Taken Prisoner

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Even though his lunch box was packed, Minoru still wasn’t out the door.

“It’s already eleven, you know,” said Rie.

“I know!” Minoru replied sullenly. The TV was on, but his pensive gaze was only fixed idly on the screen.

He’s still having second thoughts. Rie smirked.

Minoru was a very indecisive person, so it was easy to sense when he was being hesitant. His indecisiveness even annoyed himself, which ended up making him depressed, and then he’d take his anger out on Rie. But he couldn’t get mad at her, because it was his fault and his fault alone that things came to this.

“You need to pour the hot water in the cup like this,” she instructed calmly. She wasn’t trying to sound calm; that’s just how her voice naturally sounded. “Then it’ll turn into miso soup. The miso and vegetables are already in the cup, so all it needs is hot water.”

“…”

“You should probably start heading out if you want to arrive before it gets dark.”

Rie was leisurely sipping on some coffee at the kitchen table. A tall woman, she had big hands to go with her size. Her bony hands even made the Ginori mug look small when she held it. Both Rie and Minoru loved the Italian Ginori cups and saucers with the fruit designs on them. A simple cup and saucer with a violet fruit or blue flower on them cost around thirteen thousand yen. They had been collecting these sets for years and years until they at last reached four sets, and that was around when they started going through a divorce.

“Don’t think too much about it while you’re driving. You’ll get into an accident,” Rie said with a faint smirk. “Can’t have the groom getting hurt, after all.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Minoru walked over and took a seat in the empty chair. “Pour me a cup of coffee, too, will ya?”

“Oh? Very forward, demanding a stranger make you a coffee.”

“Oof. Come on. Be a good stranger and please make me some coffee.”

“This is the last coffee you’re ever getting from me.”

“Come on, stop picking on me already.”

“If you want me to stop picking on you, how about you hurry up and leave?”

“Hmm… I don’t know. I feel funny. I still can’t imagine never coming back here. The fact that we’re gonna not be a family anymore still feels weird. It’s still like, ‘Am I really getting a divorce?’ ”

“Isn’t it a little late to be saying that?”

“It feels like a dream.”

“In that it makes you happy?”

“Mm, it’s not that simple. It’s something more complicated than being happy or sad. I still don’t feel like I have the courage to split up with you.”

“Well, you did.”

“It hurts hearing you say that.”

Minoru was three years younger than Rie. He was a large, healthy, slightly chubby man whose stomach had just started to protrude. His eyes were slightly drooping, and he had a boyish, cherubic face for a thirty-two-year-old. Minoru was also a very kindhearted man and rather popular with the ladies, but Rie found his kindness to be elusive. It was the kindness of a child: innocently cruel and full of lies.

I’d like a refund for this defective adult male, she used to think, although she nonetheless found his innocent kindness and childish ego cute. But whenever something happened, she would go right back to thinking he was defective.

He’s easily swayed and indecisive, Rie thought.

Minoru had said, “It hurts hearing you say that,” but she wondered if he really was pained deep down inside about going his separate way. Rie slowly filled the Ginori cup to the brim with freshly brewed coffee while Minoru watched, seemingly captivated by the cup.

“Is that your share?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Did I pack my share?”

“You did, in your bag. Two whole sets,” Rie replied.

They split the cups and saucers half-and-half. Was Minoru planning on using his share, which was filled with memories of Rie and him collecting them together, with that other woman? Minoru was insensitive and indifferent, so he would probably use them with his new woman without giving it a second thought.

“You’re gonna be bringing the English chair with you, right?”

He was referring an old wooden chair that they’d bought at a Western antique shop together.

“You took the hexagon clock, too, right?”

“Yeah, but, like…you told me I could take whatever I wanted, right?”

“That’s fine. I was just thinking about how you’re mainly taking the things we bought together…”

“Sorry. If you want it, I’ll give it back. I’m just used to having the chair and the clock around. They’re easy to use.”

You were used to having me around more than anything, seeing as we were married for eight years, and look what happened there, Rie thought with a smirk.

“Oh yeah.” Minoru placed his cup down. “Can I bring the pictures from the photo album with me, too?”

“What are you going to use those for?”

