Last Ice
1
Until now, my life has been uneventful. I never felt strongly driven to start or end anything. Fittingly for someone named Tooru, which means “transparent,” I lived a quiet life, like an invisible man. What else could I do? I had nothing to offer. No talent, no personality…
But was that enough?
One day, I suddenly began to wonder. The spark was my breakup with Wataya. I’d known from the start that she was out of my league, and more importantly, I hadn’t held up my end of the deal.
I’ll date you, but under one condition. Don’t fall in love with me. Can you promise me that?
I knew I was holding on to a relationship that was over, but after we broke up, I thought a lot about what I should have said when she asked me that.
I don’t like nice guys.
Should I have given up when she drew that line right at the start? At first, I took her words at face value. I thought she simply disliked nice people. But when I talked to her best friend, Maori Hino, I realized I might have been wrong—that the person she couldn’t forget had been kind.
I think my personality might have been slightly similar to his. Or maybe an inferior version. I was somewhat nice, somewhat honest, somewhat clever, kind of…
For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed of having nothing to offer.
If I wasn’t just an inferior version, if I had some special quality or ability, would Wataya have stayed with me? If I obtained that sort of distinction, would she consider coming back to me?
A literary magazine happened to lie nearby. The magazine was currently holding a writing contest judged by Keiko Nishikawa, the author Wataya admired. I’d sought out a copy after talking with Hino at the family restaurant. I’d realized that Wataya might be thinking of entering the contest, since she was writing a novel. I knew it was pointless to buy the magazine for that reason, of course. All I could do was watch her attempt from a distance.
I’d assumed the contest was only for literature, but it turned out there were categories for photography and art, too. My eyes rested on the word photography for a long time. I never thought I’d return to photography in this way.
You don’t have what it takes to really throw yourself into something, Naruse. You’re just a dabbler with a few tricks up your sleeve…
Every time I saw that word, photography, something inside me ached. In elementary school, I had an innocent love for taking pictures. I’d first gotten interested on a school trip to a tourist spot. There was a group of girls in my class who wanted someone to take pictures of them. They were so happy when I volunteered. But that wasn’t all. When I pointed the camera at them and took their photo, they all smiled. When other groups of kids saw me taking their picture, they asked me to take theirs, too. The same thing happened. I pointed the camera; they smiled. I’d never taken pictures before, so this came as a surprise.
I learned that photographs could make people smile.
After that, I volunteered to take pictures at every school event. As I walked around the sports festival or school festival with my camera, everyone would gather around me, begging me to take their picture. I graduated from elementary school, and luckily enough, the junior high I went to had a photography club. Everyone in the club was great, and when there was a school event, the school advisers and student council always asked us to take lots of pictures. Photos of smiling people.
These photos are just records of events.
There was this one strange guy in the club, a third-year named Sakurai. For better or worse, everyone else in the club was there for social reasons. Sakurai was the only one who was serious about photography. He hated the club because of this, but he stayed for the free access to equipment. He made the other members uncomfortable.
But he was an incredible photographer. I heard he’d won prizes for his photos starting in elementary school, and by junior high, his photos were better than what most adults could shoot. He raked in top prizes from famous photography contests. I truly respected him. He was cynical, but even that seemed cool to me. I kept talking to him no matter how mean he was to me, and maybe it’s conceited of me to think this, but I don’t think he disliked me. When I showed him pictures I’d taken, he would smile, despite the fact I could tell he was disappointed with my work.
“Naruse, why do you take pictures?” he asked me one day before summer break. The other club members were out taking photos, and we were alone in the club room.
“Because when I take them, everyone smiles.”
“…I’m not surprised to hear that coming from you,” he said, smirking at me like I was a child, like he always did.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Me? …Because photos make me special.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. To me, pictures were linked to smiling people. They didn’t change me. Sakurai smirked at my reaction.
“Listen, Naruse. The photos everyone in this club takes, including yours, are just records of events. You don’t frame what’s there with any intention. You’re not making pictures.”
“Photos can be made?”
He smirked again at my idiotic question.
“I’ll teach you how to make photos, if you’re interested.”
Maybe it was a whim of his, but the summer of my first year of junior high, Sakurai taught me how to take—or rather, make—photographs. He drilled the basic but crucial techniques into me. The outcome was that I won a prize in a photo contest for junior high school students at the end of summer vacation. The prize was just one of dozens of honorable mentions, but to me it was a huge achievement. My family, classmates, and fellow club members were as happy as I was.
I thought Sakurai would be happy, too. I’d told him I was entering the contest, and he’d said I should take and choose the picture by myself. When the two of us happened to be alone in the club room, I showed him the photo and told him I’d won honorable mention. He gave the picture a hard look, and then for some reason, he had on a sad expression.
“Are you happy with honorable mention?”
His voice sounded horribly loud and cold in the empty room.
“Happy with it? I’m more than happy. It’s a good memory.”
“You don’t want to try for a bigger award?”
He was looking at me the way he looked at things he was photographing. That is, very closely. I examined my feelings before answering.
“I hardly feel like I deserve honorable mention. It’s probably rude to say this to the person who taught me, but I think it was a fluke…”
“If you really made an effort, I think the outcome would have been different.”
“What?”
“I taught you how to make photographs at least good enough to have won first prize in that contest. You have talent. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have taught you. But you decided what your own limit was and confined yourself to it.”
I thought he was angry. He wasn’t. He was sad. Maybe he’d been searching for someone like himself, someone who took photography seriously. But I betrayed him. I left him alone.
