Since the day my sun died.
~*~
Whenever the fleeting spark of joy lights in my heart, it dies out instantly. I don’t mean to be negative, or to dwell on a pessimistic feeling too much, but regardless of what I do everything always flows into a grayish gutter. My emotions find their way back into a cage, and all that I’m left with is the feeling of being afloat in a disgusting sewage dump. Waiting to rot, waiting for the currents to take me wherever.
I’ve always been told that I was a grumpy old soul. I see myself for what I am, a bitter piece of shit.
I haven’t always been like this.
There was a time where I woke up with a big smile on my face, and I couldn’t wait to greet the morning sun, thankful to be alive.
That was before the day my sun died. Since then, the years have dulled out my laughter, and no matter how blue the sky is I see it polluted. Nothing lasts, nothing pure is allowed to remain pure.
~*~
Her hair was long golden river that flowed all the way down to her hips, her eyes were a pair of shiny emeralds. Her heart was made out of gold, her soul was made out of silver and her words were made of chocolate. Nenechi, she was such a treasure.
~*~
School was easy. People were complicated. Being one of the top scorers of the class had its perks, at the cost that I had never held a genuine friendship. Everyone had an ulterior motive, behind every warm greeting there was a favor they tried to get out of me. I need the answers for this, for that, I need a partner for this project, so it goes.
It didn’t help my situation that I was a social recluse, I was, after all, going through phases like all teenagers do. I was angry at the world, and had no outlet for it. Angry for no reason other than just because I got the short end of the social stick. People can be so dehumanizing when they judge someone. I had needs, feelings and emotions like everyone else, but to many I was just known as the designated class nerd.
Looking back, I was probably, most likely, overthinking. My woes must've been make-believe, I'm mature enough today to see that. But when I felt them back then, they felt real.
What I needed so I could grow up, so I could mature past my self, was for someone to prove me wrong.
One fateful day, I was in a terrible mood. I don’t remember why. It was probably some mundanity that my overly-emotional heart was exaggerating. There was homework due that morning, that I do remember. Naturally, flocks of little pests came flying by asking for the answers, but today I wasn’t in the mood to be a charity.
I don’t have ‘em, I told everyone that asked. Some glared at me, as if I had been indebted to them and had just spat in our contract, some panicked that the problems were so complicated they stumped the know-it-all.
One particular person approached me that day. My cold, cold heart would feel her genuine warmth.
Momosuzu Nene.
“Anon!” Her cheery voice spoke.
“What?”
“Did you, uh, do the math homework?”
“Nope, didn’t.”
“Ohhh…”
Another one done and done. With that, I turned back to my phone and kept pretending to read something solely so the others wouldn’t bother me. I didn’t think anything of it. But then...
Soon, the sound of footsteps approached my desk again, and I saw Nenechi walking towards me with her copybook in hand.
“Here!” She smiled. “You can copy mine! I’m, like, 99% sure they’re correct!”
I looked at the copybook as she stretched it out to me, confused, with my heart in hand. I grabbed it, and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I felt Nenechi’s curious eyes on my shoulder, and all they did was haste my step.
I needed to get out of sight, somewhere where I could be alone.
So, I went to the toilets, entered a stall, I sat down.
And I cried.
Pathetic? Sure. But it was the reaction I could muster. My tears weren’t bitter either, they were tears of a strange joy. I don’t think I knew that kind of genuine, disinterested affection, with no letters at the end of the contract. Not before her, that’s for sure.
Over the next few days I began greeting her with the confidence of a rock. On the halls, in class, when I passed her by, I just liked doing so. Whenever I did, she’d give me that trademark smile of hers, and beamed with an energy that I had trouble believing was even real. But it was.
I began offering myself to help her with her homework, I passed her the answers for tests, I did things that I previously despised doing because I felt that she deserved it, and I wanted to be the one to give it to her. The switch in my attitude didn't go unnoticed.
Eventually our little interactions bloomed into a friendship, a beautiful flower that we had both cared for.
Nenechi began searching for me during recess and lunch, we walked home together, that sort of thing. I could’ve listened to her ramble about for hours, and just be happy to see her so happy about literally anything. That girl was in love with life itself, I was in love with how in love she was with life.
I hold the petals of our flower dear in my heart, I touch their silky texture and reminiscence of moments we shared. To remember her is to make her real once more.
