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Eggshells by Kazuma Odaka

Crack, crack, drip
Pop, pop, pop
Sizzle, sizzle, stir

The yolks swirl in the pan
The world spins with the sun
The heart dances with the soul

A bouncing baby girl, a bright young woman, a frail old lady
Empires, dynasties, dominions
Life begins and ends with the egg

Crashing waves wipe a sandcastle
Between the setting and the rising of the sun
Eventually, when the night crests
And the dishes are done

All you're left with

Is the shell

Sayori comment: And a nice breakfast!

…

With the ring of the bell, lunch period began for half of Yamaku High. Almost in sync the classroom doors slid open and hordes of students began to pile into the hallways in a unified march to the cafeteria, down the winding staircases through the koi pond plaza straight to the buffet lines. Heavy plumes of steam wafted up from the rooftop stove pipes, and inside the dining halls were rich with the smell of tangy spices. From the floor-to-ceiling windows hung colorful but slightly sun-bleached banners of musicians and scientists and politicians with a quote to match, meant to inspire passion and intuition among the students as they ate. A reminder of what you could possibly be if you set your mind to it, or so the guidance counselors say.

Mixing among the crowd was a swirl of black hair and a puff of cotton candy pink.

"So how did you do on the test?"

Natsuki sucked air through her teeth and pretended to wince.

"Bad?"

"Eeeeeh…"

I waved at a friend from my calculus class passing by. "Amazing?"

"Forty out of a hundred."

I grabbed a tray and slid it down to her. "Well, it could've been thirty out of a hundred."

Natsuki dug into her pocket, pulled out a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. "Well, I could've been hit by a bus."

I rolled my eyes. "If only I were so lucky." Natsuki turned and glared at me, and I could only laugh in response. "Oh no no, I mean, uh, gosh Natsuki, that'd be terrible."

We stepped up to the food lines. It was a special lunch, a chicken cream stew rich with butter and stuffed with chunky vegetables. The lunch ladies carefully spooned it into bowls and set it before us. I grabbed utensils for us both and shifted down to the register. "And you? How was that history presentation of yours?" Natsuki said, adjusting her bag on her shoulder.

I grimaced. "Towards the end my voice cracked and Mr. Kido laughed at me."

Natsuki burst out laughing. "Noooo wayyy!" My face went red. "S-shut up." Natsuki puckered her face. "S-shut UUUUup!"

"I would've loved to see how you'd handle it." I said, taking a bread roll from the display. "Probably start crying and shit."

"I'm not a baby like you, sir."

Our turn to checkout. I pulled out my wallet and swiped my card, paying for the both of us. I tap in the pin. "You say that like you didn't cry at the end of Angel Beats." Natsuki leaned over and grabbed a muffin from the dessert spread. "Everyone cried at the end of Angel Beats."

I took our trays and walked to the main dining hall. Already the cafeteria was filling up, with people taking their lunch to sit at the packed tables in the koi pond plaza outside. It was a nice spring day, the air cool and rich with dew from the morning showers with a decent cloud cover to keep the humidity at bay. A light orchestra piece played from the speakers, heavy on the viola.

Natsuki beside me, we pushed through the crowds and stepped into the plaza.

…

Ever since Yuri showed us that bobby pin trick on the roof of the seniors wing, it had become our unofficial sneak-away spot during lunch. A place to eat lunch and study for tests and nap in the shade and do…other miscellaneous things. Since most of the seniors had the second lunch and would all be in class, the roaming staff members were more focused on the students in the cafeteria than anywhere else. Nobody ever gave us a second glance, since we passed towards the library first before 'sneaking' into the seniors wing to go upstairs. We never got asked twice where we were going.

A lofi jazz piece played from my phone. I was propped up against a slender oak tree planted in the foyer, the centerpiece to a seemingly neglected garden from semester's past. The roof wasn't the most romantic place in the world; dead leaves lined the perimeter and a neglected floor-cleaning machine sat against a utility shed, but it was private. Natsuki was sitting between my legs, her head resting against my chest. I kept one hand wrapped around her stomach and my other hand free, with my chin resting gently on her head. Next to us were the remains of lunch, two empty bowls with the trash wrappers sitting in a plastic bag. A box of cookies-and-cream Pocky sat open, half eaten by Nats.

She took one from the wrapper and handed a second to me. "Okay, so you have an airplane ticket and a voucher to stay anywhere in the world for a weekend. Where would you go?" She said, biting into the chocolate stick.

