Night Garden: Complete Edition (ナイトガーデン 完全版).

Intro Night Garden

Mourning has a colour. At least, that is how Hiiragi remembers it.

 

It was almost twenty years ago, at his grandmother’s funeral. Black-and-white cloth was draped all around, and the adults, uniformly dressed in black, looked like entirely different people. To a child, the dull, monochrome surroundings inspired anxiety rather than sadness. He had the unsettling feeling that something extraordinary was about to take place.

 

A long, pale wooden coffin was surrounded by white chrysanthemums. In that colourless world, Hiiragi listened to a continuous, low voice that sounded neither quite like chanting nor singing. He watched as everyone took turns stepping forward, bowing their heads and performing gestures that resembled a spell.

 

Eventually, his mother prompted him to do the same, and without understanding what was happening, he clumsily copied their movements. It wasn't playtime, nap time or mealtime, so when exactly was this supposed to be over? He glanced around restlessly, only to be immediately scolded in a whisper.

 

"Be a good boy."

 

But how was he supposed to know what being a good boy meant in a place like this?

 

A very, very long time passed before the coffin was transferred onto a wheeled trolley.

 

"Hiiragi, come here."

 

His grandfather beckoned him over and lifted him into his arms. Part of the wooden lid opened like a little window, revealing his grandmother's face, completely drained of colour.

 

White again.

 

"Say goodbye to Grandma."

 

Still unable to understand what it meant to lose someone to death, Hiiragi simply obeyed, waving his hand a few times like a child following instructions.

 

His grandfather nodded and handed him back to his father. Then, from the pocket of his black suit, he took out a small bottle that fitted neatly into his palm. Hiiragi recognised what was inside.

 

"You always loved these, didn't you?"

 

His grandfather removed the cork and tipped the bottle.

 

One by one, little pieces of konpeitō, Japanese star-shaped sugar sweets, tumbled out. Yellow, pink, pale blue and orange. The tiny grains of colour, covered in soft spikes like newborn stars, twinkled before Hiiragi's eyes. Colour returned to the monochrome world.

 

It was vivid. It was beautiful.

 

"Would you like one too, Hiiragi?"

 

His grandfather placed a sweet in his mouth. And the moment Hiiragi rolled that simple sweetness across his tongue, he suddenly understood the meaning of the ceremony taking place around him.

 

He would never see his grandmother again. It was an extremely simple understanding, but in that instant he had touched upon one of the world's fundamental truths. A tear slipped down his cheek, falling like a dropped sweet. Seeing it, his grandfather gently stroked his head. Behind his glasses, his grandfather's eyes were filled with grief, glistening with tears.

 

Hiiragi had felt sad and lonely, but it wasn't the sort of sorrow that made him sob uncontrollably. Instead, the realisation of death had quietly seeped into the depths of his small body.

 

Even now, looking back, he didn't think of it as something entirely unpleasant. Whenever he remembered that day, the warm colours of the konpeitō returned to his mind, along with the memory of their simple sweetness on his tongue.

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The morning sunlight filtering through the dense trees shimmered like gelatine at Kazuaki's feet. If he stared at its irregular movements for too long, he felt as though he might fall asleep standing up. Perhaps it was the greenery that made the air somewhat cooler than in Tokyo.

 

The asphalt road was cracked in places, with weeds poking through the gaps. The mountain was here first. Humans had come along afterwards and imposed their own conveniences upon it, so naturally, such things were unavoidable.

 

He understood that perfectly well. And yet, his immediate instinct was to fill them in. He wanted to pour hot, thick, molten asphalt into every crack, let it cool and harden, and seal away that stubborn life force that grew without the slightest regard for its surroundings. But even if he did, the artificial ground would eventually split open somewhere else, and new shoots would inevitably emerge.

 

In this endless game of cat and mouse, the plants would always win. Intelligence and civilisation were powerless against the single-minded persistence of instinct. After all, there was no reasoning with them. Words meant nothing to them, nor did feelings. What's the point of growing somewhere like that? There's no future for you there. Wouldn't it be far easier to simply rot away beneath the soil?

 

But reasoning that could never be understood was meaningless. The single-mindedness of instinct and the stupidity and cruelty contained within it irritated him. And if he found those qualities so irritating, it was probably because he possessed a considerable amount of them himself.

 

The question he had directed at the nameless plant peeking through the crack came straight back to him like a boomerang. He kept his pace steady, making an effort not to let his pointless thoughts distract him. He probably had another thirty minutes before reaching his destination. The entire journey took a little over an hour each way.

 

There was a bus from the foot of the mountain, but he didn't think an hour a day spent walking up and down the slope was a bad thing. There was no particular need to hurry anyway. The mountain was reasonably high and densely wooded, but not especially rugged. Apparently, there were several easy hiking trails, including the route he was currently following. Clack.

 

A small stone rolled down and landed near his toes. A moment later, a loud rustling came from the slope above him. He stopped and looked upwards. Was this the sort of mountain where you could casually encounter wild boar or deer? Instead, he spotted a pair of human feet.

 

White trainers, mottled with patches of brown dirt. Then a pair of dull green overalls, almost the same colour as the underside of a leaf. The person was lying on their stomach, slowly descending the mountainside under their own weight. Or rather, sliding down would have been a more accurate description.

 

They didn't appear to be playing around, but this certainly wasn't the sort of treacherous terrain where someone could become stranded. Still, there was a possibility they had injured themselves somewhere, so Kazuaki watched carefully.

 

Looking closer, he realised the person was holding something in both hands, as though carrying a precious offering. That seemed to be why they couldn't grab hold of anything. There must have been plenty of exposed tree roots to cling to, but the fallen leaves made the slope slippery, and their slow descent showed little sign of stopping.

 

Eventually, they managed to brace themselves on their elbows and knees, supporting their weight.

 

"Heave-ho!"

 

They pushed themselves upright. They were approximately two metres away.

 

"Phew..."

 

It was a young man. He might still have been of secondary-school age. His light, golden-brown hair was tied loosely at the back in a tiny ponytail, barely long enough to resemble a bird's tail.

 

The sunlight filtering through the trees caught in his hair, making it sparkle so brightly that Kazuaki instinctively narrowed his eyes.

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“Ah, thank you for coming.”

 

How close did you have to be to someone before you could call them a mentor? They had never had a particularly close relationship. The man had been neither his form tutor nor his club adviser, merely the lecturer who had taught his second foreign language at university. Surely that hardly constituted a significant connection.

 

Kazuaki had never been particularly sociable, and to the lecturer, he must have been just one student among the many he had taught. Nevertheless, some slender thread had remained between them, and now here he was.

 

“It’s been a long time.”

 

“Did you find the bus stop easily enough?”

 

“No, I walked.”

 

“That must have been quite a distance.”

 

“Not an unreasonable one.”

 

“I see. My grandson works further up the mountain, but he rides a moped. Perhaps you should do the same.”

 

“I have no intention of doing so.”

 

Having no desire to make small talk either, Kazuaki cut the conversation short and moved on to the matter at hand.

 

“May I see the library?”

 

“Now, now. There’s no need to rush.”

 

His request was gently brushed aside.

 

“You must be tired. Have some tea.”

 

“Would green tea be all right?”

 

Kazuaki almost declined again, then reconsidered. It would be pointless. There was no winning against the unhurried persistence that came with age.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Although the detached house had a tiled roof, its interior was thoroughly Western in style. Sunlight poured through a large south-facing window into the living room, which had a wooden floor.

 

Outside, the garden was planted with all sorts of greenery. It looked rather haphazard, but not neglected. Then again, the rather grand word gardening did not seem quite appropriate either. He thought someone must be tending it properly, without any particular desire to decorate the place or show it off.

 

“The tsuwabuki flowers opened yesterday.”

 

Even when this was pointed out, Kazuaki had no idea which flowers he meant.

 

“They have the same name as you?”

 

“Perhaps I ought to say I have the same name as the plant. We don’t have a family tree or anything of that sort, so I have no idea how we came by the surname.”

 

Those yellow flowers there, he explained, pointing towards the nearer part of the garden. Slender stems rose from a rounded mass of leaves, with clusters of small flowers opening at their tips like sparklers. Both their narrow, bamboo-leaf-shaped petals and their centres were pure yellow.

 

“In early spring, you can pick the young leaves and blanch them. They’re rather good.”

 

“I see.”

 

At Kazuaki’s unenthusiastic response, Tsuwabuki gave a faint, wry smile as steam rose from his tea.

 

“Plants don’t interest you?”

 

“Not in the slightest. I’ve never thought of keeping anything green at home, and I’ve never stopped outside a florist’s. If you asked me to name some flowers, I’d run out after plum blossom, cherry blossom, roses, tulips, sunflowers and morning glories.”

 

“What about dandelions?”

 

“I know those.”

 

“Lilies, chrysanthemums, marguerites?”

 

“Yes, I know those too.”

 

“There, you see? You can name quite a few. No, I’m not trying to catch you out. Since you make things yourself, I simply assumed you might also be drawn to the things nature creates.”

 

“My artistic sensibilities are extremely limited. I consider my work manufacturing rather than creating, and lately I haven’t even been doing much of that.”

 

“A creative slump? That is troubling.”

 

“I simply don’t feel motivated. Slumps are something talented people suffer from.”

 

“You haven’t changed.”

 

Tsuwabuki gently blew away a cloud of milky-white steam.

 

“By ordinary standards, you’ve been more than successful enough. You could afford to be rather more full of yourself, yet you’ve always been so composed, or perhaps I should say you’ve always kept both yourself and other people at arm’s length.”

 

“I certainly am cold.”

 

“Being level-headed and being cold-hearted are very different things. Besides, your notes were always so beautifully organised that they were almost works of art. Every character was as neat as print… I taught for a fair number of years, Fujisawa, but I never saw notes more beautiful than yours.”

 

That drew a wry smile from Kazuaki.

 

“Is that why you called on me this time?”

 

“I did hope that, if I asked you, you would do a more reliable job than anyone else. Even so, it’s essentially a collection of odd jobs. I certainly never imagined you would actually move out to the countryside to take it on.”

 

“If nothing else, I’m free to do as I please.”

 

Last year, he had left the flat where he had lived since graduating from university. Having lost sight of both his next home and the person who would have gone there with him, he had spent the past year living with a freedom and selfishness that astonished even him.

 

The flat had found a buyer quickly, and he had more than enough savings to live without doing anything for a while. He had tried spending several months in hotels, then moving from one country to another. Those experiences had made it clear what he did not want to do, but they had brought him no closer to knowing what he wanted.

 

Work was much the same. His head was full of examples of things he had no desire to make, while the space for things he did want to make remained empty. Cutlery for a newly opened restaurant. Key cases to be given away by a select shop. The interior and furniture design for an entire house. He had given up on several commissions and cancelled them.

 

Worse still, he could feel neither apologetic nor frustrated about it. It had been during the rainy season that he received a letter from Tsuwabuki, with whom he exchanged postcards a few times a year. Calling it an exchange was perhaps overstating things: Tsuwabuki would write, and Kazuaki would reply with a conventional greeting, including New Year’s cards, that happened three or four times a year.

 

Kazuaki accepted Tsuwabuki’s request for no reason beyond the thought that an immediate goal might spare him from thinking about anything else. He was afraid of doing nothing but turning the pages of the calendar until the rainy season came round again. The suggestion of water would draw out all sorts of memories, leaving him even less able to move.

 

They discussed the arrangements by email, and he found somewhere to live. Throughout the summer, he made frequent visits to work on the place and gradually assembled the things he would need. He had officially moved in only three days earlier.

 

“…Lately,” Kazuaki murmured, “I’ve often found myself remembering a proverb you taught me. So when you contacted me, it felt like a curious coincidence.”

 

He believed in neither fate nor the bonds that supposedly brought people together. If anything, he detested such ideas. Perhaps that was precisely why he had decided to let himself be carried along by them.

 

A slight misalignment of the gears had changed his life. Then, several years later, those gears, which had kept turning despite their grinding, had broken over another tiny fault. No matter how often he told himself it was for the best, the mechanism that drove him had lost an essential part and remained motionless.

 

“Which proverb?”

 

“‘Einmal ist keinmal.’”

 

“Ah.”

 

Tsuwabuki nodded but did not pursue the subject.

 

“Shall we go?”

 

He stood up.

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Holding a plastic flowerpot borrowed from work in one hand, Hiiragi slid the front door open.

 

“I’m home! Sorry, Grandpa, can you bring me some newspaper? My clothes are covered in mud, so I’m going to take them off here and have a bath!”

 

To the right of the entrance, the stairs led in two directions: one flight up to the first floor, the other down to his grandfather’s basement library. When he heard footsteps coming up from below, he naturally assumed they belonged to his grandfather.

 

But the head that gradually came into view had black hair instead of white, and the person who appeared was someone else entirely, different in age and everything else. About the only thing they had in common was that they were both men. Hiiragi nearly shouted, “Burglar!” But the man looked far too unhurried, and Hiiragi recognised his face, so he swallowed the word.

 

The man glanced at Hiiragi, then turned away without greeting him or introducing himself and called upstairs.

 

“Professor.”

 

His voice was low and deeply resonant, seeming to vibrate through the bones rather than the eardrums.

 

“Yes?”

 

His grandfather’s answer came a moment later.

 

“He says he needs some newspaper.”

 

“Newspaper? Ah…”

 

There was the sound of a door opening and closing, then his grandfather came downstairs.

 

“Been playing in the mountains again, have you?”

 

“I wasn’t playing.”

 

“Patrolling your territory, then…? Wait a moment.”

 

While his grandfather went to fetch the newspaper, Hiiragi took another look at the man’s face. He had definitely called him “Professor”. A former student, perhaps? Although, since the man still seemed to be in his twenties, he might have been someone his grandfather had taught shortly before retiring.

 

It was not exactly that he looked sullen. His was simply a face on which emotions were difficult to read. It was like looking at a sea so utterly still that you no longer knew where to direct your gaze. Eventually, you might even begin to wonder whether it was a painting or a photograph. Trying to bear the awkwardness, Hiiragi spoke.

 

“Um…”

 

“We met this morning.”

 

The reply did not sound as though the man had only just remembered. He seemed to have recognised Hiiragi from the moment they saw each other again, but his manner also conveyed a distinct sense of 'And what of it?'

 

“Sorry about that. For startling you.”

 

“…What were you doing there?”

 

“This.”

 

Hiiragi held out the pot he was still carrying. A single blue flower bloomed weakly in it.

 

“It’s a blue daisy. I was walking along and found it growing somewhere it had absolutely no chance of surviving. These hate damp, but it was stuck in this soggy patch of moss. It was really weedy too, and I thought it would die soon if I left it there, so I decided to replant it in our garden. I dug it up with the roots and all, then lost my footing.”

 

His hands had been occupied, and he knew the slope was not particularly dangerous, so he had simply stayed still and let himself slide. He had not expected to run into anyone.

 

“I see,” the man said.

 

It was a remarkably refreshing response in its complete absence of sympathy. He had understood what had happened, and that was all.

 

“It’s tiny now, but if I grow it properly, it can get to about a metre tall.”

 

That did not even earn him a polite murmur. Nothing but utterly dry indifference hung in the air.

 

It was not as though Hiiragi wanted him to be impressed, but people normally said something, didn’t they? Even if they did not mean it: That’s nice, or Something to look forward to. Why did he have to feel this uncomfortable in his own house? His grandfather returned and spread the newspaper over the entrance floor.

 

“Took you long enough, Grandpa.”

 

“Every paper I picked up was one I hadn’t finished reading. Ah, Fujisawa, this is my grandson. His name is Hiiragi. Do forgive his appearance. He looks like a mountain monkey.”

 

“Grandpa!”

 

“He doesn’t look like a mountain monkey.”

 

Somehow, having it denied so matter-of-factly made Hiiragi feel even more mocked.

 

“We happened to meet this morning.”

 

“Did you, Hiiragi?”

 

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it meeting. More like he witnessed me.”

 

“You’re lucky he didn’t report you to the local hunting association.”

 

“It’s not even hunting season yet!”

 

Besides, this was not a hunting area in the first place.

 

“Fujisawa, it’s getting late. Please leave the work there for today. I’m sorry; I became rather absorbed in my books myself.”

 

“Not at all. I’ll be going, then.”

 

“Would you like to stay for dinner? Although we’ll have to wait until this one has had a bath and turned back into a human being.”

 

“No, thank you.”

 

Fujisawa repeated his refusal, put on his shoes and stepped past Hiiragi. Hiiragi turned after him.

 

“…Mr Fujisawa.”

 

He had nothing to say to him. It simply seemed strange that the man had such an ordinary name, and he had been unable to resist saying it aloud. A scientific name followed by an identification number somehow seemed more appropriate.

 

But Fujisawa answered him—well, of course he did—so Hiiragi hurriedly came up with a question.

 

“What do you do?”

 

It was a weekday, and the man certainly did not look like someone with a regular office job. Hiiragi immediately wondered whether he had been far too rude, but Fujisawa answered calmly.

 

“Unemployed, with no fixed abode.”

 

Ignoring Hiiragi’s speechless “Huh?”, he turned to his grandfather.

 

“Thank you for having me.”

 

Then he left.

 

Once he was out of sight, Hiiragi turned back to his grandfather and demanded an explanation.

 

“What the hell was that?”

 

“Don’t refer to people as ‘that’. Besides, you heard him yourself. Unemployed, with no fixed abode.”

 

“Then what’s he doing here?”

 

“Enough of ‘that’ and ‘he’. Go and have your bath.”

 

“But calling your grandson a monkey’s all right?”

 

“I can hardly go around announcing to people that you’re my pride and joy and so precious I could put you in my eye without it hurting, can I? We ought to use up that pork. Shall we have pork chops? We can serve the mizu you picked yesterday on the side.”

 

“Yeah, very convincing…”

 

Halfway through, he had turned it into a discussion about dinner.

 

“Oh, yes. I nearly forgot.”

 

“What?”

 

His grandfather, who had started towards the kitchen, looked back and smiled.

 

“Welcome home, Hiiragi.”

 

“I’ve asked him to organise my books.”

 

His grandfather brought it up once the two of them were sitting at the dinner table.

 

“The ones downstairs?”

 

“Yes. For the past few years, I’ve simply kept buying them and leaving them wherever they landed. It’s become rather unmanageable. I stopped counting after five thousand, and I can never find the book I need when I need it. Besides, if I were to drop dead, I’d be leaving other people with quite a problem.”

 

“Don’t say things like that.”

 

“I’m in my seventies now. It’s a perfectly real possibility. So I decided to ask Fujisawa. He understands a little German too. Anyway, he’ll be coming and going for a while. As you can see, he does things at his own pace, so there’s no need for you to go out of your way for him.”

 

“At his own pace is one way of putting it… Whatever. How long’s ‘a while’?”

 

“Until he’s finished. He’ll sort the books onto the shelves, then create a database so that even someone as hopeless with computers as I am can search for them easily. His time seems to be his own as well, so I don’t intend to set a deadline.”

 

“His time’s his own? Are you sure it’s all right letting someone with no home and no job into the house?”

 

“Oh, Hiiragi. What are you talking about?”

 

His grandfather began to laugh.

 

“If he has no home, where exactly did he go when he left?”

 

“Huh? But he said he was unemployed, with no fixed abode.”

 

“I imagine he meant he still considers his present home temporary. You know the detached house at the foot of the mountain? The one a pottery teacher or someone built three years ago, then sold almost immediately.”

 

“Oh… Wait, then where did he get the money to rent it?”

 

“And ‘unemployed’ isn’t entirely accurate either. There’s an example of Fujisawa’s work right in front of you.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Right in front of him.

 

Hiiragi stared at his grandfather’s face and offered the first possibility that occurred to him.

 

“An optician?”

 

“Oh, that really is a rather obvious guess.”

 

“Stop dragging it out.”

 

“Do try to think a little.”

 

With a sigh, his grandfather lifted the carafe of mineral water.

 

“This, for example. Fujisawa designed our knives and forks, the key tray on top of the shoe cabinet, the paperweight I use in my study, and even your favourite mug.”

 

“…Really?”

 

Apart from the things in Hiiragi’s own room, everything in the house had been chosen by his grandfather. It had never occurred to him to wonder where any of it came from. Looked at another way, the objects were so simple that they attracted no particular attention; in a good sense, there was nothing obviously special about them.

 

“Yes. An acquaintance gave me some as a wedding favour. A cup and saucer, I think. They were so much to my taste that I looked into buying other pieces, only to discover that a former student of mine had become a designer. I was surprised, so I sent a postcard to his office. He replied, and here we are. It’s curious: he doesn’t seem particularly pleased to hear from me, but he always takes the trouble to write back.”

 

The heat-resistant glass carafe had been deliberately covered in countless fine scratches, as though someone had scrubbed it over and over with a metal scourer. From a distance, it looked cloudy.

 

That man had thought this up and made it. Somehow, Hiiragi could picture it. Somehow, he could not.

 

“Then why did he say he was unemployed?”

 

“He seems to be taking no work at present. Apparently, he can’t find the motivation.”

 

“Wow. That sounds like an artist.”

 

“I suspect he would dislike being described that way. Well, you’ll probably have opportunities to see him from tomorrow onwards, so try talking to him about things. Your world seems to have become rather too fixed, Hiiragi. It’s important to broaden your horizons.”

 

There was nothing wrong with his world being fixed, and Hiiragi could not imagine a conversation with that man going particularly well. But it was obvious that his grandfather would talk him round no matter how much he argued, so he silently poured water into his glass.

 

“Einmal ist keinmal,” his grandfather murmured.

 

“Huh? I don’t understand German. Speak Japanese.”

 

“And after Hanna sang you lullabies so devotedly.”

 

“If that was enough to make someone fluent, nobody would have any trouble.”

 

“‘Once doesn’t count.’ How would you interpret that, Hiiragi?”

 

His grandfather’s manner suggested that a flippant answer would earn him a scolding, so Hiiragi gave it some serious thought.

 

“Don’t give up just because you fail once?”

 

“I see.”

 

Hiiragi could not tell whether that was the right answer, but his grandfather’s expression softened, so apparently he had at least earned a pass.

 

“You’re fundamentally optimistic, Hiiragi. That’s a very good thing. Even if you have become a little contrary lately—”

 

“Thanks for dinner!”

 

He cleared everything away, then made coffee for them both.

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Hiiragi’s white mug. He would not have gone so far as to call it his favourite, but even with other cups around, he kept choosing this one without thinking. Its weight and the way it felt in his hand were just right.

 

If countless other people felt the same way and used it for that reason, he thought that was impressive. After all, people’s hand size and grip strength varied widely. Its colour and shape looked perfectly ordinary, but reaching this finished form must have required meticulous calculation, consideration and imagination.

 

When he finished his coffee and looked underneath, he found “vostok” stamped in tiny letters. Was that its maker’s mark—or rather, its brand name? An internet search revealed that it was a company founded by several designers, and that Fujisawa was one of its principal members. He also discovered his full name: Kazuaki Fujisawa.

 

The products covered a wide range, from furniture with an ethnic influence to fabrics featuring distinctive spots and stripes, and bags in fluorescent colours so bright they hurt the eyes. Yet if Hiiragi were to buy anything from them, he would probably choose one of Kazuaki Fujisawa’s simple designs.

 

There was something universal about them that transcended personal taste, yet they did not disappear among other mass-produced goods. So he really was impressive. Even as Hiiragi acknowledged that, he could not quite bring himself to admire him without reservation. The way Fujisawa had behaved as he left still bothered him.

 

Their shoulders had brushed lightly as they passed. Then, just before going through the gate, Kazuaki Fujisawa had carefully brushed off that part of his clothing. As though he had come into contact with something dirty. Well, yes, Hiiragi was dirty. He had crawled around on the mountainside first thing that morning, then spent the rest of the day working with soil. Fair enough.

 

But when someone who seemed so untouched by the mess of everyday life did something like that, any embarrassment or inclination to reflect on his own behaviour turned into resentment. Besides, he was still annoyed with his grandfather. If he was going to start frequently inviting a stranger into the home where the two of them lived alone, Hiiragi wished he had told him beforehand.

 

It was his grandfather’s house, so Hiiragi had no say in the matter. He switched off the computer and stood up to wash his mug. Just then, someone knocked on the door.

 

“What?”

 

“Hiiragi, are you still awake?”

 

His grandfather himself peered into the room.

 

“I’m going to bed once I’ve washed this.”

 

“I’ll wash it with mine. Off to bed with you.”

 

“Grandpa.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“What does ‘Vostok’ mean?”

 

“Fujisawa’s company?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Why don’t you ask him?”

 

“I can’t imagine him having a proper conversation with me.”

 

“Surely that’s… Well, perhaps you have a point.”

 

“See?”

 

“Our conversations don’t exactly flow either. What I mean is that he isn’t the sort of person who would look down on you and deliberately be unpleasant.”

 

“You reckon? …Not that I particularly want to get all friendly with him. He’s gloomy, and he seems really fussy…”

 

“And I doubt he would say anything like that about you when you weren’t there.”

 

The smiling rebuke left Hiiragi with nothing to say, so he changed the subject.

 

“Were you close to him at university?”

 

“No, not particularly. For the first two years at university, students have to take another foreign language alongside English. We simply happened to become acquainted that way.”

 

“But…”

 

Hiiragi chose his words carefully.

 

“He knows about ‘that’, doesn’t he?”

 

“Young people these days know a surprising amount about everything.”

 

His grandfather understood perfectly well what “that” meant, but sidestepped the question.

 

“Grandpa.”

 

“Yes, I imagine he knows. Perhaps it’s simply his personality, but he doesn’t say anything. It would be rather strange for me to bring it up myself, wouldn’t it? ‘Are you aware of my criminal record?’”

 

“It’s not a criminal record!”

 

Hiiragi knew his grandfather was making light of it for his sake, but he could not stop himself from raising his voice.

 

“Ah, I’m sorry, Hiiragi. I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

“…I just don’t want him finding out later and making a fuss. That’s why I… It’s not that I’m questioning what sort of person he is.”

 

“I know.”

 

His grandfather gently drew an arm around Hiiragi’s shoulders, as though he were still a small child.

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Once did not count. Kazuaki remembered almost nothing he had learnt at university, yet that one proverb had begun returning to him with perfect clarity ever since he and Sei had parted. If something happened only once, it was as if it had never happened.

 

People did the same things over and over again. Brushed their teeth, for example. Put on clothes. Ate. Yet strictly speaking, those actions were never identical. Every second that passed happened “only once”, and there was no second attempt at life. Did that mean everything was meaningless? That it made no difference whether something had happened or not?

 

Whether someone was there or not. He sincerely hoped that was how Sei felt about him. One equalled zero. If only that were true. If only Sei could make it all as though it had never happened.

 

Even the one time they had had sex. After letting go of the only person he had ever truly loved, Kazuaki had been left with nothing but a promise. I want you to make sure you find happiness.

 

Kazuaki had nodded. It had not been a lie, but with each passing day, Sei’s words weighed more heavily on him. He was healthy and free. Most people would probably envy his circumstances, and he knew perfectly well how fortunate he was. Yet he had not managed to fulfil that promise in the slightest.

 

It was the one thing Sei had wanted from him, so he wanted to make it happen. At the same time, part of him felt recklessly indifferent. They would never see each other again. What use was a self-satisfied sense of duty? The “happiness” Sei had spoken of meant, quite simply, that he wanted Kazuaki to fall in love with someone else. But Kazuaki wanted no more experiences like that.

 

Once had been far more than enough. He wanted to keep his promise, but he did not. Whenever he became trapped in that contradiction, he found himself unable to sleep and got out of bed in the middle of the night. After drinking a glass of water, he opened the kitchen window. The presence of the mountain was far stronger than during the day, advancing softly like a rising tide.

 

The smells of earth and greenery, which had never reached his high-rise flat in central Tokyo, drifted into the room. They reminded him of brushing past Tsuwabuki’s grandson, who had carried the same air about him. He resembled a cat more than a monkey. His eyes tilted upwards, though not sharply, and his nose was small and pointed.

 

Kazuaki remembered Tsuwabuki mentioning during a lecture that his late wife had been German. That probably explained the colouring of his grandson’s eyes and hair: those genes had expressed themselves strongly. Apparently, he had been holding a flower in his cupped hands. The one he had shown Kazuaki with a “This” had been blue-violet, rather than blue, to be precise.

 

Everyone had their own values, but Kazuaki could only wonder why he had gone to the trouble of covering himself in soil for it. It had not looked like a rare variety. Surely there were plenty growing all over the place. The young man would probably be angry if Kazuaki mentioned wanting to seal up the weeds growing through cracks in the ground.

 

What a strange person, he thought, conveniently overlooking himself. In the windowless basement library, the smells of paper, ink and dust mingled with the damp and seemed to cling quietly to him. Even after he left, they would probably slip out from his hair or the folds of his clothes at unexpected moments, like a forgotten bookmark.

 

But it was not unpleasant. He found it far more soothing than the overwhelming scent of life itself emanating from the surrounding mountain. Twenty rows of bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling. At a glance, the books seemed to have been shoved into them at random.

 

He would have liked to take everything out and pile it on the floor, but that would leave him no room to work. It seemed he would have to proceed patiently, taking books out here and putting others away there, as though solving a puzzle.

 

He intended to record the title, author, translator, publisher and publication date, along with a brief description of the contents. In addition to categories such as novels, criticism, travel writing and academic works, he wanted to allow less precise searches—for example, “The main character is a girl wearing red.”

 

With books in Japanese, German and English all mixed together, Kazuaki himself would probably spend a great deal of time consulting dictionaries. Whenever he found something beyond him, he would have to ask Tsuwabuki.

 

For now, he had no idea how many months it would take to put this forest of books in order. But with both his mind and body at a loose end, he was grateful for that. If anything, the thought that even this work would one day come to an end frightened him more.

 

He unfolded a stepladder whose rusted hinges made both opening and closing it a struggle. As he studied the reddish-brown metal, thinking it might need oiling, Tsuwabuki came downstairs.

 

“I’m afraid I need to go out for a little while. Would you mind looking after the house?”

 

“Of course. …Where are you going?”

 

“For this.”

 

He held up a small canvas bag.

 

“Hiiragi’s forgotten his lunch.”

 

It happened quite often, he added with a sigh.

 

“He takes it every day. I don’t know how it slips his mind…”

 

“Aren’t you taking the bus?”

 

“It’s just left, so I’d have to wait another hour. I’m rather impatient, you see. Once I decide to do something, I want to get on with it.”

 

To Kazuaki, he always seemed utterly unhurried, but if that was how he described himself, presumably it was true.

 

“All right.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Tsuwabuki nodded and began climbing the stairs. After two or three steps, however, his back suddenly hunched.

 

Kazuaki sensed him catch his breath and hurried over.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

Tsuwabuki let out a thin, careful breath, as though trying to deflate a balloon very slowly.

 

“Professor?”

 

“No, I’m sorry.”

 

He spoke quietly, one hand pressed to his chest.

 

“My heart isn’t very strong. Sometimes I get a sudden pain like this without any warning. It will pass in a moment.”

 

Kazuaki asked in quick succession about hospitals and medication. Tsuwabuki replied that he saw his regular doctor every month and always kept medicine on hand.

 

“You sound rather like the doctor yourself.”

 

“Never mind that. You ought to rest.”

 

“I’m all right now. I need to go.”

 

“Then I’ll go. Please stay here.”

 

The words came out on impulse, not out of kindness. Kazuaki had simply thought how troublesome it would be if something happened.

 

He would lose the occupation he had finally found, and might even be blamed for letting Tsuwabuki go. Taking on a short hike was preferable to that.

 

“In that case, I’m sorry to trouble you, but thank you. You more or less follow the same road uphill all the way, so you shouldn’t get lost.”

 

“You mentioned yesterday that he works, but what exactly does he do?”

 

“At the botanical garden.”

 

That explained his appearance and behaviour.

 

“Although it might be more accurate to say they let him run about doing odd jobs than to say he works there. He’s picked things up simply by being around them.”

 

When he saw Kazuaki off at the front door, Tsuwabuki added:

 

“Do take your time there, if you like. You say flowers don’t interest you, but you might still discover something. I’m sure Hiiragi would enjoy talking to someone close to his own age too.”

 

“We’re not close in age.”

 

And he doubted Hiiragi would enjoy it either.

 

“Aren’t you twenty-six or twenty-seven?”

 

“Twenty-eight.”

 

“He’s twenty-three, so I’d say that’s quite close enough.”

 

“…I assumed he was about eighteen.”

 

“Ah, yes. He’s rather childish, I’m afraid.”

 

Either way, at their age, a five-year gap was bound to create differences in all sorts of areas. It would be difficult for them to become as friendly as Tsuwabuki hoped.

 

If his grandson needed someone to talk to, Kazuaki wished he would recruit someone else for that separately. Once he had started walking, it occurred to him that there had been no particular need for anyone to make this journey. Hiiragi commuted by moped. If he realised he had forgotten something, surely he could come back and collect it himself.

 

Or was he being worked so hard that he could not even take a proper break? Well, since Kazuaki had volunteered, he would carry it through without complaint this time. He had almost slowed his steps, but now returned to his usual pace and headed towards this botanical garden.

 

A slight movement in the treetops overhead was followed by the flutter of wings and a repeated, chirring call. He was no more interested in birds than he was in flowers. All he thought was that it was not a sound he heard in Tokyo. When he looked up, sunlight streamed through the leaves, clearly revealing the network of veins running through them. Their blood vessels.

 

Had Tsuwabuki ever shown such a condition while teaching? Not that Kazuaki could remember, at least. If he had grown weaker over the past few years, one possible cause was simple ageing. Then there was the other possibility.

 

Kazuaki could think of an event that must have placed a considerable strain on Tsuwabuki, both physically and mentally. But he had no proof. Even if his suspicions were right, he had nothing to offer beyond saying it was unfortunate, so he had no intention of mentioning it.

 

The walk took about as long as the journey from his rented house to Tsuwabuki’s home. The slope was steeper than near the foot of the mountain, however, so it was slightly more tiring. Ahead, the mountain road widened like a funnel, revealing a small building with a brick arch attached. Beyond that lay a botanical garden arranged in terraces that made use of the mountain’s natural contours.

 

Kazuaki spent a moment looking at the irregular bands of colour formed by flowers and trees whose names he did not know, then approached the entrance. A bronze plaque, browned in places, read “Munakata Memorial Botanical Garden”. He had assumed botanical gardens were all managed and run by local authorities. Passing beneath the arch, he spoke through the glass at the ticket counter.

 

“Excuse me. Could you give this to Hiiragi Tsuwabuki? I’ve brought something he forgot.”

 

There was a chance his surname might be different, so Kazuaki gave his full name. The middle-aged man at reception immediately nodded.

 

“Ah, yes. I’ll call him. Just wait a moment.”

 

Kazuaki had intended to hand over the bag and leave at once, but before he could stop him, the man picked up the telephone.

 

“Is Hiiragi there? He has a visitor. Ask him to come down here.”

 

Having relayed the message over the internal line, he turned back.

 

“Sorry to keep you. I don’t think he’ll be five minutes. Are you a friend of the professor’s, by any chance?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I thought so. His wife used to visit us often when she was alive. She was very enthusiastic about volunteering too, helping with the weeding and so on. We’re still grateful to her.”

 

Kazuaki could hardly have cared less. Yet even though he made no effort to hide his indifference or so much as murmur a response, the man continued to smile and talk.

 

“It’s only a small place, but do have a look round if you like. We have a few rather unusual things. Oh, there’s no need to pay. Please, go on in.”

 

“I have things to do.”

 

He put the lunch bag on the counter, beside the leaflets and an old-fashioned cash tray lined with soft plastic spikes, and was about to leave when his eyes met those of Hiiragi, who was running down the steps.

 

Even a glimpse of that bright hair inevitably caught his attention.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

The greeting sounded awkward, as though Hiiragi were reading from a textbook explaining how to pronounce “Mr Fujisawa”.

 

“You forgot this.”

 

“…I did it again. Sorry you had to come all this way.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

Hiiragi bowed, then addressed the man at reception in a much more natural voice.

 

“Mr Munakata, can I take fifteen minutes?”

 

“Of course. Take your time. Since he’s here, why don’t you show him that place too?”

 

Having received permission, Hiiragi turned back to Kazuaki.

 

“Have you got a minute?”

 

Kazuaki disliked vague questions. Unless he knew what exactly he was being asked to agree to, how could he decide whether the answer was yes or no? Careless replies were a source of unpleasantness and trouble later on.

