Translation: Darkness 33 — The Incorrigible Customers of the Black-Market Video Shop Arc
2026/07/28 tue
闇33：翻訳Claude
【Claude】
闇32章の英訳、拝見しました。文体もしっかり踏襲されていますね——
当時の視点・感情がそのまま残っていて、後知恵で語り直していない(野地さんへの怒り、酒の場面など、生々しさが削られていない)
「クレール・ド・リュンヌ」「ザナルカンド」といった固有名詞、桜通り・志木市役所山吹ホールなど地名も丁寧に訳注付きで処理されている
会話のテンポ("……"の間や、掛け合いのリズム)も自然に英語に移されている
この訳のトーンとルール(闇シリーズ=史実優先、当時の未熟さそのまま)を踏まえて、闇33章も同じ調子で訳していきます。
闇33章の日本語原文をアップロードしてもらえますか。テキストファイルでもコピペでも大丈夫です。
【俺】
闇 33（裏ビデオ屋の懲りない客の面々編）
【Claude】
Translation: Darkness 33 — The Incorrigible Customers of the Black-Market Video Shop Arc
Darkness 33 — The Incorrigible Customers of the Black-Market Video Shop Arc
I'd gotten to where I could handle a computer reasonably well on my own by now. The weekend lessons with Bōzu-san*, which had become a fixed routine, came to an end — seeing how far I'd come, he told me, "From here, just apply what you've learned and keep pushing on your own."
With nothing in particular planned, I wandered aimlessly through the streets of Kawagoe. I gave a self-printed copy of Shinjuku Crescendo to Auntie Kagaya — the mother of Takigawa Ken'ichi, a classmate from elementary school — and gave one to Suga Eiji-san too, the senior who'd taken over the neighboring doll shop, Suga Ningyō.
It had been about four years now. Eiji-san had had an adorable four-year-old boy back then, and he'd looked happy. But the child had died of illness, and — naturally enough — both Eiji-san and his wife had worn dark expressions ever since. I wanted to cheer them up somehow, if I could. That's why I'd invited them to my piano recital, and why I gave them my debut novel, Shinjuku Crescendo.
"You've got to laugh — a big guy like me, up on stage at the civic hall for a piano recital."
I'd meant it as a joke, but there was no smile from Eiji-san's wife. She'd probably kept her heart closed off ever since that day four years ago.
Eiji-san, gamely, had gone through my writing marking typos, dropped characters, and awkward phrasing with sticky notes, carefully writing out corrections. It touched me deeply — but I'd meant to cheer him up, and here he was, the one cheering me up instead.
A few months now since I'd started working at the black-market video shop, Melon.
Miser, money-grubber — those words fit Kitanaka's character exactly, and I now understood, sickeningly well, what Yamamoto from Field had told me at the start. Being under that man was nothing but stress.
And even though things with Noji had gotten better, I still hated going into that stinking, filthy warehouse.
Before I knew it, I was venting to Eiji-san, saying with real hatred that someday I'd make Kitanaka pay. Eiji-san reached back and touched the back of his own head, and spoke.
"Don't worry, Tomo-chan — you're not the type who could actually do something like that." "Huh? Why not?"
"Bad guys, see — they've got a bump sticking out the back of their head."
Right then, it struck me — wouldn't it be interesting to write a novel about a protagonist who's obsessed with the shape of the back of people's heads? I described the premise, which had come to me on the spot, and his wife gave me a small smile. If I finished that piece, maybe Eiji-san and his wife would laugh a little more.
Less than a week after finishing my debut novel Shinjuku Crescendo — on February 10th, 2004 — I decided to start writing a sequel.
Diving back into that space where nothing exists but words takes a certain resolve. But the sense of accomplishment when a piece is finished — that's more than reward enough.
Thinking about it that way, Melon wasn't only bad.
