When he slept, Arato would always encounter one of two things in his dreams: the first was a nightmare of massive flames, swelling to fill the room. While it seemed the whole world burned around him, he would be swallowed up in a writhing tsunami of red and charcoal black. The other was the image of a dog, wagging its tail and gazing up at him.
Soon after entering elementary school, Arato had been caught up in the flame of an explosion and received burns over his entire body. In the front garden of the hospital, surrounded by silence so deep that he could hear his own heartbeat, he watched people. Those days his father was often busy, and his little sister was still very young, so they only came to visit him every once in a while. To him, these infrequent visits made him feel worthless in the eyes of his family.
In his slumber, even real memories seemed like daydreams. When the pain came, he just needed to push the painkiller button and the world would go silent, as if every wave of sound had been cut away.
One day, a white puppy entered his lonely world. By the time he even noticed its presence, the puppy was already approaching him. It seemed interested in him, and started sniffing at his legs.
“This little guy wants to be your friend, Arato.” He never could remember the face of the young woman in the nurse’s uniform who’d said that to him, but he remembered all the puppy’s adorable traits very well. Like how when he pet its head, it would beg with its forepaw for him to tickle its chin, too. Or the fluffiness of its short, white fur. Or how frantically it would wag its little tail. Or the way it would seem to bounce off the ground when it ran up to him. Or how it would playfully nip at the heel of his shoes, so that, even though it was difficult to move at all, he found he couldn’t help but play along.
“Arato, this boy says he would like to play with you and the puppy, too.” A few days later, the nurse brought a boy the same age as Arato with her.
Arato thought the boy looked very sick, considering how thin his arms and legs were. He didn’t learn until later that the boy couldn’t eat the hospital food and was getting all his nutrients through an IV.
At the time, Arato didn’t know what to do. He shied away from meeting the skeletal boy’s eyes.
But the puppy’s big eyes were shining with excitement. It ran around in circles with its tongue lolling out, unable to make up its mind about which boy it should play with.
The heart is moved by that which the eye perceives. The human heart can be shaken, even by that which is not human.
Moved by the puppy’s antics, Arato looked at the boy’s face. The boy had the faint expression of someone lost in darkness; someone unable to cry out for help. He had one hand to his throat, where malnutrition made his sinew stand out to a pitiful degree.
There was the sound of a wet nose snuffling from Arato’s feet. The puppy was wagging its tail so hard that its back legs were tottering. To a lonely boy in a lonely world, the sight of another living thing enjoying itself so much was salvation.
“He looks like he’s having tons of fun.” Arato put his feelings into words, and broke the silence. A warm feeling spread in his chest, and for some reason, he felt like crying.
The puppy was switching back and forth between sniffing at the ground and gazing up at Arato. Watching it, Arato came to the conclusion that, if he decided he was having fun, maybe the world wouldn’t feel so lonely.
Though his injuries didn’t seem as grave as Arato’s, the boy had his lips shut firmly and didn’t say a word.
In his painful state, it was a trial even reaching out his hand. But Arato felt he needed to make the first move. “My name’s Arato Endo.” Arato gathered his courage and took the first step. “Let’s be friends.”