Month: January 2023 (page 1 of 1)

It was Sunday afternoon in January. I helped Kuwata re-dye his hair black in the bathroom of Murai’s house. After brushing it, he looked at mine. “K, your hair is a little lighter too.” he said. I used to bleach it during summer vacation to make me cool, but I had put it all back before the start of the second semester. As he said, I kind of knew it was losing its color. I would be called over the PA system in my school. “You had better dye yours,” he picked the back of my hair. “I’ll blacken it.” I doubted if he would be doing it right because I found he shallow and dishonest.

“Before that, pay the money back for the previous karaoke.”I said, holding out my palm. “I’II do it. I’II do,” he studied his reflection in the mirror and made a wry face. He insisted that instead of returning the money, he would dye my hair by using the rest of the dye bottle he had bought. “Sit down there,” he said. I refused to, but he pushed my shoulders down.

I knelt on the bathroom tiles. I was faint-hearted enough to be under his thumb. He begun to brush my hair. In the bathroom there were also Murai and Shiota, an eccentric person with artistic talent. Although he has a pierce hole the size of coin, I had been impressed by his playing piano. However, a certain memory came bak to me. I had been seventh grade and read manga he had drawn, where he represented vulgarity, malice and inhumanity.

There was something fishy around me. “It’s okay. I’ll do it myself,” I said. “Wait. Don’t move. Close your eyes in case liquid drips.” I did as he said. Kuwata was taking his time. I heard three boys chucking, perhaps thinking a cunning plot. Still I was kneeling, head bowed, eyes closed. Somebody grabbed a fistful of my hair. Perhaps Shiota handled it roughly. “Poor thing. Ha-ha! Poor thing. School tomorrow. What is he going to do? Ha-ha!”Murai asked. “Shhh!”said Kuwata. “What happened?”I asked. “Good, good, very nice.” he said.

That was the part about Murai that I really hated. The way the more punks are in his house, the more he harmonizes with them. I knew deep down he looked down on me.

They released me. “It’s done. You have to leave the dye for a while,” said Kuwata. I rose to my feet, went to the changing room and surveyed my hair in the mirror. Of course, nothing happened. After fifteen minutes, it had not changed at all. When I turned around as I eyed it with a sense of relief, I realized he dyed my back hair only blond. Its color was very uneven. Shiota gave me vulgar rough. I was about to cry. How am I supposed to get home?Kuwano said; “You looks so cool, I’ll introduce you to beautiful girls, who would love you.” They burst out laughing.

“Give me my money back,” I said. “The dye bottle empty, because of you,” he said. “This was very expensive.” Shiota and Murai was chuckling. I was convinced the money would not return to me. I did think they always humiliated me. I had been foolish enough to try to get along with them. After all, Shiota handed me a towel to cover around my head.

Shiota and I were on our way home from Murai’s house. “Kuwata is such a jerk. I haven’t got my money back from him either. That’s who he is,”he said. I remained quiet, thinking he might take his side. “You should blacken it immediately,” he said. I nodded like I understood. “I’ll get it right away for you.” He would be able to get it easily. Shoplifting. I thought. “No. Anyway, I go home … Then, I’ll buy it myself,” I said and changed the subject. “Do you keep practicing piano? You are talented.” He looked away from me, saying: “See you.”

The next morning I did not get up out of my bed. After eating lunch at home, I could barely work up the energy to go to school. It was also common for me to attend from afternoon classes. When I enter the classroom with my school bag during lunch hour, my classmates would pretend not to see me while  I feel lonely. At any rate, I would be told to repeat a year because of the lack of my attendance days. 

It was the fifth period ethics class. From my seat in the corner of the classroom, I looked out through the glass window. It was raining outside. I was occupied with yesterday’s nightmare. The drops of rain scattered down and the dew on the leaves in the darkness was akin to tears. 

Murai never visited me. I wondered if he felt guilty. A week later, Okada, who went to the same stupid school as Kuwata and Shiota, came to my house for the first time. I felt something odd. When we were ninth grade, for some reason, he had refused to go to school; I called him from time to time, only to talk his mother. Now he was standing in front of me. He had reddish hair with a earring in his left lobe.

“Lets’ hang out,” he said. “Everyone is waiting for you in the park(at that time, some parks were hangouts for juvenile delinquents).” “Sorry, I didn’t feel like doing that. Maybe some other time.”I said, and just as I closed the door, he jerked its knob by the hand. “Come. Come out.” “No,” I tried to close it, but he kept doing. “Please. You won’t stay so long there. Come.” I reluctantly went out. I thought this was the last time I would see them, so I made up my mind to go there. “I know what you mean,” I said. “We’ll compensate you for something,” he said soberly.

