Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was an evening approaching spring.
At the boys’ dormitory that formed one building of the public boarding school, a crowd had descended into the wide grassy courtyard and clustered here and there.
They were preparing to observe Halley’s Comet—the celestial phenomenon that had dominated recent conversations—as it finally made its long-awaited appearance.
The Dormitory Director—a gaunt, dedicated scholar over fifty with thick nearsighted glasses and a half-white beard—pulled a bulky silver-cased pocket watch from his coat and checked the time.
Yet even while doing so, when students attempted to shuffle down into the courtyard still wearing slippers, “Hey now!” he would bark.
“Shoes! Put on proper shoes!” he repeated with meticulous care to each offender.
Indeed, across the yellowed winter grass, thawing earth seeped its dampness through every patch.

The science lecturer and Bachelor of Science named Iijima, with his neatly parted hair, had set up the telescope in an appropriate spot in the courtyard. Vice-Dormitory Head Noda—a stout, jovial Bachelor of Laws—and Morioka Wasaku—a mild-mannered, taciturn Bachelor of Letters who gave the impression of being in recovery from illness—had also descended into the courtyard as a matter of course and now blended among the younger students.

It was a truly refreshing evening—the kind where the phrase “a moment worth a thousand gold pieces” naturally came to mind. In the distant kitchen, dishes being prepared for dinner clattered vigorously. From behind the building drifted a steamy scent of plum blossoms past their peak bloom—not that pure fragrance likened to noble scholars’ virtues in classical lore, but rather a heavy aroma as though the blossoms themselves languished in some gloomy malady.

—The H Comet was supposed to become visible to naked eyes around five o’clock that very evening. This marked its decades-long encounter with Earth. Thus alongside spring’s approach stirring restless energy across the cityscape, ever since newspapers had sensationalized this celestial visitor’s coming, people’s hearts brimmed with curiosity laced through by an eerie disquiet—all interwoven with wild speculations. And so it came that crowds now thronged this boarding school courtyard too to observe this famed comet.

Ten minutes, fifteen minutes.
However, the crucial comet simply would not appear.

Morioka Wasaku and Noda quickly grew bored and, sitting down on a bench placed beneath the building’s window, began chatting in a languid manner.
From an outside perspective, it might have seemed rather dull, but in truth, it was a conversation imbued with the intimate affection that can only be exchanged between long-time friends.
For they were old childhood friends.
And this public boarding school—this uniquely structured institution with a fifteen-year system spanning from elementary to middle and then higher divisions—had been the alma mater for both of them.

In the year before last, as soon as Noda had earned his Bachelor of Laws, an offer came from this school.
Since he was by nature an optimist, he readily accepted even the position of vice-dormitory head of the boys’ dormitory—a role most would have found troublesome—in addition to his regular teaching duties.
So he exchanged his old student uniform for a frock coat and returned with hearty ease to the dormitory—where the trees had grown slightly taller and the buildings had faded somewhat since his student days—after a considerable absence.

However, Morioka Wasaku had taken a slightly different course and it was here that he reunited with Noda.
After peacefully completing the middle school division here, he suddenly began preparing for higher school entrance exams with an intensity that was no ordinary matter and ended up entering Kyoto’s Third Higher School.
This was an unexpected turn of events for every one of his classmates.
After that, Wasaku abruptly ceased corresponding with his old friends.
Only the fact that he had begun to revere Dr. XX—who held philosophy lectures at Kyoto University—and upon graduating from Third Higher School had immediately transferred to its Faculty of Letters ever reached his old companions.

However, Noda had recently heard through others that Wasaku, having damaged his health through Kyoto's harsh winters year after year, had lately aggravated the aftereffects of influenza and been advised by his doctor to relocate elsewhere.
Being diligent, he had promptly exchanged letters with Wasaku two or three times and already devised a means for him to earn a living while convalescing in Tokyo.
In the end, Wasaku had come to be entrusted not only with German language classes at this boarding school but also with the undemanding role of boys' dormitory librarian.
This librarian position was something Noda had single-handedly added due to its association with an extra stipend.
Indeed, Wasaku was genuinely grateful for Noda's thoughtful consideration.

...Seeking employment in Kyoto, eventually summoning his mother from their hometown, and devoting himself to research beside Professor XX for several more years—Wasaku had completely cast aside all such daydreams and plans and returned to Tokyo at this New Year.
He had only taken up his position a month prior.
Amidst his long-acquainted surroundings, he felt a certain peaceful rest resembling post-illness fatigue.

Behind them, the electric light in the game room snapped on, and its shadow fell brightly upon the lawn.
A student flung open the window and stuck his head out.
At the same time, the light sound of ping-pong reached them.

“Professor!” the boy called out energetically.
“Aren’t the stars out yet?”

“Still, still,” Noda replied lazily without looking that way.
“Haste makes waste.”

“Then, another round!”
With a voice exhilarated by competition, the student called back into the room.
“I’ve gotta take down at least four!”

“Professor!”
Another student—this one seeming nervous—spotted Noda and called out from the same window.

“Won’t you join the five-player challenge?
I’ve just been cheated and lost!”

“Who’s that?”
Noda twisted his stout body backward to look.
“What—Tokubei?
Against Tokubei, my left hand’s more than enough!”

