Chapter 4 (Hisao)

I have been training now with Emi every day for three months. I can now do four laps around the track with little difficulty.

For the last month or so, we have also been having lunch together most days, and it has been really nice. Our conversations rarely get very personal, but we talk about our jobs, food we like, TV shows, and stuff like that. We even have a lunch schedule so we alternate who is responsible for our food on each day, and we have had fun trying eachother's cooking.

I also go to all of her club's athletic events. It is fun, and honestly kind of touching, to see her in the role of a mentor to other disabled athletes.

We have even hung out outside of work a few times. We've gone to the Shanghai, she's helped me pick out some new running shoes in the city, and the last time I was in Sendai for a doctor's appointment she happened to be visiting her family and she met me for dinner. That might not sound like much, but compared to my social life the last few years, those are some big outings.

The Yamaku festival is coming up, and we will be going to that together too.

Emi is definitely my best friend here at Yamaku. And I think I am hers. She rarely talks about other people. In fact, she seems so isolated that I worry about her sometimes, but who am I to talk? So far, neither of us seems to want to broach personal subjects, and that's fine with me.

Things are going pretty well for me in general, too. I am really enjoying teaching here, my students and colleagues seem to like me, and I have been a lot less depressed.

Things are definitely looking up.

—-

After my morning classes the day before the festival, I notice a student who doesn't usually seem to be especially interested in my lessons has stayed behind to talk to me.

"What can I do for you, Miss Matsui?"

She gives me a stiff bow. She looks nervous. Far more nervous than she normally looks when she talks to me. It's like she is about to speak to some high-ranking noble or a celebrity.

"N-nakai-Sensei, I am in the m-music club, and I p-play the v-violin. At the festival tomorrow, me and two of my classmates are going to perform one of the pieces written by your l-late wife, Saki Enomoto. W-we wanted to invite you to the performance. I-I'm sorry I didn't do it earlier, but I only l-learned y-yesterday of your r-relationship to her."

She shows me the flier. It features a photo of Saki, with the years of her life underneath it, as if they are just some cold hard figures. It is the photo they always seem to use for these things. It must be the first one when you do a Google image search or something. It's the one they use when they talk about her accomplishments like they occurred in some fossilized, distant past. The one that always reminds me how wonderful she was, and how long it has been since I lost her. The one that reminds me how desperately I still miss her. The one that always reminds me I haven't followed through on my last promise to her.

I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. I need to calm down.

Matsui looks quite concerned. "S-sensei, are you okay?"

I stand there for a few seconds and control my breathing, and the pounding stops.

"Yes, Matsui. I am fine. But I need to be going."

I take the flier from her and mindlessly make my way up to the tea room.

When I walk through the door, I lean my back against the wall, and slide down it until I am seated against it, and I cry with my hands on either side of my head and my head between my legs.

Emi gets there a few minutes later and sees the sorry state I am in. She runs over to me, clearly prepared for a medical emergency.

"Hisao! What's wrong? Is it your heart?"

"No, I did have an elevated heart rate for a minute, but it came down."

"I…I don't understand, what are you doing on the floor then?"

I look up at her, and she sees the tears silently streaming down my face. She looks really worried about me.

She sits down next to me and puts her hand on my shoulder.

"Did something happen?"

"N..no. Not really. That's the problem. This was enough to do this to me." I show her the flier.

"One of my students in the band gave me this and asked if I would attend and I just…well, you see me. I broke down. Luckily I managed to make it up here before I completely lost my composure."

I look over at Emi, and she still looks concerned for me. But she also looks…uncomfortable? Scared?

"Do you um… want to talk about it?"

She says those words, but she sounds like she's hoping I'm going to say "No."

"Yeah, maybe that would help. I…just still really miss her, you know? I'm…always a little sad about it, but then something like this comes up and pushes me over the edge. It isn't…rational, but it upsets me when one of these performances comes up, like she is some long-dead composer or something. No, it isn't even that…exactly. I mean that's part of it, but seeing her picture, and the years she lived on something like that…it reminds me that I am still like this, a complete mess, six years later."

"W-well, grief can be really hard. I don't think you need to beat yourself up about it. It is hard enough dealing with the grief, you don't want to throw shame into the mix too, do you?"

"Y-you're right, but…the thing that really bothers me lately is a promise I made to her."

"A promise?"

"Yeah…one of the last things she ever said to me was that she wanted me to keep living life to the fullest, to take advantage of the time I have, to be happy, to find love again…and I promised her I would…" My silent stream of tears is starting to become a torrent now, they are making it difficult to talk.

"But…I…haven't…done..any..of…it." Emi puts her head on my shoulder and hugs me, trying to calm me down. It helps a little, and I regain enough of my composure to continue.

"I shut my life down in most ways when I lost her. I stopped swimming…I stopped going out…I stopped socializing...I stopped doing pretty much everything but working. I'm afraid to get close to anyone because I don't want to lose them like I lost her. She would hate who I have become. And I know that, and I still can't get my shit together and honor my promise to her. At all. I'm a fucking mess."

Emi is still hugging me, and says. "Well, Hisao. Since you came back to Yamaku you have been doing some of those things, right? You are doing a better job of taking care of yourself since you started running, we have gone out and done some stuff together, and I'm a new friend aren't I? I mean, I guess a renewed friend is pretty close right? Anyway, the point is you're being too hard on yourself, okay?"

"Y…yeah, you're right. I have been doing better since I came back here."

Then her face gets serious, her voice gets sharp, and she pokes me in the ribs with her finger.

"Also, Saki would never hate you for this. I don't want you to think that way. You're trying your best to honor your promise to her right? If you weren't, you wouldn't be this upset about it. You can't do anything more than try. Personally I think you're doing a pretty damn good job."

She hesitates for quite some time while she wrings her hands together and looks lost in thought.

"S-some days are worse than others, right? Like today. But grief isn't linear. I think you are trending in the right direction overall. Saki would understand, I think. So, try to focus on that."

"You're right. I keep wanting to just reach this point when I don't fall to pieces anymore, but I guess the most I can hope for is that it happens less."

She releases me from her hug.

"Are you feeling better now?"

"Yeah. This helped, thank you."

"Good. What are you going to do about the concert?"

I sigh. "I'm going to go. That undoubtedly means they will make an announcement about how I am there and they will awkwardly ask me to stand up, but I think I can handle that. I do love her music, and I am so proud of what she accomplished. She would love that they are performing it at this festival, just like she used to do. I just…it's hard sometimes having people talk about her as some distant abstract idea...when she's…still so present for me…"

I shake my head in an attempt to break my negative train of thought.

"Anyway, yeah, so I will be doing that as part of the festival tomorrow. You can come with me to that part if you want…or we can meet up after."

She doesn't respond. I see the same look of fear on her face I saw earlier. Her eyes are darting around the room now, as if she's considering her best escape option.

"A-actually Hisao, I found out today that I won't be able to make it to the festival this year. Something came up."

She looks at her phone. "Oh shoot, I've gotta run. Your lunch is on the table over there, okay?"

She stands up and makes a break for the door, but turns around and looks at me with some concern. "You are okay, right?"

"Yes, Emi, I will be fine. Thank you." She looks relieved.

"Good. See you later!"

Well, that was confusing. First, she was exactly what I needed in a really low moment and helped pull me out of it. And then…she abruptly canceled our plans for tomorrow with a questionable excuse and looked like she couldn't wait to leave the tea room. It kind of reminds me of the time when she thought I was hitting on her. Surely that isn't what she thinks this time, given what we just talked about. She is so hard to read.