Buying You on the Day You Were to Die, page 6
A small woman in a suit called his name and came running. “Kadzuki!”
“Good morning, Minami. You look great in that suit.”
“Morning. You look great too. Did Kasumi-san choose that for you?”
“It was a joint effort by my sister, my mom, and Masudzuki-san.”
“Where is she? Is she coming today?”
“She went home already, but she drove us here. One last ride for old times’ sake.”
“Will you be all right without her?”
After that particularly chummy exchange, the woman who he called Minami stared at me. Her stern eyes were very different from the sweet, unguarded expression she had given Kadzuki a moment ago. She stood between us, facing me, so only I caught it, but I sensed a not insignificant level of hostility from her.
“Sacchan, let me introduce you. This is Fujieda Minami, my classmate from middle and high school.”
She bowed with a smile, and there was no trace of suspicion in her eyes now. She concealed it.
“Minami, this is Sakata Fumihiro. I mentioned him before.”
Despite that, I had no interest in what he had told her about me.
As we stood there, another woman called him and Fujieda by name and joined us. So he did have friends. The new girl was tall, slim, and beautiful, and she introduced herself as Takayama. As the four of us started walking, I pulled on his sleeve and made him walk next to me, a pace behind Fujieda and Takayama.
“This is not what you told me,” I said, leaning toward his ear and speaking as quietly as I could.
“Sure it is.”
“Are you kidding? What the hell? You told me you wanted to go to college together because you didn’t have friends.”
“Do we really need to discuss that at this point?”
“Need what?”
“See, Sacchan, I wanted to go to college with you specifically, so I needed a reason to convince you. If I said I didn’t have any friends, you’d have a hard time turning me down.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re kind,” he replied without hesitation. He didn’t seem to be joking. Even seeing my discomfort, he still smiled in that refined way of his.
We stood as close as we had been at the construction site where we met, closer than usual.
With his face so close to mine, I thought his eyes looked like jewels. Those moonlike eyes were unblemished and striking.
They were eyes with an irritating warmth that only someone with a perfect upbringing could have.
And they scared me.
I gritted my teeth and remained silent. Why were we so different? Why did he feel the need to flaunt it in my face?
Things didn’t have to be this way.
“Just a reminder, but don’t tell anyone.”
“About what?”
“About our arrangement.”
Then Fujieda called his name, and he joined their ranks.
How do I even put this into words?
He’d been stuck on my mind for the entirety of the entrance ceremony. By the end, I could hardly think straight.
Now I stood before the relatively large front door, overwhelmed. “I’m home” wasn’t right, but he’d laugh at me if I sounded like I was just visiting. This was my new home, after all.
He pulled a lone key from his suit pocket, opened the door with it, and then handed it to me.
“Here you go. This one’s yours. Don’t lose it. Ah, home sweet home.”
I stood in silence, watching him enter without hesitation. When I joined him, he showed me my room, halfway down the hallway that led to the living room.
“Your stuff is already inside.”
I opened the door and crossed the threshold. My bedroom was shockingly spacious. The thirteen-square-meter room felt so huge, I thought I could fit just about anything in there. What was once the size of my entire run-down apartment was now my very own room. I felt like I was dreaming when I opened the closet. I didn’t own nearly enough clothes to fill the space.
“You have so little stuff, I thought they’d forgotten to unpack something. Is everything here?”
There was no need to involve a moving company, so I had sent my stuff by mail. Two cardboard boxes of my mom’s stuff and one tote bag—that was everything.
“I ordered a futon online. I guess it’s not here yet?”
“I’m glad you weren’t planning to sleep on the floor. No, it hasn’t arrived.”
“Okay.”
“‘Okay’? Where are you gonna sleep tonight if it doesn’t show up?”
“Well, a night on the floor won’t kill me.”
“That doesn’t sound right to me.”
There was one thing in the room that didn’t originally belong to me.
“What is...?” I began.
“Call it a housewarming gift. I thought you might not have bought one yet. I assumed you wouldn’t want a big one, so it’s compact.”
A small Buddhist altar sat in my room. After my mother’s funeral, I’d received a mortuary tablet, but I’d placed it on a shelf instead. My run-down apartment hadn’t contained the space for an altar.
“I appreciate it.”
When I thanked him sincerely, the joy was plain to see on his face, stretching all the way to his eyes.
Still, I couldn’t reply with a smile of my own.
He led me down the corridor and opened the door. “This is the living room.”
It was thirty-two square meters. I’d seen the house plan, but it wasn’t until I saw this place in person that I realized how much space we had. You could fit two of my old apartments in the living room alone. It was quite a bit smaller than the one in his family home, so Nishikawa might have found it oppressive. I made a mental note to not leave my stuff in shared rooms for his sake.
But then something else caught my eye.
“What’s this...?” I asked without thinking. I heard an embarrassed semi-restrained laugh from behind my back.