With that, he gave a magnanimous laugh—wahaha!
But when Morioka Wasaku heard the name “Tokubei,” he sharply turned around and stared intently at the boy’s face.

“Tch! It’s truly troublesome being called Tokubei like this!” he said in a sweet, high-pitched voice while furrowing his brows. “Because the Professor gave me such a nickname, everyone teases me endlessly.”

But the ping-pong players in the room, hearing this, all jeered at once: “Tokubei! Tokubei!”

“Tch! Tch!” The boy made a show of his frustration.

“You knew already, didn’t you? He’s Kanou’s boy—Tokujirō’s nephew,” Noda said, turning to look at Wasaku.

“That lad who’d come to the room entrance in a sailor suit or such when you used to visit.”

“Well… When I first learned of it the other day—I was startled.”

Wasaku had placed his head on the arm he had set against the back of the bench and was staring at the youth with unblinking eyes that remained fixed as before.
He was unknowingly agitated.

Wasaku paused for a moment, then suddenly addressed the youth: “You...”
“You really do look just like Aunt Tsuruko.”

But he still stiffened, his face blushing like a child’s.
The youth, having been told such a thing with a serious face, showed an equally bashful demeanor.

“Is that so?
“Because you have particularly good color today—that’s why you think so, right? Today’s a triumph for Kanou.”
“No—it’s not a criticism,” Noda spoke in a tone suggesting he was already accustomed to handling children.
“You’d do well to always get that much exercise.”
“If you keep holing up in the library like that, didn’t you get scolded by the dorm head the other day?”
“I know all about it.”

“Would I get scolded?”
Being on the receiving end of Noda’s mischievous smile, the boy named Kanou defiantly pushed back.
“I was told to exercise more, but no one said I shouldn’t read books at all.”

“You’re quite the smooth operator,” Noda boomed with laughter again.

“But it’s true! …Huh?”
Kanou turned toward the room’s interior to query his friends about something.
“Well then, Professor—it’s my turn now.
When the stars appear, don’t forget to notify me.”

“Once he gets worked up, he’s quite the sharp and amusing fellow, but usually he’s so gloomy it’s a problem.” In the shadow of the window where the brisk sounds of ping-pong were growing increasingly lively, after Kanou had withdrawn, Noda jerked his chin toward that direction and said. “But he’s got a good mind. He’s just too sensitive by half. In the Kanou household, he’s the exception.”

...Hmm.
Wasaku returned his contorted body to its original position and listlessly stretched out his legs.
He remained silent.
The image of Tsuruko, that boy's aunt, rose in his mind.

“Tokubei? That’s an old nickname!”

After a while, Wasaku, while staring intently at the sky ahead where the comet would soon appear, suddenly let out a loud voice.

“That’s right. It’s a third-generation nickname.”

――The account begins with times long past.

It was an event from over a decade ago.
In a grade far above theirs, there had been a student named Kanou Shintoku.
The origin lay in when he went with friends to see the kyogen play "Issun Tokubei" from the standing gallery at what was then called the Kabukiza Theater—this led to him being nicknamed "Tokubei" through association with the character "toku".
This became the very root of it all.
Though Shintoku had long since graduated, his much younger brother Tokujirō eventually entered the same grade as Noda and Wasaku.
The nickname had likely been passed down through graduates' retellings.
This Tokujirō too inherited the unchanged Tokubei moniker.
Time shifted once more.
Now when Shintoku advanced to university and promptly married, his eldest son Shin’ichi was born; this Shin’ichi later entered the same dormitory and received that timeworn nickname anew from Noda’s lips.
As years passed and both individuals graduated, only the nickname endured alongside the dormitory building itself.
Yet whenever Wasaku heard these nicknames, he felt himself inhaling some faded vestige of the past.
...But this reaction held particular significance for him.

Wasaku often used to visit the Kanou house from the dormitory in those days.
This stemmed from the relationship between Wasaku’s deceased father and Tokujirō’s father, who had not long passed away at the time.
The two were pioneers from the same domain and politicians of the Count ×× lineage.
Wasaku’s father had simply died young through misfortune—though Tokujirō’s father was not long-lived either, he had at least lived over a decade longer and seen a portion of his prosperous era.—When Wasaku first visited the Kanou household, a well-mannered old woman with bobbed hair came out and said,“You must be Wasaku? Hmm...
“I knew your father well.”
There was a time when she leaned in to peer at Wasaku’s face like this and said...
At that moment，Wasaku was struck by a strangely resonant nostalgia that echoed in his chest.
This sense of nostalgia never faded.
And he gradually began to frequent the Kanou household more and more often.

The Kanou household—a masterless house possessing an undeniable quietude, abundant with garden trees—was a place perfectly suited for Wasaku to preserve this initial impression exactly as it was. The room that Wasaku always passed through—what was called Tokujirō’s room—was a six-mat space on the second floor. Through the green paulownia before the bay window—in the shadow of the eaves, only the lower section of the desolate shōji in the lower room could be seen. From there, the young mistress’s voice would occasionally drift through, only to vanish immediately. In addition to Tsuneko, there were Tokujirō and his sister Tsuruko, who was two years his junior, but she did not seem to possess a disposition lively enough for her voice to carry up to the second floor. Occasionally, the figure of her returning from school in hakama would be glimpsed at the corner of the hallway, but that too would invariably be swiftly drawn back into the desolate state of the lower rooms. "This house is rather austere," Wasaku thought.

