Chapter Text
(Two years ago)
XX/XX/XX
There are blows that hurt on the cheek.
And there are blows that hurt somewhere completely different.
The trace of her fingers on my face disappeared in a matter of minutes. The other thing took much longer.
But let’s back up a little bit.
17/10/XX
That morning, I walked with Shizuka toward the institute. Well, it wasn't that frequent anymore, since lately she was always with her friends. The autumn sun hit us from the side, and she carried her violin case slung over her shoulder, which meant she had rehearsal in the afternoon.
We talked about unimportant things. About exams, the cultural festival, about whether Gian would manage not to cause a scene during the classroom activity proposals. It was easy to talk to her. It always had been.
What wasn't easy was the other thing.
I had been noticing it for almost a year. Ever since we started middle school, something had changed little by little. Shizuka was still Shizuka—kind, punctual, always with something on her mind. But there were moments, happening more and more often, when the conversation would cut short in a way it never used to before.
We didn't hang out together like we did in elementary school. The rejections kept piling up without either of us naming them. Either she had rehearsal, or she had plans with her friends, or she was studying. I understood. She had her own life, and the club demanded a lot from her. I repeated that to myself every time she told me no.
But there was something that couldn't completely quiet it down.
The fear that one day this distance would stop being temporary.
We were supposed to never change.
Then, why was Shizuka still being herself, yet at the same time, she had changed so much? She was the same girl I had known my entire life, and yet sometimes I looked at her and felt like there were parts of her I didn't know anymore.
Gian and Suneo had changed too. So much so that there was a moment, at the beginning of middle school, when I barely recognized them. Gian, who had always dragged everyone to the baseball field without asking for permission, stopped insisting. Now he had the club, practice, matches. Suneo had thrown himself entirely into the art world and spent his afternoons in the workshop instead of showing off his new toys.
The three of them had found their place.
I was still looking for mine.
Doraemon had told me a thousand times with that never-ending patience of his.
"People change, Nobita. You can't expect everything to stay the same forever."
I knew that.
But knowing it and accepting it are two very different things.
As we walked, I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.
Shizuka spoke naturally, as if nothing were wrong. And I nodded, replied, and smiled at the right moments. But inside, I kept tossing around the exact same thought.
When exactly did things start to change?
There wasn't a specific day. There wasn't a conversation, nor a moment where everything suddenly shattered. It was more like when water gradually wears away a stone. So slowly that you don't notice it until it's already in pieces.
At the beginning of middle school, I thought it would be just like elementary school. That we would eat lunch together, that we would walk home together, that everything would follow its normal course. And the first few days, it was like that. But then came the new friends, the club rehearsals, the busy afternoons.
And I was left more and more on the margins.
The worst part wasn't the distance itself. The worst part was that she didn't even seem to notice it. For Shizuka, everything was still fine. She greeted me with the same smile, spoke to me with the same kindness. But there was a massive difference between being important to someone and simply being... part of the scenery.
And I had spent months wondering which of the two categories I fell into.
Doraemon said I worried too much. That it was normal to grow up and that friendships change shape, they don't disappear. That not everything had to be like elementary school to still be real.
Maybe he was right.
"Hey, Shizuka-chan," I called out to her, and she turned around curiously.
"Is something wrong?"
"Even though you're really busy... we'll still be together, right?"
That question caught her off guard for a moment. Then, a few seconds later, she let out a little chuckle—not a mocking one, but the kind that comes out when something catches you completely by surprise.
"Of course we will, silly. Where is that question coming from?"
"It's just... I'm worried that we're drifting apart little by little. To the point where we'll lose touch completely."
Shizuka stopped walking for a moment and looked at me. Not with pity, but with that expression of hers when something seems more serious to her than she expected.
"Nobita-san..." she said slowly. "Just because we have less time doesn't mean we're going to stop being friends. People grow up and get busy, but that doesn't erase everything we've lived through together."
"I know," I replied, looking down at the ground. "But sometimes it feels like you have everything so clearly figured out, and I'm still the exact same as always."
