Teach Me How to Say Goodbye

Teach Me How to Say Goodbye

1

It was the kind of crush where you already knew how it’d end from the start.

It began in my second year of high school. I fell for someone for the first time. The guy was in the same grade as me.

That would have been fine.

People are made to become interested in each other, one way or the other. Anywhere you find humans, you’ll find relationships. There’s nothing sad or inconvenient about that.

But things were slightly different in my case.

I had a crush on my best friend’s boyfriend.

His name was Tooru Kamiya.

He was taller than average, but he wasn’t particularly good-looking. He was lanky and pale and used to being alone, and sometimes he looked sad when he smiled. His mother died when he was young, and he lived with his father, an aspiring novelist, in an apartment in a housing development. For different reasons, I also lived in a single-parent household, and while I don’t know this for sure, I think he’d given up on certain things and accepted reality, like I had.

I first met him in high school. We weren’t in the same class, though. Because of his family situation, Tooru wasn’t planning to go to university. Instead, he’d decided to get a municipal job after graduating from high school. My best friend and I were both in the advanced class, which was part of the reason we didn’t cross paths with him.

At least, not at first. But one day in late May, a few months after the start of our second year, Tooru told my best friend, Maori Hino, that he liked her.

So there was me, Izumi Wataya.

Tooru Kamiya, who I barely knew.

And my best friend, Maori Hino.

If he hadn’t asked Maori out, the three of us would have never ended up meeting. Tooru and I would have been strangers forever. Just simple passersby in life. But meet we did. Each of us with our own peculiarities.

“Excuse me, can I talk to you for a minute?”

I still remember it like it was yesterday. Maori and I were chatting in the hallway after school when Tooru suddenly came up and started talking to Maori.

When I think back on this…I become somewhat sad.

Tooru only had eyes for Maori from the start. Of course he did. She was the one he needed to talk to, not me. I was only the sidekick. Maori’s friend, Female Student A.

I probably don’t need to tell you what became of Female Student A’s crush. She fell for the male lead, that’s all. Nothing would come of it, of course. I’m not much for love stories, but in a typical one, my role would have been to make the heroine look good.

I didn’t fall for Tooru right away. My initial reaction was a far cry from that. When he came up to Maori, I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t excited about it, even though he was the one approaching her. He struck me as having a backbone, but there was something suspicious about him.

Maori agreed to go with him behind the school.

She and I arranged to meet later in front of the school library. I considered secretly watching them, but even best friends need to maintain some basic courtesy. I waited anxiously for her to return.

“I decided to date him,” she told me when she arrived at the library. I was shocked.

Maori’s genuine personality and pretty face made her popular. And since she didn’t flirt with the boys, the girls held no ill will toward her. She was the kind of person everyone liked, but she had always turned down guys who asked her out in the past. This time was different.

“How come?” I asked.

“He asked me out. I thought I’d give it a go.”

“I don’t understand. Kamiya, was it? Did you tell him about your memory loss?”

“I didn’t, and I don’t plan to. I thought I could try something new even with my current condition.”

Memory loss.

If Maori had still been her old self, I might have taken the news more calmly. But there was a reason I couldn’t. Maori had a secret that none of her classmates other than me knew about.

She had amnesia. A particular kind called anterograde amnesia. It posed no major obstacle to her daily life, but ever since that accident during Golden Week in our second year of high school, she’d stopped being able to remember things that happened the day before.

When she went to sleep, her brain would begin to erase her memories of the day instead of processing them, so new memories could never accumulate.

And now she was saying that this guy Tooru, who she didn’t even know well, had asked her out, and they had started dating. Later, I learned that she had given Tooru three conditions for her to agree. First, he wasn’t allowed to talk to her until after school. Second, when they contacted each other, they would keep it short. And finally…he wasn’t allowed to fall in love with her.

2

I might misunderstand a bunch of things and run my mouth a lot, but I did understand that Wataya and I weren’t compatible.

Everything about me is average. That goes for the outside as well as the inside. I went through a phase where I worried that it was a problem and tried hard to think of something I excelled at, but all I could come up with was a compliment a teacher once wrote on my elementary school report card: Naruse never speaks ill of other people.

I studied hard to get into a national university, but so did everyone else who goes to my university.

I don’t have anything unique to offer. I think about that constantly.

But for the first time in my life, I fell in love at first sight.

She was a year ahead of me at the same university. Her name was Izumi Wataya. I remember the day I met her very well. I doubt I’ll forget it as long as I live.

It was April, just after I started school. Under a hazy spring sky, I was on campus talking to an older student who was from my town. We’d gone to junior high and high school together and were in the same club in junior high. He was kind to his underclassmen and was happy I was attending the same university.

“If you meet any cute freshman girls, make sure you introduce me, okay?”

…I mean this in the best way, but he’s a very friendly guy.

As we were talking, another student walked by. I noticed she held her head high.

“Hey, Wataya!” my friend called out. The woman stopped. Her short black hair swayed as she turned her beautiful face with its almond-shaped eyes toward us.

That was her.

After, the two of them had chatted for a minute before she waved goodbye and turned to go. But then, maybe because I was staring at her, she shifted her gaze in my direction. I remember the moment our eyes met. Her eyes had a dignified loneliness to them. Deep down inside her was a cool, clear sorrow that resisted any attempt by others to understand it.

For some reason, I sensed that.

But I doubt she remembers our gazes meeting. She turned away and walked off toward someplace for only her to inhabit.

“Hey, Naruse, are you okay?” my friend asked, probably noticing how dazed I looked.

“Oh, uh…yeah.”

Of course, part of it had to do with the fact that Wataya was beautiful. But I saw something more than beauty in her. That something was what instantly captured my heart.

“Um, who was that…?” I asked. He told me her full name and that she was in the same department as me.

“Let me guess, you’re interested in her?” he asked, amused.

“No…it’s just…”

“Leave it to me, buddy,” he said.

At the time, I had no idea what I was leaving to him. I smiled vaguely.

About a week later, he invited me to go out drinking. I agreed, figuring it was part of the university experience. A dozen or so second-year students met up at a pub. Wataya was sitting at the table next to mine. I realized with surprise why I’d been invited.

My friend had organized the get-together, and he told me that everyone was just grabbing a meal. I sat down in a corner, constantly aware of Wataya’s presence. After a while, my friend returned from talking to various people.

“How’s it going? You getting enough to drink?” he asked.

“I’m underage,” I answered.

“But you’re drinking.”

“This is oolong tea.”

Seeming to remember why I was there, he smiled, then called out to Wataya.

“Hey, Wataya! I went to high school with this freshman. He says he likes you.”

It hadn’t even been an hour since the party started, and my crush was already exposed. The people sitting near us shouted gleefully and peered at me with deep interest. As I panicked, Wataya looked over at me.

“Really? Is that true?”

“Um, well, it’s just…”

“You should forget about me. I’m a real pain in the ass.”

Now that I think about it, that was the first time she took notice of me as an individual.

I was so upset, I can’t remember what I said back. My peers pushed me toward her, and we ended up sitting next to each other and striking up a conversation. In contrast to my initial impression that she was gloomy, she turned out to be surprisingly laid-back. She laughed and joked a lot. She was already twenty, and she downed hard liquor as if it were water. I’d even call her cheerful.

