Wayside - 1920s Japan Dramedy

It was only noon and Kazuma was on his second glass of sake and his second cigarette with his friends Touma and Hiro. Normally he wielded significantly more control regarding his vices. He had made a rule for himself years ago that he wouldn’t drink until the day’s work was done (or almost done) but even he had his moments, or days, of lapsed judgement.

He hadn’t planned on meeting them here today, really, but they insisted on being one of the first to hear his regaling of life in the United States.

「Ah, that’s the stuff! Old man Asahi never fails me!」 Touma Nakaizumi, a local fish merchant and Kazuma’s childhood friend, swigged back his beer as if he himself were a fish out of water.

「I don’t believe Asahi was the name of the founder, my friend.」 Kazuma rested his forehead between his fingers, already massaging his temple.

「Whatever, beer’s beer! His name could be Akui or something and I’d still drink it.」

If only he had been able to avoid this reunion for another week. Kazuma had only been back in the country for just a few days and he was still adjusting back to his life as an investor. He had resumed his routine from three years ago, making the rounds to businesses he had partnered with before his departure. Kazuma was pleased that many of his ventures had put his money to good use—Ms. Sakurai’s flower shop had nearly quadrupled its business since they now supplied Dutch tulips all the way from Nagasaki, Mister Honda’s tailoring company’s sales have been soaring thanks to buying more advertising space in the paper, and ever since the new renovations, Ms. Haruna’s cafe had been attracting more and more pretty girls to apply for the now-coveted positions of tea girls.

「Hey, hey! Damn it, don’t zone out on me now! Quit thinking about your job or whatever and tell us about America!」 Touma snapped his fingers in front of Kazuma’s blank face while wrapping an arm around Hiro, their other friend Touma dragged away from his job as an accountant.

How Touma managed to pull Hiro away from his abacus on a Tuesday afternoon, he hadn’t the slightest idea but it was a hell of a feat. At the very least, Kazuma may as well make his losing income worthwhile.

Tracing the rim of his glass, Kazuma sighed contentedly. 「Well, life there is certainly more progressive in some areas and regressive in others.」 He shook his head and let out a chuckle, eyes never leaving the glass in front of him.

「Is it true that most Americans rely on a diet consisting primarily of meat?」 Hiro spoke up, lightly lifting Touma’s arm from his shoulder and leaning forward on his elbows. 「I couldn’t imagine that would be a sustainable lifestyle, it must be astronomically expensive.」

「Come on, this man just came back from ‘the land of freedom’ after three years and you want to know about bullshit statistics and dietal tendencies!?」

Leave it to the accountant to be more interested in the finances of meat-based diets rather than the people who consumed them.

The running joke amongst the three of them, much to Hiro’s dismay, was that he had broken the rungs of more abacuses in his young life than the hearts of women. A record nobody wanted to best him in, really.

Taking a swig from his glass and nudging Hiro nearly off his seat, Touma spoke up again. 「Ignore him, I for one want to know about the action, the people!」 He lit a cigarette from his pocket. 「The girls.」 A smirk tugged at his lips as he puffed out a cloud of smoke. 「Not to mention you left at a wild time, hell, everyone was at war with everyone and you still managed to sneak your way out of the country for three years. Three years! Aren’t you in your thirties now!? How are you not married?」

At this point Touma was a bumbling, tipsy mess, fascination turning into frustration as he took Hiro’s shoulder and pushed it back and forth while he continued berating Kazuma.

「Leave me and my shoulder out of this, I cannot afford to have it dislocated again!」 Hiro yelped, squirming his way out of Touma’s grasp. 「And really!」 He turned away from Touma and towards Kazuma sympathetically. 「It’s not appropriate in any case to ask him about something so personal as why he’s not married yet, have some decorum!」

Decorum. Marriage.

Both of their attentions were snapped back towards Kazuma, who nearly snorted from laughing at Hiro’s pathetically naive attempt at comfort. Shoulders still shaking from laughing so hard in nearly a decade, Kazuma placed down his glass and lit a cigarette of his own.

The comfort of tobacco was much more effective than anything a woman could provide.

「Forgive me, but I’m nearly certain I’ve mentioned to both of you before that I’ve no plans in the near or distant future to take a wife.」 He shook his head as he was met with a mischievous grin from Touma and a grim frown of disbelief from Hiro.

「I know you’ve told us that but-」 Hiro made vague hand gestures in the air in front of him, trying his best to conjure up a plausible argument.

「But-」 He was cut off by Touma with a hand to his face. 「I guess we just thought that when you came back, you’d...want to settle down. Weren’t you pretty heavy with that Sanae girl? I remember you two met at some fancy party or something and then you were seeing her every weekend.」

「If by heavy you mean physical, then yes, meaningful conversations and wanting to spend the rest of my life with her, no.」

Sanae.

To be honest with himself, Kazuma hadn’t thought much about her since he left for New York. The young daughter of a banker who invited Kazuma to a party of had caught his eye at a rather unfortunate time. He was right in the midst of discussing with Mieko’s father the prospects of working and studying in the United States, but he decided to enjoy his time ticking away in Osaka with what he felt were no strings attached romps, for lack of a more decent word. Looking back on his actions now as an older man, even he found it a bit cruel that he never bothered to write to her after spending nearly half a year sharing intimacies with one another.

Ignoring Hiro and Touma’s expectant stares, he rested his thumb and index finger under his chin, mapping out a plan for damage control for the inevitable moment they crossed paths once more.

「Well good riddance! She was nice to look at but such a pain.」 Touma yelled out after tossing his cigarette into the ashtray on the counter.

