The Blue Period
A definite change started to take place when my lifespan went below fifty days.
As I said before, there were lots of people who took offense to my actions, which were both famous and infamous. There were numerous people who would see me happily talking to an invisible person, and say cruel things loud enough for me and passersby to hear.
Of course, I had no right to complain. I was the one who made them feel unpleasant in the first place.
One day, at a bar, I got involved with three men. They were loud, sharp-eyed, always taking opportunities to make themselves look tough, and from their numbers and stature I knew I needed to be careful about offending them.
Probably out of boredom, when they saw me drinking alone and talking to an empty seat, they purposefully sat next to me and talked to me, trying to provoke me.
Maybe at one point I would have tried to stand up for myself and say something back, but I just couldn’t devote energy to that anymore, so I waited it out until they got bored.
But they didn’t get bored - upon realizing I wasn’t saying anything back, they took advantage of it to up the attitude even further.
I considered leaving the bar, but seeing how much time they seemed to have on their hands, I thought they might just follow me.
“This is problematic,” Miyagi said with a concerned look.
Just as I was worrying about what to do, I heard a voice from behind say “Huh? Is that you, Mr. Kusunoki?”
It was a man’s voice. I couldn’t identify anyone who talked to me like that, so I was surprised enough as it was, but what he followed with made both Miyagi and I too stunned to speak.
“You’re with Ms. Miyagi again today?”
I turned to look. I did indeed know this man.
He was the man who lived next door at the apartment. The man who’d always given me a disturbed look watching me go in and out while talking to Miyagi.
I seemed to remember his name was Shinbashi.
Shinbashi walked right up to me, turned to one of the guys bothering me, and said “I’m very sorry, but could you give up this seat?”
His words were polite, but his tone was oppressive. Shinbashi was over six foot and looked at him like he was used to threatening people, so the man he spoke to changed his attitude very quickly.
Once Shinbashi sat next to me, he faced not me, but Miyagi. “I always hear about you from Mr. Kusunoki, but I’ve never talked to you myself. Nice to meet you. I’m Shinbashi.”
Miyagi’s face was frozen in shock, but Shinbashi nodded as if she’d made some kind of reply. “Yes, that’s right. I’m honored you remember. We’ve passed by in the apartment many times.”
It wasn’t much of a conversation. Thus it was clear that Shinbashi couldn’t actually see Miyagi.
Maybe this man is just “pretending” he can see Miyagi, I thought.
The men pestering me seemingly gave up with Shinbashi’s appearance and prepared to leave. Once the three were gone, Shinbashi sighed with relief and threw away his polite smile for his usual sullen look.
“Let me just say first,” Shinbashi clarified, “I don’t necessarily believe this "Miyagi” girl honestly exists.“
"I know. You were just helping, huh?”, I said. “Thanks, I’m grateful.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not really that either.”
“Then what is it?”
“You may not admit this, but… at least personally, this is what I think. I see what you’re doing as sort of a performance, attempting to fool as many people as you can into believing this "Miyagi” really exists. You’re attempting to prove through perfect pantomime that people’s common sense can be shaken. …And that attempt has succeeded on me somewhat.“
"You mean you feel Miyagi’s existence to an extent?”
“I don’t like to admit it, but I believe so,” Shinbashi said, shrugging his shoulders. “And while I’m at it, I’m somewhat interested in the change taking place within myself. I wonder that if I were to actively accept "Ms. Miyagi’s” existence like you’re causing me to, I’ll eventually be able to see her for real.“
"Miyagi,” I began, “isn’t that tall. She has fair skin, and I would say she’s more delicate than not. Usually she has sober eyes, but sometimes she’ll show a modest smile. Her eyes are a little bad, but when she needs to read small writing, she wears thinly-framed glasses, and they suit her really well. Her hair’s shoulder-length, and tends to curl in at the ends.”
“…I wonder why,” Shinbashi said, tilting his head. “Every single one of those characteristics matches how I imagined Miyagi.”
“Miyagi’s right in front of you now. Why do you think that is?”
Shinbashi closed his eyes and thought. “I’m not sure of that part.”
“She wants a handshake,” I said. “Hold out your right hand, will you?”
He did so, his face half-doubting, half-believing. Miyagi looked at the hand gladly and grabbed it with both of hers.
Watching his own hand shake up and down, Shinbashi said, “Am I to believe Ms. Miyagi is shaking my hand?”
“Yep. You think you’re moving it yourself, but actually, Miyagi’s shaking it. Seems pretty happy about it.”
“Would you tell Mr. Shinbashi "thank you very much”?“, Miyagi requested.
"Miyagi told me to say "thank you very much”,“ I conveyed.
"I somehow felt she might,” Shinbashi said with wonder. “Don’t mention it.”
With me as an intermediary, Miyagi and Shinbashi exchanged a few more words.
Before going back to the table he had been at before, Shinbashi turned back and told me this.
“I somehow doubt that I’m the only one who can sense Ms. Miyagi’s presence at your side. I think everyone feels it temporarily, but simply dismisses it as a stupid illusion. But if there’s an opportunity - such as learning that they’re not the only one feeling that illusion - I wonder if Ms. Miyagi’s existence might be very quickly accepted by everyone. …Of course, what I’m saying has no basis. But I hope to be right.”
Shinbashi was right.
It was hard to believe, but after that event, people around us started to accept Miyagi’s existence.
Of course, it wasn’t that people seriously believed in the existence of this invisible person. It was more like people accepted my nonsense, like a mutual agreement, and played along with it.
Miyagi’s existence didn’t quite reach the level of “supposedly exists,” but still, it was definitely a big change.
