Expired First Love: Section 2 - chapter 12

 The content warning is in the footnotes⁰.

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The day after meeting with the group of five, Uno didn't send his usual daily email. I was honestly relieved because I didn't know how to respond. But then the next day, and the day after that, no email came. By the time September was nearing its end, two months had passed without any communication.

That day, I said something awful to Uno. Even if it was true that I couldn't love him, I shouldn't have expressed it the way I did in that situation. I feel like I hurt him.

What does this silence mean? Is this his way of saying we've broken up? Or is Uno just sulking? It's been so long, I'm starting to wonder. I could confirm everything with just one email, but I don't want to because I don't want to hear that it's over. It's selfish, but I want to leave the possibility that we're still connected.

On the last Saturday of the month, I met with Takechi. Thanks to a special summer bonus, I had saved enough money by the time I received my September paycheck to pay off my debt.

Until now, Uno had been sending the money through registered mail. I had planned to ask him to help when I repaid Takechi, thinking it would be a good excuse to contact him. But when I casually mentioned to Kagami that I was "about to repay Takechi," Kagami contacted Takechi before I could ask Uno for help and told me, "He wants to receive the money in person."

We arranged to meet after work at the R Café near the station. I had been bracing myself for Takechi to be as tense as he was when we ran into each other at the convenience store, but instead, he smiled and hurried over to me, saying, "Murakami-san!"

"I'm sorry for taking so long to repay you."

I handed him an envelope containing 500,000 yen.

"Thank you, I’ve received the repayment."

Takechi didn't even check the contents before stowing the envelope in his bag.

"Hey, shouldn't you make sure the money's actually there? It could be just newspaper in there, you know."

I joked, and Takechi calmly replied, "If it's just newspaper, I'll send you a bill later."

"Don't you dare say it’s short when it’s not."

"I wouldn't do that! That would be fraud."

Takechi grinned.

"You were the guy who ran out of drinks and diluted your orange juice with water."

"Are we really talking about that again? Give me a break! Everyone still brings it up."

Takechi scratched his closely cropped hair.

"That just shows how memorable the story was."

"You have your share of legendary stories too, Murakami-san."

The tension dissolved, and it felt like time had rewound.

"Murakami-san, you used to stay at Uno-san's apartment, right?"

My chest tightened at the mention of Uno's name.

"I moved out of Uno's place about three months ago. I couldn't keep imposing on him forever. The place I live now is an old apartment, barely better than a college dorm."

"Living the student life, huh?"

The conversation was flowing so smoothly, I felt a bit out of breath. I took a sip of my coffee.

"Do you still see Uno often?"

I asked casually, but I was surprised when Takechi replied, "All the time."

"Our company outsources pamphlets and promotional items to Uno-san’s company, and he's our contact. I talk to him more now than I did when we were students."

I had forgotten that they had work connections.

"Speaking of Uno-san, I saw him with a girlfriend yesterday."

"...Girlfriend?"

"I ran into him on the street after a business meeting. You know how he's usually pretty reserved, right? So, I imagined his girlfriend would be quiet too, but he was walking arm in arm with a flashy young woman. It made me realize you can’t judge someone’s taste by their appearance."

I nodded absentmindedly, but my hands were trembling.

"Maybe someone that flashy and assertive is what Uno needs. But lately, he hasn't looked well. He’s lost weight. I hope he’s not sick."

"Has he lost that much weight?"

"He’s always been thin, but now he looks almost gaunt."

As we parted, Takechi asked, "If you find the time, plan another camping trip. I’d definitely join."

On the way home, I replayed the conversation with Takechi in my mind while riding my bike. Could it really be true that Uno has a girlfriend? Maybe Takechi mistook the woman’s familiarity for a romantic relationship. Uno was in love with me; it’s hard to believe he could fall for someone else so quickly. But two months… is that a long time or a short time?

Uno and I were intimate. If he was with a man, doesn’t that make him gay? Or does he fall for people regardless of their gender?

Some of my college friends were gay, so I don’t have any prejudice. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have considered sleeping with another man who had feelings for me. Even though we had sex multiple times, I never really thought about Uno’s sexuality.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

On Saturday, I had already told Tachibana that I couldn’t take any emergency work that day. I started the morning by making karaage (fried chicken). After it cooled a bit, I packed as much of it as I could into a clean bento box, put it in a plastic bag, and set off on my bike.