It was a slow job by nature, so I could use the computer as much as I liked. Kitanaka sneered at it, but I was free to bring in the keyboard and play piano during my shift too. Pay-wise it came to around three hundred fifty thousand a month — not a fortune, but enough to get by fine on.
I named the sequel to Crescendo Debbari* — and started writing. Once I got going I wrote it in one continuous rush, and after that came practicing Clair de Lune.
Either way, with the Kukki's recital drawing closer, I was grateful I could practice Clair de Lune both at home and at work.
A regular who came in a few times a month spoke to me while I was typing away at the novel.
He looked to be in his mid-forties, hair thinning a little. More solidly built than average, wearing glasses thick as milk bottles. His short hair, permed or naturally curly, gave him a Buddha-statue look. Narrow, upturned eyes.
He seemed to come less to buy black-market videos than to talk with me about this and that. Even so, he always dropped around five thousand yen and had the decency to actually buy a video. He wasn't a bad guy, so I went along with the conversation normally.
Talking with him, I got the sense he was a serious, awkward sort of man. He worked as a salaryman while going to a bodybuilding gym near the east exit of Shinjuku Station.
He'd look at my build and always ask if I'd done something athletic in the past, so I told him about All Japan Pro Wrestling and mixed martial arts. That got him excited, and he'd press me, over and over, to come along to his gym. I turned him down politely each time, but he kept coming by Melon regularly all the same.
When he didn't have money for a video, he'd bring by a whole roast chicken from a nearby stall, or some other small gift. I always told him he didn't need to fuss over me like that, but I suppose it was just his way of showing he cared.
It was a different kind of interaction with customers than at the game shop. Interesting, in its own way.
I kept a case of canned coffee stocked for customers, sitting on the table, and a few times, for customers I'd hit it off with, I'd show off my strike*.
Why had I been able to step into a mixed martial arts match back then — a discipline totally outside my own — without any real technique or training, and without flinching? Because I'd developed this strike.
Mixed martial arts billed itself as real, serious combat. Given that, I had absolute confidence that it was fine to unleash this technique — and that confidence was exactly why I'd been willing to sign the waiver stating I wouldn't hold the organizers responsible even if I died, and step into the ring.
He wanted to hear what the match had been like back then, so I told him, calling up the memory of that fight three years earlier.
The match begins. Koike, billed as the number-two shooter, comes straight in with a takedown. I step back, kill the momentum, and drop down on top of him. I land a punch into his side. I wrap both arms around his torso to lift him for a powerbomb, but he turtles up, desperate. I work my body sideways bit by bit, thinking to throw him with a German suplex, but my leg hook slips and for a second I'm airborne. I go for the powerbomb again, but he's still curled up in that turtle position, guarding for dear life. From here, one elbow or knee dropped from above would end it. But that would be no fun. I release the hold and set him free. He comes right back at me, so I wrap both legs around his neck and lock in a triangle choke. I let that go too, and stand back up. Let him land one punch, at least — in pro wrestling you've got to give your opponent a moment to shine too. I had that kind of strange leeway in me. He hits me, and just as things are about to get going again, the referee steps in and raises his arm. "What the hell is that?" I hadn't gone down, hadn't even wobbled. Furious at the baffling call, I pull out my mouthguard and slam it down.
Even now, I held onto the conviction that I hadn't lost. And a certain conceit too — that I was strong.
After that match, Bōzu-san had said, "That was a fight Tomo had ninety-nine percent won" — I still remembered those words clearly, even now.
Just as he'd said, I hadn't taken any real damage. I should have gone all out back then, without showing any mercy.
I'd entered my thirties still unresolved, and deep down, the embers of that fighting spirit were still smoldering.
The customer listened, thrilled, as I talked about how it had been back then.
Strike
At moments like that, I'd always give the cardboard box a taste of the strike.
Strike
A box packed tight with canned coffee. I'd drive my trained thumb straight into it, without hesitation.
"Whoa!"
