The Winter Roses That Bloomed Past Rikka

September, Kyoto, hot as a fever. The very first class at university was self-introductions. It was one of those traditional courses that seemed a little silly but was practical in the most direct way: the quickest way to meet your classmates and let them meet you. Rikka Hayakawa had spent a full hour preparing for it, practicing expressions in the mirror, writing out what she meant to say, trying on several different outfits. She was nervous and excited, like a bamboo shoot pushing out of the ground after spring rain. Her middle-school and high-school years had been years of hard study, years so studious that even the bright splendor of youth had gathered a gray film over it. They were the years of a slightly foolish honors student. Love had never come calling. Her dreams slept at the bottom of a lake. But now, looking at herself in the mirror, Rikka thought, Whatever comes, strange or new, beautiful or disappointing, I will open both arms and meet it. She knew love would be among those things. What she had not expected was that the boy would arrive so quickly, before she was ready. "My name is Toya Kuga," he said during his turn. He quoted an old text about the winter solstice, about earthworms knotting up in the cold and springs beginning to stir underground. He wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt, pale blue jeans, clean fluffy hair, and a faint upward tilt at the corner of his mouth. He said he loved theater, that he had never wanted to become a star, only a stage actor, and that he had failed to get into a drama school. "Still, from today on, my life itself will be my stage." The class burst into applause. But the applause was not only for what he said. It was for him. Standing at the lectern, he looked like a star set quietly into a black night sky, radiating a brilliance that was both dazzling and still. At a conservatory full of actors, that kind of light would probably have been swallowed up. But here, at Kyoto University of Education, against the background of so many ordinary, well-behaved boys, Toya's radiance was irresistible. Because of him, when Rikka walked up to introduce herself, her mood changed at once. She stole a glance in his direction and met his eyes. The lines she had prepared scattered like ants disturbed in a nest. All she managed to say was, "My name is Rikka Hayakawa." Rikka was not an imaginative girl, nor did she have strange hobbies. So when love happened to her, it followed the oldest pattern in the world: he appeared, she saw him, and she fell at first sight. She began noticing him everywhere, on the road, in the cafeteria, in the library. She whispered his name to herself and looked for his shadow wherever she passed. Strangely, whenever she truly wanted to find him, he was always there, not too near, not too far, present as naturally as if it were all coincidence. At the freshman retreat's final performance, Toya did impressions, did a one-man skit that left the whole room howling, then sang two old classics in another borrowed voice and astonished everyone all over again. Everyone else clapped joyfully at the sight of him throwing himself into it with such energy and seriousness. Rikka, however, felt sad. Unless some miracle intervened, in four years Toya would become an honorable schoolteacher and live the sort of life one could see coming from far away, calm, petty, uneventful, safe. His dream of theater might become a bright fleck in that flat life, or it might be worn away by trivia. Dreams that do not survive being battered a few times tumble off cliffs or sink into the sea. That too is their sorrow. Rikka wanted to do something for Toya, for his theatrical dream, and also for her own love at first sight. She wanted to strive, to declare herself, but what form could that take? She tormented herself with the question. Hayakawa Rikka, could you really walk up to Toya Kuga and say, I love you, marry me? Or be more cautious and call him out for a walk and some skewers? Or more cautious still, write an anonymous love letter, seal it in a kraft-paper envelope, and slip it into the class mailbox?

She would not do any of those things. It was not because Toya's brightness made her feel small. It was because the way she loved was proud and precious by nature. She had always believed that in love everyone was unique, that every girl possessed some quality no one else could surpass. If Toya could discover that quality in her and come to love it, that would be her good fortune. To make a deep impression on him, she would have to be different. Her name itself was different, and Toya had noticed. In that self-introduction class he slipped her a note that mentioned the uncanny correspondence between their names, both brushed by the old solar terms of the seasons. Rikka did not answer, and Toya did not seek her out again. Then October came, the retreat ended, and university life began in earnest. All kinds of clubs and societies printed up flyers and handed them out in the freshman dorms. Rikka could neither sing nor dance, and she had no love for outdoor sports. She racked her brains and still could not think of any particular talent or passion of her own. Then she saw a boy standing beneath the noon sun. He stood there like a Christmas tree, a cheerful one decked out in festive excess. He was wearing a brilliantly colored Santa suit hung with sequins and paper butterflies. It was nowhere near Christmas. He had dressed that way purely to attract attention, and it worked. Even Rikka drifted over. He handed her a flyer and said, "The Oe Drama Club looks forward to having you." The words struck a nerve. A drama club?

