Memories with the “Brat” – Part 3

The Brat Wants to Dig

“Come on, everyone, line up and don’t step outside the white line.”
“Yes!”
The first-graders march along the sidewalk like a line of ants. Dressed in red-and-white caps and gym clothes, they wear their own rain boots. Their backpacks are stuffed with lunch boxes, work gloves, towels, and more, and some students already look tired.
“Mahiru, Asaka, let’s have a contest to see who can dig up the most!”
“Miya-chan, you’re super pumped, huh?”
“I love sweet potatoes!”
“I ate a big breakfast today just for this!”
Mahiru flexes her stick-like arms to show off her muscles. There’s nothing there, though.
“If we get a lot, let’s share some with Yuu-nii!”
“Nice idea!”
“Let’s do it!”
On a clear late October day, it’s the long-awaited sweet potato digging event for the students.
Miya and the others are heading to a field about ten minutes’ walk from the elementary school. It’s a tradition to hold a sweet potato digging festival in mid-autumn, doubling as a field trip for first-graders, when the sweet potatoes planted in spring are ready for harvest.
“A car’s coming, everyone stop!”
Even though it’s just a ten-minute walk, moving nearly a hundred young students is risky. It’s a tough day for the teachers, too.
The group finally arrives at the field.
Following the lead teacher’s instructions, they line up by class. Then, the field manager gives a lecture on how to dig sweet potatoes and things to watch out for.
“Don’t dig too roughly. If you hit the potatoes, they’ll get damaged and won’t taste as good. Be gentle, and if possible, dig with your hands. Pretend you’re a mole and dig the soil little by little from the outside. When you see the potato, squat down and pull it out.”
“Yes!”
And now, to the field.
Wearing work gloves and carrying buckets, they head to their assigned spots by class. They crouch in front of the straight rows.
“Mole hands, mole hands.”
Asaka gently sifts through the soil, but no sweet potatoes appear yet.
“Here we go!”
Mahiru thrusts her fingers, shaped like a spear hand, into the soil.
“M-Mahiru-chan, the man said to be gentle!”
“Asaka, don’t coddle her. The only thing that should be sweet is the potatoes. Hiyah!”
“Is this okay?”
That said, it’s just a first-grade girl’s strength, so it’s not much different from digging normally.
“Hiyah, hiyah, hiyah!”
The kids’ knees and thighs get dirty with soil.
“Ah!” Miya shouts.
“A potato?”
Miya picks up a wriggling white creature about the size of her pinky.
“Hehe, just some kind of larva.”
“Eww!”
“Kyaa!”
“It’s not that scary.”
About five minutes into the digging, some kids start finding potatoes.
“Found one!”
“Yay!”
“Unf!”
“It’s huge!”
“We can’t lose… oh!”
Mahiru finally feels something with her fingertips.
“Oh, oh!”
“Mahiru-chan, isn’t that a potato?”
“Score!”
A reddish-purple tip emerges from the soil. The three carefully dig around it, and as more of it is exposed, Mahiru squats down.
“Ugh, uoooh!”
“Mahiru-chan, you got this!”
With a pop, one comes out, followed by more sweet potatoes from the same vine, pop, pop, pop. With the momentum, Mahiru falls backward onto the next row.
“Ouch, oh, I got three!”
They’re small in size, but the sense of accomplishment is huge.
“Amazing, Mahiru-chan!”
“I’m gonna dig up an even bigger one!”
“I’ll try harder too!”
And so, the brats keep digging up sweet potatoes.
Some are thin and tapered, some are lumpy and misshapen, others are round and oval—various shapes of sweet potatoes fill the buckets.
“Ugh, what’s this? It won’t budge!”
Miya raises her voice. Grabbing the exposed part with both hands and pulling with all her might, it feels like she’s trying to lift the ground itself.
“Asaka, help me out!”
“Okay!”
Mahiru pulls Miya’s waist, and Asaka pulls Mahiru’s. Like The Giant Turnip, the three combine their strength for a few dozen seconds.
“Wah!”
Finally, the sweet potato is pulled from the ground, and the three tumble into the field like dominoes.
“Amazing!”
They dug up a reddish-purple potato longer than Miya’s face and thicker than her arm, curved upward. Undoubtedly, it’s the biggest catch of the day.
“It’s huge!”
“So big!”
“Look, it’s bigger than my face!”
Miya presses the giant sweet potato to her face.
“Yuu-nii’s gonna be shocked when he sees this!”
“Miya-chan, let me hold it too!”
“Sure.”
“It’s heavy!”
“Asaka, my turn next!”
Having enjoyed the sweet potato digging, the students eat lunch with sweet potato miso soup alongside their lunch boxes and play in a nearby park in the afternoon.

