A Delicate Heart, Tears Falling with the Wick

Sometimes the sadder kind of story could still make Miyazaki Mio cry without restraint. If she happened to read a verse by Nalan on top of it, especially one like tears falling with the wick, then the grief would sink right into her bones. She shook herself awake from such thoughts and folded the newspaper, only to have a headline leap into view: Sweet-Voiced Queen Amamiya Yunho Arrives in Kobe, Fans in Frenzy. Mio paused. Todo Teisei had once liked Amamiya Yunho's songs very much. If he were still alive and knew she had come, he would surely have been delighted. Even if he hadn't invited her, she would have asked him herself: Let me go hear Amamiya Yunho sing with you. Then she would have seen his smile, bright as the sky after rain, and he would have seen her own, pleased and almost spoiled. There had been so many things they had never said. So many things they had never done. Such a long future he was supposed to walk with her, and instead she had had to live it alone. Mio drew her brows together. Nowadays, when she thought of the men she had once loved or who had once loved her deeply, whether Kurozawa Asaki or Todo Teisei, she no longer cried. She would rather weep over a few invented lines in a novel, over false love in imaginary worlds, than cry over this absurd life, over fate's tricks and mockery.

The streets of Kobe were crowded and deafening. Outside the Warde Opera House, the sidewalks were clogged with fans waving banners and autograph books, all there for Amamiya Yunho. She was about twenty-six or twenty-seven, her skin clear and pale, a lilac dress embroidered with orchids making her look all the more elegant and gentle. She nodded and smiled to the crowd without the least trace of arrogance, and if anything she seemed softer and more likable the longer one looked. Mio had no intention of lingering, but just as she turned to go, someone among the fans was shoved out of the crush and stumbled hard, falling almost at her feet with his forehead knocking against the curb. The crowd was so loud, yet she still heard the dull thud clearly. He must have hurt himself badly. Without thinking, she bent to help him up. "Are you all right?" The young man held his forehead, baring his teeth in pain. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm a man. What's one fall?" Then he looked up, and their eyes met, one lowered, one raised. He was only a little over twenty, handsome, though his clothes were rough and his face still carried something of the streets. Mio smiled awkwardly and let go of him. "As long as you're all right." But he only stared at her blankly. "Have I seen you somewhere before?" "No," Mio answered politely. "You must be mistaken." Then she walked away along the edge of the street without looking back, though she could feel his gaze on her and her heart had suddenly begun to beat much too fast.

That night, Mio dreamed of Amamiya Yunho. The living, radiant woman from the daytime became in sleep a pale, cold corpse afloat on black water. A dark sedan broke through the bridge rail and plunged into Kobe Harbor. Police arrived almost at once and hauled both car and body back out. Because the accident had just happened, very few people knew yet. Apart from the reporters who always seemed to materialize from nowhere, there were only a handful of nearby residents watching. Mio always became, in such dreams, something like a transparent wisp of smoke hanging above the ground, or a person standing outside the silver screen watching a dangerous play. Her heart raced. Her breathing shortened. Her dreams were her prophecies, scenes of what had not yet happened, and in those dreams she always fought for every second, memorizing as many details as she could. She saw the broken railing, the wet car, the bloated body of Amamiya Yunho, and then, among the onlookers, one familiar face. It was the young man she had helped outside the opera house that day. He was standing there rigid and stunned, and in his hand he held a necklace of white pearls. The image ended abruptly. Mio woke with a start, bolt upright in bed, clutching the blanket, drenched in cold sweat and gasping. Outside the window was the thick black sky before dawn, a darkness that made the whole room feel unbearably tense. The pearl necklace had to be some kind of clue. When she'd seen Amamiya Yunho outside the theater, a necklace exactly like that had been around her throat. Mio thought: robbery, perhaps? Or some diseased obsession from a crazed fan? The young man's face kept appearing in her mind, and with it came a strange sensation she could not name. She decided the first thing to do was investigate him.

