Chance Encounters
Title: Chance Encounters
Length: 7,000 words
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Miyazawa Rie (side pairing of Nino/Yoshitaka Yuriko)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Angst
Summary: In 1960s Tokyo, Ohno meets a mysterious woman on the train.
Notes: This was orginally written for this year's je_whiteday exchange based on a prompt by wendyjoly
Tokyo, 1963
It was a bitterly cold night. He’d been out drinking with Nino-a celebration for the success of the new campaign-but at some point Nino had disappeared with Yoshitaka-san. He didn’t remember walking to the station.
Ohno shivered, staring at the lightly drifting snow in surprise. He leaned forward to examine the tracks-if he squinted, the tracks seemed to run together, almost resembling waves. A stream full of fish. He leaned forward further, at the same time raising his arms to cast his line.
There was a roaring sound in his ears. Blinded by the lights of the train, he couldn’t see the person whose cold hand grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him back from the edge of the platform.
Blind and dumb, he allowed the hand to continue dragging him backwards until he was almost thrown onto one of the platform’s benches.
When he recovered his sight, he saw that he was alone on the platform except for a woman standing some distance away in a pool of light. She wore heels and a belted white coat. Her black hair was scraped back into a tight bun, so that Ohno could see that the tips of her ears had turned red in the cold. Her earrings glimmered softly through the falling snow. She had a mole on her cheek.
Ohno passed out before he could see what train she boarded. In the morning, he woke still curled up on the bench, surprised that the snow from last night had already melted away.
*
The next time Ohno saw the woman, it was on the train. He’d left work early, refusing Nino’s invitation to join the drinking party that night-he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t drink again until the weather was warmer. He knew that Nino wouldn’t really mind his refusal, not when he’d finally convinced Yoshitaka-san to date him.
Ohno recognized the woman because of her ears-the tips were red from the cold again, and he remembered the pearl earrings that had seemed to glow in the darkness that night.
Had she really saved him from falling onto the tracks? It was hard to believe that she could have dragged him so forcefully. Sitting straight-backed in the seat, her white hands clasped tightly together in her lap, she looked like a porcelain figure. Like the slightest touch would shatter her.
Ohno watched her from where he stood, swaying as he held tightly onto the strap in an effort to resist the press of the crowd. She stared straight ahead, but her dark eyes were unfocused. He realized that she was falling asleep. Eventually, her head fell forward, and her hands relaxed where they rested in her lap. He noticed that her nails were painted scarlet.
A man in a dark suit and hat sat down beside her and moved his hand to rest above her knee. Ohno let go of the strap he was holding and forced his way through the crowd to stand in front of her, staring at the man until he withdrew his hand.
Ohno stood in front of her while she slept as the train made its journey to the city’s outer suburbs and then back again to its center, and then headed out for the suburbs again. They rode the train until it was dark and their compartment was deserted. Ohno moved to sit some distance away from her, amazed by how soundly she slept as her head swayed gently on her shoulder. He would have woken her, he thought, but he didn’t know her stop. And-he admitted it to himself-he didn’t dare to speak to her.
Ohno had almost fallen asleep himself when she woke with a start; she gave a soft, pained moan as she moved her neck and then looked at her wristwatch. She stood quickly, gazing anxiously out the window.
Ohno noticed a strange glint of light at her shoulder-one of her earrings had caught on her coat where her head had been resting. When the train stopped and she hurried out the doors, the earring fell unnoticed to the floor.
Ohno jumped to his feet, seized the earring, and made it outside to the platform just as the train began moving again.
“Miss,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat and called out more clearly, “Miss, your earring.”
She turned to face him, and involuntarily he took a step back-she was so beautiful that he couldn’t look directly at her. His gaze fell somewhere near her right shoulder as he spoke, trying not to pant, “Miss, your earring…it fell. When you were leaving.” He held his hand out towards her.
Her own hand came forward, and he tipped the earring into her open palm, careful not to touch her. “Thank you,” came a low, soft voice.
He forced himself to meet her eyes. She was staring at him curiously. She bowed deeply. Ohno bowed even lower. “Really, thank you so much. I would have been heartbroken to lose it. I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you.”
Ohno bowed even more deeply. “I…should thank you. You…probably wouldn’t remember this…but you…saved me from falling onto the tracks at Shinagawa station. I’m so sorry for the trouble that I caused you.”
When he looked up, he saw that she remembered him; the troubled expression had disappeared. “It was you, then,” she said softly, as if to herself. Her voice was even softer than his, but she spoke each word so distinctly that it would be impossible to accuse her of mumbling (something Nino frequently scolded Ohno for).
Their eyes met. After a few moments, she turned away, gesturing towards the station, “Have you…lived in this neighborhood long?”
Slowly, Ohno shook his head, hoping the movement would encourage his mind to start functioning again. “No, I…I’m at the next stop.”
She looked like she was going to apologize. Quickly, Ohno bowed, “Please, I’ll wait here for the next train.”
He watched her heels as she stepped away and then stepped back. “Then…goodnight. And thank you again. Truly, thank you.”
“Goodnight.” He rose and watched her as she walked across the platform. She stood so straight as she walked-as though she were crossing a stage.
Ohno waited until he was sure that she would already be far from the station, and then he began his walk home. There were no more trains running that night.
*
The next time Ohno encountered her, he almost passed out from the shock. He was standing near the compartment window, staring blankly out at the passing cityscape. He was trying to think of pictures for the new campaign-it was perfume this time. He’d asked Nino to give the assignment to someone else-he wasn’t good at glamour products (his most popular designs so far had been for instant ramen). But Yoshitaka-san had asked to partner with him, so it was impossible to change Nino’s mind.
He was trying to imagine an illustration but only thinking of pearl earrings when he felt a light touch at his elbow. “Excuse me,” a familiar voice spoke softly, and when Ohno turned to discover her standing at his side, he jolted forward so violently that he hit his forehead against the window.
She stepped back, eyes wide. Then the corner of her mouth twitched, and she held up a hand to cover her mouth. Ohno saw that she was trying not to laugh, and he immediately felt more at ease.
“Forgive me, I was too quiet…”
Ohno shook his head, trying to smile though he felt himself flushing, “No, I think I…startled you even more.”
“Excuse me, but I wanted to give you this. To thank you.” She held out a small pink box tied with a white ribbon. “My name is Miyazawa Rie,” she bowed.
Confused about what to do first, Ohno fumbled for his business cards (grateful that for once they were actually in his suit pocket) while trying to fend off the gift that she was attempting to press into his hand. “Ohno Satoshi,” he mumbled while passing her the card. “And I can’t accept a gift from you…you saved my life. I didn’t…”
“Please accept it,” she pleaded, meeting his eyes. “My mother gave me those earrings just before she passed away. They are my most treasured possession.”
Ohno’s hand went slack, and she pressed the box firmly into his palm. Reluctantly, he accepted it. “I…thank you…”
She held his business card with both hands, studying it carefully. “You’re an artist, Ohno-san?”
He shook his head. “No, I only draw for advertisements.” He cleared his throat, “Mostly for instant ramen.”
“Instant ramen?” she repeated, looking interested. “I’ve never tried that.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” he replied without thinking, cursing himself when her eyes widened again. But then she laughed, and he breathed again, grateful that she wasn’t offended. But it was difficult to imagine her boiling a package of instant noodles (as he often did in the middle of the night, crouching over the stove in his pajamas). She seemed, to him, to belong to another world. Today, she was wearing a blue and gray kimono that must have cost more than his yearly salary. But it wasn’t just that she seemed wealthy-the way she moved, the way she spoke-she seemed…refined. Rare. He couldn’t think of anything else to compare her to except a princess. As far above a country bumpkin like himself as one could possibly be.
So he was surprised by her next question: “That night at the station, when you…” she hesitated, touching her hair nervously as she spoke, “…you looked like you were trying to cast a line. Did you imagine that you were fishing?”
Ohno was dumbfounded. “Yes,” he nodded slowly, “how did you know?”
She smiled, and he realized that although he had heard her laugh, he had never seen her smile. It was a smile of pure delight, and Ohno felt something contract painfully inside his chest. When she spoke next, he realized that his mouth was hanging open (something else that Nino was constantly scolding him for), and he closed it quickly.
She lowered her voice even further, as though confessing to something scandalous, “I love to fish, but I haven’t been able to for several years now. From the way you were moving your shoulder back, I think you must like fly-fishing?”
