by Eto Mori
When I looked, I saw the conductor was Shoko Sano.
Flustered, I got to my feet. I turned my head toward the window and discovered Makoto’s mother dancing with the flamenco teacher outside.
What is this place? What the heck happened here?!
I grew increasingly confused. I’d figured out that it was a dream at least, but I couldn’t find my way to the real world, no matter how I searched for a doorway. There was no exit that would let me escape from this nasty place.
It was then that I heard someone singing. A man’s voice, low and whispered. The song was a sad one, from the north country. Who was it? Who was singing this song in perfect time with the flamenco dancing? Who . . .
I opened my eyes and found the face of the father, intoxicated by his own singing voice.
As I woke up to the reality of the Kobayashi house, I realized I was in bed in Makoto’s room with the lights off. The father was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at me. When he met my eyes, he jerked his head back and quickly exited the room, embarrassed to be caught.
The father singing by the bedside of his ailing son?
For an instant, I felt like I was still inside that surreal dream, but then he came back in with medication in one hand. Apparently, this wasn’t part of the dream. I wanted to ask him why he’d been singing, but my throat was so sore I couldn’t speak.
It wasn’t just my throat. As my mind cleared, my whole body started to creak in pain. Plus, I was freezing cold on top of that.
I found out later that the police car Mitsuru had called took me to the emergency room one train station over, where they treated my injuries and did a complete examination on my bleeding head before the parents came to take me home. After that, I’d stayed in a heavy sleep that lasted nearly twenty hours, eventually waking up to the father’s song. I still had a high fever, and I felt so nauseated that I basically threw up the cold medicine he gave me as soon as it slid down my throat.
Tortured by the never-ending pain in my head and the chills that racked my body, I was stuck in bed for the following five days. My fever simply wouldn’t go down. By day two, my stomach still wouldn’t accept the cold medicine, and as a bonus, the cuts all over my body began to fester and ooze painfully. My beaten face also swelled up like a swarm of wasps had stopped by for a visit.
Even so, on the third day, I was finally able to keep the medicine down, and perhaps because of that, my cold got a little better. I was also able to eat some of the rice porridge the mother made me, albeit with an angry resistance in my heart. I hated the fact that when push came to shove, I had no choice but to let this woman take care of me. I refused to meet her eyes while she replaced the cold cloth on my forehead with the utmost care, as though she were atoning for her sins.
It was on this third day that I was first made aware of how reckless my plan to sleep in the playground had actually been. That area had never been especially safe. There were constant reports of groups of teenagers stealing wallets and beating people up.
“Even you had to have known that much at least,” Mitsuru said, yanking me up by my collar when we passed on the stairs at night. “And since you knew that, I’m guessing you went all the way over there to get beaten up. You wanna die that bad? Then go ahead and die already. This house’d be much happier if you were gone. Just don’t fuck it up next time.”
I didn’t think there was any need for him to lecture me, but since he was the one who had saved me, I couldn’t really say anything back.
When I didn’t come home that night, the mother got worried and asked Mitsuru to help her look for me. He went around all the neighborhoods to see if he could catch sight of me. If he hadn’t found me, I might have ended up even worse off.
My fever had dropped a lot by the fourth day, and I was able to eat regular food again, albeit just a little. The swelling in my face was also mostly gone, and disturbingly ugly blue bruises rose up in its place.
As if they’d been waiting for me to recover, two police officers came to take my report the morning of that fourth day. The mother had submitted a damage report the night of the attack. I told them what I could remember of the beating I’d taken, and the police officers wrote every detail down. I barely had any memory of who did it, though, so nothing I said was likely to be very useful in their investigation.
“In junior high with twenty-eight-thousand-yen sneakers, huh?”
“I don’t get it, man.”
The officers left, scratching their heads in earnest.
I knew that the sneakers were worth that much exactly because adults like them didn’t get it. But thinking back, even I couldn’t understand why I had been so fixated on those sneakers that night.
