Chapter 9: Parasite in Love
Kousaka woke up to the smell of coffee. Soft morning light came in through the window.
He slowly looked around, still lying in bed. There were two mugs together on the table, with faint vapor visible. From the kitchen came the smell of buttered toast and cooked bacon.
Listening close, mixed in with the morning chirps of birds, he heard Sanagi whistling.
It was that kind of morning.
They put two cardboard boxes together and used them as a table to have breakfast. From a distance, the white cardboard boxes could look a bit like a table painted white.
There was hardly any conversation between them. A radio on the table played intermittent music. Kousaka didn't know what song it was, but it definitely had piano in it. Occasionally he heard a fragmentally nostalgic melody, but if he tried to listen to the specifics, the melody seemed to get quiet and run away.
After breakfast, the two took showers and prepared to head out. All Sanagi had besides pajamas was her uniform, so she wore that. Kousaka got a zero-personality shirt and chino pants out of the closet, but as he was about to change into them, Sanagi stopped him. "Hold on a sec."
"What?"
"You know how when we first met, you were wearing a suit despite not having a job? I wanna see that again."
"Sure, but why?"
"Because I like you in a suit. Got a problem?"
Kousaka shook his head. "It's no problem. And I am working now, so I won't feel too guilty about it either. I'm a little worried how it looks to others with me wearing a suit and you wearing a school uniform, though."
"It's fine. If anyone asks, we'll just say we're siblings."
I guess you're right, Kousaka readily agreed.
After changing, the two left the apartment for a walk. A peaceful sunlight appropriate for a quiet Sunday shone on the residential district. The cherry blossoms were apparently starting to fall, as pink petals piled up on the road. The sky, as if to complement the color of the cherry trees, was a modest light blue. Little clouds that brought to mind pieces of fluff floated through that sky.
The two held hands, in a way that seemed like neither went first, and walked.
They went into a used bookstore at the end of the shopping district outside the train station, and spent a while there. The store was cramped, and smelled of musty old books.
Kousaka became fond of an unusual encyclopedia he spotted, and after some slight hesitation, he purchased it. It was effectively an "encyclopedia of encyclopedias," listing all the different types of encyclopedias in the world.
Then the two went to a bakery on the corner of the street, got sandwiches, and walked as they ate. They were loaded with ingredients, so with each bite, lettuce and onion would fall out. Seeing Kousaka clean up the sauce around his mouth with his finger, Sanagi giggled.
"I couldn't imagine you doing this before, Mr. Kousaka."
"Guess so. Eating while walking, or touching old books, I'd only ever do it in these past three months," Kousaka said, wiping breadcrumbs off his hands. "But Izumi says once the worms get healthy again, my germaphobia will apparently return. Once that happens, it's dubious if I'll be able to keep a job."
"Huh," Sanagi said with disappointment. "Well, you'd better enjoy a lot of impure things while you can."
Kousaka grinned wryly. And he took back Sanagi's hand.
*
Let's rewind a bit.
When Kousaka found Sanagi sleeping in his bed the night before, he first wondered if it was a hallucination of his. It was just a mistake; the next time he blinked, she would be gone.
So he kept his eyes wide open. He decided to take in that illusion for as long as he could. Soon, his eyes dried and started to tear up, so he unwillingly closed them. When they opened, the illusory Sanagi was still there.
He closed his eyes again, rubbed them for ten seconds, and reopened them.
Yes, Sanagi was there.
"Sanagi," he said out loud.
When he spoke, Sanagi's body twitched. Soon, she slowly sat up and met eyes with Kousaka. Then as if to hide herself from him, she pulled the blanket up to her chest, and lowered her head with embarrassment.
Kousaka's feelings were temporarily numbed by shock, so he couldn't be surprised or happy.
"You aren't a ghost, right?", he asked.
"Who knows," she said with upturned eyes. "Want to test?"