His surname, she learned, was Kanzaki, and his name was Kageomi. He was a postman at the Old Port Post Office. Aside from doing his rounds, he loved helping the neighborhood with odd jobs. He was cheerful and a little careless, the kind of young man everyone knew. Not long ago he had come close to marrying the daughter of a rich merchant, but the girl's father despised his poor background and quietly promised her to a jeweler instead. Kanzaki was beaten badly over the whole affair and ended up in the hospital, in the room right next to the one Todo Teisei had once occupied. That explained why, when he first saw her, he had said she looked familiar: perhaps he had really seen her at the hospital. Mio began writing letters to herself, folding blank pages into envelopes and addressing them to her own name and house. In those days every postman had a district of streets he handled regularly, and Kanzaki Kageomi's route happened to include the street where Mio lived. One morning, just as the first light broke, she saw him riding toward her house on his bicycle, humming to himself and swinging his head from side to side. She hurried downstairs, carefully dressed as if she had business elsewhere. "Ah, it's you," he said before she could even think of how to approach him. "I remember you. We met at the opera house. So you live here." "Yes. What a coincidence," Mio answered, trying not to smile too much. Kanzaki looked at her thoughtfully. "I always feel as if we've met somewhere before." It made no difference to Mio whether he had or not. Men like him had crossed her life before, trying on familiarity as a trick of conversation, and then vanished like scenery. Only Todo Teisei mattered. Todo Teisei, who was dead, who had kept trying to protect her even while unconscious, who had ultimately died because of her. How could she not regret him, how could she not be trapped in grief?

The next day Kanzaki brought letters again, laughing that Miyazaki Mio seemed to have more mail than ever lately. Mio smiled and asked if he might do her a favor, a favor she had planned for some time. She had deliberately broken one of the bulbs in the crystal chandelier in her sitting room. She told him it hung too high for her to reach and asked for his help. He rolled up his sleeves at once, thumped his chest, and said, "Leave it to me. I'm an all-purpose postman, practically ghost-work and divine craft." "Ghost-work and divine craft?" Mio stared at him. He clicked his tongue. "Wrong idiom? Sorry. Didn't study much. Learned just enough characters to become a postman. People say speaking in idioms is useful. If you throw in a few, maybe people think you're educated. So now I memorize them every day. If ghost-work and divine craft is wrong, then how about bringing the dead back to life? I'm the doctor, the lamp's the patient. If I fix it, isn't that bringing the dead back to life?" His stream of nonsense filled the usually solemn house with a kind of rough warmth, and Mio could not help laughing. She stood below, head tilted back, watching him balance on the stool, perspiration already forming at his forehead. She went to the kitchen and poured him a glass of water. When the light came back on, it illuminated the water until it looked as if a handful of stars were swimming in the glass. "Do you like Amamiya Yunho?" Mio asked. "I do," he said. "You should've known from the day we met. I was trying to get her autograph before they shoved me out." His face lit at the memory. "How much do you like her?" Mio asked. "Enough to do anything just to get close to her?" Kanzaki blinked, plainly puzzled by the oddness of the question. To hide her own embarrassment, Mio turned and pretended to dust the table. After a while, he gave a soft sigh and said, "Actually, I didn't know who she was at first. Then one day I heard her singing, and it felt familiar somehow, close to me, and after that I just liked her for no reason." He brushed off his sleeves. "I'd better go. Still have letters to deliver." "Thank you," Mio said, turning back just in time to meet those bright black eyes. Both of them went still for a heartbeat. Kanzaki quickly lowered his head, rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right hand, and said, "I'm off." That little gesture was like a flash of lightning through Mio's heart. Todo Teisei had always rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right hand when he was tense or thinking hard, lowering his head a fraction, or knitting his brows. It had always made him look more playful within his seriousness. Mio remembered it too clearly. She stared after Kanzaki for so long it felt as if her soul had left her. Only the blare of a car horn out on the road jolted her back. When she lowered her gaze, she saw a fountain pen on the floor. Kanzaki must have dropped it. She picked it up and ran out after him. Her thoughts were absurd, she knew that. Yet when she checked again, she found that the day Kanzaki had been injured and admitted to hospital was exactly the day Todo Teisei had died, and that his room had truly been right next door to Todo's. One wall apart. Mio's mind stretched itself to its furthest limit. If she could foresee the future in dreams, then what in this world was impossible? Was Kanzaki Kageomi in some strange way connected to Todo Teisei? The familiarity in him, those little gestures and expressions that escaped him unawares, were all so like Todo's. Could he be some continuation, some vessel, some lingering remnant? Mio did not sleep at all that night.

