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She is fifteen years old and catches your eye.
You are all innocence; you only remember her name because her roll call greeting – “Aoki?” “Yes!” – was enthusiastic to the point of parody.
She straightens her kerchief with a sheepish smile, no shame, only innocence, and you wonder if she is a good student, but the next moment, you have forgotten her.
=====
She is fifteen years old and can hardly play.
“But I can read notes!” she says defensively. “Please give me a chance, Sensei!”
So you do, even though you have your doubts (she looks at you with gratitude and admiration in her eyes; female students have joined this club out of infatuation before). It is only after a few practices that you realize that her focus is not on you, but on the work and the music. Throughout every piece her expression is steely and serious, and her fingers, though slow and tentative, move with purpose and grace.
And when practice is over, her face keeps the distant, dreamy cast, like she is still hearing the music in her head as she helps to stack the chairs and stands away. Midway through her first semester, you reflect that perhaps you made the right choice in letting her in.
She improves. By second year, she makes first chair.
=====
She is fifteen years old and answers your every question.
She is not always right, but she tries hard, and she does actually learn from her mistakes. It must help that she does not get embarrassed or angry when you correct her. Her feelings do not interfere with her learning, which is trait that you admire.
Her constant stream of answers and commentary motivates the other students. Whether it is out of solidarity or jealousy, you have no idea. What matters to you is the work. And work she does.
All of them do, of course. It’s just that you notice her work most of all.
=====
She is sixteen years old and alone one evening.
She claims to have forgotten the time. “You know how it is when you’re shopping, Sensei!” You don’t, so you let the statement pass and tell her to go straight home. It’s not personal, it’s just your job as her homeroom teacher and also as a teacher at her school, but for some reason she hesitates, like there is something she wants to say. You wait – you are loathe to be interrupted and so you do not do it yourself – but in the end she says nothing besides “Good night, Himuro-sensei”. And she leaves.
You wonder, but not for too long.
=====
She is sixteen years old and exhausted to the core.
Some girls would purposely trip for the excuse to grab onto your arm, but you know she would not; she has too much dignity, too much self-sufficiency. You want to believe her work reflects her inner workings, and so you pay her mind when her fingers close, suddenly, around your wrist.
“I’m sorry,” she says, smiling wanly, as her classmates exclaim, though whether it is out of solidarity or jealousy, you do not know.
“I’m just tired,” she says to the others, righting herself before you can react. “You guys go in ahead of me. I’m going to take a nap in the shade.”
They laugh. It’s all right.
Later, you take her aside. She agrees to ride in your car, cheerful smile in place under her eyes darkened and reddened with tiredness, but you don’t miss the flash of concern in her expression. (For her? For you?) She sits silently, her gaze far-off out the window and her eyes half-closed like she can barely keep them open.
The sun is setting at just the right angle when you arrive at the hilltop. From the car, she runs all the way to the apex of the hill like she’s quite forgotten her own exhaustion.
“Sensei, this is amazing!” she shouts as you climb up after her.
You feel self-conscious. You hide your hands in your pockets like a schoolboy.
You stay until the sun sets completely, then you drive her home. You think you have succeeded: she looks refreshed, and chatters happily about the lesson and about the brass band until you come to a stop in front of her house.
She says, “Good night, Sensei. And thank you.”
You tell her to get a proper rest. She smiles and promises to do so, with a strange quick quirk of her mouth that you soon learn is habit, and indicates amusement.
You go home alone, and wonder to yourself for a touch too long.
=====
She is sixteen years old and far too kind.
She is all innocence. From afar, you see that she listens with polite interest as the salesman extols the virtues of whatever sub-par product he is hawking, but when she refuses to consider he begins to harangue her. You quicken your step, but she is faster; once at her limit, she draws no quarter. Yet the man remains, harassing, ever closer, and by the time you reach them, you feel the startling, surging desire to strike him across the face.
But she is faster. She points to you, defiantly, stopping you in your tracks: “He’s my teacher. I don’t need another one, so back off!”
And he does. You feel relieved. You don’t know if you would have been able to defend her, after all.
“You’re late,” she says accusingly, dropping the schoolgirl formality in her annoyance, and you are shocked and confused and have nothing but apologies.
You teach her how to play billiards, so that she will forgive you. She enjoys herself, though she doesn’t win, so she does.
=====
She is sixteen years old and begins to cry.