“You don’t have what it takes to really throw yourself into something, Naruse. You’re just a dabbler with a few tricks up your sleeve…”
He walked out of the room, leaving me with those words.
Sakurai had left quietly, but his impact on my life was powerful. Both of us stayed in Photography Club, and we saw each other now and then. However, I felt weirdly nervous around him, and after that day, I never talked to him again. Before long, he graduated. Then when my graduation approached, I heard that instead of going to high school, he’d become an apprentice with a professional photographer in Tokyo.
Three years later, around the time of my high school graduation, the members of our junior high photography club got together. One of them was an older student who attended the university I was about to enter, and who I would later see often. But Sakurai didn’t come. He was only two years older than me, but I heard he was already working independently as a photographer. Everyone was praising the pictures he posted on social media. I pulled them up on my own phone.
Photos aren’t taken; they’re made.
In an era when anyone can take a pretty picture on their phone, Sakurai was forging his own, unique way of making photographs. They were beautiful, and many people admired them. If I was a mass product, he was thoroughly his own person with something unique to offer. I thought about my current reality.
You don’t have what it takes to really throw yourself into something, Naruse. You’re just a dabbler with a few tricks up your sleeve…
His words still pierced my heart. I wasn’t a special person. I wasn’t a person who could take anything seriously.
Every time I heard or saw the word photograph, Sakurai’s words echoed in my mind. I looked the other way and accepted my disappointing self. I gave up on myself… It was only natural that a person like me wouldn’t be able to draw the interest of the person they loved.
I gripped the literary magazine. I stared at it intently. If I acquired some special ability or quality, would Wataya be surprised? Would she recognize my value and become interested in me?
I wanted that. I wanted it now, desperately.
For the first time, I—an ordinary person of average ability who had always allowed the currents of life to carry me along—desired something. I yearned for it.
After that day, I decided I would take off running. All I needed was resolve. I told myself I didn’t need anything else. In retrospect, maybe that’s what it means to throw yourself into something.
I met Sakurai two days later, in the middle of summer break. I wanted to study photography with him again. I had to. If I was going to change, I had to go back to that point in my life.
I tracked him down on social media. It seemed a friend of his was having a show in Tokyo, where he worked, and he was helping out. I got up the courage to visit. Some people were there for the show, while others who seemed involved with running it were talking quietly together in a group. I recognized Sakurai immediately. I walked over to him. He looked up at me. At first, he was suspicious of me, but then I saw recognition dawn on his face.
“I hate honorable mentions.”
Time seemed to freeze. He widened his eyes.
But time hadn’t really stopped. It had moved forward. And it still was. It marched forward mercilessly whether I did anything or not.
“It’s taken me six years to say that. But I finally did it. I’m not satisfied with honorable mentions anymore. There’s something I want no matter what. So…”
Sakurai’s friends and the other people in the gallery were staring at me. It was a supremely embarrassing situation. I had shown up out of nowhere and was talking nonsense. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was shameless. The only thing I cared about was not being apathetic.
“Please teach me how to make photographs again.”
Suddenly, he grinned. I’d seen that smile a few times during the summer he taught me photography. And I hadn’t seen it since.
“Naruse, I swear… You show up after all these years and ask me that?”
In spite of his words, he seemed happy.
“Seems like you turned into quite an interesting person,” he said, with a hint of kindness. There were things I wanted to talk to him about, but we didn’t need to do that right then. Still smiling, he continued on. “I’m down. I was just looking for an assistant I could use for free. You ready for that?”
In exchange for him teaching me photography, I was to work for free as his assistant. I didn’t argue, and we decided on the length of my apprenticeship then and there. I suggested one year, as the results of the contest I wanted to win would be announced in about a year. He agreed.
At that stage, I still could have backed out. I could have apologized to Sakurai, slunk back to my studio apartment, and returned to being my old self without having changed a thing. But I’d gone there because I didn’t like the old me. It didn’t matter if the whole year came to nothing. It was no different from taking a gap year between high school and college. Even so, I didn’t want to be a burden on my parents. After I left the show, I called them to ask about taking a year off school. I knew that if I submitted the paperwork before the second semester began, I wouldn’t have to pay tuition. I could also end the lease on my studio. When I started school again, I could commute to campus from my parents’ house if I left early enough. The studio apartment was a kind of present from them, and it had been a luxury from the start.
It was Saturday, so my dad was home. He was surprised when I said I wanted to take time off school. Naturally, he asked why.
“There’s something I want to do right now no matter what,” I answered.
“Do you have to do it right now? Would it be too hard to keep going to school while you’re doing it?”
“Yes. If I don’t follow through with this, I think I’ll regret it. The thing I need to do right now is even more urgent than when I had to study for the university entrance exams in high school. I also see it as testing myself in a way.”
My father hesitated. I had never asked for anything like this in the past, and now I was blindsiding him with this sudden, vague request.
“…How long do you plan to take off?”
“A year. If I submit the forms now, there won’t be any fees, and I’ll be able to end the lease on my apartment, too. When I go back to school, I’ll commute from home. So you won’t have to pay for an apartment or lose anything financially.”
I told him I wanted to study photography. I also told him about Sakurai and the contest I wanted to enter. After a long pause, my father said, “All right. But I don’t want your mother to worry, so I’d like you to contact us once a month.”
I thanked him, reflexively bowing there on the street. After that, I went through with it, taking a year off school to apprentice with Sakurai.
