Stars in the Deep Sea

Deep down in the dark blue sea, I hold my breath. If memory truly shines like a sky full of stars, then the brightest one must be you. Let me close my eyes and remember your face, your voice. You are the only light in my endless lonely night. You are the only star above the soundless deep sea.

Sitting in the cavernous living room of Shiki Narumiya's house, staring at that sixty-inch LCD television and breathing in the fragrance of the fruit on the table, I could hear my own teeth chattering. He, meanwhile, was perfectly relaxed, never stopping with the remote for more than a few seconds before switching to his PSP. Finally I couldn't bear that suffocating feeling any longer and pleaded, "Please just let me go home." He pointed toward the kitchen. "Go tell my mom yourself." I mourned my fate in silence, cursing myself for forgetting to check my horoscope this week and for not consulting the almanac before leaving the house this morning. I was convinced today's page must have said four giant words: Not fit for travel. Once Takahashi Shiharu finally figured out what Shiki Narumiya wanted, I could feel her disappointment as plainly as if it were written across her face. After that, something subtle shifted between us. Fumi Nishimura, on the other hand, was the sort who could always pick something up and put it down again. Apart from throwing a few sarcastic comments my way, she very sincerely told me, "If you get a chance, you should grab it." But emotionally and morally, I still felt that at a time like this I ought to spend more time with Shiharu. And in the middle of that stalemate, I somehow became the loneliest person of all. I tried looking for Risa and Haruka Sugihara, but when two people are in love, dragging around a third wheel as glaring as me is something even I can't stand. After going out with them twice, I tactfully vanished on my own. The streets were packed with people laughing and talking, and for the first time I truly understood what Itsuki Ichinose had once said. Being alone is just too lonely. I think everyone fears loneliness, really. I know I do. From understanding loneliness, to fearing it, to getting used to it, to finally learning how to enjoy it, that whole process is like shedding your skin and being born again. Unfortunately, my cultivation is still far too shallow. I'm stuck at stage two. I have a very long road ahead. Once loneliness gets hold of you, memories seep in through every crack. Luckily Shiki Narumiya knows me as well as if he were a worm living in my stomach, and his phone call arrived at exactly the right moment. "Come shopping with me." I really ought to have been grateful that he yanked me out of my self-pity before I drowned in it, but I have a terrible mouth. "Why should I go shopping with you? Do you think I'm your maid?" On the other end he laughed in the sleaziest way imaginable. "Just come when I tell you to. If this young master is in a good mood tonight, maybe I'll show you some special favor." If he had waited even one second longer to hang up, he would have heard me greet eighteen generations of his ancestors at one hundred and eighty decibels. But he got away in time. Furious, I forgot every virtue of thrift, flagged down a taxi, and roared at the driver, "Takashimaya! Shiki Narumiya, I'm going to skin you alive!"

It was rare for him not to drive himself, but after accompanying him from New Friendship to Marui, then onward to Parco, and finally ending up in Lumine, I was ready to start swearing like a sailor. He only looked at me with his eyes, as if telling me not to lose my composure. I had never seen a boy this picky. I used to think Haruka Sugihara was the most appearance-conscious male animal I knew. It was only today that I realized how badly I had wronged him. Leaning against the AJ fitting-room door, I said in complete despair to the Shiki inside, who had already changed outfits more times than I could count, "I'm going home." He didn't sound tired at all. "You should try some on too. If you see something you like, I'll buy it for you. Or lend you money so you can buy it yourself." I nearly burst into tears. I was a poor civilian girl. I simply was not built for clothes like these. Give me cheap basics and I would be perfectly content. By the time he finally settled on a mountain of purchases and carried the slips to the cashier, I felt ready to collapse on the spot. Standing there at the register, I said through gritted teeth, "You pathologically fussy young master, you are impossible to serve." He turned and smiled at me. "I'm not pathologically fussy about everything. Otherwise how would I have fallen for you?" I must have been half-dead with exhaustion, because it took me a moment to understand that this bastard had just insulted me by taking the scenic route. Before I could explode, his face turned pale and he asked, "Did you bring money?" I thought he just needed change, so I nodded in a vague, heroic spirit. "I've got lots of one-yen coins. Borrow one, pay me back ten, how's that?" His expression got even uglier. "Not one yen. Do you have money? My wallet's gone." It was like a bolt from the blue. He had to be messing with me. When had I ever come out carrying enough cash to cover his shopping? I wasn't sure I could have paid for two pairs of socks at Nike. One look at my face told him the answer. But the slips had already been written up, and if we ran now who knew what the salesclerks would think. In the panic of the moment he pulled out his phone and said directly, "Mom, emergency rescue." Then he hung up and smiled so brightly it made me dizzy. "My mom's coming to save me." I turned to run, only to have him grab me at once. "What are you afraid of? Every ugly daughter-in-law has to meet the parents sooner or later. And you're not even that ugly. Don't be insecure." Up until the moment Mrs. Narumiya appeared, I was still fighting with him over whether I counted as ugly. The first thing she said when she reached us was, "So which one is she?" I suspect at that moment my face looked like I'd dumped an entire box of blush on it. Behind her back, Shiki bared his teeth at me in triumph. I ignored him and frantically searched for an excuse to escape. To my surprise, Mrs. Narumiya seemed to like me quite a bit. "I haven't seen him with a girl in ages. Come have dinner at our house." That was the moment I truly wanted to cry.

