Chapter 7: 2.2

 I told Yuzuki Mom died. 

 

She cried with me, saying that she would like to meet Mom before she dies.

 

From that day on, she came to my apartment whenever she had time. She cleaned the rooms and cooked delicious meals for me. Yuzuki, in an apron and with her beautiful black hair tied back in a bun, looked so mature that I kept stealing glances. Although the Anpan Man pattern on the apron threw the mature look into shambles.

 

“Why do you have to go to such lengths for me? It’s not like you owe me anything.” After a few days, I ran out of patience and asked.

 

Thud-tok-tok-pok-pok-tok, she then put down the knife and answered, “If I’m not here, you’d have died. Sometimes you’re just as frail as a goldfish.”

 

Like a goldfish? But she did have a point.

 

My summertime days with Yuzuki passed by.

 

Yuzuki would bring in CDs and we would listen to them.

[TN: Btw,it would say later that Mcs are born in 1996, so right now the year in the story is around the 2000s]

 

Yuzuki’s favorite pianist was Kiyoko Tanaka, she won the tenth prize of the Fifth International Chopin Piano in 1955 and the first Japanese who won the competition. Michelangeli, one of the jury, wasn’t satisfied with the rankings and refused to sign the award unless Ashkenazy got the first place and Kiyoko Tanaka got the second.

 

At the time, recording technology was not as developed, and the records were only in vinyl, so the quality was not flattering.

 

Nonetheless, her piano was surprisingly beautiful. The grains of sound were so clean and mellow, if it had a physical shape, it would be something a baby would want to chew.

 

“It was as if she was praying—” said Yuzuki, “A pure, selfless prayer ringing through eternity.”

 

I felt like I understood, but at loss at the same time.

 

“Isn’t the act of praying the same as wishing? Wishing that a higher being would grant our request. And that, by definition, is a kind of selfishness?”

 

She watched me. “But you have prayed selflessly?”

 

“When?”

 

“When you were picking flowers for your mom.”

 

That’s…

 

“That was to get rid of my pain. It was selfishness.”

 

“I don’t think so.” She smiled gently. “It was still for your mom’s sake, that’s enough. If you continue to pray for a few hundred years, your body would have turned into dust or who knows what, right? Dust without self nor greed. And if you wonder if you could pray for that long, listen to Kiyoko Tanaka-sensei’s performance, this was recorded fifty years ago, you know? Her performance, her prayer, has nothing to do with selfishness anymore, it was just as pure and refined as the melted snow of Mount Fuji. Time will wash away the impurity of our prayers.”

 

I was stunned. As I write down this story now too, when I recall these very words, I couldn’t help but be amazed. It was a comprehension an ordinary eight-year-old girl could only hope to reach. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was an angel or Buddha possessing her.

[TN: Buddha was said to be able to speak since birth.]

 

I could hear Kiyoko Tanaka-sensei’s piano in a different light from then on. It was the sound of a pure prayer, nostalgically soothing to the heart, as pure as the melted snow of Mount Fuji.

 

 　　　５

 

Summer was over. A new school year began, as if nothing had changed.

 

To me, it felt like the world had ended that summer. So when time started rolling again, I was incredulous.

 

I lived in a daze, like a cigarette puff dispersing in the wind. 

 

Goldfish from the summer festival got dumped and took residence in a pond where cherry petals floated. Soon, the autumn leaves replaced the petals. The water turned muddy green.

 

—I began to feel a tingle in Yuzuki’s piano.

 

At first, it was a discomfort, as if I had bitten a stray grain of sand in a clam. I pointed out to her, she appeared clueless. I asked her to play again and even managed to identify the particular note. Yuzuki, however, only tilted her head.

 

The sand gradually eroded Yuzuki’s score. A desert-like, arid loneliness soon engulfed her music.

 

“Mom said the same thing ro me. I don’t know why myself either…” she trailed sadly. A small teardrop escaped her eye, trailing down and stopped at a purplish bruise. A bruise by Ranko-san.

 

Worried by her increasingly murky piano, I snuck into her lawn one Saturday. Through the double-paned window, the mother and child were there. 

 

She yanked Yuzuki’s hair and slapped her on the cheek. Ranko-san’s fury deepened as time passed, unable to somehow correct the tune.

 

It was like trying to restore the dirty colors on the palette by adding new paint. It wasn’t long before the paint became a murky black.

 

What was the point? I wondered. The only thing she accomplished was hurting Yuzuki.

 

I felt frustrated, I felt sorry for her. Outraged, I knocked the window.

