Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki

by Mamoru Hosoda

  “…I see. I’ll head straight there.”

  Hana placed the receiver back on the black telephone, headed for the hearth room, and pulled on her raincoat.

  “Ameee! Let’s go get Yuki from school,” she called through the wall, but he didn’t respond. “Ame…?”

  She returned to the kitchen carrying the children’s raincoats. Ame had been there just a minute earlier, but now he was gone. Only his mug remained on the table.

  “Ame? Where are you? Ame?”

  She checked the main room, but he wasn’t there, either.

  Just then, she heard the bang of the front door.

  “?”

  She looked toward the sound. Raindrops were blowing in through the slightly open door. Beyond them, she glimpsed Ame’s back.

  “…Ame!!”

  She shouted his name in surprise and ran to the entryway, pulled the sliding door open with all her might, and burst outside.

  “Ame!!”

  The gust of wind and rain blasted her so hard it nearly knocked her off her feet.

  “Oof…!”

  Beyond the wildly waving plants, she could just make out Ame’s form heading calmly through the storm toward the mountain.

  “Ame!!”

  She splashed through the drenched front garden, oblivious to how she must look, screaming his name. If she hurried, she could still bring him back…

  She followed after where she’d seen him walking, down the lane to the road in front of their house, but…

  “…?!”

  …Ame was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh…?!”

  She looked back toward the village, but he wasn’t there, either.

  “Huh…?!”

  At a loss, she searched around desperately for him, her anxiety finally surging to the surface.

  “Where are you?! Ame…Ame?!”

  Then she looked toward the mountain and caught her breath.

  “…!!”

  HWOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  The wind whipped past her with a terrifying howl; the frenzied lashing of the trees was reflected on the wet asphalt; myriad branches danced through the air and crashed one by one to the ground.

  Ame…

  Hana was positive he was heading for the mountain.

  “…!!”

  She made up her mind and strode straight into the powerful wind.

  HWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

  Her raincoat twisted around her in the wind and rain, so fierce she could hardly breathe. But she continued to resolutely place one foot in front of the next, climbing the path to the mountain. She was determined to bring Ame back home.

  The downpour showed no sign of easing in the central part of town, either.

  Cars with their headlights on splashed through the puddles, forming lines in the school parking lot as parents arrived to pick up their children, holding their umbrellas slantwise against gusts of wind as they dashed from their cars to the school building.

  Inside the gym, mothers and fathers called out their children’s names. Each time, the remaining children lifted their heads and, when they realized they had not been called, dropped them again dejectedly. One by one, they headed home alongside their parents.

  Yuki watched the scene absentmindedly from her spot on the cold gym floor. Shino sat beside her, watching with a sigh as the younger students played to pass the time. The wait seemed like it would never end. Only Souhei kept an intense gaze fixed on the entrance to the gym.

  BABOOOOOOM!!!

  “Eek!”

  Yuki and the other children shrank away from a tremendous clap of thunder. The gym ceiling shuddered, making the light from the mercury lamps flicker, and a girl from one of the lower grades with her bangs pulled back into her ponytail glanced anxiously toward the door.

  “My mom and dad are taking a really long time…”

  Shino and Yuki looked down as the little girl grabbed the hand of a boy with a buzz cut. Suddenly, Souhei spoke up.

  “Don’t worry,” he said casually.

  “But—”

  Before the boy could finish his protest, Souhei leaned in. “If we get to stay overnight at school, I’m gonna play cards all night long!” he declared with a mischievous grin.

  “Ooh, I wanna play!” The little girl was suddenly excited.

  “Me too, me too!”

  The little boy latched onto the idea as well, and their pouts turned to smiles.

  “That sounds so fun!” Shino said, adopting Souhei’s enthusiasm and exchanging glances with Yuki.

  The little girl smiled at Yuki happily. “It’ll be like camp!”

  Souhei stood up. “I’ll go get some cards from the classroom.”

  “Great,” Yuki said, watching him go with some relief, thinking about how boys were so good at changing the mood.

  “Do you even know how to play cards?” the little boy teased.

  “I only know Old Maid.”

  “Dummy!”

  “Hey, no fighting!” Shino scolded, just as her father walked into the gym.

  “Shino!”

  “Over here! You sure took your time, Dad,” she pouted. The big-sister act of a moment earlier had vanished, replaced by trusting childishness. Her father walked over, plastic slippers flapping noisily, and knelt beside her.

  “Sorry! Boy, is this one nasty storm!” he apologized, scratching his head. He smiled warmly at Yuki. “I can give you a ride home, too, if you want.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, Yuki, come with us!”

  Shino stood up and slung her backpack over one shoulder.

  Yuki knew Shino’s father well. Even though he was the third-generation owner of a well-established lumber company, he always dressed unassumingly and treated Yuki, who didn’t have a father of her own, as kindly as if she were his own. She had stayed over in their big old house more than a few times.

  “Come on,” Shino prodded.

  Yuki thought for a minute before turning them down with a smile.

  “…I really appreciate it, but I’m sure my mom will be here any minute.”

