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The advice is as general as any printed on the tiny slips, and yet he feels the crack of revelation jolt right through him. It rings with all the possibilities impossible for him.
"What's yours say?" Kenya asks, not bothering to stop munching.
"You first," Shiraishi says and lays his hands flat on the table. The idea being not to spoil Kenya too much. He might get used to it. And his insolence might reach new heights.
Kenya eyes the piece of paper placed strategically between Shiraishi's arms and takes a sip of his sake. Trying to appear uninterested. "If I were Shinra, I'd gobble it up and say there was none inside."
Shiraishi folds his hands in front of his face. "So it says 'unrequited love'." A sly smile tugs at his lips.
"I didn't expect you to be familiar with Durarara!!" Kenya puffs his cheeks in mock indignation. He's used to being teased that way, although he's the one that usually starts.
"So it does?"
"No, but it's similar in its dejected beauty. Lo and behold," here he clears his throat, smooths down the crumpled paper and switches to a TV announcer voice, "'It's over your head now. Time to get some professional help.'"
He looks at Shiraishi, waiting for a reaction. Shiraishi might just grant him a smile for the comical face Kenya pulled off trying to suppress a laugh. "That's rather harsh for a fortune cookie."
Kenya tosses the paper slip back onto the table, pours himself another cup. "Now you."
Shifting in his seat, Shiraishi stifles a sigh in its awakening. Why he wants to avoid unfolding and reading the fortune out loud, he can't say. Something about it doesn't sound right. "It says 'Live your fantasies.'"
He looks at Kenya; Kenya looks back. Then Kenya says, "In bed." and grins.
Shiraishi looks puzzled. Sometimes Kenya's attempts at humour are so sudden they miss their goal, so Shiraishi misses the context. "What?"
Kenya rolls his eyes to indicate he cannot understand why he has to explain. "Live your fantasies in bed."
Shiraishi keeps his face calm. Lowering himself to Kenya's level would incite the conversation to spiral downwards endlessly. He knows better than to play along in this regard. "I thought of it job-wise."
"Ah," Kenya said, catching the mood. You can attribute all manner of traits to him, but insensibility was not one of them. He can be more perceptive than one would expect. "Tell them."
"They don't need to know."
Kenya taps the rim of his cup, following the swirl of thoughts on the surface of the liquid with his eyes. "Call me revolutionary if you will, but I think the times you had to kill yourself to preserve your family's honour are over."
They're reaching an impasse again. Shiraishi should have seen it coming. "Then you may call me old-fashioned, but disregarding their will is not an option. I already disappoint them in one aspect. I can't add another."
Kenya then leans forward, eyes narrowed. This posture says that he was far from done, although he knows the conversation was over as soon as it began. Shiraishi made sure of that and so Kenya doesn't push. He can be considerate if he wants to be, and no one is looking. For Shiraishi he makes the golden exception.
When Kenya opens his mouth again, his voice takes on a conspiratorial undertone. He waves his paper slip at Shiraishi. "Sure that you don't wanna swap fortunes?"
Shiraishi wonders how much weight Kenya gave the meaning of his paper slip, when he offered it to him. His eyes seemed to challenge him, asking 'what are you waiting for?'
The question sidles up to another that has been hanging in his mind for months, like a spider in the attic. By the time you notice the cobwebs in the high corners, its spawn is slumbering in the cracks, waiting to hatch and grow and multiply.
"What is it you want?" Light flashed through the windows at intervals, like the pulse of the underground. As Shiraishi looked up, it bathed Fuji's features in an orange glow, softening expression out of them.
At first Shiraishi thought he should be asking the question. Fuji was to the one who had re-established their contact. Glances and books and cordial greetings had passed between them before recognition struck, before Shiraishi really looked. Because Fuji didn't tell, didn't ask 'remember?' He came week after week, borrowing books and planning the mischief other students would later point out to Shiraishi.
It was on a Tuesday, long after classes had ended - his usual time. Their time, though he didn't know it yet. "What are you doing?" he had asked. The figure in the aisle was sliding a copy of Also sprach Zarathustra back into the shelf – upside down. He could see that. The question he should have asked was why. Instead, he repeated his question, this time with more disbelief now that he had recognized the culprit. His hair was longer than Shiraishi remembered, the cut more stylish, but it was Fuji. "Well, what are you doing here?"
Taken by surprise or no, Fuji craned his neck around, all cool composure, calculated and indifferent. He had been waiting to be caught. "Shouldn't the stress be on the 'you'?"
How like him to side-step an honest answer. His countenance brought back memories. "You can stress it whatever way you like." The nuances of the meaning change a little depending on the word you want to emphasize, but the core element stays the same: 'you' and 'here', all wrapped up in a question.
Fuji smiled. A small sign of victory. "I was wondering how long it would take you to recognize me."
Since then they've been riding home together every Tuesday. Fuji would pick up Shiraishi from work and they would catch up on each other or reminisce the things they had shared. And yet, the question he had asked came out of the blue.
"What do you mean by 'what I want'?" Shiraishi asked.
Fuji stretched out his intertwined fingers, stretched out his arms, then settled his head back against the glass. "It's my favourite question to ask. You learn a lot about people when you know about their goals."
Several moments of silence stretched into the night, accented only by the coughs of a man opposite them and Hamasaki Ayumi's latest single crooning from the earplugs of the girl next to them. Here was a question Shiraishi didn't know how to answer. What was his goal now, anyway? Graduating college, surely. And then?
He didn't want to admit he had no idea. The possibilities were short of endless, he could be whatever he wanted to be and yet, here he was – so uninspired. Choice can be overwhelming, too.
"Then what do you want?" he asked, before Fuji might ask again, this time requiring an answer.
But Fuji didn't press. Instead, he smiled his Mona Lisa smile. "That's a secret."
The secret is that there is no secret, Shiraishi later gleaned: no goal in life, no direction. Fuji strays every which way, dabbles at the most obscure subjects that have no connection to anything else he does. It's his conviction, his utter lack of doubt that makes him so mysterious. He's unshakeable in his ways, so it's not surprising you would believe he had some deeper secrets.