I managed to tell her my name, but we didn’t get anywhere close to exchanging numbers. I was hoping to talk to her more at the second bar, but she ended up not going. When everyone left the first pub, she headed for the station with a couple of other people.

“Naruse, you better not go home yet,” my friend insisted, so I followed them to the second bar. Even though he’d asked me to introduce him to some cute freshmen the other day, he went on and on about some girl he was madly in love with but who had no clue he liked her.

I got home from my first drinking party in the middle of the night, completely exhausted. I took a shower and immediately went to bed…and had a very memorable dream. I was out drinking somewhere again. Wataya was there. She was sitting next to me, laughing, and I turned to her without thinking and asked, “What’s so funny?” Even for a dream, it was a pretty rude question. I wondered what made me ask it. Maybe I thought it was odd since she came across as being sad and lonely. Maybe I felt like she was forcing herself to laugh.

She turned to me and said with a gentle smile, “It’s better than crying.”

I woke with a start. It was morning. Because I made an effort to commit it to memory, my dream stayed with me, and my heart pounded from what I could recall of it.

Humans are strange creatures. It had been nothing more than a dream, but once again, Wataya was there, and I found myself even more interested in her. After that, I pursued every opportunity I could find to talk to her on campus.

“H-hello, Wataya,” I stuttered the first time. She was clearly taken aback.

“Aren’t you the guy I met the other night? Uh…Naruse, right? The one who said you like me?”

“Yup, that’s me. Thanks for talking to me at the party. H-how are you today?”

“Uh…what? Fine, I guess.”

It was strange talking to someone who knew I had feelings for them. I felt like clouds of unease and ambiguity were floating all around us.

Wataya’s short hair looked great on her. She came off as imposing and cool. But I’d realized at the bar she was approachable once she got talking, with the sadness that I felt from her the first time we’d met seemingly absent.

“Oh, look at the time. I need to get going. Um…bye, Naruse.”

I continued to greet her every time I saw her on campus. Our conversations were always about the same topics. Weather. Lectures. Classes in our department. Our mutual friend, the guy from my hometown. But that was enough for me. Wataya was aware of me as an individual. She even called me by my first name.

I felt we weren’t at level zero anymore—we progressed to level one, but it hadn’t grown into anything more.

No matter what you multiply it by, zero never becomes one. In a sense, there’s an infinite space between zero and one.

Level zero was when you were a passerby, part of the scenery. Very often, things end there. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I felt like there was something between Wataya and me. I tended to that connection with great care. I wanted very much to continue treasuring it.

Once I got used to university life, my biggest motivation for going to campus was getting an opportunity talk to her, even for a minute or two.

“Oh, Wataya!”

“Hi, Naruse. What are you doing here?”

“I hadn’t said hello to you today, so I searched for you.”

“You’re a lot stranger than you look, you know that?”

Sometimes she was out in the open on campus, but other times she was in odd places where no one else went. I was surprised by the area I found her in, and I wondered if she was trying to avoid me because I was annoying, but our mutual friend said she’d always been like that.

“Wataya likes to be by herself,” he told me.

He said she stared up at the sky a lot, and read, and wrote in what seemed to be a journal. I’d seen her doing those things, too.

“But when I see her talking to you, she seems kind of entertained. You shouldn’t worry so much. Now, let me tell you about the girl I like…”

He started rambling about his great love, but I felt encouraged by his words. I continued to look around for her on campus to talk to her. I’d find her behind the administrative building, or in unused classrooms, or at a table in the literature section of the library, or in the low-ceilinged dining hall located in a distant corner of the campus, or on a bench behind the library.

“Hello, Wataya.”

On this particular day, she was on the bench behind the library. The early summer sun didn’t reach back there, and it was cool and shady. She was reading a book.

“Hello,” she said. “You know, sometimes, I feel like an elementary school teacher saying hello to their student.”

“You’d make a good teacher.”

“Should I put on a pair of glasses for you?”

“No, you’re good how you are…,” I said, smiling. She closed her book. I caught a glimpse of the cover. Unexpectedly, it was a novel that had been adapted into a popular movie. I remembered it because the author was famous for being beautiful. If I recalled correctly, it was an adult romance story by Keiko Nishikawa.

“So you read romance novels? They made a movie out of that one, didn’t they?”

“Romance novels? Oh, you mean this? This is literary fiction. Though I guess it would be fun to read just for the love story.”

She was a bit more talkative than usual. Maybe she was into literature? I’d seen her in that section of the library.

“Sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll buy a copy.”

“Go for it. None of the characters are university students, but I think you’d like it. The paperback’s out, so you should be able to get it at any bookstore.”

The conversation was going unexpectedly well. I couldn’t help feeling elated.

“Will it make me cry?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m a sucker for stories like that. I have to be careful.”

“You do seem like the type who would cry when reading such stories.”

She smiled teasingly, which was embarrassing. It was exactly like she said.

“Sorry, sorry. That wasn’t an insult,” she said. “By the way, did you hear?”

She must have changed the subject to spare me the humiliation. We started talking about our mutual friend, who had finally told his crush that he liked her, only to be rejected. I’d already heard about it. In fact, I probably knew more about it than anyone else. Every time I bumped into my friend on campus, he would go on and on about it, and I was the one who had to comfort him in his darkest moments. When I told that to Wataya, she laughed.

“So you heard about how she turned him down.”

“I did indeed. Six times from start to finish.”

“That’s like watching six movies.”

“But every time, to make sure I didn’t get bored, he’d change the details a little and amp up his performance. By the time he perfects his story, it’ll be a real tearjerker. Or, I should say, a great love story.”

As we were talking about love, something occurred to me. I didn’t know if Wataya was already seeing someone. Our mutual friend didn’t seem to know much, either… Maybe now was my chance to make my move.

I got nervous all of a sudden. But Wataya went on talking, oblivious to my emotional state.

“I’m not sure if he’s worried about boring anyone… He’s probably just embellishing it for fun.”

“You won’t catch me complaining about it. There aren’t that many great love stories in real life.”

“…Yes, I guess you’re right.”

For some reason, she paused slightly before answering. Maybe because of the pause, I thought I glimpsed a momentary look of sadness on her face, like a flicker of light.

But I was too nervous to pay much attention to that. I could hear my heart pounding. I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know if she was seeing anyone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I mean, look how beautiful she was. She must have been in a relationship before. Had she let that person see a side of herself she never showed the rest of us? Was she still showing it to them? I wanted to know. I wanted to ask her about it somehow.

I decided I’d keep things light and ask her casually. Half-jokingly. As far as that was possible, of course. Like it was natural for our conversation to go there.

“I bet you’ve never had a passionate love affair, Wataya.”

For a second, she looked surprised. I instantly realized I’d said something undeniably rude. I tried to apologize, but she had a distant look in her eyes. Then she smiled quietly.

“You just don’t know me,” she said.

“What?”

She grinned again. A horribly sad smile. Then she checked the time on her phone.

“It’s getting late. I’ve got to go. See you.”

