Adachi & Shimamura Vol 12
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What If Adachi
Was a Teacher?
Interlude: What If Hino
Was Taller?
Chapter 2: What If Adachi
Was an Author?
Interlude: What If I Just
Kept Walking?
Chapter 3: What If
Shimamura Fixed the Timeline?
Chapter
1:
What If Adachi Was a Teacher?
“Let’s all try to call me
Sensei, okay?” I called, waving to the children as they dashed out of the classroom. At present, this was my
biggest struggle: getting more than a handful to address me as their teacher. I could frame it in a
positive light by telling myself that the nickname was a sign of affection, but
I was keenly aware that they likely didn’t see me as a “real” adult. After two full years of
working at this elementary school, however, the jitters I’d felt on my first
day had long since faded from my fingertips. Maybe it was time I got
around to working out how to present myself as an authority figure.
I oversaw a class of
first-graders—tiny creatures that exuded innocence from head to toe. The work was far more
hectic than merely babysitting, but thus far, I had managed to eke out a
living. And
though in truth I wasn’t the biggest fan of children, there was something
amusing about their energy, sincerity, and utter lack of inhibition.
“Ada-chee!” A little face peeked over the far side of the lectern, as if she was
trying to climb it. In my opinion, she had the cheekiest voice of them all.
Shima-chan, as her
classmates called her, was the walking personification of naivete. For a teacher, it was
both heartwarming and a little worrying. She was brimming with so
much energy, it felt as though she would dart away the moment I took my eyes
off her. Her
smile bloomed as vividly as the flower barrette in her hair, and her deep brown
eyes twinkled with curiosity as she looked directly at me. Sometimes her gaze was so
intense, I could see myself reflected in it.
Gripping the lectern, she
beamed. “Just wanted
to say hi.”
“Yes, hello. And
goodbye. Get home safe,
okay?”
And yet she made no move
toward the door. Her eyes gleamed as she stared intently up at me. Smiling, I tilted my head
in an unspoken question.
“I’m looking at your
face,” she explained without breaking eye contact.
“Thank you.” Great, a first-grader’s hitting on me. If anything, hers was
the prettier face by far. Her smile was made of pure sunshine, exuding the vitality of new life. “Do you think you could
call me Sensei?”
She dodged the question
with a giggle, and I got the sense I’d have to legally change my name to get
anywhere with a girl like her. “Did you know the town’s
haunted by a ghoul?”
“Or maybe a ghost?” She cocked her head in
contemplation. “Every night, it stalks the streets. That’s what they say.”
“I haven’t seen any
ghouls or ghosts, personally.” Granted, maybe I simply
didn’t have a sixth sense. But given that I wasn’t especially eager to speak with the
supernatural, I felt I could live with that.
“Well, they say its eyes
glow in the dark.”
“It’s not a cat! Why do you keep saying that?”
Because I liked cats more
than I liked cryptids. That said, if this thing supposedly walked on two legs, then it was
probably just an urban legend born of poor eyesight. No matter how far science
progressed, it seemed people would always find entertainment in superstition. Impressive, really.
“Hunt it? We should be nice to kitty cats.”
“I’m telling you, it’s
not a cat…I think!” She walked around the lectern and grabbed my sleeve. “We gotta go, Ada-chee!”
“Sorry, but Adachi-sensei still has work to do.”
“Yeah, and I have
homework, but I don’t care!”
Now she was asking me on a
date. But
as much as I would have loved to ditch my responsibilities and run wild with a
grade-schooler, I didn’t have the guts to actually go through with it. I had built up a
considerable amount of good sense over the years it had taken to reach
adulthood, and I was liable to trip over it the moment I tried to bolt.
“Shima-chan, are you done
yet?” the
girl’s close friend shouted impatiently from the doorway.
“It would appear that
someone’s calling you,” I remarked.
“Grrr… I’ll have to give
up for tonight,” Shimamura-san grumbled.
“It’s still daytime, you
know. Be
safe on your way home, all right? And watch out for
any…creatures,” I finished uncertainly.
With that, she dashed
over to her friend—always running indoors, the little scamp, even though it was
against the rules. Suffice it to say that her boundless, restless energy had its
downsides. But
considering she went out of her way to speak to me more often than the other
kids, I suspected she must have taken a liking to me.
I wasn’t opposed to it,
of course. Although
she refused to address me as a teacher, “Ada-chee” wasn’t far from my actual
surname, and so I wanted to think of it as a term of endearment. If I remembered
correctly, it was she who coined the nickname, and she was also the first to
strike up a conversation with me after I was assigned to this class. Really, her friendliness
was so overt that she felt less like my student and more like a neighbor kid. She talked to me so
often, I had developed something of a bias toward her, wrong as I knew it was.
I scanned around for
stragglers, then went to check the windows. Now that I was relieved
of my young charges, I could finally relax… When I walked through the empty,
deflated classroom, it felt as though I was reliving my memories as a
first-grade student all over again.
After ensuring each
window was closed and locked, I took in the view. The sky had laid out its
clouds like a quilt; at this time of year, rain was scarce and the afternoon
sun was quite cozy. I was tempted to stand there and enjoy it for a while, but when I heard
the sounds of students on cleaning duty in the hall behind me, I turned my back
to the light. It wouldn’t do to let them see a teacher slacking off.
Shrieks and footfalls
raced through the building, the likes of which had long since faded from my
life with age—a testament to how much I had grown, perhaps. Still, for the
foreseeable future, my goal was to try to live each day with that same energy.
At the front door, I
dusted my shoulders off and felt the night lift away. Strange how my weary body
seemed to rattle with each breath. Briefly I considered
ringing the doorbell, but decided I wasn’t quite that dead and opted to dig out
my house key. Welcome home, I comforted myself as
the door swung open.
After stepping out of my
shoes, I nearly kept walking but ultimately doubled back to put them away. The physical act of
crouching was a major drain on what energy I had left. Thinking of bubbly little
Shimamura-san, I forced my feet to march on.
My mother glanced over
her shoulder at me from the living room sofa. Her face and voice were
always carefully controlled, making it hard to get on a read on her—unless,
like me, you had years of practice.
She rose to her feet and
crossed the room to the kitchen area, leaving her magazine behind. Its cover was decorated
with blue skies over a brand-new theme park resort. But for as much as she
loved to read these travel magazines, my mother never actually went anywhere. Once, when I asked her
about it, she explained to me that no real-life vacation was ever as perfect as
the ones she envisioned. And while I could see her point, it seemed needlessly cautious to me.
As instructed, I went off
to my bedroom, where I changed into a ratty old shirt with an elephant design,
then reached up to my shelf and gave my elephant plushie a quick pat. To an outside observer, I
probably looked like an elephant fanatic. I liked them fine, of
course, but my sentimentality was directed elsewhere—not at the animal, but the
person who bought these things for me.
Stepping out into the
hall, I quietly pulled the door shut behind me, then let out a sigh.
I had lived with my mother
ever since she and my father divorced when I was a child, and our relationship
was…decent enough. She was never the sociable type, but after years of surreptitiously
studying her facial expressions, I’d learned to gauge her reactions through
eye movements alone. She was inarticulate and rarely smiled, but because I knew the person
she was at heart, I chose to stick with her.
Back in the living room,
I picked up my chopsticks and tucked into the dinner she’d heated up. She sat across from me,
watching absently. To someone else, the silence might have felt like torture… Really, if
it wasn’t for that one pivotal moment, there was no telling how our
relationship would have turned out.
Unlike the food, which
was richly seasoned, the accompanying conversation was stale and bland. I tried to think of a
topic, but all that came to mind was work. Perhaps it would suffice.
Between bites, I relayed
the day’s events, curious how she would react. Meanwhile, she nodded
along stoically to my mundane anecdote. It made me realize that
in terms of eloquence, the apple didn’t exactly fall far from the tree. When I finished, there
was a brief lull before she spoke.
“It must be hard, looking
after so many children.”
“Yeah… All the screaming
and running can be overwhelming.” I could picture it clear
as day: They’d be standing calmly at the window one minute, only to disappear
down the hallway in the next.
“If it were me, I
couldn’t handle it,” she scoffed in a low voice, shaking her head, and I
smiled.
Yes, someone like my
mother would throw in the towel at the first chance she got. That being said, I
suspected my students would never treat her with the same disrespect they
showed me. Her
gaze had a piercing quality that afforded her an intimidating, unapproachable
air.
“Yeah, you tend to hate it
when people are loud.”
“Is there anyone in the
world who doesn’t?”
Fair question, admittedly. While I didn’t mind the
kids’ energy, it wasn’t something I was inclined to join in on. But if children could
find joy in noise, then surely there had to be a percentage of adults who found
it energizing, too.
After dinner, I was
debating whether to take a shower when I spotted it again: the travel magazine
with the perfect vacation frozen in time on its cover. It was a glimpse of
paradise seldom afforded to someone on a teacher’s salary, and it stirred my
heart.
“What if we actually went
on a trip sometime, Mom?”
“A
trip?” she
repeated, leaning away from the sink full of dirty dishes to crane her neck
toward the sofa. Interpreting the significance of her gaze, I lifted the magazine by the
corner and dangled it for her to see.
“It’d be a nice change,
don’t you think?”
Why merely dream of these
places when she could go and see them for herself? There was no telling how
many chances we’d have to travel together, so I wanted to make the most of the
ones that came along.
Pensively, she stared
down at the running faucet for a moment. “It does sound nice,” she
said finally, and I thought I caught her lips curl in the tiniest of smiles.
“And since you’re so good
at planning this stuff, you can decide where we go,”
I teased, unabashedly saddling her with the hard part.
“Fine,” she replied
brusquely, as usual. The tiny smile had vanished from sight, but by that point, I had
already burned it into my memory.
At times, life with my
mother was like a long walk through thick fog. Luckily, I’d gotten pretty
good at feeling my way around.
“All right, everyone,
class dismissed.”
Once I’d made all the
necessary announcements, I sent the students on their way, just as my teachers
had done for me once upon a time. Why something so trivial
induced such a powerful feeling of nostalgia for my childhood, I couldn’t
explain. The
moment I was done, the kids burst into shrieks of excitement that threatened to
blow the roof off, and I waited until I heard it come down.
It was nothing short of a
relief to have survived another day of looking after my class. With all the energy in the
room, there was always potential for conflict or injury, and as the adult in
charge, it made me sick with worry right up until the final bell. I couldn’t find it in me
to shrug it off like some of the other faculty. Maybe it was because I’d
been an indoor kid growing up.
Once again, I was visited
by a little girl who was my polar opposite. This time, however, she
walked around the lectern to approach me directly.
It was Shimamura-san, of
course, randoseru backpack over her shoulders, yellow safety hat on her head. For all the trouble she
got into, she was still a good kid who always came to say goodbye when she was
ready to leave.
“That’s ‘Sensei’ to you,” I protested
nominally, knowing it would be fruitless.
I got the sense she was
going to keep saying it until I acknowledged her. Relenting, I stooped
forward slightly. “What’s
the matter?”
It wasn’t like her to falter.
Normally,
she was the type to blurt out whatever was on her mind, so the hesitation drew
my attention. Was
she afraid to tell me? Was it…serious? My fingers tightened around my knees as I waited for her to continue.
Her naturally rosy cheeks
burned all the brighter. “Date,” she repeated, her eyes hidden beneath the brim of her hat.
Did she just…ask me out? “When you say ‘date’…”
“Is…is that yes or no?!” she shouted, flailing from
side to side as if to fight off her embarrassment. Her shyness was adorable.
“Well, the thing is, I
still have work to do…”
“Just for a minute! Real
quick!” she
pleaded, shaking her backpack. But she wasn’t just being
silly. She
seemed dead set on this for whatever reason, and I was reluctant to brush her
off.
“Hmmm… Okay, but as long
as we stay on school grounds.” I could get away with a
short walk around campus, and besides, I didn’t want to reject her invitation
outright.
As an introvert, it was
quite possibly the first time anyone had ever asked me on a date. On second thought,
no…there had been other instances, but I’d pushed them all away. In Shimamura-san’s case,
however, I knew she would keep chasing me no matter how far I tried to retreat.
At her age,
her purity and innocence made her invincible.
Just then, another girl
stormed up impatiently. “Shima-chan, what are you doing with Sensei?”
“Heh!”
Shimamura-san
thrust out her chest proudly. “Today, we’re going on a date!”
“Hey, don’t say that!” At least, not that loudly!
Unsurprisingly, the other
girl was less than pleased about this. “That’s no fair,” she
grumbled.
My heart twinged with guilt. “Sorry.”
“Uh…I’m not sure,” I said
quickly, forcing a smile.
As the other girl trudged
away, Shimamura-san waved and shouted after her, “Bye-bye! See you tomorrow!” Seeing as she was
blithely oblivious, it fell to me to point out what had just happened.
“The reason I apologized
is because I’m pretty sure she wanted to spend time with you today.” It was painfully
apparent, considering how inseparable the two of them generally were.
“Hmmm…” Lowering her hand
to her side, Shimamura-san frowned awkwardly, and I felt bad for killing the
mood right before our little date. But a moment later, she
looked up again with renewed energy. “Sometimes life is
complicated. Gotta let it
go.”
She had a point, though. Nothing in life was ever
promised to you, no matter how old you were. Harsh, but true.
Out in the hall,
Shimamura-san gazed up at me with all of her cheerfulness restored. I was a little envious,
really, of how quickly she moved on. Peering into those
hopeful little eyes really did feel a lot like staring directly into the sun.
“Where should we go?” she
asked.
“Pick wherever you want,
girl!” she
declared, her chin jutting out proudly. I poked her chin, then
considered my options. In truth, there was no part of this school that struck me as ideal for
a date.
“First of all, you
shouldn’t call a grown-up ‘girl,’ okay?”
“Okay, I’ll stick to
Ada-chee.”
“…Right.” I couldn’t think of any way to get her to call me Sensei, so I conceded
on that point and kept thinking.
My first move was to
retrieve one of the loaner umbrellas. At the lockers, we changed
into our outdoor shoes, then headed out onto the athletic field, going all the
way to the pillar bearing our school flag. “Here we are,” I announced.
“Hey, I know this place! This is where the
principal likes to talk for a long time!”
“Let’s not shout that at
full volume.” You’re not wrong, though.
Dusting off the work
platform, I gallantly invited her to have a seat. She plopped down eagerly,
and when I sat beside her, she cheered. This
cheap date is already a good return on investment, I thought, then kicked
myself.
As for our activity, we
decided we would sit and people-watch. In addition to her hat, I
opened the umbrella and draped the shade over her as a form of sunburn
prevention. In one corner of the field, a group of children had stayed behind after
school, and we watched as they retrieved equipment from the storage shed.
“They’re gonna play
dodgeball!” Shimamura-san
exclaimed. In
her glee, she nearly rose to her feet. “But I’m on a date today…
Oh well.”
She looked so tickled about
it, I nearly smiled myself. As her teacher, however,
I needed to take this seriously. What could we talk about,
and to what extent? It was hard to know where the line was. But of course, that was
precisely the sort of thing you were supposed to worry about on a real date.
“So…Shimamura-san…” I
knew what I wanted to ask—Why did you invite me on a date?—but wasn’t sure how to
phrase it gently. As I waffled, however, she spoke up of her own accord.
“Y’know, Ada-chee,
everybody says you’re really pretty.”
“Pretty?”
I had hoped
they might think of me as something a bit more teacherly, like respectable or trustworthy.
“Yeah, and…and I wubyoo!” Her eyes and lips were
shut so tightly, it was a miracle she could get any words out at all.
“You what?” I repeated, genuinely confused.
“Aww…how nice…” And it
was cute, the way her lips puckered at the word you.
In a roundabout way, it
seemed I had now discovered the answer to my question: She asked me out because
she loved me. Pretty normal, I thought, desperately
trying to stay calm despite my embarrassment. I had to fight to
maintain a soft smile, because I knew the second it fell away, it would reveal
my abject panic.
“Whabbout you?” she asked with upturned eyes.
Now this was a dangerous
question. “Well,
obviously, I love all of my students very much…”
I know, I replied silently,
averting my eyes with a stiff grin. As her teacher, I had no
choice but to take evasive action; if I tackled this subject head-on, the
potential for serious damage was extremely high. And yet…at the same time,
I wasn’t made of stone. I could feel my cheeks turning to rubber.
“You
do?” She
snuck a few furtive glances as a grin began to spread across her face.
“To a reasonable extent,
you understand. But when it comes down to it…yes.”
Giggling, she scratched
at her knees in sheer delight—and the more I watched her, the more I started to
think that a little wuv never hurt anybody. Was I wrong to feel this way?
Until this
very moment, I hadn’t realized just how precarious of a position teachers were
in.
Once Shimamura-san
finally descended from cloud nine, she sat up straight and looked at me
intently. “May I ask
your name?”
“Just tell me!” she laughed, so I decided to play along.
“Now, Ada-chee-san, what
are your hobbies?”
Is this a date or a
marriage interview? “Reading, I guess?”
“Me,
too. People
tell me I’m real good at it. Heh!” She looked ever so
slightly proud of this fact.
“You
are good at it,” I agreed.
Shyly, she tugged the
brim of her hat down. “I hear you work as a teacher.”
Suddenly this marriage
interview felt more like a job interview. Granted, it was a good
question—the kind you might think lots of people would ask me, but in truth, no
one ever did. Gazing up at the inside of the umbrella, I thought back to my past.
“When I was a little
girl, my family took me to the zoo, and when we went inside the souvenir shop,
I saw an elephant plushie. I was too scared to ask for it, but as it turned out, I didn’t need
to—because my mom could tell I wanted it and bought it for me anyway.”
I could remember her icy
voice and expressionless face as she offered it to me: “Happy now?” Yet it was through that
plushie that I felt her love for me for the first time—or at the very least, I
interpreted it that way.
“From then on, I decided
that when I grew up, I wanted to be the kind of adult who could understand how
it feels to be a kid. And the next thing I knew, I was a teacher.”
If there was a world out
there in which my mother hadn’t bought me that toy, I probably would have lived
an entirely different life. Sometimes, those what-if
scenarios kept me up at night.
“Wow.
You must
really like elephants.”
My love of elephants had
nothing to do with why I’d become a teacher…or did it? “Maybe so.”
“Then I’ll get you
something with an elephant on it! As a…a present!”
It was obvious that she
wanted to flaunt her generosity, but even then, the gesture was a comforting
one. “Sounds great. I look forward to it.”
She met my friendly smile
with pure, unadulterated glee, flashing her pearly whites as she beamed from
ear to ear. “When
you’re happy, it makes me happy, too!” It was noble, really, the
way she was able to share in my joy as if it were wholly her own.
“I have a plushie, too. It’s
a seal!”
“These days, he likes to
play with my little sister.”
Something about the way
she phrased it gave me the warm fuzzies. He sounds like
a nice guy.
“So, you have a sister?”
“Uh
huh! She’s just a baby. Sometimes I hold her.”
Suddenly, a third voice
had joined the fray. Craning my neck, I spotted a fluffy tail swishing behind Shimamura-san.
A little girl was
standing there, dressed in what I had to assume was a kitty onesie and carrying
a rucksack even larger than she was. In terms of appearance,
the only thing she had in common with Shimamura-san was her height. Everything else was
freakishly bizarre, particularly the color of her hair—the bangs poking out
from beneath her hood were, inexplicably, sky blue. Paired with her choice of
attire, she looked like she’d walked out of a storybook.
Shimamura-san reacted
with undisguised shock. At first, she darted around behind me to hide in my shadow, but before
long, her curiosity got the better of her and she ran back out again,
completing the circuit. Meanwhile, the other girl merely stood there, her smile unflinching. Her cat tail almost
seemed to move on its own, as if reflecting her mood.
“No matter where I go, it
seems Shimamura-san is always full of vim and vigor.”
“She knows your name…? Is this a friend of yours?” I asked Shimamura-san.
“I don’t know her!” she shot back without missing a beat.
Even then, the odd girl
kept on smiling. Her eyes shone with a kind of a light distinct from the sky blue of her
hair, and when I looked closer, I saw the universe. Not in a metaphorical
sense, either—I could literally see galaxies contained in the inky depths of
her pupils, full of beauty and mystery in equal measure.
“I have not seen you in
some time, either, Adachi-san.”
Now the spotlight of
suspicion was turned on me. How did this total
stranger know both of our names? If we’d met at any point
before now, surely I would remember, given her looks. There was absolutely zero
chance this kid went to our school.
That was a tall order,
unfortunately, but I could tell at a glance that this wasn’t a mystery I could
solve on my own. Where
had she come from? And
more importantly—
“Seeing as you have met,
I suppose I should move on.”
Where exactly was she
planning to go? Without a word of explanation, she turned to leave.
Shimamura-san lunged to
hug her. The
kitty girl made no move to resist, and the two spun in circles, as if dancing. Considering she technically was intruding on our campus,
I debated whether it was safe to let her horse around with one of our
students…but I sensed no ill intent from her. Ultimately, I decided I
would watch over them until they were done spinning. I couldn’t lie—it was
pretty cute.
After they’d had their
fill, they pulled apart. Shimamura-san staggered around with her arms outstretched like an old
drunk, seemingly enjoying the resulting dizziness.
“It appears I am
victorious,” the other girl announced. With her sense of balance
perfectly intact, she spun around one more time until she was facing the front
gates. “Heh heh heh! Everything seems to be in
order here. That is a
relief.”
She offered each of us a
final smile before waving goodbye. What had she learned from
all that spinning just now? As I watched her go, however, I suddenly remembered:
“Could
that be the glow-in-the-dark
creature you were talking about before?”
Watching her toddle along
at top speed with her arms thrust out in front of her, extremely adorable
though it was, gave me an odd sense of déjà vu. Then I realized: It was
the same way Shimamura-san ran. Was she, too, in danger
of smacking face-first into a wall otherwise? And how did she get her
onesie tail to swish like that?
“A cat with glowing eyes
that walks on two legs…”
Before long, the
enigmatic kitty girl disappeared around the corner of the school building. Who was she, really? How did she know our names? She’d left without telling
us a single thing, and I got the sense she wasn’t coming back.
After recovering from her
dizziness, Shimamura-san returned to the shade of the umbrella. “The weird part is, I
think me and her would get along.”
“Definitely.” In terms of laid-back vibes, the two were very similar indeed. Surely they were both
good girls at heart.
“If I had to guess, she’s
an alien!”
“Hmmm… Yeah, maybe.” There were entire
galaxies in her eyes, after all. Perhaps it represented
all she’d seen of the universe.
“Oh well,” Shimamura-san
shrugged as she sat back down. After the world’s most
obviously fake ahem, she adjusted the angle
of her hat, then put a hand to her chin and smirked.
Finished yet? I thought as I watched.
She started poking my
elbow, her expression as twisted as it was when she first asked me for this
date. Just
like that, her confident smirk had vanished without a trace. As I waited curiously, I
noticed her ears were burning as red as her cheeks. Then she whipped her face
away as if struck, and after a moment of hesitation…
She blurted it all so fast
that her tongue couldn’t quite keep up. The sudden proposal was so
cute that I couldn’t hold back my laughter. In fact, if I wasn’t her
teacher, I would have hugged her on the spot.
She smacked my knee with
her little hands. She was right, of course—no serious proposal deserved to be laughed
off. Shame on me. When I looked back at
her, however, she buried her face behind her arms to hide from me. So precious!
It was the first marriage
proposal I had ever received in my life. From a six-year-old, no less.
Her eyes rippled like
lakes before something broke free and flowed forth, like tears flowing in
reverse, and sharp. Was it her youth that fueled the light that now burned in her eyes? Was her hope all the
stronger for having next to no knowledge of the world? Either way, she sparkled
just as brightly as the girl who contained galaxies.
