Pathway to Japanese Literature

In dire poverty, grand justice is not to be hoped for.

――François Villon

Part One

As for the anguish of a writer who, while feeling intense shame over a single work, had nonetheless sent it off to a publisher out of obligation to survive in this world—even you astute readers could not fully comprehend it.
He mailed the heavy envelope containing the manuscript, deciding with a grunt.
A faint click sounded from the bottom of the postbox.
That was all there was to it.
It had been an unskillful work indeed.
While its surface managed to put on airs of honest gestures, I understood all too well how the filthy worms of groveling compromise swarmed beneath—it had been indeed an unbearable work.
And then—that cloying description of women.
I wanted to shout "Ah!" and run around in circles—that was how ashamed I was.
It was clumsy.
I had absolutely no qualifications as a writer.
I was ignorant.
I had no profound thoughts at all.
I had no flashes of intuition at all.
It was said that among nineteenth-century Parisian literati, there existed a custom of spurning dull writers by calling them "Weather Hermits."
The pitiable, foolish writer—like myself—couldn’t manage a single clever remark in the salon and could only prattle on about recent weather patterns; such topics, it seemed, were indeed the utmost limit for dim-witted dullards.
I couldn't say a thing.
My work—the one I had just mailed off—was essentially like that.
It had snowed yesterday.
Truly, I had been utterly astonished.

Truly, I was so surprised.
If one were to open the storm shutters and describe it as a sort of silvery world while mopping their brow—though there's no first or second kind about it—it's truly an idiotic notion.
I did nothing but stammer; not a single decisive conclusion came forth.
I too am a man who knows shame.
If things could go as I wished, I would tear up that clumsy work and vanish like a wisp of cloud into some mountain retreat—so I thought.
But for a timid and servile person like me, that was impossible.
If I didn't send this work to the publisher today, I would have lied to the editor.
I had made an unnervingly clear promise that "I will definitely send it by today."
The editor had gone out of his way to reserve pages for even such clumsy work of mine and was eagerly awaiting its arrival.
Knowing this, no matter how inferior the work might be, I couldn't simply discard it.
To call it duty's fulfillment might sound noble, but that wasn't it.
I—timid and powerless—simply feared the editor's physical strength.
Since I'd broken my promise and deserved a beating for it—feeling utterly lifeless with all artistic pride gone—I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped that monstrosity of a manuscript into the postbox.
I was a man utterly devoid of backbone.
Once mailed, that was all there was to it.
No amount of regret could change anything.
The manuscript slipped smoothly onto the editor's desk exactly as written; after giving it a quick read and being thoroughly disappointed first and foremost, he sent it off to the printing office regardless.
At the printing office, a skilled worker with hawk-like eyes expressionlessly set about typesetting my wretched manuscript with brisk efficiency.
Those eyes terrified me. What clumsy writing.
They must have been thinking it was riddled with typos.

Oh, at the printing office, even the errand boys were sneering at my ignorant work.
Finally, the precious paper was sullied in great quantity to print it, and my wretched work lay exposed in bookstores for all the world to see.
Critics would read it and mock, and readers would be appalled.
Thus had the foolish writer managed to add yet another wretched piece to his tattered collection.
Out of one blunder and into another—this was precisely what they meant by it.
There was not a single redeeming quality.
Even knowing this, I trembled and mailed the heavy envelope containing the manuscript, resolved with a grunt out of excessive fear of the editor’s physical strength.
A faint click sounded from the bottom of the postbox.
That was all there was to it.
The miserable feelings that followed were unparalleled.

That day too，I mailed my splendidly wretched manuscript at the postbox in front of the station，suddenly grew disgusted with being alive，thrust my hands into my pockets and hung my head，and walked along kicking the pebbles at my feet over and over.
I had no energy to go straight home.
My house lies in the middle of a field over twenty minutes’ walk from Mitaka Station，requiring three or four turns along the way—a place where no visitors ever come．On days when I’m not working，I spend the entire day wrapped in a blanket lying on the veranda．When reading tires me out，I do nothing but yawn repeatedly．I pick up the newspaper and briefly ponder questions from the children’s section like “Which of these seven—turtle，whale，rabbit，frog，seal，ant，pelican—are born from eggs?” Growing bored even with that，I let the tears from my yawns silently stream down my cheeks as I blankly gaze at the wheat field beyond the garden until night falls—a half-sick existence．Given such a life，I find myself utterly lacking the vigor to cheerfully hurry back to my so-called joyful home right now.
I walked toward the embankment of the Tamagawa Josui Canal，in the opposite direction of my home.
It was mid-April，around noon.
When I raised my head and looked，the Tamagawa Josui Canal flowed deep and languidly，the cherry trees along both banks having already turned to leaf-covered trees with their verdant foliage densely intertwined，green branches and leaves arching over from either side to form a tunnel of fresh greenery.
It was hushed.
Ah，I want to write a novel like this.
This is the kind of work that’s good.
No contrived intentions.
I stopped walking and felt tempted to keep gazing at it，but ashamed of my maudlin sentimentality，I merely glanced at that radiant green tunnel before continuing to trudge slowly along the embankment beside the flow.
Gradually，his pace quickened.
The current was pulling me along.
The water，faintly turbid，carried scattered petals slightly soiled with grime，sliding soundlessly onward.
I was，before I knew it，chasing the cherry blossom petals drifting away.
Like a fool，I kept walking doggedly.
The cluster of petals would slow down，then speed up—never stagnating—slipping away with sly nimbleness as they flowed onward.
Having passed Mansuke Bridge，this was now the back area of Inokashira Park.
I continued walking single-mindedly along the current.
Around here，long ago，a kind teacher named Instructor Matsumoto had tried to save his student but ended up drowning himself.

The river may be this narrow, they say, but it is terribly deep, and the current’s force is strong.
The people of this land call this river the man-eating river and live in terror of it.
I was a little tired.
I gave up chasing the petals and walked slowly.
In an instant, the cluster of petals drifted away into the distance, glinting white and small in the sunlight before vanishing from sight.
I let out a meaningless sigh and was wiping the sweat from my forehead with my palm when, right at my feet—"It’s freezing!"
came the shout.

I was, of course, startled.
I was so startled I nearly fell backward.

In the man-eating river, a pure white, completely naked boy was swimming.
No—he was being swept away.
He lifted his head high above the water’s surface, grinning as he exclaimed, “It’s freezing! So cold!” While turning repeatedly toward me, he was rapidly swept downstream.
I started running without knowing why.
This was a crisis!
He’d drown for sure.
I couldn’t swim, but I couldn’t just stand by.
After all, I wouldn’t regret dying anytime.
Even if I couldn’t save him, I had to jump in and die together.
I ran heedless of appearances, my thoughts fragmenting into notions like “Maybe this is how one finds a place to die”—illogical, foolish things.
In short, I was panicking utterly.
Even when stumbling over tree roots and nearly falling, he kept running without a flicker of expression, maintaining his lurching stride.
Normally I strictly avoided such grasslands for fear of snakes, but now even a bite wouldn’t matter—I’d have to die soon anyway. No room for fastidiousness.
I was trampling through weeds in a straight line to save a life when—

“Ouch!” came a sudden scream from behind. “That’s terrible of you! You trampled all over my stomach until I couldn’t stand it!”

It was a familiar voice.
Losing his balance from the excess force, he staggered forward two or three steps before finally coming to a halt. When he turned to look, the boy lay completely naked on his back in the middle of the grass field.
I suddenly felt anger,

“It’s dangerous! This river... It’s dangerous!” he shouted with a rebuke ill-suited to the situation while adjusting his kimono’s disheveled hem to feign dignity. “I came here to rescue you.”

The boy sat up halfway—long lashes framing glistening eyes that narrowed slyly as he gazed up at me,

“You’re such a fool.”
“Without even noticing I was lying here, you went running off pale-faced.”
“Look.”
“My stomach—right here—has your geta marks stamped clear as day.”
“You’re the one who trampled all over this spot.”
“Look.”

“I won’t look.”
“Disgusting.”
“Hurry up and put your clothes on.”
“You’re not a child anymore.”
“Insufferable brat.”

The boy quickly pulled on his pants and stood up,

“Are you the park attendant?”

I pretended not to hear.
It was such a foolish question.
The boy grinned broadly, showing his white teeth,

“There’s no need to get so angry.”

He said in a calm tone, thrust both hands into his trouser pockets, and sauntered over to me.
On the right shoulder of the naked body clung a single cherry blossom petal.

“It’s dangerous.
“This river.”
“You mustn’t swim.”
I repeated the same words, but in a much lower voice than before, almost muttering.
“It’s called the man-eating river.”
“Moreover, this river’s water supplies Tokyo’s drinking water.”
“It must be kept clean.”

“I know that already.”
The boy wore a slightly servile smile around his nostrils.
Seen up close, his face looked far older than his years.
His nose stood high and pointed, tilting slightly upward.
His eyebrows were sparse; his eyes round and large.
His mouth was small, his jaw short.
His fair complexion still made him appear quite handsome.
His height and build were ordinary.
Though his head was closely cropped and beardless, three deep wrinkles cut sharply across his narrow forehead, while sagging folds around his nostrils cast dark shadows.
At times he resembled a monkey.
He might have ceased being a boy altogether.
Plumping down at my feet, he peered up at my face from below. “Why not sit too?
“When you puff up like that, your face looks samurai-like.”

