Night Garden: Complete Edition (ナイトガーデン 完全版).
Thorns
Leaving this place was Hiiragi’s decision. But honestly, where he would go afterwards was not something he could decide entirely on his own.
“I need to explain things to my parents.”
When he consulted Kazuaki, he readily agreed.
“Of course. Is there anything I can do?”
“No. Well… I’m not even sure how to tell them…”
I met a man I love on the mountain, so we’re going to live together in the city.
It sounded like an old folktale. One with an ominous suggestion that various things would go wrong, leading to an unhappy ending.
“I don’t think disguising things or hiding them unnecessarily is a good idea,” Kazuaki said. “However much you’re an adult, your parents must still worry about you.”
“What about yours?”
“They’d probably be surprised if I formally reported my plans for the future. We don’t have a bad relationship. We simply don’t interfere with one another.”
Somehow, Hiiragi thought they must be exactly the sort of parents one would expect Kazuaki to have.
“I wonder about mine. They’re ordinary parents…”
“I don’t really know what ‘ordinary’ means, but most parents would probably be stunned if their only son announced he was going to live with a man.”
“Yeah. That part…”
Hiiragi hesitated.
“How am I supposed to come out with it? It isn’t that I’m embarrassed. It just feels as though things could get horribly complicated.”
Moving in with a lover when he was not even properly independent yet?
His parents would probably disapprove of that regardless of gender.
“Even if we tried to conceal something, I think it would look more suspicious if I, a complete stranger, offered to share a home with you merely from gratitude or kindness.”
“Oh. Right.”
Hiiragi did not want to build layers of lies around their life together either.
He did not want to burden Kazuaki emotionally. And they were not plotting anything wrong in the first place.
“…I’ll try talking to them honestly.”
“Shouldn’t I explain too?”
“I’ll do it myself this time. But if they say no, or tell me they want to speak to you, I’ll ask.”
“All right.”
Though he was not confident, Kazuaki added with a wry smile.
“The wake was our first meeting, so I doubt I made a good impression.”
“No, that’s not true… But what if they absolutely refuse?”
Hiiragi voiced his greatest concern.
“Fundamentally, I don’t think this is a question of receiving permission. It’s a relationship between you and me. I couldn’t agree if they told us to stop seeing each other. But if they wanted you under their supervision until you entered university, or until you graduated… Perhaps we would have to accept that.”
“Does that mean giving up?”
“It means waiting.”
He had asked Hiiragi to live with him with such feeling.
Even though the obstacle lay on Hiiragi’s side, he could not hide his disappointment. Kazuaki’s wry smile acquired a soothing gentleness, and he stroked Hiiragi’s head.
“When the time’s right, I’ll ask them too. You said it yourself: don’t give up just because you fail once.”
“Yeah… But if I run away from home sometimes, will you let me stay?”
“Until the last train.”
Apparently, he would not even let him spend the night.
Hiiragi felt considerably deflated. Even so, he did not entirely abandon the hope that his parents might tell him to do as he liked, however much exasperation or resignation accompanied it. He called them.
He explained his intention to let his second cousin use the house, and his wish to leave the botanical garden for now and work towards university. Just as he was about to reach the main subject, he was stopped in his tracks.
“Oh, really? That’s perfect.”
His mother sounded pleased.
“What is?”
“We have something important to discuss too. Will you be home next Saturday or Sunday?”
“Sunday… What’s it about?”
“It’s important because it isn’t something to discuss over the phone! Your father and I will come early Sunday afternoon. Don’t forget.”
Important?
More important than his confession? She ended the call so promptly that all Hiiragi could do was stare helplessly. Something important, for which this was perfect timing?
He had no idea what it could be, but his mother’s tone had been bright. Calling back and pestering her might turn things against him. Besides, however much more nervous it would make him, his own news would surely be better delivered face-to-face. He decided to wait quietly for the weekend.
Kazuaki offered to be there after all, but Hiiragi wanted to gauge their response alone first, so he firmly told him it was fine. He did not want to imagine his parents as people who would say cruel things out of prejudice. Yet he could not be certain they would not become upset and take it out on Kazuaki.
Hiiragi had left home in the middle of adolescence. He could not remember ever hearing his father or mother’s views on romance. At his grandfather’s urging, he had called regularly. They had visited every month or two to see how he was doing. He had thought they communicated properly.
