Yuichi Tanabe…I must have been quite confused if I took that long to remember when I’d heard grandmother mention his name.
He was the boy who worked part-time at my grandmother’s favorite flower shop. I remembered hearing her say, any number of times, things like, “What a nice boy they have working there....That Tanabe boy…today, again…” Grandmother loved cut flowers. Because the ones in our kitchen were not allowed to wilt, she’d go to the flower shop a couple of times a week. When I thought of that, I remembered him walking behind my grandmother, a large potted plant in his arms.
He was a long-limbed young man with pretty features. I didn’t know anything more about him, but I might have seen him hard at work in the flower shop. Even after I got to know him a little I still had an impression of aloofness. No matter how nice his manner and expression, he seemed like a loner. I barely knew him, really.
It was raining that hazy spring night. A gentle, warm rain enveloped the neighborhood as I walked with directions in hand.
My apartment building and the one where the Tanabes lived were separated by Chuo Park. As I crossed through, I was inundated with the green smell of the night. I walked, sloshing down the shiny wet path that glittered with the color of the rainbow.
To be frank, I was only going because they’d asked me. I didn’t think about it beyond that. I looked up at the towering apartment building and thought, their apartment on the tenth floor is so high, the view must be beautiful at night…
Getting off the elevator, I was alarmed by the sound of my own footsteps in the hall. I rang the bell, and abruptly, Yuichi opened the door. “Come in.”
“Thanks.” I stepped inside. The room was truly strange.
