Run, Melos! (Part 2)

Moving with the crowd out of Arashiyama Station, Meno arrived on the bank of the Katsura River.

Tourists sat on seats in front of the tearooms that lined the river, resting their feet. Leaf aficionados streamed in both directions over the famed Togetsu Bridge, and buses loaded with sightseers rumbled up the road. Standing at the center of the bridge, the mountains loomed up on the other side of the Ōi River, so gorgeous and lush with crimson foliage that they didn’t seem real. After leaning on the handrail and admiring the leaves for a while, Meno went around the souvenir shops; perused a music box museum and a museum dedicated to the late pop idol Misora Hibari; took a stroll past the Keifuku Arashiyama Station; and before he knew it he was wandering along a dim, narrow path through the cool confines of a bamboo forest. At the end of the path lay Nonomiya Shrine, which was reputed to bestow blessings of matchmaking: certainly not a shrine to be missed for any man escorting a lovely maiden!

As he walked along the path through the bamboo grove, Meno reflected on a love of his that had ended at this very location.

The romance had ended before it began. Her name was Suma, and in the scant two months she was a member of the Sophistry Debate Society, she had captured the hearts of just about every man in the society.

Her face was intelligent, her gaze penetrating. She was a chainsmoker with an insatiable appetite for raw tofu skin and cola; her little purse was always bulging with cola bottles and long Peace cigarettes, and she ate raw tofu skin no less than once every three days. She could often be found sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, a cigarette dangling from her lips, swigging cola like she was drinking whisky straight from the bottle, and composing poems in the black leather notebook which she always carried with her, looking a bit like a witch inscribing curses. But behind that hard-boiled appearance she was surprisingly caring, whipping up a wok of her incomparably scrumptious neko fried rice whenever someone was feeling down. Needless to say, that feminine kindness sank its claws into the hearts of the artless youths of the society, who jostled to present her with offerings of tofu skin.

Meno had been among their number, with Serina right behind him. Neither guessed that the other had the same scheme in mind, for love is a game oft played in the dark. The two continued their furtive, fruitless maneuvers to little avail, and late in the fall their respective plans to invite Suma to go leaf watching both unceremoniously fell flat.

The despondent Meno proposed to the equally despondent Serina that they go harass the couples who had descended on Arashiyama to view the leaves. “We could always rekindle our own relationship at Nonomiya Shrine,” they were muttering unconvincingly to each other when, who should they see walking towards them on that narrow path through the bamboo but Suma, holding hands with a man. They passed by pretending not to notice her, but neither of them failed to perceive the adoring look on Suma’s face as she gazed up at her companion. They both felt the same stabbing agony in their hearts, and looked away from each other at the bamboo with the same sour expressions.

The two silently proceeded to Nonomiya Shrine and, after bowing their heads before the offertory, furiously ripped off handfuls of red leaves from the surrounding trees in the shrine and stuffed them in their mouths, before simultaneously galloping off with anguished looks on their faces. Coming to the bank of the Katsura River they let out howls of sorrow. Serina removed his glasses and put them in his breast pocket, while Meno folded his arms. Then, each seeing that the other was in dire need of a kick in the pants, they threw (gentle) punches at each other until passing tourists dragged them apart. Henceforth, the two cut out romance from their lives altogether.

Following this incident, Suma left the Sophistry Debate Society, though it was unclear why she had ever been a member in the first place. Her lover was apparently something of a big shot in the rock music club on campus.

Having ended up once more in Arashiyama—the site of his heartbreak—after quite a strange series of events, Meno paid a visit to Nonomiya Shrine, stewing over that bitter memory. The revelation of that double heartbreak among the crimson leaves was, to Meno, the greatest regret of his life. At any rate it was over and done with, yet Meno still felt a sense of penitence towards Serina.

“Oh, Serina, my friend! How I regret that day!” he groaned. “But the fault was yours as well!”

Exhaustion, both physical and mental, suddenly came over Meno, and heedless of the eyes upon him he squatted down by the road before the entrance to Nonomiya Shrine. It was hardly surprising that he would be tired, being that he’d stayed up reading manga all night, not to mention having sprinted all the way from Kawaramachi Street to Karasuma Street. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head from hunger and sleep deprivation. He had planned to see the autumn leaves, then flee north from the JR Saga-Arashiyama Station, but he didn’t have the strength to stay on his feet. Meno’s sole desire now was to get home as soon as he could and faceplant onto his grubby futon. He had half a mind to give up on his flight.