Shizuka didn't reply immediately. We walked a few steps in silence before she spoke again.
"Hey," she said, her tone softer. "Just because I've found new things doesn't mean what we had before has stopped mattering to me. Alright?"
I looked at her.
She was smiling. With that usual smile of hers that made any worry seem small and manageable.
Alright, I thought.
But that tiny, annoying question was still right there, in some corner of my mind, refusing to leave completely.
Riiiiiiiiinggg...
It was already lunchtime. That meant a break, and it also meant an opportunity.
I was lucky to be in the same class as Shizuka for our second year. That hadn't been the case during our first year, and those months spent eating alone in a corner of the classroom were a memory I preferred not to revisit too often. But now, things were different. Now, I could try.
I stood up from my seat as soon as the teacher walked out the door and approached her while she was packing up her things.
"Shizuka-chan, would you like to have lunch with me today?"
She looked up and furrowed her brow slightly—not out of annoyance, but in that way someone does when they are trying to figure out how to say something they don't want to say.
"I'm sorry, Nobita-san... but one of my friends invited me to the cafeteria. I helped her study for the midterm and she wants to thank me." She pressed her hands together with an expression of genuine apology. "Could we do it next time?"
"Sure, don't worry about it," I replied, smiling with the exact same casualness as always.
I sighed internally as she left.
Next time. I had been hearing that phrase since we started middle school, and I was still waiting for that next time to arrive.
It wasn't her fault, I knew that. Shizuka was popular, not just in our class but throughout the entire school. There was always someone who needed her help, her company, or who simply wanted to be near her. It was impossible not to want to be.
I was glad she had so many friends and that she was loved by everyone. Truly.
But that didn't take away the heavy feeling that settled in my chest whenever I was left alone.
The reality was that outside of my small circle, I had never managed to make new friends in high school. When my new classmates discovered how clumsy I was, they simply stopped approaching me. During group projects, nobody chose me if they could avoid it.
In those situations, I always ended up the same way. Back home, collapsing in my room and crying with a runny nose while Doraemon listened to me without interrupting, with that patience of his that never ran out.
Though it was also true that there were people who had treated me well when I helped them with something. That always cheered me up. Knowing that, at the very least, I was useful for something.
But today, there was no one to help and no one waiting for me in the classroom.
Since I had also forgotten to bring my lunch, I grabbed my backpack and left the school to head over to the convenience store on the corner.
The autumn sun was still hitting us from the side, just like it had this morning. The streets were almost empty at this hour. I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked slowly, taking my time.
Doraemon was right. People change.
But I also thought of something that I hadn't told him yet.
What if I can't manage to change at the same pace as everyone else?
While I was still lost in my thoughts, a voice suddenly snapped me out of them.
"Hey... hey, wait..."
I stopped.
A little further ahead, an elderly man had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and was looking at the ground around him with an agitated expression. I recognized him instantly. It was Mr. Tanaka, a neighbor from the district whom I saw from time to time running errands. I used to help him whenever he was in trouble.
He lived alone with his granddaughter ever since his wife passed away a few years ago, according to what Doraemon had told me once.
He had his cane leaning against the wall and was bending forward with difficulty, trying to look under a bench.
"Tanaka-san?" I approached him. "Is something wrong?"
He looked up with relief upon seeing me.
"Ah, Nobi-kun! Thank goodness. You see, I dropped my watch around here somewhere." He pointed at the ground with his cane, visibly frustrated. "It belonged to my father. I've carried it with me for forty years, and now..."
He cut himself off, pressing his lips together.
He didn't need to say anything else.
"Don't worry, we'll find it right now."
I set my backpack down on the bench and began searching the ground carefully. The sidewalk was covered in dry leaves, and it was easy for something small to get buried. I crouched down next to the storm drain, brushed aside some leaves with my hand, and there it was—an old pocket watch with an engraved cover, half-hidden among the leaves.
"Here it is!"