“Hey, at least it’s not a grand piano.”
“What?”
“What?”
When I turned to him in exasperation, his amusement shifted to confusion. I had gotten used to us thinking on entirely different scales, but I couldn’t comprehend this situation.
“I’d like to know why there’s a piano here at all.”
“I refused the grand piano my parents were trying to buy me, so the upright piano was a compromise. That’s what I was trying to say.”
“I guess a grand piano would fit...”
“Yeah. That’s why my parents and my sister wanted to order the same model we have at home. But I knew you would hate that, so I talked them out of it.”
“Are you planning to stay here after you graduate?”
“No, this is just for college. I’ll go back to my parents’ place after that.”
Why buy a piano for a place you’d only stay four years in— No, never mind. I wouldn’t understand people who bought their son a condo next to his college anyway.
“Your work regulations and future contracts are all in that cabinet. Just in case.”
“Yeah, sure...”
I sighed and sat on the sofa that was big enough to host a giant. I sank into the cushions about three times deeper than I was expecting and caught myself gasping. Pretending I was fine, I pointed at the sofa across from me.
“Sit.”
“Hmm? What’s up?”
Hanging his suit jacket on the back of a chair, he obediently sat where I wanted him to. My employer would do most things I told him to, but he kept whatever went on in his head a secret.
I was genuinely happy about the altar, but that didn’t erase what happened.
“I don’t get you at all,” I said.
“We’ve got plenty of time to fix that.”
“Why hire anyone at all? You seem to have plenty of friends as it is.”
In truth, he had more than enough friends. A ridiculous number of people approached him both before and after the entrance ceremony, and I had to endure their gazes when all I wanted to do was run away.
Perhaps I was kicking a hornet’s nest. Perhaps they’d swarm around my head any second now. It wasn’t until that moment I realized my comment had sounded so angry, but since I couldn’t take it back now, I turned to face him head-on.
He didn’t seem to consider elaborating. Instead, we locked eyes.
“I had my reasons,” he replied. “You just don’t need to know them.”
“Not this again...”
“You can’t uncook an egg. Even if you realize you were better off not knowing, you can’t go back to being ignorant. I could tell you, but I’m not sure if you really want that, Sacchan.”
I didn’t pull away. I resisted, staring right back at him.
He was wearing his usual smile when the soft light suddenly became sharper, turning it into a smile that felt cold. This must have been the first time I’d ever seen that expression on his face, but it reminded me of the serious expression he’d had when we first spoke at the Nishikawa residence.
“If I don’t know anything, how can I—” I began, just for him to cut me off.
“What’s the issue? You’ll keep getting paid as promised, and when we graduate, you’re done. I won’t ask you to work at one of our companies. You’re not losing anything, are you?”
I wasn’t losing anything. I only stood to gain. But what did he gain by spending time with me? I already knew this didn’t involve a scam or blackmail or extortion.
So what was the point of this?
“I want you to tell me one thing,” I said.
I wondered if this would be rude to ask. Still, I wanted to know more. I couldn’t shake the idea that his actions were masking his true feelings.
“Yeees?” His voice was casual and lighthearted. I got right to it.
“On the day of the funeral, was it you who moved my trash bags back to my door?”
For just a moment, his expression went slack, and then his beautiful face instantly lit up with a teasing, bold smile.
“How did you know?”
“Why?”
I wanted to ask him so many more things, like why he’d gone to my place at all and why he was messing with my stuff, but I felt like his clear eyes could see right through me, so I kept my mouth shut. I suspected I would only be digging my own grave.
Instead, he said something we must have both known.
“You were planning to die, weren’t you?”
When I was unable to reply, he grinned and added, “Aren’t you glad you got to keep your stuff?”
It was a question I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what he was thinking. Nonetheless, he didn’t appear to be lying. He really must have saved my stuff from going to the dump.
He wouldn’t throw away my mother’s ashes.
I remembered thinking that after the funeral. I thought it still.
Then... Wasn’t that enough?
I didn’t understand what he was hoping to achieve. I didn’t know what he might expect me to do in the near future or how I would respond.
But my life had never been this good, and the same could be said about my living situation. I didn’t have to worry about my next meal. I had a roof over my head. What if he was right and not knowing was better? I could spend the next four years like this, and then I’d be free. What more could I possibly want?
What if something were to happen, like someone killed me—would that really be such a great loss?
My future was never worth very much, was it?
I missed my chance to die, and even now I wasn’t sure what I was living for. I just ended up in a comfortable living situation through the force of inertia.
As long as my mother’s remains were taken care of, my death wouldn’t make a difference.
When I met his gaze after getting lost in thought for a moment, he crossed his legs theatrically. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“I won’t ask.”
“Good. So we’re done with that?”
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
His face immediately returned to his childlike expression, and he dashed from the sofa to the piano stool like a completely different person.
