“But I can’t give up on it that easy…”
I sighed softly before embarking on the final short leg of my journey.
Amid the false bravado, I thought I heard a voice sneer “Running out of time, aren’t you?” at me from somewhere.
“Just a bit more…”
I focused carefully on my stitching, pouring my soul into each one.
“I’ll make you cuter than ever, okay…?”
It was just about ten at night.
Thankfully, this room, which my mother carefully and thoroughly cleaned on a daily basis, was just as neat as always.
Once I reached home, I sat down at my windowside study desk to stitch for a bit, stare at my work, stitch again, and all the while feel the stress slip from my shoulders. The process had repeated itself for the past four hours or so.
Now the time was near: My magnum opus, my very own Talking Hiyori, had neatly consumed at least three months of my free time. Now, I was a mere few stitches away from completion.
“This is going to change Asahina Army history…!”
The level of expertise, of artisanship, was enough to make me yell out in joy. Just looking at it gave me goose bumps.
Her face was unabashedly fetching but still retained an ominous tone that seemed to separate her from the rest of the human race. Her attractive, well-combed black hair was matched with a one-piece dress. I had kept careful records of her wardrobe, and here I opted for the outfit that (I imagined) she liked the best.
The icing on the cake was the miniature tape recorder I found at the electronics shop I tried and failed to buy a cell phone from.
Inside was a loop packed with recordings of Hiyori Asahina’s voice, painstakingly taken over a period of several weeks whenever I passed by her. The device fit inside the doll, inserted through a rear zipper, giving me the chance at a virtual conversation with my love.
The theme I settled on for her design was “Looking Good in the Big City!” and throughout the entire development process, I never wavered from this concept. Once complete, it would shake the very foundations of our Asahina brotherhood.
And then it was one stitch. Just one stitch away from finishing my masterpiece.
I put my hands down for a moment and closed my eyes.
Looking back, these past three months may have been the most epic journey I’d made in my life.
A journey that stayed firmly shut within the boundaries of my mind, of course, but the cross-country tour of Japan’s top sights I fantasized about taking with Hiyori Asahina had extended in my imagination to a good three laps around the virtual nation.
“…Okay.”
I didn’t surrender myself to reverie for long. There was one final stitch to sew. I shifted my focus to the doll in front of me.
“And now…here she is—!”
“Hibiyaaa! Phoooone!! Get down here!!”
My hands slipped at the sound of my mother’s voice booming from down below, causing my needle to ominously embed itself into Talking Hiyori’s torso.
“Gaaaaaahhhhhh!!”
I shouted out loud at this unexpected disaster. My cool, collected mind was now shattered by the sight of a thick iron bar thudding itself into Hiyori Asahina’s chest.
“What did I…How…How…?!”
My hands quivered in horror as I covered my face with them.
In my imagination, Hiyori Asahina was in my arms, whispering her final words as I pleaded for her life. I had trouble with the dialogue, not having honestly spoken with her that often, but at least the atmosphere was right.
“Hibiyaaaa!! Get down here now!!”
My mother’s cruel bellowing was starting to build steam. It was time to abandon the effort for now.
“All right! I’m coming!”
Carefully positioning my virtual Hiyori on the desk, I spun around on my chair, positioned myself opposite from the doorway, and hopped off.
Opening the door, I jumped down the creaky old staircase. A rotary-dial telephone sat unceremoniously on a shelf in the downstairs hallway.
“Who’s even calling me at a time like…I mean, who is it, anyway? You coulda told me, Mom…”
Doubts still fresh in my mind, I picked up the receiver and began speaking. Someone calling at this time of the night couldn’t be anyone decent. Might as well try to keep this short.
“Uh, hello? This is Hibiya, but who’s—”
“About time.”
I had tried to sound gruff and annoyed, but it was like a kid against a heavyweight fighter. I was floored.
The identity of the voice, regardless of what attitude it was trying to bring across, was enough to drown me in bewilderment.
