Back then, I had a very close Japanese friend.

Every time she came, she stayed at my place. She would drag her suitcase in, speak softly, and always line up her shoes neatly by the door.

Once, when there were other people staying at home as well, she arrived and someone close to me started talking.

She’s doing this wrong. She’s strange in that way. Her habits are odd. Her emotions are not normal. The voice wasn’t loud, but it kept going. Like background noise.

At first I don’t notice it, but after a while, my mind starts tuning to it. At the time, she had just broken up with her boyfriend and was sinking into depression. Her unusual behavior wasn’t weird, it was her holding herself together.

But I didn’t hear that. Because I had already let another voice in. Without realizing it, I began to distance myself from her, using a posture of “I’m still helping you.”

And she felt excluded, mocked.

What was strange was that she grew even closer to the person who had been speaking badly about her behind her back. I didn’t expose it. Not because I was noble, but because I didn’t want to hurt one more person.

After that, we never contacted each other again. Sometimes I still wonder: Was she okay later on? Did she make it through? Does she ever think of me, even briefly?

But this relationship simply disappeared from my life.

In the fog of that moment, who was the good person? Who was the bad one? Maybe there was never an answer.

There was only the third voice, the one that was never heard. The voice of what she truly needed to be understood.



—— XC Scribbles · 陸拾柒 LXVII 🌙