prologue part 2

I stared at him in shock, and Ueda and Mieko burst out laughing.

“How indeed?” quipped Ueda.

“Yes, about that…” continued Mieko.

“When you hear ‘Aoi’…”

I had no idea what they were laughing about. As I tilted my head in confusion, Holmes regained his composure and slowly looked me in the eye.

“Aoi, this store doesn’t purchase from minors. You’ll need to be accompanied by a legal guardian or have formal authorization.”

I felt all the tension leave my shoulders. I was disappointed, but relieved at the same time. It was like being a criminal that got caught before committing an actual crime.

“However, appraisals are allowed. Would you show me what you brought? It might be something valuable, if it’s coming from you,” he said with a grin.

“Huh?” I stared at him. What does he mean by that?

“I’ll make coffee. Would you like some?”

“Ah, yes, please. Do you have milk and sugar?”

“I’ll make café au lait, then. Please take a seat on the sofa.”

I watched him merrily make his way to the back of the store as I gingerly sat down on the sofa in the cafe area.

Mieko leaned over and asked, “Where are you from, dear? Tokyo?”

I shook my head in response. “No, I’m from Omiya in Saitama.”

“Was it a job transfer?”

“Yes. My grandfather passed away two years ago, so my family wanted to move in with my grandmother to keep her company. My father’s transfer request finally went through, and we moved here last summer.”

“Are you used to living here yet?”

“…Yes.” I nodded, and at the same moment, the scent of coffee drifted our way. I looked up and saw Holmes carrying a tray.

“Here you are. Our store always provides complimentary beverages for our customers. It’s something I like to do,” Holmes said, placing a porcelain cup in front of me. My eyes lit up at the delicious-looking café au lait.

“It was hot last summer when you moved here, no?” Holmes asked, sitting down across from me.

“It was, but it’s the same in Saitama. I was surprised by how cold the winter is here, though.” I gently picked up the cup and brought it to my lips. Even though it was March, the temperature difference was extreme. The coffee’s warmth seeped through my shivery body.

“Indeed, Kyoto’s winter is dangerous. Chills you to the bone,” quipped Mieko.

“Uh huh, it was a real shock coming over from Osaka.”

I guess Ueda is from Osaka.

Holmes nodded and said, “Shimogamo is to the north, so it must be even colder there.”

Come to think of it, Holmes was speaking in standard Japanese. Where is he from?

“Oh, I’ve always lived in Kyoto. I’m sure it’s hard to tell since I speak formally.”

I almost spit out my coffee in surprise at his response to my inner thoughts. J-Just how perceptive is this guy?!

“Oh Holmes, when will you stop that? You’re scaring poor Aoi, right?”

“Y-Yeah. Is he always like this?”

“No, I usually take care to keep my thoughts to myself. I wonder why today is different,” Holmes pondered, tilting his head.

Then, he really is this perceptive all the time. Is that what it takes to be able to appraise antiques?

“Aoi, could you show me what you brought?” Holmes asked, seemingly having pulled himself back together. I agreed and handed over the paper bag. As Ueda and Mieko eagerly looked over, I felt like I wanted to run away.

“Lessee!”

“There’s two things!”

“Ah, hanging scrolls.” With his hands clad in white gloves, Holmes carefully picked up a scroll. He gently unrolled it, and his eyes opened wide in amazement. The scroll bore a striking painting of Bodhidharma. The dark, inky lines and intense eyes left quite the impression.

“It’s a Zen painting by Ekaku Hakuin. Now this is a surprise—it’s genuine.” Though his voice was calm, I could tell he was excited from the gleam in his eyes.

Mieko gleefully piped up, “Never heard of Ekaku Hakuin, but I’ve seen this painting somewhere before. This here’s the real thing, then?”

Holmes nodded and continued, “Ekaku Hakuin was a Zen priest in the mid Edo period. He is regarded as the reviver of the Rinzai school.”

“The reviver of…what?”

“Rinzai is one of the sects of Zen Buddhism. In short, he was a major player in the revival of a declining Zen school.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Hakuin preached Zen teachings in an easy-to-understand way and was named the father of the revival. He was so renowned that it was even said, ‘Suruga Province has two things too great for it: Mount Fuji and Hakuin of Hara,’ comparing his greatness to the likes of Mount Fuji.” Holmes looked back down at the hanging scroll. “This really is a surprise. A Bodhidharma in good condition—a stunning one at that.”

Ueda interjected, “Hey Holmes, how much for this one?”

“…Hmm.” Holmes narrowed his eyes. “In the realm of two point five million yen, I’d say.”

