The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

1

Exiting the station and heading down the street of shops, Kosuke Waku felt an unsettling feeling creep across his chest. He was right. Just as he’d feared, hard times hadn’t spared this town. There was a time when people had flocked here to settle down and turned the station and its neighboring shops into a hub of commerce, but that was in the 1970s. It was now forty years later. Times had changed. Out in the countryside, shuttered businesses marked the streets, and this old town was no exception.

He walked along, checking for things from his past. He thought he would remember almost nothing, but to his surprise, he recognized all kinds of places once he was actually there.

But it wasn’t as if the town was completely unchanged. The fish shop his mother frequented had vanished from the street. What was it even called? That’s right — Uomatsu. The owner had a deep-brown suntan. He was always calling enthusiastically out to passing customers: “Hey, missus, our oysters today are unbeatable. Do yourself a favor and buy a dozen; your husband will thank me later.”

What happened to that guy? He thought he heard somewhere that his son was going to take over, but the memory was blurred. Maybe he had it mixed up with some other store.

Down the road, he figured he was close enough and turned right onto a side street, unsure if he would ever make it to where he was heading.

The street was poorly lit, but he walked on. There were street lights, but not all of them were on. After the big earthquake the previous year, Japan had imposed national restrictions on energy use. Having enough light to see your feet was now considered plenty.

The neighborhoods had been built up extensively since he was a kid. He faintly remembered hearing talk of the town’s ambitious plans for development when he was in elementary school. He could still hear one of his classmates excitedly cheering “We’re getting our own movie theater!”

Those plans could basically be considered a success to a certain extent. Eventually, the town made it to the Japanese asset price bubble, and for a time, it became a popular commuter town for those working in Tokyo.

The street he was on came to a T-shaped intersection. This was not unexpected. In fact, it was just as he remembered it. Kosuke turned right again.

A little farther, and the street started sloping gradually uphill. This, too, was how he remembered it. He was almost there — as long as what he’d read hadn’t been bogus.

Kosuke walked up the hill, watching his footsteps. If he had watched the street instead, he would have known much sooner whether the store was still standing. But instead, he kept walking with his head down. Something made him scared to know before he got there. Even if what he’d read did turn out to be a lie, he wanted to hold on to hope until the last possible second.

He finally came to a halt. He knew he was close. He’d walked up and down this street a thousand times.

Kosuke looked up. He sucked in a huge breath of air and blew it out.

The store — the Namiya General Store — was still there. This shop had played a massive role in the course his life had taken.

He approached it slowly. The letters on the sign were grubbed up and indecipherable, and the shutter was rusted over, but the building was still standing. As if it had been waiting for Kosuke to arrive.

He checked his watch. It wasn’t even eleven yet. He had come a bit too early.

Kosuke looked up and down the street. No one in sight. There was no way anybody lived here anymore. Could he really trust that story? After all, it was the Internet. Perhaps he should have been more skeptical.

But then again, what was there to gain by posing as the Namiya General Store? Only a handful of people would remember it by now.

He decided to hang around a little while longer, just to check it out. Besides, he still hadn’t written his letter. Even if he wanted to be involved in this strange event, he wouldn’t be able to without a letter.

Kosuke went back the way he came. Meandering through the neighborhoods, he made it to the street of shops. Most of them were closed for the night. He would have thought there would be a twenty-four-hour restaurant or someplace he could wait, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

He did find a convenience store and went inside. He had some shopping to do. In the stationery section, he found what he needed and took it to the register. The cashier was a young guy.

“Any places open late around here?” Kosuke asked after he paid. “A pub or something?”

“There’s a cluster of bars up the street, but I’ve never been to any of them,” the cashier replied rather curtly.

“All right, thanks.”

Sure enough, not far past the convenience store, he came upon a patch of bars and pubs. None of them seemed to be doing much business. He guessed they were the type of spot where local business owners might meet up for a drink after closing time.

One of the signs made Kosuke stop midstride: BAR FAB4. With a name like that, he had no choice but to investigate.

He opened the charcoal-colored door and peeked inside. Before him were two tables and, at the back, a counter with stools. On one stool sat a woman with a short bob, wearing a black sleeveless dress. No one else was there. She must have been the owner.

The woman looked at him, a bit surprised. “Here for a drink?”

She looked to be in her midforties. Her facial features were distinctly Japanese.

“As long as it’s not too late.”

The woman gave him a faint smile and stood up. “Of course not. We don’t close until midnight.”

“In that case, I’ll have just one drink, thanks.”

Kosuke stepped inside and took the stool at the very edge of the counter by the wall.

“No need to leave so much space,” the woman laughed wryly. She handed him a hot towel to wipe his hands. “I don’t think anyone else is coming out tonight.”

“I’m fine, thanks. I have something I need to work on over a drink.” He mopped his hands and face with it.

“Work? This late?”

“Yeah, work stuff,” he mumbled vaguely. Explaining things would not have been easy.

She didn’t probe him any further. “Well, don’t let me bother you. Make yourself at home. What can I get you?”

“I guess I’ll have a beer. You have anything dark?”

“Is Guinness okay?”

“Absolutely.”

She crouched behind the counter. There must have been a fridge down there.

When she stood, she was holding a bottle of Guinness. She popped the cap and poured it into a tumbler for Kosuke. She knew her stuff, all right. At least a knuckle’s worth of creamy foam floated on top.

Kosuke took a big gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Its familiar bitter flavor filled his mouth. “Would you care for one yourself?”

“Why, thank you.” The woman placed a tiny dish of nuts in front of Kosuke and took down a small glass. She poured herself some beer. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” he replied.

He reached into his bag from the convenience store and took out a pen and a pad of paper.

The woman looked at him approvingly. “Are you writing someone a letter?”

“Basically.”

She nodded, her suspicion confirmed, and moved to the other end of the bar. She seemed to be trying to give him space.

Kosuke had another sip of Guinness and had a look around the bar.

For a bar in a desolate town, this was not a down-home kind of place. The tables and chairs were simple yet refined, and the walls were decorated with posters and drawings. They were full of depictions of a well-known quartet of young men who had taken the whole world by storm well over forty years ago. One showed a yellow submarine drawn in psychedelic colors.

“Fab4” was a reference to “the Fab Four,” a nickname for the Beatles.

“Is this place a Beatles bar?”

The woman shrugged agreeably. “That’s our gimmick anyway.”

“Huh.” Kosuke had another look around and noticed a flat-screen on the wall. He wondered what Beatles content they would show on it. A Hard Day’s Night? HELP!? Kosuke didn’t think he’d discover some unknown cinematic treasures in a local spot like this.

“I’m guessing you were born too late to know them as a kid.”

His question made her shrug again. “Don’t be silly. When I was going into middle school, it had only been two years since they disbanded. They were at their peak. There were all kinds of events.”

Kosuke looked at her face.

“This is nothing to ask a lady, but...”

She knew what he was trying to say and chuckled dryly. “I’m too old to let that bother me. But if you insist, let’s just say I was born in the year of the pig.”

“The pig. That means...” Kosuke blinked. “You’re only two years younger than me?”

She sure didn’t look over fifty.

“No — I thought you were the younger one.”

She was obviously just saying that.

“That’s crazy,” muttered Kosuke.

The woman gave him her card. It said Eriko Haraguchi.

“You’re not from around here. What brings you to town? You here for work?”

Kosuke choked. He couldn’t think up a lie that fast.

“Not for work. More like a trip to my hometown, in a way. I used to live here. Forty some odd years ago.”

“No kidding,” Eriko said, eyes wide. “We must have run into each other somewhere.”

“Maybe.” Kosuke had a sip of beer. “By the way, where’s the music?”

“Pshhh, what’s wrong with me? Mind if I put on the usual?”

“Sure, whatever you’d like.”

Eriko went up to the counter and pressed a few buttons. The first notes of a nostalgic song rang out across the decades from the speakers in the wall. The song was “Love Me Do.”

Kosuke finished his first glass. He ordered another.

“Do you remember when the Beatles visited Japan?”

Eriko hmmed and scrunched up her face.

“I feel like I saw it on TV, but that might be my imagination. It might have been one of those things where I heard my older brother talking about it with his friends, and now I feel like I was there.”

Kosuke nodded. “That happens.”

“How about you? Do you remember?”

“A little bit. I was young, too. But I’m certain I saw it with my own two eyes. It wasn’t live, but I remember seeing footage of them driving down the Imperial Highway in a Cadillac after they got off their plane. It wasn’t until much later that I found out it was a Cadillac, but I noticed that car. I also remember they had ‘Mr. Moonlight’ playing in the background.”

“‘Mr. Moonlight,’” she echoed. “That’s not one of their originals.”

“Right. But after they played it at their show in Tokyo, it was a huge hit. I mean, that’s kinda why they got famous here. A lot of people think they wrote that song.”

Realizing how passionate he must have sounded, Kosuke bit his tongue. It had been a long time since he’d had the chance to hash it out about the Beatles.

“Those were good times,” Eriko said.

“Sure were.” Kosuke emptied his glass, and she poured him another.

His thoughts flew more than forty years back in time.

2

When the Beatles came to Japan, Kosuke didn’t exactly understand who they were. All he knew was that they were a group of four musicians from overseas. That’s why he was so shocked to see his cousin crying in front of the TV set when the special broadcast of their arrival came on-screen. His cousin was in high school, but to the nine-year-old Kosuke, he was basically an adult. That was the day he learned that out there in the world were some truly amazing people. People so great that their mere arrival in Japan would make a grown man cry.

Three years later, his cousin died. It was sudden, a motorcycle accident. His aunt and uncle had been devastated, and they wished they’d never let him get his license. At the funeral, Kosuke heard them saying that if he hadn’t been listening to that garbage, he never would have fallen in with the wrong crowd. By garbage, they meant the Beatles. “I’m going to throw those records in the trash where they belong,” his aunt snapped.

“If you’re throwing them out,” said Kosuke, “I’ll take them off your hands.” He wanted to hear with his own ears who these Beatles were, to find out what it was that had made his cousin lose his mind that night three years ago. Kosuke was almost in middle school, just reaching the age when music really starts to take hold on a kid.

Some relative told his parents they’d better cut him off. “He’ll go bad, just like his cousin.” But his parents didn’t listen or heed their advice.

“Listening to pop music won’t make a boy lose his mind,” said his father, Sadayuki. “Besides, Tetsuo wasn’t a bad kid. Every high school boy has a bike these days.” He dismissed the older relative’s concerns with a laugh.

“That’s right. Our boy’s just fine,” said Kosuke’s mother, Kimiko.

Kosuke’s parents were hip to the scene. They had a different take from your average set of parents, who seemed convinced that growing your hair long made you some kind of criminal.

His cousin had owned just about every Beatles record released in Japan to date, and the collection had Kosuke hooked. He had never heard anything like this. The first time he savored those melodies and experienced those rhythms, it lit up parts of him he hadn’t known existed.

In the wake of the Fab Four’s visit to Japan, a spate of new groups swept the country’s music scene — bands of young men singing behind electric guitars. Kosuke knew these weren’t Beatles imitators. They were imposters. Before long, the fad hiccupped and died.

