Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

The Lost, The Found

- The Lost, The Found -

Come to think of it, I begin to recall some details of my high school life. I remember the school transcript that had been delivered on Christmas Eve like a twisted present, along with the contract and documents. Shizuka had been there beside me. It had been dark except for the kitchen lamp above our heads. There was green tea. Two new glistening phones. As if they were giving us a new life. If we had chosen those phones would things have ended up differently? If I had listened to her in the beginning, would it have turned out different?

The high school transcript had Odagaoka printed clearly on it. Yet thinking about it now, it seems like an insertion of someone else's memories. I vaguely remember that year when nine suicides had happened at the school. I had been attending. I had been, or a version of me, I don't quite know now. Naoki Maeda, according to the papers, had been there. A name that echoes weakly in a vacant room, a futile attempt at identity. I wasn't present at any of the suicides, most of them had been on the train tracks or from the school roof. I had heard it first hand from a classmate however. That day, no one spoke afterwards. I couldn't tell what people were thinking at the time. All I know is that I had no response whatsoever. Nothing came to mind, like an empty hollow can blown over in the wind. It makes a dry flat sound.

When one of our classmates died, it still hadn't registered. He had simply disappeared and would never show up again. I had known the boy. Noda-kun, he was known as. We had maybe shared a few games of basketball, and a karaoke party with friends. He was a straight-A student, good looking, athletic even. Girls liked him, but he wasn't aggressive or imposing. He kept to his books and sports, a good head on his shoulders. He had it all going for him. At one point, he had even been the president of a student community club. They went into parks and cleaned up trash. People looked up to him and asked for his help. But because he was doing well, someone had targeted him. There had been hate messages painted all over his shoe locker as if the debt collectors had visited, chalkboard graffiti in the morning, blog posts and pictures posted up like political propaganda. Finally, he had been assaulted and beat up several times. He would show up to class with a black eye, cracked and bruised lip, and nobody spoke of it. He tried to smile. Students didn't know what to do; no one helped him. Either we had been conditioned to accept the slander as truth, or we were more concerned with our own well-being. We could only stay away from the perpetrators and hope we weren't next. So he smiled alone. Perhaps Sato had helped him, and had been targeted as a result. It was better to remain anonymous, invisible, another number, and that way, no one would notice you.

The police and the school investigators never found out who had been responsible. After Sato had committed suicide, the bullying came to a halt. The counseling services and workshops had been largely useless. No one had any patience or interest in them and they became a dull routine. I find it hard to believe that they had actually stopped the incidents. There has to be something about Sato.

I take the train far into Chiba on the Monday, with transcript in hand and watch familiar landscapes roll past my window. From high rise superstructures, into stony matchbox specks, it shrunk and grew, in eerie melodious rhythms, like the bars of a digital sound wave visualizer. Things seem to grow clearer and clearer, details are imprinted into my mind, to reinforce the images I had once called home. It's an odd feeling, to revisit the past, memories that had been once forgotten. They now surface as if an overflowing cup of water, tap on full. But I had to make the visit to confirm her name myself.

I am keenly aware that I'm being followed. But not surprisingly, once again, I can't find out who it is. It could be the two businessmen sitting several seats down, earphones in their ears. They nod off to sleep. It could be the young woman and her elderly mother, fixedly typing into her cell phone. Maybe the figure in the next car, back against the window. Perhaps it's the middle aged man wearing a fedora hat. He has luggage with him like he's going somewhere far, for a long time. In his hands is a book that looks thick and academic. It could be all or none of them. But I can't shake the feeling that they are getting nearer and nearer.