Parade

by Shuichi Yoshida

  That’s all a long way of saying that this apartment we’re living in is the same sort of space. If you don’t like it, all you have to do is leave. And if you stay, you’ve got to be happy. We’re human beings, so of course there’s a mix of goodwill and hatred in all of us. I think Mirai, and Naoki and Ryosuke, are all trying to put on a good face. We’re definitely what you’d call superficial acquaintances. But for me, this is perfect. I know I can’t live like this for ever, but for now, it works, and is meaningful, because we know it’s temporary. Turn on the TV and all you see is people snapping at each other. Open up the newspaper and you read about people trying to snatch away the rights of others. Or talk with friends and it’s all about a scramble over men . . . Honestly, I’m sick and tired of every kind of hatred that exists between people, the hatred that fills the world. Whether I’m sick of it or not doesn’t make hate disappear, of course, and some people might laugh and say I’m wearing rose-coloured glasses when it comes to reality. But I’m tired of those naysayers too. I’m tired of all of it.

  2.2

  I was jolted out of a deep sleep by one of those noisy campaign trucks blasting out election slogans – this one for a Democratic Party candidate named Toyoko Fuchino. I haven’t officially changed my residence to Tokyo so I can’t vote here, but if I could, I’d write in Anybody but Toyoko Fuchino. Having any interest in an election, of all things, must mean my days have become more dull and monotonous than I realised.

  I went out to the living room in my pyjamas and the door to the bathroom swung open and there was a guy I’d never seen before, with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. I was startled for a second, but then I figured it must be one of Ryosuke’s friends from college. ‘Good morning,’ I called out, and he said, kind of shyly, ‘Oh. Good morning.’

  It was almost ten a.m. This morning, it must have been after four, I remember Mirai stumbling in, wasted as always, groaning something about Never again. No more drinking! No more dancing! Then she stepped over me and collapsed in her bed. Despite what must have been a pounding hangover, she seemed to have got up and left for work.

  The boy was standing there passively, his hair all wet, and I said, ‘If you’re looking for the hairdrier, it’s over there,’ and pointed to the shelf. I opened up the door to the guys’ bedroom, but the two of them had already gone out.

  ‘Where’s Ryosuke? At college?’ I turned around and asked the boy.

  As he tugged at the drier, he replied, ‘Uh – yeah. He left about an hour ago.’

  ‘You don’t have classes today?’

  ‘Classes? Me? No.’

  ‘Then let me ask you something. Do you have plans today?’

  ‘Plans? No, not really . . .’

  ‘Then why don’t you stay here until Ryosuke gets back?’

  I could tell he was wary, as if I were going to bite him.

  ‘No? You want to go home?’

  ‘No . . . it’s all right.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘Great. I tell people I’m not bored, but it does get kind of stressful being alone here all day.’

  The words poured out of me suddenly, as if I was possessed, and the guy looked at me with this Well, why don’t you go out sometimes? look on his face. Ryosuke apparently hasn’t told him yet how I spend my days.

  Anyhow, I made a fresh pot of coffee. Before he went to work, Naoki must have made and drunk his banana protein drink, because there were dirty cups and stuff piled up in the sink, so I quickly washed them and then made myself some toast and eggs. The boy got dressed while I cooked. He asked me what he should do with the wet towel, and I told him to shove it in with all the other dirty clothes in Ryosuke’s overflowing laundry basket.

  As he sipped the fresh coffee – like it was something extraordinary, like he was a young boy holding a prized kabuto beetle for the first time in his life – the guy talked about the hectic interactions he’d witnessed in the living room this morning.

