Beautiful Sculpture / Youth Novel

"Miyama-kun, won't you be a model for my sculpture?"

It was Ichinose Sawa who said that to me at the water fountain in the evening.
Behind her, the sky was painting a gradient from light blue to orange.

From my neck, the tap water I couldn't quite wipe away mixed with the sweat overflowing from the pores on my head,
forming large, transparent drops that fell onto the concrete.

I thought she was teasing me.

A sculpture model is something for people who look like they belong in a magazine, with plenty of muscle definition, right?
I was picturing a stone statue placed somewhere in Italy or elsewhere.

My body is the exact opposite of that.

Curly natural hair and a plump build.
What I have plenty of is not muscle, but fat.
Back in elementary school, I was told I looked "like a bear and seemed kind," but I've never been popular with girls.

I'm not even good at sports.
Every year, on the day before the sports festival at the end of May,
I cast a curse, saying, "I hope the world ends tomorrow."
The class changes, the long weekend ends, and the sports festival is held shortly after. If you can show off something cool here, you're guaranteed a spot as a popular kid for the year. And for the guy who messes up, it's the opposite. You'll be talked about behind your back for a year. Of course, I've always been the latter type of person.

This year, my luck with the draw was bad, and I ended up being the class representative relay runner that nobody wanted to be.
The worst.

That's why I'm still practicing at this hour today. If things had gone right, I would have gone home and been playing the game I just downloaded yesterday.
While thinking that, I was running desperately and then I fell. The gazes of the other relay members were painful.

Even though practice was over, no matter how much I washed my face, the sweat kept pouring out like an idiot. If I looked at myself, I'd think I looked like a soaking wet rag. If there were a ranking for moments you don't want to be spoken to by girls, this moment would be the runaway winner.

"What are you talking about? Are you teasing me?"

Out of sheer embarrassment, my voice came out colder than I intended.

"A sculpture. I'm in the art club, and I'm making a wood carving."
"I want you to be the model for it, Miyama-kun."
"I'll make sure to thank you properly."

She didn't seem to care about the coldness of my voice at all. Ichinose said it in a bright voice.

"Why me? I don't get it."

Someone like a rag like me—I would never choose me.

"Because you were beautiful."

Ichinose said it as if to erase what I had just thought.

"What was?"
"Miyama-kun, washing your face."

When I was a child, the neighborhood ladies would call me cute as a compliment, but this was the first time I'd ever been called 'beautiful.' My current appearance and the word 'beautiful' didn't connect at all, and I felt like I had heard something terrifying.

This time, she narrowed her eyes and said dreamily,

"Your hair tips are fluffy,
and all your curves are so beautiful."

The wind blew, and Ichinose's long hair floated up softly.

✴︎
Ichinose liked beautiful things.
Before I agreed to be her model, she showed them to me.

However, her sense of 'beauty' was a little hard for me to understand.

A smartphone with a cracked screen
A well-washed, large plum pit
A rusty bicycle bell

She would carry things like that around in a drawstring bag, clattering away, and occasionally gaze at them, whispering, 'Beautiful.'
And then, using those as models, she would make wood carvings. The sculptures were lined up in a corner of the art room like objects. No color was applied at all.

The spiderweb-like cracks on the smartphone screen.
The countless wrinkles carved into the plum pit.
The gritty texture of the rust on the bicycle bell.

Even I, who am not knowledgeable about art, was captivated by how magnificent they were. Can you really make something this elaborate with just wood? No, it wasn't just that it was finely detailed like the model. Even though she was making them using inanimate objects as models, I could feel a life force from the carved shadows. The sculptures exuded a power that should only be possible from something alive.

It seems that when Ichinose sees something beautiful,
she wants to turn it into her own sculpture.

What kind of feeling is that?
Is it a desire to carve it into herself and make it her own?
Or is it the happiness of creating something beautiful herself?

Other than what's in her drawstring bag,
her recent favorite seems to be the hangnail on my fingertip.

Ichinose holds my hand and says 'beautiful' as if letting out a sigh.
I get a strange feeling. Where Ichinose's hand was placed and the fingertip she was looking at feel hot and tingly.

"Ichinose, what do you mean by 'beautiful'?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"It doesn't look beautiful to me. Isn't 'beautiful' about having rich colors, refined shapes, or being organized?"
"Is it?"
"I guess so."

For some reason, I had ended up on the side answering.
Although I tried to answer, I didn't really know if that was the correct answer myself. In truth, there might be many more kinds of beauty. Until now, I just hadn't been with anyone long enough to deeply understand what they found beautiful.
So, I added this.

