The cold November rain came down in buckets. The front windshield wiper moved back and forth busily. The endless rattle of a man could be heard coming from the car radio. Since the volume was lowered, there was no way to make out exactly what he’s saying— his voice seemed almost like the low hum of a fly buzzing around inside the enclosed space.

Her dark brown buckskin trouser suit suited her chest-nut coloured short hair. The small leopard print scarf that was tied around her neck looked stylish. Her figure and manner both oozed sophistication. Just hearing that she’s a skilled lawyer who set up a law office in Ginza is enough to intimidate most people, but I always figured that was something that couldn’t be helped.

“Does he have a cell phone?”

“Then how about we call the restaurant and get them to pass on the information?”

“Why ever not?”

“Didn’t you write it down in your address book?”

I chuckled silently. This is my aunt’s true self.

Sometime after my mother passed away. my father began to have relations with his sister-in-law, my aunt, and this was something that continued until my father’s sudden death in an accident. Looking back on it now, I can kind of see why the only thing that my father, who was always changing women like a rotating daily menu, wasn’t able to do was completely cut ties with her.

Because he doted on me, his only child, he never considered remarrying after my mother passed away. There were even some women he was involved with that threatened to kill themselves if he didn’t marry them– some even went so far as to actually attempt to commit suicide. Despite that, no matter what happened, he never wavered in his decision to live the way he did.

“Are you nervous?”

I replied: “No, not really,” and shook my head.

“Are you saying I should feel nervous?”

Misao raised her eyebrow, and flashing a tiny smile my way, she folded her arms and crossed her legs before shifting her gaze outside the window with an expression that belied her words.

It was just over ten days ago that Misao told me that she had found my younger brother, Shimada Takao.

The young live-in caregiver who had left Takao sleeping in his crib on the day of the incident while she was busy off having a rendevous with a male friend at a nearby park collapsed from anaemia numerous times during the investigation. She broke down in tears saying “It’s all my fault. If only I had kept my eyes on Takao-chan, this would have never happened.”

Takao was never found. We never received any contact from the kidnapper either. There were no witnesses, and there were too few leads. At first, the police focused on my father’s numerous relationships, and much of the time was dedicated to investigating that. However, nothing came out of it.

Society forgot about the incident. Even those around our family sealed the fact that there used to be an infant named Takao deep into the recesses of their memories. Even when we got together with relatives, we stopped talking about it.

I listened silently as Misao told me this.

I do remember touching his warm and tiny hand as he slept in the crib; however, that’s all. I could remember nothing except that he felt warm. I was still only four then. I hadn’t ever picked him up nor pressed my cheek against his. I never even wanted to do any of those things. For me, the infant before me was just an infant and nothing else.

I couldn’t say that I wanted to see him, or that I didn’t want to see him. The feeling I felt was similar to the kind of feeling you get when you’re asked if you want to meet a complete and total stranger.

The couple divorced when he was eight, and the woman, who was the sole person who held the key to the truth, passed away from an illness two years ago the year he began attending university. I’m sure he doesn’t want to dredge up the incident from the past either, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to have it examined closely that the person he believed to be his mother was in fact a kidnapper.

“Well, what has he said? Did he say he wanted to see me?”

“So it’s not as if he’s saying he wants to see me, right?”

I nodded. “If I do see him, then what? Would something change?”

“Even though you’re telling me you found my younger brother, nothing clicks for me.”

Misao also told me that she hadn’t told anyone else that Takao had been found, and that she had no intentions of telling anyone else either. At the very least, Misao had found Takao purely by chance and not because she had been searching him.

The silence continued. I told her to let me think about it. There was nothing else that I could say.

I raised my head, and stared hard at Misao. It was in that very moment that I was spurred by a strong, indescribable desire to see him.

“If I were to see him…how would I go about doing that?” I asked.

At night, the place was a wine bar and restaurant, but in the afternoons, it offered a light French meal a la carte. The walls that were glued with subdued-coloured bricks and the stone pavement hallway— the classical atmosphere, the refined sophistication of the place felt somehow well matched with the meeting that day.

It wasn’t nervousness, and it wasn’t shyness, and it wasn’t uneasiness either. It was a feeling that told me that I was making a big mistake. It was a feeling of regret, a kind of feeling that told me that to do something so stupid as to reunite now after all this time with a brother who I had taken for dead was meaningless.

Even if Misao tore into me later on about it and yelled at me saying why I told her I want to see him if I was only going to back down at the last second, I could’ve just shot back sullenly “Well…I don’t know why, I just suddenly didn’t want to see him anymore. I couldn’t help it.”

Beyond the thick screen that had an arabesque-pattern engraved into it, a lone young man sitting at a six-person oval-shaped table got up in a flustered manner as he sensed our presence.

“Oh, no, not really.”

He was a tall young man. He had on a black turtleneck sweater and black pants, and he matched that with a charcoal gray jacket. You could tell it wasn’t an outfit he spent a lot of money on, and although his clothing didn’t scream top quality, they suited him.

