Chapter 8

Chapter 8

February in London was still in the midst of winter. Although there was not much snow on the ground, thick clouds covered the sky and the temperature hardly rose during the day. Kento’s traveller’s guidebook had said it was warmer than Tokyo, which was hard to believe.
     “It’s especially cold this year,” said his mother, Hisae, who had come to pick him up at the airport. She pushed her shivering son into her red Rover Mini.
     During the six months that Kento had not seen her, Hisae had highlighted her short hair with green and pink strands. Kento gaped at her in surprise.
     “What do you think?” Hisae said proudly. “Makes me look young again, doesn’t it?” She wore an outfit of patch-worked jeans and a fleece sweater. Hisae’s small stature made it easy for her to be mistaken as a younger woman. Many people believed her off-the-bat when she jokingly introduced Kento as her younger boyfriend. For a while, Kento was fully occupied with the task of correcting her every time.
     Hisae worked for an apparel company in a district of London called Camden Town. The company was as startup run by a group of young up-and-coming designers. They designed clothes, hosted fashion shows, and took commissions for patterns.
     Hisae’s job was in textiles, which involved designing colours and patterns for fabrics. The design studio was a small brick townhouse, with three floors and a half-basement. Contrary to the classical-looking exterior, the interior was outfitted with silver and white in a simple and modern style. The simple interior brought out the vibrant colours of the folklore-style clothes on display.
     Many of the workers were young, energetic women, and Kento instantly became the centre of attention. When Hisae proudly informed them that he belonged to a talent agency in Japan, they were not surprised.
     “It makes sense. Kento is adorable,” they said.
     There was a neverending line of older women who offered to take Kento on a tour of London in place of his busy mother. That day, Kento had finished shopping for souvenirs for his friends and was hanging about his mother’s workplace when a gaggle of women came to surround him.
     “Kento, where do you want to go? The London Eye? Buckingham Palace?”
     “What about the British Museum? The Tower of London?”
     Kento wasn’t interested in any of those.
     “I want to walk barefoot across the zebra crossing on Abbey Road.”
     The cover of the Beatles’ album, named Abbey Road, featured the four members walking across the zebra crossing. Paul was the only one walking across it barefoot, and Kento wanted to imitate him.
     When Kento said so, one of the pattern-makers, a huge Beatles fan, widened her eyes.
     “Are you a Beatles fan, too?” she asked.
     “Yeah.”
     “Wow!” The woman, whose name was Audrey, excitedly took Kento’s hands in hers. “The Beatles are the British saints of the twentieth century. Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint George, and Saint Richard.” She winked at him, her red hair in dreadlocks. When Kento effortlessly sung two or three songs for her, she gave him an enraptured smack on the cheek.
     “The great thing about the Beatles is that their lyrics are just as good as their music. Their songs are like hymns to me,” she said, playfully crossing herself. Kento chuckled at her exaggerated analogy but went along with her conversation.
     “People say that as long as I know Beatles’ songs, I have all the English I need.”
     “Absolutely. Their songs have everything.”
     An ardent Beatles fan, Audrey took Kento around London to visit many locations associated with the Beatles. They got off the tube at Tottenham Court Road Station, and without even batting an eye to the nearby British Museum, they headed for the Soho district.
     Located between Regent Street and Bond Street on 3 Savile Row was the headquarters of Apple Records, the record label that brought the Beatles to the rest of the world. The company itself, however, was no longer there.
     With a view of Regent Park to their right, they boarded the bus and hurried to Abbey Road. When they arrived at the famous zebra crossing, they already found a group of young men, unsurprisingly, crossing it barefoot despite the cold weather.
     “I want to cross, too. Audrey, can you take a picture for me?” Kento pulled off his sneakers. The cars running along the road seemed accustomed to such behaviours of Beatles fans, and slowed down to stop in front of the crossing.
     After safely finishing their photoshoot, Audrey took Kento to the EMI studio nearby. Just the thought of the vast number of albums recorded in this very place made Kento’s whole body tremble with awe. Lastly, they visited Madam Tussauds wax museum, where wax sculptures of the four Beatles members were displayed.
     “Where’s Penny Lane?” he asked Audrey.
     “It’s not here,” she said. “Penny Lane” was the name of another famous Beatles song, and like Abbey Road, was named after a street. But this one was located in Liverpool, a port town where the group grew up. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the time to travel all the way there today.
     “Next time, you should bring your friend along. I’ll take you both,” Audrey said. Kento vowed to one day travel to London and Liverpool with Orihara.