“Married, huh?” Again, I found myself facing a major problem. Proposals generally
required a yes or no answer, after all. Sheesh,
kids these days can’t even wait until after the first date? “I’m, uh…not sure what to
say.”
Having evidently
interpreted my response as a rejection, she froze in place. I hadn’t actually turned
her down, but for obvious reasons, I needed to. It was harsh, but also
the right thing to do.
“I can’t marry you right
now because I’ll go to jail, Shimamura-san.”
Unfair, I know. “Besides, once you get
married, you won’t get to live with your family anymore.”
“Most people move in with
their new spouse somewhere else.”
“Oh… Hmm…” She seemed to
be giving this serious consideration, so I wanted to do the same.
“Don’t you think your mom,
dad, and little sister will all miss you?” They sounded like a happy
family. I
wouldn’t dare steal away their little ray of sunshine.
“Hmmmmm,” Shimamura-san
murmured, arms folded, as she sat in the shade of the umbrella. “Will we really have to
live somewhere else?”
When she looked up at me
with those puppy-dog eyes, I felt my resolve falter. “Well…technically, no, we
don’t have to…”
“Then you should just
move in with us!”
“The more, the merrier!” Confident in the brilliance
of this plan, she held up two fingers in a peace sign.
“That’s…an option, I guess…?”
Would I be
the one taking her surname, then? In that case…nope, it
wasn’t any less problematic. “I live with my mom, though…”
“Nnngh…” At this point, I
was running out of reasons to decline. There was no law
requiring anyone to move out of their parents’ house upon marriage; if our
families were amenable, we could just merge our households. But that still didn’t
make it okay! “Bottom line: It can’t happen right now, or the cops will arrest me.”
This was one hurdle a
first-grader simply couldn’t overcome. Instead, she physically
recoiled, as though she had crashed into it face-first.
“It really is,” I agreed. But our ancestors had
decided on these rules for good reason, and it would be disrespectful to run
roughshod over them.
“Is there any way we can
get married without going to jail?”
“Mmm…” Her questions were
so very frightening, weren’t they? I took stock of her
height, then glanced upward. “Technically, yes.”
“Oh yeah?!” Her face lit up with hope.
“You see, a lot of the
world’s problems can be solved with time.”
That being said, time
also had the tendency of eroding both pretty faces and hearts. There was no guarantee
that what we felt today would last forever. Thus I decided I would
speak only for my present self…and in so doing, saddle my future self with the
aftermath.
“Tell you what. Once you’ve graduated from high school, you can marry me—if you still want to.”
As I counted the years
ahead on my fingers, it dawned on me how old I’d be. Surely a young woman in
the prime of her beauty would lose all interest by then. If only I could stop
aging while I waited for her to catch up… Alas, the passage of time affected
all living beings in equal measure. It was a bittersweet
truth of the human condition.
“You mean it?!” From the way she lit up like fireworks, I could only assume she’d
shrugged off all the nitty-gritty details in favor of the ultimate outcome.
“Right.
But I’m
warning you, I’ll be an old grandma by then,” I joked, exaggerating somewhat.
“I love grandmas. Mine plays with me every time I go to her house.”
“She does? Aww. That sounds nice.”
I had limited contact
with my extended family, so it was hard for me to picture…but the brightness of
Shimamura-san’s smile suggested to me that it was something special indeed. Also, we were starting to
veer off-topic.
“I’m sure you’ll still be
pretty, even when you’re a granny.”
“That’d be ideal.” Hugging one knee to my chest, I let the lilting voice of a child speak
my hopes for the future.
“How far away is high
school?”
It was a more
philosophical question than she perhaps realized. Beyond the cover of the
umbrella, the sky had yet to dim.
“If you live a happy, fun
life and do your homework every night, you’ll get there before you know it.” At least, that was how it
felt to me when I was in her shoes.
As if to mimic me, she
tried to count it out on her own fingers. But it must have seemed
endless, because she gave up and looked back at me. “Then you better not
marry anybody else in the meantime, Ada-chee!” she declared with a big,
charming grin.
“Okay.
Adachi-sensei
will be waiting for you, Shimamura-san.”
The gleam of her smile
made my cheeks flush. A childhood promise was ephemeral by nature, but even if it went
unkept, it would surely make for a fond memory…just like the way I felt when I
looked at the elephant plushie on my shelf. My only wish was for the
thought of it to bring her joy over the years to come.
Over the years until she
graduated, Shimamura-san continued to come visit me at school, doggedly
reminding me of our betrothal. At full volume, no less. My only option was to
laugh it off and pray that no one who overheard her took it seriously. In turn, I reminded her
that it would have to wait until she was an adult, though admittedly, I
couldn’t begin to imagine what she would even look like by then.
Once she had moved on to
junior high, she stopped coming around. Unsurprising, of course,
but still a little sad. Before long, I was transferred to a different school myself. Part of me wished I could
let her know, but ultimately her “proposal” became little more than a silly
anecdote of my own—one I hoped we could both look back on and laugh.
But though there was now a
tiny hole in my heart, the world kept on idly turning, passing from sunrise to
sunset to the serenity of night and back to dawn once more. Time moved steadily on,
unaffected by people’s hopes or dreams or bonds or breakups. With each new year, I
paused to think about that feisty first-grader with increasing frequency. But like Achilles and the
tortoise, by the time she caught up to where I stood now, I would be leagues
ahead of her all over again. This, too, was bittersweet.
How long had it taken for
the title of sensei to feel as natural as breathing? Twelve years had passed
since the marriage proposal, and at this point, I could no longer remember my
life before I started teaching.
No student had called me
by that nickname in years. As if pulled backward in time, I looked over my shoulder and saw
someone walking down the hall toward me, her shadow bridging the gulf between
us.
Twilight—the magic hour
when worlds meet. Squinting, I put a hand to my chin, shielding myself from the unease
kindled by those red rays of sun.
For the first time in
many years, I spoke the name aloud. The approaching figure
took shape before me, casting off the shadow of obscurity.
What first surprised me
was the guts she must have had to set foot inside our building while wearing
another school’s uniform. Then I saw how she’d grown. Her hair was longer now,
her gait sprightly, the blazer of her uniform adorned with an eye-catching
ribbon at the collar—but she was still wearing that same flower barrette. When she recognized me, a
dopey grin spread across her face.
This reunion didn’t strike
with blunt force but slowly seeped into my very core. All this time, I had
believed I would never see her again—and yet here she was, hurrying toward me
like she’d been waiting all her life for this very moment. She wasn’t quite as tall as
me, but our faces were closer than ever before. When she came to a stop
in front of me, she smugly held up the tube she gripped in one hand.
“I graduated from high
school today.”
“Did you now? Is
that your diploma? Congra…”
The words were swept away
mid-sentence, along with my entire train of thought, when she grabbed my left
hand and scrutinized each finger individually. After a thorough
examination of my ring finger in particular, I heard her whisper, “Good.”
Meanwhile, I was so
flustered to suddenly be holding hands with her that I could scarcely breathe.
“Glad I made it in time.” Turning my hand to point
at the ceiling, she placed what was almost certainly her diploma into my open
palm, as if to pass the baton. “I’m here to marry you,
Sensei!”
Her smile bloomed like a field of flowers, no less vivid than it had
been a decade ago. As my
lips shaped the word marry, a
burning heat tore through my cheeks. Yet despite the window-shaped backdrop of sunset framing us, I thought
I glimpsed a tiny sparkle of sky blue.
Interlude:
What If Hino Was Taller?
“I WANNA TRY SOMETHING. Straighten up as tallas
you can, okay?”“You’re an imbecile, just so we’re clear.”
The moment we made it to
her place after school, Nagafuji flung off her bookbag and immediately started
trying to stretch my neck out. “C’mon!”
I tried to smack her
stupid hands away from my jaw and occipital bone, but she was so entangled with
me that we tumbled to the floor together. She landed on top of me
like a sack of potatoes, her tits smothering my entire face. Or was it the other way
around? Was
my face lodged in her tits? Either way, I was
engulfed in her scent.
“What’s gotten into you
all of a sudden?” I asked through a mouthful of boob.
“In a world where what-if
scenarios were suddenly really trendy…”
“My other idea was: What
if Hino was a gyaru?”
Is this the kind of crap
you think about instead of paying attention in class? What’s the point of those
glasses if you’re not going to use them? Besides, you know my
folks are too worried about keeping up appearances to let me wear whatever I
want.
“Just my neck? What about the rest of me?”
Have you
considered not turning me into a
snake-headed monster?
“I don’t know… I don’t
think your legs will stretch.”
“Just eat a Gum-Gum Fruit,
and—”
When I tried to silence
her, however, her chest muzzled me instead. After years of smacking
these things around, I’d gotten very familiar with them, and it felt as though
they’d gotten bigger lately. Why did
she get to keep growing, but
I didn’t? How
did we turn out so differently when we both ate more or less the same diet?
Sometimes I wondered if
each person was sculpted at birth like a flower vase. No matter how much time
was poured into us, it would never alter the shape of the glass.
“Don’t force all your
what-ifs on me! Go
what-if yourself!”
Before she could turn me
into a Rubber Human, I turned the spotlight around on her. But I didn’t need an
alternate universe—this sort of thing was an everyday occurrence. Her parents could have
walked in on us and not even batted an eyelash.
Adjusting her position,
Nagafuji clung to me all the harder, crushing me. “In that case…what if I
never met you?”
“What?
Oh…okay…what
would have happened?” I had never given it any thought, personally. After all, we’d spent
practically our whole lives together. But if nothing else, it
was a more interesting hypothetical than trying to make me taller. “If you never met
me…where would you be?” I pressed.
She answered quickly,
without much thought. “Probably looking for you.”
“Uhhh…” Her comprehension
skills made me concerned for her grades. “How can you search for
someone you’ve never met?”
Very, I thought, closing my eyes. “Knowing you, I guess
it’s possible.”
If I lived in a world
without Nagafuji—a world in which I never felt this crushing weight—then my own
existence would probably sink into oblivion along with hers. That was what my gut told me.
“Lucky for me, I didn’t
need to look too hard.”
“…Yeah…” Her remarks
didn’t make a ton of sense at face value, but somehow, I felt I could
understand her more easily than usual. “Now get off me, would you? Your boobs are suffocating
me.”
After a pause, she pressed
down onto me, crushing me harder…filling my sight with nothing but her.
Chapter 2:
What If Adachi Was an Author?
“AT LAST, I see the light at the
end of the world.”
I read the tagline aloud
as I ran my fingertip over the poster. It was a meaningless
phrase I had tossed in while writing, but now it was suddenly being used to
represent the work itself. To my chagrin, the whole editing department was decorated with these
huge advertisements. When I protested, they told me to take a hike. Important for sales, or whatever.
Now I sat and watched in
real time as work stress consumed my editor’s health before my eyes. In truth, I didn’t want to wait for her to
finish; I wanted to hurry home and either veg out or sleep. I had barely finished my
latest manuscript, and sleeplessness all but dripped from my hair, weighing me
down. Sure,
it was my IP, but what did I care?
The department was
furnished with obscene fluorescent lighting and a perpetual din of mid-meeting
chatter, each desk piled with drafts and advance copies. I knew the cluttered work
environment had to have a serious impact on their productivity, but when I saw
people curled up in sleeping bags under their desks, I realized they quite
literally had no time to tidy up.
In the early days before
my big break, I would get so nervous whenever they asked me to come in. Now, though, I was all
too happy to kick back and relax. Come to think of it, quite
some time had passed since I was brought to this meeting room and left with
nothing but a cup of tea. If I wanted to, I could probably make a break for it. But I didn’t dare try—my
editor would kill me.
I’d never thought very
highly of this particular work, but somehow it had been reviewed well enough to
garner an adaptation on the big screen. Then I was told I ought to
tour the film set. I’d tried several times to wriggle out of going, but my editor
insisted. Now
here I was, waiting to be dragged around on a leash. I was so bored, my only
option was to lean back and stare up at the posters.
I’d written this
self-contained novel years ago, and looking back at it now, it was terrible. There were so many better
ways I could have structured it. But I couldn’t very well
go back and revise it now, so I was left to stew in my regrets. This was why I hated
revisiting my old work.
Technically, the story
was categorized as science fiction, though I was a bit iffy on that. It followed the lives of
two sisters, the younger choosing to flee their decaying home planet while the
elder stayed behind. I felt a detached sort of sympathy for the cast and crew because, to be
frank, the possibility of an adaptation hadn’t crossed my mind while I was
writing it, and a lot of it was probably hard to translate into live action.
The poster next to mine
featured the work of a different author. Its tagline read, “Don’t blame me if it doesn’t work out. I wasn’t
trying to hurt anyone.” Now here was an actually
intriguing hook.
Suddenly I realized why I
was able to read the posters so clearly: I had forgotten to take my glasses
off. Eh,
whatever. With nothing better to do, I flicked them up and down, entertaining
myself with my poor vision.
The voice hit my jaw and
made me straighten up in my seat. There stood my editor,
carrying her briefcase and a large paper bag.
“Well, then, let’s get
going,” she replied, ignoring my sarcasm.
Rising to my feet, I slid
my chair in, then followed her out of the room. On my way here, I had
purchased a thank-you gift for the film crew: a box of jam-filled wafers called
okiagari
monaka, the
local specialty. I had no particular interest in them myself—really, I’d just picked a
confection at random.
“I need you to sign some
copies for the giveaway campaigns.”
“Well, you could’ve
brought them to me earlier while I was sitting around in there.”
“Sorry.
I was so
busy with other tasks that it slipped my mind.”
She didn’t sound sorry in
the least, but considering I was a week overdue in delivering my latest
manuscript, I was in no position to complain. Ever since the adaptation
was set in stone, I had been flinging my signature onto all kinds of things for
promotional purposes, and it seemed today would be no exception. By my estimation, I had
signed approximately 150 books thus far. At this rate, they’d be
worth less than the paper they were printed on.
My editor was a strong,
broad-shouldered woman who spent her free time either at the gym or looking
after her daughter. She was also a villain who would purposely wait until my deadline was
looming to saddle me with busywork. Her defense was “If you
actually met your deadlines, there
wouldn’t be a backlog of work in the first place.”
“Incidentally, the
director made a suggestion.”
“He’d love for you to
make a cameo in the film.”
“All you have to do is sit
in a wheelchair and let them push you.”
“There’s no wheelchair
scene in my book!”
“Well,
you’re not in your book, either.”
Not my point! She was a fast walker, so
I had to move quickly just to keep up. “Look, I’m not an actress,
okay?”
“And that’s fine. Really, all you have to do is sit there.”
“And that ‘anyone’
includes you, correct?”
After putting up some
semblance of resistance, I allowed her to cart me off. Just another part of
marketing, I figured. And since they were going to the trouble of adapting my book to film,
some part of me felt I owed them that much.
Soon, we arrived at the
station, and after we boarded the train, she handed me a copy of the film
script. “If
nothing else, try to memorize the names of the cast.”
“…Good point.” I’d gotten an email about it a while back, but I was so busy at the
time that I barely skimmed through it and, consequently, retained next to none
of it.
Today, they would only be
filming scenes with the older sister. Chronologically, this
made sense, considering the younger sister would have moved away—and, given the
slightly sci-fi setting, I suspected no ordinary hospital would suffice. As for the actress
playing the older sister…
“Let’s see… Where’s her
pen name—er, stage name… Ah, Shimamura Hougetsu.”
What, like the historical
figure? Huh.
“I’m told that’s her real
name,” my editor informed me.
“It has a…unique sort of
ring to it.”
“That’s my real name,
too, you know.”
For that matter, what part
of Sakura was unique? Tons of people were named
Sakura. I
always wondered why I was named after cherry blossoms when I wasn’t even born
in the spring, but I’d never bothered to ask my mother why she chose it, and
now we no longer lived together. We weren’t exactly…on bad terms, but we were both terrible at communicating, especially with each
other. And
since neither of us ever managed to find a solution, we went our separate ways,
as was commonly the case with relationships like ours. To this day, I hadn’t
visited or spoken to her, so it was hard to say whether she even knew I was a
published author now.
“Funny.
I’ve never
heard of this actress.”
“Then you must live under
a rock, because she’s everywhere these days. Don’t you dare say that
to her face, got it?” my editor warned, elbowing me in the side.
I was so sleep-deprived
that the swaying of the train made me want to puke. Good thing we were
already on our way to a hospital.
After we deboarded the
train, I was stuffed into what looked like a film production van.
“That’s because it is a
film production van.”
Beside me, some kind of
equipment lay sideways, the metal tip jutting out directly in front of my seat.
Now it felt
like we were going to a photo shoot. Leaning away from the
pointy thing, I sat there and waited to arrive at our destination, no different
from the rest of the equipment.
The hospital was so
large, I half-wondered if it were a shopping mall. As we walked, our guide
explained that between its patients and staff, several thousand people entered
this building every day. It was so packed, I suspected I could pass out on the floor and no one
would even notice.
Because the place was
massive, naturally, the walk to the second-floor lobby was a long one. Each hallway was nearly
the width of a mall concourse, and I wondered if the bright, open space was in
some way comforting to the patients.
Today, the plan was to
borrow a corner of a hospital lobby for filming—one with, in my opinion, way
too many pillars. Oh, I get it, I thought to myself as I sat on the far edge of the leather sofa. They’re
probably going to stick me here and make me sign more copies. I thought back to last
year, when I stupidly said I’d be willing to pen a thousand autographs if it
made people happy, and cursed myself for not choosing a more modest number.
I had met the film crew
once before, when we all met up at the publishing office. To avoid any
responsibility, I told them to take as many liberties as they liked, and it
seemed that was indeed the route they’d taken. There was no hospital
scene in my book.
Word must have gotten
around that the author was here, because a fair few people approached me to say
hello—mostly actors and PR representatives. At some point, I was told
I’d be doing a magazine interview. It was all so much. My vision flickered. It wasn’t just that I was
bad at interviews—I was bad at answering questions, period. I could sit and listen as
much as necessary, but the most I could contribute was “Yeah,” or “I’m fine
with anything,” ad nauseam.
As I prayed desperately
that they’d forget about me and focus on filming, I heard my editor call for me
and looked up. When I saw her striding swiftly in my direction, I suppressed the
reflexive urge to kneel and beg for more time on my deadline. Behind her, two people
followed in her wake.
Great, is she about to
introduce me to the hospital staff next? I joked to myself.
But the moment I laid
eyes on that face, the thin white walls shoved me back hard. Knocked loose from the
impact, my consciousness rose out of my skull, hovering over my body like a
balloon and affording me a bird’s-eye view. My cheeks were burning,
and the corners of my eyes were so hot, it was a miracle I wasn’t crying. I thought I felt myself
suck in a breath, and yet suddenly my lungs were painfully, suffocatingly
empty.
I knew at once that she
was an actress. She was a masterpiece, the very sight of which had nearly evaporated
all the moisture from my widened eyes. She…she’s
beautiful. The compliment bubbled at the back of my dry, sticky throat, frozen in
breathlessness.
My editor’s introduction
slipped over my ears and into the great beyond. Whoever she was, her
smile reminded me of the field of sunflowers near my mother’s house. The next thing I knew, I
had risen from my seat on the sofa, standing rigidly at attention.
She was a bit shorter
than I was, but her pale skin sparkled like a midsummer beach. She emitted an aura of
soft golden waves that gently engulfed me, melting my voice into shapeless
sludge.
“Uh, nuh—no, no, it’s
nice to meet you…”
My lips were quivering too
hard to maintain a consistent shape, and I’d forgotten to blink for so long
that my eyeballs stung with the intensity of an electric current that
threatened to make my skull implode. I was terrified to imagine
what I must have looked like to an outside observer.
“And this is Adachi
Sakura, the author of the original novel,” my editor continued, introducing me.
“It’s great to speak with
you,” said the actress, bowing politely once more.
I started to say a much
longer sentence but quickly redirected myself to something shorter. I knew I must have seemed
strange, so I forced a smile as if I were being silly on purpose. Likewise, she smiled back.
My heart nearly stopped
beating as she read my mind verbatim. I was so panicked, my
vision began to warp, as if my eyes were somehow at two different heights. But when the rest of my
thoughts remained private, I realized she wasn’t actually psychic. Good thing, too, or else
I would have had to smash my head against one of these pillars until no mind
was left to read.
“You totally could have
played the main character yourself!”
…The pretty lady was
closer now, and clearly flattering me. Even the compliments felt
like pressure against my face.
“No, yeah, no, no.” I shook and nodded my
head accordingly.
“And look at that great
expression! You’re definitely built for Hollywood.”
Laughing, she continued
to butter me up with honeyed words, knowing full well she could get away with
it. Then,
with our introductions thus concluded, she turned back toward her work. And yet…for some
reason…it felt like a terrible waste to let the crushing impact of her presence
slip away.
Why did I stop her when I
had no reason to? She turned back to face me across the lobby. What now? Tell her to
break a leg? Hurry!
She’s looking at me!
Next to her, the talent
manager fixed me with a sharp look—an unspoken warning.
“You’re…Shimamura
Hougetsu-san?”
What
kind of stupid question is that? my rational side snarked
while my mind went blank. But she was a cowardly critic who didn’t try to help me whatsoever.
At first, the actress’s
eyes went wide, but then her pretty lips curled in recognition. “You’re right—I’m sorry! I forgot to tell you.”
She sped back over to me,
the flutter of her skirt exposing a captivating glimpse of her slender ankles. My scalp was slick with
sweat, and I could feel something stupid threatening to spill out of my mouth.
“My name is Shimamura
Hougetsu. Pleased
to be working with you today.”
I could feel my posture
shrinking and straightening like a Slinky toy. Seemingly satisfied, she
turned and glided away—like a spring breeze out of season.
“Th-these actresshesh
shure are shomething.”
My tongue wasn’t working
right. “They’ve
got a different…vibe to them, I guess.” I couldn’t remember if
she’d smelled good—my senses were too overwhelmed to even think of it at the
time. I
started sniffing madly, but all I smelled now was hospital disinfectant. “You said she’s super
famous?” I
asked, pointing meekly at the actress in question, Shimamura-san, as she
chatted with her talent manager across the room.
“No, I just… Her looks are stunning.”
The more I spoke, the
sweatier I became. Despite my sleep deprivation headache, something had set my brain to
firing on all cylinders, and my thoughts couldn’t figure out where to fit in
the resulting discordance.
“Whoa, your cheeks are
shiny.”
This was something I
hadn’t noticed myself. How could my skin possibly look nice when I barely took care of myself?
And yet,
when I reached up, I found it soft and smooth. Maybe the shine was from
all the sweating? My complexion was surely as red as a tomato.
“I could be wrong, but…”
My editor squinted at me uncertainly. “Is this love at first
sight?”
Just like that, she had
me pegged—wait, no! Surely that sort of fanciful expression was too lofty to be accurate! With a pen in hand, I
could have drafted up the perfect prose, but when it came to speaking, I was
hopeless.
We were only two stories
up, but somehow, I was dying of altitude sickness. That actress had stolen
the very breath from my lungs.
“It’s not quite love at
first sight,” I confessed.
There I knelt on the
hospital floor, writing my signature. Every time I finished
one, my editor took it and laid it next to the last, where it would remain
until its ink had dried. This was our standard book-signing workflow.
“At the very least, love feels too strong for something so…single-faceted. Obviously, she’s
beautiful; I won’t deny that was my first impression. But there’s something
more to it. The way my body reacted was so different from normal… You know how when
you’re sleeping, sometimes you jerk awake? It felt like that, but
emotionally. So
maybe I was just stunned. Then again…it also sort of felt like something invisible skipped all my
neural pathways to stab my brain directly… Ugh, how would I describe this if it
was for a character I was writing…?”
