Pathway to Japanese Literature

There are roughly two types of drinkers when it comes to how they become intoxicated.
The first type becomes drunk externally: first their knees give way, their collars become disheveled, their hands grow unsteady, their gaze turns disordered, their tongue slurs—yet despite this, their consciousness remains relatively unclouded, with some firm rational core stubbornly persisting.
In other words, it seemed primarily only their motor nerves were being invaded by alcohol.
The second type becomes intoxicated internally: first begins the clouding and fracturing of consciousness, where associations turn erratic, imagination runs wild, and coherent thought becomes impossible—yet in exchange, their posture remains surprisingly intact, their gaze steady, their speech clear, suggesting some formal training or habitual refinement—even when in reality none exists.
In other words, it seemed their central consciousness was primarily being invaded by alcohol.
Those whose faces turn red are mostly the former type, while those whose faces turn pale are mostly the latter.
And generally, when people aren't merely social drinking but have business to conduct, they often feel no need for caution toward the former type while sensing greater need for caution toward the latter—but this stems from insufficient understanding. In truth, the opposite holds: one must exercise far greater caution toward the former when circumstances demand it.

Nakae Keiichiro and Murao Shoji were drinking alone on the second floor of a small restaurant, having dismissed the waitress. Nakae tended to become intoxicated from within, while Murao became intoxicated from without.
Now, while it seemed natural that Nakae—stylish in his layered Tama-Yuki silk haori over noble-weave undergarments—would carry himself more composedly than Murao wrapped in worn Satsuma Oshima cloth, there was something oddly striking about the contrast: Nakae's plump, glossy-skinned face appeared relatively bloodless, while Murao's typically pale, gaunt features burned crimson.
And Nakae gulped down cup after cup, but Murao’s fingers hesitated as they brought the cup to his lips.
Instead, Murao was chattering away almost entirely by himself.
It was less like chatter and more the tone of a monologue.
No—rather than a monologue, it seemed he was simply vocalizing the thoughts in his mind.
Such a manner of chatter also exists in the world.
Whether the listener heeds him or not, regardless of how they might feel, he remains content simply having an unguarded companion before him—chattering on incessantly without restraint.
It was a form of spiritual vomiting.
He was usually extremely taciturn, but when alcohol disrupted the equilibrium of his mind, he would begin vomiting up the pent-up matters of his inner life through some trigger.
In this case, no such forced measures as sticking fingers down one’s throat to expel what stagnates in the stomach are undertaken at all.
The trigger for vomiting exists solely in the natural state of affairs.
If only that unreserved, familiar face—the one that accepts everything about me—would keep smiling quietly, that would suffice.
It was akin to basking in the sun only to suddenly feel queasy and retch.
Therefore, while it was hardly strange that the normally taciturn Murao had become excessively talkative, what merited attention was how Nakae’s face—the very trigger for this loquacity—soon began displaying various transformations.
At first his face, like gently shining sunlight, had quietly received Murao’s spiritual vomitus, but from midway onward, it gradually began to reveal an active sharpness.
He furrowed his brows deeply, listened intently while staring into empty space, crushed a cigarette filter between his fingertips, swallowed saliva and bit his lips, or else gazed vacantly at the ceiling, massaged the back of his head with deft hands, suppressed half-formed yawns, closed his eyes to ponder distant thoughts—all this betraying violent fluctuations in attention and gradations of interest—and through it all, his gold-rimmed glasses kept glinting.
However, that was of course not done with any ulterior motive.
As I had previously stated, those who become intoxicated from within require little caution—but beyond that, there existed not the slightest mutual cause for wariness between Nakae and Murao. As their demeanor clearly demonstrated, the two were longtime friends who had simply happened to meet for “a drink.”
And friends "having a drink" together can extend indefinitely depending on how things feel in the moment.

To trace the extension of this situation, one had to first track the origins of Murao's loquacity.
Yet the ramblings of a drunkard could not be transcribed verbatim into text.
To describe vomit chewed by teeth and half-digested in the stomach was an arduous task - how much more so when it came to spiritual vomitus.

For the time being—with some adjustments，omissions，and supplements by the author—he set out to compile Murao’s ramblings in condensed form——

During my four months of hospital life, what I thought about most was freedom.
Hospital life was no different from prison life.
For a critical patient like me who nearly died twice, that feeling was even stronger.
Medical surveillance, being scientific, proved even more stringent than legal surveillance.
When subjected to surveillance in the hospital, I was struck by the impression of being a physical criminal.
The target of law was spiritual criminals, but the target of medicine was physical criminals.
Which do you think causes greater suffering—the fact that those with innocent bodies are treated as spiritual criminals, or that those with innocent spirits are treated as physical criminals?
Those who claimed the former causes greater suffering were abstract theorists who failed to comprehend human desire.
As I lay in bed, forced into absolute rest and food measured in grams, I thought of mummies.
I had seen mummies in museums and medical universities, but how remarkable that they could maintain such composed expressions.
For those eternally deprived of freedom, there should be expressions of the most profound agony.
None of them had faces that truly looked like mummies.
But I too may not have had an expression characteristic of a patient's suffering.
That was because I’d been deluding myself with fantasies of freedom after recovery.
If there had been no delusion of this fantasy of freedom, what would mummies feel, I wonder?
What becomes of those who die while still hospitalized?
In my hospital too, several people died.
They died imprisoned.
Unfortunate souls.

