Second Serenade: Chapter 20

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“Physical Lover” Michiya Hashimoto, the man he slept with, hardly ever went out. Lately, Kakegawa had started to notice that he didn’t seem good at dealing with people. Supposedly, he worked for a major trading company, but beyond that, Kakegawa didn’t know much—and he had no reason to find out more.

At night, no matter when he showed up, Hashimoto was almost always in his apartment. Apparently, he’d paid the down payment with money he’d made playing the stock market, and now he just paid a mortgage that was about the same as rent.

To avoid conversation as much as possible, Kakegawa would usually invite him straight to bed the moment he saw his face. Half in jest, Hashimoto called Kakegawa his “dog in heat.”

During sex, things were fine. He could kiss him without a word, push him down on the bed, and not say a single thing until it was over. The problem was after. Smoking would’ve given him a reason not to talk, but Hashimoto didn’t smoke, so one time, Kakegawa asked if he did.

“Bad for the body. Health management is part of a businessman’s job, you know. Overseas too, smoking hurts your image—people rate you lower just for that…”

The talk was heading into long-winded territory, so Kakegawa silenced him with a kiss, taking advantage of the fact they were still in bed.

Since he couldn’t use smoking as an excuse, he’d taken to pretending to fall asleep right after sex. That way, Hashimoto wouldn’t try to talk to him. Either he’d go to sleep too, or he’d leave Kakegawa in bed, go take a shower, and then return to the work he’d brought home.

More often than not, pretending to sleep would turn into actually falling asleep. Then he’d be woken up by Hashimoto before he left for work, and sometimes Kakegawa would mutter, like an excuse, “I love you.”

But tonight, his mind was unusually alert. He kept thinking about his conversation with Hayashida earlier that day, and about high school. After Hashimoto got out of bed first, Kakegawa got up a little later. He dressed and peeked into the living room, where he saw Hashimoto sitting on the sofa in his pajamas, staring intently at the screen of a laptop resting on his knees. Papers were stacked high on the table.

He seemed completely focused, but then he looked up and noticed Kakegawa standing in the doorway.

“Awake already?” he murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was trying to ease a headache.

“If you’re staying the night, get changed. You know where the pajamas are, right?”

“Yeah.”

He sighed, eyes fixed on the screen. He looked tired. Then, as if something occurred to him, Hashimoto glanced back again.

“It’s a bit of a ways off, but keep the night of September 27th open, would you?”

“Two months from now? I’ll probably forget.”

Kakegawa muttered under his breath, and Hashimoto gave a faint smile with just the corner of his mouth.

“Just the evening’s fine. We’re going to a concert.”

The thought of going out with Hashimoto, side by side, made Kakegawa recoil. Physical communication was more than enough.

“Whose concert?”

He asked, just to be polite.

“Leonard O'Donnell.”

“Western music?”

Hashimoto snorted.

“O'Donnell’s a violinist. He won the Tchaikovsky Competition seven years ago, youngest in history. He’s world-famous—but you didn’t know that, I see.”

Whatever he found amusing, Hashimoto kept chuckling to himself.

“Ah, sorry. You don’t listen to classical music, huh? Still, it wouldn’t hurt to at least know O'Donnell’s name. It’s fine with me, but if you said something like that in front of someone else, you’d just embarrass yourself. They’d think you didn’t even have that level of culture.”

With Hashimoto, it was hard to tell whether he was deliberately condescending or just naturally oblivious to how patronizing he sounded. Either way, it was obnoxious.

Being near him made Kakegawa feel unbearably irritated. That’s why he didn’t want to talk. It was always like this. The moment Hashimoto opened his mouth, it was to look down on someone.

He was just about to head home and was putting on his shoes at the door when he realized his wallet was missing. He retraced his steps—kitchen, living room—and finally returned to the bedroom, where he found it on the nightstand.

It sounded like rain. When he pulled back the curtain to check, sure enough, it was falling steadily. He weighed the spiteful man and the rainfall on an invisible scale. …They were about the same.

If he fell asleep, he wouldn’t have to hear the spite. In the end, he decided to stay the night and opened the closet. These days, he’d been staying over more often, and Hashimoto had gone so far as to prepare a set of pajamas just for him. Inside the closet, suits and bags were neatly lined up—it was so very typical of Hashimoto’s fastidiousness. One of the bags was the one Hashimoto always used for work. He took it out and peered inside to find his well-worn organizer tucked inside. Kakegawa remembered how Hashimoto had a habit of stuffing everything into that organizer. He opened it and felt around in the inner pocket. Sure enough, two concert tickets surfaced.

“Leonard O'Donnell Japan Commemorative Performance”

The date read September 27th. What surprised him most was the price—tens of thousands of yen.

The tickets had been carefully placed to avoid creases. He folded them in half and set them on the side table. After changing into pajamas, he picked the tickets back up and held them in his right hand.

