The Passengers on the Hankyu Line полностью

Shocked, she suddenly felt cold. He had seen right through her. He knew something was wrong.

For the first time in their relationship, she hadn’t been completely forthcoming.

She tried to speak but her voice trembled. She flopped down onto the floor and let out a childlike wail. ‘I just wanted to feel cherished … You went all the way to Fukuoka on your trip and you remembered my exams and you brought me an amulet from Dazaifu. I wanted to feel cherished by you. Today I realized for the first time that when we kiss you’re always holding back. So I wanted to give myself to you.’

‘Ah … I can’t …’ He scratched his head noisily. ‘Etsuko, you’re crying like a little girl. First you raise your voice at me and then you start sobbing. I give up.’

What do you mean, you give up? she wanted to ask but she couldn’t find her voice. Her sobs had evolved into hiccups but eventually he squeezed in a few words between her sniffles.

‘Etsuko, are you naked?’

‘I have a … towel … wrapped around me.’

‘OK, listen. I’m at my wits’ end. If this were to happen again, I don’t think I’d be able to control myself.’ Then he turned towards Etsuko and held open his arms. ‘C’mere!’

She flew into his embrace. Aw, crap, stop being silly, he murmured under his breath. I’m sorry, she whispered, clinging to him.

‘Did something happen?’

While he held her tight, stroking her wet hair, she divulged the whole story that she had been keeping to herself all this time, which she hadn’t been able to share with her parents or even her friends.

She also told him what her teacher had said to her – ‘So you weren’t up to snuff after all.’

Tch … if he’s gonna be like that in the end then why’d he encourage me to try for a university I never had a chance at in the first place? I told him it was too much, I told him so all along! That I only wanted to take the exam where I knew I would get in.

I know my limitations better than anyone.

‘Don’t worry, it’s OK, you’re a good girl, a strong girl. You were thinking of your brothers, and of the burden on your parents, and about your future. Whatever you decide for yourself, Etsuko, that’s going to be the right thing. Your teacher must be a terrible judge of character, for him not to see how good you are.’

‘You really think I’m a good person?’

‘You’d be a better person if you put your clothes on. You’re killing me, you know.’

All right. She picked up her clothes and went back into the bathroom.

They spent the rest of the time they had in the room lying on the huge bed and talking.

She made a plea for him to take her on a trip, once she had started university and things had settled down. It could be somewhere nearby, she said, but she wanted them to stay at a classy hotel, so that could be her first time.

Now you’re starting to sound like yourself again, he laughed. Then he let out a deep sigh.

‘But once you’re at university I’m afraid you’ll ditch me. A clueless idiot who can’t even read the label on his own shirt.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I happen to love clueless idiots!’ Then she dived at him.

‘I don’t get you, weirdo,’ he said, opening his arms.

The train arrived at Koto’en.

As Etsuko alighted from the train, two college students who appeared to be a couple got on. The guy was tall and seemed kind of punk while the girl had a minimalist look, though she was pretty. She wore a necklace with a pale hand-blown glass pendant.

They probably went to the university that Etsuko had pined for. They looked to her like a happy couple.

But she wasn’t jealous. Because her boyfriend was good to her and she knew how much he cherished her, even if he was clueless.

Etsuko headed for her school, where her friends were waiting for her.

Nigawa Station

‘See, look!’

After the train pulled away from Koto’en Station, Miho-chan – whom everyone except her boyfriend Kei’ichi called Gon-chan – pointed excitedly at the forty-five-degree slope that came almost right up to the railway cutting.

‘See the withered bracken? In summer it was chock-a-block with it.’

She wasn’t wrong. Like himself, Miho came from the countryside and knew how to identify such things, and those indeed were the unmistakable hunched and withered remnants of bracken on the slope.

‘Yeah, that’s definitely bracken. So?’

‘Soon enough it’ll be spring.’

‘Yeah … meaning what?’

‘There are sure to be lots of fiddleheads growing. It’s a secret spot nobody knows about.’

He could tell where she was going with this but he pretended otherwise.

‘And?’

‘I thought I could go pick them.’

There it was. Kei’ichi glared at Miho with a stern look.

‘No way, that’s a terrible idea.’

‘Why do you say that? They’ll go to waste, untouched in the wild like that.’