Strange Memories With You, My Dear

Fate or Probability

Translated by KuroNeko
Edited by Omkar

Yuuko’s celebration fell on a Sunday in mid-November, when our schedules matched. We met at our destination station in Tokyo in the evening, went about the city for a little, and then had dinner together at a restaurant that was a little fancier than where we generally dine together.

I had some money saved up from my part-time job as a junior high school tutor, which I continued until my third year of university, as well as from my university part-time jobs as a laboratory assistant and test proctor. Yuuko offered to pay half the rent, but out of sheer male stubbornness, I politely refused.

Yuuko smiled as she told me about her recent experiences, such as “I was allowed to teach the brass band,” “I made a drastic mistake when I accompanied the piano in class, and they laughed at me,” and “I was in danger of losing my credits for the first semester because I spent so much time studying for the employment exam this year,” among other things. Yuuko had not been very lively since her grandmother passed away, most likely owing to her hectic schedule, but on this day, she was back to her previous self, a cheerful girl who smiles a lot.

We strolled around the city again after leaving the restaurant. It was November, and the temperature was steadily dropping, with the evenings becoming significantly colder. Yuuko was dressed with a coat and scarf. She went around, shrugging her shoulders, and jokingly said, “Give me your hand for a minute,” shaking mine. Her hands were somewhat colder than mine. I could feel the heat passing from my hand to hers after a bit, and they were soon about the same temperature. She continued then,

“Speaking of which,” and then she started walking and talking. “Recently, I’ve been dreaming about you a lot again.”

“Eh? As a child?”

“Yes. Like now, like today, we went out together and had conversations. So I guess it’s just a normal dream, not a weird one like before.”

“Maybe. I sometimes dream about you, too.”

“What kind?”

“Same for me. An ordinary dream. Ah, but there was an interesting one once. You coming to visit our lab. I was talking with a female student named Kobayashi-san.”

“Ah, Kobayashi-san. She came to my house the other day.”

Sensei once invited me, Kobayashi-san, and subsequently Asano to his house for dinner when I entered fourth grade. Yuuko came out of her room just to say hello. In fact, I told them both at the time that I was dating Yuuko. “It’s amazing that you’re dating your Sensei’s daughter,” Asano commented, and Kobayashi-san gave me a suspicious look, so I explained that we had been friends before I discovered Fukuhara-sensei was Yuuko’s father.

Yuuko and I spent some time around the department stores and bookstores in front of the station before catching the train back to Ikebukuro about 9:00 P.M. We sat as there were only two seats available side by side. Then, Yuuko was bobbing her head, cockily.

“Yuuko?”

When I called out to her, she lifted her head and said shyly, “Did I just fall asleep?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Sorry.” she said.

“Lately, I’ve been feeling somewhat sleepy.”

“Lack of sleep?”

“I don’t think that’s true. In fact, I should be getting more sleep because I go to bed sooner at night.”

“I wonder why. Maybe it’s the change of season.”

“Maybe.”

After a few moments of such conversation, she tilted her head again.

When I turned to look at her, I noticed her face nearby, and her slightly open lips, coated in red lipstick, seemed so glamorous that I wanted to kiss them. But with so many people on board, I fought the temptation and returned my attention to the front. I wonder if she was relieved and distracted by the results of the teacher employment exam. I’ve watched her go through a lot of challenges while teaching and studying for the employment exam. Even though she was presumably still hurting from the loss of her grandma, Yuuko was making great strides toward her aspirations.

So I’m glad she’ll be an elementary school teacher in the spring (though it hasn’t yet determined where she’ll be assigned). She’ll be venturing back into the unknown from now on. I figured I’d try my best in my studies and research as well, so I wouldn’t lose.

“Good job”, I said quietly in Yuuko’s ear as she rested her head on my right shoulder.

◇

“Nakayama-kun.”

That’s what she said to me, and I woke up.

“Yuuko…?”

From my mouth, I was vaguely aware in my foggy mind that the words had leaked out of my mouth.

“Eh? What? Did you say something?”

A puzzled voice came back. The haze lifted from my open eyes and I rapidly regained consciousness, realizing that the person standing beside me was Kobayashi-san.

“—Ugh, I was sleeping like a log.”

“Were you dreaming about her?”

“It seems that way.”

When I replied, Kobayashi-san let out a sigh of exasperation.