“Huh? What—”
“Uh, I said, about time? You know I’m standing up while I’m making this call? My legs are starting to, like, hurt?”
There was no mistaking the voice, or the chip on her shoulder. There was no way you ever could.
Hiyori Asahina was on the other side—her usual overbearing, outrageously uncaring attitude all but thundering in through the receiver.
“Uh, like, can you hear me? Helloooooo? Are you deaf or something?”
“Uh, Hiyori?! Y-yeah, I can hear you! Yeah! I hear you great!!”
My brain was too overloaded to function properly. Spinal reflex was all I had to offer in response to Hiyori Asahina’s query.
“Why’re you acting so tense? Ugh…Like, whatever. So I wanted to, uh, ask you about something?”
“‘Ask’…?”
“Uh, yeah? ‘Ask’? Or maybe more like, uh, ‘negotiate,’ or something?”
Who could have ever predicted this turn of events? I knew how I acted on that bus. Talking about “doing it” to myself.
And now I’m doing it.
But what did she want, so close to midnight like this?
“Oh, dude, you’re always totally welcome to…uh. I mean, sure, no problem. What’s up?”
“Well, you know you, like, dropped your bus pass, right? I saw it in the hallway at school today and it, uh, had your name on it?”
That explained things well enough. No doubt I was lost in thought about my work on Talking Hiyori that I completely lost track of my pass. Never in a thousand years would I dream of finding it this way.
Though, in a twisted way, I suppose I had the bus driver to thank.
I had made such a mental effort to put that danger to society out of my mind that I removed the bus pass from memory entirely.
And that set the stage for this phone call, one that would undoubtedly change my life.
She was here to tell me she picked up my pass. What bliss. So, so kind of her. I always knew Hiyori Asahina was an angel in—
Wait a second.
I was struck by the distinct feeling I had forgotten something. Something vitally important…
—Before leaving home, I always made sure to pick a selection from my carefully curated gallery of Hiyori Asahina instant photos, thrusting it into the holder for my bus pass as I smirked to myself the entire commute—
“…Uh, are you even listening, or…? ’Cause there’s all these, like, weird pauses whenever it’s your turn to talk? So about your bus pass…”
“It’s not mine!”
“Huh?”
I was sweating enough that I feared the puddle forming around my feet would somehow cause the telephone to electrocute me.
In my mind, the Apocalyptic Crap Festival was well under way. It chiefly consisted of myself, Hibiya Amamiya, uttering “crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap” as rapidly as possible, as a gaggle of drunken parade-goers strapped me to a piece of plywood in the main tent and slowly hoisted the guillotine blade above my neck.
Crap.
This was really bad.
The photo I chose for today was particularly dangerous. Hiyori Asahina, her skirt flipped up a bit by a spring breeze. A tad naughty, but that was right up my alley. It couldn’t have been a worse selection.
Just watch w
hat happens when the girl herself discovers that I’m walking around in broad daylight with that photo in my bus-pass holder. It’s all over. All gone. Take only pictures, leave only ashes.
And oh, man, I just spent three hours finishing up Talking Hiyori. I’m digging myself deeper and deeper into my grave.
I’ve got to do something…anything…
“Well, I mean, it’s kind of got your name on it, y’know? Like…How’d you even get off the bus, if you didn’t notice it was gone?”
“Uh, maybe it’s someone with the same name? Probably that! There’s got to be, like, a million people around here named Hibiya Amamiya!”
“With that weird name? Like, no? I don’t know anyone else, anyway. But, uh, I wanted to ask about what you had on the back of it?”
There was nothing I could do. The Apocalyptic Crap Festival in my brain had reached a fever pitch.
The revelers pulled a black hood over my head as I helplessly squirmed. A strapping young man in a loincloth took a long knife to the rope holding the guillotine blade upward, slowly scraping the blade against it as he grinned.
There on the plywood sheet, Hibiya Amamiya smiled in apparent reverie, as if internally coming to terms with something.
