Chapter 6 (1/2)

The Place I Called From

August 1st was a designated all-school attendance day at Minagisa First High. Arrive by 9 AM, get a long list of tasks from your teacher, then take a thirty-minute break. Then starting at 10, a talk from the princ.i.p.al in the gym. Once that was over and you got back to the cla.s.sroom, then began the students’ favorite: discussions for the culture festival. The cla.s.s attractions, the a.s.signment of duties, the time of your next meeting (if necessary) - it all had to be decided within the day. Depending on the cla.s.s, talks could go right up to 7 PM, the school’s ultimate closing time.

Surprisingly enough, the princ.i.p.al’s talk wrapped up in less than ten minutes. Retreating from the sweltering gym stuffy with every single student’s warmth back to the cla.s.sroom, as the room was filling with excitement to let the festival prep begin, I leaned over and talked to Chigusa in the seat beside me.

“This could get long, so let’s sneak away.”

Chigusa blinked a few times, then grinned.

“Ten minutes, next to the gate,” I whispered.

Chigusa quickly prepared to leave, and altogether casually slipped out of the cla.s.sroom. A few eyes gathered on her bold escape, but since she was so natural about it, the witnesses all seemed to rationalize it with various interpretations.

One person harbored doubts: Nagahora in the seat in front. “Is she feeling sick? Ogiue never leaves early.”

“Maybe,” I said ignorantly. “Or maybe it’s simple sabotage.”

“No way.” Nagahora laughed with a raised eyebrow. “That word couldn’t fit anyone in this cla.s.s less than Ogiue.”

“I guess that’s true,” I agreed, then grabbed my bag and stood up.

“Whoa, don’t tell me you’re leaving early too?”

“I’m feeling sick.”

Evading Nagahora’s pursuit, I escaped the cla.s.sroom. To avoid running into any staff, I went down the stairs to the hallway leading to the gym, put my indoor shoes in my s...o...b..x, held my outdoor shoes in one hand, and took a detour to leave the school without pa.s.sing in front of the faculty room.

Though Chigusa left the cla.s.sroom first, she arrived at the school gate after I did. The sight of her spotting me and jogging over gave me a feeling of wrongness I have no good way of describing. I couldn’t tell what exactly it was.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Chigusa said short of breath.

We walked along together. We heard faint chatter and laughter from the open windows of the buildings.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve left school in the middle of the day.”

“You come to cla.s.s too many days to count anyway. Those who skip win.”

“You truly are bad, f.u.kamachi,” Chigusa remarked, finding it too funny to bear. “So, where might we be headed to now?”

“Who knows. I’m still thinking about it.”

“Then let us sit down somewhere and think it over together.”

We went into a nearby bus stop. It had a roof, so it was the perfect place to do some thinking while protected from the sunlight. A bus only came once every hour or two, so we wouldn’t even be mistaken for pa.s.sengers and cause drivers any trouble. The sheet iron walls had holes in places, and posters and tin signs for used car places and consumer loans were plastered all over them like a mosaic.

Seeing Chigusa sit and stretch her legs, I finally realized what was amiss earlier. Her skirt was shorter than usual. That said, it was at most 15 centimeters above the knee, and plenty of girls at Minagisa First High wore skirts that length. But for Chigusa who essentially never deviated from the uniform, it was something unheard of.

Until then, I had never thought deeply about the beauty of knees, and only cla.s.sified them as thick or skinny. But when I saw Chigusa’s knees, I had to recollect my thoughts. Knees, just like the eyes, the nose, and the mouth, could be a strongly defining body part. Just a few millimeters difference had such a ma.s.sive change in impression, a delicate yet eloquent feature. And Chigusa’s knees were more ideal than any I’d ever seen. Painting an elegant curve with no wrinkles, her knees brought to mind a carefully-cooked white porcelain vase.

“Is that another way of ”letting your parents down”?“, I asked, looking at her knees.

