Published at 25th of August 2019 11:14 pm

Book 2 Chapter 7 - Only Two

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Tsugaru’s night was quiet, and he could hear the roar of the sea all the way from Kyouko’s house on a hilltop away from the sea. On this windy day, the sound of the waves overlapped the noisy rustling of the Japanese beeches, playing a duet with something wriggling in the abyss of night. The boundaries between night and day, light and shadow, were dazzling like the horizon on a sunny day. In that vivid contrast, he knew that Tokyo wasn’t a place for people to live in, but the difficulties of living in the countryside were soaked into Shibuki’s bones.

Since returning to Tsugaru, Shibuki spent the majority of his days viewing the ocean on the rocks. He didn’t think he’d wanted to meet anyone besides Kyouko, and he knew that even if he did he would just get tired of being met with sympathetic eyes, and being asked this-and-that.

In this village where there were fewer and fewer children year after year, the reason why only Shibuki’s classmates had a large number, and why most of them were born in August was because of the fall of 18 years ago, where there was a power outage that hit the village for twenty days. When he learned that, he had the feeling like resignation that “this village really is small,” but still, there was already displeasure in the eyes of the distrustful people with way too much free time about his homecoming.

In that respect, the sea was good. It didn’t try to interrogate him or read too much into him, and left Shibuki alone as much as he liked.

“Today I now understand why you don’t get tired of watching the ocean. Even though waves approach the shore regularly, at a certain point they suddenly make irregular movements. They slip away from the fixed movements, twist themselves up high, and scatter. That moment is captivating.”

At night, he listened to Kyouko, who rambled on and on about those kinds of things.

“But, aren’t those irregular moments actually happening regularly? Waves are formed and scattered after many rounds of swells. And waves that were formed too faraway would disappear before even hitting the shore.”

“If that’s the case, then the sea’s like a graveyard for those waves who never reached the shore.”

When he talked with Kyouko like this, Shibuki’s mind felt peaceful, and quietly satisfied. That feeling stayed as they proceeded onto the futon, and when their bodies heaved against each other beneath the dim light of the miniature light bulb, and Shibuki’s body felt satisfied as well. He didn’t believe that devoting himself to having sex day after day was healthy, but only devoting himself to diving day after day wasn’t necessarily healthy either. The important thing was balance, Shibuki thought. It was what I lacked the most.

In Tokyo, if he thought about the fact that he hardly called her, he’d fall down just like a seesaw with a bang, and suddenly sink into himself. Kyouko, who was two years older than him, received him generously. She seemed to be just simply happy that she was able to see him again so soon, three months after he had made up his mind to go to Tokyo.

Kyouko, who graduated from high school this year, was working at a supermarket on the coast while living with her grandmother, Aya-san. It had always just been the two of them ever since she could remember, and although the villagers swapped various rumors about her parents, whose whereabouts were unknown, she herself didn’t seem to have much interest in it. Because she behaved like that at least, Shibuki didn’t dare try to touch on it. In terms of amount of rumors, the Okitsu family was by no means inferior to Kyouko’s.

If someone saw Shibuki’s and Kyouko’s relationship, would they see it as something like “Minor’s disturbed nature! Half-cohabitation for three years?” Of course, that was just an exaggeration, and everything came about somehow, but since he started going out with Kyouko three years ago, it was true that Shibuki almost never returned home. It was because he didn’t want to see his mother fussing over his uncle, who had taken over the position of head fisherman.

After the deaths of his father and grandfather, his mother stopped Shibuki, who was willing to work instead of going to high school, and persuaded him that they would be able to make do with the insurance money and their savings. But in truth, it was obvious that their lives consisted of the assistance from his uncle, who lived in the same village. Shibuki could not make himself like that uncle no matter what, as he had declared Shiraha an embarrassment for the family for ending without returning to his hometown in glory.

“I took a little summer break.”

Even when Shibuki said that the other day as he suddenly came home, his mother welcomed him with an “Okay” without asking anything, but when he thought about the sarcastic things that his uncle would be saying behind his back (“See, I told you so”, “It’s the old man all over again”, etc.) he couldn’t settle into his family home, and ran away after only one day.

Aya-san cursed at that uncle, saying “He calls me by my name or ‘old woman’. Just a vulgar man (1).” Shibuki was very fortunate that she was his friend. Although she wasn’t such a radical thinker as to approve the free love between young people, but because she had painted an era where women married young, she didn’t say that Shibuki’s and Kyouko’s relationship was too early. Kyouko, who since middle school had brought many boys to her house, and repeatedly took up love affairs like throwing away fish she just caught without even tasting them, stopped doing all of that immediately once she met Shibuki, and treated him like she acknowledged that he got the better of her.

