‘I’m thinking of buying some laxatives,’ said Yuriko, looking at picture of a skeletal girl jumping in the air on the front cover of the magazine at her side.
‘You can’t do that – laxatives will make you ill,’ replied Haruka.
‘But I’ve put on a kilo and I want to lose it quickly. I read on the internet about a girl that lost two kilos in a week just by taking laxatives for a few days.’
‘Did you know that you could have a heart attack if you take them for the wrong reason?’
‘Don’t be silly, Haruka. I’m not going to have a heart attack,’ said Yuriko. ‘You do make me laugh.’
‘I’m not joking. Promise me you won’t try laxatives or any other weight loss tablets you read about on the internet,’ said Haruka, covering her eyes in shock and shaking her head.
‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,’ Yuriko replied, laughing at Haruka’s obvious concern. ‘I’ve been taking weight loss pills on and off for six months and I feel fine.’
They sat there in silence for about ten minutes. Yuriko flicked through the magazine in front of her and Haruka looked around the room, searching for any evidence of weight loss pills. She noticed a container beside Yuriko’s pillow, but she didn’t want to give her another lecture. Haruka decided that her friend needed support, not criticism, so she kept quiet.
Bored with flipping through her magazine, Yuriko sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said. ‘I just need to use the bathroom.’
‘Take your time, Yuriko,’ Haruka replied.
Haruka sat back and sighed, wishing her good friend had not had to witness this today. Poor Yuriko had been head over heels in love when she’d met Ry just a few weeks ago. Haruka was happy for her, but concerned about the effect he was having on her self-image. She’d been dieting frantically for some time now and since she’d met Ry, she’d become even more obsessed with diet and exercise. Haruka could tell that she thought if she just ate a little less each day and exercised frantically, she’d be the perfect woman, just like those models on the cover of the fashion magazines piled up in the corner next to her bed. Haruka wished she could figure out how to stop her friend from continuing to diet when she didn’t need to anymore and convince her that she was absolutely fine without this excessive exercising.
Haruka looked around her friend’s room, in which she’d spent many hours gossiping and enjoying her company. It was decorated throughout in various shades of pink. She wondered when Yuriko was going to refurbish the room and do away with the cuddly Hello Kitty toys piled up at the head of the bed and the children’s books on the bookshelf in the corner that had not been picked up for at least eight years. There were also several magazines on dieting on her pillow, which she’d obviously been researching that evening. This concerned Haruka, but not as much as the pro-anorexia websites she knew she’d been devouring lately.
Haruka turned to see Yuriko came back into the room from her en-suite bathroom a different person, with a controlled and determined face, newly made up with a fresh coat of foundation and mascara.
‘Let’s change the subject, Haruka,’ Yuriko said. ‘You’ve just come back from work and you must be exhausted. Tell me, did you meet up with Takashi this evening?’
‘Yes we met up in Omotesando again,’ Haruka replied, happy to oblige and change the subject.
‘How was that?’ asked Yuriko, seemingly transformed into an emotionally balanced person compared to the scene only minutes earlier.
‘It was great meeting up with him, but I told him about my job offer in Kyoto and he wasn’t happy about it. Now I feel a twinge of guilt not telling him how much time I’ve been spending with your cousin Jun lately.’
‘Oh, there’s no need to feel guilty about that, Haruka,’ said Yuriko. ‘You aren’t dating Takashi seriously yet and you’ve only met up two or three times with Jun in the last couple of months, and that’s only ever been purely innocent. You’re just beating yourself up over nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong,’ Yuriko reassured her.
‘Thanks, Yuriko,’ Haruka replied. ‘To tell you the truth, I absolutely adore Takashi and I’d like to take our relationship to the next level, but I’m afraid I might be making a mistake if I do that and I know this would upset my mother – you know how much she likes Jun.’
‘Yes I do,’ replied Yuriko. ‘Is it because she likes him or his money?’