  ‘I was sleeping on the couch and about seven, I think, that door opens and a guy comes out and he’s all, Who the heck are you? and when I tell him I’m Satoru he asks Is anybody using the bathroom? and before I can answer he goes inside. When he comes out he comes over and says What day of the week is it? . . . Hey, this tie doesn’t go well with this shirt does it? . . . Oh! Turn on the TV – the Fuji channel. The astrology corner’s starting . . . I’m trying to sleep here, but he’s so loud I’m completely awake by now, my head throbbing from an awful hangover, but I give up trying to sleep and get up. Got a hangover? he asks me. Banana juice will cure that. He whipped up a batch with that juicer over there. But banana juice the morning after you get wasted? I told him I was going to puke if I drank any.’

  ‘You didn’t know Naoki was living here?’ I asked as I topped up our coffees.

  ‘I didn’t. I thought I was alone. And after that guy forced me to drink some banana juice, then she came out.’

  ‘Mirai?’

  ‘Right. Mirai. That was awful. She had a worse hangover than me – actually it was more like she was still drunk. She pointed at me and she’s all Who are you? and I’m all I’m Satoru! And though she’s the one who asked she gets all upset and says So what? You don’t have to get all huffy about it!’

  ‘And then both of them left for work?’

  ‘Yeah, they did. Naoki’s all, This is Aries’ lucky day! And then he left. Mirai soaked in the tub for like a half-hour and she let out these screeches every once in while that startled me and I went over to the door and asked her if she was okay, and she’s really calm, she’s all This is how I get the alcohol out of my system. While this was all going on Ryosuke came out, looking like he’d woken from a horrible nightmare. As soon as he spots me he’s all I’m just an awful person . . . And I’m all, Say what? He looked so tormented I had to look away. When Mirai comes out of the bath she’s all, Give me a ride to Harajuku, Ryosuke and it seems like it was too early for Ryosuke to go to college so she says, I’ll fill up Momoko’s tank next time, and just after nine, I guess, the two of them left.’

  What Satoru described was simply life as usual. A typical morning in our living room.

  ‘After they left I figured I could get some more sleep, but I just couldn’t so I took a bath. And when I finished, you came out, Kotomi, and yours was the first decent Good morning of the day. How many people live here, anyway? Is somebody else going to show?’

  ‘No, that’s it,’ I said, laughing, as I stacked our yolk-stained plates.

  I took a shower and then I took Satoru to a pachinko parlour in front of the station. Recently I’ve started to believe – for no reason whatsoever – that if I win at pachinko, Tomohiko will call me. But Satoru was the one who was really into it, way more than me.

  On the way back to the apartment, we had mint chocolate chip ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Then we stopped by a convenience store so that I could check the new issues of Anan and Junon to see if there were any articles on Tomohiko when suddenly Satoru says he’s got to leave soon. If he left, I’d be all alone till evening, so I said, Hey, why don’t we play Biohazard 2 back at my place? And I convinced him to come along.

  And that’s when, for the first time in eight days, I got a phone call from Tomohiko. Pachinko got me excited but, I mean, this is above and beyond. He said he wanted to see me! After I hung up, without thinking I hugged Satoru, who was standing behind me. When I hugged him I caught a whiff of this weird smell coming from his neck. It wasn’t a sweet smell, nor was it a sharp, citrusy smell either. An unusual smell, like sweat and dried dirt.

  He seemed really surprised that I hugged him. When I explained that I would finally get to see my boyfriend, because he now has a little free time, Satoru managed a smile.

  ‘Gl-glad to hear it,’ he said.

  I dressed in a rush, making sure my make-up was just right, and went out to the living room. ‘I’ll go with you to the station,’ he said, getting up from the sofa. I felt bad since I’d invited
him to play Biohazard 2 with me, and for a minute I’d actually forgotten he was still there.

  ‘Ryosuke should be back soon, so why don’t you wait here?’ I said, half apologetic.

  He looked a little unsure. ‘It’s okay. I’ll go with you.’ He was studying me intently.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘You really look better in those kind of clothes, not a tracksuit,’ he said, which made me happy.

  We took the Keio Line from Chitose Karasuyama and got out at Shinjuku, where we said goodbye.

