Sonochihama Ryuuta watched the profile of his visitor with a smile. Kaninohara Mitsuyo, the daughter of an old neighbor and old friend, was eating a candy bar and humming against the cool wind of late May. She had grown a lot in the time he had known her. Then, before the war tore them apart, and there, since he had met her again in the aftermath. Her mother’s penchant for long hair on girls was well-learned and apparent from the dark threads which extended across her shoulder like fluid draining over a stone. 

“Hey, Uncle Ryu, do you want to go see a movie?” 

Ryuuta checked his watch and took a deep breath. 

“No, it’s too late for me to be going out I think. Don’t you have friends to go see movies with? I can’t imagine an old guy like me is all that interesting to be around in theaters.” 

“Sure, but I’m already here, you know?” 

The year prior she had graduated from her compulsory education. The only thing left before her was university. Auspicious, which she made well known. Her mother’s laborious trades could barely afford them the means to live, and to look forward to a well-established place of learning was somehow unbelievable. Ryuuta understood, while feeling the letter within the sleeve of his jinbei, what his purpose was. 

Around the front of the yard a man in a grey buttoned shirt approached with a bag tucked under his left arm. He walked to the veranda where the two were sitting and adopted a smile that Ryuuta knew well was feigned and hollow. 

“Hey there, Mitsuyo.” 

“Hi Mister Gendo. You’re here later than usual.” 

“Ah, well, you know how it is, eh? I got into a bit of a fight with the wife, her younger brother wants to live abroad and make it on his own. I pulled a string or two, because I knew some people where he wanted to go. Well, I guess he reported me to his sister for interference. That’s how it goes, young people these days despise even the slightest bit of help.” 

Mitsuyo chucked the last little piece of chocolate into her mouth and continued to speak while slowly chewing on it. 

“No way that’s the whole story.” 

Gendo laughed and took off his old leather shoes before sitting beside Ryuuta on the veranda. He pulled the bag out and set it down before his old friend. It sounded like a bottle had been placed there. Mistuyo eyed it with suspicion while the two men traded silent words through their mutual expressions. Gendo tilted his eye to Ryuuta, who knew too well why his friend had become upset. 

“You should be getting home now, little Mitsu,” Ryuuta said softly. 

Mitsuyo grabbed Ryuuta’s wrist and read the watch acutely. 

“I guess so. Thanks for the chocolate, Uncle Ryu. I’ll see you this weekend, okay?” 

“Of course. I’ll be looking forward to it.” 

As she put on her shoes at the edge of the veranda Ryuuta tensed his fists in his lap. Holding back the sensations of farewell that he had wanted to partake in. It would do no good to act so sentimental in that moment. It would only be seen as foreboding for the girl who had grown so warm to him, and yet who he had not dared to allow himself to call a niece. However she saw him, Ryuuta, whenever he allowed the veins to bring up that villainous idea of relation, could only see her fathers eyes within her own. The dead man staring back at him with vilification. The girl could not see her father any longer. Another blessing, because she could not see the grim similarity that had recently afflicted Ryuuta. 

Mitsuyo stood and tapped her toes to fix her shoes before turning to the two men. She bowed to them with a quaint smile of innocence. It brought to mind her forlorn solemnity which had come when first he had seen her since the war. For insulting an old woman by accident she thought herself a demon. Two years had passed, near to the month. That she was able to smile despite the horrors inflicted upon the world in her youth amazed him. For his own infrequent gaiety was only possible due to her appearance in his life. So wrought with emotion, a phrase slipped past the gates of Ryuuta’s heart, so pressured as it was. 

“Thank you for coming by, little Mitsu.” 

That was it, he knew in that moment that she could tell something was wrong. Her smile faltered at its edge before she pulled the strings back and bounced with an energetic rebuttal. 

“We’re going to see a movie this weekend for sure! Read the paper and figure out which you want to go see, okay?” Her eyes betrayed the high cheekbones and swaying portrayal of whimsy. Her over-acted joviality as clear to Ryuuta as his own fault in that final expression of gratitude. He pressed his lips together to prevent any air from leaving, for it would be the ram which broke down those barricades so deliberately placed. The most he could do was wear a smile again and nod in reply. 