 

His brow creased before he could stop it. Hiiragi appeared slightly daunted by that, but pointed into the garden.

 

“There’s something I want to show you. Come with me.”

 

Perhaps he had decided his best strategy was not to wait for an answer. He started walking without checking Kazuaki’s reaction.

 

He did things just like his grandfather. Still, Kazuaki was not so desperate to leave that he wanted to ignore him, so he followed. He had more than enough time anyway.

 

“Was that man the owner?”

 

He directed the question at Hiiragi’s back. Hiiragi turned, apparently surprised less by what he had asked than by the fact that he had asked anything at all.

 

“Yeah.”

 

He nodded with the same stiffness as before.

 

“I mean, yes.”

 

“You can speak however you like.”

 

As long as they could understand one another, Kazuaki did not care whether he used polite language.

 

“Mr Munakata’s the director. But who actually owns it…? Do you know the company Munakata? They make things like pain-relief patches and bath additives.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Even Kazuaki, who never watched television, knew the name. In fact, it was probably so familiar to most Japanese people that there was no point asking whether they recognised it.

 

“Apparently, the founder grew medicinal herbs here during the Edo period and researched traditional herbal medicine. After the company grew, they officially bought the land and turned it into a botanical garden, partly as a way of thanking the local community.”

 

That made sense. In that case, Kazuaki thought, profitability probably was not their main concern.

 

It was the middle of a weekday, and there appeared to be very few visitors. Considering the inconvenient location and the rather unassuming nature of a botanical garden, it seemed unlikely that the place would be packed even on holidays. Yet there was nothing forlorn or desperate about it. Instead, it had a certain leisurely ease.

 

“Mr Munakata’s the eldest son, but he’s a bit unusual. He said he didn’t want the company—he wanted to inherit the botanical garden instead. So here he is.”

 

They climbed the steps Hiiragi had just come down. The smell of greenery was slightly different from that of the mountain, probably because the plants grown here were not the ones that naturally belonged there.

 

It was ironic that being surrounded by nature made him all the more conscious of the place’s artificiality. There was a roofed path entwined with climbing roses, a huge tree that would probably have had a sacred rope wrapped round it if it stood at a shrine, and flowerbeds overflowing with blooms in colours as clearly divided as a colour chart.

 

“Can I ask you something too?”

 

“Go ahead.”

 

“What does ‘Vostok’ mean?”

 

That was a slightly unexpected question.

 

“Did your grandfather tell you about it?”

 

“Yeah. I was surprised. It’s weird meeting someone who makes things we just use normally at home. Like meeting the artist who draws a manga you read every week? No, maybe that’s different…”

 

“It’s the name of a lake in Antarctica.”

 

At Kazuaki’s brief answer, Hiiragi looked back with a faintly dissatisfied expression.

 

“I can find that out by searching. I meant why you chose it.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“There’s someone who handles the branding. Marketing and securing sales channels too. I leave all the practical side to them.”

 

“Even so, wouldn’t you normally ask? Why they picked that name, or something?”

 

“It never occurred to me. Isn’t that what leaving something to someone means?”

 

“Does it…?”

 

After a brief struggle with the idea, Hiiragi concluded.

 

“You’re a bit unusual, Mr Fujisawa.”

 

Then he added:

 

“In that case, maybe you didn’t have anything to do with this either.”

 

They had climbed roughly the equivalent of three storeys when they entered an area marked by a sign reading “Camellias”. Trees far taller than either of them stood in rows, thick with glossy leaves. Each bore a label: “Yabu-tsubaki”, “Nikkō”, “Waka-no-ura” and so on.

 

Naturally, Kazuaki could not tell them apart.

 

“This one.”

 

Hiiragi stopped in front of a tree and pointed at eye level. A single white flower was blooming there. Its petals were pure as snow, its stamens a faded yellow.

 

“Shiro-wabisuke,” Hiiragi told him.

 

“When I looked this morning, this was the only one that had opened. They’re not really supposed to flower until it gets colder. Yesterday, I was looking at your website and saw a range called ‘wabisuke’.”

 

It was a collection of melamine-resin accessories for washbasins and bathrooms: cups, soap dishes, shampoo bottles and jewellery trays. Kazuaki remembered it well because a foreign-owned hotel had ordered complete sets for its guest amenities, and the business had ultimately become quite substantial.

 

“Wabisuke flowers don’t open right out. They call it cup-shaped flowering. The cup on your website looked a lot like this. It was white too. So I thought maybe you’d named it that because you knew the flower… But was that someone else’s job as well?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Hiiragi smiled as though hiding his disappointment.

 

“Pretty, isn’t it? Tea tussock moth caterpillars can be a real nuisance, but the flowers don’t produce pollen, so they don’t drop powder everywhere when you put them in a vase. They last a long time too. Apparently, they’re popular for tea rooms.”

 

“They don’t produce pollen?”

 

“The anthers have degenerated.”

 

“Then how do they reproduce?”

 

“From cuttings. …Basically, you cut off part of a branch, roots grow out of it, and then you plant it in the ground.”

 

He must have noticed Kazuaki's slight frown because he tilted his head.

 

“What?”

 

“I was thinking that didn’t answer my question.”

 

“Huh? Why not?”

 

“I asked how they reproduce. Say you cut off my arm and could regenerate my body from the cut surface. You wouldn’t call that my offspring, would you? In other words, am I right in understanding that they can’t reproduce in the original biological sense, so you make copies instead?”

 

“…I suppose that’s what it amounts to.”

 

“One sheep caused an uproar around the world, yet clones are perfectly ordinary where plants are concerned. Remarkable.”

 

Perhaps Hiiragi detected the irony in that last word, because this time he was the one who frowned.

 

Ah. He was offended. Kazuaki knew he lacked social graces. Precisely because of that, he ought to have been good at disguising the fact. Harmless comments, a smile that conveyed a suitable degree of warmth without excessive familiarity—he should have been able to cover himself in layer upon layer of such things.

 

Yet apparently, after only a year of drifting, his ability to camouflage himself for the outside world had dulled. He was almost impressed by how easily an unused function could deteriorate. Still, Hiiragi was not a client. Nor was Tsuwabuki likely to dismiss him simply because he had displeased his grandson.

 

Wasn’t it grotesque? Deliberately injuring something, then exploiting its ability to heal for human convenience. The lack of pollen and the long-lasting flowers were much the same. Kazuaki had no particular attachment to plants, but he could not understand how someone who loved them could accept such things so readily. The futility of having no way to survive except by being wounded.

────────────────────────────────

Still looking as though he had something to say, Hiiragi walked further into the garden. Apparently, there was something else.

 

“Over there.”

 

Once they had passed through the camellia section, he pointed towards a greenhouse with a domed roof that resembled a spaceship.

 

“There’s a special exhibition room inside. Mr Munakata’s very proud of it. Didn’t he say anything?”

 

“He mentioned having some unusual things.”

 

“He’s desperate for visitors…”

 

To Kazuaki, a facility that grew all sorts of plants for people to look at was already unusual enough. He could confidently say that, if he had not been asked to run this errand, he would never have set foot in one.

 

“He runs a nursery too.”

 

“…For children?”

 

Why had that word suddenly entered the conversation?

 

“Oh, I suppose that’s another meaning. I mean a plant nursery. He sells seeds and young plants. Mr Munakata particularly likes night-blooming flowers, so he more or less specialises in those. He even built an exhibition room for them.”

 

Hiiragi began listing moonflowers, evening primroses and other flowers that opened at night.

 

“In that case, there’s no point looking at them in the middle of the day.”

 

“That’s why it’s a special exhibition room. Basically, they make the room completely dark so the flowers think it’s night. Then they shine lights on them at night to put them to sleep.”

 

“Ridiculous.”

 

At last, he said it aloud.

 

“Huh?”

 

“I’m saying I don’t understand wanting to turn something into an attraction badly enough to disrupt its natural rhythms.”

 

Hiiragi would cover himself in soil to rescue a single flower, so why did he accept something so poor in taste?

 

“Hang on.”

 

Now Hiiragi answered with open resentment, apparently abandoning his own efforts to hold it back.

 

“You say ‘disrupt’, but it only takes two nights for their day and night to switch completely. We’re careful with the temperature and the lighting so they don’t get stressed. They wouldn’t flower otherwise. Flowers are much more honest than people.”

 

“Aren’t they already under stress from being gathered from places where they naturally grow and kept under human supervision? I don’t like zoos or aquariums either. In a very short time, I’ve learnt that I can’t like botanical gardens for the same reason. Staying any longer will only upset you, so I’ll go.”

 

He turned on his heel.

 

“Wait.”

 

Hiiragi came round to stand in front of him.

 

“Sure, we’re growing all these things to suit ourselves. But I like flowers because they’re beautiful. I want to see lots of them, look after them myself, and make them bloom. Is that really so wrong? Looking at the flowers here, didn’t you think they were beautiful, even for a second?”

 

“No.”

 

At his immediate, categorical answer, Hiiragi’s dark-green eyes narrowed as though he had been hurt.

 

“It isn’t that you or this place are doing something wrong. I don’t understand the feeling of finding something ‘beautiful’ in the first place.”

 

“You don’t understand it?”

 

“No. If a flower is blooming, I think there’s a flower blooming. A baby or a puppy is a baby or a puppy. If I look at a painting, I think it depicts a landscape or a person. That’s all.”

 

The sky was blue. The sea was blue. The mountains were green.

 

When he looked at someone’s face, he registered large eyes, a high nose, evenly arranged features. Nothing beyond that. He did have preferences, but those had properly ordered reasons within him. They were probably different from what Hiiragi meant by “beautiful”. Hiiragi tilted his head as far as it would go.

 

“Are you a robot or something?”

 

He did not sound entirely joking.

 

“…If only I were.”

 

“Huh?”

 

If only he had never known not just beauty, but love or hatred, attachment or lingering regret. Then he could have spared Sei that suffering.

 

“I’m going. I still have work to do for your grandfather.”

 

He passed Hiiragi and retraced their steps. After giving Munakata a perfunctory bow, he left through the gate.

 

“Wait.”

 

What now?

 

Slightly weary of it all, Kazuaki turned. An umbrella was thrust in front of him.

 

“Looks like rain.”

 

Hiiragi spoke brusquely.

 

“Take it. You can leave it at our house.”

 

Kazuaki looked up. The sky was clear, just as it had been on his way there. He checked the forecast on his phone every morning, and he was fairly sure the chance of rain had been ten per cent.

 

“I don’t think I need it.”

 

“The weather changes quickly in the mountains.”

 

“What grounds do you have for thinking it’s going to get worse?”

 

“I just have a feeling! God, you’re a pain. One umbrella’s hardly a massive burden, so take it! You don’t want to go rusty!”

 

Hiiragi went to the trouble of removing his work gloves, taking Kazuaki’s hand and wrapping it round the umbrella.

 

Unlike his youthful face, his fingertips were rough and dry, suggesting a life spent close to the soil. He had not been lying when he said he took good care of the plants. As Kazuaki thought that in silence, Hiiragi glanced at him apprehensively.

 

“That last bit was a joke.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Then give me some kind of reaction…”

 

A white plastic handle rested in his hand. Kazuaki hated clear plastic umbrellas. Their cheapness made his skin crawl.

 

But saying so might only prolong the conversation, so he nodded with a sigh.

 

“I’ll borrow it, then.”

 

“Yeah. Oh, I forgot.”

 

“What?”

 

“Thank you for bringing my lunch.”

 

The head of pale tortoiseshell-brown hair bobbed.

 

“Grandpa wasn’t feeling well, was he? He doesn’t really like telling me… I’m not there during the day, so I’m glad you’re coming over, for that reason.”

 

“We work in separate parts of the house. Even if something happens to him, I won’t necessarily notice.”

 

He had no desire to be saddled with obligations or responsibility.

 

“That’s all right. It still makes me feel better. Anyway, take care.”

 

Kazuaki walked back with the umbrella hooked over the pad of his index finger, letting it swing. The sky began to dull, so unobtrusively that it gave him no cause for concern, yet unmistakably.

 

Rather than clouds appearing, it was as though the whole sky were dropping into a greyer shade. The sunlight that had flickered through the trees like light on water faded, and the air suddenly grew cooler. Just as he began to think that perhaps it really would rain, a drop or two tapped on the leaves overhead.

 

But the rain was sparse, and the trees served as eaves, so he did not open the umbrella. Instead, he found himself impressed. I just have a feeling, Hiiragi had said.

 

But that was not really it. He must have sensed the mountain air through his skin—the humidity, the smell—and arrived at a prediction with those finely tuned antennae of his. It was simply difficult to put into words, so he settled for the imprecise phrase “just a feeling”.

 

Memories, regrets, promises: all of them existed in Kazuaki’s head. Unlike him, trapped by those shapeless things and unable to move forward, Hiiragi seemed to live each day through his body. Would it offend him if Kazuaki said he really was rather like an animal?

 

“Welcome back. I’m sorry; I had no idea it would rain.”

 

“Even you couldn’t tell, Professor?”

 

Apparently, it was not a sense everyone acquired simply by living here.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Nothing. An excellent weather forecaster made me take this.”

 

He had not used it, but the umbrella had become slightly wet. He opened it and left it by the entrance.

 

“Ah, Hiiragi?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did you have a good conversation?”

 

“No, not in the slightest.”

 

At his blunt answer, Tsuwabuki laughed as though positively delighted.

────────────────────────────────

When Hiiragi arrived home, he checked the umbrella stand without thinking. There was one more clear plastic umbrella than there had been that morning, and he felt relieved. It was not as though he had thought Fujisawa would throw it away on the way back, but still.

 

“Welcome home.”

 

“I’m back. …Where’s Mr Fujisawa?”

 

“He’s already gone.”

 

“Oh. Did he say anything about me?”

 

“He praised you. Said you were an excellent weather forecaster.”

 

Hiiragi fell silent.

 

“Hmm? Was there something else you wanted him to praise you for?”

 

At dinner, with just the two of them around the table as usual, Hiiragi asked:

 

“Is it possible not to understand ‘beautiful’?”

 

“Oh?”

 

His grandfather considered the sudden question.

 

“I once read a story about that. Someone who had grown up in poverty, unable to go to school, began attending literacy classes when they were quite old. They learnt the Japanese syllabary and how to write their own name. Apparently, after that, they began to find sunsets beautiful for the first time in their lives. By acquiring not just spoken language, but written words, they came to know beauty. It’s a curious story, but even without a logical explanation, doesn’t it make sense?”

 

“But I’m pretty sure he can write.”

 

“Oh, are we talking about Fujisawa?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“It does sound like him.”

 

“Doesn’t it make life boring, though? Looking at flowers and not even thinking they’re beautiful?”

 

“It’s his life, and his personality. Even if it is boring, that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.”

 

“I suppose, but…”

 

“Besides, there’s no reason to assume he’ll never understand.”

 

His grandfather continued:

 

“Just as that person learnt to read and write, perhaps one day he’ll acquire something in his heart and come to know beauty. And that feeling may be far more vivid than the beauty you and I know.”

 

“You think?”

 

“Not knowing is by no means a bad thing. It means you hold the possibility of that precious moment when you come to know.”

 

Hiiragi had never seen his grandfather standing at a lectern. But he thought his grandfather must have offered those words to many students.

 

He must have wanted to say them to many more. Glimpsing that side of him—the teacher—made Hiiragi happy, and painfully frustrated. Late that night, he went down to the library. He disliked the silent pressure exerted by the mountains of books and seldom entered it. However, his grandfather said that was merely an impression Hiiragi had invented because he was not accustomed to reading.

 

He switched on the light and descended the stairs. The shelves and books looked no different from before Kazuaki had arrived. About the only change was the addition of a folding table and chair in one corner. A notebook lay on the table. Hiiragi hesitated, then opened it. If it had been left out like this, surely it was not a private diary.

 

On cream-coloured paper ruled with a fine grey grid, someone had written dates, book titles, authors and publication dates. Since the index was supposed to be created on a computer, perhaps this was a personal reference notebook to help with the sorting.

 

Even so, the writing was so utterly uniform that Hiiragi found himself staring, wondering whether it had been printed. Every character was consistent in size and shape. It was legible and orderly, but describing it as “beautiful” felt wrong. He could not help being impressed: it was certainly the handwriting of someone who did not understand beauty. His words and actions matched.

 

To be honest, having his work dismissed so bluntly had angered Hiiragi. Yet Kazuaki’s manner had been so matter-of-fact that he had not felt personally belittled. If he thought of it as Kazuaki expressing his views with complete honesty, even though they could not agree, he was far more sincere than someone who was merely good at saying the right things.

 

Yesterday, Hiiragi had wished he would at least make a small effort to be pleasant, even if he did not mean it. But if that was his natural personality, it could hardly be helped. Besides, he had walked up the mountain to bring Hiiragi his lunch. Whether Hiiragi could grow to like him was another matter, but he thought he understood why his grandfather had trusted Kazuaki enough to ask him to come here.

 

Since the sorting had only just begun, the notebook was blank from the second page onwards. Even so, Hiiragi flicked through it and found something written on the last page. Einmal ist keinmal. The thing his grandfather had said yesterday.

 

Once did not count. That single line had been scrawled diagonally across the page, ignoring the grid. The handwriting looked as though it belonged to someone entirely different from the person who had written at the other end of the notebook. Yet it was not his grandfather’s writing either, so it had to be Kazuaki’s. The word handwritten came to mind.

 

Yes. There was flesh and blood in those few letters. Here, he thought, was Kazuaki the human being. He did not know what Kazuaki had been thinking when he wrote them. Precisely because he did not know, he felt as though he had intruded on something even more private than a diary. Hiiragi closed the notebook as he had found it and left the library.

────────────────────────────────

It had been a long time since Kazuaki had sent an email containing anything beyond essential business. Strictly speaking, its main purpose was still to serve as a belated notice of his current address. His mobile rang almost immediately.

 

“What’s brought this on?”

 

“There was no need to go to the trouble of calling.”

 

“I’m waiting for my noodles. Keep me company for another minute.”

 

The caller was the man who had named Vostok. Kazuaki supposed that technically, he was his boss, or his employer.

 

I’ve no talent for making things, but I’m reasonably confident in my ability to sniff out something that will sell, and to make money from it. Let me take a cut, and I’ll deal with most of the troublesome bits. With that thoroughly unromantic proposition, he had signed contracts with several designers, including Kazuaki, and set up the company.

 

There had been no false advertising in his pitch. Kazuaki did not know how much was actually being skimmed off, but he had no complaints. Even when Kazuaki told him he did not think he could make anything for a while, he had neither become angry nor tried to hurry him. Then I’ll talk them round and put someone else on the job.

 

Presumably, as long as his own pockets were being lined, he did not care which of his suppliers the money came from. Kazuaki preferred that to someone becoming oddly invested in him.

 

“I read your email. Why are you asking about that now, after all this time?”

 

“Someone asked me.”

 

“Who?”

 

“A stranger.”

 

“That tells me absolutely nothing. And while we’re at it, your new address tells me nothing either. That’s pretty far out in the sticks, isn’t it? Why would you choose to go there?”

 

“I thought I might do some part-time work for a change of pace.”

 

“Part-time work? Then come and sort out invoices at the office. I’ll give you a bit of pocket money.”

 

Ignoring that, Kazuaki said:

 

“Mr Kujo.”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you have a camellia tree at home?”

 

“I do. At my parents’ place, anyway. Why—oh, ‘wabisuke’?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Right. The moment I saw the samples, it came to me. There was no other name for it. That’s another question you’re asking remarkably late.”

 

“I only learnt about it today.”

 

“From your stranger?”

 

A shrill timer beeped at the other end of the line.

 

“Oh, there’s my minute.”

 

He said he would email once he had finished eating, and their brief conversation ended.

 

The following day, Hiiragi was standing outside Tsuwabuki’s house. More precisely, he was in front of the garage where his moped was parked, presumably about to leave for work. He was swinging his left forearm vigorously up and down, then tilting his head.

 

“Good morning.”

 

At Kazuaki’s greeting, he spun round with a start.

 

“You scared me!”

 

It was not as though Kazuaki had deliberately crept up on him.

 

“Morning. …Um, can I ask you something?”

 

“If it’s brief.”

 

“It’s this.”

 

Hiiragi indicated the watch on his wrist.

 

“When I looked this morning, it had stopped. I heard you’re supposed to shake them when that happens, so I’ve been shaking it, but it won’t move at all… Grandpa gave it to me for my coming of age, so if he finds out, he’ll tell me off for breaking it already…”

 

At that, to his own considerable surprise, Kazuaki gave a small laugh. The contrast between Hiiragi’s earlier movements, like an animal having a tantrum, and his utter seriousness was amusing.

 

Last night, for the first time in ages, he had exchanged emails and spoken on the phone. This morning, he had laughed—probably for the first time in even longer. Was that a good sign?

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“It’s an automatic, isn’t it? That isn’t how you shake it. Let me.”

 

He removed the watch and placed it in Hiiragi’s palm.

 

“Put your thumb beneath six o’clock and hold it firmly. That’s it… Then use your wrist to move it from side to side. Shaking it vertically is more likely to damage it.”

 

“O-oh. Right. I thought…”

 

“You should read the instructions properly.”

 

“Yeees…”

 

Surely, if he had thought about the mechanism by which his arm's movement wound the mainspring, it should have been obvious. But Hiiragi’s cheeks were turning red rapidly, so Kazuaki kept that thought to himself.

 

After shaking the watch for a little while, Hiiragi’s eyes lit up.

 

“Ah!”

 

Was it their colour that made his emotions so easy to read? When they clouded, when they brightened. When they became so clear that Kazuaki felt he could almost see into the depths of his eyes.

 

They had been like that when they first met. And when Hiiragi had declared that he loved flowers because they were beautiful. Had he imagined the faint twinge in his chest, a pain caused by nothing outside him?

 

“It’s moving!”

 

Hiiragi closed his hand tightly round the watch. He seemed to be savouring its heartbeat against his palm.

 

It was like him to check by touch rather than sight. Kazuaki knew nothing about Hiiragi, yet somehow that was what he thought.

 

“Thank goodness… Thanks for showing me. I’ve remembered now, so I won’t get it wrong again. Right, I’m off.”

 

“Wait.”

 

Hiiragi had fastened the watch round his wrist again and climbed onto the moped. Kazuaki stopped him.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I asked the person responsible where the name ‘Vostok’ came from. It’s a lake in Antarctica, sealed beneath the ice, where the Earth of fifteen million years ago has been preserved. There aren’t animals or plants, but bacteria and microorganisms… Some might prove useful to humanity, while deadly pathogens might be sleeping there, too… Essentially, he apparently wanted to create a brand like that. One where you never knew what would emerge, where anything was possible.”

 

Hiiragi listened with a dumbfounded expression.

 

“Would you like me to repeat that?”

 

“No, it’s fine. I understood, but…”

 

“But?”

 

“I was just thinking you went to the trouble of asking for me.”

 

“You were the one who wanted to know.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“If you weren’t particularly interested, you should have said so from the start. Sending one email is hardly an effort, but I dislike wasting my time.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

For a moment, Hiiragi looked properly contrite. Then, as though unable to hold it back any longer, he doubled over laughing.

 

Kazuaki had thought he had spoken rather harshly, yet it apparently had not affected him in the slightest.

 

“…What?”

 

“Sorry. It’s just, you’re kind of funny, Mr Fujisawa…”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re funny.”

 

Surely not.

 

He remembered being told he was boring, but never the opposite. He had never thought himself amusing either. Yet Hiiragi was laughing, for reasons Kazuaki could not begin to understand. It was strange.

 

Strange, too, that he did not find it unpleasant. Surely Hiiragi, who knew the names of so many flowers yet did not know how to wind his watch, was far more amusing.

────────────────────────────────

Shadows fell through the gaps in the blinds in regular stripes. When he held up his hand, they bent along the curves of his body. It made him conscious of his own outline, of his thickness. No part of the human body was made up of straight lines or flat surfaces. That struck him as terribly unstable.

 

Only the stripes of sunlight felt faintly warm on the back of his hand. Kazuaki toyed with the small flat-headed screwdriver he was holding. On a desk so large he could have lain down on it with room to spare lay scattered gears with the diameter of drinking straws, and screws the size of beads. An upturned watch face, a glass crystal, a silver winding crown. A mainspring as fine as a catfish’s whisker.

 

Having completely dismantled the wristwatch with a screwdriver and tweezers, he surveyed the hundred or so components laid out in the order he had removed them. Once he stopped working, he became aware of the uneasy feeling of his feet dangling in the air. The writing chair was meant for an adult: neither its seat nor the position of its armrests and backrest fitted him.

 

“Kazuaki?”

 

Sei peered through the narrow gap in the door.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

He approached as he asked, then looked down at the desk and widened his eyes.

 

“What’s all this?”

 

“My dad’s watch.”

 

“Did you break it?”

 

“I didn’t break it. I took it apart.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I was curious.”

 

“About what?”

 

“I wondered how time flows.”

 

“You’re not going to find that out by looking inside a watch.”

 

“How do you know I won’t?”

 

“Well, I suppose…”

 

Why did time never stop? Why could it not go backwards? Who had decided how long each second should be, and why was it certain that things would continue that way?

 

Where did that certainty begin? He had hoped the fundamental mechanism might be hidden inside this small, precise machine. In reality, however, the more he broke it down into its components, the less it could mark time. It had at least astonished him to discover that parts far smaller than he could have imagined from the outside had been so carefully designed and fitted together.

 

Watching Kazuaki fold his arms, Sei asked anxiously:

 

“What are you going to do? Your dad’ll tell you off.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

He was not afraid of being scolded. Being praised did not make him particularly happy either. Of course, he felt bad if his parents looked sad, and if they were pleased, he thought that was a good thing.

 

“When are you going to tell him?”

 

Sei pressed him.

 

“Let’s tell him now. Your dad’s downstairs.”

 

It was unusual for Sei to urge him to do something.

 

They had known each other since they were little and lived nearby, but they were not inseparable. They were simply comfortable playing different games by themselves in the same space. Although not to the same extent as Kazuaki, Sei valued doing things at his own pace and respected Kazuaki’s wishes as well. That made him easy to be with.

 

“Because I’ll have to go home this evening. If we tell him now, I can get told off with you.”

 

Yet, strangely, the sound of that “with you” warmed Kazuaki’s chest. When he told his father that he had taken the watch apart, and explained why, his father’s eyes widened.

 

“You did all that yourself?”

 

Then he laughed.

 

“You do come up with interesting ideas. What goes on inside a child’s head, I wonder? I envy you.”

 

“You shouldn’t be laughing.”

 

His mother frowned.

 

“He’s broken your watch.”

 

“I haven’t broken it,” Kazuaki argued. “I only took it apart.”

 

“Then can you put it back together, Kazu?”

 

“I could have.”

 

“Why the past tense?”

 

His father still sounded amused.

 

“I laid everything out in the order I took it off. But Mum got a fright and gathered it all up, so now it’s mixed. I’m not sure I can do it any more.”

 

“Are you saying it’s my fault?”

 

“But it is. I’m not lying.”

 

Sei looked anxiously between Kazuaki, who defended himself without hesitation, and his offended mother.

 

“Now, now.”

 

His father intervened in his usual easy-going way.

 

“I’d have liked to see you put it back together too, but if that’s what happened, it can’t be helped. You’ve satisfied your curiosity now, so you won’t take another one apart, will you?”

 

“No.”

 

“You’re far too soft on him…”

 

“I simply don’t see any need to scold him.”

 

His mother still looked dissatisfied, but when she noticed Sei’s worried expression, her face softened in resignation.

 

“Sei, did you come along to support Kazuaki?”

 

Sei nodded.

 

“Oh, how sweet.”

 

She looked delighted, even though it had nothing to do with her.

 

What did “sweet” mean? Kazuaki wondered. Was it being together that was sweet?

 

“Keep being friends with Kazuaki, won’t you?”

 

Confusion appeared on Sei’s face. He was probably wondering why someone other than Kazuaki was asking him to do that.

 

His mother did not notice. Sei looked uncertainly at Kazuaki. Kazuaki looked back, trying to convey that he understood. Then his childhood friend smiled in relief. That made him happy.

 

Just Sei smiling—such a small response—made him happy enough that he no longer minded failing to solve the mystery of time. He searched inside himself for the reason, but could not find it. For the moment, he fixed one thing in his childish mind: being together seemed to be good. Being together with Sei, and no one else.

 

So he decided that if Sei ever wanted them to be together, he would make it happen. Whatever the circumstances. Dreaming of the past was nothing unusual, but this was the first time he had gone all the way back to his primary-school days. The memory belonged to a time long before the turning point that could never be undone. It left him quietly sad, but waking was not unpleasant. Ah, of course.

 

It was probably because he had handled Hiiragi’s watch the other day. The expression on Hiiragi’s face when he protested that his grandfather would tell him off had closely resembled Sei’s worried look as he said, “Your dad’ll tell you off.” Their features were nothing alike, though.

 

Why had he not felt particularly gloomy then? Was it because the exchange had taken place on a bright morning? Or had he simply managed not to remember? He opened the drawer of his bedside table. Inside lay a wristwatch with a matt silver bracelet. A gift left behind by Sei’s parents.

 

Cracks covered the sapphire crystal like a pattern worked into its surface, bearing witness to the force of the accident they had suffered. Its hands still pointed to “that moment”. He had never once asked Sei what he wanted done with it. If he asked, Sei would probably only tell him to throw it away. Kazuaki thought it best to do as Sei wished, yet the watch was still in his possession.

 

Perhaps Sei had assumed Kazuaki had disposed of it. There was no longer any way to ask him that either. He placed it in his palm and felt the weight of the cold metal. His memories could be wound back again and again.

 

The roadside where he had last spoken to Sei’s parents. Sei calling him, his voice as vague as though he had only just woken.

 

“I got a call… From the hospital…”

 

The detective explaining, matter-of-factly:

 

“We think it would be better if you didn’t view the bodies, so for now, we’d like you to identify them from their belongings.”

 

Everything that followed. Their last night. Their last morning.

 

His mind could return to the past so easily, yet even while he sat there, time in the real world continued forwards at its fixed rhythm. The bracelet, cool against his skin at first, grew warmer from his hand. Kazuaki resented his own body heat. It felt as though he had compromised the purity of something inorganic. He returned the watch carefully to the drawer, taking care not to chip the crystal.

 

When he reached Tsuwabuki’s house, Hiiragi’s moped was still there. It was a deep green, almost a camouflage colour. He let himself in with the spare key he had been given, called a greeting to Tsuwabuki in his upstairs study, then went down to the basement. Along the route that was becoming a habit, he neither saw nor sensed Hiiragi.

 

Even if he had the day off, perhaps he had gone somewhere by bus or on foot. Kazuaki set about his usual work. Two or three hours must have passed when he found himself struggling with a thick volume whose yellowed edges gave it the unmistakable air of an old book.

 

Many words were missing from the dictionary, and parts of the grammar seemed wrong. The more specialised dictionaries within reach were German–English or German–German, so even consulting them was beyond him. He tried not to turn to Tsuwabuki too readily, but stubbornly he insisted on doing everything himself; he was still an amateur. This time, he would admit defeat.

 

Taking the book with him, he knocked on the study door.

 

“Professor, do you have a moment?”

 

He waited, but there was no answer. Only classical music drifted through the door.

 

Remembering the other day, he felt a chill. Surely he had not collapsed?

 

“…Professor, I’m coming in.”

 

He turned the handle before he had finished speaking. Built-in bookshelves filled the walls on either side. Directly ahead stood a large south-facing window and a substantial writing bureau almost the size of a single bed.

 

“…Ah, Fujisawa.”

 

The back of the chair swivelled round, and Tsuwabuki appeared without incident.

 

“I’m sorry. I was miles away.”

 

“Not at all. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

 

When Kazuaki explained that he had a question and showed him the book, Tsuwabuki immediately seemed to understand.

 

“Ah. You must have found this difficult.”

 

“To be honest, I can’t make head or tail of it.”

 

“It’s a Portuguese person’s diary. In other words, it was written by someone whose native language wasn’t German. It’s full of mistakes, and parts don’t make sense, but the publishers deliberately left those errors intact. Perhaps that makes it a flawed book, but for someone like me, how the writer makes mistakes are extremely useful.”

 

“I see.”

 

Several pencils lay on the desk beside manuscript paper, divided into 200 squares per sheet. Tsuwabuki had said he spent his days on an assortment of commissioned translations and explanatory pieces.

 

By the window stood a photograph frame—one Kazuaki had designed. It held a picture of Tsuwabuki, his hair much blacker than it was now, and a blonde woman. Between them, a small child held both their hands.

 

“My late wife, and Hiiragi.”

 

Tsuwabuki must have followed his gaze.

 

The woman was who Kazuaki had expected, but the child’s identity surprised him a little.

 

“His hair was quite dark then.”

 

His eyes were brown too, but considerably darker than they were now.

 

“Yes. Once he reached puberty, my wife’s side began showing itself more and more clearly. Genes are curious things. His father never developed those features. It seems to have caused Hiiragi some unpleasant experiences, but there’s nothing to be done about that.”

 

“Nothing to be done?”

 

“No.”

 

“That surprises me. You’re kind, so I assumed you would say you felt sorry for him, or that it was unfortunate.”

 

“But that would make it sound as though my wife were to blame. Casually denying someone’s roots is far crueller.”

 

Was that how it worked? Kazuaki wondered.

 

“Oh, yes. We were talking about mistakes just now.”

 

Tsuwabuki pointed to the audio equipment occupying one corner of his desk.

 

“Do you know the piece that’s playing?”

 

“No.”

 

“Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Kumanbachi’.”

 

The piano raced at a dizzying tempo, as though firing a continuous barrage of notes. Now that he had been told it was a bee, the music did seem appropriate.

 

“Kumanbachi, or kumabachi—a carpenter bee. Apparently, some people use kumanbachi to mean a hornet too, so it sounds rather alarming. But the original title was ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’.”

 

“Why mistranslate it like that?”

 

“Perhaps someone misunderstood something. Or perhaps they thought ‘bumblebee’ sounded too endearing and deliberately changed it. We often see carpenter bees around here. They’re large, but quite docile, so there’s no need to worry if you encounter one.”

 

“I see.”

 

Even so, Kazuaki was not confident he could distinguish one from a hornet at a glance.

 

Tsuwabuki reached for the remote control and stopped the music.

 

“A carpenter bee’s wings are small in proportion to its body. For that reason, people once considered it a creature that should be unable to fly according to the principles of aerodynamics. So why did they fly? The conclusion was this: ‘They fly because they believe they can.’”

 

Kazuaki suspected he had let a sneer show.

 

“That’s an astonishing refusal to think.”

 

“Is it?”

 

“If believing hard enough settled things, we wouldn’t need science.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Tsuwabuki answered with easy patience, in the tone of someone accustomed to exchanges like this, hundreds or thousands of times over.

 

“Belief alone won’t make you fly. These days, scientific theory can explain how carpenter bees fly. Solving mysteries through a spirit of enquiry is admirable. But I think the human capacity to believe in ‘believing’ is just as wonderful.”

 

Tsuwabuki offered to take care of the book, so Kazuaki left it in the upstairs study.

 

Back on the ground floor, his gaze happened to travel down the corridor. Hiiragi stood in the kitchen at the far end. Seen beyond the dining table, his outline blurred in the light behind him, like an Impressionist painting. Too bright, Kazuaki thought, narrowing his eyes. Then he clearly saw the craft knife in Hiiragi’s hand, catching a small, sharp glint of light.

 

Its tip was about to sink into his other hand.

 

“Hey!”

 

At the sudden shout, Hiiragi nearly dropped the knife.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

Kazuaki approached with a severe expression.

 

“Don’t startle me like that.”

 

“I should be saying that to you. What are you doing with that thing?”

 

“What do you…?”

 

Then Hiiragi realised that Kazuaki appeared to have reached a rather alarming conclusion.

 

Surely nobody would cut their wrists in the kitchen in broad daylight.

 

“I’ve got thorns.”

 

“Thorns?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He pointed outside.

 

“I accidentally grabbed the pyracantha while I was working in the garden. The thorns went into my hand. Oh, pyracantha’s firethorn. The flowers have finished, but soon it’ll be covered in red berries. It’s beautiful.”

 

Ah. He had said, “beautiful”.

 

Sure enough, Kazuaki did not look moved in the slightest.

 

“So you’re removing the thorns with a craft knife?”

 

“I carried on working after they went in, so now they’re under a layer of skin and hard to get out with tweezers—”

 

“Have you disinfected it?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I’m asking whether that knife is hygienic.”