The deadline for the contest was February of the following year. I intended to work like a madman during the intervening six months. If I didn’t see any results by then, however, I planned to stop by that point. There might be other ways to go about it, and there might be a way forward even if I failed, but I put that out of my mind for the time being. I was going to push myself to the limit and win the heart of the person I loved.
That day, after talking to Sakurai, I went back to my apartment near campus. I felt a bit guilty, but I asked my parents to handle the paperwork for breaking the lease while I packed my things, sending my books back home and my clothes and other essentials to Sakurai’s apartment in Tokyo. The rest I threw away.
Sakurai’s place was on the older side, with one bedroom and a living room, and bare concrete walls. He used it as his studio as well as his living space.
“Well, Naruse, here we go,” he said when I moved in.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I answered.
He’d agreed to provide basic room and board. I slept on the sofa in the studio, which wasn’t the best for my back, but I settled in. As his assistant, most of my work involved physical labor. I lugged his equipment to studios and outdoor locations and arranged his photo shoots. In between, I learned photography from him.
Idiotically, I hadn’t brought my own camera when I went to apprentice with him. Instead of getting mad, he laughed and lent me an SLR camera he wasn’t using anymore. I told him about the prize I desperately wanted to win, and the reason. He cracked up laughing.
“Man, Naruse, you really did turn into an interesting guy when I wasn’t looking.”
As a professional photographer, he was focused on increasing the value of his product. He photographed both objects and people. He approached every job enthusiastically, and he created shockingly beautiful pictures. Sometimes, with his permission, I photographed the same subject as him. But I never managed to take the kind of pictures he achieved. It wasn’t a matter of different cameras; it was the skill of the people using them.
“Your pictures are too conventional, Naruse,” he told me one day as he drove us to a shoot. “You didn’t come here to become conventional, did you? Get a little stupid, okay? Break your own rules. Then you’ll realize just how commonplace and small those rules are, just how impractical and inappropriate and boring.”
I lugged equipment, set up shoots, looked through the finder, and pressed the shutter. He also taught me current digital photography techniques. A day never passed without me picking up the camera. I also cleaned, did laundry, ironed, and cooked. Sakurai said I could skip the ironing, but as I’d made a resolution, I always at least ironed the handkerchiefs. Before I knew it, fall had arrived. There are no vacations in this field, and we left early in the morning and got back late at night.
When winter began, something surprising happened. Wataya texted me.
I heard you’re taking time off school.
I was busy as always that day, so I didn’t notice her message. I only saw it that night when the day was winding down. Holding back my excitement, I wrote back.
Good to hear from you, Wataya. Thank you for your message. I’m…taking time off for some personal reasons.
Ah. Are you doing okay?
Yes, I’m fine. Things are tough, but I’m getting by.
What are you doing these days?
Working all the time.
After I decided to take a year off, I got in touch with my university friends. Since it would have been complicated to explain everything, I told them I had some personal stuff going on. And I’d just told Wataya I was working. I wondered if she’d heard about me and gotten in touch because she was worried. Or maybe, given how kind she was, she worried that our breakup was the reason I was taking time off and texted me because she felt bad.
Uh, Wataya? I wrote, thinking that might be the case. I’m really happy that we’re talking again.
Then I sent another message to let her know I appreciated her.
I’m so glad I met you.
But everything I did to you was horrible, she replied.
I was the one who’d fallen for her when she clearly had no interest in me, followed her around, and broken her condition for dating. She hadn’t done anything horrible.
That’s not true. You were out of my league from the start.
I’d always known that. After all…
I don’t have anything to offer.
Right after sending that message, I started worrying that I’d made things too heavy. I changed the subject.
How about you? How are you doing?
Me? Same as always. Going to class, helping my mom with work sometimes.
I felt relieved that I’d managed to change the subject, but her next message caught me off guard.
Also, I’m writing a novel.
Really, a novel?
Yeah. I’m thinking of submitting it to a contest. Don’t tell anyone, okay?
…It seemed like I’d guessed right. Although the judges and division were different for literature and photography, she was probably planning to enter the same contest as me. Which meant that if I entered under my own name, she might notice.
I only had a few more minutes left until my break ended, so I said goodbye and signed off. Before she contacted me, part of me had felt it would be enough just to make the final round and have my work printed in the magazine. That would be an achievement in its own right. But that was just my pride talking. I was only trying to prevent myself from getting hurt if I went all-out for what I wanted but didn’t get it. That wasn’t the right attitude. It wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I made up my mind to achieve my goal. If I couldn’t, then I’d take the pain.
The first time I noticed a clear change in the way I was taking pictures was around mid-December. People have all sorts of opinions and ideas, but I understood deep down that photography was a creative act. You didn’t take pictures; you made them. You created them with the same intention involved in other forms of art.
Sometimes Sakurai invited me to walk around the city in December with our cameras. We took pictures of all kinds of things. From landscapes to objects. Cats in back alleys and birds taking flight. People going about their lives. Smiles.
When I first came to Tokyo and started taking pictures again, there would occasionally, just by chance, be one picture that stood out among the rest. I went about changing chance into inevitability. I wasn’t a natural like Sakurai, but it was unbelievably fun. Making photos not as a record of events but as creative works.
“Think you’re ready to start taking pictures for the contest soon?”