With that, she left. She walked off alone like she always did. Silently, I watched her leave. My heart stood still like a pool of water. She had made me realize that she had a whole world I knew nothing about.

“You just don’t know me.”

She was right. I knew nothing about her. Nothing about her present and nothing about her past. Bottled-up resentment consumed me.

That wasn’t all. Maybe I’d never know anything about her future, either…

Later, I asked some of the other people who had been at the party about her. They didn’t know anything about her past, but they did tell me she didn’t seem to have dated anyone since starting university. Which meant she must have been talking about when she was in junior high or high school. I took it she wasn’t with that person anymore.

After that, I refrained from approaching her. Partly because I felt bad about having been rude to her. More than that, though, I’d started to question whether it was enough to scamper around her like a playful puppy. Would things ever progress between us if I kept acting like that?

Two weeks passed before I unexpectedly ran into her again. It was early June, and I was studying in the library for the exams next month. Feeling worn out, I got up to walk around the library to wake myself up. I made sure to steer clear of the literature stacks. But I ran into her anyway. She was in a study carrel, sleeping with her head on the desk, which was unusual.

My heart started pounding. I remembered how strongly I was attracted to her.

The air-conditioning was cranked up high in the library. I was worried she might catch a cold if she continued to sleep there. I waffled but eventually decided to wake her up.

“…Oh, it’s you?” she asked drowsily when I tapped her shoulder. I didn’t have any dirty intentions, but I couldn’t help noticing her delicate shoulders through her shirt. Unsure how to interact with her, I frowned.

“I’m sorry. They have the air-conditioning on high, so I was worried you’d catch a cold.”

“Ah, gotcha. Thanks.”

Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her up close for a few weeks, but I couldn’t help staring at her. I’d fallen for her hard. She seemed sad but was cheerful, was cheerful but seemed sad… What made her like that? I didn’t know if I liked her because I wanted to know the answer or if I wanted to know the answer because I liked her. When I thought about her, my emotions threatened to overflow.

“Um, well…see you,” I said. I wanted to talk more, but I didn’t want to seem needy, so I turned quietly to leave.

“Hey, I should tell you,” she said.

I stopped and turned back around. She was standing up. For some reason, she wore a bitter smile.

“I don’t like nice guys.”

I didn’t know what to say. Maybe my friendliness annoyed her. Was she telling me to give up on going out with her?

“I’m not especially nice, so you don’t have to worry,” I said.

She was silent.

“Why don’t you like nice guys?” I asked without really thinking.

“…They turn my stomach.”

“What?”

“Humans are fundamentally self-centered beings. But nice guys don’t act like that.”

I wondered who she was talking about. She was standing in the library with me. She was part of the present. But she seemed to be staring at some far-off, distant place.

“You don’t like them because they don’t act self-centered?”

“Right. I want someone who’s egocentric, who does what they want without thinking about others. And if possible…I want them to not care that other people hate them. I want them to thrive with that kind of lifestyle.”

The way she said it made it sound like an ardent wish. When she was done talking, she stared at me. Then she smiled sadly, like she had that other time.

“I don’t think you’re that type, so I suggest you…”

Give up? I think that’s what she was going to say, but I stopped her midway.

“I…like you.”

I felt I had to say it while I still had the opportunity. Once she said “give up,” that would be my only option. But I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that. Knowing I’d lost my chance, I’d retreat to a lonely corner of the world from which I would watch her adoringly, traipsing around campus in her wake.

It was very easy to imagine myself doing that. At the same time, I knew asking her out was a desperate move. She was out of my league. She’d turn me down. I knew she would.

“I’ll date you, but on one condition.”

That’s why I was so surprised when she said that after a long silence. Maybe I’m imagining this, but I think she was taken aback by her response as well.

“Don’t fall in love with me. Can you promise me that?”

The nearly empty library was quiet, with only the soft whir of the air conditioner in the background. In contrast to the outside world, my internal world was incredibly noisy. My heart continued to pound away the seconds of my life.

This beautiful, cheerful, but forlorn woman was standing in front of me. I wanted to know more about her. But she was telling me not to fall in love with her.

What did that mean?

Did she think I was just playing around? That I liked her the same way I’d like a shirt or a pair of pants? But most importantly, what would happen if I rejected her condition? Would she turn the whole thing into a joke and cheerfully end our conversation? If that happened, would I ever get a glimpse of her past or her heart again?

I hesitated only for a moment. Whatever the answer to all those questions was, my mind was made up. I liked her. I wanted to get to know her better. Would my words reach her in time? She might tell me she was joking and withdraw her offer at any moment. Please, make it in time, I prayed.

“Yes,” I said.

3

Why did Tooru ask Maori out that day in our second year of high school, when he didn’t know her and seemed to have no interest in her? I wondered about that for the longest time.

It was a dare I took to protect a friend who was being bullied.

Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t find out right away. If I had, I probably would have resented him, because I didn’t know what he was really like at that point. I might even have told Maori she should break up with him right away. But Maori seemed to have guessed that it was a dare. It was exactly because she knew he didn’t have feelings for her that she was able to say yes and try something new, even with her anterograde amnesia.

In other words, they didn’t start dating because they liked each other. Tooru had his reasons, and Maori had hers. Since she started this all on her own, she hid the fact that they weren’t a real couple from me. That was part of why I was suspicious about him at first. I even suspected he had an ulterior motive for approaching her. My personality also played a factor. Unlike Maori, I didn’t get along with everyone. I was amicable on the surface, but I didn’t trust people easily.

I was afraid of people.

Unlike the characters in a novel, real human beings don’t always share what they’re thinking. The only way to get to know someone is by talking to them or reading their emotions through their face, but words and expressions can easily be faked. That was why I tried not to get close to anyone except for a few specific people. Instead of being popular, I’d figured I would get really close with that small circle of friends.

In high school, that was Maori. She was never two-faced. We had the same class in our first year. She befriended me despite my cold exterior. Before I knew it, we were best friends. I also respected her. She was a hard worker through and through. Sometimes between classes, she would stare at the middle finger of her right hand. I think I was the only one who noticed. She had a callus there from holding a pen. We went to a public college-preparatory high school, and everyone there had done fairly well in junior high. She kept grinding away after she was accepted to make sure she didn’t fall behind. That was why her callus never disappeared. I think she used to stare at it to judge her own efforts.

But she was only able to keep working like that until her accident. After she got amnesia, she couldn’t study anymore. No matter how much she studied in one day, the information never stuck. The next day, she would forget everything. But she still kept up a positive attitude. Thanks to the national disability policy and the cooperation from the school administrators, all she needed to do to graduate was attend school for a certain number of days. So she kept coming to class, and it was better for her mental health than taking time off or quitting and just sitting at home day in and day out. Inevitably, though, there were times when it was emotionally difficult for her. She would wake up in the morning and learn all over again that she had amnesia. She had to accept that and somehow go on with life every day. Naturally, it wasn’t easy. And she didn’t always feel the same way.

“There’s no point in living like that.”

She’d said that once. When she didn’t show up at school, I got worried and stopped by her house. She was shut up in her room. I think she’d been crying.

