tokyo story 3
“Fujita.”
“Coach.”
Yazawa Nobu, the coach of Waseda was standing beside him, as he was washing his face. Yazawa stared at him for a while, then looked away. “You are not the same player you were two years ago.”
Fujita dabbed his face with his towel.
“You have to work very hard. Two years is a long time. You have a lot of work to do. Rest well.” He patted him on his back and left him all alone in the shower room.
“I know. I know I am not the same player anymore,” he whispered.
---
Kazumi finally called Fujita. She had hesitated, but finally decided to make the call. She crossed her fingers, hoping that he would pick up.
“He’s not going to,” she thought after a few more rings.
“Hello.”
Her heart almost stopped. “He-hello, this is Kazumi.”
“Yeah I know that, I have your number.”
“Oh yeah. Heh, just in case…”
“What’s up?”
“Oh…nothing much…I am in Tokyo now.”
“Tokyo?”
“Yeah, for a few days already. We are taking part in the competition tomorrow.”
“Oh. Good luck then.”
“Thanks. I am so nervous about it.”
“Don’t worry. You will do fine.”
She hesitated. “Are you free tomorrow?”
“Should be. Why?”
“Can you come down to support? I mean, I am also asking Ken along too.”
“I’ll see how.” He said after a pause.
She prayed that he would turn up.
---
“Fujita?”
Fujita whirled around to see Miyu and Takahara.
“What are you doing here?” Fujita asked Miyu.
“Oh, I asked her along. To watch Kazumi.”
“I see.”
“We should try to get a better position. I think it’s their turn soon.”
The competition was still in its preliminary stage and was held in an open area.
“Next up, we have Jyu,” the emcee announced.
“That’s Kazumi’s band!” Takahara exclaimed. He started cheering wildly. Miyu glanced past him at Fujita, who was looking at Jyu.
Jyu got through. Their rendition of Nakashima Mika’s Glamorous Sky was brilliant.
“Of course they are good. I bet Kazumi sings this song practically every day,” Takahara was saying at the celebration.
“I don’t!” she retorted.
“So what song are you all going to sing for the next round?” Miyu asked.
“I don’t know. We will decide soon, I guess.”
Fujita was not in the conversation at all. He was staring blankly into space.
“What’s wrong?” Kazumi asked.
“Hey, aren’t you Toshiaki?” a few girls approached their table.
He turned to look at them. “Yeah. You are?”
“Cool. Nice to meet you! I am Reika.”
“Natsumi.”
Takahara interrupted them. “You are all his fans right?” He hit Fujita on his arm. “Wow, you are something. You haven’t been here for a month and you already have your own supporters.”
Fujita looked at them in the eyes. “Pleased to meet you.”
It was emotionless. Mechanical. Like the Fujita of the past, Miyu noticed.
The girls became a little bashful and decided to leave the quartet after wishing him luck for the upcoming games.
“Where do you live?” Takahara asked Miyu.
“Ikebukuro.”
“That’s where Fujita live too.”
“I’ll see you home then.” Fujita told Miyu.
Kazumi was disappointed, but they weren’t going on the same way. So was Takahara.
“It’s late, you better make sure Kazumi reach her youth hostel safely.”
“I can manage,” Kazumi was still miffed.
Takahara shrugged. “Fine.”
They went their separate ways.
Throughout the whole journey, Miyu and Fujita were silent. Fujita was engrossed in his own thoughts, while Miyu was observing him.
After alighting from the train, they walked a silent fifteen minutes to her place.
“I live here.” She announced. “Thanks for sending me home.”
He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I live further ahead. Next block.”
“HEH?”
He shrugged. “I guess we come and go at different timings. That’s why we never met before.”
She nodded. “I am going up. Goodnight.”
He held up a hand and carried on his way. She climbed up the stairs halfway, and observed his disappearing figure. As he became swallowed up by the darkness, she felt an awakening in her heart. It was a feeling she experienced before, but not in a while. Not in a year.
---
Shiozawa was peering through the glass panel of the bakery.
Suddenly, Kei’s reflection appeared beside his. “What are you looking at?”
He turned. “Where did you come from?”