I handed it to him, and Mr. Tanaka took it with both hands, as if it were something incredibly fragile. He opened it slowly, checked that it was still ticking, and let out a long, deep sigh.
"Forty years carrying it with me, and today I almost lost it over a stumble." He looked at me, his eyes glistening. "Thank you so much, Nobi-kun. Truly."
"It was nothing, Tanaka-san."
"No, no, it wasn't." He rummaged through his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded bill. "Here, this is for you."
"That's really not necessary, honestly..."
"Ufff, teenagers usually are so stubborn..." he said as he put the bill back into his pocket.
I scratched the back of my neck at the comment.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help it."
"It's alright, my boy." He patted me on the shoulder before picking up his cane. "You're a good kid. Don't change."
I watched him walk away down the street, slowly but with steady steps, until he turned the corner.
I stood there for a moment.
Don't change.
What an easy thing to say.
I kept walking toward the convenience store.
The convenience store on the corner was one of those places that look exactly the same all over Japan, yet somehow always have something different about them. The lights inside were far too bright for this time of day, and the sign at the entrance had been flickering for months without anyone fixing it. It smelled of warm rice and freshly brewed coffee the second you walked in.
I went straight to the pre-made food section. I grabbed a tuna onigiri and an iced tea, then headed toward the counter.
That was when I saw him.
In the pastry aisle, with his arms full of dorayaki boxes stacked all the way up to his chin, was Doraemon. He was trying to grab one more box from the shelf without dropping everything he was already carrying, displaying an absolute level of concentration that would have been comical if it wasn't so entirely predictable.
"Doraemon," I called out to him.
"Ah, Nobita-kun!" He turned around far too quickly, and the boxes wobbled dangerously. "What are you doing here?"
"I forgot my lunch." I pointed at his arms. "How many dorayakis are those?"
"Just the right amount," he replied with absolute dignity.
"That's like ten boxes."
"Just the right amount for the week," he clarified.
I laughed and helped him steady the boxes as we walked toward the counter together. The cashier looked at us with that expression of someone who is already used to seeing weird things and has decided not to ask any questions.
We paid and walked out. We sat down on the curb outside, just like we used to when we were kids and Doraemon would come with me to buy an after-school snack.
"How has your morning been?" he asked, opening a box and pulling out a dorayaki with the satisfaction of someone who had been waiting hours for this exact moment.
"Fine," I replied, taking a bite of my onigiri. "Shizuka-chan had plans with her friends."
"I see."
He didn't say anything else. But that "I see" said everything.
We sat in silence for a while, both of us looking at the street. A car drove past slowly. A pigeon strutted along the opposite curb with a great deal of self-confidence.
"Doraemon," I said after a moment. "Do you think things will ever go back to the way they were before?"
Doraemon chewed slowly before replying.
"I think things rarely go back to being exactly the way they were before." He looked at me. "But that doesn't mean they can't be just as good. Just... different."
"That's not very comforting."
"I didn't hire myself out to comfort you. I hired myself out to help you grow."
"Nobody hired you for anything."
"Then I work for free, and I still do an excellent job." He pulled out another dorayaki. "You should be grateful."
I let out an involuntary laugh. That was Doraemon. He always found a way to take the weight off things without making it look like he was even trying.
We kept talking for a while longer, about unimportant things. About the cultural festival, about whether Gian would win his bet with Yasuo, about a robot movie Doraemon had been wanting to see for weeks.
It was when he was standing up to gather the boxes that I noticed it.
It was something small. So small I almost let it slide.
He stood up slowly, more so than usual, and for a moment he froze with his hand pressed against the wall, as if he needed a second to steady himself. It lasted barely an instant. Then he picked up the boxes with his usual energy and looked at me with a smile.
"Come on, you're going to be late."
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Perfectly fine," he said without hesitation. "I just stood up too fast."
I didn't think much else of it.
I grabbed my backpack and looked at Doraemon, who was still working on his half-eaten dorayaki.
"Well, see you later. I have to get back to school."
