Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [66]
Mitsuru stood with the tips of his sneakers directly in front of Wataru’s face. From this angle, Wataru could see how scruffy the shoes were. For a moment he wondered why this otherwise perfect guy chose to wear such cruddy old sneakers. But now was hardly the time to ask.
Something had caught him in the stomach, and he couldn’t stand. He managed to lift his head and look up at his adversary. Mitsuru was no longer smiling.
“Stay out of my way. You annoy me.”
Then, in his calm voice from before, “I don’t have time to hang out with happy-go-lucky kids.”
Happy-go-lucky? Who’s happy-go-lucky? Who’s a kid?
If Wataru hadn’t heard him say that, it probably would have ended there. Mitsuru wasn’t his friend, like Katchan. He wasn’t a good guy, like Yutaro. Why should he tell him anything?
But now, he had to. He lifted his face, grimy with the dirt of the temple grounds, and spat, “That’s my line. I’m not happy-go-lucky enough to hang out with a happy-go-lucky kid like you.”
Mitsuru raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly. “Oh? That’s a surprise.”
“Shut up!” Wataru put his hands on the ground and somehow managed to sit up. The side of his mouth tingled as though it had been cut. “You talk all cool, and look all cool, but you don’t know a thing. You don’t know…you know nothing about me. My dad left us last night, okay? So I’m not—I’m not what you—happy-go-lucky—I’m not a kid. Okay?”
Wataru’s fatigue and overwhelming sense of defeat caught the words in his throat.
“Left?” Mitsuru asked, calm as ever. “You mean he divorced your mom?”
“Yeah. What else does it mean?”
“So what?”
The words hit Wataru like a pile driver.
“Wha…”
“I said so what. It’s only a divorce.”
I don’t believe it.
“He left me and my mom, he left us!”
“And? You think being all sad and crying like that is going to help you find someone else to pick up the pieces?” Mitsuru scoffed. “Well, come to think of it, it might be one strategy.”
Wataru was speechless.
“In fact,” the boy continued in a conversational tone, “It might be a fitting strategy for you and your mom. People will sympathize. Yeah, they’ll come running in flocks. You’ll get so much sympathy, you won’t know what to do with it all. But you won’t get any from me.”
Wataru merely sat, dumbfounded. He had nothing to say, no ready retort.
Mitsuru looked at him for a moment, then looked aside, and glared at the ground. “Stay away from the building next door. It sounds like you’ve got enough on your hands. Just worry about that for a while. I live near here, so I’ll know if you’re hanging around. Got it?”
Even after Mitsuru left, Wataru lingered at the shrine. It felt like some thing was sitting atop his shoulders, weighing him down so that he couldn’t stand. Maybe it’s a huge pile of trash. Debris from a world destroyed. Even when the whole world comes apart, somebody has to clean it up. Someone has to call the waste management company, get them to send out a truck. Somehow, he felt that no one would take on this particular job.
“Hey, you there,” an old man called out. Wataru glanced over to see the shrine priest approaching. He was wearing the same outfit he always wore at the annual shrine New Year’s celebration: a white kimono with a light green hakama skirt. His hair was white. “What’s the matter? Did you fall?”
Wataru was covered in dirt.
“You’re bleeding! Are you on your way home from school? Did you get into a fight?”
The priest came over and kneeled down next to him. “Are you alone?” he asked. Looking at the nameplate on his school bag, the priest continued, “Mitani? Eh… Wataru Mitani?”
“Yes, that’s me,” said Wataru. “Say, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes?”
“This is a shrine, right?”
“Of course.”
“There are gods at a shrine, right?”
“Yes.”
“You pray to the gods, right?”
“I pray and I honor them, yes.”
“What do the gods do when you pray?”
The priest gave him a curious look.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I just do,” Wataru said roughly. “Because, the way I see it the gods are lazy.”
The priest seemed at a loss for words.
Wataru