In front of my house is the park. We were ascending the stairway to it. I was reminded of going to school with him singing the popular songs–WANDS,T-BOLAN, and B’z–when we were seventh grade. We were long distance runners. After running under summer sun, we once enjoyed swimming.

In the darkness they had smoked their cigarettes. Leaning around the pull-up bars were Shiota and Abe. By them Murai was standing. Okada, whose cigarette was burning in his holder, and I walked over them. Suddenly, Shiota hit me, followed by Okada. I tried to run away. “Where are you going?”Abe jump-kicked me, Murai laughing and laughing. Shiota hit me again and again, banging the back of my head against the ground. I could see stars both in the sky and in my head. I did not get up until they were finished. 

I staggered dizzily home from the park. After a couple of hours the telephone rang in the dining room. I went to answer it.“I’m really sorry … sorry … sorry … so sorry … Forgive me …”the voice was Okada.

Suddenly accepting the fact I am probably considered a low rank boy, it was hard thing. Ever since that day, I had not spoken to anyone. Sensing the atmosphere, I shrank back.

In my class were no jocks or no queen bees. This is a private school, where you study hard to go to an excellent University. While a handful of students belong club activities like soccer, most go home or the prep schools after school. It dawned on me I had never been in the high rank, where the explicit, straight talkers dominate a class. It was just that I was in the “popular group” that was little less than second rank whose boys play dirty pool as ignoring one. I came to miss my classmates in Junior high school, where the cool boys, popular with the girls, are assertive.

At recess I was left completely alone. I put my face down on my desk to pretend to sleep. During lunch, I hung back and kept to myself and could observe how they all blended, clustering into their cliques and groups. The “popular group” I had been in made a circle. Their true colors of the group were all different, and there was no one who took the lead, like what he says goes. Of the three prospective boys, one was popular but calm, another outgoing but so mean, and the third very good-looking but a video geek–something was not right. In any case, it was too painful for a boy to be isolated in the class. Ever since that day, I had tried to find my niche.

After lunch, I could play basketball with some classmates, that was it. Then recess come between classes. I could talk to a few boys who would not ignore me out of sympathy, however they never talked to me. I could stand by the geeks talking about their nasty fetishes that grossed me out, about video games I was not interested in, and about fashion despite their unfashionable hair styles with awful glasses.

However, in my high school days, I had almost picked this circle, where I was welcome there. I walk over to them. The mood is convivial. They fool around like schoolchildren do. I cringe off, never wanting to be a part of them. Then I push myself to move seamlessly in the low rank, without overstaying. 

Autumn was coming. I did not too particularly care about studying; rather, I would have wanted friends. My only two middle school friends were busy studying, so I remembered Murai who lived in my neighborhood. Although I had got along with him for long, I wondered if he was my friend, because when I was hospitalized with a pneumothorax–which caused me a failure of the high school entrance exam–he did not visited me in the hospital.

I gave a call to visit him. Then I started spending many of my after-school in his house. He was introverted but somehow sociable, so he has friends, including bad boys. His house was a place the punks hung out. I had fun because I did not know their world–smoking, singing karaoke, talking about the pretty girls and riding scooters without a helmet(illegal).

One of them, Kuwata, a jock who is highly popular with girls who long for him to see, got me to talk with a girl on his cell phone. I was a nervous wreck and asked her a question, “What are you studying in your school? For example, math A or I.” “Sure,” she said. Kuwata whispered next to me, “You are stupid. Why would you ask her such a boring question? Say something more interesting.” It occurred to me the students in my school shared common trait: most of them had study-based conversation. He was absolutely right. They went to low rank high school, where the stupid boys and girls go. I was so inept in getting on in the world.

They enjoyed life more than the students who go on to University. On the weekends the school is closed, Kuwata dyes his black hair–especially blond–like the punks express themselves against society. He gets up in the early morning to play soccer and then goes to McDonald’s, where he hangs out with the wrong crowd, laughing and joking. Sunday afternoon, Kuwata, Murai, someone else, and me enjoy karaoke, during which Kuwata’s pager ring ceaselessly. You can see some girls appearing in front of him and disappearing together. However, I pick up the tab for him from time to time, anticipating he will not return the money.

I had estranged from studying and felt out of place in my school. Following Kuwata where he goes seemed to ease the pain of my being alone. He was a smooth-talker, hyperactive and really good-looking. Thanks to him, I was able to befriend a girl who was very easy to talk. Encountering so many punks around him was eye-opening.

After school, basically Murai visits me and we head to his house. While we hang out, Kuwata emerges out of nowhere, but his PHS and pager ring incessantly, and the next thing I know he was gone. At times he brought a few delinquent boys in Murai’s house or mine and made fun of me.

