Chapter 2
“Sorry to have you working on your first day, Kashima-kun,” Fujinami-san said with a smile.
It was now evening. I’d just finished the work I’d been told to do and reported as much to Fujinami-san, a member of staff here.
Having come to the manga-and-magazine editing department of Iidabashi Publishing after Kurose-san had referred me, I’d had a quick interview, filed some paperwork, and had been put to work right away.
Fujinami-san was an editor who must’ve been in his late twenties. Apparently, he worked with many writers and it kept him very busy. Thanks to his medium build, his kind face that didn’t leave much of an impression, and his amiability, even an introvert like me could talk to him comfortably.
“Kurose-san said you were earnest and talented, so I had some expectations. You’ve outdone them.”
“Oh, it’s not like this work makes you use your head...”
I’d meant that as an expression of modesty, but then it occurred to me that it might’ve sounded like I was making fun of the work I’d been given. I panicked a bit.
Fujinami-san didn’t seem bothered, though, and smiled gently. “It may seem like work that doesn’t make you think and that anyone could do, but it takes a smart person to do it efficiently.”
“Huh... Thank you, sir,” I said.
Despite my fears, he’d praised me. It made me embarrassed how much of an adult he was compared to me.
“All right, you can go now. And Kurose-san, you can leave early if you want too. Why don’t you two go together?” he said.
Kurose-san’s hands stopped. She seemed to have been organizing documents at a desk in another part of the room.
“Okay. Thank you, sir,” she said.
Thus, the two of us left together.
It was just before 7 p.m.
It was Wednesday, so I’d normally be holding tutoring sessions at this time of day, but all of my Wednesday students had been studying for entrance exams. I’d actually been free on Wednesdays since earlier in February. My university was already on spring break too, so I’d gone to the editing department from home by 2 p.m., as instructed.
As I’d seen through the window earlier, it was completely dark outside already.
“Kashima-kun, are you hungry?” Kurose-san asked as we approached the station.
“Well... Yeah, I guess,” I replied, though I was hesitant at first. I’d been a bit hungry for about two hours by this point, so I couldn’t lie.
Looking up at me, Kurose-san grinned. “Wanna get something to drink?” At some point, her face had become that of an adult woman.
***
“Oh, you’re still nineteen,” said Kurose-san.
I’d just told her that I couldn’t drink alcohol yet.
“Sorry to bring you to an izakaya.”
“That’s okay. You can go ahead and drink yourself, don’t mind me,” I replied.
It was already February, so almost all of the people I’d gone to school with before were now old enough to drink. The only person I ever ate out with besides Runa was Kujibayashi-kun, but since he wasn’t good with alcohol, I hadn’t thought much about it until recently.
“Okay, I’ll take you up on that, then,” said Kurose-san. After briefly looking over the menu on the table, she raised a hand toward a waitperson. “I’ll have a draft beer. Do you know what you want, Kashima-kun?”
“Um, well... Do you have cola?”
“We do. A draft beer and a cola, then.”
After the waitperson left, I looked around the place. We were in a cozy, bright, Japanese-style establishment that felt like something between a restaurant and an izakaya. Judging by the menu paper on the wall, there seemed to be a good amount of cheap options here. It looked like the kind of place where men came to relax after work.
“Here you go. One draft beer and one cola.”
A different staff member brought our orders. A mug of foaming liquid was placed before me.
“Yeah, figures.” Kurose-san chuckled and swapped the mug with the glass of cola from her side of the table. “To your first day on the job. Cheers!” she exclaimed and clinked her beer mug against my glass.
“Cheers,” I replied, drinking a gulp of my cola and putting the glass back on the table.
Kurose-san drank her beer in big gulps, holding the mug at a large angle against her lips. It was almost like she was trying to pull in all the foam from the surface.
“Phah! Man, there’s nothing like a beer after work.”
Licking off the bit of foam stuck above her lips, she put the mug down. The grimace-like smile on her face told me just how much she loved alcohol.
“You like beer?” I asked.
“Yeah. Any alcohol, really. Though I’m not a big fan of shochu.”
“I see...”
Given her prim-and-proper image back in high school, I couldn’t have imagined her being like that. I was surprised beyond words.
“It looks like I can hold my liquor pretty well. Runa can’t, though. When we drink together, she usually gets dead drunk right away,” Kurose-san explained.
“Huh...”
Whenever Runa and I ate together, she would order nonalcoholic drinks because of me. It seemed like she didn’t like alcohol much, but it turned out that Kurose-san had no problems with it.