"Wait!"
"W-What?" I stopped, startled by his sudden tone.
"Have you managed to make any new friends?" he asked, his expression more serious than usual.
That question caught me completely off guard.
I was well aware that Doraemon had been dwelling on this for a while. He knew perfectly well what my life at school was like—that outside of Shizuka, I barely crossed paths with Gian and Suneo, and that in class, I was invisible to most.
Doraemon always worries, doesn't he?
I smiled, trying to reassure him.
"Honestly, no. But that doesn't mean everything is going badly. There are people who appreciate me when I help them out with something. That's enough for me."
"Are you sure?" he said, not entirely convinced. "Because there's a difference between someone who appreciates you and someone who only remembers you when they need you." He paused. "Don't you remember what you told me last week? You got home a bit late because a classmate asked you to clean the classroom and the chalkboard for him, when it was his turn, not yours."
"It's really no big deal," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "I agree to do it because I want to. Nobody forces me. And besides, helping out makes me feel good."
Doraemon looked at me in silence for a moment, with that expression of his when he has something more to say but is weighing whether it's worth saying it.
"Nobita..." he said slowly. "Helping others is a good thing. But there's a difference between helping because you want to, and helping because you think it's the only way anyone will ever notice you."
I fell silent.
I didn't answer, because I didn't know what to say.
"Just think about it," he added in a lower voice. "You don't have to give me an answer right now."
There was a brief silence. Then Doraemon went right back to his dorayaki as if nothing had happened, acting as though he hadn't just said something that was going to keep spinning around in my head for the rest of the day.
"Go on," he said. "You're going to be late."
I nodded, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and started walking.
But his words stayed with me the entire way back.
Do I help because I want to... or because I think it's the only way anyone will notice me?
I didn't have a clear answer.
I headed back to school with Doraemon's words still spinning around in my head.
When I reached the school entrance, I heard familiar voices a little further ahead. It was Shizuka, walking back toward the building alongside two of her friends. They were carrying bags from the cafeteria and talking animatedly.
I was about to call out to her when something stopped me.
"Hey, Shizuka-chan," one of her friends said, her tone not sounding entirely casual. "Do you still hang out with Nobi-kun sometimes?"
I froze behind a pillar, completely unintentionally.
"Every now and then," Shizuka replied naturally. "Why?"
"It's just... I don't know." The girl hesitated for a moment. "People talk, you know? They say he's really clumsy, that he always gets zeros, and that he doesn't put effort into anything. Some girls in class asked me if you two are actually friends."
Shizuka didn't reply immediately.
"And what did you tell them?" she asked, her tone dropping slightly.
"That you are, of course. But... doesn't it bother you a little bit? People associating you with someone like that, I mean. You're really good at playing the violin and the piano, you get good grades, everyone respects you. And he..."
"And he is one of the kindest people I know," Shizuka cut her off, with a calmness that left no room for argument.
Her friend fell silent.
"Nobita-kun is clumsy, yes. And his grades aren't exactly the best." Shizuka paused briefly. "But he is always there when someone needs him. Not because it benefits him, but because that's just who he is. Do you know how many people I know who can say the same?"
"Well... but people talk..."
"People always talk," Shizuka replied, her tone softer but just as firm. "That doesn't mean they're right."
Silence.
Then the three of them kept walking toward the building, and their voices drifted further away until they disappeared through the doors.
I stayed right where I was, leaning against the pillar, with my backpack slung over my shoulder and my half-eaten onigiri still in my hand.
I don't know how long I stood there like that.
What I do know is that something in my chest tightened in a way that left me unsure if it was a good feeling or a bad one.
Shizuka had defended me. Without hesitation, without looking for a diplomatic answer. With that naturalness of hers, like someone saying something simply because they believe it.
One of the kindest people I know.
I put the onigiri away in my backpack and walked into the school.
I would never tell her. But those words stayed with me for the rest of the day.
24/10/XX
The week had passed without any major events.
