House Sentaro

“I can’t believe he’d say that! Why does he have to be that way?! I swear Ren, your old man has me so pissed off that the next time I see his face I’m gonna lay him out! Uppity Lawyer thinking he’s SO much better than everyone else…get a grip.” Sentaro was utterly livid after I told him what happened the day before, talking so loudly as we walked to class that everyone in the hallway was glaring at us.

“I appreciate your concern Sen, I really do…but could you keep it down? Everyone is staring…” I placed my hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down a little, but he slapped it away and poked his finger into my chest.

“That’s your problem man, all you do is keep it down. You never step up and say what you’re feeling… Everyone walks right over you.!” A small crowd had begun to gather around us as Sentaro continued to raise his voice and scold me.

“C’mon Sen, don’t be so hard on him. It was MY fault it all happened anyways.” Aiko stepped between us and pleaded with Ren, giving him puppy dog eyes with her hands clasped together in front of him. Sen was grinding his teeth furiously, but I could see he was slowly simmering down.

“It’s just not fair, ya know?” Sen hung his head low and scuffed his shoe back and forth against the floor. “For as long as I’ve known Ren his dad’s done nothin’ but treat him like garbage. You're not garbage! But until you start telling him that he’s just gonna keep weighing you down…” He gave me a grave look that was overflowing with sincere concern.

“It’s okay man, really. I have friends like you guys to help me through it, after all.” I smiled at him and punched him teasingly on the shoulder.

“You lovebirds ready to get to class or are you gonna kiss first?” Aiko teased, standing at the far end of the hallway. Sen and I both glanced at each other, then took off after her. We chased her up the stairs and slid into homeroom just as the bell began to ring.

“You’re lucky you little runt!” Sen taunted Aiko as we all walked to our respective seats and sat down, the classroom still full of chatter and gossip.

“Attention everyone, Attention!” Our homeroom teacher Mr. Onida entered the room and rang a small brass bell he kept on his desk for times when the class got too rowdy. He was a small portly man with a bald head and a big gray mustache and thick glasses. I didn’t care for a lot of my teachers, most of them were mundane and uninspired, but Mr. Onida truly cared about his students and always had fun with the class.

“As I’m sure you are all aware, we’re already midway through November of your last year of high school. In a few months, you’ll all be passionate young adults going out into the world, striving to achieve your ambitions.” The class became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The Sun began to peek through the classroom windows, casting the slowly flowing shadow of the clouds in front of it across the whole class.

“However, I don’t want you to ignore the time you still have together as friends right here, right now.” He walked forward, standing just in front of the first row of desks with his arms folded behind his back. “As you know, each year I am in charge of the school graduation festival, and this year isn’t any different.” The class began to quietly whisper to each other, turning and sharing ideas with friends.

“Calm down, calm down everyone.” Mr.Onida raised up his arms to regain everyone's attention, the bushy bristles of his mustache twitching beneath his nose. “A school festival isn’t just a last chance to have fun with friends…it’s a chance to make a statement! Do something important! To imprint upon your fellow classmates a memory that will last a lifetime!” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me that these next few months truly were it. After this, I’d likely be working at my father’s law firm and I might not ever see anyone in this room again. What had I done? Had I made any sort of statement? Would anyone remember Ren Natsukashi? I doubt it.

“That’s why this year, with this particular class I really want to go all out. I have the principal's permission to use the entire school courtyard for an all out festival! Food stalls, fireworks, yukatas…you name it!” Mr. Onida was glowing with inspiration and excitement as he spoke, suddenly wiping a tear from his eyes. “The truth is, this isn’t just the last school year for you, but for me too. After this year, Mr. Onida will officially retire from teaching.” The whole class gasped, nearly everyone simultaneously murmuring about how much they’ll miss him.

“I hope I have imparted on you even half the fond memories you all have imparted on me. I know none of you will let me down with this, I know all of you will make this not only a festival but a retirement to remember! Please feel free to use this class period to start brainstorming a few ideas. I’ll be expecting each student to have a contribution for the festival by at least a week beforehand.” Everyone cheered and broke off into groups of four or five. Sen, Aiko, and I pushed our desks together in the back.

“So I’m already stoked! I had this idea where I drive my motorcycle through the festival and toss candy…maybe I can pull you guys behind me in like a wagon or something and you can dress up as the emperor and empress!” Sen excitedly pulled out a notebook, concocting a crude sketch of him on his bike pulling us behind him and throwing candy. Suddenly, his phone went off, blaring loudly in the classroom. Everyone stared.

“Mr. Ito, you know I cut this class a lot of slack. However, phones are a big no.” Mr. Onida crossed his arms, raising his brow and tapping his foot impatiently.

“Can you excuse me please, Mr. Onida… it's my mom, she knows better than to call me at school, something must be up.” Onida glared at him for several seconds before dismissively waving his hand.

“Very well Mr. Ito, you’re excused for the next three minutes and that’s it.” Aiko and I looked at each other as Sen quickly got up and walked to the back of the classroom. I could barely make out the conversation, but I was able to catch a decent bit of what he was saying.

“Hey…yeah… what?! When?! How?! Yeah… okay sure. I’ll be right there.” Sen abruptly hung up, running over to grab his backpack before heading for the door.

“Mr. Ito, unless there is some kind of an emergency I’m going to have to ask that you return to your seat.” Mr. Onida looked stern, once again tapping his foot with impatience.

“It's my little brother sir, I’m not sure what but he’s hurt. I’ll sign myself out at the office before I leave but I have to go, sorry Mr. Onida…” Sen bowed and turned on his heels, taking off down the hall without another word. Everyone began to whisper and gossip again.

“What’s going on Ren? Does Sen have a sick brother or something?” Aiko leaned in and whispered, getting a little too close to my face. I leaned back and blushed, looking away.

“I really don’t know…he never said anything to me about it… I know he has four siblings and they’re all pretty young but…” I was cut short by Mr. Onida grabbing his brass belly and ringing it loudly, waving his arms to get everyone to look to the front of the class.

“Alright everyone, calm down. Mr. Ito’s family affairs are not your rumors to spread. Please return your attention to the task at hand, preparing some general outline ideas for the graduation festival, thank you.” Mr. Onida took a seat behind his desk as the class began brainstorming their contributions to the festival. With nothing else to work with and no better ideas of our own, Aiko and I spent the remainder of class fleshing out Sen’s rough drawing of the ‘motorcycle parade’.

We eventually hit lunch period, and the rest of the day’s classes seemed to pass by fairly quickly. Sentaro however did not return to school. When the dismissal bell rang later that afternoon, Aiko and I met up in the hallway.

“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked, holding a stack of books up as if she was hiding behind them. I wanted to console her in some way, but I wasn’t sure myself. Sen was always a bit of a punk, but I don’t think he’d make up a lie like that to skip out on class.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out. Come on, let’s go.” I said, leading the way out of the school and off into the streets towards the train station. Normally I’d ride the line all the way to Yokosuka-Chuo station and then walk the rest of the way home from there. But Sen lived a bit further up in the Midorigaoka area so instead, we got off at Shioiri station and continued on foot from there. The further out you walked, the more the streets became like snaking single-lane alleyways. The housing became smaller and more dilapidated, and besides a scattered family mart here or there, not much else was around.

“Sen really lives all the way out here in Midorigaoka? It must have been annoying to walk all the way to the station every morning… this sucks” We were walking up a steep incline street and Aiko was obviously getting tired and miserable.

“Yeah, this is one of the old neighborhood areas. It's mostly senior folks that live here now, but the houses are cheaper so a lot of college students and struggling families try to find a place they can afford around here. Sen’s mom has to find a way to afford taking care of five kids on a hair dressers salary so it makes sense they live here.” I said, wiping my brow with my sleeve. Even though winter was upon us it was a fairly warm day and hiking up the nearly vertical back roads of Yokosuka could make anybody sweat.

“ Wow… I didn’t know… Sentaro didn’t have… a dad. I didn’t know… he had… all those siblings either… until class today.” Aiko said between deep pants and gasps for breath, obviously not having a very fun time with the upward hills to Sen’s house.

“Well, this is the place.” I said as we arrived at a small little house tucked into the side of the hill. The roof tiles were dilapidated and crumbling, in several places the wood siding of the house had given way but had been haphazardly patched with sheet metal. There was a tiny grass patch out front with a small pear tree growing in the center of it, two of Sen’s little brothers were chasing each other around it playing tag.

“Thank God, I don’t wanna take another step or I might throw up.” Aiko whined, sitting on a small crumbling wall at the edge of the street. I walked into the yard, the two boys running over to greet me, pushing and shoving each other to reach me first while laughing the whole time.

“Hiya Ren! Did you come over to play tag?” One of the boys beamed up at me, excitedly jumping and running around me in circles as they continued their game of tag.

“Sorry Shinichi, not today. I’m here to see Sentaro, is he home yet?” I smile back, glancing around the yard. I didn’t see his motorcycle. Maybe they were at the hospital or something?

“Big brother? He’s inside with Nobuo. He got hurt today while we were playing and mom was going to work. It wasn’t all bad though, they put his arm

in a funny big yellow cast! I even got to write my name on it! Are you here to sign it too? I heard it's good luck to sign somebody's cast! It means you hope they get better real fast!” Shin spoke quickly and sporadically as he played with his brother who hadn’t fully learned how to speak yet. I never understood where Sentaro’s siblings got the energy from, even as a kid I don’t think I could move like that. Playtime never ceased.

“He got his arm put in a cast, huh? Where are they, in the house?” Aiko had overheard and walked over and knelt down to be at eye level with the two of them. Reaching into her bag to grab a plump dorayaki and held it out for the both of them to see. “If you can show me where to find them, you two can split it okay?” The two boy’s eyes lit up big and they both hugged each other hopping in unison.

“Yeah, yeah! Follow us, they're upstairs in big brothers room!” The two boys ran across the little yard to the front door and swung it open excitedly, running up the stairs.

“C’mon Ren, let’s go see Sen.” The two of us walked through the crunchy brown grass of the yard into the house, closing the door behind us. Sen’s house was miserably cramped and small. The first floor had only two rooms. A tiny living area where you first walked in that was always filled with dirt, toys and general clutter. Behind that was the kitchen which barely had enough room to fit a table with enough space to seat all the kids. Just beside us in the entryway was a staircase so small even Aiko had to hunch down a bit to get all the way upstairs, turning down a short hallway and walking to the end where Shinichi and his brother were waiting.

“He’s in here, can we have the dorayaki now?” Shinichi pointed to the door behind him before looking at Aiko expectantly with an outstretched hand. She handed over the Plastic wrapped dorayaki and patted his head.

“Thank you, Shinichi. You guys go play, just be careful and make sure your brother gets so-” She began to yell but the two of them took off down the stairs and back outside to the yard before I could even finish. She shook her head with a cute little smile. “What a bunch of cuties. Well, are you ready?” She asked, glancing at the door behind us. We both approached it and hesitated for several moments before knocking.

“Yeah?! Ma is that you? C’mon in” Sen shouted loudly from the other side of the door. I turned the doorknob and allowed the big wooden door to slowly creak open. Sen sat there beside the bed on a little wooden chair, in front of him sat upon the bed was a checkerboard. His little brother Nobuo was laying in the bed, bundled up under the covers looking a bit grumpy. He clacked one of his checker pieces over Sen’s and took it.

“Aww no way, have you been practicing moves while I’m at school or something? I swear you guys are getting smarter everyday.” Sen smiled at him, and in his usual contagious way made little Nobuo smile back. He turned, looking a bit surprised it was Aiko and I standing in the doorway and not his mother. There were clothes, water bottles and other clutter tossed all around the room. In the far corner were two futons for the other kids to sleep in. The walls were coated in old stained wallpaper that had begun peeling. In the places where it looked the worst Sen had put up posters of martial artists like Muhammad and Bruce Li.

“Ren, Ai…what are you guys doing here? You didn’t have to come all the way out here.” He said, standing up to face us while simultaneously slipping his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry if I worried you all. My mom called and said Nobu got hurt, but she can’t be late to work any more than she already has or she’s gonna get canned for sure. So I came home and took him to the local practice. He’s okay but he got himself a pretty bad fracture trying to impress his brothers by climbing the pear tree like I always tell him not to, isn’t that right Nobu?” He looked back at him teasingly, the boy nodding.

“I was so close to the top, too! One more branch and I probably could have jumped onto the roof I bet!” Nobu beamed up at the three of us standing there, obviously quite proud of himself. Although he’d gotten hurt, I could tell Sen was a bit proud of him as well. Nobu was like another smaller Sentaro in every way, their personalities mirror each other.

“Well if you thought we weren’t going to stop by and sign his cast you're crazy!” I said, reaching into my bag to pull out a marker. Aiko and I both walked over beside the bed and wrote our names out on the bright yellow cast. “I bet you picked out that color, didn’t you Nobu?” I smiled at him before looking over at Sentaro who was wearing a shirt with stripes of the same color.

“Yeah, they said after a day or two in bed I can go back to school, and then I’ll have so many people signing my arm there won’t be any room left, right Sen?” He giggled, wiggling his legs under the bed excitedly.

“Yeah, that's right. But you remember what the doctor said, you need at least two full days where you take it easy and don’t use that arm at all. Speaking of taking it easy, we’ve been playing checkers all afternoon. I think it's about time for a nap, dontcha think?” Sen crossed his arm and looked down at Nobu sternly who responded with a disappointed whine.

‘Ahhh! Do I have to? It's so boring to stay in bed.” He began to kick his feet and throw a tantrum turning onto his side, facing away from us so he could angrily pout.

“I’ll tell you what, you get some rest now and tomorrow I’ll go pick up some batteries and let you play my old Gameboy, sound fair?” Nobu quickly sat up and turned to face him, face full of excitement.

“Really?! You promise?”

“Yep, pinky promise” The two of them interlocked fingers before Nobu excitedly tucked himself under the covers and squinted his eyes shut extra hard. Sen reached over and ruffled his hair, tossing an extra quilt over top of him. He turned back to us and waved his hand as he walked out of the room, gesturing for us to follow.

