The End of the Moment We Had

THE END OF THE MOMENT WE HAD

THE SIX OF THEM were in a clump, talking loudly, relentlessly, sometimes shouting, from the moment they stepped into the last car of the Hibiya Line metro. They carried on, leaning against the glass of the conductor’s booth, sliding their backs along the lateral bar. You’d think they were trying to drown out the rumble and screech of the train. But no one on the train there with them was thinking that. They were stuck with these guys. They couldn’t escape the shouting. Robbed of their solitude, they stared at the screens of their phones, or at the ads, or at the floor. No one said a word. Some maybe were thinking, these guys will get off at Roppongi, so it won’t be much longer. Which was what happened.

The six guys were drunk, but it wasn’t until they got to Roppongi that they realized how drunk they were. The doors opened, they were sucked out, and they were still shouting. It wasn’t one conversation, each was talking with whoever happened to be nearest them, so Minobe with Suzuki, Azuma with Yukio, Yasui with Ishihara. But more or less they were a group. All drunk. They were louder than anyone else around, but they didn’t notice nor care, or maybe it was their intention to be loud. As they climbed the stairs to the exit, they never once lowered their voices. At the wicket they lined up behind one another, as if it were a ritual, to pass through the same gate, shouting the whole time. Ishihara was the last in line, and when he fumbled through his pockets and couldn’t find his ticket, he yelled out to Yasui, who was in front of him and at that instant about to pass through the barrier. Yasui stopped in his tracks, and Ishihara pressed up behind him, crotch to ass, and the two tried to pass through the barrier as one. The sensor went off, beeping its high pitch, and the flaps of the electronic barrier slammed shut on them. No problem. Yasui and Ishihara busted through with the full force of their drunkenness and fell forwards onto the ground. The others were right there watching, howling with laughter, loud as ever.

Moving in a mass, they made their way above ground, where, afraid they wouldn’t be able to hear each other, they raised their voices even more. At one point they must have figured they could turn it down a notch and still be heard. Even so, definitely, they were loud. As they headed towards their destination—the SuperDeluxe club-slash-event space—their voices made it to the other side of the street and bounced back, even through the clamour of Roppongi Drive. The endless flow of cars and exhausts, and on top of that a jumble of noise. Clamour: it gets caught up in an invisible whorl, gets warmed by night air and starts to rise, rise until it’s looking down over the whole scene, the dots of light blurring as they grow more distant, bleeding into each other until they look like thick haze hanging heavily over the ground.

When Yasui was little, he had gone up to the observation deck of Tokyo Tower and been startled by how all the cars below seemed like toys. It had been during the day, but the night laid itself over this memory and he now saw the buzz of Roppongi from a bird’s-eye view. He was at the back of the group, rubbing his thigh where the flaps of the ticket barrier had slammed into him. A bruise was forming, but he didn’t know that yet. He and Ishihara—trashed, semi-conscious, words tumbling out of their mouths—were going on about girls. Ishihara’s eyes were glazed over. When Yasui asked Ishihara where are we going again?, Ishihara didn’t answer, maybe because the question didn’t register. So Yasui just followed along. It wasn’t really clear that anybody knew where they were going, though it appeared they were going somewhere.

There wasn’t a moment when one of them wasn’t shouting. The configuration of the group was constantly changing, like when Minobe and Suzuki turned around to stare at the girl who’d just passed, saying something at high volume about her legs—really just the back of her knees—and Azuma and Yukio brushed by them and ended up at the front of the pack. And then Minobe, who had been talking with Suzuki, suddenly yelled something to Azuma and Yukio about the girl, and Azuma yelled something back. Yasui tried to catch what they were saying but didn’t quite get it, because he’d been in the middle of a sentence talking to Ishihara, and Suzuki was basically shouting stuff to himself. You get the picture: a mash of meaningless noise.

When they stumbled into SuperDeluxe, the eight o’clock performance was still waiting to start. But they almost didn’t get to the place at all. The sign for SuperDeluxe was small and not easy to see if you’re not looking for it, and the six of them were talking (or shouting) away, paying no mind to anything. They were almost down the slope of the hill, when Azuma, regaining awareness, noticed that the Nishi-Azabu intersection was up ahead, growing larger as they got closer, and wondered if they’d gone too far. He kind of mumbled it to himself, which no one heard, and they all kept going. Finally, Azuma was totally sure they were way past where they were supposed to go, so he stopped, and said loudly, loudly enough so the other five stopped to listen, hey, I think we like went too far. But even though he was shouting, it still somehow sounded like he was talking to himself. He looked over his shoulder, up the hill. Then he turned his whole body around and started back the way they came. The others didn’t say anything, they turned and followed. Just like that. They were paying much more attention now, and this time they spotted the sign for SuperDeluxe, which was so nondescript that the six of them started moaning loudly about it, before pushing open the door to the place and spilling inside.

It was a wide room with a low ceiling, which made the space feel flat. Low tables were set up randomly, surrounded by sofas and chairs of different shapes and materials. The furniture was purplish and yellowish, although it was hard to say for sure because the space was dark and the lighting was tinted. Some of the seats were covered with shag. There were stools with pink reptile-skin covers, and big plastic things that weren’t quite sofas or benches but had curves that made them look warped. Almost all the seats were taken. Along the farthest wall was the stage, which was painted white and had mic stands and guitars and amps and chairs, and a tangle of cords snaking between them. Right in front of the stage was the only open spot, a low table and exactly six chairs, which Yasui saw and hurried to claim. The others followed. They dropped their stuff and made their way to the bar. They ordered individually and paid for their own drinks. They all got beer.

SuperDeluxe was supposed to have some kind of performance that night, but five of the six guys didn’t know that. They had just come as a drunken mass. They didn’t know what was supposed to happen, a performance or whatever, or even that the place they were in held performances. The only one who knew anything was Azuma. He had heard about the performance from a girl he’d met at the movies a couple of days before. She’d said she was nineteen. It was a small movie theatre in Shibuya, open only a few years, the upholstery on the seats still smelling like a clothing store.

She looked nineteen, for sure. On account of her skin. But her face was busted. It was like she knew better than anyone how busted her face was, and that made her extra-friendly, and you could see that in her face too, which only made it worse. It was all smushed and embarrassed-like, hard to look at. There were plenty of empty seats in the movie theatre, as always, but there I was, watching the movie with her sitting next to me, on my left. For the whole movie I tried to make my left side cold and unwelcoming. When it was over, the left half of my body was numb. That numbness went away, but it feels like it’s still there, waiting just under my skin. As soon as we got into SuperDeluxe, I started wondering if she was here. I looked around the room a bunch of times. The room, everything between the concrete walls and the floor, felt kind of soft, because of the pulse of all the people, the smell of everything, and the music and the lights. I prayed I wouldn’t spot her, but I kept looking for her.

