I Once Had a Girl

I buried my school uniform.

I hid it underneath my backyard near the mouth of the well.

I’ve surmised that it was cursed.

It was a shallow hole, no deeper than a gutter. And as I stood before the trodden earth, propping my elbow on a shovel, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the hell happened back there.

If I take into account the fact that I left school on my own and the fact that nobody seemed to be home at noon sharp, Mom and Dad and Kizuki probably wouldn’t notice anything peculiar.

The only idiosyncrasy I have with me is the bed hair sprouting out of my head. It seemed wise to let it be. I considered them lucky charms, like a talisman of some sort.

I plucked the shovel out from the ground and lugged it back to the shed, the place where dad sculpts wooden carvings of animals he’d spy from the veranda.

On that day, I felt as if I were shedding my own skin, though what that means, I’ll never know.

The midday heat was sweltering, and I scrubbed a hand over my face with my other arm to wipe away the sweat that clung onto me.

But then my phone rang, and the queasy unease that fell over me this morning resurfaced. The feeling that I was no longer the person I used to be.

I took it.

“H-hello?”

“Hey, dickhead,” Kizuki said.

I tossed my phone over my head in reflex. I’m quite certain a new layer of sweat clung onto my face again.

The phone whizzed through the air and lodged itself onto a thicket of bushes.

“Uh. Hello?” a muffled Kizuki called out from over the thicket. “Hello? Misaki? You okay?”

I made a tentative step forward in an attempt to retrieve my phone, but my step fell backward. I wheeled on my heels and ran full-tilt onto the veranda and into the house proper, dropping the shovel by the sliding door.

Something’s wrong. He’s been disciplined – by himself, no less – as to not swear as long as I’m in his vicinity.

I bolted onto my room, closing the door behind me. I sprawled  on my bed and bundled myself up with the blanket and the prodigious amounts of pillows I have.

No, it’s fine. It’s just one of his lousy jokes. I’ll lay here for a while to rest up. There’s nothing to rack my brain about.

But nestled in the warmth of my bedroom, the feeling that drove me to scale the window on the bathroom descended upon me again.

And now it seemed natural to run a finger over my crotch.

Maybe it’s my penchant for frivolities, but of course, it seemed right to do it now.

I gingerly slid down my pants.

It’s still there.

I stuck my hand in. I felt as if I was probing the roof of my mouth.

My fingers slackened and I produced a relieved exhale. It seemed that my screws were firmly in place.

But my peace was short-lived, as a thought struck me that roused me up from my bed:

I forgot to call in sick.

But doing so would be unwise. Some people there could swear in a court of law with a hand on a bible that I was at school near the time of the assembly. Especially the mousy girl in the bathroom. I couldn’t quite recall her name, though.

I guess I’ll have to reconcile with the fact that I’ll get a red mark on my school report. Truancy is a real social problem here, after all. And to be frank I couldn’t quite place why I never got around to care about my report being sullied.

I don’t know if people think...

No, no time to think about such things. What I need right now is music.

Ever since middle school, I’ve come to learn that good music could dispel bad thoughts swirling in your head with ease. 

The limelight blasting out the darkness.

It’ll soothe me down.

I pulled open the bedside drawer and fished out my Walkman and a cassette tape. Kizuki gave it to me for my 13th birthday. I thumbed down the middle. It gave way into a hollow upon which you could set your cassette in. I set my cassette on the hollow and closed it with a click. I settled the earphones on either side of my ear, then pressed play.

Flowing through the tangles of the earphones, coupled by the stream of sitars and the notes of guitars, Mr. Lennon sang to me how he once had a girl, or should he say, she once had him.

And with the melody dancing between my ears, I drifted off to somewhere unlike a place I’d ever been to before.

I was drenched in raindrops, and off in the distance with their fingers intertwined, a couple danced in the rain beneath the golden haloes of streetlamps.

And I bore witness to their happiness.

I woke up only to realize I haven’t quite pulled up my pants yet.

I suppose I’ll have to cover that up again.