“I completely understand about Kusatsu Academy. But I have to say that I find the idea of featuring a photo on the front page of the winners of the youth baseball tournament tossing their coach in the air way too insensitive. Especially as the dead man from Gunma was the father of one of the Koshien players.”
The Firecracker shot back immediately, “You could also see it in the exact opposite way. The boy’s father loved baseball. Perhaps the boy would be happy to see the photo. It’d be a nod to his father’s memory. That’s the way we have to think. The point is, there are many ways to see the same thing.”
“But—”
“It’s Chairman Shirakawa who ordered us to put the baseball on the front page,” Oimura snapped, apparently losing patience with Yuuki. “NKT owes its circulation numbers to printing as many people’s names as possible in relation to sports and accidents. Long ago, it didn’t matter how small the event, we always printed the results and the names of the participants. If kids’ names appear in a newspaper, then the parents buy it. That’s how we built up our readership. That’s the legacy built by our chairman. Circulation was at a mere fifty thousand copies when he started out at NKT. Don’t trample all over that.”
Yuuki was doing the calculations. Four articles and two photos. It wouldn’t take up too much space. He wouldn’t have to give up the top spot. Or, to look at it another way, by agreeing to publish those four articles, he would be completely free to use the rest of the front page however he liked. He could be as lavish with the crash piece as he wanted. In the end, it wasn’t that bad a deal. He nodded his acceptance.
Kasuya looked relieved. It seemed the Conciliator would not be required on this occasion.
“Well, that’s decided, then. To tell the truth, I agree with Oimura, too. The crash coverage is all well and good, and it still deserves our focus, but we should return to some extent to regular North Kanto Times coverage. The JAL crash won’t last forever, and we should think about our future. We need to leave something for future generations to work on. So, are we done?”
Yuuki hesitated for a moment, then raised his hand slightly.
“Sir, I’d like to say something.”
“What?”
“Today I called in on the Book Publishing Division.”
He’d agreed to Oimura’s demands, and the meeting had ended peacefully. Now would be his only chance to bring up the topic of the book.
“The Book Publishing Division? What were you doing there?”
“I went to sound them out about the possibility of putting out a book on the JAL crash.”
Oimura wasn’t the only one to pull a face. Kasuya also looked openly concerned. Yuuki knew why. The company had never published a book about the Okubo/Red Army cases. Yuuki had a hazy recollection that Kasuya and Oimura had negotiated with the publishing arm. Moro, who was already heading up the division back then, must have turned them down. So the cases that had been their personal gold medals, Okubo and the Red Army, never got put into book form. Putting together a book about the JAL crash, a case that had suddenly come out of nowhere, was not going to do anything to save their honor. Put another way, it had no emotional appeal for them. Just from looking at their faces he could read their warped way of thinking.
“You really like to blow your own trumpet, don’t you, Yuuki?” said Oimura snidely.
Yuuki didn’t respond. He snuck a glance at Todoroki. He had no expression. Or at least it seemed that way.
Ever since he and Todoroki had almost come to blows over whether he’d killed Sayama and Hanazawa’s eyewitness story, it was as if Todoroki no longer had to express his dislike of Yuuki so strongly. Yuuki suspected that Todoroki, ever since he’d destroyed the young reporters’ opportunity for recognition, had been feeling pangs of guilt. Or perhaps at last he’d been moved by the sheer scale of the accident and decided it was finally time to let go of the Okubo/Red Army era.
“So, what did old Moro have to say?” asked Kasuya, without any genuine interest.
“Well, he—”
But Yuuki was interrupted by a light knock at the door and the entrance of Chizuko Yorita. She came over to Yuuki and, after handing him a message, bent down to whisper in his ear.
“This person is here to meet you.”
Yuuki wondered why she didn’t say the visitor’s name. Puzzled, he checked the name on the note.
Ayako Mochizuki—it felt like a slap on the cheek. Cousin of the late Ryota Mochizuki. He suddenly remembered. She’d called the office the day before yesterday. He’d called back the number with the Takasaki City area code, but she hadn’t been home. He’d left a message on the answering machine that he’d call back again, but it had slipped his mind.
That was right around the time that the possible bulkhead scoop had suddenly surfaced. He’d been completely distracted.
“What’s up?”
Kasuya was watching him curiously.
“Oh, nothing.”
He had no desire to say this name aloud in present company.
“Do you have a visitor?”
Kasuya looked at both Yuuki and Chizuko expectantly.
“It’s an acquaintance.”
The lie popped out. Yuuki turned to Chizuko.
“Please show her to the visitors’ reception area. I’ll see her as soon as the meeting’s finished.”
“Yes.”
“Actually…”
Chizuko stopped and turned back.
“On second thought, please show her to the basement cafeteria. And get her something to drink.”
Chizuko nodded, a knowing expression on her face, and left the room.
“So, can we go on?”
Yuuki nodded, and Kasuya got straight back on topic.
“So what did Moro say?”
“He questioned whether anyone was likely to buy a book like that and then completely shot me down.”
