The sound of the piano filled the room.
I loved its timbre. While I was playing, I was a slave to the instrument, embraced by the beauty of the music. I felt only the keys under my fingers. They allowed me to forget everything, including the things I probably should have strived to remember.
If I never stopped playing, I thought I might just be able to live forever.
I was forced to acknowledge my own naivete in the middle of a certain night. He wasn’t there at the time, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved.
I wanted him to be by my side, but I also didn’t want him to see me like that.
Suddenly my vision blurred, and then the piano pedals were right in front of me. My consciousness was fading. No—not yet. I need more time!
I wanted to savor my happiness.
After hurting, killing, trampling so many things, after going down the wrong path, I had found happiness for myself that was worth the price.
I was completely at peace with every choice I had made. Even if there was nothing but hell waiting for me at the end, I’d go there with no regrets.
I’m so glad I never told you.
You don’t need to know I loved you.
✦ ✦ ✦
My call went to voicemail, so I called again.
“Nothing?” Fujieda asked.
“No answer. That’s strange. He always picks up immediately.”
“Where’s Kadzuki right now?”
“He should be home.”
“L-Let’s go!” Fujieda made to take off.
“Huh?” was all that came out of my mouth. She tugged at my sleeve.
“C’mon!” She looked more panicked than I’d ever seen her. She dashed ahead. Her skinny legs and sandal-clad feet weren’t very fast, though. I quickly caught up with her.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Shut up! Just keep running!”
Our apartment was several stations away. A train or taxi would’ve been infinitely faster than running, so I guided her toward the station, but we found no taxis waiting. We reluctantly scrambled onto the train.
We looked up at the screen display once we were on board. We had three stations to travel. Fujieda kept calling him from the moment we got on the train.
The constant, incomprehensible behavior of the rich kids in my life was really starting to bother me. No one ever offered me a single explanation.
“If you don’t want to tell me anything, why involve me at all?” I grumbled.
Fujieda’s eyes remained fixed on the screen in her hand. She stayed silent, as if in thought. Finally, she said in a trembling voice, “If Kadzuki’s fine, forget this ever happened.”
“Even if you realize you were better off not knowing, you can’t go back to being ignorant.”
I remembered what he told me on the day before the entrance ceremony. At the time, he made it sound like knowing would harm me in some way. I assumed it was something criminal and chose not to pursue it. But that wasn’t true. This was never about me.
If I learned the truth, there would be no going back for him.
When the train reached our station, I ran, leaving Fujieda behind. I sprinted as fast as I could down the flat road from the station to our apartment. My mind was frantically trying to remember what I had done when my mother had fallen ill at home. Who had I called, what had I said...?
I nearly slammed into the front door, working the lock impatiently until it opened. The cold air inside bit into my sweaty neck.
“Nishikawa!” I called, but there was no answer. However, the lights were on in the living room.
For a moment, I thought maybe he wasn’t home.
Then I saw him collapsed on the carpet next to the piano stool.
“Nishikawa!”
But he gave no clear reply; only a groan escaped his mouth.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, opened my contacts, and dialed a number. I prayed for it to go through.
I heard a loud sound from the front door and a high-pitched voice calling his name. When Fujieda came into the living room and saw him, she collapsed onto him like a deflated balloon.
When I quietly told her not to move him, the dial tone ended. A nurse had picked up.
After I explained the situation, I was asked to wait, and the call switched to music.
It was that song he always played.
I hated hold music.
More than anything, I hated the song they always played when I called the hospital after my mother had fallen ill. The longer I waited, the more anxious I became, and I prayed for it to end. While it played, I worried my mother would die. I begged her to live, and I pushed back the reality that was right beside me.
I never thought I’d have to go through this again.
The ambulance took longer than I expected. I wasn’t checking the clock—it just felt like it took forever. Fujieda and I both got on with Nishikawa. I was surprised that I could tell them his date of birth when they asked. Perhaps I had been paying more attention to him than I thought.
Sakuma University Hospital—I was familiar with the building we were brought into, and perhaps because of that, I felt reassured. As we watched him get carried farther inside on a stretcher, a nurse urged us out of the ER.
Unsure of what to do, Fujieda simply followed me. We stepped into the outpatient waiting room. We sat side by side on a bench, both silent.
My heart was pounding from anxiety and impatience. I wanted to change the subject to distract us, but one topic was at the forefront of my mind.
“Nishikawa has the same illness as my mother,” I said with a dry laugh.
“Where’s your mother now, Sacchan?”
“Dead.”
All I could do in the ambulance was look at him, and the one thing that kept flashing through my mind was my mother’s face. My mother had a heart disease, and she died on the operating table. A blood clot had traveled to her brain during surgery. It wasn’t all that abnormal. And considering the nature of the surgery, it had always been a possibility. The doctor had even explained it to me. Still, as I had seen her off, I had told myself that there was no way that could happen.
Was he going to die now?
His heart had been beating. He had been breathing. I’d checked over and over while waiting for the ambulance. But maybe I had imagined that. Whatever the case, my head was in multiple places.
Was he coming back? Was he really?
As I stared at the floor, I felt a hand gently tap my shoulder. I quickly glanced up and saw a familiar face.
“Fumihiro-kun?” she said.
As soon as my brain recognized her, a sense of relief slowly spread over me.
“Hello, Yoshino-san.”
She was wearing scrubs. She was often my mother’s nurse when she was hospitalized. As usual, her pockets were stuffed full of writing utensils and medical equipment.
“What happened? What are you doing here?”
“My friend collapsed.”
“Your friend? So you’re fine?”
“I’m all right.”
“I see. So you’re feeling okay? What are you up to nowadays?”
Yoshino-san’s gentle manner of speaking calmed my uncontrollably rapid heartbeat.
“I’m okay. I’m sorry I haven’t come for a checkup. I’m in college now. This is my classmate.”
She smiled gently at Fujieda. “Good evening.” Then she said to me, “So you’re in college now. Good for you.”
From her perspective, I must not have changed much from the last time she’d seen me as a teenager.
“Come in for a checkup sometime.” She patted me on the shoulder before heading to the ER.
“Is that not a normal checkup?” Fujieda asked stiffly.
“My mother’s—well, I guess it’s his illness too—is hereditary, though the risk of inheriting it is pretty low. I was told I should have some tests run just to be sure, but I didn’t have the money at the time. I forgot all about it...”
“You better do those tests.”
“I will. Nothing’s keeping me now.”
Back then, I had been struggling just to get by, and I couldn’t have afforded the equivalent of several meals to alleviate a seemingly infinitesimally small concern, no matter how life-threatening it might have been. I couldn’t afford it, financially or psychologically.
I thought about the money he’d given me: the first million yen and then the sum he’d continued to pay me every month. I’m sure that if I needed it in the future, it would save my life.
“You said you wouldn’t tell me the most important thing. Why not?” I asked Fujieda.
On the train, she told me about Nishikawa’s heart condition. He had undergone many surgeries and had been in and out of hospital since childhood. Fujieda, Takayama, and all of his classmates up through high school knew about it, but he had asked them not to tell me. She also told me he was gone on the first and third Tuesdays of every month not because of “piano lessons” but because of his doctor’s appointments.
She also explained that she had come to me so upset this time because Nishikawa always answered the phone—he didn’t want to worry anyone—so him not picking up could mean nothing good. And her bad feeling had been correct.
And then she’d said there was one more thing, the most important thing of all.
“But you should hear it directly from Kadzuki.”
It was wishful thinking. Neither Fujieda nor I knew whether he’d get the chance to tell me at all. Besides, people were taken from our lives all the time. My father vanished one day. My mother died.