Maori must have felt like she’d been robbed of a future. So long as she had amnesia, she could never build anything up over time. No matter how hard she worked on any given day, everything was reset when she went to sleep at night.

The person who alleviated some of that pain…was Tooru.

Tooru, who wasn’t even supposed to like Maori, was able to do what I couldn’t do. Even though he was a fake boyfriend, he stuck by her side. And continued to stay there.

Maori’s parents and I thought we were supporting her as her family and best friend. But there are things family can’t do, things a friend couldn’t help with.

But a boyfriend, now, that’s different.

I’m going to show tomorrow’s Hino a good time.

At some point, Tooru truly fell in love with Maori. It was after he found out about her amnesia that she’d hidden from him.

Maori recorded her daily life in her notebooks and binder, using her diary to keep track of her memories. She wrote good things and bad things in them. Some of the entries made her happy while others made her sad. Tooru figured that out and tried to fill her diary with as many fun things as possible.

He did it in hopes that every morning when Maori was confronted with her anterograde amnesia, her diary would give her courage so that she wouldn’t be overcome with hopelessness. He ran himself ragged doing that. But she began to smile naturally when she was next to him.

I observed the two of them silently. I watched on as Tooru was transformed by their relationship, and even Maori, who couldn’t form new memories, changed. But maybe that’s the wrong way of putting it.

All I could do was watch silently.

I’d read a lot of books up until that point. I thought I understood life. But as obvious as it sounds…books can’t replace reality.

4

When I woke up, I thought it was all a dream.

Of course, I didn’t really think that. Reality is strong. But it felt unreal enough to have been a dream. I was dating Wataya. I had told her I liked her in the library, and she had accepted my confession, conditionally. Then we exchanged numbers.

“So starting today, we’re a couple?” she asked.

“I guess so…”

“How does it feel to be dating an older woman? Does it get you going?”

“Well, um…”

“I’m joking. You don’t have to answer that.”

She seemed to have forgotten her seriousness of a few minutes ago. Continuing to joke around, she picked up the books spread out on her desk and made to leave.

“Um, Wataya. Why can’t I fall in love with you?” I gathered the courage to ask.

She looked back at me, staring directly into my eyes. I continued.

“I might not have conveyed it well, but I really do—”

“Then it’s no good. Let’s cut things off now.”

Her blunt statement frightened me. She thought for a moment.

“It’s just that I… A make-believe relationship is enough. I don’t care if it’s a surface-level thing. I’d actually prefer that. If you don’t like the condition I set, then like I said—”

Let’s end it.

I interrupted her before she could say that.

“No, it’s fine. As long as I can be with you.”

Make-believe. She had just called our relationship that.

Surface level is enough.

I thought about how to make sense of that. I arrived at an answer surprisingly quickly. Make-believe was fine. That was all right for now. We could start out by pretending, but maybe at some point, we’d become a real couple.

I thought about that as I got ready to go to class the next morning. When I started university, I got my own apartment near campus. I left earlier than usual that morning because I had a lecture first period. My place was less than a ten-minute walk. As soon as I got on campus, I started looking around for Wataya out of habit.

I could have texted her something like Hey, are you coming to school today? But we’d only been dating for a day, so I didn’t have the guts. In the end, the morning passed without my seeing her. At lunchtime, I went to the dining hall with some friends in our department. As I was trying to decide what to eat, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned in that direction and saw Wataya carrying her tray of food to a table by herself.

“Staring at Wataya again?” one of my friends joked. They all knew I liked her, which was why they recognized her. They looked in her direction.

“Wow, she seems totally unbothered by eating alone. She’s so cool.”

“She’s a strange one. Aloof or something.”

My guess is that everyone at our school thought that way about her. Amid the herds of students who clumped together for fear that people would think they had no friends, she was completely fine with being alone, remaining dignified, cool, and mysterious…

I couldn’t believe I was dating her, even with conditions.

I told my friends I was going to get us a table and took out my phone. After hesitating for a moment, I sent her a message.

Hello. I found you.

I was slightly nervous. What would I do if she saw the message but ignored it because it was from me? How would I feel if I saw her do that?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her notice my text and pick up her phone. She tapped the screen and peered at it, then started looking around the cafeteria. When she found me, she laughed softly. She typed something, and I received a message.

Your hair is sticking up. You should fix it.

I instinctively brought my hand to my head. As I searched anxiously for the offending patch of hair, another text came.

Sorry, kidding.

I looked over at her. She was gently smiling.

We’d started dating, but that didn’t mean our relationship dramatically progressed or regressed. On campus, Wataya acted like she always did, and I didn’t cramp her style by staring at her with googly eyes or anything. I didn’t tell my friends we were dating, and I don’t think she did, either. Still, one thing did change noticeably.

“Hey. Whatcha reading?”

Since the university library was near my apartment, I usually went there to study and read. One day as I was opening the book I’d seen her reading before, she came up to me.

“Come on, it’s not that surprising. Your eyes look like they’re going to pop out of your head,” she added.

She had never approached me before. I must have been gaping like she said.

“I know, but…you caught me off guard.”

She smiled and sat down next to me.

“Hey, is that the book we were talking about the other day?” she asked.

“Yup. They had it at the university bookstore, so I got a copy.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay reading it here? It would be weird to see someone so openly crying over a novel in the library.”

I imagined that scene. Strange indeed.

“No worries; if I feel tears coming on, I’ll run to the bathroom,” I said.

“That would be even more odd.”

She smiled, her chin resting in her hand. Her becomingly short black hair swayed. She was breathtakingly beautiful. As I gazed at her, bedazzled, she asked, “By the way, have you ever had a girlfriend before?”

The question must have been related to our pretend relationship. I wasn’t sure how to answer but ultimately decided to be honest, since I didn’t have anything to hide.

“Yeah.”

“I’m surprised. What was she like?”

“Well, she was good at cooking and housework, and she liked growing up,” I said.

I’d been so intent on answering her question that I ended up blurting out something only I could understand. Who would know what “she liked growing up” meant?

“Hmm, good at cooking and housework, and…”

Wataya was confused, of course. I tried to explain. We’d started dating in our first year of high school, and she was my first girlfriend. She was not only generous but blessed with a shapely figure. Elementary school had been okay, but in high school, a hierarchy emerged in class that was determined by appearance, among other things. For some reason, though, she existed outside of that hierarchy. She would voluntarily take the lead in cleaning the classroom, using her mother’s secret techniques to get it spick-and-span.

She strode around boldly and smiled cheerfully; everyone adored her like she was some kind of mascot. But she was also much smarter than the other kids. She loved the words grow up. She’d eat her large homemade packed lunches and say her dream was to get a job with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to raise Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate.

Wataya seemed shocked by this description of my ex-girlfriend.

“But why did you go out with her?” she asked.

“I was skinny, and she used to tell me to eat more and give me rice balls and stuff.”

“And?”

“I don’t know if the rice was good or if the seaweed was high quality, but those rice balls were amazing.”

They were so good, I started to wonder about the other things in her boxed lunches, and she started sharing them with me. Before I knew it, she was making an extra lunch just for me, and I had a crush on her.

Wataya covered her face with her hands. I wondered what she was doing; she was laughing hysterically.

