Saeki Sayaka:
Year 5, Group 3
THIS MAY SOUND ARROGANT, but I knew early on that I was talented.
When I say “talented,” I mean that I can get results when I work really hard and that I can maintain those results, too. I think I understood the value of those two things much sooner than the other kids.
Thus, I didn’t mind that my after-school schedule was full of lessons. There were ikebana classes, calligraphy school, piano, cram school, and once I was a third year in elementary school, swimming lessons, too. I was considering taking on English speaking classes next. I pretty much took anything available to me. As a kid, I felt lucky that I was even allowed those choices.
Even a child could see that that my house was a respectable one. We had a lacquered gate, a side door for the help on the left side, and many tall trees in our garden. The surrounding walls were tall enough to prevent anyone from peering inside. Our house was bigger than the entirety of the light-green apartment complex across from us. In addition to my parents and I, my grandparents on my father’s side and their two cats lived there. It was quite a lot of space for so few people.
Growing up in that house, I knew I had no choice but to be talented. No one actually said as much, but I knew instinctively that it was true. As long as I kept moving with purpose and produced good results, my parents never seemed upset. What parents wouldn’t be happy to have an exceptional kid?
Today, as always, I made it home and started preparing for my lessons as soon as I put down my backpack. Since both my parents were at work, the house was quiet. My grandparents had stayed home that day, so the housekeeper wasn’t around, either. Just walking home from elementary school always left me parched, so I went to the kitchen and drank a cup of water. The sound of chirping cicadas filtered through the ventilation system.
I grabbed the bag with all my swimming gear and left the house. I had swim class once a week on Wednesdays. Although this wasn’t on purpose, it was easy to remember that I went into the water on Wednesday, since they both started with a W.
Instead of heading straight to my lesson, though, I took a small detour, walking around the house to take a look at the garden.
Our cats could usually be found in the passage that connected to my grandparents’ side of the house. Sure enough, they were both there: one tortoiseshell, one black and white piebald. It hadn’t been long since they came to live with us, but they had made themselves at home right away, so they didn’t budge as I approached them. When the cats were in a good mood, they would allow people to touch them, but who knew how it would go today?
I bent down and pet the black and white cat. It looked up grouchily and bolted after only a few seconds. The tortoiseshell cat followed suit, and they both hid in the shade.
“Oh, well.”
I watched them go and then headed to class.
As I walked through the neighborhood, I could still hear the cicadas chirping. When I listened carefully, I could hear different nuances in the sounds on my right and on my left. Wondering if the types of cicadas living on each side were different, I looked around. The unchanging scenery of the neighborhood shimmered in my eyes.
For some reason, perhaps because of the summer heat, there was a constant buzzing in my ears.
I emerged onto a main street and made it across two crosswalks. From there, it was about a ten-minute walk in a straight line to my destination, a small swimming school downtown. It was a long and narrow building, and kind of strange at that: the reception desk was on the second floor, while the pool the school used was one floor underground. I had no idea what was on the first floor or even how one could get to it.
The building was connected to a big paid parking lot on the side; the staff members often warned me to be careful of cars going in and out. There were two buses lined up in front of the school now. I watched the people and wheelchairs emerging from the buses out of the corner of my eye while I headed to the stairs.
“Oh! Saeki-san.”
Hearing someone call my name, I turned around. It was another girl in my class. She must have come right over without going home, since she still had her school backpack on.
She went to a different school, so we weren’t really close—not that I played with the kids from my own school much, either.
The girl skipped a step on the stairs to catch up to me. “Hello,” I greeted her coolly. I didn’t really like this girl.
“Don’t you go to school, Saeki-san?”
“What?”
What a bizarre question. I stared at her as we went through the automatic door into the building. The employee at the reception desk greeted me with a smile, and I showed her my card in response.
The other girl held hers out at the same time, so the receptionist took both cards and handed us each a locker key for the changing room. I saw the number flash by and secretly felt relieved that the girl was at a locker far away from mine.
The air conditioning was on full blast inside, cooling my neck. The wall to the left of the reception desk was glass, so you could see the pool in the basement below. There were calm ripples on the pool reflecting the slightly dim lights.
“What was that about earlier?” I asked on the way to the changing room.
“Well, ’cause your skin is so pale.”
It hadn’t been long since the girl started coming to swimming lessons in July, but she was already tan. I suppose my skin didn’t have much color compared to hers.
“I thought maybe you just never went outside,” she added.
Her jet-black, neck-length hair, which seemed as if it were designed to complement her skin, swayed gently. We weren’t even in the pool yet, but somehow it already looked sort of damp. I looked at it as I answered bluntly, “Of course I go outside.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Plus, you’re super serious all the time.”
Her random opinions were all over the place, as was her ever-changing expression. This girl was a little shorter than me and sunburned right up to the hairline on her forehead. If her hair were any shorter, people would probably mistake her for a skinny little boy.
“You’re the most dedicated one in swim class, too, Saeki-san.”
I was getting fed up with her and her strange comments. It always irritated me when people I didn’t get along with acted like they knew me really well.
There was another reason I was sick of her, too.
“Maybe I am. And you’re the least serious.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
She didn’t seem to care when I pointed out her shortcomings. I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone more shameless.
We passed the vending machines and went into the changing room, which had lockers stacked two high along the walls. The sink area had three faucets, which one of the staff members was cleaning with a towel. I opened the locker that matched the number on my key and put my bag inside. The girl did the same with her school backpack, shoving it in unceremoniously. She turned towards me, and our eyes met.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
I took off my clothes to change into the official swimsuit that the swimming school required us to wear. This time, though, I felt like I was being watched. When I looked over, that girl was staring at me with her hand still stuck in her locker.
“What?”
Now, I was the one asking her that. I didn’t like the way she was ogling me.
“Nothing really.”
She turned her face away immediately, and started taking out her swimsuit and swim cap. What was that all about? It wasn’t like I wanted to be friends with her, but she always started talking to me whenever she saw me.
I went to the pool ahead of her, opening a door in the back that was different from where we’d entered. I passed under the weak green light that indicated the emergency exit, heading down the stairs. With each step, the air grew more and more humid. Just as my nose caught the smell of chlorine, the pool came into view.
When my feet went into the disinfectant at the entrance, the cold sent shivers up my spine.
There were a lot of other kids from my class by the pool already starting to stretch. I said hello to them and the instructor. The instructor was taller than my father, with dark skin and a cheerful orange shirt. He really was upbeat, too, which made his lessons easy to follow.
After I washed off at the showers and put on my swim cap, I started stretching like the other kids. With nobody in it yet, the pool was so calm that it almost felt like you could walk across its faintly glowing surface.
The pool was twenty-five meters long and had six lanes. I had once calculated how many people would need to stand side by side to cover the whole pool.
As I was stretching my legs, the other girl finally came in, late as usual. She said hello to all the other kids too, then came over to me for some reason. Even though she was wearing the same swimsuit as me, her suntanned arms and legs made it look entirely different on her. Her tan was so even, it was almost like she was getting burned on purpose. There were just a few areas at the edges of her swimsuit where her skin was somewhat lighter.