Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A FEW DAYS LATER, after giving lip to the idiot boys, admonishing the cowardly Kiriyuu, and recommending the tale of Huck Finn to Ogiwara, I sat on the rooftop again.

I always visited around now, when Minami-san was there. I looked up to the sky and let out a deep full-bellied breath, as satisfied as if I had just eaten a big hamburger.

Minami-san stared ahead the whole time, stroking my fine-furred friend on the back. I thought as hard as I could about how to put the feelings that had come flooding from the bottom of my heart into words. Then I turned to Minami, who sat beside me.

“Life is like a goat.”

“What the heck does that mean?”

“When I read a wonderful story, I could just eat it right up and it would nourish me.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Huh? But I feel completely full right now, and I just read a wonderful tale.”

Worried that my whole body would burst with the excitement, I took a deep breath and, as I breathed out, I called out to Minami-san.

“Minami-san! You’re amazing! I can’t believe you could write a story like this! You’re incredible!!!”

I offered her my utmost respects.

As I had told her before, I had dreams of writing my own story someday. However, I had one other secret. In fact, I had already tried writing plenty of stories in the past. But whenever I tried, it never came out right. I could never bring characters like Tom or Homeless Huck into the world. It made me depressed, as depressed as if one of Granny’s muffins had gotten stuck in my throat. At this rate, I wondered if I might just wither away.

To me, Minami-san, who could pen such shocking turns and such compelling characters, was more impressive than any important person on TV. I couldn’t help but want to know how to write a story like this. Minami-san, however, suddenly went quiet, and would only say, “I see,” no matter what I said to her.

“I wish everyone could read this story!”

“No way. No one is ever gonna see this.”

“What a waste. You’ve gotta have more people read this. Life is like an afternoon break.”

“Because you get to eat a tasty lunch?”

“Because there’s only so much time, so you’ve gotta fill it with as many wonderful things as you can. I wish everyone could read your story during their forty minutes.”

“Enough with the flattery,” Minami said.

Although I was speaking truthfully, she took the notebook from my hands. She never let me hold onto it for very long. Honestly, I wished I could take the whole thing home with me and finish reading the story there. I could only read it when I was up on the rooftop, and it had taken me days. She probably thought I would get it dirty with juice or ice cream or something, but I would never do such a thing. I preferred being tidy.

“Well, that’s fine,” I said. “That means I’m your very first fan. I’m looking forward to your next story, too.”

Minami waved her hand, still not looking my way. Then she looked up suddenly, as though something was falling from the sky. “Oh yeah…you find your answer about what happiness is yet?”

Minami-san’s story still had its clutches on my heart, but Hitomi-sensei had taught us never to ignore someone speaking to you, so I gave her a proper reply.

“No. I’ve thought of a lot of different things, but I still don’t have an answer that’ll surprise everyone, or impress Hitomi-sensei. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of time. Apparently only having half our thoughts together is enough, so we have to present at our next class observation day, too.”

“Yeah?”

Minami sounded as though she was truly paying attention. I felt the sounds seeping into me—it was a wonderful feeling. My little friend, lying on Minami’s lap and having her belly stroked, looked truly pleased as well.

“If you think of anything,” I said. “Let me know.”

“It’s not something you can come up with that easily. Although, well…lately I think I have been a little happier than usual, getting to spend time with this gal like this.”

Miss Bobtail licked Minami-san’s hand and meowed, although it was unclear whether or not she knew she was being praised. Whose eye was she hoping to catch someday with those coquettish glances?

Although I glared at my little friend, I was glad that Minami-san was happy. Everyone I liked should be happy, and everyone I didn’t like should just disappear.

I noticed then that the scabs on Minami-san’s wrists were all gone.

I stood up, stretching my arms out high as if to reach up to the blue sky. Right now, I was too small to even reach up to high shelves, but if I kept going, I might stretch myself out tall enough to touch the basketball hoop in our yard.

Seeing me stand, Miss Bobtail looked my way and climbed down forlornly from Minami-san’s lap. Minami-san, of course, did not look at me.

“I’ll see you next time then,” I said. “Hurry up and write your next story, I can’t wait to read it!”

