I Had That Same Dream Again

by Yoru Sumino

  Was this a story? Before I could ask, she continued.

  “It’s important to think that you’re special. However, this girl is mistaken in her thinking. She thinks that everyone else around her is stupid. Although this isn’t true at all, because this girl’s cleverness is what makes her special, she thinks that being clever is the only path to becoming special. She thinks that as long as you have that, you can become someone important.”

  She gave a little cough.

  “This girl is an important child, but someone who belittles others will never be liked by anyone. She becomes more and more hated by the people around her. The worst part is, this girl thinks that that’s just fine, because she hates all the idiot children around her. Well…now that I think about it, she doesn’t really hate them. It’s just that she can’t seem to think about any of them.”

  She gripped my hands.

  “There are probably people who try to understand this girl, but this girl grows older and older, not giving a thought to anyone. She’s locked up in her own little world, devoting her time to growing smarter. She believes that as long as she does that, one day she’ll be happy. But she’s wrong.”

  I gripped her hands back.

  “By the time she’s an adult, this girl is very smart. But that’s all that she has. One day, she realizes that there’s nothing else around her. She should have become an important person, but she realizes that there’s no one around to praise her.”

  This sounds just like…

  I suddenly became very worried for this girl. “What happens to her?”

  “I can tell you the rest of the story from here, but I’m not sure that you would understand. Even if you did, I can’t tell you what it means. I don’t want to. Do you still want to hear it?”

  I nodded, my face still buried in my knees.

  “Okay, well, this girl begins to think that her life has no meaning. Then she starts to think that nothing matters, and begins abusing her body, and mistreating her own heart. She goes to dangerous places, gets into dangerous things, and suffers dangers to herself. Still, she’s not unhappy about this. It feels good to destroy herself. Although her life is something that she built for herself, she hates it. She ruins and ruins and ruins, but she still needs money, so she neglects her own well-being in order to earn it. Before she knows it, she finds herself dwelling in that place. Of course, even down there, there are proud and wonderful people. The circumstances and the job itself aren’t at fault. That girl is the bad one here. And surely enough, more and more ruin is visited upon this prideless girl every day. But humans can get used to anything. Once she grows used to it, she realizes one more thing: there is no point in destroying herself, either. And so she thinks that she may as well put an end to this life.”

  I was quiet.

  Just as she said, I did not understand the meaning of her story. I could imagine, but only vaguely, and I had no idea what she meant by “dangerous things” or “mistreating her heart.” There was only one thing that I was certain of. “That girl is you, isn’t she?”

  Skank-san was silent.

  “What does ‘putting an end to a life’ mean?” I asked, worried about this girl’s future.

  “Who knows?” Skank-san said. “In the end, she doesn’t end her life, so I don’t know what that would have meant. On the day when she thinks of ending it, a visitor suddenly shows up at her home. It’s a little girl, carrying a little friend with her.”

  I finally lifted my head and looked at her. I gave her a clear look at my face, messy with snot and tears. I don’t know why I did that. I guess I just wanted to look at her face. She was smiling at me kindly, as she always did.

  “From there on out, her days are so much fun. She didn’t have any friends before that, but she realizes how much better things could have been if only she had learned to love someone sooner. But you can never take back the past.”

  You can’t get back time. I remembered Minami-san saying that.

  “I’m excited to see what kind of person you grow into, but I’m worried about you. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because you’re just like that little girl. You can’t let yourself walk the same path. You have to find happiness. That’s why you can’t talk about disconnecting from everyone.”

  As I thought about what she was saying, I squeezed her hand again.

  I was so confused. I felt as though I was trapped in the middle of a labyrinth.

  Because I was clever, I understood what she meant. But understanding what she meant and being able to follow through were two wholly different things. I had already decided that I wished to have nothing more to do with the people who had hurt me, after all. Plus, even if I could change my thinking, I still didn’t think that anyone besides Skank-san and Granny would want to be near me. Even Ogiwara-kun and Kiriyuu-kun hated me. There was no hope.

  I suddenly wanted to hear more about this girl, who was so much like me. “That girl liked books, right?”

  “Mm, yes, just like you. She loved books, and she was always reading. She once thought that she might become someone who wrote stories herself, but when she realized there was no one around her to read them, she forgot that dream.”

  “What about her mother and father?”

  “I’m sure that they’re still living happily together somewhere. She hasn’t seen them in a long time. Once, she thought that she’d go back home, and went all the way to her old house, but she couldn’t ring the doorbell. She was too afraid.”

  “She didn’t have any friends to talk about books with, or friends to eat ice cream with, or friends with short tails?”

  “Nope, none. And so, there was no one to tell her when she was wrong.”

  “Did she have any favorite phrases, like me?”

  She answered my flood of insolent questions directly, one after the other. This made me happy, and so I piled on more questions.

  “Phrases?”

  She stared out the window, as if digging for some day back in her memory. My eyes were trained on her face. She put her fingers to her chin and thought about it.