     When his short trip came to an end, Hisae drove him to Heathrow Airport. She sighed as she watched Kento look at his boarding time in anticipation.
     “Kento, you’ve found someone special, haven’t you?”
     When Kento blushed in response, Hisae pinched his cheek.
     “You know a chick is ready to fly away from its nest when it’s found someone more special than its parents. I guess I should start preparing to let you go, too.”

     Within the very same day of his return from London, Kento barged into Miyashita Clinic with his souvenirs. He had only been away for one week, but he ached to see Orihara. To see him, to hear his voice.
     The clinic was still open for consultations, but he burst in through the door anyway, fumbling in haste to change his shoes to slippers.
     “Welcome home,” said Nurse Nakagawa with a wave from the reception desk.
     “I have a souvenir for you, too, Mrs. Nakagawa. Perfume from a store that Princes Diana used to buy from.” Kento gave her a box wrapped in pretty paper. “Where’s the doctor?”
     Without even waiting for an answer, he stepped inside.
     “Oh?“
     The person at the consultation desk was not Orihara. It was a portly elderly gentleman. He looked up from reading a thick medical book, took the glasses off his white head and perched them on his nose as he looked back at Kento.
     “You must be Kento, am I right?”
     “Where’s Yuri?” Kento was so stunned, he called Orihara by his first name.
     “Yuri went back to the university. I’m Miyashita. I’ve come back to work.”
     “Gone back…” Kento finally remembered that Orihara had been here as a substitute for his uncle.
     “When?”
     “Last week.”
     That was right after Kento had left to London. What did it all mean? Was his return sudden and unplanned? Kento was rooted to the spot in confusion.
     “When was it decided?”
     “Didn’t Yuri tell you he was going back to the university? That’s strange. My discharge from the hospital was decided quite a while ago.” Miyashita tilted his head in perplexity.
     “I brought souvenirs for Yuri. Where would he be? Would I be able to catch him at N. University?” Kento asked, pretending not to be as agitated as he was.
     “He works at N. University Hospital, but he’s not there right now,” Miyashita answered. “He said he’d be relocated to a hospital in Shimizu immediately.”
     “Relocated?”
     Miyashita explained to him that N. University had several other affiliated hospitals, and medical staff were relocated in turns.
     “When is he coming back?”
     “Oh, he’ll be away for one or two years at least.”
     “No way…” Kento was at a loss for words. Miyashita looked at him with pity and tilted his head again.
     “That wasn’t very nice of him to leave without telling you.”
     Kento stared at his feet.
     “Well, Shimizu is not that far,” Miyashita said encouragingly, “Why not visit him there?”
     Why hadn’t Orihara told him? No doubt it was because he didn’t see Kento as a grown man and an equal. Or did he want to write off everything that had happened between them as a mistake? Even what happened that night?
     Kento bit his lip and turned away.
     “Yuri has told me a lot about you, Kento,” Miyashita gently said behind him. Kento Yamashiro is a precious friend of mine, and he comes here to play guitar because he can’t in his dorm, he had told Miyashita. If he comes when I’m not here, I want you to let him in.
     “But…” Being called a precious friend didn’t bring much joy to Kento, who had hoped he would see them as something more.
     “Goodbye,” he managed to force from his lips before leaving.
     Once he got back to his dorm, Kento crawled into bed and closed his eyes. His buoyant feelings had quickly deflated like a pierced balloon. He had planned to spend a lot of time with Orihara over the spring break. He had wanted to tell Orihara everything he had seen and heard in London.
     He must think nothing of me. Fine. If he’s going to give me the cold shoulder, I’ll just forget about him. But there was no way he could. Those gentle hands which had visited him in the night; those slender fingers pressing the strings of the guitar; his gentle eyes as he nodded and listened to Kento’s stories. Every scene appeared vividly before his eyes.
     And then, his sad eyes when he had cried in Kento’s arms.
     I’ll never forget you. No matter what happens.

     By the second day, Kento was already dying to play guitar again. He had second thoughts about going back since he had left the clinic rather angrily, but his desire to play guitar won out. Somehow, it felt like playing the guitar would keep his connection to Orihara alive.
     After school, he visited Miyashita Clinic and shyly poked his face into the consultation room.
     “Good to see you,” Miyashita greeted him with a smile. “Play to your heart’s content. I’m quite enjoying this, too. I feel like I’ve gotten myself a grandson.”