“A face from the old days.”
“Do you know which came first—the Ashikaga period or the Momoyama period?”

“I don’t know.”
Unable to grasp the situation’s contours, I crossed my arms behind my back, paced about the area, and answered brusquely.

“Well then, do you know who the tenth Tokugawa shogun was?”

“I don’t know!”
I truly didn’t know.

“You really don’t know anything. Aren’t you supposed to be a schoolteacher?”

“That’s not it.”
“I am,” I started to say, hesitated slightly, then mustered my courage—yes, say it unapologetically—and continued, “writing novels.”
“A novelist—that’s what I am.”
After saying it, I felt like I’d said something terribly uncouth.

“Is that so,” he showed no sign of being impressed. “So novelists are dimwits, huh. Do you know Galois? Évariste Galois.”

“I think I might have heard of it.”

“Tch, when it comes to foreigners’ names, you just lump them all together and think you’ve heard them before, don’t you? That just proves you know nothing. Galois was a mathematician. You probably wouldn’t understand, but he was quite brilliant. He got killed at twenty. You should try reading a few more books yourself. You don’t know anything at all. Do you know the tragic story of Abel? Niels Henrik Abel.”

“Is he also a mathematician?”

“Hmph—acting like you know.”
“He was smarter than Gauss.”
“He died at twenty-six.”

I suddenly grew so wretchedly sad and feeble that even I found it repulsive, moved far from the boy to sit in the grass field, and finally lay sprawled out at full length.
When I closed my eyes, I could hear a skylark singing.

In youth, I was the world’s wonder—an arrogant child,

Now I cannot speak nary a faltering phrase to please men

Just like an old monkey,

Not a trace of charm remains.

If I keep silent so as not to oppose men’s wills,

I am pointed at as an old and senile defeatist

If I speak

"Be silent, you! Know some shame!" someone pulls my sleeve.
(Villon)

“It’s that I have no confidence.”
Opening my eyes, I called out to the boy.

“Hmph.
“What gives you the right to say you have no confidence?”
The boy was also lying down and shouted back words of contempt in a loud voice.
“You have to be at least Galois to say such fine words.”

No matter what I said, it was no use.
I feel like I too once had a period like this boy’s.
This morning’s knowledge was so painfully urgent that unless one poured their passion into acting on it that very morning, it felt like dying.
No doubt this boy too had skimmed through the biography of some great mathematician who died young—either last night or this very morning.
That boy genius Galois might have also gone swimming naked in raging torrents.

“Did that book say Galois went swimming stark naked in the river in April, I wonder?”
I said that, intending to parry his attack.

“What the hell are you saying?
“You’re so stupid.
“And you think you’re being all restrained over something like that?
“That’s why adults are detestable.
“Aren’t I teaching you out of kindness here?
“You’re covertly transforming your senior’s egoism into righteousness.”

I felt an unpleasant sensation.
This time, I genuinely felt hostility toward this boy.

Part Two

I had resolved.
I had resolved to strike this boy for his arrogance and rudeness.
Once I resolved to do so, I believed I could become quite a ruthless and cold-blooded man.
I may resemble a fool, but I shouldn’t have been a complete imbecile from the start.
Even if I said I lacked confidence, that was by a different measure—I had no recollection of ever being torn to shreds to this extent by some young stranger I’d never even met before.

I stood up and briskly brushed the dust from the hem of my kimono, then jerked my chin up,

“Hey, you. Tantalization—it’s something of limited consequence anyway. Rather, now it’s commonplace. People who are truly smart don’t put on airs with affected speech like yours. You’re the one who’s really stupid. Aren’t you just putting on airs? What exactly is this ‘senpai’ up to? Nobody thinks of you as a junior. Isn’t it just that you’re wallowing in self-pity all by yourself?”

The boy lay on the grass with his eyes closed, smirking as he listened; then he narrowed his eyes and looked sideways at my face,

“Who are you even talking to?”
“Even if you say such things to me, I won’t get it.”
“What a pain.”

“Is that so.”
“My apologies.”
I involuntarily gave a slight bow. Then—damn it!
I realized.
Even momentarily bowing my head to my current debate opponent was an inexcusable blunder.
Etiquette is forbidden in a fight.
The trouble was, I possessed far too much adult dignity.
Even though I had no composure whatsoever, I kept trying to show it off—it became a real problem.
There was a tendency to make more of an issue of whether one maintained composure than of the actual outcome of victory or defeat.
That’s why you always lost the fight.
It was nothing to praise.
I regained my composure,

“Anyway, won’t you stand up? There’s something I want to tell you.”

A plan formed in my mind.

“Did you get angry? There’s no helping you. You’re not about to start bullying the weak, are you?”

Every single thing he said was unpleasant.

“I might be the weaker one. There’s no telling which of us is which. Anyway, get up and put on your jacket.”

“Hmph, you’re really pissed off.” “Hup,” muttered the boy under his breath as he stood up. “I don’t have any jacket.”

“Don’t lie. You’re flaunting poverty. Cheap heroism. Put on your shoes quickly and come with me.”

“I don’t have any shoes. I sold them, I tell you.” Standing still, he looked up at my face and laughed.

I was struck by an uncanny dread.
I began to suspect this boy before me might be an utter madman.

“You couldn’t possibly—” I started to say, but stammered.
The question was so appallingly rude that I—the one who had begun asking it—found myself on the verge of tears.

“I had them until yesterday.”
“Didn’t need them anymore, so I sold them.”
“I do have a shirt,” he said innocently, plucking a rather nice camel-colored undershirt from the grass at his feet. “You think I walked here naked?”
“My boarding house is in Hongo.”
“Idiot.”

“You didn’t come here barefoot, did you?”
I still persisted in doubting.
I was deeply uneasy.

“Ah, the land is so inconvenient.” The boy pulled the undershirt over his head and said, “Byron didn’t have to be conscious of his lameness while swimming. That’s why he preferred being in the water. Truly, truly, you don’t need shoes in the water. You don’t need a jacket either. There’s no distinction between nobility and commoners, rich and poor,” he said with an affected lilt in his voice.

“Are you Byron?”
I deliberately chose uninspired words as I spoke.
The boy’s persistent pretentious airs were growing increasingly insufferable to me.
“You’re not even lame.
And humans can’t live submerged in water forever.”
Even as I uttered them, the words felt brutally harsh—so much that they chilled me—utterly devoid of grace.
That’s using poison to combat poison.
It doesn’t matter, I secretly rationalized in my heart’s depths.

“Jealousy.”
“You’re just jealous.”
The boy darted his tongue over his lower lip and retorted briskly:
“Old decrepit fools can’t stand encountering young talent.”
“They can’t bear it until they’ve denied everything.”
“You make yourself hysterical—can’t be helped.”
“If you’ve got something to say, I’ll hear you out.”
“You’re so undisciplined.”
“Are you trying to drag me off somewhere?”

When I looked, he was already properly wearing geta.
They appeared newly bought and, at first glance, far more impressive than my own.
For some reason, I felt relieved—a sense of salvation.
Though my nerves were disgraceful, I too couldn’t help harboring wariness toward people in overly outlandish clothing.
It had long been common knowledge among first-rate poets that clothing meant nothing—I myself wore whatever my family laid out without complaint, utterly indifferent to others’ attire—yet even so, there had to be limits. One couldn’t help feeling terror toward an outfit of mere trousers without jacket or shoes.
In the end, it must have been my disgraceful commoner nature.
Now seeing this boy standing upright in a rather fine shirt and geta surpassing mine, I felt immensely relieved.
His clothing was fairly ordinary after all.
He couldn’t be a madman.
There would be no harm in carrying out the plan that had just come to mind.

He was an ordinary man.
Even if I were to engage in a knee-to-knee debate with him, it wouldn’t bring disgrace upon me.

“I’d like to have a proper talk with you.”
With an artful smile on my face, I said, “You’ve been calling me uneducated and incompetent since earlier, but I too am a man of some renown.”
“In truth, I may be uneducated and incompetent, but I still think I’m better than you.”
“You have no right to insult me.”
“In response to your unjust insults, I must retaliate.”
It was quite a solemn performance.
Despite this, the boy burst out laughing.

“Oh, so you want to spend time with me but are acting like you don’t.”
“You must be terribly bored yourself.”
“Buy me something.”
“I’m starving.”

I too was on the verge of bursting into laughter, but strained with all my might to put on a stern face,

“You mustn’t try to deceive.”
“You should be feeling a certain kind of fear right now.”
“Anyway, come along with me now.” Struggling not to burst into laughter, I became somewhat flustered and hurried forward without looking back.

My plan—if one could even call it a plan, so exaggerated was the term—was nothing more than a modest little notion.