When he started attending middle school, Kosuke realized that many of his classmates were Beatles fans. Sometimes he asked one to come over. When each new friend stepped into his room and got a load of his audio equipment, they always gasped. Every single time. And why wouldn’t they? In their eyes, a solid-state amp and speaker system looked like something from the future. They weren’t even used to seeing speakers in a kid’s room. Back then, even well-off families had just one cabinet-style stereo in the living room, situated like a piece of furniture. Records were for listening together as a family.

“My dad’s always saying ‘Spare no expense for art,’” he’d tell them. “He says there’s no point listening to music if you can’t hear it right.” Kosuke’s friends would moan with envy.

He’d let them listen to the Beatles with his state-of-the art equipment. If the record was released in Japan, Kosuke had it. That alone was baffling to them.

“What the heck does your dad do?” they always asked when they came over.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I know he buys and sells stuff. It’s like this. If you buy something for cheap and sell it for a lot, you make a profit, right? He has a whole company that does that.”

“Wait, so he’s the president?”

“I guess so,” Kosuke said. It was hard not to sound proud of it.

But Kosuke knew he was blessed.

The house where they lived was high in the hills. A two-story Western building with a lawn out back where they held barbecues whenever the weather was fine. His dad was always inviting his employees over.

“Japan’s been the office boy of the world for a long time,” Sadayuki would often say to his subordinates, “and it’s high time we do something about it. We need to be the ones to call the shots. To get there, we need to know the world. These other countries may be our competitors, but they’re also potential allies. Remember that.”

Just hearing his father’s commanding baritone voice fanned up Kosuke’s sense of pride. He believed everything his father said and thought there wasn’t a more reliable man on earth.

Kosuke didn’t have the slightest misgiving about his family being loaded. Plastic model kits, board games, records — if there was anything he wanted, his parents bought him piles of it. They even bought him things he didn’t really want, like watches and expensive clothes.

His parents were living the life. Sadayuki boasted a golden wristwatch and smoked the finest cigars. He always seemed to have a new car. And Kimiko had her own image to maintain: She had the department stores send salesmen for house visits and ordered practically the entire catalog from front to back.

“Cheap things make for a cheap person” was her motto. “They don’t just make you look cheap; they make your soul cheap. They suck away at your humanity. That’s why you need to buy the best of the best.”

Kimiko was also a devotee of beauty. There were times when she was assumed to be as much as ten years younger than the other women her age. When she showed up at the open house at Kosuke’s school, his classmates were all stunned. He couldn’t remember how many of them had told him, “Man, I wish my mom was as young as yours!”

The sky was the limit, and the sun was smiling on them. Or so it seemed.

But a time came when he felt the change. It was very slight at first. At the beginning of the 1970s, a dark cloud edged over the horizon.

In 1970, the World Expo in Osaka was the talk of Japan. An entire nation came together in palpable anticipation as it reached its climax.

Kosuke was entering his second year of middle school in April and dead set on trekking down to the Expo over his spring break. Going early gave him better bragging rights. His dad had already promised they were going.

On March 14, Expo ’70 opened with outrageous fanfare. Kosuke watched it on TV. As the cathode-ray tube filled the screen with images of the opening ceremony, he felt that for all its garish color, there was very little substance. But it seemed like a fitting way to show the world that Japan had rebuilt its economy and returned as a contender on the global market. It was as his father always said — they were the ones who called the shots.

Except Sadayuki had stopped talking about their trip down to the Expo. One evening after dinner, Kosuke casually broached the topic. What his father said surprised him.

“Expo? Don’t think so. I’m busy.”

“Well, how about in May during Golden Week?”

His father didn’t bother to answer. He was busy making faces at the business newspaper.

“Who cares about the Expo?” added his mother, off to the side. “It’s just a bunch of countries showing off with a few dinky rides thrown in. Haven’t you outgrown that kind of thing? I thought you were in middle school.”

What was there to say to this? It wasn’t as if Kosuke had a good reason for going. But he’d already gloated to his friends, and if he didn’t go now, he was going to look like a real loser.

“It’s time for you to focus on studying. You need to do well on your entrance exams for high school. The sooner you start prepping, the better. A year goes by quick. You don’t have time to waste on expos.”

Couldn’t argue with that, either. Kosuke kept his mouth shut.

But this wasn’t the only time he felt a disturbance in the air. From all angles, he could detect that his life was shifting; he just wasn’t sure how.

Take his gym clothes, for instance. He was in the middle of a growth spurt, and they didn’t fit him anymore. He was used to his parents buying him new clothes whenever he asked, but this time, Kimiko took a different approach.

“What, these are tight already? I just got you that last fall. Make it work a little longer. If I get you another set right now, you’ll be asking for a bigger one next week.”

As if he were doing something wrong by growing.

There were no more barbecues. His father’s employees stopped coming by on days off, and his father stopped playing golf. The house became a battlefield of disagreements. Kosuke wasn’t positive what Sadayuki and Kimiko were always arguing about, but he knew it had to do with money.

Sadayuki would make some pointed comment like “If only you took this more seriously,” to which Kimiko would retort, “Maybe if you’d actually done your job, I wouldn’t have to.”

The Ford Thunderbird, his father’s most recent favorite, disappeared from the garage. Sadayuki started to commute by train. Kimiko stopped shopping. And both of them were always irritated.

At the worst possible time, he got the news: The Beatles had disbanded. A British newspaper broke the story.

He swapped information with his friends. Back then, there was no Internet and certainly no Mixi, the Japanese social media platform that would become popular in the future. People had no choice but to listen to the paparazzi. “I saw this somewhere,” “They said so on the radio,” “I guess some foreign paper did a story” — if you amassed enough dubious material, the rumors somehow started sounding real.

No way, thought Kosuke. Why’d this have to happen now?

The various explanations for the breakup were hopelessly tangled. Some said it was because Paul McCartney’s wife and Yoko Ono couldn’t get along, but others blamed George Harrison for sabotaging their final project. There was no telling what was true from what was false.

“Here’s one,” said one of Kosuke’s friends. “Did you guys know the Beatles really didn’t want to come to Japan? Their label knew it meant big bucks and forced them into it. They were through with concerts and wanted to back out, but they had no choice. Gotta figure, they stopped playing concerts right after that.”

Kosuke had heard this one before, but he didn’t believe it. Or perhaps more accurately, he didn’t want to believe it.

“Yeah, but I heard they put on an incredible show, and they looked like they were having a great time.”

“They weren’t. They weren’t even planning to play a real set. They figured the crowd would be screaming so loud that no one would hear them playing, so they thought they could just come onstage and sing and play whatever, wouldn’t matter. But the audience here was way quieter than they expected, and everyone could hear their performance perfectly fine, so partway through the set, they had to buckle down and do it right.”

Kosuke shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

“You can say that, but it doesn’t change things. Listen, I don’t want to believe it, either. But that’s what happened. The Beatles are human, too. They thought Japan was just some little island, you know, basically the boonies. They figured they’d ham it up onstage and take the first plane back to England.”

Kosuke shook his head. The broadcast of the Beatles arriving in Japan replayed in his mind’s eye, along with the tear-streaked face of his cousin as he watched the screen. If what this friend had said was true, what was he to make of those tears?

That day, when he got home from school, he shut himself up in his room and binged on the Beatles, song after song. He could not accept that there would never be another one.

Time passed insufferably. Summer vacation made no difference to his mood. He was hung up on the Beatles. He heard that they were coming out with Let It Be, the movie, but there was nowhere for it to play in his town. According to rumors, if you saw the movie, you would get why they broke up. Wondering about what the movie was going to say was enough to keep Kosuke awake at night.

As his generation was being whipped around by the news, Kosuke was about to be backed into a corner by the hardest decision of his life.

One night, as he was listening to the Beatles, just like any other night, his bedroom door swung open. It was Kimiko. He was going to say she could have at least knocked first, but he couldn’t speak. His mother’s face was graver than he’d ever seen it.

“Can you come down to the living room? It’s important.”

Kosuke nodded and switched off his stereo. He had no idea what this was all about, but he had sensed something was coming, and it wasn’t going to be good.

His father was sitting in an armchair with a glass of brandy. Expensive stuff. He’d brought it home on a trip abroad because it was tax-free.

When Kosuke sat down, his father began. What he said next turned Kosuke’s world upside down.

“We’re moving at the end of the month. Start getting your things together. Don’t tell a soul.”

Kosuke didn’t get it. “What’s happening?” he asked. “What’s the hurry?”

Sadayuki was ready with an answer. “Son, I’m a businessman. And business is like war. It makes a big difference how much your enemies get from you. You follow me?”

He was always saying stuff like this. Kosuke nodded. Sadayuki went on.

“In war, sometimes you have to retreat. If you get killed, it’s over anyway, get me?”

This time, Kosuke didn’t nod. Maybe that happened in a real war, but did people actually get killed over business?

Unfazed, Sadayuki continued. “At the end of the month, we’re going to retreat. This house? We’re leaving it to the enemies. But that’s okay. There’s no reason to worry. All you need to do is keep quiet and follow our lead. You’ll have to switch schools, but that won’t be a problem. The timing is perfect with summer vacation and everything. With the first trimester done, it’ll make it easier.”

Kosuke was horrified. He had to start over, at a totally new school?

“It’s really no big deal,” his father said. “Kids have to switch schools all the time when their fathers change jobs. It’s not unusual.”

For the first time in Kosuke’s life, his father’s words left him uneasy. Uneasy about life itself.

The next day, Kosuke approached his mother as she was cooking in the kitchen.

“Is this a fly-by-night?”

Kimiko had been mixing up a stir-fry. Her hands froze. “Who said that to you?”

“No one. But based on what Dad said, that’s what we’re doing.”

Kimiko sighed and stirred the pan again. “Don’t repeat that to anyone.”

He was hoping she would contradict him, but he had hoped in vain. The world went dark.

“Why do we have to do that? Are we broke or something?”

There was no response. Kimiko worked her hands in silence.

“What’s happening? What about high school? Which school am I supposed to go to?”

Kimiko turned her neck, very slightly. “We’ll figure that out once we get to where we’re going.”

“Where are we going? Where are we going to live?”

“Enough, Kosuke.” His mother turned her back on him. “If you want to complain, save it for your father. This was his decision.”

Kosuke didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know if he should be sad or angry.

For days on end, he barely left his room. All he did was listen to his Beatles records. Headphones on, volume at full blast, he could drown out the pain.

But this last remaining solace was soon taken away.

“We’re getting rid of the stereo,” his father announced one day.

Of course, Kosuke didn’t let it go without a fight. “Like hell you are,” he retorted. But Sadayuki wouldn’t hear any of it.

“If we tried moving with that bulky thing, we’d barely make it out of town. I’ll buy you a new one once we’ve made it to the next step. Until then, do without.”

Kosuke exploded. “We’re not moving — we’re running away!”

Sadayuki glared at him. His look was fatal.

“One more peep out of you, and you’ll be sorry, kid.” He sounded like a member of the yakuza.

