The Truant Girl

　It had been a while since I last went to school,

　when a teacher suddenly asked me to do something strange:

　to check in on a girl from my class who had stopped coming altogether after summer break.

　Apparently, she was a difficult one—someone who wouldn’t listen to adults,

　and probably ignored even her more diligent classmates.

　So they picked me, another student who barely showed up,

　thinking I might somehow understand her.

　And that’s how I ended up at a housing complex near the Jusco mall.

　Even in Okinawa, this area is infamous for its rough atmosphere.

　Most of the delinquents from our class live here,

　and at night, they hang around the entrance, straddling their bikes and chatting away.

　I rang the bell, and her mother led me inside.

　Even though this was just a visit, I couldn’t help feeling nervous—after all, this was a girl’s room.

　I already had a general idea of what to expect;

　several of my truant friends also lived in this complex,

　and I’d visited them during school hours when we’d hang out together

　(since walking outside too early risked being stopped by the police).

　Their rooms all looked about the same:

　a big brown table, a TV, and a cluttered kitchen.

　I was a little envious—their rooms were bigger than the one-room apartment I shared with my mother.

　We’d never won the lottery for public housing,

　so even in middle school, I still didn’t have a room of my own.

　And yet, standing here,

　I found myself envying her for having a space to herself at all.

　I had to play VisualNovels and watch "moe" anime right in front of my mom, after all.

　Anyway—enough about that.

　Her room lay beyond a sliding paper door.

　Expecting a typical tatami room, I was stunned.

　The entire space was filled with plush dolls.

　A small study desk by the window, bathed in the orange glow of sunset,

　was the only thing that hinted at daily life.

　It was, in every way, the room of a girl lost somewhere between innocence and adolescence.

　“...Who are you?”

　The voice startled me.

　I hadn’t noticed her at first—she blended so well into the stuffed animals.

　A twin-tailed girl in a pink dress sat flat on the floor,

　looking up at me with wide black eyes.

　Her outfit clashed completely with the tatami room,

　and for a moment my brain mistook her for another doll.

　“The teacher asked me to come check on you.”

　“From class?”

　“Probably. I’m barely there myself.”

　“What does ‘check on me’ even mean?”

　“No idea. But someone from my neighborhood comes every morning to wake me up—the teacher told them to drag me to school. So I guess I’m just here as your sacrifice this time.”

　“I’m not going back there.”

　“That’s fine. There’s no benefit in dragging you anyway.”

　Her blank stare was almost inhuman—

　even hearing her speak didn’t quite convince me she was real.

　A textbook “mysterious lolita,” I thought.

　No wonder our gym-teacher-type homeroom teacher couldn’t talk to her;

　they’d both freeze up in mutual fear.

　“They told me to ask, so—why don’t you go to school?”

　“If I breathe that filthy air, I’ll be contaminated.”

　I nodded. Fair enough.

　This small, stuffed-animal-filled room was her cleanroom.

　her sanctuary.

　Once you’ve built your own holy space,

　why step into the mud again?

　“Then people like me and the teacher are messengers from hell.”

　“Demons are fine. I’d gladly open the gates of hell,

　but a classroom door only leads to a suffocating fog of boredom and ugliness.”

　“I feel suffocated there too—

　though maybe it’s just because I can’t breathe through my nose.”

　“Everyone should just die.”

　She looked down and stroked her favorite rabbit.

　Her curled eyelashes pointed upward, defiant.

　In this sweltering Okinawan heat, that frilly dress must have been unbearable.

　Her porcelain charm could only survive

　within this air-conditioned capsule.

　“I’ll just tell them you’re not coming.

　I’m not sure when I’ll go again either.”

　“Please do.”

　“So... what happens to us now?”

　“Girls who fall off the rails end up in sex work.

　Boys do manual labor.”

　“So you’ll work the streets? A lolita in a frilly dress—

　the entire city’s creeps will gather.”

　“I don’t want to think about the future.

　That’s why I wear dresses.”

　I’d made her shrink into herself.

　Strange, isn’t it?

　We hate when adults ask, “What will you do in the future?”

　It makes us feel sick every time.

　Is it so wrong to just enjoy the present?

　Those kids chasing exams and job offers—

　it’s not like they have time to run real-life speedruns of SimCity Megalopolis every day.

