4: The color of words
“Oh my gosh, he asked you out…?”
“…Um, uh-huh.”
“Eeeee!”
Two loud voices rang through the public middle school classroom, completely dominating the atmosphere.
I hunched down in my seat, trying to avoid the piercing sound.
“Shhh! You’re talking too loud!”
“Who cares? He’s two classes over! He’ll never hear us.”
“That’s not what I meeeeean!”
I was listening to my classmates chat coquettishly about a budding romance. They were so desperate for it. Plucking that tiny bud was one of the first steps of a junior high schooler toward adulthood, and the noisy conversation between the two girls seemed to be their way of doing so.
To me, the whole scene felt unreal.
Their faces were so fresh and energetic—shining like marbles in the sun, while I was the child gazing out at them from the shade of the trees.
“And?! What are you gonna do?!”
“I—I think I’ll say yes.”
“Eeee!”
The girls were crowding around now, all speaking at the same frequency, but I was outside the circle. I could use the same words, but my frequency would always be different. I was out of place; it was too much.
I didn’t have many friends. It’s not that I didn’t care about hanging out with other girls or dating, but that sunstruck world was always just beyond my grasp. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I was so certain those marbles would shatter under my fingertips.
I’m not sure myself whether the words filling my mind were just excuses or legitimate reasons, but I sucked in a chestful of air and blew all of them out in a sigh. All that remained was a faint loneliness and a desire to give up and curl into a ball.
I was certain it didn’t mean anything, really. The feelings tumbling around my mind were just what they were. Just the intersection of coincidence and reality.
The world should have been spilling over with color from one end to the other, but in my eyes, it was all hopelessly gray. And the only way I knew to live was to keep on breathing in and out, quiet and alone.
Then I read that book.
* * *
Ever since elementary school, I’d spent my breaks at the library. Maybe at first it was an escape.
The time there passed quietly. The classroom was suffocating; all I could feel there was that I didn’t belong, that I didn’t deserve to be there.
But in the library, no one rejected or accepted me. I could be myself there. I didn’t have to worry about how people saw me, and that miserable helplessness eased. In the library, I was complete on my own.
At first, I was escaping there for comfort, but after a little while—I was there for another reason. I’d fallen in love with that realm of books.
The library was like a grain of rice compared to the rest of the world, and yet that whole world seemed contained within the books on its shelves.
In the classroom, I could never be a main character, but that feeling I had in the library, that hint of a wish, quietly affirmed who I was.
I felt…saved somehow.
And the time I spent in the library brought me new encounters.
It happened on one of my lunch breaks.
As the door creaked open, my eyes met those of the librarian Koda-san, who always worked behind the counter at that time of day. With a friendly smile, she gestured for me to come over. I walked up to the counter, just a little nervous.
“Hello, Fuka-chan.” When she smiled, her white teeth gleamed against the healthy glow of her tan skin.
“…H-hello, Koda-san.”
So far we were the only two people in the library. She pouted mischievously in response to my greeting. “I hate being called that. Didn’t I tell you before that you could call me Sayaka? Koda just doesn’t sound very cute.”
“Uh, um…”
“Awwww, come on! How about Sayaka-chan then?”
“Um, but…you’re older than me.”
Koda-san nodded several times very meaningfully. “Oh, I see. To you, I must look middle-aged.”
“I didn’t mean…”
Koda-san smiled in satisfaction at my flustered response. Somehow, it was impossible not to like that smile. But at the same time, it was unfair that she not only knew exactly what would throw me off balance, but she would do it on purpose to tease me.
Also, she’d said she probably looked old to me, but all she’d told me was that she was in her twenties. Any questions beyond that seemed off-limits, which was also unfair. However old she was, I thought she was a very attractive woman. Why did her age have to be a secret?
“Anyhow, did you finish the books you had out until yesterday?”
“Yes,” I answered.
She pursed her lips in thought, then pulled several books from a pile behind the counter. “Wow! Well, here are my recommendations for today.”
“Oh, thank you so much!”
She set down the heavy pile of five books, filling the counter with bright colors. I stared at the covers.
“…They all look fantastic, as usual.”
“Right? After all, your lovely young librarian Sayaka picked them out.” She smiled proudly, emphasizing the young.
