Sugar and Pepper (18)

[kanu_x]

Edited: 2012.12.01

SEVENTEEN

* EIGHTEEN *

01.

Satoshi's cell phone rang.

Splayed on his back on the veranda once again, Jun flipped open the phone and read the new message from Sakurai Sho asking to hang out that Sunday. "If you're lucky, he'll see this in time," Jun muttered, snapping the phone shut.

He turned on his side and drew in his legs. He looked from the veranda into the back garden and remembered Satoshi in a similar position the night Jun had found him outside. Jun wondered how lonely Satoshi had felt at that time.

The home phone rang, breaking the silence of the empty house behind him.

Jun lay in place and allowed it to ring. His mother would call his cell phone if no one picked up, and he would lie that he was not home, that Satoshi had probably gone out too. He knew his lie would only last one more day and night until their return, but it was enough time for Satoshi to come home.

02.

For the third time, Jun went through Satoshi's sketchbook that lay closed and forgotten by its owner on the kitchen counter.

Still life images and imaginary characters popped out of the pages. Most drawings were black and white, rubbed smooth or meticulously shaded. Some were inked in pen. A few were colored with various utensils, from colored pencils to markers to oil pastels. Each had a story of its own.

He knew as he looked at each one over again that Satoshi saw things he couldn't see.

Jun took the sketchbook up to their room and returned it to its original place beside his books on his desk. Satoshi would find it there once he came home, if he came home.

03.

He had decided in the beginning that he wouldn't call the police. Not until his parents came home and asked him why. And he would tell them he had been waiting for Satoshi. He had no reason to call.

Jun continued to hope and waited. Even when night fell on the last night before their parents' return.

He slept on the veranda again, though the muscles in his back had grown stiff from the hard floor in the past few days.

With all the doors and windows unlocked, all the lights off, with no one but him in the house, he lay in the darkness broken by the moonlight and distant glow of the streetlights. He listened to the insects. He held his own breath. And he wondered how different his tomorrow would be when his hope was gone.

It was possible, he thought, to be lonely with his parents back, to be lonely even with his friends, to be lonely because Satoshi wouldn't return because of what he had done.

Jun rubbed his throbbing, injured wrist, and waited for sleep to come.

04.

In his dream, he played catch with his friends in their usual empty lot.

"Let's go to the batting center later," one of them said. "I swear, I'm going to beat Sai's record today."

"We're so boring!" another complained. "Let's go to the movies!"

"Jun?" his friends asked and waited for his opinion.

Jun stood still and stared at them, and he sought for an answer as he gripped his mitt. It came to him in a flash, and he embraced it in relief. "No," he said. "I have a date with Miyuki."

"Why?" his friends asked.

Miyuki stood next to Jun by the river. All of them stood by the river, as if they had not been playing catch a minute ago.

"Because," Jun started, but he couldn't explain. How was he supposed to say that this was supposed to be right, that he was supposed to feel this way. He turned to Miyuki at his side to ask for her help, but when he saw Miyuki next to him, he felt that it wasn't really her at his side, although it was her.

"I like you!" Miyuki blurted, stepping back from him so she wouldn't touch him. "I will always like you!"

He was saved again. Jun turned back to his friends. "You see," he told them.

"You're lying," his friends accused. "You don't have a brother. You're secretly eating your second lunch box somewhere."

"Where would I put that stuff?" Jun indicated his size. "And I do have a brother." He looked passed his friends and saw no one. He couldn’t remember who was supposed to be there.

"He's not your brother," they said.

In his dream, Jun recalled his mother telling him about Satoshi's first visit. His mother told him he had been a bad boy, that he wouldn't play with Satoshi at all and would take his brother's things away.

"I've always cared for him," Jun said. "Because he is my brother."

"It's not the same thing," Miyuki told him, this time against him too. Again, she left a distance between them. "It's not the same."

Jun stepped away from her and his friends. They did not understand.

But then they did. He did.

He stared at them as they waited for his answer, and he realized why they hadn't believed him. It had never been that way from the start. Even now, it was not that way.

05.

Three years ago, after Mr. Matsumoto had left the kitchen, his mother spoke Jun's name and said nothing more.

Jun knew she was thinking, so he waited for her to finish her thoughts.

Finally, Mrs. Matsumoto said, "I'm going to make a lunch box for Satoshi too. Will you give it to him at school?"

Jun did not answer her for a while, even though he and she knew he could not refuse her request. But Jun did not want to. Satoshi was already a freshman in high school, and he was only a freshman in junior high. He did not want to go anywhere near the senior building, and he did not want to do anything he could be teased for. He could not understand why his mother had to go through that trouble and that he would have to bear the burden as well.

To his mother he promised as they both knew he would, "I'll try."

In the beginning, Satoshi did not matter to Jun, because it was them that said Satoshi was his brother.

06.

I know, Jun thought in his sleep. He already knew what he wanted. He did not need anyone to tell him.

The home phone rang and he opened his eyes to sunlight. He had slept in again. It was mid-morning.

Jun lay on the veranda, his entire body aching, and took a deep breath. His temples throbbed and he felt lightheaded. The phone continued to ring in the house behind him. He knew it was only his mother calling to inform him that they were close to home. If he didn't answer, she would assume he had slept in later than he had.

The ringing cut off.

Jun took another breath and closed his eyes against the rays of sunlight that was making him nauseous. In another five minutes, he would move, but not now. He was too tired, and his head hurt.

A cool hand touched his forehead. "I think Jun's sick," Satoshi said into the receiver.

Jun started and turned and saw his older brother crouched down beside him, speaking into the phone.

"Okay," Satoshi said in reply to his mother and placed down the phone.

You lie, Jun thought. Satoshi couldn’t be here. Jun realized he was still dreaming. He wondered how far his dream would go and reached out for Satoshi’s hand; solid, warm, but cooler than his own, and very real.

Satoshi stared down at him and mumbled in his usual way, “Jun, I think you’re sick.”

Jun couldn’t help it. He laughed and couldn’t stop, even though he might seem crazy. He’d prefer looking insane over breaking into tears. The pounding in his head worsened, but the throbbing didn’t matter. Jun clutched Satoshi’s hand and his other held his head.

Satoshi had come back.

* *

NINETEEN