"Let's go to Hokkaido," Fuji said as he sidled up to Shiraishi at the bus stop one morning. Was there an interesting excavation site or what was it this time? Last month he had said he wanted to go to Adelaide. There's a museum there, he had said, it displays some of the oldest fossils that have been found to date. They are said not to be very interesting, mere pieces of old rock, the outlines of the specimen too faint for the casual observer, but Fuji had still wanted to go. The month before that his preferred holiday destination had been London and its Natural History Museum.
Shiraishi was curious about the idea behind Fuji's travel choices, so he picked a random card from the deck of wild guesses. "Why? Do you wanna go hiking at Lake Mashu?"
"No, but the idea isn't half bad." Fuji fingered his chin and 'looked' up, as much as you could gauge from eyes that were constantly closed. "But I wouldn't want to chance having to break up with you, which the legends say happens if you see the lake on a clear day."
Break up was a strange choice of words for their relationship, which wasn't a relationship that went out or got together to begin with. It just fell into place. But it's possible to break up friendships as well. Break up, break apart, break away, break down, break through. All breaking in different directions.
Did the direction matter after something was broken?
"So why do you want to go?" Shiraishi picked up the question again; Fuji has the habit of answering only one question at a time, usually the last if the ones posed before are not more to his liking.
"I want to see the northern lights," Fuji said.
"The northern lights? Can you even see them there? I'd think that Northern Europe would be a better destination for that purpose."
"Oh, the possibility exists. Besides, it's a much more accessible option, both geographically and financially."
"Like you would care about accessibility," Shiraishi said.
But Fuji didn't laugh, or even smile. From the tightened lips, Shiraishi could gather that there was more. Fuji had not shared everything he wanted to. What he was about to ask seemed to be very difficult, but equally important to him. "Will you come with me?"
"Why didn't you say yes?" Kenya asks when he hears of Fuji's plans. The coin he pushed through the slot follows the curves of a question mark on its way down the vending machine. It hits with a pling, full-stop.
Nothing makes pling in Shiraishi's head, although his nerves popping soon might. His shoulder twitches, as though shrugging off something unwanted, a hand or a figurative burden. "It sounded so definite, like he had it all planned out. If he had asked 'would you' I might have said yes, just for the heck of it."
"What's the point of saying yes when you don't intend to go anyway?" Kenya's voice sounds far away, when he bends to pick up his drink.
This time, there's no exclamation mark Shiraishi has to offer, no decisive reason that would satisfy Kenya's curiosity. He's voracious in that aspect, always asking why why why, as though crying feed me. There's no reason not to go, not in Kenya's book anyway. Which is to say that none of the excuses Shiraishi has, real or fictional, count for anything. So Shiraishi can just settle for the next best answer.
"Someone has to water his cacti." It's a moot point, he knows. They can survive a week or two without water, no sweat, and Fuji didn't even ask.
Kenya arches his left eyebrow first at his energy drink, then at Shiraishi. "As if you're the only one who could have done that."
Of course it doesn't require a special set of skills only Shiraishi possessed to water cacti. Coming up with reasonable explanations out of the blue is not his strong suit; it was enough for Kintarou to be sure – you had to be creative to persuade the boy – but Kenya needs something more plausible to be fooled.
"I wonder at the state of the world when people have to fool their closest friends to save face," Fuji once mused over a cup of oolong tea. Then his 'gaze' shifted from following the steam rise to somewhere in the distance. "Hmm, that might actually make for a good story."
"Do you have a new assignment?" Shiraishi asked, in part careful to steer the topic away from uncomfortable shores, in part out of honest curiosity. His fascination for the depth of Fuji's world has rekindled after seeing the idea to flip library books over to get his attention. Not that he thought this was right, but in a fictitious story this might add a hint of amusement.
Fuji sighed. "I am torn between wishing you hadn't reminded me and being glad you did. Although I rather feel like procrastinating right now. I'm going out running. Care to join me?"
"Running? Sorry, can't." He almost added 'Have to work.' It has become instinct now, the way you perk up when someone calls your name. It's true enough most of the time, it only troubles him when it's not. He hates lying as much as cheating, but in this case keeping the matter at hand out of conversations counted as neither for him.
"You're awfully withdrawn lately," Fuji said, cocking his head. "But of course, we're university students. We can't keep running forever." Here he squeezed one eye at Shiraishi in what could have been a wink. "Do you think Kenya would be up for a couple of laps?"
"I don't know. You'd have to ask him," Shiraishi said.
Fuji nodded and slid the book he had been reading between the notebooks in his bag. He took a last sip of his tea and slung the bag across his shoulders. His body language translated to both disappointment and preoccupation, a curious mix.
"Wait. If you want to stop running, maybe I could help you," Shiraishi said. What he meant was the assignment, but he kept the idea ambiguous on purpose. To see what Fuji would connect it with.
Fuji paused for a second – motion, breath, thoughts and all. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. I'd rather sweat this out now. Get a clear head, you know."
Perhaps Shiraishi read too deeply into the little word run. How much meaning can hide behind three letters.
Run (verb), ran, run, running:
a. intransitive:
1. to move forward with the legs at a fast pace;
2. to move with haste, act quickly;
3. (figuratively) to move or spread quickly;
4. to depart quickly, take to flight, flee or escape, as from danger(...)
Phrasal verbs: run into, run through, run around, run off, run away...
"Remember the fortune cookie you got the other day?" Kenya asked after he had gulped down his energy drink and thrown it into the trash. "It said something about doing what you want to do, right?"
"'Live your fantasies,' yes," Shiraishi said.
"Details," Kenya waved his hand as if to shoo them away. "Point is this would have been your chance. Unless watering plants is more your thing than going out, seeing new things and gathering new experiences."