“T-Two point five million?” my voice squeaked. It’s worth that much? It was a hundred times more than what I’d been hoping for. My heart raced at the unexpected revelation. I couldn’t believe that I casually put such a treasure into a paper bag and brought it here.

“Let’s take a look at the other one.” Holmes eagerly reached into the paper bag, ignoring my state of shock.

“Oh, I think that one is by the same person. It’s not Bodhidharma, though.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Holmes said. He unraveled the scroll and came to a sudden stop.

“Oh, this one’s a baby. Cute, eh?” remarked Ueda.

“Huh, so Hakuin drew this kind of thing too?” said Mieko.

In contrast to the two excited customers, Holmes stared wide-eyed at the painting in still silence. His face seemed somewhat pale.

“What’s up, Holmes?” asked Ueda.

“Ah, it’s nothing. I…have seen a Hakuin painting of an infant before, but this one is new to me.” His hands were trembling as he held the scroll.

“Is it really that great?”

Holmes paused before answering, “Yes. I…don’t think I can put a price on it,” he murmured quietly.

“Huh?” I was bewildered. He couldn’t put a price on it?

Holmes looked up at me and asked, “Aoi, who does this hanging scroll belong to?”

“It’s…my late grandfather’s. He was an avid collector of antiques.”

“I see. This is a completely unrelated question, but are you so in need of money that you’d sell your grandfather’s belongings?” He looked me straight in the eye, but his tone of voice was gentle and caring. I cast my eyes down, unable to meet his gaze.

I hesitated before saying, “It’s for the bullet train fare. I really need to go back to Saitama.”

“Oh yes, spring vacation is coming up,” said Mieko. “You must want to see your friends, right? But, wouldn’t it be better to ask your mom?”

Holmes quickly put his finger in front of his mouth, signaling her to be quiet. Mieko hastily shut her mouth and shrugged.

“Did something happen?” said Holmes.

I hung my head and bit my lip at his concerned question. After a moment, I tried to speak up, and burst into tears. “L-Last month, my boyfriend said he wanted to break up.” I spoke as though spitting out the words. Mieko and Ueda had meek expressions on their faces. “A-At first, I accepted it. We couldn’t see each other much because we were so far apart, so it was only natural that his feelings would fade away…even though it was unbearable for me…”

We’d been dating since middle school, and we went to the same high school, too. I thought we’d be together forever, but then I had to move to Kyoto…

When I left, he told me, “Nowadays we have the internet to connect us, so a long-distance relationship isn’t a problem. I promise I’ll go to a university in Kyoto.” Despite that, our conversations gradually became more and more intermittent. Finally, he told me, “Sorry, I can’t do this anymore,” and broke up with me. I had a feeling it would happen. It was painful, but I accepted it…and I even felt sorry because it was my family’s circumstances that led to it. And yet…

“But, it looks like he started going out with another girl right away. And that girl…is my best friend. I found out the other day.” Yeah, that girl was my best friend…or at least, I thought she was. She was one of the first friends I made in high school. We did everything together, and I really loved her. She even told me, “You and your boyfriend look really good together. I’ll watch him to make sure he doesn’t cheat on you, so don’t worry about going to Kyoto.” Did she get closer to him after I left? Was she glad that I moved away? I can’t believe he’d go out with my best friend. It’s so frustrating. So painful. So miserable.

I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to go back to Saitama immediately.

“I see, so you wanted to rush back,” Holmes said with a nod.

Mieko smiled sympathetically, and said, “That’s understandable. But, what will you do when you go back?”

I clammed up. What am I going to do? I’ve asked myself that very question many times. “I…I want to see for myself. And I’ve got a lot of things to say to them! I want to tell them how awful they are, and that I’ll never forgive them! Because it really is horrible! It’s too cruel!” The dam holding back my emotions broke, and everything came rushing out. I never cried about it at home, because I didn’t want my family to worry. And I wasn’t close enough to anyone at my new school to talk to them about personal issues… I’d been enduring it all by myself, when really, I just wanted to scream and cry.

I slumped onto the table and cried loudly. Then, I felt a large hand gently stroke my head.

“Aoi, please look at this painting you brought—the one of the baby.”

Still sobbing, I slowly raised my head. The baby was drawn with gentle, curving lines. It was asleep, but it looked like it was smiling, too.

“Do you know about Hakuin?” Holmes asked softly, and I shook my head. I brought this painting because it looked like it might be valuable—I didn’t know anything about the artist.

“As I said earlier, Hakuin was a priest so renowned that he was compared to the likes of Mount Fuji. However, there was a time when he’d lost all his honor.”

