Chapter Four: The Search

Chapter Four: The Search

Five minutes from the station, there's a park for children with swings and a sandbox that we call Central Park. When I arrive, Miyano gives me a little wave. For some reason, he's sitting on the bench, still wearing his school uniform.

"You didn't go home? What about lunch?" I ask.

"I ate out," he replies, standing up quickly. He dusts his pants off gently, and looks me over from head to toe.

"What?"

I look down at my clothes. I'm wearing a yellow T-shirt, a long denim skirt, and leather sandals. Nothing special. I glare back at him, and he says it's a rare look for me while looking away.

"What about the keychain?" he asks.

At his request, I take it out of my tote bag. Miyano brings his face closer to look at it closer. I always thought he'd smell gross from running around all the time, but the smell coming from his neck is cool like the rain, with nothing else mixed into it. It's embarrassing for a moment. Then, I recoil from him.

"Look at his back."

Miyano, who seems totally indifferent to my flustered state, points to the back of the clothes the bear is wearing. There's a green four-leaf clover with the word ‘Clover' printed in black letters.

"That sounds like a store name. Do you know any shops named Clover?" he asks me.

"There's a shop with that name near the overpass," I reply. He then points to the bottom of the bear's right boot. A four-digit number is etched onto it. "If we have a serial number, maybe we can ask someone from the store about it," he says, and soon enough, we're on the move.

He doesn't know the way, so I take the lead, wondering why I'm letting myself follow this guy around for the second day in a row.

It hasn't rained since this morning. The asphalt is slightly damp, and looks much darker than its usual gray hue. Traffic is sparse on the four-lane street we're walking on, and the residential area we're passing through is calm and quiet. Raindrops collected on the bright green leaves of the trees around town reflect light every once in a while, shining and glittering in the afternoon sun.

"Here it is." I stop in front of the shop. We're on the sidewalk of a main street, and there's a show window on the first floor of a tall apartment building with quilts, dolls, beads and accessories neatly lined up in it for display. On the wooden door to the small shop hangs a sign that says "Import Shop Clover" in a round font. I've heard of this shop, but never been in it.

I take a look in the shop through the show window. The shop has a bright and warm atmosphere, with ivory wallpaper on its walls. I see stuffed animals of various sizes arranged on wooden shelves, and fabric goods like tablecloths. There are no customers, and a saleswoman is looking through a notebook at the cash register.

"Okay, you go and ask."

"Why me?"

"Because," Miyano says, looking down on me self-importantly with his hands on his hips. "I'm a guy. You can't expect me to go into a store like that. I'll wait for you outside."

I leave him there and open the door of the shop. The inside is air-conditioned and chills my skin, and I'm surrounded by a floral scent. The saleswoman greets me with a cheerful hello. She's smiling at me. It's awkward because I'm not going to buy anything here.

When I turn back, I make eye contact with Miyano through the glass door. He breaks into a broad grin until his teeth show and makes a thumbs-up sign, as if to say, "Go for it!"

Not again.

I walk to the cash register, take the keychain out of my tote bag, and place it on top of the register.

"I'd like to ask about this keychain," I tell the saleswoman. "Was it sold here?"

"Oh, this takes me back." She smiles fondly, touching it gently with her white fingers.

"We had it last year. There were only two of them, because the owner hand-made them herself!"

"I see," I say, nodding and wondering what to ask her next. She must like speaking, because she keeps up the conversation.

"A girl about your age came and bought them both. She looked really happy when I told her that there were only two at this shop. That's why I remember this keychain so well. I think she was wearing a school uniform, from the middle school close to here. Did she give it to you?" she asks.

When I leave the shop, I go to a small park just near the shop with Miyano. It is noisy with elementary students playing around. I sit on the iron fence and tell him what I heard from the saleswoman.

"So the person who dropped it is a girl from our school,"

Miyano repeats my information, and starts to think hard. I watch him think while sipping from my bottled tea.

"I don't think we'll be getting any more clues here. Besides, our summer vacation is going to start tomorrow. We wouldn't be able to find the owner of this bear even if we wanted to. If you really want to return it, can't you ask a teacher to put a notice on the school bulletin board?" I say to him.