“Do what you like.”

“That’s right! I still don’t know what answer to give about happiness, but reading your story made me happy.”

Minami waved to me again silently, or so I thought. But a voice, softer than my own childish tone, came as if carried on the wind.

“Thanks.”

I left Minami-san’s rooftop with my chest warm and my heart full, and decided to head to Skank-san’s place for the first time in a while. I hadn’t been there in a few days, but even those few days were far longer than Skank-san and I should have ever spent apart. Skank-san felt the same way. She was drinking coffee when she greeted me in her cake-like cream-colored building down by the river.

“Been a while, little lady. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been keeping myself calm, but I’ve had lots of energy, too.”

“I see? This little one’s been a Jiji to your Kiki, then, huh?”

“Unfortunately, I still can’t do magic. So, I’d say we’re more like Charlie and Snoopy. Even if I’m a girl and she’s a cat, instead of a boy and a dog.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to do it someday. All right then, come in. Just so happens I’ve got some cake today, and milk too.”

“I’ll have some!”

As I sat in her apartment eating cake, I explained to Skank-san why I had not been there in some time. Then I asked her about Minami-san.

“I don’t think Minami-san is weird in the head,” I said. “She can write really good stories, too! But I think it’s weird that she cuts her own body if her head is normal. Do you know why she’d do something like that?”

I saw the space between her brows tighten. Unlike my own eyebrows, Skank-san’s were sharp, so sharp that I could imagine them making a ka-shing! sort of sound.

“Mm, people are like that sometimes. It’s something you have to ask the person themselves about. They might want to see blood, or they might just be curious, or it might calm them down.”

“She said that it calms her down.”

“Yep, so did that help you understand it?”

“Not at all. I tried scratching my arm, just to see, but all it did was hurt and leave a red mark.”

“Right? So really, I think that it’s something only the person doing it can understand. But it’s all right not to understand, particularly for you. When you saw this girl, you wished that she would stop hurting herself, right?”

“Yeah, I hate knowing that my friends are feeling hurt.”

“That’s right. I think if you understood the reason someone might hurt themselves, and you started doing it too, then I would want you to stop. So, there’s no need for you to understand it. It’s just like I told you before: I think it’s wonderful for you to only be able to enjoy the sweet parts of the pudding.”

“But…but Skank-san! I really want to understand how she’s feeling!”

“Mm, of course.” She held up a finger, just like Hitomi-sensei would. “Little miss, do you know what number I’m thinking of right now?”

At this sudden, strange question, I stared into her eyes as though I might be able to see through her skull. But I still could not do magic, and I could not see into her head, no matter how hard I tried.

“E-eight?”

“Wrong. The correct answer was twenty-four. You see? No one can magically look into someone else’s heart. That’s why humans have the power of thought. You want to know things about your friends, but you don’t understand the feeling of wanting to cut your own arm. In that case, you have to think about it, about what she might be thinking. Then, you’ll come to know it, little by little.”

“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

“You really are a clever girl.”

Skank-san praised me, but it felt a bit wrong. She was the one who was really clever, giving me such a straightforward answer. I watched her casual motions. She really was exactly how I hoped I could be in the future—the beautiful and clever Skank-san, sipping coffee. If only I could write stories like Minami-san and bake sweets like Granny too, then I would be the perfect adult. I wouldn’t even have to do magic.

Naturally, I could not beat the sharp and wonderful Skank-san in Othello today, either.

“Good luck with your observation day,” she said as I departed.

“Of course! I’ll show them all my smarts,” I replied, leaving the building and walking home beneath the setting sun.

As I walked along the riverside embankment with Miss Bobtail, who was still in high spirits from her milk, I thought of the rapidly approaching happiness presentation and decided to consult the evening sun. There was a chance that what Skank-san had said about thought might be a big hint.

I reached the stairs down from the embankment. I was walking thoughtlessly, so it took me a while to notice the boy approaching me.

“Oh, Kiriyuu-kun! Salutations,” I called out.

“K-Koyanagi-san!” he replied, hiding behind the adult he was walking with.

Miss Bobtail hid behind me as well. I smiled, thinking how funny it was to meet so many acquaintances here, and realized something else fortunate: I had the answer to a question that had been plaguing me for some time.