How I met this girl: A couple of days ago I pre-bought two tickets to a movie, one was for this other girl I was seeing—I guess she was my girlfriend, whatever—but then she texted me that she couldn’t make it, and I was like that’s cool. I figured I could sell her ticket, no problem. Some days in March are warm and some are cold, and it was cold that day, but I waited outside the theatre to catch someone who was otherwise going to pay full price at the box office. A guy showed up first, so I didn’t offer. Next was another guy. Then several more guys, and guys with girls, so I just looked upwards. Near the top of a building, there was a square electronic billboard, like it was floating in the sky, playing through a loop of ads over and over and over. Then, finally, a girl came by. That was her. I might have been pickier, but I guess I was worried that she was my last chance. She was pretty chunky, like she snacked all the time or something, and the way she walked was like sad and apologetic. But I said hi anyway. She came over, and she bought the ticket, and we were standing there, and I started regretting the whole thing right then. We went down the stairs together, and she started asking questions: Do you go to the movies a lot? What kind of movies do you like? Why do you like that kind of movie? Do you go to a movie because who’s in it or who directed it? I was hoping to escape and went and took a seat in the middle of a row, but she hustled after me, fast for someone her size—I swear, I felt the air shake with her mass—and she dropped herself into the seat next to me. The questioning didn’t stop: So when you like a movie, they release the soundtrack, right, are you the type who buys the soundtrack? She would have kept going with the interrogation, but the lights began to dim. Commercials and trailers, one after the next after the next, taking forever like usual. Finally the movie started. It was a Canadian movie, about four teenage girls, and they each go through stereotypical teenage experiences. The plot didn’t make a big deal of itself, but there didn’t seem to be anything like structure either, everything just happened randomly. I got bored partway through and pretty much gave up on watching it. Instead I just sat there listening to the English that I didn’t understand and telling myself what a fool I was, waiting to sell my extra ticket to some girl and getting what I deserved. I played the whole scene over and over again in my head—spotting her and, for some crazy reason, saying hi—and actually it felt way more real than anything happening on the movie screen. Then the movie ended.

As soon as the lights came on, she started talking again. Umm, what did you think of it? It was pretty good, right? Maybe not so good? If you ask me, I guess I think it was like great. You know there was that one black actress? And the guy who played her older brother? I heard he’s like in a theatre group, like it’s his theatre group, or a performance group, one of those, you know? I’m not just telling you to show that I know stuff, I’m more like, wow, he really knows what he’s doing as an actor, that’s what I meant. What did you think about him? Don’t you think he’s good? And like, oh right, I heard a rumour he’s going to be in a performance, the day after tomorrow or something, at a place in Roppongi, I mean it’s not a rumour, it’s like true, I just for some reason said it was a rumour, and like they never perform in theatres, they always do it in like clubs or bars and stuff, their show, or I guess their performance, they’re like performers, but they don’t use a stage set or anything, they just like get a mic and improvise, something like that, yeah.

When I told the guy about this performance, he said, maybe I’ll go. I know he was just saying that, but I forced myself, I went out of my way to believe him, so I just came out and said, oh really, then why don’t we go together. I did it because I didn’t want to think he was just saying he’d go, and because if he wasn’t just saying it, I wanted to see if things could go farther, and because some small part of me really thought he wanted to go. I knew exactly what would happen if I said, why don’t we go together, but I said it anyway, because like if I had a positive attitude and gave it a shot, it would happen, so I came out and said it as sincerely as I could. I said it all brightly, to cheer myself on. Even if he saw right through to my trembling little ulterior motive—though I don’t think it was anything sinister like ulterior, I think it was sweet and kind of innocent—even if he saw through me, I told myself I didn’t care. Which of course was a lie, if he saw through me I’d just want to die. When I was about to say, why don’t we go together, I thought that as soon as I finished saying it, I should stare into his eyes as hard as I could. So I did. I knew that he might get put off by me giving him that kind of look, but I did it anyway. Then when I was staring into his eyes, I knew that I had to really plead with my eyes or it wouldn’t work, and I didn’t let myself think it wouldn’t work because it was my eyes, in my face. If I looked away quickly because I knew it was putting him off, that would be even worse, and I mean I knew right away that even if I stared into his eyes, nothing was going to happen, but I forced myself to stare into his eyes for a while—a really short while, maybe just a few seconds. But it wasn’t working, like I knew it wouldn’t, and I gave up. For a moment I didn’t know where I should look next, which was how I ended up looking hard at the wall. It was like throwing a lump of clay against the wall as hard as I could and it was just sticking there. A light grey spot, hardly noticeable, but it leaves a stain that never comes out, and even though it’s basically totally meaningless, there it is forever, so that’s what I decided to stare at. I tried to make it mean something by looking at it, even though it didn’t want to be given any meaning.

To be honest, by that point in time I was totally sick of myself. But I was telling myself that I always get sick of myself too quickly. The lobby of the movie theatre had posted these magazine articles about the movies they were showing. The two of us were standing there, me kind of leaning against the wall, kind of like talking. Maybe fifty centimetres above my right shoulder there was on the wall this cut-out little article from a magazine I know the name of but have never read. From where he was standing, my head was in the way of him seeing the article, not that he was trying to see it, he was probably just thinking about getting out of there. I leant against the wall all heavy, like I couldn’t move if I wanted to, so he felt like he couldn’t just leave me there. I made him feel that way. Of course he knew I was just putting it on. But all he could do was stand there. He didn’t lean against the wall like I did, he just stood there. He stood there for a whole hour, until his feet ached.

The two of us were talking about something, but there was suddenly a break in the conversation, like a gap between us. I remembered that before the movie started we were talking about soundtracks, but the movie started and the conversation got cut off, so I thought I would bring that back up again, and I did. Umm, I’ve actually been wondering something this whole time, so, before the movie started, we were talking about this, right? I mean I just wanted to go back to that, you know? So like are you the type who buys soundtracks of movies you like? That’s what I asked before, remember, and you said you’re not a soundtrack buyer, right? And then I was like, why not? And that’s when the movie started, I mean it was just the trailers, but we couldn’t really talk any more, so that’s where the conversation ended, right? You remember all that, right? So can we pick up where we left off? And when I asked that, he said sure. So I did. So when you say you don’t buy soundtracks, why is that? To be honest, I am really curious, like do you have a reason? When I was asking him this, I leant even more of my body weight against the wall. I wanted him to lean on the wall too, so we could be leaning the same way on the same wall, except that he was going to be facing me and talking to me, so I was like inviting him to join me. But not surprisingly, he didn’t lean. Though I have to say it was a pretty subtle invitation. I knew it probably didn’t even get through to him.