So then, did Shiraishi run away from those experiences? Did he hole himself up behind cardboard excuses that could not withstand the fist of truth if it came probing? No, facing his duties did not count as running away, even if he shirked around the brass tacks. It's true he hasn't taken the time lately to try anything fresh, something he hasn't done before or visit places he's never been to. Not that he thinks he would actually take them in, much less enjoy them. It's as though he's losing his open-mindedness; his surroundings vanish beneath the weight of thought, washed out and grey like a rainy day in November. When he's out shopping, he has to force himself to concentrate and scout for the things he seeks, or he would walk right by and never notice. It's not so much visual impairment as the dullness of the same sights, same people, same talks, same overall schedule that's taking over his senses.
Tap, tap, tap goes his foot to the hospital, although his sister is not there anymore. His body knows the way around town and follows pre-trodden paths, moving on its own drone and grind, so that his eyes can face inward.
Was Fuji referring to this when he created the boy whose eyesight was failing? Or is it just what's generally labelled as being lost in thought?
"Did you know I was thinking of you," he had said, "when I wrote about his doctor in my early draft? It amused me to imagine you fighting your way through the undergrowth and stumbling over roots or loose stones with your geta."
Shiraishi cannot remember his exact comeback, something about Fuji mistaking him for his old tennis coach in middle school, who looked like a sleazebag with his cotton hat and three-day stubble. Now he wonders what life as a doctor in the Muromachi or Sengoku era might have been like. He had hoped Fuji would answer that question by way of writing, would take him by the hand and lead him down history's path like Urashima in reverse. That was, until he scrapped any reference to real-life events.
"It's supposed to be a fairy tale. They don't take place during any specific period of time. They're as vague as possible about that. And with places, it's the same thing in green. They can happen everywhere and nowhere. It makes them timeless and understandable throughout the lands and generations. That's what I like about them."
Explains why fairy tales don't exist in real life; they exist apart from it, parallel worlds, countless of them, or at least as many as there are variations to a story.
Fuji's latest draft features the theme of incurable illness and from what Shiraishi could gather there are endless ways to use it. In this particular case a boy loses first his eyesight and then his will to live. An endless slew of wise men with medical knowledge try to heal him, but so far they all failed.
"Don't tell me the cure is love. That would be so clichéd," Shiraishi said the first time he heard the rough outline.
"When did you read my notes?" Fuji sat up straighter, a hand going before his mouth.
"You can't be serious," Shiraishi said. Back then he could not read Fuji; he was like a book you could start from both ends with no meeting point in the middle.
Fuji shook his head no. Where was the point in introducing a doctor with a spotless medical record and go through the trouble of writing heartfelt arguments about morals and ethics and the meaning of life, just to have the boy fall in love with the doctor's daughter, who happened to travel with him as an assistant, or more conflicting: with the doctor himself.
"It's a dilemma the boy can't see any tools he could use for suicide. It would solve both our problems." Fuji can be cruel in his own detached way. He cared nothing about the boy himself, only to make him plausible. That in itself is hard enough, plausible is not a trait of most people. Less so of the person he has used as basis for the boy. He has never met her, but Shiraishi's third-hand story seemed to be enough to inspire him.
It was not every day that you met what his sister called suicidal imbeciles. Although it was Kanae who had met her, not Shiraishi himself. "Let me see if I can get the words together," she said, as she recalled that implausible story. "When she was asked why she would do something so drastic and stupid she said 'What point is there in being spent money on if I'm going to die in the end anyway?' Huh, by this logic we might all just drop dead."
Shiraishi could understand his sister was displeased about someone wanting to throw their life away when she was about to deliver one into this world. Her value of life had changed and perhaps the length of time she thought she had left; she had a purpose now and staying alive was imperative to fulfil it. Shiraishi wondered if the girl would change her view of life if she was in the same position or if she would only worry about passing on cancer.
Sometimes he feels a pull, a desire to talk to her, see what she is like and if she has improved, but when he tries to remember her name, his face warms from embarrassment. He can't remember and so it's his fault the girl vanishes in the cold statistics of his textbooks, stripped of her identity.
The only link she had to his life was through his sister and the story Fuji was writing.
"I don't know what to do with the character, Shiraishi-kun. It is obvious he doesn't want to live anymore and his sickness makes sure he isn't fit for a normal life. I could kill him off, but who would like to read that?" If Shiraishi didn't know Fuji any better he would have wondered if he cared nothing for the life of the boy and the person he had based him on. "Then there is the doctor, whose desire is to help. What to do about him if the boy died?"
Do doctors care if they lose their patients? Can they allow themselves to care? Or do they lock their souls away, so they won't feel? It's a thing to be learned, shielding your heart, so what if the doctor in the story has yet to experience it?
"You could describe his grief over losing the boy, or his perfect record," Shiraishi said. He meant it as a suggestion, but it came out as a challenge. How would you stage it?
"Losing his perfect score, hm?" Fuji chuckled, but his smile then was not entirely pleasant. "I knew why I thought of you when I wrote that man."
If you don't want others to guess your hand, you had best keep a poker face. Shiraishi kept his in place. If he hadn't lost his breath somewhere on the way from his nose to his lungs, he would have hummed now, a drawn-out vibration in the back of his throat that hitched at the end, to make it sound like a question, sound like he had no idea what Fuji was talking about. With ambiguous statements like that it was best to pretend they didn't mean a thing or else you might run the risk of asking yourself things like What did he know exactly, or was he just bluffing?
Ever since he started joint activities with Kenya, Fuji has started to rise to the ranks of those few who could actually see Shiraishi, if not see through him. Shiraishi thought he might not survive another pair of eyes scanning him for weaknesses.
"I think you're being paranoid," Kenya used to say. "Stop it, please. Your restlessness is catching."
"Kenya's right. You're even starting to set me on edge," Fuji said, although he continued to scribble into the notebook he was hunched over with no sign of agitation. He was wearing his glasses again. The first time Fuji did, Shiraishi wondered why they looked familiar although he could not remember Fuji having bad eyesight.
"I didn't know you wear glasses," he had said, hoping to have the mystery unravelled.
"They're not mine," was all Fuji had said.