He returned to the living room. Hashimoto didn’t even glance at him, still absorbed in switching his focus between the laptop and the piles of paperwork.

“You’re still not done?”

“…Could you not talk to me right now? You’re distracting me.”

Still holding the tickets, Kakegawa stepped into the bathroom. He locked the door firmly, lifted the toilet lid, and shredded the tickets—piece by tiny piece. The tattered remains fell like powdered snow, disappearing with a rush of water.

Along with them went his irritation about September. Not even a trace of guilt flickered in his chest. Not a shred of I did something wrong.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

About a week after that conversation in the cafeteria, Kakegawa got the call about the movie shoot. They’d told him the entire staff was gathering at Hayashida’s apartment, so he’d expected quite a crowd. But when he stepped inside, there were only three people—including himself—and the letdown was palpable.

There was Hayashida, Kakegawa, and a girl who had apparently written the script. She had a narrow face with disproportionately large eyes—more striking than pretty, a face that left an impression. Tall, with her long hair pulled back and a face free of makeup, which was rare for a girl.

The first time their eyes met, she opened those already huge eyes even wider and stared straight at Kakegawa.

“I’m Takagi Mie.”

After an awkward pause, she gave him a small nod.

“Kakegawa Susumu.”

“Hey—”

Takagi tugged roughly on the hem of Hayashida’s shirt beside her.

“He’s really good-looking. I’m totally shocked. What do I do, my heart’s racing.”

She even clutched her chest as she spoke, as if to prove it.

“Don’t say that right in front of him. You’re making Kakegawa embarrassed,” Hayashida said.

The comment made Kakegawa painfully aware of his own expression—he could feel how stiff it had become.

“He’s exactly how I imagined. Is he really going to be in it? It feels unreal.”

Takagi stared at him dreamily, but perhaps realizing how she looked, she quickly handed him a thin, photocopied booklet.

“Hayashida said he told you the general outline, but that wouldn’t give you the finer details, so—here. This is the script.”

The script was much shorter than Kakegawa had imagined. Even from an amateur’s perspective, it felt remarkably polished. It was, just like Hayashida had said, about the disillusionment of youth—but that didn’t begin to capture the whole picture. When Kakegawa finished reading the final line, Takagi spoke.

“The title is HATE MEDIOCRITY.”

Just then, a knock came at the door.

“Someone else joining the project?”

Hayashida didn’t seem to hear it as he rushed off toward the entrance, so Takagi answered instead.

“It’s a teacher from Hayashida’s high school. He said he’d help us.”

Wait a second— That thought didn’t make it out in time. By the time Kakegawa turned around, he was already standing in the doorway.

“It’s been a while, huh?”

T-shirt and jeans, unchanged as ever, smiling right at Kakegawa. He had to press down on the heart threatening to burst from his chest before replying.

“It has.”

He took care not to let his voice waver. At Hayashida’s invitation, Sunahara stepped inside and—of all places—sat down right beside Kakegawa.

“He’s at the same university as me now,” Hayashida said.

“Ah… yeah.”

Kakegawa avoided eye contact and subtly covered the side of his neck with his hand. Just yesterday, he’d been playing with Hashimoto. He couldn’t stop worrying that there might still be marks left.

“You keeping up with your studies? Bet it was a shock when drinking and smoking suddenly became legal the moment you hit college.”

Sunahara laughed, giving Kakegawa a light slap on the shoulder.

“Here, sir.”

Hayashida handed over the script, and Sunahara immediately began flipping through it. As he sat, absorbed, Kakegawa still couldn’t move his hand from his neck.

“Looks interesting,” Sunahara finally said after finishing it.

“I can’t help out until after finals, but once summer break starts, I’m in.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Hayashida exclaimed, clapping his hands.

Takagi jabbed him in the ribs.

“Show some restraint. Are you sure it’s okay? We can’t really repay you or anything.”

“I like this kind of thing.”

The teacher smiled and started reading the script again from the beginning. Then, suddenly, he turned to look at Kakegawa.

“Kakegawa.”

A jolt ran down his spine, and his posture straightened instinctively.

“You’re playing the lead, huh?”

“Yes…”

“Hayashida made a good call. You two were always close, weren’t you?”

The teacher gave a broad grin. Then, after checking with Hayashida about the rough shooting schedule, he left early.

“Still haven’t finished writing the final exams,” he said, scratching his head as he left.

After he was gone, Takagi murmured quietly, almost to herself.

“He seems like a really nice person.”

“Right?” Hayashida said proudly.

Takagi gave him a light smack on the head, half-exasperated.

“No one else would say yes so easily just because an old student asked. And he must know this’ll eat up most of his summer break. Seriously, we owe him.”

Earlier, pretending to go to the bathroom, Kakegawa had checked in the mirror. There wasn’t a trace left from his time with Hashimoto. But that hadn’t mattered. Sunahara hadn’t looked at his neck at all.

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