Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

When returning late at night，Hyono would customarily enter not through the main gate but by circling around the garden and slipping in from the veranda；however，that evening—having evidently become profoundly intoxicated—he neglected to fasten the storm shutters.

In the morning, someone from downstairs hurriedly knocked on Hyono’s bedroom,

“A burglar broke in!”

he was awakened by the call.

Mostly Hyono’s clothing had gone missing.
He was a heavy drinker and cared almost nothing for clothing, so those items were mostly all inherited from his deceased father.
Apart from the clothing, his used soft hat, gold pocket watch, and walking stick were nowhere to be found.
The gold pocket watch and walking stick were also inherited from his father. The watch was an old-fashioned type with a thick gold chain attached, which never suited Hyono, so he had never once used it. As for the walking stick, it was an inappropriately thick rattan one for his small frame, with an ornate lion’s head adorning the grip—clearly meant for an elderly gentleman—so Hyono had never taken it out either, leaving it perpetually toppled in the gap between the chest of drawers and the wall.

“But perhaps we should at least report it to the police.”

“—I’ll drop it.”

Hyono said.
“I’ve already decided I won’t be wearing Japanese clothing anyway… I don’t need them.”

Hyono was truly indifferent to such matters (though, admittedly, this was his first experience of such a thing—).
He felt not a shred of regret or disappointment.

They kept insisting—declaring things like “Regardless of how you feel, you must report a theft to comply with the law!” or “Since we can’t afford to replace the clothing anyway, filing a report might bring them back—wouldn’t that be a relief?”—but Hyono’s wife and Matsuda’s group only succeeded in voicing their dissatisfaction to no avail.

“Well then, do whatever you all like—”

Hyono, having dismissed them with a “Well then…,” hurriedly rushed back upstairs and fell soundly asleep.
After that, no one in Hyono’s household spoke of the matter again.
Naturally, Hyono forgot as well.

And then, about a year had passed.

Hyono’s drinking gradually grew heavier, and the nights he returned late became frequent.

One night he—having stayed until midnight at his usual bar in the backstreets of Ginza and begun returning to the suburbs—found himself still unsatisfied with his drinking. Getting off the car midway in what appeared to be a shabby back alley in the outskirts, cluttered and unkempt, he searched around until he spotted an izakaya where the clamor of drinkers still rang out from within. Bounding in with a spring in his step...

Inside was quite bustling: in a space about two tsubo wide, two rows of long narrow tables were arranged. There were two student-like men; two café waitress-like companions eating rice; a middle-aged office worker-type man in the back corner with several tokkuri bottles lined up before him; and two or three other merchant-like people—all vigorously raising their cups while engaged in lively discussions.

“Okimi-chan, come over here for a bit and pour me a drink.”
“Because I’m lonely!”

The one who had said that was the office worker with the largest number of tokkuri bottles lined up before him. Despite having consumed such a large amount of alcohol, he showed no particular inclination toward talkativeness, instead appearing genuinely lonely as he vacantly gazed at the ceiling or sat with arms crossed, deeply absorbed in thought.

When Hyono looked toward the girl called Okimi-chan, there stood a tall, slender young woman with a delicate face and hair parted down the middle—dressed like a back-alley apprentice geisha—tending to the sake heating by the oden pot.

“If I don’t come pour you drinks, will you cry? Mr. Horita—”
“Don’t say things like that, Okimi-chan—I’m truly lonely.”
“It’s about time to start—there’s no one as selfish as you, Mr. Horita.”
“People—everyone’s lonely. They just endure it.”
“I wonder...”

The man called Horita slumped like a scolded child as the girl poured his drink, sitting motionless with his cup suspended midair while lost in thought.

“That logic… I just can’t grasp it…”

“It’s not about logic.”
“You’re a law graduate, yet you don’t even understand that?”

“Lonely, lonely—unbearably lonely. Without reason or logic, I am profoundly lonely.”
“And to me, everyone in the world seems so unbearably amusing.”

His build was quite imposing, with shoulders set in a way that suggested knowledge of judo—one could see that—but Horita’s voice was delicate, as if perfectly suited for those sentimental words he uttered, resembling the sound of a flute.

