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II.6. How Do You Think I Feel?
Afternoon tea passes the time. Lilly and Hanako are good company. They are careful to talk about inconsequential things, and Hisao is settling into a comfortable routine. His morning runs with Emi give him a sense of accomplishment. There is a sense of complacency. Part of Hisao wishes that life could go on like this forever. But that's no good. Didn't he have a life much like that at his old school? And what did that get him? The path of least resistance doesn't prepare you for sudden friction. A hospital stay, an attrition of friendship, parental time-out. And now he is here, creating a cocoon of habits to shield him. Talking about nothing, running in circles. Hisao is split in two: a naïve wish, a gloomy evaluation. It is not a matter choosing one path or another. It is the mould he is drifiting into. Alienation. Surprisingly, the only thing of substance in his life is Miya. But she has no centre and no direction, and the view she inspires in him is bleak: whether you're broken or whole doesn't matter, because the world you live in is fundamentally broken already.
Miya hasn't been in touch since that letter, but there is no question that she will be. Soon. He doesn't talk about her, and nobody brings her up. Everyone knows the connection exists, and it is quite clear that nobody approves. What has he been talking about with Lilly and Hanako today? Hisao can't remember. There's a bitterness in that, that's hard to trace. He feels they care about him, though why they should after so short a time is a mystery. There is a residual gratitude inside him, and a feeling that there should be more than that. But the moment he is alone, Miya is on his mind, blocking out any non-related thought.
It is no wonder the rumours say they are lovers: notorious Miyako Kitagawa, and unknown, unnamed new guy. But their connection is nothing like love. It's obsession. What connects them? The only thing Hisao can think of is “death”. To him: A cancelled future, at first, but increasingly a wasted past. To her: Who knows?
It's like this every day. He enters the corridor, frighteningly familiar by now, walks down it, pushes the key into the lock, turns it, opens door, steps into his room.
“Hi,” says Miyako. She's sitting cross-legged on his bed, giving him a wide grin.
Hisao hesitates for a second. He blinks. Then he turns around, carefully closes the door, locks it, turns back to Miya, holds up his key, looks at it. “I
did unlock my door, before opening it, didn't I?”
“The door was locked,” Miya says cheerfully.
Hisao's peeks over her shoulder towards the window. The curtain is drawn.
“The window is closed,” she says.
“You're enjoying this situation.”
“Very much.”
“You're not going to tell me how you managed to... break in?”
“I didn't break in.”
“I see.”
“I meant to wait outside, but... I startled a rather unlikely burglar and ended up confined in here, perhaps for being a feminist.”
“I see.”
“You believe me, then?”
“It seems you've run into Kenji.”
“Is that his name?”
Hisao sighs in defeat. The explanation is as plausible as it is absurd. “It is. Maybe you can help me figure something out. Does he actually
believe that nonsense?”
Miya shrugs. “It's an act. I can't tell if he buys into it. It seems I upset him.”
“I'm not surprised.”
Miya rolls her eyes. Then she suddenly perks up, an leans forward. “So. Who's Iwanako?”
Impossible.
It is impossible that he just heard that name come from Miya's mouth.
For a moment, his mind contains nothing. And then it is crammed with memories: snow, the smell of disinfectant, the creak of Yamaku's gates. Objects, no people. Nobody exists, and he doesn't either.
“I... wa... na... ko.” This is his voice. He recognises it.
“Yes, exactly. That's what I said.”
“How do you...?” He doesn't finish. Memory and perception disengage. He's listening to his heartbeat. It's... fine? He can't tell. There is no pain. There would be pain. There would, wouldn't there?
“A letter arrived. I put it on the desk. Girlfriend? She has a neat hand.”
“You... read it?” He stares at her. Somewhere deep inside he feels he should be angry.
She doesn't reply to that. “Come on. Who is she? You know I won't give up until you tell me.”
She won't. He doesn't want to talk about Iwanako. Iwanako is the last thing he wants to talk about. Iwanako... “Someone I admired from afar. Then she asked me out. I was so happy, I thought my heart would burst. It wasn't quite that bad.” His voice sounds far off, flat. It is not his voice at all.
Miyako stares at him, her eyes wide open. He feels his own eyes narrow. The anger he should have been feeling emerges. It is none of her business, is it?
Miyako moves. She now sits at the edge of the bed. A cry of disbelief: “No!”
Hisao doesn't move. He leans back, ever so slightly. “Yes.”
Silence, and then Miyako bursts into laughter. She drops back on his bed. She is shaking.
“It's not funny.” His voice is quiet, very quiet. She might not have heard it at all.
“Hisao,” she says in a voice much higher than her usual. “Will you go out with me?” Then she grips her chest and curls up, lets out a clichéd gurgle, than continues laughing.
“It's not FUNNY!”
She gasps for air, between bursts of laughter, then sits up. “Y-” A giggle. “You only say that because it happened to you.”