In truth, the Oe Drama Club consisted of only one person: Yamato Eto. He was a cheerful boy from a wealthy family with a baby face so comic it made people smile before he even opened his mouth. On top of that, he had a head full of marvelous, bizarre imaginings. His favorite thing in the world was to wear all kinds of costumes, carry all kinds of props, and become all kinds of characters, from Zhu Bajie to Gandalf the Grey, from Snoopy to Totoro, from every era and every country. There was only one reason he had started a drama club: joy was better shared than hoarded. Rikka took an extra flyer and passed it to Toya before class. That was how Toya Kuga and Rikka Hayakawa became the earliest members. Yamato treated the two of them to boiled fish at a small place in the shopping street outside the station, and over the meal they mapped out the club's grand future. First they divided the work: Yamato would naturally be president and director, Rikka the playwright, and Toya the resident male lead. Then they drifted into talking about everything under the sun. Once they got going, the three of them discovered a ridiculous number of things in common; it felt like meeting kindred spirits over drink. On the spot Yamato swore brotherhood with Toya, with Rikka as witness, and pledged that for the next four years they would support each other like true kin. That night, Rikka hardly paid attention to Yamato at all. All her heart, quiet and immovable, rested on Toya. He noticed. After several rounds of drinks, his face had gone red. Blushing, he reached beneath the table and took her hand.

Rikka hesitated for a few seconds but did not pull away. Above the table Yamato was still raising his cup and shouting, "Brother, cheers!" It was almost curfew by the time the three of them staggered out of the restaurant. Back in the dormitory, Rikka got a call from Toya. "When I wake up tomorrow," he said, "I'd like to hold your hand again. Would that be all right?" Rikka answered, "Tell me after you've woken up." The moment she hung up, the phone rang again. It was Yamato. He said, "Tomorrow morning at eight-thirty, look downstairs." Rikka did not know what would happen when morning came, but whatever it was, it was beyond her control now. In delighted nervousness she waited for dawn. Before it was even eight, a white horse came clopping down the concrete lane below. It was an electric horse. The boy astride it wore a crown and colorful clothes, a rose in his left hand and a megaphone in his right. He stopped beneath Rikka's dorm, lifted the megaphone, and shouted, "Rikka! Rikka!" The boy on the horse was Yamato Eto. Rikka ran out onto the balcony and leaned over. And there, coming toward the building, she saw Toya. His hands were in his pockets. He wore a grass-green jacket with a great bulge in the front, and he was strolling over at leisure. He saw her too and quickened his step. But then the megaphone rang out, "Rikka, Rikka, I love you!" Toya stopped. He saw the electric horse and Yamato. He watched for a moment, then turned around as if he had seen nothing at all. He reached into his jacket, drew out a large paper bag, took from it a steamed bun and a cup of soy milk, and headed back the way he had come, eating and drinking as he went. Yamato noticed none of it. At that moment Rikka remembered a few lines from an English song, which in translation meant that fate never gives gifts according to the book: when you want a rose, it hands you a whistle; when you want a whistle, it hands you a rose.

Rikka went downstairs without brushing her hair or her teeth, still wearing pajamas patterned with countless little white sheep. Standing before Yamato, she pretended to pluck one sheep from her sleeve and offered it to him. "I can't give you my love," she said, "but I can give you this sheep." Yamato accepted the imaginary sheep with a soft little exclamation. "Thank you. As for loving you, I'll only say it this once. If you ever fall in love with me, remember to tell me." He set the invisible sheep on the ground, flicked an invisible whip, and rode away slowly on the electric horse. The little machine made a clop-clop-clop sound, like the heartbeat of some special moment. Since the drama club had now been formed, work had to begin. Rikka wrote a play in which a girl was loved by two boys at once. She did not want to hurt anyone, nor did she want to be torn in two, so she decided to love neither of them and preserve the friendship of all three. It was a simple enough plot. Yamato and Toya both understood it, and neither of them said a word. Next they had to find a leading actress. By then the club had already recruited a decent number of members, and among them were several beautiful girls swollen with confidence and a love of performance. A few of them, however, were not there for the stage at all. They were there for Toya Kuga.

