The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

1

At the check-in desk for visitors sat a scrawny man, who looked well over sixty and who definitely hadn’t been here last year. He had the demeanor of someone who’d worked his entire life at some administrative job, only to retire and start working at this one.

Katsuro was uneasy when he told the man his name.

“Katsuro who?” the man asked, just as he’d predicted.

“Katsuro Matsuoka. I’m here to play the concert. For charity.”

“Charity?”

“For the Christmas show...”

“Ah yes, the assembly.” The man finally put it together. “I’d heard we were going to have some kind of musical performance. I guess I was expecting a band. But it’s just you, huh?”

“Ah, yeah. Sorry.” Katsuro heard himself apologize.

“One moment please.”

The man picked up the phone and dialed an extension. He exchanged a few words with the person on the line and told Katsuro, “Someone will be right with you.”

A woman with glasses came down the hall to greet him. He remembered her face. She was in charge of the party last year. She seemed to remember him, too, and approached him with a genial smile.

“Welcome back. Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for having me again.”

“Our pleasure.”

She led him to a waiting room outfitted with a few chairs and a table.

“You’ll have forty minutes onstage. Would you mind choosing the set list, like you did last year?”

“No problem. I’ll mostly be playing Christmas music. Plus one or two originals.”

“Interesting.” She flashed him half a smile, as if trying to remember the originals he’d performed the year before.

There was still some time before he would need to get onstage, so Katsuro sat in the waiting room, where a bottle of tea and a paper cup were waiting on the table. He poured some for himself and took a few sips.

This marked his second visit to Marumitsuen, a children’s home. It was a four-story structure of reinforced concrete, set in a grove halfway up a hillside. It had living quarters, a cafeteria, baths, and a variety of facilities for babies, eighteen-year-olds, and everyone in between. By now, Katsuro had been to plenty of these places. Marumitsuen was one of the larger homes.

He hoisted up his guitar, checking to see if it was properly tuned one last time, and sang a few notes. Things sounded all right. He could be better — or worse.

The woman with glasses came back and said it was time. Katsuro helped himself to one more cupful of cold tea before standing up.

The assembly was held in the gymnasium. The children sat up straight in a couple of rows of folding chairs. Most of them looked to be in elementary school. When Katsuro came before them, they gave him a polite round of applause, as instructed by the adults.

A microphone, a folding chair, and a music stand had been set up for Katsuro. He bowed to the crowd of kids and took a seat. “Hello, Marumitsuen!”

“Hello,” the children replied in unison.

“This is my second time here. I had the privilege of performing on Christmas Eve last year, too. I guess coming every year makes me a bit like Santa Claus. Ah, but I didn’t bring you any presents.” A smattering of laughter. “Don’t worry. I’d like to present you with some music, just like last time.”

Katsuro strummed the opening chords to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and started to sing. Everybody knew the song, and partway through, they began to sing along.

He went on to play all the classic Christmas songs and cracked a few jokes in between tunes. The kids appeared to be having fun. Before long, they started to clap. Some of them were even rocking out, in their own way.

But midway through the set, Katsuro became fixated on one of the kids: a girl seated in the second row, all the way to the left. If she was still in elementary school, she would have to be in one of the upper grades. Her eyes were staring off into space. She wasn’t even remotely close to looking at Katsuro. The music didn’t seem to interest her, and she most definitely wasn’t moving her lips to partake in the sing-along.

Katsuro was drawn toward her forlorn expression, tinged with something that didn’t belong on the face of a child. He felt the urge to make her look his way.

After he’d come to the conclusion that the standard, run-of-the-mill tunes were boring her, he tried playing the Yumi Matsutoya song “My Baby Santa Claus [Koibito no Santa Claus]” from Take Me Out to the Snowland, a blockbuster from the previous year. Strictly speaking, he was violating copyright laws by playing the song, but who was going to report him?

Most of the kids enjoyed his rendition, but she was still staring off into the rafters.

He tried playing a few songs he thought girls her age might like, but nothing hit. Maybe music didn’t interest her in general. Katsuro had no choice but to cut his losses.

“All right, here’s my last song. I always play this one to close. Thanks for listening.”

Katsuro put down his guitar and pulled out his harmonica. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes to blow the notes to a song he’d played a thousand times. He didn’t need sheet music for this one.

Its melody lasted about three and a half minutes. Over the course of that time, the gymnasium fell silent. Just before his lips left his instrument, Katsuro opened his eyes.

His heart skipped a beat in his chest.

The girl was staring into him. Her eyes were dead serious. For a moment, he panicked and almost forgot how to act his age.

When he was done with his set, Katsuro walked off, awash with more polite applause from the children. The woman with glasses pattered over and thanked him for a job well done.

He was going to ask about that girl, but he swallowed back his words. What reason could he possibly give for asking?

But as it turned out, he wound up speaking with her anyway, albeit not exactly how he expected.

After the assembly, the children gathered to have dinner in the cafeteria. Katsuro had been invited to attend, and while he was eating his meal, the girl suddenly approached him.

“What was that song?” she asked, meeting his gaze directly.

“Which one?”

“The last one. On the harmonica. I’ve never heard that song before.”

He chuckled and nodded. “That’s not surprising. It’s an original.”

“Original?”

“It’s a song I wrote myself. Did you like it?”

The girl nodded eagerly. “I thought it was great. I wanna hear it again.”

“Yeah? All right, you wait here.”

He sauntered up to his room for the night, which had been provided by the children’s home, to grab his harmonica. Once he returned to the cafeteria, he led the girl out into the hall and played the song for her again. She listened to the notes of the harmonica and gazed at him intently.

“Does it have a name?”

“It’s called ‘Reborn.’”

“‘Reborn’...,” she whispered to herself and started to hum.

When Katsuro recognized the tune, he was floored. She was repeating the melody of his song perfectly.

“You’ve got it already?”

She smiled at him, finally. “I’m good at remembering songs.”

“That’s amazing.” Katsuro looked her in the eye. The word genius flashed across his mind.

“Mr. Matsuoka, how come you haven’t gone pro?”

“Pro, huh...? I dunno about that.” Katsuro shook his head and attempted to hide the tremor rising in his heart.

“I’m sure that song would be a hit.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “I like it.”

Katsuro grinned. “Thanks. Me too.”

“Seri, you out there?” A staff member poked her head into the hallway. “Can you come feed Tatsu?”

“Ah, okay.” Seri bowed once to Katsuro and slipped back into the cafeteria.

He followed a little ways behind and saw that Seri had sat down next to a little boy, trying to get him to hold a spoon. The boy was slight in build, and his face was unexpressive.

The woman with glasses stood nearby. Katsuro casually asked her about the two children.

“They’re siblings. They came to live with us last spring. Fled from an abusive home. Tatsu won’t speak to anyone but his older sister.”

“Huh.”

As Katsuro watched Seri looking after her younger brother, he began to understand why she didn’t care for the Christmas carols.

When dinner was over, Katsuro retired to his room. Sprawled out on his bed, he heard the raucous sound of children’s voices through the windows. He sat up and looked outside to see the kids playing with sparklers. They didn’t seem to mind the cold in the slightest.

He spotted Seri and Tatsu, who were watching the others from a distance.

How come you haven’t gone pro...?

It’d been a long time since anyone had even bothered to ask him that — maybe ten years since he’d last tried laughing off the idea with some pathetic excuse. But his outlook was completely different then.

“I’ve let you down, Dad,” he murmured through the window into the night sky. “I haven’t even had the chance to fight that losing battle.”

