The Place You Called From Chapter 10

 Don’t Lose Sight of Me

Back when Hajikano and I went home from school together, there were goldfish in the entryway of her house. 

They were little wakin goldfish, which Hajikano won from a scooping game. The bowl was the size of a smallish watermelon, and the water was faintly blue, which made the green of the plants and the red of the goldfish show up better. 

At the time, I wasn’t allowed to go into Hajikano’s house, but I remembered the contrast of those three colors with strange clarity. Maybe when Hajikano opened the door, I was embarrassed to look her in the eye, so my gaze always fled to the fishbowl in the back. 

The three fish that were there in summer dwindled down to one fish by winter. As for the last one, he (or she) died just before a year had passed since my first visit to the house. That was pretty good for goldfish you won in a game, I thought. She must have cared for them well. 

For whatever reason, Hajikano’s parents kept the empty fishbowl there. True, even without any fish in it, it was plenty beautiful in its own way; the light from the window hitting the bowl producing a blue shadow, the coontail slowly swaying in the water. But with the knowledge of the time when the goldfish were there, seeing the bowl lacking its red always put me in a melancholy mood. 

Ever since, whenever there was something lonely or empty, that comparison came to mind. “Just like a fishbowl that’s lost its goldfish.” 

* 

The next morning, I took the bus from the station to Minagisa Central Hospital. I pondered it briefly, but decided not to buy flowers. In my experience, there was no visiting gift quite as “what do I do with this?” as flowers. 

The bus was full of old people, and I was the only young one. For a bus headed to a hospital, I found it odd how there were no passengers who seemed in poor health. But I doubted they were all visitors like me. In a book I read once, there was a scene where an old man is asked, “How are you feeling?”, and he jokingly replies, “If I were a little better, I might have to call a doctor.” Maybe it was something along those lines. The people riding this bus were those with the stamina left to get to the hospital themselves. 

Once at the hospital, I didn’t go straight to the reception desk, but instead the smoking area on the outskirts of the parking lot. It was a prefab building with a glass sliding door which seemed to have been around for a long time, and the ceiling was yellowed as if painted with nicotine. After checking there was no one else there, I smoked two cigarettes, then slowly went around the hospital perimeter to calm myself. Once I got my visitor pass from the front desk, I took a deep breath and went up the elevator. 

When I arrived in her hospital room, Hajikano was stooped over at the side of the bed, sorting her bag. She wasn’t in a hospital gown today, but rather a linen blouse and a neat light-lilac skirt. “Hajikano,” I called, and she swiftly turned around. “Hinohara.” Her eyes twinkled as she stood up. Yes, I couldn’t forget. Here, I was Yuuya Hinohara. 

“So, you came again today.” 

Hajikano bowed her head. It was an unimaginable response from her prior to losing her memory. Like Hajikano from just after she got to know me. 

“Yeah. How are you feeling?” 

“Very healthy.” She sat on the bed and smiled at me. “It’s good you came in the morning. If you came at noon, we might have passed each other by.” 

“Passed by? Are you being let out already?” 

“Right. At first, it was just you doing it, but one day Fukamachi joined you. And later, so did me and Ogiue.” 

“We must have had fairly close relationships to see each other every night.” 

“What do you mean?”, I played dumb. 

“As I thought, you’re taking care not to injure me?” 

How would Hinohara respond here? My thoughts raced. 

I replied like so. 

“Yeah, that’s right. Wouldn’t want you killing yourself again.” 

At this, Hajikano’s expression brightened slightly. 

“It helps for you to treat me with such honesty.” 

She patted the space to her right. “Over here, please.” 

I sat down next to her as told. Because of the safety bars on the side, there was little room to sit, so our shoulders ended up stuck together. Being so close made it more obvious than ever how our bodies differed. It was striking, as if my body’s blueprint was drawn with a ruler and pencil, and her body’s blueprint was drawn with a curved rule and drafting pen. There was a large contrast in degree of detail as well, and her skin was as white as if someone forgot to color it. My skin had been tanned light brown over the course of the past month. 

“Hey, Hinohara, please tell me.” Hajikano put her hands together on her thighs, bent forward a little, and looked up at my face. “About all the things I’ve forgotten. There’s only so much written in my diary.” 

“There’s no need to rush,” I said admonishingly. “For now, you can focus on resting your body and mind. No one will hurry you up, so you can remember slowly.” 

“But I can’t keep troubling you all, can I? And also…” 

“It is.” 

She thought, with her face still buried in my chest. 

“But… I’m uneasy. I feel I’m forgetting something tremendously important.” 

I shook my head. “It’s a common illusion. Even if it’s trash, as soon as you lose it, it makes you uneasy. What if what you threw away really held unbelievable value? But turning over the trash can to get it back, you’ll find it’s just trash after all.” 