On the inside, I was in a panic on how to cover up my surprise. It was as Misao said. He was the dead ringer of my father when he was younger. It was as if my father from back when he was young was standing right in front of me smiling.

I didn’t know how I should greet him. I plastered on an awkward smile, and said in a small voice: “Hello.” I could feel myself losing my cool.

“I’m not even sure myself. But I guess if it has to be one or the other, ‘long time no see’ would be more appropriate?” Shougo continued to gaze at me as he cast a shy, but bright smile my way.

“You’re right,” I smiled back. “Then let’s say ‘long time no see’.”

Misao and I sat beside each other, and Takao…no, my younger brother who lived his life until now as Iwasaki Shougo ended up in the seat across from us.

His hair, which was simply cut, fell softly on his cheek. There was no trace of him having dyed his hair. His hair, which had a hint of the color of chestnut, reminded me of my father when he was alive.

That was the one thing that was different from my father. There was no sadness in my father. If there was, it was an act that he put on, because my father was a through-in-through upbeat romantic, a colourful optimist.

He had a low, slightly husky voice. He smiled in my direction. His smile though gave no hint of the nervousness that he talked about.

It seemed to me as if this man sitting in front of me gave no hint that the person who had raised him was in fact a kidnapper who raised him as her own. It seemed to me as if the truth behind his birth was something that he had no interest in finding out.

We each placed our orders, and after opening up a bottle of white wine and making a toast, I spoke up: “I hear you work as a bartender?”

“You worked at an amusement park before that, right?”

“It might not look like it on the outside, but those suits are heavy. I had to run around, be chased around, shake hands, and take pictures with the children… it’s especially bad during the summer because it gets to be like a sauna in there. I was soaked in sweat and it was terrible.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, it’s a counter bar in Shibuya. The owner’s gay.”

“It’s fine, because I’m not interested.”

I lit my cigarette and silently inhaled. “Can I ask you something?”

“After moving to Tokyo from Utsunomiya— before you passed the entrance exam to your university, what did you do?”

“A host?”

Although his words could’ve been taken as being snide, his way of talking didn’t have a trace of distastefulness in it. I pretended to not hear what he said and continued: “A number one host, huh? That’s amazing. So that means the rich women who worked in the entertainment business plastered themselves all over you, huh?”

“So you’ve lead a pretty interesting life until now, huh?”

“Yes, I do. You were kidnapped as an infant, raised by your kidnapper and when you came of age you became a host and entered university with the money you made by doing that job…after that, you dressed up in a Bugs Bunny suit and made cocktails and on a miserable, rainy afternoon like this you’re meeting a woman you’ve never seen before who’s supposedly your older sister.”

After tapping off the cigarette ash onto the small crystal ashtray, I straightened my posture and apologized. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… I’m not really sure what to say in a situation like this.”

“Even after I was told my younger brother was still alive, I didn’t think anything of it other than ‘oh, is that right?’ and I imagine it must’ve been the same for you. Being told that you actually have an older sister and that you could see her… you must’ve been at a loss for how you should see someone like that after all this time.”

“Didn’t it ever cross your mind to just not see me?”

“So?”

“Now that you’ve met me, tell me what you think.”

Shougo said, “No, it’s all right.” and placed his fork down and faced me. “If I knew I had such a charming and attractive older sister, I wish I could’ve met you earlier. I wish I could’ve found out about the truth much earlier…that’s what I thought.”

“Did I offend you?” He asked.

“But you don’t look very happy.”

Misao seemed to have caught onto the fact that he had caught me off guard, because she smoothly changed the topic, and began talking about what I did for a living.

“It’s not that big of a deal. Anyone can do what I do.”

“Who knows? I guess 4-5 years?”

“The place closes up at eight. I can come and go as I please. I can take time off if I want, and if I don’t want to go that day, I just don’t. And my pay’s not so bad either.”

“Why do you think that is?” I was overtaken by a need to torture myself as I asked this. “I’ll tell you why: it’s because I’m the mistress of the owner of that shop.”

“A ‘mistress’ is a strange way to describe yourself. I can’t help but feel that you’re belittling yourself by saying that. I wish you’d say you’re his ‘lover’.”

With that, I emptied my wine glass and pushed my plate of vegetables which was still half full towards the garcon who had come to deliver the main dish.

The silence continued. His plate was mostly empty, save for the lump of celery piled near the edge of the plate.

“Could it be…” Misao asked with a low voice: “you’re not a fan of celery?”

“There’s no need for you to apologize. I just asked if you didn’t like it, that’s all.”

Misao’s eyes sparkled as she turned to me. “I for one, am shocked! Mio’s the very same way!”

“I can’t eat rice balls with pickled plum in them,” I said in a toneless voice. “It’s the same for celery. I hate the very name, and back when I was a child, my friend named her cat ‘Celery,’ and for the life of me, I could never call it by its name.”

When I had realized it, I was caught up by their laughter, and I found myself laughing as well.