I Will Forget This Feeling Someday, page 21
“Oh, so tomorrow then. That’s perfect timing, but you didn’t force yourself to come here today, did you?”
Until meeting Chika, I had never thought to consider that questioning the motives behind someone’s every action might be harmful to them. Of course, Chika was still the only one I felt this way about. If I was a good person, I could have directed this newfound empathy toward everyone around me, but that was not who I was.
“No, not really. It was the same as always.”
“That’s good, then. Oh, right, so I don’t know if they say this the same way in your world, but…”
Never once in my life had I said this stock phrase with so much actual sincerity behind it.
“…Happy Birthday, Chika. Even if it’s a day early.”
“Thank you. We don’t really use the word ‘birthday’ here, so I’m happy that I get to hear something special, just from you.”
By now, I should have been able to look Chika in the eye without any shyness, but for some reason her smile alone always made my heart flutter.
“When the day you’re born comes, I want to say Happy Birthday to you too.”
“It’s not for a while, but when it does come, I’d like to hear how you say it in your world.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. Is it really far away?”
“Yeah, some months still.”
The end of February—actually, the day I had first met Chika. She was glad to learn this, saying it would be easy to remember. I couldn’t recall anyone other than my own family ever being happy about my birthday before.
“Anyway, sorry to rush you, but how about that song?”
“Sure, okay.”
I was surprised at my own enthusiasm.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, it’s just a little nerve-racking being put on the spot, huh?”
As with the last time, neither having much experience with singing for someone important nor being at all suited to the task, it was difficult for me to perform it naturally. That said, this was what Chika wanted. I doubted that my own singing voice was worth anything at all, but this was a celebration. Even if it was meaningless, I had to put my heart into that song.
The last time we met, Chika had requested two songs of me—the one I had sung before and a new one. This was so that she could see whether there would be any discrepancies in how the first song sounded between performances. The last time, neither of us had managed to get the melodies across quite right. I got the feeling that the same thing would happen today, but I was sure that Chika suspected the same, so there was no point in discussing my concern.
“I’m facing forward now.”
I doubted the volume of my voice would have any effect on Chika’s world, but still I brought my mouth close to her ear, singing softly as I had before. I don’t even know why.
If my nose was to collide with her ear on that night, I would hardly be flustered about it. We had already confirmed one another’s existences and then some.
I was both ashamed and happy to be nervous thinking about such things. Inside my heart, I would not let myself be swayed by anything but my feelings for Chika.
How truly happy this made me.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if I’m too close, or my voice is too loud.”
I brought my hand to her ear and drew my face closer.
“Okay.”
Once at an appropriate distance, not so close that my nose would hit her, I positioned my lips and softly inhaled. Truthfully, the oxygen from that breath should have been used to sing Chika her song, but before I did so, I suddenly thought of all the things that had been lingering in my mind until now which I was finally able to put into words.
“Thank you, Chika. I’m so glad that I met you.”
That low whisper used up all my breath, and I frantically took another. I could tell by my fingers cupped beside her ear that she was nodding, even with her eyes closed.
“Me too.”
There was a pause. I waited to hear her voice, floating out of the darkness as ever, say more.
“I’m glad I met you first.”
I probably should have just let that slide, should have thought nothing of it.
I pulled my fingers away from her ear and moved my face back from hers, sitting up straight once again.
“…Kaya?”
I feel like I would have been able to process this more readily if it were a normal conversation, but for some reason, there was a lump in my throat.
“Kaya, what’s the matter?”
“Chika.”
As I spoke her name, whatever was lodged in my throat forced its way up onto my tongue. I chewed it, tasted it, and rolled it around, trying to determine what it was. Several seconds later I finally identified it, but I was lost for several seconds more, wondering whether it would be right to confirm this with Chika—or no, perhaps that’s too rational a way to put it, whether I should finish chewing this thing and spit it out.
Eventually, the unpleasant sensation in my mouth won out.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean about what?”
She looked at me, her head tilted.
I grew afraid.
“About meeting me.” It was obviously a groundless fear, but a fear, nonetheless. “You said ‘first.’”
No.
I had so, so much time to think about things. Truly. I honestly had more than enough time while I awaited her reply to put my feelings in order, collect my thoughts, and prepare myself to accept what might come.
It was Chika and I who rendered that time unusable.
We had gotten too close. Here, in this shelter. In the months since we had met.
Chika’s eyes quivered, and being who I was, I spotted agitation among all the emotions conveyed by just those two lights. Or perhaps it was something that even others could have seen.
“Are there others besides me?”
“What…do you mean?”
“Who you meet here.”
If we had never touched, we could have both stayed in our own delusions.
“You’re the only one here.”
Here.
“Are there other places? That connect to this world?”