I used to sneer out of sheer class resentment that the Narumiyas were vulgar nouveaux riches. The moment I stepped into their home, I felt sincerely ashamed of all those spiteful things I'd said before. Their house was big, yes, but every detail had been arranged with care and taste. It was nothing like the loud, rustic luxury I had imagined. While Mrs. Narumiya moved in and out of the kitchen, I quietly asked him, "Where's your father?" He brushed it aside with one flat answer. "Busy." Something about that felt wrong, and yet I had enough sense not to keep asking. No matter how stupid I may be, I do know that other people's family affairs are not places you pry into too deeply. There is always a line between people. Cross that line, and you start seeing truths you would rather not face. Maybe all of us in this world are nothing more than lonely islands. I first heard that line years ago on one of Soran Wakatsuki's television programs. At the time, I thought she was being a little too dramatic. Only later, when I grew old enough to understand it, did I realize how desolate it really was. I've noticed that I keep thinking about the past more and more these days. Someone once said that if you constantly look backward, it proves only one thing: you've gotten old. When I left after dinner, Mrs. Narumiya walked me to the door and kept telling me to come play again whenever I had time. I answered her warmth in a flustered rush, and from the corner of my eye I could see that unbearably smug smile still on Shiki's face. We had gone only a few steps from his house when a silver 750 passed us, then suddenly stopped. Shiki slapped a hand to his forehead, looking a little strange, but still ran over at once. The driver's-side window rolled down. A few minutes later, he came running back and explained, "My father." I made a vague sound of understanding and then said, foolishly, "Your family really is rich." He only laughed softly and said nothing. These days, Yokohama has so many luxury cars on the road that Hummers, Range Rovers, Lexus sedans, and Lamborghinis hardly draw a second glance. So I truly did not react much to that silver 750. I truly, truly failed to remember that I had seen it before, one certain morning outside the Minato Mirai apartments.

It was already past one in the morning when Haruka Sugihara called. I mumbled a few sleepy syllables before I woke enough to hear how serious he sounded. "Kaoru, I'm staying in a hotel tonight. My sister is home alone. I'm afraid she might..." Two short sentences were enough to make me fully awake. All at once I had too many questions and no idea which one to ask first. He kept his voice low. "I don't have time to explain. She might have heard something about me and Nono. She asked me about it, I denied it, and we had a huge fight. I can't go back now. Please." Only then did I remember that Haruka still had no idea that Soran Wakatsuki and I had been estranged for a long time. A moment later, though, I heard myself answer firmly, "All right." The relief in his voice was immediate. "Thank you. Kaoru... thank God there's you." I had no time for sentimentality. I changed in the dark and was just slipping out when the small noise woke Takahashi Shiharu. She held up her phone and shone its light at me. "Where are you going so late?" I hadn't planned to explain much, but the next thing out of her mouth drove me crazy. "Did Shiki Narumiya call you?" I flung the door open and snapped, "I'm not the sort of woman who starts burning with lust just because it's midnight, okay?" Then I slammed the door and ran. The security guard at the gate took one look at my disheveled appearance and flatly refused to let me out. With no other choice, I circled around to the back of the building and climbed the wall. When I fell off that rusty old iron gate onto the other side, I truly felt like coughing up blood. What sin had I committed in my last life to deserve this? By the time I limped into a taxi for the Minato Mirai apartments, I realized I'd skinned the palm of my hand and blood was beginning to seep out. I'm not the sort of person who only remembers grudges and forgets kindness. When I was at my most lost and frightened, it was Soran Wakatsuki who had encouraged me with her gentleness and goodness. Even though our values were different, even though we looked at certain things in completely different ways, I had never forgotten the kindness she once showed me. So when I arrived breathless, knocked on her door, and saw her eyes swollen from crying, the first thing I said was, "Soran, I'm here. Don't be afraid."

