I felt a cold wind blow across Tokyo Bay. 

Emboldened by the night sky, the lights atop the Shinjuku skyline flicked on in replication of the stars above. The crawling cars hummed with light unneeded in the blinding pit of the streets. Neon signs blasted fluorescent gleam into the drivers eyes and the LED beams illuminated the moist pavement. Insulting the moon as it shone down on them, people could even be seen wearing sunglasses and wide brimmed hats as though it were natural to need such things in the midst of night. Yet still they wore heavy clothes of cotton and silk. Though their phosphorescent masters created painful light in solar mimicry, they gave none of its warmth. 

As the cold covered them, steam rose from atop the roof vents and from the guts of the sewer covers. Humid mist which fled from its daytime prison to mix with exhaust fumes. The mixed fog was too heavy to rise above those buildings, and so it hung below the tops. Clinging to the windows and dripping to the thirsty asphalt which was only too happy to drink it back up again. The ground had become wet and sour and reflected the unbearable parade of lights which made up the world of the Shinjuku streets. 

Kaido held out my drink as we descended the stairs to the station platform. I grabbed it from him and tucked my chin into the warmth of my scarf. The chill air crept beneath the newly trimmed hair into the back of my neck. I shivered and took a sip of the hot tea in its little foam cup. Kaido kept the takeout bag with my noodles for the duration of our walk from Fushigoro to the station. 

Due to the late hour the platform only held a few varying degrees of human. A handful of suited men, a half dozen college aged drunks of mixed gender, and two homeless who were buried under layers of jackets and sweaters. The two were being eyed by the station officer as we reached the platform. Above them fluorescent bulbs were allowed to sing atop the silence of late night, then almost early morning. The last train soon to drown them out, they sang for their tired audience in a dull electrical hum. As we walked I tried to keep my eyes off the white tiles cut up by long yellow lines. Kaido led me to a bench on the far side of the platform which would take us back to the university dorms in Kita. 

He untied the small loop of the plastic bag handles and handed me the noodles. I took them and stared down at the grey tiles broken up by islands of yellow and brown squares. The wind snuck through the exposed beams of the platform through which darkness could be seen against a grey structure beyond. On the wind, divorced from the street, I felt the moisture of the bay for the first time that whole night. I could taste the sea salted air. 

Kaido shuffled the napkins in the bag around for a moment after he took out his noodles as well. Dissatisfied, he removed them and held the bag upside down, dropping a plastic wrapped pair of chopsticks. 

“I guess they only gave us one pair.” Kaido sighed. 

“You can keep them, I’m not that hungry.” I told him. 

“No, come on, you haven’t eaten all day. At least I had that karaage at the karaoke place. Here, you take them.” His broad hand held out the wrapped sticks and I took them without argument. Too often had I accepted such small things. A sin repaid dearly. 

A bead of sweat had built up just below his hairline. I could even feel his hand, while grabbing the sticks, was near scalding to the touch. Earlier that day I had chastised him for not wearing warmer clothes. A pair of jeans did not make up for a short sleeved tee. He told me then that he probably would not need it. He was prepared in that way. Ready for the dreaded outcome of his excursion. Punishment to the cold, or else reprieve from the sweat of over-layering. In the event of his worst expectation either would be welcomed. I understood then why he chose to wear such atypical clothes on a trip to the city. 

It was my fault again. 

The lights faintly reflected off the plastic wrapper in my hand. Yellowed by filtering through it and easier to see, unfocused though it was. Ten grams felt like ten kilograms in my palm as it rested on the stockings of my half-exposed knees. I could not understand the passion which brought heat from within Kaido’s chest. Enough to keep him warm against the bay cold, enough to fight off the night sky. I felt it. Every breeze that ran through the station and carried the scent of garbage and salt. The smell of wet steel and dusty gravel. So cold again that I fled into my scarf for a semblance of what Kaido had pitifully achieved in his unshown receding. 

“Do you hate me?” A voice like my own left my lips. Weakened though it was. 

Kaido leaned against the back of the bench and stretched his legs across the tiles. 