Hiro was the first to notice Kazuma’s faltering grin. 「Don’t tell me you haven’t bothered to stay in contact with her.」 His eyes were as wide as saucers as he stared at Kazuma’s blank face.

Double taking back towards Touma, who he found to be just as apprehensive as he was, he continued. 「Kazuma, I’ve heard she’s not married yet, so I can only infer-」

「I know.」 Kazuma snipped. 「I know what you’re implying, but I’ve never promised her anything beyond evenings spent together and dinner so I don’t think I’m in the wrong here.」 He was becoming irritated at their digging. Wasn’t Mieko’s father enough?

Leaning back in his chair, he decided to try and change the subject and returned back to Touma’s original question.

「Speaking of girls, the ones across the way are much...louder than the ones we have here, take that as you will.」 His relaxed demeanor returned as he mindlessly peered out the window adjacent to their seats. He laughed, memories of days spent with the spunky Martillo heiress and her older brother flooding back as if they all had gone out together just the other day. 「They’ve recently won the right to vote in the elections for their president, isn’t that something? Can you imagine something like that happening here?」

「I did hear about that, actually.」 Hiro quipped while cleaning the frames of his glasses. 「And that happening here? How about extending it to all men, for starters? If you ask me, women all over are asking for too much these days. They want to work alongside men, what about caring for the home and children? A woman can’t do both, it’s simply unheard of.」

Kazuma bit his tongue. Shaking his head, he attempted to humor Hiro's opinionated stances, what some progressive Americans he had met would refer to as “sexism.”

「Now, now, I know your head’s still stuck in the Meiji era, but it would be wise to join the current decade, Hiro.」 He chuckled and finished off his glass of sake. 「It’s only a matter of time before that little wife of yours is itching for something more fulfilling than folding your underwear and matching your socks.」

Hiro sheepishly covered his face as the two men beside him roared with laughter.

「Kazu has a point, y’know-woah-」 Touma’s gaze shifted past Hiro’s agitated frown and out onto the crowded street beside them.

「Is that a foreign girl or did I have one too many?」 He squinted, grasping for Hiro’s glasses and succeeding in yanking them off his face.

「Those won’t improve your eyesight, you drunken idiot!」 Hiro snapped, swiping his glasses away from Touma’s grip. He peered out towards the street and saw her as well, a tiny thing examining what appeared to be a note in her hand. 「And who cares, she’s probably some English teacher’s wife out shopping for groceries. I guarantee you she’s not interested in philandering with some wanton fisherman!」

「We’ll see about that, married man! Some of us aren’t in our graves just yet.」 And with a wave of his hand in Hiro’s steaming face, Touma decided to yell out into the crowd, nearly clanking his glass on Kazuma’s head as he raised it in the air.

「Hey, hey, you, girl! You look like you could use a few!」

「Charming.」 Hiro placed his head in his hands, praying to any god who would be so kind to teleport him as far away from the man next to him as possible.

Despite the sea of people streaming up and down the street before them, he had managed to get the girl’s attention. He cocked his brow and flashed an otherwise appealing smile save for the inopportune timing of the situation. The girl was floundering amidst the hustle and bustle, hell, she even took time to fix her hair in the middle of the street.

Foreigners were...perplexing.

「Don’t bother, she can’t understand you...I hope.」 Hiro spoke up, voice muffled from his hands covering his flushed face. Through the spaces in between his fingers, he observed the way this girl had stopped dead in her tracks to rearrange her hat and stare daggers into the three of them before trotting off down the street.

Watching her fade into the distance, a sigh of relief whooshed past Hiro’s lips. 「Thank goodness, that could have ended horribly.」

As if he was impaled in the chest with a sword, Touma eyed Hiro in disbelief, shaking his head in bewilderment.

「What, an ending where I meet a cute girl who would marry me and welcome me home and make me dinner every night? Oh, how horrible! And you-!」

Before Hiro could respond with how absurd and inconceivable Touma’s fantasy was, the man in question was stabbing his index finger past Hiro and into Kazuma’s chest.

「You just sit there? That could have been my future wife and you don’t even bother to use your English powers to help your best friend!」

「You’re being ridiculous, if you even somehow succeeded in your efforts, do you expect Kazuma to be your live-in translator!?」

「If he values my friendship, which, mind you, is priceless, he would!」

「You’re drunk and a moron!」

If he was being completely honest, Kazuma wasn’t paying the slightest attention towards his two quarreling friends. He didn’t even give a damn that he was the object of their bickering, rather, his attention was completely seized by that fetching little lady Touma had unfortunately scared away. Kazuma had heard Hiro and Touma speaking about her, and he had seen Touma motioning her to come over towards them, but their words went in one ear and out the other as his gears turned.

A smirk tugging at his lips and a million ideas buzzing about in his head, Kazuma abruptly stood from his chair and turned towards the door.

「Wait, wait, where are you going?」 Hiro’s eyes tore away from Touma and followed Kazuma. He hadn’t even been with them for twenty minutes!

「If you’re going to walk out on us, at least pay! I am not going to cover you, not when you’re making probably five times what I make in a year! Hey!」

「Cover me, we all know I’m secretly your favorite!」 Touma whined.

「Men don’t have favorites! They just have friends, and friends don’t walk out on other friends after not seeing them for three years!」

Kazuma quickly turned after hearing Hiro’s huffing and puffing tirade. He furrowed his brows and waved his hand dismissively. 「I’ll be back, just give me a minute.」 He drawled, tapping out his cigarette and stepping outside onto the stone road.

「Where are you going?」

「Towards my next business venture.」

Without another word, he was off.