“Huh?”

“When Hakuin lived at Shoin Temple, there was an incident where a daughter of one of the temple’s supporters became pregnant. The father interrogated the daughter as to whose child it was, and in a panic, she recalled that her father revered Hakuin and lied that it was his. She thought that he would calm down if she named Hakuin as the father. However, her father was enraged, and when the baby was born, he took it to Hakuin and shoved it at him, declaring, ‘You’re a horribly corrupt priest, getting my daughter pregnant. Now take this child.’”

“Wow… What did Hakuin do?”

“Even though the accusation was completely false, Hakuin took the baby without giving any excuses. After that, the people scorned him as ‘the corrupt priest,’ while he desperately searched for a wet nurse so that he could raise the child. The girl who gave birth to the child couldn’t bear to see this. Tormented by her sins, she tearfully told her father the truth. Shocked, he went straight to Hakuin to apologize. Hakuin merely said, ‘Ah, so this child does have a father,’ and returned the child without a single word of criticism towards the daughter or her father. Now, how do you think Hakuin really felt about this situation?”

I didn’t have an answer to his question. Hakuin was betrayed, falsely accused, and scorned, yet he didn’t defend himself and earnestly tried to raise the child. He then returned the child to the father who’d made the mistake. How did he feel about that…? Maybe he was angry at their selfish accusations.

Holmes gazed at the painting of the baby and said, “Perhaps the answer can be found in this painting?”

The baby seemed happy as it slept. All I could feel from the painting was “love”…

I gasped, and the tears came pouring again. No matter what unfair treatment Hakuin was subjected to, he would accept it and encompass it with love—even when things were forced onto him or taken away from him. I felt ashamed of my hatred and resentment and of my lack of forgiveness. Ashamed that I would sell my grandfather’s beautiful treasures just so that I could make complaints.

…But it still hurt. It was still unbearably painful. I couldn’t stop crying.

“Aoi, would you like to work here?”

“Huh?” I looked up in bewilderment at the sudden suggestion.

“You have a good eye for these things. Instead of selling off family treasures in secret, why don’t you work to earn your travel fare on your own?”

“B-But…”

“If, when you’ve saved up enough money, you find yourself still wanting to go to Saitama, then I think it’d be good to go and take the weight off your shoulders.”

When I looked at Holmes’s beaming smile, I felt something warm well up inside my chest. He was right. It was because I wanted to go back and give them a piece of my mind immediately that I thought I needed the money ASAP. I didn’t think I had time to work, and I overlooked a lot of things in my hasty, shock-driven actions. And now, it’s as though I’m being told that there’s a path prepared for me. I want to learn something here, under this mysterious man’s tutelage.

“Okay… Please let me work for you.” I bowed my head, and Ueda and Mieko both clapped their hands and congratulated me.

“Great. I was actually in search of an assistant,” Holmes said with a gentle smile.

I placed Hakuin’s hanging scrolls back inside the paper bag and bowed again. “Thank you so much for today. I look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise,” replied Holmes, and he bowed back.

“I’ll be on my way now.” I was about to leave the store, but I stopped and turned back, since something was nagging at me. I asked, “Um, why did you say that I have ‘a good eye for these things’? And how did you know where I live?”

Holmes chuckled in response and said, “The tea bowl that you stopped to look at earlier is called a Shino tea bowl. It’s one of my grandfather’s prized possessions.”

“What’s a Shino tea bowl?”

“It’s a national treasure from the Momoyama period—said to be a masterpiece that can never be replicated once lost. It would be valued at around sixty million yen.”

“S-Sixty million? Is it okay to put something so valuable on display?”

“This is a secret between us.” Holmes held an index finger to his mouth and grinned mischievously.

“But, I was also really impressed with that painting of Mount Fuji earlier. That was a fake, right?”

“Yes, it’s a type of replica called a reproduction. Taikan himself wanted more people to see his work, so he was very supportive of reproductions, even going as far as giving the creators the ink that he used. Since these works are recognized by the original artist, they have quite a bit of impact despite not being the real thing. I think that being impressed by it is another sign of your keen eye.”

“O-Oh. Okay then, but how did you know where I live?”

“Ah, well… I think you’ll find out soon,” Holmes said with an amused chuckle.

I’ll find out soon? Still confused, I gave my thanks again and left the store.

The sky was already growing dark. Sanjo’s main street was brightly illuminated, bustling in a different way than it did during the day. Well, time to go home… From now on, I’ll be working hard at this store.

On this chilly spring day, I felt a strange premonition—as though the events of today would shape my future.

--- [ End of Chapter ] ---