‘I’m really not sure,’ said Haruka. ‘Well, if you’re feeling better now, I better head home. My parents will be wondering where I am.’ Haruka picked up her handbag.
‘Okay thanks, Haruka,’ said Yuriko. ‘Don’t forget Jun will be staying here again Sunday week and he’ll probably want to see you that evening.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Haruka replied as she stood up to leave. ‘By the way, did you know your younger brother had his ear to the door earlier, listening to you when you were upset?’
‘I didn’t realise he was doing that again. He gets bored because he has no one to talk to most of the time. You know what my parents are like. My mother’s always socialising and my father’s too busy with work.’
Haruka thought about this and how rarely she saw Yuriko’s father. He was the general manager of an import/export company and one of those salary men who rarely came home.
‘As well as this, you know my family are lucky if we see my brother at home more than twice a week in the evening and I’m always busy or at the gym, so he’s been inventing ways to keep himself amused,’ said Yuriko. ‘I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.’
There was a knock on Yuriko’s bedroom door. Her older brother Taroo poked his head through and jiggled his car keys at the girls.
‘We were just talking about you,’ said Yuriko.
‘All good, I hope,’ he said to them, flashing Haruka a smile. ‘I’m ready to leave for Yokohama. I’ve just spoken to our cousin and he said he was looking forward to seeing you. You said you wanted to come with me, but it doesn’t look like you’re ready. Are you coming or not, Yuriko?’
‘I never said anything about going with you to Yokohama,’ Yuriko replied.
‘You told me an hour ago not to leave without you,’ said Taroo, not smiling anymore and looking annoyed.
‘I don’t remember that,’ said Yuriko. She stood and whispered to Haruka, ‘I love infuriating my brother. He needs to be brought down a peg – he’s so full of himself.’
‘You’re impossible,’ hissed Taroo and shut the door behind him with a bang before stomping downstairs in a huff.
‘I better go, Yuriko,’ said Haruka, quite amused by her neighbour’s sibling rivalry. It was not the first time she’d seen Yuriko and Taroo have a go at each other, and it always made her think how nice it would be to have a brother or sister. ‘Call me tomorrow,’ Haruka said to Yuriko as she headed for the bedroom door.
‘Okay Haruka,’ her friend replied. ‘I promise I’ll call you at about eight p.m., after you finish work.’
Haruka had no doubt that she’d call. Yuriko never played games with their friendship. But it wasn’t her friendship with Yuriko that worried her. For the next few days, Haruka would be consumed by thoughts of how she might tell Takashi about Jun. She almost rang him a number of times, wanting to blurt out everything and lose the burden weighing heavily on her heart. But each time she stopped herself, believing that time might solve all her problems.
CHAPTER 3
You must look where it is not as well as where it is
Returning to his apartment in Kawasaki, Takashi was oblivious to the office workers packed tightly around him. He was still thinking of Haruka and her plans to move to Kyoto and her wanting to take up a management position there at one of the Kansai branches of the English conversation school for which she worked. He decided that he needed to spend some more time with her that month, apart from their regular Thursday night coffees. The fact that she was considering a position on the other side of the country made him want to see h
er so much more, and he knew that from October, he would have to knuckle down and commit even more to his studies.
On the train back, Takashi decided that he’d call her in the next couple of days and ask her if she’d spend the day with him the following Sunday in Kamakura. This place would be cooler than Tokyo at this time of the year and it was only a short trip for Haruka from her home in fune.
He’d always liked Kamakura, with its Buddhist temples and statues – and compared to the rush and madness of inner Tokyo, it was a place that offered up for him a certain peace and tranquillity. Because of this, it provided value for the young and old alike, especially for those that lived and worked in the concrete jungles of the inner urban cities.