Kousaka timidly approached, and reached out to touch her cheek. There was the feeling of human skin, and warmth. To further push the point, Sanagi put her right hand on his. There was definitely the feel of human skin there, too. She really existed.
Kousaka put his arms around Sanagi's back and hugged her. Sanagi accepted it wordlessly.
"Why..." He was too emotional to properly put any words together. "Why are you here? Is your body okay? Aren't the worms dead?"
"Don't ask me all at once," Sanagi laughed nervously. "Ask one at a time."
Kousaka gently parted from her and asked, "Is your body okay?"
"Hmm. To tell the truth, it's still not too healthy," Sanagi said. "But considering how much medicine I took then, it's a miracle it turned out this well."
She poked around her stomach area.
"My memories got dicey while I was in a coma, so I don't remember much about the part where I decided to kill myself. But I do vaguely remember throwing up the medicine of my own will. I'm sure I must have come back to my senses just in time. The doctor said if I had thrown up a little later, there'd be nothing they could do."
"So that's it..." Kousaka let out a big breath. "Well, next, where have you been and what have you been doing after you ran from your hospital room? And why did you vanish in the first place?"
"There was something I wanted to do, so I hid out in our clinic. I always used to hide when I didn't want to go to school, so there's a hiding place only I know." Then Sanagi shrugged. "But that's not really what I want to talk about. Isn't there something more important to ask?"
"...What happened with the worm? Didn't you kill them off with the medicine?"
"Yeah. It seems like all the worms that were in me are dead."
"Then why -"
Sanagi grinned.
"What's inside me now are the worms that were in your body, Mr. Kousaka."
"My worms?"
"That day, in the container, I forced you to kiss me, right?" Sanagi turned her eyes away shyly. "At that moment, some of the worms from your body transferred to mine, copulated with my worms, and birthed resistant parasites. That's what let me just barely survive. Your worms saved my life, Mr. Kousaka."
Kousaka closed his eyes and thought, then sighed.
"In the end, I guess you were right about everything, and I was wrong."
Sanagi shook her head. "What can you do? It's not like I had any basis to consider the worm important either. In this case, my desires and the reality just happened to match up. Your judgement was definitely proper. And I know the reason you refused me was for my sake."
"You're way overestimating me. I'm not that great of a person."
Kousaka gave her a weak smile, then said formally:
"Thanks for coming back. I'm really happy."
"Same here. Thanks for leaving a place for me to come back to."
Sanagi slightly lowered her head, and her lips formed a smile.
*
A blue car was parked by the entrance to the park. Many cherry tree petals were stuck to the hood and windshield, greatly interfering with visibility. Looking through the passenger-side window, there was a man sleeping soundly in the driver's seat.
Kousaka looked all around, but didn't see any cherry trees. The wind had probably carried them here from inside the park. It was a windy day, after all. Regardless, walking around aimlessly almost made him forget about the wind. Maybe because there were no changes in the way it blew.
A few minutes after entering Mizushina Park, the two got on a path lined with cherry trees on either side, and after walking a bit, they stopped.
It was a sheer spectacle.
The petals were pouring down like snow.
Blown around by the wind, the treetops swung up and down, making petals fly up into the air one after another, glittering white in the afternoon sun.
The two were overwhelmed by the sight for a while. The cherry trees before them were being blown around so forcefully, likening it to a snowstorm would hardly be an exaggeration. In contrast to the dizzying scene, the park was enveloped by a bizarre silence. The sound of the wind like white noise, and the rustling of the trees. That was all there was. Visitors who came to view the trees were sparse, so there were no blue sheets to impair the view either. There was a bigger park nearby, so everyone was probably going there instead.
Kousaka reminisced. When the two of them first met, this park was covered in snow. Sanagi stood by the lake, feeding swans. At that time, her hair was dyed silver, she wore a short skirt, and she was smoking.
Somehow, it felt like something from the distant past. And yet it hadn't been half a year since then.
Once they were tired of walking, the two sat down on a sloped lawn. And huddling up in the shade of a tree, they watched the cherry tree snowstorm, and listened to the wind.