I was fortunate enough to be discharged.
In this regard, I was grateful to medicine.
Ultimately, my sentence had been served.
A prisoner who had served his sentence tasted in reality the freedom he had imagined. But how utterly bizarre that real freedom proved to be.

Freedom was not a single cohesive entity.
It split into countless fragments.
Freedom of action, freedom of breath, freedom of thought, freedom of fantasy - all freedoms to move omnidirectionally within and beyond the body.
As I walked through the streets, overwhelmed by this all-encompassing freedom, I suddenly looked up to find countless electric wires stretched across a shabby scrap of sky.
In dim morning light, one sometimes finds spider threads stretched similarly through woods.
But how soot-blackened and sinister appeared these urban spider threads!
Aged yet ceaselessly muttering.
Though voiceless, wasn't something grumbling within those lines?
Roofs hung their heads while windows stared wide-eyed; walls gazed vacantly with imbecilic blankness.
Their senses dulled.
Through this scene clung tram and automobile wheels spinning madly to the ground.
Eternal rotation.
That a circle lacks beginning or end constitutes truth.
Yet strangely, those ignoring this truth seemed busier than its practitioners.
Countless busy faces and feet - weary ones and vigorous ones - flowed endlessly through the streets.
All possessed purposes.
These purposes' trajectories crisscrossed every direction, weaving a mesh.
A mesh finer and more complex than any spiderweb.
Within this I felt profound loneliness.
To be free meant belonging to no strand of that intricate spiderweb.

And there was nothing as lonely as finding a spiderweb without its spider.
I was lonely and desolate.
Where was the spider that had stretched these eerie threads of electric wires across the sky?
Where was the spider that had spun this intricate web of purposeful directions across the sidewalk?
It could not be found anywhere.
Yet, like dewdrops glistening on a spiderweb, there were things that glittered.
Jewelry, gold and silver ornaments, and paper money reminiscent of gold coins.
The paper money flashed into view only fleetingly, but the other items lay neatly arranged behind thin glass at watchmakers' storefronts and jewelers' windows.
They were right within reach.
All I needed to do was reach out my hand.
"What a waste!"
You must understand this feeling too.
It wasn't that I wanted them—it was that I couldn't bear to let them go.
If I didn't take these things for myself now, they'd end up belonging to someone else.
They'd probably buy them or steal them.
People often bought or stole more than necessary.
It wasn't so much about truly wanting things as it was about regretting their loss even more.
Desire.
"Dangerous business," my liberated self would think.

Such desires would likely be beyond the comprehension of someone like you who can shop freely.
But at your place, you must frequently receive boxes of sweets and such.
Suppose that occurs once a month or once every two months, and assume one normally subsists on meager meals.
In my case, that’s exactly how it is.
So, for example, suppose you receive a box of Western-style confections.
When you open the lid, there lie several varieties lavishly decorated with cloyingly sweet substances that seem to melt on the tongue’s tip.
The fact that they aren’t uniform pieces proves inconvenient.
In this regard, confectionery boxes containing yokan, castella, or monaka are morally structured.
When you take one piece, they prevent people from developing further craving.
But several varieties of Western confections each tempt the palate.
Every kind makes you want to try each one.
Moreover, their forms are large.
And they harm the stomach.
They consume harmful things beyond necessity.
If this isn’t desire, then what is?
Western confections are commodities analogous to jewelry.
Those who cannot reach for jewels will want to sample every variety in a box of Western confections.
Those sated with Western confections will desire to acquire an assortment of jewels.
Desire has its hierarchy.

While being in a position where I couldn't even properly eat Western confections, I wanted—just one would do—a gemstone ring.
And I wouldn't settle for some mediocre thing either.
It had to be either a magnificent pearl or a small but high-quality diamond.
I would secretly slip the ring case into my pocket and casually present it before her.
She opened it and was startled.
One of her slightly crossed eyes grew moist, its gaze becoming like that of the Virgin Mary looking up at Christ.
The makeup-tinged pallor of her cheeks took on the hue of dawn.
And then she quietly pushed the ring back toward me and said it was wrong for me to do such a thing.
She said with deep sincerity that she understood my family's circumstances well, that rather than doing such wasteful things, I should do something to make my mother happy instead, and that her gratitude for my kindness alone was already more than enough.
I forced her to take it.
And in the end, both fell silent, tears welling in their eyes...

