Dasenai Tegami/ 出せない手紙
Dear Rina,
How have you been? It’s been a while, isn’t it? 17 years. Unknowingly, it has been 17 years.
I am back in Tokyo, for the first time in 17 years. It is a little hard to believe, isn’t it? I have been back for three days now. But the Tokyo I have returned to seem so different from the one I left. 17 years abroad is a long time: buildings have changed; people have grown up. I feel lost, I feel as though I don’t know this Tokyo.
I thought I saw you today. In a café on Omotesando. I must be imagining things; how could it be you? Out of 12 million people, how could it possibly be you, whom I have never seen in 17 years, on the street just like that?
But she reminds me of you: the way she holds the cup, the way she stirs the coffee, the faraway look in her eyes, the way she brushes her hand through her hair. It was so you.
I went to our high school, the high school I did not graduate from. I was afraid it would have been torn down already. But it’s still there. Walking through the gate, I felt as though I was transported back to those times. The field, where we had sports lessons; the hall, where we listened to the long-winded principal; the classrooms, where we talked about where to go after school; the music room where you played the piano you love so much; the library, where we tried to do last-minute revision…I saw us in every corner.
Our teacher Mrs. Akita was still there, although she has since aged. She still remembers me. She showed me photographs of our class, including those taken after I left. You didn’t smile a lot in those, not even in the graduating class photo. She tells me a little about our classmates: Murasaki is a doctor, Fujii took over his father’s restaurant in Ginza, Tamashiro has his own business, Masami married a Frenchman and moved to France…But she doesn’t know anything about you. She says you disappeared.
After I left her, I went to your old address. But the house where I often cycled to has been replaced by a convenience store. The whole area looks different. Even the overhead bridge where we used to take shelter from the September rain is gone. The telephone number which I remember by heart is no longer important, isn’t it?
I remember that I left in autumn, without saying goodbye. Naively, we had believed that we would grow old together, never apart. But I had to move to America with my family, although I didn’t want to go. I had wanted to explain, and selfishly, to ask you to wait for me. But you never talked to me again. You avoided me in my last few days in school; your mother would apologetically tell me that you were tired when I called; your mother would again apologetically tell me that you were asleep, even though when I looked up, the light in your room was on. ‘Wait till tomorrow,’ she would say day after day.
I waited for many tomorrows, to no avail. I left, without ever knowing what really happened, without ever really understanding your feelings, without a proper conclusion to our story.
I didn’t dare write to you in New York. I was afraid. I was afraid that I would wait forever for a reply that would never arrive. Countless times, I picked up a pen, only to put it down again, as I remembered the pain of you ignoring me. ‘Wait till tomorrow,’ I would tell myself. Many tomorrows would pass; I never wrote.
To tell the truth, I thought of you often while I was away.
At first, I wondered: Why didn’t you give me a chance to say what I wanted to say? Was that your way of coping? Did you feel that erasing me totally from your life was the only way to eradicate the pain and disappointment I have caused you?
Then, I thought about how you were doing, your university life, if you had a boyfriend, what did you do after graduation, your job, did you marry and start your own family? As each chapter of my life closes, I can’t help but think about you: are you at this stage of your life too? It is like our lives were two parallel tracks, going in the same direction, but never meeting.
Sometimes I think: what would I do, if I were to bump into you again? I really don’t know.
What would you do?
I don’t know if it was really you whom I saw today. We are now twice our age when we parted. Would we recognize each other? Would we even realize it, if we were to sit beside each other on the train?
I am leaving the day after tomorrow. It would be nice to see you again. So that we can say goodbye, the goodbye that was left unsaid 17 years ago. Right?
Yours,
Hiroki
How have you been? It’s been a while, isn’t it? 17 years. Unknowingly, it has been 17 years.
I am back in Tokyo, for the first time in 17 years. It is a little hard to believe, isn’t it? I have been back for three days now. But the Tokyo I have returned to seem so different from the one I left. 17 years abroad is a long time: buildings have changed; people have grown up. I feel lost, I feel as though I don’t know this Tokyo.
I thought I saw you today. In a café on Omotesando. I must be imagining things; how could it be you? Out of 12 million people, how could it possibly be you, whom I have never seen in 17 years, on the street just like that?
But she reminds me of you: the way she holds the cup, the way she stirs the coffee, the faraway look in her eyes, the way she brushes her hand through her hair. It was so you.
I went to our high school, the high school I did not graduate from. I was afraid it would have been torn down already. But it’s still there. Walking through the gate, I felt as though I was transported back to those times. The field, where we had sports lessons; the hall, where we listened to the long-winded principal; the classrooms, where we talked about where to go after school; the music room where you played the piano you love so much; the library, where we tried to do last-minute revision…I saw us in every corner.
Our teacher Mrs. Akita was still there, although she has since aged. She still remembers me. She showed me photographs of our class, including those taken after I left. You didn’t smile a lot in those, not even in the graduating class photo. She tells me a little about our classmates: Murasaki is a doctor, Fujii took over his father’s restaurant in Ginza, Tamashiro has his own business, Masami married a Frenchman and moved to France…But she doesn’t know anything about you. She says you disappeared.
After I left her, I went to your old address. But the house where I often cycled to has been replaced by a convenience store. The whole area looks different. Even the overhead bridge where we used to take shelter from the September rain is gone. The telephone number which I remember by heart is no longer important, isn’t it?
I remember that I left in autumn, without saying goodbye. Naively, we had believed that we would grow old together, never apart. But I had to move to America with my family, although I didn’t want to go. I had wanted to explain, and selfishly, to ask you to wait for me. But you never talked to me again. You avoided me in my last few days in school; your mother would apologetically tell me that you were tired when I called; your mother would again apologetically tell me that you were asleep, even though when I looked up, the light in your room was on. ‘Wait till tomorrow,’ she would say day after day.
I waited for many tomorrows, to no avail. I left, without ever knowing what really happened, without ever really understanding your feelings, without a proper conclusion to our story.
I didn’t dare write to you in New York. I was afraid. I was afraid that I would wait forever for a reply that would never arrive. Countless times, I picked up a pen, only to put it down again, as I remembered the pain of you ignoring me. ‘Wait till tomorrow,’ I would tell myself. Many tomorrows would pass; I never wrote.
To tell the truth, I thought of you often while I was away.
At first, I wondered: Why didn’t you give me a chance to say what I wanted to say? Was that your way of coping? Did you feel that erasing me totally from your life was the only way to eradicate the pain and disappointment I have caused you?
Then, I thought about how you were doing, your university life, if you had a boyfriend, what did you do after graduation, your job, did you marry and start your own family? As each chapter of my life closes, I can’t help but think about you: are you at this stage of your life too? It is like our lives were two parallel tracks, going in the same direction, but never meeting.
Sometimes I think: what would I do, if I were to bump into you again? I really don’t know.
What would you do?
I don’t know if it was really you whom I saw today. We are now twice our age when we parted. Would we recognize each other? Would we even realize it, if we were to sit beside each other on the train?
I am leaving the day after tomorrow. It would be nice to see you again. So that we can say goodbye, the goodbye that was left unsaid 17 years ago. Right?
Yours,
Hiroki
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