Kotone Fujii was one of those girls, and the most eye-catching of them all. Her intelligence, her beauty, and her experience as a school emcee in middle school won her the leading role in the club's very first production. She continued using that same intelligence and beauty to secure the starring part in one play after another, until she became the drama club's default heroine. The school had an old little auditorium with faded red brick walls and green ivy twined around rusty iron railings. It had practically been abandoned, and the club took it as their base. They rehearsed there and performed there from time to time, and slowly their persistence and seriousness won them admiration and attention. On that dim little stage, Kotone Fujii and Toya Kuga looked like a perfect pair, golden boy and golden girl, each lighting the other. They were harmonious, beautiful, and matched so well that, because they were forever playing opposite each other and going so deeply into the parts, they truly looked like lovers. Yamato, however, refused modern plays and emotional plays. He acted only in fantastical pieces, playing extravagant artistic figures that had nothing to do with romance. As for Rikka, she did not like acting at all. She was not even good enough to be a solid supporting player. At most she filled in as passerby A, B, C, or D. Still, Yamato had devised a set of peculiar fixed roles for the two of them. In every play he designed a handful of amusing minor characters: a pet bear, a penguin living in the city, a fruit-laden tree, a stone rockery. These roles were indispensable and always assigned to him and Rikka. Sometimes they had only a single line. They would stand quietly in corners wrapped in plush bear fur or wearing crowns of fresh branches that still gave off a sharp green smell, gazing at each other from afar. Most of the time Rikka's eyes were fixed on the hero and heroine. But Yamato's gaze, when it fell on her, glimmered out of the darkness so brightly she could not ignore it. In that gaze she felt deep feeling, warmth, and peace. No boy had ever looked at her that way before. It filled her with joy, pleasure, and gratitude. Hanging above the stage was a chandelier shaped like a sunflower, suspended from the ceiling by wire. Sometimes Yamato would stare at it and murmur to himself. He had no microphone, so his words never reached the audience, but Rikka could hear them. She just could not make them out. All she sensed was that somehow they had something to do with her.

Toya never again said or did anything especially intimate toward Rikka. He only worked hard at acting, fully inhabiting each role she wrote for him, loving fiercely inside every part. Rikka had not been born with much literary talent, nor had she known anything about writing plays, but she poured herself into it. She knew that she loved Toya, and in this special way she poured all her love at first sight into the romances and characters in her scripts. Perhaps, she thought, Toya would understand. Even if he did not, she would not regret it. But there was one person who understood before he ever could: Kotone Fujii. When she first joined the club, it had not been for any particular boy. She simply felt that liking one person should never become a reason to reject another. Yet on that little stage she met Toya, and after performing just one play with him, she withdrew from the literary society, the film association, the stage-design group, and the campus radio station, leaving all those other clubs behind. She fell in love with Toya Kuga and worked hard to make him love her back. She confessed directly, not in a play but outside one. Toya said, "I'm sorry. I already have someone I like." Kotone only smiled. To her, failing to win someone merely meant your heart was not strong enough, your effort not fierce enough. So she advanced like a warrior, playing against Toya offstage while knowing perfectly well that her true enemy was Rikka Hayakawa. She tried sarcasm, condescension, direct attacks, every tactic she could think of. But her enemy would not take the bait. Rikka did not argue, did not dodge, did not even turn her eyes. Against her, every trick was like a stone flung into a lake. It sank to the bottom, raising only a few bubbles and a ring or two of ripples. Rikka's composure, her unhurried calm, drove Kotone nearly mad. In her eyes, that attitude was pure contempt, and also a declaration: the boy named Toya Kuga loves me; no matter what you do, you cannot shake him. The truth was much simpler. Rikka was loving Toya in the most singular way she knew. She thought, Even if you do not love me, even if years from now you forget me, even if I forget you too, you will never forget this time connected to your dream, to the drama club. Whenever you remember it, you will also remember me. Whenever you miss it, you will also miss me. The feeling of that was so special, so hidden, so magical, so utterly one of a kind. For Kotone, it was a devastating realization. It was the first defeat of its kind in her bright young life.

