柔らかな芯がぼかしていく
眠れない目の下の影を
留まることのない微笑みを
Kami no ue ni kimi no yokogao wo egaku / Yawaraka na shin ga bokashite iku / Nemurenai me no shita no kage wo / Todomaru koto no nai hohoemi wo
I draw your profile on the paper / The soft lead blurs away / The shadows under sleepless eyes / The smile that never stays
何も守れない
ただの脆い境界線
この気持ちを囲むだけ
Enpitsu no gakubuchi wa / Nani mo mamorenai / Tada no moroi kyoukaisen / Kono kimochi wo kakomu dake
The graphite frame / Cannot protect anything / Just a fragile border / Only surrounding what I feel
光が変わればデッサンも変わる
何度も消して何度も描いた
でも顔はいつも少しだけ違う
Kappu no naka de koohii ga samete iku / Hikari ga kawareba dessan mo kawaru / Nando mo keshite nando mo egaita / Demo kao wa itsumo sukoshi dake chigau
The coffee cools in the cup / When the light changes, the sketch changes too / I erased and drew again and again / But the face is always a little different
何も守れない
ただの脆い境界線
この気持ちを囲むだけ
Enpitsu no gakubuchi wa / Nani mo mamorenai / Tada no moroi kyoukaisen / Kono kimochi wo kakomu dake
去りゆくものを留めること
無意味で美しい仕草
遠くから君を愛するように
Tabun geijutsu to wa kou iu koto — / Sariyuku mono wo todomeru koto / Muimi de utsukushii shigusa / Tooku kara kimi wo ai suru you ni
Perhaps art is just this — / To hold still what departs / A meaningless and beautiful gesture / Like loving you from a distance
何も守れない
ただの脆い境界線
この気持ちを囲むだけ
(この全ての気持ちを囲むだけ…)
The graphite frame / Cannot protect anything / Just a fragile border / Only surrounding what I feel / (surrounding everything I feel…)
(コーヒーはもう冷めてしまった…)
(nylon guitar dissolves into brush sounds) / (the coffee has gone cold…)
“鉛筆の額縁” (Enpitsu no Gakubuchi) is the Japanese chapter of the Graphite Frame trilogy — the same song about the impossibility of capturing someone you love in art, now reimagined through the sensibility of Japanese bossa nova and the aesthetic tradition of 渋谷系 (Shibuya-kei). If the Italian version sits in a Roman café and the French version in Saint-Germain, this one lives in a dimly lit jazz kissaten in Shimokitazawa, where vinyl crackles beneath conversation and the barista knows your order by heart.
Perhaps art is just this — to hold still what departs.
Japanese carries something neither Italian nor French can — a built-in sense of impermanence. The concept of 物の哀れ (mono no aware), the bittersweet awareness of passing things, lives inside the language itself. When the singer says “留まることのない微笑みを” (the smile that will not stay), the Japanese phrasing carries layers of acceptance that the other languages have to work harder to express.
The trilogy is now complete: three rooms, three languages, three cultural lenses on the same fragile act of trying to draw someone you love before the light changes. The graphite frame holds nothing in any language.