Yet despite this, he could not help but sense that somewhere within the Kanou household—a family with a daughter in the full bloom of youth—there lingered an invisible yet ostentatious air unique to such homes.
For Wasaku, raised in a dormitory, this alluring air resembled the scent of the sea he had first smelled as a child.
As the Chinese parasol tree grew thick, its large leaves casting shadows, he peered through the branches more boldly than before, carefully trying to catch the sounds below.
Before long, that Japanese-flavored enigma was unraveled by Wasaku.
He was introduced.

Tsuruko was a girl who had finally switched from her traditional swept-back hairstyle to a newly fashioned Western-style bun that still carried an awkward, almost comical air of unfamiliarity. She was seventeen, yet appeared far more youthful than her years. Once introduced, she would enter her brother’s room without hesitation and ask Wasaku—still a recent acquaintance—for help with her homework. Wasaku found himself having to cast a questioning look at Tokujirō, as if seeking permission for such behavior. However, Tokujirō remained indifferent to his sister’s care and was not particularly skilled in academic subjects either. When this had become routine, she would next quietly bring an English book and say, “Hey, could you do this for me? You can take it back to the dormitory, so please add kana annotations to it.” She began making such requests regularly. She childishly criticized Tokujirō. She childishly toyed with secrets. But—as Wasaku ran his fingers over the English reader signed “Tazuko, Kanou” in clumsy Roman letters inside the book cover—he once again felt as though he had betrayed a friend. That quiet mystery of the lower sitting room now seemed to have transformed into something rather ordinary……

However, Tsuruko continued to accumulate more childlike secrets.
She continued to expand them.

The one who discerned the true nature of this relationship more clearly than Wasaku himself was none other than Tsuneko, the shrewd young mistress.
Suddenly, Tsuruko stopped coming up to the second floor.
Instead, the green paulownia grew thick with pointed significance.
Tsuneko entertained Wasaku with deliberate implication.
Tokujirō wore a timid expression heavy with unspoken meaning.
These vague yet charged undercurrents struck Wasaku more profoundly than anything.
Precisely because he had carried deep associations with his deceased father within this house—because he had felt within these walls what amounted to mementos of his father’s prime—the blow fell all the heavier.
And he withdrew from this urban family’s household as though physical sounds themselves were receding into silence.

——Close friends walked along paths on both banks of a stream, holding hands over the water. They encountered a small tree stump. The two released their hands, intending it to be temporary. But the river gradually widened, and the space between their hands grew larger.—This sentimental parable from the English textbook he had studied in those days felt fitting to Wasaku’s heart.

As the turmoil that had been churning in his mind began to settle into a period of relative calm, Wasaku came to feel for the first time a distinct form of humiliation directed at the Kanou family.
It wasn’t that Tsuruko’s childlike familiarity had been deemed “forbidden” by the Kanou household—rather, Wasaku now fully understood how every phenomenon had stemmed from their evaluation of him as an individual.

When he graduated from middle school, Wasaku abruptly resolved to take the entrance examination for a provincial high school. To him, the social deftness of Tokyoites proved intolerable. He remembered the unadorned simplicity of grain. Given the paucity of remaining days too, his exam preparations had taken on a frenzied character. He did not send word of his admission to Kyoto Third Higher School to Tokujirō.

Wasaku’s monomaniacal zeal persisted long after his enrollment. From the outset, there had dwelled within him a combative spirit—particular to sons of ill-fated fathers—toward his own uncharted life. This now had been kindled.

Six years had now passed since then.

...“I saw it! I saw it!” a voice cried out.
The crowd, now turning into silhouettes, buzzed with restless energy.
Students who had stayed indoors and those playing in the courtyard all rushed over at once.
Noda and Wasaku too rose to join them.

In the evening sky where final light lingered, the comet now visible to naked eyes stood sharply defined.
It hung at a slanting angle, gleaming coldly.
The tail—carrying a feather-like chill—dissolved into an impossibly vast domed arc.
This was a line no human hand could ever trace.

Gazing intently up at it with a gentle expression, Wasaku's countenance involuntarily changed.
It was a countenance mixed with surprise and awe toward something possessing a coldness too divergent from humanity.

The dormitory head tilted his chin beard upward, hunched over like a figure from a nanga painting, and gazed intently. Due to his efforts to see clearly through severe nearsightedness, he unknowingly trampled the flower beds where this year's tender sprouts were emerging. Vice-Dorm Head Noda tilted his hat to the nape of his neck, placed both hands on his hips, and observed with cheerful interest. Professor Iijima busied himself adjusting the focus.

As the sky’s darkness gradually deepened, the comet became increasingly distinct. The comet occasionally flickered coldly. It had indeed undergone a long journey along its orbit, yet maintained an indifference that seemed unflagging and unyielding. It bore the aloof coldness of something that had circled tens of thousands of years and tens of thousands of times—once set into orbit, it would continue circling forever with the same measured pace. In its aloof coldness lay an eerie charm—as though declaring “I know nothing of such matters”—the uncanny allure of something that had never lived from the beginning, indifferent to humanity’s imminent need to transform their very form.

