Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [21]
In the Miyahara household, Yutaro was the oldest of three children. Their father ran a gasoline stand. Yutaro’s younger brother was in preschool, and his sister was still in diapers. Miyahara’s mother had divorced his father some time ago, and his siblings were children from his mother’s second marriage.
Yutaro was studying at cram school because it was too noisy at his house to get any work done. The instructor understood his dilemma, and let him use the room prior to classes. He got special treatment not because he had younger siblings—plenty of other students were in the same boat—but because Yutaro was the only one among them who would actually go out of his way to study. Everyone else just used noisy brothers and sisters as an excuse to goof off.
Wataru walked into the classroom, and Yutaro looked up. He twitched and glanced at the clock on the wall. He must’ve thought it was time for class to begin already.
Wataru waved and made his way over to the other side of the room. “Do you have a second to talk?” he asked.
“Sure. What is it?” Yutaro said, bluntly.
Wataru paused. Now that he was here, he realized he couldn’t just blurt out that he had come to ask him about the picture of the ghost. That would sound too childish. Still, after a bit of small talk, he managed to get around to the topic at hand.
“Oh, that!” Yutaro said, his face brightening. “It’s the talk of the school these days, I hear.”
“So was it really a ghost in the picture?”
“Nah,” Yutaro leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his perfectly combed hair. He was still smiling. “Sure, there was something that looked kind of like a face above this one particular azalea. But it could’ve been anything. We all acted like it was a ghost and had a good laugh about it, but I don’t think anyone really believes it.”
“You know the rumors that the half-built building next to the Mihashi Shrine is haunted, right?”
“Sure, everybody knows that.”
“You think there’s a connection?”
“A connection between a rumored supernatural presence and a smudge on Mitsuru’s Polaroid? Not a clue!” Yutaro laughed out loud. “I never figured you were the type to fall for that kind of talk, Mitani!”
Wataru’s face reddened. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed and defensive. He wanted to shout that he hadn’t believed the rumors at all from the beginning. He restrained himself, and instead told Yutaro about the incident where he had won the ire of the girls in his class by insisting they check the facts before assuming anything about the haunting.
“Heh,” Yutaro chuckled, nodding. His smile slowly faded. “I don’t believe in ghosts and all that stuff either. Those girls were just being dumb. Don’t worry about it.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Wataru was mollified, but the conversation had ended before he heard everything he wanted to know. He wondered if he should tell Yutaro about Kaori Daimatsu. About how pretty she had been, and about how he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Yutaro would understand. He wouldn’t laugh at him, or tease him about it. Wataru opened his mouth, but the words that came out were, “So what’s Mitsuru Ashikawa like?”
Yutaro blinked, plainly startled. “What’s he like? What do you mean?”
“I saw him for the first time this morning. He looks kind of too perfect, like a…like a mannequin, you know what I mean?” Their encounter that morning had definitely been a “saw” not a “met.” Wataru wasn’t entirely convinced Mitsuru had even noticed him.
Yutaro shrugged. “He’s cool.”
Utterly casual. No reservations, no hidden meanings.
“Like a mannequin, heh?” Yutaro chuckled. “You should see the girls in class going crazy for him.”
It occurred to Wataru that Yutaro might not welcome this new challenge to his status as most popular in class. “Isn’t he a little strange? I mean, taking a picture and calling it a ghost, then taking it home and acting all cool.”
“I don’t think he was acting cool,” Yutaro laughed. “If you’re curious about him, you should