As Meno’s chin drooped towards his chest, a young man wearing the garb of an Arashiyama rickshaw driver hailed Meno from his parked cart in front of the shrine. “You all right? Not feeling well?”

Meno shook his head.

“How about I give you a ride over to the station?” the rickshaw driver said kindly, without a moment’s hesitation. Meno had never encountered such kindness on the streets of Kyoto before. Tears sprang to his eyes, but at the same he silently rejoiced at this stroke of luck, he readily assented and asked the driver to take him over to JR Saga-Arashiyama. Putting his fate into the hands of this burly driver he got into the rickshaw, and no sooner had he done so than he fell into a peaceful slumber.

He woke with a start some time later, vaguely feeling that he had been sleeping for quite a long time, only to see that the rickshaw was still racing along. The road seemed to be quite crowded, and to his horror he realized that he was in front of Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, far to the east of Arashiyama. Something wasn’t right. While he slept he had been borne from Arashiyama towards campus. It’s a trap, Meno thought in horror.

“Let me off!” he howled.

But the rickshaw driver ignored him and continued east down Imadegawa Street. Though the streets were quite level and smooth, the youth pulling the cart along was panting with exertion, having run quite a distance.

“The Director ordered me to bring you to him. If I fail, I’ll be in a lot of trouble. Now sit down, unless you want to break your neck!”

“Never!”

Meno leaned out from the cart and screamed bloody murder. Distracted by him, the youthful cart driver failed to notice a bicycle whizzing down Onmae Street. Naturally, there was an almighty crash. The student on the bike flew into the air, grabbing onto the rickshaw driver, while Meno went rolling from the cart.

The rickshaw driver attempted to apprehend Meno, but as we have already seen, once Meno was loose he wouldn’t easily be caught again. Shaking off his pursuer, he leapt into a bus, which happened to be headed for Ginkaku-ji. Going east down Imadegawa Street would take him to the Karasuma Street intersection, and the Karasuma subway station. The subway would take him to Kyoto Station, where he could hop onto the JR line, or the Kintetsu Railway, or any of the myriad lines which would allow him to escape Kyoto and the Director’s manifold traps.

At Imadegawa Karasuma he got off the bus and headed towards the subway entrance.

Just then, a passing woman grabbed onto his arm desperately and sobbed, “Please! I need your help!” Startled, Meno turned to see that she was a startlingly lovely young maiden, her eyes brimming with tears. Meno was certainly not the type of person who would become flustered simply because a girl grabbed his arm, but before he could ask what was going on his own eyes were already brimming with sympathy.

The girl told him that she was currently in the midst of a scavenger hunt known as the Kamo River Race put on by her school circle, and she needed to bring back her assigned item to the Kamo Delta. And it so happened that Meno fit the description of her item perfectly. According to the draconian law of the club, anyone who failed to retrieve their item would be punished severely and be forced into a state of near slavery for the next six months. It was a heartbreaking tale, and forgetting his own current predicament completely Meno resolved that if he could rescue this poor maiden simply by walking over to the Kamo Delta he would do it in a heartbeat.

Meno was a righteous man, when he wanted to be.

“Say no more! I’m your man!”

Grabbing her hand, he dashed north past the palace.

As he crossed the Kamo Bridge a triangular strip of land at the confluence of the Takano and Kamo Rivers came into view beneath the golden rays of the setting sun. This was the Kamo Delta, and Meno could see a group of students there carousing about. The recent rain had swollen the rivers, and the delta was shrunk to half its normal size. The students erupted in cheers when they spotted Meno and the girl running across the bridge.

When Meno arrived on the delta half a dozen people from this unnamed circle offered him drinks. He asked the girl what her item was.

“It’s a person from the Sophistry Debate Society who has to return to campus by this evening to dance in pink underpants as the campus festival finale,” she told him.

Where in the world are you supposed to find someone like that? Meno thought to himself, before realizing that the description fit him to a T. But wasn’t that a little specific for a scavenger hunt? With a start he realized that all around people were staring at him with a strange gleam in their eyes. Even the girl who had pleaded so desperately for his aid with glistening tears was licking her lips and slowly backing him against the water.

“I never cared about the Kamo River Race!” she panted, greed blazing in her eyes. “There’s 500 grand on your head!”

