Turning around then, it was necessary to work through those memories I still had not reconstructed, only hidden. I was trying to return to those times, because I believed in them. Because I didn’t want to continue living so disconnectedly. But it’s not possible to return, and I don’t really want to.

You were right, there is nothing you could do for me that wouldn’t be exactly the same only different. I wouldn’t grow at all, it wouldn’t fix anything at all, and it wouldn’t change how I felt. Your logic wins out, as usual. And this time, I am glad.

I hope we can remain friends, and that if necessary, in the future, I can call on you for help, because I feel I might need to. I’m not sure there’s much I can do for you, but I would be willing to return the favor. I can’t ignore the past, I won’t ignore the past, but I won’t live in the past, either.

So let’s move forward, separately.
I think there could be no happier ending to this story, honestly.
Resolution is rarely ever this clear.

I can’t see you with anyone, I can’t see you alone. I can’t see you at all.

But you keep talking to me. You keep initiating conversations, over and over again. No matter how long I’m gone, no matter if I haven’t said a word to you first in over a month.

Is it because I re-initiated contact… twice? Are you not willing to let it dissolve? Or is it not that high level? Do you just… miss me, periodically? Why? What do I give you that you can’t get from anyone else?

I ask those questions, over and over again – but I can’t ask you.
I don’t think I’d get an answer.
I don’t think it’s something we can talk about.
If we could… it wouldn’t be like this.

Is it really a psychological issue, where you don’t let go because you’re afraid of the future, of the unknown? Or is it because you know, you really know when you’ve found something that resonates so deep within yourself that there’s no replacing it?

Is it enough just to love?

I can see that my actions up to now have been pushing me into a corner, but a safe corner. Self-preservation can be a powerful instinct, at times. There are things about my relationship with Takumi that are easy. It’s easy to live, because I don’t care what he thinks about what I like, or don’t like, because I don’t like him, so his opinion matters little. He takes care of basic things, for what reason I cannot understand, but if this were to stop, I would run. If he really wanted to destroy it, if he did destroy, I would run. I think he knows this. I think he knows why I’m here now. I, myself, am lost, but this body, this life that I’m living, has become so stable it’s laughable. I’m accepting things I should not accept just to avoid arguments, to avoid hostility because I hate confrontation.

On the one hand, I’m afraid to visit a shrink because I think they’ll try to tell me this is love. This is not love. Takumi may be in love with some version of me that I constructed over the years, over whatever he thinks is me, but it’s frustrating to be told that when I try to explain myself, I get the reaction that “You’re not being yourself” or “What happened to the girl I got involved with?”

That girl never existed. I don’t know who she was, but she’s never been me, and I’ve never really been her. She’s a face, a mask, a cardboard cut-out with a smile, a robot.

It may be love, but it’s not love with me.

And I?

There’s a part of me that believes in something larger. I believe it’s fate that you fall in love with someone, but after that, it’s up to you what happens with it. Fate can only take you so far. At that point, it’s up to mutual feelings. And those… are being obstructed by others, and logic.

Even though Nobu and I are almost back where we were at the start, we never meet. It reached a close point, where I updated my status info to say I was somewhere local, that I later found out he was there at around the same time.

But we didn’t meet.

For years, we went to school in the same city, but we never met. Even though I ran into any and everyone else, we didn’t meet.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because we didn’t want to meet. We felt like we couldn’t, or shouldn’t. Those feelings were stronger than anything else, and we were able to avoid each other. It’s sort of amazing, in a reverse coincidence kind of way.

Until both of us have a strong desire to meet, we won’t. Not by chance, not on purpose, not at all.

I wonder why I was able to turn around and see him, then. Sometimes I wonder if that was a form of fate.

I think I’m waiting for our hearts to realign, something that may never happen.

If you were to tell me that you never actually loved me, that it was obsession, or something similar… I’m pretty sure I’d crumble and I don’t know what would happen. That girl might really disappear and never return. She only comes back because of you.

It would make everything into a lie, and my ability to perceive reality would be completely broken.

If it was a lie, then no one has ever really loved me, and it’s not possible for anyone to. That’s what it comes down to. You saw everything, everything, everything.
I did my absolute best to show you who I was, even the things I didn’t want to be true. At the time, my best wasn’t enough, and I slipped back into the pattern. But I tried so hard.

The only person I will always believe is you.

And that’s why I can’t bear to continue to press you for the meaning of what you said that night.
That I “have a strange effect on men.” I asked you once, I asked you bluntly and quickly because I had decided I needed to know. But you didn’t have time to answer. I didn’t want the short version, I didn’t want you to leave anything out because leaving things out causes problems with me. I have to know it all or nothing. Halfway’s just a recipe for disaster.
I tried again, but you never had time. You won’t ever have time.
And now I can’t ask anymore, because I don’t think I can bear to know.

I don’t think you care to explain, I don’t think you care to know it’s still tearing me apart that you said that.