Any customer watching the strike up close always cried out in shock — because the impact would send cans flying out the far side of the box.
Driving a thumb straight into a full can wasn't without cost to me, of course. My thumbnail would usually split, blood seeping in underneath and turning it black.
Seeing that, customers would say, "Are you okay? Your finger…" but I'd done it because I wanted to show off the power of it. I had no regrets about it, none at all.
Thinking it over properly — here was a man working in a run-down black-market video shop in a basement in Kabukichō, Shinjuku, who wrote novels on a computer, played Zanarkand and Clair de Lune on a keyboard, and, once he'd warmed up to someone, even performed a signature strike. Customers who'd come to this shop chasing something erotic ended up taking a liking to this strange man instead. Everyone in that space, myself included, was somehow ridiculous, somehow twisted.
Another man who'd been coming to Melon a lot lately — a customer in his early forties who introduced himself as Izumi — had also taken an odd shine to me.
It started with him asking which black-market DVDs were any good; I did some digging of my own and pointed him toward things that matched what he was after. Whether it was that, or just that the titles I'd picked turned out well, I couldn't say — but after that he started coming to Melon often.
Back at the game shop too, in the end, certain customers had grown attached to me — and it seemed the same held true in the black-market video trade, different as it was: some people just took to me.
"Iwakami-san, have you ever heard the rumor about a Nakayama Miho black-market tape?"
Nakayama Miho — the idol who'd been huge back in my junior high and high school days. I had, in fact, heard the rumor that a black-market tape of her existed.
Back when I was young… when had I first heard about it?
That's right — it was back during that shady educational-materials sales job, the one Shinozaki from school was also working.
There'd been a fat boss there named Saitō, and I remembered him holding forth over lunch break, looking pleased with himself, insisting, "The Nakayama Miho tape really does exist!"
I'd never actually seen the thing myself, and Nakayama Miho hadn't really been my type to begin with, so I hadn't been particularly interested. Still, now that I was in this line of work, if it turned out to be real, it would definitely be huge news.
If I'm being honest about my own tastes, if there were one of Ichikawa Yui, who was big in gravure at the time, I'd probably have paid fifty thousand yen for it…
"That Nakayama Miho tape… it really did exist." "What? Seriously?"
I leaned in. Izumi kept talking.
"You've seen it?" "Seen it — I was in it. I was the male lead, back in the day."
"What?!"
Even I was shocked by that. So the Nakayama Miho tape really had existed…
"Ah, don't get so excited." "Well, if something like that existed…"
"No, no — just hear me out." "Uh… okay…"
According to him, of course there was no actual Nakayama Miho tape.
Back when she was at the height of her popularity, they'd apparently gone ahead and filmed something under the pretense of using a lookalike — except the woman they brought in didn't resemble Nakayama Miho in the slightest. Izumi said he'd been the male performer in that shoot.
They'd shot it, but since it would be obvious right away that she was someone else, they'd dubbed the master tape over and over to degrade the picture quality, then released it into the world billed as the Nakayama Miho tape.
"Ohh… come on…" "That's why I told you not to get your hopes up."
"But even if it was fake, the girl was cute, right? She was supposed to be a lookalike after all." "Well, actually… she didn't look anything like her, and she wasn't attractive at all."
"……"
He told me the girl herself hadn't been cute, and her figure hadn't been much either. He even let me in on the trick behind the finale — the material shown at the end was some ersatz mixture worked up out of egg white and who-knows-what, loaded into a dropper and squeezed out on cue.
Still, wasn't Nakayama Miho a year older than me? If she was at the height of her popularity, she'd have been around twenty — right around when I'd just come of age, or close to it.
Izumi, sharing insider stories of the trade like this — one thing was clear, at least: he'd taken a real liking to me.
While I was deep in concentration writing, customers would strike up small talk. Since I was on the clock, I'd pause the writing for a while.