At the bottom of the slope, they saw the lake. The water was covered with white flower petals, looking almost as if it were frozen over and covered in snow, so you could just walk across.
Then Kousaka noticed a single swan casually swimming in the lake. He looked again and again, but it was no duck, it was a swan. Maybe it had been left behind by the flock? But the swan didn't show any sign of lonesomeness, elegantly swimming among the raft of flowers.
That unrealistic sight reminded Kousaka of a child using toys to make a doll house devoid of order. Like something from an inconsistent dream.
"Hey, Mr. Kousaka," Sanagi said, still leaning her head on his shoulder.
"From the moment I first met you here, I knew it would turn out like this."
"Really?"
"Yeah. ...Do you remember when you first talked to me?"
"I remember it well." Kousaka squinted as if honing his senses. "I thought you were a really unsociable girl."
"I couldn't help that. I'm shy."
Sanagi pouted, then tilted her head a little and looked up.
"When we met, it was under this mistletoe."
"Mistletoe?"
Kousaka turned his gaze up. He saw a clearly-foreign plant mixed in around the ends of the cherry tree's branches. When he saw it in winter, it looked so sorry he couldn't distinguish it from a bird's nest, but this mistletoe was now growing verdant leaves.
"People who meet under mistletoe during the Christmas season have to kiss. Did you know?"
Kousaka shook his head. He figured it was probably a Western custom.
"And I'd decided that my first kiss had to be someone I liked. So it was inevitable I'd come to like you, Mr. Kousaka."
"That's some wild logic." Kousaka grinned bitterly.
"I don't really know what I'm saying either." Sanagi laughed, shoulders shaking. "At any rate, I'm saying our love was supported not just by a parasitic animal, but a parasitic plant. All these parasitic organisms are deeply involved in our lives. I think that's what I'm trying to say."
"...I get it."
"Sheesh, if we can't fall in love without depending on parasitic organisms, who knows which of us are the real parasites." Sanagi laughed again.
Then there was silence for a while. The two of them thought about the happy coincidences parasites had brought about for them.
Eventually, Kousaka broke the silence.
"You said earlier people had to kiss under mistletoe."
"Yeah. But only around Christmas time."
"Just look." Kousaka extended his index finger and faced forward. "There's a swan. There's a snowstorm. The lake's frozen over."
"You're right," Sanagi chuckled. "Well, can't argue with that."
Sanagi faced Kousaka and slowly closed her eyes.
Kousaka put a quick kiss on the edge of her lips.
Soon, Sanagi fell asleep in Kousaka's lap. She must have been tired. Maybe the worm was still recovering in her, and wasn't able to fully process the anguish she had.
Kousaka ran his hand through her soft hair. The blue earring hidden on her ear glinted. Even after her hair went back to black, it seemed she still kept her earring on.
Thinking about it, this was his first time seeing her in a spring-like outfit. He hadn't noticed when she was dressed in winter wear, but looking at her body up close, he identified signs that she'd attempted more than just taking sleeping pills. There were some things that looked ancient, and some things that looked recent. Each one of them saddened Kousaka.
I hope she won't have bad dreams, Kousaka prayed.
Cherry petals continued to fall in the park. As they sat in the tree shade, the petals slowly piled upon them.
Before long, the sun descended slightly, and the two were illuminated by dim light coming through the trees. Careful not to wake Sanagi, Kousaka lay down and closed his eyes, and took a breath of the rich spring air, filled with the smell of grass and cherry trees.
I won't be able to experience nature without worry for long. Before too long, my germaphobia will resurge, and I'll hole up in my room again. That thought depressed me a little. But when I think about how this tender feeling I feel when I'm with Sanagi was brought about by the worm, I can't bring myself to hate that parasite of love.
In the end, it had become hazy whether or not we could have fallen in love without depending on the worm. But at this point, I can feel like that's not such a big issue.