”Ah, so you noticed.” Chigusa lifted her bag onto her lap to block my gaze. “That’s right. I made it shorter. I feel somewhat restless.”

“It feels really fresh to see you dressed like that.”

“My apologies, they’re so unsightly…” Still holding her bag, she bowed repeatedly like a pecking bird.

“Have some confidence. You have such pretty legs, after all.”

“Do you think so…? Thank you very much.”

With her head still bowed, she thanked me ticklishly, but didn’t budge the bag on her lap.

“One day in my third year of middle school, I realized something. I was a mediocre person who could easily be replaced, like an extra in a picture.”

The night I was attacked by Nogiyama, after Hinohara left, Chigusa told me: “Please, make me a bad person.” Convinced I would hear a rejection at that moment, it was completely unexpected. Stomping out the cigarette that fell from my gaping mouth, her words echoed in my mind.

Make me a bad person?

“Sorry, perhaps putting it that way is unclear.” Chigusa averted her eyes and scratched her cheek. “I’ll explain in the proper order. Though it may not come across very well…”

Then she began to speak, bit by bit. In her third year of middle school, while taking an course on interviewing, she was astonished to realize she couldn’t think of a single thing to describe herself as a person. She became aware for the first time that she’d just lived as her parents told her to, not making a single decision worth calling a decision.

“In other words, I was an empty person,” Chigusa said as if reading a sentence she’d already read. “I had no failures, but I had no successes either. I could serve in many people’s place, but many people could take my place. I could be liked by anyone, but I could not be anyone’s favorite. That was Chigusa Ogiue.”

She averted her eyes and smiled self-derisively.

“Of course, that could apply to many people on some level. However, my mediocrity stood a head above the rest. When my friends spoke about their past experiences, I always felt uncomfortable, as if someone was sneering at me. On occasion, I even felt like I was being blamed. ”You’re lacking in experience in every sense, you don’t have any way to describe yourself - such an empty person.”“

Perhaps remembering her pain, her words were slightly hoa.r.s.e.

”There were many people with nothing inside them all around me. Mitsuba Middle School, where I once attended, felt like a collection of samples of girls living tedious lives. People traveling down pre-laid rails without a single doubt, only deciding which car and which seat to sit in, convinced they were making crucial life decisions. That said, somehow they seemed to think of themselves as fairly individualistic people. To my eyes, it seemed as if they had made an agreement to forcibly characterize each other and put on an act of being rich with personality.”

Worried I would be bored by her long story, Chigusa kept glancing at my expression. I kept nodding to show interest and encourage her to continue.

“I felt a faint coldness from such a relations.h.i.+p, and quickly changed my choice of high school. Perhaps something would change if I went there, I thought. Of course, my parents resisted, but I managed to coax them with a.s.sorted logic. That was my first time clearly defying my parents’ will. My heart danced to have finally been able to take the first step in my own life. …Yet, ultimately, even at Minagisa First High, the fundamental parts of me did not change. A commonplace cheery girl had simply changed into a commonplace mature girl.”

At this point, Chigusa looked up into my eyes.

“So, f.u.kamachi. I want to stick outside the box. I don’t believe there’s any aspect in which I excel over others. So I at least want to do things to make people furrow their brows, to have teachers scold me, to disappoint my parents - to escape a pre-established harmony. Whatever filthy color it may be, I want to be a more genuine me. Will you a.s.sist me with that?”

There was plenty of room for a reb.u.t.tal. For one, I’d never thought of Chigusa as a mediocre, commonplace person, and could offer up several ways she excelled over others. Most importantly, only a handful of truly unique individuals existed in the world, and she was making a mistake asking the far-more-mediocre me for a.s.sistance.

But I gulped down the words as they came up my throat. This was the conclusion Chigusa herself had come to after plenty of thought. It wasn’t an issue for me to speak on, having known her for less than a month. If Chigusa wanted to stick outside the box, then that was the right thing to do. Even if it was a mistake, a mistake done after careful consideration is worth about as much as the right thing.