2

“Wow, that’s impressive!”
Sayaka lets out an exclamation seeing the sweet potatoes lined up on the table. The students could take home the potatoes they dug, and some were brought to share at Moonlight Terrace.
“Did you all dig these?”
“““Yup!”””
“You must be tired. Have some juice and snacks to recharge!”
“Oh, right, Auntie, don’t cook these potatoes yet. They said we have to let them ripen.”
Miya relays a half-remembered instruction.
Yes, sweet potatoes, after being harvested, are stored at a certain temperature and humidity to ripen, turning their starches into sugars and becoming sweeter. Sayaka already knows this but plays along for the kids’ sake, pretending it’s new information.
“Oh, really? Then we’ll wait a bit before making sweet potato pie.”
“What’s all the fuss about?”
“““Yuu-nii!”””
Aritsuki comes home just then.
“What, potatoes?”
He glances at the sweet potatoes on the table. For a high school boy, sweet potatoes don’t exactly spark excitement.
“We dug them up!”
“Pretty cool, right?”
“We’ll give some to Yuu-nii too!”
“…Yeah, cool, cool, thanks. So that’s why you’re all covered in mud.”
Saying that, Aritsuki heads upstairs to put away his things. Sweet potatoes don’t quite get him hyped.
“Hehe, this one’s even more amazing!”
Miya grabs the giant potato and chases after Aritsuki.
The tragedy was caused by three misfortunes.
First, the giant sweet potato was heavy, throwing off her balance.
Second, the sweet potato digging, crouching and all, had left her legs more tired than expected.
And—
“Whoa, whoa!”
Losing balance, Miya falls forward. Ahead of her is Aritsuki’s backside. The giant sweet potato in her hands is thrust forward as if guided.
Third, it was a matter of positioning.

Zup.

A tragedy caused by the height difference between a high school boy’s lower body and a first-grade girl’s eye level.
“Gwaaahhhhh!”
Aritsuki’s roar echoes through the shop.

The Brat Won’t Come Up

1

Driving along National Route 139 toward Yamanashi, skirting around Mount Fuji. This area is full of plateaus, with plenty of outdoor leisure facilities like ranches and campsites.
“We’re almost there.”
“Don’t want to arrive too early, though.”
Dad’s car shakes a lot. I’m starting to feel a bit carsick. Guess I’ll look at the scenery.
Looking at the mountains to the west, I see a flock of paragliders gliding in the sky. To the east is Mount Fuji. From this angle, Fuji has a vertical scar-like mark. That’s called the Osawa Collapse, a deep valley formed over many years by erosion. The valley, carved straight down from the summit, is still eroding bit by bit, they say.
The charm of Mount Fuji changes depending on the angle, a privilege of living in this town so close to it.
Today, we’re heading to my mom’s parents’ house in the northwest part of town. It’s my great-grandfather’s thirteenth memorial.
My great-grandfather passed when I was in kindergarten, and I remember attending his funeral. But that’s about all I recall—his face is honestly a blur. Apparently, he played with me a lot when he was alive, but since I was too young to remember, I don’t. That’s how kindergarten memories are, I guess.
The only vivid memory is crying my eyes out when I saw his bones at the crematorium.
We turn onto a path through the woods and follow it. Soon, a traditional Japanese mansion comes into view. It’s been since the Obon gathering that I was here. Some relatives in black are already outside.
“Whoa, Yuu, you’ve grown!”
“Hey… we saw each other at Obon, didn’t we?”
Living in the same town but only meeting a few times a year—it’s strange how relatives are connected by an unbreakable bond.
Grandma greets us. Her short hair is streaked with white, and she wears thick reading glasses.
“Welcome.”
“I’m hooome!”
Maybe because it’s her family home, Mom’s a bit more excited than usual.
Faded tatami mats, dull shoji screens, rough plaster walls. The wooden hallway creaks occasionally when walked on. Ancestors’ photos hang on the walls, and the place is filled with an old, nostalgic smell—not unpleasant, though. Mixed with the scent of incense, it creates an indescribable mood.
By noon, relatives start gathering in droves.
The large hall is packed with people, people, people. There’s gotta be over forty, at least. Some faces are familiar, but others feel like I’m meeting them for the first time.
“My, Yuu-chan, you’ve become quite the handsome man!”
“Haha, thanks.”
A plump middle-aged woman talks to me. She’s Mom’s sister—my aunt. She lives far away, and it’s been years since we last met.
“Got a girlfriend yet?”
“Huh? Uh, no.”
“Of course you do! With that sharp nose, you’re a looker. You take after your mom!”
“Haha.”
Saying her piece, my aunt moves on to someone else.
There’s not much of an air of mourning the deceased. It’s more like a class reunion, with people happy to reunite and catch up.
Well, they’re not strangers, so I’ll relax. Spotting a cousin close to my age—though he’s an adult—we reminisce about childhood.
“You used to get scared and cry a lot because of Great-Grandpa, remember?”
My cousin says, brushing back his long, slicked-back hair.
“Nah, not at all.”
“We played haunted house on the second floor here, and you cried your eyes out when he grabbed you from behind.”
“Now that you mention it, something like that happened.”
“Right, right. Is Shun-san here?”
“He’s here.”
“I got a new car, so I wanna ask him for tips. The 86 is built for tuning, after all.”
“Oh, yeah.”
I don’t get car talk. While we’re chatting, the monk arrives.

