The Strange Battle Between Jogasaki and Me

That was the kind of letter that arrived for me.
Following that, a list of criticisms regarding what I had written continued on and on.

：
：

“Teacher, what is this...?”

March. The snow piled up on the school roof was beginning to melt little by little, dropping tears like droplets outside the window, one by one. It was that time of year.

I was stopped by my homeroom teacher in the connecting corridor.
What was handed to me was an unadorned brown envelope.

“This arrived at the school.”
“Oh...”
“Do you know the name?”
“Um... yes, well.”
“In that case, I’ve delivered it to you.”

The teacher raised a hand and walked away. I was bewildered.

I certainly recognized the name that was written there.

He was someone I had met in Osaka about half a year ago.

An awards ceremony for a somewhat minor essay contest.
A male student, fourteen years old, the same age as me, who was giving a speech on stage.

Here, I will refer to him as “Jogasaki”.

Furthermore, I would absolutely hate it if my own story appeared somewhere I didn't know about, so I will not write the actual events exactly as they happened.
I also have a great deal of fault, and perhaps he has his own side of the story. Conversely, there is a possibility that he regrets it and is embarrassed by it as a dark chapter in his life.

Therefore, like creating a field of flowers from a single seed, I erased all the reality I had once written and created a new story with a completely different Jogasaki.
Even if he saw it himself, he surely wouldn't know. I think I have reached a point where I can believe he wouldn't be hurt.
Aiming for an essay that is as close to a novel as possible, I will try writing about the half-year (or something like it) I spent with Jogasaki.

(Perhaps the truth is much more novel-like, but... that is a secret.)

：
：

After returning home, I went back to my room still in my uniform.
I was left speechless by the letter that came out when I opened the envelope.

"What is this..."

Inside was a copy of my award-winning work, covered in red ink.
Criticism after criticism. It listed things like, this expression here is... or the way this word is opened is... and so on.

To be honest, the opening sentence was so shocking that I barely remember the content that followed.
But it was unpleasant to have my favorite piece of writing, which had caught the judges' eyes and been praised, edited with red ink by a mystery person without any prior notice.

I was also annoyed at being told my writing lacked femininity. What even is girlishness?

Sure, he won the special prize and I won an honorable mention. But he is not a judge. Isn't he just a fourteen-year-old middle school student like me?

"I mean, why contact me individually...?"

There were about twenty winners in the contest.

I didn't exchange a single word with him at the awards ceremony.

He was constantly surrounded by people that day.

Jogasaki was the one who gave a speech on stage.
Admittedly, what he wrote at the time was overwhelming.
I was just one of more than ten honorable mention winners.

Moreover, the schedule after the awards ceremony included a tour of the sponsoring companies. We were divided into two groups, and he and I were assigned to different teams.

I only talked to girls of similar age who had gathered from all over the country.
We became incredibly close during the tour. We never ran out of things to talk about, whether it was our shared love for writing or stories about the prefectures they came from that I had never even visited.

I was also impressed by the differences in our school uniforms. (#What are you talking about?)

What particularly caught my eye was a chic black sailor suit! The older girl wearing that mature uniform apparently attended a prestigious school for young ladies in the city.

I felt ashamed of my rustic appearance, my hairstyle, and my lack of makeup. I felt a bit out of place, thinking how many cute girls there were from the city.

Since it was already cold, I was wearing thin black stockings of the denier specified by my school. They were brand new for the awards ceremony.

But everyone except those from the northern regions wore navy blue socks, looking intellectual and well-behaved, which seemed so urban and dazzling to me.

I exchanged contact information with girls from other schools.
Some of them even became close enough to exchange letters with.

Maybe she was sending them to everyone. That thought struck me, so I sent them an email.

"After the contest, do you ever correspond with people from other groups?"

If there was someone who was close to Jogasaki... thinking that, I couldn't tell them the full details. The girls seemed to misunderstand and think I was in love with a boy from a different group, and I could see them clutching their phones with the look they get when they're about to talk about romance. By the way, none of them had received a critique letter from Jogasaki.

Although I felt uneasy, I wrote a thank-you letter to Jogasaki.

My father opposed it, but ignoring him was not an option.

Besides, his writing was truly overwhelming.
If we shared the same passion (writing), maybe we could become friends, just like I did with the girls from other schools.
At the time, I had male friends too, so I didn't think much of it. Even after entering middle school, I would gather at home with neighborhood kids I'd known since elementary school, regardless of gender, to play on the PlayStation 2 or GameCube.

Not listening to my father and sending the letter back. This was the initial mistake.

Furthermore, I made a fatal error.

I often made friends at other schools through extracurricular activities, and I had made my own business-card-like cards to exchange contact information.

My email address, home address, and phone number. I only included the phone number because it was in the computer template, so I filled it in without thinking.

That was probably because I didn't have a mobile phone when I made the cards. My home phone number was written on them.

I put that in the letter to Jogasaki. I actually put it in.
Not knowing that something like that would happen.

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──Six months later.

It was a Saturday, and we were gathered around the dining table as a family. I think we were eating fried rice or something. My mother had a fixed menu for lunch on weekends, and she would make one of a few patterns. If it wasn't fried rice, it might have been Napolitan.

The landline phone rings out.

The room goes deathly quiet. My whole family freezes, stiff as ice sculptures. Then, like doors that are rusted and hard to move, everyone turns their faces toward the phone.

It was my mother who stood up. She rose like a doll, silent and expressionless. After checking the landline's display screen and returning, she sat down quietly and resumed eating without a word.
The phone is still ringing.

My father asks.

Who was it?
...Jogasaki.

We all nodded as if convinced and continued our meal in silence.

:
:

The time goes back several months.