“Let’s stop. Please. Why do we have to be so sneaky?”

“Shut up. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

“But—”

“They’ll murder us.” Sadayuki’s eyes were bulging. “If they catch us hightailing it out of here, we’ll each get a bullet in the head. You want that? We’ve got one shot at this, and we can’t afford to let a single thing go wrong. If we blow it, the three of us will have to hang ourselves. We’re this close to being completely screwed, Kosuke. That’s why I need you to cooperate.”

His father’s eyes were bloodshot. Kosuke was nowhere close to speaking. Something was shaking loose inside him. His world was crumbling apart.

A few days later, some men he’d never seen before came by the house and carried away every piece of audio equipment in his room. One of the men handed Kimiko some cash. Sadayuki was nowhere in sight.

The room looked naked without the stereo. Kosuke felt his blood begin to boil. He wished he were dead. There wasn’t anything to live for anymore.

Since he couldn’t listen to the Beatles, there was no reason to stay home. Kosuke started taking long walks, but he never saw his friends. He felt that if he did, he’d wind up saying something about the escape. And if anyone came over, it would be difficult to hide that his stereo was missing.

He didn’t have much money in his pocket. That ruled out the arcade, since he couldn’t stay long anyway. Most of the time, his walks took him to the library. The big library in town was unusually sleepy, except for the private rooms, which were always crowded with students taking refuge in the air-conditioning. Most of them were in high school, or one year out, studying for college entrance exams. As he eyed them studying like crazy, he wondered if he’d ever have the chance.

He had put a lot of stock in what his parents said, especially Sadayuki. Up until this point, he had been proud to have him for a dad; he thought everything Sadayuki said was right. He’d honestly believed that if he followed in his father’s footsteps, someday he would find himself just as successful.

But that wasn’t how things played out. Kosuke had overheard enough of his parents’ conversations to piece together the situation. Not only was his father a failed business tycoon, he was a pathetic coward. He was going to scramble off in the moonlight and leave his pile of debt for someone else to clean up.

Somehow he had bungled things so badly at the company that the damage was irreparable. Next month, the truth would come out. He hadn’t said anything to his employees. His family’s survival was his one concern.

What was Kosuke supposed to do? Was following his parents the only way? He thought their plan was shit, but he had no other choice.

At the library, he continued to browse their books on the Beatles, but his worries wouldn’t go away. No book contained the answer.

3

The day of the escape was fast approaching, and there was nothing Kosuke could do. He had been told to pack his things, but he’d lost the will to act.

Then, one night as he was heading to the library, he noticed that the road was closed for construction, and it sent him on a detour.

The signs led him past a neighborhood store. There was a gaggle of kids outside looking up at something on the wall inside and laughing.

Kosuke approached the store to get a better look. Taped up all over the wall were what looked like letters.

Oh, this place, thought Kosuke. His friends had talked about this store. The guy who ran it gave advice on anything, no matter what the problem was. Only most of the time, people didn’t ask serious questions. They were just playing with the old man. They wanted to see how he responded. He always came up with something good.

Looks dumb. Kid’s stuff, he thought and walked away.

But then an idea struck him.

He rushed back home. His father was still at work, as usual, and his mother was out.

He went up to his room, sat at his desk, and pulled out some loose-leaf paper. Writing was not his strong suit, but he sweated over it for half an hour and came up with this:

He read over the letter several times, then folded the paper twice, slipped it in his back pocket, and left the house.

Retracing his steps, he found his way to the Namiya General Store. From a distance, across the street, it looked as though everyone was gone. The old man who ran the store was sitting out back, reading the paper. This was his chance.

Kosuke took a deep breath and walked up to the store. Earlier, he had figured out the system with the box. It was set up where the old man couldn’t see it from his spot out back. On purpose, Kosuke thought.

He stepped inside. The old man was still reading his newspaper.

Kosuke pulled out the letter and walked over to the wall, pretending to have a closer look at the posted letters. The box was right in front of him. His heart was pounding in his chest. He was hesitant. Was this really okay?

He heard voices. Kids playing. Lots of them. Crap. If they come in, there goes my chance.

Here goes nothing. He dropped the letter in the box. It thwacked against the bottom, louder than he would have liked. Kosuke cringed.

The kids burst in, clamoring. “Hey, Mr. Namiya! Did you get me the Kitaro pencil case?” The kid who was shouting looked like a fifth grader.

“Sure did. I checked with a few of my suppliers and had them send me one. Is this the one?”

The kid wailed. “Wow! That’s exactly the one they had in the magazine. Hold on, I’m gonna run home and get money. Be right back!”

“Sure, be safe.”

Listening to this exchange behind him, Kosuke left the shop. It sounded as if this kid had put in a special order for a pencil case featuring a character from GeGeGe no Kitaro, a popular manga series.

Before walking off, Kosuke couldn’t help but look back at the store again. The old man was looking right at him. The eye contact made Kosuke nervous; he averted his gaze and sped off down the road.

Almost instantly, he regretted what he’d done. He shouldn’t have left the letter. The old man saw his face. The letter definitely made some noise when he dropped it in. When the old man opened the box to find the letter, he’d know right off the bat that it was Kosuke who had left it.

This worried him, but another part of him was fine with it. Point being, even if he had been seen, exposure was the goal. He wanted the old man to post the letter from “Paul Lennon” on his wall. He had no idea what kind of advice he would get, but he almost didn’t care. What mattered was that other people saw the letter.

Rumors would begin to spread that a fly-by-night was planning to skip town. What would happen if the rumor spread as far as the people who lent his father money? They might guess that the writer’s father was Sadayuki Waku. And he was certain they would act.

His hope was that his parents would hear the rumor first and give up on their plan.

That was Kosuke’s gamble. An audacious bet. The best he could do as a middle schooler.

The next afternoon, Kosuke stepped out and went straight for the Namiya General Store. Luckily for him, the old man was nowhere in sight. Maybe he had gone to the bathroom. Kosuke scanned the letters pasted to the wall. There was only one piece of paper that hadn’t been there yesterday. Except it wasn’t a response, but an announcement.

Kosuke was perplexed. The plan had backfired on him. His letter had not been posted. He’d swung for the fences, but instead of a home run, the game was canceled.

But what about this letter from the old man? He had to admit he was a bit curious. What kind of advice had he given?

Kosuke stepped outside, made sure the coast was clear, and slipped around into the narrow alley that led along the building. Around the corner, he found a door and, beside it, on the wall, a wooden milk bin.

Cautiously, he lifted up the lid. Inside were no bottles of milk, just a single envelope. He took it out and read the front: Paul Lennon.

Gripping the envelope a little too hard, he went back up the alley and poked his head out to check the street. Someone was coming up the hill; he ducked back in and waited till they passed. Once he was sure no one was there, he stepped into the street and ran.

Where to? The library. Except this time, he didn’t go inside, but sat down on a bench in the park out front. He looked over the envelope again. The seal was glued shut, an extra precaution against any prying eyes. He tore the seal, making sure not to rip the letter.

Inside were several folded sheets of stationery, along with the letter Kosuke originally sent. He opened up the message. The lines were packed with neat script, written in black fountain pen.

Kosuke tried to wrap his head around this. He read the letter one more time from the beginning in an attempt to digest it.

For starters, he understood why the old man hadn’t posted his letter. All the other exchanges had essentially been jokes. Funny enough to draw crowds. But a letter like this was not meant to be shared.

The other thing was the old man could have easily rejected this serious letter, but instead he’d done his best to start a dialogue. This was a blessing for Kosuke. Having someone know about his circumstances made dealing with it a little easier, and he was glad he had written his letter.

But the old man hadn’t exactly responded yet. He wanted Kosuke to answer a few questions first. Once he had these answers, he could come up with his advice.

That night, Kosuke sat down at his desk with another sheet of paper to write back.

How do you feel about your parents?

This was a tough one. How did he feel exactly?

Kosuke didn’t really know. They had started to annoy him more since he started middle school, but he knew he didn’t hate them. He just didn’t like it when they got in his way or treated him like a kid.

But when they broke the news of the getaway plan, they had lost his blind faith in them. Forced to choose between love and hate, the best he could say was that he hated what they were doing to him right now. He couldn’t trust them anymore. How was he supposed to believe that things would actually work out if he followed their lead?

Kosuke thought it over again and again, but this was the only answer that came to mind. Oh well, he thought and wrote it anyway. He folded up the letter and left the house. His mother asked him where he was going; he said a friend’s house. As if her mind was occupied enough with harder questions, she didn’t press the issue. Sadayuki wasn’t home.

It was after eight. The shutter of the Namiya General Store was down when he arrived. He slipped the folded letter through the mail slot and ran off into the night.

The next morning, he woke just after seven. He hadn’t really slept so well.

It seemed as though both his folks were still asleep. Kosuke tiptoed out of the house.

The shutter of the Namiya General Store was still down. He looked up and down the street to make sure no one was coming and went down the alley beside the store.

He lifted the lid of the milk crate. An envelope, just like yesterday. He checked what it said on the front, just in case, and got the hell out of there.

He didn’t make it to the library. Along the way, he almost ran past a parked truck, then hid in its shadows to read through the response.

4

One of Kosuke’s friends, a fellow fan of the Beatles, called when there was less than a week left of summer vacation. The same friend who had given him the dirt on their visit to Japan. This time, he called to ask if he could come over and listen to Beatles records like they used to do. Despite being a huge fan, he didn’t own a single record. His family didn’t have a record player. Whenever he’d wanted to listen to the Beatles in the past, he came over to Kosuke’s.

“Sorry, I can’t. We’re renovating the house, so we can’t get to the stereo.”

Kosuke had had this excuse ready since the day they took the stereo away. He delivered the line flawlessly.

“Wait, you serious?” The friend hadn’t seen this coming, and his voice filled with disappointment. “Man, I want to hear them so bad.”

“Did something happen?”

His friend said yeah and paused suggestively. “I saw the movie. It opened today.”

That’s right. Let It Be. The movie.

“How was it?” Kosuke asked.

“It was eye-opening.”

“How so?”

“Well, it set things straight for me, like why they broke up and everything.”

“Does someone say why?”

“No, it’s not like that. When they were filming it, no one was talking about disbanding yet, but you can sort of feel it, you know, in the air. Like, oh yeah, this is what was going on. It’s hard to explain. If you see it, you’ll know what I mean. I dunno.”

“Cool.”

The conversation wasn’t going anywhere. They both hung up. Kosuke went back to his room. He flipped through his Beatles records and looked at every single cover. Between the ones he’d gotten from his cousin and the ones he’d bought himself, there were over fifty.

He didn’t know how he could ever give these up. He tried to figure out a way to bring them wherever it was his family was going. His parents had both told him to pack light, but there was no way he would leave behind his records.

He’d decided he wouldn’t think so hard about the getaway plan. Resisting wasn’t going to change their minds, and they definitely wouldn’t go ahead without dragging him along. Like the old man at the Namiya General Store said, his parents had thought this through. He just had to trust that someday they were going to work things out.

