Thy Minjonet
Prologue
"27 percent of people leave without saying goodbye to me, I've calculated," A boy named Kabuto told me one day in 2013.
Surprisingly, I didn't even know he could do the math.
Why would someone say something so goddamned weird in grade five to an eleven-year-old child? It was stupid. I couldn't decide whether or not the poignancy of that quote bordered on happy or sad.
Now, as I get older, I think maybe leaving without saying goodbye is a good thing. Fewer hearts are broken and fewer people are hurt.
I'll ask him about it, sooner or later.
We have the whole summer ahead of us. It's just the second of July. School ends on the twentieth.
Grade nine was hell but I think that the month break we get when the year ends is just stupid. Every subject in school gave me a mountain of homework. I'm not Itachi, so I'm not ecstatic about this. He's going to grade twelve and I'm sure fifteen universities offered scholarships or places at their prestigious schools.
He does drink like a university student, though.
But as my mother and father discuss the benefits of mortgages and midlife crises of something called Calgary, we sit on, pseudo-happy, at the dinner table. My brother even decided to drop by for once but he doesn't talk to me. I wish he did.
Dad picks up the rice bowl and shovels its contents into his personal ceramic bowl. I see the flash of his silver sleeve buttons. He's wearing a suit. My mother's wearing a fancy dress covered by an apron. My brother wears his soccer jersey.
I'm wearing a scowl.
There are three things wrong with this sitcom-looking scene; my mother and father aren't arguing, my brother is at the dinner table for once and it's only six p.m. My mom actually cooked the udon noodles. Shocker. They taste like wet twine rope in steaming water. I could have gotten something better for under ten dollars at Yoshinoya!
The floor is clean and shiny, and I fiddle with my chopsticks. The maids flit about, trying to please my father. Our house is already spotless, why add a thin veneer of bleach and lemon-scented soap?
The house does look emptier.
My father is an unforgiving businessman in the contradicting Japan. Maybe that's why I'm good with numbers because he loves numbers. He's also working all the time, which is nothing rare in this cracked-out society. It's all LSD lights and cram school and people dying from exhaustion in their small, pathetic cubicles.
Dad never takes sick days off and he will die if he continues at this half-baked steam-roller pace. The sadder thing is I think he wants to go out like that. I would die before I get an office job. I haven't the balls to tell him I don't want to end up like him or work in his company.
"Sasuke, Itachi dear," says Mom.
I look up at the sound of my name, trying not to seem too skeptical at her pitch. The confusion surrounding my mother's ever-cheery tone is nothing new.
My father's suit makes a papery sound as he moves. His hair is gelled back and he has a five-o'clock shadow on his chin.
"Boys, we got you both a car," Dad says sternly without looking at us.
My mom nods. "A car!"
There's a weird smile in her voice.
I stop slouching and Itachi exchanges a look with me. Though a self-made millionaire, Dad was adamant about us paying for everything since we aren't kids anymore. It made for all of my shirts five dollars at the strip of stores outside of our affluent neighborhood, Omotesando.
Now he gets us a car.
My mouth tastes like sandpaper and the aftertaste of chicken broth.
"Both of us?" Itachi's toneless voice sounds out.
"Yes, Itachi," Dad says tersely. He doesn't like repeating himself.
Call me a cynic but there's a catch. There always has to be a catch. It's like when a girl says she'll have sex with you but you watch five cycles of America's Next Top Model or Gossip- really any other westerner crap.
I send a questioning side-glance to Itachi. My brother is an excellent student, a star soccer player, and the favorite son. The only time my father gave compliments was when Itachi did something great. Did Itachi get one-hundred percent on an exam? Did one of his teachers from university prep classes recommend him for something?
Otherwise, this is as rare as finding a wallet with several million dollar bills.
Moving slowly, Itachi stands up and I follow suit, chucking my chopsticks to the side.
I want to see this unicorn with metal parts. If I'm getting something unearned, I'd verse myself in this luck as soon as possible. I promise to use it until it gets taken away.
Mom is confused by our actions. "Ano, where are you guys going?"
We halt before we're fully able to pass the table full of side-dishes and the awful udon noodles. The farther away from them, the better. There's tea perfuming my clothes and sweets that leave the glaze on my fingers.
"Aren't we allowed to see what type of car it is?" I ask since Itachi just narrows his eyes.
Dad shakes his head. "No, the car is in Britannia, Calgary,"
I blink four times. Why would the car be in… Call-Gary? A mighty odd place to put a car when cars belong on the winding roads of Iroha-zaka.
"Anyway, what the hell is Calgary?" I ask.
Dad stares at me, unimpressed. "Language, Sasuke," he scolds.
I roll my eyes. I curse like a sailor. Leave me be.
If he didn't use that disappointment in his tone, I would have never recognized him. Though this occasion for other kids would be festive, this is about as celebratory as a funeral.
My question hangs in the air as my parents have an inaudible argument about something. Mom eventually folds and her black eyes under her dark lashes stare at me.
"It's a beautiful, thriving city in Canada," answers Mom.
"That place. Canada... is just like America but, you know, better? With ice and igloos?" I wince.
They nod. Dad looks like he's satisfied with himself. For what, I could never know. He's quite arrogant.
Mom continues, wiping her dainty hands on her apron, a pained smile on her face. "Mayor Nenshi, who just got elected again, was voted the best mayor in the world and the Stampede is all in Canada, Calgary,"
Stampede? Nenshi? Who cares... Why is our car there?