Photographers never rest. There was work on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. When that calmed down, around the middle of January, Sakurai brought up the contest. The deadline was a month and a half away. By that time, I was completely used to life as a photographer’s assistant. My back didn’t even hurt from sleeping on the sofa anymore.
“Have you decided on your subject?”
“I have. I’m thinking of using a spring.”
“A spring? Oh, man. A simple subject like that without any spatial expansiveness is really hard to shoot. I’m not saying impressing the judges is everything, but if you want a prize, you better choose something a little grander.”
“…I see your point. But I really have my heart set on this. The woman I’m in love with, her first name means ‘spring,’” I admitted bashfully.
He burst out laughing. He told me in that case to go right ahead and promised to give me plenty of advice. He asked what my plan was. I already had an image of the photograph I wanted to take. I’d figured out where I could take it, too. There are quite a few parks in Tokyo, and one of them had a natural spring. The park didn’t have an entry fee, and I’d confirmed that photography was allowed.
A cold, frozen spring.
I wanted to capture the moment when sunlight shone on it, and the ice cracked.
When I asked Sakurai, he said it wasn’t ideal but nevertheless gave his approval. However, he warned that the shooting conditions would be tough.
Ice only forms below zero degrees Celsius. Every night before I went to bed, I checked the weather forecast for the next morning’s temperatures. When the conditions were right, I woke up before dawn, when the sky was tinted ultramarine, and set out alone to take pictures.
My breath was white in the cold air, and the streets were so quiet, it felt like there wasn’t a soul in all of Tokyo.
The first time I saw ice over the spring, I was deeply moved. I waited there in the cold for the first light. I gazed through the viewfinder, waiting for the moment when the ice cracked.
The frozen spring was richly nuanced. It glittered transiently, reflecting the sun. Warming my hands so they wouldn’t become numb, I waited for the ice to crack. At long last, the moment arrived, and the click of the shutter sounded like a pebble being thrown into the spring. I checked the picture, but I knew it was impossible to have gotten it on the first try. The composition was wrong, the lighting was off, and all in all, it was nowhere near what I’d envisioned.
I reworked the image in my mind, returning again and again to shoot the same moment. I showed the pictures to Sakurai, but he just shook his head. January passed without any success. Then the first week of February passed, and the second. As the deadline steadily approached, I quietly began to panic.
It was around that time when I first heard of Tooru Kamiya.
From time to time, Hino and I exchanged texts. In December and January, she seemed especially busy studying for the university entrance exams. One day in February, she said she’d finished all the tests she planned to take. We were texting about that when she brought up Wataya.
By the way, I wanted to tell you something related to Izumi.
I hadn’t told Hino I was taking time off school, but I’d let her know that Wataya had contacted me in winter. I’m sure she was busy studying, but she still sent me a warm message saying I’m glad you two talked again. After that, whenever she met up with Wataya or talked to her on the phone, she would text me letting me know. But this time was different.
I was waiting to talk about it until I finished my exams…and since they’re over, I want to tell you. In high school, there was a guy named Tooru Kamiya. He was my boyfriend and Izumi’s friend. Maybe she told you about him?
Tooru Kamiya. I’d never heard the name before, so I was slightly surprised.
No, it’s news to me. So you did have a high school boyfriend?
She’d told me before that she’d never dated anyone. It stuck in my mind because I thought it was rather surprising, but I asked because I thought maybe I remembered wrong. She didn’t reply right away. After a short pause, her response arrived.
It’s kind of complicated. Do you mind if I call you? You know Izumi and me, so I’d like to take this chance to tell you about it.
I agreed somewhat warily, and she called me through the messaging app. That was when I learned about her unusual high school years. She told me she’d had anterograde amnesia and that she had a boyfriend during that time. He died right after they graduated from high school…and according to his last wish, Wataya had erased all mention of him from Hino’s journals.
Now that her exams were done, Hino said she was trying to remember her boyfriend. She didn’t care if it was just small things; she wanted to know who this person, Tooru Kamiya, had been. I listened very quietly as she talked about it. I was surprised to learn about her difficult past but even more shaken by something else.
Why don’t you like nice guys?
Nice people are good people. That kind of person…dies young.
The words that Wataya had said were falling into place.
I…don’t like nice guys.
It was him. Tooru Kamiya. He was the person she couldn’t forget.
The person she had fallen in love with was her best friend’s boyfriend…and he was dead. Fulfilling his last wish, she had erased his existence from Hino’s mind. But even if Hino forgot him, Wataya couldn’t.
There’s something I can’t forget…though I know I need to forget it. Maybe I thought that if I had a pretend relationship, all of that would go away. If we kept things on a surface level and just had fun.
The truth was, she was suffering. I hadn’t understood her at all.
“Um…are you okay, Naruse? What’s wrong?”
Hino’s voice brought me back to the present. I considered telling her what I’d just realized, but because of her amnesia, she might not know about Wataya’s feelings. I didn’t want to carelessly tell her something like that.
“I’m just surprised. Thank you for telling me.”
“There’s hardly anyone I can tell. Just having you listen helps me make sense of it. Sorry this turned into such a long conversation. But thank you.”
We talked a little more and then hung up. I was alone at night in the studio. When I walked over to the window, I saw my own reflection like I had that time at the restaurant.
Tooru Kamiya. That was the person Wataya loved. Had loved.
He had the same name as me.
