“Nagoshi… Have you quit playing bass for good?”
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I’d managed to keep smiling constantly since I started high school, but for some reason…in that moment, I faltered.
“You had a gentle look on your face when you were talking about playing bass.”
There was no way that was true. I’d just given him an example to help persuade him.
“You’re wrong. And besides, I’m way too busy managing the soccer team.”
“I dunno. Sometimes, you have this unsatisfied look on your face.”
I was sure I didn’t. Stop acting like you understand me. I started to feel irritated.
“You’re imagining things. Anyway, squats are forbidden. I’ll report you to the advisor if I catch you doing it again.”
I grabbed the bag of sports drink powder and escaped the club room.
I was able to put a stop to the conversation that day, but afterward, he kept badgering me, saying things like, “Did you really give it up?” or “You’re meant to play the bass, Nagoshi.”
What did he mean, I was meant to play the bass? What did he know? I thought he should mind his own business, but I didn’t feel like telling him why I’d left music behind. It would only earn me cheap sympathy, and it would be too stressful to dig up all those memories I’d chosen to bury.
I’d started cutting the day I quit music. But once Andou began pestering me, I started doing it more and more. At first, it had just been a ritual I did to remind myself that I was still alive, not something I did when I was upset. But now, I sliced at my wrists every time I felt irritated. All it did was add to my emptiness.
“Nagoshi.”
“Please listen to me.”
“Nagoshi.”
“I want to hear you play bass again.”
“Why did you stop playing?”
“Nagoshi!”
Soon, I started getting annoyed any time Andou spoke to me, no matter what it was about.
Maybe if I still loved music, I’d be happy that my sound had rooted itself in someone’s heart like that. But I now knew even music that moved people’s hearts—and the desire for it, too—were all just lies.
My irritation turned into anger, and eventually I reached my limit. Abruptly, I turned cold, and the cruelty inside my heart emerged.
It seemed Andou only associated me with my music, so I would have to overwrite that impression with something stronger.
One day after club practice, I asked him to come see me…and I showed him the scars on my arm.
“Just thinking about the past irritates me,” I said plainly. “And when I get irritated, I cut my arms like this to distract myself from the pain.” It was a lie, but I said it calmly and convincingly.
That wasn’t the real reason I cut, of course. I was marking my body with scars to pass the time. To make sure I could still feel. When I saw blood dripping from my body, I felt alive, relieved, and at the same time, a little excited.
I showed him those self-indulgent marks as if to say, “And it’s because of you that I keep cutting.”
But even that didn’t feel like enough. I took out a box cutter right then and there and cut myself more roughly than usual in front of him.
It hurt a lot. But I forced myself to maintain a faint smile.
I must have deeply unsettled him. He stared at me in shock, like he didn’t understand.
“Can you stop talking about the bass already?” I said. “It’s annoying.”
And with that, I walked away.
At one point I turned back and saw him standing there frozen, dumbfounded.
This is for the best.
I had no choice but to cut off this troublesome relationship.
I didn’t want anyone to whisper the word “music” in my ear ever again. That was all it took to make my heart start racing. I’d finally shut my past away in a drawer in the back of my mind, and I didn’t need anyone trying to open it… After all, even if no one touched the handle, it would rattle and try to open all on its own whenever I least expected it.
Later that same day, I was walking home when everything became too much. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
When I imagined having to see Andou again and pretend nothing had happened, I grew completely fed up with the situation. Even though I knew I’d hurt Andou, I started feeling like I was the victim, which only made me more exasperated with myself.
The next day, I handed in my withdrawal form to the soccer club’s faculty advisor.