I got up, wiped my eyes, and brushed my undoubtedly messy hair. My back hurts, as if I’d been pushed up against a desk for an extended period of time. My head was also a touch heavy, and I was suffering from a mild migraine-like sensation in my temples. I looked around and realized that Kobayashi-san was the only other person in the lab besides myself. Outside, it’s already dark. The laboratory’s overhead light was flashing, and the window glass mirrored the room thinly, like a mirror.

“What about the others?”

“Asano and some of the other seniors are having dinner at the school cafeteria. The others are in their living rooms.”

“I see…”

I stretched once and turned my head to the left and right, ignoring the ache in my lower back. With a creak, the spine creaked. “Ouch,” I said as a voice came out of my mouth.

“Are you in bad shape? You look like you’ve been asleep for a long time…”

“Nah, I’m fine. I was asleep before I knew what was going on.”

I looked at the wall clock in the lab. It was a little after 6:30 PM.

How long have I really been asleep? I traced my memory of today.

I remember coming at the university as usual in the morning, doing some independent study for graduate school admission, then eating my usual fried bread for lunch, and then, in preparation for next week’s seminar, I began translating an assigned paper, circling some unfamiliar technical terms with a red pen and picking them up to look up later. The sun was still shining at the time. But I have no memory of everything that happened between then and now. The printed paper and the red ballpoint pen were pushed away to a corner on my desk.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Who knows. I got here today about a little after three o’clock, and by then you were already plopped down at the desk.”

“You could have woken me up earlier.”

“I thought you might be tired. —It’s getting close to the time to submit our thesis, and we’re all at a point in our lives where we’re getting tired… I’ve been feeling kind of sleepy lately too. And some of the seniors in the living room were sitting up and sleeping.”

Kobayashi-san gave a small sigh, covering her mouth, and slung her bag back over her shoulder. She was wearing a gray jacket and a scarf.

I was still pressing my fingers on my aching lower back.

“Are you leaving already?” I asked.

“Yes. I have a part-time job after this.”

Kobayashi-san then placed a stack of papers with English sentences on my desk.

“These Papers that may be helpful in your research. I’ve printed out a copy for you, so you have until Monday to read it.”

“Ah, sorry, and thanks.”

She then turned on her heel, flopped down her slippers, changed into her boots at the shoe box at the lab entryway, muttered “Bye” to me again near the door, and went out of the lab. I grew less drowsy while I talked with Kobayashi-san, although my brain was still a little foggy. I grabbed my wallet, buttoned up my hoodie to the neck, and went to the vending machine immediately outside the research building, figuring I’d get a cup of coffee or something.

I picked up the can of coffee that had fallen with a clatter and sat down on a bench set up near the vending machine.

I opened the pull tab, sipped unsweetened coffee in the cool night air, and exhaled a sigh of relief. The fragrance of coffee and the bitter taste on my tongue caused me to twitch and awake from my sleep. I spotted many groups of students wandering around campus laughing loudly, as well as a street dance circle dancing in a campus corner with music playing. Saturday came along, and I had planned to see Yuuko at midday. I received a message from Yuuko while I was getting ready for work after breakfast.

“Sorry, but can I have today’s date another time?”

“It’s okay but, what happened?”

“I’m not feeling well, like I’m not going to be able to get out of bed. Sorry.”

“I understand. I’m fine over here, so don’t worry about it and get some rest. Take care of yourself.”

I sent that reply and changed my clothes back into my loungewear.

“Are you feeling okay? PS: If it’s too bad, you don’t have to respond.”

But after a while, no reply came.

I was in bed reading a book when I fell asleep again, and the next time I woke up was the next day, about 12:00 P.M. on a Sunday. I hadn’t slept that much since I was in junior and senior high school and was fatigued from club activities. But it did help to alleviate some of the tiredness that has been bothering me lately. I got out of bed, dressed, and prepared to go to the university as I had no plans for the day. I decided to eat lunch and go to the laboratory in the afternoon to continue working on my thesis.

I ate, then rode the train to the lab. Despite the fact that it was a Sunday, few students were wandering about campus, and several of the rooms in the research building had their lights turned on. There were also other graduate students working on computers and reading papers in the Fukuhara Lab. I greeted the seniors and walked to my living room to review the paper that Kobayashi-san had given me before beginning to summarize the experimental results thus far.

I was preparing to leave after four hours of focused work when I received a call on my smartphone shortly after 6:00 P.M. Yuuko’s phone number was displayed there. I was happy to see that she was feeling better, and as I walked out of the lab and tapped the call symbol, I heard a voice say, “Yukinari-kun?” It sounded like Yuuko’s voice, but I realized it wasn’t her right away. It was her mother who called.

“Yes. Nakayama here.”

