Talking Heads

Yamada Kyumoto woke up before his alarm.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. A faint line ran across the plaster above his bed, starting near the light fixture and disappearing behind the curtain. He had noticed it when he first moved in. At the time, he'd wondered whether it was a crack or just a bad paint job. He'd never bothered to find out.
His alarm was set for another twelve minutes.
Outside, a truck passed along the street, its engine rumbling through the window. Somewhere in the building, a toilet flushed. A door opened and shut. Someone laughed, followed by the sound of footsteps moving down the hallway.
Yamada closed his eyes.
He could sleep for another twelve minutes. He had no reason to get up early, and the thought of leaving his warm bed was unpleasant. Still, he couldn't seem to settle back into sleep. His mind kept wandering toward things that didn't matter.
Eventually, he reached for his phone.
There were no new messages.
He opened his conversation with Owari anyway.
Her last message was from the previous evening, when she'd told him about the crows she'd seen during her walk. He'd answered with a blurry photograph of a pigeon outside the convenience store and told her that his bird was winning. She'd replied with a laughing emoji.
Yamada looked at the photograph.
The pigeon was standing beside a piece of fried chicken packaging. Something thin and white was caught around one of its feet, although the picture was too blurry to tell what it was. The bird itself looked thoroughly unimpressed with the world.
It wasn't a particularly good photograph.
He wasn't sure why he'd taken it.
He remembered standing outside the store during his break, watching the pigeon peck at the pavement. He'd taken out his phone, snapped the picture, and sent it to Owari without thinking much about it.
There had been no reason to show her.
It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't funny enough to tell someone about. It wasn't even a particularly interesting pigeon.
He'd simply wanted her to see it.
Yamada locked his phone and placed it on his chest.
That was a strange thing to do, he supposed. Not taking the photograph. Sending it to someone.
He had spent years seeing things without feeling the need to share them. There were sunsets he'd watched alone, meals he'd eaten without speaking to anyone, and entire days in which he'd barely exchanged more than a few sentences with another person. He'd never felt particularly bothered by it.
Now, apparently, he had started sending photographs of pigeons.
He wasn't sure what that meant.
His alarm began ringing.
Yamada shut it off, sat up, and decided it probably didn't mean anything.
...
His apartment looked exactly as it had the previous morning.
The curtains were still drawn halfway. His dishes were stacked beside the sink, his shoes were arranged near the entrance, and the small table beside his bed held nothing except his phone and a bottle of water. There were no photographs on the walls, no decorations, and no objects that served a purpose beyond the practical.
It wasn't an unpleasant place to live.
It was simply a place to sleep.
Yamada washed his face, brushed his teeth, and changed into clean clothes. In the kitchen, he made a quick breakfast and ate it standing beside the counter. He checked the time, rinsed his plate, and packed his things for work.
Before leaving, he looked at his phone once more.
Still nothing.
He put it in his pocket and locked the door.
The morning air was cool enough to make him pull his collar up. The sky was pale, and the streets were already busy with people heading toward train stations, offices, and schools. Yamada followed his usual route, passing a row of vending machines and a narrow alley that smelled faintly of damp concrete.
The bakery on the corner had a line outside. A woman near the entrance was trying to keep a small child from running into the street. Across the road, two men stood beside a parked car, arguing about something neither seemed willing to explain properly.
Yamada watched them for a moment.
One man kept rubbing his forehead. The other had his arms folded and was looking away every few seconds. Whatever they were discussing, neither seemed particularly interested in listening to the other.
Yamada looked away and continued walking.
His mother used to tell him he had a strange way of looking at people.
Not in the sense that he stared. He wasn't especially good at maintaining eye contact, actually. She meant that he seemed to notice things he shouldn't, then somehow miss the things everyone else considered important.
He could tell when someone was angry before they raised their voice. He could recognize when a person was pretending to be cheerful. He noticed when people grew impatient, when their smiles became strained, and when they were trying to hide how tired they were.
But if someone asked him what he planned to do with that information, he wouldn't have an answer.
He could recognize that a person was hurting. He just didn't know how to make it better.
His mother had once told him that he should try looking people in the eyes when they spoke to him.
He'd asked why.
She'd told him that it was polite.
He'd asked what looking at someone's eyes had to do with politeness.
She'd called him weird.
That had been the end of the conversation.
Yamada stepped onto the train just before the doors closed. He found a place near the end of the carriage and held the overhead strap as the train pulled away.
