ME: A Novel. Tomoyuki Hoshino
why don’t you go do it?”
“Even if I went to her, she wouldn’t recognize me, and I’d simply get the boot. She thinks you’re Daiki, so the role naturally falls to you.”
“But I can’t play the real Daiki!”
“My guess is that Daiki is no longer his mother’s son.”
“What?”
“I can’t imagine any other explanation. You no longer belong to your family, and Daiki Hiyama no longer belongs to his. For all we know, he’s gone back home, found that his mother doesn’t recognize him, and has been thrown out.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” By this time I was shouting. The other ME winked to remind me that we were not alone. I lowered my voice and threatened: “Don’t think you can get away with passing yourself off as the real thing!”
“You really don’t get it, do you? I’m not claiming to be Hitoshi Nagano or arguing that you should become Daiki because you’re a fake. Ever since that damn kid showed up, I’ve been constantly thinking that one of these days I’ll come home from work and Mother will tell me that she doesn’t know me, point to that same kid coming out my room, and say that he’s her son. And there’ll be nothing weird about it. Age and appearances aside, there’s no real difference between him and me. We could be switched, and to the parents it would all be the same. They might not even notice. Besides, I don’t have any evidence that I’m the real one in the first place. I ask myself if I’ve really lived in this house all these years, brood about it, and only find things getting fuzzier. I’m not at all sure of myself anymore . . .”
“Okay, great. Then let me change places with you.”
“I wouldn’t mind, but remember that Mother would insist she doesn’t know you and call the cops. That’s what it all boils down to. The only reason I live there is because the old lady and Dad take me for Hitoshi. Even with the switch, life goes on because people think that’s who I am. There’s nothing more to it than that. It’s like company work—there can be personnel changes, and my title might change too, but as long as operations run smoothly, life goes on. For all I know, I could be merely one in a long line of Hitoshis. I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that I’ve been in that house forever, when in fact I only moved in rather recently. It’s like what seems to be a road that goes on and on, the real thing being just a few yards long and the rest stage setting or computer graphics.”
The other ME stared at me blankly, and I began to wonder whether I might simply be imagining him. This thought was completely enervating.
“So, all things considered, I’ve got to be Hitoshi both at home and on the job. And now that you’ve started being Daiki Hiyama, you’ve got to go on with it too.”
His cell phone rang. “Hello,” he answered somewhat grumpily, then paused and said, “I’m heading right home.”
I could hear my old lady’s voice muttering a litany of complaints.
He grimaced, ended the conversation, then said, “Let’s exchange e-mail addresses.”
He handed me his cell phone, and I complied by passing over my own. He seemed like he wanted to say something to me but his mouth remained closed. My own frame of mind was the same.
“Sorry,” he finally said, “but that’s the name I’ve entered for you.”
I saw the words Daiki Hiyama and typed my information below them. I felt numb.
He nodded and said, “I’ll be in touch with you soon.”
* * *
It was past ten by the time I boarded the Keihin-Tōhoku Line. I found it hard to believe that we had been talking for three hours. I wondered whether I had merely spent that time caught in a delusion, staring absentmindedly at my own reflection in the windowpane. But there were the words Hitoshi Nagano recorded in my phone directory. For a while I kept composing e-mails to him that I would delete before sending. I wanted to tell him something but didn’t know what that something was.
At Akabane I transferred to the Saikyō Line and then at Shibuya for a Tōyoko local train. I was sitting there, waiting for departure, when my cell phone began to vibrate. I expected the call to be from “Hitoshi,” but when I looked at the screen, I saw an 048 number that had grown familiar over the last couple of days; it was Daiki’s mother. I flipped open the phone.
“Ah, Dai-chan, how are you? How are you feeling?”
“What is it? You woke me up!”
“I’m sorry! Are you feeling any better?”
“Well, perhaps if I get enough sleep . . .”
“Can I come over tomorrow and cook dinner for you?”
“No need. Hey, I’m not a kid, you know.” My gruffness was catching the attention of other passengers. “I’ll call you tomorrow night. But until then, please give me some space.”
“I understand. But I’m worried about you. You’ve got such weak intestines.”
“Okay, I’m hanging up now,” I said, and closed the device.
I hadn’t taken my bike to the station so I had to walk home.
The day had been endless, beginning with Daiki’s mother. It felt like an entire month had passed.
On the way home I grabbed dinner at a convenience store. There wasn’t a single thing I hadn’t grown weary of, but in the end I picked out mincemeat over rice and a container of potato salad; I then splurged with a can of Kinmugi Suntory.
After dinner, I felt myself slipping into a funk as I contemplated my miserable state of existence. The other ME would be eating my old lady’s croquettes, chop suey, or mushroom rice. Yes, I thought to myself, I have indeed been most adroitly kicked out. It occurred to me that I hadn’t received an e-mail from her in a while. Up until two years ago, she had constantly called me, pestering me to look for some fine girl to marry now that I had a regular job.
“The reason you have such a confrontational relationship with Toshio-san is that you’re still in a childlike state of flux. I’m sure that if you got married and had children of your own, with a modicum of understanding for how he feels, you’d come to some sort of equilibrium and have a healthy adult relationship. Now that you have a stable job, this is a good time to get married. If you don’t have any opportunities to meet someone, I’ll do what I can to arrange something. Hitoshi, you want to achieve something by the time you’re thirty, don’t you? Even though I’m not yet sixty, and not all that happy about the prospect of becoming a grandmother, I want to be able to help care for a grandchild while I still have the energy.”
Regularly faced with that kind of sermon, I stopped answering her calls and then quit responding to her e-mails as well.
I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to get married. And since the opportunity never presented itself in any case, I had no reason or desire to give it serious thought. The girl I’d wind up with would inevitably be a suitably conventional young miss. In other words, the best I could hope for would be the sort of marriage my parents had—and I had no desire whatsoever to form a household anything like theirs. On the contrary, I wanted to break the cycle of such mass-produced couples. And that would mean that no more children like me would be born.
In fact, I didn’t care about having children one way or the other, the real issue being that I didn’t want to live with anyone. I was, to be sure, stuck in a wretched routine of prepared meals from the convenience store or McDonald’s. And yet this was all I needed. As long as I was alone, in off mode, I only needed enough fuel—not a feast—to get by. Once I hit the on button, my troubles would begin in earnest. I would have to deal with parents enslaved to a program, incapable of knowing me as a flesh-and-blood human being, have chummy conversations with coworkers, and otherwise explain myself to other people. I would constantly