He thought back eight years into the past.

2

On one of the first days of July, Katsuro received the call about his grandmother’s death. He was getting ready to open up shop when the call came from his younger sister, Emiko.

He’d known their grandmother wasn’t doing well. Her liver and kidneys were failing, and he’d admitted to himself that she was on her way out, but he still hadn’t mustered up the strength to go home to see her. He wasn’t not worried about her. But he had his reasons for not going home.

“The tsuya ceremony’s tomorrow, and the funeral’s the day after. How soon can you be here?”

Katsuro propped his elbow on the counter and scratched his head with his free hand. “I gotta work, so I dunno. I’ll have to ask the boss.”

He heard Emiko inhale sharply through her teeth.

“Work? You’re just helping out, right? Didn’t you say he ran that place alone before you started? Taking off a day or two isn’t going to put him out. I thought you took this job specifically so you could take time off whenever you needed to.”

She had a point and a whip-crack memory. Emiko didn’t mess around, and he knew he couldn’t fool her with a little fast-talking, so Katsuro went quiet.

“We’re gonna be in trouble if you don’t come home,” she said in a sharper voice this time. “Dad’s not in good shape, either, and Mom’s exhausted from taking care of Grandma. Grandma did a lot for you, you know. The least you could do is come to her funeral.”

Katsuro sighed. “All right. I’ll figure something out.”

“Come as soon as you can. Tonight, ideally.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Fine, then tomorrow morning. Noon at the latest.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Think hard. You’ve always been able to do whatever you wanted.”

He was about to ask what the hell she meant by that, but she’d already hung up on him.

Katsuro replaced the receiver and sat down on a stool. He gazed absentmindedly at a painting on the wall, which supposedly depicted some beach in Okinawa. His boss loved that island. Every inch of this tiny bar was decked out with something Okinawan.

He gazed off into the corner of the room, where an acoustic guitar leaned against a rattan chair. Both were reserved for Katsuro. Upon request, he’d sit in the chair and play. Sometimes customers would sing along, but most of the time, he’d sing solo. They’d make a big deal the first time they heard him. “Listen to this! I can’t believe you’re a self-taught musician!” Once in a while, someone would ask him why he hadn’t tried going pro.

“Ah, come on,” he’d demur, but in his gut, his every fiber screamed, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted!” That was the reason he’d dropped out of college, after all.

He’d fallen for music in middle school. In sixth grade, he’d gone over to a friend’s house and seen his older brother’s guitar in a stand. The friend had shown him how to hold it, and that was the first time he’d ever touched a guitar. His fingers had been clumsy at first, but he’d quickly picked up how to play the main riff of a simple rock song. He tried it over and over again, and when he finally nailed it, no words could describe his euphoria. It was nothing like blowing into some recorder in music class. An unspeakable thrill coursed through his veins.

A few days later, he had taken the plunge and said to his parents that he wanted one of his own. His dad ran a fish shop. Music had played no role in his life, and he reacted first with shock, and then with anger. He told his son to quit hanging around whatever friends had planted that idea in his head, apparently convinced playing the guitar automatically made you a neighborhood delinquent.

Katsuro persisted, making every promise he could think of: “I’ll study hard and get into the best high school, and if I don’t get in, I’ll throw the guitar away and never play again.”

His parents had been nonplussed. After all, Katsuro had never wanted anything so badly. His mother eventually warmed up to the idea, and at last, his father had caved. But they’d brought him to a pawn shop, not a music store. He’d have to put up with a used guitar for now.

“Gonna end up tossing it in the dump, anyway. You’re not getting a pricey one,” his dad had groused.

Katsuro had been thrilled just having a guitar. He couldn’t care less where it had come from, and he’d carefully laid it next to him on his pillow that night. After that, he’d practiced nearly every day, referencing instruction booklets from the secondhand bookstore. To keep his promise to his parents, he studied for class just as hard. His grades skyrocketed. On the weekends, he spent the whole day locked up in his room strumming away, and his parents had no room to complain. Especially after he was accepted to the best high school in the area, true to his word.

When he’d entered school, the first thing he did was join the music club. With a few members from the student organization, Katsuro formed a three-piece band, who took every chance they got to perform. At first, they did only covers, but as time passed, they’d started to add original material with most of it written by Katsuro. He did the vocals, too, and his bandmates thought very highly of his music.

But in their third year, they disbanded. Everyone was focusing on cramming for their entrance exams. They’d promised one another that if all of them got into college, they would reunite, but that hadn’t been how things played out. One of the members had flunked the test and wasn’t able to get in anywhere. He’d eventually gotten accepted somewhere a year later, but no plan to get back together ever arose again.

Katsuro went to school in Tokyo to become an econ major. At first, he’d wanted to do something involving music, but he thought better of it, knowing his parents would be opposed, especially because he’d been expected to carry on the family store. This had been established from when Katsuro was very young, and his parents didn’t seem to have even the slightest suspicion that he might choose to do otherwise. Even Katsuro had a vague idea that this would be how things turned out for him.

His college had all kinds of clubs related to music, and he’d joined one. But before long, he knew he’d made a mistake. The club had been more into playing around than playing music; nobody took it seriously. He’d tried to bring this up on a number of occasions, but the other guys acted like he was crazy.

“Get off your high horse, man. Music is supposed to be about having a good time.”

“Yeah, what are you so uptight about? It’s not like you’re gonna make it big.”

Unable to come up with an appropriate rebuttal, Katsuro quit the club for good. He knew it was pointless to argue. They were after different things in life.

After that, Katsuro hadn’t tried to hit up any of the other clubs. He’d felt like it would just be easier to make music on his own, since being around unambitious people stressed him out.

That was around the time he’d started entering competitions for amateurs. He was used to being onstage from performing at all sorts of gigs in high school. The first few times, he’d gotten nowhere, but once he got the hang of it, he made it to the final round more often than not. These contests had their regular acts, and Katsuro became one of them.

The mentality of this group was infectious. For them, music was their sole passion. They were willing to sacrifice anything in the name of their own tunes.

I gotta try to do better than that, he told himself whenever he listened to them play.

Almost all his waking hours were poured into musical composition. Even when he was eating or sitting in the tub, his thoughts were occupied by the music he was writing in his head. This was when he’d stopped going to class, once and for all. He couldn’t see a reason to attend, which resulted in his receiving no credits and failing out of all his courses.

His parents had no idea. After they’d sent their only son to Tokyo, they’d assumed he would graduate in four years and come back home. When Katsuro had called home to tell his mother he was dropping out, she’d wailed over the receiver. That was the summer when he was twenty-one. His father had come on the line and demanded to know what the hell Katsuro thought he was doing, loudly enough to leave his ears ringing.

Katsuro was going to pursue his music. There was no reason to keep going to college.

When his father heard his reasoning, he began to scream his head off. Katsuro just hung up.

That night, his parents showed up at his Tokyo apartment — his father livid, his mother pale. They talked in that teeny six-tatami-mat studio until dawn. His parents had said that if he was going to drop out, he would have to move back home and take over the fish shop. Katsuro refused to nod in agreement. He’d told them that if he did that, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. And he was gonna stay in Tokyo until he made it.

In the morning, his sleep-deprived parents went home on the first train. From the window of his apartment, Katsuro watched them walk away. From behind, they looked small and lonesome, and Katsuro had unconsciously clasped his hands in prayer.

Three years passed. By now, Katsuro should have been out of college. Instead, he found himself with little to show for himself. His days were still a looped reel of contests and practice, practice, practice. He’d placed in many of them, and he assumed that if he kept on competing, a talent scout would eventually discover him. But so far, no luck. He tried sending demo tapes to record companies, but nobody bothered to respond.