Because the worms are an indispensable part of our bodies. We can't think about anything separating ourselves from them. With the inclusion of the worm, I can call myself "me" for the first time.
People don't just fall in love with their heads. They can love with their eyes, love with their ears, love with their fingertips. So then there's nothing strange about how I loved with the worm.
No one can complain about that.
*
By the time the sky was turning gray, the two left Mizushina Park. They bought food at the supermarket, returned to the apartment, and Kousaka made them a basic meal. After their rather late lunch and post-meal coffee, it was 4 PM.
They were sweating, so they took showers one after the other. Changing into inside wear, they sat together on the bed and looked through the encyclopedia they bought at the bookstore. The shortwave radio on the table placed a foreign news program, but the volume was low, so they couldn't make anything out.
Pale light came through a crack in the curtains. The lights weren't on, so the room was dim like being deep in the forest. Listening close, children could be heard playing in the distance.
After looking through the encyclopedia and closing it, Sanagi spoke.
"I felt like something was missing. But now I know what it was."
"What do you mean?"
"There's no disinfectant smell."
Kousaka blinked.
"Oh, I guess so. Because I haven't been nervously cleaning lately."
"To me, it was that smell that really defined your room."
"You adore the smell of disinfectant?"
Sanagi nodded.
So Kousaka took some disinfectant spray out of a cardboard box, and like he had done daily until a few months ago, he disinfected everything in the room. Sanagi sat on the bed and enjoyed the scene unfolding before her like it were someone putting up Christmas decorations.
Soon, the room was filled with a thick ethanol smell, and Sanagi lay on the bed with a look of satisfaction.
"Yep, it's your room."
"Now that I'm smelling it again, it's an awful smell."
"Really? I like it, it's like an infirmary."
"I think most people would say "I hate it, it's like a hospital.""
"But I like it."
Sanagi put the pillow under her chin, closed her eyes, and sighed.
"I think I could fall asleep like this."
"Hey, didn't you just take a nap earlier?"
"I guess so. But I think I'm exhausted."
Less than five minutes later, she fell asleep.
Kousaka pulled the blanket over Sanagi, and after some hesitation, got in beside her. And he watched her sleep, never tiring of it. At this distance, he could identify each one of her long eyelashes.
It was a fleeting look she had on her face. A look like she'd never once felt her nervousness go away her entire life. Sleeping in the dim afternoon, she seemed unusually brittle and easily-hurt.
First thing in the morning, I'll contact work to cancel my move, Kousaka thought.
I'll unpack these boxes, and with Sanagi, get this room back to how it was.
I'll stay in this town.
And I'll live with her.
While the 5 PM announcement echoed through town, Kousaka slowly closed his eyes.
*
When Sanagi woke up, Kousaka's face was in front of her. She reflexively jumped back in surprise, eventually realized the situation, took two or three breaths, and lay down again. Her pulse didn't settle down for a while.
The sun had mostly set. She couldn't hear children outside anymore. A warm wind blew through the window, rustling the curtains. Mixing with the disinfectant smell, for a brief moment, it made for a chest-tightening nostalgic smell. She pondered that nostalgia for a while, but before she could identify it, she forgot the smell.
Oh well, Sanagi quietly mumbled. Knowing wouldn't do anything for me.
Then she gently extended her hand and put her fingers between Kousaka's.
I'll always remember this sensation, Sanagi thought.
Considering how much time she had left, that wouldn't be difficult.
Gazing at the faint sunset sky, Sanagi thought.
My life was saved by a kiss with the person I loved.
...How nice would that be if it were true?
When we kissed, some of the worms did move from Kousaka's body to mine, and reproduced with the worms in my body. The same thing had happened in his body. There was no doubt about that.
But the newly-born worms that resulted from that were not the same. The resistant parasites had only been born in Kousaka.
Maybe the worms in Kousaka's body didn't have their resistance to medicine from the start. When my worms and his worms mixed their genes, miraculously, a variation of medical resistance was introduced, and that variation saved his life.
