by Eto Mori
“Open your eyes. Really look.”
But I don’t know. I can’t find any hints.
There was no furniture on the west wall, just the door that led out and down the stairs. In the end, I was forced to go out that door and start the next day without getting a wink of sleep. I’d never before welcomed so impatiently the widening circle of pale light of the sun rising.
Seventeen hours until time was up.
I dragged myself downstairs, heavy and slow after the inadvertent all-nighter, and was greeted by the delicious scent of miso soup wafting out from the kitchen.
“Oh!” The mother flashed me a bright look. “Good morning!” In contrast with my own haggard face, her cheerful smile was far too fresh. As she stirred the miso soup with one hand, she bent and straightened the index finger of her other hand. One, two, one, two. “Hee hee! I’ve already started my finger puppet training.”
A vital woman indeed. Scratching my head, I headed for the washroom.
Bathroom business. Wash face. Change clothes. Breakfast. Brush teeth. Comb hair. I performed my routine in the usual order with more care than usual. Laser-focused, I made careful note of everything, from the seat of the toilet to the bristles on my toothbrush. And the pale peach soap. Plus the glistening fried egg I had for breakfast. Even the ingredients in the hair mousse I’d finally figured out how to use without drowning my head in the stuff.
And yet I didn’t know. I couldn’t find any hints.
Eventually, I left the house with nothing to show for my efforts and headed toward school. I walked slowly enough that the twenty-minute walk took half an hour. It was the same old town as ever, and no matter how hard I stared, it was still nothing more than the same old town as ever. The morning breeze was brisk and cool, and heavy clouds hung over the sky, which quickly put me in a despairing mood. And again, I arrived at school with nothing to show for my efforts.
Fifteen hours until time up.
First period was gym, and soccer on top of that. I hated soccer. Whenever someone bigger came at me during a scrimmage, my tiny self would instinctively shrink back and try to get out of the way.
“You have to stand your ground, Kobayashi!” Sawada ripped into me once again that day. “Don’t just slink away like some kind of petty thief!”
A bolt of electricity shot through my body, like I’d been hit dead on by a bazooka. In an instant, the ground, the sky, the world shattered, and I saw it so clearly in my mind: me in a ski mask, carrying a sack over my shoulder, skulking across the low rooftops. Yes. Right. I slammed my fist into the ground and shouted, “Past-life me was some kind of petty thief!”
Of course, nothing so fantastical as this actually happened. The soccer game ended with nothing bigger than Sawada yelling at me. Naturally.
It was the same in all my other classes. And why not? There was no reason anything special would happen today of all days. About all I could do was narrow my eyes and take a fresh, painstaking look at every minute and every second of this utterly average day. But no hint of any kind revealed itself to me, and in the blink of an eye, it was time for lunch.
“What’s up with you today?” Saotome asked, a worried look on his face, as I sat lifeless in a seat by the window after we finished eating. “Your eyes are deadly. You tired?”
“Didn’t get enough sleep.” I showed him my bloodshot eyes.
“Whoa! You’re really giving it, huh? Studying all night?” Saotome misinterpreted my all-nighter in a good way. “I gotta get in there, too. We’ll be in real trouble if one of us fails. We gotta both pass.”
I felt an awkward joy and a slight confidence boost at how gently, artlessly he was offering these words to me. To be honest, it kind of made me not want to let go of Makoto’s body. I really do want to go to high school with Saotome, I thought, somberly.
I was also worried about Makoto. Would he be able to keep things up with Saotome if he did manage to make it safely back to this body? Would he cherish the friend I’d gone to the trouble of making? I had every intention of passing the baton with a please and thank-you, but given Makoto’s personality, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous.
“Saotome?” I decided to lay the groundwork anew. “If . . . This is just an if, but if tomorrow, I went back to being the old me, all gloomy and quiet and hard to get a read on, could you maybe not just walk away? Maybe don’t judge me right away, just keep an eye on me for a while?”
“Huh?” He looked perplexed, which was understandable. “What’re you on about? You planning to do that or something?”
“I don’t know yet,” I started to explain, awkwardly. “It’s like I’m still emotionally unstable, you just don’t know what’ll happen and all.”
Saotome hummed thoughtfully as he sat down in front of me, rested his chin on the seat back, and set himself to considering the situation.
The classroom was quiet now that the lunch servers had left, and we were the only ones still in there. In contrast with this stillness, the field outside the window was really lively. A few groups playing soccer, and even more trying their hand at volleyball. Countless balls danced up toward the heavens, below a sky that was gray like watered-down ink.
“When I was in elementary school, okay?” Saotome said. He had also turned his gaze out the window. “I’ve always been the type who can get along with pretty much anyone. But there used to be just this one kid I was no good with. We were in the same friend group, and he was the only one I had trouble talking to. Whenever it was just the two of us, we’d sit there in silence. It was super awkward. It looked like he was avoiding being alone with me, too, so I figured he just hated me. But one day, after school, when we all stayed to play outside, right? We had a great time. Just talking all cool and busting a gut at each other. And like, I was totally thrilled. It’s all good now, no more problems. We’ll be pals from now on. The next morning, I went to school all excited, and he’d turned back into that awkward guy again.”