The girl's eyes did not change as she nodded with a wide grin and turned away. 

By the time she disappeared around the corner of his neighbors fence, Gendo had produced, from the parcel which he had brought, a bottle of whiskey. It was American, with the strange characters of that empire printed on a white label. The brown glass bottle sat tall between the two men while they remained silent, staring at it. Before long Ryuuta decided to acquiesce, and he went into the house to grab two glasses. When he had come back out Gendo had undone the top two buttons of his shirt. It revealed a portion of his wrinkled neck and his greying chest hair peeked out at the summer air. 

“So, you found out, did you?” 

Gendo scoffed and grabbed a glass, pouring the whiskey into it halfway. 

“I know everything about you Ryuuta. That doctor of yours is an old friend of mine. Well, maybe not a friend, you know, but I know him and he knows me. You’d have to be stupid to think you could even hide a grain of rice from me. Hell, let alone this…” he struggled to find a curse and gave up as he lifted the glass to his lips and drank. 

“It’s not your fault, if that was your worry.” 

“So you say! I mean, could it be a coincidence? You were sick in university because of that wound you suffered because of me, and now this, and where it is, how could you say that it’s not my damn fault?” Gendo poured himself another glass before Ryuuta began to slowly administer some into his own glass. 

Ryuuta looked out across the street at the house with the second floor room. Over its pinnacle a cloud appeared in dark grey against the navy sky. Clouds hid the stars from view. Perhaps from the northwest, in the hills approaching Fuji, one could see past the coverage and into the cosmos above. He knew what lay there, for every evening those last five years he had sat there and gazed up at those stars. Yet in that moment he felt at once lustful to get another look at them. If only to see them again. The next night they would appear, but that would be the next night. Not that moment when he so desired to see them. Yet he could not even curse God for denying him such a small sanctity. He had sinned horribly against the girl with his secrecy, it did not take Gendo’s anger to tell him that much. 

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever said the word pancreas before. Isn’t that funny? I wonder if that’s fate, or maybe—well, I’m talking nonsense.” 

Gendo laughed over his half-empty glass. 

“It could be fate. I once met a man from Spain, and the Spanish word for Swiss is the same as our Japanese pancreas. Phonetically, that is. Like how that uncle of yours bragged about his adventures and all that. At least, to hear your father tell it. That’s some foresight, isn’t it? I’ve never met a Swiss, like they’ve been avoiding me or something. Maybe that was fate too, like they didn’t want to give the game away. Damn it, Ryuuta, what are you going to do?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“How are you going to tell her?” 

The depth of Gendo’s heart was at last exposed. Ryuuta had known of its vastness, and of its warmth. Still, to at once bear witness to such a proud man giving up the ghost of fortitude so readily told him that, as his friend had said, the game was up. A knife scar stung under his jinbei. Beneath it, within Ryuuta’s own flesh, his body was slowly killing itself. When that wound was still fresh he recalled looking up at a boy's snot-covered face as he begged and pleaded with him to tell him the right way. To tell him how he could save him. The boy no longer sniffled in sadness at his friend's coming end, yet age did not deprive him of the root feeling. 

At last, having deprived himself of liquor for the last ten years since Kaninohara’s death, Ryuuta pressed the rim to his lips and let the whisky flow down his hot throat. It struck him painfully, it lit a fire in his heart, and it quickly faded into his stomach wherein his body drank up the alcohol like a starved beast. It tasted good. He felt that, and he smiled at himself for still being able to find the taste in a thing imbibed in sorrow. Narcissistic pride at last. Not even his success had brought him that. Not even the smile which the girl had grown. For even that was something she had created for herself. So strong willed was she, that girl with the strength to kill her past for the sake of not letting it do the same to her. Jealousy welled within him, and then an understanding of his part in her life. He had provided her the place to mourn her lost father, her lost home, her lost youth. She was grown, and she had to go on. She had to leave him. Perhaps his body itself knew that, and it was time to punch out. 

“I don’t think I will.” 