Kurose-san now felt like an adult woman I didn’t know. With such a person telling me things I didn’t know about Runa, it felt like I was left behind all alone, being nineteen.
“Though...maybe Runa is bad with alcohol because she’s always tired,” said Kurose-san all of a sudden, looking nowhere in particular. “She’s really working hard. I saw it firsthand the other day too.”
She must’ve been talking about when she’d borrowed Runa’s phone to call me.
“It looks like Misuzu-san hasn’t fully recovered yet. I hear she still has a prescription from the hospital.”
“Huh...?” I didn’t know what she was talking about and ended up staring at her.
Kurose-san gave me a puzzled look. “Runa didn’t tell you? Misuzu-san has postpartum depression.”
What even is that...? I wondered, my breath taken away.
Kurose-san then explained to me that after Misuzu-san’s infertility treatments, she’d only just barely managed to get pregnant. She had then been bedridden with threatened preterm labor and had become a mother of twins. Without having time for the wound on her stomach to recover, she’d been immediately beset by hectic days of childcare. Looking after newborns would’ve been harsh enough on its own, but her situation had made things twice as rigorous. She was also in such poor shape that she had been unable to breastfeed. Apparently, she’d been completely overwhelmed mentally.
Runa’s father was busy with work and barely got involved with home matters at all. Her grandmother—Misuzu-san’s mother-in-law—was helping with shopping, laundry, and cooking, but she refused to look after the babies, perhaps out of reserve.
Until Misuzu-san had gotten married, she had always lived in Kansai, so she didn’t have any siblings or friends in the area who could help. That was why Runa had proactively taken on the duty of looking after her new sisters in order to relieve Misuzu-san’s burden however much she could.
That concluded Kurose-san’s story.
“So that’s how it was...” I said.
“Just don’t tell Runa I told you. I think she didn’t say anything of consideration for Misuzu-san’s privacy.” Kurose-san took another gulp from her mug. “You two haven’t been able to see each other at all, right? You might’ve been wondering why she’s going that far to look after her sisters from a different mother—that’s why.”
“Right...”
“She’s so nice,” Kurose-san said with a fond look on her face. When her eyes met mine, she smiled amiably. “Though I’m sure you know that already.”
“Yeah...” I said, sitting there feeling overwhelmed with emotion.
“By the way,” began Kurose-san as if having thought of something. “Let’s order something to eat.” She opened up a menu and passed it to me. “Pick what you want. It’s my treat today, since I’m your senior at work.”
Saying that with a smile, Kurose-san looked more natural and relaxed than I’d ever seen her. She was now a very attractive adult woman.
***
Come next week, I was having lunch with a certain someone.
“’Sup, Yamada.”
Sekiya-san was in front of the Ikefukuro statue where we’d agreed to meet, raising his hand toward me.
I smiled awkwardly. “It’s been a while since you last called me that,” I replied.
“I kinda just suddenly remembered what you were like in high school.”
Despite everything, Sekiya-san and I still went out to eat together once every few months.
The station was lit up more than it would be during the daytime, thanks to all the artificial light here. As we walked side by side, he looked at me and smiled.
“Man, you’ve grown.”
“Huh? Really?” I asked. “I’m only a centimeter taller than I was in my sophomore year.”
It didn’t feel like the difference in our height had shrunk since then.
“Don’t be so shallow. I’m talking about, like, what you’re made of as an adult. Guess you Houo folks are just built different.”
“What does that even mean?”
“There you go again.”
His words left me at a loss.
“I can tell, okay?” he said. “You’ve grown over these past three years. Me? I haven’t changed after all this time. So you look radiant to me.”
Sekiya-san was still studying for college entrance exams. His relationship with Yamana-san hadn’t changed since its beginning three years ago.
I couldn’t ask him to hang out since he was so busy studying that he had no time to see his girlfriend, so he was always the one inviting me somewhere. We were probably meeting up now since it was already the middle of February—he was mostly done with his exams.
We entered a yakiniku place without having a reservation and sat on opposite ends of a table. An employee came by and lit the grill.
“So, how are things? With your girlfriend, I mean. She still busy?” Sekiya-san asked casually.
“She is... It feels like things will stay this way forever, really.”
“Really? It’s like you’re talking about my life as a ronin there. Wait, there’s nothing funny about that. We’re gonna jinx it.” Going through this full routine on his own, Sekiya-san smiled. “Anyway, if the only problem is how much effort it is to look after her sisters, children do grow up eventually, so.” Despite the faint smile on Sekiya-san’s face, he got a distant look in his eye. “I’d better find a happy medium too...” He then began to radiate melancholy. “I’ve been leeching off my parents all this time. Not having to work to put food on the table, going to cram school for free... My old classmates who went on to four-year college programs without failing their exams will already be working adults this April.”
