I Still Remember Your Face

These days I make a habit of walking past the gates of Toei Studios every morning. In winter, the people who come there carrying dreams of becoming actors are everywhere. But not one of them is Kamiya Hayato.

That winter, the fog was thick as milk. It had come especially early that year. Every morning when I passed the gates of Toei Studios, I saw groups of young people standing there as silent as statues. In those mist-wrapped dawns, the first dream they opened their eyes to was always the same: that they might be offered some tiny job that day. What sort of job? Work as a background extra.

Little by little, more and more of them gathered. Those faceless boys and girls watched every person who entered or left the studio lot. Every now and then one of the lucky ones really would be chosen. The pay was never much, but the dream of acting inside them would quietly harden again. On one such morning, I drove slowly through the fog. All of those waiting young people looked toward my car at the same time. I imagine they must have been thinking: what had a girl our age ever worked for, ever struggled for, to deserve such a comfortable life? Why her?

Every morning, people carry themselves through the day for different reasons. The rich do. The poor do too.

Hayato once said that some things are simply born into you. Even when my father called me a disgrace, I did not cry. I inherited his stubbornness well.

The moment I stepped off the train in Osaka and realized all my money had been stolen, I thought for one instant that I might as well die.

Then I bought two skewers of fish balls instead.

I chose to fill my stomach first.

Back then there had been one free phone call in front of me, and I was looking for a person. I kept searching among all those resolute young faces. I was looking for a boy called Kamiya Hayato. Even after all these years, his voice still rings in my ears, bright and high and full of force, saying, "One day I'm going to act in films."

That had been the dream of an eighteen-year-old boy. Did he ever make it?

I still remember the way he looked. A small streak of yellow in the hair over his forehead. Bright eyes like stars in a dark night. A tiger tattoo on his arm that looked, when you stared at it long enough, more like Hello Kitty than anything fierce. I used to laugh at him and say, "You're supposed to be a street punk. Why do you look so completely unsuited to it?"

Some people carry a certain artistic air about them even when they turn into small-time hoodlums.

At seventeen I was the sort of girl who laughed easily. Before I met him, it actually took a lot to make me cry. Unless something world-shaking happened, something on the scale of an earthquake, I could not squeeze out a single tear. Not when I ran away from home. Not when my father cursed me. I had always been rebellious. I had always longed to grow up quickly and do something on my own. So after I failed my university entrance exams, I did not repeat the year, and I did not use money to force my way into a major I hated. I said I could support myself. My father treated that claim with open contempt. He had spent his whole life hating anyone who refused to obey him. He was domineering, efficient, and impossible once he made up his mind. Unfortunately for him, I was his daughter. Once I decided something, nobody could change me either. So one evening in late autumn, I stole money from home and boarded a train. I had to go somewhere outside my father's reach. I pored over a map of Japan for a long time and in the end chose Osaka, because I had a middle-school classmate there. I had not even managed to contact him before I set off.

Who was I? I was Hayakawa Mei, famous all over the school. The sort of girl who could take root and flourish wherever she was dropped. A copper pea that refused to be cooked soft. With that foolish courage from nowhere, I ran all the way to Osaka, the city of Tenjinbashi and Dotonbori, the place I had once longed for. It was not as huge as Tokyo. It did not have those towering walls that made you feel shut out. It was smaller, easier to breathe in.

But the moment I woke to the broadcast announcing Osaka Terminal and stepped off the train, I discovered that all my money had been stolen.

Truly, when it rains, it pours. I stood there on the platform looking left and right, a complete newcomer to the city, and Osaka greeted me with a slap. On the crowded streets, I kept touching the single coin left in my pocket. I agonized over whether to use it on a phone call or on food. In the end, because ignorance can pass for bravery, I chose food. Late autumn in Osaka was not yet as cold as Tokyo, but the endless rainy days made even my mood damp. After happily eating the fish balls, I went looking for a public phone. I meant to work up some tears and plead for sympathy, enough that somebody would let me make a call for free.

