Manga #2 (First Love)

It wasn't a girls-only area. I swear it.  I was coming back from the pool, and Maiko .  first things first. She was already dressed, back in her school uniform, and she went inside this room and closed the door.   It seemed only natural, then, that I should be peeking through a rectangular window in the top. Oh my. She was sitting on a tube-framed chair facing the glass doors of a tall trophy cabinet, which reflected her dark pleated skirt and white shirt, a floppy black bow at the neck.  Her hair was still wet from the showers.  She looked angry, and in one of her bunched fists there was a plastic disposable razor.  One bare leg was up on the seat of another chair, and in the mirror I could see her pants and . . !!

Looking more closely, below the rucked-up skirt, I could see the curved indent of her white pants. They had spots on, and a horizontal seam, but either side of the pants, pushing out from the edges, I could see . . . HAIR!!!

My eyes bulged and my mouth turned down at the edges.  I started sweating, told myself not to panic. I panicked. Why is she doing this in a public place, I wondered. What if she sees me? I thought: 'you better get out of here.'

So I'd turned and was walking away, honestly I was, when my right foot slipped on a wet patch on the floor.

Before I knew it, I was in mid-air, falling backwards, yelping.

A vision of the swimming pool, and the numbers 4 and 5 on the starting podiums for the races, and the pale sky up above, and some chequered grey clouds. There was a crash.

So then I was upside down on the tiled floor inside the room.  How had that happened?  The blood rushed to my face. I opened my mouth but no words came out.

Her head turned, her mouth slightly open.  She had huge, glistening eyes, reflecting the light like polished black mirrors.  I focussed hard on her shoulder-length black hair, her button nose.

I could see what it must have looked like. When I slipped, I'd smashed into the door which had come off its hinges. A skinny, mop-headed schoolboy, naked apart from a towel, on his back in a small room with a schoolgirl who had one foot up on a chair, spotty knickers showing, a razor in her hand, and a frown just beginning to start on her face!!!

Let's go back to the beginning.  I knew who she was, of course, because every swimming lesson I used to sit on the number 5 podium and stare at Maiko in her costume.  It was like a long singlet which went straight down her curveless body and ended at the top of her thighs.  Underneath, in the same dark material, was the knickers section.  I've no idea whether it was a one piece or a two-piece costume.  How was I supposed to know something like that? In any case, I liked looking at her as she stood all alone with her big reflective eyes, toes turned slightly inward, one hand clutching her other forearm. She looked lost. Under her round face, her slim neck, she had a sharply defined collarbone.

And then I was back on the floor of the room, lying on the flattened door, staring stupidly at the ceiling while she looked down at me and wondered what to do with one naked foot in the air and the razor in her hand.

She screamed out, the whites of her eyes visible all round the pupils. 'What are you doing!!?'

I turned over onto my stomach, as frightened as I've ever been, my face flushed. 'Shhh' I said, 'keep quiet, someone might come.'

'What do you want!?' She pulled in her shoulders and flinched as I stood up. Her legs were now tightly together.  'Er. I'm just, er, I'm nobody. I slipped. I didn't see anything.'

 She was suddenly shy, looking up from her big round eyes through her lowered eyelashes. She, too, had started to sweat.  'What do you mean?'

Bing.  The vision of her open legs and those wisps of hair peeking out from the tight edge of the cotton pants flashed into the back of my head like a giant over-sized poster, several times life-size. 'What was there to see!?'  But I was smiling and a bit glazed.

She stood up.  In a sweat, she looked off to the side, and both of us were blushing to match the other. 'I wasn't doing anything,' she said. 'I never said you were.'

Her bare shins, fuzzed, I now saw, with light individual hairs.  She was looking at mine, and my bare feet, which had none.  'It was only a razor,' I said.  'So you saw everything!?'

'No. I don't know.  Maybe . . .' I kept remembering, and this silly grin was over my face, and the background to the room started swirling with roundels of body hair, her hair.  Fantastic.  Now I was really sweating!!

'Show me yours,' she said. She was back on the chair, the skirt flattened primly over her thighs.

'What!?' All I had on was my towel, and I suddenly remembered she could see my weedy chest, without muscles. No hair. 'Well, you've seen mine,' she said.

!! In a flash I was back in the boys' changing rooms.  The others were already changed into their trunks, but while I was naked one of them grabbed my arms from behind and held me for the others to laugh at. 'No hair!!  No hair!!' they shouted.  One of them with a swimming cap was pointing. Another said: 'baby sheep baby sheep who's been to shearing?'  I was as smooth and hairless as a baby.