I pause. "...anywhere in Japan?"

"In the world."

I suck on the Pocky, the cookies and cream coating my tongue. "New York City."

Natsuki glances up. "New York?"

I shrug. "Why not? It's supposed to be the greatest city in the world."

"Yeeeah, but everybody says that about their homeplace. There's probably some boomer in Edogawa who says that about Edogawa."

"But there's eight million people in New York. I feel like they wouldn't say that for no reason."

"True."

A pause. The wind whistles through the trees.

"Wait, are you going with me?"

"I'm asking you where you'd wanna go, hun."

"Right, right. Well…"

I take a bite. "There's plenty of things to do in New York. There's Times Square, the history and art museums, the observatories. Could take a helicopter ride, explore the parks, try out the food spots…"

I pull her in by the waist and hug her. I sit my head on her shoulder. "Y'know, I'd be pretty lonely in New York without you." Natsuki rubs my chin, feeling the curve of my jaw. "Awww, baby…", she cooes. "I guess I'll tag alooong."

"After all, who's gonna hold all my shopping bags?" Her hand trails up my chin towards my ear. With her index finger and thumb, she pinches it.

"Owowowow!" I wince. "Okay okay, stopstopstop. Fine."

She giggles. "That's what I thought." I hugged her again, kissing her softly on the head. "Mmmm…where would you go?"

"Oh, pfft." She waves her hand. "I don't know."

"Come ooon…" I rub my hand against her stomach.

"Hmm…" she thinks about it. "Texas sounds pretty interesting."

I raise an eyebrow. "Texas?"

"Well, I have family there. On my father's side."

"Oh."

"I've never met any of them. That's where he's from, actually. A place called Fort Worth, it's a city up in the north of there."

"You were telling me about him a little bit last night. He was in the military?"

"Right, it was uh, the corps of engineers. Land surveying…and stuff." She pauses to take another Pocky out. "He was born in Texas, trained there and was assigned to work in Japan to help build new military bases. Actually up and moved here, the military paid for everything of course."

"Huh…Texas." I say to myself. "What do you think it's like over there?" She pauses. "Uhhh…cactuses…saloons…" she makes a gun motion with her fingers. "Cowboys, probably? I honestly have no idea. He hardly talks about life over there."

"Speaking of your dad, uh…" I pause, trying to find my words. Is now an appropriate time? "There's something I wanna ask you."

She looked up at me, her hair brushing on my chest. "Mhm?"

"I, um…hang on, sit up for a minute." Obediently she did, brushing herself off. She turned to face me. I leaned forward and took her hand.

"…you know that I love you."

She smiled sweetly. "And you know that I love you."

"And I can't be happier about us. Like, seriously." She nodded.

"But I was just wondering, uh…well, I'm pretty sure my parents know I have a girlfriend."

She perked up. "Really?"

"I mean, it's kind of obvious to them, I think. I'm out late every other night and come back smelling like strawberries, and then there was that time I had marks on my neck…"

Natsuki blushed. "Oh jeez, they saw that?"

I scratched the back of my neck. "Wellllll uhhhhh…yeah?"

She put a hand to her face to hide her redness. "Ohhh my gosh."

"It-it kinda just happened. It was my fault, sorta…" I lace my fingers together. "Wwwwell, it's kind of your fault a little bit too."

Natsuki narrowed her eyes and gave me a light shove. "Oh yeah, you're just a beacon of boyhood innocence, Mr. Odaka." She pointed at me. "As if you didn't give meee any marks."

My turn to blush. "That, that–okay. True."

"How did they see it?"

I take a breath. "Well, that night, I went downstairs to get something to drink, and I didn't have a shirt on. And my dad, for whatever reason, was sitting at the counter drinking coffee and reading a book."

"Uhuh…"

"So he looks at me and looks at me again, and I can tell he's squinting at me as I'm digging around in the fridge. I grab my drink and turn to leave when he says, uh, he says…"

I clear my throat and peer at Natsuki. "Everything okay, son?"

She giggled. "Great impression."

"Thank you. Anyway, I kind of just stammered and pretended I didn't hear him. So I said 'what?' and he pointed at my neck."

"Wh-what did you say?"

I shrugged sheepishly. "Um…I said I had hives."

Natsuki stared at me.

"Hives. You told your dad your hickies were hives."

"...yeah, hives." I cough. "Y'know, allergies."

