TEARS

Kun’s momentum carried him forward in a headlong slide. He landed in a shallow puddle in an alleyway, generating a giant splash and a burst of ripples in the water. Groaning, he hefted himself up off his face and plopped down on his behind, shaking his wet head in a watery spray that made even more ripples.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

He stared around in a daze.

The rain had just lifted over the totally unfamiliar alleyway. The street was only wide enough for two cars and lined with small shops with signs advertising alcohol, cigarettes, clothes, salt, and the like. Some of the headlights on the parked cars were round; others were square. There was a vending machine selling drinks Kun had never seen before. Oddly, a sign reading PHOTO PRINTS 20 YEN hung outside a drugstore, not a camera shop.

He definitely wasn’t in the present, but this wasn’t the distant past, either. The dark shadows under the eaves contrasted with the brilliant white sky reflected on the wet asphalt, capturing the in-between feeling of the era in which he had landed.

“…Where am I?” Kun asked no one in particular as he got to his feet. As if in answer, a drop of water splashed down a little ways away. He turned toward the sound.

“…?”

There was a row of old wooden houses with tiled roofs and an old-fashioned barbershop with potted plants lined up outside. A red umbrella was leaning against an electrical pole. Beyond the pole, a girl with long hair crouched on the asphalt, her hunched back to Kun.

“Sniff…sniff…”

She must have been crying—she was rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, and her shoulders were shaking as if she was all alone in the world.

“…Sniff…sniff…”

She looked a little older than Kun, perhaps in her first year of elementary school. He quietly crept up to her and peered into her face.

“What are you sad about?”

She didn’t answer.

“…Sniff…”

Kun thought for a moment, then put the palm of his hand on her head and stroked it like a mother soothing her child.

“Don’t cry.”

The girl took her hands away from her face and slowly looked up at Kun tearily.

“…Thank you. You’re sweet.”

“Oh!”

Her face was the spitting image of Mom’s in her childhood photos in the album. The girl blinked and smiled.

“But I wasn’t really crying, you know,” she said, pointing with her pencil to a scrap of paper on her knee. Something had been written there in an unsteady hand. “Since I’m writing a letter, I thought it would be a good idea to put my feelings into it.” She giggled, shrugged, and stuck out her tongue.

Kun was surprised. Had she been fake crying? He felt like he’d been tricked.

The little girl dragged the red umbrella behind her as she strolled down the wet street.

She wore an apparently handmade violet dress with a round collar.

Kun trailed behind her, staring at her white rain boots. Wet pine needles were stuck to them. He was wondering absently how long they’d been there when the girl stopped in front of the gate to a large house. The nameplate on the gate read IKEDA CLINIC.

When the girl read it aloud, Kun thought it sounded familiar. A magnificent, neatly trimmed pine tree stood in the front garden. The building was made up of a traditional Japanese-style main house attached to a clinic that blended Western and Japanese styles. According to the girl, that part had been “rebuilt” in the 1920s.

They stepped through the fancy glass door and peered around the entryway. Both the pathway outside and the atrium itself were paved with imported tiles. Inside, the distinctive smell of hospital disinfectant permeated the building. The words RECEPTION and DISPENSARY were etched onto the polished glass of the old-fashioned reception window, but no one seemed to be behind the counter. Perhaps the clinic was closed for the afternoon.

In one corner of the entryway, a pair of fancy women’s leather shoes sat neatly next to each other. The girl stared at them pensively.

“…”

She took the scrap of paper out of her pocket, glanced over the writing on it, quickly folded it up, and slipped it into one of the shoes.

The girl dragged her red umbrella past a large miso factory.

“What did you write?” Kun asked the back of her head.

She didn’t turn around. “‘Dear Grandma, I want a pet cat. Please let me have one.’”

“A cat?”

“Animals like me. I can make friends with any animal right away. But Grandma’s allergic, so she doesn’t let me have pets. She says if I have one, it has to live outside. But no one keeps a cat outside, right? So I’m gonna keep writing her letters until she agrees, even if I have to write dozens and dozens. I’m not gonna stop until she gives in.”

Her determination amazed Kun. She seemed to be talking to herself more than him, and he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

They were walking along a street that used to be an old highway. It was lined with wide, old-fashioned houses with wooden latticework, ivy-covered clay storehouses, sake breweries with round balls of cedar branches hanging outside to tell customers about the newest batch, and other old shops. In a shed behind one of these, they discovered a rain-drenched kitten hunched between piles of wooden pallets. It glanced at them but then quickly looked away with a warning growl.

The little girl handed her umbrella to Kun, crouched down, and reached out to it.

“Good kitty. Come over here. Don’t be scared.”

She gestured with her finger for the kitten to come closer. The growl got louder…

“Don’t be scared. Let’s be friends.”

The hissing grew even fiercer. Kun had to admire the nerve of this girl, who had no reservations about extending her hand toward a creature threatening her. Things really were different when animals liked you…

Just as that thought crossed his mind, however, the cat screeched and swiped at the girl with its claws. She pulled her hand back with a cry, and the two watched in silence as it ran off.

