July, 2010
Kajihara Takeru lives in a small house by the forest. Well—It won't be so small anymore, Takeru thinks as he chews on a watermelon rind. He's sitting cross-legged on the veranda. His mother is building a whole new room on the second floor. Personally, he wants the backyard to be expanded instead, and for the fence separating the treeline from the monoculture lawn to be taken down. The woodland calls to him, begging to be explored. It's a little scary at night, but it's suitable for expedition during the day.
"Takeru!" his mother calls, sliding the glass door open—the side of their kitchen connects to the outside. She's carrying a bottle of root beer in one hand. "Here." She gives it to him, and he eagerly cracks it open. Some of the kids at school scoff at the heavy taste of it, but the flavour dances on his tongue.
"Are the construction men done yet?" asks Takeru, a whine creeping into his tone. They've been coming over to saw planks and hammer nails into said planks for the past two weeks. As a result, he hasn't been able to invite any of his friends over for video games and movies.
His mother—Oikawa-Kajihara Hotaru—takes a seat next to him, her legs hanging off the porch. The balls of her feet skim the grass. "Just a little longer," she promises, but she's been saying it for ages now. Her promises are starting to lose its effect. Then again, the Oikawa-Kajihara family has never been one to worship the sanctity of vows. Takeru understands that promises are always broken eventually. They don't last—just like the dandelion that Hotaru plucks. She blows on it, but not all of the seeds come off in a single breath. She scowls before softening. "I'm sorry, Takeru. I know you must miss your friends."
"It's not fair," Takeru complains, because he's six years old and doesn't know any better. "I wanna invite my friends over!"
"I know, sweetheart, I know."
"I'm bored."
She strokes his hair—or what's left of it, anyway. After last year's lice outbreak at his school, she's been regularly keeping his head shaved. "Tell you what—why don't I invite Uncle Tooru over?"
Takeru pouts. The sight of it makes his mother blink before chuckling. "What's so funny? Are you making fun of me, mama?"
"No, no. It's just... You look just like your uncle when you do that."
Takeru finishes his root beer, tipping the last drop into his mouth. "Uncle Tooru's lame."
"He is not." His mother defends him, but there's little conviction to it.
He leans into his mother's side, curling up against her. "I want my friends."
"You'll still see them at school." She stays with him for a little longer before getting up and collecting the empty bottle from her son. "I'll call him right now," she declares, stretching her arms. "It's summer vacation, so he should be free!"
As Hotaru busies herself at the telephone, Takeru kicks his volleyball around the backyard. It's one of those foam ones for kids to make sure they don't jam their fingers on it and cry. Like Uncle Tooru, Takeru thinks it's lame. When he gets bored of that, he picks it up and stares up at the fence. He's almost tall enough to see over it, but not quite. For a while, he just stands there, contemplating whether it would be worth it to throw his ball over the top to kick-start an adventure.
In the end, he lingers for too long, and the glass door is opening again.
"Yoohoo~!"
Oikawa Tooru is hard to miss. In physique, he seems pretty average, but the aura he exudes is larger than life. Despite himself, Takeru lights up, running up to him and meeting him at the veranda stairs. "Uncle Tooru!"
Tooru grins and bops him on the head like his skull is a drum. "Hey there, kiddo! Does your mom still not know anti-lice shampoo is a thing?"
Takeru scrunches up his nose. "What does that mean?"
With an airy laugh, Tooru waves him off. "Oh, nothing. It's nothing. So." He crouches to meet Takeru's eyes. "What's my favourite nephew been up to?"
"I'm your only nephew."
"For now! Your mom really likes your dad, you know." Once again, Takeru is deprived of an explanation as Tooru goes on, "You must be bored at home, huh? It's no fun being all by yourself."
"Yeah! I'm dying of boredom here."
"Why don't you go visit your friends' houses?"
"I've already been to their houses."
"Hmm..." Tooru straightens to his full height and wow he's tall. Takeru's eyes sparkle. He wants to be that tall someday. No—even taller! "I guess it can't be helped. I'll have to keep you company! Grawr!"
Takeru screeches when Tooru does his dinosaur impression, the sound instilling fear into his very core. But it's the giggly kind of fear—the kind of fear that makes him drunk and howling with laughter and running circles around the lawn. He starts to run, clutching his ball to his chest, and Tooru is right behind him. "Nooo!" Takeru yells, laughing as he nearly trips on his feet. He's barefoot and there are some prickly spots on the grass, but he knows where to avoid.
"I'm gonna getcha!" Tooru proclaims, voice throaty.
"Ahh! Get away, monster!"
Tooru catches him eventually. He always does, closing in when Takeru's out of breath and ready to keel over and vomit out his breakfast. "Prey captured! Time for dinner!"
"It's afternoon!"
"Adults don't follow the rules, kiddo!"
Takeru laughs so hard that tears come out as Tooru tickles him, showing him no mercy. "No! Stop!"
"Say 'Uncle Tooru is the best'!"
"Uncle Tooru—" he wheezes "—is the lamest!"
"Ack! You're gonna pay for that! Armpit assault!"
Takeru shrieks with laughter. Tooru lets him go, picking blades of grass out of his hair. It's not as coiffed as it usually is today. Takeru prefers it that way. It makes him look more approachable—more like a kid like him. Which reminds him—he really wants to know: "How old are you, Tooru?"
Tooru hums, sitting up. "Guess."
"... Thirty?"
"You brat!" He flicks his forehead. "Serious answers only, thanks!"
"That was a serious answer!"
"I'll throw you into the river!"
Takeru sticks out his tongue. "Nyeeehhh!"
"Sixteen," Tooru says, enunciating the syllables. "I'm sixteen, not freakin' thirty."
"I'm telling mama you said a bad word."