“What do you mean? If we’re gonna split up, we should probably separate the pictures, too, right?”

“How considerate of you.”

Minoru opened the album and carefully peeled off any photo where he was the only one in it. He didn’t touch any pictures with both him and Rie in them. He apparently only wanted to bring his history and his history alone with him to the next stage in his life.

“Just take the whole album with you,” recommended Rie in a particularly insouciant manner. “Then you could keep the ones you want and tear up or burn the ones you don’t.”

“You’re being melodramatic about this.”

“I’m being melodramatic?” Rie scoffed. She was already over it. All of it. And that was why she could laugh and joke about it at the very end like this. “I’m acting just the same as always.”

“Hey, what kind of lunch did you pack for me?” Minoru asked after suddenly closing the album.

“I can’t tell you. Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Anyway, you need to get going. It’s a three-hour drive to Okayama, right? You need to get going if you wanna beat the traffic.”

“It’s not like I have to be there at a specific time. Besides, eating lunch all alone at a rest stop in my car is just—”

“What’s wrong with you? You’re the one who asked me to pack you a lunch because you were driving all the way to Okayama.”

“I know, but…think of how lonely I’d be if I ate this lunch all by myself.”

“Hiroko is waiting for you in Okayama. Is she not? She and her family are all at her house waiting for you. They want to have that wedding already. How long has it been? Four months?”

“Five months,” Minoru pointed out in naive honesty.

“Oh my. Then you really should hurry up with the wedding before people start to wonder. Are your parents not coming?”

“I think my sister’ll be there.”

“Oh, so you’ve already talked about it with them?”

“It was sudden. Everything’s been really hectic.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself. It doesn’t bother me.” She slightly tilted her head to the side out of habit.

Rie had high cheekbones and a long face, which made her appear stern or lonely at times, but she knew she was beautiful depending on how you looked at her. Rie was shameless in this regard and had a very high opinion of herself, more than anyone might expect.

“If you say so. Anyway, let’s eat that lunch you made together.”

“But…”

“Come on.”

Minoru began unwrapping his lunch box, so Rie decided to put up some tea to go with it. They had already signed and submitted their divorce papers but were still living together, since the construction being done on Minoru’s new apartment in Kyoto was taking longer than expected, and he had been taking forever to finish packing. He said he was leaving today, so this was going to be their last day together.

“All right. This is our last day together, so we might as well.”

“Last this, last that—stop saying ‘last’ so much.” Minoru seemed to relax the moment Rie decided to join him for lunch. “I can leave for Okayama tomorrow, you know. Stay another night here,” he said.

“No, you can’t. Do you know what they’d say if you did that? If you don’t want to go to Okayama today, then go to your apartment in Kyoto and stay there. You don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.”

“Nobody has to know.”

“I don’t want you staying here.”

Rie began making another bowl of soup. After opening his lunch box, Minoru rubbed his hands together with evident satisfaction.

“Meatballs… Nice,” he muttered.

Inside the lunch box were soft simmered meatballs in seasoned broth, pickled lotus root with fried eggs (Minoru loved these fried eggs, so they were a must with every lunch), white rice with black sesame seasoning, and Minoru’s favorite chopped vegetables pickled in salt with red shiso leaves. Rie had made herself the same thing. Minoru let out a satisfied sigh after seeing the two lunches together, then grabbed his lacquered lunch box and began busily stuffing his chopsticks into it.

His appetite was as strong as ever. Minoru wasn’t a drinker, but he was a big eater. He loved food, and he especially loved the food that Rie cooked.

Rie had spent the past ten years working for a company that made and distributed women’s clothing. Things had been extremely busy ever since she was assigned to sales. She often went to boutiques and warehouses on business trips, and she had to make frequent trips to fashion shows and department stores while meeting with designers in between. Most of the time, the week was over before she even realized it.

Once a week, she had to have dinner meetings with coworkers and clients, but even then, she went back home first to make Minoru his dinner. It wasn’t as if Rie was an exceptional cook or anything; she just knew exactly what Minoru liked and what he needed, so she would be hit with new ideas for dinner left and right, which he seemed to greatly enjoy.

“I can’t eat out when dinner at home is this good. Nothing beats your cooking,” he used to say.

