The Forest Where Yamada Saw Fireflies
(One)
My name is Hamazaki Noritaka. No one has called me "Hamaji" in four years. Yet that's the first thing I heard when I stepped off the train at Shimizu station. True, it might only have been the squeal of the conductor's whistle or the screeching of the wheels when the train thundered off back to Tokyo, but it is understandable right? I mean, I had finally returned to my home town. Shimizu-cho: the place of my childhood, the place where I spent the best years of my life! I had the right to be a little bit nostalgic, right?
The whole time on the train I was thinking of the perfect prank I could play on my brothers when I arrived home. I guess I could knock on the door and run away, I thought as I wolfed down my bento lunch box. Better yet, I could sneak in through an open window, roll out my futon and when they walked into my room (to make sure everything was neat and ready for when I got home) I would simply pretend that I had never left, that I was angry at them for overlooking me all these years.
That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
But as my morning coffee wore out, I descended from that place above the clouds and flopped back down on my seat, returning to the person I had become. The train rumbled alongside the vast meadows and blue mountains. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and watched herds of cows and horses zoom past us. My eyelids grew heavier the longer I gazed out the window. The blurry scenery had a drowsy effect on me and I quickly fell asleep.
When I woke up the train had stopped at Shizuoka station. I rubbed my eyes. It still seemed somewhat unreal. This would be my first time seeing my family in over four years.
What was more, I would also be reuniting with my elementary school classmates. I still met with Butaro and Sekiguchi once or twice every month so I knew that Butaro had not been able to break away from his habit of saying "buu" after every sentence. I also knew that Sekiguchi was dating a NASA scientist called Minami Hiroko. After Butaro told me the news (Sekiguchi had bailed on us that day), for the life of me I could not figure out how a guy like Sekiguchi managed to find such an intelligent girl like her.
"Remember how we used to think we'd never become friends with anyone outside the people in our class?" Butaro said slurping ramen into his mouth. "And we were so worried then because we thought everyone in our class was an idiot. Remember how we thought we'd end up marrying a girl in our class? I said you and Honami would make a great match but you insisted that Sekiguchi and Honami were perfect together. Guess in some ways you were right after all. I met Minami-san once. I thought she and Honami were incredibly alike."
But that's just Butaro and Sekiguchi. I had not heard from any of my classmates in a very long time.
Although whenever I met with Butaro and Sekiguchi they would share theories about what they thought Ono and Sugiyama were up to. Those two were the heroes of 3-4 after all and we were curious to know what had become of them. Did they achieve their dream of sailing around the world together?
And Sakura…
I massaged my temples. That I'd rather not think about. It would be better if I didn't think too much about it. Especially as we were going to meet again very soon.
What would I say to her? I thought to myself. What would I say to the classmates I hadn't met in so long? My heart began to race a bit faster. I got to my feet and headed for the bathroom where I tidied my hair and straightened the collar of my shirt.
At last the train stopped in Shimizu station. I stepped on the platform and mistook a random noise for someone screaming my childhood nickname.
When I walked to my house my family was waiting for me by the door. My brothers welcomed me back enthusiastically as my mother embraced me tightly. "Go say hello to your grandfather," she said with tears in her eyes. "He's in the living room. He'll be so happy to see you." She cried.
The strong stench of incense filled the living room. I waved away some lingering smoke as I walked in and knelt down to pray before my grandpa's portrait.
"Ojii-chan…I'm sorry I'm late. You must think I'm the worst grandkid in the world. I'm sorry I thought you embarrassed me in front of my friends. You were the best old man in the world and I wish you could see how much I've grown…"
My mother walked in and knelt down next to me. "When are you meeting your old friends?" she asked, still teary-eyed.
"Not until after New Year's Okaa-san."
"Good. It'll be good for Ojii-chan to see the whole family eating at the same table again."
