Although I was starting a new life commuting to school in the city, I had little interest in studying. I’d passed the test to get in, but in class, I always ended up staring aimlessly out the window. And I knew I shouldn’t have, of course.
I didn’t join any clubs. Hardly anyone did that.
Before heading home one day, I watched the other kids absorbed in their extracurricular activities. The track club was lined up in the courtyard jumping hurdles. The volleyball team was jogging around the school grounds. The drummers in the brass band were banging their sticks in the hallway, metronomes in their ears. The naginata team was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the training hall, performing their ritual greetings. The freshman baseball players who hadn’t gotten their numbers yet were lined up watching intently as the older players practiced.
Feeling out of place, I hurried away from the school.
It was already winter. There’s a river called the Kagami that runs through downtown from east to west. Its name means “mirror,” and true to form, it’s often calm enough to flawlessly reflect the TV tower and office buildings on the far bank.
I was walking along the riverbank on my way to the station when some girls from band skipped past me, laughing, their instruments over their shoulders. The cutesy cat keychains clipped to their schoolbags bounced along as the group forged ahead. Clipped to my bag, I have a cheap plastic keychain of Mr. Reseggnation, a cartoon character shaped like an egg. He has his hand propped against a wall to tolerate the crap he’s going through. All that resignation doesn’t seem to do much because his head is cracked. Needless to say, there’s nothing cutesy about him.
I was in a dark hallway.
“I don’t want to!” I said, trying to resist.
But I was pulled into the room all the same. The insulated door slammed shut after me.
“No!”
It was a gaudy karaoke cubicle with pink and purple lights spinning dizzily overhead. I smelled incense. I’d heard there was going to be a party for girls in my class, but as I watched them standing on the sofa, bobbing their heads, I knew I could never fit in with such madness.
“Peggie Sue is so cute!”
“She’s super popular on U right now!”
On the wall-mounted monitor, Peggie Sue, a popular AS on U, was singing. She was an eccentric beauty dressed in a black latex dress, with long silver hair, purple lipstick, and red eyes.
Peggie Sue? U? AS? Popular?
I didn’t understand any of it. I felt like I lived in a different universe.
“Here.”
Suddenly, someone thrust the mic in front of my face, like they were ordering me to sing.
“What?” I blurted out, confused. I hadn’t even taken off my coat and scarf.
“Here,” another girl said, holding out her mic, too. Why were they doing this to an outsider like me?
“Let’s sing something together.”
“Yeah, sing!”
They were all forcing their mics on me. What was happening?
“Are you gonna be the only who doesn’t sing?”
“The thing about you not being able to sing is a lie, right?”
So that’s what this is about.
Dozens of mics were right up in my face.
“Uhhh, uhhh…”
I wanted to tell them to stop, that they were hurting me, but no words came out.
“Sing!”
“C’mon, sing for us!”
“Sing something!”
Their voices started sounding like echoes in a cave.
“I told you to sing.”
“Sing!”
“Sing!!”
“Arrrgh!” I couldn’t help yelling.
The mics clattered to the floor. The girls dancing on the sofa stared at me in shock. There was a bewildered silence.
“What’s wrong, Suzu?”
The mics and the girls holding them had vanished like phantoms.
“N-nothing. I’m sorry, I just…”
Without finishing that thought, I pushed the door open with all my might and stumbled into the hallway.
One of the girls must’ve heard I couldn’t sing and told the others.
Snow flurries were falling when I got off the bus, and I almost slipped as I walked down the hill from the bus stop. It snows a lot in Kochi, especially in the mountains. As I crossed the Chinka Bridge, I heard thin ice cracking. The concrete bridge was frozen.
It was so cold.
I didn’t fit in, and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t strong enough to be okay with being alone. I lacked the resolve and the philosophy for that.
I’m not selfish. Is it a lie that I can’t sing? Yeah, it’s a lie. I’ve just never had much confidence. I do want to be friends with everyone. I really do. And I know I do. Of course I know…
“Ooh…ooh…”
I stopped in the middle of the bridge and impulsively wrenched out a sound from within me.
“Oooh…oo…oooh…”
I breathed in. The cold air stung my throat. I kept singing to the river anyway.
“Oo…ooh…oooooo…oh…”
I sang?
No, that didn’t actually count as a song. More like a groan. My bag slipped off my shoulder. Would people be okay with me if I sang? If I sang, would I be friends with everyone? Singing by myself here wouldn’t do any good. I sounded like I was being crushed to death. All the same, I forced my voice to sing the song I used to sing with Mom. I was happy back then. Not now.
The river sucked in the powdery snowflakes. Suddenly, everything went black.
A wave of nausea rose from the pit of my stomach. I pressed my hands over my mouth.
“Urgh…!!”
I crouched down to my knees, unable to hold back the rising stomach acid. I leaned over the edge and vomited into the clear water.
The vomit splattered onto the river’s surface, sending out overlapping ripples.
After I threw up everything in my stomach, I stayed collapsed on the bridge.
My hair was all messed up and my mouth was smeared with stinking vomit. I hate this so much. I just want it all to be over.
I was trembling and moaning. Stinging tears ran down my cold cheeks. The world would be better without me. I listened to the snow gently accumulating around me.
Ping.
My phone had slid out of my bag, and a notification had popped up. It was a message from Hiro.
Suzu, check this out. It’s literally incredible lmao, you’re gonna love it
There was a link underneath.