As I sat there, lost as to how to reply, Sekiya-san lifted his gaze and smiled at me.
“I’ll make sure this time will be the last. This year, I’ve also applied to more places, not just medical schools or ones with majors in medicine. I’ve already been told that I passed some exams, so it looks like I’ll finally get to go to college.”
“What about the medical schools? Still no word?”
Please don’t say that, I thought to myself.
Sekiya-san smiled in self-derision. “The results I already got are all failures. But there are still some schools that haven’t held exams yet.”
“What? Are you sure you should be going out with me like this at such an important time?” I asked, unintentionally raising my voice in surprise.
Sekiya-san seemed to find my behavior funny. He listened to me while lining up the meat that had just arrived on the grill net using tongs.
“I haven’t done anything but study for these past four years. If eating yakiniku with you for two hours a bit before an exam is enough to make me fail, then I wasn’t going to get in anywhere regardless.”
He had a point. Though I was talking about his mindset, more like.
“I’m tired,” he said all of a sudden. Putting an elbow on the table, he leaned his whole face on it. “I wanna see Yamana.”
The moment I heard him say that, I realized that maybe he’d called me here today for that—to tell someone how he really felt.
“It’s great for girls. When they want to see you, they can just say so,” Sekiya-san grumbled as he flipped the meat on the grill with tongs as if having nothing else to do.
I didn’t want to see him be so negative, so I spoke up. “Is there a reason guys can’t say it too?”
Sekiya-san stopped moving the tongs and looked at me.
“Just say it. Tell her you want to see her,” I continued.
For a moment, he looked taken aback. Then, he stared at me. “Have you been able to say it?”
This time it was my turn to be surprised.
Sekiya-san looked at me with eyes filled with what looked like either self-derision or sympathy. “Tomorrow’s February 14th, you know?”
***
On Valentine’s Day three years ago, I’d received homemade chocolate from Runa. We’d gone on dates the following two years as well after making plans several weeks in advance. She’d given me chocolate those times too—not homemade, but from a popular brand.
This year, however, I’d yet to hear about Runa’s plans for the 14th. And as if that weren’t enough, she hadn’t sent me any messages today either. Was that area manager keeping her busy again?
I’d never worked any jobs that involved responsibility, couldn’t drink, and didn’t know the first thing about the world of adults. It was frustrating.
“Have you been able to say it?”
As I lay on my bed at night with my phone in my hands, I recalled Sekiya-san’s words.
“But if I told her now, it would make me look like some guy who just wants chocolate...”
And as I gazed at my chat log with Runa, racking my brains over whether I should press that call button or not...I got a call from her. The timing was too perfect—for a moment, I thought I was the one who’d pressed the call button.
“R-Runa?!”
“Ryuto! I’m sorry again!” she said. “The area manager invited me out last night too...”
Her words startled me.
So he really had been involved...
While that instantly brought my mood down, we’d been dating for three and a half years. I had to show composure as her boyfriend.
“I see... That must’ve been rough,” I replied.
“Ryutooo...” Runa’s voice suddenly grew sweet. “I wanna see you...”
She sounded discouraged. I could almost feel the air trembling under her breath with my ear just by holding my phone to it. I felt a pang as I recalled what Sekiya-san had told me a little earlier.
“I want to see you too,” I replied on an impulse.
I could tell that Runa held her breath for a moment. “Really?”
“Yeah. All this time... Every day, I’ve thought about how badly I want to see you.”
Runa had a full-time job, and I had my own responsibilities as a student. I’d kept telling myself it was only natural that we couldn’t see each other as much as we’d used to as I desperately went about my life. But the truth was that, even now, I wanted to see Runa’s smile every day. After all, she was the one special girl in my life whom I’d made up my mind to treasure forever.
“Ryuto...” Runa’s voice trembled. But in the next moment, it took on a resolute tone. “Then let’s meet up. Are you free tomorrow night?”
“What?! A-Are you sure?”
I should’ve been happy about the offer, but the suddenness of it threw me off.
“Yeah. I was drinking with the store manager last night, and she said that since I’ve worked so much lately, I must be tired. She told me I could leave early tomorrow.”
“I see...”
So she wasn’t drinking alone with the area manager? I was relieved. The manager of her store was a woman.
“Okay, I’m looking forward to tomorrow!” Runa said cheerfully after we agreed where to meet up.
“Me too.”
I was excited as I cut the call.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if Sekiya-san had found it in him to call Yamana-san.
