“Yamada. Sorry to bother you, but could you pick up a book for me?” my professor asked.
“Couldn’t you just order it through the university co-op?” I replied. Whenever he bought books with research funds, he usually went through the co-op, regardless of whether the supplier was a wholesaler or Amazon. He did it every year, buying countless volumes that way.
“Well, there’s a catch,” the professor said. “It’s out of print. If I order it now, it won’t arrive for another three months. By then, we’ll be in the next fiscal year, and I won’t be able to use this year’s budget.”
“I see. And…?”
“I found a copy at a secondhand bookstore in Nakano via an online site. I need you to go there in person, pay in cash, and get a receipt. Make sure it’s addressed to Tokyo Bunka University, with ‘books’ listed as the item.”
“What kind of book is it?”
“What do you mean, ‘what kind’?”
“Is it heavy?”
“It’s just a paperback. It doesn’t take up much space and it’s not heavy.”
It was exactly what it sounded like: I was being used as a gopher. Still, I didn’t mind a bit of bookstore hunting, and thinking that doing this would put the professor in my debt, I accepted the request.
When I arrived, the shop’s shutters were down. A note was posted on the front: Temporarily closed. Someone is inside, so please use the intercom if you have business here.
An intercom?
I looked around and found a door beside the shutters with an intercom attached.
“I’m here for a book that was being held for me,” I said after pressing the button. I heard the sound of someone scurrying down the stairs, and the door opened to reveal an elderly woman.
“Here you go. The receipt and the book.”
It seemed she had already prepared the receipt. I handed over the money.
Thinking I should make some small talk, I asked, “Do you get a lot of salespeople coming by to offer roof and wall renovations?” I had noticed a “No Soliciting” sign on the door.
At first, the woman looked at me blankly, not quite following. But once she realized I was asking about the sign, she began to talk—and she didn’t stop. I spent the rest of the encounter wondering exactly how I could wrap up the conversation and make my escape.
“Yamada. I’m sorry, but could you head back to that shop and buy another book for me? I’m absolutely swamped with entrance exams, personnel matters, committee meetings, and the symposium.”
Knowing how the professor actually spent his days, I found it impossible to believe he was too busy to visit a bookstore.
He must simply be terrible at time management, socially inept, and completely lacking in organizational skills.
“That shop from before? Oh, the one in Nakano?” It annoyed me that he probably assumed I had nothing better to do as a student, but unfortunately, I actually was free today.
“Sure, I can do that,” I answered, and so I found myself on another errand for him.
This time, the shutters were open.
I wondered if the old woman would remember me, or if she had already forgotten. I pondered what to talk about today as I slid open the aluminum door with a rattle. I navigated through the gaps in the bookshelves to the register at the far end, but instead of the old woman, I found a woman who looked to be about my age.
“Excuse me, I’m here for the book being held—” I started, but she gave me a fleeting glance and handed over the book without a word.
I hurriedly paid her, and she returned my change along with a brown envelope containing the receipt.
I considered making some small talk, but decided that striking up a conversation with a young woman might make me look like a stalker. I remained silent, pretending to browse the shelves.
That was when I noticed a square aluminum tin—the kind used for pastries—filled with several scrolls of paper that looked like register tape. Some were held together with rubber bands, some weren’t; some were thick, others thin.
They were clearly not receipt copies or vouchers.
I picked one up and looked at it. It was a piece of writing, perhaps a novel, written in a single vertical line. The text wasn’t handwritten; I couldn’t tell how it had been produced, but it had been printed with some kind of ink.
The woman glared at me.
Assuming she was angry that I had helped myself to the tin, I apologized. “Sorry. I just…”
“If you want it, you can take it,” she said bluntly.
“Eh? Is this for sale?”
“I’ll give it to you for free.”
“Free?”
“Yeah.”
“What is this?”
The woman paused for a moment. “Read it and you’ll find out.”
“I see.”
“Are you a student?” she asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Here on an errand for your professor?”
“Something like that.”
An awkward silence settled between us.
“Are you a student too? At the university nearby? Do you work here part-time?”
The woman gave me another sharp glare. However, she didn’t seem to be avoiding me or turning away.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“In that case, I’ll take one.”
With that, I made a hasty exit.
It was a field of some two hundred tsubo, situated behind the house of a certain Mr. K.
In addition to vegetables, Mr. K grew pompon dahlias there.