“Seriously, what’s up with that? It’s too wholesome!”

“It’s the truth. She also used to bring me thermoses of green tea, and I don’t know what she did, but it was the best tea ever. Like, it was sweet or something. Of course she didn’t put sugar in it or anything.”

Sadly, we broke up in our third year when the intense studying for university entrance exams began. It was spring. We were having a picnic in the park, eating rice balls and drinking green tea. We hung out for a while, and around sunset, we waved at each other like elementary school kids and said goodbye. Then she strode off alone into the sunset. She always smiled so happily.

But that day, I realized maybe I didn’t understand her true self at all. I felt like she had kept it hidden from me. I wondered if I had been drawn to the weakness and loneliness she didn’t let show.

I didn’t tell Wataya that part. I left the funny story as a funny story. To let her think of my past as happy-go-lucky.

My story must have been entertaining because it put a gentle smile on her face. An expression I had never seen before, that I hadn’t discovered until now. That’s how natural it looked.

“By the way,” I asked her, “did you go out with anyone in junior high or high school?”

Her smile instantly disappeared.

“Not in junior high, I can tell you that.”

“Then in high school?”

She gave a sad little grin.

“Maybe.”

“You’re making me curious.”

“I did kiss him once.”

“Was it…the person you were head over heels for?”

“So you remember that.”

“Of course I do. I’ve been thinking about it ever since you said it.”

She looked at me again and smiled, but she didn’t answer my question.

“Well, I think that’s enough for today,” she said, standing up and walking off.

I watched her familiar back recede. It was the back of someone who has walked through life alone.

5

I learned about Tooru’s knack for housework and cooking a couple of days after he and Maori started dating.

After they got together, they would meet in his classroom after school to talk. I joined them that day to get a sense of who he was. Maori suggested that since we were all here, we should get to know one another better, and we ended up going to his house. He lived with his father in a housing complex. Normally, you’d expect a household of two guys to be a mess, but their apartment was shockingly clean.

Tooru was very particular about keeping things not just tidy, but sanitary. You can fake being clean, but you can’t fake being sanitary. That’s what he told us. I found it amusing that a high school student was so particular about housework but was also strangely moved by it.

“I didn’t realize till we talked, but you’re a strange one, Kamiya,” I told him.

“Like you’re not?” he answered.

Oddly enough, we were able to joke around without being sarcastic or mean. Maybe we felt at ease around each other because we shared the same interests. While chatting in the classroom before going to his house, I’d discovered that he read the same literary magazine as me. That wasn’t all. He was a fan of Keiko Nishikawa, who wasn’t very well known back then.

He wasn’t just good at keeping house. Everything he cooked was delicious.

“Please accept this humble brew.”

“We’re not having green tea, are we?”

He made us a pot of tea that day that was out of this world. It was something called Lady Grey that he’d gotten at the supermarket, and I was addicted ever since.

We sat around drinking tea and talking about all kinds of stuff. Around evening, he walked us to the station near his house. He brought along a reusable bag, saying he was going to pick up some groceries on the way back home. There was a mysterious dignity to him, like he was some veteran homemaker, and the reusable bag suited him oddly well. Maori and I couldn’t help laughing at him for it. Maori took a picture, too.

Here was a guy who excelled at all things domestic and who looked perfect with an eco bag in hand. None of it was an act; on the contrary, it was part of who he was.

The next day after school, I invited the two of them to the condo where my mom and I lived. My dad didn’t live with us, as my parents separated when I was in junior high school. While I took a cue from Tooru and made a pot of black tea in the kitchen, he and Maori talked in the living room. They were sitting close together, speaking too low for me to hear.

At the time, I was slightly jealous that Tooru had stolen my best friend. As that sentiment suggests, I saw him as her boyfriend, no more, no less. I held no romantic feelings for him. He was an oddball, somewhat cold like me, good at cooking and housework, and an avid reader of literature.

It was much later on that I developed romantic feelings toward him and when I began to feel a very slight amount of something like envy toward Maori.

Also…that I kissed Tooru.

6

I wanted to ask Wataya out on a date. We’d been together for almost two weeks. During that time, we’d exchanged some texts, chatted as usual, and talked a couple of times at the library after class.

Maybe I should have been satisfied with that. Maybe I shouldn’t have hoped for more. But I wanted to try going out somewhere fun together. I wanted to talk about what we saw or felt while we were out. I wanted to see all kinds of places with her. Perhaps that feeling was what people referred to when they said they wanted to date. That they wanted to experience all kinds of things with a partner.

“So, would you like to go on a date?” I finally asked one day after searching for her on campus. She was sitting on a half-hidden bench near the administrative building.

“A date?”

She was probably confused because I hadn’t bothered to say hello.

“Um, yes.”

“With who?”

“With you.”

“Me and who?”

“Me.”

“Will do what?”

“Go on a date.”

“With who?”

“With you.”

“Me and who?”

“Me.”

We went through that same conversation about three more times. At some point, I realized she was teasing me, but she was the one who gave up and stopped first.

“You’re an honest fool. That’s not a bad thing, though,” she said, smiling. I smiled, too, embarrassed.

“Anyway, are you free next Saturday or Sunday?” I asked. An apologetic expression then came to her face.

“Sorry. There’s something I always have to do on the weekends. I…don’t think that will work.”

My stomach roiled nervously. What was this thing she did on weekends? Was it related to the reason she wanted nothing more than a pretend relationship with me?

“Oh…okay. Do you mind if I ask what you have to do?”

“I have a high school friend who I get together with. She’s attending a test prep school right now, and I help her with her studies on the weekends. It doesn’t happen every week, though, so I like to keep my schedule free for her if I can.”

A high school friend. I felt reassured by that. I’d heard something along those lines from our mutual friend. He’d said Wataya was still very close with that girl, and they often hung out. I wondered what she was like. Wataya had mentioned a test prep school, but I was genuinely curious to know more. I couldn’t help asking.

“What kind of person is she?”

“What kind of person? Well, she’s extremely cute. She has long hair, and she’s very feminine. But she’s not conceited. She’s never two-faced, and she’s got a good personality… Unlike me, she’s the type that everyone likes.”

She looked a little down. I might have been wrong, but that was how it seemed to me.

“You’re pretty attractive yourself,” I said immediately, maybe because I didn’t like to see her looking dejected. “Everyone thinks you’re remarkable, and I think they’d like to talk to you more if they could. But since you’re so beautiful… I think everyone has a bit of a crush on you. Um, anyway…”

I realized I’d just said something fairly embarrassing. Wataya looked surprised, but a moment later, her expression softened.

“You don’t have to worry about my feelings,” she said.

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“People see the world through a filter. Your filter is pure, I think. Although it might have a few too many blind spots.”

They do say that love is blind, but I don’t think that means my vision was clouded.

It was true that the other university students saw her as someone special. Because of her looks, but also because of her personality. Especially people in her year. On the surface, she seemed to do whatever she wanted, but the truth was, she constantly thought about others. I think she was unusually sensitive. She understood the subtleties of other people’s feelings, and when she was with them, she tried to keep them in high spirits by laughing and smiling even if she had to force herself.