In addition to staffing the library and teaching art, Koda-san was working toward a design career, and she said she collected books with interesting cover designs. Since I went to the library all the time, she’d gotten in the habit of recommending her favorites.
“I haven’t read a word of any of them this time, either.” She smiled teasingly.
Some people might say that was unbecoming of a librarian, but her unconventional method had introduced me to a lot of good stories. Book covers are the doors to the world inside. You often can judge a book by them, at least in a nebulous sense.
“It’s hard to choose, right?”
Maybe because she’d recommended so many books to me in the past, Koda-san had started to get a feel for my tastes. The five covers in front of me all had a similar feeling to them. I might describe it as fantasy with a hint of wistful nostalgia.
Whenever Koda-san recommended books to me in the past, I had apparently chosen ones with a similar design without realizing it. Koda-san was the one who had to point out my own preference to me.
Koda-san watched happily as I tried to choose between the five books, her chin resting in her palm. Why did she enjoy seeing me hesitate so much?
“…This one.”
My eyes had suddenly landed on a fantasy novel.
Poppol and Raptor Island
By Michael Andi
It was pure chance that my eyes were drawn to that book. The binding, a beautiful deep green with the title embossed in gold, just happened to attract me first.
Perhaps I sensed some kind of dissonance in the loneliness of the fantasy. I suppose you could say I wanted to know what caused that feeling, or maybe I somehow knew that this book would take me to another world.
In any case, it fit perfectly in my hands.
“Oh, good choice. I highly recommend that one.” Koda-san smiled gently as she followed my fingers with her eyes.
“…It’s so beautiful.” I stroked the cover, feeling its texture. The heavy paper was rough, with delicate indentations that you didn’t get from ordinary printing. My heart sped up at the thought that even the printer and designer loved this book.
I’m sure I was imagining it, but I even felt a faint warmth emanating from the world beyond that cover.
If I tried to list the reasons, they would all sound abstract and unclear—but the simple fact was, I wanted to read that book.
“Can I have this one?”
“Of course.”
Koda-san nodded briefly and gathered the other books spread over the counter into a neat stack, as if she was pulling herself together, too.
“Well, enjoy the rest of your lunch break.”
“…Thank you.”
Koda-san waved at me, then looked away and smoothly returned to work. I stepped away from the counter and sat down in my usual spot.
Recently, I’d realized that the reason Koda-san always wrapped up the conversation before it rambled on too long was probably that she sensed I didn’t love to chat. I think she respected my time alone.
I really liked that about her—her sensitive, grown-up way of being considerate. As I sank little by little into the world of my new novel, I thought about how much I wanted to be like her when I got to be a twentysomething.
* * *
“Well, this is unusual!”
“I know… Hello.”
“He-he, hello again!”
After school that day, I went to the library again, which I don’t usually do.
The reason was simple—I wanted to keep reading the story I’d started at lunch.
I picked up Poppol and Raptor Island, which I’d set on the shelf by the counter to read later instead of checking it out.
“Is it okay if I take this to read?”
“Of course.” Koda-san smiled brightly and tapped the pen she was holding on the counter. “That good, huh?”
She ran her finger over the spine of the book I was holding. Her neatly trimmed nails were very feminine, which created a charming contrast with her casual approach to everything.
“Yes…very.”
Koda-san nodded. “Good! Well, stay as long as you want!”
“Okay, I will.”
Once again, Koda-san efficiently wrapped up the conversation. Her kindness always showed in the way she maintained the perfect distance. I felt very much at home as I sat down in the library chair to continue reading.
Poppol and Raptor Island was a sad story.
The main character was a boy named Poppol who grew up in an enormous forest.
This forest was ruled by Bead, a huge eagle more than ten meters long, and inhabited by humans and elves, who sometimes quarreled but generally kept to their own territories.
A great many grotesque creatures lived in the forest, too.
Around the trunks of the largest trees, you might find a kind of beast with the body of a cow and the head of a lizard. Bats swam through the broad river that flowed through the center of the forest, using their wings as flippers and preying on leopard-spotted piranhas. However, because all the intelligent species spoke a shared language called Fubara, they were able to communicate. This was the mysterious world where Poppol lived.
