Touga was in a better mood that day. Saionji didn't even have to prod him to get him dressed and out of the apartment. On the train ride over, he talked an laughed brightly, like a vision of some imagined, idyllic past. Saionji looked relieved, the hard line of his shoulders softening for the first time since Touga's disappearance.
And then Touga saw the man with the thick glasses and the bad haircut. The man wore an expression of patience, but Touga could see that it was not sincere. He seated himself opposite the man.
The man glanced down at his pad of paper, and Touga saw that he had taken out a sheet that already had notes covering all of one side and half of the other.
"Your friend, Saionji," the man began. "You've said so little about him. Yet I believe the two of you are living together?"
The man paused, perhaps waiting for Touga to elaborate, but the latter merely nodded, saying, "That's correct."
"And he was the one who referred you to me," the man continued after the pause.
Touga assented again, though he thought that perhaps "referred" was not really what Saionji had done to get him there.
"Can you tell me more about that relationship?"
Shrugging, Touga replied, "It's the twenty-first goddamn century, you know. You can sleep with your friends. No one cares, and if they do, you can just tell them not to bother with things that don't concern them."
The man sighed. "I take it you mean that I shouldn't bother you about this?"
Touga gave no response, but folded his arms over his chest.
"My only concern," the man continued, "is that you realize that while you can sleep with your friends, as you would have it, you do not have to."
"Saionji? I pay his rent. When I went away for a few days, he went to pieces, skipping class and everything. He couldn't possibly make me do anything I didn't want to." Touga smiled wryly.
"And what if you didn't have these means of power over your friend? Would you still trust him?"
"You think he's such a nice person?"
"I'm not here to decide that," the man said. "In baseball, it's not a coach's job to decide how the players should make each play. That's up to them. The coach watches, and does his best to let the players know what he sees, from a perspective outside of the game. That's what I want to be able to do for you."
Touga fixed the man with a bitter glare. "And to that end, I should tell you everything?"
Smiling amiably, the man replied, "Well, it would be quite impossible for you to tell me everything. But you are the one who must select and elaborate on the relevant details."
Touga said nothing.
The man sighed. "Unfortunately, our time is over. But tomorrow, I would like to talk about why you seem to be having such difficulty with this idea of confidentiality."
Touga thanked the man and took his leave, curtly. On the way back, he made a show of good humor, speaking with Saionji as if nothing was wrong. He doubted that Saionji was the least bit fooled, but perhaps the effort would count for something.
As they paused inside the apartment door to take their shoes off, Touga turned casually to Saionji.
"Oh, I forgot to mention," he said in his most nonchalant manner, "but something's come up tomorrow. Will you call, and tell them I won't be coming in?"
"Nothing's come up. You're running away from this appointment tomorrow." Saionji scowled.
Touga leaned in and curled the fingers of one hand under his friend's chin. "But you'll still make the call, won't you?"
He moved away without giving Saionji a chance to respond, but later that afternoon, Touga saw him on the phone, and knew that he was fulfilling the request.