At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano

Author:Keiichiro Hirano [Hirano, Keiichiro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2021-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Mitani had been dining out in Shinjuku with four female friends, but as soon as Makino called back to report that the Koganei taxi company had his phone, she ran to catch a train. Lately Makino had been looking blue, and he’d been curt with her, although he had become more cheerful since starting to work with Noda at Globe. Apparently, he was starting to see a way forward with his musical career. Mitani strongly believed that his true happiness lay in his music and nowhere else.

She was able to retrieve his cellphone right away. She knew his PIN and was able to verify that the phone was his. In so doing, she saw several messages from Yoko.

When she went back outside, the rain was falling even harder. The ground at her feet was white with spray. While she headed back to Shinjuku on the Chuo Line, swaying in the humid train as passengers took care to keep their wet umbrellas from touching each other, she thought about Makino’s plan to spend his vacation with Yoko, starting today. In anguish over his possibly dying teacher, Makino had turned to her, Sanae Mitani, and in her eagerness to be of assistance, she had, to her friends’ amazement—“You get summoned to work on a night like this?”—left the restaurant after the pasta course, rushed out into the pouring rain, and jumped on a train. All so he could be with his precious Yoko tonight.

What am I doing with my life? she asked herself. She wanted nothing more than to devote herself to Makino, pure and simple, but he showed no sign of returning her love. And what she was doing now would make that forever impossible.

Yoko had written that she had landed and was aboard the Narita Express. Just as Mitani was thinking about this, Makino’s cellphone vibrated in her hand. She didn’t check it right away. The train pulled into Shinjuku Station and spewed its passengers, herself included, onto the platform. Borne along in the crowd, she got on the escalator and then opened the message, feeling rather faint.

To her surprise, Yoko said she was right there in Shinjuku Station, waiting for Makino at the south gate. She sounded concerned that there had been no word from him.

It occurred to Mitani that, since leaving the taxi company, she had not once opened her mouth, though this was only natural since she was alone. As she walked along, she felt the heat of the breath coming through her nostrils, and several times pressed a handkerchief to her sweating temples and neck.

Her legs carried her to the south exit. When she came to the ticket gates, there by the Koshu-kaido exit gate, where construction had been going on for years, stood Yoko, looking anxiously up at the threatening sky. She had a large red Globe-Trotter suitcase with leather straps around it. Never before had Mitani seen anyone so naturally suited to carrying such flashy luggage—she might as well have had a greyhound on a leash.

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