Journey Under the Midnight Sun

by Keigo Higashino

  Makoto raised an eyebrow. He’d never seen her in anything other than high heels. In fact, this was the first time he’d seen her in something other than a dress or skirt. He commented on it and she gave him an exasperated look. ‘On moving day? How am I supposed to help in a skirt?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said his mother from inside. She came to the door, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows. She was smiling. ‘Hello, Yukiho.’

  ‘Hello.’ Yukiho gave a little bow of her head.

  ‘I apologise on behalf of my son. He’s never had to clean his own room, and I’m afraid it’s left him a little clueless about exactly how much work it is. I’m sorry the burden will probably fall on you, Yukiho. I hope you’re ready!’

  ‘Oh, I’m ready.’

  The two women went into the living room and began setting up a base of operations. Makoto listened to them chat for a bit, then went back over to the bay window and looked down at the road outside. The truck from the furniture store should be there any moment now. The people from the appliance shop would follow an hour later.

  This is it, Makoto thought. In two weeks, he’d be the head of a household. It hadn’t really hit him until now, and he was surprised to find that he was a little nervous.

  In the room behind him, Yukiho was on her knees in an apron, wiping the tatami mats. Even in work clothes, she was a beauty.

  Four years, he thought. That was how long they’d been dating. They’d met in the college dance club: he a senior at Eimei University and she a new recruit from their sister school, Seika Girls College.

  Of all the recruits that year, Yukiho had shone the brightest. With her face and proportions she would have been perfectly at home on the cover of a fashion magazine. The first time he laid eyes on her she stole his heart, though Makoto was only one of several boys with a thing for her. Though he wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, he had been reluctant to ask her out. She’d already turned down several of the other guys in the club, and he didn’t want to suffer the same fate.

  He might never have got up the courage if Yukiho hadn’t come to him for help with her dancing – she was having trouble getting a certain step right. So it happened that he found himself with the perfect excuse to steal away time with the object of everyone’s desire.

  It was not long after they started practising together that he began to think Yukiho might be interested in him, too. So one day he decided to ask her out for a date.

  Yukiho had stared at him for a long time before saying, ‘Where did you have in mind?’

  Resisting the urge to start dancing, he had said, ‘Wherever you like.’

  They had gone out for dinner and a musical, and he saw her home afterwards. They had been dating now for four years.

  And yet they might never have gone out in the first place if she hadn’t asked him to teach her that step, Makoto thought. If it had been another girl who’d asked him for help, he could be marrying her in two weeks’ time. There had been plenty of girls who’d caught his eye back in those days. Even Yukiho’s friend Eriko had left enough of an impression on him that he still remembered her name, although he hadn’t seen her since she quit halfway through her first year.

  Fate is a curious thing, he thought.

  ‘So why’d you ring the intercom?’ Makoto asked Yukiho as she was wiping down the kitchen counter.

  ‘I didn’t want to just barge in,’ she replied, her hands never stopping their work.

  ‘Why not? That’s why I gave you a key.’

  ‘But we’re not married yet.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone’s keeping track of that.’

  ‘Yes, but if we didn’t observe these rules the occasion wouldn’t be so special,’ his mother chimed in with a smile at the bride-to-be.

  Yukiho smiled back at the woman who would become her mother-in-law in two weeks’ time. Makoto sighed and looked back out of the window. His mother had liked Yukiho from the first time they met. It was another thread binding him together with Yukiho, he thought. All he had to do was follow these threads, and things would go well.

  And yet another woman’s face was stuck in the back of his mind, where his bride’s should have been. He wasn’t thinking of her on purpose. In fact, he tried to forget her, but when he closed his eyes, there she was.

  Makoto rubbed his temples and frowned when he heard a noise from the street outside.

  The furniture had arrived.

  At seven o’clock the following evening, Makoto was sitting at a café in Shinjuku Station.

  At the next table over, two men were talking loudly in Osaka accents about baseball. The subject, of course, was the Hanshin Tigers and their unexpected transformation from a long period of being also-rans to contenders for this year’s title. Everyone in the western half of the country was excited. At Tozai, one of the section leads – apparently a closet Tigers supporter until now – had established a company fan club and was taking people out for celebratory drinks nearly every night after work. Makoto, himself a Giants fan through-and-through, sighed inwardly, realising that this commotion probably wouldn’t end any time soon.