So he said, yeah, when it comes to soundtracks, sometimes I want to buy it right after I’ve seen the movie, and especially if it’s like a good movie, or like if the music made a strong impression, so sometimes I feel like I have to buy it—and I said, uh huh, yeah. He kept going, so, yeah, I get it, sure, but you know, every time I go and buy one, and I’ve bought a bunch, it’s always like, I mean I’m saying this from experience here, because I’ve bought a whole bunch, but don’t you always just get tired of the soundtrack like almost right away? No? Maybe you don’t, but I do, you know, and at some point I realized that, and I was like, okay, from now on, no more soundtracks for me, so I stopped. He was still standing there, not leaning on the wall. I thought what he was saying was so right on. I mean, I was pretty impressed. Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying, I said, I mean totally! And then I felt like I was kind of floating. I got nervous, I had to say something, so I blurted out, I guess I should stop buying soundtracks too. But as soon as I said it, that floating sensation got worse, I didn’t feel like I had got anywhere. All he said was, it’s whatever you want, buy ’em or don’t. And I said, oh, right, you’re so right. And I kept going, basically everyone’s got their preferences—or, you know, not preferences, but you know what I mean—and so like everyone’s different, right? So everyone can buy them if they want or not buy them if they don’t, is what you’re saying, right? He said, sure. Oh god, I was so unbelievably stupid, when I said, I guess I should stop buying soundtracks too, I mean what kind of a statement is that, I have no clue—I should just shut my mouth and die. But even if it was a statement, the response is obvious, so saying something like that like it’s a statement, I mean it was so lame, but I said it, and thinking about myself saying it, I was like oh my god, I’m the worst, my life is over, and I actually said that out loud, which I didn’t even realize until after I said it, I’m so stupid I should just die, and he must have been thinking the exact same thing. When he heard me say my life is over, he made a confused face, or I’m pretty sure he did. But he wasn’t making that face to be mean or anything, it just happened, which actually made it hurt even worse, and I had no idea what to do next. I never know what to do next. I’m always about to fall apart, which I guess is selfish of me, or weak. I couldn’t stop thinking about our soundtrack conversation when I said, I guess I should stop buying soundtracks too and he said, it’s whatever you want. But what he really meant to say was make up your own fuckin’ mind, moron. And I finally realized it, I mean I only just realized—too late—but that’s what it was. It took me this long to understand that I really am a moron. I felt humiliated, even though it was too late to do anything about it, and my body started getting all hot. But maybe I was getting hot from something besides humiliation, maybe something a little different, but I’m a moron, so I don’t really know what else it could be. But either way, I was getting hot, and I felt like I needed to say something, and I ended up saying something totally stupid. Today’s like my lucky day, I’m the worst at getting tickets, I know I should have pre-brought a ticket ’cause it’s cheaper that way but I didn’t, but I mean because of, you know, I got my ticket for cheaper so I totally got lucky, really. So I really, I want to say thanks—and then I took the quickest little breath, like as if I was swimming, and I kept going. But I know if there was an extra ticket, that means that there was supposed to be someone else (with you), so like, sorry, um, if it’s no big deal, and I mean if it is, then don’t worry about it, but I’d like to know (your) name, first name only would be okay, or like a nickname, but I just want to know what I can call (you). By that point I was barely keeping it together. By the way, about the (you) (in parentheses), that’s because I wanted to say it out loud but couldn’t even do that. Before I knew what I was doing, I told him he could call me Miffy, which is my screen name, and it’s so lame I’ve never actually told it to anyone who I know in real life, but I went and told him. I wasn’t sure any more if I was saying the words I was thinking, if they were coming out of my mouth and he heard them, or if they were all still in my head, unsaid, which meant they never reached him and I just wanted to say them, I couldn’t tell. My body was still feeling hot, but it was like I didn’t know which part of my body felt hot. And I just kept talking. I had to find out his name. If I didn’t, then I would be totally worthless. That terrified me. The heat in my body made me feel like I was somehow outside the moment I was living in. That made me get reckless, and want to stay that way, so I really went for it. Sorry, um, I just want to ask again, it totally doesn’t have to be a real name, just anything, like a screen name would be fine, I just wanna know, what should I call (you)? is what’s on my mind, I mean, I’ve just really been wondering, I mean, wanting to ask, so, like, I’m asking now, um. That’s what I said to him. But in the end he never told me his name. He didn’t lie or make up a screen name, he just ignored the question, so even though I tried, it didn’t mean anything, which was like the worst. In the hour or so since the movie ended, how many stupid mistakes had I made? It’d be like counting stars, and I didn’t feel like counting. If I tried, I would just feel worse and worse, I’d probably want to die, so I didn’t. I thought that my body was getting hotter because it didn’t want to live any more. I knew I was losing him. I knew he wasn’t actually listening to anything I was saying, that he wouldn’t remember any of it. But he felt like he couldn’t just ditch me, so he stood there pretending to listen, zoning out, thinking about whatever. Like what would be the funniest song to play over this pathetic situation, or something like that. Normally that would embarrass me to death, but I was already torturing myself plenty, so getting ignored wasn’t anything I was worrying about. He was saying something to me. At that moment I didn’t have the energy to understand him. But I could get the idea, he was making moves to leave, and sure enough he made a little apologetic face and right away said goodbye and walked off, footsteps hurrying towards the movie theatre exit. When I was completely out of sight, he slowed down, then looked over his shoulder to make sure I wasn’t like stalking him. Then he called his girlfriend, the one who was supposed to go to the movies with him, and told her the movie was shit, he slept through half of it. They talked about other stuff, then made plans to meet up, and he got on a different subway from the one he would usually take to go home.

The performance started. The mood in the room shifted with almost no warning, like an ambush. Or maybe it just felt that way to the guys because we were all drunk and had no concept of time. There was a change in the quality of quiet, like when snow suddenly stops falling. The murmurs of the crowd died down, and the house lights dimmed a little—not that they had been very bright to begin with. So maybe it was just the impression of the lights dimming. The six of us were all still drinking beer, to the point where none of us knew how many we’d had. Everyone finished the little bit that remained in our paper cups—it seemed like the thing to do with the lights going down and the feeling that the show was about to start, and after a bit the performers came out. There was nothing flashy about it, neither their entrance nor the performance that followed, it had a totally relaxed feel. First, a white girl took the mic. She wound the cord a few times, which there didn’t seem to be any reason for doing other than to mark time. She started talking in English. Next to her stood a Japanese girl who was interpreting, and she had a mic in her hand too. The white girl spoke in a rich voice, sometimes suddenly getting louder, and the first couple of times she raised her voice it triggered a screech of feedback, but the feedback stopped quickly enough. She was explaining what the performance was going to be about. Although the explanation was already part of the performance. We’ll be talking about things, but we don’t know what we’ll be talking about, and the reason why not is that we haven’t prepared anything. But we’ll talk anyway. That must have been what she said, because that’s what the interpreter interpreted after her. There aren’t just mics on the stage, she said, there’s also a mic on a stand in the audience, and it’s open to anyone who wants to speak. The audience mic stood right behind where the six of us were sitting, kind of blocking the aisle. If anyone has anything they want to say, feel free to get on the mic at any time. The interpreter said all that in Japanese. Of course nobody got up and went to the mic. The room fell silent. This is, after all, Japan. The girl, and I’m just guessing here, she let the silence go on, thinking maybe that would get past the Japan-ness. But before the silence could get too heavy it was broken. One of the performers, the young black guy who might have been in the movie I saw, walked over to the audience mic and started telling his story. He had dreads, but they didn’t make his head look that much bigger and they weren’t flashy or intimidating, if anything they made him look sophisticated. His story didn’t last long. When I was sixteen I got my first ever job. A janitor in a Dunkin’ Donuts. At the end of my first day, the manager called me into the office and asked, how do you like the job? But I didn’t answer. That was the end of the story. He stepped away from the mic, opened one of the folding chairs onstage and sat down. Silence returned to the room. It lasted a lot longer than the first time. At first everyone thought it would end right away, that someone else would stand up and go to the mic and pick up where the first performer left off. But no one did, and the silence stretched on much longer than anyone thought it would. It must have been part of the performance, an intentional silence. It went on and on, to the point where the least secure people in the audience must have been squirming under the weight of the silence, when finally the girl sitting next to the black guy on the stage made a move like she was going to stand up, and then she actually did stand up, took the mic and started talking. It was just when people were starting to think that the silence had gone on for too long, just as they were facing the need to decide what they were prepared to do about it. Thanks to the girl standing up, everything taking shape in their minds settled back, only half-formed. All their discomfort was neutralized along with everything else they were feeling, then it vanished, as if it had never been there at all.

