タックンの話 (Takuya’s Story)

  To be honest, I’m not very sure about much of my background. I think I was born in Shimane prefecture, but to be honest, I don’t have a family register. I was found in a burned-down abandoned factory in a small village, not far from the northern sea. I was less than a year old at the time, and have no memory of my parents. The two people they found in the aftermath of the fire were presumed to be my parents, but no one knew who they were. All they knew was that the man was middle-aged, and the woman was a teenager. People just assumed some kind of scandal, like an affair ending in a double suicide.

  With no identification, and no family, I was left to be taken care of by the village. I was put into a youth facility in a neighboring town as soon as I was old enough. I know that there are some terrible stories, but the place I was in wasn’t too bad. No one was cruel or abusive, but no one was kind either. I had it better in some ways than the kids who had families. Their parents would sometimes show up to the facility and cause trouble, but everyone just kind of forgot about me. I could tell that they just wanted me to get old enough to support myself and move on, so that’s what I did.

  I couldn’t enroll in high school or get a normal job without a register, but there were always plenty of part-time jobs, usually in small shops or restaurants. I left the village and headed for the cities to find better jobs around when I turned fourteen. I might have left just to avoid the strange look when I told people my name. Miyabashi was the name of the village that they found me in, though I was told that they had found a nametag with my first name along with some other items left where they found me, so that’s probably my real name.

  So I kept the name, but left the town. I eventually ended up in Yokohama. I was around sixteen at the time. There was a nice Chinese restaurant that took me on, and taught me a lot of what I know about cooking. The basics, at least. It wasn’t any kind of nice place, just a local noodle shop, but it was a good, clean, and honest business and very popular with the locals, especially the local high school kids.

  That’s where I met Chizuru. She was a senior in nearby high school, and a bit older than I was. To be honest, she was kind of a bully. She would order her friends around, and seemed to take pleasure in ordering me around too. When her bicycle broke down, she made me carry it to a bike shop to get it repaired. She would always complain about the food I made if I was cooking, and never paid full price, despite the lectures I would get from the owners whenever she did that.

  Of course, I was smitten. She was everything I was not, brash and courageous, confident and bright. I was the quiet part-time helper that most people didn’t even notice. Soon, we were talking regularly outside the restaurant. We would go get something to drink at the convenience store and sit in the park for hours. I’m sure she was teased by her friends, but she didn’t care about that. She never cared what people thought or said about her. It’s like she had a suit of armor that protected her from the eyes of society.

  I learned that she came from a good, upper middle class family, and had a much older brother who was already married and had moved away. Despite her parent’s demands, she wasn’t interested in going to college. Instead, she was thinking about traveling around the world. When I told her it would be hard since her English test scores were so bad, she scolded me and made me buy her some ice cream to apologize.

  Within a year we were dating, a first for me. I had never even considered doing something so normal. I’d never met someone who treated me like a full person. She didn’t care that I had no money, or prospects of any kind. I thought that I would do anything she wanted, and so that’s what I did.

  Of course, her parents were outraged. Not only was she refusing to go to college, but she was talking about leaving the country and dragging some orphaned boy along with her. Perhaps if her older brother hadn’t been so respectable and obedient, they might have gotten desperate and arranged to have me thrown into the back of a truck and shipped off to Hokkaido. After a while, they ended up backing off, realizing, as everyone else did, that convincing Chizuru to change her thinking was impossible.

  Instead, they did the next best thing, They set a trap. Suddenly, her parents started acting kindly to me. They treated our relationship as a done deal, invited me to family meals, and even brought me along on trips.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I suppose I was naive, but I truly thought they had decided to approve of our relationship. I asked her father for permission to ask her to marry me, and to my surprise, he agreed, enthusiastically even. Then, they sprung the trap. Her father told me that he had been thinking of investing in a small restaurant, and wanted me to run it with Chizuru. I was shocked. I had never even considered running my own restaurant.