At a small restaurant near the school, I told my story through convincing tears. The owner half believed me and half did not, but at last she relented. I opened my bag in delight only to discover that the slip of paper with my classmate's number had been in the stolen wallet too. Just like that, my one hope vanished. Call my father? Not a chance. So I ended up staying on there as the owner's unpaid hired hand. She hesitated at first, but I said I did not need wages, only three meals a day. I could wash dishes, mop floors, sell chicken skewers. She rolled her eyes once and agreed.

The chicken skewers were only a side business of the restaurant. There was a little cart outside by the door, and every day the students passing by loved those outrageously spicy skewers. I once stole a bite for myself and nearly cried on the spot from the heat. I thought Osaka people must eat so much chili that even their speech had turned spicy. Groups of schoolgirls would bark at me in sharp Kansai dialect, "Hurry up already!" It sounded impatient even when they were only fooling around. The first time I sold skewers, I forgot to wear gloves. The spice stung my fingers until they swelled. In the midst of everyone urging me on, I stumbled through my first day of selling them. If there could be a Tofu Beauty, then why not a Chicken-Skewer Beauty too? the owner joked. "That tall, skinny look of yours really suits the job." Everyone around us was curious. How had this girl with such a pure Tokyo accent ended up becoming the Chicken-Skewer Beauty?

That was when Kamiya Hayato appeared.

By then I was already doing a roaring trade in chicken skewers. The owner watched the growing line of customers with enormous satisfaction and even handed me a little bonus. I was counting the money when Hayato strolled in from outside with all the loose swagger in the world. He ordered the cheapest lunch set on the menu, sat down, and started shaking his leg without pause. He did not look like a good person. His eyes kept drifting to the money in my hands. I glared at him once, and he immediately looked somewhere else. After wolfing down his lunch, he asked me, "What's your name?"

"What's it to you?"

"How old are you?"

"What's it to you?"

He choked on his own frustration. He clearly wanted to hit on me and had run straight into a brick wall. Later he decided to buy a chicken skewer as well. He picked and prodded for ages before choosing one and saying, "Please cut it into pieces exactly five millimeters long."

I hacked at it with all my strength. Little bits of chili flew up and landed in his eye. He teared up immediately, and I laughed in private.

That was the day we officially became what you might call passing acquaintances.

In that deepening, ever colder late autumn, I had no interest in him whatsoever. Yet every few days he kept showing up to ask, "Hey, kid, why don't you go to school? If you don't learn some skills now, it'll cost you later. Though I guess for a girl, marrying early wouldn't be the worst thing either. But you'd better dress yourself up a little. Selling chicken skewers all day isn't much of a future. Have you ever thought what kind of man you want?" It was only then I realized how annoying a little hoodlum like Kamiya Hayato could be. He plainly wanted me to say something like, The kind of man I want is you. He had not studied much, and every time he heard me talk he would mimic my Tokyo pronunciation. "Bring me the juice," I would say. "Juice," he would repeat, trying to imitate me. Then he would laugh at himself, his clumsy attempt at standard Japanese making him ashamed. "If I want to act in films someday," he said, "my accent can't stay like this."

I was stunned. He was only one year older than I was. Every day he drifted through life at a gas station, and yet he carried this absurd, improbable dream. I curled my lip at him in exactly the way my father used to curl his lip at me when I was leaving. The memory hurt me more than I wanted to admit. I was managing to survive on my own now. Back at school, I had not known how to do anything. Compared with washing dishes, studying almost felt like the harder job. Hayato did not agree. "You'll regret it," he said. "If my family could afford it, I would never have given up school. Right now I can only work while learning acting on the side. Do you know how miserable that is?"

"And how exactly are you studying acting?"

"By watching films. Acting starts with imitation."

I nearly laughed out loud. I leaned a little closer to his face. If you removed the yellow streak in his hair, the tattoo, and the earring, he was actually handsome. For some reason my face warmed. He had the sort of eyes that always looked as if they were already in love. It was dangerous. But how could I possibly like him?

The sort of boy I liked was gentle and elegant. Hayato was nowhere close.

Such boys did exist. Kashiwabara Masato was one of them.

