Аннотация: The second day in a new world. Breakfast, school, and lunch.
Chapter 2. The second day in a new world.
1.
I woke up in a dream again. However. A familiar bed, a familiar wall... An unfamiliar ceiling? No, the ceiling is also familiar: a square chandelier, a round lamp: very typical for the Japanese. More precisely, for manga-anime Japanese. We also have such comrades: a round one is dragged, a square one is rolled - a suspicious similarity of styles. However, it stuck with me.
I wonder if the dream is original or inspired by something? It was both this way and that way. Rather the second, by the way: the anime lamp seems to hint. It's a pity, the original plots are captivating with their strangeness, although the world around them is as real as it can be. Hmm. Well, if that's the case, the show continues. First, let's try to figure out where I am... Or - to remember.
Overcoming tearfulness and the desire to bury my face in the wall and lie down, I began to search the house, as I promised my neighbor yesterday. So where can Japanese adults keep their home documents and their passports?
I listened to the fragmented memory of the child. So my father kept important documents in the built-in closet, and my mother kept his certificates and other necessary things on the table in her room. I was stuck, my memory could hardly make out incomprehensible hieroglyphs, and reacted to envelopes and folders.
*** Rinko's POV.
I stopped by Yuto's place this morning before school, but he was still asleep. Let him sleep, although it's not good for him to skip school, but he can today. Mom called his homeroom teacher yesterday and told her about the boy's bereavement. She gave him permission not to come today.
I adjusted the blanket on Yuto's bed, and after making him breakfast, I ran to school.
Time dragged on like a rubber band. How's your friend, he's probably already awake. Has he started eating or is he still hungry? I barely waited until one o'clock in the afternoon, and ran to Yuto's house.
She came in quietly, and yesterday, when I told her I was going to cook, he gave me the keys before I went to bed. The key turned in the lock, and I entered the house. In the living room, Yuto was sitting at the table sorting through the papers scattered on the table.
A friend was sitting in a state of shock over his grandfather's will. Yuto, what happened? Rinko, it's you. Yuto shuddered.
"Grandfather Gen, cut his father and mother out of his will. I don't understand why. I remember they've been fighting for the last few years, but should I cross it out?"
"Yuto, maybe it's not that scary." I went up to the boy and hugged him.
"I searched for my parents' documents, but I found only my grandfather's will and my documents and school certificates."
"Yuto, let's call my mom after lunch, she knows exactly where the documents might be. Our houses have a typical layout, as Dad once said."
While Yuto was busy with the paperwork at the table, I went to the kitchen to cook dinner for two people. Then she pulled her friend out from behind the table and dragged him to eat, he ate breakfast by the way.
Then I called my mom and she came to help me look for documents, they checked in all the usual places. Then she pulled her friend out from behind the table and dragged him to eat, he ate breakfast by the way. Then I called my mom and she came to help me look for documents, they checked in all the usual places. They found copies of their parents' passports, a housing purchase agreement, and my mother looked at Gennosuke's grandfather's will and looked at the place where Yuto's parents' names had been deleted, explaining that he got the property in Noihara bypassing his father and mother.
"Haruko-san, thank you so much for your help." Yuto bowed and escorted her to the door. Then he began to put the documents in their places in the same order he knew.
2.
This time, I didn't have enough imagination for the original world. Forty-eight hours of local time have passed, and of those two days I can remember almost a minute-by-minute sweep when I was awake: a lot of things were new. Rinko came, that was my neighbor's name. A small girl, she talks a lot, but she cooks, as I mentioned above, surprisingly well for her age. We're nine years old, by the way. Interestingly, I really didn't wait for the social inspector. I went around the whole house, climbed into the attic, into the basement.
I walked around the city, a magnificent park with a reservoir, the business center is built up with skyscrapers, somewhat reminiscent of Moscow City, only the buildings are two or three times lower, but there are more of them. I went shopping. I tried to figure out the chronology. The year is 2005 on the calendar. Hmm again.