2

Maybe this is the real point of a memorial service.
The large hall is filled with laughter tinged with alcohol. After the monk’s sutra chanting and incense burning wrap up quickly, everyone gathers in the hall. Lavish dishes line the tables, along with piles of empty bottles. Red-faced people talk loudly about trivial things. The problem is, Mom’s side of the family is a bunch of heavy drinkers. Dad, weak to alcohol, gets knocked out in no time.
“Hey, Yuu, you drinking?”
“Nah, I’m still in high school.”
Grandpa’s brother—my great-uncle—starts hassling me.
“Idiot! Back in our day, we were called booze champs by middle school!”
“Stop bugging Yuu!”
My aunt grabs his ear and drags him to Mom’s table, the liveliest spot.
“Sigh, I’m going to the bathroom.”
For a minor, there’s nothing more boring than a drinking party. It’s all older adults, and drunk ones come at you with weird nonsense. Since they’re family, they don’t hold back. My only allies—Dad’s out cold, and Mom’s leading the drunk brigade.
Better just retreat.
After using the bathroom, I slip into an empty Japanese-style room. Maybe I’ll watch TV to kill time. Or since we’re staying over, should I take a bath first?
“Hm?”
There’s already someone in the room.
“Oh!”
It’s my kindergarten-aged cousin. She’s half-British, with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, like a doll. With her mother’s refined features and adorable charm, relatives whisper she’ll grow up to be an incredible beauty.
She lives in Tohoku and comes back during long holidays like New Year’s, Golden Week, or summer break. Clutching a teddy bear in her right hand, she’s lying on her stomach on the tatami, drawing.
Probably got bored of the party and snuck out. Right now, she and I are the only ones not drinking.
“Yuu, it’s boring.”
She says in a halting voice.
“Yeah. What’s so fun about drinking anyway?”
“You don’t drink?”
“I’m not twenty yet.”
“Yuu, I’m hungry.”
“What, you haven’t eaten? Let’s go back then.”
My cousin shakes her head. Seems she’s shy around all the unfamiliar adults.
“Hmm, wait here then.”
No choice, I’ll grab some food for her. Back in the hall, my uncle, reeking of booze, gives me a serious look.
“Hey, Yuu, I heard you still don’t have a girlfriend?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s no good. If you don’t lose your virginity by twenty, the road to it gets long.”
“Shut up!”
“Hahaha!”
“Nice one!”
“Give him a cushion!”
These guys are already plastered.
Drunk nonsense isn’t worth listening to—it’s just a waste of time. I grab an empty plate, pile on kid-friendly food like fried chicken, meatballs, and fruit, and hurry back.
“Here ya go.”
“Yummy!”
After devouring the food, my cousin stretches big.
“Yuu, I wanna ride a horse.”
“Horse?”
“Horse,” she says, pointing at me.
“…”
“Run, run!”
My butt gets smacked, and I run around the room, careful not to let my cousin fall off my back.
“Faster!”
“Neigh, neigh!”
I play horse for about fifteen minutes. By the end, I’m out of breath, and my knees ache.
“Yuu, I wanna play a game.”
“Yeah… sure.”
Finally free from horse duty. I hook up the only game console in the house, a Super Fami○, to the TV.
“What do you want?”
“The muscle one.”
We play Fight○l Fight Tough for a while, but at some point, my cousin’s character stops moving. She’s fallen asleep, her short limbs tucked in, curled up adorably.
I keep playing alone for a bit when I hear the sliding door open behind me.
“Oh, you’re here!”
My uncle peeks in.
“Sorry, Yuu-kun, making you babysit.”
“I’m used to handling brats.”
Dealing with those little punks daily makes this a piece of cake for me.
My uncle gently pats his daughter’s face.
“Hey, wake up. If you’re sleeping, take a bath first.”
“Unyu.”
“Yuuhi, I said wake up.”
“Yuu, sleepy.”
“I said, bath first if you’re sleeping!”
“Haha.”
And so, the night at the Togami house deepens.