“C’mon, we can talk more downstairs where there’s more room, and I can keep an eye on the other two.” We followed him back down the hall and ducked down the cramped stairway again. Sen walked over to the couch and shoved a huge stack of bills and other mail off of the cushions onto the floor. I glanced down at them, many of them reading similarly. “Final notice before shutoff…This is to notify you of late payment… We’ve been trying to reach you about unpaid…”.

Sen caught me glimpsing at them and sighed, collapsing down onto the couch, looking utterly exhausted. “Mom’s been falling behind on a lot of things. I’ve been trying to help all I can, I even took an extra shift at the noodle shop. But if I do any more than I already am, I may as well just quit school.” Sen sounded completely dejected, nothing like how he usually acted. I had no idea things had gotten so bad for him at home. Aiko and I joined him on the couch, the inside of the house seemed quiet and lonely, the only sound was the faint excited yells of the boys playing out in the yard.

“I don’t get it man, I thought things were going a lot better since your mom got a job over at the salon?” I questioned him, feeling guilty that I didn’t even know how badly my own best friend had been struggling.

“Well things were good for a while, but then the salon started cutting her hours or telling her there weren’t enough customers and to not come in at all some days… and then One thing after another started piling up. The roof started leaking, the refrigerator broke… and now Nobuo got himself hurt…If things keep up I really don’t know what's going to happen.”

“You should have told me, man. I know things seem rough but you and your mom always figure it out. It won’t be any different this time.” I put my arm over his shoulder.

“Not this time. This is the third or fourth time one of my brothers has gotten hurt in the last few months. Mom’s working so much she can’t really keep an eye on them or afford a sitter. Every time I bring one of them to the clinic they give me these funny looks. I’m afraid if things keep going on this way, they’re bound to call child services.” suddenly the front door opened, Sen’s mother walking in.

“How’s Nobuo? Is he okay? I’m so sorry Sen, I was supposed to be here all day but then The salon called me in and we really need the money, and I…” She seemed absolutely exhausted and frantic, bags under her eyes and her hair tied up in a messy ponytail. Sen got up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug.

“It's okay Ma, I took care of everything. Nobu is up in bed and I already made everyone some curry for dinner. It's all taken care of.” She began to sniffle and cry a bit, wiping tears out of her eyes.

“Thank God. What would I do without you, Sen? Oh! Oh my goodness I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you two there!” Sen’s mother turned and bowed to us both apologetically. “How have you been, Ren? And I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Maia, Sen’s mother.” She raised back up from her little bow and shook Aiko’s hand.

“I’ve been well Mrs. Ito, this is our friend Aiko. She just transferred to our school and we kind of hit it off right away.” I said as I introduced the two of them, Aiko nervously lowering her head as she shook her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am” Aiko mumbled quietly, glancing up at her shyly.

“Hey Ma, since you’re home do you think it’d be okay if I go out with my friends? It's been a long day…” Sen stuffed his hands into his pockets again and shuffled his feet a bit, seeming to feel a bit guilty about asking.

“I think you’ve earned it after taking care of everything the way you did today. Go ahead, go have fun. Tell the boys to come inside on your way out, though. I think it’s about time they both had a bath.” She gave him a tired but appreciative smile. “It was nice to meet you Aiko, and don’t be a stranger Ren. You know you’re welcome over anytime.” She bowed to us both and then turned to check on Nobu. Sen walked over to the old wooden coat rack standing in the corner and grabbed his jacket and a black beanie-style hat.

“You guys coming or what? I gotta get outta this joint at least for a little while today” he quipped, sounding rather humdrum. Without waiting he opened the door and headed out into the yard, Aiko and I glanced at each other before hopping off the couch to follow him.

“Uh Sen? Where exactly are we gonna go? We can’t hang out here and after last night I don’t think my place is such a good idea either.” We both trailed behind him as he shuffled his feet down the hillside with his hands tucked in his pockets.

“I don’t know…there’s gotta be somewhere. What about your place, Aiko?” Sen asked, looking at her inquisitively.

“M..my place? No, I don't think that's such a good idea either.” Aiko had flushed bright red and looked off into the distance, trying to avoid eye contact with us. Honestly, I hadn’t even considered Aiko’s house as an option, but now that Sen had brought it up it seemed like our best bet.

“Aww C’mon, you’ve already seen my place. It can’t be any worse than that.” Sen said, kicking a small pebble down the hill as we walked slowly down the hill, both of us staring at Aiko now.

“I mean, we’re all friends now right? I kind of wanna know what sort of place you live in too. I bet you have band posters all over your room and stuff like that, right?” I smiled at her as I teased a bit, trying to get her to loosen up. She looked back at me, still seeming a bit nervous.

“Well…okay. But just for a little while.” She finally gave in with a defeated groan, Sen and I bumping fists as the three of us headed off towards the train station.