Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [19]
“He went to draw the azaleas at Mihashi Shrine,” she added.
Wataru looked confused. “But our class didn’t go there.”
“Like I said, it was Ashikawa who took the picture.”
This was when Wataru realized that the subject of conversation was the transfer student from the next class.
“The new kid?”
“Yep. Mitsuru Ashikawa. He grew up overseas, you know,” one of the boys said self-importantly. He pronounced the name with all the vowels stretched out, so it sounded like “Meetsooroo Asheekawa.”
The girls giggled. “Just pronouncing his name like an American doesn’t make him one!”
Wataru couldn’t have cared less about the transfer student. He wanted to know more about this picture of the ghost. “You think he’d show me the picture if I asked?”
One of the girls shook her head. “Mitsuru said it wasn’t good to cause a fuss over such a thing, so he took it home. They say he hasn’t shown the picture to anyone since then.”
Wataru secretly rejoiced. Maybe he and this Mitsuru guy would get along. After all, that sounded suspiciously like something Wataru himself would say. In fact, if he had said something of the sort during that argument with those girls, maybe he would have come out looking better in the end. It was something to bear in mind.
“Did anyone in his class see it before he took it home? How about the people that went with him for art class?”
His classmates offered up the names of several people in the other class. Five had gone sketching to the shrine that day: three boys and two girls. One of the boys was the class president, Yutaro Miyahara. A stroke of luck—Wataru knew him.
“I hear the camera belonged to Yutaro. They were taking pictures so they could work on the sketch details after they went home.”
Apparently, Yutaro had brought a Polaroid, thinking that each of them could take one photo of the scene they wanted to sketch, so they could work on it at home. Mitsuru had chosen a shot from the shrine that took in the trees lining the grounds, looking out at the haunted building next door. Just as he was about to take a picture, something like a human face appeared above one of the azaleas.
That was how it happened.
“He noticed something weird, and that’s when the excitement started,” Wataru’s informant explained. “Everyone thought it was cool at first, but soon one of the girls started crying, and they all got scared and went home. I wonder what happened to the sketch assignment?”
This was all he needed to know. Wataru waited for the next break, then hurried over to the class next door. He looked in from the hallway to see Yutaro sitting way in the back by the windows, talking and laughing with a couple of classmates.
Yutaro Miyahara was the top student in his class. Joto Elementary had long since abandoned the practice of hanging up report cards at the end of each year so everyone could see who had gotten the best grades, but still, word got around. Often, the students were more aware of their fellow classmates’ progress than their teachers were.
Wataru recalled walking in on his parents one day as they were engaged in a debate on education. Akira had been throwing around a lot of rather difficult words, so Wataru only understood about half of what was said. But, out of the jumble of unfamiliar terminology, there had been one thing that was immediately understandable. It had stuck with Wataru ever since.
“The best students, the gifted ones, they don’t have to sacrifice their lives and chain themselves to a desk studying all day to be the best,” Akira said. “Why? Because they’ve got ability.”
When he heard that, the first image that had floated into Wataru’s mind, quite naturally, was the face of Yutaro. He was the one his father was talking about, no doubt about it. No matter when you saw him, Yutaro always looked bright, happy, and laid-back. Yet his grades were impeccable. He was good at sports too: first pick in the relay race, gifted swimmer, ace baseball pitcher. At the same time, he was popular because he somehow managed to watch