She raised her head and looked at Tsushima Kagami.
"Kagami."
"Hm?"
"When you were writing this book — were you thinking exactly that?"
Tsushima Kagami thought about it.
"More or less."
This book was, in fact, one he had cribbed from another world.
But what he had wanted to convey with it — that part was indeed exactly this.
Yukinoshita Shizuku looked at him, and suddenly smiled.
"You really are a strange person."
She said.
"Strange how?"
Tsushima Kagami asked, smiling too.
"Writing a book, or saving a person."
"You always have to go round such a long, winding road to do it."
Tsushima Kagami laughed.
"Well — isn't that just the way it has to be?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku leaned against his shoulder.
"It's nice, though."
The room grew quiet.
Outside the window, the moonlight emerged once more from behind the overcast clouds, slipping in through the sliding glass door of the balcony and spilling into their living room.
"My eyes are tired from reading. Take it — you read it to me."
Yukinoshita Shizuku handed the copy of Shinchō to Tsushima Kagami, opening it to the page she had reached.
Then, holding Yukino, she settled herself into a comfortable position on Tsushima Kagami's lap and lay down.
Tsushima Kagami, picking up from the place where Yukinoshita Shizuku had stopped, slowly began to read aloud.
Ten o'clock at night. The lights of a certain office building in Tokyo were still burning bright.
A man stepped out of the building.
He wore a wrinkled suit, his tie hanging loose around his neck, a cardboard box dangling from his hand.
The autumn night wind was cold; it made him hunch his neck in spite of himself.
His name was Sakamoto Seiichi. Thirty-five years old. He had been at this company for thirteen years.
Thirteen years.
From the time he had graduated college at twenty-two and joined the company, to now at thirty-five — a full thirteen years.
He had given the best years of his life to this place, and what he had gotten in return was a single sentence.
"You're fired."
An hour earlier, Sakamoto Seiichi had been at his workstation, finishing up the last of his reports.
He was alone in the office. Everyone else had already gone home.
He was used to it. For more than a decade it had been like this — overtime deep into the night, alone to turn out the lights and lock the door.
The phone rang.
It was the President.
"Tanaka, come to the meeting room."
He went.
In the meeting room, the President sat at the far end of the long table, his expression complicated.
Beside him sat the head of the HR department and a man he didn't recognize — most likely from legal.
"Tanaka."
The President began.
"The company has decided… you're fired."
Sakamoto Seiichi said nothing.
He looked at the President — the man who had joined the company alongside him, drunk alongside him, griped about superiors alongside him, the man with whom he had called each other "best friend."
The same man who, just last week, had been drinking with him, slapping him on the shoulder, calling him brother, saying that whatever trouble he ran into, he'd help him out.
"I've already done everything I could to plead your case with the chairman."
The President avoided his eyes.
"But… there's nothing to be done."
"The economy's bad, the company needs to cut costs…"
Sakamoto Seiichi wasn't surprised by any of this.
It was only that he had assumed the dismissal notice would arrive perhaps yesterday, perhaps tomorrow.
He had not expected it to be today.
Sakamoto Seiichi still said nothing.
He simply stood up and bowed.
Then he turned and walked out of the meeting room.
Behind him, the President seemed to say something, but he didn't catch it.
Back at his workstation, he started to pack up his things.
Thirteen years — and the things he had accumulated amounted to no more than this one cardboard box.
A few notebooks, a teacup he had used for ten years, a photograph of his wife — one that had always given him strength — his wife smiling so gently.
He looked at the photograph for a long time.
Then he placed it into the box.
When he had finished packing, he stood up and took one last look around the office.
The other workstations were empty; only the standby lights on the computer screens blinked on and off.
On a few colleagues' desks sat their favorite trinkets, the lucky mascots they touched a little each day.
He thought about saying goodbye to them.
But on second thought — when they came in to work tomorrow, they probably wouldn't even notice that one person was missing from this place.
He gave a bitter smile.
Carrying the cardboard box, he walked toward the elevator.
Out of the building, the cold wind hit him in the face.
Sakamoto Seiichi drew in a deep breath and started off toward the subway station.
A few steps in, he suddenly stopped.
The cake shop was still open.
He remembered that he had ordered a birthday cake at this shop.
So he went into the cake shop and collected the cake he had reserved three days earlier.
As she handed the cake over, the clerk smiled at him and said, "Happy birthday."