A few days later, Amamiya Yunho was scheduled to sing at Moonview Hall, with audience interaction and games afterward that would allow her to meet her fans up close. For Mio's investigation, it was the perfect chance. She went and took a seat in an obscure corner with a good view. Kanzaki was there too, looking delighted with himself, clapping along enthusiastically with the beat. Mio gave herself a silent, bitter smile. How could Kanzaki Kageomi possibly be Todo Teisei's continuation? From appearance to temperament, the two men were so different. Kanzaki had been born in Kobe, raised in Kobe, and was already twenty years old. He could not simply become someone else. Her thoughts were in disorder, or perhaps she had read too many bizarre novels and could no longer keep fantasy from creeping into reality. Then came the prize-drawing portion of the evening. Amamiya Yunho reached slender fingers into a black box and drew out several numbers, reading them aloud in her soft voice. The audience erupted in motion, everyone checking their number cards while craning to see who would be lucky enough to get a gift from Miss Amamiya herself. Then came one giant shriek that seemed to explode out of stone and pull every eye in the hall toward it. Silence followed. Kanzaki Kageomi was beside himself with excitement, waving his numbered card and dashing toward the stage. "I'm number six! I'm number six!" he shouted, laughing and waving at the audience. He was ridiculous and yet somehow honest in the way only the truly foolish can be. Even the beautiful Amamiya Yunho had to cover her mouth and laugh. "Little brother, come stand in the middle of the stage," she said. The host applauded lightly and called out, "We have numbers six, fifty-nine, and seventy-two. Who has thirty-eight?" Nobody moved. Kanzaki shrugged and grinned. "Then let me collect thirty-eight's gift too." That brought another ripple of laughter. Only then did Mio remember to look for her own number card. She opened her bag and took it out. It was number thirty-eight. Caught between laughter and disbelief, she had no choice but to get up and walk onto the stage. The prizes were packed in red rectangular boxes. Kanzaki chattered in her ear without pause. "Who would've thought we'd be this fated? You're a fan too? She's really pretty, isn't she? And so gentle. The Sweet-Voiced Queen really suits her..." Mio could not get a word in. Meanwhile Kanzaki had already opened his box in a hurry. Inside lay a pearl necklace. The exact same necklace Mio had seen in her dream, clasped in Kanzaki's hand. She froze. If the necklace had already been distributed as a prize, and perhaps there was more than one like it, then robbery might have nothing to do with Amamiya Yunho's death at all. Had she followed the wrong thread? Before she could even move, the host was already asking the winners to leave the stage. Yet Mio remained standing there, dazed, until Kanzaki leaned over and shouted in her ear, "What, have you gone stupid with happiness?" He simply caught her hand and dragged her backstage. Mio's hand went hot. Her face flushed. She pulled free and took a few steps back, looking at him. Kanzaki, too, had turned embarrassed. He lowered his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The movement was painfully familiar. Todo had done that whenever he was nervous or thinking. It was precisely the same. Mio stared at Kanzaki as if trying to see through him, to the bones inside, to the soul of Todo Teisei hidden there. Are you really inside him? she thought. A sudden cloud of grief descended over her. Even Kanzaki was alarmed by the look on her face. "What, you're not happy even after winning a prize? Be content. Don't be greedy for Qin while longing for Chu." "You mean, don't covet Shu after gaining Long," Mio corrected softly. That small joke ran through them like a current, and some of the heaviness in her lightened. She laughed in spite of herself. Kanzaki looked offended. "One of these days," he declared, "I'm going to use an earth-shattering idiom, and I won't get it wrong." At that moment, Amamiya Yunho's song floated down again from the stage, clear and sorrowful: Night grows cold, the quilt feels thin; tears fall with the candlewick. Mio's spirits lifted with it. If Kanzaki Kageomi was not malicious, if he was not the person who meant Amamiya harm, then that alone was reason enough to celebrate.