It was cloyingly sweet, of course.
I was smitten with a woman—a geisha—or perhaps I was in love.
Falling for a geisha might seem bourgeois, but this particular matter defied all logic.
To satisfy a bachelor's physiological needs, there were plenty of inexpensive methods.
But it was precisely where one transcended mere methodology that romantic love found its raison d'être.
I considered sexual desire and appetite to be one and the same.
The existence of romantic love beyond physiologically necessary lust paralleled culinary refinement existing beyond basic nutritional needs.
Aesthetic sense and taste were not necessary conditions for survival.
They all grew upon desire.
In the hospital, maintaining my life had required only a few grams of liquid food, and recovering my strength needed nothing more than meager rice porridge with one soup and one side dish.
But that bare minimum nourishment proved excruciating.
Lying there, I would fantasize about every gourmet meal I might eat after discharge—even drafting menus.
Yet realizing those fantasies remained forbidden by economic reality.
But desire persisted.
For me—someone whose greatest home feast meant eggs and beef hotpot—facing my shabby dining table meant fantasizing about various city restaurants.
At such times, my face must have been shrouded in gloomy shadows.
My mother's face—once radiant with joy at my recovery—soon grew somber too, her gaze sinking heavily downward, her speech turning labored.
A face's youth resides chiefly in its gaze and speech; when those two forces waned, my mother—past fifty—aged drastically.
My mother endured hardships relentlessly, becoming ever more pitiful.
"Mother," I ventured, "shall we dine at Kasuga's cuisine sometime?"

Mother raised her eyes and looked at my face as if stealing a glance.
Rather than doing such things, why not something more nourishing... Her lonely expression perfectly corroborated those unspoken words.
Feeling pity for that, I once instructed the maid in detail to prepare Mother's favorite dishes—Daikokuya's vegetable stew, Torijo's premium young chicken, Hiroshima oysters shell-roasted—and laid out a sumptuous spread for her.
Mother seemed surprised at first but, drawn in by my joke, became lively and ate with me in a truly delighted manner.
She ate more than usual.
When I saw my elderly mother eating so heartily, a ticklish ache tinged with tears seeped into my chest.
But that elderly appetite too was a desire for taste beyond necessity.
That a young man like myself fantasized about luxurious city restaurants or fell in love with a geisha should hardly be considered strange.
Alas, the tragedy was that being unable to satisfy both desires simultaneously, I made romance my priority.

To be fair, she was not a beauty.
But just as taste differs between individuals, so too does aesthetic sense.
In love especially, aesthetic sense becomes confined to one particular aspect while something feverish governs the broader circumstances.
Try impartially observing those many women called lovers.
Most would say of them, "That sort of woman..."
Crooked noses, upturned lips, mismatched eyes, notched earlobes, heights too short or too tall, broad palms—they abound with flaws everywhere.
Yet for the man in love, this suffices.
With this, he finds contentment.
You fixate on one particular point and view the whole through that singular lens.
It resembles peering at a ceiling through a hollow reed.
Moreover, that love constitutes a sort of electrical phenomenon might indeed hold truth.
This is merely a mutual attracting force.
An attraction born of physical constitution and temperament.
Yet sometimes one feels drawn while the other remains unmoved.
In my own case too, I was not without such sensations.
If so, then through what exact point did I view her? That proves difficult to articulate.
Perhaps it was the glazed, cross-eyed look of her left eye.
Perhaps the lifelessly pale skin of her cheeks.
Perhaps her slack mouth with its languid speech.
Perhaps that torso—broad-waisted yet tubercularly slender through the chest.

Or perhaps it was her slender nails painted crimson.
People become infatuated with the strangest things.
Or perhaps, rather than those particular traits, it was her drunken state—gulping alcohol as if imbibing poison amidst the demimonde’s decadent atmosphere.
Because I wasn’t the least bit drawn to her when she was being serious.
Since we were acquainted before my illness, she had come to visit me at the hospital two or three times—though I never learned how she heard about it.
With her hair in a bun and dressed in Oshima silk or understated omeshi crepe, she would arrive bearing small fruit baskets and potted plants.
"How are you feeling?" "You mustn’t overexert yourself," "Do take care"—beyond such formulaic pleasantries, she offered nothing more.
The thinly powdered skin of her face held a curious lack of moisture.
She would gaze with apparent fascination at sparrows chirping in the shrubbery beyond the glass window.
Viewed from my bed, her figure seemed smaller and colder than in reality—diminished somehow.
And when she left after ten minutes or so, I would feel an odd sense of relief.
Yet afterward, I would again catch myself obsessively thinking about her.
Even her phantom form—abstaining from alcohol while praying for my recovery, performing listlessly at geisha engagements—would rise before me like an apparition.

After being discharged, I went to meet her as soon as possible.
She seemed slightly startled, then gazed intently at my face.