“I don’t hate you Suoki.” 

“But you went through all of this. Planning our day and everything, you know? You must think I’m a really selfish woman then, responding the way I did.” Kaido rolled his head to face me as I spoke, his face unchanging from its mild expression. 

“You know, you remind me of this one girl—” 

“The sickly one?” I interrupted.

“Yeah, that one. How’d you know that?” 

“You said the same thing when Kinoko and I complained to you about the last exams. You don’t remember?” 

“No.” He said, pulling his legs in and leaning down with his arms resting on his knees. 

“Oh, well, that’s what you said.” 

The words hung beneath the humming lights. Too paralyzed by it, and by their weight, the chopsticks remained in their wrapper yet. I reminded him of a girl watching the other children play from across the road. Well enough to watch from nearby, but still too ill to partake. I did not loath the comparison. It was only all too apparent. 

“Are you mad at me?” I asked. 

“Suoki, you can’t force someone to love you.”

“Mm, yeah…”

We paused over his comment in silence. 

To our left, down the platform, the two homeless men gathered their things and shuffled away somewhere else. The handfuls of drunks laughed and pushed each other around as the suited men side eyed them reproachfully. One of them shifted his wrinkled eye to me and I quickly jolted my gaze somewhere else. So hastily had I run from the stare that I inattentively found myself looking at Kaido again. The sides of his eyes were moist, but nothing ran from them. I had done a terrible thing to him, and now I had continued to twist the knife in his poor chest because of my own insecurity. I opened my lips to speak again, but as it would have been another self-hating question, another twisted plea, no words came out. It was Kaido, noticing the terrible situation no doubt, who spoke amid the silence. 

“It’s my fault really. I went and started getting full of myself like usual. It happens, you know? Sometimes I get too comfortable and start thinking I have everything under control, I know what’s up. I start seeing stuff that isn’t there. In peoples faces, right, and I get so narcissistic. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry you’re friends with a guy like me.” 

I wanted to punch him in the head. I wanted to twist his arm sideways or just cover his face in expired natto. A heat welled up from my stomach and spun my torso around on the inside only. Weighed down by the chopsticks, my arms did not move. Weighed down by my own inability to respond, I did not speak. 

“I was a little shocked, you know, because you replied so quickly. It didn’t even take ten seconds. You’re a harsh one Ms Yumane.” His laugh dried the eyes. Rather, it wrapped a chain around the moisture which my words had brought up from within and dragged it back down into his chest. 

“I was the one who was shocked.” 

“True enough. I’m sorry about that.” 

“Stop saying sorry for everything…” 

The words erupted from my stomach in quiet agitation. His lips made the motion to apologize again, but rested into a half-smile which said sorry for his own repetitive apologies. Rather than meet my anger, rather than reply with a red face or utter dejection, he leaned back again with that pleased smile. As though he had given up, as though he wanted to be hated. 

“I just got too confident. I’m not used to having friends in general, let alone women. I just got distracted by my own ego. That’s not to say it would’ve been anyone. I mean, it would never be Kinoko, because she’s just so, well, she’s Kinoko. I thought I knew what was going on with you, and, well, I won’t say it again, but you know. Anyway, well, yeah, I won’t blame you, you know, if you don’t want to talk to me again. This was a bit of a show of arrogance for me, and I kind of expected it to be a blunder. Still, better out than in, eh?” He laughed again under his breath. 

I was detestable. I felt as much. Benefactor alone. A wretched sort of creature like that. Reigning over the deeds of those of better heart than I like some kind of Lord. Taking for granted that I be given tithe and tax for nothing else but my presence. My birth. I took his invitation, I let him pay for karaoke, I drank the hot tea he paid for, and I took the only pair of chopsticks provided by the noodle shop. 

The hanging displays flickered the warning of the oncoming train. It aroused the drunks to approach the edge and the suited men to straighten up. Kaido pushed his knee as he rose and turned back to offer me his hand. I gave him the box of noodles and he dropped it back into the plastic bag with his, tying off the handles again. I stood next to him as we looked down the tracks at the solar brightness of the train's beams. Piercing the night one last time before its rest.