     Kento played the guitar in the living room just as he had with Orihara, and the memories of the man’s voice, expression, and body language all came flashing back to him. He used his pick to strum the strings while he sang “All My Loving” in a quiet voice.
     “You know, Kento, real Beatles fans purposely play this part wrong.” The gentle voice resonated deep in his ears.
     “Why’s that, Doctor?”
     Orihara had smiled at his question. “This song’s in their second album, called With the Beatles. There’s a mistake in the recording.”
     Then, Orihara had leaned over his shoulder from behind him, their cheeks almost brushed up against each other.
     “Do it like… this. Yes, very good.”
     He remembered staring at Orihara’s profile and his pronounced features, feeling a strange pain in his heart that he did not understand. No doubt by that time, he had already begun to be attracted to Orihara. Back then, they had only been nebulous feelings of affection. If he had known what they meant… he could have turned around and touched those lips. On one occasion, in fact, he had turned around too quickly and bumped lips with Orihara.
     “Whoa, sorry for kissing you,” Kento had apologized in a flustered way. Even then, Orihara had only smiled and forgiven him.
     And he gently poised his fingers over mine and taught me. Kento was almost sure that Orihara had feelings for him. I’m sure he loves me even a little. After all, he hadn’t gotten angry when their lips touched by mistake. If he had hated Kento, he would probably have reacted with disgust.
     That’s right. And we’ve done way more than kissing. He said afterwards that he’d gotten carried away, but no matter how carried away he got, he’d never be able to do that with someone he hated. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. I really do love him.
     He was sure that Orihara loved him back, even just slightly. Perhaps they were not romantic feelings, but even that was enough.

     And then while I’m away
     I’ll write home every day
     And I’ll send all my loving to you

     He thought of Orihara as he sang. It was a while before he realized that Miyashita was listening intently beside him.
     “It’s been such a long time since I heard the guitar,” he said with awe.
     “Why’s that?”
     “Yuri also quit playing guitar when he quit running.” Miyashita gave a grunt as he lowered himself into the armchair in front of Kento, and gazed at Kento with a reminiscent look.
     “I’m surprised he even taught you the guitar.”
     “Uh-huh.”
     After playing a few more songs, a thought popped up in Kento’s mind. What if he asked Miyashita about Orihara? He was Orihara’s uncle after all, and they had even lived together. Kento didn’t want to seem nosy by abruptly bombarding him with questions, so he decided to get close with Miyashita first.
     “Dr. Miyashita, do you mind if I start coming here all the time again?” he asked nonchalantly.
     “Not a problem. Come anytime,” Miyashita said.
     Miyashita was very fond of music, and he and Kento soon grew close over the course of his visits. However, all the vinyl records that Miyashita owned were classical, apart from Orihara’s Beatles records. Kento suggested that he listen to other music as well.
     “I’ll lend you some CDs,” he offered. Miyashita did not own a CD player, so Kento brought in his own stereo from his dorm. “I have another one back in my room, so you can keep this here,” he assured the man.
     Kento thought long and hard before choosing a Southern All Stars album, thinking it would probably be palatable for someone who was familiar with The Beatles.
     “I think you’ll find this music alright,” he said as he pressed play. Miyashita appeared to bode well with the ballads.
     “I want to hear more,” he said. Kento decided to lend him another CD.
     “Is this one Southern All Stars, too?” Miyashita asked.
     “You should listen to different stuff,” Kento advised. “You’ll get behind the times if you don’t listen this type of music.”
     Miyashita adjusted well to J-pop. “This ‘Love Machine’ song is quite energizing,” he said as he sat on the sofa with headphones on, bobbing his plump body back and forth. Kento almost burst out laughing.
     “Right? It feels even better to sing it,” Kento said. “We should go karaoke sometime!”

     The incident happened one Sunday after Kento had started spring break. He was eating an early dinner with Miyashita when Nurse Nakagawa came back to visit after taking Saturday off.
     “I just got back,” she said, taking a large box out. When they asked, she told them she had gone on a family trip to Hakone.
     “Where did you stay?”
     “At F Hotel.” The historical luxury hotel was a mix of East and West; it looked like a Japanese temple or shrine on the outside, but the rooms were outfitted in Western style.
     “I remember you telling me that the apple pie here was amazing, Doctor, so I brought some back as a souvenir.”
     “That’s where John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed, right?” Kento said, showing off the knowledge that he had gotten from Orihara. Nakagawa nodded and said she had gotten to see the hotel guestbook.