They were among the last to leave Moonview Hall that night. It was very late. The busy street that in daylight blazed with cars and people now held only a few neon lights and one black sedan parked beside the curb in a pose of lonely elegance. Amamiya Yunho came out alone and stood beside the car as if waiting for her driver. Then, from behind, a thickset man in his forties rushed forward and shoved her back against the wall. Mio had only reached the pawnshop across the street, but she heard the commotion and turned at once. The man was arguing with Amamiya, gesturing violently, furious beyond concealment. Mio wanted to move closer and hear what they were saying, but before she could, Kanzaki jumped up. "This is too much. How dare he insult our Miss Amamiya!" he cried, puffing up his chest and moving to charge across. Mio grabbed him, hoping to watch just a little longer in silence, but he shook her off at once. "I'm no coward," he announced. "When a beauty is in trouble, a gentleman has to save her." His intrusion broke the tension immediately. The mysterious man drew his movements back in. All Mio managed to see was Amamiya Yunho pulling a stack of cash from her purse and shoving it at him with a face drawn tight in fury and near tears. When Mio later asked around, she learned the man was named Ding Zhanqiu. He was not from Kobe, and more suspiciously still, he had arrived in Kobe the same day Amamiya Yunho had, following her south from Kyoto as if in pursuit. The information was dug up by Kanzaki, who preened over it. "I'm actually quite clever. If your detective agency ever needs help, consider hiring me. I'm a rare genius through all the ages." Mio clicked her tongue and told him to stop abusing idioms, but he had undeniably become useful. She arranged for him to keep an eye on Ding Zhanqiu, partly in the name of protecting his beloved Amamiya Yunho from further harassment. Kanzaki didn't pry. He seemed to think the task made him a hero and accepted it at once. Within three days it led to trouble. Ding Zhanqiu harassed Amamiya again, with such menacing persistence that she looked visibly shaken. Watching from a distance, Kanzaki did not even stop to think. He rushed straight in and planted a punch on Ding's face. The two men ended up grappling in the street and were soon dragged to the police station. At the time Mio was still at the detective agency, feeling as if the fire had already climbed to her eyebrows. The time she had foreseen in the dream was drawing close, yet she still had no clear answer. Then the phone rang. A voice said, "Your husband, Mr. Kanzaki Kageomi, was brought in for fighting. Please bring bail money." Mio stared, then laughed helplessly. The paperwork took until evening. At last they came out of the station, both exhausted. "Since when did you become my husband?" Mio asked with a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. Kanzaki grinned shamelessly. "We don't look alike enough for you to be my sister. And calling you my girl didn't seem convincing. Better I suffer a little and let you be my wife." Mio almost put her hands on her hips like a fishwife. "If anyone has to be younger, it should be me. Dogs really don't spit ivory." Still grinning, he threw an arm around her shoulders to coax her. "Don't be mad. I was joking." Then Mio remembered Ding Zhanqiu and asked about him. "He wasn't as lucky as me," Kanzaki said. "No gentle, generous wife came to bail him out, so he'll be inside for two more days." Mio flushed faintly and lowered her eyes. "Don't make jokes like that again." Then she suddenly saw the golden wash of the setting sun all over the ground and gasped. "What time is it?" Kanzaki looked at the sky. "Six or seven, maybe." Mio broke into a run at once. She was one step too late. Only one. And yet it felt as though the whole world had shifted. When she reached the harbor, everything was so still that it seemed nothing at all had happened. The next morning, only the black car was found. Amamiya Yunho was not in it. She had vanished. Mio thought and thought and could not understand why events had not unfolded the way she had seen them. Was Amamiya dead, carried elsewhere by the tide? Many people searched for days along the water and found nothing. But if she had not died, then where had she gone?

