Shikinagi Akira and Saiki Ittetsu Read Kajii Motojiro’s “Lemon” Aloud, Decoding It as They Go

NIJISANJI — Nijisanji’s Shikinagi Akira and Saiki Ittetsu read Kajii Motojiro’s short story “Lemon” aloud together on Wednesday, spending most of a 113-minute stream taking it apart line by line.

The pair opened by describing the format as a noisy Japanese-class reading: classic literature read together, with interruptions, reactions and look-ups welcome. Both said they had never properly read the story, or remembered it only dimly. They traded off passage by passage, and when a word or image was unclear they searched it on the spot. They worked through an old way of writing “hangover,” a lung ailment named in the opening pages, the plaster walls of old Kyoto streets and a pocket-sized sum of money measured against today’s prices. They also marked a word the author coined himself for a musical term.

“It’s an achievement unlocked, this.” — One of the two, near the end of the stream

The story follows a narrator weighed down by debt, illness and an unnamed “ominous lump” in his mind. He buys a single lemon at a fruit shop, feels his spirits lift and walks into a bookstore he had been avoiding. There he piles art books into a castle, sets the lemon on top and leaves, imagining it as a bomb that will blow up the store. The story ends there, and the two reacted with open surprise at how abruptly it stopped.

In the discussion afterward, one of them said the narrator’s burst of forced cheer during a low stretch felt true to life, while the other was drawn to the scenery and everyday details that matched memories of his own, such as childhood glass marbles. They agreed that the narrator looks strange from outside but is wholly serious from within.

Chat responded to the ending with messages such as “An explosion ending?!” and, as the stream closed, asked for the readings to continue, one suggesting a monthly schedule. One of the two said a second and third round would be welcome. Before signing off, one also said a collaboration stream that had been floated for the next day was postponed again, with a new try possible around the following week.