Chapter 27
Finally feeling well-rested, Naoyuki manages to make it through the school day without incident – no dozing off or spacing out in class, minimal bullying and teasing. The bell rings, and Naoyuki packs up his papers, pencils, and books into his backpack, then puts up his chair over the desk. He would have a long day today because he needs to stay after to catch up on his work – at his father’s demand. “No one’s going to make excuses for you,” is what he said, “You must bring up your grades.” Heaving a sigh, Naoyuki hoists his backpack over his shoulders – It’s heavy! It must weigh a ton! – and turns to start out of the classroom when his teacher calls out to him.
“Kondo.” The teacher approaches him cautiously. “Can we talk for a moment?”
Naoyuki stares apprehensively at him. This teacher was starting to make him nervous. Would he continue to approach him like this, trying to make nice and pry into his business? What does he want?
“You’ve seemed very listless and tired in my class lately,” the teacher says. “Are you staying up late working on homework?” He gestures toward Naoyuki’s bulgy backpack. “If you don’t have a study partner, I’m available to help you. If there’s anything you need, don’t be afraid to approach me. All right?”
Naoyuki nods uneasily, then starts out again. “By the way, Kondo,” the teacher adds, “you’re Kazunori Seido’s cousin, right? I thought you should know that he’s in one of my college classes. He talks about you a lot. I never imagined I’d have the pleasure of having you in one of my classes, as well. It’s quite the small world, isn’t it?”
Why did he feel like he had to tell me that? Naoyuki wonders. Mentioning Kazu’s name. Did he think that would get something out of me? Just because Kazu trusts you doesn’t mean I feel the same. Naoyuki nods anyway and leaves the classroom before the teacher could say anything else to keep him there. That teacher makes him very uneasy. I wonder what Kazu told him. Hopefully not too much.
“Naoyuki.”
The voice startles Naoyuki out of his thoughts. It is Taki standing there waiting in the hallway for him. And just when I thought I’d finally gotten her to...
“Listen. I want to talk to you,” Taki says.
It had been a while since they’d seen each other, much less talked. Seeing her so serious right off the bat surprises Naoyuki – scares him a little. But in all honesty, part of him wanted to see her all that time – is happy that she made the effort to come to his class and talk to him now. That part of him wins over. He nods. He follows her out to the door behind the gym.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Taki begins. “That we’re not really friends. That we don’t really know each other that well, and I shouldn’t be sticking my neck out for you. Yeah, I guess that’s true. Hitomi told me that, too.”
That was what she wanted to say? The part of Naoyuki that wanted to talk to her suddenly feels sad; the other part, a little relieved. Maybe she would stay away from him from now on; that would be best.
“But, Naoyuki,” Taki continues, “I don’t care that we don’t know each other that well. I do know that you’re lonely; no one deserves to be all alone. Don’t ever say that you aren’t worth it. You deserve to be cared about, Naoyuki. I care about you, and I want to be there for you. Please don’t run away from me. As far as I’m concerned, you are my friend.”
Whoa, hold on. Hit the pause button. What did she just say? No, you don’t get it! You still don’t – ! Unable to hold it back any longer, Naoyuki blurts out, “I almost killed my friends!” There. He said it. The cards were on the table. He had it all off his chest. He realizes that he’d started to cry. “I – I was selfish...I almost..got them...”
Taki clamps her hands down on his shoulders. “I know that isn’t true!” she cries. “Nothing you say will convince me otherwise!”
Time to lay out the rest of his deck. He can’t keep it in anymore – it has to come out. Despite the part of him that didn’t want to, he decides to tell her everything. “I wanted to find my parents, so I came all this way, got my friends following me even though their parents didn’t say they could, and the car – !” The pictures come flashing through his memory. He starts shaking, whimpering. The pictures won’t go away. He starts to panic – feels his heartbeat speed up, and his breathing, too. Get rid of the pictures!
