Afterwards, his days saw the same routine as always for about a year. Although he never thought he enjoyed his monotone life, he'd soon miss it when something drastic did finally kindle from the dark...
By early July the kid was already feeling the ripeness of his tween years. Today the twelve-year-old skated out towards the rural train station on the edge of the rice fields. The dirt sidewalk coming from the city limit sign turned to gravel and he kicked up his board, treading towards the station beside the tracks: a simple patch of cement under a pavilion that sheltered a few benches and exactly four bike stands.
Fiddling with the sucker in his mouth, he stepped up on the platform, meandering through the sparse crowd around the benches and toward the other side where a sidewalk appeared again that would eventually lead to the back alleys of his neighborhood. The Boy was lucky enough to thieve the cash out of a wallet someone dropped at the hardware store earlier and, his collection bag happily full to the brim, wanted to get home before the rattling thunderclouds decided to burst. As he wove through the chattering of voices and the pulsing breath of the wind on concrete a sound soothing and nostalgic grasped his ears.
He stopped in his tracks, eyes falling on the musician sitting at the public piano against the wall. (Yes, of all things they chose an upright piano to fill the extra space of this crowded station.) Although the girl's back was to him, that long lavender hair was unmistakable. His feet moved him closer to the piano despite his stomach on the verge of a cartwheel. Like The Boy, she was petite for her age, about the same height as him too, feet dangling from the tall bench. He dared to creep to the side just a bit to see her face bent to her hands as her song picked up a trotting melody.
The girl's name was Ria Ryuuji, as everyone knew. Her angelic features and flawless manners were the gossip of all the local mothers. Many conjectured how this desolate town had acquired such a gem, since her family was renowned and wealthy. But The Boy knew more about her than most. Fate had put her in his class at school. Truth be told she had transferred to his school last summer to stay with her aunt and uncle every school year while her parents were busy traveling, doing whatever big-city work rich people do.
The Boy listened to her play, probably not knowing how odd he looked watching intently. She was by no means an expert musician, but he relished the sounds anyway. When her song had finished, a couple people from the benches clapped and she glanced back with a bashful and humble smile and small bow. Then her eyes the color of fresh lime fell on him, his insides going numb as her freckled cheeks flashed him a friendly grin and asked if he was waiting for a turn to play. When she stood to make room for him he finally found a voice.
"U-Uh no, thanks!" He waved her to sit down again, "I can't. I mean, I don't know how."
Oh, and the most important thing to remember about this gal, was that, like most boys in his class, The Boy had quite the developing crush.
"You don't?" she frowned. "Sit here. I'll teach you."
He tried to refuse but she moved to the other end of the bench and patted the seat next to her. Tentatively he obliged, sitting on the very edge as far from her skirt draped over the seat as he possibly could.
She started by telling him the names of the black and white keys, then going on to explain more theory like octaves, flat and sharps, and some general melodies. He tried to grasp the lesson. But paying attention and acting appropriately is always difficult when you're thinking too hard on how to pay attention and act appropriately. The Boy lost track of time, copying her hand movements as she talked. Still his chords rang out curt and harsh with none of her tuneful flow.
"You're holding your fingers too stiff and flat." Ryuuji-san reached for his hand. "Arch your palm like this. Imagine you're holding a bubble between your hand and the keys. If you flatten your hand it'll pop."
Then came laughter from behind them and they both craned their necks.
"Aww," a young woman stood behind them and beamed. "Ria-chan you're as precious as ever. Who's your boyfriend?"
The Boy leapt from his seat and yanked his hand away from Ryuuji-san's. "B-B-Boyfriend?!"
The girl giggled at the woman who winked at her and walked away. Seeing her friend's red face as he snatched up his skateboard and bag, Ryuuji-san begged him to stay.
"I'll teach you more if you want," she said, "You're a natural!"
The Boy shook his head and smacked his own hot cheeks tetchily "No way."
"Sure you are. Who knows, maybe it runs in your family." She tapped the seat for him to sit again, but he stood and fingered the strap of his drawstring bag.
"My older sister does play piano." He found himself saying.
