Muenchner: Memories and Dreams
1 March, Wednesday
“Yo!”
The greeting was vaguely familiar. I looked up from my newspaper. Standing before me was a handsome young man, with sharp features. In no way did he look Japanese. But I recognized him immediately.
“Ken! When did you come back?”
“Just. Came straight from Narita. Aren’t you honoured?” he casually dropped his haversack onto a chair. “You have anything to drink?”
“Help yourself. Same place.”
“Don’t you have any sense of hospitality?” Nevertheless he shuffled to the fridge.
“How was Spain?”
He was bent over, looking through the choices he had. For that moment he paused. He grabbed a can of Asahi, straightened up and replied. “Oh, good. It’s nice to go back to your hometown.”
I laughed. “But you were born and bred in Tokyo.”
“Barcelona is still my father’s hometown,” he said quietly.
An awkward silence reigned, broken only by the fizz of the beer as he pulled open the tab. “How’s everything?” he ventured.
“Quieter without all of you.”
I could sense he did not really want to talk about his trip to Spain. I could still vividly remember that day last winter, when Ken Fernandes dropped by at my place with that same duffel bag and announced that he was going to Spain, to take a look at his hometown. “The home I have never set foot on before,” he had said with a smile.
And then he left. The gang dropped by less often after that. The gatherings became quieter and more solemn. Suddenly a year passed and Ken was back.
“I bet they miss me,” he gave his trademark grin. That was Ken, dazzling as always.
“Call them up.”
“I lost my phone there.” He gave a shrug.
“Maybe Risaki will drop by later.”
“Risaki?”
“She comes by every Wednesday.”
“Today is Wednesday?”
“Yeah. First of March.”
Ken appeared deep in thought. “I have to go somewhere. I will come by again.”
That bastard had a bad habit of leaving suddenly.
When I was young, I was looking for my perfect eatery. I couldn’t really find one. So I decided that some day, I was going to open one. My perfect eatery. “Muenchner” was opened five years ago on the trendy Omotesando. Why the name “Muenchner”? I went to Munich one day and was enthralled by the people and the place. This place was named in honour of that wonderful city. But it was quite a misnomer, considering that the place was in no way German, except perhaps for some of the German beers I had. But that was it.
Opening the place was one thing; fulfilling my dream was another. What was the perfect eatery? Why couldn’t I find it? What was I looking for? I still did not know the answer. But my quest took on a new form, when in the summer of 2004, amidst the sweltering heat, a group of young people stepped in and reminded me that life wasn’t about perfection, but dreams and memories.
“Good afternoon!” a cheerful voice broke the silence in the place. There were only a few customers.
“Oh, it’s you, Ri-chan.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “You are early.”
“I didn’t work.” Risaki sat down at the counter. “Sick.”
“Again? You better get away from me,” I joked.
“Hey!”
I laid a glass of water before her. She gave me a quizzical look.
“Sick people shouldn’t be drinking.”
“Can’t I at least have some juice? I need vitamin C.”
“Good point.” I took back the glass of water. “Hey, you have been sick quite often nowadays. Have you seen a doctor?”
“It’s ok. I just take some medicine myself. Nothing serious, really.”
“Oh well.” I passed her her juice. “Oh, Ken was here.”
“Ken?” she almost choked on her orange juice.
“Yeah. But gone as suddenly as he came. God knows where he is now.”
She gave a thoughtful look.
“Since he’s back, you guys ought to have a reunion of some sort huh.”
“Umm…it’s kind of hard. Hide is so busy with school; Taku with football. I haven’t seen Keisuke in a while.” She mentioned Keisuke’s name with a tinge of wistfulness.
“Hide? He goes to school? I thought he would be skipping classes to come up with another idea to sell.”
“Maybe there’s some pretty girl there.” Risaki was like my spy, keeping me updated on the gang.
“Prettier than Yui?”
“Probably not. You know how he feels about her.”
“Yeah.” I let out a sigh. “He’s got everything except love.”
Hideaki Nishino was a young man whom I would never forget. He was too smart. When I looked at him, I felt sorry for all those people who studied very hard every day and yet had results far worse than his. You could say he strolled into Tokyo University. The day he came in with the news, I told him, “So, you have got your future all secured.”