For a very long time, the two of us sat curled up together on the wide, soft sofa in silence, neither knowing what to say. An empty bottle of champagne stood on the pretty glass coffee table. She was still very beautiful, and the faint flush of alcohol made her seem even more seductively lovely. I thought for a moment about what I myself looked like when I'd been drinking and concluded that the distance between us was the distance between clouds and mud. She spoke first. "Will you drink a little more with me?" Whenever anyone asks me that question, my answer has never once varied. I said, "Sure." The champagne was smooth and a little sweet. It felt like I could have drunk ten bottles and still remained sober. But sobriety brings its own trouble. A drunk person can speak recklessly. A sober one has to keep hold of reason and principles, and one wrong step is enough to ruin everything. The sight of Soran Wakatsuki crying would once have seemed unbelievable to me. Not because I thought of her as masculine, exactly the opposite. She was femininity refined to its limit. Any problem that came before her seemed to untie itself. Even the last time we argued, over the issue of the other woman, she had kept her grace through all of it. Yet on this deep, mist-soaked night, she cried in front of me without trying to hide it. Through her tears she said softly, "For the sake of some girl he's barely known at all, he fought with me and ran out and hasn't come back. He won't even answer my calls. Everything I've done has been for him, and now it seems meaningless. Being his older sister feels so pointless." "No, don't say that..." I shocked even myself with the words that came next. "Soran, we all know you want what's best for him, and he knows it too. But you mustn't ever say you do everything for him. No one can bear a debt that big. You try your hardest to give him the best of everything, but those same things turn into a burden on him." She suddenly lifted her head and stared at me. My heart jumped in fear that she might do something extreme. But Soran was still Soran. Even a little undone, she was still an educated woman with her own self-control. After listening to me, she laughed through the remnants of her tears. "Really now, reduced to being lectured by a younger girl. How embarrassing." I laughed too, though there was pain in it. She understood all these things as well as I did. She simply couldn't cure herself.

We stayed on that sofa talking all night. In the middle of all my guilt, I even had the illusion that nothing unpleasant had ever happened between us, that we could still be the sort of friends who sat knee to knee and talked about everything. To lose something and then get it back again is the sort of happiness that makes you want to cry. Deliberately, we avoided speaking about Haruka Sugihara and Risa, and we avoided speaking about that unpleasant morning too. I told her about Kanade, about my father, about Itsuki Ichinose. I told her about Shiki Narumiya. When I got to the scene I had accidentally seen on Itsuki's birthday, I still found myself shaking. Soran listened just as quietly as she used to, hugging a cushion, sipping champagne, and looking at me with complete sincerity. She still had that gift, the ability to calm my restlessness. By the time dawn was almost breaking, both of us were sleepy. Just before she got up from the sofa, she suddenly proposed a little game. "Kaoru, suppose there are two boys. One is the person you love, and one is the person who loves you. You have to choose one, and after that you can never have any contact with the other again. Which one would you choose?" I stared at her blankly. The room was so quiet it made my ears ring. She smiled. "You still can't let go." The thing I fear most in life is making choices. When I find two colors of the same dress I like, I can stand there sighing forever. And now she was asking me to choose between Itsuki Ichinose and Shiki Narumiya. It was like asking whether I would rather have my left hand cut off or my right. Even after Soran went into her bedroom, I was still sitting there in a daze. Any remotely normal person would choose Shiki Narumiya, wouldn't they? Itsuki gives me one tiny scrap of sweetness and makes me pay for it with mountains of pain. The little happiness he offers costs too many tears. It isn't worth it. Shiki is different. Everything he could give me would be the best. Hurt me? He probably never would. But if a person can never make you sad, doesn't that also mean you don't love him all that deeply? I think I do like Shiki. No one could help liking him. And yet every time I think about the look in Itsuki's eyes when he stopped me that day, the sorrow in them hollows me out from the inside until it hurts to breathe. In the end, I listened to my heart. Maybe I'm being absurdly self-important, but perhaps my existence really does count as a kind of comfort to him. If I absolutely had to keep only one of them, then I would choose Itsuki Ichinose.