The first thing that arrived was a large, plain brown envelope.
Inside were two letters and a thick stack of copy paper.

The first letter.
This was shocking to begin with.

It was a letter from Jogasaki's mother.

Rinka-san, my son likes you. He is always praising you. I look forward to a long relationship with you.

Something like that was written. I felt dizzy.

Likes me.

In what sense...?

The thick stack of copy paper was a novel Jogasaki had written himself. I couldn't read even a single page of that text, where people's limbs would suddenly be torn off and things would become blood-soaked. The moment those unsettling words entered my eyes, I felt a painful thud in my heart, and I slammed the stack of papers shut.

On the cover, there was a sticky note asking for my thoughts. But I trembled, feeling like I couldn't even reach the finish line.

And, of course, a letter from Jogasaki was also enclosed.

It was written asking when we could meet.

"I'm quite light on my feet. I'll even come to Aomori to see you."

He lived in the Kansai region. I lived in Aomori, and we were both minors.
(#It's just crazy)

Seeing this sentence, I wondered, though I couldn't believe it, if he meant it in a romantic way.

By the way, at that time, I had never had a boyfriend and was completely unfamiliar with romance.

What I loved were shojo manga. I longed for a fateful, sparkling, sugar-coated kind of romance.

Even subtracting that age-specific longing, a romance where a mother intervenes from the start was impossible for me.

In the first place, Jogasaki and I had never even spoken.

"No way, no way, no way..."

I cursed my own carelessness intensely.

Terrified, I showed the letter to my parents.
My father turned pale, trembled, and scolded me.

Because Jogasaki had the gender-neutral name Kaoru, my mother had assumed it was my usual pen pal girl, so the letter, which had arrived at our home for the first time, had easily reached my hands.
She had also turned as white as if she were about to collapse.

As a result of a family meeting, Jogasaki's letter was treated as if it "never existed." Next time, I wouldn't reply to anything. I wouldn't react. In the first place, he didn't exist.
That's what we decided.

However, he wouldn't allow such a thing.(#What are you talking about?)

:

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Saturday. While my parents were at the supermarket, my elementary school-aged younger brother and I were house-sitting. The landline rang. It was an unknown number, but I answered it just in case.

“Ah! Rinka-chan!”

I was bewildered by the cheerful voice.
All the boys in junior high school call me by my last name.

“It’s me, it’s me. It’s Jogasaki.”

I froze stiff. The first question that came to mind was, “Why?” A strange, gasping breath escaped my lips.

My younger brother, who was studying shogi nearby, must have thought it was strange. He approached without a sound.
He scribbled “Jogasaki” on a memo pad at hand.
My brother snatched the receiver from me and said in his formal voice, “My sister is currently out.”

“Eh? Oh? You’re the little brother? I see, I see. We met at the venue before, right? Your voices are similar, aren’t they? You’re very mature for your age, though.”

“Our voices are identical. Even our father mistakes us. ...Um, my parents and my sister aren’t here, so can I hang up? I’m still in elementary school.”

“Ah, right. Please tell Rinka-chan that I’ll call again.”

Since then, half a year has passed. Our family kept ignoring the calls. On Saturday afternoons, we even tried going out. However, when we returned, the answering machine light would be blinking red in the dark room.
Even so, we did not give in.
Jogasaki, too, would not give up.

“Don’t you think you should answer?”

That topic came up as well.

“But wouldn’t it be worse if we reacted?”

We didn’t have an answer. There was also a sense of guilt that we might be hurting him by ignoring him. I was the one who replied. It was my ignorance, and my sin.

But more than that, I was terrified.I couldn’t help it.

More than half a year passed, and I once again slipped my legs into thin black stockings. There were days when snow fluttered down, though not enough to accumulate.

Saturday. Once again, around lunchtime. The phone rang from Jogasaki. Everyone fell silent.

It was my brother who picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Ah, little brother! You finally picked up. Is Rinka-chan there? It’s Jogasaki.”

“Oh, is that you, Jogasaki-san? My sister is out.”

“Is she not there on Saturdays? Lessons? When is a good time? I want to decide when we can meet. I’m thinking of going to Aomori during winter break, you see.”

“Um, could you please stop?”

“Eh...”

“My sister has a boyfriend.”

I was startled. That was a complete lie.

“My parents approve of him, and he comes over to our house often. You might not have meant anything by reaching out, Mr. Jogasaki, but I can't risk him getting the wrong idea...”

The call cut off abruptly.

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:

The battle with Jogasaki, which lasted over half a year, left our family completely exhausted.

I do think that perhaps I hurt him, too.
After all, I never replied to him even once after his second letter.

But I was terrified of his high-pressure letters that included messages from his parents. I was also horrified by his grotesque novels.
And the phone that rang over and over and over again.

Only physical distance gave me any sense of security.

:
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Jogasaki’s phone calls made my younger brother more rational and mature, and they taught me a lesson.
Never give out your contact information to others so easily.

And, though it’s frustrating to admit, I also think he helped me polish my writing skills.

It is true that my writing style was full of kanji and didn't seem very feminine. Every time Jogasaki called, I would ruminate on his words.

I stopped using kanji indiscriminately (at the time, I had just passed the Kanji Kentei Pre-1st Grade and was intoxicated by the beauty of complex characters), and started paying attention to the ratio of hiragana.

Incidentally, a few years later, my father would become furious at me for using too much hiragana, shouting, “Your writing is too childish!”
(#Well, I suppose that doesn't matter)

I live away from my parents' home now, but since I don't hear anything from them, I assume... there are no more calls from Jogasaki.

And so, we reclaimed our peaceful Saturday afternoon.

(#What are you talking about?)