~*~
Nenechi had an endless supply of energy. She was the answer to the perpetual motion machine problem. Trains, planes, and nuclear powerplants could’ve ran on Nenechium if it was a real element. She couldn’t keep still for more than 5 minutes, and often her mind wandered off while her body ran on autopilot - An aspect of her that would've doomed her academically if the teachers didn't have extra patience with her. It was impossible to get mad at that empty-headed girl.
She was also incredibly fit. Handstands and cartwheels were like a second nature to her. One time, after a morning class of P.E. which had obliterated my abs and paper-thin arms, Nenechi asked how I did. Naturally, I told her I was about to die because my stomach felt like it was going to fall apart. In turn, she told me that she had a strong midsection. I asked “Really?” Out of pure reflex. I didn’t think she would do what she did.
“Of course!” She replied with a smug, proud smile. “Look!”
Like that, she lifted her shirt and showed me her stomach, causing me to blush in a panic. She didn’t show anything but it was so sudden that I didn’t know how to react.
“Nene! Pull your shirt down!” I yelled. I didn’t want the others to see, and yet I had shot myself in the leg, because my scream was louder than Nenechi’s voice. Soon enough, everyone turned their heads to look at the scene at hand.
“But look! It’s super hard, touch it!” She replied, uncaring. Meanwhile, the pain my body was in subsidized, simply because I felt like dying of embarrassment. Shivery, my hands grabbed her wrists, and slowly pulled them down, to which Nenechi replied by lifting them once again - Carrying my hands with her.
“Touch it!” She pouted.
It was true, her abs were rock-solid.
Every day I learned something new about her. There were layers upon layers of Nenechi, both about the wonderfully genuine person she was, and the absolute airhead she also was.
For one, I learned that Nenechi was quite the artist. She had shown me manga worthy drawings, some of them were cute girls, others were over the top fights that put the chuuniest of anime to shame. She even showed me a notebook where she had written both the coolest and lamest one liners for the thousands of characters she had made up. When I asked about them, she re -enacted them, and putting her hands in a triangle, she aimed at me with one eye closed and went “Super Nenechi, Ultimate lightbringer beam!”
She made my heart smile, while my face expressed disdain. I used to playfully berate her and she replied in smug and exalted giggles. It was our little back and forth, our way of telling each other we were friends.
So, one time he invited me over to have lunch at her house to ‘See her beetles’. I thought nothing of it. If the person I was following was different, the outcome would’ve been different. I don’t care for it, I wanted the outcome only Nenechi could give. Inviting someone over to watch beetles fight should be a common pick up line.
Her parents weren’t home, we went to her room…!
And she ran towards her bed, jumped to fall atop of it, and missed it entirely.
I stifled my laugh the best I could while Nenechi let out whimpers of pain and tears of embarrassment, begging me to not look and to please bring her something for the pain.
Her room was filled with plenty of plushies and random trinkets that she showed me in great detail. The walls were adorned with colorful drawings of her characters, at least the pieces she deemed worthy of exiting the sketching stage. She told me she had asked her dad for a tablet for Christmas.
During lunch, she spilled her juice on her lap. The natural response, would’ve been to get changed and to clean up. Nenechi, of course, far above these mortal conceptions of conventional solutions, opted to sniff her skirt, and marveled herself at the nice smell that came from it. I had to dissuade her from the idea of sucking the juice out of the cloth. She told me it would’ve been okay, after all, she liked to drink spring water and only got sick once.
When I asked what she meant by spring water, she said it was water from the season of spring. Of course, she had drank bottles with the tittle of "Spring water." but once, oh, the genius idea of filling up a bottle herself came to her. So spring was in full bloom, and reaching the outskirts of the city, she filled her water bottle by the riverside and drank it, only to drag herself home with a stomach ache.
I wasn't taking any chances with the skirt juice.
After she had changed - And I urged her to put something on her bottom - She showed me her beetles, members of her proud bug-catching hobby.
“What are you, 6?” I mocked her.
“Nope, I’m 14!” She smiled.
I learned all about how she liked to catch and breed beetles. My inner child shined through as I mentioned that, when I was a kid, stag beetles were the coolest of all insects. Nenechi told me I was wrong, and that it was rhinoceros beetles. Always have been, and always will be.
A heated argument began, discussing the various cool-factors of beetles. Nenechi was really into it, too, like she was taking it super seriously. I enjoyed those mindless hours of fun more than anything. She was from another world, that girl, and she merely came to earth to learn how we humans lived.
Everything her eyes touched was doused with a spark of wonder, even the most mundane and dull objects had a glittering magic only her eyes could see.