“…”

The girl lingered in front of the pile of pallets. Kun didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut. After a moment, she stood up shakily and changed the subject as if nothing had happened.

“…Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

In the playground, scattered puddles reflected the trees as they passed. The girl left the road and started splashing through them, calling it a shortcut. Kun followed, then answered her question in the affirmative.

“Brother or sister?”

“Little sister.”

“I have a little brother. He’s a weakling and worse at school than me, so he’s always crying. That’s why my mom likes me more. I know she’ll let me have a cat even if Grandma says no. Boy, am I glad my brother is a crybaby.”

As Kun listened to the back of her head, she suddenly stopped and turned around.

“Here we are.”

“…?”

Instead of asking where “here” was, Kun lifted his eyes to a swallow’s nest. A whole brood of chicks huddled together inside.

The little girl stood on tiptoe, put the key in the lock, and opened the glass front door. She tugged off her rubber boots, tossed them aside carelessly, and marched briskly into the house. Kun wondered if it was okay for him to go inside. He poked his face into the foyer and scanned the interior. There was a nice carpet, a number of bookshelves, and some potted plants on the floor. Everything was very tidy. He caught sight of a little fish tank near the front door and yelped before he could stop himself.

“Oh!”

The tank’s layout was simple, with just one type of water grass and one kind of stone, exactly like the wide meadow with the tall mountains he’d seen just a little while ago. He’d been inside it, gazing at the mountains above as the wind blew past. All of it fit inside this little aquarium no bigger than his outstretched hands. As he gazed absently at a tropical fish floating in the water, he wondered what it all meant.

Abruptly, a loud scraping sound brought him back to earth.

The sliding paper doors to a room facing the veranda had been pulled open. He took a peek inside and found toys scattered all over the straw mats on the floor.

“Wow…”

“You can play with my brother’s toys if you want.” The girl deposited a box of them on a low table, then brought over another from an alcove in the room and dumped it noisily in front of Kun. LEGOs, toy cars, building blocks, and dolls spilled out—more than he could possibly play with. She seemed to be giving him the royal treatment. Still, he was worried about how hard it would be to clean up so much.

“Won’t we get in trouble?”

She shrugged. “Making a mess is more fun.”

She grinned boldly, calling to mind the phrase wild child.

Kun tipped his head back slowly, turning the words over in his mind. Making a mess is more fun…more fun…more fun…

“…You’re right!” he declared solemnly. He couldn’t argue with that.

The girl smiled as she stood in front of the alcove and its painted scroll depicting the word idleness.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, leaving the room.

Kun followed her into the kitchen. There was a gas stove, a gas rice cooker, and a gas toaster. For some reason, everything used gas. In the middle stood a round dining table supported by a single leg, with a newspaper spread on top. The headline read, “President Gorbachev to Reunite East and West Germany.”

Kun heard something fall and raised his head. The girl was standing on a chair and dumping a box of snacks all over the table. When she was done, she chucked the box aside, picked up a Bourbon White Lolita cookie, and unwrapped it.

“You can have some, too.”

“Won’t we get in trouble?” Kun worried. But the girl just paused with the cookie halfway to her mouth and smiled a naughty smile.

“But they taste better when you’re messy.”

Kun gaped at her. She was noisily scarfing down her cookie. What a bold claim. Was she right? He followed her lead and reached for one of the cookies. He opened the package and nibbled on it with his front teeth. Crunch. He took another bite. Crunch, crunch. He tested out the flavor farther back in his mouth. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Then he looked up with utmost seriousness.

“It’s yummy.”

It tasted nothing like the snacks he ate politely.

The girl stood up on her chair as if to say he had hit the nail on the head.

“Right?”

Kun grabbed the edge of the table.

“Yummy!”

“Yummy!!”

“YUMMY!!!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

They were shouting together and leaning on the edge of the round table in turn so that it rocked like a seesaw. Cookies scattered onto the floor. The girl gave a strange, shrill shriek, hopped down from the chair, and scampered around the kitchen like a monkey.

“Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!”

Kun ran around with her, laughing. They sped down a narrow hallway lined with cans and bottles and slammed into the half-open door to the washroom.

“How about this?” the girl asked, flinging paperbacks off the bookshelf, and Kun copied her. One after the next, they pulled out books and lobbed them every which way onto the floor.

“This is fun! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Next, the girl called, “What about this?” and went into the garden to jump at the laundry hanging out to dry.

“Oof!”

She caught hold of a shirt and yanked as hard as she could. The clothespin flew off with a snap.

“Oof!”

Kun did the same. A pair of underwear fell to the ground on its hanger. They jumped again and again, and laundry fluttered down all around their feet.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

They were having so much fun they couldn’t stop.

“Hee-hee-hee-hee!”

Kun cackled in a silly voice, too.

“Eh-hee-hee-hee!”

They tore around, cackling like a pair of lunatics and doing whatever they wanted. They kicked over the plants in the atrium, pulled out the drawers of the paulownia-wood dresser, and left the refrigerator door open.

Next to the television in the living room lay a pile of videotapes. It was the first time Kun had seen the long, narrow boxes. Each had a neatly labeled sticker on its side.