He, too, nodded and said thanks.
Carrying the cake, he kept walking toward home.
As he passed a bookstore, he stopped.
The bookstore was still lit up, and in its window were displayed posters for various new releases.
He saw on one of those posters the words:
[Shinchō, together with Dassai-ya-sensei's brand-new masterwork No Longer Human, makes its powerful debut!]
He was a long-time reader of Shinchō, and a faithful fan of Dassai-ya-sensei.
The Setting Sun, Hear the Wind Sing — he had bought them all, and read every one of them over and over.
He pushed open the door and walked into the bookstore.
Inside it was very quiet. Only a middle-aged clerk in glasses, sitting behind the register reading a book.
Sakamoto Seiichi walked over to the magazine section and picked up a copy of Shinchō.
On the cover, the pure-white belly band carried four characters — No Longer Human.
He gave it only a glance; he didn't linger long before taking the magazine to the counter.
The clerk lifted his head, glanced at the magazine in his hand, glanced again at his weary face, and said nothing much — just scanned, took the money, and gave him his change.
"Thank you for your patronage."
Sakamoto Seiichi tucked the magazine into his briefcase, and carrying the cake and the cardboard box, walked out of the bookstore.
Home was in an old apartment building. Third floor. No elevator.
Sakamoto Seiichi climbed the stairs slowly and opened the door.
The light in the entryway was off.
It was pitch dark inside the apartment, so quiet he could hear his own breathing.
"I'm home."
No one answered.
He turned on the light, changed into his slippers, set the cardboard box aside, and carried the cake into the dining room.
The dining table was bare. Nothing on it at all.
He set down the cake, walked into the bedroom, and from the very back of the wardrobe took out a beautifully wrapped gift.
It was something he had prepared a week earlier, placed in the most conspicuous spot in the bedroom.
He had wanted to see when his wife would notice — when she would ask him, "What's this?"
A week had gone by.
His wife had never once asked.
He brought the gift to the dining room and set it on the table.
Then he forced a smile onto his face and slowly opened the cake box.
When the cake came out, what was revealed was a birthday cake with "Happy Birthday" written on it.
He took out the birthday candle that had been included, and carefully stuck it into the middle of the cake.
Then he lit it with a lighter.
Only then did he walk to the side and turn off the lights.
Now in the dining room there was only the flickering of candlelight.
He stood before the cake, and began to sing the birthday song.
"Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you…"
The candlelight cast his shadow onto the wall beside him.
For a moment it was hard to say whether he was singing happy birthday to the shadow on the wall — or the shadow on the wall was singing happy birthday to him.
When the song was finished.
He looked at the candle, about to blow it out.
The landline in the entryway began to ring.
He froze for a moment, then walked quickly to the entryway and picked it up.
"Hello."
"Hello — it's me."
His wife's voice came through the line.
"I have to entertain a client tonight, I won't make it back."
"Tonight you'll just have to bear with it and spend it on your own."
"Happy birthday, dear."
Before Sakamoto Seiichi could say anything in reply —
His wife finished speaking and hung up immediately.
Sakamoto Seiichi held the receiver, listening to the busy tone droning through the line.
He smiled.
No disappointment. No anger. Not even surprise.
He only shook his head and smiled.
He set the receiver down, went back to the dining room, and looked at the candle still burning.
He pressed his palms together, closed his eyes, and made the gesture of someone making a wish.
Then he blew the candle out.
The room was plunged into instant darkness.
Sakamoto Seiichi groped for the switch beside him, and when he flipped it again, the lights came back on.
Sakamoto Seiichi sat back down at the dining table, and started to unwrap that gift he had long ago prepared for himself.
The elegant wrapping paper was peeled back layer by layer, revealing what lay inside.
It was a rope.
A rope tied off in a loop, like a hangman's noose.
Or rather — it simply was a hangman's noose.
A very sturdy rope. The thickness was right. The length was right.
He cradled it in his hands and examined it carefully.
Sakamoto Seiichi suddenly broke into a happy smile.
"Wonderful!"
He murmured to himself.
"This is exactly what I need."
"This is the best gift I have ever received in my life!"
You could tell — he really did love this gift.
This gift that he had prepared for himself.
Holding the rope, he walked all around the apartment, looking for a suitable spot.
Until he came to the living room.
He looked up at the center of the ceiling.
