The Sound of Loneliness
“I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.”
He never could hold a tune to save his life, but I still love whenever he sings.
“But now I don’t care, I could go anywhere with you,” he continues under his breath. “And I’d probably be, happy.”
He strains the last high note, because he knows it always makes me laugh.
“You know, even though I know those are just Bright Eyes lyrics, I kind of wish you meant it,” I tease.
He winks, and says, “They say people sing the songs they wish they’d written.”
I avert my gaze, trying to hide my stupid grin and the flush in my cheeks.
He chuckles. “Got her.”
We’re standing on the last train on the Yamanote Line, packed shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines, even though it’s a Sunday night.
That’s Tokyo for you, he had said.
Drunken laughter of salarymen and rowdy tourists drown out our playful conversation, for which I can’t help but feel a bit grateful.
“Next stop is me,” he says. His gaze lingers longer than usual.
“That’s a shame,” I reply. I glance down at his lips and hope he gets the message.
He doesn’t.
“I had fun.”
“Me too. Thanks again for everything today.”
He smiles, and we stand in silence for a minute that feels like centuries.
Ding-ding. The doors open, and a flood of drunk bodies shuffle around us.
“Get home safe, okay?”
“Okay. Goodnight,” I say, and I wonder if he sees the sadness underneath my smile.
He doesn’t.
We hug for a second that I wish would last a lifetime, and he joins the flood of bodies headed for the doors.
“Goodnight, love. I’ll see you again, someday,” he says over the hiss of the train.
And just like that, he disappears into the sea of faces that is Shinjuku Station.
“Someday?”
But in that moment, I knew I would never see Hideaki again.
It’s a strange thing, time.
Always in slow motion during the moments that agonize us, and tauntingly fleeting during the moments we never want to end.
Every moment with Hideaki felt like the latter.
There’s just something about him, I had decided soon after we met.
Every one of his laughs rung like a melody sounding in perfect time with every one of mine. Every word he spoke felt straight out of the love story I only wish I could write.
I want to say it was love.
I want to say it was fate, but the cynic in me says I know better.
Hideaki made me want to tell the cynic in me to shut the hell up.
It began two years ago, on an unusually warm spring morning, in my favorite cafe — a Parisian-esque place hidden in a quiet corner of Ikebukuro.
I sat alone with my iced coffee and chiffon cake, and let my mind wander to the saxophone of Duke Ellington playing on vinyl.
I thought about loneliness, and how it always seemed to find me, even in a city of millions.
And damn, would it ever cease?
Bzzzzzz.
“Who on Earth dares interrupt my daydreams at this hour,” I wondered out loud, opening my notifications.
“When love is gone, where does it go?”
It was a comment on my latest blog post — a lyric from the song that inspired the post. Arcade Fire’s “Afterlife.”
A goofy grin spread across my face before I could help it — no one ever comments on my blog, let alone recognizes the musical allusions.
I stared for a while at the comment, signed simply, H.I.
I decided to take my chances.
“H.I., can we work it out?” I typed, continuing the lyrics. “Scream and shout, ‘til we work it out?”
With a hint of caution, I hit Post.
Then, I dug through my backpack for my headphones, scrolled down my list of Albums to Reflektor, and bid adieu to Duke Ellington on vinyl.
It went on like this for a few weeks.
Playful lyrical exchanges on blog posts that were never meant to be read by strangers.
Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Bon Iver, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens. Hell, even Chance the Rapper.
No novel sentences exchanged, no witty banter, not even an introduction — just two strangers behind keyboards and shared music libraries.
It was bliss.
Then, one day, an email.
Hetty,
First off, you have excellent taste in music. But of course, you already knew that.
Secondly, if you haven’t guessed by now, this is H.I. Which stands for: Hideaki Imuto! I found your email in your About section, and figured it was about time you know who you’ve been talking to. If you could even call it conversation haha.
I just wanted to say I’ve been keeping up with your blog for a while and I really identify with your writing. It’s like reading the works of an old friend.
That being said, I’d love to meet up sometime and give that whole friend thing a shot. If you don’t mind, of course! I’m sorry if this is creepy in any way. I just think I’d regret not trying, in the end.
You’re in Tokyo, right? I am too, in Meguro. But most of the time I’m in Minato, working for a marketing and design agency.
Maybe we can grab coffee soon?
If you’re down, here’s my number. Feel free to text whenever! And if I don’t hear from you, I understand too.
Hideaki
I remember staring at a blank text box for days, trying to craft the perfect response.
I remember a lot of typing, backspacing, more typing, more backspacing.
I remember not wanting to mess it up.
Things like this just don’t happen to people like me, I remember thinking. It’s, like, ‘too good to be true,’ or some bullshit like that.
And in retrospect, it probably was.
Nevertheless, two weeks and many text messages later, there we were, Hideaki and I, standing face-to-face at Naka-Meguro Station.
“You found me,” I grinned.
“The cat socks gave it away.”
We shared a laugh and an awkward pause. I could feel my cheeks begin to flush.
“Finally,” he chuckled, stretching one arm out for a hug. “It’s nice to put a face behind the words and music.”