This is what the girl said: She was staying at a hotel in Shibuya. That morning she went out for a walk and she happened upon a protest march. It was a few days before the US began their invasion of Iraq. The protest was against the war. She joined in and marched with them. She was surprised at how narrow the column of the marchers was in Japan compared to the protests she had seen elsewhere, and how orderly the police were, escorting the marchers. She heard music that was probably from a portable CD player somewhere in the march, and then somebody handed her a tambourine. That was the end of her story, and the girl sat down. This time there was only a short pause. Then the girl who spoke first stepped up and said something very brief. The immediate Japanese translation told us that the mic was open to all of us. Then another silence. Another long one.

I wondered what I would say if I went to the mic, tried to picture myself doing it. After a little while a man stood up, but at first I didn’t notice him. It wasn’t until he got right up to the mic that I did. He was middle-aged, with greying hair and rimless glasses, and he had a mellow vibe. We watched to see what he would do. I asked myself if I would get up too, all six of us did, I mean only vaguely, but we did. He said that he found out about this event online. He got on a plane from Kyushu to Tokyo to come see it. I have grave apprehensions about the war that’s about to begin, he said. When I was young it was the war in Vietnam. Back then, there were bands like Peter, Paul and Mary, and we all sang their songs together. But now there are no songs like that. That was when he lost my interest. Is this old guy going to keep talking? I wondered, but that was all he had to say. While he shared his thoughts, the interpreter spoke in a low voice to the performers, telling them in English what the guy said. One of them nodded repeatedly. The man at the mic stood there for another minute even though he had stopped talking, like it took him some time to realize that he was done. When he finally came back to himself, he stepped out of the light into the shadows and went back to his seat. Then he raised his glass from the table to his lips and steadied himself. None of us paid any more attention to him. No one else made any moves towards the mic and the room got silent again. The air was still; you could hear the bubbles in the beer. This went on for a while, the echoes or maybe more like the reverberations of what we’d just heard hanging over the room like smoke. But it wasn’t exactly a vibe relating to what the man had said, if anything it was resistance, annoyance even, except that’s probably not quite right, it was both, a feel in the room that was kind of obviously a combination of resistance and agreement, and I was glad, because that was how I felt too. I wanted to try to put a name to the feel at that moment, like if it existed independently from all the bodies in the room—I mean if someone was observing, from a distance, what would they call that feeling. I considered really thinking about it, but I didn’t do it. I wanted another beer, but I couldn’t get up in the middle of this and go to the bar. I turned to look at the bar anyway, see how far away it was. My eyes swept over the audience, and that was when I spotted a girl, who looked back at me. She wasn’t the girl from the movie theatre. After the performance ended, she and I stood by the bar talking. Then we took a taxi to Shibuya and got a room at a love hotel. It wasn’t a Friday or Saturday so even though we got there pretty late, we had no problem getting a room.

One of the other audience members who got up in front of the mic during the performance—after a while lots of people got up to say something—was a girl who started off by saying she was an interpreter. By the time she was on the mic, the performance was winding down, and the whole room was full of everyone’s desire for the thing to finish. But she just talked on, nonchalant-like. Or maybe she really couldn’t read the room.

So I also work as an interpreter—she seemed to be speaking to the Japanese woman interpreting on stage—and as far as what exactly an interpreter does, well, I guess you all know this, but basically they take what someone’s said, in my case I work from English, so I take what someone’s said in English and translate it into Japanese, or the other way around, so I take what’s been said, I mean what’s been said by someone besides me, and translate it and communicate it and that’s the job of an interpreter, right? So tonight I’ve been watching all kinds of people get up and say something on the mic, and like I thought for a change it might be interesting to translate what I myself was thinking. So now I’m gonna take what’s on my mind and translate it into English. Is that all right? She didn’t really mean it as a question, and she wasn’t expecting anyone to answer. So she went on. But now I’m like, do I even have anything to say? Which makes me start to think that maybe I don’t, and I guess my only real-izing that now that I’m up here has some of you wondering like what’s with this girl, right? But you know, I guess I really don’t have anything to say. I mean, I’m an interpreter, so I can speak, or like, you know, understand English, so being here tonight and listening to everyone go back and forth really made me feel like I wanted to give my opinion too, but I guess at like the moment of truth I realized that I don’t even have an opinion. Sorry about that. Really, there’s got to be something, um, oh hey I know, so I saw Bowling for Columbine too. I can talk about that, you know, it was really chilling, I was like, whoa, this is how the media gets us all worked up and makes fear take root inside of us, you know? I saw it at the theatre in Ebisu, it was super-crowded. And I mean I think it’s great that so many people went to see a movie like that.

The girl I went to the hotel with wasn’t this girl on the mic, it was her friend. They came to the performance together. I noticed this girl actively watching her friend get all excited on the mic, and I stared at her. It was a few moments before she turned to look back at me. The first thing that made me like her was how her fringe hung in a diagonal line across her forehead. I think she must have cut them herself. But I never asked her about it. When I was looking at her before she looked back, I tried to guess the odds of her getting up on the mic, like I was placing a bet. In the end she didn’t. Her friend did, but she didn’t. Although I wonder how many people were actually still listening. A lot of people had already talked. Between the time that had passed since the performance started and all the alcohol consumed by all the people who had been sitting there the whole time, the atmosphere was starting to get thick. I was busy paying attention to the fringe of the girl who wasn’t the interpreter. And there were also fragments of what some people had said at the mic sticking in my head, like pricking me. Like there was this one girl—I saw the protest march today too, and I thought about joining in, but in the end I couldn’t bring myself to. And there was a guy who before the interpreter girl talked about having seen Bowling for Columbine went up and said he’d seen it and what he thought about it. There were others. But by that point in the night I was done listening. I wanted to have sex with the girl with the fringe. I was past listening. Since we got to SuperDeluxe, I had two or maybe more than two beers, and together with what I drank before, it was some stupid amount. The six of us had been drinking all night. My eyes felt all bleary. They probably looked that way to her too, when our eyes met, but that was probably for the best—I mean I’m just guessing here—rather than me trying to act cool I was able to just stare right at her, which must have made an impression. Normally, when I’m not drunk, my mind wants to jump from whatever I’m doing to the next thing, and you can see it in my eyes. My eyes are always darting around. But when I drink, the more faded I get, the more I can pay attention to whatever I’m looking at. My eyes stay put, I don’t need to worry about them doing their own thing. They just stay where they are. I thought about how the one performer who went to the protest said she was impressed with how tight and narrow the marching column was. Come to think of it, the marches in America and Europe I saw on the news took up the entire street. I thought about that for a bit. As I did, my eyes started to lose focus, my vision got blurry, but the performance continued, didn’t matter how drunk I was or what I was thinking or what my eyes were doing. The performers started shouting questions from the stage, and the audience was supposed to answer yes or no. There must’ve been ten questions they shouted. But now I can only remember one, which was the last one. Is Bush bad? There was a louder response than for any of the earlier questions, and people shouted from here and there, from everywhere really, the whole audience was shouting, yes! yes! yes! yes! But at the end, overlapping with the last cries of yes!—strictly speaking, a tiny bit after—was a single loud no! It was a man’s voice. Of course all the performers looked towards where the voice came from. They could tell right away who had said it. One of the performers said they wanted to hear what the man had to say, then the interpreter translated the request. The man approached the mic. He walked like he was trying to avoid looking sheepish but also didn’t want to seem too eager. Whatever was on his mind as he walked to the mic stand, it took him a few moments to get there. Then he spoke to the crowd that had been waiting to hear what he was going to say: So, I’m guessing I was called out because you want to know why I said no—and here he smiled in a way that could be read as either natural or unnatural. He seemed to be wanting to give off a casual feel. He continued speaking, his smile still lingering. So, the reason is pretty simple, basically, everyone here said yes, which feels a little creepy, and that was my main reason. I don’t like Bush from a standpoint of policy or anything like that. Rather than thinking about whether or not my answer is actually no, I just felt like at least one person had to say no, otherwise we’d have everybody here saying yes and that doesn’t feel right, it actually feels a little dangerous. That was really it. The interpreter put all of that into English. While she was doing her thing, the man kept smiling. As if reacting to that, the interpreter had a little smile on her face too as she spoke in English. After a brief silence, the black guy who told the story about Dunkin’ Donuts nodded forcefully. He kept nodding and said that if he was watching the performance as an audience member, he probably would have said no for the same reason. The interpreter said that in Japanese. That was the end of that interaction. After that a few more people got up and said things. Up on stage, the performers talked more, in response to the comments from the audience, or not. Every so often through the night the performers played some terrible covers. The guitars, the keyboards, the drums, the vocals, it was all awful. But it didn’t really matter. Some of the songs they played were originals. Those were awful too. After each one someone else would get up and say something and someone would respond. Speaking, music, repeat. As the performance went on, never deviating from that pattern, it became easier for people to go up to the mic and speak. But at the same time the audience was growing tired of the repetition, bit by bit but plain enough to see. Then it got to the point where most of the audience was starting to feel that this loose performance, loose in both the good and the bad sense, would soon come to an end. I felt it too. By that point I was already feeling like I wasn’t in Japan. The girl and I took that feeling to the hotel, where we spent the next four days with it. Several times we tried to figure out where the feeling came from. But we never came up with anything that seemed right. It couldn’t have been just because the performers were foreigners. Nearly everything the performers talked about had to do with the war that was about to start. The clock was ticking down on the ultimatum Bush gave Iraq, and the whole world was paying attention, all they could do was watch and wait. Everyone knew what was going to happen, but it hadn’t happened yet. The performance took place in the middle of all this. So it was obvious that one of the aims of the performance was to spark a debate about what was happening. And sure enough some people went to the mic and said what they had to say about it, while others stood up without having anything particular in mind, Sorry, they said, I don’t really have anything to say but I just kind of came up to the microphone anyway, then they shrugged and waddled back to their seat.

When we were at the hotel, our conversation kept going back to the performance—by the time that interpreter girl went up to the mic, everyone had pretty much had it, I doubt anyone was actually listening to her, which kind of sucks—is what I said, and so she was like, yeah, but you know she’s always, I mean she never really pays attention to the vibe, or it’s like whatever the feel is, it has nothing to do with her, it’s basically always that way with her.

We picked the hotel at random, and the room was pretty cheaply put together, but that was fine. At first I thought the wallpaper was old and grimy, and it was only later that I realized it was just pink wallpaper. She let her thick hair down, so the diagonal line of her fringe was gone. Without that she had a different feel, maybe less subdued. I noticed that her eyes angled up at the corners. The conversation trailed off, maybe we weren’t done talking but there was a break, and we nuzzled in close again, started taking little nips and nibbles at each other, getting back into it.

We stayed for four nights, and on the morning of the fifth day we said goodbye. Only once did we venture out into Shibuya. Otherwise we were holed up in the room the entire time. There was a TV, but we never turned it on. We had no idea what was going on in the outside world, not even the weather. In between sessions of sex we talked, like everyone does, about all kinds of things. I can’t remember everything we talked about. We never told each other our names or phone numbers or email addresses. Pretty much nothing about ourselves, none of the usual stuff you’d chat about, like where you work, or how you hate the people you work with—none of that. Instead we talked about when we were little. Why is it that when you’re all spent after sex you want to talk about your childhood, especially when you don’t know anything about the other person? I don’t think either one of us knew whether we were intentionally avoiding talking about ourselves in the present or whether it just happened. But I think some part of us knew that this was the best thing to do. Like maybe your childhood self is your truest self, but that actually isn’t true at all, so stories from your childhood are convenient that way. I’ve used them to get through casual sex encounters with girls before, and I did it this time too.

We talked in bed. The sheets had that impersonal feel that love hotel beds always have, I could feel it on my back, under the palms of my hands. They were brittle with starch to show they’d been washed, and they gave off this disgust, this contempt for the act of human beings fucking. They didn’t try to hide how much they loathed us. They wanted to make sure we knew. So I figured, well, this bed isn’t for sleeping by yourself, there’ll always be another person, so it doesn’t matter all that much if the sheets aren’t like saying welcome, how nice to have you here, and then I felt like my mind was being read, like I was being seen through. But by who? By the hotel staff. And by the sheets themselves. I was sure of it. I moved my hands to her skin, and her skin was warm. We talked about our childhoods. We tried talking about music but it was immediately clear that we didn’t like any of the same stuff so we just let that topic be. Movies and manga were easier. Like I said, we never talked about ourselves, I mean our real selves, and it was almost like we had at some point agreed on that as a rule, which felt like a miracle. I also knew that under no circumstances could I talk about this miracle. It sounds stupid, but I was scared that if I went and said it then something would change. The rule had to be followed at all costs, I mean it felt that way to me, and maybe to her too. And we did, we followed the rule, for the whole time we were together. Even when we weren’t talking about ourselves, there was enough to talk about. Like the performance, we talked a lot about that. We never got tired of talking about that. Whenever we got to something we couldn’t figure out, we would just have sex again. Neither one of us spoke in a hurry, so the conversation had a nice, relaxed pace. As we got used to each other the pace picked up a little, but it stayed easy. It was like that for the whole time, from when we first went to the hotel. Even going to the hotel just kind of happened, same as the boundaries of what we were going to talk about, without either of us outright suggesting it.

