’s intentionally late to my classes, and when I speak to her, she ignores me.” “Hmm. Yeah, the kids can practically change into different people over that month of summer vacation.” As I answered, I searched my memory for details on Shouko Aizawa. If I remembered right, her dad was a manager at a famous advertising agency, and her family was fairly well off, with a place in Shoutou. The girl was also extremely attractive and tended to get a lot of stares, which seemed to have gone to her head, but at least as a first-year, she hadn’t caused trouble. That said, I had no idea what was going on in the hearts of the female students. The school separated the guys and girls for phys ed, and once you weren’t their homeroom teacher anymore, you just lost track of them. I think I just told Yukari I’d keep an eye on her, but I never thought it would be a big deal. After all, minor problems with students were a really common thing for any teacher. But Yukari and Aizawa’s situation just kept rolling downhill and gaining speed all the way to the end of the year. Aizawa led the class in a group boycott of Yukari’s lessons, and students who talked to Yukari started getting shunned by the rest. Aizawa was a surprisingly charismatic ringleader, and before too long, most of the class was hostile to Yukari. When it started affecting her lessons, Yukari’s position in the staff room rapidly worsened as well. Naturally, she was completely exhausted. But even after all that, I thought it was a problem she should manage herself. She came to me for advice several times, but the third term was a busy one already, and I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that the trouble was 100 percent Aizawa’s fault. Yukari had to be doing something wrong, too, which meant she should have plenty of options that didn’t involve other people. We’d chosen to become teachers of our own free will, and the job had always included stuff like this. I even believed that her resolving the problem herself would ultimately be in her best interest. Before long, a rumor that Yukari had made a pass at Aizawa’s boyfriend began to spread through the school. It was ridiculous gossip, patent kid stuff, but I still got curious and looked into it. Apparently, Aizawa’s boyfriend had developed a one-way crush on Yukari and told her how he felt. Of course Yukari had turned him down, but it had stung Aizawa’s pride. When I asked Yukari, she wouldn’t tell me exactly who the boy was, but she more or less confirmed the rest. I dug deeper and managed to identify the kid who’d made the love confession, a third-year named Makino. To make matters worse, he was in my homeroom, and the captain of the basketball club, which I’d advised until the previous year. I really debated whether I should talk with him about it. Makino was a good student with a strong sense of responsibility. Even if he had fallen for Yukari, that wasn’t his fault. Still, he was in a relationship with Aizawa, so he shouldn’t go behind her back. Should I point that out to him? On the other hand, I was secretly dating Yukari myself. What right did I have to put Makino in his place when I was already feeling guilty myself? I hesitated—and I really shouldn’t have. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I should’ve done it, my own convenience be damned. While I dragged my feet, the situation spiraled completely out of control. A fire may be set by human hands, but after a certain point, the flames are spreading on their own. Hatred and antipathy are the same way. By the end, it isn’t even clear who started it; it keeps burning until the very last beam comes crashing down. I know that now. That beam was probably Yukari’s sense of taste, her spirit, her body. By the time the rumor spread to the students’ parents, Yukari couldn’t even come to school anymore because of the harassment. And even then, I couldn’t stop seeing her absences from work as a kind of failure of self-sufficiency. The circumstances didn’t matter; she should come to school, confront Aizawa, and solve her own problem. It had to still be possible. I was so sure of it. It was a long, dark, painful winter for everybody. My dad, who’d been living in our family home in Sendai, passed away that winter. He was past eighty—I was a late baby. By the time they found his pancreatic cancer, it was already Stage IV. My father had refused the treatment, which would have been painful, and passed away peacefully after six months in palliative care. He’d probably had conflicting feelings about everything, but right to the end, he never showed his son anything resembling weakness. I went to visit him just a few days before he died, and I still remember what he told me. “I don’t have much of anything to leave you, but…,” he’d said. “Just…make sure you find somebody you can love more deeply than yourself. If you can manage that, you’ve got it made in life.” When I broke up with Yukari, my dad’s wish for me was what I remembered. Had I loved Yukari more than I loved myself? Probably not. I’d been paralyzed since long before things had gotten this bad. Before, my attraction to her had felt like the pull of some unfathomable vortex; before, I would have begged for the chance to marry her. Except…those feelings hadn’t changed, actually, or even weakened. And yet I let go of her hand so easily, it seemed unreal. Something had been lost to me forever, and I’d never even noticed. There had been a bond between us once, one that might have grown stronger and stouter if it weren’t for this mess. And we’d lost it for eternity. On that freezing, snowy March night, when Yukari visited my apartment for the first time in quite a while, I knew this was the end for us the moment I saw her. It was less that I understood it logically and more as if I were watching thick rain clouds approach over a plain with nothing to obstruct the view. Our breakup was simply right there in front of me. Yukari had cut her long hair so short that it didn’t even reach her shoulders. Her eyes no longer held any of the affection and trust they had once held. All I could see was exhaustion, fear, and suspicion. I finally, finally realized that I’d been just as culpable as Aizawa and her cronies in bringing her to this. “I’m really sorry,” Yukari said, in that trembling voice that always touched my heart like a gentle caress. “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. We really do need to end this, don’t we?” Come to think of it, I’d even forced her to say those last words to me, too. While I watched her boarding an empty city bus from the stop near my apartment, I realized I’d encountered a miracle—and yet, without even lifting a finger, I’d managed to bury it forever. The bell that encourages students to head home echoes through the depopulated school building. The next thing I know, everything around me is dyed a blazing sunset, the sort you see after a typhoon has passed. Yukari has finished packing up her belongings, and from the staff room window, I watch her walk through the school gate alone. Several students run up and grab her, crying. Yukari is saying something to them, her expression gentle. As I gaze at her smile, tinted by the lonely red of the sunset, it occurs to me that neither of us ever shed a tear, not even at the end. * * * We had a lot of typhoons that autumn. Huge masses of wind and rain came to shake up the air of the Kanto area, suddenly bringing summer heat or winter cold like a series of pranks. But autumn still gradually deepened, turning the leaves of the gingko trees along the street yellower the more the sun touched them. The leaves fell little by little, the people’s clothes thickened one layer at a time, and at last the season gave way to winter. I’ll probably never see Yukari again. I really should have spent my whole life with her, but her time with me is over. That regret might never leave me until I die. But just as the ground slowly absorbs moisture even after the rain has stopped, Yukari has left a few epilogues behind. On that day in the second term when Yukari left the school, there was an incident. After class, Takao Akizuki got into a fistfight with several third-year students. An eyewitness reported it, and I went to break it up. It was less a fight than Akizuki getting beat up. Shouko Aizawa was there in that group of third-year kids, and she looked upset. My understanding was that Akizuki had started it by hitting her, but nobody would give me any more details. There wasn’t a mark on Aizawa, while Akizuki’s face was bruised and dark. Technically, we should have treated this as a serious act of violence, but I couldn’t drag any of the particulars out of them. Everyone was in the deep shadow that Yukari’s absence had left behind. But I thought that Akizuki had done what I’d never been able to do. I bundled the protesting kid into a taxi bound for the hospital, and as I glanced at him, sitting sullen and silent in the rear seat, I realized I was just a little fond of him. He was probably living with a world inside him, invisible to everyone and certainly to me. It was the end of December, with New Year’s just around the corner, when I spotted Shouko Aizawa in town during vacation. School was already out for winter break. I’d been wandering around Shibuya with no particular destination in mind when I happened to see Aizawa sitting in the window of a café. She was by herself, languidly smoking a cigarette. In her mocha-colored leather jacket, bold makeup, and bleached curls, most people would’ve taken her for a college student. No one would’ve questioned it. I went into the café, plopped down next to Aizawa, and wordlessly took the cigarette away from her. She looked at me, startled. I was wearing a stocking cap, pulled down low, and a down jacket instead of my tracksuit, and she didn’t seem to recognize me. “If you’re going to smoke, do it so you don’t get caught,” I told her, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray. After staring at me for a while, Aizawa finally snapped back at me. “Oh, it’s Mr. Itou. Stay out of my private life, all right?” She didn’t look the slightest bit ashamed. Even so, she struck me as awfully sad and alone, and I just couldn’t get up the energy to reprimand her. I took out a cigarette of my own and lit it. The puff of smoke was absolutely my way of showing off, and Aizawa glared at me resentfully. I looked through the window at the people passing by outside. “…Did something happen to you?” I asked. “Of course it did. I can’t go a day without ‘something happening,’” Aizawa murmured. That was a blunt reply. I studied her face, and from this distance, her cheeks and forehead still seemed like a child’s. Her eyes were red and damp, as if she’d been crying until just a minute before. This poor thing, I thought. She can try as hard as she wants to look mature, and she has her whole class wrapped around her finger—but she’s still just a kid. “…What about you, Mr. Itou? Did something happen?” Aizawa asked. Maybe my silence had made things awkward or uncomfortable. —Me? Did something happen to me? “I…” What had happened to bring me here? “A long time ago…” A long time ago, I’d let a student get hurt. It was back when I’d just started teaching. At the first school I was assigned to, one of the first things the principal told me was “Itou, as far as the students are concerned, you’re the bad cop.” He wanted me to reprimand the kids and keep them on edge. Their homeroom teachers would take care of the rest. Naive as I was, I’d wanted to be the kind of teacher who built relationships akin to friendships with his students, so I was really disappointed with the advice. So I rebelled. I’d stuck it out through three years in sales, a job that had never been my thing, and finally gotten the teaching job I’d wanted for years. I had ideals of my own. But when they put me in charge of the handball club, those ideals were shattered. During a practice match with another school, one of the kids on my team crashed into a goalpost and gave himself a concussion. His life was never in danger, but the sight in his left eye would never be the same. It was a shock. I had no idea how to begin to make up for that. Since it had been an accident during a game, I wasn’t held responsible, and neither the student nor his parents blamed me. But I knew I had failed to remind my kids to straighten up and look sharp, and the regret ate at me. Accidents and injuries happen when you relax. The role of a phys ed teacher was, first and foremost, not to let students get hurt. And so in my first year of teaching, I resolved to be the guy who made you straighten up whenever he walked by. I’d yell at them, even when it wasn’t completely fair. I’d be the terror of the school, the one who never gave them a chance to let their guard down. “‘A long time ago’ what?” “…Nothing. Don’t smoke. It boosts your risk of lung cancer, it wrecks your skin, and it’s expensive.” “Don’t tell me that when you’re breathing it in my face!” Aizawa waved a hand to dispel the cloud from my lungs, genuinely grumpy. She looked so much like a little kid, I had to laugh. “Seriously, Mr. Itou, what is with you?!” “Ha-ha, sorry. I haven’t ordered yet, so I’m gonna go get some coffee. Want anything? My treat.” Aizawa eyed me dubiously, but I just stood up. If Yukari was gone for good, then I had to make a change of some sort. And if there was anything I could do now for the woman I’d never see again, it would definitely have to do with Shouko Aizawa. “Huh, for real? Why? Um, okay-okay, so, a mocha chip Frappuccino!” I lifted a hand to acknowledge the order without looking back, and I started walking.
Chapter 5
49 min read