  At first, Chizuru was adamant that we would be leaving, but with her parents backing me up, I tried to convince her that we could still travel later, but with a business, we would be more independent. If things went well, we could hire someone to run the restaurant and still get income while we traveled the world. I had no idea that I was just being used by her parents, who hoped that she would just quickly get pregnant and finally settle down. I also didn’t realize that I was being used by Chizuru in the same way. This had all been part of her plan from the start.

  While she did intend to travel, she knew that threatening to leave the country was the one thing she could do to offset her parent’s disapproval of our relationship. Soon, we were married in a civil ceremony, and with her parent’s support of a business loan, we began work on building our restaurant. I had never imagined that I could be so happy, or so lucky. Chizuru was my whole life, and the restaurant was my dream. I thought nothing could make me happier or ruin what was a perfect time in my life. I was wrong about both things.

  I had just turned twenty when we opened the restaurant, a humble and modest Japanese-style diner. Soon after, Chizuru came to me with a strange look on her face. I could tell that she was struggling with something. She seemed happy, and scared, and confused at the same time. I had never seen her like that, and stopped what I was doing, to see what was the matter.

  “We’re going to be parents,” she told me in a disbelieving tone.

  I felt like my body could not contain the joy that I felt at her words. I wanted to run and jump into the ocean, or fly into the air like a rocket and explode into lights over the city. The months that followed went by like a dream. Her parents visited often and congratulated us heartily. Everything seemed perfect. We were so happy, it was like the world did not exist outside of our new family and new life.

  By her sixth month, we learned that she had a little girl inside of her. I admit, I might have lost my mind. I started gathering the things we would need, a crib, and stroller, and scoured the internet for parenting advice and clothing for little baby girls. After a lengthy search that included everyone we knew, we decided on the name Ayari for the baby. In retrospect, perhaps I should have chosen something less auspicious.

  Luckily, Chizuru kept her senses and made sure the business was progressing smoothly. We were going to need the money to support the baby, after all. Things were going well, and despite the large startup debt, we were making money and steadily growing our customer base. We were so deeply occupied with getting ready for the baby that we didn’t have time for anything else. We didn’t notice the changes going on in the world, and the danger that was quickly approaching like a typhoon at sea.

  Chizuru was in her eighth month when the stories of a great pandemic became impossible not to notice. The world was waking up to an existential threat, and while Japan did not seem overly concerned, steps were already being taken. There was talk of travel in and out of the country being limited, as in some places in the world, bans had already been implemented.

  I quickly bought masks, and placed hand sanitizer in the restaurant. I pled with Chizuru to stay in the apartment, and not to go out unnecessarily, but she dismissed me. “No one has even gotten sick in Japan yet. I’ll be fine.” It was that same day that the first cases of the pandemic were reported in Japan.

  It was only two weeks later that Chizuru woke up complaining about a headache. Within two days, she was in the hospital. Two days after that, she was gone. It happened so fast. I didn’t understand what happened. In less than a week, my perfect life had simply vanished. My beloved wife, my daughter, gone. I never even got to say goodbye. No one at the hospital would explain what happened. I thought the world must have ended, but I soon learned that the nightmare was just starting.

  It happened right after the funeral. Suddenly, no one from Chizuru’s family would talk to me. It was as if I was a total stranger. Then the bank contacted me. The restaurant had been closed, and across the country, businesses were being curtailed. Of course, I knew the reality. Having the owner pass away due to sickness at a time like this, it would be extremely difficult to recover, but I never expected the betrayal that would come next.

  The bank informed me that my in-laws had removed their support of our business loan. If I could not find another guarantor immediately, the bank would be forced to recall the loan. Even without the current situation, this would have been impossible to deal with. All my calls to my in-laws went unanswered. At my lowest point, I was again all alone.

  Within a month, I was sitting in the park, the same one I would go to with my wife. The bank had foreclosed on the loan and taken everything. I had lost the love of my life, my family, my business, every bit of my savings, everything. But it still didn’t feel real. To be honest, I still don’t know if I can tell what is real. Was that whole time just a dream? Or am I dreaming now?