Muttering to myself, I
carried on signing and handing over books. Like a well-programmed
automaton, my editor took each one without so much as a glance in my
direction, nor did she offer any thoughts on the subject at hand.
“Of course. Once we’re done here, I’m told they’ll be filming your scene, so you’ll
need to change into your costume.”
“That sounds a lot like
you weren’t listening.”
After a beat, she
replied, “Well, just get her phone number or something.”
“What?!”
It was a flawless
feint, and it caught me entirely off guard.
“Only thirty more copies to
go.”
“Could you pick a topic
and stick to it?”
“Is it such a big deal? The two of you met on
set, and one thing led to another.”
“Happens all the time…
Wait, no!” I
blurted, then remembered we were at a film set in a hospital and lowered my
voice. “It’s…it’s
not like that. She’s an actress. She’ll think I’m a creep!”
Surely she was used to
people drooling all over her. It probably got tiring,
having to let them down gently all the time. Well,
I’m not one of those types, I insisted silently,
defending myself from an accusation no one had made.
“Will she? I
suppose she might.”
“But she did call you
gorgeous.”
“She was just being nice. Only a lunatic would take
it seriously.”
That being said, I
couldn’t pretend I was of sound mind myself. An actor’s job was to
perform beauty, so when one of them praised your own, it…it… I could feel the
room starting to spin. At this rate, I’d never finish signing all these copies. Pressing my eyeballs
through my eyelids, I forced myself to focus. I was acting like an
anxious dog, barking at everything that moved, all because I happened to see a
pretty face.
And so, the dog-woman
finished autographing her books—enough to fill that entire paper bag. Rising from the floor, I
staggered to the nearby sofa and collapsed onto it.
“You
are gorgeous, you know. Despite the sickly
complexion and bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep,” my editor praised me, after
carefully collecting all the copies. “My daughter says so, and
she’s never wrong.”
Right after that, I
changed into a hospital gown and sat in a wheelchair. Since I had no lines to
recite, all I needed to do was let another character push me along. This was a relief,
because if they had asked me to speak on camera, I would have fought them on
it.
The actress in charge of
pushing me introduced herself before we began, but while she was possessed of a
refined, mature sort of beauty, it didn’t hit me half as hard. Clearly the leading
actress—Shimamura-san—was in a league of her own. In my eyes, anyway. Though she was surrounded
by a sea of other stars, she shone more brightly than any of them, like…like
the sun! That
would explain why my heart ignited in close proximity!
I could see it now. Article headlines reading: Social
Media Firestorm Erupts After Author Gets Wrong Idea, Flirts with Famous
Celebrity. It reminded me of a story idea I once outlined about piercing the sun,
though I never did get around to actually writing the thing.
But when I glanced across
the room at the leading actress in question, presently taking part in a
meeting…our eyes met. My heart contracted so sharply, I wondered if I needed a checkup. Not only that, but
instead of avoiding my gaze, she held it, as though intrigued… No,
don’t lead me on more than you already have! Something inside me
swelled from below like a balloon, engulfing my face from the chin up. Then, as if she’d seen it
for herself, she suddenly pressed a dainty hand to her mouth.
She was laughing at me! Reflexively, I put a hand
up to shield my eyes, as though I’d just taken a ray of sunshine straight to
the face. I
didn’t dare look at her anymore.
After that, I whiled away
the time staring intently at the floor until at some point, I dozed off, and by
the time I next awoke, my scene had already ended. Apparently, the other
actress pushed me while I was asleep… Why didn’t the director say anything?
“He was impressed, actually. Your fake sleeping looked
very realistic.”
“Great…” You know what? I don’t care anymore.
As I changed back into my
street clothes, I couldn’t help but notice that this particular hospital room
didn’t appear to see much regular use. The bed looked to be on
the older side, and there were no sheets on it. In fact, it kind of
reminded me of my bedroom at my mother’s house.
“Good work today. Oh, and we’ll be doing that magazine interview next.”
“Yeah, yeah…” I wish I could sleep in a
wheelchair for that, too.
Availing ourselves of a
table in a sunny corner of the hospital ward, we began the interview. It wasn’t my first by any
means, but the sight of the journalist turning on his recorder still made me a
little nervous. After all, anything I let slip would be immortalized forever.
“Thank you for agreeing to
this.”
“No, no, thank you for
inviting me.”
“Then without further
ado…could I get your opinion on the original work?”
This article was for a
fairly serious publication—nothing I would normally read of my own volition. Really, I couldn’t have
predicted just how many facets of my life this adaptation would affect. Most of the interview
questions pertained to my thoughts and wishes regarding the upcoming film, and
I made sure to give nothing but safe, boring answers. The journalist nodded
along intently, jotting down each one.
“What else… I’d love to
hear the story of how you started writing.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t
begin to count how many times I’d been asked this question. But unlike all the
others, its answer would never change. “It all started in junior
high, when I worked in the library.”
“Not by choice, mind you,
but because I was assigned there. We all took turns manning
the front desk—you know, loaning out books and accepting returns—but hardly
anyone ever came in, so it was mind-numbingly dull. Then, one day, a girl
working the same shift made a suggestion. ‘If you’re bored, why not
read something? We’re drowning in books here.’ So that’s exactly what I
did from then on: pick a book at random and spend my whole shift reading it.”
I had so much free time, I
must have read half of the entire catalog. It was only a junior high
school library, after all. But in my defense, the reading habit I developed was surely a net
positive outcome for a student.
“So that’s how you gained
an appreciation for fiction?”
“What?”
He blinked
back at me, clearly confused by an answer he hadn’t remotely anticipated. And to his credit, anyone
would have expected me to say yes. However…
“The novels I read weren’t
very good, in my opinion.”
No matter what genre I
tried, it never hooked me to the point that I would let other things in my life
fall to the wayside. For me, reading was only ever preferable to doing nothing at all.
“But the more I read, the
more I started to think even I could write
one. And
what I enjoyed more than anything was the process of mentally outlining exactly
how I would go about finishing a draft.”
I had more fun
constructing the bones of a book than I did sculpting the contents. Making a living from it
was merely a side perk.
“I see… What a story,”
the journalist concluded lazily.
That was one of few
instances in which that girl and I actually spoke to one another during our
time in junior high. To this day, she probably had no clue that I was an author now. But it was kind of nice
to think that, intentionally or not, the slightest of remarks could potentially
have a serious butterfly effect. It wasn’t every day that
you could reflect on your life and actually see where the paths of fate
diverged.
Once the interview had
concluded, I had officially finished everything on my to-do list for the day. I hadn’t actually worked
all that hard—except for signing those copies—but nevertheless, I basked in a
deep feeling of accomplishment. It’s over! As I stretched my limbs
out, however, I saw my editor headed my way, carrying something in one hand.
“Great work today. This
is for you.”
She handed me a packed
lunch from the catering table. Only then did I remember
that it was past noon and I still had yet to eat anything. Would I ever develop an
interest in food the same way I had with writing? If nothing else, I
decided to savor the experience of eating catered food on a film set, since
there was no guarantee it would happen again.
When I lifted the
rectangular lid, I was greeted with boneless chicken wings, fried crab claws,
cherry tomatoes on a bed of cabbage, slightly dry white rice, and brightly
colored gelatin in a small plastic container that made me think of Jell-O
shots. The
rest of the space was packed with an assortment of other common vegetables,
some of which were pickled.
Alas, they were mostly
breading.
Evidently, my editor had
decided to take her lunch break at the same time, because she sat next to me,
stuffing her face. She was the type of fast eater who never bothered to match pace with
others, even during special events at the publishing office, and today was no
exception. As
soon as she was done, she ran out of the room, cell phone in hand, and I could
only assume she had scheduled a call with some other author.
Alone, I continued to
graze on my food, all the while stealing glances at the lead actress. Once I was finished, I’d
head home, and that would be the end of it. Disappointing, yes, but
she was out of my league. I’d never have the courage—or even the chance—to talk to her again.
For that matter, what did
I even want from her? Friendship? How would a loner like me
know what that looked like? I could count the total
number of human connections I’d made on one hand, and that number included my
estranged mother. Pinching the final crab claw between my thumb and forefinger, I stared
blankly at it until my editor finally returned.
“Are we heading out?” I
asked. There
was no point in lingering here—I’d only be a distraction. I needed to go home, take
a shower, have a nap, and get back to writing.
“About that—I have one
more task for you today.”
“I made the arrangements
just now!” Proud
of a job well done, she thrust out her muscular chest. “Well done” was decidedly
not how I felt about it.
“Uh, you know I have a
deadline coming up, right?”
“And we both know you
won’t meet it anyway. It won’t kill you to lose a day.”
I couldn’t tell if this
was an indirect threat or merely her way of cutting me some slack. “What is it? You ‘found’ more books to
sign?” I
asked warily, massaging my sore wrist. It wouldn’t be the first
time, after all.
Incidentally, my personal
record was four hundred copies, all of them signed at an overseas event. Originally, it was
planned to be a small meet-and-greet for fifty people, but in a blink, it
snowballed into hundreds.
My editor smirked at me
as she collected my empty lunch container. “No, it’s a joint
interview with Shimamura Hougetsu-san. I told them we ought to
capitalize on the opportunity.”
At the sound of that name,
I no longer had the mental capacity to rub my wrist.
On second thought…well
done!!!
Now I would have another
chance to be in her presence. To share space…and hear
her voice…
“You might be a good
person after all.”
“Might? What
kind of compliment is that?” She pushed me with her
brawny arms.
“You
are a good person after all.”
“Also, I need a one-week
extension on my deadline,” I tossed out, pushing my luck.
Yeah, I figured. In all likelihood, she
had already extended it as much as she could. Speaking from experience,
one extension was bad enough, but at three, I was on thin ice. This was information I
probably would have been better off not knowing.
“Filming will be over
soon, so sit tight.”
My shoulders and knees
locked into place, creating perfect right angles. Suddenly, my throat and
skin felt as dry as a desert—and instead of running cold, my blood was hot
enough to boil. An interview! We’d be talking face-to-face! Granted, it wouldn’t be
private; some magazine journalist or whoever would be listening in. Still, this was
unmistakably a chance to get to know her.
I had fully expected to
never see her again, so my body struggled to recover from this 180-degree
shift. My
fingertips tingled restlessly. Nothing’s going to happen, I told myself over and
over like a mantra, willing myself to stop trembling with hope. But
I’ll get to talk to her again, my heart shot back,
chasing after the hint of fate it had one-sidedly detected. For most people, this was
simply how it felt to be a fan.
My body began to shake as
I envisioned her enthusiasm as compared to mine.
“Do you have the hiccups
or something?” my editor
asked.
As it happened, I did. She handed me a paper cup
filled with tea, and I drank it in seconds, staring down at the sharp angles of
my knees as I waited. Long after it was gone, I continued to raise the empty cup to my lips
for an indeterminate amount of time. Then, suddenly, I felt a
ray of light shining in my direction—and when I turned to look, sure enough,
our eyes met. No matter the distance between us, it seemed we were inextricably
magnetized to one another.
In other words…I wasn’t
the only one who…
As I quivered in my seat,
the ray approached. Contrary to popular belief, the “speed of light” was agonizingly slow
indeed.
“No, nooo, no!” Hastily, I set down my paper cup and bowed to her.
After a meaningful
glance, the talent manager walked away—and for some reason started chatting
with my editor. Now the two of us were alone… Well, not literally, since there were plenty
of people in the vicinity, but it felt as though our personal bubbles had
merged.
“I’m sorry for laughing
at you earlier.”
She was standing so close
to me now, I nearly recoiled when she spoke. “Huhwha? Y-yeah,
no, yeah!” I
laughed weakly, my lips and cheeks sagging.
She must have been
referring to that moment from earlier when our eyes met across the room. Granted, she didn’t look
all that sorry with that smile on her face, but she was pretty, so I was
willing to forgive her.
“It’s fine, really. I’m sure it must have
been funny.”
“I mean, you were cycling
through a whole series of facial expressions!”
“Oh, yeah, uh…I’m looking
to find work as a…stoplight.” I wanted to lighten the
mood with a joke, but instead I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. I was getting dumber by
the second…or maybe I was already past the point of no return. “So tell me, Ms. Actress…”
“Call me Shimamura.” Using her index finger,
she traced an S in midair. “I can’t explain it, but it feels friendlier than my first name. Can you believe I still haven’t gotten any
commercial gigs from the clothing company?” she joked.
Shimamura. Sure
enough, it felt soft and familiar on my tongue.
“Adachi…” It sounded as
though she were rolling it around on her tongue like a piece of candy. Nodding to herself, the
actress…Shimamura-san…smiled. “Adachi-sensei.”
“No, no, you don’t have to
call me Sensei.”
“You’re a professional in
your field, aren’t you? I’ve read a few of your works.”
Counting on her fingers,
she named a handful of books. Some of them were titles
I still saw on store shelves, while others felt more like long-lost friends.
“But my all-time favorite
would have to be…”
The title that followed
was the story of a couple who licked each other’s eyeballs. She looked all too proud
to tell me this, but internally, I was horrified.
“Uh…oh yeah, th-that one! My magnum opus… You sure
have some…good taste…”
Instead of jokingly
pretending to brag, I knew I would win more points by simply calming down, but
I couldn’t stop. “You have good taste”? Too condescending! Get down
off your high horse! I shouted silently at myself. I had a bad habit of
offending people on accident.
“I could say the same of you.
I watched
you film your scene, you know.”
“What?
You…you did? I…I don’t remember seeing
you…”
“Because you were asleep
the whole time. Pretty ballsy,” she grinned mischievously, as though it were a prank I
had purposely pulled. The look on her face was so adorable that my soul threatened to vacate
my body. While
it was exploring the hospital grounds without me, I followed an assortment of
other people down to the first floor. In a blink, we were
prepping for the interview.
It was promptly decided
that we would borrow a hospital room. As a journalist—a
different one from my earlier interview—set up the voice recorder,
Shimamura-san and I sat down across the table from each other, joined by my
editor on my side and her talent manager on hers. It wasn’t until I felt an
elbow in my ribs that I snapped back to my senses.
“Thank you so much for
accepting our last-minute request.”
Following a brief
introduction, the journalist powered on the recorder. Moments before the
interview began, Shimamura-san flashed me a smile, and I nearly returned it
with a dopey grin of my own.
“Now, then, you two feel
free to chat at length about whatever you like. We’ll edit it down into
an article later on.”
Evidently, my humiliating
mistakes would never see the light of day.
“Adachi-sensei, I notice
your works always have some sort of unique setting or world-building. I’d love to learn how your
mind works,” Shimamura-san began, as if she’d done it a hundred times before.
“So, what are you
thinking about right now?” she pressed, without missing a beat. If she was trying to
flummox me, it was working. My every thought was
wholly dependent upon the sight in front of me.
“Um…I shouldn’t respond
with the blunt truth, right?” I asked the room, smiling
like an idiot. The talent manager smiled back politely, but my editor’s grin
suppressed a hint of a threat: Speak carefully.
“I want your honest answers. If they’re dicey, we’ll
just cut them,” Shimamura-san replied, pantomiming scissors with her fingers.
But that wasn’t actually
what I meant. I was afraid of Shimamura-san finding out how I felt about her—and yet,
with her gaze on me, somehow I couldn’t keep quiet. On the contrary, my lips
were looser than ever.
As my sincere feelings
rocketed face-first into her, I felt something scorch my back and shoulders—the
smoldering embers of shame. Why did I say something so stupid? Fighting the heaviness in
my chest, I forced myself to look up and witness her reaction.
She was smiling…and
unless I was deluding myself, she looked happy.
“Well, you certainly
don’t waste time, do you?”
“Heh…heh heh heh… I know
it’s unrelated, but it is what I’m thinking right now. Shut up and focus on work,
am I right? Sorry.”
“As I said before, you’re
really pretty yourself. Way
more than me.”
“Isn’t she?” Shimamura-san asked her talent manager, who smiled stiffly, then leaned
in to scrutinize my face. I averted my eyes, but couldn’t escape the probing gaze, which was a
little frightening.
With who?! “I…I’m happy as an
author, thank you.”
“Alas,” the talent
manager replied with a smile. I couldn’t tell if it was
supposed to be a joke or not, so I just smiled back.
From there, the
conversation returned to my work and the film adaptation—topics we had in
common. I
was asked to describe my feelings toward the story, my experience writing it,
and my hopes for the upcoming adaptation. But although it was more
or less a retread of the previous interview, talking to Shimamura-san was so
much fun that it felt completely different.
“So, um, how did you get
your start as an actor?” I asked, like a little kid on a social studies trip. Really, I was just
stealing the questions from my earlier interview. But she was clearly used
to being asked this, because she had an answer ready.
“Well…it all started when
someone took a photo of me with that glowy girl.”
Every word was spoken
carefully, like she was easing her way down the staircase of memories one step
at a time. Likewise,
I dutifully followed along: “Glowy girl…?”
Wait, no, “girl” isn’t
the weird part of that sentence.
“No joke, she literally
glowed blue. Her hair, her nails—even her teeth! She was wearing a kitty
onesie, boots, and a big backpack, and she fell out of the sky.”
She recounted it with
such clarity, I half wondered if she’d gotten it from a manga she was reading. Each new detail was more
baffling than the last. “This is all very specific,” I remarked, forgetting to hide my
skepticism.
“Not gonna lie, I know
how it sounds,” she replied, dropping formality to match my tone. “I was walking down the
street when she landed right in front of me. Naturally, we got to talking.
Then
someone posted a picture of us to social media, and it went viral, and one
thing led to another, and here I am.”
Frankly, it was quite the
accomplishment to turn a viral photo into an entire career.
“Really, it’s the glowy
girl who deserves the credit, not me. But she disappeared, and
I haven’t seen her since.”
Perhaps good fortune could
take the form of a person. After all, if it wasn’t for that little kid, I wouldn’t have met
Shimamura-san at all. Thanks for the assist, girl from the sky! (On some level, I had
stopped questioning the “fell out of the sky” detail—probably because I was
willing to believe every word that came out of this woman’s mouth.)
“My family thought the
whole story was hilarious. They still don’t believe me when I tell them I’m on TV…though I guess
sometimes I have trouble believing it myself.” She gazed into my eyes,
as if searching for something—so deeply, it gave me goosebumps. “Do you ever have moments
where you look back at your life from an outside perspective and it feels too
crazy to be real? Because I kinda don’t understand how I got from who I was then to who I
am now.”
“Oh yeah, I can relate. You see, I’m not in
contact with my family…”
For some reason,
Shimamura-san took interest in this boring detail. “You’re not? With any of them?”
She seemed curious, so I
reluctantly explained my personal history: “I haven’t been to see my mother
since I moved out of her house. She probably doesn’t even
know I’m an author.”
That was the long and
short of it—barely worth repeating. But when Shimamura-san’s
face fell, I started to worry that my sob story had soured the mood in the
room. From
then on, although her tone remained as lighthearted as before, she didn’t crack
a smile.
We carried on chatting,
my dopey grin a permanent fixture, until the interview came to an end and we
both swiftly turned to leave. I didn’t want to subject
her to my stupid face and shaky voice for a moment longer.
“Don’t you want her number?” my editor asked.
“Hush!”
I hissed,
steering her out of the hospital room like she was a recovering patient.
“Oh dear… You’re really
going to regret it, you know.”
“I’m here in a
professional capacity, not to…you know…pursue ulterior motives!”
“Wait here and I’ll call
a cab to take you home.”
With an abrupt change of
subject, she dumped me in the courtyard and took off. In her place, someone
else walked out of the hospital and immediately broke into a run in my general
direction—a pretty lady with slender ankles.
“Wh-what’s going on?!” Standing there in broad
daylight, I braced myself for the worst. When she spotted me, she
made a beeline straight toward me.
The first was my natural
reaction to her dramatic entrance—the next, after a beat, when it startled me
all over again. She carried with her a pocket of pleasant air, her scent and overall
vibe working in perfect tandem. Was this the aura of an
actress? As
I was waxing poetic, she thrust out her arm, gripping a smartphone with a teddy
bear charm dangling from the case.
“Hwhuh?!”
My voice
cracked as my heels lifted up off the ground. “Oh, g-gosh, you want
to…trade numbers?”
She agreed so readily
that I achieved liftoff—not just my heels this time, but all the way to my
toes. The
thrill of it kept me suspended in zero gravity, numbing my limbs. Add in the heart
palpitations, and I was halfway to passing out completely. Good thing we were at a
hospital.
“I want you to call your
mom and invite her to the movie.”
“……What?” Half of me was still over the moon about getting her number, but now,
suddenly, another part of me was frozen in confusion.
I stared back at her,
thinking to myself: She must have been raised in a loving home. I didn’t mean it sarcastically, either—her sincerity was that powerful.
“Uhhh…well…” Truthfully,
it felt like too little, too late. But then she looked at me
with those gleaming eyes, and I nearly said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Oh.
You’re a
lot more willing than I thought you’d be.”
Her eyes went as wide as
saucers. In
truth, I wasn’t willing at all—but my heart was unable to fight the magnetic
pull of her puppy-dog eyes. If, by some chance, a
relationship blossomed from this, I could foresee myself agreeing to just about
anything, provided she begged for it with those eyes. That…probably wasn’t
healthy.
“And once you’re done, we
can trade numbers, okay?”
And so, I subjected
myself to the stick, all for a taste of that sweet, sweet carrot. I’m
sorry that this was what it took to make me finally contact you, I apologized silently to
my mother as I listened to the ringing. Her contact entry in my
phone may as well have been collecting cobwebs for all the use it ever saw.
She might not pick up if
she’s at work right now… That sure would be a shame…
“The glowy girl said
something to me before she disappeared,” Shimamura-san reminisced quietly,
squinting at the glare of the hospital windows as we waited for the call to
connect. “You will find her.”
But before I could ask, I
heard my mother pick up on the other end of the line and instantly broke into a
cold sweat. All at once, it felt like the columns of the passageway had closed in
around me, crushing me; I wanted to curl into the fetal position, but instead I
was forced upright, unable to escape the intense discomfort.
“…What is it?” the voice asked suspiciously, as if backed into a corner.
If nothing else, it
reminded me of my childhood.
“What is it?” she repeated more firmly. On reflex, I tugged at my
hair, then clawed at my cheeks while I was at it.
Meanwhile, Shimamura-san
sat beside me, offering no encouragement beyond a smile. It was my problem to
solve, so she probably wanted me to figure it out on my own. Or maybe she hadn’t
thought about it that deeply at all, and I was just reading into it. That didn’t seem healthy,
either.
“Well, um…you may not
know this, but I’m a novelist…”
What kind of opening line
was that? I
cursed my terrible communication skills. But then again,
considering we’d barely interacted for our entire lives, perhaps it was foolish
to expect anything better. Which was ruder: to be cordial, or to be friendly? I didn’t know how she
felt about me or how much she even knew about me. I was utterly clueless.
Her voice was sharp, but
in person, her eyes were even sharper. Looking back, maybe that
was what kept me at arm’s length as a child. Even now, I felt like a
little kid in trouble with no one to rescue me. As I hung my head, the
earthy smell of the courtyard grew stronger, and then…
“Obviously, I know that. What are you talking about?”
She spoke brusquely,
without missing a beat. “Why would you think I wouldn’t know that?”
“Because…I’ve never…told
you…?”
My mind slowed to a halt
as I tried to recalculate the gulf between us. Something between
loneliness and restlessness goaded me forward as the head-on pressure gradually
faded away—but in its absence, my face felt strangely naked.
“I hope it comes to the
theater at the local mall.”
If I had to guess, this
was my mother’s best attempt at continuing the conversation.
“Like I said, obviously! What’s the matter with you?”
She seemed baffled, and I
knew I needed to say something, so I forced myself into action. “Actually, um…I came to
the film set today.”