There was an exposed steel rod up there — it had once been used for mounting an electric fan.
Later, when an air conditioner had been installed and the fan taken down, the rod had remained.
He looked up at that steel rod and reached out a hand to measure it.
Just right.
Perfect!
He nodded with satisfaction and put the rope away.
Then he went back to the dining room and began to cut his own birthday cake.
He cut off a small slice, set it on a plate, and savored it bite by bite.
The cake was sweet, delicious.
That one piece of cake took him a long time to eat.
When he had finished it, he glanced at the time.
There was still half an hour until 00:00.
Suddenly he remembered that copy of Shinchō.
So he took the magazine out of his briefcase and opened it.
On the cover, the belly band — the four characters of No Longer Human — stood out conspicuously.
He turned to the table of contents and found where No Longer Human was.
The very first paragraph of the preface stopped him cold.
[Preface]
This book may, after many people have finished it, leave them feeling decadent, feeling depressed.
But my original intention was for it to make everyone feel — "I am not as wretched as the protagonist in this book."
If you are in the midst of darkness, I hope this book can become for you a faint, flickering lamp.
Even if only for a moment. Even if it only lets you hold on for one more day.
That would be enough.
The inspiration for this book came from the story of a friend of mine and her mother.
What follows is the suicide note her mother left for her.
Sakamoto Seiichi went on reading the suicide note that followed.
[Born a human, I am sorry.]
[Born a mother, I am also sorry.]
Sakamoto Seiichi looked at those two lines and was silent for a long while.
He thought of all those years of his — wondering whether he, too, owed someone a "sorry."
His heart stirred only faintly, but in the end he merely shrugged it off with a smile.
Everything felt as though it no longer mattered.
He also saw that all the future royalties from this book would go to public welfare.
Dassai-ya-sensei really is a gentle person.
A pity, then. I'll be letting you down, Dassai-ya-sensei.
He kept reading.
The three photographs in the prologue.
The First Notebook.
The Second Notebook.
The Third Notebook.
The Afterword.
The True Afterword.
He watched as Oba Yozo, from childhood on, used buffoonery to curry favor with others. He watched the fear in him at the moment he was seen through. He watched as he met Takeichi, met Horiki, met Tsuneko, met Shizuko, met Yoshiko.
The more he read, the tighter his fist clenched.
The more he read, the harder his fist became.
Wasn't this supposed to leave you feeling decadent after reading it?
Then what was this nameless, unaccountable fury surging up in his chest?
Sakamoto Seiichi was not feeling dejected.
On the contrary — a sudden, inexplicable anger had ignited inside him!
"He wants to live or die over something this trivial?"
He muttered to himself.
Reading the part where Yozo and Tsuneko attempted a double suicide, his brow furrowed.
"If you want to die, die on your own. Don't drag someone else into it."
"Dragging another person into a love-suicide — what kind of thing is that? Worthless trash!"
Then, as he kept reading, he gave a cold laugh.
"It was just an affair. How many modern husbands don't have a cheating wife at their side?"
"Just pretend you don't see it. And if you really can't bear it, divorce her — what of it?"
Reading about the "friendship" between Yozo and Horiki, he shook his head.
"You yourself say you don't even understand him, and then you turn around and call him your one and only best friend."
"Does the other person even know that you regard him as your best friend?"
"Look how you've moved yourself. Madman."
Reading about how the childhood friend, once he'd made it big, completely forgot about Yozo, he was even more disdainful.
"Isn't that a perfectly normal thing? Now that you've found out, you can't go on living any more? Truly worthless."
Then he came to that line.
[This is my last courtship of humanity. Though I am filled with terror of humanity, somehow I can never give up on humanity. And I, through that single thin thread called comedy, have kept up a faint connection with humankind. On the surface I keep forcing out smiles, but inside I serve humanity with all my strength, serve them with my life hanging by a thread, serve them with sweat pouring down my back.]
Sakamoto Seiichi froze.
He thought back to his schooldays.
Back then he had been small, his temperament soft. He was always bullied.
Cornered in the bathroom, his pocket money stolen, called worthless, called garbage.
He had once beaten his bully up — and afterward he himself had been expelled, then transferred schools.
Later, once he started working, the bullying just took a different form.
Assigned the most exhausting work. His credit taken from him. Spoken ill of behind his back.