His phone felt heavier in his pocket than it should have.
He took it out.
There was still no new message from Owari.
He opened their conversation, scrolled up a little, and found himself looking at the messages from the night he'd visited her apartment. He remembered the rain, the drinks he'd brought because he couldn't decide which one she'd like, and the way she'd laughed when he offered her aspirin.
He remembered asking whether she was cold.
He remembered her cooking him rice and an egg because he'd barely eaten that day.
Most of all, he remembered her asking whether she was a nuisance.
At the time, he'd thought it was an odd question. She had been the one who invited him in. She had offered him a place to sleep. She had fed him when he was hungry.
Why would she think she was bothering him?
Looking back, he wondered whether she'd expected him to say yes.
Maybe she was used to people finding her difficult to be around. Maybe she had become accustomed to the idea that everyone eventually got tired of her.
He didn't know.
He wasn't particularly good at guessing what other people thought.
The train stopped, and several passengers stepped out. Yamada moved aside to let them pass.
He considered sending Owari a message.
Are you doing okay?
He stared at the words for a few seconds before deleting them.
It was Saturday. She wasn't working today, and there was no reason to bother her so early. Besides, if something were wrong, she would probably tell him.
He put his phone away.
A few minutes later, he took it out again.
Nothing.
He slipped it back into his pocket and watched the city move past the window.
...
The convenience store smelled of coffee, plastic packaging, and the faint chemical scent of the cleaning products used on the floors.
Yamada changed into his work clothes, greeted the coworker finishing the previous shift, and began checking the shelves. He moved drinks forward, replaced a few missing products, and inspected the expiration dates on the sandwiches.
There was comfort in the repetition.
He knew where everything belonged. He knew which customers would come in for their morning coffee and which ones would stand in front of the refrigerated shelves for several minutes before choosing the same thing they always bought. He knew how to work the register without thinking and how to respond when someone asked for a bag.
Most conversations followed a predictable pattern.
A customer approached the counter.
Yamada greeted them.
They placed their items down.
He told them the total.
They paid, took their things, and left.
It was simple enough that he rarely had to think about what he was doing.
Around noon, one of the regular customers came in. He was a middle-aged man who usually bought a canned coffee and a newspaper. Today, he walked directly toward the drinks refrigerator and stood in front of it for a while.
When he eventually approached the counter, he had a coffee in one hand and an expression that suggested the store had personally inconvenienced him.
"Did you change the drinks around?"
Yamada glanced toward the refrigerators.
"No."
"Really?"
"Yes."
The man frowned. "Something looks different."
Yamada waited.
The man looked back toward the shelves, then at Yamada.
"Maybe it's the lighting."
"Maybe."
"Doesn't look right, though."
Yamada nodded.
The man continued talking about the arrangement of the drinks while Yamada scanned his coffee and newspaper. He complained that the shelves were difficult to navigate, that the store used to be easier to shop in, and that businesses changed things too often for no reason.
Yamada listened until the man finished paying.
"Well, you should tell someone about it," the customer said.
"I will."
The man seemed satisfied with that answer and left.
Yamada watched him disappear through the automatic doors.
The drinks hadn't been rearranged. He was certain of that because he'd stocked them himself the previous evening.
Perhaps the man had wanted someone to talk to.
Yamada sometimes wondered how often people did that. How many complaints weren't really complaints, how many questions weren't really questions, and how many people kept talking simply because they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts.
He didn't know how to ask.
Instead, he returned to the shelves.
A little later, his coworker told him that he could take his break.
Yamada went into the back room, sat down, and unwrapped a sandwich.
He ate half of it before reaching for his phone.
Owari still hadn't messaged him.
He opened their conversation.
The last message was still the same. Her laughing emoji sat beneath his photograph of the pigeon.
He looked at it.
Then he opened her contact information.
There was a phone number, a profile picture, and a name. Nothing particularly remarkable. He could call her if he wanted to. It wasn't difficult.
But what would he say?
He could ask about her walk. He could tell her about the man who thought the drinks had been rearranged. He could ask whether she had managed to get any sleep.
None of those things felt important enough to call someone over.
He set the phone on the table and finished his sandwich.
Then he picked it up again.
What are you doing today?
He read the message before sending it.
It was an ordinary question. There was nothing unusual about asking someone what they were doing.
Yamada sent it.
For several seconds, he stared at the screen as though the message might change into something else.
It didn't.
He put the phone away and returned to work.
...
Owari replied a little after one.