……I see.

And Wasaku, alone, was deeply impressed.
And he shuddered as if feeling a chill on his skin.
When he turned his thoughts to those immense distances—millions of light-years, hundreds of millions of light-years—his ordinary sense of scale became disordered, and he felt a kind of vertigo.

“Come on, come on! Anyone who wants to look, come over here! No pushing now!”

The stylish professor—having taken his eye from the telescope—announced cheerfully. The students immediately swarmed noisily around the instrument and began taking turns peering through it. One after another, they let out exclamations in their clear adolescent voices.

“See how clearly it’s visible? Didn’t I tell you the comet would be this spectacular?” Professor Iijima explained exuberantly. “But despite appearances, it’s actually incredibly lightweight—made of rarefied matter, you understand. Even through the faintest spring haze, starlight would dim slightly... yet through a comet’s tail? Not a whit! You can see other stars perfectly through it. People liken it to a veil of spring mist, but this comet’s tail is a whole notch more delicate than any earthly haze.”

Wasaku involuntarily smiled. This older science lecturer struck him as guileless.

“That may be fine,” he said, “but clouds are forming over there.” Wasaku noticed several clouds that had drifted up and alerted him.

“Ah, I see,” replied the professor. “But they likely won’t spread suddenly.” He looked around at each student peering through the telescope again. “How fortunate your generation is! This age of yours—it’s when seeing such things leaves the deepest impression. Go on, look properly while you can.”

“When I saw the comet as a child—this was in an unenlightened rural area—the villagers kept worrying it was an omen of calamity. I too went out to the fields at night to gaze at it, wondering what misfortune might descend upon us. In my childish way, I felt such sorrow.” He paused. “That impression remains unforgettable.”

“So that’s it, Professor?” one of the students inquired.
It was Kanou Shin'ichi, who had earlier stuck his head out from the game room.
“So it was Halley’s Comet after all?”

“What? You don’t read newspapers, do you?” With that, Professor Iijima smiled. “Long-lived people who’ve witnessed Halley’s Comet twice are exceedingly rare. It completes one full cycle in seventy-five years and comes near Earth, you see.”

“Seventy-five years for one cycle!”

“What’s the big deal? Getting shocked over seventy-five years? That’s no good.” The professor saying such things seemed to be in a light, pleasant state of excitement. “But compared to that, the one called the 1811 Comet—Kanou-kun. That one takes three thousand years to complete its cycle. Other comets—even those we’ve met just once now and assume we’ll bid farewell to forever—might actually be tracing vast circles, returning after tens of thousands of years when they finally complete a single cycle. Such things can’t be understood in a human lifetime or ten generations, you know. Humans are such insignificant things… In fact, there are comets that take a hundred thousand years to complete their orbit—that’s been established, you know.”

“……A hundred thousand years?”
Shin’ichi raised his nervously sharp eyes aimlessly.
“A hundred thousand years… That’s something, isn’t it?”

“He should really know when to stop.”

Wasaku glanced briefly at the professor, who remained in high spirits. He was worried about Shin’ichi’s nervous sensitivity.

“Hey! It looks like it’s about to come crashing down over here!” shouted Shin’ichi’s classmate when his turn came at the telescope, as if announcing a major discovery. “So Professor—which direction’s it flying off in?”

“That’s a rather primitive fear,” Professor Iijima replied, still laughing cheerfully. “But you’re not alone. Even these days, scholars keep going on about possible collisions with Earth… Making a big fuss over nothing!”

“So…”
The student pulled his eyes away from the instrument in surprise.
“Um… about what was in the newspaper—is that true?”

“It’s safe for now—completely safe this time.”
Professor Iijima too now looked up at that unusual form, sharply defined in silvery clarity.
“...But strictly speaking, this isn’t limited to comets—though over a sufficiently long period, we can’t categorically rule out such collisions occurring.”

“Why is that? Professor!”

“Would he just stop already?!” Wasaku forcefully thought to himself, driven by peculiar unease.

“Why, you ask?” The professor adopted a thoughtful expression. “Our solar system is but a tiny part of the galaxy spreading through the universe—a fragment smaller than a millet grain. This solar system of ours journeys through the vast cosmos. Of course, compared to the universe’s immensity, it moves at a snail’s pace—yet undeniably travels onward bit by bit. Thus in hundreds of thousands or millions of years, collisions with other stars may not be entirely avoidable. Therefore our world...”

“Oh, I hate that!”

Wasaku turned toward the direction of the voice as though struck by an ominous premonition.

Then he noticed Shin’ichi had separated from the group of friends and was standing alone, vacant.
...stiffened his neck unnaturally, eyes fixed on a single spot with an expressionless face.
The bloodless lips pressed tightly together seemed abnormal.
Then Shin’ichi weakly placed a hand on his forehead.

“Kanou!”

Wasaku called out loudly.
Shin’ichi turned around.
Wasaku started at the complete absence of expression in those eyes.

“Kanou, what’s wrong?”
He hurried closer.

