Episode 1

Tea or coffee — tea. Salt or miso — salt. White clothes or red — white. That was my life: a chain of choices like these.

Always choosing whichever option had the least stimulation, the thinnest colour. You could dress it up in flattering language — I prefer things calm, I’m a pacifist — but mine was something different, I think.

Past the stimulation, there might be new encounters waiting. Maybe I could enjoy a dreamlike time there.

I think back to that day — when what was supposed to be just a waypoint became somewhere I wanted to be.

But what lies on the other side of a beautiful dream, once you wake from it?

Joy is a harbinger of the pain that follows. Better, then, not to choose it in the first place.

Back then too — if I hadn’t made that choice, I wouldn’t have spent so long cowering from the pain. The price of chasing colour still squats deep in my chest, like a bruise that never fades.

I let out a small breath, careful not to be noticed. The colleague sitting across from me won’t stop talking about something I don’t want to hear.

“You could at least come try it once. I’ve been passing along your ‘I want to see them, I want to see them’ messages and honestly, I’m getting sick of it. Have some consideration for me getting caught in the middle here.”

She mutters it like she’s spitting something out, then deftly loads her fork with salad without even looking at it.

In the lunch-hour restaurants of central Tokyo, every table sounds like a theme park. Appetising smells drift through the air alongside conversations in every colour of the spectrum.

“Hey, are you even listening? You’ve been somewhere else this whole time.”

The voice from across the table drops just a fraction. I’ve known her long enough to read her: this register means she’s getting close to the edge.

With other colleagues I’d never let my guard slip, but around her, just a little, I relax.

“Sorry, sorry — I’m listening, really.”

I answer in a register a shade higher than my natural voice.

“I know you’re probably right that I won’t know until I try — but I’ll pass. Thanks though.”

“Anyway — isn’t today’s special good? I’m obsessed.”

I gesture at the pasta in front of me. Porcini mushroom something-pasta. I can’t tell if it’s the mushrooms or the sauce that’s got me, but I could eat this every day.

Definitely ordering again. Though it’s the daily special, so I might never see it again.

“There you go with your ‘let’s not rock the boat’ thing again. You really need to change, you know.”

She fires it off in a thorny voice, then gives a small cough. Then adds one sentence in a tone like coaxing a child:

“If it’s terrible, I promise I won’t drag you along anymore.”

She’s always been this way, as far back as I can remember. That pushiness and that strange thoughtfulness, living side by side.

A bit like a rose, I think.

A nose with a proud bridge. Large eyes full of self-assurance. Her gold hair always in a pompadour. Is this what people mean when they say shigodeki-joshi — a girl who’s good at everything?

My colleague and one of my very few friends: Shiina Tsumugi.

There’s a part of me that feels like we live in entirely different worlds, but we’ve been acquainted for about six years now, counting from university. Her appearance is mature, but her small frame gives her something oddly animal-like about her, something approachable. Which is why, I suppose, she’s easy to be around.

Though she’s never once gone easy on me — so it’s more like a thorn-piled rose, petals buried under mountains of spikes.

“Ah… yeah… I appreciate it, really, but I think I’ll skip. I might make things awkward, or end up disappointing everyone.”

“I’m always sorry about that.”

I tell her that with my eyes cast down. She must have seen something in my face, because she lets out a small sigh, seems to give up, and shifts the conversation to complaining about work.

◇

I leave Tsumugi, who says she’s going to buy a coffee on the way back, and step into the elevator. In recent years even more foreign tourists have found this neighbourhood, so it’s crowded and everything’s expensive.

A ¥1,500 lunch is standard here, and then Tsumugi’s going to buy a coffee on top of that — probably ¥600 a cup. The economic gap between us sends a shiver through me.

“Is this the difference between a mid-career hire and a straight-out-of-university hire…?”

I mutter to no one, since I’m alone. We’re in different departments, but we’re the same age, so there shouldn’t be that big a gap. I’ll choose to believe it’s a difference in spending habits.

I check my reflection in the elevator mirror, fix my appearance to the minimum standard required, and then — borrowing a page from Tsumugi’s book — stride back to my desk in confident steps.