“Home.”
He laughed. “You should have said ‘from heaven’.”
She laughed it off. “That’s so clichéd. Only you would say stuff like that.”
He laughed. “Maybe. Aren’t you supposed to be working today?”
“I took leave.”
“Oh…I don’t have lessons today. Let’s go play.”
“Play?”
“Yeah. Come on,” he grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
---
Miyu got out of her apartment and stretched. She had a lot of free time now; her leave had been approved. She breathed in the crisp spring air. She skipped down the stairs. She was going to go to the park nearby. She hadn’t run in a while. She broke into a run. She felt surprisingly light today, like the load on her heart had just been removed.
She reached the park soon. The park was sunken. So, she was standing on the elevated sides, catching her breath, looking down. There were some children playing. There on the green, was a solitary figure, juggling a ball. He flicked the ball up high. When it came down, he touched it with his foot and burst away immediately. He ran up and down with the ball. It was breathless just watching him do that.
She took a seat on one of the benches. She knew who it was. Fujita Toshiaki. She spent the whole morning watching him run. When he was done, he knelt down on the field for a while, as though in prayer. Then he got up and headed towards her.
Suddenly, she felt like running away. But she was rooted to the bench.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said when he saw her.
“Uhm, yeah.” She nodded.
“I’ll make a move first.”
She could do nothing but nod. And turn instinctively as he walked past. Staring at his back. There was this sense of melancholy about his back view. Her artist-trained eyes told her suddenly.
---
“Tired?” Shiozawa asked.
Kei nodded and took the can he offered. “Thanks.”
“I haven’t been to a theme park for a while.”
“Me too.”
He glanced around and froze.
“What is it?” Kei noticed and asked. She looked along his line of sight and gasped. It was Rena Komatsu.
Rena looked away quickly and walked on. She was with a group of friends. She hurried to catch up with them.
“Go chase after her,” Kei said.
He shook his head. “For what?”
“I don’t know.”
How would she know? It was the only thing she could say, much as she didn’t want to. In any case, the date was pretty much ruined after that.
---
“Coming!” Rena called out and hurried to the door, swinging it open.
“Surprise!” Takahara grinned.
“Oh, it’s you. What is it?” she was nonchalant.
“I haven’t seen you in a while. Thought I would come find your new place. It’s hard, but I found it. Nice neighbourhood though. Hey, won’t you let me in?”
“Come in.” He followed her into her apartment.
“Do you have any place to hang this jacket? It’s all wet.” He looked around. “Wow. Nice place you have got here. Cozy.”
“It’s about the best I can get for the amount I am earning,” she shrugged, taking his jacket.
“You are always welcome back,” he said earnestly.
“I am not that kind of person,” she said coldly.
“I mean, if it’s tough out here, you can always come back. You know you are always welcome.”
“Did they send you here?”
“No, I came on my own accord. Can’t I visit my sister?”
“I don’t really see you as my brother. You know that.”
“But you can’t deny the fact that we are related by blood.”
“I want nothing to do with the Takaharas, seriously.”
“What’s wrong? What do you have against them, against me?”
“Everything.” She was suddenly tired. “Hey, can we drop this? I am sick of it.”
“But I still don’t understand…”
“Listen, I want nothing from him. I can never forgive him. It’s as simple as that.” She paused a while. “You can have all his money.”
He looked at her strangely. She ignored it and went on, “I am not that weak.”
---
Miyu dashed into the sheltered stairwell. She turned, but he was already gone, running off into the distance, with his jacket over his head. She stared at his back for a while.
“You still play? Even in the mud?” she was asking him.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s what we do everyday, isn’t it? Trudging through all the mud.”
“But then again, it’s kind of liberating, to push the ball through all that mud, to overcome all these things holding on to you.” He had added.
“Huh?”
She looked up. “Huh?”
It was Takahara. He was stunned to see her. So was she.
“Hey, you forgot your jacket,” Rena appeared at the top of the stairs.
Miyu swept her gaze from Takahara to Rena.
“She’s my sister,” Takahara quickly said.
“What?” Miyu was stunned.
“You know each other?” Rena asked.