Just once, a frequent patron of the bar had introduced him to a music critic, a man with white permed hair, who had listened while Katsuro played two of his originals.

At this point, Katsuro had been thinking about making a go of it as a singer-songwriter. He’d felt confident about both songs.

“Hey,” the critic said, “that’s not bad. The melody is catchy, and your voice is strong. Good stuff.”

Katsuro was ecstatic. His heart pounded, and he knew he was steps away from his debut.

The customer popped the question on Katsuro’s behalf. “Think he has what it takes?”

He went tense all over. He couldn’t dare look the critic in the eye.

The critic paused for a beat before letting out a groan. “I think you’d better quit while you’re ahead.”

Katsuro’s head snapped up to look at him. “And why’s that?”

“Look. This city is full of people who can sing at least as good as you. If your voice had something special, something unique about it, it might be a different story, but it doesn’t.”

The man cut right to the chase, and Katsuro had no response. This wasn’t news to him.

“What about the songs?” his boss interjected. “They sound pretty good to me.”

“They’re good. For an amateur. But good’s not good enough.” The critic’s voice was unforgiving. “They sound like songs that are already out there. They aren’t fresh.”

This was excruciating, and Katsuro’s body went hot with resentment and self-pity.

So I don’t have any talent, and I’ll never make a living from my music. From that day forward, Katsuro had taken these fears as givens.

3

He wound up leaving his apartment the following afternoon, carrying a duffel and a garment bag. Inside the latter was a black suit he’d borrowed from his boss. Not knowing when he was coming back to Tokyo, he’d been tempted to bring along his guitar, but the thought of what his parents might say gave him pause. Instead, he stuffed his harmonica into a pocket of the duffel bag.

He boarded a train for Tokyo Station. At that time of day, the train was so empty he had a four-seater booth all to himself, so he wiggled out of his shoes and propped up his feet on the seat across from him. To get to his hometown from that station, he had to transfer and ride for two hours. He’d heard of some people who supposedly commuted all the way to Tokyo and back each day, but Katsuro couldn’t fathom how anyone could do that on the daily.

His mind wandered back to when his boss had heard about his grandmother’s passing and how he hadn’t hesitated to give Katsuro the okay to go to the ceremony.

“It’s a good chance for you to go back home and talk things over with your folks. About what comes next and all.” It sounded like a reprimand. The implication was that maybe it was time he gave up on music.

Gazing out the windows of the train at the fields of farmland, he asked himself dimly if maybe they were right, if maybe he didn’t have what it took. He was sure that when he got home, somebody would make a comment. He could hear his parents already. “Come on; wake up; quit dreaming; life isn’t easy; wise up and come home; take over the shop; it’s not like any proper company is going to hire you.”

Katsuro shook his head. He needed to stop mulling over these depressing thoughts. He unzipped his duffel and pulled out his Walkman and headphones, two devices that had been on the market for a little over a year and changed the world for good. Katsuro could listen to music anywhere he went.

He pressed play and closed his eyes. A gorgeous mélange of digital sounds fed into his ears, a song by a group called Yellow Magic Orchestra. All the members were Japanese, but they’d first made a name for themselves overseas. As legend had it, when they opened for the Tubes at a show in Los Angeles, the whole crowd stood and wouldn’t stop cheering.

Is this what it takes to have talent? He’d tried to block the idea from his mind, but this time, it slipped by and went straight for his heart.

The train finally arrived at the station closest to his house. Exiting the ticket lobby, he found himself surrounded by familiar sights. There was a main street that curved into the highway and was lined with shop after tiny shop. These businesses had no customers other than their regulars. Katsuro hadn’t bothered to come home since dropping out of college, but the atmosphere of the town hadn’t changed in the slightest.

He stopped at a narrow storefront, set between a florist and a greengrocer, that had its shutter partially closed. The sign above read UOMATSU, and in smaller text to the side, FRESH SEAFOOD and EVENT CATERING.

The shop was started by his grandfather. The first location was more spacious, but that building had burned to the ground during the war. He had reopened here when it was over.

Katsuro ducked under the half-closed shutter. The shop was dark. He squinted at the refrigerated display cases. No fish. This time of year, fresh seafood barely lasted in the fridge for a day. Whatever was left had probably been frozen. On the wall, a handwritten message announced: NOW SERVING GRILLED EEL.

The familiar stench of fish tugged at his heartstrings. He walked to the back of the shop, where there was a stone slab that led into the rest of the house. The sliding door was almost shut, but light leaked through the gap, and Katsuro could sense someone moving beyond it.

He took a deep breath and yelled inside. “I’m home.”

The second that left his lips, he wished he’d said only “Hello?”

The door rolled open, and his sister, Emiko, stood there in a black dress. It had been a while since he had last seen her, and she was all grown up now. Emiko looked down at Katsuro and sighed.

“You made it. I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Why? I said I’d figure something out.”

Katsuro kicked off his shoes and stepped up into the tiny living room. He looked around.

“Just you here? Where’s Mom and Dad?”

“They’ve been at the funeral home all afternoon. I was supposed to go and help them, but I stayed behind because I thought it’d make things harder for all of us if you came home to an empty house.”

Katsuro shrugged. “Oh.”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to go to the tsuya dressed like that.”

He’d shown up in a T-shirt and jeans. “Course not. Wait a minute; I’ll go change.”

“Hurry up, okay?”

“I know.” Katsuro lugged his bags upstairs.

The second floor had two modest tatami rooms, six mats and four and a half mats. The bigger one had been Katsuro’s until he’d graduated high school.

When he opened the door, he was ticked off by what he saw.

The closed curtains made it dark, so he flicked the light switch on the wall. Under the white fluorescent lights, he found his old room untouched. The ancient pencil sharpener was still bolted to his writing desk, and the posters of his favorite idols were tacked up on the walls. On the bookshelf, guitar books shared space with his old dictionaries.

Sometime after moving to Tokyo, Katsuro had heard from his mother that Emiko wanted to use the room. Katsuro had said he didn’t care. By then, he’d already set his heart on pursuing a musical career and had no intention of ever moving home again. The fact that his parents had left his room this way made Katsuro wonder if they were expecting him to come back. The thought of it made his spirit sink. He changed into his suit.

He and Emiko left the house together. It was cool for July, mercifully so. The tsuya ceremony was being held at the community center. It was a new facility, ten minutes on foot from the house.

When they stepped out into the neighborhood, Katsuro was disturbed by how much the landscape had changed. Emiko had said a lot of people had been moving here. Guess even a town this small has its fair share of change, he thought.

“So, Katsuro, how’s everything going?” Emiko asked him as they walked.

He knew what she meant, but he tried to dodge the question. “How’s what going?”

“You said you had big plans. It’d be great if you could make a living off your music, but do you think you can make it happen?”

“Obviously. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be doing it.” He felt a prick in his heart. He wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“I just can’t get my head around the idea that I grew up in the same house as a person who has that kind of potential. I know your music. I’ve seen you perform, and I think you put on a great show, but could you do that for a living? Going pro is a whole different ball game.”

Katsuro screwed up his face. “Don’t be cute. What do you know about any of this? You’re clueless.”

He thought she would tear into him for that, but her tone was temperate.

