"I Saw Them Standing There"

Maybe it’s the rugged humidity of a late summer storm, maybe it’s the bootleg sake bottle I’ve finished, maybe it’s the lack of Shizuko, maybe it’s the temple at the end of the world up ahead, but I’m dreaming of yesterday again. A daydream, this time - I’m still half-awake, still half-aware of the crowded forests along the edges of the river, the mountains in the distance, the wailing guitars on the speaker and guttural groans of the boat pushing against the current.

I’m back in Saitama on the last day of my high school career. It’s a chilly day in March, and it’s funny - the sky can be just as gray in August as it is in March, but the entire feeling is different. March is a difficult month, right at the end of winter, when you just can’t take the chill and snow and frost anymore. You just want to be warm, you just want to see some flowers, you’re tired of venturing into the outside world since it's mere struggle for survival. On that chilly day in March, walking out of the high school, diploma in hand, I feel the tiniest hint of a kinship with the procession of soldiers for whom the month is named for.

Nobody’s with me as I leave the school. The tail end of high school had been a tail-spin - soon after that August break, Suga and his fellow soccer boys got in huge trouble. They were undefeated, destined to make nationals, but almost every third-year got busted for underage drinking at a party. They were all suspended for one game - that game being the first of the playoffs. Suga could only watch as his team went down. Just like that, his soccer career was over. This world is a funny thing sometimes.

Rumors started spreading, because those kids were popular, so somebody must have set them up. Somehow, that somebody ended up being me. I wasn’t popular before this, but wasn’t unpopular, either - I was just another kid in the class, just another neutral background character in the lives of everyone else. But then I was the kid who sold the soccer team out, I was the kid who cheated his way to getting better test scores than the Class Prez, I was the black hole of the class, the punching bag.

Why hadn’t I remembered this before taking this boat upriver? Why did I lock it all away? I guess because it sucked. And I didn’t want half a year of emptiness to overshadow the two and a half years of fun that came before it. And my classmates were just kids. They all lived under the constant whip of exam stress, parental stress, the inevitable end of childhood so popularized by the media. They needed an outlet, the outlet happened to be me, and that's just how it is sometimes.

Losing Suga hurt. He didn’t even go to graduation. I have his diploma in my bag to deliver it to him. But first, I’m meeting Kanako. She asked me to meet at the outfield wall again. I already know this is going to be the last time.

Hands in my pockets, scarf around my neck, long jacket over my uniform, breath condensed in front of my face, I trudge across the field, the frost-covered, dead grass of late winter crunching beneath me. Kanako’s already there. She’s looking upwards, at the gray sky, peering through the maze of dead and empty tree limbs looming overhead.

Kanako speaks in their direction. “Well, it’s finally over.” She sounds relieved, exhausted.

“Yeah, it is.”

We don’t say nothing. All I hear is the boat’s motor as we head down the river, the splashes of water as we cut through rapids. Red letters and golden fractals explode in fireworks around Kanako’s face, swirling about, heading into the sky like a thick column of smoke.

“I did some asking around,” I tell her. “I’m a member of the journalism club and all. You started the rumors about me, didn’t you?”

Normally, at a moment of accusation like this, there would be a long silence broken by the shrill screech of cicadas, but this was winter, so the landscape was quiet and still as we gazed at each other. The snow from last week’s blizzard was piled up on the other side of the field, slowly melting, sending rivers down the pile’s side.

Kanako’s smile says it all. “You got me.”

“But why?”

She holds the canister with the diploma inside loosely. “I’m just tired, Shunsuke. That’s all. I’m tired of everything.” Her grip tightens. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Living,” she answers. “I never asked for this.”

I hear kids exiting the school, girls crying into each other’s arms now that it’s all over.

“It’s all over,” Kanako repeats. “You see, when you’re feeling down, there’s an easy way to make yourself feel better. Just make somebody feel worse. Seeing someone feel just as bad as I do, it’s a bit cathartic.”

“So you chose me?”

“I did. You were closest to me, after all. So it made me feel better.”

Was I angry with her? I don’t remember. She was my Class Prez - I think I was felt more hurt than angered. “Why didn’t you talk to me? If you’re going through something, I would’ve helped.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t think you could’ve.” Kanako taps her temple. “Something’s not right with you up there, Shunsuke. You told me once about how the world is inherently good, about how we just meet a bunch of crappy people along the way and if we’re not careful, the world turns into crap, and we forget that it was good in the first place. What the fuck does that even mean?”

She wipes her face. “What if I can’t remember a single good time? Anhedonia. Not a single moment of pleasure. It’s been like that since I was a kid. I thought if I got away from here, I’d feel better. Just needed a change of scenery.”

“You got into schools in Tokyo,” I protest. “That’s where I’m going, too. We can help each other there.”