I thought back to what Hino and I had figured out about the person Wataya might have liked in high school. He was kind, good at housework, thoughtful toward his family, and serious. That probably described Tooru Kamiya. I was a mere inferior version of him. I probably wasn’t even close. But there was one thing he couldn’t beat me at. I knew he couldn’t have loved Wataya more than I did. That alone was where I didn’t lose in comparison. I couldn’t lose.
I realized something then. The “special thing” I was after—maybe I didn’t really need it. Maybe I just wanted an opportunity. An opportunity to tell her how I felt again…
I thought about that on my way to the park to photograph the spring. Even early in the morning in February, it wasn’t always below zero. I only had a few chances to get the shot I wanted. Fortunately, that morning, the spring was frozen over. The sky wasn’t cloudy, either. The air in the park was still and clear, and the only movement was the white breath I exhaled.
Eventually, a ray of sunlight shone on the park. It reached the spring. As I gazed at it through the viewfinder, I thought of the face of the woman I loved. During the time I waited in silence, I wondered why I loved her. Was it because she had a nice figure? Because she was beautiful?
Neither was the deciding factor. Plenty of women had nice bodies. I met them and talked to them at photo shoots. But I only ever felt strongly drawn to Wataya. To that sad, lonely expression of hers…
Naruse, why do you take pictures?
Because when I take pictures, everyone smiles.
Maybe because I was holding a camera, the past whispered to me, and I widened my eyes reflexively. I was an ordinary person of average ability, and I had let life carry me along. But I still had something I valued. Why had I forgotten? I had brought it around with me in elementary school, taking great care to protect it. Had I left it somewhere, along with my camera?
I loved to see people smile. When I pointed the camera at them and took their picture, everyone would smile. That was why I liked photography.
I wanted Wataya to smile. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to make her grin. I didn’t know what she had gone through in the past. Did that matter? Could I still reach her?
Just then, something in my field of vision moved. I heard the ice crack. I pressed the shutter with a wish in mind.
Last Ice
That was the name Sakurai and I thought up for the shot I took that morning. It meant the last freeze of the year before spring. Technically, the last frost date of the year in Tokyo usually happens in late March, but Sakurai said that wasn’t important when creating a work of art.
“This is your photograph and no one else’s. You don’t need to stick to facts or common sense for any part of it,” he said.
I entered that shot in the contest. I’d been away from school for almost half a year. I had thrown myself completely into photography, placing it at the center of my life. Maybe to Sakurai it was still considered poor work, but I’d created a photograph I was satisfied with.
All that remained was to fill out the necessary paperwork and send it in. There was a line for both my real name and an artist’s pseudonym, but I intended to use my real name. I wanted Wataya, who I expected to enter the literature division, to realize it was me.
Last Ice, Tooru Naruse.
But then a thought crossed my mind. I considered it, examining my feelings. A photograph was made, not taken. What had I wanted to express through that work of art? I think a part of me subconsciously knew the answer. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to make Wataya smile. I wanted to erase the frozen expression from her face.
…But maybe I wasn’t the one to do that.
Suddenly, my own name struck me as an obstacle. I shouldn’t be there. So I decided to change it. It felt as if it was meant to happen, photo and artist name included.
Last Ice, Tooru Kamiya.
Tooru Kamiya, the person Wataya loved. What was he like? How did he smile?
Maybe my decision was wrong. But I didn’t intend to profane the dead or pointlessly upset Wataya. Using Tooru Kamiya’s name was the final step in creating this work of art, imbuing it with respect for the person she loved. In that way, I finished my contest entry.
Finally, spring arrived. Spring is a busy season for photographers. While I was working on the contest entry, Sakurai had given me a break from helping him with his job. To pay him back for the favor, I worked especially hard as his assistant that season.
A few months later, to my surprise, I received a phone call telling me my photo had been selected for an award. After asking for detailed information about my idea behind creating the piece, they told me which award it was. Honorable mention. One of five. When I got off the phone, I didn’t know what to think. I’d reached my goal. I hadn’t wasted all this time. But…
“So, what’s the news?”
When I walked back into the studio, Sakurai was grinning, having guessed what was going on from the way I’d rushed out of the room with my phone. I felt like crying when I saw his smile. I was happy but, at the same time, ashamed. I’d poured everything I had into that picture, but I’d still failed to live up to his expectations.
“I got…an honorable mention,” I told him. The room went silent. Okay, it was silent to start with. But my own heart stood still. I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face.
After a moment, he walked over to me. I’d disappointed him. I’d made him sad. I thought he would walk past me, fed up, never wanting to see a loser like me again. I thought I’d never see his warm smile again.
“You did good, Naruse.”
But his response was different. He recognized what I’d done. He thumped me on the shoulder. When I looked up, he was smiling.
“But I got an honorable mention again…”
“Naruse. You put your heart into it, didn’t you? Twenty-four hours a day, you thought about photography, carried your camera around, looked through the viewfinder until your eyes hurt. You lost yourself in making pictures.”
“Twenty-four hours…might be an overstatement. I did sleep.”
He smiled at my idiotic answer. I smiled back.
“But you’re right—when I was awake, I was usually thinking about photography.”
“Yeah? And how was it? Do you like photography?”
“I love it.”
That was one thing I could say with confidence. And I looked him in the eye when I did. Still smiling, he looked down and said a bit shyly, “Naruse, do you remember when you asked me why I take pictures?”
“It was before summer vacation in my first year of junior high. I remember it well.”
“So do I. My answer was that photography makes me a special person. But I liked your answer, too.”
He smiled as he asked his next question.
“So tell me, Naruse. Why do you take pictures?”