As he listened to that voice, Hyono—perhaps owing to his near-drunken state—found himself unwittingly drawn in, sinking into a deep melancholy.

“How can a human being—the heart of a man in his prime—be so hollow, so pitifully fragile, and just… unbearably wretched like this? What does any of it matter…”

The girl turned away and bit back a groan.—When Hyono noticed Horita’s voice ringing with uncanny clarity and looked around, none of the customers who had been there remained.

“Okimi-chan—pour me a drink! Drink up! Drink up! I long to plunge headfirst into this abyss of loneliness—that’s my true desire.”

“Oh my! He’s finally started crying．You’re such a bother， Mr．Horita．”

“Do you hate it when I cry， Okimi-chan—?”

Truly， pearly tears streamed profusely from Horita’s eyes．—From what Hyono could see of Horita’s state， he was by no means saying such things to win the girl’s sympathy； rather， he was pouring out the desolation of his very soul to no one in particular， utterly consumed by heartrending sorrow as he choked back sobs．

“Hey, you—”

Suddenly, Horita stretched his cup-bearing arm toward Hyono.

“Come now—share a cup with this pitiful man! You’ve been watching me with such a sympathetic gaze all this while, but surely you don’t actually pity me—”

and clung to him.

“I don’t pity you—but I had been feeling goodwill toward you.”

As Hyono spoke these words and accepted the cup, Horita suddenly emitted a shrill cry like a chicken’s squawk and—

“Thank you—you’re my friend!” he exclaimed, abruptly pulling Hyono into an embrace.

“It’s painful, Horita-kun—come on, let go of me.”

“Oh, you called my name, Amano-kun!” Horita shouted in ecstasy, unintentionally using a made-up surname for Hyono, who saw no need to correct him.

“Are you a regular here?” Hyono asked.

Horita then poured out his lamentations about life’s sorrows to Hyono with outrageously exaggerated words, sobbing profusely as tears streamed down his face.

“Until now, no one but Okimi-chan has ever seriously listened to these feelings of mine—but tonight, having unexpectedly met a sympathetic soul like you… nothing could make me happier.”
“From now on, please—I implore you—treat me as your one true friend.”
“Somehow… I’ve come to feel you’re like an elder brother to me.”

Having said this, he never once loosened his grip on Hyono’s hand that he’d seized so firmly.

“...Then let’s stop all this delirious rambling about loneliness from now on—”

Having to listen to that flute-like voice repeat such things over and over，even Hyono was starting to feel strangely unsettled，so

“Let’s drink with some vigor!”

“Let’s drink with some spirit!” Hyono said.

“I agree—on such a spring-like fine evening, I can’t just sit here sniveling.”
“Let’s go—”

He shouted energetically.

“That Okimi-chan is such an admirable girl—she’s been running that place with just her father, but lately he’s fallen ill and…”

When they went outside, Horita began telling behind-the-scenes stories about the izakaya, but when the topic shifted to Okimi-chan, he sighed deeply and—

“I have no ambitions or anything like that, but I intend to do as much as I can for that household.”
“Rather than poverty, I’m moved by that father and daughter’s truly rare sincerity.”
“If this were a different world, I’d even commit burglary…”

Horita leaned on Hyono’s shoulder and, while walking through the late-night town, told such stories.

“Speaking of burglary…”

he continued.
“I want to get into prison just once—somehow or other—and see what it’s like.”
“Wherever you are—since this life is unbearably lonely anyway—if one were thrown into prison, I think they’d rather find some semblance of peace in the weighted depths of desolation. There must be something to gain there.”
“I want to compose a poem there…”

“Are you writing poetry?”

“I’m a poet—”

Horita raised his voice in excitement,

“I want to go to prison—I want to go to prison—”

Horita went on shouting.

Startled, Hyono hurriedly covered Horita’s mouth.

The town had already sunk into sleep across its entirety, while the fog lay thickly over everything.

“No matter how far we go now, there probably aren’t any shops still open. Let’s part ways here.”

Hyono, having become somewhat awkwardly transparent, began to hesitate,

“Nah—let’s go to my place now and drink till dawn.”

Horita firmly kept hold of his companion’s arm as he hailed a car.