  She could see the younger kids playing tag out of the corner of her eye. She felt she should wait until someone came to get them, and she also had to consider Souhei, who had gone back to the classroom. If they passed the time playing, Hana would come for her soon enough.

  “Don’t worry about being polite,” Shino’s father said.

  “Yeah!” Shino chimed in.

  Yuki was grateful, but she said no again.

  “If my mom’s already on her way, I don’t want to miss her.”

  Shino’s father smiled. “That’s true. Well, we’re outta here, then.”

  He stood up. Shino followed, waving apologetically to Yuki.

  “Bye!”

  “Bye!”

  Yuki waved back and watched the father-daughter pair cling to each other as they stepped into the gale-force winds. As they hurried to their car, the wind turned their umbrella inside out, and Shino’s father pulled her to him protectively.

  After they were gone, Yuki watched one child after the next leave with their parents. A scary-looking mother in a tracksuit quieted her crying daughter and set her on her feet. A kindly-looking father headed out hand in hand with his two children as if they were going on a picnic. A smiling elderly couple came for their grandchild.

  Yuki watched them all, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  The crowd of children in the gym had shrunk to just a smattering. The boy with the buzz cut skidded back over like a batter sliding into first base, wrenched off the cap to his thermos, and glugged down its contents.

  Yuki was less worried about her own mother than she was about Souhei. At least half an hour had passed since he went to retrieve the cards.

  “…He sure is taking a while,” she muttered to herself. Finally, she jumped up and ran off toward the classroom.

  “Yuki!” the boy shouted, lowering his thermos momentarily, but she was already jogging out of the gym.
/>   FSSSSSSHHHHHHHH…

  The rain lashed down; mist curled slowly along the base of the mountain.

  “Ame…!!” Hana called his name on the path covered in bamboo grass they had once walked together. “Where are you, Ame…?!”

  She called from the field of reed grass in which they had stood.

  “Ame!!!”

  She called from the bottom of the cedar tree where they had met Teacher.

  But nowhere did she receive an answer in return. Ame was not there.

  The mountain looked like an entirely different place in the storm, and Hana’s anxiety swelled. She climbed through a corridor of cedar trees where waterfalls of rain cascaded off the slope.

  “—You promised you wouldn’t go to the mountain…”

  She tripped and fell to her knees.

  “You promised—”

  Covered in mud, she got up and kept climbing.

  “Ahhh!”

  “I’m getting soaked!”

  The students clambered noisily into the school van parked next to the gym. Mr. Tanabe stood next to the door, sopping wet in his raincoat, and gave each student’s back an extra push on their way in.

  Mr. Tanabe had come into the gym just after Yuki left and announced that any remaining children would be given a ride home in the school van.

  Panting, he pushed in the last student and peered around the inside of the van.

  “Is this everyone? What about Yuki and Souhei?!”

  The girl with her bangs pulled back leaned over the seat in front of her. “Shino’s dad said he’d take them home!”

  “So they went with him?”

  The girl shrugged; that was all she’d seen. The boy with the buzz cut broke in.

  “I saw ’em both leaving the gym.”

  Mr. Tanabe pieced the two bits of information together and decided that both of them must have made it home. “Right… Okay then!”

  He slammed the van’s sliding back door shut, asked the janitor to lock up the school, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The van bounced over a puddle and headed out of the parking lot.

  A thick mist hung over the beech forest, and the rain had slowed to a drizzle.

  “Hff…pff…hff…”

  Hana was gasping for breath, having been searching for Ame on the mountain for more than two hours. She was exhausted from hiking in the storm, and the slightest incline left her winded.

  “Hff…pff…hff… Ack!”

  Her foot slipped.

  Splash!

  Before she knew it, she was knee-deep in a puddle. Raindrops created a jumble of ripples around her leg. She crawled, groaning, out of the water, her hood pushed back from the force of her plunge. With each step, water sloshed noisily in her rubber boots. It was disgusting. She had to empty them.

  She sat down against the base of a beech tree and tried to pull off one of the boots, but her weak hands kept slipping and making it difficult to get off. Finally, she succeeded. Her bare foot was soaked and pruny. She had rushed out of the house without socks or tights on. She held the boot upside down to drain the muddy water, then put it back on. Just this small effort had her panting again.

  As she prepared to attempt the second boot, she heard something moving.

  Rustle…rustle…

  Far away through the mist, she glimpsed what looked like a human form behind a beech tree.

  “…Ame!!”

  She jumped up and made a beeline for him. There was no way a hiker would be out on an unknown mountain trail in this weather—it had to be Ame. She stepped off the trail into the dense forest. Ignoring the bushes clawing at her feet, she flung herself into her pursuit.

  “Ame!!”

  Rustle.

  It was hard to see through the mist, but it definitely looked like Ame. He stepped into the shadow of a tree, probably still oblivious to her.

  “Wait…wait!”

  She yelled as loud as she could. It was hard to push through the thick undergrowth and tree shoots, but her joy at finding him carried her feet forward. As she drew closer, the silhouette came into focus.

  “Ame…!”