“Likewise,” I said.
A damn nice face, too, I remember thinking.
Hideaki’s eyes were a shade of hazel I’d never seen, made even more striking against his fair complexion.
His wavy, chestnut-brown hair fell perfectly across his forehead; visibly uncombed, but I think I preferred it that way.
The five-o-clock shadow forming around his soft lips accentuated a jawline so sharp it could kill a man — or, me.
Hideaki Imuto, I decided, was the most handsome man I ever laid eyes on.
God help me.
“Let’s walk, shall we?” he said, sipping a coffee in one hand and propping open an umbrella in the other.
“Let’s.”
Steady rain drenched the streets of Tokyo, prompting salarymen and couples alike to flock for shelter in nearby izakayas and cafes.
We wandered aimlessly for a while, sharing umbrellas, small talk, and the occasional awkward silence.
Despite the wet weather, the neighborhood breathed with life. We walked to the soundtrack of bustling Thursday night conversation and clinking glasses.
“Here,” he said, handing me an earbud and putting on the other. “I came across this cellist on YouTube. I think you’d love him.”
I did.
“Have you ever seen ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’?” he asked.
“I have.”
“You know that line Kat Dennings says to Michael Cera when they’re in the car?”
“Something about musical soulmates?” I winked at him, poorly.
He laughed and said, “Exactly! Well, I think I found mine.”
We continued trading off new music discoveries as we walked, losing ourselves in one-eared concerts of obscure folk singers and SoundCloud producers.
Eventually, we joined the hungry masses and found ourselves at a cozy yakitori restaurant, eager to feed our peckish stomachs.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I blurted after my third beer. “I mean, the whole meeting-a-stranger-from-the-internet thing. It’s, uh, not really — I don’t usually do this.”
He smiled.
“I figured. I can tell by your writing that you’re quite the introvert. I’m glad you decided to, though.”
“Me too.”
The remainder of our night was spent over cold beer, hot sake, and warm conversation.
Hideaki talked about his mother, who had passed away several years prior. Cancer, he explained. He told me she was his inspiration for getting into music, which in turn inspired him to delve into design.
When I offered my condolences, he said they were appreciated, but unnecessary.
“Something about death with dignity,” he winked. A nod to the opening track off Sufjan Steven’s Carrie and Lowell, my favorite album.
We shared cigarettes and stories from childhood. I told him about my anxiety, and he listened without judgement. He told me tales from his rowdy university years, and I listened with laughter.
The hours passed like minutes which felt like milliseconds.
Looking into Hideaki’s eyes felt like gazing into an ocean I once called home. Like a scene from a past life, remastered with vivid imagery and a shiny new score, meant just for us.
We were the last two in the restaurant, but I could have sworn we were the last two in all of Tokyo.
In all of the world.
When it came time to part ways, Hideaki handed me a book and a USB drive.
Junot Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her.
“It’s my favorite. Take care of it for me. The thumb drive is a mix of songs I like to listen to while reading it. It doesn’t quite have the same romance as a physical mixtape, but I hope it’ll do.”
“Wow,” I said, beaming. “Thank you.”
I hugged him, perhaps a bit too tightly, but I didn’t care.
Visibly surprised, he chuckled and ruffled my rain-dampened hair.
“That’s you, isn’t it,” he said, motioning to the train arriving on the platform. “It was great meeting you. I’ll see you Sunday?”
“Sunday.”
“Goodnight, love.”
That night, I drifted off into dreams of hazel eyes and one-eared concerts — knowing that, in a city of millions, at least one of them was for me.
Little did I know, that dream would come to a screeching halt.
Hideaki and I would share our final day together that Sunday.
He vanished the following Tuesday, seemingly out of thin air.
His phone disconnected, his Blogger profile deactivated, and he had no social media to speak of. We had no mutual friends, nor even acquaintances to whom I could run.
I contacted his agency, but they said he had simply emailed his resignation that morning and left no forwarding address.
His last text message to me Monday night simply read, “Goodnight, love.”
I even checked the city directory.
Hideaki Imuto, it seemed, had been erased from existence.
Have you ever had your heart broken?
Something cliche, like your core being shattered into a million pieces. I am all too familiar with the feeling.
But the days that followed Hideaki’s disappearance felt like something else entirely.
Grief-stricken and hopelessly confused, I spent that Tuesday searching for answers. I called in sick to work, and retraced every step we’d taken that final Sunday, each location a painful snapshot of regret.
If only I had known, I lamented, I would have savored our long walks through Shimokita and Shibuya, and I even would have grabbed his hand while doing so.
I would have made us a longer playlist to walk to, and put that playlist on repeat.
I would have plopped right into the seat next to his in that Kichijoji teishokuya— his favorite — and shamelessly been one of those couples at restaurants.
I wouldn’t have held my tongue when he asked if I believed in fate.
Not until I met you, I would have said. There’s just something about you.
I wouldn’t have dropped childish hints and waited in vain for them to be picked up.
If I had known, I would have chased after Hideaki, into the masses of Shinjuku station — and I would have kissed him, for what would have felt an eternity.