  Yet it was nice hearing Osaka accents again. After attending college in the city, he’d spent four years living by himself in an apartment in Senri, a suburb to the north of Osaka proper.

  He’d just taken his second sip of coffee when the man he was waiting for appeared. He was decked out in a perfectly tailored grey suit: the quintessential businessman.

  ‘How does it feel to be saying goodbye to bachelor life?’ Kazunari Shinozuka asked, sitting down across from him. He ordered an espresso.

  ‘Sorry to call you out here like this,’ Makoto said.

  ‘No skin off my nose. Mondays are pretty light for me,’ he said, crossing his long legs.

  The students who took ballroom dancing tended to come from respectable families. Kazunari’s family was in charge of a large pharmaceuticals company. His family home was in Kobe, but he had come up to Tokyo to work in the family company’s local branch.

  ‘I’m guessing you’re busier than I am,’ Kazunari said.

  ‘I guess. We just got our furniture and appliances delivered yesterday. I’m going to start sleeping there alone tonight.’

  ‘Ah, the nest is nearly complete! Now all you need is a bride.’

  ‘Her stuff arrives next Saturday.’

  ‘Well, congratulations,’ Kazunari said with a bright smile, ‘it’s finally happening.’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Makoto. He looked away and took another sip of coffee.

  ‘So what did you want to talk about? You sounded pretty serious on the phone yesterday. I got a little worried.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

  ‘So what’s so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone? Having second thoughts about leaving the good bachelor life behind already?’ Kazunari laughed.

  He’d meant it as a joke, but Makoto couldn’t smile. In a sense, Kazunari was right on the money.

  Kazunari frowned and leaned forward. ‘Hey, now.’

  Just then, the waitress arrived with his espresso. He sat back in his chair, but his eyes were still fixed on Makoto.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ He asked once she’d left again. He hadn’t even looked at his coffee.

  ‘Unfortunately, no.’ Makoto crossed his arms, returning his friend’s look.

  Kazunari’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open a little. His eyes went around the café before looking back at Makoto. ‘It’s a little late to change your mind, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I just worry I’m not ready.’

  Kazunar’s expression froze. Then he slowly began to nod. ‘Don’t worry. I hear most guys feel like running when the day gets close and the responsibility really settles in. You’re not alone.’

  Makoto shook his head. ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Then what?’ Kazunari asked, and Makoto couldn’t meet his gaze this time.

  He was afraid his friend would laugh if he told
him the truth. And yet, if he couldn’t tell Kazunari, who could he tell? Makoto took a sip of water. ‘There’s someone else,’ he said.

  Kazunari didn’t respond for a while. Nor did his expression change.

  Makoto was about to repeat himself, when Kazunari asked, ‘Who?’ There was a hard look to his eyes.

  ‘Someone at work… for now.’

  ‘What do you mean “for now”?’ Kazunari asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  Makoto explained about Chizuru Misawa.

  ‘And you’ve only seen her at work, never in private?’ Kazunari asked once Makoto had finished.

  ‘Of course. I can’t exactly ask her out on a date.’

  ‘No, you can’t. Which raises the question, how do you know how she feels about you?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well then,’ Kazunari said, a light smile coming to his lips, ‘I advise you to forget about her. To me, it sounds like nerves.’

  Makoto smiled at that. ‘I figured you’d say that. In fact, if I were in your place, I’d tell me the same thing.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ Kazunari said. ‘I know you already know what this is. And I don’t mean to make light of your feelings. You were right to come to me.’

  ‘I understand that I’m being an idiot, yes.’

  Kazunari took a sip of his espresso.

  ‘So when did this start?’ he asked.

  ‘When did what start, exactly?’

  ‘When did you start having feelings for her?’

  ‘Oh.’ Makoto thought for a moment before replying, ‘Around April of this year, I guess. Which would be the moment I first saw her.’

  ‘That’s already half a year ago, then. Why didn’t you do something about it earlier?’ There was a hint of irritation in Kazunari’s voice.

  ‘Do what, exactly? The wedding was already planned. And more than that, I didn’t trust my own feelings. Like you said, I thought it was just a fleeting thing. I told myself I needed to get rid of it, quick.’

