All the Lovers in the Night

by Mieko Kawakami

I squeezed my eyes shut, sweeping my memory in the desperate pursuit of any trace connected in some way to Mitsutsuka. The Mitsutsuka who came back over from the stairs up to the platform, the Mitsutsuka whose smile was almost bashful, the Mitsutsuka who would happily talk to me about light for as long as I liked, whenever I asked. Mitsutsuka. It was getting hard to breathe. These thoughts raced through my mind, one after another, all the happy moments, the way that Mitsutsuka listened to every little thing I said and nodded patiently, the sight of him from behind, the way he walked, the way he thought, the way he talked, the clothes he wore, the smell of winter, all of it, because I really liked him, even though I knew nothing about him, and he knew nothing about me, and maybe that was all that this would ever come to, ending without getting off the ground, despite how good I knew it could be, had already been, with more good times than I knew what to do with, but as the days without him added up, I knew that I would burn through every last one of the memories, the anguish and the premonitions, the regrets, the gratitude, all of which would pass, never to return.