“Naoyuki, what are you doing?!” Taki cries. She drags him away from the brick wall and brushes her hand through his hair. That knock against the brick wall had him bleeding. His head was bleeding. “Are you all right?!” Just seconds ago, he was breathing hard and fast; now, his breaths are slowing down. He’s still conscious, though, right? “Naoyuki?!” What the heck?! This is bad...! “Answer me! Can you hear me?!” Despite her shaking and all her yelling, he doesn’t answer or so much as twitch. By this time, a lot of the staff has already left!
She hears a voice and footsteps. Taki gets up and rushes toward the sounds. “HELP!” she cries. She skids to a stop in front of a slender man with glasses and reddish-brown hair. The teacher from Naoyuki’s last class – Mr. Ikeda was his name, right? “Mr. Ikeda! Help! Naoyuki’s hurt!” The teacher closes up his cell phone. Taki leads him around the side of the building to the gym door, where Naoyuki was still lying in the grass.
“What happened?” Mr. Ikeda asks urgently.
“I don’t know, he was talking to me, and he just started freaking out – shaking all over and breathing fast – then he bashed his head on the brick, and now he won’t answer me – it’s like he can’t even hear or see me – !”
“Calm down, calm down,” Mr. Ikeda coaxes Taki. He starts with checking Naoyuki’s vitals, then looks over the rest of him, stops to snap in front of Naoyuki’s face. “His life isn’t in any immediate danger,” he assures Taki. “However, I am going to need you to run inside and grab a first aid kit – ”
“No problem!” Instantly up on her feet, Taki bolts through the gym doors and to the phys ed office, where the teachers kept the first aid supplies. She wrestles with the door – it was locked. Doggone it! I don’t have time to play with you right now! She snatches a hairpin from her hair and picks the lock until it opens – she’d done this before, with this particular door, knew all of its ins and outs. Taki swipes the first aid kit and hurries back outside to Mr. Ikeda and Naoyuki. “Here it is!” she pants as she hands it over to Mr. Ikeda. She looks over at Naoyuki. He seems to have come to – Naoyuki noticed her this time, was looking toward her. Taki catches her breath and heaves a sigh of relief. Mr. Ikeda had gotten him back.
Naoyuki squirms as Mr. Ikeda puts a pad of gauze to the side of his head and puts pressure to the bloodied area. “You’ve really done it this time,” Mr. Ikeda comments. “You nearly knocked yourself unconscious; you could’ve done worse. Stop doing that. There’s no telling what kind of damage you’re inflicting when your head is involved.” He wraps the gauze in place with a bandage as the finishing touch. Gently, he lifts Naoyuki to a sitting position, asks him if he feels light-headed or nauseous, then helps him to his feet and tells him, “Go home and get some rest.”
Naoyuki gestures toward the teacher’s cell phone. Mr. Ikeda pats his pocket. “You need to make a phone call?” He unclips the phone and hands it to Naoyuki. “Soejima, make sure he goes straight home, please,” he requests as Naoyuki stumbles aside to make his call.
“Yes, sir,” Taki replies.
Naoyuki dials the number for home. Papa’s going to be mad – really mad. I hope he doesn’t –
The phone picks up on the other end. His father speaks. “Hello?”
Of course. It had to be him. “P-Papa,..I need to..come home.”
“How much work have you gotten done?”
None. Naoyuki can’t say it; he is too scared. “I hurt myself.”
“Don’t make excuses. I’ll be there at around four-thirty.”
“My t-teacher said, ‘go home’ – !”
His father had hung up. Naoyuki clicks the ‘end call’ button. The display reads three-thirty. His father wouldn’t come for about an hour – and Naoyuki knows that means his father won’t even leave for an hour. Stranded. He was stranded.
Naoyuki closes up the cell phone and slowly makes his way back to his teacher and Taki. “Did you get someone?” Mr. Ikeda inquires.
Naoyuki puts the cell phone in his hand. “Answering machine,” he lies. He feels his face flushing – wonders if the man could tell that he hadn’t told the truth. But to tell him he’d been flatly refused would be worse. He doesn’t want anyone else prying – he already had Taki doing enough of that.
“Soejima, when do you leave?” Mr. Ikeda asks. Naoyuki bristles.
