by Yoru Sumino
But I didn’t want to cross that line and become boyfriend and girlfriend. And I won’t ever want that. I think. Probably.
Maybe we could have worked out together, romantically. But we don’t have enough time to find out, do we?
I also don’t want to define our relationship with common words like those.
Love? Friendship? That’s not what we have, is it? If you were in love with me, maybe that would be different. I kind of wonder sometimes. But I wouldn’t know how to ask, even if I wanted to.
Oh, and since this has to do with the game of truth or dare I asked you to play in the hospital, I’ll tell you what I was trying to ask you. Since I can’t find out what your answer is, this won’t break any rules.
What I wanted to ask you was…
Why don’t you ever say my name?
Do you remember how you woke me on the bullet train? I do. You smacked me with a rubber band. You could have woken me by saying my name, but you didn’t. I’ve wondered about that ever since. I began noticing you never called me by my name. Not even once. It’s always “you.” You, you, you.
When I asked you to play that one round, I had been considering asking you. But part of me was afraid it was because you didn’t like me. That’s how I think sometimes. And if that had been your answer, I couldn’t have just shrugged it off. I’m not confident enough to not care. Unlike you, I can’t build myself as a person without relying on the people around me.
If I was ever going to ask you, I needed a push—the game of truth or dare.
But now I think there’s a different reason you never say my name.
What I’m about to say is just a guess. Forgive me if
I’m wrong.
Are you scared of defining who I am to you?
You told me that when people say your name, you like to speculate what you are to them. And you don’t care if you’re right or not, because it’s in your head.
Now, maybe this is just what I want to believe, but I think you do care about me.
And that’s why you’re afraid to speculate what I am
to you.
You don’t want to say my name, because you might attach a meaning to it.
You’re afraid to define someone you’re going to lose as a “friend” or “girlfriend.”
Well? How about it? If I’m right, I’ll accept an offering of plum liquor by my grave.
You don’t have to be afraid. No matter what happens, there should always be a way to get along with people. Just like you and me.
I keep saying you’re afraid of this or that, so maybe it sounds like I’m calling you a coward, but I’m not.
I think you’re an amazing person.
You’re an amazing person who is exactly my opposite.
While I’m at it, I’ll answer your question, too. What a lucky day for you!
You know which question I mean, right? You asked me what I think of you. Or maybe you don’t care. You can skip this part if you want.
I…
I wish I could be like you.
I’ve been thinking that for a little while now.
If I was like you, maybe I could take responsibility for my life and find what makes me uniquely special, just for myself, without inflicting sadness on you or my family, and without being such a burden on others.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m truly happy with my life as it is right now. But I admire you for being able to live as your own person, whether anyone else is around you or not.
My life is based upon someone always being there
with me.
At one point, I realized something.
Without anyone around me, I am nothing special.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I mean, everyone’s like that, right? People are who they are through their relationships with others. Take our classmates—without their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends, who would they be?
Being compared to others, comparing ourselves to others—that’s how we discover who we are.
That’s what living means to me.
But you, and you alone, are always on your own.
You found what makes yourself special outside of any social connections, by looking only at yourself.
I want to be able to do that for myself.
That’s why, after you went home that day, I cried.
That day, you genuinely worried for me. That day, you told me you wanted me to live.
You had decided you didn’t need any friend or anyone to love. But then you chose to need someone.
And not just someone. You chose me.
For the first time, I realized someone needed me for who I was.
For the first time, I realized I was unique.
Thank you.
I might have been waiting seventeen years for you to need me.
Like a sakura flower waiting for spring.
Maybe some part of me recognized that, so I chose to record my thoughts in this book, even though I hardly ever read books.
I made a choice, and I met you.
You really are incredible, you know that? To be able to make someone as happy as you make me. I wish everyone could see your charm.
I noticed it a long time ago.
What’s that old saying? Before I die, I want to make a potion from the dirt under your nails.
Now that I write that out, that seems too plain to describe us. Our connection is wasted on some cliché like that.
I think you know what I’m going to say.
Like it or not.
I want to eat your pancreas.
(I wrote the longest about you. I bet Kyōko will be mad about that, so I better fix that later.)
The end. [of the first draft]
I finish reading and return to a world in which she’s gone.
And I notice something…
I’m breaking.
I’m aware it’s happening, but I’m powerless to stop it.
Before I fall apart, there’s one thing I must know.
I say, “Do you have her—Sakura-san’s cell phone?”
“Her phone?”
Her mother stands and walks out of the room. Soon, she returns with a flip phone and says, “When she…left us, we kept her phone around, so we could answer it, but we’ve been keeping it turned off now.”