“This is delicious… I can’t even imagine not getting to eat your cooking anymore. I can come over to eat sometimes, right?” Minoru asked as he ate the lunch Rie had made for him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. What is wrong with you? There’s no reason for you to come here anymore. Besides, I’m planning on moving anyway.”

“You are? You never told me that.” He seemed flustered. His droopy eyes widened. “I mean, not telling me is kind of a mean thing to do. Don’t you think?”

“You’re the mean one, suddenly dropping all that on me and surprising me out of nowhere.”

“Yeah… Sorry about that.”

Minoru gulped. Rie didn’t want to keep blaming him for what happened. They had been married for eight years until…

“Hey, I didn’t wanna have to tell you this, but things have gotten a little complicated with a female customer from work.”

Never once did she expect to ever hear him say that.

“She said she didn’t want to live anymore if I didn’t marry her,” he admitted in a dumbfounded manner while he scratched his head.

“Well, that’s a little extreme. Why’d she say that?”

Rie wanted to complain to Minoru that day because she had some trouble at work, but he dropped the next few words on her the moment she got home, making her recoil in astonishment.

“She told me she’s pregnant.”

Rie sucked in a deep breath, and Minoru averted his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “After debating day after day when I should tell you, the time just flew by.”

“…”

“What should I do?”

Rie unconsciously glared at him in a reprimanding way.

“I’m sorry,” Minoru squeaked again.

Even when he apologized, his drooping eyes and baby face made it look like he was half smiling. Minoru was hanging his head slightly—perhaps he was expecting to be yelled at—but Rie was so taken aback that she couldn’t even get a word out. The gloves she was trying to take off got tangled up because her hands were trembling. What Minoru said shocked her as if she’d been sprayed in the face with ink. Minoru wasn’t a liar, but hiding something was even worse than lying about it.

“She told me she’s pregnant.”

She would never be able to wash that ink off her face. The abruptness of it all made her feel that way even more strongly. The ink had flown all over the place, staining every part of her mind and body in the hardest places to clean.

Rie spent their entire eight-year marriage unable to have a child. Not that she wasn’t capable, however. The doctor even told her it was possible for her to get pregnant, but for some reason, she couldn’t. Time went by, and her and Minoru’s lives as a double income, no-kids household was fulfilling and enjoyable.

“Maybe we don’t need to have a child?”

“Yeah, I don’t really even want one,” Minoru had replied, and with that, the whole idea vanished from Rie’s life.

Which was why the first thing that popped into her head when she heard about the pregnancy was confusion:

We already crossed that bridge. We put that topic to bed long ago, and yet you want to try again?

“What do you plan on doing?”

“I don’t know what I should do. My sister—”

“Oh, you already told your sister?”

“Yeah, and she told me to talk it over with her. Her being the other woman, not you.”

Minoru’s parents had already passed away, so his sister and her husband were like parents to him. Rie, however, didn’t like his sister. She’d been against the idea of her brother marrying a woman three years his senior from day one. Minoru and Rie worked at the same company, so Rie ended up quitting when they married and found a new job. But…

“She’s never going to be able to have a child if she keeps working like that,” Minoru’s sister once said to him. And slowly but surely, Minoru’s attitude of “not even really wanting one” changed.

“I’m sorry, Rie…but I want a kid now just like everyone else,” Minoru eventually admitted. Rie could just tell it was his sister who put him up to this. It was the way he said it that made it clear she had poisoned his mind.

“…How old is she?” Rie asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

“Twenty-three.”

“What’s her name?”

“Hiroko Ohara.”

“Do you like her?”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but she’s funny and fun to be around.”

Rie settled into a chair in silence, still wearing her work clothes. She couldn’t even joke about this. If she had just a little bit more energy, she would have probably been able to at least respond to what was happening, but the depression had already kicked in. Tears of self-pity began welling in her eyes and she suddenly got the urge to throw up.

And yet all it took was a single word to tease those feelings out.

“Dinner,” Minoru suddenly said. Rie thought she was hearing things.

“What?”

“Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

“I don’t care. Make your own dinner if it means that much to you!”

“What are we having tonight?”