If he was going to refuse a grand piano anyway, he shouldn’t have accepted one at all. It felt like a symbol of wealth, and I couldn’t get used to it even now. But his family must have felt bad to make him live in a house without a piano. I agreed with them there.
The piano was white and pristine. Only the black keys stood out next to the white stool and white pedals. It had no ornamentation, and its straight lines were eye-catching. Its design was different from the piano at the Nishikawa residence—this one felt more modern.
Perhaps it was their similar levels of beauty or similar lack of malice, but the piano suited him well. It was almost as if they were made to match. Fair skin next to a white piano. Magnificent lines and slender, powerful fingertips. Just looking at them pissed me off.
He gracefully placed his hands on the keys. As I watched him in a different environment than usual, I realized I had become accustomed to his movements. What came forth was the melody I knew all too well.
The first time I went to the Nishikawa residence, he’d played this piece and had only deepened my anxiety.
“You know, I’ve always hated that piece.”
“This one?”
“It’s music you hear when you’re placed on hold.”
“Oh, I see. That would be an odd thing to enjoy.”
Even though we were born and raised in entirely different circumstances, we were able to empathize without going into detail. As impressive as it was for us to connect at all, it was possible only because we’d bothered to learn about each other, like investigators studying their subjects. Even though I’d found him strange at first, I’d gotten used to him, just as I’d gotten used to his music piece.
He played it often because he liked it.
Even watching closely, I couldn’t understand how he played the piano. The sound flowed along with his gently moving fingers, but I didn’t know what key made what sound, so I couldn’t predict what note would play when I watched. Nishikawa performed what must have been a difficult piece with ease, then turned around and flashed a big smile.
As if he were laughing off all my struggles.
As if he were gently soothing me.
I told myself that I never knew when he might betray me. His eyes were so warm that if I didn’t remind myself, I’d waver.
In the end, my futon didn’t arrive in time.
I told him I’d survive one night on the floor, but he insisted it was going to be too chilly.
“Who’ll have to take care of you if you catch a cold?” he asked, and I had nothing to say to that.
I suddenly realized what it meant for us to live together.
We lay down on the futon in his room as far apart from each other as possible. That being said, it was a semi double, so it wasn’t nearly as far as I’d have liked. Still, he lay facing me, so I turned to face away.
“Hey, Sacchan.”
“What? Go to sleep.”
“Can you look at me for a moment?”
“No, you’re too close.”
“Come on.”
He’d already decided I would do as he asked. I gave in and turned to him. His face really was a breath away from mine.
My heart skipped a beat. The way he unabashedly looked at me was the same as the day we met. The tactless frankness in his gaze still made me want to flee.
When I averted my gaze, I felt his fingertips on my cheek. When I told him to stop, he apologized and pulled away.
“Welcome home, Sacchan. I look forward to working with you,” he said with his characteristic smile.
His voice, his personality...
They were a stunning transparent color.
He was beautiful.
I didn’t mean his face or his body. He approached me with his heart on his sleeve—a heart that had avoided all the filth of this world. I wanted to avoid touching it at all costs.
The more I learned about him, I grew to neither like him nor hate him. Rather, I discovered a new kind of fear.
That what I had believed might fall apart.
Those moonlike eyes—unblemished and striking, always watching me so intently—made me want to run.
His penetrating eyes, his voice, his smile, his very nature...
Something warm that shone through... That beautiful color...
I had always hated them, but from that moment onward, I feared them too.
Part 2: The Tragedy of That Age
“So how are things?”
Over the course of two years, I’d become a regular at the café next to my train station. I always met Kasumi-san there.
I’d never heard the name of the café before, so I assumed it was independently run and not a franchise. When I first stumbled upon it, I wondered how such a boring place survived in front of a large train station, but apparently their coffee was exceptional—at least according to Kasumi-san. When she took a sip of their house blend, she excitedly declared it delicious. That wasn’t my personal opinion. I didn’t know anything about coffee.
Her brother prepared his coffee at home by freshly grinding the beans, but I still didn’t understand what made the final product any different from the instant coffee I used to drink in my run-down apartment. If anything, I found the instant more pleasant to drink, but I suppose I had my unsophisticated palate to thank for that.
Still, I always ordered the house blend to match Kasumi-san.
“We’re getting on without issue. I mean, after two years, you get used to some things,” I said.
“Hey, that’s great! I mean, he can be so out of touch with the world. I’m shocked you’ve managed to live together for so long.”
“It’s nothing to write home about. Still, I won’t deny he’s out of touch. Outside of me, all his friends are the bougie type. But we have no issues as far as school and daily life.”
That said, his rich boy antics never stopped frustrating me. I didn’t tell Kasumi-san that, though; I thought it best to keep certain things to myself. This was, in a way, a meeting with my boss.
Ever since her brother and I had started living together, Kasumi-san had been summoning me for a monthly situation report under the guise of a meal or coffee. Given that I was freeloading, I didn’t exactly have the option to refuse.