Anyway. What had made his friend so confident? What was seeing Let It Be going to teach him?

That night after dinner, Sadayuki finally explained the details of their escape. The plan was to load everything up the night of August 31 and slip into the night during the first minutes of September.

“The thirty-first is a Monday. I’ll go to work. I’m already scheduled to take a week’s vacation starting September first, so no one will be surprised when I don’t show up the next day. By the next week, all kinds of notices and bills will have piled up. Everyone will know we ran away. We’ll just have to lie low at the next spot for a while. But don’t worry. We have enough cash on hand to live for a year or two. In the meantime, we’ll figure out our next steps.” Sadayuki’s voice was full of confidence.

“What about school? Which school am I going to go to?”

Sadayuki glowered at the question. “I’ve given that some thought. It’s not going to happen right away. In the meantime, you’ll have to study on your own.”

“You mean I’m not going to go to school?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. You’ll go, just not right away. Everyone needs to finish middle school. We’ll get you in somewhere. No need for you to worry about it. I’ll call your teacher and tell them we need to head overseas for a week for work and that you’ll start the school year after that.” Sadayuki brusquely informed him. His mood was turning sour.

“What about high school?” Kosuke wanted to ask, but he kept quiet. He knew exactly what his father would say. “I’ve got it covered; stop worrying.” Yeah, sounds about right.

Was he really better off going with them? Indecision reared its head again. He knew he had only one option, but he couldn’t picture himself going through with it.

Time passed anyway. Before he knew it, August 31 was nearly upon him. Kosuke was in his bedroom, going through his things, when the door swung open. Sadayuki was standing in the doorway.

“Have a minute?”

“I guess.”

Sadayuki stepped into the room and sat down cross-legged next to Kosuke. “Everything packed up?”

“Basically. I figured I should bring all my textbooks with me.”

“Right. You’ll need them.”

“And these are definitely coming, too.” Kosuke pulled out a heavy cardboard box. All his Beatles records were inside.

Sadayuki looked into the box and frowned. “All that?”

“I packed as little other stuff as possible, to make room.” Kosuke tried to sound resolute. “I’m bringing these with me.”

Sadayuki nodded vaguely, looked around the room, and turned his eyes on Kosuke. “What do you think of your old man?”

“What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you angry it had to come to this? You must think I’m a pretty lousy father.”

“You’re not lousy...,” mumbled Kosuke. “I don’t know what’s going on. Honestly, I’m scared.”

Sadayuki nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Dad, are we really gonna be okay? Will things ever be back to normal?”

Sadayuki blinked a few times and said sure, they would be okay. “I can’t say how or when, but someday I’ll get things back to how they were. That’s a promise.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it. My family is my number one priority. I’ll do anything to keep you and your mother safe. I’m ready to put my life on the line. That’s why—” Sadayuki looked straight into his son’s eyes. “That’s why we have to run.”

Kosuke knew his father was being sincere. He’d never heard him talk this way before. It helped him take the words to heart.

“Okay, Dad.”

“All right,” Sadayuki said. He slapped his knees and stood. “What’s your plan for tomorrow? You’ve still got a bit of summer vacation left. Don’t you have some friends you want to see before we go?”

Kosuke shook his head. “I’m all set.” He wanted to say there was no point, since he could never see them again anyway, but he held his tongue. “Is it okay if I go to Tokyo?”

“Tokyo? For what?”

“There’s a movie I want to see. It’s playing at the Subaru-za in Yurakucho.”

“Does it have to be tomorrow?”

“How am I supposed to know if it’ll be playing wherever we wind up?”

Sadayuki pouted his lip and nodded. “So that’s how it is.”

“Can I go?”

“You can, but come back early.”

“I know.”

Sadayuki said good night and left the room.

Kosuke looked through the box of records and pulled one out. It was one he bought that year. Let It Be. The faces of the four Beatles were in boxes, stacked into a square.

That night, he would think about nothing but the upcoming movie as he tried to fall asleep.

5

The next morning, Kosuke left home after breakfast. Kimiko disapproved, asking why he had to pick today of all days to see a movie, but Sadayuki did a good job mollifying her.

Kosuke had been to Tokyo a bunch of times before with friends, but this was his first visit alone.

At Tokyo Station, he switched to the Yamanote Line and got off at Yurakucho. When he consulted the map inside the station, he realized the theater was close by.

There was a big crowd outside. Kosuke wondered if it was because it was the last day of summer vacation. He got in line and bought a ticket; he’d already checked the showtimes in the newspaper and planned accordingly before he came. He still had half an hour to kill before his show started. Now was his chance to have a quick look around the area. In all the other times he’d been to Tokyo, he’d never visited Yurakucho or Ginza.

Kosuke started walking. In minutes, he was astonished by what he saw.

He had no idea the city was so gigantic. He’d already been surprised by the number of people and the size of the buildings in Yurakucho, but Ginza was on another level. The endless rows of shops brimmed over with festivity; the streets were alive, as if something special was afoot. All the passersby looked sophisticated and successful. Other towns were perfectly content with the small pockets that mimicked this. They took pride in their fancy little shopping districts. But in this city, this was everywhere. Everywhere you went, it felt like a festival was taking place.

After a while, Kosuke realized he was seeing the logo for the Expo everywhere. The Expo. After all these months, it was still happening, down in Osaka. And from the looks of the sidewalks of Tokyo, the whole country was celebrating.

Kosuke felt like a minnow swept into the mouth of the ocean. There were places like this in the world, places where people celebrated life. But this was not his world to live in. He was born to live out his days between the banks of a thin, dim river. And starting the next day, he would sink to the bottom of it all.

He looked down and turned back the way he came. This was no place for him to be.

He got back to the movie theater just in time. He showed his ticket, went inside, and got a seat. There were plenty. It seemed as though lots of people had come alone.

The movie started, and the opening image was a closeup of the band’s insignia: “THE BEATLES.”

Kosuke’s heart was thumping. This was it, the prelude to that legendary performance. He felt his temperature rising.

But that exalted feeling faded as the film progressed.

As he watched, Kosuke got a vague sense of how the film had happened. Let It Be was supposed to be a documentary, combining rehearsal footage with live performances. But these bits and pieces weren’t filmed with this movie in mind. None of the Beatles looked remotely invested in making another film. It was more likely things had gotten so complicated that they couldn’t legally refuse.

The half-hearted rehearsal was punctuated by exchanges among the members. These, too, were half-baked and hard to decipher. Kosuke’s eyes raced along the subtitles, but he couldn’t understand what anyone was getting at.

There was one thing he could tell for sure.

Their hearts weren’t in it anymore.

It wasn’t that they were fighting, or that anyone refused to play. The four of them were working through the task at hand. But they all knew they weren’t creating anything meaningful.

In the end, they all went upstairs to the roof of the Apple building. Their instruments and amps had already been hauled up. Their entire staff was present. Everyone looked cold in the winter air. John Lennon was wearing a fur coat.

They started off with “Get Back.”

It was soon clear that the show had not been formally announced. When passersby heard the Beatles singing live at a considerable volume from the rooftop, the area around the building was all astir. Police rushed to the scene.

The next songs were “Don’t Let Me Down” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.” But the performance was dispassionate. This was to be their last show, but none of them appeared the least bit sentimental.

On that note, the movie ended.

Kosuke stayed seated long after the lights came on. He was in a haze. He didn’t have the energy to stand. His stomach was heavy, as if he’d drunk a cup of molten lead.

What the hell was that? he thought. It was nothing close to what he had expected. They never had an actual argument, but when they did speak, they always seemed to talk past each other. The only things out of their lips were complaints, sarcasm, and the occasional stony laugh.

The rumor was that if you saw the movie, you would see why the Beatles split, but Kosuke never did. That was because the Beatles in the movie were effectively already over. He’d wanted to know how they got there in the first place.

On the train home, it occurred to him — maybe this is what a breakup is.

People don’t drift apart for one specific reason. Well, you might be able to find a reason, but you could come up with one only after you made up your mind, a tired excuse tacked on after the fact. If their hearts were still in it and their bond was threatening to sever, you’d think one of them would step in and try to fix things. When no one does, you know the bond has already been broken. Which was why all four of them could look on from the shore as the Beatles sank right in front of them, without trying to save it.

Kosuke felt betrayed. It was as if something he treasured had been smashed. It was then that he decided.

At the station, he ducked into a phone booth and called his friend, the one who had called a week ago to tell him to see Let It Be.

His friend was home. When he heard his voice over the phone, Kosuke asked him to buy his records.

“What records?”

“My Beatles records. You said you wanted to collect them someday.”

“That’s true. Which ones are we talking about?”

“All of them. How’d you like to buy every Beatles record I own?”

“All of them?”

“How’s ten thousand yen sound? If you tried to buy them one by one, you’d pay more than that, easy.”

“I know that, but this is kind of sudden. I mean, we don’t even have a stereo.”

“All right, I’ll ask someone else.” Kosuke almost hung up.

He heard a harried voice yell “Wait!” from the receiver. “Let me think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow. Deal?”

Kosuke pressed the receiver to his ear and shook his head. “Nope. Tomorrow’s no good.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t have time for this. If you’re not gonna buy them right now, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait. Wait just a second. Okay? Five minutes. Give me five minutes.”

Kosuke sighed. “Fine. I’ll call you back in five.”

He hung up and stepped out of the phone booth. He looked up at the sky. The sun had begun its descent.

Kosuke wasn’t exactly sure why he’d decided to sell all his records. He just had a feeling he couldn’t listen to the Beatles anymore. Call it the end of an era.

It had been five minutes. Kosuke went back into the phone booth and called his friend.

“We’re good,” the friend exclaimed, almost delirious with excitement. “I talked to my parents. They’ll give me the money, but I’m gonna have to buy the stereo myself. Should I come and get them now?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here.”

Things were in motion. All his records would soon be gone. His heart squeezed a little at the thought of it, but he shook his head to make the feeling go away. No big deal.

Back at home, he transferred the box of records into two paper bags to make them easier to carry. As he worked, he had a long look at the cover of every album. Each one held so many memories.

He stopped when he came to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The product of a period of musical experimentation for the Beatles. It had been described as a conceptual collage, as apt a description for the album as for its cover.

The four Beatles stood posed in colorful military regalia, accompanied by a tight brigade of cutouts of historical and pop-culture icons.

On the far right was a woman who looked like Marilyn Monroe, and beside her was a spot that had been filled in with black marker. When his cousin owned the record, he had taped a photo of his face there: a fanboy’s attempt to make himself a physical part of the experience. Kosuke had torn the photo off, but the printed surface had peeled off with it. He tried to make the damage less conspicuous by coloring it black.

I’m sorry for selling your records. I didn’t have a choice. He hoped his cousin would hear him up in heaven.

Kimiko saw Kosuke carrying the paper bags to the front door. “What’s all that?” she asked.

He had nothing to hide and told her the truth. She nodded but didn’t seem to care.

Before long, his friend was at the front door with a ten-thousand-yen bill in an envelope. In exchange, Kosuke set both bags of records at his feet.

