Anohana:Part 1 Chapter 3

Chapter 3 : The Night of Curry

Meiko walked on her bare feet.

At night, the asphalt road still had traces of the heat of the setting sun: it was a bit warm, a bit moist, and very serene and tranquil.

Walking on this road, I stepped on it with my foot and rubbed it against my foot. I felt a slight pain from under my foot, a vague pain as if punched on the cheeks when dreaming while sleeping.

(Where had Menma gone until now?)

Because of this vague pain, Meiko started to become numb to time. She couldn’t remember anything. The only thing she knew was that a long time had passed since then.

Meiko reminisced the instant she vanished from the world.

(Did it hurt?)

At the instant she tried to remember it, a sharp, cold pain like a piece of glass slicing through her back shot right through her.

She wanted to fulfill a wish.

That wish could only be fulfilled when everyone in the Super Peace Busters are together.

Every time she thought of something about herself, pain would crawl on her whole body, but this didn’t. This was the only fact that wouldn’t hurt when she thought of it.

She wanted everyone to know how each other felt, just like back then.

However, because of her adamant thoughts…

(Jintan…was hurt because of me.)

Jinta’s leaving scene kept running on her mind.

Jinta said that he had a tough life after that, and that everyone had changed.

Meiko wanted to deny this fact. She wanted the Super Peace Busters, including Jinta, to become like back then.

The problem was that everyone after that incident had become vague to Meiko. She didn’t have the right to make a conclusion…she knew it.

“Arghahahahaha!!”

A coarse laugh interrupted Meiko’s hesitation.

(Eh…?)

“Arghahaha! Naruko, you really did go there—to Yadomi’s house. You’re fabulous!”

“Eh. Yeah. It’s so troublesome!”

Naruko and her high school friends strolled in front of the station.

If they didn’t have a special destination, McDonalds would have been a great choice. Or they could spend a bit more and go to a family restaurant to kill time. However, they chose to gather in front of the station and chat there. This was to show to the pedestrians their equipment.

She was wearing a new-bought, laced bra, and coloured her fingernails aqua-blue last night.

“Ahaha…!”

When did her laughing voice sounded so loud? Naruko sometimes would even think this was inconceivable.

Sine the autumn of grade 2 in middle school, she would wear super-short skirts. And she even started to wear high-heeled shoes starting from the summer of grade 3.

Naruko was thinking of Jinta’s matter. Today she saw him again after a long time, dating back to the opening ceremony of the school, but Jinta…

(How does he think of me?)

After Meiko’s incident, the Super Peace Busters drifted apart. Gradually, Jinta’s expression changed. To sum it up in one word, it was the word ‘sullen’.

There were quite a few children around here who have to face the examination of promotion to high school. They entered the same high school, yet every time they meet in the corridor, Jinta would always turn away, pretending he didn’t see her.

Naruko wanted to catch Jinta’s attention.

Would he say anything to her after she had taken off her glasses?

No, he didn’t. Would he say anything to her after she had worn super-short skirts?

No, he didn’t.

There was only once, during the third year of middle school, that she caught Jinta saying something when they met.

“…like some straw.”

At that time, Naruko bought a hair dye and tried her first time in dying her hair, but she messed up the bleaching time and made her hair bleach too much colour.

Nevertheless, it was enough to excite her.

To see Jinta leaving and to shout like this was exciting and joyful.

‘What should I do now? Time’s up.”

Naruko’s friend’s voice pulled Naruko back to reality.

“Ah. Yeah.”

“There aren't any good ones here. Let’s just play around a bit and get out of here.”

Naruko and her friends agreed to go to sing KTV with boys from other schools in a while. KTV partying, chatting in front of the station, or buying a one-hundred-yan snack if starving…going to Tokyofor shopping via the express at the holidays for those things are exclusive there—this was the vanity they were submerged in.

With a serious attitude, they got through the time after school, the rural school.

They left their beverage cans on the bench they sat and left.

This was their usual life.

“…”

Naruko imitated their behaviour.

This was uneasy for Naruko, who loved to clean things up. If she were to walk forward a few steps and throw it into the trash bin beside the vending machine…she really wanted to do this, but…

“Naruko?”

“Ah, sorry. Wait for me!”

She left the can alone. She didn’t have time to care for the different thoughts in her mind. She only had to focus on what was happening before her: there was no need to care for things abandoned.

Naruko began to think when she had become such a person.

At the same moment, Menma stared at this kind of a Naruko.

(Anaru littered…)

Menma was a bit shocked, not because she wanted to reproach her for littering, but that the Naruko she knew would never do such an act.

She did everything according to rules and loved to clean things up. When Meiko was eating a sweet cone, she would even pick up the scraps that had fallen beside her.

(Anaru looked she didn’t really smile…)

Her pink chin painted with lipstick was a triangle, an expression of smiling. Even her eyes were bent…but that was not the smile Meiko knew.

Having confirmed that Naruko and her friends had left, Meiko picked up the can and threw it into the trash bin. The can knocked on the bottom of the bin and caused a clear crackling sound.

The leaves of the persimmon tree she was familiar with rustled in the night wind.

Meiko had gone to the family that raised her.

She had a feeling that there wasn’t an urgent need to come back here. Meiko who had a vague memory didn’t have a strong sense of belonging to this place. This place occurred to her like a place she had been just yesterday. This feeling made her scared for no reason.

(What should I do...)

Should she enter? She was scared to enter, but she didn’t know why.

Her thighs tensed, and her thumb curled up and opened up unconsciously. Suddenly, a rich, attracting smell flew into Meiko’s nose…

“Curry!”

Meiko blurted.

It was Meiko’s favourite curry. Mashing the sweet corn grains with a mixer into a mush, and then put a lot of other things into it to become a honey-sweet curry. Her brother Satoshi liked it a lot, and her dad would also eat it with Worcestershire sauce…

When she thought of this, the vague time concept became a bit clearer, and the sense of belonging came back to her.

At this moment, the doorknob Meiko was holding onto…

“Good evening…”

She pushed it a bit, creating a little gap, for her to spy inside and have a look at the living room.

“!!”

Meiko’s shoulders shivered.

When Meiko once again saw Jinta, Naruko, Chiriko, and Atsumu, all she felt was pure happiness.

But when she saw her own family members in the living room…

Her dad had grown a lot of white hair. Satoshi had grown a lot in a short time, looking like a young man. And her mum…had wrinkles on the corners of her eyes.

Changes. Everyone would change. Jinta and the others changed. Nevertheless…

(Ah…ne? What the...)

Everything was different. It was not the Honma Home she had in her memory.

They didn’t talk. Dad was reading the newspaper. Satoshi was playing the DS. On the table were dishes of curry surplus…Back then, mum would say in a lively voice, “the dishes had to be put to the sink!”.

But now mum was placing a small bowl of curry into the shrine that didn’t exist when Meiko was around.

Then she rang the bell and clasped her hands, maintaining an upright sitting position, the thin socks pressingly softly on the skin of her feet.

“…”

Meiko stopped moving.

That shrine was a shrine she didn’t remember. She suddenly knew what that meant, so she didn’t approach it—didn’t approach the mum she loved the most.

“Mum, can you stop give the shrine a bowl of curry every time we have curry?”

(Satori…?)

Playing the DS, Satori complained, without even the slightest intention to lift his head and look at mum. “It looks like it’s very troublesome.”

“You shouldn’t say this.”

Mum showed an expression Meiko had never seen.

“Because your sister is a bit muddle-headed.”

It was as if the smallest and lightest ripple induced by the wind, looking like she was crying, yet at the same time, crying…

“So, your sister may even don’t know she had already passed away.”

The words of Meiko’s mother gave Meiko the creeps, making her shiver.

Following her shivering, the cup beside her was swept to the floor, making a bang sound.

“Satori. What are you doing? Go pick it up.”

“Hey. It wasn’t me!”

Satori was accused wrongly by her father again. However, Meiko wasn’t even feeling the urge to protect her. She just murmured absent-mindedly.

“I know it…”

Although there were a lot of things she didn’t understand, this was the home. This home wasn’t the Honma Home she once knew, and thus she even knew deeper this unpalatable truth.

“Menma knows that she had already passed away.”

When she got outside, the warm night wind blew against her.

Meiko thought, she had already passed away, perhaps it was painful…much more painful than having to accept the Japanese encephalitis vaccine.

Yet, she hadn’t that memory again. The lost memory, the lost pain, must have been accepted by her mother and other family members, bearing it until now.

(Sorry…)

She uttered secretly in her heart.

Translation Notes

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