By the pond in Inokashira Park stood a small tea shop run solely by an old couple.
I had made it my practice to guide the friends who occasionally visited my home in Mitaka to that tea shop.
For some reason, I became quite reticent when at home.
I would simply fidget about.
The friends who occasionally visited were all talented and learned, effortlessly launching into brilliant discourses on art. But I—the so-called “Weather Hermit”—could only stammer “uh, uh” while shaking my knees, sometimes even blurting out submissive replies like “Oh?”—a disgraceful display even to myself.
Driven by petty calculation—the fear that even family members sewing behind sliding doors might come to scorn me—I would invite friends outdoors for strolls by any means necessary. Yet even then my position remained pitifully weak until I finally guided them to that tea shop by Inokashira Pond.
Sitting cross-legged on that tea shop’s bench, I found myself mysteriously revived.
There I would sit cross-legged, vacantly gazing at the pond’s surface while sipping sweet red bean soup or fermented rice drink, until my tongue gradually loosened—and then my thoughts would flow unrestrained, elaborating matters I’d never consciously considered with such conviction that persuasion became unstoppable.
The secret lay in how both my friends and I conversed while gazing at the pond’s surface.
That is to say, by radiating our gazes parallel across the water without facing each other.
You should all try this method once.
If you adopt this approach—sitting side by side on a sofa while gazing at a fireplace flame instead of each other’s faces—then gentlemen, even three hours conversing with some dull matron wouldn’t weary you. Never meet eyes—not even once.
At that tea shop I tenaciously fixed my gaze upon the pond’s surface alone, barely managing to unravel threads of eloquence.
That bench was my home court.
Had I faced adversaries there—even vitriolic masters like Diderot or Sainte-Beuve—I might have avoided humiliating defeat. But lacking their scholarship, I’d likely still lose.
I couldn’t speak French like those men.
To that bench I schemed to bring this boy for retaliation against his earlier insults.
He had mocked me too thoroughly.
I needed to discipline him somewhat.

With the self-proclaimed young talent—this shallow youth—in tow behind me, I walked leisurely through the park woods with great confidence.
Whether I was indeed a senile old dullard or not—I’d show him right now.
As the boy followed me, he gradually began to appear uneasy and started muttering something to himself.

“My mother, you know, she’s dead.”
“My father’s in a shameful line of work.”
“You’d be shocked if you heard.”
“I’m just a country bumpkin.”
“Morals don’t exist.”
“I wish I had a pistol.”
“If you go bang-bang shooting at power lines, they snap one by one—pop-pop.”
“Japan’s so cramped.”
“When you’re sad, swimming naked like mad’s the best thing.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Can’t do anything at all.”
“Never say anything interesting.”
“Don’t want lectures.”
“It’s all written in books.”
“Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“Name’s Saeki Goichiro.”
“Not much good at math.”

“I like ghost stories best.”
“But you know, there are only thirteen ways ghosts can appear.”
“Wait—there’s also the lantern’s whoosh and rustle. That makes fourteen types.”
“How dull.”

He kept spouting one incomprehensible thing after another, but I ignored it all.
Pretending not to hear, I passed through the forest, descended the stone steps, crossed Benten-sama’s shrine precincts, went past the zoo, and emerged at the pond.
A fifty-meter walk around the pond would bring us to our destination—the tea shop.
I smirked cruelly.
Though this boy had said earlier, “What, you just want to play around,” there truly was such a reckless impulse stirring in the depths of my heart.
And then, there was one more thing.
There was also the aspect that my petty writer’s ambition—this desire to explore the psychology of the next generation’s youth—had indeed been at work, driving me to proactively approach this boy.
What a foolish thing I had done.
Thanks to that, from then on I was forced to endure the misery of an unending series of misfortunes, terrors, and humiliations.

Having arrived at the tea shop—that is to say, having sat cross-legged on the bench, quietly cast my gaze over the pond’s surface, and smirked cruelly once more with a self-satisfied "this will do"—everything had gone perfectly up to that point. But from then on, things went awry.

When I ordered two oshiruko from the tea shop’s old woman, the boy—

“Do you have oyakodon?” he said calmly, sitting cross-legged expansively beside me—which left me flustered.
In my sleeve was only a single fifty-sen bill.
This was something handed to me earlier when leaving home after being told by someone in the household to get a haircut.
But after mailing off that inferior novel manuscript, I immediately heard the derisive laughter of friends and acquaintances so vividly in my ears that it became unbearable—and so I neglected even that obligation to get a haircut.

“Wait, wait,” I called out to the old woman.
My whole body burned hot.
“How much is the oyakodon?”
It was a vulgar question.

“Fifty sen, sir.”

“Then one oyakodon.
One will suffice.
And a cup of bancha, please.”

“Tch,”
The boy sneered at me without pause.
“Sly bastard.”

I let out a sigh.
No matter what was said, there was nothing to be done about it.
I suddenly became sick of it all.
With my pride so wounded, what more could I possibly try to preach to the boy now?
I no longer wanted to say anything.

“Are you a student?” I asked in an exceedingly gentle tone, ending up uttering a thoroughly trite question.
My eyes nevertheless kept gazing habitually at the pond’s surface.
A scarlet carp nearly two feet long came swaying over to swim beneath our bench.

“Until yesterday, I was a student.”
“From today onward, I’m different.”
“Who cares about that kind of thing?”
The boy answered cheerfully.

“That’s right.”
“I don’t particularly care to meddle in people’s personal affairs either.”
“Even if I did ask probing questions, I know there’s nothing I could do to help.”

“You’re such a philistine.”
“You’re spouting nothing but excuses.”
“Total nonsense.”

“Ah, it’s all nonsense.”
“There were many things I wanted to say, but I grew weary of it.”
“Better to just sit quietly and look at the scenery.”

“I wish I could be in that position.”
“Someone like me can’t stay silent even if I try.”
“I have to keep spouting this insincere clown act just to survive.”
It was a grown-up voice brimming with sincerity.
I involuntarily turned and looked at the boy afresh.

“Who are you talking about?”

The boy scowled unpleasantly,

“Aren’t I talking about myself? I was a tutor for a respectable family until yesterday. I was teaching algebra to the dimwitted only daughter. I don’t even know enough to teach. That’s the thing about learning while teaching. There, you can get away with faking it, but I was even forced to play the jester,” he abruptly fell silent.

Part III

The tea shop’s old woman came bearing one oyakodon bowl on a tray.

“Why don’t you eat?”

The boy suddenly turned bright red and, in an uncharacteristically timid tone, said, “What about you? Aren’t you going to eat?” while peering into my face.

“I don’t need any.”
I drank my bancha, trying my best to appear natural, and gazed at the forest across the pond.

“Thank you for the meal,” came the boy’s modest, small voice.

“Here you go,” I replied blandly, trying not to embarrass the boy, then slowly sipped my bancha and gazed fixedly at the forest across the pond as though wholly indifferent to him. There is a zoo in that forest. A piercing, silk-rending scream tore through the air.

“It’s a peacock.”
“The one that just cried out was a peacock.”
When I said this and glanced toward the boy, he had placed his bowl between his crossed legs, bowed his head low, and was violently rubbing both eyes with the chopstick-holding back of his right hand.
He was crying.

At that moment, I was simply troubled.
Pretending not to know anything, I quietly returned my gaze toward the pond, then took out a cigarette from my sleeve and smoked a drag to settle my mind.

“My name is...” the boy began in a voice clearly choked with sobs, speaking haltingly.
“My name is Saeki Goichiro, you know.”
“Remember that.”
“I’ll repay you properly someday.”
“You’re kind.”
“Crying like this—how shameful.”
“When I eat rice, I sometimes feel desperately lonely.”
“All the sad things rush back at once.”
“My father’s in a shameful line of work.”
“A country elementary school teacher.”
“Over twenty years of service and still not promoted to principal.”
“He’s stupid.”
“Ashamed even around his own son.”
“Even the students mock him.”
“They call him Manke.”
“That’s why I must become great.”

“Why is being an elementary school teacher such a shameful business?”
I involuntarily raised my voice and said with pursed lips.
“Even I plan to become a rural elementary school teacher if I can’t write novels anymore.”
“I think there are only two jobs in this world where one can work with a clear conscience and pour their whole passion into them.”

“You don’t understand,”
the boy’s voice grew slightly louder.
“You don’t understand.”
“Teachers have to curry favor with the village’s wealthy children.”
“Dealing with the principal and village head—that’s complicated too.”
“Don’t even wanna discuss it.”
“I hate being a teacher.”
“I genuinely wanted to study.”

“Then study,”
I said spitefully—being petty by nature, I still hadn’t forgotten the insult this boy had dealt me earlier.
“What became of that vigor from before?”
“Pathetic.”
“Men don’t cry.”
“Here, blow your nose and pull yourself together.”
Keeping my gaze fixed on the pond’s surface, I tossed a packet of tissues from my pocket toward the boy’s knees.

The boy chuckled softly, then obediently blew his nose,

“How should I put this...”
“It’s a weird feeling.”
“Even when I try to study to make my old man happy, I just can’t settle down somehow.”
“Whether quintic equations can be solved algebraically or not, whether divergent series have sums or not—right now isn’t the time to be mulling over such roundabout things, I feel like someone’s telling me.”
“Just the other day too, some senior students told me, ‘Discard your personal circumstances!’”
“But the students who say such things are always just dim-witted slackers.”
“So, somehow, I end up feeling strange.”
“This isn’t the time for roundabout studies like that.”
“Is this an era where we only train by throwing our bodies into things?”
“When I think about it, I feel so uneasy, you know.”

