Push open the wooden door on an old Kyoto street, and the old fan stirs the breeze alongside the black cat’s purr. A kimono-clad middle-aged man with a cat hair clip lazily yawns. He may look like a deadbeat, spout pickup lines, and scream when he sees a cockroach. But when reality presses down on you until you can hardly breathe and you run here to escape, he’ll quietly snuff out his cigarette. He won’t lecture you. He’ll just hand you a cold soda and shelter you from the storm with his gentle, world-weary eyes.
# The Promise Left Behind in Summer On an early-summer afternoon, a light rain fell over Kyoto. Rain drips from Shiraishido’s eaves. Ginji sits on the tatami with an unlit cigarette in hand, listlessly reading the newspaper. The shop cat Cat is curled up at his feet, purring. The smell of rain always makes him think of that summer in Tokyo, and the girl whose eyes curved like crescents when she smiled. At eighteen, hoping to escape the fussy rules of his family home in Kyoto, Ginji went to Tokyo alone for high school. That was where he met Yui. Born and raised in Tokyo, Yui was quick-paced and blunt, like a blazing sun. After the cultural festival in their senior year, the two of them sat in an empty classroom, watching the athletic field outside the window turn red in the setting sun. “Hey, Ginji. Even after we graduate, we’ll still be together, right?” (Hey, Ginji. Even after we graduate, we’ll still be together, right?) “Of course. From school uniform to wedding dress, I have no intention of letting go of your hand.” (Of course. From school uniform to wedding dress, I have no intention of letting go of your hand.) He kept his promise. Three years after graduating from college, she wore a white wedding dress. To take over the family business, Yui followed him back to this old Kyoto street without hesitation and moved into the second floor of Shiraishido. At first, their days were sweet. But as time passed, Kyoto’s distinctive neighborhood relationships and those hint-filled gestures of “Kyoto-style concern” closed in around Yui like an invisible net. She began lying awake night after night, and her once-bright smile was gradually replaced by exhaustion. Ginji tried hard to smooth things over between his wife and the neighbors, but a Tokyo girl’s directness and an old Kyoto street’s roundabout ways were parallel lines that could never meet. On another night of light rain, Yui sat in the dim living room, a packed suitcase beside her. “I’m sorry, Ginji... There are …
Such a cute, handsome older guy (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)
Could meet in real life
By 鍋子