“Yeah, high school classmates. You live here?” Takahara asked.
“Yeah. I’ll go in first.” Miyu glided past them and went into her own apartment, the other one on the floor.
“Go.” Rena pushed him on his way.
He was still looking up at the closed door as he went on his way.
---
Fujita lay on the floor of his apartment and stared at the ceiling. He was tired. This endless pursuit of his past was wearing him out, both physically and mentally.
Was there anything else to his life other than football?
Suddenly, he didn’t want to think anymore.
---
“I didn’t know you have a brother.”
Rena sighed. “He’s my half-brother. My father had an affair. After my mother died, he married the woman. Kenichi’s mother. It became official after that. That man’s marriage with my mother was essentially a political marriage. It was loveless.”
She warmed her hands on the mug of hot chocolate and smiled bitterly. “I am a product of that. A loveless family. A father who threw money at you; a mother who lived in her own melodrama, too engrossed in it to care about you. Now you know why I am the way I am.”
“That’s not true. ” Miyu continued. “You were happier.”
Rena looked out of the window.
Miyu continued, “Is it because of Jun?”
Rena did not answer.
“Tetsuro?” Miyu watched Rena. “It is because of Tetsuro, isn’t it? Though you are with Jun now, your heart is still with Tetsuro, isn’t it?”
The girl flashed across her mind. Rena laughed bitterly. “I guess I’ll be living my mother’s life. Trapped in my melodrama.”
---
Miyu found herself at Waseda’s training ground again. Somewhere hidden from sight. Watching and watching. Soon, she could paint the images in her head, in her heart. But each time he took shape, her heart would wrench in pain. It was sudden. It was like a man trapped in a prison, pounding on the walls, reminding the world of his presence, demanding justice.
Only, the man was Ryuichi.
---
He had lined up the balls along the edge of the penalty box. He took a few steps away from them, turned and proceeded to kick each of them. Each time, the ball would fly and hit the left side of the woodwork.
Clap-clap.
He turned. Nishizawa was there. Nishizawa walked towards him. “Coach.”
“Very good.”
“None went in.”
“Maybe you weren’t going for goal?”
“You know that isn’t true.”
Nishizawa smiled, like a child caught in the act of taking sweets. “Training’s over. Why are you still here?”
“Practice.”
“But your heart isn’t here.”
Fujita turned his head sharply.
“You know yourself.”
“Coach, is there more to life than football?” Fujita asked suddenly.
“Fujita, do you remember that time you told me I taught you football?”
“Uh huh.”
“I didn’t teach you anything. I only reminded you of what you can do, what you already know. Things that are in you.”
“Uh huh.” Fujita wasn’t sure he understood Coach.
“You see, Fujita, the answer to your question is within you. You know it.”
---
“Are you avoiding me?”
“Why do you say that?”
“We haven’t talked in a while.”
“I am busy with stuff.”
Shiozawa looked away from Kei as he said that. They knew it wasn’t the truth.
An awkward silence passed between them.
Shiozawa blurted out, “ It’s not that I am avoiding you. But I think things are progressing too fast. Things between us. I don’t even know my feelings towards you. I don’t want to treat you as just her substitute.”
“Even so, I wouldn’t have minded.”
Shiozawa looked at her.
“This year, the happiest thing was being by your side.”
“But I am afraid of losing again.”
“But I am different from her.”
She said earnestly, “Let’s at least go back to normal, ok?”
He nodded.
---
Miyu was walking down the stairs when Takahara popped out in front of her, breathless.
Miyu was still looking startled as Takahara held on to the railing, catching his breath. She looked at him, bewildered. Takahara was always the funny guy.
“I am glad I caught you before you leave,” he was still panting.
“Is anything the matter?”
He took a deep breath. “Listen, Yokoi Miyu. I have been thinking about this moment for a long time. 5 years. I finally have the courage now. I ran from the station. Hoping to catch you before you leave.”
He paused, before continuing. “And I thought, if Heaven were on my side, you would be there.”
Miyu was slightly amused by this time.
“And there you were.”
Miyu raised an eyebrow.
“Yokoi Miyu, I may not know a lot. But I do know that I like you. I have nothing in this world. Only this heart that loves you.”
