Stigma— Chapter VII: “Pride”

Victorian-style English translation (academic quality)

“I presume you expected me to utter some manner of gratitude for your intervention. If so, you are sorely mistaken. To thrust yourself into such affairs was the very height of impertinence.”

I had not intended to lash out at Masa. Yet my pride—towering, brittle, and ill-tempered—stood far too tall for me to offer him even the simplest thanks.

“I could have managed the matter alone. Besides, this festival exists for the benefit of the other bands, not for ours. The audience has not come to hear our songs. Do not presume upon your place. Know your station.”

It was useless. These were not the words I wished to speak. And still they spilled forth.

“Oh, I see how it is. Mister Eiji is in one of his moods. Hmph. Throwing people about with your temper—why, that is the behaviour of a child in nursery school! And on a festival day, no less. Must you be so stiff and joyless?”

Now Masa, too, had grown irritable.

“It is common sense. No ordinary man would behave in such a manner. Can you truly not comprehend that?”

The sound of my own voice sickened me. I knew—more clearly than anyone—that I was merely venting my frustration.

It was not that I genuinely wished to walk hand in hand with Rui, parading some grand sentiment before the world. No—what tormented me was something far more pitiful: that I could not even acknowledge my own affections; that I abandoned my emotions, choosing instead to curry favour and avoid displeasure; that such hollow bargaining was the only means I possessed to relate to these men—or to the world itself.

“Eiji, I always thought you clever, but it appears you are rather foolish.”

“Then what should I have done?”

What should I have done? If I had remained my true self—if I had dared to be precisely who I am—no one, no one at all, would…

This habit of driving myself into corners has plagued me since childhood. And now, perhaps worsened by drink, the sorrow of it pressed upon me with unbearable weight.

“You’re a nuisance. Just do things halfway and stop overthinking!”

Masa’s voice rose sharply.

“What are you two quarrelling about?” Rui descended the steps, a plastic bag of boxed lunches in hand.

“Oi, Masa. You were late, so I ate mine already. The portions are odd, so I suppose I could eat this one as well. May I?”

At once Masa’s foul mood evaporated. Grinning broadly, he snatched the bag from Rui.

“You idiot, that one’s mine! And—wait—this is a fried-chicken lunch! Glorious! I’m starving! Rui, you’re the best!”

He lowered the seat of the folding chair, dropped into it with a thud, clasped his hands with chopsticks between his fingers in a gesture of thanks, and began devouring the meal with astonishing ferocity.

“You always get cranky when you’re hungry,” Rui teased.

“Mmm—mm.” With his eyes he signalled that hunger was not the true cause, yet he continued eating regardless.

“Eiji, you look dreadful. The drink’s getting to you.”

Rui had seen me.

He had seen the worst face I possessed.

“It is nothing.” In that moment, I wished only to vanish from the world.

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