together. My attempts to exhaust my tolerance for him built stamina. Every endeavor I made to purge my heart led to greater sympathy and understanding.
I felt I had known him for half a century, that I could predict his reaction in any circumstance. Yet he had never acknowledged his love, nor had I so much as mentioned mine. When it came to Tanaka, I had all and nothing.
As winter drew nearer, Tanaka’s dreams imparted light to his spirits, and they shone with the radiance of vanished summer days. Never had I seen him so joyous. Even as his happiness fed mine, those very dreams and their certain realization cast darkness over my heart.
At last, the gray skies of winter closed in and with them, the symposium selection results. Tokyo U’s homepage broadcasted what I had already expected: Tanaka was not only going to the symposium, but he had been chosen to conduct the temporal survey. With great relish, Sato posted the announcement on every bulletin board in the History and Literature departments. Though I had known that Tanaka would succeed, my smile was bittersweet. In surrendering a victory to one infinitely better than he, Sato had won. No matter what happened, he would not win me, however. That I vowed.
After my classes concluded that afternoon, I reached a decision that made me tremble. At the close of the week, Tanaka would leave for an entire year. My studies were far from concluded, so there was no way that I could follow him. Today I would make my love confession. Before he left, I had to know if he returned my feelings.
The question I had to ask made my walk to his office seem something unusual and forbidden. By the time I reached it, my heart beat so fast I feared he would see it fluttering like a bird trapped beneath my shirt.
“Shinhada-san,” Tanaka said when he at last noticed me standing in the doorway. “Please come in. Sit down.”
I did not and stole a last glance at the hall instead. “Tanaka-sensei,” I said. “We have known each other for nearly a year.”
“We have.”
“It seems much longer.” I struggled to find the next words. “Sensei, often it feels as though our friendship is a cover for deeper feelings. Always we speak of the romances of the past. But what of the present?”
Tanaka flinched, and his eyes went dark. “Mutual understanding such as ours can be deceptive. I did not mean to mislead you.”
His lie turned my blood to ice. My vision clouded, and I could not see Tanaka’s face as he said, “For that reason…” Forever came and went in the space of his pause. “I can’t.”
Outside the window, fall leaves broke free from the trees and soared on the wind. “I see,” I said. “Congratulations…on your trip to Kyoto.” Only one thing remained to say, the hardest of all because, despite its inevitability, it was what I least wanted to say. “Sayounara.” I lingered on my bow, but he never answered.
The end.
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Japanese Words and Phrases
hanami - Japanese flower viewing party at which the members get heavily intoxicated.
bento boxes - A meal (usually lunch) that consists of rice, fish or meat and pickled or cooked vegetables
sempai - an honorific that refers to one's senior colleagues
enjou kosai - Young girls date older men for money. The client doesn’t always ask for sex.
kun used by persons of senior status in addressing or referring to those of junior status
san – an honorific
bon festival - A Japanese Buddhist holiday that honors the departed spirits of one's ancestors
karoushi - Death by overwork, usually from a stress-induced stroke or heart attack.
sayounara - “Goodbye”, with the connotation that you and the person to whom you say it will never meet again.
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Other books by Meghann McVey:
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Last words:
Hello, everyone! It’s been an awfully long time, hasn’t it? Work has been keeping me very busy, I’m sorry to say.
Covers from this point on are by me because I’m too impatient to wait for JM before posting. However, JM may have a handdrawn cover for “Captain’s Sacrifice”after it’s been posted a while. Yay!
Happy reading!
PS: Special thanks to Wikipedia for helping me articulate the meaning of the many Japanese titles I used in this piece.
His Answer Page 4