We were lying side by side on top of the sheets, which were all twisted up from the last round of sex. I said to her, I’m really bad at English, so I can’t say for sure, but I thought that performance, you know, this might just be me, but I thought that performance was pretty great, you know? and I genuinely meant it. I had the feeling that the experience was going to stay with me for the rest of my life. It could just be the afterglow from sex, but I really wanted to communicate to her how honestly excited I was about the performance.

Although I might have told her that in the taxi on the way to the hotel, or it may have been that we were already talking about it when we first met at SuperDeluxe. The performance was staying with me like the lingering heat on your skin after spending a day at the beach, warmth that you feel into the night. The show was over and the lights were back on. The area around the bar was a little brighter than the rest of the room, and we stood there talking. It only took a couple minutes of conversation to make up our minds. We left the place and went straight to the hotel. I didn’t say much to the five guys I had come with. I just went back to where they were all sitting, grabbed my stuff, must have said something about what I was doing, and that was that. The girl and I caught a taxi as soon as we stepped outside. Sitting in the back seat, holding hands like lovers, we headed to Shibuya.

The performance made it feel like we were in another country, I said to her, and I don’t think it was just because the performers were foreigners. I whispered that to her or something like it, maybe not fully whispering but anyway in a quiet voice, my mouth close to her ear. But I was also completely wasted, so I probably didn’t manage to say any of that in a logical and intelligible way—even when I’m sober I’m not the best at communicating stuff like that—so the best I could do was to try over and over again, tracing the same line of conversation, and even then I doubt I managed to get it quite right. She was skinny, and her fingers and the palm of her hand didn’t have much meat on them. The feel of her fingers laced between mine actually hurt a little, the bony sharpness of them, it was like they existed to give that pain, and that pain felt kind of good. I wiggled my fingers between hers like to appreciate it. We pretended the driver couldn’t see us. He probably knew what was going on, but he was an older guy who was good at acting like nothing was happening in his taxi, and if he did suspect something, he knew better than to make too big of a show ignoring it, since that would just tip us off to the fact that he knew, but anyway even if he did know I really didn’t care. He must have seen us making out in the rear-view mirror. My other hand was up her skirt, not quite in her panties but rubbing the top of her thighs through her stockings as voices kept going back and forth on the taxi radio. And still I couldn’t get away from thinking how at SuperDeluxe, when the audience members went up to the mic, they were speaking in Japanese, but it almost sounded like English, and why did it sound that way? I went back and forth over these thoughts, running my hands over her stockings, imagining the feel of the bare skin underneath. Although, I mean, I couldn’t be too obvious about rubbing her thighs, so a lot of the time I just had my hand on her thigh, resting. Now I wonder what she was thinking after hearing me say what I said about the performance, or if she even heard it at all. When I said what I said, how come she didn’t answer? Did she try to say something, or try to get me to say more, and horniness got in the way? I’ll never be able to ask her now—I doubt I’ll ever see her again. Maybe if the performers were Japanese, even if they said all the exact same things, the whole thing would have felt different. There was a particular atmosphere there, an informal conversation about the war that was about to begin, a conversation that could never have happened in a room full of only Japanese people. I can’t even imagine it. If a group of Japanese people tried to create the same scene, it would feel wrong, like a fake plastered-on smile, and I wouldn’t go anywhere near it.

The guy and me got out of the taxi and went into a convenience store for water and beer. Then we picked a hotel at random, because one was just as good as another, and got a room. It had a little fridge. That was all we needed. We were both drunk to the point of exhaustion, pretty much numb. I couldn’t say for sure exactly where we got out of the taxi. I remember that the big intersection, the one in front of Shibuya Station that’s always swarming with people, was as busy as usual even that late at night, so we must have gotten out around there. It would have been a little embarrassing to ask the driver to let us off by Love Hotel Hill, so we probably said that the big intersection was fine. But the driver was just a regular old guy, and we were so messed up, we probably didn’t feel like walking and didn’t care if he knew what we were doing, and maybe we had him drop us off by the Bunkamura. There was a Sunkus convenience store across from the 109 building, so we went there first. He wanted another beer. I didn’t need any more alcohol. He bought a 500ml can. I got a litre of Evian. And also some chocolate. Whenever I get drunk and pass out, I wake up with my mouth feeling all dry and gross, like I’m about to come down with a cold. Even when I’m not that drunk, the air conditioning in love hotels is always pretty harsh, it dries you out more than anything else, which makes me feel sick, so if I don’t remember to bring water I always regret it, which has happened a bunch of times, so to make sure it never happens again I think about how bad it was and always make sure to buy myself some water, no matter how drunk I am. At this point it’s basically a physical reflex. The chocolate I got just because I love chocolate and thought I might want some later. I thought I would eat it when we got to the room, but that didn’t happen. We had only just met, so as soon as we got to the room we undressed and had sex. I didn’t get so entirely carried away that I forgot about the chocolate, but I never got around to eating it the whole time we were there, and when we finally left the hotel I took the chocolate home with me. I ended up eating it at my place, while watching the news about the war.

After sex the first time we had sex again without stopping to rest, but he seemed fine, so I figured we might as well keep going, and then I was like this pace is kind of intense, but we kept at it, full speed. Eventually he slowed down, and then he passed out. I figured I’d get some sleep too—though it wasn’t like I was feeling sad to be left awake alone or anything like that—so I slept. We both slept for the same amount of time, very fair and egalitarian, maybe two hours. But it seemed to pass in no time at all. He woke up first and started touching me, which woke me up. I started touching him back, and before long it was like okay, here we go again. I think at that point we both had every intention to keep going like that forever. It turned out not to be forever, of course, more like three or four or five times. At some point, a feeling settled on both of us that we were cutting the cord of time. You know, time which is always pushing us forwards, pushing us forwards, and even if we want it to slow down a little it never listens, so we give up hope of it ever letting up, but for now, just for now, time felt like it’d been unplugged and we had been given a reprieve. That feeling filled our bodies little by little, or maybe it came all at once, but there it was. That was what we wanted, so we tried to make it happen, and it actually did.

Like all love hotels, this one had no clock in the room, and we didn’t want to know the time. Of course we both had our phones. But they were turned off and tucked away in the mesh pockets of our bags. The bags themselves we set down against the wall farthest from the bed, because we didn’t want to have to see them, we didn’t want them to even exist. We were trying to banish time from our little world, to make it possible for us to say, what’s this time thing anyway? We’d have sex, then lie there all mellow. At some point we’d drift off into unconsciousness, beautifully, unaware who fell asleep first. After a short while one of us would wake up, then the other would wake up or be woken up. Then we’d have sex again. Since our little world had no clocks and no sun, it was hard to say for sure whether it was two days or three days or even just one.

But eventually we got hungry. We hadn’t eaten since we’d checked in, and we were starved. I didn’t think a love hotel was like a regular hotel where you could go out for a meal and come back, but we called the front desk and they said it was no problem. So we decided to head to Centre Street and find somewhere to eat. We put on the clothes that we had yanked off and left balled up on the floor.

