Already Finished Packing

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Hideo had been very quiet since morning, as if he were in a bad mood, but Eriko pretended not to notice and continued acting normal. Nevertheless, she’d been racking her brain all day to find out why he was in a foul mood, but she couldn’t come up with a single reason.

I can’t imagine what’s wrong.

They had watched TV together last night and were sound asleep by eleven, so there was no reason for Hideo to be upset, and yet here he was—sulking. There was something miserable about seeing a massive, bulky man in a foul mood. He was around a hundred and eighty centimeters tall with a hefty amount of meat on him, and despite being forty-four years old, he had a somewhat childlike face. Eriko, who was forty-two, looked younger than her age due to her small frame, so they were sometimes mistaken for a couple in their thirties thanks to Hideo’s boyish face.

But whenever he was in a bad mood, he looked like a child having a fit. Hideo drank his coffee and ate his breakfast of buttered toast and bacon in silence, then began getting changed.

“I’m gonna stop by Tennoji today,” he murmured while tying his tie.

Seriously? thought Eriko as she calmly replied, “I guess I won’t make dinner tonight, then, if you’re going to be late.”

“I don’t know when I’ll get back.”

“I’m going to go out to eat, then.”

“I might be home for dinner.”

“All we’ve got is ochazuke.”

“I don’t care what we have for dinner!”

What’s he in such a huff about? Eriko thought he was being ridiculous.

Hideo’s mother, his ex-wife, Kyoko, and their three children lived in Tennoji in southern Osaka. He would visit them on occasion, although not with any regularity. And every time he was going to Tennoji, he would be in a bad mood.

To tell the truth, Hideo’s current wife, Eriko, wasn’t thrilled about him going to Tennoji to spend time with his ex and their kids like a big happy family, so it wouldn’t be unnatural if she got angry. And yet it was Hideo who was in a foul mood. He seemed to be acting this way because he was anticipating his wife being in a bad mood. Perhaps he was afraid of Eriko getting upset with him, so he used this anger as a suit of armor to protect himself. He also seemed to be annoyed at his own ineptness, since he was unable to get around offending Eriko.

“Takeshi got in trouble at school,” Hideo grumbled.

“Oh.”

Takeshi was Hideo’s second-oldest son and currently in high school.

“Apparently, he punched one of his teachers.”

“He’s at that age, huh…?” Eriko muttered, although she absolutely did not care one bit. She just wished he would handle those problems when he was in Tennoji instead of bringing them home with him. He may have been their father, but he didn’t live with them.

“Is that really all you have to say?”

Eriko didn’t respond. Hideo was extremely irritated, and really, was there anything further she could say? She couldn’t exactly criticize him at the moment.

“It’s going to be cold tonight,” Eriko stated, changing the subject. “You should make sure to dress warm before you go.”

“…”

Hideo was usually a very good-humored individual, which made it hard to really tell what kind of mood he was in. But he was always in a foul mood whenever he went to Tennoji. Perhaps he wanted to show Eriko that he wasn’t going because he liked to, so he made it seem like it was a chore. Regardless, being in a bad mood was the worst thing he could do.

When a man and a woman live together, being in a bad mood is like only having one chair was what Eriko wanted to tell him. It’s a game of musical chairs where all the person sitting has to do is not stand up to win. The other person isn’t allowed to sit.

They couldn’t both be in a bad mood. The only time a couple living together should be in a bad mood is when they break up. If two people still want to live together, they need to understand that there is always one chair and one chair only. Of course, Hideo was rarely in a bad mood, and he never behaved high-handedly, either.

Eriko always thought he had eyes like a basset hound, but never once did she say it. He looked so pathetic and weak when he looked up with his droopy, wide-set eyes, which were extremely brazen whenever he was flattered and spoiled. Eriko kind of liked that duality about him. She even found it cute from time to time.

She didn’t like it when he was in a bad mood, though.

Eriko and Hideo had been married for ten years. It was his second marriage and her first. Eriko had been working and single until she was thirty-two years old, so she had absolutely no plans to get married unless it was going to be really fun. She was creating a PR magazine with a Hanshinkan sake company, and she had been working at her current job for a long time. She enjoyed it; she had a lot of influence and knew a lot of people. Eriko had gotten used to life in Osaka, an easy place to live as long as you didn’t pursue your own ideals. She met Hideo, who was thirty-three at the time and had been married to his then-wife for around seven or eight years, at work. The first time they went drinking together…

“I’m thinking about getting a divorce.”