“Please, I want to see it.”
Without another word, her mother hands me the phone.
I flip the cell open and turn it on. After a moment, I open her incoming text folder.
There, among countless unopened messages, I find it.
The last message I sent to her.
The message had been opened.
She saw it.
I place her phone and her book on the tatami mat. I somehow manage to work my shaking lips to say one last thing before I break.
“Mrs…Yamauchi?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, I know, this isn’t my place… But…”
She allows me to finish.
“Can I cry now?”
A tear rolls down her cheek, and she nods once.
I break down. But no, the truth is, I broke a long time ago.
***
I cry. I cry like a baby, feeling no shame, with heaving sobs. I press my cheek against the tatami; I face the ceiling; I wail. I’ve never cried like this before or cried at all in front of another person. I never wanted to. I didn’t want to push my own sadness onto someone else. So I never have. But too many emotions surge through me to contain them any longer.
I’m happy.
My message reached her.
She needed me.
I was able to help her.
I’m happy.
But I’m in more pain than I ever imagined possible.
Her voice echoes in my mind.
Her face appears, wearing one expression after another.
She’s crying, she’s angry, she’s smiling, and smiling, and smiling.
Her touch.
Her smell.
/> That sweet fragrance.
I remember every aspect of her as if they are still here—as if she is still here.
But she’s not. She’s not here.
She’s not anywhere. My eyes were always on her but can’t find her now.
She liked to say our outlooks didn’t match up.
Of course they didn’t.
We were never looking in the same direction.
We were always looking at each other.
Standing at the edge of the water, looking to the opposite shore.
We never would have known we were looking at each other. We never would have noticed. We occupied separate places, with nothing to connect us.
But then she leapt across the gulf, and we met.
And yet I still thought I was the only one who needed the other—who wanted to become like the other.
I never thought anyone would want to be like me.
But she did.
And now I find a new belief.
I was born to meet her.
All the choices I’ve made in life were for one purpose: to meet her.
I have no doubts.
I know it must be true, because nothing has ever brought me this much joy or this much pain.
I’m alive.
Because of her, for the past four months, I’ve truly lived.
For the first time, I’m alive.
Because we shared a connection.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Words could never express the depths of my gratitude, and she isn’t here to hear them.
No matter how hard I cry, my tears won’t reach her anymore.
No matter how loud I shout, my voice won’t reach her anymore.
I so badly wish I could tell her—
My joy and my pain.
That I had more fun with her than any other time in my life.
That I wanted more time with her.
That I wanted us to be together always.
I know it’s impossible, but I wish I could tell her, even if it served no purpose other than to make myself feel better.
My heart aches.
I won’t be able to tell her anything anymore.
I won’t be able to do anything to help her anymore.
Even after she gave me so much.
I can do nothing.
Nine
I cry. I cry and I cry.
And then—
I stop crying. Not by choice, but as a function of my physiology. I lift my head and see her mother still with me, waiting.
She hands me a blue handkerchief. Hesitantly, I accept the cloth and dry my tears as I catch my breath.
She says, “You can keep it. It’s Sakura’s. She’d be happy for you to have it.”
“Thank you.”
I finish drying my eyes, nose, and mouth before putting the handkerchief in my pocket.
I shift position on the tatami mat and sit up straight. My eyes are red now, too.
“I’m sorry for breaking down like that,” I say.
Immediately, she shakes her head and says, “No, it’s fine. Children should be allowed to cry. She cried a lot, too. She was always something of a crybaby. But after she met you, and you started spending time together, like she wrote in her journal, she stopped crying. Not completely, of course, but a lot less. Thank you. The time you gave her was precious.”
I have to hold back the tears for a moment to make sure I don’t start crying again. Then I shake my head and say, “She gave me something precious.”
“I wish we could have all shared a meal together, as a family. She never said anything about you to us.”
She smiles at me sadly and I waver again.
I let myself waver as I begin talking a little about my memories of her. I tell her mother about things that weren’t in the journal—leaving out the game of truth or dare and how we shared a bed. She nods along as she listens.
As I speak, the weight of my emotions slowly begins to lift. The important joys and sorrows remain, but the parts I don’t need to hold onto seem to fall away.
I begin thinking the mother is listening to me for my sake.
When I’m ready to stop, I ask one more favor.
“Can I come back to visit again?”
“Of course. I’d like for you to meet the rest of our family. You could bring Kyōko-chan, but… Ah, but from the sound of things, you’re not on very friendly terms.”
She laughs softly, just like her daughter.
“Yeah, you could say that. The way things happened, she hates me.”