“You’re right. I am clueless. I don’t know the first thing about the business. That’s why I’m asking you. Like, what’s the plan? If you’re really so confident, I’m sure you can be more specific about your vision for the future. A concrete destination, and the steps you’ll take to get there. How long is it going to be before you can get by on music alone? It makes me worried to think you don’t have a clue. I bet it’s even worse for Mom and Dad.”

His sister’s logic made perfect sense, but Katsuro dismissed it with an ugly burst of laughter.

“If things always went according to plan, no one would ever struggle. Though it might be hard to understand for a certain someone who’s going straight to the local bank after graduating from a women’s college.”

He was talking about Emiko. She wasn’t graduating until next spring, but she already had a job lined up. He was certain that this time she’d lose her cool, but she sighed instead.

“Do you ever think about how you’re going to help take care of our parents? They’re old, Katsuro.”

He was silent. The fact that their parents were getting old was something he didn’t like to think about.

“Dad collapsed again last month. Another heart attack.”

Katsuro stopped and looked at her. “You serious?”

“Dead serious.” Emiko looked straight back at him. “It wasn’t severe, but the timing sucked. Grandma had just taken a turn for the worse. It really gave us a scare.”

“I had no idea.”

“Dad didn’t want Mom to tell you.”

“Man...”

His father must have thought there was no use telling a thankless child. Katsuro had no argument against that. There was nothing left to say, so they started walking again. The rest of the way, Emiko didn’t say anything, either.

4

The community center was built like a traditional Japanese house, one story but on a larger scale. Men and women in funeral clothes were moving hurriedly about the entrance.

Their mother, Kanako, was standing in the lobby and having a conversation with a man who was positively skeletal. Katsuro took his time approaching them.

When his mother saw him, he watched as she soundlessly mouthed “Well.”

Katsuro was about to say, “I made it,” but just before he did, he saw the face of the man standing beside her, and he lost the ability to form any more words.

It was his father, Takeo. So skinny Katsuro mistook him for a stranger.

Takeo gave him a long, hard look and opened his rigid line of a mouth. “How’d you wind up here? Who told you?” he asked, no filter.

“Emiko called me.”

“Is that right?” Takeo glanced at Emiko, then back to Katsuro. “Didn’t think you had time to spare on a thing like this.”

Katsuro parsed this as shorthand for: “I thought you said you wouldn’t show your face around here again until you made it big.”

“If you’re suggesting I go back to Tokyo, I can hop on the next train.”

“Katsuro.” His mother gave him a look of warning.

Takeo waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not saying that. Cut the shit, okay? I don’t have time for it today.” He hobbled off in haste.

The three of them watched Takeo take his leave, and then Kanako said, “You sure came a long way. I was worried you might not make it.”

It was starting to look as though Emiko’s phone call had been her idea.

“Emiko wouldn’t let up. Whatever. Anyway, Dad’s getting pretty skinny. I heard he fell again. Is he okay?”

His mother’s shoulders slumped a little under Katsuro’s question.

“He acts tough, but I can see he’s losing strength. I mean, he’s over sixty.”

“He’s that old?”

As the story went, Takeo was already thirty-six when he married Kanako. He’d been so preoccupied with rebuilding Uomatsu that he hadn’t had time to find a bride, or at least, that’s what Katsuro had heard over and over as a kid.

As the clock neared six PM, the scheduled start time for the tsuya ceremony, more family began to show. Takeo had a lot of siblings, and between them and their kids, they saw at least twenty people from his side of the family. It had been ten years or more since Katsuro had seen any of them.

An uncle three years younger than Takeo approached Katsuro and extended his hand for a handshake.

“Hey, Katsuro, looking great. Heard you’re still up in Tokyo. What’ve you been up to?”

“Ah, um. Yeah, you know, this and that.” He was ashamed by his vague answer.

“This and that? Don’t tell me you were held back just to screw around.”

Katsuro was startled at the revelation that his parents evidently hadn’t told his relatives he’d left school. Kanako was nearby; she had to be listening, but she neither spoke nor looked their way.

Humiliation bubbled inside Katsuro. So his parents felt like they couldn’t admit their son was an aspiring musician. But he’d also been unable to tell his uncle. Was he going to stand there, tongue-tied, just like his parents? No way, he thought. Not me.

He licked his lips and looked his uncle square in the face. “I dropped out.”

“Huh?”

“College. I dropped out.” From the corner of his eye, Katsuro noticed Kanako stiffening up all over, but he went on. “I’m trying to make it in the music industry.”

“Mu-sic?” Given his uncle’s face and stilted pronunciation, he seemed almost unfamiliar with the word.

But their conversation ended there, mercifully. The ceremony had formally begun. His uncle walked off, incredulous, and cornered some relative, probably to verify that what Katsuro had said was true.

Starting from the chanting of the sutras, the ceremony proceeded in customary fashion. Katsuro partook and burned a stick of incense. Up at the altar, the memorial photograph of his grandmother smiled gently. Katsuro had fond memories of his grandma looking after him when he was little. He was sure that if she were still alive, she’d be on his side.

When the ceremony was over, everyone moved to another room in the building, where sushi and beer were spread out on low tables. As he looked around, he noticed that family were the only ones who’d stayed behind. Grandma had been almost ninety, and everyone was only a little bit sad. It had been so long since everyone had gotten together. The reception turned out to be more like a warm reunion than anything else.

Amid the revelry, a voice screamed, “Enough! What happens in my house is none of your business.” Katsuro didn’t need to look to know that it was Takeo.

“Your house? Before you moved the shop, it was our old man’s. Not sure if you recall, but I lived there, too.” The person talking back to him was the uncle from earlier. Both of their faces were flushed red from the alcohol.

“The house Dad built was burned in the war. I built the house that’s there now. You’ve got no reason or right to complain.”

“Listen to this guy! Only reason you could reopen the shop was because of the name Uomatsu. Dad may have left it to you, but did ya think you could close down shop without consulting us? That store’s his legacy.”

“Who said I was closing? I’m not going anywhere.”

“How long you think you can go on in the shape you’re in? Look at you. I bet you can’t carry a flat of tuna across the shop. What the hell are you thinking? Sending your only son to school in Tokyo? You don’t need an education to sling fish.”

“Oh, is that all the family trade is to you?”

Takeo stood up. The two men were on the verge of a scuffle, but everyone rushed in to break it up. His father finally took a seat.

“...Crazy old goat. What’re you thinking?” the uncle muttered, settling down. He nursed his cup of sake. “How’d you let your only son quit school? To become a singer? Stupid.”

“Shut it. I don’t need your advice.”

Seeing the heat rising between them, the aunts escorted the uncle to a different seat at the other side of the room.

The argument between the two men may have quelled, but the tension in the room could not be neutralized. One of the relatives stood and said they’d better be going. The rest followed suit.

“Don’t feel like you have to stick around,” Takeo told Kanako and Katsuro. “I’ll wait for the incense to burn down.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Don’t push yourself.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m sick or something.”

Katsuro exited the community center with Emiko and Kanako, but after they’d trudged toward home for a little a bit, he stopped in his tracks and turned around.

“Don’t mind me. You two go on ahead.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Kanako. “Did you forget something?”

“Not exactly...,” he stammered.

“Are you going to talk to Dad?” Emiko guessed.

He nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking I probably should.”

“Yeah, okay. All right, let’s go, Mom.”

Kanako showed no sign of leaving. She cast her eyes down, as if deep in thought, and then raised her head to look at him.

“Your father isn’t angry at you, Katsuro. He wants you to be happy.”

“...You think so?”

“You saw him fighting with his brother.”

“Yeah...”

