Pathway to Japanese Literature

I was fifteen.
And you were thirteen.

I was practicing baseball with your brothers in a field overgrown with white clover flowers.
You were watching our practice from afar with your little brother,
picking those white flowers and making flower wreaths all the while.
A fly ball went up.
I ran with all my might.
The ball touched the glove.
A foot slipped.
My body somersaulted and plummeted from the field into the rice paddy.
I became a ditch rat.

I was taken to the wellside of a nearby farmhouse.
I became stark naked there.
Your name was called.
You came running up, carefully holding the flower wreath in both hands.
How becoming stark naked transforms one's perspective!
Until now I had thought of you as nothing but a little girl, yet suddenly you appeared before my eyes transformed into a grown woman.
Stark naked, I suddenly became flustered and finally hid my genitals with my glove.

There, leaving just the two of us—me, looking embarrassed, and you—behind, everyone went off again to practice baseball.
And while you washed my mud-caked trousers for me, I tried to hide my embarrassment by clowning around, showing off how I wore the flower wreath I brought for you in place of my hat.
And there I stood, like some ancient statue, frozen in immobile stance.
My face bright red.

……

1

Summer vacation had arrived.

From the dormitory, the young students who had just moved in that spring left the nest like a swarm of bumblebees, humming as they went.
Each heading toward their own wild roses.
……

But what was I to do!
I had no hometown of my own.
The house where I was born stood in the very heart of the city.
Moreover, I was an only son and a weakling.
Therefore, still not having left my parents' care, I couldn't even manage to travel alone.
But this time, having entered a higher school, the circumstances differed slightly from before - there existed this vacation assignment during summer break.
The task was to go to the countryside and find a girl.

Unable to go to that countryside alone, I waited in the heart of the city for a miracle to occur.
That was not in vain.

From your brothers, who had gone to spend a summer at a certain coast in C Prefecture, arrived an unexpected letter of invitation.

"Oh, my cherished childhood friend!
I felt my way through my memories.
First came the figures of your brothers—both slightly older than me, dressed in pure white athletic uniforms.
Almost every day, I practiced baseball with them.
One day, I fell into a rice paddy.
At your side where you held the flower wreath, I was stripped naked.
I turned bright red.
……Eventually, both of them went off to regional high schools.
Nearly three or four years had passed by now.
After that, I rarely had chances to play with them anymore.
During that time, you were the only one I would often pass in town.
Without exchanging a single word, we simply blushed and bowed to each other.
You wore a girls' school uniform.
As we passed each other, I heard the sound of your small shoes…"

I begged my parents for that trip to the coast.
And finally, I was permitted a one-week stay.
I set off with my heart pounding, lugging a basket stuffed with a swimsuit and glove.

It was a very small village called T…….
You all were living in a modest detached cottage belonging to a certain farmhouse, its edges lined with various flowers.
When I arrived, you all had gone to the coast.
Left behind were only your mother and your sister—whom I didn’t know well—keeping watch over the house.

When I was shown the way to the coast, I immediately kicked off my shoes and dashed along the narrow path through the pine grove.
The scorched sand gave off a pleasant scent, like that of burning bread.

At the coast, light filled every space so densely that it became dazzling to the point of blindness. To enter that brilliance, one would need to transform into some sort of fairy. Like a sightless man, I groped forward with outstretched hands and hesitantly stepped into the glare.

Small children were industriously burying someone alive in the sand when a half-naked girl drifted into my blurred vision. Thinking it might be you, I began drawing near... Then from beneath a large seaside hat, an unfamiliar dark face - small and foreign - flashed a glance in my direction before retreating completely back into its woven shelter as if nothing had occurred. That single motion rendered my legs immobile.

While my feet were caught in the quicksand, I shouted randomly toward the sea.
“Hello!” … And from within that dazzling sea where I couldn’t see a thing came a reply: “Hello! Hello!”

I hurriedly took off my clothes. And now wearing only a swimsuit, I braced myself to leap blindly toward the direction of the voice.

At that moment, from right at my feet came a “Hello!...” — I turned around.
This time, I could clearly see the girl from earlier emerging halfway from the sand and smiling sweetly.

