It was the winter of my first year in university. Working a part-time job selling roasted chestnuts at the train station, I would hum to myself, mutter "throwaway, throwaway" whenever I found a cracked chestnut, and repeatedly pop them into my mouth while squatting down. Roasted chestnuts have a season. From autumn into winter, when new chestnuts arrive from China, the flavor shifts dramatically, and the sweetness becomes intensely rich. This is delicious. Truly delicious. Since I also worked the job of roasting the chestnuts behind the station, under the pretext of discarding cracked ones with popped shells that had mixed with the black stones, I ate them by the handfuls under the tent where no one could see. Yet, despite eating that much, there was no sign of me gaining weight. Part of it was because it was a standing job, but I believe the main factor was bowel movements. Whether the dietary fiber in the chestnuts caused it, anyway, my digestion was remarkably smooth. In the middle of this blessed chestnut lifestyle part-time job, I spotted someone I knew walking past the sales booth. It was a net acquaintance who loved the occult, going by the handle Kyosuke. "Heading home from work?" I called out, and she noticed and turned around. She was wearing a duffel coat and a red scarf. Despite the masculine handle Kyosuke, she was undeniably a woman, so she was bound to love things like roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes. "These are the new chestnuts, you know," I said with a smile, and wouldn't you know it, she sauntered right over. Heh heh heh. Not that I had any intention of making her buy them. Recently, every time I went over to hang out at Kyosuke’s place, I had been carrying out a prank where I would nudge the scale needle in the washroom forward just a tiny bit, and I had just been chewed out and blasted for it. During that time, having noticed how she seemed to grow somewhat gaunt every time we met, I learned that she cared quite a bit about her weight. Therefore, I thought I would share some chestnuts with her as an apology. However, since the merchandise was strictly managed by delivery volume, giving away a large amount to someone would get me caught. "Got a bit of time? I'm getting off work soon." Perhaps reading my intent through a glance, Kyosuke nodded obediently and began browsing a nearby event stall. About ten minutes later, my shift ended. As I was packing up the shop and having a JR employee check the sales, I heard Kyosuke’s voice shout "Matsuo-sensei!" right in front of me. She must have spotted a familiar face among the people about to pass through the ticket gates. Her voice, usually so detached, carried an unexpectedly dancing rhythm, which felt quite surprising. She seemed to have started a casual conversation right there with the person she called "Sensei," but I had to go see the manager. As I walked away, I couldn't help finding it strange that a former delinquent girl like Kyosuke was chatting so familiarly with a school teacher. Did that mean even friction turned into nostalgic memories after graduation? After giving my report to the manager, I mentioned I wanted to give some new chestnuts to someone who takes care of me, and he stuffed a large bag full for me. Of course, it was free. He might have been a small man in appearance, but he was quite generous. When I returned to the station basement carrying them, Kyosuke was just waving goodbye to "Sensei" as he passed through the ticket gates. "Here are the chestnuts. There were some leftovers, so please take them." As she took them with a "Thanks," she kept staring toward the ticket gates. I, too, watched his retreating figure vanish into the wave of people. "Middle school or high school teacher?" "Ah. My homeroom teacher from high school. Matsuo-sensei. Though we called him Xavier." Kyosuke narrowed her eyes nostalgically. "It's been a while, but he hasn't changed at all." Kyosuke should have been constantly skipping high school classes and the like, so her homeroom teacher back then surely must have clashed with her no matter how you looked at it. When I asked, it turned out that Xavier indeed used to be an enemy of her school life and often yelled at her. Perhaps growing increasingly angry as she remembered those days, she crossed her arms with a bitter expression. The bag of roasted chestnuts dangling from her hand rustled loudly. "Xavier is an interesting nickname." When I said that, Kyosuke softened her expression with a gentle "Hmph" and opened her mouth. And then, she began to speak slowly, as if spinning memories.
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This is the story I heard from Kyosuke.