“…I still haven’t been able to determine if it’s the same world as yours.”
Which meant…
“But based on a number of ××××, I think it’s possible it might be the same world.”
“Where?”
“As I mentioned before, there are a number of safe houses. This is just one of many.”
“Wait, so you…”
“Kaya, what’s wrong?”
What did she mean, “What’s wrong?”
I felt my fingertips going numb. I opened my mouth, realizing I needed to raise my body temperature.
“How could you hide this from me, Chika…?”
“I didn’t mean to hide it from you.”
“Then why were you so disturbed when I asked you about it?”
“I don’t even really know, but I mean, if I was disturbed—”
“You were.”
“If I was, it was because you were making such a scary face at me.”
The shape of her eyes changed. It was obvious she was troubled. Though I knew this, the things I wanted to say had their own mass, and they spilled out from my mouth.
“Through all of the conversations we had, why would you never once mention that?”
I should have immediately checked myself at the mention of my frightening expression. You could even say that would have been the best course of action, but I only understood that in hindsight.
Chika thought long and hard, then started in a tone that anyone would peg as making an excuse, “Well…in part because it just didn’t come up. Also, she told me early on that she didn’t want me to tell people that she was in that place. As we talked it over, we confirmed that there was no way for me to tell anyone exactly where she was, and I didn’t think there was any reason to tell you anyway, so I didn’t bring it up.”
Learning that it was a woman did not bring me any measure of relief. Chika was talking to a human other than me. There was another human looking at those eyes and nails. Another person who had proof that Chika’s world existed.
“Of course there was a reason to tell me. What about all the connections between this world and yours?”
“But didn’t you say you wanted to talk about us, instead of about our worlds?”
“That’s not the same thing!” I said, raising my voice. Never had I imagined Chika would argue something so pedantic.
“Kaya, what’s going on? You’re acting strange.”
“I…”
Something occurred to me. Chika had shown me a glimpse of this new truth before, perhaps.
Body temperature.
Uniforms.
Of course. Come to think of it, I had never given her any details about what a dog was, and yet she had known that it was an animal that lived with humans.
Once, she had talked about an accessory that I had no recollection of. Could she have been telling me to keep my voice down because this other person spoke loudly?
This whole time…
Chika said that my expression scared her, but I knew that what was inside me right now was not anger or hatred but sadness and loss. There were doubtless other emotions wrapped up in there as well—anger, and hatred, and love, and jealousy—and perhaps she could see all of them, but it was no trifling thing.
I was sad.
“You really are special to me, my one and only,” I croaked.
“And I think of you as my one and only, as well.”
“And what about that other person, whoever she is?”
“You don’t stop being special just because there’s someone else.”
I knew that what she was saying was right, but that was only the meaning of her words, seen through a framework of ethics and morals. The senseless thoughts, feelings, emotions of the human mind did not fit into that framework. There was no way she could possibly understand.
Perhaps romance was not the only thing that was beyond her comprehension. Maybe she could not understand attachment to others at all.
“That’s not something people can accept that easily.”
Her eyes quivered again. Putting my own disturbed feelings aside in favor of hers didn’t feel the least bit justifiable.
“Would you really stop being special just because I met someone else?”
I could not immediately deny this.
“You’re the only one I’ve tried out rohmanse with, though.”
As I tried to put the feelings squirming deep inside me into words, waiting for them to come together properly, the two lights narrowed.
“I see. Kaya, you…”
I looked at her and could not breathe.
“…were just pretending.”
Her smile was not one of happiness, of joy. I felt that so starkly that my heart and body ached.
I wasn’t.
I absolutely wasn’t.
That wasn’t true.
I was glad that this was something that I could immediately, distinctly deny, but the sound I should have been making didn’t reach my ears. My lips quivered, and my teeth didn’t seem to fit together right. I couldn’t breathe or speak. I should have at least just shaken my head in response, but somewhere between the light that blinded my eyes and the voice that deafened my ears, I had forgotten even how to render a denial.
Chika spoke in my stead.
However.
“You met ××, and just lov ×××××× yourself, ××××n’t you?”
I couldn’t hear her.
“×××××× sad××××, even if ×××××××× kis×× and the song ×××××× still special but you ××××××××××.”
I couldn’t hear her at all.
“How could ×××××××××××××× belie×××××× liked ××××××××××××××××.”
“I can’t hear you.”
Why? I thought that the only things I couldn’t hear were words I didn’t know, concepts that didn’t exist in my world, but I couldn’t make her out at all. I had no idea what she was trying to say, not in the slightest.
As I sat there, dumbfounded, her eyes pulled away from mine. They moved up high and then looked at me.
There was a deep sadness in them.
“I need to ××××.”