“But you’ve recovered so well.”
“You were in danger twice, weren’t you?”

That carried a tone not of joy or delight, but simply of wonder.
Since being discharged, this was the first time I had encountered such a greeting.
Mother wept with joy.
Friends and colleagues celebrated for me.
But the one who gazed at my face in wonder at my full recovery was her alone.
And yet it was so utterly pure and cheerful.
This woman—I wanted to punch her senseless, yet my chest felt clear.
And from that moment on, my heart was truly seized.
The pair of mandarin ducks swimming on the alcove scroll may be commonplace, but below them, at the base of a small branch bearing red berries—perhaps from a plum-like plant—a narcissus flower bloomed in pale yellow.
The flower seemed utterly lovely to me.
When I stared at her, she merely spoke to dispel her boredom.
“You still shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, should you?”

If my companion were a narcissus flower, I shouldn’t drink alcohol—but with her, I felt compelled to indulge.
“What do I care? If I can’t handle it, you can go ahead and drink my share too.” From such exchanges, we both ended up getting drunk.
But our relationship remained tenuous.
She kept making excuses and wouldn’t readily allow things to progress to bed.
After that, there were only a countable few instances.
The fact that she was not above being unfaithful yet maintained such an attitude became precisely what continued to draw my heart to her.

To be in love with a woman... if not quite that, then loving a woman—that was a good thing. In the life of a wretched office worker like me, it brought both a ray of light and structure. Yet in my case, it required money. Precisely because this arrangement let me manage without ready cash—indeed forming one reason I'd chosen romantic passion over physical appetite—I instead wound up squandering funds through frequent visits to her, sowing future troubles. Even if they were mere teahouse meetings, occasions arose when spending became necessary to avoid rudeness. My medical expenses—Mother had apparently covered them somehow with her precious savings—but imposing further burdens was unthinkable. I borrowed from friends. Fabricated reasons to get a bonus advance from the president. Suspended personal payments elsewhere. Still it fell short. Not only could I never afford a ring for her—truthfully ignorant of jewelry prices altogether—but my pockets stayed empty while debts mounted at Kikuhon. I knew I must act, yet this imperative kept deferring itself daily. Each sunset shoved necessity another day forward. Day after day felt like forcing onward some rod of obligation—a rod that only thickened and grew heavier. Glaring at this phantom rod while smoking, I'd fantasize about having even a thousand yen here. For my station this meant serious money, yet numerically mere trifles. In company ledgers, a single circled digit swayed tens or hundreds of thousands. Circle a single-digit number: difference under a hundred. Circle two digits: under a thousand. Circle five digits: gap becomes a hundred thousand to million. Strange how identical circles held such variable power by placement alone.

Let me take in one circle.
But isn't a circle just a zero?
If I asked someone to give me a single zero, what face do you think they'd make?

“You seem a bit off.”
“You haven’t fully recovered from your illness yet, have you?”

A company colleague said such things.
Perhaps I was a bit strange.
I was in love with a woman.
Moreover, I had returned to work without undergoing convalescent relocation after a serious illness.
Moreover... this had been a delightful idea.
Through the window of the room, beyond the gaps between buildings, a large balloon advertisement swayed in the wind.
Beneath the balloon, crude letters formed an absurdly coquettish arrangement.
Instead of those letters—if just one celestial maiden-like mannequin girl were attached......
Then have flyers scattered.
Beautiful five-colored flyers.
Flyers like ginkgo leaves.

Late autumn—the sky had cleared to a crystalline blue, and a frigid wind once danced wildly through the streets. Towering rows of ginkgo trees stood covered in yellow leaves. The leaves were torn away by sudden gusts, swirling in countless numbers through the air. Both ground and sky became engulfed in a vortex of pure gold. Within four or five hours, the ginkgo rows stood half-naked beneath that azure expanse.

That's how I'd make it happen.

All eyes would gaze upward in wonder at mannequin girls clad in feathered robes. From those maidens' hands would rain countless five-colored flyers shaped like ginkgo leaves. Anyone who didn't scramble to catch them would be either a fool or a hypocrite. The advertising impact would be spectacular.

If street trees could scatter yellow leaves with impunity, surely celestial maidens could shower five-colored flyers without drawing the Metropolitan Police Department's ire. If human bodies proved too heavy for balloons, one need only invent lightweight robots. The creator of such robots would reap fabulous profits.

Such were my thoughts.

