This is the second half of the first instalment of the third part of the redacted archive of Kenji Setou.
In which he learns a lot more about friends and family than he thought he would.
Kenji 3: Distant Drums—Year One (Part 2)
(January-March 2016)
There were three men, once upon a time. They dreamt big dreams, and all of those dreams mixed with the inspiration from their teachers and friends, and somehow, improbably, a map of the future was sketched.
We thought it was fantasy then. But when I look back to the long off-and-on relationship that I had with Hisao and—years later—the other guy, it was amazing that it had happened at all.
These notes come from the years 2015-2020. A lot happened in those years that I thought was quiet, domestic and not too difficult to handle. If I’d been listening more carefully, I would have heard more. That’s why I’ve called this section ‘distant drums’.
*****
Stress. But this time, not mine, but Hisao’s. I’ve managed to convince him that the occasional Scotch is fine. And here we are, in Saitama, having a slow drink.
“The qualification period started two years ago. She’s qualified. Several times over. She trains. She trains so hard that I’m often not sure we’re having a relationship.”
Yuuko makes good coffee. It’s pleasantly aromatic. But for some strange reason, there’s a long winter break and she’s gone off with little Masako to spend time in Yokohama with her siblings. Her younger sister-in-law Azami, Shin’s wife, seems to like our little pink cabbage a lot. I find that cute, and I completely understand.
But sometimes, brotherhood comes first. Yuuko just laughed when I said that, and said, “You spend time with your depressed friend, then! I remember him telling me all about his Satou problems, years ago. I told him it was… ah, always better to try than to not try!”
So here I am with old friend Hisao, using slightly inferior coffee to wash down our highly superior whisky. I listen sympathetically, providing manly support, as Hisao talks to me about the Ibarazaki we see on TV, the Paralympics track star who sometimes doesn’t seem to be his girlfriend.
“Bro, didn’t you ever like anyone else?”
He looks up at me, his forehead sadly wrinkling. “You know I did, you heartless asshole.”
“I mean, besides my former class rep.”
Hisao laughs, but it’s hollow. “The first girl I liked gave me a bad heart, the second girl I liked stole it away, what more is there to say?”
“Hey, hey, you have that spunky little beauty making you exercise every day to make your heart work better, what’s the problem now?” I gesture at the large screen hanging from the tavern ceiling. Then I stop and look at him.
“You mean there was someone else before Lilly Satou? And you never told your good friend Kenji??” I’m about to thump him on the back when I remember the day in the cafeteria when he yelled at me for doing just that. Whoops. Heart condition, yeah. And we were just talking about it too.
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? I had one letter from her while I was at Yamaku.”
“Oh, dude. The yellow letter, right? From some girl with a fishy name?” It’s amazing what you can dig up when you think hard enough. In this case, it’s also a case of ‘amazing what you can dig up when you go through people’s trash’. Oops. He’s looking at me as if I’ve grown wings and boobs.
“How the hell did you know that, Kenji?”
“I… ah, I think you showed it to me.” Actually, not directly.
“I did?” His brow furrows so deeply I’m afraid his forehead will have an earthquake. “Well, yeah, that one. We’ve lost touch. I guess she’s still somewhere in Yokohama.”
“Really? I never knew you were from there. Why didn’t you say? We could have gone there, visited your parents, hung out a bit. Now I feel bad.”
“Nah, too much trouble. I have nice folks, but they’re happy with the way my life turned out. I just don’t like going home. What if I see her? I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“My friend,” I sigh, “Life’s too short. It’s been ten damn years already! Forgive and forget! She was your first love, man! Besides, Yuuko’s visiting her family in Yokohama this week, and I’ve never visited them before.”
“Yuuko? Has a family?” He sounds so surprised, as if other people aren’t supposed to have families.
“Of course she has a family. She has two brothers in the big family home there. Her father travels a lot, so they also have an apartment in Tokyo because father’s wife is some sort of senior violinist at the Philharmonic there. She’s actually a Kyoto girl, I believe.” It’s one fact about Yuuko’s stepmother Mari that has stuck in my head.
“I thought Yuuko was an orphan. I came out of Yamaku thinking everyone had only one parent, or no parents, or missing parents, except me.”
I laugh at his expression. Damn, after all these years, Hisao Nakai is still so naïve. Either that or it’s part of his infiltrator skillset which makes him a Master of Romance. Girls fall for innocent-sounding guys.
Then he starts to laugh back at me, no longer able to maintain his poker face. Idiot. “Hisao,” I hiss at him, “You were my best man! You’ve met them all already! Asshole!”
“Yeah. I guess becoming a father takes a lot out of you, huh?”
I punch him on the shoulder, hard enough to make his tumbler shake but not enough to waste good whisky. It just makes him giggle. Such an unmanly sound!
