Chapter 10
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WHEN I ARRIVED at Granny’s house, dripping with sweat, there was a note tacked to the wooden door yet again. It had the same message as before. I stepped in through the door, wiped my little friend’s feet, took off my shoes, and quietly entered the house. My footsteps sounded different than before because I was wearing sandals today. So instead of the slippery sound of my socks, there was the padding of bare feet upon the floorboards. I had really hoped that Skank-san might compliment those sandals.
I hoped I could show Granny my sandals too, and that she would know where Skank-san had gone, so we could go there at once. Then we would eat ice cream and talk about Kiriyuu-kun.
The house was so quiet that I thought I could hear the faint voice of the trees the house was built from. I walked down the hall, wondering if Granny might be up on the second floor again, but I found her in her bedroom.
Perhaps the sound of my opening the glass door awoke her. She was lying on her side on her bed in that mild, air-conditioned room, smiling gently at me.
“Come in,” she said.
“Oh, sorry. Were you napping?”
“It’s fine, I was just waking up.”
“That’s good. Were you having a nice dream?” I asked.
She grinned at me. “Yes, I had that same dream again,” she said, sitting up in bed with a more languid motion than usual and opening the curtains. Unlike in the living room, the sun shone dimly in here. The painting hung on the wall seemed to shine with its own light.
“There’s some orange juice in the fridge,” she said, as I attempted to close the sliding door.
I went to the kitchen and returned with two little juice boxes. She took one from me with a “thank you,” and set it down on the bed. The sweet and sour tang of the orange juice washed away the bitter taste that still lingered in my mouth.
“Did it go well?” she asked simply. I nodded.
Normally, this was the part where I would start talking, my words spilling out like a drumroll, but I did nothing of the sort.
“Did something happen?” she asked again. It was obvious to her.
“Yeah. It went well with that boy from my class,” I said in a voice that sounded like it was drowning. “But…Skank-san is gone.”
I told her everything that had happened that day. Actually, I started with the day before. I told her about my depression regarding Kiriyuu-kun, Skank-san’s advice, the fact that she had suddenly started crying, and the wonderful coincidence of us sharing a catchphrase.
Then I told her about today. About how Skank-san had vanished, the strange man now living in her home, the ice cream he gave me that I didn’t like, and how this was all far more mysterious than when Minami-san had disappeared.
She listened to my tale and told me that she did not know where Skank-san had gone. To my regret, one more mystery floated through my mind. I decided to ask her about it.
“Skank-san disappeared just like Minami-san. The fact that they’re gone makes me feel really lonely, but it doesn’t feel like it did when Kiriyuu-kun told me he hated me.”
“I see,” she said with a nod. That was Granny for you. She knew everything. “It sounds like you aren’t despairing, then.”
I could not write the kanji for zetsubou, “despair.”
“Maybe it’s because you already know in your heart that you’ll meet Skank-san and Minami-san again someday,” she said, putting the small, curious relief that I felt into words.
“Exactly,” I replied. “I don’t have any proof though, like a detective in a mystery story would.”
“That’s true.” She narrowed her eyes and nodded. “Still, I’m sure that you’re right. Don’t worry. You will definitely see them again someday.”
“Yeah, I’m sure of that, too,” I said with a firm nod.
“You have the power to see the future, after all,” she said.
“I still wanted to talk and play Othello with her some more, though.”
“But now you have a friend in your class. Why don’t you practice with him?”
“That’s true. I don’t know if he also has the power to see the future, though.”
She tittered at this, as though she was somehow remembering his face. No, that was impossible. She had never met Kiriyuu-kun. She was probably just thinking about her own friend who liked to draw.
“Skank-san asked me if you were happy.”
“Did she?”
“I told her that you said that you were happy, but is that because you get to think about your artist friend?”
She tittered again. “Yes, perhaps. Plus, I think about you, and about my family.”
“So, would you say that happiness is thinking seriously about someone?”
“Oh my, is your presentation day approaching soon?”
Now that’s what they call hitting the nail on the head. However, there was another reason why I asked this question.
“Actually, I just really want to know the answer. Although this assignment is complicated.”
That was truly how I felt. The assignment was always on my mind.
“There are different kinds of happiness,” I said. “A lot of stuff has happened lately. I’ve asked different people about what happiness is, and the answers they’ve found. For Minami-san, it was being recognized. For Skank-san, it was thinking about someone else, and for Kiriyuu-kun, it was being with friends. I think each answer is true for them, but I still haven’t found a way to describe the happiness inside of me. It’s really hard to pick just one thing. Life is like a bento box.”
“And how is that?”
“I can’t fit in everything I like. And I still don’t know how big that bento box is, or what it’s called. Granny, if Hitomi-sensei gave you an assignment to say what happiness was, what would your answer be?”
It was a super hard question, but it seemed like she held the answer. She looked up at the sky through the window, as though remembering something from long ago.
“Happiness is…”
“Yes?”
“Being able to say that you’re happy right now.”
Of all the answers I had received, hers was the easiest to understand, and the one that sunk most easily into my heart. And yet…
“I don’t think I could understand that without living a reeeally long time.”
“That’s true. The happiness I feel is my own, as someone who has lived far longer than you. It’s different from your happiness. You have to find your own, Nacchan.”
In the end, no matter how much I learned, I would have to think about this myself. As we drank our juice together, gazing at the picture on the wall, I suddenly remembered what I had in my bag.
“Oh, right! I got a picture from Kiriyuu-kun.”
I pulled the sheet of paper from my backpack. Knowing Kiriyuu-kun as well as I did, it was impressive that he had shown me a picture at all, but since he had given it to me, I couldn’t pass up a chance to show it off.
It was a picture of a flower. Looking upon this colored pencil drawing, the creases of Granny’s face deepened.
“It’s…so lovely.”
“Isn’t it? I can’t believe he was hiding his talent. That’s what they call a waste, right? I bet if he keeps practicing, he’ll be as amazing at drawing as your friend.”
“Heh heh, my friend is amazing, then? If you say so, then perhaps it’s true.”
“Absolutely,” I said, unyielding.
Then I sat down on the end of Granny’s bed, and talked about Our Seven Days’ War, because I had not gotten to talk about it with Ogiwara. When I asked about how stupid the adults were in the book, she laughed and said that there are far more stupid adults than smart ones, and that just because an adult was smart didn’t mean that they were a good person.
I loved talking about stories. I wish I could discuss Minami-san’s story in the same way, but just as I thought of this, the clock chimed. It was time to go home.
As I stood up, Granny lay back down, going back to her nap. I headed to the door with Miss Bobtail in tow, quietly so as not to disturb Granny. In all honesty, I should have left then, but I stopped.
“Hey, Granny?”
I felt uneasy.
“You won’t disappear too, will you?”
She did not reply. Instead, I could hear contented sounds of her breathing. Careful not to disturb her, I fell quiet and left the wooden house with my little friend at my side.
I visited the cream-colored apartment building many times after that day, but Skank-san was never there.