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Takarazuka Station
001 image to come.
Lone passengers, for the most part, show no expression, often appearing to be in their own world. They stare at the landscape whizzing by or at the ads hanging inside the car, or if their eyes do happen to wander around the carriage, they avoid meeting anyone else's gaze. Otherwise, they pass their time on the train in the usual ways-reading a book or listening to music or staring at their mobile phone.
That is why
a person alone
without any kind of distraction
looking animated
is very conspicuous.
On this particular day, the young woman who got on at Takarazuka Station and sat next to Masashi looked familiar-or at least he recognized her.
If you were to transfer from the Imazu Line to the Takarazuka Line and ride one stop to Kiyoshikojin Station, you would find Takarazuka Central Library.
In the five years since Masashi had started working in an office, he would visit this library every two weeks or so. He did like to read and sometimes he had research to do for work, but on days off when he didn't have plans and since he didn't have a girlfriend, there wasn't really much else to do.
So Masashi was enough of a regular that he soon got to know the library staff, as well as a couple of the other patrons. Enough to recognize when that pesky old guy was giving the librarian a hard time again, and so on.
He remembered the young woman with the long neat hair because he had once lost out to her in the scramble for a book.
It was a buzzy new book that happened to be back on the shelf.
This was only about a month after it had been released, so it seemed pretty lucky. In an instant, Masashi had reached for the book, but just as he did so, another hand suddenly snatched it away.
With a frown, he looked around to see who had nabbed the book-an attractive young woman-and so any impulse to complain vanished. Men are weak.
The young woman seemed unaware she had just snatched the book-she had not even seen him. Masashi watched, following after her for a few minutes, but gave up once it was obvious she was not letting it go.
At the time, the young woman had been carrying a canvas tote bag featuring a certain internationally recognizable mouse. He had found it a bit childish for someone her age-but then again, maybe it was the sturdiest bag she owned, or one that she didn't care if it got ruined. When lugging around the maximum number of books you could borrow from the library, a flimsier or more tasteful bag would soon get damaged.
Which meant that she must come here pretty often.
His assumption was right on the money-since he came to the library fairly often himself, he started noticing her there more frequently. He'd spot her by her bag, emblazoned with the image of that mouse, its mouth wide open in a smile. She really was Masashi's type, though, and although hard to admit, he quickly got used to seeking out the rodent.
Having lost out to her the one time, Masashi considered her a rival, so whenever he saw her around, he'd scour the library's shelves preemptively for any special books that might be available.
He soon realized they shared similar tastes.
She had a knack for discovering interesting books, and as he threw a grudging glance at her selection, he'd consider borrowing them himself after she returned them. But he never made a note of the titles and soon forgot what any of them were.
He only ever bumped into her at the library-until now, they had never found themselves on the same train home.
At Kiyoshikojin Station, she had gotten on the train headed for Takarazuka Station, boarding the same car as Masashi, her tote with the smiling happy-go-lucky mouse bulging as always. Not that Masashi was one to talk-his leather backpack was filled to bursting.
But only Masashi seemed to have noticed.
At Takarazuka Station, where the train terminates, there are three options: leave the station, or transfer to the JR line or to the other train line for Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi, known as Nishi-Kita.
No way, she can't be heading for Nishi-Kita . . . he thought, but as their train pulled into the station, her gaze was locked on the opposite platform.
And sure enough, as soon as they arrived, she scurried over toward the train that was sitting at the platform across the way. On weekends, due to the popularity of the Hanshin Racecourse at Nigawa, all four tracks would often be occupied, with trains for Umeda and Takarazuka, and Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi and Takarazuka, respectively, sitting opposite each other. So the transfer time was minor.
The same track, even? His eyes followed her with vague annoyance, and he decided to travel in a different carriage.
It was pretty crowded, but the books he had taken out from the library were heavy, so Masashi managed to score one of the empty seats.
Just then, the interior door connecting the cars opened. And who should appear but the young woman herself. Not many empty seats, she seemed to be thinking, swaying as she made her way down the carriage.
There were still a few empty seats. Without hesitating, she took the closest one, next to Masashi.
Such a strange series of chance encounters, overlapping like Jenga pieces, even if Masashi seemed to be the only one aware they were two players in a game.
Masashi hastily pulled one of the books he'd borrowed from his backpack.
As he began flipping through the pages, the young woman beside him made an odd motion. The famous mouse tote bag, heavy with books, still on her lap, she had swiveled her body around to see fully out of the window. She was now turned toward Masashi, so he had a full view of her face without even trying.
She was smiling and looking down at the scene below the elevated railway tracks.
What is it? Masashi peered down below too. The train was going over the iron bridge that spans the Mukogawa River.
"Huh?"
The sound came out involuntarily. On a sandbank in the river, just before they reached the other side of the iron bridge, not small by any means but rather taking up almost the entire area above the waterline, someone had written a character:
生
Or, not written so much as assembled-stones were piled up to form a three-dimensional shape of the kanji for "life."
It had just the right balance and stature to catch the eye as an impressive objet d'art.
"Amazing, isn't it?"
The character 生 was so huge that it could be clearly made out, even from a distance and at an angle. But it wasn't until the train had gotten to the other side of the bridge that he realized she was speaking to him.
While he was processing this fact, the young woman carried on speaking.
"I first saw it about a month ago. It's amazing, right?"
What's amazing is that you even spotted it, he murmured. That she would focus her attention on a sandbank where no one would think to look and then notice some graffiti (?) there was kind of ridiculous-and yet remarkable.
"Why do you think it's amazing?" she asked.