It's school time now, I'm going to school tomorrow: Japanese anime is a holy fetish. I tried to "remember" something about myself: I remember surprisingly little. Hmm, Rinko is a common name, but I've definitely met Noihara. In manga or anime.
Rinko's POV
After Mom left, I took Yuto for a walk to the city center. The guy walked strenuously turning his head and asking what was around us.
"Rinko, what's the name of the city?"
"Takamiya, of course, is Yuto with sclerosis. Hee-hee."
3.
Yeah, and the teachers look away, but they don't say anything. That's the way it's done. I wonder if that's the way it's done in real Japan, too? And my place is not at the back window. Either the template is broken, or my imagination is playing tricks, or I'm not the main character*. But it's hardly imagination.
[*A traditional classroom seat for a manga or anime character. Japanese artists and animators diligently support this stamp, which has become a true tradition.]
I've been thinking a lot about what happened. I've memorized a lot of dates about the history of Japan here. Especially awesome motor writing skills. That is, I write like a chicken with my paw: it's normal for a junior, but anyway, I didn't have them. Again, we communicate in Japanese. I understand fluently when I say there are no difficulties at all. I should have woken up by now anyway, if the surrounding beauty had been "supported" by my brain. Therefore, my consciousness is on, let's say, a "third-party server." It sounds crazy, but - "if all possible explanations are discarded, the impossible is correct," or whatever Sherlock Holmes said? And for some reason, I don't really care about that fact, it seems. The installation had an interesting effect, after all, not a stimulant, but something more serious. I wanted to do some research. Logically speaking, at six in the morning the computer will turn off the power, and even if not, at eight the staff will come and turn off the installation. Will I be back? A very high probability. And how much local time will pass? Very interesting.
*** Rinko's POV
I went to pick up Yuto at seven today, and I woke up the guy who didn't set the alarm again.
"Yuto, get ready for school quickly, we'll be late."
"To school, huh? It's Saturday!"
"Yes, it's school today, get dressed. And we went to breakfast. I'm just getting something to eat."
While Yuto was putting on his school uniform, I made an omelet, and boiled fish with rice, Rinko specially cooked the cod in the broth so that it would melt in her mouth. which has already become traditional in Japan. And miso soup.
While we ate, we continued to discuss the school.
"Rinko, where is our school?"
"It's at the other end of the neighborhood, so hurry up, Yuto, we still have a bus ride. Classes start at nine. Here's the schedule."
"I showed Yuto my schedule sheet. Yuto chuckled."
We finished eating. Yuto quickly gathered his textbooks and notebooks. And we went to the bus stop. On the bus, a friend stared stubbornly out the window, smiling sadly into the void. I took my friend's hand and stared out the window too.
At school, he tried to sit at the penultimate desk by the window, and I dragged him to his usual place in the second row next to me, while my classmates laughed.
The class was habitually noisy: someone was rustling with spellings, someone was arguing quietly with a neighbor on the desk, and in the corner Taizo-kun was diligently writing the hieroglyph "sun" - so diligently, as if something very important depended on the beauty of each line. The air smelled of ink, paper, and that special school warmth that usually envelops and soothes.
But for Yuto, this familiar world seemed to have become flat, like a picture in a book. He was sitting staring into space somewhere over a notebook, and his pencil lay motionless on a lined page. There was a third lesson - calligraphy. There was a script in front of him: the hieroglyph 幸 - "happiness" was drawn in large, clear, red lines.
The teacher repeated on the blackboard:
"First the upper line, then two vertical lines, and then we close at the bottom - like a house for happiness."
The children were diligently drawing with pencils, trying not to go beyond the lines, and Yuto kept staring and staring at one point, and this hieroglyph did not want to become anything more than just black lines on white paper for him.
Rinko watched her friend warily, apparently he started trying to remember his parents again. The boy confessed in the morning that he doesn't remember anything about them at all, just blurred silhouettes.