“Got it. I’ll help,” I agreed. “But what exactly should I do to make you a bad person?”

Chigusa spoke after a decent pause.

“I don’t mind if it’s only for the day. Tomorrow, could you treat me as if I were one of your middle school friends? I’d like to experience the unhealthy lifestyle you once lived with your friends.”

That would be fine, I thought. To tell the truth, I didn’t want Chigusa to be a delinquent, and spending more time together would make it harder to part. But if it was just a day, that was nothing. I had plenty of time to make a recovery afterward. If that made her feel better, then why not?

Just maybe, when we first met and she said “Wish for my freedom,” this was what she meant.

“Have you thought of something?”, Chigusa asked, moving the bag on her lap to the side.

I shook my head. “Delinquent things are hard to think up on the spot.”

“Then let’s enforce some limits,” she said, sticking up her index finger. “Did you ever slip away without permission with your friends in middle school?”

“Countless times.”

“Do any such days stick out in your memory?”

I searched my thoughts. “Come to think of it… Second year, in summer, I faked sick in fifth period to get out early. We got out at different times, and met up outside of school like today.”

Chigusa jumped on it. “Tell me more about that day, please.”

“We sneakily bought cigarettes from a vending machine, then had a party in Hinohara’s room. Oh, Hinohara’s the one guy who apologized to you last night, Ogiue. His house was a bar, so he had plenty of alcohol. We didn’t really know how to drink at the time, so we just kept drinking without stopping. I remember both of us getting drunk in no time, and throwing up in the toilet together.”

“Wonderful. That sounds fun,” she said with a smile, then seeming to have an idea.

“Let us do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we should party at my house.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Yes. It’s all right. There should be alcohol at my house.”

Chigusa got up and leapt into the sun outside the bus stop. Then she turned and beckoned to me.

“Let’s go, f.u.kamachi.”

After going down a long, winding hill, the lake smell grew stronger. Chigusa’s house was in an intricate residential district.

I’d already had the thought when escorting her home yesterday, but it was a model semi-rich family’s house. Made of brick, with a mowed lawn, a s.h.i.+ned-up expensive car, a garage full of tools, and a porch lined with decorations in good taste. It was all above average, yet you could clearly see where the family was making compromises. That kind of house. Of course, there was no doubt it looked pretty wealthy compared to my place.

Chigusa led me into the house through the back door. Built on an incline, the house had entrances on both the first and second floor. The second-floor entrance, facing a wide path, seemed to be used as the front door, whereas the first-floor, facing a thin path, was the uncommonly-used back door. It was the ideal design for Chigusa to sneak in without her family noticing.

Not turning on the hallway lights, we proceeded down the hall with extreme care not to make any noise, my eyes on Chigusa’s back. The reversed roles of first and second floors wasn’t limited to the entrances; the living room and kitchen were on the second floor, with the bedrooms and nursery on the first. Though a relatively minor difference, I felt extremely restless, like I was driving backwards down a one-way road.

After we entered Chigusa’s room and she locked the door, I let out a deep sigh. The room was air-conditioned and comfortable. “Take a seat,” she told me, so I sat in a chair in front of a coffee table. Starting with the chair and table, I noticed the room furniture had a matching dark brown color scheme. Maybe it was a little too calming for a sixteen-year-old girl’s living s.p.a.ce. Or maybe girls’ rooms were just like this nowadays?

“I’ve secretly brought a boy into the house,” Chigusa said. “It would be dreadful if my parents found out.”

“I’ll pray that won’t happen.”

“Since what’s more, it’s former bad boy f.u.kamachi.”

“Just so I know, what would happen if we were found?”

“Nothing, really. It would just be terribly awkward. Surely my father and mother would be unsure how to treat me, I suppose. Such a development wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Well, maybe an excessively orderly family needs a little chaos.”