When he turned toward the voice that interrupted him, a papier-mâché-like face stared directly back. It was the kind of color that suggested excess pigment and insufficient blood. A mustache that appeared meticulously trimmed with scissors bristled beneath his nose. Whether it be mustaches or hair, unless the tips were slender and supple, they could not possess elegance as strands; however, most mustaches maintained the same thickness from tip to root and were abruptly severed. It was the same as implanting wire. The fact that they prided themselves on it as some sort of decoration was what made it so absurd. In contrast to that, two vertical wrinkles were carved between his eyebrows. And in his eyes floated a sharp yet hollow gleam. In response to how that sharp light—shallow and floating only on the cornea—moved, the vertical wrinkles between the eyebrows deepened and lessened. This could be called a manifestation of their way of life. In this trading company primarily engaged in corporate bond transactions and financial mediation, the employees’ primary duties involved delicate yet purely numerical maneuvering. Even if someone—for example, I—were to take a long leave due to illness, it wouldn’t cause any significant hindrance to the company’s operations. There was always a gap. But the work was always mentally hectic. When you kept living this way for too long, your nerves alone grew sharpened, your emotions grew dull, and your blood circulation grew uneven. The vertical wrinkles between eyebrows and the light floating on corneas were those symptoms, and whenever I saw them in my colleagues, my chest grew inexplicably heavy. There in that stifling sealed room heated by steam, I had explained about the mannequin girl—or perhaps robot—in a manner like letting cool, refreshing outside air blow through. But he, and then those around him, seemed to show no reaction whatsoever. They regarded me as a dreamer who only thought impractical thoughts, but dismissed it as just another of that dreamer’s absurd fantasies. However, this only proved that they hadn’t been properly observing balloon advertisements.

There comes a time when everyone gazes intently at balloon advertisements.
That time must have come for them too, eventually.
They began calling me Mr. Balloon Robot.

To me, Mr. Balloon Robot wasn't such an unpleasant nickname.

Post-illness freedom and loneliness.
The loneliness within the metropolis.
The balloon must surely have been feeling the same emotions.
Just as he was constantly exposed to the cold wind，my pocket too was exposed to the cold of poverty.
Amidst this，I indulged in saccharine fantasies about her.
There was nothing as dull as money at such times.
I unscrupulously flung the hundred yen I’d wheedled out of my mother across Kikuhon’s counter like rubble.
Mother had several rings.
Among them was a diamond she hardly used after growing old.
I asked her to lend it to me for a while—until my next bonus.
The truth was，there was this old debt to a friend that I’d now become obliged to repay this time around，or something like that.
And even though I didn’t have to take the ring to a pawnshop—since Mother was trying to arrange things for me—I ended up coercing her into letting me do so anyway.
Mother seemed to have an inkling about my circumstances，but she said nothing about it.
The son who had narrowly escaped death—that alone must have been filling her heart.
She watched my face gently and said.

“I really don’t want to make you go without, but…”

Those words alone were more than enough for me.
If you called it going without… well, it certainly was going without.
But even Mother would eat Daikokuya’s simmered dishes with relish if you gave them to her.
Shedding tears was a disgrace.
That the diamond ring fetched a hundred and fifty yen at the pawnshop had been like stumbling upon found money.
Even so, my pocket remained desolate.
With hands in my pockets clutching 150 yen in banknotes while loitering on a street corner—the faces of passersby all appeared fixated on money.
The directions of their purposes crisscrossing like spiderwebs in all directions seemed to terminate in money.
If money hadn’t existed, people wouldn’t have been this busy.
Had they been provided adequate clothing, food, shelter, and means to satisfy their sexual desires, no one would have paid any attention to money.
At least I wouldn’t look its way.
Even at that time—her “going without”—
I had calmly tossed 100 yen across Kikuhon’s counter.
I hadn’t felt the slightest regret.
It had merely been shifting around a few pieces of paper.
What proved truly regrettable were tangible things.
Rings, watches, clothes, alcohol, feasts—her body.

She always arrived in a cheerful manner.
When she was out elsewhere, she came immediately if called.
She didn’t particularly look happy.
Nor was she putting on airs about that.
And she was talkative and a drinker.
But that talkativeness merely flitted chaotically over utterly trivial matters, and with only occasional bright laughter, ended up being equivalent to silence.
Unable to sing songs or muster witty banter, I tended to lapse into silence while toying with my sake cup.
To an outside observer, they must have wondered what could possibly be interesting about this.
However, appearing that way to onlookers was the usual state of a man in love.
Her cross-eyed-looking, upturned left eye teased at my eyes.
Her cloyingly sweet way of speaking—as if her tongue were too long—teased at my ears.
The pale skin of her cheeks beneath the face powder stirred my sentimentality.—Imagining her like this—complaining "I’m sick of everything now," clinging to my shoulder in tears while recounting her hardships—left me unsatisfied and lonely.
As I fiddled with her slender red nails, a small diamond glistened like a teardrop within the platinum setting at the base of her finger.
Mother’s diamond had shone like morning dew.
I had ended up pawning that one too.
And I couldn’t even buy her a small pearl.
Desolate.
Ridiculously desolate.
She let herself be drawn in by me.
The hem of her kimono spilled a pale purple like twilight shadows across the tatami, and her Shimada-style sideburns appeared faintly translucent.