Gendo set his glass down with furled eyes. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

Ryuuta smiled and turned from his friend, facing the blue clouds. 

“It took her father too, back then. I remember visiting them in hospice. You were in Hokkaido then, you recall. I played cards with him in his bed, no matter how thin his fingers got he still managed to throw down his hands with vigor. He was always a bad winner, braggart that he was. His daughter too.” As he spoke the image of Kaninohara’s sallow face came to him, trying its best to smile despite the pain which was constantly assaulting him. Trying to look strong for his little girls. For the older Himeko, and even for little Mitsuyo. Then only nine years of age. Silent while she played along with her fathers torturous games of wellness. As though he could stand on his own weak legs, as though his fingers did not constantly shake while they watched him hold his cards. 

“You have to tell her man, what are you even talking about?” 

“I never really made friends. Of course you made a bull of yourself and came into my life, but Kaninohara was the only other man I could call a friend. Kaninohara was more a brother to me than my own, his wife more of a sister. Mitsuyo…” 

He cursed himself. If only he had time. Perhaps once she was out of university, maybe once she had gotten herself a fine job. A family. When it was time for his faculties to fade in the normal way, for him to survive the recession and the war and the reconstruction. Maybe, if only he could live until it was truly beyond reason, she could give him permission to entreat with her all that he truly felt. His own father had written him off as soon as he was first admitted to the sanatorium with TB. His mother was estranged even from his childhood through the procedure of her status as the Governor’s wife. His only loyal ally was earned through his own sacrifice. 

The ghost of Kaninohara still watched out the window, overlooking the life Ryuuta had stolen from him. Robbed of flesh before he could see his daughter grow into a woman. Robbed of her smile. Unable to hold his little girl in his arms while fire rained from the flying metal demons which spat hate upon their small lives in revenge for outrageous claims of righteousness. Ryuuta knew that he could not lay a single ounce of credit upon himself for having fostered such a warmth in her heart after all of that madness. He was of the world which stole her life away, however small a cog though he was. A face among thousands one sees in their life, an old family friend. That was all he was to her, he knew. 

“She doesn’t have to be blood to be family, man.” 

Gendo muttered the words from behind his glass. The liquor reddened his cheeks. 

“Thank you for saying that, really.” 

While they drank in silence for several minutes the cat, Monpe, appeared from the darkness of the yard and leapt into the space between them. It sniffed at the opening of the bottle before cringing its little nose and threatening it with a raised paw. Deftly Gendo snatched the bottle before Monpe could swipe it away, at which the cat lightly flinched before giving up its attack and pulling its paw to its face. It licked at the pads and pulled sharply at the hairs between its extended claws. After a few moments Monpe walked towards Ryuuta, sniffing at his lap before cautiously stepping into it and crawling in circles thereon several times. Finally Monpe pressed its claws into Ryuuta’s protected leg a few times, kneading the cloth before curling up into a calico ball of warmth. Ryuuta laid a hand on the cat's fur while slowly stroking it.

“I suppose you’ll have to take the cat back,” Ryuuta laughed with vinegar. 

“Oh, shut up. I can’t, Ohiko hates the things.” 

Ryuuta smiled at his friend while petting the creature. 

“Oh alright, I guess she can put up with it for a while. Honestly, why do you always have to be such a damn pain in the ass? Hell, somehow you’re finding ways to trouble me even in dea—” Gendo cut himself off with an exhaled laugh. Then, reproaching himself, he drank more of the whiskey and laughed until his eyes were wet. 

“I think it’s better. It gives me an easy way out.” 

Gendo stared at his friend with wide red eyes. 

“You’re not serious?” 

“I’m not dumb Gendo, I know she’s attached to me. She’s probably been hesitating to go to university because she’s afraid of leaving me alone here. If I allow myself to become a villain, then she gets to be free of this damned place. The last ghost will be gone.” 

The words hung low like a heavy gas at risk of ignition. Gendo did not need to be told what the plan was, and indeed he was better off not knowing the details until the day. The time, the method. Spite against the gods was all that Ryuuta held within himself. If her last image of him was that of a fat old man, then that was for the best in his eyes. Better than the skeleton, better than shaking until his bones were cold and his eyes without light. The scar stung cold. In reply Ryuuta administered some of the brown medicine. 

