Goodnight, See You Tomorrow: Chapter 4

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At the café where they were meeting, Tsugumi froze with his coffee cup in hand.

“I’m sorry. This is entirely my fault,” said Nakanishi, bowing his head deeply across the table.

The initial print run for Tsugumi’s upcoming book had been reduced from 8,000 to 7,000 copies, a decision finalized at the sales meeting. Even with the previous numbers, his books struggled to reach shelves nationwide, and attracting readers who might buy it on a whim had already been difficult. Losing another 1,000 copies would mean that, apart from a handful of dedicated book lovers actively seeking it out, many smaller bookstores in rural areas wouldn’t even know the book existed.

“I’ll do everything I can to make sure we sell out the first edition. The sales team is motivated too,” Nakanishi assured him.

“Thank you. I’m so sorry for causing you trouble…” Tsugumi quickly lowered his head. He knew how hard it must be for an editor to deliver news like this.

“No, no, the ideas you shared today were great. I’m already looking forward to reading it. Let’s make sure this book sells out its first print and gets a reprint.”

“Yes,” Tsugumi responded firmly, nodding.

But once he left the café, a wave of dejection washed over him. Just when he thought he’d finally broken free from his slump, this setback came like a blow to the head.

The publishing world, and particularly the literary fiction market, was struggling in the ongoing recession. Sure, there were bestselling authors and surprise hits, but the current focus was less on gambling for big wins and more on minimizing losses and scraping together small profits. The fact that literary fiction—which everyone knew wasn’t commercially viable—continued to be published at all was due to publishers’ sense of responsibility and pride as cultural stewards. Yet, Tsugumi couldn’t help but question whether he would be able to hold onto his place in this narrow field.

There were plenty of platforms to share one’s work in today’s internet-driven world. But when stripped of idealistic notions, the reality of financial insecurity gripped his chest like a vise.

After graduating from university, Tsugumi had taken a job at a company dealing with foreign language materials. Then, he debuted as a writer and quit his job. It had been eight years since then. Now, at 35, he wondered if his time as an author—while personally fulfilling—held any weight as a career in the real world. Could a man his age, with such a limited resume, even find a job?

At the station on his way back, he almost reached for a part-time job magazine but stopped himself. Not yet. It’s too soon. I haven’t given it my all yet.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

When Tsugumi returned to the apartment, he saw Sakutaro leaning against the light truck in the parking lot, jotting something into a university notebook. It had become a familiar sight.

Ever since they first met, Sakutaro had always carried around that notebook. Tsugumi had once asked why he didn’t use a laptop or tablet, since he had both.

“They’re convenient,” Sakutaro had replied, “but digital data can disappear so easily. I just don’t trust it.”

There had been an edge of irony in his tone, something uncharacteristic of Sakutaro.

“Oh, welcome back,” Sakutaro called out, noticing Tsugumi standing by the gate. He closed the notebook and slipped it into his bag before picking up a pair of garden shears and a basket from the parking area.

“Sakutaro-san, are you about to harvest?” Tsugumi asked.

“Yeah. It’s gotten really hot all of a sudden, and the vegetables in the back garden are growing like crazy.”

“Want some help?”

Offering to assist as a way to clear his mind, Tsugumi was handed a new pair of shears by a grateful Sakutaro.

Behind the apartment building was a decently sized vegetable garden. Originally, it had been Sakutaro’s grandmother’s hobby, but after her passing, his grandfather had taken care of it alone. Though the grandfather wasn’t particularly interested in growing vegetables, he cherished the garden as a keepsake of his late wife. He had even researched cultivation techniques and fertilizers. Now that he was hospitalized, he had strictly instructed Sakutaro to ensure that the garden didn’t wither in his absence. Sakutaro diligently tended to it every day. This season, cucumbers, eggplants, and tomatoes were ready to be harvested.

“Ever since you started helping, the crops seem to be thriving even more,” Sakutaro said, gazing curiously at a bright red tomato.

“Did you change the fertilizer or something?” Tsugumi asked.

“Not at all. Maybe you’re not just good with animals and insects but with plants too?”