The teacher, Ms. Yamada, moved between the rows quietly, almost noiselessly, as she always did so as not to frighten the children. She stopped at his desk, but she didn't lean too close or shake his shoulder. I just quietly put my hand on the edge of his notebook-not on his arm, not on his shoulder, but where the paper touches the wood of the desk. It was not a demand, not a reproach, but just a quiet "I'm here."
"If it's hard to get all the lines out today," She said it just as softly so that the others wouldn't hear. you can just circle it once. Or not even circle it. "You can just sit and listen to the others write."
Yuuto flinched slightly, as if he had just noticed that there were other people around. He slowly shifted his gaze from emptiness to her face - calm, without unnecessary pity, but with the same attentiveness that says: I see that you feel bad, and this is normal.
"I'll... I'll try," he whispered and picked up a pencil. The fingers were naughty, and the first line turned out to be shaky, not as smooth as everyone else's. He froze, as if he was afraid of this curvature.
Ms. Yamada tilted her head slightly, as if she was considering something important rather than a mistake.
"You know, in calligraphy, they sometimes say that a trembling line hides a real feeling", She said softly. "The main thing is that you spent it. This is already a step. And if you want to erase and write again later, I'll bring you an eraser. Or we can leave this line as it is. You can watch how Rinko-chan draws lines.
Yuuto nodded slowly. He didn't do the laundry. Instead, he moved to Rinko's desk and very carefully drew the second line, a little more confidently. And the third one. And even though the hieroglyph turned out to be imperfect, with uneven corners and different stroke thicknesses, it still appeared on paper. As if even in such a small thing it was possible to grasp reality.
"I read yesterday that this hieroglyph looks like an open palm holding something carefully."
Yuto looked at her. And for the first time that day, there was something other than emptiness in his eyes, as if he was trying to remember what it was like to understand other people's words and respond to them. It was like trying to remember how to speak Japanese again. This morning, at breakfast, he sometimes got lost and started speaking in an unfamiliar language.
"Yes, Rinko", he said just as quietly. "But I'm not very good at it."
Rinko did not say "you will succeed" or "don't worry." Instead, she put her writing next to his notebook.
"Then I'll sit here and draw him next to me. So you can see what he looks like. And if you want, you can just look at mine. Or not look at all. But I'm here."
And she began to draw the lines carefully, whispering to herself:
"Top... two down... close... here it is, a house for happiness."
Yuto looked at his character again. Then he looked at her. And slowly, very slowly, as if afraid to scare off this fragile moment, he drew the last line.
He began to repeat the hieroglyph with Rinko. And Rinko calmed down a bit.
After the last lesson, Rinko took out two bentos.
"Yuto, let's go to the roof or eat at the desk, whatever you want?"
Rinko, where will there be fewer people? I don't want to see anyone yet.
"in the classroom. Let's put the notebooks on the desk and eat together."
Rinko unwrapped her bento in a pink handkerchief, Yuto's in a blue one. They took out their chopsticks and began to eat.
Yuto was dumbfounded as he examined everything in the box.
"Did you do it yourself?"
"Yes, my sensei chefs at Aunt Mia's onsen inn taught that if you can't say something with your heart, do it with your hands."
The boy took out the rice formed into triangles with a strip of noria leaf and took a bite. Then I took a piece of teriyaki chicken from the special meat compartment, which Rinko had marinated last night to roast in the morning. I chewed it.
"It's delicious, really."
The girl breathed a sigh of relief and began to eat her rolled omelet and stewed vegetables.
"I put Yuto radish for you instead of plum, I remember that you don't like sour, that's if you want to crunch." The guy nodded gratefully with his mouth full.
At the end, they took out apple slices from the bento, sprinkled with lemon juice.
"Shall we go home, Rinko?"
"Come on, Yuto, if you don't want to go for a walk."
"I'd like to explore our neighborhood today and remember the way home. And maybe take a walk around the city center, I want to know what's interesting in the city."
"Come on."
Rinko shows me the way to the bus stops. How to walk home through our neighborhood. We'll need to draw a map of the Yuto quarter. And introduce him to the neighbors again.