 

It was simply a piece of stationery, typically used to open letters and cardboard boxes. At Hiiragi’s unconcerned answer, Kazuaki sighed.

 

“But I washed my hands.”

 

He argued that he would wash them again after removing the thorns too, but Kazuaki shook his head in apparent disbelief and took the knife away.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Your left hand? Let me see.”

 

He firmly turned Hiiragi’s palm upwards and examined the places where the thorns were embedded.

 

“There’s more than one. Five… You certainly managed that thoroughly.”

 

“I was looking away and grabbed the branch properly.”

 

Hiiragi felt as though he were being scolded. It was not as though he had caused anyone trouble, which irritated him a little.

 

But Kazuaki’s gaze was so serious that he could not say anything. Small injuries were an everyday occurrence, and his grandfather did not fuss over every one. In that sense, this reaction was certainly new.

 

“Bring me some disinfectant and a needle.”

 

“What?”

 

“Quickly.”

 

Muttering that he was making far too much of it, Hiiragi fetched the first-aid box and sewing kit.

 

Kazuaki selected a sewing needle and wiped it with a tissue moistened with disinfectant. Then he took hold of Hiiragi’s wrist again.

 

“Don’t move,” he murmured.

 

He carefully pricked the thin film of skin covering a thorn with the needle’s tip. The ticklish sensation nearly made Hiiragi squirm, but he kept still, afraid of being told off again.

 

At this distance, close enough for their fringes almost to touch, Kazuaki’s face was remarkably well made. Rather than handsome or fine-featured, Hiiragi wanted to praise its workmanship.

 

Like roses, chrysanthemums or orchids entered in a show. As though there were a maker with a clear intention behind him, and his eyes, nose and mouth had arrived at their present form through cells dividing again and again according to a blueprint, without a single mistake. Angry or smiling, he would make a picture and draw people’s eyes. The man himself probably could not care less.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

“No.”

 

The new skin, only just regenerated, came apart easily, exposing the foreign object beneath it. Kazuaki exchanged the needle for tweezers and smoothly drew out the thorn.

 

When the small, hard ache of something embedded in his flesh suddenly vanished, a faint itch and a sense of something missing lingered for a few seconds.

 

“You really are good with your hands.”

 

“You’re far too careless.”

 

“Am I?”

 

He dropped the thorn onto a spread-out tissue, then took up the needle again.

 

“Do you have the day off?”

 

“Yeah. Don’t you ever take a day off?”

 

“If my coming every day makes your grandfather feel restricted, I’ll consider it.”

 

“I don’t think Grandpa minds… Don’t you get tired?”

 

“Not particularly. What about you? Working with soil even on your day off?”

 

“Our own garden’s completely different. I can do what I want with it. I don’t have to think about controlling when things flower.”

 

“I don’t understand that feeling, but I do think wearing work gloves would be sensible.”

 

Hiiragi did not need to be told.

 

Soil beneath his fingernails was difficult to remove. There were thorny plants, plants that irritated the skin, plants with hard bark—the list went on. Sometimes he used strong chemicals. Sometimes he crushed insects. Sometimes those insects were poisonous. Gloves were not merely sensible; they were essential.

 

“I wear them at work. At home, I just tend not to.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Hmm… It’s hard to explain, but I want to touch things with my bare hands. Isn’t holding hands through gloves a bit unsatisfying? It’s like that. The texture, the temperature… I get this urgent feeling that I have to check them properly.”

 

“Even if you get hurt?”

 

“I’m not very bright, so I never learn.”

 

“That isn’t an appropriate answer to the question.”

 

“Er…”

 

For someone so uninterested in other people, Kazuaki was oddly earnest—or inflexible.

 

Hiiragi was beginning to understand that he disliked carelessness, ambiguity and polite words spoken merely for appearances. It was difficult to imagine someone like him navigating relationships in an ordinary company, so Hiiragi was glad Kazuaki had a particular talent. Or was that none of his business?

 

“Flowers are beautiful, but there’s a lot that isn’t beautiful before they bloom. Roots rot, soil goes bad. We kill insects, and if other plants get in the way of something growing, we thin them out and kill them too. All of that’s for our convenience… But when you properly get your own hands dirty, the flowers look even more beautiful.”

 

That was right. Perhaps he had not known what “beautiful” meant either.

 

He had thought flowers simply grew and bloomed wherever they pleased. When he began working at the botanical garden, he had initially been astonished by how much time and care they required. Grown adults puzzled over the amount of water and type of fertiliser, their spirits rising and falling with each day’s weather. There was not a single day when they could safely leave everything alone.

 

The reason they went to such lengths was not something he could grasp immediately. He worked with all his strength, sweating through one stretch of monotonous labour after another. Then, at some point, Hiiragi found that he already knew, in a way that no longer depended on words. The beauty of flowers. The harsh struggle for survival behind their blooming and bearing fruit. The meaning of his own labour.

 

“We’re interfering with the cycle of life and death, so I suppose I want to feel that as directly as I can… Knowing a thorn hurts if it pricks you is completely different from actually getting pricked and feeling the pain, right? I can’t explain it properly… Just say I like using my bare hands.”

 

He began to feel as though he were delivering a pompous speech, so he brought it to a suitably imprecise conclusion.

 

“I understand,” Kazuaki said.

 

All the while, his hands had continued working, removing the thorns. There was none of the carelessness that familiarity could bring; he repeated the same task with the same steady caution.

 

A succession of tiny pains. It would have been so quick to make a little cut with the knife and pull them straight out. What amused Hiiragi was that this seemed to be simply Kazuaki’s nature, rather than a particular effort to spare him pain.

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

Being called by name just as he was thinking that felt so much like having his mind read that he instinctively pulled his hand away.

 

“Sorry. Did that hurt?”

 

“Huh? No, no. Sorry, that was me.”

 

“There’s only one left. Bear with it.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Kazuaki began working on a thorn embedded right at the first joint of his index finger.

 

“What were you about to say?”

 

“Your name. Is it written with the character for holly?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I see.”

 

“What?”

 

“In German, it’s Stechpalme. Stech means thorn, and Palme means palm. I thought it was an apt correspondence.”

 

“I didn’t know that.”

 

Once he had removed the last thorn, Kazuaki sprayed disinfectant onto a fresh tissue and pressed it against the small breaks in the skin, barely significant enough to call wounds.

 

Hiiragi could have done that much himself. He realised he had let Kazuaki continue because his hands were cool and dry, and their touch somehow felt pleasant.

 

“Is this room cold?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Your hands are cold.”

 

“This is their normal temperature. Don’t worry about it.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“If anything, I thought your hands were unusually warm.”

 

“Really? Mine are always like this too.”

 

“I see.”

 

As he put the disinfectant away, Kazuaki began tidying the disorganised first-aid box as naturally as breathing.

 

“When I was a child,” he said, “I went to the seaside with my family. I found a small fish in a rock pool. I think a wave had carried it there and left it behind. It kept swimming round and round in the shallow little pool.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

To his own surprise, Hiiragi felt relieved that Kazuaki did, after all, have a family, and that he was telling such an ordinary story about a summer holiday.

 

“It was silver… About the size of my palm now, I suppose. The sun was still beating down, and I thought it would cook and dry out if it stayed there. So I meant to scoop it up quickly in both hands and throw it back into the sea. Like you bringing that flower home the other day.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“It should only have taken a few seconds. But the moment I touched it, the fish went limp and stopped moving. It must have been weak already. In the end, I finished it off.”

 

“But then it would have happened sooner or later anyway, wouldn’t it?”

 

“I know. It was the first time I understood guilt, but it doesn’t trouble me. When I told my father, he said a human’s body temperature was too high for a fish. No matter how gently you touched one, you would burn it… Your talking about hands simply reminded me.”

 

“…Mr Fujisawa.”

 

Hiiragi hesitated, unable to predict how he would react, but decided to say it.

 

“You’re actually quite kind, aren’t you? Saying ‘actually’ is a bit rude, I suppose…”

 

“On what grounds?”

 

Kazuaki looked puzzled.

 

“You hate botanical gardens, zoos and aquariums because you feel sorry for the animals and things being kept to suit humans, right?”

 

“No.”

 

The denial came easily.

 

“I don’t think animals or fish, much less plants, have the intelligence to recognise their circumstances clearly. Feeling sorry for them is self-indulgent.”

 

Then why?

 

Hiiragi swallowed the question. For a moment, Kazuaki had looked somewhere terribly far away. His gaze, which seemed unlikely ever to wander or falter, had suddenly lost its focus.

 

“Because I’m the sort of person who does the imprisoning.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s precisely because I’m someone capable of deceiving another person and shutting them away for my own convenience that I don’t want to go near cages or tanks. It’s simple.”

 

Hiiragi could tell he regretted saying it immediately. A faint bitterness twisted his mouth: irritation at having said more than he intended.

 

“I need to get back.”

 

Kazuaki turned away.

 

“Ah—wait, Mr Fujisawa!”

 

Hiiragi did not want to pry further. He simply could not bear to let him go downstairs alone with that expression on his face, even if that was an entirely selfish feeling.

 

He hurried after the retreating figure and caught the hem of his shirt. Something. He needed to think of something suitable to say. With no plan whatsoever, the word he managed to squeeze out was:

 

“Food!”

 

Kazuaki stopped, so perhaps that counted as a success.

 

“Er, um… I was wondering what you’re doing for lunch. It’s that time already.”

 

Come to think of it, what did he do every day? His grandfather made do with leftovers or whatever prepared dishes they had in the fridge, but surely Kazuaki was not joining him.

 

“I don’t eat lunch.”

 

“Every day?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That’s no good.”

 

“I eat properly in the morning and evening. What’s the problem?”

 

“You must get hungry.”

 

“It’s not as though I’m starving for two or three days. When I’m working, I don’t notice.”

 

“That’s exactly what’s wrong with it! You don’t live entirely from the neck up. You have to listen properly to what your body tells you.”

 

Hiiragi returned to the kitchen, took the housekeeping purse from a cupboard drawer, and walked past Kazuaki towards the entrance.

 

“I was going to the supermarket anyway. I’ll buy something and make lunch.”

 

“There’s no need.”

 

“It’s fine! I’m making it! Even if you won’t eat it, I’m making it!”

 

“Don’t you run away,” he added—a baffling parting remark even to himself—then gripped his moped key and went outside.

 

He did not really understand why he was getting so worked up.

 

But if Kazuaki could take such care removing someone else’s thorns, surely he could pay a little more attention to himself. That thought had made Hiiragi feel something between sadness and anger. As his palm pressed against the handlebar grip, little points of pain stirred where the thorns had been removed. They throbbed because his pulse was racing. The sound of his blood flowing.

 

The rhythm of his body.

────────────────────────────────

Once, a thorn from an aubergine's cap had pricked him. It had been so fine that his grandmother had struggled for quite some time to remove it.

 

“What happens if you can’t get it out?”

 

As Hiiragi began to cry from pain and anxiety, his grandfather told him with a perfectly straight face:

 

“It’ll burrow deeper, swim through your blood vessels and stick into your heart.”

 

The cruel joke made him burst into tears, and his grandmother became angry.

 

“Please don’t say such foolish things.”

 

Then she reassured him.

 

“It’s all right, Hiiragi. Nothing of the sort will happen.”

 

She had never mastered casual Japanese, so she spoke politely to everyone.

 

“When I was a child, I broke a glass, and a piece about the size of a grain of sand went into my arm.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“When I grew up, I needed an operation, so I asked the doctor to take it out at the same time.”

 

“Did it hurt?”

 

“No. It was over while I was asleep. I was surprised to find that the glass had become rounded and wrapped in a white membrane.”

 

“Why did it go round?”

 

“Because my body worked hard to protect me. It’s the same as a shellfish making a pearl. So you needn’t worry either, Hiiragi. Even if we can’t get the thorn out, given time, your body will make it safe.”

 

There was a thorn inside that man, Hiiragi thought.

 

He did not know whether Kazuaki could not remove it or chose not to. But it had not become rounded. It remained sharp. A little while ago, he had accidentally touched the place where it was lodged. Even so, what did “shutting someone away” mean? Taken literally, it would be a crime, but perhaps Kazuaki had meant something more abstract.

 

As these thoughts wandered through his head, he reached the supermarket at the foot of the mountain. He could order online and have things delivered, but he preferred to go in person whenever possible. Whether it was meat, fish or vegetables, he thought it important to look at the actual thing and feel, “That’s what I want to eat.”

 

Since beginning work with plants that could not speak, he had learnt to respect his own physical senses. Not simply obey them, but properly recognise what his body wanted. As a result, he no longer slept or ate aimlessly the way he had when living in Tokyo.

 

“You’re gradually returning to the wild,” his grandfather would say, only half joking.

 

Then he would warn him:

 

“But that doesn’t mean you can neglect thinking.”

 

Perhaps if he and Kazuaki were added together and divided equally, they would turn out just right.

 

Even if he had spoken on impulse, he should at least have asked what Kazuaki liked and disliked eating. He had paid, put on the rucksack stuffed with groceries and household supplies, and was leaving the shop when it happened.

 

“Excuse me, madam. Could I have a word?”

 

The wrist caught a woman walking a few paces ahead of Hiiragi. The woman who had stopped her was dressed like any ordinary housewife, but her carefully controlled voice held the tension of a thread pulled taut.

 

“What is it?”

 

“You have some items you haven’t paid for, don’t you?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Just come this way. I saw everything.”

 

Hiiragi ran to the bicycle parking area.

 

The rustling of the plastic bags rubbing together behind his back sounded horribly loud. He put on his helmet and hurriedly inserted the key. Noticing his hands trembling, he told himself to get a grip, clenched them tightly and started the engine. His heartbeat sounded like footsteps pursuing him.

 

Of course, no one was following. He had paid for his shopping properly. He had done nothing to feel guilty about. This was why he hated his head. It held on to things he wanted to forget forever, then an unexpected switch illuminated the darkness of his memories.

 

He had never asked for that. Blinking could not erase the scene he had just witnessed. Revving the engine could not drive away the voices clinging to his ears. Hiiragi’s thorn remained sharp inside him too.

 

“Don’t you run away.”

 

With those words, Hiiragi had rushed out without even locking the door. As the sound of the moped faded, Tsuwabuki appeared upstairs.

 

“It’s rather lively down there. Has something happened?”

 

“No… I’m not entirely sure myself.”

 

He truly did not understand.

 

Not just why Hiiragi had been so persistent over something as trivial as lunch, but why he himself had let those words slip so carelessly. Had living without contact with anyone become a strain without his noticing?

 

“Oh? I hope Hiiragi hasn’t caused you any trouble. He can be rather thoughtless.”

 

“No, nothing like that.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Professor.”

 

“Yes?”

 

Kazuaki knew this was another unnecessary remark, yet he said it.

 

“Someone like him is probably capable of saying in all seriousness that you can fly if you believe. He doesn’t need logic to make sense of the world.”

 

“I shall take that as praise for my unworthy grandson.”

 

The eyes behind his glasses disappeared into his wrinkles.

 

Down in the basement, it was easy to lose track of time. Kazuaki had set an alarm for six in the evening, when he intended to finish work, so that caused no particular inconvenience. While entering the book records from his notebook into the computer, he noticed the small clock in the corner of the screen. It was just after half past four.

 

His hands stopped over the keyboard. Nearly five hours had passed since Hiiragi had declared that he would make something and gone out, yet Kazuaki had heard nothing from him. It was not that he wanted the food, but after such an emphatic declaration, simply changing his mind and abandoning the idea seemed unnatural.

 

Still, no one had called him. Had Hiiragi even come home? There were shops immediately at the foot of the mountain. It was difficult to imagine him spending hours shopping…

 

Then the possibility of a road accident occurred to him. What if he wanted to cook, but was no longer able to? A little moped like that would stand no chance against a car.

 

Kazuaki stood up without even backing up his work and headed for the ground floor. First, he checked the entrance. As he had feared, Hiiragi’s shoes were not there. He climbed the stairs. His heart was beating far faster than the rhythm of his footsteps.

 

He was not a child. There was no need to let his imagination run wild. There could be any number of reasons why Hiiragi had not returned. Kazuaki knew almost nothing about him, after all. Yet he was somehow certain that Hiiragi was not the sort of person to go back on his word so easily.

 

Just before he knocked on Tsuwabuki’s door, fragments of memory spread through his mind. Within the cracked crystal of the wristwatch, each fragment held a different picture. The last smiles he had seen on Sei’s parents’ faces. Stretchers covered with white sheets, the raised human shapes beneath them all too real.

 

Sei had been crying. Sei had been numb with shock. And so Kazuaki had been unable to tell him the truth, and had misjudged his own strength. The knock was so loud that it surprised even Kazuaki himself.

 

Perhaps that was why, instead of calling for him to come in, Tsuwabuki opened the door.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

“He…”

 

In contrast, Kazuaki’s voice was quiet.

 

“He went shopping, and he doesn’t seem to have come back yet.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Tsuwabuki’s upper eyelids twitched.

 

“I thought something might have happened.”

 

“He did come back.”

 

“What?”

 

“He came home once. I imagine he was putting the things he’d bought into the fridge. He was rustling about downstairs, then went out again.”

 

“I… see.”

 

Rather than feeling relieved, Kazuaki felt as though the ladder beneath his emotions had been pulled away. His needless anxiety had been left stranded, and he did not know what to do with it.

 

Noticing Tsuwabuki’s interested gaze, he hurriedly added:

 

“He said something about making a meal before he went out.”

 

What was he trying to cover up?

 

Why had he chosen that vague wording—“said something about”—when he normally disliked such expressions?

 

“It isn’t that I’m concerned because I was counting on lunch. He simply didn’t strike me as someone who made promises carelessly.”

 

“Yes, yes.”

 

Tsuwabuki nodded repeatedly, as though soothing his agitation.

 

“I know you don’t normally eat here. Besides, the library has a soundproof door, so you wouldn’t have heard Hiiragi coming home. I’m sorry he’s worried you. He’ll be back before long. I’ll give him a proper talking-to.”

 

Kazuaki was about to say there was no need when something struck him.

 

Tsuwabuki did not seem particularly puzzled that Hiiragi had failed to make the food. Did he have some idea why?

 

“Do you know where he’s gone?”

 

He tried an indirect question.

 

“Somewhere nearby, I imagine,” came the broad answer. “Perhaps something unpleasant happened while he was out, and he’s run away.”

 

“‘Run away’ is a rather strong way of putting it.”

 

“Is it?”

 

“You work with words, Professor. You wouldn’t exaggerate their meaning the way young people do.”

 

“You’re quite young yourself.”

 

Still smiling, Tsuwabuki asked:

 

“Do you think running away is a bad thing?”

 

“…It certainly isn’t generally understood as something positive.”

 

“No. But I’ve always wondered why it’s used as the opposite of fighting. Running away can be a way of fighting too.”

 

“That’s an unusually specious argument for you.”

 

Again, Kazuaki thought.

 

What did he know about his former lecturer that entitled him to call anything unusual for him?

 

“Is it specious? Why is facing things head-on the only response people praise? You run and run, and only when you’ve run as far as you can do you finally learn that you can never escape being yourself.”

 

“…Did you run away too, Professor?”

 

“Oh, my. That’s unlike you, Fujisawa.”

 

This time, Tsuwabuki was the one to say it.

 

“Deliberately asking for confirmation of something you already know.”

 

For some reason, Kazuaki could not bring himself to return to the library and continue working.

 

Today—ever since talking to Hiiragi—he had been strangely unable to concentrate, and his progress had been poor. It was the first time since coming here that his pace had fluctuated so noticeably. Becoming aware of it only irritated him and further disrupted his rhythm, trapping him in an unhelpful cycle.

 

He did not know why he had blurted out that he was the sort of person who shut others away. Nor could he simply tell himself that words could not be taken back once spoken, forget it and move on. Perhaps he was lonely for company. Had contact with another person after so long suddenly made him feel alone? Had a wish to confide in someone and be understood begun growing somewhere inside him?

 

He did not yet have enough evidence either to admit that it was true or to insist that it was not. The empty kitchen felt colder than the library. He could feel his blood cooling and realised afresh that, until just now, his heart had been pounding.

 

He had also been startled by the sight of Hiiragi with the craft knife. His heart was working irregularly today. He remembered hiding every blade in the house for Sei, and holding his breath whenever Sei looked at a tall building or a railway platform, his gaze suddenly emptying.

 

Ordinarily, people would think it impossible for a grown son to follow his parents into death, however sudden their loss and however deeply it wounded him.

 

Yet even without a definite wish to join them, the tip of a kitchen knife glinting at the edge of his vision, the lights of a train approaching at speed, the windows of a high building reflecting sunlight—after someone had cried themselves dry, such things could appear strangely inviting to their exhausted eyes and tempt a mind no longer thinking clearly. It could happen to anyone.

 

That was why the sight of Hiiragi had so shaken Kazuaki. Then, on realising he had misunderstood, he had become slightly angry at his carelessness. He ought to worry about himself more than his plants. Human fingers and hands did not grow back like branches.

 

Yet then he would become absurdly insistent over something as trivial as another person’s lunch. His allocation of concern was completely wrong. Kazuaki turned back again. This time, he noticed the telephone stand beside the door. Beneath it sat a shredder, and beside the shredder stood a cardboard box that apparently held unwanted documents.

 

More precisely, it was the bottom of that box that caught his attention. A single white envelope lay there as though forgotten. “Mr Hiiragi Tsuwabuki” was written on it in handwriting that was probably a man’s, and not particularly accomplished. Had it been overlooked when the other papers were shredded? Or had it only arrived today?

 

Without picking it up and checking, Kazuaki could not know whether anything was inside. Yet somehow he could not shake the feeling that Hiiragi had thrown it in there unopened. Trusting Tsuwabuki’s “somewhere nearby”, he went outside. He wondered whether he ought to say something first, but in the end, he did not.

 

From far enough away to take in the whole house, it struck him as a very closed place. Calling it another world hidden in the mountains would have been excessive. There were other houses nearby, and a bus passed through. Uphill lay the botanical garden; downhill were a supermarket, a petrol station and a DIY shop. It was not cut off from anything.

 

Then what was this secluded quietness of the two people living here? Tsuwabuki spent his time reading and writing in his room. Hiiragi’s daily life seemed to consist mainly of travelling between the house and the botanical garden. Hiiragi’s hands were roughened by working with soil.

 

They could not have become like that in a short time. What about his education? His parents? Did Hiiragi intend to live here for the rest of his life?

 

No—how long did Kazuaki himself intend to stay? The question suddenly occurred to him. About two weeks had passed. The signs of autumn were beginning to mingle more strongly with the remnants of summer.

 

He had not yet finished even a fifth of the work. Yet his efficiency had improved enormously compared with the beginning, so perhaps he would finish sooner than expected. Where would he run to next? How long would he keep doing this? What would become of him?

 

For example, by next year’s rainy season… He surprised himself. His mind, which had been occupied entirely with immediate escape, had looked further into the future. There was nothing he hoped for.

 

Nothing he wanted to do. Nowhere he wanted to live. No one he wanted to see. He was empty. But if he was questioning himself, did that mean he wanted to change?

 

If he did not want this to continue forever, what would he do? As Tsuwabuki suggested, would running further lead him to an answer? He thought he already knew all too well that he could never be anyone but himself.

 

He moved his feet as though trying to shake off the dizzying movement of his thoughts. Behind the house, where it was difficult to tell where the garden ended and the mountain began, stood a tall tree. He found Hiiragi beneath it.

 

Apparently asleep, he was leaning against the trunk. The tree must have been over three metres tall. Its dark-green leaves had serrated edges, like little saws. Looking at those alone, it seemed aggressive, yet white flowers peeped out here and there, giving off a faint, sweet scent. The small, four-petalled flowers gathered facing outwards, forming rounded clusters like ornamental hairpins.

 

Sharp, yet round. Rejecting, yet soft. A strange tree, Kazuaki thought. Unbalanced. Like Hiiragi.

 

When the wind blew, pieces broke away from the white spheres, and flowers fluttered down. As one flickered past Hiiragi’s nose, his brow creased, and his lips moved sleepily. For a moment, his expression was almost that of a baby. With a muffled murmur, he slowly opened his eyes. For those few seconds, his gaze was so completely unguarded that it seemed to be reflecting the world for the very first time.

 

Kazuaki involuntarily faltered. He felt that he ought not to be within that field of vision. After a few blinks, however, Hiiragi was himself again.

 

“Huh?”

 

He looked up at Kazuaki, glanced from side to side, then muttered:

 

“Oh, crap… What time is it?”

 

“Just before five, I think.”

 

“No way…”

 

He tipped his head back and lightly bumped the crown against the trunk.

 

“Sorry. I only meant to rest for a minute. I never made lunch.”

 

“No, it doesn’t matter.”

 

His attempt to reassure him seemed to have the opposite effect.

 

As Tsuwabuki had suggested, something must have happened while Hiiragi was out, upsetting him and sending him into hiding here. He did not look that way, but surely his grandfather’s judgement was more reliable than Kazuaki’s impression.

 

“It should matter.”

 

“I’m surprised you can sleep so soundly somewhere like this.”

 

They were outdoors, and the ground, with tree roots pushing up through it, could hardly be soft.

 

“I like this tree.”

 

“You like all trees.”

 

“Yeah, but… This one especially!”

 

“What sort of tree is it?”

 

Hiiragi looked surprised.

 

Kazuaki felt he ought to explain why he had asked, so that Hiiragi would understand. Even so, he did not tell him he thought the tree resembled him.

 

“I thought it was unusual. That’s simply my own impression, so I don’t know whether it’s rare. Perhaps I’ve merely never noticed it, and there are trees like this everywhere in town.”

 

“They’re not everywhere.”

 

Hiiragi smiled a little and pointed to the foliage overhead.

 

“Hiiragi-mokusei.”

 

“Hiiragi, like your name?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Now that he mentioned it, the leaves did resemble the material used for Christmas wreaths. But Kazuaki inevitably associated holly with red berries, so he could not connect that image to these white flowers.

 

“Do you know kinmokusei? The one with orange flowers… They use the scent in air fresheners and things.”

 

“I know the smell.”

 

“Kinmokusei’s a variety of ginmokusei. The orange-flowered one’s better known, though. And this tree is said to be a cross between hiiragi and ginmokusei.”

 

“‘Said to be’?”

 

“Why don’t you sit down?”

 

Hiiragi turned his hand and pointed beside himself.

 

Normally, Kazuaki would of course have remained standing. But today had been a succession of unexpected events, and he sat without feeling any particular resistance. Hiiragi, despite having invited him, widened his eyes.

 

“What’s got into you?”

 

“You suggested it.”

 

“Yeah, but I didn’t actually think you’d come.”

 

“Why make a suggestion if you expect it to be refused?”

 

“…I don’t think that deeply about every little thing. Don’t you get tired, Mr Fujisawa?”

 

“I am tired,” Kazuaki replied. “Every day. I’m tired of being tired.”

 

There he went again, saying something unnecessary. What an unseemly complaint.

 

He sighed in self-disgust. Beside him, Hiiragi’s shoulders shook. It was not Hiiragi’s fault. Yet he probably would not have let it slip if anyone else had been sitting there. Did that mean it was Hiiragi’s fault after all?

 

Putting the question aside, he prompted:

 

“What were you saying?”

 

“Hiiragi’s native to places like Japan and Taiwan. The European holly they use at Christmas belongs to the holly family, not the olive family, so that’s a different thing. Ginmokusei comes from China. They still don’t know where the two crossed and produced this hybrid.”

 

“Couldn’t ginmokusei have been brought over from China and crossed with hiiragi in Japan?”

 

“No. Hiiragi-mokusei itself is an introduced plant, so to speak, and only male trees exist in Japan.”

 

“So they can’t get beyond uncertain speculation?”

 

“Right. But that’s what I like about it. Trees that weren’t supposed to meet came together somewhere humans didn’t know about, became a new kind of tree and multiplied. Thinking about it makes me excited… Though the ones in Japan, including ginmokusei and kinmokusei, are all male, so we’ve propagated them through cuttings and layering. The things you don’t like.”

 

As though trying to brighten his own lowered tone, he picked up a fallen leaf and held it out.

 

“Look at this. Did you notice that the leaves near the top don’t have thorns round the edges?”

 

“No. I didn’t notice at all.”

 

Hiiragi immediately looked pleased with himself.

 

“Once it gets tall enough, insects don’t come near those parts any more, so the further up you go, the more the leaves get replaced by ones with smaller thorns.”

 

“I see. That’s rational.”

 

“Yeah. Plants have proper reasons for things. Being grotesque or aggressive, producing poison—it’s to protect themselves, not to go out of their way to hurt anything.”

 

He pressed the thorns against his fingertips, as though testing their sting.

 

“My name,” he said. “Grandpa and Grandma chose it for me. I was born in November, and holly’s meant to ward off evil. But hiiragi comes from hiiragu, which means to hurt. Apparently, even the character comes from the word for an ache. I used to think that wasn’t exactly lucky. But what you told me—‘a palm of thorns’—somehow made me happy.”

 

“I don’t think the meaning changes.”

 

“That’s why I said ‘somehow’.”

 

He turned the leaf between thumb and forefinger, showing first one side and then the other. Its thorns were still vigorous.

 

How many years would it take before it no longer pricked anything? His green eyes studied it, as though trying to measure that time. Without looking at Kazuaki, Hiiragi abruptly asked:

 

“What was Grandpa like in the classroom?”

 

“What was he like…?”

 

Kazuaki considered the vague question.

 

“Both his teaching and his manner were considerate. I think his classes were easy to follow. But I only took introductory German with him. It wasn’t a close relationship where he supervised my dissertation or anything like that.”

 

Yes. If anything, Tsuwabuki was far more of a teacher to him now.

 

“Even so, he asked you to do a job, and you agreed. That’s kind of strange.”

 

“There was no particular reason to refuse.”

 

“Oh…”

 

Hiiragi fell silent.

 

Kazuaki suspected he wanted to ask more searching questions about his grandfather. About the way he had left his job, almost as though driven out. Kazuaki had little information to offer, but Hiiragi’s next question was another broad one.

 

“Is university fun?”

 

“You’ll find out if you go.”

 

“Huh? I can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because… I only finished lower secondary school. And even without that, I’m not very bright.”

 

Why did he have to gather his courage and say something so trivial with such apprehension?

 

“If you study and obtain the qualification that makes you eligible, you can sit university entrance exams. If you pass, you can study at university. That’s all there is to it. There’s no age limit, and there are more options than you could want, from highly demanding institutions to less demanding ones.”

 

“You can say that so casually because you’re clever.”

 

“I’m only explaining the system. My intelligence has nothing to do with it. Besides, I’ve never thought you were stupid. We’re having a perfectly coherent conversation now, and you know a great deal about plants that I don’t. Presumably, you acquired that knowledge while working until your hands became rough. There’s no reason to consider it inferior to an academic record or a degree.”

 

Hiiragi stared at him.

 

The shade of the hiiragi-mokusei, whose place of origin remained unknown, fell across him, deepening the colour of his eyes. They looked like glossy, rounded seeds. Kazuaki was frightened by that roundness. Unless they put out at least a few thorns, they seemed liable to be damaged at once.

 

By whom? When Hiiragi lowered his eyes, Kazuaki felt relieved.

 

“You really are kind, Mr Fujisawa.”

 

“That again?”

 

“Because just now, I felt like you said that because you genuinely believed it.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“People tell me I can study whenever I want, or that qualifications don’t matter. But I can tell they don’t really mean it, or that they’d react differently if I were their own child… I know. That’s kindness too. They can hardly say it’s ridiculous to have left education when I did. So I smile and say, ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ But while I’m smiling, I’m thinking they don’t have to say things they don’t mean.”

 

“You smile even when you don’t want to as well.”

 

“Exactly. That’s why I thought it was amazing how real your words felt.”

 

That could not be right.

 

Kazuaki knew what a liar he was. Out of love for himself, he had spent years deceiving the person who mattered most to him. So the “realness” and the “amazing” part existed within Hiiragi, not Kazuaki. He did not say that. Instead, he asked:

 

“It isn’t that you wanted to continue to upper secondary school but couldn’t, is it?”

 

“No.”

 

Hiiragi nodded decisively.

 

“I chose it myself. So I still don’t regret that.”

 

Since he had failed to make lunch, Hiiragi invited Kazuaki to stay for dinner instead. Kazuaki was decidedly reluctant, but finally gave in when his grandfather added:

 

“Please let him make it up to you.”

 

So he would listen if Grandpa said it.

 

Hiiragi was not entirely happy about that. Even so, seeing Kazuaki properly treat his grandfather as a teacher pleased him, especially when they apparently had never been particularly close. Grilled fish, mushroom miso soup, a steamed chicken salad and warm tofu. Hiiragi lacked the skill to prepare a special feast, so he served their usual food. Kazuaki ate without complaint or praise.

 

It was hardly a setting where table manners mattered, but the way he handled his chopsticks was exceptionally graceful, probably without his realising it. He made no sound with his dishes. It was as though his bowl and plates alone were made of silicone. Impressed, and suddenly feeling terribly uncouth himself, Hiiragi unconsciously straightened in his seat.

 

“My, you’re unusually well-behaved today. Is that thanks to our guest?”

 

His grandfather noticed at once and teased him.

 

“It’s nothing like that.”

 

Embarrassed to have it pointed out in front of Kazuaki, Hiiragi felt annoyed with his grandfather. At that moment, having Kazuaki know he was behaving differently because of him felt unbearable.

 

“Your language hasn’t improved, though.”

 

Their guest seemed to have no particular opinion about the exchange.

 

“You don’t have a television,” he remarked, changing the subject entirely.

 

“No. We don’t feel the need for one. The radio and newspapers are quite enough for the news. Do you find something lacking without a television, Fujisawa?”

 

“No. Fortunately, I dislike them too.”

 

Then he looked at Hiiragi.

 

“What about you?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You’re young. Isn’t it boring without one?”

 

“Well, we’re not that different in age…”

 

“You seem determined to put yourself on the elderly side, Fujisawa.”

 

His grandfather laughed with evident enjoyment.

 

“When I first came here, I wanted to watch TV,” Hiiragi said. “I wanted to know what happened next in dramas and things, and it was so quiet here that I couldn’t settle. But I got used to it surprisingly quickly. Then one day, I suddenly realised that not having to think about watching this or recording that didn’t make me lonely at all. It was a relief.”

 

“Was it?”

 

“Yeah. But it wasn’t that television was bad. It was me. Grandpa said that if getting away from it made things easier, then I hadn’t really loved television. I’d just been dependent on it.”

 

After explaining that, his grandfather had asked whether he wanted to buy one.

 

Hiiragi had answered, quite sincerely, that he did not. Kazuaki was silent for a moment, as though considering his words.

 

“I think having someone beside you who can teach you things like that is valuable.”

 

“…Hear that, Grandpa?”

 

“Perhaps I should charge you tuition fees.”

 

“No.”

 

After that, the two of them began discussing books Hiiragi did not know, so he listened in silence.

 

During a pause in the difficult conversation, his grandfather remembered something.

 

“Oh, yes. I received a postcard the day before yesterday from someone I hadn’t heard from in a long time. Hiraiwa, who used to be in my seminar group. Apparently, he’s getting married… Do you know him, Fujisawa?”

 

“I see. I seem to remember hearing your name from him. Perhaps I’m mistaken.”

 

“Couldn’t it have been someone else with the same surname?”

 

“No, no. From what he said, it couldn’t have been anyone but you. And… There was someone with a slightly unusual name… Ah, yes. Nakarai. He once joined Hiraiwa on a trip with the German-language society. I went along as a chaperone and, well, something of a purse. I thought that was when I heard about you.”

 

“That doesn’t ring a bell.”

 

“I see.”

 

Then they returned to discussing books.

 

The atmosphere at the table had not changed. There had been no unnatural pause. It was an ordinary conversation. But Hiiragi thought: Huh? Mr Fujisawa just lied.

 

He had heard a sound, as faint as a leaf falling to the ground, yet unmistakable. The instant Hiraiwa’s name was mentioned, the tips of Kazuaki’s chopsticks had touched with a small click. It was a lie that he did not know him. And who was Nakarai?

 

Hiiragi could not picture the characters for the man’s name. He had seen no reaction to it, but perhaps Kazuaki had simply shut off his emotions and braced himself. Had his grandfather noticed? Thinking it unwise to signal any curiosity here, Hiiragi concentrated on the meal before him.

 

By the time Kazuaki left, it was naturally completely dark outside.

 

“I’ll walk you down to the foot of the mountain. It’s dangerous underfoot.”