He paused for a moment. ". . . I guess it's the shape. The lines are so bold and its height so even, as if someone used heavy machinery. Must've taken a lot of guts, just for a prank."
"I think the choice of character is pretty amazing," she said. "That kanji has straight lines, which makes it easy to construct. And for a single character on its own, it's impactful, right? The first time I saw it, it made me thirsty for a beer."
"Ahh, so you read it as 'nama,' as in 'draft beer'? I thought it was 'sei,' like 'life or death.'"
"Oh, that works too. I'm sure they meant for it to be taken both ways."
"If you really want to know, maybe you could ask about it at the town hall? It might be a river works project."
"Oh, I won't do that." She pursed her lips and shook her head. "I might find out that it's something practical-maybe it's groundwork for some construction or maybe it's just some graffiti that's about to be removed-that would ruin it. I kind of hope that it's graffiti. I mean, if it's a prank, it's rare to see one so sophisticated and so memorable. I'm OK with not knowing what the meaning of it is, and I hope it stays there forever."
She has a point, he thought to himself.
The graffiti had been created for its own sake; its impact would never be known. It cheered him a bit to imagine that whoever had come up with it must be living in the same city as him.
"It'd be cool if it were supposed to be 'nama' . . . " Masashi muttered, and she tilted her head inquiringly. "But if it's read as 'sei,' then you can't help thinking it's about 'how to live' or 'life or death,' right? So then, as a fun piece of graffiti, there must be some kind of message . . . like a prayer or something."
Her expression shifted before his eyes, from amusement to disappointment.
Yikes, he thought. I screwed up!
He hadn't intended to spoil her excitement. The only reason he had even noticed her was because he had lost out to her in the scramble for a book, but he hadn't meant to seek out any kind of retaliation.
"I, uh . . . see what you mean. I guess it might not be just a fun prank. It could be for someone who's not well, and their family made that character as a sort of prayer or something."
"Th-that's not what I meant at all!" Masashi interrupted. "If you think about it, the landscape along this railway line is jam-packed with temples and shrines and monks."
Along the Takarazuka Line is an old pilgrimage route known as the Junrei Kaido-starting with the station after Takarazuka, the next three stations are each home to various Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines: Kiyoshikojin Station, the one closest to Takarazuka Central Library, is named after Kiyoshikojin Seichoji Temple; the next station, Mefu Jinja, is named for the albeit minor though deeply rooted with local constituents Mefu Shrine; and the station after that is home to one of the most popular temples in the region, Nakayama-dera.
Finally, on the Imazu Line, the station before Nishi-Kita is named for the thriving temple Mondo Yakujin Tokoji, where people go to pray.
"Rather than creating such an odd prayer, surely paying a visit to a nearby temple or shrine would be faster! Especially when you can have your pick of so many around here!"
"Do you really think so?"
"Trying to guess what it could possibly mean, there are a mess of possibilities. Like, it could be just a playful joke, or a prayer like I said-but then it could also be a curse."
"A curse?! What gives you that idea?!"
"Well, if you read it as the word for 'life,' the idea of writing something like that on a sandbank in the river, where the water is going to wash it away, doesn't it have a sense of the occult or some creepy horror thing? I can easily see how a student who's into that kind of stuff could have done it."
"Wow, I never thought of that!" She pouted. "It's been a month since I first noticed it. And already, my imagination pales in comparison to yours, and you've only just seen it."
"Hmm . . . you're being surprisingly competitive."
"I mean, I just took it to be a lark, and nothing more."
Even though she beat him in the book scramble, she seemed pretty nice. She saw a cryptic character written on a sandbank and immediately accepted the most lighthearted and harmless explanation-it even made her crave a beer.
"NEXT STOP, SAKASEGAWA," came the announcement on the train. Apparently they had passed the preceding station, Takarazuka-Minamiguchi, without noticing.
"Oh, this is my stop," she said with a slight nod of her head.
"Sakasegawa, huh? I wanted to live in that area myself. When I moved here, that was the first place I looked, but I couldn't find anything there."
He'd made this random comment, apropos of nothing, perhaps as a way to keep their conversation going.
"Really? I wonder why not? I found a place near the station right away."
"Might be that Sakasegawa is close to the Takarazuka theater? I guess a lot of fans want to live there too. I had a real estate broker looking for me, but they said the only places available were just for women or were family oriented."
"Is that so? The town hall is there too, so I guess it's a pretty convenient location."
The train began to slow, and she stood up from her seat.
OK then. She waved a hand, and he waved back.
"I'm gonna get myself a beer on the way home today. In support of your theory. It's the most fun version, right?" he said.
She had been heading for the doors, but she turned back toward him.
"The next time we meet, we should have a drink. I prefer beer in a glass mug rather than in a can."
Hey, what'd she mean by "the next time"? Masashi thought, bewildered. They hadn't even exchanged contact information.
As far as she was concerned, he was just a stranger she'd struck up a conversation with about some charming graffiti.
"The central library. You go there a lot, don't you? So then, next time we meet."
He was speechless-at that moment the train stopped and the doors opened, and with a spring in her step, she alighted from the train.
She headed for the staircase rather than use the escalator, that bag on her shoulder with the mouse, its mouth open in a gaping smile.
As Masashi watched it swaying awkwardly, his hands reflexively popped up to cover his mouth.
So she had noticed him after all, he thought, his cheeks uncharacteristically flushed.
The next time we meet.
Today's Saturday. Nothing special lined up, just a regular old boring afternoon.
He'd thought that he was the only one aware of their chance encounters.
When? And where?
He had the sudden urge to run off the train to find out why she had been the one to home in on him.
If she wanted to drink beer out of a glass, then why not today?!