“Whoa!” the friend cried out, poking through the bags. “Are you sure you’re okay doing this? It took you forever to collect these.”

Kosuke frowned and scratched his neck.

“It just hit me out of nowhere. I’m done with the Beatles. I saw the movie, you know.”

“Let It Be?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.” The look on his friend’s face was half acceptance, half disbelief as he nodded.

He picked up the bags, and Kosuke held the door. “Thanks,” he whispered and stepped outside. He looked back from a few steps through the yard. “All right, see you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? It took Kosuke a full second to comprehend. He had completely forgotten that the next day was the first day of the fall term.

Frantic now, he told his perplexed friend, “Sure, see you tomorrow, at school.”

When he finally closed the door, he let out an enormous sigh. It was all he could do to keep from curling up into a ball right then and there.

6

Sadayuki came home a little after eight. It had been ages since he had stayed at work so late.

“I put the finishing touches on things at the office. I’d like to stall the manhunt for as long as possible.” He loosened the knot of his tie. His shirt was translucent with sweat, clinging to his skin.

They ate dinner late. Their last meal together at that house was leftover curry from the night before. The fridge was already cleared out.

As they ate, Sadayuki and Kimiko spoke in low voices about their belongings. Valuables, clothes, the few essentials they would need, Kosuke’s school materials... That was just about all they would bring, and the rest they’d leave behind. They’d gone through this tally several times before, talking over it again as a last precaution.

Kimiko brought up what Kosuke had done with the records.

“You sold them? All of them? Why?” Sadayuki sounded genuinely surprised.

“I dunno,” said Kosuke, staring at his curry. “It’s not like we have a way to play them.”

“Wow. Sold them, huh? That’s good. Sure helps lighten the load. How much you get?”

Kosuke paused for a beat too long, so Kimiko piped up. “Ten thousand yen.”

“Ten thousand yen? That’s it?” Sadayuki’s tone changed entirely. “You little shithead. How many of those did you have? Most of them were LPs. If you went out and tried to buy those back again, you know how much it would cost? You probably couldn’t do it with twenty, thirty thousand yen. And you got ten thousand? What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t trying to make money off them,” Kosuke argued, head down. “Most of them were Tetsuo’s anyway.”

His father clicked his tongue loudly. “Don’t give me that horseshit. When you sell anything, you need to haggle for more. Even if it’s only pocket change. Don’t expect to live the kind of life you’ve been living. You hear me?”

Kosuke looked up. He wanted to ask whose fault that was.

Sadayuki saw something different in his son’s face and repeated himself. “Hear me?”

Kosuke didn’t nod back and instead dropped his spoon into his bowl. “I’m done.”

He left the table.

“Answer me, boy!”

“Shut up. I get it, okay?”

“What was that? You think you can speak to your father that way?”

“Sadayuki,” warned Kimiko, “I think that’s enough.”

“No, it’s not. Hey, what’d you do with that ten thousand yen?”

Kosuke glanced down at his father. Veins were bulging out of his temples.

“Whose money did you buy those with? That was your allowance. Whose hard-earned money does that allowance come from?”

“Stop it, Sadayuki. You’re not going to take money from your son.”

“Who’s taking it? I’m just making sure he understands whose money that was.”

“Enough,” Kimiko cautioned. “Kosuke, go to your room and get your things.”

Kosuke listened to his mother and left the living room. He went upstairs to his bedroom and threw himself in bed. The Beatles were staring at him from a poster on the wall. He sat up, tore it from its tacks, and reduced it to shreds.

The knock came about two hours later. Kimiko poked her head in and asked, “Done packing?”

“Mostly.” Kosuke pointed to a single cardboard box and duffel bag beside his desk. This was all he had to his name. “Are we leaving?”

“Soon.” Kimiko came into the room. “Sorry to put you through all this.”

Kosuke didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“But I’m sure things are going to be okay. Hang in there, just a little longer.”

“All right,” he said quietly.

“Your father and I — well, your father especially — we’re ready to do anything if it means giving you a good life. Even putting our lives on the line.”

Kosuke bowed his head. Bullshit, he told himself. How could forcing your son to run away with you ever lead to a good life?

“Okay then, so come downstairs with your things in half an hour.” Kimiko left.

Just like Ringo, thought Kosuke. In Let It Be, he thought Ringo was the only one trying to keep the Beatles afloat, but his efforts were a waste of energy.

At midnight on the dot, Kosuke and his family fled under the cover of night. Their getaway car was an old white cargo van Sadayuki had obtained for the event. They sat down in a row on the front bench seats. Sadayuki gripped the steering wheel. The back was stuffed with cardboard boxes and bags of all sorts.

Just before getting in, Kosuke had asked his father, “Where are we going?”

And his father had replied, “We’ll know when we get there.” This was the closest thing they had to a conversation. Once they were driving, they barely spoke.

Eventually, they made it to the highway. Kosuke had no idea where they were or where they were heading. All the highway signs were for places he had never heard of.

After about two hours on the road, Kimiko said she had to use the bathroom, and Sadayuki pulled into a rest area. Kosuke saw a sign saying they were in a place called Fujikawa.

The parking lot was almost empty this time of night, but Sadayuki parked the van in the corner of the lot. He was on edge, trying not to make them look conspicuous.

Kosuke went into the bathroom with his father. As he was washing his hands, Sadayuki came up beside him at the sink.

“You won’t be getting an allowance for a while.”

Kosuke looked at his father’s reflection in the mirror.

“Should come as no surprise,” Sadayuki continued. “Besides, you’re rolling in it, with that ten-thousand-yen bill.”

Again with the ten-thousand-yen bill. Kosuke was disgusted. It wasn’t even that much money. And Kosuke was just a kid.

Sadayuki walked out without washing his hands.

Watching his father leave, Kosuke felt something break inside him. It must’ve been the last vestige of his desire to be with his parents. Their bond was severed. He was certain.

Kosuke left the bathroom and ran in the opposite direction from the parked van. He didn’t understand the layout of the rest stop. All he knew was that he wanted to get as far as possible from his parents.

He ran for his life. His trajectory was random. Before he knew it, he was in another parking lot full of trucks parked in rows.

A man walked over to one and stepped up into the cab. It looked like he was about to drive off.

Kosuke rushed to the back of the truck and climbed up inside the canvas. He saw stacks of wooden boxes. It wasn’t smelly, and there was space for him to hide.

The engine started. It was now or never. He slid himself against the decking.

The truck started off. Kosuke’s heart was racing. His breathing was manic, no hope of slowing down.

Hugging his knees, he nestled his face between his legs and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep. He’d sleep for now and think of what to do next when he woke up. But the seriousness of what he’d done, and his uncertainty of how he was going to survive, blocked any immediate relief.

It goes without saying that Kosuke was clueless about where the truck was going or what road they were on. The fact that it was dark out didn’t help, but even in broad daylight, he wouldn’t have been able to ascertain where they were from scenery alone.

He doubted he would be getting any sleep that night, but eventually, he dozed off. When he came to, the truck had stopped. Not at a traffic light, but at what must have been its destination.

Kosuke peeked out from the canvas to have a look around. He was in some enormous parking lot. There were other trucks around him.

Making sure no one was around, he stepped down to the pavement. With his head lowered, he went straight for the exit. He was lucky there was no security. When he was out, he turned and looked at the sign at the entrance. Some kind of shipping facility. He was in Edogawa. Tokyo.

It was still pitch-dark out. No stores were open. Kosuke had no choice but to keep on walking. He didn’t know where he was heading, but he kept on going anyway. He figured if he walked enough, he would wind up somewhere.

Day broke as he walked along. He started seeing bus stops on the sidewalk. When he read where the buses were going, it was as if the world had opened up before him. Destination: Tokyo Station. Perfect. If he kept on going, he’d get to Tokyo Station, too.

But what would he do from there? Go someplace else? Trains went in all directions from Tokyo Station. Which one would he choose? He pondered the question as he walked.

Taking short breaks in parks along the way, Kosuke forged ahead. Even though he knew better, he couldn’t help thinking of his parents. What had they done after they realized he was gone? They had no way of finding him. But it wasn’t as if they were going to report him missing. And they weren’t going back to the house.

They probably just kept heading toward their next spot. Once things calmed down, they would maybe try to find him. But they couldn’t come out in the open, and they weren’t going to be able to use relatives or acquaintances to track him down. The feared taxman or whoever would have spread his nets in all those places.

He had no way of finding his parents, either. The pair were planning to lie low. They would never use their real names.

Which meant he would never see his parents. Ever again. The thought burned dimly somewhere deep in his chest. But he had no regrets. Their hearts had grown apart. Once that happens, there’s no trying to fix it. Sticking together would have been pointless. He’d learned that from the Beatles.

As time passed, the flow of traffic increased. The number of people walking with him on the sidewalk went up, too. There were kids on their way to school. Kosuke finally remembered: It was the first day of the fall term.

He kept walking in the same direction of the buses that drove past him. It was the first day of September, but the heat of summer lingered. His T-shirt was mucked with dirt and sweat.

He arrived at Tokyo Station a little after ten. Approaching the building on foot for the first time, he didn’t realize right away that it was a train station. The grand brick building reminded him of some giant mansion out of medieval Europe.

Inside, Kosuke was awestruck by its size all over again. He wandered the halls, marveling at all the sights. He saw a sign for the bullet train.

He had always wanted to ride one. He thought this was the year he’d finally have his chance. It ran straight from Tokyo to Osaka, where the Expo was underway.

Posters for the Expo were slapped up everywhere he looked. They gave simple directions. Just take the bullet train to Shin-Osaka Station and a quick ride on the subway out to the pavilion.

He was going. In his wallet, he had fourteen thousand yen: the ten thousand yen was from the records, and the rest left over from New Year’s.

So he’d go and see the Expo, and then what? He would figure it out once he got there. People from across Japan — across the world! — had gathered there to celebrate the latest innovations. In this carnival of opportunities, he was sure he could find some way of living on his own.

He lined up for the ticket counter and made sure he had enough. When he saw the fare to Shin-Osaka Station, he was relieved. It wasn’t as high as he expected. There were two lines: Hikari and Kodama. He hesitated for a second but decided on Kodama. He was on a budget.

When he reached the counter, he asked the ticket agent for “one ticket to Shin-Osaka, please.”

The agent scowled. “Student discount? I’ll need your voucher and your school ID.”

“Oh, I forgot it.”

“All right, standard fare.”

“Yes, please.”

The man asked question after question. What time? Reserved seating? Or unreserved? Kosuke fumbled through his answers.

“Wait just a moment,” said the man, and he disappeared out back. Kosuke counted his cash again. Once he had his ticket, he would buy himself a bento box for breakfast.

Then it happened. A hand landed hard on his shoulder.

“Excuse me.”

He turned to face a man in a suit.

“What’d I do?”

“There’s a few things I’d like to ask you. Would you mind following me please?” he said coercively.

“But I... My ticket...”

“It won’t take long. I just need you to answer a few questions, and you’ll be on your way. Let’s go.”

The man grabbed Kosuke’s arm. His grip assured him that this was no voluntary chat.