“Indeed. So you need not worry, f.u.kamachi.”

Chigusa opened a cabinet and took out two white cups, then three marine blue bottles from a lower drawer. The labels had a mermaid drawn on them, and “Mermaid Tears” written in pale white letters. A local drink that any citizen of Minagisa would know.

“For some reason, my family frequently receives alcohol. But since no one drinks it, it only piles up. There are six more of the same in the kitchen. If you want them, go ahead.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pa.s.s.”

We filled each other’s cups, sat in front of the coffee table, and quietly gave a toast. After quickly downing her cup in one swig, Chigusa furrowed her brow and said “Strange flavor,” but poured a second cup from the bottle.

“Looking as pretty as it does, I had expected a cleaner flavor.”

“Yeah, it’s surprisingly dry.” I finished my cup too and poured a second. “So, how does it feel indulging in underage drinking?”

The cup headed for Chigusa’s mouth stopped at her chest, and she faintly smiled.

“It’s very thrilling.”

“That’s good.”

“…Ah, yes. Hold on a moment.”

Chigusa then opened the cabinet again and put a small gla.s.s bottle on the coffee table.

“Use it as an ashtray. You smoke, do you not?”

“Thanks. But it’s not like I smoke that frequently. And your room would stink if I smoked in here…”

“Please, smoke. I wish to try it, too.”

I took a pack from my bag, pulled out two cigarettes, and handed one to Chigusa.

“Wakaba,” Chigusa read from the packaging.

“It’s third-rate. Gross, but cheap.”

I held my lighter up in front of Chigusa, and she timidly held the filter and held it near the flame. “Suck in,” I instructed, and the paper faintly lit red.

After taking in the smoke, sure enough, Chigusa coughed. After hacking up a storm with tearful eyes, she glared scornfully at the cigarette in her fingers. Then she tried a second time, and this time slowly let out the smoke without coughing. I lit my own and we quietly smoked together.

“I think I finally understand,” said Chigusa as she imitated me in tapping the cigarette on the edge of the bottle to knock off ash.

“What do you understand?”

“This is the smell you sometimes have, f.u.kamachi.”

“Do I have that much of a nicotine smell?” I sniffed my s.h.i.+rt.

Chigusa snickered. “No, it’s really only a faint smell. Normally, one wouldn’t notice it.”

After finis.h.i.+ng our cigarettes, we again filled our cups.

“You don’t have to push yourself to drink a lot, okay?”, I advised after seeing her down a third cup.

“Right. But if I’m drinking, should I not try to get drunk at least once?” Then she poured a fourth cup.

Brown cicadas buzzed outside the screen door. Due to the brightness outside, it felt dark and gloomy in the room. It was an August-esque, languid summer afternoon. Having aimless conversation, we leisurely continued to drink.

Chigusa seemed to be a heavier drinker than appearances might have indicated. I tried to keep up with her pace, and soon felt my senses growing hazy.

“What’s the matter? f.u.kamachi, are you sleepy?”, Chigusa asked in an oddly good mood, maybe because of the alcohol. Last time I checked, she was in front of me, but now she was beside me. Maybe I was the one who moved? The order of events in my memory was hazy.

“Seems I’m a little drunk,” I replied.

“I may be as well. I’m oddly enjoying myself,” Chigusa remarked without any slurring. “f.u.kamachi, f.u.kamachi. What typically happens when people get drunk?”

“Depends on the person. Some people change completely, and some don’t change at all. Some are merry drinkers, and some are sobbing drinkers. It’s just different habits. Some start suddenly preaching, and some get nice beyond recognition. Some fall asleep comfortably, some get quick to fight, some get all touchy-feely…”

“Well, that’s me.”

Before I could respond, Chigusa collapsed on my shoulder like a puppet with cut strings.

“What’s this?”, I asked, hiding my bewilderment.