He gave me a strange look and said, “It is just a ticket. It doesn’t mean you will get to the destination.”
Nevertheless, I was sure he would. He was just special. Brilliant.
Then he said, “All these mean nothing to me, actually.”
Actually, I knew why. The reason was Yui Inaba.
“Yui’s going to do art.” Risaki interrupted my chain of thoughts.
“Oh. That’s always her plan, isn’t it?”
“More or less.”
“And Kanna?”
“Her stuff’s over at my place now. But I seldom see her. She isn’t around much.”
“Still trying to run away…”
“I can’t help her much.”
“Taku’s married to his football.”
“He has a game this Saturday. Told me to tell you to go down if you have time.”
“What about this shop?”
“I can help. I don’t watch football anyway.”
“Keep an eye on Kanna.”
“How? I don’t even see her.”
I sighed, “We are pretty screwed up.”
More guests were streaming in. Soon, I got too busy to chat with Risaki. She felt worse as night fell and she soon left.
After I closed the shop that day, I took the stroll along Omotesando to the Harajuku station to catch the Yamanote train home. The weather at night was especially nice. I walked slowly; I had a lot to think about. About the past year, about my young friends, how they had been. I threw up more questions than answers.
2 March, ThursdayKen came back, as promised. It was a relatively busy day, but I still found time to sit with him and chat. He was telling me about the girls in Barcelona when my phone rang. It was Hide. Risaki had collapsed and was in the hospital. At the earliest possible moment, we rushed to the hospital. Kanna Ito, Yui Inaba and Takuya were outside the room. No one was allowed in.
Hide came back.
“How?” Kanna asked.
“Couldn’t get through. His friends didn’t know where he is too.”
They were looking for Keisuke Yokoi.
Hide sucked in his breath and said, “I’ll find him. Somehow.”
Later on, the doctor said she had leukemia. Late stage. I remembered her being unwell frequently. Suddenly, the possibility of losing Risaki became very real.
4 March, SaturdayHideakiI opened the door gently.
“Hide.” Risaki was surprised.
I put a finger to my lips. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Not at this hour. I took a seat beside her. She was reading some fashion magazine.
“How are you feeling?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Still the same.”
She had become frailer. The illness had taken its toll on her.
“Hey, Hide.”
“What?”
“When I leave this world, I would like my ashes to be scattered at the school. Our old high school.”
“I understand.”
She smiled again. “Hey, you know what?”
“What?”
“You are the only person in this world who won’t tell a dying person that she won’t die.”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s how frank you are.”
I shrugged.
“So I guess our pact is off.”
“What pact?”
“Don’t you remember? We said if we were both left on the shelf when we were forty, we would just marry each other.”
“That was so long ago.”
“A pact’s still a pact.”
I took the magazine from her and flipped through it.
“Hey, would we have become lovers?” she asked.
“I guess not. We are too close. I will always love you as my sister.”
“I thought so too.”
“Hey, would I become a star when I die?” she snatched her magazine back.
“We don’t become stars, Risaki. Maybe you will get reincarnated. Maybe you will join God in Heaven. I don’t know.”
“Hmmm…”
“Do me a favour, will you?” she suddenly asked.
“Yeah?”
“Help me get a Teamgeist ball for Taku. You know, the one for the World Cup. I tried looking for it but the places I went all ran out of it. The small one. Size 3, I think. He wanted a ball like that. And his birthday was last week.”
“Ok. Anything else?”
She shook her head. “That’s the last one.”
I stayed till she finally fell asleep. By then it was already three in the morning. But I didn’t go home. I went to our high school and sat at the assembly square, gazing at the Tokyo night sky. I wondered if Risaki would become one of the stars soon. If so, she would always be around, wouldn’t she? Even if it were cloudy, she would still be there, just not visible. Wouldn’t this be the case?
8 March, Wednesday
YuiWe were gathered that day at our high school. It was where Risaki’s ashes would be scattered. Hide was helping out with the preparation. He had known Risaki for an even longer period of time than the rest of us; they had been neighbors and childhood friends since they were born. He was visibly tired, but he kept going. I could still remember being awakened by his phone call at four in the morning, telling me that Risaki had left. I didn’t know that it would be that soon. After her body was cremated, we came here with her ashes. Hide did not say anything. But it was obvious Risaki had told him something.