It was too bright for nighttime malaise.

“We’re really two pieces of work, aren’t we?” I tried to joke. 

“Sure, but you’re Gogh, I’m a 4-koma.” 

There were those sorts of things which I was unable to change about myself. No matter how hard I tried, it would just be the same as ever. Running around, trying to get away from my negative traits until I run right back into them in the loop. Already, despite myself, I had given him such a small burden as carrying the takeout yet again. How long would it be before I grew out of those habits? How much longer before I gave up on growing out of them? By his own words, Kaido was still struggling with the overconfidence of familiarity. Yes, by that account, I said no. But was it really any answer at all? Or was it a denial? Fear of the cycle, of falling into the loop again because it would lead me right back into a horrible meeting with my real self. Then, rejection itself had brought me there all the same. So why reject it? Why turn him away so thoughtlessly? So selfishly? Even knowing things about myself like that, I felt as though I had no power over it. When it was cold, I fled to the warmth of my scarf. 

As the train pulled into the platform I hung my head to keep the cabin lights from flashing my eyes painfully. Filled with the sound of the motors, shuffling feet, and a robotic female announcing the time, train number, and destination, the station lived in the dead of night. Kaido remained standing next to me, drawing closer when a crowd began to form. The train slowed to a stop and a small group of colorfully dressed women stepped off in front of us. Once gone, we boarded and took two seats nearest the door. Only two of the drunks, a pair of old guys in blue jackets, boarded our car. The steel bar I leaned on was cold to the touch. It reminded me of Kaido’s hand, and I looked at him again. 

The bag was sitting on the floor between his legs and he had his hands clasped together in his lap, facing forward. His head rested on the window as he closed his eyes. I wondered why I went to the scarf, and I was answered by my own inaction. There were things that a person can never change about themselves. I wondered why that was, because, most likely, it meant they would be someone else entirely. As though escaping the loop would mean being wrong in having been trapped so long. As far as my situation was traveling, I would be safe in knowing that my unchanging self was therefore the me that was in the right. A confidence in crisis. I did not want to become a leech. I saw myself in Kaido at that moment. Not quite a revelation, but rather like peeling an orange and having less than an average amount of pith to pick off. 

I looked away while grabbing Kaido’s hand, wrapping my fingers around his. I could feel him move and look at me, but I could not face him. He let his arm rest between us as I felt the warm blood which ran through his broad palm. 

“So, how are you hanging in there?” His voice was soft and slow. 

“I’m thinking about things.” 

“You do that a lot. Maybe let me in on the secret sometime, eh?” 

He laughed his way back to resting his head on the window. He shifted in the seat to find a more comfortable position as the doors hissed closed and the entire car jolted forward. Dragging us down the tracks. 

“Depending on my answer, you will.” 

“Well, take your time then, it’s a long way back to Kita Ward.” 

The train carried us away from the blinding lights of the heretical Shinjuku. Its mist and smoke began to grow heavy from the early morning perspiration at last, slowly sinking back to the depths of those manholes and ventilation units from where they had come. From the north near Mount Akagi a cold wind blew through Maebashi and carried with it a will to push away what remained of the miasma the city had formed beneath its rooftops. Driving the salt back into the Bay. The lights had died down in Shinjuku. One by one fading from sight as even the brightest of stars fell to the call of the night. 

I watched them pass on outside the window, but felt oddly apart. Within the cabin it had become too hot that my head nearly began to swim. I looked at Kaido and saw that he was already breathing slowly through his lips with a limp head. I chuckled quietly and looked at our intertwined hands. Feeling the warmth of his firm grip, I untied the scarf. 

A combination of Yellowing Carnation and A Grey Dove and an improvement on the former, as well as a greater benevolence than the latter. The greater portion inherited from a well known song, though not replicated.

You may have noticed, or not yet, “there are those sorts of things I could not control”. What a delightfully vague and yet sentimental phrase! I’m addicted to it. It’ll be in the book too, just wait and see!