Late summer was turning toward autumn when the bell rang at Mio's house and the radio happened to be playing one of Amamiya Yunho's songs. The visitor was Kanzaki Kageomi. He was as cheerful as ever. "I've quit the post office," he told her. "Soon I'll be leaving Kobe to begin a new life somewhere else." Mio reflexively moved her hand as if to catch hold of something, but her fingers closed on air. She did not even know what she wanted to hold on to. She gave a bitter little smile and shook her head. Kanzaki frowned, reached out, and felt her forehead. "You always get lost inside your own thoughts," he muttered. Just then every light in the house went out. A power outage, probably. Mio looked out the window. The whole street was dark. She went into the bedroom, lit two candles, and came back carrying the candlestick. In the flickering orange light, all the furniture took on a soft blur. Then the man in the room spoke. "Mio," he said. "It's me." Cold rushed through her whole body, but greater than the fear was an impossible unreality. The voice was familiar. The tone was familiar. Even the rhythm of his breathing was familiar. She raised the candle. The orange light shaped the man's features, and what it revealed was unmistakably Todo Teisei. Her breath nearly stopped. "I've waited so long," he said, "for a chance like this to see you again." But what about Kanzaki Kageomi? Only moments before, Kanzaki had been standing there. Mio stared, tongue thick, and all she could do was repeat, "This is a dream, isn't it?" "No," he answered urgently. "Not a dream." In the instant before death, when his soul could no longer return to its own body, it had panicked and seized upon another one. That body happened to belong to Kanzaki Kageomi, who was dying in the neighboring hospital room. Since then his soul had lived in Kanzaki's body like a wisp of smoke, hidden near the heart. From time to time Kanzaki would be affected by him and feel a strange familiarity toward certain people and things. Candlelight, Todo said, was the thing that temporarily freed him and allowed him to appear. Daylight, or even electric light, forced him back into the narrow corner where he was trapped. Once he receded, Kanzaki would remain wholly Kanzaki and would remember none of this. "Stop," Mio cried suddenly. "Stop talking." Tears spilled over so sharply that even in that weak light they looked like knives. She rushed to the lamp switch and yanked the cord. "The light won't touch you," she said. "Even if I have to live in darkness for the rest of my life, I still want you to stay with me." But Todo only sighed. He came up behind her and wrapped her gently in warm arms. "There's no use. Daylight and electric light get in everywhere. Even if you lock the doors and shut the windows, they still find every crack, even the ones your eyes can't see. Being able to see you again, to hold you, is enough. At least now I know the answer. I know there was a place for me in your heart. Then this life wasn't wasted." "There has to be a way," Mio said, turning and cupping his face in both hands. "Tell me. What should I do?" Todo bit his lip, silent for a moment. Then he said, "Kanzaki's body gives me something like nourishment, enough to continue, but it's also a cage. Maybe one day I can break through it and become myself again. I'm trying for that because of you. I promise you: when that day comes, I'll come back. If your choice is still me, then we'll begin again. All right?" His eyes were swimming with tears. Mio felt waves of warmth and pain move through her at once. She nodded. "I'll wait. I know what my answer will be. It will be you." The moment the words fell, there was a commotion outside. The power returned. Even though every lamp in the sitting room had been switched off, as Todo had said, light was merciless and entered all the same through every crack. In an instant he was gone. The face before Mio was Kanzaki Kageomi's again, startled and at a loss. He pushed her away awkwardly. "What's going on? Why am I holding you? Why are you crying?" But even as he spoke, he seemed to notice that his own face was wet with tears. He lifted a hand, wiped them away, touched the moisture to the tip of his tongue, and found it bitter. Then he was unable to say anything more.

In the days that followed, the Kobe papers filled themselves with scandal. Word spread everywhere about the disgrace in Amamiya Yunho's past, that before she became famous she had worked among the flower-and-willow quarters of Osaka entertaining men. The one who exposed it all was none other than Ding Zhanqiu, once one of her patrons, and some of the papers even printed his vulgar face beside the story. Mio wanted to find Kanzaki and ask him to stay in Kobe. She was terrified that if he left, he would take Todo Teisei away with him and rob Todo of his final chance. Perhaps that was selfish. But in love, if she gave up selfishness, then she might as well give up love itself. Kanzaki's body had become, in her mind, a vessel that held two souls: Kanzaki's and Todo's. If Todo could somehow prevail, driving Kanzaki into a tiny corner instead, then he might truly become master of that body. He might even recover his own former voice and face. He might gain another life and return to the woman he loved. But could he? This war without gunpowder was only a struggle between soul and soul, will and will. Could he really win? And if he did, would he find the happiness he imagined? One day, passing the detective agency, Mio happened to glance upward. The office was on the second floor, facing the street. There was light in the window, and a man's profile was cast against the glass. At once time shattered. The air turned cold. In the instant that she lifted her head and saw him, every motion in her body seemed to burn away into ash. That silhouette was both familiar and strange, as if it had crossed over from a former life that had already perished. Yes. It was him. The one who had vanished long ago, the one she had never dared hope she might see again. He had come back. Her teeth began to tremble. Her legs went weak. She stood there, shocked, rigid, then clamped her mouth shut with all her strength and began to cry in a low, shaking way. She did not know whether the next step should be taken with the left foot or the right. She truly did not know in which direction to go.