“I’ll be hanging around for a few more minutes – not long, though,” Taki replies.
“Could you take him with you? Have Kondo call home again when you arrive?”
Taki glances over at Naoyuki. The look on his face screams ‘no’. “I’ll ask,” she replies.
Mr. Ikeda bows. “Thank you. I need to be on my way now. Have a good day.”
Taki watches him take his leave, then turns toward Naoyuki. “You’re a bad liar,” she says, then waits for his response, which is simply turning his face away. “Well, for that, it looks like you’re stuck with me. How long were you supposed to stay after school?”
“About an hour,” Naoyuki replies softly. “Maybe longer.”
“That’s definitely too long for you to stick around here with that,” she says, gesturing toward the bandage around Naoyuki’s head. “So you can camp out at my place and rest until your parents can come get you.”
Papa’s gonna be really mad. “I need to..do homework,” Naoyuki says.
“Mr. Ikeda said to rest,” Taki points out, heaving a sigh. Just what was that? she wonders. Naoyuki just...flipped. And what he said before that only raises more questions...He came to find his parents? He almost killed his friends? – That, I don’t even believe. He started to say something about a car – where did that even come from? (He can’t drive!) It was all a big, jumbled mess...
Taki takes Naoyuki’s hand and leads him around to the front walk. “We’ll wait here for my mom to come,” she says. “Are you feeling all right?” Naoyuki nods. “Why did you even do that to yourself? Are you nuts?!”
She was chiding him again – scolding him. Naoyuki nervously edges away.
“I’m just worried about you,” Taki says. First he talks like he doesn’t care about himself, then this. It’s scary. Is he trying to kill himself? “You’re too young to be treating yourself like garbage,” Taki says. “You need to stop being so negative.”
A dark blue jeep pulls up along the sidewalk, and the driver honks the horn. Taki’s head snaps around at the sound. “That’s my mom. Let’s go; I’ll do the talking.” Taki leads Naoyuki toward the small jeep and motions for the windows to be lowered. “Mom, my friend needs to stop over at our house until his folks can pick him up. Is that okay?” Taki calls inside.
Naoyuki flinches at the thought. Haruko all over again. Going to an unfamiliar house again. And when Papa comes to get me, and I don’t have my work done, he’ll be furious. He might even hit me again. I shouldn’t do this. Why is it that girls like this always wind up finding me and not wanting to leave me alone? So stubborn... Taki was pulling Naoyuki up into the jeep. Oh boy. Here we go again...
Taki hoists Naoyuki into the back seat and starts to buckle him in. In the meantime, Taki’s mother puts the jeep in drive and slowly starts off, sliding a little on a patch of ice. Naoyuki jumps, starts trembling again. “Naoyuki, are you o – ?!” To Taki’s surprise, Naoyuki clamps his hands around her arm and holds on, as if for dear life. However you want it, she thinks. She puts her arm around Naoyuki to keep him secure. Naoyuki’s last words before his panic attack at the gym doors replay through her memory. “...and the car...” And the car did what? Once again, the pieces start to fall into place: his friend in the hospital – perhaps one of the ones he claimed he’d almost killed; his reaction to the car sliding, and what he said before he flipped. A car accident. Was Naoyuki in a car accident? His friends were with him, without their parents’ consent. He said he’d almost killed them. Now I see. Taki firms her hold around Naoyuki. Come to think of it, wouldn’t this make the first time he allowed her to lay her hands on him? It’s not me. He’s afraid. He’s blaming himself. He needs help. “It’s okay,” she whispers.
For some reason, Naoyuki’s apprehensions fade. Right here and now, he feels protected. At peace. This was how he’d imagined being home with his parents would be. The way he feels now, with Taki. Like the way he felt with his friends at the Fubukis’ house – Don’t go there; the flashbacks will come. Ngh. My head hurts. I must’ve hit it harder than I thought. Naoyuki clutches on to Taki and falls asleep.