It wasn't until later that Kenya told him that Fuji had most likely won them from his cousin in a bet. He claimed to dimly remember Yuushi having mentioned something like that once, although he wasn't sure. If they had indeed belonged to Yuushi before, they were fake. Fuji said he liked them for their weight. The foreign pressure on the bridge of his nose helped him focus.
Shiraishi thought there must be more to them or how else would he explain why Fuji was still keeping an old model with round eyeglasses if there were more flattering ones around? It did nothing to dispel the solemn cast that had developed around Fuji's eyes over the past years; on the contrary, it heightened it.
It must be a memento of times gone by, something to anchor the past to himself, because memories alone are full of pitfalls. Kenya mentioned there had been rumours in Tokyo about the two of them going out, but he couldn't be sure, because Yuushi never alluded to anything and with his discreet bragging about his girlfriends – bragging was Kenya's term, though Yuushi wouldn't concur – Kenya never in his craziest what-if scenarios pictured his cousin as being gay. It was all a little unlikely, he admitted. Kenya doesn't really care about his cousin's sexual orientation – they did have gay teammates before university after all, or ones claiming to be, so tolerance was not the problem. Kenya was more worried about homosexuality being a hereditary trait.
If Shiraishi were to take up Kenya's mental what-if exercise and spun a tale around Fuji's rumoured orientation, the past few months took on a whole new meaning. Fuji's sultry smiles, seductive poses and flirtatious voice, things Shiraishi had never looked at as such.
Once, in a particular benevolent mood, Fuji had answered why he had transferred to Osaka of all places. "I wanted another challenge. But I see you've already quit playing."
Spinning this sentence on its heel and flipping it over for good measure, Fuji might not have meant he wanted to face Shiraishi on a court again, but that Shiraishi himself was the challenge. That was, until Fuji noticed that Shiraishi was not very forward. To Shiraishi this was all eerily accurate to the point of being utterly ridiculous. This was something out a bad fanfic. He could become a writer.
"So, tell me, Mr. Author. What happened to the boy?" Shiraishi asks. Fuji has kept the recent development of the story to himself, so Shiraishi doesn't know if it's already finished or put on hold. Unless they get together and Shiraishi starts pulling the answers out of Fuji, they're never shared. Not because Fuji doesn't want to, but because he forgets.
"I killed him," Fuji states, not taking his eyes away from what he was writing. It looks like a letter.
"And then? What happens?" Shiraishi would not admit it, but he's just a little taken aback. Fuji put so much thought into alternative plot-lines that Shiraishi did not think he would go through with this.
"Nothing. I scrapped the whole thing." Said just as matter-of-factly. Well, for him it's just a matter of fact.
Shiraishi stares. He turns his head and sees Kenya nodding, as though he's known it all along. And maybe he has, seeing how often they've been out running together. It's not too far off that Fuji might have shared the story he was working on. And more, perhaps. Plotting together. Conspirators.
Kenya says nothing to either confirm or deny his suspicions, he just keeps fiddling with the smallest piece of the matryoshka dolls that adorned the table. Fuji said his former teammate Eiji had sent them as a birthday present, another anchor to the past, an item that stores your memories for you. It's a hand-painted set with the caricatured faces of his old team, the one he made it to Nationals with. Inside the one depicting Fuji were two tickets to Wakkanai, in Hokkaido. Now there is a newspaper clipping in a foreign tongue. The only words Shiraishi can understand are 'Kunimitsu Tezuka,' 'Japan' and 'Tennis.' So this is most likely an article about Tezuka's current status in the world of tennis.
Fuji glances up briefly and catches the direction of Shiraishi's stare. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"
"I thought you'd already given the ticket to Kenya," Shiraishi says.
Kenya waves his hand. "I don't mind backing off if you want to go."
Shiraishi thinks about it for a second. Did he want to go? "No, it's okay. I'm busy anyway."
"Why do you hesitate? Life's too short for second guesses," Kenya says. It's something Shiraishi could have expected. Kenya is the type to dash toward anything at full speed and without thought. It makes some decisions easier, but not all.
"I said I'm fine."
But is he really? Going by the definitions, he's neither 'choice, excellent, or admirable,' nor is he 'keen or sharp, as a tool', as adjective usage suggested. The meaning he's looking for isn't listed in his dictionary. Does that mean he was not fine? Do you stop being what you are just because there's no name for it?
So what is he? He is thinking of Kenya and Fuji going tobogganing together, going to the hot springs together, going to sleep in the same bed together. Eating lavender ice-cream and watching the northern lights together, the whole reason for Fuji's sudden pull towards Hokkaido. Playing tourists together. Together. Sharing this experience.
Is he jealous? Jealous of not being able to spend time with his friends, jealous of not sharing the same experience or jealous of their ability to leap into the arms of life, tasting whatever it had to offer?
It's like he has lost his own somewhere on the way to university, or not lost: stored in the attic, alongside his racquet.
You could be jealous of many things. Kenya used to be jealous of Yuushi's girlfriends, Fuji of his brother's determination to work hard and Shiraishi? Many things. But his current life was not on the list.
"You're so obsessed with succeeding it's bordering on the absurd," Kenya had once told him. Shiraishi still didn't know whether to agree or not. Could wanting to succeed ever be absurd? Or was it the priority his grades had over hanging out with friends that Kenya labelled absurd?
If anything, Fuji was the absurd one, being all excited about something one minute and trashing it the next. Did he not mention a scholarship he so desperately wanted?
"All I have to do is write a German fairy tale," Fuji grumbled over his collection of empty sheets with pencil tucked behind his ear. Filling one with the other was his ambition. "The trouble is, I don't know any."
"Sure you do. What about Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella?" Shiraishi had said.
Fuji shook his head. "They don't originate in Germany. They were first written down in Italy by Basile Giambattista and in France by Charles Perroult, before the Brothers Grimm collected fairy tales in German."
Shiraishi thought for a moment. Did it really matter where they came from, when they were adapted in many different languages? "Then how about we have a look at what the library has to offer?"
