“Five o’clock! You guys better not be late!”
Yusuke raised one hand into the air as he pedaled his mountain bike to the right at the fork in the road. His voice was overly cheerful.
“Huh? What’s got him so happy?”
“No idea… A while ago he was telling me all about how he couldn’t take a dump, though.”
“Ah, so he’s got a bunch of extra fuel packed up inside, then.”
Junichi, Minoru, and I held our low-IQ conversation under the shade of the age-old beech tree standing between the two diverging paths. We watched as Yusuke receded into the distance.
A rusted old noticeboard stood in front of the tree. The town had affixed a poster there that read:
LIGHT OF HOPE
AUGUST 1
MOSHIMO FIREWORKS DISPLAY
7 PM TO 8 PM
The background of the poster was filled with photos of multicolored firework explosions. It was the same design they used every year.
“Um, don’t the fireworks on here look pretty round to you…?” Minoru asked worriedly, an ice pop hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
Junichi answered reassuringly, “That’s just ’cause they shot the pictures from the front. If you look at it from the side like this… See? Totally flat!”
Junichi stood to the side of the noticeboard and stared at the poster with one eye shut.
Minoru followed his lead, then announced, “You’re right!”
“See? Why are we even bothering with the lighthouse? …Huh? Hey, Norimichi, you’re bleeding.”
“I am?”
I followed Junichi’s eyes down to my feet. One white sock was tinged red with blood.
“Oh yeah… Earlier at the pool, I was making a turn and smashed my ankle.”
“On a turn? Smooth.”
“My foot just shot out farther than I expected.”
“How does something like that even happen?”
“I dunno.”
As I related the story of my ankle to Junichi, I was confronted by the mental image of Nazuna’s face with her eyes fixed directly on mine as we both swam in the water. Nazuna and I had probably only been looking at each other like that for a second or two, but her gaze had been so intense, it felt much longer.
“Hey, Junichi. Can you keep your eyes open underwater?”
“Huh? You mean without goggles?”
“Yeah.”
“No way. It stings.”
“Right? Minoru, what about you?”
“I used to be able to. A long time ago, in elementary. Don’t you remember? In swimming class, we used to make each other play rock-paper-scissors underwater.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”
He was right. When we’d first been learning how to swim and still couldn’t do much beyond sticking our heads under the water, we’d have little competitions—like who could grab the chlorine tablet from the bottom of the pool after the teacher had tossed it in.
We hadn’t been wearing goggles then, but we’d been able to see everything under the surface clearly.
“Anyway, see you at five, right?”
“Yeah.”
Junichi and Minoru rode their skateboard and scooter up the left fork. I watched them go, then lifted my foot up to the pedal of my bike. The dull ache of my ankle changed into a fresh, biting pain. I clenched my teeth and thought again about everything that had happened at the pool.
Did this mean Nazuna was still able to see everything under the surface with perfect clarity?
✦ ✦ ✦
A makeshift sign reading CLOSED FOR TODAY fluttered in the wind. I circled around behind the shop and pulled our spare house key out from the mailbox. When I opened the door, I was met with the muggy air of a house left unoccupied during a summer day.
“Why does it have to be so hot?”
I threw my sweat-soaked button-down shirt into the laundry basket, then walked into the kitchen. I opened the fridge, expecting to see my half-finished bottle of cola from the day before. It was gone.
Huh? Did Mom throw it away?
I pulled open the freezer and saw a box of my dad’s favorite ice pops: Watermelon Bars. There was only one left in the box, and I decided to take it. Whoever came up with the idea of an ice pop that looks just like a wedge of cut watermelon, with an easy-to-eat triangular shape and little chocolate “seeds” inside, was a genius.
The pain in my right ankle had grown a little more intense. I dragged it along the floor and limped up the stairs toward my room. When I threw open the door, Yusuke was sitting there playing Mario Kart.
“Whoa!! You scared me!!!”
“Welcome home.”
I was so surprised, I’d almost dropped my Watermelon Bar. Yusuke, in contrast, sat calmly playing the game and drinking a bottle of cola—my bottle of cola. He didn’t even glance in my direction.
“What do you mean, ‘Welcome home’? Why are you even here?”
“You guys gotta take better precautions. You can’t just leave a spare key in the mailbox. Anybody could find it.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just waltz right in, you know. And that cola you’re drinking is mine.”
“Come on, it’s no big deal. You’re free until five anyway, right? And hey, so am I!”
“Don’t change the subject.”
As I gave my last quip, I sat down beside Yusuke. His eyes gleamed at my frozen treat.
“Oh man, a Watermelon Bar. Hey, get me one of those, too.”
“Too bad. Last one.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of a little something called hospitality?” With a devilish grin and his controller still in hand, he leaned over and took a bite out of the ice pop.
“Man, whoever came up with the idea of an ice pop shaped like a piece of watermelon was a genius,” he continued.
It was these kinds of exchanges that reminded me why we were best friends. Even after some kind of argument or fight, the next time we saw each other, things were back to normal—as if the disagreement had never happened.
I picked up the second controller, and Yusuke switched to two-player mode. He picked Bowser; I picked Luigi. That, too, was how it always was for us.