 

Hiiragi offered with a torch in hand, but Kazuaki looked puzzled.

 

“And once you’ve seen me home, how do you intend to get back?”

 

“Huh? The way we came, obviously.”

 

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous too?”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

Streetlights stood at scattered intervals, but against the force of the darkness pressing down over them, they offered less reassurance than fireflies.

 

Despite what he had told Kazuaki, Hiiragi was still afraid of the mountain at night. He considered that a necessary fear. There was only a fine line between familiarity and taking something too lightly. Kazuaki had never stayed this late. He would not know the mountain once “human hours” were over. It was difficult to imagine him being frightened, but Hiiragi was uneasy about letting him go alone.

 

“Oh, then I’ll push the moped down with you. I can ride straight back. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

 

“There’s no need to go to that trouble.”

 

Kazuaki refused firmly. He even declined the torch, saying his phone had a light, and left.

 

Unlike earlier in the day, there was no getting through to him. Hiiragi stood sulking in the entrance.

 

“What’s his problem? Stubborn…”

 

Then he turned on his grandfather, who had silently watched the whole exchange.

 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

 

“What should I have said?”

 

“If you’d told him to let me walk him home, he might’ve listened.”

 

“Do I have that much influence?”

 

“Don’t play innocent…”

 

“If he might have listened, that’s all the more reason not to say it. I would only have put him in a difficult position.”

 

“Would it really have been that much of a nuisance?”

 

His grandfather sighed.

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t you understand? He told you from the beginning. He was worried about letting you come back alone once you’d walked down.”

 

“No, he didn’t.”

 

The conversation had only just happened. Hiiragi certainly remembered it. The word “worried” had never come up.

 

If anything, Hiiragi was the worried one.

 

“You’re not a small child. Must everything be spelt out? Why can’t you realise that Fujisawa went home alone out of consideration for you?”

 

“…You’re overthinking it.”

 

After an even deeper sigh, his grandfather scolded him.

 

“And you’re not thinking at all. Fujisawa was worried earlier too, when you broke your promise and wandered off.”

 

“What?”

 

“When he realised you weren’t here, he came thumping up the stairs and knocked loudly on my door. Do you think he would behave so noisily in his usual state of mind?”

 

When Hiiragi woke from his excessively long nap, Kazuaki was right there.

 

He had been so flustered by the approaching evening that he had not thought about it, but his grandfather was right. Kazuaki had come looking for him. Otherwise, he would never have gone into the garden.

 

Hiiragi tightened his grip once around the torch he was still holding.

 

“I’m going out.”

 

He slipped on his shoes and headed outside.

 

His grandfather tried to stop him, but Hiiragi only looked back once.

 

“Take your medicine!”

 

Then he added:

 

“And it’s cold tonight, so keep yourself warm.”

 

He did not know what he intended to do by chasing after Kazuaki. If he told him, with complete honesty, that his grandfather had said he had been worried, Kazuaki would only tell him to stay put then. But he could not remain still. Within the circle of torchlight on the ground, he noticed that his shoelaces had come untied. Even taking the time to fasten them again felt like too much of a delay.

 

The darkness and silence of the walk home seemed to urge Kazuaki on. Use this darkness. Run away. It had been a mistake to come to Tsuwabuki, letting his guard down because their connection was slight. He was angry at his own carelessness in ignoring the possibility that it might lead back to people he knew.

 

Had Tsuwabuki realised he was pretending to be ignorant? If he had found anything even slightly suspicious, there was every possibility he would contact Hiraiwa and ask about “Fujisawa”. Kazuaki needed to sever every thread that might connect him to Sei.

 

Even if they never met or spoke, he could not allow word of where he was or how he was living to reach Sei through someone else. He could ask Tsuwabuki to keep quiet. If he said it was confidential, the man would surely agree without asking why. But another part of him wondered whether he should really have to go that far.

 

He could simply go home, take his personal belongings and leave. Cancel the agreement for his temporary accommodation and have the few household things he owned disposed of. Then every trace of Kazuaki would disappear. There had been no formal employment agreement. Even if Tsuwabuki contacted the office afterwards, Kazuaki could simply ignore it.

 

Running away was so easy. A bright light caught him from behind. Caught him, and his thought of escape.

 

There was no engine, so it was not a bus. He turned to find Hiiragi holding a torch.

 

“Why?”

 

Why did he come at a time like this?

 

In the torchlight, stripped of shadows, Kazuaki’s face looked even more inorganic than usual. Hiiragi stopped without meaning to. His features held a cold intensity.

 

“Why…?”

 

Perhaps rushing out on impulse had been a mistake after all.

 

Was he angry because Hiiragi had not listened? Yet it did not seem to be simple irritation. Some other emotion had stiffened Kazuaki’s face. Hiiragi did not know what it was.

 

At any rate, he seemed to have interrupted him. An apology nearly slipped out. Surely the sensible thing would be to turn round, go back and pretend he had seen nothing. He could tell his grandfather that Kazuaki had looked bothered after all, and be met with an exasperated response. During that brief silence, Hiiragi ran through the possibilities at dizzying speed.

 

Then he said:

 

“…I just came out for a walk.”

 

“A walk?”

 

Kazuaki’s brows drew together instantly, but Hiiragi insisted:

 

“Yeah.”

 

However transparent the excuse, he did not want to retreat now.

 

Perhaps he ought to leave Kazuaki alone, but he did not want to. He did not want to abandon him with that expression on his face. After all, Kazuaki had come looking for him too.

 

He passed Kazuaki and began walking ahead. Thank goodness there was only one road. Surely Kazuaki would not plunge into the mountains simply to avoid him. Why was it? Hiiragi wondered.

 

Why had he been so embarrassed when his grandfather teased him about his good manners? He probably would not find the answer by asking either his grandfather or Kazuaki. For now, then, he would follow because he wanted to follow.

 

“You deliberately came out at this hour?”

 

Relieved to hear footsteps behind him, Hiiragi repeated:

 

“Yeah. It’s not even that late… Huh?”

 

When he switched on his watch’s backlight, it was still showing three in the afternoon.

 

“No way. It’s stopped again… Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine. I remember how to do it.”

 

He defended himself before Kazuaki had said anything.

 

“Hold this a second.”

 

He handed over the torch.

 

Since he could only think about one thing at a time, he no longer had room to worry about their earlier awkwardness. Thumb at six o’clock, move it horizontally…

 

Murmuring the instructions to himself, he moved his hand just as Kazuaki had taught him. Or so he thought.

 

“Huh… It’s not moving.”

 

The hands did not so much as twitch.

 

“…Do you think it hates me?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

Kazuaki smoothly took the watch and moved it from side to side. His movements seemed the same as Hiiragi’s, yet were different: smoother, quieter.

 

His gestures held a stillness that seemed to absorb the sounds around them rather than create any. For a moment, Hiiragi forgot the treetops rustling in the wind and the insects' calls. Every little thing this man did was graceful.

 

If he could not recognise that himself, what a waste.

 

“…There.”

 

The watch he held out had regained its fine, fluttering tick.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Hiiragi left setting the time until later and fastened it round his wrist. He sensed Kazuaki release a small breath.

 

The atmosphere that had felt rough against him, as though mixed with sand, was gone.

 

“You have a way of taking the venom out of me.”

 

Hiiragi was unsure whether he should take that positively.

 

“Did I interrupt something?”

 

Kazuaki shook his head and gestured along the road.

 

“Light the way. You’re going for a walk, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

His own voice sounded somehow different on the mountain at night. The ends of his words seemed to stretch thinly like tendrils, entwining themselves among the branches and lingering without fading.

 

Kazuaki’s voice, coming from a little behind him, also sounded deeper and carried further than usual. Its resonance left a warm, ticklish feeling in Hiiragi’s ears.

 

“What do you do every day?”

 

Distracted by that unfamiliar sensation, he failed to take in the important part: Kazuaki’s question.

 

“Huh? Sorry, say that again.”

 

“I asked what you do at the botanical garden.”

 

“Who else would I mean?”

 

When Hiiragi failed to answer immediately, Kazuaki added:

 

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

 

“No, it’s not that!”

 

This was not a man who asked such things merely to fill a silence or be polite.

 

Kazuaki really wanted to know. How Hiiragi worked. About Hiiragi.

 

“There are all sorts of things…”

 

What a stupid answer. His voice had even gone slightly high.

 

Why was he panicking? It was as though, if he failed to answer within a time limit, Kazuaki would return to that stony expression he had worn when they first met and lose interest in him. That frightened him.

 

Why? Happiness, enjoyment, irritation, sadness—Hiiragi’s emotions had always been things he could hold and recognise. He ought to have been able to grasp them as naturally as a fortune-teller read the colours and shadows in a crystal ball.

 

Yet with Kazuaki, his view of himself grew clouded. He could not tell where he stood among joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure, or where he wanted to settle. What was making his heart so restless?

 

“In the morning, I start by going all round the garden. That takes nearly two hours.”

 

“Every day?”

 

“Every day. They told me looking was the most important part of the job. At first, I didn’t get it. After about a week, I thought I’d seen enough. But that wasn’t what they meant. You have to observe properly. A bud’s opened a little, a new shoot’s appeared, the soil’s cold today, the leaves are dry today. Nothing’s the same from one day to the next, and that’s interesting. Lately, there’s a Somei-yoshino cherry tree that hasn’t been doing very well. I’m worried about it.”

 

“What else?”

 

“I keep cultivation records, check the greenhouse temperatures, water things with the watering vehicle, water the seedlings in the greenhouse. Then there’s syringing—that means misting the leaves to keep the humidity up… As we get towards winter, we have to make leaf mould too. Gather fallen leaves, mix in water and oil cake, and let it ferment.”

 

“You sound busy.”

 

“I’m only helping, though.”

 

Hiiragi hurried to qualify it.

 

“There isn’t really anything I can proudly call my own work yet. Making flowers bloom according to a human schedule is incredibly difficult, and I’m only part-time, so they don’t give me anything with that much responsibility.”

 

“I see.”

 

His reaction was brief, but Hiiragi could tell he was listening properly.

 

If he had known nothing about Kazuaki’s personality, though, he might have wondered whether the man was listening at all. He was awkward. Incredibly awkward.

 

“Can I ask you something too?”

 

“If it’s something I can answer.”

 

Even a qualification like that could sound curt to some people. But Hiiragi was glad of the care Kazuaki took to draw his boundaries in advance.

 

It meant that, within the permitted area, he would never give a careless answer.

 

“Why aren’t you doing design work?”

 

He asked while preparing himself for the possibility that this was outside that area.

 

Kazuaki answered readily.

 

“I can’t think of anything.”

 

“Nothing at all?”

 

“No. It isn’t as though I ever had grand theories or ideas. I simply made things I wanted, or wanted to use, whenever I felt like it. There happened to be a certain number of other people who wanted them too. Once that stops, someone who’s never used theory to squeeze ideas out of himself can’t do anything.”

 

“That’s a big problem, isn’t it?”

 

Kazuaki sounded no more concerned than someone who could not find the remote control.

 

“I’m not particularly anxious. I more or less expected it.”

 

Their footsteps had fallen into an almost identical rhythm. Kazuaki was matching his pace.

 

It was a little disappointing that he seemed unaware of the sensitivity that allowed him to be so naturally considerate.

 

“Expected it?”

 

“Every time I made something, I thought it might be the last. I was never the sort of person whose next idea appeared one after another. I can’t believe the mind is limitless.”

 

“I thought people who made things were all excited about what they’d do next.”

 

“Perhaps some are. I’m not.”

 

“Even if you can’t think of anything, don’t you still want to make something?”

 

“Why do you ask?”

 

Their steps sent a tremor through the torch, shaking the white circle on the ground.

 

Midday, with sunlight moving through the leaves in the wind, felt very far away.

 

“I don’t really understand design, but Grandpa and I both like the dishes and things you make.”

 

Only after saying it did Hiiragi realise he had been nervous about using the word “like”.

 

“Come to think of it, that was the first time I’d seen someone using my work in their everyday life at home. It was a new experience… Thank you.”

 

When Kazuaki thanked him, Hiiragi felt as though he had done something very good.

 

And he felt relieved that, however small it was, he had managed to draw something positive from him: gratitude or pleasure.

 

“When a flower opens in the garden, I get excited and call Grandpa over straight away. Sometimes he looks like I’m being a nuisance… Don’t you ever feel like that? Wanting to show someone, getting excited about it. Like, ‘Look what I made.’”

 

At that moment, Kazuaki’s pace faltered slightly.

 

Drawn out of step as well, Hiiragi nearly lost his own rhythm. After two or three clumsy steps, like a child who could not skip, he turned. Had he strayed into an area Kazuaki could not answer? His face was neither the troubled one he had worn when Hiiragi caught up with him nor his usual flat expression.

 

It held a stillness from which all emotion had fallen away. It was like witnessing that instant on a mountain when the rustling leaves, the movement of fallen foliage and the birdsong suddenly stopped. There was no need to break such silence yourself.

 

Just as you noticed it, the moment ended.

 

“…Rain,” Kazuaki murmured.

 

He sounded as though he had forgotten Hiiragi’s question entirely.

 

“What?”

 

“I just felt a drop.”

 

“No way… Oh, you’re right.”

 

A drop spread into a dark mark on the ground.

 

More quickly fell on Hiiragi’s hair and shoulders, turning into white threads in the torchlight.

 

“Even your forecast missed it?”

 

“I’m not right every single time. At night, it’s harder to make out the colour of the sky and the clouds…”

 

Hiiragi knew Kazuaki was not serious, yet failing to predict the rain felt like a mistake on his part.

 

“Shall I fetch an umbrella?”

 

“No. We’ve already walked quite a distance. I’d rather keep going and get wet than lose time turning back.”

 

“I’ll run. You could shelter under a tree until I get back.”

 

Kazuaki frowned.

 

“Don’t. Running downhill when you can’t see properly and the footing’s bad…”

 

His grandfather’s observation returned to Hiiragi.

 

Worried. Beneath the skin cooling in the strengthening rain, something that was neither flesh nor blood slowly warmed him. He did not know what it was.

 

“This isn’t something you need to feel responsible for.”

 

“But if I hadn’t stopped you in the first place, you’d be home by now. You wouldn’t have got caught in it.”

 

“If I’d wanted to go home, I would have gone, whether you stopped me or not.”

 

“But—”

 

“Whatever the case, standing here talking is the worst option.”

 

Having made that entirely reasonable point, Kazuaki took Hiiragi’s hand.

 

“Come on.”

 

“Hey.”

 

“If I leave you alone, you look liable to run off.”

 

“I won’t…”

 

Hiiragi had not expected him to touch another person so casually. It caught him off guard.

 

Of course, Kazuaki’s grip was loose enough to shake off easily. Hiiragi did not. The drops battering the trees drowned out the sound of his heart. All he could feel was the pounding inside his chest, travelling even to their joined fingertips.

 

By the time they reached Kazuaki’s house about twenty minutes later, they were soaked all over.

 

“Come in. It doesn’t matter that you’re wet.”

 

Even so, Hiiragi could hardly stride through someone else’s house in this state. As he lingered in the entrance hall, Kazuaki handed him a bath towel.

 

“This way. The bathroom’s here. You go first. Put all your clothes in the washing machine, and I’ll dry them.”

 

“Huh? No, you can go first. Actually, I’m heading back.”

 

He had only intended to borrow an umbrella and turn straight round, so the instruction made him hesitate.

 

He had forced his company on Kazuaki after being told not to come. Surely borrowing his bath as well was far too presumptuous?

 

“Just hurry up.”

 

Ignoring his hesitation, Kazuaki pushed the towel into his hands.

 

“If I catch a cold, I can tell your grandfather and take time off. You can’t do that so easily, can you?”

 

“It’s not that I can’t. I don’t want to.”

 

“Then get in the bath. Your lips are a bad colour.”

 

Hiiragi still felt awkward. But on an already cool mountain night, the sudden rain had robbed him of his warmth, and he was undeniably cold.

 

He nodded, took off his waterlogged trainers and went inside. Fortunately, the bathroom was immediately beside the entrance. The room was spacious enough to be nearly the size of ten tatami mats, with generous space for the bath, toilet, washbasin and changing area. Both the floor and walls were covered in small, pure-white tiles.

 

Imagining the work of cleaning every grout line with a toothbrush almost made him dizzy. Yet there was no visible dirt or mould. The room went beyond cleanliness and into the chill of a sterile chamber, bringing on a sneeze. No. He needed to warm up.

 

As instructed, he put everything he had taken off into the washer-dryer. Then he drew back the shower curtain that partitioned off one part of the room and showered in the bathtub. Hot rain fell over him from above. As it gathered shallowly in the tub and slowly warmed his feet, a relieved breath escaped him. After a while, he heard the door open, and Kazuaki came in.

 

“I’ll leave you a change of clothes.”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

He had not thought at all about what he would wear afterwards.

 

He thanked him, but the noise of the shower might have drowned it out, so he turned off the water, opened the curtain a narrow crack and put his head out.

 

“Um…”

 

His eyes met Kazuaki’s as Kazuaki took off his clothes.

 

His focus narrowed to the bare upper body. Perhaps even Kazuaki noticed his pupils contract.

 

“Sorry!”

 

He hurriedly ducked back behind the curtain and, for good measure, crouched down.

 

On the other side of that single sheet of fabric came several electronic beeps, followed by a muffled sound of water.

 

“Take your time.”

 

Kazuaki left with those words, but Hiiragi could not answer. He remained staring at the droplets on his knees.

 

He thought he ought to say something, yet no words came. Was he getting flustered over something like this because he felt nervous in an unfamiliar house? Calm down. They were both men.

 

Even telling himself that did nothing to settle the restless feeling beneath his skin. Kazuaki had seemed so lacking in the physical reality of a living person. Yet his bare skin, and the shapes of bone and muscle beneath it, had looked terribly sensual to Hiiragi, like something he ought not to see. At least Kazuaki had not reacted at all.

 

Well, of course he had not. They were men. What if he thought Hiiragi was strange for getting so flustered? He remembered his grandfather saying his world had become too fixed.

 

At the time, he had thought it none of his business. His grandfather was the one who had said he could live here. But perhaps he had a point. Since leaving lower secondary school, Hiiragi had remained tucked away on the mountain. He had no friends.

 

There were employees at the garden close to his own age, and people he talked to comfortably, but they were colleagues and senior staff who taught him his work. Even so, he enjoyed dealing with plants more than people, and his grandfather was there when he came home. He had felt neither lonely nor lacking. Yet now he did not understand himself.

 

Why had seeing Kazuaki half naked made him so self-conscious? Why did imagining both their sets of clothes tumbling together inside the washing machine do the same? If he had plenty of friends visiting his home, would this have been an ordinary exchange that did not bother him at all?

 

“No, he’s not even a friend in the first place.”

 

Nor did Hiiragi have any sense that they were about to become friends.

 

Muttering to himself, he put in the plug and began filling the bath. Otherwise, he would grow cold again. What had it felt like being with other men? He was sure he had never been this flustered while changing for PE or during school trips. There had been no reason to be.

 

The water level rose steadily, but no answer took shape in his head. He had always taken every kind of question to his grandfather. Surely, though, he could not ask him this. Why did looking at Mr Fujisawa make him feel so restless?

 

A fresh bath towel and a bathrobe lay folded on a shelf in the changing area. Wow. He had never worn anything like this. Both were pure white. Although not particularly thick, they were soft, pleasantly absorbent and comfortable.

 

A pair of linen slippers had been set neatly by the door. Those seemed to be for him too, so he put them on. They were a little large.

 

“…Thank you.”

 

When he ventured into the living room, Kazuaki pointed to the single stool at the kitchen counter.

 

“Sit down.”

 

Even if he never expected visitors, didn’t people usually put two of that sort of thing together without really thinking about it?

────────────────────────────────

A deep indigo demitasse cup was set in front of him. Its interior was a startling white.

 

“Thank you… Whoa.”

 

The instant he took a sip, Hiiragi screwed up his face at a bitterness that seemed capable of numbing him from his tongue to the crown of his head.

 

He knew what espresso was, but this was his first time actually drinking it. Approaching it with no more preparation than “It’s a kind of coffee, right?” had been a mistake. How could it be this bitter? Seeing his expression, Kazuaki quickly removed the cup.

 

“Wait, wait. Sorry, um…”

 

It had surprised him, but he had not thought it tasted bad. If he accepted that this was the sort of drink it was and enjoyed it in little sips, he could probably grow to like it.

 

As Hiiragi hurriedly reached out, Kazuaki gave a faint, wry smile.

 

“You don’t have to force yourself.”

 

“It’s not forcing myself. Grandpa likes weak coffee, so I’ve always drunk the same thing…”

 

Now he sounded as though he were making excuses. Worse, Kazuaki might think he was shifting the blame.

 

Unconcerned by Hiiragi’s agitation, Kazuaki took out a mug and poured the espresso into it. He added milk, stirred it lightly and put it in the microwave.

 

“I don’t have any sugar, so you’ll have to make do with this.”

 

A minute later, a café latte was sending up gentle wisps of steam in front of Hiiragi.

 

“That’s good…”

 

This time, his face relaxed as he said it, quite sincerely.

 

“I’m glad.”

 

Meeting Kazuaki’s gaze directly felt likely to make him start behaving strangely again, so Hiiragi looked down at the surface of the latte, where a skin was beginning to form.

 

The mug felt pleasant cupped between both hands.

 

“This is the same one I use at home.”

 

“Ah. Thank you.”

 

Kazuaki stood by the sink, drinking his espresso.

 

“You’re surprisingly good at looking after people, aren’t you?”

 

“Hardly.”

 

Then, after considering it briefly, he said:

 

“What about you? Don’t people tell you they can’t leave you alone? That they can’t take their eyes off you?”

 

“Huh? Not at all. Grandpa basically leaves me to it. People are more likely to say I could survive anywhere. I can sleep anywhere, and I’ll eat anything.”

 

“But not espresso.”

 

“I told you, it just surprised me!”

 

Perhaps the force of his protest amused him, because Kazuaki laughed.

 

Even when he laughed, he made no sound. The rain outside accompanied his smile instead, and Hiiragi somehow felt lonely. Apparently, it was still raining hard. Once he finished this, he would probably have to leave.

 

Would his clothes be dry? Or perhaps Kazuaki intended to lend him something else. He could not imagine looking right in the sort of button-down shirt or straight-cut trousers Kazuaki wore… No, that was hardly the point.

 

“I called your grandfather while you were in the bath.”

 

As though he had read Hiiragi’s mind, Kazuaki brought up the subject.

 

“At first, I intended to call a taxi. But with this rain, and apparently no cars nearby, they were reluctant. So I told him you would stay here tonight.”

 

Hiiragi stared.

 

“Is that a problem? Your grandfather didn’t object.”

 

“No… I just assumed I’d be going home.”

 

“The rain is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning. There’s no reason to make a point of going back now.”

 

“I suppose…”

 

Kazuaki finished his coffee before Hiiragi.

 

“I’ll have a bath too. Leave the cup when you’re done. The bedroom’s through the door on the right. You can go to bed first.”

 

“Okay.”

 

The bedroom was neat and simple.

 

A bed, a bedside table, a desk and a chair. On the desk were a laptop, a desk lamp and a magazine rack holding a few magazines. Every view in this house looked like a photograph in a magazine. Although it contained practical appliances such as a washing machine and fridge, there was almost no sense of everyday life. Perhaps that was because nothing revealed Kazuaki’s attachments or memories.

 

All Hiiragi could see was an intention to strip away anything unnecessary. And entering someone else’s bed presented a greater mental hurdle than entering their house or wearing their clothes. He stood for a while, staring at the bed linen, which was entirely white like everything else. Eventually, he braced himself—not an exaggeration—and lifted the covers to lie down.

 

His bare feet recoiled for a moment at the smooth, cool sheets, but soon grew accustomed to them. The bed was wider than his own, the duvet soft and fluffy. It felt good. After stretching out his arms and legs and rolling from one side to the other, he burrowed beneath the covers up to his eyes and breathed in through his nose.

 

Oh. It really did smell of Mr Fujisawa. The thought reassured him, but at the same time, he became embarrassed with himself. What was he, some kind of pervert?

 

The room was beautiful but far too impersonal. He had simply felt relieved to find proof that Kazuaki actually lived here. The rain, which had been nothing but a nuisance while they were getting soaked outside, was wonderfully comforting when heard from bed. It felt as though he were protected by a barrier of water.

 

His drowsiness quickly deepened. Just before he slipped properly into sleep, a basic question crossed his mind. Where was Mr Fujisawa going to sleep? His eyes snapped open as though someone had slapped his cheek.

 

Of course. In a house with only one chair, there was unlikely to be a spare bed or extra bedding. Annoyed with himself for being so oblivious, Hiiragi left the bedroom.

 

“Mr Fujisawa!”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Kazuaki had apparently finished bathing without his noticing. He was sitting on the stool, reading a book.

 

“Can’t you sleep?”

 

“That’s not it. Where are you sleeping?”

 

“There’s nowhere. That’s why I’m here.”

 

He said it so readily.

 

“I didn’t think I needed one, so I didn’t buy one, but perhaps I should have got a sofa, at least. Don’t worry about it. I want to finish this book I borrowed from your grandfather.”

 

“Of course I’m going to worry.”

 

Kazuaki was going to stay awake all night because Hiiragi had descended on him.

 

“You can read in bed. I’ll swap with you.”

 

“I can’t do that.”

 

“And I can’t kick you out of your own bed and make myself comfortable.”

 

When Hiiragi refused to give in, Kazuaki closed his book and turned to face him properly.

 

“Then what do you think we should do? There’s one bed. We both think the other person should use it, and neither of us intends to give way. What solution do you propose?”

 

There was one.

 

Or rather, it was the only solution. But Hiiragi hesitated to say it aloud. As he fumbled for words, Kazuaki spoke first.

 

“I don’t mind.”

 

Hiiragi looked at him.

 

“Sharing the bed. It’ll be a little cramped, but that’s hardly a problem. I thought you might dislike the idea.”

 

“I don’t mind. I mean, I was the one…”

 

He had been afraid Kazuaki would find it unpleasant if he suggested sleeping together.

 

“Oh. Then there’s no problem.”

 

Almost before he had finished speaking, Kazuaki stood, turned off the kitchen light and headed straight for the bedroom.

 

Hiiragi followed. Only the faint light attached to a picture rail on the wall remained. There were no paintings or photographs hanging from it. There was only one pillow too, but that hardly seemed worth another argument over who should have it, so Hiiragi accepted it without protest.

 

Kazuaki put his arm beneath his head, faced the wall and turned his back to him. Apparently, he had lost interest in reading. He dimmed the light as far as it would go.

 

“Don’t you use upstairs?”

 

“I don’t have much stuff.”

 

Nor did he sound as though he intended to start.

 

“Oh… Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

Perhaps because Kazuaki was not looking at him, Hiiragi managed not to feel too nervous. He did worry about kicking him in his sleep, though.

 

As he gazed drowsily at the back of Kazuaki’s head through half-closed eyes, he heard a quiet murmur.

 

“I was thinking.”

 

“…About what?”

 

“About whether I’m good at looking after people. I still think I’m bad at taking an interest in others, and at having them take an interest in me. But there was one person before whom I couldn’t leave alone. Someone I couldn’t take my eyes off.”

 

“…I see.”

 

For the first time, Hiiragi experienced a strange sensation.

 

Not the pain of a thorn piercing him, but of something sharp pushing out from within. He closed his eyes tightly to hold it down.

 

“But there was responsibility involved, and all sorts of circumstances… Of course, I didn’t resent it. It was the result I wanted. But I was always anxious, never able to relax… It was quite different from what I feel when I look at you.”

 

Hiiragi did not ask how that person was doing now.

 

This house, with only one person living in it, was answer enough.

 

“Is that person all right without you keeping an eye on them?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Kazuaki’s voice was quiet, but full of certainty.

 

“It’s better that way.”

 

“But wouldn’t you be lonely if someone who’d always worried about you wasn’t there any more?”

 

“No. It will probably be a relief. I hope it is. I want him to realise it was nothing more than dependence.”

 

“…People aren’t televisions.”

 

“I know.”

 

After that brief answer, Kazuaki said nothing more.

 

The sound of rain pressed on his ears. Kazuaki lay motionless, looking at the pattern on the wallpaper. The arm he was using as a pillow had long since gone numb. He was remembering the story of the hiiragi-mokusei.

 

No one knew where or how the two trees had met. Yet despite being unable to move, they had certainly encountered one another beyond human knowledge and joined. Things that should never have crossed paths. Was that what Sei and the man he had chosen were like?

 

A series of coincidences had connected them. What began as a tiny point of contact had eventually become a powerful current, binding them firmly together. By the time Kazuaki learnt of it, it was too late. Yet he did not believe he could have done anything even if he had noticed sooner.

 

If things that were never supposed to meet had met, perhaps that meant the same as saying they had been destined to meet. They had simply taken an unhappy detour. And perhaps even that detour had existed for the sake of the encounter that truly mattered.

 

Kazuaki was not the person for Sei. Surely that had been decided long before. Before the day Sei said he would be “with him”, when Kazuaki took apart the watch.

 

Drawn on by the rain, he sank into the past, forgetting even to blink. Something suddenly bumped against his back and brought him into the present. He knew without turning that it was Hiiragi’s head.

 

Perhaps he was cold. In no time, his whole body had pressed close against Kazuaki. The rhythm of peaceful breathing reached him. Only his back was warm.

 

It had been the same when he first got into bed. Hiiragi’s warmth had remained there, and the lingering heat of another person had unsettled him a little. Or rather, he had been unsettled by finding it pleasant. He had lied to Hiiragi.

 

He had said the taxi company was reluctant to send a car, but in fact, he had never called. He had not called because he expected that response, but that was very different from actually asking. It had not been deliberate. Before he knew it, the half-truth had left his mouth.

 

Even now, he wondered why, almost as though it concerned someone else. Of course, he had properly contacted Tsuwabuki. After expressing his apologies for the trouble, Tsuwabuki had said:

 

“About Hiraiwa. His postcard said he’s getting married and would like me to attend the reception. But I’d hate to turn up and risk making the occasion uncomfortable, so I think I’ll leave it unanswered. He was always perceptive. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Just making conversation.”

 

Tsuwabuki had answered airily.

 

“One makes conversation with all sorts of people.”

 

He must have meant that he would say nothing to Hiraiwa, so Kazuaki should stay here.

 

Apparently, he had noticed the slight change in the atmosphere after all. But was it all right to accept his kindness? Kazuaki hesitated.

 

He did not really know what he wanted, so he could find no answer. Normally, dwelling on unanswerable questions made him increasingly wakeful. But as though Hiiragi’s sleepiness were passing into him through the body pressed against his back, his thoughts began to blur at the back of his head. For what was probably the first time since he had begun living alone, Kazuaki fell asleep without trying.

 

Neither the rain, the lack of space, nor the numbness in his arm prevented it. When he woke, he was lying on his back. Hiiragi was still sleeping soundly, curled against him on his side.

 

The rain seemed to have stopped. What time was it? The alarm he had set for six had not yet rung.

 

As he moved to get up quietly, Hiiragi’s eyes opened a little.

 

“Did I wake you? Sorry.”

 

“Mm… No…”

 

He shook his head sluggishly.

 

“I was dreaming about Grandma.”

 

The remark came without context. Perhaps he was still half asleep.

 

The belt of his bathrobe had come completely undone during the night, exposing his chest and stomach, but he did not seem to have noticed. Kazuaki discreetly drew the duvet back over him.

 

“You can sleep longer.”

 

“It’s fine. I’m awake.”

 

“You don’t look it.”

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Einmal ist keinmal. What does it mean?”

 

His pronunciation was hesitant, but Kazuaki understood it.

 

Had he seen the notebook in the library? The words Kazuaki had written on its very last page. He had meant only to test, on a whim, whether he still remembered the correct spelling. Yet his handwriting had turned out surprisingly untidy. It was not something he minded being seen, but he could not work out why Hiiragi was asking.

 

If he could read it, surely he could make some guess at its meaning. Or had dreaming of his German grandmother simply reminded him of it?

 

“You should ask your grandfather. He’s the expert.”

 

“Grandpa taught me. ‘Once doesn’t count.’”

 

Hiiragi’s voice was gradually becoming clearer.

 

“So I thought it meant you shouldn’t give up just because you fail once. Grandpa laughed, but I wondered what you’d say.”

 

Avoiding an immediate answer, Kazuaki said:

 

“That’s optimistic. I think there are more things in the world where failing once means it’s over.”

 

“I know that… So does Grandpa. So do I.”

 

Hiiragi sat up.

 

Then, looking as though he had steeled himself, he looked down at Kazuaki.

 

“You know why Grandpa left the university, don’t you?”

 

“I know the outline,” Kazuaki answered. “I knew the woman involved a little. Though only as something like an acquaintance of an acquaintance of an acquaintance. We’d say hello if we passed each other on campus. Most university relationships are like that.”

 

It had happened after Sei lost his parents, when Kazuaki’s own life was in turmoil.

 

Rumours had spread that a female student in Tsuwabuki’s seminar had complained to the university that her supervisor had subjected her to persistent sexual harassment.

 

The overwhelming opinion on campus was that he was not the sort of lecturer who would do such a thing. But perhaps because her father held a position of some authority, and because the story appeared in a weekly magazine, albeit as a small article, Tsuwabuki had left the university soon afterwards. Kazuaki later heard that the student had withdrawn too, but he did not know the details.

 

“What do you think?”

 

“Whether he was innocent or guilty?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“There’s no way I could know.”

 

Kazuaki answered honestly.

 

“Only the people involved know the truth. I don’t have enough information even to make an informed guess. If your grandfather is innocent, someone I know maliciously tried to bring him down. I can’t casually decide which one is right.”

 

He could tell from Hiiragi’s face that this was not a satisfactory answer.

 

“Grandpa would never do that. Absolutely never.”

 

He spoke each word forcefully, as though trying to engrave it into Kazuaki.

 

“I don’t know whether it’s absolute. It would be one thing if he were making that claim himself, but even as his family, you’re still a third party.”

 

Perhaps all he needed to do was agree.

 

Yes, your grandfather is innocent. But he did not truly believe that, and if he accepted it only in words, Hiiragi would see through him.

 

“Then why do you keep going to see some awful person who might have sexually harassed someone? If it were me, I wouldn’t even want to look at him.”

 

“Because it hasn’t harmed me.”

 

The honest answer was callous, even to his own ears.

 

Why was he so unkind? Surely there had been plenty of times when that coldness had hurt Sei without his noticing. No. What was the point of thinking about that now?

 

Hiiragi was not Sei. He did not even resemble Sei. Why was Kazuaki trying to superimpose them? He sat up too.

 

“It’s not so much that you don’t know which is true. You don’t care which is true, do you?”

 

“I suppose not.”

 

Say Tsuwabuki had sexually harassed someone.

 

That would not change the fact that his lectures had been easy to understand. Nor would it reduce the value of what he had taught Kazuaki since Kazuaki had come here. The same would be true if Tsuwabuki had stolen something or killed someone. Was that way of thinking so disappointing?

 

He began to feel mildly irritated, because being confronted so directly by those green eyes threatened to make him feel guilty.

 

“I have a question too.”

 

Kazuaki turned it back on him.

 

“If the accusation was false, why didn’t he try to clear his name? I heard students even began gathering signatures in opposition to his resignation. My impression was that he left the university as though running away.”

 

Even if he were told that was Tsuwabuki’s way of fighting, it would be difficult to understand.

 

“Everyone just says whatever they like.”

 

Anger burned in Hiiragi’s eyes.

 

They seemed capable of turning red like a real fire, leaving nothing but blackened remains at the end.

 

“He barely argued; he ran away, so he must have had something to feel guilty about—is that it? Do you understand how humiliating it is to be accused out of nowhere and have to deny something that, to you, is obviously untrue? If you try to clear your name, you have to say, ‘I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me,’ over and over again. Even then, the fact that you were suspected never disappears. It wasn’t just strangers. Even relatives said things out of curiosity. That it had been a long time since his wife died, or that being alone with a young woman behind a closed door might understandably have tempted him…”

 

He struggled over the words.

 

“Grandpa didn’t do nothing. He kept quiet and endured it. Why… Why does everyone ask the same thing? Why didn’t he fight?”

 

Perhaps to calm his rising emotions, Hiiragi broke off and turned away.

 

He put his feet on the floor and breathed deeply, his shoulders rising and falling. Perhaps he was close to tears.