On the chair, bare feet flat on the floor, Maiko was attentively sitting on her hands. 'It's only fair,' she said.  'I won't tell anyone.'

She was a bit more insistent than that.  'You saw what I was doing.  I feel humiliated!  And now you won't do anything to make it up to me!'

She stood up and stepped towards me, and as my eyes widened I realised that whatever happened I had to keep hold of my towel. 

She leant forwards, I backed away. 'Why won't you show me!' 'Please, don't . . .' 

She whipped off the towel, and looked shocked. 'But . . .' she said, 'you're so lucky.' I was dumbstruck, not even a mumble.

Now she was backing away, preparing to leave.  'I'm sorry,' she said softly, 'I must have disgusted you.'

 She turned and shook her head. 'Especially since you're so perfect .' 'But . . . '

And then she was out of the room, padding away in her bare feet, carrying her school-bag in her left hand, talking softly to herself.  'Some people are so lucky.'

I was left alone feeling silly in the room with the broken-down door. The trophy cabinet was once more just a cabinet full of trophies, and the chairs just chairs in a room with a blackboard and a massage table. Everyday pool things.  I sighed.

Later that day, home, a comfortable family house, evening.

Rice on the table, soup and rissoles, but even with rice clamped in my chopsticks, the person I'd become since entering secondary school didn't feel like eating.

My Dad was in a sloppy T-shirt, drinking a glass of water. He had stubble on his chin.  'Eat up, there's a good boy. Mum's dinners'll put hairs on your chest.' !?

'I'll never get hairs on my chest.'  We were kneeling at the table, and Mum was distracted by the TV.  'Or anywhere else, for that matter.'

Typical Mum, she'd been listening all the time.  She turned and studied me through her round glasses. 'Don't you worry,' she said. 'Everyone gets body hair eventually.'  I gulped.

Even as Mum chuntered on, the image was back, larger than life.  'Girls as well as boys.'  One bare leg planted on the floor, the other spread up on the chair.  The mussed pleats, the tight cotton of her pants, and the wisps of hair searching out on either side. 'I shouldn't let it bother you one way or the other.'

'Don't let it bother you.' A crescent moon, clouds, time passing. 'Maiko was everything.'

One week later, and I was arriving at school with my rucksack on my back, full of dread. 'Oh no. Swimming again!!'

By the side of the pool a boy called Daisuke was already changed, a show-off, in his swimming cap and new goggles. 'They're my special hair-ray specs.  Har har.  Can't see anything!'  Another boy said: 'Maybe something's come up since last week!' 'Shut up!!'

I walked away, remembering what Mum had promised: one day. Daisuke was there in front of me - 'It's baby's bottom!'

Now it was someone else, Fat Taro, already changed and with his hand on my shoulder. 'Don't you worry about a thing,' he said. 'I once had the same problem,' 'Did you?'

I'd never thought Fat Taro was very nice, but he was carefully walking me towards the changing rooms. 'Yes,' he said, 'when I was about six!'  'Shh!!  Girls!' And I bet they heard everything.

In the pool, in my dark trunks and cap, I swam the crawl like a maniac, forgetting everything about who and where I was.

My head came up between strokes, gasping for breath, and every breath sounded like the word HAIR.

I couldn't stand it. I reached out my fingers for the wall at the end of the length.

And then burst up through the water in the shallow end, panting from the effort. Hair Hair Hair. 'There's no escape!!'

'Maiko!!' I sunk low in the water and swivelled my eyes to the right.  Someone had called her name.

Fat Taro.  I was close enough to hear what they were saying. Below her swimming cap Maiko's hair was in short, stick-out bunches, and then the one or two piece bathing costume.  Fat Taro said: 'Daisuke likes you.  Do you want to talk to him?'

'I don't know,' Maiko said, looking sad and lost, 'I suppose I could.' 'Right!' Taro said,  'I'll go and get him!'

While she stood there waiting, I gazed longingly at her straight body in the costume, the pants section between her legs.

Just the pants section, and her white legs. There was no trace of hair.  I'd have seen it.

'Hi there!' It was Daisuke.  Maiko was embarrassed, so she stood with her arms at her sides and looked at the ground.

Daisuke had taken off his swimming cap and his long brown hair fell in a fringe. Maiko said, 'You don't want to talk to someone like me!'  'Yes I do!  I think you're great!'

By this time I was climbing out of the pool, the chlorined water dripping from my hairless back and legs.  What were they saying?

Maiko was still looking at the ground, but she seemed happy, her mouth slightly open, edging towards a smile. She was blushing, and that's how I liked her best.