After all, you’re so happy just pretending that everything is fine, that I don’t love you.

I hate that so much.

I’m someone who is driven by her own selfish desires and does whatever the hell she wants without thinking twice most of the time. I want what I want and I won’t stop until I get it. This is me, I know it’s me, there’s no denying it and the evidence is all around.

Nobu says he’s found happiness he needs to protect. If that’s true, if that’s really true, then I won’t let myself destroy it.

And it kills me. It hurts so much I can’t breathe sometimes and it arrives suddenly, like falling backwards off a swing… you don’t see it coming, just the sky, and then the horrible smack as you hit the ground. There isn’t anything you can do until your body readjusts and you can breathe again.
It kills me that I’m not part of it. That it’s not me at the center of his universe anymore. But if he is really happy then I cannot allow myself to destroy that.

Because I love him. I really really love him. I love him enough to step back.
Isn’t that just too terrible?

So don’t tell me I don’t know what love is because I know damn well.

I know.

“The things I wanted to say got all jumbled up as I talked, and my explanation seemed to go on forever. But what I was trying to get across was just this: The me that’s here now has been brought up without any brothers or sisters. If I did have brothers or sisters I wouldn’t be the me I am. So it’s unnatural for the me that’s here before you to think about what it’d be like to have brothers or sisters… In other words, I thought my mother’s question was pointless.”
I’m not an only child, but I’ve entered this line of thinking when people talk about wishing they’d never been born… if you’d never been born, you wouldn’t be anything, what’s the point of that question? It’s much more sensible to wish you were dead from that point onwards. Similarly with the idea of what happens to your body after you die – if you’re dead, there’s nothing of you left, so what does it matter what happens? This passage happens early on, and has little emotional significance to me.

“I loved to read and to listen to music. I’d always liked books and reading, and my interest in these had been fostered by my friendship with Shimamoto. I started to go to the library, devouring every book I could lay my hands on. Once I began a book, I couldn’t put it down. It was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I’d keep the book hidden so I could read during class.”
This is something you should know, but that perfectly describes how I spent my childhood in terms of literature… and all the way through high school.

(talking about his first kiss with Izumi)
“It was a strange feeling. I was no longer alone, yet at the same time I felt a deep loneliness I’d never known before. As with wearing glasses for the first time, my sense of perspective was suddenly transformed. Things far away I could touch, and objects that shouldn’t have been hazy were now crystal clear.
….
I had to find Izumi and talk to her about what had happened between us. I wanted to hear from her lips that her feelings were unchanged. That last thing she’d said was how happy she was, but in the cold light of dawn it seemed more like an illusion I’d dreamed up.”
This one should be fairly familiar to you, so I won’t explain it.

“But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”

“On the bullet train to Tokyo, I gazed listlessly at the scenery outside and thought about myself – who I was. I looked down at my hands on my lap and at my face reflected in the window. Who the hell am I? I wondered. For the first time in my life, a fierce self-hatred welled up in me. How could I have done something like this? But I knew why. Put in the same position, I would do the same thing all over again.
… I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.
College transported me to a new town, where I tried, one more time, to reinvent myself. Becoming someone new, I could correct the errors of my past. At first I was optimistic: I could pull it off. But in the end, no matter where I went, I could never change. Over and over I made the same mistake, hurt other people, and hurt myself in the bargain.
Just after I turned twenty, this thought hit me: Maybe I’ve lost the chance to ever be a decent human being. The mistakes I’d committed – maybe they were part of my very makeup, an inescapable part of my being. I’d hit rock bottom, and I knew it.”

(Shimamoto talking)
“You know, Hajime, I wasn’t at all sure at first whether I should come here I agonized over it for nearly a month. … I was happy I could see you again, even if it was in a photograph. But I wasn’t sure if meeting you in person was a good idea. Maybe it was better for both of us if we didn’t. Maybe it was enough knowing you were happy and doing well. … But since I knew where you were, it seemed like a waste not to at least come see you once, so here I am. … If he doesn’t notice me, I thought, maybe I’ll just leave without saying anything. But I couldn’t stand it. It brought back so many memories, and I had to say hello.”

“‘I’ve messed up your life. I know I have,’ Shimamoto said in a small voice.”

“But since Shimamoto had stopped coming to see me, I was stuck on the airless surface of the moon. If she was gone forever, no one remained to whom I could reveal my true feelings.”

“I was struck by a violent desire to confess everything. What a relief that would be! No more hiding, no more need to playact or to lie. … But I didn’t say anything. Confession would serve no purpose. It would only make us miserable.”

(Hajime talking)
“after you left, I thought about you for a long time. Every day for six months, from morning to night. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. And I came to this conclusion. I can’t make it without you. I don’t ever want to lose you again. I don’t want to hear the words for a while anymore. Or probably. … You might never be back, and I might spend the rest of my life never seeing you again. And I couldn’t stand that. Life would be meaningless.”