Whether lightning struck, whether spears fell from the sky, whether it came out that Minoru was cheating on her, he still seemed to expect that she would make dinner for him. That was just how faithful his healthy, blinding ego was to his desires and his desires alone. Apparently, the reason he told Rie the truth wasn’t because of any moral obligation or guilt. He simply couldn’t take the weight of keeping a secret any longer.

Rie’s resentful tears dried up along with her tears of self-pity. She didn’t have an appetite. She was fed up. She got in bed and tried to process the insanity, but nothing helped. A twenty-three-year-old woman said she didn’t want to be alive if Minoru didn’t marry her, and Minoru said she was fun to be around. Rie didn’t know how to even wrap her head around that. She was at a loss. Minoru had always been rather popular with the ladies, something Rie used to be able to laugh and joke about at the dinner table, but she never expected for things to go this far.

Before she even realized it, she started feeling pain in her neck and fingers. She’d been curled up in bed with her big jewelry on still. Rie had a large frame, so every jewel she had was similarly large, and yet she still forgot to remove them.

Minoru peeked into the room.

“Hey…,” he timidly squeaked. “Um… Where’s the salt-flavored ramen?”

“Shut up!”

Rie was genuinely repulsed by Minoru in that moment. She jumped out of bed, then immediately threw the magazine by the bedside at him. It was so sudden that Minoru was unable to dodge in time, and it hit him in the chest.

“You don’t have to throw a fit like that…,” he muttered feebly.

Rie rarely got angry. In fact, this was the first time she’d lost her temper since they got married, so the pupils in his drooping, now furtive eyes shrank. Rie was always a kind woman who never showed anger or insulted others, so it must have been quite the shock for him.

“Geez. You’re scaring me,” he said, but that still didn’t put her in a better mood, so he narrowed his eyes and got mad back at her. “I should be the angry one. You seriously didn’t buy more ramen when you were at the store?”

He got grumpy when he was hungry. Rie had felt a rage burning in her stomach, but the moment she heard him say that, the anger suddenly left her body. Minoru always proved to have a screw loose at times like this, which Rie usually found amusing, but today, she immediately lost all energy to argue and listlessly replied:

“The ramen’s on the second shelf from the top.”

“Why didn’t you cry earlier?” Minoru asked later on. “You would’ve melted my heart with that pretty face of yours if you did.”

“Would you have changed your mind about leaving if I did?”

“I don’t know about that,” came his honest reply.

“Then crying would’ve been pointless,” Rie said with a laugh.

She was annoyed, but she couldn’t cry or beg. She couldn’t use her tears to get what she wanted. She couldn’t do something that was pointless, and there was nothing she could do about Minoru, who had a screw loose.

Now that she thought about it, maybe this Hiroko Ohara woman was a good match for him. Now that she was further along in her pregnancy, she’d apparently left her job and started working at a boutique near Sanjo Keihan Station in Kyoto. When Rie said she wanted to meet her, Minoru immediately called Hiroko up and asked her to meet Rie at the café across from the Kabuki theater.

It was a cold day with signs of snow in the sky, but she energetically walked right into the café in high spirits. Hiroko’s eyes were round, and her lips were round and full as well. She seemed bubbly.

She took off her faux-leather coat, revealing her unbleached, thick cotton loose-fitting jacket and pants of the same color, along with a brown velvet belt loosely tied. Her stomach didn’t stand out at all, perhaps due to her clothes.

“I’m Hiroko Ohara. You’re Minoru’s wife, right? He showed me your picture,” she said, unprompted. When she spoke, her lips made her look youthful like a little girl. Rie had thought about what she was going to say to her when they finally met, but she felt they weren’t the right words for a girl like Hiroko and immediately forgot what she wanted to say. Instead, her inner saleswoman kicked in and she asked curiously:

“I like your outfit. Where did you get it?”

“At the Tik Tak in America Mura in Osaka when they were on sale. They’ve got a Tik Tak here in Kyoto now, too, though. Right behind this place. I can take you there later if you want. They’ve got a ton of nice clothes.”

“Oh, I heard their clothes have gotten a lot nicer lately. Like a total rebranding.”

“Yeah, their style’s kind of similar to Mon Ami’s now, but way cooler.”

“Are you from Kyoto?”

“No, I was born in Okayama, but I went to high school in Kyoto and have been living here ever since.”