Yamada was restocking the refrigerated drinks when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He waited until he had finished arranging the bottles before checking it.
Laundry. Trying to decide what to make for dinner.
He typed a response.
I had a sandwich.
Her reply arrived quickly.
That's not what I asked.
Yamada read the message twice.
He typed, I know.
A few seconds passed.
Is that all you ever eat?
No.
Give me an example.
Yamada stood in front of the refrigerator, holding a bottle of green tea.
He thought about it.
Sometimes I eat curry.
The reply came almost immediately.
Curry doesn't count as a personality.
Yamada frowned at the screen.
He wasn't sure whether that was an insult. He read it again, then looked at the bottle in his hand as if it might help him understand.
Eventually, he realized she was making fun of him.
A laugh escaped before he could stop it.
It wasn't particularly loud, but it was enough to make a customer passing the aisle glance at him. Yamada straightened, returned the green tea to its place, and pretended he'd been checking the stock.
He typed back.
What does that make your personality?
Owari took a little longer to respond.
At least three things that aren't curry.
He looked at the message.
Then, despite himself, he smiled.
A customer approached the register with a bottle of water and a packet of gum. Yamada put his phone away and rang up the purchase.
"Something funny?" the customer asked.
"No."
The man glanced at him.
"Looked like it."
Yamada handed over the receipt.
"Have a good day."
The customer left without another word.
Yamada returned to the register and looked toward the entrance. Outside, the street was busy with people passing beneath the afternoon light. A delivery truck pulled up across the road. Someone hurried past with a shopping bag swinging against their leg.
Nothing had changed.
He was still at work. The shelves were still stocked with the same drinks, and the same customers were walking through the same automatic doors.
Yet he'd spent the last several minutes thinking about a message from Owari.
He wondered what she was doing now. Whether she'd finished the laundry. Whether she was still trying to decide what to cook. Whether she was laughing at something on television or sitting in her apartment with the curtains drawn.
He didn't know why he wanted to picture it.
He had never been particularly interested in imagining what other people were doing when they weren't around him. Their lives belonged to them. His belonged to him.
That arrangement had always seemed perfectly reasonable.
Now, when something happened, he found himself wondering what Owari would say about it.
When a customer made an unusual request, he thought about telling her. When he saw something funny, he wanted to show her. When he ate something, he occasionally wondered whether she would like it.
It wasn't that his life had become more interesting.
He was still doing the same things he'd always done.
He'd simply started wanting someone else to know about them.
Yamada looked down at the register.
He decided he was probably spending too much time thinking.
A customer stepped forward, and he greeted them.
...
The afternoon passed slowly.
By the time Yamada began preparing for the evening shift change, his feet were sore, and he'd answered enough questions to last him several days. His coworker arrived to take over, and they went through the usual exchange about deliveries, low stock, and a customer who had complained about the price of bottled water.
Yamada was about to head into the back room when he noticed his coworker looking at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Yamada waited.
His coworker leaned against the counter.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
"No."
"You keep checking your phone."
"Do I?"
"Yes."
Yamada took his phone out and looked at it.
"I was checking the time."
His coworker glanced at the clock above the register.
"There's a clock right there."
Yamada followed his gaze.
"Right."
His coworker gave him a knowing look.
"Is it a woman?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
The man turned away, but his expression suggested he wasn't convinced.
Yamada slipped his phone into his pocket.
After a moment, he added, "I'm talking to a friend."
His coworker turned back.
"A friend?"
"Yes."
"What kind of friend?"
Yamada considered the question.
"Just a friend."
His coworker stared at him for a second before laughing.
"All right, man. Whatever you say."
Yamada didn't understand what was funny.
His coworker returned to checking the register, leaving Yamada standing there with his hands in his pockets.
He wasn't sure why the conversation bothered him. There was nothing wrong with talking to a friend. People did it all the time.
But when his coworker asked what kind of friend made someone smile at their phone, Yamada had felt strangely uncomfortable.
He hadn't even realized he'd been smiling.
He wondered whether Owari would laugh if he told her about the conversation.
He imagined her sitting on her couch, reading the messages, and telling him that his coworker was probably right.
Then he imagined asking her what kind of friend she thought she was.
He stopped himself.
That was a stupid question.
They had known each other for only a short time. They weren't strangers anymore, but he didn't know whether that made them friends in the way other people meant it. She had invited him to her apartment, let him stay overnight, and cooked for him. He had brought her food, checked on her, and visited her without having a particularly good reason.