Shin’ichi tried to say something. But at the same time, seeming to feel dizzy, he once again covered his forehead with his hand and, unable to wait for Wasaku who was approaching, collapsed as if leaning forward.

“Someone!”
Wasaku called out while supporting him.
“Someone! Quickly!”

Noda came running.
The two of them carried Shin’ichi into the house, supporting him from front and back.
As Wasaku ascended the entranceway stairs, planting his feet firmly with each step, a classmate's sneering remark—"That guy's always like that. What a coward"—and the oppressive, sickly-sweet scent of plum blossoms stagnating within the building grazed his senses through the dim twilight.

About thirty minutes later, Wasaku was sitting face-to-face with Noda in the vice-dorm head’s office at the corridor’s corner.
The two had just stuffed their cheeks with barley rice as hot as if it were the end of winter.—Now Noda stood up and brewed tea for Wasaku.
The tea utensils were hidden behind the primrose pot.
The small, simple room—furnished only with an office desk, a bookshelf, and a bed—was sufficiently warm from the steam heating.

“Well, since I wasn’t there myself, I can’t say for sure...”
Noda, sitting cross-legged on the chair, continued his story.
And he kept repeating insistently.
“Fainting is absolutely unacceptable. It’s unchildlike and unacceptable.”

“No—it wasn’t so different from a child’s fear,” Wasaku defended vaguely.
“Professor Iijima’s medicine was too strong.
“Cosmology’s too soon for them.—When everyone started trembling with fear, he should’ve stopped.—That sort of cosmology is just petty doctrine after all.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

Noda nodded vigorously.

“If they’re banning tobacco, then petty doctrines are naturally unacceptable.”

However, Noda himself was concerned that Iijima might come to the adjacent room during their post-meal rest.

“So in other words, Shin’ichi didn’t value his bloodline.”
He had let his joke fall flat.

“It would’ve been better if he’d taken after Tokujirō’s dullard side a bit more.
Looking at the stars—turning pale and collapsing—it’s not like Tokujirō at all.”

This time, Wasaku gave a wry smile.

Noda had witnessed Wasaku suddenly adopting a cold demeanor whenever the Kanou household was mentioned—two or three times already in recent days.
What was going on? Noda wondered.
He also considered whether Wasaku had come to dislike it because the atmosphere in the Kanou household had completely changed over these past few years.
And regarding that matter, he had agreed.

He suddenly asked bluntly.

“Really—do you dislike the atmosphere of the Kanou household these days?”

“Huh?”
Wasaku was visibly agitated as he stared fixedly at Noda.

“But the Kanou house has changed!” Wondering if he had gone too far, Noda leaned back forcefully in his chair and spoke as if in admiration.
“You’ve never seen that Western-style building they moved into, have you?…Why on earth would they sell off such a dignified Japanese house?”
“That’s unmistakably Madam Tsuneko’s taste.”
“The one to feel sorry for is Tsuruko-san.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because from her lifestyle to her tastes, she’s been completely overwhelmed by her sister-in-law.”
“The fact that she’s still unmarried might partly be because the widow feels lonely, but really it’s because they’re searching for a match through her sister-in-law’s discerning eye.”
“She’s practically a precious doll.”
“Now that I think about it… Tsuruko-san is somehow pretty yet unremarkable, don’t you think?”

“Is that so?”
Wasaku gave a reply that seemed angry.
“Anyway, I’m not going to that house anymore at all…”

When he said this, he brusquely leaned half his body toward the tea table.
Noda stared at him in astonishment.
But from Wasaku’s profile, Noda could discern nothing more than the expression of a man tasting bancha…

A knocking sound came at the door, and the Dormitory Head stuck his head out.

“Ah, there you were.”
Upon finding Wasaku, the Dormitory Head entered right away.
“Mr. Morioka, there’s something I’d like to ask of you.”

“What is it?”

“I hate to impose, but could you escort Kanou home on your way back?”
The Dormitory Head made an appropriately apologetic face.
“His nerves seem to have mostly settled, but I don’t think it’s wise to leave him in an unmanned infirmary overnight.”
“That being said, I also worry treating someone not fully recovered as normal might be risky.”
“Well, staying quietly at home for a day or two would likely be best.”
“It may seem a bit lenient, but we’re making a special exception in his case.”

“Isn’t there someone else available?” Wasaku said, momentarily perplexed.

“Well, you see—I have a dormitory heads’ meeting shortly, Noda is on night duty, and we can’t have the janitor leave his post when he’s alone at night. If it’s inconvenient for you, I suppose I could ask Professor Iijima instead—though his route would be in the opposite direction.”

"That won’t do," Wasaku thought.

“You take him home”—Noda looked him straight in the face and casually signaled.
Strangely, Wasaku felt as though he had completely entrusted all his intricate emotions to this Noda.

“You’re the one”—Noda repeated for some reason.

“Well then, let’s go,” Wasaku said, standing up.
“Is it all right to leave immediately?”

“Wasaku, take the umbrella you forgot here the other day with you.”
Noda said gently, keeping his back turned toward the window.
“If it starts raining and you get soaked, that’ll be trouble again.”

Shin’ichi was brought over wearing a cloak.
The two went out to the entrance and put on their shoes.
Wasaku, sensing the night air on his body that had become prone to catching colds, turned up the collar of his coat.