“My drinking habit,” she replied, unable to fully conceal her embarra.s.sment. “I’m feeling clingy.”

“Uh, Ogiue. You don’t decide what kind of drunk you are for yourself.”

“It’s all right. I’ll apologize later.”

Being coaxed with incomprehensible logic, I lit up another cigarette to conceal my increasing temperature.

“f.u.kamachi, are you the type that doesn’t change when drunk?”, she asked.

“I dunno. I’ve drank too much and thrown up, but I’ve never gotten properly drunk before.”

“It’s all right if you cry and shout. And I won’t mind if you’re touchy. …Oh, but I would slightly dislike being preached to.”

“Seems like you’re a talkative drunk, Ogiue,” I joked. She rubbed her face on my shoulder with displeasure.

Soon, my eyelids got heavy. Seems I’m a sleepy drunk, I thought distantly, and was swallowed by afternoon drowsiness.

When I opened my eyes, the sun was going down, and the room had gotten pretty dark. The cups were dried up and let off a sharp smell.

I had a rough feeling on my cheek. That quickly reminded me that I had fallen asleep in Chigusa’s room. I quickly shot up, and heard a yelp at my ear.

“G-Good morning,” Chigusa awkwardly smiled.

After four or five full thoughts, I realized what kind of situation I’d been in.

Apparently, I had been sleeping using Chigusa’s thighs as pillows.

“Was I asleep?”, I said rubbing my eyes, concealing how fl.u.s.tered I was. “You should have woken me up.”

Chigusa coughed quietly. “…I should just mention, you fell over into my lap.”

“I did?” I tried to recall falling asleep, but my memory seemed to cut off somewhere. “Sorry. Are your legs numb?”

“It’s all right. You’re a lightweight, f.u.kamachi,” Chigusa remarked with faint smile as I fumbled.

“You’re just too heavy a drinker, Ogiue.”

I looked up at the clock. It was 7:30 PM.

Chigusa spoke with her gaze fixed on the gla.s.s bottle on the table. “Um, f.u.kamachi, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“No, I should be sorry.”

We bowed our heads to each other, then an unspeakable silence persisted. I tried to light a cigarette to fill it, but I reconsidered and put it in my pocket.

“We should get some fresh air.”

“Yes, good. Let’s do that,” Chigusa agreed with a look that said “thank goodness.”

The residential district was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a.s.sorted smells at night. Smells of dinner on the wind - fish, miso soup, meat and potato stew - and the smell of soap from a bathroom window stimulated my nose.

Chigusa’s walking beside me seemed unstable. Hardly tottering or anything, but she swung from side to side.

“Were you perhaps drinking while I was asleep?”, I asked.

“I mean, you wouldn’t wake up, f.u.kamachi.”

“I’m not blaming you. I’m impressed.”

“Is that right? Tell me if you get sleepy, lightweight f.u.kamachi,” Chigusa said c.o.c.kily.

“Now, it’s finally night. The ideal time for ne'er-do-wells. What badness do you wish to do?”

“Don’t get your hopes so high. I’m just a hoodlum.”

Walking without thinking about the destination, my legs seemed to carry me where they knew how. Without even realizing, I was headed down the road to the usual shopping district. Somehow, it felt like there were oddly many people headed in the same direction. Every time people pa.s.sed us by, there were wafting smells of deodorant and bug repellent.

“I wonder if there’s a festival or some such?”, Chigusa pondered.

“Might be one at the shopping district. Yeah, I want to say they do one around this time every year.”

“While we’re near, would you like to go see it?”

“Sure. Can’t think of anything else to do right now.”

We went with the crowds to the festival grounds. Though the shopping district was typically just deserted and vaguely creepy at nighttime, today it was brilliantly colored by tens or hundreds of paper lanterns. Stands lined both sides of the street, and many young people filled the area.

“So there are more summer festivals in Minagisa than just the one,” Chigusa remarked with wonder, gazing at the stands.