 

“Produce evidence? Witnesses? Get a lawyer? That’s ridiculous… Grandpa would never do anything like that. That’s all there is to it.”

 

“But that’s—”

 

“Because I’m his grandson. I know.”

 

He cut off Kazuaki’s words as though throwing them back at him, then bowed his head.

────────────────────────────────

“…In my last year of lower secondary school, my friends—the people I thought were my friends—got caught shoplifting from a bookshop. Then, for some reason, they brought up my name. They said, ‘Tsuwabuki told us to do it.’”

 

Hiiragi’s fingers moved restlessly as he clenched his fists against the mattress, as though wringing something invisible.

 

“I got called in to school, and I had no idea what was going on. But there were three of them, so somehow it became this whole thing where I was the one lying. They even started bringing up things that had nothing to do with it, like whether I was really dyeing my hair. And I thought, oh, right. That’s how people have been looking at me…”

 

The sheet gathered into radiating creases beneath his hands.

 

Kazuaki wanted to tell him to stop. Those were not hands meant for gripping something like that. Those hands were meant to keep plants alive, even at the cost of becoming covered in wounds.

 

“When my parents… When they asked, ‘You really didn’t tell them to do it, did you?’ I felt so pathetic.”

 

“Your parents probably weren’t seriously doubting you.”

 

“I know. They weren’t the kind of embarrassing parents who blindly insist their child must be right. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? But I felt like they’d pushed me off a cliff. I didn’t want them to judge the situation. I wanted them to trust me. One hundred per cent. Once you add ‘just to be sure’ or ‘let me check’, it’s not a hundred per cent any more.”

 

Selfish, Kazuaki thought.

 

It was the uncompromising purity of someone too young and inexperienced. Yet he could not find it tiresome. If anything, he envied it. Hiiragi’s intensity, and being wanted with that same intensity.

 

“Grandpa was the only one who said there was no way I’d do something like that. That was all. He didn’t say anything else. That’s why I came here.”

 

The creases in the sheet suddenly loosened.

 

Hiiragi stood and spoke without looking at him.

 

“Sorry for springing something weird on you. Thanks for having me.”

 

He left the room without turning round. A little later, Kazuaki heard the front door open and close.

 

He had folded Hiiragi’s dried clothes and left them in the changing area, so he would have found them easily enough. Unusually for him, Kazuaki lay back down on the bed. His phone alarm began ringing on the desk, but he could not bring himself to get up and stop it.

 

Was it fatigue, or simply a loss of strength? His body felt heavy with the helpless thought that Hiiragi had chosen entirely the wrong person to confide in. He admitted his responses had not been appropriate. Yet he still did not think he could have said anything different. Why, then, did he feel as though he had betrayed Hiiragi?

 

As though he owed him an apology for being unable to give him the words he wanted. Having someone want something from him. Wanting to answer that need. He wanted neither. Both were troublesome.

 

Yet even now, a voice inside him asked: Why don’t you go after him? And another part answered:

 

Why should I? What would I do if I caught up? His phone continued ringing as though cheering on that silent struggle. When he turned his head, a golden thread shone on the pillow.

 

One of Hiiragi’s hairs. This was a problem, Kazuaki thought. He had no thought beyond that.

 

Shredding unwanted papers was one of Hiiragi’s favourite household jobs. He would set out a chair and feed in old statements and his grandfather’s discarded manuscript pages one after another. When he inserted a sheet into the slot, the compact household machine gave a small shuddering hum, slowly drew it in and sent tiny strips measuring two and a half by four millimetres falling like snow.

 

Once they began collecting in the bin below, Hiiragi sometimes reached in and enjoyed making the scraps rustle. It would probably feel wonderful to pile them all over the garden and dive into them from the roof.

 

He had only cleared the papers out recently, so the cardboard box of things awaiting shredding was soon empty. Normally, he would have waited for more to accumulate, but today, he had desperately wanted to hear the sound of paper being cut. He picked up the last envelope, addressed to him, and waved it lightly before his eyes. A letter from one of his former friends, which he had thrown in unopened.

 

They had not been in contact since the shoplifting incident. The last time they had met was during the questioning, surrounded by teachers and their parents. The boy had kept his head down, refusing to look at Hiiragi, yet had said quite clearly:

 

“Tsuwabuki told us to do it.”

 

Neither anger nor sadness had risen in him.

 

He had simply stared in bewilderment. Why was he suddenly telling such an utterly groundless lie? Until then, they had attended lessons together, chatted at lunchtime and complained about the school distance-running event. They had even gone on long bicycle rides at weekends.

 

“Best friends” would have felt like an embarrassingly sentimental description, but Hiiragi had thought they were good friends.

 

The shock was so great that absurd possibilities kept surfacing.

 

Perhaps the world he had known until yesterday had completely changed, leaving only him behind. Perhaps the people in front of him were creatures wearing his friends’ skins, their bodies taken over by aliens or something. Words like “betrayal” or “being framed” were not enough to explain it. Three against one or not, it had only been children’s foolish scheming. The accusation was soon disproved.

 

By then, however, Hiiragi had already run away to his grandfather’s. He finished the lower-secondary division of his private combined secondary school without attending the graduation ceremony, and did not continue to its upper-secondary division. His parents visited often and, he believed, apologised with complete sincerity.

 

But he did not want to go back. He was neither angry with them nor being stubborn. He simply could not erase the feeling he had experienced when they asked whether he really had not said it: the ground beneath his feet falling away, being sucked into nowhere as though falling from a height in a dream.

 

A disappointment so complete that it felt as though his insides had dropped out. His mother begged him to continue his education somewhere, anywhere, even if it meant starting a year late. When Hiiragi could not agree, she cried.

 

“Were we really so terrible to you?”

 

That was not it.

 

Unable to find the words himself, he had been helped by his grandfather.

 

“He doesn’t think you’re bad people. He’s simply been deeply hurt, and for now, he wants to stop here for a while. What you mustn’t do is think he’s making too much of it. Having friends cease to be friends is painful. If you truly mean it when you say a year late is all right, then keep watching over him, even if it becomes two years or three.”

 

Then his grandfather told Hiiragi:

 

“You may live here, but I can’t have you spending your time doing nothing.”

 

He took him to the botanical garden and bowed to Munakata, asking him to let Hiiragi help with anything.

 

So Hiiragi began with odd jobs.

 

“If you dislike it, working a convenience-store till or delivering newspapers would do. Whatever it is, you need a place in society to replace school.”

 

He had no interest in plants.

 

He hated getting covered in soil and encountering disgusting insects. He groaned from muscle pain that made running to school seem like nothing. For the first time in his life, complete strangers scolded him without restraint, making him shrink into himself. Every morning, he woke thinking he did not want to go.

 

Yet he did not leave the mountain. As he looked up at rows of camphor and zelkova trees, stood beside a pond crowded with lotus plants and found himself overwhelmed by the colours of the rose garden, that reluctance disappeared. When he used his body to care for silent plants, unnecessary thoughts did not arise.

 

He began wanting simply to live through days like these, repeated over and over. He wanted to become as simple as ancient humans whose days and entire lives passed in hunting and gathering. By now, his parents had half resigned themselves to it.

 

“As long as you’re well and getting on with your life, that’s enough.”

 

His grandfather had been forced to leave the university against his wishes. But Hiiragi believed in him one hundred per cent, just as his grandfather had once believed in him.

 

That was the only thing he could do. Somehow, eight years had passed. Even so, letters still arrived like this about once every six months.

 

His mother had given out his address without asking. He did not intend to blame her, but he wished she would not expect a response from him.

 

“No longer being angry” and “forgiving and forgetting” were different things.

 

They had stolen manga because of the stress of preparing to apply to other schools. They had tried to pin the blame on Hiiragi because they envied him for taking it easy, secure in his automatic progression to the next division.

 

He had heard their explanations through his parents and felt no sympathy whatsoever. Even sending a reply asking them to stop writing felt like too much effort, so he continued shredding the letters unopened. By now, he was probably the bad one.

 

He knew that. They were suffering from guilt, and leaving them ignored was cruel. Of course, it was possible the letters actually contained pages and pages explaining how they had always hated him.

 

What did they really say? He held the envelope up to the light, although he could not see through it. Surely they must have run out of apologies by now.

 

But that slight curiosity was not enough to overturn his habit. As usual, Hiiragi fed the letter into the blades. Once, he had asked his grandfather whether he was cold-hearted. The reply had been another question.

 

“What’s wrong with being cold?”

 

It was only natural to be kind solely to those towards whom he wanted to be kind.

 

The envelope was hardly thick. It was cut apart without the slightest resistance. What would Mr Fujisawa say? Hiiragi considered it as he watched the scraps pile up.

 

Perhaps some practical advice: refuse delivery. When he reversed the spiral blades, tangled pieces of paper rose up in a slow, reluctant clump. He removed them one by one, the edges softly pricking his fingers. Thorns.

 

It was the first time he had told anyone about the thorn inside himself, and the one that must exist inside his grandfather. Kazuaki’s response had been entirely characteristic: calm and understandable. Yet Hiiragi had become angry, and now regretted it.

 

For a start, anyone would be startled—or put off—by being told something like that the moment they woke. Remembering it made him want to clutch his head. He had forced his thorn on Kazuaki and demanded that he understand how much it hurt.

 

He dropped the paper scraps collected in his palm into the bin. As he emptied everything into a rubbish bag, the front door opened. Kazuaki had arrived. Hiiragi hurriedly tied the bag and went straight towards him.

 

“…Good morning.”

 

“Good morning.”

 

He had spoken apprehensively.

 

Facing the door, Kazuaki was bent over, arranging his shoes neatly. Hiiragi had not had a late shift for a while, so this was the first time they had seen each other in roughly two weeks, since the rainy night. Because he felt awkward, he had not even properly thanked Kazuaki for letting him stay.

 

And the more he avoided him, the harder it became to approach him.

 

“Um… Sorry about the other day. For, you know…”

 

It was the sort of vague apology that would have earned a rebuke from his grandfather: say clearly what you did wrong.

 

Kazuaki straightened and turned. His tone and voice were the same as always. But his eyes remained averted. They drifted through the air like a weakened insect's flight, never settling on Hiiragi.

 

Because he was a man who showed so little emotion, even a slight change was noticeable.

 

“Ah… Er… I’m off.”

 

“Yes. Take care.”

 

Hiiragi put on his shoes, tucked his helmet under his arm and went outside.

 

Just as he was about to insert the moped key, his hand stopped. A sigh escaped him, unexpectedly deep and long. Oh, no.

 

Kazuaki was keeping his distance. Perhaps he was fed up with him. Even apart from that, there had been things like promising to do something and failing to follow through. Hiiragi had hardly been earning points. He had not meant to get above himself.

 

Yet he could not deny that, in the end, he had taken advantage of Kazuaki’s position: as his teacher’s grandson, Hiiragi could not easily be brushed aside. If he kept standing about, he would be late. He breathed out again, this time to change his frame of mind, and started the engine.

 

Once he left the grounds and picked up speed, the wind against him was already cold. He drew his shoulders in slightly and remembered Kazuaki’s back. That night, Hiiragi had woken several times. Each time, he felt Kazuaki’s warmth through his drowsiness and closed his eyes again.

 

He had given some thought to how hot Kazuaki must be with him pressed so close, and how uncomfortable it must be not to turn over. But he had not been able to resist how pleasant it felt. He could not remember the last time he had slept beside someone.

 

In his half-awake mind, he had marvelled at how comforting another person’s warmth and heartbeat could be. He thought Kazuaki had endured it without moving so as not to wake him. The grandmother who appeared in his dream that night had placed one konpeitō after another in his palm.

 

“These have lots of thorns too. But they’re sweet, soft, kind thorns. So I’ll give you plenty, Hiiragi.”

 

He had felt happy that morning.

 

He thought the warm dream had come from the warm back beside him. That was why he had shown Kazuaki the thorn he had never let anyone see, and wanted an answer. He had hoped it might be accepted.

 

How selfish. Now he even wondered whether Kazuaki’s remark about being unable to leave him alone had been an ironic comment on his thoughtlessness.

 

“There was one person before whom I couldn’t leave alone. Someone I couldn’t take my eyes off.”

 

What relationship had they had? Why was that person no longer beside him?

 

Kazuaki had spoken of responsibility. Then perhaps it was a relative. Or…

 

A wife? Belatedly, Hiiragi realised there was nothing strange about Kazuaki being married. His inability to picture him sharing a home with someone was only his own assumption. Plenty of men did not wear wedding rings. Had his wife died? No. He had said he wanted the other person to realise something. Then divorce? Or separation? However much he imagined, he would find no answer. The only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing about Kazuaki.

 

He opened the throttle. The mountain trees had lost the brightness of their young leaves. Within their deep green, they quietly held the nourishment gathered through summer. When he entered the office, something felt wrong. An uneasy haze hung in the air. It was rather like opening the living-room door in the morning and somehow knowing his parents had argued during the night.

 

“…Good morning.”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

Munakata smiled, but sadness and helplessness showed through it.

 

“We’ll have to cut down the Somei-yoshino.”

 

“What?”

 

“The one you’ve been worrying about. Said it hadn’t been doing well lately. The way the leaves were wilting didn’t look right, so we dug around it. The roots are covered in lumps. Crown gall.”

 

“No…”

 

Hiiragi looked at the other employees.

 

They all wore the same sombre expression. He realised it was already too late merely to remove the affected parts.

 

“What about the man in Kamakura…?”

 

“I called him earlier.”

 

It was one of the trees they had received through a renowned cherry-tree specialist in Kamakura.

 

That had been the year Hiiragi began working here. He remembered it well because he had gone with Munakata. The elderly cherry-tree keeper had taken a particular liking to Hiiragi.

 

“Choose which one you want to take.”

 

That Somei-yoshino was the tree Hiiragi had brought.

 

“He ended up comforting me. Told me disease couldn’t be helped and not to lose heart.”

 

Munakata patted his shoulder.

 

“I’m sorry,” Hiiragi said quietly. “If I’d noticed sooner…”

 

“We’re all thinking that. It was always a slender, delicate thing, and it often wilted a little when the seasons changed. We let our guard down… We’ll start work in fifteen minutes. Go and say goodbye.”

 

The cherry trees stood in the furthest part of the garden, diagonally opposite the main entrance.

 

Outside the blossom season, they were barely noticed. Visitors rarely stopped there. Blooming was not the only thing that made cherry trees beautiful. That always frustrated Hiiragi.

 

He reached the tree, whose roots had been partly exposed, and crouched beside it. Removing his watch, he gently felt through the roots with his ungloved hands. He immediately found the abnormal, uneven swelling. The growth had become as large as a softball.

 

Crown gall developed when soilborne bacteria entered a wound in the roots. Perhaps he had overwatered it during summer, leaving the roots too damp. Perhaps a small amount of rot had allowed the infection to begin. There was no end to the possibilities, yet he could not help regretting it.

 

If he had cared for it more carefully every day… If it had remained among the cherry trees in Kamakura in the first place… Would it have escaped this?

 

It was still a young tree, only about ten years old. The slenderness of its trunk and branches had reminded him of himself.

 

“This one, please,” he had said.

 

“Take good care of it.”

 

The cherry-tree keeper had spoken with the reluctance of someone sending away his own child.

 

“I’ll do my best,” Hiiragi had answered.

 

He had not known anything then. Yet he had properly felt the weight of being entrusted with something very precious.

 

But now, when he asked himself whether he had truly done his best, whether he had really taken proper care of it, he could find no confidence in his answer.

────────────────────────────────

The library door opened.

 

“Fujisawa, you haven’t gone home yet?”

 

“No. I lost track of time.”

 

Moving around the books piled at his feet, Kazuaki headed towards the bottom of the stairs.

 

“I wanted to reach a convenient stopping point, and it got late. I’m sorry.”

 

“Not at all. I’m the one who should apologise. I became absorbed in my books and didn’t notice.”

 

“I’ll be leaving shortly.”

 

“You’re very welcome to stay, but I’m afraid we don’t have bedding for guests. I couldn’t ask you to share with Hiiragi. With the way he sleeps, goodness knows how many times he would kick you.”

 

Tsuwabuki was clearly joking, yet Kazuaki nearly replied that it had not been like that.

 

He caught himself. Switching off the computer, he went upstairs. Another lie.

 

He had not lost track of anything. He had switched off the alarm set for six himself, hoping that if he stayed a little longer, Hiiragi might come home. He had failed that morning. He had avoided Hiiragi so obviously that he had unsettled him.

 

He was not angry, nor had anything been troubling him. When Hiiragi spoke in that awkward voice, Kazuaki had thought himself perfectly calm. If Hiiragi had decided not to dwell on what had happened, that was fine. Yet the instant he turned, the gears had caught badly. He was not sure “badly” was the right word, but it had certainly been sudden and unexpected.

 

The moment he saw Hiiragi’s face, the image of him on the morning after his stay returned. Hiiragi with the front of his bathrobe completely open, his half-naked body exposed without any awareness. Kazuaki had felt nothing at the time.

 

Of course he had not. Yet the skin, so much whiter than his arms and neck, and its smooth, waxed sheen returned with such vividness—such physical immediacy—that he could not look directly at the Hiiragi in front of him. He felt capable of tracing even the faint blue paths of the veins at his sides. Was this memory or fantasy?

 

He knew perfectly well what kind of sensation it was. Desire. That night, when they slept pressed together, he had felt no excitement, only peace. Why had this emotion appeared after such a delay?

 

And why towards Hiiragi? His fingertips seemed to scorch. Some unknown fuel burned in his stomach, and his heart grew hot. It had been a long time since he felt this urge.

 

He had thought he would never feel it towards anyone again. Was it because he had spoken about Sei? He did not know why he had wanted to tell someone about that either. Without room to consider whether it was good or bad, Kazuaki became confused and behaved coldly.

 

People aren’t televisions. If there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that Hiiragi was a far kinder person than he was. Realising he had stopped by the door and become lost in thought, Kazuaki shook his head lightly and left the room.

 

A passing aberration. A surge of physical desire, like a sudden shower. Or perhaps loneliness he had not recognised. Whatever it was, he had decided never to show his agitation again. They were strangers who had become a little acquainted. That was enough.

 

When the work was finished, Kazuaki would leave. Hiiragi would presumably continue working at the botanical garden. Afterwards, perhaps they would exchange the occasional postcard, as he did with Tsuwabuki. Or perhaps they would lose contact. That would be up to Hiiragi.

 

That was fine. As he put on his shoes, the lock in front of him turned through a quarter-circle. Hiiragi was home.

 

Kazuaki prepared the greeting in his head. Welcome home. If he behaved as though nothing had happened, Hiiragi would not press him. He possessed that sort of caution.

 

It was all right, Kazuaki told himself. Yet when the door opened, the words that left his mouth were entirely unintended.

 

“…What’s happened?”

 

Hiiragi stood there with his eyes and the tip of his nose bright red.

 

Tear tracks that had not quite dried remained on his cheeks. What he held in both hands appeared to be part of a plant. At first, Kazuaki thought it was a branch, but since it was covered in soil, it was probably a root. What caught his attention was a dark, rounded swelling. Even to an amateur, it was clearly abnormal.

 

Hiiragi did not answer. He merely gave a small, broken sob. It was not difficult to guess. Something sad had happened at work, almost certainly involving the tree to which this root belonged. Disease or pests—Kazuaki did not know—but it had become necessary to cut it down, and Hiiragi had brought home this piece of root like a keepsake.

 

Unfortunately, Kazuaki could not share the pain of having to cut down a plant one had raised. But Hiiragi’s tears hurt him. Was that a contradiction?

 

He did not want him to be sad. He did not want him to cry. If there were anything he could do, he wanted to do it.

 

Kazuaki stepped closer and began reaching out.

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

A voice came from behind him.

 

“What’s happened? You look dreadful.”

 

The moment he saw his grandfather, fresh tears spilt from Hiiragi’s eyes.

 

He slipped past Kazuaki, hurriedly took off his shoes and rushed towards Tsuwabuki.

 

“I’m sorry you’ve had to see this.”

 

Tsuwabuki apologised while gently patting Hiiragi’s back, with the practised movements of someone who had encouraged and comforted him this way many times.

 

“It’s all right. Don’t worry about us. Please go home.”

 

“…Goodnight.”

 

Hiiragi did not look back.

 

Kazuaki locked the door with the spare key and began walking into the dark. Hiiragi had family beside him: someone who knew his pain intimately, someone with whom he supported and was supported. There was no room for Kazuaki to push himself in. He understood that.

 

Yet the black thread tangling in his chest would not loosen. It did not take him long to acknowledge it as jealousy. However much he might have decided he could not leave Hiiragi alone, the one who removed Hiiragi’s thorns was Tsuwabuki, not Kazuaki.

 

Of course it was. Yet having that obvious truth brought home to him made breathing difficult. Heading towards the meagre light of the bus stop, Kazuaki thought: enough. He really must not stay here. There was still time. The following day, he spent until early afternoon organising the work he had completed.

 

His procedures, how far he had progressed, where it would be most efficient to begin—he put everything into a manual as clearly as he could. He also sorted the files on the computer into detailed categories so that their contents would be immediately apparent. If Tsuwabuki employed someone else, this should be enough for them to take over.

 

He tore the last page from his notebook and folded it. After hesitating briefly, he put it in his trouser pocket. He would throw it away once he got home. Standing outside Tsuwabuki’s room, he felt uncharacteristically nervous.

 

The man was unlikely to demand his reasons or try to stop him. Kazuaki was simply afraid that he would see through his guilty conscience. Tsuwabuki could inspire that fear without being remotely intimidating. He really had been suited to teaching.

 

Kazuaki drew in a slow breath, knocked and called:

 

“Professor, do you have a moment? There’s something I’d like to discuss.”

 

He counted to ten in his head, but there was no answer.

 

Assuming Tsuwabuki was once again absorbed in a book or listening to music, he opened the door.

 

“Excuse me.”

 

The room was quiet.

 

Several books lay scattered on the floor, disturbing that stillness. They had not been set down or stacked. They lay sprawled open. Kazuaki hurried over.

 

“Professor.”

 

Vomit covered the desk.

 

Tsuwabuki had collapsed face-down into it, sweat pouring from his temples. His left hand remained clenched in his shirt over his chest, as though he had been clawing at it.

 

“Professor!”

 

Kazuaki called several times, but received only groans.

 

There was no time to hesitate. He took out his phone and dialled 119. After briefly giving the address, symptoms and the fact that Tsuwabuki apparently had an existing heart condition, he was told what to do until the ambulance arrived.

 

“What position is he in now? It isn’t good for him to be hunched over, so help him into a comfortable position and loosen his clothing. Keep his airway clear and talk to him. Don’t shake him.”

 

[Part of the operator’s next question is missing from the supplied text.]

 

“You don’t know? Then, if he stops breathing, rescue breaths and chest compressions…”

 

Kazuaki slowly lifted Tsuwabuki from the chair, checked his breathing and unbuttoned his shirt.

 

He wiped the vomit from his mouth with a handkerchief. He worried about laying him on the cold floor, but there was no time to fetch something to put beneath him.

 

“Professor, it’s me. Fujisawa. Can you hear me? Stay with me. The ambulance will be here soon.”

 

He kept talking while searching online for the botanical garden’s telephone number.

 

Tsuwabuki only groaned painfully. Calling the main number, Kazuaki asked them to tell Hiiragi Tsuwabuki that his grandfather had collapsed.

 

“We’ll send him home immediately,” the person on the phone replied.

 

For the moment, Kazuaki should have done everything he could.

 

“Professor, can you hear me? I’ve called the botanical garden too. He’ll be home soon.”

 

The right hand lying weakly on the floor rose and caught Kazuaki’s upper arm as he leaned over him.

 

“Professor?”

 

He thought Tsuwabuki had reacted to hearing that Hiiragi was coming home.

 

Yet the eyes behind his glasses were far from relieved. They were wide and glaring, more intensely than Kazuaki had ever seen.

 

“Professor.”

 

A hoarse sound escaped from deep in his throat, as though the voice had been crumpled and then pulled straight again.

 

“What is it?”

 

“I didn’t… do it…”

 

His fingers dug mercilessly into Kazuaki’s arm, with a strength frightening to find in an old man.

 

“Nothing… I’d be ashamed to face my wife over…”

 

At last, Kazuaki understood what he was trying to tell him.

 

It was doubtful whether Tsuwabuki even recognised him as Fujisawa any longer. Yet he wanted to be understood. Wanted to be believed.

 

He was not that sort of person. For the first time, Kazuaki understood the anger Tsuwabuki had felt, and the injustice that had never disappeared despite his apparently carefree retirement. Grandpa kept quiet and endured it.

 

Who could say those days had not been a battle? Bearing the pain of a grip that seemed intent on tearing his arm away, Kazuaki placed his hand over Tsuwabuki’s.

 

“I know, Professor. I understand. At the very least, he and I know. You were absolutely never that sort of person.”

 

He did not know whether his voice had reached him, but the fingers suddenly loosened.

 

Perhaps Tsuwabuki had merely lost the strength to grip. His eyes no longer focused on anything. But Kazuaki believed he had heard.

 

With Hiiragi’s “one hundred per cent”. He believed like an insect flying through faith. Hiiragi rushed in as Tsuwabuki was being carried downstairs on a stretcher.

 

“Grandpa!”

 

His shallow, irregular breathing was barely continuing, and he did not respond even to that voice.

 

Yet Hiiragi did not panic.

 

“I’m his grandson. We live together.”

 

He smoothly gave the paramedics information about his grandfather’s regular medication and doctor.

 

Meanwhile, the stretcher was secured to the trolley and taken into the ambulance, whose red lights revolved in the driveway. Unlike the previous evening, Hiiragi looked at Kazuaki. I’ll come too.

 

The words rose to his throat. But in the end, all he could do was nod silently, telling him to go. Partly because he was an outsider. Partly because of his bad memories of hospitals.

 

And partly because he found himself thinking: what if he dies because I’m there? Like worrying that going to cheer for one’s favourite football team would cause them to lose. The rear doors closed in front of him.

 

Despite being on such a rural road, the ambulance drove away with its siren sounding. Presumably, that was the rule. While waiting, every helpless second had felt like an unbearable loss. Now he felt as though a surprisingly brief scene had ended.

 

He pushed the moped, left carelessly beside the entrance porch, back into the garage and removed the key that was still in it. Only then did he realise he had come outside without putting on his shoes. He tried to tell himself that there was a proper role for him here: getting things ready.

 

He cleaned the desk and put away the books. Considering the possibility of a long hospital stay, he made a mental list of necessities. When he had nothing left to do, he returned to the library and resumed the work he had meant to abandon.

 

He left the door open in case the landline rang. What was Hiiragi doing at the hospital? It did not have to be Kazuaki. Anyone would do.

 

He wanted someone to be beside him. Someone kind to support him. Around eight in the evening, his mobile vibrated.

 

The number was unfamiliar, but he answered without hesitation.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Ah… It’s me. Good evening.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Um, I didn’t know your number, so I rang the garden and asked them to check the call history.”

 

“I see.”

 

Hiiragi did not sound particularly gloomy. If he could begin with such a minor explanation, perhaps his grandfather’s condition was not too serious.

 

Kazuaki was just beginning to feel relieved when Hiiragi said:

 

“Grandpa died.”

 

“What?”

 

“About an hour ago. He’d had angina for a while, and apparently the attacks had been getting more frequent lately.”

 

“…I’m very sorry for your loss.”

 

How pathetic.

 

At a time like this, he could offer nothing but the stock phrases he normally disliked.

 

“Yes,” Hiiragi said evenly.

 

“The wake will probably be the day after tomorrow, and the funeral and farewell ceremony the following day. There’s a funeral hall if you go down the mountain and head north along the main road.”

 

“I’ll attend the wake. Tell me if there’s anything I can help with.”

 

“Okay. Oh, we won’t be accepting condolence money from anyone. Grandpa always said he didn’t want it, and we discussed it and agreed.”

 

“Understood.”

 

Of course.

 

After death came a great many arrangements, before grief. It had been the same with Sei.

 

“Mr Fujisawa. Thank you.”

 

“I didn’t do anything.”

 

He had been able to do nothing for him.

 

“What do you mean? Because you noticed and called the ambulance, we got to say goodbye. He never regained consciousness, but Dad and Mum made it in time too. If you hadn’t been there, I think I’d have come home and found Grandpa already cold.”

 

The thought alone was painful.

 

So he had been of some use. He had spared Hiiragi from suddenly coming face-to-face with his grandfather’s body. Was that all?

 

Was that really the only thing he could do for him? It hurt to be so powerless. From a little distance away, someone called Hiiragi’s name.

 

Probably a relative.

 

“I’ll go, then.”

 

“Yes.”

 

After ending the call, Kazuaki turned off every light in the house and locked up.

 

He looked back once from the gate. The unlit house stood merging into the darkness. It was the first time he had seen it like that, with no one inside.

 

He should have been thoroughly accustomed to empty houses. Yet he was overcome by a desolate sense of loss. Men had it easy: even without proper mourning clothes, the things he already owned could make a reasonably suitable outfit.

 

Kazuaki thought that as he tied a tie for the first time in longer than he could remember. They would have to forgive his lack of Buddhist prayer beads. After checking his clothes in the entrance mirror, he got into the taxi waiting outside.

 

He arrived half an hour before the appointed time, but the funeral hall’s car park was busy with cars and minibuses, and many people filled the lobby. According to the entrance notice, five wakes were being held that evening. The Tsuwabuki family’s room was on the third floor, so he took the stairs.

 

As he reached the landing between the second and third floors, a voice came from above.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

He knew perfectly well who it was.

 

Yet when he looked up, he lost the ability to speak. A black tie. A black suit. As though the colour had transferred itself to him, Hiiragi’s hair was completely black.

 

“Thank you for coming.”

 

“…Of course.”

 

Managing only that, Kazuaki climbed the remaining stairs.

 

Up close, he could see that Hiiragi had cut it as well as dyed it. Both were clearly amateur work. The ends were uneven, and the colour was an unnatural, flat black.

 

“Your hair…?”

 

“Oh. I didn’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons. Nobody told me to do it.”

 

Looking embarrassed, Hiiragi touched the shortened hair at the back of his neck.

 

“There’ll be people I don’t know, and relatives I haven’t seen for ages. I hurriedly did it myself last night, so it looks strange, doesn’t it?”

 

“Yes,” Kazuaki said. “It does.”

 

He felt displeasure—or rather, definite anger.

 

Why should Hiiragi have had to do such a thing? It felt as though cheap dye had unjustly stained him.

 

“You really do say things straight out.”

 

Hiiragi complained without seeming particularly bothered, then pointed towards reception.

 

“Come this way. My parents want to thank you.”

 

Kazuaki wanted to refuse because it was troublesome, but that would surely put Hiiragi in a difficult position. He followed obediently.

 

“Dad, Mum. This is Mr Fujisawa.”

 

A man and woman who had been discussing something with an apparent member of staff turned towards him together and bowed.

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for calling the ambulance and doing so much for my father. Allow us to thank you on his behalf.”

 

“Not at all. I’m sorry it wasn’t in time.”

 

“Please don’t say that. I’m sure my father was grateful to you. I understand you were organising his books too. We intend to offer them as keepsakes to colleagues he knew and to second-hand booksellers, but if there’s anything you would like, please help yourself.”

 

“Thank you, but the thought is enough.”

 

“If you don’t mind my asking, what arrangement did you have with my father regarding payment? Naturally, if there’s anything outstanding, we’ll—”

 

“Dear.”

 

His wife gently checked him.

 

“Please don’t discuss money here. You’re so impatient. It’s rude to Mr Fujisawa.”

 

“Ah. Yes. I’m sorry.”

 

“Please don’t worry.”

 

If anything, Kazuaki rather appreciated his conscientiousness.

 

Hiiragi’s mother moved her husband slightly aside.

 

“I hear our son has also imposed on you in all sorts of ways. Thank you again.”

 

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

 

“He’s always been his grandfather’s boy and rather spoilt. I’m sure he’s caused you trouble.”

 

“Not at all.”

 

Kazuaki felt Hiiragi stiffen at the sharpness of his reply.

 

“He sincerely respected and loved your father, and your father did not indulge him indiscriminately. I wasn’t deeply involved in their lives, but from what I saw, they had a very good relationship. Why would you describe it like that?”

 

The couple looked taken aback. They probably had not expected a stranger they had only just met to contradict them so directly.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kazuaki immediately added. “If you were merely being modest as his parents, I apologise. But I believe he is probably grieving your father more deeply than anyone. Even if you don’t mean it, could you refrain, here at least, from speaking as though your father had been a bad influence?”

 

He felt a tug at the back of his waist.

 

Hiiragi’s hand had tightly caught the hem of his suit jacket. He said nothing, his lips pressed into a straight line.

 

“Excuse me. May I have a moment?”

 

A staff member had approached the chief mourner.

 

“Yes… Sorry. We’ll speak again later.”

 

Taking the interruption as an opportunity, his parents hurried away.

 

Hiiragi’s hand loosened too.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kazuaki said.

 

“Why are you apologising?”

 

“I thought you might be angry because I interfered.”

 

Hiiragi drew his brows together and glared at him.

 

Then he left a single word behind and went into the family waiting room.

 

“Idiot.”

 

So he was angry after all.

────────────────────────────────

Rows of folding chairs filled the room. Kazuaki sat at one end of the back row, watching the proceedings. More precisely, he was watching the unnaturally black back of Hiiragi’s head in the family seats at the front. Amid the chanting, the line of people offering incense moved slowly forwards.

 

Mourners continued arriving. Intending to stand if they ran out of chairs, Kazuaki casually glanced towards the entrance. His gaze stopped. A familiar face.

 

There was no mistake. He stood so abruptly that his chair clattered, but paid it no attention. He went straight towards her.

 

“You’re Yuka Shimizu, aren’t you? It’s been a long time. Do you remember me?”

 

Within her widened eyes, he could see a frantic search taking place. After a few seconds, she found the answer.

 

“Fujisawa? You were in ergonomics…”

 

“Yes. I’m sorry, but please come outside with me.”

 

He took Yuka to the landing where he had stood earlier.

 

“Would you leave?”

 

She stared at him.

 

“I can’t allow you to attend. You know why.”

 

Yuka immediately went pale.

 

“You heard?” she asked, her voice trembling. “From the professor…?”

 

“Nothing specific. He never mentioned your name. How I know isn’t the issue.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re apologising for. Where did you hear that he’d died?”

 

“On Twitter and Facebook. People who worked with him, people connected to the university… There was a small notice in the newspaper too.”

 

“I see. Then why come now, after all this time?”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Repeating it, she bowed deeply.

 

“I know what I did was unforgivable. But please, just let me offer incense.”

 

“…Why did you do something like that to him?”

 

Her hands were held together in front of her knees. Between them, a pure-white handkerchief twisted as though in pain.

 

“I’d admired him for so long. He was kind, gentle, intelligent… I studied so hard because I wanted to get closer to him. I was genuinely happy when I got into his seminar. There was so much competition for places.”

 

Kazuaki could feel people glancing down from half a floor above.

 

Perhaps they were frowning, wondering what sort of scene was being made in a place like this. Even so, he had no intention of stopping his questions.

 

“But once I got a little closer, I could see things more clearly. No matter how hard I tried, I was only one of his many students. Sometimes I’d be happy because I thought he’d treated me as someone special, then realise he did the same for other people… It was frustrating. I was making all this effort. I worked so hard on my reports, even organising drinks parties for his sake. I started getting angry, wondering why he pretended not to notice.”

 

She continued, struggling through the words.

 

“I think he could tell. The more desperately I tried to get close, the more quietly he began keeping me at a distance. I was half out of my mind then. All I could think was, why, why? I was constantly irritated and bit my nails until they bled. So that day…”

 

Her hair hung on either side of her lowered face, trembling although there was no breeze.

 

She must have been proud of that glossy black hair. Even at university, she had never dyed it brown. Her striking features matched its richness. She had been popular with men well beyond her own department. Perhaps that was precisely why Tsuwabuki’s response had wounded her pride so deeply. And when the harassment allegations arose, the people around them must have found them plausible.

 

Alone with such a beautiful woman, it was understandable that he might succumb to temptation.

 

“I forced my way into his office so we were alone, then said it like a joke. ‘Would it cause you trouble if I tore my clothes and ran out of here crying?’ I wasn’t serious. I only wanted his attention. He could have got angry, laughed, looked exasperated… Anything would have done. But his face went completely still, like a Noh mask. He said, ‘I’m disappointed.’ That was all.”

 

She paused.

