Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

But it makes sense now.

That mutt of a dog is Sugi’s, isn’t it?

Dogs the world over just aren’t very level-headed about things. Their master says jump and they ask, ‘How high?’ So perhaps Sugi’s dog is trying to take the side of his gloomy master.

With cats, though, the master can throw a tantrum but cats don’t necessarily jump. Cats always follow their own path.

Toramaru was still young and lacked subtlety.

In the evening, they let the dog inside the house, but led him immediately to another room. He didn’t come at us barking like he did when we first met, but since he had been so terribly rude to Satoru, he and I were on high alert.

‘Well, well, you seem to have had a few already.’

Chikako was out of the bath.

‘Are you going to bed now?’ Chikako asked, as though pacifying a child, to which Sugi replied, ‘Nope,’ shaking his head like a spoiled brat.

‘If you and Satoru are staying up, then I will, too.’

Chikako and Satoru looked at each other with a smile. Their faces were glowing. Is a drunk really that endearing? To me, it just looks embarrassing. Crikey, I really hope I don’t look like that when I sniff a bit of catnip.

After a while, Satoru said, ‘I’m feeling sleepy now, so I’m off to bed. Come on.’

Satoru helped Sugi to his feet, but perhaps he was heavier than he expected, or his body more limp, because he began to stagger. Chikako got up quickly to help prop Sugi up.

In this way, the two of them got Sugi to bed.

NOT LONG AFTER Satoru moved away with his aunt, Sugi started going out with Chikako.

They were both aiming to get into the same college. They talked it over and decided on a university in Tokyo. Chikako was planning to help out with the orchard business in the future, so if she didn’t go to college outside the prefecture, she would end up spending her whole life within the confines of the district she grew up in. It was an entirely natural, innocent desire for a young girl to want to spend some part of her life in the big city.

They both passed the university entrance exams, and Chikako was to live with relatives in Tokyo while Sugi would stay in the dorm. It was a double room, and he was a bit concerned about whether he’d get on with his roommate, but the dorm had two points in its favour – the low rent and the convenient location.

He and his roommate arranged to meet up before the college entrance ceremony, and Sugi set off, map in hand, down the unfamiliar streets to locate his dorm.

The winding backstreets confused him and he wandered round in circles for a while, but he finally arrived, not too much later than the scheduled time.

He was filling out forms at the reception desk when it happened.

‘Sugi!’

He didn’t know anyone yet and turned around uncertainly. When he saw who it was, he was stunned.

‘Satoru!’ he said, before his brain froze. It was great to meet an old friend like this in an unfamiliar place, but at the same time the question of why Satoru was here, paired with his still-guilty conscience, began to play on his mind.

‘I heard from Chikako that she was applying to this college, and I thought maybe you were, too. I see I was right.’

‘You heard from her? You mean, you guys met after you moved away?’

‘No, not at all. She wrote to me.’

This was back when high-school students didn’t all have mobile phones.

‘I gave you guys my new address, remember? And Chikako wrote me a letter. I never got a letter from you , though,’ Satoru said, teasingly.

‘Hey, but I did call you a few times.’

‘Well, I guess when friends grow up, they lose touch. It’s the same with my pals from junior high, though we talk a lot on the phone. When I got that letter from Chikako, I thought, Wow, girls really are conscientious. We’ve written to each other a few times since.’

And in one of the letters Satoru had apparently read about which college Chikako was applying to.

‘Chikako never told me you were applying here, Satoru.’

‘That makes sense, since I never told her. I reckoned, if one of us didn’t get in, it would feel kind of awkward.’

Now that he understood, Sugi realized there was nothing to it. But still he had his suspicions – and that was the problem.

‘Since we’re both here, why don’t we ask them if we can share a room?’ Satoru asked. ‘My roommate hasn’t appeared yet, and if we arrange it now it shouldn’t be a problem.’

Satoru had been in the dorm for a week already, and his kind nature meant he had already made a network of acquaintances, so they managed to swap roommates.

Chikako was delighted that Satoru was attending the same college, but sulked about not being told. ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’ she asked. She had been just about to write a letter to him to let him know that she and Sugi had both got into the same college.

The first semester flew by, and before they knew it the second semester had started.

‘Sugi, I got a gift from one of the second years.’ Satoru showed him some cans of beer, an upmarket brand that was seldom discounted.

Twenty was the legal drinking age, but for college students that was just official policy, and in the dorm drinks were circulated even between under-age students. They made sure, though, that things didn’t get out of hand, and were careful to avoid the eagle-eyed dorm mother whenever there was alcohol around.

‘Oh, then I’ll cadge some snacks to go with it.’

Dorms students often got food parcels from home, and if the students shared whatever they received, they could all get some pretty nice things. Sugi had just received some juicy grapes, and, trading up, he managed to talk a student hailing from Hokkaido into letting him have some salmon fillets and sweets that were a speciality of the student’s hometown.

Satoru would get merry when he drank, but he wasn’t much of a drinker. Two cans of beer were all it took before his eyes grew bloodshot.

For some reason, the talk turned to an in-dorm romance. A freshman, quite a frivolous guy, had made repeated moves on an older girl in the dorm and kept getting shot down. The other guys found it funny, but also tried to cheer him up.

‘How many times has he been rejected?’

‘Eleven, so far.’

Satoru, the informant, passed this on to Sugi, and chuckled. ‘It’s so funny – he won’t give in. He said that during the second semester he’s going to hit the twenty mark.’

‘What for? Is he aiming to break some kind of record for being rejected? He’s lost sight of the goal!’

‘I know, but I kind of envy that sort of recklessness.’

Satoru’s red eyes sparkled.

‘You know, in high school I sort of had a thing for Chikako.’

The one thing Sugi had hoped never to hear.

‘But since you were there, I reckoned it was hopeless. Still, even if I had been rejected, I wish I’d at least told her.’

I wish I’d at least told her . If he had, then history would have been different.

Unable to keep it in, his voice cracked. ‘Please. Don’t ever tell Chikako.’

I wish I’d at least told her . History might still be different, even now.

‘ Please .’

Miserably bowing his head, Sugi thought, how shameful can I get? I know very well how miserable I look, yet I still go ahead and beg him.

Satoru seemed touched by his words, and his eyes widened a little. Just as they had when Sugi had asked for advice and shut him down. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He smiled. ‘You two probably have a stronger relationship than you think you do.’

So Sugi was, in the end, successful in keeping Satoru quiet.