X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
17. Pata

Out of all the members of X, Pata was the one member most unlike me. Everything he did was my opposite. Softspoken and steady, he was naturally protected by the other members.

He had opinions, but unlike me, he never spoke them, and he usually never disagreed with anyone either. He never argued, but just sat there in his chair drinking a beer, remaining calm.

Gentle from the start, perhaps he might have been the one person in X who acted most like an adult.

There was only one thing that could change him from that. That was "Giants: Win or Lose?" [trans note: the Yomiuri Giants are one of the six pro-baseball teams from the Tokyo area, and the most popular team in Japan]

He was such a huge Giants fan that even the office he created was named "Office Giants." So if the Giants lost, he would be in a bad mood and would lose his temper easily. In our group, our implied rule was: "If the Giants lost, today Pata will be pissed off."

The first time we played at Tokyo Dome, he was moved for a different reason than the rest of us. That was because he was standing on the home field of the Giants. At breaks in rehearsal, he'd play ball with Toshi. His face was filled with a happiness that I can't describe.

Pata the Giants fan also had something he didn't like. He hated soba. Ever since he was a child, he has had an allergy to buckwheat.

Once at some elementary school that was serving soba for school lunch, one of the students who was forced to eat it died. Dying from eating soba might seem ridiculous, but to him, it was a very serious problem.

Once, I went with Pata and two other people to a soba farm. It was bad. When he reached the train station, he was coughing and sneezing, his nose was running, his eyes were watering...as he rode the taxi, he could do nothing but say, "This is terrible. I can smell the soba. If I stay here, I will die. I have to leave!"

At that time, I didn't know about Pata's allergy to soba, so I just said, "What are you talking about? I love soba! Let's go eat."

Now that I think about it, if we were eating and someone ordered soba, he would usually leave the table.

Pata is just someone who is very clear on what he likes and dislikes. Perhaps these two things are what rule his life. It is easy to understand him but hard to get to that point, and the only time when Pata was never bothered by anything was when he was drunk.