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After about an hour of drive, the car came out to seaside road. For next 30 minutes, the same scenery will pa.s.s them by. The asphalt road was still dark with moisture, but there wasn't one piece of rain cloud left in the sky.
"It suddenly stopped raining. When I opened my eyes the sky was blue and Mr. Arita was standing next to me, so I was surprised."
Hirose did not speak one word to Arita for the last hour since the car started moving, but he finally spoke to him. When Arita did not say anything, he paused for a while before continuing.
"The weather became nice from the west side, so... It's great that it cleared up."
He couldn't refuse to talk out of sheer stubbornness. He felt bad not saying anything, so Arita answered him.
"...That's true."
"The bad weather made my feelings go down, too. If it had been a nice weather from the beginning, the ocean would have been so much more beautiful... Oh, I'm sorry." Hirose bit into his lips. "I'm sorry; that was insensitive. You're not in the mood for that, Mr. Arita."
Silence again. If he didn't reach out to him, it felt like Hirose would not talk to him again.
"My uncle's condition wasn't as bad as I thought, either."
"Oh, really...? That's good to hear."
Hirose let out a sigh, as if relieved. He realized that Hirose couldn't even ask him how the patient was doing, because he was being overly considerate. Perhaps he thought that if he asked, Arita would yell at him and say that it's 'none of hi business.'
Suddenly Arita s.h.i.+fted his gaze to the view outside the window. Contrary to the clear sky, the sea was fuzzy and dull. It had a depressing grey shade.
"If it hadn't rained, the ocean's color would have been a lot more gorgeous. The area around here has quite amazing scenery."
As if answering his gaze, Hirose talked to him. Arita was not familiar with this area. He almost always took the train whenever he visited his Uncle. ...The train did not follow the seaside.
"If you are not in a rush to return, may I stop the car for about 30 minutes?" Hirose asked.
"Sure."
About 5 minutes after that, Hirose stopped the car in a place that Arita had seen before. It was an empty lot next to a closed-up storage place. Behind the storage place, you can see the ocean beyond the levee. He quickly realized that it was the same place where they had stopped the car before on their way to the hospital. I'll be outside just for a second, Hirose said as he started to leave the car. He paused and asked Arita, "I'm going to buy something to drink. What would you like, Mr. Arita?"
"Co... Never mind me."
He started to say coffee, but he stopped. He didn't want to owe anything to Hirose. "Really?" Hirose answered before he lowered his head and got out of the car. Hirose walked to the vending machine, and came back with two coffees in his hands.
"Drink this. If you don't want it... I'll drink the other one later."
Arita took the offered warm coffee. He rotated the can in his hands, as if it was a burden.
"If you don't mind, would you like to come outside, too, Mr. Arita? It feels great."
"I'm okay."
When Arita shook his head, Hirose did not insist any more. He slowly climbed the stairs in the middle of the levee, whose banister half corroded away. When Hirose climbed to about middle of the stairs, he ignored Arita's curious stare that wondered what he was up to and reached up to place one step higher than the levee. He spread out his legs and sat on the stairs, beyond the levee.
Arita thought he was foolishly imitating a little kid, and laughed with the end of his nose. However, no matter how long he waited, Hirose did not return to the car. The turned back on top of the levee did not say anything to him.
What is he looking at? He suddenly wondered. Just what is Hirose looking at so intently? Once the thought entered his mind, he became really curious about what Hirose was staring at. Already he had waited a little more than 5 minutes since the first thirty minutes that Hirose had mentioned. Finally Arita couldn't wait any longer and got out of the car. He circled the car aimlessly once, and then he decided to return to the car right after he confirmed what Hirose was looking at. He started to climb the levee's stairs.
When Hirose realized that Arita was there, he turned and slightly smiled, then moved his gaze back to the ocean. Even when Arita was standing next to him, Hirose did not attempt to talk to him at all, so Arita had no choice but to open his lips.
"...I think you've also stopped your car on our way here. Just what can you see?"
Hirose pointed to the horizon. In the direction he pointed, he could see a little village.
"This area is the deepest part where the river starts. So you can see the entire coastline."
"Oh..."
"This is the only place I can see where my home used to be. I've lived here until when I was a soph.o.m.ore in junior high school, when we've moved to the city. Can you see the huge building with orange roof across? Do you see it?"
"Oh, you mean that one?"