On impulse, I make a decision. “Hey, Hisao, wanna go south for the winter? Come on, it’ll be fun.”
He makes a face, then looks up at the TV, where his girlfriend is having her ultratight running outfit and composite-material legs scrutinized for the umpteenth news-cycle. “Yeah, why not? I have unfinished business, anyway. Kenji, you always get me into interesting situations, but Emi’s not due back till… whenever. So, okay.”
Just like that, another turn of events. How the hell was I to know what would happen next?
*****
It’s right that we visit Hisao’s parents first, and besides, it gives me time to pinpoint Yuuko’s location in Yokohama before we proceed with Operation Garden Market. Or at least, based on what he tells me, that’s what I call it.
“Futamatagawa Station?” I ask him again. I can’t say I know my way around at all, in this region. But it sounds interesting.
“There’s a great Farmer’s Market there, all kinds of good food, things like apple/rye bread and sweet cabbage… I used to hang out with my friends there, before, well… before.”
“It’s January, Hisao. What do they have in January?”
“Strawberries, of course. Apples, persimmons. Mushrooms, leeks, mountain yam, burdock root, delicious lemons…” He gets a funny faraway look on his face at this point. Unbelievable.
“Hey man, you told me once you were a city boy and didn’t know shit about such things.”
“I don’t know how to grow them, Kenji. But I had to eat, you know, help my mother with the groceries, that kind of thing? And I wasn’t a pizza and whisky fiend like some people I know!”
Come to think of it, I had a very unhealthy diet when I was growing up. The General probably was feeding us surplus SDF ration packs.
The train pulls into the station, and we get out, stretch our legs and look around before Hisao takes off at a casual but surprisingly efficient lope. That woman must be having a great effect on his cardiovascular fitness. Both of us have heart problems and yet… gah, I try my best to catch up, and after a while he slows down when he notices I’m looking a bit queasy.
About an hour later, we carry bags of groceries up a narrow lane that winds its way up the hills to the southeast of the station. The sky is filled with overhead power cables, and I can see a few large Eiffel-Tower-shaped pylons. I wonder about the electromagnetic flux density. We stop at one of the nondescript houses that cluster on one of the ridges, and Hisao dings the doorbell.
“Hicchan!”
My friend winces. I wonder why that voice sounds so familiar. Then I realize that it’s Shizune’s friend Misha. Not. It just sounds a bit like her. I stare a bit harder, trying to get my lenses to focus better. The woman bustling out to greet us is tall and lean, sharp-featured with a piercing gaze. Her face is more like Shizune’s, but with brown hair like Hisao’s.
“Mum!” he says, bowing.
“So pleased to see you! When Dad told me you were visiting, I was wondering who you would bring with you, though.” Quick to the chase, Hisao’s mother. She is already looking me up and down, as if disappointed that I’m not a girl. “Who’s this young man?”
“Ah, Mrs Nakai, my family name is Setou,” I say, bowing deeper than Hisao. “Very privileged to be able to meet you. I was Hisao’s neighbour in the Yamaku dorms.”
“Oh? You are the one who knows a lot about pizza and alcohol and computers? Welcome, welcome! Come in! Hicchan, bring the food to the backroom fridge.”
Lunch is a good, solid affair. Hisao’s father cooks like a master chef. He’s a retired financial specialist, a stockbroker type. Hisao’s mother is an architect. Over the table, I learn more. It is hilarious but in a bad way when Hisao’s father starts talking about my friend’s love-life.
“So this beautiful girl opens the door, and she has perfect manners, her hands tucked into her sleeves and all. And I’m wondering, have I got the wrong address, which can’t be because I pay the rental. So I check her out,” he says, while Mrs Nakai glares daggers into his cheerful round face, “and I think to myself what a wonderful tan she has, and my son is so lucky! Then she says, ‘Hisao’s not at home, I’m only his friend, don’t worry,’ and I suddenly feel so sad!”
I laugh, and then I almost choke when he continues, “Story of Hisao’s life, stubborn fellow. They’re all his friends! This one was embarrassed to show us she only had one hand though. It’s sad. But a pretty girl anyway.”
“She was living with him?” I ask casually.
“Yes! Almost like man and wife, the way she poured tea for us and all!”
Miki. I feel a sudden funny twinge in the guts. She actually lived with him? Bastard!
Hisao’s mother coughs politely. “Eh, Father, you are terrible. She was just a friend. I think she made it very clear to us, and we shouldn’t tease poor Hicchan like that.”
“Was joking only! Anyway, he was dating a blind girl and there was a deaf one, I think; the next one has no arms at all, and then it’s Emi Ibarazaki, and I told Mother, ‘Hey, dear, if this goes on, our son will have no body at all!’ Haha!”