Takahara looked expectantly at Miyu, like a magician who had just finished his performance. The applause never came.
Miyu laughed it off. “You are always the joker, aren’t you?”
“I am serious…”
Miyu made her way past him. “You aren’t.”
She walked a few steps down before continuing. “Even if you are, it’s impossible between you and me. Bye.”
And she left, just like that.
---
“And she left, just like that.”
Kazumi stared at the drunk Takahara. “God, he’s dead drunk. What am I supposed to do with him?”
He continued, “I have nothing in this world. You think I am rich? What’s so great about money anyway? The money isn’t mine. He just gives it. I have nothing. I don’t even feel that I belong to that family. My sister doesn’t even acknowledge me. Neither do the rest of my siblings. They think my mother and I wrecked their lives. My father just throws money at us. I have no talent too. I am just a useless bum. Every day, I walk to the station. I am just one of the faceless crowd. The lost people. Wandering, wandering. Without any hope of ever finding a place in this world. The loser. The joke. That’s what I am.”
Kazumi patted his back. “You are a nice guy…”
He shook his head. “I don’t belong at all.” He moaned. “I have no place here.”
“Hey. Do you think you are the only one here with problems? Don’t make it sound like the end of the world. It’s just a girl.” She tried hard, but still ended up sounding a little harsh. Maybe more than that.
“Wait till you fall for a guy.”
She didn’t really hear his mumble. She was looking around, thinking of a solution. Then she thought of Fujita.
---
Fujita came about an hour later, taking over the burden of Takahara.
“Thank you so much. I wouldn’t know what to do with him.”
“How did he get so drunk anyway?”
“Over a girl. I am not sure the name. She was your high school classmate I think.”
“He never told me anything. Or maybe he did. But he was never serious.”
“He seemed dead serious.”
Fujita looked at Takahara. “I think I will take a cab home.”
She helped to hail a cab. “Thanks again!”
He raised an arm. “Good luck for your competition.”
She couldn’t stop smiling after that. Jyu was already in the final. She felt as if she had won the competition.
“Coach.”
Yazawa Nobu, the coach of Waseda was standing beside him, as he was washing his face. Yazawa stared at him for a while, then looked away. “You are not the same player you were two years ago.”
Fujita dabbed his face with his towel.
“You have to work very hard. Two years is a long time. You have a lot of work to do. Rest well.” He patted him on his back and left him all alone in the shower room.
“I know. I know I am not the same player anymore,” he whispered.
---
Kazumi finally called Fujita. She had hesitated, but finally decided to make the call. She crossed her fingers, hoping that he would pick up.
“He’s not going to,” she thought after a few more rings.
“Hello.”
Her heart almost stopped. “He-hello, this is Kazumi.”
“Yeah I know that, I have your number.”
“Oh yeah. Heh, just in case…”
“What’s up?”
“Oh…nothing much…I am in Tokyo now.”
“Tokyo?”
“Yeah, for a few days already. We are taking part in the competition tomorrow.”
“Oh. Good luck then.”
“Thanks. I am so nervous about it.”
“Don’t worry. You will do fine.”
She hesitated. “Are you free tomorrow?”
“Should be. Why?”
“Can you come down to support? I mean, I am also asking Ken along too.”
“I’ll see how.” He said after a pause.
She prayed that he would turn up.
---
“Fujita?”
Fujita whirled around to see Miyu and Takahara.
“What are you doing here?” Fujita asked Miyu.
“Oh, I asked her along. To watch Kazumi.”
“I see.”
“We should try to get a better position. I think it’s their turn soon.”
The competition was still in its preliminary stage and was held in an open area.
“Next up, we have Jyu,” the emcee announced.
“That’s Kazumi’s band!” Takahara exclaimed. He started cheering wildly. Miyu glanced past him at Fujita, who was looking at Jyu.
Jyu got through. Their rendition of Nakashima Mika’s Glamorous Sky was brilliant.
“Of course they are good. I bet Kazumi sings this song practically every day,” Takahara was saying at the celebration.
“I don’t!” she retorted.
