The weirdest part was that he had been able to perceive that Katsuro was determined to have another go at it. Maybe this ability to see the truth of people’s hearts was what had earned him the nickname in the first place.
Hold on to this until the end. The very, very end.
What was that supposed to mean?
Maybe it meant his dreams were going to come true someday. But how could he be so sure?
Katsuro put the letter back into its envelope and stuffed it in his duffel bag. Win or lose, he was ready to fight.
9
Katsuro passed by a music shop with racks outside stacked with blue-jacketed CDs. He picked one up, savoring the joy it brought him. Across the cover in big letters was the title—REBORN—and below it was the name of the musician: Katsuro Matsuoka.
Finally, he’d made it. Made it all the way. It had been a long journey.
Arriving back in Tokyo with newfound resolve, Katsuro had thrown himself harder than ever into making music. He entered every contest, sat for auditions, and sent tapes to record labels, and in between, he played on the streets more times than he could count.
Somehow that big break never came.
Time passed all too quickly. Before long, he began to lose direction.
That was when someone came up to him after a show and asked if he would consider playing for a charity concert at a children’s home.
Not expecting it to get him anywhere, he figured what the hell.
When he showed up to perform, he found an audience of barely twenty kids. He was a bit confused but played anyway. His audience was just as confused as he was.
Then one of the kids began to clap along, and taking the cue, the others started to do the same. Pretty soon, Katsuro was getting into it. This was fun. It had been a long time since he had gotten so much joy out of singing.
From then on, he began touring facilities and homes all over Japan. He amassed a repertoire of over a thousand children’s songs, and that was the closest he’d ever get to a big break.
But was that true? If so, what was this CD in his hands? It certainly looked like a big break to him. And after all, this was his favorite song.
He sang himself the opening melody of “Reborn,” but for some stupid reason, he couldn’t remember the lyrics. To his own song!
How did it go again? Katsuro opened a CD case and pinched out the jacket. He tried to find the lyrics, but his fingers couldn’t flip the pages of the booklet. He couldn’t pry it open. From inside the shop, a relentless din was pounding in his ears. What kind of music was this?
Katsuro opened his eyes. He hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. An unknown ceiling, walls, and curtains. Eventually, he added it all up: He was inside one of the rooms at Marumitsuen.
A bell was clanging at full volume. Someone was screaming. A voice shouted, “Fire! Stay calm!”
Katsuro leaped out of bed. He grabbed his bag and his jacket and stepped into his shoes. Good thing he’d slept fully dressed. What about his guitar? Leave it. The decision was over in a second.
Outside his door, he was startled. The halls were smoked out.
A staff member with a handkerchief over his mouth was beckoning him. “This way. Exit this way.”
Katsuro followed his instructions and went down the stairwell two steps at a time.
But he stopped short at the next floor down. Seri was standing in the hallway.
“Come on, get outta there!” he yelled.
Seri’s eyes were bloodshot. Her cheeks were sticky with tears. “My brother… I can’t find Tatsuyuki.”
“Huh? Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know. I think the rooftop, maybe. He goes up there when he can’t sleep.”
“The rooftop…” He struggled for a moment, but the rest of his motions were swift. “Take these and get outta here.”
“What?”
He left her bug-eyed on the landing and shot back up the stairs.
In those few minutes, the smoke had thickened and congealed. Tears gobbed from his eyes. His throat stung. He could barely see, and it hurt to breathe. Most disturbingly, he couldn’t see the flames. Where were they? What was burning?
This was getting serious. It would be dangerous to continue on. Should he run? Just when the thought crossed his mind, he heard a child crying.
“Hey! Where are you?”
Yelling filled his throat with smoke. He hacked out a cough and pushed ahead.
He heard something crumbling as the smoke cleared. A little boy was crouching at the top of the stairs. Definitely Seri’s brother.
Katsuro made it to the boy and slung him over his shoulder. Together, they bounded down the stairs. At that moment, the whole ceiling came down with a crash. All they saw was fire. A sea of flames.
The boy wailed. Katsuro was beginning to panic.
But he couldn’t stand still. Down was the only way out.
Hugging the boy to his shoulder, Katsuro ran through the flames. He lost sense of what was underfoot. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Chunks of flaming debris tumbled around him. Pain tugged at his entire body. Breathing was no longer possible.
He was consumed at once by red light and empty blackness.
Someone called his name. But he couldn’t reply or so much as twitch a muscle. He couldn’t even tell if he was still inside his body.
His consciousness receded. Sleep followed him down.
Lines from a letter danced in the shadows of his mind.
Your efforts in music will never be in vain.
Your music will save lives. And the songs you create will absolutely live on.
Don’t ask me how I know. Just trust me. I’m positive.
Hold on to this until the end. The very, very end.
That’s all I can say.
Look at that. He was almost at the end. Just hold on, to the very, very end.
Maybe this is where I leave my mark, Dad. The losing battle was worth the fight.
10
Until this very moment, the packed arena had been alive with fanatic cheers. The three songs for the encore had been one crowd pleaser after another. That’s how she planned them.
