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  “Drum-drum, drummer boy! Drummer boy in a red cap,” Kamiya muttered huskily. His voice was sounding hoarse from all the shouting.

  “But c’mon—‘Wake up, dragon! To the beat of the drum!’ That’s pretty lame,” I said. “And the rhyme is wrong.”

  “Dragons always had it too good. They’re so cool it stinks. Extreme is good. Oversized is funny too. Excess in everything is good. You have to be extreme and take the rap for it,” he said, sipping more coffee. He didn’t take milk or sugar with his, so I, too, was drinking an unfamiliar bitter coffee straight.

  “But that stuff about taking the rap is already overdone, don’t you think? Such a cliché,” I said after a bit. Somehow I could say things like that to Kamiya.

  He looked thoughtful for a while. The sound of cups clinking in their saucers echoed through the shop. “That’s the difficult part, to be honest. Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean there’s not some pure coolness to it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, the stuff about having to take the rap—sure, I’ve heard that before, but that doesn’t mean I have to reject that idea. Why should I—because it’s ordinary? You can’t go round rejecting stuff because it’s ordinary, you gotta decide whether stuff is OK as a kind of measure to live by.”

  Suddenly we were talking—getting to the root of things. Kamiya’s manzai used the familiar to wreak havoc, so was this why he did it?

  “If you judge ideas by how ordinary they are, then creativity just turns into a contest of who or what’s the most unusual. On the other hand, if you reject new, unusual stuff completely from the outset, then it’s just a contest of technique. But if it’s only a combination of technique and originality that gets approved, then it turns into a contest who can be the most balanced.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s right,” I agreed without reservation.

  “So if you try to measure everything by just one standard, you get blinded. Like those acts who only care about getting the audience on their side—don’t you think that’s creepy? Sure, it’s nice, but when getting the audience’s sympathy is the main aim of your act, there’s no chance of anything awesomely interesting coming out of it. You can’t always go for obvious stuff that pleases everyone and that even idiots understand—anyone in the creative life has to graduate from that stage. Otherwise you’ll never be able to see anything else at all. At least, that’s my principle,” Kamiya said slowly, enunciating every word.

  “Critique is difficult, though.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to do logically. A new critical methodology comes along and attracts all these followers. They develop it some more, refine it; meanwhile others declare it just the latest fad. They’re usually the type getting on in years, which gives them authority, makes them convincing. So that methodology is now regarded as wrong. And even if it might be a necessary form of expression in certain cases, people choose not to use it. New ideas are stimulating and people get off on feeling good about them. But in the end if they’re undeveloped, abandoned before they mature, it’s a helluva waste. If you only ever go for the feel-good buzz of the latest thing, that’s like breaking off a branch that’s just started to grow. That’s why fields full of mean-ass critics fall into decline. Better to stick with the thing until you nail it, and it’s matured. Until that method of expression becomes a well-developed branch of a big tree. A lot of stuff ’d be more interesting then. What’s with all this talk of cutting off branches to let the trunk grow? Yeah, sure, that might be one way, but then you can’t see the whole thing from afar, and it won’t bear fruit. I promise you this—if you ever get into the game of being a critic, you won’t have the ability to do manzai any more.”

  I wanted to say his speech sounded like a critique of society, but held back from comment. There was truth in what he said, even though, to my way of thinking, it couldn’t apply to everyone. Rejecting hard-to-understand new styles in order to protect a particular field was legitimate self-defence in my opinion. All being equal, however, Kamiya’s way of thinking was more interesting. But it was a gamble.

  What I did say was this: “But I don’t think I can avoid passing judgement.”

  Kamiya held the coffee cup in his hand without moving, eyes wide open. A familiar song played quietly in the background, repeating the same words over and over. What was it called?

  “That’s right. That’s why the only way is to be a fool, no? Be honest in judging according to your own sense of what’s interesting. And don’t be swayed by other people’s opinions. If I ever start putting down other people’s work all the time, please kill me. I wanna stay a manzai comedian forever.” Kamiya paused to examine the surface of his drink. “This coffee’s good.”