Hideo had brought up a problem he was having that night. He didn’t get a divorce because of Eriko. He had fallen out of love with his then-wife a long time ago but stayed with her because of their complicated family circumstances.

Hideo wasn’t his parents’ biological son. He was adopted and succeeded the family’s Tennoji estate, which then took in Kyoko. They were a married couple adopted into the family in the locals’ eyes, essentially. In the midst of discussing breaking things off, they ended up having three kids. After Hideo’s father died, they ended up getting divorced, and Kyoko found a new place to live. She left the kids behind as well. Hideo was raising the children with his mother for a while, but within a year, Kyoko got remarried. He seemed refreshed and cheerful after that.

“Want to get married? I want to get back the life I missed out on. I wanna boogie. Now. Have some fun,” he told Eriko.

Hearing him say he wanted to “boogie” was so funny to Eriko that she took a liking to him. But his kids were a problem. Eriko also worked, so their only two options were to work and send money for the kids or adopt them.

“I can’t take care of any kids, so I’ll pay child support,” she told him up front.

This was a crucial moment. She was being calm and reasonable with her decision and thought she shouldn’t say anything she didn’t really mean just to look good. Fortunately, his mother in Tennoji was still in very good health and agreed to raise the children, so Hideo moved into an apartment with Eriko in Toyonaka.

Eriko stayed at the same job she always had, but every month, a lot of her money ended up going to Hideo’s family in Tennoji. As a result, even though were both working, they didn’t have any savings. Nevertheless, she was glad she got married. It wasn’t only Hideo. Eriko also enjoyed the life she missed out on.

She never went to Tennoji herself, but sometimes, she and Hideo would bring his kids, who were in elementary school at the time, to the zoo in Tennoji or Hanshin Park, where she enjoyed being mom for a day. Her name was on Hideo’s family register, but she wasn’t listed as the kids’ adoptive mother, and they always called her their aunt from Toyonaka. The two eldest were boys, and the youngest was a girl. Hideo’s daughter had her hair cut in a bob and wore shorts just like his two sons. Eriko wasn’t around children often, so she enjoyed talking to them and spending time with them. One time, Hideo ended up bringing the two boys to Toyonaka with him.

Their house in Tennoji was old and run-down—in other words, it was a very spacious house with many rooms, but it was dark. Hideo’s boys seemed to be amazed by how small yet bright his and Eriko’s modern apartment was. They ran around the apartment, opening each and every door and making a huge mess. That was why Hideo decided to give them a bath. Once he got out of the tub, he put in his boys, who started splashing with joy and giggling. They were apparently starving for attention from their father, and when it was time for them to go back home to Tennoji, the younger son was on the verge of tears.

“Why don’t you let them stay the night?” suggested Eriko.

The boys’ faces briefly lit up with joy.

“No,” Hideo flatly replied. “Go home. You know what train to take.” Then he added, “Oh, and make sure you don’t lose the money I gave you.”

“Why don’t you walk them to the station?” Eriko asked instinctively.

“They’re boys. They can find their way home on their own.”

The children began putting on their shoes in resignation, then walked out the door and said good-bye. Whether they were saying it to their father or Eriko was a mystery.

When they were frantically squealing with joy in the bathtub, Eriko noticed the metallic taste of jealousy at the back of her throat, but she still felt bad for them when they gave up and left. She was overcome with the feeling that she’d stolen their father from them. Hideo, on the other hand, seemed to be in a good mood.

“You gotta give them opportunities to be independent from time to time,” he said. It sounded like he was trying to keep his life with Eriko separate.

A year had gone by when one morning, Hideo mentioned, “I’m going to Tennoji. A carpenter’s coming over today…”

“Oh. Fixing the place up?”

The house in Tennoji was old, so Hideo usually had to do any repairs when something broke, which he always did a good job at. But seeing as they hired a professional, perhaps it was something more complicated than usual.

“The annex needs a lot of work.”

“Are you going to have it rebuilt?”

“Yeah.” Hideo was in a bad mood. “She’s back.”

“Who’s back?”

