CH 4

”Hello. I’m here again.”

I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere by just talking to him, so I changed my approach.

“The teacher brought something interesting, would you like to take a look?”

I held out the 3*3 cube and he glanced over. I hurriedly explained the cube to him before his interest waned.

“You turn it like this to make one side all the same colour.”

He then deftly fitted the cube together, just as his father had taught him. Clink, clink, clink. The sound of plastic rubbing against plastic cut through the heavy silence. It was as if seagulls were flying overhead.

“What do you think?”

His eyes widened slightly as I quickly matched the colours on one side to show him. Good. I think he’s interested.

”Would you like to try?”

I gently held out the cube, and he put down his book and took it. His tiny hands fiddled with the cube for a while before completing the other side. Apparently, he wasn’t just bored with his math book.

“That’s pretty good for your first time. Why don’t you finish the other side?”

He nodded slowly and turned the cube. But it didn’t last long before he stopped. It was expected. Newcomers to the cube are afraid of messing up their hard work again, but it’s a necessary step if they want to complete all six sides.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Everyone does at first. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll get it.”

Can this quiet child do it? Will he be able to tear down the tower he’s worked so hard to build in order to build a more beautiful castle?

Out of simple curiosity, I sneak a glance at his face and am stunned. I expected him to be upset, but instead he was staring at the cube, his eyes flashing with the fierceness of an animal on the hunt. My heart skipped a beat as I realised that this was his true personality beneath the frosty exterior.

“Okay. I’ll give it to you as a gift.”

I smiled at him, surprised, but never making eye contact.

“If you can put all these cubes together by the time I get here next week, I’ll teach you something even more fun.”

With that, I walked away.

I was honestly gambling. There was no guarantee that he would take me up on my offer, even if he was interested in the cubes, so I wasn’t expecting much. I figured I’d be lucky if the cube I gave him didn’t end up in the classroom bin.

A week later, when I went to church, he was sitting in the corner of the pew as usual. I couldn’t help but smile as the sunlight caught his languid figure, making him look like a black goat.

“Hello. Teacher’s here.”

As I got closer, I realised that he wasn’t holding a cube, but a book. I was disappointed, but I expected it. Perhaps I had hoped for too much from the start. I smiled, trying not to let my disappointment show on my face, and sat down next to him. No, I tried to sit down, but there was always something on the seat where I sat.

It was a cube with all six sides squared off.

“You got this… right?!”

I couldn’t have looked it up on the internet, I had to have figured it out on my own. I felt strangely elated, even though I hadn’t done it. I quickly picked up the cube and sat down next to him, turning it around and admiring it.

“Wow…. It took me a month to figure this out on my own. You must be really smart.”

“….”

“Or am I an idiot?”

I laughed mischievously, looked over to the side, and our eyes locked. That’s when I saw it for the first time. Beneath willowy lashes, black eyes like an abyss. He looked a little gaunt, like he hadn’t slept well, but he was still incredibly beautiful.

And his eyes were so clear, even though they were slightly upturned at the ends, that they reflected my face like a mirror. I stared into his eyes and muttered to myself.

“Do you think I see you in my own eyes?”

His eyelashes fluttered for a moment. One by one, his dense features came into view. His full lips, his wide-open eyes, his slightly flushed cheeks that didn’t match his nervous expression. It was as if he was looking at the petals of a camellia that hadn’t bloomed yet, buried in the pure white snow. Then it dawned on me. I’d leaned in so close that our noses touched.

“Oh, sorry. Too close.”

I jerked my upper body back and smiled sheepishly. I don’t know what I’ve done to a kid I haven’t even spoken to yet. I scratched the back of my head in silence, then handed him the cube to break the ice.

“Thanks. For hanging out with me.”

He crinkles his nose playfully and laughs, breaking the tension in his expression. My cube-based approach to friendship had worked. As I turned to walk away, my collar tugged downward.

“Something else….”

“Huh?”