Those things seemed to suggest something.
He just didn't know what.
Yamada left the store and stepped into the evening air.
The sky had darkened, and the streetlights were beginning to glow. He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and started walking home.
...
He was halfway down the street when he passed a small restaurant with its dinner menu displayed outside.
The windows were fogged slightly from the warmth inside. Through the glass, he could see a few people sitting at tables, talking over their meals. A server carried a tray between them while someone near the entrance laughed loudly enough to turn a few heads.
Yamada stopped in front of the menu.
He wasn't hungry yet, but one of the dishes caught his attention. It looked like something Owari might enjoy. Or perhaps she wouldn't. He wasn't sure what she liked beyond the things she'd mentioned in passing.
He took out his phone and photographed the menu.
Then he sent it to her.
You could try making this.
He stared at the message after sending it.
It sounded a little strange. He wasn't sure why he'd suggested it. He didn't know whether she liked cooking, and he certainly wasn't qualified to recommend recipes to anyone.
Her reply arrived before he could put the phone away.
That looks difficult.
Yamada looked at the photograph.
It did look difficult.
Probably.
A moment passed.
Would you eat it if I made it?
He read the question.
There were plenty of answers he could give. He could say that he'd try it. He could say that it depended on how it turned out. He could make a joke about his limited culinary standards.
Instead, he typed the first thing that came to mind.
Yes.
He sent it.
For a few seconds, he continued standing outside the restaurant, looking at the screen.
He wasn't sure why he'd answered so quickly.
The question had been simple enough. Owari had asked whether he'd eat something she cooked, and he had said yes. There was no reason to think about it any further.
He started walking again.
A few minutes later, his phone vibrated.
I'll remember that.
Yamada read the message and slipped his phone into his pocket.
He walked the rest of the way home without checking it again.
...
His apartment was dark when he arrived.
Yamada turned on the lights, removed his shoes, and placed his bag beside the table. He washed his hands, opened the refrigerator, and examined what he had available for dinner.
There were eggs, some vegetables, a container of rice, and a few other things he couldn't remember buying.
He made something simple.
While he ate, he thought about his sister.
They hadn't spoken since New Year's. She lived in Nagano with her husband and their son, and their conversations had become less frequent over the years. They weren't on bad terms. There simply wasn't much to say.
She usually sent him pictures of her son every few weeks. Sometimes she called to tell him something funny the boy had done, or to complain about how difficult it was to get him to go to bed.
Yamada liked those calls.
He wasn't particularly good at talking to children, but his nephew had never seemed bothered by that. The boy was loud, impatient, and apparently incapable of walking anywhere without making enough noise for the entire household to know where he was.His sister said he was exactly like she had been at that age.
Yamada could believe it.
He remembered being a child himself, when the world had felt smaller. There had been fewer places to go, fewer people to know, and fewer decisions that seemed important. His days had followed a simple pattern. School, home, dinner, sleep. If he wanted to see someone, he knew where to find them. If he wanted to go somewhere, he usually knew how to get there. Then he had finished high school and moved to Tokyo.
He'd found a job, rented an apartment, and learned how to take care of himself. After that job ended, he'd found another. His life had become a series of ordinary decisions, each one leading to the next.At some point, he'd stopped thinking about where he was going. He'd simply continued moving. Yamada finished his dinner and washed his dishes.
He should call his sister tomorrow, he decided. He could ask how his nephew was doing. Perhaps she would send him another picture. He dried his hands and glanced at his phone.
There was a message from Owari. It was a photograph of a meal on a plate. The presentation was somewhat uneven, and the sauce had collected in one corner. It looked perfectly edible. It doesn't look anything like the restaurant's version. Yamada typed back.
Looks fine.
Her reply came quickly.
You're a terrible judge of food.
I never claimed otherwise. He put his phone on the table, but it vibrated again before he could walk away.
What are you doing now?
Eating.
You just finished eating.
Yamada looked at the plate he'd already washed.
How do you know that?
Because you told me.
He read the message and realized she was right.
I'm finished now.
Congratulations.
Yamada stared at the screen.He wasn't sure why he found that funny, but he did. He sat down at the table and continued talking to her.
They discussed the meal, the restaurant, and whether Yamada had ever tried making anything more complicated than curry. He told her he had once attempted to cook a dish from a recipe he'd found online. She asked how it turned out.He told her that he'd set off the smoke alarm.
Owari sent a bunch of laughing emojis.