“You used that as an excuse for your laziness and dropped out of school.”
“That’s called appeasement policy.”
“You’re just someone who keeps dreaming about ‘If a great earthquake came and flipped the world upside down,’ aren’t you?”
I began lecturing in a somewhat self-satisfied mood.
“You’re swapping one day’s anxiety for a lifetime’s and making a fuss over it.”
“Don’t you believe in order’s necessity?”
“Though these are Valéry’s words,” I lightly closed my eyes, pretended to gather my thoughts momentarily, then reopened them and continued in an affected tone, “laws, institutions and customs have always been attacked and scorned by any halfway decent thinkers since antiquity.”
“Truth be told, ridiculing them feels rather satisfying.”
“But you must understand how facile and dangerous that irony is.”
“It bears no responsibility whatsoever.”
“Laws, institutions, customs—no matter how trivial they seem—without them, neither knowledge nor freedom can exist.”
“It’s like cursing the great ship you’re sailing on.”
“Jump into the sea and you’ll only drown.”
“Knowledge and free thought aren’t natural products by any measure.”
“Nature isn’t free nor an ally of knowledge, he says.”
“Knowledge is power that fights nature, conquers it, and builds human artifice.”
“In short—an effort toward artificial order.”
“Thus order is fundamentally anti-natural planning, yet people can’t survive without clinging to it.”
“I understand wanting to heed the times and abandon studies—but isn’t quietly continuing your work through faith in order’s necessity itself courageous now?”
“Divergent series sums or elliptic functions—research them thoroughly.”

I felt somewhat pleased with myself.
When I finished speaking and glanced furtively at the boy, he—seemingly having listened to less than half of my lecture—was eating his rice with single-minded focus.
“What do you think?”
“Do you understand now?”
I persistently sought his agreement.
The boy raised his face, swallowed his rice, and then spoke.

“Valéry is French, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.
“He’s a first-rate cultural critic.”

“If he’s French, that’s no good.”

“Why?”

“Aren’t they a defeated nation?”
In the boy’s large black eyes, there was no longer any trace of tears; he smiled with cool composure.

“That’s the rhetoric of a fallen nation.”
“You’re too trusting—that’s your flaw.”
“The order he’s talking about is from ancient times.”
“It’s unquestionably just defending the classics.”
“He’s merely boasting about French tradition.”
“I nearly let myself get fooled there carelessly.”

“No, no,”
I flusteredly rearranged my cross-legged position.
“That’s not the case.”

“What a splendid word ‘order’ is.”
The boy, ignoring my refusal, kept holding the bowl in one hand, uttered an admiring exclamation to himself, and showed a dreamy look.
“I don’t believe in French order, but I do believe in the order of a strong military.”
“I want order stretched to its cruelest limit.”
“I want to be bound tight.”
“We all desperately want to go to war.”
“Lukewarm freedom is no different than being kept idle.”
“You can’t do anything at all.”
“You just turn spineless.”
“The home front’s all tangled and impossible.”

“What the hell are you saying? You’re just trying to escape from the most demanding part. A single act of patience over a thousand arguments.”
“No—a single action over a thousand pieces of knowledge.”

“And then the only action you’re capable of is swimming stark naked in the man-eating river, isn’t it? You must know your place.” I thought I’d won.

“That earlier thing—that was a special case.” The boy released an adult-like, wizened smirk. “Thank you for the meal,” he said with ceremonious politeness, moving his bowl aside. “There were circumstances involved. Will you hear them?”

“Go on then.” The tiger had been mounted—there was no dismounting now.

“Even if I tell you, it won’t change anything—but lately I’ve been a complete mess.”
“I managed to graduate middle school with my family’s money, but after that, I couldn’t keep going.”
“We’re poor.”
“I wanted to study mathematics more, so without telling my father, I took the entrance exam for high school and got in.”
“Do you know Mr. Hayama?”
“Hayama Keizo.”
“He once worked as a railway advisor or something.”
“He’s a Diet member.”

“I don’t know him.”
For some reason, I found myself growing irritated.
I was not good at listening to people’s personal stories.
I started to feel that it could have nothing to do with me.
As I listened in silence, an unforeseen responsibility seemed to gradually weigh down on my shoulders, leaving me unbearably anxious and displeased.
Even if I felt sorry for that person, the disheartening reality that I could do nothing about it became clear, making me all the more disgusted.

“I don’t know any Diet members.”
“Is he rich?”

“Well, yes.”
The boy spoke in an unnervingly calm tone.
“He’s a senior from my hometown.”
“What a ridiculous notion—a hometown senior.”
“We just share the same regional accent.”
“I took money from him—no, it wasn’t charity.”
“I was teaching him.”

“So you taught while being taught?”
I wanted him to stop this story immediately.
I felt no interest whatsoever.

“He has a daughter in her third year at girls’ school.”
“She’s like a dumpling.”
“She isn’t.”

“A faint romance, huh?”
I was spouting nothing but careless remarks.

“Don’t talk nonsense!”
The boy bristled.
“I have my pride.”
“Lately he’s been treating me more and more like some errand boy.”
“The wife’s no good either.”
“Finally yesterday I couldn’t take it anymore, and—”

“I find such tales tedious.”
“They’re just societal constructs.”
“Like saying walking makes you tired.”

I had been regretting the time I spent with this boy until now.

“You were raised in a bourgeois household, I see.
“You don’t know the hardship of taking money from others.”
The boy was not yielding.
“It’s okay to be conceptual.
“You don’t know such mundane hardship.”

“I’m well aware of that myself, you know.
“It’s something completely obvious.
“I just keep it folded in my chest and don’t say it.”

“Then can you explain the movie?”
The boy and I had remained sitting side by side, gazing out parallel across the pond’s surface since earlier.

“Explain the movie?”

“That’s right. The daughter went to Hokkaido during spring break and shot reams of 16mm footage—or whatever it’s called—of the scenery there. A dreadfully long film. I did get to see some of it though. Just a jumbled mess of live-action shots. Now they’re planning to showcase it at Hayama-san’s salon. Rounding up all their so-called ‘friends.’ And apparently my job is to narrate that imbecilic film and suck up to the guests.”

“That’s just great.”
I burst into loud laughter.
“What’s wrong with that?
Hokkaido’s spring remains shallow—”

“Are you being serious?”
The boy’s voice seemed to tremble with anger.

I hurriedly stiffened my cheeks and returned to a serious tone,

“If it were me, I could do it without batting an eye. Only those who feel superior can truly play the clown. Getting indignant over something like that and selling off your uniform is meaningless. That’s hysterism. Because there’s just no helping it, you jump into the river and swim around—doesn’t that seem sentimental?”

“A bystander can say whatever they want.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You’re a liar.”

I bristled.

“Then what do you intend to do now?”
“Isn’t it perfectly clear?”
“Do you mean to keep swimming in that river forever?”
“There’s no choice but to go back.”
“Return to your former life.”
“Let me advise you.”
“You’re indulging in childish self-righteousness.”
“So you’ll do the film narration after all?”
“What’s the problem? It’s merely one night’s humiliation.”
“Do it with dignity.”
“I might even take your place if needed.”

The last remark was a mistake.
Things had taken an outrageous turn.
When the boy called me a liar, it stung in a strangely deep way. I flared up, blurted out unintended things, and found myself backed into a corner.

“You think you can do it?”
The boy laughed weakly.

“Of course I can do it.”
“I can do it,” he declared vehemently.

An hour later, I was walking along Shibuya’s Jingu-dori with the boy. This was absurd. I was thirty-two years old that year. I needed to show restraint. Yet here I walked alongside him, solely to avoid being seen as all talk. In the end, perhaps I too had been coddling my own childish fastidiousness. By labeling these anxious actions as “saving the boy,” I’d barely managed to salvage myself. When faced with a drowning youth before me—even unable to swim—I had to leap to the rescue. I strained to believe this was my civic duty.

Truly, due purely to the course of our conversation, I ended up having to go to the Hayama household for one night in a high school uniform and cap in the boy’s place.
As Saeki Goichiro’s friend, I had to greet them by saying that Saeki was ill today and I had come in his stead, then had to give an amusing explanation of that utterly foolish film titled Early Spring in Hokkaido.

I naturally had neither a uniform nor a cap. Saeki didn’t have one either. He’d had one until yesterday but apparently sold it along with his shoes. I had to go borrow them. Saeki seemed to doubt my resolve and was hesitating about this plan, but seeing the boy’s wavering demeanor only fueled my frenzy. I all but dragged Saeki by the hand as we left the Inokashira tea shop, stopped by my Mitaka home to hastily shave my beard and make myself look considerably younger, then stuffed a sizable amount of pocket money into my coat. When I asked the boy, “Where’s your friend? Don’t you know anyone close enough to lend us a uniform and cap?” and heard his reply about one in Shibuya, we immediately boarded the Teito Electric Railway from Kichijoji Station and arrived in Shibuya. I must have been slightly unhinged.

I hurried along Jingu-dori.
The Hayama household’s film gathering was tonight.
I had to hurry.

“Here it is.”
The boy stopped.

White kobushi magnolia blossoms peered over the old wooden fence.
It seemed to be an amateur boarding house.

“Kumamoto!” the boy shouted toward the second-floor shoji.

“Kumamoto-kun,” I too called out loudly in a familiar manner, as if I had somehow become a student.

Part 4

“Wagner,

Cry out honestly,

*Succeed, I pray thee!*

‘If there is something you sincerely wish to say,

*Then speak it plain.*’
(Faust)

When a feminine, gentle ‘Yes.’ came from beyond the second-floor shoji screens, I felt oddly deflated. For someone styled as Kumamoto-kun, I hadn’t anticipated such a meek response. He might as well rename himself Aomoto Menosuke.

‘Saeki here! Can we come up?’

It was Saeki who shouted with a roughness far more befitting Kumamoto.”

“Please come in.”

He was truly kind.

I was so exasperated I burst out laughing.
Saeki too seemed to have picked up on my feelings,

"He's a dilettante," he said in a low voice, slyly closing one eye.
"He's bourgeois through and through."