"Your mama's busy yelling at those brainless bozos out the front," Tooru retorts. He helps Takeru up. "Let's go get ice cream instead. Then you won't tell on me, right?"
"I want two scoops. Chocolate and chocolate chip mint."
Tooru huffs. "What a greedy child." But he doesn't disagree, which makes Takeru smile. "You better be nicer to me after this."
On the way to the ice cream shop, Takeru asks Tooru a question that he hears his mom ask a lot. "Still no girlfriend? What happened to that nice Sayuri girl?"
"Sayori," Tooru corrects. "And I broke up with her months ago, Takeru. Keep up with the times. I'm dating Izumi-chan now."
The wheels turn in Takeru's head. "Oh! Iwaizumi-senpai who lives next door to you?"
Tooru sputters. "Wha—no! Iwa-chan and I are just friends! Besides," he fumbles for the next words, and he sounds like something is strangling him when he says, "Iwa-chan is a boy."
"Ehh..." Takeru cocks his head. "I guess that's true. All my friends have a mom and a dad." He nods to himself. That makes sense. "Only girls and boys have babies together. Do you want babies, Tooru?"
"Well... Maybe sometime in the future."
"You can't have babies with Iwaizumi-senpai."
"Nope."
Takeru frowns. "Maybe you should beg the stork really hard."
Tooru throws his head back and laughs. "I'll keep that in mind, kiddo." He chews the inside of his cheek. "So, if Iwa-chan and I could have a baby, it would work for you?"
"Well, yeah." Takeru blinks. What else do you need? Iwaizumi-senpai to dress up like a girl? That could trick the stork.
"Ah... The simplicity of a kid should really be treasured, hm?"
"What does that mean? You're weird, Tooru."
For all his weirdness, Tooru is kind. He buys ice cream for them—two scoops of Takeru's favourite flavours for him and one scoop of strawberry for himself. As they take the long way back home, Takeru grows shy.
"What's up?" asks Tooru, noticing his unusual silence.
"Come over tomorrow," Takeru mumbles. "I wanna get ice cream again."
At first, Tooru just stares at him like he's grown another head. Then he grins. "Aw, Takeru! You do love me! Maybe not tomorrow, but I'll definitely come over again soon." Tooru pats his head. "You're my precious nephew, after all."
If Tooru is sixteen, it means that he's a high school student. High school means lots of homework. Takeru knows this because of all the TV shows he watches. He doesn't want to monopolise too much of Tooru's time, otherwise he'll drop out and become a drug dealer like those gangsters in his comic books. "Just come over when you can."
"How kind of you, Takeru-tan." Tooru holds out a pinkie. "I promise I'll come visit, okay?"
Takeru shuffles his feet. Hotaru always breaks her promises. He really should know better. But Tooru isn't Hotaru—he's wilder, more carefree, and a kid like him. An older kid, but a kid is still a kid. "Okay," he says finally, linking their pinkie fingers. "If you lie, you have to eat a thousand needles."
"Alright, alright."
They stop by the park on the way home. Tooru texts Iwaizumi and his girlfriend while Takeru plays on the swing, rocking his body back and forth to try and fly as high as possible.
The sun is setting when they toe their shoes off at the front porch. The construction workers are gone, the crickets are chirping, and Takeru's fingers are sticky from melted ice cream.
I wish every day could be like this.
Dinner is waiting for them at the table.
December, 2012
Takeru doesn't understand death. Not completely, anyway. A part of him can't accept it—can't accept that Tooru is never coming back. Things are normal, mostly. He still goes to school on weekdays, and cram school on Saturdays. Sundays are reserved for volleyball with his friends. He laughs like he did before, and dirties his shorts by diving for the ball—not foam anymore, he's long graduated from that—on the empty plot of land that they play in.
He used to cry, but he doesn't now. Not anymore.
But he when he gets home, it's like he no longer exists. The boy that he is when he goes outside is little more than a newspaper clipping cut and hung on a frame—distant and incomprehensible. He's an alien in his own house.
Mom doesn't talk anymore. That's what Takeru thinks, anyway. It's been a while since he heard her voice. Dad is at home a lot more, but Takeru doesn't feel comfortable enough to talk to him about what's happening. Tooru isn't a safe topic to broach to anyone. If he whispers his name, mom will cry until her head hurts.
Dinner is instant ramen.
Mom sleeps early and wakes up at two in the morning and dad doesn't know how to cook much. He's good enough to add a soft-boiled egg and some pan-fried spam into their noodles, though.
It's almost winter break.
The television is playing on loop. A recording of a news segment from the beginning of the month that had glitched its way into being their only daily program. "We'll have to get a new TV soon," dad says a lot, but they never do.
Nothing changes.
Woman, twenty-three, went grocery shopping on a lovely Wednesday afternoon and never came home. Her brother and mother are worried sick. Please contact the police if you have any information.
Only it's been at least twenty days since then—even longer since Tooru's funeral—and nothing's turned up.
The next morning rolls around after fitful rest.
Mom and dad go to work and Takeru has a piece of plain toast waiting for him in the kitchen. He eats it stooped at the dinner table. It's like sand in his mouth.
During his walk to school, he hears a crash and startles.
When rounds the corner to investigate, he finds that it came from the Iwaizumi home. There is glass scattered over the unkempt lawn. One of their side windows has a hole in it. The rock responsible for it is lying innocent on the ground, half-hidden by dandelions.
Kanji he can't read is scribbled across the side of house in thick red strokes.
A few hours later, in fifth period, he learns from his Japanese teacher that it means pig.
He wishes that he didn't have to wait so long to find out.
Tooru would've told him right away.
But—
Absently, Takeru thinks, looking down at his little finger, Tooru is eating a thousand needles right now.