“Yeah, and…I was in a scene, but…I was asleep…” So much for an
interesting story to tell. God,
I’m stupid.
“Your character was
asleep in bed?”
“No, I was sitting in a
wheelchair, and I just…fell asleep waiting for my scene.”
“…Sounds like you need to
get more rest at night.”
In the silence that
followed, I heard her inhale. Sensing that the end of
the call was quickly approaching, I flung out a hand to stop the curtain from
falling.
“They’re gonna do a…a
screening soon. Would you wanna…come to it?”
My editor had told me
that family members were welcome to attend. At the time, I’d breezily
shrugged it off, but evidently it stayed in some distant corner of my mind,
because I managed to remember at the perfect moment. Perhaps it was the
familial connection that jogged my memory.
“I’ll need to check my
schedule for that day.”
She knew about my career. She even knew about the
film adaptation. But she never mentioned it—never tried to contact me at all.
“When I find out the…the
date and time…I’ll let you know.”
The words came slowly,
clumsily, like a child’s. Whenever I was in her presence—well, not physically in this case, but
still—I always seemed to mentally regress. Was that simply how
mother-daughter relationships worked? Were we secretly pretty
normal this whole time?
“Sounds good… Talk later.” And so, without waiting
for my response, she ended the call.
Judging purely from the
sound of her voice, it could be interpreted as a rejection—a cold goodbye. That was certainly how I
would have seen it in the past. But after working as a
writer for a good few years and learning a bit about putting myself in other
people’s shoes, I now understood that my mother was probably just nervous, the
same as I was.
My stiff shoulders
refused to unhunch from around my ears. I sat frozen in place,
tightly gripping the silent cell phone.
Meanwhile, Shimamura-san
had stayed at my side for the entire duration of the phone call, and she was
ready to celebrate the outcome before I could even announce it. Our eyes met at
point-blank range, and I let out a bashful chuckle.
“Uh…yeah…I guess.” I paused for a moment, then straightened my posture, raising my eye
level slightly above hers, and corrected myself more firmly: “Yeah.”
She looked up at me,
smiling in satisfaction. “Okay,
cool. Seeing
as it went well, I have a confession to make.”
Out of nowhere, her tone
relaxed sharply, and she leaned in until I could see the reflection of someone
in her eyes. When I realized that someone was me, my mind went blank. And
then—
“The truth is, I was just
looking for an excuse to get your number.”
I felt my palm grow slick
with sweat against my phone. As she flashed me a
toothy, mischievous grin, I couldn’t help but laugh like an idiot.
Interlude:
What If I Just Kept Walking?
I attempted to escape by
simply racing past her.
“Hey, don’t ignore me! Hey,
hey! Heeey! HEEEEEEY!”
I clucked my tongue in
frustration as she swiftly fell into step with me.
She was shouting like we
were on top of a mountain, and I began to seriously contemplate all the ways of
shutting her up. I could squeeze her lips together, I thought to myself,
glaring at her mouth. But she must have misinterpreted this, because she put a coquettish
hand to her lips, and then her obnoxiously restless gaze fixed itself on me.
“What’s the matter,
Hana-chan? You want a kiss?”
She
puckered her lips in my direction, making disgusting kissy sounds.
“I was just thinking I’d
like to wring your goddamned neck.”
“Someone’s got a potty mouth!
You better
not talk like that to other people.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t
have the opportunity.”
None of my other
acquaintances were the walking personification of a loudspeaker. Furthermore, why was she
now tagging along with me on my way home? I
shouldn’t have risked waiting at that red light outside the gym. I should
have run into traffic, I thought with a sigh.
“Weren’t you going to the
gym? Because I’m
going home now. Goodbye
forever.”
“What if we stopped by
here first?” She pointed at a café across the street with a black roof—a
considerable distance away, despite her use of the word here.
“To grab coffee with a
friend, obviously!”
“A friend? Ha!” I scoffed before I could stop myself.
Me, friends with this
buffoon? Even
if that were true, her behavior would make me want to deny it at every turn. She was rude, she was
loud, she made me uncomfortable… Everything about her was so repugnant, and yet
our relationship resembled friendship even when my inner metrics didn’t agree. Perhaps that was what
didn’t sit right with me.
“Good point. We’re not friends—we’re besties.”
“I would hate for other
people to see us together and think I’m pals with a nuisance like you. Now, goodbye.” But before I could
escape, she grabbed me by the shoulder. Don’t pull me
toward you!
“All right, I get it. I’ll stop my usual shtick
for today.”
“…You’ll stop?” Standing side by side, I became conscious of the fact that she was
slightly shorter than me.
“Sure you will. That’ll only last for three seconds, tops.”
“I’m serious! I’ll start right now, so go ahead and count to three.”
She took a deep breath,
like she was about to plunge underwater, then began to count on her fingers. I watched blankly as each
of them unfolded—index, middle, ring.
Suddenly, everything
about her had turned stiff and awkward—not just her voice, but the movement of
her neck and hands, too. It was highly entertaining, so I decided to humor her for a while.
The exterior of the
building was so aggressively Japanese, one might mistake it for a sushi shop. Its parking lot was
nearly empty, with dead leaves forming patterns on the concrete; on a whim, I
stepped around them as I made my way inside.
The walls, floors, and
furnishings were all constructed in matching shades of cozy brown wood, with a
stack of cushions below the display case at the center of the room—likely free
for customer use during the winter months, if I had to guess. The moment they told us we
were free to sit anywhere, I expected this gremlin to make a beeline straight
for the outdoor seating, as she usually did. Sure enough, for a brief
moment, her eyes sparkled in that direction…but then her head stiffly turned
itself away, creaking like a well-worn vacuum cleaner, and she marched to a
table in the back. Not that it mattered either way.
The lighting here was
slightly dimmer, deepening the colors of the chic little table and chairs. While it was clearly
designed as a place to relax, knowing the normal her, she would have spent the
entire time talking me to death. This time, however, she
didn’t say a word on the way to the table; she merely affixed a facsimile of a
smile to her face, which was deeply unsettling. She was quiet, yes, but no
more comfortable to be around.
When I ordered an iced
coffee, she chimed in, “Make that two,” in the flattest voice I’d ever heard. Normally, she would
ramble on and on about each little thing on the menu, but today, the chatterbox
had removed its batteries. Well, we couldn’t keep sitting here and staring at each other in
silence—the mere thought was torture. The problem was that I
didn’t have anything to discuss.
“Talk about something,” I
demanded, the same way she would usually make infuriatingly outrageous demands
of me. Generally,
she never needed to be asked, so it was refreshing to see her lips quivering
timidly instead.
“The truth is…I do not
especially enjoy coffee.”
I had suspected as much
from her overall vibe. She was too…childish? But not in a derogatory
way, mind you. I simply got the sense that there was some intrinsic part of her that
could never be tied down by a caffeine addiction.
“Then you should have
picked something else.” The menu had plenty of fruity, bubbly drinks on offer—the kind she
probably preferred.
What
does that have to do with ordering a drink? “Then why are you talking
weird? Just be normal.”
At this point, it was
starting to feel like she was mocking me. No matter what she did,
she was seemingly destined to irritate me… Was I the one with the problem?
As we waited for our
coffees to arrive, she kept her mouth firmly shut, barely even blinking. Evidently, her idea of
“quiet” involved being as close to dead as possible. It was funny at first,
but the longer she sat there in silence, the more it wore out its welcome.
There was no point in
being around her if she wasn’t going to talk. Granted, she never had
much of value to say, either. But whenever she saw me,
she’d come running up so gleefully, like she had nothing more important to do…
Then again, I couldn’t imagine she ever did.
“Enough already. Just go back to normal.”
At long last, I ran out
of patience. As if on cue, a stupid smirk promptly spread across her lips—the most
obnoxious expression her face was capable of making. If we were at the pool, I
would have splashed water at it.
“You won’t…tell me to go
to hell?”
“You’re…lying to
me…aren’t you?”
“Hurry the fuck up before
I kill you.”
“Eeep!
See, I knew it!” she shrieked, clinging to
the back of her chair in fear.
“Now that I’m used to
your ‘usual shtick,’ I’ve determined that this is, in fact, worse.”
“Glad you understand! Ha ha
ha!” She
rolled her shoulders like they’d gotten stiff. “Next time, I’ll order a
Calpis.”
“You have fun with that. I won’t be coming back.”
“Oh, come onnn!” She had the audacity to flick me on the forehead, so I countered with
two fingers of my own. “Hey, you almost poked my eyes out!”
“Better luck next time, I
hope.”
She slapped my hand away,
then fixed me with a studying look. “Having fun?”
“Well, I am. Nothing feels better than being my normal self.”
If only her idea of normal
didn’t completely invade mine, I thought with a sigh. Then our iced coffees
arrived.
“Wow, looks yummy!” the gremlin lied as she
took her drink and swirled the straw around pointlessly. After wasting some time
playing with it, she cupped the glass between her palms and looked at me. “Y’know, I’ve always
thought that if you and I had met back in high school or thereabouts…”
It might have destroyed
everything.
She put the straw between
her lips, as if drinking in something more than just the coffee. “Mm…I think we really
would have been besties, Hana-chan.”
“Ha!”
I took a
slow sip of coffee myself. “Not in a million years.” And don’t
call me Hana-chan.
Chapter 3:
What If Shimamura Fixed the
Timeline?
AND THEN A SINGLE TEAR fell from the sun.
At least, that was what
it looked like. The blinding sparkle split into two, and one of them hurtled toward me,
moving with such speed and precision that it had to be sentient. For a moment I forgot
where I was and stared up blankly at it…and the next thing I knew, I was
visited by a feeling of pressure against my body and a gust of lukewarm air.
As I zoned out at the
street corner, I saw a car veer out of its lane in my direction. But before I realized
what was happening, the fallen light wrapped itself around my head and pulled
me up into the air.
Wait, what? I’m floating?
My feet roared in terror
as the solid security of the pavement vanished beneath me. Flailing my arms, I
scraped desperately at the ground with the soles of my shoes as I flew a
considerable distance from the road. Meanwhile, the car came
to a halt mere inches from the spot where I’d been standing, then quickly
course-corrected.
After a beat, my eyes
widened as I realized how lucky I was to be calmly watching this moment unfold
from a safe distance. When I stomped down, this time the ground was indeed there to meet
me…and in place of sweat, sparkles rolled down from my scalp.
“Oh
dear. It
appears you would have been just fine without my help.”
The creature on my head
hopped down to the ground. It was a cat—or, more accurately, a young girl wearing a cat onesie. She was carrying a large
rucksack over her shoulders, and her hair was sky blue. Save for the fact that
she could speak my language, everything about this fallen sun-sparkle screamed suspicious.
“Well, I suppose I should
thank you anyway,” I replied, glancing around. Her word choice implied
that she was the one who had dragged me all the way over here; part of me
wasn’t sure how that was possible, but considering she had fallen out of the
sky, perhaps there was no point in asking.
“Ha ha ha! It was
nothing. What
matters is that you are unharmed, Shimamura-san.” This little cat was very
magnanimous indeed. And shorter than my kid sister. And she spoke my name as
though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Hmmm…” One would think
I’d remember meeting this girl before. But I didn’t. Therefore, the only explanation was that she had learned of me some
other way. But
I wasn’t exactly the talk of the town, so how? Still, the fact remained
that she had rescued me. “Okay, I’m willing to overlook the mystery of how you know my name when
I don’t recognize you in the slightest…”
“But you—actually, on
second thought, I don’t really care that you fell from the sky, either.”
She jubilantly raised
both hands into the air. A beat later, I snatched her off the ground. But she was so
unnaturally light that I accidentally lifted her a lot higher than I meant to. As I shook her from side
to side, trying fruitlessly to knock free any memory of her, the sparkle of her
hair eclipsed the sun—and when I looked up at her, for some reason my vision
blurred, as if from a fine mist. It was a feeling I wasn’t
sure I’d ever felt before.
I tried to wipe away the
odd sentiment, but my hands were full. When I moved to put the
cat down, she spun gracefully in midair, brushed her tail over my face, and
landed on my shoulders. It generally wasn’t socially acceptable to give strange children
piggyback rides within a minute of meeting them, but oddly enough, I wasn’t
opposed to it. Gripping her legs, I faced forward, wondering who the hell this kid
truly was.
“Heh heh heh… You may call
me Yashiro.”
Twice, I attempted to
crank the slot machine of my memories, but no jackpot—I didn’t recognize it. I nearly said as much
aloud, but upon further reflection, there was no need. And since I was
originally on my way home, I decided to take the girl with me.
Why, then, did this
conclusion feel so natural?
That was how I met
her—the mysterious girl who projected a fine mist of pathos.
“Since you’re here now,
wanna come in?”
“Heh heh heh! That was my plan all along.”
“Was
it? You’re
more presumptuous than you look.”
Nevertheless, I guided
her inside. At
the entryway, she kicked off her sandals and promptly lined them up next to my
mother’s, as if she had done so a thousand times before. Weirder still, some part
of me was fairly certain she had.
“Would it kill you to say
hi when you walk in the door? Anyway, welcome home…
Wait, who’s this kid?” asked my mother as she came walking down the hallway.
Yashiro looked up with a
bright smile. “Oh,
if it isn’t Mama-san!”
“Mama? Cheeky
little punk right out of the gate, arentcha?”
My thoughts exactly. But Yashiro’s smile
didn’t waver in the slightest.
Pausing to scrutinize the
strange sparkle, my mother folded her arms—not in suspicion but curious
contemplation. Maybe she was feeling the same thing I’d felt. “If you want to call
yourself my daughter, then let’s see some proof,”
she barked, blocking the way forward.
But this demand was no
less absurd than Yashiro’s entire existence, and so the girl remained
undaunted. “Heh
heh heh… Your favorite treat is a gelatin fruit cup.”
“Ah, gelatin fruit cups…
How very enticing,” the girl continued in earnest with a dreamy smile, as if
the very thought of the snack was enough to set her heart alight. For some reason, my own
heart felt toasty warm just watching her. Despite her otherworldly
appearance, it seemed her interests were rather mundane.
“Hmmm…” My mother looked
over Yashiro’s head and up at me. “You might have a new
sister.”
“Oh, come on!” Was she seriously willing to adopt someone just like that? I pinched one of the
pointy ears on Yashiro’s hood.
“How else could she guess
my favorite food within five seconds of meeting me? There’s gotta be an
explanation.”
“Well…I guess you’ve got
me there…”
Based on her looks alone,
the latter was arguably more feasible. Meanwhile, the girl in
question kept on smiling absently, with seemingly no intention of explaining
herself. Was
it a trick of the light, or was she looking at my mother with genuine
affection?
“So, there you have it. From now on, you’re my kid.”
“No, Mama-san, I am not
your daughter.”
“Are
too! Shut up! Now, how old are you?”
“My
age? Let me
think… A little over four million, as I recall.”
“My new daughter’s older
than me? Well,
that would explain why I don’t remember giving birth to you.”
Wouldn’t it be a bigger
problem if you did? I mean, she doesn’t look like she’s related to Dad…or you…so how would
that work?
“A daughter who’s older
than her mother. How quirky.”
“Not as quirky as you,
Mama-san.”
Personally, I was
inclined to agree with Yashiro. As I started walking
toward my bedroom, however, my mother scuttled sideways to block my path. “Now it’s your turn to prove you’re my
daughter!”
“Pass.
I’m not
that desperate for the title.”
Time to go. As I steered Yashiro by
the shoulders, her tail swayed freely, smacking against my hand. Together, we climbed the
stairs and walked into the glorified closet my family called the study room. Upon opening the door, we
were greeted by stuffy, musty air and a seal plushie lying forgotten on the
floor. In a
way, it reminded me of the gym loft at school.
Another name I didn’t
recognize. Was
there a second foreign intruder in the house? Just as I was starting to
feel mildly afraid for our safety, however, Yashiro seemed to sense that
clarification was necessary. “I am referring to your
younger sister.”
“My sister? Oh, yeah, she’s downstairs… Little?”
Considering
it sounded nothing like her actual name, I could only assume it was a nickname,
but where did it come from? Little…sister?
Yashiro took off her
rucksack and sat down next to the seal plushie. Then she picked up the
remote and used it to turn on the electric fan—something she wouldn’t have
known to do unless she had been here before.
“Okay, who are you really?” I asked finally.
She smiled brightly at
me, her kitty ears and tail twitching in the breeze. “I am everywhere, and
everyone, and everything.”
“Ha ha ha!” She seemed to find my confusion very funny. “I am also your friend.”
That seemed like a
comparatively bigger mystery, and yet on some level, I was willing to accept it
as truth. As
I sat down on the floor, a sigh escaped my lips, stealing away my pent-up
fatigue. She
was an odd creature, but her presence had made the long walk home a little
shorter.
To tell the truth, school
hadn’t ended for the day—I had simply gotten bored and left. And if I had reached my
destination without incident, I might have decided to “extend” my summer
vacation by never going back. Instead, I now had a
healthy distraction from my malaise.
The moment I pushed
myself up from the floor, as if on cue, a summer hallmark came wafting in from
the window—the screech of the cicadas, letting me know the season wasn’t over
yet. As I
was coasting on a wave I hadn’t even created, my gaze met Yashiro’s.
“So, are you getting along
with Adachi-san?”
Who? The unfamiliar name threw me for a loop, and I glanced around, wishing
there was someone else I could ask. It was so completely out
of left field—no,
wait. Wasn’t there an Adachi in my class?
“I might recognize that
name…I guess…” But I’d never talked to her, so my memory of her was fuzzy at
best. What about her,
anyway? “Friend
of yours or something?”
More baffling still,
Yashiro now looked equally as confused as I was. We both tilted our heads
so far, we toppled over.
Lost in contemplation,
she nonetheless held out her bowl for a second helping. Despite her fairy-like
appearance, it seemed she was as entitled as any other child, and despite
having received no real explanation as to her presence, neither my father nor
my sister pressed the question.
After cleaning her plate
with a gusto none of us could match, she hopped in the tub as if she lived
here. My
sister joined her, as the two of them had become fast friends, and they played
together all the way until bedtime.
Now here we were,
spending the night in the same room like we’d done it a hundred times before. Even in the darkness, her
hair and eyes glowed faintly; if I tried to ask her how it worked, I knew I
probably wouldn’t understand the answer, so I acknowledged it as fact and moved
on.
Yashiro had lost the
kitty onesie at bathtime, when my mother had peeled it off. Now she was dressed in my
sister’s spare pajamas, lying on the floor near the wall. “Are you gonna climb into
bed, or…?” Mine
or my sister’s, I didn’t mind either way.
She turned to face me. “In that case, I shall
join you.”
With that, she started
rolling in my direction until she slid right under my comforter and onto my
futon, showering me in a cloud of sky-blue motes. When I tried to catch one
on my finger, it dodged away, then vanished with a final sparkle into thin air.
As I
watched it go, a smile played at my lips, as if a hint of someone else’s
memories had mixed into my own.
We each mumbled to
ourselves, embroiled in our own personal mystery—right up until I pulled the
comforter over her, at which point she fell asleep within five seconds. To join her, I envisioned
the tension leaving my fingertips, and soon, I was gone as well.
The next morning, heavy
rains pounded against the windows.
“Hrrrmmmm,” the cat
murmured as she watched the downpour through the glass. She hadn’t even been here
a full twenty-four hours, and she had already made herself at home. Notably, no one in my
family had objected to her presence, myself included. Her contemplative mood
had yet to improve, but nevertheless, she put away two full portions at
breakfast.
She kept shooting looks
at me for some reason, stars swirling in her eyes—wait, swirling? I blinked back in silent
alarm. Were
those real galaxies in there?
“Welp, gotta go.” As intriguing as her gaze was, I didn’t want to be late.
“Hmmm… School… That is a
fine idea. I am proud of
you!” she
declared, standing on tiptoe with both hands raised in the air. Coming from this earnest
little kitty cat, even shallow praise felt encouraging—so I decided maybe I
would actually make an effort in class today.
For a moment, I debated
whether it was safe to let this enigmatic creature basically move into our
house… Eh,
it’s fine. She’s my new sister or whatever. “You stay inside, okay? It’s raining out there.”
For some reason I
couldn’t explain, I felt certain that she bore no ill intent. This, and all the other
ways in which she managed to completely sway my emotions, was a large part of
what made her so inscrutable to me.
The instant I stepped
outside, a raindrop hit my leg. With the wind blowing this
hard, I was starting to worry that my umbrella might not hold up. Clinging to the handle for
dear life, I set off down the street, stomping through small puddles and
wishing my newfound motivation toward school had waited for a day with better
weather.
Upon entering the
classroom, I scanned around for the friend Yashiro had name-dropped, but there
was no sign of her and no bookbag at her desk. Come to think of it, I
couldn’t recall seeing her at school yesterday, either. Maybe she was sick…or
maybe she just didn’t want to leave her house in this weather. If so, I didn’t blame her. Either way, no amount of
thinking about a random classmate would magically make her appear, so I decided
not to worry about it.
That day, I sat through
all my lessons like a goody-two-shoes. Due to inclement weather,
gym class was changed from running laps on the track to playing basketball
indoors. The
mere act of bouncing the ball made junior high Shima-chan threaten to rear her
ugly head, so I passed it to another girl with a dopey grin on my face.
When I sat down on the
raised platform on the far wall, I caught a glimpse of the second-floor gym
loft across the room. Personally, I’d never dared to venture up there and had no idea what I
might find. But
while the thought of gazing down at the first floor from that vantage point was
a tempting one, it would involve sneaking undetected all the way to the foot of
the stairs near the exit, and at that point, it didn’t seem worth the effort.
In the end, I spent the
entire day playing it safe. The rain continued, unabated.
As I closed my umbrella,
I flipped my rain-soaked hair over my shoulder, each drop unsullied by the
bleach I’d used months before. Nobody in my family liked
my blonde hair, but I didn’t think it was all that bad. When I opened the door, a
tiny figure came flying in my direction.
A barefooted Yashiro came
toddling out from the kitchen, carrying a mandarin orange (given to her by my
mother, I assumed) and approaching at an alarming speed. Since she weighed
practically nothing, I caught her by the scruff of the neck and hoisted her up.
Like a real
cat, she went limp.
“Hee hee hee! Did you learn many things today?”
Again with the shallow
praise. Perhaps
Yashiro was capable of pretending she liked my hair, too. “Glad to be back,” I
replied after a pause, then took off my shoes and lined them up next to her
sandals. As
I headed for the living room carrying our new pet cat, I heard sounds coming
from the kitchen.
“Incidentally, are you
now acquainted with Adachi-san?” Yashiro asked, circling
back to the conversation from yesterday.
“No, I don’t think she
was at school today.” That desk had remained empty all the way until the final bell.
“So, what’s the story with
this ‘Adachi-san’ person, anyway? I’ve never met her.”
“Hrrmmm…I suspected as much.
Then it is
as I feared,” the cat mused, kicking her feet.
“Huh.” Wish I could say the
same, but I can’t. She’s
a mystery to me.
Inside the living room, I
set the cat loose; she somersaulted gracefully through the air and landed on
her feet, as if the rules of gravity didn’t apply to her. I would have been more
shocked if I wasn’t keenly aware of my wet shoulders. I should get
changed soon.
Then she sat down next to
her rucksack and began to peel the mandarin. I’d heard that cats and
citrus didn’t mix, but this one looked all too eager to tuck in. What secrets were hiding
in that big bag of hers, anyway? I couldn’t help but wonder
what sorts of things a cryptid like her would hold dear, so I walked up and
asked for permission.
“I do not object, so long
as you handle everything gently.”