Even so, he was made to realise that those nine years had been days of absence that were difficult to fill between parent and child. But he wanted to live with Kazuaki from now on. Was that being a bad son?
How many years would Kazuaki have to wait before it stopped being so? He was vaguely considering such things while preparing coffee when he heard a car arriving outside.
“You’re keeping the place lovely.”
No sooner had his mother put on the guest slippers than she began looking around appreciatively.
“You said that when you came last month. I can manage cleaning even by myself!”
“I’m praising you. Surely I can say it more than once.”
He was too preoccupied with their supposedly important news to enjoy the compliment.
After bringing coffee into the living room and sitting opposite his parents, Hiiragi opened the conversation himself.
“So? What is it?”
“You’re impatient, aren’t you…”
His mother continued:
“Well, your father’s leaving his job.”
“What?”
Redundancy?
That was not important news. That was a crisis. Perhaps this was no time to talk about university. Sorry, Kazuaki…
Seeing the colour beginning to drain from his face, his father lightly waved a hand.
“No, no. I haven’t been dismissed. I turn fifty this year, so I’m thinking of retiring early through the company’s scheme. I’ll receive a larger retirement payment. And perhaps I shouldn’t put it like this, but there’s what your grandfather left too. You don’t need to worry.”
“Oh. Right…”
He felt relieved for the moment.
Then the next question immediately arose.
“What will you do after you leave?”
His father had been an ordinarily busy office worker, with no particular hobby or passion that Hiiragi could recall.
Learn to make soba noodles? That conventional image of life after leaving salaried work came to mind. Once again, the answer went beyond anything he expected.
“Nothing in particular, but we’re considering an extended stay abroad.”
“Malaysia,” his mother added happily. “The cost of living’s low, cities are convenient, and it isn’t terribly far from Japan.”
“We intend to get a ten-year visa. We’ll think about what to do after that once we’ve actually tried living there.”
“They say it’s summer all year, but Japanese summers are harsh too. And neither your father nor I like the cold.”
Hiiragi lacked the knowledge to evaluate their plan.
What immediately left his mouth was:
“I’m not going!”
His parents looked at him.
“Malaysia’s absolutely out of the question!”
“What?”
His mother’s mouth turned down.
“What would be wrong with it? You’d learn English, and there must be plenty of plants you never see in Japan.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what do you intend to do?”
He hesitated briefly.
Then he decided to take the opportunity and say it. They had surprised him too, after all.
“…Do you remember Mr Fujisawa? You met him at Grandpa’s wake… I want to live with him. So I’m not going abroad.”
“Live with him? You’d be imposing on him, moving into someone else’s home.”
From her tone, she apparently imagined ordinary lodging or sharing a house.
At last, Hiiragi had no choice but to address the heart of it himself.
“I love Mr Fujisawa. And he says he loves me too.”
The meaning of that love seemed to reach them accurately.
His parents looked at each other. Both wore blank expressions, as though they had not yet decided what feeling to put there. Hiiragi’s heart beat too quickly to count.
But there was no turning back.
“I can’t say I won’t cause him any trouble. Of course I’ll work, but I need to study too, so I can’t contribute exactly half the money… But I’m serious.”
“Wait a moment. What is this, all of a sudden?”
“Your news was sudden too.”
“Yes, but… Fujisawa and you? Since when has that been going on?”
Was “that” merely a turn of phrase?
His mother looked plainly angry, but he did not yet know which part had angered her.
“Was it already like that at the wake? Is that why he defended you so strongly?”
“No. Not then… Um. Three or four months…? About that?”
“That’s hardly any time at all.”
His mother sighed in exasperation.
“In other words, you’re still caught up in the excitement, so you casually announce you want to live together. Don’t.”
“It isn’t casual.”
Being so openly treated as a case of youthful foolishness irritated Hiiragi too.
“Then what will you do if you break up as easily as that? You’ll have let someone else live here, and we’ll be abroad… Do you intend to end up on the street?”
“I won’t!”
His forceful reply made the surface of the untouched coffee tremble faintly in its mug.
“…We’re going to live together so that doesn’t happen. And Kazuaki isn’t that irresponsible.”
Of course, demanding they understand everything at once was unreasonable.
But while Hiiragi could bear having his youth or immaturity questioned, he could not bear having a question mark placed against Kazuaki’s heart. How much Kazuaki had struggled before wanting a life with him.