Saotome laughed, briefly.
“My kid brain suddenly realized, today and tomorrow are completely different. Tomorrow isn’t a continuation of today.”
I nodded, silently. Less out of agreement than to share his sadness.
“If you go back to being the old Kobayashi tomorrow and get all weirdly on guard the instant I come near you, I think I’ll react the same way. I’d probably be pretty sad, you know,” he said. “But you did give me a kind of heads-up here. I guess I could keep an eye on you and see where it goes.” His face suddenly scrunched up, and he burst out laughing.
My heart was so full that all I could do was give him a simple “Thanks” in return.
Not five thousand years ago, not five thousand years from now. I’m glad I got to meet Saotome now.
But, of course, unless I could remember my mistake from my past life, the real Makoto wouldn’t return to this body and my laying the groundwork with Saotome would have been for nothing.
In the afternoon, I was spurred on by a sense of urgency as the sky above grew increasingly grim. Despite my many efforts, no matter how I focused the lenses of both eyes to the microscopic level to examine every single thing I came across, I still hadn’t found anything along the lines of a hint at school. That said, I didn’t expect I’d find anything in the Kobayashi house either if I went home, not after I’d already searched it so thoroughly.
Just over nine hours until time was up.
I prowled the school after classes were done, desperately hoping to come across even a hint of a hint. It was right before exams, so there wasn’t a soul in the large building, and the place had the unbroken silence of a movie theater after closing time. Thunder started to grumble in the distant sky, shaking the hushed air. But even when the sound of rain joined this rumbling, I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to bother with the weather. I kept walking and looking, stopping, staring hard at random objects, and then starting out again.
The gym. The storeroom. The janitors’ closet. The meeting room. The audiovisual room. T
he broadcast room. The boys’ bathrooms. Shop. Home economics. The laboratory. The music room. I checked everywhere I could. Finally, there was only one room left.
A room filled with my own memories, even though I’d only spent a brief period of time in it. The art room.
If there was going to be any kind of hint in this school, it would be there. I was secretly sure of it. Which is exactly why I was sort of scared and had put it off to the very last.
Lightning flashed through the hallway windows, and bathed in that light, I put one foot in front of the other, slowly moving toward the art room. The smoky gloom inside the school further heightened my anxiety. Would I be able to dig up a hint in the place that had been a shelter for both Makoto and me? If I failed, I wouldn’t get a second chance to bring Makoto’s soul back.
Boom! I’d just put my hand on the door to the art room when I heard the roar of a lightning strike somewhere. I felt the shock of it like the floor was sinking beneath my feet.
A heartbeat later, I heard a girl shrieking inside the pitch-black art room. “Eeaah!”
I flew inside, whirling my head around for the source of the cry. But the room was blanketed in darkness; my eyes were useless. It was only when I turned on the lights that I finally saw the figure of a girl crouched under the teacher’s desk.
Blinking furiously at the sudden glare, the girl gasped when she noticed me and visibly relaxed. “Kobayashi . . .”
It was Shoko.
“Oh!” My heart skipped a beat. This was the first time I’d come face to face with her since that day. “Wh-what? Why are you in here?” I stammered.
“Charcoal sketching,” she said, weakly.
“Sketching?”
“And then the lightning suddenly . . .” She poked her face out from under the desk, ever so timidly.
When our eyes met, we both looked away at the same time.
“You’re sketching in the dark?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I wanted to draw.”
“At least turn on the lights.”
“If the teachers caught me, they’d get mad.” She turned away from me, her voice cold.
A flash of silver light illuminated her face in profile.
“Aaaaah!” she screamed, and dived back under the desk. Even after the lightning had subsided, she kept her head tucked firmly into herself.
“Are you okay?” I didn’t really have much choice in the matter now, so I walked over to the desk. “If you’re that scared, go home already. You can’t draw like this anyway. I can stick with you until your house.”
This kindness, of course, came from the guilt I felt, but she apparently hadn’t forgotten about that day. She kept her mouth shut and her back turned to me.
“I’m sorry about the other day. I won’t try anything today. Don’t worry.”
I was trying extra hard to be nice, but the only response I got from under the desk was a puff of white breath. She was as stubborn as always.
“C’mon, let’s go,” I urged her.
Silence.
“You gonna stay here forever?”
Nothing.
“The lightning’s not stopping, you know.”
Crickets.
“I feel like there’ll be another hit in thirty seconds.”
Zip.
Thirty seconds passed, and I finally got annoyed. “Go and get hit by a bolt of lightning, then.” With this childish parting remark, I turned my back on her. I’d forgotten why I’d even come to the art room at that point, so I stomped back out into the hallway. I really was no good with that girl.
“I . . .” Shoko said, when I had taken a step out of the classroom. “It’s not like I was thinking about you like you were the Little Prince or anything, you know!”
Her voice carried well. When I looked back, she was standing angrily in front of the desk.
“I mean, I never thought you were cool or whatever.”
For some reason, my heart throbbed at those eyes, a puppy ready for a fight.