Were the contents fragile
or something? Curiously, I opened it—and promptly made eye contact with a pair of
button eyes that gleamed up at me from within. As it turned out, the
rucksack was full of toys. Given who it belongs to, I shouldn’t have expected
any different, I thought to myself as I pulled each one out. There was a seal, a
walrus, and an elephant…
“Wait, is this the same
seal plushie I have?”
I
thought I recognized those button eyes from somewhere! When I picked it up,
sure enough, its tummy felt just as squishy. Granted, my plushie was
by no means a one-of-a-kind item, so it was hardly a surprise that someone else
would have one, but…frankly, it was so identical to mine, I probably wouldn’t
have been able to tell which was which.
“They may be the same, but
make no mistake, they are different,” Yashiro remarked with a smile as she
raised a segment of mandarin to her lips. It sounded like she was
insinuating something…or perhaps she was just stating the obvious.
Meanwhile, I picked up
the walrus and elephant. These I had never seen before, but they both had cute, comforting
designs. The
warmth I felt toward them was so clear, I could describe it easily in my mind.
“They are all gifts I
received.”
Did I miss some? When I peered back into
the rucksack, I spotted a phone strap with the likeness of a popular teddy bear
character tucked away in the corner, so I pulled it out and set it on my palm. When I closed my eyes, a
face came to mind. Yes, for some reason, seeing these plushies all together made my nose
sting. I
felt the urge to pet their little heads. An overwhelming affection
for toys I’d never seen before… A foreign wave from an ocean as blue as
Yashiro’s hair.
“Don’t you think you
should give them a bath?”
“Oh, that is a good idea. They have been waiting a
long time since we got here.” She
nodded.
“Then I shall ask
Mama-san later,” I replied, mimicking her voice.
Knowing my mother, she
might make a fuss, but in the end, she would still do it. She wasn’t the kind of
person who would make light of this stuff—you know, stuff people put their
hearts into. That was why we all stuck by her, even when she was irritating.
“You and Mama-san and
Papa-san and Little… You are all truly kind.”
“Ha ha ha! That’s
it, butter me up.”
Ignoring me, Yashiro went
right back to murmuring with a frown. I didn’t know what she
was so hung up on, but since she was completely distracted, I decided to try
and steal her mandarin as a joke. In a split second, she
leaped up and retreated to the corner of the room.
“Heh heh heh! I
am always watching.”
“Did you just move at the
speed of light?”
She jumped, hit the wall,
bounced off and hit the ceiling, then dropped straight to the floor…or so it
appeared, anyway. It all happened in a fraction of a second, so my eyes weren’t quite
able to keep up.
“You were just seeing
things.”
“…Okay, whatever. Lemme have a piece.”
Upon request, she handed
me half with no hesitation. Perhaps this was all the
proof I needed to know that she was good at heart. As I stared down blankly
at what remained of her portion, she must have mistaken my intent, because she
swiftly stuffed it all into her mouth. Then she smirked at me
with her cheeks puffed out, the little punk.
“I wasn’t gonna steal it!” Except for earlier, when
I totally was.
I grabbed her before she
could escape, and we horsed around. Considering the feats of
agility she’d been capable of earlier, she probably could have gotten away from
me anytime she wanted, and yet I captured her with ease.
Her skin was cold to the
touch—not icy, but refreshingly chilly.
The next morning, it was
still pouring outside—harder than yesterday, in fact, and now the wind was so
strong that it threatened the trees and telephone poles. We were caught in a storm
no forecast had predicted.
The cat stood at the
window and watched it rage, her tail swaying as if blown by a gale…even though
we were indoors. “It is unmistakable, I fear.”
“You’ve got something on
your face,” my sister called out as she walked by.
“Oh dear.” Yashiro reached up and wiped at her lips with her fingers, but all it
did was spread the sauce thinly across her face.
“Good grief…” Annoyed, my
sister fetched a tissue and used it to clean her up.
Hearing my baby sister
try to act like a grown-up put a smile on my face. Then I turned back to the
TV screen.
The local news station had
been reporting on the storm all through the night. In terms of severity, it
was akin to a typhoon, but with one major difference: It was happening all
over the world, all at once, like it was big enough to span the entire globe. And because it had
essentially sprung up out of nowhere, none of the meteorologists had seen it
coming.
“If only I knew how to
correct it.”
I moved directly into her
path to intercept her. “Could you please just explain what you mean for once?”
Her eyes darted to the
timestamp in the corner of the TV screen. “What’s this? Why, Shimamura-san, it is time you left for school! Heh heh heh!”
She looked very smug to
be barking orders at me, so I pinched her cheek; it was oddly stretchy. “I’m not going to school
today.”
“Say what?!” Even with her cheek outstretched, her voice somehow wasn’t muffled in
the slightest.
“I could go, but in this storm? Why bother?” My mother had already
given us permission to stay home, anyway.
“Does that mean you will
be lounging around the house today?”
“I do not always lounge! Sometimes I wander!” she shot back, as if I’d
offended her. Indeed, I had seen her wandering into the kitchen—and getting thrown
right back out again. But she seemed to find it fun, so maybe it was just a game she and my
mother liked to play. “Have you any interest in
wandering, Shimamura-san?”
“What, around the house?” I
laughed. But
just then, Yashiro’s expression turned uncommonly serious.
Wait—how would I know how
common it is? I
barely know her…right?
“I believe it is time I
told you everything. Come this
way.”
“We can’t talk about it
here?”
“I do not think it wise
to let others overhear.”
Gee, that’s not
suspicious at all.
And so, the bipedal cat
toddled off, leading me up the stairs, like something out of a fairy tale. Illuminated faintly by her
glow, even our ordinary staircase looked celestial—and though I had shrugged it
off at the time, she did fall
out of the sky. Maybe she was a god, of sorts.
Upon entering the study
room, Yashiro knelt down beside the seal plushie and gestured to the spot
opposite her. “Join me,
please.” Once
I was seated, she leaned forward like she was about to whisper, then continued
at full volume. “What I am about to say must not be repeated to anyone.”
“You don’t have to worry
about that.” Even if I wanted to tell other people, I doubted anyone would believe
me—not just about this secret, but Yashiro’s existence in general. As for me, however,
bizarrely enough, I was inclined to take her at her word, though I couldn’t for
the life of me work out why.
She leaned back and
pretended to clear her throat. “The truth is,” she began,
“you were supposed to meet Adachi-san, but it appears my meddling inadvertently
prevented you from doing so.”
“Huh…?
Oh, when you saved
me?”
I thought back to the
sight of the car speeding in my direction. It was the only instance
of “meddling” I could think of—but if she hadn’t?
Admittedly,
it might not have been strictly necessary to move me from where I was standing
that day, but I couldn’t begin to imagine the psychological damage I might have
suffered by being one step away from death.
In any case, why was it
so important for me to “meet” this Adachi girl? It wasn’t as though our
paths had never crossed. Ostensibly, we were classmates; I had a vague recollection of her face.
“This weather is but one
consequence of that.”
“Wait…it’s my fault?” How could I (or, well,
Yashiro) have caused this storm? All because I didn’t
encounter Adachi that day? Why?
“With a single cog out of
place, the entire world may fall into chaos,” she explained, as if she had read
my mind. “To
create multiples of the same thing requires the same ingredients. In order for each batch
of donuts to look and taste the same, the recipe must not be altered. Otherwise, the new batch
will be different—or fail to be donuts at all.”
All this talk of donuts
had put a dreamy smile on Yashiro’s face. Clearly, they were her
favorite food.
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that, in
order to maintain this ‘recipe,’ I have to hunt Adachi down at all costs?”
“I am afraid so. At this rate, all that is shall cease to be.”
“What do you mean?” Was someone—or
something—going to disappear? On reflex, I lifted a
hand to inspect it, but it was as solid as ever. I suspected I hadn’t
vanished from any photographs, either.
“Let us set aside the
hypothetical. The fact is, I made a promise, and if this is my doing, Shimamura-san
will be angry indeed.”
“What?
No, I won’t.” Why did she suddenly
refer to me in the third person? Or was there some other
Shimamura-san out there, on the other side of the sky?
“Have
what? If I find Adachi, it’ll magically solve everything?” What was supposed to
happen after that? I wasn’t going to school today, and for that matter, Adachi didn’t seem
to attend school at all. This plan was riddled with holes, and I was skeptical.
“Ideally, you will meet
her and have fun.”
“How?
We’re not even
friends.” Our personalities would clash anyway, I decided, despite
barely knowing anything about her.
“I daresay the two of you
are on the same wavelength.”
When I squinted, I
thought I could see Yashiro emitting soft waves of her own…but it was just her
sparkly blue motes flowing in my direction. Strange how they always
seemed to evaporate the moment they were touched. At one point, I had tried
asking their source what they were, but she had merely shrugged.
“I should have known it
would not be easy. It is my responsibility to fix what I have broken.” Glancing at the window,
Yashiro folded her arms in a huff…and then her eyes flew open, alternate
universes swirling within. “In that case, it appears I will need to make the arrangements
myself…for a group date!”
“A what?” Coming from a child’s
mouth, I had to question whether she even knew what that was.
“Heh heh heh! Believe it or not, I am an experienced lady.”
“You…you are?” Even with those squishy
baby cheeks?
“I have eaten countless
different meals across my lifetime.”
“Oh,
that’s what you meant.” Definitely
explains the squishiness, I thought, as I carried
on pinching them. The soft stretchiness was sublime.
“Therefore, we must first
go and purchase donuts.”
“What do you mean,
‘therefore’?”
“Heh heh heh… Sweet
treats are the perfect accompaniment for a lively chat.”
“Are they…? Yeah, I
guess so.”
I couldn’t argue with
this, as I had no experience with group dates myself. Besides, to her credit,
social functions were generally better with food. I still didn’t see why I
had to buy donuts for a girl I’d never spoken to in my life, but if Yashiro was
to be believed, the fate of the entire world was now hanging by a thread. Granted, I wasn’t fully
convinced of that, but seeing as she had saved my life, I felt obligated to
humor her.
Adachi may have been a
mystery to me, but Yashiro was a friend—yeah, something like that. We had only known her for
two or three days now, but she fit right in with our family. And while I didn’t know
where this feeling came from, it had only gotten stronger after I discovered
her matching seal plushie.
“What?
Right now?” After all the time she’d
spent staring out the window, did she somehow not understand what the weather
was like outside?
“We must go and meet the
donuts!”
“…You just want donuts,
don’t you?”
She must have started
craving them after she brought them up earlier. Even with her little back
turned, she radiated unconcealed excitement.
Here’s a
blast from the past, I thought to myself as I looked at Yashiro’s feet.
When we told my mother we
were going out, her first reaction was to call us crazy; it wasn’t until we
promised to travel safely and come straight home that she finally granted us
permission to leave. But Yashiro only had sandals, so she dug out my old rain boots for her
to wear instead. “You don’t mind if she borrows ’em, right?”
“Ah, so these belong to
Shimamura-san?” Yashiro walked up and down the hall, amused at the feel of the
oversized shoes.
Meanwhile, I smiled to
myself. The
fact that my mother still saw them as mine was proof that, in her eyes, I was
as much of a kid as Yashiro. That’s Mom for you.
And so, Puss in Boots was
born.
“Couldn’t it wait until
after the storm is over?” My mother had asked this same question on our way out, and now I
repeated it to Yashiro, equally unconvinced.
“As things stand, it will
never be over. The storm will only worsen with time.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” If it rained any harder,
it felt like the whole world would be washed away.
It was obvious at a glance
that something was wrong with the clouds. Instead of spreading
across the sky like a blanket, they formed a perfect vortex, like something
you’d see in a manga or an episode of The World’s
Astonishing News. The sight of it,
particularly the murky gray color, filled my chest with a matching spiral of
dread.
The moment I opened my
umbrella, the drum of the rain intensified. It came in bursts, its
trajectory occasionally swayed by strong gusts of wind, enabling it to evade
the umbrella and strike my skin instead. I kept dabbing at my
face, but it remained perpetually damp, like I was walking through a cloud of
mist.
Before Yashiro could take
off running, however, I snatched her by the scruff of the neck. “It’s not a race.”
It was so trivial to lift
her that I decided to simply carry her in one arm as I set off walking. This way, I wouldn’t have
to worry about her getting blown away in the wind.
“I sure hope the donut
shop is even open today…”
Then again, the weather
wasn’t that bad—although if this heavy rain continued into tomorrow, it might
be a different story. In that sense, perhaps it truly was now or never.
“Is it normal to hold a
group date in a storm?”
Even schools had the good
sense to shut down for inclement weather. Was a measly date really
that enticing?
“Heh heh heh! Perhaps you are still a bit too young, Shimamura-san.”
Did it even count as a
group date if only three people were going to attend? For that matter, how were
we going to find Adachi once we got our donuts? I couldn’t exactly go to
school dressed in my street clothes, although in all likelihood, Adachi wasn’t
even there. Did Yashiro really think this through? I sneaked a glance at
her, but her gaze held only galaxies—their swirling reminiscent of the clouds
above.
And so, we traipsed all
the way to the station square. Whenever we hit a red
light, I entertained myself by playing with the cat, so it was a relatively
breezy walk. But while I hadn’t seen many other pedestrians on the street, the
station square was fairly populated, and the interior was open for business. Drawn to the light of the
sign out front, we entered the famous donut chain I sometimes visited with
friends.
The little cat made sea
lion noises in her excitement, leaning so far forward that I had to refasten my
grip on her to keep her from falling. The donuts in the display
case were lined up in tidy rows, like a school assembly, and while I wasn’t
losing my mind like Yashiro, their sweet aroma was pleasantly enticing.
“What should we get?” I
asked her.
“For me, that is life’s
hardest question.”
Then
your life must not be very hard, I thought enviously. Personally, I felt I was
predisposed toward a relatively uncomplicated life myself, but high school
Shima-chan had discovered that it was surprisingly difficult to actually
achieve. And now here I
was. We
wandered up and down the display case, feasting our eyes on the treats, until
at last I settled on my usual.
In unison, we pointed at
the object of our desire. Yashiro’s pretty blue fingernail had targeted the same flavor as mine:
angel French.
“Quite the smart choice, Shimamura-san.”
“I guess we have the same
taste.” Was
that why I didn’t object to palling around with this oddball?
“Rest assured, I love the
other donuts just as much.”
From there, we picked out
a few more, including one for my sister. Naturally, I paid for
Yashiro’s along with my own. It was obvious from vibes
alone that this little cat didn’t have any money.
“Here you go. Don’t
drop them, okay?”
“You may count on me!” Gripping the donut bag
with both hands, Yashiro looked pleased as punch.
“Of…of course not.” But the way her voice
faltered didn’t exactly instill confidence.
Outside the donut shop,
we headed back the way we’d come, to the station entrance.
“Shall we pay a visit to
the Adachi household, perhaps?”
“Excuse me? You want me to drop in on her unannounced with nothing but some donuts
in my hand?”
Had she mixed up “group
date” with “girls’ night”?
“Yes, and?” She
blinked back at me.
Granted, someone like
Yashiro would be delighted if she were in Adachi’s shoes… Was she essentially
having me follow the Golden Rule? In a way, it made sense.
“Right, I forgot you were
the experienced
lady here.”
Her face lit up with joy
at what she perceived to be a compliment. Guess I won’t
correct her. “Well, I don’t know where she lives.”
“I shall guide you. Head that way,” she
declared, pointing with her little paw—er, hand.
If Yashiro had been to
her house before, then maybe they did know each other… In truth, I was still a little skeptical on that
point. After
all, why wouldn’t she choose to hang out with her buddy Adachi for the past
three days instead of a family of total strangers? But then again, maybe it
was wrong to rate friendships based solely on duration.
As I walked, I stomped on
the puddles like I was trying to break them, splashing with wild abandon and
soaking my legs. In retrospect, it seemed so obvious: If you
want to see someone, you go to their house. I had fallen out of
contact with my best friend from elementary school, but if I wanted to, I could
visit her at any time. Perhaps Yashiro was trying to show me that even something as grand as
destiny could be changed with a little willpower…and that choosing not to
bother was itself a form of fate.
It had been a long time
since I had visited a classmate’s house, much less a friend’s. Nagafuji was always
talking about Hino’s mansion, and I was hoping I’d be invited to visit at least
once, but I got the sense that Hino herself didn’t like having friends over.
It was a normal-looking
house with white paint and no notable features—certainly nothing that indicated
it would prevent the world’s imminent destruction. I gazed up at the
second-floor windows. Was Adachi in there somewhere?
Yashiro hopped out of my
arms and slowly handed me the bag of donuts. Her reluctance was palpable. “Now, then, have fun!” Smiling from ear to ear,
she sent me off with a two-handed wave.
Now hang on a minute! “Uh, aren’t you coming?”
“No. Why?” she asked, her eyes as
round as saucers.
Give me a break. “Isn’t she your friend? You should at least
introduce us.”
“We are friends, yes, but
this Adachi-san has never met me.”
“…Your definition of
‘friends’ is really confusing.”
But to be fair, my definition of “friends” wasn’t all that clear, either. If someone asked me to
explain what set Hino and Nagafuji apart from my other classmates, I wouldn’t
have an answer.
“It is best for me to
minimize my involvement as much as possible. Especially considering
the damage I have already done.”
“You sure don’t ‘minimize
your involvement’ at the dinner table.”
“I
said minimize, not withhold. Some amount is sadly
inevitable!”
Evidently, she judged
these things on a case-by-case basis. But if I was going by
myself, then it was less of a group date and more of a…a regular date, right? I hadn’t expected to be
flung into the deep end at the last second, and as I gazed up at Casa Adachi, I
couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the hassle.
And yet…despite her
hands-off approach, Yashiro had still gone to the trouble of rescuing me. It felt wrong to lose
sight of that. If she wanted me to meet this girl so badly, then maybe I owed it to
her.
“I shall await your
return whilst taking shelter from the rain. Farewell!”
“Hrm?”
She stopped
in her tracks, then turned and walked back to me.
When I opened the paper
bag, the smell of sugar put a smile on my face. “Eat this while you
wait,” I said, offering her one of the extra donuts.
She peered through the
hole in the center and giggled. “Why, thank you kindly.”
“And be sure to stay out
of the rain.”
“Okaaay!”
With that,
she ran off, gleefully stomping into every puddle in her path.
So, there I was, standing
alone outside the house of a classmate whose face I could barely remember. There’s
no way this girl’s going to let me inside, I thought to myself with
a sigh as I lifted a finger to the intercom button. For a moment, I worried
she might not answer, but on second thought, I hoped she wouldn’t.
The voice was quiet and
cold, like snow that had frozen over from the night before. Only then did I realize I
should have planned out what I was going to say before I pressed the button.
“Hi, this is
Shimamura…from school.”
“…What?” The girl’s confusion was so tangible, I could have grasped it in my
hands. It
was also entirely reasonable.
“Hi,” I repeated, buying
myself time to think. Despite the rain, my wide eyes and forced smile felt bone-dry.
Perhaps she was the
doormat type. The problem was, I was generally disinclined to trample over people. Granted, the fate of not
just our town, but the entire world was (allegedly) resting on our shoulders, but it just didn’t feel
real.
“Wait…oh…that’s right! Shimamura. I remember you…I think.”
Evidently she had filed me
away in a small, dusty corner of her mind, the same as I had done for her. I felt a tiny connection
there, as if the tips of our index fingers had pressed together.
She fell silent, and I
heard her step away, which suggested she was possibly coming to the front door.
Likewise, I
edged away from the intercom panel and gazed at the house, clutching the paper
bag of donuts to my chest so it wouldn’t get wet. As I stood there, I was
alarmed to realize just how heavily it was raining. The drops drummed so loud
on the umbrella that it felt as though they were pounding directly against my
ears. How
was I able to hear Yashiro’s voice over this dull roar? Somehow she managed to be
an enigma in every single capacity.
Then, as I was spinning
the umbrella to shake off the excess water weight, I saw the front door
open—just wide enough for a single eye to peek through. In response, I tilted the
umbrella back to show my face. With this confirmation,
the girl named Adachi finally showed herself.
From the front, she
exuded an aura that somewhat resembled Yashiro’s. She was tall, with a slim,
well-proportioned face and hair so dark, it almost looked blue. But unlike Yashiro’s
beauty, hers felt within reach. Even from here, I could
see it oozing from her every pore.
Evidently, she’d had no
intention of attending school today, because she was dressed not in her uniform
but a T-shirt the color of the ocean with a stylized fish on the front. The deep watery hues were
a perfect match for the lowlights of her hair.
“Oh, um, so
you’re…Shimamura, right?” she called tentatively. No surprise there—we had
shared a classroom, but no common interests. Not even a passing glance. If it wasn’t for Puss in
Boots, our lives wouldn’t have intersected at all.
“…Did you need something?” she continued cautiously. This time, hi wasn’t enough. But we had to shout to hear each other over the rain, and without the
motivation to raise my voice, I could feel it caving like wet paper.
“Um…oh yeah! You weren’t in class yesterday, so I thought I’d…check on you?” I tossed out on the spot. Not like I could tell her
I was brought here for a date.
“Are you on the
attendance committee or something, Shimamura-san?”
“Well, you know how it
is,” I replied evasively. What kind of goody two-shoes did she take me for? And why did that make me
feel proud of myself?
“You came all this way in
the pouring rain, huh?”
“Tell me about it.” How would she react if I
told her this weather was supposedly our fault somehow?
“You’re soaked,” she
commented brusquely.
“Sure am,” I replied,
pinching at the rat’s nest that the wind and rain had created atop my head. I couldn’t imagine what
must have crossed her mind as I stood there in front of her like a sad,
bedraggled dog. She was hard to read, but to my eyes, it looked like…her posture
softened.
“…Well, this is weird,
but you’re already here, so…wanna come in?”
Coming from someone whose
sole personality trait at school was “antisocial,” this invitation was entirely
unexpected. Maybe she had a human heart after all. If nothing else, the fact
that she hadn’t told me to get lost was a good sign, right?
It seemed I was going to
make it to the date venue after all. But what was Yashiro’s
definition of meeting this girl, anyway? Surely, our conversation
just now had to count—in which case, could I go home? Then again, it didn’t feel
like we were properly acquainted, and I suspected that was probably my answer.
At Adachi’s invitation, I
followed her inside.
“Thanks for having me!” I called, loud enough to
be heard through the house, but there was no response, and the hallway was
dark. Ignoring
the drum of the rain, it was so quiet that I might have thought no one was
home, were it not for the girl standing right there. Exhaling, I folded up my
umbrella. The
insides of my shoes were so soggy, I almost wished I’d gotten to wear the rain
boots.
“Are your parents out?” I
asked. No
sooner had the words left my lips than I remembered that it was a weekday and
therefore they were almost certainly at work.
“Yeah, Mom’s…my mother’s
at work right now.”
She made no mention of a
dad, so I inferred that he wasn’t in the picture and left it at that. Then she led me to the
living room, where she handed me a small towel—an unspoken request to dry
myself off before sitting on the furniture. Even when I thanked her,
her expression remained stoic, with no trace of a positive emotion. It was the same face I’d
seen in passing at school.
“You’re too trusting,
Adachi,” I cautioned her jokingly as I handed the towel back.
“You can’t just let a
stranger into your house. What if I have bad intentions?”
Sure, she
knows me from school, but what if I was planning to…uhhh…hm, I can’t think of
anything. Annoyed by the damp strands still clinging to my face, I combed my
bangs up and away from my forehead. All the effort I’d put
into my hair and makeup had gone completely to waste, but whatever.
“Do
you?” she
asked, frowning at the floor.
Now I wasn’t sure how to
respond. “I
mean…I don’t think so.” Then
again, I did essentially bump into a
random kid on the street and take her home with me, so maybe I was in no
position to talk. “Would someone with bad intentions bring these?”