That’s a very off-putting joke. There’s deathly silence around the table. Then Hisao says, “Ah, Dad, let me help Mum do the washing up.”
I look at him. He doesn’t look happy at all. He looks a bit miserable, actually. So I say, “Nakai-san, thank you for sharing those stories about Hisao. We learnt a lot at Yamaku together, there were many nice people there.”
Hisao’s mother gives a tiny nod at my attempt to defuse this situation, and it makes me feel better. Who would have thought Kenji Setou would be the tactful guy? Damn!
*****
It’s evening now. After a manly walkabout in which Hisao shows me the parts of his neighbourhood he still has good memories about, we’re heading into the visit-the-in-laws phase. My in-laws. Yuuko’s family. Strangely, Hisao looks more depressed than I do. I actually quite like my in-laws: silent and solitary Shou with the mystical utterances, affable Shin with the high tolerance for bullshit, and his wife Azami with the quirky bipolar thing.
“That’s where I went to school,” he says bleakly as we take the train westward and alight at Kibogaoka Station. “There’s a little wood behind the school, which I know very well.”
Why’s he sounding so sad about it? In fact, he’s sounding more and more subdued, as if visiting my in-laws is a great pain for him! “Hey, dude, why so melancholy?” I ask, feeling uneasy.
“That wood was where I had my first heart attack, Kenji. I’ve not been back for almost a decade now.”
“Here?”
“Yeah. Near where your in-laws live.”
“How on earth do you know where they live?”
“You have the map address on your phone and you keep waving it around.”
“Oh.”
He sighs deeply, then leads the way to Yuuko’s family home. Clearly I’ve underestimated his map-reading skills. I was right all along, he’s got the infiltrator skill set at a very high level. I catch up with him, and we reach the gate together. “Hey, slow down, dude, you don’t want them to find two of us collapsed within arm’s length of safe haven, you know!”
He grunts. “Let’s get it over with, Kenji.” He sounds so surly and so unlike himself that I wonder about whether he’s forgotten his meds or something.
The gate opens by remote and Yuuko comes running out from the front door to greet us. “Hey, husband! You got Hisao here safely… aha, I thought you might have got him lost in some tavern somewhere!”
I hug her warmly, and over her shoulder I see Shin and Azami. Shou is probably lurking in his upstairs observatory. Arm in arm, we stroll up the path that leads to the warm dark wood that frames the house.
“Father and his wife are in Tokyo for a concert tonight. Masako’s sleeping upstairs and Shou’s looking after her. So Shin’s cooked dinner all by himself for you and your old friend.” Actually, I can totally imagine that. Azami, always on the skinny side, never seemed the kind to enjoy cooking, while Shin’s a bit chubby.
While we chat, Hisao’s flanked me on the left. He reaches the door first, and Yuuko and I turn to see what he’s doing.
“Hey, Shin,” he says. “Mai-chan, nice to see you both again.” What? He sounds very familiar with my in-laws, despite only seeing them for a few minutes at the wedding.
“Hicchan!” Azami says, giving him a warm embrace of the sisterly kind and baring her huge teeth. “We have so much to catch up on!” Shin joins in with a huge hug for everyone.
I look at Yuuko. “Wife, how come they know each other so well?”
“Um, I don’t really know. When I told them who you were bringing, they went all funny and Shin decided to go shopping for special food, and Azami cleaned the house. Weird!”
“Yuuko, what aren’t you telling me?” I smile at her. Nowadays I can detect it when she’s avoiding something.
“Ah, well. I think Shin knows Hisao. When I was working in the library years ago, Shin called me and said he had a friend going to Yamaku, and asked me to help him if I could. Then he was strange, he said, ‘Don’t tell Hisao about me, he might get angry.’”
I guess we’ll just have to wait for dinner to get some questions answered, then.
*****
It’s a good dinner. Shin’s made little deep-fried tofu and omelette-wrapped appetizers, meat skewers, and small delicately grilled fish. There’s a big hotpot with spicy sauce, something I don’t recognize. Our little Masako joins us halfway through, and gets a meal from her mother, who excuses herself shyly.
I’m happy to be with family, since mine is mostly gone. But I’m interested to see how Hisao fits in. Surely he’s not a long-lost cousin or something? That would be stretching the bounds of probability. The truth, when it comes, is a lot more mundane.
“So,” I try to summarise, “Shin and Azami were your close friends in school, and then this girl Iwanako gave you a heart attack, and you ended up in Yamaku, and that’s your story? But why didn’t you guys stick together? I mean…”
Yuuko looks up from her breast-feeding, also curious about the story. There are guilty looks being traded all round the table. Finally, Azami breaks the lull.