“You’re wrong, I know you understand that.” 

“The old die and the young live, that’s not news, Gendo. I’ve given her what little I could in life. The job of the young is to take what they can, cannibalize the knowledge and blood of their forebears and then go on into the future with resolve. I can’t let her be like my brother, stuck in a past age. It would be best if she could forget me altogether. I don’t fancy dying before my time, but that’s the hand I’ve been dealt.”

Gendo stared into his glass and went for the bottle again to find it empty. Already the two had taken up all of that little comfort. He set his glass and juggled the bottle between his hands, speeding up with haste and aggression until he took a deep breath and tossed it with all of his might into the pathway which led up to Ryuuta’s house. The glass shattered loudly against the quiet Mishima night, echoing through the neighborhood unfettered by the sounds of life and game which twenty years before had filled its street. No longer did a little girl watch her father sweat over cypress beams. No longer did middle school boys catch eels in the streams which filled with the runoff from a lake’s overflow in the hill behind the town. Drunk men no longer tarried, carrying their husks through the post-war streets amidst hateful gazes. The rickshaw routes did not travel through that place anymore, and even the new inhabitants had long purchased more modern homes in places far away. Leaving their properties empty and quiet but for the ghosts of a war already forgotten by the unfeeling mill of progress. 

Grinning at the echoing silence, Gendo spoke to the darkness. 

“Damn it all…what do I have to do? You’re the damn bookworm. Just tell me where to go, just tell me who I have to pay to get you the treatment you need. Europeans, the Chinese, even the damn American bastards who did this to you. Just tell me, you have to know! Screw your writing! You know I’m a busker, money’s not an issue, just point me to the doctors Ryuuta! This way you’re talking is stupid. You’re only fifty-six man, you’ve got another ten years at least, twenty if you would just get some damn exercise! She’s already nineteen, in just five years she’ll be out of school and in work. In ten she’ll have found a good man, in fifteen she might even have a family! Christ, don’t you want to see her children? Wouldn’t that just make it all worth it? Just to see that something came of this damn nightmare?” 

Ryuuta smiled while his friend's words and pleas fell upon the uncaring night. 

“Dozu, it’s over.” 

The man’s shoulders fell and his fire waned. 

“Yeah, I guess it is.” 

“Say, I happen to have been keeping a bottle of sake. How about it?”

Gendo laughed and slid his glass to his friend with a grin. 

“To hell with it. There’s never been a word I’ve said that’s gotten through to you.” 

“I take it that means…?” 

“Yes! Damn it all, don’t be an ass more than you already are. Just get the damn bottle.” 

With a laugh Ryuuta gently lifted Monpe from his lap and set it on the floor. The cat pressed its forepaws into the floor, arching its back high as it stretched out one back leg and the other. Monpe faithfully followed its master inside. 

A cool breeze carried the smell of peach blossoms to the nose of an old man named Gendo Dozu. He took it in before letting it pass away from that house into the street. It faded further off, mixing with the mountain air as it ran from the alpine heights to meet with the salted ocean currents. Crashing amidst their invisible confluence, the winds fell across Mishima and Numazu. They blew through the old temple grounds as new owners laid to rest in their newly renovated home. Covering them and moving on down the stone steps traveled by ghosts and into the forest where it met the old Tokaido road. Piles of lumber lay about after their workers went home for the night, waiting to be assembled into buildings and rail lines. The wind let the wood sleep and moved down into Shimbachi street, letting its icy breath wake the fish-stall cooks and the many part time workers who had fallen asleep before their shift ended. Soon that breeze found itself passing through the cracked apartment window of a woman who was once a little girl. Peacefully she had set down to sleep. Eager to see the man who was friends with her father, eager to see a movie with her dearest uncle. She pulled the blanket to her cheek and took in the air, heating it with the warmth of her youth and letting it pass into the sheets of her futon. So long did that air linger that it could hear faint whispers as she passed from daylight into the world of dreams. 

“Goodnight, Uncle Ryu…”