Several days before, a classmate had come up to her when the two of us were talking. She seemed happy while she chatted with them, and she made them laugh. After they left, I commented that she could get along with anyone. She grinned self-deprecatingly.

“I’m afraid of people, so I get along with them on a superficial level to make sure I’m not disliked,” she said.

Just then, Wataya raised her eyebrows like she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have. She tried to gloss over it by saying, “Just kidding!” I felt closer to her, having heard her true thoughts and seen her humanlike weakness. My feelings for her were growing. But if I admitted that to her, she might break things off by saying I’d broken the rule she set.

After thinking this over, I said, “As your boyfriend, I see your best side. It doesn’t have anything to do with a filter.”

If I couldn’t say I was falling for her, I could at least express my admiration for her.

“I always want to know more about you. That’s why I want to take you on a date… Although of course it’s fine if you need to prioritize your plans with your friend.”

She gave me another startled look. After a moment, it turned into a wry smile.

“I swear, Naruse…”

She looked up at the sky like she was trying to make up her mind. Then she gave me a smile of resignation and stood up from the bench.

“The weekend won’t work, but tonight does.”

“What? You mean…”

“Let’s go on a date. There just happens to be a movie I want to see.”

Whatever it is you’re wishing for, if you don’t let yourself wish for it, it won’t come true. That’s obvious, and I know it’s true.

Lucky for me, Wataya and I were going on a date that night. After our classes ended, we met in the library and walked to the subway. Maybe because I was so nervous, the ride was over before I knew it. There was a fancy high-rise outside the terminal station downtown, with a movie theater on one of the top floors. On the lower levels is an atrium with marble floors and lots of fancy shops.

“I feel like I’m on a date,” I mumbled as I looked out from the elevator going up to the theater.

“You are on a date,” Wataya said.

We’d already decided on the film. We were going to watch the film adaptation of the novel by Keiko Nishikawa that we’d talked about. Although it was a weekday evening, the theater was packed. I’d never been on such a date-like date, even when I had a girlfriend.

“Are you sure you don’t mind paying?” I asked Wataya as we waited for the movie to start. We were sitting so close, our shoulders were touching.

“I’m the one who suggested it, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, I have a job.”

“Where do you work?”

“…My mom designs book covers, and I help her with the secretarial stuff. I’ve been doing it since high school, so I’ve got a decent amount saved up. For a student, I mean.”

So her mom was a designer? That was the first time she had ever mentioned her family. Still…

“Next time, I’ll treat you,” I said.

She stared at me. Then she snorted and said, “Okay, we’ll do that.”

The previews started. I went over the plot of the novel in my mind while I waited for the main feature, and then I suddenly remembered the afterword. The author had mentioned going through some tough times before writing the book, but she didn’t elaborate on what they were. I was curious and looked it up, but as far as I could tell, she hadn’t revealed more details in any of her interviews. There were rumors of a family tragedy, but I didn’t know if they were true.

The film began. It was a beautiful, sad story. Perhaps a reflection of the author’s emotions at the time. It depicted the sorrow and pain of parting and the way that everyday life swallows up those feelings with its forceful and fleeting nature.

About halfway through the film, I noticed something. When I glanced at Wataya, her eyes were glittering, reflecting the light from the screen. Tears had welled up in her eyes, and the light shimmered on their surface like a living creature.

She was crying.

I was surprised, but not wanting to interfere with her experience of the film, I looked back at the screen. I thought about handing her my handkerchief, but I knew that as it was unironed, it would leave a bad impression. I resolved to always iron my handkerchiefs from then on.

Just…maybe this was obvious, but I realized that even Wataya cried sometimes. I was deeply moved. I would never have learned that on campus.

The movie had yet to reach its climax. I wondered what had moved her to tears. What did she feel sad about?

By the time the film was over, the sky outside was dark. At Wataya’s suggestion, we went to a stylish café in the basement. I was happy just being able to spend more time with her. We sat down across from each other at a table and talked about what we’d watched over dinner. She seemed to like both the novel and the film, and she spoke enthusiastically about the directing and plot developments.

You cried, didn’t you?

I wanted to say that to her. I wanted to ask what scene had moved her or made her sad. But I worried it would be rude. She might not have wanted to be seen crying. People cry for many reasons, and they are all quite personal. Just as I was thinking about this, she said, “The photos in the advertisements for the movie were beautiful, weren’t they? The emphasis was more on the scenery than the people, I think.”

“You’re right. Like the depth of field was intentionally…”

I broke off, realizing I was talking like I was some expert on photography. She looked at me with a mixture of interest and surprise.

“Do you like photography?” she asked.

“No, I was just parroting something I heard to sound cool. I don’t like taking pictures or having my picture taken.”

Partly because I got distracted by that, I never did ask why she cried. Instead, I put on a smile and said, “Anyway, don’t forget my promise. I’m paying next time we go out.”

“Promise? We haven’t even talked about where we’re going or what we’re doing.”

“Okay, the zoo… No, the amusement park… No, how about the aquarium?”

“That was a lot of changes.”

“The zoo smells like animals, and the amusement park is far away. I figured the aquarium is somewhere we can go on a weekday.”

There was an aquarium relatively close by. A friend from university had told me they offered something called “Night at the Aquarium,” where they kept it open until late. It was supposedly quite atmospheric and had become a popular date spot.

“The aquarium?”

“Do you dislike it?”

“It’s not exactly that.”

There was something I wanted to try, although I was shy about it. I’d considered various options, but the aquarium seemed to be the perfect place. If she wasn’t opposed to it, I wanted to hold hands with her. Like a couple, if possible.

“Would you go with me? Playing pretend is fine,” I said. I didn’t want to be overly forward, and my voice slowly grew quiet. Maybe because she was worried about my feelings, Wataya gave that same resigned smile.

“…Okay. We’ll do that next.”

“Really, can we?”

“Sure. We are going out, after all.”

I was happy to have arranged our next date. She smiled as she watched my excited reaction. We kept talking for a while, about movies we’d streamed, about novels we wanted to read, and about our mutual friend. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun, and when I checked the clock, it was already nine. We left the café, and I walked her to the ticket gate.

“Well, good night.”

“Take care on your way home.”

I watched her walk into the station and stayed there until I couldn’t see her any longer. It was a little thing, but it made me happy in a restless, bittersweet way. I walked over to my subway station, and as I waited on the platform, I sent her a message.

Thank you for today. I had a good time. I’m looking forward to the aquarium.

I noticed that she read it right away. I wondered if she’d had fun today. Would she say that she’d enjoyed the date and that she was also looking forward to next time?

A few minutes passed, and my train came. I had yet to receive a response. I got off at the station near the university and went upstairs to my apartment. I checked my phone. But for some reason, she never responded.

7

On their first date, Tooru and Maori went to a park known for its cherry blossoms. It was the second Saturday after they started going out, in early summer. Maori asked me for advice, but I didn’t go with them. After that date, something changed.

Tooru learned about Maori’s amnesia. And he had asked her not to write it down in her diary that he knew. He said he’d requested this because he didn’t want Maori to be weighed down by that knowledge in the future.