You can’t understand anything except “I didn’t mean–” and “Shiho-san”. The rest is a rush of jumbled explanations and sobs. You can do nothing except stand there, awkwardly, your baton at your side, until she has finished.
When the tears fade, leaving her red-faced and glum, you remember your pocket handkerchief and the tissues in your suit jacket. You hesitate, weigh your choices, and offer her the tissues. She takes one gratefully, turning around to blow her nose and swipe at her eyes.
“Friendships are hard,” she says finally, not looking at you.
You agree. You feel a little useless.
“I suppose I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” she decides. She throws out the used tissue, dusts off her hands, and moves to put the last chair and music stand away. “I’m not going to let a boy get in the way of being friends with Shiho-san.”
You tell her that’s fine, and that she should make sure to keep up with her schoolwork regardless of the outcome of that conversation (of course you do, it’s expected).
She turns to smile at you, a wavering smile that still has an edge of tears. It’s the first time you see her embarrassed. You turn around to put away your baton in its case, for something to do.
She says, “Thank you, Himuro-chi”, mischievous and sad, and leaves before you can protest the name.
=====
She is seventeen years old and laughs at you.
About your extracurricular class, she asks her peers, “Are you coming to the social study?” She does not look at you, but you hear her from the other side of the room and you know, and you know she knows.
She keeps at it until you are shuffling your notes hurriedly, searching for the calculus introduction you penned last night and that you cannot find, and her friends stage-whisper, “Keiko-chan, you’re so weird.”
And she says, “It’s on the floor, Sensei.”
You pick up the page as the class muffles laughter. They have never seen you clumsy. You aren’t, you are only distracted. You wonder if you could call her Aoki-kun, Keiko-kun.
Keiko-san. “Sensei, all of us will be at the social study on Sunday.”
You tell her that is good. You return to the mathematics on the board.
You purposely do not ask her to come up and solve a problem next to you. Math is her strong subject.
She is daydreaming by the end of the class, and does not seem to hear the bell. She is the last to leave, as you are packing your notes, as you are making sure the elusive calculus page is accounted for.
She is all innocence. “Goodbye, Sensei,” she says.
Keiko-san. You caution her to be watchful on her way home.
“Of course.” Keiko-san grins swiftly, with the sideways twitch of her mouth. “I will see Sensei on Sunday, and Himuro-chi the Sunday after that.”
You want to scold her, but she’s right. They’re different people, in her eyes. That is how you are able to meet.
Only when you step into your car do you realize that you forgot to tell her to drop the nickname. It’s too late now.
“Keiko-san” is inappropriate. You won’t use it.
=====
She is seventeen years old and furious at you.
She walks ahead of you, hands in the pockets of her uniform skirt, head bowed as she marches forward. You follow behind her and do not interrupt. She is walking quickly but not like she wants to lose you, and that is enough.
Earlier, she said, “Sensei, I need to talk to you.”
Now, she says, “Sensei, I’ve been doing my best.”
She does not turn around. You say, yes.
She starts, “Then why have you–” and stops, then starts again, stiffer, more formal, “Please, why have you stopped calling out to me?”
It is one of the hottest weeks of summer, and the week of the brass band’s summer camp. Cicadas trill in the bushes and far off to your left, there are the sounds of happy, carefree conversation: the other members of the club, lounging in the last minutes of sun before evening.
You are alone with her. You do not think this is a good thing to be.
Your necktie clutches at your throat. You think of loosening it, then dismiss the thought. You tell her that nothing has changed.
She whips around to glare at you. “Sensei, that is a lie.” You have never seen her so angry.
Quieter, she says, “I enjoy our social studies.”
Quieter still, she says, “I don’t want them to stop.”
You hear a single horn blast in the distance. Students laugh like crows.
You want to explain, as her teacher, but the words do not come. As always, she confuses you, she makes your thoughts go around in circles until you have to close your eyes and will them all away. When you open your eyes again, she is still standing before you, petulant and sad.
She says, “I like Sensei’s company very much.”
Keiko-san. Not Himuro-chi?
The quirk of her mouth. You’ve caught her out. “Himuro-chi, then. You’re right, he’s the one I prefer. So I want him back.”
It’s brazen (it’s forbidden) but you aren’t shocked. You guessed, rightly, that this was what she wanted to say. Yet you do not know what to say, to end this. It’s your fault, you’ve gotten too close, this must end–
But she is faster. She makes her choice. “Reiichi-san. Please.”