I'm sweating a lot, maybe from walking around so much. Even if the sun isn't out, it's still summer, and it's unbearably hot.

I use a towel to wipe the sweat off my face and the condensation off my bottle and notice that Miyano is staring at me. In contrast to me, he's tanned and isn't even sweating. His face looks somehow worried, not like the usual happy-go-lucky face he usually makes.

"...What?"

I hate to admit it, but I startled by that. I didn't know that he was even capable of making serious faces.

"Are you seriously saying that?" he asks.

"Why wouldn't I?" I stand up, stepping firmly on the sand. "Why are you taking this so seriously?"

Miyano doesn't answer, and the irritation I almost forgot about starts bubbling back up and taking shape.

"I've had enough of you and your jokes. I'm not afraid of you."

Saying so, I try to convince myself that I'm right.

I walk past him to the park's exit.

I don't care who he tells. He can go ahead and tell Ms. Nakahara, or whomever he wants. I hear him calling my name, but I run home without looking back.

I slam the front door open with a loud bang when I get home. I get in and dash upstairs to my room.

The door has been shut for a while, so my room is stuffy. My sweat, which was dripping earlier, runs down my face in streams.

Give me a break!

I get more and more frustrated, and my eyes are close to tears.

What the hell?!

In the corner of the room, I see my blue school bag, which is larger than it looks and functional enough to contain not only my textbooks, but also my gym clothes. There are two pockets in it, one big and one small, one of which has a bear keychain attached to the zipper.

He's made of wood, has a small round face, wears yellow clothes, and has a serial number etched into his red boots.

I should have taken it off and shoved it into the back of my desk drawer. No, I should have thrown it away somewhere, like Mana did to hers.

I take my tote bag off of my shoulder and place it in the opposite corner of the room, regretting that I didn't give Miyano the keychain in that bag to deal with.

I stand there motionless between the school bag and the tote bag, dripping sweat.

The second hand of the wall clock ticks off time precisely. A little bit of light shines through my thick curtains, but it's dim and makes the room dark enough to blur the outlines of the furniture in my room.

If only I could melt away into nothing. The room is quiet, but my mind is loud and noisy.

I can't help but feel how irritated I am, about the thrown-away keychain, Miyano, and everything. I remember how he called me Itsuko instead of Natsuko, and feel angrier.

The only person who never called me Natsuko was Mana.

Mana graduated from another elementary school, and we were in the same class for the first time in our first year of middle school. She must have thought it was strange that everyone called me Natsuko, because one day, she asked me why out of the blue, even though we weren't really friends then.

"Everyone thinks of summer when they see me." I answered.

"Why? I don't get it." Mana widened her eyes.

"I think Akiko, or maybe Fuyuko is a better match. I mean, you don't get excited easily, so you're not very summery, if you ask me. You're more the gloomy type!"

Looking back, I think calling someone gloomy during your first conversation with them should have been kind of rude, but it didn't bother me then. I was more surprised to find someone else who also understood the fact that "Natsuko" isn't a proper nickname for me.

Calling me gloomy might have been pretty rude, but it was refreshing to have someone like Mana around, who always spoke her mind frankly. She never believed rumors or followed the majority to fit in. Mana was the only one who called me "Itsuko" while everyone else called me "Natsuko". That was enough for me, as long as Mana was the one person who really understood me.

At least, that's what I thought.

I crouch down to remove the bear from my school bag.

"Happy birthday, Itsuko!"

Mana had given it to me for my birthday last year.

"I got one too, they're a pair! See, the serial number is only different by one!"

But she threw it away.

Tears fall before I know it. It is nothing more than humiliation that Miyano suggested we go find the owner of the keychain.

I stuff the bear I'm holding deep into my tote bag. I bet they weren't ever expecting to meet each other again like this. I'll just give them both back to Mana.

I wipe my tears away with a handkerchief, grab the tote bag, and rush out of my room again, slinging it over my shoulder.