She stared at me hard, her brow furrowing. I throw my hands up. "W-what the hell was I supposed to say? That I got jumped?" Natsuki thought about it for a moment and leaned forward, grabbing me by my shoulders. She pulled me close, to the point where our noses were just inches apart.

"Kazuma Odaka…"

She gives me a quick kiss.

"You are, and I'm saying this as a compliment, the absolute dumbest boy in Japan."

We collapse into each other, laughing. "You weren't there, okay! Hives was a pretty realistic out, I thought."

"Did he buy it?"

I grabbed my soda can and took a sip. "Fuck no."

Natsuki snorted. "Oh whaaat? He didn't buuuy it?"

"Well, he sort of just nodded and told me they have creams for that."

"Right right."

"But, um." I scratch the back of my neck. "My point is…when do you think we're gonna, like, meet each other's parents?"

She looked down at her hands, twiddling her fingers. "I, well…my dad is a little…" I set the soda down. "I know you said he doesn't like boys."

"Right. But, well, he did think I was out with a boy too, when I came home last night."

"Oh yeah? How'd that go?"

She smiles and spreads her hands out. "Oh I just, I just uh, deflected it. I said I was out with some girlfriends. I think he bought it."

"But maybe you're right. I think he knows something's up too."

"I've never actually brought anyone home before…" I say sheepishly, a little embarrassed. "Me either."

Pause.

"Just keep in mind he's a pretty traditional kinda guy. Don't get upset if he doesn't like you." I rolled my eyes. "You're crazy. How could he not like me?"

She gives me a light shove in the shoulder. "You're the crazy one, sirrr." I leaned forward and pulled Natsuki closer to me, wrapping my arms around her waist. Our noses touch together. "Oh, I'm crazy? Say it again." I nuzzled my face into her neck and started kissing her softly, moving her shirt to go to her shoulder. She gasped sharply.

"K-Kazum…mmmm, stop iiiit…" she protests playfully, putting a hand on my chest. Her fingers dig into my blazer.

I chuckle, still sucking on her neck. "Or else what?" My free hand slips up her skirt and starts rubbing her thigh. "Scared we might get c–"

From across the roof, the knob to the stairwell door jiggled. "Oh fuck." she whispered quickly.

Natsuki actually leaped away from me and pushed her skirt down, spinning on her butt to the same spot she was in earlier. I shake my head and comb my hair back with my hand. From the door stepped a heavyset man with fading silver hair, combed down and to the side. A slightly baggy black suit, with a blue dress shirt and a fat criss-cross pattern red tie.

It was Principal Terai, the same man who introduced the Literature Club at the Festival all those months ago.

He looks left, then right, then across at the tree and where we sat. He grinned. "Ahhh, Mr. Odakaaa! What a pleasant surprise!" Mr. Terai said, clapping his hands together. He starts walking towards us, his dress shoes clacking against the cobblestone. "Nice day for a picnic, huh?" Beside Mr. Terai was a thin-boned maintenance worker with a ponytail in brown coveralls, a ring of keys in one hand and a screwdriver in the other.

I comb a strand of hair behind my ear with my hand. "Oh uh, yeah, gorgeous. Just gorgeous out here. That's whyyy weeee chose it for a study spot!" Natsuki said nothing, just sorta looking down at her lap.

Mr. Terai rose up and down on the balls of his heels, looking around at the foyer. "Really?"

"Oh uhh, yeah, well, you know how noisy the cafeteria can be."

"What was wrong with the library?"

"That…" I laugh. "Hah, well, you got me." Natsuki puts a finger to her eye and rubs it, flecking out the dirt.

I'm in the unfortunate position of knowing the Principal on a somewhat personal level; he and my Dad were schoolmates, attending and graduating from Yamaku some two decades ago together. Even before I got to high school I recognized his face from Dad's late night poker games at the house with him and his old gang of school friends, hearing them laugh and drink from my room upstairs as a kid. He was always very nice to me, Dad's only kid; sometimes he'd bring a little handheld arcade game or deck of cards for me to have before they'd start their game, presumably to keep me occupied and not interrupt. At Yamaku I wave hello to him in the halls and we sometimes stop and have friendly banter, but I've never been under his ire before.

Until now.

I try to change the subject. "So, what brings you up here sir?"

"Well actually," he looks back at the floor-scrubbing machine, where the maintenance worker was crouching down to inspect it. "Me and my friend here were going to try and get that thing working again. Seeing you up here is a bit of a surprise."