"I didn't know you had a sister. Does she go to the high school here?"
"Um... no, she's graduated now." The Boy glanced about and found a few faces watching them and whispering with amused smiles. "She actually lives with my mom in Okinawa."
"Oh." And the girl's smile waned timidly. "I see."
She must not know what it's like to have divorced parents, he thought with a grimace at himself for letting the subject come up. She absently went back to plucking notes on the keys, and his throat tightened. He didn't really want to go home now; this might be his only chance to make her a friend – he'd never get the chance to talk to her at school where she was always surrounded by the other boys. He rocked on his toes awkwardly, millions of small talk prompts leaping to mind all at once so he couldn't think of a single thing to say. That's when she turned her face to him and smiled as if to show off being able to play without looking.
"Oh my gosh!" she said out of the blue, staring hard at his face. "What happened? Your jaw is really bruised...!"
His stomach flipped. "Oh, uh... this is..." he stammered, rubbing the greenish shiner he'd earned the other day.
Thankfully before he had to form a lie she frowned mercifully, "You fell off that skateboard, didn't you?"
"Uh, yeah." He mumbled. "It's fine, though. Doesn't really hurt anymore."
"You're a lot braver than me, then."Ryuuji-san's bright eyes lit a bashful twinkle, "I would have cried like a baby if I hit my face like that, hehe..."
A couple butterflies chased the off the cold touch of diffidence. He pushed the memory of the beating out of his head and cleared his throat, shrugging his shoulders with a measly dash of confidence, "Eh... I've seen worse."
"Man..." she shook her head at the board at his side, "My dad would never let me ride a skateboard."
"Why not?" The Boy latched onto the subject. "It's pretty convenient. It's a cheap way to get places and it's not too hard once you... o-once you get the hang of it."
He blushed and downcast his eyes. She was the richest girl in town and her family probably had more cash in their wallets than Dad ever made in his life; why was he trying to talk about the convenience of cheap transportation?
"I actually wanted to get one for a long time. Some of my friends from my old school had them." Ryuuji-san turned on the seat to face him. "But my father said that if I didn't like riding the bus or train or my bike to school, he would rent a personal driver to pick me up every morning. He wouldn't hear anything about me riding one of those 'bone-breakers on wheels' as he calls them." She giggled, "Daddy is a little over-protective, but I think it's cute."
"Woah." The kid's mouth fell open and in his bewilderment at the thought he forgot all shame of being poor. "A private driver? Paid? Every day??"
"Yeah." She replied. "But I didn't want that. I just wanted Bc to try riding a skateboard."
The Boy tightened his red rain-jacket tied to his hips and cleared his throat. "Um... You know these gravel roads around here are hard to ride if you haven't practiced, but... But, if you want, there's a skate rink a few blocks away from here with smooth sidewalks. I- I mean, in return for your showing me the piano, I could... I don't know, I mean, I was just thinking if you want someone to show you how..." Images of holding her hands to help her balance on the board leapt into his brain.
"Really??" she gasped.
"Sure." The board resting against his leg, he flicked one of the wheels and it spun wobbly. Maybe she'd be too embarrassed by such an old, cheap, dirty, beat up, paint-chipped squeaky excuse for a board.
"That is..." she said as her smile shrunk, "Very nice of you. But I shouldn't. My father would be worried about me getting hurt."
"I wouldn't let you get hurt." The words burst from his mouth faster than he could think them. When she smiled flatteringly he quickly recovered. "I mean, uh, it's not even that dangerous. Besides, your dad doesn't have to know... does he?"
Ryuuji-san's face lit with shock. "No, I could never! I've never disobeyed him in all my life, and if he were to find out I did something behind his back..." she turned back to the keys looking very distressed. "He'd think I don't trust him. No, thank you, but I couldn't do it without his permission."
"Right." The Boy nodded with a twisted expression of remorse. "Sorry." He muttered, feeling like trash for disrespecting her ardent loyalty to her father. I guess there was more than wealth and social statuses that set her in another world far beyond his understanding.
"Anyway," said the girl sitting straight again and putting her hands to the keys, striking some soothing arpeggios as she spoke. "Not to be rude, but I've noticed at school you have a lot of bruises. Do you fall off your skateboard often?"