He was raised by a human father and an elf mother. But friendships among different species were already rare, let alone marriages, so the pair of lovers existed on the fringes of forest society. Bead’s laws dictated that neither the human nor the elf villages accept them.
But this banishment was not for purely emotional reasons. The reproductive differences between the two meant that intermarriage would only decrease the population; this was true of any species. Traditionally, it was taboo.
Essentially, although the elves and humans looked similar, they could not have children together. Poppol was a foundling.
The story began when someone killed Poppol’s parents.
One day, Poppol returned from playing in the river to find the straw hut he called home utterly destroyed. Inside were bloodstains left by his parents and signs of a struggle.
One of his mother’s slender fingers—fingers that had so often ruffled his hair—was lying on the floor.
Poppol wept silently for three nights, then got back on his feet.
The food chain of the forest was an inescapable law. Poppol himself had grown up hunting lizards, grilling fish over the fire, and eating pig meat. The intelligent species had negotiated an agreement not to kill one another, but among the creatures without speech, there were many who preyed on humans and elves. And perhaps, since Poppol’s parents had been banished, some believed they were beyond the protective scope of the agreements.
In any case, Poppol was left alone in the world.
With no family anymore, Poppol searched for new companions in order to survive.
By following the footprints of two-legged creatures, which he knew could not belong to beasts, he found elf villages. Then, he followed the warmth of fires illuminating the cold darkness to human villages.
In the course of his journey, Poppol realized something.
He was neither human nor elf.
When he went to the villages of either species, everyone cowered in terror. And they weren’t the only ones; all the creatures of the forest feared him.
It happened when he went to a village of beast-people, too, who were said to be among the most powerful and brilliant creatures of the forest. Even they trembled at the sight of Poppol with dread in their eyes.
As he traversed the moonlit forest alone, even the giant owl, the emperor of night, fled from him.
Poppol thought about this. He was nearly blind, so he determined the shape and distance of objects by sound. Making the sounds was pure instinct for him, and he could sense tiny variations in the echoes. He could also sniff out the constituents of those objects with his highly developed sense of smell.
Since he could hardly see, he had never seen his own reflection in the water.
Finally, he came to a conclusion.
He must belong to some bizarre, unidentifiable species.
Time slipped by unnoticed as I lost myself in the story.
As my hand turned the last page, I suddenly looked up—
“Oh!”
The sky outside the window was already dark.
“Fuka-chan!”
“Y-yes?!”
A tired voice was calling me from the counter.
“You were really in another world. That must have been a great book.”
Koda-san yawned delicately, bringing me back to my senses. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already six thirty.
“I-I’m sorry to stay so late…”
“No worries at all!” She laughed lightly. I’m sure she was waiting for me to finish the book before she closed the library.
When I looked guiltily at her, she seemed surprised.
“Uh, Fuka-chan?”
“Y-yes?”
“Um…” She pointed to her cheek.
“What?” I copied her gesture and touched my own cheek and found a drop of water.
“Oh…”
“Lemme guess—you didn’t even realize?” Koda-san said, smiling wryly.
“N-no…”
It was a tear.
Of course, it wasn’t really true that I hadn’t realized I was crying.
I’d noticed it vaguely, but I’d been so deep in the story that it slipped my mind. Rather than returning to reality to wipe my tears, I wanted to keep reading.
“Wow, I’ve never seen you cry before.” Koda-san stared at me, blinking.
“I-I’ve never cried in front of anyone before…”
“Really? Never?”
“I think so. I mean, not since I was little.”
For some reason, Koda-san smiled kindly. “…Oh, yes. Not since you were little.”
“Y-yes,” I answered, not understanding her smile. She came around from behind the counter and walked toward me with an excited gleam in her eyes.
“So what was the story about? Tell your big sister,” she said, sitting down in the chair on the other side of the table and leaning in.
She was being thoughtful again, I think—she didn’t take the seat right next to me.
“Um, well…okay.”
I started to tell Koda about this sad but warm story.
* * *
“—And that’s when Poppol realized he belonged to a really rare species and would never have any friends.”
“Oh wow. And then what?” Koda-san’s expression kept transforming as I told her the story. I couldn’t believe how much I was talking. I think I was happy that the subject was something I liked.
“But Poppol didn’t give up… Even though everyone was scared of him and treated him like an outcast, he still used Fubara—the one language—to talk with many different species.”