My eyes, provoked by the small diamond, unknowingly began to well with tears.
The lukewarmly chilled sake in the tokkuri became a wellspring of tears.
The more I drank, the more tears flowed.

Tonight, let's go somewhere—just the two of us.
Then we'll spend all day tomorrow enjoying ourselves.
And then... come early morning the day after, I'll leap into Asama's crater.
Aren't we both just being pathetic?
Let's go.
Tonight—right now—let's go.
A pact...
When I held out my pinky, she extended hers too and gave it an energetic shake.
But she kept laughing brightly.
"I'm delightfully tipsy now."
"Let me drink some more."
Then she slipped her slender, consumptive frame from my arm, shifted her full hips with their substantial weight, rang the service bell, and coolly requested, "Miss, bring us something hot," all without breaking composure.
No sooner had she done this than she leaned against the table, eyeing me mockingly as she blew cigarette smoke into my mouth.
He hadn't grasped a single thing.
The sole exception being that ticket she'd given me—urging me to attend this Tokiwazu performance at Mitsukoshi Hall where she'd make a brief appearance.

Whether to attend that gathering or not had been a matter of grave importance to me.
It must have been what they call an insect's warning.
After wavering until past noon on that Sunday, I ultimately resolved to make a brief appearance in my one good silk kimono and zori sandals—an outfit ill-suited to someone like me.
That Mother was enjoying Kiyomoto music on the radio became one motive for my decision.
Through such vacillation, I ended up missing her song—or rather, I should refer to her here as Chiyotsugu.

At the Tokiwazu performance interwoven with dances performed solely by geisha and unaccompanied singing, Chiyotsugu appeared as one of the performers in the earlier "Matsushima" song.
Not having made it in time for that, I thought it was rather fortunate.
It would be troublesome when asked for my criticism later.
As for Tokiwazu, I understood even less.
Out of all the programs, I—who originally had an interest in Noh—only felt slight appreciation for the 'Tsurionna' dance.
But I had expected that from the start.
Contrary to my expectations was the uniformly dark appearance of the entire audience.
Given the nature of the event, I had expected vivid bright colors to be on display there.
A greenhouse of gaudy colors and perfumes.
But in reality, the room was cold, the perfumes faint, and the colors dull.
There were countless gaunt, swarthy faces; a multitude of men in suits; and most women wore plain kimonos with black formal crests thrown over them.
And the geisha seen in such a place were strangely malnourished.
I stood pressed against the back wall of the packed hall, but my feet kept turning toward the corridor outside.
It would be more comfortable to perch alone on that desolate bench over there, blowing cigarette smoke.
Before long, during the program's intermission, people came pouring out noisily, filling the space with commotion.
After a while, they were all drawn into the doorway, and the space fell silent.
It was like being on a rock where the waves of Hiraiso reach.
However, during those clamorous waves, I jolted upright.

The president of the trading company where I worked stood before me with a beaming face.
A man around fifty years old, in his prime.
He wore a black suit with striped trousers, a thin gold chain stretched across his waistcoat’s chest.

“Oh, you were here too.”
“This is a pleasure.”
“Ha ha ha….”

He narrowed his eyes and laughed with genuine mirth.
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
But what shocked me more was Chiyotsugu—wearing an unfamiliar outfit with hem-patterned formal obi—suddenly greeting “Good day” from beside him—Yoda Kenzo.
Her eyes flickered with complex lights.
Yoda’s eyes rounded as he looked between us.
“So you two know each other? This makes it even more delightful!”
Then came his booming laugh…
Chiyotsugu’s face assumed doll-like composure; she turned sideways and exhaled cigarette smoke.
Sweat broke out on my forehead.
Yoda remained utterly oblivious.
Though normally cautious, he must have been unusually careless that day—or perhaps swollen with arrogance.
He kept repeating how delightful it was.
“With this sort of recreation, your post-illness recovery should be secure.”
“Who did you come with?”
“If you’re alone, you must accompany me tonight.”
“You’ve promised now, understand?”
And thus he forced that promise upon me.

I seriously considered just going home then. Out of obligation as I began entering the venue after Yoda, Chiyotsugu pulled my sleeve—letting him pass ahead while putting some distance between us and the crowd—then asked,"Do you know him well?" I answered honestly,"He's president of my company—I see that face daily." My expression and tone must have been either too earnest or utterly foolish; she feigned wide-eyed surprise before smiling faintly at her lips' corners."How sweet you came here for me," she said,"That wasn't sarcasm—truly." Dazed,I followed her back inside.She stayed glued to my side.I stood through everything.When one dance segment ended,the show concluded.Having lost departure momentum while lingering aimlessly,Yoda caught me—forcing me into his car.Naturally,a certain curiosity arose then.

Even though it was before five o'clock, the winter sun was already beginning to set.