"Yeah..." He still readily preferred the accusation of being a poor skater over the truth.
"Are you anemic?"
"What?"
"Anemic. It means your blood has an iron deficiency and makes you bruise really easily."
"Oh. Um, I don't think so." he said, "But the doctor said I have an unusually weak immune system, so I guess it would make sense if I had something like that..."
She commented that he should probably be tested for anemia. The Boy was flattered by her concern and impressed.
"So," he searched for another topic, "You like learning about medical conditions and stuff?"
Ryuuji-san nodded, explaining that she wanted to be a medical research scientist when she graduated high school.
"That'd be pretty impressive." The Boy said.
"Thanks." She smiled. "What about you?"
"Me?" he said thoughtfully. "I don't know... I guess I never really thought about it."
"Oh, come on." She insisted, "Everybody has something they want to do for the rest of their life."
It wasn't that he didn't think he had potential; after all, he had held his position at the top of the class all his life – that is until Ryuuji-san came along and had been giving him stiff competition ever since. Truth be told it was just that he spent most of his free time imagining what his life right now could be, wondering what it would be like to be a normal twelve-year-old with a normal amount of friends and a normal family. He'd never seen much farther into the future than the day the letter would finally come saying Mom was coming to take him home.
"I guess..." He hesitated, "I guess I just really want to have my own family someday."
"A family-man, huh?" she closed her eyes and smiled rosily, "How cute!"
The Boy flushed bright red. "Sh-shut up...!"
His attitude must have tickled her because she snickered so purely his ears forgot to notice the quick thumping of footsteps behind him.
"Hey there, little miss."
They both turned to find Shoma Ushio donned in his usual jean jacket approaching, holding a silver and black glossy skateboard making The Boy's look like a piece of plastic trash. Ushio-kun leaned his elbow on the smaller boy's shoulder, grinning charismatically at the girl at the piano.
"What brings you to town, Ushio-san?" said Ryuuji-san.
"Just the usual. Looking for trouble."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Just don't get yourself hurt."
"Me? Hurt? Please!" Ushio-kun finally stood straight off his friend. "I don't get hurt, what kind of weakling do you take me for?"
"Well, he and I were just talking about riding skateboards and how dangerous they are." She said, politely pointing out The Boy and his heart fluttered to see her trying to include him, then it sank remembering the bash on his face. Did Ushio-kun think he was a weakling too for being bruised all the time?
"Skateboarding, huh?" said the other boy charismatically, "Well if you ever wanna give it a try I just got this bad boy for my birthday." He lifted the board, tilting it to show the shimmer of the reflection on its finish. "I'd be glad to show you the ins and outs."
"Actually," said the girl, "He was just offering to help me learn. But, I'm not allowed."
Ushio-kun gave The Boy a very hard and disbelieving look up and down and didn't say anything more.
Now the attendant behind them shouted over the pavilion the destination of the next train pulling up to the platform.
"Oh, this is mine!" cried Ryuuji-san, standing and brushing her skirt down gracefully. "It was fun playing piano with you!" She bowed to The Boy who hurriedly did the same, almost dropping his skateboard.
"See you later, Ushio-san!" She waved back, slinging her purse and hopping on the train along with a small group from the benches.
"You bet!" called Ushio-kun with a smile.
The Boy was about to shout some sort of goodbye but in the split second before she stepped on the train he thought too hard, choked on his words, and nothing came out at all.
As the train pulled away and the sound of it zooming towards the city died off, Ushio-kun draped and arm around The Boy's thin shoulder and dragged him away from the piano.
"Let's head to the skate rink. I wanna show off my new board before it starts raining."
He might have noticed the strangeness of Ushio-kun actually wanting to hang out with him outside of school if he hadn't been too busy internally gawking at the fact that he just talked to a girl for almost half an hour.
"So." The taller of the two questioned dryly, "You got a thing for Ryuuji-chan or what?"
"Wha- ?!" The Boy flustered. "I just bumped into her that's all!"