I already knew the answer.
“Because when I take pictures, everyone smiles,” I said, repeating my answer from back then.
An exceptionally bright smile spread across his face. A warm smile. I think that’s what his true self must have looked like when we were kids.
I received an email from the publishing company informing me that the award ceremony would take place in Tokyo in August. Although Sakurai said not to worry about it, I worked with him up until the day before the ceremony, while getting ready to go back to school at the same time. I planned to move back home, as I wanted to tell my parents about the prize in person. I was going to contact Hino, too, but not say anything to my university friends, because that would be embarrassing.
Wataya was the exception. I planned to go see her, with my photograph and award as my support. I was going to tell her my feelings again—tell her I liked her. I wanted her to know about my feelings once again.
On the day of the award ceremony, I stood in front of Sakurai’s apartment dressed in the suit I’d bought for my university entrance ceremony and said my goodbyes to him. Just before I left, he placed the camera of his that I’d been using for the past year around my neck and said, “This is yours now. You’ve become a first-rate cameraman.”
We both smiled. He had work to do, so we parted ways there.
“Whether she says yes or no, bring that woman you’re in love with over here sometime,” he said.
“I think that would be hard if she was to reject me.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled right to the end.
“Bye,” he said, raising one hand. I bowed and quietly turned away.
“You don’t have to do it for a job,” he said. I looked back at him. “But keep taking pictures.”
“Thank you for everything. I hope we meet again one day.”
I headed toward the subway station, looking up to keep myself from crying.
I was able to stay calmer than I’d expected at the award ceremony. For once, I was on the other side of the camera, having my picture taken. I tried to smile as brightly as I could and got scolded for it. Everyone laughed. Afterward, at the party, a lot of people called out to me. I was surprised by how many people had seen my picture.
But something else surprised me even more. As I was talking to everyone, I sensed someone’s eyes on me and turned around. A beautiful woman wearing a muted-colored dress was looking at me. I stared at her because she looked like someone I knew. No—she didn’t just look like her. It was her. Wataya. She was standing right there. She must have realized that I was “Tooru Kamiya,” because she was staring at me in surprise.
2
“Hey, Wataya! I went to high school with this here freshman. He says he likes you.”
More than a year had passed since a guy in my class said that to me at a drinking party. I only attended as it would have been rude to turn down their invitation. I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a flustered guy. He looked naive, like the brand-new freshman he was. I vaguely remembered seeing him somewhere, but I couldn’t remember exactly where.
“Really? Is that true?” I asked.
“Um, well, it’s just…”
It was my second year of university, and I still couldn’t forget Tooru. If this guy was going to fall for someone, he should fall for someone else. For his own sake.
“You should forget about me. I’m a real pain in the ass,” I said, intentionally putting him in an awkward spot. But my attempt failed in the face of his honesty. He answered, undiscouraged.
“I doubt that’s true! You’re a wonderful person.”
It surprised me.
“You don’t know anything yet,” our mutual friend said, teasing him. Everyone laughed.
“But it’s like I can just tell, just from being around her…”
I thought, He’s an odd one. And he slightly piqued my interest. A little later, he was prodded to come sit by me. I didn’t know what to call him, so I asked him his name.
“So what’s your name?”
“Uh, Naruse. Tooru Naruse.”
We were drinking at a pub near the university. Another group of rowdy students was nearby. But in that moment, the world went silent for me.
When the noise filled my ears again, I asked him another question.
“…Tooru? What character do you write it with?”
“The one for ‘clear.’ Maybe my name is accurate—I don’t have much of a personality.”
Less than two months later, this Tooru Naruse told me he liked me. I agreed to date him because I wanted to forget the other Tooru. I learned various things about him while we were dating. He looked smart but was slightly unreliable. His personality seemed kind of weak. I couldn’t imagine him setting out to achieve something of his own free will and grabbing it for himself.
But now he had won an award under the name Tooru Kamiya. Despite his humble demeanor, he was standing tall in the reception hall.
He walked toward me.
“It’s been a while. I’m happy to see you again. I didn’t have time to think about the possibility that you might be here, so you caught me off guard.”
True to his words, he looked shocked. I was, too. There was so much I didn’t know. Why was he here? He’d told me he disliked taking pictures and being photographed. Then why had he entered the photo contest?
And why under the name Tooru Kamiya?
Compared to a year ago, he seemed to have a backbone that held him up as he stood there. He asked me hesitantly, “After the party, do you have time to talk? I wanted to meet with you after I got back home, but…if you have time today, there are some things I’d like to tell you.”
“All right,” I answered. “I have some questions myself… I’ll be waiting for you.”
We decided where to meet afterward. There were heaps of things I wanted to ask him, but someone from the prize committee came, and Naruse had left with them, saying we’d meet later. I watched him walk away. Within the short time we’d known each other, I had seen that back many times. Yes—something had changed in the past year. He wasn’t the same simply kind Naruse that I knew.
“Izumi,” a familiar voice said. It was Tooru’s sister. She must have known Naruse because she smiled when she saw me gazing after him.
“Did…you two talk?”
“Yes, a little… He goes to my university.”
“So I’ve heard. I was quite surprised when I saw my brother’s name in the list of finalists for the photography contest.”
I could only imagine. Especially because she knew that Tooru had been interested in photography.
“When I saw his age and university, I realized he was a year behind you at the same school. His real name was different. After the final decisions were made, I asked the person in charge of the photography division to find out more about him for me…and I learned why he’d used the name Tooru Kamiya.”