When I opened the donut
bag, the sweet fragrance rose up once again to meet me, and I felt myself
smile. Adachi,
however, kept a straight face…and now that we were in close proximity, I
realized just how pretty she was. How had no one in class
ever noticed her? Did she hold her breath and keep still the entire time? Or was I simply oblivious
while our other classmates were all swooning for her?
“Take whichever one you
like.”
“Um…I don’t really care
which one.” She glanced into the bag and promptly took the sugar-coated
honey-dipped on the far side. “Yeah, I’m not getting
any bad vibes from you,” she continued, her expression barely shifting.
Her trust seemed as
easily bought as these donuts, but I liked that about her. Sipping the tea she’d
made for us, we sat down on opposite sides of the table. The lights were off, but
I was grateful not to be under a spotlight right now, anyway.
“Well,
bon appétit,” I prompted her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled
half-heartedly. This attitude carried over into the eating process as well—lips barely
moving, no sign of enjoyment.
“They’re okay, I guess,”
she shrugged.
For a while we ate in
silence, the feel of my sugar-encrusted fingertips lingering heavily on me. Adachi must have felt
equally awkward sharing donuts with a classmate she barely knew. “Not much to talk about,
huh?” I admitted.
“Nope,” she agreed. But then her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute… How did
you know where I live?”
I nearly choked on my
donut, but retained the composure to chew and swallow, followed by another sip
of tea. As
I drank, her dubious gaze stabbed into my forehead.
“I got directions from
someone who claims to be a friend of yours.”
It sounded like she
honestly had no idea, and though I suspected any explanation I could offer
would only confuse her more, I nevertheless gave it a shot: “A weird
blue-haired girl in a kitty onesie. She knows where you live,
despite admitting to having never actually met you.”
Having laid it all out
like that, I was inclined to agree. It was normal to be afraid
of a stranger who made those claims, let alone one who followed you home and
started living there like it was no big deal. Yashiro was merely lucky
that her weirdness paled in comparison to my mother’s.
“Get this—she said you
and I have to find each other at any cost,” I continued, like it was a funny
story. But
instead of laughing, Adachi’s eyes widened. Wh-what? My gaze flicked from her
face to the chocolate-dipped side of the angel French donut.
“Uh…are you hitting on me?” she muttered in her
confusion. This,
in turn, confused me right back. I hadn’t expected her to
interpret it like that, and I could feel my shoulders and tongue tingling
stiffly.
Hitting on her? Well…then
again, it is a date, I joked to myself as I recovered. “I wasn’t particularly
planning to yet.” But if one single step out of place was all it took to miss my chance
at meeting her, she must be pretty special. Granted, if I said that out loud, she’d think I
was hitting on her for sure, so I kept my mouth shut.
An awkward silence
followed, during which the second half of my donut barely tasted like anything.
Adachi
looked pretty embarrassed to have suggested it, because there was now a faint
blush on her pale cheeks. “Yet?” she echoed after a beat.
Girl, don’t read into my
word choice! It’s not
that deep!
“Uhhh…so anyway…were you
out sick yesterday?” I asked, blatantly changing the subject as I wiped the sugar from my
fingers.
“You weren’t at school.” And I was nominally
supposed to be checking on her.
“You were? Like, in the nurse’s office?”
The gym? I mouthed the words to
myself, tracing over them. Then I thought back to gym class and frowned. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I was in the loft.” She pointed upward,
toward the ceiling, as she ate her last bite of donut. I considered telling her
about the sugar stuck to the corners of her mouth, but it was funny, so I opted
not to.
That aside…wouldn’t this
mean she was hiding in the gym loft the whole time I was staring up at it? It was such an incidental
detail, and yet it felt to me as though I’d caught a glimpse beyond the
curtain, so to speak. “Isn’t it hot up there?” I
asked.
“Definitely. That’s why I just sit there like this.”
To demonstrate, she walked
over to the wall and slid down to the floor—a small gesture, but the
earnestness of it warmed my heart. Like me, she didn’t seem
to have any bad intentions. “You’re so weird,” I laughed.
“Nah, not really,” I
replied, retracting it nearly as soon as I’d said it.
“Now
you’re being weird,” she
retorted, and I thought I heard her voice soften a tiny bit.
When she returned to the
table, she gazed at me in silence for a moment. Now that we’d finished
our donuts, we’d lost the buffer keeping us from an all-out staring contest. I was willing to
challenge her head-on, but whenever I tried to meet her gaze, she would avert
it. Yeah…this
girl really didn’t seem as bitchy as everyone claimed. If anything, she just
wasn’t very outwardly expressive.
“You’re not gonna ask me
why I ditched?”
It wasn’t until she
pointed it out that I realized I hadn’t paid it any thought. “Do you want me to?”
“No…I was hoping you
wouldn’t, since I don’t really have a reason.”
Her honesty was a
delicate flower that I didn’t dare pluck. “Then I think it’s fine,”
I replied, smiling.
“It’s fine?” she repeated incredulously.
“Yeah, I mean…sometimes
you just don’t feel like going to class, right? Everybody has those days.”
Prior to that gremlin
grabbing me by the head, I had been yearning for escape. If she hadn’t whisked me
away, I might have discovered what it felt like to put some distance between
myself and that classroom. Was that what Yashiro meant by
interfering? Were the two of us about to meet in the gym loft that day?
“The loft, huh…” I had no
familiarity with the place, and consequently, no idea what it even looked like.
But the rain
had eased slightly, which made it easier to hold a proper conversation. “What’s up there?”
“Ping-pong?” As far as I knew, nobody at our school played it. I hadn’t heard the telltale thwock in years.
“What if we spied on our
class from up there?”
My vision went white. It almost felt like I was
gazing up at the underside of my own face from somewhere outside my body. Like there was a second
me, and I was her.
“I wanna know how it
feels…to look down on them from above.”
It almost felt like I
already knew. Like
I was trying to remember. Like I was chasing after that memory at full speed.
It was an offhand
question, and yet it burned a line across my cheeks. The harsh glare faded
from my sight, as if my eyes were adapting…and there she was. I felt her presence
keenly, like a stab of pleasant pain, oxymoronic as that was.
Rising to my feet, I
walked to the wall. Likewise, Adachi stepped toward me, as if by magnetic pull. Side by side, we gazed up
at the stormy swirl…and then suddenly, our eyes met.
Up close, Adachi felt as
deep and mysterious as the cosmos. In that vast space, I
sensed something unfolding endlessly. It didn’t make sense, and
it would only freak her out if I told her, and then we’d never see each other
again…but now that we were within reach of each other, I realized that she was
equal to the universe.
All I could feel in this
haze was the pumping of my own blood. Had the same line split
her cheeks, too? The warmth seemed to awaken something neither of us understood.
Until this moment, we
were strangers who had never spoken to one another. We had no way of knowing
what words or gestures would affect each other’s emotions. And yet…it now felt as
though the tips of our index fingers were touching.
“Sounds fun,” she agreed,
her lips ever so faintly curled in a smile.
It was barely a promise,
but it felt like this summer’s blanks were finally filled in—with a name, a
location, a time. What once had sagged under the weight of great waters could be pressed
back into place with a gentle guiding hand. Yes, it felt as though I
had crossed a threshold…and while I couldn’t describe it in words, I could tell
the empty space was filling with precisely what Yashiro had hoped for.
At last…the two of us had
met.
“It appears to have gone
well.”
The moment I walked out
of Adachi’s house, Yashiro was there waiting for me. The inside of the
umbrella was stained sky blue.
“I can tell from the look
on your face.”
For a cryptid, this
judgment was surprisingly sensible. Did she know me that well?
She gazed up at me,
satisfaction radiating from the depths of her heart, her lips glistening with…
“Yeah, you seem to be an
open book yourself.”
The lower half of her
face was coated in raindrops and sugar and blue motes of light. Retrieving a napkin from
inside the donut bag, I wiped the cat’s face, and she closed her galactic eyes
in contentment.
That fuzzy sensation
stayed with me well into the night. Even though all I’d done
was buy donuts and visit a classmate’s house, it felt surreal in a ticklish
sort of way, and now I was too antsy to sit still. I could almost believe
that something big was about to happen.
With the freshly washed
plushies in my arms, I couldn’t see in front of me, but that was fine; I could
navigate this hallway with my eyes closed. As I was walking,
however, I heard a sound—unusually high-pitched but pleasant to the ear. Drawn to it, I stepped
into the living room, where I found a cat with her back turned, playing music.
“Mama-san has washed your
plushies for you,” I announced, mimicking her voice.
“Much obliged,” Yashiro
replied as I brought them over.
She set her instrument
down, picked them up, and gently guided each of them into her rucksack. Once the teddy bear phone
strap was safely tucked in the corner, she closed up the bag, and I wished a
silent farewell to my seal plushie’s twin brother.
“I will need to give my
thanks to Mama-san later.”
Grabbing her instrument
once more, she gave the strings a twang—well, the actual sound was different, but functionally it was a twang.
“Correct,” she replied,
turning to me as she played. It was a kid-sized
ukulele, but nevertheless, possibly the first I’d ever seen in real life. The sequence of notes was
a tidy replication of a nursery song I knew.
“When you’re done, can I
borrow it?”
And so, I waited beside
her, listening quietly until she finished her song. It was one they played at
the park in the evenings, and I sang along here and there, though I was a
little hazy on the lyrics in the second half. Once it was my turn, I
held the ukulele just as I’d seen her do it. Naturally, I had no clue
how to actually play the thing, but with string instruments, all you really had
to do was twang the…
The strings vibrated, but
my fingers passed right through with no resistance.
“Hey, it’s not making a
sound…”
“Alas, it looked as
though it might break, so I held it. And by ‘held it,’ I mean
I rendered it immutable. That is why no sound was produced.”
“Ah.”
I didn’t
understand a word of that, but I had a vague idea of what she was trying to
say. For
now, I decided I wouldn’t question how she was capable of such a thing.
“I myself am merely
reproducing the sounds stored in my memory.”
In other words, only she
could play this instrument. Giving up on my hopes of an all-girl high school band, I handed the
ukulele back to her, and as I did, I noticed a sticker on the back—a price tag
identical to the ones at our local toy shop. Evidently, this “memory”
of hers was fairly close at hand.
“Heh heh heh! I can, but it will cost you dearly.”
Placing her little
fingers on the strings, she began to strum. Sure enough, this time,
it actually produced a sound. More accurately, the
sounds likely weren’t coming from the instrument itself, but I suspected the
act of “playing” was still important to her. She looked like she was
genuinely having a blast. Like she was furnishing the space around us with her music.
The song—“Yuuyake
Koyake”—rolled on. Before long, the little sunset of the lyrics was preparing to head
home. But
it had been raining so heavily that I hadn’t actually seen the sunset in a good
while…and the crows wouldn’t come with us unless the skies were clear. The downpour had
lightened somewhat, but it was still drumming calmly. Had meeting Adachi
actually changed anything?
“Worry not. I am sure there will be clear skies tomorrow,” the cat predicted,
having noticed my fixation on the weather outside. Rain or shine, indoors or
outdoors, day or night, her hair always glowed blue, and her eyes always
contained the universe.
“Knowing you, you’re
probably right.”
If it was sunny tomorrow,
then perhaps I’d take a detour on my way home from school that afternoon…and
perhaps I’d invite my new acquaintance. The prospect was a tiny
bit exciting.
Early the next morning,
before the sun had risen over the neighbor’s hedge, I sat up in bed, having
realized that there was an empty space next to me where the blanket had been
flipped up. A trace of blue sparkles lingered on the futon, leaving a dim trail
that led to the door of my bedroom. Rising to my feet, I
pursued it for a few steps and saw that it continued down the hallway to the
front door. To
avoid waking the rest of the house, I followed the rest of the way on tiptoe.
The figure in the
entryway was glowing like a ghost in the dark.
Puss in Boots smiled up
at me like she had known I would give chase. “You’re up unusually
early, Shimamura-san.”
“Impressive, I know.” I flattened my bedhead,
then stepped into my flip-flops. “Are you leaving?”
“Yes,” she admitted
honestly, hoisting the rucksack onto her shoulders. “My job here is done.”
“The group date was your
job?”
Though she had never
outright said it, I could infer that she had come here solely to ensure I met
Adachi. In
that case, it wouldn’t be absurd to say that the group date was her
purpose…absurd as that might sound.
“Please tell Little and
the others that I enjoyed my stay.”
“You should tell them
yourself.” They’re
your feelings, after
all.
“So you have no willpower
whatsoever?” Apparently, her resolve was as soft as the rest of her.
“To circumvent this issue
entirely, I decided to leave at first light,” she declared with her hands on
her hips, as if it was some brilliant plan. I gave her unguarded
tummy a poke.
“Well, okay. If you’re set on this, then I’ll tell them for you.”
“Please do.” When she bowed, the ears on her hood drooped in unison, almost like
they were a part of her body. Fancy. “Now then, I bid you
farewell. Please
have a happy, fun life with Adachi-san.”
“Okey-doke. I don’t know if we’ll get along that well, but I’ll give it my best
shot.”
She waved goodbye
energetically, as though she were already a mile away. But she was right in
front of me, so I waved back gently. Then she turned and
unlocked the front door as though she’d done it a hundred times before.
On impulse, I wished
aloud for our reunion. She turned back to me and smiled like she recognized the words. “Yes, I will see you
again someday.”
Deep down, I knew she
would never be back, but we made the promise regardless. And just like that,
Yashiro disappeared from our house.
Without her, the entryway
was quiet but not desolate. I considered returning to
my room, but instead, I stepped outside, splashing into a tiny puddle on the
porch. The
raging storm had run away with the little cat, leaving calm blue skies behind.
Interlude:
What If...Hello? Are
You There?
“WHAT IS THIS, a phone call?”
I awoke, confused, to an
equally confused Adachi.
“Oh, sorry. Anyway…” Rolling over in bed, I cradled the phone lovingly against my
ear. “It
feels like we’ve finally connected.”
Oddly enough, I was
certain I was finally home again.
Chapter 4:
What If Everything Was Back to
Normal?
“TH-THE OCEAN sure is big, huh?”
As soon as class let out,
Adachi marched over with a proclamation I was sure she must have silently
practiced all day long. I thought maybe it was the start of a nursery song, but she didn’t
continue.
Her bangs bounced away
from her forehead as if alarmed by the burning fever. An invitation to the beach? What was she, a pickup
artist? …No, probably
not.
“Wait, are you hitting on
me?”
“No!
Well…I
guess I could be… Yeah, okay, I’m hitting on you.”
Kind of wishy-washy for a
pickup artist. Surely she could stand to have a bit more confidence, given her good
looks. And our
relationship status. Am I that intimidating? I wondered, pinching my
cheek.
Summer break was
starting—our last summer as high school students—but I wasn’t sure it was a
good idea to make plans for fun first and studying second. In my case, anyway.
“I’ve never been there
before, so I thought it might be nice.”
“Oh, right, I guess you
haven’t.” She
wasn’t exactly on good terms with her family. To be fair, I hadn’t been
to the beach myself in many years. After all, we lived in a
land-locked prefecture. “The
ocean, huh…”
“It’s pretty big,” I
continued, prompting her when she fell silent. She didn’t take the hint,
however, and merely blinked back at me with the smallest of polite smiles on
her face. Alas. “Sure, we can go…maybe next week, or the week after that.”
Adachi’s first reaction
was to celebrate my favorable response—but before she could reach cloud nine,
she hit the ceiling and froze. “Next
week?”
Was she thinking we’d go
this weekend? Or tomorrow? “We should probably wait
until summer break starts, right?” That way, we wouldn’t
have to worry about times or days of the week—and if we went on a weekday, it’d
be less crowded.
She started to slump her
shoulders but quickly caught herself, straightening back up. “That’s…true,” she
conceded, though her eyes were wavering.
Knowing her, it would
mean extending the period of time in which she agonized sleeplessly over our
upcoming plans. I understood that, of course, but at the same time, I wasn’t actually
all that flexible. There was another reason I wanted to postpone the trip.
If we were only going to
be walking around the beach, then sure, I could be ready by tomorrow. But I had other things to
account for.
“If we’re going to the
beach, then I can’t make any other detours,” I announced to Adachi outside the
school gates. Naturally, she didn’t seem to understand. “No date today,” I
rephrased more bluntly.
Her eyes and lips
quivered for a moment, but then she looked up again. “Wait…I have work today,
anyway.”
“Do your best!” And by that, I mean hang
in there until we get to the ocean. These dates aren’t cheap.
After two laps around the
block, we parted ways. There was no lively conversation or anything, but Adachi seemed happy
to be going in circles with me, so I wanted to humor her. Though it wouldn’t
shorten either of our journeys home, that didn’t make it pointless.
On second thought, maybe
dates didn’t have to cost money after all. Still, I was nervous
about spending too much time goofing off.
It had taken scarcely a
few minutes for my hair to absorb the summer sun. Smoothing the hot strands
into place, I headed home. The air was dry and smelled faintly burnt, as though the season itself
was roasting. When I gazed up at the unyielding sky, no less blue than midday, I
thought I saw my younger self racing past with a puppy in tow.
I had come a long way
since those days. Summer break was nearly upon me, but my hopes didn’t swell like
cumulonimbus clouds. I was in my final year of high school and tentatively studying to go to
college, so in a sense, I could only watch passively as my teen years came to
an end. But
I couldn’t picture what would happen after that. On some level, it had
felt as though I would spend the rest of my life in this uniform.
Maybe I was born a high
schooler. Perhaps
I was already sixteen from the moment I opened my eyes, or the moment I
developed a conscious mind.
Okay, stupid idea. Maybe my hair is starting to melt my brain.
On a different subject,
the walk home was now dangerously hot. Whenever I passed under a
tree, the cicadas’ screeches would descend upon me in a torrent. I had thought I generally
preferred summer over winter, but in this heat, I was tempted to switch sides.
Then I saw one of them
lying in the driveway of a stranger’s house, having surfaced ahead of the
season. In
spite of the miserable heat, I stopped and watched it for a moment; then, once
it started wriggling its legs and wings, I went on my way. Unlike me, cicadas
probably didn’t have time for self-doubt. In that sense, I was glad
I was born human.
Before my sweat could
start dripping completely, I arrived at home.
“I’m back,” I called from
the entryway.
“Welcome home, pwecious!” my mother shouted back
from the kitchen. Whenever she didn’t come to greet me face-to-face, it meant she was in
the middle of cooking. As a kid, I would always run right to her and say hello all over again…
In summer, the heat haze
always seemed to afford me a glimpse of my own memories.
Stepping out of my shoes,
I headed not for my bedroom but the kitchen.
As I entered, my mother
stopped humming and glanced over her shoulder. “Hm? What’s up?” No one else was in the room.
“Nothing.
Just
wondering what you were making.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she demanded, thrusting a
tomato out in front of her.
Sadly, I wasn’t smart
enough to guess the answer from one ingredient. “Uh…whole tomatoes?”
On second thought, I
apparently was. She sliced the tomato in two and handed me half as a prize. And so the brilliant
guesser retreated, leaving behind the unsolved mystery of a meal that called
for whole tomatoes.
Drawn to the faint chill
flowing into the hallway, I peeked into the living room and spotted a cat
munching crisply on a slice of watermelon. The amazing part was that
she could eat the whole thing—not just the seeds, but the rind, too. At first, I figured maybe
her mouth was built like a trash compactor, but then I remembered how she’d
bite me sometimes when we were horsing around… Maybe I
should be concerned.
“Ah, welcome home,
Shimamura-san.”
“Incidentally, I also
enjoy watermelon popsicles.”
When I offered her my
tomato half for her watermelon slice, she readily agreed. Plopping down next to
her, I took a bite. To a parched throat, the watery texture was heaven, though naturally I
couldn’t eat the seeds, so I had to spit them onto the plate. Wearily, I basked in the
air conditioning.
“I daresay no place on
Earth is more relaxing,” Yashiro whispered with a smile as she reclined
comfortably. I
studied her for a moment.
In the bathtub, my mind
was full of white-crested waves as yet unseen. What would I need to
bring to the beach? I counted on my fingers as I contemplated.
First of all, I would
need a swimsuit. Sure, I could get away with wearing my old school-issued one-piece to
the gym, but for a trip out of
town, I was probably better off buying something new. Above all else, Adachi
would be seeing me in it—well, technically, she saw me in it before, but our
relationship was different now, so…you know.
Okay, gotta
buy a swimsuit, I thought to myself as I extended my index finger. At the same time, I felt
my wallet wince; after so many dates with Adachi, it was already bone thin. Wish that was
me, har har, I joked to myself and made a note to check its contents after I got
out of the tub. What if I didn’t have enough? Could I get next month’s
allowance early? In my half-melted mind, I calculated how many days were left before my
“payday.”
In truth, this was my
biggest reason for delaying our outing. Being in a relationship,
I now understood, did not come cheap.
But obviously, I couldn’t
wear just a swimsuit; I’d need
sandals and accessories, and so two more fingers joined the first. Then I remembered I’d
have to factor in the cost of travel and meals, too. It was increasingly
looking like next month’s allowance was my only lifeline—assuming that was even
enough to cover it.
Adachi had saved up a
hefty sum from her part-time job, and I’d never seen her want for money. But as much as I admired
her for it, I didn’t lift a finger to follow her example.
If I told her I couldn’t
afford it, even just as a joke, she would immediately offer to pay for
everything and, in so doing, make me an involuntary gold digger. At that point, not only
would I feel like a loser, but it would also raise questions about the health
of our relationship, and then I wouldn’t be able to wholeheartedly enjoy the
trip. Her
nest egg was the manifestation of her hard work, and I had no right to touch
it. Even if
it brought her joy to spend that money for my sake, I couldn’t allow myself to
enable it. A
healthy relationship was one where we could at least reasonably pretend to be on even footing,
whether it was true or not.
Therefore, money was an
obstacle.
We’d need to decide which
beach we were going to, which meant finding out which was the closest. The thought of the crowds
already had me feeling suffocated. But Adachi wanted me to go
with her, so I never considered saying no.
Still…the way she went
about inviting me gave me pause. I liked to think of myself
as a kind, affectionate girlfriend, so why did she cower in front of me like I
was a wicked witch whenever she wanted to ask me something? Did she think I hadn’t
noticed the way she walked on eggshells? Not that I wanted her to
trample over me like my mother, but she was allowed to assert herself. Just…preferably not the
way my mother did.
If I had to guess, both
of us were contributing to this problem in some way, but to be blunt, I
couldn’t think of what I was doing wrong. What about Adachi? What did she see when she looked at me? Unfortunately, if I tried
to ask her, I suspected she wouldn’t give me the brutally honest evaluation I
was looking for.
Dating was hard…but then
again, if I always had all the answers, maybe it wouldn’t be any fun.
These were the things I
contemplated during my long, long bath. I could feel that I was
starting to overheat, and sure enough, after I climbed out of the tub, I nearly
lost my balance. For now, I would focus on two points: that I was going to the beach,
and that I was worried about money.
After I toweled off and
got dressed, I walked into the living room and announced, “Bathroom’s free,” to
the two girls roughhousing there. As soon as she heard it,
the cat leaped up and started to bolt.
“Come on, Yachi, it’s
bathtime!”
Seized under my sister’s
arm, the cat flailed her limbs—an amusing sight that was only possible because
Yashiro was so light. Unnaturally light, really, I thought to myself as I
sat down and started drying my hair. With all the
food she eats? Where does it go?
Then I grabbed my phone
from where it lay on the table and checked for any notifs from Adachi; seeing
that there were none, I put it back again. When I turned the
electric fan in my direction, my towel and hair billowed in unison. Shielding my ears from
the sound, I envisioned the cost of a swimsuit and felt a pang of misery.
But I wanna go on a
daaate, so I need a cute fiiit, which meeeans I need moneeey…
It all made an incredible
amount of sense. This was the kind of struggle that forced everyone to care about money.
