Masaharu smiled and glanced down at his watch, muttering to himself about having some time to kill.
‘Oh, you’re not waiting out there,’ Reiko said. ‘Please, come in. I’ll get you something cool to drink.’
She invited him into the living room on the first floor. The room had originally been a traditional Japanese-style room, with tatami mats, but with the addition of a few pieces of rattan furniture Mrs Karasawa had converted it to a Western-style sitting room. Masaharu had been in here once, six months ago, and never again since.
His introduction to the Karasawas had come via his mother, who was one of Reiko’s tea ceremony students. Reiko’s daughter, Yukiho, a junior in high school, was looking for a maths tutor, and Masaharu, an engineering undergrad with a strong math background, was looking for extra income after his last student passed his college entrance exams. The timing was perfect, and the money was nice – though Masaharu soon found that just the chance to be close to Yukiho was enticement enough.
Reiko brought him some barley tea in a glass cup – another relief. The last time he’d been invited to the sitting room she’d made him green tea in a traditional bowl and he’d sweated buckets, having absolutely no idea of the proper way to drink it.
He picked up the glass. His throat was parched, and the cool tea felt good going down.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Reiko apologised again as she sat down across from him. ‘I don’t see why she can’t just leave early.’
‘Oh no, it’s fine, really. I think it’s important for students to spend time with their friends, especially in high school.’ Masaharu hoped the sentiment sounded appropriately grown-up.
Yukiho Karasawa attended the Seika Girls High School, which put her on the fast track to attend the attached Seika Girls College. If she could maintain a good GPA, she’d be able to matriculate with only an interview. Depending on which department she wanted to get into, however, admissions could be tough. Her choice, English Lit, was one of the most competitive, so in order to ensure she got in she had to be at the top of her class in every subject. She had accomplished this in everything but maths.
‘Looking back on it, I really feel we made the right choice getting her into Seika,’ Reiko said. ‘That way she can actually enjoy her senior year instead of struggling through those horrible exams they have to take in public school.’ She picked up her own barley tea with both hands.
‘Absolutely,’ Masaharu agreed. He felt that the exam regimen was needlessly brutal, and often shared his feelings with the parents of those he’d tutored before. ‘I think that’s why a lot more parents are taking the private school option, even as early as elementary school.’
‘As well they should. I’ve advised my nieces and nephews to do the same. Even if they have to test to get into a school, better to get through that early, I say.’
Masaharu nodded, then a thought occurred to him. ‘Yukiho didn’t switch over to private until middle school, did she.’
Reiko was quiet for a moment, a contemplative look in her eyes. The moment stretched until Masaharu began to worry he might have touched on a sore subject. Finally she looked up at him and said, ‘If I’d been there when she was still in pre-school, I might have advised her mother to consider it earlier, but of course I didn’t even meet the child until she was in second grade or so. Not that she was really in a financial situation to attend a private school in those days.’
Masaharu had heard that Yukiho was not Reiko Karasawa’s natural daughter when he first took the tutoring job. Yet the subject of her real mother and Yukiho’s adoption hadn’t ever come up. He now found he was curious to learn more.
Reiko must have sensed this because she said, ‘Yukiho’s real father was my cousin. He died in an accident when she was very little, and her mother had trouble making ends meet. She was working at least two jobs and I think it was very challenging for her to raise a child at the same time.’
‘What happened to her mother?’ Masaharu asked, and immediately regretted it.
A dark cloud had come over Reiko’s face. ‘She died in an accident, too,’ the older woman said quietly. ‘Yukiho was in sixth grade at the time. Yes, it was in May, as I recall.’
‘A traffic accident?’
‘No.’ Reiko shook her head. ‘Gas poisoning.’
‘Gas?’
‘She put a pot on the stove and fell asleep. Apparently, the flame blew out, and she succumbed without ever waking. I think… she must’ve been very tired in those days.’ Her thin eyebrows drew together in sorrow.
Masaharu had heard of similar stories, though a switch in recent years to natural gas had dramatically reduced the chances of carbon monoxide poisoning.
‘I just wish it hadn’t been Yukiho who found her. To think of the shock that poor girl must have had.’ She shook her head, a pained expression on her face. ‘It was a tragedy.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. He realised he had probably already asked more than he should on the subject, but found that hearing the story had only piqued his curiosity. He debated letting the conversation die, but with Yukiho out of the house, this might be his only chance. Taking a sip of his tea, he quickly asked, ‘Was she alone when she found her?’