Hyono boarded the car and immediately grew intoxicated, dozing off so completely that he retained only a hazy recollection of where the vehicle had driven or where they had disembarked. But upon waking, he found Horita holding a sake cup at a small desk.

“Oh, have you woken up?”
“Weren’t you cold?”
“I was very worried—I thought it’d be awful if I let you catch a cold.”

Then, suddenly switching to polite language, he smiled warmly.

It was an attic-like room dimly lit by a single lamp, yet the various items scattered about were all far too luxurious for such a space. On a large rosewood bookshelf, Western books with gold lettering stood tightly packed, their upper tier lined with models of medieval pirate ships and silver candlesticks, while another display shelf above showed dozens of foreign liquor bottles arranged in four or five flawless rows.

As Hyono tried to sit up,

“Please, stay just as you are—keep yourself wrapped up like that.”

Horita stood up, wrapped Hyono in a blanket, and said things like, “Shall I offer you some medicine?” or “If it’s water you need, there’s some right there that I just fetched—”. His meticulous attentiveness was truly considerate in every way.

Struck by this man’s song of loneliness and appearing completely worn out—Hyono, thinking this, gulped down water from an old-fashioned glass pitcher with arabesque-patterned cut glass. When he had sobered up a bit, Hyono, feeling rather embarrassed, turned his face away and gazed at the shelf lined with liquor bottles.

“Please don’t hesitate to have any that suit your fancy. If you’d like, I could shake up a cocktail for you—having once worked as a bartender on European ships, I pride myself on having skills worth boasting about.”

As he spoke, Horita pulled the cork from a fresh whiskey bottle and pressed Hyono all the more charmingly.

“Or might absinthe better suit your hungover palate?”

As Hyono lacked knowledge about alcohol and sat dazedly, Horita uncorked another bottle with remarkably deft hands and arranged water cups to entertain him.

Earlier when the izakaya girl had called you a law graduate and all that, but to think you had bartending experience—you must be quite a man of experience, Hyono thought.

Hyono, who by nature shared heavy drinkers' common trait of becoming excessively reserved when sober, found himself growing increasingly uncomfortable the more hospitably he was treated, until it became unbearable. So he resolved to get drunk all at once and make his exit under drunken pretense, tilting back glass after glass.

“Oh, I—I’ve completely forgotten there’s a guest at my place.”
“I can’t stay like this.”
“I appreciate your trouble, but I’ll be taking my leave.”

After a while, Hyono, muttering such things, tried to rise heavily to his feet,

“Is that so… What a shame…”

Horita muttered with a deep sigh, his reluctance genuine to the core.—“Then… if it’s possible, could you come to Okimi-chan’s house tomorrow evening? I’ll definitely be there—rain or storm…”

“Yes, let’s go. I’ll definitely come.”

Hyono, feeling genuinely charmed by Horita’s boundless sincerity, declared this clearly and boldly offered a handshake.

“Ah, is that so? Then I’ll definitely be waiting for you.”
“Ah, if I can’t meet you tomorrow, I might just die.”

Though one could say Horita had been driven too far by the fleeting excitement of drunkenness, when he said this and firmly grasped Hyono’s hand, Hyono suddenly noticed his eyes—tears were streaming down his face uncontrollably!

二

Even though Hyono repeatedly declined—"There must be a car once we get outside, so please don't worry about that"—Horita stubbornly insisted, "Let me see you off properly," and refused to yield.

"I want to go stay at my mother's place in Nakano tonight anyway…"

Since Hyono’s destination was also Nakano,

“Is that so? Your mother is in Nakano? Then I’ll accompany you.”

“If you keep being so oddly reserved all the time, it’s going to be a problem—look, since we’ve become friends now, I want you to drop all formalities from here on out.”
“Before long, there’s a personal matter I’d like to consult with you about—will you hear me out?”

“Without hesitation—if I can be of any use at all, I’ll take on whatever you need.”

Hyono declared resolutely, as if swearing an oath, truly meaning every word.

