Chapter Eleven Renji’s Apartment #2
"Your books are old, but none are dusty. The record player gets used. That bowl was repaired instead of replaced. You keep things."
Renji looked towards the celadon bowl visible through the archway. A pale seam of gold crossed the crack in its side — kintsugi performed by a man in Kyoto one hundred and twelve years earlier.
"What conclusion have you reached?" Renji asked.
"That you take care of things longer than anyone expects."
The answer struck closer than Haruki could have known. Renji turned back to the bowls.
"The food."
Haruki allowed the subject to change. For now.
They ate beside the windows. Rain blurred the city beyond the glass. The neighbourhood below had quietened, shopfront lights glowing across wet pavement. Haruki had been correct about the ramen. Renji disliked admitting this.
"The broth is acceptable," he said.
Haruki stared at him over the rim of his bowl.
"Acceptable."
"Yes."
"You've nearly finished."
"I was hungry."
"You said you ate."
"I said I had food at the hospital."
"No. You said you ate at the hospital."
Renji considered the conversation.
"That may have been inaccurate."
Haruki set down his chopsticks.
"Was that an admission?"
"No."
"It sounded like one."
"You are too easily impressed."
"Not usually."
The words carried a quiet confidence that should have sounded arrogant. Instead, they felt like an invitation. Renji looked down at his bowl.
Haruki glanced towards the shelves behind him.
"What language is that?"
Renji followed his gaze. A narrow volume sat open on the desk.
"Dutch."
"You read Dutch."
"Yes."
"How many languages?"
"Enough."
"That means several."
"It means enough."
Haruki sighed.
"You make conversation unnecessarily difficult."
"You ask questions with no practical purpose."
"I want to know you."
The room went still. Haruki seemed surprised by his own directness. Renji placed his chopsticks across the bowl.
"Why?"
Haruki looked towards the rain.
"I don't know yet."
It was the correct answer. Renji would not have believed anything more certain.
Haruki continued.
"You're different when no one else is around."
"You have never been alone with me before."
"I know."
"So you have no basis for comparison."
"At the hospital, you're always watching everything. Staff. Patients. Monitors. Doors."
"That is my work."
"At coffee, you were watching the time until you forgot to."
Renji remembered the missed meeting. Akiko had been unbearable for two days afterwards.
"And here?" he asked.
Haruki looked back at him.
"Here you seem like you've been waiting a very long time for something you don't expect to arrive."
Renji's hand tightened slightly around the edge of the table. The observation was too perceptive. Or too fortunate.
"You infer too much from furniture," he said.
"Probably."
Haruki glanced around again.
"But I was right about the bowl."
"You know nothing about the bowl."
"You kept it after it broke."
"That is visible."
"You had it repaired beautifully."
"The repair is traditional."
"You could have bought another."
Renji said nothing. Haruki's gaze softened.
"You don't replace things easily."
"No."
The word escaped before Renji could withhold it. Haruki leaned back. He did not look victorious. He looked as though Renji had entrusted him with something. It was only one word. That should not have been possible.
"What happened to it?" Haruki asked.
"It fell."
"That is almost impressively unhelpful."
"You asked what happened."
"Who gave it to you?"
Renji looked at the bowl. The original glaze had faded unevenly. A tiny dark mark remained near the base where it had touched the kiln.
"A friend."
"Are they still alive?"
"No."
Haruki did not apologise. Renji appreciated that.
"How long ago?" he asked instead.
"A long time."
"That answer feels different coming from you."
Renji's eyes moved to his. Haruki's expression remained open. No suspicion. Only curiosity. The danger of him was not force. It was patience. He accepted a boundary, then sat beside it until Renji forgot why he had built it.
"Do you keep things from everyone you lose?" Haruki asked.
"No."
"Only some."
"Yes."
"Why them?"
Renji looked around the apartment. At the books given by people who believed he would grow old beside them.
At the record composed by someone who had never heard his own work performed by an orchestra.
At the lacquered box belonging to a woman who once accused Renji of treating grief like an illness he could cure through discipline.
He had not kept everything. Only what remained when memory threatened to become uncertain.
"To remember correctly," he said.
Haruki became very still.
"That matters to you."
"Yes."
"Being remembered correctly?"
Renji had not considered the reversal.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I will not be."
The answer settled into the room. Haruki's eyes sharpened. Renji reached for his cup of water. He had said too much.
"You sound very certain."
"Most people are remembered according to what others require them to have been."
"Then tell someone the truth."
"Truth does not guarantee accuracy."
"No. But silence guarantees they'll invent it."
Renji looked at him. Haruki rested one arm along the table.
"What would people invent about you?" he asked.
"That I was devoted to my work."
"You are."
"That I was private."
"You are."
"That I had little interest in anything beyond medicine."
Haruki glanced towards the records.
"The apartment disproves that."
"Only if someone sees it."
"I have."
The words were soft. Renji felt them more than he heard them. Haruki looked around the room again, but differently now. Not examining. Witnessing. Renji had not realised there was a distinction.
"You have good taste in music," Haruki said.
"You have not heard any."
"I recognise some of the records."
"Which?"
Haruki pointed towards the lowest shelf. Renji followed the gesture. Jazz. Mostly mid-century.
"You listen to Morita?"
"My father did."
"Did you like it?"
"I hated it when I was twelve."
"And now?"
"Now it sounds like Sunday mornings."
Renji understood. Not the music. The attachment.
He rose and crossed to the record player.
Haruki watched without speaking. Renji selected an album from the shelf, removed it from its sleeve and lowered the needle.
A low crackle filled the room. Then piano.
Soft at first. A melody shaped around restraint.
Haruki leaned back in his chair.
"My father used to play this while cooking."
"Was he good?"
"At cooking?"
"At either."
Haruki laughed.
"He was terrible at both."
The smile remained, but grief moved behind it. Renji returned to his seat.
"You miss him."
"Every day."
The honesty came easily. Perhaps because Haruki expected honesty from others and offered it without bargaining.
"How old were you?" Renji asked.
"Twenty-four."
"Younger than I expected."
"Most people think I was born forty."
"Your personality encourages that conclusion."
Haruki smiled.
"He died suddenly. An aneurysm."
"I'm sorry."
"He would have liked you."
Renji frowned.
"You cannot know that."
"He liked people who refused to be impressed by him."
"That seems self-defeating."
"He was difficult."
"You say that fondly."
"I loved him."
The simplicity of it left no room for shame. Renji wondered when he had last said those words about anyone. Not thought them. Spoken them. He could not remember.