Until we opened the door of the hotel we didn’t know if it was day or night. Neither of us had been wondering which it was. Turned out it was daytime. We could see the sun in the narrow stretch of sky visible between the buildings that rose in front of us. The sky was murky, the same exact colour as a cloud. But to us that was the only colour the sky had ever had. The sun looked the same as it did the last time we had seen it, which made us feel a twinge of nostalgia, weird as that sounds. We walked down the hill towards the Bunkamura. We passed a barber shop and could hear the “Tamori” show on the TV inside. So it had to be lunchtime. Where should we go? How about one of those, you know, lunch buffets all over Shibuya? We walked up and down Centre Street, checking out the options, and settled on a place that I’d heard about, an Indian restaurant with a ¥950 all-you-can-eat buffet. It was right near the big intersection. I had been wanting to try this place, but for someone like me with a shitty part-time job ¥950 is kind of a lot for lunch. But hey, the day was kind of an exception, and so we went on in. This could end up being like the best curry we’ve ever had, he said with a laugh. It was for sure the most curry we ever had. And even though we were both low-wage earners, we both wanted a lassi so bad that we shelled out the extra ¥250 and chugged it down.

During the days and nights I spent with him, things felt different. I wasn’t in my everyday mode, I was somewhere special. I realized this when we came down the hill to the flat area by Shibuya Station, and it was like we were walking around on the bottom of a huge empty swimming pool bathed in sunlight, although I probably felt the difference earlier, back in the hotel, and even back at the performance, when the feeling first started stirring. Now we were walking in the same Shibuya as always, but it felt like I was travelling in a foreign country. Weird. Then I began to worry that if I kept thinking how weird it was, then that special mode I was in would evaporate and everything would go back to the way it is all the time. So I made up my mind not to pay any attention to this feeling. But after a bit I began to feel I didn’t have to worry because the feeling didn’t seem to be that fragile after all, that it wouldn’t disappear so easily, and once I realized that I relaxed. I stayed in that special mode for the whole time we were together, which was a really amazing thing. I didn’t think I’d ever be so lucky again. Because after that mode switched off, the next several days were terrible. But I don’t think that cancels out the special feeling of those few days in that mode. I have never once wished they’d never happened.

Some tiny part of me kept asking, how is it that I’m feeling this way, like I’m on holiday, and what does it mean? And then I felt like I hit on a kind of answer, and I wanted to tell him about it. But we were busy eating curry, so I didn’t bring it up. Once we went back to the hotel and had sex again and were in the interval before the next round, I told him.

We took a different route back to the hotel, and when we were waiting to cross the big Shibuya intersection a protest march was going by below the huge digital billboard on the Tsutaya Building. The billboard was flashing clips of the week’s hit music videos, and right under the music and the dancing was a news ticker that said LIMITED CRUISE MISSILE BOMBARDMENT OF BAGHDAD BEGINS, and when we read that we were like, I guess the war really started. It was the first time I had ever seen a protest march, and just like the foreign girl at the performance said, the column of marchers, which included some foreigners, was surprisingly narrow. And the air swirling around the marchers was so calm. From close up, I could feel it. Like the feeling on a train a little after morning rush hour. The procession went through the intersection, then angled down towards Aoyama. When the end of the march started to fade in the distance, we headed home to the hotel. Yeah, funny how at that moment going home became the reverse of normal going home. Going up Love Hotel Hill totally felt like going home. We had only stood watching the march for a tiny stretch of time, so we didn’t give it too much thought, but later it kept popping back into my mind. Like we would be licking each other all over, wordlessly, almost automatically, and the image of the march would creep in to fill the space.

We walked to where there was only a slight slope, so slight you could call it level, across from Book 1st and near the Don Quijote discount store. Then the hill got steep, but it wasn’t far to our hotel. By the time we were back in our room it felt like we had been gone a long while, though it couldn’t have been more than two hours. It hit me that I had actually been missing the room! And the feeling grew stronger. In the next instant it filled me completely. It was the first time I had ever experienced such an instant attachment. I didn’t know such a thing was even possible. That feeling’s been with me ever since, much softer, but always there. Like being homesick. I wish I didn’t feel that way, but I haven’t been able to shake it. When it first happened I tried to ignore it. That was one of the reasons we kept having sex.

Then I noticed that he was pressing his hands against his groin, alongside his penis. At first I thought it was because pressing like that felt good to him, but then I wondered if all this sex might be starting to make him hurt. I figured it out when I saw him close his eyes, like he was willing his penis not to hurt where it was getting raw and chafed. If you’re not feeling good we can stop, is what I should have said, but even if I had, he probably would have been like no, it’s fine, and still kept going, I bet.

When we first got back to the hotel we started kissing, and our mouths tasted like curry and yoghurt. It made us laugh. The sex started, but the pace was much more relaxed than it had been before. Maybe we were both getting a little bored with it. The intervals we spent talking between the sex got longer and longer too. Maybe the boredom was because of having sex with the same person over and over, and maybe talking was getting easier because we had spent all this time together. Anyway, in the course of talking we decided that we would end this thing between us after two more nights. Two more nights would mean that in total we would have been at the hotel four nights. We both thought that was like the right amount of time. The limit. Pretty soon we would run out of money. But we didn’t have to leave just yet. I had several ¥10,000 notes. He had almost nothing on him, though.

The sex was totally different now, the rhythm and the way we were doing it. The excitement we’d felt at the beginning was over, replaced by a sentimental feeling from knowing that the moment was going to end and a crazy kind of calculation that kept us going longer than we might have so that later we wouldn’t feel like we had missed out. But even that had its limits. We took long breaks, whereas at the beginning there were hardly any breaks at all. At one point, he said, so this is like, this is probably just me, but in a couple of days we’re going to leave this hotel, right, and I feel like maybe the war’ll be over by then too. Am I just being optimistic? But I mean, the difference in power is so totally obvious. And like the Gulf War was over real quick, just one pinpoint assault… When he said this and didn’t finish the sentence, we were lying side by side, staring at the stains on the ceiling. By that time we knew every little mark and discolouration, knew them by heart, which was a sign that little by little we were feeling like it was time to leave.

Him: Hey, you know, this whole time we’ve been here we haven’t turned on the TV, you know that? I mean, we’ve just been doing it non-stop, maybe that’s why. But anyway, if we made it this long without TV, let’s leave it off. What do you think? Her: Sure. Him: Yeah? Okay, great. Actually, I was going to suggest that when we got here, I just didn’t. But it happened that way, it kind of just worked out. So like, we have no idea what’s happening with the war now, right? That’s fine, you know. When we go back to our own places, when we turn on the TV, it’ll be like, hey, the war’s over! That’s how I’m thinking this whole scenario plays out. Like, man, the war ended almost as soon as it started, and then we’ll be like, in hindsight it was all for the best. And at that point we’ll be by ourselves but we’ll each think the same thing. And then I’ll be like, see, it happened just like I said it would, and I’ll be all pleased with myself. And then you (although he didn’t really say the word “you” out loud, he kind of swallowed it)will be like, oh, it’s exactly how he said it’d be. And then we’ll be like, wait a second, that means that we were doing it for the whole war. That’s pretty awesome, that’s what we’ll think. While we were fucking our brains out, the war started and ended. Like, instead of love and peace, it’d be sex and war. I don’t really know what I’m saying. But when I think about it happening that way, it kind of feels like… like we’re a part of history. I was thinking like, there’s a good chance I’ll think back on this time right before I die.

