Please note that although I'm always putting "-san", "-kun", "-chan", or "-sama" at the end of everyone's names, I still prefer writing characters' names in the English order (Mayumi Ando instead of Ando Mayumi, etc.) So, chapter two, we meet Hitoshi's friend, Kishiru, and delve deep into some mysterious business. Something funny also happens to Hitoshi. What is it? Find out in Chapter Two!
Chapter Two
The girl's life is a lonely and neglected one.
No one other than the girl exists...somehow …
Nothing born or dies here, in truth…
This is such a world…
The garbage doll the Girl had made sat stationary behind her.
Wishing…was that all she had to do? Wishes…to leave this pitiful little world behind…
Nevertheless, she grabbed her garbage doll and got up, walking over to the spotlight. She took just a deep breath…
"I wish for…"
Hitoshi's house
There was a beeping sound. Hitoshi's alarm clock, going off. He rolled over in his bed and switched it off.
Slowly, Hitoshi removed the duvet off him. Sunlight prickled his face...daytime... finally.
It had been a long night. Hitoshi rushed downstairs and into the kitchen, disappointed to find it, yet again, deserted.
It seemed like his father wasn't around anymore. Hitoshi's mother had died from leukemia when he was just two years old. After that, Hitoshi's father was devastated, and so gave up his job for becoming a smoker and an alcoholic, and never paid any attention to his son, not even as a tender young child. Perhaps growing up all alone in this wretched town with no parent to nurture and care for him had sharpened Hitoshi's feelings and toughened him up. But all in all, he led a miserable life, and even more so when all the teachers back at school referred to him as a "juvenile delinquent."
"What's this I smell?"
He sniffed the air. He smelt a foul stench. Coming from him.
"Oh...yuck."
What was up with this scent? It ponged. He hadn't rolled into something stinky. What he had done last night wastake a bath. So what was this?
Hitoshi shook himself and glanced up at the calendar. It was Saturday. School had started on Thursday. That meant he had slept through Friday without waking. His second day of school!
Now that it was the weekend, he wondered what he could do. The girl, Ando, or rather, Mayumi, had told him to come around to her family restaurant anytime. But it was Saturday, and they also had school then. Hitoshi and his best friend Kishiru always skipped the Saturday class, though, because it was only a half-day lesson.
When he got to the small cottage that Kishiru hid out in, however, no one answered no matter how many times his knocked on the door. It was then that Hitoshi remembered that there was a key under the doormat. He bent down, dug his hand under the mat and pulled out the key, ramming it into the lock.
"Hello?"
No reply.
Hitoshi crept down the foyer and pushed the door of the bedroom in which Kishiru secretly, illegally dwelled. The door opened up ever so slowly, making a soft creaking noise as it swung inwards.
Scene changes
The room blurred. Suddenly, it was empty and made of wood. When things went back into focus, the Garbage Doll noticed a giant table sprawled out in the middle of the room. There was a wheelie chair beside it, and a girl was sitting in it. A girl the Garbage Doll knew well. The girl clapped. The Doll used enormous strength to stand up. It mustered even more power to stomp slowly toward the girl. It had barely taken three steps before the Garbage Doll collapsed to the ground, unable to move anymore. "Wait," it thought. "I can't give up now! This girl made me to give me a life! She loves me! I can't give up on her! Not now!"
Determined, yet not FEELING its determination, Garbage Doll walked over to the girl. Even those few feet had tired it – yet it couldn't FEEL the tiredness! For some reason, Garbage Doll wished he could. The girl, meanwhile, was delighted and applauded. Then, she hugged Garbage Doll.
The only warmth that Garbage Doll wanted was her warmth. It was resting around Garbage Doll right now, in this very moment. Yet, Garbage Doll had no collection of the joy, hope and happiness deep inside the Doll, or the joy within HER. But Garbage Doll liked it, even though its own feelings and emotions weren't felt.
Change scene
"Hitoshi! Hitoshi!"
His body was jerking around. Someone was shaking him. Kishiru!
Hitoshi busted out of the messy mound of heavy clothes, gasping desperately for air.
"We were both at school. It was just after lessons and I found you sleeping in the Art Club's meeting room. I was about to wake you up when I heard footsteps coming our way. So I hid us in the cabinet that stores all the art supplies. I think someone peeked round the doorframe in curiosity, but we were both hiding by that time.
"When I thought whoever it was had gone away, I stepped out of the art cupboard and found myself back in the bedroom here. It was pretty freaky."
"But I was here the whole time!" Hitoshi insisted earnestly.
"No you weren't. You were at school, with everyone else, although you didn't turn up at class. And you were wearing street clothes."
Hitoshi stared at him in bewilderment.
"No, really! Oh, and I saw that girl you were hanging out with on Thursday. I overheard her talking to herself about joining the art club. But it closed in May last year. That's what some seniors said yesterday. Doesn't she know that?"
"How should I know?"
"Well, you were having a chat with her on our first day."
"Oh. Right."