Then, I noticed a familiar figure lurking at the school gate. It was Keisuke. I could tell that it was him from any distance, the way he stood. He walked towards us. He looked different from the last time I saw him, which was probably a month ago. Then, he had long, blond hair, somewhat like a punk rocker. Now, his hair was cropped short and black again. The last time his hair was like this was maybe in junior high. I couldn’t remember. It was long ago.
It was almost funny. I almost laughed out loud. I was thinking: at last we are all reunited. Until I realized that Risaki wasn’t around. Even if you had counted her as being present, wasn’t it ironic that we would be having a gathering at a funeral? What had happened to us? A mere one year had passed and we had become like this.
Hide started addressing the people. I didn’t know how he convinced the school to let us do it here. That was Hide: resourceful, meticulous and efficient.
“May we now have Keisuke to sing a song for us, for our dearest Risaki.”
Somehow he produced a guitar and passed it to Keisuke, who looked surprised but took it anyway.
Keisuke seemed a little apprehensive at first, but recovered his composure. “Risaki is a dear friend of mine. I would like to dedicate this song, her favourite song to her and all of us here, who…will miss her a lot.”
He started playing X Japan’s Tears, surrounded by people dressed in black suits and black dresses. It was like a painting, a melancholic painting. His voice was quivering. “For now, I will try to live for you. And for...I will try to live. Try to live the love, the dreams, and finally, the tears.”
I saw the tears on his face. It was the first time I saw Keisuke shed tears.
He wasn’t alone.
Keisuke
I was still in slumber when Hide called me. From my other friends, I knew he had been looking for me. I didn’t understand his urgency. And I was busy with the gigs we had. We were moving around a lot, so I wasn’t really at home. And most of the time my phone was off because I didn’t want distractions. No one would call anyway. Except Hide. He finally got through. When I heard the news, I came down immediately, not without cutting my hair and dyeing it black again first though. She told me once that I looked better with short hair. She told me a lot of stuff. Like how I should stop getting into trouble with the teachers in school. Especially with attendance and homework. In any case, I thought that since it was probably going to be the last time, I should look my best, at least to her. That was what I thought. I didn’t make it to the cremation. Better late than never. She would forgive me if she had known the reason. That was what I thought.
Kanna
When it was all over, we met at Muenchner for a drink. It was kind of weird and quiet. We were like the most familiar of strangers. It was hard to believe that just a year ago, we were so boisterous, and now, we were just sitting there, staring blankly at our drinks. It was even harder to believe that Risaki would never join us again.
“Dry your love, with tears…” The X Japan song was playing in the background.
“Keisuke, why did you say that Tears was Risaki’s favourite song?” I suddenly asked.
Keisuke was taken aback. “That was what she told me.”
As far as I could remember, it wasn’t. It used to be Utada Hikaru’s First Love. Then, that autumn in 2004, while we were taking a stroll outside Takashimaya Square, she said to me, “Hey Kanna, I told you that my favourite song was First Love right?”
“Yeah.”
“Not anymore. It has officially been displaced by Yuki no Hana.” And she had looked over at me with a cheeky grin. “It’s the perfect song for Christmas, isn’t it?”
“She told me it was Tears,” Keisuke said quietly.
I went back to our first year in junior high, the first time we really noticed Keisuke. It was some farewell assembly for the seniors. Keisuke was performing the song Tears. You could say that it was then that Keisuke Yokoi came into our lives, or rather, Risaki’s. By a stroke of chance, they ended up in the same class the following year. After that Keisuke joined our gang of six.
That day, in the school hall, Risaki told me, “He is so cool.”
I had laughed it off. She told me she felt weird, like being overwhelmed. “That’s love, isn’t it?”
I told her she watched too many dramas.
That was a truth. But the other truth was that she liked Keisuke. Even though everyone thought it was Hideaki. Maybe even Keisuke himself thought like this too. But did it matter now?
When we finally left the place, it was already dark. It was one of those rare days that we could see the stars.