“Someday, if that ever changes, I hope you both can come over for dinner together. Partly because I want to thank you, but seeing the two people she most cared about getting along would make me happy as her mother.”
I say, “That’s more up to Kyōko-san than me, but I’ll take it to heart.”
After we exchange a few more words, I promise to come back another day, then stand up. She strongly insists I take Living with Dying, and I do. She refuses the 10,000-yen my mother had me bring.
She walks me to the front door. I put on my shoes, thank her again, and have my hand on the doorknob when she says, casually, “You told me your family name, but not your given name. What is it?”
I look over my shoulder and answer, “It’s Haruki. Shiga Haruki.”
“Oh,” she says. “Isn’t there a novelist with that name?”
I’m taken by surprise, and I feel a smile come to my lips. “Yeah. Although I don’t know which one you mean.”
I thank her one last time, say goodbye, and leave the Yamauchi’s house.
The rain has stopped.
When I get home, my mother is already there. She sees my face and says, “Good man.” My dad comes home during dinner, and he slaps me on the back. I guess I should stop underestimating them.
After the meal, I close myself back in my room and read Living with Dying again. As I turn the pages, I think about what I should do from here. I end up stopping to cry three times, but I still think. What can I do for her, for her family, and for me?
Now that I have her book, what can I do?
Sometime after nine o’clock, I make a decision and act on it.
I retrieve a printout from my desk drawer and flip open my cell phone.
Looking at the paper, I dial a number I thought I’d go my whole life never dialing.
When I go to sleep, I dream I’m talking with the girl, and I cry again.
***
I arrive at the café after noon.
I’m a little early, and the person I’m supposed to meet isn’t here yet. I order an iced coffee and sit in an open seat by the window.
I didn’t choose the meeting place, but I knew the way here. By chance, this is the same café where I waited for the girl on the day she died.
Or maybe this isn’t chance, I think as I drink my coffee. The pair probably went here often.
Just as on that day, I gaze out the window. Just as on that day, all kinds of people pass by, living all kinds of lives.
Unlike that day, the person I’m supposed to meet shows up right on time. Ah, good. Her arrival comes as a relief. Not just because of residual trauma; I also thought I may get stood up.
Without a word, Kyōko-san sits down across from me at the table and immediately turns her puffy, red-eyed glare at me.
“Well, I’m here,” she says reluctantly. “What do you want?”
I don’t falter. I force my nerves down and respond to her glare by opening my mouth. But before I can say anything, she interrupts me.
“You… You didn’t come to Sakura’s funeral.”
I don’t say anything.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I…”
I’m searching to find an answer and failing when she slaps her hands on the table. The noise resounds through the café, and for a second, time seems to stop.
When time resumes, I avert my eyes and say in a small voice, “Sorry.”
I clear my throa
t and begin speaking again. “Thank you for coming. I guess this is the first time we’re having a real talk.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I continue, “You’re here because I told you I needed to speak with you, but where should I start?”
“Just get to the point.”
“Yes, right. Sorry. I have something to show you.”
More silence.
What I want to talk about is, and could only be, the girl. She’s the only connection between Kyōko-san and myself. I took almost all of last evening deciding to do this.
Up until the moment I arrived at the café, I’d been considering how to approach this conversation. Should I start with my relationship with her? Should I start with her sickness? In the end, I decided to start by showing her best friend the truth.
I take Living with Dying from my school bag and place the book on the table.
Confused, Kyōko-san says, “A book?”
“It’s titled Living with Dying.”
“‘Living…with dying’?”
I remove the plain book protector and show her the cover.
Kyōko-san’s somewhat hollow eyes open wide with recognition. I’m both impressed and jealous.
She says, “That’s… That’s Sakura’s handwriting.”
I nod sharply. “This is her book. She wrote it for other people to read after her death, and she gave it to me.”
“What do you mean, after her death?”
I feel a weight on my chest. This won’t be easy to say. But I can’t stop now.
“Everything she wrote inside this book,” I explain, “is all true. This isn’t one of her pranks, and it’s not one of mine. She mostly used the book like a diary, but in the back, she wrote goodbyes. One is for you. Another is for me, too.”
“What are you saying?”
“She was sick.”
“You’re lying. I would have known.”
“She didn’t tell you.”
“Why would she tell you, but not me?”
I had the same question once, but now I know the answer.
I say, “I was the only person she told. She died a different way, but if that hadn’t happened to her, then—”
I’m interrupted. My ears ring, and pain blossoms in my left cheek. I’ve never been slapped before, so it takes me a while to realize what happened.