The man brought him to what appeared to be his office. He had said it wouldn’t take long, but Kosuke wound up detained there for hours. That was because he wouldn’t answer the man’s questions.

Not even the first one.

“What’s your name and address?”

7

The man who had approached him at the ticket counter was a detective from the Juvenile Division of the Metropolitan Police Department. A lot of boys and girls tried to run away from home at the end of summer, and these detectives watched out for them at Tokyo Station in plainclothes. He had Kosuke the second he spotted him wandering anxiously around the station in his grubby T-shirt. He followed him to the ticket line, waited for his chance, and winked a signal to the ticket agent. It was no coincidence, then, that the man had disappeared out back.

The detective told Kosuke all of this in the hopes of getting him to finally say something. He had clearly underestimated how hard this was going to be. He expected Kosuke to give up his information, after which he’d go through the usual procedure of calling up his parents and his school, and wait with him for somebody to pick him up.

But Kosuke withheld his identity. If he peeped, he’d have to explain the entire escape.

Even after they’d moved him from an office in the train station to a conference room at the police station, Kosuke kept his mouth clamped shut. They brought him a rice ball and some cold barley tea, but he wouldn’t touch it. He was starving but knew better than to scarf it down. If he did, he’d have to answer their questions.

“All right,” the detective laughed. “Truce. It’s about time you ate something.” He left Kosuke in the room alone.

Kosuke stuffed the rice ball in his face. This was the first time he’d eaten since the leftover curry with his family the night before. It was just a ball of rice with a single pickled plum inside, but to Kosuke, the flavor was ambrosial.

Before long, the detective came back in. “You ready to talk?”

Kosuke looked at his hands.

“This kid is a nightmare,” he sighed.

Someone else came in and discussed something with the detective. From the few words Kosuke was able to make out, it sounded like they were checking his description against missing persons lists across the country.

Kosuke was particularly worried about what his school would do. If they called every single middle school to look for him, his school would note that he was absent. Sadayuki had said he called and told them his son was out of the country with his family for a week, but hadn’t they found that story a little fishy?

Night came, and Kosuke had a second meal in the conference room. Dinner was a rice bowl with tempura. It was damn good.

The detective was beat.

“Can you please just tell me your name?” he pleaded. Kosuke felt a little sorry for him.

“Hiroshi,” he muttered.

The detective’s face lit up. “Wait, what’d you say?”

“Hiroshi... Fujikawa.”

The detective fumbled for his pen. “That’s you, huh? What are the characters for that? Actually, you write it.”

Kosuke took the pen and paper from the detective and wrote the characters for “Hiroshi Fujikawa.”

It had occurred to him in passing that he would have to use a fake name. He took a Japanese character from the term World Expo, which could be pronounced “Hiroshi,” and “Fujikawa” from the name of the rest stop.

“And your address?” the detective asked, but Kosuke shook his head.

He spent the night inside the conference room. They rolled in a cot and made it up with bedding. He wrapped himself in the blanket and slept straight through the night.

The next morning, the detective sat down across from Kosuke once again.

“It’s time to make a decision. Either you tell me the truth about who you are, or you can head over to Juvenile Affairs. At this rate, we’ll be stuck in here forever.”

Kosuke wouldn’t answer him. The detective was getting peeved and scratched his head.

“What the hell happened anyway? Where are your parents? Haven’t they noticed that their son’s gone missing?”

He stared into the surface of the tabletop.

“Ah well,” the detective sputtered, all out of ideas. “Seems like you have a pretty good reason to keep quiet. And Hiroshi Fujikawa — we know that’s not your real name. Is it?”

Kosuke glanced at the man and quickly looked down again. Upon realizing he was right, the detective let out a huge sigh.

Soon after, Kosuke was escorted to Juvenile Affairs. He was expecting something like a school building, but when he got there, he was surprised to find an old European mansion. When he asked, they told him it had actually been someone’s residence once. Only now it was in awful disrepair with paint flaking from the walls and the floorboards buckling.

Kosuke spent about two months at this facility. Over the course of his stay, they had him meet with a lot of different people. Some were doctors, some psychiatrists. All of them were trying to get to the bottom of this “Hiroshi Fujikawa.” But none of them could ever do it. What puzzled everyone the most was that not a single missing person profile fitting his description had been submitted. Not to any police department in Japan. Where were his parents? Wasn’t anybody watching him? They all wound up at the same ragged nonconclusion.

The next place he lived was a children’s home called Marumitsuen. It was far outside Tokyo, but only about half an hour from where he used to live. At first, he worried that maybe they had figured him out, but the demeanor of the grown-ups there assured him they just happened to have space for him.

The four-story building was nestled in the hillside, surrounded by trees. The kids who lived there ranged from infants all the way to high school boys with unkempt stubble.

“If you don’t want to tell us about your background, that’s fine. But you need to give us a birthday. We can’t send you to school until we know what grade you’re supposed to be in.” The person asking him was middle-aged, bespectacled.

Kosuke thought about this. His real birthday was February 26, 1957, but he thought it would be risky giving away his real age. Then again, he couldn’t pretend to be much older. He had never even seen a textbook for third-year students in middle school.

The answer he gave was June 29, 1957.

June 29 — the day the Beatles landed in Japan.

8

He polished off his second Guinness.

“Care for another?” Eriko asked. “Or would you prefer something a bit stronger?”

“Maybe, yeah.” Kosuke scanned the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar. “I guess I’ll have a Bunnahabhain, on the rocks.”

Eriko nodded and took down a glass.

“I Feel Fine” was playing from the speakers. Kosuke drummed his fingers to the rhythm but caught himself and stopped.

He looked around the bar again. What was the deal with this place? He couldn’t believe that this was in his backwater hometown. There were other Beatles fans around him growing up, but he was proud to have been the resident maniac, their biggest fan.

Eriko broke ice into chunks with an ice pick. The way she worked the tool reminded him of when he used to carve wood with a chisel.

Life at the children’s home wasn’t so bad. He didn’t have to worry about his next meal, and they sent him to school. His first year at the new school was a breeze, since he’d fibbed about his age and got to repeat a grade.

He went by Hiroshi Fujikawa, but everybody called him by his first name, which was unusual in Japan. There was a short period where he wasn’t used to it, but soon he answered to it as if he’d been doing it his whole life.

He didn’t have any friends. Or more precisely, he didn’t make any. He was scared that if he got too close to anyone, he’d want to tell them who he really was. To keep this up, he had to isolate himself. Seeing him so reticent, few kids ever approached him, and a lot of them thought he was creepy. In fact, they found him too weird to bully, and he was always on his own.

He may have had no friends to play with, but he never felt especially lonely.

After moving in, he took up a new hobby: wood carving. He picked up fallen branches from the woods around the home and carved them into whatever took his fancy. At first, he was just killing time, but a few creations later, he was hooked. He made everything — animals, robots, superheroes, cars. The more complex, the better the challenge. He never worked off any plans; it was way more fun to make it up as he went along.

When a project was done, he gave it to one of the younger kids. At first, they didn’t know how to respond, since Hiroshi mostly kept to himself, but when they held the carving in their hands, they smiled. It was rare for these children to ever get a new toy. Soon the kids were putting in requests: “I want Moomin,” “Hey, make me Kamen Rider.” He looked forward to seeing these kids smile.

Kosuke’s carving abilities were well-known among the staff. One day, he was called to the director’s office and asked something completely unexpected: How would he like to do this for a living? The director knew someone who ran a wood-carving studio, and he was looking for a successor. If he moved in with the master and apprenticed there by day, Kosuke would be allowed to go to night school and get his high school diploma there.

He was almost done with middle school. Kosuke figured the staff was probably getting antsy about what to do about him.

As a matter of fact, they had just checked a very important item off their list. They wanted him to have a legal name. They had begged the family court to create a registry for him, and their plea had finally been granted.

This measure was generally reserved for abandoned children of a very young age; it was rare for a request to be accepted for someone as old as Kosuke. But it was more than that. There had never been another case where a person obstinately hid their background to the point that the police couldn’t even suss it out. This was a unique request.

The people from the family court had come to meet him a few times. Like everyone else, they tried to get him to talk about his upbringing, his background, anything, but Kosuke assumed the exact same pose as always. He persisted through his silence.

“Maybe he’s suffered some kind of trauma that erased his memory of his identity,” they finally said. “Maybe he couldn’t tell us even if he wanted to.” That was the latest theory. Maybe those grown-ups had only picked it as a way of cleaning up the mess.

Just before graduating middle school, Kosuke’s name was legally registered as “Hiroshi Fujikawa.” And just after graduation, he left the children’s home for Saitama, where he began to study woodworking as an apprentice.

9

Studying with the master wasn’t easy. This man had the spirit of a typical craftsman: inflexible and stubborn. The first year, Kosuke was only allowed to tend to the tools, take stock of the materials, and clean the shop. After he had made it to his second year of night school, the master finally let him carve wood. But he could only carve whatever he was told, producing the same thing twenty or thirty times within a single day. He couldn’t move on to another form until every rendering was identical. It wasn’t what you’d call a dynamic job.

But the master was a good man who cared about Kosuke’s future. He saw it as his personal mission to set him up as a working craftsman. Kosuke could tell this work wasn’t just because he was cheap labor or because he was next in line to succeed the shop. The master’s wife was just as kind.

When he graduated from high school, he started to work officially at the studio. In the beginning, he took on simple projects. As he got adjusted and the master placed more trust in him, his tasks became more complicated, but also more rewarding.

Those days were satisfying. The memory of fleeing town with his family had not escaped him, but he revisited that night less and less. He was now able to say he had made the right decision.

He was glad he hadn’t stayed with his parents. Making a clean break was the right choice. If he had followed that old man’s advice, where would he be?

This moment of peace was violated in December 1980. He heard the news on the TV.

John Lennon had been murdered.

The reel of his life replayed before Kosuke’s eyes, starting with those vivid days when he first discovered the Beatles. There were sad and bitter memories, too, but even these were tinged with their nostalgia, as such things always were.

Had John Lennon ever regretted breaking up the Beatles? The question occupied his mind. Had he ever thought it was too soon?

Kosuke shook the thought away. There was no way. In the wake of the breakup, the four Beatles had launched careers as solo artists. This was possible only because the Beatles had broken free from whatever binding spell had held them together. Just as Kosuke had: He’d attained happiness only after he cut ties with his parents.

Their hearts had grown apart. Once that happens — he was certain — there’s no fixing it.

Then in December, eight years later, he read a shocking article in the newspaper. There had been a fire at Marumitsuen. Not everyone had made it out alive.

The master told him to go and see how they were doing. Kosuke drove up in the shop van the next day, to show his support. He hadn’t been back since the time he came to say a few words after graduating from night school.

Half the building was blackened and caved in. The children and the staff were hunkered down in the gymnasium of an elementary school nearby. The space was heated with kerosene heaters, but everyone looked cold.

The director was an old man by now, thrilled by Kosuke’s visit, and perhaps a little baffled, too. This was the boy who wouldn’t even share his name, now grown into a man, with tender feelings for his ill-fated childhood home.