He woke up at the house on the hill, ate the toast and eggs that Aya-san made, and while Kyouko was standing at the register at the supermarket, he breathed in the scent of the seashore on the nearby rocks until he felt like he had to burp. As Shibuki did so, he felt like he was increasing the “fueru wakame (2)” as he went back to the person he was before going to Tokyo. Oh, I’m living here like this, and I believe I’ll continue to live like this in the future, he thought, as though it was someone else’s business.

Kayoko’s appearance was, so to speak, an unexpected incident. Just as his father and grandfather were swallowed by the stormy sea, Shibuki was also swallowed up by the waves of fate.

Will he dive into those waves again?

Even though he knew that the answer to that must be given by the new semester, Shibuki continued to put it off.

“Have sex with Kyouko every night, do fishing after graduating from high school, get married and officially live here, make babies, buy my own ship one day, make the tastiest fish I caught that day a souvenir for my family, everyone noisily eats it…I guess that kind of life is the best kind that I’ll never get tired of.”

When Shibuki sometimes spoke about his dream, Kyouko interrupted him with a question while smiling. “What about diving? Is it not going to appear in your future?”

“If I want to dive, the sea’s right there. I don’t want to spend all my life diving like Gramps.”

“If diving was your Gramps’ everything, then what are you here for? He went to Tokyo, devoted himself to diving, and after that fell in love and got married, had kids, and raised his grandson. But I think that he had the full course of life.”

“But he lost at the most critical moment. Even if it was because of the war, if he failed at that moment then he’d be the loser for all his life forever. At least, that’s what the people here think.”

Kyouko’s toes, which had been quickly progressing through the breakwater (3), stopped beneath a thunderhead (3) that resembled a splash blown up by a giant. It wasn’t a new thing that this kind of complaint came out of Shibuki’s mouth now. However, it was especially frequent during his recent homecoming, and Kyouko, who had ignored him placidly at first, couldn’t stand it any longer after two weeks.

“Hey, Shibuki.” Kyouko beat him to it before he could start on the story of the Ninomiya Kinjirou statue. “You always talk like Gramps is the victim. He left the village, because he was tempted by the scout from Tokyo. He ended without any awards to show for it, because of the war. But is that actually true? Are you seriously thinking like that? Aren’t you just putting some kind of blame on everything else by doing that?”

The salty sea breeze blew gently against the sea’s surface, causing Kyouko’s light purple camisole to flap. When Shibuki had first met Kyouko, who was the most sophisticated person in the village, on this beach, he had wondered if she was an actress on location for a shoot. However, if one saw the city which overflowed with well-dressed women, she and others looked simple in comparison, and he fell in love all over again with that inartificial beauty.

Even now when she revealed her anger, her face was truly lovely.

Shibuki spoke while being charmed by her. “Well then, whose fault was it? To this day people are still making noise about whether Gramps is a genius or something, and he finished his athletic career without leaving anything behind. What on earth is there to blame?”

“Yes, about that. I’ve been thinking about that a lot…” Kyouko said, like she’d been waiting for this moment. “It’s his back.”

“Back?”

“Gramps dived into this sea just like you when he was a child. You hurt your back, and maybe it’s not just you who had hurt their back.”

The waves that had been repeating regular undulations turned irregular suddenly beneath the eyes of the two.

Shibuki wanted to get swept away by those waves.

“That’s…impossible.”

“If so, then that means that Gramps isn’t a victim of the war like you said. He did only what he could do, until he couldn’t do it anymore, and stopped on his own. That’s why he trained you so carefully so that you wouldn’t make the same mistake. Don’t you think that’s possible?”

“Wait.”

Hey, wait a minute. Shibuki desperately tried to calm his confused head.

Okitsu Shiraha was not a victim of the war, and stopped himself because of his injured back. If what Kyouko said was true, then the foundation of what he had believed until now had been overturned.

“Hey, let’s find out.”

Kyouko had already turned on her heel.

“We can find out about Gramps’ athlete career.”

_______________________________________________________________

Kyouko didn’t have to tell him, since Shibuki had also tried to investigate Shiraha’s past once. What kind of athlete was Okitsu Shiraha? How did he dive, how did he live, and what did he think in faraway Tokyo? He badly wanted to know, and searched all over his house for clues. A picture was fine. A letter was fine. A diary was even better. But his grandfather had buried his glorious past. He completely erased all traces of himself as a competitive diver and died.

That’s why it’s useless to go search, but no matter how many times he told her that, she didn’t listen, and forcibly put Shibuki on the back of her motorcycle. They rushed along the bumpy hill road, heading for Shibuki’s house.

