Stars Do Not Boast

#CreativeAward2026

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The person who shares my name is still alive, carried in the thoughts of many people.
Somewhere in the sky.

I learned the origin of my name while eating at a Japanese restaurant on the day of my father's forty-ninth-day memorial service.
Though I was still young, as the eldest son, I was receiving the mourners.
Most of them were people who had been kind to me when I was a child.
I was facing Mr. N, one of them, and listening to stories about my father that I didn't know.
I don't remember what triggered it, but the conversation turned to the story of my name.

When I was in elementary school, there was a homework assignment to ask about the origin of one's name.
My father answered curtly, as if it were a bother,
“Because it has a good ring to it. And, well, it’s because my name is only one character, right?”
That was not the truth.

It was back before I was born.
He had apparently muttered, “That is the kind of person who is great.”
Mr. Y, who would bow his head to each of his subordinates saying, “Thank you for your hard work,”
when a part-time worker asked someone nearby,
“Who is that old man?”
and heard the reply,
“He’s our executive director,”
he had apparently also kindly said to the worker, “Keep up the good work.”

My father, who disliked “people who boast.”
He never even addressed his juniors by their names without honorifics.
The fact that he continued to address even me, his son, with the honorific “-kun” since I was a child might be related to the origin of my name.

Though everyone I asked said my father was “kind,” some said he was scary.
He was a gentle person, but he was someone who would silently apply pressure to those who treated their subordinates harshly.
When someone was giving unreasonable orders to a student part-timer, my father slapped them without hesitation.
“It’s okay to be overbearing toward those who are overbearing.”
This was the only point that made my father angry.

When I was born and my colleagues asked for my name, they realized it was the same as Mr. Y’s, and his friends understood.
Although my father was good at socializing, he was shy, so
no one ever mentioned that he had “taken Mr. Y’s name.”

Mr. N, who had aged since those days,
drank his beer in one gulp, saying, “I was too shy to say it,” and then placed his glass down firmly and turned his eyes to the shadow.
A photograph of him with a shy smile.
Mr. N’s eyes welled up as he stared at it.

Several years later, I suddenly remembered and typed in Mr. Y’s name.
There was something unusual in the search results.

It was the only one with Roman letters lined up.

Known as a symbol of Shibuya, a dome that looked like a silver hat popping out of the roof of a building.
Inside was a planetarium where stars twinkled.

I didn't know because my father had moved to another company, but it seems that at the end of his career, Mr. Y was the honorary director of the planetarium.
A young astronomer who worked there found a star and named it after Mr. Y, who had already passed away.
There was no meaning in naming it out of consideration.
“I want to keep that person’s name forever.”
That was the only reason.

“I never imagined he was the kind of person who would have a star named after him…”

At the same time that I was surprised by the magnitude of my own name, I understood the correctness of my father’s judgment of people, and a strange joy overflowed in my heart.
At the same time, because his existence was too great, I looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

Even if I can’t see it because it’s far away, there is a star bearing Mr. Y’s name in the sky I definitely looked up at.
A strange feeling was born, where a sense of tension and the comfort of being watched over coexisted.

The light from the distant, small star has been reaching me all this time.
I cannot live by emulating everything.
I just want to try not to be overbearing.
Otherwise, it feels like I might get slapped in a dream.

*Each is an independent essay. The following are links to those with the same theme.

Serial essay about my father (1)
The movie theater is a place to escape

Serial essay about my father (2)
The building with the Ferris wheel

Serial essay about my father (3)
Stars do not boast

Serial essay about my father (4)
My father who kept watching with a shy look