“...Your collapse wasn’t just dizziness, was it?”

At the suburban station where the train had just departed, with Shin’ichi—still pale-faced—leaning against a bench in the waiting room, Wasaku finally mustered the courage to break the silence.
“Did you just suddenly feel unwell, or was it…”

Shin’ichi raised his face and showed a faint smile.

“Or…” Wasaku pressed on with his questioning.
“Wasn’t it Professor Iijima’s lecture that unsettled you?”

If that were the case, he thought it necessary to genuinely shift his mindset.

Shin’ichi, however, still did not erase his faint, forced smile.

“If that were true, I’d never let such talk bother me.—People who say humans are boring are fools.—It’s fine for humans to be small.”

At Wasaku’s severe tone, Shin’ichi involuntarily opened wide his eyes that had seemed listless.

“What does it matter if I’m small?
“We have something called a species.
“You understand.”
“For example, if my teacher in Kyoto grows old, I’ll have to work much harder in their place.”
“When I grow senile, someone around your age will take over my work.”
“What’s inconvenient about humans being small?”
“Isn’t it precisely because humans are small that we’re truly human?”

But faced with this boy Shin'ichi before him, Wasaku couldn't help but realize he alone was straining himself—that there was "something wrong" with him, as he himself would put it. What was this peculiar agitation for?

He thought this.

Could the boyish impact of Shin'ichi before him bear some relation to his present self? Was it because he carried within himself this burning anxiety—this desperate wish not to equate death with mere disappearance? Or perhaps...

Or was it simply the awareness that he now unexpectedly had to visit the Kanou house?

But contemplating this matter made Wasaku's face assume the same sullen expression he had earlier shown Noda, leaving him utterly silent.

The train arrived.
Wasaku had Shin’ichi lean against a corner seat.
And the two no longer exchanged words.

―――――――――――――――

A little past eight o'clock that same evening, at the Kanou residence situated near both the Yamanote Line station and the park beyond the hill, the entire family had just finished a boisterous meal together.
Shintoku, the household head, had received no party invitations, and Tokujirō too had remained at home.
But no sooner had the widow set down her chopsticks than she complained of rheumatic pain and, supported by a maid, withdrew into the only Japanese-style room within the newly built mansion—a retirement quarters.
The widow had already aged completely.

“Mother, are you retiring already?”

With that, Shintoku—his head closely cropped and sporting a thick beard, giving the impression of a junior officer—casually inquired about her condition in a nonchalant tone.
He was meddlesome to the point that his family sometimes found themselves at a loss.

“Well then, we went to the trouble of lighting it. Everyone, go over there and have some snacks while warming yourselves—it’s roaring away!”

Shintoku stood up briskly while looking around at the others and entered the parlor with the large built-in fireplace. Since the widow had unusually come to the main house in good spirits that day, he had instructed the young wife to stoke the fireplace in that room—the most comfortable in the house—and made it the family’s gathering place for half the day. And even when everyone had just sat down at the dining table earlier, Shintoku had taken care to prevent the fire from going out for his mother’s sake by tossing in plenty of coal—it was this that he had just mentioned.

Tsuneko and Tokujirou rose with an air of “Well then...”
Tsuruko—who had been tending the fire in her mother’s tobacco tray—turned toward her sister-in-law glancing back at her and said “Right away” before moving toward the exit.
There only those two went ahead first, carrying mail, documents and a knitting bag as instructed into the parlor.
In that room—with its many windows creating a greenhouse-like atmosphere—a fireplace built from large stacked stones held coal burning cheerfully within; having arranged armchairs around it, the three settled in comfortably.

Such rest, even in terms of formality, particularly satisfied Shintoku.
The idea of the family living together without outsiders—carrying a certain Western flavor in its conception—perfectly suited his meddlesome nature that thrived on such bustling care.
He harbored a strangely scrupulous sense that he simply could not allow any distance to grow between himself and his siblings as they reached adulthood.—Tokujirou, who had only recently become a junior diplomat, already seemed thoroughly weary of this elder brother’s years of meticulous meddling and was eagerly anticipating the autumn when he would be assigned abroad.
Yet in Shintoku’s approach—despite its outwardly old-fashioned appearance—there was substance packed within.
Being the youngest child, Tsuruko alone sensed this and in her heart directed deep affection toward this brother.

“What’s Tsuruko doing?”

Shintoku, who had been reviewing documents with a pencil in hand, lifted his head with a displeased expression.
Tsuneko, sensing the shift in atmosphere, went to the door and called out, “Tsuruko-san.” [...] Shintoku kept his deliberately sullen expression intact until she finished calling, then lowered his eyes back to the documents as though satisfied.
Tsuneko found this meddlesome tendency of his rather amusing.

The door opened softly to reveal Tsuruko herself entering with sewing materials in both hands and an evening paper tucked under her chin—a picture of perfect nonchalance.

She was twenty-two. She was dressed in a modest purple haori and a similarly subdued blackish kimono. They suited her and were beautiful. But despite that, in Tsuruko there remained—just as Noda had said—a certain lack of flourishing in her beauty. It seemed to be because she lacked the disposition to maintain a vivid awareness of her own beauty day in and day out.