Ushio-kun struck his breast dramatically. "...Then went on to play piano with her while gently caressing her hand during a romantic duet...!"
The Boy went scarlet up to his ears. "Shut up!! It wasn't like that!"
Shoma punched him in the shoulder surprisingly rough for someone only joking around.
"No need to feel ashamed." He sang, "I'm actually impressed a pipsqueak like you could get the attention of such a hottie."
The Boy glared up at him, both shocked at how maturely he talked about girls and annoyed by the low remark. The other flashed his charming beam.
"Take a joke!" he laughed, "In fact, since you aren't exactly the most experienced with girls, you want some pointers on how to pick up a chick? Since you obviously want to ask her to the dance this Friday."
The Boy frowned. "Wait... There's a dance?"
Ushio-kun pushed off his friend and scoffed. "Duh...The principal sent out a newsletter to all the parents like three weeks ago! What, does your dad live under a rock?"
"...Kind of, yeah."
"Listen, it's a dance for the whole school, a fundraiser for our graduation this year or something like that I don't know I wasn't paying attention to that part." Ushio-kun explained with an elbow nudge at The Boy's side. "And we get to bring dates!"
"Dates? Really?" The Boy screwed up his face. "That...doesn't sound like something the principal would host for our age group. You know how strict he is."
"Exactly." Ushio-kun said as they stood and waited for a car to pass at a stop sign. "That's why this is an opportunity you can't miss!"
The Boy chewed his lip while the car passed and his friend took the lead strutting across the street. He wouldn't have to tell Dad. On Friday night he could just pretend to be staying out really late collecting, and he could leave the dance early to still make curfew.
"I don't know, Ushio-kun." He muttered as they crossed the nearly empty parking lot in front of the skate rink. "If it's this close to the time of the dance she's probably been asked by someone already."
"Nah, dude, she's free game." The other insisted. "I've been talking to all the guys. No one has the guts."
The Boy raised his brows.
"I'm serious, dude." The other crossed his heart. "Just do as I say and you'll be the only dude in our class with the balls to ask her. Besides me, obviously. I would ask her but I can't go. Busy this weekend. Anyway, since Friday is coming up soon I recommend you start preparing now so you can get dibs first thing Monday morning. C'mon, bro, I know you want to. And I've advised many-a-poor-suckers like you with a 100% success rate so far. Let me do this for you, as a thank you for bailing me out with Nishioka-sensei the other day."
He hadn't always been the most trustworthy of friends, but he was right about one thing. This wasn't a chance The Boy couldn't afford to miss. Ria Ryuuji was the only person besides Ushio-kun who talked to him at all. Why should he give up trying to be friends with her now? And no one could deny that if any of the boys in their class knew how to flatter a girl it was Shoma Ushio.
. . .
Dad had gone "collecting" as well today, and was thankfully still gone by four-o-clock when The Boy got home, having left a note for his son that he probably wouldn't be back before six. With the whole apartment to himself, The Boy took the luxury of emerging from his room. A notebook sat before him now and a pencil stood limply in his hand where he sat at the kitchen table listening to the rain sprinkling the kitchen window. Mom's last letter came two days ago, now it was his turn to reply. Chewing the pencil's eraser he tried to calm the smile that infected his sullen face for the past two hours. He never thought this opportunity would come. She could be his way of making new friends. Everyone loved her, so if they became close friends starting at the dance, maybe others would start liking him too. With heart swelling he wrote and crumpled page after page of the letter before he at last organized his thoughts: he had good news for once!
"You're never going to believe it, Mom, but I might be taking a girl to a dance this weekend! Isn't that crazy? She's the one I was telling you about. Today I saw her at the train station. There's a public piano there and she was teaching me how to play it a little. It was fun; I want Big Sis to teach me more when we're together again. Anyway, I talked to Ryuuji-san for a little while and she's so nice! She's kind and sweet... she reminds me of you, Mom. I'm hoping we'll be friends from now on."
The Boy paused, scratched his head with the end of the pencil, and tried to recall skating with Ushio-kun and anything else his mother might want to hear.
Then came the sound of the lock turning.