Inside I'd think, hurry up and go home already — but I couldn't very well be cold about it.
While I was in the middle of a friendly chat with a regular, Kitanaka came down the stairs and into Melon. This idiot, full of himself, pulled bundles of cash out of his bag and tossed them onto my laptop. At a glance, five bundles of a million yen each.
"Iwakami. Count it."
"Uh… sure…"
His set routine, always performed whenever there was a customer around. Cheap as he was, he was relentless about showing off how rich he was.
"Wow, boss, you're loaded, huh."
He loved hearing that, which is exactly why he pulled the same act every time. I was genuinely sick of it by now.
As far as I was concerned, all I was doing was uselessly counting five million yen in cash. I wanted to tell him, fine, we get it, you've got some spare change, now knock it off.
I once warned him, "Kitanaka-san, carrying this much cash around this neighborhood is dangerous," but all he did was puff himself up: "You know how well-connected I am with the yakuza around here, right?" There's no cure for stupid.
Sure, I could tell he had a decent amount of money, but it was the tasteless, nouveau-riche kind that inspired nothing like envy in me. He was, after all, just a man who'd taken money that had originally been Noji's.
Kitanaka, always bragging about something or other. It was such a hassle that I'd just stare at the monitor and toss out half-hearted "uh-huhs."
Kitanaka the Miser
Keeping half an eye on the fool chattering away in good spirits, letting his words go in one ear and out the other, I opened up Photoshop. Resting the mouse against the side of my thigh, I tried sketching Kitanaka's face.
Not in his wildest dreams did he imagine I was drawing his portrait — he just kept going, on and on, about how much money he had, how tough he used to be in fights. I'd glance up now and then, nudging the mouse bit by bit.
The miser, oblivious to all of it, lost in his own bragging. I thought what a ridiculous man he was, and held back a laugh.
When an employee from Field upstairs brought down the closing sheet, he'd check the IN/OUT figures and head out of Melon. Off to gnaw at more money somewhere, I figured…
His wife, a Chinese woman named Shinshin, would sometimes come down to the basement to Melon and complain, "Papa, you're really so cheap." Apparently their meals were almost always just ramen and rice — and when Shinshin asked to order gyoza too, he wouldn't hear of it at all.
I wanted to tell her, don't dump that trivial complaint on me. You're the one who married him knowing full well what he was like, I thought — though of course I kept that particular grumble strictly to myself.
Living through days like these, I finished Debbari on February 24th — fourteen days from start to finish, four days faster than Shinjuku Crescendo had been. Once I printed it out and bound it into a book, I'd need to give it to Eiji-san soon.
Kaneko, the owner of Field, also started showing up, timing his visits for whenever Kitanaka wasn't around. At first it was just small talk, but gradually he began asking me about computers.
"Iwakami-san, you know a lot about computers, right? I was hoping you could show me how to do some image editing."
He'd come with computer questions in mind, but as we talked, it always ended up circling back to complaints about Kitanaka. He'd grumble that Kitanaka did whatever he pleased, assuming no one noticed — but if that bothered him so much, he should say it to Kitanaka's face instead of mine…
Come to think of it, whatever happened with that business about Koizumi, the manager at Field, and his savings? I was curious, but getting involved when it had nothing to do with me would only stir up trouble.
I didn't want to stick my nose in and get dragged into something messy, so I left it alone.
Even the yakuza who dropped by occasionally couldn't go two sentences without complaining about Kitanaka. Everyone, it seemed, had some grievance or another against that miser.
When there were no customers, I'd play piano, and sometimes people would come down the stairs, drawn by the sound, looking puzzled.
"This is a video shop, right?"
They'd ask, cautiously, glancing around the shop.
I'd explain that a recital was coming up, and that the piece I was playing was Debussy's Clair de Lune. What I really wanted to play was Zanarkand, but classical was the standard choice for a piano recital.