At the time, I didn’t know that. I was fenced in by all the things I didn’t know. But when I think back on it, it makes sense. Starting the week after their date, Tooru’s attitude toward Maori clearly changed.

I’d pegged him as somewhat cold, like I was.

But there he was, fixing a bike abandoned at the school bike-parking area so Maori could ride it.

To make her happy, he started to fulfill each and every one of her wishes. He pedaled as fast as he could down an abandoned country road while she sat on the cargo rack.

He was supposed to be a guy who never did anything crazy or reckless. He read novels, kept the house clean, brewed pots of tea, and kept quiet. He planned to be a bureaucrat when he graduated. That was the kind of practical life he lived.

But to make Maori happy, to fill her diaries with happy memories, he did outrageous things. He lived for her.

She smiled when she was with him. And not just her; he smiled, too. They began to walk a path toward love.

Their second real date was at the aquarium on the weekend. I tagged along for that one. I had noticed the change in Tooru and suspected he knew her secret. But by a strange coincidence, I learned his secret on that day, too.

We planned to meet by the clock tower outside the terminal station downtown. There was a big bookstore in a building attached to the station, and I stopped there before we were supposed to meet up. A sign read Book launch and signing with Keiko Nishikawa, Akutagawa Prize–nominated author. To my surprise, the author, who had been nominated for the prestigious prize for the first time, was going to be at the store.

I left the shop and walked to the clock tower. A few minutes later, Tooru showed up, looking slightly unsettled. Maori hadn’t arrived yet. Since I knew he liked Nishikawa’s books, I told him about the signing.

“Keiko Nishikawa is my sister,” he said. It was the first I’d heard about his sister, who was six years older than him.

After his mother died, she’d taken care of him. She handled all the housework, as their father had become detached from reality from the shock of his wife’s death. But Tooru’s sister had a gift for writing. So much so that she was named a finalist for a famous literary prize while still in her teens. For the sake of Tooru and their father, however, she abandoned her dream of becoming a novelist.

But Tooru encouraged her to continue writing. He told his sister that if she taught him how to cook and run the household by the time he started high school, he would take over everything, including looking after their father. He set her free. Because of that, she was able to move out and live her own life, eventually winning the Akutagawa nomination.

“Well, these things happen,” I told him. “You go see her; don’t worry about us.”

He said he’d stopped by the bookstore before they were to meet up, not knowing about the event, and had been reunited with his sister. Since they couldn’t talk much during the signing, he’d promised to meet her after she was done.

“Don’t worry. I’ll cover for you with Maori. And thanks for the bento! Do you mind if I tell her your sister is Keiko Nishikawa?”

“Of course not. She’s not the type to gossip. Besides, she’s my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend… Yeah. At first, I thought you two were dating as a joke or something. You’ve been really stepping up lately. I can tell you’re trying to make her happy. Although, to me, you seem to be trying a little too hard.”

Tooru had made a bento for all three of us to eat at the aquarium. After I took it from him, I tried to probe him. I thought he might have known about Maori’s amnesia. We stared at each other in the middle of the crowd.

“Don’t tell Hino this,” he said before continuing in a serious tone. “I’m in love with her. Maybe that seems obvious, but I truly do love her. If there’s something I can do to help her, I want to do it. That sounds arrogant. But I want to make her happy if I can.”

The look in his eyes was different from when we’d first met. They were filled with his earnest feelings toward Maori. I felt that keenly.

“Why can’t I tell her?” I asked.

“Because I’m embarrassed about it, obviously.”

“You don’t seem like the type to be embarrassed, Kamiya… You know about Maori, don’t you?”

I looked him straight in the eye, trying to understand his true intentions. He stared back at me, his eyes still and unwavering.

“Yes, I know.”

“How do you know? She didn’t tell you, did she?”

“Yes, she told me. But I asked her not to write it down in her binder or her journal. Today’s Hino…doesn’t know that I know about her memory loss.”

I was shocked. He smiled faintly.

“You better not tell her I know,” he said, and walked off toward the bookstore. Maori showed up a short while later.

I told her about his sister, then headed for the aquarium. We walked around inside while we waited for him.

By that time, my immature fear that Tooru would steal her from me was gone. I easily separated my inner circle from everyone else. Before that day, Tooru was on the outside. We hung out, but my wariness toward him didn’t fade. That changed the day we went to the aquarium.

The fact that he knew about her amnesia and was trying to make her happy changed the way I viewed him. Without fully realizing it, I had let him into my inner circle.

Gradually, I started enjoying the time the three of us spent together. On another weekend, we went to an amusement park together. During summer break, the three of us watched the live broadcast of the Akutagawa Prize announcements. We celebrated together when Keiko Nishikawa won.

We were a threesome. There was a powerful, deeply satisfying joy in that. But I might have been the only one who felt that way. Day by day, Tooru and Maori were becoming more like a pair. Maybe it’s a strange thing to say, but that’s how it felt to me. My sense of us being a group weakened. Maori was happy as long as Tooru was there, and Tooru was happy as long as Maori was there. But that was to be expected. They were a couple.

When they told me they were going to see the fireworks on the last day of summer vacation, I said they should go ahead without me. I’d bought a yukata, thinking the three of us might go to a festival together sometime. To be completely honest, I was looking forward to it a little. But I wasn’t needed. I would only get in their way because they were bonded by love. I was only Friend A, the heroine’s best friend. Just a girl inexperienced in love and feeling the first stirrings of romantic interest in Tooru—although the feeling was so faint at that point, I didn’t even notice it.

I spent the night of the festival alone in my condo. From the window, I could see the fireworks in the neighboring district exploding like tiny sparks. Although it was silly, I had put on my yukata and gazed at the fireworks by myself.

I knew the two must be watching them from up close. They were probably holding hands, experiencing it together as a couple. As I thought about them, I sensed that summer was ending. I was seventeen.

8

Did I do something wrong? Or was I misinterpreting things? Pitifully enough, I was obsessed with the fact that Wataya hadn’t responded to my text. Perhaps she’d thought of me as nothing more than a nuisance the whole time I was elated on our date. The possibility scared me a bit. Then again, I might be overthinking things. When we ran into each other on campus, we chatted as if nothing was wrong. But after that first date, Wataya would sometimes space out in the middle of our conversations. She seemed lost in thought. It had happened again today.

“Wataya, are you all right?”

“What, me? I’m fine. Sorry.”

She arranged her face into a smile. That was an accurate way to put it.

“Are you getting enough sleep? You did fall asleep in the library the other day. You must be exhausted.”

“Oh, I just stayed up late writing the night before and didn’t sleep enough.”

“Writing, like a paper?”

“No, something personal. Something that had a deadline. Anyway, I’m getting plenty of rest now, so don’t worry about me. I just have some things on my mind.”

I tensed up, worrying those things had to do with me. I wanted to ask her about it, but I didn’t have the courage.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Instead, I said something completely different. She gazed at me silently. For some reason, she smiled sadly.

“It’s fine. You really are like I thought you were. A nice…”

She didn’t finish her sentence. I looked at her questioningly.

“Never mind,” she said.

I decided not to think too much about the text, or anything else, because I sensed she wouldn’t want me to. There was no point in worrying about it.