It had all been part of the Director’s plan. Meno had slipped through his fingers in Shijō Kawaramachi, again at Katsura Station, and a third time at Arashiyama with the rickshaw driver. With evening drawing near and his plans no closer to fruition, the Director had fumed and fumed and finally put a 500,000 yen bounty on Meno’s head. The announcement had spread like wildfire. Students short on tuition, circle members looking to fund their activities, wastrels who simply craved good eats: no sooner had the word gone out than the whole of Kyoto became a very dangerous place for Meno to be.

“Curse that Director, is there nothing he will not stoop to!?” Meno lamented. But just as his enemies were closing in around him to secure their payday, a voice rang out.

“Meno!”

He turned around. Suma, dear Suma, was standing on the opposite bank of the river, waving her arms.

“Swim!” she yelled.

But behold: the Kamo River which lay between them was swollen from the recent rain, its turgid, muddy waters groaning as they thundered along past the delta. Meno looked up to the heavens, and passionately implored the gods to whom he normally paid so little heed.

“O Gods! If I am taken back to campus before the sun goes down, I must dance clad in only a pair of underpants in order to prove some piffling friendship!” he cried out. But the only reply came from the hungry eyes of his enemies. As Suma had said, the only way out was to swim. With what cruelty do the gods amuse themselves! But Meno would not let these turbulent waters defeat him: he was determined to escape this conundrum. And so, he threw himself into the freezing autumn river.

By the time he reached the other side, soaked through and through, his pursuers were racing across the bridge.

“This way!” Suma shouted, racing off before him.

Chilled and shivering Meno followed along the embankment after her. They passed the temple of Demachi Benzaiten. As they went along, a passing student pointed at Meno and shouted, “There he is!” On Kawaramachi Street a motorbike roared to life, and came straight at Meno. Suma and Meno dashed into the Demachi shopping arcade. The motorbike came in hot on their trails. Just as it was about to run them down, Suma yanked Meno out of the way into a narrow side alley. Whisking him into a cramped apartment, she closed the door behind them and let out a sigh of relief. This was where she lived.

“Stay here ‘til the heat dies down,” she told him, shaking out her long hair. “It’s too dangerous outside.”

She closed the curtains, shutting out the golden late afternoon sunlight, then looked sharply at Meno.

“The whole campus is buzzing about you and the Library Police Director. The orchestra is already setting up on stage. I hear they’re even taking bets, and most people are betting that you’ll be there by sunset. Everyone’s waiting for you, to prove your friendship.”

“You think I’m going to keep my promise, too?”

When she heard his question Suma laughed. “People can say what they like, you just do what you believe in. Don’t listen to them, just keep walking your own path. Me and Serina are the only ones who really understand you.”

Her kind words nearly brought Meno to tears.

“The Director’s a tough cookie, isn’t he? He always was a weirdo,” Suma remarked.

“You know him?”

“We were in the same class. I called and asked if he would just let it go, but he refused. Not too surprising, considering that he hates me.”

Suma handed Meno a pink bath towel and told him to take off his drenched clothes. He removed his shirt, but Suma insisted that he take off his pants as well. Meno complied, wrapping the bath towel around himself. Suma threw his clothes in the washing machine. A loud grumble issued forth from Meno’s stomach, so Suma set to work making her famous neko fried rice. Why was it called neko fried rice, and what was the secret to its scrumptious flavour? Suma refused to tell. Meno had once believed himself the only one to have eaten her home cooking, but in actuality everyone else, including Serina, had eaten it as well.

Sprinkling pepper on the rice, Meno’s thoughts drifted back to the wild years. The neko fried rice was just as delicious as he remembered, but it was tinged with a slight, melancholy bitterness. Serina would probably have liked a bowl, he thought. After Suma had broken his heart, the lovelorn Serina had thrown himself into the single-minded pursuit of recreating neko fried rice. Meno had joined him in this pursuit, and now he remembered the many bowls (both delicious and not) of fried rice they had eaten together in that endeavour, reminiscing over the time he had once screeched at Serina, “This is bland!”

As Meno ate, he and Suma caught up with each other. Suma sang and wrote lyrics in the rock music club. She mentioned that she was still going out with the man whom Meno and Serina had seen at Arashiyama, the man who had been responsible for their bitter heartbreak.

“He’s been having it rough lately too.”

“Something going on?”

“Sort of,” she replied vaguely, staring at Meno’s lower half. “You really should change your underpants too. I’ve got a fresh pair right here—” Standing up, she started to rummage through a drawer of clothes.

