“I can’t tell you what to do, but if you want my opinion...” He cut into his slice of cake with a fork. “I think you could afford to be more selfish, more childish. Some things should make you mad, and it’s okay to get upset about things you can’t change. You can even cry and scream and trash the whole house if you want.”
I stared at him, unable to grasp why he was telling me this. I didn’t know how to respond. He continued on.
“When I first looked into you, I thought you and I were so different.”
Obviously, I thought, but I didn’t say that out loud.
“That’s why I want you to be happy, Sacchan.”
I couldn’t understand what he was saying—rather, I didn’t want to understand.
Love didn’t exist. If something looked like love, it still inevitably came to a tragic end, so true love didn’t actually exist.
More importantly, if I acknowledged the existence of love, I’d have to accept that no one had loved me to begin with.
I was contradicting myself. I knew it was incoherent.
In my confusion, the only thing that I could put into words was a plan of escape. I had thought it up from the very beginning.
My father’s genes made up half of me, and he was a lazy bum who refused to work. He relied on my mother to get by, just like I relied on the very person who’d brought me into this cushy situation. Was I all that different from my father?
I had to leave, go somewhere far away from all this.
“Can we end our arrangement?” I asked.
His expression suddenly hardened.
“When our current contract ends in March,” I elaborated. “The timing’s perfect; I’ll quit school, and I’ll work instead. I’ll keep playing your friend too.”
“Sacchan.”
“You have friends of your own, after all. You’ll be fine.”
As if I were waking from a long dream, I saw his expression falter.
Why are you making that face?
“I won’t be fine. I really won’t...” He trailed off, his gaze wandering until he fixed it on me. His tone was convincing. “I don’t think you should be making such big decisions now. I understand that getting a call from your father scared you. I’m sure your thoughts are all over the place, and you’ll need some time to sort them out. So, let’s hold off for now, okay?”
If anything, I wanted to avoid thinking as much as possible. I was exhausted. I knew he was right. I knew my conclusions were immature and wrong. I heaved a sigh and nodded. He nodded several times in agreement.
I looked into his eyes. His stern expression was replaced with relief. I thought all of this was stupid. So stupid. My disappearance from his life would change so little for him.
I must have stared at him for too long, because he seemed embarrassed even as he returned my gaze. I was also used to his behavior by now. That honest smile of his—one that lacked any ulterior motive—was back. That made me want to cry.
“Thank you for letting me celebrate your birthday.”
He was straightforwardly honest. He said it like he really meant it from the bottom of his heart.
Only when he celebrated my birthday did I feel like I might have been glad to be alive.
“Wow, what a nice roommate,” Ozaki-san said.
“Well... Yeah, I guess we never fight.”
We had closed for the night at the yakiniku place. The other employees clocked out, and I had already changed out of my uniform when some leftover snacks and a glass were placed in front of me. From behind the counter, she pointed a bottle of beer in my direction. I accepted the glass.
“You must be really in sync with each other. It’s not easy living with other people. They’re always around, whether you like it or not. No matter how fond you are of them, if you’re not compatible beyond your feelings, it won’t work out. Take it from me—there’s a reason I couldn’t live together with my boyfriend.”
After pouring me some beer, she swiftly filled her glass and extended it toward me. When I meekly raised mine in response, she sighed, leaned over the counter, and clinked our glasses together with some force. Beer sloshed all over the place. She downed hers in one go and cackled with pride.
“Happy twentieth birthday!”
Ozaki-san could absolutely hold her liquor. I’d never seen her act tipsy, not even during our drinking parties.
Meanwhile, I did my best to drink half of the small glass. She immediately noticed.
“Not a fan of beer? Have you been drinking much since you turned twenty?”
“Beer is okay—I don’t mind the taste. Recently we went drinking with the group I hang out with...”
A fellow part-timer passed behind me and clapped me on the back. “Good work today.”
As I replied with the same, he drank the remaining half of my glass.
“Sakura-san is in a league of her own. Good luck,” he said. “I nearly died drinking with her last year. Sakuma University Hospital is on call tonight, so you should be all right.”
“Hey! Don’t blame me for getting greedy just because the booze was free!” Ozaki-san protested.
My coworker laughed at her and took his leave. He was a med school student. The local emergency hospitals were on a rotation system, and he always kept track of them. When an emergency call came in for acute alcohol poisoning, he had a tendency of telling us the reputation of the hospital. Not that I had any use for the information.
“Do you have a favorite drink yet? I can get you whatever. Let’s do a tasting!”
“I haven’t had a chance to try sake yet, so I’d love to start with a beginner-friendly one.”
“Oooh, that’s pretty intense for a beginner. Let’s go for it!”
Employees could sample the restaurant’s alcohol for their twentieth birthday. Apparently, Ozaki-san was the one to establish this custom with the owner’s blessing. It was well received, especially by the part-timers. The idea was to get a better feel for the alcohol they served, but since Ozaki-san drank with the tasters, everyone concluded it was simply her hobby. However, customers sometimes asked about certain drinks, so it was a useful practice.
“Okay, try this! It’s on the sweeter side, but I’m a big fan.”
The 1.8-liter bottle she slammed on the table carried a name I was already familiar with from our menu. She poured some into a sake cup, which she then handed to me.
“So? What do you think?”
“Wow, it’s... I wouldn’t call this sweet...”
“Ba ha ha! Don’t worry, I’ve got more where that came from!”
I downed drink after drink, with some water in between. As she waited for me, Ozaki-san fixed herself some highballs.
“But yeah, I really think it’s impressive,” she said, going back to our previous conversation. “I mean, I love my boyfriend. I knew him pretty well by that point. We’d been together for three years before we moved in together, but it just didn’t work out. Do you guys really never fight?”
I recalled that Fujieda had asked me the same thing. It felt too awkward to tell Fujieda the truth since she knew him well, but Ozaki-san only ever saw him in passing. It wouldn’t cause a problem if she knew.