“…You said you were going to teach me.”

I doubted my ears for a moment, hearing a voice whose metamorphosis had not yet come. Did he just… Did he say that? Did I hear him wrong? Is that the voice that came out of his mouth? I blinked, stunned, and then stammered.

“Ah! Yes, I did, but what can I do? The teacher has to clean the warehouse today….”

“Oh…”

The hand that was holding me dropped down. I could see the disappointment in his eyes. I felt like I was just one step closer, and somehow I had kicked myself out of the opportunity. I dropped to one knee in front of him, looking him in the eye as I tried to apologise sincerely.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break the promise, I was prepared, but I didn’t know I’d be cleaning today either….”

“…It’s okay, you can go.”

Before I knew it, the disappointment in his eyes was gone. For someone so young, he seemed quite adept at hiding his negative emotions. Perhaps the countless disappointments he’d had in the past had dulled his emotions, and I felt more and more sorry for him.

“Well, I was wondering if you could….”

“Hey, John!”

I was going to ask him if he could spare some time in the evening after the cleaning was done. But another volunteer came to pick me up just in time, so I had to swallow what I wanted to say. I couldn’t get his disappointed face out of my head as I cleaned up the warehouse.

He must have been expecting me, which is why he left the cube in my usual spot.

“…I should have put off cleaning.”

There’s no point in regretting it now. I sighed heavily and reached for the mop to clean up the dust on the shed. But no matter how hard I fumbled, I couldn’t find the mop. I looked up, wondering where I’d dropped it, and saw a black silhouette against the fluorescent lights.

“What?”

It’s him. He’s holding my mop, standing there without heat.

Why is he here? Shouldn’t he be in the middle of PE class right now? Does he have something left to tell me? I don’t think much of it, but I reach out to take the mop anyway.

“Thanks for picking it up.”

He flinched and stepped back as I casually took the mop.

“What’s wrong, oh, do I smell like sweat?”

“No, no. It’s not that….”

He hesitated, biting down hard on his lower lip, and then stammered.

“I too…… If I can help… It’ll be quick….”

The child’s head was bowed and his ears were red. It was a pink sunset colour that coloured the pale sea. I was stunned by the way he looked at me. As I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, unable to close it, he glanced at me and muttered something.

“…Was that a bad idea….”

“Huh? Oh, no, of course not!”

I said, my voice rising as I worried about misunderstandings. I didn’t want to push him away by telling him it was okay when he was so shy. I quickly squatted down in front of him, looked up slightly, and asked,

“Are you sure you want to help the teacher?”

“That… Yes.”

His pupils, like deep lakes, were trembling. But he wasn’t running away anymore. Now there was only one step between me and him. I wondered how long it would take him to close that small gap, and what expression he would give me then. My heart tickled in anticipation.

“Thank you. I thought you didn’t like me, so I avoided you.”

I said it without thinking, but my fern-like hands tightened around the mop. He didn’t look too happy. Worried that I had made a mistake, I hastily added an excuse.

“No, I mean, you said….”

I tried to play it off as a joke, but he crawled away.

“No… I don’t like it.”

“Huh? Really?”

He nodded quietly. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I’d gotten ahead of myself.

“That’s good. Your teacher likes you too.”

“What? No, not like that… I didn’t say that….”

“Haha, good is good, isn’t it?”

A booming laugh filled the warehouse. His face was red with embarrassment, and it was adorable. We finished cleaning up together and went back to the classroom. By the time I got the chess board out, it was well past dusk, long before it was time to go home.

I lined up the cheap plastic chess pieces and showed them to him.

“You know what this is, right?”

“…Chess.”

“Yeah. Of course, chess is much harder than cubes. You play cubes by yourself, right? But in chess, you usually have an opponent. So, you have to constantly think and anticipate what your opponent is going to do, what move they’re going to make next.”

“How do you predict that?”

“I don’t know. Can you tell by looking in their eyes?”