I’d recovered more or less by the fifth day, so that standing up and moving around was a whole lot easier. Now moving was a delicious luxury and lying in bed was torture. I was fed up with the life of a sick person by this point. It was on the evening of this day that I had my first visitor.
“Makoto, your friend’s come to see you,” I heard the mother say from the other side of the door.
And then there was another voice: “Hello!”
The door opened with a clack. When Shoko Sano’s face appeared from behind it, my whole being shuddered with horror.
My sworn enemy, 100 percent on the no-way index. On top of that, I was in a pair of shabby pajamas, my hair wasn’t moussed up, and I hadn’t taken a bath in who knew how long, so I probably stank. Besides, I didn’t have the energy to go at it with Shoko. I was at an extreme disadvantage.
“Haven’t see you in a while. Are you feeling okay?” She came at me with a grin, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile back at her, no big deal.
“Obviously not. That’s why I’m stuck in bed.” I leaned back against the headboard and welcomed Shoko with my bad mood on full display. “If you’re gonna come over, at least call and say you’re coming first.”
“Ah!” Shoko’s eyes grew wide. “Right. The phone.”
“We are civilized people, after all.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
This meek acceptance wasn’t like the Shoko I knew.
She shuffled from foot to foot in the doorway, still wearing her navy duffel coat over her sailor-style school uniform, and with a sigh, I pointed at the desk chair.
“So sit, then.”
I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth.
“Okay.” She set herself down in the chair, looking relieved, and was immediately her usual chattering self again. Meaning she started to talk at me with the intensity of a short-lived cicada. “I heard from Mr. Sawada. He said some guys attacked you in the park? Those bruises are wild! Do they hurt? It looks like they hurt. They have to hurt. That has to be awfully painful!”
“Mm.”
“And they stole your wallet, too, right? It was probably some kids from Nishi High. There’s been a lot of that lately. Did you report it to the police?”
“Mm.”
“You gotta report it. So, like, my dad? He lost his wallet once. It had fifty thousand yen in it, too! But he reported it to the police, and guess what, they actually found it! Three weeks later. Pretty amazing, right?”
“Mm.”
“So don’t give up. You never know what’ll happen. You just gotta report it and keep on hoping—”
“What about the fifty thousand yen?” I interjected.
“Oh. It was gone.”
I just stared at her.
She stared back at me.
“Maybe you should leave now?” I urged.
“No way.” She squirmed and fidgeted in her seat. “I haven’t said what I came to say yet.”
“What you came to say?”
She hung her head, at an uncharacteristic loss for words.
Awkward silence. Hot air pumping out of the heater above our heads. Finally, Shoko sat up, and I had a fleeting moment of relief that maybe she was going to leave, after all. But then she rearranged the pleats of her skirt and sat b
ack down.
“A friend of mine says she saw you near the station the night you were attacked.”
“Where?”
“The Mrs. Doughnuts on the main street. She said you were with Kuwabara from eighth grade.”
My heart pounded faster for a second, but then I realized I didn’t actually care. I held my head higher. “So?”
“What?”
“So what if I was?”
“My friend?” Shoko shifted her eyes away from me. “She said Kuwabara’s wicked wild, so you better watch out. She said Kuwabara got all these boys at our school to spend a whole bunch of money on her, and then she just dumped them when they had no money left.”
“So what if she did?!” I shouted.
“But!” Shoko cried at the same time. “But I do like Kuwabara a lot. I’m not going to stop liking her even if all that stuff is true. That’s not what I came here to talk to you about.”
I leaned over and pressed my forehead against the duvet. I just couldn’t anymore. The more I learned about Hiroka, the less I understood her. I couldn’t say for sure that I still liked her.
“So, then,” I said to Shoko, almost pleading that she’d give me an answer. “You said you like her? What do you like about her?”
