“Ohhh, Japaaan, it’s me, Hikarun. We’re finally together!”
Japan’s arms, which hadn’t moved even slightly until now, are slowly unfolding. His right hand quickly reaches out to Hikarun, snatching her away.
“Ah! …Heh-heh.”
Beaver scratches his head and laughs awkwardly.
“…You’re just awful,” Japan finally says. His voice is lower than usual, so I can tell he’s livid. When I take a closer look at Hikarun’s head, which he had taken from Beaver, I notice it looks like it’s been roughly torn off. I wonder what happened to the rest of her body, but I soon find it. It is propped up against the tent in a cute pose—headless.
“The deal’s off,” Japan says quietly (although his anger is palpable) as he gently places Hikarun’s head on the floor. Then he picks up a large glass bottle from nearby and hides it behind his back. Inside it is a large amount of Pero-Pero, individually wrapped hard candy that comes in a variety of flavors—Beaver’s favorite.
“Hey! Why’re you saying that?!”
“Because you tore her damn head off, you idiot!”
“I have the body, too!”
“That’s not the point!”
Japan’s plaintive cries make even Beaver wince. Holding Hikarun’s head in his hands, he staggers out of the tent. He stops in front of the horrifying headless standee and tries placing the head back on, adjusting it in ways only he understands. I know he’s torn up about this, but…really?
As his Hand Off apron suggests, Japan works part-time at the mall. We didn’t know each other at first, but we became friends through Beaver. He says he’s nineteen, which makes him two years older than me. Hand Off is a used-goods store that sells electronics, games, clothes, musical instruments, and a lot of other junk that you wonder if anyone has a use for. They have a pretty big space on the third floor, and they keep it decently busy up there. “Sometimes we get guys selling rare pop-idol stuff,” Japan had once said, “and I’m not supposed to do it, but sometimes I keep it for myself. Like, I pay the store price for it and all, but… But the other day someone brought in a limited-edition Hikarun keychain that was only available at one of her concerts, so…” Once he starts talking, he just can’t stop. He seems to like pop idols a lot. I don’t know the origin of the nickname “Japan,” but he used to play baseball in high school, so I think it’s modeled after Samurai Japan—the name of Japan’s national baseball team.
Watching their exchange, I bend down to enter the tent and sit down in the space vacated by Japan.
“Oh, Cherry…”
Beaver helps himself to the bottle of candy while Japan is gone, sampling the wares a little.
“Did you bring that cutout to give to Japan?” I ask.
“Yeah, to trade for this,” Beaver says, his mouth watering as he pulls a piece of candy out.
“But you didn’t trade anything.”
“No, like, I know the head’s off, but all the parts are there, so…”
He takes a bite, savoring the sweetness.
“You know,” I say, taking a piece for myself, “Toughboy was looking for you a few minutes ago.”
“‘Toughboy was here!’” Beaver reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black stick that looks like a baton from a relay race. “I wrote it on his car,” he says, brandishing the thickest magic marker I have ever seen. Probably oil based. No wonder Toughboy was pissed.
“It wasn’t ‘here,’” I say before popping the candy in my mouth. “You wrote h-e-a-r on it. Toughboy was hear, not here.”
“No, I got it right,” whines Beaver. He sure didn’t.
The sun is gradually setting, turning the whole area orange.
I move out of the tent and under the umbrella so I can relax on the beach chair. From here, the rice paddies are out of sight, but there’s a panoramic view of the large number of cars and the ridgelines of the Oda Mountains. I like the wide-open feel this landscape gives me. Beaver, meanwhile, is scrawling my haiku on the floor with his extra-large magic marker. We follow each other on Curiosity, and he keeps on making whatever I post into graffiti.
“Hee-hee-hee! I’m getting pretty good at it.”
“No you’re not. Nobody can read that children’s doodling,” Japan says derisively.
Japan, observing Beaver’s scrawls from nearby, doesn’t hesitate to make fun of him.
“It’s not doodling, dumbass. It’s tagging,” Beaver retorts.
“What the hell is tagging?”
“Don’t you know anything about hip-hop? It’s tagging. Graffiti. You know, the fancy text and pictures spray-painted on the walls around here? That kinda thing.”
He’s right. I do see a lot of spray-painted designs all over town, on utility poles and roadside billboards. But Beaver’s graffiti isn’t anything like that. It’s just really bad handwriting.
“I don’t care about hip-hop,” grumbles Japan.
“Well, I don’t care about pop idols.”
“Also, like, isn’t this all Cherry’s haiku?”
“I’m learning Japanese with Cherry’s rhymes,” Beaver says, plopping down on the beach chair across from me with a thud as he reclines all the way back like he’s in bed.
“You already speak it fine,” Japan says quizzically.
“I can’t write it, man. Dad can only write in Spanish, too.”
Beaver is in sixth grade now, so being illiterate in Japanese is probably a big problem. I wonder if they teach him any of that in school.
“Hmm…”
Japan seems convinced.
“You’re tagging up the whole mall with my haiku, aren’t you?” I accuse.
“Yeah, and all over the apartment complex, too!”
“Stop it, man. It’s embarrassing,” I complain.
I pick up the soda on the table and take a sip.
“Why not? Your rhymes are really cool.”
“They’re not rhymes. They’re haiku.”
I have no idea why he calls them rhymes.
“Yeah, but…”
Suddenly, it becomes much brighter. I reflexively use the plastic bottle in my hand to block the light. The beach umbrella had been shading me earlier, but now the sun is low enough in the sky that it is shining right in my eyes.
I can see the evening sun through the clear soda bottle. Bubbles, and the setting sun. Almost dreamlike. Sunset… No.
“…Dusk.”
Dusk might be a better way to express time and space in one go. Now I need some color description…
“The dusk…”
I try saying it out loud. I’ll definitely fit it in somewhere.