And besides, I'd already declared to my teacher that I'd work hard and play Clair de Lune. There was no backing out now.
"Wow, your story is really something, man."
A salaryman-looking man in his mid-fifties listened to my story with obvious interest.
"I mean, no offense meant by 'a place like this,' but I never imagined I'd find someone like you, Iwakami-san, working in a black-market video shop like this."
It was true — every so often, customers took an interest in someone like me. Being praised didn't feel bad.
The conversation flowed naturally.
"If you don't mind, want to exchange contact info?"
Once I'd gotten into using Photoshop, I was designing not just novel covers and illustrations but my own business cards too. I'd asked Bōzu-san how to do things a few times, but his answer was always the same, curt line: "You've just got to fiddle around with it yourself until you get the hang of it."
Managing to draw Kitanaka's portrait earlier had turned out to be a happy accident. When I showed it to the Field staff, they burst out laughing: "Whoa, that's really him!" After that, I just kept messing around with Photoshop, and gradually I could design all sorts of things.
I'd made myself a personal business card using photos from my fighting days and from playing piano. Up until then, the only use I'd found for it was handing it to women at bars.
Exchanging contact info with a customer at a black-market video shop…
But he didn't seem like a bad sort, so I made a habit of exchanging cards with customers I'd hit it off with.
"Hmm, hmm……"
The man stared at my card for a while, hard enough to burn a hole through it.
"Um… is something wrong?"
"No, actually… I make my living reading names, you see."
"Uh… sure." "Seeing your name, Iwakami-san, it's an occupational habit — I couldn't help but get curious."
A name-reading fortune-teller, then? I didn't dislike fortune-telling and things of that sort.
"Can I tell you what caught my eye?" "Please, go ahead."
Iwakami Tomoichirō — A Name Reading
"First of all — the surname Iwakami comes to eleven strokes. The given name Tomoichirō comes to twenty-two. Together, that's thirty-three… This is what's called a tokushukaku*, a special configuration. This name was truly thought through when it was chosen."
I'd come to accept the name by now, but as a child I'd genuinely hated it.
Iwakami Tomoichirō comes to ten syllables. When playing tag or hide-and-seek, and someone needed to count off thirty seconds, kids would chant "Iwakami Tomoichirō, Iwakami Tomoichirō, Iwakami Tomoichirō" three times through — and it had actually led to fights. Because of things like that, I could never quite warm up to my own name as a kid.
"Judging from your name, Iwakami-san, haven't you done all sorts of scattered, unrelated things up to now?"
I briefly ran through my history — how my working life had started with the Self-Defense Forces, then All Japan Pro Wrestling, the Asakusa View Hotel, and so on.
"If you don't mind my asking, how old are you now?" "Thirty-two."
When I answered, the name-reader broke into a broad smile and said, "Well now, Iwakami-san… When you turn thirty-three, something amazing is going to happen — something that'll put everything you've experienced to use."
Told something like that, I couldn't help letting my hopes run a little too high. I'd only just turned thirty-two — so, a year from now.
Would something happen to me, then…?
While I was minding the shop and going back over the novel, a customer spoke up.
"I'm terribly sorry to ask, but… do you have any more mature-women titles?"
He was a mild-mannered-looking man in his late forties, average build, wearing glasses. As a genre, mature-women titles weren't exactly in high demand.
"These here are pretty much the full range of mature-women titles we've got."
"No, well… I mean, not women in their thirties or forties — something with someone even older…"
I checked through the catalog, but we didn't really have anything on hand that fit what he was after.
"Once you go beyond that age range, there just aren't many customers looking for it, so it's hard to come across."
"Hmm… yeah, I figured as much."
The customer's shoulders sagged in disappointment. But maybe he appreciated how seriously I'd taken his request, because he started coming to Melon regularly.
After a few exchanges like that, we got to the point of trading contact information.