“It’s just coincidence. Soil fertility develops over years. Maybe last year’s efforts are paying off now.”

“You know a lot,” Sakutaro said, impressed.

“My father’s family ran a farm.”

Tsugumi’s father’s side of the family were rice farmers. When his father’s health failed, Tsugumi and his father had stayed with them for a while. It had been summer, and Tsugumi still remembered the endless waves of green rice plants swaying in the breeze.

“That sounds wonderful. A sea of rice plants—such a typical Japanese landscape,” Sakutaro mused.

“Yeah, it was beautiful. We weren’t there for long, though.”

Tsugumi’s paternal grandmother had remarried after losing her first husband, bringing Tsugumi’s father into the new family. His father never felt at home there as a child, and by the time he was an adult, the family had been taken over by a stepbrother. Tsumugi imagined his father probably felt even more out of place.

“I was just a kid, so I didn’t understand any of that. I was excited about meeting relatives for the first time and exploring the big countryside house. But… well, a lot happened, and we didn’t stay long.”

A lot happened—a vague phrase that Tsugumi didn’t want to unpack. Remembering it only brought sadness.

“My grandmother was the only one who treated us kindly. When we left, she waved from the train platform, saying, ‘Come back soon, Tsugumi-kun. Don’t forget to send me New Year’s cards.’”

“Did you send them?”

“Only three. Before I could send a fourth, she passed away. The last time I saw my father’s relatives was at her funeral. My mother died shortly after I was born, and she didn’t have any family. So, technically, I have my father’s side of the family, but there’s no blood relation, so it feels like I have no one.”

Tsugumi snipped the stem of a ripe tomato with his shears. The crisp snap echoed faintly.

“Do you take after your dad?” Sakutaro asked, taking the tomato and gently placing it into the basket.

“Probably. I only know my mother through photos.”

“What was your dad like?”

Tsugumi brushed aside dense green leaves as he searched his memories. “He was always smiling. And he was a bit of a flirt.”

With a small chuckle, he straightened up and moved toward the cucumber plants.

"When was it again? I think it was around my second year of middle school. A woman—one of my dad's coworkers—came to our house alone. I think it was a surprise visit because my dad seemed caught off guard. It was a Sunday, and she cooked dinner for the three of us. From the atmosphere, I could tell they’d been seeing each other for a while. After she left, I told my dad he could remarry if he wanted to. But Dad had said, 'Tsugumi, you're the most important thing to me.'”

“Even though I was the one who suggested it, I remember feeling an immediate sense of relief.”

"You were loved, Tsugumi," Sakutaro said.

"Yeah. It must’ve been tough for him, raising me alone, but he doted on me a lot. Still…”

"Still?"

Tsugumi’s father had collapsed from a sudden attack while Tsugumi was in college. There had been no warning, no time to prepare, no opportunity to say goodbye. During the all-night vigil before the funeral, Tsugumi had been consumed with guilt. His father’s attack had been caused by overwork. The more loved he had felt, the deeper and heavier the regret became.

Maybe if I had pushed him harder to remarry, things would’ve been different.

Maybe if I hadn’t gone to college and started working right after high school, I could’ve eased his burden.

There must’ve been more—so much more—I could’ve done.

"Did your dad know you wanted to be a writer?" Sakutaro asked.

"No. He knew I loved reading, but I kept the writing part a secret."

"Then maybe he's up there right now bragging, 'My son is a writer!'"

"I doubt it," Tsugumi replied, looking up at the endless blue sky as he crouched among the garden rows. Writer was a grand word for someone like him, teetering on the edge of making a living. Just today, his initial print run had been reduced. He didn’t have a shred of confidence in his ability to remain a writer. If his father could see him now, he would only worry.

"Tsugumi-san, did something happen today?"

Tsugumi’s hand froze mid-snip at a cucumber stem.

"What makes you ask?"

"You’ve seemed kind of down since you got back."

The casual accuracy of Sakutaro’s observation made Tsugumi laugh weakly. How does he always notice? he wondered. As he continued harvesting cucumbers, the words slipped out without pretense.