Cachack
The Boy jumped out of his seat at the sound of the front door and frantically gathered the papers together, quite literally hurling the crumpled drafts into the trash as the door swung open.
Dad stepped in without a word.
The Boy freakishly tried to act calm, squeezing his letter tightly in his hands behind his back. "How did collecting go?"
"It was okay." The man said lazily. He stripped off his green jacket and kicked his shoes off at the door. The Boy stood like a statue, hardly breathing. Dad stepped to the counter and pulled a handful of chips out of the bag his son had opened, mumbling a question of how his son's day was.
The Boy backed away toward the hall way, meaning to reply but the lump in his throat only allowing a scared sort of hum.
Dad looked up from the bag of chips, and knitted his brows trying to glance around the pre-teen's back. "What've you got there?" he garbled doubtfully with a mouth full.
The Boy startled. "Got where?"
"Behind your back."
"Oh, this?" The Boy quickly pulled out the papers, "Just homework. They gave us a lot to work on yesterday and it has to be turned in tomorrow so... I'll be in my room if you need me."
Dad chewed another handful of chips and stared at his son. "...Tomorrow is Sunday, boy."
"Uh, I mean on Monday..."
The man scowled for a second longer before releasing the child from his glare and rolling up the bag of chips. Dad then tossed his leather collection satchel off his shoulder onto the countertop. Fishing into it with one hand, The Boy waited to see how much money his father would pull out, knowing he'd probably be asked to count it. Instead the big hand first drew out a banded together wad of magazines and envelopes.
The Boy's heart skipped a few beats.
"S-Sorry." He quaked. "It's my job to get the mail... But I already got it today, I swear! I put it on the counter this morning before you got up." The Boy pointed to this morning's issue next to the sink.
"I saw that." Dad swallowed a gulp and stretched. "You know how we didn't get any mail on Tuesday? Turns out we got put in Kirishima-san's post slot next door. I guess the old hag didn't remember to give it to us 'til I passed her in the hall just now."
The Boy couldn't speak for fear he might throw up as Dad's fingers pulled off the band with a snap and flipped through the envelopes.
Even if her last letter did seem written out of turn, she usually didn't write twice in a row. No way. It wouldn't happen. It couldn't.
Dad's finger's worked through the pile, tossing these and those into the trash, others setting aside. As the man tore open a bank receipt, he caught his son staring.
"You sick? You're white as a sheet."
"It's nothing." The Boy replied quickly, "I just um... forgot my drink."
The Boy discretely folded his letter and shoved it into his jeans pocket.
"Only water if you're going back to your room. I don't want stains in the carpet if you spill."
So The Boy picked up his empty glass of lemonade and went to the sink and leisurely rinsed it. Furtively gazing over his shoulder, the sound of the water running blurred to his eardrums. Dad picked up a baby-blue envelope, scowling at it with a whispered, "What the...?"
The Boy wheeled towards the man, wet glass slipping from his shaking hands and the sound of shattering on tile imploded the bubble of terror swelling in his chest. Dad spooked and glared back with a shouted curse.
"What has gotten into you today?!" he threw a towel at his son who fell to the floor sweeping up the glass with his hands. "Get it up good!"
Specks of blood splotched from the tiny shards sticking to his palms. But there was no pain, only horror. Dad huffed and turned back to Mom's missed letter. That decorative envelope and scrawling handwriting was distinctive.
A long silence followed while the man stared at the envelope. The Boy dumped the glass handful into the trash bin beside his father and Dad sneered, holding up the envelope in case his son hadn't seen it.
"It's addressed to 'my love.'" He murmured, "Wrong address? Unless you've got a secret admirer?" he pointed a glare at his son but his tone was far from joking. "I sure as hell don't..."
"Ahahaha! That's funny, Dad." The Boy rubbed the back of his clammy neck.
Dad hummed again. The Boy hated when he did that. There was no way of telling what it meant.
"That's weird though," the man dropped it in the pile of letters to look through later. "No return address..."
The Boy had Mom's address memorized from day one, but since then she never wrote it on the envelope. She said it was to make them more personal; like love letters, not reminders of the miles separating them. Either way The Boy thanked his lucky stars that that was the case.
