Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [386]
Wataru put his hands on the steel wire fence around the garden and called out to him.
“Good morning!”
Yutaro jolted upright and whirled around. “Hey there, Wataru. Didn’t see you. Good morning. You’re up early for a summer vacation day!”
Yutaro walked over to the fence. Wataru mumbled some hasty explanation for his visit. Yutaro’s brother and sister stayed in the garden, absorbed with counting the blooming morning glories.
“Hey, Yutaro, you know that kid Mitsuru Ashikawa?”
“Mitsuru? You mean the one in my class?” Yutaro asked without skipping a beat. “What about him?”
Mitsuru does exist! He’s here! I didn’t just dream him up.
“Do you…happen to know where he is?”
“Where?” Yutaro blinked. “He moved.”
This was the answer Wataru had expected. “He was a transfer student, wasn’t he? And he already moved away?”
“Yeah. He was in and out of here in a hurry. But I guess with his home situation being what it is and all…”
“Yeah. I was wondering—what was he like?”
Yutaro stared at Wataru for a second. “What do you mean, ‘what was he like’?” Yutaro laughed. “Why are you so interested in him, anyway? He wasn’t even in your class.”
“Well, we were in the same cram school.”
“Really? But I never saw you talking to him. He was the silent type, that one.”
Wataru nodded. He wanted to know more…but he couldn’t think of any questions that wouldn’t make Yutaro even more suspicious than he already was.
Wataru was back in the real world now, and Mitsuru was gone. It’s like he was never here in the first place…
“Wataru,” Yutaro called out. “You know…”
“Yutaro!” came his little brother’s shout from behind him. “I’m trying to count the morning glories but Mayumi keeps gettin’ in the way!”
Back in the garden, the little girl burst into tears. Yutaro hesitated, unsure for a moment whether to be the big brother to his siblings or the friend to Wataru.
“Your sister’s crying,” Wataru said, letting him go.
“Yeah.” Yutaro looked over the fence, and turned toward his sister. Then he stopped and turned back. “The moms at school, they talk too much,” he said quickly, as though he was in a rush to get the words out before he changed his mind.
“Huh?”
“There was a PTA meeting before summer break, and this one older lady there loves spreading rumors, and she told my mom…”
Wataru already knew what Yutaro was going to say. For a second, he was afraid that news of his mother’s suicide attempt had already made the rounds, but that would have been much too fast. No, Yutaro’s mom had doubtlessly heard about the events leading up to that. A couple of kids in Wataru’s grade lived in the same apartment complex. They had probably heard something, or the families heard something, and word had gotten around.
Grandma was shouting pretty loudly that night.
“Things are pretty rough at your place, I guess?”
“Yeah.” Wataru nodded. Yutaro was as safe a person to talk to about this as anybody. And somewhere along the line, Wataru found he had the strength to talk about it without getting too weepy.
“I know what it’s like,” Yutaro said, rubbing his lip. “My dad’s remarried. Takes a while for things to settle down.”
Behind him, his little sister had stopped crying. She and her brother were crouching down by the morning glory patch, digging up something in the soil.
“It was…tough, when it happened.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Yutaro smiled. “But it got better. I like my brother and sister too. Just wish they were a little quieter.”
Now his little brother started crying. His sister was hitting him over the head with the red watering can.
“Yeah,” Wataru said. He felt his throat tighten and couldn’t say any more.
“So, anyway,” Yutaro said, sounding a bit unsure himself. “I guess I, well, you know…” He didn’t know what to say either, but his eyes told Wataru enough. Hang in there.
“Yeah.”
“Yutaroooooo!”
Now