Katsuro had understood the meaning behind their conversation. Shut it. I don’t need your advice. The whole fight with his brother was a way of demonstrating that his son could make his own decisions. That was why Katsuro wanted to talk to him, to ask him about his true intentions.

“Your father wants you to live out your dreams. He doesn’t want to get in your way. He doesn’t want his poor health to force you to give up what matters most to you. If you’re going to talk to him, that’s fine, but keep that in mind.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Katsuro watched his sister and his mother walk off into the night, then turned and ran the other way.

This was a development he hadn’t been expecting when he boarded the train at Tokyo Station. He’d been prepared to be chided by his parents and guilted by his relatives, but not for his parents to shield him from their accusations. He thought back to the moment three years prior when he watched his parents limp away from his apartment, the night they failed to persuade him. How had they come to this change of heart?

Almost all the lights were off inside the community center, except for the window in the very back. Skirting the main entrance, Katsuro tiptoed along the side of the building and went up to the window. A paper screen blocked most of what was inside, but it was slightly ajar. Through the gap, he peered inside.

The room wasn’t the one decked out for the ceremony, but the space where the coffin had been set up for the funeral. Incense burned before the altar. At the front of the neat grid of chairs sat Takeo.

What was his father doing? Takeo stood up and went over to a bag by the far wall. He pulled out something slender wrapped in a white cloth.

He started to unravel it as he approached the casket, and the object beneath glinted in the light. In that instant, Katsuro knew what he was holding.

A knife. A knife with history. Katsuro had heard its story more times than he cared to count.

His grandfather had used this blade from the day he opened Uomatsu. It had been handed down to Takeo when the decision was made for him to take over the business. This was the knife Takeo had used when he learned and trained how to cut a fish.

Takeo draped the cloth over the casket and placed the knife there. He glanced at the photo of his mother and clasped his hands in prayer. It ate away at Katsuro’s heart to watch this happening. He had a feeling he knew what Takeo was saying to his mother.

He was apologizing. For closing down the business his father had bequeathed to him. For failing to pass down the family blade.

Katsuro stepped away from the window. Without ever going through the main entrance, he left the community center behind.

5

Katsuro felt awful about his father’s state. Never had he felt guilt from the bottom of his heart. He had to thank his father for setting him free.

Still, could he live with the way things were going?

His uncle was right. His father’s health was getting pretty bad. Who knows how long we would be able to keep the shop alive? Even if Kanako took over, she’d need to take care of her husband, too. They might close any day now, with zero notice.

What then?

Emiko was starting work next spring as a teller at a local bank, which meant she could still live at home. But her salary would be nowhere near enough to look after both their parents.

What was Katsuro supposed to do? Give up on music and take over Uomatsu?

That was the most realistic option. But what would come of the dream he’d nurtured all these years? After all, Kanako had said Takeo didn’t want to be the reason why Katsuro gave up his dreams.

Katsuro sighed. He looked around and stopped walking for a second.

He had no clue where he was. The new houses had messed with his sense of direction.

He jogged around, up one street, down another, and finally made it to an area he recognized. When he was little, there used to be an empty lot around here where he loved to play.

The road had a gradual uphill slope, and Katsuro took his time walking along. A little ways up, on the right side of the road, he saw a building he remembered from when he was a kid. A little store where he bought stuff like pencils and paper. He was sure this was it. The grubby sign said NAMIYA GENERAL STORE.

His memories of the store went beyond his purchases. The old man who ran it used to hear him out when things were bothering him and offer him advice. Looking back, none of the things he asked for help about were serious. How can I win first place in the race at field day? How can I get more money on New Year’s? Nevertheless, Old Man Namiya took him seriously. For the New Year’s question, he suggested, Make a law where all the envelopes for New Year’s money from your relatives have to be transparent. His reasoning? They’ll need to put more in, to keep up appearances.

He wondered how the old man was. Gazing at the shop, Katsuro felt as if he were looking back in time. The rusty shutter was pulled down, and no light bled from the windows of the rooms upstairs. He went around the side of the house to look at the garage. They used to do graffiti on the wall here. But the old man never scolded them. The most he said was “If you’re going to draw on the walls, at least draw something good.”

He was sorry to find no trace of what they’d drawn. It had been at least ten years by now. The marks had weathered away and disappeared.

Then it happened. Bicycle brakes screeched to a halt out front. Katsuro poked his head out from the alley to find a young woman getting off her bike.

She pulled something from the bag slung over her shoulder and slipped it into the mail slot in the shutter. As he watched her, he found himself breaking the silence with a quiet “What?”

Although he hadn’t spoken very loudly, the silent night gave his words ample clearance to reverberate. The woman looked frightened and straddled her bike. She probably thought he was a pervert.

“Wait, hold on; it’s not what you think! I wasn’t doing anything.” Katsuro stepped out into the street, waving his hands wildly. “I wasn’t hiding; I was just having a look at this wall. I used to play here, as a kid.”

The woman sat astride her bike, one foot on the pedals, ready to push off at any second. She stared at Katsuro, her eyes glazed with suspicion. Her long hair was tied up at her neck. She wore little makeup, but her features were well-defined. She was Katsuro’s age, or maybe a little younger. Her muscular arms peeking out from the sleeves of her T-shirt suggested she was some kind of athlete.

“You saw me, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice a bit husky.

Unsure of what she meant, Katsuro didn’t speak.

She elaborated. “Didn’t you see what I was doing, just a second ago?” Her tone was accusatory.

“It looked like you put something in the mail slot...”

The woman scowled and bit her lower lip, averting her gaze. But then she looked at Katsuro. “Please forget you saw any of this. Me included.”

“But...”

The woman bid him good-bye and made to pedal off.

“Wait. Just one question.” Katsuro dashed ahead and stopped in front of her. “The letter in that envelope... Were you asking for advice?”

The woman drew back and eyed Katsuro cautiously. “Who’s asking?”

“A friend of the store. I used to get advice from the old man when I was little...”

“What’s your name?”

Katsuro scrunched his eyebrows together. “Shouldn’t you give your name before asking someone else’s?”

Still straddling the bike, the woman sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t. And the letter wasn’t asking for advice. It was a thank-you.”

“A thank-you?”

“About six months ago, I asked him for advice and got exactly what I needed. I wrote to say thanks for helping me figure things out.”

“You asked him? You mean someone at this store? Don’t tell me that old man still lives here.” Katsuro looked at the woman and back at the decrepit house.

The girl shook her head. “I’m not sure he does, but when I left a letter last year, I came back the next day, went around back, and there it was in the milk crate.”

An answer. That’s right. Come by at night and drop a letter in the mail slot, and the next day, you’ll find an answer in there.

“I wonder if he’s still accepting letters.”

“Yeah, who knows. It’s been a while since I got my advice. I’m not even sure he’ll get this. But I wrote it with that possibility in mind.”

It seemed as though whatever Mr. Namiya had told her had been extremely influential.

“Um, is that all?” the woman asked. “If I’m not home soon, my family’s going to wonder where I went.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

Katsuro stepped aside. The woman stepped down on the pedals with impressive force, and the bicycle glided away with growing speed. Before Katsuro could count to ten, she was gone.

He turned to look again at the old storefront. It seemed deserted. If letters were being answered from an abandoned house, the only explanation was that the place was haunted.

Katsuro huffed through his nose. What a load of crap. There was no way that was what was happening. He shook his head and walked away.

Back at home, he found Emiko in the living room alone. She said she couldn’t sleep, so she was having a nightcap. On the tea table before her was a whiskey bottle and a glass. She’d really grown up overnight. Their mother was already in bed.

