Me and "Ayako"

(I)

Life was so dramatic it made me sick.

He could burn anything in this room, in this house. He could smash the television over a disagreement, then vent his feelings by shattering every dish Yuanyin had bought for the kitchen. He could also take out a lighter and use roaring flames to erase every trace of the sheets Yuanyin had slept on and the clothes she had worn.

I would not stop him. I knew this was his best way to start over, or to retreat even deeper into avoidance.

But I really, truly could not accept watching that photo of us vanish in the flames.

Toji, I have so little left.

Ignoring the searing pain the flames brought to my fingers, I reached into the fire with my bare hands under his astonished gaze and rescued a scrap of paper with only half of Yuanyin's face left on it.

Fire was merciless. It would not even wait for me to try a little harder to save it. Just one more second would have been enough. At least then I could still have made out what she looked like.

The photograph had burned down to the size of my palm. I cradled it carefully in my hands as countless ways to salvage it flashed through my mind, but none could restore it.

Forget it.

Just forget it.

-Yuanyin, there really is no fate left between us at all.

Clinging to what dignity I had, I did not lose my mind and pull out a weapon to attack the man who stood there at a loss, nor did I open my mouth to belittle and curse him with vicious words.

Saying nothing was already the greatest kindness I could offer Toji Zenin.

I would not look at him, would not speak to him, and kept as far away from him as possible. Furious beyond measure, I chose the cruelest and most rational response.

Leaving their room, I returned to my own and locked the door. Ignoring the pain of the torn, blistered flesh on my hands, I carefully tucked the photograph into a book.

The list of plans on my desk had stopped at the entry for photographs. Looking at it, I felt both ridiculous and miserable.

How could the timing have been so perfect? Could life please be a little kinder to me?

My plans had been completely thrown into disarray, and so had my mind. Without photographs, what was I supposed to rely on to remember her? My memory? But even my memory would abandon me one day.

I lay on the bed until my turbulent emotions became still once more, and my reason returned. That might not have been the last photograph. Somewhere I had not discovered yet-in documents, on an ID card, or in records stored in some system-there had to be a photograph of Yuanyin.

I was someone who acted, so over the next few days, I searched the house for Yuanyin's ID card, her driver's license, or their marriage certificate.

What brought my rummaging to an end happened late on the third night. The swollen moon hung in the night sky. Having drunk too much water before bed, I got up in the middle of the night for once.

I turned the lock on my bedroom door, then opened it.

The living room, which should have been pitch-black, flickered with the faint blue light of late-night television. At this hour, the world was steeped in half-sleep, so even the programming had switched from sultry, sexy shows to a heartwarming film meant to lull people to sleep.

For some inexplicable reason, I softened my footsteps and walked toward the living room.

The results of my rummaging over the past few days lay scattered across the messy living room. On the sofa, surrounded by books and assorted clutter, a silent beast lay curled up.

A man over six feet tall, powerfully built like a black panther, had curled himself into a ball in a sleeping posture that betrayed an utter lack of security, his head buried deep in the gap between the sofa cushions.

I thought that if this sofa were as large as the entire living room, the man before me would surely stuff himself without hesitation into that lightless gap, then hide himself there forever.

The film on the television finally cut from a lengthy shot of empty scenery to a closer shot of the characters talking.

[Ryosuke, you know what I did, don't you?]

The woman in a white dress smiled through her tears. The pain and resolve in her eyes were so real that I instinctively forgot there was still a screen between us.

Gently setting the stack of books on the edge of the sofa down on the floor, I sat on the edge and suddenly wanted to watch her speak to me.

At that moment, it was as though I were Ryosuke.

[I know seeing what I did would make you angry, and you wouldn't understand. But I had no choice. If I didn't do it, I really couldn't go on living. Whenever I looked up, I saw Yamato's photograph. Whenever I looked down, I saw every stretch of floor we'd walked across together. From the living room to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the bedroom. Every step was a memory, and those memories would kill me.]

[Ayako, I'm sorry. But that isn't a reason for me to forgive you for burning down Yamato's house. Did you never think about it? I loved Yamato too.]

The real Ryosuke refused to forgive her, refused to understand. Against a backdrop of blue sea and sky, he drove away in a white Mazda, abandoning Ayako in her white dress.

Ayako looked at the sea, then turned to watch Ryosuke's car leave. The camera moved in close. Her emerald eyes could no longer hold back her tears as she gazed into the camera, at me, utterly heartbroken.

I turned to look at Toji, then at Ayako, and answered them in my heart.

The difference between Ryosuke and me is that it isn't that I don't understand. I've always understood you far too well.

You both have to move forward. I understand. These traces and images of the people you've lost are the greatest obstacles keeping you from starting over.

But you aren't the only people trapped in the pain of losing someone dear to you. In this world, there are people who can choose to move forward, who choose to escape, and there are also people who want to cling to their memories and stay in one place forever.

Whether it's Ryosuke or me, we're both barely keeping ourselves alive on memories.