“She comes to art club all the time, right?” she said, her voice quiet. “When she does, the whole room gets so much brighter all of a sudden. Pop!”
“That’s it? That’s why?”
“I think she has good taste, too. She wanders around the room, and she only ever stops to look at the good paintings. Like how a butterfly flits from one beautiful flower to the next, she only pauses in front of the pretty canvases. And she always stops the longest at yours.” Her voice had a honeyish quality to it now, nothing like the way she usually spoke to me. “Kobayashi.”
“What?”
“Do you like Kuwabara?” she asked.
“So what if I do?” I replied.
Her mouth tightened the slightest bit. “I’ve been thinking a lot. Just thinking, you know? And in the end, I thought maybe it’s actually not so complicated, maybe it’s actually super simple.”
“What is?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Why you’ve changed, Kobayashi. They say people change when they fall in love, right? So maybe that’s what happened to you. Your love for Kuwabara changed you. If that’s what happened, I give up. I decided I would totally give up, even if you never went back to being the old Kobayashi. I came over today to make sure one last time.”
The evening sun coming in through the window made her hair shine a deep scarlet.
I was beyond annoyance now. I felt bad for Shoko. She spoke so seriously about this totally wrong idea she had, as if she were possessed by this “old Kobayashi” ghost that only she could see.
I slowly pulled myself back up and sat on the edge of the bed. “Since we’re talking about it, I’ll ask. How exactly have I changed? What kind of guy was this Makoto Kobayashi you keeping talking about?”
“The Makoto Kobayashi I know always gazed into the depths.” Shoko smiled, dreamily. “While all the other boys yell and play like children, Kobayashi’s off to one side, quietly focused on the deepest parts of the world. Even in the middle of the noisy classroom or out on the dusty playing field, his eyes alone pick up all those things that no one else notices. You can tell the second you look at his canvases. Don’t you remember him? That’s the kind of boy Makoto Kobayashi was. A boy who was pure and clear, kilometers away from all the other nasty, childish, rude boys. He took in the sadness of this world and suffered under the weight of it.”
Her gaze was fully turned toward the fourth dimension. I could practically see the flowers popping into bloom behind me, almost hear the trilling song of the canaries somewhere.
“Very poetic,” I groaned. “But it’s a total fantasy.” Anger rose up in me, itching at my insides.
“What?” she snapped. “Are you trying to mess with me now?”
“You’re the one trying to mess with me. The sort of teenage boy you’re talking about doesn’t exist.”
“Meaning . . .?”
“Just what I said,” I said. “Sorry to break it to you, but Makoto Kobayashi’s always been a regular guy. Not pure, not transparent, just an average teenager. He doesn’t live in some fantasy land, either. He lives right here, in the same messed-up world as the rest of you. And yet everyone just jumps to all these conclusions about him, including you. You idolized him, others made him out to be a loser weirdo. It’s to the point where the guy can barely make a move at all. That’s it. End of story. He’s just a regular guy who’s a little shy. He worries about the dumbest stuff. He goes and falls in love with the first girl who’s a little bit nice to him. He’s a regular, stupid guy.”
“He’s not!” She was angry now, too. “Kobayashi, you’re just embarrassed. That’s why you’re talking like this, trying to make out like it’s got nothing to do with you!”
“Okay. Take a look, then!” I pulled incontrovertible evidence out from underneath the bed.
“What’re those?” She leaned forward a bit.
“Secret boots. I ordered them,” I told her. “I bought them so I could maybe look just a teeny bit taller. I was desperate. That’s how pathetic a jerk Makoto Kobayashi is. A totally average fourteen-year-old who obsessively worries about something as stupid as his height. And if that still isn’t enough to convince you, then go ahead and open the bottom drawer there.”
Shoko gingerly pulled the drawer open and leaped back with a scream. “What is this?!”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s porn. The must-have guidebooks for any boy this age. Makoto’s got the same desires as anyone else. When night falls, he does what he does. And, you know . . .” A glint in my eyes, I sidled up to her. “He gets certain ideas when he’s all alone with a girl like this. He also gets pretty horny.”