We passed through the boarding house gate without hesitation and clomped up to the second floor from the entrance.

As Saeki tried to open the room’s shoji,

“Please wait,” came a desperate, trembling voice. It was, as expected, a high-pitched, thin voice like a woman’s, but tinged with a certain dignity as if driven to desperation. “Alone? Two of you?”

“Two people,” I carelessly answered.

“Who is it? Saeki-kun, who is the person with you?”

“I don’t know,” Saeki said, looking perplexed.

I had not yet told Saeki my name.

“Kimura Takeo, Kimura Takeo,” I whispered to him. Dazai was, so to speak, a pen name—the one I was given at birth being Kimura Takeo. Truly, this name was embarrassing—though I’m skinny, I had chosen to use a pugnacious-sounding name like Dazai—but even so, in moments of such emotional agitation, I would inadvertently blurt out the name given by my parents instead. “Please call me Kimura Takeo,” I added, though I still felt somehow embarrassed.

“Kimura Takeo.”
Saeki nodded. “I came with Kimura Takeo-kun.”

“Kimura Takeo?
“Kimura... Takeo-kun?”
Even from behind the shoji, he muttered suspiciously.
I could bear it no longer.
The name Kimura Takeo seemed like the most foolish thing in the world.

“I am someone called Kimura Takeo.”
“I came here because I have a request,” I said recklessly in a rush.

“Please forgive me.”
It was an unexpected reply.
“Meeting someone for the first time is distressing for me.”

“What are you blathering about?”
“Still as insufferable as ever,” Saeki muttered under his breath—a comment Kumamoto seemed to overhear through the shoji screen.

“It concerns this nose.”
“An insect stung my nose.”
“To meet strangers in such an unsightly condition pains me more than anything.”
“First impressions are paramount for humankind.”

We burst into uproarious laughter.

“How absurd.”
Saeki violently slid open the shoji and tumbled into the room.
I too, holding my stomach and choking with laughter, staggered into the room.

In the dim corner of an eight-mat room sat a shaved-head boy wearing a navy kasuri-patterned garment, alone and properly seated with his knees folded.
When I saw his face, he was indeed Aomoto Menosuke.
There was not the slightest trace of the robust impression suggested by the name Kumamoto.
With a pale, perfectly round face, his eyes behind Lloyd glasses small and squinting weakly, the nose in question did appear slightly reddish upon reflection—though there was nothing particularly tragic about it.
His body was terribly corpulent.
His height was slightly shorter than Saeki’s.
Fashionably dressed, he kept fussing with his collar and adjusting it,

“Saeki-kun, isn’t that a bit rough?” he said in a serious tone. “I’ve never even shown this ugly face to my own parents,” he added with a haughty pout.

Saeki immediately stifled his laughter and approached Kumamoto.

“Reading, are we?” he mocked, feeling around under the desk beside Kumamoto-kun before retrieving a paperback book. Though a large Western tome lay open on the desk, Saeki paid it no mind. “*Nansō Satomi Hakkenden*, huh? Looks interesting,” he muttered while rigidly flipping through the pages. “You always display books you’re not reading on your desk while hiding the ones you actually read underneath. Quite the peculiar habit.”

Without cracking a smile, he tossed the paperback onto Kumamoto-kun’s lap.

Kumamoto-kun was so pathetically flustered that it pained to watch, his face turning bright red as he pressed down on the book atop his knees with both hands,

“Do not scorn me,” he said in a voice so low it was almost inaudible, glancing up at Saeki’s face from the corner of his eye with a look of unmistakable resentment.

I was sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room, watching and laughing at the two of them, but somehow I began to feel terribly sorry for Kumamoto-kun,

“Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is a splendid classic.”
“The Japanese romance—”
“The Japanese romance—its pioneer—” I began, but noticing Kumamoto-kun’s current source of melancholy, I corrected myself: “its original founder.”

Kumamoto-kun looked relieved.
Suddenly, he composed himself again,

“Certainly, there are such aspects.”
He tightened red lips.
“I’ve recently begun rereading it gradually again, though.”

“Heh heh,” Saeki plopped down on his back beside the desk and let out a peculiar laugh. “Why do you keep lying about rereading it bit by bit like that? You always say that without fail, don’t you? You could’ve just said you started reading it.”

“Do not scorn me,” Kumamoto-kun protested again in a somewhat louder voice than before, using that gentlemanly refined phrase—but his face was almost in tears.

“Nobody reads *Nansō Satomi Hakkenden* for the first time.”
“You must be rereading it.”
I stepped in to mediate.
While observing these two boys’ squabble was amusing, I now had a far more pressing matter to attend to.

“Kumamoto-kun,” I called out in a changed tone, then earnestly pleaded—though it was a rather abrupt request—to borrow his uniform and cap just for tonight.

“Uniform and cap?”
“Um, my uniform and cap?”
Kumamoto-kun frowned with displeasure, then turned toward Saeki lying sprawled out and said, “Saeki-kun, I am displeased.”
“Please do not scorn me too much.”
“Just who is this person?”

“If you don’t like it, drop it.”
Saeki bellowed from where he lay.
“I’m not forcing you to agree.”
“You’re the rude one here.”
“The person there is a good person.”
“He’s not an egoist like you.”

“No, no.”
I was flustered when Saeki called me a good person.
“I’m an egoist too.
I’m the one who insisted despite Saeki-kun’s objections and had him bring me here.
I could explain the circumstances, but anyway, I’m asking you directly.
Please lend it to me just for tonight.
I’ll return it without fail early tomorrow morning.”

“Do whatever you want.
I don’t know anything about this,” he said in a tearful voice, then spun around to turn his back to me and began flipping haphazardly through the Western book on the desk.

“Let’s drop it. I don’t care what happens to me.”
Saeki sat up and said to me:
“That won’t do.”
I shook my head resolutely. “You’re being cowardly to bring this up now. Then it’s exactly as if I’ve been mocked by you and dragged all the way here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kumamoto-kun, upon our beginning to argue, appeared strangely pleased and turned back toward us. “Has Saeki-kun started something again? It seems there’s some profound circumstance at play,” he said in a haughtily superior tone, crossing his arms with an air of judiciousness.

“That’s enough.”
“I don’t want to ask someone like Kumamoto for things.”
Saeki suddenly stood up.
“I’m leaving.”

“Wait, wait.”
I also stood up and restrained Saeki.
“You shouldn’t have anywhere to go.”
“Kumamoto-kun hasn’t refused to lend his uniform.”
“You’re acting like such a spoiled child—there’s no helping it.”

Kumamoto-kun, for some reason, seemed truly pleased whenever I got the better of Saeki in an argument.
Finally standing up with a triumphant look,

“Indeed it is.”
“You’re acting like such a spoiled child—there’s no helping it, I must say.”
“I haven’t said I won’t lend it.”
“I am not an egoist.”
He briskly removed the uniform and cap hanging on the wall, then presented them to me with an exaggeratedly ceremonious gesture, as though bestowing a million-yen loan.
“Does it meet your approval? How is it?”

“No, this is fine.”
I involuntarily bowed deeply and said, “I’ll trouble you to let me change here.”

I finished changing.
It was not fine.
Far from being fine, it was grotesque.
From the sleeve cuffs, my arms stuck out a good six inches.
The pants were ridiculously baggy and, moreover, too short.
The knees were barely covered, cruelly exposing the leg hair.
They looked like golf pants.
Even I couldn’t help but give a wry smile.

“Cut it out.”
Saeki immediately sneered.
“It doesn’t suit you at all.”

“That’s true.”
Kumamoto-kun also crossed his arms behind his back, looked me up and down thoroughly, and said, “I don’t know what manner of distinguished person you might be, but in this state, even my suit’s reputation will suffer,” then let out an elaborately performed sigh.

“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s fine.”
I did my best.
“I’ve seen students like this before in Hongō.”
“Geniuses usually dress like this.”

“The hat doesn’t fit your head at all.”
Saeki once again found fault with me.
“You might as well walk around completely naked.”

“My hat is by no means on the small side.”
Kumamoto-kun was fixated solely on his own belongings.
“My head size is perfectly average.
It’s the same as Socrates’.”

At Kumamoto-kun’s unexpected assertion, both Saeki and I burst out laughing.
Kumamoto-kun also ended up getting swept into the laughter.
The room’s atmosphere grew unwittingly amiable, and the three of us somehow came to feel a mutual closeness.
I thought I wanted the three of us to go out together and take a short walk through the streets of Shibuya just as we were.
There was still quite some time before sunset.
I borrowed a furoshiki from Kumamoto-kun, wrapped the discarded kimono in it, and had Saeki carry it,

“Let’s go.”
“Kumamoto-kun, how about coming along that far?”
“Let’s have some tea together.”

“Kumamoto’s studying right now.”
Saeki showed opposition to inviting Kumamoto for some reason.
“He’ll be steadily rereading *The Eight Dog Chronicles* from now on anyway.”

“I don’t mind.”
It seemed Kumamoto wanted to go out with us too.
“This might get interesting somehow.”
“You’re like Dr. Faust restored to youth.”

“Then Mephistopheles would be this Saeki-kun here?”
I grew somewhat boisterous, forgetting my age.
“So this is the mangy dog’s true form?”
“A wandering student?”
“Utterly ridiculous!”

