Chapter 3
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MINAMI-SAN SCREAMED at the same time I did, while Miss Bobtail bounded happily onto the roof.
Minami-san dropped the blade onto the stone floor. After getting over my shock, I looked between Minami-san, the blade, and Minami-san’s wrist, and was shocked again. Red blood dripped from her hand.
“What’re you doing?! We need to fix that!”
“Wh-who are you?”
“I’ve got a band-aid—here, put this on and let’s get you to the hospital!”
“Wait, um…I’m fine. Stop fussing, would you?”
I was panicking, but Minami-san had already calmed down. I only learned her age later, but she was very much a mature high school student.
Hearing her request, I thought of how Hitomi-sensei had taught me to calm myself down and started breathing deeply. Breathing like this opened a gap in the tension in my heart and my nerves relaxed, as they had that time I found myself wrapped in slightly-too-large pajamas.
Deep breath in…and out.
I repeated this breathing many times finally and began to relax. I handed Minami-san a handkerchief and band-aid.
“I’ve got one,” Minami said reluctantly, pressing her own handkerchief to her wrist. My band-aid was set down on the rooftop, unused.
I looked at Minami-san’s wrist and the downturned corners of her mouth. “Is something wrong with your head?” I asked.
“Probably,” she said dully through those twisted lips.
“I see… So when you are weird in the head, you start cutting up your own arm. That could never happen to me, then. I hate pain.”
“So do I.”
“But you’re still cutting your arm. You really are weird.”
“Shut up. Go away.”
Not listening, I climbed up onto the roof. I sat down beside Minami-san and Miss Bobtail, quietly observing her wrist. I could sense Minami-san making a sour face, but I just couldn’t leave an injured person alone. But looking at the painful cut, I grew frightened imagining it on myself, and turned to look at her face instead.
“What’re you looking at?” she asked.
“Your arm. It looks really painful.”
“You’re a child. Go home already.”
“What are you doing up here, Minami-san?”
“It’s none of your business. And where did you get ‘Minami’ from?”
“Well your name’s written right there, isn’t it? Even an elementary schooler can read that.”
I pointed to the letters embroidered on her navy blue skirt. I could only dream of wearing something so sharp and rigorous. However, Minami-san only looked at her skirt and let out a sigh.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Are you alone?”
“It’s…nice to be alone, isn’t it? Nothing says you have to be with someone.”
“That’s true. I’ve had the same thought.”
“You sound pretty conceited for a child.”
“I’m not conceited. Well, maybe a little more than the other kids. I know how wonderful books can be.”
“People hate you, don’t they?”
“Probably,” I said, mimicking her.
She scowled and turned to look at Miss Bobtail, who was looking back, her head tilted. She surely thought this whole thing was as strange as I did. As she could not speak, I had to be her representative.
“So, Minami-san.”
“Yeah?”
“Why were you cutting your arm?”
“Why do I have to explain something like that to you when I’ve only just met you?”
“I don’t see why not. I’m not going to spread rumors about you.”
She turned her face away, still scowling, and I just assumed that I would not be getting an answer. However, at length, she finally replied.
“No reason. Helps me calm down.”
“If you need to calm down, you should breathe in, open your heart, and take in the smell of the sun in an old wooden house.”
“This calms me down in the same way.”
“Well that sounds weird.”
“You…wanna try it?”
She clicked open the box cutter, covered in dried blood, and held it out to me. I quickly shook my head. As she closed the blade, she looked like she might have been smiling, just a little. It was impossible to tell, with her eyes almost fully covered by her hair.
“What would you do if I was some kind of bad guy? It’d be easy to cut a kid like you.”
“It’s fine. I haven’t gotten any bad smells from you.”
“How’s that fine?”
“You don’t smell like a bad adult.”
“That’s because I’m not an adult.”
I really was getting worried about her wrist now, and mustered the courage to reach out to touch it, but she snatched her hand away and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaving my hand swinging through empty air.
“There’s still a lot that I don’t know about the world,” I said. “If there are people who can calm down by cutting their arms.”
“You’re awfully haughty for a child.”
“You know, I had no idea this place was here.”
“I see.”
“Do you always come here, Minami-san?”
My little friend had begun wandering the rooftop, her tail swaying, so I stood up to follow. As soon as I started walking, I realized how much wider the rooftop was than I had imagined. I came back, close enough to see the blood on Minami’s wrist.
“What’re you hanging around here for?” she asked. And then: “I only found this place recently.”
“What are you doing here?”
I scooped my little friend up in my arms and spun around. Miss Bobtail cried out and I let her go. She wobbled as though the ground had gone out from under her, and flopped down at Minami-san’s feet. I laughed.
“Don’t pick on it.”
“I’m not picking on her. We’re playing.”
Minami stroked Miss Bobtail’s back, as though pleased by the black stripes of her fur. Hearing the cute, pleased mewl she let out, it occurred to me again what a wicked girl she was to resort to such flattery.
“So, what are you doing here, Minami-san? If I was coming to a big open place like this, I think I’d dance. How about you?”
“I don’t dance. I just sit and look at the sky.”
“And then you cut your arms. Now that I’m looking, I can see that you’ve cut them plenty of times…you really are going to die.”
Minami-san looked at her arms and sighed. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Should I continue this conversation? Her expression said both that she wanted to talk and that she didn’t. I was sure that I had never made such a complicated expression. When I wanted to talk, I did, and when I didn’t, then I didn’t.
I reminded myself to ask Skank-san about the face Minami-san was making. If you wanted to know about adults, you should ask another adult. Instead, there was one other thing that I wished to discuss, so I turned my sights towards that.
“Hey, Minami-san.”
“What? Shut up already.”
“I was wondering if you like to draw pictures.”
“What’s this all of a sudden?”