Cherry blossoms were in bloom. The sensation of the soil underfoot. The soft resilience felt through the soles of my feet felt like an announcement that the frozen winter had finally departed. There was an alley of trees along the river near my house, and though I never usually paid attention to what kind of trees they were, on a certain day when the chill had faded and something soft passed through the blowing wind, I noticed white flowers blooming at the tips of the branches. Standing and looking up at them brought about an indescribable feeling. Why are cherry blossoms the only ones that are special? Is it because they are flowers that bloom during spring—a turning point of partings and encounters, endings and beginnings? Is it because they have a faint color, like a few drops of blood mixed into white, that makes those who look at them feel unsettled? I hate the cold. If I have to choose, I’d rather it be hot. The chill felt around November always feels like a death sentence, an inescapable daily increase in coldness, leaving me with a hopeless feeling. Yet, in reality, it wasn't a death sentence, but rather a prison sentence, and the day for that sentence to finally be served had arrived. Of course, even if the texture of the air had changed, today's cold was still hard for me to bear. Even so, just the fact that the cherry blossoms were blooming made me feel like I could forgive everything and keep living.
It was right after I graduated junior high and just entered a local all-girls high school. Only the uniform I wore had changed, and the contents inside should have remained completely the same, yet what was demanded of me by those around me had changed drastically. I heard nagging from my parents more often—"You're a high schooler now, so get your act together"—and the school told me to possess something hard to understand called "the self-awareness of a high schooler." How trivial. While I thought that, I'm sure there was also a definite awareness within me that wanted to change something about myself. Using becoming a high schooler as an opportunity, I secretly vowed to myself to reduce the number of cigarettes I smoked. Even when I promptly found a secluded, perfect spot behind the school building, I kept my count modest. I felt good. I made a friend. Yoko was an energetic girl who talked a lot. The truth of the matter was that I was being pushed around by her boundless energy and initiative, but it wasn't a bad feeling. And so, one day when my days as a high schooler had begun to slowly progress, right as I left the school gates on my way home, I heard loud, teasing voices and involuntarily raised my head. "Ah~ Xavier is walking with this one~" A pair of female students standing right beside me pointed and cheered mockingly. They seemed to be upperclassmen. Looking in the direction of their gaze, a familiar bald head came into view. "Don't go saying teasing things to a teacher." Ranting like that, the bald head angrily started coming our way. The pair didn't seem particularly flustered as they deliberately called out a "Kyaa!" and fled back toward the school building. After muttering a dismissive "Honestly, those kids," the bald head bowed obsequiously to the woman accompanying him. "Sorry about that, Noda-sensei." The woman smiled and said it was fine. Beauty and the Beast, I thought. They didn't match at all to an outsider's eye, and indeed, it looked like he wasn't being taken seriously by her. Didn't he realize that such a servile attitude would have the opposite effect? Thinking of the heartbreak that would likely not be far off, I felt a little sorry for him.
Xavier was my homeroom teacher. Of course, it was a nickname, but this custom of "teacher nicknames" seemed to be handed down from seniors to juniors across generations. Once assigned to that school, the nickname given at the start apparently stuck with them forever. Xavier had been Xavier from the very beginning. Classmates who heard club seniors call him that spread it, and by the third day, it was completely established in the class. Xavier himself knew he was called that, and perhaps out of resignation, he didn't seem to care enough to crack down on it unless someone called him that right to his face. I had a bit of a grudge against this Xavier. On the very first Saturday of high school, Yoko and I were wandering around the downtown area when we were suddenly called out from behind. Turning around, there was Xavier, starting up some useless lectures like, "Don't just wander around in a place like this," and "There are many temptations in the city." Even though he wasn't in charge of student guidance, why did he treat a plainclothes student he happened to meet in the city as public enemy number one? It wasn't like I was up to any mischief. At least, not according to my own sense of right and wrong. If anything, I couldn't help but suspect that he had something shady going on himself and was just trying to cover up his embarrassment. Not only did I suspect it, but Yoko actually voiced it out loud, which made the lecture go on even longer. Because of things like that, Xavier was my enemy. I also had to be extremely careful when smoking at school. However, as I found out later, Xavier wasn't just coincidentally in the city; he apparently always walked around patrolling the downtown area. Even though it wasn't his assigned duty, his truly wonderful awareness as a teacher and initiative to proactively prevent student delinquency in advance. This kind of one-sided goodwill is the most annoying kind. Once, when I was coming out of a hotel on a weekday, I ran into him and almost had a heart attack. I spotted him first and immediately hid, managing to avoid a crisis, but to stake out even a place like that—he truly was a relentless "teach."