She is all innocence. Your name comes easily off her tongue, as easily as the scales she practices, arduously, every day.
You close your eyes. When you open them, she is still there.
You tell her, all right.
=====
She is seventeen years old and ambitious.
She wants to go to Tokyo University. “It’s far from Habataki, and my parents will be sad I’m going away, but I really think that’s where I need to be.”
It’s your place to encourage her. After all, she is top of her class. You ask her what she wants to study at Tokyo University.
“Mathematics,” she says, without hesitation, without even a blink. “I want to be a professor of mathematics.”
You tell her that is fine. Math is her strong subject. You do not ask what you are both expecting you to ask. You point out, as though in passing, that it will cost her a lot in gas to drive the visits home.
She smiles radiantly, bright as the sun. “Then I’ll take the bus. I need to be able to come back often, or there will be people I’ll miss.”
You do not ask what you are both expecting you to ask. You make cursory notes in your ledger and send her away.
=====
She is seventeen years old and framed by the sunset.
It’s still cool outside from the lingering winter chill. Frost clings to the windows of your car, though you scrape it away assiduously, when you have the time. Mostly you don’t, because you spend much more time than usual at school, preparing your class for their final exams and university entrance exams.
But you have time today, or rather, you have made time, because it was Keiko-san who approached you after class and asked you, carefully, if you had a moment to spare. So you drive to the promontory where the sun touches the earth and you stand, together but apart, gazing out over the world as the light fades gradually away.
“Reiichi-san,” she says, when it is almost dark. “Reiichi-san, will you play the piano for me once more before I leave?”
You are taken aback, which is your own fault; you’ve been trying not to think about it, even as you do your all to make sure your students all graduate to the best of their abilities. You did not want to think of her leaving.
It shouldn’t matter. It matters so much you can hardly bear it.
You tell her, teacher-like, that you don’t know if there will be time before the graduation ceremony for that. There’s much to do, and you don’t think she’ll have the time to spare, with all of her preparations and travel and housing plans, to sit and listen to a mere amateur musician.
Too late, you realize that isn’t true, of course she would have the time, she would make the time, with her own two hands, even if it meant putting off her own plans by an hour or two. You realize, too late, that a busy, involved, academically-brilliant student like her could not possibly be free every single Sunday, and yet she never missed a club practice, never missed an extracurricular class or a social study with you, not even when these studies became increasingly personal (not necessary for success, therefore a misuse of her time).
Too late, you realize you have hurt her again, in an important way, she who has always been right next to you, day after day, week after struggling week. And where were you? Ahead, perhaps, leading her forward, but now you are behind, you are lagging and she should only move faster and faster, yet she waits. She stops and waits for you because she wants you (she wants you) to stay close to her, she wants to stay close to you and what have you done?
Too late, you ask, classical or jazz?
She turns, startled. The last of the sunlight flickers on her uniform, on the buttons of her coat, and is gone. You can hardly see her face now. The world is shades of grey once more.
She says, uncertainly, “Whichever you like.”
You drive her home. She smiles, wanly, and calls you Sensei as she leaves.
You go back to the school. You forgot your papers on your desk.
=====
She is seventeen years old and out of your reach.
Students cry at the gates, clinging to each other as if they won’t be seeing each other tomorrow for tea at the fashionable cafés. The students from your class call out to you: “Over here, Sensei!” “Thank you, Sensei!” You tell them, hello. You tell them, you’re welcome.
You tell them, congratulations, you have grown up.
Some of their parents know you. They bow and greet you as you pass, and you answer them in kind. One of the students calls you “Himuro-chi” as you go by, thinking it his last chance to annoy you, but his parents scold him, laughingly, before you can say a word. You greet him by name – of course you do – and keep on your way.
It’s sunny and warm. The perfect day for a graduation ceremony.
You see her as the students file in to take their seats, but she is talking to one of her friends and does not see you, and you do not dare wave.
She graduates. And she is gone.
Diplomaed students fill the corridors and classrooms, laughing and arguing and reminiscing about their high school days like they are already old souls and their memories are but faded wisps in the back of their minds. You run into one, two, three of the students from your class, all of them friends of Keiko-san, who are politely grateful to you for your constant instruction.
Sudou Mizuki flips her hair over her shoulder, says something to you in French. You suspect she is scolding you, but when she switches back to Japanese she only says, “Good luck in the future, Himuro-sensei”, which is what you should be saying, really.
