Mug
From Ran, 2014.
I can no longer reach her.
2015
I can’t remember when I first started calling him Mosquito.
When he transferred to our school that second year, he was a short, chubby boy who liked to show off among the girls, clever in a way that grated. Later, when we finally began talking, some of the baby fat had melted away, and somehow he didn’t seem quite so irritating anymore.
But Mosquito was irritating. He was the type who tried too hard to please teachers—always the first to raise his hand, eager to speak up. He had a simple, good-natured face but insisted on acting sharp. I still remember him bouncing up to the podium, his round body wriggling as he looked up at the teacher with that fawning grin—God, how I hated him then.
The first time I saw his stomach trouble flare up, his face was chalk white, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He was hunched over in his chair, shirt stretched tight across his back, but he stubbornly refused to go to the infirmary, whispering that he’d be fine in a minute. His hands clutched his stomach so tightly the knuckles turned bone white. I sat beside him, not knowing what to do, glancing around at the curious faces watching him suffer. Then he bent his head to his knees and started to sob, shaking. The teacher finally noticed, half-dragged, half-carried him to a wheeled chair, and pushed him out the door.
I felt guilty—so I volunteered to go with him. It was an easy way to escape half a class.
That was how we really met.
I’d never been good at making friends. Still, I had a group of seven or so boys I hung around with—some tall and wiry, some broad and muscular. I couldn’t tell if I truly enjoyed their company or was simply going along with the cool guys. When they sweated through basketball games or shouted over computer screens, I joined in awkwardly, always half out of place. There was a thin film between me and everyone else, at least until Mosquito came along.
We both loved manga, and that was enough. From that day, we talked through class, through lunch, through dismissal—and kept talking after we went home. I found myself saying things I’d never told anyone, words spilling out before I realized it. His presence made me lightheaded with an unfamiliar kind of happiness, a warmth that felt like belonging.
I learned that he’d missed a year of school because of his stomach problems, that he had a mild inherited depression (though I could hardly believe it), and that he never quite knew how to deal with people. Yet these flaws only made him more singular, more irreplaceable. His wild imagination, his strange way of thinking—it all fascinated me.
We grew close. He slipped naturally into our circle, eating, playing sports, gaming with us, leaving behind that slick, overeager persona from before.
Mosquito was short, but his basketball skills were something else. We laughed at how his pudgy body wobbled as he dribbled up the court, his every step making his flesh jiggle, yet his movements were nimble and sharp. When we played seriously, his speed and force were not to be underestimated.
His weight had its reasons. His stomach often gave him trouble—he’d miss class, but he could eat like no one else, and he could cook, too. Someone once said people who cook for themselves lose their appetite, but not Mosquito. He never ate from the cafeteria. Every noon, he’d pull out neat boxes of homemade dishes, lay them carefully across the desk, and watch us drool with a grin. His lamb stew, we all agreed, was the best in the world—though maybe the cafeteria food made it seem better than it was.
And then, there was his laugh. He could laugh five minutes straight at his own joke—a high, continuous “kekeke” that filled the room. We’d curse him for being stupid, but by the end, his ridiculous laughter always infected us all until we were clutching our stomachs, gasping for air. Sometimes I thought he didn’t sound like a mosquito at all, but more like a hen about to lay an egg.
That summer, I stayed late after school to study for exams. Mosquito wanted to wait for me, but I turned him down—it felt wrong to trouble him. I watched him and the others shove each other playfully as they left the classroom, and felt a pang of emptiness. When I finally walked out, I saw them playing basketball on the field, laughter echoing across the campus. I was glad for them, yet somehow a little angry. How small of me, I thought. To think of him as my joy alone.
As exams approached, Mosquito vanished. They said he’d left home one morning and never returned.
His parents and teachers went mad searching for him, questioning everyone. We were terrified—none of us knew what to do. “You knew him best,” someone said.
I froze. He’d once told me I was the only contact in his phone.
I almost laughed at my own stupidity. If anyone could find him, it should have been me. I was supposed to understand him best, to be the one he trusted most. Yet I hadn’t even realized what I meant to him—I’d been sulking over his friendships with others. And now, when he truly needed me, I was helpless, relying on others to find him. I felt so guilty I could barely stand it.
Two days later, he came back. He told me he’d had a terrible fight with his parents, packed a bag over the weekend, and taken an early train back to his hometown. I knew things were bad between them, and that he was stubborn enough to do something like that—but I still couldn’t forgive him for vanishing without a word.
I hadn’t realized how deep our friendship had grown until I found I couldn’t breathe without him.
The following year, the workload grew heavier. Mosquito grew thinner, but his laughter stayed the same. We started talking about deeper things—our futures, our dreams. He’d grin and say, “With how I am, I’ll never amount to much. When you make it big, don’t forget me.” I’d shove his head against the desk and laugh. “Look who’s talking.”
He mentioned, once or twice, wanting to write a book someday—to record every embarrassing story, every stupid joke we’d ever shared. “It’d be so funny,” he said, “though no one would read it,” and then burst out laughing again.
The seasons passed—cold to warm, warm to cold again. I got into another school. Mosquito was going to America. We both kept it secret at first, until one day, we let it slip by accident, looked at each other, and smiled knowingly.
I didn’t think about cherishing the time we had left—maybe I’d never known a farewell painful enough to teach me how. But as summer neared, the memories began to flicker one by one through my mind.
The last day was blistering. The sun baked the playground, cicadas screamed outside, and we hugged our goodbyes—shirts and cheeks soaked with sweat. Mosquito’s eyes were red, locked on mine, words trembling unsaid. I had a thousand things I wanted to tell him, but they all caught in my throat. Only tears gathered in my eyes.
Then he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around my neck, holding on tighter than he ever held a basketball. He sobbed into my shoulder, tears and sweat soaking through my shirt. I clutched him back, my fingers digging into his back, as if I could keep him there forever. I don’t know how long we stayed that way. When I finally grew dizzy from crying, he let go.
We walked out of the school gate, eyes still red, neither of us daring to hug again—for fear we’d never let go.
That night, I took out the full manga set he’d given me for my birthday, and a letter he’d tossed me one day, saying I should only open it after he left.
In the letter, he wrote that he’d never had a friend for more than a few months, never trusted or depended on anyone like this before. He knew he wasn’t reliable—always in hospitals, always disappearing—but he wanted more than anything to hold on to this friendship that meant so much to him. He said he’d write that book one day—no matter what it was about—and he’d make himself capable, known, respected. And when he was being interviewed as a successful writer, he’d say that back in high school, there was someone who treated him really well...
That was the first time I truly felt something in my chest go missing.
August 2014:
That summer was unbearably hot. The sun scorched the streets, the cicadas droned outside, and Mosquito disappeared from my world.