To Ohno’s astonishment, they discussed fishing until the train reached her stop. Ohno bowed again as she moved towards the doors. She was already standing outside when she suddenly spoke to him again, surprising him when she fumbled her words in her hurry, “I’m so glad, if you weren’t, the gift would have been all wrong. I was hoping so much that…”
The train was already moving away. She continued to speak, but the words were lost to him.
Ohno waited until he was home before removing the small box from his suit pocket and slowly untying the ribbon. Inside was a fishing lure, glittering with gold and silver threads.
*
After that day, they met often on the train. When they saw each other, she would greet him and gesture for him to sit or stand beside her. At first, they only talked about fishing, but then she began to ask him questions about his life.
He told her about growing up in a small fishing village, and then about coming to Tokyo after his parents passed away. He told her about how everything had been new and strange, and how he was still terrified to step onto an escalator. He told her about Nino finding him when he was selling paintings in Ueno Park and offering him a job.
She especially loved hearing about Yoshitaka-san-she asked him question after question about the only female ad writer in all of Tokyo (including what she wore to the office, but after the first time it seemed that she only asked him so that she could laugh at his attempts to describe women’s clothes). Sometimes she even carried magazines with her and asked Ohno to point out which were his designs and which ads Yoshitaka-san had written.
Ohno had never spoken to anyone so much in his entire life, even including Nino. But like Nino, she didn’t seem to mind if her questions were met with silence. She waited for him to collect his thoughts, apparently untroubled by the delay. But unlike Nino, she never scolded him for the things he said. Mostly, she just laughed at him (sometimes he tried to make her laugh, but usually she laughed at things he said that he hadn’t known were funny).
She told him about growing up in a touring theater troupe, travelling all around Japan with her mother, and how when her mother was taking a rest from acting, the two of them would go off by themselves to camp and fish in forests and mountains, and how they’d even seen the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji. The reason she went into the city so often now, she explained, was that an old friend of her mother’s was ill-she went to visit her almost every day. She was so lucky, she said, that she had made a friend like Ohno-san-she hated making train journeys alone.
Ohno was happy.
Except that sometimes he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it would be like to see her outside of a train compartment.
Now that it was spring, they could walk along the river together while they talked about fishing.
Or what if one day he called her “Rie” instead of “Miyazawa-san”?
Or what if he bought her a bunch of the flowers that they were always selling outside of the station? Would she be happy? Or would she look annoyed? Or, worse, would she smile and thank him but still only think of him as Ohno-san, a funny person on the train, where there was no one better to talk to?
Ohno tried to suppress these thoughts as much as possible. For the most part, he was successful-he was good at avoiding things that caused him pain. But then, he didn’t realize how much he’d come to care for her until the day he saw the ring.
That day was wrong from the beginning. It wasn’t a weekday, when they would usually meet-it was a Saturday, late in the evening, and it was a holiday; the compartment was crowded and hot. When she saw him, she moved to stand beside him, but when she tried to speak, he couldn’t understand her over the noise of the crowd.
More passengers crowded in; they were pushed back until they were trapped in a corner of the compartment, with Ohno trying desperately to stop the crowd from pressing them together.
It was the closest he had ever been to her. They turned their faces away from one another. She was wearing low heels-for once, he stood a little taller than her. He was grateful for it, as it helped him to avoid her eyes and instead focus on the tip of her ear, and then-when that proved to be too much-on the pins in her tightly-bound hair.
But he could feel the heat of her body, and he could see that small tendrils were escaping the pins as her hair grew damp in the heat of the compartment.
And he could smell her perfume; Yoshitaka-san’s lessons on the subject must have been more effective than he’d thought, because he recognized the scent. Butterfly. It was a scent that he’d come to associate with her without being aware of it, and now it overwhelmed him.
Dizzy, he lowered his gaze in an attempt to regain his focus; he was surprised to discover that she was looking up at him.
If he released the arm that he had braced against the wall, if he stopped resisting the pressure of the crowd-then their bodies would press against one another-his lips would press against her forehead.
She flushed and looked down, fumbling awkwardly between them for something in her coat pocket. She raised a white handkerchief to dab at her temples, obscuring her face.
It was then that Ohno noticed it for the first time-the gold band around her finger.
How had he never noticed it before? He had certainly looked at her hands before-had he simply refused to see it?
She lowered her handkerchief, but he couldn’t meet her eyes again-he wasn’t confident that he could control his expression.
Of course, she was married. What else could she possibly be? And even if she wasn’t-would it matter? Would that change anything between them? He had known from the beginning that it was impossible.
But it was not until that moment that Ohno realized just how much he had been hoping that it was, somehow, possible.
And just how little he knew her-she had told him, he realized, almost nothing about herself beyond some stories about her childhood. Like a fool, he hadn’t noticed-so happy just to be smiled at by her that he had thought of nothing else.
More people entered the compartment. Ohno closed his eyes as he was, finally, irresistibly pressed against her, his nose landing somewhere in her hair, his mouth near her temple. Quietly, he breathed in her scent, wanting to be intoxicated. She was clutching the sleeve of his jacket in one hand, and she trembled against him.
When the train reached her stop, Ohno held her lightly by the wrist and pushed through the crowd, finally delivering her outside the doors. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at her, then, once she was safely on the other side of the line.
She stood just where he had placed her, unmoving, and stared up at him with an expression that he had never seen her wear before. She looked like she wanted to cry. Had she felt how fast his heart was beating?
“Ohno-san…I…” She took a half-step forward, as though she would board the train again-but then it had already pulled away from the platform.
*
“What happened to you?” Nino demanded.
Ohno looked up from his drafting table-he realized that he’d been sitting, unmoving, in front of the blank page for half an hour. Nino had already seated himself on the edge of the table and lit a cigarette, “You’ve been flitting around the office for the past month like you’re about to burst into song, and now you look like you’re planning to throw yourself off a bridge later tonight.”
Yoshitaka-san appeared at Nino’s side. “Something wrong with Ohno-san?” she inquired cheerfully. “But there’s never anything wrong with Ohno-san. Unless…could he finally have a girl?”
Ohno had always believed that he possessed a remarkably impassive face-he’d been hit often enough by teachers for “looking blank.” But he must have flushed at Yoshitaka-san’s words because her eyes lit up and Nino cried, “A girl? Finally, a girl?”
Individually, he might have resisted them, but under their combined interrogation he found himself gradually letting information slip-there was a girl, he saw her sometimes on the train, he liked her, but she was married.
Ohno had thought that they would lose interest in the story when he said that she was married, but it only seemed to excite them further.
“She’s a bored housewife,” Yoshitaka-san declared, “Desperate for an affair with a handsome younger man. Possesses every luxury in the world except love. Definitely in the market for a new perfume.”
“Or she’s some kind of con-artist,” Nino suggested darkly, “Preying on naïve young men from the countryside. They fall in love with her, and then she takes them for everything they’re worth.”
Ohno stood up. “I…don’t think that’s true.” He walked away, opening the window at the other end of the office and climbing out onto the fire escape.
It was really spring now. People were flying kites somewhere in the distance; it seemed incredible to him that he could see them flying even in the midst of the city. He watched them for a while. Maybe he would go for a walk in the park after work.
Yoshitaka-san opened the window. “Ohno-san, I’m sorry,” she said, looking contrite. She crawled through the window and closed it behind her before crouching down beside him. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t realize how much you liked her.”
Ohno smiled, “It’s alright.”
“Nino’s sorry, too. He just worries about you. I think he’s really angry that she didn’t tell you that she was married.”
“She didn’t…hide it from me. I just never noticed. When I think about it now, it was obvious.”
Yoshitaka-san looked doubtful, but she didn’t say anything in response. They watched the kites together. After a while, Nino opened the window and shouted at them that he didn’t pay his employees to spend the workday staring at the sky like idiots.
*
That evening, Ohno walked in the park until he was sure that she would have already taken the train home. But when he arrived at the station, he found Nino and Yoshitaka-san waiting for him on the platform. Yoshitaka-san smiled and held up a grocery bag when she saw him. “We’re coming home with you tonight and cooking for you, Ohchan,” Nino explained. “Someone,” he turned to glare at Yoshitaka-san, “seemed to think that we owed you an apology.”
When Nino turned back to him, he was eyeing him shrewdly, and-in a rare flash of insight-it occurred to Ohno that Nino would never spend the evening with him just to apologize. Nino, at least, had agreed to come because he was hoping to see her.
Ohno congratulated himself on having arrived so late-they would miss her and, when nothing else happened, they would eventually forget about her.
