Memory Notebook: In Search of Treasure

That notebook was started when I was in my second year of high school. We would pass a single college notebook around among our group, writing whatever we liked.
Sometimes we would decide on a theme to discuss, but the content was varied, ranging from small talk, school rumors, and hobby talk to diary entries, light jokes, and doodle-like illustrations. Everyone used a pen name, but we all knew each other's faces. We were sometimes too blunt and would clash, but unlike the real-life exchange of words face-to-face, it wasn't overly emotional and had a somewhat heartwarming quality, creating a unique bond that was different from our other classmates.
The main participants were the five of us: Rimata, Shusansui, Murder Artist, Author, and Triton. Others who participated occasionally included Muga, Yokko, Anonymous, Kupukupu, Bamboo, and a few others.

Let me briefly introduce the main five.
First, Rimata.
He was laid-back and easygoing, and when we happened to meet, he would narrow his eyes and smile hesitantly at the corners of his lips.
His hobby was oil painting, and he often drew illustrations in the notebook as well. The figures he drew had a mysterious sense of loneliness and a unique charm, as if you were looking at a scene from a strange fairy tale.
He also possessed a slightly mysterious ability. He could read text with his fingertips. If I wrote something on a piece of paper out of his sight, folded it in two, and handed it to him, he would hold it behind his back and, in that state, answer what the text said.
I suspected it was a magic trick, but I never figured out the secret.

Shusansui.
He considered himself a martial artist. He seemed to have some confidence in his judo skills, and the phrase "as a man" appeared frequently in his notebook entries. In fact, he was invincible in the judo class matches.
When I visited his room, for some reason, there were always survival knives, emergency rations, and solid fuel lying around. He was certainly interested in outdoor life. Shusansui, who boasted an IQ of 150, would proudly show off his extensive knowledge of how to use those tools, but since I had little interest in that area, I always just listened half-heartedly.

Murder Artist.
Aspiring photographer. His handle name was long, so it was abbreviated to "Satsugei".
He had a somewhat girlish look that suited his long hair and a slender build. Yet, he was a sharp-eyed, confident person who was popular with the female students.
I went to the same junior high school as him, and we were classmates in our third year.
I knew he had been interested in photography since then, but that passion grew, and he used money he saved from part-time jobs to set up a darkroom in a corner of his room, where he developed and printed monochrome photos himself. He hated the word "cameraman," insisted on the word "photographer," and interpreted "beauty" as "perfect composition," which he pursued. He would walk around inside and outside Kagoshima City with a camera hanging around his neck.

Author.
To avoid confusion, I will clarify this first. Even though the name is "Author," it is not me, the one writing this now. That is just her pen name.
She was the only female member among the five. She was a bit petite and fair-skinned. There was also a reputation that she was a beauty. She was a girl with a neat appearance that suggested a good upbringing, and she had a slightly cheeky side that liked to speak logically. However, she also knew how to perform the girlish self-presentation of tilting her head and smiling when greeting someone.
She had a habit of staring at the other person for a moment at the end of her sentences, which gave a strong-willed impression, but that was also a bit charming.
I think she was attracted to Satsugei's good looks. She always looked happy when we were exchanging the notebook. Furthermore, because she was interested in photography just like Satsugei, they became close through the notebook, and she would have Satsugei teach her techniques for developing and printing, and sometimes the two of them would go out to take pictures. At the time, I think she respected Satsugei when it came to photography.

Finally, Triton.
This is me, the founder of the notebook. Triton is the son of Poseidon in Greek mythology. He is the god of the sea, but rather than taking it from there, I just used a name that was rejected as a candidate for the name of the rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

By graduation, there were eight notebooks. Among the themes discussed, "Artificial vs. Natural" and "On Art" come to mind first.
Regarding the latter, Satsugei and Triton would endlessly assert their own theories and criticize each other. Satsugei wanted to be a cold-blooded idealist, and Triton wanted to be a pure-hearted enthusiast.
Author would add common-sense criticisms to that.
In response, Satsugei and Triton would dismiss her as a "philistine!" and Author would raise the flag of rebellion, saying "What was that!"
Then Shusansui would break in, denying the point of the argument itself and making fun of it. He wanted to be an enlightened transcendent being, writing abstract poems to try and baffle everyone. And he would boast about the toughness of his own body and spirit.
However, Satsugei and Triton would conspire together, shouting, "You don't know anything about art!" and an aestheticism would rage on.
When that happened, Shusansui was isolated and at a disadvantage, but he wouldn't give in.
Satsugei and Triton, who had conspired together, would seem like they might reconcile, but that never happened, and they would just return to the initial state.
By the way, what was Rimata doing during that time?
He wouldn't engage in naked self-assertion. He would appropriately praise the other members and leisurely move on to jokes. He would write things like "Ho ho ho ho..." at the end of his sentences and fade out.
Well, it was fun...