“I’m so happy—this is the first time I’ve ever had such a delightful evening! You know, I was born with a lonely disposition, but I could never bring myself to love that loneliness—I’ve searched and searched desperately for friends. But up till now, whenever I’ve gotten close to people, every last one of them betrays me as if by prior agreement…”

“Well, you—there must be another way to look at it. If you dwell on everything so intensely and single-mindedly like that…”

“But you—I have a feeling it’ll be alright.”
“To put it plainly—the moment I first exchanged words with you back at that oden shop, I was struck by a kind of spiritual insight that this person here is the one I can truly become friends with—”

What Horita was saying indeed consisted of nothing but unbearably low-class, teeth-grating words depending on how one heard them—under such circumstances, becoming more passionate would naturally lead one deeper into loneliness, Hyono thought. Yet the more he considered this, not only did he sense an oddly endearing charm, but he increasingly felt emotionally disarmed by that single-minded, guileless attitude.

“That’s right—”

Hyono gave a solemn groan as he tilted his Western-style cup with a gulp.

“I will absolutely not betray you—I promise.”

“No matter what sort of consultation I bring you, you’ll never be shocked?”

“Shocked? Even if you were a thief, I wouldn’t think you’re wicked.”

Hyono laughed dryly with evident pride in his exaggerated phrasing, and Horita—

“Ah, that’s splendid!”

—laughed brightly for the first time.

“Well then, let’s head out.
“Even if I look like this, I’m quite the devoted son—though between heaven and earth, it’s just my mother and me, with no other family to speak of…”

“You really do strike me as the dutiful son type—I’d been thinking.”

“I’ll introduce you to my mother eventually—will you meet her?”

“I’ll meet her—gladly—”

“My mother takes after me and is such a worrier—if I were to fall ill or something, what would she do?!
“She’s always fretting over things that haven’t even happened—I’ve gotten so sick of it.”

“Are you working?”

“Of course—I’m supporting my mother single-handedly.”
“You’ll hear all sorts of things eventually, but I live apart like this because whenever I come home late or do something… well, it makes my mother worry herself sick—so this way we keep our distance.”
“Sometimes I go a month or two without seeing her—happens often these days—but now I’ve finally stopped fretting over that.”
“If I return reeking of alcohol, she panics… yet here I am, turned into such a drunkard I can’t sleep without it… So living separately like this—most things get settled through letters nowadays.”
“As long as nothing changes on her end… even if I keep this up six months or a year… she won’t have to worry.”

“Well then, you should call it a night—we’re quite drunk already…”

“Nah, I’ll be fine tonight.”
“By the time I get to Nakano, I’ll have sobered up.”
“But then, I always end up going all the way near my mother’s rented room, only to stop by that oden shop and get drunk again.”
“Heh heh heh...”

“Just where the hell is this place—is it really that far from Nakano?”

Hyono had assumed it was near that izakaya, so when he asked this in return, Horita somehow turned red and—

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that—I’ll have you remember this address along with my mother’s place soon enough…”

As he spoke, he stood up, opened the closet, took out a kimono, and began changing out of his Western-style clothes.
Since it was a single-room space, Horita began taking off his shirt right in front of Hyono’s eyes, so the sight inevitably came into Hyono’s view.

“Since the night’s grown late, it’s gotten damn cold here. You—aren’t you cold? If you’d like, why don’t you put on another one of my haori over that?”

Horita took off his shirt, put on an undergarment, and threaded his arms through the sleeves of his long juban with a rustling silk sound.

Hmm, that pattern on the juban—I’ve seen it somewhere before—Hyono suddenly thought to himself.
It was a long underkimono with a Hannya mask dyed at the hem on a navy-blue ground.

(That’s it—)

And steadying his bleary gaze, Hyono noticed.
It was the pattern of the juban that had been attached to his father’s kimono—the one stolen some time ago.
I recalled that I too had often walked around wearing that—
Hyono, upon seeing an underkimono similar to that one, found himself recalling times long past, and upon noticing the unexpected sight of Horita—perhaps due to his own tastes—wearing a garment with the same pattern, he felt an inexplicable, fate-tinged new fondness toward him.

“That’s quite an intricate design you’ve got there—”

Hyono muttered, gazing in fascination.

“Oh, you’re too kind—it’s really nothing special.”

As he spoke, Horita picked up the layered kimono.