They had sex again. The ejaculation seemed to drain his cheekbones, but he didn’t complain, didn’t say anything, even though his penis felt like rubber to him. He knew he only had to hang on a little while longer. Now she did most of the talking. He listened to her, meanwhile applying pressure to his groin, trying to look casual about it. She talked about how she felt like she was on holiday, way different from her everyday mode, how Shibuya felt like a foreign country when they were out walking, and while she talked she stretched her left leg up towards the ceiling. She spoke each word as if she was finding it on the street and picking it up. And then she changed the leg she was stretching. He thought about what she was saying as he watched her stretching her legs and said, so what would you call what we’re doing now? What is this, a life? A way of life? Whatever, to be blunt, when I think about just keeping on like this, I mean think about it, it’s impossible, right? We’ve got to face the facts. We don’t have the money, for one thing. And really, how long can we keep this up, anyway?

He kept on talking: So, as far as money goes, I’ve got only like ¥2,000 yen on me. I know, sorry about that. But if we go to an ATM, I should have maybe ¥30,000 or ¥40,000 in the bank. My job pays once a month, so it’s a low period for me now… It was at this point that the two of them decided to call it. The day after tomorrow we’ll leave here and go back to our own places and by then the war’ll probably be over. When he said this, her response was, it’ll be like going home not knowing if Japan won their World Cup match today and then putting on the news to find out, you know, that kind of nervous feeling.

Neither one of them was certain who was the first to suggest they end it on the fifth day. Maybe he said to her: I mean I can’t imagine you could’ve been thinking you wanted to stay here like this with me forever anyway, right? And you can say it. I mean I feel the same way, so we might as well both say it. She said, okay, and he said, okay. They both had a feeling of release, like a fake tear duct that suddenly came unblocked. When they both said okay, by chance their voices overlapped perfectly, seamlessly, in a way that felt almost like another miracle. Their voices had matched so perfectly that they couldn’t even crack a joke about it. Instead they both tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. Then he started talking again, and like, this thing between us, it’s probably not going to turn into like a lifelong connection, is it? But, and this is just what I think, but it’s not that a lifelong connection is somehow more special, or that we didn’t make a lifelong connection because this wasn’t special, or because we couldn’t make that kind of connection, it’s not like that at all. You get what I’m saying, right? She said she got it. And, he went on, I think that’s like luck, I mean I think that spending time, days, like this with someone who understands that, that’s incredible. Not everybody would understand that. I think it’s super-incredible. But you could see someone saying, what’s so incredible about it? All you two did was fuck the whole time.

They needed to check what time it was. First, they had sex. It felt different from before because time was back in the picture. He pulled the phone out of his bag, which had been tossed in the corner of the room. Their moment that seemed to go on forever was coming to an end. The LCD screen showed three in the afternoon. They had guessed it was night, and only a few hours left before morning. He turned the phone off. Since they had more time than expected, they had sex some more, casually. She was worrying about the pain in his groin, but he said he was fine, so she made up her mind not to worry about it. They spent the time until the morning having sex, and resting, and every so often he reached for his phone to check the time. This was repeated through the hours, and they couldn’t quite tell if it felt like the hours were moving quickly or slowly. The passing of time seemed slow, but if they took their eyes off it for an instant it seemed to skip ahead. Before long the digital numbers told them it was morning. Just a bit past eight. They lay on their backs, and he held his phone at arm’s length, raised it towards the ceiling, while they brought their faces close to watch the seconds flash on the screen, to watch minutes go by. It was time to leave. They put their clothes on and gathered their things together. That didn’t take any time at all. He dialled the NTT information number for date and time, brought the phone up to his ear and listened. Of course what was announced was the exact same as the display on his phone. But just seeing it on his screen, he didn’t quite believe it.

When they stepped out of the room, a feeling washed over them of something coming to an end, a stronger feeling than it had been before. She paid for their stay at the desk and they went out into the day. The light stabbed at their eyes, giving them a headache like a hangover. They walked. The ATM on the way opened at 8:45, so they had timed their departure accordingly. What bank do you use? she asked. He answered, Hokuriku. She didn’t know they had a branch in Shibuya. But they did, in the same building as the Lotteria. She waited on the sidewalk while he withdrew the cash. When he came out, he handed her ¥20,000. What’s with this 20,000? Your share is more than that, she said. But that was almost all he had in his account, and he let her see the receipt that showed the ¥20,000 withdrawal and an account balance that was only in two figures. They walked to Shibuya Station. One was headed to the Toyoko Line, the other to the Yamanote Line. Bye was all they said, and they parted ways. But after he left, she lingered, didn’t go to her train. She knew that if she got on her train and rode away from Shibuya, then she would lose this Shibuya that felt like a foreign country and her non-everyday mode would disappear and probably never come back. She wanted to keep the feeling just a bit more, so she decided to stay. But only a little while longer. She walked back the way they had just come, towards Love Hotel Hill, as if she had left something behind and was going to collect it. She worried that having already gone to the station the special feeling would have vanished, but it was still there. She turned the corner past the Bunkamura, nearly scraping the building with her shoulder, and came to the foot of the hill where their hotel was. The sloping street caught the morning light and glistened like frost. The air smelt like last night’s garbage. Utility poles rose up from the sidewalk. One pole near her had a plastic trash can attached to it, and next to it was a large dog. The dog was stooped forwards snuffling, rooting around in the garbage spilling out of the trash can. But when she looked again, she saw that it wasn’t a dog at all. What she’d thought was a dog’s head was actually a human ass, the bare ass of a human being. It was a homeless person taking a shit. She felt the sudden urge to vomit, her throat constricting audibly. The homeless person turned towards her, still squatting. It wasn’t a sharp look, more like the mild attitude someone might have listening to the wind blow. Shocked, she turned away, trying not to be too obvious, making like she too was listening to the wind, but she had in fact jerked away violently. She started walking along the side of Bunkamura, following the breeze that was blowing. After a few steps she started to run. She knew there was a toilet in Bunkamura, but the building was closed. She didn’t know of any other public toilet around and the shops hadn’t opened yet. There was nothing she could do. Her vomit erupted out of her and splattered onto the street. It wasn’t the sight of someone shitting on the sidewalk that made her vomit, it was revulsion at herself for not knowing a human being from an animal. She realized this as the vomit was coming out of her, and even after it stopped. She stood in place until she calmed down, then walked away from the puddle of her filth, pretending it had nothing to do with her. Some of the vomit had gotten on her clothes. She went back to the station and this time went through the wicket. While she wiped off her clothing with toilet paper in the station restroom, her special Shibuya vanished, replaced by the same old Shibuya as always.