“Oh, I see.”
His mother stood from the sofa.
“Then do as you like. You intended to from the beginning anyway.”
With that, she took her coat and went out.
Unable to find the moment to stop her, Hiiragi silently listened to her receding footsteps and the door. What was he supposed to do? She had told him to do as he liked.
But surely he could not report that to Kazuaki as permission. He cautiously looked at his father. After taking a sip of coffee, his father murmured in an entirely calm voice:
“You’re an idiot, Hiiragi.”
“I know.”
“No. Not your circumstances. I mean the way you approached the conversation. Your mother never seriously intended to take you to Malaysia.”
“What?”
“Of course not. We’re going to rent out the Tokyo flat and use that income, together with my retirement payment paid as a pension, for living expenses there. The visa requires a regular income. So, if you were going to live in Tokyo, we intended to discuss a place for you to rent alone. But you rejected her out of hand, and that got her back up.”
“Should I go and apologise?”
“In a little while. Give her some time to cool down… This coffee’s good.”
“…Thanks.”
It had been so long since Hiiragi was alone with his father.
He did not feel uncomfortable, but he was uncertain what to do. His father, however, calmly drank his coffee, then gave a faint, suggestive smile.
“What?”
“Nothing. It just feels strange to discover that’s the sort of man you like.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Ha. Look at you, getting embarrassed like a grown-up.”
Had his father always been like this?
Perhaps Hiiragi had never really known what sort of person he was.
“…Why are you leaving the company?”
“Surprised you?”
“Of course. And Malaysia on top of it… Honestly, I didn’t realise you and Mum were that close. Not that I thought you didn’t get on. But going abroad together sounds like something a really devoted couple would do.”
They had not been the sort of couple who frequently went out for meals or travelled together, casually touched one another or displayed lots of photographs.
Most conversations had been practical notices within the small society of the household: whether someone needed dinner, information about weddings and funerals. Hiiragi had vaguely assumed every family was like that.
“Yes. That’s true.”
His father seemed amused by the observation.
“After you left, our conversations disappeared to a remarkable degree. But coming home to a dark house is depressing, isn’t it? I realised we had to communicate properly again instead of going through the motions out of habit. We started with little things. A cat on the way home. A flower blooming. People say children hold a marriage together, and that’s true. But I realised I’d become lazy because I assumed that bond would always be there.”
The same number of days and nights Hiiragi had spent with his grandfather had passed for his parents too.
They had possessed time and a life known only to them. Hiiragi had never considered it before.
“So, rather than the vague picture of the future we had before marrying, we took our time working out how we wanted to live from now on and what we wanted to do. Your grandfather’s heart began weakening after he turned sixty. Apparently, the same happened to his father. When I thought it might happen to me too, it seemed pointless to keep working until normal retirement, then begin falling apart the moment I stopped. Not being able to drink, or exercise as I liked. Wanting to live more freely while I’m healthy was a big part of it.”
“I see… Will I start getting weak at sixty too?”
“You take after your grandmother.”
“…Then I’ll die even sooner.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whatever happens, nobody knows when or where something might happen. So you can do what you want too. If you’re going to university, you needn’t worry about tuition or living expenses.”
“Thank you.”
His father’s shoulders suddenly dropped, as though something had slipped away.
“…It was about two weeks before my dad died, I think. We spoke on the phone. He said he’d asked a former student to catalogue his books, and that he thought it was having a good influence on you, giving you a new connection with someone. I joked that if he’d started putting his affairs in order, perhaps he was about to drop dead. He laughed. That was the last time I heard his voice. I always say things I shouldn’t… To you, and to him.”
He was speaking as “I”, rather than as Hiiragi’s father.
Speaking of “my dad”, rather than “Grandpa”. Was he conscious of that change in his language?
“When I met Fujisawa at the wake, I understood. Of course my dad would take to him. He really was something. Even after he was gone, he’d made sure someone remained beside you.”
Munakata had expressed a similar feeling.
“He isn’t a replacement for Grandpa.”
“I know. Even so, after my dad died, you held yourself together. We worried you might grieve so much you’d become an empty shell. But you kept the house lovely and went to work. Your mother and I were saying you’d become much more grown-up than we realised. That you’d be all right even if we went abroad.”
That was certainly thanks to Kazuaki.