  ‘Drop by again sometime,’ I told him.

  ‘Really?’ he said happily.

  ‘Next time we’ll play Biohazard 2 for sure.’ We smiled at each other and parted ways.

  Usually Tomohiko and I meet up in a small hotel in Ebisu. His dorm is a five-minute walk from there, in Higashi 3-chome in Shibuya-ku. What I’m trying to get at is . . . okay, it’s hard for me to put it in my own words, so let me just quote Mirai, ‘A call girl’s got a lot more sense – at least she gets money for it.’ It’s true. With Tomohiko’s crazy schedule, we can only spend a short time together in a hotel, and the only thing we can manage is that. Time is always tight because of his work, so everything’s limited – there’s only so many minutes to take a shower, so many minutes for foreplay, so many minutes for you-know-what. I always wind up calculating each segment of our time, and I’d be lying if I said that Mirai’s suggestion of a call girl didn’t cross my mind. ‘I mean, a popular actor asks his former girlfriend to come to a love hotel with him, right?’ Mirai had argued. ‘Saying he has a sudden opening in his schedule.’

  Okay, I see her point, but I’m no call girl. Even if Mirai insulted me, saying I was some kind of ‘new type of call girl’ who didn’t do it for money but for love, I’m confident enough to tell her she’s got it totally wrong.

  First of all, no man introduces a call girl to his colleagues and bosses. I’ve had dinner three times with Tomohiko and his manager, at the home of the husband and wife who own the management agency. The husband’s a dead ringer for Tony Tani, the skinny vaudevillian, while his wife looks just like Chikage Ougi, the actress-turned-politician. Naturally Tomohiko introduced me as his girlfriend. The couple pretended not to hear this, but afterwards when the wife and I were washing up in the kitchen – she cautioned me to be careful with the dishes – They’re Wedgwood, you know! – she told me that she’d heard a lot about me. ‘Tomohiko,’ she went on, ‘refers to you as his soulmate.’

  Can any man treat his soulmate like a call girl? Not likely.

  Another reason he meets me in a hotel, not in his dorm, is because his mother lives with him. I call it a dorm, but actually it’s just a regular apartment. Until six months ago another would-be actor lived with them, but then Tomohiko made his splashy debut before his roommate had much success. So the roommate got all huffy, like a girl, and moved back to his home in Kishiwada. So now it’s just Tomohiko and his mum living there. If I hadn’t met the owners of the agency I would have found it pretty remarkable that he had brought his sickly mother to live with him in this talent agency’s company dorm. But knowing now what kind of people the owners are, and how much Tomohiko trusts them, I can sort of understand how he decided to try to make it as an actor in Tokyo.

  The owners of the agency, this older couple, had their eyes on Tomohiko from the time he was attending his all-boys high school. Even back then he was attractive enough to knock the socks off a girl behind the counter at McDonald’s with a single smile. So it wasn’t strange that the head of a talent agency got wind of this knockout high school boy – even though this was in a city far from Tokyo.

  Sadly, Tomohiko’s mother’s condition has grown worse in the last few years. At the hospital they diagnosed it as severe manic depression brought on by the menopause.

  ‘When she’s feeling good, she’s the best mother in the world,’ Tomohiko told me. ‘Makes me wonder how someone could be such an amazing mother. But when she’s ill, it’s like I feel I have to be the best son in the whole world.’

  Thanks to the kindness of the couple who owns the agency, his mother goes to the hospital once a week where she receives counselling from a specialist, and all other necessary treatment. When Tomohiko’s out on a shoot, a staff member from the agency stays over at the apartment to take care of her, and to make sure she keeps her doctor’s appointments.

  ‘I have to make it now,’ Tomohiko told me, laughing, ‘or else they’ll always be in control of my life.’ He’d already found the people he’d wanted to stake his life on, the ones he could share the joys and sorrows of life with, and it made me a little envious.