He thought back to when he’d first met Haruka nearly three years ago at university, when he’d sat by her side in a Marketing lecture. His interest in her started on the first day of university when he’d spotted her sitting at the back of the lecture room by herself, searching in her bag for a pen. He clearly remembered her wearing a tight white top that showed off her form. He’d casually wandered over and taken the seat to her right. He wasn’t sure at the time if it was the way she flicked her hair back or the scent of her light perfume that attracted him, but he was transfixed by her almost immediately.
Takashi hadn’t taken in one word from the lecturer that day, and he’d left the lecture hall without any notes at all, but that didn’t matter to him one bit because he’d only been concerned about getting Haruka’s phone number at the end of the class. Luckily, when he’d asked for her number she’d agreed to give it to him with a smile – and what a smile! As he got to know her better, he noticed she was always attentive and conscientious in her classes and she was basically a really nice girl, which added to her appeal. Ten months later, he’d been so disappointed when she’d dropped out of university, but he’d respected her reason for doing so.
Haruka was an only child and her father had become very ill at the end of her first year at university. Both mother and daughter had looked after him and had catered to his every whim; there had been much to do. Her parents were fine, respectable people and Haruka had always been very close to them. Her father had suffered from a heart attack. It had been a terrible strain on both Haruka and her mother, but he’d made a full recovery. During this period, Takashi had stayed in touch with Haruka and he’d often spoken to her on the phone.
A few years ago, Takashi had only been thinking of partying with his friends. After he’d met Haruka, she’d made a big impact on him and he’d started to take life a lot more seriously. Haruka had developed from a young girl into a wise woman that her mother had been able to completely depend upon.
Even after her father had recovered, it was a long time before Takashi had been able to meet Haruka in person. But just over a month ago, Haruka had applied for work in the accounts division of an English language school. She’d been assigned to a branch in Harajuku and after this she had been able to meet him at the coffee shop Café hors et dans in Omotesando every week.
During the time that Haruka had been busy helping her mother and looking after her father, Takashi had dated a series of different girls from university. Most of them had been slightly alternative in their thinking and style of dress, and he’d enjoyed being seen with them in front of his buddies. But not one of these girls had interested him as much as Haruka. Despite the fact that he’d liked the ultra-short skirts or revealing dresses on the other girls, he’d also felt that their minds were empty and their hearts were hollow.
Three weeks after Takashi had started meeting Haruka on a regular basis, it had been easy to decide to only meet with her and leave the other girls for his mates at university to have fun with.
Takashi got off his train at Kawasaki. He’d chosen to live in Kawasaki not only because it was such a convenient area in which to live, but also because it had become a really up and coming town over the past few years. The station’s plaza and the shops surrounding the area that led up to his apartment provided everything that one could need. He would most often take the east exit at the train station, as this was the most direct exit to reach his home and from there, he could check out the shops in the Marui or Be department stores or sit and enjoy a coffee at the Doutour coffee house. Sometimes he would drop in for a MOS Burger just outside the station. He’d also at one time or another contemplated joining the new and modern gym that he always passed just before he reached his apartment, but somehow he’d always talked himself out of that.
If Takashi didn’t want to study some afternoons, he would occasionally wander around the shops that he could reach if he took the west exit. This area had recently been refurbished into a rotunda-style complex full of the trendiest boutiques. There was often a band playing in the courtyard and after he’d looked through most of the four levels of shops, it was nice to just sit and listen to the music. He would take time out there; enjoying a cigarette and watching the people pass by. Some days, if he was on his way into Tokyo and he had twenty or thirty minutes to spare before catching his train, he’d enjoy a lunchbox of fresh specialty dumplings for ¥500 or stand and slurp down a delicious bowl of hot ramen soup with a crowd of other commuters at one of the vendors inside the station above the platforms. His favourite soup was Chashu ramen, with three large pieces of thickly sliced pork floating on a bed of noodles.
That afternoon, Takashi walked slowly to his apartment, situated about ten minutes from the station. He bypassed all the shops and only stopped at the convenience store to buy some ready-made sushi and a cold can of oolong tea.
