Girl in the park

She always sat there in the park waiting for someone.

I know this one girl who is really beautiful and really quite, which is why I think the adults don’t really like her.  My name’s Akira Hirada by the way and I’m only 10, and the girl is around 23.  I know her because she always sits on the fountain in the park next to my school.

She’s always taking pictures of everything when she first arrives during recess, but by the time school is out she’s just sitting there.  Some of the older boys say she’s probably waiting for a friend, the girls say it’s a lover though.  It could be either I guess, but I stayed by the school gates watching her once, until it got dark and I knew mom would want me home, but no one ever came. When I told my mother she said not to worry about it, she was probably just trying to find some peace, and that seemed like as good an explanation as any so I left it.

Not to long after that she stopped taking pictures and most of the older girls stopped gossiping about her.  She dyed her hair purple around that time as well, which I thought was odd, but my friends’ older sister said it was a girl thing.  I’ll have to take her word for it since I’m not a girl…I think anyway.

That was all during the summer though, right now it’s only a week until New years.  She still sat there everyday like she was waiting for something, though she looked a little more somber than she had.  Maybe she was sad because the hood she always wore now hid her hair, it must have taken a lot to get it such a funny color and now she couldn’t show it off.  I don’t know about adults, but that would make me sad.  New years is almost here though, so maybe that would make her happy.

It’s New years eve now and everyone seemed really excited, even the girl who sat at the fountain seemed happier.  A lot of people had come to the school to see a play the students were putting on.  I was a nenga-jo this year, but my best friend Ayame got the part of the hawk which was cool.  Hopefully nothing catches on fire like last year.

Luckily nothing caught fire and everything went along ok, except a couple of people forgot their lines.  Ayame-chan did really well though since the teacher knew what he was doing this year.  Last year the old teacher did a really bad job, though no one helped him be good so it wasn’t entirely his fault.  Now though I was watching my mom and aunt talk about boring stuff with other adults.

The whole “after play” thing got boring real fast, so I started to look for something fun to do.  It wasn’t exactly fun, but my attention landed on the girl sitting at the fountain.  She wasn’t alone this time, or sitting, she was standing with a guy who looked to be a foreigner.  I guess that must have been who she was waiting for since she was holding his hands and kissing him; sister always said that meant you were happy to meet someone.

“Akira-kun?” I looked over to Ayame-chan who had changed in to her normal clothes, which made her look cuter than when she was a hawk, but I liked her anyway.  She smiled before taking me by surprise and giving me a quick a quick kiss on my lips.  “Akira-kun wa akemashite omedeto gozaimasu” she giggled before running off to her family.  I very much hope I get to see the sunrise!

Author's Note

I needed to write something heart warming and fuzzy after my latest batch of writing. I tried to avoid romanji (which it was written in) in this since it can lead to confusion (i.e kami= paper and kami= gods/goddesses aren't spelled differently in romanji, but have different kanji). I did set things up in Japan though, so some romanji had to be slipped in there to keep in character. I may one day translate this when I can handle kanji better.

*Nenga-jo are cards given to people on New years by family and friends. It's very impolite in Japan not to send a family member a nenga-jo with well wishes for the year ahead.

*Chan is a suffix attached to a named used mainly between close female friends, but is also used on boyfriends, pets (there's a difference?), and young children of both sexes. It's rarely used on adult men, or between adult men unless it's slightly insulting.

*Kun is a suffix attached to the end of a name usually used for people under you in work or school, but is sometimes used between male friends, or towards male friends when san is to formal and chan shouldn't be used.

*Akira-kun wa akemashite omedeto gozaimasu if I got it right means "happy new year Akira-kun!"

Reviews

[Steven Goodykoontz]

That was good. Though, I expected the woman to kill the kids. But it was heart warming. That is what God does, he wait for us to come.

[ganymeder]

I liked the story. I don't know much about Japanese culture so it was interesting, especially the note at the end explaining things. :)