She paused, then said, “Please don’t scold him for it.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but just then someone called for her. We’d arranged to meet the next day, so I watched quietly as her slender figure receded.
In the past and even in the present, all kinds of things happened without my knowing.
Less than an hour later, the party ended. I walked over to the hotel lounge. Shortly after, Naruse texted me, and a few minutes after that, he showed up in that suit I still wasn’t used to seeing him in. We sat down across from each other for the first time in a long while.
“All of this has been so unexpected,” I said. There were so many things I needed to say, so many questions I wanted to ask, but that was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
“It’s the same for me. I never imagined I would see you here.”
Maybe it would have been better to meet as fellow prizewinners. But I hadn’t made the cut. He, on the other hand, had poured himself so completely into photography that he was able to win a prize.
“So you’re a photographer. Since when?”
“Strictly speaking, since elementary school. But I was just a shutter-happy kid back then. I started paying more attention to what I was doing in the summer of junior high. I found a kind of mentor.”
He told me about his experiences related to photography in junior high. How he met his mentor, then they went their different ways. How he had reconnected with the same guy a year ago and taken up photography again.
“But why did you decide to enter the contest? You’d given up photography before that, right?”
I still had questions even after hearing his story. He gazed at me. Finally, he answered. Without flustering, and with earnest eyes.
“Because I like you.”
He had confessed to me once before, but the words had a different ring this time. Infinitely calm, and even serene.
“Really…? You quit university because of me?”
“I felt like if I didn’t change then, I never would. It made sense that you weren’t interested in me, because I wasn’t able to do anything with my whole heart. I wanted to try. And…I wanted to meet you again once I could feel proud of myself. The contest was an opportunity. I wanted to tell you how I felt one more time.”
I was on the verge of being moved. His time, all of his effort, had been directed at me. He liked me. He wanted to catch my eye. He’d gone as far as quitting school and roaming around Tokyo taking pictures for my sake…
“That’s going kind of far, isn’t it?” I mumbled, furrowing my brow. He smiled shyly.
“I think I wanted to go that far. There are some people who want their feelings to be reciprocated so badly, they’re willing to go that far for them. Not many things in life can make you that happy.”
His words overlapped with the other Tooru’s words in my mind. Those words I should have been forgetting came bubbling up inside me.
If there’s something I can do with a little extra effort or something I want to do, then I feel happy to do it.
Relationships always changed things when I wasn’t looking. That’s what happened with Tooru. I thought he was a cold fish, but his relationship with Maori warmed him up through and through. It was the same with Naruse. I thought he was a younger guy with no distinguishing characteristics, and now look at him. I was walled off from all of that, but I watched it change other people from close up. I was the only one who never changed, and before I knew it…
“You…liked Tooru Kamiya, didn’t you?”
I looked up at his words. I asked how he knew who Tooru was, and he told me. He also told me why he decided to enter his photograph under Tooru’s name. Many things he said surprised me, but I wasn’t mad at him. Only Tooru’s sister and I knew that he had been interested in photography, so to everyone else, it probably seemed like a coincidence.
“When Kamiya was alive…he told me that one day he wanted to become a photographer, so I was even more surprised to see his name.”
“Kamiya, really?”
“Yes. I know it’s impossible, but I wondered if he was somehow still alive… Once in high school, he took a picture of me. It was a great picture.”
Overwhelmed by sentimentality, I told him what I’d never told anyone else. I thought of the photo on my phone.
“What was it like?”
“Just an ordinary picture he took on my phone.”
“Would you show it to me?”
“I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t something I could show another person. And to a photographer, it might not be as great as I said.
“I really want to see it. A picture that Tooru Kamiya took of you…”
But I gave in to his eagerness. Maybe, behind my embarrassment, I had wanted all along to show someone that photo he left behind. I took out my phone and pulled up the picture, then handed it to Naruse. He gazed at it silently. He was completely still.
“Thank you,” he said, handing my phone back to me. For some reason, his eyes were glistening with tears.
“Why are you crying?” I asked. He wiped his eyes, flustered. Finally, he answered, choosing his words slowly.
“Because…I can see how much you cared about him. Also, because what I wish for is right there in that picture.”
“What you wish for?”
“I wanted to make you smile. You acted bright and cheerful at university, but were you ever truly happy?”
“I…”
“I wanted to make you happy. I think that’s why I fell for you. Because I hoped you would smile…like the way you do in that photo.”
Make me smile.
The thoughts and feelings I had on the day Tooru took that picture came flooding back. I remembered how we’d walked around the school festival together, how I’d smiled so much, my cheeks hurt. I remembered Tooru Kamiya, the person I liked so much, so close to me, our shoulders could have touched. I couldn’t help smiling around him. I forgot my sadness and worries and just grinned and felt secure. I really did like him.
“When did you start liking him?” Naruse asked.
“…I don’t know. It happened without my realizing it, and I gave up without realizing it, too. By my third year of high school, I was already…”
I glanced down and happened to see my phone. There I was smiling back at myself. I missed that smile. I’d forgotten it completely.
“What did you like about him?”
I fell silent.
“How revolting he was.”
Naruse looked surprised, but he nevertheless smiled tenderly. The memories kept flooding back.