Thinking about it now, this question marked the start of their collaboration of sorts, or should he rather call it therapy session? He rarely contributes anything except to get Fuji's cognitive wheels turning again. He's more a pillar of support than an active partner.
Not that he minds. It's interesting to watch a story grow. Watching it grow and taking on a life is probably why it's so hard to let go, after Fuji tossed it into the wastebasket. Is it too much to hope to salvage some parts, recycle them and put their new sparkly exterior to good use?
On his bus ride to the dorms, Shiraishi fishes his cell phone out of his coat pocket and begins typing.
Date: 2011/12/27 21:25
From: [Shiraishi Kuranosuke]
To: [Oshitari Kenya]
Don't let his effort go
to waste.
He leans against the headrest and breathes out, closing his eyes. This is out of his hands for now, he has passed on the baton. All he can do now is wait and see. He does not have to wait long for an answer though.
Date: 2011/12/27 21:47
From: [Oshitari Kenya]
To: [Shiraishi Kuranosuke]
Working on it. Leave
it to me!
After the brief correspondence with Kenya in the first week of their vacation, Shiraishi did not hear from them anymore. Not that he noticed at first. Commuting from the dorms to school to work and to his parents' place, not to mention visiting his sister on the weekend, took his mind off of more distant matters. Until he gets a message the following Tuesday, just when he's about to hang up his coat in the library.
Date: 2012/01/03 19:01
From: [Fuji Shuusuke]
To: [Shiraishi Kuranosuke]
Not coming to pick
you up today either.
Sorry! Bring me a
copy of Grimm's
Children's Tales,
please?
Shiraishi smiles. The days between the messages he received are so compressed in his memory that it seems like yesterday he heard from Kenya last. And today they are already coming back. He wonders if time has made the same impression on them in Hokkaido, that everything just flew by in a blur. It's what time usually does when you're on vacation.
"How about it? Have you decided what kind of story you want to use for your assignment?" Shiraishi asks the following morning, as he hands out the item Fuji wants. Not the expected How was Hokkaido?s or What did you see?s their classmates would bombard them with once they set foot on campus grounds.
Fuji accepts the book with both hands and nods. "I didn't stray too far either. There's still an incurably sick person and another who wants to heal her."
"Don't tell me you want to go through with the love-cures-all theme?" Shiraishi asks.
"More like curses all," Kenya says with a grimace. Fuji makes a shooing gesture at him.
"Kenya wanted something heart-wrenching like Tristan and Iseult, but I can't see how that's a fairy tale."
"Did not!" Kenya interrupts again.
Shiraishi ignores him. Most of the time that's the most prudent choice. "Then, do you have the story planned out already?"
"Just the premise," Fuji turns to head in the direction of his own faculty. "Let's have lunch together. I'll tell you about it then."
During lunchtime it's never easy to pick out someone you're looking for in the cafeteria. But after months of practising the quick sweep of the occupied seats, Shiraishi has become quite adept at spotting his lunch date. Kenya and Fuji have arrived before him and are already seated.
"What if I told you I liked you?" Shiraishi hears Fuji ask as he approaches, unseen by the sound of things.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Kenya jerks away from Fuji. "It's not my damn problem. Your feelings are not my responsibility." Kenya turns his head away and his nose upwards, in a show of mock derision. Although Shiraishi thinks he's doing it to hide his blush.
"Kenya-kun, so mean." Fuji stretches out the honorific in a sort of wail that's as real as Kenya's indignation before. He leans over as if to rub his head on Kenya's shoulder, who's trying to avoid any physical contact at all. When he nearly falls from his chair, they burst out laughing. Are they putting on a show for him or what?
"Am I interrupting something?" Shiraishi asks, playful with just enough earnestness in his voice to be on the safe side of whatever this is going to turn out to be.
"Not at all. Do sit," Fuji says, still amused.
"We were just rehearsing a play." Kenya says stiffly. Shiraishi has to suppress a laugh. He can't remember the last time he heard that excuse. They've used it all the time in elementary school.
Fuji beams at Shiraishi. "Actually, I was just confessing my love to him. But it seems he doesn't care about my feelings." Here, Fuji heaves a sigh and presses the back of his hand against his forehead in a melodramatic gesture.
"If this is your new insider joke, I'm missing out here." Shiraishi says.
Kenya clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "Ah, Kurarin. It pains me to think that after all this time, you still don't know us. Can't a guy be silly without a reason every so often?"
Shiraishi can't see how confessing could ever count as fooling around, especially between men. But Fuji's unperturbed expression suggests there really is no deeper meaning. Unless he's even more shameless than Shiraishi gave him credit for. "Alright, alright, I give."
Still, he can't shake the questions in his head. What is he missing? Could the rumours have been true after all?
"Still interested in the story?" Fuji asks.
"More than interested," Shiraishi says. Any story.
"Alright. Where do I begin? Well, once upon a time, of course, in a land far, far away lived a man with his wife. They had a son and a daughter, who was very sickly. Or wait, they were both healthy children and the parents owned a cow, too. Said cow calved about the same time the daughter was born. Everything was perfect, until it was not any longer. Times became rougher for the family and they did not have much money anymore. When the cow then stopped giving milk, the father saw his chance to provide his family with some food and killed the cow. And when the daughter ate from the cow's meat, she fell gravely ill." Here he paused for effect. "How's that for divine retribution?"
"So tragic," Kenya moans.
"Shut up." Shiraishi swats the back of Kenya's head to emphasize his message.
Fuji chuckles, eyes crinkling and a hand covering his mouth. Very elegant. "Anyway. The daughter is ill, the parents work hard to try out every possible remedy anyone has to offer and the son is left to watch her. And although the boy loves his sister very much and wants to see her well again, he is miserable, because his spirit dries up when it is confined. Not being a dimwit like Kenya here (Oi!), the girl notices how sorrowful the boy is, because he wants to see more of the world than just the inside of their house and the surrounding fields. So one day she says to him in a voice that comes from the edge of the tombstone that she wishes to die in order to save him from his chafing bonds."