Soon, they were past the stations where she usually boarded the train, and Ohno relaxed completely, staring ahead and only half-listening to Nino and Yoshitaka-san’s conversation about text layout.
Then he saw her. She boarded the train at Shinjuku. She was dressed in a light pink coat, and she was carrying an enormous shopping bag from a department store; she apologized to everyone she passed as she tried to make her way to a seat, her head dipping low with each apology. He had never seen her look so tired, not even that night when she had slept for so long on the train.
He didn’t know what expression he was making, but he knew that his face was not impassive. Nino elbowed him in the ribs, and when he met Nino’s eyes, he saw that Nino already knew everything.
Nino grabbed him by the elbow and jerked him back into a corner of the compartment. “Ohchan,” he hissed, “I’m going to strangle you. That’s Miyazawa Rie-san.”
“You…know her?”
Nino rolled his eyes. “Everyone in Tokyo knows her, Ohchan. Miyazawa Rie,” he repeated, as though he expected the words to mean something to him. “The most famous model of the 1950s. The face that launched a thousand products. She was on everything.”
Ohno tried to think-had there been something familiar about her face? There was something-dimly, he remembered a faded poster on the side of the only vending machine in the village. Her face, but younger, though her eyes had been the same. Smiling brightly and drinking a Coca Cola.
“I…didn’t know,” he replied finally.
Nino was looking at him with an expression of despair. “Christ, Ohchan,” he finally swore, “When you finally decide to like a girl, you really go for it. She’s married to the president of AMI, Yamamoto-san. He’d have you killed.”
Ohno gradually became aware that Yoshitaka-san was clutching onto his arm, her eyes wide and tearful, “Ohno-san, please, please could you introduce me to her?”
“What?” Nino half-shouted, remembering to whisper only partway through the word.
Yoshitaka-san was almost jumping up and down as she pulled at his jacket, “You don’t understand, she was my idol. She is my idol. She’s the reason I came to Tokyo…the reason I wanted to work in advertising…Ohno-san, she meant everything to me when I was a teenager. Please, I dreamed of meeting her when I came to Tokyo. I wouldn’t ask if it was anyone else but Rie-san…”
*
It had been, Ohno reflected, like a nightmare. Somehow, he’d moved forward-or perhaps Yoshitaka-san had dragged him-and then in a strange voice that didn’t seem to belong to him, he’d introduced her.
She’d flushed when she saw him, and then she’d flinched when he’d introduced her as “Yamamoto-san.” But then she’d smiled nervously up at them, and said something about how she felt as though she knew them both already, and how much she admired everything that Yoshitaka-san had accomplished, and how she looked for her advertisements in magazines.
That was all it took for Yoshitaka-san to burst into tears and throw herself into her arms. Ohno had watched as Miyazawa-san (he couldn’t, in his head, call her “Yamamoto-san”) stroked Yoshitaka-san’s hair and comforted her as though she were a child.
When Yoshitaka-san stopped crying, Nino had suggested that they all have a drink, and somehow they’d ended up in a jazz club in Ginza, with the shopping bag and Yoshitaka-san’s groceries shoved awkwardly beneath the table.
People kept coming up to the table to ask Miyazawa-san for her autograph, and Yoshitaka-san was clutching onto her arm tightly as they sat beside each other holding a passionate, whispered conversation while Nino smoked and watched the dancing.
Ohno decided that his best course of action would be to get very drunk, very quickly. Miyazawa-san seemed to have the same idea-every time the waiter passed by, she signaled to him for another lemon sour.
Ohno had never seen her outside of a train compartment or a station platform, or speaking to anyone else but him. He watched the harsh neon lights of the club as they reflected on her pale face. She seemed to be listening to Yoshitaka-san intently, replying to her seriously, but her hands fidgeted with a matchbox the entire time they spoke. After her third lemon sour, she started laughing helplessly; she stretched her long arms out over the table and rested her head on her arm as she laughed until tears streamed down her face.
They were speaking louder now, and looking at him-Ohno could hear their conversation. “The first time I met Ohno-san,” she was saying, her words slurring together just slightly, “he shocked me out of my wits by calling me “Miss.” He kept calling out “Miss!” When I’m old enough to be his Nee-san.”
“Ah, but our Ohchan here is much older than you think he is,” Nino cut in. “He may look young, but in fact everyone in the office calls him Ji-chan. The last time I visited him he was tying fishing hooks and cooking ramen in his underwear. In spirit, at least, he’s sixty years old.”
She laughed harder, pressing her face into her arm. Nino surprised Ohno by taking Yoshitaka-san’s hand and half-dragging her away from Miyazawa-san. “Come on, let’s dance,” he demanded, pulling her towards the floor.
Miyazawa-san sat back, wiping at her face with her hand, “I’m sorry, Ohno-san.” She met his eyes, and then she smiled at him, more tears slipping out from the corners of her eyes, “I think I’m drunk.”
Ohno realized that he was drunk, too, when he replied, “Would you like to dance?”
After a moment, she nodded. She gave him her hand, and they walked out to the floor.
Ohno knew how to dance. It was the one part of life in Tokyo that had come easily to him. The first time that Nino had taken him to a club, he’d sat for an hour and watched the dancing, and after that he knew how to dance.
She was a good dancer, too; she relaxed in his arms and followed his lead.
They danced for a long time, both slow and fast, until after one particularly fast spin she stopped and raised a hand to her forehead, stumbling a little on her feet. Ohno took her hand and led her off the floor to their table, pouring her a glass of water. She drank it quickly. “Thank you…I think that…I should go home now. I think I’m too tired,” she panted.
“I’ll take you.” She looked like she was going to protest, but then she nodded, her eyes fixed on the floor. “Should we…say goodbye…?”
Ohno shook his head. “They’ll be in a closet somewhere by now,” he muttered; she laughed weakly in response.
They collected her bag and coat and left the club. When they stepped outside, both of them stopped to breathe in the cold night air.
Ohno felt much more sober than he had earlier, and she looked so calm that he thought she had recovered, too, until they started walking and her steps drifted in curious, elliptical patterns; soon, she was veering into the road. Panicked, Ohno grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her to the inside of the sidewalk. She stopped, a strange expression passing over her face, and he wondered if she was offended. But then she started walking again, straight ahead this time but very slow.
Ohno was glad of her slowness; he wished that he could walk beside her like this forever.
They walked in silence for a while before she spoke; her voice had recovered its usual soft distinctness: “Ohno-san, I’ve been wanting to say that…I’m sorry that I told you that my name was Miyazawa. It…wasn’t my intention to deceive you. But I’m sure that I must have shocked you.”
Ohno shook his head, not wanting to hear her apologize, but she continued, “No, I…I don’t know how to explain it…I just hate being called Yamamoto-san.” Her next words were so quiet that Ohno wasn’t sure that he hadn’t imagined them, “It always sounds like the name of a stranger.”
Ohno didn’t know how to respond. He cleared his throat, “Then…should I still call you…Miyazawa-san?”
He glanced over at her; one corner of her mouth turned up. “Would you ever call me Nee-san?”
Ohno shook his head, “Never.”
“Then…would you call me Rie?”
Ohno tried. “Rie…san,” he couldn’t help finishing.
She laughed, “I don’t mind Rie-san. It’s what everyone called me when I modeled.”
“I’m sorry about…tonight. I should have stopped them, but…”
They’d come to a bridge, and she stopped, shaking her head as she looked out over the river. The lights of the city reflected brightly off its gently-moving surface. “No, I’m glad that I met them. I had so much fun,” she smiled, so widely that Ohno believed her. “All of you…you’re all so young and…cool.” She hesitated over the English word in a way that made Ohno smile; she elbowed him lightly in the ribs, “Don’t laugh at me.”
Ohno watched her face as she looked out over the river. Most of her pins had come loose when they were dancing, and she’d pulled the rest out while they walked. Now, her dark hair streamed behind her in the breeze. “I wish I had been like you and Yuriko-chan when I was younger. But I was never that brave.”
“Brave?” Ohno repeated.
“Yes. You both came to Tokyo, all alone, to follow your dreams.”
“It wasn’t…I didn’t think of it like that. I…just didn’t know what else to do.”
“But you still came, and you succeeded. I…I’ve been a coward my whole life. After my mother died, I was even worse. I was so afraid of being alone…there were people around me that I called my friends, but…when I turned thirty, everyone told me that now I had to marry quickly, that I had to marry before I lost my looks. Because once I lost my looks, I’d have nothing. I’d…be nothing. I wish…I wish that I had been brave enough to wait.”