The field was bordered by an embankment, roughly ten feet wide, over which a train passed five or six times a day.
One afternoon, as the summer was drawing to a close, Mr. K was out in the field, clipping the remaining few pompon dahlias.
Just then, a train rushed across the embankment with a sudden roar, sounding its sharp emergency whistle repeatedly.
At the same moment, something black tumbled down into the corner of the field.
As Mr. K looked toward the object, he thought, Another chicken has been hit.
Indeed, it looked exactly like a Minorca chicken, with black feathers and a blue iridescent sheen.
Furthermore, he was certain he had caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a comb.
But Mr. K held this belief for only a fleeting second.
He remained there, frozen, unable to hide his utter astonishment.
For the object that had tumbled into the field was, in fact, the severed head of a man, approximately twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, who had just been struck by the train.
“What the hell is this?” I muttered. I had finished reading the scroll in one breath while on the train, and I was completely floored.
It seemed to be a short story of some kind.
Once I got home and searched on my computer, I quickly found out what it was.
It was a piece titled “The Back Garden,” from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Three Sketches.
I began to suspect that the girl was behind this.
I imagined her as some kind of “literary girl” who worked part-time at the bookstore and, through some unknown method, printed stories by her favorite author, Akutagawa, onto these scrolls to give away for free to customers or acquaintances.
I found myself wanting to see her again.
But we were still complete strangers; we had only met as a shop clerk and a customer. I felt hesitant about being too forward.
And yet, I desperately wanted to speak with her one more time.
If she showed no interest in me, I could just go home. But there was a chance she might at least be willing to talk.
I also thought I might ask her to read a story I had written.
We might hit it off, or we might not, but there was a possibility she would like it.
I told myself that it was better to act than to spend my time mulling it over, hesitating, and fretting. That was a certainty.
While heat-sensitive roll paper was available for sale, I didn’t own a printer that could handle it, nor did I have any intention of buying one.
Instead, I went to an art supply store, bought some paper tape, and decided to write by hand.
Forcing myself to be brave, I headed back to her shop.
She was tending the shop again today. However, there were two customers ahead of me, and she was attending to them.
They were men in their thirties or forties; though they were in plain clothes, they had the distinct air of salarymen.
Their conversation was peppered with the names of well-known authors—Dazai, Mishima, Soseki—and she was responding to them with a smile. She seemed far more amiable than she had been with me, but I was convinced she was merely putting on a professional “customer service smile.” Perhaps it was a delusion, or perhaps it was a kind of jealousy.
She stepped out from behind the register and navigated through the bookshelves and the piles of books stacked on the floor toward me. For a split second, our eyes met, but she immediately looked away and brushed past me. I expected her to smell like something girly and pleasant, but she had no scent at all. The air was simply filled with the musty, moldy smell unique to secondhand bookstores. In the light filtering through the sunshade curtains, dust motes danced in the
air. She reached into a basket by the storefront—filled with sun-bleached books that had likely sat there for years—plucked out a few hardcovers, and returned to the register to resume her conversation with the men.
I killed time by browsing the shelves, but since the men showed no sign of leaving, I discreetly slipped my paper tape into the aluminum tin where the register rolls were kept. Then, pretending I had only come to window-shop, I made a move to leave.
Just then, she called out to me. “Oh, customer! Your ordered item has arrived.”
Ordered item? I had ordered nothing of the sort. But I figured she didn’t want me to leave, so I replied, “Oh, is that so?”
She said something to the men, and they each picked up a book, paid for them, and left.
I was left alone in the shop with her. Despite having stopped me from leaving, she remained silent for some reason.
Unsure of how to start the conversation, I settled for a harmless, “Hi there.”
“You put something in there a moment ago, didn’t you?” I felt as though she were glaring at me again, though I wondered if she might simply be nearsighted.
“Eh?”
“Bring it here. To me.”
“Okay.”
I retrieved the paper tape from the aluminum tin and handed it to her at the register.
“Did you write this?”
“Yes. Do you want to read it?”
“You sure do like doing unnecessary things,” she said.
“What? I’m sorry.”
“Those scrolls over there—the one you took the other day—were brought in and left there by those guys just now.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Who knows. Maybe it’s some kind of trend these days.”
“I wonder.”
“If those guys had noticed you putting this in there, you probably would have ended up in a confrontation with them.”
“A confrontation?”