Takashi had moved to this part of town because his parents lived in Yokosuka. A few years ago, he’d convinced them that it was too far for him to travel to university from there. His parents would be considered neither rich nor poor. His father had worked as a mid-level salary man at a transportation company in Yokosuka for over twenty years. He grew up provided with all the essentials, but when he was younger, his mother had never bought him the latest designer clothes and they’d never been able to afford overseas holidays.
There were a few happy memories he fondly looked back on. He remembered the times his parents had taken him to Hokkaido to visit his mother’s side of the family, and they’d also paid for him to go with the rest of his school mates one year on a school trip to Kyoto, which he’d really enjoyed. When he’d been offered a place at a reasonable university a few years ago, his parents had been very proud of him and they’d generously offered to pay his rent while he was studying so that he wouldn’t have to commute long distances to get to his lectures and home again. They even gave him a humble weekly allowance. Takashi was extremely grateful for his apartment and it was his very own six-by-ten foot cosy little kingdom.
As Takashi approached the stairs leading up to the first floor landing and his front door, a bicycle stem that someone had thrown onto the guttering above him caught his eye, as it had many times before this month. Lowering his gaze, he noticed that the caretaker for his building was standing outside his apartment and Takashi thought that it was as good a time as any to ask him to remove the bike part that was hanging precariously above him.
‘Hey caretaker, do you have time to take this bike stem off the guttering? It’s been there for over a month now,’ Takashi yelled.
‘Can’t you see that I’m busy, boy?’ he shouted back. ‘I’ve got a list of other things to do before I can fix the guttering.’
‘Okay, sorry to bother you,’ Takashi said, a bit taken back. He rushed towards his flat, wishing he hadn’t said a word to the caretaker.
Takashi’s place was small, even by Japanese standards. He liked it like that. He felt cocooned from the outside world, but not isolated. His apartment was in a block of about twenty other similar-sized units. The door was heavy, with a double lock, and inside was a single bed, a little fridge, a Sony TV, a Panasonic stereo and a Toshiba PC– he’d wanted an Apple iMac, but he’d decided it was too expensive. Takashi was a bit of a brand snob when he bought any
kind of technology. His room also contained a mini cooker, a toaster, a Panasonic microwave and a kotatsu. Of course he didn’t use the kotatsu in this weather, but this coffee table enveloped in a futon, with a heater attached underneath to keep his knees warm, was invaluable in winter. Only the bathroom was separate from everything else in this small apartment. Less to clean, he always told himself.
Attached to the apartment, there was also a balcony where he kept his washing machine and above this, a plastic frame with twelve pastel blue pegs for drying his clothes after the wash. This area was so small that only one person could stand and look out over dozens of other apartments with washing machines and freshly washed clothes.
Until a couple of years ago, he’d also had a Microsoft Xbox 360 and thirty-seven games to go with it. That had kept him busy most of the time, but that interest came to a sudden end the first time Haruka visited him at his apartment at the end of the first three months at university. He’d spent an hour showing her how easily he could get through the first five stages of one particular game when she’d pressed the power button deleting all his efforts after a solid hour of impressive playing. She’d told him that it had been the most boring sixty minutes she’d ever spent with him. On an impulse the following day, he’d sold the console and every one of the games.
The first three months without his Xbox were difficult as he tried to find different ways of filling up his spare time and he even considered buying the games back on several occasions, but he soon found out that his studies were improving without the distraction and his friends Masaya and Kenji were happy to hear the last of his conversations about his Xbox abilities.
Takashi sat down, turned on the TV and settled down to watch a game show. He glanced at his textbooks piled up in the corner of the room. He felt like those books were staring at him and trying to make him feel guilty for neglecting them. He took his jacket off the bed and threw it over them. Now that they were out of view, he knew he’d be able to ignore any urge to study.
Tokyo Hearts: A Japanese Love Story Page 4