Ohno wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to him or only to herself, but he answered her anyway, resting his hand beside hers as he focused on the glimmering waves below, “You’re not nothing,” he said firmly. “You’re Rie-san. So you’ll always be beautiful.”
She moved her hand; their fingers brushed. When she finally spoke, he could hear that she was crying, “Ohno-san…the shopping bag…they’re presents for my daughter. She’s been staying with her grandparents, but she’s coming home tomorrow. I…love her more than anyone.”
Ohno nodded, unable to speak, and turned away. Silently, they walked to the station. They’d missed the last train, so they hailed a cab. Ohno sat as far away from her as he could. She rolled down the window and leaned her head back against the seat, stretching her arm out the window to let her fingers trail in the breeze. “I read that they’ll demolish that line before the Olympics,” she murmured at one point, her voice tired. “They’ll put in a more direct line to Shinagawa, and renovate the station. I read it in the paper a few days ago.” Her voice shook, “When I read that, I couldn’t stop crying.”
Ohno still couldn’t speak.
It wasn’t until they were standing in front of her dark house, with her fumbling in her purse for the key while he stood behind her, that he couldn’t bear it any longer, and he put his arms around her, pressing his face into her neck. “Rie-san,” he breathed.
Slowly, her hands came up to cover his where he held her. He expected her to move his hands away, but instead she simply rested her hands on his. She moved her head a little in his direction. Gently, his lips met her cheek. She shuddered, breathing unsteadily.
Ohno didn’t know how long they stayed that way before, slowly, she turned her face away and dropped her hands to her sides. He sighed, resting his nose behind her ear. The pearl earring glowed softly in the darkness. He let go of her and stepped back. “Rie-san,” he managed to speak out clearly, though he felt like he was suffocating, “Please…be happy.” He didn’t know what else to say, or what else he could wish for.
He turned away and started the long walk home in the dark. He didn’t look back-if he saw her face again, he knew that he would be the one to break.
*
Ohno never saw her on the train again.
“You should try to contact her,” Yoshitaka-san urged him. “She’s clearly in love with you. Husband be damned, it’s 1963! She’s probably waiting for you to show up and rescue her.”
"She would never leave her daughter. Besides, she…it wouldn’t have meant as much to her.”
Nino took a long drag on his cigarette. “Idiot,” he exhaled viciously.
*
It was a cold spring. Ohno lay in bed and studied the fishing lure she’d given him, holding it up to watch how it caught the light. He wished that he’d given her something. At least, he should have brought her flowers. Even if it was only once.
*
When Ohno returned to the office that day, he knew instantly that she had been there-her scent lingered on the stairs.
His suspicions were confirmed when Yoshitaka-san ran up to him, her face pale. “Ohno-san,” she gasped, “She just left. I’m so sorry, we didn’t know where you were. She waited, but she said that she had to catch a train…she…left you this…” she held out a small white envelope, decorated with a pattern of cherry blossoms.
Numbly, Ohno accepted it. He climbed out onto the fire escape, crouching down before slowly opening it. Inside was a piece of paper and something small wrapped in a handkerchief. Ohno unwrapped the handkerchief, startled when two pearl earrings fell out onto his palm. He read the note:
Ohno-san,
I wanted to let you know that I am leaving Tokyo. I am sorry that I was not able to tell you this sooner, but we are leaving this afternoon. My husband is moving to Sapporo for business and it is unlikely that we will return for several years. Thank you for everything. The times that we spent together on the train-it was the happiest I have been in many years. I hope that you will keep these earrings as a token of my gratitude.
Be happy,
Rie
Holding the earrings in his hand, Ohno cried, in quiet sobs that convulsed him. After a while, Nino crawled out onto the fire escape and crouched beside him, patting him on the back while he smoked and stared up at the sky.
*
The weather grew warmer. Preparations for the Olympics were beginning in earnest, and Ohno watched as they demolished the station platform. The train stopped running; they were building new tracks. Everything familiar to him was being transformed.
He decided that he was tired of commuting, and he moved, renting a studio apartment a few blocks from the office. He thought about taking a vacation but decided against it. The perfume campaign was a success. “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” was the tagline.
He only looked at the earrings that he kept in his wallet once a day, before he slept.
*
It was a blisteringly hot day. He shouldn’t have come into the office, Ohno thought as he climbed the stairs. He’d removed his suit jacket, but his shirt was already soaked from the heat. It didn’t matter if he showed up-Nino and Yoshitaka-san were on their honeymoon, and the rest of the staff was taking a holiday to enjoy the festival. When he reached the top of the stairs, he thought of turning around and heading back home, but then something arrested his steps-it was the same scent. Butterfly.
Heart pounding, he unlocked the door to the office. Of course, it was empty. Draping his jacket over a chair, he opened all the windows before sitting at his desk. He drew for a while, accompanied by the sounds of the crowd outside. He was happy that Nino was giving him a break from glamour-their newest campaign was for chocolate bars.
After a while, he grew restless and wandered out onto the fire escape, watching the crowd below. It wasn’t so strange-he knew from Yoshitaka-san’s research that many women wore that perfume. He opened his wallet and looked at the earrings.
He wouldn’t work anymore today, he decided. He’d go to the festival. He closed the windows and locked up the office, throwing his jacket over his shoulder.
He wandered the streets, looking at the booths, and at the children running around, and at the couples strolling by. There was a booth selling goldfish; smiling, he walked up to one of the shallow basins, dipping his fingers into the cool blue water. Almost immediately, a bright orange fish swam up to nibble at his finger. “I don’t have anything for you,” he smiled. More fish swam over; he sighed as he dragged his fingers lightly through the water. Maybe he would take a vacation and go fishing, after all.
A small hand appeared next to his. He looked down to discover a little girl in a pink and white kimono with a cherry blossom pattern standing next to him. She gave a little cry of alarm when one of the fish swam up to her finger.
A familiar white hand with scarlet nails, but missing a ring, entered the water beside the smaller one. “Don’t be scared, Umi-chan,” came a soft, familiar voice, “They’re only trying to kiss you.”
Ohno looked up. She was standing next to him, smiling. She was wearing a yellow cotton dress and a pair of white oxfords. Her hair was tied up, but instead of being scraped back it fell in a fringe across her forehead. She looked sunburnt, and there were freckles dusting her cheeks. Ohno swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat-she looked different. Happy. “Ohno-san, I was hoping that we would run into you. I went to your office earlier, but no one was there.” Her voice shook, just a little, when she said his name.
“Everyone’s on holiday,” he replied stupidly. His vision was blurring; he wiped his arm across his eyes, not wanting to miss anything.
She raised a hand to smooth her hair; he realized that she was nervous. He took his wallet out of his suit pocket. “I have something that belongs to you,” he said. She accepted the earrings and tried to fasten them.
“I can’t,” she laughed, “look at my hand.” She held it out so that he could see how it was shaking.
He stepped forward and took the earrings from her. Slowly, squinting with concentration, he carefully fastened one to her ear. When he moved to the other ear, she spoke to him quietly, “My husband’s asked for a divorce. He wants to marry his secretary. He said that he prefers younger women.”
Ohno stepped back to admire his work. The pearls glinted brightly in the summer sunlight. “Idiot,” he replied.
She smiled, stepping even closer to him to whisper, “He said that I can have Umi. He never wanted a girl.”
“Bastard,” Ohno whispered back.
She smiled even more widely. “I thought I’d move back to Tokyo. I want to try acting.” She pressed her lips to the scar on his right cheek. “I always wanted to kiss you there.”
“I always wanted to kiss your mole.” She laughed, stepping back a little.
“Umi-chan,” she called, trying to distract her from the goldfish, “Look, this is Ohno-san. The friend I told you about who likes to fish.”
Umi-chan looked up at him. “Then can you catch me one of these fish?”
“Look,” he said, picking up one of the small nets at the side of the tank, “I can show you how to catch one yourself.”
After a few tries, she caught one in the net; she watched, fascinated, as the owner placed the fish in a bag full of water, tied it, and handed it back to her. “You have to hold on to it tightly,” Rie-san instructed her while Ohno paid for the fish, “It’s something precious. You can’t let it go.”
Holding the bag with both hands, Umi-chan stepped forward carefully. They walked on either side of her. Rie-san reached out to take his hand. Ohno interlaced their fingers together tightly. “I won’t let it go,” she promised.