That same moment, Meno heard the sound of a car pulling up in front of the apartment. The footsteps of many people ascending the spiral staircase thundered raucously through the building. Can you keep it down? Meno thought to himself, but then Suma held up a pair of pink underpants in front of his eyes, and it all made sense. “Argh!” he groaned, raising his eyes to the ceiling.

The footsteps drew closer, and now he could hear the men shouting.

“There’s no getting out of this one,” Suma remarked.

“Yet another blunder! How I loathe myself!”

He glared at Suma, who glared right back at him.

“The Director told me that if I sheltered you he’d report my boyfriend’s plagiarism. I’m sorry.” She smiled faintly as the door burst open.

Who should come charging in but his friends from the Sophistry Debate Society. “Lovely to see you!” they greeted Suma, before all at once flinging themselves upon Meno. Yesterday’s friends are today’s enemies, and in no time at all they had bundled him out of Suma’s apartment and stuffed him into the waiting car.

“If you don’t fulfill your promise, the society is toast! And we were told that if we don’t bring you in, the story of our first loves will be published for all to see! Sheer insult to injury. We’re in a bind!”

“Fulfill your promise, we urge you! Take responsibility for your words!”

“You will be stripped naked, just as agreed. Onwards to campus!”

The car sped off.

Because Meno wouldn’t stop struggling, the interior of the car was a confused melee of hands and feet. Faces were smashed into windows and nosebleeds flowed; throats were choked and faces swelled up purple like eggplants; eyeglasses were smashed, and their owners cried like babies. Hellish scenes played out in the light of the setting sun, yet the car drove inexorably forward. Over the Kamo Bridge they went, down Imadegawa Street, drawing ever nearer to campus.

Pinned down in the back seat by three others, Meno shed manly tears.

It’s all over, he thought, resigning himself to his fate.

I ran so long, despite my drooping eyelids, despite my rumbling belly. It’s because of who I am that I was able to come so far. But all of my efforts were for naught. Look at me now. Ere the sun sets I will be thrown before the Director, and everyone will be moved at how I kept my promise. They will praise it as true friendship. The thought of it makes my skin crawl. Serina will smile, I don’t doubt. I suppose you think yourself a shining paragon of friendship, he will sneer. Was ours only ever such a sniveling relationship? he will lament. What good is ordinary friendship to us, to us, to we who declared, Meno and Serina run this club! Serina, you believed that I wouldn’t keep my promise, that I wouldn’t satisfy myself with being ordinary. That’s why you stepped up and agreed to take my place. You always believed in me. And I always met your expectations. What splendid friends we were. Ah, but now, how shall I escape this quandary? I cannot meet his expectations. Oh, Serina, forgive me. Now that it has come to this, I will boldly fulfill my promise. In doing so I will establish that proof of friendship and be showered with praise. How the ladies will shriek my name, how the love letters will come pouring in. Perhaps the Director will even be so moved that he will release me from my bond of dancing in my underpants. All will be satisfied. That accursed plagiarist of a boyfriend will be saved, and Suma will be thankful. The Sophistry Debate Society will escape its disbandment. By betraying Serina’s expectations and displaying a humdrum kind of friendship, everything will be wrapped up without a fuss. Yes, that would be for the best—

Facing the groaning Meno, one of the society members said, “Have you no conception of friendship? Side by side we faced the stones cast by the world, and yet here you are perfectly willing to let your sophists-in-arms suffer!”

“You think that’s friendship!?” Meno shouted with rage. “You only pity yourself. If you consider yourself a true friend, be silent and witness me!”

“Enough with your sophistry!”

“And you call yourself a member of the Sophistry Debate Society!”

Shouts filled the car as it approached the Hyakumanben crossing.

Meno clenched his teeth. The sun would set soon. If he managed to hold out a little longer, he just might be able to buy himself a little more time. He wasn’t going to let these lily-livered lumps have their way. Summoning one last spurt of energy, he threw off his erstwhile friends.

“Just give it up already!”

“Would it really be so bad dancing in your underwear?”

“Well, I suppose it probably would.”

His friends berated him, but with the little space he had earned Meno thrust his hand into his pants.

“What new depravity is this!” As they recoiled from him, Meno held out high before their eyes a jar of ground pepper. He had just managed to sneak it into his crotch before he was set upon in Suma’s apartment.

“Agh! So that’s why your package was bulging!” one of them screamed, just as Meno opened the jar and emptied its contents into the car. Gagging, the driver brought the car to a screeching halt, whereupon Meno flung the door open and tumbled out into the street at the northwest corner of the intersection.

“Run, Meno!” he exhorted himself.