"I wonder why she doesn't do that," says Kenya.
"Because then the whole story would be pointless," Fuji says.
"What does she suffer from?" Shiraishi asks.
"It's a fairy tale. These things are unimportant," Fuji says. "If you disagree, you can always suggest one and brief me on it. You're the aspiring doctor, after all."
Shiraishi grimaces. He shouldn't have asked. "And you're the author. You know better what fits the description of fairy tales and what doesn't."
"Alright, I go with 'doesn't matter.' Should I continue or are you bored already?"
"By all means, continue." Shiraishi shoots a glance at Kenya that he hopes would convey everything needed to keep his mouth shut. Kenya lifts his hands in front of him in defence, or maybe to appease Shiraishi. Apparently the message has reached him.
"So, after hearing his sister's death wish, the son is shocked and tells their parents about it, who are likewise shocked and concerned. They spend the night going over the matter and the next morning they call the son to fill him in on their plan. He is supposed to take the calf, which had by then grown into an adult, into the city and sell it for a good price to have money for supplies. The parents want him to go out into the world to find a cure for his sister. The brother is somewhat conflicted about this. On the one hand he's overjoyed to have the permission to see the world, but on the other he feels sad about leaving his sister alone. He goes to tell her about their parents' suggestion. She's relieved for her brother and gives him something dear to herself as parting gift and charm, which may or may not be of use later. So, after the son leaves I have no idea how to go on. Naturally, it should have a happy ending."
"So she won't die while her brother is away?" Shiraishi asks.
Fuji shrugs. "As with the other story, I only want to go down that path if it proves a point, which I can't see right now."
"What Shiraishi wants to say is that the boy should have stayed in his proper place instead of chasing some whim or other," Kenya says, a direct gaze boring into Shiraishi.
"Quit laying words in my mouth. I thought what if the parents knew the girl had not much time left and wanted to spare their son having to watch her die. This way he could set out into the world with the hope of achieving something and without the burden of his sister's death."
"Wouldn't it be doubly crushing if he came home to find his sister has been long dead?" Fuji asks.
"Just listing a possibility."
They say possibilities are endless, imagine what you can do once you're finished studying, what you can do until your choice is fixed. Shiraishi feels like he's closing the doors, one by one, narrowing the scope. He's not feeling stagnant anymore, like he's standing still and not going forward. Rather, it's like receding, back to where he came from, because the road on which he stands is not one he wants to travel and its goal none he's eager to meet.
"I've seen the rankings," There was no concern in Fuji's voice, no admonishment. He was stating a fact. Likely he thought this was enough to unnerve Shiraishi, so that he would feel found out and spill the beans, if there were any to spill. What he did not consider was that Shiraishi could read any manner of subtext into Fuji's statement, if he wanted to avoid the awkward truth he was about to uncover. Keyword being if.
"And?" Shiraishi asked. Conjecture he could live with, but he was tired of running from facts.
"You're slipping."
If Shiraishi's sarcastic streak ran as deep as Kenya's he would thank Fuji for stating the obvious. He did not know where Fuji wanted to go with this, and until then the idea seemed rather rude.
So instead he stopped evading and faced the confrontation head-on. "I know."
There was no way to outrun the questions anyway, the argument waiting to happen, the whisperings behind his back, wondering what was wrong with him to fail his own expectations. So why did he ever think he could?
"Is there something the matter?" Fuji asked. What's wrong, what's wrong.
Even with questions like this, the possibilities are endless. Or especially with questions like this. The first option, the most likely to happen among friends who are honest with each other, may be to break down and confess everything or, if not honest, to deny. Those were the logical choices; there were also sneaky ones that directed the conversation from the subject matter, or the strange ones that went into a discourse about the meaning of life and the universe itself. He could also do something especially absurd and out of character, like emptying his glass of water in Fuji's face or howling in frustration, before stomping off.
What a pity he was too subdued and rational a character. He might have liked to see Fuji's reaction.
"Do you think there is?" Was his best attempt at stalling. Not that he wanted to avoid talking, but it was interesting to hear an outsider's standpoint, and to Shiraishi's thoughts everyone else was an outsider. For years he had liked to test Kenya like this, to see how much he knew, how much Shiraishi had already given away. Kenya had been a sharp one even then.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk," Fuji said, mistaking Shiraishi's silence for hesitation. "But if you do, I'll listen."
With the tiny word if, there's choice in the matter. Speak up now, or stay silent forever. If he wanted to, he could have. Time to get some professional help, Kenya's fortune had suggested. He could do that, as a last alternative, before jumping out of a window or OD'ing on sleeping pills.
Not that he had ever seriously considered taking drastic actions, but he found himself flirting with the possibilities on more than one frantic occasion. Supposing he would throw himself in front of a moving train, who would pick up his pieces. Supposing he hanged himself, who would take him down. Supposing he died in his sleep, who would cut him open to find the cause?
No, dying was not an option, Shiraishi thought as he popped the second sleeping pill for the night.
"Wouldn't you stay alive, as long as you could choose?" Fuji asks, rather than explaining why the girl was still alive, even though she's terminally ill.
"Of course, but why bother when she's sick? That's not realistic." Kenya says, stirring his hot chocolate.
"It's a fairy tale. It doesn't need to be." Fuji has placed his well to the side, so he wouldn't knock it over his notes by accident. Shiraishi wonders not for the first time why he takes them manually.
"Speaking of which. I'm missing the violence and bloodshed. You said they were part of some, too."
"A cow was slaughtered. What more violence do you need?" Shiraishi quips.
"And what about magic?" Kenya continues. He runs his tongue along the long spoon, before using it to scoop what was left of the cream on top. One day Shiraishi might just ask him if he does that on purpose, pretending to be engrossed with something and treating the ongoing conversation as unimportant.
"Already included," Fuji says.
"Well? Enchant us."