     “Apparently, so did Helen Keller and Charlie Chaplin,” she added.
     After dinner, Kento decided it was a good time for them to tuck into the souvenir. He made some tea and called Miyashita over from the living room, where he was reading a book.
     “It’s been such a long time since I had apple pie from here.” Miyashita took a bite as soon as he sat down at the table. “Delicious,” he hummed. “All of us went there together once, when Yuri was still young. But we haven’t gone back since.”
     “A family trip? Was his older brother there, too?”
     Miyashita gave him a quizzical look. “Of course,” he said.
     “Well, weren’t Yuri and his brother having trouble getting along?” Orihara’s older brother had been on his mind, and Kento decided to ask about it. “One night when I was here watching the house while he was gone, his older brother called and told me Yuri always pretends to be out.”
     Miyashita sighed. “I’m only telling this to you because it’s you. Yuri and his brother, Keigo, are not related by blood.”
     “He’s not Yuri’s real brother?”
     Miyashita grunted somewhat reluctantly. “I guess I should give you the whole story,” he said finally, and began his explanation. “Yuri’s mother is my younger sister.”
     He had already heard this from Orihara, so Kento nodded his head.
     “My sister and her husband couldn’t have children for a long time. So, about ten years into their marriage, they adopted.”
     The adopted son had been Keigo, Yuri’s older brother.
     “Did they adopt him from an orphanage? Because they needed someone to take after the hospital?”
     Miyashita laughed. “This isn’t the nineteenth century! And this isn’t some cheap soap opera. My sister and her husband just really loved children. That’s all.”
     Miyashita’s younger sister and her husband cherished Keigo and raised him with care. Then, in the year that Keigo was set to enter a prestigious middle school, it had happened.
     “By some incredible stroke of luck, she got pregnant.”
     Of course, even after Yuri was born, the two loved him and Keigo equally. Keigo himself had been adopted at three and so had no memories of his infancy. He loved his foster parents like he would his own. Although Yuri and Keigo were far apart in age, they had been very close.
     “Yuri followed Keigo around everywhere. They were almost joined at the hip.”
     Kento remembered the conversation that Yuri and his brother had over the phone and found it hard to believe that they got along.
     “Then why…”
     Miyashita took another bite of apple pie, then took a gulp of tea before continuing his story.
     “Yuri found out the truth by accident when their grandfather died.”
     At a gathering for the Buddhist Forty-Ninth Day memorial ceremony, Yuri had overheard his distant relatives talking to the mothers.
     “You’ll leave the hospital to your biological child, I presume?”
     “You gave birth to Yuri yourself, so you must feel more attached to him.”
     In this way, Yuri’s relatives had pressed his mother, and Yuri had overheard it all.
     “Keigo was already twenty-two and in medical school, so….” Although his parents had had no intentions of forcing him to take over the hospital, Keigo’s intelligence had already begun to lead him down the path of medicine.
     A change overcame Yuri after that incident. He abruptly stopped talking about becoming a doctor like the brother he respected so much, and he never spoke of it again. Instead, he began to throw himself into exercise.
     Yuri was long-limbed and nimble. His talent blossomed on the track and in the pits, in sports such as high-jumping and hurdles. His family, although perplexed by the sudden change, supported Yuri’s endeavours when he began appearing at tournaments.
     At first, neither Yuri’s parents nor Miyashita had any idea what had made Yuri change his prospects.
     “By choosing a completely different path, he planned to have the hospital pass naturally into his brother’s hands.”
     Kento remembered again how his brother had said over the phone that Yuri was acting out of guilt towards him.
     “And?”
     “When it came time to take high-school entrance exams, Yuri chose the Athletic stream, and that’s how he came to stay at my house.”
     At the time, Miyashita had just lost his wife to illness. He warmly welcomed Yuri as a distraction from his sadness.
     “But he injured his leg and couldn’t do sports anymore, right?” Kento butted in. Miyashita gave him a confused look.
     “Hmm? He did hurt his leg, but it wasn’t so bad that he had to stop sports.”
     “What?” Kento exclaimed this time. “Wasn’t he hospitalized?” He was sure Orihara had said so. Kento rifled through his memories.
     “No, the one who was hospitalized was a friend he was training with. Yuri was depressed about it, though, and said it was his fault.”
     This was totally different from the story he had heard. Miyashita continued his story, oblivious to the tense expression on Kento’s face.