Before we parted, I told Keisuke, “One of those stars is watching over you. And that’s Risaki.”
moshi kimi wo ushinatta to shita nara hoshi ni natte kimi wo terasu darouegao mo namida ni nureteru yoru moitsumo itsudemo soba ni iru yo
If I were to lose you, I would become a star and shine upon you. On those nights when even your smile is wet by tears, I will always be there, forever by your side.
Had Risaki seen the future back in 2004?
Takuya
After Keisuke went towards the Omotesando station, the five of us, Yui, Kanna, Ken, Hide and me walked on to Harajuku. The Muenchner was situated right in between these two stops.
We were on the platform, waiting for our trains. Ken, Yui and Kanna were going in the direction of Meguro, while Hide and I in the direction of Ikebukuro.
Our train soon came. There were only the two of us in the carriage.
“How’s things?” Hide asked.
“Could be a lot better. Risaki leaving, is like a bolt from the blue. You know, like when the midfielder takes a long shot and suddenly it goes in. It’s like that.”
Hide was looking at me with that Hide gaze: head tilted down slightly, eyes looking up, boring through you. He gave a small smile, “I suppose that’s the best way Takuya Kuraki could describe his feeling.”
I laughed. “Football is everything to me, Hide. Surely you know that.”
“Which player would I be on your team?”
I thought for a moment. “The central midfielder. Everywhere, doing everything.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“I play in center mid, but I am the playmaker. The match winner, while you are the ball winner. There’s a difference.”
“So I win the ball for you to make chances?”
“Yes.”
“You are always the playmaker, aren’t you? On the field, off the field.”
“But I can’t seem to help you much with Yui.”
He gave a shrug. “But you did set up many other couples.”
“But you are my friend.”
“It doesn’t matter. Some things can’t be helped.”
Sometimes, Hide was too analytical, too rational. Too mechanical. Too desensitized.
“Shinjuku. Shinjuku.”
Hide got up and threw something at me. I barely caught it. It was a Teamgeist ball, size 3. The miniature version. “Risaki’s birthday gift to you. Happy belated birthday.”
“How did she get it? I looked everywhere. All sold out.”
“I know. That’s why I went online.” He turned and held up his right hand. “See you.”
“Hide.”
He turned his head.
“Please win.”
He shrugged and held up his hand again before striding off to catch his train to Shin-Nakano.
The train continued on. I was going to Ikebukuro. The team I supported, Arsenal of England, was going through their worst season in recent years. I was looking forward to the World Cup. In a way, my life had mirrored Arsenal’s season. Things hadn’t been going well. At home, on the field, in the campus. And now Risaki’s death. But Risaki’s last gift to me, was a reminder of the World Cup which I had so looked forward to. And a reminder that there were still things to look forward to. I couldn’t thank her enough.
Ken
It was the second funeral I attended in slightly more than a year. I went back to Spain in the vain hope of finding my father. For all my mother’s hate, I knew she loved him a lot. I couldn’t stop her from leaving me; all I could do was to try to fulfill her last unsaid wish: to see him again. I was too late though. The day I arrived in Barcelona, my aunt called me to tell me my mother had passed away. I just wanted to bring him back to Japan. To see her one last time.
“When did you come back?” Kanna asked me. “She left a note on the fridge, saying you were back and that we should have a reunion.”
“Last Wednesday.” I mumbled. How could I forget the date? It was my mother’s death anniversary. I was very late. More than a year.
“What were you doing in Spain? You left so suddenly,” Kanna asked.
I couldn’t possibly tell her I was going to find my father, but ended up attending his funeral, could I? This was Ken Fernandes, an orphan. “I went to see Barcelona, see the city where my father grew up in.”
“It’s kind of surreal isn’t it? Going to your father’s hometown. I guess you would be able to understand him better through the trip. Even though he died before you were born.”
That was the official story I told everyone. That was the story my mother told me too. My father died before I was born. Until one day, when I was twelve, the postman came with a package. He was shouting excitedly, because the package was from Spain. My mother threw away the package after he left. It was for me, but I never got around to seeing what it contained. My aunt told me the truth later on. She was the person closest to me.
“Write a story on that one day, Kanna.”
“I won’t be able to do so. I don’t think we can write on something we didn’t experience. The feeling wouldn’t be right.” She smiled. “That’s why I never write about families.”