He no longer dared to fight back; he had learned to use that smiling face of his to cope with everything.
He thought that this way, he could go on living.
But — what had it come to in the end?
He had been fired.
Fired by his best friend.
His wife was carrying on an affair with that same best friend.
He knew.
He knew everything.
That gift he had set out in the bedroom — his wife had not asked about it once in a whole week.
It wasn't that she hadn't seen it. It was that she didn't care.
Her heart had long since left this home.
He had hired a detective to take photographs.
He had secretly installed a DV in the apartment.
He had seen them tumbling on his bed, seen them plotting how to throw him out without a penny to his name, seen them laughing at him for being a fool, laughing at him for being stupid, laughing at how he was being sold off and still helping them count the money.
He had seen it all.
He had said nothing.
He thought — let it be this way.
Once this birthday is over, I'll end it.
He didn't want to fight back.
He only wanted to disappear quietly.
But now…
He looked at the Oba Yozo in the book — that man who, just like him, was a coward; just like him, ran from everything; just like him, used "comedy" to disguise himself.
Suddenly, a nameless fire shot up from the depths of his heart.
"Worthless!"
He snatched up the rope and looped it around his own neck.
"If they bully you, hit back! Whoever picks on you, take vicious revenge!"
He pulled the rope tight, choking himself until he could barely breathe.
"You think playing dumb will make people let you off? It only makes them worse!"
He tightened it further, his face flushing crimson.
"Coward! Worthless! Garbage!"
"Scum lower than a paramecium — really should just die!"
"Wanting to kill himself over the most trivial little thing — if you can't live, then don't live!"
"Where do you find all these warped excuses?"
"You're just a coward! Weak! Worthless!"
He was like a man possessed, as though what he was strangling was not himself.
But some sworn enemy with whom he had a deep, blood-soaked grudge.
At last he had throttled himself until he could not breathe, and slowly he loosened his hands.
He gulped in great, ragged mouthfuls of air.
Then he picked up Shinchō and slammed it furiously down onto the floor, stomping on it again and again with his foot.
"Worthless! Worthless! Infuriating!"
"On this perfect birthday, to actually have to read such an infuriating novel!"
"Bad luck!"
He cursed and stomped at the same time.
He had been about to peacefully see out his last birthday, and then leave this world.
But the mood had been ruined for him by this novel.
As he kept stomping on Shinchō, it was hard to tell whether he was really venting on the Oba Yozo in the book — or on the self that the book reflected back at him like a mirror.
Sakamoto Seiichi froze.
He looked down at the magazine crumpled beneath his foot, and suddenly realized something.
The self who had planned, once today's birthday was over, to go into the living room and end his life with that noose —
suddenly felt that suicide was an absolutely wrong way to go!
Just now — who was he cursing?
Was he cursing Oba Yozo?
Or… was he cursing himself?
"People who kill themselves are worthless."
He murmured to himself.
"Then doesn't that make me worthless too?"
He was silent for a long time.
Then he slowly crouched down, picked the magazine up, and patted the footprints off it.
"Before I read this book, I really was worthless."
He went on, talking to himself like a man unhinged.
"But now…"
He looked at the magazine in his hand, at the four characters of No Longer Human on its cover.
"Now I think — I haven't sunk to such worthlessness yet."
"And I will not sink to such worthlessness."
He laid the magazine down on the dining table.
Then he lifted the noose from around his neck.
He walked into the bedroom, and crouched down in a corner where there was a long-burnt-out, useless wall socket.
He pried it loose, and from inside it took out a DV camera.
The camera held a record of every time his wife — taking advantage of his being out of the house — had had her affair with his superior and "best friend."
There were also recordings of their discussions of how to throw him out without a penny.
Then he took out a thick envelope, inside which were the photographs the detective he had hired had taken, and printed-out evidence from the secret footage filmed in his home.
"I really am an idiot."
"For the sake of a woman and a friend like that, I was actually thinking of killing myself."
He walked out of the bedroom, then into the kitchen, found the sharpest, most easily carried kitchen knife, and tucked it inside his coat.
Then he walked back into the living room.
Just as he was about to head toward the entryway, he stopped.
He glanced back at the dining table…
On the dining table, that copy of Shinchō lay quietly.
He thought of the afterword in Dassai-ya-sensei's No Longer Human — the thing the author had hoped for: to save those hopeless people walking toward the end of the road.
____
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