Before lunch on the next day—the 26th. A Sunday.
Like always, my grandmother had come to present me with miscellaneous odds and ends. Then, with a formulaic “All right, I’ll see you again tomorrow,” she left me and returned home. She must have passed right by them. I never would have expected or even thought to dream up these visitors who had come to see me.
There was a knock, and the door to my room opened. It was a young nurse named Mizuno whom I had been relying on completely ever since I’d been admitted. “Go ahead,” she said, ushering them in: a boy and a girl I had never seen before in my life. I was, of course, surprised, but since they were both roughly my age and wearing school uniforms, I soon guessed where this visit had originated.
“Hello. You’re Koichi Sakakibara, right?”
The ambassador (or so it felt to me) on the right spoke—the boy. Medium build, medium height. Black school uniform with a standing collar. Silver-rimmed glasses accented his smooth, soft-featured face and narrow eyes.
“We’re students from Yomiyama North Middle, third-year Class 3.”
“Ah…hi.”
“My name is Kazami. Tomohiko Kazami. And this is Sakuragi.”
“Yukari Sakuragi. Nice to meet you.”
The girl wore a navy blazer. They were both completely run-of-the-mill middle school uniforms, but the style was totally different from the private school I’d attended in Tokyo.
“Sakuragi and I are the class representatives for Class 3, so we’ve come on everyone else’s behalf.”
From my perch in the bed, I grunted, then cocked my head and asked the most obvious question. “Why are you here?”
“You’re transferring to our school, right?” Yukari Sakuragi asked. She, too, wore silver-rimmed glasses, just like Kazami. She had a slightly chubby build and a simple haircut that came to her shoulders. “You were actually supposed to start last Monday, but then you got sick all of a sudden…that’s what we heard. So we decided to visit you as class representatives. Um, this is from all of us.”
She held out a bouquet of colorful tulips. Tulips mean “considerateness” or “philanthropy.” I learned that later, when I looked it up.
“The teacher was asking how you were doing, too,” Tomohiko Kazami continued. “We heard it was a lung condition called pneumothorax. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
As I answered, I stifled the smile that was rising on my face. I’d been caught off guard by their sudden visit, but I was also genuinely pleased by it. Plus, the way the two of them had come here was so picturesque—they almost seemed like “class representative” characters you’d see in an anime or something. So that also struck me as oddly amusing.
“Fortunately…I guess that’s what I’m supposed to say, even in a situation like this. I’m recuperating on schedule, so I think they’ll be able to take the tube out soon.”
“That’s a relief.”
“What a horrible thing to have happen so suddenly.”
As they spoke, the two emissaries of third-year Class 3 looked at each other.
“We heard that you moved here from Tokyo, Sakakibara,” Sakuragi said as she set the tulips on the windowsill. For some reason, it sounded as if she was gently feeling me out.
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“You were at K*** Middle School, weren’t you? That’s amazing. It’s such a famous private school. Why did you…?”
“We came here for family reasons.”
“Is this your first time living in Yomiyama?”
“It is…But why would you ask that?”
“I just thought maybe you’d lived here, even if it was a long time ago.”
“I’ve visited before, but I never lived here.”
“Did you ever stay for very long?” Kazami came with the follow-up.
What weird questions— The thought nagged at me slightly, and I gave a vague response. “Eh. My mom is from here. I guess when I was still little I might have, but I don’t really remember…”
Their rapid-fire interrogation ended there, and Kazami walked toward the bed. “Here.” He pulled a large envelope from his bag and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Notes for classes since the start of first semester. I made a copy, so if you want them, you can have them.”
“Wow. You didn’t have to do that! Thank you.”
When I peeked at the contents of the envelope in my hands, I saw it was, indeed, all stuff I’d already learned at my old school. Still, his consideration touched me, and I thanked them again. If this was how it was going to be, I might actually be able to forget all the terrible stuff that had been happening since the previous year.
“I think I’ll be able to start school after we get back from Golden Week. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Us, too.”
I thought I saw Kazami shoot Sakuragi a wink, and then, with a vaguely hesitant expression, he held his right hand out to me.
“Err, Sakakibara? Would you shake hands?”
That left me speechless for a second.
Shake hands? The boy who was class representative was suddenly asking to shake hands, the very first time we’d ever met each other…in a place like this? What did that even…?
I considered that maybe I should just let it go and say, well, public school students are different. Or maybe it was a difference between Tokyo and the countryside? A difference in attitudes?
The thoughts went around and around in my head, but I could hardly reject him and say “Uh, no.” I played it innocent and extended my right hand, too.
There wasn’t much force behind Kazami’s handshake, even though he was the one who’d offered. And maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I felt dampness, as if he was in a cold sweat.