What the hell does cute mean?
That night I lie in bed, thinking about the meaning behind Smile’s words. Cute. Cute. That means it’s good…right?
“The ‘false start in the wind’ part…?”
How is that cute? The sound of it? The kind of senses someone must have to think that haiku is cute amazes me. I sure don’t have them. Sometimes I think I come up with cool, sophisticated stuff, but cute isn’t at all in my wheelhouse…
I stare at the ceiling. This apartment complex is being renovated, and the ceiling is covered with a white fireproof fabric that sags down a little. I extend my right index finger toward the blank ceiling, tracing out false start in the air with it. It makes a lot of rounded curves, like in cursive writing; a soft image. False start might seem cute to me after all, but Smile wasn’t looking at the words. She was hearing me recite the haiku.
Your voice.
“Your voice! I think it’s cute!”
I was shocked. I have never thought of my voice as cute. Not even once.
A cute voice… That’s more like what Smile has, isn’t it? Smile’s voice is clear, transparent, never even muffled by the mask she wears. It is a bit high, and sometimes she rambles on a bit, but each word reaches my ears clearly.
“Summer’s lustrous sheen,” I mutter to myself in my room. “There’s a false start in the wind…and the evening dusk…”
You can’t really be sure if your voice is cute or not when you hear it yourself. If she’s that popular a streamer, I bet Smile’s really good at talking in front of people. The exact opposite of me. She’d never have a problem reading haiku to an audience.
…Today’s haiku meeting was the absolute worst. The haiku I made during our excursion wasn’t all that good, but Miyuki still asked me to read it aloud. That was so unreasonable of her.
When I get really nervous, my skin turns bright red. It’s always been like that. I first noticed it back in third grade, when I saw a picture of myself at a school choir competition. I got picked to be the conductor for my class’s group, and I was so conscious of my classmates and the audience watching me… It was the most nervous I’d ever been in my life. I had buried most of my memories about how I’d looked at the competition, but I think photos have the power to show you who you really are, the bits you can’t see for yourself otherwise. My face, as shot from the side of the stage, was so red that I can only compare it to a boiled lobster. My moves and conducting were so awkward, so amateurish, that I looked like a puppet on strings. Neither my friends nor the teacher said anything about it, but I’m sure they didn’t want to upset me.
Looking back, I think it was around this time that I began to dislike conversation. Maybe my desire not to embarrass myself in front of people unconsciously led me to shun communication. I don’t want to be like this. If I could overcome it, I would. That’s why I agreed to Miyuki’s unreasonable request…
…But in front of everyone, my whole body blazed hot. I could feel all this crazy tension in my shoulders. The strip of paper I was staring at quivered a bit, the hand holding it was wine-red. I felt people’s eyes on me, and when I looked up, I locked gazes with Mr. Fujiyama. His expression was the same as always, but his eyes were all like, “I dare you to read it.”
I could easily replay the words I had written in my head, but when I tried to say them out loud, I felt like a lid had closed over my throat, preventing me from speaking properly. Uttering my words in a patchwork, cut-off fashion wouldn’t really get them across to anyone…but when I made my best effort to speak, I wound up going too fast, and I got the idea nobody really comprehended it. All the smiles and applause afterward just made it harder.
In the end, I’d failed.
I wonder why Miyuki randomly decided to have me read it? I just don’t get it. Was she concerned about the fact that I stuck to text only? I mean, I really enjoy making haiku, creating these works of art. I enjoy the way clipped-out words and unexpected combinations can suddenly create new landscapes. But I get no joy out of expressing myself out loud. Haiku is words, and words are text. Isn’t that the essence of it?
I get all embarrassed about having people look at my work, but if they can’t see my face, like on Curiosity, I’m fine with it. Beaver’s tagging was really embarrassing for me—but the fact that I’ve never told him to cover them up shows, maybe, that part of me kind of likes it.
“Don’t you think,” Miyuki told me, “there are some aspects that can only be conveyed when you say them out loud?”
Maybe, but…
“They come across, okay? Whether you say them out loud or not.”
You have to feel it. Sense it. I’m laying it all out in black and white for you, on paper. Or like this.
I pick up my phone and post a comment on Curiosity.
Cherry @ Haiku account
Summer’s lustrous sheen
There’s a false start in the wind
and the evening dusk
#haiku
That’s good enough for me.
Putting down my phone, I get off my bed and look around the room again.
The bed is half tucked into the bottom part of the closet. When I sleep, I go in there up to my shins. On the upper level of the closet are clothes, storage boxes, and some stationery I no longer use. My desk is set up along the wall at the entrance to the room, but it holds more haiku books than study materials. Dad made it as a DIY project. Some boxes next to it are filled with back issues of Haiku Monthly. The bookshelf above the desk contains my textbooks and stuff. On top of that are action figures of the fictional superheroes I used to like, a daruma figure, an old shoebox, and so on. On the side table by the bed is an alarm clock, and on the wall above it is a haiku calendar with a focus on the more serious classics… Looking at it all makes me realize that I’ve accumulated a ton of stuff.
Okay. Let’s get started. I pick up the cardboard moving boxes that are propped up against the balcony window.