Sound interested, it might get you both out of detention. "What's wrong with it?"

"Ahhh…" he trills his lips. "Something with the timing belt, just needs to be swapped out I hope. The cylinders also needed some changing out, I think it ran over a rock or two when we used it at the Festival. Shouldn't be an expensive fix." I nod, pretending to be engaged. Natsuki clears her throat and stands up. "Well, you sound like you got a lot on your plate, so we should prooobably get outta your hair and let you work."

Principal Terai looks Natsuki up and down, like he almost didn't notice her at first. "Good idea, missy." He looks back at me. "If I see you two up here again, I'll have to write you both up." I get up and dust myself off. "Y-yes sir. You won't." I grab the bag of trash and bowls and nod towards the door. He pats me on the shoulder and leans in. "Tell your dad I said hello, if you see him."

I nod. "You know it."

We exit. As we quickly head down the stairs to the ground floor, I hear Terai tell the maintenance worker to not let him forget to change the locks.

…

After the heat of embarrassment passed, we retreated to the library for the rest of lunch. We rifted through the manga section and found a table towards the back, finishing off the rest of the Pocky. Maybe fifteen minutes later the bell rang, signaling return to class. Outside the doors of the library I kissed Natsuki, her leaning up on her toes to meet me. My thumb rubbed against her earlobe.

"See you next period?"

"You know it."

We embraced and waved goodbye. I turned on my heel and headed down the corridor, my next class being towards the back of the campus. I stepped back into the building and walked past endless rows of blue lockers, pushing through the crowds. Mine was just towards the end before I entered my sociology class, and I left my backpack in there before lunch. I strolled over to my locker and started fiddling with the number lock.

"Kazuma!"

I look up. Sayori and her boyfriend are walking towards me.

"Hey, what's up?" I say, smiling. My locker pops open and I grab my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. Inside the door of my locker is a small mirror, a glued-down notepad with some scribbles and a taped Polaroid of me and Natsuki from the festival, posing with fried squid speared on sticks.

They had met at the festival; Yuri and Sayori had explored the festival together at some point and Yoshi Tadashi introduced himself as the vice president of the veterinary club that presented before the Literature Club did. He was thin but not all bones, a little taller than her with ashy blonde hair split neatly down the middle and black browline glasses. Quite the intellect (we're talking Monika league smarts), he was already getting offers from some of the Tokyo vet schools for full-ride scholarships based on his scores. From what Sayori had told me their relationship was a little slow going at first, but it was actually her who had made the first move towards that, giving him her number at the Festival as friends but it slowly grew into something a little more.

"Oh, we were just heading to geometry, just wanted to say hi. How was your date?"

"Ahhh, well…" I stammered, putting a hand through my hair. "Good. We explored Tokyo Tower for a bit, but Natsuki had to take a raincheck on it though. She had a family situation and had to leave early."

Sayori frowned. "Oh, that sucks. Is she alright? I haven't talked to her recently."

"Yeah yeah, she's fine. We had lunch on the roof and kinda made up for it, before Terai showed up and told us to leave."

"Oh shit." Yoshi chimed in. "Did y'all get written up?"

I shake my head. "Almost, but I talked my way out of it." He adjusted his glasses. "Nice. Caught him in a good mood, it sounds like."

"Well hey, maybe if we're all free sometime we could double date? I know a great ramen shop downtown." I say, still thinking about the taste of the soy sauce ramen I didn't get to finish with Nats (of course I took it home, it was like 15$ a bowl). Sayori grins. "Sure! We can figure something out, just text me."

"Of course."

The tardy bell rang. Yoshi grimaced. "Aw, jeez. Come on, Sayori." She beamed at me, entwining her hand with his. "See ya, 'zuma! Text me about the ramen shop!" I waved gingerly. "Yeah, see ya guys." I watched them leave for a moment, gripping my shoulder strap.

Half a year ago, Sayori was crying in my arms in tatters. A week later, I ripped her down from a noose and cried with her in the ambulance. I spent almost everyday with her in her recovery as long as I could. The fear and worry in those times made my hair fall out and nearly brought me to my own breakdown…but now here she was, bright and sweet and outgoing as ever with high grades, near-perfect attendance and now a caring boyfriend. She was already looking around at colleges and thinking about majors, with an interest in psychology.

I smiled.

'Things are finally coming into balance.'