It only took about twenty minutes to reach Uno's apartment, which was closer than I expected. I passed by the convenience store where I used to work. I stopped my bike and bought a matcha-flavored ice cream in a cup. The young guy at the register was someone I had never seen before.

As I pedaled, I wondered what I would do with the ice cream if Uno wasn't home. I don't even like matcha. But I couldn't resist buying it, knowing the risk.

I was so nervous that my finger trembled when I pressed the intercom. A woman’s voice answered with a casual "Helloo?" Panicking, I checked the room number, worried I might have the wrong place.

The door opened with a click, and a young woman with her hair in a bun poked her head out. Her eye makeup was heavy. I stubbornly checked the room number again. It wasn’t wrong.

"Um... Is this Uno-san's place?"

The woman glanced back into the room and called out, "Yuuki-san, someone’s here for you!"

Uno appeared from down the hallway. When he saw me, he stopped in his tracks, looking surprised.

"Is this a friend of yours?" the woman asked.

The woman tilted her head, looking confused. Uno gave a vague nod, saying, "Oh, yeah."

"I want to talk," I said, my tone coming out more blunt than I intended. Before Uno could respond, the woman stepped aside, gesturing for me to come in. "Want to come up?" she asked, as if she were familiar with the place. Her casual attitude annoyed me.

"Can you come outside?" I asked Uno.

He nodded and told the woman, "I'll be right back." After putting on his shoes, Uno came out, and I handed him a bag.

"What's this?" he asked.

"I made too much, so I'm giving you some."

"Oh, thanks," Uno replied, taking the bag and passing it to the woman. She peeked inside and exclaimed, "There's ice cream!" then laughed with a high-pitched giggle.

"It's all fried chicken," she said, amused. I felt a sudden urge to snatch the bag back, but I held myself back. Once we were outside, Uno commented, "It's hot," as the sun beat down like it was still summer, even though it was late September.

"Do you want to go to a café or something?" he asked. He chose a fast-food chain, where students in tracksuits and businessmen alike filled the tables. We bought iced coffees and found a quiet corner to sit.

It was the first time we had seen each other since the group meeting. Uno had indeed lost weight, and the thin impression he always gave off had only deepened.

"I was surprised you showed up out of the blue. Are you off work today?"

I had rearranged my schedule to avoid work today, but I didn’t want to admit that, so I simply said, "Yeah."

This wasn’t how I imagined things would go. I thought that if I brought fried chicken, Uno would be happy and invite me up to his apartment. Then I’d apologize for what I said that day…

"Are you dating that girl?" I asked.

Uno looked down, clearly uncomfortable, and nodded. "Yeah. A colleague introduced us. She looks flashy, but she’s actually a really honest and cheerful person."

"She’s not a good match for you," I said.

Uno’s mouth trembled slightly, but instead of arguing, he just smiled faintly.

"So, is it safe to say that we're over?"

Uno hesitated, then said softly, "Probably..."

"I see. If we’re not over, then it means you were two-timing me," I said, my voice harsher than I intended.

Uno quickly looked up. "No, that’s not it. But you didn’t contact me, and I didn’t reach out either... Weeks went by, and I figured it was over."

"So, you moved on to the next person. What if I said I wanted to try again?"

Uno’s hand, resting on the table, began to tremble.

"I don’t think that would happen."

"Why not?"

"Because you don’t love me."

His words hit me like a punch to the chest.

"I knew from the beginning that you were leaning on me because you were lonely. But I didn’t mind because I loved you and wanted to be with you. When you said you were moving out, I realized you wanted distance. I thought I could handle it as long as we stayed connected through emails… But when we met with the group, I realized that I wasn’t enough for you."

Uno gently pressed a hand to his chest.

"The way you look at me is completely different from how you look at Saitou-san. You’re in love with her, but not with me. It was painful to see the difference, but I couldn’t blame you—it’s not like you were doing it on purpose. Saitou-san talked about wanting to go back to our college days, but I never wanted to go back. Still, seeing you with her felt like being dragged back to those days when I had an unrequited crush on you."

Uno looked up at me.

"You should be with someone who makes you happy, someone you can be passionate about. Even if Saitou-san doesn’t work out, I’m sure you’ll find someone else you love."

Uno had a clear understanding of our relationship. He loved me, but I couldn’t love him back. Still, I had wished I could...

"Even if we can’t date like lovers, can’t we at least be friends?"

There was a long silence.

"It should be fine for me to come see you when I want to talk, right?"

But Uno shook his head.

"You’re strong enough to be on your own now. You’re working hard, and you’ve gotten your friends back."