“Basically, they’d tell you not to mess around in the shop. Or they’d ask if you’re Akiko’s boyfriend.”
“Akiko… is that your name?”
“Yeah.”
“Who are those people?”
“Who do you think? Just regulars.”
So, they were regulars who frequented the shop specifically to see her. That made sense. There was no way men wouldn’t flock to a shop with such a cute “poster girl” behind the counter.
“They sound kind of scary.”
“They’re not scary, just a pain in the neck.”
“I see.”
“They always pretend to ask for advice on which books to pick just so they can linger as long as possible. It’s a real problem. You coming in actually helped me out.”
“Did it?”
“So, this is a novel you wrote?”
“Yes.”
“Wait here for a bit. Sit in that chair. I’m a slow reader.”
“Which chair?”
“Right there.”
Indeed, there was a horribly dilapidated pipe chair with a hole in the seat—it looked as though it were used as a step-stool to reach books from the high shelves.
“Okay. I understand.”
It seemed she actually intended to read what I had written.
I decided to wait for her to finish, flipping through some of the nearby books to pass the time.
My work for the day ended in the morning, and the three of us decided to grab lunch before heading our separate ways.
“Where should we go?”
“Since we’re here, let’s at least have some draft beer. A family restaurant would be boring. I wonder if there’s a place where we can really drink from midday.”
As usual, we began searching for a promising pub in an unfamiliar town.
“You’re going to drink alcohol in the middle of a weekday?”
The voice belonged to Noriko Uchiyama, the new recruit, and she sounded accusatory.
“Why not? That’s exactly why drinking on a weekday afternoon is so delicious,” replied Kishikawa, my boss in his thirties. “In fact, if we ordinary salarymen, who work hard and contribute to the Japanese economy, can’t enjoy life by drinking on a weekday afternoon, then what is the point of life? What is the point of the Japanese economy?”
Noriko visibly grimaced at Kishikawa’s personal philosophy.
“I see…”
“How about Italian and some wine instead, Mr. Kishikawa? And Noriko, you can drink if you want to.”
“Good idea. Let’s do that.”
We spotted a tricolor flag of green, white, and red. Approaching it, we saw a chalkboard menu indicating there was a bar in the basement.
When we went down, the place was almost full, but fortunately, one table was vacant.
“It’s packed. It’s nothing but ladies of leisure,” I noted.
“Saito. In residential areas like this, you’ll find plenty of Italian bars targeting housewives.”
“True. In fact, there isn’t a single salaryman like us in the house.”
“The Japanese economy, the Japanese society—it’s all distorted. If this were Italy, it wouldn’t just be housewives;
ordinary workers would come for drinks during lunch.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they always show it on that TV show, The World’s Pubs.”
“Oh, it was just a TV show.”
Still, the scene was surreal. Groups of housewives had occupied the shop, opening bottle after bottle of wine in the middle of a weekday.
“If you find a good husband and become a full-time housewife, Noriko, you’ll end up boozing from midday like this too.”“I suppose so,” I replied with a vague nod.
Noriko shot me a sharp glare and whispered, “Saito-san?” Under the table, she had stepped firmly on my foot.
I kept my order to a single glass of wine and gave Noriko a knowing look.
I was signaling that we should slip away and go for another drink, just the two of us, at a different place.
Noriko’s expression seemed to say, But first, you’re accompanying me on some shopping.
I responded with a look that said, Fine by me.
We didn’t use words; it was all in the eyes. Naturally, Kishikawa noticed nothing.
“What is this?” she burst out laughing.
“I wrote it based on my experience during an internship.”
“An internship? Where did you go?”
“Just a typical trading company.”
“A big one?”
“No. Just some company—not listed on the stock exchange.”
“Are you going to work there after you graduate?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, this ‘Saito’ character is you?”
“Right. And the guy, Kishikawa, is the man who trained us interns. Noriko is a college student from a different university who was interning at the same time as me.”
“Are they based on real people?”
“Yes.”
“Is that girl your girlfriend?”
“No, no. It’s just a fantasy.”
“How long have you known her?”
“We only saw each other for about a month during the summer internship.”
“But did you two sneak off to go drinking somewhere?”
“No, no! I told you, it’s all a fantasy.”
“You must have at least exchanged LINE IDs.”
“We didn’t. I don’t use LINE.”
“I don’t use it either,” she said.
“You hate it?”
“Yeah.”
“I only use email or Discord.”