He was a first-year student at the university near the restaurant. He never ordered lunch inside our place. I always saw him taking his girlfriend into the Western restaurant across the street instead. He only came to me for chicken skewers, which were obviously just snacks his girlfriend liked. Sometimes, in my darker moods, I wondered whether I ought to spit on one before handing it over.

He always smiled, and his clothes were always tasteful. I knew the brands. Back in Tokyo I had bought the same things as gifts for male classmates. His watch, too, was not something an ordinary student could afford. He came from money, but there was none of the spoiled arrogance of a rich boy in him. In that way, I felt close to him. Compared with other wealthy daughters, I had always been far too straightforward. My father used to say I was too kind and that I would suffer for it one day. How had he managed to turn a virtue into something so calculating? Could all those rich people whose hearts had been clouded by money understand the joy I found in chopping chicken skewers? When Kashiwabara Masato stood there waiting patiently while I cut them for him, I always slowed down on purpose and let myself sink into my own pointless little fantasies. But then one day a crisp Kansai voice cut in, sharp as a knife: "Too slow." His pretty girlfriend had appeared out of nowhere. My hand slipped and I sliced my finger. She shrieked louder than I did. "You're bleeding! Let's go. How are we supposed to eat these now?"

I still remember the look of embarrassed apology on Kashiwabara Masato's face. He took a bandage out of his pocket, and I said at once, "Then you should help me. I can't put it on myself."

So that handsome, well-bred Masato wrapped my finger for me with the greatest care. His patient profile made my thoughts run away with themselves. Then the shrill voice beside him cut through the moment once more. "Enough already. She did it to herself. Let's go." At the time I truly wanted to hurl the cleaver from my skewer board straight into her face. I could not understand how a cultivated young gentleman had ended up with someone like her. Later I understood that a girl can live without many things, but not without a rich father.

One day, while helping me carry plates in the kitchen, Masato said, "There are a lot of business dealings between our elders." I nearly told him that my father could have plenty of dealings with his father too. We sat in the restaurant kitchen, the yellow light above us throwing everything into a warm and dangerous softness. As I washed bowls until they shone, I suddenly steeled myself and said, "You hurt my finger. You're responsible for me now."

I admit it: when it comes to love, I am very stupid. That hopelessly clumsy line only made Kashiwabara Masato look at me in bewilderment. He paused, then said, "Let me take you to dinner."

Behind his girlfriend's back, we went together to Dotonbori. There I ate stinky tofu for the first time. Then we went on to Nakanoshima and wandered through a park or two. By the time we had moved from one place to another all day, Masato said, "It's getting dark."

"I know," I replied. That was a phrase I had picked up from Hayato. I know.

I never asked the question that was really in my heart. Are you happy? But happiness, or the lack of it, belongs to each person alone. For some reason, I suddenly missed Tokyo. That enormous city where everything is far apart, where you have to ride forever to get anywhere. Osaka was different. We had crossed all of it in a single day.

Time had passed far too quickly. I had not even managed to...

After that day, I went around with my head hanging low. Hayato asked, "Have you been possessed?"

"You have."

"Nah. Little girl fell in love."

I hated the way Kamiya Hayato always seemed able to see straight through people. He lounged around in chains that clinked when he moved, an authentic little thug through and through. There was a fresh wound on his arm. "Who'd you fight this time?" I asked.

He set his jaw and said, "I'm experiencing life. It's preparation for acting later."

I flicked him on the forehead. "Keep dreaming."

A month passed quickly. Kashiwabara Masato went on spending every day with his girlfriend, while I had no choice but to keep watching the person I did not want to see, Kamiya Hayato, eat his lunch in the restaurant. One day Masato came by again to buy chicken skewers, and Hayato, now maddeningly familiar with the place, strode right up to him and said, "Hey, man. I'm Mei's friend. Hahaha."

I saw Masato nod politely. Of course he would never become friends with someone like that. Hayato pressed on. "Let's hang out this weekend."

Masato refused him almost immediately. "I'm busy."

Hayato could only turn away in frustration. Then he said to me, "Mei, you'd better give this up. He looks down on people like us."

"What is there to look down on?"