　Don’t talk to me as if the future is guaranteed.

　And yet, the moment I stood in front of someone who seemed even more lost than I am, I found myself asking her the same question—

　that dull, grown-up question every teenager ends up asking without thinking.

　I felt ashamed of how ordinary my words were.

　“The more frills I wear, the more bad memories I forget,” she said softly.

　“So I keep wearing them.

　I hate tatami rooms, though.

　But I don’t mind the smell—it’s old and gentle.

　If this were a bright room with a canopy bed,

　then there’d be no reason for a princess like me to ever wake up.”

　“You’re shielding yourself from impurity by hiding your skin, then.”

　“Yeah. I hate the future.

　If I could, I’d die now—

　become a doll resting on tatami forever.

　I don’t want to grow up.

　By the time I’m eighteen or twenty,

　I’ll be someone else—no longer a dreaming doll.

　Maybe I’ll talk about money.

　Then I’ll be the one contaminating the world.

　I just want to stay beautiful.

　Is that so wrong?

　They force us to sweat together in P.E., teaching us how to blend into society.

　How can something so cruel be called education?”

　“Sadly, people in this world aren’t as pure as they pretend to be.

　They play with dolls—but the ones holding the dolls are still human.”

　“They only ever taught us how to be cute, how to be pretty.

　But the moment my body began to change, their eyes changed too.

　Suddenly, talking about sex and love became normal—

　and no one even thought that was strange anymore.

　Boys throw filthy words at girls,

　and if we get angry, we’re told we just can’t take a joke.

　What used to be called common sense has been painted over with vulgarity,

　and everyone accepts it like that’s simply how the world works.

　They’ve all thrown away their dolls now.

　When they feel lonely, they reach out to the opposite sex—

　not in person, but through the little glow of a phone screen.”

　“If I were really a demon,

　maybe I could freeze time for you.

　Turn you into a real doll.

　But I can’t.”

　I pick up a toy camera from her desk.

　I knew she had one—

　a girl who wants to become a doll would never live without something to capture herself.

　But just taking selfie wouldn’t be enough.

　“I’ll capture this moment instead.

　Just sit there — and look into nothing.

　In the photo, you’ll be eternal.

　A girl in a frilly dress,

　in a worn-down Okinawan apartment,

　surrounded by stuffed animals on tatami—

　that moment will stay pure forever.”

　The shutter clicked again and again.

　From a slightly high angle,

　her long lashes cast doll-like shadows.

　It was a shot she could never have taken herself.

　Maybe this is all just a passing phase — a hormonal blur of adolescence.

　Maybe in a few years she’ll be fine,

　working part-time at a café,

　going to a technical school,

　surrounded by friends who understand her.

　By eighteen, she might be a normal woman,

　her chest fuller, her bones stronger,

　her arms too big for these toy-sized dresses.

　Maybe this rejection of the world is temporary,

　and someday she’ll never wear frills again.

　To want to die in order to stay eternal—

　I understand that feeling too well.

　I want her to stay like this forever.

　But a memory sealed in a toy camera is too cruel.

　A photo of a girl dissolving into her stuffed toys—

　no teacher would understand.

　No classmate would.

　If she’s doomed to grow wrinkled with ridicule and rejection,

　then yes, I’d rather she stay eternal here,

　clutching the memory of a world

　that once smiled when she simply ran around.

　But people do not become eternal.

“Stay pure, even if only for one more second longer than the world allows.”

　A boy shouldn’t linger in another’s sanctuary for too long.

　I checked the photos, slid open the door,

　and stepped into the “miasma” she spoke of.

　On the table in the living room sat miso soup, rice, and grilled salmon—

　her mother’s dinner.

　She’ll eat it, of course.

　She’s human after all.

　Repeating these ordinary meals,

　she’ll slowly edge closer to the ordinary world again.

　Night had fallen.

　Outside, the delinquent boys with brown and blond hair

　were laughing under the entrance lights.

　They too had “stopped time.”

　They just didn’t want the clock to move forward.

　The eternal princess among her dolls,

　and the reckless boys astride their stolen bikes—

　they’re really the same.

　There are no heroes here.

　No magical girls.

　I’ll go home to my one-room apartment.

　My unemployed mother is probably warming up some udon from San-A.