“What’s Discord?”
“Well, it’s kind of like LINE.” I figured it was normal for a girl not to know Discord.
“Is that the end of it with her?”
“I guess so. After the internship ended.”
“Why?”
I wanted to say, Because she already had a boyfriend, but I stopped myself. I only knew her as a girl with her hair pulled back tight, wearing a stiff recruitment suit.
“You’re scary.”
“What is?”
“I bet you’ll make a model of me in your next story.”
“I don’t know you well enough to use you as a model yet.”
“I suppose so.”
“Do you write stories yourself?”
“Me? I wonder. I don’t know if I could.”
“You don’t have to force it. But if you ever do write something, I’d like to read it.”
I had successfully managed to find out that her name was Akiko.
“Is Saito your real name?”
“No. Just a name for the story. My real name is Yamada.”
“Is that a pen name?”
“No, no. Yamada is my real name.”
“Yamada-kun?”
“Yes.”
“Are you Yamada Takao?”
“No. It’s Yukio.”
“Like Yukio Mishima,” she noted. I was glad she didn’t say Yukio Hatoyama.
“No, just Yamada Yukio.”
She gave me the email address for the shop.
Furthermore, I discovered that she wasn’t just a part-timer, but actually the granddaughter of the old woman.
She had a peculiar style. She was wearing baggy trousers, like something a construction worker would wear. The rest of her outfit was something I, as a man, couldn’t quite categorize.
Since her parents and grandmother apparently didn’t use email, the shop’s address was effectively her own.
I bought a random book just to maintain the appearance of being a customer for the day. Then, I casually laid the groundwork for the future: “I’ll be back.”
I had foolishly assumed I could see Akiko whenever I liked just by going to the shop, but that wasn’t the case.
The shop was often closed, with its shutters down and a “Temporarily Closed” sign posted. It was shut for half the month.
The handwriting on the sign was always the same, so I figured the grandmother was the one writing them.
The shop had a Twitter account where a calendar of closing days was updated monthly. Instead of marking the days it was open, it marked the closed days with an X.
I also learned that Akiko and the grandmother weren’t the only ones tending the shop; occasionally, another girl—perhaps Akiko’s sister or a friend—would be there.
At first, I felt a strange sense of obligation, as if I had to write a new piece of fiction every time I visited. That was entirely my own delusion.
I had written a sequel to the story of Saito and Noriko and shown it to Akiko, but the second time I did, she looked so bored that it was clear she had no interest in my writing. I stopped writing after that.
Moreover, I discovered that Akiko was only at the shop on Wednesdays.
Since I happened to be free on Wednesdays, I had often visited the town on that day, and I had simply assumed she was always there.
On other days, she apparently worked part-time at a nearby real estate agency.
I didn’t hear this from Akiko herself.
I heard it from her friend, who was filling in at the shop.
The friend’s name was Michiko.
I believe the first time I met Michiko was also a Wednesday.
It should have been Akiko’s day, but for some reason, Michiko was there instead.
As for me, I had been arranging for books needed for my graduation research to be ordered in advance at this shop—called Daruma-do—and coming to pick them up.
Professor Hoshikawa, my seminar advisor, was the one who had sent me on those errands in the first place, creating the catalyst for my frequent visits. If I consulted him and he approved, I could charge a portion of the book costs to the seminar’s research budget.
On that day, I stepped into Daruma-do to get a book essential for my research.
The unfamiliar woman sitting at the register—Michiko—spoke the moment I started to say, “I’m here for a book being held—”
“I’m here at this shop to make sure no bad influences get close to Akiko.”
“Excuse me?”
I was honestly irritated to be greeted with such a caustic remark by a woman I had just met.
At the same time, I felt a sense of caution; I sensed that getting on this Michiko’s bad side would lead to trouble.
“And by ‘bad influence,’ you mean me?”
“Exactly.”
“Why do you think that? Why do you assume I would do something untoward to Akiko? And who are you to her anyway? A friend?”
“You’re Professor Hoshikawa’s student, aren’t you?” she interrogated, ignoring my questions.
“How do you know that?”
“I heard it from Akiko’s grandmother.”
“I see.”
That made sense. Professor Hoshikawa must have been acquainted with the grandmother, the owner of the shop.
He had probably been buying books here for years.
Eventually, he got tired of going himself and decided to send me.
That explained why the receipts were always prepared so efficiently.
