While washing his hands in the bathroom, Goro looked up at Kazuo.

“YoYoshiyama is nice and cute and all, but isn’t she a little over maternalistic?”

Goro had a bad habit of trying to smugly use difficult words. Kazuo, with his glazed over eyes as usual, looked down at the 20 centimeter shorter Goro.

“Hmmm, why’s that?”

“What? You don’t think so?”

Goro puffed himself up. Due to his red swollen face, he often looked like her was straining himself.

“Yoshiyama, She completely thinks we little babies. Huh! ‘Go wash your hands’ she says!”

“I guess…” mumbled Kazuo. With eyes that seemed stuck in a dream, he continued to leisurely wash his hands.

Kazuko, who had come back from throwing out the garbage behind the school building, put her hand on the door to the neighboring lab. This science lab was the room with all of the chemicals, so it had two doors, one from the classroom and another to the hallway. The one Kazuko was opening was the one from the classroom.

*******

With classes over, the school building was quiet and kind of bleak. Occasionally, the sound of a classroom door sliding open and close echoed hollowly down the empty hallway. Someone was playing Chopin’s polonaise on the auditorium piano. Third year student Kazuko Yoshiyama had just finished cleaning the science room with classmates Kazuo Fukamachi and Goro Asakusa.

“That’s good enough. I’ll take the trash out. You two, go wash your hands.”

“Oh, thanks…”

Kazuo and Goro walked off to the hallway sink. As she watched them walk away, Kazuko again, felt like laughing. The two of them were a truly funny pairing. Kazuo was tall and thin. Goro was short, fat and round. While both of them had good grades, Goro was a hard worker, if not a little too straight. On the other side, Kazuo was a dreamer. He seemed kind of vague and you never knew what he was thinking. He was a little creepy from time to time, too.

*******

[Edit] So, reading the next paragraph, they go to the bathroom, not to the hall sink…

So, looking through my collection writings from college, I came across this. I loved it then and I still like it now. I don’t think I ever showed it to anyone. I thought I could post it here and it’d be safe from anyone ever seeing it (cause no one looks at this site…). Here it is.

So, Like I was just sitting the minding my own business when this old dude came up to me and offered me his shoe.

He was like, “This is my shoe. I’ll sell it to you for your sock.”

I was totally taken back, I mean, I’m used to people asking me for money, and I dole out my fair share, but I didn’t quite know how to react to this. So not needing to feign the confusion that I felt I replied, “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘This is my shoe. I’ll sell it to you for your sock.’” He told me.

“Yeah, I got you the first time. But why? The shoe offers so much more protection that just my sock.”

Now he just stared at me as if I were a tropical fruit grown in a not quite tropical location. I could see him preparing himself for a schpeal, so I, in turn, prepared my self for his lecture. “Boy, you had best lern somthin. Dem shoes might protect your feet, but come winter, it don’t matter, you’re feet are frozen, you see, so why bother to protect them. And I’m keeping one of my shoes so I can protect the sock from getting wet, so boy just buy my shoe, it’s only one sock. ”

I was pleased with the brevity of his sermon so I told him that I would give him my socks. I was like, “Dude, I’ve got like 20 pairs back home, so you like can have both of my socks and you can keep your shoe to boot.” I smiled happily at my cute little pun but the old man frowned and shook his head.

“Boy, you ain’t hearin a word I say to you. I don’t want no charity. I offer this business deal to you. You buy my shoe with your sock. Take it or leave it. There’s a plenty of fishies in the see and by golly I’ll get me one of them. It’s a great deal boy! Shoes are expensive! Socks are cheap! You’ll be making a killing!”

So I gave in and gave him my sock, and he gave me his shoe. I figured I could trick him by leaving the shoe there but he called after me and squalled, “Boy! Don’t you be leaving you’re trash around.” Don’t ask me how I know that when he said “your” he really said “you’re.” I just do, and to be honest I believe it was the first time I actually heard someone say “you’re” when they meant “your.” I was pretty tripped out about the whole thing. So anyway he was ranting and raving about me being a boy that was raised by animals and that I shouldn’t litter, and that it was a crime and he could get the cops. So I picked up the shoe and threw it away.

I last saw the old guy walking away shaking his head and muttering something about damn kids that don’t know a good deal when they see one.

Now see, boy that’s why you should buy this shoe from me for your sock. Don’t be like me. I was a fool when I was a boy but I knows now.

It
The Girl Who Could Run Through Time
by Yasutaka Tsutsuiwas after school when she heard the sound of breaking glass in an empty science lab. A sweet scent came drifting from the liquid that had spilt out of the broken test tube. I know this smell… thought Kazuko Yosiyama as she lost continues and fell to the floor. When she came to, strange things started happening all around her, things that mingled time and memories.

It’s a story of a young girl’s journey through a mysterious world and painful experiences. It’ll touch our hearts and stand the test of time.

That’s the translation of the back of the book that I’m going to translate. For those of you who look, you’ll notice a new category to the right there. It’s the acronym for the book title. It’s an older book (written in 1976) which is why I’m kind of surprised it’s never been translated to English. Of course, I’ve only done a cursory search, so it might have been at one point in time (it was written in 76). I’m surprised because it’s been turned into a movie (1983), a manga (2004) and recently an anime movie (2006). Someone else might be translating this, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s written for junior high schoolers so it’s a real easy read. I got it because the anime movie was decent and I’ve wanted to read a native Japanese SF story ever since I got good enough to read novels, plus it’s only like 200 pages. I hope those of you who read it enjoy it. I want to try to figure out how to make that section top post so that I can just translate chapter by chapter and it can be read from top to bottom. Oh, and apparently the movie/ anime/ other things have been given the title “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” but I don’t like that translation. Yes, she leaps, but the Japanese word “kakeru” doesn’t mean leap. It means like 50,000,000,000 things, and leap is not one of them, however run is. I hope you enjoy.

Brian Schuch

This story was originally written by my friend Matthew Ross who is a brilliant artist (search for him on ebay for cat art), and if he illustrated this story, it would look much better. However, this is a rewrite from my memory.

Brian Schuch

Brian Schuch