Itachi shifts in place. "Kasan, why are you telling us this? It's foolish to put our car there since Canada is eight thousand and seventy-eight kilometers away from Japan,"
"Why do you know that?" I blurt out.
Itachi shrugs. "A question in my History class," he tells me nonchalantly. "I aced that exam,"
Of course, he did. He has a laptop for a brain. I shake my head. Who in the right mind needs to know that? Japan's stupid education system. Will I have to know it- damn, I already forgot the number? My confusion is a garden bursting into life.
I focus back on my parents. My dad points his silver chopsticks at the both of us. He is still eating like this isn't the weirdest shit in the world.
Dad looks at Mom, slurping the noodles with an enthusiasm I think he's forgotten in his youth.
"This is very good, aikata," remarks my Dad.
I grimace while my mother and father discuss and stave off of answering my question. Does he like her cooking? He's never home for dinner and he's lying about how good they are- he's slurping and stuff. Pathetic.
I want my new car and it's in fuckin' Calgary! I sink into this dazed state of confusion and I lose composure.
"Otousan, what is happening?" Itachi asks, all formal.
"We have to tell them, anata," Mom sighs.
He nods, swirling his noodles around in his bowl. "I suppose we shan't put it off for longer," he says.
Huh?
My mother seems timorous but my father smirks proudly. "We are moving to Canada, Calgary," Dad explains with emotion in his voice. "Effective immediately,"
And I know why we're here though we never had dinner together.
It's just like a terrible staff meeting with bad coffee, bad treats, and even worse bosses. Moving? To… Canada? Though my life is in here. I expected to have an unremarkable tenth grade, a fifteenth year- now we're moving to Canada.
What the hell?
And Itachi's eyes widen and my mother offers a plate of castella cake slices. "Here- let us celebrate your father's accomplishments in the Oil and Natural Gas part of the Uchiha industry! Calgary supplies for 87% of Canada's oil and natural gas producers, isn't Canada neat?"
My jaw drops and I stare at the honey-smelling sponges for cakes and back at her gleaming black hair.
I try not to feel the anger or thrill. I have a life here. I want this monotony. Though I hate this place- I love it more than I could ever like Calgary. My mom was fluent in English since she lived in the UK and we got English lessons but we're not that good. Itachi may be good but I suck! Why should I learn a new language?
It's halfway across the world and- why should we be there? Am I going to turn sixteen in some foreign country? Do tenth grade there?
"Moving will be good for our company, Japan, and our family," says Dad.
Moving will be good for our company,
Japan,
And our family.
Those words echo in my mind.
What a fucking joke. It's selfish and only for him. I didn't say anything. I should have- in such an intimate setting. I want to but I keep quiet. The final moments of silence pass and I decide it can't get worse.
To make things worse, I eat the castella.
And whoop de doo- I fucking miss Japan.
I miss the wrinkles of old people's faces, I miss the cars and the tangled streets with offbeat bars and no names. It was so hard to pack my entire life into a cardboard box. I already forget the sound of the bullet train rattling down the tracks and the scent of apples and cherry blossoms and bad coffee. I get flickers of my crush's face but I don't remember it at all.
I feel that I should have run away but I didn't. I bit my lips to avoid confrontation. With or without my approval, it would have happened… Where would I even go? Kabuto's adoptive parents hate me.
My parents' smiles suddenly seem wolfish and insincere. I try to ignore the way some maids cried at losing their jobs or how Itachi blared The Pillows, an alternative rock band and the way the house seemed emptier.
While packing, all at once, I feel the longing and hate I once had for my home country.
Apparently, this move has been a long time coming and we had everything set- the visas, the place we'd stay at and I feel like I'm chewing on a cyanide seed.
The night before I left, I smoked two cigars with Kabuto in Shimokita, dodging the musicians near a concert hall we managed to sneak into. We sat in the underpass with older buildings and younger people and drove everywhere. Then we get to the roof of a building Kabuto paid the security guard off. It was beautiful.
I refused to drink because I wanted to remember this panoramic view in the purple, blue and red of the sunset.
My other casual friends make fun of me for being so straight edged but they fuck off, because something about laughing near a chasm makes the sentiment of leaving too real.
They listen to contemporary rock music and complain about the traffic while I stare at the railway lines and office buildings. I leave after a stupid handshake with all seven of my friends because I couldn't be late for the flight.
I am not well-practiced at goodbyes. I'm a jerk. I didn't say goodbye to Kabuto and my heart's backwards because I spend all my weekdays with him.
I think I should have but I didn't. I'll hate myself for that because I think I've never felt more alone. I say I'm going for a while and he nods and claps me on the back. We got each other's numbers, though.
I don't know why I did, I hate calling. Along with the summer sun, everything gaudy and motorcycles, I hate calling.
Kabuto promised to make the phone bill on my father's tab massive by all the long distance calls during the wireless airtime. We probably started a storm.
We leave on the day after school. Two weeks later, we moved to the ice country with ice people, ice houses, and ice things though it was nearing the twentieth.
I still come back to that scene, when we were on that roof because there was an excellent vibe.
"I think I leave 73 percent of the time more," I remember telling Kabuto, whispering through the cigarette and staring at the falling skyline.
I will hate Calgary.