 

“Then I saw the photograph of his wife on his desk. She was smiling. I’d seen that photograph so many times, but suddenly I thought she was laughing at me. That she and the professor were looking down on me, thinking what a pathetic woman I was.”

 

“That couldn’t possibly have been true.”

 

“I know. But then, it was the only way I could see it. I was so frustrated, so full of hatred, that I finally lied to my friends. I told them, ‘The professor tried to make a move on me, so I ran away.’ There were two of them there. I don’t remember whether anyone else was listening. But the story spread so quickly, and people kept adding to it. Then the university called me in, and even contacted my parents… I never imagined it would become such a huge thing.”

 

Tsuwabuki had been mild-mannered, but he also possessed a side that could readily dismiss people.

 

Kazuaki had liked that particular coolness: the way he did not intrude unnecessarily into another person’s inner life. To her, however, it must have felt like the most complete rejection imaginable. Perhaps Tsuwabuki had been at fault for failing to handle a student young enough to be more than his daughter. Perhaps regret over that had led him to leave his position without defending himself.

 

But all of it was now a past that could never be recovered.

 

“I was frightened. What would happen if I said it had been a lie? The professor already despised me. I might lose my family and friends too… When he quietly left the university, I was relieved. In the end, I couldn’t bear the guilt either and withdrew, but… I’m a terrible person.”

 

“If you truly believe that, you shouldn’t have come here. Members of his family are still suffering because of your lies.”

 

“Please.”

 

At last, Yuka sank to the floor and placed her hands before her.

 

“I intend to tell his family everything. I’ll accept any punishment. So please, just let me put my hands together before him one last time.”

 

“Getting on your knees to me won’t change anything. It’s too late.”

 

Another part of Kazuaki mocked his own indignation.

 

Who was he to say that? Weren’t he and this woman exactly alike? Longing without permission. Unable to control their own selfishness. Hurting someone precious with lies meant to protect themselves, then struggling in time that could not be wound back, until nothing remained.

 

“…Mr Fujisawa?”

 

A shadow fell between them.

 

Hiiragi stood at the top of the stairs.

 

“You went out and didn’t come back for ages… What’s happened?”

 

Still looking confused, he came down to the landing and addressed Yuka, who remained bowed over on the floor.

 

“Um… Did you know my grandpa—my grandfather?”

 

At the word “grandfather”, Yuka raised her tear-soaked face.

 

“I…”

 

Hiiragi glanced at Kazuaki.

 

Apparently, that was enough for him to understand.

 

“Please stand up. You’ll get your knees dirty… Um, thank you for coming. If you haven’t offered incense yet, please come inside.”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

The reproach left Kazuaki’s mouth more sharply than he intended.

 

But Hiiragi looked at him quietly.

 

“It’s all right.”

 

He continued:

 

“Grandpa’s dead now. He won’t be angry or pleased. So I’ll decide, because I was the person closest to him. It isn’t about forgiving or not forgiving. I can’t turn away someone who’s come to say goodbye to him… Isn’t that what a funeral’s for?”

 

Kazuaki almost told him Tsuwabuki’s final words.

 

Yet even if Hiiragi knew how bitterly his grandfather had suffered, his decision would probably remain unchanged. Tsuwabuki no longer felt that bitterness. Hiiragi understood that loss and release were two sides of the same thing.

 

That was why he never spoke of what the deceased would like or dislike. He had simply stated reality as it was. He was dead.

 

You’re strong.

 

“This way.”

 

Prompted by Hiiragi, Yuka rose unsteadily, and the two of them returned to the room together.

 

Kazuaki went straight downstairs and asked reception to call him a taxi. Once the funeral, cremation, service for the ashes and post-funeral meal were over, Hiiragi’s parents drove him home.

 

“For now, get some proper rest today. We can sort through your grandfather’s belongings gradually.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He unfastened his seat belt.

 

“Hiiragi,” his father called. “What are you going to do now?”

 

“What do you mean…?”

 

“I think he’s left this house to you. I can’t say for certain until we see the will, but he said something along those lines before.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“You can carry on living here alone as you have been. Is that what you want?”

 

He wanted to say, of course.

 

He could not imagine leaving the botanical garden. This was the house his grandfather had loved, and he wanted to keep looking after it. He would not be inconveniencing anyone. He did not understand why his father needed to ask. Yet for some reason, he could not answer.

 

As he fell silent, his mother interrupted.

 

“Stop. You don’t have to make him decide right now. You really are impatient… Hiiragi, don’t brood too much for the moment. We’ll be at the hotel until the day after tomorrow. If anything happens, call us straight away.”

 

“Okay. Thanks.”

 

“…Your grandfather was the one who told us off, you know. Said we should watch over you, even if it took a year or three.”

 

How strange.

 

His grandfather had already been cremated and placed inside an urn. Yet words he had spoken years ago were still alive, still protecting Hiiragi. He could not be bothered to bathe, but he wanted to wash the sticky dye out of his hair.

 

Removing his tie and undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, he ran the hot water in the washbasin. Using the harsh shampoo he had bought with the hair dye, which was advertised as easy to wash out, he washed his hair three times. At first, water black as ink gurgled into the drain. Gradually, it grew paler.

 

He scrubbed his scalp until his fingers nearly cramped, combing through his hair with them again and again. Once he was sure the water was no longer coloured, he dried it with a towel. He cautiously looked in the mirror. His hair was still somewhat dull, but it had properly returned to its original colour.

 

And, as expected, the towel was a little stained. After drying the hair he had left rough from overwashing, he made coffee in the kitchen. The sight of steam rising from the mug loosened something in him, bringing back memories of the wake.

 

He had turned at a sound behind him and seen Kazuaki approaching a woman he did not know, then taking her outside. For a while, he had waited to see what would happen. When Kazuaki failed to return, he lost patience and went looking for him. That was how he had met Yuka.

 

After the wake, when he heard her story, anger at how late it all was mingled with relief that she did, at least, feel regret and remorse. His feelings were complicated. Yet there was certainly a lightness, as though something that had possessed him had fallen away, in discovering that she had this face and this name.

 

Perhaps because she was no longer “some incomprehensible woman who had one-sidedly ruined his grandfather’s life”. He told her firmly that, with everything so hectic, he did not want her confessing to his parents now. Yuka obediently agreed.

 

“Um, were Fujisawa and the professor close? I never imagined he would be here.”

 

“He’d been coming to help Grandpa with some things. Were you close to Mr Fujisawa?”

 

“No. We only knew each other by sight.”

 

Hiiragi disliked himself for deliberately checking information Kazuaki had already given him.

 

It was as though he doubted him and wanted corroboration. Yet he could not stop wanting to know. However slight the connection, he wanted to ask someone who had known Kazuaki to ask about him.

 

“What was Mr Fujisawa like?”

 

Yuka looked uncertain.

 

“He was a year below me, and I really didn’t know him well… I was surprised when he angrily told me to leave just now. He was so quiet, so detached. I didn’t know Fujisawa could get angry.”

 

Angry.

 

Was that for his grandfather’s sake? Before, Kazuaki had taken a neutral position. Had he changed because it was now clear who was right and who was wrong?

 

“Nothing else in particular… Oh, one thing. When he was in his third year, a friend of his lost both his parents. I heard from someone that things were difficult for Fujisawa too.”

 

“Difficult?”

 

“His friend was so shocked that he couldn’t even come to university, apparently. Fujisawa took care of everything for him. That surprised me too. To put it unkindly, I’d thought of him as rather unemotional and cold.”

 

“What’s that friend doing now?”

 

“I don’t know… I think he graduated, but I’m not sure. His name was… Nakarai, I think. Surely Fujisawa himself would know better?”

 

“Of course. Sorry for asking strange questions.”

 

Nakarai.

 

The same name his grandfather had mentioned. Was that the man Kazuaki had been unable to leave alone? Given the circumstances, it was natural that he could not take his eyes off him.

 

If they were no longer together, had the man recovered emotionally and stopped needing help? But then, surely they would have remained ordinary friends. From the way Kazuaki spoke, it had sounded as though they would never see each other again.

 

It’s better that way. It will probably be a relief. They had already been friends, close enough for one to support the other through such hardship, yet eventually they had parted bitterly.

 

Could that happen? Hiiragi folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them, watching the steam grow weaker. Before long, perhaps overcome by the strain on his mind and body over the past few days, he fell asleep.

 

When he woke, it was completely dark outside. Shivering in the cold, he put on the mourning jacket lying nearby and carried the mug, which he had never touched, to the sink. Coffee still remained in the coffee-maker’s jug.

 

Realising he had made enough for two out of habit, he gave a wry smile. The house was quiet. It had never been particularly lively even with the two of them there. Yet now the silence was unsettling, as though night had drawn thicker, darker curtains around the house.

 

Suddenly, he wanted to turn on a television. He wanted to see anyone, doing anything—laughing, singing, getting angry—in a world that had nothing to do with him. Beyond the living room was complete darkness.

 

Abruptly unable to bear remaining still, he turned on the hall light. The bathroom, changing area, toilet, entrance and sitting room—he switched on every light he could find. Calling for his grandfather as he did.

 

“Grandpa. I’m home.”

 

He knew.

 

He knew perfectly well that there would be no answer. Yet sometimes, doing something despite knowing it was necessary to let reality sink in. Grandpa was nowhere any more. His grandfather’s study and bedroom. His own room. The storeroom. He switched them on one after another, then finally went down to the library. This room would become empty too. He opened Kazuaki’s notebook. The last page was gone. Kazuaki must have torn it out.

 

At that instant, loneliness surged over him so fiercely that he felt swallowed by it. He ran upstairs. Gripping the moped key, he rushed out of the house.

 

He started the engine with impatient hands and headed down the mountain road, gathering speed as though someone were pursuing him. No. No.

 

He did not want to be alone. He did not want the house without Grandpa. Louder than the exhaust, the first time Kazuaki had called his name echoed in his ears.

 

Not “you”.

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

He wanted to see Mr Fujisawa.

 

Kazuaki looked terribly surprised by his sudden arrival, still in the clothes he had worn to the funeral. But he let him in without a word. After directing Hiiragi to the stool at the kitchen counter, he warmed milk in a silver saucepan with a slender handle, poured it into a mug and set it before him.

 

“Is your microwave broken?”

 

“No… Somehow, it seemed better to give you something warmed over a flame.”

 

Hiiragi gave a little laugh.

 

“I don’t get it. You’re strange…”

 

In truth, he did understand.

 

Even if the taste was no different, he understood the feeling that, somehow, this was better. Kazuaki might deny it, but Hiiragi thought it was unmistakably kindness. He had spoken teasingly because, if he simply thanked him, he felt he might cry.

 

“I’m sorry about the wake.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“About her. Shimizu. I tried to send her away on my own judgment. I interfered.”

 

“No…”

 

The hot milk slowly travelled down through him, gently warming his body.

 

Far more than the cold meal served after the funeral, it felt as though it were cleansing him. Speaking of milk. Hiiragi laughed to himself at the memory.

 

Kazuaki asked what was wrong, sounding slightly concerned.

 

“Today, before they took the coffin out, my great-aunt said, ‘You always liked these,’ and tipped a load of milk caramels inside. I’d never seen Grandpa eat caramels. I had no idea, so I just thought, huh. But at the crematorium, Dad and the others were whispering about it. ‘Have you ever heard him say he liked caramels?’ ‘No, I haven’t.’ ‘Is she mixing him up with someone else?’ ‘Could it be a sign of dementia?’ All with these incredibly serious faces.”

 

Overhearing them, his great-aunt had become angry.

 

“He ate nothing else when he was a child!”

 

Nobody could know the truth of something so long ago. In the end, the matter remained unresolved.

 

But from now on, someone was bound to bring up the milk caramels at every memorial service.

 

“Come to think of it, Dad put sweets in when Mum died too.”

 

“Perhaps putting cheap sweets in coffins runs in the family.”

 

His mother had said it quite seriously.

 

His father, who disliked sweet things, had asked Hiiragi to use dried squid when his time came.

 

“I don’t want your bones ending up smelling of squid.”

 

Everyone had laughed.

 

There had been nothing disrespectful about it. The atmosphere had been quietly warm, the sort that arose when seeing off a member of the family. He had felt no anger even towards relatives who had once made thoughtless jokes.

 

So many people had loved his grandfather. That had made him happy.

 

“When Grandma died, I remember really clearly how Grandpa put konpeitō in her coffin. So to me, funerals aren’t monochrome. They’re full of colours. They don’t feel dark.”

 

“In that case,” Kazuaki said, “there was no need for you to go out of your way to dye your hair.”

 

Oh.

 

He was not calling him by name any more. Hiiragi felt disappointed.

 

“That’s different.”

 

“Is it?”

 

Kazuaki ran water into the milk saucepan, where a white film remained.

 

Perhaps the sound was a little like the rain that night.

 

“It’s beautiful.”

 

Kazuaki had unmistakably said, “beautiful”.

 

“…What?”

 

“You don’t need to worry about other people’s eyes. You don’t need to force yourself to dye it. Your hair is beautiful. It’s the first time in my life I’ve thought anything like that.”

 

He spoke slowly, as though making sure Hiiragi understood every word.

 

Kazuaki, who was not supposed to find flowers beautiful. Grandpa. Just as someone learns to read and write, perhaps one day he’ll acquire something in his heart and come to know beauty.

 

And that feeling may be far more vivid than the beauty you and I know. He said it was beautiful. Mr Fujisawa did.

 

I don’t know what he’s gained, but… Grandpa, why aren’t you here?

────────────────────────────────

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hiiragi repeated.

 

Tears began to fall.

 

“Why are you saying that now…?”

 

He had not been forcing himself to hold them back. Yet the tears that had not come at the wake or funeral were spilling out now, one after another.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Kazuaki came round the counter.

 

Hiiragi stood so abruptly that he almost kicked the stool away.

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

Kazuaki called his name.

 

At that instant, Hiiragi shuddered with the pain of an invisible thorn. Yes. It had always hurt. Kazuaki’s gaze. His words.

 

Why, then, had he come here?

 

“I don’t believe you. You weren’t there. When Grandpa died, you weren’t beside me.”

 

His cheeks were hot. Only the narrow tracks of his tears felt cold.

 

“You said you couldn’t take your eyes off me. That was a lie. Why did you look away? I was so scared. I wanted you to come with me.”

 

While holding his grandfather’s hand as life slowly evaporated from him, he had wanted Kazuaki, and no one else, to be there.

 

“Liar.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

He struck Kazuaki’s chest hard with his fist and was pulled into an embrace.

 

“I’m sorry. Hiiragi. I’m sorry.”

 

When he continued struggling, the arms around him tightened.

 

He could smell Kazuaki. The same scent as his bed. Not hospital disinfectant. Not the smell of death coming from his grandfather. Not the sharpness of hair dye, the camphor clinging to mourning clothes, incense or funeral flowers.

 

Kazuaki’s scent. He breathed it in deeply, and the rigidity left his body. Yet Kazuaki did not loosen his embrace. He only changed the angle of his head and kissed him.

 

Of course Hiiragi was surprised. But with his lips firmly covered, he felt something beyond surprise: understanding, perhaps, or clarity. Could the vague, unidentifiable feelings he had been experiencing towards Kazuaki lately find their answer in something like this?

 

He could not see what lay beyond that answer. But at least, now, he felt no revulsion. Besides, while he was enclosed in those arms, he could think of nothing but Kazuaki. Whatever they did together became everything.

 

He did not have to dwell on the empty house with all its lights left on, his own future or his grandfather’s death. He wanted a strong force, a hand that would let him escape reality for a little while. It never occurred to him to wonder whether anyone would have done so.

 

Only Kazuaki was beside him now. Hiiragi put his arms around Kazuaki’s back. For a moment, hesitation passed through their touching lips, but Kazuaki did not let go. Instead, his embrace tightened again.

 

When Kazuaki’s tongue entered his mouth, Hiiragi felt unmistakably happy. It would not end with their lips merely touching. There was somewhere further they could go together. He could fill himself with more of Kazuaki and forget everything.

 

It was his first time. He could imagine nothing specific. Yet that vague expectation alone heated his body. Without skill or technique, he offered his tongue simply to make clear that he wanted this too.

 

It felt as though the slightest resistance would make Kazuaki pull away. Strangely, even while being held, he thought he did not want Kazuaki to escape. Mr Fujisawa had always been trying to leave, always keeping himself ready to leave. Hiiragi did not know why. But finally, finally, he was here. Because Grandpa had died? Because he was worried about Hiiragi?

 

Was it wrong to feel happy? The funeral had only just ended. He was still wearing his mourning clothes, and here he was— The thorns prickling up through his thoughts came loose when his tongue was sucked hard, falling away and passing into Kazuaki’s mouth.

 

So Hiiragi sucked the tongue entwined with his own, and Kazuaki’s lips. He wanted to swallow Kazuaki’s thorns. His tongue tingled faintly, but soon he could no longer think. He became absorbed in the play within their mouths.

 

When the roof of his mouth was tickled, a sweetly pitched breath escaped through his nose. He had thought he was being held too tightly to breathe, but that was not so. He felt almost lonely that Kazuaki’s arms could not directly squeeze his bones and organs. Closer.

 

Come closer still. His tongue and lips were taken again and again. As though even his nerves had been licked into softness, his balance grew uncertain. He lost the feeling of his feet pressing against the floor, and his knees buckled.

 

Kazuaki supported his waist. Their lips separated, and this time their eyes met. Hiiragi saw hesitation pass through them. They could still turn back. Kazuaki was certainly thinking that. Looking into those eyes, Hiiragi said:

 

“I want to forget. Everything. Just for now. So you forget too.”

 

He thought Kazuaki might say that was impossible. Instead, Kazuaki kissed him once more, almost biting, then whispered close enough to make his wet lips tremble:

 

“To the bed.”

 

Even through his clothes, the sheets felt cold. Goosebumps rose briefly on his skin. Perhaps it was not really because of the chill. Even now, Kazuaki’s fingers smoothly drew the hem of his shirt out. The buttons seemed to come undone of their own accord at his touch. Once he had exposed Hiiragi from collarbone to stomach, his eyes narrowed.

 

It was not the gaze Hiiragi knew, the one that questioned or objected. This was more feverish, more guilty: something for which Hiiragi had no words. The palm against his bare skin was startlingly hot. Was that because his back was cold? He remembered the story of the fish. Now, Hiiragi would seek that touch even if it scorched his fragile scales.

 

Being given pain meant he was not alone. Between those temperatures, unfamiliar sensations began to form within his slender body. Of course, it was the first time someone had touched his naked body with this particular intention. Even when he touched himself, he paid no attention to anywhere beyond the necessary parts. Yet pinned beneath Kazuaki, watched by him and stroked with another person’s warmth, his body accepted the pleasure with complete honesty.

 

“Ah… Ah…”

 

Part of him realised that sounds really did escape without permission. If he heard himself when he was thinking clearly, he would surely be so embarrassed he would want to scream. Yet here, it was allowed. He felt no resistance to being treated like a woman either. The instinct telling him this was all he had now was far stronger than his limited knowledge or fixed ideas.

 

This act was his certainty. The pad of a finger rubbed his nipple. At that instant, their somewhat soft, drifting exchange took on the sharp colour of arousal. Gently pressed, it hardened. Caught between fingertips, it drew into a point.

 

“Ah, ah…”

 

Kazuaki’s hand was caressing him. Those straight, well-shaped hands that had seemed suited to books, watches and mugs—to inorganic things without the rawness of flesh—were carefully exploring his body to heighten his pleasure and draw out his voice. Until yesterday, he could not have imagined this, even if asked. Yet here it was.

 

So real.

 

“Mm… Ngh…”

 

His own voice, coloured by desire, mingled with the hard sound of a belt buckle opening. When his underwear was pulled down, he felt his curved erection catch against it and became aware of how aroused he was. Strangely, he felt no shame. He nearly urged Kazuaki on.

 

More. Further. Closer.

 

If they did not hurry, the night would end. When fingers wrapped round his exposed erection, he lifted his hips without restraint. Kazuaki stretched up and gave him a succession of brief kisses while his hand worked below.

 

Impatient with the gaps between them, Hiiragi instinctively reached out with his tongue. Kazuaki rubbed it between his lips. Inside Hiiragi’s body, that movement mingled with what was being done to his penis. The sensations twisted together, wound around one another and grew stronger. Their saliva and the fluid spilling from Hiiragi made wet sounds.

 

“Ah, ah, ah…”

 

He pressed his arousal into the gently tightening palm, greedily taking pleasure as though using Kazuaki’s hand to masturbate.

 

He came with surprising ease.

 

“Hah… Ah, mm!”

 

Once the tiny spasms at the tip had subsided, Kazuaki held his temporarily softened penis as though supporting it, then began moving his hand much more firmly than before.

 

“Ah… Ahh…”

 

Sometimes, after coming once, he no longer wanted to touch himself. At other times, once was not enough, and he could become excited again immediately. Now it was the latter. He had been brought up so quickly, in an unfamiliar way, that he had come as though needing to release only the first layer. There was still plenty of water inside him, waiting to boil.

 

Kazuaki seemed to understand that. Unlike the first time, when he had let Hiiragi move as he pleased, Kazuaki now took control and drove his arousal upwards. As though teaching him what it felt like to be overwhelmed by another person’s hand, another person’s rhythm.

 

“Mm—ah, ah… Ah!”

 

The tiny slit that had only just closed opened again and began spilling clear fluid. The initial coldness had disappeared. His shirt clung to his back as he began to sweat. His whole body was burning. Kazuaki stroked his newly rigid erection with his whole palm, then followed the seam along its arched underside. At the small point where it joined the reddened head, he lightly scraped with a fingernail.

 

“Ah!”

 

It had been such a small movement, yet the pleasure, threaded with ticklishness and pain, was intense. Hiiragi felt the blood vessels pulsing inside his penis swell further.

 

“Ah… I’m going to… Again…”

 

“Yes.”

 

At his broken appeal, Kazuaki rubbed in quick, small movements near the opening. Drawn by that fast rhythm, Hiiragi’s heartbeat and pleasure raced upwards together.

 

“Ah! Ah, mm…”

 

His whole body rippled with a climax far more concentrated than the first. Languid to his fingertips, he lay dazed and unable to move. Kazuaki brushed the disordered hair from his forehead.

 

“Wait here a moment.”

 

He left the bed, took something from a desk drawer and returned. A small, round, flat silver tin, just large enough to fit in his palm. It had no label. Kazuaki tossed it casually onto the sheets and took off his shirt. Hiiragi’s gaze was drawn away from the tin to the blue-black bruises on his upper arm. Some parts had begun turning yellow. Looking closely, he saw that the discolouration, like several colours of ink spilt beneath the skin, branched into separate marks.

 

When he recognised the shape of human fingers, his grandfather’s face came to mind.

 

“…Grandpa?”

 

Kazuaki started, then seemed to abandon the idea of concealing it, giving a small nod. Hiiragi gently reached out, touching carefully so as not to hurt him. He could not remember ever seeing his grandfather so much as raise his voice. Yet the finger marks remaining clearly on Kazuaki’s arm were dark and raw enough to be called violent.

 

By the time Hiiragi reached the hospital, his grandfather had already been unconscious. These seemed like the final proof of life he had left behind.

 

“Sorry,” Hiiragi murmured. “I didn’t know. It must have hurt. This much…”

 

Kazuaki caught his fingers.

 

“He was the one in pain. The one suffering.”

 

“But he isn’t in pain any more.”

 

Hiiragi continued:

 

“Grandpa doesn’t hurt or suffer now.”

 

Nor did he eat, sleep, speak or laugh.

 

When Hiiragi closed his eyes, a few more tears came. Warm lips pressed against the line of his eyelids. The faint tickle against his eyelashes made him laugh.

 

Perhaps reassured, Kazuaki lifted himself and spread Hiiragi’s legs wide. Something slippery touched the most private part of his body. He had vaguely expected that part to be involved. What surprised him was Kazuaki’s smoothness, and he thought, "This is not his first time." He had had sex with a man before.

 

“…Are you frightened?”

 

Noticing Hiiragi’s gaze, Kazuaki looked up.

 

Frightened. Yes. He was frightened because he did not know.

 

But wanting to know, and actually finding out, frightened him too.

 

“No, um… I was just wondering what that slippery stuff was.”

 

“A delicate cream for looking after leather. It only contains petroleum jelly and animal fat, so it won’t harm your body.”

 

“Oh. Right…”

 

He had never worried that Kazuaki would use something harmful.

 

Having disguised what he truly wanted to ask, he pretended to be satisfied with the answer. Kazuaki said:

 

“Sorry.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I should have explained first.”

 

“No, it’s fine.”

 

“I was impatient.”

 

“What?”

 

“I still am.”

 

Did that mean he wanted to hurry?

 

Mr Fujisawa wanted to hurry—with him? There was no visible sign of any physical urgency.

 

“Um…”

 

“…Stay still for a moment.”

 

Cutting off Hiiragi’s attempt to clarify what he meant, Kazuaki worked in the cream.

 

His finger brushed the rim repeatedly, moved back and forth, then slipped inside. Hiiragi bit his lip.

 

“If it becomes too much, tell me straight away.”

 

An ache moved and pressed deep within him. It felt as though someone were trying to reshape him from inside, like clay.

 

Being stretched was harder than the finger moving in and out. It was not agonising. In terms of pain alone, the dentist was much worse. It was simply unsettling—an uncomfortable sense of something unfamiliar.

 

But, Hiiragi thought, this was as close as anyone could get. No one could enter further. Being held had left him frustrated. He had thought the “more” he wanted did not exist.

 

Yet it did. Then he did not care if it hurt or felt strange. Was it the knowledge that he had chosen this that removed his tension? Or was he merely growing accustomed to it?

 

His lower belly eased a little. Even when a second finger entered, the feeling was not as incomprehensible as before. He could feel the cream melting and loosening with friction and body heat.

 

Muffled, wet sounds came from inside him. Their strangeness also brought a shivering sense of doing something forbidden. This was the first sex of his life.

 

When he was still at school, he and his friends had laughed together over how embarrassing it would be to be completely naked with someone, how they could never imagine doing it. Were those boys now taking it for granted, holding someone else naked in their arms? After Hiiragi came to the mountain, he no longer had anyone with whom to exchange such childish dirty jokes.

 

The conversations around him concerned marriage and having children—two or three steps beyond sex itself. Before long, he stopped thinking about the sex he might have one day. He had no desire to seek out opportunities to meet girls.

 

Watching plants flower and shed their leaves, he thought only vaguely that perhaps something like that would happen to him when its time came. If it never came, that would not trouble him either. Of course his grandfather would die before him.

 

Afterwards, he would remain on the mountain, caring for plants. Quietly, without any special encounter, without knowing anyone else’s warmth. He had thought he could live alone. How arrogant he had been.

 

“Ah—ah!”

 

When a finger pressed firmly against somewhere along the softened inner wall, sexual pleasure arrived with the suddenness of a released spring.

 

From deep within his body, it raced along a route he had never known and reached his penis in an instant. The opening around the fingers and his inner thighs jerked. The sensation was strong enough to make him want to twist his whole body.

 

The place Kazuaki kept finding seemed to have only an on-and-off switch, with no way to adjust its strength. It was frighteningly electric, like having skin touched after its outer layer had been stripped away. Yet his arousal pulsed faster, and the opening behind it grew wet and seemed to gasp.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

His heels restlessly scraped the sheets.

 

“I can’t take it any more…”

 

“…All right.”

 

“No. That’s not what I mean.”

 

Without thinking, he gripped the bruises his grandfather had left. Kazuaki’s face tightened slightly.

 

“I can’t take it, so do it. Don’t stop.”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

“I can’t stand it. I’m lonely. I thought loneliness was something you thought about in your head, but it isn’t. My body’s lonely. I can’t bear it. Mr Fujisawa, please come here…”

 

His wrist was pinned beside his head.

 

Their fingers firmly intertwined, Kazuaki entered him. Just as Hiiragi had wished.

 

“Ah… Ah, ah!”

 

Kazuaki was hard, hot and properly impatient.

 

Hiiragi was happy. Happy that Kazuaki possessed the impulses and foolishness of a living body, and that his own body had drawn them out. More than anything, something alive was inside him.

 

Different breathing. A different heart. Different thorns. They could never become completely one. Yet exchanging warmth and overlapping their heartbeats, Kazuaki had finally come this far, as close as they could possibly get.

 

Fingers held him behind the knees so they could join more deeply. Let them leave bruises there too. Blue enough never to disappear.

 

When he was thrust upwards, it felt as though Kazuaki’s penis were reaching into his stomach and lungs. His body protested at the strain. He gave voice to all of it: the difficulty, and the excitement mingled with it.

 

“Mm, ah… Ahh…”

 

He did not know how loud he was, and did not care.

 

There was nobody else here. Even if he forgot not just grief and loneliness but being human at all, surely Kazuaki would still hold him.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

He called his name.

 

Again and again, as though he were an animal whose cry took that form.

 

“Mr Fujisawa. Mr Fujisawa. Mr Fujisawa…”

 

“I hear you.”

 

His hand was taken again.

 

“I hear you. Properly. Hiiragi.”

 

Inside him, Kazuaki changed shape.

 

He should have been allowed to feel afraid. Yet the place where they were joined urged the hard length on and tightened round it. When Kazuaki pushed into that sharply contracted space, Hiiragi gasped at pleasure that seemed to spray deeper within him.

 

His lower belly trembled, revealing the intensity of the arousal moving directly beneath it.

 

“Ah… Ah!”

 

A forceful movement of Kazuaki’s hips sent an ache deep through him, and he ejaculated again.

 

From the interior contracting with that release, Kazuaki forcibly withdrew and came over him. The joy of feeling his lower abdomen stained with that heat was beyond comparison. Kazuaki slowly raised his upper body.

 

Hiiragi pushed himself up on strengthless arms and followed, simply because he could not bear to separate. Now that he knew this kind of intimacy, how was he supposed to spend the time when they were not holding each other? Kazuaki supported him as his elbows threatened to give way.

 

Their faces drew close, and they kissed again. His waist was pulled firmly nearer. From behind, fingers slipped past his tailbone to somewhere deeper.

 

“Mm… Mm…”

 

The completely melted cream and the desire that had not fully subsided were stirred together.

 

A sudden tremor of flesh ran up his spine and shook his tongue inside Kazuaki’s mouth. Guided by the movement of that hand, he rose onto his knees and straddled Kazuaki.

 

“Ah… Ahh…”

 

How easily they could join now frightened him more than pain.

 

Yet he lowered his own body and accepted him, delighted that the penis passing through his centre was still hard. Once he was sitting fully down, joined as deeply as possible, he rested his forehead against Kazuaki’s neck and laughed.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Kazuaki properly understood the difference between the times Hiiragi called simply because he wanted to, and the times he wanted to say something.

 

“I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but… Is this the second time now? Or does it count as one long first time?”

 

“Why do you ask?”

 

“‘Once doesn’t count.’”

 

When he lifted his face and murmured it, Kazuaki’s eyes wavered.

 

“It just came back to me.”

 

“…We’re forgetting, aren’t we?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

The shirt and jacket still clinging to him were removed.

 

“Your eyes,” Kazuaki murmured. “At night, the green is so deep… I feel as though I could be drawn into them.”

 

Hiiragi thought he heard, “I’m frightened.”

 

But perhaps he had imagined it. He was not sure. Kazuaki, frightened?

 

Hiiragi closed his eyes and entrusted his whole body to him. When they held each other with nothing between their bare bodies, he was filled with a gentle pleasure entirely different from penetration or ejaculation. With movements like drifting dreamily among waves, he was slowly brought to climax.

 

────────────────────────────────

 

Waking was not particularly pleasant. His throat felt scratchy and dry, and repeated coughing brought him out of sleep. Lying on his back made it worse.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

The back of a cool hand pressed against his cheek.

 

From the firmness of the skin, it could not be his grandfather’s. Hiiragi’s unfocused gaze wandered. As Kazuaki’s face came into focus, everything from before he fell asleep returned with it. Including the reason his throat hurt.

 

He had overused it last night.

 

“I’ll get some water.”

 

Without waiting for Hiiragi’s response, Kazuaki turned away.

 

Hiiragi slowly sat up. His mourning clothes lay neatly folded beside the pillow. He gathered them in both arms and scrambled out of bed. As Kazuaki opened the fridge, he called to him.

 

“R-rather than water, could I borrow your bath…?”

 

“…Yes. Of course. The towels are in the same place as before.”

 

Hiiragi could not properly see Kazuaki’s face as he reached for the mineral water.

 

He hurried down the short corridor and closed the bathroom door. A long breath escaped him. What sort of expression was he supposed to wear on a morning like this?

 

He caught the shower water in his palm. Once it reached the right temperature, he turned it up fully and let it pour over his head. Steam filled the room, further clouding a mind whose judgement was already sluggish. What was he supposed to do now?

 

His grandfather was gone. Kazuaki’s work here, and his reason for remaining, were gone too. Last night, there had been only “now”.

 

He had wanted to see only Kazuaki, to think only of Kazuaki. But because Hiiragi was alive, another “now” existed beyond it, just as this morning did. The same was true of Kazuaki.

 

He did not regret it. But he felt sorry towards him. He had demanded something with an unreasonable argument and made Kazuaki answer him.

 

Kazuaki probably felt guilty towards Hiiragi too. That was completely wrong, but Hiiragi was not confident he could properly explain why. Kazuaki surely had not slept at all.

 

Hiiragi’s clothes had been on the bed, and he had never felt another person’s warmth through his half-sleep. Kazuaki had chosen not to sleep beside him. That felt like an answer.

 

As Kazuaki stripped the sheets from the mattress and replaced them, an engine sounded outside. It revved briefly, then quickly faded. Hiiragi must have gone home.

 

He had not noticed the front door opening. He could picture Hiiragi carefully turning the lock and slipping out on quiet feet. The sigh he released with a hand against his forehead—was it relief or disappointment?

 

He lay down on the half-made bed and closed his eyes. Morning light turned the darkness behind his eyelids white. What was he doing?

 

Coming all this way. Running all this way. He heard Tsuwabuki’s voice.

 

You can never escape being yourself. Neither his weakness nor his dishonesty. Once Hiiragi returned home, changed into everyday clothes and completed his usual routine—cleaning the garden, watering the trees—he finally began to feel calmer.

 

He sipped the cold coffee remaining in the jug, using its bitterness to fortify himself, and made a call.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Ah… Thanks for your hard work.”

 

He had thought himself prepared. Yet the moment he heard Kazuaki’s voice, every word he had planned disappeared, and the greeting he normally used at work slipped out instead.

 

“Um… Sorry for leaving without saying anything. I remembered I’d left all the lights on at home.”

 

“I see.”

 

The lights were real, but they were no excuse for leaving without a word.

 

He could not tell whether Kazuaki accepted the explanation as it stood, or understood it was a pretext and was choosing to leave it alone. They had gone as far as having sex, and Hiiragi still did not understand even this much. He had found Kazuaki’s elusive, slightly otherworldly nature interesting.

 

Now it made him lonely. Even if, while they were joined, he felt satisfied that he had finally reached him, once they separated he was confronted with how fleeting that illusion had been. Why did everyone bother having sex?

 

Didn’t holding someone, and being held, only leave you lonelier afterwards?

 

“…Sorry.”

 

“No… To be honest, I was relieved too.”

 

Ah.

 

Of course. The awkwardness belonged to both of them, yet Hiiragi’s chest hurt.

 

“…Why?”

 

“I’m not confident I can talk calmly yet.”

 

“What should we talk about?”

 

“I don’t really know. But neither of us was thinking clearly yesterday. That much is certain, isn’t it?”

 

He sounded like a different person.

 

This cool, level Kazuaki was the one Hiiragi had originally met. Yet now that his body knew the feverish, intense side from last night, he seemed terribly distant. Even heartless.

 

A sudden chill approached, and Hiiragi drew in his shoulders, phone in hand. Before long, they would need heating in the mornings and evenings. He ought to clean the filters soon.

 

Even now, everyday concerns crossed his mind. In the end, he would go on living here. Even if Kazuaki went somewhere else.

 

“You were hurt and confused. I took advantage of that.”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes. If that hadn’t happened to your grandfather, you would never have imagined sleeping with me.”

 

“Maybe not… But even if that’s true, what’s wrong with it? Are things only right if you decide them normally, when you’re thinking clearly? If you weren’t calm, does that make it a mistake?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The firm agreement left him speechless.

 

“At least, that’s what I believe where I’m concerned. I never wanted to make that mistake again. I didn’t want to hurt someone because I let impulses or desire drive me. Yet I repeated it. I regret it.”