He slapped himself lightly on the head. "Are you stupid? Rich people can trample all over other people's dignity without even trying. At least just now, I felt humiliated."

I laughed and rested a hand on his shoulder. "We're poor, sure. But aren't we happy anyway?"

He nodded. "Come on. I'll take you to a movie."

That night we watched a film called Across the Sea. Standing on the bow of a ship, Laura said to Susie, "We'll forget those little partings, won't we?"

The next second, a bomb fell from the sky. Laura sank forever into the sea, while Susie was saved and finally set foot on American soil.

When we came out of the theater, Hayato took a great breath of the Osaka winter night. It was bitterly cold, cold all the way into the bones. In the middle of a wide, empty little square, he suddenly turned me by the shoulders. His eyes were bright as he said, "We'll forget those little partings, won't we?"

I burst out laughing, ruining his carefully staged bit of art. "Kamiya Hayato," I said, "I hope your dream comes true."

I only learned later that it had been his birthday. Nineteen had arrived without cake or candles.

Those little partings, seen from many years away, were not trivial at all. Nor were they easy to forget. On the contrary, they took root in the heart and stayed there forever.

If he had ever heard the story of some nobody who started as an extra and became a star, perhaps he would have stepped more firmly toward his dream. Sometimes he would tell me excitedly, "Once I've saved enough money, I'll go to Tokyo."

"How much are you short?"

He would think about it for a long time and then say, "Five, six, seven, eight thousand, maybe."

I laughed until my stomach hurt. I already told you I was the sort of girl who laughed easily. And in return for all his bad jokes, those ridiculous lines that made other people want to hit him, I decided to help him.

Two months later, I finally called home. My mother sobbed on the other end of the line. My father said nothing at first, and I knew then that this time I had truly broken their hearts. Then my father, of all people, said, "Whatever you want, I'll allow it. Even if you want to stay there and live there, I'll allow that too. Just come back once. Let us see you. Let us know whether you're doing well."

In that instant, the point at which I could cry dropped by several levels at once. My tears broke free all in a rush.

Sobbing, I said, "I want some money."

When I put that money into Kamiya Hayato's hands, he cursed me out. "Are you insane?"

I ignored him. I did not want to explain. I only said, "Go to Tokyo properly. Go out every day and look for chances to act. I'm betting on you."

It was not a great sum, but it was enough to keep him alive in Tokyo for a little while. If things went well, he could hold on after that. He was a smart person. He would not let my money go to waste. On that point I had a blind kind of faith. So I stood there watching him take the money, grinning like an idiot, running off faster than a rabbit.

I called after him, "If you become a star someday, don't forget me. I invested in you, after all."

He turned and said, "Don't worry."

Then he disappeared from my sight.

For several days after that, I did not see him again.

For a while I wondered whether I had been scammed. Then I went to ask at the gas station, and they told me he had quit. I thought, he's really quick when it comes to leaving for Tokyo. Thank goodness he took my Tokyo address with him.

Meanwhile my father's calls kept coming one after another. As a businessman, he liked to explain everything in the world as a transaction. Even love. He said love, most of all, was a transaction. I found that difficult to bear. If I wanted Kashiwabara Masato's love, was I supposed to send my father to discuss business with his father?

I felt that every rich person had a devil standing behind him. They coated everything with the smell of money. Plainly, I could not escape that circle either. At last I said goodbye to the restaurant owner. She sighed and said, "Once you go, the skewer business won't be this good again. Ah, I'll miss my Chicken-Skewer Beauty." I miss those days too. Before I went back to Tokyo, I naturally wanted to see Kashiwabara Masato one last time. By then he was probably preparing for final exams. It was the first time I had walked through a university campus. All around me were bright young people holding books, and suddenly I felt a deep inferiority. Whether a person's poverty lies in the spirit or in material things, one of the two will eventually leave you breathless. Hayato had been right. Dignity is fragile. Rich people place all kinds of invisible pressure on the poor.

In the end, I never saw Masato. I boarded the plane back to Tokyo instead. That was many years ago now. Every time I think of the details, I am happy. It was a carefree stretch of life, and the happiness I felt then is not the happiness I know now. It cannot be copied.