It was Yoda, me, Chiyotsugu, and a sixty-year-old woman who appeared to be the teahouse proprietress—four of us.
The car's interior was cold and dimly hazy.
While only Yoda and the proprietress kept up their chatter, I obstinately remained silent.

The place they arrived at was in the same district but a splendid room in a house larger than Kikuhon.
The room had already been heated.
Even so, Yoda was busy ordering liquor and meals, calling for one of the young women—either Fukuko or Hatsue—and changing between Western clothes and a padded kimono.
And just when he seemed settled in his seat, he stood up again and began rummaging through his suit pockets.
"This is to celebrate today’s splendid performance."
When Chiyotsugu opened the small paper package that had been presented, inside lay a red leather toothpick case.
He never usually carried toothpicks around. What a careless man.
And Yoda laughed with a booming "Ha ha ha…".

In that case, I found myself settling in with reckless abandon.
The Fukuko who arrived was the first quiet courtesan I'd encountered, and since Yoda was spouting nonsense with such self-satisfaction—both Chiyotsugu and Fukuko being drawn into that orbit—I found myself able to drink in silence.
I accelerated my drinking.
Observing my fervent consumption, Yoda suddenly tilted his head.
What was he thinking? A sinister presence.
Cropped-short stiff hair, an obese torso that would likely reveal moles and bruises when naked, cheeks overflowing with excess flesh, thick-skinned fingertips, a serene self-satisfied gaze... At first glance he seemed amiable enough, but within that mass lurked extraordinary greed.
He had grown quite drunk, his complexion taking on a ruddy hue that betrayed surging blood.
An excess of blood meant insatiable hunger.
Averting my eyes from that figure, I tried to anchor myself with tobacco and alcohol.
My entire being felt crushed beneath the weight of his existence.
For Chiyotsugu—whom I felt deserved only diamonds or pearls—he nonchalantly laughed while gifting something as trivial as a toothpick case.
When drinking formally: Chiyotsugu; during jokes: Chiyobō; with sweet talk: Chiyo-chan—he modulated his address like a skilled performer.
To me, who had only ever called her "you", those shifting names rang with envy-inducing familiarity. Yet she remained unfazed.
She responded to Yoda using the nickname "Yota-san".
Every utterance of "Yota-san" drew a smug smile from him.
That smile pierced my heart.
On the table simmered a communal hotpot, while in the alcove's bronze bowl, a mist-furred pine branch twisted as if shivering from cold.
Gazing at that lichen-clad vegetation, the frigid air of mountain depths seeped into my chest.
Desolation gripped me.
I couldn't tell whether it stemmed from myself or Chiyotsugu.

And he tried to stand up several times, but his hips wouldn't move.
He didn’t seem to be drunk.

“What’s wrong, Balloon Robot Professor?” Yoda called out.
He was explaining the origin of the Balloon Robot.
“Today’s ‘Fishing Maiden’ was delightful! Why don’t we pair it with the Balloon Robot Professor’s celestial maiden fishing?” he said, taking Chiyotsugu and Fukuko’s hands as he stood up and began mimicking the dance moves.
“We’re short a shamisen player—call another one…”
He also seemed drunk.
I, too, stood up with the intention to dance, but a chill ran through me, and I simply descended the stairs.
I hadn’t intended to leave, yet my feet turned toward the entrance of their own accord.
I shook off the maid’s attempts to stop me.
Somehow, there at the entrance’s exit, Chiyotsugu’s figure materialized.
I seemed to be clenching my teeth.
She whispered into my ear.

“I’ve had to rely on him for so many things...”
“Forgive me.”
“I don’t like him.”
“And there’s Miss Fukuko’s...”

Only those enigmatic words lingered in his ears.
While chewing over those words, he found himself standing stock-still before Kikuhon without realizing how he'd walked there.
Noticing this, he snapped back to his senses.
And clutching his seething chest, he planted his feet firmly and walked away.
A fantasy of beating Yoda to a pulp arose within me...
It wasn't that I cherished Chiyotsugu anymore.
What I detested was the golden authority.
Desire itself wasn't the issue.
The true enemy was the avarice that trampled others' desires.
You mustn't laugh at me as an individualist.

Nakae was somewhat excited.
Murao fell silent, then became strangely deflated.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Nakae stood up energetically, and Murao mechanically rose in response.
And the two of them walked side by side down the narrow back street.
Both were considerably drunk.
Compared to Nakae with his thin silk scarf and gleaming glasses, Murao—who had pulled his hat low and buried his chin in his coat collar—looked older, his emaciated, frail physique contributing to this impression.
And Nakae's steady gait seemed to be guiding Murao's unsteady footsteps.

After a while, they settled into a room at Kikuhon.

“Miss Chiyotsugu will be here shortly.”

The large-framed maid with the ginkgo-leaf hairstyle who had brought the sake vessel said this while offering a cup.
After Murao raised his eyes, Nakae took over.