(Hajime again)
“I’ve known ever since I met you again that something is missing. The important question is what is missing. Something’s lacking. In me and my life. And that part of me is always hungry, always thirsting. Neither my wife nor my children can fill that gap. In the whole world, there’s only one person who can do that. You. Only now, when that thirst is satisfied, do I realize how empty I was. And how I’ve been hungering, thirsting, for so many years. I can’t go back to that kind of world.”

(Shimamoto)
“And that’s the reason why I didn’t want to see you again. If I saw you once, I knew I couldn’t stand it anymore. But I couldn’t keep myself away. At first I thought I’d just make sure it was really you, then head home. But once I saw you, I had to talk to you.”

(Shimamoto, in Hajime’s imagination)
“I really shouldn’t have gone to see you. I knew that from the beginning. I could predict that it would turn out like this. But I couldn’t stand not to. I just had to see you, and when I did, I had to speak with you. Hajime- that’s me. I don’t plan to, but everything I touch gets ruined in the end.”

I feel like most of the quotes are pretty self-explanatory…
I’d say you could ask me any questions you like about this, Nobu, but you will likely never read it.
I miss being able to just ask you whatever I wanted to know without restraint.
I have at least two dozen questions off the top of my head I’d like answered.
But I can’t. I hate how impossible that’s become.
Maybe that pain and frustration will finally get me to separate myself from you.
I don’t want to, but I’m not sure there’s another option.
Without a change, we can’t get closer.
Only further away.

I can’t act without knowing the reason why, without understanding the context. I won’t just do things because you say I’m supposed to, because anyone says I’m supposed to.
No motivation means no action.
This fact never seems to sink into your brain.

We can’t communicate because our brains are wired so differently even when we think things have been understood it later becomes clear that nothing was. You don’t care to cater to me, and I don’t care to cater to you.
We can’t compromise because we don’t want to.
It’s not just me.

It’s like a slow-motion implosion – I can see everything falling apart around me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, but it’s never over.
Just keeps falling.

I have thoughts that you’ll disappear to see someone, and I think, good. Get some time away. Get some perspective. Remember what it’s like to really feel for someone.

But you won’t do that, will you?

I don’t care that you’re going away, and I’m going to enjoy it. (This place will get clean again, I bet.)
But I don’t like not knowing when you’re going to come back. I need to plan, I need to know so I can enjoy it properly.

I wouldn’t care if you had an affair. I say that in all sincerity. If you’ve ever thought about having one to hurt me, you’ve probably rejected it because you know it won’t move me.
I know I’m supposed to care. But my heart isn’t in it, isn’t in any of this.

Once, I would have impulsively, frantically, passionately, married for love. I was driven crazy by that idea, something I should technically be able to do according to laws, but that wasn’t a good idea because bureaucracy screws everything up.
And so, marriage became about bureaucracy.
I don’t think getting married then would have been the best choice, but if it was only a declaration of love, of commitment… leave all the insurance and money out of it… I….
Do you know that? I can’t remember if I told you how seriously we really thought about it. Even if I did, you probably shut it out. Even if I’d wanted to talk about him to you I couldn’t because you told me not to. So, I didn’t.

Did you know you couldn’t compare?
No, I don’t think you knew me that well.

Why don’t you want to lose me? What is there for you to gain?
If I’m giving you something you want, something you need, then I don’t want to take it away just because it’s hard for me.
It’ll be hard for me, either way.

I don’t want to attach meaning to things that have none, or little.
But I can’t just let things pass me by.
I overanalyze. You know what I’m like.

I want to stop being confused for just a little while longer than I’ve managed so far.

In those moments I feel like I could walk away with my sanity intact, I feel free.
But then you speak to me, and I just want to hold on again.

I hate how my heart leaps when you complain about her, when you say things have gone badly.
I know why it happens, because only the condition of “you’re happy” exists. You didn’t say you don’t love me. You didn’t say you don’t feel the same. Why? Is it because it’s not true, or because you didn’t want to be cruel?
God, even when I think things have been said straightforwardly there’s still loose ends.
You said you were looking to move out. Well, at least it’s not move away. But I didn’t have the courage to ask you, alone or not.
I’ll find out eventually, anyway.

It should bother me that you say things like you know me so well. That I’m so transparent to you.
It doesn’t, it doesn’t bother me at all.
I can’t get indignant, and say, how could you? All this time, how could I be so the same?
But I am… I’m always the same. Do you hate that? Do you like it? Is it comforting, nostalgic? Sickening? Pitiful?
I want to pry open your heart and read the insides. No, not your head. I know what your head is full of: logic.

I’m trying to hold back, I’m trying to keep myself level. I say things like, being friends is enough, and whatever happens, happens. But you follow me into sleep, you follow me into my dreams and say confusing things. I sing to you in my dreams.
I sing to you in my waking dreams, my life.
I sing to you, always.