"I'm going to ignore that and go right ahead with the story," Fuji said. "So the boy was supposed to sell the bull, but since animals in fairy tales can talk I thought why not let it offer the boy a trade for its freedom. You let me go and I take you to a wizard that can heal your sister. But be advised, the path is stony and long, it won't be a piece of cake, it says, only in a more formal and archaic way. The son doesn't care about the difficulty, of course, as heroes in stories are prone to do, so they set out, but without food or anything, because the son had no money for supplies.
"He was able to survive, because the bull led him along a stream and pointed out edible plants on the way. Should I include magical creatures here? Trying to lead him astray with promises of adventure and treasures beyond imagining, only to show that the son, although tempted, stays on his path and tells himself he can come back later, after his sister is healed?
"Either way, when there's someone in immediate danger, the son goes out of his way to help them and it turns out the person was either the wizard himself, or his daughter, in case I might need her for anything later. The wizard is willing to help, because he sees that the son is worthy and true to his cause. Because if I include the creatures the son meets before the wizard, they could be some kind of test to see what is more important to the boy: his own desire for adventure, or his sister's life."
"Aren't you a smart one," Kenya comments.
"Ingenious, I know. Anyway, I'm still unclear about what the wizard does afterwards, if he gives the son a potion and sends him on his way or what. At first I was debating whether to have the boy return home like Urashima and find out he's been gone for three hundred years."
"You wouldn't have to worry about the sister that way," Kenya says.
"Yes, but that wouldn't be a German fairy tale then."
"Why does it have to be German anyway?" Shiraishi asks.
"Yeah, I thought you said you were going to France," Kenya adds.
"I'm not going anywhere, until this monster is finished and approved of," Fuji said. "But to answer your questions. I initially applied for a scholarship at a German university, but when they had no openings there, the closest they could offer me was Paris."
"Doesn't sound like too bad an alternative," Shiraishi says. "You could even try and get tickets for the French Open."
This probably has to be the first time Shiraishi ever saw Fuji grin. "Exactly what I'm planning."
When they were still in middle school, Shiraishi dreamed about some day attending one of the Grand Slam tournaments. It seemed like every tennis player's dream back then to at least see one, if not play. He doubts much had changed in that regard. Before they faced off all those years ago, had Fuji shared the same dreams, or had their captain been the only one? Tezuka must be at that level by now. Maybe that was what the foreign newspaper article in Fuji's possession was about.
(If they were still in middle school he would have been jealous.)
Has Fuji applied for a German university in order to be closer to Tezuka, and the possibility for a rematch? Fuji does still play, Kenya told him in the beginning, although he has never seen him. He must still play, why else would he have wanted to challenge Shiraishi?
What do you want? The question pops up in the active part Shiraishi's mind again. It never sinks as far as the bottom of consciousness, but skids along the edges, until pulled out of the waters by the Jorougumo's strings.
Flip it on its back and start with what you don't want.
"If you don't like it, you should just do it like the boy in Fuji's story," Kenya said the day before on their way home, "and talk to your parents. There should be a way to find a solution that's acceptable for both parties."
Despite his sharpness, he can be quite the idealist. As can Fuji.
"I have to say, so far your fairy tale is quite innocent. I thought, yes almost expected that you would put in a lot more human corruption and violence." When Shiraishi mentioned it like that, did that mean he did not want innocence? He wondered about that himself.
"I didn't really feel like it," Fuji shrugged. "For me, the word fairy tale still conveys something pure and childish, something that ends with a happily ever after. If this sounds like Disney or the latest Miyazaki productions, I don't care."
Although his outline is full of hesitation, Fuji makes it known that he knows exactly what he wants. Or what he doesn't want. Shiraishi has to admit he envies him a little for his honesty.
"If you don't know what you want, everything is as good as the next thing."
Fuji had once said something like this, although Shiraishi thinks the word he used was eat. They had been talking about food.
Sit it out, wait around, life will surely lead you down another path. It's what he has been doing so far. Can he just say he can't do this anymore? Can he get back to Fuji's offer and tell him he can't stand the pain and suffering any longer?
"It's all well and good if you're cutting up cadavers in school, but dealing with living people is a whole other level."
It's not only his fear of germs that prefers a sanitized and sterile environment like a morgue to a breeding ground for strange sicknesses like the waiting room of a general practitioner. He knows how they can screw up, the doctors of the future, he's seen it live. They're not infallible, they give wrong diagnoses and prescribe the wrong pills. But it doesn't hurt them, it's their patients who have to live with the doctor's inadequacy if they take their orders as a word from God. Some people do that. Shiraishi's grandmother did.
His father had advised him to think of all the possibilities his studies would offer him and take them all into consideration. Shiraishi doesn't know if that meant his father wanted him to follow the pharmaceutical path and walk in his shadow.
"So Shiraishi-kun wants to become a doctor? That's nice." He had often heard people exclaim in front of his father.
Where's wanting in the matter? It's a poisoned dish he was forced to eat.
Nowadays Shiraishi wants to erase the word possibilities from his vocabulary. "Think of the responsibilities!" He wants to tell anyone who stands in his way.
"I know it's absurd, but sometimes I think her condition is my fault." Shiraishi finally forces out the words that have been haunting him. It brings him no relief however, rather, he is more agitated than before. He wrings his hands as though his life depends on it. There's a tide rolling he cannot stop anymore.
"I certainly hope your sister's pregnancy was not your fault!" Kenya says in an attempt for comic relief.
Fuji shoves him away without looking. "What condition?"
"Her kidneys." Shiraishi can gather from Fuji's slight brow raise that he honestly doesn't know what Shiraishi is talking about. Although Shiraishi could have sworn his story was based on him and his sister. Her kidneys are failing, he explains. If two healthy kidneys mean 100%, hers are down at 25% with one not functioning and the other not quite. She might be up for a biopsy soon, and Shiraishi worries that her remaining kidney would shut down completely.
When Shiraishi finishes talking, they're silent, all three of them and Kenya cannot even bring himself to say something stupid to lighten the mood.
"I feel like I should have seen it coming, seen the symptoms and prevented this." Shiraishi buries his head in his hands. "It's not as though anyone blames me, but I have the feeling they think I ought to know how to help her and restore her health again."
