NEVER let me stay.

A long time ago, before entering university, when I spent all my time at the public library, I could watch movies in the booths there, so I watched whatever caught my eye to kill time. In addition, I would borrow them to take home and watch. I think if I counted them, the number would be staggering.

After entering university, I ran out of time and my habit of watching movies died out. I am forgetful, so I don't remember the content of most of what I watched (I also quickly forget the novels I read). However, there are a few works where the vague feeling I had when experiencing them remains, and one of them was "The Remains of the Day".
When asked "What's your favorite movie?" in self-introductions, I would answer "The Remains of the Day." However, the conversation wouldn't go anywhere with "Oh, that one" (everyone didn't know it), and even if I tried to expand on it, I don't think I could have carried it well.
I believe it was about Anthony Hopkins playing a loyal butler serving in a mansion, and it went back and forth between his perspective on the memories of the mansion's past days and the present (where both the era and the master had changed). There were no flashy action scenes or dramatic developments; it was a depiction of daily life, and within that, there was nostalgia, and the overwhelming reality that stands in the way of making nostalgia what it is—the fact that "you can't go back"—and the narrator's image of trying to adapt to reality while containing a sense of not quite fitting in or resignation, even if not explicitly shown, left a deep impression on me. The setting where the former master was British and the current master is American is also clever. Since it also involves the war in the background, I thought I would have enjoyed it more if I had knowledge of world history (I barely studied properly in high school, so I don't have knowledge of knowledge-accumulation subjects in particular).

Some time after that, I was browsing a list of movies to watch to kill time on an airplane. After entering university, I had distanced myself from both movies and literature (other than required reading or works I had to read, I didn't voluntarily engage with literary works), and I wasn't very interested in the trends of the world, so I had no knowledge of hit works, and in fact, I didn't even try to watch works that were popular in society.
I wonder where that flight was going and what airline it was. While looking at the descriptions of the works on the list, thinking, "The audio is in English, and if I add subtitles, it's only in English too..." (I had received some training in academic writing and was used to it, but literature, where the range of vocabulary is completely different, is honestly tough), the one I was curious about and chose was "Never let me go".
It was a story about children manufactured as clones for organ donation and their lives. The aftertaste is bad, it makes you feel heavy, but the fact that it leaves that snag is also its charm, and I was watching the end credits while wondering how I should digest this. Then, the name "Kazuo Ishiguro" flowed by.

"Hmm?"

Is he... Japanese? (It didn't feel like that, though...)

I was curious, so I searched after getting off the plane. A British author (yes, that makes sense, that feeling is not American), representative works, and... "The Remains of the Day"?

!!

Is "The Remains of the Day" that "The Remains of the Day"?

I check just to be sure. The original title for both is "The Remains of the Day," and there is no mistake in terms of content. The original author of that "The Remains of the Day" was the same person. And I had chosen his work without knowing it and thought it was good after all.

A Japanese name but British nationality. Moved to the UK in childhood, attended grammar school, traveled during a gap year, music lover... I thought it was inevitable that I would be drawn to and fascinated by this person's work. However, I didn't pursue it any further after that. At the time, I was probably in the middle of a solo trip through Europe, and there were so many things I had to do once I returned home.

And then, some time after that, Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize. Then, the media suddenly made a fuss about a "Japanese person" winning the Nobel Prize. It's the usual thing, but I thought it was disgusting.

—————
If it is meant to be, you will naturally cross paths someday.
I have lived for quite a long time now, and there have been many times when I have been made to think that.

It was the same with work and people.
That is why, regarding resignation, I think that if it happens, it was just the extent of that connection. It's no use resisting. The same goes for the length of life.
Because this world is full of things that cannot be helped.

Where and how you are born, how you are raised, what happens to you. That is something that can be said at the
national level or the family level, and the situation is completely different depending on the era.

I am of a generation that could not enjoy the benefits of the bubble economy at all, but I still lived most of my life in the era of the "remains" of Japan, which was once called an economic superpower and had a good economy.
When I went abroad, regardless of the reality, I was recognized as a person from a "rich country" (usually as a sucker, though), and although I attended public schools during my elementary and junior high school years, families who had trouble with their daily meals were quite rare, even if I wouldn't say there were none at all. There were far fewer cases than now where you couldn't go to university without a scholarship, or where you were working yourself to the bone for tuition on top of loans, and I never even thought that Uniqlo would become a luxury item (the price range of apparel shops we bought from in our university days have already mostly gone out of business).

I have more of myself than I can handle. Of course, I know that there are many people in more difficult situations than me by general standards. However, that does not affect the difficulty of the problems I perceive as my own.

If you are in a state where you cannot eat daily, you will not repeat useless overeating. If you are in a
family that does not value academic background or education, you would not be forced into career paths or studypractice. If you were born into a family without
land or assets, such forms of unreasonableness would not be allowed to pass, and you would not have despaired of everything surrounding people or yourself.
If you are in obvious poverty, there is a possibility that it will lead to support. But surely, a different form of unreasonableness would have been born there. And I would have likely become a delinquent in an obvious way. However, what on earth is happiness, or a "better" state?

Never let me stay.

Even if I am called selfish, I think so. I know that I am not understood.

There are too many things I cannot choose for myself. In the face of reality, people are too powerless.

By the time I lost the reason to live, it was already my time to go. Fruitless things, futile things, I'm sick of it. I want people who want to live long to live long. I hope that people who can think that way are not whittled down even a little. However, unfortunately, it is not a society that will become that way.

If there is one thing I would say, it is this: reach out your hand before the roots have completely withered.
It is the same with grass; even if something appears to have withered at first glance, if the roots are still alive, it is possible for it to make a resilient recovery. However, even if it looks similar, once something has completely withered, no matter how much water you give it, or how much you cry and pray, it will have no effect.

Spilled water cannot be gathered back into the basin.

Do not let things become too late. Whatever you say after someone has died is already too late.
Preventive and proactive measures, which may seem inefficient at first glance, are extremely important. The same is true for infectious diseases. However, it will likely never be understood, here in this crowd of maskless people.