“Ah, right, ’cause everyone in the forest understood the same language.”
“Yes. And that’s how he made more and more friends.” I was telling the story in my own words, little by little.
“Huh. That’s amazing. But how did they become friends?”
Koda-san seemed to enjoy listening, so I couldn’t help rambling on and on.
“At first, he was rejected wherever he went, but he did have a way in. His mother and father had told him much of the folklore of the human and elf villages.”
“The folklore?”
“The myths…kind of like the old legends of that world.”
“Oh, like our tales of Momotaro and Urashima Taro?”
“Yeah.”
“Interesting!”
I nodded, and she nodded back.
“One of the folktales that Poppol’s parents told him was especially unusual. It was his favorite story, but not many people knew it…except for the fairies of a certain lake.”
“Oh, and that was his way in?”
“Yes. Once he got to know the fairies who liked the same folktale as him…he was able to cross the barriers more easily and make more friends.”
“Oh, nice! That is a good story.” Koda-san sounded like she genuinely agreed with me.
“And then…Poppol and his friends decide to leave the forest together.”
“Really? Why?”
“They wanted to see the world beyond the forest, especially the ocean that they’d only heard about in the folktales. Oh, right…Poppol’s favorite story was about the ocean.”
“I see, and that was the beginning of their adventure?”
As I recalled the story, I got excited all over again.
“Exactly! They all worked together. The humans used their wisdom to make tools, the elves used their powers to revive everyone when they got tired…and Poppol protected everyone from the beasts that tried to attack them in the night… He never gave up.”
“Ah-ha-ha. He’s a strong one, that Poppol.”
“Yes! And it was the same strength he was rejected for! That was what helped everybody!” Before I knew it, I was practically shouting.
“Yeah, I love that, too.”
“Really?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Koda-san was looking at me with a very kind expression. I liked her smile. It made me want to keep talking.
“And finally, finally…they left the forest.”
“Oh, they made it!”
“And they saw the sea, which they never could have seen if they’d stayed in the forest…and a gorgeous sunset over the water.”
“Ah, they finally got to see the ocean! What a happy ending.”
I leaned forward slightly. “You’d think so!”
“What? That wasn’t the end?”
“Well, actually…”
I paused a little self-importantly, collecting my thoughts. I think it was probably because I wanted to get across a little of that wonderful experience of reading it.
“Well?”
I lowered my voice a little. “…Poppol couldn’t see it.”
Koda-san clapped once, like the ending satisfied her. “…Oh, right! He’s blind!”
“Yes. He’s nearly blind, and he can only make out objects through sound… So he could tell there was light, but he couldn’t see the beauty of the sun in the distance.”
Koda-san frowned.
“So then what happens?”
“The next scene was one of my favorites…”
“Tell me!”
I could see the scene I had read so recently in my mind’s eye. “All of his friends—use language to tell him what it’s like.”
“…Oh! I love it!”
As the scene played back in my mind, I told her about it as if I were reading aloud, my voice filled with emotion.
“‘The light is as warm as a bonfire, glittering on the water’s surface like leaves in the sky. It’s strong, as you were when you saved us from the black rams, and it’s as gentle as your smile when we share the soup at the end of a meal. It’s straight and true, and it shines on the whole forest like an embrace.’ Using the shared language of Fubara, they put the beauty of the sunset into words so that Poppol could see it with them.”
Like words were magic.
“Wow…”
Koda-san gazed out the window, smiling as if she was imagining it right along with me.
“And that’s how Poppol was able to see it with his friends…”
“What a wonderful story.”
“It really is!”
“I see, I see…”
Koda-san crossed her arms and looked down, like she was appreciating some feeling or thinking deeply about something.
My chest was filled with warmth, too. I was so happy to be able to share such a wonderful story with a person I liked.
Suddenly, Koda-san looked up. “By the way…”
“Yes?”
My eyes met hers. She was peering into my face with a slightly odd expression.
“—What was it about the story that made you cry?”
“…Um…”
I felt a bit embarrassed to answer, so I hesitated for a moment. But Koda-san seemed so serious, like she was expecting to hear something very important.
I reflected on my emotions as I read, trying to answer her question as well as I could.