“Good afternoon,” said the man who was walking with Kiriyuu.

It was the man who I had come across a few times recently in the park at the bottom of the hill. Indeed, although I’d had no luck remembering who he was before, I realized that he was Kiriyuu-kun’s father. I had seen him once at a sports meet, but that single encounter was not enough to fully remember him. I suddenly felt wonderful, as though something that had been stopping up my throat was finally removed.

“Good afternoon!”

I returned his greeting cheerfully. Kiyiruu-kun still hid behind his father. I really wished that he would stop. He made it seem like I was picking on him.

Kiriyuu’s father was not wearing his horribly depressed face today. I’m sure he had all sorts of moods, just as I did, but today he was in good spirits. It was wonderful to see. The two of us conversed about all sorts of trivial things.

“I’ll see you at observation day, then.”

With those words of parting, the Kiriyuus and I went our separate ways. Other than one small “S-see you later,” Kiriyuu-kun himself said nothing.

“Despite how he is, that boy draws wonderful pictures,” I told my little friend later.

Miss Bobtail merely tilted her head, mewling dubiously. She probably had no interest in human boys.

When I returned home and said farewell to my friend, I was greeted by a strange sight. Not only had my mother gotten home before me, but she had already finished making dinner. On top of this, it was all food that I loved. I began to wonder if I had somehow gotten the date of my own birthday wrong.

I loved my mother’s cooking. She was a busy person, so we usually had to buy our ingredients at the neighborhood supermarket, but the food she made was exceptional.

I happily ate up my favorite dishes, but partway through I realized something strange. My mother was just watching me eat, not touching her own food. I wondered if she was merely embarrassed at how I was stuffing my face, but that was not the case.

I looked at her. She looked back at me with a very serious expression and said my name. I got a very bad feeling from this. Adults only ever made serious faces when they had something unpleasant to say. It was different from Hitomi-sensei’s serious expression. I had seen such a look on the face of a scarier teacher, demanding to know who had broken a window, and on my father’s face when he forgot my birthday. Sometimes they made faces like that in the hopes of surprising you with some happy news instead, but such times were incredibly rare.

How wonderful it would be if my mother was putting on an act to surprise me! However, I knew that that was not the case when she began by saying “I’m sorry.”

She told me that both she and my father would have to travel somewhere far away for business soon, and so even though they really wanted to go, even though they’d been looking forward to it, and were incredibly disappointed, they would not be able to attend class observation day.

For a second when she finished speaking, it felt as though the whole room went dark. In that darkness, I felt the pit of my stomach drop. Although my lips were pressed into a pout, I probably still could have eaten my Hamburg steak. But I did not. With that momentary darkened mood, all the feelings of excitement I had been storing up within me exploded like a coiled spring.

“But you said you would come!”

She already knew how loud I was, and so this did not surprise her. What did surprise her was that I was angry, something that had not happened in a long time.

Although I say “a long time,” in truth I had been feeling this way for a while.

“Always! You’re always breaking your promises! Father too!”

“I’m really sorry, but we have to go.”

“Why do you always choose work? Why?!”

My mother explained the reason that her work was so important, very simply, so that even I could understand. However, that was not what I was asking. I realized that my mother didn’t understand me at all, and there was nothing to be done about that. Still, she could have at least tried to think about it, like Skank-san had said.

And so, even though I should have known better, I said something that I absolutely should not have said.

“Then I wish I’d been born into a family with a mother and father who didn’t have such important jobs!”

I could tell right away that I had hurt her. However, she was the same as me, and could not stop herself.

“There’s nothing we can do about it!” she shouted.

I went straight to my room without taking another bite and crawled under the covers. Although I hadn’t eaten all my dinner, I was not hungry.

I said that life was like a goat, but perhaps it was more like an alien, I thought. I knew for the first time that my stomach was not just full of stories and happiness, but also sadness and despair.

Still, it turned out that I was hungry after all, and late that night, after my parents had gone to bed, I snuck into the kitchen and ate some bread.

I could not eat a single bite of the breakfast my mother prepared for me the next morning.