雨粒は嘘をつかない——「本物の感情」についての覚え書き

Last Saturday, I went to a certain boy's junior high school sports day.

I've been his "father" for six years now. Let's call him Takeru. Takeru, who was a fourth-grader then, is now a ninth-grader this year. He's long since outgrown me, and his voice has changed too. But that habit of fleetingly looking my way just before taking the baton in a relay remains unchanged from six years ago.

That day, it had been raining since morning.

It was June rain, the heart of the rainy season. The program began an hour late, and parents, umbrellas raised, huddled at the edge of the muddy field. Standing right next to me was Takeru's mother – let's refer to her as Yuki-san. Yuki-san had only a small folding umbrella, and she edged slightly under my own. Our shoulders brushed.

In that moment, I found myself thinking.

If someone were to see this scene, how would it appear? Would we look like a close couple? Would we seem like a perfectly ordinary family, cheering on our son's sports day together in the rain?

"Yes," I thought, "we probably would."

And would that, then, be a "lie"?

I've been in this line of work for a long time. I am the representative of a company employing over five thousand staff, and simultaneously, I continue to be present on the front lines myself. I have served as "father" to more than thirty-five children in twenty-three families, and portrayed the "husband" for over six hundred women.

If you only look at the numbers, you'd probably think it's abnormal. I feel the same way myself.

But in each and every situation, there are things that cannot be conveyed by numbers alone.

To return to Takeru's sports day. The relay began. Takeru was the third runner. Just before taking the baton, he glanced my way again, just as always. I lightly raised my right hand. It was our usual sign, meaning, "It's alright, I'm watching."

Takeru ran. Down the muddy track, softened by the rain, kicking up mud. Midway, he slipped slightly at the bend, but he didn't fall. He regained his footing and passed two runners.

I was calling out.

"Takeru!"

—That's what I'd like to write, but in truth, I called out a different name. His real name. His real name, which I can't write here.

Just then, Yuki-san was crying next to me.

Because we were in the rain, I couldn't tell if it was tears or raindrops. But I knew because her shoulders were trembling. Yuki-san lowered the hand holding her umbrella, covered her mouth with both hands, and wept silently, stifling her voice.

Watching those tears, I thought, "This is real."

Without a trace of doubt.

In this line of work, I sometimes get asked, "Are those real feelings?" In interviews. At lectures. Sometimes even by the clients themselves.

What is a real emotion?

I always find myself pausing at this question.

For instance, the elation I felt at Takeru's sports day. Was that an "act"? For six years, I consistently attended sports days, class observations, and parent-teacher meetings; I felt joy when his grades improved, and worried when I heard he had fought with friends. Are those emotions "fake" simply because they originate from a contract?

Is a family "real" just because there's a blood connection? It's not such a simple matter.

There are families where biological fathers hit their children. There are families where biological mothers deny their children's existence. The requests that come to me arrive *after* such realities. We offer as a substitute what *should* have been there but has been broken, or what never existed in the first place.

It's easy to call that a "lie."

But the tears Yuki shed in the plum rain weren't a lie. Takeru's small fist pump towards me, that expression after he passed the baton, wasn't a lie. The warm, deep glow I felt in my chest wasn't a lie.

If the emotion is real, then it *is* real.

I believe that. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that I *must* believe it, otherwise I couldn't continue this work.

The month of June, I feel, resembles this job.

Under the plum rain sky, everything becomes ambiguous. The boundary between clear skies and rain. The boundary between day and evening. The boundary between tears and raindrops. The lines blur, melt away, and it becomes impossible to tell where one thing ends and another begins.

My life is the same.

To be honest, I no longer know where "acting" ends and "myself" begins. There are moments, when talking to someone in private, when I can't distinguish if my smile is "genuine" or merely an extension of the skills I've cultivated for work.

That is frightening.

But at the same time, I wonder: do human emotions truly have such clean boundaries to begin with?

Haven't we ever crafted a smile because we wanted someone to like us? Haven't we read the room and chosen words that didn't reflect our true feelings? When we say "You've worked hard" at work, are we truly concerned about the other person's fatigue?

Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, is "acting."

I'm just making a job out of it. The only difference is that, precisely because I've made it my profession, that question weighs on me, deep, heavy, and inescapable.

Recently, one of our staff members passed away. He was a man in his seventies who had specialized for many years in playing the role of "grandfather." Let's call him Matsu-san.

There are clients' children who adored Matsu-san as their "grandfather." But those children cannot attend Matsu-san's funeral. They don't even know his real name, nor where he lived. When they say, "Grandpa hasn't visited lately," we have to invent some reason for them.

This is the cruel part of this job.

Even if the emotions are real, relationships come to an end. No, more than an end, there are moments when things must be made to "never have happened." The clients will never know this. Unaware, the next "grandfather" appears, and the story continues.

Truly, it would be better if a service like this didn't exist.

I genuinely believe that. A world where fathers are present from the start, where families aren't broken from the beginning, where grandfathers are real grandfathers, and there's no worry about calling out the wrong name at a sports day. Such a world would certainly be better.

But as long as there are people who need it, I will continue.

That is my answer. For now.

It's raining. Tokyo is under a plum rain sky again today.

Just now, a LINE message came from Takeru. A single line: "Finals are gonna kill me." Followed by a single laughing-crying emoji.

I replied, "Don't give up on math." I know he struggles with it. I learned that over six years.

Is what has accumulated over these past six years genuine, or merely counterfeit?

I don't know. Perhaps it's perfectly fine not to know. Unknowing, I will still attend the next sports day. I will still go to the next parent-teacher conference. If it rains, I'll offer an umbrella; if it's sunny, I'll forget to put on sunscreen and later regret it.

Raindrops don't lie. They fall from the sky, wet the ground, and eventually dry. There's no intention there. Perhaps emotions should be just the same. They well up, overflow, and eventually subside. It makes no difference whether they stand upon a contract or upon blood relation.

What is wet, is simply wet.

I ponder such thoughts while gazing at the rain outside the window. On a humid, yet somehow gentle afternoon in June.