“Oh, it was you?”

“Couldn’t you tell?”

There was something peculiar about the swimsuit.
The moment I was left wearing nothing but that single garment, I became one of the fairies.
I turned weightless, and all that had been invisible until now suddenly came into view…

Even love’s complexities that seem so daunting in the city—country living teaches us they need only be supremely simple!
To win a girl’s heart, one must wholly adopt her family’s ways.
And this came easily to me through sharing life with your household.
I readily grasped that your favorite youths were your brothers.
They adored sports.
Thus I strove to become sportive myself.
Then they proved both affectionate toward you and mischievous by turns.
Following their lead, I too excluded you from every game.

While you were playing with your younger brother at the water's edge, I swam far offshore with just your brothers, hoping to gain your favor.

When swimming far offshore, the water was so clear that our shadows as we swam, along with those of fish, were reflected on the seabed.
Because of this, whenever clouds resembling them floated in the sky, I even came to think those too might be our shadows cast upon the sky.…

Our country living was back-to-back with various livestock sheds, like the front and back of a one-sen copper coin.
Sometimes the livestock mated.
The screams from that would reach us.

When I exited the back gate, there was a small pasture.
A pair of cows were always eating grass there.
When evening came, they would disappear without a trace.
Afterward, we always played catchball.
Then you would come out to play there—sometimes with your sister, other times with your younger brother.
As if it were some time ago, while picking flowers in the distance and singing the hymns you had just learned.
At times when you faltered, your sister would continue it in a soft voice.—Your little brother, still only eight years old, remained constantly by your side.
He was too small to join our group.
Kissing your little brother once a day had become one of your daily rituals.
“I haven’t given you a single one today…”
Saying that, you pulled your younger brother close and kissed him calmly right in front of us.

I kept up my pitching motion indefinitely while watching it out of the corner of my eye.

Beyond that pasture lay wheat fields.
A small river flowed between the wheat fields.
We often went there to fish.
You followed behind us, your younger brother shouldering a fishing rod while you carried a fish basket.
Because I was afraid of earthworms, I had your brothers put them on the hook for me.
Yet mine would always get eaten immediately.
In the end, they found it too bothersome and forced the task upon you watching nearby.
Since you didn't dislike earthworms like I did.
You bent toward me to attach one to my hook.
You wore your good straw hat adorned with red cherry ornaments.
The supple brim grazed my cheek.
I took a deep breath to hide how you affected me.
But you gave off no scent at all.
Only the faintly burnt smell of straw from your hat.
...I felt dissatisfied, almost deceived by you.

In that T Village，which was still not very developed，there were almost no other groups that seemed like summer visitors besides us.
We were the popular ones in that small village.
When we were at places like the coast，such a crowd would always gather around us.
And so，the kind villagers mistook me for your brother.
That made me even more elated.

Not only that, but your mother—unlike my own, whose smothering affection children find tiresome—treated me with the same casual disregard she showed her own children.
That made me believe I was liked by her as well.

The planned week had already passed.
However, I made no move to return to the city.

Ah, if only I had followed your brothers' example and done nothing but be mean to you, I wouldn't have made such a blunder!
A sudden temptation came over me.
I became desperate to play with you alone, even just once.

“Can you play tennis?”
One day, you said to me.

“Ah, a little, I suppose…”

“Well then, would I be just about your level?”
“…Why don’t we give it a try?”

"But we don't have a racket—where on earth would we even play?"

"If we go to the elementary school, they'll lend us everything we need."

Seeing this as the perfect chance to be alone with you, I told an obvious lie to not let it slip away.
I had never once held a racket in my hands before.
But facing just a girl, I thought I could manage such a thing easily enough.
Your brothers were always sneering at tennis!
Because they looked down on it.
Yet when we invited them, they came along to the elementary school too.
Because going there meant they could throw the shot put.

In the elementary school garden, the oleanders were in full bloom.
They immediately started throwing the shot put under those trees.
You and I moved a little away from there, drew lines with chalk, set up a net, then gripped our rackets and faced each other with exaggerated seriousness.
But when we tried, your hits were stronger than I’d expected, so most of my returns ended up caught in the net.
After five or six times, you made an angry-looking face and threw down your racket.

