After the quake: stories Page 0,42

but she had a unique sense of humor, and her face would crinkle up mischievously whenever she made some funny remark. Junpei found that look of hers beautiful, and he knew that this was the girl he had been searching for. He had never fallen in love until he met Sayoko. He had attended a boys’ high school and had had almost no opportunity to meet girls.

But Junpei could never bring himself to express his feelings to Sayoko. He knew that there would be no going back once the words left his mouth, and that she might take herself off somewhere far beyond his reach. At the very least, the perfectly balanced, comfortable relationship of Junpei, Takatsuki, and Sayoko would undergo a shift. So he told himself to leave things as they were for now and watch and wait.

In the end, Takatsuki was the first to make a move. “I hate to throw this at you all of a sudden,” he told Junpei, “but I’m in love with Sayoko. I hope you don’t mind.”

This was midway through September. Takatsuki explained that he and Sayoko had become involved, almost by accident, while Junpei was home in Kansai for the summer vacation.

Junpei fixed his gaze on Takatsuki. It took him a few moments to understand what had happened, but when he did, it sank into him like a lead weight. He no longer had any choice in the matter. “No,” he said, “I don’t mind.”

“I am so glad to hear that!” Takatsuki said with a huge grin. “You were the only one I was worried about. I mean, the three of us had such a great thing going, it was kind of like I beat you out. But anyway, Junpei, this had to happen sometime. You have to understand that. If not now, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The main thing is that I want the three of us to go on being friends. OK?”

For the next few days, Junpei felt as if he were trying to walk in deep sand. He skipped classes and work. He lay on the floor of his one-room apartment eating nothing but scraps from the refrigerator and slugging down whiskey whenever the impulse struck him. He thought seriously about quitting the university and going to some distant town where he knew no one and could spend the rest of his years doing manual labor. That would be the best lifestyle for him, he decided.

The fifth day after he stopped going to classes, Sayoko came to Junpei’s apartment. She was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and white cotton pants, and her hair was pinned back.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “Everybody’s worried that you’re dead in your room. Takatsuki asked me to check up on you. I guess he wasn’t too keen on seeing the corpse himself. He’s not as strong as he looks.”

Junpei said he had been feeling sick.

“Yeah,” she said, “you’ve lost weight, I think.” She stared at him. “Want me to make you something to eat?”

Junpei shook his head. He didn’t feel like eating, he said. Sayoko opened the refrigerator and looked inside with a grimace. It contained only two cans of beer, a deceased cucumber, and some deodorizer. Sayoko sat down next to him. “I don’t know how to put this, Junpei, but are you feeling bad about Takatsuki and me?”

Junpei said that he was not. And it was no lie. He was not feeling bad or angry. If, in fact, he was angry, it was at himself. For Takatsuki and Sayoko to become lovers was the most natural thing in the world. Takatsuki had all the qualifications. He himself had none. It was that simple.

“Go halves on a beer?” Sayoko asked.

“Sure.”

She took a can of beer from the refrigerator and divided the contents between two glasses, handing one to Junpei. Then they drank in silence, separately.

“It’s kind of embarrassing to put this into words,” she said, “but I want to stay friends with you, Junpei. Not just for now, but even after we get older. A lot older. I love Takatsuki, but I need you, too, in a different way. Does that make me selfish?”

Junpei was not sure how to answer that, but he shook his head.

Sayoko said, “To understand something and to put that something into a form you can see with your own eyes are two completely different things. If you could manage to do both equally well, though, living would be a lot simpler.”

Junpei stared at