But the same miracle hadn't happened in my body. The worms in my body with no resistance were defenseless, and wiped out by the medicine. And so I lost the organ that processed my anguish.
Now, I'm a husk. I'm already half dead. Like a chicken running around with its head cut off. I have two feet in death, and I'm just waiting to sink.
I survived this long because of my tenacity to meet Kousaka one last time. And now that my wish has been granted, I probably don't have long left. I won't be able to resist the urge to die at the peak of happiness, and I'll take my life.
If I got Kousaka to share some of his worms, there's a chance I could recover, but unfortunately, I don't have any will to do that. I've already written my note.
I intend to carry this to the end.
It was always this way. I was so scared to live, I couldn't bear it. If I didn't take something, I became afraid I would never get it my entire life. If I did take something, I became afraid I would lose it someday.
The scariest thing was that I would never love anyone, and no one would ever love me. If I was going to live a life like that, I thought it would be better to just die as soon as possible. But now that I have learned about love, now I'm more scared than anything to lose it. If I'll have to continue on with this fear, I think it's best to die as soon as possible.
A trend toward death. A self-destructive program. In the end, however things fell, my destination was the same. Happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin, and especially to a coward like me, they have almost the same meaning. Everything serves as an argument to entrust myself to death. That's the person I am.
So I at least want to end it all while the coin is facing up. There's nothing to win from dying at the proper time. I'm already exhausted from getting sad and getting happy.
So I'm sure I'll put a period on my life soon. Then the curtain will fall on the history of my life. It'll never be written to again. There could be no better time to quit while I'm ahead.
Sanagi remembered. The day they first met. The day he first let her touch him. The day they first kissed. The day he let her hug him.
Leaving Kousaka is my only regret. I really feel bad for him. What I'm about to do will mean betraying him. I couldn't ever apologize enough. I won't try to ask his forgiveness. If he hates me for it, I guess I'll just have to accept his anger. That's my natural reward.
...But if it's possible, I want Kousaka to think this.
The two of us should have been dead before we even met. Guided by our sick souls, we should have long since taken our lives. By the power of the worm, that was temporarily postponed, we were given a chance to fall in love, and one of us will even miraculously survive.
If he can take it like that, then while this may not be the ideal result, surely he won't think it's the worst.
If it weren't for the worm, we wouldn't have even met.
And it's not all sad. Because there's one fact that my death will prove. One fact that only my death could prove.
The death of the host is brought about by being released from the worm's influence. And the love between the two, formed by the Cupid-like assistance of the worms, should fall apart just by one of the hosts losing that influence. Thus, because I'm thinking about Kousaka just before I die, and Kousaka is thinking about me, that means our love could exist even taking the worms out of it.
We were able to love each other without depending on the worms.
That was something that could never have been proven if I hadn't lost them.
Sanagi let go of Kousaka's hand and gently stroked his cheek.
After a few seconds, he slowly opened his eyes.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
"No," Kousaka shook his head. And then noticing something, his eyes widened. "...Sanagi, were you crying?"
She noticed it only after having it pointed out. She hurried to wipe it with her palm, but the tears kept pouring, showing no sign of stopping.
"That's weird." Choking up slightly, Sanagi forced herself to smile. "I didn't mean to cry..."
"Are you sad?"
"No, it's not that. In fact, I can't help but be happy."
"Huh. I'm relieved." Kousaka narrowed his eyes. "Those must be the right kind of tears, then."
He always he such a weird way of consolation, Sanagi thought and laughed.
"...Hey, Mr. Kousaka. Should I tell you something nice?"
"Nice?" Kousaka's eyes widened a little.
"Yes, nice," Sanagi nodded. Then she put on a special smile. "Um, I love you, Mr. Kousaka."
"Yeah. I know that."
"Not like that, I really do love you."
"Hmm." Kousaka thought about it, then sighed. "I don't really get it, but I'm happy."
"Right?"