“Did you talk to Dad?”

“No, I wound up not going back. I just went for a walk.”

“Where’d you go this time of night?”

“Around. Oh yeah. Do you remember that old store, the Namiya General Store?”

“Namiya? Yeah, I remember that place. It’s kind of in a weird spot, right?”

“Think somebody still lives there?”

“What?” Emiko’s voice had the curl of a question mark. “I highly doubt it. They closed down a while ago. I’m pretty sure the place is empty.”

“Ha. I knew it.”

“Knew what? What’s going on?”

“No, never mind.”

Emiko scowled at her brother.

“Hey, Katsuro. What’s the plan? You going to abandon the family business?”

“Abandon? I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Well, that’s what it is. If you don’t take over the store, we’ll have to close. That on its own wouldn’t bother me, but what’s going to happen to Mom and Dad? Don’t tell me you’re just going to abandon them, too.”

“Shut up. I’ve got a plan.”

“What kind of plan? I’d love to hear it.”

“I said shut up.”

Katsuro marched upstairs and threw himself in bed in his borrowed suit. A swarm of thoughts spun through his head, but the alcohol prevented him from stringing them together.

After a while, he slowly peeled himself out of bed and sat down at his childhood desk. In the drawer, he found a composition notebook and a ballpoint pen.

He opened up the notebook and began to write.

To the Namiya General Store...

6

The next day, the funeral went along without a hitch. Since the night before, little had changed in the expressions of those in attendance. Katsuro’s relatives showed up early, but everyone acted a little restless around him. His uncle kept his distance.

Interspersed with his extended family were people from businesses on the same street as Uomatsu and people from the neighborhood association who caught his eye. Faces he had known for as long as he could remember.

He spotted a classmate. It took Katsuro a minute to place him, thanks to the suit he’d worn to the service, but when it clicked, he was certain. They were in the same class in middle school. His parents had a store near Uomatsu where they sold handmade seals.

Katsuro started to remember this guy’s story. His father died when he was little, and his grandfather taught him how to carve. After graduating high school, he went straight to helping at the shop. He was at the funeral to represent the family business.

The classmate burned a stick of incense for the departed and came before Katsuro and his family. He bowed his head as a sign of respect. The gesture made him appear years older than Katsuro.

Following the funeral service, they took the body to the crematorium. After that, the family went back to the community center for the requisite seventh-day memorial rites. Finally, Takeo gave a brief address to all his relatives, bringing an end to the proceedings.

Katsuro and his family saw the others off and started packing up. There was a lot to carry. They opened the rear hatch of the shop’s delivery van and loaded in the ceremonial altar and all the flowers. The rear seats were crowded with luggage.

Takeo slid into the driver’s seat.

“Katsuro, you ride up front,” said Kanako.

Katsuro shook his head.

“Nah. Ma, you should ride back with him. I’ll walk.”

Kanako gave him a look of disappointment. She seemed to think he didn’t want to ride beside his father.

“I want to make a stop on my way home. I won’t be long.”

“Huh...”

Katsuro turned his back on his puzzled family and walked off. He didn’t want to deal with any questions about where he was going.

He checked his watch. It was nearly six.

The night before, he’d sneaked out in the middle of the night and walked over to the Namiya General Store with a brown envelope in the pocket of his blue jeans. The lines of that white paper were packed with a detailed explanation of what was bothering him. Of course, he had written all of it himself.

Apart from withholding his real name, he had outlined his present circumstances without hiding anything and asked for advice on what to do. In short, he wanted to know if he should chase his dreams or scrap them and take over the family business.

In all honesty, the next morning when he’d woken up, he’d been embarrassed about what he’d done. He saw it for the stupid fantasy it was. There was no way anyone was living in that house. The girl who came by on the bike was probably crazy. And if she was, he was in a pickle. He didn’t want anyone else reading that letter.

Then again, maybe she was serious, and it was all real, in some fantastical way. Maybe he would find an answer to his problems. Something that would help him steer his life in the right direction.

With uncertainty and anticipation, Katsuro climbed the hill and made it back to the timeworn facade of the store. It had been too dark the night before for him to notice that the shop’s walls, once a creamy color, had lapsed into a filthy gray.

There was a narrow alley between the shop and the garage. That seemed like the only way to get around back.

Taking care not to dirty his clothes against the walls, Katsuro carefully scooted sideways to the end of the alley.

On the back wall was a door, and sure enough, stuck to the wall beside it, he found a wooden milk crate. Katsuro swallowed and pried open the hatch with his fingers. It was pretty tight, but he yanked it open.

Peering inside, he saw a brown envelope and picked it up to get a closer look. They had reused his envelope. The response was addressed, in black ballpoint pen, Dear Floundering Artiste.

His heart did a somersault. Someone must be living here. Katsuro stood in front of the back door and perked up his ears. He heard nothing from inside.

Or maybe they lived someplace else and came by every night to check for letters. It was plausible, but why would someone go to all the trouble?

Katsuro cocked his head and left the question and the shop behind. He didn’t really care at that moment. The Namiya General Store probably had its own reasons. What mattered to him more right now was the contents of the letter.

Envelope in hand, Katsuro walked around the area, hoping to find a quiet place to open it.

He found a tiny park — just a swing set, slide, and sandbox. No one else around. He sat down on a bench by the fence. It took him several deep breaths to open the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of stationery. With his heart pounding wildly, he began to read.

Katsuro’s hands were shaking. Shaking with rage.

What the hell? he thought. There’s no need to rip me a new one.

Give up music and take over the shop — very original. What else would the letter have said? It was the realistic, safe solution. But why did this person have to be so rude? Frankly, Katsuro was insulted.

He regretted even asking for advice. He balled up the letter and the envelope and shoved them in his pocket. If he could have found a trash can, he would have tossed them.

But there were no trash cans on his walk home, and he arrived with the letter in his pocket. Inside he found his parents and his sister setting up the ceremonial altar in front of the bigger family one.

“Where have you been?” asked Kanako. “You were gone a while.”

“Yeah...,” Katsuro said on his way upstairs.

He changed into fresh clothes and threw the crumpled letter in the trash, but instantly, he reconsidered. He smoothed out the wrinkled paper on his desk and read over it again. It left him just as hopeless as the first time.

He knew he should let it go, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. Whoever wrote this was terribly mistaken. They wrote about the fish shop as if it were some eminent long-running business and treated Katsuro like some pretty boy from a wealthy family.

The letter told him to wake up, but as far as Katsuro was concerned, he was staring into the jaws of reality. That was why he was struggling, but whoever wrote this letter didn’t seem to realize that.

Katsuro sat down to write. He pulled out the notebook and the pen and took his time composing the following reply.

7

“When are you going back to Tokyo?”

It was the day after the funeral. Katsuro was eating his lunch. His father had just stepped up from the shop, bandanna wrapped around his head, to ask him this.

As of that day, Uomatsu was open for business. Early that morning, Katsuro had watched from his window as Takeo drove off for the market.

“Not sure yet,” Katsuro whispered.

“You’re fine just kicking back out here? Is your so-called road to stardom so easy that you can just hang loose at home?”

“Who says I’m kicking back? I’m taking my time to think things over.”

“What kind of things?”

“What do you care?”

“Three years ago, you were spitting fire. You can’t stop now. You need to push for it, like your life depends on it.”

“All right! I get it. You don’t need to remind me.” Katsuro dropped his chopsticks and stood up. Kanako watched them anxiously from the kitchen.

