The Night I Made My Senior Cry with a Ukulele

“I want to be like Gumi-chan.”That’s what someone said, calling my name.
Mitsuko-san, a senior in my women’s dormitory.
We were roommates during my first year of university and spent all our time together.

I am a person who doesn’t understand love.
Regardless of gender, the heat of love never rises in me.

But I was able to become incredibly close with Mitsuko-san.
For me, being close friends is not just a passing point.
Because being close friends is the ultimate destination.

Five days before the university entrance ceremony, I moved into the women’s dormitory. It was built on a hill, and there was an incredibly steep slope to climb before reaching the entrance. When I went for my dormitory interview, it was snowing heavily and everything was pure white, but now, large cherry trees were creating a pink tunnel. I only brought clothes and a few books. My new life began with just two cardboard boxes of belongings.

In the dormitory, there was a mentor-mentee relationship between the room leader and the room member.
My room leader was Mitsuko-san, a second-year student in the Faculty of Economics.
She would say, “It’s such a grandma-like name, isn’t it?” but she had a figure like a gravure idol. Her dyed brown hair and tight knit sweaters gave her a dazzling, quintessential college student look.

“You absolutely have to have a college debut!!”
“You just studied all the time in high school, right? First of all, the entrance ceremony is important!”
Because of that, there was so much to do, from makeup lessons that started with grooming my eyebrows to tours to Umeda in Osaka to buy clothes. There was also a test to perfectly memorize three songs: the dormitory song, the school song, and the cheering song. And a lecture on drinking party etiquette.

Whenever we went out to eat together, the senior would always pay, and I would wait outside the restaurant for the bill to be settled. Then, I would bow and say thank you in a loud voice. It was a strictly athletic-style hierarchy!

The dormitory had a very pleasant rooftop.
I had packed a ukulele in my luggage, and when Mitsuko-san asked me to “play it,” I sang there as a way of introducing myself. Beyond the laundry fluttering in the spring breeze, I could see the university and the distant metropolis of Umeda. Classes for the Department of Architecture would start tomorrow.

Living with Mitsuko-san, I deeply understood what a good person she was. She would send her boots for repair to wear good things for a long time, and to save money, she worked at a bakery and gave the bread of mercy to hungry juniors. She also drank homemade barley tea regularly.

She was a very steady person despite her glamorous appearance.
I lived at my own pace right next to her, so she often teased me. Once I started going to the drafting room for design assignments, I would break curfew even on weekdays. I would wander around Umeda to watch late-night shows. When I came home exhausted and left my pants lying around, she would often laugh at me.

But Mitsuko-san would say over and over again that she was a useless, incompetent person. Even though she was so reliable!!!

She had a younger sister and brother, but she failed her entrance exams and spent a year as a ronin, and on top of that, she was living away from home. Tuition was too expensive. She wanted to get a job at a megabank like her father, but she didn’t know how that would turn out.
She often told me that she absolutely needed a boyfriend who was older and steady.

So this is what it means to be a ronin...
I had slipped into university through an AO entrance exam, so it was a world I knew nothing about. There were ronin students among my classmates, but they weren’t as cornered as Mitsuko-san. Words like “I’m causing trouble for my family” wouldn’t be the first thing to come out of their mouths...

I honestly thought she was amazing.
She was fighting with all her might against things I couldn’t do. That’s why, when I was in front of her while she was feeling weak, I wanted to tell her everything I saw exactly as it was.

“When you’re a ronin, you probably feel guilty the moment you do anything other than study, right? Everything fun feels like a sin. Plus, you don’t even have the label of being a student, so you can only show your identity by ‘studying.’ If it were me, I wouldn’t be able to handle that pressure and would run away.”

“...But Gumi-chan, you passed on your first try thanks to your club activities, that’s more impressive.”

“Being a ronin is impossible for me. My only talent is pushing through with my special skills. Working seriously and steadily is what I’m worst at. Mitsuko-san, you worked hard on your exams while thinking about your family and carrying the heavy responsibility of being the eldest daughter of the house, didn’t you?”

“...”

“People who know their own weaknesses are the truly strong ones.”

I was always dazzled by Mitsuko-san. Because she could honestly put her weaknesses into words and share them.

I, on the other hand, would put on a front and only talk about things I was good at. I wouldn't talk about how I was about to fail a math credit that everyone else found easy... What was the point of that vanity?

Mitsuko-san would say this to someone like "Gumi Goto".

“...Anyway, I want to be reliable! Like Gumi-chan. I wish I could be like Gumi-chan.”

Whaaat!!
You... want to be like me?!?!
I was genuinely surprised by the honesty of being able to say that to someone younger. If it were me, my pride would get in the way and I could never say that.

“I’m just telling you how you really are, Mitsuko-san.”
“...You know what you want to do, and you think for yourself. Even though you’re exhausted from pulling all-nighters, you seem to really enjoy architecture.”

“Thank you, but... I’m a delinquent girl who doesn’t follow curfew, I’m slow to reply to emails, and I leave my pants lying around, you know?”
“...That’s no good! Haha.”
“See~”
“Wahahaha.”

When I went out to eat with Mitsuko-san, for some reason we always traveled by riding double on a bicycle.

With the logic of, “I’m paying such high tuition, so I’m going to enjoy my youth to the limit in college! That’s why we’re riding double!” I would sit on the luggage rack, and the bicycle would slowly start to move.

