“Oneechan, carry meeeee…”
“My arms hurt.” But I did it anyway.
On the way home, I carried my sister back up the spiral bridge, battling with the rosy morning sun, sweating bullets. Now I had an actual good reason not to take her down there. Next time I’d stick to the neighborhood park. I’m gonna take a shower ASAP, I decided as I rooted around in my pocket for my key.
“Don’t tell Mom about that older girl, okay?” I gently warned my sister before we walked into the house.
“How come?”
“…Because she’s a secret.”
This turn of phrase was something I’d come up with off the top of my head, but surprisingly, it captured her pretty well. When I pressed my index finger to my lips, my sister’s eyes lit up. “Ooooh.”
Evidently, I had convinced her and thank god for that. If she let slip that I was meeting up with some strange adult woman, things would only get complicated, and I wasn’t eager to waste time fighting with my mother any more than I already did.
“Can we play together again sometime?”
“Mmm, I’d like that.” I wasn’t sure who exactly was included in that “we,” so I answered vaguely.
The older girl—the Kimono Lady. I didn’t know her name, or where she came from. All I knew was that she was drop-dead gorgeous, as soft as my favorite blanket, and smelled so strongly of flowers that one could mistake her kimono pattern for the real thing. She was so far beyond me, it was hard to believe she lived just one step outside my world. One look at her and I felt as though I’d witnessed an elusive, beautiful butterfly.
And yet, for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to go back. I woke up early each morning, as if to the sound of a phantom alarm clock, but when I saw my sister’s legs stirring beneath her blanket, I couldn’t bring myself to get up.
“Oneechan…?” a sleepy voice called.
“…I’m too tired today,” I lied.
I gestured for her to go back to bed, and she slowly drifted back to sleep like whipped cream melting in the heat. I watched her go, then rolled over and closed my eyes. But no matter where I shifted, the cool side of the blanket quickly turned warm.
It felt like I was drowning, and whenever I couldn’t sleep, it was always my old friend who came to mind: Tarumi. In elementary school, it had truly felt like we’d spend the rest of our lives together. But in junior high we were assigned to different classes, and after that, we just sort of…fell out of touch. These days I could pass her in the hall and not even notice.
One could say that was just how friendship went sometimes; what was once routine, without diligent pursuit, quickly stopped being routine at all. Hell, even with diligent pursuit it would eventually die out. Lately I’d realized there was simply nothing I could do about it.
This included Gon, the dog that lived at my grandparents’ house in the countryside. Recently I’d witnessed him getting undeniably weaker; his energy had dulled with age to the point that he could no longer keep up with me. And ever since then, I had felt stressed, irritable, emotionally unstable. My stomach ached like it was crying nonstop.
This, in turn, reminded me of something else: a dog that had once lived at a house on the route I took to elementary school. Whenever a big group of grade-schoolers passed by, that dog would come out and sit in the front yard. All the kids would greet him, and naturally, I was one of them. But one day, he moved to a new house—a sign was posted out front, written from the perspective of the dog with a photo attached, thanking us for being such nice neighbors. At the time I was only mildly disappointed, but now I understood the truth.
So where would Gon “move away” to? I couldn’t find the answer.
Behind my eyelids, shooting stars streaked past in trails of white. And as I watched them fade, I felt my consciousness sink.
Ah, so I’m just running from my fears, I thought. Story of my life.
Thinking solely about the future would keep me rooted in place, so I forced myself to look at the present.
My sister was sleeping like she was supposed to—proof that she was a good girl. I gazed at her for a long moment, wondering how deep her sleep was. When I heard her snoring, I took it as my cue to slip out from under my thin summer blanket.
Playing outside with my sister required a lot of emotional energy; I could handle it now and then, but not every single day. Careful not to wake her, I stepped out into the hall. As I passed by my parents’ bedroom, I wondered idly if my mother was awake. Then I arrived at the front door, where I put my shoes on.
Looking back, I realized I’d never once bothered to brush my hair prior to leaving the house, and only now was I belatedly embarrassed about it.
The last time I went to the spiral bridge was five days ago, with my sister in tow. Five days was all it took for your best friend to turn into some girl from some other class. Likewise, perhaps Kimono Lady had stopped showing up. “Not that I care,” I muttered to myself as I ran to my destination, basketball in hand. I hadn’t done any warm-ups, so even a light run was enough to raise my core temperature. The drowsiness lifted like fog.
This was perhaps the first time I had ever run down the spiral bridge. As I picked up speed, the buildings disappeared behind the concrete walls. The temperature must have been lower than usual, because no suffocating heat threatened to engulf me. And with my body feeling light, I could delude myself into thinking that my life was going well.
At the bottom of the bridge, I transitioned into a jog, all the way to the basketball court. There I came to a stop, breathing hard. One glance told me no one else was here—good. I bounced my ball. Then, belatedly, I remembered to stretch.
With my arms straight out in front of me, my elbows made a pleasant popping sound, and a groan slipped from my lips. Next, I switched to shoulder rotations.
If no one was here, then why did I come here? To practice, obviously. That was my plan from the start. Then I met some weird lady who threw a wrench into everything, but now life was going back to normal. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Oh!”
The sudden voice made me whirl around. But I didn’t need to see who it was to know it wasn’t her.
“…Senpai…?”
“Well, well, if it isn’t my kouhai!”
It was an older girl who used to be on the basketball team, now away in high school. She was wearing a no-frills T-shirt and sandals, suggesting she was only out for a morning walk; when she spotted me, she sauntered over. I couldn’t remember when I’d last spoken to her. Had I bothered to say goodbye the day she retired from the team?