“Who do you think?!” Hideo shouted, clearly irritated.

Yelling at me isn’t going to fix anything, Eriko thought as she rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re talking about Kyoko.”

“I am.”

Kyoko’s second marriage had fallen apart, and she had nowhere to go, so she returned to Tennoji and moved in with Hideo’s mother. His mother was getting a little too old and tired to raise the children, so of course, she welcomed Kyoko with open arms.

Both of Kyoko’s marriages had ended in failure. Maybe she was just a victim of fate, but it was hard not to see her as someone who was impulsive and never thought things through.

“Why do you want to get a divorce?” Eriko had asked Hideo that day years ago.

“She’s a lazy cow. She’s dense and stubborn, and once she’s made up her mind, she won’t move whether you push her or pull her. She’s always nagging and splitting hairs over the most ridiculous things, and then she’s weirdly laid-back about random stuff and loves to ‘fool around,’ ” Hideo answered, disheartened.

Eriko had never met Kyoko, but she’d heard rumors about her from her cousin once. Apparently, Kyoko was an irresponsible slob. She didn’t use clothespins when hanging out laundry to dry, so the wet clothes would get blown away by the wind. She would also forget to go pick them up until later that night or even the next morning from time to time. Sometimes, when she ran out of clean clothes, she went shopping for new ones instead of washing the dirty ones. She constantly forgot to pay the phone or electric bill, and whenever you opened the refrigerator, there would be something in it that had already gone bad.

Eriko and Hideo never talked about Kyoko ever since they got married, but Eriko always had this vague image of her in the back of her mind—this “lazy cow,” as Hideo had described.

“When did this all happen?”

“Half a year ago.”

“Oh. I had no idea,” Eriko said. She became strangely annoyed. If Kyoko had moved back to Tennoji half a year ago, then surely, Hideo would have seen her at least three or four times, since that was how many times he had gone back these past six months to see his mother and children.

“So Kyoko moved back in six months ago? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to upset you.”

While it wasn’t a pleasant thing to find out, Eriko always imagined that her husband was living another life with just his kids while she wasn’t around. Never did she imagine that the ex-wife was back in the picture. Eriko had seen Hideo with his children countless times; it was a part of her life. She had seen him bathe with his boys as they squealed with glee; she’d witnessed his young daughter seated comfortably in his lap, his arms around her. Eriko imagined it was like that whenever he went back to Tennoji. But adding his ex-wife, Kyoko, to the equation made it impossible for her to envision what kind of life he was living. And the fact that he kept this to himself for half a year made it all the more shocking.

“Why not tell me? You could’ve just said that Kyoko got a divorce and was back.”

“What would that have solved?”

“Your mother didn’t tell me anything, either.”

“Why would she? It has nothing to do with you.”

He may have been right, but Eriko could no longer tell him to “enjoy himself and have dinner with his family” now that she knew Kyoko was there. Nevertheless, that hang-up slowly faded over the years. After spending so many years with Hideo, his life with her probably started to slightly outweigh his old life—time-wise, at the very least. That was how Eriko started to feel. The only time she thought about Tennoji was when she sent money to the house there every month. After a while, Hideo’s mother had to be hospitalized, and his oldest son started college, so they ended up needing even more money.

Kyoko didn’t work, but she was apparently doing chores around the house.

Why do I have to work my ass off to take care of someone else’s family? Eriko thought from time to time, but when she thought of the payment as if she were paying for her time with Hideo, she figured, I guess this isn’t all that expensive.

The children stopped clinging to Hideo so much, perhaps because having their mother around pacified them or because they were simply at that age where they wanted their distance. As a result, they basically stopped coming to Toyonaka. People were gradually able to live grander lifestyles the past few years, so Eriko and Hideo started going on small vacations as well. While it was in a slightly inconvenient location in the suburbs, they moved to an apartment in the mountains in Nishinomiya. They got the place in Eriko’s name, since the house in Tennoji was under Hideo’s name, which he always had on his mind. Whenever the roof was leaking or a shutter broke, Hideo would pay for it as if he ran two households.

Nevertheless, Eriko found her life with Hideo great. They got to “boogie” together in her mind. Hideo worked hard and a lot, which was hard to believe if he were judged only by his massive body, and he always cleaned the bath, wiped the glass doors, and took on various other chores without ever complaining. He was also the one who would come home and immediately try to make whatever unusual, tasty side dish he found when he was out drinking with Eriko.