When I gave that answer, I had no idea that fate had already chosen something else for me.

I slept until the sun was high, and right on cue my phone rang. Shiki Narumiya's name flashed across the screen twice, then the whole thing went black. Of course. I'd left in too much of a hurry and forgotten my charger. I rushed to borrow Soran's phone and call him back. Only after I had rattled off his number without a pause did I suddenly realize that sometime, without ever noticing, I had memorized it. He, being as sharp as ever, caught it too. I could hear him laughing so hard he sounded ready to pound the table. "You can actually recite my number? So you've fallen for me, huh? Just admit it. If you do, anything you want to eat today, as long as Yokohama has it, I'll buy." Afraid of waking Soran, I could only keep my voice down and answer, "I don't have time to eat with you today. I have to go see Risa and Haruka Sugihara. He ran away from home last night, and I came over to stay with his sister. Today I need to have a proper talk with him." Once people get too familiar, their real nature starts leaking out. Even the usually polished Shiki Narumiya had begun acting shameless. "Then I'll come with you. Your phone is going to be dead all day, and if I get bored I won't even have anyone to keep me entertained." I nearly jumped up and cursed him. Was I some kind of entertainment device? He, however, went straight back to his old trick. "Right, right. Naruse Kaoru is only there to entertain Itsuki Ichinose." It felt like a knife twisting in my heart. I honestly wanted to perish together with him on the spot, but Shiki didn't care in the least. "Enough sulking. I'll come pick you up. This number belongs to Sugihara's sister, right? I'll save it. If one day you run off with Itsuki Ichinose, at least I'll have a lead to follow." Shiki Narumiya had never been an immature person. For a long time I couldn't understand why he kept bringing up Itsuki Ichinose in front of me. His explanation was that this was how you survived: repeat the wound often enough and eventually you go numb to it. Once you go numb, you heal.

He arrived at the Minato Mirai apartments quickly enough and called Soran's phone again. "Come down." Before leaving, I quietly pushed open the bedroom door and took a look at Soran. Even in sleep, her brows were faintly drawn together, as though she could not rest in peace. This gentle, mild woman looked tired even in dreams. Neither sleeping Soran nor waking me knew that the moment I used her phone to call Shiki, something beautiful had already started its countdown toward cruelty. Shiki and I hurried to the station-side cafe. The moment I stepped into the private room, I saw Haruka Sugihara looking anxious enough to jump out of his skin. "Is my sister okay?" he asked at once. Beside him, Risa sat there casually painting her nails with a brand-new set of polish. Being the shameless snob that I am, I had not yet answered Haruka's question before I recognized it as a Guerlain French manicure set. Someone had given one to Takahashi Shiharu for her birthday back in freshman year, and I had nearly fainted just looking at the price. Risa rolled her eyes. "Would you answer him first, you social climber?" Only then did I remember the actual purpose of my coming. I am the sort of person whose essays always wander off topic and whose message-board posts always derail the thread. I ought to repent. Once I told Haruka how Soran had reacted, his expression softened with obvious relief. Then I introduced Shiki to my two friends. "Risa. Haruka Sugihara. A matched pair of shameless sinners." Shiki had just opened his mouth to greet them when Risa exploded at the second half of my introduction. "Oh please. So you and Itsuki Ichinose aren't shameless? You two are some golden boy and jade girl pair, is that it?" The moment the words left her mouth, her face changed. So did mine. Haruka clearly had no idea what to do. He looked from her to me, as if afraid we were about to start a fight. The one who broke the deadlock was Shiki. "She's my opposite number," he said lightly. "If I'm the emperor of the south, she's the genius of the north." It dissolved the awkwardness on the surface, but the heaviness in my chest remained. I very badly wanted to ask Risa how Itsuki had been lately, but with Shiki sitting beside me I could not make myself open my mouth. Forget it. There would be another chance later. Today wasn't supposed to be about me.