"But, I think your kind of beautiful is good too."

Ichinose looked blank for a moment, then smiled quietly.

"Right? Thank you."

If the reason Ichinose turns beautiful things into sculptures
comes from a desire to make them her own, I feel a little happy.

And so, I became the model for her sculpture.

✴︎
"Sit there."
I obediently sat down on the chair she offered. And then, I just sat there, waiting for the work to be finished.

Outside the window, it was raining. It was the rain of the rainy season, falling without sound, never tiring.

Usually, she often seems like she's somewhere in a dream, but with a carving knife in her hand, Ichinose was bold, as if she were a different person.

She doesn't sketch on paper to make a pattern first,
nor does she draw a draft on the wood.
She carves the square piece of wood just as she sees it.

Perhaps if she had made a pattern, I wouldn't have needed to sit there the whole time, but since she said this was her method, there was nothing I could do. I resigned myself and decided to watch the world of wood carving, which I was seeing for the first time.

At first, she uses a large saw to make lines and remove the sharp corners of the wood.
Next, chisels and a hammer appear.
Muscles stand out from Ichinose's thin, white arms as she grips the tools powerfully.

Occasionally, she stares at me with sharp, piercing eyes.
The square piece of wood gradually takes on my shape and becomes rounded.

Then, using a carving knife, she shapes the fine details one after another.
From the tip of the carving knife she holds,
tiny circular wood shavings slide off in a steady rhythm.
The wood shavings pile up softly on the waxed classroom floor.

I gaze idly at the shavings, or,
with a bit of cheek, I spend the rainy after-school hours wondering what kind of conversation I should have with Ichinose when we head home later.
I spend the rainy after-school hours.

✴︎
The rainy season ended, and the cicadas began to chirp.
Some time after summer vacation began, Ichinose's work was completed.

When I first agreed to it, I imagined a sculpture of my face would be made, but in reality,
she created a full-body figure the size of an action figure,
and a life-sized hand with a hangnail.
It seems she decided to make the hand as an addition.

Since I am the model, I feel embarrassed and it's hard to comment on the quality, but I think it is truly exquisite and well-made. Also, I thought the hair on my full-body statue was as beautiful as the wood shavings that piled up softly in the art room.


On the way home after school,
Ichinose told me she would enter one of the two pieces into a competition.

"What would you like as a thank you?"
"A thank you?"
"At the very beginning, I said I'd give you a thank you if you modeled for me, remember?"
　The sculpture is finished now. What would you like?"

It was here. In truth, I had been waiting impatiently for the day Ichinose would ask me this question.
I had decided on the answer a long time ago, but I pretended to think about it slowly before answering.

"Hmm, well, if I don't come to the art room as a model anymore, I won't have anything to do during summer vacation. I'm in the 'go-home club' after all.
　How about this. Won't you go to the shrine festival with me? As a little memory of summer."

I managed to say it as if it were nothing.
In reality, I wanted it so much. Why does summer make you want to create memories like this?

"No."

Ichinose's answer was completely dismissive.

"W-why?"

I panicked.

"I don't like festivals. There are too many people, it's suffocating. Besides, seeing living things sold in cramped spaces gives me goosebumps."

I was crushed. Even though I had worried about it for so many days. How embarrassing.
I thought everyone enjoyed festivals, but I guess that's not the case. I didn't know anything about Ichinose yet. I felt depressed, and no further words came out.
Instead, Ichinose said,

"Hmm. If it's a summer memory you want, how about the beach?
　It's a bit of a trip, but I like picking up seashells."
"That's great!! The beach, the beach!! Are you sure? The beach!!"

My voice cracked. I thought I had already been rejected, so this was an unexpected proposal.

"Miyama-kun, just so you know, I won't be wearing a swimsuit, okay?"

"W-w-w-well, I didn't say a word about that, did I?"

Ichinose laughed, "Hehe."

"It's been a while since I've been to the beach. Around here, it's just mountains as far as the eye can see. I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too."
There was no lie in that answer.

However, a flicker of anxiety crossed my mind.
What kind of shape would the seashells she calls 'beautiful' have?
Would I be able to find them?


Somewhere in the big, billowing summer clouds,
I looked around to see if the answer might emerge,
but the clouds were just spreading out like a blank sheet of paper forever.

(The End)

I participated in this project.

#ThinkingOfTheScentOfSummer