I got a white shopping bag and stuffed the watermelon into it. Then back to Skank-san’s place…or so I thought.
I froze as I heard a loud voice.
I couldn’t believe it.
It was just like a scene out of one of the mystery novels I had read.
The sound was coming from the entrance of the supermarket, a cacophony of loud voices. Startled, I looked towards the commotion to see two guards holding someone down. Nearby I saw another guard, pressing at his own face as though to check for injury. The loud voices were coming from the three people on the floor.
“Don’t move!” one of the guards yelled, as incoherent shouting echoed through the supermarket.
I had no idea why, but the person on the ground sounded like they wanted to hurt someone. I could not will my legs to move.
What was going on? I didn’t understand, but I was quite uneasy. I churned the gears inside my little head.
“Must be a shoplifter,” said one of the adults nearby.
A shoplifter? I knew what that was. It was a thief.
Had that man been caught stealing? That much I could understand. Even though I understood this, I still could not bring myself to move.
It was only when the guards warned off the people standing around snapping pictures on their cellphones that my legs decided to move. At the time, I still did not have a phone of my own. Even if I did, I had no interest in taking photos of bad people. I could not see their face, but there was no doubt that they were scary. The thief was taken away, but the murmuring around the store continued.
People scattered like a swarm of ants, and I took advantage of the opening to make my exit. I wished I could have left this place just a second sooner, before such a scary thing had happened. I glanced over as I left, seeing dots of red where the battle had occurred. I quickly averted my eyes and rushed outside, my chest heaving with breath. I desperately needed to open up that window into my heart. That warm air soaked lovingly into my chilled thoughts.
“Meow.”
I looked down to find my little friend looking my way, almost glaring. The yellow dog was already gone.
“What’s that look for? I didn’t forget about you. A lot of things happened in there. Let’s get back to Skank-san’s place.”
I tried my best to forget what had just happened and I walked with my disgruntled friend in tow. I sang, carried her even when it wasn’t necessary, and asked her about the yellow dog. Still, a fog lingered over my heart. It felt very much like the time I heard my mother and father shouting at each other.
I had the courage and the righteousness to admonish people when they were doing wrong. If I’d seen that person stealing, I surely would have said something. So why was my heart so hazy to see them apprehended? I couldn’t understand. I had witnessed something dreadful. That was all I could feel.
This haziness continued even after I arrived back at Skank-san’s place. I ought to have asked her about it while she was chilling the watermelon for us. However, I had no interest in talking. I didn’t wish to put it into words and find those sights and sounds floating back up to the surface of my mind. Thus, I decided to only talk about pleasant things.
“I saw a boy from my class at the market. We talked for a bit.”
“Oh, you made a friend in class? I’m so glad to hear that. I was worried that you didn’t have any friends at school.”
“He’s not a friend. We never talk about anything important, or meet up to hang out. Plus, I already have you, and this little one, and Minami-san, and Granny.”
“You should make friends with the kids in your class, too. Just like me, and Minami-san, and Granny. Why don’t you?”
“That’s easy. There’s too much distance between our hearts.”
Skank-san opened her mouth as though to say something, but stopped herself. “I see,” she said at last, with a thin laugh.
For some reason, as I continued to speak, the smile on her face grew wider and wider.
“That boy isn’t my friend, but I like talking with him. He’s smart and he knows a lot about books. I wish I could talk to him more, but he’s nice to everyone. I wish he’d talk more to me, instead of to all those empty-headed idiots in our class.”
“Oh?” She stopped lining her eyebrows with a pencil and looked at me. The look on her face was not the sparkling smile she usually wore, but a sly grin. When adults made faces like that, they were always thinking something devilish. “I think you really like that boy.”
“Yeah, well, I guess even I can like a classmate sometimes.”
There was one more classmate I might be able to like if he could just grow a spine, but there was no sign of such a thing happening. Class observation day aside, he only ever ran away from me.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said.
“It’s not?”
“You’re in love with that boy, aren’t you?”
I’m sure I was just imagining it, but I could feel my whole face about to burst. “No way. I don’t even know anything about him.”
“That doesn’t really matter.”
“Love means you want to marry someone, doesn’t it? I definitely haven’t thought about that.”
“Marriage isn’t all there is to love.”
“What is love, then?”
“I don’t really know. I’m sure you’ll understand it though, with that sharp brain of yours, little lady.”
I could not conceive of the idea of there being something I knew that Skank-san did not. I knew that love and marriage existed. However, I had no interest in running away with Ogiwara-kun as the lovers in stories did, nor did I wish to gaze deeply into his eyes. I just wanted to talk to him.
As we ate the watermelon, I decided to ask Skank-san a question. “Is there anyone who you want to marry?”
“Nope. I don’t think I’m really the marrying type.”
“Why not?”
She looked up at the ceiling and hummed to herself, thinking, before she replied.
“It’s like a crème brûlée. It’s fine that you can only see the sweet parts of love when you’re a child. In fact, it’s absolutely wonderful. Everyone knows that. But when you’re an adult, you realize that the bitter parts of the pudding are there as well, and sooner or later, you will have to eat them. But it’s not like coffee and beer. I hate the bitter parts of love. But it’s a lot of work to avoid them, so eventually I just stopped wanting to eat it at all.”
“This is complicated.”
Far more than math, or cooking, I thought.
“I mean, there’s plenty of people who don’t get married these days, anyway.”
“I don’t think I’ll get married when I grow up, either. Life is like a bed.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A single is enough for sleeping.”
Skank-san stared at me for a beat, and then gave the greatest laugh I had ever heard. I was thrilled that she enjoyed my joke, and munched the watermelon joyfully.
“Was that meaning intentional?” she asked me.
Not understanding the question itself, I just tilted my head.
That night, as always, I grew sleepy around ten o’clock, mulling over all sorts of things. I snuggled into my warm bed and went to sleep.
The next day, when I arrived at school, an unfathomable rumor was going around: Kiriyuu-kun’s father had been arrested for stealing.
There was no way that such a kind man could have done such a thing, I thought. I wanted to force Kiriyuu-kun to say that this was a lie, but this turned out to be impossible.
Kiriyuu-kun had not come to school that day, and when I asked Hitomi-sensei about it, I was unable to learn a thing.