It wasn’t true that Kanna did not have a family. She was running away from her family. She couldn’t stand the way they try to control her life: her friends, her course of study, her pursuits. Not only were they rich, they were also a family with an illustrious past. Such was the prestige. Such was the importance of their image. Kanna could not put up with the pressure. In a way, I was like her. But my family was in no way similar to hers. Just that my mother seemed to hate me. She was always scolding me, beating me up, for the slightest of mistakes.
The day my aunt told me the truth, she also told me why my mother was so harsh towards me. “Because you look just like your father, Ken. Your father dumped your mother. She hated him to the core. Your resemblance hurts her a lot. Every time she looks at you, she’s reminded of the past.”
“How’s Barcelona then?” Yui asked.
“A place with a lot of history, yet looking towards the future. Very lively. You should go there one day. They have many art museums there.”
“Lively? Oh, just like you, isn’t it?” Kanna remarked
I thought “a lot of history” would be more apt. I remembered that I was guilt-stricken then. But looking back, I hadn’t chosen to look exactly like my father. I didn’t even know how he looked like. My aunt told me there were no photos of him in the house. But there was. It was with my mother. A snapshot of the two of them together, in front of the Sagrada Familia. She was looking at it in the kitchen. It was then that I knew she still loved him. That was why, when the doctor said she was dying, I went to Spain with a scrap of paper bearing his address, from 20 years ago. He went back to Spain before I was born, after promising my mother he would take care of her.
She died on the first of March, however. That house I went to was also in mourning. A neighbour, a young lady by the name of Juanita told me in halting English that just a few days prior to my arrival there was a bullfight accident. The barricades collapsed, the bull went mad. Several people were killed. My father was one of them. The family was at the cemetery. I did not see any reason to stay, nor to leave my name. But I went over anyway, just to take a look; I stayed in the shadows of course. I spent a year in Barcelona before I came back. I didn’t felt as though I had understood my father better. I didn’t know him at all. But I got to know of his activities the past few years. He had attended church regularly and was doing social work. Helping out here and there, especially at the orphanage in the neighbourhood. Atoning for his mistake?
“Ken must have hooked up with a lot of girls there,” Yui said teasingly. “He’s confident, good-looking, charming…what else can you ask for?”
Talent. I didn’t have that. Maybe I had. Acting. Yui was an artist; Keisuke a musician; Kanna a writer; Taku a footballer; Hide’s good in everything serious. Risaki was good at cooking. I was good at putting on a show. Every day, when I stepped out of my house, I was acting. I was acting as the confident Ken Fernandes. Deep down, I was insecure. Haunted by my past. There was a lot my closest friends didn’t know about me.
“We have to live on like normal,” I told them before I got off at Shibuya. Normal, as in the confident Ken Fernandes.
Kanna
It was kind of weird going back to an empty house. Usually, Risaki would be in the house, asleep. I spent very little time in the house. I would usually be out again before she got up. Exploring Tokyo, searching for new inspiration for my writing. Looking back, I felt kind of guilty for having treated Risa’s place as a hotel. I went into her room. Everything was neatly arranged. The cookbooks on the small table. She was learning Italian cuisine at the moment. She was a good cook. Sometimes she would leave some food in the kitchen for me. It was always delicious.
There were photos of us pasted onto a board hung onto the wall. Us smiling, our high school graduation, Taku in action, Hide and Yui doing some forfeit, Ken smiling very charmingly, Keisuke with his beloved drums, the seven of us at Muenchner, the seven of us in front of the Buddha statue at Kamakura, the seven of us in Kyoto, memories of our past.
Memories and dreams. Which was the sky, which the sea? When we float on the sea, staring up at the sky, are our dreams the sky, which we look up at, grasp at, but will never reach? Or is the sky our memories, a past we can never go back to? Are we slowly moved along by our memories or our dreams? Do we live for our dreams or our memories?
There was a photo of Risaki with her parents. A very young Risaki, maybe 5 years of age. The little girl smiling so happily in the picture could have been anybody.
“I am envious of you, Kanna. Beautiful words just flow out from your pen,” she once told me.
“I am envious of you, Risaki. Your parents love you so much,” I told her.
“Your parents love you too, just in a different way. A way that you don’t accept. But you haven’t tried.”