“So what song are you all going to sing for the next round?” Miyu asked.
“I don’t know. We will decide soon, I guess.”
Fujita was not in the conversation at all. He was staring blankly into space.
“What’s wrong?” Kazumi asked.
“Hey, aren’t you Toshiaki?” a few girls approached their table.
He turned to look at them. “Yeah. You are?”
“Cool. Nice to meet you! I am Reika.”
“Natsumi.”
Takahara interrupted them. “You are all his fans right?” He hit Fujita on his arm. “Wow, you are something. You haven’t been here for a month and you already have your own supporters.”
Fujita looked at them in the eyes. “Pleased to meet you.”
It was emotionless. Mechanical. Like the Fujita of the past, Miyu noticed.
The girls became a little bashful and decided to leave the quartet after wishing him luck for the upcoming games.
“Where do you live?” Takahara asked Miyu.
“Ikebukuro.”
“That’s where Fujita live too.”
“I’ll see you home then.” Fujita told Miyu.
Kazumi was disappointed, but they weren’t going on the same way. So was Takahara.
“It’s late, you better make sure Kazumi reach her youth hostel safely.”
“I can manage,” Kazumi was still miffed.
Takahara shrugged. “Fine.”
They went their separate ways.
Throughout the whole journey, Miyu and Fujita were silent. Fujita was engrossed in his own thoughts, while Miyu was observing him.
After alighting from the train, they walked a silent fifteen minutes to her place.
“I live here.” She announced. “Thanks for sending me home.”
He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I live further ahead. Next block.”
“HEH?”
He shrugged. “I guess we come and go at different timings. That’s why we never met before.”
She nodded. “I am going up. Goodnight.”
He held up a hand and carried on his way. She climbed up the stairs halfway, and observed his disappearing figure. As he became swallowed up by the darkness, she felt an awakening in her heart. It was a feeling she experienced before, but not in a while. Not in a year.
---
Shiozawa was peering through the glass panel of the bakery.
Suddenly, Kei’s reflection appeared beside his. “What are you looking at?”
He turned. “Where did you come from?”
“Home.”
He laughed. “You should have said ‘from heaven’.”
She laughed it off. “That’s so clichéd. Only you would say stuff like that.”
He laughed. “Maybe. Aren’t you supposed to be working today?”
“I took leave.”
“Oh…I don’t have lessons today. Let’s go play.”
“Play?”
“Yeah. Come on,” he grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
---
Miyu got out of her apartment and stretched. She had a lot of free time now; her leave had been approved. She breathed in the crisp spring air. She skipped down the stairs. She was going to go to the park nearby. She hadn’t run in a while. She broke into a run. She felt surprisingly light today, like the load on her heart had just been removed.
She reached the park soon. The park was sunken. So, she was standing on the elevated sides, catching her breath, looking down. There were some children playing. There on the green, was a solitary figure, juggling a ball. He flicked the ball up high. When it came down, he touched it with his foot and burst away immediately. He ran up and down with the ball. It was breathless just watching him do that.
She took a seat on one of the benches. She knew who it was. Fujita Toshiaki. She spent the whole morning watching him run. When he was done, he knelt down on the field for a while, as though in prayer. Then he got up and headed towards her.
Suddenly, she felt like running away. But she was rooted to the bench.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said when he saw her.
“Uhm, yeah.” She nodded.
“I’ll make a move first.”
She could do nothing but nod. And turn instinctively as he walked past. Staring at his back. There was this sense of melancholy about his back view. Her artist-trained eyes told her suddenly.
---
“Tired?” Shiozawa asked.
Kei nodded and took the can he offered. “Thanks.”
“I haven’t been to a theme park for a while.”
“Me too.”
He glanced around and froze.
“What is it?” Kei noticed and asked. She looked along his line of sight and gasped. It was Rena Komatsu.
Rena looked away quickly and walked on. She was with a group of friends. She hurried to catch up with them.
“Go chase after her,” Kei said.
He shook his head. “For what?”
“I don’t know.”
How would she know? It was the only thing she could say, much as she didn’t want to. In any case, the date was pretty much ruined after that.
---
“Coming!” Rena called out and hurried to the door, swinging it open.