"Ah, dammit!" Dad smacked the countertop and threw his head back in a loud groan and his son well near jumped out of his skin.
"I completely forgot!" The man growled, moving to the door and pulling his rain jacket back on. "I got to stop at the bank! Looks like we're doing take-out for dinner."
"Okay." The Boy forced a grin onto his lips. "I'll have the table set when you get back."
"Don't forget to take out the trash."
"Yes, sir."
"Also, where's your collection today? Did you meet the quota??"
The Boy pointed to his bulging drawstring bag on the coffee table by the loveseat.
Dad finished tying his shoes. "Fine. I'll check it when I get back."
His eyes watched and pulse pounded as the parent moved at what felt like a snail's pace out the door. The second the door clicked shut, The Boy leapt to the pile on the counter and picked Mom's blue envelope, sprinting to Dad's dresser in the den. He pulled out scissors, tape, and more notepad paper. With the armful of supplies he ran to his room and slammed the door locked.
"I have to be quick. He can't read this letter!"
. . .
The misty rain was a full blown thunderstorm as The Boy leaned into the cellar in the forest, replacing the shoebox of Mom's letters with the newest one enclosed to be read later. The wind gusted so relentlessly the heavy wooden door all but crushed him before he scooted back up again on the sopping grass. Staring down the dark hole, he pulled his rain-jacket hood over his face to shield from the yowling wind pelting him with waves of rain.
"It's done...!" The Boy wiped water out of his eyes with a muddy hand still bleeding from the glass. "Since Mom thinks I have his permission, she won't always be careful enough about sending the letters. I've been lucky so far... but that was too close."
Relief graced him despite the tumultuous spinning of leaves in the wind, bucketing rain over the open grove, and raging lightning searing veins into the sky.
As far as the mysteriously addressed envelope Dad was planning to read when he got home, The Boy was actually proud of his swift evasion of the crisis. Having removed Mom's letter, he drew up the best fake love letter he could, making it look like it was delivered by a stranger with the wrong address. This letter replaced Mom's real letter inside the envelope Dad had seen. The Boy was certain he wouldn't be able to tell it had ever been opened, especially considering he was normally too drunk by the time he looked through paperwork to notice much of anything.
But he still needed to get home before Dad, wash off this suspicious mess, and set the table.
The Boy stood with heavy wet clothes weighing his light frame down, but not before a huge flurry slammed the door and latch down, smashing his fingers and catching the hem of his jacket in the hinge. He gave a cry and snatched his hand up, pain igniting every nerve. He tried to jump up but his jacket strangled him to the lock. He picked at the hinges with bleeding, throbbing, and numb fingers.
A chill ran through his veins. Every hair on his body stood straight on end. His body reacted before his brain could process, flattening himself with face in the grass and hands over his head as the cacophonous explosion and flash of white light burst his eardrums and vibrated the earth beneath him. A few seconds of knife-like ringing passed. He didn't know how close it had struck but it was close enough for him to smell the singed tree. The Boy peeled his arms and body out of the caught jacket and sprinted the muddy trail all the way back.
Emerging from the rubble of the fallen wall his ears only started to regain hearing and the weight of what he just survived sank in. Back in open air and solid concrete he bent down with hands on his knees panting and shuddering. He boxed his own ears trying to whack the ringing away, panicking for a moment that his hearing wouldn't come back at all. Slowly it did, and the first thing he heard through the hazy hum was his father's holler calling his name.
"What the hell were you doing in there!?" Dad ran up to him with a bag of what might have been pizza boxes and yelled in his ear to be heard over the howling wind and smacking raindrops on the ground, hitting his son on the back to get him breathing again. "In a storm like this?! Are you trying to get struck by lightning??"
"Not at all." The Boy wheezed.
"Where's your jacket??!" said Dad, whose own hood was almost blown off by the wind. "Never mind, we're going home!"
He grabbed The Boy by the shoulder and together they made for the other end of the block. Soon the twelve-year-old would have to put together a good reason for being in the woods. But for now, Dad wouldn't read Mom's letter. That was all that mattered.
To be continued...