Chapter 5 The View beyond Friendship Carrot Cake #3
“There came a point when I made a decision.” Iori gently leaned his head against the window.
“I decided to detach myself from all emotions. At home, and at my part-time job, I played the role of a sweet kid who adored his grandma. At school, I was the cheerful comic. To my girlfriend, a guy who had a sensitive and vulnerable side to him. Once I’d worked out the person that my counterpart wanted me to be, I chose the character I was going to play. ”
“Do you mean that you were switching back and forth between your true self and how you carried yourself in front of others?” Hozumi asked.
Iori crossed his arms and looked up. Leaning back against the sofa, he stared at the ceiling.
“It felt more like I was putting a lid over my true feelings—my true self. Whatever I did, I didn’t want to feel the slightest bit of pain or suffering.
I have really good looks, don’t I? So I caught people’s attention and was able to get what I wanted, even though it was exhausting.
Eventually, I grew sick of it. I didn’t want to do anything.
I wanted people to leave me alone. I wanted to flee to a world where no one knew who I was. ”
A harsh coldness had developed in Iori’s eyes.
“I wished that people would just say ‘Is that so?’ and end the conversation there. But as soon as I talked about my family, it was always ‘that must have been tough’ and ‘you’ve had a hard life’ and all that.
That I didn’t have a father, that I did all the housework at home, and that I looked after my grandma—these were just things that happened in my life.
The idea that these were ‘unfortunate events’ had never even crossed my mind. ”
I tightened my grip on the glass I was holding. The back of my ears throbbed. Drips of condensation on my glass wet the base of my thumb.
“People wanted to see ‘the heroic boy who puts on a brave face.’ They would look at me expectantly, somewhat enjoying it. It gave them a kind of thrill. All the girls I went out with were the same. They would look into my eyes, wearing that face that says Show me your vulnerable side. You can tell me anything. And when I granted them their wish, they would squeeze my hand with a satisfied expression. They would stroke my head and say ‘You’ve been so brave.’ It gave them a rush, the feeling that they’ve been chosen as the person I’ve confided my painful experiences to, and they got a hell of a good cry out of it. ”
I had no words.
And that was because, at that moment, I was starting to feel a pounding in my chest. I was starting to feel the very thing he was describing.
I tried to repress my tears.
“I found it so repulsive I wanted to vomit. But even if I had said out loud everything I was thinking, what good would that have done? In the end, I realized that pretending like I would do anything for Grandma, and pretending like I was ‘putting on a brave face’ so that others wouldn’t worry about me, was the easiest way to live. ”
Hozumi inhaled deeply, filling up his lungs.
Right. That’s why. That’s why Iori gets along with everyone.
“Sometimes I put on the face of a person who stayed positive no matter how tough life got.”
There was something I’d always wondered about Iori, ever since we met.
Memories of Iori swept through my mind—
Iori having an animated discussion with the local ladies visiting the café about everything from asset management to illnesses.
Iori getting so absorbed in conversation with the middle-school boy minding his parents’ dry cleaners that he didn’t return to the café for hours.
I’d seen him exchanging favorite books with Kimura the bookseller and playing cards with the kids in the park. Everywhere he went, he found his way into everyone’s hearts, as though he had been best friends with them for ages.
The reason he could do that was because…
“I don’t have my own feelings. I’m an expert at faking my emotions depending on who I’m with. It’s actually not that hard. All I do is behave in the way that the other person wants me to.”
I felt goose bumps rising from my waist to my back.
Ever since joining Amayadori, I had seen Iori dozens—hundreds—of times.
And yet…who was this person sitting in front of me?
Coo-coo.
My shoulders flinched at the carefree sound of a cuckoo call. All of us glanced at the time. It was eleven. Pushed out of the door by a distorted iron spring, the wood-carved bird gave three cuckoo calls, then promptly returned to its home.
“My strategy worked wonders,” Iori said. “Things became less tiring, and I had freed myself from unnecessary worries. My nimble mind had everyone fooled. Except for Koharu…”
Koharu—the second he said her name, Iori’s eyes, which had grown completely cold, seemed to light up.
“What kind of person was she?” Hozumi asked.
