On the way to Sunnyside with Mr. Fujiyama, I notice a crowd of people in the indoor space reserved for events and entertainment. “What’s that?” I say, looking at Mr. Fujiyama, but he doesn’t seem to be very interested.
This amusement space is on the first floor of a huge cylindrical atrium, with lots of tall vertical space. It’s a decent-size venue, and there’s always something going on there during the weekends. I think there was a car show not too long ago.
There’s a stage facing a pair of escalators that intersect in an X shape, and a crowd of people gathered around it. Almost all the people on the escalators are looking down at the event. A sign over the heads of the crowd reads, in fancy letters, DIAPER SCRAMBLE—BABY CRAWLING RACE!
“Okay! Are all you good little kids ready? Ahhh, but you babies might not understand what I’m saying yet…” A cheerful female voice comes out of the speakers, revving up the crowd. I can hear the voice even through my headphones; it must be pretty loud.
Mr. Fujiyama and I are watching from a ways behind the crowd. There are so many people in the audience—maybe fifty or so—that we can just barely see the stage through the gaps.
Four or five babies are sitting in a row on the left side of the stage. One of them is restlessly looking around; another is about to start crying at any moment. The men looking on in confusion behind the babies are probably their fathers; they must not be used to this sort of thing. An equal number of women are on the other side, kneeling on the floor, leaning forward as they wave and talk to their babies.
At center stage is a woman who looks like a presenter, clutching her microphone tightly. The voice I heard earlier must have been hers. Holding up the microphone ostentatiously, she says, “Okay, let’s get this started! ” Her voice seems to get the mothers and fathers more fired up than the babies.
“On your mark… Get set… Whoa, hold up!”
Through a gap in the crowd, I can see the babies on the left side crawling past.
“You all have to start at the same time, don’t you?”
Of course, the babies don’t stop. The whole space fills with laughter.
“Whoa there, babies! That’s a false start!”
They’re really not gonna understand, lady. You said it yourself just now.
“False start…”
I start whispering to myself. False start? What’s the term in more native Japanese? Flying start…like flying in the air? Running on ahead. Buzzing too early. Needs two syllables.
“False start…”
I keep mumbling to myself, beating out the rhythm with my right hand. Is this anything? Can I use it?
I take out my phone case and open my saijiki. Thumbing over to the main index, I look at the entries I find under F—which includes P and B variations.
Guess false start doesn’t count as a haiku-centric seasonal word. Surprising that swings are supposed to evoke the spring though.
“…you! …way!”
Suddenly, my ears pick up something. Is that…Beaver I’m hearing through my headphones, through the cheers? It’s coming at me so fast that I take my eyes off the saijiki and look over to see…Hikarun?!
Without warning, something hits me. I feel my body go flying as Hikarun brutally pushes me away, crashing into me at great speed.
“Agh!”
Almost at the same time, a girl yells right next to my ear. Who was that? This is a little too much to process…
Boom!
Another jolt hits me, but I quickly realize that it’s me falling shoulder-first to the floor. Ouch… I think I might have hit my knee, too.
As I slowly get up, a dull pain slowly spreads throughout my body. I lift my head and look around. From the floor, the mall I know so well looks like an unfamiliar place.
Then I see someone a little farther away from me, in the same pain as I am as she sits up. A girl about the same age as me, with long hair. Was that “Agh!” this girl’s voice? …Ahhh, she’s looking at me.
She seems to be kind of dazed as well, unable to figure out what just happened. My head is getting clearer, and I’m guessing that Hikarun—probably Beaver—had run into me at high speed and knocked me over, pinballing me right against this girl, and then she and I both fell to the floor. Come to think of it, this girl’s face is so pale it’s basically white… Oh, she’s wearing a mask, that’s why. During the summer, even. You can use masks as a seasonal term for winter, right?
…Oh.
Now I start to see more of her face. The strap around one ear had come off and the other one is clinging on for dear life. The mask dangles a bit before stopping. There’s more visible skin on her face now, but still some pure white where her mouth is… Her teeth? With something like a metallic gleam, too. I know what that is.
“Braces…”
I realize I have unintentionally mumbled that out loud. The girl suddenly covers her mouth with her hands and slumps down. Her cheeks turn bright red; her shoulders tremble a little. Then she gets up and hurries away.
I thought she had gone, but then she comes running back, bends down a few feet away from me, and grabs something rectangular from the floor. A phone; the one she’d dropped when I bumped into her. Then she walks away, shouldering her way past parents, children, building columns, everything.
“You okay, Cherry?”
I suddenly snap back to reality when Beaver calls to me. I can hear the cheers from the baby race again. It was so weirdly quiet for a moment there.
I look up to see Beaver standing there with the Hikarun cutout and his skateboard under his arms. “I told you to move out of the way,” he says, not looking at all regretful.
“Some more warning would have been nice,” I grumble.
“And why the hell do you have your headphones on like that? It’s so stupid.”
I didn’t realize it until he told me, but my headphones had rotated 90 degrees across my head and an earpad is resting on my forehead, probably from the impact of the collision. “Doing it mohawk style, huh?” he says with a chuckle.
“Beaver!”
Multiple screams drown out the cheers of the baby race. I look over to see Ex-Princess and some security guards closing in on us.