When I teasingly peered at Saeki’s face, the rims of his eyes were red.
He was tearing up.
I surmised he must have suddenly grown anxious about tonight’s matters.
Silently, I thumped the boy Saeki’s shoulder and left the room.
I secretly resolved to save him without fail.

The three of them left the boarding house and meandered down toward Shibuya Station.
The men and women passing by on the street didn’t seem to find my appearance all that suspicious.
Kumamoto-kun wore an indigo-dyed kasuri lined kimono with felt zōri sandals and carried a cane.
It was quite dapper.
Saeki was in his usual attire, carrying the furoshiki bundle containing my kimono, while I—dressed as a poor student in an ill-fitting uniform cap and geta sandals—basked in the warm afternoon sunlight of mid-spring, strolling aimlessly.

“Let’s have tea somewhere.”
I asked Kumamoto-kun.

“Well…”
“Considering we’ve had the pleasure of becoming acquainted,” said Kumamoto-kun with affected dignity, “however, let us forgo places where there are young ladies.”
“Today, considering how red the nose is.”
“First impressions are of utmost importance.”
“If a girl were to see me for the first time, she’d be certain to arbitrarily conclude that the nose has been this red since I was born and will remain so permanently.”
Kumamoto-kun was insisting earnestly.

I thought it was absurd, but I desperately held back my laughter,

“Then how about a milk hall?”

“Anywhere’s fine.”
Saeki had been dispirited since earlier.
Like some will-less dog, he trailed behind us at a slight distance, shuffling along in slovenly steps.
“Inviting someone for tea is just a trick people use when they want to get rid of each other quickly.”
“Whenever someone was about to chase me off, they’d always make me drink tea first.”

“What do you mean by that?”
Kumamoto-kun spun around to confront Saeki behind him.
“Don’t spout such nonsense.”
“Drinking tea with me and this gentleman stems from our mutual affinity.”
“It’s pure.”
“We achieved mutual resonance through *The Eight Dog Chronicles*.”

Because a fight seemed about to break out in the street, I was at a loss.

“Stop this at once. Stop this at once. Why can’t you two get along? Your attitude isn’t good either, Saeki. Kumamoto-kun is a gentleman. He’s trying his best. It’s wrong to mock people’s earnest efforts to live.”

“You’re the one who’s actually mocking people,” retorted Saeki as he lunged at me. “You’re nothing but crafty.”

Our arguing showed no signs of ending. Spotting a small eatery up ahead,

“Let’s go in.”
“Let’s talk there slowly.”
Grabbing one arm of Kumamoto-kun—pale with excitement and trembling violently—I started walking briskly.
Saeki also followed sluggishly behind us.

“Saeki-kun is unacceptable.”
“He’s a demon.”
Kumamoto-kun pleaded in a tearful voice.
“Are you aware?”
“He just got out of the detention center yesterday.”

I was stunned.

“I didn’t know… I had no idea—none at all.”

We had already entered that dimly lit eatery.

Part Five

For a while, I couldn’t say anything. With the feeling of being served that bitter taste of a headlong plunge—the kind that makes you pitch forward—the moment I realized I was being betrayed and mocked, I thudded down into a chair in the corner of the eatery. Kumamoto-kun sat down facing me. Just as the boy Saeki appeared belatedly at the eatery’s entrance, he suddenly hurled a furoshiki bundle toward me, spun around, and fled. I stood up, rushed out of the eatery, chased after him for two or three steps, and immediately seized Saeki’s left arm. I dragged him bodily back inside like that. A savage, bestial fighting spirit—*I won’t be mocked by this bastard*—had violently awakened, driving even someone as constitutionally timid as me to act with such nimbleness and almost miraculously tenacious resolve. Saeki still writhed, trying to break free.

“Be seated.”
I tried to force him into the chair.

Saeki did not utter a word, violently shook his entire body, and slipped free from my grasp.
Having broken free, he immediately took out something that glinted from his pocket,
“I’ll stab you,” he said in a hoarse voice that sounded like someone else.
I was, indeed, startled.
For an instant, I thought I might be killed.
When driven to the peak of terror, there exists in me a habit of spontaneously letting out an empty, foolish laugh.
For some reason, an absurd sensation kept creeping up until it became unbearable.
It was not due to boldness of spirit but rather because I was an extreme coward that in such situations I would immediately reach a state resembling madness—this interpretation seemed more correct.

“Ha ha ha,” I let out a hollow laugh.
“When you’re so mortified you’re spinning in circles, you end up striking these brutal poses.”
“I’ve been there.”
“Couldn’t shape your actions without waving a knife around, could you?”

Saeki wordlessly stepped toward me.
I laughed even harder.
Saeki adjusted his grip on the blade.
Just then, Kumamoto-kun lunged at Saeki from behind with sudden force,

“Wait!” he cried in a frantic shrill voice, then made another unexpected declaration: “That knife is my knife.”
“Saeki-kun, how could you?”
“Wasn’t that knife kept in the left drawer of my desk?”
“You undoubtedly borrowed it without my permission earlier.”
“As I adhere to valuing human honor, I refrain from accusing you of theft.”
“Return it at once.”
“I cherished it.”
“While I did lend this person my hat and uniform, I have no memory of lending you the knife.”
“Please return it.”
“I received it from my sister.”
“I treasured it dearly.”
“Return it.”
“I must object—you’re handling it too roughly.”
“That knife comes with small scissors, a can opener, and three other attached tools.”
“It’s delicate.”
“This is urgent—give it back!” he shrieked tearfully.

Even the ruffian Saeki seemed overwhelmed by this desperate protest; suddenly losing all strength, he limply dropped both arms and forced a bitter smile onto his pale face,

“I’ll give it back.
“I’ll give it back.”
“I’ll give it back to you,” he said in a self-mocking tone, handed the knife over without looking at Kumamoto-kun’s face, and plopped down into a chair.

“Go on, say whatever you want,” Saeki retorted in a vulgar tone, like a genuine ruffian, leaving me disillusioned and deeply saddened.
I sat down in the chair next to Saeki,

“Goichiro-kun,” I said with a sigh, uttering Saeki’s given name for the first time, “you shouldn’t speak in such a petulant way. That’s not like you at all.”

“Cut the sweet talk,” he retorted. “You’re making me sick. Must feel nice to start gently lecturing someone who’s clearly lost, huh?”
Saeki scowled displeasedly, spat out his words with force, and limply threw both arms onto the table. He had become so petulant that he was beyond reach.
I found it increasingly dreary.

“You’re a worthless fool,” I blurted out exactly what I was thinking.

“Ah, so I am.”
He immediately snapped back.
“Haven’t I been telling you from the start?”
“Didn’t I say I don’t want any of your lectures?”
“You could’ve just left me alone.”
He said this while staring straight at the cafeteria wall, but his eyes were faintly glistening.
Seeing that state of his, I somehow found myself reluctant to speak again.
Kumamoto-kun sat properly facing us, meticulously examined whether the delicate knife—which he had just desperately reclaimed—was damaged, confirmed its intact state, wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it into his right sleeve, finally assumed a relieved expression, and then glanced back and forth between the two of us anew,

“What is it?”
“Well, what should we do now?”
“While I can tentatively agree with what you say, as well as Saeki-kun’s statements, I’m afraid we must hear more developed arguments first,” he said with unrelentingly earnest gravity, then added, “Shall we have koohii?
“Or would you like to eat something?”
“In any case, let us order something.”
“If we discuss things slowly, we might be able to reach an agreement.”
Kumamoto-kun seemed intent on savoring that unbearable delight—the kind where he would make the two of us fight even more intensely, then sit by listening with a composed expression while nodding equally to both sides.
Saeki, with the air of having promptly seen through Kumamoto-kun’s sly expectation,

“Why don’t you go home already? I’ve already returned the knife, and this person says they’ll give back the uniform and hat right now. Don’t forget the cane.” He said this without so much as a smile, his tone composed.

Kumamoto-kun was already on the verge of tears,

“You don’t have to look down on me so much.”
“I’m trying to help you too, you know.”

I found Kumamoto-kun’s earnest demeanor endearing.

“That’s right, that’s right.
“Kumamoto-kun here has lent me things like his uniform and hat—he’s an important person, so to speak.”
“It’s better if you stay here.”
“Coffee, three.”
I loudly ordered coffee toward the back of the cafeteria.
In the dimly lit depths of the cafeteria, a boy of thirteen or fourteen had been standing vacantly and gazing in our direction for some time now.

“Ma went to the bathhouse.”
The boy, who appeared to still be attending elementary school, answered in a sluggish tone.
“She’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, I see.”
I was momentarily perplexed.
“What should we do?” I whispered to Kumamoto-kun.

“Let’s wait.”
Kumamoto-kun remained composed.
“It’s such a relief here with no girls around.”
He was still fixated on his nose.

“Why don’t we drink beer?”
Saeki suddenly spoke up.
“There they are, all lined up.”

When I looked, beer bottles were indeed lined up on the back shelf.
I felt tempted.
I thought a beer might calm this irritated, unpleasant mood of mine.

“Hey,” I called to the boy attendant, “If it’s beer, you can manage even without your mother here, right? Just bring a bottle opener and three cups.”

The boy nodded reluctantly.

“I won’t drink.”

Kumamoto-kun once again struck a haughty pose.
“Alcohol is a sin. I intend to adopt an academic stance.”

“No one’s telling you to,” Saeki said with a slight pout. “No one’s telling you to drink. Stop with the strange talk. If you’d just say your sister would scold you, people would understand quicker.”