It’s a strange thing, time.
It passes.
Even when it feels impossible.
It’s a Sunday night, and I find myself once again on a packed train on the Yamanote Line. This time, I sit alone, headphones on, lost in thought.
Though life eventually returned to its mundane pace, I never stopped thinking about Hideaki.
Arcade Fire’s Afterlife begins playing on shuffle, clawing at an old scab.
“When love is gone, where does it go?” I sing under my breath.
Somehow, I can’t bring myself to press skip, so I simply wallow in my misery.
Around me, life goes on.
Salarymen anxiously check watches and smartphones. Children fidget in mothers’ laps. Couples hold hands and share puppy-love gazes. Pretty girls open hand mirrors, making sure they are still pretty after braving the Tokyo humidity. They are.
A city of fucking millions, I lament silently, and not a single one of them for me.
I’ve since read Hideaki’s book five times over, and committed his mixtape to memory.
Two years have passed, yet every read and every listen somehow feels like warm conversation with Hideaki, over cold beer and hot sake.
Perhaps, in them, I am looking for a message — one skillfully hidden within diction and lyrics.
A goodbye letter. An explanation.
If there is one, I haven’t found it.
“Maybe you don’t need one,” he slurs.
My friend, Tatsuya, is drunk.
“It’s been three years for god’s sake,” he says. “You’re a good-looking woman. Forget about him, and find yourself someone better.”
“Actually, two years,” I say, gulping the last of my beer. “And I can’t not need an answer. I’m, like, too sentimental, or some shit.”
“Damn writers,” he rolls his eyes and finishes his whiskey highball. “Okay, listen. I didn’t want to share this with you, but you’re getting kind of pathetic.”
“Hey, fuck you.”
Tatsuya rummages through his phone for a minute and slides it across the bar. It’s a Japan Times article, published the day Hideaki vanished.
Man Dies After Jumping In Front of Commuter Train in Tokyo, the headline reads.
A lump forms in my throat, and my heart sinks.
Saying nothing, I slide the phone back to Tatsuya and order us a round of shots. The whiskey scorches my throat, but right now, I welcome the pain.
I look over at Tatsuya, whose glass remains untouched. He stares at me in silence, clearly waiting for me to say something.
“It’s not him.”
More staring.
“It can’t be, okay? Hideaki couldn’t. Wouldn’t.”
“Hetty — ”
“Tats. I appreciate you looking out for me, but trust me. It’s not him.”
“Hetty, he fits the description. Wavy, brown hair? Hazel eyes? Not many guys in Tokyo with those features.”
He’s right.
“They never identified the body,” he continues. “but the pieces all fit. His sudden resignation, his last words to you. Hell, even his love for Bright Eyes.”
I’ll see you again, someday. Those were Hideaki’s last words to me. Our final conversation has long been seared into my memory, but I can’t help but see his words in a new light.
A dreadful, glaring fluorescent light, of a lamp hovering over a coroner’s table.
“I’m sorry.”
Tatsuya’s voice jolts me back into reality.
“Don’t be,” I say, feigning half a smile. “I have to just accept that he’s gone, even if that means he might be dead.”
Tatsuya finally takes his bourbon shot, and I motion to the bartender for two more.
“Something about death with dignity.”
“Have you ever missed someone you’ve never met?”
“Mm… I don’t think so, no.”
Hideaki gazes out on the empty train tracks as he speaks, as though asking no one in particular. His eyes indicate a man deep in thought.
After a minute, he turns to me and smiles a smile I will remember vividly even two years later.
“So many people catching the last train, even on a Sunday night,” I say, trying to break the silence.
“That’s Tokyo for you.”
More silence.
“My favorite song,” Hideaki blurts. “It’s ‘The Sound of Settling.’ Death Cab For Cutie. I dunno, just thought I should tell you.”
“I love that song.”
“I always thought if I’d ever written an album, I would’ve titled it ‘The Sound of Loneliness’.”
“Why’s that? Tribute?”
“Something like that. A tribute to both Ben Gibbard and all the other lonely souls out there like me and you. I would’ve written a special song for you, though. About someone who comes and eases the loneliness.”
I don’t know how to answer, so I just smile.
“Actually,” he laughs, “I would’ve been lazy and just stolen that one Bright Eyes song instead.”
“Wow, thanks,” I nudge him on the shoulder.
The last train on the Yamanote line pulls into the platform, and we inch our way in with the crowd and settle in a corner.
Once we caught our breath, I say, “So, then, which Bright Eyes song?”
“First Day of — ”
“Wait. You should sing it for me instead.”
Hideaki chuckles, and hesitates.
“Pleeease.”
“Okay, fine. Just to see you laugh one more time.”
I grin as he pulls in closer and leans into my ear.
“This is the first day of my life,” Hideaki serenades under his breath.
We lock eyes, and the universe comes to a standstill. He continues, off-tune and perfect.
“I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.”
###
i. first day of my life, bright eyes
ii. afterlife, arcade fire
iii. the sound of settling, death cab for cutie