Of course, sometimes she behaved like a mischievous gremlin, but I do not linger on it too much. That is because whenever Nenechi realized that she had threaded too far, overstepped a line that she shouldn't cross, she wholeheartedly apologized. Knowing that she meant no harm, I was unable to get mad, and if I was, I wasn't mad at her, I was just mad at her antics. Not pride not ill-will would burn the bridge of our friendship, and she made sure of it. The average person could learn so much from this girl.
By the time I went home, all I could think about was how much I wanted the day to go faster so that we would see each other again. I’d count the minutes, the seconds, and I would arrive to school early to greet her with a loud and cheerful “Good morning!”.
Sensitive and soft hearted, yet bubbly and cheerful, Nenechi was a little ray of sunshine, and I was lucky enough to have basked in its warmth. Ironically, my favorite memory of this warm person happened during winter.
We met to catch up on a winter break assignment. I didn’t put much care in my clothes as long as they kept me warm, so I just grabbed whatever I found in my closet. When Nenechi opened the door, the first thing she did was laugh at me, and then, she told me I looked like a carrot.
My jacket was a tone of light brown that barely hinged on orange, and my hat was a dark green, only then I noticed. To this day I don’t know why I’m so fond of this memory. Nothing 'special' happened during the day, but I still come back to it.
In due time I met her parents. Her dad was always working, always busy. I only saw him twice. Her mother, on the other hand, gave me a deep and grateful thanks for caring for her daughter, despite that she was ‘Quite a handful’.
She never appreciated the girl she had. I doubt she ever saw the shining light in her eyes like I had seen it. Nenechi was a chore in her eyes, and in mine she was a moment of respite.
What truly overflowed the bottle, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was one of our teachers that arrived in our high school.
Hiroshi Nakamura.
~*~
From the first day the ambiance of the classroom was tainted by his ill-moods. Whatever events in life turned him into a resentful man are lost to me, but I know that a happy adult doesn't constantly pick fights with a bunch of teenagers. Asking something he didn't want to answer left you with a passive-aggressive reproach, barely stepping onto the terrain of insults. ‘How can you not know this? What are you even doing?’. Answering correctly earned you a nod and the order to sit back down. He made it very clear that many of us wouldn’t get far in life, that no college would take us, et cetera. I just wanted the year to be over so that enough complaints would reach the principal and he would get put in line. Wishing he got kicked out was too wishful. I heard once that he was the principal's nephew, which probably meant he had an unspoken immunity to the guidelines other teachers followed.
I know better than to get hot-headed about something like this. I stay in line, I do what he wants, I get by. The day I truly began to hate him, was the day he scolded Nenechi.
She had been in his scope for quite some time. Everything Nenechi did irked him. She would scribble on her notebooks, she'd eat pieces of candy when she thought he wasn't looking, and naturally, with a pure heart, when Nenechi asked him to repeat something, he would look at her as if she had spit on his shoes.
The teachers knew that Nenechi was ‘different’, that she was 'special' -To me she was special too, just without the quotation marks- but Nakamura didn't care. They didn't pay him enough to be respectful to those he considered below him.
So, one day, as he’s busy writing down formulas on the chalkboard, Nenechi was loudly eating a crunchy candy bar.
I ushered her to stop, because I knew that she was throwing bait at a shark. The poor girl, my poor Nenechi, thought I wanted a bite of it, and she stretched it to me.
“Nene, no, no!” I muttered. Driving a nail into my heart, she snapped it in two and put a piece in my hand. It was too loud for the asshole in front to not hear it.
And so, hell broke loose. Nakamura loudly smacked his ruler onto his desk. Like an alarm, it reverberated through the classroom, and everyone froze.
“Momosuzu-san, stand up.”
“Y-Yes!” Nenechi bolted up.
"Please, come to the front." He stood besides the board. Nenechi's fearless steps moved between the desks, and suddenly, the chalk was in her hands.
“Uh…” Nenechi gloomed. Her head twisted from side to side, her feet shuffled in place; she had been put in front of a puzzle she hadn't the slightest idea how to solve. Nakamura got what he wanted, and he took relish in it. I wanted to shut him up, I wanted to throw my textbook at him, but the thing that got me to react, was a simple comment.
“I really have no words suitable for you, Momosuzu.” He readjusted his glasses. “I can’t believe the school put up with someone of... your condition, this long."
And so, I snapped.
“Oi, that's enough!” I yelled, for everyone to hear it. A few gasps, a few snarky giggles echoed through the room, and I saw the eyes of surprise that beamed towards me. Perhaps he wasn't expecting me of all people to call him out, and honestly, I didn't either.
