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II. 2. Worrying
It is Tuesday morning, the second day after the Cultural Festival. The figure approaching the race track turns out to be Hisao. He is wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And what might just pass for running shoes. Emi is so surprised that all she can do is stare.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Emi repeats. And then she gets a hold of herself. “So you've come to run, after all?”
“I should have taken you up last week,” he says. He looks sideways, his hand behind his neck. He's cute when he's embarrassed. “I hope it's still okay?”
“Of course, of course. It's never too late. So... have you been running before?”
“Never. I played a bit of football at my old school. That's all.”
“Do you know about warm-up exercises? They're probably a bit different for running. Look I'll show you.” Emi has already done her warm-up, but she goes through the exercises again. Hisao joins her. Does a pretty good job, too. Eventually, they start running. “Take it slowly, for now. You need to get a feel for it, right? You need to know your limits to push them, right?”
Hisao frowns at that, but nods. Something feels different about him today. She hasn't seen him that often, so maybe she's imagining things. She couldn't even
describe the difference. For a moment, there is an awkward silence. “Right,” she says, and realises that awkward silences are something she hasn't, so far, associated with Hisao. So maybe that's it? Maybe she should have made a joke about him dumping her? If she hadn't been so surprised to see him, that's what she would have done, and maybe Hisao would have played along. Well, too late.
They walk to the race track. Emi takes the inner circle, while Hisao takes the outer one. They run. Emi takes it easy. She's half-afraid that, if she goes at her normal pace, Hisao would try to keep up, and that wouldn't be good. She's running much too slowly, when Hisao overtakes her. What?
“Hey, slow down,” she calls. “We're not sprinting.”
But Hisao keeps running, keeps accelerating. Emi, too, accelerates. It doesn't take long for her to catch up. “Slow down,” she calls. “Slow down, slow down. Hisao! Slow down.”
And he turns his head, stumbles, does a strange kind of dance to keep from falling, regains his rhythm and, finally, slows down. He looks at her, confused.
Emi comes to a halt and catches her breath. “We're not sprinting. That's not what you're supposed to do. We want to build endurance, don't we? Don't we?”
Hisao looks at her, as if he doesn't understand a word. What's going on? Hisao isn't stupid. And this isn't rocket science. Come to think of it, from what she's heard, he might be better at rocket science than at running. But still.
“Sprinting is pretty stressful for the system, you know. That's not what you want. Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. I was... accelerating? I... huh?” He puts his hand to his chest.
Oh god, no. It's not
that bad is it? Yes, sprinting is bad, but that little? “You're okay?” she says. “Really?”
“Probably,” he says. He just stands there, looking confused.
“I can't tell you if you're fine. You must know that yourself. Hisao, come on. Please?” He doesn't
look that bad, so is she exaggerating?
“Well,” Hisao says. “My heart's beating faster, but it's supposed to do that when you're running. Am I wrong? I mean, when I played football back then, my heart was beating faster, too. It's just... I don't know any more. Maybe that wasn't normal back then either? Maybe the beat was always a tad off, and now I can't tell the difference?”
Oh. Well then... “Can I... feel your pulse?”
Hisao looks at her a while, then nods. But he doesn't move at all.
“Give me your hand,” Emi says.
Hisao obeys. That's exactly how he looks, holding out his hand like that: obedient. Something is definitely wrong. Emi puts her finger on his wrist looking for the pulse. There it is. “You're okay,” she says. Then: “Probably.”
“Probably.”
Right. That's it for today. “I suppose we'll have to ask the nurse.”
“I suppose.”
On their way to the infirmary, they don't say a word.
***
Waiting in the hallway is an ordeal. Sitting still isn't an option. Running in the hallway is forbidden, and it's only acceptable to break that rule when you have somewhere to go. She knows, now, that her running legs were not designed for pacing. They bounce too much. Finally, Hisao comes out of the infirmary. She jogs up to him, gives him her most expectant look.
“I'm fine,” he says.
“Oh, good. I'm so relieved.”
“Is it okay, if I come back tomorrow? I'll take better care of myself.”
“You really have to take better care of yourself. Promise?”
Hisao nods.
“See you tomorrow, Hisao.”
“See you, Emi.” He closes his eyes, then takes a quick bow. “Sorry to cause you so much trouble.” Then he turns and walks away.
Sorry to cause you so much trouble? Emi watches him leave, puzzling over these words. So formal, all of a sudden? Why? Is that the same guy, who uses your first name straight away but makes it seem perfectly natural and not an imposition at all? What happened to him?
She's pondering the question during her after-running check-up. She's pondering the question during class. She's still pondering the question during her rooftop lunch with Rin. Whatever happened to Hisao, it must have to do with Kitagawa. She is like a demon – she touches your life and leaves it changed. Mostly, maybe always, for the worse. The only exception is Rin. Rin seems to have a natural immunity to Kitagawa. So maybe they could talk about it. But it's Rin. Talking isn't something she's good at, and it isn't something she likes to do.
“Hisao showed up for running today,” Emi says, as she places Rin's bento before her.