It was only the house of former head fisherman, and although it was old, Shibuki’s house was spacious. Immediately after he returned home for the first time in more than a week, without caring about the suspicious eyes of his mother at seeing her son suddenly vandalizing the house, Kyouko desperately hunted for Shiraha’s traces. Under the eaves. In the attic. Behind the butsudan (4). The cellar that had now been turned into a storage room. They were especially thorough with the room that Shiraha used, carefully searching from the bottom of the chest of drawers to the inside of the container that held his certificate of merit.

However, nothing turned up from the house that Shibuki had once spent many hours searching through.

“That’s why I told you. I’ve searched in all the likely places a long time ago.”

“But it never occurred to you to strip off the tatami mats afterwards, and to tear up the floorboards…”

“If we go that far and nothing’s there, even Mom would go berserk. And it will also develop problems between you as a daughter-in-law and her in the future.”

Kyouko, hit in a painful place, despondently turned back from the road that she came down reluctantly, although it looked like she still hadn’t given up on the inside yet.

The next morning Shibuki was forcibly put onto the back of her motorcycle again.

“What are we doing today?”

“We’re continuing from yesterday.”

“So, nothing?”

“Today we’re going to Urai-san’s place.”

“Urai-san?”

“He’s that old man who always picks up trash on the beach. When he was young, he was a good friend of Gramps. Aya-san said that he seemed to have watched Gramps’ competition in Tokyo. So, if that’s the case, Gramps might have left something with him, don’t you think?”

However, that hope was in vain. When the two of the visited the Urai house, although the old man admitted that he had went to see Shiraha’s competition, his memory was too unreliable. He clearly got it confused with a swimming race when he recounted excitedly how Shiraha was so wonderful, moving up steadily from the third course and reached the finish line faster than anyone else in the second half. Shibuki and Kyouko went along with the long story for a while, and then left the house in low spirits.

Even so, Kyouko still didn’t give up.

She, who did not speak a word after leaving Urai’s house, said “Hey” as she pulled on Shibuki’s arm after she parked her motorcycle in the garden of the hilltop home.

“Isn’t there an association that keeps all kinds of material about swimming and diving?”

“The JASF?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t they keep documents about Gramps there? Hey, let’s call and find out.”

“There’s no point.”

“Why?”

“I already called a long time ago.”

“…”

As expected, Kyouko’s eyes lost their strength as she was exhausted.

“It was around 1936 that Gramps went Tokyo and entered the diving world. The Japanese diving world seemed to have been at its peak at that time, but the records of that time were stored in Hachiouji and were burned up by US military air raids. Even though the JASF’s headquarters were located in the Marunouchi Building, the office workers back then were afraid of wartime damages and locked them up in the storehouses of their own homes, which backfired on them instead. It seems that the only thing that was found in the ruins of the fire was a Longines stopwatch.”

“What about the records after that?”

“After the war, Gramps was at the first Nationals in Hyougo in 1946, but he didn’t even leave a picture there. That was probably Gramps’ last official meet.”

Kyouko frustratingly chewed on her lip. When her heightened emotions reached their boiling point, she would always go on a rampage. She put on the helmet that she had just taken off, and while revving up the engine loudly, she started her motorcycle up, and all night long they did not return to where they had travelled for the whole day.

Although he was worrying endlessly about when they were going to go home, Shibuki fell asleep before he knew it. In the morning, when he woke and noticed Kyouko lying next to him as usual, he spontaneously hugged her shoulders with relief and repentance (I didn’t fall asleep. I…).

She wore a tank top and short shorts instead of pajamas when she crawled into the futon. But yesterday, perhaps because she was too tired, she was wearing nothing but her underwear, and the delicate skin of her chest peeked out from the towel blanket. Three years ago, when he had first touched that smooth skin, Shibuki had marvelled that there was such an attractive creature outside of the sea. That impression was still the same now. That’s why he confided everything to Kyouko. He even talked to her about his back problem that he never told anyone else about.

However, he had only hidden one thing from her.

“What is it?” She whispered to him with half-closed eyes, as he stroked her red hair.

“I was thinking.”

“About what?”

“About why you’re going so far to find out about Gramps.”

Kyouko pulled the milk-colored towel-blanket over her nose. Not to hide her skin, but to hide her inflamed eyes.

“I want to free you from your weird curse.”

“Curse?”

“You treat Gramps like a victim, and so you’re always tied to that pent-up grudge…I don’t want to see you like that. If you stay like this, I feel like you seem to be blaming your own issues, your back problems, and not going to Beijing, all on that one thing. Gramps’ life was no one’s fault, and he was the one who chose to live like that. I want to let you to admit that. That way…”

“That way?”

“You will be more invigorated, and would want to go back to Tokyo.”

The towel-blanket covered up to Kyouko’s forehead. It was to hide her tears.

When Shibuki decided to go to Tokyo to join the MDC, Kyouko had only cried a little bit once. This was the first time he saw her crying like this since then.