Really, Risaki? Could I be like that little girl?
I finally dozed off by her table, pondering that question.
14 March, Tuesday
Keisuke
I went to the school with a box of chocolates. Bitter chocolates. Risaki’s favourite. Hide was there, squatting down, staring into space. We had made a small cross and drove it into the ground where we had buried some of her ashes.
I laid the box of chocolates by the cross. He looked up, a glimpse of surprise showing. It was rare that you could caught Hide out like this.
“For her,” I said nonchalantly.
He nodded.
“She left me chocolates at my door on Valentine’s. Today is White Day, so I figured I should give her some in return.”
“Don’t tell me you never had feelings for her.”
To that, I wasn’t sure. I asked back, “What about you?”
He did not give a reply.
“I am sure at some point of time you did. But you probably thought that it wasn’t right. You are the gentleman in Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.”
“Gentleman?”
“You know, do what ought to be done, and not what you want to do. That’s you, I guess. Me, I always follow my heart. Go into music. Maybe that’s why I am so screwed up and you are all set for life. But then again, maybe you aren’t entirely happy with your life.”
“Depends, Keisuke,” he said quietly.
“What of it?”
“The answer to your question. Depends on which me is me at that moment.”
“Tell me about it.”
“There’s a rational Hideaki and an emotional Hideaki. If I had gone with my brain, I would have accepted her then. But at that moment, my heart was dominant.”
“That moment?”
“Last year. Somewhere in September. When I was deciding. I listened to my heart.” He paused. “Anyway, Yui once said I am more of the kind of person who adapts. Maybe that’s true. So maybe I have accepted my life.”
“I always thought she like you.”
“You cared about that? I thought you always follow your heart.”
“You are such a good friend. Could I have done that?”
“It’s too late, isn’t it?”
“But at least she will know now. Better late than never.”
He shrugged.
“I should learn from you. Being more responsible. Not this lackadaisical attitude.”
He laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a pain, Keisuke. Pain.” He got up. “Talk to you again. Got to go.”
Hideaki Nishino. Pain? It was amazing how much we didn’t know about our closest friends.
“Wait, Hide!” I called out to his departing figure. “Take it easy on yourself, will you?”
He turned fully.
“Try it.”
“I’ll try.” He paused a while. “And tell you how it goes.”
It was the first time someone ever told Hide what to do.
15 March, Wednesday
Exactly a week after Risaki’s death, they were all gathered at my place. It would probably be the last in a while. Yui was leaving for Paris to pursue her studies in Art. Hideaki was bound for Chicago for a term at the University of Chicago, as part of some exchange program. Keisuke would be touring Japan soon with Otsuka Ai. Risaki must have been watching over him. They suddenly needed a drummer and they saw him at one of his gigs and asked him immediately. It was his big break.
“I am so envious. You are all closer to your dreams,” Takuya said.
“You might miss this World Cup, but maybe they will notice you soon,” I said. “Like Sota Hirayama. Maybe you will find yourself in Holland soon.”
“I wished!”
They all laughed.
Takuya said dreamily, “But some dreams, should never end.”
“What about you, Ken? What are your plans?”
“I am going back to Barcelona. Continue my father’s work,” he was hesitant. “Then, when I finally pick up the courage, I might tell his family about myself. Confront my past.”
“Me too,” Kanna said. “I will stop running away. Go back, talk to them, see how it goes. Risaki would have wanted that.”
I was sure Risaki was smiling in Heaven. Smiling with a tinge of regret. Happy because they knew what they were going to do; regret because they would be parting.
“I guess we will drift apart,” Yui said.
“But we will only meet on the other side of the world.” Hide said quietly.
I guessed it was goodbye.
What started out as a journey to find my perfect eatery, became a journey of self discovery. A search for my identity: who I was, who I am. I saw myself in these seven young people, so different yet so similar in many ways. I was like them once, lost in the sea of people, searching for ourselves, searching for purpose in our lives. Caught between memories and dreams, the past and the future. I don’t know what will happen to them 5, 10 years down the road. Who knows? But I do know that I’ll pray for them. Fate brought them together once. May fate bring them together one day in the future. Looking at them, I was sure, it would be a dazzling one. Somehow.