***
Runa and I met up shortly before 7 p.m. in front of Shinjuku Station.
“Ryuto!” she exclaimed.
We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and she was as lovely as always. I couldn’t say what exactly had changed about her, but it felt like she’d become even prettier than before.
She also seemed to have become even more stylish after she’d started working at a clothing store. Yamana-san and Tanikita-san had been saying as much since our last year of high school, so I could be certain my hunch was right.
“Let’s go, let’s go. I’ve got a reservation,” said Runa.
“Oh, okay... Thanks, and sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it—that’s just how excited I was!”
Runa leaned close to me to avoid bumping into the crowd. The fingers of her right hand interlocked with those on my left as she held on tight.
I could feel the touch of her skin. She was warm. My heart began to race as I once again thought how much I loved her. It genuinely puzzled me how I could’ve gone all this time without seeing her.
No matter how many years passed, I still loved Runa.
She’d reserved a table at a wine bar with a mature atmosphere. Transparent wine racks were set up along a wall, and the bottles in them gave off a refined vibe.
We were led through the bar to a private room deeper inside. It had a sliding door that could be closed and was completely isolated. In the room was a table and couches on either side of it that could fit two people each.
“There was a private room available when I checked online while on the morning train, so I just went for it,” said Runa. “Someone probably canceled their reservation.”
“I see. Thanks.”
I nervously sat down on the luxurious couch, situating myself across the table from Runa. After the waitperson left, Runa and I both looked at the menu.
“The area manager often takes me here,” said Runa. “The marinated octopus they have is super good, so I wanted you to try it too. You like octopus, right?”
“Sure. I do want to try that.”
“Also, the grilled mushrooms are awesome! They’re big like shiitake mushrooms. I was crazy excited when I first tried them!”
“They must be pretty good, huh?”
We’d been dating long enough that Runa had a good grasp of my tastes in food.
“So, can I order what I want you to try?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“As for drinks...”
Runa opened to the page with soft drinks, but I flipped it to the one with alcohol.
“You can drink if you like,” I said.
“Oh, that’s okay! Let’s both get some nonalcoholic wine!”
Closing the menu with a smile, Runa pressed a button to call the waitstaff.
“I always get drunk from one glass, so I wanna taste the food today.”
I did think she was doing it just to match me, but as always, her smile was too gentle and precious for me to worry about that. However, while I did have an angel in front of me, there was something bothering me...
Everything Runa had ordered was delicious and to my taste, so I ate with relish. Once the meals had sated my hunger somewhat, I restlessly looked around the room. Though the interior was simplistic with basic white and black tones, the space brought you peace of mind. There were several geometrical pictures hanging on the wall—maybe they were modern art.
But when I imagined Runa eating with another man in a place with this kind of atmosphere, I just couldn’t stay calm.
“Do you always eat in rooms like this with that area manager?” I asked timidly.
Runa shook her head a bit. “No. He really just invites me out on a whim, so he doesn’t make reservations. He always calls a place just before we go there, and if all the tables are taken, we go somewhere else. You won’t find a private room that’s available unless you make a reservation.”
“I see.”
Her words brought me some relief.
“I just had my eye on this—I realized this bar had private rooms after passing it on my way to the bathroom once and I wanted to come here with you.” Then, Runa gazed at me with a teasing smile. “What, don’t tell me you’re jealous of the area manager?”
“N-Not really...”
She’d hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t put up a good enough front on the spot and got flustered. Seeing me like that, Runa laughed.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s just a cheerful middle-aged guy,” she said. “He’s got a real pretty wife, and his daughter’s so cute.”
“Well... Those kinds of things don’t necessarily stop people from cheating, do they...?”
Runa got a gloomy look for a moment. “I guess not...”
“Oh...”
I’d had celebrities on my mind when I’d said that, but now I recalled that Runa’s father had cheated too. Thinking about how she’d react made me nervous.
“I mean, uh, I’m not, like, suspecting he’d cheat with you,” I said, desperately trying to smooth things over. “I was just thinking he might be sexually harassing you or something, and also hoping you didn’t have to deal with nasty people at work...”
Runa looked up with a smile. “I see. Thanks. You really are kind.” Her expression seemed like she was trying to give me peace of mind. “But really, there’s nothing to worry about. He invites the store managers and their assistants out all the time, so it’s not just me. And you know how these things go nowadays—if he was a pervert like that, it would lead to a scandal in the company right away.”
“Good point...”
It seemed that companies were much more strict with their employees than I’d imagined. Only having realized that now was a little embarrassing, but there was still something bothering me.