They all leave. Most of them, you will never see again.
The schoolyard green is almost deserted, trampled flat in places by the coming and going of many feet. In the distance, shoe lockers slam and rattle as they are emptied for the last time.
You walk an untrodden path. Flowers grow here, in neatly kept beds; you’ve never noticed them before, so perhaps they are new.
The church rises up before you, whitewashed, ethereal. You wonder if it really is the stuff of legend, or if it is a joke.
The door is open.
You hesitate, with one foot on the stair. You have never been inside. What you can see through the opening is all darkness and dusty warmth.
But then, a glimmer of colour, almost too swift to be noticed. You turn your head, there, again, it was not a dream.
You hesitate, with one foot on the stair.
You go inside.
“Keiko-san.”
She turns. Behind her, a stained glass window glistens with coloured light, radiant and pure.
She looks at you with awe and trepidation. She is so beautiful.
She says, “Reiichi-san,” as you stare at her.
She says, “You came,” as you come near.
Your steps echo in the dusty church. She is so tense that you expect her to run, but she does not. She has never run from you.
When you reach out a hand, she takes it and grasps your fingers tightly, her instrument calluses pressed against yours.
She looks up at you, and you tell her everything, everything you’ve felt from the very beginning. This is necessary; you need to make your path and feelings clear. This is the only way to make it right.
She listens with the same air she always has, of concentration and intensity and joy, the joy of learning something new, of bettering her understanding of the world. And now she has a better understanding of you, or you hope that she has. Numbers and formulae are your world, melodies are your haven. You are no good with words.
She is vivid in the coloured light of the window, her face raised towards yours. You recall her silhouette against the fading rose light of the sun, against the yellow streetlight glow beyond the passenger window.
You say, “Thank you for bringing colour into my colourless world.”
You want to say more, there is so much more, but she is faster. She leans up and kisses you without another word.
She is all innocence. As you leave the church and emerge into brilliant sunshine, she laces her fingers with yours and pulls you along, never to leave her side again.
=====
She is eighteen years old and in love with you.
She has been at Tokyo University for a year, and is only now returning from her first grueling end-of-year exam session. This will be her first long break since last spring, when she first entered school as a university student.
As you wait for her bus to arrive, you answer a text message from your younger cousin, who is requesting an audience with your notorious Todai girlfriend (news spreads fast in your family), with the intention of drilling her on the culture, academic features, and bicycle rack availability of the university. You tell him to mind his own girlfriend, to which you receive the reply, “This is Kaneda Haruka. Itaru-san is sulking because of Himuro-niisan. We hope to see Keiko-san soon.”
You put your phone away hastily as the bus pulls in. Midday sunlight winks off its dusty windows, turning rose-red in your straining vision, like a sunset out of a dream. She sees you as soon as she gets off the bus. She has been waiting too.
She says, “Reiichi.”
You smile. Since when?
“Since now,” she says, and touches your hand before throwing her luggage in the trunk and climbing into the passenger seat.
You drive her home, as arranged, where her parents and brother greet her exuberantly, affectionate from her long absence. You give them your regards, receive theirs, and promise to come pick her up later, as you planned.
You reflect, during the solitary drive back, that for a long time, it will be like this: brief visits in Habataki and Tokyo, late-night phone calls, emails. You have so little time together, will have even less once she is out of school, because you are older and that must necessarily weigh on you, although you are not old yet.
You reflect that you must learn to make the most of this time, because life is fleeting and colour disappears, gradually, as night comes, and even the loveliest of melodies eventually fades away into silence.
But not for a while yet. Your time is short but you still have it, and if it enough for her, then it is enough for you.
At home, you call your cousin and tell him to fetch his telescope from the roof. Including Kaneda-san, the four of you can go to the hilltop together.
When you pick her up again later, she waits until she is sitting in the car next to you before leaning over and kissing you slowly on the mouth, like she has wanted to do it for a long time. She smiles against your lips and calls you Reiichi, and you know nothing has changed.
You watch her, framed by rosy sunset and then ringed by constellations, as evening turns to night. Standing on this promontory with her, you feel like you are on top of the world. Even in the dark, she is a vision, a reminder of the softly-coloured days on the other side of the night.
As your cousin exclaims over the stars and Kaneda-san matches him in astronomical enthusiasm, she comes to you and wraps her arms around your waist.
She is all innocence. She is so beautiful.
Keiko says, “I missed you, Sensei.”
And you smile.