But maybe I should have given it more thought.

We finally made it to the aquarium a full two weeks after first talking about it. Like the time before, we met after class and took the subway to the nearest station. Night at the Aquarium started at five. Outside, the sky was dyed a lonely orange, but inside, we were greeted by a lit-up fantasy world. It had a mature ambience.

“Hey, this is pretty nice,” Wataya remarked. We walked through the exhibits together. It was fancier than I’d expected, which made me nervous. We were surrounded by other couples. Some of them were holding each other’s hands as they peered into the tanks.

I was hoping to hold Wataya’s hand that night. I kept glancing at her pale, delicate fingers, but when it came to actually reaching out to grab it, I hesitated.

“Why so quiet?” she asked.

“Nothing… I’m just n-nervous.”

I glanced reflexively at her hand again. I think she noticed, but she didn’t say anything about it.

“We’re here, so we might as well enjoy it. Come on.”

She headed down a softly lit hallway like she knew her way around. When I asked if she’d been there before, she said, “Just once. In high school.”

High school. Was it with her ex? Slightly pained by that thought, I watched the colorful fish swim around in their tanks. After a few minutes, she stopped in front of one. Its large inhabitant was not so much swimming as elegantly soaring through the water.

“It’s a ray, isn’t it?”

“Yup, a ray through and through.”

“…Can you eat rays?”

“Naruse, that’s a bold question to ask in an aquarium. The employees would be shocked if they overheard you.”

I felt flustered. Maybe it was a bit of an indiscreet comment. She looked at me and giggled. I was glad, but her smile didn’t last long. She turned back to the tank.

“She’s still here, same as always,” she said.

Wataya was doing it again. For a moment, she had vanished from the present. What was she despairing over? She had come here in high school. Had something changed between then and now?

She walked silently to the next tank. I watched her without saying a word.

Eventually, the sun set, and it came time for the outdoor dolphin night show. The crowd was bigger than I’d expected. The same tastefully tinted indirect lights were on outside, and the dolphins looked completely different than they did during the daytime.

The show started. Surrounded by couples, Wataya and I watched the dolphins leap and dive. The couple right in front of us joined hands. My own hand flinched. Would it be presumptuous of me to hold Wataya’s? Would she be offended? Nervous as I was, I took the plunge and grabbed her hand.

I’d read somewhere that love is wanting to hold someone’s hand so desperately, you feel like you’re going to die. And that the greatest joy of love is that feeling.

Wataya looked at me. She smiled.

Or not. No sooner had I seen her grin than she took her hand away. She was staring back at the dolphins.

I was overcome with regret. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t speak right away. I apologized after the show ended. She slowly smiled and shook her head.

“Let’s get going,” she said. We left the venue. I felt so bad about my insensitivity and presumptuousness that I remained silent. It was after seven thirty when we stepped outside the aquarium.

“Um, would you like to grab dinner together?” I asked, honestly thinking she would refuse. I’d messed up that badly. But she said yes. Very normally and naturally.

We used the map app on my phone to walk to a restaurant. There was an Italian place nearby with big windows and a spacious interior that I’d thought of taking her when I was planning our date. Luckily, a table was open. We sat down across from each other and ordered from the unfamiliar menu.

I’d relearned a lesson that day. I was pitifully green when it came to romance. I lacked experience and was way too tense. With Wataya in particular, I lost sight of who I was almost immediately. I felt bad about that, but I also realized that my tension around her was a sign of how much I liked her. Wataya, who was sitting there right across from me.

She noticed me staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing… I’m just starstruck.”

“What?”

“By this place, I mean. The…the street at night and everything,” I said, chuckling awkwardly.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, amused.

After that, I was able to talk with her as usual. She teased me; I got flustered. She laughed. We ate our dinner. My heart was pounding the whole time. I felt perhaps this state of suspension between nervousness and happiness was the pleasure of being in love.

Even if we were only playing make-believe, I wanted to spend more time with her. Our actions might have been inauthentic, but they could be the beginning of something. If we imitated love enough, it might become real.

That was why—

“I’m sorry. I’d like to break things off.”

I didn’t fully register what she said. It came out of the blue. We’d just been joking around, then she said that with a half smile. My happily thumping heart abruptly took on a cold, stormy cadence.

What did she just say?

Maybe I’d misheard her. Maybe I was misinterpreting her words. “Break things off” could refer to anything. Branches. Bread. Maybe I was so nervous that I’d taken her statement out of context.

“Um, what did you…?”

“I think we should break it off. Stop being a couple.”

But it was no mistake. She was ending our relationship.

The world grew abruptly heavy. All the noises of the restaurant that hadn’t bothered me before came flooding into my ears. The sound of forks scraping against knives, of couples talking happily, of waiters calling to cooks.

Until that moment, I had only seen Wataya. Everything else was a blur. That insular world had just vanished.

“But why? Is it because of what I did today…?” I managed to ask. She shook her head.

“No, not at all. I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

“Thinking about what?”

“You genuinely have feelings for me, don’t you?”

I felt like I was being presented with an impossible choice. If I said yes, I was going against the condition of our relationship. If I said no, I was obviously lying.

I mean, I was crazy about her. What should I do? How could I fix the situation? Could we be a couple again? I stared at the table without answering her question. But I knew I had to say something. If I didn’t, the whole thing would end right there.

“Why did you agree to date me in the first place?”

Nevertheless, I asked that spineless question. As if I was accepting that the end of our relationship was inevitable.

“I’m sorry. I don’t really know why I did,” she said. I raised my head. She looked terribly sad.

“There’s something I can’t forget…though I know I need to forget it. Maybe I thought that having a pretend relationship would make it all go away. If we kept things on a surface level and just had fun.”

Just having fun. That was what she wanted, and maybe I hadn’t been able to give that to her. Either way…

“Then let’s do that starting now. Just have fun. The only thing I need to do is be careful, right? Not get too close?”

I was desperate. I had a reason to be desperate. But my feelings didn’t reach her.

“I want things to be over. It was doomed from the start. I knew it would end like this.”

“But…”

“And I told you from the beginning, I don’t like nice guys.”

As someone with nothing to offer, I thought I should have been kind at least. But it seemed she didn’t need it. To the contrary, it got in the way.

“Why don’t you like nice guys?”

I was reeling, but I still asked her the same question I had before. She responded right away.

“Nice people are good people. That kind of person…dies young.”

I didn’t know if she was being honest or just trying to make me give up. All I knew was that no matter what, I wasn’t going to be able to continue our current relationship. When I didn’t say anything, she stood up.

“Thank you for everything. I’m sorry to have put you through this. But it was fun.”

She reached for the bill. Before I could say anything, she said, “Let this be my way of thanking you. Bye.”

She smiled, then left without giving me a chance to respond.

I was left alone. She paid the bill and walked out the door. I stayed in my seat, listening to the sound of something ending.

It was dark outside the window, and the glass reflected the bright interior of the restaurant. I saw myself in the reflection. Me, who knew nothing about Wataya’s real self.

Soon, it was summer vacation, and then very quickly, it seemed, break was over. I didn’t speak to Wataya once during that time.