“Let’s stop.”

“Why?”
I felt slightly nervous.

“Because you’re not taking it seriously at all… It’s boring.”

Considering this, my lie hadn’t actually been exposed.
Yet your misunderstanding tormented me even more.
Better to be seen a liar than such a heartless brute.

I puffed out my cheeks and wiped my sweat without speaking.
Those pale crimson oleander flowers had been distractingly vivid since earlier.

These past few days you had been wearing a mousy gray swimsuit that hung loosely about you. You were reluctant to wear it - all your previous swimsuits had mysteriously developed large heart-shaped holes around the chest area. As a stopgap measure you'd borrowed one from your older sister who seldom went in the water anyway. New swimsuits were unobtainable in this village - you'd have to go all the way to the station town nearly four kilometers away to buy one. So one day, hoping to atone for my tennis blunder, I offered myself as messenger for this errand.

“I wonder if there’s somewhere that would lend us a bicycle?”

“If it’s the barber’s…”

I put on a large swimming cap and set off under the blazing sun astride that weather-beaten bicycle from the barber’s.

In that town, I searched through several Western goods stores.
How purchasing a girl's swimsuit seized my heart!
Even after having long since found a swimsuit that would suit you, I still pretended to be choosing it endlessly to satisfy myself.
Then I went to the post office and sent a telegram addressed to my mother.

“BONBON OKURE”

And so, drenched in sweat like an athlete nearing the finish line with deathly determination, I pedaled back to the village while stamping on the pedals.

Two or three days passed after that.

One day at the coast, we lay sprawled out taking turns burying each other in the sand.
It was my turn.
I had been buried completely alive and finally managed to get just my face out from the sand.
You were putting the finishing touches on the details.
Letting you do as you pleased, I had vaguely noticed for some time two women under a large pine tree in the distance who kept looking our way and talking while laughing.
The one wearing the swimming cap seemed to be your mother.
The other woman appeared to be someone we had never even glimpsed in this village.
She held a black parasol.

“Oh, that’s Tatsu-chan’s mother!”
You stood up while brushing sand from your swimsuit.

“Hmph…”
I gave a reply that feigned indifference.
Though everyone else had risen, I alone remained buried in the sand.
My heart pounded wildly.
My secret stood on the brink of exposure.
This made my face—protruding from its sandy grave—appear utterly grotesque.
How I longed to bury that telltale visage too!
For I had been sending my mother nothing but carefully crafted letters steeped in artificial melancholy from the countryside.
I thought this pretense would please her…
Could she have been so moved by my feigned sorrow at our separation that she came to retrieve me?
Yet here I lay—buried alive in blissful happiness for the sake of a girl I’d hidden from her!

"Oh, wait a minute—judging by your manner earlier, you seemed to know my mother somehow! But that wasn't how it was supposed to be?" From within the sand, I stealthily observed everyone's movements. Apparently, my mother and your family had been acquainted since long before—no matter how I tried, I couldn't grasp that reality. In this way, it was as though I—who had been trying to deceive—had instead been outmaneuvered by my own mother.

Suddenly brushing off the sand, I stood up. "This time I'll uncover Mother's secrets instead—that'll serve her right!" Thereupon, I began subtly probing you as we brought up the rear of the group withdrawing toward home.

"...How did you know my mother?"

"But your mother always came to the sports festival, didn't she? She always watched together with my mother."

I had been completely unaware of this—because ever since elementary school, I had been mortified even by my own mother addressing me in front of others. And so I had done nothing but hide from her...

——And it was still so now.
At the wellside, even after everyone had finished washing themselves, I kept dawdling there endlessly.
Just because I wanted to hide from my mother.
As I squatted by the wellside—thanks to a dahlia that had grown as tall as my back—those in the detached room couldn't see me at all.
Yet their voices came through as clearly as if I could reach out and touch them.
The matter of my Bonbon telegram was being discussed.
Everyone, even you, burst out laughing.
With an embarrassed air, I began smoking the cigarette I'd tucked behind my ear.
I choked on the smoke repeatedly.
And that masked my shame.