“I too once wore a juban with a pattern very much like that—though mine was inherited from my father—a long time ago.”

“Oh!—That’s delightful. It seems you and I might share a thread of common taste after all. Ha ha ha!”

Next, when Horita swiftly put on a thin Oshima kasuri kimono, it too appeared nearly identical to the one Hyono had once worn—inherited from his father—and grown accustomed to.

And so Hyono was about to repeat the same words once more, but he held back, feeling that continuing to say such things might instead seem like hollowly catering to Horita’s mood.

III

After turning down one narrow alley after another, crossing precarious drainage planks with Horita taking his hand, and walking roughly two or three blocks round and round through identical-looking rows of houses, when they finally emerged onto the broad tram-lined avenue, Hyono’s drunkenness had gradually intensified into an utterly unsteady gait.

“Please hold on to me tightly.”

Horita was holding Hyono’s arm, but Hyono was practically leaning half his body against him.
Despite having drunk so much, Horita remained remarkably steady and looked for a cab.

Of course, the trams were no longer running.
Two rails glinted sharply on the road, still as water.

Hyono wondered—just where was this place? Thinking this, he strained his eyes trying to read the signs around the tram stop and elsewhere, but they were too far away and he simply couldn't make them out.

"Hey, today's class reunion was really something—you got me so drunk I ended up feeling completely awkward."

When the night watchman had passed by, Horita said this in a loud voice. What a strange, muffled voice! Hyono thought, and when he looked, Horita had turned up his overcoat collar high and was wearing a mask over his mouth. Then he raised his voice in a manner terrifyingly befitting a drunkard,

“Ain’t no meetin’ tonight—Tateyama’s up high—”

he sang out.

Since cars had become scarce, after some time had passed, he finally managed to hail a single taxi.

“To Nakano—step on it.”

Horita ordered.

...crossed a bridge.
Is this Eitai Bridge?
Hyono wondered, but his guess missed its mark.

“So when you think about it, we were in the car for quite a long time earlier too, weren’t we?”

“...That’s right. You dozed off once again back then, you know. Soon I’ll tell you exactly where I am—so today, just for tonight, don’t ask anything and let it be. There are some circumstances involved in that as well.—Well, let’s drink a bit more.”

Horita took out a pocket whiskey bottle from his coat, offered it to Hyono, and drank from the bottle’s mouth himself.

“Hey, isn’t that Ueno Station over there? Or am I wrong?”

“No, no.”
“By the way—your house—isn’t it right near that izakaya?”

“It’s a bit far—but if you could take me to that area, that’d be enough.”

“Nah, I’ll take you right to your door.”
“You can’t even walk properly, can you?”
“Can the car get through?”

“Like hell it can—”

“Nakano—what district?”

“It’s Kamimachi.”

“And the block number…?”

“Since you won’t tell me, I won’t say anything either.”

Hyono said as much with drunken spite.

“Well, fine then—now, let me hear your name.”
“Amano…?”

Are you still thinking I’m Amano—?
Hyono gave a wry smile.

“Amano… Why did you think that way?”

“But isn’t it written like that on your overcoat?”

“It’s Hyono. The name’s Hyono Ichiro.”

“Well then, my apologies.”
“I’m Horita Fuyuo—”

“Since we’ll meet again tomorrow anyway, let’s save checking each other’s family registries for later…”

This time, it was Hyono who found it troublesome and cut the conversation short.

“No, hold on—since I’m taking you there now anyway, it’ll be clear once we look at the nameplate.”

Horita muttered as if to himself.
“There are things that are difficult to say out loud—I think I’d like to put them in a letter.”

“I’m staying in my uncle’s old house now.”
“Oh right, speaking of nameplates—mine isn’t up, but in exchange, there’s no rent…”
“So, it’s so-and-so district—right?”
By the time they approached Shinjuku from Yotsuya, Hyono finally became aware of their direction.

IV

Hyono, perhaps unaccustomed to overindulging in Western liquor, found his legs nearly useless when he stepped out of the car.

“Alright, then I’ll carry you on my back.”

Horita briskly took off his overcoat, had Hyono put it on, and tucked up the hem of his kimono.
Since the daytime had been unseasonably warm with continued fair weather—fully spring-like in its mildness—Hyono had not been wearing an overcoat.

