#82: Turning Point / ep.1
“Good work on your first day. So, about the welcome party…”
“Not necessary. A drinking party in the current climate is risky.”
“Eh? But… we’re colleagues now, all working in the same place…”
“It’s the end of the working day, so I’ll be going. I’ve finished all my work.”
With that, Yanase Sanae neatly brushed aside her new colleagues’ follow-up and touched her ID to the card reader. She left the Hibiya Trading Hamamatsu Branch office, housed in an unremarkable mixed-use building.
Before she had even finished her first day of the transfer, Sanae had already grasped the branch’s entire operation. As long as she improved the bottlenecks in the flow of people, goods, money and information, there was no danger of becoming a well-paid freeloader with nothing to do at her desk.
The difference between headquarters and a branch office was like night and day.
Starting with the size of the office, then the number of projects they handled, the adaptability of the people working there, and so on. She could go on forever.
There was one thing she liked, though: the curious accents that occasionally slipped into the Hamamatsu employees’ speech.
For example—
“Hansode becomes hahn-sode. The accent is on the first syllable, then?”
Sanae had never once thought dialects were cute.
If anything, she tended to feel that anyone incapable of speaking even the bare minimum of standard Japanese was loudly advertising themselves as a fool who had given up on even trying.
Even so, she didn’t dislike dialects themselves.
They contained a sense of humanity, atmosphere and camaraderie that standard Japanese lacked.
Sanae herself was liable to let her guard down a little whenever she heard the language of her own home, the Kansai dialect. Osaka had such a strong sense of local pride that there was even a famous song lyric about a woman born in Osaka being unable to abandon the city.
“Well, I’d abandon it without hesitation.”
Her tuneless, cheerful humming disappeared into the Hamamatsu sky.
＊
“Rinko? Rinko-!?”
At the sound of a familiar voice rising from downstairs, Shirai Rinko lifted her heavy head from the bed in her bedroom, which had practically become a storage room.
Through her messy black hair, she saw that it was already past noon.
The notification screen on her phone showed messages from her agency and Saikawa Hifumi, but there was no message from the person who was probably most concerned about her.
She heard the rhythmic sound of footsteps climbing the stairs, a sound that had not changed at all since her school days, and the fusuma of her Japanese-style room was thrown open.
“How long are you gonna sleep!? You’ve gotta find a job!”
“I will… but let me sleep…”
It was an exchange with her mother, unchanged since her school days.
It had been seven years since she had last slept in her bedroom on the second floor of her family home. Rinko had returned home once a year during that time, but she had always found some excuse to stay at a friend’s house or return to Tokyo the same day.
“No good, you know. Kaya-chan’s here!”
With that, Rinko’s mother went back downstairs.
Her family home was uncomfortable to be in.
In Enshū dialect, you might call it izuyōnnai.
It wasn’t because she had a bad relationship with her parents.
The forward-charging temperament of people from Enshū and Hamamatsu, their yaramaika spirit, could be somewhat irritating, but the attitude of just giving things a try had been passed down to Rinko as well. There was little point resenting it now.
No, there was another reason she found being at home so uncomfortable.
Specifically—
“Rinko Auntie!”
In place of her mother, she heard the clattering of feet coming up the stairs, and the fusuma to her bedroom was flung open.
At once, a girl who bore an unmistakable resemblance to her came flying towards Rinko.
“Rinko Auntie! Do my hair!”
“Sorry, Karin. Rinko Older Sister is sleepy. Why don’t you get Mum to do it?”
“Mum said you used to do her hair! So I want Rinko Auntie to make me pretty too! I want Elsa!”
The girl’s name was Shirai Karin.
Rinko’s niece, who had only just started primary school that year, sat beside the bed with her back straight.
Her straight, virgin hair, untouched by dye or perm, shone softly like silk where the light spilling through the fusuma touched it.
Her request was Elsa.
It took Rinko a moment to work out what she meant, but it was probably that most troublesome Elsa.
“Eh? I think you’re cuter just the way you are.”
“Auntie, you’re bad at singing! It’s ‘Let it go! Let it go!’”
Watching the long hair sway with the song and dance, Rinko sighed.
If it was Elsa, the requested hairstyle was probably a fishtail-like braid or a crown braid.
Please, let it be the former.
Rinko ran her fingers through the smooth hair.
“Rinko Auntie and Mum used to be really good friends, right?”
“Yeah. We were good friends.”
Karin called the woman who had been one year ahead of Rinko at school “Mum”.
The passage of time was cruel enough to leave Rinko crushed beneath it.
Karin was the daughter of a woman with whom Rinko had a long and complicated history.
She stubbornly refused to stop calling Rinko “Auntie”, but she was an adorable niece who adored her, and besides, none of this was Karin’s fault.