Only now
did I understand why some young boys and girls turned to delinquency, as was so
often lamented as a societal problem. Thus far, I had been
frugal with my spending, but evidently, I would need more than love to have a
fun day out with my girlfriend. For the first time in my
life, I truly grasped the feeling of being poor…
“What’s the matter, girl? You look like you’re
questioning your life.”
My mother marched over,
carrying a laundry hamper, and purposely positioned herself between me and the
fan’s breeze. But I didn’t bother to point it out; knowing her, she’d play dumb.
“I was thinking of ways
to get more money.”
“Get a job.” And so, having offered me the most correct of answers, she walked out. But coming from someone
like her, it was hard to swallow. Or maybe the truth always
was.
I only had a week or two
at most before we went on this trip. Having never worked a
part-time job, I had no idea how quickly I could expect to get paid, but if it
took an entire month, then there was no point in working at all. I had so little knowledge
about this field that I was nearly as bad as Yashiro, and that was alarming
indeed. I
couldn’t survive by mooching like she did.
Speaking of Yashiro, that
moon rock she sold me was probably the most valuable thing I owned…not that I
would ever sell it. Something told me I stood to lose a great deal if I sold off my
memories, and so I wanted to avoid it at any cost.
“Your allowance isn’t enough?
What the
heck did you spend it on?”
My mother set the laundry
hamper down and returned to the living room empty-handed, which was all well
and good, but I wished she wouldn’t stand behind me and prod my butt with her
toes. I
couldn’t imagine how she would react if I told her I needed it for a date. For that matter, I never said my allowance wasn’t
enough…though her assumption was correct.
“Stuff you can’t tell
your mother about, hm?”
“I just don’t want to
list it all out.”
“Honey!
Our
daughter’s using her allowance money for nefarious purposes!”
My father was ensconced
in the beanbag chair in front of the TV, nodding off. The post-dinner lull was
comfy—a feeling I knew all too well.
“Ugh… Like daughter, like
father.”
“So, you went on a
spending spree and still have more to buy?”
The interrogation made my
rebellious streak twinge, but I knew this woman wasn’t going to leave me alone
until I told her. Besides, when it came down to it, I needed money. “I was invited to a beach
trip,” I admitted reluctantly, my face concealed under my towel.
“A beach trip with who? Oh,
I know. Adachi-chan,
right?” she
asked, promptly answering her own question.
“Ah
ha. Oh ho. No
staying overnight, missy.”
“I don’t have money! That’s my point!”
“Sucks to be you! Gah
hah hah hah!”
I knew the “staying
overnight” thing was probably just a joke, but…could she have figured out that
Adachi and I were an item? Not that I minded if she knew… Then again, I dreaded the thought of her
teasing us over every little thing.
“Let’s see… I’ll raise
your allowance if you help around the house during your break.”
“Doing what?” I pulled the towel off my head and looked up at her.
She smirked back down at
me like it was a brilliant plan. “Cooking, cleaning, the
works. Well,
actually, we can do the cooking as a team.”
She was already outlining
the particulars before I’d even decided whether to take her up on it…though I
suspected I probably would. Did I want money badly enough? Yes, I did. For Adachi’s sake as well as my own.
“You know I gotta study
for college, right?”
“Then don’t go the beach,
punk.”
“Do your studying, do
your housework, and don’t forget to make time for fun. Fit it all in while
you’re young.”
With one final kick to the
butt, she turned to leave again; I tried to grab her foot in revenge, but she
dashed away at the speed of light. No matter the
circumstance, my mother was always brimming with vitality, and it was the one
thing I admired about her.
So there it was: I would
earn money doing chores, go to the beach, study for college, and find time for
sleep. It
reminded me of my elementary school days, when my summer vacations were
dictated by a schedule so full, I couldn’t possibly achieve it all.
After I graduated, would I
have even more to do? I tried to picture it but was so overwhelmed by the possibilities that
I was tempted to dump some in the trash. For now, I decided I
would focus on the fun and money right in front of me, like the flawed human I
was.
When I tilted my head
down, the sound of the fan blades descended over my skull, down to my ears.
“My name is Shimamura
Hougetsu, and I’ll be your housekeeper for the summer.”
“Huh.
It’s not
often I see you helping out around here.”
“Yeah, I know. Stuff
came up. Now get out
of the way.”
At my prompting, he rolled
back into place. It was the kind of thing Yashiro would immediately try to imitate if
she was here to see it.
“Interesting,” my father
replied, TV remote in hand, studying me for a moment. “Did you run out of
allowance money?”
“It’s a long story.” By which I meant: The cost of dating has gone up.
“Just let her do it, all
right?” My
mother clapped me airily on the shoulder. As usual, her touch was
so rough, it came across as condescending. In junior high, nothing
was more infuriating; these days I could endure it, but only to a certain
point. “Learning
to do chores now will help you later on in life. Or do you plan to live
here until you die?”
I knew it was meant to be
a rhetorical question—so why did it feel like a blow? Just as I couldn’t spend
eternity in high school, there was no guarantee of forever in this house. Mentally I had acclimated
to these things…and yet my skin still bristled.
“Your final year of high
school is meant to prepare you for adulthood. This will give you a
better chance at a good future.”
“…You sure know how to
sound smart when you want to, huh?”
“Gah hah hah! You know
it!” Unsurprisingly,
my mother took this as a point of pride. With her chest puffed
out, she strutted from the room.
“When I was your age,
there was so much I wanted from life. So many hard choices,” my
father reminisced, lying with his hands on his stomach like an otter.
“Did
you have any part-time jobs, Mr. When I Was Your Age?”
“Nah.
I’d tell
myself to sleep on it, and by the time I woke the next morning, getting a job
always seemed like too much of a hassle.”
Enviable as that sounded,
in my case, that wasn’t going to fly. Even if I shrugged it
off, Adachi would come and remind me.
Once I finished cleaning
the living room, I moved on to the hallway. With a vacuum in hand, the
once-cramped space seemed to stretch on infinitely, long enough for a
hundred-meter dash. Okay, that was an exaggeration.
So, would I live here
forever? Assuming
Adachi and I stayed together, she’d probably ask to move in together at some
point, but I couldn’t picture her agreeing to live with family, be it mine or
her own. She
only ever wanted a kingdom for just the two of us. Naturally, that meant no
one else would be around to do chores or pay rent; we would have to provide for
ourselves.
Me and Adachi, living
together, every day… Where would we go from there?
“What are you up to,
Nee-chan?”
“Oho, it appears she is
cleaning.”
Two balls of energy
walked up to me: my sister, openly relishing the beginning of her summer break,
and…wait, what is that? I couldn’t tell if Yashiro’s new onesie was meant to be a raccoon or a
tanuki.
“Did you get in trouble
or something?”
“Look, life’s complicated
when you’re in high school, all right?”
“Well, you missed a spot! Chop
chop!”
My sister was getting a
little too cheeky, so I vacuumed her face, then bent down and smacked her head.
“I’m busy
right now, so go do your homework or something.”
“Okay, but no slacking! I’m gonna check your work
later!” With
one final saucy quip, she returned to our room. The…creature, however,
stayed behind.
She didn’t correct me, so
apparently, I had guessed correctly. Through her legs, I could
see her tail swaying cheerfully.
“You’re welcome to help
me, you know.”
“Heh heh heh! Mama-san has decreed that I am not obligated to assist due to my
general uselessness.”
That’s
not something to brag about, kid, I thought as I poked the
tanuki’s white belly. I knew better than to expect her to be any good at vacuuming, but maybe
she could offer some amusing conversation. Thus, I carried on
cleaning without chasing her away.
“Have you ever been to
the ocean?”
“Rocks?
Oh, the ones
you were selling?”
I vaguely remembered her
mentioning something along those lines when she held that bazaar of hers,
though she never specified where she dived to get them. Suffice it to say that
her interpretation of “going to the ocean” was a bit deeper than what I was
imagining.
“So, you’ve never, like,
hung out on the beach?”
“I have no time for such
dalliances.”
The tanuki began to pace
back and forth, mulling something over—contemplating a naughty prank, perhaps,
like in old folktales? Then again, the worst Yashiro ever did was sneak a peek inside our
fridge. She
walked all the way to the end of the hall, then doubled back in my direction.
“What do people do at the
ocean?”
“Um…” I didn’t have an
answer prepared. Go swimming, and…what else? “Good question. I forget, what did I do when we were there last…?”
It had been a long time
ago, before my sister was even born. We drove to the
neighboring prefecture, and I had a vague recollection of playing with a beach
ball and pretending to be sea lions with my mother. The rest I couldn’t
remember, but there couldn’t have been much else to do, since they hadn’t
expanded the facilities back then…
“Oh yeah, I think we had
a barbecue.”
“Ooh, that sounds
delightful.”
“Other than that…I’m not
sure what else people do.”
And so the conveniently
timed realization hit me: If Adachi and I went to the beach without a plan in
mind, we might end up bored. Yet another thing for me
to worry about.
“Heh heh heh! By all means, think it through.”
“Don’t condescend to me,
brat.”
After I vacuumed her
face, I released the tanuki back into the wild. Like the rest of the
native fauna here in the Shimamura household—giraffes, sharks, and all the
other onesies—she ran off to find my sister. Personally, I was just
glad they were getting along.
As for me, though I had
barely started vacuuming, I was already breaking a sweat.
Perhaps I’d ask Adachi if
she had any ideas.
“How are you still so
clumsy?”
I scowled at the
commentary on my cucumber-cutting. My mother was starting to
sound like a workplace bully. What more did she expect
when, in all my life, I had only ever used a kitchen knife in home economics
class?
The moment I finished
vacuuming, she had dragged me in here to help her make lunch. At this point, fatigue
oozed like sweat from my every pore, and my heart yearned for bed.
“No,” I shot back defiantly. Then I gathered up the
diagonally cut cucumber pieces and sliced them into sticks.
We were making hiyashi chuuka for lunch today, and my
mother was supervising my work while frying up a thin layer of rolled omelet. Thus far, I had learned
that my ideal coworker was one who didn’t know my entire life
story from start to finish.
“Y’know, it’s not often
you come crying to me for fun money.”
“Could you not phrase it
like that?” I retorted, objecting to her biased account. I couldn’t bear to look at
that stupid smirk on her face.
“You wanna buy a cute
bikini and show off for Adachi-chan, is that it?”
“Once you’ve picked it
out, let me know how much it costs. Wouldn’t wanna pay you
less than you need.”
I averted my eyes as I
handed over the cucumber sticks. This kind of talk made me
uncomfortable, but because I was effectively asking her to buy me a swimsuit, I
was in no position to complain. Furthermore, this “job” of
hers had already taught me something.
While at first glance, my
mother seemed lazy, I now understood painfully well just how much of herself
she put into life every single day. In spite of the summer
heat, she cooked, cleaned, ran the washing machine, went to the gym, and looked
after the kids—all without complaint. On the contrary, she had
so much energy, it bordered on obnoxious. And while I would
absolutely never admit it aloud…in a way, I couldn’t help but respect that
about her.
On second thought, why
wouldn’t I tell her? It wouldn’t cost me anything. I knew this, but I had
never learned how to just be honest… No, that wasn’t true. As a kid, I’d accepted
the world with my whole heart and given my unguarded self in trade—exactly like
Yashiro, who savored her portion loudly and gleefully. It had been about a year
now since she first started living here full-time.
She noticed me staring at
her and moved her chopsticks to shield her omelet strips. Brat. Then I realized: She had
lived with me long enough to know that eggs were one of my favorite foods. Incidentally, she had so
many “favorite” foods of her own that I could name a dish at random and
probably be right.
After we finished eating
lunch, my employer told me I was free to clock out for the day. “Can’t go too hard on you
right out of the gate, or it’ll scare you off!”
“It really takes a load
off to have you do the cleaning. Agh, these old bones!”
My mother made a show of
clutching her lower back, then headed off to the gym. She was just so spunky all the time. Did she get her energy from working out, or was she only able to work
out because of that energy?
My father was weeding the
yard; Yashiro and my sister were out playing in the heat. With no one else inside
the house, it suddenly fell perfectly silent, at which point the cry of the
cicadas began to seep in through the walls. Strange, since there were
barely any trees near our house.
Walking down the empty
hallway gave me a funny feeling, too, as if everything I knew had been
surgically removed, turning it into someplace foreign. As I got older, would I
one day be forced to go through life alone, just like this? Then again, I probably
wouldn’t be the last to die, considering my sister was younger than me—but
either way, someone would end up alone. The thought hurt my heart.
Back in my bedroom, my
next tasks were to study, sleep…and what else? Several options were
available to me here, but above all, my first move was to pick up my phone. Shows
you where my priorities are, I thought to myself with
a smile.
It always caught me by
surprise just how quickly Adachi would answer her phone. Coming from anyone else,
those speedy reflexes would be downright frightening. But unlike my house, hers
was always this quiet, so she probably had an easy time hearing her phone ring.
Then I
heard a muffled chuckle on the other end of the line.
“What is it?” I
asked curiously.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just…kinda happy you called.”
Her words tickled me in turn.
“In that
case, next time you ask to call me, maybe I’ll call you first.”
“Ha
ha!” I knew
that, of course; she was happy that I was taking the initiative to connect. Regardless, everything I
offered to Adachi was laced with a hint of provocation and shyness. “So anyway…”
“You’re taking me to the
beach, right?”
At times like these, why
did I position myself as a passive participant? For some reason, I
avoided giving myself agency, almost like I was distancing myself. This was something I
wanted to work on.
“We’re going to the
beach, right?” She probably wouldn’t understand why I needed to rephrase that, but
nevertheless, I felt it was important.
“Yes?
And?” Sure enough, she sounded
confused.
“Th-that’s not true.” She must have interpreted
it as reluctance on my part, because the reassurance was audible in her voice.
“I’m gonna plan out a
bunch of stuff for us to do. I’ll…show you a good time.”
“Before we go, we should
each come up with a list of activities and keep it a surprise until the big
day. Then,
when we’re there, we’ll choose what to do from our lists.”
This was the conclusion I
had reached by the time I was done vacuuming: If there was nothing to do, then
we would simply come up with something on our own. This way I could truly
savor the experience of going to the beach with her. Fortunately, she agreed
to the idea right away.
“Got
it. I’ll
think of as many as I can,” she replied, and I thought I heard relief in her
voice—probably because she was looking forward to my swimsuit.
“Preferably an amount we
can reasonably get done in a single day.” After all, too much
luggage would make travel a nightmare.
But Adachi was looking at
it in a different way. “Whatever we don’t do this time, we can save for next time.” She was the kind of girl
who would stuff her toybox full to bursting, then carry the rest in her arms,
taking care not to drop a single one.
“Oh, that’s an optimistic
outlook… I like it.”
In spite of her
trepidation, she believed without question that we would be together forever,
and I had started to suspect that this was what made us compatible. Yes…we worked so well
together, it felt like destiny. And I wasn’t so desperate
for company that I would settle for anything less.
“Are you going to buy a
new swimsuit, Adachi?”
“Y-yeah…I was thinking of
going shopping today.”
“You sure? Couldn’t you just wear your old one?”
I thought back to that
summer day long ago when she sent me a selfie of her in a swimsuit. In hindsight, it was
kinda dirty of me to ask for it, huh? At the time, my
mischievous streak was only just starting to blossom, but if I tried something
like that now, I’d get a very different result…or would I?
“No, you already saw that
one.”
“Oh…” In other words,
that old swimsuit had outlived its usefulness after just a couple of wears. In her eyes, fashion
wasn’t about beautifying herself but instead about impressing me. Her abundant love for me
made my cheeks twitch.
“Are you going to buy one,
too?”
“That’s the plan,” I
answered coolly, though below the surface, I was flailing my limbs just to stay
afloat. Please wait until I complete my apprenticeship, I wanted to say.
“Okay, then…I’m
super-duper looking forward to it.”
Super-duper, huh? The sparkle in her voice
felt genuine rather than obligatory. She was excited to see me
in a swimsuit…a step closer to nakedness. I often thought back to
the way she had ogled me in the bath during our school trip. Frankly, it was a miracle
she didn’t overheat and pass out.
Did the thought of me
wearing a swimsuit inspire in her certain feelings of the…you know,
pubescent…or primitive…or, to be totally blunt, sexual variety? I knew I should choose
something with her reaction in mind, but…was I meant to envision what kind of
reaction that would be? For that matter, why did she want to go to the beach in the first
place? Sure,
she’d never been there before, but I realized now—arrogantly, perhaps—that it
was possible her main goal was to see me in a bikini.
I just wished this
epiphany would have waited until after I hung up.
“Well, um…let’s both do
our best, Adachi.”
And with that, I hung up. Clawing at the smoldering
itch in my cheeks, I set my phone down. Long after the call was
over, one specific area of my brain was lit up bright enough to blind me.
With the drowsiness I’d
felt this morning all but evaporated, the distant cry of the cicadas carved a
path through the space, guiding me to my study desk. Yeah, I guess I
should, I thought as I pulled the chair out and sat down. My mother had given me a
kick in the butt to get it all done, and I was a tiny bit motivated.
This was what my final
summer break would look like for the foreseeable future: doing chores and
buying a swimsuit. And
accessories. And
possibly new sandals. I wanted a hat, too, but I’d need to keep some money in reserve to use
while we were there. How am I supposed to think about the future with all
this going on? I
laughed to myself.
As if trying on ball
gowns, I danced through each day, all the way to the beach trip. Or, put more simply: I
was giddy.
The night before the big
trip, I was milling around the house when my father called out to me, fresh out
of the shower: “You’ve got a lot of stuff there, Hougetsu. Are you going somewhere
tomorrow?”
“To the beach! With a
girl!” my
mother cut in before I could answer. She wasn’t wrong by any
definition, but that didn’t mean I liked the way she made it sound.
“What?!” My father recoiled in
alarm for a moment, then realized it wasn’t all that surprising. “Oh, okay.” Compared to my mother, he
always seemed like the rational one, but I was starting to think he was pretty
weird in his own way. “Be
safe and have fun.”
And so it was time to go. We had agreed to meet at
the station square, but I had secretly arranged to arrive half an hour early. I had considered showing
up a full hour ahead, but on the off chance I was wrong, it would sting—not
because I’d have to wait, but because it would mean I misread Adachi.
When I reached the bus
stop thirty minutes ahead of schedule, sure enough, there she was. She didn’t have as much
luggage as I feared she would; notably, she was carrying a rucksack on her
back, and from a distance, she looked like a little kid going on a field trip. Also, she was carrying
what looked like a beach umbrella. I
didn’t even think to bring one, I thought to myself with
an exasperated smile.
Once the gulf between us
had shrunk far enough, she noticed me and came jogging over like—okay, kind of
a rude analogy, but I’ll say it anyway—like a dog greeting her owner at the
front door. For some reason, she always exuded “loyal hound” energy.
How
long has she been waiting to say that? I wondered with a wry grin. “You’re here early.”
Her definition of “a
little” seemed loose enough to gently encompass anywhere from five minutes to
an entire lifetime. Broader than mine, in any case.
“Good thing it’s not
raining, huh?” she continued.
“For sure.” The cumulonimbus clouds billowed as tall as castles, and my skin
already felt like it was burning. Once we got to the beach,
I worried I might split open like a hot dog on a grill. “Nice beach umbrella, by
the way,” I remarked, indicating the covered pole resting against her shoulder.
“I totally
forgot to bring one, so I appreciate it.”
At this, Adachi beamed
proudly—a rare sight, since she generally never emoted with confidence. Perhaps the prospect of a
summer beach trip had brought out her inner child. “Your hat looks good on you!”
“Thank you kindly,” I
replied, wiggling the newly bought brim as if a stiff breeze was blowing. “Shall we?”
Her pace seemed faster
than usual, so I worked my legs in an effort to keep up.
Our first stop was
Nagoya, where we changed trains and headed for the ocean. Ah, how far away it felt. Because it was a weekday,
most of the stations were relatively devoid of waiting passengers. As Adachi and I stood
side by side, she tapped my hand with her pinky finger to get my attention—like she’s fishing, I thought with a grin as
I took the initiative and grabbed her hand in mine. At first, her eyes went
wide, but before long, a derpy smile spread on her face, the corners of her
lips curling clumsily.
But in the summertime, we
couldn’t pretend that the only product of our touch was love. In my grasp, her hand went
from warm to melty in seconds flat.
Knowing Adachi, she
probably hadn’t studied at all since the start of summer break. Part of me found this
amusing, but on the other hand, I was a little worried. Then again, she always
got better grades than me, so maybe I didn’t need to be.
On the train, we managed
to secure seats for ourselves. Adachi nodded off
partway, her head drooping onto my shoulder, and I figured I’d let her sleep
for the duration of the ride, brief though it was. Knowing her, she probably
hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night, which was adorable—as was the
peaceful, innocent expression on her face as she slept. She put her heart and soul
into living every single day of her life, and I was happy to help relieve some
of that fatigue.
To keep myself from
drifting off along with her, I forced my eyes open wide, as if to sear the
scenery into them. At that exact moment, the train crossed a bridge over a river, and the
glint of the water’s surface neatly stabbed directly into my vision. For me, it seemed our
summer trip was already thrilling to the point of tears.
Behind me lay the path
I’d taken to get here, and in front of me was the smell of hot brine. The clouds and mountains
formed a clear divide between sky and sea, almost as if someone had filled it
in with pencil.
We headed down the gently
sloping stairs toward the sand. There were already a
handful of beach umbrellas in full bloom, adding dots of color to the pale
expanse. Many
of them were blue for some reason—maybe because it was a refreshing cool tone.
Just before the beach was
a well-kept grassy area where all the facilities were found. Taking note of the
showers and changing areas, I stepped down onto the sand. Our first order of
business was to find ourselves an open spot. Fortunately, this wasn’t
hard.
As we crouched down and
dug at the sand, I could feel my back already dripping with flecks of molten
sweat. This
summer was armed with two weapons: the suffocating air and the stabbing rays of
sun. Once
we had a hole, we thrust Adachi’s blue umbrella into it and opened it up,
creating the perfect amount of shade for two people to enjoy. Then we rolled out a
beach mat and set our luggage on top to keep it from blowing away.
After I plunked myself
down, I patted the spot beside me, and Adachi lunged for it. As we gazed at each
other, I watched the shyness spread across her face.
“First, let’s get the sand
out.”
We rubbed our hands
together as if under running water, shaking loose whatever grit was stuck under
our nails. Once
they were clean, it was time to beach it up.
“Okay, I guess we’ll take
turns changing. Who’s
going first?”
At last, the moment was
upon us: the swimsuit debut. Last night before bed, I
had tried to imagine what Adachi might wear today, but I kept inadvertently
distracting myself by thinking of onesies and other joke options. Probably the influence of
a certain cryptid in my life who wore them like a uniform. To be fair, though,
Adachi would look cute in anything.
She stared down at her
hands for a moment, then stole a glance up at me. “In that case…you go
first, please.”
“Sure.
Any particular
reason?”
I couldn’t explain it,
but I had a feeling I understood what she meant. Like a sandcastle, her
sadness could only be washed away with a tidal wave of…uh…me being there? I was trying to think of
something poetic, but never mind. Pushing against my knees,
I hauled myself onto my feet—and in the process, nearly smacked my head on the
inside of the beach umbrella. Kind of forgot that was there.
“Well, I’m more than
happy to go first, since yours is probably gonna be way better.”
“Th-that’s not true! Don’t get your hopes
up…but then again, I do want you to.”
With a smile, I turned and
left Adachi to her conflicted mumbling, carrying my stuff in the direction of
the changing areas. The telltale scent of chlorine gave me a taste of my childhood: the
distant days in which I’d wear my swimsuit under my clothes whenever I went to
swim at the school pool. Once I’d gotten dressed, the memories filed themselves back into their
dusty drawer.
