Even so...
The end wasn’t far off now.
I immediately quit my restaurant job. It was beyond irresponsible to resign considering my shifts, but I refused to back down. I got his permission to tell them I had to take care of my sick roommate and basically forced them to accept my resignation.
On my final day there, Ozaki-san invited me to close up the restaurant with her.
We often left work at the same time. Because Ozaki-san worked there full-time and I was one of the few male part-timers, we often worked the late shift together. However, this was the first time she’d informed me of that ahead of time.
Ozaki-san took the train in the opposite direction, but we walked the short distance to the station side by side.
“I’m gonna miss you,” she said.
“I’m sorry this was so sudden.”
“No, don’t worry about it. You were tons of help, but we’ll manage somehow. And it makes perfect sense, considering your reason for quitting. Very kind of you to take care of your roommate... Or is it something other than kindness?”
“Dunno.”
“Of course.” Ozaki-san laughed. We stumbled into silence.
“Well... I was about to find full-time work, so I wouldn’t have stayed much longer anyway. Thank you for looking out for me,” I said.
“That’s my line. You’re very observant, so you were popular with both employees and customers. You’ve done a lot for us.”
“No, I think they were actually quite scared of me.”
Ozaki-san seemed restless, searching for something to talk about. I spoke up to break her wistful silence.
“Are you and your boyfriend doing all right?”
“Yeah, for now. We decided to try living together again, which I know sounds silly after everything, but I think both of us have grown a little since then...”
Our conversation stalled again. As if to interrupt my next words, she called my name firmly.
“Yes?” I replied, unsure of what would come next.
“If I’m never gonna see you again, let me say it now. It’s mostly for my own self-satisfaction, because I thought it was wonderful.”
“Oh.”
We had just arrived at the station. Since no buses would be coming at this hour, Ozaki-san sat on the bench at the bus stop and beckoned me to sit next to her. I sat down without protest, and she smiled in satisfaction and resumed her story.
“The first time you drank at the restaurant after turning twenty, you ended up blacking out, right?”
“‘Ended up’ certainly is one way to put it.”
“Never mind that. I knew your address because it was in your documents, so I took you there, though I doubt you remember that.”
“I don’t, but my roommate told me about it... But I told you that story already.”
“Yes, but there’s something I didn’t tell you about that night.”
A little “hmm” was about all I could respond to that. Even over a year since that incident, I still remembered nothing of what happened during my drunken stupor. But I knew for certain Ozaki-san took me home, and he’d also told me as much.
“Someone rang the doorbell late at night, so I answered and found the lady I often see at the restaurant dragging you outside the door.”
“Did you know your roommate was mad at me? Did he tell you that?”
“He did not.”
“Of course not. Then again, it wasn’t like he was openly hostile; he didn’t even yell at me or anything.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that when you got me home safely.”
“Oh no, that was my fault. I got you drunk in the first place.”
I couldn’t grasp what she was getting at and didn’t know how to respond. There must have been a question mark floating above my head because Ozaki-san burst out laughing when she saw my face.
“He told me, ‘You shouldn’t have given him so much to drink.’ And I mean, I guess he was right. You had just turned twenty, and I was your boss at twenty-two years old—I guess it was inevitable you’d end up under the table.”
“I mean, it was also my fault for continuing to drink when I should have stopped... I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. But that night you told me your roommate never gets mad, except he totally did. So on my way home from your place, I did some thinking. Your roommate never got mad, not because he didn’t experience the feeling or because he was chill like that. He just never got mad at you.”
I remembered his smiling face as he told me I was kind. That probably wasn’t right either. Just like his perception of me as kind wasn’t the whole truth, his never getting upset with me because it was me was also lacking. Kasumi-san had described him as “holding himself back.”
In the end, it all depended on one’s interpretation.
“So when I heard why you were quitting, it just made perfect sense. You guys must really care about each other.”
“You’ll make me blush,” I said jokingly, and Ozaki-san clapped me on the back. It was her way of hiding her embarrassment.
“So I thought that was really nice, and I decided I want to be like that with my boyfriend. So I told him how I really felt—I really did my best, because I love him. And now we’re gonna live together again, so please thank your roommate for that.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“Yay! Thank you.”
Apparently that was all she wanted to tell me, because she suddenly bolted upright, worried about missing the last train. Checking my wristwatch, I got to my feet as well.
As Ozaki-san headed toward the turnstile, I suddenly asked from behind her, “What do you think love is?”
Toyota’s face appeared in my mind.
Ozaki-san turned around and answered with a big grin.
She must have already had it in her grasp.
“You’ll have to figure that out on your own, Sacchan.”
“Oh, that.” He laughed really hard when I brought it up. But that immediately made him dizzy, and he had to cover his eyes until it passed.
“I would have never told you otherwise, but yes, I really was mad at this Ozaki-san lady back then.”
“Since when did you have such a low boiling point?”
“No, I just wanted her to read the room... When someone you love gets passed-out-drunk with a lady from work, it’s only natural to get a little annoyed. Like, what the heck do you think you’re doing, miss?”
I burst out laughing, but then I realized perhaps I shouldn’t have, and I turned serious again. He grinned, making it clear there was nothing wrong with my reaction.
The bus to the seaside park rocked us back and forth. It was November now, and just like before, there was no one around. But this time, he was in a wheelchair, and I wasn’t dozing off. I sat in the seat directly in front of his fixed wheelchair, turning around to maintain eye contact with him.
“You got to leave the hospital for once, and this is how you want to spend your time?”
“And by ‘this,’ you mean...?”
“Going to the beach with me.”
As we were leaving, Kasumi-san told me in secret that he only got permission to leave because it would make him happy, not because he was doing well.
He smiled sincerely.
“I chose this because I got to leave for once.”
Unsure of how to respond to his truly delighted voice, I turned my eyes to the window.
The bus stopped on the same coastal road as last time. I walked for a while, looking for a ramp, and then we descended onto the beach. The sand I stepped onto was soft. The wheels caught on it again and again, impeding our progress, but he only clapped and laughed. Once we finally reached the denser sand, he stubbornly urged, “Keep going.”
“It’s wet beyond this point.”
“That’s fine! Don’t stop.”