The Briefcase Read Online Free Page B

baseball game on the radio, and my Giants-hating blood was boiling over. I now knew for sure that it was, in fact, straightforward hatred as opposed to some kind of perverse affectation.
    “I can’t stand them,” I said in a low voice.
    Sensei’s eyes opened wide. “How can you be Japanese and hate the Giants?!” he murmured.
    “What kind of prejudice is that?” I asked, just as the Tigers’ last batter struck out. Sensei stood up from his chair and raised his glass high. Over the radio, they announced the end of the game, and the bar started bustling again. Suddenly, orders for drinks and food came from every direction, the owner replying to each one with a gruff acknowledgment.
    “They won, Tsukiko!” Sensei beamed and moved to fill my cup with saké from his own bottle, which was rather unusual. We had established a practice of never encroaching on each other’s food or drink. We ordered on our own. We poured for ourselves. And we paid separately. We had been doing it this way all this time. But here was Sensei coming over to pour me his saké, to break our tacit agreement. And it was all
because the Giants had won. It was far too soon for me to have Sensei so capriciously endanger the comfortable distance that existed between us. Those fucking Giants.
    “So what?” I said very quietly as I tried to move my cup away from Sensei.
    “Nagashima’s a great manager, isn’t he?” Sensei still managed to deftly pour his saké into my fleeing cup, without spilling a drop. Quite well done.
    “Fortunately that’s fortunate,” I said, turning aside and putting down the cup of saké without drinking it.
    “Tsukiko, that’s a strange thing to say.”
    “Unfortunately that’s unfortunate.”
    “The pitcher played well, too.” Sensei was laughing.
    He’s laughing—what a jerk , I cursed to myself. Sensei had a huge grin on his face. And Sensei, who was always so calm and composed, was laughing heartily.
    “Can we stop talking about it?” I said, staring at Sensei. But he wouldn’t stop grinning. And there was something curious playing at the corners of his mouth. It was like the glimmer of delight in the eyes of a young boy as he squashes little ants.
    “No, I will not stop talking about it, most definitely not!”
    What was he saying? Sensei knew that I hated the Giants, and here he was, gloating. He was most definitely gloating.
    “The Giants, they’re all fuckers,” I said, spilling the entire cup of saké that Sensei had poured me onto an empty plate.
    “‘Fuckers’?! Such language from a young lady!” Sensei replied, having regained his perfect composure. He stood up even straighter than usual and drained his cup.
    “I am not a young lady.”
    “Pardon me.”
    Disquiet filled the air between Sensei and me. Sensei did have a point. After all, the Giants had won. Eventually, without saying a word,
we each went back to pouring our own drinks. We didn’t order anything to eat, we simply kept on pouring. At the end of the night, we were both quite drunk. Maintaining our silence, we each paid our bill, left the bar, and went our respective ways home. And ever since then, we haven’t spoken.
     
     
    WHEN I THOUGHT about it, Sensei was the only person I spent any time with.
    For a while now, there hadn’t been anyone besides Sensei with whom I had sat and had a drink, or gone for a walk, or seen anything interesting.
    When I tried to think whom I spent time with before I became friendly with Sensei, no one came to mind.
    I had been alone. I rode the bus alone, I walked around the city alone, I did my shopping alone, and I drank alone. And even when I was with Sensei now, I didn’t feel any different than when I did these things on my own. It seemed, then, that it didn’t really matter whether or not I was with Sensei, but the truth was, doing these things with him made me feel proper. “Proper” is perhaps a strange way to put it. It was more like the way I felt about leaving the extra band,