Length: 7,000 words
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Miyazawa Rie (side pairing of Nino/Yoshitaka Yuriko)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Angst
Summary: In 1960s Tokyo, Ohno meets a mysterious woman on the train.
Notes: This was orginally written for this year's je_whiteday exchange based on a prompt by wendyjoly
Tokyo, 1963
It was a bitterly cold night. He’d been out drinking with Nino-a celebration for the success of the new campaign-but at some point Nino had disappeared with Yoshitaka-san. He didn’t remember walking to the station.
Ohno shivered, staring at the lightly drifting snow in surprise. He leaned forward to examine the tracks-if he squinted, the tracks seemed to run together, almost resembling waves. A stream full of fish. He leaned forward further, at the same time raising his arms to cast his line.
There was a roaring sound in his ears. Blinded by the lights of the train, he couldn’t see the person whose cold hand grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him back from the edge of the platform.
Blind and dumb, he allowed the hand to continue dragging him backwards until he was almost thrown onto one of the platform’s benches.
When he recovered his sight, he saw that he was alone on the platform except for a woman standing some distance away in a pool of light. She wore heels and a belted white coat. Her black hair was scraped back into a tight bun, so that Ohno could see that the tips of her ears had turned red in the cold. Her earrings glimmered softly through the falling snow. She had a mole on her cheek.
Ohno passed out before he could see what train she boarded. In the morning, he woke still curled up on the bench, surprised that the snow from last night had already melted away.
*
The next time Ohno saw the woman, it was on the train. He’d left work early, refusing Nino’s invitation to join the drinking party that night-he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t drink again until the weather was warmer. He knew that Nino wouldn’t really mind his refusal, not when he’d finally convinced Yoshitaka-san to date him.
Ohno recognized the woman because of her ears-the tips were red from the cold again, and he remembered the pearl earrings that had seemed to glow in the darkness that night.
Had she really saved him from falling onto the tracks? It was hard to believe that she could have dragged him so forcefully. Sitting straight-backed in the seat, her white hands clasped tightly together in her lap, she looked like a porcelain figure. Like the slightest touch would shatter her.
Ohno watched her from where he stood, swaying as he held tightly onto the strap in an effort to resist the press of the crowd. She stared straight ahead, but her dark eyes were unfocused. He realized that she was falling asleep. Eventually, her head fell forward, and her hands relaxed where they rested in her lap. He noticed that her nails were painted scarlet.
A man in a dark suit and hat sat down beside her and moved his hand to rest above her knee. Ohno let go of the strap he was holding and forced his way through the crowd to stand in front of her, staring at the man until he withdrew his hand.
Ohno stood in front of her while she slept as the train made its journey to the city’s outer suburbs and then back again to its center, and then headed out for the suburbs again. They rode the train until it was dark and their compartment was deserted. Ohno moved to sit some distance away from her, amazed by how soundly she slept as her head swayed gently on her shoulder. He would have woken her, he thought, but he didn’t know her stop. And-he admitted it to himself-he didn’t dare to speak to her.
Ohno had almost fallen asleep himself when she woke with a start; she gave a soft, pained moan as she moved her neck and then looked at her wristwatch. She stood quickly, gazing anxiously out the window.
Ohno noticed a strange glint of light at her shoulder-one of her earrings had caught on her coat where her head had been resting. When the train stopped and she hurried out the doors, the earring fell unnoticed to the floor.
Ohno jumped to his feet, seized the earring, and made it outside to the platform just as the train began moving again.
“Miss,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat and called out more clearly, “Miss, your earring.”
She turned to face him, and involuntarily he took a step back-she was so beautiful that he couldn’t look directly at her. His gaze fell somewhere near her right shoulder as he spoke, trying not to pant, “Miss, your earring…it fell. When you were leaving.” He held his hand out towards her.
Her own hand came forward, and he tipped the earring into her open palm, careful not to touch her. “Thank you,” came a low, soft voice.
He forced himself to meet her eyes. She was staring at him curiously. She bowed deeply. Ohno bowed even lower. “Really, thank you so much. I would have been heartbroken to lose it. I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you.”
Ohno bowed even more deeply. “I…should thank you. You…probably wouldn’t remember this…but you…saved me from falling onto the tracks at Shinagawa station. I’m so sorry for the trouble that I caused you.”
When he looked up, he saw that she remembered him; the troubled expression had disappeared. “It was you, then,” she said softly, as if to herself. Her voice was even softer than his, but she spoke each word so distinctly that it would be impossible to accuse her of mumbling (something Nino frequently scolded Ohno for).
Their eyes met. After a few moments, she turned away, gesturing towards the station, “Have you…lived in this neighborhood long?”
Slowly, Ohno shook his head, hoping the movement would encourage his mind to start functioning again. “No, I…I’m at the next stop.”
She looked like she was going to apologize. Quickly, Ohno bowed, “Please, I’ll wait here for the next train.”
He watched her heels as she stepped away and then stepped back. “Then…goodnight. And thank you again. Truly, thank you.”
“Goodnight.” He rose and watched her as she walked across the platform. She stood so straight as she walked-as though she were crossing a stage.
Ohno waited until he was sure that she would already be far from the station, and then he began his walk home. There were no more trains running that night.
*
The next time Ohno encountered her, he almost passed out from the shock. He was standing near the compartment window, staring blankly out at the passing cityscape. He was trying to think of pictures for the new campaign-it was perfume this time. He’d asked Nino to give the assignment to someone else-he wasn’t good at glamour products (his most popular designs so far had been for instant ramen). But Yoshitaka-san had asked to partner with him, so it was impossible to change Nino’s mind.
He was trying to imagine an illustration but only thinking of pearl earrings when he felt a light touch at his elbow. “Excuse me,” a familiar voice spoke softly, and when Ohno turned to discover her standing at his side, he jolted forward so violently that he hit his forehead against the window.
She stepped back, eyes wide. Then the corner of her mouth twitched, and she held up a hand to cover her mouth. Ohno saw that she was trying not to laugh, and he immediately felt more at ease.
“Forgive me, I was too quiet…”
Ohno shook his head, trying to smile though he felt himself flushing, “No, I think I…startled you even more.”
“Excuse me, but I wanted to give you this. To thank you.” She held out a small pink box tied with a white ribbon. “My name is Miyazawa Rie,” she bowed.
Confused about what to do first, Ohno fumbled for his business cards (grateful that for once they were actually in his suit pocket) while trying to fend off the gift that she was attempting to press into his hand. “Ohno Satoshi,” he mumbled while passing her the card. “And I can’t accept a gift from you…you saved my life. I didn’t…”
“Please accept it,” she pleaded, meeting his eyes. “My mother gave me those earrings just before she passed away. They are my most treasured possession.”
Ohno’s hand went slack, and she pressed the box firmly into his palm. Reluctantly, he accepted it. “I…thank you…”
She held his business card with both hands, studying it carefully. “You’re an artist, Ohno-san?”
He shook his head. “No, I only draw for advertisements.” He cleared his throat, “Mostly for instant ramen.”
“Instant ramen?” she repeated, looking interested. “I’ve never tried that.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” he replied without thinking, cursing himself when her eyes widened again. But then she laughed, and he breathed again, grateful that she wasn’t offended. But it was difficult to imagine her boiling a package of instant noodles (as he often did in the middle of the night, crouching over the stove in his pajamas). She seemed, to him, to belong to another world. Today, she was wearing a blue and gray kimono that must have cost more than his yearly salary. But it wasn’t just that she seemed wealthy-the way she moved, the way she spoke-she seemed…refined. Rare. He couldn’t think of anything else to compare her to except a princess. As far above a country bumpkin like himself as one could possibly be.
So he was surprised by her next question: “That night at the station, when you…” she hesitated, touching her hair nervously as she spoke, “…you looked like you were trying to cast a line. Did you imagine that you were fishing?”
Ohno was dumbfounded. “Yes,” he nodded slowly, “how did you know?”
She smiled, and he realized that although he had heard her laugh, he had never seen her smile. It was a smile of pure delight, and Ohno felt something contract painfully inside his chest. When she spoke next, he realized that his mouth was hanging open (something else that Nino was constantly scolding him for), and he closed it quickly.
She lowered her voice even further, as though confessing to something scandalous, “I love to fish, but I haven’t been able to for several years now. From the way you were moving your shoulder back, I think you must like fly-fishing?”