“I thought about it all night until I figured it out this morning. That dressing had peanut butter in it,” he would say. He was a big man, which meant he had a big appetite and loved delicious food (his favorite being Eriko’s home cooking). With that being said, Eriko wasn’t especially good at cooking. Their taste buds and preferences simply started to match each other’s after living together for so long.

“I’m so glad I married you, Eriko! I finally know how fun life can be thanks to you.”

It wasn’t long before Hideo felt this way.

Eriko had a very busy job, so she would often come home late a few times every month. She had an established PR magazine now that was published bimonthly, but with success came more responsibility. She began taking the chair at small meetings, was left in charge of handling interviews and photography, and was given a seemingly endless supply of work. Eriko wasn’t full of ambition or anything like that, but she was secretly developing her talents to keep the position she was in.

Even though she wasn’t technically an editor, her work helped her learn the importance of connections and meeting new people. She had to meet many people and had to have them like her as well. Eriko was skinny and petite with a fair complexion. She had a dimple in her right cheek whenever she laughed and sparkling, white teeth that were perfectly straight. She kept her hair casual and short, along with her attire: jeans and a sweater, which made her always look like she had just gotten out of college. She was even told, “I’ve known you for quite a while now, but I still can’t tell how old you are. I mean, I’ve known you ever since the chairman was still alive,” by one of the big shots when she was at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“I just turned thirty,” Eriko said, smiling. She had actually turned forty-two that year.

She enjoyed her life of picking up that leftover work that needed to be done in her little corner of Osaka. She felt fulfilled. For years, she watched the ginkgo leaves in Midosuji turn gold, then blue, then gold once more before they fell to the ground. Whenever a new big shot took over for the old one at a company, she would go straight to the new CEO for an interview, smile, and say she heard they were drinking buddies with a CEO from company XYZ while trying to create a bond. The old Eriko would never have been able to do this. It was far too frightening. In the past, when she finally got to meet the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, she immediately broke down in tears when he simply looked at her and asked, “What is it you want to know?”

While people always said they couldn’t tell how old Eriko was, they had an even harder time guessing whether she had a husband. There was no one outside of her work life who knew, but she had Hideo, so she felt excited to work. Whenever Eriko was late coming home from work, Hideo would always make something simple for dinner and wait for her.

“You didn’t have to wait for me to eat.”

“Eating without you would be so lonely. I enjoy dinner because I’m with you. Besides, food is tasteless without you. It’s like eating sand.”

Those words were enough to make Eriko stop caring about the monthly expenses she was suffering due to his second family.

I guess this isn’t all that expensive was how she felt when she thought about her life with Hideo, no matter how much it cost her. Of course, Eriko would never tell Hideo that, though. She would, however, show him her little dimple as she flashed her small, pearly white teeth. Eriko, as petite as she was, had both small hands and small feet, and she looked even smaller when she stood next to the massive man that Hideo was. Eriko was apparently the cutest little delicate doll in the entire world to Hideo.

Eriko had decided that she didn’t want kids. She went back and forth on the idea a little when they first got married, but she felt that they had already built a comfortable foundation for their lives and that there was no room for any children. She would rather be spoiled herself. That was what she thought, so that was probably why she got jealous when she heard Hideo’s children squealing with joy when they came over and were having a good time.

Nevertheless, Eriko enjoyed her quiet life with Hideo while his kids got older. But the more fun she was having, the more uneasy she started to feel. She didn’t know why, though. After Hideo went to work, Eriko would clean up before leaving the house herself. Since they were near the mountains, the temperature was slightly colder than the average flat city. Curtains would even freeze to the window during the winter if they weren’t careful. Eriko rode her bike to the station through the fresh, cold air. But when she got on the rocking train heading to the city, she realized why she was anxious—or discontent, to be exact.

While Hideo probably didn’t mean for it to be this way, it started to feel like his home in Tennoji was his real home and his home with her was his secondary residence. Eriko was legally his wife, and she had been married and living with him for the past ten years, but she didn’t know how Hideo viewed and mentally allocated his life. After all, his kids, ex-wife, and elderly adoptive mother were all in Tennoji, where he had a house and land in his name.