"My relationship with you is different."

"I think I’ll always love you," Uno said, exhaling softly. "Because I love you, I can’t just think of you as a friend."

He wrapped both hands around his now-warm cup of iced coffee.

"I’ve loved you since we were students. Even though we were the same gender, I couldn’t confess, so I graduated and entered the workforce, but you were still the only one I loved. I kept wondering when this one-sided love would end. I think I’ll carry these feelings with me for the rest of my life."

"So even though you love me, you’re choosing another woman."

"There’s nothing I can do about it," Uno replied with a sad smile. "You can’t love me. I can’t make you happy. Even Saitou-san is the same. She loved you but found happiness with someone else. So... please don’t blame just me."

When he brought up Hinano, I fell silent.

"The girl I’m seeing now is named Kana-chan. She talks a lot—about what food she likes, what clothes she likes. She even asked me which comedians I like, and when I said I didn’t know, she laughed like she couldn’t believe it. She said there are so many places she wants to go with me."

Uno continued, "I think that even if I still have feelings for you, I can love someone else and find happiness."

He told me to hold out my hand. Confused, I looked at my hands before offering them. Uno took my right hand in both of his and pressed it to his forehead.

"You’re a very strong person," Uno whispered. "You’re kind, strong, and righteous. You won’t stray from the right path again. You deserve to be happier than anyone."

His grip tightened.

"Please be happy."

His prayer-like words pierced my heart deeply.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

While I was hesitating, Uno had already sorted out his feelings. I knew, at least, that I shouldn’t see him again.

Sometimes, late at night, I feel a sudden loneliness. I want someone by my side. But I’ll just have to endure it. If I hold on for a few hours, morning will come. And in the morning, I can go to work, talk to my reliable colleagues, and lose myself in my job to stop thinking for a while.

On the third Friday of October, when I arrived at the office, Shima greeted me by pushing up his glasses slightly and saying, "We’ve got a big one."

"Looks like the body’s been there for about two months."

Even though I had specialized in cleaning up after such deaths, the longest I’d dealt with until now was three weeks. If it had been two months, that would mean the person died in mid-August. Just imagining the body left in the heat made me feel like I could already smell it.

The deceased was a man in his forties, and the cause of death was hanging... strangulation. Hearing that word made me think of my parents reflexively, though now only for a moment. I had gotten used to the work, so I was no longer avoiding suicide scenes.

Tachibana, Shima, Murakami, and two contract workers—five in total—split into two trucks and headed to the site. It was an old house with a large yard, providing plenty of space to park the trucks. As soon as they stepped out of the vehicles, that distinct, indescribable smell filled the air, even outside.

Tachibana approached a thin, middle-aged woman standing in front of the house with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. "I'm Tachibana from BC Corporation, responding to your request," he said, handing her his business card.

The woman responded curtly, "I'm Tanimoto."

"The deceased was my late husband's brother. I remarried last year, so I'm no longer connected to him, but my late husband’s will requested that I take care of him," she explained. Her sharp tone made it clear that she resented the deceased.

"The brother-in-law who committed suicide was a burden to the entire family. He gambled and racked up debts, constantly borrowing money and causing endless trouble. And after all that, he hung himself in my grandfather’s house, which I had lent him for next to nothing. Now, I have to pay for cleaning and renovations. Honestly, it would have been a hundred times better if he’d just hung himself from a tree outside."

Her harsh words were so bitter that the deceased's ghost would have covered its ears and fled. Tachibana listened to her complaints calmly before bowing slightly and saying, "We'll begin our work now."

"We’ll set aside any cash, bankbooks, and personal seals we find in the room, but we’ll dispose of everything else. Is that acceptable?" Tachibana confirmed.

The woman replied, "Please do," adding sarcastically, "Though I doubt there’s anything of value."

Since it was a biohazard site, everyone entering the house wore vinyl coveralls and caps over their work clothes, along with goggles and dust masks. The day before, Tachibana had inspected the site and set off insecticide, so the flies and maggots should have been dead.

Murakami followed Tachibana and Shima into the house. Even during the day, it was dim inside, and as soon as Murakami stepped forward, he could hear the squish of maggots being crushed underfoot. The air in the room was stagnant, and even through the goggles and mask, the stench was so intense that it made his eyes water, despite not being in the room where the body was found.

The entire house was filled with trash, piled about a meter high (3.2 ft), making it a squalid hoarder’s home. Cleaning up the dead insects with a vacuum, as they usually would, wasn’t possible. To create a clear path for work, the team started by removing the trash from the hallway.