That night, Katsuro stepped out for a walk. It wasn’t hard to guess he was making his way to the general store. The night before, he had gone by and dropped his second letter in the mail slot.

He opened the wooden crate to find his envelope recycled, like the day before. Whoever was answering these letters must be checking every day.

He took the letter to the same park and sat down on the bench to read it.

Katsuro bit his lip. This response was just as vicious. Katsuro felt gored.

But this time, strangely enough, he didn’t get angry. It was actually refreshing to hear someone write so crassly.

Katsuro read the letter again. A huge sigh came out of him.

He had to admit that a part of him agreed with what it said. The words were harsh, but they pointed at the truth. If you have that special something, someone is bound to notice. Katsuro had known this all along, but he’d denied it. He consoled himself with the idea that fate hadn’t turned in his favor yet. But maybe if you had enough talent, you didn’t need to wait around for fate.

No one had ever spelled this out for him so clearly. Your chosen path is a difficult one — that was the closest anyone had ever said. After all, they didn’t want to take responsibility for their opinions. Whoever wrote this letter was a different story. They didn’t waver or falter in the slightest.

But then again...who was this person? He reexamined the letter.

They really knew how to spit things out. Most people would try to phrase things in a more roundabout way, but these letters were anything but sensitive. Katsuro was sure they couldn’t have been written by Old Man Namiya. That geezer would have taken a much gentler approach.

Whoever it was, Katsuro wanted to meet them. There were so many things a letter couldn’t show you, couldn’t say. He wanted to meet up in person and hear more.

That night, he slipped out again, as usual, with a letter in his jeans. His third letter to date.

He had done his best to think things through and came up with the following rebuttal.

The Namiya General Store loomed desolate as ever in the light of evening. Katsuro stepped up to the shutter and popped open the flap on the mail slot. He took the letter from his jeans and slipped it in halfway but hesitated to push it through.

He thought he could sense that someone was there in the space behind the shutter.

If he was correct, then that person would eventually pull the envelope the rest of the way through. He figured he would stick around to see what happened.

His watch said it was a little past eleven.

Katsuro reached into his other pocket and pulled out his harmonica. He took a deep breath, faced the mail slot, and began to play. He wanted whoever was inside to hear him.

Out of everything he’d ever written, it was the song he was most proud of. A song called “Reborn [Saisei].” He hadn’t added lyrics yet; he couldn’t find the right words. Whenever he played at shows, he always performed it on the harmonica. It was a ballad with an easy, comforting melody.

After playing through the chorus, Katsuro stopped and focused on the envelope stuck in the mail slot. Nothing had pulled on it or even tested it. There wasn’t anybody in there. The letters probably weren’t picked up till morning.

Katsuro pushed the envelope with his fingertip. It flapped through the slot and faintly slapped on the floor inside.

8

“Ka-tsu-ro, wake up!”

Someone was shaking him awake. When he opened his eyes, he saw Kanako kneeling over him; her face was close and pale.

Katsuro scowled and blinked repeatedly. “What the hell?” He groped around and found his wristwatch. It was a little after seven.

“It’s bad. Your father collapsed at the fish market.”

“What?” He sat up in bed, wide-awake now. “When?”

“Just now. We just got a call from the people there. He was transported to the hospital.”

Katsuro jumped out of bed and grabbed the jeans draped over his chair.

He got himself ready and left the house with Kanako and Emiko. They taped a sign to the shutter of the shop: DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, WE WILL BE CLOSED TODAY.

A taxi brought them to the hospital, where a middle-aged man from the fish market was waiting. He seemed to have met Kanako before.

“He was carrying some boxes, and next thing I know, he seemed to be in a lot of pain,” explained the man. “We called the ambulance right away...”

“I see. I’m so sorry to interrupt your work day. We appreciate you going to the trouble. We’ll take over from here.” Kanako politely sent him off with a thanks.

Takeo had already been treated, and they were asked to meet with the doctor in charge. Katsuro and Emiko went, too.

“He’s overworked, plain and simple, which is why his heart’s under a lot of strain. Any idea why? Has he been through any stressful circumstances recently?” The doctor, a dignified man with white hair and a handsome face, had a very soothing voice.

Kanako explained how he had just lost his mother. The doctor nodded sympathetically.

“That must have been hard on him, both physically and psychologically. I can’t say anything right now about the condition of his heart, but he needs to be more careful. I recommend he schedule regular screenings.”

“We’ll make sure he does,” assured Kanako.

The doctor said they could visit him, so they went immediately to his room. Takeo was lying down on a bed for ER patients. He saw them and made an unpleasant face.

“Isn’t this a bit much? What’s the big deal?” he complained in a show of bravado, but there was little fire behind it.

“I told you it was too soon to open up the shop again. You have to rest a few more days.”

Takeo scowled at Kanako and shook his head. “You think we can afford that? I’m fine. If we close for even a day, where will our customers go? There are people who depend on me for a good piece of fish.”

“But when you overdo it, it’s too much for your body.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I didn’t overdo anything. I’m fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” said Katsuro. “If you really think we can’t afford to stay closed another day, I can help.”

All three faces turned to him, eyes colored with disbelief.

Takeo broke the silence. “What the hell are you saying?” he spat. “You can’t even clean a fish.”

“That’s not true. Remember how I used to help out every summer, up until high school?”

“That was hardly enough to prepare you to run a business.”

“Yeah, but—” Katsuro held his tongue. Takeo had raised his hand from under the sheets, holding off his son from speaking any further.

“What about your music?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking maybe I need to give it up...”

“What did you just say to me?” Takeo’s face sagged at the corners of his mouth. “No son of mine is going to run away from his problems.”

“It’s not like that. I just feel I would do more good if I took over the store.”

Takeo clicked his tongue.

“Three years ago, you talked all high and mighty, only to come back down to this. Well, listen up and let me tell you straight. I won’t let you take over the store.”

Katsuro looked at his father with disbelief.

“Takeo,” cautioned Kanako.

“Things would be different if your heart was set on selling fish. But I know it ain’t. If you take over out of pity, you won’t be able to run the shop the way you should. Mark my words. A few years down the line, you’ll regret not doing music, and you’ll start whining all over again.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Sure it’s true. I can see it now. When that day comes, you’ll give yourself all kinds of excuses: ‘Oh, my poor father fell,’ ‘I had no choice,’ ‘I had to sacrifice my art to save my family.’ You’ll take no responsibility. Everything will be someone else’s fault.”

“Takeo, you don’t need to talk like—”

“You stay outta this. What do you say, boy? If you can prove me wrong, say something.”

Katsuro pursed his lips and glared at Takeo. “Is worrying about my family such an awful thing?”

Takeo snorted at him.

“You can only say that kind of high-and-mighty bullshit when you’ve accomplished something. But what have you done with your music? Has it gotten you anything? No, it hasn’t. If you want this dream so bad that you’re willing to turn your back on your parents, we expect you to have something to show for it. You come home empty-handed and think you can take over my business? Thinking it’s just some fish shop? Don’t insult me.”

After this voluble outburst, Takeo’s face showed signs of pain. He grabbed his chest.

“Takeo!” yelled Kanako. “Emiko, get the doctor.”

“Quit worrying. It’s nothing. Hey, Katsuro, listen up.” As he lay on his back, Takeo eyed Katsuro steadily. “Neither me nor the shop is in rough enough shape to need you to come running to the rescue. Stop trying to be a hero and go back to Tokyo. Be a fighter. Give it everything you’ve got. Even a losing battle is worth fighting. Go out and make your mark. And don’t come home again until you do. Hear me?”