  He never takes me to see his apartment, no matter how many times I’ve asked. I don’t feel like saying anything crass and insensitive any more like ‘If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.’ The girl I was before, always just looking for a good time, ran away like a coward from him. Now I think I should face the reality of the situation as it is and accept it, but not with some arrogant attitude about wanting to help. When I ask him to let me see his mother, he says, ‘If I get dumped again, I won’t recover.’ He’s joking, but it makes me feel like killing myself. But I don’t tell him I’m sorry for what happened. I know if I do, he’ll have to forgive me for acting so stupid then.

  ‘Why are you willing to see me again?’ I said this on our second date after we met again in Tokyo, when I’d finally worked up the courage to ask him this.

  ‘Why?’ He paused. ‘Because I still like you. When you called me and said you were in Tokyo, it made me so happy.’

  ‘Even though we broke up like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know . . .’

  ‘You mean when you saw my mother and ran away?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Ever since I was a kid I haven’t trusted people who put on a good front when you first meet them. I think the same thing applies to the entertainment world.’

  He smiled, seemingly embarrassed by how he’d become the kind of actor who plays the handsome, leading man.

  I said goodbye to Satoru at Shinjuku Station. When I finally arrived at the hotel in Ebisu it was two hours after Tomohiko had called me. I asked for the room number at the front desk, then took the lift to the room, irritated by how slow it was. I knocked and knocked at the door, but nobody answered so I went back to the front desk and had them phone the room.

  I hadn’t seen Tomohiko in seventeen days and I think he must have been exhausted and fallen fast asleep on the bed and not heard me knocking. The pattern of the lace pillowcase was pressed into his cheek. The last time I had seen him, he’d told me that he was about to record his first single, called ‘Mud’ (a title which I was sure wouldn’t lead to sales). His schedule was packed, every minute of every day, with things like a promotional photo shoot for the CD cover, magazine interviews, appearances on late-night radio programmes, and meetings to plan out his appearance as supporting actor on his next TV drama.

  And yet in the midst of this tight schedule he’d managed to call and tell me he suddenly had half a day free. I don’t care what Mirai, Naoki, or Ryosuke say – Tomohiko isn’t making time for some cute announcer, and he hasn’t made a move on any of his fans. I’m sure of this not because I’m convinced that he’s saving himself for me. It’s because of his ridiculous schedule. With all the appointments he has, plus time for taking care of his mother, there was no time left to watch porn, much less have an affair.

  We hugged, and kissed, and wasted no time jumping into bed. We still had our clothes on, but I could tell that Tomohiko’s penis was ready for me. ‘Ready for action, aren’t you?’ I teased, and he replied, a little shyly, ‘I’m kind of tired.’ I appreciated his honesty, but wished he would have just said how much he’d missed me.

  ‘What’s your role in the new TV show?’ I asked as I undressed and got under the covers.

  ‘It’s a baseball player who injures his elbow, gives up his dream of turning prof
essional and becomes a sports photographer.’ Like me, he undressed as he talked. Maybe because he’d been asleep a few minutes ago, his shoulder was warm when I brushed against it.

  ‘Who else is in it?’

  ‘Let’s see . . . Nanako Matsushima.’

  ‘The Nanako Matsushima? You’ve met her?’

  ‘Yeah, I have.’

  ‘What’s she like? Is she really cute?’

  ‘Beyond cute. So cute that it makes my stomach hurt just to sit next to her.’

  Tomohiko likes long kisses. He likes to kiss so much and he doesn’t like me to hold him from behind. If there really is such a thing as sexual compatibility, I think we’d pass. It’s not like I’d want anyone to watch us or anything, but if someone did, I think we could be proud of our lovemaking. Lately he’s had this not-so-commendable habit of timing how many seconds it takes him to put on a condom. He doesn’t hand me a watch and ask me to time it, but it’s obvious from how he glances at his watch right after, and grins, that he’s set a new record.