Kasuya and Oimura nodded, as if they would have expected no other outcome. The look on their faces was a peculiar mixture of hate for Moro and relief that Yuuki had been rejected. Todoroki let out a long, silent exhalation. So he’d felt the same way as the other two after all.
Yuuki took a deep breath.
“I strongly believe that NKT should leave a proper record. A plane crashed here in Gunma, a prefecture without any flight paths. I admit that it does have some aspects of an inherited accident, but it remains true that the world’s biggest air disaster happened right here in our prefecture. It’d be shameful for a newspaper company to just let this opportunity slip by. Simply for the sake of a local newspaper’s pride, we should print a few copies, if only that. We have to do it.”
There was very little reaction from the three managers. Kasuya and Oimura in particular looked as if Yuuki’s whole speech had washed right over them.
To be honest, Yuuki was distracted, too. Ryota Mochizuki’s death had been, to all intents and purposes, a suicide. There was no call to get sentimental. For the past five years his mind had been working hard to convince him of this. But now the appearance of Ayako Mochizuki threatened to upset the balance between his mind and heart. He was gripped by a sense of unease.
47
It was about twenty minutes later that he eventually made it down to the basement.
He sped up involuntarily. His were the only footsteps echoing in the deserted corridor. He got to the cafeteria and saw a young woman in a white T-shirt sitting by the wall with the high windows.
They recognized each other right away. They’d met only six days earlier, at the Takasaki City crematorium. As before, she was glaring at Yuuki as he approached. Or at least that was how it seemed to him.
There was nobody else in the cafeteria. Even the dishwashing area was silent. The staff must be on their break.
Ayako stood up as Yuuki approached, and bowed very properly. Backlit by the window, her T-shirt and brownish hair were surrounded by a halo of pale light.
Yuuki sat down opposite, and Ayako introduced herself briefly. As he’d sus
pected, she was Ryota Mochizuki’s cousin; the only daughter of Ryota’s father’s younger brother. She was twenty years old, a second-year student at Gunma Prefectural University. Her face was still that of a child, but Yuuki could see both strength and intelligence in her eyes. Once he knew for sure who she was, he felt very unsettled. He found her expression impossible to read.
“First of all, I owe you an apology. I promised to call you back, but I didn’t.”
“I expect you were very busy,” she replied, with the hint of a smile. There was no sarcasm or criticism in her tone but there was something else there, as if she had put a lot of thought into how to respond.
“Every day I read the articles about the Japan Airlines crash. I’m taking media studies and the history of journalism at university.”
Yuuki squinted at Ayako.
“And so what is it you wanted to meet with me about?”
Ayako held Yuuki’s gaze.
“I’ve been given a far more valuable experience than anything I could learn at university.”
There was nothing to do but wait for her next words.
“These past two days I’ve been waiting for your phone call. But it never came.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“I know. You were busy.”
“Yes.”
“People’s lives. There are big lives and little lives, aren’t there?”
Yuuki swallowed. His mind went around in circles. But Ayako’s words brought an ache that began to spread inside him.
“Heavy lives and lightweight lives; important lives, and lives that are … not. Those people who died in the JAL crash—their lives were extremely important to everyone in the mass media. I’ve learned that recently.”
Yuuki couldn’t think how to respond.
“I lost my father eight years ago in a traffic accident. Thanks to a scholarship, I was able to graduate from high school, and now I get a grant to attend university. I wasn’t lonely. Ryo-chan’s mom and dad have been really kind to me. And Ryo-chan was just like an older brother.”
The ice in Ayako’s cold coffee had completely melted. Yuuki noticed now that she hadn’t even taken the straw out of its paper wrapper.
“My father was a plasterer. He was a really gentle man. I can’t tell you how much I wish he hadn’t died. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing, but he was hit by a speeding motorbike.”
She put both hands to her chest and took some deep breaths, as if trying to stop the tears from coming.
“He was in critical condition. There was a small article in the newspaper. After I started at university, I looked it up in the library. It was what you call a ‘below-the-fold’ piece, wasn’t it? Right at the bottom of the local news page, twelve lines of print.”
She paused. Yuuki didn’t say anything.
“He died three days later. But no one wrote about his death. If you die more than twenty-four hours after an accident, the police don’t count it as a traffic death. And so my father’s death was never included in the official statistics.”
Ayako looked searchingly into Yuuki’s eyes.
“Newspaper journalists forget, don’t they? My father wasn’t anybody famous. It didn’t matter to anyone if he departed from this world. His life was little, lightweight and unimportant. That’s why, once they’d taken him to the hospital in serious condition, the reporter forgot all about him.”
Ayako pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. She breathed in deeply, then let it out again with force. When she’d regained control, she raised her reddened eyes and nose to look again at Yuuki.
“And Ryo-chan. You forgot him, too, didn’t you? Right away. When I came up to the Editorial Department, everyone was there laughing and joking away. Once the article had been printed, that was it. Over. He worked with you all, at the same company, in the same newsroom, but none of you ever thinks about Ryo-chan anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
It wasn’t self-justification. It was for Ayako’s sake that he said it.
