into enomoto
Into Enomoto
I.
Enomoto (that wasn’t even his real name) didn’t have any friends. Nor anyone he honestly loved.
Other people had presences in their life they could call important. These were their anchors in life; the ones who stabilised them through all sorts of insecurities and grief, part and parcel of being human.
Even if you didn’t have anyone like that, you had the freedom to believe in a God.
But this was one fundamental element of being human - to love and be loved back - that Enomoto was haplessly deficient in.
He’d always felt a natural distance between himself and others, as a result of believing himself to be different. Maybe that was egotism for you, but nobody had ever convinced him otherwise.
There’d once been a time when he’d been more substantially involved in the web of human interpersonal connections, during his schooling days.
He’d seen how cliques formed in every class. Cliques of girls, cliques of guys. Whether they banded together in the name of true friendship, or merely as a means of social security, who could say? (Enomoto figured it was both.) Seen how the anomalies - people who deviated from the norm - were ostracised, either subtly or blatantly. They were left out of cliques. Ate alone in the school cafeteria during breaktime.
He’d heard what people talked about in the safety of their cliques. How terrible the food in the school cafeteria was. Good-looking male, or female students. Celebrities. Homework. Examinations. Nothing that interested him.
Still, this was human society, a society he was meant to be part of, even if he didn’t fancy the way it worked. So he tried his hand at all this, once. It was just a matter of time before he’d settle in here, right?
It didn’t take long for Enomoto to realise how naive, overly-optimistic he’d been. Relationships were intricate, complex things. They could blossom or wither at any time, or stagnate indefinitely at a particular juncture. They were founded on so much more than just time. If you sat beside the same desk-mate every day for a year, but could never find anything to say to her, that could hardly be called a friendship.
Humans were termed social creatures, but paradoxically, from the beginning, there already existed a multiplicity of latent barriers to social connection, erected by some invisible hand among themselves.
Enomoto tired of all this. If even within a crowd he felt alone, alone must be a better answer to his existence.
So Enomoto built a separate world for himself. He was able to do that because he did have one thing in life that anchored him - his fascination with locks and keys. He loved the sheer simplicity of the logic behind their relationship - a lock could always be undone by its key. The idea was simple, yet in realisation could be complex - the unpicking of locks was a challenge he came to savour, when everything else in his life was a banality.
Gradually, Enomoto stopped going to school altogether, occasionally making the rare reappearance in class when he had to sit for major examinations. (Typically such a flippant student would have been expelled according to the rule book, but given that Enomoto topped every examination he took even without showing up for class, the school made special considerations for their prize student.)
He did not appear in his class’s graduation photograph.
II.
He first met her on the job. A call had come in from the Bank of Japan - its major vault had been accidentally locked, imprisoning two people inside, and could they please send someone to try unlocking it?
It sounded like a trying task, so the company sent their best man for the job, Enomoto Kei.
III.
She pulled one of his earphones out and asked, “What are you doing?”
He told her.
She looked visibly overwhelmed, so he elucidated further.
She got even more overwhelmed to the point that she proclaimed, “Stop!”, eyes wide and scared, like those of a terrified rabbit.
Well, he was only trying to help.
In the end, he completed his job (but of course).
As he packed up and left, he thought nothing of that first encounter with her. Just another person he’d meet once and never see again.
Except a locked room murder case led them to join hands together.
IV.
Enomoto liked Aoto. Aoto was basically the type of person just about anybody could warm up to, anyway. She had an earnest attitude, was sincere in her interactions with others, and radiated innocence. She had a heart so vast it was a wonder she actually existed in reality.
But that didn’t mean anything in itself. Didn’t mean he would be able to take a step closer to her.
Enomoto knew acutely how disparate an existence Aoto was, from him. Aoto was everything he was not. Aoto was sunshine; himself the brooding night sky. She was the type of person who could give others comfort. She’d always greet him with a smile whenever they met, even though Enomoto would never return the gesture. She lived in optimism.
He could never bring Aoto into his world. She was meant to stay in the light.
V.
By now Aoto was a regular presence in his stockroom. If they currently had a locked-room murder case on their hands, they’d be discussing it, together with Serizawa. If not, it’d just be the two of them, alone together.
They’d sit at the worktable. He’d mostly be working at unpicking one of his treasured, ancient locks. She’d be sipping at a cup of hot tea beside him, asking the odd question. Or she’d be perusing her legal documents. Or she’d fall into a nap from perusing her legal documents.
On one of those occasions after she’d fallen asleep, Enomoto had been in the middle of analysing a newly-invented cryptographic code on his laptop.
He broke his focus on the computer screen and turned to look at Aoto’s slumped figure. (This wasn’t something he would dare do had she been conscious; Enomoto did feel self-conscious under her knowing smile.)
“I’m not the Enomoto you know, Aoto.”
He turned back to his work.
He wondered when Aoto would suffocate from his taciturn silence. Mutual conversation was essential in the maintenance of a relationship, but he wasn’t sure how to strike up conversation with someone so different. Someday Aoto would get tired of always being the one to ask the questions. Someday this spate of locked-room murder cases would run dry. Someday Aoto would walk out of his life, once and for all. Enomoto had absolutely nothing to retain Aoto with. Aoto had absolutely nothing to retain Enomoto with. That was how life worked.
Enomoto did appreciate Aoto’s company. But Enomoto always did the smart thing. Romance wasn’t smart. Romance didn’t last. It was transient. Just like everything else in life. Just like life itself.
VI.
When he at last put together the pieces of the last puzzle, he knew that he had come to the critical juncture. This was where he had to decide what to do with Enomoto Kei.
He’d attracted too much attention as Enomoto Kei.
The police would never gather enough evidence to nab him. He’d made sure of that. But he didn’t like being under their radar.
Enomoto Kei’s time was up.
VII.
He called Aoto from the airport to say an abrupt goodbye not because she’d never meant anything to him.
He bothered to say goodbye precisely because he had liked Aoto. That was it.
She was only a memory now. Memories were useless. They were too flimsy. Even happy memories could too easily be destroyed in a single instance; they only become a burden when a relationship degenerates.
After ending the phone call, Enomoto mentally chucked the memories of Aoto and Serizawa into a rubbish bin.
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author's comment!
i've left intangiblewords all on its own for nearly a year now.
i don't have the luxury of time anymore to laboriously work on more pieces. i have serious writer's block, but i do try.
this piece is a fanfiction piece for the recently-concluded popular j-drama, KagiHeya. i hardly ever write fanfiction. but i felt i could relate to Enomoto, and give my own take on certain things in the drama that had lots of potential for development, but were neglected.
here i explain for you the Enomoto you may not have understood. enjoy. tell me what you think of my interpretation. :)
(and know that every comment is a heartwarming gift of appreciation for the great effort and energy put into writing a piece :D)