Junai

Pure Love: Chapter 2」

I was dreaming.
I was back in sixth grade at elementary school. I had been absent from school for about a week because I had been sick with rubella, and when I had returned, I noticed that the classroom was short of one student desk. I had turned to my friends, "Where's Suzuki?" I had asked around.
"Suzuki?"
Everyone shook their head no and told me there was no such person.
"What are you guys saying? Suzuki – the guy who transferred here the second
semester!"
Thinking that everyone was ganging up on me and playing a joke on me since I had been absent, I had gotten very angry and had lashed out at everyone.
"We don't have a transfer student in our class."
Not only did the friends I usually hung out with had told me this, but even the class president, Miyata, had answered this, sounding confused. I had thrown a fit right there and had told them to stop messing around. I just couldn't believe them no matter what.
Someone had called the teacher, and I quieted down.
"Sensei, everyone says they don't know who Suzuki-kun is!" I had explained the reason for my outburst to the teacher, but even the teacher had looked puzzled and gave me a shocking reply:
"I don't know any Suzuki-kun, either."
The teacher had pressed her hand to my forehead as if checking to see if I still had a fever. My classmates also had peered at me, looking worried. Then I started worrying that perhaps I was dreaming or maybe having a nightmare. This thought had overwhelmed me, and I clung to my teacher and started to cry.
Suzuki-kun – Suzuki Hajime-kun – was a quiet student who had transferred to our class at the end of October during the second semester. When he had stood in the classroom in front of the blackboard and said his name, I had admired his perfect- featured face. It was strange of me, a child myself, to have such a strong admiration for another child, but I admired him precisely because such a beautiful child as him existed in this world. All the girls had wanted to interact with Suzuki-kun. The boys poked fun at him by calling him a 'pretty boy', because he didn't play soccer during recess. But perhaps because he was so good-looking, they had never bullied him. But at the same time, being blessed with such good looks had kept people away from wanting to be friends with him.
Although he was popular, Suzuki-kun had always been alone. Occasionally, I had spotted him going back home alone when I was also on my way home, but I could never gain the courage to call out to him a 'let's go home together' and had just looked at him from behind with an unnecessary guilty feeling in my heart. I had prayed for one day to talk to him and become his friend, but I could never be the first one to start the conversation with him no matter what. I had secretly looked at him from a distance, because I knew that I too was only one among all of his classmates. Suzuki-kun had disappeared while I had been absent from school. I absolutely couldn't believe that, so when I had gotten home, I asked my mother where Suzuki-kun had transferred. But when even my mother had told me that she didn't know any transfer student named 'Suzuki- kun', I had stopped mentioning his name again. This was a strange thing to have happened, but I felt like I shouldn't question Suzuki-kun's whereabouts anymore. Shortly after that, I went into middle school and before I knew it, I forgot about Suzuki-kun.
Why had Suzuki-kun vanished from everyone's memory? I had sometimes wondered about this strange thing, but recently, no, for these past several years, that thought had never even crossed my mind. However, this morning on the train platform I always used to commute to work, I was strangely reunited with him – he who had now become a strong, but still beautiful, grown man...

****

I slowly regained consciousness. I looked around me, dazed. It was already dark inside the room, but my hands were still tied to the bed railings and Suzuki was nowhere in sight. I felt a chill and shivered a little. At that moment, his remains seeped out from beneath me, and it brought back memories of what had happened to me not too long ago.
Was this...a dream?
Suddenly there was a whirring sound and warm air started coming down from the vents in the ceiling. Since I was cold, I was relieved for this, but along with the warmth, the smell of our sex and another strange, terribly sweet scent rose up into the air making me knit my eyebrows.
"My real name is..."
What in the world had he meant by real name? When I moved around, the sound of the cord binding my arms suddenly brought me back to my senses. I had loosened up the cord, because I had moved, so I continued to loosen it slowly by moving my arms several times. I patiently continued with that, until finally, I freed both of my arms. As I rubbed my numb wrists, I slowly tried to sit up. When I tried to get off the bed, a dull pain ran through my body making me crouch down on the spot for a while and endure the pain.
Then I crawled towards the heavy, wooden door. After I finally stood up and grabbed the doorknob, I turned the doorknob with all my might, but the door wouldn't budge. Once again, I crouched down with my back to the door. Could this actually be happening? If so, why was something like this happening to me? And if this was a dream then...
Why was I not waking up?
"How did you remember?"
His beautiful, black eyes had held sadness...
Beautiful – was the adjective that fit his eyes the most, I thought as I recalled Suzuki's misty, black, twinkling eyes. It hurt to even sit, so I wrapped my arms around my knees and rolled down to the floor. I felt like my whole body was screaming in pain.
"Uugh..."
Before I knew it, I was back in my sixth grade elementary classroom, clinging to my teacher and crying. Arms wrapped around my knees, I couldn't even wipe away my tears as I lay there bawling like a child.