  ‘But you couldn’t, and here we are,’ Kazunari said with a sigh. He scratched his head. His hair had a slight curl to it back in the student days, when it was longer, but now it was cut short. ‘This is quite the bomb to drop two weeks before the big day.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. There was no one else I could talk to.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Kazunari, but his frown remained unchanged. ‘As a practical matter, we still don’t know how this woman feels, do we. About you, I mean.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘In which case, and this may be a strange thing to say, but the only problem here is how you feel.’

  ‘Exactly. And how I feel is, I’m not sure it’s right to get married feeling like this. I just can’t picture even going to the ceremony.’

  ‘I hear you.’ Kazunari sighed again. ‘What about Yukiho? How do you feel about her? You cooling off?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. I mean I still feel the same —’

  ‘The same less-than-a-hundred-per-cent, then?’

  In lieu of responding, Makoto drained his glass of water.

  ‘I don’t want to say anything too outrageous, but your instincts are probably right. I can’t see how it would be best for either of you if you got married feeling the way you do now.’

  ‘So what would you do in my position?’ Makoto asked.

  ‘Avoid all women for at least a year before marriage.’

  Makoto laughed quietly. He might have laughed louder at his friend’s dry sense of humour if the truth in what he said hadn’t been such a hard pill to swallow.

  ‘And yet, if my attentions did stray to another woman before I tied the knot…’ Kazunari let his eyes wander up towards the ceiling before he returned his gaze to Makoto. ‘I would call it off.’

  ‘Even two weeks before the wedding?’

  ‘Even on the day before.’

  Makoto was silenced by the weight of what Kazunari was saying.

  But his friend grinned. ‘Which I can only say because it’s not me in the hot seat. I know it’s not that easy. And there is the matter of exactly how strongly you feel about this other girl.’

  Makoto nodded slowly. ‘Thanks, I think I get you.’

  ‘Everyone plays by their own rules,’ Kazunari said. ‘You come to your own decision. I won’t second-guess you either way.’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I know.’

  Kazunari laughed. ‘You might want to make your mind up soon.’

  The hand-drawn map led them to a spot right next to the Isetan department store in Shinjuku. There was a sign for a bar – the kind of place that had been there for decades – on the third floor.

  ‘I suppose we should be grateful they’re doing this, but they could’ve picked a trendier place,’ Akemi said, as they got on the elevator.

  ‘That’s what you get for letting a bunch of balding engineers throw you a party,’ said Chizuru.

  ‘I guess,’ Akemi said, frowning.

  The bar door slid open automatically as they approached, letting a blast of noise out into the hall. It was still before seven, and yet the place was already overflowing with drunken revellers. A salaryman type was sitting just inside the door, his necktie hanging loose down his chest.

  A voice from the back of the bar called to them. There were already a few tables full of familiar faces from the Patent Licensing Division, many of them already flushed with alcohol.

  ‘Remember: this is our party,’ Akemi whispered in Chizuru’s ear. ‘If they make us pour their beer for them, I’m kicking over the table and going home.’

  Chizuru laughed, but she didn’t think that was how it was going to play out today. She had already spotted Makoto Takamiya at one of the tables.

  There were the standard greetings and a toast. All part of the job, Chizuru thought, putting on her best smile. Part of her mind was already projecting forward to the end of the party. She knew from prior experience that even men who would never dream of coming on strong to a woman who worked at their own company acted differently towards temp workers – after all, they wouldn’t be around to cause any aftermath – and there were no women at the table today to keep things in line.

  Makoto was sitting across and a little way down from them. He was already eating and had a glass of beer in front of him. Never the talkative sort, today he seemed to be in full listening mode.

  Still, Chizuru kept sensing his eyes on her throughout the night. She thought she caught him looking away once or twice, but then again, maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

  You’re being too self-conscious, Chizuru told herself.

  Gradually the conversation came around to Akemi’s upcoming marriage.

  ‘I don’t know about having a kid at a time like this, with all that’s going on. That said, if I have a boy, I’m naming him Tiger after the Hanshin Tigers,’ Akemi said after she’d had a few drinks, making everyone laugh.

  ‘Isn’t Mr Takamiya getting married too?’ Chizuru said, trying to make her voice sound as natural as possible.