 

“Who’s ‘someone’?”

 

Hiiragi shouted before he could stop himself.

 

“I’m not hurt. I was the one who said it, wasn’t I? I invited you. I was happy…”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

Kazuaki’s voice was strained.

 

The more strongly Hiiragi insisted, the more he was hurting him. He would become another of Kazuaki’s thorns.

 

“You said ‘again’. Then who was the first?”

 

Kazuaki did not answer.

 

“Look at me properly…”

 

He directed the plea into silence, then ended the call.

 

The window rattled. It was still too early for the cold winds that stripped the trees, yet a strong wind was blowing outside. Afterwards, he slept deeply in his own bed.

 

A call from the garden woke him around midday the following day.

 

“Hiiragi, how are you? Feeling a little more settled?”

 

When he honestly admitted he had been asleep, Munakata laughed.

 

“If you’re managing to sleep, that’s a good thing.”

 

“Thank you for coming to the funeral. Everyone else too. You’re all so busy.”

 

“Of course we came. Tell us if you’re having trouble with anything. We’ll help however we can.”

 

“Thank you… In that case, maybe I’ll come and work. I’ve got nothing to do.”

 

Bereavement leave for a grandparent was normally three days, but they had given him a week because he had not taken a proper long break in ages.

 

“No. When you’re off, you need to rest properly. We have enough people here.”

 

“But there’s always plenty to do.”

 

“Well, yes. But listen… If it’s because being home alone is painful, or because you feel at a loose end and can’t bear doing nothing, then no.”

 

“What?”

 

The unexpectedly stern words made Hiiragi sit up straighter in bed.

 

“Because this is your workplace. It isn’t somewhere to escape to, is it? Perhaps it was once, but not now. We rely on you, and we pay you. You aren’t a child any more. I’m sad about the professor too. You must be much sadder. That’s why I told you to take a week. It’s time to find some way of coming to terms with the grief and prepare to work again. You can’t let it all become muddled. This isn’t somewhere you come to on an ‘in that case’.”

 

“…Yes. I’m sorry.”

 

“Mind you, the remaining three days will be over before you know it. Why not take a little trip? Hop on your moped and go to a hot spring nearby.”

 

“Oh. That sounds nice.”

 

He would not go.

 

But the firm reprimand had straightened something inside him. After washing his face and eating toast with milk, he vacuumed the whole house. Because of the noise, he did not notice a car stopping outside.

 

When the intercom rang, he hurriedly switched off the vacuum cleaner and went to the entrance. Assuming Munakata or someone else from the garden had come to see how he was doing, he opened the door without checking. Two unfamiliar men in suits stood outside.

 

“Um…”

 

Had salespeople come even this far into the mountains?

 

Had they heard about the funeral and come to sell a gravestone or something? As Hiiragi froze briefly at the unexpected visitors, one of them spoke.

 

“Is this Professor Jirō Tsuwabuki’s home?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’m sorry to call without warning. My name is Hiraiwa. The professor taught me at university.”

 

The postcard.

 

The man who was getting married. Hiiragi followed the threads of his memory. With his gentle eyes and manner of speaking, the man gave an impression of rounded corners.

 

“We heard he’d passed away… We found out too late to attend the funeral. If it wouldn’t be an imposition, could we offer incense?”

 

“I’m sorry. We don’t have a Buddhist altar or anything… Oh, but please, come in. Thank you for coming all this way.”

 

He did not know how to entertain them, but surely he should not send them away.

 

He laid out new slippers and put the vacuum cleaner in the storeroom. At least he had just finished cleaning. Once the unexpected visitors were seated at the dining table, Hiiragi hesitantly spoke.

 

“Um… Is he all right?”

 

Hiraiwa’s companion looked terribly pale.

 

The drained colour was not altogether unsuited to his fine features, but there was something precarious about it that went beyond fair skin.

 

“Don’t worry about him,” Hiraiwa answered. “He doesn’t travel well in cars. We stopped for breaks on the way too.”

 

“Oh. Sorry, having the house in a place like this…”

 

“No, no.”

 

The other man said nothing, but perhaps Hiiragi’s phrasing amused him, because he smiled faintly.

 

“Excuse me a moment.”

 

Hiiragi went into the garden and picked a generous handful of mint leaves from a planter.

 

After rinsing them under running water, he put them in a glass of sparkling water and set it before the man. He had intended to offer green tea or coffee, but this was probably better.

 

“Something cold might help you feel a bit better.”

 

“…Thank you.”

 

Speaking for the first time, the man took two or three sips.

 

“Where’s the rest of your family?”

 

“My parents live somewhere else. It was just my grandfather here and me…”

 

“Oh…”

 

The water made a light sound in the glass.

 

He had slender fingers for a man, somehow suited to holding something transparent.

 

“That must be difficult.”

 

His voice was flat.

 

Depending on how one heard it, the remark could have sounded utterly thoughtless. Hiraiwa did, in fact, turn towards him with a startled look. Yet Hiiragi felt no displeasure. Why?

 

Those brief words seemed to hold a deeply personal understanding. He thought the man had deliberately chosen “difficult”, rather than “lonely” or “sad”.

 

“Please accept our condolences.”

 

Hiraiwa took an envelope of condolence money from his suit pocket. His companion followed his example.

 

Hiiragi hesitated. They had consistently refused condolence money from everyone. But these men had come all this way. Insisting on refusing might itself be rude.

 

On the other hand, accepting it would mean arranging the proper return gifts and so on. No. He would ask his mother later. He bowed and accepted the envelopes.

 

Turning them over, he checked the names. Taku Hiraiwa. And—

 

半井整.

 

“Um… Han…?”

 

As he struggled to read it, the man said:

 

“Nakarai. Sei Nakarai.”

 

Hiiragi felt the blood drain from his face.

 

Nakarai, written with those characters. The name his grandfather had mentioned. The name Yuka had mentioned. The person Kazuaki had been unable to leave alone.

 

If they had come together like this, he must still be close to Hiraiwa. Why was Kazuaki no longer part of that group? Nakarai frowned questioningly.

 

He was the sort of person on whom a melancholy, slightly displeased expression looked more natural than a smile.

 

“No. I just thought it was an unusual surname. That’s all.”

 

Hiiragi put the envelopes on the table and tightly curled the fingers of both hands.

 

Suddenly, he felt embarrassed. About having his soil-roughened hands seen. About failing to read the name.

 

He did not know why, but he felt unbearably ignorant and pathetic. Nakarai had graduated from the same university as Kazuaki. He probably held a respectable job. He sat before him in a suit, an adult who seemed beyond reproach. Hiiragi felt an intense inferiority.

 

He wanted to escape. But where? As those fruitless thoughts circled, there was a small clunk.

 

Nakarai had drained the sparkling water and set the empty glass down. The timing was almost as though he intended to stop Hiiragi’s confusion.

 

“Don’t drink it like beer…”

 

Ignoring Hiraiwa’s exasperation, Nakarai looked at Hiiragi.

 

“That was good. Thank you.”

 

His face had regained a little life, and his manner was straightforward.

 

He seemed to have something on his mind, yet perhaps he was simply doing things at his own pace. This man was rather unusual too, Hiiragi thought. But he probably did not dislike him.

 

Since there was nowhere for them to offer prayers, he at least showed them the study and library. Even so, their visit lasted less than half an hour. Looking at the part of the library that had already been sorted, Nakarai remarked appreciatively:

 

“It’s beautifully organised.”

 

Before getting into the passenger seat, he told Hiiragi:

 

“Take care of yourself.”

 

Hiiragi felt a gentleness behind it.

 

I know it won’t be easy. I know. Perhaps because Nakarai had already experienced more than enough of the pain of losing someone close.

 

“…You take care too, Mr Nakarai. Is that a strange thing to say?”

 

“I’m all right. I’m better now.”

 

As he watched Hiraiwa’s car leave and raised his hand in a small wave, he noticed that his watch had stopped again.

 

Grandpa, isn’t this thing faulty? He took it off and moved it from side to side. Just as Kazuaki had taught him.

 

Then, properly, the second hand began moving in his palm. He could do it. He could do it himself.

 

Stopped time could be set moving again. Gripping the condolence envelope, Hiiragi climbed onto his moped. Layers of grey cloud overlapped, stretching across the sky in long, winding bands whose ends he could not see.

 

The wind was moving differently from usual. Perhaps the weather was about to turn. Ringing the intercom, then waiting for Kazuaki to open the door, was the same as the day before yesterday.

 

“This person came earlier.”

 

He held out the envelope with the name on the back visible.

 

Kazuaki seized both his shoulders hard. There was no attempt to hide his agitation.

 

“Did you tell him?”

 

The question was an interrogation.

 

“Did you tell him anything about me?”

 

Hiiragi had not expected such an open reaction. Overwhelmed, he could only shake his head.

 

“…I see.”

 

Kazuaki readily let go and turned away, perhaps to avoid Hiiragi’s eyes.

 

“Then it’s fine. Sorry I startled you.”

 

At last, Hiiragi asked him directly, even though Kazuaki was not looking at him.

 

“Would it cause trouble just to mention your name? Isn’t it strange that you have to hide even the fact you exist? You were close, weren’t you? Miss Shimizu told me.”

 

He had not come with any clear plan.

 

He had simply felt he must tell Kazuaki that Nakarai had visited. Had he acted blindly and made another mistake?

 

“He didn’t look well, but he said he was fine. ‘I’m all right,’ he said… Don’t you want to see him? They stopped for breaks on the way here, so they’ll probably do the same going back. You could catch them if you went after them. I remember the colour and number plate. They’re heading towards Tokyo, right?”

 

“I won’t see him.”

 

Kazuaki answered without turning.

 

“I decided. I’ll never see him again. He intends the same.”

 

“Don’t you want to?”

 

“No.”

 

“Liar.”

 

The name alone had shaken him so badly.

 

Wasn’t that person still occupying his heart? Even taken by surprise, he could have said he did not remember, just as he had when pretending ignorance to Hiiragi’s grandfather.

 

“You do want to see him.”

 

You don’t want him to see him, a voice within Hiiragi replied.

 

He did not want Kazuaki to pursue that man with the beautiful fingers, whose brusqueness had held a strange attraction. But even if they never met, he would surely remain lodged inside Kazuaki like a thorn. The time would never come when he was wrapped safely in something white and rounded.

 

Kazuaki’s heart would keep hurting. Kazuaki swung his fist sideways and struck the wall. What reached Hiiragi was less a sound than a vibration, travelling through the air and trembling against his eyelashes.

 

“…This has nothing to do with you.”

 

────────────────────────────────

 

The wind and rain were fierce. The sound of rain striking the windows grew louder and softer as the wind changed direction. Sometimes a strong gust caught the drops, sent them briefly drifting through the air, then hurled them against the ground in a sudden, violent rush. Kazuaki had gone to bed, but had not slept at all.

 

He tried to blame that irregular rhythm for his third sleepless night. Was a house so close to the ground always this noisy? He had never thought about it in the high-rise flat where he lived with Sei.

 

How strange that being nearer the sky made one less aware of the weather. Dawn arrived in a dark mouse-grey. The day passed without changing colour, and evening came merely by turning grey into black. More than a full day had passed since Hiiragi left.

 

There had been no protest when Kazuaki threw those words at him. This has nothing to do with you. Still facing away, he had heard the door close.

 

He had not seen Hiiragi’s face. It had been the same when Sei left. On their last day, Sei went to work. After that, Kazuaki booked a hotel in Tokyo.

 

When he returned a week later, Sei’s belongings were gone. Even so, it amounted to little more than clothes, a few everyday items and a computer. All the furniture remained. The smallness of that empty space made him think this had never really been Sei’s home.

 

He had wanted more things to be missing. Great gaps where they had been. Instead, the loss was so small that it did not match the hole in his chest. The aluminium window frames rattled.

 

Was the mountain being battered even harder? What was Hiiragi doing there alone? Having pushed him away, Kazuaki still thought about such things.

 

He had never imagined Sei would come. Hearing about it from Hiiragi had been an even greater shock. With no room to conceal his reaction, he had simply rejected him.

 

Although he regretted how badly he had handled it, he could not see what else he should have done. Trying to smooth it over with words would probably have been useless. Telling everything frightened him.

 

He had thought he had sealed it beneath a thick lid, like a cold lake at the pole. If he broke that lid and exposed the past, Hiiragi might despise him. Like the people who had hurt Hiiragi and his grandfather, Kazuaki had kept telling flimsy lies, thinking only of protecting himself.

 

Why was he frightened? If Hiiragi despised him and said he never wanted to see him again, he could leave without any entanglement or regret. Shouldn’t he welcome that instead?

 

What other people thought of him did not matter. That was not bravado. It was supposed to be his nature. What frightened him was Hiiragi’s heart turning away.

 

He recognised the desire not to be someone bad for Hiiragi. That was why he had felt such urgency to do something for him. Yet he also wanted to keep his own shame hidden.

 

How presumptuous. Wanting to be beside someone. Wanting to be special to someone. Sei had long since forgiven him, freed himself from him and begun living in another world.

 

Yet the thorn Kazuaki had driven into himself pierced the top of his foot and held him motionless. He was sick of it. Being alone spared him from looking at himself.

 

When he faced someone else, that person became a mirror, reflecting his faults and falsehoods directly back at him. Knowing that, yet still doing nothing but picture Hiiragi’s face—he hated his own stupidity. He noticed the tin of leather cream left on the bedside table.

 

He had used it for something other than its intended purpose. The suppleness of the body he held. The smoothness of the skin he touched. Hiiragi calling “Mr Fujisawa” over and over again. He involuntarily gripped the tin, and the cool metal brought him back to himself.

 

Even without sex, he could have held Hiiragi all night, stroked his back, wiped his tears and comforted him. In the end, he cared only about himself. The realisation hurt.

 

For Kazuaki, loving someone was the same as releasing the reins of an expanding ego. Lust. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Even if that allowed him to make himself happy, as Sei had wished, what about the other person?

 

At the very least, Kazuaki would not want to be loved by someone like himself. Putting the cream in the drawer, he reached for the cracked watch as though seeking a new source of coldness. Its weight settled into his palm.

 

Cracks covered the crystal. He should have been more than familiar with it. Yet it felt new—or rather, distant. He held it a little further away and looked, then realised why.

 

Without his noticing, the impression of Hiiragi’s watch had become stronger. A discrepancy had formed between the watch his mind associated with the word and the one before his eyes. It left him unsettled.

 

He did not remember paying it so much attention. He let the bracelet hang over the pads of his fingers and toyed with it. He had merely restarted the stopped hands twice.

 

“It’s moving!”

 

Hiiragi’s untroubled voice returned.

 

Not so much time had passed. Yet between then and now lay a gulf, as though a page had been torn out along the way. Because Tsuwabuki was no longer there. Was the watch his grandfather gave him misbehaving again, causing Hiiragi trouble?

 

Kazuaki pictured him trying to restart it alone. Or removing a plant’s thorns from his hand alone. Coming home after something sad happened outside, and crying alone.

 

His own solitude was something he preferred. Thinking of Hiiragi made his chest ache sharply. But not wanting Hiiragi to be alone, and wanting to be beside him himself, were different matters.

 

Something struck the window with a hard crash. Startled, he dropped the watch. The crystal, which had barely retained its shape, collapsed and scattered tiny fragments like beads.

 

Its special material prevented it from breaking into sharp pieces that would pierce his fingers. Leaving it for the moment, Kazuaki went to the window to discover what had made the noise. An empty plastic bottle rolled over the ground, driven by the wind.

 

That was probably it. Even so, the wind was terrible. He could not see towards the mountain, but the roadside trees were whipping their branches.

 

Wet leaves flung off raindrops. With every rustle, light scattered through the circles beneath the streetlamps. The air roared. How were the densely packed mountain trees writhing? What sounds were they making?

 

Kazuaki drew the curtains tightly shut. The shattered crystal looked like the rain outside made solid. He could not bring himself to clear it away.

 

He soaked slowly in a hot bath, then decided to run the washing machine, wanting something to oppose the noise outside. He checked the clothes in the laundry basket before dropping them into the drum. As he searched a trouser pocket, his fingertips brushed something dry and rustling.

 

Thinking he had forgotten a receipt, he drew it out. It was the page torn from his notebook. Of course.

 

He had intended to throw it away, then forgotten. Einmal ist keinmal. Even now, he did not know how to interpret it.

 

As he stared at his own handwriting, a short, repeated humming came from the living room. His phone was vibrating on the counter. Undecided whether to answer, he approached without hurrying.

 

It continued ringing. The number on the screen was familiar, though it was not Hiiragi’s mobile.

 

“Good evening. This is Munakata.”

 

“Ah. From the botanical garden…”

 

He had called the number once himself.

 

That must have been why some memory of it remained.

 

“Sorry to ring without warning. Hiiragi wouldn’t happen to be visiting you, would he?”

 

“What? No.”

 

“Well, there’s a typhoon coming through, isn’t there?”

 

“A typhoon?”

 

Of course.

 

That explained the intensity of the wind and rain.

 

“You didn’t know? The news is nothing but typhoon reports.”

 

Munakata sounded mildly incredulous.

 

“I don’t have a television or radio… Has something happened to him?”

 

“We closed the garden today. It looked as though the buses would stop running from the afternoon, so I sent all the staff home. I’m the only one left… But I started worrying that Hiiragi might come up here.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“With this wind and rain, the plants won’t escape unscathed. We moved everything we could to shelter, secured things with ropes and did as much as possible. But the weather over the last few hours has been worse than almost anything I’ve experienced. Frankly, working outside would put us in danger ourselves.”

 

“How will you get home?”

 

“I’ll stay here. I have a car, but I’m worried about landslides. There are instant noodles and things, so even if I’m cut off for several days, I’ll manage.”

 

“How likely is he to come there?”

 

“That’s what I don’t know. But I haven’t been able to reach either his mobile or the house phone, and I’ve got a bad feeling… He was badly upset recently when we had to cut down a cherry tree he’d been looking after. I thought, just in case… And now there’s no one to stop him.”

 

“…No.”

 

Kazuaki’s voice grew heavy.

 

As though trying to soften it, Munakata added:

 

“But I could be worrying over nothing. I only just suggested he take a trip somewhere. Perhaps he’s gone away, or perhaps he’s simply asleep at home. It just occurred to me how dangerous it would be if he were heading up here… Sorry. I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. If you hear from him, could you tell him to get in touch with me straight away? I’ll talk some sense into him.”

 

“I will. Without fail. Please take care of yourself.”

 

He ended the call.

 

Without noticing, he had tightened his hand around the piece of paper. The words were crumpled. Don’t give up just because you fail once.

 

That was what Hiiragi had said. Kazuaki took a plastic bag from a kitchen cupboard, put his phone inside and wrapped it round several times. It was not waterproof. Heavy rain might ruin it.

 

He grabbed both his own keys and the keys to Tsuwabuki’s house, pushing them into his pocket. Good thing he had not returned the spare. An umbrella would be useless.

 

Dangerous, even. The wind was blowing directly against the door. He had to push it with his shoulder to open it. Once he was outside, it slammed shut with a tremendous bang.

 

He locked it and began walking towards the mountain. Rain immediately struck his face and limbs at an angle. The trees swayed violently, as though rejecting people, thrashing their branches and leaves to rival the sound of the downpour.

 

Munakata’s fear was right. Hiiragi was trying to reach the botanical garden. However dangerous it was, however little he could do, if something precious was threatened, he would be unable to stay away.

 

The view was like looking through a windscreen without wipers. Even shielding his face with both hands, Kazuaki could not keep water out of his eyes. Twigs, leaves and small stones struck his whole body without mercy.

 

Once, a plastic umbrella with a broken handle swept furiously past his head, chilling him with how close it came. His clothes were soon soaked through. Pushing against the wind felt like being shoved by an invisible hand, hard enough to stop him breathing.

 

He ran between the strongest gusts. When the wind threatened to knock him sideways, he lowered his centre of gravity and advanced slowly. Was this really the same road he had travelled every morning? Yet none of those outward things felt like hardship.

 

Being wet. Being cold. Hurting. Being battered by wind. All that frustrated him was being unable to hurry. He simply wanted to see Hiiragi.

 

Although he was supposed not to believe in souls, he prayed to someone no longer alive. Professor, please protect Hiiragi. I’m coming.

 

I should be able to reach him. Until then, please. He did not know how long it took compared with an ordinary day, but somehow he reached Hiiragi’s house.

 

The storm shutters were firmly closed. Without hesitation, he let himself in with the spare key and shouted:

 

“Hiiragi!”

 

His voice alone echoed through the completely dark, empty house.

 

Without removing his shoes, he went inside and opened every door, just to be certain. Nobody was there. As he had thought.

 

There was no missed call from Munakata either. If Hiiragi had already reached the garden, or if Munakata had managed to contact him, he would have told Kazuaki. Nothing had changed.

 

Wiping his drenched face roughly, he returned to the entrance. Then he noticed the moped key was still there. Hiiragi must have left on foot to avoid an accident.

 

The road from here to the garden was steeper than the route from the foot of the mountain to the house. In this weather, it would take longer. Perhaps he could still catch him. Kazuaki went outside and used the other key on the ring to open the garage shutter.

 

Beside Hiiragi’s moped, several planters and pots stood quietly in a row. He pictured Hiiragi moving the plants from the garden to safety, carefully securing the house, then going out. He bit his lip.

 

If he had not sent him away like that… If he had kept him at his own house… He would never have let him go out alone on a night like this.

 

They would have prepared for the typhoon together. Even if Hiiragi wanted to leave, he would certainly have stopped him. If only he had been beside him.

 

But there was still time. Even if looking back brought nothing but regret, looking forward should reveal another landscape. However many times regret painted everything over, it was no reason not to move.

 

He pushed out the moped, lowered the shutter, inserted the key and started the engine. For the first time, the driving licence he had used almost exclusively as identification would prove useful. Gripping the handlebars and carefully keeping his balance, he increased his speed.

 

Unless he collided with an oncoming vehicle, skidding or falling should not involve anyone else. Once did not count. If something happened once, it was the same as never happening.

 

One equalled zero. That was not true, Kazuaki thought fiercely. Because he remembered.

 

Things that happened only once—he still remembered them clearly. He had wanted to forget them so desperately. But now, it was different.

 

They had been lies. Failures. Mistakes. There was no end to regret. Yet by accumulating those “onces” that had certainly existed, he had reached this place and met Hiiragi.

 

He was made of so many things that had happened once. Helping Hiiragi now would not make amends to Sei. He knew that.

 

But he was going. That was why he was going. Sei.

 

Are you well? I’m glad. Did you come here with Hiraiwa, or did your lover accompany you?

 

Either way, I’m glad. You can ride in a car again. I’m glad.

 

Once, even hearing the shrill sound of brakes had left him unable to move. Please stay well from now on. Thank you for wanting me to be happy.

 

Even now, I don’t really know what happiness is. But I want to be with Hiiragi. I want to see him smile.

 

I want to think about tomorrow and next week with him. And I want him to feel the same. Not because Sei told him to.

 

For himself, Kazuaki wanted those things. Eventually, a dark mound rose in the headlight. And in front of it, a seated figure.

 

A golden-brown head protruding from the hood of a raincoat. Light fell on Hiiragi from behind. He turned sharply.

 

The light of a motorcycle. Blinded by it, he could not see properly. He was about to call that the road ahead was blocked when he realised who was running towards him.

 

“Mr Fujisawa…”

 

Kazuaki caught his arm and shouted:

 

“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

 

Unless he raised his voice, it would not carry.

 

Hiiragi shook his head. Before them, earth had slid down from the mountain and blocked the road at an angle. One moment, the roots of a tree on the slope had shifted and become exposed. The next, soil covered the road.

 

The ease of it had terrified him. It had happened only a short distance ahead. His legs had given way, and even after the last small stones stopped falling, he had remained unable to move for a long time. He had been frightened that merely planting his feet might trigger another collapse.

 

Only now had he finally calmed enough to wonder whether he ought to climb over the mound. The garden was almost within reach. He had moved the potted plants into the garage and remained quietly by the window.

 

At that point, he had not been contemplating any reckless journey. Then he heard a loud cracking outside. After it came the crash of something falling.

 

Hurrying out to check, he found that the hiiragi-mokusei had snapped about a metre above the ground. Leaves that had finally ceased growing thorns lay fallen, swept away somewhere by the wind and rain. It felt as though even the memory of sitting beside Kazuaki and talking had been broken.

 

He had to go to the garden. He could not stop that urgency. The thought that, even while he remained here, precious things and precious places were being stripped away was unbearable.

 

“Let’s go home.”

 

Kazuaki pulled his arm.

 

His stubbornness outweighed surprise or questions about why Kazuaki was here, riding his moped.

 

“I’m not going home.”

 

He shook him off, stood and headed towards the moped, whose engine was still running.

 

“Wait!”

 

His arm was caught again.

 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

 

“I’ll go down once, then come up another route.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

“It’s got nothing to do with you!”

 

Even when Hiiragi threw Kazuaki’s words back at him unchanged, the grip did not loosen.

 

“Mr Munakata was worried too.”

 

“Don’t conveniently drag someone else into it.”

 

“It’s true. He called me. Calm down. Even if you go, there’s nothing you can do.”

 

“I know that!”

 

Hiiragi swung his arms blindly.

 

At last, Kazuaki wrapped both arms firmly around him from behind.

 

“I know I can’t do anything! I know I’m just running round uselessly!”

 

But he hated it.

 

He could not bear shutting himself in the house alone and doing nothing but worry. Imagining the motionless plants exposed to the storm, losing flowers and leaves, their soil washed away and their branches broken, made him feel he would go mad.

 

“Let go. Just leave me alone. It’s nothing to do with you.”

 

“No.”

 

His raincoat flapped noisily in the wind.

 

Why, then, could he hear Kazuaki’s voice so clearly?

 

“I won’t let go. Absolutely not.”

 

“Why?”

 

Hiiragi shouted with all his strength.

 

“You think they’re only plants, don’t you? You don’t understand. That’s fine. I don’t understand you either. But Grandpa’s gone! If that place gets destroyed too, I’ll have nothing left! Nothing! So at least let me be there with them!”

 

Anger. Irritation. Loneliness.

 

Unable to put anything else rising inside him into words, Hiiragi bit down hard on the arm holding him. He held nothing back. He felt his canine teeth pierce the shirt and sink into Kazuaki’s skin.

 

A salty, metallic taste slowly crept into his mouth, mingling with rain and earth. Even then, Kazuaki did not release him. He did not groan with pain.

 

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here.”

 

“Liar…”

 

Hiiragi murmured it at the sight of blood spreading through the fabric.

 

“It isn’t a lie. It’s the same for me. Without you, I’ll have nothing left. I can’t bear that again.”

 

The red before his eyes blurred further.

 

His tears did not fall quietly. Hiiragi cried aloud. In the wind and rain, he sobbed without caring who might hear.

 

As he cried, it felt as though the tears were not his alone. He was crying for Kazuaki too. And surely Kazuaki, still holding him, understood that.

 

──── 📘📘 ────

 

By the time they had pushed the moped home, they were utterly exhausted. Yet before Hiiragi could sink down from fatigue, the muddy footprints going back and forth along the corridor startled him.

 

“A burglar—”

 

“No. That was me.”

 

Kazuaki spoke from where he had fallen onto his back on the entrance mat, which was dirty too.

 

“Oh…”

 

Only then did Hiiragi begin to feel sorry.

 

He had searched for him that desperately. Hiiragi had worried him. His grandfather had scolded him for that before.

 

Now there was nobody left to scold him, so he would have to think properly for himself.

 

“Sorry. I’ll clean it tomorrow.”

 

“No, that doesn’t matter…”

 

So this man could lie down on the floor.

 

As Hiiragi watched his unguarded state with fascination, Kazuaki quietly closed his eyes.

 

“Wait. Are you actually trying to go to sleep?”

 

“I haven’t slept properly for several days. I’ve reached my limit.”

 

“No. You can’t. I understand, but you’ll catch a cold, and we need to disinfect your injuries. Getting hurt on the mountain’s dangerous.”

 

When Hiiragi hurriedly shook him, Kazuaki opened his eyes a little, looking reluctant.

 

“Whether it’s a cold or tetanus, I’ll think about it if it happens.”

 

“Y-you say irresponsible things like that…?”

 

“I’ve always been careless.”

 

Rather, he was far too uninterested in himself.

 

Mr Fujisawa was definitely the one who could not be left alone. Thinking that, Hiiragi lifted his limp arm and insisted that he could not stay there. In the end, when he said, “If you won’t have a bath, I’m sleeping like this too,” Kazuaki sat up with a frown.

 

After making sure he had gone into the bathroom, Hiiragi called Munakata. He explained everything, leaving out their personal exchange. Munakata gave him a thorough telling-off, then finally said:

 

“Fujisawa, was it? Thank goodness he was there… Perhaps this isn’t the right way to put it, but it’s almost as though the professor brought him here for you.”

 

“…Yeah.”

 

That was impossible.

 

Kazuaki would say so too. But Hiiragi nodded, wishing it were true. Because he loved both his grandfather and Kazuaki.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

He called from the changing area.

 

“Can I wash your clothes? We don’t have a dryer, so even if I hang them inside, they definitely won’t be dry by morning…”

 

The folding door opened from within.

 

“Come here.”

 

Kazuaki beckoned him.

 

Perhaps it was too late to feel embarrassed now, but Hiiragi did. If he lingered, going in would only grow harder, so he quickly pulled off his clothes and entered. A bright-red ring was seeping blood on Kazuaki’s right forearm, halfway between wrist and elbow.

 

The blue bruises still remained on his upper arm too. Altogether, it was a rather grotesque collection of colours. Even Hiiragi, who had done it, found the bite mark a little shocking.

 

“You’ll have to go to hospital in the morning…”

 

“It’s not a serious injury.”

 

Kazuaki began directing warm shower water over Hiiragi, starting at his feet.

 

His voice was clear now, as though his sleepiness had passed.

 

“It only looks bad because my circulation’s better at the moment. Lend me the first-aid box afterwards.”

 

“But—”

 

“I don’t generally worry much about what people think, but even I’m not confident I could calmly show this to a doctor.”

 

“Oh. Right…”

 

The teeth marks clearly belonged neither to a child nor an animal.

 

“But if you start having trouble eating or opening your mouth in a few days, tell me straight away. Tetanus is really frightening.”

 

“I understand.”

 

Kazuaki gave a wry smile, as though calling him a worrier.

 

It was an easy expression he had never shown Hiiragi before, and Hiiragi felt relieved.

 

“…Sorry.”

 

He touched a place away from the wound.

 

“For hurting the arm of someone who makes things.”

 

“At present, I’m not making anything.”

 

“But you will.”

 

“Why?”

 

Kazuaki asked while running water over his shoulders.

 

“I just have a feeling. You came to get me because you aren’t the same Mr Fujisawa you were before, right? I think that’s part of what you meant when you said you couldn’t bear it again.”

 

Kazuaki stopped the shower and returned the head to its hook.

 

“…I can’t win against you.”

 

He pulled Hiiragi into his arms.

 

Despite the warm droplets covering it, his skin was still cold. He had come after Hiiragi with the rain soaking him to the core.

 

“Thank you,” Hiiragi said. “Sorry I worried you.”

 

“No. I was wrong. I said something cruel… I’m truly sorry.”

 

“…It’s all right.”

 

He understood.

 

Because Kazuaki had come to him. Because he had refused to let go.

 

“Hiiragi. I…”

 

Hiiragi interrupted him, circling his hands from Kazuaki’s shoulder blades up to his shoulders.

 

Kazuaki probably intended to explain what Hiiragi had wanted to know. But—

 

“It’s all right for now. Just being here is enough. Don’t talk about anyone else.”

 

“…All right.”

 

His lips still held a faint scent of rain.

 

Hiiragi regretted that the clean, filtered water would soon wash it away. They held each other and shared a long kiss. Outside, the storm still raged.

 

Which was louder: the shower or the rain outside? Neither Hiiragi’s clothes nor his grandfather’s seemed likely to fit Kazuaki. Searching for something that might serve as a change, Hiiragi found the yukata his grandfather had worn in summer.

 

Even that was the wrong length, but it was more forgiving than Western clothes. When he offered it with the sash, Kazuaki slipped his arms into it and tied it without hesitation or difficulty.

 

“Borrowing a yukata makes me feel terribly grand, even though I’m the one imposing on someone else’s home.”

 

Hearing such a subjective remark from Kazuaki amused him.

 

“Why? It’s no different from you lending me a bathrobe.”

 

In shape or purpose.

 

“Now that you mention it, you’re right.”

 

Kazuaki nodded, then his cheeks and lips softened slightly.

 

What sort of smile was that? Hiiragi could hardly ask such a rude question. But his honest impression was that it was a shy smile.

 

He had never imagined Kazuaki smiling bashfully like that. Yet naturally, he must possess the same joys, anger, grief and pleasure as Hiiragi. Usually, he simply suppressed them with a powerful will, keeping them from showing.

 

Hiiragi felt sad about whatever had made him do that. Or rather, about Kazuaki having become someone who did. Unaware of Hiiragi’s feelings, Kazuaki lifted a sleeve and touched his still-wet hair.

 

Looking rather at a loss, he murmured:

 

“I seem to be nervous.”

 

At that instant, tenderness tangled with sadness struck Hiiragi’s heart more fiercely than any downpour.

 

The fact that Kazuaki was older, an independent adult man, meant nothing. He could not bear that things existed in the world capable of making this person sad or causing him pain. He wanted to set him on soft, always-moist soil, give him all the water and sunlight he needed and remove every worry before it could arise.

 

He wanted to erase every unpleasant memory. To cradle that bare soul in both hands and protect it for ever. Before he could say or do anything on impulse, Kazuaki’s face tightened slightly.

 

He had lifted his injured arm.

 

“Oh. We need to treat that.”

 

Hiiragi hurriedly turned away.

 

“First-aid box. First-aid box.”

 

Saying it aloud rather too deliberately, he thought: that was close.

 

Coming back to himself, he could see his fierce emotions were nothing but presumption. He had only just been protected himself. What was he getting carried away with? Perhaps he was still emotionally unsettled after everything.

 

Always being taught and helped by Kazuaki—he was embarrassingly childish. The yukata’s wide sleeves were useful. Disinfecting the bite and covering it with gauze and tape was about all he could do. Once he had finished that much and closed the first-aid box, the rain outside seemed to grow louder again, as though the lid had been a signal.

 

“…It isn’t stopping.”

 

“No.”

 

“Think it’ll rain until morning?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

What was this conversation?

 

As Hiiragi wondered, he noticed Kazuaki looking down, trying not to laugh. Tonight, Kazuaki was unusually expressive. Perhaps, like Hiiragi, he still carried the storm inside him.

 

“…What?”

 

“Nothing. I was thinking how remarkably meaningless that conversation was.”

 

“Well, excuse me!”

 

Come to think of it, Hiiragi could not remember having many ordinary conversations with Kazuaki.

 

Usually, he became angry or dispirited somewhere along the way. There had been little smooth communication. What were they, exactly? The thought abruptly made him anxious.

 

But Kazuaki, still smiling, said:

 

“Why? I’m happy. I’m happy I can have such a meaningless exchange with you again. And I’m happy that I enjoy it.”

 

Happy.

 

Enjoying himself. Hearing such straightforward expressions of pleasure come so readily from Kazuaki was so unexpected that Hiiragi almost felt they were too precious to spend. But perhaps this was his original nature.

 

With someone he trusted, he tried to answer honestly. Did that mean Hiiragi was special? Not because he was Professor Tsuwabuki’s grandson.

 

Not because Professor Tsuwabuki had died. Not because he was worrying and could not be left alone. And certainly not from guilt over having sex with him once.

 

Simply— He could not gather the courage to ask outright. Instead, he mumbled more meaningless things about understanding, and being glad, before searching for a safe topic to keep the conversation going.

 

“Um. The temperature!”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Oh, no.

 

That was plainly a “What are you talking about?” face. But he could think of nothing else, so he continued anyway.

 

“I was wondering if you’re cold.”

 

“I am.”

 

The answer came without pause or hesitation.

 

Although he had asked, Hiiragi was slightly taken aback. Of course. Kazuaki was not someone who would evade the question with an untrue reassurance.

 

“Oh. Right. Sorry…”

 

Should he turn on the heating? Perhaps Kazuaki could wear his oversized cardigan.

 

As Hiiragi weighed the options, Kazuaki said with what appeared to be complete calm:

 

“…I’m cold, so come closer.”