I had a bad feeling about this strange occurrence, her mother calling me through Yuuko’s mobile. I said, “Wait a minute,” and went down the stairs and out of the physical research building since my voice was echoing in the hallway. It was cold outside after the sun had set in November, and my breath drifted white in the light of the outside lighting scattered across the dark campus.

“Is something wrong?”

I asked, feeling my heart rate rising, and she replied in a slow tone.

“It’s about Yuuko. She has been in the hospital since around noon today.”

“What? At the hospital? Was she feeling that bad?”

There was a little silence when I posed that question, shocked. That little pause exacerbated my nervousness to the point that I couldn’t keep it in check.

“She is unconscious right now.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My thoughts ground to a standstill, and my mind went blank. Only questioning words came out of my mouth.

“Why? What on earth is wrong with her?”

My voice was trembling as I said this.

“Um, I’m sorry I startled you.”

“Is she okay?”

I asked the question again, relishing the sensation that my heart was about to burst. I hoped and prayed that she would be okay when I said it.

She then replied.

“Ehh, she’s fine, but the doctors aren’t sure why she’s unconscious.”

“Hah?”

Her response made me sound like a moron. I quickly apologized for being impolite and said, “Excuse me,” I said before asking, “Where is the hospital? Can I come right now?”

◇

“They did a lot of tests and they said there was nothing wrong with her body.”

I rushed out of the laboratory and got to the hospital in Toshima Ward, as I had been told over the phone, to find the aunt still in her hospital room.

When asked what had happened, she explained that Yuuko had not gone down to the living room since yesterday, and when the anxious aunt went into her room in the morning, she saw Yuuko laying on her bed. She assumed she was simply sleeping, but she didn’t wake up even after Yuuko’s mother called out to her and tapped her, so she quickly called an ambulance. I’ve heard Fukuhara-sensei is here as well, but he’s now in another room listening to the doctor’s detailed explanation.

“They also looked into the brain, but they could not find any results that indicated any particular disease in this area either. The doctor said it’s almost like being in a deep sleep…”

“Deep sleep…?”

I repeated Yuuko’s mother’s words, simultaneously relieved that “there is nothing unusual” and worried that Yuuko had lost consciousness despite the fact that I didn’t know why.

“I wonder what’s going on,” she said in a worried, troubled voice.

Yuuko lay on the bed with an IV drip hooked to her arm and a thin pad showing from her temple to her brow. I wondered if it was an electroencephalograph.

“Yuuko.” As she closed her eyes, I called out to her. There was no reaction. I can hear her sleepy breathing. She doesn’t even appear to be in pain. It was truly like being “asleep.” She looked like she’s about to open her eyes and get up any minute now.

I called out her name again, this time clasping her hands.

“Yuuko, it’s Yukinari-kun.” Yuuko’s mother said. At that moment, I felt her eyelids twitch. Then I looked closely at her face for a while, and her eyelids kept moving, albeit faintly.

“It’s kind of moving a little bit.”

“Every hour or two, it goes like this. The doctor said it was characteristic of the REM sleep phase. Also, she turns over every once in a while.”

“Anyway, … It’s not like she’s going to die or anything, right?”

My throat was parched when I asked her this.

“Um… But they don’t know how long this is going to last, and they still don’t know what caused it or how to deal with it.”

“What is this IV drip?”

I said, looking at the IV bag hanging from a metal pole by the bed.

“For vitamins, glucose, and so on. The way things are going right now, she’s not getting the nutrition she needs.”

“I see…”

I sat silently in my pipe chair, confident that it was not a drug of any kind, when I heard footsteps coming. The drapes were then drawn open. It was Fukuhara-sensei.

“Nakayama-kun,” as soon as he noticed me, he said.

“You came.”

“I used Yuuko’s cell phone to make the call.  I didn’t know how to contact him.” She said to Sensei.

“What do you think of the doctor’s words?”

When I asked him about it while suppressing my impatience, he tilted his head with a bitter look on his face.

“No, I just can’t seem to get to the point. I don’t know if we can call it sleep because it doesn’t awaken when externally stimulated, but the data on brain activity so far suggests that she was only asleep. They are sure that something is going on in the brain, but they can’t say what it is until they do more detailed tests.”

“I see…”

“It’s late today, Nakayama-kun, so you should go home. Yuuko shouldn’t be able to do anything about it for the time being.”

I rose from my seat and, before leaving, I gently caressed Yuuko’s hand and murmured quietly, “I’ll be back.” There was no reaction, and she was sleeping peacefully and quietly, watched over by her parents.