Hisao is calm, very calm. But when he tries to speak, he finds he can't.
“Oh, come on.You could really use a sense of humour.”
He takes a deep breath. “Do you ever stop to think how other people feel?” This is cold, directed anger. “Maybe you are to busy to feel sorry for yourself? Well? How do you think
I feel?”
Miyako sits up, tilts her head, looks at him. Her eyes narrow. “Frustrated. Angry.” She takes a breath. “Abandoned, maybe? Useless?” Her lips curled into a smile. What has shown on his face? “You don't really want a letter from Iwanako, do you? You don't want to remember. You get what you want, but you can't take it. You're too broken for that. It's how you found out. Poor baby, is the letter hurting you? There. Let big sis take it away for you.” But she doesn't move.
He looks at his desk, and there is the letter. She's right. She's wrong, but she's also right. And she might be more right than wrong... he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to
think about it. But Miyako has read it, hasn't she? Neat hand, huh?
“So, now that we've talked about how
you feel, what about how
she feels?”
Don't want to think.
“You were happy with her confession, were you? Well, does she
know? Girls don't confess lightly, you know? It takes courage. You know, the thing you didn't have when you were admiring her from afar.”
None of your business.
“Let me guess how she felt back then: She wants to be there for you. She visits, but it comes out as pity. She doesn't want that. But that's how it is.”
“You read the letter.”
“She's useless. She's given you a heart attack, but since it's not technically her fault, she can't apologise without it sounding strange. And she doesn't know how to talk to you, either. You're always annoyed. If she stays away, she's abandoning you. If she comes, she's annoying you. No way out.”
“Your read the letter!”
Miyako sighs, looks away. “So what if I have; does that change anything?”
“You have no respect. None at all. For nobody. For nothing. You read my letter because it was
there, didn't you? Just like that.”
She's drawing air through her teeth. “So what if I have?” She raises her face sightly. She's glaring at him now. “You want
respect? You're still pretty new at that game are you?
What do you want me to respect? Denial? Insufficiency? Stop being such a cripple.” She shakes her head, rubs her temples. “Well, look who's talking. I've got plenty of experience, but I've never really found a way to deal with it, have I?”
No respect! None at all! “Go. Just go away. And don't come back. You were asking for a favour? Forget about that. Go and don't come back.”
“If only it was that easy.” But she stands up, walks past him. She tries to open the door. “It's locked.”
Right. He is still holding the key. He turns, and with a step he is by the door. For a moment, their bodies are very close. His hands tremble, and it takes him three tries to insert the key in the key hole. He unlocks the door. Miyako opens it barely a crack, before she slips through. The door closes almost immediately.
Hisao hisses through gritted teeth, then takes a deep breath. He walks to the desk. He has been staring at the letter for a long, long time before he notices the envelope. His name and address, hand-written. He turns the letter around: Iwanako's name. The envelope is still glued shut.
Hisao's mind is blank. There's a taste in his mouth. He opens a drawer, drops in the letter. It lands on Miyako's letter. He pushes the drawer closed with more force than necessary. He sits down, puts his elbows on his desk and buries his face in his palms. If Miyako didn't read the letter, why didn't she say so?
So what if she hasn't read the letter. Does it change anything?
But those are her words, not his. This situation is a mess, such a mess. Why do Miyako's words always push past his defences?
Iwanako. It's funny, isn't it? He felt guilty towards her, and then he resented her for not being a better girlfriend, and then he felt guilty for that, and he blamed it all on his heart. Insufficiency, as Miya has called it. And all the while Iwanako had feelings, too. Funny how that never even occurred to him. And now he can't remember. Did he ever tell her how happy the confession has made him? There was no opportunity, was there? The mood was never right, was it? And there he was thinking of her as his girlfriend. As if a confession was the indicator, and her visits were proof. His own feelings he just took for granted. But how could she know, when all he ever did was collapse onto snow and then feel sorry for himself. Was she... waiting? Did she think her own feelings didn't matter, because he had it so much worse? Love expressed as pity, because there is no better way...
When you hurt, the people who care about you hurt, too. It's a very simple fact. Why is it so hard to accept? He knew it, then, didn't he? He felt the guilt, didn't he? Wasn't guilt part of the mix that silenced him, silenced Iwanako? What is harder to accept? The pain you feel, or the pain you cause? Iwanako, his class mates, his parents. All of them caught unprepared. What did he expect from them? Deep down, how did they disappoint?
Everyone dropped away, and then his parents sent him away to this place to be fixed. They abandoned him; he isolated himself. Frustration, attrition, exhaustion, and not just on his part. But nothing really ended. As proof, here is a letter from Iwanako. Hisao leans back in his chair, staring at the drawer. He doesn't want to read it. Not now. Later. Yes, later. He closes his eyes and his hand moves towards the drawer. There's no good time for this, and there never will be. He might as well read it now.
