Chapter 7 Pizza for the Rising Star #4
“The allocation of members was dragging on, and the atmosphere in the homeroom turned languid. The students who failed to raise their hands for any of the committees started whispering to one another. I had nothing to do, so I waited for homeroom to finish while I read my book, as I always did. Then, from behind me, I heard the voices of some of the popular, outgoing boys. ‘What about the Library Committee?’ ‘Who else is in that committee?’ ‘Kuroda? No way. I’ll choose anything but the Library Committee, then.’ ”
An image of my own high school classroom flashed through me.
Hozumi paused and drank his oolong tea.
“It’s strange how you can’t forget certain things people say about you. Sometimes I still have dreams where I hear those voices coming from behind me.”
With those words, Hozumi turned his body to his right, looking behind him. There was nothing but a blank wall. Hozumi’s eyes were pinned on a single spot, as if he could see something else.
“They were all snickering. I could feel their gazes on my back. I was pretty sure that they were talking like that on purpose, half hoping that I could hear them. I’d overheard them bad-mouthing me before, so I thought, They’re making sure I can hear them again.”
Hozumi removed his glasses and assessed the evenness of the frames.
“I tried my best to pretend like I was absorbed in my book. I kept telling myself that I couldn’t hear anything.
But it was no use. Even though I was reading the best part of an Agatha Christie book—the part where the culprit is exposed—I couldn’t concentrate one bit.
I kept worrying that I was sweating through my shirt. ”
Hozumi was pressing his hand over his underarm, perhaps almost unconsciously. The moment I saw this, a thought occurred to me.
He’s still trapped inside the memory of that day. That day when he was stabbed over and over again by his classmates’ hushed snickering.
“I made sure I turned the pages of my book at regular intervals so that they didn’t know I was having a hard time concentrating.
Their snickering continued. In the end, they all found committees to join, and since no one else wanted to be on the Library Committee, my teacher made an exception for me to do it on my own. ”
Hozumi put his glasses back on and gently cleared his throat.
“That’s when it occurred to me. I was incapable of gaining their vote. The only thing I was capable of, in fact, was losing their vote.”
“That’s not true…”
Hozumi finished the rest of his drink in one gulp. The ice cubes clinked. Pouring from a large, wholesale-sized carton, Iori quickly replenished Hozumi’s glass with oolong tea.
“I started to think that as long as I was part of the family, we’ll keep losing votes.
I knew from the beginning that I didn’t have the ability to attract or lead people.
But if people were going to decide not to vote because of me, then that was a different issue altogether.
I could have lived with the fact that I was adding zero value to the family. But I realized that I was a minus.”
He continued. “I reasoned that since I’m never going to be popular like my brother, I should at least do well in my studies.
My brother wasn’t as capable when it came to studying, so I thought that if I managed to get into a good university, maybe that would make up for my lack of popularity.
And also, I thought that maybe, just a little… ”
Hozumi broke off, pausing a moment before continuing.
“I had a bit of an ulterior motive. I thought that for once, maybe Mother would notice me.”
The sound of a motorcycle hitting a puddle reminded me that it was raining. I belatedly noticed how cold it had become, and I switched on the electric heater.
“There was a dish that Mother only made when there was a special occasion.”
“Special occasion?”
“Like my brother’s birthday, or the night of his school entrance ceremony, or when he won first place in a tennis tournament—days when there was something to celebrate.
On these sorts of days, there was always a star-shaped pizza on the table.
She would stretch out the pizza dough, then make slits into it, forming a kind of five-pointed star before baking it.
It had sausages, tomatoes, cheese, and—”
I’d seen round and square-shaped pizzas, but star-shaped ones? This was new to me. I tried searching for it on my phone.
“Ah, I see. Looks like you can pull it apart with your fingers—perfect for parties.”
“I know it’s childish. But ever since I was young, I really wanted to have one that wasn’t made for my brother—I wanted one that was made for me. My brother always got to pick a piece first. Then it was Father. I was always last. I’ve only ever taken a piece from the leftovers.”
“Did you not get one on your birthdays?” I asked.
“It was always sushi rolls on my birthday. I don’t remember ever saying so, but for some reason, Mother is convinced that I love them.”
