Chapter Text
“Mommy, can I get contact lenses?”
“What? Kousei, I thought you loved your glasses.” My mom’s tired voice filled with surprise.
“Nuh-uh. They’re big and ugly. Can I?”
She set her coffee down on our wooden kitchen table and sighed, a familiar sound that I understood was her way of coping with a son who asked too many questions.
“You don’t need contacts, especially since you just got those round frames. Maybe in middle school.”
“Okay.” I agreed, waddling towards the couch. Pulling myself up onto the soft cushions, I laid on my stomach to scribble on the notebook splayed in front of me.
It was okay that I couldn’t wear contacts yet. Wanna know why?
Because I know the future.
I know that I get really, really tall, and that I look super cool like Atsuto Uchida. I bet I become an athlete too! But football would be a waste of my height. Maybe I play basketball?
Also I’m really smart and I become a doctor and I save a lot of people. That’s what mommy and daddy want me to do too, so I’m happy that I can make them proud. I think I become the perfect adult and I like the way my hair goes swooooosshhhh.
My hand traced the shape of my future haircut, which was bouncy and fun and had a bunch of layers. My current hair looked like a mushroom cap, so I was glad to know it would get better.
The only thing I didn’t like about the future was the person who was supposed to be my wife.
Nakamura Okuto.
First of all he’s not as tall as me but he looks really scary. His eyes are really sharp like a dragon’s and his hair is dark like thorns wrapping around a tower. I don’t think he smiles that much but when he does his teeth are pointy like vampire teeth.
Second of all he’s a boy and that’s weird. Everyone knows boys are supposed to marry girls, so why do I have to end up with a boy?
I want to be like mommy and daddy. Is mommy a boy? It doesn’t make any sense.
Do I have to kiss a boy? I don’t want to kiss a boy because boys are icky and they’re always covered in dirt. Most of the boys in my class don’t even brush their teeth.
Okuto looked clean, though. But maybe he was just pretending because adults always pretend.
I pouted, slamming my notebook shut. From the corner of the room, my mom jolted, her peppery braid snapping through the air as she looked at me with alarm.
“Kousei..?”
“It’s nothing. Sorry mommy.” I buried my face into the couch’s seam.
It was fine. Maybe I was wrong about the future. Maybe Nakamura Okuto didn’t even exist.
—
Strained notes bounced through the cavernous children’s center hall, where I hunched in front of an upright piano in the corner of the room. Suzuki-sensei, my piano teacher, yelled at me the other day because she thought I wasn’t practicing enough. Her voice was really shrill and annoying, not at all musical.
And mazurkas are hard. It’s not fair. The rhythm is so random and it doesn’t even sound good when she plays it, so how am I supposed to do it?
Plus this stupid song just sounds choppy. Maybe that’s why the composer’s name is Chopin. HAHAHA!!! Stupid Chopin.
Trying one last time, I stretched my stubby fingers as far as they could go before letting out a huff. I couldn’t reach the top note in time and it kept messing up the tempo.
I threw my head up and leaned back on my hands, looking up at the metallic, scaffolded lights on the ceiling. The long metal rods made it look like a fashion runway or a racecar track. When I’m tall and strong in the future, I could probably do modeling or racing too. I’m not gonna play piano anymore because piano is for losers and no one even cares about live music anymore because of CDs.
Suddenly, a small shadow fell over my head.
“Hey, what are you playing?” A boy with tiny, dot-sized pupils leaned over. He talked weird, like his voice was stuck in his throat.
I peered up at the boy and narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t at jidokan to waste my time socializing, I had to practice.
“Mazurka Opus 7, Number 1. By Chopping.”
“You’re funny!” He laughed and shuffled over to the side of the piano, leaning against the glossy black surface. “Do you know that I heard that song in a video before?”
I blinked, looking down for a beat before responding. “Um… Okay?”
“Yeah! It was a blue-ringed octopus video! On the Honshu Marine Life ViewTube channel!”
I frowned now, shifting to my left to put some space between the two of us.
“Don’t you think octopuses are so cool? They’re really smart and they have nine brains! And they can get attached to people too. Like if you raise them then they’ll protect you!”
I did not think octopuses were cool at all. But I wished one of them could donate a brain to this child who had suddenly taken me captive with his babbling.
“They can totally transform and change color, did you know? They’re mysterious, too, like aliens!”
“I don’t car–”
“I’m gonna get my own pet octopus soon! My mom and dad said I could in middle school. I’m gonna show everyone in my class and they’re gonna love it! I’m gonna name him Ichiro because he’ll be my son. He’ll protect me from all the meanies!”
My head began to spin, and I slid my glasses off to rub my eyes.
“Wow. Um. Great.” I muttered, turning away from him to shove my sheet music into my brown bag. The paper, placed in too much of a hurry, wrinkled, but I could weigh it down with a textbook later.
“Do you want to see Ichiro?” He scampered to the other side of the piano and stood in front of me again, bending at the hip so we were face-to-face. “I can show you one day.”
“I’m… uh… I’m okay.”
“Okay, Okai-kun!”
“No, I’m not Okai. I’m Matsumura.”
“Ohh, okay Matsumura-kun. I’m Nakamura Okuto!”
My stomach twisted and my bag dropped to the ground with a dull thud. I looked up seriously for the first time, taking in the boy’s sharp features. A ring of light reflected off of his spiky black hair, which shot out from his head like thorns.
Ah.
Nakamura Okuto was real after all.
And he was a huge weirdo.