To Ohno’s astonishment, they discussed fishing until the train reached her stop. Ohno bowed again as she moved towards the doors. She was already standing outside when she suddenly spoke to him again, surprising him when she fumbled her words in her hurry, “I’m so glad, if you weren’t, the gift would have been all wrong. I was hoping so much that…”
The train was already moving away. She continued to speak, but the words were lost to him.
Ohno waited until he was home before removing the small box from his suit pocket and slowly untying the ribbon. Inside was a fishing lure, glittering with gold and silver threads.
*
After that day, they met often on the train. When they saw each other, she would greet him and gesture for him to sit or stand beside her. At first, they only talked about fishing, but then she began to ask him questions about his life.
He told her about growing up in a small fishing village, and then about coming to Tokyo after his parents passed away. He told her about how everything had been new and strange, and how he was still terrified to step onto an escalator. He told her about Nino finding him when he was selling paintings in Ueno Park and offering him a job.
She especially loved hearing about Yoshitaka-san-she asked him question after question about the only female ad writer in all of Tokyo (including what she wore to the office, but after the first time it seemed that she only asked him so that she could laugh at his attempts to describe women’s clothes). Sometimes she even carried magazines with her and asked Ohno to point out which were his designs and which ads Yoshitaka-san had written.
Ohno had never spoken to anyone so much in his entire life, even including Nino. But like Nino, she didn’t seem to mind if her questions were met with silence. She waited for him to collect his thoughts, apparently untroubled by the delay. But unlike Nino, she never scolded him for the things he said. Mostly, she just laughed at him (sometimes he tried to make her laugh, but usually she laughed at things he said that he hadn’t known were funny).
She told him about growing up in a touring theater troupe, travelling all around Japan with her mother, and how when her mother was taking a rest from acting, the two of them would go off by themselves to camp and fish in forests and mountains, and how they’d even seen the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji. The reason she went into the city so often now, she explained, was that an old friend of her mother’s was ill-she went to visit her almost every day. She was so lucky, she said, that she had made a friend like Ohno-san-she hated making train journeys alone.
Ohno was happy.
Except that sometimes he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it would be like to see her outside of a train compartment.
Now that it was spring, they could walk along the river together while they talked about fishing.
Or what if one day he called her “Rie” instead of “Miyazawa-san”?
Or what if he bought her a bunch of the flowers that they were always selling outside of the station? Would she be happy? Or would she look annoyed? Or, worse, would she smile and thank him but still only think of him as Ohno-san, a funny person on the train, where there was no one better to talk to?
Ohno tried to suppress these thoughts as much as possible. For the most part, he was successful-he was good at avoiding things that caused him pain. But then, he didn’t realize how much he’d come to care for her until the day he saw the ring.
That day was wrong from the beginning. It wasn’t a weekday, when they would usually meet-it was a Saturday, late in the evening, and it was a holiday; the compartment was crowded and hot. When she saw him, she moved to stand beside him, but when she tried to speak, he couldn’t understand her over the noise of the crowd.
More passengers crowded in; they were pushed back until they were trapped in a corner of the compartment, with Ohno trying desperately to stop the crowd from pressing them together.
It was the closest he had ever been to her. They turned their faces away from one another. She was wearing low heels-for once, he stood a little taller than her. He was grateful for it, as it helped him to avoid her eyes and instead focus on the tip of her ear, and then-when that proved to be too much-on the pins in her tightly-bound hair.
But he could feel the heat of her body, and he could see that small tendrils were escaping the pins as her hair grew damp in the heat of the compartment.
And he could smell her perfume; Yoshitaka-san’s lessons on the subject must have been more effective than he’d thought, because he recognized the scent. Butterfly. It was a scent that he’d come to associate with her without being aware of it, and now it overwhelmed him.
Dizzy, he lowered his gaze in an attempt to regain his focus; he was surprised to discover that she was looking up at him.
If he released the arm that he had braced against the wall, if he stopped resisting the pressure of the crowd-then their bodies would press against one another-his lips would press against her forehead.
She flushed and looked down, fumbling awkwardly between them for something in her coat pocket. She raised a white handkerchief to dab at her temples, obscuring her face.
It was then that Ohno noticed it for the first time-the gold band around her finger.
How had he never noticed it before? He had certainly looked at her hands before-had he simply refused to see it?
She lowered her handkerchief, but he couldn’t meet her eyes again-he wasn’t confident that he could control his expression.
Of course, she was married. What else could she possibly be? And even if she wasn’t-would it matter? Would that change anything between them? He had known from the beginning that it was impossible.
But it was not until that moment that Ohno realized just how much he had been hoping that it was, somehow, possible.
And just how little he knew her-she had told him, he realized, almost nothing about herself beyond some stories about her childhood. Like a fool, he hadn’t noticed-so happy just to be smiled at by her that he had thought of nothing else.
More people entered the compartment. Ohno closed his eyes as he was, finally, irresistibly pressed against her, his nose landing somewhere in her hair, his mouth near her temple. Quietly, he breathed in her scent, wanting to be intoxicated. She was clutching the sleeve of his jacket in one hand, and she trembled against him.
When the train reached her stop, Ohno held her lightly by the wrist and pushed through the crowd, finally delivering her outside the doors. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at her, then, once she was safely on the other side of the line.
She stood just where he had placed her, unmoving, and stared up at him with an expression that he had never seen her wear before. She looked like she wanted to cry. Had she felt how fast his heart was beating?
“Ohno-san…I…” She took a half-step forward, as though she would board the train again-but then it had already pulled away from the platform.
*
“What happened to you?” Nino demanded.
Ohno looked up from his drafting table-he realized that he’d been sitting, unmoving, in front of the blank page for half an hour. Nino had already seated himself on the edge of the table and lit a cigarette, “You’ve been flitting around the office for the past month like you’re about to burst into song, and now you look like you’re planning to throw yourself off a bridge later tonight.”
Yoshitaka-san appeared at Nino’s side. “Something wrong with Ohno-san?” she inquired cheerfully. “But there’s never anything wrong with Ohno-san. Unless…could he finally have a girl?”
Ohno had always believed that he possessed a remarkably impassive face-he’d been hit often enough by teachers for “looking blank.” But he must have flushed at Yoshitaka-san’s words because her eyes lit up and Nino cried, “A girl? Finally, a girl?”
Individually, he might have resisted them, but under their combined interrogation he found himself gradually letting information slip-there was a girl, he saw her sometimes on the train, he liked her, but she was married.
Ohno had thought that they would lose interest in the story when he said that she was married, but it only seemed to excite them further.
“She’s a bored housewife,” Yoshitaka-san declared, “Desperate for an affair with a handsome younger man. Possesses every luxury in the world except love. Definitely in the market for a new perfume.”
“Or she’s some kind of con-artist,” Nino suggested darkly, “Preying on naïve young men from the countryside. They fall in love with her, and then she takes them for everything they’re worth.”
Ohno stood up. “I…don’t think that’s true.” He walked away, opening the window at the other end of the office and climbing out onto the fire escape.
It was really spring now. People were flying kites somewhere in the distance; it seemed incredible to him that he could see them flying even in the midst of the city. He watched them for a while. Maybe he would go for a walk in the park after work.
Yoshitaka-san opened the window. “Ohno-san, I’m sorry,” she said, looking contrite. She crawled through the window and closed it behind her before crouching down beside him. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t realize how much you liked her.”
Ohno smiled, “It’s alright.”
“Nino’s sorry, too. He just worries about you. I think he’s really angry that she didn’t tell you that she was married.”
“She didn’t…hide it from me. I just never noticed. When I think about it now, it was obvious.”
Yoshitaka-san looked doubtful, but she didn’t say anything in response. They watched the kites together. After a while, Nino opened the window and shouted at them that he didn’t pay his employees to spend the workday staring at the sky like idiots.
*
That evening, Ohno walked in the park until he was sure that she would have already taken the train home. But when he arrived at the station, he found Nino and Yoshitaka-san waiting for him on the platform. Yoshitaka-san smiled and held up a grocery bag when she saw him. “We’re coming home with you tonight and cooking for you, Ohchan,” Nino explained. “Someone,” he turned to glare at Yoshitaka-san, “seemed to think that we owed you an apology.”
When Nino turned back to him, he was eyeing him shrewdly, and-in a rare flash of insight-it occurred to Ohno that Nino would never spend the evening with him just to apologize. Nino, at least, had agreed to come because he was hoping to see her.
Ohno congratulated himself on having arrived so late-they would miss her and, when nothing else happened, they would eventually forget about her.