“Tell me if there’s anything I can do,” Kosuke told the director.

“The thought alone means everything to us,” he said.

On his way out, a voice behind him called out, “Is that you, Hiroshi?”

He turned and saw a young woman approaching him. Maybe in her midtwenties. She was wearing an expensive-looking fur coat.

“I knew it was you, Hiroshi. Hiroshi Fujikawa, right?” Her eyes were sparkling. “It’s me, Harumi. Harumi Muto? Don’t you remember me?”

Kosuke was sorry to say he didn’t. The woman opened her handbag and pulled something out.

“How about this? I know you remember this.”

“Whoa,” he breathed.

She was holding a carved wooden puppy. He remembered making this. It was one of his carvings from when he was still living at the children’s home.

He looked at her again and started to get the feeling he’d seen her face before. “Were you at Marumitsuen, too?”

She nodded. “You made this for me. When I was in fifth grade.”

“I remember now. At least, I think so.”

“Oh man, really? I never forgot you. This little guy is my favorite.”

“Ah, well, I’m sorry.”

The woman laughed. She returned the carved dog to her handbag and pulled out a business card for Kosuke. It said Office Little Dog, Harumi Muto, CEO. Kosuke gave her his card. Her face lit up with delight.

“A wood-carving studio... I knew you would go pro!”

Kosuke scratched his head. “My boss would say I’m only halfway there.”

They sat down together on one of the benches outside the gymnasium. Harumi said she had come as soon as she could after hearing the terrible news. She mentioned offering the director her assistance.

“They did so much for me. I want to do something to give back.”

“That’s noble of you.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“My boss told me to come.” He looked down at her card. “You’re running your own company, huh? What kind of company is it?”

“It’s a small operation. We mainly put together events geared toward young people, produce ad campaigns, you know.”

“Cool,” mumbled Kosuke, just to have something to say. Whatever she did, he wasn’t getting it. “That’s impressive for your age.”

“It’s not like that. I was lucky; that’s all.”

“It takes more than luck. It takes ambition. I’m impressed by anyone who starts a company. It’s so much easier to collect a paycheck.”

Harumi thought it over.

“It’s really just my personality. I’m not so good at taking orders. I could never keep a part-time job for very long. When I left Marumitsuen, I was struggling with what to do with my life. That’s when someone gave me some advice. It was priceless, really. It gave my life direction.”

“Someone, huh?”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “he runs a kind of general store.”

“A general store?” Kosuke asked with confusion.

“It’s just this little store, near my friend’s house, but the owner would give you free advice, on any problem or worry. All you had to do was ask. I think someone did an article about it for a magazine. I had nothing to lose and tried it out, and he gave me the best advice ever. I’m who I am today because of him.”

Kosuke was stunned. She had to mean the Namiya General Store. There couldn’t be another general store like that around.

“I bet that sounds hard to believe, huh...?”

“No, not at all,” he said, trying to act normal. “Sounds like an interesting place.”

“Right? I wonder if it’s still there.”

“Well, I’m glad that work and everything is going well.”

“Thanks. Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been making a lot more from my side gig.”

“What do you do?”

“Investing. Stocks, real estate, equity club memberships.”

Kosuke nodded agreeably. He’d heard a lot about this lately. Real estate was skyrocketing, and the economy was riding high. It meant good business for a woodworker, too.

“Are you interested in stocks?”

Kosuke laughed at her and shook his head. “Not even a little.”

“Really. That’s probably for the best.”

“Why’s that?”

Harumi looked concerned. She took a breath and went on.

“Even if you’re just dabbling in a little real estate, you should try to sell everything off before 1990. The Japanese economy is going to tank.”

Bewildered, Kosuke gave her an interrogative look. She sounded all too confident about what she was saying.

“Sorry,” Harumi laughed awkwardly. “That must have sounded pretty weird, huh? Forget I said anything.” She looked at her watch and stood. “It was so good to see you after so long. I hope I see you around.”

“Sure,” said Kosuke, standing with her. “Take care.”

They said their good-byes, and Kosuke went back to the van. He turned the key and started off but then hit the brakes.

The Namiya General Store, huh?

That place was on his mind now. Kosuke hadn’t taken the old man’s advice and thought he was better for it, but there were people out there, like Harumi, who had taken it and still felt they were indebted to him.

Whatever happened to that old store?

Kosuke hit the gas again. He had to force himself to do it, but at the last second, he turned the wheel and drove in the opposite direction from his way home. He wanted to check on the Namiya General Store. By now, it must have closed for business. He felt that if he could see so with his own two eyes, it would be a weight off his shoulders, somehow.

This was his first time back in his hometown in eighteen years. Hands on the wheel, he summoned his memories. He didn’t think anyone would recognize him, but he took pains to avoid eye contact. A visit to his old house was not on the agenda.

The town had changed considerably. There were far more houses, and the roads had even been redone. Thanks to the economy.

But the Namiya General Store sat in the same spot with the same look. It was obviously in rough condition, and the characters on the sign were hard to read, but it was still the building he knew. It felt as though if you rolled up the rusted shutter, you’d still find the shelves well stocked.

Kosuke got out of the car and walked up to the storefront, wading through sadness and nostalgia. He thought back to the night when his worries about leaving town led him here with a letter for the mail slot.

Before he knew it, he had stepped into the alley and was walking around back. The milk bin was bolted to the wall. He lifted the lid. The bin was empty.

He let out a breath. What am I doing here? he asked himself. Enough of this.

At that moment, the door beside him opened. A middle-aged man was standing in the doorway.

He looked taken aback, too. Surely he wasn’t expecting any visitors.

“Um, sorry,” Kosuke said, letting the lid of the milk bin fall shut. “I’m not doing anything. I was just, uh...” No reasonable excuse would come to mind.

The man eyed Kosuke and the milk crate suspiciously. “Are you one of the advice people?”

Kosuke looked back in disbelief.

“You’re one of the people who wrote to my old man, asking for advice. Right?”

Caught red-handed, Kosuke’s jaw dropped. He nodded. “I am. Years ago.”

The man looked relieved. “Of course you are. If you weren’t, what would you be doing in the milk bin?”

“I’m really sorry. It’s my first time in the area in years, and I felt like I had to come by and see.”

The man waved his hand in front of his face. “No need to apologize. I’m his son. He passed away. Eight years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. So is the house...?”

“Nobody lives here anymore. I come by sometimes, to check on things.”

“Do you have plans to tear it down?”

The man groaned. “We have to keep it standing. We’re going to leave it up for now.”

Kosuke wondered what the reasoning was, but he felt it would be rude to pry.

“Did you write one of the serious letters? The way you were looking in there tells me you asked him a real question, unlike some of those neighborhood punks.”

Kosuke understood the reference.

“Yeah. I mean, it was serious to me.”

The man nodded and looked at the wooden box.

“My dad was an odd duck. I always thought if he had the time to dispense all this advice, he should be devoting it to his business. But that’s what kept him going. I think he was pretty satisfied, in the end, especially when people thanked him.”

“Did people come by often?”

“Yeah, well, basically. They sent more letters. Years of giving advice, and he started getting worried about whether any of it was any good. But I think those thank-you notes put his mind at ease.”

“So they wrote him to express their gratitude.”

“Right.” He steadied his gaze. “One person who got advice as a kid became a teacher and used that same advice to help his students. It worked great. Another came from the daughter of someone who got advice. Her mother was pregnant, with the child of a man who was already married with kids, and she was torn up about whether she should have the baby.”

“The world is full of all kinds of worries, huh?”

“So true. I thought the same thing when I read through all those thank-yous. It’s just one thing after another. My old man was a trouper just for keeping up. One day, there’d be a somber letter from a kid agonizing over whether to go with his parents when they split town to start over, and the next there’d be a kid who fell in love with their teacher, lamenting about what to do.”

“Wait a second.” Kosuke sliced through the air with his hand. “Someone asked for advice about skipping town with their parents?”

“They did,” the man mused, but his eyes were asking “And what of it?”

“Did they send a thank-you letter, too?”

“Sure did. My dad told him he should stick with his parents, and he took his advice. He said things turned out great. Him and his parents worked out a way to have a happy life.”

Kosuke knit his eyebrows together. “When was all this? When did your dad get the letter?”

The man gave him a look of trepidation. “It was right before he died. But there was a lot more to it than that. That’s not when they wrote the thank-you.”

“Meaning...?”

“To tell you the truth,” the man started off, but he pursed his lips. “Crap,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said all that. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

This was strange. The man stepped out and turned the key to lock the door.

“I need to get going. Feel free to stick around, see what you need to see. Not like there’s anything to see here.”

He hunched over to shield himself from the cold and went up the alley without looking back. Once Kosuke saw that he was gone, he looked inside the milk bin one more time.

For an instant, the box warped out of shape. Or so it seemed.

10

Kosuke noticed “Yesterday” had come on. He finished off his whiskey and asked Eriko for another.

He looked down at the pad of paper on the counter. He had racked his brain to come up with the following letter:

A new glass of whiskey was on the counter. Kosuke took a sip.

He remembered a day in late 1988, when he met Old Man Namiya’s son. Someone had asked the old man for advice about the exact same problem. Only difference was that they’d followed the advice and, by all accounts, wound up happy.

Strange coincidence, he thought. Could there really have been another kid in that small town wrestling with the same problem?

How exactly had that kid and his parents found their happiness? Based on his own experience, that outcome was impossible. Escape was not a choice; it was an imperative. Kosuke’s parents had no other recourse, so they ran.

“Did you finish up your letter?”

“More or less.”

“You don’t see many handwritten letters anymore.”

“Yeah, I guess you don’t. It was kind of an impulse move.”

It had happened that afternoon. He was looking something up online, and he came across a post on someone’s blog. It was as if his eyes had tripped over the words the Namiya General Store, and he read the post in full:

Goosebumps. Could this be true? It must’ve been someone’s idea of a joke. But why would anyone joke about this?

He traced the post back to its source. There was a site called the Namiya General Store — One-Night Special. The site had been registered by someone going by “the Namiya Family.” According to the post, this date was the thirty-third memorial service for the owner. They would be hosting a memorial service for him.

He couldn’t get it off his mind. It was impossible to focus on his work.

He ate dinner at a local Japanese diner, the usual, and went home, but he was still restless. He decided to go out again. He hadn’t even bothered to change out of his work clothes.

Since he lived alone, there was nobody to inform about where he was going.

Not sure what he was doing, he got on the train as if propelled by some invisible force.

Kosuke read through the letter he had written. He’d finally be able to tie up some of the loose threads in his life.

The song changed to “Paperback Writer.” This was one of his old favorites. He glanced at the CD player and happened to see a record player off beside it.

“Do you play vinyl sometimes, too?”

“On occasion. When one of our regulars asks.”

“Could I have a look at your collection? I won’t ask you to play anything.”

“Sure,” she said and disappeared out back.

She returned with a few LPs.

“There’s more where this came from, but they’re upstairs.” She lined the records up across the counter.