Shizuka kept on with her rehearsals, Gian with his practices, and Suneo with his paintings. And I kept on with my usual routine—classes, homework with Doraemon's help, and the occasional errand someone would ask me to do in the hallway.
That day, upon leaving school, I took my usual route home.
That was when I saw him.
Mr. Tanaka was on the very same corner as last week, but this time he hadn't lost anything. He was sitting on the bench with a large grocery bag at his feet, trying to stand up with his cane without much success. The bag was clearly too heavy for him.
"Tanaka-san," I approached him. "Do you need some help?"
He looked up and smiled upon recognizing me.
"Nobi-kun! What a coincidence. I was actually thinking about you just this week." He looked at the bag with resignation. "And yes, if you don't mind... I went a bit overboard with the groceries today, and these legs of mine just aren't what they used to be."
"No problem at all."
I picked up the bag. It weighed a lot more than it looked.
"I live just a few streets away from here," he said, standing up slowly with his cane. "I won't take up too much of your time."
We walked slowly, matching his pace. Mr. Tanaka talked non-stop—about how autumn this year was colder than last year, and how the neighbor's cat had ruined the flowerpots on his balcony again. Not once did he mention any family members. He lived alone; that much was clear.
I nodded and replied whenever it was appropriate.
When we reached his building's entrance, I set the bag down on the ground while he looked for his keys. Then, he stopped and looked at me with a serious expression.
"Nobi-kun, last week I didn't get to give you anything in return because you were so stubborn." He rummaged through the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded bill. "This time, you are not going to stop me."
"Really, Tanaka-san, it's not necessary. I did it because I wanted to..."
"I know," he interrupted me calmly. "That is exactly why I want to give it to you. There is a difference between paying for a favor and showing gratitude for someone's kindness." He held out the bill to me firmly. "And don't make me repeat myself."
I hesitated for a moment. But the look on his face made it clear that insisting would only drag out the situation.
"Thank you, Mr. Tanaka."
"Thank you, my boy." He opened the building door and picked up the bag. "Have a good afternoon."
"You too."
I watched him go inside and waited for the door to close before turning around.
I didn't know it at that moment.
I didn't know that just a few meters away, peeking over the fence of a nearby garden, a girl from my class named Umezu had been watching us the entire time.
And that what she saw—a boy in a school uniform receiving money from an older man next to a building entrance—looked absolutely nothing like what had actually happened.
I pocketed the bill and kept walking toward home.
31/10/XX
"Hey, Nobita-kun... you're studying for the exams, right? If you keep failing, your average could be very affected."
That voice was Shizuka's. We were walking together back home, without her making the excuse of being busy with the club or having met with her friends. I, who still harbored romantic feelings toward her, could not help but feel very happy walking by her side.
"Eh? Well... more or less," I replied, avoiding her look while scratching my head with nervousness.
The truth is that I had not studied anything and there was little time left for the exams. But with Doraemon's help I would solve it, like always.
"I have been teaching you for a long time, so I really hope you pass this time," she said in a warning tone, although with a affectionate smile.
"Of course, Shizuka-chan! I promise you that I will pass this time, I swear!" I exclaimed, putting myself firm like a soldier.
Shizuka could not help but let out a little laugh because of how I reacted.
Shortly after, we separated at the usual corner to continue toward our respective homes.
While I was walking alone, a thought appeared in my head, something that had arisen during the conversation from before.
"So Shizuka-chan will play the violin all by herself, huh?"
I knew that in the first performance she would play with the band because she herself had told me the day before. But the thing about the solo... I did not expect it.
I smiled without wanting to.
I remembered her a little more than a year ago, when she started with the violin seriously. At the beginning it was a disaster, and she herself admitted it between laughs when she practiced in her room with the window open. More than once I heard her let out a frustrated sigh after an especially out-of-tune note.
But I also remembered her in those days where Doraemon and I helped her to practice in the vacant lot. Doraemon had taken out a device that analyzed the sound and marked exactly where the technique failed, and I sat on the ground to listen to her for hours without anyone asking me to.