I stopped where I was, by the side of the pool, watching, always on the outisde. She was happy because it was Daisuke, and whatever it was he was saying.

'Hey you!' The swimming teacher had sneaked up behind me. His hairy legs, his bulging black trunks, the ripped muscles in his stomach and chest.

He stared down at me from his heavy brows and thick crew-cut.  'Why are you out of the pool!!' 'Too young.'

'What are you talking about? You're in this class.  Of course you're not too young.'  I roared at him.  'I might just as well be!?'

That was a mistake, and I was overcome by regret, and a flush that was almost permanent. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude!?'  'A bit late for that! I've never heard such nonsense!'

'In fact, you'll have to be punished,' the teacher said, hands on hips.  'How would you like to clean up the whole of the pool area!?'

The sky is high and blue, with a scatter of lonesome clouds.

And me with a stiff brush in my hands, sweeping, sweeping.

I had my uniform back on, my white shirt, but I'd rolled my trousers up so they didn't get wet as I swept water back into the pool.  Sweep.  'I can't believe she likes Daisuke!'  Sweep sweep.  'She must have found out I don't have any hair, when she's so lucky!' Sweep sweep sweep.

I was sweating, pushing out the broom, in despair.

What am I doing!!! I flung the broom against the poolside slabs.  I can do better than this!!!

The broom, its hard bristles in a puddle of water. Or maybe I can't.

I was soon brushing again. Sweep sweep. I didn't see the girl who'd come into the pool area, who was now watching me.

My name, spoken softly.  I froze, eyes wide. That voice. 

Maiko. She was in her uniform, her pleated skirt held up by school-regulation clip-on braces. Her schoolbag was over her left shoulder, and her feet and knees were turned slightly in on themselves.  She clutched the strap of her bag as if for support.

'What are you doing here!?' I let the broom hang loose in my hand. 'I could always leave . . .' 'Come to laugh at me!?

For once, I concentrated on her face, her glossy black hair, her huge round eyes and dark, upcurving eyelashes. She looked unhappy, her mouth lipless and barely opening as she spoke. 'I need your advice.  It's about Daisuke.'

Daisuke!?  She added: 'And . . . body hair.' Hair?

My world heaved, turned, and I might as well have been flat on my back staring at a ceiling, nothing around me but a repeating print of a primitive idea of vaginas, edged with hair in fronds, like eyelashes.

In fact, it was as if was suspended in the air above her head, the top of my head descending towards hers, understanding nothing. 'I'm just asking . . . are you alright?'

'Look!!', she said, suddenly in a rage, sweat pouring from her face. 'I know it's totally disgusting!!  But do you have to make it so obvious!?'

My pupils like pin-heads, my eyes all empty and white. With my standard blush, I looked very young.  'Disgusting?'

'I've tried so hard . . .' Maiko said, the anger in her round eyes now tinged with a kind of pleading. Amazingly, she reached forward her hand  'Look at me.'

Her hand was now close to mine, reaching forward, and all I could see was that arm coming my way, and the body of her white shirt, no head, no face, no legs.  'I really need someone to talk to . . . and you already know the worst . . .'  'Me!? What do I know?'

She sounded in such pain that I looked once more at her face.  Her eyes faraway, unconcerned at how much she was sweating. She was in a real sweat. 'In the trophy room . . . you saw how ugly I am.'

'Ugly!?' She'd got it all wrong, and my face lit up like a beacon.  'Not at all, I mean .'

Then she nudged me with her hand and I glanced down.

What the . . .?  The skin of her forearm was marked with scars and scratches, shaving-cuts.  Dark hair was already growing back.

'Why did you do that?' I bent forward at the waist, fascinated by the cuts in her skin.   'To get rid of it . . . it's so embarrassing and horrible . . .'

She let her arms go limp and hung her head forward, her glossy black hair entirely covering her eyes.  'I have it all over.  I don't know what to do.'

Her school shoes, her white socks pulled up to the knee, and tufts of grass struggling between the paving stones. 'On my arms. . .,' she said, 'on my legs . . . and you already know where else.'

I looked at her, sweat pouring off me, mouth turned down at this turnaround in my world. 'You mean you don't like having hair!??'

'Of course I don't like it!  It's the most embarrassing and horrible thing about growing up!'  She was shouting with her mouth open wide, while staring through the paving stones at my feet.

Even clutching her bag to her side, meekly refusing to meet my eye, there was no mistaking her misery.  'And the worse thing of all is .  I don't know how to tell Daisuke. If I don't tell him and he finds out he'll never speak to me again.'