"My initial print run got cut. Oh, that means the number of books they print first."

"So… like your salary got cut?"

"Yeah, more or less."

"That’s rough."

"Right? But it’s my fault for not writing books that sell."

"That’s so strange," Sakutaro mused.

"What is?"

"I was so moved by your writing. Why doesn’t it sell?"

Tsugumi couldn’t help but laugh—and feel a little encouraged.

"If only it sold just a little more, things would be so much easier," he said. After eight years of stagnation, he longed to create even one hit. With just a bit of recognition, his name might gain traction. Yet every time he reached an impasse, he found himself stuck in the same cycle of doubt and discouragement.

With no family, no lover, and an unstable career, life past his mid-thirties brought more anxiety than hope for the future. Sometimes, he even worried about what would happen if he got sick. The uncertainty ahead filled him with a loneliness he couldn’t imagine Sakutaro—so young—fully understanding.

"There’s not much good news out there, huh," Sakutaro remarked, fiddling with a crooked cucumber. "I wonder what the future holds. I think about it sometimes too. But hey, my grandpa’s over eighty, broke a bone, and he’s still kicking. We’ll figure it out somehow."

"…Yeah. You’re right," Tsugumi said.

When Sakutaro said we’ll figure it out, Tsugumi felt a faint sense of distance between them for the first time.

Sakutaro was far more mature than his years, but deep down, Tsugumi doubted he could truly understand feelings like his. Sakutaro had parents, a grandfather, and a seemingly secure foundation—managing the apartment alone suggested they were well-off. When Sakutaro wondered about the future, he did so from a place of security, with a safety net beneath him. Tsugumi’s own circumstances felt worlds apart.

But those were just the differences between them. All he could do was accept them.

"Yeah, I guess it'll work out somehow," Tsugumi exhaled, gazing up at the blue sky.

At thirty-five, with neither a stable career nor a fulfilling love life, it was truly pathetic. Yet, compared to the past, perhaps things were slightly better.

The hardest time had been losing his father. He had been consumed with regret, so much so that he’d thought about dying himself. But he hadn’t. Later, during the nightmare of job hunting, where rejection after rejection made him feel like a worthless human being, he had felt crushed again. And when he finally found a job, only to discover he was utterly useless at it, that had been another blow. Each painful encounter had left him despairing, convinced this time, I really can’t go on.

When he had been living with Shinjin, though, things hadn’t felt quite as bad. Life had its difficulties, of course, but looking back, just having Shinjin as a partner had given him a sense of stability, a belief that things would somehow be okay.

He had thought life would continue like that—calmly, steadily. But it hadn’t. Life was unpredictable. No matter what future you envisioned, it never went as planned, not once. I knew that. I should have known that. But I’d forgotten and let myself grow complacent.

Guess I’ll have to start over from scratch. No—this time, it’s from a negative balance.

The past decade of coasting through life had caught up to him all at once, and he felt like sighing endlessly. But as Sakutaro had pointed out, compared to being eighty, thirty-five was still young. And he was still healthy. His initial print run might have dropped, but he could still write. I guess I’ll just have to accept it, he thought, nodding to himself.

Sakutaro tilted his head. "What’s up?"

"Oh, uh, just thinking I need to stay healthy."

Sakutaro’s expression shifted into something unexpectedly serious. "Yeah, health is important. No amount of money can buy it."

Amid the garden, lush with life and brimming with the vitality of midsummer, Sakutaro’s profile was shadowed beneath the blazing sun. His gaze fixed on the cucumber leaves, tinged with an unspoken sadness or frustration, and for the first time, Tsugumi saw a side of Sakutaro that unsettled him, as if his familiar outline had blurred.

Is something wrong with his grandfather?

All Tsugumi knew was that the man had fractured a bone, but his prolonged hospital stay and the possibility of other complications crossed his mind. Unsure if he should broach the subject, he hesitated with the pruning shears in his hand.