***************************
When Naoyuki awakens again, he is in an unfamiliar room, lying on a spare mattress under a thick, soft blanket. The room’s walls are covered in posters of athletes; trophies and photos sit atop the dresser. Taki’s house? The aroma of food drifts into the bedroom. Naoyuki pushes himself to sit, then slowly rises from the mattress and starts out of the bedroom and down the hall. Taki comes galumphing toward him from the large family room that separates the kitchen and dining room from the bedrooms. She looks strange wearing something other than her school uniform. Her outfit doesn’t suit her; the top looks like a guys’ shirt – no, the shirt and baggy pants make her look like a guy.
“Naoyuki, you’re up!” Taki exclaims. “Good, ‘cause I was about to come wake you up for a meal.” Taki leads him through the family room and into the dining room.
“Oh, he’s awake!” Taki’s mother says, setting a plate down on the side of the square, mahogany table. “Hello, Naoyuki. It’s nice to meet you. Taki talks about you all the time.”
She does? Naoyuki bows back in greeting and sits down in one of the three chairs around the table. Taki and her mother sit down, too, and talk while they eat their meal – a fish and rice dish that tastes as delicious as it smelled when Naoyuki woke up.
Taki glances up at the clock. “You should probably call home, Naoyuki,” she tells him. “It’s almost four.”
So he hadn’t slept that long. Strange. He feels refreshed; his head barely hurt at all. Naoyuki gets up, bows to thank Taki’s mother for the food, then follows Taki to the bathroom to wash his hands. Afterward, Taki shows him to the phone in the family room. Naoyuki nods, picks up the receiver and dials. As the phone rings, he starts to feel uneasy again. He hopes his mother is the one who will pick up the phone. Probably not. On the days his father got home before his mother, his mother always arrived home very late. I wonder what she does to keep her away from home so long?
Finally, someone picks up – Naoyuki’s father. “Hello?”
Naoyuki gulps. “Hi.”
“Are you done with your work?”
Not again. “Um – I’m calling..from Taki’s house...”
“From where?”
“I – I’m s-studying with a classmate,” Naoyuki fibs. “I’m at her house.”
Silence. “I want to talk to an adult. Get one of her parents on this phone right now.”
He’s mad. Naoyuki puts the receiver down on the desk and looks back at Taki. “He wants to talk to your mom.” Taki hurries away into the kitchen and comes back a second later with her mother in tow. Her mother walks to the desk and picks up the receiver.
“Hello? Yes, this is Mrs. Soejima speaking; I’m Taki’s mother. Yes, Naoyuki is at my house. Oh, take...” Talk of streets. Directions. A pause. “He rested a bit, and we ate a meal. Yes. Taki studies with him all the time. Don’t worry, they will. All right. Goodbye.” Mrs. Soejima hangs up the phone. “Your father says he wants you to do your make-up work. Hop to it. Taki and I are here, if you need any help.”
Naoyuki hurries back to the bedroom, grabs his backpack and sets to work. Better get something done. Naoyuki manages to get through one history assignment before a doorbell interrupts his focus. He scrambles to put everything back and throws his backpack over his shoulders, then hurries into the family room. Sure enough, his father stands waiting at the front door.
“You have any trouble?” Taki asks, to which Naoyuki shakes his head in reply. “Good. See you tomorrow!”
Naoyuki’s father turns and walks away down the sidewalk, and Naoyuki follows. Neither speaks a word.
Mr. Kondo stands between Naoyuki and the bedroom door, holding his worksheet in his hands. Ikuo was downstairs watching TV. If only Naoyuki could be in his position – if only he could be anywhere but here, facing his father’s disapproving scowl. “This is all you did,” Mr. Kondo says tersely. “I gave you an hour, and this is all you got done.” Naoyuki squirms under his angry eyes. “So, in short, instead of doing your work, you were goofing off with your friend.”
“No, I – I got hurt,” Naoyuki stammers.
“Doing what? Horsing around?”
“That’s not – ”
“You disobeyed me and left the school, took a nap, and fooled around with your friend. You didn’t even think about doing your work until after you called. ‘Studying with a classmate,’ indeed – Are you always goofing off with that girl, then?”