“I think it was…how Poppol was born different from everyone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He wasn’t even the same species, but he didn’t give up. He tried to become friends with everyone…”
As I talked, I felt slightly uncomfortable.
“He was rejected over and over, but he believed everyone could understand one another through words. So he kept trying…”
“…Yes.”
I could tell I wasn’t just talking about the book.
“And then at the end, he finally made friends who really understood him… It was so brilliant and wonderful…”
“Huh.”
“It really got to me…and I think that’s why I cried.”
When I finished my faltering explanation, Koda-san nodded and smiled, as if she had something up her sleeve.
“Hey, Fuka-chan?” I loved that excited, childlike twinkle in her eyes. “I think you can do that, too.”
“…Do what?”
I thought I sensed her meaning, but I was hesitant to put it into words.
But this kind of situation was Koda-san’s forte, and she flew right over that cliff.
“You can make friends, too!”
This was exactly the thought I’d been trying to ignore, even though some part of my heart wanted it more than anything else in the world, I think.
“…Friends?”
“Mm-hmm!”
There was a black mist of confusion and fear swirling in my chest.
“Or maybe you don’t want that?”
She was being so considerate; I couldn’t lie to her. “…No, I do want friends, I think.”
“I knew it!” Koda-san clapped her hands. “I always thought maybe you just weren’t interested in all of that. I wasn’t sure, but I decided not to bring it up.”
There it was again, that grown-up thoughtfulness.
“But just now, when you were talking about the book, I started to think, ‘Huh, maybe she does really want friends.’”
“Um, yes. I do.” I felt like my heart was laid completely bare.
“You’re such a wonderful person; I’m sure the other kids in your class want to be friends with you.”
“…But…they all…” I wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m not trying to push you into anything. But if you ever have a problem you want to talk about, I’m here for you.”
“A problem…?”
I thought about the kids in my class, about how I felt I spoke at a different frequency.
My gears were shaped differently from everyone else’s. They didn’t fit into the machine, so I couldn’t spin in time with the rest of the group. At least, that’s how it felt to me.
But what if I was wrong?
Maybe…that could be a wonderful thing.
“…How…?”
“Hmm?”
I struggled to get the words out of me. “How can I become friends with them?”
Koda-san suddenly brightened and leaned toward me. “What a great question to ask, Fuka-chan!” She started working through the problem. “Well…I think you can start a conversation with just about anything.”
“Anything?”
She nodded. “At first, just make some casual comment. I mean, think about you and me—at first we were just an art teacher and a student, a librarian and a reader.”
“Yes, that’s true…”
At first, I’d just taken her art class and borrowed books at the library, and we’d only talked business. But before I knew it, we were talking more and more.
“Even if you don’t have a special reason to connect, it’s surprisingly easy to make friends once you work up the courage to talk to someone! We’re all human, you know!”
“Yes…I guess that’s true!”
We’re all human. Somehow, those words gave me courage. Poppol didn’t even have that on his side, and he still did what it took to make friends.
If he could do that, I should be able to do it, too.
After all, sometimes words could work magic.
* * *
The next day at lunch, I decided to try challenging myself a bit.
If Poppol was rejected over and over and never gave up, maybe, just maybe, I could venture out into the sun.
And there was Koda-san’s reassurance, too.
The important thing was to summon my courage and just…talk.
So I made up my mind to give it a try, just like Poppol.
The class was divided into several groups of girls, each of which liked to do different sorts of things.
One group was always taking some kind of video on their phones.
Another group was always talking about their friends with very animated expressions.
A third group liked to form a circle and do a game with their fingers while chanting—it almost sounded like a spell.
I turned toward the group that was closest to me—the one that did the finger games.
The four of them would stick their thumbs up and thrust out their hands, then take turns answering a question.
“Sei-san, ta!”
“…Akko Maeda!”
“Oh, nice!”
The voices swirling around their group were several levels higher than mine, and their cheerfulness itself already felt like rejection. Their voices were like a barbed-wire fence around them, keeping me from getting close.
But on this day, I shimmied through a hole in the fence and approached them. Maybe I had put up the barbed wire myself.
“…Um…,” I said very timidly in a voice that was lower and quieter than theirs.
Takayanagi, the girl closest to me, turned in my direction. “Huh?”