Even the son who was causing trouble at school, which in return was causing trouble for their family, had a strong presence in Eriko’s household. He used to take baths from time to time with his father and squeal with joy, but now he was throwing fists at school, which Eriko believed he may have been doing because he wanted Hideo’s attention. Hideo never once stayed overnight at the house in Tennoji, and that didn’t start when Kyoko moved back in. He had never stayed overnight there. Nevertheless, Eriko for some reason suddenly started wondering, Does he consider his home with me to be his second home?

Hideo was a large man, so Eriko could curl up and fit perfectly in his arms (just like how his daughter used to curl up and fit perfectly in his lap). On cold winter nights, she could still keep warm in his embrace, even if she wasn’t wearing anything, as his body wrapped around her like a blanket. It was like a vast, endless blanket that was warm and strong while not heavy. Hideo’s body was like a warm, comforting imaginary blanket that would sometimes suddenly swipe her up like a passionate flying squirrel and steal her away. Eriko never got tired of being scooped up off her feet, but that passion and change of pace was special because it didn’t happen every day, she felt.

Eriko felt fulfilled every moment she spent with Hideo. She was proud to be with him and happy as well, but there was something about the marriage that didn’t feel real deep down inside.

She even liked his cute basset hound-like eyes when he was in a bad mood. She wondered what it meant to still feel this way about her husband even after ten years of marriage. That was just how friendly Hideo was and a testament to how well they got along, but perhaps what was making him this way was what he was experiencing at the house in Tennoji. There was actually nothing about his life with Eriko that put him in a bad mood, and he would always return to their apartment with glee.

The only time he would be in a bad mood was when he had to go to Tennoji. It was like he felt he was held back by the shackles of convention every time he reluctantly went… It was one’s duty to take care of their home. Eriko worried about the whole second-house dilemma the entire day while she was at work. She finished up earlier than usual that night, but she took her time leaving the office, since Hideo wasn’t going to be there when she got home. That was when he suddenly gave her a call.

“I’m going to be late tonight,” he told her before briefly pausing. “Takeshi hasn’t come home yet, and nobody’s seen him since this morning. He didn’t go to school, either. And he knew I was coming tonight…”

“You don’t know where he went?”

“Not a clue. It’s hard to believe he would run away from home…”

“Do you really think he would ever do such a thing?”

“I doubt it, but he can be a real doofus sometimes, so who knows?” Hideo seemed to be on edge. “I’m going to wait here until he comes home tonight.”

Eriko didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t care whether Takeshi ran away from home or even vanished into thin air, so she couldn’t work up enough energy to even attempt comforting him, no matter how unenthusiastic it would sound.

“Okay,” she simply replied.

A young cameraman who she was planning on going out to eat with called her while he was still in the field and told her he was just going to go straight home. The building, which was located on the south side of Yodoyabashi Bridge, was old and run-down, but the view from the window was wonderful. The lights from the north buildings lit up the dark night, and the sky was a clear purple-blue. There wasn’t much better than going for a walk toward the north side in the river breeze, taking in the view from Yodoyabashi Bridge to Oebashi Bridge, during cold winter nights such as this. Hideo’s office was in Honmachi, so he would sometimes come all the way down to this building to invite her for a walk.

“Shall we?” he would say.

“Okay.”

And just like that, they would walk all the way to Umeda. This didn’t only happen when they first got married. They still went on long walks like this now as well. Kitashinchi in the north was expensive, so they would usually eat somewhere like Sonezaki before going home. It was basically a tradition for them to go out for cheap puffer fish hot pot on cold nights like this. Right as Eriko was about to leave the office, she got another phone call. It was Hideo again.

“Still at the office?”

“I was about to leave.”

“Oh. Well, Takeshi came home.”

“…”

“The teacher he hit is here, too, but Takeshi won’t apologize.”

“…”

“The principal’s also here. Can you believe it? Anyway…I’m just glad he came back. I know worrying wasn’t going to help anything, but I couldn’t help it.”

“…Okay.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the puffer fish restaurant,” she promptly replied without a second thought.

“Do they even serve single customers?”

“Yes. Puffer fish.”

This seemed to strike Hideo as very sudden.

“Well, look at you. And here I am, about to go to war.”