“Everybody remembers him.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not saying that we all remember him all the time. But we do remember. It’s true.”
His chest contracted. He recalled the phrase used by Sayama: “desertion in the line of duty.” Thanks to the dishonor that had been brought to Mochizuki’s name, Yuuki had survived at the newspaper.
Ayako clenched her jaw.
“You’re the one who caused Ryo-chan’s death, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” said Yuuki, looking Ayako straight in the eyes.
“So—” Ayako managed to look challengingly at Yuuki through her tears. “I want you to make sure that you never forget him.”
Yuuki nodded.
“I want you always to think of Ryo-chan’s name.”
Yuuki bowed his head, more deeply this time. He felt as if his heart was being squeezed to its limit.
“I always remember him. Every fifteenth of the month since it happened.”
Ayako’s voice seemed to catch on her shaking lips.
“Is it wrong to love a cousin so much?”
For a while, neither spoke. After what felt like minutes had passed, Ayako got up.
“When I called you the other day, it was because my aunt had asked me to. She wanted me to tell you not to come and pay your respects anymore.”
Yuuki also stood up.
“I understand. Please let her know that I won’t go again.”
“And one more thing—”
Ayako reached into a plastic bag and pulled out two pages of A4 writing paper, folded in half, and handed them to Yuuki.
“This is what I think about little lives. I want you to run it on the Heartfelt page. I wrote in before, but it must have been rejected.”
“I see. I promise we’ll publish this one.”
“Thank you.”
Once again, Ayako made a proper bow, then made her way out of the cafeteria. Yuuki listened to her footsteps fading away gradually until they could no longer be heard. Suddenly he was overcome with exhaustion. He sank back into his chair. His body seemed to be made of lead.
Twenty years old. A young woman half Yuuki’s age who already understood so clearly the true nature of the media.
The weight of a life.
The media might pretend that every life was of equal importance, but they selected people, graded them, decided whether their lives were—as Ayako put it—“heavy” or “lightweight,” then imposed that set of values on society.
The death of a famous person. And the death of someone who wasn’t.
A tragic death. And one that wasn’t.
The face of an old woman came into his head—the woman he’d seen that day at the prefectural hospital on his way to visit Anzai. He remembered how she’d been watching the news on the big-screen TV in the lobby, and they’d been showing footage from the Fujioka Municipal Sports Center. It was when they’d showed a young woman, a handkerchief pressed to her eyes, being supported by a police officer. The elderly woman sitting on the end of the couch had muttered something.
“I wish someone would weep for me like that.”
She’d envied those people—the ones who had died in the plane crash—because she had no one who would grieve for her when she was gone. The old woman understood.
All those faceless people in that hospital waiting room.
Yuuki managed to summon up an image of Ryota Mochizuki’s face.
A little life … A lightweight life …
No! A life was never little or lightweight. But—
Yuuki deliberately cut himself off mid-thought. He checked his watch. It was already beyond half past three. He forced himself to his feet and stretched out his back.
No matter what happened, he was not going to run away from the Japan Airlines plane crash.
He left the cafeteria and, as he made his way back along the corridor, unfolded Ayako Mochizuki’s letter and be
gan to read. Its contents brought his feet to a stop. He could feel the blood draining from his cheeks.
The letter was almost word for word exactly what Ayako had just said to him back there in the cafeteria. But then there were the last four lines, which shook him to the core.
To all those who didn’t cry at the deaths of my father and my cousin: I won’t cry for you either. Not even for you who lost your lives in the world’s greatest, most heartbreaking accident—I have no tears.
48
“Maebashi, ninety-six degrees!”
It had turned five o’clock, but the temperature in the newsroom was still rising. Yuuki was at his desk, correcting drafts.
Voice recorder: captain was calm
Bulkhead was badly warped
Number of identified victims reaches 342
From behind him, he heard Sayama’s and Hanazawa’s voices.
“Yuuki-san?”
He didn’t turn around.
“Yuuki-san, can we have a word?”
He ignored them, so they walked around and peered at his face.
“Hey, Yuuki-san?”
“What?”
He looked at them so sternly that they both gulped.
“Ah, we just wanted to thank you for yesterday.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you. Thank you so much for dealing with the … er, situation.”
“I said it’s fine!”
The two reporters looked at each other and stepped quickly away.
Yuuki massaged his temples with his thumbs. His skull hurt from the ringing in his ears. It was his mother’s voice, singing.
Little things don’t scare me, big things can’t be fixed
Little things don’t scare me, big things can’t be fixed
Little things don’t scare me
Little things don’t scare me
His least favorite lullaby ever.
Yuuki put his hand in his pocket. He could feel a scrap of paper in there.
At first he’d thought it must have been revenge on him. And that would have been fine. If that had been the case, he could have just crumpled the paper up and thrown it away.
Seventeen Page 32