Thursday, August 15
Another sweltering day. Under my mask it’s like a sauna. I’m sweating so much, I’m afraid my sunscreen is dripping off.
I just realized that summer vacation will be over in about two weeks. Just like that… Tomorrow some guys will come to Mr. Fujiyama’s store and take all his records, so we have to finish cleaning up today and find the one we need. I know that well enough…but my hands just won’t reach out for the pile of records in front of me. I just keep staring at the mountain of vinyl; I can’t lift my head.
I can’t stop thinking about the haiku Cherry posted yesterday.
“I wonder what Sakura thought about hers…”
Last night, I was lying on my back in bed, looking at my phone. Julie and Marie were both asleep. The room was dark, the screen of my phone the only illumination. On the screen was a picture of that old newspaper article. Sakura was holding the record jacket in her right hand and a disc with her face on it in her left, smiling cheerfully.
That smile’s just so cute.
I put my index finger and thumb around Sakura’s face, expanding and pinching. Sakura’s mouth filled the screen. You’ve got buckteeth, Sakura. Just like me.
She was smiling with her mouth wide open, which made them stand out a ton. But Sakura’s smile was still bright and cheerful, like she didn’t care about them at all. If she was embarrassed about it or didn’t want people to see her smile, there’s no way she’d be able to grin wide like that. I sure couldn’t.
It’s kind of blinding…
I was going to close the photo app and go straight to bed, but I thought I’d browse Curiosity real quick first. Checking my timeline just before bed’s become a tough habit to break. Curiosity’s more lively at night. I guess a lot of people are like me, posting and commenting just before they hit the sack.
Then a familiar headphone icon appeared on my timeline.
Cherry @ Haiku account
Leaves hidden among
the boundless mountain blossoms
I love you so much
#haiku
Oh, a haiku from Cherry. A new one…
“Leaves hidden among the boundless mountain blossoms…”
I said it out loud. Then suddenly, my mouth stopped moving. Not because I didn’t want to keep reading it. In fact, I really wanted to.
“…I love you so much.”
Saying that made me feel like my heart would stop. Why? I didn’t even know why. It was so strange, like my whisper was bouncing off my phone screen and throwing itself right back into my face. When I said it out loud—when I made the sound—it was just, like…so direct. It’s just words, but I can still vividly picture Cherry’s face turning red like a cherry. I was beside myself. My heart beat so fast. It’s painful…but somehow, so happy, too. Why?
In my head, Cherry, with his bright red face, was saying, “I love you so much,” out loud. I love you…so much.
Sometimes I get comments like that when I stream on Curiolive. I love you, Smile! and so on. It’s not that I dislike that. Being loved makes me feel accepted, and that’s always a nice thing. But it doesn’t make me this tense.
“Leaves hidden.” Is he sure that’s what he meant? He didn’t mean to write teeth in there and autocorrect messed up for him, or something? …I’m overthinking this way too much. But it seemed so obvious. Teeth…hidden among the blossoms. Did you see them, Cherry?
So many feelings swirled around in my heart. Up and down, over and over. What was this? Why? My body hadn’t moved a muscle for several minutes. I couldn’t move. I was just looking at Cherry’s haiku on my phone, but my mind was running as fast as it could. Why?
Something appeared in front of my phone, blocking my vision. My mind was moving so fast that I didn’t realize until later that it was my own right hand. My finger went to the “♡” mark right below Cherry’s haiku. Let’s like it per usual… But no, I couldn’t do what I normally did. I got so close to the “♡” mark, and then my hand stopped. I wanted to like it… I couldn’t press it. I wanted to. Let’s do it. Push the like button…
Suddenly, the light disappeared. The screen showing Cherry’s haiku just a moment ago lost its backlight. Instead, all I saw was my face. I didn’t need to turn on a light to see how red I was. It made them stick out even more. I didn’t want to see that—those big white teeth. The braces… It’s gross.
My right hand—about to press the LIKE button—went up to my mouth as if sucked in. I touched my teeth. They felt vaguely warm. The image of me on the screen wasn’t cute at all. I hated it. I didn’t want to look at it. I didn’t want to be seen. Seen by whom? …By Cherry.
I felt a pop! like something blew up. The next thing I knew, I was slamming my phone case shut as hard as I could.
I pick up a record from the pile. It has a white background with a brown-tinted print of an old man and woman, like something out of a woodcut. SONGS is written on the bottom; that must be the title.