Hajikano twisted her body as if in pain, and I noticed I was holding her tighter than I thought, so I quickly weakened my grip. 

“Yes, that’s about the right strength.” The tension left Hajikano’s body with relief. 

“Sorry,” I apologized, then went on. “…People end up forgetting lots of things sooner or later. Only a handful of people can remember every little thing. But nobody complains about it. Why do you think that is? Because in the end, memories are no more than trophies or mementos, and everyone knows deep in their heart that what’s important is the present, this very moment.” 

I slowly released Hajikano from my arms, and she dizzily stepped away and fell back on the bed. She looked at me with a peaceful expression. After a few seconds, she came to her senses, and seeming to be struck with the worry that someone was seeing this, looked around restlessly. Seeing her so distracted was new to me, so I couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Hey, Hajikano. It’s still summer break. And it’s no ordinary summer. It’s the summer when we’re sixteen. Instead of worrying about your lost memories, don’t you think it’s wiser to enjoy this time?” 

She stared at her lap, thinking about what I said. Eventually, she spoke. 

“…Yes, you might be right. But even if you tell me to enjoy this moment, I don’t know what exactly I should do.” 

I responded at once. “I’ll help. I mean, let me help.” 

Hajikano blinked with surprise at the quickness of my reply. 

“This may be a naive question,” she began, fiddling with her hair, “but why would you go so far for me?” 

“I can tell you, but you might regret asking.” 

“No, I’m fine.” 

After that, we didn’t exchange a word up until Yoshie’s cigarette was done. Through a bamboo screen, I heard windchimes. Listening closely, I heard the water of a shower from the other side of the hall. They were refreshing sounds to be sure, but in reality, it was swelteringly hot in the room. The sun-baked fan next to the altar wasn’t having any real effect, and there was no way this house had air conditioning. 

The awkward silence continued. The clock on the wall was broken, so I didn’t know the exact time, but it felt like twenty minutes at least. It was like a bunch of ancient time had been locked in this room and came out now to lengthen the gap before Hajikano appeared. 

After carefully putting out the cigarette flame, Yoshie put an elbow on the table and put her chin in her palm. 

“Somebody’s gotta keep watch.” 

“I’m about to.” 

Just then, the hallway floor creaked, and the sliding door opened. Hajikano wore a T-shirt with a wide neckline and shorts, holding a bath towel in one hand. 

“Granny, I think the water heater’s broken. The shower water only came out cold…” 

There, Hajikano went silent, looked at my face, and gave a shrill yelp as she retreated into the hall. 

“H-Hinohara? You’re here already?”, she said from behind the door. “Sorry, can you stay there for a while? I’ll be ready soon.” 

“Guess I might have come a little too early. Should I wait outside?” 

“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Yoshie.” 

Once we left the house, Hajikano questioned me. 

“So, what did you really talk about?” 

“I’m grateful you can put it so succinctly,” I sighed with relief. 

“Hey, Hinohara,” Hajikano said bashfully. “If you’ve been hired to watch me, then don’t lose sight of me.” 

“Right. If it’s not a bother.” 

“Surely not. Whatever it is, I’m glad for an excuse to be with you, Hajikano.” 

She stood up tall and ruffled my head. “Nice and honest.” It felt somehow nostalgic. Back in grade school, she would pat my head like that over everything. Even if her memory was lost, she still retained habits like this. 

I parted from Hajikano at the bus stop, and took about an hour getting home. No one was home, so I left a note saying “I’m staying at a friend’s house for about ten days” on the dining table. I frequently stayed at Hinohara’s house in middle school, so my parents likely wouldn’t think much of it. I puzzled over whether to take the letters from Chigusa, but I couldn’t be sure Hajikano wouldn’t read them by some accident, so I decided to leave them. Putting the minimum amount of clothes and toiletries in a bag, I quickly left the house. 

I arrived back at Hajikano’s house at noon. After a tasty meal of chilled Chinese noodles with lots of toppings, Yoshie ordered us to clean the house. She took all the bathrooms, while Hajikano and I worked together to clean the rooms, study, closet, hallways, and stairs. I wore clothes I could afford to get dirty, and with a bucket of soapy water and a bucket of clean water, we went wiping the windows of each room. The water in the buckets quickly turned murky, so we had to replace it each time. 

Once done cleaning windows, we took feather dusters and went knocking off dust in the rooms. After sweeping it together with a broom and throwing it away, we wiped the tatami mats with a rag. The trash bag ended up full of dust and dirt, making me want to sneeze just looking at it. 

“It kind of feels like you really were hired as a helper,” Hajikano smiled, watching me wipe a mat on all fours. 

Hajikano was accustomed to cleaning these old-style rooms, so she taught me how you should sweep brooms along the pips of tatami mats, and how they were weak to moisture. I questioned why she remembered details about cleaning despite losing her memory and asked her about it. She stopped working and thought. 

“Hmm… I don’t really know, either. I just can’t remember most new things I learned in the past few years, or how I got high school… So maybe it’s simply the events of the past few years I’ve forgotten. It’s not about the nature of the memories.” 

“Until when exactly can you remember?” 

Hajikano looked into space and searched her memory. 

“I can clearly remember up to about winter in my first year of middle school. From there to the present, there’s a big gap. …I’m sure that’s about the time my life started going downhill.” 

I looked up in surprise. “So right now, you’re really kind of like a first-year in middle school?” 

“Precisely speaking, not really. But you can think that way if you like, Hinohara-senpai,” Hajikano giggled. 

Once we were done cleaning the hallways and stairs, we concluded with the entryway. After sweeping away dust with a broom, we sprayed water and scrubbed the concrete floor with brushes. The water turned black in no time. We brought the cleaning tools back to the storeroom just as Yoshie was finishing up most of her tasks. 

No sooner had we finished our big cleanup than Yoshie handed us a bamboo basket and had us harvest vegetables from the garden. Thorn-covered cucumbers, tomatoes with a grassy smell, corn with long whiskers. After the harvest came watering the plants. While spraying plants whose names I didn’t know with a hose, a thin rainbow appeared over the garden, and Hajikano happily clapped her hands. In the midst of winding the hose back on the reel, I heard the water dripping from the leaves. 

Dinner used the freshly-picked produce lavishly. After dinner was over, we even helped with washing, then Yoshie sat in a lounge chair by the window and opened up the evening paper. Hajikano and I waited around for her next instruction, and she spoke to us. 

“Do as you please for the rest of the day. Go wherever you want.” 

We looked at each other. “Should we go outside for now?”, Hajikano asked. I gave my approval. 

Without a destination in mind, we walked together in the sunset town. A chorus of higurashi who survived up to the end of summer echoed from the thickets around the houses. It wasn’t even 5 PM yet, but a brilliant sunset dyed our surroundings. It wasn’t the blazing red sunset seen in the city, but an orange sunset that seemed to steal the sense of reality from all things. 

We walked without aim through what felt like an old memory. Buying soda pop from a shop and sitting on a nearby bench to drink it, I made a discovery. 

Thinking back, from the time we left the house to now - a period of about thirty minutes - Hajikano had never once walked on my right side. I didn’t know if it was conscious or not, but she was probably wary of showing the side of her face with the birthmark to me. 

Once I noticed that, I found more of her little considerations one after another. When talking to me, it seemed she didn’t change the angle of her face much, doing her best to hide the birthmark from sight. And after wiping sweat from her forehead, she always put her bangs to the left, and sometimes put her left hand to her cheek for no reason. 

Why was she so sensitive? No, I didn’t think that. Because I had constantly stayed on Hajikano’s right side when with her before. Wanting her to remember me being at least a little less ugly. 

Hajikano opened the ramune bottle cap, took out the marble, and held it between her thumb and index finger up to the sun. I imitated her and looked through the marble; it was like a little lens that flipped the scenery, resulting in the appearance of an orange sea. 

“The sun’s setting early these days,” I said. 

“August is almost over.” Hajikano swayed her legs from the bench. “In less than two weeks, we probably won’t even hear these cicadas anymore.” 

She stood up and tossed her bottle in the collection box, then spun around and smiled at me. 

“But the days getting shorter is a good thing.” 

“I like it, myself.” 

“Thanks. But I’m sure there are many people who hate it.” She softly put her left hand on her cheek. “Including me.” 

We started walking again. Even once the sun went down, heat clung to the ground. Seeking a cool-down, we entered the nearest supermarket. It was bizarrely dark inside, and the AC made it disagreeably cold. After fully checking out its selection, we went upstairs and through an arcade to the rooftop parking lot. It was already pitch black outside. There were no other tall buildings in the area, so we could see the spotty lights of the residential district below. 

Time passed slowly by. We put our elbows on the paint-peeled and splintered guardrails, talking aimlessly as we gazed at the modest night scenery. Being on a rooftop at night, I couldn’t help but recall the four of us gathering at the ruined hotel to stargaze, but I tried to keep the pain and anguish from showing. 

Hajikano used a toothpick to carry pieces of cherry candy she bought earlier to her mouth, one by one. As I casually watched her, she seemed to misunderstand and held out the toothpick with a piece on it. “Do you want some, Hinohara?” Before I could even take the toothpick from her, she brought it to my mouth instead. It was such a naturally-performed action, I naturally opened my mouth too. It’s just like we’ve gone back to four years ago, I thought. Back then, she would calmly do things that scared me out of my wits. 

“Should we go back now?” 

Hajikano reached for the last piece. But seemingly not pierced well enough with the toothpick, it fell from her hand off the edge, down to the ground against the night wind. 

Back at Yoshie’s house, since it seemed the water heater was indeed broken, we reluctantly took buckets and towels to a local bathhouse. We paid the old manager 300 yen each, and agreeing to meet up an hour later, I parted from Hajikano. But the bathtub was so hot, I stepped out before even 30 minutes went by. 

Until Hajikano came back, I sat in front of a fan and absentmindedly watched TV. There was a special on about a robbery than took place half a month ago. One of the culprits wore bandages of some sort around his face, so the news dubbed him the “Mummy Man” for convenience. Such a summer-esque incident, I irresponsibly thought. 

Hajikano returned five minutes earlier than promised. She bought fruit milk and sat down next to me, and without saying anything, looked to the TV. After finishing her milk, she returned the bottle to a case by the vending machine. Then, thinking of something, she stood behind me and rustled my hair with both hands. I did the same in return, and she laughed ticklishly. 

We returned home in the cool night air, our sandals leisurely clopping against the ground. At home, we got futons out of the closet and prepared our respective beds. Yoshie was in the second floor bedroom, and Hajikano and I in the first-floor old-style room with a screen between us. 

While Hajikano was stooping over to light a mosquito coil, Yoshie took the opportunity to whisper to me. 

“Just so you know, the quietest noises echo in this house. So don’t even think about anything funny.” 

I shrugged. “I understand that.” 

Once Yoshie closed the dividing screen and went upstairs, I lied on the futon and turned off the light. I was exhausted from being worked hard all day, and the smell of a stranger’s house felt restless, but on top of that, knowing Hajikano was there on the other side of a screen door mere centimeters away made me too awake to sleep. 

I closed my eyes and focused on the monotone sounds of insects, waiting for drowsiness. Then I heard Hajikano quietly call for me through the screen. 

“Hinohara, are you awake?” 

“Want to throw pillows?” 

“Isn’t it obvious? Girls talk about their second-most crush.” 

“It was elementary school. There’s no reason to hide it now, is there?” 

“No, I just can’t. My head is still in middle school, after all,” she said anticlimactically. Then she asked, to change the subject, “What about boys? Don’t tell me you threw pillows at each other for an hour before bed?” 

“Boys are no different. Everyone talked about the girls they liked on day one. …Of course, in our case, it’s not like we gave the name of the girl we liked second-best.” 

“You were honest and spilled the beans about your favorite?”, Hajikano asked with surprise. 

“Honest may not be the right word. I don’t know if all boys are like this, but the guys I was with always phrased it like, "I don’t have a crush on any girls per se, but if I had to say, maybe her.”“ 

Naturally, I wasn’t part of that circle then, and hid alone under my futon. 

"Boys sure are cute,” Hajikano said. 

“What is it?” 

“In elementary school, did you -” 

Instantly, a sharp pain rain through my throat. Like burning tongs had been thrust into it. My throat was blocked, so I couldn’t even scream, and curled up to endure the pain as a cold sweat ran down me. 

“What’s wrong?”, Hajikano asked through the screen. “Are you hurt?” 

I wanted to say I was fine to put her at ease, but I was unable to move or reply. Worried about the lack of response, she quietly opened the screen and asked, “Hey, what happened?” Seeing me curled up and holding my throat, she sat beside me and stroked my back repeatedly, asking “Are you okay?” 

For as great as the pain was, it receded in less than a minute. But it seemed like I sweat an unbelievable amount in that time, so my shirt was soaking wet, and my throat was dry as a desert. 

“…I’m okay now. Sorry to worry you.” I smiled at Hajikano. “I’ll get some water.” 

I stood up, and she followed me worriedly. 

“Are you really okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?” 

“Yeah, good night.” 

I moved away from the screen back to my former position and closed my eyes again. 

Despite the turbulence at the end, generally speaking, it had been a very, very happy day. I thought, in my sinking senses, how I wish it could be another day like this tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that… I would offer all my good fortune toward that purpose. My life would be up in a few days anyhow. I couldn’t ask for any more happiness than this. If days like these where I could laugh with Hajikano could just continue until the end of summer break, I would be satisfied. 

Yet this world gives change to those who seek stability, and stability to those who seek change. This tranquility would end very soon - with this very day. The next day, while I wasn’t looking, Hajikano heard a sound she shouldn’t have. 

Yes - the sound of a phone ringing in the darkness. 

Chapter end