There was one afternoon in concrete that I did not forget. Shizuka had been practicing the same musical phrase for a good final stretch without managing to make it sound well. She stopped, lowered the violin, and looked at me with an expression of defeat that did not suit her at all.
"I can't, Nobita-kun. I will never get it."
"Of course you will," I replied, without doubting.
"How can you be so sure if you don't even know about music?"
"I don't need to know about music to know that when you play, it shows that you really feel it. That is not learned, Shizuka-chan. You already have that."
She stayed looking at me for a moment. Then she placed the violin again and played the phrase once more.
This time it sounded different.
Not perfect, but different.
And she noticed it too, because when she finished, she turned toward me with a small and somewhat embarrassed smile that I kept in some corner without her knowing it.
And now she is going to play alone in front of the whole institute.
I was glad for her. Really.
Although I also felt something more difficult to name. The feeling that I had been part of something that now no longer belonged to me completely.
I was about to turn the usual corner when I heard it.
A sob. Barely audible, but unmistakable.
I stopped.
It was coming from a narrow alley between two buildings, one of those places that people normally ignore because they don't lead anywhere. I peeked in cautiously and saw a girl sitting on the ground, with her backpack between her knees and her head down. She wore a uniform that I didn't recognize, so she wasn't from my institute.
I hesitated for a moment.
It's none of your business, Nobita. Keep walking.
But my feet did not move.
"Hey... are you okay?"
The girl raised her head suddenly, surprised. She had red and swollen eyes from crying for a good while. She looked at me with a mixture of scare and distrust.
"Who are you?"
"Nobita. I live near here." I crouched down so as not to look so intimidating. "Has something happened?"
She looked at me for a few more seconds, as if she were deciding if she could trust me. Then she lowered her look toward the ground.
"It's nothing," she murmured.
"It doesn't look like nothing," I replied with calmness.
Silence.
Then, slowly, like someone letting go of something they have been carrying for too long, she started to speak. That her classmates did not stop picking on her. That they mocked that she lived without parents, that they called her by nicknames that she did not want to repeat. That today had been especially bad and that she did not want to arrive home crying because she did not want to worry her grandfather.
I listened to her without interrupting her.
When she finished, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and looked at me as if it surprised her to have told all that to a stranger.
"Sorry... I don't know why I have told you this," the girl commented, embarrassed to tell everything to a stranger.
"It's okay," I said. "Sometimes it's easier to tell it to someone who doesn't know you."
She was in silence for a moment. Then she nodded slowly, as if that made sense.
"Can you walk?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Do you live near?"
"A few streets away."
"I will accompany you."
She looked at me with distrust again.
"I don't know you."
"I know. But you don't have to go back alone either if you don't want to." I stood up and stepped back a step to give her space. "You decide."
Another silence. Then she stood up, dusted off her clothes, and picked up her backpack.
"Alright."
We walked slowly, without talking too much. I did not ask her more than necessary and she did not tell more than she wanted. When we arrived at her building entrance, she took out the keys and stopped before opening.
"Thank you," she said, without looking at me.
"It was nothing."
She opened the door and entered. But right before it closed completely, I heard a voice from inside that I recognized instantly.
"Are you home already? Today it seemed to me that you took a bit longer than..."
He stopped when he saw me through the gap of the door.
It was Mr. Tanaka.
The two of us stayed looking at each other for a second.
"Nobi-kun!" he exclaimed, with a smile of genuine surprise. "How come...?"
"Grandpa, do you know him?" the girl asked, looking at Mr. Tanaka with wide eyes.
"Of course I do!" he replied, with that energy of his that did not match his age at all. "This boy helped me twice. He is a good kid." He looked at me. "How come you know my granddaughter?"
"I found her on the way," I replied simply.
Mr. Tanaka looked at the two of us alternately. Then he let out a short laugh.
"Well, well. It's a small world." He stepped aside to open the door more. "Do you want to come in for a moment? I have freshly made tea."
