Kyou
The cough, which was bad when she became tired, got worse in the cold. Sometimes the fits went on for eternities that continued until she blacked out. Her traitorous body was not aligned with her drunken confidence. She did her best to avoid sobriety.
Most days, Kyou made it to the central station, sitting a few metres further on from others like her. She learned to keep her head bowed within the first five minutes. She feared being seen by a former client—perhaps on the way to a dinner with their spouse—and the look of disgust she might receive. Commuters usually left her kind alone, muttering their opinions under their breath. That the city was going to the dogs. That it was no place for country bumpkins. That the trash needed clearing.
There was usually enough change thrown down to cover essentials: vodka, cigarettes, a vitamin drink, a rice ball—in that order of priority. On days when her chest felt too constricted to walk more than a block, Kyou stayed at the riverside, tucking herself under the bridge in storms and flopping out on the grass in the sunshine when she could. Life went on beside the canal. The vegetation was the sort that was weeded out of gardens. It brought to mind a poem, and in the absence of company, it played over and over in her mind:
O fool, you forget
Morning Glory embracing
rusted fence, forgotten paths
Weeds thrived at the riverside, yellow butterflies hovered, and joggers and strollers passed overhead. Kyou tried to keep out of sight when they did, not wanting to scare anyone. The cough scared people. Somewhere around the third day at the bridge, the fisherman appeared. He had an old-fashioned rod and a white bucket. His beard was twisted and his eyebrows needed a trim. He never looked up when he spoke. His clothes were only a little better than hers. He wore a cap that covered his silver sprigs of hair. He was almost certainly a hallucination, but that was fine. He announced himself from the other bank with “Hey, hey, dead woman walking.”
“Hi uncle,” Kyou answered, smiling. “How’s the catch?”
“Terrible, terrible,” he answered every day. “Still after the one that got away.”
And they would both laugh.
“How’s life?” he asked. “Are you ready to come home yet? There are quicker ways to go than coughing your lungs out.”
“Not yet,” Kyou said. “Too much effort being born. Can’t drop out early.”
“Sure, sure.”
The fisherman had a boat, but Kyou never saw him in it. She never caught him arriving or leaving, but supposed he went out to the sea. He looked like someone who belonged by the ocean, in the weather. He didn’t seem to have a full set of teeth; his words were slurred.
Sometimes, after a bout of hacking, Kyou’s eyes would stream and the fisherman would tease her. “Don’t cry, heh? Don’t cry about the next part. It isn’t so bad.”
“What’s it like?” she’d ask when she could.
The fisherman would cackle and tap the side of his nose. “You know what to do to find out. Plenty of sharp objects, if you’d stop picking them up and taking them to the recycling. Who appointed you chief rubbish collector, heh?”
“This is my home,” Kyou said. “I keep it clean.”
And she did. She picked up the foil and paper plates left from family barbecues. She gathered bottles and burnt-out fireworks and papers bearing yesterday’s news. She fished out packets that might choke carp or curious birds. The only items she didn’t remove were a collection of paint cans and a half-bottle of methylated spirits. When she was too tired, she lay back on the concrete ridge beneath the bridge and watched its underside. In the daylight, it caught spidery lines of light reflected from the water.
It was a peaceful place. She far preferred it to the station. She didn’t enjoy being shooed like a gull by station workers while she waited for foreigners to part with their change. The old guys didn’t beg—said it was shameful. But she had lived a life of shame. They didn’t understand. As she became thinner, there was less of her to protect against the pain in her chest when the coughing started up, so she always went back to the station, like a worker with a nine-to-five.
In moments of sober consciousness, Kyou would reflect on which element might have saved her. It always came back to her phone. If she hadn’t lost it, she might have contacted her aunt. Eventually. After swallowing her pride. She might have lied, said that she’d been reported as unregistered. Lost her job, her apartment, her possessions. Or she might have told part of the truth, that she had flailed around like an angry child and broken a dozen untouchable things: trust, promises, hearts. That she had spent two weeks homeless. That she didn't have the train fare to make it down to Bijushima. That she could only beg enough to drink herself to sleep. That she felt each cough grating at her throat. That, most recently, the spittle she wiped from her lips had been pink. That people who didn’t exist couldn’t get healthcare or jobs except working under mobsters for shit pay. That she was binding rather than wearing a bra and her chest felt close to collapse. That she was terrified of being noticed as a woman, because things happened to women who were rough sleepers. That she dreamt of finding her father living under a bridge too. That even upon discovery, he was useless. That the dream provided a kind of solace.
She acknowledged that this would be her last spring.
“Gonna die a nobody, huh?” The fisherman asked. “Never written into existence?”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” she answered. “There is a book written for me. It’s locked away. I’m not supposed to know about it. Ask my mother.”
The fisherman made a pfft sound and cast his line again.
She would die, she supposed. In time, she would be tossed into the canal. Her body would be hauled into a boat and leave with the tide. It would be thrown overboard to sink and disperse and hopefully return home to the Inland Sea, where heroes died and stories were born.
Kyou often thought of Antoinette in those weeks. When it was a good day and possible to walk further than the central station, Kyou had sometimes passed by the Roppongi Hills apartment. She stood a while, watching the slick, black cars dropping off suited men and women. The yawn of the glass doors. The nod of the concierge who always sucked on peppermints. She lingered until some security guard would begin looking at her shabby jacket and unwashed hair and her aimless, displaced nature, and start over the road in her direction. She always moved on before they engaged. She’d run out of lies that made sense. What could she say? ‘In that tower is a woman I love’? That didn’t sound real at all.
Love had always felt like such a weak thing, and yet it distracted her from hunger and sleep. It was as stubborn as hope. Kyou would probably die in love.
While sitting at Shinjuku station on a Saturday night, head bowed, another hacking, coughing fit tore through her body. It was a bad one; she’d likely bruised ribs. By then, being awake hurt. The cheap white spirits that helped her sleep also stripped her throat when they came up again, which they often did with the coughing. Kyou drew her hand away from her mouth to find a clot of blood in her palm. She smiled at it. Whatever I am, I am leaving my body, she thought. Some part of me is free. She closed her eyes and hoped to get a little sleep before the station man moved her on.
There was an awful clatter at her feet. Someone above her muttered, then walked on. He’d had nice shoes. He had left something. Intentionally, it seemed. She didn’t dare look up until he was gone. His footfalls echoed down towards the turnstiles. There was an umbrella—no, a sword?—at her feet. Kyou touched it with her bloody hand. She looked around, but saw no other men on her row. She was alone.
The sword was lovely in its detail. And it was old. Kyou took the handle and pulled out the blade. Long, long ago, some dedicated man or woman had etched a chrysanthemum motif onto the deadly metal. The blood from her hand touched and filled in the indents, colouring the lines with a bright crimson.
Kyou smiled. The fisherman would love this.