Footsteps approached me.
It was you.

“What’re you doing? …Your mother will be back soon—hurry up and go!”

“Once I finish this smoke…”

“Well!”
You met my eyes and smiled fleetingly.
At that moment we both felt how abruptly silent the detached room had become.

Though she’d specially brought Bonbons and other treats for him—though he wouldn’t even speak properly to her—his mother kept turning back from her rickshaw seat as she departed.
As if verifying whether this truly was her own son.
When her figure finally disappeared from view at last—as if not wanting even himself to hear—the son muttered under his breath: “Mother… forgive me.”

The sea grew rougher with each passing day.
Every morning saw sudden increases in driftwood washing ashore.
When entering the water, we'd get stung by jellyfish right away.
On such days we'd avoid swimming and instead go far along the shore collecting beautiful scattered shells.
The shells piled up considerably.

A few days before departure, when I went to wash my catchball-dirtied hands at the wellside, there you were being scolded by your mother. I sensed it concerned me.
Eavesdropping required more courage than I possessed.
Timid as I was, I retreated dejected—later returning alone to investigate stealthily.
There in the corner lay my swimsuit still rolled up and discarded.
It struck me suddenly.
Normally you'd rinse my swimsuit with my brothers' and hang it dry.
Clearly you'd been scolded over this earlier.
I wrung out the swimsuit silently and hung it properly as usual.

The next morning, I put on that swimsuit gritty with sand and went about with an innocent face. Perhaps it was my imagination, but you appeared slightly sullen.

At last, the vacation ended.

I returned together with your family. Inside the train were many women with faces deeply tanned from the summer resort's outskirts. You compared how tan you were with each of those girls one by one. And since you had the darkest tan of anyone, you seemed rather proud of it. I was slightly disappointed. But your Straw Hat—worn slightly askew, adorned with red cherry ornaments—suited your sun-darkened, innocent face remarkably well. Therefore, I did not grieve so much over that. If I in the train appeared to look truly sorrowful, it was because I was thinking that the final part of my homework had turned out somewhat poorly. I suddenly heard your mother consulting with your brothers about whether to buy sandwiches or something once we arrived at the next station. I had become quite nervous. And worried that I alone might be left out from then on. When we arrived at the next station, I was the first to jump down onto the platform and bought plenty of sandwiches all by myself. And I shared them with you all.

2

The autumn term began.
Your brothers returned to their provincial schools.
I entered the dormitory once more.

I returned to my own home every Sunday.
And met with my mother.
From around this time, my relationship with my mother began gradually taking on tragic qualities.
For those who love each other to maintain equilibrium constantly, both must grow together.
Yet this proves difficult in relationships such as that between mother and child.

In the dormitory, I hardly thought about my mother.
Because I could believe she would remain forever unchanged.
Yet all that time, my mother had been constantly anxious about me.
She had come to realize I might suddenly mature within that week into a young man completely unknown to her.
When I returned from the dormitory, she remained utterly unsettled until finding traces of my former childlike innocence within me.
And she artificially cultivated it.

If I were to reach an age where such childlike innocence no longer suited me yet still remained burdened with it, becoming an unhappy person because of that—Mother, it would be entirely your doing.…

One Sunday, when I returned from the dormitory, my mother had done her hair not in her usual chignon but in an unfamiliar updo. While looking at that, I said to my mother with a slightly concerned look:

"Mother, that hairstyle doesn't suit you at all..."

After that, my mother never did her hair in that style again.

And yet, at the dormitory, I practiced becoming an adult every day.
Without heeding my mother's words, I began growing out my hair.
As if through that my childlike innocence could be concealed.
And so I tried desperately to forget about my mother, deliberately tormenting myself with the tobacco smoke I detested.

Anonymous letters in feminine handwriting occasionally arrived at my roommates' places.
Everyone formed a ring around them.
They took turns blushing while mixing half-truths as they spoke about that anonymous girl.
I too wanted to join their circle, and every day I waited restlessly for a letter—perhaps one you might send me anonymously—those letters destined never to arrive.

