How Well Do You Know Me?

Hey, you.

If you’ve known someone for a long time, do you know them well?

Their favorite food.

What they hate eating.

The books they like. Their favorite movies. What they always drink.

If you know enough things like that, can you say you know the person?

Or do we just take the things we know and build our own version of who they are?

Clink.

The ice shifted in my glass.

As usual, there was an I.W. Harper in front of me.

“Come to think of it, Kenichi, you never drink Scotch.”

Taka was looking at my glass.

“Nope.”

“Because you’re a bourbon guy?”

“No. I just don’t like Scotch.”

“Really? What don’t you like about it?”

“It’s smoky.”

Taka froze.

“...Smoky?”

“It is.”

Mama laughed from behind the counter.

“You mean the peat?”

“Hell if I know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know what it’s called. Smoky is smoky.”

“You know, Kenichi, you’re surprisingly bad at this whole whiskey thing.”

“I never said I was an expert.”

“But you always drink Harper.”

“Yeah.”

“So which do you prefer, the eight-year or the twelve-year?”

“No idea.”

“What?”

“Put them side by side and I probably couldn’t tell you which was which.”

Taka stared at my glass.

“...But you like Harper, right?”

“Not particularly.”

“Not particularly?”

“I don’t dislike it.”

“Then why do you always—”

He stopped.

“Oh.”

Tom gave a small nod too.

Mama said nothing.

They all knew.

The day Masato got into a fight years ago.

He’d hit someone and been hit himself, all because he was protecting somebody else.

And afterward, the whiskey I drank had been Harper.

“That’s why,” I said.

Taka thought about it for a while.

“So you don’t drink it because you love the taste.”

“Guess not.”

“That feels weird.”

“What does?”

“I always thought you were really particular about your whiskey.”

“Don’t make things up about me.”

“But you’re an old guy who always drinks bourbon.”

“Who are you calling old?”

“That part’s hard to argue with.”

Mama laughed.

Fair enough.

“Okay, then,” Tom said, looking amused. “You’re at a yakitori place. What do you order?”

“Where did that come from?”

“Gizzards,” Taka said.

“Maybe hearts too. Salt, obviously.”

“Nope.”

“What?”

“Asparagus wrapped in bacon.”

Silence.

“...Asparagus wrapped in bacon?”

“Yeah.”

“You?”

“Am I not allowed to eat it?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“It’s good.”

“Sure, but...”

Taka clearly couldn’t accept this.

“What about sweets?”

“I like them.”

“What?”

“What now?”

“I thought you didn’t eat sweets.”

“I do.”

“What do you like?”

“Mister Donut.”

“Mister Donut?”

“Pon de Ring, things like that.”

“Wait.”

Taka put a hand to his forehead.

“The Kenichi in my head is falling apart.”

“That’s because you made him up.”

Tom was laughing now.

“What about movies?”

“Movies?”

“You don’t watch romance movies, right?”

“I saw Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World at the theater years ago.”

“With who?”

“By myself.”

“Did you cry?”

“Bawled my eyes out.”

Taka looked at the ceiling.

“Okay. Let’s stop.”

“You asked.”

“No, now I want to know more.”

Tom was fully enjoying himself.

“Favorite novel?”

Leda.

“Kaoru Kurimoto?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Taka looked slightly relieved.

“That one makes sense. Manga?”

Baki.

“Why did we suddenly go there?”

“Go where?”

“You don’t go from Leda to Baki. Not normally.”

“Well, I did.”

Mama was quietly laughing.

“Drink you hate?”

“Vegetable juice.”

“Didn’t you say you drink it every morning?”

“I do.”

“But you don’t like it?”

“I hate it. Tastes awful.”

“Then why drink it every day?”

“Masato tells me to.”

“...You actually do what Masato tells you?”

“He says it’s good for me.”

“Even though you hate it?”

“Hating it doesn’t stop it being good for me.”

“You’re weirdly obedient about that.”

Shut up.

“Food you hate?”

“Eggplant.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s eggplant.”

“That isn’t a reason.”

“Why do I need a reason to hate a food?”

After we’d finished laughing, Tom spoke.

“This is interesting.”

“What is?”

“I thought we knew you pretty well.”

“You do.”

“Yeah. But apparently we don’t.”

“Of course there are things you don’t know.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Tom thought for a moment.

“We know more about you now, but somehow I understand you less.”

Taka nodded.

“Yeah. Exactly. I thought you were more of a... you know, grizzled old guy.”

“What the hell is a grizzled old guy?”

“Someone who drinks Harper and thinks about unnecessarily complicated things.”

“That’s mostly accurate.”

“But you eat Pon de Ring.”

“Yeah.”

“And asparagus wrapped in bacon.”

“Yeah.”

“And cry at romance movies.”

“I did.”

“And Baki?”

“I like Baki.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Not my problem.”

Mama dropped a fresh piece of ice into my glass.

“But isn’t everyone like that?”

“Mama?”

“You can list everything someone likes, but that doesn’t make it an instruction manual for the person.”

I looked at my glass.

Maybe she was right.

Harper mattered to me, but I knew almost nothing about its flavor.

I hated vegetable juice but drank it every morning.

I’d cried at a romance movie, and I liked manga about men beating the hell out of each other.

Every one of those things was me.

But put them all together and ask whether that collection was me?

I wasn’t sure.

“Then what do you have to know before you can say you know someone?” Taka asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“Come on. Think about it.”

“Why do you assume I have the answer?”

“Because you always say something that sounds like one.”

“It only sounds like one.”

Mama laughed.

“That much I know about you.”

“Hey.”

“Okay, then. What do you think of this?”

Taka pulled out his phone and put it on the counter.

A short video was playing.

Pole vault at the World Championships.

The athlete started down the runway, planted the long pole, and it bent into a huge arc before launching him into the air.

He sailed cleanly over the bar.

“Wow. Byootiful.”

“Beautiful,” Tom corrected him in flawless English.

Mama leaned over the counter to watch.

The video switched to slow motion.

Again, the pole bent at what looked like an impossible angle.

I held my glass of Harper and muttered,

“I’m amazed that thing doesn’t snap.”

All three of them turned toward me at once.

“...Kenichi.”

“What?”

Taka laughed.

“I really don’t understand you at all.”

I took a sip of Harper.

“Maybe that’s about right.”

Hey, you.

That person you think you know so well.

Are you really looking at them?

Or are you looking at the person you built by connecting all the things you happen to know?

Well.

Maybe relationships are more interesting when there are still a few things you’ll never quite figure out.

See you again at Aoi.