‘So what did you have in place of the sun?’
‘It’s hard to describe. Maybe you’ll understand someday,’ Yukiho said. Turning her eyes back on the road. ‘Let’s go.’
Natsumi turned the key.
Yukiho was staying at the Sky Osaka Hotel in Yodoyabashi. Natsumi was already renting an apartment in North Tenma.
‘The night’s just getting started down here, isn’t it,’ Yukiho said, looking out of the window.
‘There’s certainly no lack of nightclubs in town, that’s for sure. I used to go out a lot back in the day.’ Natsumi said, and heard Yukiho chuckle in the seat beside her. ‘What?’
‘I heard you slipping back into the local accent,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just —’
‘No, it’s fine. You’re in Osaka; you should talk like a local. I should probably switch back myself when I’m in town.’
‘I think it would suit you, honestly.’
‘Really?’ Yukiho said with a smile.
She let Yukiho off in front of the entrance to the hotel.
‘See you tomorrow, boss.’
‘Sure thing. If anything comes up tonight, don’t hesitate to give me a call.’
‘It won’t, but I will.’
‘Natsumi?’ Yukiho extended her right hand. ‘Let’s do this thing right,’ she said, her voice a perfect Osaka drawl.
Natsumi shook her hand and smiled.
The hands on the clock had just passed midnight and Yaeko Kirihara decided it was time to close up when she heard the squeaking of the old wooden door opening and an older man in a dark grey coat stepped in.
When she saw who it was, the forced smile faded from her face and she gave a little sigh.
‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Sasagaki. Here I was thinking it was the God of Fortune come to give me a very belated blessing.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Sasagaki replied. ‘You know I’m your lucky charm.’
Sasagaki hung his scarf and coat on the wall and sat down at the counter. He was wearing a rumpled brown suit under his coat. He might not be a detective any more, but he still dressed the part.
Yaeko put a glass on the counter in front of him, opened a large bottle of beer and poured. It was all he ever drank at her shop.
Sasagaki took a sip, savouring it, and had a bite of the simple appetiser Yaeko put out for him.
‘How’s business? Getting to be time for those year-end parties, I should think.’
‘Business is just what you see. The bubble burst here years ago. Not that I ever saw any bubble.’
Yaeko took down a glass for herself and poured. She drank down half in one gulp.
‘I see the years haven’t slowed you down at all,’ Sasagaki said, reaching out for the bottle. He filled her glass to the top.
Yaeko nodded thanks. ‘It’s all I got.’
‘How many years have you been running this place again?’
‘Too long,’ she said, counting on her fingers. ‘Fourteen, I guess. Yeah, fourteen years this February.’
‘That’s a nice long run. Sounds like you found your calling after all.’
That made her laugh. ‘Maybe so. The café I ran before this only lasted three.’
‘Not helping with the pawnshop at all?’
‘No. I hated that work. It was never a good fit for me.’
And still she had been married to a pawnbroker for almost thirteen years. That was the biggest mistake in her life, she had decided. She should have kept working at that bar in North Shinchi. She’d probably be the owner by now if she had, and business was always hopping there.
After her husband was killed, Matsuura ran the store for a while. But pretty soon there was a family meeting and the shop was entrusted to Yosuke’s cousin. The Kirihara family had been in the pawnshop business for generations and a few of their relatives ran shops under the same name in different parts of town. Just because Yosuke had died didn’t mean his widow could do whatever she wanted with the store.
Matsuura soon quit. According to her cousin-in-law, he’d taken quite a bit of the shop’s cash with him when he left, but she never heard any hard figures. In all honesty, she couldn’t have cared less. She left the house and the shop to her in-laws and with the money they gave her opened a café in Uehonmachi. She hadn’t known until then that Yosuke had never even owned the land the pawnshop had been built on; they’d been leasing it from his older brother.
Things went fine right after her café opened but about six months later the customers dropped off until they hardly came at all. She was never sure exactly why. She tried offering new menus, and redecorating, but nothing seemed to work. Soon she had to cut staff, which meant the service got slower, which meant even fewer people came.
The café closed without making it even for three years. She always took it as a personal affront that the Space Invaders boom had come along right after she left, sending young kids in droves to neighbourhood cafés.
She had managed to land on her feet, though. One of her friends from her old hostessing days got in touch with her to tell her about a shop in Tennoji that was up for sale. The terms were good and she jumped on it immediately. That was her current bar and she had managed to keep it afloat. When she thought about what she would have done without it, it gave her goosebumps.
‘How about your son? Still no word?’ Sasagaki asked.
Yaeko smiled faintly and shook her head. ‘I gave up on Ryo a long time ago.’
‘How old would he be these days? About thirty?’
‘Something like that. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember.’
Sasagaki had started showing up every once in a while, from around the fourth year after she started the bar. She knew he had been the lead investigator in her husband’s murder, but he rarely talked about that. He never failed, however, to mention Ryo.
Ryo had lived with her in-laws through middle school. It was a boon to her, busy as she was starting her café, that she didn’t have to take care of a kid at the same time.
Around the time that she started her current bar, Ryo left the Kiriharas and came to live with her. It didn’t mean much, however, she was soon to discover. She was always up late with the customers, after which she would sleep deeply, only waking up some time in the afternoon, after which she’d eat a simple meal, get in the bath, put on her face, and start opening the shop. Not once did she make breakfast for her son, and dinner was usually something from the bar. They barely saw each other for more than an hour a day, if that.
Ryo started spending more and more nights out. When she would ask where he was staying, he only gave vague replies. But she never heard anything from the school or the police, so she didn’t pay it too much mind. She was too tired just getting through each day to worry about him.
On the morning of his high school graduation Ryo got ready for the day just like any other. Yaeko was awake that day, still in her futon. Normally he left without saying a word, but that day he stopped in the doorway and looked around. ‘I’m leaving, Mom.’
‘Yep, see you later,’ she said, half asleep.
It was the last time they spoke. It was only several hours later that Yaeko found the note on her dresser that read, I’m not coming back. True to his word, Ryo never returned.
If she had wanted to, she might have been able to track him down, but she never really tried. She was lonely, true, but she felt like it was inevitable. She’d never been a real mother to him. And he’d certainly never thought of her as a mother.
Yaeko was fairly sure she had lacked any kind of motherly instinct from the very beginning. She gave birth not because she wanted a child, but because there wasn’t any good reason to get an abortion. She had got married to Yosuke in much the same way – because she thought it would save her from having to work. Yet the role of wife and mother had been far more confining in its tedium than she had imagined. She didn’t want to be either of those things. She wanted to be a woman.