Warning for property loss, evacuations, and volcanic eruptions. Inspired by true events but written by someone unconnected to the real life situation, so please forgive my creative license.
At first I wanted Tora to say all the right things to make Futakuchi feel better.
And then I realized: These are the two most unsentimental characters I can think of. So instead I asked myself: what kind of advice would Tora actually give to a person in Futakuchi's situation, be it good or bad, superficial or otherwise?
The eruption was a surprise to everyone. For a full month, from his home in the coastal lowlands of the volcano's rift zone, Futakuchi watched the ash cloud rising from the fissures on the side of the peak. The lava had so far concentrated in a particular area and flowed down a steep hillside toward the sea.
Then one day, without warning, it crested over a different ridge. Suddenly lava began to approach his neighborhood. The whole community evacuated before the sluggish but destructive stream severed their escape route; Kenji and his family left with only what they could wear and carry. Soon, the molten river annihilated the entire neighborhood where Futakuchi had lived as long as he could remember.
Once they'd been evacuated, Futakuchi's uncle Yamamoto took them in, and Kenji found himself sharing a bedroom with his cousin Taketora. When it was confirmed there was nothing left of the family home of 40 years, Kenji was devastated. Everything he'd collected and called his own—his possessions, his furniture, his room, his magazines, most of his videogame collection, his posters, his piggy bank, even an autographed volleyball—were gone in a literal cloud of smoke.
That cloud could be seen over the horizon from Taketora's back porch. The following day, Kenji plunked himself down on its prickly wood boards with his knees to his chin and arms wrapped around his legs, eyeing the whitish cloud of laze and ash entering the ocean where his house once stood. Taketora Yamamoto slid the screen door aside and exited carrying two unopened Coca-Cola cans. He wore a red T-shirt and red leaf-patterned shorts suited to the tropical climate and was barefoot.
"Here," he said setting one can on the patio beside Futakuchi. Kenji didn't acknowledge the gesture as Yamamoto popped his open and sat down after sipping. They both stared at the grayish haze that had filled the horizon for a month. Even so, it affected only a small part of the island, and most of their world was incongruously doing business as usual.
"Some of my friends and I are going to the Neko Turtle later to chow and play pool. Wanna come?" Tora casually asked.
"No," Futakuchi sulked, his focus undeterred from the smoky column—the personification of everything he'd lost, taken for some cruel reason.
He felt almost as if, in the fine, indistinguishable dust particles, he could make out the ashes of everything that defined who he was.
All he had left was his Nintendo Switch and a few games for it, homework and school supplies his parents demanded he bring in his backpack, and two changes of clothes. He wore his white T-shirt and murky evergreen shorts now.
Tora tried to read his cousin's stupor. He could only guess at what all this loss felt like, but the mood right now wasn't good, he thought. Kenji couldn't last like this forever. The past was past; nothing was going to change that. He sipped his soda again.
"How long you gonna mope?" he questioned as he crossed his legs.
"Why not? What's the point?" Kenji mumbled, staring daggers at the laze cloud. Tora noticed the undivided attention the column of smoke received and pointed at it sharply.
"There it is. All your life. Goin' away, gone. All that ash is your house, and you ain't gonna bring it back."
Kenji wiggled uncomfortably.
"And y'know what? Life don't care. You move on, you do somethin' else." He sipped his soda again. "The rest of the island is livin' without ya, and you're gonna let it leave ya behind. Bro, you need to get out and get back to normal, cos nothin's gonna change jus' sittin' here."
Futakuchi beheld the last remnants of his life rising up to the stratosphere. The higher it got, the more the ash's hue blended into the dusty blue of the whole sky until it ceased to be a column and became but a film of dirt over everything, until farther from the epicenter it dissolved into the clear seaside blue of the horizon.
Tora stood up and, still gazing in the distance, sipped his red can once more. "You got the rest of your life to mope, so have some fun now. Are you gonna look at ash or have a coke?"
Futakuchi peered at the soda Tora placed by his thigh earlier. He quietly reached for it, the refrigerator-cool condensation refreshing to the touch on the hot day. Kenji clicked the can open and took a big sip, giving the ash cloud a mistrustful look one more time.
"When are you leaving?" he asked.
"Right now," Tora shrugged.
"Cool," Futakuchi said. "I'll join ya."
"I'm drivin'. See you at the car in a minute."
Finishing off his drink, Tora crinkled the can in his hand, tossed it in a wastebasket, and hopped to his bedroom to get his keys. Futakuchi followed him inside the house, taking another sip, the particular flavor more savory than he remembered.
When Tora returned to the living area, he found Kenji staring at the can in his hand.
"Dude, what's up?"
"You know, it tastes really good," Futakuchi said with a hint of a smile.
This unintentionally turned into a Coca-Cola commercial, and I actually prefer Pepsi lol.