Aka considered this and shook his head. “No, I don’t recall that. The only one I remember is the famous piece from Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood. ‘Tr?umerei.’ She used to play that sometimes. I’m not familiar with the Liszt piece, though. Why are you asking?”
“No special reason. I just happened to recall it,” Tsukuru said. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve taken so much of your time. I should be going. I’m really happy we could talk like this.”
Aka stayed still in his chair, and gazed straight at Tsukuru. He was expressionless, like someone staring at a brand-new lithograph with nothing etched in it yet. “Are you in a hurry?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
“Can we talk a little more?”
“Of course. I have plenty of time.”
Aka weighed what he was about to say before he spoke. “You don’t really like me very much anymore, do you?”
Tsukuru was speechless. Partly because the question had blindsided him, but also because it didn’t seem right to reduce his feelings for the person seated before him into a simple binary equation of like or dislike.
Tsukuru carefully chose his words. “I really can’t say. My feelings are definitely different from back when we were teenagers. But that’s—”
Aka held up a hand to cut him off.
“No need to mince words. And you don’t need to force yourself to like me. No one likes me now. It’s only to be expected. I don’t even like myself much. I used to have a few really good friends. You were one of them. But at a certain stage in life I lost them. Like how Shiro at a certain point lost that special spark.… But you can’t go back. Can’t return an item you’ve already opened. You just have to make do.”
He lowered his hand and placed it on his lap. He began tapping out an irregular rhythm on his kneecap, like he was sending a message in Morse code.
“My father worked so long as a college professor that he picked up the habits professors have. At home he always sounded like he was preaching at us, looking down on us from on high. I hated that, ever since I was a child. But at a certain point it hit me—I’ve started to talk just like him.”
He went on tapping his kneecap.
“I always felt I did a horrible thing to you. It’s true. I—we—had no right to treat you that way. I felt that someday I needed to properly apologize to you. But somehow I never made it happen.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsukuru said. “That’s another situation where you can’t go back.”
Aka seemed lost in thought. “Tsukuru,” he finally said, “I have a favor to ask.”
“What kind?”
“I have something I want to tell you. A confession, you might call it, that I’ve never told anybody before. Maybe you don’t want to hear it, but I want to open up about my own pain. I’d like you to know what I’ve been carrying around with me. Not that this will make amends for all the pain you endured. It’s just a question of my own feelings and emotions. Will you hear me out? For old times’ sake?”
Tsukuru nodded, uncertain where this was going.
Aka began. “I told you how, until I actually went to college, I didn’t know I wasn’t cut out for academic life. And how I didn’t know I wasn’t cut out for company life, either, until I started working in a bank. You remember? It’s kind of embarrassing. I probably had never taken a good, hard look at myself. But that’s not all there was to it. Until I got married I didn’t understand how I wasn’t suited for marriage. What I’m saying is, the physical relationship between a man and a woman wasn’t for me. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Tsukuru was silent, and Aka went on.
“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t really feel desire for women. Not that I don’t have any desire at all, but I feel it more for men.”
A deep silence descended on the room. Tsukuru couldn’t hear a single sound. It was a quiet room to begin with.