Though Kamiya Hayato seemed to vanish from the world, I still remember the way he looked that night when he borrowed Laura's line from the film. There had been embarrassment in him, and honesty, longing, and despair all at once. He said, "We'll forget those little partings, won't we?"

I watched Across the Sea many times after that. Every time it reaches that moment, I wonder how Hayato managed it. How did he make that half-spoken expression? How many words had he hidden inside it? Now it seems to me that those little partings came too quickly. Before I understood anything about time, he was already gone.

And now, every day, I walk past the gates of Toei Studios. There are hopeful young people everywhere, but none of them is Kamiya Hayato. Hayato, did you really come to Tokyo? Or did you fail, slink back to Osaka, and stay away because you were too ashamed to show your face to me? You were always thin-skinned. So now you are hiding for real.

I learned how to make chicken skewers. Compared with the ones in Osaka, mine are not very spicy. Tokyo people cannot handle too much heat. They purse their lips, eat them anyway, and say, "These are good." I do not have a dream like yours. All I want is an ordinary life.

Sometimes I think I must have been born into the wrong family. If you had been my father's son, all that money would have found a real purpose. Sometimes I have to admit it: money is a good thing. It can help a person fulfill a dream. Money belongs in the hands of people who have dreams.

It is a pity that time runs too fast. Two more years passed. I did not get Kamiya Hayato back, but I did meet Kashiwabara Masato again. I handed him a wedding invitation while I was at it. I was supposed to be getting married the next month. He looked very different from the boy I had known years before. That face which had once glowed with spirit had gone flat. The cuffs of his clothes were worn fuzzy with friction, and the watch was gone. He looked exhausted, beaten down. Facing this boy I had once liked so much, I could not find my voice at first.

Then he said, "I've come to return the money."

I stared at him. "What money?"

"Hayato never went to Tokyo that year," Masato said. "He gave your money to me."

I could hardly believe my ears.

He went on. "At that time, I could have come to Tokyo to chase my own dream, but just then my father's business collapsed. Everything gave way at once. My life fell to rock bottom. For a while I simply gave up on myself. My father's health fell apart too. Do you know what it feels like when wealth turns to zero overnight? It was as if I could hear bones collapsing inside a giant body, everything caving in until only ruins were left. Debt collectors took turns coming to our house. My father stayed sick in bed. In the end, I had to sign promissory notes for millions. I've spent these past years paying them back. As of today, it's finally over.

"Kamiya Hayato found me then. He said, 'You used to have money. A change like this will hit you harder than it would hit me. I've never had money, so there is no distance for me to fall. You need this money more than I do. With this, at least you can keep yourself going. Only then will you have the strength to earn more. But remember, this is Hayakawa Mei's money. One day you have to pay it back to her. Don't you dare let her down.'"

"I remember his expression very clearly," Masato said. "Strangely enough, he looked relaxed. He told me he didn't want to owe you. He asked around until he got your Tokyo address, and that was when he learned you were a girl from a wealthy family. His pride was too strong. Because he liked you, he couldn't bear the thought of you looking down on him."

My tears had already begun to fall without my noticing. They were like an autumn rain in Tokyo, carrying a sudden chill. Through that rain I seemed to walk backward into Osaka Castle, backward into the old days. My heart hurt terribly. Only now did I truly understand that boy I had always called a little hoodlum. He knew the one I loved was Kashiwabara Masato, and so he could hand the money over to him with an easy heart. That was the way he loved me.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

Masato shook his head. "I haven't seen him in a long time either."

For the second time in my life, I defied my father's wishes. With the wedding day drawing close, I went back to Osaka once again. The world had changed too much, and yet there was still the familiar smell of stinky tofu and the long covered arcade at Tenjinbashi.

Kamiya Hayato, why should we care so much about poverty or wealth? All I want is for you to be by my side. Life needs a little ambition, and it needs a little money. That is enough. But you chose instead to let the girl you loved wait until she found the man she loved. You fool. You went so far for me, and with such tenderness, that I no longer know how I could ever let you down. I will never, never dare disappoint you.

So please, stop hiding from me.