Kun wondered what they were and what they were for. Now that he thought about it, the television was shaped funny, too. It was a square box and much deeper than normal TVs. He wondered if there was something inside. He looked to the side and saw that the girl was howling with laughter after knocking over the mountain of tapes.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Kun did the same, laughing so hard he almost cried. They both stood on the low table and laughed until it hurt.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

At that very moment, they heard a key turning in the lock, and they looked toward it in surprise. On the far side of the glass, someone was about to open the front door.

“It’s my mom…”

The girl pressed her hands to her pale cheeks. The videotape she was holding clattered to the table. Now that they had calmed down, they could see that the living room was a disaster, as if a storm had swept through.

“What should we do? She’s gonna be mad.”

The girl took Kun’s hand and pulled him into the kitchen. She opened the back door and pushed him outside along with his shoes.

“You should go home.”

“Oh!”

Before Kun could say anything else, the door shut with a bang.

The sky was dark with storm clouds. A drop or two of rain plopped into a puddle on the asphalt, creating ripples on the water. The weeds by the side of the road swayed restlessly.

Kun watched the aluminum door, puzzled, and strained his ears to hear inside.

“I can’t believe this! What am I going to do about this horrible mess?!”

He shrank back at the sudden, angry shout from the house. It was the girl’s mother. Soon after, he heard the sound of the girl crying.

“Waaaaah!”

“I’ve had it up to here with this! I’m going to throw away all your toys!”

She was yelling so loudly the glass on the door shuddered.

“Waaaaah! Mommy, I’m sorry!”

It was raining so hard the puddles sprayed as each drop hit them, and the weeds were swishing madly.

“I’m never going to buy you sweets again!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Mommy!”

Kun was suddenly afraid. He felt as if everything he had built up was crashing down all at once. Unable to listen to the girl’s desperate pleading anymore, he pressed his hands over his ears and fled into the downpour.

The trees outside the elementary school were dancing in the wind. Kun tripped and fell in the drenched playground with an enormous splash. “Oww,” he moaned. His sopping-wet clothes were heavy as he shakily got to his feet, gathered all his willpower, and took off again. He wanted to escape this nightmare as quickly as he could.

After Kun disappeared, the rain beat down even harder. The heavens seemed to be trying to flood the entire world, leaving nowhere left to flee.

Before he knew it, Kun was sleeping on his bed in the dim bedroom. As Mom gazed lovingly at his sleeping face, Granny called up from downstairs.

“Is he going to eat dinner?”

“No, he won’t wake up.”

Sometimes, when Kun was very tired from playing a lot in the afternoon, he fell asleep early in the evening. On those days, Mom didn’t try to wake him; usually, he slept soundly until morning. Just now, she had come to check on him, but he showed no signs of waking up, even when she took off his clothes and put on his pajamas. She wondered what he was dreaming about.

“You’re my treasure.” Mom kissed his sleeping face and quietly crept away so as not to disturb him.

“That’s what I used to say to you,” Granny remarked.

“Now it’s what I say.”

Granny laughed. For dinner, they ate some food she had bought in the shops near the train station, and afterward, there was a brightly colored gelatin mold for dessert. They set aside slices for Kun and Dad and finished off the rest between the two of them.

Granny held the sleeping Mirai while Mom spooned the dessert into her mouth. It tasted as good as it looked.

“You never did let me have a cat. I was sad about that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was sure you loved me more than Yoichi. I didn’t know back then that the needy kids are the ones their parents love the most.”

“You needed quite a bit of care yourself. Stubborn and difficult. All I remember is yelling at you.”

“I forgot.”

“You left your things everywhere.”

“Well, you know, I only started cleaning up after I got married.”

“Good grief.”

They both chuckled.

Mom raised her head with a distant gaze, as if she wanted to express her true feelings aloud for her own benefit.

“I’m trying to do my best raising the kids while I’m working…but when I stop to think about it, all I ever do is get mad. I worry I’m not doing a good job as a mother.”

She was always questioning herself. Not a day passed when she didn’t ask if she was doing what she should as a mother. She worried about big things, like whether the decision to keep working instead of becoming a stay-at-home mom was the right one, and little things, like her anger earlier today. Every time she had to make a choice, she wanted to stand still and think, but she had to keep moving forward before she could settle on an answer. If there was one thing she could say was absolutely true, though, it was this:

“I just want them to be happy.”

“As long as you know that, you’ll be fine. Wishing for those things is important when you’re raising kids,” Granny said, stroking Mirai’s hair as she slept.

Mom lowered her head, thinking about that word.

“A wish…”

“…Mm.”

In the middle of the night, Kun suddenly woke up.

His exhausted mother was asleep next to Mirai. Kun got up and looked at her groggily. He noticed tears pooled in the hollows under her eyes.

“…”

Her tears reminded him of the ones the little girl had shed. He wondered if her mother had thrown away all her toys after that. Had she ever bought her daughter sweets again? What about the cat?

Mom didn’t answer him. She was fast asleep.

Kun put his hand on her head and stroked it gently with his palm, like he’d done for the little girl.

“It’s okay.”