  “Yeah, it’s good. But listen, it’s OK to, like, have empathy for the sensibility of your teacher, right?”

  “That’s what we’re doing now…” Kamiya said, looking self-conscious. “Being empathetic.”

  I guessed he was embarrassed about being led by me into using a word he wouldn’t use ordinarily. But that was an instinct in him I felt I could also trust. He might sound contradictory, but I was more afraid of clever people who threw the latest words around with ease.

  “Hey, did you notice whenever I put my cup in the saucer I wasn’t making any noise?” he said.

  “Yeah, actually I did.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? How could I find the right time to stop doing it while you still hadn’t said anything?” His voice sounded husky.

  As we were leaving the coffee shop, the owner offered us a plastic umbrella. “I’ve only got one, sorry, but there’s no need to return it.”

  Kamiya was moved by this kindness and thanked the owner profusely. Outside, it was hardly raining enough to require an umbrella, but Kamiya opened it anyway and set off. I pulled my umbrella out of my bag, opened it and hurried to catch up with Kamiya. Beyond the drifting high clouds, the sky was darkening. Car lights and street lights cast sparkling reflections on the wet roads. The rain soon stopped completely.

  “Number eighty-two!” Kamiya suddenly burst out.

  It made no sense whatsoever, but hearing him say it made me happy. Here was another person in the world who spontaneously came out with meaningless utterances—I was not alone in this.

  “Drum-drum, drummer boy! Drummer boy in a red cap! Wake up, dragon! To the beat of the drum.” I don’t know who started first, but we both began singing the crazy song Kamiya had made up in the park. As we walked along the streets that smelt of freshly fallen rain, with the moon peeking through the clouds, the town at dusk was luminous and bright, and moving through it all were people coming and going. Only Kamiya and I had our umbrellas open. Nobody gave us a second look. Kamiya made no attempt to explain why he still had his umbrella open, but several times he looked up at the sky and said, “What timing, eh? What is it with the rain stopping?” and looked at me as if in commiseration. He felt a need to do justice to the thoughtfulness of the coffee-shop owner’s offer. I completely understood. At the same time, I felt a mixture of admiration, envy and even disdain for the undoubting sincerity of his conviction that holding open the umbrella—when it wasn’t raining—was the best way to express that emotion, but I loved that in him, even as it scared me.

  * * *

  The end of the year. Everyone on the streets in dark clothing, rushing about. Kichijoji was full of life as usual, but the noise of the city felt muffled, indistinct, as if played through a radio speaker. Perhaps the chilly air was affecting my eardrums.

  Outside the north exit of the station, enormous Christmas and New Year decorations lit the area brightly.

  “Guess they haven’t finished putting things up,” Kamiya said. “Can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

  He must not have been familiar with the geometric style of this year’s illuminations, because things were finished; that was the look, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell Kamiya that.

  Kamiya and I had been hanging out in Kichijoji,
going there practically every day as if we were taking measurements. We’d wander about until we got tired and then head to Mifune, a dive in Harmonica Alley, for a couple of drinks and a plate of fried pork and garlic stems. Then we’d move on to whatever other cheap pub we could find. By the time we were ready to call it a night, the trains had stopped running. Kamiya would always say, “Stay over at my place,” since it was near. I would always say, “Nah, no need, thanks.” I didn’t think it was a great idea to pass out drunkenly in front of a sempai, so if I had a bit of money to spare, I’d stay in a manga café, and if I didn’t, I’d sleep on a bench in Inokashira Park until the trains started running again.

  Tonight, blind drunk once again, Kamiya invited me to stay over. I shook my head. “I feel five times sicker than if I was on a boat.”

  But he wouldn’t let me go. “What a piss poor line. I’m worried about you, man. You need training,” he said, grabbing my arm. “C’mon, you’re going to my place.” And with that he attempted to pull me along by force. I was on the verge of vomiting, and Kamiya wasn’t so steady himself.