He dashed off, nearly naked, clad only in his underpants and a pink bath towel that flapped around his neck like a scarf. Pachinko parlours blazed brightly in the evening gloom, illuminating the naked form of the pervert that gallantly ran past. But Meno no longer cared about appearances. The Sophistry Debate Society had left the car and were now pursuing him, hacking and coughing. Passersby shrieked. A passing patrol car flashed its lights on and blared, “Shimogamo Police! Stop right there!” Hearing this, Meno for some reason shouted the phrase, “Freedom of speech! Freedom of speech!” running through the intersection and fleeing towards the engineering school.

The campus clock tower thrust into the twilight sky that lay over campus, gleaming in the last rays of daylight. The sun had not yet set. In his haste, Meno ran bang-on into someone who was in the midst of painting a billboard. A paint can balanced at the top of a ladder toppled over, staining Meno’s white underpants pink. Behind him the Sophistry Debate Society gave chase, their faces contorted and demonic; before him, the Cheery Bicycle Corps stood blocking his way, eager for a rematch. Meno immediately swung around and sprinted off towards the economics building. In hot pursuit of the swift-footed fugitive, one of the society members yelled, “You’re already down to your skivvies! It’s perfect! Why don’t you just dance!”

The others joined in.

“What are you running away for?”

“You’re finished, kaput. You’ll never make it!”

“Meno! Curse you, you loon!”

With this abuse of torrent being hurled from behind, Meno ran on through campus.

A younger acquaintance of Meno’s who had been waiting at the stage for Meno to arrive ran towards him. Overtaking the out-of-breath pursuers, he soon caught up with Meno. Keeping pace just behind Meno as they passed between the towering engineering buildings, he shouted, “Meno! What are you doing here?”

“Witness me!”

“But you won’t make it. The sun is going down. You’re out of time. “I knew you were that kind of person. You’re awful. Serina knew, he never counted on you to come. He was cool and collected even when they led him to the stage. The Director teased him something horrible, and yet all he would say was, Meno isn’t coming—”

“That’s why I’m running. Serina understands that. He understands me. Ours is a trust that looks like mistrust, a friendship that doesn’t look like friendship.”

“That’s just sophistry! There’s no such kind of friendship!”

“I tell you, there is. Not all friendships conform to stifled definitions. Not all friendships require you to sing sickly sweet paeans to mutual aid, or hold each other tight in mutual embraces. I reject such humiliating friendship! The friendship between Serina and me is different. The relationship we have built is subtle and esoteric, untrammeled by prosaic expectations. It is not like baking cookies!”

Dashing inside the clock tower Meno began to climb the stairs. His friend lunged at him from behind, and the two rolled down the steps into the corridor, where his pursuers piled on top of him. Struggling even more fiercely, Meno continued to shout.

“To be faithful or not to be: that is not the question. Nor is it to trust, or not to trust. What matters it whether we inconvenience one another? Whether we betray each other, or help each other is of no consequence. All that matters is that we set our sights on the same goals. And the reason for that, the reason that is so, is that our friendship is incomparable!”

The hands that pinned Meno down suddenly slackened their grip, and his surroundings became quiet.

Meno sucked in a huge breath and looked around to see his pursuers all hunched over and sobbing. They’d realized that they wouldn’t make it to the stage in time. The Director of the Library Police would scowl his fleshy scowl and bring down the hammer of fury upon them for failing to retrieve Meno.

“We’re finished! We’re all done for!” they howled, tears streaming down their faces.

The second day of the campus festival was coming to an end. The food stalls were packing up, and the students that aimlessly milled about assumed that the odd fellow running about clad only in his briefs and a pink bath towel was some sort of butoh dance performance or other. True, it was a performance. For the orchestra arrayed around the stage had already begun to tune up, readying to play a rendition of The Beautiful Blue Danube as they waited for the star of the show to arrive.

In the green room by the stage, Serina sat on the bench with a blue robe draped over his shoulders like a boxer waiting for the opening bell. He breathed calmly as he awaited the impending sunset. Crack troops from the Cheery Bicycle Corps were posted around him to prevent his escape, but he was so sanguine that their presence was hardly needed.

The Director’s jowls began to quiver from rage at having allowed Meno to slip through his fingers. Yet he was intrigued by this odd man, Serina Yūichi, who was being forced into dancing in a pair of pink underpants yet remained so unperturbed. Standing beside him, the Director inquired, “How can you people put so little faith in each other? From what I have seen I can hardly believe that you trust one another. You are not faithful to your promises, you have no intention of helping each other. How can you call this friendship?”