When classes ended, I often went home with one of the notebook members. I commuted by streetcar, but the other boys commuted by bicycle. When Satsugei, Rimata, and Shusansui walked with me, they would talk while dragging their bicycles.
As for me, I didn't get on the streetcar right away and walked long distances. Without following a fixed route, I would cross mountain passes, go out to the coast, or stop by the Tenmonkan shopping district to browse record shops...
We really walked a lot. And we talked a lot. About the notebook, about music, about art, about girls. If we were talking, everyone was in a good mood.
We also talked a lot about the future. About a future that was vague and didn't show a clear form, but was definitely coming.
"I don't mind being poor if it's a life where I can pursue what I love."
Even though we had never experienced financial hardship, we kept saying things like that.
Among them, only Rimata was different.
"I have to take over the dentist's office. I will definitely become rich. I'll send patients who can't pay elsewhere and rip off the rich patients."
I don't know how serious he was, but he must have felt embarrassed hearing only naive idealism.
Through such interactions between members, our previous behaviors and thought patterns often expanded.
Influenced by Satsugei, I became interested in art photography, social documentary photography, and the absurd philosophy of Kafka, Sartre, and Camus, but on holidays, I would ride my bicycle through mountains and fields with Rimata and Shusansui.
A town where you can always see Sakurajima to the east. The volcanic ash soil contains a lot of pumice and looks whitish. It would rise on the wind as dust, and the earth would emit a unique smell like burning iron.
Under the wide blue sky, it felt as if time was flowing slowly.

One summer holiday, I was invited by Rimata and Shusansui to go swimming in the sea.
These two had plenty of outdoor experience and knew that skin diving in the rocky areas of Sakurajima was more fun than the beaches of the Satsuma Peninsula. Following their advice, I bought a snorkel and fins and was allowed to experience skin diving for the first time in my life.
Under a clear sky, we headed to the Sakurajima pier by bicycle and boarded the ferry as we were.
Standing on the deck, feeling the sea breeze, and enjoying the spray kicked up by the ship's forward motion, the light swaying on the distant waves, and the sight of seagulls flying about, the trapezoidal mountain showing its magnificent figure gradually drew closer.
When we arrived at the pier, we took our three bicycles and headed south, watching the sparkle of the sea on the west side.
When we reached the rocky area and dived in, I saw seaweed growing from the rock surface and cute fish playing around it.
I see, this is wonderful, I thought.
I chased after colorful small fish, reached out to the seaweed growing from the shadows of the rocks, and swam and dived until I was exhausted.
I cannot forget the deliciousness of the ramen I ate at a public cafeteria near the pier after being tired from swimming.
I think it wasn't so much the taste itself, but the happiness of having an extreme hunger satisfied all at once that I was feeling purely with my stomach.

On the ferry ride back, I was captivated by the lights of the approaching city of Kagoshima.
Under the dim sky with a hint of sunset color remaining, the way it shone was mysterious and beautiful.
With our tired bodies sunk into the benches on the deck, everyone gradually became quiet, and in the approaching dusk, we were captivated by the glow of the city waiting for us.

The city looked as if it were waiting gently.
When we got off the ferry, that faint expectation was shattered.
My whole body was exhausted, my thigh muscles ached, the pedals were unusually heavy, and there was no strength in my arms. I was truly wobbling. Anyone who happened to see us like that would probably have had trouble holding back their laughter. While putting my weight into every single pedal stroke, the road home, which I should have been used to, felt like an eternal trial.

When a member's birthday came around, we each made handmade presents to give.
Satsugei's present was a photo he had taken himself, enlarged and mounted on a panel.
Whenever I had a chance to perform with my band, he would always rush over and take pictures from various angles.
Photos taken by others often ended up being quiet, as if they were standing still, but in his hands, they always felt like intense movement, and they were powerful enough that you could almost hear the rock sound.

My present was a cassette tape. The content was made by multi-tracking original and cover songs using piano, electronic organ, and vocals.