“Come again, Ymous-san?” He spoke.
“That's enough. If she's disrupting the class then just send her to... to the hall or something.”
"Well, go, and bring her along with you." He dared me, and I accepted. I stood up and walked towards Nenechi, grabbing her by the arm with enough force to scare her. I was ready to stand like a statue, I was ready to get scolded by my parents, but then Nakamura had to get the last word in. He muttered something, something I couldn't hear but that I still took like an insult. I turned around, asked him to repeat himself, and so he walked towards me, trying to impose respect with his fat middle-aged frame and the mannerisms of a kid. "Are you talking back to me again?" My eye twitched. "If that's how you're going to be, then I should teach you a lesson, because in the real world, this behaviour is unacceptable. I will deduct a portion of your grade if you raise your voice to me again!" He waved his ruler uncomfortably close to my ear.
I had blown the thing out of proportion, but I didn’t care, or so I cope today, because back then, I was cowering like a puppy. And then, Nenechi kicked him right between the legs, letting me get a good look of his painful retribution drawn across his face.
At first I smirked, and then I panicked.
The class lost it. ‘Nenechi kicked Nakamura in the balls!’ Someone screamed. Soon enough, other classrooms were drawn to the scene. Hearsay blew the thing out of proportion even more, saying that a fistfight had broken out… ah, whatever, it’s high schooler gossip. Everyone knows it’s worthless.
The aftermath is what I dreaded. While Nakamura laid on the floor, I knew that things would never be the same.
We were both thrown to the principal's office to get an earful. The aggression of a teacher was no small feat, no matter if it was deserved. Naturally, the adults considered us children, and gave no justification to our acts. Nakamura, in his own wretched words, was merely dishing out disciplinary reproaches, the ruler, his comments, and his demeanor disconnected from his narrative. Things got... out of hand.
Like the rats that they were, some teachers took his side. I like to believe that their hands were tied, and that out of fear that siding with Nenechi would bring them trouble, they backed Nakamura on his claims of unprompted aggression. I think the ones that I hated the most were the ones who said nothing at all.
Rational, level headed adults against two immature children, children who were just a couple of years away from becoming adults themselves.
I took my sentence in silence. I didn’t give Nakamura the pleasure of seeing me scared in his presence. Suspension, and a nice, cocky phone call to my household where he emphasized what a problem child I was.
Nenechi’s parents were outside the school, and waiting for their daughter to come out.
“Nenechi…” I spoke.
“Anon?” Her eyes shined with worried curiosity. Even now… even now she was still the same girl she ever was. She knew she was in trouble, she just didn't know why I was in trouble.
"I'm sorry." She bowed.
"What? No, no, please, ugh, it's my fault."
"Cheer up!" She smiled.
"Huh?"
Just like that, there she was. Bouncing back in a second. She told me the sweetest words I've heard to this day.
“There’s no time to be sad!” She smiled. "I'm gonna get grounded, but if you find the time, come and see me, please."
That was the last time I ever saw Nenechi. Her name was Momosuzu Nene, but I'll die calling her Super Nenechi.
~*~
After my suspension was over and I was back in school, Nenechi was nowhere to be seen. I would learn soon enough that the principal spoke with her parents, and saw fit to send her to a professional to finally correct her behavior. The rats from before stood against it, but it made no difference. It had been enough! She would be normal, for her own good.
The principal was authority in the school, her parents were authority of her.
Her history of misdemeanors and general airheadedness was a symptom of whatever they call it, but it was bad, and they had to expurge it! There was nothing wrong with her, goddammit!
I repeatedly went over to her house. I stood out waiting for the most fickle signs of life to show, but every day, the same story repeated itself. Either I saw nothing, or I thought I had seen the curtains shuffle. I thought I heard footsteps coming from her dorm, and then, the door didn't open. It remained shut, keeping me away from the closure I so desperately needed.
I did not falter, I had to see her, I had to see that she was okay. Finally, one day, the skies answered my pleas.
Her father was home for a change, this was the second time I saw him, the first being the day Nenechi kicked Nakamura in his nether regions.
He asked me who I was, what I wanted, all of those things. When I mentioned that I was here to see Nene, his eyes shrugged at me. His silent judgement called me a bad influence, but either he was too tired to make up and excuse, or he didn't care.
“Go right ahead, she’s in her room.” He let me in.
And with dreaded steps I headed upstairs, I was aching to see her, to talk to her...
What I saw was not Nenechi. It was a carcass. A putrid imitation of what once was.