How do you burn something that badly?
I don't know.
Were you even watching it?
Yes.
Then what happened?
Yamada thought about it.
I don't know.
She told him that wasn't an answer.He said it was the only one he had.Their conversation wandered from one subject to another without either of them making much effort to keep it going. Owari complained about the laundry she'd folded, only to discover that she'd forgotten to wash a few things. Yamada told her that he had once put a shirt in the washing machine with a pen in its pocket.
She asked whether the shirt had survived.
He told her it hadn't.
You're hopeless.
Probably.
You should find someone to teach you how to live.
Yamada read the message.
He wasn't sure what to say to that.Before he could think of a response, another message appeared.
I'm kidding. 
I know. 
He set the phone down and leaned back in his chair. It was strange how easy it had become to talk to her. He didn't have to think of anything particularly interesting to say. He didn't need to make himself sound better than he was, and he didn't feel the need to fill every silence with another question. Sometimes, he could send her a few words and leave it at that.Sometimes, she did the same.Neither of them seemed particularly bothered when the conversation went nowhere. Eventually, Owari told him she was going to bed.
Goodnight, Yamada.
Goodnight.
He placed his phone beside him and went to brush his teeth. When he returned, the apartment was quiet again.
He turned off the kitchen light, checked the lock on the front door, and got into bed.
…
The ceiling looked the same as it had that morning.
Yamada lay on his back, watching the faint outline of the crack above the light fixture. The apartment was silent except for the occasional sound of a car passing outside.
He thought about his coworker's question.
What kind of friend?
He still didn't know how to answer it.Owari was someone he liked spending time with. That much was obvious. He liked talking to her, even when they weren't discussing anything important. He liked hearing what she had to say about things he would normally have ignored. He liked that she sometimes made fun of him without making him feel stupid for not understanding a joke.But he couldn't explain why he liked those things so much. He wasn't sure what she saw in him, either.
He didn't have an impressive job. He didn't have a particularly interesting life. He wasn't good at talking about feelings, and he often struggled to respond when people expected him to say something comforting.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd done something that would make another person want to spend time with him.
Yet Owari kept answering his messages.She let him visit her apartment. She asked him questions and listened to his answers, even when he didn't have much to say. She had laughed at his terrible photograph of a pigeon and spent part of her evening talking to him about a meal that neither of them had eaten.
He didn't understand it. Perhaps she was lonely. The thought came to him naturally enough. He knew she was tired of her work, and he knew she had spent a long time trying to become someone she thought she was supposed to be. She had told him as much. Maybe talking to him made her feel less alone.
That seemed reasonable. But it didn't explain why he kept reaching for his phone, or why he'd stopped outside a restaurant to take a picture of a menu he'd otherwise have walked past.It didn't explain why he'd wanted her to see the pigeon.
He turned onto his side.What would happen if they stopped talking?
The answer was obvious. He would wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, and sleep. His routine would continue exactly as it had before. He would still have his apartment, his job, and enough money to get through the month.
Nothing important would change.He tried to imagine a week without hearing from her.Then a month.
The thought left him feeling strangely uncomfortable.
Yamada pulled the blanket up to his shoulder and stared into the darkness.He didn't know what Owari wanted from him. He didn't know what he wanted from her, either. They hadn't known each other long enough for him to make any grand assumptions about what their relationship might become.
Maybe there was nothing to figure out.Maybe he was making something simple more complicated than it needed to be.He could keep talking to her. He could keep visiting when she invited him over, and he could continue sending her photographs of things that weren't particularly interesting. He didn't have to understand why. For now, that was enough. 
Yamada closed his eyes. A few minutes passed. Then he opened them again. His phone was on the bedside table, just within reach. He picked it up and checked their conversation, even though he knew there wouldn't be a new message. Owari's last reply was still there, along with the photograph of her dinner and the jokes they'd exchanged afterward.
He read the messages one more time.Then he put the phone down.Tomorrow, he would probably wake up, eat breakfast, and go to work. He would follow the same route through the city, pass the same vending machines, and stand behind the same counter. He would answer questions, stock shelves, and listen to customers complain about things that didn't matter.
His life would continue as it always had.But somewhere in the middle of it, he would probably think of something to tell Owari.
He couldn't say why.He only knew that he wanted to.Yamada closed his eyes again, and this time, he fell asleep.
For the first time in a long while, tomorrow felt like something worth looking forward to.
He just didn't know what he was looking forward to yet.