I’m done for. There’s nothing I can do that’ll help weasel me out of this. If this is how I go out, I might as well do it with a bang.
“Like, is this—”
“All right! All right, all right! Look, I know it’s never gonna happen, but you could at least let a guy dream, okay?!”
I told her the truth, or at least attempted to. It failed to come out quite as intended.
It’s only human, I suppose: You’ve resigned yourself to your fate, but there’s still something inside you, telling you to keep fighting.
“Uh, I dunno what you’re freaking out over, okay? It’s weird.”
That urge shattered to pieces. I expected nothing less.
It was no doubt my final day as an Asahina Army general. Hot tears ran down my cheeks.
I closed my eyes. In the darkness, I could see all her other would-be suitors descending from the heavens to greet me, in all their naked glory.
I’m sorry I treated you all like idiots. I’m ready to go with you now.
I hope you won’t mind if I bring some photos and my Talking Hiyori with me, at least.
As I stood there in silence, feverishly trying to glorify my tragic death, Hiyori Asahina gave me yet another unexpected shock.
“Like, who said you had to dream or anything? I, uh, called you because I wanna, like, help make it come true, okay?”
“Huehh?”
I had trouble understanding Hiyori Asahina’s statement, enough so that my response easily ranked within the Top Three Dumbest Things I’ve Said All Year.
But she definitely said it. She wanted to make it come true. What was she talking about?!
“Come true…? Did you mean…?”
“Uh, I mean exactly what I said, okay? I know you’re, like, serious about it? So I wanna help make it come true.”
The hastily constructed altar at the center of the Apocalyptic Crap Festival in my mind exploded, splintering into a million pieces.
Hibiya Amamiya, suddenly awakened to a new and awesome force, stood up and crushed the guillotine’s blade in his palm, like it was made of cake icing.
“R-r-really?! I mean, uh, seriously?! You really feel that way?! I mean…Whaaaaa?! Really?!!”
“Ugh! Quit being so loud! I’m not gonna, like, say it again?”
“O-okay!”
“Okay? Good. So, like, great, but did you really wannit that bad? I mean, I guess you’ve been, like, thinking about it forever, right?”
The near-endless stream of volatile questions began to make my heart palpitate. Today was putting a terrible burden on my blood pressure.
Do I “want it”?! Is it even okay for her to say that?! Is that how loose standards have gotten with our generation?!
No, no, no. What are you thinking? Take your mind out of the gutter.
I’m acting like some kind of wild ape. This isn’t the right thing to do.
“Oh, I super want it.”
After careful consideration, Hibiya Amamiya opted for full-on wild ape mode.
I’d like to meet the guy who wouldn’t, given this kind of chance.
Go ahead! Call me disgusting! Watch me care!
“Yeah, uh, I guess so, if you had that in your holder and everything? I, like, kinda figured it was like that? So how ’bout I make it come, uh, true?”
“Are…are you sure…? Really…?!”
The sweat pouring off my forehead neatly converted itself into a nosebleed.
The horde of naked men descending toward me just a moment ago now glared wistfully. I ignored them. Filthy monsters. Go away.
“But I got, like, one condition, okay? The ‘negotiation’ thing I talked about? I want you to, like, make a wish come true for me, too.”
Hiyori Asahina’s voice was calm as she carried the conversation forward. One would expect a woman to act at least a tad embarrassed, discussing things like these. But maybe this is my lack of experience making itself embarrassingly obvious again. Maybe it was normal these days for couples to “negotiate” this, like some pro athlete’s contract.
But I wasn’t in the market for theatrics. I don’t play around, and I doubt she did, either. This was just her way of shyly courting me. But I’m a man. I have to take the lead.
“Well, of course! Of course! I’ll do anything I can! What did you need from me?!”
“Wh-whoa, someone’s sure, uh, rarin’ to go, huh? Well, like, it kinda connects with your ‘request,’ too, so…Like, are you free during summer break?”