The way Kotone looked at Rikka gradually sharpened, and even when she greeted her, the words carried the grind of clenched teeth. Her frustration simmered. She poured both her anger and her love into the plays. She changed scenes and lines on a whim. When a moment called only for the actors to stand shoulder to shoulder, she would reach for Toya's hand. When they were supposed merely to hold hands, she would kiss his cheek. Toya felt awkward, but for the sake of the production he had to adapt in the moment. Off the stage, however, he never wavered. He told Kotone that he admired her, that she was already beautiful and talented, and that she ought to display that beauty and talent to the world. Kotone only grew angrier. During an important performance, she forgot her lines. After a few useless seconds spent trying to remember, Toya was ready to steer them into the next scene. Suddenly Kotone shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Toya Kuga, I like you this much. Would it kill you to like me back?"

Before they knew it, the drama club had existed for two years. In those two years Rikka had gone from eighteen to twenty. At eighteen she loved Toya Kuga. Yamato Eto said he loved her. Kotone Fujii said she loved Toya. And Toya had never once said he loved Rikka Hayakawa. The love and lives of all four of them had been confined within the drama club and those imagined plays. Each had their bitterness. Each had their secrets. Sitting on the shabby little stage and looking up at the chandelier above, Rikka suddenly felt tired. The chandelier hung there like a sunflower forever on the verge of crashing to the ground, and she found herself hoping that this life would hurry up and pass. To celebrate the anniversary, the club organized a week of performances, one show every evening for seven days, all of them classics from the last two years. Crowds of students came to cheer them on. On the fifth day, Rikka played a little girl selling roses, Yamato played a billboard, and Toya played a melancholy man. Kotone had not yet entered. The flower girl said to the sorrowful man, "Sir, buy a bouquet. It's Valentine's Day." The line he was supposed to answer with was, "It's cold. You should go home early too." But instead Toya said, "I once put a rose inside a steamed bun. Did you know that?" Rikka froze in bafflement. Then the billboard came alive. Yamato charged over like a madman, shouted, "Get away!" and rammed her aside with his body. Rikka fell to the ground. The chandelier crashed down exactly where she had been standing, landing on Yamato's head. Blood burst from him like a brilliant flower. The wound took six stitches, but fortunately it was only superficial, and after a few days of observation he was discharged. On the surface it could all be treated as an accident: the wire was old, the chandelier too heavy, so of course it had fallen. But among the students watching that day was an ardent admirer of Sherlock Holmes who spent every day seeking chances to exercise his detective genius. He suspected the chandelier had not come down by chance. Climbing onto the stage, he examined the wires and found that the chandelier had hung at the crossing point of two thick wires, one end tied to the attic window, and one of them bore fresh marks from having been cut with pliers. The cut was jagged, proof that whoever had done it was not very strong and had needed several squeezes to finish the job. When he climbed to the attic, he saw a figure hurrying down another staircase. It was the lead actress, Kotone Fujii. But there was not enough evidence, and no one believed his theory. Rikka did not want to believe it either. Looking at Yamato asleep in the hospital bed, his face washed in the evening light slanting through the window, she thought: this must end. This war with Kotone, though she herself had never chosen to attack, was still a war. One hand cannot clap by itself. She did not want anyone punished. She only wanted the hurt to stop.

And then Yamato and Rikka truly fell in love. They began taking the long way around campus, hiding what they felt behind dense summer leaves as if they were tucking it out of sight. To drink hot tea and murmur love words to each other turned out to be a kind of happiness Rikka had never known. One day she finally asked him what he used to mutter while standing in the corners of their plays. Yamato said, "I once read a story that said if you look into someone's eyes and say her name a thousand times, she'll fall in love with you." "And whose name was it?" Rikka asked. Yamato answered, "Rikka. Rikka, Rikka, Rikka, Rikka..." She bent down and lightly kissed his cheek. Yamato opened his eyes. Toya was standing in the doorway, and he had witnessed the whole thing. His gaze met Yamato's. He smiled, open and untroubled, as if Rikka and Yamato had been in love all along.