 

Seated at the dining table, he held out his newly bandaged hand.

 

He was close enough to touch Hiiragi if he reached a little further, yet made no attempt to do so. Hiiragi thought the remaining dampness in his hair might evaporate instantly and leave it standing on end. His blood was circulating furiously, while neither his head nor his mouth would work.

 

Watching him, Kazuaki tilted his head with a faintly wry smile.

 

“Was that difficult to understand?”

 

“I understand!”

 

Hiiragi protested hurriedly.

 

“Even I’m not that sheltered.”

 

“You know much more about the world than I do.”

 

“Don’t look genuinely puzzled. That’s not what I…”

 

He had not intended to make a small sound of determination, yet one escaped as he took Kazuaki’s hand in both of his.

 

It was so hot he nearly let go in surprise.

 

“…This is what you mean, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Kazuaki’s reply held a deep, quiet happiness.

 

Was he really someone with so much inside him? Hiiragi nearly wanted to cry. Light and colour had been quietly stored within Kazuaki, probably without Kazuaki himself ever needing them.

 

Perhaps the man named Nakarai, with his strange impression, had given them to him. Already, Hiiragi did not know what to do with the weight and warmth of Kazuaki’s hand. He had declared that he understood.

 

But what was he supposed to do next? Oh, no. His palms were sweating. Yet Kazuaki seemed almost composed.

 

Hiiragi felt as though he were watching an animal to see what it would do.

 

“Closer.”

 

“What?”

 

“If I said, ‘Come closer still’… Would you understand that too?”

 

His head grew hotter.

 

If someone poured water over him from a watering can, steam might rise. They had held each other naked in the bathroom. Yet after drying themselves and putting on clothes, he had already lost the mood that had lingered in the steam.

 

As Hiiragi froze, Kazuaki apologised—another rarity—and did not sound particularly sorry.

 

“That’s unfair wording. What I mean is—”

 

“I understand.”

 

Hiiragi gripped his hand more tightly and insisted again.

 

“I understand… My room’s upstairs. That’s what you mean, right?”

 

His cheeks were hot and his heart pounded.

 

He thought he must have practically glared as he said it. Even so, Kazuaki’s eyes softened as he stood. His room received the most sunlight upstairs. Kazuaki could not enjoy that abundance now, yet when they went in, he narrowed his eyes slightly as though it were bright.

 

“Sorry it’s a mess.”

 

To Hiiragi, this was its usual state.

 

Compared with the orderliness of Kazuaki’s home, however, he could not help saying it. Kazuaki lightly shook his head, lifted their still-joined hands and said:

 

“It smells of you.”

 

Their eyes met.

 

“Not in a strange way.”

 

Hiiragi could not look away.

 

Kazuaki was the one who broke eye contact first.

 

“Could you not look at me so much? I’m having trouble calming down.”

 

From his averted profile, from his whole body, a sweet bewilderment seemed to seep along his outline.

 

Was Hiiragi giving off the same thing in Kazuaki’s eyes? Stumbling over his words, he pointed to the desk.

 

“In the drawer, there’s p-petroleum jelly… The stuff I use when my hands get rough… That’s all right, isn’t it…?”

 

He had wanted to say it casually.

 

Predictably, his voice rose and he stammered horribly. Then Kazuaki suddenly pulled him into a tight embrace, making him give a little cry as though someone had slipped ice down his back.

 

“Wh-what?”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Say it normally. Actually, you don’t have to thank me…”

 

“I told you I was having trouble.”

 

Kazuaki’s whisper warmed his damp hair.

 

“I can’t imagine what sort of face I’m making. It feels dangerous.”

 

“Dangerous…?”

 

He had lost enough composure to use words that seemed far more suited to Hiiragi’s vocabulary than his own.

 

Hiiragi could no longer contain his laughter.

 

“Is something funny?”

 

“Yes. Saying something like ‘dangerous’ is so unlike you it’s dangerous.”

 

“You use it too.”

 

“That’s fine. I’m normal.”

 

“So am I.”

 

Ah.

 

The breath above his ear was hotter than a moment ago. The instant he noticed, he was held so tightly that his spine arched.

 

“Mr Fujisawa, if you use that much force, your right hand—”

 

As though finding the warning troublesome, Kazuaki pressed his nose against Hiiragi’s neck.

 

“Mm…”

 

“An ordinary man, full of desire and selfishness. You know that, don’t you?”

 

“I don’t.”

 

Hiiragi tipped back his throat and ruffled the hair at the back of Kazuaki’s head as he answered.

 

“You’re cold, and kind, and strange… I don’t know anything about you.”

 

That was why he wanted to know.

 

That was why he wanted Kazuaki to show him. Kazuaki answered the unspoken appeal with action too. He laid Hiiragi on the bed.

 

At first, his lips touched gently. His forehead. The hairline above it. His eyelids, the corners of his eyes, his cheeks, the hollows beside his nose. Those soft kisses made Hiiragi feel as though his whole body had gone limp as a petal.

 

But when lips touched lips, a core of fire shot through him.

 

“Mm… Mm!”

 

Prised open by something soft and sensual, that core grew stronger and more insistent.

 

Kazuaki’s tongue licked, stroked and explored every part of his mouth. Wherever the fine hairs on Hiiragi’s back seemed to rise in a shiver, it traced especially carefully. How did he always know?

 

“Mm…”

 

A hand had been moving over his shirt as though assessing the shape of his body.

 

It quickly found the two points faintly pushing up the fabric, and caught them beneath its fingertips.

 

“Ah.”

 

Unlike his lips, which seemed likely to grow softer and more helpless with every touch, those places hardened in response to even slight stimulation.

 

Kazuaki caressed them until Hiiragi could feel them fully pointed beneath the cloth. Then his hand slid onto bare skin and touched his nipples directly.

 

“Ah!”

 

A restless sensation, like being tickled with feathers from within, drew the thin surface of his skin taut.

 

He felt a guilty vulnerability, as though wrapped in the skin of fruit so ripe that all it could do was split open by itself. Yet what pecked at those coloured buds was not a bird’s beak. It was Kazuaki’s mouth.

 

“No… Mm, ah…”

 

Nothing was breaking open. Nothing was seeping out.

 

Yet being drawn up by those soft lips made him feel that something incomprehensible was being pulled from the depths of his body. It frightened him. But his voice sounded closer to coaxing and pleading than fear.

 

Kazuaki grew less restrained, setting his teeth against both nipples and moving them up and down with his tongue.

 

“Ah… No, no…”

 

The sequence was not so different from the previous time.

 

What followed would probably be much the same too. Yet Hiiragi thought: This is completely different from the first night.

 

The urgency of an impulse breaking loose had been stronger that night of mourning. They had both truly felt there was nothing else they could do. After-the-fact judgements about right and wrong were meaningless.

 

That was why hearing Kazuaki say he regretted it had hurt. Now, Hiiragi knew they did not have to do this. They could have slept peacefully until morning.

 

Or Kazuaki could have told him about the parts of himself Hiiragi did not yet know. They could have chosen those ways of spending the night. But Kazuaki had wanted “closer still”.

 

And Hiiragi had wanted to answer him. Not because there was nothing else they could do. Because this was what they wanted.

 

They wanted to hold each other. After all, once did not count. Tonight might lead to a hundred times, or a thousand.

 

Their second night.

 

─────────────────────────────────

 

“Mm…”

 

While rubbing a swollen nipple with one hand and sucking hard at the skin around Hiiragi’s navel, Kazuaki deftly stripped his lower body with the other.

 

As before, his upward-pointing erection caught when his underwear was pulled down. Tonight, however, it embarrassed him terribly.

 

“Ah!”

 

Already fully aroused, he pulsed hard at merely being enclosed in a hand free of scratches or rough skin.

 

When that hand moved up and down in time with him, the beat spread through his whole lower belly. Trying somehow to release it made his hips move by themselves.

 

“Mm…”

 

The light had been dimmed as far as possible. Shadows lay thick across the face looking down at him, making it difficult to see.

 

Even so, Kazuaki’s desire reached him clearly. He could tell from his breathing and the movements of his hands. Not desire mottled with guilt and uncertainty, as before.

 

A wish painted in a single colour: to join with him. He was becoming aroused by touching Hiiragi’s body everywhere. Because, as he had said himself, he was an ordinary man.

 

And Hiiragi, growing more excited beneath his touch, was ordinary too. Two ordinary bodies were giving themselves over to an ordinary, special act. He felt happy enough to cry.

 

“Ah… Ah…”

 

When he clung to Kazuaki’s shoulder, the soft yukata fabric compressed tightly in his hand.

 

His grandfather had disliked starching it. It was only clothing for the house, after all. But perhaps Kazuaki preferred it crisp. That passing thought, still connected to everyday life, was immediately erased by the friction against his penis.

 

“Ah, ah… No, mm…”

 

As the tip slowly grew wet, Hiiragi felt embarrassed about dirtying Kazuaki’s hand.

 

Yet Kazuaki spread the constantly spilling fluid over the sensitive opening, making it slippery. When that sticky wetness joined the sensation of his fingers, lewd, wet sounds immediately followed. The urgent ache at its base told Hiiragi how far his erection was curving back.

 

He wanted to come. He wanted Kazuaki’s hand to make him ejaculate. It would be easy to finish with his own hand, yet he wanted Kazuaki to do it.

 

The shame of letting him see his hips move so shamelessly had no end. But he could not stop.

 

“Ah, Mr Fujisawa…”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Perhaps the wind had changed direction. Raindrops battered the window.

 

Outside, treetops exposed to the storm with nowhere to shelter bent and scattered water. When he first came to the mountain, stormy nights had frightened him. He was too old to crawl into his grandfather’s bed. When the window frames rattled, it felt as though someone had arrived from the depths of the darkness. He pulled the covers over his head and endured the sleepless hours.

 

Now, the louder it grew outside, the more strongly he felt that they were alone together. There was only Kazuaki. So completely.

 

At least, for Hiiragi. His unspoken plea was not to be released, but to be touched like this until the end. Kazuaki answered with vigorous movements of his hand.

 

He stroked every part from bottom to top, especially firmly along the seam beneath, yet without hurting him, urging his release upwards. It felt as though that movement had opened a new channel through his fully aroused centre and was teaching him how to ejaculate for the first time. The excitement gathered until his lower body felt heavy.

 

When the very tip of the sensitive head was stroked, it broke free, piercing his penis, his spine and his heart before shooting out.

 

“Ah… Ah!”

 

The pleasure of that instant was so intense that every nerve seemed to ripple.

 

He lifted himself and clung to Kazuaki, breathing hard with his whole body. His fingers would not settle, caught in an aftermath like the tingling of legs that had gone numb from kneeling.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

Kazuaki gently stroked his hair.

 

“Shall we sleep now?” he asked with concern.

 

“Why?”

 

Hiiragi hurriedly raised the head he had been about to rest against him.

 

“Oh… Did I hurt your right hand? Sorry.”

 

“No. I thought it might be too much for you.”

 

“It isn’t. It was just…”

 

“Just?”

 

“…It felt too good.”

 

As he admitted it, making his sweaty forehead grow hotter still, he thought Kazuaki ought to have understood without asking.

 

Kazuaki did not tease him.

 

“I’m glad.”

 

Looking relieved, he drew Hiiragi close.

 

His pleasure remained lit, and even that gentle contact made him answer with a soft, nasal breath.

 

“You’re good at this…”

 

He murmured it, clinging tightly to Kazuaki’s back.

 

“I’m pleased, but that isn’t it.”

 

Kazuaki continued:

 

“You’re honest. Your heart and your body.”

 

“It’s not as though I’d be like this with anyone.”

 

Hiiragi immediately objected.

 

“…Not that I’ve done it with anyone else.”

 

“I know.”

 

A palm rested against his cheek.

 

Hiiragi obeyed the gesture asking for a kiss. As their tongues entwined fully, wet sounds seemed to drip inside his head. He wondered whether that water was circulating back into his mouth and mingling with Kazuaki’s fluids.

 

It felt as though the tip of that tongue were searching even behind his eyes. How far into Kazuaki was Hiiragi reaching?

 

“Ah…”

 

Still kissing him, Kazuaki carefully laid him down again.

 

His hand passed the penis in which the sensation of ejaculation remained vivid and moved towards somewhere more hidden. His fingertips were dry, but what Hiiragi had spilled had run down and left that place moist.

 

“Mm…”

 

He set the pad of a finger over the little opening that recessed into Hiiragi’s body.

 

Rather than trying to enter, he gently stroked it in circles. Even that warmth and touch seemed enough to loosen it. It was not supposed to be a place he let someone else touch.

 

Yet he became aware of an ache further inside. Just as Kazuaki had made him feel good with his hand, Hiiragi wanted Kazuaki to feel good here. He wanted to join with him.

 

Perhaps the opening behind him understood that desire properly, because it softened a little. Kazuaki coated his fingers generously with petroleum jelly from the tube. This time, he passed the boundary of Hiiragi’s skin and entered.

 

A sound escaped him, somewhere between resignation and surrender. This was certainly not a sensation he could become accustomed to after doing it once. Yet he knew that this passage, which seemed barely wide enough for a finger, could take a man’s penis.

 

He remembered. So he was not as tense as the first time. That made him feel a little lonely.

 

Accepting it despite his fear seemed like proof of his trust in Kazuaki. He wanted Kazuaki to understand that fear. Yet he did not want him to retreat.

 

He wanted him to be glad of the act permitted only to him, and of the body Hiiragi offered.

 

“Ah, ah…”

 

The finger coated in the moisturising ointment entered to its base.

 

There was the peculiar discomfort of the lining being pulled taut. A dull pain reached deep into him. Yet as it began moving little by little, he also felt a slow, impatient frustration. The petroleum jelly gradually warmed to his body temperature.

 

As the intruding finger began sliding smoothly through the narrow opening, that frustration gave way to a clear sense of something lacking. Surely he could melt with a heat strong enough to leave him utterly wet. So when Kazuaki slightly bent his fingertip and carefully stimulated the point that seemed to produce that heat, Hiiragi’s hips and back jerked as though he had been punished.

 

“No—ah, ah, there…”

 

He could never recreate the sensation by thinking about it afterwards.

 

It was a vivid pleasure that existed only while he was being touched like this. Yet once experienced, it could never be forgotten. This pleasure. This helplessness.

 

The knowledge that somewhere deep inside his body could answer like this.

 

“Mm, no… No…”

 

Despite his words, the hot lining tightened as though it would melt not merely the petroleum jelly, but Kazuaki’s hand itself like wax.

 

Long fingers increased from two to three, stirring that heat and teaching him to contract around their entry. The stretched opening no longer hurt. It twitched and drew at what filled it. When Kazuaki reached for his penis, which had already come once, it tightened so sensitively that Hiiragi felt he might distinguish every joint of those fingers.

 

“Ah, no, that…”

 

His swelling erection should have wanted relief as soon as possible.

 

Yet being touched there and behind at the same time was too much. Excessive sweetness scorched into bitterness.

 

“N-not both at once…”

 

“Sorry. All right.”

 

Kazuaki stopped caressing him.

 

Taking Hiiragi’s hand, he gently kissed it, then rose between his legs and brought his lips close to his ear. Their hard erections touched. Startled anew by how taut Kazuaki was, Hiiragi instinctively reached to check.

 

When his fingertips found the pulsing veins, Kazuaki gave a short groan and lowered his face.

 

“…Could you not touch me so suddenly?”

 

“S-sorry.”

 

Yet Hiiragi’s hand remained against that hardness as though stuck there.

 

He slowly stroked its whole length. The fact that it was filled with desire, with not the slightest part escaping it, excited him.

 

“It seemed… More difficult than I thought. I was surprised…”

 

“You really don’t understand me. Of course it’s difficult.”

 

Kazuaki’s voice was low.

 

Its resonance seemed to steal into Hiiragi’s ears from deep within the pillow feathers, from the darkness beneath the bed, from the cold soil underground.

 

“I’ve been having a hard time wanting to hold you… May I put this inside?”

 

The moment he heard it, the opening from which the fingers had just withdrawn seemed to cry out.

 

“Mm!”

 

“Hiiragi?”

 

When Kazuaki looked into his face, Hiiragi squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

 

“N-nothing… Please. Go ahead…”

 

He was perfectly serious.

 

Yet Kazuaki pressed his forehead against Hiiragi’s shoulder and stifled his laughter.

 

“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop… Is this what people mean when something really gets them?”

 

Again, words that did not sound like him.

 

“I’m serious.”

 

“Of course I am too.”

 

How many new sides of himself did he intend to show Hiiragi tonight?

 

With an innocent smile free of shadows, a smile that felt completely new, Kazuaki said:

 

“I enjoy being with you.”

 

“Really?”

 

That made him happier than being told Kazuaki wanted sex.

 

He was a man who sometimes seemed to forbid himself even the first signs of positive feelings, whether happiness or enjoyment.

 

“Yes. You’re… sweet.”

 

“What?”

 

“Have I offended you?”

 

“No… I’m just a bit surprised. I mean, I’m definitely not handsome, so…”

 

“If you dislike it, I won’t say it again.”

 

Was it all right to be pleased at being called sweet?

 

Yet the thought of never hearing it again left him disappointed. Lonely, even. Hiiragi honestly concluded that he did not entirely mind.

 

“You can say it when you want to.”

 

“Even all the time?”

 

“You’re joking, right?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

This time, he smiled with a faint freshness, like young leaves unfurling.

 

When they first met, Hiiragi had thought him so unfriendly and expressionless that he felt difficult to approach. Yet even his smiles had held all these hidden variations. It moved Hiiragi in the same way as discovering the rich life of a plant he had thought uninteresting because it bore neither flowers nor fruit, or encountering a beauty that only nature’s necessities could produce.

 

But unlike with plants, he did not want to tell anyone else. He wanted this Kazuaki, whom nobody knew, entirely to himself. If possible, a Kazuaki even that man did not know.

 

“Sorry. I really am at my limit.”

 

Leaving a light kiss, Kazuaki took hold behind both Hiiragi’s knees and entered him with the erection he said was close to its limit.

 

Between the careful preparation and Hiiragi’s own excitement, it was not painful enough to call real pain. As that hot, hard desire slowly pushed into him, he was wrapped in an almost masochistic intoxication at being so completely defenceless. So completely exposed and surrendered before Kazuaki.

 

That swollen length fitted inside him. Without losing any of its pulse, hardness or size. That pleased Hiiragi far more intensely than the pressure of his insides being pushed aside.

 

“Ah… Ah!”

 

The depths the fingers had been unable to reach, still unopened, were forcibly parted.

 

His throat and toes arched at once. His breath stopped. When he finally exhaled, he felt the density of what he held with his whole body.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

Kazuaki himself wore a strangely distorted expression, as though he were in pain.

 

Hiiragi could tell he was enduring it, stretching his limit for him. Calling that expression sweet would probably make no sense to him. So Hiiragi smiled instead.

 

“I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt. I want you to do what you like.”

 

“You shouldn’t say that so lightly.”

 

“I’m not. I mean it.”

 

“That’s worse… If I did what I liked, it might turn into something terrible.”

 

Was that another joke?

 

“Rather than me, what do you like?”

 

“Huh? H-how am I supposed to know that?”

 

Even if he had privately imagined all sorts of things he wanted, he could not have announced them.

 

Yet Kazuaki nodded quite straightforwardly.

 

“You’re right… Then, what about this?”

 

“Ah…”

 

Remaining deeply joined, he pressed their lower bellies more firmly together.

 

Somewhere deep within Hiiragi, reachable only by his penis, lay the source of an ache in which impulse itself seemed to swirl. As it was stimulated, shivering currents scattered through his whole body.

 

“Mm…”

 

He slowly shook his head.

 

“Do you like it?”

 

“I still don’t really know, but… Ah, ah!”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“D-don’t stop. More…”

 

When Hiiragi asked, Kazuaki planted both hands beside his waist and explored that depth again and again.

 

Hiiragi fell into the illusion that the storm was born of his writhing interior and was sweeping through the night.

 

“Ah, ah… Ah…”

 

With his gasps, the wind and rain rose and fell, grew stronger and weaker.

 

The storm within Hiiragi. The storm within Kazuaki. Known only to each other.

 

“Mm… Hiiragi…”

 

He felt the arousal he had swallowed tremble like a living thing shaking off droplets.

 

Kazuaki ejaculated, his shoulders and whole upper body shuddering. What was released inside did not cool. It made Hiiragi’s inner walls still wetter, still more indecently slick. And without his erection subsiding, Kazuaki began moving inside him again.

 

“Mm, ah, no… Mm…”

 

“You don’t dislike this?”

 

“No… Stop asking… Ah!”

 

Beginning with movements while still buried to the base, he gradually lengthened his strokes.

 

Shallow and deep. Then shallow and shallow. He seemed intent on tasting every part of the lining. From the ripe, aching opening to the point within that gave pleasure as though directly connected to his penis, Hiiragi felt the projecting rim of Kazuaki’s tip catch him.

 

He reached small climaxes again and again.

 

“No—ah, ah!”

 

If he had been using his own hand, he would probably have finished unsatisfied, thinking he had not quite managed to come properly.

 

Yet what penetration gave him pursued him repeatedly, like a fountain that never quite rose to its full height but kept scattering spray. Translucent drops of mixed pre-ejaculate and semen continued spilling slowly. What would happen if this pleasure went on?

 

Kazuaki entered his body again and again, leaving him half expectant and half afraid. When Hiiragi saw the veins standing out on the backs of the hands braced on the sheets, he felt such tenderness that he traced them with a finger. His hand was immediately caught.

 

Their joined hands were pinned down.

 

“Ah, your hand. Don’t grip too hard. Your injury…”

 

Kazuaki tightened his hold further.

 

“I said don’t.”

 

Hiiragi protested.

 

“What if you can’t work? I don’t want that. You have to take better care of yourself. Otherwise, however much you care about me, it’ll make me sad.”

 

Kazuaki’s eyes widened.

 

Hiiragi did not understand the emotion spreading through them. But he was certainly reflected there.

 

“All right,” Kazuaki said. “I’ll try to be careful.”

 

“Really?”

 

“From tomorrow.”

 

“What? Ah—no… Ah!”

 

What had withdrawn so mercilessly thrust back up without restraint.

 

The soft folds, which had done nothing but tremble beneath those movements, learnt when to tighten and when to relax in time with Kazuaki’s breathing, greedily taking pleasure. Hiiragi’s mind felt embarrassed. Yet his body accepted Kazuaki as naturally as it received sunlight or water.

 

It was trying to absorb every last thing Kazuaki gave him. Was he giving anything in return? Not something.

 

Not one part. Everything he could give. It was easy to say he would give it all, but—

 

“Mm, Mr Fujisawa. Let go of my hands a moment.”

 

“Sorry. Does it hurt?”

 

“No. I want to hold you.”

 

Ignoring Kazuaki’s startled look, he freed his hands and tightly embraced his back.

 

The sweat rising on his skin. The carbon dioxide leaving him in rough breaths. The heart beating as though it might break free of its cage of bone. Whether it had a shape or not, he wanted to give everything.

 

“…Thank you.”

 

Hiiragi had said nothing, yet Kazuaki murmured it.

 

Then he moved gently, fiercely, with Hiiragi’s arms still wrapped around him.

 

“Ah, ah, ah…”

 

He wanted them to remain joined forever.

 

Yet his body’s workings were striving towards an end. Kazuaki’s penis moved back and forth through the place where those contradictory wishes struggled, stirring everything.

 

“No… Ah…”

 

Sweat made his fingers slip.

 

Although he thought he should not, he nearly dug his nails into the ground to cling. As he somehow held on with his fingertips, Kazuaki said:

 

“It’s all right. You can scratch me… Just don’t let go. I’m the one who’s lonely. I’m the one who can’t bear it. All this time…”

 

The voice sounded like a plea from the deepest part of his heart.

 

As though only Hiiragi and Kazuaki remained in the world. Perhaps they did. In a storm like this.

 

Hiiragi wound his arms and legs around him and clung with his whole body. Doing so seemed to loosen something inside Kazuaki. They needed fewer and fewer words.

 

They could only sink into one another. So this was what it meant to be absorbed completely. Without contradicting the raw sensation striving towards release, his body drowned in the meeting of their bodies—or their hearts.

 

Eventually, those things overlapped perfectly. Hiiragi knew exactly how much longer it would be before Kazuaki came. Surely Kazuaki knew the same.

 

“Ah… Mr Fujisawa, ah!”

 

“Mm—Hiiragi…”

 

There.

 

Together. A moment’s end. A moment’s stillness.

 

And the sleep that followed. Hiiragi gently opened the curtain. The light was dazzling.

 

Beyond it stretched a piercingly blue sky, the typhoon having passed. When he checked the phone beside his pillow, he found an email from Munakata. As expected, fallen trees and broken branches had caused damage throughout the grounds. The garden would remain closed for a while as they worked on repairs.

 

Hiiragi felt discouraged. Then the final words—“We’ll all do our best together”—helped him recover himself. Right.

 

This was no time to sink into misery. He would work. When he pulled the curtains fully open, Kazuaki slowly opened his eyes beside him.

 

“It’s lovely out.”

 

“Mm… Good morning.”

 

“Shall I nip over and get your clothes? Anything will do?”

 

As he began getting out of bed, Kazuaki stopped him.

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

“What?”

 

“About your grandfather.”

 

Kazuaki’s eyes were remarkably clear for someone who had only just woken.

 

“If I’d found him an hour or two earlier, perhaps he could have survived. Don’t you ever think that?”

 

“What?”

 

Hiiragi frowned.

 

“Have you been thinking that? I’ll get angry.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

“Of course not. Because you were there, Grandpa wasn’t left alone. I told you before. That’s all. Thinking like that doesn’t make anyone happy.”

 

“I see.”

 

Kazuaki gently covered his eyes with his palm.

 

The blood seeping through the gauze and the bruises that had still not faded looked painful. Because his features and body were so well formed, those savage injuries seemed all the more cruel.

 

“Too bright? Shall I close the curtains?”

 

Kazuaki shook his head and sat up.

 

The moment he turned to face Hiiragi, Hiiragi knew instinctively that he was about to say something important.

 

“You met Sei.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He said the name with a familiarity that revealed how often he had spoken it before.

 

Hiiragi’s chest pricked again.

 

“We were friends.”

 

Kazuaki spoke slowly.

 

“Since we were children. We lived near each other. Sei was… How should I put it? A little unusual. But perhaps because of that, he accepted my personality too. We weren’t constantly clinging to each other, but we got on well. Somewhere along the way, though, I’d fallen in love with him. Not as a friend. Of course I couldn’t tell him. I tried to convince myself it would be enough if we could stay close as friends for ever.”

 

Ah.

 

So he had loved him after all. Imagining Kazuaki beside Nakarai, Hiiragi felt that they would look far more natural together than he and Kazuaki did. But Nakarai was not here.

 

That fact barely soothed his sense of inferiority.

 

“When we were in our third year at university, Sei’s parents died in a road accident. I was the last person to speak to them.”

 

“What?”

 

“We chatted about nothing in particular, then went our separate ways. The accident happened afterwards. It was so bad they wouldn’t even let us see the bodies… Sei was so shocked that he couldn’t do anything. I thought that, left alone, he’d become an empty shell and die. I stayed beside him without saying I’d spoken to his parents.”

 

Kazuaki continued.

 

“If I hadn’t called out to them, the timing would have shifted a little, and they wouldn’t have died… I told myself that confessing something like that would only break him further.”

 

“I think I’d have kept quiet too.”

 

It would only have confused him. It could have offered no comfort.

 

Yet Kazuaki’s agreement sounded terribly detached.

 

“Yes.”

 

He went on:

 

“The days passed in a rush while I looked after Sei. When things finally settled a little, I suddenly thought: there’s no one left who’ll scold him and make him stand on his own feet. Even if I stayed with him like this for ever, no one would blame me.”

 

Despite the bright sunlight, his eyes darkened, as though he had returned to the instant that bad thought appeared.

 

“I separated him from his other friends and acquaintances, gradually enclosing him. Sei didn’t notice. Just as I wanted, he began looking only at me and needing no one else. Pretending to be kind, I slowly drove him into a corner… It was close to brainwashing. But after doing all that—I don’t know why—when Sei told me he loved me, I was terrified.”

 

“Not happy?”

 

“Frightened. Everything had turned out exactly as I wanted. But I wondered whether my wish had been something that could only come true if I went that far. He’d lost his family, been torn apart and become dependent on me… The Sei I loved, the one who got on well with his family, who wasn’t particularly cheerful but had a proper sense of himself—that Sei wouldn’t have loved me.”

 

Kazuaki paused.

 

“So I told him I wanted to stay friends. Everything had become so twisted that I no longer understood it. Yet I couldn’t go back to the beginning, before it twisted. If Sei knew the truth, he would never forgive me. Staying beside him frightened me. Leaving frightened me more.”

 

“Then why…?”

 

Why had they separated?

 

Without answering that question, Kazuaki continued.

 

“Even so, there were happy times. It wasn’t as though we spent every day living in misery. We had ordinary days, plenty of moments when I felt at ease… Sometimes I’d suddenly hope we could stay like that for ever. But then I’d think, for ever? Without anything changing? And feel just as much despair. There was nothing ahead. Only the two of us, with nowhere for anything to open out. I was trapped with Sei inside the cage I’d made, going round and round.”

 

His eyes narrowed with something like nostalgia, yet also as though enduring pain.

 

“That changed just before last summer. Sei fell in love with a man.”

 

“What?”

 

“It was chance. Something as trivial as an email sent to the wrong person. Then they began meeting… In the end, I never even saw his face. But I think he must have been healthy… An ordinary man, in a very good sense. I only learnt everything afterwards.”

 

Falling in love with an ordinary man.

 

Remembering Nakarai’s distinctive air, for better or worse, Hiiragi found that slightly surprising.

 

“Sei slept with him. He left home in the middle of the night and went to see him… He must have wanted to see him desperately. The following morning wouldn’t do, nor the next evening. For both of them, it had to be that night.”

 

Only then did Kazuaki’s voice sound utterly without support.

 

“When I found out… I don’t know. There was anger, disbelief, and perhaps something almost refreshing too. Like telling myself it served me right. Something that hadn’t begun properly was destined to break like that. Sei had chosen someone other than me, of his own will, and was leaving the cage.”

 

The future Kazuaki had feared most.

 

And perhaps wanted most.

 

“I forced myself on Sei.”

 

The gauze on his arm seemed to grow a little redder.

 

Was Hiiragi imagining it?

 

“And that was the end… Of course, we did talk properly afterwards.”

 

“When you say you’ll never see him again, was that your decision? Or did he tell you he never wanted to see you again?”

 

“It wasn’t exactly a decision. More of an unspoken understanding that it would be better for both of us… Sei didn’t get angry with me. Even now, knowing everything, I don’t think he’s angry at all. The last thing he told me was that he wanted me to make sure I found happiness.”

 

Perhaps it had been a cruel parting gift from someone leaving, someone moving forwards.

 

I’m going now. I can’t stay beside you.

 

“Thank you,” Hiiragi said.

 

He thought those were the only words he could say first.

 

“For properly telling me about yourself. I think talking about things you’ve done must be harder than talking about things done to you. So thank you for telling me. I can’t say anything about your past together, but that’s what I think.”

 

Thorns driven into another person.

 

Thorns driven into himself. Kazuaki slowly shook his head, drew up his knees and buried his face against them. A childlike gesture.

 

“Your grandfather said you could never escape being yourself. I think that’s true. I did something wrong. Even if I forget it, what I did won’t forget me. Wherever I run, it follows and repeats like a spell: ‘That’s the sort of person you are.’”

 

Did that voice exist beside Yuka’s ear too?

 

Beside the ear of Hiiragi’s former friend? Did it whisper and cast shadows between the days they spent working, falling in love and living? Hiiragi was not innocent enough to dismiss it as nothing more than what they deserved.

 

“Mr Fujisawa.”

 

He placed a hand against that rounded back.

 

His shadow fell there properly. Kazuaki was alive and here. After all the things that had happened beyond Hiiragi’s reach, he was beside him.

 

If Hiiragi felt grateful for “bad things”, was that another bad thing? He did not know. If he had known those bad things beforehand, would he never have fallen in love with Kazuaki?

 

That, he did know.

 

“When I told you last night to take care of yourself… Was that a burden?”

 

“No. I was a little surprised you said something similar, but I could accept it honestly. Not because it was the same thing. I think because you weren’t Sei.”

 

“Even after hearing all that, I don’t dislike you at all.”

 

“…Thank you.”

 

“When you said, ‘I’m here’, that wasn’t a lie, was it?”

 

“No.”

 

“You told me this because you’re saying, ‘That happened, but I’ll stay with you.’ Not because you’re saying you can’t, because of what happened before. Right?”

 

The old thorns could remain where they were.

 

It was all right if Kazuaki still could not forgive himself. Instead, Hiiragi would remove every thorn that pierced him from now on. Because surely Kazuaki would remove Hiiragi’s.

 

“Yes…”

 

For the first time, Kazuaki’s voice trembled.

 

“I love you.”

 

A bright, new morning.

 

The kind that always came after any storm. Several weeks later, the botanical garden finally reopened. Many places still needed repairs and attention, but apparently they had decided to continue that work while remaining open.

 

Kazuaki arrived as the gates opened. Hiiragi came to meet him, and Kazuaki asked:

 

“Take me to your favourite place.”

 

Hiiragi led him through the camellia section they had once walked together and towards the domed greenhouse.

 

Signs marked the orchid room, succulent room and tropical alpine plant room, among others.

 

“This way.”

 

Ignoring the usual route, he wound through staff passages until they reached a small room with a plaque reading “Night Greenhouse”.

 

“Come in.”

 

The dark room was almost as cold as the winter air outside.

 

Beyond a transparent plastic barrier, only the flowers were faintly illuminated. Perhaps the light was intended to be no stronger than moonlight. Prickly moonflowers, evening primroses, snake gourds, queen-of-the-night flowers, night-blooming morning glories… Every flower was white, seeming to glow faintly within the artificial night.

 

“Beautiful, aren’t they?”

 

Hiiragi whispered softly.

 

“Do we have to lower our voices here?”

 

“No. Just a feeling. It seems rude to the plants.”

 

“Even though you’ve tricked them into waking up?”

 

“You make it sound awful… Aren’t they beautiful?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh, you don’t mean that at all…”

 

“To be honest, I don’t really know.”

 

He had merely understood that this was how they made the flowers bloom.

 

Asked whether they were beautiful, he would rather look at Hiiragi’s hair and eyes. See? When he leaned towards a flower, they caught the light and sparkled.

 

Kazuaki still thought about his own words. Something that hadn’t begun properly. Had the beginning of his relationship with Hiiragi been proper?

 

Without great turning points such as Tsuwabuki’s death and Sei’s visit, how might things have developed? Thinking about it frightened him. He had confined Sei somewhere wrong, like a greenhouse with day and night reversed.

 

Was he doing the same thing? Could he promise he would never do it? Suddenly, Hiiragi took his hand.

 

Kazuaki saw himself reflected in the rounded surfaces of those deep-green eyes.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

Hiiragi would probably never tell him it was right.

 

He would tell him it was all right even if it was wrong. Even inside a box whose order had been distorted, flowers relied on light to bloom. Night was not darkness.

 

Whether the light was artificial meant nothing to the flowers. So long as they could bloom. Instinct was strong, without regard for appearances.

 

“I’d like to run a nursery one day too,” Hiiragi said. “Grow the plants I love and share them with people who’ll take care of them.”

 

“Here?”

 

“…Lately, I’ve been imagining something different. A plain, square house in the middle of the city, with my garden on the roof. Greenery growing thick as a jungle, making people walking past stop in surprise. The sort of garden people see from a train passing the house and press up against the window, wondering what on earth it is.”

 

Hiiragi spoke happily about the future.

 

Taking Kazuaki’s presence there as something entirely natural. The gaze Kazuaki had directed into darkness was suddenly brought back. Hiiragi gave light to Kazuaki’s night.

 

Could he illuminate Hiiragi’s night too? They were alone together in a small night garden. White flowers glowed.

 

Their hands were joined. There was that warmth. Outside the garden waited the sunlight of late autumn.

 

It would surely be there tomorrow, and the day after. And in the garden Hiiragi would one day make for them both. In the morning, they would water it.

 

In the afternoon, thin the weeds. At night, they would walk together. They would talk about all sorts of things, in voices only the other could hear.

 

Until they grew sleepy, they would talk about the past, the present and the future. In the night garden, they would kindle hope for tomorrow.