One day, when I returned from the classroom, there was a small envelope in feminine handwriting placed on my desk.
With my heart pounding, when I picked it up and looked, it was a letter from your sister.
It was a thank-you note because I had sent your sister—who had continued studying English even after graduating from girls' school—a few Western books some time ago, solely wanting to receive its reply.
However, your earnest sister had written her own name in a way that anyone could immediately recognize.
It appears that failed to stir anyone's curiosity.
I was merely teased lightly about that letter and that was all.

After that, I often sent your sister various books just to receive such letters, even if they were merely like that.
Then your sister would invariably send me a reply.
Ah, if only those letters hadn't borne her meticulous signature—how much better it would've been!
...

The anonymous letters never came to me, no matter how much time passed.

Before long, summer came around once again.

I visited T Village again because I had been invited by you all.
I found once more the village, unchanged from last year—beautiful and compact—and the memories of our summer play from last year that filled every corner of that village.
As for myself, I had changed somewhat from the previous year, and had become quite sensitive to your family’s attitude toward me.

Even so, how completely you'd changed in less than a year! Your features had grown so melancholic they were nearly unrecognizable. You no longer spoke to me with last year's familiarity. Gone was the straw hat with red cherries that once made you look so innocent—now you styled your hair in grape-like clusters like a proper young woman. Even when appearing at the shore in that mouse-gray swimsuit, she no longer pestered us as before—no longer enduring our exclusion from the group—content instead to play solely with her little brother. I couldn't help feeling somehow betrayed by you.

Every Sunday, you began going to the village's small church accompanied by your sister.
Now that I thought of it, you seemed to have abruptly started resembling your sister.
Your sister was the same age as me.
She always gave off an unpleasant odor like freshly washed hair.
Yet she truly had a gentle nature and modest demeanor.
And she studied English all day long.

Had your sister's influence suddenly replaced your brothers' as you came of age?
Even so, why did you appear to avoid me at every turn?
This I couldn't comprehend.
Might that sister be secretly harboring feelings for me—and might you know this, attempting sacrificial withdrawal?
Thinking such thoughts, I suddenly remembered, cheeks burning, those two or three letters exchanged with your sister.
……

When you all were at the church, village youths would often hurl vulgar abuse as they passed by, and because of that, you all detested it.

One Sunday, while you all were practicing hymns, I hid in a corner of that church with your brothers, each gripping a bat as we lay in wait for those village troublemakers.
They came to mock you all as usual, baring their white teeth in complete ignorance.
Your brothers suddenly threw open the window and roared at them with fearsome intensity.
I mimicked them.
......Ambushed by our attack, they scrambled away in panicked flight.

I felt triumphant, as though I alone had driven them back. As though craving your praise, I turned toward where you stood. Then I noticed a sallow-faced, gaunt young man standing shoulder to shoulder with you, pressed close enough to touch. He watched us with timid eyes. A restless unease began stirring in my chest.

I was introduced to that young man. Deliberately feigning indifference, I gave only the slightest bow.

He was the son of that village's kimono shop owner.
Due to illness, he had left middle school midway and secluded himself in this countryside, self-studying using lecture notes.
And though I was much younger than him, he kept asking about things like what my school was like.

I quickly perceived that this young man seemed to favor me more than your brothers did, but for my part, I simply couldn't bring myself to like him much.
Had he not appeared as my rival, I likely wouldn't have glanced his way at all.
Yet it was I who first noticed that he seemed to have won your favor.

The young man’s appearance rejuvenated me like an elixir.
I, who had lately seemed only somewhat sorrowful, became once more a boy as cheerful as before, swimming with your brothers and starting to play catchball.
In truth, I understood full well that doing such things was merely to make myself forget my own pain.
Your young brother, who had turned nine this year, also began joining our group around this time.
And even he, following our example, boycotted you.
That left you abandoned under a large pine tree.
Always alone with that young man!

I left the village alone one day, leaving you all behind in the shade of that large pine tree like Paul and Virginie.

Two or three days before my departure, I alone frolicked about with particular abandon—from the foolish thought that I wanted to make you all realize as much as possible how lonely your country life would become after I was gone. ...And so because of that, I became utterly exhausted and departed while secretly crying.

