#sachie hisakawa — the old name cast away

[tsukikokiyomizu]

“Kiyo-cha~n!”

Really, it’s so embarrassing. Even though I’ve told you thousands of times to not call me that, you insist in embarrassing me. That detective nut won’t stop even if I ask her, will she… I would say it’s the Italian blood, but Okaasan was Italian too, so I can only blame her personality for being so obnoxious. Seriously, it’s such a pain in the ass, even if she’s a friend… my pride as a man won’t let me forgive that.

“I already told you, it’s ‘kun’! ‘chan’ is how you call girls, do I look like a girl to you?”

That obnoxious detective nut laughed at me again. Seriously, what a pain. “Hmmm, I don’t know! You’re so small and cute for a 10-years-old, I would mistake you for a girl any time! Besides, doesn’t ‘chan’ also apply to close friends who are younger or something like that?”

“You’re not that much older, and I do not look like a girl!”

“I’m eleven, you’re ten, I’m your senior and older sister~☆”

Even if you say that, you’re just 6 months older than me. Seriously, what a pain, even though you’re my friend. Even if I told you that, you would just keep on calling me ‘Kiyo-chan’ like the idiot you are, so there’s no use on arguing against that. I sadly accepted that fate, just hanging my head in embarrassment, while she kept on talking about her latest obsession. She’s been reading a lot of foreign novels, which is not surprising considering her father is a foreigner, just like my Okaasan was. What was the latest one she liked? I don’t remember the name, but an English priest wrote that one. What was his name again? Renald? Roward? Ronald? Something something Knock? Whatever, it’ll soon vanish and she will jump to the next author. What a pain. I was never good with English anyway…

The obnoxious girl with blonde hair following me was named Antonia. Her surname is Italian, so I have troubles pronouncing it. I don’t even bother trying at this point, so I just call her by her first name. It was too long at first, so she suggested nicknames, but those sounded too embarrassing with my accent. I’ll just stick to what I can do, no thank you…

Even though she has an Italian name, Italian surname, that bright yellow hair and even Italian blood, she’s Japanese. Her father married her Japanese mother here in Japan, like the opposite of my parents. Okaasan, who was Italian, came to Japan so she could finish her education, and she met Otousan, who was trying to become a teacher, and married him. This is why I, too, am an unfortunate victim of the “weird hair color in Japan” syndrome. Seriously, even if it gets repetitive, this truly is a pain. Kids pick on me because I look like a foreigner and am a boy, but when it comes to Antonia, suddenly she’s ‘pretty’ and ‘different’ and ‘cool’. What even? If you’re going to pick on someone, at least don’t be that arbitrary with your reasons, dammit. What, if I was a pretty girl I wouldn’t be picked on? Maybe being ‘Kiyo-chan’ really would be better. I swear, I’ll marry a standard Japanese woman and have kids with normal hair color, eye color and no hint of foreign blood on their faces. That way, they won’t have to be treated like that. And, then, I won’t have to see another victim of “weird hair color in Japan” syndrome in my family.

…Family. I moved in with Antonia and her family, which technically means she’s my older sister. I call her nee-san when we’re home, and I generally try to treat her like an older sister, but I can’t see her as anything other than a friend. I kept my last name, though, out of respect for my deceased father.

Yeah, you can pity me now. ‘Poor orphan boy who has no parents’, right? People either pick on me because I look like an alien amongst dark haired people, pity me because I have no parents and live with Okaasan’s friend’s family, or pretend I don’t exist whatsoever. I try not to care much, but how can you not do that when it’s been like this since you were seven? If it was when I was five, then I probably wouldn’t remember, but it was just three years ago. Okaasan died out of a disease, and then Otousan followed suit not long after. I thought I, too, was going to die out of that damn tuberculosis thing, but I didn’t. Weird, right? I wish I could have gone with them. If I did, Otousan would probably keep picking on me for being too slow with my studies and be as strict as always, so maybe it really was a miracle that I survived.

Antonia is my older sister now, and her father, Mario, is my father. Her mother, Sakura-san, is my mother. She has a lot of siblings, so they’re my siblings too—Renato, Tobia, Niccolo, Ottavia and Laura. Renato and Tobia are obnoxious, but not in the fun—if I can call her constant teasing fun—way that Antonia is. They take my things and hide it, and when I get frustrated, they just get worse. Niccolo is laid-back and lazy, so he never helps around the house, but he lends me fun movies to watch when I’m bored, so I like him. Ottavia is way too energetic for a girl, so we usually play-fight a lot, and Laura is truly a cute shy little sister, so I walk with her back from school so she isn’t alone. Antonia’s grandparents are my grandparents too, and grandpa usually teases me even more than Antonia, until I get red; grandma is nice and tells me lots of ghost stories, besides telling me a lot about how Italy was. They’re a fun family…

Antonia is very lonely, though. She has only one friend at school, and her siblings don’t like her. Even if Tobia and Renato mess with me, they do it even worse with Antonia, and the others ignore her even if she talks to them. I can’t say I don’t respect her for never lashing out at them.

Out of all the siblings, I’m the closest to her. Even if she’s an obnoxious tease who keeps treating me like I’m five and ‘too cute to be a boy’, she never leaves me alone, so I never feel lonely. And, when she sees one of our classmates being stupid to me, she steps in and makes sure that I don’t feel bad. She does have a weird taste in books, but I forgive that—but seriously, detective novels? They’re so lame. If I’m going to read something, I want it to be as removed from normal day-to-day life as possible. So, I read fantasy novels, and she reads those weird murder stories. She says it’s just because ‘I don’t understand the appeal or the plot’, but I beat her to find out the killer in those complicated English books she likes so much.

What was the author’s name again? A… gata? Christ? Something something Christ. Even though she says she’s a master at writing mysteries, I figured out the murderer of one of her masterpieces in seven chapters. What fun is that? That’s why I like books with magic better. …Well, I can’t say I haven’t been reading some murder mysteries just to beat Antonia on the run, but that doesn’t mean I like them or something…! I just like to stay on top of things, okay? Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t be a weird detective nut like Antonia!

So, that was just another one of those hot days, where we both walked together to school, after dropping Laura at her school. But the teacher told me to do something before school. Yeah, I had to drop something on that girl’s house, right?

‘Meiko Megure’. Seriously, what a pain. If you’re going to not come to school, at least pick your own homework, instead of making your classmates drop it at your house.

That was the day a lot of things changed.