‘Stop messing around!’
But all he was doing was giving them their presents. The thought made him want to cry.
His mother had a serious look in her eyes. ‘Change your clothes, we’re going over to Satoru’s.’
‘Satoru had to leave early. Has something happened?’
His mother looked down, searching for how to put it, but his father didn’t mince his words.
‘Satoru’s parents passed away.’
Passed away. The words didn’t register, and Kosuke stood there blankly.
‘They died!’ his father grunted.
The moment Kosuke understood, the tears started to flow. It was as if a dam had broken.
‘Stop your blubbering,’ his father said, poking him again, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Satoru – Satoru, Satoru … My god …
Kosuke had gone over to Satoru’s just the day before they had left for their school trip. He had been playing with Hachi and Satoru’s mother had said, ‘You have to get up early tomorrow for your school trip, so you’d better be getting home soon. You’re welcome to play with Hachi any time.’ Kosuke suddenly fell silent.
‘It was a car accident. They swerved to avoid a bicycle that came out of nowhere …’
They missed the bike, but the two of them didn’t make it.
‘Today’s the wake, so we should go.’
Kosuke changed into the clothes his mother had laid out for him and the three of them set off. Just as they reached the bottom of the slope leading to the housing complex, Kosuke realized he’d forgotten something.
‘You can get it later!’
He stood up to his father, telling them they could go on ahead, and finally managed to persuade him to give him the house key.
‘What an idiot!’ he heard his father mutter as he trotted on.
The wake was being held at the local community centre.
A couple of women dressed in black scurried around, and Satoru sat vacantly in front of the two coffins at the altar.
‘Satoru!’ Kosuke called out.
‘Um,’ Satoru said, nodding. It was as if his mind was elsewhere. Kosuke had no idea what to say.
‘Here you go.’
Kosuke pulled out a thin paper packet from his pocket. The present he’d run back to fetch when his father had called him an idiot.
‘The blotting paper your mother wanted. It’s Yojiya.’ Satoru burst into tears; he dropped his head while his small body shook with his sobbing. It was only later, when Kosuke had grown up, that he understood the full meaning of the word ‘lament’.
A young woman came over quickly and huddled over him. She spoke in Satoru’s ear, and from the way she was rubbing his back to comfort him, she seemed to know him well.
‘Are you a friend of Satoru’s?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I am,’ Kosuke replied, standing up straight.
‘Would you take him home so he can have a rest? This is the first time he’s cried since he got back.’
Kosuke said he would.
The woman’s eyes, puffy from crying herself, broke into a smile.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Throughout the funeral, Satoru had sat rigidly next to the young woman. There were other people there who were apparently relatives, but they didn’t seem so close to him.
Satoru’s classmates had gone, too, to light incense and pray. All the girls sobbed, but Satoru had greeted them without shedding any tears himself.
Kosuke was impressed by how Satoru had held up. But, at the same time, it felt as if his friend had drifted away somehow and wasn’t really there. If Kosuke were in Satoru’s place, if his father – the one who had called him an idiot – and his mother had passed away at the same time, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it together like that.
Kosuke took Satoru by the hand and led him home. On the way, Satoru’s words were broken up by tears.
‘The good-luck charm for my father came too late. And I didn’t get a present for Mum … Thank you for buying it …’
Only Kosuke could have worked out what he was saying, so incoherent with sobs were his words.
When they got to Satoru’s house, Hachi was waiting on that day’s newspaper near the front door. He seemed unfazed by Satoru crying like an animal and padded towards the living room as if guiding them. When Satoru collapsed on the sofa, Hachi jumped up on his lap and licked Satoru’s hand over and over.
When they’d found Hachi he’d been only a kitten, but now he seemed more grown up than Satoru.
After the funeral, Satoru didn’t come back to school. Every day, Kosuke would take homework over to his house, and they would play silently with Hachi for a while, then Kosuke would go home.
The young woman stayed at Satoru’s house the entire time. It turned out she was Satoru’s aunt – his mother’s younger sister.
Is he going to live with her here? Kosuke wondered; he would drop in on Satoru even on days when there was no homework to deliver. His aunt knew his name, greeting him with a ‘Hello, Kosuke,’ whenever he came by. But she was quieter than Satoru’s gregarious mother and the house now felt strange to him.
‘I’m going to move,’ Satoru said one day.
The aunt was going to be Satoru’s guardian, but she lived a long way away.
Ever since Satoru hadn’t come back to school, Kosuke had had an inkling that this might happen, but when it did it felt as if a hole had opened up in his heart.
He knew that whining about it wasn’t going to change anything. He stroked Hachi as he lay curled up on Satoru’s lap, without saying a word. Today, too, Hachi was gently licking Satoru’s hand.
‘But Hachi will go with you, won’t he?’
That way, Satoru wouldn’t be so lonely.
But Satoru shook his head.
‘I can’t take Hachi with me. My aunt moves around a lot with work.’
And Satoru, too, looked like he knew that whining about it wasn’t going to change anything. But that’s just too much to bear, Kosuke thought.
‘What’ll happen to him?’
‘Some other relatives say they’ll take him.’
‘Do you know them well?’
Satoru shook his head. This made Kosuke angry. How could Hachi be taken in by people Satoru didn’t even know?
‘I’ll … I’ll ask if we can have Hachi at our place!’
Hachi had been looked after by Kosuke half the time anyway. If Kosuke could take care of Hachi, then Satoru could come to his place to see him.
Even his father had shown an interest in Hachi whenever he visited.
But his father’s view hadn’t changed a bit. ‘No way! A cat? Are you kidding?’
‘But Satoru’s mum and dad are dead! And now, if Hachi has to stay with people he doesn’t even know, think how sad he’ll feel!’
‘He knows them. They’re relatives.’
‘Satoru said he doesn’t know them!’
Distant relatives you hardly ever see are, to a child, like total strangers. Friends are much closer. Why don’t adults understand that?
‘In any case, it wouldn’t work. Cats live ten, twenty years sometimes! Do you want to take responsibility for it your entire life?’
‘Yes!’
‘That’s pretty cheeky for someone who’s never earned a penny in his life.’