He must have told her, “I’ll have my young student come pick them up,” or something like that.
Which meant Akiko already knew that I was coming as the professor’s proxy and that I was Hoshikawa’s student.
In other words, when Akiko first met me, her attitude toward a first-time customer had been somewhat brusque. Perhaps there was a reason for that coldness.
“Hey.”
“Yes.”
“Are you actually listening to me?”
“Yes, of course I am.”
The woman began to chatter on—without being asked—about an excessive amount of detail: that her name was Michiko, that she was the daughter of a locally-owned real estate agency and had no financial worries, that she held a real estate license, and that since the license allowed her to provide the “Explanation of Important Matters” for rental properties, it was highly valued in the industry. She added that she was trying to get Akiko to get the license as well.
“I’m sorry. If this is going to be a long story, would it be alright if I sat in that chair and listened?”
Without waiting for an answer, I sat down on the old round stool.
From what Michiko said, I was able to infer some things about Akiko.
She was the granddaughter of the bookstore owner and intended to take over the business.
I wasn’t sure if the shop was “trendy,” but it seemed to make enough to get by.
It was a classic, beloved local shop that collected unwanted books from neighbors for almost nothing.
Occasionally, they took in entire batches of discarded books from university libraries or supplied rare, expensive volumes to universities.
I figured those transactions were likely possible through the connection with Professor Hoshikawa.
Consequently, the shop was far more successful than its shabby appearance suggested.
However, since relying solely on the bookstore for income was a concern for the future, Akiko was planning to work at the real estate agency as well—wearing two hats to make a living.
And Michiko and Akiko were likely childhood friends who had grown up together in this town.
“I see. I understand perfectly. As you can see, I am a perfectly ordinary, harmless human being.”
“I wonder.”
“What would it take for you to believe me?”
“Believe you or not, just stop pestering Akiko.”
“Does Akiko dislike it when I come?” I was surprised. Akiko had seemed to like me more than the other customers, at least.
“Akiko already has a man,” Michiko said with a smirk.
“What?” I was shocked.
“So, stop pestering her. If you get any further involved in the drama surrounding this shop, it’ll end in a disaster.”
“What drama?”
“I mean, Akiko is a beautiful woman, right? And she’s superficially charming, so men always mistake her kindness for romantic interest. And Akiko herself is always saying things that lead people on. It’s inevitable that men get their hopes up. She’s the type who can’t stand it unless she’s subtly tempting men. Her sin is that she flirts with men unconsciously. She’s a truly dangerous woman. I wish I had half her charm.”
Until now, I hadn’t thought of Akiko as such a “femme fatale.”
She was certainly beautiful, but for me, her quirkiness was the attraction.
I hadn’t thought of her as someone who played everyone.
And this woman, Michiko, wasn’t unattractive either. I felt there must be plenty of men who would like her.
As I fell into thought, Michiko interrupted.
“Here. The book and the receipt. Now give me the money.”
She forced the conversation to an end.
I rose from the stool, took the book and receipt, paid, and left the shop feeling defeated.
She already had a boyfriend. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t seem like that at all. On the contrary, lately, she seemed to look forward to my visits.
Was I just a “backup” for her?
I suddenly found one more book that I absolutely had to read.
It was, of course, out of print and only available as a secondhand copy.
I could have gone to the National Diet Library to read it.
I could have bought it at another bookstore. But I used the book as a convenient excuse to email Akiko.
I asked if she could source it through Daruma-do.
I felt that if I wanted to see her, I should just go, but for some reason, I still couldn’t bring myself to be that forward with her.
I could talk to Michiko without any hesitation, but I couldn’t do the same with Akiko. I can’t explain it well, but it felt less like my own fault and more like an inscrutable aura that Akiko wore around her.
That same day, Akiko replied that while there would be a small handling fee, it wasn’t impossible to order the book through the secondhand bookstore association.
I learned that small town bookstores have their own networks to adjust inventory by exchanging surpluses and shortages.
The book wasn’t as expensive as I had feared—perhaps due to its poor condition—and the handling fee was negligible.
I asked her to order it and hold it for me.
Once she replied that it was ready, I made an appointment for a Wednesday and visited the shop.
A sign, black with soot and written in bold, vivid brushstrokes, hung heavily over the entrance of the small bookstore tucked into a corner of a multi-tenant building. It read: Daruma Menpeki-do.