The tanned skin of her throat tensed as she gulped hard. “No way! Kobayashi would never think about that kind of stuff!” she yelled, looking like she would burst out crying at any moment. “You’re just being mean on purpose now. You’re only saying that stuff to scare me.”
“Oh yeah. Wanna try me?” The tears welling up in her eyes. I put a hand on her slender shoulder. “So? How about you try me, then?”
“Stop it, Kobayashi!” she yelled. “Wake up!”
“Oh, I’m awake. My eyes are wide open.”
“Your cold’ll get worse.”
“It’ll get better if I give it to you.”
Her cherry lips were a size smaller than Hiroka’s. I hadn’t intended to push this far, but before I could stop myself I started to move in closer to press my own lips to hers.
“Aaaah!” She frantically leaped backward out of the chair.
That scream brought me back to myself.
“What’s wrong?” The mother poked her head through the door then, at the worst possible moment, and Shoko fled. She raced out of the room at full speed, and in the blink of an eye, she was nothing more than footfalls disappearing down the stairs.
Suddenly, the room got quiet, and it was just me, the mother, and the tray of tea in her hands. I looked around vacantly until finally my eyes stopped on the mother.
“Cockroach. She flipped out,” I said, a poor excuse given that it was very much not cockroach season, and sank down into my bed.
If only the ocean were under this bed, I wished naïvely. If only I could keep sinking down like this, down and down and down forever.
“Idiot.” Prapura popped into existence after the mother finally left, and whapped me on the head. “What’s the point in ruining a girl’s dreams like that?”
And what could I say to that, in the end?
“Can you maybe give me a hint at least?” I asked, dejected. “Was this mistake I committed in my previous life some kind of love affair deal, like rape or a murder of passion or something?”
“Ennnh.” Prapura made a large X with his arms and vanished.
M
y interrogation with regards to the case of Shoko Sano:
Should I have not crushed her dreams?
I don’t know.
Should I have pretended to be her rose-colored-glasses version of Makoto Kobayashi?
I can’t do that.
But why is she so insistent on wearing those glasses when it comes to Makoto?
Love is blind.
Love? Is Shoko in love with Makoto? Shoko Sano, a girl Makoto hadn’t even noticed? No, even if that were the case, the Makoto Kobayashi who Shoko was in love with was ultimately an ideal of her own creation. It was an egotistical, fictional love that totally ignored the real Makoto Kobayashi. One way or another, she would have had to learn that such a beautiful and pure fourteen-year-old did not actually exist on this planet.
Broken-down, miserable, kind of a mess maybe, but still we’re all doing our best out here.
As I brooded over this in the gloomy room after Shoko’s departure, there was someone else under the same roof doing her own fretting and agonizing. And while I quickly got tired of thinking and fell asleep, this other person decided to sit down and put all those thoughts to paper in a letter after some very careful consideration and deep thought. Letter paper was readied and a ball pen sent racing across those pages.
It started like this: “After thinking long and hard, I decided to tell you how I feel in the form of a letter. I know you’d just plug your ears if I tried to sit down and talk to you in person.”
And the reason I knew the detailed contents of this letter was because it was addressed to me.
That night, the mother brought supper up a little late and handed me an envelope, looking serious, with the caveat, “Maybe you shouldn’t read this. Maybe a mother shouldn’t tell her son such things. But I can’t fail any harder than I already have. You decide whether or not to read it, Makoto. If you don’t want to read it, throw it out, burn it; do what you want with it.”
“Can I put it in a bottle and send it out to sea?” I snarked.
“Whatever you want.”
I was ready with another sarcastic comment, but it died in my throat when I looked into her eyes. Rather than wavering timidly like it usually did, her gaze was determined, filled with an unwavering resolution.