“B-But remember how you said he was ‘trying to figure out how you feel’?”
“Oh, that...” Runa seemed to recall what I was talking about, and a serious look appeared on her face. “Thing is...” she began in a slightly stiff voice.
But just then, a vibrating sound could be heard in the otherwise silent room. Runa rifled through her bag and pulled out her phone—it was vibrating with a lit screen.
“Oh, it’s my grandma. It’s unusual for her to call at this hour...” she said, gazing at the screen.
“Take it. It might be something urgent.”
“Right...”
After glancing at the door, Runa pushed the answer button. She must’ve judged it was okay to take the call here because this was a private room.
“Yes, Grandma?” she began in a quiet and reserved voice.
“Runa-chan, where’s the weaning food?”
Runa’s grandmother always spoke clearly—I didn’t have to strain my ears to make out her voice coming from the phone.
“Misuzu-san asked me to look after the girls while she went to a drug store that’s a little far away... They both immediately started to cry and I don’t know what to do. Maybe they’re hungry? Misuzu-san never said anything about it, though.”
Runa was calm. “They probably aren’t, Grandma,” she said. “Misuzu-san feeds them at specific times. They’re probably sleepy right now. Did you try holding them?”
“What? Hold them? Which one?”
“Both.”
“Well, how can I? One is heavy enough. It makes my back hurt.”
“If you sit down on the couch with one in each hand, it shouldn’t be a problem. If you hold them against your chest and stomach, they’ll calm down and stop crying.”
“Easy for you to say... I’m not their mama or you...” her grandmother said dejectedly. “Hey, Runa-chan, will you be home late again?”
Runa glanced at me, then spoke up with a resolute expression on her face. “Yeah, sorry. I’ve got something important today. I’ll come home before it gets too late, and if Misuzu-san only went out to buy something, I’m sure she’ll be back right away too.”
“This is really too much for me... Looking after one would be hard enough, but twins... I doubt I can do this on my own. I’m sure the girls will be nervous unless their mama looks after them.”
“I’m not their mama either, and I was also worried at first. But it works out. You’re their family too,” said Runa. She had a gentle smile on her face. “Children probably unconditionally like people who they’re around often and who treat them kindly. So I think that even in extreme cases, a person can still be like their mother, even if they’re not a family member.”
Seeing the gentle expression on Runa’s face, I could tell just how much love she always gave her half sisters. At first, maybe she had just wanted to help Misuzu-san. But she wasn’t doing all that only out of a sense of duty. Runa loved her sisters, which must’ve been why she could put in so much effort even when she was tired from work. And right now, from this phone call with her grandmother, I could tell just how big her role in House Shirakawa was.
Her grandmother kept grumbling to Runa for a while until...
“Oh, Misuzu-san came back. Thank goodness...” She suddenly cut the call.
Runa sighed. “My grandma isn’t good with kids. Even though she raised two herself.” She smiled awkwardly.
But in the next moment, her phone started vibrating again.
“Oh, come on. What is it this time, Grandma?” she said into the phone without really checking who was calling.
“Sorry, Runa, can you do me a favor?!”
The voice of a young woman came from Runa’s phone instead. It seemed like the caller was so desperate for help that Runa mentioning her grandmother didn’t bother her at all.
“What?! O-Oh, hello, miss!” Runa pulled her phone away from her ear and opened her eyes wide when she checked the screen. “Is something the matter?”
“That cherry blossom display we’re doing—I just found out it’s not starting in two days, but tomorrow! I got a call from the head office earlier after you left. Kanna-chan helped until we closed up, but I can’t force a part-timer to work overtime, so I let her go home just now...”
It seemed to be a work call.
“I wanted you to dress up the mannequin at the entrance since you have such good fashion sense... If you’re in the area, could you come back? Please! I’ll treat you to anything you like!”
After staring at the table for a while, Runa finally closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and let it out.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked at the door. “Okay. I’m still in Shinjuku, so I’ll come now,” she said in a clear voice.
“Really?! Thanks! I’m so sorry I screwed up!”
The woman showered Runa with apologies until the call ended. After that, Runa stared at her phone for a while with a difficult look on her face.
“I’m sorry, Ryuto. I gotta go back to the store, stuff came up at work.”
“Okay.” I nodded deeply, having more or less understood what was going on. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate. Take care.”
Runa smiled apologetically at me. “I’m sorry. I thought we could have a slow, relaxed date tonight.” Saying that, she put on her coat and started getting ready to leave. “Feel free to finish eating this—it would be a shame if it went to waste. I’ll pay the bill too.”
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