But I am really just pretending to think about the jacket in front of me. My antenna is pointed right at Cherry, diagonally across from me to the left, where the fan noise is coming from. My eyes have been locked on this old couple on the jacket for a while now, but they seem out of focus…or really, all my nerves feel like they are on the left side of my body. I don’t know if it’s the heat of the room or the mask I’m wearing, or the continual pounding of my heart since yesterday, but it’s hot. My face is just so hot.
I check inside the jacket. It is a normal black record. Lifting my sullen face, I put SONGS in the “to trash” cardboard box and shift my eyes toward Cherry. Natural. Totally natural.
Cherry is silently working away, just as he did yesterday… Sweat is beading on his cheeks. It falls on the records, splashing. He doesn’t seem to notice.
…Ah!
I involuntarily look away… Our eyes had met. My body hasn’t moved at all until a moment ago, but now I suddenly turn on and start rummaging through the pile. Take a jacket, check inside, stick it in a box, take a jacket, check inside, stick it in a box…
Evening comes all too quickly.
We’ve all worked hard to whittle down the pile, and now Cherry is holding the last album. We have checked every other album and jacket, but we never did find Sakura’s smile.
So we put the boxes out on the porch or the courtyard, along with the speakers and other stuff inside the store. The place is now just racks, tables, a refrigerator, and a fan. Without the records, there is suddenly a lot of empty space.
Everyone gathers around Cherry, focusing on that last record. I feel like I am praying a bit, too. Come on out, Sakura.
Slowly, Cherry holds up the jacket in front of him. I gently put my right hand inside and grab the record. Pulling it out…
It is a black disc. Cherry slowly turns it over. Still pitch-black. Sakura’s smile isn’t there.
“Damn, so it wasn’t here after all?” spits out Toughboy before storming out the back door. Japan and Beaver follow soon after.
“Well,” Tsubaki says in her kind voice, “thank you.” Looking up, I see her with her hand on Cherry’s shoulder, smiling warmly. Cherry keeps his head down, not answering.
“You too, Smile.”
Tsubaki looks at me and smiles. I can’t speak, so all I can do is give her a small shake of my head. We got her so fired up that she searched for this record alongside us, but we came up with nothing. It feels like we are just rubbing salt in her old wounds. I feel terrible about it, and I think Cherry does, too. It’s so frustrating. Cherry looks like he’s overflowing with all kinds of emotions.
Slowly, he looks up. He scans the store, as if refusing to give up, as if he is still searching for something in a completely record-less store.
“Yasuyuki! Can you carry the fridge and the fan out?”
Tsubaki walks out the back door, Tom in her arms.
“Huhhh?! Ohhh, all riiight…”
“Thank you.”
We can hear her and Toughboy talking outside.
The next thing I know, Cherry—seated next to me just now—has moved in front of the refrigerator Tom had been sitting on. He crouches down, staring right at it. What’s gotten into him?
I approach him from behind. It is a pretty old fridge, very different from the one at my place. It only goes up to around chest height, for one, with one small door up top and a bigger one on the bottom. The pull handles are on one side of the unit; the one back home opens out from the middle. The fan on top of it (which Tom was hogging earlier) has been turned off—by Tsubaki, I suppose—after staying on for nearly two days straight.
Cherry grabs the top handle of the refrigerator and slowly opens it. It is dark inside, like it isn’t turned on, and there is nothing in it. Not just food or ice or whatever—there aren’t even any shelves or anything. Then Cherry opens the bottom door. Nothing. There is a crisper tray and a rack for eggs and stuff, but nothing else.
Hanging his head a bit, Cherry stands up and closes both doors. There is a wet slamming sound that kind of sticks in our ears.
“Dammit…”
I think he was actually looking to see if there were records in the fridge. His last hope, kind of. But it’s empty.
“…In between.”
What? In between? What’s he mean? Suddenly, Cherry stretches out. I take a step backward, surprised.
The refrigerator is positioned so it is adjacent to the counter by the wall, next to the back door. Cherry peers into the gap, then grabs the refrigerator with both hands and begins to shift it away from the wall. The refrigerator slowly moves away, making a scratching sound.
Once it is a few inches apart, the area behind it is revealed. It must’ve been hidden for a long time because the green paint on the wall is discolored in a neat rectangle the exact shape of the fridge. It looks brand-new, in fact. There is a little dust at the foot of it.
And a pink, square shape is mixed in with the white dust. It has a round hole in the middle, a big smile peeking out. Then, in perfect sync, Cherry and I shout: