Monday night, Kunieda-san visited my house for the first time.
“I’m so sorry to drop in unannounced…”
“Nah, come on in.” I hesitated for a moment, but decided to allow him upstairs, thinking maybe the familiar environment would remind him a bit.
“You’re a filmmaker, right?” he asked, peering around curiously as he sat in a chair. “I spent yesterday and today searching through my apartment, and I found the Evening File recordings from last year. I thought, Ah, so this is what Tsuzuki-san was talking about.” He spoke as though it was something he had learned rather than recalled.
“Yep.”
Obviously, the sensible thing was to talk about specifics and wake up that sleeping brain of his; I didn’t need Tatsuki to spell it out for me. But it was painful for me to have to teach Kei about his own memories. So was acting like I was fine. I’d gained a newfound admiration for his ability to stay in character at all times when in public.
“Have you eaten? I was just about to cook. Nothing fancy, but you’re invited if you’d like.”
“You don’t mind?”
His face brightened. He must have been lonely, and since he couldn’t gauge the distance between us, he was relieved for me to take the lead. His smile always warmed my heart, no matter the circumstance.
“Need any help?” he asked.
“Nah, just take a seat.”
The real Kei would never make such a kind offer—no, surely, the real Kei was still in there somewhere. Was he snarking silently at me in his head, right this minute? If not, then the sweet, princely Kunieda-san was no longer just a mask…it was more like a toy brought to life. But in that case, he technically wasn’t the same as Kei’s mask… Ugh, this is complicated.
I chopped up some onions, bell pepper, and ham, fried it all up with some cooked pasta noodles, and added tomatoes and ketchup for flavor. In private, Kei would eat every meal with chopsticks regardless, but this time I intentionally gave him a fork.
He smiled brightly. “It looks delicious.”
“I just threw some stuff together, that’s all.”
Then he saw me pull a jar from the fridge and tilted his head slightly. “You eat pasta with pickled scallions?”
“Huh? Oh, er…”
“Everybody has little quirks like that,” he reassured me, sensing my mild panic. “And those little Chinese scallions are delicious.”
“Yeah…ha ha…”
I grabbed them for you, you idiot! No matter the type of sauce, Kei always ate his pasta with sweet pickled scallions, so by this point I had developed a “curry and rice” association with the two. I’d only grabbed them out of habit.
“Anyway, let’s eat.”
“Thank you so much for cooking.”
The way he pressed his palms together, he was the paragon of a well-mannered young man. This Kei would never ask for a chicken and rice bowl from KFC as his final meal, eat half of it normally, then make risotto with the rest. If I remembered correctly, he said his second choice was to eat a bowl of rice stirred up with the leftover egg dip from a sukiyaki restaurant.
Shit. The longer he’s gone, the weirder he starts to seem.
“Oh, wow, this actually pairs really well. Refreshes the palate.” I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or not, but he looked quite content eating pickled scallions between bites of pasta.
“Glad to hear it. Did you go to the hospital?”
“Ah, yes, I was meaning to tell you about that. I spent half the day taking all sorts of tests.”
“And?”
He furrowed his brow slightly. “No abnormalities detected. I even had them do a head MRI, but they didn’t see any blood clots… When I told them I have partial memory loss, they said it’s probably just the lingering shock from the fall. As long as it doesn’t impact my daily life, they said to just wait and see.”
“Right. Well, I’m glad there’s no clots up there.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but if I let it show, it would hurt Kunieda-san. So I rose to my feet and turned away. “Want something to drink? Wine?”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
I chose a white wine in hopes that it would remind him of the night we went out drinking with Shitara. For some reason he drank a lot that night; it was cute. He was still in Kunieda-san mode back then, so you’d think there’d be a lot of overlap with the guy currently sitting at my table…and yet…
“…Tsuzuki-san?”
Crap, I zoned out. “Sorry, it’s nothing.”
“Um…” Kunieda-san swirled his wine hesitantly.
“Yes?”
“When I went back to my apartment…I was fully aware that it was my place, but I kept finding things I didn’t recognize.”
“Like what?”
“Fake glasses.”
“Those are for whenever you need to go incognito. You just forgot them when you went to Nagano.”
“And the bookshelves full of manga?”
“Oh… Well, sometimes you have to research stuff for work. Like a while ago, when you had to read a shoujo manga series to prep for an interview.”
“Really? Then what about that really old tracksuit?”
“I think you wear that whenever you take out the trash.”
“Ah, I see. In that case, do you have any idea about the other key on the same ring as my house key?”
It’s the key to my place, obviously. “Maybe you rented a storage shed somewhere? Or it’s for something at work? You’ll probably remember once your vacation’s over.”
I wasn’t great at off-the-cuff cover stories, and my heart was racing. Damn it, why should I have to hide you from yourself? The second you go back to normal, you owe me big time… You will go back to normal, right?
After about half a bottle of wine, Kunieda-san started dozing off.
“I’m so sorry—I should go home…”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. Stay as long as you like. Maybe take a nap for half an hour? I bet you’ll feel better.”
“I couldn’t possibly…”
“It’s fine!”