“Surprise!” Takahara grinned.
“Oh, it’s you. What is it?” she was nonchalant.
“I haven’t seen you in a while. Thought I would come find your new place. It’s hard, but I found it. Nice neighbourhood though. Hey, won’t you let me in?”
“Come in.” He followed her into her apartment.
“Do you have any place to hang this jacket? It’s all wet.” He looked around. “Wow. Nice place you have got here. Cozy.”
“It’s about the best I can get for the amount I am earning,” she shrugged, taking his jacket.
“You are always welcome back,” he said earnestly.
“I am not that kind of person,” she said coldly.
“I mean, if it’s tough out here, you can always come back. You know you are always welcome.”
“Did they send you here?”
“No, I came on my own accord. Can’t I visit my sister?”
“I don’t really see you as my brother. You know that.”
“But you can’t deny the fact that we are related by blood.”
“I want nothing to do with the Takaharas, seriously.”
“What’s wrong? What do you have against them, against me?”
“Everything.” She was suddenly tired. “Hey, can we drop this? I am sick of it.”
“But I still don’t understand…”
“Listen, I want nothing from him. I can never forgive him. It’s as simple as that.” She paused a while. “You can have all his money.”
He looked at her strangely. She ignored it and went on, “I am not that weak.”
---
Miyu dashed into the sheltered stairwell. She turned, but he was already gone, running off into the distance, with his jacket over his head. She stared at his back for a while.
“You still play? Even in the mud?” she was asking him.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s what we do everyday, isn’t it? Trudging through all the mud.”
“But then again, it’s kind of liberating, to push the ball through all that mud, to overcome all these things holding on to you.” He had added.
“Huh?”
She looked up. “Huh?”
It was Takahara. He was stunned to see her. So was she.
“Hey, you forgot your jacket,” Rena appeared at the top of the stairs.
Miyu swept her gaze from Takahara to Rena.
“She’s my sister,” Takahara quickly said.
“What?” Miyu was stunned.
“You know each other?” Rena asked.
“Yeah, high school classmates. You live here?” Takahara asked.
“Yeah. I’ll go in first.” Miyu glided past them and went into her own apartment, the other one on the floor.
“Go.” Rena pushed him on his way.
He was still looking up at the closed door as he went on his way.
---
Fujita lay on the floor of his apartment and stared at the ceiling. He was tired. This endless pursuit of his past was wearing him out, both physically and mentally.
Was there anything else to his life other than football?
Suddenly, he didn’t want to think anymore.
---
“I didn’t know you have a brother.”
Rena sighed. “He’s my half-brother. My father had an affair. After my mother died, he married the woman. Kenichi’s mother. It became official after that. That man’s marriage with my mother was essentially a political marriage. It was loveless.”
She warmed her hands on the mug of hot chocolate and smiled bitterly. “I am a product of that. A loveless family. A father who threw money at you; a mother who lived in her own melodrama, too engrossed in it to care about you. Now you know why I am the way I am.”
“That’s not true. ” Miyu continued. “You were happier.”
Rena looked out of the window.
Miyu continued, “Is it because of Jun?”
Rena did not answer.
“Tetsuro?” Miyu watched Rena. “It is because of Tetsuro, isn’t it? Though you are with Jun now, your heart is still with Tetsuro, isn’t it?”
The girl flashed across her mind. Rena laughed bitterly. “I guess I’ll be living my mother’s life. Trapped in my melodrama.”
---
Miyu found herself at Waseda’s training ground again. Somewhere hidden from sight. Watching and watching. Soon, she could paint the images in her head, in her heart. But each time he took shape, her heart would wrench in pain. It was sudden. It was like a man trapped in a prison, pounding on the walls, reminding the world of his presence, demanding justice.
Only, the man was Ryuichi.
---
He had lined up the balls along the edge of the penalty box. He took a few steps away from them, turned and proceeded to kick each of them. Each time, the ball would fly and hit the left side of the woodwork.
Clap-clap.
He turned. Nishizawa was there. Nishizawa walked towards him. “Coach.”
“Very good.”
“None went in.”
“Maybe you weren’t going for goal?”