Rin pops lifts the lid with her feet. “That's nice,” she says, and Emi is unsure whether it's a reply or a comment on food. She tries to figure out how to talk about her worries, but obviously she takes too long, as Rin picks up the conversation herself. Unusual.
“Or maybe it isn't. Is it nice? I thought it was, because you always say that if he doesn't run with you he'll die.”
“Hey! I
never say that.”
“Maybe with different words?”
“No, I never say that
at all. Not with any words.”
Rin looks at her a while, then turns to her bento and picks out a cucumber. Talking with Rin about serious issues is a cross between a marathon run and 100 m hurdles. Infinite metre hurdles. But she's best suited for the topic at hand: she's the only one who knows both Hisao and Kitagawa.
“Anyway, yes, it's nice that he showed up today, but... he's strange.”
“Is he? I'm not an expert on whether or not things are strange. I mean, Hisao doesn't have nine eyes. If he had nine eyes, even I would know that he's strange. Or maybe not. If he had also eight legs, was quite small and good at making webs. Then he'd just be a spider.”
“No, I mean, he wasn't strange before, and now he is. It's as if he was a different person.”
Rin turns her head to look at Emi. So she has Rin's attention. Emi knows enough not to interrupt her train of thought, until she speaks.
“Maybe it was a different person.”
“No, it was definitely Hisao.”
“Maybe it was a Hisao impersonator?”
“I don't think there are Hisao impersonators at Yamaku. He's not famous or anything. Also he looked exactly like Hisao. And sounded like him, too.”
“Maybe it was a very
good Hisao impersonator.”
“No, it was Hisao.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“What?”
“How can you be sure that it was Hisao when he seemed like a different person?”
“He seemed like a
changed Hisao. So there!”
“Oh.” Rin seemed to ponder that point. Now or never!
“I think that Kitagawa changed him.”
Rin nods. “She could have done that. She's good at changing people. She makes them more themselves.”
“What? No way! Hisao seemed... not alright.”
“Well, he always looked gloomy. Now he's even gloomier. Maybe that's what he's really good at. I hope it's not, but if it is, there's nothing we can do.”
“But that's horrible!”
“Yes.”
“Don't you worry about Hisao at all?”
“No, not really. I don't think about him much at all. Right now, I guess, I worry a bit. But that's only because you brought him up. When you go away, I'll stop worrying.”
“But don't you want to help him?”
“With what?”
“With not being so gloomy all the time. You know, counter Kitagawa's influence.” The moment she has said that, she realises how absurd the proposition is. She imagines a cartoon Hisao with a little Kitagawa devil over his left shoulder, and a little Tezuka devil over her right. No. Just no.
“Even if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't know how.”
She's right, but Emi is too stubborn to give up. “Maybe, if you worried about him more, you'd find a way.”
“I don't think so. If I worry, I'll probably imagine a thousand different terrible things that might happen. They probably won't happen, or maybe one or two will and nine hunderd and ninety nine or nine hundered and ninety eight won't. I'll still want to stop them all. In the end I'll be worrying so much that I'll just choose one. It wouldn't have happened, anyway, but now that I'm trying to prevent it, I'll do things that remind lots of people that this might have happened, and they probably wouldn't have thought of that on their own. So because I'd try to prevent a random terrible thing that wouldn't happen, it's now a lot more likely that it'll happen. And when it then happens I'll feel bad that I didn't try hard enough, except that I tried too hard. I'll feel terrible, and Hisao will feel terrible, and none of this would have happened if I hadn't worried.”
“What?”
“What do you mean: what?”
“I didn't understand that at all. Can you repeat that?”
“Impossible.”
“Ah, so basically, you think worrying hurts more than it helps. Right?”
“I know it. I worry about myself a lot, and nothing good ever comes of it. I don't want to worry about others. It's irresponsible.”
“Irresponsible.”
“Exactly.” There's a pause.
“I wonder if Kitagawa worries about Hisao. I don't think she does.”
“Probably not.”
“That's because she doesn't care about people at all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don't tell me she cares!”
“I wasn't going to. I just want to know if you're sure that she doesn't care about people. If I said something like that I wouldn't be sure at all.”
“Well,
do you think she cares about people? Even if you're not sure?”
“I don't know. Ask her, not me. She should know that. Maybe she doesn't know that. It's not always easy to figure out what you care about after all.”
“But she's not good for him!”
Rin shrinks back from that outburst. Then: “Why does everyone ask me about Miya and Hisao? First Miya asks me about Hisao, then Hisao asks me about Miya, and now you ask me about both. I'm not a Hisao-Miya expert. Just ask them directly. I don't want to interfere. I'll only mess up.”
But she
is the Miya-Hisao expert at Yamaku. Mostly, because she's the only one who can talk to Miya without freaking out in some way or another. Well, Mr. Takeuchi does pretty well, all things considered, but she's not going to ask her homeroom teacher about these matters.
However, it's clear that she can't push Rin any further. Not today at any rate. Outbursts like that are pretty rare, though. This one made Emi a bit happy. It can only mean one thing: Rin does worry after all. She's just not good at figuring out what she cares about.
Just imagining how would Rin answer...