 

Unexpectedly, it broke.

 

I came to my senses and had the mind to scramble before Ranko-san turned around. I pulled off and rounded to the left side of the house. 

 

The latch of the double-paned window followed and Ranko-san poked out her head. “Huh…?”

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I could hear my heart racing. The double-paned windows closed, the practice resumed. I look up at the sky, a little relieved.

 

Only to freeze once more. Sousuke, Yuzuki’s father, caught my eye. He leaned with elbows on the second floor’s railing. I assumed he saw everything, but the backlit sun obscured his expression.

 

I shifted my position, distancing myself from the house so that I was at an angle with the sun. Sousuke-san looked regretful. His eyes were trained on me, but he said nothing.

 

I ran away. In the darkness of my mind, I couldn’t get rid of his expression. It remained like the pale moon in the winter afternoon sky.

 

In the middle of October, I picked up slippers. It had fallen in between the gap of the school buildings.

 

The name read “Igarashi Yuzuki”

 

Casually, I returned it to her. Yuzuki too, casually took it.

 

“Thank you, I was just wondering where I had lost it.”

 

Although I wasn’t dense enough to easily accept that. “By any chance, are you bullied?”

 

Yuzuki let out a breath. The sigh was a bluish-gray sigh that seemed more like a fatigue that had settled deep within the body rather than anger.

 

“Or you can say, I let them bully me.”

 

“You ‘let them’?” 

 

She took my hand and again, led the way.

 

“Let’s talk at my secret base.”

 

To the east of the school, buildings gave way to paddy fields. A little further and we got to an uninhibited, narrow mountain road. From there began a series of old abandoned buildings that were too far gone to make out their function. Among them was a small abandoned factory, which we entered through a hole in the wire mesh.

 

The inside of the abandoned factory was chilly and empty. The cool blue sky stood out in the windowless frames.

 

The secret base was an abandoned bus that was somehow left on the site. The rusty indigo iron plate of the bus gave it a cute, rounded appearance, somewhat like a tin toy. One of the front lights was missing and it had a cute, silly look. I had always loved the face of the bus.

 

Inside, behind the driver’s seat, there were rows of two forward-facing chairs. At the end was a four-seater couch. The green plastic cover was peeled here and there, spilling sponges. The floor was wood and made a nice thumping when walked on.

 

The interior was clean, unlike an abandoned bus. She must have cleaned it regularly. The couches had orange geometric patterns thrown on the green background and extra cushions for lounging, probably Yuzuki’s courtesy.

 

It seemed that this had always been Yuzuki’s secret base, a private space out of Ranko-san’s reach.

 

We sat next to each other on the couch. Yuzuki avoided facing me. There was a long silence.

 

“It began in music class.” She fidgeted. “The teacher asked me to play in front of everyone. After that, Sakamoto and Aida-kun started talking to me a lot. I thought it was rude to completely ignore them, so I said a few words, and that’s it…”

 

“You made the other girls envious? Those two are popular with the girls, I reckon.”

 

And Sakamoto, he was having a crush on Kobayashi Koyomi in April. To think that he had already switched to Yuzuki by now and was causing problems…

 

“Then just do it like what you did to Sakamoto?”

 

“I don’t know who it is. The girls are all quiet, maybe they all are.”

 

Here I was, angry on her behalf. “Isn’t there anything you can do?  Kobayashi Koyomi? You helped her…?”

 

“As if Koyo-chan can stand for herself, let alone me.” She smiled a little. “I’m sure she wants to help. She’s probably thinking this was her fault and so on. Maybe she’s the only one I’d forgive.”

 

It took me a while to follow Yuzuki’s train of thought. She was too sharp, too sensitive, too bold, and too kind to be the same age as me.

 

“Recently—” Suddenly high-pitched, “I think I might understand how being a girl in love feels, and by that, jealousy too. And then I realized that all human beings are weak, we just want to turn away from that part of ourselves. Maybe letting them go is for the best. I believe they will eventually stop.”

 

“What if… they don’t”

 

“Then I’ll properly twist their noses.”

 

Yuzuki smiled as she said. I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

 

Then Yuzuki lay down and put her head on my lap. A little bitterly, she asked, “Am I great?”

 

I pondered on the question a little. “You’re great.”

 

“Then pat my head.”

 

“Eh?”

 

Hesitantly, I put my palm on her head. Her shoulders twitched at the contact.

 

I continued stroking her head. Her hair was soft and smooth. Her breathing became peaceful, like a sleeping breath.

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