My school was located in the middle of the city, and a single homeless person lived in a nearby park. Everyone called him Hiro-san. He lived by setting up a stronghold with cardboard boxes in the very corner of the park, which was scattered with just a few playground equipment. Whenever I took the route through the city on my way to and from school, I would always pass in front of that park. At first, the very existence of someone living like that was rare, so I stared intently at him, but eventually, I became drawn to Hiro-san's character. The urban homeless people seen on television built their own world and territory, forming an invisible wall between themselves and society outside of them. I didn't know which side built that wall, but they were wary of anything crossing it, and if unnecessary, they regarded the world beyond that wall as "non-existent," refusing to even cast a glance. At least, that was how it felt to me. However, this Hiro-san always greeted the people passing by the park. In a cheerful voice, "Good morning." When he first spoke to me, the guilt of staring so closely at someone's living space made me unable to reply. Yet, I immediately understood that there was no sarcasm or malice on Hiro-san's part. He was always smiling, and seeing his face with those missing front teeth made me laugh along in spite of myself. However, since that "Good morning" greeting never changed whether it was day or night, I thought, "Huh?" And once I realized it and looked through that filter, it made sense. Hiro-san had an intellectual disability. Perhaps because he was only used to saying "Good morning," he spoke it fluently, but whenever he tried to say other words, he stammered terribly. Was it a stutter? When others occasionally spoke to him, he would just say "Uh-huh, uh-huh" and smile, making it hard to tell how much he actually understood. Unlike in big cities, there shouldn't have been any day-labor jobs or soup kitchens targeting such people. I had seen him walking around picking up empty cans, but could he really survive on just that? I had seen him eating ready-made bento boxes, so maybe he was given leftovers from nearby convenience stores or supermarkets. However, the real reason I was drawn to this strange resident of the park—who miraculously never seemed to be chased away—was his right hand. Hiro-san always kept his right palm clenched. Rather than making a fist, it looked like he was tightly holding onto something. At first, I just wondered what he was holding, but eventually, I noticed he held it the exact same way no matter when I saw him. Whether he was greeting people with "Good morning," walking around picking up empty cans, eating a bento box, or washing his face at the park's water fountain, his right hand was always clenched into a fist. Since he couldn't use his fingers or palm at all, his right hand was practically useless. He only used it to steady things when doing something with his left hand. When he was trying to stuff things he picked up into a tattered cloth bag, he struggled because he couldn't use his right hand, and watching him made me feel impatient. Influenced by the image from a biography of Hideyo Noguchi I read long ago, I wondered if his fingers were stuck together and unable to heal due to a burn or something, but judging by the healthy color of his skin, that didn't seem to be the case at all. "Oh, I know about that." It was Yoko who told me the truth. "My mom is also a graduate of this school, and apparently he was there even back then." The story she heard from her mother went like this. A long time ago, Hiro-san caught a fairy of happiness. With that right hand. If he opened his palm, the fairy would escape, so he always kept his right hand clenched so it wouldn't get away. Morning, noon, night, when he was awake, and when he was sleeping, always, at all times. "That's what she said. No, it's not just a rumor; my mom actually heard him say it himself." A fairy of happiness? Hearing that, I felt a pain as if a needle had pierced somewhere in my heart. Was Hiro-san keeping his hand clenched the whole time so as not to let that fairy of happiness escape? Because of that, he surely couldn't work anymore. Even while living as a homeless person, there must have been endless inconveniences. Could that possibly be a happy life? "He's an idiot, a total idiot. But it's romantic, isn't it? A homeless man who caught the fairy of happiness!" Yoko held her hand up to the sky, making a gesture as if trying to grab the sun. I was reminded of a short-short by Shinichi Hoshi I had read before. It was a story about a man who finds an unknown key and spends his life searching for the door that key can open. Dreaming of what lies beyond that yet-unseen door. Without finding the door, he finally grows old and eventually creates the door to fit that key with his own hands. And from the opened door appears a goddess, saying she will grant his wish. He replies, "An old man needs only memories. And those I have." Did it mean that the very life he lived, dreaming of someday opening the door with that key, was precious beyond compare to anything else? I suppose it's a touching story. But what about in Hiro-san's case? I remembered seeing Hiro-san spilling a large pile of magazines he had collected onto the roadside, bending his small body to pick them up one by one clumsily with only his left hand, and it made me feel a little sad.