Moments like these made Tsugumi feel painfully inept. Even though he made a living through the written word, he struggled terribly to express himself verbally. Words that flowed freely on paper shrank back into silence on his tongue. Why is it like this? he thought, baffled by his own mind.

He wished there was something he could do to cheer up Sakutaro, something akin to the little gifts of joy Sakutaro had given him: the butterfly resting quietly in the azalea bushes, the moon and star forming the ℃ symbol. While thinking back on those moments, his eyes fell on an oddly shaped cucumber, with its middle deeply indented.

"Sakutaro-san, look at this," Tsugumi said, holding up the misshapen cucumber.

"Whoa, that’s a serious dent. Maybe we should chop it up finely and turn it into mountain-style pickled relish," Sakutaro suggested.

"Oh, that’s delicious. But before that—" Tsugumi cut the cucumber horizontally through the middle with his shears and turned the cross-section toward Sakutaro.

"Ah," Sakutaro murmured, his lips parting slightly.

The cucumber, with its odd dent, revealed a fresh, green heart-shaped cross-section.

"Ellie-san would love this," Tsugumi said, thinking of the roommate who adored all things cute.

"Kudou-san, on the other hand, would probably click his tongue at it."

"Yeah, Kudou-san’s taste is so somber. His wardrobe is all dark colors."

"Why’s he even editing shoujo manga?"

Still crouched in the shade of the cucumber vines, the two whispered and laughed together. The shadow that had loomed over Sakutaro’s face had lifted, and Tsugumi felt relieved. As that sense of ease settled in, Sakutaro unexpectedly lowered his head.

“Tsugumi-san.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Sakutaro murmured the words softly, almost to himself.

“It’s nothing.”

It was always Sakutaro who was kind, who reached out. Tsugumi could never seem to return even half of it.

“Tsugumi-san, can I ask you for something?”

“What is it?”

“...Can you hold my hand?”

Sakutaro kept his head down, his expression unreadable.

“I’m like you, Tsugumi-san.”

“Like me?”

“I like men.”

The words came so quietly that Tsugumi couldn’t immediately respond.

“But right now, when I say I want you to hold my hand, that’s not what I mean. Is that...okay?”

Even now, Sakutaro sought permission.

Tsugumi didn’t say anything. He simply took Sakutaro’s hand, which hung limp and listless.

The memory of holding Sakutaro’s hand in the park after meeting Shinjin flashed through Tsugumi’s mind. It wasn’t about romance or love—sometimes you just needed the warmth of another person to feel less alone. Sakutaro had taught him that, and now, it seemed, Sakutaro needed that same comfort.

“Sakutaro-san.”

“Yes?”

The reply was serious and formal, almost making Tsugumi laugh.

“Whenever you feel like this, I’ll hold your hand. It’s not much, but it’s something I can do. Anytime, I’ll hold your hand.”

Sakutaro kept his head bowed, silent. What’s going through his mind? Tsugumi wondered. What’s brought this on? He wanted to ask but knew better. If Sakutaro had wanted to explain, he would have already. Tsugumi felt powerless, knowing there wasn’t much he could do beyond sitting there in the cucumber vines, holding Sakutaro’s hand.

“Are you two...a thing?”

The question came from behind them in a playful voice—Ellie’s.

“Ugh, another gay person?” came a loud, tactless remark. It was immediately followed by Kanami’s patient scolding: “Ichirou, don’t be rude,” punctuated by the sound of a gentle smack.

“Romance is allowed in the apartment, right?” someone murmured.

“Though within a one-meter radius, it’s a pretty tight space for love.”

“Tight spaces make for more intensity,” Seto and Nira quipped, whispering between themselves.

When Tsugumi glanced back nervously, he found everyone peeking around the corner at them. Both he and Sakutaro instinctively let go of each other’s hands as if on cue. But that was all it took—everyone came pouring into the garden, teasing them mercilessly.

“Oh my gosh, look at them! So cute, so naughty,” Ellie gushed, his eyes sparkling with delight.

“It’s not like that!” Tsugumi protested.

“But you were holding hands. Guys don’t usually do that, right?” Ellie tilted his head in mock innocence.