  “Phrases, yeah, there was something she was always saying. So much so that I wonder why I forgot about it. Her catchphrase was…wait…hm?”

  She eyes turned from the window back to me, her eyelids fluttering. Then, she stopped blinking and her eyes opened so wide I thought they might just go flying off.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My…catchphrase when I was little. It was: ‘Life is like…’”

  Perhaps because she was so shocked, she had forgotten to refer to herself as “this girl,” which seemed to be the whole conceit of the game. I was shocked, too.

  “That’s the same as me!”

  “When I was a child,” she said, her lips trembling. “I loved the comic ‘Peanuts.’ I read the Japanese translation all the time, and there was something that the main character, Charlie Brown, said. ‘Life is like an ice cream cone…’”

  “You have to learn to lick it…”

  “That’s right! Did you read them?”

  I shook my head fervently. “I love that quote, too! It’s a really clever joke.”

  “This must be kismet…”

  Kismet, she had said. Not “fate,” or “destiny,” which I thought was wonderful of her. I knew the kanji for kismet: en. The fact that it so closely resembled the kanji for midori, green, reminded me of the mysteriousness of life. The living things that died and became the earth, and the green grasses that grew from them, upon which other living things would graze. In which case, the fact that she and I had met truly was kismet.

  I put my hands together in thanks for such a word.

  Although I didn’t say anything, she seemed to share my feelings. She grinned, wrapping her hands around mine. “You see? You can’t abandon your connections to everyone. When you open your heart, you open yourself to wonderful encounters, just like this.”

  Perhaps that’s true, I thought.


  “It might be too late,” she went on. “But if such things can happen, then maybe I can try again, just one more time.”

  Apparently, she had completely given up on talking about “that girl.”

  “You have so many wonderful encounters waiting on you, little miss,” she said. “So many more than me. As long as you don’t give up on other people, then I’m sure you’ll lead a happy life.”

  “Really…?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  If she said it was true, then it must be. I loved Skank-san, and I believed in her. Hitomi-sensei had taught me that sometimes adults spoke the truth. If the day ever comes that I can escape this darkness inside me, I thought, and come to like someone, perhaps even my classmates, then there might just be a happy life out there.

  And yet…

  “But…there’s no one who I can get along with anymore.”

  “That’s not true. What about that classmate of yours, the one who likes books?”

  I thought of Ogiwara-kun’s face, but as I did, the blackness seemed to creep back into my heart. “He ignored me.”

  “I see. I was wondering if he was the one who said that he hated you.”

  “He wasn’t. It was the other boy I was talking about before, the one who won’t come to school. I went to his house. I wanted to tell him that I was his ally, but he was way more spineless than I thought. When I told him that, he said that he hated me the most, even more than those creeps at school.”

  “Well…that was your fault.”

  Hearing these words, I completely forgot what I had been about to say. How? How was I in the wrong? I was trying to help him, I thought, but I could not voice the words. I don’t know whether Skank-san understood this, but she stroked my hair.

  “And it was my fault, too. I was wrong about the hint I gave you. You’re clever, but you’re just like me. You aren’t so clever when it comes to connecting with people.”

  She gave an eerie giggle, but I couldn’t be unhappy to hear that I was the same as her.

  In that case, maybe Skank-san can teach a blockhead like me a thing or two, I thought.

  “Say, little miss,” she asked. “Are there any foods that you hate in your school lunch?”

  I had no idea why she would ask me such a question at a time like this, but I would never ignore her questions.

  “I hate natto. It smells weird.”

  “Yeah, I hated it too.”

  “But you can’t leave any food on your plate.”

  “That’s right. It’s good for your health, so you better eat that natto up. So then, how would you feel if, just as you were working up the courage to eat that natto, your teacher came and shouted at you, ‘You eat that natto right now!’?”

  “My teacher would never do that, but I wouldn’t like it. I’d probably get mad, and then I really wouldn’t want to eat that natto.”

  She gave a big nod.

  “Well, you did the exact same thing to that boy who didn’t want to come to school, didn’t you?”

  I had never experienced it, nor had I ever heard anyone even talk about it, but I felt as though I had just been struck by lightning. In fact, I was sure of it. It was a harsher blow than when I had struck my head against a wall, and prickled more than my limbs after sitting seiza for far too long on my Shichi-Go-San Day. The darkness began to inch out of my heart with a crackling sound.

  “Oh, I see.” I realized that I had stepped out of line. “He probably was trying to fight.”

  “Yes, probably. Maybe he really is spineless, but in that case, you shouldn’t get mad at him. That boy had something to tell you. He wasn’t ignoring you.”

  Skank-san really was far sharper than me. Again, I had not even considered this fact. I already had the idea that Kiriyuu-kun was spineless, that he was a coward, incapable of fighting. And yet, maybe he had been trying to fight, in his own small way.

  “Besides, there are other ways to fight. Maybe his way was just to bear it and keep on drawing, so that he could show all those other people someday.”