Kosuke picked one up. Abbey Road. It had been released ahead of Let It Be, but chronologically, it was the last record the Beatles ever recorded. The album cover of the four men crossing the street was legendary in its own right. Paul McCartney was mysteriously barefoot, contributing to the popular conspiracy theory that “Paul is dead.”

“Man, this takes me back,” he whispered and reached for another. Magical Mystery Tour. It had been released as a soundtrack to a movie of the same name, and he’d heard its plot was best summarized as “bonkers.”

The third record he examined was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The unshakable ziggurat of rock and roll.

Kosuke fixated on a detail of the cover. A blond woman on the far right. He used to think she was Marilyn Monroe; it wasn’t until he was older that he learned she was the British actress Diana Dors. Beside her was a black spot. The printing had been peeled away and filled in with a felt-tipped pen.

The blood in his veins coursed hot though his body. His heart was beating rapid-fire.

“Who, whose—” His voice was hoarse. He gulped and tried again. “Whose are these? Yours?”

She looked a little puzzled. “I’m looking after them now. They were my older brother’s.”

“Your brother’s? How did you wind up with them?”

She exhaled. “He died two years ago. He’s the reason I became a Beatles fan. He’d been a huge fan since we were little, and when we grew up, he was always saying how he wanted to open up a Beatles-themed bar. In his thirties, he quit his job and opened up this place.”

“...Really. Was your brother sick?”

“He had cancer. In his chest.” She patted her breast.

Kosuke looked at her business card. Eriko Haraguchi.

“Was his last name Haraguchi, too?”

“No, Haraguchi is my married name. I’m divorced, and on my own now. Changing names was a pain, so I just left it. My brother’s last name is Maeda.”

“Maeda, huh...?”

Maeda was the last name of the friend he sold the records to. Which meant the records lined up on the counter were his own. His lost collection.

He couldn’t believe it, but it really wasn’t so strange. When he thought about it, there were only a certain number of people in that town who would have opened up a bar devoted to the Beatles. When he saw the sign for Fab4, he should have anticipated that the bar would belong to somebody he used to know.

“Why do you ask?”

“No, it’s nothing.” Kosuke shook his head. “So you inherited these records?”

“Yeah, he left them to me, but they were actually from someone else. A previous owner.”

“How do you mean?”

“Almost all of them he bought off a friend in middle school. A whole collection. His friend was an even bigger Beatles fan, but out of nowhere, he called him saying he wanted to sell them off. My brother was ecstatic, even though he thought it was kind of weird—” Eriko stopped herself and put her hand to her lips. “I’m sorry; I must be boring you.”

“No, I’m interested.” Kosuke sipped his whiskey. “Please go on. Did something happen to his friend?”

Eriko nodded.

“He didn’t come back from summer vacation. As it turns out, his whole family had left town. I guess they had some egregious debt. Along the way, they must have realized there was no escape. Things ended horribly...”

“What happened?”

Eriko cast her gaze down. Her face grew somber. She looked up again slowly. “Two days after they left town, they committed suicide.”

“They did? All of them? Who?”

“I mean, the whole family, all three of them. The father killed his wife and son, then killed himself.”

Kosuke almost yelped, but he pushed it down with all his might. “How did he go about killing them? His...wife and all.”

“I don’t know the exact details, but they said he drugged them and dumped their bodies off a boat into the ocean.”

“Why were they on a boat?”

“They stole a rowboat in the middle of the night and went out into the harbor. The father didn’t take a high enough dose. When he washed up onshore alive, he hung himself.”

“But did they find the other bodies, of his wife and kid?”

Eriko shrugged. “That, I don’t know, but the father did leave a suicide note. That must have been enough for the authorities to determine that the other two were dead.”

“Oh boy.”

Kosuke finished off his whiskey and asked for another. His head was chaos. If his senses had not been dulled by alcohol, he may not have been able to hold himself together.

Even if they’d found another body, it would have to have been Kimiko’s. If Sadayuki had written in his note that he had killed both his wife and his son, there was a low probability of the police suspecting otherwise, even if they never found the other body.

The question was: Why did Sadayuki do it?

Kosuke thought back to that fateful night forty-two years ago. The night he had absconded from the Fujikawa Rest Area, crouched among the boxes of a cargo truck.

He was sure that Sadayuki and Kimiko had been distraught when they realized he had disappeared. They could either forget about their son and proceed with the getaway as planned, or they could try to find him. Kosuke had imagined they’d chosen the first option. They had no way of finding him, even if they had wanted to.

But evidently, they’d chosen neither. Instead, they’d chosen suicide.

Another glass was sitting on the counter. He picked it up and shook it gently. Ice spun and tinkled in the whiskey.

It seemed Sadayuki had considered the option of a family suicide all along. Mind you, as a last resort. But there was no question Kosuke’s actions had pushed him to it.

No, it couldn’t have been just him. He and Kimiko must have talked it out and decided on it together.

But why go through the trouble of stealing a boat and drowning Kimiko?

There was only one reason for them to kill themselves: to make it seem as if their son was dead, too. The ocean is a big place. Sometimes bodies don’t turn up.

In the throes of suicide, Kosuke’s parents had been thinking of him. What would happen to their son if they died?

They probably couldn’t imagine how he expected to get by on his own. But they must have reasoned he would need to scrap his name. They didn’t want to stand in the way of his new identity and life.

And so they decided to wipe Kosuke Waku from the face of the earth.

The detective from the Juvenile Division of the Metropolitan Police Department, the case agents from Juvenile Affairs, and all the other grown-ups had tried to crack Kosuke’s identity, but none of them could do it. Of course they couldn’t. He was a ghost. All documents about a certain middle school student named Kosuke Waku had been wiped from the records. There was no trace of his former existence.

The words his mother said to him up in his room, just before they ran, crossed his mind: Your father and I — well, your father especially — we’re ready to do anything if it means giving you a good life. Even putting our lives on the line.

She hadn’t been lying. Kosuke was where he was today because they had been ready to make that sacrifice.

Kosuke shook his head and took another gulp of whiskey. No. He could have avoided all that pointless suffering if those people hadn’t been his parents. He even had to give up his own name. He had gotten this far only by sheer will. That was all.

Nevertheless, the pangs of regret and remorse were growing in his heart.

When he’d run off, he’d left his parents with no other option. Kosuke had backed them into a corner. Why couldn’t he have asked them one more time before they ran? Forget this whole plan and go back home. Start over, from scratch, as a family.

“Is something the matter?”

He looked up. Eriko’s expression was concerned.

“Something really must be bothering you.”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Thanks.”

He glanced over the stationery on the counter. As he read through what he’d written, a feeling of displeasure spread over his chest.

The letter felt worthless, a parade of self-satisfaction. No echo of gratitude for the old man’s kind advice. My philosophy is that when things get heavy, you have to carry that weight yourself. What the hell was that? Who knows where he would actually be if it weren’t for his tortured parents’ sacrifice.

He ripped up the paper, tore it to shreds. Eriko gasped.

“Sorry. Listen, would you mind if I stuck around a little longer?”

“Of course not.” She was smiling.

He took up his pen and looked down at the stationery.

Maybe the old man had been right after all. If it keeps you together and in the same boat, you have a fighting chance of getting back on course. That part of the letter came back to him. But Kosuke hadn’t taken this advice. He’d bolted off alone, leaving the boat without a destination.

So what should he write?

That he ignored the advice and ran off from his parents, eventually driving them to suicide? Should he write the truth?

I can’t do that, he thought. It’s the wrong thing to do.

It was as yet unclear how far the story of the Waku family suicide had spread. But what if the news had made it to the old man? He just might have a hunch that the son was none other than Paul Lennon. He would have regretted telling the boy to follow his parents.

This evening, an event was being held for the old man’s thirty-third memorial rites. Kosuke had a duty to offer a gesture to help him rest peacefully. It had said “unfiltered opinions” were welcome, but that didn’t mean they wanted brutal honesty. The important thing was to express to them that the advice had been spot-on.

After thinking it over, Kosuke drafted a second letter. It started off almost the same as the first one.

After rereading the new letter a few times, Kosuke had a strange sensation. What he’d written was eerily similar to another thank-you letter, the one the old man’s son said his father received from the boy who had the exact same problem.

It had to be a coincidence.

He folded up the sheets of stationery and stuffed them in an envelope. His watch said almost midnight.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” said Kosuke, standing up. “I’m going to go drop this letter off. I won’t be long. Think I’ll have time for one more round when I’m back?”

Eriko looked at Kosuke and the letter with some confusion, but her face broke into a smile, and she nodded. “Sure. That works.”

“Thanks,” said Kosuke. He took a ten-thousand-yen bill from his wallet and placed it on the counter as collateral to dissolve any suspicions about his leaving without paying.

He left the bar and walked into the night. The other establishments were all already closed.

He knew the way. In minutes, the Namiya General Store was up ahead. Kosuke stopped short. He saw a silhouette in front of the store.

Was she there for the same reason as him? Kosuke walked up to the shutter to see. There was a woman in her midthirties, standing in a suit. A Benz was parked in the street. In the passenger seat was a cardboard box filled with CDs from a certain female artist. Copies upon copies of the same CD. Maybe this woman and the artist were affiliated in some way.

The woman slipped something into the mail slot in the shutter and went over to her car. She noticed Kosuke and froze. Her face was flush with caution.

Kosuke held up the letter and pointed to the mail slot. She understood, and her face relaxed. She wordlessly acknowledged him with a simple bow and climbed into her Benz.

How many people were doing this tonight? The Namiya General Store must have touched the lives of more people than he realized.

Once the Benz had rolled off, Kosuke slipped his letter in the slot. He heard it flap down. A sound he hadn’t heard in forty-two years.

It felt as if a chapter of his life had at last come to a close. Perhaps everything had finally been settled.

Back at Fab4, the flat-screen had been turned on. Eriko was fiddling with a remote behind the counter.

“What’s up?” Kosuke asked.

“There’s this video my brother loved. I was going to show you. They never released it officially, but I know it’s somewhere on this bootleg.”

“Hmm.”

“What would you like to drink?”

“Right. I’ll have another whiskey.”

A glass of Bunnahabhain was placed in front of Kosuke. Just as he reached for the drink, the film started playing. He was about to take a sip, but he pulled the glass away from his lips. He knew what film this was.

“Is this...?”

Onscreen was the rooftop of the Apple building. Against the winter wind, the Beatles were playing again. This was the climax of the movie Let It Be.

He put down the glass and fixed his eyes on the screen. This was the film that had changed the course of his life. It had taught him just how tenuous the ties that bind us really are.

And yet—

The Beatles on the flat-screen were somehow different from what he remembered seeing in the theater. Back then, their hearts seemed scattered, and their performance refused to come together. But seeing them here, inside the bar, he got a different impression.

The Fab Four were rocking out. They were having a blast. Sure, they were breaking up, but playing together here reminded them of how it all began.

When Kosuke watched it in the movie theater, he’d seen them struggling, a projection of his own painful experience. He had stopped believing that anyone could stay together.

He grabbed his glass and gulped the whiskey down. Closing his eyes, he thought of his parents and prayed.