Soon, they were past the stations where she usually boarded the train, and Ohno relaxed completely, staring ahead and only half-listening to Nino and Yoshitaka-san’s conversation about text layout.
Then he saw her. She boarded the train at Shinjuku. She was dressed in a light pink coat, and she was carrying an enormous shopping bag from a department store; she apologized to everyone she passed as she tried to make her way to a seat, her head dipping low with each apology. He had never seen her look so tired, not even that night when she had slept for so long on the train.
He didn’t know what expression he was making, but he knew that his face was not impassive. Nino elbowed him in the ribs, and when he met Nino’s eyes, he saw that Nino already knew everything.
Nino grabbed him by the elbow and jerked him back into a corner of the compartment. “Ohchan,” he hissed, “I’m going to strangle you. That’s Miyazawa Rie-san.”
“You…know her?”
Nino rolled his eyes. “Everyone in Tokyo knows her, Ohchan. Miyazawa Rie,” he repeated, as though he expected the words to mean something to him. “The most famous model of the 1950s. The face that launched a thousand products. She was on everything.”
Ohno tried to think-had there been something familiar about her face? There was something-dimly, he remembered a faded poster on the side of the only vending machine in the village. Her face, but younger, though her eyes had been the same. Smiling brightly and drinking a Coca Cola.
“I…didn’t know,” he replied finally.
Nino was looking at him with an expression of despair. “Christ, Ohchan,” he finally swore, “When you finally decide to like a girl, you really go for it. She’s married to the president of AMI, Yamamoto-san. He’d have you killed.”
Ohno gradually became aware that Yoshitaka-san was clutching onto his arm, her eyes wide and tearful, “Ohno-san, please, please could you introduce me to her?”
“What?” Nino half-shouted, remembering to whisper only partway through the word.
Yoshitaka-san was almost jumping up and down as she pulled at his jacket, “You don’t understand, she was my idol. She is my idol. She’s the reason I came to Tokyo…the reason I wanted to work in advertising…Ohno-san, she meant everything to me when I was a teenager. Please, I dreamed of meeting her when I came to Tokyo. I wouldn’t ask if it was anyone else but Rie-san…”
*
It had been, Ohno reflected, like a nightmare. Somehow, he’d moved forward-or perhaps Yoshitaka-san had dragged him-and then in a strange voice that didn’t seem to belong to him, he’d introduced her.
She’d flushed when she saw him, and then she’d flinched when he’d introduced her as “Yamamoto-san.” But then she’d smiled nervously up at them, and said something about how she felt as though she knew them both already, and how much she admired everything that Yoshitaka-san had accomplished, and how she looked for her advertisements in magazines.
That was all it took for Yoshitaka-san to burst into tears and throw herself into her arms. Ohno had watched as Miyazawa-san (he couldn’t, in his head, call her “Yamamoto-san”) stroked Yoshitaka-san’s hair and comforted her as though she were a child.
When Yoshitaka-san stopped crying, Nino had suggested that they all have a drink, and somehow they’d ended up in a jazz club in Ginza, with the shopping bag and Yoshitaka-san’s groceries shoved awkwardly beneath the table.
People kept coming up to the table to ask Miyazawa-san for her autograph, and Yoshitaka-san was clutching onto her arm tightly as they sat beside each other holding a passionate, whispered conversation while Nino smoked and watched the dancing.
Ohno decided that his best course of action would be to get very drunk, very quickly. Miyazawa-san seemed to have the same idea-every time the waiter passed by, she signaled to him for another lemon sour.
Ohno had never seen her outside of a train compartment or a station platform, or speaking to anyone else but him. He watched the harsh neon lights of the club as they reflected on her pale face. She seemed to be listening to Yoshitaka-san intently, replying to her seriously, but her hands fidgeted with a matchbox the entire time they spoke. After her third lemon sour, she started laughing helplessly; she stretched her long arms out over the table and rested her head on her arm as she laughed until tears streamed down her face.
They were speaking louder now, and looking at him-Ohno could hear their conversation. “The first time I met Ohno-san,” she was saying, her words slurring together just slightly, “he shocked me out of my wits by calling me “Miss.” He kept calling out “Miss!” When I’m old enough to be his Nee-san.”
“Ah, but our Ohchan here is much older than you think he is,” Nino cut in. “He may look young, but in fact everyone in the office calls him Ji-chan. The last time I visited him he was tying fishing hooks and cooking ramen in his underwear. In spirit, at least, he’s sixty years old.”
She laughed harder, pressing her face into her arm. Nino surprised Ohno by taking Yoshitaka-san’s hand and half-dragging her away from Miyazawa-san. “Come on, let’s dance,” he demanded, pulling her towards the floor.
Miyazawa-san sat back, wiping at her face with her hand, “I’m sorry, Ohno-san.” She met his eyes, and then she smiled at him, more tears slipping out from the corners of her eyes, “I think I’m drunk.”
Ohno realized that he was drunk, too, when he replied, “Would you like to dance?”
After a moment, she nodded. She gave him her hand, and they walked out to the floor.
Ohno knew how to dance. It was the one part of life in Tokyo that had come easily to him. The first time that Nino had taken him to a club, he’d sat for an hour and watched the dancing, and after that he knew how to dance.
She was a good dancer, too; she relaxed in his arms and followed his lead.
They danced for a long time, both slow and fast, until after one particularly fast spin she stopped and raised a hand to her forehead, stumbling a little on her feet. Ohno took her hand and led her off the floor to their table, pouring her a glass of water. She drank it quickly. “Thank you…I think that…I should go home now. I think I’m too tired,” she panted.
“I’ll take you.” She looked like she was going to protest, but then she nodded, her eyes fixed on the floor. “Should we…say goodbye…?”
Ohno shook his head. “They’ll be in a closet somewhere by now,” he muttered; she laughed weakly in response.
They collected her bag and coat and left the club. When they stepped outside, both of them stopped to breathe in the cold night air.
Ohno felt much more sober than he had earlier, and she looked so calm that he thought she had recovered, too, until they started walking and her steps drifted in curious, elliptical patterns; soon, she was veering into the road. Panicked, Ohno grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her to the inside of the sidewalk. She stopped, a strange expression passing over her face, and he wondered if she was offended. But then she started walking again, straight ahead this time but very slow.
Ohno was glad of her slowness; he wished that he could walk beside her like this forever.
They walked in silence for a while before she spoke; her voice had recovered its usual soft distinctness: “Ohno-san, I’ve been wanting to say that…I’m sorry that I told you that my name was Miyazawa. It…wasn’t my intention to deceive you. But I’m sure that I must have shocked you.”
Ohno shook his head, not wanting to hear her apologize, but she continued, “No, I…I don’t know how to explain it…I just hate being called Yamamoto-san.” Her next words were so quiet that Ohno wasn’t sure that he hadn’t imagined them, “It always sounds like the name of a stranger.”
Ohno didn’t know how to respond. He cleared his throat, “Then…should I still call you…Miyazawa-san?”
He glanced over at her; one corner of her mouth turned up. “Would you ever call me Nee-san?”
Ohno shook his head, “Never.”
“Then…would you call me Rie?”
Ohno tried. “Rie…san,” he couldn’t help finishing.
She laughed, “I don’t mind Rie-san. It’s what everyone called me when I modeled.”
“I’m sorry about…tonight. I should have stopped them, but…”
They’d come to a bridge, and she stopped, shaking her head as she looked out over the river. The lights of the city reflected brightly off its gently-moving surface. “No, I’m glad that I met them. I had so much fun,” she smiled, so widely that Ohno believed her. “All of you…you’re all so young and…cool.” She hesitated over the English word in a way that made Ohno smile; she elbowed him lightly in the ribs, “Don’t laugh at me.”
Ohno watched her face as she looked out over the river. Most of her pins had come loose when they were dancing, and she’d pulled the rest out while they walked. Now, her dark hair streamed behind her in the breeze. “I wish I had been like you and Yuriko-chan when I was younger. But I was never that brave.”
“Brave?” Ohno repeated.
“Yes. You both came to Tokyo, all alone, to follow your dreams.”
“It wasn’t…I didn’t think of it like that. I…just didn’t know what else to do.”
“But you still came, and you succeeded. I…I’ve been a coward my whole life. After my mother died, I was even worse. I was so afraid of being alone…there were people around me that I called my friends, but…when I turned thirty, everyone told me that now I had to marry quickly, that I had to marry before I lost my looks. Because once I lost my looks, I’d have nothing. I’d…be nothing. I wish…I wish that I had been brave enough to wait.”