He focused his gaze.
"It's an elementary school. Beyond that is a small mountain, and my house was on the volcanic plateau right there."
As Hirose said, there was an area with small mountain and volcanic plateau spread out, but it was just a gra.s.s area. There wasn't a shadow of a house. He looked around, thinking maybe he was referring to a place further away, but there didn't seem to be any other suitable mountain.
"I don't see anything like a house."
"There is no house. Everything burned up during a fire... So only the place where we've lived remains."
Fire... When he looked back, his eyes met with Hirose's eyes, who had turned to the side. Hirose continued carelessly.
"In the winter of my soph.o.m.ore in junior high, there was a fire on the back forest that spread to our house. We've noticed quickly and our family quickly evacuated, so nothing huge happened. We didn't have time to bring anything with us, though. Our whole family just numbly stared at the house burning down from far away. Our precious books and photographs all burned away... It was a shock to see the house falling apart, as if it were being eaten up by the fire."
Without realizing it, Arita was paying close attention to Hirose's story.
"They said the reason for the fire was probably because of a cigarette b.u.t.t thrown away from a car. Our family owned a forest, so it was a huge loss for us for the back mountain to be completely burnt up. My father quickly gave up and said it was a good thing that the house and mountain all burned up, and left to the city where his siblings were."
"It must have been horrible.'
He thought he sounded awkward as he heard his own voice ring against his ears. Hirose gave a small laughter.
"But I think it was better thing for my father. I don't think the hard labor of raising a forest worked out with him too well. Still, it was hard for me to say good-bye to my close friends, so I hated moving."
Hirose crossed his fingers and lifted his arms high, then stretched in a sitting position.
"The apartment that our family rented out in the city was small and stuffy, and noisy as well. The worst thing was that it was so far from the ocean. If the house did not burn down, I might not have became an office worker. I was really looking up to people like surfers."
Hirose was at least twice as slow as others. He couldn't even imagine the word like "surfer" coming from his lips. At such un-matching word, Arita bit down on his lips to stop himself from laughing. When he imagined Hirose with sun-tanned brown hair and golden-brown skin, hugging a surfing board to himself, it became even funnier. Arita couldn't bear it any longer and started to laugh, his shoulders shaking.
"You're laughing at me. How mean," Hirose protested, as if resisting Arita's laughter.
"Well... They say every man has his place. I'm sure G.o.d thought that, too."
Hirose rested one hand on his neck while sighing.
"I knew that I had no talent with sports, but... To tell you the truth, I tried out few times, too. One of my friends surfed. But no matter how I tried, I couldn't climb on top of the surfing board. When I realized that I couldn't do it, I was so sad. But when I got into high school and started to take pictures, I felt a little better while taking photos of surfers and ocean."
The wind suddenly stopped. Cold, salt-saturated wind has been smas.h.i.+ng against their cheeks just now, but it quieted down.
"My small dream now is to save up a little and come back here. I'd like to purchase that plot of land and build my house again."
Hirose narrowly opened his eyes, as if pleased.
"If I pa.s.s by this road, no matter what, I end up stopping the car. I'm just checking to make sure the scenery that I know did not change."
Arita was born in the city, so he couldn't understand the psychology of going back to his birthplace like Hirose. Even if you were talking about ocean, the most familiar thing to Arita was a huge seaport surrounded by concrete. The sandy beach was more like an amus.e.m.e.nt park that he would go hang out with his girlfriend.
"...Should we head back now?"
Hirose lifted his waist. Even though he said, should we head back? Hirose's face expressed regret.
"I don't really mind staying a bit longer."
When Arita said that, Hirose smiled at him. "Then just a little longer."
Like a happy child, Hirose intently stared at the ocean.
"What do you see?"
Arita asked without much meaning, since he seemed to be staring at something more than the place he lived at and the sea.
"The blue sky and dark-colored... ocean. Oh, I wish I'd brought my camera with me," Hirose muttered. His eyes contained the ocean's shadow. His regretfully blinking eyes looked like a camera shutter, he thought.
They've talked about many things inside the car. Arita did not start the conversation; he simply responded and listened to the stories, but their "conversation" was flowing. There is no anxiety like the time they were heading to the hospital. He started to learn about the human named Hirose, bit by bit. Hirose did not smoke. When they've parked at the gas station, he took out coins from the ashtray. It wasn't something that a smoker would do. Inside the company, it was "no smoking area" so whoever wanted to smoke had to go all the way out to resting room outside. Some people have quit smoking since that was so bothersome. Arita was one of those people, and he hadn't been smoking for last two years.
