“That’s what my landlady calls me, so Kaguya is just imitating her,” said Majime, feeling uneasy.
He kept sneaking glances at the counter as unobtrusively as possible—though to the others his interest was evident. Kaguya was focused on the master as he worked, her eyes intent on his hands. Once in a while the senior apprentice would say something to her, and she would crisply perform the task assigned. The senior apprentice was good-looking, with clean-cut, even features. Majime became acutely aware of his hair, unruly to begin with and smooshed more than usual. For the first time all day, he had an urge to smooth it down. He picked up the moist towelette, but it had already cooled off. He put it back down, giving up on the idea of fixing his hair. He felt as if air were stuck in his throat like a gob of sticky rice cake. He could hardly eat anything.
Fortunately, Kaguya seemed unaware that he was acting strangely. Maybe he acted this way all the time so it didn’t bother her anymore. She brought dish after dish to their table: sashimi, stewed vegetables, Miyazaki beef simmered in miso-flavored broth. Each time she would check whether they needed extra plates or refills on their drinks, without being at all intrusive.
“Majime tells us your name is Kaguya,” said Nishioka, looking up at her, his head tilted at what he probably thought was his best angle. “‘Shining Night.’ A lovely name.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Though I’m not that fond of it myself. I always think it sounds like graffiti some biker might scribble on a wall.”
“Not at all. Kaguya is the perfect name for one so beautiful.”
Majime let out a yelp. Someone had just kicked his shin. Across the table, Araki was glaring at Nishioka, apparently trying to tell him to knock it off. He must have aimed at Nishioka’s shin and kicked Majime by mistake.
“I happened to be born on the night of a full moon, that’s all.” Kaguya handled Nishioka deftly, dismissive yet civil.
“Ah, so even the moon celebrated the occasion of your birth,” Nishioka said, undaunted.
Another kick on the shin. Unable to speak up and say, “Hey, that’s my leg,” Majime gritted his teeth in silence.
When they had finished all the food and the alcohol had pleasurably taken effect, they left the restaurant. The cool air, suggesting the approach of winter, barely registered.
“The food was tasty, wasn’t it?” said the professor. “Next time Mrs. Sasaki will have to join us.”
“If you liked the place that much, from now on we could eat there after our weekly meetings,” suggested Araki.
“What?” Nishioka protested. “I can’t afford that. How about alternating between there and Seven Treasures Garden?”
Their four shadows stretched out long on the pavement as they ambled in the dusk. Thinking the moon must be out, Majime looked up at the sky, but tonight there was no sign of it. The lambent glow on low-hanging gray clouds was the reflection of city lights.
Shoved back by Araki, Nishioka fell into step alongside Majime. “Sometimes I scare myself,” he said with a sigh.
“Why is that?”
“See how Kaguya kept looking at me? That always happens. I feel bad about it, my friend, but there’s not much I can do. Women are drawn to my magnetic charms. Don’t hate me.”
“Nishioka, you’re an idiot,” Araki said over his shoulder.
Majime also was taken aback. He thought it might be a joke and stole a look at his coworker’s profile, but Nishioka was wearing a self-satisfied smile.
Where did he get such ideas? What if she had been looking at him? Wasn’t it just because he kept on talking to her? Majime had gotten the distinct impression that Kaguya was responding to Nishioka’s comments about her name and so forth only because she couldn’t ignore a customer. She’d swallowed her annoyance and been gracious.
And yet for all he knew, a woman might well find someone like Nishioka attractive, someone who dressed smartly and had a take-charge attitude and a degree of charm. Majime felt some consternation. Rather than go out with someone who wore ordinary, tacky suits and was lackadaisical and forgettable—someone like him—she’d probably prefer to stay home petting Tora. In the midst of these arbitrary speculations on the workings of Kaguya’s heart, Majime fell into depression. Nishioka’s awed appreciation of his own appeal to women had reached a rarefied level, and Majime knew that his inexperienced self was unlikely ever to match it.
“Mr. Nishioka, why don’t you move into Mr. Majime’s lodging house?” Professor Matsumoto cheerfully suggested.
“Live in some ramshackle old place? No thanks.”
“What a shame. It would be a fine chance to re-create the setting of Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro in modern times.”
“Kokoro?” Nishioka walked on a few paces, frowning. “Oh, yeah, I remember. Read it in high school. The one with the farewell letter that went on forever. It was hilarious.”
“That’s your response to Soseki’s masterpiece?” Once again Nishioka had succeeded in rousing Araki’s ire. “Tell me again, why are you in publishing?”
“Can I help it if I thought it was hilarious?” Nishioka folded his arms. “Seriously, if you were about to do yourself in, would you sit down and write an epistle that many pages long? Who would? And anybody who got a final testament like that by parcel post would freak out.”
“Actually,” said Majime, “I’m pretty sure he didn’t send it parcel post. It was too bulky for an envelope so he wrapped it in a sheet of strong hanshi writing paper, sealed it, and sent it by registered mail. But it was small enough to fit in the narrator’s pocket.” Funny, he thought, now that Nishioka pointed it out, the letter the character Sensei had written to the narrator before committing suicide really was inordinately long and probably wouldn’t have fit inside a sheet of hanshi, the smallest size of writing paper, or inside a man’s pocket, either.
“Who was in charge the day they hired you? That’s what I’d like to know,” said Araki, sounding fed up.
But as far as Majime could tell, Nishioka was by no means a bad employee. Patience wasn’t his strong suit, but his mind was unfettered. Just now, without trying he had pointed out something genuinely strange about Soseki’s classic novel. Maybe rather than being a plodder like himself, someone like Nishioka was better suited to lexicography. Maybe he was someone capable of uninhibited leaps who could see things in an unusual light.
Majime’s steps became so heavy that his feet seemed to sink into the ground.
Nishioka wouldn’t let the topic drop. “Tell me, why would Kokoro come to life if I moved into Majime’s dilapidated digs?”
“Because that way the love triangle of you, Kaguya, and Mr. Majime would play out in a lodging house, just like the one in the book.”