  Of course. No matter how much people made fun of him, no matter how much he hid it, he never once seemed to think of giving up drawing.

  “His way of fighting might be different from yours, but deep down, the two of you are the same. I am, too. There are things that bother you, that make you sad. You hate those things, and you hope to have allies on your side. I’m sure he regrets saying that he hated you. You’re smarter than the other children, but they think a lot about things, too.”

  It was the same hint that she had given me before. Everyone is different, but we’re all the same.

  “So, what should we do?”

  “Think about what you wish someone would do when you’re feeling down. If you think about that and think about this boy, just a little bit, then I’m sure you’ll come up with something perfect. When you’re feeling blue, do you want someone to yell at you about it?”

  “No. I want them to sit next to me and talk to me. Then I want to eat sweets with them and play games.”

  “If that’s what you think, then that’s what you should do.”

  I tried to nod, but there was one thing that still weighed on my mind. “But what if he really does hate me?”

  Skank-san stroked my hair.

  “I don’t think he does, but on the off chance that is true, I’ll be here to comfort you. And then we’ll think again about what to do.”

  “…”

  “You’ll be fine, little miss. You’re brave, aren’t you?” she said, patting me on the back. That single blow felt very much like someone kicking a motorcycle engine to make it start. I could feel the power from her palm igniting the engine of my body.

  “That’s true. I’ll try it then. I said so anyway.”

  “Said what?”

  “I told Kiriyuu-kun, if you don’t start moving, nothing can begin. So I’ll do it. Say, Skank-san, I—”

  It was not a hand clapped over my mouth, nor the taste of being made to drink something bitter, that suddenly robbed me of my speech.

  “Skank-san?”

  It was because I saw her face, which had utterly shifted from her usual smile. In that moment, though we were still inside, I swore I could feel a cold wind blowing through.

  Her expression was one of shock, far sharper now than before. It was as if she had completely forgotten there was someone she happened to share a catchphrase with. Like she had seen an alien and a sorcerer and a creature from the center of the earth all at once. As if she had been struck by lightning. That was the sort of face she was making. I had seen this face somewhere before.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She stared at me as though I had just transformed into a monster.

  “Kiriyuu…kun…?”

  The word seemed to be dragged out from deep inside her.

  “Yeah, that’s him. Kiriyuu-kun, the one who draws.”

  As she took it in, I wondered if my words had somehow grown into a great bouquet of flowers. Her face looked just like ladies on TV, when someone proposed to them.

  “What is it?” I asked again, but she did not answer my question.

  “Are you…Nanoka?”

  “Yes,” I said with a nod. Of course I was.

  Suddenly, her eyes welled with tears and her face seemed unable to bear the shock. Adults never cry just to surprise children. And yet, I was surprised. I hadn’t the faintest clue of why she would be crying.

  “I see…”

  Nor could I grasp the meaning of her words, as though she had just come to terms with something. And so I could not understand what she did next. She did not squeeze my hands, or stroke my hair. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me tightly, a single tear falling from her eyes.

  I was happy to be embraced by someone I loved, but I was taken aback. I had felt the same manner of shock once before, just recently, up on that rooftop.

  Skank-san started to cry like a child.

  “What’s wrong? Hey, Skank-sa
n, what’s wrong?”

  Although I asked, she did not answer. She merely whispered into my ear, again and again, “So that’s what’s going on,” “How, how?” “I can’t believe it,” and other things like that. And then, she said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  What on earth was she apologizing for?

  The kind, brilliant, wonderful Skank-san, who taught me so many things, who gave me hints, and dessert, and always brought me joy… I could not think of a single thing she needed to apologize for.

  And yet, she kept on crying, kept on apologizing. Little by little, she gave me the reasons for this apology. And yet, I still did not understand.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for saying I wasn’t happy,” she said, but I was speechless. “I’m sorry for becoming this way. I’m sorry for letting people call me those names.”

  And finally, she said, “I’m so sorry…Nanoka.”

  She squeezed me tightly as she said my name. Even as I let out a grunt from the mild discomfort of her embrace, she did not let me go. Just then, I realized something curious, and remembered something even more unusual.

  I remembered it because I was so sharp. Twice now she had said my name. Minami-san had said it on that last day, too. And yet I realized that, for some reason, I had forgotten to ever tell either one of them my name.

  So then, how was it that they both knew it, and why had I never told her before now? These two mysteries cycloned through my brain.

  Perhaps I could ask Skank-san about this mystery. She was clever, after all. As she wept, I spoke all of these mysteries into her ear. She pulled away from me and sat up straight. Her face was messy with snot and tears. Everyone looks the same when they’re crying, huh?

  “There’s nothing mysterious about it. I finally understand now. I know why you came here that day. I know why I met you.”

  No, this absolutely was mysterious. She grinned through the tears as I tilted my head, and held up the index finger of her right hand.

  “Listen up, little miss. Life is like a pudding.”

  “Because there’s people who like the bitter parts, too?”

  “No.”

  Her hair waved side-to-side.