‘No,’ Reiko said, without looking up at him. ‘The door had been locked, so she had to go get the real estate agent to open it for her. They went in together.’
That must have been an unlucky day for him, too, Masaharu thought, imagining the man’s shock at finding the body, and realising the girl he was with was now an orphan.
‘I can’t imagine losing all of my family to accidents,’ he said.
‘None of us can, which is probably for the best. I went to the funeral and Yukiho was there, clinging to the coffin as though she could stop her mother from leaving, the poor girl. I’ve never heard her cry so loudly since.’ Reiko’s eyes closed as her thoughts went back to that day. ‘When I saw her there, I knew I had to do something.’
‘Is that when you decided to adopt her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she have no other relatives?’
‘To tell the truth, I never spoke much to her mother, and was never that close to her family. But I saw Yukiho many times before her mother died. She would come by herself to visit me here.’
Masaharu wondered why Yukiho would go by herself to a relative’s house, especially one who wasn’t close to her mother. He was about to ask,when Reiko told him she’d first met the girl at an observance for her late father.
‘We only spoke briefly, but when she heard I was teaching the tea ceremony she seemed very interested. She asked so many questions that I invited her to come visit some time and see for herself. I think it was only a few weeks later that she actually came, much to my surprise. I hadn’t been entirely serious in inviting her, you see. It’s not many young girls who want to learn the tea ceremony. But she seemed genuinely interested and I thought I could use the company, living alone as I was, so I began teaching her, half for fun at first, you understand. She started coming every week, on the bus, all by herself. She would drink my tea and tell me about things that happened at school. In time, I came to look forward very much to her visits and missed her on the weeks she couldn’t make it.’
‘So she’s been learning the tea ceremony since elementary school?’
‘That’s right. It wasn’t long afterwards that she showed an interest in flower arrangement, too. She was watching me put together a vase and would occasionally help out with a flower or two. She even wanted me to teach her how to put on a kimono.’
‘Sounds just like finishing school,’ Masaharu said, smiling.
‘Quite right. Of course she was only a child, so it was a kind of play for her, I think. She even copied the way that I spoke. When I told her I was embarrassed, she said that if she only listened to the way her mother talked at home, her own language would be “lower class”, so she was visiting me to polish it up. Can you imagine?’
Several things were adding up for Mas
aharu as he listened. He now had an explanation for Yukiho’s elegance – the way she moved, the way she talked – so unusual for a high school girl. It impressed him that her refinement wasn’t forced on her, either. She’d sought it out herself.
‘Now that you mention it, she doesn’t really have a strong Osaka accent, does she.’
Reiko smiled. ‘Like yourself, I grew up in the Tokyo area. She seemed to like my own lack of an accent.’
‘I can appreciate that. I’ve never been very good at sounding like a local, either.’
‘I think that’s why she likes talking with you. She says she doesn’t want to catch a bad accent from the other people around her.’
‘Funny to hear that coming from someone who was born here.’
‘Well, she’s never been proud of where she’s from.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s too bad, I suppose.’
‘As long as she’s proud of who she is,’ Reiko pressed her lips. ‘That said, there’s something which does trouble me. She’s spent so much time with an old lady like myself, I worry that it might have sapped away at her liveliness. I wouldn’t want her to go wild, of course, but a little bit of spreading one’s wings is necessary. If you ever get the chance, do take her someplace. Try to get her out of her shell. She needs that.’
‘Me? Are you sure?’
‘I’d rather it be someone I can trust.’
He smiled. ‘Right, well, I’ll think of something.’
‘Please do. I think she’d enjoy that.’
Reiko didn’t say anything more for a while, so Masaharu took another sip of his tea. It was not a boring conversation – far from it. It was clear that her foster mother did not know everything there was to know about her daughter. Yukiho Karasawa was not as old-fashioned as Reiko seemed to think, nor as well behaved.
One event stuck out in Masaharu’s mind, something that had happened in July. The two-hour lesson was over and they were drinking coffee and chatting. Masaharu always talked about life at university at these times. He knew she liked to hear about that.