“I guess it’s one of those things where your parents think that a dish you liked as a child is going to be your favorite food forever.”
My dad was the same. Every time I went home, he would always get sushi delivered. He would say, “You love these, don’t you?” and order extra portions of salmon roe.
“Did you not ask her to make one for you?”
“I guess I didn’t want her to make me one just because I asked her to. Besides, I barely knew how to communicate with my family, so it would’ve been a little weird if I suddenly requested a star-shaped pizza.”
It was such a Hozumi-like thing to say. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it were a classic dish like tonkatsu or grilled fish, but I could see why he felt awkward about requesting a cute dish like a star-shaped pizza.
“One day, I realized what the problem was. I hadn’t done anything that was worth celebrating.
My brother was sporty, and he took all sorts of extracurricular lessons, so he had plenty of opportunities to be commended.
I, on the other hand, had spent most of my time holed up in my room reading books, I hadn’t made any noteworthy accomplishments.
That was why she hadn’t made me the pizza. ”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I got into the University of Tokyo.”
“What?!”
“Just like that?” Iori was shocked.
I knew he had graduated from UTokyo, but I never expected that to be the reason.
“Well, I’ve always liked studying. All I did was draw up a schedule and complete the tasks one by one. I analyzed past entrance exams to predict the type of questions that were going to come up.”
“You’re really something…”
Iori and I laughed. We didn’t know how else to react.
“What happened after you got accepted to UTokyo? How did your parents react?” Iori asked as he popped a wedge of lemon into a new glass.
“Even my parents could be happy about that. Father did a complete one-eighty. He started going around bragging to people, ‘My youngest has been accepted to the University of Tokyo.’ Until then, people saw me as ‘that taciturn, sensitive, and gloomy son of Kuroda’s,’ but after that, I became ‘the quiet, mature, and hardworking son.’ They looked at me completely differently. It was shocking.”
The “UTokyo student” label.
The “cute guy” label.
The “almost thirty” label.
We all carry labels. We judge people through labels, and people judge us through our labels. At some point, people stopped saying “you’re still young” to me.
You need to experience everything; you’re still young.
People used to say that to me all the time. I couldn’t agree with them more. So I worked my butt off. I traveled. I joined study groups. I went to cross-industry networking events.
But then there came a point when I started hearing words like “already” and phrases like “it’s about time.” If I made a mistake, I could no longer get away with it.
Just when had I made that jump?
“So did you get to have your pizza then?”
Iori’s voice snapped me back to my senses. Hozumi had wandered off to the sofa seats and was now staring idly out the window.
“My mother asked me what I wanted to have as my celebratory meal. I immediately said I wanted pizza. Having been accepted to UTokyo, I thought that I had finally earned the star-shaped pizza.” Hozumi smiled wryly. “But instead, they took me to a famous Italian restaurant.”
“They took you to a restaurant?”
“It was a really high-end restaurant. The four of us had a meal together in the private room that my parents arranged for the celebration. I had the most incredible pizza margherita there. The dough was so light and soft. But…”
Hozumi gently ran his fingers over the window. Drops of rain hitting the glass formed a pattern of abstract spots.
“But it wasn’t…it wasn’t what I wanted. I hadn’t asked for a four-course meal in an expensive Italian restaurant. I didn’t want anything like that. I longed to sit in our living room, in my brother’s usual seat, and have Mother’s…”
Hozumi was now clenching his fist against the window.
“Mother’s star-shaped pizza.”
There was a niggling pain in my chest, as if the back of my heart had been pricked by a needle.
Hozumi turned toward me and smiled self-deprecatingly.
“It’s stupid, isn’t it? That I’m so fixated on this.”
No, it’s not. It’s not at all. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a certain dish and saying so out loud. You’re not doing anything wrong.
But perhaps Hozumi had been afraid of people and society for so long that he hesitated when it came time to ask for something as small as that. Perhaps he deliberately called it a “stupid” wish to safeguard himself in case he was rejected.
Iori was now tucking into a bowl of ice cream with whiskey poured over it, maybe because the snacks weren’t enough to fill him up or because he needed to reset his mood.
For someone so slim, he had a huge appetite.
His stomach was so flat, I always wondered where all that alcohol and food was going.