“Are you planning to drink?” This time, Kumamoto-kun refused to yield. “Cease this. I advise you. You drank beer the day before yesterday too, didn’t you? Even if you were held in a detention center, it’s become quite the scandal at school.”

The boy brought the beer and had no sooner finished placing cups before us than Kumamoto-kun grabbed one and indignantly slapped it face-down on the table.
I was inwardly exasperated.

“Alright—Saeki shouldn’t drink either,” I declared.
“I’ll drink alone.
“Alcohol truly is a sin.
“One ought to avoid drinking whenever possible.”
Even as I spoke these words, I twisted off the bottle cap and poured beer solely into my own cup before draining it in one determined gulp.
It tasted wonderful.
“Ah—this is terrible,” I lied to mask my embarrassment.
“I hate alcohol too.
“But beer doesn’t intoxicate much—it’s tolerable.”
Babbling these excuses like a penitent schoolboy, I even stooped to groveling flattery at Kumamoto-kun: “After all—we mustn’t abandon our academic stance.”

“Indeed it is.”
Kumamoto-kun, having regained his good humor, chimed in with a haughty tone.
“We are Parnassians.”

“Parnassian.”
Saeki muttered softly in a low voice.
“An ivory tower, huh?”

There was an oddly heartrending quality to those two words Saeki had suddenly muttered.
A sharp pain gnawed at my chest.
I downed another beer.

“Goichiro-kun,” I called affectionately. “I understand everything now. When you threw that furoshiki bundle at me earlier and tried to run away, we all realized it then. You deceived me, didn’t you? No—I’m not blaming you. Blaming someone is difficult. I understood, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. It was painful to say—I even thought of pretending not to notice—but now, using the beer’s buzz as courage, I’ve finally said it. Or rather—now that I think about it—you might have prompted me to say it. After all, you’re the one who found the beer.”

“I see,” Kumamoto-kun whispered in a low voice, “So Saeki-kun showed such grandiose consideration by bringing up the beer. That explains it.” He nodded repeatedly while crossing his arms. “I see.”

“What idiotic consideration would that be?” Saeki gave a strained laugh. “I was just—you know—” He trailed off, hands scrambling across the table’s surface.

“I already know.”
He’d been trying to humor me.
No—that wasn’t quite right.
He’d tried to lighten the atmosphere here. Having endured life’s hardships, Saeki had grown sensitive to such things. Remarkably perceptive.
“Kumamoto-kun here only ever thinks about himself.”
Fueled by beer’s false courage, I needled him with this jab.

“No, that’s—”
Kumamoto-kun, flustered by the unexpected attack, retorted, “That’s a matter of subjective interpretation,” then looked down and muttered two or three more things under his breath—but I couldn’t make out a single word.

I gradually grew more cheerful.
In other words, my spirits lifted.
I ordered another bottle of beer.

“Goichiro-kun,” I said, turning back to Saeki, “I’m not blaming you. I don’t have the right to blame others.”

“Why not just blame me?”
Saeki also seemed to regain his vigor as he said, “You’re always making excuses for yourself, aren’t you.”
“We’re already sick of hearing adults’ excuses.”
“Aren’t they all just tiptoeing around?”
“They should just scold us harshly without any niceties—that’d be better.”
“You adults keep spouting all that syrupy crap about love and understanding to placate us kids. It’s disgusting.” He spat out these words and sharply turned his face away.

“Well... I suppose that’s true,” I said with an ugly laugh, while inwardly cursing myself! Though flustered, I cunningly concealed it and continued: “I can sympathize with the inner anger compelling your argument, but there’s a flaw in its wording. Understand? Adults and children are fundamentally the same.” My voice grew steadier. “Only our bodies have grown slightly grubby.” I leaned forward, the beer buzzing in my temples. “Just as children place expectations on adults, we adults rely on you all in exactly the same way.” A self-deprecating smirk twisted my lips. “It’s a shoddy rationale, I know.” The admission escaped before I could stop it. “But that’s the truth of it.” My fingers tightened around the glass. “We’re depending on strength and—”

“I can’t believe this,” said Kumamoto-kun, growing absurdly smug as he looked down at me with a pitying sidelong glance.

“You’re all being sly too. Sloppy.”
I gulped down my beer. “If I show you the slightest kindness, you immediately get carried away and full of yourselves. But if I try to speak firmly, you start sniveling and try to run off before I’ve even said a word.”
“I beat around the bush with talk of love and understanding because I want you to have confidence, yet you scorn it.”
“If you were just a bit stronger, I could safely give you a proper scolding.”
“If only you all—”

“It’s a futile argument,” Saeki declared conclusively. “How pointless. We’re not here to think about such worn-out clichés. Show me what an actual proper person looks like.”

“That’s right.”
Kumamoto-kun looked relieved as he backed Saeki’s statement.
“You can’t trust what drinkers say,” he added, a faint pitying smile appearing on his cheeks.

“I’m worthless.”
As I muttered this, something bitter settled in my gut.
“But I’m not despairing.
I hardly ever drink.
I do cold rubdowns every day, even.”
The words felt absurd even to me—then my eyes suddenly burned and I flinched.

Part Six

“O Youth, indulge yourself while in your youthful days!”

As per the words of the sage who taught,

The folly of my past conduct!

(Even if I regret, it’s futile now.)

Behold!
On the next page, that sage

With an air of feigned ignorance, had written:

“Youth is but a fleeting sky, and yet,

“The weakness of years is but ignorance.” (François Villon)

Long ago, there was a timid, weak man named François Villon, born in Paris, who cried out: "Ah, regret! If during those frenzied days of youth I too had devoted myself to study and attached myself to a society of proper customs, by now I might have owned a house and had a comfortable bed." How absurd. He had rebelled against the schoolhouse like a delinquent and left. "Now, when I recall that matter, my heart feels fit to burst!" he had written in his will, stamping his feet in frustration—and now, I too found myself resonating with that bitter lament without reservation. Even if someone like Kumamoto-kun were to say with a pitying smile, "You can’t trust what people say when they’re drinking," I had no words to retort. Even if I were to say I did cold rubdowns every day, in this case it wouldn’t make any difference. I had ended up blurting out such trivial nonsense. But for me, that had been my utmost effort. I had no political skill to speak of, no courage to command others, and no knowledge sufficient to teach. After all my efforts to somehow cling to bright hope, I’d ended up with nothing more substantial than my daily morning cold rubdowns. But for a rascal like me, even that alone was something I considered a valiant, grand endeavor. I was now subjected to the scornful smiles of these two boys and made sickeningly aware of my own powerlessness and insignificance. Perhaps finding it unbearable to watch me sitting there—having abruptly fallen silent, beer cup in hand, sinking into thought—the boy Saeki spoke in a low voice:

“You don’t have to humble yourself like that,” he said, peering into my face as if both consoling and admonishing me. “Sorry.”
“You know already, right?”
“I was ashamed.”
“I just couldn’t tell the truth.”
“But I’m not a liar.”
“I only told one lie.”
“The movie event—I did it the day before yesterday.”
“I went through with explaining it.”
“So that night after it ended, I sold my uniform and shoes, drank beer around town, got caught by the cops, and then—”

“I know.”
I raised my face and waved a hand as if to brush aside Saeki’s confession.
“You’re not to blame.”
“It’s all just how the conversation unfolded.”
“I’m the careless one.”
“You never wanted me coming to Shibuya in the first place, did you?”
A heavy sigh escaped me, leaving my chest strangely light.

“Yeah,”
Saeki nodded bashfully. “I didn’t have time to rephrase it.”
“No matter what, I couldn’t admit I’d done something as pathetic as explain that movie event.”
“So,” he said, sweeping both hands wildly across the tabletop again, “that’s where I lied.”
“Sorry.”
“If I told you about getting thrown in detention, I thought you’d hate me.”
“I’m hopeless.”
“Hayama’s looked out for me till now, so even though explaining movies seemed stupid, I did it the night before last—in front of all those girls—as a final thanks.”
“After doing it, I knew it was wrong.”
“I thought I was finished.”
I thought I was a man without prospects.
“Give me a beer too, please.”
“I’m happy now.”

“I feel somehow thrillingly happy.”
“Kimura-kun, you’re quite a remarkable person.”
“When someone like you stays with us without any pretense, sharing our worries and feeling dejected, somehow it gives us courage.”
“I think I can’t stay like this.”
“I’ve come to genuinely want to study.”
“I trust people who don’t hide their weakness.”

He stood up and poured beer into three cups until they were brimming.
He had a resolute demeanor.

“Cheers!
“Kumamoto, stand up too.”
“A glass of beer for joy isn’t a sin!”
“A glass meant to erase sorrow and anguish should feel shame!”

“Well then, just one glass.”
Kumamoto-kun, overwhelmed by Saeki’s abrupt surge of fervor, reluctantly rose and said, “I’m not fully informed about the circumstances, so this is merely me keeping up appearances.”

“What do circumstances matter?”
“Aren’t you glad about my fresh start?”
“You’re an egoist.”

“No, that’s not it.”
Kumamoto-kun also retorted resolutely this time.
“I want to consider things meticulously.”
“I refuse to blindly conform to a celebration I cannot endorse.”
“I am scientific.”

“Tch!”
Saeki immediately sneered.
“Anyone who calls themselves scientific is sure to know nothing about science.”
“A superstitious craving for science.”
“Proof you’re an ignoramus.”