But this last song came from a different place. Her devoted fans knew what was coming next, and when she stood before the microphone, ten thousand people hushed in anticipation.
“This will be my last song. The one I always end on.”
She was a genius, a rarity in any generation.
“This song was the reason I became an artist, but its significance goes even deeper. The man who wrote this song saved my brother, the only real family I have. He gave his life to save him. If we had never met, I wouldn’t be who I am today. That’s why I’ll sing this song as long as I live. It’s the only way I have to show my gratitude. Thanks for listening.”
The opening chords of “Reborn” filled the arena.
CHAPTER 3
OVERNIGHT IN THE CIVIC
1
Outside the turnstiles, he checked his watch and saw the hands were showing half past eight. That’s odd, he thought, and he spun around. As expected, the clock above the train schedule said eight forty-five. Takayuki Namiya scowled and clicked his tongue. Damn watch, broke again.
The watch had been a present from his father when he’d gotten into college. Lately, it had been running slow an awful lot. What would you expect, after twenty years? He’d been thinking it was time to replace it with a quartz crystal one. Those things used to cost as much as a new car, but recently, they’d gone way down in price.
He left the station and walked down the row of shops. It amazed him to see places open this time of night. From what he saw through the windows, they were doing decent business. Apparently, the influx of new residents had made locations by the station go up in demand.
You mean in this dead-end town? Takayuki found it hard to believe, but he didn’t mind hearing that his hometown was coming back to life. Far from it. In fact, he only wished his family’s shop was near t
he station, too.
He turned off from the shopping street into one of the side streets. Before long, he was surrounded by new buildings. Every time he dropped by, this place looked a little different. New homes were always under construction. There was supposedly a fair number of people who commuted into Tokyo from all the way out here, but even on express trains, it probably took at least two hours each way. Takayuki couldn’t imagine doing that every single day. He lived in the city with his wife and their son, almost ten. Their apartment wasn’t spacious, but it had two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen—it was enough.
But then again, as unreasonable as the commute itself might be, he could see the need to compromise on location. In life, things tended not to go as planned. If his problems could all be solved by extending his commute, he might just have to deal with it.
At the edge of the development, the road came to a T-shaped intersection. He turned right and kept walking, and the road sloped gradually uphill. Once he made it this far, he could get by with his eyes closed. His body knew where the road meandered. How many times had he been up and down this very street by the time he graduated high school?
Up ahead, he saw the little building on the right. The streetlights reached the sign, but its grubby letters were indecipherable. The shutter was pulled down.
Once he was closer, he stopped in his tracks to finally make out the words—NAMIYA GENERAL STORE.
A passage, maybe three feet wide, ran between the house and the storage shed beside it. Takayuki walked down the passage to the back door. In elementary school, he left his bike here.
Out back was a door into the kitchen, and right beside it hung a milk crate. It had been at least ten years since any milk had been delivered. When his mother died, they kept it going for a little while but eventually canceled. No one asked for the crate back.
Beside the milk bin was a button. If you pushed it, a buzzer rang inside. Used to, anyway. Not anymore.
Takayuki pulled the doorknob, and the door swung open. No resistance. Typical.
On the shoe rack was a familiar pair of house slippers and a ratty pair of leather shoes. They belonged to the same pair of feet.
“Hello, anyone here?” Takayuki called out in a deep voice, but no one answered. That didn’t stop him. He took off his shoes and stepped into the kitchen. Beyond that was a tatami room. In front of that was the store.
In the tatami room, Yuji was sitting on his knees at a low table, dressed in a sweater and long underwear. He slowly turned to face Takayuki. Just his face. His reading glasses rested low on his nose.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“‘Oh’? That’s all you have to say? You can’t leave the door open. How many times do I have to tell you? Lock it.”
“Don’t worry about it. If someone comes in, I’ll know.”
“You didn’t know just now. You didn’t hear me coming in.”
“I heard something, but I was busy thinking. I didn’t feel like answering you.”
“More excuses.” Takayuki placed a paper bag on the tea table and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Here, I brought some red-bean pastries from Kimuraya, Dad. Your favorite.”
“Wow,” said Yuji, eyes lighting up. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Yuji grunted as he stood. He picked up the paper bag and turned to face the altar. Its doors were open. He placed the pastries on the stand inside, then rang the devotional bells twice and sat back down. Yuji may have been small and scrawny, but he had fantastic poise for a man of almost eighty.
“You eat dinner yet?” he asked Takayuki.
“I had a bowl of soba noodles after work. I was planning on staying the night.”
“As long as you’ve told Fumiko.”
“She’s just as worried about you as I am. How’re you feeling anyway?”
“Doing fine, thanks to you. No need to drag yourself all the way out here just to check on me.”
“That’s nice of you to say right after I spent two hours getting here.”
“I’m only saying there’s no cause for concern. By the way, I just got out of the bath. I left the tub full. It shouldn’t have cooled down yet. Hop in whenever you like.”
Yuji was preoccupied by some sheets of stationery spread over the table. An envelope sat beside them, To Namiya General Store written on the front.