“Why don’t you come with me, then? Let the teachers handle the mess.”

“I can’t,” he replied, annoyed. “Bye.”

He hung up. The spite in Hideo’s voice when he said “Well, look at you” annoyed Eriko a little.

It’s not my fault.

In reality, Eriko would never let a bratty teenager even get close to her, so she couldn’t even imagine the situation. She couldn’t understand why this high school kid was being so stubborn and not apologizing, and she couldn’t understand why the teachers were making such a big deal out of this, either. And she was repelled by Hideo’s aggravation at the emergency. Eriko took the subway to the puffer fish restaurant. She said someone would be coming to meet up with her later, then took her gloves and hat off at the table in the corner of the restaurant. After taking off her shoes, sitting down, and closing the screen door, her face immediately looked like the face of a relieved forty-two-year-old, without a dimple in sight.

The puffer fish sashimi always came on a celadon plate like petals on a cherry blossom. Eriko and Hideo always enjoyed the work of art on the plate to the point that they didn’t want to eat any of it. “Be my guest,” they would usually say to each other with a smile before eventually surrendering and digging in. Hideo couldn’t hold his liquor, so he would only drink his single glass of hot sake, and that would be it for him. Eriko, however, would always have two glasses.

She ordered enough for two, half expecting Hideo to come, and when the food arrived, it was just like it always was. The blood comfortably rushed through her body as the hot sake made her do an emotional one-eighty. Eriko looked at her pocketbook while calling the house in Tennoji. She had never called even once before in the ten years she had been married.

“Hello?” It was a middle-aged woman’s voice.

“Is Hideo there?”

“Huh? Hideo? He just got into a fight with his son, and things got physical until his oldest stepped in. They ended up breaking the glass door to the garden. Anyway, he’s busy right now, so he can’t come to the phone.”

It was without a doubt his ex-wife, Kyoko, and for some reason, she knew it was Eriko on the other end of the line.

“Please try calling back again later,” she quickly added before hanging up.

She seemed to be on edge. Eriko’s first impression of her was that she seemed to be a woman who talked a lot. She didn’t seem to be a lazy, slow cow at all. If anything, she seemed to be very energetic. Her first impression was shocking, but it was a world Eriko couldn’t even imagine, so she felt daunted. Hideo’s spiteful “Well, look at you” made a lot more sense now, since it was a world unimaginable by someone who walked across cold bridges at night with their arms around their partner before being captivated by the beauty of a plate of puffer fish.

Eriko was hurt. She felt like she was stuck in a “Well, look at you” and “He’s busy right now” sandwich of parting shots. It didn’t help that she felt like a mistress calling the man she was sleeping with’s wife. She felt that perhaps life over there, as chaotic as it was right now, was how life was supposed to be. She was depressed that perhaps her sweet little life was nothing more than the surface of Hideo’s full, rich life.

Maybe it was a woman’s greed. Maybe it was jealousy. Whichever the case, Eriko wanted every single part of Hideo to herself. All of a sudden, she realized that Hideo hadn’t sounded like he was in a bad mood when they last talked. Perhaps he was in a world that didn’t allow him the luxury of being in a bad mood. And when Eriko thought of it like that, she felt bad for him. Nevertheless, she still didn’t want to carry that baggage he had back in Tennoji together with him. After all, she did tell him that she couldn’t take care of any children when they first got married. She was the one who decided to take the sweet, comfortable life in the second home. Hideo said he wanted to “boogie” and have fun, but he was slowly having to spend his life with both Eriko and his family in Tennoji.

Eriko wanted to answer the phone out of breath and panicking like Kyoko. Of course, she wanted to share the happy, sweet moments with Hideo, but she also wanted to share the hardships with him as well—moments where she could shout He’s busy now at other women on the phone. She was starting to not know what exactly she wanted anymore. On one hand, the way Kyoko spoke made it sound like she envied how calm and uncaring Eriko could be, but on the other hand, she was probably sharing a moment and bonding with Hideo over that disastrous event. Eriko was going back and forth. She had already finished packing, but she didn’t know where to go… Perhaps Kyoko, on the phone, was feeling the same way, and Eriko felt that what she packed was divided into two halves.

The water in the hot pot was boiling. Eriko picked up her chopsticks.