The film did not end well. Ayako thought she could start over if she burned everything, but in the end, she could never make a good life for herself. It was as though that pain were an invisible garment. Every time she met a new lover, another layer of that invisible garment covered her. How could she walk on easily with such a heavy, invisible coat weighing on her back? She could not love anyone new, and no one new loved her. Ayako spent the rest of her life drifting through a haze.

As for Ryosuke, one day he suddenly forgot what Yamato looked like, and decisively ended his own life. He only wished to live in a life where he still had memories of Yamato.

When the film ended, I sank into a bewilderment unlike anything I had ever felt, until slightly cool ointment touched my hand, until I lowered my head and saw a pair of large hands, likewise covered in burns, tending my wounds with movements that were not particularly gentle, but careful enough.

It seemed the "Ayako" who was unlike Ayako had woken up.

(II)

Opening a wardrobe was simple. It only took three steps: get out of bed, put on slippers, then pull the wardrobe open.

Three steps, three actions, yet Toji could go no further after the second.

He could not open the wardrobe.

There was no savage beast inside, no black hole from outer space, and certainly no doorway to a fantasy world. What stopped the Sorcerer Killer, the Heavenly Tyrant, in his tracks was nothing more than a photograph stuck to the inside of the wardrobe door.

Yuanyin was not someone who liked posing for photographs. She could take them for other people, but she absolutely refused to photograph herself. She hated pictures of herself so much that she would secretly tear them up after getting married.

It was as though she did not want anything that recorded her existence left in this world. So the supposed photograph of her and Toji was only a secretly taken shot in which their figures were indistinct.

Toji could not even face a photograph in which their faces were blurred. Was he supposed to spend the rest of his life never opening the wardrobe? He thought he was ridiculous.

For the first time, he fought against his urge to avoid things. For the first time, he made up his mind to keep moving forward with his life.

Toji closed his eyes, pulled open the wardrobe, tore down the photograph, and took out his lighter.

Naturally, he did not know that beneath that candid photograph of him and Yuanyin was the immensely precious photograph Yuanyin had hidden away, of her and Yuanli embracing and looking at each other.

Toji really had been innocent in this.

He watched his daughter refuse all communication after putting out the fire with her bare hands, then shut him out completely as though quarantining a germ.

The stray dog that had thought it might wear a collar again seemed to have experienced abandonment once more.

Indifference was the cruelest blade.

A locked door. Passing each other without a single word. If Yuanli had only looked up at him, she would surely have seen the apology almost overflowing from those green eyes, and the hands that were likewise covered in burns from his attempts to salvage things afterward.

But Yuanli never did, not once.

Toji was unlike ordinary people, not only because of his unusual physique, but also because of the extremely pessimistic, insecure personality his terrible childhood environment had fostered.

He struggled to voice an apology, struggled to approach someone unwilling to accept his gestures of remorse.

The newly purchased burn ointment lay carelessly on the floor. Nearly two days without sleep or food had left Toji lying weakly on the sofa.

He did not remember how he had fallen asleep. He only remembered that when he woke, there was another person breathing beside him.

The sofa at home was not large. Even curled up, all the six-foot-tall Toji had managed was to keep his feet from hanging off it.

Now, less than half a meter from his feet, his little daughter sat perfectly upright, utterly solemn.

If she had been wearing a white dress and turned around with her hair hanging loose, it would have been a classic horror movie scene.

Unfortunately, Toji was not afraid of ghosts, and Yuanli did not turn around.

He tentatively sat up, making quite a bit of noise in the process. The child sitting upright still gave him no response.

The light from the television illuminated the horrifying burns on her hands. Toji furrowed his brow and found the burn ointment he had bought among the plastic bags scattered on the floor.

He had not been able to bring himself to take the child's hand and apply the ointment. Reserved expressions of affection were the only kind Toji had ever learned within a family. He did not even know that being reserved was not a good way to go about it.

As he pushed the ointment toward Yuanli, he saw his daughter's bewilderment for the first time in the television's faint blue light.

When had I started unconsciously forgetting that she was a child?

Was it before my wife died, or after? It seemed to have been both. He had even felt pleased with himself over it, thinking he had luckily skipped the part of fatherhood that most required him to express his feelings.

-How was someone who had never received a father's love supposed to give it to a child?

Toji had thought he could use that excuse for the rest of his life. But at that moment, he overturned it himself.

Sometimes, familial love flowed out naturally.

He clumsily took his daughter's hand and awkwardly applied the ointment. Perhaps Toji himself did not know that the little girl with her head lowered could see all the heartache and guilt in his eyes, along with the fatherly love he could not recognize himself.

"It's all right, Toji. Everything will be okay." The child tended his wounds too.

Yuanli seemed as though she would never blame him, as though she would always comfort him.

Not even his wife had given him this kind of unconditional tolerance and understanding. It felt unfamiliar to Toji, and made him want to hug her a little.

But a hug was still too difficult for him as he was now.