“I’ll see you later,” I said. As a relaxed smile drifted to my face, I thought, Ah, that’s right. This, this is what they call happiness. Things will probably be fine. I probably don’t need to worry anymore. I made my way cheerfully to school, gazing up at the pale, bright autumn sky.
Needless to say, I was late. Still, I felt good. Even being late couldn’t put a dent in my good mood.
The class I was assigned to was year 2, class A, at Torigaienishi Senior High School. The classroom was infused with a lazy apathy after lunchtime. There was something suspicious to the drifting of the clouds outside the window, and I wondered if Kanba and Himari would notice and bring in the laundry before it rained.
Our homeroom teacher, Tabuki Keiju, delivered a tedious biology lecture, that combined with the postlunch fatigue nearly put the room to sleep. He was not particularly liked or disliked by the students of the all-boys school. Despite his relative youth, his main hobby was birdwatching. He wore glasses that were so unfashionable I’m not even sure where he could have bought them, and nearly always had a dopey, slightly uneasy smile. His lecture about the life cycle of a frog was about as lively as someone reciting a sutra.
“In other words, once the egg has been fertilized, through cleavage of the egg, the cells begin to multiply, growing into a morula from which the blastula is formed. Then, as we observed last time with the fertilization of the sea urchin, one part of the blastula moves to the interior. This is known as gastrulation, where the archenteron is formed.”
Hm, I wanna eat some urchin, I thought. Had we talked about urchin fertilization in the previous class? With everything that had happened, I’d let my schoolwork fall by the wayside.
“When it reaches this point, the three germ layers—the ectoderm, the endoderm, and the mesoderm—join, differentiating into cells of different shape and function.” Tabuki suddenly stopped speaking, looking at his wristwatch.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Any longer and I would’ve completely retreated into visions of urchins.
“That’s all for today. Next time, we’ll watch a video to get a more concrete look at those ontogenetic mechanisms.” Tabuki closed his textbook. “Are there any questions?”
These were the only moments when the whole room was silent.
“Then we’re adjourned. Frogs really are cute,” said Tabuki, grinning to himself.
He really loved animals, there was no doubt about that. The bell rang, and Tabuki exited the classroom.
I was suddenly overtaken by a pure and earnest joy. God, who had always been a cruel, fickle being, decided to bestow a miracle upon my family. Perhaps even we still somehow deserved happiness.
There were doodles of penguins in the margins of my notebook. That hat. That was truly strange. I wondered if that was the voice of God speaking through my sister, though it had been pretty foul-mouthed for a deity. Maybe it was just Himari? Well, regardless of whether it was God, a penguin, or a frog, it didn’t matter. Right now, I was happy.
After school was a busy time. There was shopping, laundry, and cleaning to do. Then, I had to prepare dinner, and after dinner I would have to peel some pears or something for us to eat together. I would cackle at some mindless television show and keep an eye on Himari to make sure she didn’t eat too many sweets.
Now that she was home from the hospital, more and more of Himari’s belongings had begun to appear around the house. There was facewash and lotion, a new toothbrush. The hairdryer, which my brother and I rarely used. New shampoo and conditioner. Treatment agents for long hair. Her clothes and underwear were mixed in with the laundry. The brilliant colors and scents of a young girl spread faintly throughout the house. Himari was definitely back home.
“Yo, little Takakura. How ’bout some tea on the way home? I found a place where this stupid cute part-timer works,” my classmate Yamashita proposed, violently grabbing my shoulders and prattling on.
“Sorry, in a bit of a rush today.” I gave him a wry smile, though deep down I was stunned that someone could be so loud and pushy.
“Whaaat? You’re so cold, little brother.” Yamashita pulled me closer unmaliciously and snuggled against my cheek. It was nice that he was so affectionate, but I never did well with this kind of clinginess. I was well aware that I didn’t act like a typical high schooler. At the moment, I was more concerned that all of the special sale items at the supermarket would sell out before I got there.
“What’s with you, though? Your bro would definitely have come. If you can’t be like your brother, you should know that always turning people down is bad for you. At least if you wanna be a normal member of society like us.”
Well, obviously. Kanba and I might have been twins, but we were separate people. Kanba was good-looking and had always been popular with girls. It wasn’t that I didn’t look like him, but I was kind of spacey and vacant. I would have made a great hardworking house husband, but I had no game when it came to girls. And I had no time for Yamashita’s clowning.
“It’s fine, get off me.” I shoved myself free of Yamashita. Three girls passed nearby us.
“Oh sweet, those were girls from Oukagyoen!” he said, pulling my sleeve, his interest suddenly piqued. “You see that girl in the middle? Not bad.”
The Oukagyoen uniform, with its refined black turtleneck t-shirt below a sailor suit, was well-known in this area. The girl in the middle that Yamashita had pointed out, her hair cut in a bob, glanced back toward us. More than likely, she overheard Yamashita. I quickly averted my eyes.
“Yo, you think that girl saw me? No, she definitely did. Wonder what year she is. Dang, I should’ve gotten her name or something. It’s times like this I wish big Takakura was here…” Yamashita watched the girls from behind, his hands cupped around his eyes like binoculars.
I immediately took advantage of Yamashita’s blessed distraction and made my exit.
Obviously, it wasn’t that I didn’t have any interest in girls. I always enjoyed it when idols or pretty actresses showed up on TV, and sometimes I even felt my heart race. But it was pointless. The number of responsibilities I had were like a large, open wound in my side. If I were to fall in love with a girl, I would have to show her that wound. I would have to ask her if she liked me, despite this gaping, unhealing laceration. I didn’t possess that kind of courage.
I touched the back pocket of my pants as I went to pass through the subway ticket gate, only to find I was without my commuter pass. I searched in my bag to see if I had put it there, even though that was something I never did.
“Hm?” I checked my pants, jacket, and the breast pocket of my school uniform, but it didn’t turn up.
It had to be here. I had it on the way to school, after all. Had I dropped it somewhere between arriving at school and now? I’d changed my clothes for gym earlier in the day, so maybe I’d left it behind in my locker. I decided to return to school and look for it there. If I did, though, then all of the sale items at the supermarket were definitely going to be gone. I couldn’t even imagine sending Kanba to buy them in my place.
Just as I sighed quietly to myself, there was a strange, prickling sensation somewhere around my thigh. I turned around to see a rotund little penguin, its round eyes sparkling, holding out my pass to me.
I stared fixedly at the creature. Other people around just walked past us, not noticing anything.
“My pass.” I took the pass from it. What else was I going to do? The penguin nodded firmly at me, just a faint motion.
“Crap, the sales!” I looked to the clock beside the gate in a panic, but when I looked back down, the penguin vanished.
“What?” I craned my neck while taking off in a jog through the gate and climbed onto the train.
If this was just a wild dream, then how could I explain the pass that I now held in my hand?