The two laughed together. Before long, Kousaka should realize what I really meant by that, Sanagi thought. Though by then, it would all be too late.
Suddenly, she noticed her tears were making a stain on the pillow, and had a look like she'd done something wrong.
"Sorry. I'm going to make the pillow dirty at this rate."
Sanagi was about to get up, but Kousaka's arm blocked her.
"Well, we can just do this."
With that, Kousaka held Sanagi against his chest.
His shirt absorbed Sanagi's tears.
"You can cry as much as you want. I think you haven't cried for yourself enough before now."
"...Yeah. I'll do that."
Sanagi kept crying in his arms. For all that came before, and all that would follow.
Eventually, Sanagi stopped crying and fell asleep in Kousaka's arms.
It was an incredibly deep sleep.
It was the first time in her life she'd had such a peaceful sleep.
In her dream, she was a swan. A swan swimming lonesomely in a lake glittering in the sun during the spring. Her wing was injured, so she'd been left behind by the others. What am I going to do now? The swan couldn't bear the unease. She felt bitter toward the others who had left her behind, and at the same time thought nostalgically of them. And she cursed her lack of caution that caused her precious wings to be injured.
But as she swam in the lake upon which cherry petals fell, things gradually stopped mattering. Well, in the end, at least I'm able to have this beautiful sight all to myself, thought the swan.
Afterword
Objectively speaking, even commonplace events can be world-changing incidents to the involved parties. For example, long ago, a woman told me this. The best memory of her life was in elementary school, when she was chosen to provide piano accompaniment for a chorus competition. When you've only heard that part, it might sound rather foolish. In fact, some people might think it's foolish even after listening to the whole story. It's all up to individuals to decide how they feel about things.
At the time, she was very reclusive and had no friends, and had no heavy burdens other than her role of providing accompaniment. Truthfully, she wanted to back out, but there was no one else in her class who could play piano, and she didn't have a personality that would let her refuse people's requests, so she ended up accepting. Days of being crushed by the worry of "what if I make a mistake during the show and drag everyone down?" went on, and she evidently cried to herself many times.
But once the chorus practice actually began, it soon caused her suffering no longer. In fact, she started looking forward to the practice sessions.
The conductor was a boy she secretly had affections for. When the performance began, he would always look directly at her. She knew, of course, that it was only eye contact for the sake of timing the performance. However, it made her happy. So much so that everything else stopped mattering.
Some people might laugh: "How lonely a life must that be if your greatest memory was just a boy you like looking at you?" But I understand her feelings very well. Even if the rest of her life afterward were filled with bliss, I believe her number one memory would remain "just a boy she liked looking at her."
People's standards of evaluation are rather haphazard. That full-course meal from an expensive restaurant you had when you were rich may not taste as good as a school lunch worth a couple hundred yen you had when impoverished, and you may not feel as much affection toward the girl who you spent most of your fulfilling college days with as you do the girl in middle school who held your hand once when you were down in the dumps. In terms of this book, I don't suppose Kousaka will ever forget the time Sanagi kissed him through a face mask. I suppose you could call it "happiness by subtraction." I consider this inversion of values to be one of humankind's most beautiful glitches.
If my previous books, The Place You Called From and The Place I Called From, were a story of physical defects, then Parasite in Love is a story of mental defects. In that sense, perhaps you could say the two stories have opposing structures. I had the idea of "the sickness of absence" in early spring 2014, but I had practically zero knowledge of parasites at the time. Miraculously, around that same time, the Japanese translation of Moises Velasquez-Manoff's An Epidemic of Absence was released by Bungeishunju, though I didn't learn of this until 2016. It was a deeply interesting book that I got very engrossed in, forgetting I was reading it for reference, so if reading this book gave you any interest in parasites, perhaps you might want to give it a try?
Also, the title of this book, Parasite in Love, was taken directly from Dr. Koichiro Fujita's book Parasite in Love (Kodansha). I'd like to deeply thank Dr. Fujita for generously allowing me to copy his title.