"Thank you, but I have to get home, or else my parents will kill me."
"As you wish." He nodded with a smile. "Take care, Nobita-kun."
"You too, Mr. Tanaka."
The door closed.
I stayed for a moment at the building entrance, processing the coincidence.
Wow.
Then I started walking toward home, with my hands in my pockets and the October sky becoming darker and darker over the rooftops.
I did not know that at that very moment, a few blocks away, in the Nerima veterinary hospital, Shizuka was sitting next to her mother listening to the words of a veterinarian that broke her heart.
And I would not know it until much later.
01/11/XX
That morning something was different.
I noticed it as soon as I entered the classroom. Shizuka was already in her place, which was not strange. The strange thing was her face. She had deep dark circles under her eyes that I had never seen on her before, and she was looking at her desk with an absent expression that did not fit with the usual Shizuka.
I approached with a smile.
"Shizuka-chan... what happened to you? You look terrible. Did you stay up studying all night? You shouldn't have pushed yourself so hard..."
"It's not because of the exams, Nobita," she interrupted me, with a tired tone that caught me off guard.
"Then? Ah, I know!" I exclaimed, trying to lighten the mood. "It's because of the violin, right? I told you not to worry. In fact, Doraemon and I were thinking that if we used a gadget so that the music could be heard everywhere..."
"Shut up for a moment, please!"
I was struck dumb.
Several classmates turned toward us. The classroom fell silent for an uncomfortable second before the conversations returned little by little.
Shizuka clenched her fists under the table and took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry... it's just that I haven't slept at all. It's just that... I have many things in my head that I would prefer not to tell you..."
"Sorry for having intruded," I replied, trying to make my voice sound normal. "If it's something you can't tell, then I will respect your decision."
I went to my place.
I sat down, took out my notebooks, and looked forward without seeing anything in particular.
It wasn't anger what I felt. It was something more similar to helplessness. She was going through something and I could do nothing because I didn't even know what it was. And the worst part was that she had decided that I was not the right person to know it.
It's okay. She is tired. I will wait.
When the bell for recess rang, I gathered my things and went out into the hallway. I was thinking about going down to the vending machine when I heard a familiar voice.
"Hey, Nobita-kun."
It was Suneo, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and an expression that I knew well. The kind when he has something to say but is weighing how to say it.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Nothing, just..." He lowered his voice a bit. "Have you heard what they are saying out there?"
"About what?"
Suneo stared at me for a moment.
"About you. There are rumors circulating since yesterday. That they saw you receiving money from an older man in an alley, and that they also saw you with a girl from another institute who was crying and had her uniform in a total mess."
I stayed in silence for a second.
Then I let out a small laugh.
"Really? That is what they say?"
"Nobita, it's not funny," Suneo said, furrowing his brow. "People are talking. And you already know how this works, the more time passes without you saying anything, the more it spreads."
"Suneo, the man they are talking about is a neighbor from the district whom I helped with his bags. He gave me money as thanks and I accepted it because he insisted a lot. And the girl was crying alone in an alley, I accompanied her home. That is all."
"Yeah, but people don't know that."
"The people who know me do know that." I shrugged my shoulders. "And those who don't know me are not going to believe me either even if I start explaining it."
Suneo looked at me with an expression between frustrated and incredulous.
"And you are simply going to stay without doing anything?"
"There is nothing to do," I replied. "They are rumors. They end by themselves."
"Nobita..."
"Seriously, don't think about it anymore." I patted him on the shoulder. "Shall we go down to the machine?"
Suneo let out a long and resigned sigh.
"You are incredible," he murmured.
But he followed me.
At the end of the day, when the others were leaving in a crowd, I approached Shizuka while she was gathering her things. She carried her violin case slung over her shoulder and was in a hurry, it showed.
But I tried anyway.
"Doraemon gave me some special review notebooks..." I started, trying to smile. "I was thinking that, since the exams are near, maybe you could come over to my house today and we would study together. That way I would help you clear your head a bit and... well, you know, you wouldn't be so alone with your worries."