“That’s wrong – !” Naoyuki throws his hands up in front of his face as his father’s hand swings down toward him. It lands hard on the shoulder and sends him thudding to the floor. Only an instant later, the hand comes down again and strikes him on the face; the sting summons a cry from his lips and tears from his eyes as he curls up on the floor, bracing himself, awaiting the next flying blow.
“You worthless child!” his father yells. “My son – he was a bright boy with a promising future ahead of him! But you – You have nothing! Nothing at all! You shameful, lying, worthless child!! You would be better off if you truly were mute or even, heaven forbid, if you really were retarded mentally – but there’s nothing wrong with you except a boatload of laziness and dishonesty! Even a boy as weak and sickly as you can succeed academically! But you feed off of others’ pity, instead!!” Mr. Kondo tosses the worksheet into the air and lets it float to the floor. “Well, I tell you now, boy, that I will not be party to such a thing! You will have no pity from me – none at all!!!” He stomps to the door and flings it open. “Work until you finish. Work during dinner – up until you go to bed, if you have to, for days on end. I will not tolerate any more laziness from you. I did not raise a lying, lazy boy!”
The door slams shut. He locks it – since when was there even a lock on it? Naoyuki was caged in like a prisoner or a bad dog. A dog was more like it; he wasn’t even worth being treated with the compassion or dignity given a human being, apparently. Would he really not be let out until dinner? Would his father even let him out for dinner? Suddenly, anxiety arrests Naoyuki – washes over him in waves. He bolts to his feet and turns the doorknob back and forth, yanks on it. He looks for a lock. Nothing on this side. He yanks the door again, jarring it back and forth on its hinges. It truly won’t budge. There is no way out but the window, and he is on the second story. He’d been abandoned here, at his father’s mercy – of which he’d said there would be none. Naoyuki bangs on the door wildly, kicks it and shoves at it with his whole body. He fiddles with the doorknob again, in futility. Tries to claw at the small crack between the door and the threshold with his little fingers. Overcome with panic, Naoyuki bangs on the door and wails, “Let me out! Let me out!! Don’t leave me here alone!! Papa!!!” No answer. He shivers at the thought of being locked in here for hours until his father finally decided to open the door. His father would probably tell his mother something like, ‘he’s being grounded’ when she got home. Yeah, right. Even grounded children could roam freely through their own houses and eat their dinners in peace. “Open the door!!! PAPA!!!” He bangs until his hands hurt from slamming into the wood. He was going mad with fright. At this rate, he’d sooner scrape his hands raw than do any homework.
Naoyuki sees the red on his hands. Suddenly has a flash of something that happened a long time ago – when his parents first left, after his uncle had taken him to that place with the scary ladies and all the little kids – at the place that Shizuyo called a ‘boys’ home’. He’d tried to leave; he’d wanted to go home. But the ladies wouldn’t let him. The last thing he remembers is the ladies putting him in a room and locking the door –
Bang! His head hit his bedroom door once, twice, three times. It starts to throb. He feels dizzy; his stomach churns like he is going to throw up. He needs to go to the bathroom. “Please open the door!!!” Naoyuki cries. He realizes that it wasn’t going to open any time soon. He starts to panic again. Worthless. Lazy. Shameful. Disgrace. The words keep looping in his head.
Weak. Failure. Imbecile. Spineless. You have nothing. You’d be better off retarded. You’d be better off mute. You’d be better off dead. Naoyuki bangs his head against the door again, screaming. It’s your fault. You should’ve died in that car accident; instead it was the others – Mr. Fubuki and his son, Kotaro and Haruko – who paid the price for your selfishness. Naoyuki bashes the side of his head – the same side he’d injured earlier – into the door until it throbs and stings horribly. He still sees it. He had blood on his hands now. No matter what Taki said, the thought torments him. It was his fault. He was selfish. He dragged them all out onto the icy streets because he wanted – Another good bash on the door. Naoyuki collapses. Feels the panic fade. Then nothing. That’s what he wanted.
