Ijime (The Bullies): A Novel by Dan Abe & P. S. Power

Author:Dan Abe & P. S. Power [Abe, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orange Cat Publishing
Published: 2014-02-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter five

Akemi didn’t really know what to do. Her first impulse was to go to the police directly, since this was a legal matter now. They’d been attacked, to silence them. By criminals. Like the Principal of their school. Their old school now. That was the problem, since being kicked out now was a matter of their word against the old man’s, and the people under his control. It wouldn’t shock her in any fashion if he made Goro and his goons press charges against them. It made no sense, a single boy and a small girl attacking three larger people, but the accusation didn’t have to be real in order to work.

Just backed up by the people in charge.

Isamu limped along next to her, as they got to the train. Looking around them she noticed that people were shying away, trying not to see the two kids that were covered in blood and bruises. Only one person they passed made eye contact with her, and that was a very tiny and old woman.

She stepped forward, her weathered and wrinkled hand placed in front of her, touching Akemi on the face, just under a place that stung and felt thick, which just wasn’t right. It was a gentle thing, and barely registered as a point of contact. For a brief moment, everything in the world focused down to that one spot on her skin.

“Young woman, what happened to you? Who harmed you so?”

No one else stopped to listen. Isamu even stood away, not looking at what was happening there, either.

Akemi knew what she was supposed to do, which was lie, and tell the old lady in her quilted dress that nothing was wrong. That there had been a simple accident, not an attack. It was obviously not true, but was the polite thing to do. To say that everything was fine, and to hide the shame of it all.

Except that it wasn’t her shame. This one belonged to Goro and his goons. To Principal Oshiro, and the ones that did his bidding. It was a thing for others to feel as being wrong, not her, or Isamu.

“Ijime, obaasan. We shpoke out ag-gainsht them, and tol da polise. So we werd beaden.” It was a simple thing to say, but the old lady recoiled, as if their heresy would rub off onto her.

Without speaking, or making a sound, the woman stepped away, her eyes averted. Making sure that she couldn’t see what was going on, like most of the others around them. It was a statement, and not a thing that was good to hear. She, the grandmother that had been the only one willing to step forward, didn’t have the courage to stay with them. Not after she knew that it was something so, evil. That, or stupid. Even the elderly feared bullies, it seemed. Those lessons from childhood hammered in so firmly that decades of life weren’t enough to wash it away.

Isamu followed her onto the train, not saying anything to her, but not leaving her alone.

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