“That’s not trying something new, that’s moving somewhere that’s only an hour train ride away.” Kanako scowls. “I wanted to go to school in America. But I couldn’t even get test scores as good as yours. I’m stuck on this island. Nowhere to go but ocean.”

She steps toward me, across the dead grass, and places her hands on my shoulders. “We’re done, Shunsuke. Maybe you’ve been the one holding me back this whole time.”

I feel my heart seize up. “Hey, hold on. I think we should talk this over. Not about dating. But I feel like you need someone right now.”

Kanako tilts her head slightly, studying me, putting me under a microscope. "If I want to fly, I gotta let go of everything that weighs me down, don't I?"

"Can't we fly together?"

She laughs. "I've been wanting to end things with you for a long time. But this relationship gave me something to do. A distraction of sorts. But it wasn't really a good one. You bore me, Shunsuke. This whole thing does. I kissed you that day in August just to see what it would feel like. I cried because it didn't feel like anything. Just lips."

She pats me on the head. "I fulfilled my obligations. I did my time in school. Searched around but didn't get anything out of it. Thanks for trying, but you came up short. The whole thing did. So it's time for me to go."

Kanako’s not in the right state of mind, and I know she comes to school with bruises from home sometimes, so this isn’t her fault, so I try to reach out.

She dashes off, leaving a trail of churned-up grass as she races down the baseball field. I follow her, but she’s an athlete, and I’m just Shunsuke. We hit the road downhill out of the school, into the city. There’s no sidewalks - I’m competing with bikes and pedestrians and cars and trucks, just trying to keep up, but Kanako’s fast. Up ahead, there’s a train crossing - the lights are flashing, the yellow barrier starts to descend. Kanako makes it through. I’m stuck on the other side.

The barrier’s down. We gaze at each other from across the tracks. “Where are you going?” I huff out, my hands on my knees.

Kanako turns back to face me. “Dunno. Maybe a one way ticket to anywhere - Aomori, Shimonoseki, a bridge.” She tilts her head and I see the angular face I love for the last time. Red letters float away from her. 

“See you, Shunsuke.”

The train rushes past. I stand there impatiently, hyperventilating almost, praying that once the train goes by, she’ll still be there on the other side. She has to be, right?

The train goes by. She’s not. Kanako’s gone, and no matter how many hours I spend roaming the district, I can’t find a trace of her. I end up just leaving Suga’s diploma in his mailbox and take up the long road home.

Kanako deleted her messaging account. I couldn’t find her anywhere online. I didn’t see any news stories about her, either. She just up and disappeared from my life. This world is a funny thing sometimes.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t stop thinking about those old days. But you gotta numb the pain. So the memories shifted - the last half of my third-year disappeared from my consciousness. Kanako shifted into the Class Prez - I wouldn’t even let her real name enter my mind. High school became a period of pure goodness and wholesomeness to me. When I wandered through Tokyo as a lonely college student, it wasn’t the end of high school’s fault for my emptiness, because high school was good. Clearly, the present - and by extension, the present me - was at fault for my own failures. The present just wasn’t as good as the past. There had to be something wrong with me and me alone.

I was reaching a breaking point. I needed a change of scenery. Yoshiaki seemed like a decent spot. I’d even get 10,000 yen to go there.

==========

A clap of close thunder breaks me out of my daydream. Kanako was her name. I’m no longer dreaming of it. She’s real, it's still real, and I can’t run from it. I haven’t seen her since that day. I haven’t messaged Suga for at least a year now. Are they even alive? I hope so. But I’ve been so stuck on the past that I’ve never stopped to consider how they might be doing now.

Miyagawa pilots the boat past a bend and the river grows wide into a small pond. Rising from the shore at the back of the pond is a crumbling temple, part of its structure having collapsed, spilling stone and wood into the bed of the water. The boat passes below a wide Torii gate, its once shining red color now heavily faded.

We pull up to a makeshift dock. Miyagawa leaves the boat running as I step onto dry land. My fisherman’s blood fails me once again - it takes me a moment to get my land legs back and I stumble on the slick stone steps of the temple’s entrance.

“Hey, boss!” Miyagawa calls out toward the darkness of the shrine.

A figure emerges from the shadows. He’s dressed in a familiar ratty outfit and takes slow steps across the stones towards me. He crouches in front of me and smiles.

“Shun Shunsuke, we meet again,” the old vagabond from Mabuchi Castle and Hoshinomori park greets me.

I haven’t seen him since he gave me Eguchi’s book.

I stare at him.

Because it can’t be.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, I retrieve Into the Heart of Yoshiaki from my bag. I flip to the section that’s printed on special paper and displays a few photos; one of them depicts Eguchi on the day of his first electoral victory. He’s young in that photo, but the man is old. Nevertheless, I swallow and hold up the book so I can see both men at the same time.

“You…you’re…”

Crouching before me, Governor Eguchi smiles.

“Not bad for age ninety-seven, am I? You see, when a man paints in winter, he has need of many coats…”