They had been talking for about five minutes when the phone rang. ‘It’s someone from some English speech contest,’ Reiko said, calling her to the phone.
‘Right,’ Yukiho had said, and gone down the stairs.
It was about time for him to leave, so Masaharu had finished his coffee and gone downstairs to find Yukiho talking on the phone in the hallway, a serious look on her face. A bit hesitantly, he waved to indicate he was leaving and she waved back, her expression changing quickly to a smile.
‘So Yukiho’s going to be competing in an English speech contest? That’s impressive,’ Masaharu said to Reiko when she saw him to the door.
‘If she is, this is the first I’ve heard of it,’ Reiko had said.
As per his usual Tuesday routine, Masaharu had gone to a ramen shop near the station and ate a late dinner. He was just tucking into some dumplings and watching the little television in the shop when he happened to look up and see a young woman walking quickly along the road outside. Masaharu stared – it was Yukiho.
There was something unusually urgent about her as she stepped out into the street and hailed a taxi.
It was already ten o’clock. Something must have happened, he thought.
Worried, Masaharu used the phone in the ramen shop to call the Karasawa residence. The phone rang several times before Reiko picked up.
‘Is something the matter?’ she asked, when she heard his voice. She sounded more startled than concerned.
Masaharu hesitated. ‘Um, is Yukiho there?’
‘Certainly, would you like to speak with her?’
‘What? She’s right there?’
‘No, she’s up in her room. She had some club event she has to get ready for tomorrow. They’re meeting very early in the morning so she went to bed early. But I should think she’s still awake.’
Masaharu thought for a moment. ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to her next week. It’s nothing urgent.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. You should just let her get to sleep.’
‘Right. Well, I’ll tell her you rang tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, thank you. Sorry to trouble you this late at night.’ Masaharu hung up quickly. His armpits were damp with sweat.
So Yukiho’s sneaking out of her house late at night… to go where? He wondered if the phone call she’d received before he left had something to do with it and hoped his call hadn’t blown her cover.
Yukiho phoned the next day.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘you called last night? I had some club stuff this morning and went to sleep really early. What’s up?’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ he said. ‘I just thought something might be up and called to check in on you.’
‘Oh? What sort of something?’
‘Something that would have you hailing a cab at ten at night. You looked worried.’
This made her skip a beat. When she spoke again it was in a low voice. ‘You saw me?’
‘From the ramen shop, yeah,’ Masaharu said, chuckling.
He heard her sigh. ‘Thanks for not telling my mom.’
‘I didn’t think it would go well for you if I did.’
‘No, it wouldn’t have. Not at all,’ she said, laughing.
‘So what happened? I’m guessing the phone call you got has something to do with it.’ He judged from her tone that whatever it was, it hadn’t been anything too serious.
‘You’re a sharp one,’ she said, lowering her voice again. ‘Actually, one of my friends attempted suicide.’
‘What? Really?’
‘She got dumped… I don’t think she even really thought about it that much. Anyway, me and a couple of her other friends went to see her. I just didn’t want Mom to worry about it.’
‘Yeah, I can see why. How’s your friend?’
‘Fine, thanks. I think just seeing us helped a lot.’
‘Good to hear.’
‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? Wanting to die just because of a boy?’
‘That I have to agree with.’
‘Anyway,’ Yukiho said, brightening, ‘please don’t tell my mom?’
‘The thought never crossed my mind.’
She had thanked him and hung up.
Masaharu shook his head, chuckling to himself as he thought back to that day. The Yukiho on the phone had been so different from the one in lessons, the Yukiho her mother thought she knew. It’s hard to know what’s really going on inside some people, he realised, especially young girls.
Don’t worry, he wanted to tell the woman in the rattan chair across from him, your daughter isn’t as hopeless as she seems.
He’d just finished his barley tea when he heard the front door open.
‘Sounds like she’s home,’ Reiko said, standing.
Masaharu stood behind her and checked his reflection in the sliding glass doors leading to the garden. Idiot, he thought to himself, what are you so nervous about?
For his undergraduate thesis, Masaharu was working on an implementation of graph theory in robot control systems at Laboratory No 6 of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Northern Osaka. Specifically, he was trying to get a computer to interpret three-dimensional objects using only unidirectional visual input – to see and understand the physical world through a pair of robotic eyes.