What surprised me was that this customer, named Nishiyama, turned out to be a dentist. He apparently ran his own practice in Mitaka, and he seemed happy that we shared the same taste.
Mine wasn't a matter of taste — I was only doing it because it was my job. But pointing that out would've been graceless, so I let it go.
My acquaintance with this man continued even after I left the black-market video shop.
For the first time in a while, I went to the shop of Misaki, who I doted on like a little sister.
Naturally, I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell her that I was working at a black-market video shop — it was too embarrassing. Which meant I couldn't even complain to her about Kitanaka.
There was no way I wanted her to find out the reality of where I was working.
Back at home, I'd strip the copy protection off DVDs and make duplicates. As long as I had things set up properly, the computer would handle the rest on its own.
While I waited, I'd spend the time playing Clair de Lune, cranking out copy after copy of the titles kept at the shop.
On a daily wage of around twelve thousand yen, the money would disappear fast once I bought computer supplies. So I'd made a handful of the popular titles and sold them to acquaintances who wanted them, getting by day to day that way.
At Tonkatsu Hiromu next door to my place, Okabe-san, a senior who'd worked there for years, bought some out of courtesy. Well-connected as he was, Okabe-san put in a word with other acquaintances too, and it turned into decent pocket money.
Around this time, things between the older woman who ran Hiromu and Okabe-san had turned sour. Misunderstanding kept feeding misunderstanding, and even with me caught in the middle, there wasn't much I could do to set it right.
Amid all that, Okabe-san ended up leaving Tonkatsu Hiromu, where he'd worked for over ten years, to open his own place.
That gave Okabe-san more free time, and on my days off we started going out drinking together more often.
Under the pretense of doing a favor for an acquaintance, Izumi — star of the fake Nakayama Miho tape — kept showing up at Melon in person. Ten years or so older than me, and yet he struck me as an oddly clingy dog.
Around this time, the talk of the black-market video trade was monopolized by a DVD said to be secretly filmed footage of the celebrity Katō Ai at a hot spring. Naturally, Izumi asked whether I could get hold of it.
Sample clips of it were floating around on the internet, so it probably was real.
I decided to go ask at the shop of Nakaguchi, the man who'd introduced me to Melon in the first place — his place always got new black-market titles first.
"Katō Ai, right? We haven't gotten it in yet either."
I clearly wasn't the only one asking — everyone around must have been on him about it too. Nakaguchi answered, sounding half sick of the whole thing.
"Well, when it comes in, I'll let you know right away, Iwakami-san." "Appreciate it."
Impatient as ever, Izumi called almost every day.
"The moment it comes in, I'll call you right away, Izumi-san."
Even after I told him that, Izumi couldn't seem to settle down, coming by Melon or calling over and over. Right around when I'd started to think he was a real pain, Nakaguchi got in touch.
"I saw it myself — it's probably the real thing." "Can I come buy it, then?"
"That's fine, but it's not going to be a thousand yen like usual. The distributor's saying this one's special — they won't budge below seven thousand for the wholesale price."
Nakaguchi normally wholesaled new titles to me at a thousand yen apiece. Even at seven times that price, the demand was there, so I asked him to get it for me.
Izumi wasn't the only one who'd been badgering me about this DVD — plenty of other customers had too. Sell it at around three thousand yen a copy, and I'd make the cost back in no time.
Two days later, I got hold of the Katō Ai DVD and made a number of copies.
One week until the recital. Once I got home, I did nothing but practice Clair de Lune, all the way through what I'd learned.
I took slow, deep breaths to steady myself. I switched on the keyboard and played Zanarkand, then partway through Clair de Lune.
Zanarkand, which I'd played over and over so many times, was flawless. Clair de Lune, the piece for the recital, I still stumbled on a few times.
The piano really doesn't lie. Unless you face it with total sincerity, it won't give you a beautiful sound.
Nothing left to do but practice until the day itself. Just then, my phone rang.