This complicated and solemn name—referring to Bodhidharma facing the wall—was the formal name of the shop. It was printed on the receipts and listed on Google Maps.
It was likely made before the war, long before this reinforced concrete building was constructed.
Seeing me through the glass door, Akiko gave me a bright smile from the register.
I placed the round stool in front of the counter and, as usual, collected the book I had ordered.
Then, for a while, Akiko and I engaged in idle chatter.
“Akiko-san, stalking is forbidden in modern society, but it’s not a crime to stalk someone who wants to be stalked, right?”
“That’s just a roleplay. If there’s mutual consent between two people.”
I had been bothered by what Michiko told me ever since that day.
Michiko said she was watching to make sure no “bad influences” got close to Akiko. I suspected it was highly likely that she had labeled me a bad influence from the start and lied to me just to eliminate me.
I felt I couldn’t give up until I confirmed Akiko’s true feelings myself.
Finally, I managed to squeeze out the words that had been stuck in my throat.
“I spoke with Michiko-san, the clerk here.”
“Yes. And?”
“She told me that I should stop pestering you.”
“What!” She laughed. “Were you pestering me?”
“No, I didn’t intend to.”
“Then why…?”
“Why would Michiko say that to you?”
“I don’t know. But she told me that you already have a boyfriend.”
“Yes. I do.”
“I see.”
“I have several,” Akiko said with a playful expression.
“What? Several?”
What on earth did that mean? Was she dating multiple people at once?
“Are you dating several men in secret? Or do they all know?”
“It’s not a secret. They all know and still date me.”
“How do they allow that?”
“Allow what? Why would they need to ‘allow’ it?”
“Because men—and probably women too—usually want a one-on-one relationship.”
“Maybe. But I can’t do that. I can’t handle a relationship that ‘heavy.’”
“Heavy?”
“Yes.”
“So you can have a light relationship, but not a heavy one?”
“I know what you mean. A world of just two people, loving only each other, eventually marrying, having a home, and children. Many people might want that, but for me, becoming that kind of heavy, thick, deep relationship between a man and a woman is impossible.”
“Impossible in what way?”
“Mentally. And physically.”
“Is it that you don’t want to be tied down by a family? That a husband and children would take away your freedom?”
“No. Not quite.”
Akiko paused, then continued. “I think dating one-on-one is less about loving the other person and more about wanting to possess them—not wanting anyone else to take them, even if it means hurting someone.”
“I suppose so.”
“That is excruciatingly painful for me.”
“Akiko-san. Have you never wanted to possess someone? Never wanted to eliminate a rival? Everyone feels jealousy.”
“Jealousy. I wonder. I’m sure there are times when I feel like I’m going crazy with jealousy. It’s not that I’m lacking in those emotions compared to others. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that jealousy will run wild and end up hurting people.”
I felt a bitterness rise in the back of my throat. I felt as if I would faint if I didn’t stay seated.
Was this all just an excuse to avoid hurting me? There is no woman who doesn’t want to monopolize the man she loves. Had I been politely rejected?
I couldn’t help but check. “Akiko-san. Could I… be added as one of the men you’re dating?”
“Eh.” Akiko looked surprised. She looked as if she had never imagined I would say such a thing. I had thought she had a vague inkling of my feelings. I felt a sudden sense of betrayal—realizing that I had been the only one imagining that our hearts were already connected.
After a short silence, she answered. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Not possible, huh.” I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t even be one of the men she actually liked. Just as I was about to give up and withdraw, she continued.
“You have Michiko. She always looks so lonely. I bet she’s wishing you’d come visit her.”
“What?” I didn’t know how to respond and fell into a deep silence. Why bring up Michiko? Why use her as an excuse to reject me? “Leave Michiko out of this for a moment. That’s a separate issue. Right now, we’re talking about you and me.”
Various emotions seemed to be surging within Akiko. She gazed at me, occasionally casting her eyes down. Her usual cheerfulness had vanished, replaced by a clouded expression. Only her thin, light-chestnut hair continued to sparkle as usual.
“I just don’t want any more trouble.”
I think we sat there in silence for five or ten minutes.
I felt that if I could stay like that forever, I would.
I knew that if I asked any more questions, she would have to drag some painful past, which she didn’t want to remember, from the bottom of her memory.
As we sat there, a customer entered the shop and spoke to Akiko, leaving me alone.
I had no choice but to stand up from the round stool and leave the shop.