Meeting You Again

CHAPTER - 9

Dekisugi was confused, something he rarely was. He liked to think that he was a calm, collected, and decisive fellow, if so why, just why is his well-organized mind wreaking havoc now. This chaos slitting every inch of self-esteem he has accumulated over the years, crumbling his confidence down.

He fails to understand the reason behind his anger and to whom it is directed at, the reason he cares so much about the new kid and Nobi's relationship and despises it the very same.

WHY?

He has been asking the same question to himself every day, every night fuck all the time, every damn day that passes by.

Still no answer.

It cannot be that difficult, not harder than the math and physics problems he had been able to find the answer to, it is not that complex, he will figure the answer out, he has to.

Slinging his bag over his right shoulder he passes through streets and narrow alleyways to reach his cram school but stops in his tracks when he sees a comic-book store, his eyes looking for something particular as he searches through the shelves, he places his index finger at the top of the book spine of a red-colored book to pull it out from the shelve.

He smiles as he reads the name on the cover 'Goro Goro comic - Latest Edition'. He turned the book to look at the price on the backside, it was expensive but that didn't make his smile falter, not even a little bit as he juggled through his bag and withdrew a white envelope from it, and handed it to the cashier along with the book.

The dekisugi he knew he was, the dekisugi we knew he was, never showed any interest in comic books, nor was he interested now. Still, he bought it, he bought it with his two months' worth of pocket money. Wasn't he supposed to buy practice books for the upcoming exams?

But he never cared about all these things at all while buying it, there was only one thought swirling in his mind 'Nobita will like it'. Only that, that--that single thought made him do all this, he even forgot that he was on his way to the cram school, and he was late,a freaking 30 minutes late. Not that he remembered though.

That night instead of pulling an all-nighter to prepare for his test at cram school the next day he lay on bed, stared at the ceiling then put his left arm over his eyes to block the light. He was supposed to study but he wasn't, again something he rarely did. He was distracted, by what you may ask, the great dekisugi was not the one to lie idle on the bed and be distracted, what made him do that, he-himself is yet to figure it out but when he did---

He had known Nobita since forever, since childhood --since kindergarten, Not that Nobita paid him any attention then but he had, he had seen him getting pushed around but other kids in the playground, the washroom, the class, during lunch, the pool classes. They even tried to drown him once--he had seen it all.

He wanted to help, more than anyone else, he wasn't even hesitant. The little child wanted to throw all the bad-naughty kids- as he called them--into the gutter and leave them there for days to come, he wanted to hit them with his blue hammer and make them cry --even if the hammer was a toy--he wanted them to reflect and apologize to Nobita, but every time he'd get the courage to step up a voice would echo in his ears making him sit back down.

"Don't stick your nose anywhere little shit, you won't make it better just worse. You are a damn burden on earth and to everyone around you" 'glass shattering noise' "You are powerless and hateful, helping others will only make it worse" a gruff voice would say and he'd remember the events that transpired in the past.

'Powerless' he whispered to himself in a toothless tone, clenching his little fat hands.

Even before he could spell the word correctly, he understood the meaning of it as he saw the bad kids kicking Nobita almost every day. He was weak, a coward so he could only watch Nobita's suffering unfold in front of his eyes and listen to his crying which would break something in him, every time he had to listen to it.

Being the spectator that he was, he couldn't do much else than to be relieved when Shizuka would protect Nobita and yell at the kids angrily, she'd call for the teacher and comfort Nobita after the kids would leave. She was brave, 'bravery' was a quality of hers that he admired being the coward he was, he wished he had been the one to do what Shizuka had done, he wanted to be the one to protect Nobita and shoo the bad kids away, but he could only want and wish -right? as he was weak and powerless, as the voice had told him, as he believed that he was.

The act of the troublemakers pestering Nobita continued for a long time and as they grew up, their tricks and beating only got more brutal and violent.

During the Painting class dekisugi had gotten watercolors on his hands, taking the permission of the teacher in charge he went to the washroom, opening the tap he rubbed soap on his hands, and cleaned them closing the tap, he shook his hands to dry them as there was no towel in sight and was about to leave when he heard a faint whimper, followed by a sob and then crying started.

Something in his stomach started churning, twisting, and forming knots, and only grew bigger and wider like fog over the ocean, he swallowed hard, hoping-wishing-praying that it wasn't who he thought it was. The weeping got louder, even with the door between them he knew who it was, no matter how much he disliked the thought, it was clear who it was.

He could feel the misery as if it was his own, the sorrow-filled cries pained him. The suffering, Nobita never did anything to deserve all this, he wanted to take his anguish away and suffer in his stead, he didn't want him to endure all this.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he imagined the face of a disconsolate Nobita, he couldn't take it, his heart hurt, his ears went numb and all he could hear was the sound of bubbles popping, one after another, poked with a pin, stabbed mercilessly.

The sound of the door clicking brought him back to reality and on impulse he his behind the toilet door beside and watched his puffed eyes, busted lip, and blood-stained collar as he left and went outside, only imagining his vulnerability distressed dekisugi and that he had seen it for himself, he felt 'powerless'. He stood there like a rock, the only thing that deemed him alive was the uncontrollable stream of hot droplets flowing from his reddened eyes.

He bought bandages, a box of them, and slipped them under Nobita's desk when the class was empty, without a single sign of life. After P.E. class when he came back, he noticed that on Nobita's chair was the same box empty of bandages that he had bought, on top of it was a note, with words written in yellow.

"Τ𝗁ɑ𐓣ƙ ɣ𝗈υ"

It read, never in his wildest dream had he thought that a simple two-syllable word would make him feel so much, his heart swelled as he clenched his fist, and something inside him fluttered, a fresh breeze brushed past his skin, and just like that the seed was planted.

He was unaware, and over the years the seed only grew. He didn't recognize it when the roots anchored the earth or when the secondary stems formed or when the venated leaves emerged from the nodes. The seed continued to flourish geometrically and exponentially but it was not before when the first bud sprouted that Dekisugi started realizing it '' weird chemical behavior in the body'' as he called it, and claimed that it was his hormones acting up because of reaching puberty and close proximity to adulthood.

Now that the flower was in full blood, he could no longer deny it but ask why and how. When he was close to figuring it out and started to cherish his flower unknowingly-little did he know that his happiness wasn't going to last long as a hailstorm hit his garden, destroying the precious flowers that took him a lifetime to grow. He was raging with anger but after a while, all he felt was grief and hollowness. 

The flower was in full bloom, but look it only froze, all traces of life sucked out of it.

What is the use of them if they are meant to crash and burn to death.