“I thought he was a cold person, like me…but he warmed up to Maori. He said he wanted to make the Maori of every day smile. He wasn’t even embarrassed to say that… He was kind, so kind, it was revolting. He was good at housework and made a better cup of black tea than I could. He never thought about what he’d gain out of a situation. And, and…”
Tears were starting to blur my vision. He’d meant so much to me. I closed my eyes, and all I saw was his smile. But he wasn’t looking at me. That smile wasn’t for me. I didn’t care. Their happiness, Maori’s and Tooru’s, was my own happiness. I wanted them to be happy forever. To always be smiling at each other. But he died suddenly, despite everything. He was kind, and the gods took him from us. They left behind the bad ones like me and took the endlessly kind Tooru. Even though if he had lived, he would have made so many people happy, especially Maori.
After all, she recovered from amnesia. They would have become an ordinary couple. Smiling, always smiling. Then one day, they would have gotten married and had children, created their own ordinary family… The past would have become something to laugh about. Their children, who would have known nothing of their painful past, wouldn’t have believed the story when they heard it. But I, the best friend, would have told them it was all true. Maybe sometimes my chest would ache with pain. But I still would have celebrated their happiness with all my heart. That was the life they should have lived…
After I had haltingly laid bare my feelings, I covered my face with my hands. I knew crying wouldn’t change anything. Life gave and took away according to its own whims. My loving parents, my first crush, even human life. Tears couldn’t bring any of that back. But because I was so helpless, I could only cry.
I looked down, crying quietly. Then, something was held out to me. I lowered my shaking hands from my face. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I had seen the same thing once before…this brilliant white object. A neatly ironed handkerchief. Just like the one Tooru, who cared so much about being sanitary, used to carry with him…
“Could I ever take his place?”
With lowered eyebrows, he smiled at me as I took the handkerchief. He was always kind. I went out with him because I wanted to forget the other Tooru. But I never called him by his first name. In my heart, Tooru would always be Tooru Kamiya. I felt there could be no other Tooru.
“I, I…”
“I know it might be hard right away. But I still want to step into the shoes of the Kamiya that you cared about. I thought I didn’t have anything to offer, but now I have something that lets me say with certainty, ‘This is me.’”
I wondered if he was talking about the prize. His eyes brimmed with confidence. I could tell he didn’t doubt himself in the slightest.
“When it comes to liking you, no one can beat me,” he went on. “I’m confident I could have even beaten Kamiya. I realized that when I was working on my photo for the contest. That was the thing I really wanted, the thing that no one else has.”
My chest ached. No one had ever liked me this much. No matter how much I liked Tooru, he loved Maori, and my own feelings were unrequited.
“But…I still like Kamiya…Tooru. I know he’s gone now. I know I need to forget him. But it’s too painful to do right away.”
“Why do you need to forget him?”
“What?”
“You don’t want to forget him, do you?”
“No, but I, I…have to forget him.”
“No you don’t. There’s no reason to force yourself. Actually, it’s better if you don’t. After all—”
No reason to force myself to forget someone I couldn’t forget. His words struck me. He smiled even more kindly.
“After all…you loved him.”
My thoughts ceased, and everything went white. Endless white, or perhaps clarity, and in that blank space, I saw Tooru’s smile. What did Naruse just say? That I loved Tooru?
“You loved him, didn’t you? You cared more about him than about yourself. You’re still suffering from his death. But I don’t think you need to suffer. I’m sorry if I sound full of myself. He died, but he’s still there inside you.”
I didn’t understand the meaning behind words about love. I couldn’t believe in anything I hadn’t felt. Things I hadn’t felt didn’t exist. Those words were mere expressions. I’d believed that until now. After all, I didn’t think my own life had anything to do with them.
But maybe I was wrong. What if they were part of my life after all? I remembered what I had discovered that day in high school. I cared about Maori. I cared about Tooru. I cared about the two of them, and I wanted to put both of them before myself. That was the only pure, beautiful thing in me.
Now I realized there was a name for it. Naruse had just told me. The word settled naturally into my heart. When I reached toward it, the warmth spread. Tooru’s figure rose silently within my mind. I smiled. I smiled as I cried. Something fell into place, and I finally understood.
I loved Tooru.
So that’s what it was. It was all so simple. Why hadn’t I realized something so obvious, it was staring me in the face?
I thought I had been suffering from a broken heart. You had to get over a broken heart. You couldn’t let it hold you captive forever. But I was wrong. I was suffering because I had lost the person I loved. Of course it was painful. I loved him with my whole heart and soul. He meant more to me than myself. I couldn’t stop crying. He was unbearably dear to me. I loved him. I loved him more deeply than anyone else. I didn’t need to forget that feeling or that person just because he had died.
“I…don’t have to forget Tooru,” I mumbled, not wiping away my tears.
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re not lying, right?”
“I’m not lying.”
“I never got what I really wanted. If I did, I lost it right away. My loving parents, my first crush, the happiness of the people closest to me… But this is all right, isn’t it? To keep my love for Tooru and not let it go? I can, can’t I?”
“Yes, you can. Isn’t it obvious?”
I couldn’t help but feel like a child as his words put me at ease. Sense of security was another thing I thought I had lost. I had lost it as a child, and then when Tooru died, it had slipped through my fingers again, and I thought I would never get it back. But that wasn’t true. Life didn’t just take; it also gave. New friends, feelings, love. All of these things could be taken away but also given. When I looked at it that way, I saw my life filled with beautiful things. When I realized that, my face crumpled like a little child’s.
I hadn’t been able to show this face to my absent father, or to Tooru, who I loved. My true self, in all my weakness.