Behind him, Seto and Nira exchanged glances. “Eh, I’d hold hands,” Seto said. “I wouldn’t,” Nira shot back.

“My dad and I hold hands,” Ichirou chimed in.

“That’s...different,” Kanami replied in his unhurried way.

“You’re all jumping to conclusions,” Tsugumi said, exasperated.

The playful atmosphere was like a deck of cards being shuffled—every comment brought a new wave of chaos. But Tsugumi felt strangely at ease amidst the noise.

Looking at Sakutaro—someone who was kind, good-looking, and altogether a better person—it was impossible to imagine someone like him being romantically involved with someone like Tsugumi, a man in his mid-thirties with his life in disarray. Sakutaro had already said it wasn’t about romance. It was just hand-holding. Yet, as the teasing rolled on, Tsugumi couldn’t help but think, If it’s all in good fun, what’s the harm?

“Oh, wow! This cucumber is heart-shaped,” Ellie exclaimed, noticing the one Tsugumi was holding.

“Yeah, I thought you might like it, Ellie-san.”

“I do! But it’s so cute I almost don’t want to eat it.”

“You say that, but you’ll crunch it down as a snack with your drinks,” Seto muttered with a sly grin, and Nira silently nodded in agreement.

Tsugumi watched their exchange with a warm sense of ease. The apartment was a shared space for strangers, but it felt more like a family home, always filled with someone's presence. Sure, it made focusing on work difficult at times, but it kept loneliness at bay. Moving here had been the right choice.

“Tsugumi-san,” Sakutaro said, cutting through the lively chatter around them. “If you’re free sometime soon, would you come with me to visit my grandfather?”

“Huh? Is it okay for an outsider like me to visit?”

The thought of what might be behind Sakutaro’s earlier melancholy resurfaced—perhaps his grandfather was more unwell than he let on.

“Grandpa says he wants to meet you. You know how I told you he treasures the garden? When he was admitted to the hospital, we made a deal that I’d regularly show him the vegetables we harvest.”

But Sakutaro admitted the garden hadn’t been thriving under his care. His grandfather had worried it might wither completely, but recently, the vegetables had suddenly begun to flourish.

“And now Grandpa says he really wants to meet you.”

“I haven’t done anything, though.”

“According to him, plants are living things, so they can sense the feelings of the person taking care of them. It’s not just about skillful tending—he says compatibility plays a part too, or something like that.”

“That’s quite a lot to live up to,” Tsugumi said with a wry smile.

“How about the day after tomorrow, in the afternoon? I finish work at two, so we can go after that.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

He agreed immediately. Tsugumi had wanted to meet Sakutaro’s grandfather for a while now.

Sakutaro pulled his familiar university notebook out of his bag and unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen. Before he could jot anything down, a voice called out from the direction of the entrance: “Kouya-san! Mail for you!”

“Coming!” Sakutaro quickly recapped the pen, tucked the notebook back into his bag, and headed out to receive the delivery.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

On the day of the visit, Tsugumi found himself restless from the morning. Each time he went to the restroom, he glanced in the mirror. Not that anything was going to change, but he would still smooth down his hairline with a bit of water here and there.

He often talked with Sakutaro, but this was their first time going out together by prior arrangement. Their purpose was a hospital visit, so it wouldn’t do to be too excited. Besides, Sakutaro’s grandfather was likely a principled man, and Tsugumi needed to act composed and avoid saying anything foolish.

Yet, even after the appointed time had passed, Sakutaro hadn’t returned to the apartment.

Maybe work was running late? But it was unlike Sakutaro not to get in touch. Was there trouble? Concerned, Tsugumi tried calling him, but the phone went straight to voicemail. He left a message: "This is Tsugumi. What about the hospital visit?"

After hanging up, another possibility occurred to him—What if we were supposed to meet at the hospital? Sakutaro might already be there, which would explain why his phone was off. If that were the case, not only was he keeping Sakutaro waiting, but also his grandfather. The thought made Tsugumi panic.

Grabbing the bag of fruits he’d bought for the visit, he stood and hurried out of his room.

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