There was no malice or ill will in her eyes, just a simple question. Why is this girl talking to me?
“What’s wrong?”
“Uh, um. I…” I forced my vocal cords to vibrate.
“What’s up?”
My eyes darted around the room. “I wanted to play, too…”
The four of them looked at one another.
Finally, one of them, a girl named Tsuda, spoke up. She had a leadership role in the group, and she was very assertive. “Oh, sure…”
I was overjoyed at being accepted so easily. “R-really?”
“Well, we really don’t have a reason to say no…”
She looked around at the other three. “Right?” The three nodded and let me into their circle.
That went well! Jumping in and talking to people was the key. That just might be the secret to making friends.
“Th-thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank us,” Mimura, another member of the group, said with a wry smile.
The smile wasn’t quite mocking, but she did seem to be observing me from a few steps back. I felt just a little bit rejected.
“Oh, um, I’m sorry.”
Tsuda jumped in to the conversation. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said, and again it felt like she was pushing me away.
“Oh. Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
This was awkward.
Every time I said something, the mood chilled a little more. It was like my mouth was full of dry ice, and every time I opened it to speak, that white smoke came out to destroy their fun.
I was shrinking into myself more every second.
“Do you even know the rules?” Mimura sounded annoyed.
“R-rules?”
“Yeah. For Sessan?”
“What’s Sessan?”
Mimura sighed loudly. “How can you play if you don’t know the game?”
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry…”
“I told you, you don’t have to apologize…” Mimura-san looked away from me.
A cold silence descended, and it was definitely my fault.
“Wh-what should we do? Teach her the rules?” Takayanagi asked the others.
“Do we have time for that?” Mimura asked, sounding surprised. “Break ends at half past.”
“Oh, r-right.”
As if to put an end to the conversation between the other two, Tsuda nodded firmly. “Okay, so… Uh, Kikuchi-san, right?”
“Y-yes.”
“We don’t have time right now, so can we do it another day?” Tsuda’s voice was cheerful and just warm enough to keep ice crystals from forming in the air between us.
But what she was saying was that I didn’t belong here.
I felt my heart freeze up. “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.”
“Like I said, you don’t have to apologize.” Mimura sounded fed up. She frowned at me. “Why are you so polite anyway?”
“Uh, um…”
Without waiting for me to find the words to answer, she went on. “Ah, never mind! See you later!”
She was cheerfully sending me on my way.
I had unintentionally ruined the fun, and I was being thrown out of the game.
“…Oh, okay. Bye.”
All I could do was obediently move away from them. I must have looked utterly pitiful as I stepped softly back to my seat.
My little challenge was a complete failure.
* * *
“I-I’m sorry.”
It was after school, and I was in the library.
When I explained what had happened in class, Koda-san looked down guiltily.
“N-no…it’s not your fault,” I said.
“But I was the one who encouraged you.” She looked so deflated that I was starting to feel guilty myself.
Still, I didn’t regret talking to those girls. After all, I’d discovered something. “You didn’t push me,” I said.
“I—I didn’t?”
“No. Actually, I’m glad I gave it a try.”
Koda-san’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”
I decided to tell her how the experience had made me feel. “In Poppol, there are firelings who live in the lake in the forest.”
“Um…so like people made of fire?” She seemed startled by the abrupt change in subject.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward to listen. I replayed the classroom scene in my mind as I talked. “I was more like those firelings than like Poppol.”
“…What do you mean?” Koda-san gave me an uncertain look.
“That story really got to me…and I thought that maybe everyone would accept me, too.”
“Uh-huh, I thought so, too. I mean, I still do.” Koda-san’s expression was very serious.
“But…even though Poppol looked different, he had strengths that were useful to everyone else. He was a different species, but he spoke the common language. He knew the folktales.”
“Good.”
“That’s why he was able to make friends with the other species. But…” I paused for a breath. “There was one species he wasn’t able to befriend.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “The firelings. Their bodies are hot…and if they get too close to another living being or a tree, it’ll catch fire.”
“…Ah.”
“The lake keeps them cool enough to live. If they ever left, the whole forest would burn. So Poppol couldn’t get to know them.”
“Okay, that makes sense.” Koda-san nodded several times.
“But that’s not a sad thing. There’s a whole underwater world in the lake. They have good food and a fun school, and they put on wonderful performances at the theater.”