“You’re nowhere near a prince. You’re basically a peasant. I totally knew you were pathetic, too, Kobayashi. I was always watching your sad self, okay? When we were in seventh grade, the other boys in class were bullying you, right? I know. I mean, I was always watching you, after all. Always. And back then, I was being picked on, too, in the class next door.”
Her voice grew indistinct against the increasingly violent pounding of the falling rain. I slowly moved back toward her so I could hear her better.
“I’ve always been on the outside, ever since I started at this school. Everything was just so different from elementary. Everyone looked so stylish and mature. I had a really hard time trying to keep up with my new friends. They used to tell me all the time that I was too slow. That just being with me was annoying. And I’d say, like, what do you mean, and they’d be all, you’re so sticky. They began to ignore me or hide my slippers and stuff, but I absolutely refused to cry. When I didn’t cry, they’d tell me how useless I was and pick on me even more . . . You used to get chased around in the hallway a lot back then, too, Kobayashi. A whole bunch of guys’d surround you and try out wrestling moves on you. They’d yank your pants down. You were their little toy. How could I possibly think that you were cool or anything like that?”
She laughed briefly, and then got serious again.
“But you didn’t cry, either, so I kind of figured we were in the same boat.”
I couldn’t stand it. I dropped my eyes to the floor. She looked like she was about to burst into tears, but still she absolutely refused to cry, and the sight hurt my heart unexpectedly.
“It wasn’t just that you didn’t cry. You seemed way more fine with it than I ever was. You always just sat there and endured it, no expression on your face, your eyes quiet. Like a plant waiting for the storm to pass, you know? I always wondered how you could just take it like that. I figured there had to be something. So I just kept my eyes on you. I was watching you. And then one day, I followed you after school and ended up in the art room.”
I looked up again, and Shoko lowered her eyes as though remembering the moment.
“When I saw you painting, I sort of got it. Like, oh, right. Kobayashi’s got this whole world all to himself. It was so deep, so clear, I was sure it had to be safe there. I was jealous. I wanted a world like that too, so I went ahead and joined the art club right then and there.”
I stared at her. “That’s how you joined the art club?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “And ever since, I’ve been trying to be like you, Kobayashi. Standing beside you, I watched and learned, I painted, I looked for my own place. I wanted that kind of strong world, where so long as I had that, I could get through anything without crying, without getting upset. But it turns out I’m not a great painter. I couldn’t manage anything decent, so it wasn’t much of a world at all.”
Shoko stuck the tip of her tongue out.
“But even still, I felt peaceful somehow when I was painting. On bad days, I’d come to the art room after school and flush all those sad feelings away. Painting made me feel like I could come back to school again tomorrow.”
It was chilly alone together in the art room. The wind snuck in through a crack somewhere to make the plaster busts near the window clatter and rattle. And then lightning raced through the sky again. But Shoko didn’t scream this time; she simply braced herself and kept talking.
“I was so happy when we ended up in the same class this year, Kobayashi. And yeah, sure, maybe I did build you up a bit in my mind. I always get these ideas and then run with them, so I probably did make up the parts of you that I wanted to see. But even so, you are special, okay? You’ve got a whole world of your own, unlike everyone else. This world was really pushing me over the edge, and then you showed me there was another one on the other side of the canvas. And then that Kobayashi—”
“He was gone for a long time,” I said, feeling apologetic. “And when he came back to school one morning, he suddenly s
eemed totally different.”
Shoko offered a wry smile in response. “I was honestly so surprised. You were absent for soooo long, and then when you finally came back, you were part of this world all of a sudden. That other world inside you was gone. You were so incredibly normal. Or like, not normal—you were just like all the other boys. I freaked out. It was such a shock. And it made me feel kind of lonely.”
“Sorry . . .” Belatedly, I was filled with regret for all the terrible things I’d said to her. Makoto hadn’t been a fictional character for her. He’d been something like a guide, a person who somehow made the harsh reality of this world a little easier to handle. I was ashamed that I’d been such a prisoner of Makoto’s wounds that I’d been totally indifferent to everyone else’s.
It wasn’t just Makoto.
And it wasn’t just Shoko or Hiroka, either.
Anyone and everyone in this terrible world was broken in their own way.
“But I’m okay with it now.” Her voice was bright now, clear, crisp, excited. “I get it. I’ve been thinking a lot about the things you said to me that day, and this time for sure, I get it.”
“Get what?” I frowned.
“You didn’t change, Kobayashi. You just went back to being who you always were.”
“Who I always was?”
“Exactly. You started off being a boy from this world, you know? A regular kid just like everyone else. But then me and everyone else went and locked you up in that other world. And maybe it was easier for you to be over there, anyway. Who knows? But then, suddenly—I don’t know what happened, but you made it back to this world. You managed to get back to being who you always were.” She jerked her chin up and grinned. “Congratulations, Makoto Kobayashi.”
Out of the blue, I was overcome with this strange sensation, like I’d just realized everything I knew was a lie, like I’d been buttoning up my shirt all wrong my whole life. Something was bothering me. Shoko had her own weird ideas and was running off with them like always, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was something more hiding in her words now.