Perhaps by now we were equally distraught, arms stiff by our sides like two soldiers who'd been ordered to attention, facing each other and forbidden to move. 'I want you to tell me honestly.' Maiko said.  'When you saw me in the trophy room . what did you really think . . . when you saw . . . me, it?'

And I was immediately back there, Maiko with her bare leg hoisted up on the chair, the razor in one hand, the reflection in the cabinet . !!

She clenched her fist close to her chin, as if snuffing the life out of an insect in her hand. 'I wish you hadn't . . .' 'Why?'

An unfamiliar expression appeared on Maiko's face. I was getting to know her better all the time, and this was almost like her angry face, but with wider frightened eyes and her hands shaking in front of her chin. Boy, could she sweat.  'You don't understand!  The girls here are monsters.  They twist my arm and parade me in the changing rooms.  They call me hairy Mary.  I can't stand it. I've tried shaving, but I'm so clumsy.  I don't know what to do.'

Her shaking hands twisted into claws and she reached out, making me step back in horror, the entire cosmos swooshing past me in one single instant. She said: 'Tell me how a horrific hairy animal like me could ever go out with Daisuke!?  'But your hair was the best thing I've ever seen.'

There, it was said.  And now the focus was entirely on me, to explain myself.  I looked at her wide eyed as if she might reach for me again, and in my embarrassment and fear my lips had all but disappeared. I was openly sweating, but then that was nothing new for either of us. 'I mean . exactly what I said. Your hair was . . . is very wonderful.'

At which point my vision blanked, and I was in a grey fog, blundering on.  I could hardly breathe, but I told her, through the fog, 'Whenever I think of you I tremble.  I can't get that picture of you out of my head.  The hair between your legs.'

'Really?'  We were re-materialising from the fog, two schoolchildren face to face beside the pool at the end of a warm though cloudy day. 'You are the most beautiful creature on earth.'

Great heavy tears pooled in her lower eyelids, lakes at the base of her wide round eyes. Her sweet, lipless mouth fluttered open.  'But why?' she stuttered. 'Why didn't you tell me before?'

And then, as the tears streamed out and down her flushed cheeks, she went mad, the cosmos again re-arranging itself in horizontal flashes of light.  She clamped her arms tight to her sides and starting shouting. 'You're laughing at me! You find it just as disgusting as the girls do!  I bet you think this is funny!?' 'No, I don't.'

'No I don't, really I don't,' I had to hold up my hands palms outward to try and calm her. 'Not in the least!!'

I swallowed hard and my eyebrows angled up at the centre.  I flushed and sweated and hesitated.  'In fact quite the opposite. I wish I had the hair you have.'

And off she went again.  This time she shouted so hard she had to close her eyes, and her words hit me in the face like a smack, jerking my head backwards.  'Don't laugh at me!!'

Over the wire fence round the swimming pool, above a row of isosceles trees, one, two, three, four greyish clouds limp in the dog-day sky.  She said: 'I thought you might understand!' 'I do.  And I'm not laughing at you - you have everything I want!!'

But she was crying again, stare wide-eyed and vacant and the tears flowing down her face, dripping from her chin to the poolside slabs.  She was shaking, emitting a heat-haze of misery and adolescent embarrassment.  'Why are you crying?'

All I wanted was to make her feel better.  The idea escaped my brain so fast that my eyes weren't even focussed, and I had to wave my hands to get it into shape.  'Look. I know a way round this . I could help you shave . right . and . we could swap . kind of . if you don't want it.'

I added: 'I could then have hair, no?' Her tears had miraculously stopped, so I kept at it.  'And you'd have none.'

Her deep glistening eyes were unfocussed and thinking it through, her thin eyebrows in curving lines beneath her falling black hair.  She said: ' ...!'

Then:  'It's an idea.' The tears were threatening to break free again from the pools of her eyelids.  'We could help each other.'

'Share the problem.' I said, and no-one could blame me for sweating.  'When should we start?' It was only now that I noticed the way her mouth had hardened.

'Now!!'  The cosmos separated into fast-flowing lines again, a meteorite background to my astonished stare.  'You're sure?

With the wire fence behind me, lost in the shock of my eyes, I started to ramble.  'I mean how will we actually do it? Someone might come?  And after we swap, how can I make it look like mine?'

Women. She exploded again, her face opening up in her impatience, so that as she berated me I could see her top row of teeth right to the back. 'Don't get cold feet on me now!  Think about how I was doing it last week.  Only this time, you use the razor!!'

She clamped her hands down hard on my shoulders, and there went the order of the cosmos again, in beaming centrifugal lines.  She said: 'To the trophy room!!'

7-Eleven, Ichigaya 2 Chome, Tokyo, May 2004.