“You know that isn’t true.”
Nishizawa smiled, like a child caught in the act of taking sweets. “Training’s over. Why are you still here?”
“Practice.”
“But your heart isn’t here.”
Fujita turned his head sharply.
“You know yourself.”
“Coach, is there more to life than football?” Fujita asked suddenly.
“Fujita, do you remember that time you told me I taught you football?”
“Uh huh.”
“I didn’t teach you anything. I only reminded you of what you can do, what you already know. Things that are in you.”
“Uh huh.” Fujita wasn’t sure he understood Coach.
“You see, Fujita, the answer to your question is within you. You know it.”
---
“Are you avoiding me?”
“Why do you say that?”
“We haven’t talked in a while.”
“I am busy with stuff.”
Shiozawa looked away from Kei as he said that. They knew it wasn’t the truth.
An awkward silence passed between them.
Shiozawa blurted out, “ It’s not that I am avoiding you. But I think things are progressing too fast. Things between us. I don’t even know my feelings towards you. I don’t want to treat you as just her substitute.”
“Even so, I wouldn’t have minded.”
Shiozawa looked at her.
“This year, the happiest thing was being by your side.”
“But I am afraid of losing again.”
“But I am different from her.”
She said earnestly, “Let’s at least go back to normal, ok?”
He nodded.
---
Miyu was walking down the stairs when Takahara popped out in front of her, breathless.
Miyu was still looking startled as Takahara held on to the railing, catching his breath. She looked at him, bewildered. Takahara was always the funny guy.
“I am glad I caught you before you leave,” he was still panting.
“Is anything the matter?”
He took a deep breath. “Listen, Yokoi Miyu. I have been thinking about this moment for a long time. 5 years. I finally have the courage now. I ran from the station. Hoping to catch you before you leave.”
He paused, before continuing. “And I thought, if Heaven were on my side, you would be there.”
Miyu was slightly amused by this time.
“And there you were.”
Miyu raised an eyebrow.
“Yokoi Miyu, I may not know a lot. But I do know that I like you. I have nothing in this world. Only this heart that loves you.”
Takahara looked expectantly at Miyu, like a magician who had just finished his performance. The applause never came.
Miyu laughed it off. “You are always the joker, aren’t you?”
“I am serious…”
Miyu made her way past him. “You aren’t.”
She walked a few steps down before continuing. “Even if you are, it’s impossible between you and me. Bye.”
And she left, just like that.
---
“And she left, just like that.”
Kazumi stared at the drunk Takahara. “God, he’s dead drunk. What am I supposed to do with him?”
He continued, “I have nothing in this world. You think I am rich? What’s so great about money anyway? The money isn’t mine. He just gives it. I have nothing. I don’t even feel that I belong to that family. My sister doesn’t even acknowledge me. Neither do the rest of my siblings. They think my mother and I wrecked their lives. My father just throws money at us. I have no talent too. I am just a useless bum. Every day, I walk to the station. I am just one of the faceless crowd. The lost people. Wandering, wandering. Without any hope of ever finding a place in this world. The loser. The joke. That’s what I am.”
Kazumi patted his back. “You are a nice guy…”
He shook his head. “I don’t belong at all.” He moaned. “I have no place here.”
“Hey. Do you think you are the only one here with problems? Don’t make it sound like the end of the world. It’s just a girl.” She tried hard, but still ended up sounding a little harsh. Maybe more than that.
“Wait till you fall for a guy.”
She didn’t really hear his mumble. She was looking around, thinking of a solution. Then she thought of Fujita.
---
Fujita came about an hour later, taking over the burden of Takahara.
“Thank you so much. I wouldn’t know what to do with him.”
“How did he get so drunk anyway?”
“Over a girl. I am not sure the name. She was your high school classmate I think.”
“He never told me anything. Or maybe he did. But he was never serious.”
“He seemed dead serious.”
Fujita looked at Takahara. “I think I will take a cab home.”
She helped to hail a cab. “Thanks again!”
He raised an arm. “Good luck for your competition.”
She couldn’t stop smiling after that. Jyu was already in the final. She felt as if she had won the competition.
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