“I hope it’s not that bad tomorrow. At least after that, it’ll be the weekend.”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Are you listening to me?” she asked.
“I’m listening.”
I exchanged my indoor school slippers for my outdoor shoes and went outside. In front of the building’s main entrance was a small courtyard and the front gate, with the sports grounds on the opposite side of the school. As I walked, the voices of the baseball and rugby players gradually dimmed.
Stomping her feet, my classmate caught up to me and demanded, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to listen when other people are talking?”
“Sure they did. I said I was listening.”
“All right then, so what was I talking about?”
I thought a moment, then said, “The manjuu.”
With the cheerful chiding of a daycare teacher, she said, “You weren’t listening! You mustn’t tell lies.”
I was short for a boy my age, and she was tall for a girl, which left us at about the same height. There was something refreshing about being scolded by someone just a little bit shorter than me.
“Sorry,” I said, “I was thinking about something.”
“Oh?”
Her frown disappeared as if it had never been there and she leaned in, peering at me with intense interest. I briefly hastened my pace to regain a little distance, then I bobbed my head and said, “Yeah, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Seriously, too, for once.”
“Whoa! Well, out with it.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.”
I was careful not to turn this into a dramatic scene. I didn’t stop walking, I didn’t look at her; I tried to say it as casually as I could. I knew if she took what I said too seriously, she would be a pain about it.
But being a pain was who she was, and her reaction trampled all over my careful maneuvering.
“About me?” she gasped. “Is this what I think it is? Are you about to confess your love to me? You’re getting me all flustered!”
I waited until she was finished. Then I said, “Not like that.”
“I’m listening.”
Still keeping my tone utterly casual, I asked, “Is it really all right for you to be spending what little time you have organizing books in the school library?”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Well, yeah, obviously. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t think there’s anything obvious about it.”
“Oh?” she asked. “And what do you suggest I should be doing instead?”
“Don’t you have a lot of things you want to do? Like meeting up with your first crush, or maybe hitchhiking around in foreign countries until you find the place you want to spend your last days?”
This time she tilted her head in the opposite direction. She hummed in disagreement and said, “I get what you’re saying, but… Let me put it this way: you have things you want to do before you die, too, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Yet you’re not doing them. Either one of us could die tomorrow. That goes the same for you and just as much for me. Every day is worth the same as any other. What I did or didn’t do today doesn’t change its worth. Today, I had fun.”
I thought it over for a moment, then said, “Okay.”
She had a point. As much as I didn’t want to agree, I found myself seeing the truth in it.
Just as she would die one day soon, so, too, would I. I couldn’t know when, but it was certain. It was entirely possible I might die before she did.
Having to face her own mortality had given her remarkable insight. Just a bit, I reassessed my opinion of the girl walking beside me.
Not that she would care how I estimated her. She was liked by far too many people for her to bother over how someone like me felt.
Just then, a boy in a soccer uniform came running from the direction of the front gate. The moment he saw her, his expression brightened.
Sakura noticed him and gave him a small wave, saying, “Go get ’em!”
“See you, Sakura,” he said.
He jogged past us with a breezy smile and an easy, confident step. He was in our class, but he didn’t even give me a glance.
“That jerk,” the girl said. “He ignored you, [Classmate Who Knows My Secret]-kun. I’ll have to teach him some manners tomorrow!”
“You don’t have to. Actually, please don’t. It doesn’t bother me.”
It really didn’t. Of course, our classmates would treat us differently—she and I were about as opposite as two people could be. Nothing would change that.
“That attitude is why you don’t make any friends,” she said.
“It’s just the truth. Don’t waste your time.”
“See,” she groaned, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
We’d reached the school’s front gate. My house and hers were in opposite directions, and this was where we always parted. I wished we didn’t have to.
“Later,” I said. I wasn’t going to show my regret now.
I was about to turn away from her when she stopped me by saying, “Listen. About what you said…”
She had a pleased look on her face, with an impish smile that meant she had probably just thought of some way to mess with me. Whatever my face looked like, I was sure it wasn’t pleased.
“I suppose,” she said, “that if you’re so insistent about helping me spend what little time I have left more wisely, I could let you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you doing anything Sunday?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I have a date with this girl. She’s really cute, but if I don’t spend time with her, she gets all hysterical and it turns into this big whole thing.”
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“What if I am?”
“Then it’s settled,” she said. “Meet me in front of the train station at eleven on Sunday morning. I’ll write about it in my memoir, so you’d better come.”
Showing no actual concern or need for my assent, she waved goodbye and began walking home. Beyond her, the summer sky gazed down upon us, with its orange and pink only just starting to give way to ultramarine.
Without waving, I turned my back to her and started walking. As I took the familiar way home, the boisterous chatter and laughter around the school faded away, and the deep blue gradually claimed the rest of the sky. I saw the same streets I always did, and she saw the same streets she always did, but I got the feeling how we saw them was completely different.
I would keep walking this same path until I graduated high school.
I wondered how many more times she would walk hers.
Then I remembered what she said. I couldn’t know exactly how many more times I would walk mine. I shouldn’t see my path any differently than she saw hers.
I held a finger to my neck to make sure I was still alive. I took a step with each pulse of my heartbeat, and my mood soured by the forced awareness of the transience and fragility of my life.
A cool evening breeze came along and distracted me from this train of thought. I decided to think of something more positive—deciding whether or not I would leave the house on Sunday.