  She was so glad to find him safe. Let’s go home now. Let’s go get Yuki.

  Just then…

  Splash!

  Her foot landed in another puddle, and she froze.

  “…!!”

  Very slowly, she pulled back her leaf-plastered rubber boot. The form slowly emerging from the shadow of the beech tree was not that of a human.

  It was a full-grown black bear.

  FSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!

  Suddenly, the rain was pelting down again.

  Hana stared dumbfounded at the bear and began backing away with extreme care, all the way into the branch of a young beech tree where she dislodged a shower of raindrops. Then her back hit the trunk, and she could retreat no farther. Still, she knew she must not take her eyes off the bear.

  It slowly turned its gaze toward her. Water was dripping from its chin.

  The bear was far bigger than she had imagined. Conceptually, she knew that black bears were not as ferocious as brown bears, but faced with a real one, her legs turned to jelly nevertheless.

  The fear paralyzed her. A drop of water rolled down her chin and fell to the ground. All she could do was stare.

  She had never seen a real black bear before. When they first moved to the country, a town employee had warned her that one reason so many houses were empty was that bears and boars and monkeys had started coming down from the mountain and damaging the crops. A bear could happen anytime, he’d said.

  In fact, she often heard stories from other villagers about bears barging into houses, and a good number of people had been seriously injured in bear attacks. Usually, boars or bears that attacked people were exterminated by the town’s Department of Wildlife Control. Mr. Horita was one of the hunters the department hired to do the job, which meant Hana had seen dead bears any number of times. Mr. Horita had joked that if she ever saw a bear, she should call him, and he’d come running with his shotgun to save her.

  Still, over the past seven years, she’d never encountered a live bear, let alone lost her fields to one. She figured the wolf smell from Ame and Yuki prevented other wild animals from coming near, but she suspected that wasn’t the only reason they’d been spared—it seemed more as if the bears had avoided invading their living space out of a kind of respect. Grandpa Nirasaki had told her that in the old days, when the countryside was well maintained, bears and people had an unspoken agreement as to who lived where, and encounters were rare. If she had accidentally recreated a similar arrangement with her mountain lifestyle, then it would make sense that she never saw one.

  But this was another matter altogether.

  Hana had invaded the bear’s living space for a reason that would be unthinkable under normal circumstances. If something happened, all she could do was give in to her fate…

  The bear kept its eyes fixed on Hana.

  Perhaps only a few seconds passed, but to Hana, they felt like minutes or even hours.

  “—”

  Just then…

  Pitapatapitapata…

  The rain suddenly lifted.

  “Kreeee!”

  The bear heard the noise and looked to the side, where two cubs came bounding out of the undergrowth.

  “…!”

  Hana listened in a daze as they squealed. One of them glanced at her but continued on its way, apparently uninterested. The other nosed at the larger bear and grunted as if to prod it on. The larger bear still seemed on guard but eventually gave in to the cubs’ urging and lumbered away into the mist.

  A mother bear.

  Yes, Hana was sure of it—that was a mother. She must have lost her cubs in the storm and gone looking for them. And happily, she had found them. But what about Hana herself? What was she doing out here?

  “…Ame.”

  As she whispered his name, the strength drained all at once from her body. She slid
down the beech trunk she had been leaning against and sank onto the ground.

  “…Ame…where are you?”

  For a while, she didn’t move.

  Already evening was nearing.

  Reflecting the blue light from outside, the desktops looked almost as though they were floating in the air.

  Souhei opened his eyes. He had been sleeping facedown in the dark classroom. He slowly stood, yawned, and stretched, then glanced at the door and yelped.

  “…Ahhhh!! What are you doing here!”

  Yuki stood in wide-eyed surprise, unsure how to respond.

  “Well…you were taking forever.”

  When they got back to the gym, everyone was gone. The cold light from the mercury lamps reflected off the empty floor.

  “Huh? Where is everyone? Did they all go home?”

  “I guess we’re the only ones without anyone coming for us,” Souhei said, grabbing his abandoned backpack. Yuki picked hers up, too.

  “…I wonder if something happened to my mom.”

  She knew her mother would never forget to pick her up. They must have missed each other, or else there was some reason Hana couldn’t get there. Yuki tried to think of what that would be, but she couldn’t. “…It’s cold.” She rubbed her arms, bare in her sleeveless dress.

  “Let’s take a look around,” Souhei said. He glanced at her and headed toward the exit.

  She stayed behind, her worry clear on her face.

  “Yuki.” Souhei was calling her.

  She snapped back to the present and jogged after him.

  “Hey, wait for me.”

  They wandered around the desolate school.

  All the lights had been turned off in the hallways, leaving only the blue glow from the windows and the red of the emergency lights. They glimpsed a chilly-looking cot through the open door to the school clinic. Outside the dining hall, a stainless steel food delivery trolley glistened dully. The schedule scrawled on the blackboard outside the staff room seemed to belong to a different universe. Everything about the empty school felt lonely.

  Thunder rolled in the distance.

  “What will we do if they don’t come for us?” Yuki asked.

  “We could live at school.”