Even so.
“Karin-chan, you really look like your mum.”
“Really!? Can I grow up to be like Mum!?”
Hair that looked like hers.
A way of speaking that sounded like hers.
And the same scent as hers.
Ylang-ylang.
Just looking at Karin brought the past flooding back.
The woman who had completely derailed Rinko’s life, never taken responsibility for what she had done, and then entered a place where Rinko could neither pursue nor hold her accountable.
“Let’s grow up to be a girl who can do someone else’s hair, okay, Karin-chan?”
“Okay! I’ll do Mum’s hair later!”
The little barb Rinko had let slip about Karin’s mother passed without incident.
Yes.
Being at home really was uncomfortable.
Rinko concentrated on finishing Karin’s Elsa hairstyle so that she could quietly make her escape.
＊
Ten years earlier.
Shirai Rinko became aware of her own orientation when she was a high-school girl of an age when even flowers might blush.
Until then, she had never experienced the impulse that is sometimes metaphorically described as a “red fruit bursting open”.
But eventually, someone appeared who made Rinko’s red fruit burst.
Watching her made Rinko’s heart dance.
When their eyes met, she became so embarrassed that she smiled.
When that smile was returned, she fell even deeper.
She strained her throat to speak, pricked up her ears to hear that voice.
When she was touched, her body felt as though it no longer belonged to her.
When she was embraced, she was terrified that the enormous pounding of her heart might be noticed.
And yet, some part of her hoped that it would be noticed, that the other girl would take her hand and lead her.
Their turning point came one summer day, on the way home after club activities.
The riverside was bathed in evening-red light.
Rinko deliberately shortened her stride and walked slowly, even though the route was not merely a detour from home but led in the opposite direction.
She wanted to stay together even if it meant employing a painfully slow strategy of walking all the way around.
Because she needed to steel herself.
The girl she loved was her senior in the track-and-field club, Hakamada Kaya.
“I love you, Kaya-senpai…”
At last, Rinko made up her mind and poured out her love for another girl for the first time.
The yaramaika spirit she had inherited from her parents, the inability to sit still once she had decided she had to act, pushed her forward.
“Ehh? Then we’re in love with each other, Rinko.”
It worked.
Before Rinko could even rejoice at being accepted, she burst into tears at Kaya’s easygoing response.
All the anguish and suffering of loving Kaya suddenly felt as though it had been rewarded by that single confession.
And so, after confessing her feelings, Rinko and Kaya embarked on an illicit same-sex relationship.
The physical intimacy between them went no further than kissing, but Rinko was inexperienced and their relationship was entirely platonic. For her, it was enough.
Simply embracing and kissing each other made her feel connected.
She was happy.
She was a lucky girl.
She had become close enough to the senior she loved to bring their faces together, embrace her and love her.
So whenever Kaya asked something of her, Rinko complied.
Whenever Kaya wanted something, Rinko gave it to her.
When Kaya said she needed support for the Inter-High, Rinko volunteered to become her manager.
When Kaya asked her to help with her studies, Rinko studied desperately until she had caught up with Kaya’s syllabus.
On days when Kaya’s parents weren’t home, Rinko stayed over at Kaya’s house and took care of all the housework.
If Kaya named a club member she disliked, Rinko disliked that person too.
Even if that club member happened to be Rinko’s childhood friend, if Kaya disliked them, then Rinko would dislike them too.
When Kaya said she wanted to hang out with their friends as well, Rinko followed without complaint.
In truth, she wanted to be alone with her.
She didn’t want anyone else intruding on the two of them.
But she didn’t want Kaya to think she was some tiresome girl who complained about everything.
“Hey, Rinko. Could you go buy me something to drink?”
“Sure. What do you want?”
“Let’s make it a quiz. I’ll give you an hour, so go buy what you think I want to drink.”
“Oh, you’re such a pain. Fine, I’ll figure it out!”
“Then I’ll wait here with Rinko’s brother. Off you go.”
Rinko was happy.
Because she was happy, she desperately clung to that happiness.
If she kept making an effort, if she remained the perfect woman Kaya wanted her to be, then Kaya’s heart would never leave her.
She believed that the two of them could remain happy together after graduation, after entering the working world, all the way until death did them part.
She spared no effort to make that happen.
If Kaya wished for something, Rinko made it happen.
If Kaya wanted something from her, Rinko devoted herself to fulfilling it.
Because she was constantly rushing to Kaya whenever she received so much as a message, her friends gradually disappeared.
Because she put Kaya first, her club activities and academic results suffered.
Whether asleep or awake, all she could think about was protecting Kaya.
She wanted to protect the person who had accepted her.
But the honeymoon Rinko had dreamed of collapsed with astonishing ease.
“Pregnant…?”