He got up, gently pushed away the towel-blanket, and kissed away her tears.

They were saltier than seawater.

“They said that all of the past records were burned up in the air raids, but…” Shibuki said, making up his mind. “Actually, it wasn’t all of them. Even the JASF doesn’t know this, but there’s a man who privately saved a 16mm footage of Gramps in his athlete years.”

Kyouko stopped crying.

“Who?”

“Mizuki Shinnosuke. The former president of Mizuki who established the MDC. He was also one of the divers that represented the Japanese diving world in the 1930s.”

“…”

“The day that his granddaughter, Asaki Kayoko, came to see me, she told me she found the 16mm film among the things Mizuki Shinnosuke left behind after his death. If…”

If you win the right to represent at next year’s Olympics, I will also show you what your grandfather left behind.

It was the 16mm film that projected his grandfather in his younger days. For anyone else it would be nothing, but for Shibuki it was the keepsake of a miracle. His grandfather was made much of in Tokyo as a child prodigy, and talked about behind his back in the village, so the truth with just his grandfather was there in that film. Shibuki wanted to know. What his grandfather thought when he went to Tokyo, what he thought when he went back home, and what he thought when he taught him, his grandson, to dive. He believed that something that was not told from the mouths of others dwelled in that film.

Okay, I’ll go to the Olympics. And in exchange, you will give me the 16mm when that time comes.

That was the contract between Shibuki and Kayoko—

“But, now that I think about it, me going to Tokyo like that was probably the fastest way to know about Gramps’ feelings. It was only for four months, but when I actually tried diving in a competition, I felt like I understood a little about Gramps. At least he wasn’t doing something boring. It’s annoying for those village bastards who don’t know anything to say all sorts of things, but maybe it’s good if I’m the only one who knows the truth.”

“Shibuki…”

“Because I understood that, I don’t need the 16mm anymore. My contract with Asaki Kayoko has expired anyways. It’s impossible for me to go to next year’s Olympics as I am now. I’m confident about that much.”

Shibuki’s confidence made Kyouko’s chest ache. The stubborn, competitive, unstoppable-once-he-gets-started Shibuki said it was impossible. It probably was impossible. Even before Kyouko came up with the idea to search, the thing that Shibuki had been pursuing for was indeed there since a long time ago.

“But, I really do want to see that 16mm film. Isn’t there any other way that it can be shown to us?”

“By lowering my head to Asaki Kayoko? I have my pride.”

“Is your pride really okay right now?”

“If it’s going to done well, then it won’t be me.”

“Well then, would you like me to do it? I don’t have pride.”

“This is between me and Asaki Kayoko.”

“So stubborn.”

Despite saying so, Kyouko hugged Shibuki’s hair in order to show her affection for that stubbornness, slowly lowering her hand to his nape to stroke it. Sex seemed to be quickest way to manage these feelings of mutual downheartedness, but when she thought about it, she felt bad for his back, and did not know what to do about her hand that had now descended to Shibuki’s stomach.

If they thought about it, ever since Shibuki came home, it felt like the two of them always didn’t know what to do with the time while embracing each other.

In this long summer, it was just the two of them.

_______________________________________________________________

From this night on, Kyouko stopped mentioning Shiraha’s name. The 16mm never came up, the two of them slept in each other’s embrace as before, ate the breakfast Aya-san made when morning came, Kyouko went out to the supermarket, and Shibuki inhaled the fragrance of the seashore until he choked on it as he wandered around the rocks until the sun went down. In the meantime, time passed, and people started to greet each other with statements like “the sun is setting earlier” and “it’s gotten a lot more comfortable,” but Shibuki didn’t feel any change in the seasons, and he felt like just Kyouko and him were still left in the humid shadow of summer.

This cocoon was pure white. He recalled those strange bugs that they were forced to raise in elementary school. They wrapped up their bodies in white silk and slept, and that moment, when they woke up and were rewarded with wings on their backs. However, there were also some who never woke up, and dried up completely inside of their cocoons.

He felt like he and Kyouko were quietly dying inside of the silk that they wrapped around themselves.

While he was aware that that cocoon was his own problem, and that Kyouko was only someone along with him for the ride, he needed her, and could not let her go.

_______________________________________________________________

At the end of summer, when rare, unexpected visitors suddenly arrived at the Okitsu house where Shibuki was absent, the two were already completely motionless.

_______________________________________________________________

Translation Notes

1. Kanji translates to “vulgar man” but furigana reads “udade” which means “unpleasant, disgusting” in Tsugaru dialect.

2. A type of edible dried brown seaweed. You can buy it online

3. A breakwater are structures that protect coasts. A thunderhead is a type of cloud seen during a thunderstorm.

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