Hirose almost never looked at Arita. He was staring in front of him when they were talking, and of course he had to do that since he was driving, but... Only when the car stopped because of traffic light did he slightly tilt his head sideways. When they had been heading to the hospital, he had been stubbornly staring at the window outside. He thought maybe he over-thought his own significance and became ashamed, so he stared out at the window for a different reason this time. He couldn't look at Hirose in the face.
Outside the window the sun slowly sat and started to approach the horizon. It sank between thin grey clouds, and disappeared into the ocean.
"When I was in college... I've went on several trips to take pictures with my friends."
Arita thought it wasn't polite to listen to him while his back was turned, so he faced Hirose.
"The memory that stands out the most is the time I went to the mountains with my friends from the photography club, in my junior year. We were saying we discovered an awesome swamp and the three of us even borrowed a map to go all the way there. We lost our way and had to sleep outside. Even though it was summertime, it was pretty bad. Next day we managed to climb the mountain all the way to where we heard human sounds, so we figured that we escaped from a very deep forest. But all of a sudden there was a middle-aged lady in her underwear in front of our eyes. The lady gave a grand big shout when she saw us. She went all, EXCUUUUSE MEEEE--"
Hirose's speaking face was quite serious.
"...Apparently we stumbled upon an outside hot springs of a motel at the edge of the mountains. Even worse, we've manage to enter the female section. We tried out best to run away, but our legs slipped and we got dunked into the springs. My Olympus camera and lens that I've worked half a year to buy got soaked, too. It was the worst. We couldn't escape fast enough, so we were dragged off to the police station to be questioned... But the policeman felt sorry for us, too. He said it was too bad there were only old ladies there."
Arita burst out laughing. He hurriedly tried to cover his mouth, but he couldn't hide his laughter that spilled out. Even you, Mr. Arita? So mean, Hirose said, exaggerating his pout. He added, It was really horrible that time. His laughter disappeared and stopped, and when he realized it the ocean was already out of sight. The car had moved away from the side road next to the coastline and had entered the main highway that lead to the heart of the city.
"I'm... sorry for today."
He was able to say honest things. Corners of Hirose's lips, who was only showing his profile, swelled up a bit.
"I'm the one who is sorry for being stubborn."
"I'm also sorry for saying all those things to you."
"I don't mind. It was fun for me to talk about many things with you, Mr. Arita."
"Should we go eat something together right now? I'll pay as an apology for today."
Hirose shook his head.
"I've done it because I wanted to, so don't worry about it."
When they stopped speaking, the inside of the car became quiet. Dull darkness and light vibration of the car. Arita had fallen asleep and did not realize that they have arrived at his apartment until Hirose stopped the car and spoke to him.
Hirose's att.i.tude did not change much even after the day that he gave a car ride to Arita. He did not speak out to him unless he had a reason, and he did not do anything like staring at Arita. Arita hatefully thought that Hirose would chase after him more easily since they have talked a lot in the car, but he felt more and more stupid for being on his guard when Hirose remained quiet.
Arita thought it was weird. How could this quiet man so forcefully gave a car ride to Arita...? How could he have taken him and brought him to the hospital when he refused? He vaguely guessed at the reason by his co-worker's comment.
"Good good, you're back to normal. Last week you looked G.o.dd.a.m.n awful."
His colleague that he sometimes had lunch with at the company cafeteria said when he saw Arita's face.
"Did I really look that bad?"
"Bad? Are you kidding me? Your face looked wane; you looked so tired. Whenever I pa.s.sed by your pale countenance on the hallways, I worried about when you'll collapse."
"Don't exaggerate," Arita laughed. His co-worker shook his head at him with a serious face.
"I'm not kidding you. It really felt like that."
He suddenly realized by his colleague's mirthless face. Perhaps... Hirose reached out to him even though he knew that Arita was avoiding him, because he couldn't stand to look at how tired he was. He did have some ulterior motives, but... Even so, Hirose did absolutely nothing to Arita. He pathetically worried about Arita and not only did not show any emotions of love, but did not even bring it up in their conversation.