~*~
For the first time since I met her, she hadn't smiled to greet me, instead giving me a polite hand gesture. Her room had changed, her chuuni drawings had been taken off the walls, and her plushies were now neatly ordered in shelves, in her drawers, but not one in her bed. "My dad doesn't like it when I put them in the bed, he says I'm too old to sleep with them." She said. I noticed there were a few missing, and Nenechi told me they had thrown them out, or given them away. One of her beetles had died, and she wasn't allowed to pin it. It was gross, unbecoming of a lady, and she wouldn't be allowed to have any more beetles after this one kicked the bucket.
She was dull and lethargic, there was nothing inside her eyes, that vacuous and empty look you only find on people sterilized by poorly diagnosed mood-stabilizers.
“Nene…?” I muttered to whoever was in front of me.
“Uh?” She mumbled.
“Nene… eh, have you… what… what’s up?” I was getting shakier by the second, my hands trembled.
“Not much.” She mumbled again. "I-I'm going to be enrolled in a different school- I mean, yeah. That. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, they don't let me have a phone."
The revelation didn't horrify me like I'd expect, because from the moment I had set foot in her room I had already been stabbed dead. I died along with the Nenechi that had made me realize I was alive. I asked her if she had drawn anything, and she reached for a couple of sketches, all unfinished. She mentioned wanting to go for a jog on the outskirts, and I immediately said we should go, but the next second she said she hadn't the energy to.
In fact, she had felt like her batteries had depleted a while ago. We sat on the floor, the footsteps on her dad crept outside the room, probably checking that I wasn't doing anything naughty to his daughter.
"... Anon." She mumbled, sinking her head into her knees. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah...?"
"... Am I that annoying...?"
What? No, you're not. You're the best part of my day, you're my favorite person in the world! They don't get it, you don't have to be like everyone else. You were perfect the way you were, goddamit! Who are you, where is Nenechi? Tell me where she's buried so that I may rest in peace. Give her back, give her back to me, and other things like that. The torrent that explored inside me that day robbed me of my ability to speak. All these beautiful words remained unspoken, bubbling behind a trembling lower-lip.
My hands landed on Nene’s shoulders and I looked into her eyes for a spark of life, for a sign of Nenechi. Anything at all, and all I saw was the reflection of a broken man.
“Nene… What’s wrong?” I asked her, and myself as well. I didn’t know who I was talking to anymore. This is not my friend, this is an imposter...
“Eh?” She mumbled.
“Nenechi…!”
I leaned over her, I didn't know why. I was terribly mad, and I wanted answers. I held the poor girl under me as is she was the one who had them. A tear wet her cheek, but it wasn’t hers. It was mine. I was crying, and my tears were raining on her face one by one. Her were were empty, the same eyes that once beamed brighter than the sun where now trapped behind the cloudy gray pupils that Momosuzu donned.
The last glimpse I had of Nenechi was in the form of a friendly hug. While I was breaking down, her arms came around me and pulled me close to her comfort. Wordlessly she held me while I sniffled.
Afterwards, I went home and locked myself in my room. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to follow Nakamura home and bash his ribs in with my foot, but most of all, I wanted to go jogging with Nenechi, and hear her hyping me up after I was out of breath.
"You never know what you have until it's gone." What a bullshit cliché. I knew what I had, and I had to sit powerlessly and watch as it faded away from my grasp.
Nenechi was gone, and I would never get her back.
~*~
I kept trying to see her, but no one answered the door when I knocked. With time, her name disappeared off the attendance list. The last time I visited her home, I was met with strangers, and the world kept spinning like she had never existed.
The flower has withered. I've never gotten over it.
I’m past the threshold of forgetting. Her memory is a part of me now. Back then, even in the bottom of depression I didn't think it would stick with me this long, yet here I am.
I know it was out of my hands, but I feel it looming over my shoulder that it was my fault. If I had let Nakamura had his fun...
Should my words ever reach you, Nakamura, I pray you get hit by a bus, and that I am a passenger of that bus. I would give my eyes to see you dying on the street like the dog you are, but at the same time, I hope that you know peace, because Nenechi wouldn’t want me to hold grudges. She’d tell me to forget about you and move on with my life.
But Nenechi’s dead- No, she is alive, she lives inside my heart’s heart, with all her toys and her questions and her smile and her giggles and she's telling me all about her beetles. But ever since that day, it’s hardened. It’s encased in stone so that no one will hurt her ever again. Sadly, her kind words can’t reach me from there.
Not since the day my sun died.