“We used to visit Hisao in hospital, and wonder when he’d ever get out again. They had to operate a few times on his heart, and each time he just got more and more discouraged. Then one day he told us to get lost, he was angry and cursed us. He was depressed that he might die and it wasn’t even his fault.”
After all these years, I can still sense the emotion in my sister-in-law’s voice. “So Takumi, our other friend, said, ‘Let’s just leave him alone, maybe he’ll change his mind, but if he doesn’t we did our best.’ Iwanako felt very bad about that, and she kept visiting him, even when he didn’t want to talk.”
“Yeah…” Hisao says slowly. “I finally told her to go away. She came every day, then every other day, then only once a week, and one fine day… she never came again. By that time, I thought I was dead, just stuck between earth and hell in a white box, with a tiny TV set mocking me, and my parents appearing like ghosts to give me books to read.”
Shin clears his throat. “We were all worried for him, but we were young, and I think we were afraid that if we went back he might blow up and that would trigger another heart attack. Then my father had this idea, and when he met Hisao’s father at the hospital, he told him about Yamaku, which is where he’d already sent Yuuko some years before.”
Hisao gives a wry smile. There are a few tiny drops of bitterness in it, but not too many. “Well, that didn’t seem a great idea to me, but I was a walking dead man anyway. The first week of school at Yamaku, I almost gave up. I mean, my only neighbour was Kenji here.”
“Hey!” I say, neatly finishing off the last gyoza dumpling. “Don’t blame me, man, I was trying to save your life from the women!”
Azami chuckles at that. “When I saw Hisao at your wedding, I couldn’t believe it. Shin and I didn’t dare to approach him, in case he exploded or something!” More seriously, she adds, “Iwanako had written to him and got no reply, so it was as if Hisao had cut us off completely from his life.”
“Mai-chan… I think I had,” my friend says. “It was better to go on without all that memory of sadness. And I’d met Lilly…” His voice trails off, and I sense the dangerous edge of the cliff waiting there for him.
“Well, he’s got Emi Ibarazaki now, fastest thing on no legs, track champion, chirpy as a bird!” I sound desperate for a happy moment, even to me.
Fortunately, everyone decides to laugh, and after a while, Hisao smiles. His smile is a little tired, but good food and some lovely chilled sake help take the edge away. Not all of it, though.
“Where’s Iwanako these days?” he asks, playing with his little sake cup.
Again, that guilty silence, that uncertainty. I’m almost beginning to regret bringing Hisao into this, except that… maybe, it’s necessary? I feel uncertain about this, but it feels true.
Azami again. “She married Takumi and they moved up to Fukushima. He is, was a nuclear engineer. I think they’re both working in some engineering company still. We’ve lost touch.”
Hisao takes a deep breath. “Well, I hope they’re fine, wherever they are.” He finishes off the last few drops in the thimble. “I never knew Shin would become such a great cook! What’s for dessert?”
You have to give the man credit for trying.
*****
“Hey, Kenji!” says the voice over the phone a few weeks later.
“Wassup, man?”
“I just thought I’d thank you for that great trip we had to Yokohama!”
I was beginning to wonder. Hisao had hardly spoken to me on the way back, and when we’d changed trains, he’d given a rather brusque wave before he was gone.
“No problem! Glad you got something out of it.” I hesitate for a moment. “Actually, I was a bit worried for you, so I’m happy you called.”
“Heh. Guess whose birthday it is today.”
Oh, shit. It’s Lilly Satou’s birthday. Who else would it be, in February? Except, of course, Miki—and hers is on the 19th. “Errm, what are you going to do?”
“When I told Lilly about Iwanako’s letter, she said to me, ‘Instead of doing what was easiest, she built up the courage to talk to you one last time; not only for her sake but, from how it sounds, for yours as well.’ I wrote those words down. I’m not as brave as Iwanako was, I can’t call Lilly up and say I’m sorry. But I’ve made sure that one day she’ll know how I felt.”
“Right.” I don’t know what to say.
“So, thanks for the reunion. It was really good to see Shin and Mai again. They’re good people. I was bad to them back then, and it was good to make up. Give my regards to Yuuko and Masako!”
“Sure! You take care, dude.”
“Bye, Kenji.”
Spring is coming in a month or two. It always comes. Every year has a burden of sadness, but also a payload of joy. We all do what we can, with what we have. I wish Hisao all the best. And perhaps for the first time, I say a little prayer for Lilly Satou, my enigmatic classmate whom I hardly knew.
*****
I’ll end this chunk of my records with a few simple facts. In March, Yuuko turns 28, and we celebrate a lot. It isn’t April yet, when she says, “Kenji, um, I think Masako’s going to have company.”
I am delighted. I am thrilled. I embrace my darling wife so tightly that she has to wriggle a bit to get comfortable. Who knew that my life would have such undeserved gladness in it?
=====
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