Summer Girl, Winter Boy

Five | Butterflies

‘Morning! Are you coming for training today? We’re going to Ibaraki for the indoor swimming pool! You’ll love it!’

Shou smiled all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at her and bounded away.

Wim stared after him, having liked him much more when he had avoided looking at her.

Yusuke and Daiichi came next singing a bawdy sailor song in off-key harmony and bowed low in front of Wim with raucous ‘Good morning’s.’

She watched as the two of them automatically lifted the smaller Shou off his feet when they collided with him at the bottom of the road and ran, princess-carrying him between them.

A bright, yellow monarch fluttered past her vision, blurring out the background and pulling Wim's eyes along its bouncing flutter. It faded away into the foreground and for a split second, she thought she saw Shou look back at her without the ear-splitting grin glossing over his eyes, but it was not long into a second for her to judge what kind of look it was.

Coach Lance turned up then, signalling his arrival by thumping Wim’s vertebrae into her ribcage. She coughed and shrivelled as he guffawed at how weak she was and if that’s how she’s planning to compete at the Olympics?

‘It’s not the Veteran Olympics girl! You are aware of that?’

Wim muttered at length about child abuse as she shuffled away, ignoring Coach when he yelled after her, ‘What? Child abuse? Pah! See that’s your problem! You’re not a child anymore girl! You’re – hey! Did you pack your swimsuit? You didn’t did you! Come back here you lazy nun!’

It didn’t help that she outran him and got into the bus because Coach had foreseen it all and had Yoshikawa Coach stop outside the highway to Ibaraki where he dragged Wim to a department store and had the sales lady fit her for a blue and black Speedo.

She whined all the way back to the bus, revelling in the fact that she kept Coach Lance on his toes as she had with Daddy who sometimes complained and demanded she be packed off to law school since he couldn’t handle her.

She tumbled in, as a result of Coach’s friendly shove and realised that Yoshikawa Coach was sitting in her place.

‘Sit behind Princess!’ Yoshikawa Coach said in Japanese, smiling kindly at her, his eyes disappearing in crinkled half-moons. Ojousama. She often wondered why he called her ‘princess,’ but never had the guts to ask.

The bus lurched to life before she sat and she threw out a hand on the seat to keep from falling, her gaze locking Shou’s rather embarrassed one from where he sat in the next seat.

Wim slid into her place awkwardly and tried her best to keep from touching any part that was Shou.

The boy coughed self-consciously and glued his face to the window.

They sat tense through the whole trip and practically dived out of the bus when it arrived at their destination.

She rarely saw him up close the rest of the day as both Coaches insisted this warm swim was not a temporary holiday but training and made them lap around the pool so many times Wim was sure she could tell each, hospital-blue tile apart.

She wheezed back to where she had left her bag, dripping, her fingers and toes bleached and wrinkled; her eyes red from too much chlorine.

She didn’t recognise Shou as she came up on him being his usual clumsy self, tangling his foot on her bag drawstring and spilling all the contents in every direction.

Shou doubled back, nearly falling on his nose to compensate for the graceful gesture and proceeded to pick up everything and put them back in the bag.

His hands grazed over her sketchbook and for a moment it looked like he was going to put it in the bag but then, he slowly lowered the bag back onto the table and thumbed through the sketchbook, blowing to separate the pages.

Wim imagined him reading all her dark, angry letters to Daddy, filled with her loathing of the world, old people who still lived, parents who were unwanted by their children and still lived, suicidal thoughts, whether jumping off a building or swallowing poison was the better way to die…

Wim gasped audibly in horror and dropped her towel, sprinting towards Shou.

She wanted to scream and shout at him and scratch his eyes out of his head.

Wim snatched the sketchbook from his hands, her lips quivering in anger. ‘Don’t joke around, you fool!’ She yelled and ran away before he could see the tears in her eyes.

#

‘Don’t screw the hell around with me, you trashy bastard!’

Shou watched her stalk off, her head held high, her back stiff, the sketchbook of journal entries clasped against her chest.

His mouth fell open.

Where had she learned to slur like a delinquent Osaka oba-san from the nineties?

Even the lilt in the dialect was perfect!

Shou doubled over.

He knew people had turned around to look at him, he saw the concerned look Aika-chan threw his way and he knew that Daichi and Yusuke had their heads together, mock sobbing about getting him to a psychiatrist, stat.

But he just laughed and he laughed and he heaved several gulps of air before crashing down on the nearest yellow deckchair and laughing some more.

He lay there, his hands crossing his aching stomach and smiled after the mirth had died down, staring up at the floodlit roof wondering when the last time was that he had been able to laugh from his belly.

At first, Shou thought his tummy hurt because of his monumental fit of giggles.

But then he recognised the butterflies.

… … …