She sounded like she wanted to talk more about fashion, making it unclear why she even came to meet Rie in the first place. And yet with a smile on her face, she said:

“I decided to work at a boutique because I wanted to see pretty things and get excited about them. I thought it might be good for the baby, you know?”

She rubbed her stomach.

“‘Good for the baby’?” Rie repeated.

“Yeah, they say babies can hear noises outside the womb. If you fight or get mad or yell or say something mean, they’ll come out with a twisted personality.”

There was no way Rie could start a fight or insult Hiroko now.

“How do your parents feel about all this?”

It took everything she had to ask that.

“They were surprised at first, but I keep telling them I’m gonna have the baby no matter what. I plan on going back home after things cool off a little. My mom said she already booked a hospital.”

Hiroko was treating the entire situation like she was talking about Tik Tak again.

“I’ll have the cream parfait and some juice,” she then told the waiter. It could snow at any minute in this cold weather, and yet she was going to eat something cold.

Only a young person could do that. I’m impressed, thought Rie. Hiroko began licking her spoon and talking in between bites of her parfait.

“You should have a baby, too, before it’s too late. They say it’s hard for older women to get pregnant, let alone raise a child. The doctor told me I’m at the best age to have a baby.”

She wasn’t saying this out of spite or sarcastically. She was speaking joyfully from the heart. Once again, all the tension left Rie’s body. She felt ridiculous even trying to humor Hiroko. Common sense and manners were an afterthought to this girl. It was as if giving birth to a healthy baby was simply something fashionable to her, just like wearing clothes from Tik Tak.

“That’s wonderful. I hope you give birth to a very healthy baby,” Rie replied. She felt compelled to say that even though she didn’t want to.

She left without saying anything mean because that would be bad for the baby, but when she stepped outside, she found the streets of Gion in the middle of a blizzard. Only a few moments went by until she was covered in snow, and the freezing tip of her nose had turned red. She wondered what she did to have to suffer like this, and as the tips of her toes slowly grew colder, she felt a pang in her bladder.

Rie had chronic cystitis, so this occasionally happened when she got cold. She clutched her lower abdomen in pain as the snow continued piling up. At this point, the discomfort was more than just a pang. Her bladder was inflamed, and she was miserable. After squatting under the eaves of a building, she wondered whether she should run into the nearest café, when…

“Hey, are you okay?” came a friendly voice. It was Hiroko Ohara, the girl she was just talking to in the café. “I work just over there. There’s a sofa, so how about stopping by to warm up your feet and relax? Your feet are gonna freeze in those high heels. And then you won’t be able to have children if that happens.”

That annoyed Rie because she knew there was no malice behind those cheerful words. Regardless, she took Hiroko up on her offer and lay down on the sofa as the kindly female boutique owner brought a heater, placed it by her feet, and made her some hot tea. Only then did Rie finally feel relief. The snow eventually began coming down harder and more fiercely.

“Looks like we’re closing early today… We should hurry home before they close the station from all the snow. Hiroko, you’re free to go. I’ll be heading out, too, in a second,” the owner said.

Rie had Hiroko get Minoru for her. His workplace was very close to Kyoto, and with this much snow, it was pretty clear that the Meishin Expressway was going to be closed off, so Rie wouldn’t be able to take a taxi home. Her only choice was to have Minoru walk her to the station and take the train back with her. Minoru showed up at the boutique around an hour after Hiroko called him.

“Thank you for taking care of her. I really appreciate it.”

While he may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, he still made sure to thank the owner.

“You should thank Hiroko, too, for all the trouble you’ve caused her,” Rie said despite herself.

Hiroko had bought some disposable heating pads at the local convenience store, which she’d placed on Rie’s lower abdomen for her to warm her up. She was surprisingly thoughtful and observant, maybe because she’d once worked as an office clerk.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” Minoru told Hiroko.

“Take care of yourself,” she said to Rie. Her voice was excessively cheerful.

“Why did I even want to meet her in the first place?” Rie murmured to herself. However, after a week went by, she showed up at the boutique with a box of cakes as a thank-you. Another girl was working there that day instead of Hiroko—a slim lady who obviously wasn’t pregnant.