“Let me see.” Iori thought for a moment. “If she was in an all-female theater company like Takarazuka Revue, she would play the female parts. She was so elegant and feminine.”
Hozumi and I let out a sigh; we knew exactly what he meant.
“She must have had porcelain skin,” I said.
“She did.”
“Her voice must have been crystal clear.”
“It was.”
“She must have looked like an angel.”
“She really did…” Iori nodded melancholically.
“The girls’ uniform at our high school was a white sailor-style outfit.
It suited her really well. It was a pretty good school, so there were lots of rich kids.
They were a classy bunch, all brought up so well.
The kind of kids who would innocently tell me that their family wasn’t so rich because they only had four bedrooms in their apartment.
Do you get what I mean? All the kids were like that. ”
“Ah. The kind that offend poor people without meaning to.” I slurped through my straw although my glass was empty and it made a gurgling sound.
“I got into this high school through a scholarship. The kids there weren’t rough like the ones I went to middle school with.
I didn’t have to worry about guys trying to beat me up because they thought I had stolen their girlfriends.
I felt much more at ease. And if anyone ever tried to pry into my private life, I just dodged it by pretending to be like the person they wanted me to be.
I was starting to feel like I was going to be okay. ”
Iori let his back sink into the sofa.
“That was when I met Koharu. I was in my second year of high school, and we were both on the student council. I was the president, and she was the secretary. She was in the year below me.”
“Wait a second, you were the president of the student council? Really?”
I was so shocked that my hand holding the straw paused.
“Why? Is it weird?”
“I wouldn’t say that…”
Actually, it was quite the opposite. It suited his image so well that it was almost scary.
“I was crazy popular. I felt more like an idol than a student council president.” Iori combed his fingers through his hair, showing a playful smile.
“I got really into the student council activities, too. Until then, I had hated the fact that I seemed to attract everyone’s attention whatever I did.
But now that I was president, that attention became my weapon. ”
As he spoke, Iori placed the empty coffee cup and glasses on a tray and carried them to the kitchen. Wanting to help, I started to get up from my seat, but he held his hand out in protest. He put the kettle on the stove. While waiting for it to boil, he perched himself on a barstool.
“When I started high school, I was on a roll. I knew exactly what to say in my speeches and presentations to motivate everyone. I hardly had any time to rest, what with the studying, the student council, and my part-time job, but that was a good thing, because it didn’t give me any time to think. But then…”
For a second, he choked on his words. A shadow seemed to pass across his face.
“December came. It was a busy time, with the winter break just around the corner.”
“Did something happen?”
“Grandma died. There was a call from her caretaker to the school. She’d had a heart attack.”
As if on cue, the kettle blared off a high-pitched whistle.
Iori stepped back into the kitchen to turn off the stove.
“Sure, she was forgetful, but she was in good shape. She never missed a health checkup. All I could think at the funeral was, Everyone I know is going to die suddenly.”
Iori lined the coffee dripper with a filter, then ran his hand over the bags of different coffee beans arranged on the shelf, contemplating his options.
“Did everyone at school find out about your grandmother?” I ventured to ask.
“Of course. The whole school knew. It was an event worthy of a headline. Student council president loses his only family and finds himself completely alone! It was juicy gossip. But I tried my best not to pay attention. I did all my student council work as planned, and got good grades on my end-of-semester exams. And before I knew it, it was the last day of the year. I stood on the podium to deliver a speech. Everyone’s eyes were pinned on me. ”
Iori put some dark roasted beans into the grinder and turned the handle. He transferred spoonfuls of the freshly ground coffee into the filter and slowly poured hot water from the kettle.
“So many eyes. The eyes of every student and teacher in the school. There were hundreds of them, all staring at me. Not that it was anything new—I had stood on that podium every time there was a school event, so I’d seen the same sight many times before.
I could have played it safe. A few inspiring words would’ve been enough.
The girls would’ve looked at me with a dreamy expression on their faces, and the younger students would’ve looked at me with admiration.
I would’ve gotten a big round of applause, far bigger than what the headmaster would ever get. That was how it always went.”
I swallowed hard. The sound of my gulp seemed louder than it should have.