  “Let me go,” I said, shaking his hand from me, still determined to go off by myself.

  Out of the blue, Kamiya wound up and kicked me in the butt. Thwack. The sound echoed through the nearly empty streets. A homeless guy turned to look in our direction.

  “Man, why’d you do that? That hurt!”

  Kamiya fell to his knees, laughing. “Don’t be mad. I’m just worried ’cause you’re drunk. C’mon on, let’s go.” He walked off, the so-called explanation hanging in the air behind him.

  I gave up and followed, my throat burning, trying to keep the vomit down. We walked and walked and walked, but still didn’t reach Kamiya’s apartment. I was starting to think this was another of his crazy tricks, but every now and then he’d turn around to ask, with disarming concern, “Are you OK, Tokunaga?” So I thought it couldn’t be a joke. We walked along Kichijoji Avenue for an eternity. By the time we passed Nerima Tateno post office, the sky was getting light in the east. I still felt queasy, and now the sight of Kamiya leisurely parading down the middle of the street made me furious.

  “How far is it? We’re not in Kichijoji any more.”

  “Aww, don’t get upset now. You’ll make me sad,” Kamiya said, looking at me reproachfully.

  “How come you’re suddenly talking normal?”

  “What do you mean? Please don’t be mad at me.” For punctuation, he made a scared face.

  “Please don’t act normal.”

  “Like what?” he said, innocently puzzled, raising his eyebrows.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Gee, don’t talk like that. You really will make me sad.” This time he made a frown.

  “I’m the only one who knows that when you pretend to act normal, you’re being dumbass funny.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said. Worried face this time.

  “Say something weird, will you!”

  “Tokunaga, you make me sad talking like that.”

  Every time he spoke he’d stop and turn around deliberately so I could see his face.

  “If saying normal stuff is a dumbass joke, you’re hilarious pretty much all the time,” I said.

  “You can’t go round talking about people like that.” Kamiya drew his eyebrows together sternly.

  The way he did it enraged me. “May I vomit?” I spat.

  “You wouldn’t like it if you found a pile of vomit outside your house in the morning when you came out to go to work. It’s not a good idea to do something you wouldn’t like other people doing to you.”

  Again, more normal stuff. Though, come to think of it, this stubborn persistence was also pure Kamiya.

  “OK, OK. Just please stop talking normal. It’s too weird.”

  Kamiya had been punching numbers into his mobile phone as he walked, but now it rang. “Hi, we’ll be there soon. Can you buy some water? He’s really drunk,” he said and hung up.

  We walked and walked and walked—this after we were supposed to be there “soon”—when, at last, the sky so bright I couldn’t look at it, we came to a major road. The Ome Highway. We cut across, dodging trucks barrelling along, and entered a residential area, then walked some more, east, along a fairly wide road until we reached a shopping strip with the banner Fujimi Street. It was well and truly morning by now. Still he made me walk. Somewhere along the way Fujimi Street became Chuo Street, then finally we got to a building with a rotary out front and a sign that read “Seibu Railway, Kami-Shakujii Station”. For sure, we were not in Kichijoji any more.

  “We’re here,” Kamiya said, pointing to an old apartment building that was a lot classier than I’d been expecting.

  We climbed the stairs to the second floor where Kamiya stuck a key into an apartment door. Through the doorway I saw a woman sitting on a futon that looked as if it might be kept out permanently in the middle of the floor.

  “Yo, give Tokunaga here some water,” Kamiya said, leaping on to the futon with a thud.

  “Quiet, it’s still early. The neighbours’ll complain,” the woman chided gently. She was slender and had on fashionable striped sweat pants.

  “Hi, I’m Tokunaga,” I said to her.

  “I’m Maki,” she said softly, and smiled.

  “Sleep!” Kamiya ordered, slapping the futon, then popping up.

  The moment I lay down my head felt like it was cracking open. I shut my eyes.

  “I’m going to the convenience store. Want anything?”