“Enough, enough.”
I also stood up and said, “Kumamoto-kun is feeling shy.”
“I got fed up with your shamelessly enthusiastic display.”
“It’s the delicacy of an intellectual, you know.”

“The old-fashioned kind, huh?”
Saeki added quietly.

“Let’s toast,” Kumamoto-kun said in a tone of desperate resolve.
“When I drink beer, I sneeze.”
“I was the one who called that scientific.”

“Accurate.”
Saeki burst out laughing.
I laughed.

Kumamoto-kun did not laugh, took the beer glass in hand and raised it to eye level, then neatly adjusted his kimono collar with one hand,

“I congratulate Saeki-kun’s new beginning,” he said in a serious, almost tearful voice. “Starting tomorrow, please return to school.”

“Thank you.” Saeki bowed with refined grace. “I pray Kumamoto will always remain this kind and brave.”

“Both Saeki-kun and Kumamoto-kun have flaws,” I said. “I too have flaws. I want us to help each other going forward.” With complete sincerity, I thrust my foaming beer cup forward.

The three cups clinked together, then the three of them downed their drinks in one breath.
The instant they did, Kumamoto-kun let out a loud "Achoo!" of a sneeze.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s stop at just one drink for celebration. You mustn’t use joy as an excuse for alcohol.” Though I wanted more beer, something made me desperately want to preserve this moment’s atmosphere, so I painfully suppressed my craving. “From now on, you two must avoid beer whenever possible! As Professor Karl Hilty teaches: cultured students like yourselves may drink without descending into depravity. Therefore it’s harmless—no, sometimes even healthy! But middle schoolers and workers who imitate you can’t control themselves—they drown in drink and risk destruction! So for their sake! Don’t drink for their sake! Not just theirs either—don’t drink for our sake too! We were raised in a bad era, given poor educations, studied dark subjects. Drinking became our pride—even an expression of justice! This vice clings stubbornly to us. I beg you—if you build clean, bright habits, our inner darkness will follow! Don’t lose to us! Overcome!”

“That concludes the generalities.”
I was really not cut out for these kinds of obvious conceptual theories.
After all，even the most trivial books had those things properly written in them.
If possible，I didn’t want to use adjectives like clean，strong，or bright.
I wanted to inflict wounds on my own body and speak only with words that gushed forth from there.
Clumsy as I may have been，I wanted to stutter out only words carved from my own flesh and blood.
Somehow，generalities were so cringeworthy.
“I’ll end the speech here.”

Kumamoto-kun clapped enthusiastically.
Saeki remained standing, smirking.
I resumed my usual tone,

“Saeki-kun, I have about twenty yen here. Buy back your uniform and shoes with this.”
“Your outward appearance must return to your former way of life.”
“Persevere and go to Mr. Hayama’s house too.”
“When loneliness strikes, cover yourself with a blanket at your boarding house and study.”
“That is the most splendid youth.”
“Grit your teeth! Gnaw on hardtack and study!”
“Promise me?”

“I know.”
Saeki was blushing furiously yet kept his words razor-sharp.
“Keep talking like that and your face’ll look just like some old samurai’s. Meiji era relic.”
“Meiji era.”
“Ancient history.”

“You were born into a samurai family, weren’t you?”
Kumamoto-kun hesitantly ventured another peculiar opinion.

I stifled the laughter rising in my throat,

“Kumamoto-kun, there’s twenty yen here.
Use this to repurchase Saeki’s uniform, regulation cap, and shoes.”

“Don’t want that crap.”
Saeki’s face flushed crimson as he muttered the words.

“No—it’s not that I’m giving it to you.”
“I’m just temporarily entrusting it to Kumamoto-kun, counting on his friendship.”

“Understood.”
Kumamoto-kun accepted the money, strained to widen his small eyes behind his glasses, and declared in a rigid military posture:
“I shall indeed take custody of it.”
“On the day when Saeki-kun’s academic pursuits come to fruition—”

“No, that won’t be necessary.”
I suddenly felt so embarrassed I couldn’t endure it.
I thought I should never have given the money.

“Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s take a walk through town.”

The town had already darkened.

I alone was still somewhat drunk.
Forgetting my own pitiful student self, I kept chattering loudly about all sorts of foolish things.

“Hey Saeki, isn’t that furoshiki bundle heavy?”
“I’ll carry it for you instead.”
“It’s fine, hand it over to me.”
“Alright, got it!”
“Alter-na-te-v-man,” I said.
“Do you know?”
“It means ‘Heave-ho! Upsy-daisy!’”
“Flaubert labored over this single phrase for three whole months, you know.”

Ah—when I think back now—what a strange evening that was.
I never knew life could hold such unexpected experiences!
I thought I regained my lost youth in reality as I walked drunkenly through the evening streets of Shibuya with the two students.
My elation knew no bounds.

“Let’s sing a song.
“Ready?”
“We’ll sing together.”
“Ein, Zwei, Drei.”
“Ein, Zwei, Drei.”
“Ein, Zwei, Drei. Alright!”

Ah, vanished youth—
The traces of joyous days—where do they linger now
Revelries pursued—unfettered by restraint—
O golden time—O jeweled days—
Thou return not—that shadow—
Seeking—I do naught but lament.
Ah, the ever-changing visage of this world
Ah, the ever-changing visage of this world

Dust-covered, the youths’
The cap worn thin—the coarse clothes rent—
The long sword rusted—
Glistening light—where does it linger now
The songs of revelry have vanished—
The clang of blades and spurs—not a sound remains.
Ah, the ever-changing visage of this world
Ah, the ever-changing visage of this world
Yet the righteous youths’
Hearts—never grow cold—

Even on days of toil—of mirth—

Even on days of assembly—shone bright

The old shell—though it may vanish—

May the essence alone remain—in my heart—

That essence—teeming—we shall protect

“That essence—teeming—we shall protect” (Alt-Heidelberg)

The one singing was me alone.
I had been bellowing in an out-of-tune booming voice without hesitation, but upon finishing the song, I shouted, “What? No one’s singing along! Once more.”
“Ein, Zwei, Drei!” I shouted—when

"Hey, hey," someone said, tapping him on the shoulder from behind.
When he turned around to look, there was a police officer.

“Making such a racket while walking around from early evening—this won’t do.”
“What school are you from?”
“Speak plainly without concealment.”

I intuited my fate.
This was bad.
I was wearing student clothes.
I wasn't a thirty-two-year-old drunken poet.
A half-assed apology wouldn't cut it.

No way out.
Should I run away?

“Hey, hey.”

Being called again, I snapped back to my senses.

I was lying in a grassy field.
The sun was still high.
Skylarks sang.
I finally came to my senses.
I was sprawled out again on the embankment of the Tamagawa aqueduct in Inokashira Park.
When I looked, there stood Saeki—the boy now wearing his university uniform and regulation cap, gleaming shoes on his feet—properly positioned at my bedside.

“Hey, I’m heading back,” he said calmly. “You fell asleep, didn’t you.”
“How sloppy.”

“Did I fall asleep? Me?”

“That’s right. While I was telling you that pitiful story about Abel, you ended up falling fast asleep, didn’t you? You looked like some kind of hermit.”

“No way.”
I laughed bleakly.
“I hadn’t slept at all last night because I was working, so the fatigue must have caught up with me. Was I asleep long?”

“What, ten or fifteen minutes? Ah, it’s gotten cold. I’m going back now. Later.”

“Wait.” I raised my upper body and said, “Weren’t you a high school student?”

“Obviously. It’s high school until I enter university. You really are stupid.”

“When did you become a university student?”

“This March.”

“Is that so. You’re Saeki Goichiro, aren’t you?”

“Still half-asleep? That’s not my name.”

“Is that so? Then why did you go swimming naked in this river?”

“I just liked this river. You could at least forgive a little whim like that.”

“This might sound odd, but do you have a friend named Kumamoto-kun? A somewhat pretentious sort of person.”

“Kumamoto?—Don’t have one. So—engineering after all?”

“That’s not it. Was everything a dream? I want to meet that Kumamoto-kun too, you know.”

“What the hell are you talking about. You’re still half-asleep. Pull yourself together, will you? I’m leaving now.”

“Ah, later then. You, you,” he called out again to stop him, “do study diligently.”

“Thanks ever so much for your concern.”

He strode off briskly. I was left alone, the loneliness unbearably forlorn. The sound of my own voice bellowing that line—“to not protect their teeming fruits”—still seemed to linger in the depths of my ears. Daydream.

I stood up and walked toward the tea shop. Checking my sleeve, I found the fifty-sen note still there, safe and sound. Both Saeki-kun and Kumamoto-kun have their flaws. I too have flaws. I remembered my toast about wanting us to support each other. I even considered rushing to Shibuya immediately to verify things, but the route to Kumamoto-kun's boarding house stayed unclear in my mind. It must have been a dream. I passed through the park woods, went by the zoo, circled the pond, and entered the familiar tea shop. An old woman appeared and,

“Oh my, are you all alone today? How unusual to see you alone.”

“A Calpis, please.”
I had wanted to drink something brimming with youthfulness.

Sitting cross-legged on the tea shop’s bench and slowly sipping Calpis, I remained nonetheless nothing more than a thirty-two-year-old clumsy novelist.
Not a shred of youthful passion welled up.
That line from the song—‘to not protect their teeming fruits’—was all I could do, repeating it over and over with a bitter smile.