Rimata brought a painting he had drawn by scratching with something like a nail onto a board painted with paint, but for my birthday, there was another small gift attached.
He handed me a small box and told me to open it. He had such a strangely meaningful look on his face that I opened the lid cautiously, wondering if some strange trick was hidden inside...
Inside was a truly strange object.
It was shaped exactly like a human finger, and the cut end was a vivid blood color.
"Try touching that."
When I was told that, I reached out and touched it,
At that moment, a chill ran down my spine, and I hurriedly pulled my hand back.
The sensation was exactly that of a human finger.
It felt more like I had "touched" a human fingertip than touched an object. The pale finger even had fingerprints and possessed the elasticity of the real thing.
"It's my finger."
Rimata grinned.
"When the blood drains out, it turns that color."
When I looked at his left hand, his middle finger was bandaged and unnaturally swollen and short. It was as if he were trying to prove that he had really cut off his finger.
I thought that couldn't be true, but I also thought the finger might be real.
Maybe he snuck into a morgue for anatomy and secretly cut it off... My thoughts were in turmoil.
He wouldn't reveal how he made it for a long time, but he finally confessed and said, "I made it with gum."
In this way, Rimata would sometimes spend a strangely large amount of energy on surprising people.
Since he was always like that, even when Rimata wrote something in the notebook, no one took it very seriously.

When he started writing about that, at first, no one paid much attention.
It started when Rimata skipped his summer school extracurricular class and went to the prefectural library.
He found an old book.
It touched upon the treasure of the Kirishitan, and the author was someone named Hanada, but I can't remember the full name.
He started writing that he had found a passage like a code in that book that indicated the location where the treasure was buried.
Thinking it was just another one of his tall tales, everyone read through it lightly.
It started to change subtly around the time he began writing his own deciphering of the code.
He wrote realistically about deducing the meaning of the mysterious words scattered throughout the secret text, taking actual actions based on them, and unraveling them one by one.

The area around the high school we attended was a quiet residential area called Kamimachi. There were many residences of old-fashioned notables, and it was a townscape that drifted with a certain elegance.
Behind the school building was the site of an old temple called Fukusho-ji. It was established in the early Muromachi period by Motohisa, the seventh head of the Shimazu family, and it was a famous temple that once had 1,500 monks.
There was a graveyard for the successive heads of the Shimazu family, and in that quiet corner embraced by deep greenery, there were things like moss-covered stone coffins mixed in with old tombstones.
Following the instructions hidden in the code, we walked around the old temple site, and when we compared the layout, a certain meaning emerged from the mysterious text.
The heart-pounding development, like a mystery novel, captivated all the members.
And finally, we reached the point where the full picture of the secret text was about to be revealed.
By that time, everyone was obsessed.
Ah... no, that wasn't it. It would be correct to say "everyone," except for just one person, "Author."
Author's entries around this time were like:
― I hope you find the treasure ―
She had become like a mother watching over her mischievous sons, taking a step back.

The four boys were obsessed with Rimata's puzzle-solving.
However, having come this far, a problem arose. We realized that for the final deciphering, we needed an old map from before Fukusho-ji was abandoned. The deciphered words only made sense on that map.
I couldn't imagine that we, who were nothing more than nameless high school students, could obtain such a map that we had never seen or heard of.
The goal was right in front of us.
Yet, we couldn't step any further or get any closer.
Everyone gnashed their teeth at that frustration.
Blocked by a large wall standing in our way, the irritation gradually turned into disappointment.
Eventually, everyone gave up completely. We forgot about the treasure, and no one spoke of it anymore.

Then, one day.
The moment we met at school in the morning, Rimata smiled and handed me a piece of paper.
"I found the map!"
I was surprised.
He said he had gone around to antique shops and finally found it.
What a wonderful guy.
Even though everyone else had given up, he alone had continued to silently search for the old map by himself.
Everyone's hearts raced, and their eyes sparkled.
Rimata opened the old map, traced it with his finger according to what he had deciphered, and identified the place where the treasure was sleeping.