At a cafe in front of the university, we would eat a giant parfait with a cheesecake stuck into a beer mug. A parfait for two that I couldn't finish alone. We’d think about how to tackle it, but in the end, the cake would spill. But that was fun, too.

On the way home, we would naturally ride double again, racing through the residential streets at night.
I wasn't holding the handlebars, but had my arms wrapped around Mitsuko-san’s waist, so it felt unstable and floaty.But when Mitsuko-san laughed, I could feel not just her voice, but the vibration of her diaphragm too.
I could feel her “wahaha” with my whole body.
I really loved that mysterious sense of oneness.

Mitsuko-san is someone who understands love.

She fell for a boy in the same Aikido club and spent a long time thinking about how to approach him. It’s cute how my senior talks about love in a way that sounds both painful and fun. There was a roll curtain between our beds that served as a partition. Through that curtain, I would slowly listen to her love stories that started with, “Gumi-chan, are you still awake?”

Mitsuko-san lost confidence here too. But I could understand the feeling of ending up like that... and for the first time, I learned the reality of the person doing the confessing.

In the end, you just don't know what the other person is thinking.What are they thinking? Is this a sign of interest? Ultimately, you have no choice but to ask them. But while you’re going in circles trying to figure out if there’s a chance, the intensity of your feelings grows apart, and Mitsuko-san is the only one who ends up suffering. When you suffer, you become too self-conscious to act naturally like you used to. It’s a true downward spiral. And in the end, it explodes into, “I have no choice but to confess!!”

So, I took my time thinking about Mitsuko's good qualities again. I wondered how I could best convey them to him. There is no doubt that Mitsuko is a wonderful person, but in the field of love, how much does honesty really count for? And the difficult part is that you cannot force someone to feel the same way.

Mitsuko understood that too, and she had steeled herself, deciding that this confession was something she was doing for her own sake.
Oh, what a kind person she is.
Rather than the storm raging in her heart, she was thinking of the other person first.

So, I answered,
"Mitsuko, your best quality is your sincerity."
I told her.
You are completely straightforward, honest, and kind. That's it.
"I feel like it's enough to just tell them one good thing about them that only you know, and say 'I like you.' They will feel your sincerity, Mitsuko... and it will be a confession that touches their heart. At the very least, they will remember those words forever."

The result of her confession was a rejection.

I didn't know what to say to a sobbing Mitsuko, so I gave her a slow hug. She had poured all her words out to the person she loved, so there was no need to say anything more.

It's just like Mitsuko not to speak ill of the other person here..
I know how hard she tried. That's all that needs to be understood.
I'm glad we have a relationship where we can hug without it being in a romantic context.

After comforting her for a while, Mitsuko suddenly
made an unreasonable request, saying, "Play something on the ukulele."

Whaaaat?!
Right now?!
I never expected to be called into action!

While tuning the strings, I had no idea what to play. When I asked Mitsuko, she just replied, "Anything is fine!" I started to panic, and without thinking, I just sang the first song from my album on the ukulele.

And it turned out to be a hardcore breakup song!!!

As I sang, I realized how terrible the lyrics were and thought, "Oh no."
Mitsuko's eyes started to well up with tears too.
But I felt like I couldn't stop halfway through, yet the lyrics were so bad that I didn't know what to do. I have a habit of going all-out when I'm confused, so I ended up singing it even more passionately.

When the song ended, Mitsuko, who was laughing through her tears,
immediately complained, "It's too soon for that!!!!!"

"I know, right!!! I'm so sorry!!"
My own emotions were a mess, and I started crying too.

The fact that Mitsuko confided in me late at night that she "had someone she liked."
The way she happily talked about how cool he was.
Learning that "liking someone" happens suddenly and messes up your heart.
The fact that she faced it head-on...
Mitsuko's love, which she taught me about, all pierced right through me.

"I just got rejected a little while ago!!!"
We cried together while hugging.
In the middle of the room, we cried together.

But this situation started to feel a bit ridiculous, and laughter began to well up.

Hehehe...

I had chosen the completely wrong song.
Since I had made someone cry with the song.
But, Ayano Tsuji's "Kimi ni Arigatou" was a really great song.

I don't understand love, but I love sincerity. Even if I overlook the gaze of love, I am equipped with a sincerity radar, and when I detect it, I want to return the same or even greater sincerity.

With Mitsuko-san, I was able to continue that game of catch with sincerity while living together. I truly loved the 'karma' of Mitsuko-san, who was always too honest, and I didn't want that radiance to be changed by clumsy dating techniques or things generally considered 'good' by society.

Watching Mitsuko-san reminds me of the importance of 'being honest,' which I am not good at. Mitsuko-san unraveled my terrible habit of shouldering everything alone when situations got bad.

While it looked like I was hugging and comforting her while she cried, in reality, I was the one being taught how to live by Mitsuko-san.

A relationship that can only be described as 'Mitsuko-san,' different from a lover or a friend,
a relationship that was ours alone.

I wanted to be like Mitsuko-san, too.

After that, Mitsuko-san found a wonderful boyfriend and became super happy.
'The world has finally realized how wonderful you are, Mitsuko-san! It's about time!'
I remember laughing and celebrating with her. It's fine if we didn't date as long as she's happy, but I felt glad that someone else was able to know her goodness from a different angle.

Thank you, Mitsuko-san.
The days we lived in the same room were truly brilliant!!!

Click here for Gumi Goto's 'I Don't Understand Love' diary series