Without him, Hiiragi could not imagine how he would have come to terms with losing his grandfather. Looking at the clock on the wall, his father said:
“…You should probably go and find your mother soon. Leave her any longer and she’ll start sulking again.”
“She’s difficult… You really understand her, don’t you?”
His father laughed.
“We are married.”
Following his father’s guess that she would not have gone far, Hiiragi walked round the house.
He found her crouching in the shade in the back garden. Surely she was not crying? As he approached apprehensively, she spoke in a surprisingly composed voice.
“There are flowers.”
He stopped beside her.
“Did you plant these?”
“Oh. Spring adonis. They’ve always grown wild here.”
“I see. What lovely little flowers. Such a vivid yellow.”
“They’re poisonous.”
“…Why do you say something like that when I’m enjoying how pretty they are?”
“Sorry. I thought I ought to warn you.”
“Honestly, with an attitude like that—”
She suddenly stopped.
“What?”
“…I nearly said you’d never get a girlfriend.”
It really was a little awkward.
Hiiragi made a vague sound of acknowledgement. His mother looked down at the flowers, which seemed to have emerged straight from the earth, and did not turn towards him.
“…Do you like men?”
“It’s not as though I like just anyone…”
“I know that. Have you always felt that way? Were you worrying about it without being able to tell us? Was that part of why you left home?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Surprised by how deeply she had read into it, Hiiragi immediately denied it.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it then. It still feels strange now, but I’m not embarrassed or troubled by it. The person I fell in love with is the person I love. That’s all.”
“I see.”
She answered briefly, then fell silent again.
Hiiragi wondered whether he should apologise for earlier. But her anger seemed to have settled, so he only said:
“You’ll get cold.”
“A man… I’m still confused.”
“Yeah. I understand.”
“But if your grandfather were here, he’d probably just say, ‘I see. Be good to each other,’ and leave it at that.”
“Yeah. Sounds like him.”
Then, with a perfectly straight face, he might add that Fujisawa had peculiar tastes too.
A cold breeze slipped past. Beyond his mother’s shoulder, the yellow petals swayed.
“He really was a teacher. He never forced his views on us, and he listened properly. But whenever he said something, I’d end up giving in, thinking that must be what was right after all. Logical, calm, persuasive. There was no competing with him. Your father didn’t seem to mind, perhaps because they were related. But sometimes I felt frustrated. So…”
She paused until the wildflowers quietly returned to stillness.
Then, as though forcing the words out, she said:
“…Somewhere inside, I always felt your grandfather had taken you away from me.”
His father had thorns.
His mother did too. Thorns whose marks remained even after they were removed. People went on living with small black holes in their hearts.
She had shared that quiet pain with him as one person, rather than as a parent, speaking to a Hiiragi who was more than merely her child. He was glad. Different thorns pierced every soul, leaving the heart full of lonely, aching holes.
Yet if light sometimes shone through them, they might form a constellation belonging only to that person, whose beauty could offer comfort. Surely that brief healing was what people called hope. Hiiragi gently rested a hand against his mother’s back.
“I’ll write to you.”
After seeing his parents off, he went to Kazuaki’s house.
While he was searching for the spare key, the front door opened from within. Kazuaki’s expression was slightly tense.
“It was all right!”
Hiiragi told him with a broad smile.
“They said we can live together—whoa!”
Before he could finish, he was pulled into a powerful embrace.
“…Thank goodness.”
The time Kazuaki had spent worrying alone escaped in a long breath.
Closing his eyes, Hiiragi felt the air leave his chest and the space beneath his own cheek subside. Thank you for worrying. For worrying so much because you want to be beside me so much.
“They weren’t arguing with you, were they?”
Apparently, as soon as relief came, a different concern raised its head.
Kazuaki looked into Hiiragi’s face.
“No. Though they asked what we’d do if we broke up straight away.”
“I see.”
Hiiragi laughed at the serious nod that signified acceptance of this as a perfectly reasonable parental concern.
“What will we do?”
“What shall we do?”
Even as he said it, Kazuaki put an arm round his shoulders and guided him inside.
It was probably something they ought to consider seriously. But they would probably leave it unresolved until spring came and they moved away. Then another spring.
And the next. Eventually, it would gather dust and be forgotten. After many more seasons had passed, perhaps they would quietly take it out and look at it.
Laughing together about how they had once said such things. A happy dream. Happiness like a dream.
Hiiragi firmly closed and locked the door.