Of course I couldn’t hear her, but in all the months I’d known her, with the connection that we had forged, I knew that her standing up meant that it was time for her to leave. So, I wrung out the last little bit of air left in my lungs to at least tell her, “Try…not to get caught.”
Though she was still troubled, she seemed to respond to my words, but it was caught up in the noise and I had no idea what she actually said.
Soon it was dark, and as usual, I was alone. Unlike usual, however, I could not bring myself to stand from the bench. Instead, now that I sat there alone, I was able to unpack my feelings, one my one.
Then I realized the true impact of what I had done.
I wanted to explain myself, to apologize immediately, but Chika was already gone.
All I had to do was wait a few more days.
I should have done so at any point before then, but I had been at the mercy of a passion so strong I thought my whole body might burn to ash.
Naturally, feelings of regret or remorse aren’t enough to actually kill you, but from then on I was plagued by the feeling that I truly might die.
No one can die from just an emotion. It would not be until much later that I realized this.
Realizing it did not settle my feelings, though.
That time never came.
I never saw Chika again.
The person who had cherished me as her one and only vanished into the darkness, and the color never returned to my world.
An Encore No One Called For
AS IT TURNS OUT, our lives aren’t long enough to judge things in such emphatic terms as “fun” or “boring.” You can allow yourself to be taken by emotions that are little more than a passing breeze, but that gust of wind will soon blow away, leaving you wasting the rest of your life in want of the memory of that gale.
The phrase “the rest of your life” might conjure up images of some elderly person in physical decline, but that’s not what I mean. Age is only one factor—the aging of a person’s soul is measured in how much time has passed since that wind blew into their life. Once you’re old, everyone laps at the stagnant breezes of their own winds and says “Those were the days” or “That was the best time of my life.”
You could claim that the only meaningful times in our lives is when we’re touched by that wind. It would be easier if the end of our lives came sooner, but most people—myself included—lack the courage to actually take our own lives, so we’re left with no other way to chew through the days than to either sit there paralyzed or to idly while our lives away.
Sometimes, we find something to pretend to devote ourselves to. Sometimes, we get ourselves addicted to things. Sometimes, we get our hands on luxuries. And sometimes, we get our hands on people.
Then we die in vain.
I realize how foolish we are as creatures to cling to our own individuality so fiercely, but from the moment we’re born, we’re made to realize that we’re nothing more than another fragment of that human stupidity. Though it’s unfortunate, it’s pointless to allow our days to be consumed by such an inevitable disappointment, so we have no choice but to accept it. This world isn’t something that warrants such strong emotions.
Even when I received news of my mother’s death from my brother, as I expected, I didn’t feel particularly strongly about it. I wondered at what point my mother had been blown by that wind and pitied her, thinking that she must have spent the rest of her life chewing on that memory like gum, just like everyone else.
It had been roughly eight years since I’d last visited my birthplace. I’d set foot there again only once to collect some things left in my room when my parents decided to move, shortly after I graduated from university. I threw away most of it, taking only a few things back with me. The new house, which had been built in the same neighborhood as our original home, carried no trace of me, and I left any reason to return to my birthplace behind.
I only bothered to return, eight years later, because I thought it might be nice to at least offer a prayer for the mother who had fed, clothed, and sheltered me for the first eighteen years of my life. In my meaningless, trifling days, surely I could at least spare the time to clap my hands together for her.
I received word on Friday and attended the wake on Saturday. My father and my brother, who had remained behind—ever the dutiful son—had taken care of the arrangements and everything else, so all I had to do was show up, look like I was in mourning, and pray for my mother’s happiness in the next life. I made the necessary greetings as my father brought me around to all the relatives and neighbors for introductions.
Once the repast had ended, most of the people went home, leaving the venue quiet, with only close family lingering behind. As I stood outside during our vigil afterwards, smoking a cigarette, my brother drifted over and lit one as well.
“Sorry ’bout all this,” he said. “I know you’re pretty busy right now.”
Weird to be worrying over your little brother when your parent just died.
“I mean, it’s fine.”
I knew that wasn’t what he had followed me out there to say.
“Y’know, Mom was always worrying about you.”
“Huh.”
I hadn’t seen my mother or brother in years.
“It was always, ‘Oh, I do hope Kaya’s happy. He was such a brooding child. I hope he’s not in a funk or something.’ From her, that is, not me.”
My brother laughed at his own joke. I put on a smile as well.
“That’s our mom, huh.”
“I think she’d be relieved to see you actually able to share a smile with folks around you. You used to be so prickly all the time.”
He laughed again. I laughed back and said, “Guess you’re right,” playing the part of the cheerful younger brother as I exhaled smoke.
Listening to him talk, I supposed it was good that I had come here one last time to say a prayer for my mother like this. At the same time, I realized I would probably never come back to this place without her ever again.