The location was within the grounds of a park that included the site of an old temple, quite far south from our usual range of activity.
It is said that the temple was founded in the Asuka period by the famous monk Nira of Baekje, and in the 11th year of Tenbun (1542), during the time of the 15th head of the Shimazu family, Takahisa, it was converted and became a branch temple of Fukusho-ji.
The connection that emerged from the code and the old map also matched the historical background.
According to Rimata's deciphering, the treasure was at one of three large trees near the river flowing through the park. We found out that if we dug at the base, we would find it.
We immediately planned the excavation. Gathering the necessary tools, such as shovels, knives, ropes, and cloth bags, was Shusansui's specialty.
The plan was executed in the dead of winter, in February, a long time after that.
Even though it was Kagoshima in the south, February is still cold. Why was there such a long gap...
It was like this.
If we carried it out, we would naturally consume our physical strength and be exhausted. Therefore, we needed to rest properly the next day. So, we waited for a two-day weekend. At that time, the five-day work week had not yet been implemented, and we still had classes for half a day on Saturdays, so it slipped into winter.

And the day arrived.
We were supposed to meet at 5:00 AM to avoid being seen.
However, it was pouring rain from the morning of that day. I thought we would cancel because of this bad weather, but when I called to check, not a single person had thought of that.
It was an unconditional rain-or-shine event.
The other three besides me always commuted by bicycle and would commute normally on rainy days wearing raincoats.
The meeting place was probably in front of Rimata's house, but perhaps because my mind was completely focused on the treasure, I can't recall what it was like at that time.
Everyone gathered, and we set off.
The three of them sped off at full speed. I followed at the rear, resentfully wondering why they were going so fast.
In the pouring rain, rain gear wasn't much help. I pedaled desperately, grimacing to keep the lashing rain out of my eyes. The rain seeped into my underwear, and I kept pedaling while soaked.
When we arrived at the site, there were small hills covered in lush vegetation around a meandering stream.
We walked around the moss-covered stone paths and ruins such as stone Buddhas, searching for a place that met the criteria.
When the footing disappeared, we waded through the river, walking against the current.
However, we couldn't find any clues.
Narrowing down and identifying one tree out of countless trees was not an easy task.
They wouldn't have hidden it in a place where it could be easily found.
Encouraging each other, we just kept walking and searching.
The area, which was just a point on the map, was actually quite vast when we walked there. The natural walking trail in the park is three kilometers long. We changed our course and searched every corner, but we couldn't find any clues.
Where on earth are those three trees...
Time just kept passing without us getting any response.
It seems we won't find the treasure unless we dig up a fairly large area. Isn't it not so simple that the four of us can dig it up...
The vastness of the space I felt with my body after actually walking around could not be read from the map alone.
The tools we prepared were only the size of home gardening tools. In this vast land, they were like toys.
We intended to use those small tools to secretly dig it up and get rich.
This miscalculation dampened our spirits.
Even if we became adults and obtained sufficient funds, it is a place known as a scenic spot. It is almost impossible to dig up such a place without anyone knowing.
Only after actually visiting the site and experiencing the scale of the scene did we realize that.
The treasure that should have been right there was rapidly moving away from before our eyes.
I felt unreasonably ashamed.

We were just thinking about things according to our own size.

Overcome by a sense of defeat, our bicycles were also sluggish. It was fine while our spirits were high, but our bodies, slowed by disappointment and fatigue, easily had their body heat stolen by the pouring rain.

By the time we reached Rimata's house, everyone was shivering with pale faces.
When we were lent towels to wipe ourselves off and sank into the sofa, it felt like all the strength in our bodies was draining away.
The warmth of the steaming milk coffee was welcome.
When I looked outside from the window, the rain had stopped before I knew it, and the brightness of the sky was beginning to be visible through the breaks in the clouds.

** **

Fifty years have passed since then.
Looking back on those days like this, I am completely dumbfounded by our lightheartedness. We carried it out in the middle of winter, in bad weather, without sufficient research, just wandering around a place with poor footing, and ended up returning dejectedly.
Even if we were young, this behavior was too reckless.

Thinking about it later, everything was full of suspicion. No, even at the time, I felt the doubt faintly, but the desire to get the treasure had erased it.
The martial artist Shusansui, who boasted an IQ of 150, the beautiful artistic boy Satsugei, and the rock keyboard kid Triton were all brilliantly taken in by the skillful guidance in the notebook.
A few years after graduation, I once asked Rimata, "That must have been a made-up story, right?"
Then, all that came back was a soft smile.

I still don't know whether that treasure truly existed, or if it was just a fictional historical drama created by Rimata.
Even if I was deceived, the only real harm I suffered was getting soaked and exhausted.
Since I was given a fleeting dream in exchange, far from feeling bitter, I am fully satisfied and grateful for that heartwarming gift.