Soon afterward Kotone quit the drama club. She no longer approached Toya, or rather, she did not dare. She avoided Rikka whenever she could, and if they happened to cross paths, she would make a wide detour from far away. Though there was never any legal proof and she never admitted or denied anything directly, the chandelier incident shook the whole university. Rumor and speculation fell like a snowstorm around her. Her feet seemed sunk in drifts. It was hard going. She became subdued and melancholic. All the flamboyant glamour she once carried vanished. She was like a cicada that had lost its voice, hiding herself behind thick leaves like a banana plant that had never flowered. When Rikka said that she too would leave the club, Yamato immediately added, "Then let's dissolve it." Toya picked up the line and said, "Brother, let's dissolve it." Everyone at the table fell silent, quiet as summer insects. When the day came for the club itself to end, the whole company gathered for boiled fish near the school gate, filling a huge table. Kotone was absent. By the time everyone had finished regretting things, sighing things, wiping away tears and snot, and patting themselves down to leave, only Toya Kuga, Rikka Hayakawa, and Yamato Eto remained. Two years earlier, that same kind of night wind had blown, under that same kind of starlight. Only tonight was different. Beneath the table, Rikka reached out and squeezed Toya's hand, then withdrew her own, filled a glass with beer, and said to him, "I'll empty my cup. Drink as you please."

Rikka had thought that once theater was gone, and once the thing that tied her to Toya was gone, life would become empty, boring, and aimless. Instead, all the time she had once given to plays was suddenly free for her to arrange as she liked. She went to movies, ate street snacks, wandered the city for entire foolish afternoons, and ducked into overheated teashops when the cold wind cut too sharply. More than anything, Yamato loved her with everything he had. Every day he showed up with different props, playing a different role, taking her out for meals and walks. He said, "I'm actually very stupid. I don't know how to express myself. I only want to use everything I have to make you happy." Rikka had not spoken Toya Kuga's name aloud in a very long time. Toya Kuga and Yamato Eto had not sat drinking together in a very long time either.

After the drama club was gone, Toya's dream of theater gradually settled like dust. Still, it brought him one practical reward. Those small-theater performances made him moderately famous around school, and commercial opportunities began drifting his way: walking in events, modeling for posters, the sort of odd jobs meant to display youth and charm. They earned him some spending money and some applause, though in the end they were still just a bright, noisy kind of drifting. Toya was satisfied with that much. University still had two years left, and only two years. He still had those two years in which to drift boldly and make noise. So he began thinking that he ought to fall in love too. There were plenty of pretty girls around him, but he could not simply point at random or choose among them like a farmer selecting seed. The first person who came to mind was Kotone Fujii. He remembered her shouting that day in front of everyone, half out of control, I like you so much; will it kill you to like me back? So he went to find her and said, "Then let me like you for a while." Perhaps at first he meant only to like her a little, as repayment for how much she had once liked him. But he found himself liking her more and more, and even he thought that strange. During those two years, after acting as lovers onstage so many times, he had never once been moved. Yet offstage he discovered that she was in fact a very real, very lovable girl. He never asked Kotone about the chandelier incident. Kotone herself only said once that sometimes people commit mistakes so shocking that even they are stunned by them, mistakes that take years before one dares face them honestly, but are never forgotten, and whose guilt and self-examination never rest for a moment.

On winter mornings, every single day, Toya brought Kotone breakfast: hot steamed buns. He carried them in a paper bag stuffed into his coat, making his stomach bulge out. The sight felt strangely familiar to Rikka. One day she happened to run into Kotone downstairs just as Kotone was coming up with the buns in her arms. "Rikka, have one," Kotone said. It was the first time she had approached her of her own accord since the chandelier incident. Rikka took a bun, tore off a piece, and was about to put it in her mouth when she discovered a full-blown rose tucked inside. At once she remembered that morning long ago, and the line Toya had spoken wrong onstage. She smiled. It was such a pure, innocent smile that it seemed like the first smile of a baby newly arrived in the world. That smile struck Kotone hard in the heart. At last she said, "I'm sorry, Rikka." Rikka only smiled and shook her head. She carefully drew the rose out, studied it for a moment, then tucked it into Kotone's hair and said, "It looks beautiful."