Haruka looked serious. Risa acted as though none of it concerned her, but I knew her well enough to recognize the act. I asked Haruka, "So what exactly are you going to do?" He looked up at me, and a dazed helplessness flashed through his eyes. "I don't know. They're both the most important people in my life. I can't bear to hurt either of them." His answer immediately reminded me of the little game Soran had played with me. If you really had to choose one out of two, how could you possibly do it? When the needle isn't in your own flesh, you never realize how much it hurts. Every choice in this world is difficult. Whenever you gain something, you lose something too. Maybe we're all still too young. We still don't understand that life is mostly weariness over what we keep and helplessness over what we lose. The four of us sat in that little private room all afternoon. Most of the time, we talked about things entirely unrelated to the problem at hand. Haruka Sugihara and Shiki Narumiya got along surprisingly well and spent ages discussing things I didn't understand in the slightest. Eventually I used a trip to the restroom as an excuse and cornered Risa to ask the question I had been swallowing all day. She washed her hands and gave me a sidelong look. "Why don't you stay put beside your Shiki Narumiya and stop poking around?" I couldn't be bothered to waste breath on that. I stepped forward and caught her by the neck. "When I ask you something, answer me. What's with the attitude?" But I was no match for that little street-fighter. With two casual movements she flipped the situation around, and suddenly I thought my wrist was about to break. The pain nearly made me cry. She looked at me with naked disdain. "You can't handle this much pain and you still went and got a tattoo? Honestly, I give up on you." When we left the restroom, she finally couldn't bear how lost I looked and sighed. "I really don't understand what you and Itsuki Ichinose are doing. Haruka and I are together even after breaking through all kinds of resistance, and who knows what kind of future we have ahead of us, but we've never once thought about giving up. The two of you aren't married to anyone else, nobody's forcing you apart, and yet you're making things this complicated." I had no answer at all. She slung an arm around my shoulders and softened her voice. "Lately he's gotten obsessed with cars, so even I haven't talked to him much. As for whether some new woman has shown up, I honestly don't know." After a pause, she added, "Kaoru, with the kind of person Itsuki Ichinose is, the fact that he could actually say you're the most important person in his life is already huge. What more are you still hoping for?" It hurt so much. I closed my eyes, unwilling to keep crying over things like this. Naruse Kaoru's tears should not be so cheap. I nodded and repeated her words under my breath. "Yeah. If he could say that much, what more could I possibly hope for?"

After that meeting, Shiki Narumiya and Haruka Sugihara became friends, and I was honestly glad to see it. Someday, when Risa isn't around, I can take both of them shopping with me, one on my left arm and one on my right, and make everyone else green with envy. I've followed that lunatic Kanade through enough public embarrassment over the years to provide half the city with laughing material. It's my turn to turn things around. I want the whole world to look at me with envy, not contempt. Just as I once snuck away alone in high school to see the person I liked without telling anyone, I also went, all by myself and in secret, to the bottom of Itsuki Ichinose's building. It was night. I hadn't been drinking. I was clearer-headed than ever. I switched off my phone and rode buses aimlessly through the city alone. The bus was quiet. On the little screen overhead they were showing a Leslie Cheung special, and under my breath I found myself singing along: one day you'll know that life won't be the same without me. Looking at those images, tears welled up in my eyes before I could stop them. That's not true. That's not true at all. The way our views of life and values are formed depends partly on the education we receive while growing up, but a huge part of it also comes from our experiences, from the people we meet, from the stories we live through with them, and from everything those stories leave behind inside us. All of that, taken together, is what makes a life rich. After getting off the bus, I kept walking aimlessly for a long time. By the time I finally lifted my head, I realized that without noticing I had wandered all the way to Itsuki Ichinose's building. I remembered Soran's smile as she said, You still can't let go. Of course I can't. My feelings are not a switch that can be turned on and off at will. It doesn't work that way. The tenderness in those days, the glances, the embraces, the silences, none of that can simply be forgotten because I decide it should be. Like an idiot, I stood there counting floors. He lived on the twentieth. His window was dark. Just like the black hole inside my heart. No matter how much I throw into it, it never fills. There is no light in it. I was just about to leave when I saw his car. I could mistake every other car in Yokohama, but I would never mistake his. It only flashed past for an instant, but I still saw the person in the passenger seat clearly. I knew her. We had known each other in high school and had become classmates again in college. It was through her that I first met Itsuki Ichinose, and because of that I ended up tangled with him for so long. I had always known she liked him. Because she liked him, she had always looked at me with a faint trace of hostility. She never said it out loud, but her eyes gave her away. The person sitting in the passenger seat was Myoko Fu.