Tsuruko went to Shintoku’s side and handed him the evening paper, then sat down next to her sister-in-law and began mending the frayed cuff of her young niece’s sleeve. When she sat there beside her sister-in-law—who was extravagant in all matters—the contrast struck one as somewhat curious.

“Oh, Tsuruko-san. You were doing that again?” Tsuneko knit her brows. “You could have left that for later.”

“Oh, it’s just about done.”
Tsuruko continued sewing steadily just as she was.
And then she reached a slightly tricky part.

“Please do stop that.”
Tsuneko saw that and blocked Tsuruko’s hand.
“Leave it to the maids. Their hands aren’t full, are they?”

“Yes.”
“Yes.”

Tsuruko was always preoccupied with such tasks, and she felt a sense of relief as though she were doing work best suited to her nature.

—Shintoku, who had been quickly flipping through the evening papers, casually gathered them all up and handed them to Tokujirou while—

“Every single one’s completely dominated by the H Comet.
“Ah—”
He said with a yawn mingled in his voice and shifted his eyes back to the original documents.

“It says they’re expecting crowds in the parks too.”
“I wonder if there’s such a sign?”

Tokujirou stood up, threw open the rear window with force, and stuck his head out.

“Oh, no good, no good.
“Thin clouds have completely formed and are steadily spreading out.”
The fact that he was looking up at the sky could be discerned from the resonance of his voice.
“……If this mildness is anything to go by, tomorrow might bring rain.”

“If it’s cloudy, even the observatory must be having trouble, I suppose,” Tsuneko interjected.

“But I wonder if it’ll still be clearly visible tomorrow too.”

“That’s right,” Shintoku said nonchalantly in response. “Speaking of the observatory reminded me—we’ve had an invitation come from the school—the boarding school—addressed to you and me. There’s apparently a lecture on comets by some Dr. So-and-so. Want to go take a look?”

“Not particularly appealing, I must say.”

Tokujirō answered with a gloomy expression.

“Speaking of school,” Shintoku continued in the same relaxed tone.
“The other day, I ran into Noda on the train, you know.”
“According to Noda, that Morioka... Morioka Wasaku?”
“He’s apparently become a lecturer for the high school division this time.”
“Did you know?”

“Yes, I know.”
The timid Tokujirō, having not yet told anyone in the house about it, made an uncomfortable face.

“I heard it from Noda for the first time, but apparently he graduated from the philosophy department in liberal arts.”
“Hmm.”
Shintoku, who had only a vague impression of Wasaku, appeared impressed.
“Back in the days when they used to come around our house—though I don’t know much about it—weren’t they an unusually lively bunch, making a racket in your room and all?”

“Well, he did have those peculiar traits after all.”

“Who?”
“Mr. Morioka?”
Tsuneko interjected.
“Yes, yes, he’s been a philosopher since way back.”
“An eccentric.”

……Tsuruko slowly raised her face.

But upon noticing this demeanor, Tsuneko called out “Now, Ms. Tsuruko,” stood up while retrieving the large knitting bag she had left on the long chair, and began speaking cheerfully.

“Hey, there’s something I want to show you.
“I’d like your critique.”
She took out a half-finished girl’s sock from the bag and showed it.
“Yesterday, a friend showed me such lovely yarn, so I went and bought it right away on my way home and started working on it.”
“But this one’s the roughest of them all.”

“My, how soft.”
Tsuruko languidly pressed the back of her hand against it.
“It really is soft.”

“From this part here, I use four needles to make five.”
“I’m actually knitting Shin’ichi’s socks separately right now, but for the lining and heels, I stuff cotton firmly.”
“My, bandit socks indeed!”
“Because if he makes holes at a rate of two or three pairs a week that can’t be neatly darned, I just can’t keep up!”

While putting on an exaggerated frown, Tsuneko was attentively observing even the slightest changes in Tsuruko’s expression during this time.

The four of them fell silent once more.
The coal in the fireplace burned comfortably, just as Shintoku preferred.
And about five minutes passed.

――Suddenly, the doorbell rang at the front entrance.
The four of them looked up in unison.

“If it’s my guest, show them to the study,”
Shintoku said to Tsuneko in a displeased voice.

Who could it be? At this hour.

Tokujirō, who received more irregular visitors than his brother, pricked up his ears.
But even he could only hear the sound of the tram's trolley pole moving around the park's perimeter.
The maid entered.

“Who?”
Tsuneko asked in a whisper through tight lips，mindful of how near they sat to the entrance．

“Master Shin’ichi，madam．”

“Shin’ichi? What could have happened to him?”

“It seems Master Shin’ichi wasn’t feeling well, so someone like a teacher from the school has accompanied him here.”

“There’s no need to be vague about who it is. The calling card?”
Tsuneko, who felt ill at ease unless guests were properly entertained, said irritably.

“We received it. He seemed about to leave right away without coming in, but…”

“Just give it here quickly!”
She briskly accepted the calling card, but upon glancing at it, suddenly seemed to forget her earlier agitation as she remarked, “Ah, right,” and stood up nonchalantly.

“In any case, let Shin’ichi rest.
“Shall I go to the entrance?”
Shintoku impatiently began to act true to form.

