Editing HanTsuki:Volume 1 Chapter 3 (section)

=== 3 ===

It happened a great long time ago. I still remember it was the time when I was still prohibited to meet guests. Back then, I wasn’t adapted to living in the hospital and wasn’t capable of sneaking out of the hospital. Anyway, I was bored to death. Staying in the ward of prolonged periods of time had nearly suffocated me, putting me in distress. It felt exactly like living behind the bars in a jail. As such, I wanted to breathe some fresh air outside and often ran to the rooftop. On one day, when I went to the rooftop as usual, someone was already there—Tada. He sat beside the water tank, facing the sun. He looked like a large tortoise bathing in the sun. Upon seeing me, he would grin and smile, much like a large tortoise.

“Son,” he would call me, “do you have a girlfriend?” <!-- rough translation -->

He kicked off our conversation with such a question. I bet everything in his mind was just girls. 

I was stumped by the question.

“N-No...”

...or should I say...

“I didn’t have the opportunity...”

I remembered myself murmuring such words. Back then, I didn’t really have a chance to chat with my grandfather, so I was completely ignorant on how to get along such creatures called old people.

A that time, Tada must have been laughing silently in his heart.

“Argh! How can that be? Isn’t this too lonely?”

“Hahaha. Yes.”

“How about Akiko?”

“What?”

Hearing his shocking words, I couldn’t help making a sound.

At those times, I had already known deeply of Akiko’s scariness. The day before that, I was dripped by her three times in a row. Not to mention, when I was playing on the wheelchair, she threw me as well as the wheelchair upside-down, seriously injuring my waist. Sometimes, when I was curious and stretched my hand into a morgue to peek, she would sandwich my head with the door and bully me. That woman knew no limits to her torture.

“No thanks,” I rejected melancholically, remembering the pain in my wrist, waist, and head.

Seeing me like this, Tada smiled.

“She’s more than the looks. She has her adorable aspects.”

“A-Adorable?”

“Yes, very adorable.”

What was this old guy spewing? Or was it that the word ‘adorable’ meant differently in Tada’s old place? Perhaps the people there would say ‘adorable’ when they meant detestable’ or ‘abominable’.

“Akiko’s really a nice lady.”

“Oh...”

“My first love was a girl like Akiko. It dated back to the times wen Japanese A6Ms were chasing America’s B29 bombers. Right. It was around Showa 17 to Showa 18.<ref>AD 1942-1943</ref>”

It surprised me to hear Tada talking about stories all of a sudden, but after listening further, I found the story quite good. Tada’s first love (who was said to resemble Akiko) was the daughter of the leader of a distinguished village—old Ms. Tome. No, back then, Tada wasn’t yet an old tortoise but an real, living teenager—Kura. Therefore, Ms. Tome had to be a pretty lady at those times. Anyway, Tada and Ms. Tome fell in love with each other. Allegedly it was an intense and feverish love. Because of the disparity of their social status, this type of love was rare in the society. The two of them had to find meeting opportunities by sneaking into shrines or toilets, comforting their souls through these discrete moments. When departing, they would, reluctant to leave, have their watery eyes soaked in tears. It was also alleged that Tada was filled with passion and eagerness to safeguard the love he and Ms. Tome shared. By the way, there was a time and age of A6Ms, bamboo rifle, the daughter of the leader of a distinguished village, Tome, and Kura. It was an exploding age. It was inexplicable to hear that these things happened only fifty to sixty years ago. Or should I say I was stumped. Things like the leader of a distinguished village were extinct in this day and age.

“But...” said Tada, his face now drawn with wrinkles, “our disparity in social status was too huge after all.” 

On one day, Ms. Tome was married to a navy captain. The marriage was completely arranged by her parents, paying no single heed to the daughter’s will. An even shocking thing was that, on the day following their marriage, the captain went to the front lines. Allegedly he came back safely, but the whole thing was odd and messed up. If he had been dead, what should Ms. Tome, crying in tears dismally when being married, do? Wouldn’t she immediately become a widow?

“This departure was the worst I had to withstand in my entire life!”

Moved, I nodded in awe at Tada’s words.

“Yes. It sounds really desperate.”

The story was quite touching, pushing me to the verge of my crying. Right. At that time, I still hadn’t understood that Tada was a super, extravagant liar. In retrospect, whether there was someone called Ms. Tome remained a mystery. Even if there was such a person, I wouldn’t think they had the relationship Tada talked about. Wouldn’t fishermen claim their lost fish bigger than what they actually were? At least this was what I reckoned, for Tada said this afterwards: “Son, if you meet a lady you favour someday, don’t hesitate and charge right up. Also, don’t give up. Men have to be determined. If you give up, you’ll just lament for the rest of your life.”

Maybe, Tada hadn’t told Ms. Tome what he really wanted at that time. Probably he gave in for the disparity of their social status. Then, he lamented...lamented even to his eighties. Of course, this was only my personal imagination.

“Listen. You have to stand strong till the end. Only with this in mind can you get through any predicament in your way. If you give up and do nothing, then you’re the biggest idiot ever.”

Wasn’t the idiot he was talking himself? On a side note, why do adults around me like to say these lines? At that moment, my father’s lines rang in my mind: “You’ll meet a girl you love in the near future. Listen carefully: you have to safeguard her.” 

It was still autumn, and the air not yet chilly. The vague, blue sky stretched far and wide into the horizon. The contours of the clouds were indistinct, probably because of the rain yesterday. The heavy air felt damp, clinging to some watery smell. It was an autumn encouraging the desire to eat Pacific Sauries. Tada, still vigorous and living back then, was gone now.