Today's Reading
The man burst out laughing. "Okay, okay, I get it. Fine, then, go ahead and pay for them."
She felt her cheeks reddening as she handed over the money.
"I think that gives me the right to do something for you. What would you say to having a cup of coffee with me?" the man said as he dropped the cigarette packet into the chest pocket of his shirt.
"Oh, I couldn't possibly...I mean, coffee costs more than a pack of cigarettes."
"It's okay. Really. The cost price of coffee's less than seventy yen."
"The 'cost price'?"
"Yeah. Come with me. You'll soon see what I mean."
He took her to a bar on the third floor of a modern building. It was closed, but he unlocked the door. There was a counter on one side and four tables in a row on the other.
The man went around to the inside of the counter and started preparing some coffee. He sometimes served it to people who didn't want anything alcoholic, he explained.
He introduced himself. His name was Hiroshi Yano and he worked behind the bar here. The place was closed because it was a Sunday.
She told him her name.
"Where're you from? Sounds like the northeast to me."
"I'm from Akita....It's that obvious, is it?"
After two years in Tokyo, she liked to think that she'd gotten rid of her accent, but people often commented on it.
"It's nothing to get upset about. I think it's rather sweet. I'm an out-of-towner too."
Hiroshi was from Nagano Prefecture. He'd come to Tokyo as part of a group who had moved in search of work. When the factory he and his cohort were working at shut down, he'd started working at the bar. As well as tending bar, he was also a general drudge, doing the unglamorous jobs like cleaning and tidying before the place opened for the night.
They went on to discuss their interests and enthusiasms. She'd never had such a long conversation with a man outside of her work-place. If truth be told, at work, conversation was kept to a minimum, and she wasn't much good at it anyway. As she chatted away with Hiroshi, she felt relaxed and comfortable. At the same time, her whole body felt burning hot. It was a strange feeling.
She wanted to stay longer, but she needed to get back to the factory dormitory before it got too late. As she was getting ready to leave, Hiroshi said, "Fancy getting together again some time?"
"I'd like that...."
"How about next Sunday? Will you be back in town?"
"Probably..."
"Good. Same place, same time?"
"Fine by me."
"It's a deal, then. If there's any problem, give me a call." Hiroshi slid a book of matches across the counter with the bar's phone number on it.
They started meeting at the bar every Sunday. They would go out for a meal or occasionally go see a movie. She felt miserable when it was time to say goodbye. In the train on the way home Higashino from Ueno Station, she would often sing, "I love him and I'll never forget him," quietly to herself. It was a song from Pinky & Killers' The Season of Love, which had been a big hit the year before.
They'd been seeing each other like this for around three months when she went to Hiroshi's apartment for the first time. It was a single room with a small kitchen area. The futon almost completely covered the floor. It was on that futon that the two of them made love. It was her first time.
Instead of meeting Hiroshi at the bar on Sunday afternoons, she started going around to his apartment on Saturday night. She would head to the station as soon as work finished for the day and catch the train for Tokyo. Sometimes she would cook up a simple dinner for them both. She started keeping toiletries and a change of clothes at his place.
...