  I didn’t reply since I wasn’t able to speak. Then I heard the door shut and two sets of feet go down the stairs. The room was too bright, and my forehead itched. Was that woman Kamiya’s girlfriend? Maybe this wasn’t his apartment after all. Maybe it was hers, maybe he was just staying here.

  I lay there awake, head splitting. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well here and wanted to go home, sleep in my own futon. I could if I could move. The trains were running now. If only I could get up and move. Why did I let this happen to me?

  I always ended up in a heap after a night out with Kamiya. We hardly ever had any worthwhile discussion either. Like today, we’d spent long hours seriously debating who you’d need on a team to pull off the perfect murder, supposing you already had a magician and a strongman on board. Kamiya said Golgo 13, the manga hit man. I said someone with a death wish. Golgo would almost certainly succeed in the mission, but you’d have to pay him a huge amount of money, and getting all that money together would alert the authorities. So, it wasn’t foolproof. Someone who wanted to die, on the other hand, would want the same thing as the other two, and you’d be able to compose the perfect farewell note. Kamiya had his doubts about this: someone who was looking to commit suicide was capable of only killing himself, and besides, you wouldn’t want your team to kill just anyone. You’d want your killers to kill bad guys. Then Kamiya said that if someone wants to commit suicide, you should try to persuade them not to, which was a just and reasonable point of view, but out of place in our discussion. Once reason and morality got introduced, everything got complicated. I now regretted saying insensitive things about someone having a death wish. Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t think about killing anyone, not even a bad evil guy.

  Footsteps on the stairs. Maybe someone was coming to kill me. The door opened, but I kept my eyes shut. I heard a plastic bag being placed on the floor.

  “He’s fast asleep,” Kamiya said with a laugh.

  I could feel Kamiya’s gaze still on me. “He’s like an annoying kid brother,” he was saying to Maki.

  Which made me feel embarrassed.

  From the sound of his footsteps, I could tell that Kamiya had jumped over me and gone to the window. His muffled laughter burned my ears. Bright light burned my eyelids, and I could swear an insect was crawling across my forehead.

  “Quit that,” Maki said.

  I slowly opened my eyes to see Kamiya merrily lifting the curtain so that sunlight flickered on my face.
r />   “Stop, please,” I begged.

  Kamiya would not. “I’m trying to burn your face so you look like Black Jack.” He laughed some more.

  “What’s so funny about that?” I said, covering my face with the blanket.

  “Oy, killjoy!” He tore the blanket away and lifted the curtain again.

  “Let him sleep,” Maki said.

  I sat up and swiftly changed ends so that the light wouldn’t hit me in the face. Kamiya kept laughing.

  Next thing I knew the futon was in the air and I was getting spun around. Kamiya was holding one end of the futon and Maki the other, and they were going round and round.

  “Maki, why are you helping him?” I cried.

  “Sorry,” she said, and put her end of the futon down.

  I gave up trying to sleep and sat cross-legged on the futon. In between sips from the bottle of water which Maki gave me, I gazed at motes of dust dancing in the sunlight.

  Maki looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and kept smiling.

  * * *

  Early in the new year, Kamiya asked me to meet him in Shibuya. This was a surprise, not our usual stomping grounds. The whole of Shibuya seemed to be yelling at the top of its voice, with giant screens on buildings around the station blaring sounds that clashed and merged with the clamour of all the people in the crowd moving about in their own bubbles of sound. People wore fresh, expectant new-year faces even though their bodies were no different from a few days earlier, and while most were dressed in conventional dark clothes, it was the occasional young person in over-bright clothing, laughing to themselves, who made me feel sort of at home. Kamiya was smoking a cigarette as he waited for me by the statue of the famous dog, Hachiko. I was used to how he looked in Kichijoji, but seeing him in the buzzing heart of Shibuya, I was struck anew by how he stood out like a sore thumb, not blending in at all with his surroundings. Maybe it was the way he dressed, his indifference to style or fashion.