“Oh, so they’ve got, like, a separate habitat?”
I nodded. “Yes. People and elves and Poppol can’t live in the lake; meanwhile, the firelings can’t live on dry land. Poppol is about an unusual-looking main character making friends…but that doesn’t mean he has to make friends with everyone.”
Koda sighed softly; she seemed impressed. “Huh. Poppol’s a pretty grounded story.”
“I agree. In that world, that’s the way it has to be. The way it should be…”
That was an important lesson the book had taught me.
“And in the same way, our own world has separate habitats. I can’t live where everyone else does… That’s all there is to it.”
“Oh…that’s what you meant.”
I remembered back to lunch that day. I’d only had to speak for the mood to become mysteriously chilly. My home environment was incompatible with the one where those girls lived.
I hadn’t intended to, but my mere presence froze them. Our temperatures were just different, I’m sure.
“I’m less of a fireling…and more of a snow girl.”
Even though we spoke the same language, our frequencies were different. I’d always felt that way. And this was the result.
Only it wasn’t our frequencies that were different, it was our temperatures. This was the source of the awkwardness.
“I can see how that could be… Poppol is a pretty grown-up story, I guess.”
“How so?”
“I mean, it’s one of those things you really understand when you’re an adult. It sounds nice to say that everyone is friends, but it’s completely impossible. Some boundaries are necessary. Things definitely go better that way.”
“Yes, that seems true…”
“So in that case…,” she continued mischievously, “…how about if you and I become friends?”
“…What?”
Her words surprised me. I’d never even considered that possibility. “Me and you, friends…?”
“Or not? I thought we were friends already, but…?”
“Oh, um…I’m not sure.” I sank into solemn thought. “I mean, you’re older than me, and…”
“Does that matter?” she asked as if the answer was obvious.
“But you’re a teacher, and I’m a student…”
“Those are just our official positions.”
I was starting to feel that she was right. “A-and…our personalities and interests are completely different…”
“Ouch, that hurt!” She pressed her hands over her chest, acting heartbroken.
“S-sorry,” I said, flustered.
For some reason, this seemed to make her happy again. “I do understand your perspective… But can you try to understand mine, too?” She looked slowly around the whole library.
Her eyes were full of love for this place. Finally, they settled on me.
“If anything happens again that hurts you, if you ever fail at something—think of this as your lake in the forest.”
The library was quiet, comfortable, and cool—and here was a voice that accepted me for who I was.
I sensed all of it with my whole body, and suddenly, I went limp.
“…Thank you.”
“Sure!”
Koda-san’s smile was so warm, it was like a pleasant beam of light reaching all the way to the snow girl.
If I’d been watching the sun set over the ocean with Poppol, I might have compared its warm light to her smile.
* * *
Some time passed, and junior high graduation arrived.
I received my certificate and my last report card and watched my classmates saying good-bye to their friends.
I didn’t have any real friends, but I did talk to some people now and then, so I exchanged a few words with the girls who sat near me.
“Well, see you around, Fuka-chan.”
“Yes, I hope we can meet again.”
“Yeah!”
Amid all the sentimental farewells, the class’s usual hubbub had been replaced with a softer grace.
There was someone I wanted to talk to for the last time.
I slipped out of the classroom, walked through the halls filled with the early spring light, and arrived at the teachers’ lounge. After knocking on the door, I walked in and scanned the room.
“Oh, Kikuchi. What’s wrong?” Motomura-sensei, our Japanese teacher, asked casually.
“Um…is Koda-sa…Koda-sensei here?” I had been about to say “Koda-san.”
“Koda? …She just left for a bit.”
“She left…?” I echoed.
Motomura-sensei stroked his beard and pursed his lips. “She disappears like that sometimes. Do you want to wait here for her?”
“Um…”
I hesitated for a second. Could she be…? It was a hopeful hunch, but I was pretty sure I was right.
“No, I’ll go look for her first.”
“Okay. Congratulations on graduating, Kikuchi!”
“Thank you.” I bowed low and left the teachers’ lounge. From there, I headed for the library. “…I hope…”
It was just wishful thinking. Still, I couldn’t help checking.
“…Hello?” I walked into the room.