“Did that just come tonight?”
“No, this one came last night, but I didn’t notice until this morning.”
“Shouldn’t you have responded this morning, then?”
Responses to all letters to the Namiya General Store would be left in the milk crate by the next morning—that was Yuji’s personal rule. It was why he woke up each day at five thirty AM.
“Not this time. They knew they were delivering this too late. They said so in their letter. Told me to take my time, the next day would be fine.”
“Is that right?”
Takayuki had never gotten used to this. What business did the owner of a general store have giving people advice on their problems? Of course, he knew the backstory. It wasn’t any secret; after all, some magazine had even done a feature on him. The number of letters spiked after that. There were some serious ones in there, but most of them were pranks. A fair share of these were blatant harassment. One night, Yuji received over thirty letters. All were obviously in the same hand, and their content was garbage. But Yuji replied even to these.
Takayuki had tried to stop him. “What the hell are you doing?” he’d asked. “They’re clearly screwing with you. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a waste of your time.”
But the old man showed no sign of learning his lesson. He even treated his son with pity. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”
“Don’t have a clue about what?” spat Takayuki, but Yuji kept his cool.
“Harassment, pranks, it doesn’t matter to me. I treat every letter that comes in as a cry for help. These people are no different from the rest of us. They have a hole in their hearts, and something vital is bleeding out. If you need proof, consider this: Everyone always comes by and checks to see if I wrote back. They stop and peek into the milk bin. They can’t help but wonder what I had to say to them. Think about it. Even the one who sent me thirty letters of gibberish must have spent hours and hours writing. No one does that if they aren’t hoping for some kind of response. So I respond, and I give those responses everything I’ve got. You can’t ignore someone who speaks to you from the heart.”
And Yuji did in fact reply to each and every one of those thirty letters. He finished his responses just in time to leave them in the milk crate in the morning. When he had a look inside before opening the store at eight, all thirty responses had been carried off. That was the end of that prank. Some time later, he received a piece of paper with just one line of writing: I’m sorry. Thanks so much. The handwriting matched the script on all thirty of the letters. Takayuki would never forget the proud look on his father’s face when he showed the note to his son.
It occurred to Takayuki that this was what his father lived for. When Takayuki’s mother passed away from heart disease ten years ago, Yuji had lost his verve. All his children had long since left home. For a bereft, aging man of almost seventy, the sudden shift to a solitary lifestyle was painful enough to sap his energy to live.
Takayuki had a sister, Yoriko, who was two years older. Since she lived with her husband at his parents’ house, they really couldn’t depend on her to help Yuji out. It was all on Takayuki, but he had his own young family to take care of. At the time, they were living in company housing. He had no space for Yuji.
Yuji must have understood the predicament his kids were in. Despite his flagging spirit, he made no moves to close the store, and Takayuki continued to depend on his father a little too much.
Then one day, Takayuki received an unexpected call from Yoriko.
“I’m stunned. It’s like he’s back to normal. Maybe even better than befor
e Mom died. I’m so relieved. We should be good for a while now. Why don’t you go up and see him? You’ll be amazed.”
It had been a long time since his sister had gone and seen their father. She was thrilled to see him like this.
“You know why Dad’s feeling so good?”
Takayuki said he didn’t know.
“Of course you don’t—how would you? When I heard, I did a double take.”
Finally, she told him what was going on: Their father had been posing as a life coach.
This didn’t mean much to Takayuki. What the hell’s a life coach? On his next day off, he took a trip back home. The scene at the house was truly unbelievable. A crowd had gathered at the Namiya General Store. Mostly kids, but some adults were there, too. They were looking at a wall inside the store. The wall was covered with taped-up sheets of paper. They were reading them and laughing.
Takayuki came closer and looked over the children’s heads to read what was on the wall. The papers were sheets of stationery and notebook paper, and even a few tiny sheets from pocket-sized memo pads. In general, the subject matter was not serious:
Tell me how I can get an A+ on a test without studying or cheating or anything.
The handwriting was obviously a kid’s. The response was taped up below the letter. This was written in Yuji’s handwriting, which Takayuki would have known anywhere.
Ask your teacher to test you on yourself. Since you’re the topic of the test, whatever you say will be correct.
What the hell is this? thought Takayuki. This wasn’t advice. More like a wisecrack.
He looked over the rest of the taped-up letters, but every one of them was silly.
I want Santa to visit our house, but we don’t have a chimney. What should I do?
When the world turns into the Planet of the Apes, where can I learn Apanese?
Yuji had responded earnestly to every question, and his responses were a big hit. Below the wall was a box with a slot cut in it. A sign read:
ADVICE FOR PROBLEMS:
ASK ME ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL.
—NAMIYA GENERAL STORE
“Hey, you need to enjoy life somehow. It started off as a game with the neighborhood kids, but I played along, and things took off. People really seem to get a kick out of it. Some of them come from pretty far just to read these things. You really don’t know what’ll be a hit these days, but lately, the kids have been coming by with actual problems for a change, and I’m racking my brain to solve them. It’s hard work.”
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store Page 10