After autumn arrived, that young man suddenly sent me a long letter.
I made a sullen face while reading it.
Toward the end, it described how you had gazed at him from the rickshaw when departing, your face looking ready to burst into tears—written like some pastoral novel's epilogue.
Yet I secretly envied those sentimental protagonists.
But why would he confess his love for you to someone like me?
Or was this meant as a challenge?
If so, that letter was certainly effective.

That letter dealt me the final blow.
I suffered.
But to the extent that this suffering held such unbearable fascination for me, I was still a child back then.
I willingly gave up on you.

From around that time, I began voraciously reading poetry and novels like a starving man.
I distanced myself from all sports.
I became a boy so melancholic I seemed unrecognizable.
My mother finally began to worry about that.
She subtly probed my heart.
And there she discovered the influence of a single girl.
But, ah, my mother always comes too late!

I one day suddenly announced to my mother that I wanted to abandon the medical studies I was meant to enter and switch to the humanities.
My mother simply stood dumbfounded as she listened.

It was a day that seemed like it might be autumn's last. I was climbing the narrow hillside path behind the school with a friend when I noticed two female students descending from the slope above, bathed in autumn sunlight. We passed through each other like air. One looked so much like you. As we crossed paths, my eyes suddenly caught the girl's casually braided hair. It held a faint scent of autumn sun. That subtle daylight fragrance made me recall the straw hat's aroma from long ago. I found myself breathing hard.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I just thought it was someone I knew… But no, I was wrong.”

3

The following summer vacation, I was taken by a certain famous poet I had become acquainted with shortly before to a certain plateau.

The majority of summer visitors who gathered at that plateau every year were either foreigners or people from the upper class.
On the hotel terrace, foreigners were always reading English newspapers or playing chess.
While walking through the larch forest, suddenly the sound of horse hooves came from behind.
The vicinity of the tennis court was lively every day, as if an outdoor dance party was being held.
From the church right behind it, the sound of the piano could be heard constantly.
......

The poet who spent every summer on that plateau had become acquainted with many girls there.
I secretly dreamed that one of those several girls who would bow to the poet in passing might someday become my lover.
And to make that dream come true, I thought there was nothing for it but to quickly become a famous poet myself.

It was a certain day.

I was strolling along the main street of that town, walking alongside the Poet as usual.
At that moment, we encountered about half a dozen girls coming toward us from ahead—some carrying tennis rackets, others pushing bicycles with both hands—all chattering noisily as they approached.
The girls paused for a moment to make way for us, and some among them bowed to the Poet who was with me.
He engaged in some conversation with them for a while... By that time, I had already moved several steps away from there without conscious intent.
And there I stood motionless, my heart leaping with anticipation that the Poet might at any moment call my name and introduce me to those girls—yet feigning nonchalance all the while as I stared at the turkey kept in front of the poultry shop.……

However, the girls didn't even glance my way and moved away from the poet while chattering noisily again.
I too turned away from that direction as much as possible.

Then, as I started walking alongside the poet once more, I eagerly yet nonchalantly asked him for the names of the girls we had just met, one after another.
Just as wildflowers that had been aloof toward me would suddenly take a liking to me simply because I learned their names, so too did it seem that if I were to learn those girls' names, they might proactively approach me of their own accord.

After staying there for about three weeks amidst such things, I alone left the plateau first.

When I returned home, my mother seemed as happy as though her true son had come back for the first time. Because I had completely become my old lively self again—the son I used to be. But my high spirits came from burning with a childish ambition to quickly become a famous poet, solely to captivate the many girls I had met on that plateau. My mother, unaware of such ambitions of mine, loved me passionately solely because of the childlike qualities that had been revived within me.

Shortly after returning from that plateau, I received a telegram sent by your brothers from T Village.
It was a kind of coded telegram: "BONBON OKURE."

This time, without harboring any hopes and merely out of timidity, I visited T Village for the third time, unable to refuse your brothers' invitation. For I also felt a desire to see once more—even just a glimpse—the sea of that village steeped in memories of my boyhood, its small stream, pastures, wheat fields, and old church, which I might never lay eyes on again after this, perhaps for the rest of my life. And also—more than anything—I wanted to know how you had been since then.

