Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

YOSHIMINE HAD TRANSFERRED into the junior high school in the spring of his second year.

‘This is Daigo Yoshimine, who will be joining us as your new classmate.’

The form teacher was a striking woman who’d won some Miss Something-or-other contest back in college, but Yoshimine had disliked her from the start.

When she explained to the class, in great detail, why he had moved to their school, she made it sound very close and intimate and oozed sympathy.

He had gritted his teeth and let her words wash over him, but what he couldn’t fend off was the timing.

‘Yoshimine-kun’s parents are busy with their jobs, so he’s transferred here and will be staying with his grandmother. We should all admire him, for enduring the loneliness of being away from his parents. I’d like you all to be friends with him.’

He understood then that her overly intimate manner was because she felt sorry for him. And, deep down, that disgusted him.

Even to an immature class of junior-high-school students with little worldly experience, it was crystal clear that this was the worst possible way to introduce a new student to his classmates.

‘Yoshimine-kun, why don’t you say a few words?’

Yoshimine turned to face the teacher. ‘Why did you tell everyone about my family like that without my permission? I never asked you to.’

A murmur rippled through the classroom. The teacher was taken aback, her smile faltering. ‘I – I thought it would help you settle in.’

‘No, in fact it makes me uncomfortable. I want people to be friends with me without my family being a part of it.’

‘I understand, but the thing is…’ the teacher mumbled. There was no way this was going to turn out well.

Yoshimine turned to face the other students.

‘Hi. I’m Daigo Yoshimine. There’s nothing special about my family, so I hope we can just get along like anybody else.’

A deathly hush descended on the classroom. Right from the start, he’d put them off.

As for his form teacher, she looked on the verge of tears.

‘Where do you want me to sit?’

Just then the bell went, signalling the end of form time, and the teacher left the classroom in a hurry.

‘Just sit down on any empty chair.’

It was Satoru who said this, pointing to some seats at the back.

First period was over, and while his other classmates eyed the new boy warily, keeping their distance, Satoru approached him without hesitation.

The next class was science. Yoshimine gathered his textbooks and left the classroom, with Satoru leading the way.

‘Listen.’ Something was bothering Yoshimine, and he had to ask. ‘Are you being nice to me just because of what the teacher said?’

‘Not at all,’ Satoru replied. ‘I thought it was all pretty childish. On both parts.’

‘You mean me, too?’

‘That teacher likes to be super-kind to kids who have issues going on at home. She doesn’t mean any harm by it.’

Something about the way he said this – the desire to be kind and mean no harm – made Yoshimine feel he had something in common with Satoru, a kind of connection.

‘Right after I entered this school, in freshman year, she did the same thing to me, so I get where you’re coming from. When I was in elementary school, my parents died in a car accident and now I live with my aunt. But that doesn’t mean I want to go out of my way to tell everybody in class about it.’

The circumstances Satoru had so casually mentioned were so much more serious than Yoshimine’s. So surely the teacher must have put on an even more annoying display of concern.

‘But you don’t need to complain about every little thing. Just take it as it comes, be grown-up about it.’

A little too philosophical, aren’t you, for a second-year junior high schooler? Yoshimine thought, but what Satoru said made sense, so he didn’t argue.

‘Still,’ Satoru said with a grin. ‘To tell you the truth, I felt good when you said that. Back when I started school, I wanted to say what you actually did say.’

Yoshimine changed the subject.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Satoru Miyawaki. Nice to meet you.’

He didn’t have to say anything like Let’s hang out , for by this time they were already friends.

From day one, Yoshimine hadn’t got on with his classmates or his form teacher, but being friends with Satoru made life at school go more smoothly.

Satoru had also apparently straightened things out with the teacher. Yoshimine had no idea how he had won her over, but one day she stopped him in the corridor and tearfully apologized.

‘I’m so sorry, Yoshimine-kun. I didn’t understand how badly you were feeling.’

Yoshimine felt as if some huge misunderstanding was about to occur, but it was too much trouble to explain things, so, following the advice to be grown-up about it, he ended the encounter with a quick ‘It’s okay.’

‘Don’t worry, Yoshimine-kun,’ his teacher added. ‘I won’t mention your family situation again.’

So it seemed there was still some major misunderstanding about his family situation, which only Satoru correctly grasped.

‘My parents,’ Yoshimine had explained to him, ‘both work really hard and love their jobs too much.’

His father was in R&D at a top electronics company, while his mother worked in foreign investment for a multinational trading company. They were hardly ever at home, and Yoshimine often went days without seeing them.

‘Since spring, they’ve both become even busier, and they can’t seem to find any time for their family. Including me.’

His parents had tried to offload responsibility for their son on to his older brother, and their preoccupation with work had quickly led to total neglect of the household.

‘So they decided to send me to live with my grandmother on my father’s side until things settled down.’

But he didn’t think it was a big deal, so he found it embarrassing when his teacher went all gushy over how sad he must be. Because there are lots of kids with much tougher backgrounds. Take Satoru, for instance.

‘Hey, Yoshimine.’ A classmate called out to him from the corridor, putting an end to their conversation. ‘You interested in joining the judo club?’

‘Nope.’

The classmate’s shoulders drooped in disappointment, though he didn’t stop trying, dangling the possibility of him being a regular on the team. ‘So – what do you say?’ he asked.

‘I say no thanks,’ Yoshimine replied.

With his sturdy build, he was continually being invited to join the school sports teams, but Yoshimine turned them all down.

‘Aren’t you into school clubs?’ Satoru asked.

‘I don’t like sports much,’ he replied. He certainly had an athletic physique, but he disliked games with too many rules.

‘What about other kinds of clubs?’

‘If there was a gardening club I might join.’

His grandmother’s family were farmers and he had always enjoyed digging in the soil. His grandfather had passed away a few years before, and his grandmother had only just been managing to keep the family plots going, so Yoshimine had been pitching in.

‘There’s a greenhouse in the corner of the school grounds. I wonder if anyone’s using it.’

The greenhouse had been on Yoshimine’s mind ever since he had transferred to the school.

‘I’ve never even thought about it. You interested?’ Satoru asked.

‘My grandmother’s crops are all outdoors. I’ve never worked in a greenhouse.’

‘You really are into farming, aren’t you?’

Yoshimine thought that was the end of the matter, but Satoru brought it up again later.