Katsuro stood in silence.

Takeo asked him again. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he said in a low voice.

“I mean it. Swear on it, man-to-man.”

Katsuro nodded deeply to show he meant it, too.

Once they were home from the hospital, Katsuro started packing immediately. Not just the things he’d brought from Tokyo, but everything in his room. It had been a while since the room had been tidied up. This felt a little like spring cleaning.

“Get rid of the desk and bed,” he told Kanako as he was taking a short break to eat some lunch downstairs. “I won’t need the bookcase, either, so you can toss that, too. I won’t be using that room anymore.”

“Mind if I use it, then?” asked Emiko, not missing a beat.

“Sure, I don’t care.”

“Whoo-hoo,” she said, clapping her hands quietly.

“Katsuro, if this is about what your father said, you know you can come home whenever you like.”

But Katsuro smiled wryly at his mother’s love. “You heard him. He said we swore on it, man-to-man.”

“I know, but—” But Kanako said no more.

Cleaning out the room took him the rest of the day. In the early evening, just before he finished, Kanako went to the hospital and brought home Takeo. Compared with that morning, Takeo’s face looked alive again.

Dinner was a pot of sukiyaki, and Kanako had splurged on some premium cuts of beef. Emiko went giddy like a little kid, and Takeo was lamenting that he couldn’t have a beer. He’d been told to hold off on smoking and drinking for a few days. It was the happiest Katsuro had seen his family this side of the funeral.

With dinner over, Katsuro got ready to depart. It was back again to Tokyo. Kanako suggested he spend another night, but Takeo reproached her, saying to let him do what he wanted to do.

“All right, I’m off,” he told his parents and his sister, luggage in both hands.

“Be good,” Kanako replied. Takeo said nothing.

He took a roundabout route to the station, for one last visit to the Namiya General Store. Maybe he’d find a response to last night’s letter in the milk crate.

When he went and checked, he found an envelope waiting for him. As he slipped it into his pocket, he looked over the abandoned building. The grungy sign looked as if it wanted to tell him something.

He proceeded to the station and didn’t read the letter until he was aboard the train.

Katsuro scratched his neck.

What’s up with this one? he asked himself. It’s strangely polite. None of the bullying of the other letters.

The weirdest part was that he had been able to perceive that Katsuro was determined to have another go at it. Maybe this ability to see the truth of people’s hearts was what had earned him the nickname in the first place.

Hold on to this until the end. The very, very end.

What was that supposed to mean?

Maybe it meant his dreams were going to come true someday. But how could he be so sure?

Katsuro put the letter back into its envelope and stuffed it in his duffel bag. Win or lose, he was ready to fight.

9

Katsuro passed by a music shop with racks outside stacked with blue-jacketed CDs. He picked one up, savoring the joy it brought him. Across the cover in big letters was the title — REBORN — and below it was the name of the musician: Katsuro Matsuoka.

Finally, he’d made it. Made it all the way. It had been a long journey.

Arriving back in Tokyo with newfound resolve, Katsuro had thrown himself harder than ever into making music. He entered every contest, sat for auditions, and sent tapes to record labels, and in between, he played on the streets more times than he could count.

Somehow that big break never came.

Time passed all too quickly. Before long, he began to lose direction.

That was when someone came up to him after a show and asked if he would consider playing for a charity concert at a children’s home.

Not expecting it to get him anywhere, he figured what the hell.

When he showed up to perform, he found an audience of barely twenty kids. He was a bit confused but played anyway. His audience was just as confused as he was.

Then one of the kids began to clap along, and taking the cue, the others started to do the same. Pretty soon, Katsuro was getting into it. This was fun. It had been a long time since he had gotten so much joy out of singing.

From then on, he began touring facilities and homes all over Japan. He amassed a repertoire of over a thousand children’s songs, and that was the closest he’d ever get to a big break.

But was that true? If so, what was this CD in his hands? It certainly looked like a big break to him. And after all, this was his favorite song.

He sang himself the opening melody of “Reborn,” but for some stupid reason, he couldn’t remember the lyrics. To his own song!

How did it go again? Katsuro opened a CD case and pinched out the jacket. He tried to find the lyrics, but his fingers couldn’t flip the pages of the booklet. He couldn’t pry it open. From inside the shop, a relentless din was pounding in his ears. What kind of music was this?

Katsuro opened his eyes. He hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. An unknown ceiling, walls, and curtains. Eventually, he added it all up: He was inside one of the rooms at Marumitsuen.

A bell was clanging at full volume. Someone was screaming. A voice shouted, “Fire! Stay calm!”

Katsuro leaped out of bed. He grabbed his bag and his jacket and stepped into his shoes. Good thing he’d slept fully dressed. What about his guitar? Leave it. The decision was over in a second.

Outside his door, he was startled. The halls were smoked out.

A staff member with a handkerchief over his mouth was beckoning him. “This way. Exit this way.”

Katsuro followed his instructions and went down the stairwell two steps at a time.

But he stopped short at the next floor down. Seri was standing in the hallway.

“Come on, get outta there!” he yelled.

Seri’s eyes were bloodshot. Her cheeks were sticky with tears. “My brother... I can’t find Tatsuyuki.”

“Huh? Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know. I think the rooftop, maybe. He goes up there when he can’t sleep.”

“The rooftop...” He struggled for a moment, but the rest of his motions were swift. “Take these and get outta here.”

“What?”

He left her bug-eyed on the landing and shot back up the stairs.

In those few minutes, the smoke had thickened and congealed. Tears gobbed from his eyes. His throat stung. He could barely see, and it hurt to breathe. Most disturbingly, he couldn’t see the flames. Where were they? What was burning?

This was getting serious. It would be dangerous to continue on. Should he run? Just when the thought crossed his mind, he heard a child crying.

“Hey! Where are you?”

Yelling filled his throat with smoke. He hacked out a cough and pushed ahead.

He heard something crumbling as the smoke cleared. A little boy was crouching at the top of the stairs. Definitely Seri’s brother.

Katsuro made it to the boy and slung him over his shoulder. Together, they bounded down the stairs. At that moment, the whole ceiling came down with a crash. All they saw was fire. A sea of flames.

The boy wailed. Katsuro was beginning to panic.

But he couldn’t stand still. Down was the only way out.

Hugging the boy to his shoulder, Katsuro ran through the flames. He lost sense of what was underfoot. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Chunks of flaming debris tumbled around him. Pain tugged at his entire body. Breathing was no longer possible.

He was consumed at once by red light and empty blackness.

Someone called his name. But he couldn’t reply or so much as twitch a muscle. He couldn’t even tell if he was still inside his body.

His consciousness receded. Sleep followed him down.

Lines from a letter danced in the shadows of his mind.

Look at that. He was almost at the end. Just hold on, to the very, very end.

Maybe this is where I leave my mark, Dad. The losing battle was worth the fight.

10

Until this very moment, the packed arena had been alive with fanatic cheers. The three songs for the encore had been one crowd pleaser after another. That’s how she planned them.

But this last song came from a different place. Her devoted fans knew what was coming next, and when she stood before the microphone, ten thousand people hushed in anticipation.

“This will be my last song. The one I always end on.”

She was a genius, a rarity in any generation.

“This song was the reason I became an artist, but its significance goes even deeper. The man who wrote this song saved my brother, the only real family I have. He gave his life to save him. If we had never met, I wouldn’t be who I am today. That’s why I’ll sing this song as long as I live. It’s the only way I have to show my gratitude. Thanks for listening.”

The opening chords of “Reborn” filled the arena.