“Yeah. Tons of people.” I stood up tall and looked toward the back of the street. “But I’m sure the Minagisa summer festival gets many times more visitors than this.”

Chigusa sighed. “Now I’m getting nervous.”

Forgetting about doing badness for now, we went by all the stands from end to end. Yakisoba, sumiyaki, honeycomb toffee, sculpted candy, cotton candy, shaved ice, a string lottery, yo-yo fis.h.i.+ng, a mask shop, superball fis.h.i.+ng. Chigusa stopped at a goldfish scooping stand, and her eyes sparkled at the goldfish swimming around the white tank.

A small child was squatting in front of the fish tank, glaring seriously at the goldfish. When he stuck the poi scooper into the tank, it made a ripple that scattered the koaka fish. The sight of the red shapes dispersing reminded me of exploding fireworks.

“f.u.kamachi, f.u.kamachi. There’s one strange one.”

I looked into the tank alongside Chigusa, and sure enough, mixed among the koaka was a single fat ryukin goldfish.

“What do you know… How unusual.”

I gave a look at Chigusa, trying to share her surprise. But she was absorbed in the goldfish in the tank and didn’t notice.

I found myself looking at Chigusa in profile. Gazing at her smiling face lit by the soft light of a light bulb, all of a sudden it occurred to me what an incredibly unfitting happiness had been bestowed upon me. And that thought was nothing less than the truth. Instantly, rather late, the core of my body heated up, and I came to see each pa.s.sing second as precious.

But at the same time, I had to think: If it were Hajikano I was sharing these seconds with, how good would that be? If I just had her smiling beside me, how fulfilled would that make me feel?

I felt guilty for ignoring the girl before me and imagining one who wasn’t here in her place, so I averted my eyes from Chigusa. Instead, I watched the boy scooping goldfish.

He was handling the paper poi skillfully. He prepared to catch one goldfish, then at the last second changed the angle of the poi to aim for another. The goldfish that he avoided had white specks, like it was covered with flour. Maybe it was sick.

I supposed he avoided that specked goldfish not because he reasoned it might die an early death from sickness, but just because it felt somehow creepy. It wasn’t like it was something he did out of clear prejudice.

It was the same for those who avoided me when I had my birthmark. I wasn’t avoided because people thought I had genetic issues, or because I had some malignant disease, but because people felt somehow too creeped out to want to approach.

Why can people know logically that it’s not that significant, but be led astray by such slight differences in appearance? When really, everyone’s not so different if you just look more than skin-deep.

Yet the day when people’s foolishness to judge solely by appearance is bettered, the beauty of these hundreds of goldfish swimming around a white tank, the vivacious feeling welling up in me from seeing Chigusa’s face - all of that I was feeling now would be lost. So I couldn’t speak out against that hasty judgement. If people’s true natures became the basis of judgement, the world would surely become a terrifyingly insipid place.

Chigusa stood up. “Sorry, I became rather entranced. Let’s move on.”

“Won’t you try the goldfish scooping?”

“No, I’m not one for keeping living creatures.”

After going through all the stands, we bought two piles of shaved ice and looked for a place we could sit down and eat it. Just then, something briefly crossed my vision and alerted my subconscious.

I had a bad omen. I quickly grabbed Chigusa’s hand to stop her, and my gaze darted around. My prediction was correct, and a few meters away, I saw several familiar faces.

Inui, Mitake, Harue. The three who had tried to attack me with Nogiyama last night. They sat in a row on the curb, their backs turned to us, talking about something. Nogiyama probably wasn’t there because of the damage I’d inflicted.

As far as I could tell from their conversation, they weren’t looking for me for payback, but were simply here to enjoy the festival. I breathed a sigh of relief. That said, if they saw me, it could probably be trouble.

“Er, what is the matter?” Chigusa asked with some nervousness, looking between her hand and her face.