I checked — one message had come in.
"……!"
I doubted my own eyes and rubbed them again and again. It was a message from Harumi — that Harumi.
You've still been working hard at the piano this whole time, haven't you. If it's all right, I'd like to come and watch your recital. — Shinagawa Harumi
She wanted to come watch me play? No way…
I pinched my own cheek, again and again. It hurt. Not a dream, then.
Her feelings, condensed into those few short lines. I was happy enough to feel almost light-headed.
I tried to think it through calmly.
For this recital, I'd be performing Clair de Lune. Not the piece meant for Harumi.
I'd have liked to play Zanarkand, if I could. But after everything my teacher had put into teaching me classical, there was no way I could switch the recital piece now just because of my own feelings.
If only I could dedicate Zanarkand to Harumi on a big stage — how wonderful that would be. What kind of face would she make?
Well, with things as they were, I'd pour everything I had into piano for what little time was left before the recital…
Otherwise, Clair de Lune would never come together.
I typed out a message to Harumi. It was my honest, unfiltered feeling in that moment.
Thank you. Thank you, truly. I'm happy from the bottom of my heart. When I heard you'd come watch, I nearly cried. But that day, I'll be playing Clair de Lune. It's not the piece I want to dedicate to you. There's a piece I really want to give you, and it isn't this one. Once the recital's over, I want you to spend some time with me. That's when I want to dedicate the piano to you, for the first time. I've been aching this whole time. I've been so lonely this whole time. So please, share some time with me. I'll say it again and again — Harumi, I love you. No need to reach me before the recital. I'll be waiting at the venue that day…… Iwakami Tomoichirō
Maybe I'd written more than I needed to. But it was how I really felt.
I wanted Harumi to have that same resolve too.
Had I just wanted to look good? I honestly wasn't sure.
Ah — should I add something about the novel too?
No, it'd just make things needlessly long. I'll leave it out.
I decided to keep the fact that Shinjuku Crescendo was finished to myself for now.
There was nothing left for me to lose at this point. Maybe it was more a matter of settling things with myself.
I went to Kukki's for my piano lesson.
Back in my room, I kept playing Clair de Lune over and over, relentlessly. There was no other way.
Every waking hour that wasn't spent eating, in the bathroom, or bathing, I spent at the piano as much as I could. I threw myself into Clair de Lune until I was sick of hearing it myself.
It was a long piece — about four and a half minutes.
Unable to read sheet music, all I could do was memorize it, over and over. Soak it into my fingers, memorize it with my eyes, confirm the sound with my ears.
A man in a shady trade, who'd started piano past thirty, still chasing after a woman who'd already turned him down. By any normal measure, people would probably think I was a fool.
Let them think whatever they liked. I wanted to play Clair de Lune.
Carving away at my own soul…
People use that expression a lot. Was that what I was doing now — carving away at my soul? I didn't know.
What even is a soul? What does it mean to carve one away?
Maybe it just meant giving everything you had…
Nothing filled my field of vision but the piano keys.
The way I kept playing Clair de Lune — even I could tell it wasn't normal anymore.
But it was too late by then. I couldn't stop. I was in over my head in the piano.
Outside of what I needed to simply get by, I played piano. Note by note, carefully, pouring feeling into every one.
The piano gave my feelings shape as sound.
I cut into my sleep for it. I stopped bathing much at all.
If I had time to sit in a bath, I'd rather spend it at the piano. Food only needed to fill my stomach, nothing more. Days where I'd play until I passed out and collapsed right there. Every vector of my being, pointed straight at my fingertips…
Lately, there was something like madness in the sound of my piano. I could tell it myself.
I wanted to play Clair de Lune. That was all there was, for me, right then…
Still no reply from Harumi.
Kaneko, the de facto owner of Field upstairs, showed up at Melon at an unusually early hour.
Once he confirmed I was there, he came over with a strangely broad smile.