Among them was Abe, who was very good at playing guitar. He had wavy, bluish hair. When we were eighth grade, he talked enthusiastically about Western music, especially Deep Purple, Sex Pistols and MR.BIG—I was much interested in his familiarity with them.

One day, when we were in Murai’s house, out of the blue, Kuwata said: “I’ll make a man out of you. Let’s do katapan.”(The character kata means “shoulder,” pan does “punch.” One punches the other in the upper arm around the shoulder. The other have to show his strength by enduring. This is repeated to one another until either of you surrenders.) “You are strong … I don’t want to …” I was scared, knowing he would not go easy on me.“Everyone is doing. An everyday occurrence. My fellows turned blue, swelled,” he laughed quietly. “If you are a man, you must do. You understand?” he teased me.

He hit me. Murai guffawed when I swatted at his thick, clenched fist. “No. It really hurts. You got me.” I laughed a little, as if I joked around. “Come on,” he said. I was afraid he would blow up, so I punched him lightly. “Be serious.” Kuwata said matter-of-factly and hit me again, Murai laughing and laughing.

When I entered high school, the two freaky students floated. One dropped out of school after the school camp in April. He sort of stood out; stating messages clearly and lacking the ability to read between the lines. Not saying something directly is a core part of Japanese culture. Every time he uttered some words, the others had virtually fallen silent, with several jaws hanging slightly agape.

The other was an introvert, who spoke little retreating into a shell. On top of all that, he had a strong body odor. When the boys walked by him, one sniffed the air and pinched his nose, grinning, Before physical education class, you have to do change into your gym uniform in the jam-packed locker rooms. As he had his clothes off, the boys covered their noses and mouthes, making comments about him being smelly. And then one day, I happened to see him weeping alone in the locker room. “What’s wrong?” I asked in a small voice. He said nothing and left the room. During lunch and recess, he hung back and kept to himself, and he concluded that he was chronically absent from school.

I suppose the freaky boys were very sensitive and felt alienated from the class, where a sense of comradeship began to grow. Unfortunately both of them could hardly contain or express themselves. As a result, they quickly ran into problem. They were shunned in the class where in less than a month the hierarchy would be determined by simply conversational skill―or the lack of it.

Unlike the students of the highest rank casually talk with anyone, the serious student―such as a boy belongs to a student council―often talked to the teachers. He was the the kind of boy who even in his shirt buttoned all the way to the top and tucked into his pants. He was quite a bore who snitched to the teacher on the boys who did not follow the rules of the school; isolated, he subsequently transferred to another school. 

With a twinge of guilt, I had felt relieved those had not been me. However, I had fantasized about the student life in the higher rank earlier that month. I was not appealing when I was a junior high school student. I was a nerdy studious boy with only two friends who talked about nothing but study. Of course I was in the low rank, so I was going to change myself dramatically in my high school, where nobody know me.

In the beginning, I worried about student’s perception of me studying hard in my junior high school. I wanted to avoid the label like a nerd. In whispers: Outcasts, The introverts. The others. “Studying is the only thing you’re good at,” equipped a girl, the former classmate. Her words has been echoing in my mind ever since she said that.

Apart from that, I hated the rules of the school: no dyed hair, no perms and no piercings. Interested in fashion, I had wore a fluorescent colored T-shirt beneath my high school uniform―the way the cool boys of the high rank do―so that you caught a glimpse of my neckline. And then I pretend to be indifferent to studying lest I was defined as a nerd. Actually, I had studied a little, but at the same time getting bad grade seemed very cool. I had never seen a boy who was good at studying dating a good-looking girl.

I felt especially strange, as if I was the other. In the first month, I was pleasing to the girls in my grade and the next thing I knew I was in an influential group of several boys, with whom I enjoyed taking some Purikura(you pose with your friends on a photo booth that dispenses very small photo stickers), which was swapped with the hot girls whose notebooks were full with its stickers. Girls approached me everyday. I was elated. 

The members of that group were from the high rank. Maybe I was the only person from the low one. Beyond my ability, I could not have caught up with the things around me, learning how they blended. I was shy, so there was an awkward moment whenever I talked with him alone with fear that my true colors might expose. Can you imagine a studious boy in a corner of a classroom surrounded by the extroverts?

A month later, I was standing by myself in the back of the classroom during recess, watching the others laughing and talking. In this morning, when I was about to join the group saying “Hey, dude,” the silence dropped, no one paid attention to me, and no one spoke to me. I was very sensitive to my feeling that things might never really change. I knew that an amorous boy, who confined himself to pleasing girls, did not like it that I was popular with the girls. Perhaps he would had spread bad rumors about me. He had a way with words, which brought home to me the reality that I was not the kind of person in the high rank. I found myself disappearing into aloneness as though the tide ebbed away.