While we frequently made appearances as the town’s places of amusement, the high school culture festival, and other local festivals, I became a little bit famous.
As someone who enjoyed a comical happiness, I came to be treated as a pitiable, but amusing person. More than a few people came to watch me, holding hands with and hugging my fictional girlfriend, in a warm way.
One night, Miyagi and I were invited to Shinbashi’s place.
“I have some alcohol left at my apartment, and I have to drink it all before I go home. …Mr. Kusunoki, Ms. Miyagi, would you drink it with me?”
We went into the neighboring room and found three of his friends already drinking. One man, two women.
The drunks had already heard about me from Shinbashi, and they asked one question after another about Miyagi. I answered each and every one.
“So li'l Miyagi’s right here?”, asked Suzumi, a tall girl with heavy makeup who was drunkenly touching Miyagi’s arm. “Now that you say it, I feel like she is.”
She couldn’t sense anything through touch, but maybe Miyagi’s presence wasn’t completely gone. Miyagi softly held Suzumi’s hand.
A quick-thinking man named Asakura had a few questions for me about Miyagi, trying to catch me on an inconsistency.
But he found it interesting how everything matched up, and started doing things like putting the cushion he was using where Miyagi was, and giving her a glass of alcohol.
“I like that kind of girl,” Asakura said. “It’s probably a good thing I can’t see Ms. Miyagi, or else I’d soon fall for her.”
“Doesn’t matter either way. Miyagi likes me.”
“Don’t go saying things like that,” Miyagi said, hitting me with a cushion.
Riko, a short girl with a neat face who was the most drunk, looked up at me while lying on the floor.
“Misser Kusunoki, Misser Kusunoki, show us how much you like Ms. Miyagi!”, she said with sleepy eyes.
“I wanna see too,” Suzumi agreed. Shinbashi and Asakura gave me expectant glances.
“Miyagi,” I called.
“Yes?”
I kissed Miyagi on her slightly-reddened face. The drunks gave a cheer.
I was surprised myself what an absurd thing I was doing. None of the people here honestly believed in Miyagi’s existence. They must have thought of me as a crazed, happy fool.
But what was wrong with that?
That summer, I was the best clown in town. For better or worse.
Some days passed after that, until one sunny afternoon.
The doorbell rang, and I heard Shinbashi’s voice. When I opened the door, he threw something at me. I caught it in my palm and looked - they were car keys.
“I’m going home,” Shinbashi said. “So I won’t need it for a while. You can borrow it if you want. How about going to the beach or mountains with Ms. Miyagi?”
I thanked him again and again.
As he was leaving, Shinbashi said this.
“You know, I just can’t see you as a liar. I really can’t believe that Ms. Miyagi is just a fabrication of some pantomime. …Maybe by some chance there really is a world that only you can see. Maybe the world as the rest of us see it is only a small part of what’s really there, only the things that we’re allowed to see.”
After seeing him get on the bus and leave, I looked up at the sky.
As ever, the sunlight was dizzying. But I smelled a faint trace of autumn in the air.
The tsukutsuku-boushi were crying all at once, bringing an end to summer.
At night, I slept in the bed with Miyagi. The border between the sides had at some point vanished.
Miyagi slept facing me. It was a sound sleep, as peaceful as a child’s. I adored her face in sleep, never getting used to it, never getting tired of it.
I left the bed, careful not to wake her. I drank some water in the kitchen, and when I went back to my room, I noticed the sketchbook on the floor in front of the dressing room door.
I picked it up, turned on the light by the sink, and slowly opened to the first page.
There was much more drawn in there than I’d expected.
The waiting room at the train station. The restaurant where I met Naruse. The elementary school where the time capsule was buried. My and Himeno’s secret base. The room flooded with a thousand paper cranes. The old library. The stands at the summer festival. The riverfront we walked down the day before I met Himeno. The viewing platform. The community center we stayed at. The Cub. The candy store. A vending machine. A public phone. Starry Lake. The old bookstore. The swan boat. The Ferris wheel.
And me sleeping.
I turned to a new page and started drawing Miyagi sleeping in return.
Probably because of my drowsiness, I didn’t realize it had been years since I’d drawn any art without stopping until after I was done.
Art, which I’d thought was only frustrating.
When I looked at my completed drawing, I was filled with a surprising sense of satisfaction. But I also had a tiny feeling that something was amiss.
It was easy to overlook. It was minor enough that if I just thought about something else for a moment, it would go away entirely.
I could have ignored it, closed the sketchbook, put it beside the bed near Miyagi, and been able to sleep happily awaiting her reaction in the morning.
But I was sure of something.
I concentrated to the best of my ability. I strained my senses to find the source of the wrongness.
I reached for it like a letter floating in a dark, stormy sea, my hand slipping as I tried to grab it.
After a few dozen minutes, as I pulled my hand back in defeat, it landed right in my palm.
I very, very carefully lifted it out of the water. And suddenly, I understood.
The next moment, as if possessed, I intently moved the pencil across the sketchbook.
I continued for the entire night.
A few days later, I took Miyagi to see some fireworks. Walking the sunset footpath, crossing the railroad tracks, going through the shopping district, we arrived at the elementary school.
It was a famous local fireworks display, and it was a bigger affair than I expected, with many more carts. There were enough visitors as to make me wonder how the town had room for all these people.
When children saw me walking and holding hangs with Miyagi, they laughed “It’s Mr. Kusunoki!”
They were laughs of approval. Weirdos are popular with kids too. I raised the hand I was holding Miyagi’s with in response to their jeers.
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