Once the hallway was cleared, they split up to tackle the trash in each room. The house had three rooms on the first floor, excluding the kitchen, bath, and toilet, and two rooms on the second floor.

Murakami and Shima entered the room where the body was found. They had been told that the man had hung himself by hooking a bath towel onto a nail in the lintel of the doorframe. The towel, stained brown from bodily fluids, still hung from the lintel, a stark reminder of what had occurred.

They worked silently, clearing out the trash. The body, found in the height of summer, had decomposed rapidly, causing the head to detach from the body due to the stress on the neck. Among the piles of trash, Murakami found a spot that reeked horribly and contained what appeared to be a clump of hair. It must have been where the head had fallen and rolled away from the lintel. Though he was shaken by this human remnant, he picked it up and placed it into a trash bag.

After about four hours, they finished clearing the trash. The bodily fluids from the corpse had seeped through the trash and onto the tatami mats beneath, leaving reddish-brown stains. They removed all the tatami and carried it out, but the stains had also penetrated the floorboards. They removed parts of the flooring, which significantly reduced the stench, making it possible to open the windows.

At that point, Shima took a fifteen-minute break, but Murakami moved on to the kitchen to continue clearing trash. He wanted to work until he was so exhausted that he could fall into bed and sleep the moment he got home.

Sweating profusely, Murakami sorted through the trash in the kitchen. He found a wallet and a passport in one of the drawers. The man who had lived here had probably used the kitchen as storage, not for cooking.

Murakami put the passport in the trash bag and checked the contents of the wallet. It contained 1,350 yen in cash and three loyalty cards from a pachinko parlor.

He put the cash in a plastic bag to give to the client and tossed the wallet into the trash bag. As he did, one of the pachinko membership cards fluttered to the floor. He recognized the design—it was from a pachinko parlor he used to frequent, which gave him a strange feeling. Murakami absentmindedly turned the card over, and when he saw the name printed there, he gasped.

"Mizoguchi Yugo."

This was the name of his former boss who had deceived him at his first job. His heart pounded heavily in his chest. The deceased was in his forties, which matched the age Mizoguchi would be now. Murakami hurriedly retrieved the passport he had just thrown away and opened it with trembling hands.

There was no mistake. The face staring back at him was that of Mizoguchi Yugo, the man who had deceived him. So, was Mizoguchi the one who had died here?

Had Mizoguchi embezzled company funds to feed his pachinko addiction? When you become addicted to pachinko, you lose all sense of right and wrong. Murakami knew this all too well—he had borrowed money from everyone he knew without any means of repaying it.

When he was fired from the company, he had cursed Mizoguchi, wishing him to rot in hell. That moment had been the turning point where everything spiraled out of control, leading to his parents' deaths and his own descent into gambling addiction. Despite hating Mizoguchi, Murakami had fallen into the same pit as him.

Murakami dropped the trash bag and returned to the room where the suicide had occurred. The bath towel used in the hanging had already been removed, leaving only a few bent nails in the lintel.

When he first entered the room, all that remained was the overwhelming stench and the stains from the decomposed body. But now, he felt as though he could see Mizoguchi hanging there, looking down at him with a smile, dressed in his business suit.

‘Can you really criticize me? You were just like me, weren’t you? You couldn’t face reality, so you escaped to pachinko. It’s just that you happened to get another chance. But if things had gone a bit differently, you could have ended up hanging yourself in a trash-filled house like this, leaving everyone behind to deal with the mess. Your parents were just like me, too.’

Even though he was wearing a vinyl coverall over his work clothes, the chill running through Murakami’s body was intense. The stench he had managed to tolerate until now suddenly felt personal, like it was the smell of Mizoguchi Yugo himself, and the nausea became overwhelming. Murakami bolted outside, collapsing into the overgrown garden.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Shima, who had been on break, rushed over. Murakami felt sick. Even though he had left the house, the smell still clung to him. He frantically stripped off the coverall, cap, and dust mask.

But the stench still lingered. The scorching sun and heat mixed with the stench of Mizoguchi Yugo's death. Murakami curled up like a cat and vomited. The smell clung to his nose, and no matter how much he vomited, the nausea wouldn’t stop. It felt like hell.

He vomited and cried, then vomited again. Even though they were about seventy percent done with the job, Murakami was useless for the rest of the day, unable to stop retching.

Footnotes

0. Content warning: su*cide mention.

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