Ohno wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to him or only to herself, but he answered her anyway, resting his hand beside hers as he focused on the glimmering waves below, “You’re not nothing,” he said firmly. “You’re Rie-san. So you’ll always be beautiful.”
She moved her hand; their fingers brushed. When she finally spoke, he could hear that she was crying, “Ohno-san…the shopping bag…they’re presents for my daughter. She’s been staying with her grandparents, but she’s coming home tomorrow. I…love her more than anyone.”
Ohno nodded, unable to speak, and turned away. Silently, they walked to the station. They’d missed the last train, so they hailed a cab. Ohno sat as far away from her as he could. She rolled down the window and leaned her head back against the seat, stretching her arm out the window to let her fingers trail in the breeze. “I read that they’ll demolish that line before the Olympics,” she murmured at one point, her voice tired. “They’ll put in a more direct line to Shinagawa, and renovate the station. I read it in the paper a few days ago.” Her voice shook, “When I read that, I couldn’t stop crying.”
Ohno still couldn’t speak.
It wasn’t until they were standing in front of her dark house, with her fumbling in her purse for the key while he stood behind her, that he couldn’t bear it any longer, and he put his arms around her, pressing his face into her neck. “Rie-san,” he breathed.
Slowly, her hands came up to cover his where he held her. He expected her to move his hands away, but instead she simply rested her hands on his. She moved her head a little in his direction. Gently, his lips met her cheek. She shuddered, breathing unsteadily.
Ohno didn’t know how long they stayed that way before, slowly, she turned her face away and dropped her hands to her sides. He sighed, resting his nose behind her ear. The pearl earring glowed softly in the darkness. He let go of her and stepped back. “Rie-san,” he managed to speak out clearly, though he felt like he was suffocating, “Please…be happy.” He didn’t know what else to say, or what else he could wish for.
He turned away and started the long walk home in the dark. He didn’t look back-if he saw her face again, he knew that he would be the one to break.
*
Ohno never saw her on the train again.
“You should try to contact her,” Yoshitaka-san urged him. “She’s clearly in love with you. Husband be damned, it’s 1963! She’s probably waiting for you to show up and rescue her.”
"She would never leave her daughter. Besides, she…it wouldn’t have meant as much to her.”
Nino took a long drag on his cigarette. “Idiot,” he exhaled viciously.
*
It was a cold spring. Ohno lay in bed and studied the fishing lure she’d given him, holding it up to watch how it caught the light. He wished that he’d given her something. At least, he should have brought her flowers. Even if it was only once.
*
When Ohno returned to the office that day, he knew instantly that she had been there-her scent lingered on the stairs.
His suspicions were confirmed when Yoshitaka-san ran up to him, her face pale. “Ohno-san,” she gasped, “She just left. I’m so sorry, we didn’t know where you were. She waited, but she said that she had to catch a train…she…left you this…” she held out a small white envelope, decorated with a pattern of cherry blossoms.
Numbly, Ohno accepted it. He climbed out onto the fire escape, crouching down before slowly opening it. Inside was a piece of paper and something small wrapped in a handkerchief. Ohno unwrapped the handkerchief, startled when two pearl earrings fell out onto his palm. He read the note:
Ohno-san,
I wanted to let you know that I am leaving Tokyo. I am sorry that I was not able to tell you this sooner, but we are leaving this afternoon. My husband is moving to Sapporo for business and it is unlikely that we will return for several years. Thank you for everything. The times that we spent together on the train-it was the happiest I have been in many years. I hope that you will keep these earrings as a token of my gratitude.
Be happy,
Rie
Holding the earrings in his hand, Ohno cried, in quiet sobs that convulsed him. After a while, Nino crawled out onto the fire escape and crouched beside him, patting him on the back while he smoked and stared up at the sky.
*
The weather grew warmer. Preparations for the Olympics were beginning in earnest, and Ohno watched as they demolished the station platform. The train stopped running; they were building new tracks. Everything familiar to him was being transformed.
He decided that he was tired of commuting, and he moved, renting a studio apartment a few blocks from the office. He thought about taking a vacation but decided against it. The perfume campaign was a success. “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” was the tagline.
He only looked at the earrings that he kept in his wallet once a day, before he slept.
*
It was a blisteringly hot day. He shouldn’t have come into the office, Ohno thought as he climbed the stairs. He’d removed his suit jacket, but his shirt was already soaked from the heat. It didn’t matter if he showed up-Nino and Yoshitaka-san were on their honeymoon, and the rest of the staff was taking a holiday to enjoy the festival. When he reached the top of the stairs, he thought of turning around and heading back home, but then something arrested his steps-it was the same scent. Butterfly.
Heart pounding, he unlocked the door to the office. Of course, it was empty. Draping his jacket over a chair, he opened all the windows before sitting at his desk. He drew for a while, accompanied by the sounds of the crowd outside. He was happy that Nino was giving him a break from glamour-their newest campaign was for chocolate bars.
After a while, he grew restless and wandered out onto the fire escape, watching the crowd below. It wasn’t so strange-he knew from Yoshitaka-san’s research that many women wore that perfume. He opened his wallet and looked at the earrings.
He wouldn’t work anymore today, he decided. He’d go to the festival. He closed the windows and locked up the office, throwing his jacket over his shoulder.
He wandered the streets, looking at the booths, and at the children running around, and at the couples strolling by. There was a booth selling goldfish; smiling, he walked up to one of the shallow basins, dipping his fingers into the cool blue water. Almost immediately, a bright orange fish swam up to nibble at his finger. “I don’t have anything for you,” he smiled. More fish swam over; he sighed as he dragged his fingers lightly through the water. Maybe he would take a vacation and go fishing, after all.
A small hand appeared next to his. He looked down to discover a little girl in a pink and white kimono with a cherry blossom pattern standing next to him. She gave a little cry of alarm when one of the fish swam up to her finger.
A familiar white hand with scarlet nails, but missing a ring, entered the water beside the smaller one. “Don’t be scared, Umi-chan,” came a soft, familiar voice, “They’re only trying to kiss you.”
Ohno looked up. She was standing next to him, smiling. She was wearing a yellow cotton dress and a pair of white oxfords. Her hair was tied up, but instead of being scraped back it fell in a fringe across her forehead. She looked sunburnt, and there were freckles dusting her cheeks. Ohno swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat-she looked different. Happy. “Ohno-san, I was hoping that we would run into you. I went to your office earlier, but no one was there.” Her voice shook, just a little, when she said his name.
“Everyone’s on holiday,” he replied stupidly. His vision was blurring; he wiped his arm across his eyes, not wanting to miss anything.
She raised a hand to smooth her hair; he realized that she was nervous. He took his wallet out of his suit pocket. “I have something that belongs to you,” he said. She accepted the earrings and tried to fasten them.
“I can’t,” she laughed, “look at my hand.” She held it out so that he could see how it was shaking.
He stepped forward and took the earrings from her. Slowly, squinting with concentration, he carefully fastened one to her ear. When he moved to the other ear, she spoke to him quietly, “My husband’s asked for a divorce. He wants to marry his secretary. He said that he prefers younger women.”
Ohno stepped back to admire his work. The pearls glinted brightly in the summer sunlight. “Idiot,” he replied.
She smiled, stepping even closer to him to whisper, “He said that I can have Umi. He never wanted a girl.”
“Bastard,” Ohno whispered back.
She smiled even more widely. “I thought I’d move back to Tokyo. I want to try acting.” She pressed her lips to the scar on his right cheek. “I always wanted to kiss you there.”
“I always wanted to kiss your mole.” She laughed, stepping back a little.
“Umi-chan,” she called, trying to distract her from the goldfish, “Look, this is Ohno-san. The friend I told you about who likes to fish.”
Umi-chan looked up at him. “Then can you catch me one of these fish?”
“Look,” he said, picking up one of the small nets at the side of the tank, “I can show you how to catch one yourself.”
After a few tries, she caught one in the net; she watched, fascinated, as the owner placed the fish in a bag full of water, tied it, and handed it back to her. “You have to hold on to it tightly,” Rie-san instructed her while Ohno paid for the fish, “It’s something precious. You can’t let it go.”
Holding the bag with both hands, Umi-chan stepped forward carefully. They walked on either side of her. Rie-san reached out to take his hand. Ohno interlaced their fingers together tightly. “I won’t let it go,” she promised.