If he did not express it by words or behavior, even if he knew that he liked him, there was no "harm." If he didn't show those feelings, even if for example they talked together, they were just a mentor and student.
Besides, Arita did not dislike the man named Hirose Akihiro. If it wasn't about the romantic feelings he harbored, he was a serious, trust-worthy, and likable type of man. That day he really did cause trouble for Hirose. It felt like a burden but he felt like he had to pay him back. While he worried, he remembered that he offered to have dinner with him. It was eight days after the round-trip to hospital that Arita asked him to a dinner while still hugging the heavy atmosphere of mutually not-speaking.
He had answered the female worker who left with "I'll go on ahead," and Arita looked around the office to make sure the only two people remaining at the office were he and Hirose. The wall clock was pointing to 8 p.m.
Hirose was concentrating on the computer's monitor and did not seem to realize that they were alone by themselves. Arita hurriedly checked the remaining doc.u.ments and packed up his things. He lightly sighed. He wasn't sure how to speak to him.
When Arita went to stand next to him, Hirose seemed to notice his presence and lifted his face.
"Good work today."
Easy smile. Arita tried to smile, too, but his nervousness might have prevented him from smiling easily. He avoided the direct eye contact and looked at Hirose's screen from behind his back.
"You're working really hard."
"No... I'm just slow."
It felt uncomfortable for a silence to fall between them, so Arita hurriedly rambled.
"Last time you went through the trouble of picking me up. It's a bit weird to say this is as a thanks, but won't you have dinner with me? I'll pay. When are you free?"
Hirose turned to face him and c.o.c.ked his head, as if uncomfortable.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me that much."
"Well, I don't feel comfortable."
"I'm really okay."
Arita didn't know what to do at unantic.i.p.ated turn of events. He thought if he asked, he'd accept after refusing once. However, Hirose strongly refused.
Last time, when they were talking about many things in the car, Hirose might have grown to hate him and lost interest in him. That was the kind of development he would wish for, but he couldn't honestly be happy if he thought the reason was because of his hysterical behavior.
"You don't want to have dinner with me?"
Hirose hurriedly shook his head at the question.
"It's not the kind of reason like I don't want to, or anything like that. But if I make you worry about things like that, it becomes a burden for me, too..."
Arita couldn't read Hirose's emotions by his expression or words. He wasn't sure if he really thought that, or if he found Arita annoying. Hirose lightly tapped and made sounds with his fingers on top of the mouse.
"...Tomorrow, I will finish my work faster. I don't want some kind of treat as a thanks, but if you just want to have dinner together, I'll be happy."
"Tomorrow?"
"Will that be okay?"
He looked at him as if stealing a glance at him. Arita avoided his eyes and pumped Hirose's shoulders.
"Okay, then tomorrow."
He slowly walked out of the office so that it'd look natural. Arita breathed in and out. And he was surprised to find his palms sweaty. He didn't think he'd be so nervous.
As promised, the next day, Arita and Hirose ate together after work. It was a horrible weather with drizzling rain starting from the morning, so he had been hoping that the weather would clear by the time they got off work. However, the thick cloud had no intention of dispersing, and it ended up raining the entire day.
It was a thin and weak rain, so Arita had a folding umbrella, but he didn't want to bother to take it out so he walked without it. However, the feeling of his body gradually getting soak was surprisingly cold, so by the time they got to the store, his body had completely froze.
They compromised to pay for their own meals beforehand, but Arita had no intention of letting Hirose pay. He said anywhere that Hirose wanted was fine, and Hirose went to a tiny bar a little place away from main street. At first Arita thought it was a boring store at the simple, tiny interior, but later he realized that Hirose frequented this place.
They did not have much items on the menu, but everything that they ordered was delicious. The elderly store owner was a very friendly man, and Arita drank a bit of alcohol offered to him. His feelings softly loosened.
"It's very unusual for Mr. Hirose to bring anyone with him."
He had given them squid with bean paste sauce as an extra service, and his showed tiny wrinkles around his eyes.
"He'd always eat quietly by himself."
When Arita stole a glance at his profile, Hirose was shyly laughing. They didn't really have a conversation per se. However, until Arita returned to his apartment and took a bath, then went to bed, he felt really, totally great. It felt like his anxiety and upset feelings before he went for dinner were all a lie. The feeling of being lightly drunk and thinking about the small talk they had from the bar to home all felt good, like echo of piano keys being struck with one finger.
