Chapter 7 Pizza for the Rising Star #3
“Every time something like that happened, my father would tell me to go and apologize. I would tell him that it wasn’t me.
I really didn’t do it. Please come with me and tell them so.
Then he would say to me, ‘Just take a moment to think about it. Does your anger outweigh the value of a vote? If you keep making a fuss about this, we’re going to lose even more votes.
Does that still make you want to express your anger? ’ ”
Hozumi’s tone was matter-of-fact as he spoke.
“I suppose he had a point. They weren’t going to believe me no matter what I said. It would have only added fuel to the fire, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that.”
“That’s messed up.” Iori’s face was uncharacteristically contorted. His cheeks had tensed up, unable to form his usual smile. “What value is there in a vote you’ve gained from becoming a dumping ground for the shallow emotions of shallow people?”
“Iori.”
Hozumi quickly added, “Well, if you look at it another way, thanks to my parents, I was already learning to act calmly and forgive people when I was as young as five years old.” It was as though he was trying to play down his story.
Iori ruffled his long hair agitatedly.
“Forgiving people is something you do after your rage pushes you to the breaking point.” Iori spoke scornfully, and Hozumi widened his eyes.
“If you have to forgive them right from the beginning, where are you supposed to put the anger you feel for these idiots? Where are you supposed to go, after being so humiliated, with no one standing up for you? Where are you now, Hozumi?”
“Stay calm, stay calm,” Hozumi mumbled to himself repeatedly, as if he were casting a spell.
Is this why Hozumi is always so consistent and emotionless?
Is this why he always defends himself with theoretical arguments?
“Oops,” Hozumi suddenly said, glancing at his watch. “I’m expecting a delivery. I completely forgot to tell them not to deliver on Fridays. I ordered some limited-edition fruit-filled daifuku rice cakes.”
He’s trying to run away. He was speaking so quickly that we couldn’t cut in.
“It’s unlikely since we don’t have any bookings tonight, but if someone does request a Funeral Committee meeting, just let me know. I’ll be on standby.”
“Wait, Hozumi—”
“Good night.”
The door opened, and I felt a gust of damp wind. Hozumi was being drawn into the bleak night.
No. Something isn’t right.
I can’t let him be alone right now.
“There are people who are in need of that somebody who will come in and track down the regret, loneliness, and insecurities they’ve long buried away. There are times when they need somebody like you, who can break into people’s hearts with the vigor of a warrior brandishing a huge naginata sword.”
Hozumi. When you said so…
You were trying to tell me something—
“Hozumi!”
Just as Hozumi was about to step outside, I was able to grab his wrist. He turned around with widened eyes.
I saw that Iori had also grabbed Hozumi by the hem of his samue.
“Hozumi,” Iori said. “Whatever happens, we’ll always be here for you. I promise. Besides…” Hozumi was still standing in the middle of the doorway, droplets of rain slowly dampening his shoulder. “It’s raining. That must mean we’re going to have a Funeral Committee meeting tonight.”
They say that sometimes we need to give people some space.
But I’m sorry, Hozumi. We can’t do that, not right now. Leaving you alone isn’t an option.
For a long time, all the things that he’d been forced to “leave alone” had made Hozumi suffer.
Buried deep in his heart was a suffering so great that he was afraid to even look at it.
When someone has a strong fear, the simple act of asking for help can make them feel guilty.
If I—if we—didn’t break into his heart right now, perhaps he’d never let himself be vulnerable again.
There was no way that I could let that happen.
I tightened my grip on Hozumi’s large wrist.
“Umm…” Hozumi said. I had no idea how much time had passed. His voice sounded as though it had been squeezed out from the back of his throat.
“It’s not really an ex’s favorite recipe…” Hozumi’s chest heaved. “But I’d like to do a funeral for it,” he said in a tiny voice.
Just how long had he grappled with his inner turmoil before mustering up the strength to finally say those words?
—
We decided to gather at the counter, where Hozumi liked to sit. Hozumi sat at the very end with me next to him, with Iori behind the counter. I hadn’t prepared anything to eat, so I had to resort to serving Iori’s supply of snacks—a packet of Pizza Potato Chips and some JagaRico sticks.
Little by little, Hozumi started to talk.