It was February, with Rinko’s high-school graduation approaching.
She had been trying to decide between accepting a job offer from a local company and attending a junior college in Tokyo.
She was already imagining which choice would make Kaya, who would enter the working world a year before her, happier.
Then she was struck from an entirely unexpected direction.
“That’s right. It happened.”
“What are you talking about…?”
The photograph Kaya showed her as proof was the result window of a pregnancy test.
A clear red vertical line stood in the positive-result window.
“Kaya… you love me, right…?”
“Of course. We’re best friends, aren’t we?”
“Wait. Best friends don’t kiss each other…”
“Huh? Then did you think we were lovers?”
Kaya was smiling.
All at once, Rinko could no longer understand what that smile meant.
Why was this woman smiling now?
Rinko couldn’t understand what was in Kaya’s heart.
“B-but… you said we loved each other…”
“Because I love you too, Rinko. That means we’re in love with each other, right?”
“My kind of love isn’t like that…”
“Then what kind was it?”
In front of Kaya, who seemed completely at ease, no voice would come from Rinko’s throat.
She was afraid that if she asked for confirmation, Kaya would deny it.
“What do you mean, what kind? I…”
“It’s okay. We can stay together forever, you know? In fact, I’d really like a kind girl like you to stay by my side forever.”
“What does that mean…?”
“Because this child’s father…”
The following month, after it was decided that the Shirai family would be gaining a new member, Rinko rejected the local job Kaya would surely have been happy about and went to a junior college in Tokyo.
Soon afterwards, she received word that Kaya’s surname had changed to Shirai.
Rinko never replied.
She ignored the meetings between the two families and the wedding ceremony alike, burying herself in part-time jobs in an attempt to forget everything.
So when she later heard that Kaya’s first child had been miscarried, Rinko laughed.
It’s what you deserve for betraying me.
Serves you right.
She cursed her over and over in her thoughts.
Rinko knew perfectly well that taking pleasure in the misfortune of a former friend who was now a relative was nothing to be proud of.
But unless she thought that way, the gaping hole in her heart would never close.
Even now, Rinko didn’t particularly want Kaya to apologise.
She didn’t feel angry with her either.
She simply knew that if she imagined the torrent of abuse she might hurl at Kaya, the lonely woman she had become after her love had broken, her friendship had withered, and even her family ties had been severed, she might end up hating herself.
She couldn’t bear that.
And so, ever since that incident, Rinko had kept her distance from the family home where her older brother and his wife lived.
＊
“Wow! Amazing!”
Looking at herself in the mirror, Karin expressed her delight with her entire body.
She was seven years old.
After that miscarriage, she had been born as the beloved first child, welcomed and celebrated not only by her parents but by the entire extended family.
Karin was expressive, showing everything she felt with her whole body. She was a living image of her mother Kaya.
At the same time, the shape of her ears and eyebrows carried something of her father as well.
Karin had inherited, in unmistakable form, the blood of someone Rinko knew all too well.
“Mum! Rinko Auntie made me Elsa!”
Even after Karin’s mum, Shirai Kaya, opened the fusuma and entered, the girl’s excitement didn’t diminish.
She bounced up and down, her braided hair bobbing, and hugged Kaya around the waist.
“Oh, Karin, you look adorable. Did you thank Rinko Auntie?”
“I’m gonna show Grandma!”
Without even saying thank you, Karin raced down the stairs like a startled rabbit.
Rinko watched her go.
The appearance of her niece’s mother was completely different from the Kaya Rinko had loved all those years ago.
The sharp, narrow eyes that had once seemed to glare in every direction.
The plain, roughly cut black semi-long hair, utterly devoid of fashion.
The beautiful body that was slender and angular yet still softly fleshed out.
There was none of that in Shirai Kaya.
Her eyes were still narrow, but somehow softer.
Her long brown hair had grown out at the roots from neglect.
And perhaps because she had matured, or perhaps because she had given birth, her body was somewhat fuller too.
“Thanks for playing with Karin, Rinko.”
And above all, she spoke with the meek, motherly sentiment of a woman who had settled into motherhood.
What does she feel when she talks to me?
The more Rinko thought about it, the more she felt herself sinking into thoughts she had no business entertaining.
“I was bored anyway, so don’t worry about it.”
The next word that came out was “Well, then.”
She wanted to end the conversation with Kaya so quickly that it had probably been painfully obvious.
Rinko quietly regretted it.
“Hey, come shopping with me for a bit. I’ll drive.”
A set of keys to a small car twirled around Kaya’s finger.
Rinko could easily tell Kotone “no”.
But the word wouldn’t come out of her mouth when Kaya asked.
Maybe some part of her heart was still unable to let go of Kaya.
Maybe she was still carrying her with her.