April had passed its midpoint. The classmates, who had been stiff at first in the new group living environment, seemed to be gradually warming up to each other. Of course, that had nothing to do with me. As long as I had one friend I could confide in, that was enough. Unlike me, Yoko was plenty sociable and was casually chatting even with girls from the polished group who looked like they would become the center of the class moving forward. Perhaps seeing through my personality, however, she didn't forcibly try to drag me into that group, but instead came over to me alone after school saying, "Let's walk home together." You don't have to change. It felt as if she was saying that to me. While listening comfortably to Yoko’s one-sided chatter as we walked side by side, I wondered if I could ever change myself.
On a day when Yoko went home early saying, "I have things to take care of today," I was walking home from school alone. As I passed in front of the park, I heard the voices of several men. A few male students wearing the uniforms of another school were loitering inside the park, raising vulgar laughs. They were the kind of guys you occasionally saw hanging out around here. Probably a delinquent group. Their hair? Flashy t-shirts? Piercings? As if they had coordinated it, every single one of them was violating some school rule. Roaming near our all-girls school was likely because they wanted to add some impure heterosexual association to the mix, and indeed, I had seen girls who seemed to be students from our school mixed in with them on several occasions. They were all smoking together. How cozy. I smoked cigarettes too, but I didn't want anyone disturbing that time. In short, for them, the act of smoking wasn't an objective in itself, but rather an initiation to form a group and maintain it. Anyway, it had nothing to do with me. That time, too, I was about to walk past with just a sideways glance. However, catching sight of them trying to drag Hiro-san out of his cardboard house deep in the park made me stop in my tracks involuntarily. "Senior, senior. Please teach us a bit about life," they teased, kicking Hiro-san's house. Hiro-san moaned "Ooh, ooh" and made gestures as if pressing his hands together to beg for forgiveness, but his right hand remained clenched into a fist as usual, making his posture look bizarre. Seeing that, they cheered and made fun of him all over again. "Hey, old man. What is that?" "Is that a pre-match stance?" "Shaolinji, isn't that Shaolinji?" "Awesome. He's totally up for it." Then one of them poked Hiro-san. A low-brow cheer of "Whoa!" went up. I stepped into the park. "Hey. Cut it out." The delinquents all looked at me. "Huh?" One of them jutted his face forward and took a step. Easily the most dim-witted-looking of the bunch. Crap. Why did I stick my nose into this? I instinctively looked around, but there was nothing that could serve as a weapon. If I just had a stick, I could handle three or four guys... I was already starting to regret it. Uttering something vulgar, the man brought his face close. I was so tense that the meaning didn't register in my head. What would Yoko do at a time like this? The thought suddenly crossed my mind. She would surely scream out loud, "Groping! It's a groper!" and wave her hands to ask for help from someone peeking out of a nearby house. Impossible. Not for me. Just as I reached that useless conclusion, the men in front of me spat on the ground with silly grins and walked past me. Saved. Feeling relieved, strength drained from my knees. It seemed they had just walked out of the park. Was it a good thing I hadn't foolishly talked back? I couldn't really remember what was said to me. Right, what about Hiro-san? Looking ahead, he was bending his small body to pick up a pot, one of the few pieces of furniture that had been kicked into the bushes. "Are you okay?" "Uh-huh, uh-huh." He turned to my words and nodded with an embarrassed smile. Every time I passed by the park, he would greet me with a "Good morning," but did he actually remember me? I sat down on a nearby bench and pulled a cigarette from my pocket. "Hiro-san, smoke?" At my offer, he widened his eyes and waved his left hand left and right. Turns out he didn't smoke at all. With my arbitrary assumption, I had thought that for homeless people, cigarettes and alcohol were their only reason for living. Watching Hiro-san's small back as he started washing the pot at the park's water fountain, I lit the cigarette held between my lips.
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