After checking myself
over one last time, I headed back to where I’d left Adachi. She kept glancing in the
direction of the changing areas approximately once every three seconds, so she
caught sight of me well before I made my flashy entrance—and when her eyes
landed on me, her face froze in my direction. Note to
self: Avoid looking this way when it’s her turn.
Pinching the hem of my
pareo, I walked around in front of her to show off my beachwear. She closed her eyes
sharply, as if blinded by the sun, then slowly wrenched them open once more. For a swimsuit debut,
this was starting to feel a little dramatic—was I supposed to strike a flashy
pose?
Meanwhile, Adachi was
already blushing. “Pretty…good look for you!” The small stumble
suggested she had waffled over what to say, thus fumbling it at the last
second.
“Thanks! Hee hee. I think this pareo is the
best part.”
That said, I actually had
the most trouble deciding on my shoes, but I ultimately settled on a pair with
cute white ribbons. After I sat down, I wiggled my feet to show them off, but Adachi’s gaze
was already magnetized to one very specific point: my stomach. Oh god,
is she looking at my chub?! I panicked for a moment
before I remembered that she wasn’t that shallow.
That said, she was being
kind of an enigma today.
“Your…your belly button’s
showing.”
I looked down at it. It
sure was. “Don’t worry. It won’t fall off.”
“I’m just…not sure it’s
appropriate.” Despite scolding me for my immodesty, she continued to ogle it openly. I felt as though I’d
caught a glimpse of her tumultuous inner conflict. “Everyone’s going to
stare at it.”
“I don’t think other
people will notice.”
She protested so
effusively, her hand inadvertently landed on my stomach, covering my belly
button. Instantly,
she froze in place. With her slightly sandy palm against my skin, the silence grew warm. It was certainly one way
of getting me to cover up in public…although now she couldn’t see it, either.
Realizing this, she—just
kidding. Flustered
by the skin-to-skin contact, she bolted to her feet, shouted, “I’ll go change
my…get changed!” and
ran off in a tizzy. The way she snaked her arm through the strap of her bag and carried it
off with her, I could tell she had some great athletic reflexes. Yes, I could see it now:
If she had been on my junior high basketball team, they would have made her a
regular.
“Well, that was weird,” I
muttered to myself, clearing the air. Wherever she was, Adachi
was probably pretty dizzy right about now. But this always happened
with her, so I figured she would be fine.
Setting my hat down next to
me, I faced forward and closed my eyes. Surrounded by sun, I
chose to plunge into darkness. I wanted to see if I
could recognize the sound of Adachi’s footsteps as she approached.
For a while, all I heard
was the breeze blowing past and up into the sky. Then, finally, I caught
the crunch and hiss of traversal through sand.
This would be really
embarrassing if it turned out to be someone else, but as luck would have it, my
impassioned guess was correct. A pair of bare legs
entered our circle of shade. At first glance, I
thought she was naked, and my heart nearly stopped, but obviously, she wasn’t. When I looked up, I saw a
crisp, clear shade of blue that blended in neatly with the umbrella above.
It was Adachi, dressed in
a bikini. She
looked back at me, red-faced and gasping for breath like she was submerged up
to her lips in water. Her swimsuit was the blue to my pink, and by some coincidence, both
were flower-patterned. But then she tried to hide behind her iridescent floatie.
“Oh no you don’t,” I
chided, and stole it away.
Now her swimsuit was
exposed to all the world—by which I mean our immediate surroundings. She grasped helplessly at
the empty air, as if to cover herself with a pareo she wasn’t wearing.
“Oh
ho…” I ran my gaze over
every inch of her as she sat beside me with her knees folded, trying to ignore
it.
“I remembered…um…you
said…you like blue, so…”
She even thought of me
when she chose the color, so how could I not? That aside, I couldn’t
help but peer beyond the shield of her arms and knees—intently, as if I’d
spotted a cicada clinging to a tree trunk. And the longer I looked,
the more I thought I might start screeching myself.
I wasn’t sure it was a
good idea to say this, but decided to tell myself the freedom of summer had led
me down a wicked path. “I didn’t realize your boobs were so big.”
It made a nice contrast,
considering the rest of her was so slender. But I meant it as a
genuine compliment, not sexual harassment—did she understand that? Then her ears turned red,
and I knew I had screwed up. My only option was to flee
from responsibility and turn my attention to the scenery until she had
recovered her composure.
As I stretched my legs
out and relaxed in the shade, I caught sight of a plane flying at a low
altitude from the direction of the local airport. The roar of its engines
was almost reminiscent of the sound of blood pumping through my veins—possibly
because in both cases, it carved a path forward.
As I watched families
splashing in the ocean with their kids, I felt it would be a waste not to do
the same while we were here. But once we went in, it
would wash off my makeup, and I realized now that I had no way of putting on
more. Ugh, I shouldn’t have waited to pack until the night before… Okay, I
think that’s enough time. When I looked back at
Adachi, however, she flinched and bent forward to hide her chest. Something told me I had
given her the completely wrong impression.
“Didn’t you want me to
see you in your new swimsuit, Adachi-chan?” I pressed playfully,
ignoring the inadvertent sexual harassment.
She gasped. “You’re right,” she whispered, suddenly harboring a new light in her
eyes, as if awakened to an epiphany. Then she moved her arms
away from her chest, put her hands on her hips, and closed in on me. “Wh-what do you think,
hmm?” she
taunted, slamming her boobs against me like she was daring me to look at them.
Apparently, I had pushed
her a little too far in the opposite direction. Now it was my turn to get
flustered.
“Look.
Look at
me,” she demanded, blushing beet red. I put a hand on her
scrawny shoulder, and suddenly, the distance between us shrank. Our faces were inches
apart, close enough to touch, and we gazed into each other’s eyes at
point-blank range.
Only then did Adachi snap
out of it. Her
lower lip trembled, and her eyes shimmered like the reflection of the moon on
the water’s surface. And like a swimmer kicking off from the pool’s edge, I gently pushed
against her. But although we were now farther apart, the air between us was still
tense, as if we might collide at any moment. Perhaps bare skin was
simply too intense in large doses.
“Wanna go have lunch?” I asked, forcing a
subject change.
“Yeah,” she agreed, her
burning ears akin to the wings of a scarlet butterfly.
We packed up our
valuables and headed off, leaving behind only what we could live with having
stolen: the beach mat and umbrella. Times like these, I kinda
wished there were more people traveling with us, but I knew Adachi would never
want that.
“Next time, maybe we
should have a barbecue.” As we walked past the grassy plaza, I saw big white umbrellas standing
tall with the trees, smoke and chatter billowing out from under them. The smell tugged hard at
my nostrils, probably because I was already hungry. “But I think you can only
reserve one of those if you’re in a group, so…”
“The minimum group size is
two,” Adachi replied promptly, like she was answering a quiz question. When I glanced at her,
she averted her gaze. “I saw it written somewhere.”
“You really did your
research, huh? What
a good little student.” In response to my compliment, she took my hand in hers, as if to reward
herself—and I couldn’t help but praise her again: “You’ve gotten a little
better at holding hands, too.”
Sure, we were in public,
but…eh, why not? I swung our hands widely as we walked.
A barbecue sounds lovely
indeed, I thought I heard a voice
say.
Oh, I’m sure my family
will take you to one sooner or later, I thought in reply.
I couldn’t help but get a
little sentimental, wondering how much time we had left together… No, if I
wanted us to go, then it was up to me to tell them. While I didn’t intend to
move out until after I graduated college, my gut told me this was my last
chance. Like
waves on the shore, the flow of time could all too easily wash away people’s
dreams. Procrastination
would only lead to regret.
“Ooh, there’s a café. We
could get…coffee,” I said, in my best
American accent.
“Wow.
You sound like a
native.”
And so, we decided to
have a leisurely meal at the café. The tropical trees that
surrounded us were so lush that I could easily believe we had been welcomed
into another country. The clay-colored building was two stories tall, and from the look of
it, the second floor offered terrace seating with a full view of the ocean. Unfortunately, it looked
to be completely packed.
We were led to a table in
the corner of the restaurant, where the very tanned server handed us our menus.
Under the
table, I could feel the grit of sand against the soles of my shoes. In addition to simple
meals, beer, bar food, and shaved ice, the café apparently also offered beach
hut and equipment rentals.
“These sure are some coffee prices.”
Meaning seasonal tourist
destination prices.
The food on offer was
fairly limited in variety: curry with rice, hashed beef with rice, sandwiches,
and yakisoba. Times like these, I was the type who defaulted to curry. Then there were the
drinks; since alcohol was off the table, that left us with coffee, tea, or
juice. I
wanted to make the most of the tropical atmosphere, so I decided to get the
pineapple juice.
“Okay, I’m ready to order. What about you?”
It was just like her to
opt for something blander than curry and pineapple juice. After we put in our
orders, we gazed idly at each other, just as we had already spent much of the
day doing. Maybe
it was because special moments didn’t need words? Ehhh… No, that probably wasn’t
it. But I
felt no particular discomfort in holding her gaze—just nonstop good vibes, the
kind I always felt whenever I had no reason to break the silence.
Seated at our corner
table, we could see the beach through the window right next to us. From a distance, it was
fuzzy, but in a good way, like it had a dreamy filter over it. With the palm trees
swaying in the breeze, I could almost convince myself we had left Japan.
“Hey,” I said in English,
like I was American all of a sudden.
“Uh…hi?” Adachi
replied stiffly, her gaze flicking to and fro.
We probably should have
had a slightly better grasp of the language if we were hoping to get into
college. Then,
while we were showing off our (lack of) knowledge, the food arrived. While I tucked into my
somewhat spicy curry and swooned at the sweetness of the pineapple juice,
Adachi silently shoveled her sandwich into her mouth. Even in an exotic new
location, it would appear she still found no enjoyment in the act of eating. But whenever our eyes
met, she would offer me a stiff smile, and I swooned all over again.
After we paid our bill, we
were each given a corsage as a souvenir. Ah, that
makes up for the extra cost, I lied to myself.
“Pop quiz! What kind of flower is this?” I asked, holding a
corsage in each of my palms. Adachi clearly hadn’t
expected me to put her on the spot, but nevertheless, she tilted her head in
contemplation.
One was red and one was
yellow—the most Hawaii colors imaginable. Not that we were anywhere
close…yet. Maybe
if I kept on living.
“I’ll help you put it on. Which one do you want?”
Her gaze darted gracefully
from left to right. “You
can choose for me.”
“But I’m asking which one you want. Now go on.” I thrust them in her direction to relish her reaction. She was always terrible
at making these sorts of decisions.
The red one, then. Rising on tiptoe, I tucked the corsage into her hair. The spot of scarlet
created a lovely accent when paired with her blue swimsuit, but then again, so
did every part of her. With her features—and no, I didn’t mean those features—she looked good
in anything.
Meanwhile, Adachi affixed
the other corsage to my hat.
Her hands were clenched
into fists, possibly to keep her voice from shaking. My cuteness was just that
powerful, apparently. Still, she looked really good with that flower in her hair… I admired
the sight of it all the way back to our beach umbrella. Then, once we’d settled
back in, I decided to announce one of the ideas on my activity list.
“Look around, Adachi. What do you see?” Flourishing a hand, I directed her attention.
“Lots of people in
swimsuits.”
“Little farther down.” I lowered my hand
accordingly, and she dutifully tilted her head down, arriving at what I wanted
to show her: the ocean’s warm, white cradle. “Since we’ve got all this
sand here, why not play with it?” I scooped up a fistful
and let it trickle through my fingers.
Adachi followed suit. “This one was on my list, too.”
“Well, then, it works out
perfectly.”
Thus, we set about playing
with the sand beneath our umbrella.
“But my idea was less
‘make something’ and more…play a game like pick-up sticks.”
“That sounds good, too.” We had already proved for
a fact that anything we played together could be fun, even thumb wrestling. “Let’s do it!”
“So, whatcha wanna make?” I asked, once we had
piled the sand high. She stared at the mountain for so long, I thought it might crumble
under her gaze.
“Could we do…an elephant?” she mumbled.
“You
bet!” I was
curious why she would choose an elephant specifically (and I had a feeling the
trunk would be a challenge), but I was ready to make memories together. “Don’t worry. Back in the day, I was
the queen of the sandbox for three days straight.”
“Th-three whole days, huh? Wow.”
I could tell she was
trying to be nice, so I thrust my chest out proudly. As a kid, I tended to get
bored easily, so after those three days were up, I moved on to the horizontal
bars. Back
then, I was jealous of the ease with which my mom could do back-hip circles.
Unfortunately, like with
the beach umbrella, I had forgotten to bring any buckets or shovels. Not that I minded using my
bare hands, of course.
“After we’ve had our fill
of sand, we should swim in the ocean.” After all, Adachi had
gone to the trouble of bringing a tube-shaped floatie, and besides, I wanted to
get in the water at least once while we were here.
“Okay…sure.” She glanced over in the direction of the waves. With no special memories
of the ocean, perhaps it was little more than a pretty sight in her eyes.
And so, we passed the
time making small talk as we worked on our elephant.
“You don’t really care
about names, huh?” I asked, since I’d always found it kind of surprising.
“Well, I call you Adachi,
and you’ve always called me Shimamura.”
Sometimes, we jokingly
called each other by first name, but it never lasted long. This would suggest that
she wasn’t particular about terms of address, which was odd to me, considering
how much she loved to be special in every other regard. Did she truly have no
interest in pet names? Her name was Sakura, so…Socks?
“…Hm.”
Given my
naming sense, perhaps the reason was clear.
She shot a glance at me
to gauge my reaction. Voice, I repeated silently, my
lips tracing a crescent through the air.
“When you call my name,
it sounds…totally different from anyone else, so…”
She looked at me for
confirmation, but how would I know? “Okay,” I shrugged,
feeling my cheeks flush. If there was a special spice in the way I called her name, I couldn’t
tell. From
my perspective, I was just…saying it. But as embarrassing as it
was, perhaps I could find the answer through trial and error.
“Adachi.” Her
shoulders flinched. “Aaadachi,” I repeated, with
the emphasis on the first syllable. Then I tried a third time
in a singsong voice: “Adaaachiii!”
How about that, huh? I thought, having sated
the bizarre urge to be a contrarian. Meanwhile, Adachi closed
her eyes for a moment, listening carefully. Then her lips stirred.
Granted, I rarely had the
chance to hear other people call her name, so perhaps I simply wouldn’t know
the difference. But she seemed happy about it, so clearly there was one, and I’d just
have to take her word for it.
Once the elephant was
finished, we moved on to the game Adachi had suggested. Incidentally, we’d
decided our elephant was a baby. I was in charge of
designing the eyes, and…well, not to brag, but they turned out very round and
cute. Those
button eyes now watched us compete.
The game worked like
this: We piled the sand up to form a big mountain and put a stick at the top. Then we each took turns
removing a handful of sand at a time, trying to avoid making the whole thing
collapse. Unfortunately,
I did not succeed, partly because I kept taking too much sand, but also because
my opponent was naturally gifted at things that required a careful hand. Though she tended to
fumble whenever I was around, Adachi Sakura was, on the whole, more competent
than I was.
“Hey, um…you didn’t,
like…lose on purpose or something, did you? Ha ha…heh…”
“The victor sneered,
rubbing salt in the wound,” I choked, pretending to take a blow.
At first, she flinched in
surprise; then an idea occurred to her, and she withdrew something from her
rucksack. “Here,
have this…token of my apology.” She held out a bottle of
sunscreen, her eyes pointedly averted.
Her forehead ripened like
a persimmon as she continued to avoid eye contact.
“In that case, I think
I’ll have you do the honors.”
I could tell where this
was going, though I wasn’t sure what “this” was. When I turned my back to
her, I heard her take a deep breath, and my bent knees stiffened. Was it really that big of
a deal?
She pressed her palm to my
back—gently, like I was a masterpiece. Then she flinched away,
and it took her more than five seconds to find the courage to return. Even then, her fear was
palpable, almost like she was crossing the line into wrongdoing…and it made the
mood between us so tense that I didn’t dare speak until at last it was over.
“Thanks,” I said,
breaking the awkward silence. Having crested the peak
of embarrassment, Adachi’s flushed complexion turned so beautifully porcelain,
I hoped it wouldn’t be ruined with a tan… “Okay, my turn.”
Squirting sunscreen into
my palm, I reached out in her direction—but she scrambled backward, out from
under the shade of the umbrella. “I…I’m good,” she
stammered, shaking her head like a maraca—not merely back and forth, but all
over the place. Maybe it was a hint about how she was feeling…or maybe not.
Having gained nothing but
a sticky hand, I had no choice but to rub the excess lotion onto my arms in a
thick layer. It was
kind of a letdown.
The ebb and flow of the
ocean made it seem almost alive, the way it was there one moment and gone the
next. I
stomped down on the waves like I was trying to pin them in place, goofing off
like a little kid.
“Mmm…I’ll steal it from
you later.”
For now, I wanted to use
my own two feet. I waded out up to my hips; when I swayed from side to side, I could
feel the motion of the ocean against my skin. Carried by the wind, the
conspicuous scent of seawater rose up to greet me.
“So, how do you like your
first taste of the ocean?”
“Um…it’s hot on top and
cool below.”
Adachi lay sprawled out
on her floatie, arms and legs splayed. Playfully, I gave the
sole of her foot a poke—just a quick touch to show my affection. Or so I thought.
Reflexively, she kicked
her foot up, splashing saltwater directly into my face and up my nose. The pain scraped against
my nasal cavities as though I’d been punched by a tiny fist. If someone did this to me
every morning, I’d never need an alarm clock again.
“Yeah.
Life is salty
sometimes.”
Powerful stuff, this
seawater. If
we got into a splash fight, I’d have to take care not to hurt her. That said, I’d completely
brought it on myself, so I accepted my punishment with humility. It had probably washed
off all my makeup, too, but I decided I didn’t care anymore. Instead, I pulled my
goggles down over my eyes and dived underwater.
It was obvious in
hindsight, but here in the shallows, the only thing under the water was more
sand. There
were no glittering fish or coral reefs to be seen; the only thing of note was
Adachi and her swimming ring.
Gliding slowly through
the water, I positioned myself directly beneath her. As the oxygen bubbled away
from my lips, I found my gaze drawn from the scenery to her back. Clearly, I hadn’t learned
my lesson, because once again, my mischievous streak reared its head. Reaching up, I extended
my index finger…and poked her through the underside of the ring.
Adachi leaped straight
up, floatie and all, and her flailing arm inadvertently smacked me over the
head. But
seeing as the villain of this story had been quickly given her just deserts, it
was clear to me that all was right with the world. As I reflected on this, I
rose to the surface and took my goggles off. After that blow, my brain
was sloshing around inside my skull.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered,
combing my soaked bangs out of my face.
Adachi stared back at me,
a blush on her cheeks.
“You, um…you look good
with your…b-bangs slicked back.”
Inexplicably, I got the
Adachi stamp of approval.
After that, I borrowed
the floatie for a bit. Once I’d had my fill of the waves rocking me back and forth, we headed
back to the beach umbrella. There, we found that
someone had placed a hibiscus flower on our elephant’s head. It felt like its
expression was cuter now, too. The longer I looked at
it, the more the weight of my soaked swimsuit seemed to evaporate until I was
feather-light.
“It matches yours,
Adachi,” I laughed, pointing at the flower blooming in her hair.
She stared down intently
at the elephant and its corsage; squinting, she crouched down to examine it
further. “Yeah,”
she replied after a long moment. Perhaps she saw something
in it that I didn’t.
“Can I take a pic?” I asked, retrieving my
phone from my bag and aiming it at her.
She tentatively held up a
peace sign, then switched to a beckoning gesture. “Let’s take it together.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I crouched down on the
opposite side and snapped a pic of the three of us. It felt important to
immortalize our elephant, not just in my memory but in my camera roll, too. “Okay, what next?”
I spread my arms upward,
where the sun and sky were still so bright. Adachi was looking at the
seawater dripping from my bicep…and for some reason, she was blushing. Then she snapped back to
her senses, sprang to her rucksack like a startled rabbit, and retrieved
something.
“Um…ta-daaa.” Timidly, she held up a beach ball—but in place of your bog-standard
watermelon-patterned ball, she had chosen a muskmelon. Classy. “We should play…uhhh…”
“Ooh, we can play the sea
lion game!”
Bring it on! Retracing my memories, I
knelt on the sand and struck a sea lion pose. If I remembered correctly,
this was the way my mother used to pose while I threw the ball to her. One of us must have
gotten the idea from a manga or something.
Adachi blinked back at
me, gripping the ball. How much of that had gone over her head—the game part, or the sea lion
part? Musing
to myself, I thrust my nose into the air. Striking this weird pose
by myself under the blazing sun was torture in more ways than one, so I
continued to stare at her, begging for some kind of reaction. Then, at last, she came
back to life, her shoulders quivering.
“Ha…ha…” Stumbling over
her laughter, she fought to catch her breath. Then she leaped,
gracefully, into the air. “Ha ha!”
I watched as she flung the
ball with a bright, flawless grin—the kind she’d normally never wear. In response, I prepared
to catch it, dreaming of the moment we’d both be sea lions together.
After tuckering myself
out in the first half and following it with a short nap, the rest of our time
flew by surprisingly fast, considering we spent it just lounging around
together. This
disconnect only happened when I failed to notice that I’d twisted the faucet of
good times from a trickle to a torrent—when I was having too much fun to think
about it.
As the sun began to sink
in the sky, the crowds dwindled until eventually the beach breeze could stroke
my hair without having to take any detours. Sadly, our elephant’s legs
were already starting to collapse. Sunset was our cue to pack
up.
We sat under the umbrella
with our knees bent, gazing out at the scarlet waves calmly lapping at the
sand. When
I looked up, I found the setting sun was now dim enough that my eyes could
tolerate it, casting its rays like a lighthouse to illuminate the sea. The outline of the
distant mountains had blurred, as if they were retreating into the distance. Yes, there were so many
aspects of this moment that I wanted to remember forever.
“Yeah,” Adachi replied, a
hint of sadness in her voice, as she leaned against me like a needy baby. She was relaxed to the
point of nodding off, as if to suggest that this private moment between us, in
a place farther than we usually traveled, was her ideal cradle.
“We’ll go on another date
sometime. We
still have the whole summer, y’know.”
“Th-then…can we go on
another date tomorrow?”
Evidently, my dear
Adachi-chan had no such worries. She was so capable. Truly the light of my life. And it was adorable how
she kept poking my shoulder.
“Okay, sure. Wanna go to the mall tomorrow?” When in doubt, go to the
mall—the motto of every teenage city girl.
The hibiscus flower still
adorned her hair, bowing in the sunset breeze. What did her misty eyes
see out there on the waves?
Happiness was invisible
to the naked eye, but if I were to choose the next best thing, I suspected it
would be drowsiness—the conscious mind just barely tethered to the waking
world. Perhaps
Adachi was experiencing something similar this very moment. After all, the happiness
she dreamed of wasn’t in her dreams at all, but real and right here, fully
formed. With
just the two of us, our world was complete at the smallest possible size…but
how long would it last?
There was no substitute
for mutual feelings—a single obstacle, yes, but one with a single solution. Adachi had overcome so
much in pursuit of one person that she was probably content with the way things
stood now. But
from here on, her happiness would continue to grow…and accordingly, I was
prepared to follow her to new heights.
The world was full of
awful things. Deception. Hypocrisy. Murder, betrayal, poison,
perjury. But
I prayed for our future—prayed that our life together would remain unsullied
among all humanity.
That tranquil sparkle had
inspired me, and so I decided to admire it for just a little longer.