"Iwakami-san, actually, I have a favor to ask…" "What's up?"
For some reason, Kaneko had brought his own computer with him. That business with Koizumi from the other day flashed through my mind.
"You can use a computer to copy DVDs and things, right, Iwakami-san?" "Sure. What about it?"
"I'd like you to teach me how it's done."
So he'd come to me, wanting to learn about computers, after all.
"Sure, I don't mind."
I decided to act as if I hadn't heard anything about Koizumi.
"Business hasn't been great lately, so I've been selling off my Zippo collection bit by bit on internet auctions." "Zippos? You mean the lighters?"
"Yes, that's right. Nineteen thirty-three… That was the year Zippo first went on sale. Only around fifteen hundred were made, they say. And I actually own one of them, as it happens."
Kaneko talked with an odd air of pride. But this was the same man who'd been embezzling Koizumi's licensing fees…
"Naturally I can't bring myself to sell that one, but I've had quite a few other decently valuable Zippos in my collection over the years." "I see."
"They go for seventy, a hundred twenty thousand yen online, some of them." "Huh. Is that right."
For a collector, I supposed there were things worth paying almost anything for.
"But my supply of Zippos to sell is starting to run dry. So I thought I'd like to pick up at least a little of your computer know-how, Iwakami-san……"
In other words, he was running out of money…
"Oh, right, Iwakami-san. Aren't you hungry? Let's get some eel. I know a good place. Mind if I borrow the phone a second?"
Kaneko went ahead, half forcing it, and called in a delivery order from the eel restaurant Unatetsu — two servings of the double eel.
While we waited for it to arrive, I walked him through the whole process of burning DVDs, in detail.
At the same time, I went ahead and installed the software he'd need onto his computer.
"There — got the hang of it now?" "Yes, I think so. If I try it myself and it doesn't work, I'll get in touch again. Oh, the eel's here. Go ahead and eat. This double is really good, you know."
Kaneko said this while handing the delivery man a ten-thousand yen bill and getting two thousand back in change. Wait — did he seriously just pay eight thousand yen for this?
Anywhere else, a bowl of eel over rice usually ran about eighteen hundred yen. Had he really ordered something that cost four thousand yen a serving?
When I lifted the lid, there was premium-grade eel laid out, twice the usual amount, running the length of the box. A genuinely lavish meal, no question. But still… if he had money to throw around like this… don't go embezzling Koizumi's money……
"Go on, Iwakami-san, eat it while it's hot!" "Th-thank you for the meal……"
It was genuinely delicious, worth the price, no doubt about that. Four whole pieces of eel laid out in a row… but honestly, I'd rather have just had two ordinary bowls of eel instead……
It didn't go down well, somehow. Of course it didn't. I knew exactly why I had no appetite for eel, one of my favorite foods, even as I was eating it.
I thanked him properly, at least. But honestly… come on, man. If you've got money for this, go pay Koizumi his licensing fee already!
Well, it wasn't my business, and I had no intention of getting that deeply involved. Sticking my neck into something that could only bring me downsides — nothing good would come of that.
Something told me trouble was coming before long. That's what I felt, watching Kaneko's back as he headed out.
— end —
*Translator's note: Bōzu-san — literally "Monk," a nickname for the mentor figure who had been teaching the narrator computer skills (distinct from Saitō Yayoi-sensei, the piano teacher at Kukki's).
*Translator's note: Debbari — literally "a bump" or "protrusion," referring to the shape of the back of the head; the title of the narrator's second novel. Left partly untranslated to preserve the original title as coined.
*Translator's note: 打突 (here rendered simply as "strike") is a term borrowed from kendo terminology for a striking/thrusting technique, used here as the narrator's own name for his signature thumb strike.
*Translator's note: tokushukaku — a term from seimei handan (traditional Japanese name-based fortune-telling), referring to a name whose combined stroke count falls into a rare, specially auspicious category.