“This is just another form of friendship.”

“But what is the point?”

“I do not know. But even so, I have no intention of acting out the insipid friendship that you so desire.”

“Even if you must dance in pink underpants?”

“Just so.”

“You two truly astound me,” said the Director, unmoving, murmuring almost as if to himself, “Once, I too had friends.

“They were in the same class as me. We’d known each other since our first year. I gave everything for them. When he had to practice for a show I would take lecture notes for him; when his guitar was broken I lent him money; when he was hungry I fed him. And I gave even more to her. No matter how selfish her demands, I listened. I praised her oddball poems to the heavens; I provided her with raw tofu skin, cola, smokes. I must have bought a third of all the long Peace cigarettes she’s smoked in her life. I did it because I was scared of losing my friendship. It made me happy that they counted on me.”

Serina squinted knowingly from behind his spectacles at the Director. In his eyes there was a glimmer of sympathy.

“But they were using me, no more. They betrayed my friendship. In the end what did I gain for all my lavish offerings? I will tell you: the sorrow of losing both my best friend and my first love at the same time, and the memory of her delicious fried rice!”

“I like delicious fried rice,” Serina murmured quietly.

The Director shook his head. “But the memory of fried rice is not at all a fair trade. How worthless friends are—”

“HA!” Serina suddenly shouted.

The Director jumped and took a step back, his belly wobbling.

“Is that what you regard as friendship!?” Serina snarled.

“Don’t shout like that, you startled me!”

“Pitiful fool!” Serina gazed into the azure sky. “You pitiful fool!”

The Director could say nothing.

After a moment Serina breathed out quietly and adjusted his glasses, then flung the blue robe draped around his shoulders into the sky. He stood up, clad only in a pair of underpants, dyed an outrageous shade of pink.

“Gentlemen: it is sunset,” he declared.

The arrival of Serina Yūichi onto the stage was accompanied by a shower of boos from the crowd, many of whom were young ladies. As Serina whirled madly to the tune of The Beautiful Blue Danube, a shadow crept into the square. The figure was so grotesque that the assembled students recoiled in horror, before realizing that it was dressed in exactly the same fashion as the one that twirled upon the stage. Nearby women shrieked and fled as the figure advanced wordlessly towards the stage, like a pink-gartered Moses parting the Red Sea. Realizing that Meno had blithely showed up after leaving his promise unfulfilled, some of the crowd hurled insults at him.

“How dare you show yourself here!”

“Oathbreaker!”

Meno made his way onto the stage and walked up to Serina.

“Hit me, Serina,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Just don’t hit me too hard. For a moment during my flight, I spinelessly thought to myself that it would be easier to just keep my promise. If you do not hit me, I will never be worthy to dance alongside you.”

Serina hit Meno, restraining his hand just a little. Then he said this.

“Meno. Hit me. Hit me about as hard as I just hit you. I knew that you would not come, but I spinelessly thought to myself how I would rather not dance in a pair of pink underpants. This is the proof that my spirit is still weak. If you do not hit me, I cannot dance with you.”

Meno hit Serina, restraining his hand just a little.

“Thank you, my friend.”

The two lined up and began to prance madly. They no longer had to dance, yet they danced just the same. Groans of disgust echoed throughout the square as those two scrawny bodies squirmed obscenely on stage, clad only in pink underpants.

From the side of the stage the Director of the Library Police watched them intensely, but before long he approached them quietly, and with his cheeks flaming red spoke thus.

“I finally understand what it is you two seek to do. Friendship is a far more unfathomable thing than ever I had imagined; it could never be constrained by the ordinary. But then, I had never known a true friend before. Hence, I have a request for you. Would you admit me to your number?”

And the Director threw off his clothes, to reveal that he, too, was wearing pink underpants.

Thus was a new dance troupe born, dubbed the Pink Briefs. But presented with their sultry moves, the crowd neither cheered nor applauded, instead moving towards the exit in unison like an ebbing tide. The dark veil of night came down, and the cold November wind whistled through the emptied venue. Those three men, linked by the bonds of friendship, danced on silently, elegantly beneath the spotlights to the lilting tune of The Beautiful Blue Danube, played by a now rather nonplussed orchestra.

Suma eventually appeared on the scene. She walked directly up to the stage and thrust out three bath towels at them.

“How about you cut that out now?” she said.

Only then did a scarlet blush rise to the heroes’ cheeks.