Origami

She walked down the street slowly staring at her feet as she walked. Middle school was harder than she had originally anticipated. It did not help that they had just moved here from Tokyo. Moving from a big city to a smaller one was a bigger shock than Azusa was expecting. Her book bag weighed heavily on her back as she trudged down the street. A light rain fell obscuring Mount Fuji to the north. 

After unlocking her front door she walked into the genkan removing her soaking shoes and stepped up into the house in her stocking feet. Her jacket stayed behind to drip sullenly onto the floor. She could hear her mother putter about in the kitchen, making supper. Azusa tiptoed quietly to her bedroom, slipping past the kitchen where her mother bustled about at the counter cutting and prepping the rice and fish. 

The bedroom door opened and shut silently as she snuck into her bedroom. She threw her bag down and slid down to wrap her arms around her legs and rest her forehead on her knees. Through her closed eyes she could see the whole day all over again. Every cringe inducing introduction and awkward exchange with strange kids. 

She missed home. Her real home. She missed playing with her friends after school. Going to to the local shops and talking about the gossip at school. She missed the smell of cooking odon and street performers. She missed the lights and sounds and energy of the city. Here in Fuji none of this existed. Everyone and everything was quiet. Even the volcano in the distance was silent. 

Resting her chin on her knees, she noticed a letter on her desk. She unfolded and paced over to pick up the envelope that waited for her. It was from her best friend. The one she left behind. 

Tears and hugs had been exchanged along with promises of writing and visits as often as possible, as they bid farewell for the last time. She remembered looking at her best friend’s house and Miki’s tear streaked face in the window. She had pressed her hand to the glass as though she could reach through the distance to wipe away her sadness. 

She reached down to the letter and opened it, sinking onto her futon to read the words there. She read about life back at home. The newest gossip. The weather and what was happening in Miki’s life. How her friends at school were doing and what the teachers were saying. The way the cherry blossoms were coming in along the trees lining the streets. She asked how Azusa was faring and if she had a new best friends and if the weather in Fuji. What was she learning in school and if she had signed up for any after school clubs. 

Azusa put the letter down on her bed and felt the wave of homesickness wash over her. Her fingers began to itch and she stood to sit at her desk, idly scratching at her hands. Her hands always began to get pins-and-needles when she felt very strong emotions, as if the feelings were trying to get out. She opened a drawer and pulled out a square piece of paper printed with a flowery cherry blossom pattern. She looked at it and mentally asked it what it wanted to become. 

A dragon fierce and strong, it replied. 

Nodding she got to work allowing all her thoughts and feelings to flow out and into the folding. She created each crease from a trouble. The foot was the rain. The head was her stumbling walking up the steps of the school. The wings were the giggles from the other children. Each new part of the dragon formed from her day. The itching in her fingers and hands lightened as she bent and folded. Until finally a tiny dragon sat on her desk. She watched it as it shook out its head and flapped its wings. She sighed as her creation tramped around the desk attempting to breath fire at her lamp. 

Her back straightened and her movements became quicker as she unloaded her mental strains one by one into her origami. She soon had a menagerie on her desk. A frog, a crane, the dragon, an elephant, and a unicorn all explored, fought, and danced about on her tabletop. She watched them with fascination. The itching in her hands had disappeared as had her melancholy at the world. The rain had ceased and the sunlight had started to stream into her window. She would pick one up to move it on a book or onto her bed for added exploration and it would fight with it’s little legs kicking. 

Calling paper to life felt like something she could always do. She did remember her grandmother teaching her patiently how to take a flat piece of beautiful parchment and create a sculpture. Her grandmother had introduced the idea of origami and taught her the cultural significance of the crane, lotus, and dragons. One day she had been practicing a frog and she was so excited when her small fingers were finally able to put the folds in the right spots and it all worked to allow the little frog to be identifiable. She had been so excited and she felt a itching slide down her arms, through her fingers, and into the little frog which had proceeded to hop around the table until it jumped off and fell on it’s back little legs waving wildly. Azusa had been fascinated and watched it for a while before picking it gently up and placing it outside to live a life such as a frog would desire. From then on whenever she had a feeling or emotion that was too strong or she didn’t want she would put it in a little animal. It was how she dealt with life. 

Her mother called to her announcing supper. She kneeled down onto the floor under her bed to the little box below. She pulled it out and opened it. Inside were origami creations of every type and color. Each one moving about. Cats crawled, flower petals waved, and bulls charged. She scooped her newest creations up and placed them gently in the box. She didn’t know where her magic came from or when it started she just knew that when she was sad, or mad, or overjoyed or feeling anything extreme she could call them to life. She smiled at her little zoo. Her little secret. 

As she put the top back on and slid the box under her bed she decided she could do this. She could be as brave as a dragon and as friendly as a unicorn. She skipped with a lighter step out the door.