“Oh my….”
“You didn’t even tell us who she’s coming for?”
“Quite the Casanova, aren’t you?”

“Well, you see…”
“Then, which regular would you like next?”

“Yeah, one’s enough.”

Murao remained silent, listlessly.
He was deep in thought.
He had a face that looked as though his head were packed full of dreams.
Nakae alone exchanged banter with the maid.
When they were on their second sake bottle, hurried footsteps were heard in the corridor.
It was Chiyotsugu.
Sliding open the shoji and letting her gaze fall on Murao, she seemed relieved and clomped in, then politely greeted Nakae with a “Good evening.”

“My, Mr. Murao. You’ve been gone since then…”
“Was your health troubling you again?”

Murao awkwardly twitched his cheek muscles.
He forced a laugh.
Nakae observed their exchange with a puzzled look.

“What? Since when do I fall ill?”
“I merely delayed my return.”
“But see—I compelled myself to come anyway.”

“Oh really?”
“How very gracious of you.”

“It’s still early.
Truthfully though—I yearned unbearably to visit.”
“Well then—another round.”

Chiyotsugu filled her cup to the brim and drained it in one gulp.
After returning it to Nakae, she abruptly sank into thought.
Her eyes, which seemed slightly crossed, fixed themselves in midair, and combined with the pallor of her cheeks, created a somewhat striking effect.
It was beauty teetering on the edge of decadence.
The hair at her temples trembled so faintly it went unnoticed.
Despite that, her slender upper body remained utterly still, making one wonder where she was even breathing.
She fixed her eyes intently on Murao’s condition, then shifted that gaze toward Nakae.

“What’s wrong… He seems off somehow.”

“Well, just a little bit…”
Cutting himself off, Nakae cast a challenging glare toward Murao.
“He’s different from Mr. Yoda.”

That was like throwing a stone into a lake's surface - a smile was drawn on Murao's cheek.
He seemed to be thinking about something else.
Then pulled back to awareness, he gazed vacantly at Chiyotsugu's face with a smile.
Chiyotsugu laughed brightly and caught that gaze.

“Oh my, you’ve been rambling on about such nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense at all,” Nakae persisted with unusual tenacity.
“It means he’s completely different from Mr. Yoda.”

“Where’s the difference?”

“Completely different.”

“What’s different about him?”

“It’s the man who’s different.”

“My, what strange things you say. …Give me your cup.”

Chiyotsugu pressed him in quick succession.
And then she thrust the cup toward Nakae.

“Well? Where’s the difference?”

“Everywhere—here and there—the whole world’s gone wrong.”

Nakae seemed to have lost track of what it was all about.
He simply rested both hands and gazed at Chiyotsugu with bleary eyes.
That attitude appeared to irritate Chiyotsugu.
Her cheeks grew even paler.
She drank liquor repeatedly.

“If you’re going to say such things, then I have my own piece to say too. You’re mocking people. What about Mr. Yoda? Because they’re customers, I’m just taking good care of them. No matter who they are—if they’re customers—that’s just good business.”

“Even affairs?”

“Of course—if we’re talking about some hostesses elsewhere… I don’t have any such preferences at all. Men are all the same—affairs are just absurd…”

“What are you… I’m not talking about lovers or sweethearts or anything like that.”

“Such things are even more out of the question. Because I don’t have any preferences at all—why would I ever have an affair?”

“Then… isn’t this just a flophouse?”

“You don’t understand.”
“I’m telling you affairs are ridiculous!”
“Even someone like me has the same feelings as a proper young lady.”
“Huh? You still don’t get it?”
“You’re so exasperating!”

Chiyotsugu truly looked exasperated as she furrowed her brows.
Nakae also furrowed his brows in confusion.

“I get it.”
“I understand.”

Murao suddenly shouted.
And with an intensely grave expression, he stared into empty space.

“Yes.”
“How kind of you to ask.”
“I... have a father bedridden from paralysis, am bound by contract, and face hardships of my own.”

A single tear spilled from her eye.
And then, saying "I'm sorry," she burst into laughter.
A bright laugh.

Nakae fell completely silent.
Murao was deep in thought again.
The gathering grew strained, oddly chilly.

“Let me play something.”
“Sing for me.”

No one responded, but Chiyotsugu stood up to get the shamisen.
After vaguely watching her retreating figure, Murao said.

“She’s a true laborer. I’m done for.”

“Oh, it’s nothing…” Nakae started to say but stopped.
And resting his cheeks in both hands while looking down, he began again.
“And an eternal virgin? She doesn’t share any of your so-called desires.
That kind of person is truly Marxist.
She can survive under any authoritarianism.
You shouldn’t fall in love.”

Murao let out a lonely, bitter smile.
Chiyotsugu's lively footsteps resounded through the corridor…….