II

Rent from my sister by her own hands and leaving her feeling confused, concerned, and quite possibly creeped out, I made my way downstairs. Slightly rejuvenated and a little on my way to finding my bearings, I decided to find the rest of my family and explore more of my new world – if this is what it was. I was slow in my descent, but my heart beat with fury. When I made it all the way down, I saw nothing unusual, and I was struck by feelings of homeliness and comfort. I stopped in front of the kitchen entrance. My mother was quietly working on making some sweet – probably cake – that would eventually make its way to one of her frequent neighborhood gatherings of nebulous aims. I only caught a glimpse of her side profile as she moved about the kitchen with her back to me, her only son. She did not look too different from when I last saw her – minus a few wrinkles that aren’t there now – so I supposed she was aging nicely. She had a round face and preferred her hair shoulder-length. Her longer than average nose and bulging black eyes often made people wonder how someone with such looks ever ended up with someone like my father, who was still fairly popular and a regular topic of conversation among women who knew him during their private conversations. Allegedly even more dashing in his youth, the story goes that my mother had saved him from a life of debauchery during their university days and that was enough for him to fall in love. Needless to say, my looks leaned towards my mother’s end of the spectrum, but with slightly better facial features inherited from the alleged former debauchee. So I’ve been told.

I made to enter, but stopped as I heard my elder sister, already a second year university student attending an institute in Kyushu. She had come back for summer vacation and was yelling something at the TV when I heard her. Something about the umpire being a such and such or a so and so. I turned around and stepped towards the couch in the living room. My elder sister, astutely named Ninomae, was sprawled on the couch. Her hair was still wet. The best-looking of the three of us had always been my opinion, but she had quite the tomboy streak that discouraged boys from ever showing interest. I was never too curious or inquisitive about what she did when I was younger, so if there was any interest on her part towards anybody, I was not aware.

I had a great amount of respect for her. Maybe something to do with her boldness or intelligence or great enthusiasm and zeal towards helping people – something which I severely lacked and sometimes envied in others – but she emanated something that drew me to respect and esteem her highly. Such feelings, curiously enough, did not sprout in me until well after she became independent and moved for work, making our meetings sparser than they already were, and I had always thought my younger self a fool for not spending more time or conversing with her and generally flagellated myself for not recognizing how great she was until it was too late. It’s a pattern, I realized, for me to discern the obvious too late. I was once told that I think too much.

What do I say? And what is there to be said?

I stood behind the couch, examining the game on the TV at times before looking back down at her to check her reaction. There were murmurings back in the kitchen. My younger half was there, no doubt. As awkward as it was, and having never said it to her before, and knowing whatever this world was – be it dream or reality – could dissolve at anytime as my old one did, I mustered up my courage and rounded the couch. Ninomae did not look at me nor pay me any heed – I feel that she never did. My left hand on her shoulder drew her attention away from the TV. “I wanted to let you know I have great respect for you,” I said flatly, and was duly met with a scrunched-up confused face. I was saying a lot of things today that it would normally be unthinkable for me to say out loud, but I thought this was my chance to say some things I wanted to say before it was too late, and so I did.

I ran and bolted up the stairs without another word. I had the urge to go outside as soon as possible and look at the rest of the world, to check my memory against reality. Quickly, I threw on navy blue pants and a black shirt and was out the front door before anyone had a chance to properly accost me.

As I strode around a neighborhood that had lost most of its familiarity to me, I picked out what small number of landmarks I could remember: On the left was that house with the loud dog; two houses down was the one with the fairly young couple that got divorced not six months into their marriage – it was a hot topic among neighborhood housewives at the time, this one; going back a little on the right side – our side – of the street were the Tanakas. I recalled. All I could remember was that they had a daughter – Uta, her name was – around my age and that she was a gyaru. I never really interacted with her, but I saw her around. Which school she attended at the time, I had no way of remembering.

The streets were empty, and the sun was oppressive. I felt it pushing down upon me as I walked, trying to keep me down, or at least attempting to retard my progress. There it was again. I felt hatred directed towards me, but I knew not from where.

I made my way to the riverbank, and laid down on the overgrown grass, looking up at the clear blue sky while the river flowed below and cars passed by on the bridge above and cicadas screeched and birds sang. I thought of nothing. I tried to think, but didn’t know where to start, didn’t know what to consider. I had acted unusually back at the house, that’s for sure, and I expect I will have to explain myself in some way. But what do I say? How do I explain myself?

“Well,” I thought, “I’ll pretend like nothing unusual happened and that’ll be that.”

The cicadas were deafeningly loud. They were out in full force this year, but I didn’t mind them. Summer was always a favorite of mine, whether I was on break from school or otherwise. I liked the heat and abhorred the cold, although of course I hated when the sun shone in my eyes. I had covered them with my arm, but quickly unshielded them as a thought came to me: “I’m like a king, now! I stand above the rest!” I thought. Not in the strict sense, of course, but with my knowledge and unique placement in the world, I might as well be above everyone else. If even in my unique position I was the same as everyone, that would just be sad. The thought just came to me. It wasn’t a conclusion I’d come up with after much thought or introspection, but it seemed right in my head. “I wasn’t like the rest!” repeated my brain. For whatever reason these thoughts flitted through my head. I was excited, but to what end, I did not know.

For now, I just wished for the sun to abate and get out of my eyes.