“All through my life, I think I’ve asked myself, Why do I keep questioning things that no one else cares about?”
Iori split open the bag of Pizza Potato Chips and laid it on the table so that we could share. The sinful smell of highly processed cheese and tomato wafted over us.
“I wanted to know things like Why do people live? Where did I come from? What will happen after I die?” Hozumi said.
“I also had a habit of imagining things from the smallest details in people’s gestures and behaviors.
I would think, Oh, that person said this, but maybe this is how they really feel.
I was curious about all these little things. ”
“Ever since you were a young child?” I asked.
“I don’t remember too well, but every time I asked ‘why,’ my father would look at me annoyed. He always said to me, ‘If you have time to worry about such nonsense, go and get some studying done.’ I think I realized at a young age that I’d better stop asking those kinds of questions.”
Hozumi ran his hand over his square jawline. Maybe because it was nighttime, I could see that a faint stubble had started to appear.
“My parents would take me to community meetings, but I was pretty slow at warming up to strangers. When people asked me things, I would go quiet. My mother would look at them apologetically and say, ‘I’m sorry. He has a sensitive side to him.’ I can’t count the number of times she said that.
In the end, my parents seemed to change their tactic.
They started to only take my brother to those occasions. ”
“Your brother…Kazutoyo, right?”
I remembered his social media profile. He had dynamic swept-up bangs and an undercut trimmed short at the sides.
Based on his hairstyle, which surely required a certain level of self-confidence, and the endless trail of selfies with his children, it was pretty easy to guess that he was the type of person who had little in common with Hozumi.
“My brother and I are like chalk and cheese. As a child, he was the energetic type—he’d run around the yard and get himself all muddy, then would come inside and dart across the tatami mats in his dirty clothes.
Mother would shout at him, and everyone else would laugh.
He’s that sort of person. He genuinely believes that every single person in this world loves him with all their heart. ”
It felt as though everything Hozumi had felt over the years was being poured into these words.
“My father started saying to my brother, ‘You’re going to inherit the Kuroda family’s political position.
’ He would say it every chance he got—during meals, when my brother did well on a test, when he came in first at a sprint on sports day.
I remember my father stroking my brother’s head as he said so.
And my brother would cheerfully reply ‘Yes!’ without the slightest hesitation. ”
“What about you, Hozumi?” Iori asked. “You mentioned earlier that your mother treated you and your brother as ‘future politicians.’ ”
Iori reached out his long arm and ate two sticks of JagaRico in one go.
“Seeing the way I was, I guess they gave up on me early on.”
“Right. You had some shitty parents.”
I was shocked. “I-Iori!”
“But it’s true.”
Iori seemed to have abandoned his filter for the night.
“Anyway,” Hozumi said as he followed Iori’s lead and stuck his hand into the tubular packaging of JagaRico, “my gloomy traits didn’t change even after I became a high school student.
And because I was the son of a politician, it felt like the other kids were always walking on eggshells around me.
It’s strange, isn’t it? With my brother, the other students looked at him with envy.
They would say, ‘Wow, it’s so cool that your father is a politician.
’ He often invited his friends over to our house.
While people avoided me, my brother was like a people magnet. ”
Hozumi’s brother was two years older than him. Being so close in age, people must have compared them a lot.
“I thought, How can two people be so different from each other? My brother had the ability to win a vote easily. But I wasn’t like that. I couldn’t get along with anyone.”
Hozumi tapped the counter with the tip of a JagaRico stick.
“One day at school, we all needed to join one of the student committees.”
“You seem like the Library Committee type,” I said without thinking.
“How did you know?”
I could picture Hozumi quietly reading at the loan counter.
When someone would approach him, wanting to borrow a book, I could see him turning to the computer, his fingers moving fluidly as he silently completed the checkout process.
As soon as he finished, he would resume reading his book. It fit his image perfectly.
“Indeed, I thought the Library Committee would be perfect for me; I could just sit and read quietly. So I decided to make myself a candidate—members of the committees were selected from self-nominated candidates. Those who weren’t given a position were assigned to committees that didn’t have enough people, and I really didn’t want that.
I mean, I could have ended up on the Culture Festival Committee, and that would have been truly horrific. ”
“Really? Culture festivals are so much fun.”
Hozumi gave me the side-eye.