“…Fuka-chan?!” Koda-san was sitting in one of the chairs.
“He…hello.”
She blinked at me. “Hi. What are you doing here? Today is your graduation ceremony.”
“Um…”
She looked surprised, so I told her the truth.
“I…thought you might be here.”
For some reason, her eyes lit up. “…What? You’re so cute!”
“No I’m not…”
Before I knew it, she was in charge of the conversation. She waved me over.
I walked across the library. It was quiet as always, but this time, there was a sense of impending good-byes there, too. I sat down next to Koda-san.
“Oh, right,” Koda-san said, smiling. “There’s a reason I’m in here…” She looked proud.
“What?”
She pointed to a book on the table. “Ta-daa!”
“Is that…?”
It was Poppol and Raptor Island. But why was it on the table?
“I remember something you said.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “You said our personalities and interests were different.”
“Oh…” I’d said that when she asked if we could be friends.
“I said age and position had nothing to do with it, but I thought you might have a point about interests.”
“…Oh.”
“So I decided to read this! I loved it!”
“Really…?”
She smiled mischievously. “What do you think? Can we be friends now?”
My heart suddenly felt warm, and there was some astonishment in the smile rising to my face.
I was definitely happy.
“Koda-san…I’m never sure if you’re a grown-up or a little girl!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she pouted, but even that seemed endearing to me.
“Nothing…I’m just happy,” I said honestly, tracing my finger along the book’s cover.
“Hee-hee. Good!”
This time her smile was bright and grown-up looking. She ruffled my hair. “Congratulations on your graduation, Fuka-chan.”
My first ever grown-up friend was congratulating me.
“…Thank you.”
…When did I become such a crybaby?
The warmth of Koda-san’s slender, feminine hands just made me cry even more.
* * *
A few weeks later, I was a first-year high school student.
I hadn’t had many friends to start with, and even though I was going to a new school and all my relationships were starting from a clean slate, I felt vaguely uncomfortable in my new class.
Still, it wasn’t that I had no one to talk to. I did chat now and then with some of the quieter girls who had a generally similar temperature. But I didn’t have the confidence to call them “friends.”
At least, I don’t think I was able to form those beautiful relationships that were unquestionably friendships—the kind that Poppol had made by using language.
And this school didn’t have a library with a Koda-san.
Even when I retreated to the library here to escape the faint chill of the classroom, it was just a place to be away from other people. All the worlds in the books only made me feel more alone.
In junior high, before I started talking with Koda-san, I’d been satisfied with having my own hideaway. But now, the absence of a friend who accepted me was lonely. It was like the momentary coldness you feel when your blanket is snatched away.
The cool, dry air flows in to take the place of the warmth.
That sensation made me oddly nostalgic.
That was when I had my second encounter in a library.
* * *
“…Oh!”
It was April, just after I’d started my second year.
One day, when I walked into the library during break before we switched classrooms, I found that someone had gotten there before me.
If I wasn’t mistaken, it was a boy from my class.
He was sitting by himself, reading, and something stirred in me.
A boy had taken the trouble to come to the library during a short break to read—I think that was enough to make me feel we were kindred spirits.
But that wasn’t all.
“…Oh!”
The book he was reading…
…was by the very same author who taught me so much and helped me become friends with Koda-san. Michael Andi.
Before I knew it, I was looking forward to going to the library during breaks.
Koda-san wasn’t there, but a fellow Michael Andi fan was. We’d never talked, but I still felt like we’d get along.
That quiet space was filled with as many worlds as there were books. And somehow, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I imagined us talking together and understanding each other perfectly.
Well then, what should I do?
Should I try talking to him about Andi’s books?
I’d failed to make friends that other time, but maybe it would be different with him.
Yes, that did seem likely. After all, that’s how Poppol made his first friend.
He found someone who liked the same folktale as him.
Since this boy liked the same author as me, we might be able to be friends.
Out of all the myriad worlds out there, maybe we could share the same one.
That’s how Poppol made friends.
I’d thought of myself as a fireling or a snow girl.
But now—maybe I could become a Poppol.
Maybe I would find something to give color to this gray world.
I was starting to believe that more and more.
“…Okay, I can do this.”
Two months later, I was sitting in the library again.
I gathered my courage one more time and said his name.
Tomozaki-kun.