How shabby and cramped that seaside village now appeared to my eyes—the same village I had until now imagined as beautiful as a great seashell! How my former lover, whom I once found so innocent, now appeared to me as nothing but an aloof, contrary girl! And when I saw my rival—his complexion grown far worse than last year's, his frame emaciated—I even began to feel something akin to pity. Thus I took increasing care to avoid him. He would sometimes fix me with sorrowful gazes... In those wordless yet expressive eyes—so utterly changed from last year's—I fancied I discerned his anguish. Yet for my own part, perhaps because I'd come to regard these days as my boyhood's final chapter, I found myself able to frolic with your brothers in utmost cheerfulness.

The kimono shop owner’s son was living alone in a small villa that had just been built that year.
He had had that new villa built to welcome your family that summer.
However, his illness did not permit that.
You all had been living in last year’s farmhouse annex with only women.
Only your brothers and I went to stay at the young man’s house.

One early morning.
I was in the toilet.
From that small window, the wellside scene became fully visible.
Someone had come to wash their face.
As I casually peered through the window, the young man was brushing his teeth with a pale complexion.
Around his mouth, a little blood had seeped.
He seemed not to notice it.
I too had thought it was only coming from his gums.
Suddenly, he choked and bent forward.
And there at the sink, he vomited a clot of blood.…

That afternoon, without informing anyone of that matter, I suddenly left T Village.

Epilogue

Earthquake!
It appears to overturn even the order of love.

I ran from the dormitory to my house without even wearing a hat, still in my sandals.
My house had already burned down.
I could not ascertain my parents' whereabouts.
Thinking they might have evacuated there, I joined the crowd of evacuees heading toward Y Village on the outskirts where my paternal relatives lived, and before I knew it, I was walking barefoot.

I unexpectedly found your family among that crowd of evacuees.
We were so worked up we slapped each other's shoulders until they ached.
You all looked completely exhausted from walking.
I told you we'd manage for one night if we reached nearby Y Village, then practically dragged you there by force.

In Y Village, a large tent had been set up in the middle of the field.
A bonfire had been lit.
And then from late at night, the food distribution began.
Even by that time, my parents had not shown up there.
However, thanks to those vivid scenes around us, my heart spontaneously lifted as if we were living a camp life together with you all.

I lay down with your family in a corner of that tent, our bodies overlapping in a single mass. When I turned over, my head would inevitably hit someone else’s. And so we lay awake, unable to fall asleep no matter how long we tried. From time to time, fairly large aftershocks occurred. Then someone suddenly began crying in a manner that resembled laughter… After drifting off to sleep for a short while, I abruptly woke to find sleep-mussed hair from some unknown woman brushing against my cheek. In my half-asleep state, I caught the faint fragrance. The fragrance seemed to rise faintly not so much from the hair right before my nose as from within my memories. It was your scent—a scent without scent. It was the scent of the sun. It was the scent of the straw hat… I pretended to be asleep and buried my cheek in that hair. You remained motionless. Had you too been pretending to sleep?

Early in the morning, news of my father's arrival woke us.
My mother had become separated from my father.
And her whereabouts still remained unknown.
Those who had evacuated to the embankment near my house had all jumped into the river—it was possible they had drowned there...

As I listened to my father's sorrowful story this way, gradually becoming fully awake, I realized I'd been silently shedding tears without noticing.
But this wasn't me grieving over my mother's death.
Had that been sorrow, it would have been far too immense for me to start weeping so immediately over it!
I had simply awakened and suddenly remembered last night's unexpected, strange caress with you—you whom I thought I no longer loved, you who I believed no longer loved me either—and for that reason alone I was crying...

Around noon that day, you all borrowed a horse-drawn cart, climbed aboard together like livestock, and set off toward some countryside I didn't know, jolted and rattled all the way.

I went to the edge of the village to see you all off.
The horse-drawn cart churned up a thick cloud of dust.
It threatened to sting my eyes.
Squeezing my eyes shut,

"Ah, I wish someone would tell me whether you're turning toward me..."

I muttered under my breath.
However, as if terrified to confirm it myself, even long after that dust had vanished, I kept my eyes tightly shut.