Her health is especially important now with the baby.
"Shiraishi-kun," Fuji speaks before Shiraishi can start berating himself again. When Shiraishi looks up from his hands, two azure blue eyes are fixed at him. "As sad as it is, your studies don't make you God. No matter how good you are, there are things you can't influence."
It was as he feared. If he cannot influence anything, studying was pointless.
"And I doubt your sister would want you to take it all on your shoulders," Kenya adds. Then he grins. "I'll ask her myself if you don't believe me."
"A cross-check is probably what you need."
It's hard to span the trenches you've been digging for yourself. Silence and secrecy are what have kept Shiraishi under their rule, at first because he had no idea what was happening, and later because he wanted no one else to know. It was a matter of pride. Misplaced, he knows now.
He has ignored the simplest of solutions, because he kept his troubles inside, pretended not to have any until he believed it himself. And when you believe nothing is wrong, there is no incentive to go looking for a solution to something that doesn't exist in your head.
Talk to your parents, Kenya suggested. Is that the solution? To what exactly? Shiraishi doubts it's the solution to anything, but it's a first step. Establish communication through the white noise of custom.
"It's social comment that hinders you from taking the actions you want to take," Fuji says. "People that do not understand your choices. Remember the time I confessed to Kenya? Did you notice the heads turning and the frowns directed at us? We did not only act this out on campus, but in the city too, the mall, the train station, anywhere at all. We wanted to see as many reactions as possible."
"It actually started as a prank in Hokkaido, when someone mistook Fuji for a girl and me for his boyfriend," Kenya adds. "It got us thinking. About social approval and the like."
"And you're telling me this, because...?" Shiraishi asks. He does not see the connections. Were they living out their fantasies by pretending to be lovers? Something about that is just plain wrong.
"If I had to abstract it into an aphorism, I'd say 'Life is short, too short to reach all your goals, but fulfilment comes from trying to.' Which is to say, do what you want. Choose your dream and chase it. There's no disgrace in choosing something else to study if it suits you better.
"When I first fed my assignment to the flames, I was ready to leave it there. But Kenya made me realise that we were both running away from what we want, that we're drifting farther and farther from it with every day we let go by. So I wanted to describe a character that loses so much of his fire by doing what his parents set him to do."
"So you did draw parallels from my life," Shiraishi says.
"I draw from experience and if that happens to include a friend with similar symptoms, I'll use it. Maybe someone will recognize themselves in it and draw inspiration from it. That's why I want a happily ever after."
"You can't rewrite your past or your present-day to pave your way to a future you fancy. Life just doesn't work like that."
"Maybe not your life, but mine works so much better with a little imagination."
"Do you think your parents would grieve if you didn't comply with their wishes?" Kenya asks, like telling him to stop being a mule-headed chicken and go to his parents already.
Silence and secrecy have kept Shiraishi under their thumbs, all because Shiraishi had been too distressed to face the heart of what was troubling him. No, he was too afraid to step on the path of resolving it, because to reach the end of it you had to pass through conflict.
Until now, he was used to leading a harmonious life, the only struggle he knew was the kind you fight with yourself. Until now he was used to bowing down to decisions made for him, because you don't struggle against your bonds and accept the bones life throws at you. So until now, he did not think of confronting his parents about his own choices, about the role he wants to pick for himself, not only because he was afraid of the outcome, but because he was afraid of taking his life into his own hands.
"There's no disgrace in choosing what you want to do."
Truth be told, Shiraishi does not know what he wants to do. The possibilities are endless, and even his studies allow for a broad range of occupations. It takes him some time to allow himself to say that he does not have to become a doctor. He does not have to stay in the medical field. He can be anything as long as he sets his mind to it. And as long as he bears the responsibility for his own actions, not that of others.
"I see you still remain in your faculty," Fuji says.
"I did not want to throw away the time and effort I've put into this," Shiraishi says. "Knowing that I don't have to do this for the rest of my life gives me the energy to see it through the end." And the knowledge he has gathered until now will certainly not be for nought.
"And what are you going to do then, any plans?" Fuji asks.
"Not really. But I'll use the time until graduation to figure things out."
"You could do it like Tezuka Osamu and start drawing manga," Kenya says. Shiraishi wonders if Kenya googled the alumni of their university just to be able to crack a joke like that. He wouldn't put it past him.
"Speaking of Tezuka, what has happened to your scholarship?" Shiraishi asks. “While you were busy fleshing out your story, we haven't talked much." The last he heard, Fuji was about to hand the son a shovel that always digs out pure water, healing water that washes every wound away, which the son notices when he holds his scratched and swollen feet into the bubbling fountain to cool them down.
"Actually, I've come to say good-bye." Fuji says.
"Wait a second! Why haven't you told us before?" Kenya asks. "You can't just leave me with this nutjob without warning."
"Who's the nutjob?" Shiraishi glares.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine without me."
It's strange to say good-bye to someone you used to spend a lot of time with, but haven't seen in a while. He's not leaving forever, it's only a year, so it feels like an extension of the times when either of them was too busy to meet up with the others. A year is not a long time if you have means to keep in touch.
"You can text me whenever you want, of course. I'm not gonna drop off the face of the planet."
"Whew, since you overwhelmed us with your sudden departure, we could not prepare a parting gift for you. But wait," Shiraishi says and rummages in his coat pockets. When he finds what he was looking for, Shiraishi stretches out a fist to give it to Fuji. "Let me give you this as token, or charm. When you return, you can trade this in for welcoming gift. Provided that you tell us when you return."
Fuji unfolds the tiny slip of paper, his smile then warm and genuine. "Thanks. I'll treasure this."
"Did you say 'trash'?" Kenya says and they laugh, not only to be polite. They bask in the memories of times spent together, all three of them, good times they won't have for a while, at least not in this constellation.
Shiraishi claps a hand on Fuji's shoulder. "Come back safely. And when you do, let's have a match."
.+fin+.