Tales of the Disturbed (Volume 1) by Yoshio Toyoshima & Yoshio Toyoshima

Author:Yoshio Toyoshima & Yoshio Toyoshima [Toyoshima, Yoshio]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: J.D. Wisgo
Published: 2018-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

At this point I was left alone, without any response. His image had disappeared. Were my words too harsh? If someone had used words like “will” and “determination” with me in the same way, I would have surely felt a certain indignation and become sullen. And to speak about death like that...oh, I even wanted to apologize to him.

Each time we met, I could see his spirits declining further, little by little. It was as if a mournful shadow was cast over him, darkening by the moment. I became concerned and performed a detailed investigation of his financial situation. The result was shocking; it was worse than I had imagined. He had layer upon layer of unpaid debts as well as loans of a nature that could only be called degrading. Two things in particular caught my attention: the fact he had taken responsibility for others’ loans, and his tendency to gradually shift debts from one professional money lender to another. Given his social status, totaling all of his debts wouldn’t amount to that great of a figure, but his penchant for transferring debt to high-interest loans seemed like reckless behavior with no consideration of the future. I saw a kind of desperation in him. When I researched his distant past, it seemed that his first loan had gone wrong, and after that he gradually slipped deeper and deeper into an economic trap of the credit system. If he had stopped making loans and kept strictly to using cash, he would likely have starved at the low tide of his mental productivity.

In order to more fully understand his state of mind and his hopeless, reckless way of living, I casually observed Chiyoko. She too seemed to be in serious trouble, with unpaid kimono bills and even visits to the pawn shop. But what I couldn’t fathom was how she was lately taking extremely good care of her body: cutting down on drinking, watching what she ate, and even treating her hangnails. He was the same in this respect––making an effort to smoke less, even drink less of his favorite brand of saké––and it was not just because of his financial troubles. Depending on how you looked at it, there were various ways to interpret this behavior.

However, I couldn’t spend all my time being concerned with him. I didn’t want him to interfere with my work. I was worried, but for the time being I had no choice but to wait and see what happens.

When I was walking along the edge of a pond, thinking about work, someone tapped me on the shoulder and called out to me. The lotus and duckweed plants had not yet formed buds, while the calm, flat surface of the water reflected half the dark forest and half the city lights, inducing a fragmentary state of contemplation, and when I raised my eyes and looked behind me, he was standing there.

“So you too take walks at a place like this.”

He smiled curiously at me. Something seemed curious to me as well: his cheerful smile.

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