     “Anyway, in his third year of high school, Yuri suddenly announced that he was aiming to get into the faculty of medicine. My sister and her husband were overjoyed, and naturally, I thought it was a good thing.”
     Yuri was intelligent enough, and after a year of furious studying he was admitted to the faculty of medicine at N. University.
     But a while after entering university, he had declared that he was not going to take over the family business and was never going to go back to his hometown.
     “His family was shocked.” That was when they had realized for the first time that Yuri knew that his older brother was adopted.
     “By then Keigo was already married and had taken over at the family hospital. When he found out that Yuri was suffering because of that, he was astonished.”
     He asked Yuri over and over to come back once he had become a doctor, and that Keigo would withdraw to make way for him.
     “But Yuri is more stubborn than he looks.” Miyashita sighed. “He’s… how do I say this? He’s prone to jumping to conclusions. I’m quite worried.”
     He then looked at Kento with renewed intrigue. “I’m glad that a cheerful boy like you has become his friend. I know there’s an age difference, but I’d really appreciate if you could continue to be his friend.”
     But he sees me as a kid, Kento said inwardly. He never told me anything that was important to him.
     If that wasn’t proof that Orihara saw him as a child, he didn’t know what was.

     “See you tomorrow,” Kento said as he stepped outside to go home. The sun was setting as the spring day came to an end, and the area was washed in a dark-blue light similar to Lake Titicaca from those faraway days.
     Feeling a warmth in the air like that of a human touch, Kento let his eyes wander up to the sky and its lingering light. In the neighboring yard was a towering cherry blossom tree, and a crescent moon hung on a branch with swelling buds.
     As he began his slow walk to the dorm’s back entrance, Kento recalled the nights he had listened to records with Orihara.
     “Kento, let’s practice your English. You know this phrase, ‘C Moon’? Do you know what it is?” Orihara smiled as he pointed at the cover.
     “C Moon? No idea.”
     “It means crescent moon.”
     Kento looked up at Orihara from where he was lying on his stomach on the sofa with his cheek propped up in one hand.
     “Oh, because it looks like the letter C!” he said in realization, and stared at Yuri in amazement. “So, is a half-moon a D moon?”
     Orihara laughed as he shook his head. “No, that’s just called a half-moon. Obvious, though, right?”
     Doctor. Kento felt a tear roll down his cheek. It was a tear of frustration, he thought. He was frustrated that he was still a boy. Yes ? today, he had been slapped in the face with the fact that he was still a child.
     Orihara had not told him a single important thing. But even if he had, Kento would probably not have been able to help him.
     Kento’s original plan had been to visit Orihara at the hospital where he worked once spring break started. He had planned to convince the man that he really loved him. But in doing so, he would only be a kid causing trouble for Orihara.
     Orihara had said that it was his fault that people were unhappy. “Everyone” probably meant his older brother, Keigo, and his injured friend. That was why Orihara had left his home behind and stopped running.
     Right at that moment, everything clicked. Kento bit his lip. His mother had said it once: that your time for leaving the nest came when you found someone more important than your family.
     Right now, Kento did have someone who was more important than anyone, someone whom he wanted to protect more than anyone else. But he did not have the strength to do so. The wings on his back were still small, barely strong enough to support his own weight.
     He had wished every day to grow up faster ? ever since the day Orihara had left him. He had felt like if he wished hard enough, it would happen instantly. But of course, that was impossible. Kento realized for the first time that there were some things he could simply never have, no matter how hard he wished.
     Becoming an adult meant being able to protect your loved one. Kento wanted to be by Orihara’s side and to protect him. He wanted to make Orihara happy.
     But even if he went to Orihara now, he would be able to do nothing. And Orihara would never acknowledge him as an adult. Kento stopped in his tracks and looked up at the crescent moon.
     “It’s called a C Moon.”
     He remembered Orihara’s smiling face.
     “I’ll keep moving forward on my own,” Kento murmured. “Watch me, Doctor.”
     Right now, all he could do was to learn how to walk on his own, without anyone’s help. To do that, he needed to heal his leg, study, and go to school. It seemed like an awfully roundabout path, but there was nothing he could do. There was no shortcut.
     Orihara was someone whom he needed in his life, someone who meant more than anything else. That was all the more reason why he needed to become independent, in a place far away from him. That was the only thing he could do right now.
     Once more, Kento looked up at the moon. Perhaps Orihara was out there looking at it, too.
     “Wait for me,” he said to it, “I’ll get there someday.”