“Of course! Totally free! I’m helping out around the farm a little bit, but no, no special plans!”
“Oh? Wow, good. Okay, could you, like, keep your whole summer vacation free? ’Cause we’re going to the city. Oh, and just the two of us, okay?”
“Uehhm?”
I was preparing myself for something difficult or physically demanding. Humiliating, perhaps. What I didn’t expect was Hiyori Asahina offering something on such a grand scale.
“Let’s go on a date somewhere nearby” was one thing, but once you got to the level of “Let’s go to the city,” that was simply unheard of around here. Even the high-school-age kids in this county rarely went beyond something like “I know this really secluded pond; why don’t we head over there and bring some sushi rolls to eat?”
And where did “just the two of us” come from? Was she treating me to some kind of grand, epic adventure? If she was expecting me to fire right back with an instant answer, she was gonna be disappointed.
“I…uh, why the city? And why…alone…?”
“Um, like, I wanted to go there? Because there’s something I want over there? So I thought I’d invite you to, you know, help hold my things, and stuff. What, don’t you like being with me?”
“N-no! No! Of course I do! You kidding me?! I just…My parents are superstrict, so I dunno if I can get the money to…”
“Oh, that’s fine. We’re, like, totally loaded, so I can cover for you. I’m kind of keeping this, you know, a secret from my parents, so…Oh! But you gotta keep quiet about it too, okay? Don’t, like, tell a soul, okay?”
“You’re keeping it secret from your parents?”
“Uh, yeah? I mean, that’ll help make your ‘dream’ come true easier, right? You know, ’cause of your ‘superstrict’ parents?”
She was right. The mere thought of reporting my romantic trysts to them made me erupt in primal fear. But a trip with my beloved without my parents’ knowledge? It was everything I needed to make my fantasy a reality.
That, and as she undoubtedly knew by now, it was hardly a secret around the local county that Hiyori Asahina’s family was practically rolling in cash. She could cover travel expenses for two kids without batting an eye.
But something nagged at me.
; If she was going through all this trouble just for some shopping in the city, why didn’t she just ask her parents?
And something about her phrasing—the whole “make my dreams come true” thing—didn’t seem quite right to me. My dreams didn’t involve grand vacations with her. Not very often. Okay, they did. But, really, an afternoon walking around the village would have been more than enough to keep me happy.
Why was she going out of her way, crossing this rickety, dangerous bridge, to travel the city alone with me? The only possible answer, one as obvious as it was plainly proven, sprung to my mind.
“…You’re really that into me?”
“Huh? What’d you say?”
“Uhh, uh, nothing! Sorry!”
I snapped my head upward, breaking out of my self-engineered episode of egotism.
To make a long story short, Hiyori Asahina had clearly fallen in love with me. She had fallen in love so badly, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
And as she so bravely struggled with her emotions, she picked up a bus-pass holder with my name on it, accompanied by a picture of herself. She was seizing that as a chance to approach me, using terms like “discussion” and “negotiation” to disguise what was so blatantly plain to us both.
She was taking the noble route, couching her intentions by speaking of my dreams, and making them reality. But perhaps, deep down, she wanted to embrace me with her arms this very minute.
The evidence presented to me was clear enough. She wanted to go somewhere far away with me, and only me. As her luggage boy, is how she put it. But, again, that was no doubt her way of smoothing over the torrential desire gushing through her body.
“But…all right. I know how you feel, and I’m ready to answer that!”
“Ugh, that sounds soooo lame…Look, I’m expecting you to, like, help me get what I want, okay? ’Cause if you don’t, I’ll send you right back home.”
The icy chill behind Hiyori Asahina’s voice still stung as frigidly as ever. But now I knew. This was how she showed affection. And the more I realized that, the more it sounded like sweet honey to me.
But what did she want, exactly?
It may all be just a big excuse. It may not even exist. But…
The Children Reason Page 2
