Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

‘Would you take him home so he can have a rest? This is the first time he’s cried since he got back.’

Kosuke said he would.

The woman’s eyes, puffy from crying herself, broke into a smile.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Throughout the funeral, Satoru had sat rigidly next to the young woman. There were other people there who were apparently relatives, but they didn’t seem so close to him.

Satoru’s classmates had gone, too, to light incense and pray. All the girls sobbed, but Satoru had greeted them without shedding any tears himself.

Kosuke was impressed by how Satoru had held up. But, at the same time, it felt as if his friend had drifted away somehow and wasn’t really there. If Kosuke were in Satoru’s place, if his father – the one who had called him an idiot – and his mother had passed away at the same time, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it together like that.

Kosuke took Satoru by the hand and led him home. On the way, Satoru’s words were broken up by tears.

‘The good-luck charm for my father came too late. And I didn’t get a present for Mum… Thank you for buying it…’

Only Kosuke could have worked out what he was saying, so incoherent with sobs were his words.

When they got to Satoru’s house, Hachi was waiting on that day’s newspaper near the front door. He seemed unfazed by Satoru crying like an animal and padded towards the living room as if guiding them. When Satoru collapsed on the sofa, Hachi jumped up on his lap and licked Satoru’s hand over and over.

When they’d found Hachi he’d been only a kitten, but now he seemed more grown up than Satoru.

After the funeral, Satoru didn’t come back to school. Every day, Kosuke would take homework over to his house, and they would play silently with Hachi for a while, then Kosuke would go home.

The young woman stayed at Satoru’s house the entire time. It turned out she was Satoru’s aunt – his mother’s younger sister.

Is he going to live with her here? Kosuke wondered; he would drop in on Satoru even on days when there was no homework to deliver. His aunt knew his name, greeting him with a ‘Hello, Kosuke,’ whenever he came by. But she was quieter than Satoru’s gregarious mother and the house now felt strange to him.

‘I’m going to move,’ Satoru said one day.

The aunt was going to be Satoru’s guardian, but she lived a long way away.

Ever since Satoru hadn’t come back to school, Kosuke had had an inkling that this might happen, but when it did it felt as if a hole had opened up in his heart.

He knew that whining about it wasn’t going to change anything. He stroked Hachi as he lay curled up on Satoru’s lap, without saying a word. Today, too, Hachi was gently licking Satoru’s hand.

‘But Hachi will go with you, won’t he?’

That way, Satoru wouldn’t be so lonely.

But Satoru shook his head.

‘I can’t take Hachi with me. My aunt moves around a lot with work.’

And Satoru, too, looked like he knew that whining about it wasn’t going to change anything. But that’s just too much to bear, Kosuke thought.

‘What’ll happen to him?’

‘Some other relatives say they’ll take him.’

‘Do you know them well?’

Satoru shook his head. This made Kosuke angry. How could Hachi be taken in by people Satoru didn’t even know?

‘I’ll… I’ll ask if we can have Hachi at our place!’

Hachi had been looked after by Kosuke half the time anyway. If Kosuke could take care of Hachi, then Satoru could come to his place to see him.

Even his father had shown an interest in Hachi whenever he visited.

But his father’s view hadn’t changed a bit. ‘No way! A cat? Are you kidding?’

‘But Satoru’s mum and dad are dead! And now, if Hachi has to stay with people he doesn’t even know, think how sad he’ll feel!’

‘He knows them. They’re relatives.’

‘Satoru said he doesn’t know them!’

Distant relatives you hardly ever see are, to a child, like total strangers. Friends are much closer. Why don’t adults understand that?

‘In any case, it wouldn’t work. Cats live ten, twenty years sometimes! Do you want to take responsibility for it your entire life?’

‘Yes!’

‘That’s pretty cheeky for someone who’s never earned a penny in his life.’

His mother, perhaps thinking this was getting out of hand, stepped in on Kosuke’s side, but his father still wouldn’t budge.

‘I feel sorry for Satoru,’ his father went on, ‘but these are two different things. Go and tell him you can’t do it!’

There was no way a sixth-grade boy was going to make him change his mind, so Kosuke headed towards Satoru’s, crying fat tears all the way. His legs felt like lead as he climbed up the slope from the bottom of the housing complex.

When they had first found Hachi, Satoru had done everything he possibly could to enable Kosuke to have him. His attempts had been misguided, but he had given it his all, done his very best.

And the upshot was that Hachi had gone to live in Satoru’s house.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Kosuke said, still crying, his head on his chest. ‘My dad said I can’t have him.’

Damn you, Dad. Don’t you see what Satoru means to your son?

‘It’s okay,’ Satoru said, smiling through his own tears. ‘Thank you for asking.’

On the day Satoru moved, Kosuke was there to see him off. Unbelievably, Kosuke’s father came with him. ‘Of course I’m coming,’ his father had said, ‘since we know Satoru so well.’

Seeing his best friend off before he moved away, Kosuke had never felt such deep contempt for his father.

At first, the boys exchanged letters and phone calls frequently, but as the days passed, the calls and letters naturally became less regular. One reason for this was Kosuke’s shame at having shirked his duty towards his friend by not taking Hachi in.

If they had been able to see each other from time to time, their closeness would have eased his sense of awkwardness, but as they were not able to meet, time only made his feelings of guilt grow.

However, they never stopped sending each other New Year cards.

These always included a brief note saying that they should get together sometime, and they continued through high school and on into college. But the intervening years in which they hadn’t seen each other made it all the harder to arrange to meet again.

At the Adult’s Day ceremony, all Kosuke’s old classmates were reunited to celebrate their turning twenty. Many who now lived outside the prefecture came back especially. But Satoru wasn’t among them. Where was he attending his Adult’s Day ceremony? Kosuke wondered.

Kosuke and his classmates must have had fun at the ceremony, because afterwards, for a while at least, they continued to get together on various occasions. It was still a bit soon for a high-school reunion, but it was just the right time to wax nostalgic about elementary- and junior-high-school days.

Kosuke, who still lived in the prefecture, was put in charge of organizing the elementary-school reunion. It was decided that all his sixth-grade classmates should be invited.

As he was in charge, he decided to send an invitation to Satoru.

Satoru phoned in reply. His voice had not changed. Though they hadn’t talked in years, their conversation was as lively as if no time at all had passed. Satoru rattled on and on, as if making up for all the years of silence.

‘It was fun talking to you again. Well, see you!’ Satoru said, and hung up. Moments later, he called again. He’d forgotten to mention the class reunion. Of course he would come.

After this, they kept in touch more regularly. Satoru was living in Tokyo, but now that they were adults distance wasn’t so much of an obstacle.