When treated with such exaggerated care, Hyono felt flustered and tried to regain his composure, but there was no way he could walk on his own.
Hyono’s legs dragged so close to the ground that they nearly scraped it as he clung sloppily to Horita’s shoulder, crossing vacant lots and winding through back alleys.

“What’s the block number? Hey, you—the block number?”
“Depending on how things go, we’ll take a shortcut.”

“Are you familiar with the layout of this area?”
“Quite—”
“Because my mother’s been living around here for five years now.”

“It’s block thirty-seven—do you know it?”

“I see…”
“I’ve got a rough idea.”
“So you can rest easy.”

Hyono was carried along on Horita’s shoulder, half-dazed.

Before long,

“I think it’s around here—”

By Horita’s extremely faint muttering, Hyono was awakened.

“That’s right—turn left at that post…”

“It’s quite a distance—if you go home drunk like this, getting out of the car will be quite a hassle—”

Horita’s voice seemed to float aimlessly, without any particular meaning.

“It’s rare for me to return home this drunk.”
“But I have this habit of singing when I get drunk, you see. When we come around here, usually my family hears it and comes out to meet me.”

“It’s far too late an hour, so please spare me the singing.”

Horita, seeming timid, whispered into Hyono’s ear.

“How unfortunate.”
“To think I’ve made you come all this way—I’ll call my family.”

“Wait, wait!”

Horita hurriedly pressed Hyono’s mouth.
“From here on out, I don’t know how much I might end up burdening you…”

“What the hell are you saying—don’t you worry.”

Hyono shouted for no reason.

Then, Horita suddenly readjusted his hold on Hyono,

“Thank you—don’t forget me!”

Horita said something to that effect, but Hyono seemed unable to properly catch the words.

“That’s the house—thank you.”

Hyono said, as though reluctant to part.

“That two-story house at the end.”

“Huh?!”

At that moment, Horita openly stiffened in shock and nearly dropped Hyono, but—

“Careful!—My bad!”

Immediately regaining his composure, while still holding Hyono, he strode to the entrance, peered up under the eaves light, and stared at the nameplate.

“So it really is…!”
he groaned in a low voice.
—and then, his eyes turning bright red,

“Is this your uncle’s nameplate?”

he asked Hyono with defiant resolve.

Oblivious in his drunken stupor, Hyono replied in an utterly cheerful voice, “Yes indeed—that’s definitely my uncle’s nameplate.”
“I’ve been living here for two years now.”
“When I come home this late, I don’t use the front entrance—I go around the garden and come in through the veranda, so just head that way—ah, come on, since you’re here, come up already—meet my wife—I want her to thank you—hey, Horita—”

As he said such things and tried to cling on, Horita let out that flute-like, weeping shriek of his—
“Ah… So it really was true…”

With a groan—and in the same instant—
“Goodbye—”
Horita tightly gripped Hyono’s hand once more—then, with a snap, shook it off with all his might and fled without looking back.

“Horita-kun! Horita-kun!”

Hyono was startled and shouted, but in the blink of an eye, Horita had already started running along the hedge.
At the corner, when Horita seemed to glance back slightly, he undoubtedly burst into tears with a wail, and no sooner had he covered his face with both hands than his figure vanished like a bat.

He tried to give chase, but Hyono’s legs wouldn’t obey, and he tumbled to the ground just like that.—Hyono couldn’t comprehend why Horita had fled in such a panic.

―The following evening, he went to the izakaya and waited for Horita to come, but even as twelve o’clock passed and it turned one, Horita never showed himself. In the corner of the shop, the girl pointed at a walking stick with a lion’s head ornament that was propped up there,

“That’s the walking stick Mr. Horita gave to my father.”
“When my father would go to the hospital using a bamboo cane, Mr. Horita saw him and said, ‘Since I have a good walking stick, I’ll give that one to him…’”

She spoke of such things, but Hyono, without even the composure to listen calmly,

“I want to see Horita, I want to see Horita.”

While repeating this, he contorted his face as if on the verge of tears.
And then,

“Okimi-chan, I’m lonely too.”

Hyono muttered in a flute-like voice.