I smiled. At home there was no need to pretend to be strong. I sobbed aloud and threw myself into my mother's arms. "Geez I never thought I would miss him so much! I thought he'd always be around! The supporter for the swallow's nest he helped me make is still outside the house. How can he not be here anymore?!"
The sound of my cries was muffled by her warmth and my tears had stained the front of her apron. My brothers had returned to their rooms so I didn't need to worry they might see me.
"He'd be proud you know. You've done so well. I know I'm incredibly proud of you." She said.
In the afternoon I helped my brothers clean the house and change the papers on our sliding doors. We ate red bean cakes and drank green tea while watching a review of last year's Red and White Singing Competition. I hadn't watched this episode as I had been working overtime at the office around this time last year. Without Momoe Yamaguchi, the Red team was fighting a losing battle. There was no way they could win, especially now that 'Akikawa' had joined the ranks of the White team.
"Ah, the Red team hasn't won a single show without Momoe-chan. She was really the best female singer in Japan!" I exclaimed and once again felt drowsy from drinking the steaming tea.
"Haha, you're so old Onii-chan! Everyone knows that 'Yukko' is the most popular female singer in Japan!"
"By the way Onii-chan, are you busy later today? Nobuo nii-chan and I want to play soccer with our friends in the park. Can you vacuum and mop the floors for us while we're gone?"
"Hm, I guess I might go to the shrine tonight but I've got nothing at all planned other than that…"
"So you'll help us then?" Those two egged on until at last I caved.
"Ah, what I bother! Why do I have to do so much work on the day I come back? You two better repay me for my kindness while I'm still here! Buy me a grilled squid tonight at the shrine festival or give me two thirds of your pocket money!"
One second they were still in front of me, the next they were stampeding like wild beasts down the hall. I sighed hopelessly and returned to watching TV.
I stared into the TV screen, thinking about all the shows I used to watch sitting in this very place. There was that 'psychic' show my grandfather and I watched together. We held up soup ladles and tried to break them in half using only the "great power of our minds"! Then there were all those stand-up comedy shows we loved to watch. I would imitate the actors and he'd laugh happily as I made a giant fool of myself. All of it happened right here, in this living room. I felt a pang of loneliness shoot into my heart.
When the competition ended (as expected the White team won), I asked my mother for a piece of cloth and retrieved a bucket of water from the bathroom. As a kid I almost never helped my mother with housework. Though I had to do my own cleaning in Tokyo I lived in a tiny apartment and so had absolutely no experience with wiping down a huge hallway all by myself. Rolling up my sleeves and pushing back my hair I got ready for the colossal task ahead of me.
I started off by the lavatory. Pushing the cloth with all my might and kicking my feet in the air to propel myself forward. But I 'propelled' too hard and bumped my head against the wooden shoe cabinet a step from the main entrance. "Tsk. It hurts…" I groaned, rubbing my forehead.
That's when I saw it. Something underneath the shoe cabinet caught my eye. I squeezed my hand through the gap that was as narrow as the slit in a mailbox and rescued whatever it was from the cold stone floor.
It was a notebook. The incredibly thin kind I used in elementary school for homework and class notes. Everyone in our class had one of these. As I kept misplacing mine there were probably over fifty notebooks like these scattered around the house. All of them with my name on the cover and my idiotic stick drawings on random pages. I stopped and blew away the dust.
"Diary..." I read aloud. That was strange. Did I really keep a diary in elementary school? I agonized over it for a few minutes. I couldn't remember… True, the handwriting didn't exactly look like my own either. I didn't believe in needing good handwriting to be a good grown up so I still wrote the same way as I did in elementary school.
I looked a bit more closely at the cover.
Beneath the characters for 'diary', was a name. The characters were messy, obviously written by a child who was no good in school. A kid who also hated helping out with housework, whose only hobbies were lazing about, watching TV and reading manga…
I read aloud each of the syllables. I read them out again. The third time I read them together faster.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard myself say:
Sakura Momoko