“Yes, yes.
“I’ll take care of it right away.”
A strangely thoughtful look appeared on Tsuneko.
“Take Shin’ichi to the long chair and have him lie down for a while.
“And Tsuruko-san.
“Could you take his temperature, if you please?”

Tsuruko left the room.

“You… What do you suppose this is?”
After carefully pausing, Tsuneko held out the business card.
“This is what comes of you two gossiping.”
“Your punishment—Mr. Morioka Wasaku… What do you say?”
She read aloud while maintaining a strained smile.
“Go give him a proper greeting.”

A faint look of confusion appeared on Tokujirō’s face as he uttered, “Hoh.”

“Morioka? How unfortunate.
“Shall we have him come in here?”
Shintoku, who had neither preconceptions nor interest in the matter, said in the same tone as before.

“Well… But I wonder if he might not say he’s leaving right in the entranceway?”

While straightening her attire, Tsuneko was already hurrying with short, quick steps toward the doorway.
“It’s fine—I’ll make sure to properly convey our thanks.”

……Tsuneko had genuinely loved her sister-in-law.
It was the unique affection of a woman whose own experience of marriage now lay behind her.
She had devised various plans for Tsuruko’s happiness—a sense of responsibility that she could manage everything from start to finish included, or perhaps all the more because of it—.
In such a position, she found herself constantly preoccupied with how, despite Tsuruko being a perfectly respectable young woman in terms of both beauty and temperament, there was somehow an unassuming reticence in all her affairs that left her impression unremarkable.
……But now, for Tsuruko’s sake, Tsuneko had just begun securing the first threads of an exceptionally favorable marriage arrangement.
For that very reason, she had become the most anxious in the household when it came to matters concerning Tsuruko.

“...I do hope he really leaves at the entrance.”

Tsuneko sensed spring air filling the dim corridor as she wished this from her heart.
When recalling Wasaku—whose behavior swung unpredictably between extreme reserve and its opposite—she felt that old peculiar unease surface again.

“Right… He absolutely must leave at the entrance.”

Her nerves tightened with instinctive loathing toward any trivial disruption to family peace as she slowly opened the thick glass entrance door.

But outside was the same stagnant, unmoving air that had lingered in the corridor moments earlier, with only the light cast from beneath the plaster eaves pooling softly upon the stone pavement.

“Oh?”

Tsuneko stood motionless, leaving the door open.

“...Well, that’s good. He’s left after all.”

She inhaled deeply the night air that seemed to hold some fragrance, unable to suppress the expression of relief welling up within her.

“Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness.”

Feeling she had successfully safeguarded their happiness, she made the sound of her slippers and proceeded straight into the back where Shin’ichi lay.

――――――――――――――――

Morioka Wasaku had emerged from the quiet mansion district housing the Kanou residence to the bustling streetcar thoroughfare, then onward to the dazzling main avenue lined with street trees and streetlights. He still felt behind him the composed stillness of that hedge-encircled building. To him, its roof and walls seemed to smile fixedly in the darkness while steadfastly repelling both night’s chill and unforeseen calamities. He drew a deep breath like one who had just stepped from a greenhouse.

After all, that had been the right thing to do.
"I came out before startling a household from another world."

……And beneath his old overcoat, he felt resolve.

Wasaku walked with long strides along the bustling pedestrian path of the main avenue, weaving through people who had stopped in front of night stalls.

—The sky had undergone a change without anyone noticing.
The pale, mist-like clouds that had been steadily dissolving and spreading for about an hour now hung low over the city, completely obscuring not only the crucial comet but everything else.
And afterward, the buoyant spring night air alone claimed the space for itself.
It bore no resemblance to the sky from earlier, which had strained to suggest metaphors like the vastness of the cosmos and the minuteness of humanity.

Only the moon’s whereabouts could be vaguely discerned.……

Wasaku suddenly recalled a poetic phrase he had read during his Third Higher School days: “On a hazy night—might there be a love unbefitting one’s countenance?” And as he walked, he stared intently at where the moon should be.

But before long, he noticed himself coldly observing such a version of himself.
He blushed.
He shook his head angrily.

Wasn’t that all just trivial nonsense!
If rumors of Tsuruko’s marriage were to reach his ears, wouldn’t they soon vanish without a trace!

Second block, third block—he walked onward at the same pace, gazing vacantly a few paces ahead.

"Past, sleep!" After a moment, he told himself with agitation.
"That sort of past…"

A sunken emptiness came.
And once more, that familiar post-illness fatigue gradually took hold of his body.
This won't do.
He kindled the resolve beneath his old overcoat.

“Right. …Once spring comes, I must recover my health and quickly begin proper work!”

He recalled a certain research project whose general framework Professor X had kindly taught him when leaving Kyoto—if only he could recover his health, and if only he could begin that work, then perhaps he might become a version of himself capable of laughing down at his present state.
Thus he thought.

Wasaku was filled with the desire to be kind to his current impatient self.

Reaching Fifth Block, he emerged at the streetcar intersection by the moat. Wasaku boarded the streetcar, fearing he had overexerted himself through walking. He calculated that returning to his lodgings would bring the time exactly to ten o'clock. But on this buoyant hazy night, he worried whether sleep would truly come as things stood.

(Taisho 12th Year, April)