“Oh, Hiroko went back to her hometown to see her family. She needed to start resting and preparing for the baby.” It was the chatty owner, wearing very fashionable light-violet glasses. “She told me you were her husband’s sister…”

He was already being called her husband.

The lunch box’s meatballs were very rich in flavor, different from Western or Japanese ones. They could even be eaten cold, they were so rich. The chef herself—Rie—also thought they were good, so it was no surprise when Minoru scarfed them down. There were even fried eggs, which made him more than satisfied.

Rie used to think that only she knew how to cook for Minoru, since she knew exactly what he liked, and that there was no way someone young like Hiroko could make anything worthwhile (Rie wasn’t trying to use her cooking to keep him from leaving her, though). But lately, she’d started thinking that Minoru could and would eat anything with great enthusiasm while repeating how delicious it was.

Perhaps it didn’t matter who cooked for him, and perhaps Hiroko, with her bubbly personality, was only joking when she said she would die if Minoru didn’t marry her. After realizing that, it was like the last weight had been removed from Rie’s shoulders, instantly relaxing her. Her heart stopped racing, and her vague anxiety and jealousy faded as well—just like her cystitis.

Even when Minoru said he was going to Okayama tomorrow…

“Uh-huh,” Rie casually replied, even though she knew he was going to Hiroko’s family’s home.

“Pack me a lunch, will ya?”

“Okay.”

“I plan on stopping at a rest area along the way, so I’ll eat it then.”

“Why don’t you just eat the food they have there?”

“Because I want to eat your cooking.”

Rie knew that after he returned from Okayama, he would be coming home with Hiroko as his new wife and moving into their apartment in Kyoto. She knew this, but she still made him a lunch, since this was going to be the last time she ever would. For the most part, they decided to split their furniture and household goods down the middle, but…

“Rie, you can keep whatever you want. We should take the things we want most.”

“There isn’t anything I want.”

Rie suddenly remembered an old story she once read. A wife whose husband was about to leave her was told to bring whatever she wanted with her when she moved out.

“What would I need when I’m leaving behind the only thing that has ever meant anything to me: you?” the woman asked with a smile.

Right as she was about to leave emptyhanded, her husband stopped her. He was so touched by her words that he changed his mind. They got back together and lived happily ever after.

But saying something like that to Minoru would be pointless. Seeing Minoru leave, with his half of the Ginori coffee cups and photos of himself, merely emphasized the absurdity of it all. He wasn’t leaving emptyhanded.

“You really should get going. It’s dangerous to drive on the expressway at night,” Rie told him.

“Yeah… What are you gonna do after I’m gone?”

“Hmm… I think I’m going to continue working at the same company.”

“No, no, no. I meant: How are you going to spend the rest of your Sunday night?”

“Read a few magazines, I suppose.”

There were a lot of trade and fashion magazines she needed to look through for information on boutiques and the like. In fact, her job kept her far busier than an ordinary office worker like Minoru.

“Hey, Rie,” he muttered absentmindedly. “Make sure you get cystitis every once in a while.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll come see you. Call me and tell me you need me, and I’ll be here.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Rie cackled. “You’re going to make me have second thoughts if you say such sweet things to me.”

“Really? Maybe I should leave tomorrow, then?”

“No. I was just trying to be nice.”

She didn’t even see him off. After about an hour went by, he called her.

“How’s your bladder? Feeling inflamed yet?”

“Actually, I feel great. Better than I’ve felt in a long time now that I’m alone.”

“Looks like I’m not needed. Well, anyway, take care. I’ve just reached Yamazaki.”

There was a note of disappointment in Minoru’s voice, even more so than when he’d been there with her. He was undoubtedly despondent, clutching the steering wheel with uneasiness in his drooping eyes.

And it wasn’t without reason. After all, he was about to be taken prisoner. He was going to be held captive by a little something called family.

Rie, who had escaped that fate and was finally able to relax, strongly felt that way. Not having anyone to call when she was having bladder problems might be rough for a little while, but for whatever reason, she felt a release like no other.

Rie poured more coffee into her Ginori mug.

I should’ve given him these last two sets of coffee cups, too, she thought.

Being let go helped her let go of any attachments she once had as well.