Shizuka closed her eyes for a second before replying.
"I can't, Nobita. I have a dress rehearsal with the music club. The festival is in less than three weeks and I still have to practice my part as a soloist a lot."
"But you look exhausted," I insisted, taking a step forward. "If you keep going like this you will get sick before the recital. A few hours of rest are not going to ruin your rehearsal, right?"
"For you it's very easy to say." She looked at me with a coldness that made me step back. "You don't belong to any club, you rarely study or do your homework and you always depend on Doraemon to help you. Keep in mind that I don't have that option. My parents expect a lot from my grades and the club also expects the concerts to be a success. So I don't have time."
I lowered my head.
Her words hurt. Not because they were cruel, but because they were true. At least in part.
"I have to go, Nobita-san. My bandmates are waiting for me."
I heard her steps toward the door. And right before she crossed the threshold, something inside me spoke before I could think about it.
"Shizuka-chan... I don't know what happened to you. But I will wait until you have the confidence to tell it to me."
Her steps stopped for an instant.
Then they continued.
And the door closed.
I stayed alone among the desks, with my backpack in my hand.
They are rumors. They end by themselves, I had said before.
I looked at the closed door.
I wish I had been right about everything.
05/11/XX
It had been four days since Shizuka had told me that she didn't have time.
And in those four days, something had changed so suddenly that I still hadn't managed to fully process it.
At first, I thought it was just me. That I was exaggerating, that I was seeing everything darker than it was because I hadn't been sleeping well for days. But it wasn't just me.
It was real.
Shizuka was avoiding me.
Not in a dramatic way or with bad gestures. It was something more subtle, and because of that, harder to ignore. If she entered the classroom and I was near the door, she took another path. If we crossed paths in the hallway, she diverted her look right before our eyes met. If someone called her near where I was, she answered without coming too close.
She didn't say no to me when I proposed something. She simply acted as if I weren't there.
And the worst part was that I didn't understand why.
But that wasn't all.
My classmates had also changed. The ones who before asked me for help with homework or greeted me in the hallway now looked the other way when I crossed paths with them. During group projects, nobody chose me, just like at the beginning of middle school, but this time it was different. Before, they ignored me because I was clumsy. Now, they ignored me with an expression that I didn't know how to decipher well—something between contempt and discomfort.
The rumors.
Suneo had told me. And I hadn't listened to him.
How wrong I was.
That day, at the dismissal, nobody waited for me. Gian had practice. Suneo had met up with someone from his club. And Shizuka, as always, was busy with rehearsals.
I walked home alone.
The neighborhood was quiet at that hour, with that autumn afternoon silence that I normally liked. But that day, the silence weighed too much.
When I arrived home, I went up the stairs, opened the door to my room, and let my backpack drop on the floor without care.
Doraemon was sitting at the desk, leafing through a future gadgets magazine with an expression of absolute tranquility. He raised his look upon hearing me enter.
"Nobita, you're a bit la..." He stopped as soon as he saw my face. "What happened?"
I didn't answer immediately. I sat on the edge of the bed, with my elbows on my knees and my look on the floor.
"Doraemon..." I started, but my voice cut off before getting anywhere.
"Nobita."
I raised my look. Doraemon was looking at me with that expression of his when something truly worries him but he doesn't want it to show too much.
And then, without knowing very well how or when, I started to tell him everything.
The rumors. The way my classmates looked at me. Shizuka avoiding me without me understanding why. The four days of silence. The feeling that something was breaking very slowly and I could do nothing to prevent it.
The words came out on their own, rushed, without order. And at some point along the way, without me noticing it, the tears started to fall; I just let them fall because I didn't have the energy to contain them.
"I don't understand what I have done wrong," I said, with a broken voice. "I helped Mr. Tanaka because I wanted to. I accompanied his granddaughter home because she was alone and crying. I didn't do anything wrong. And still..." I interrupted myself, clenching my fists over my knees. "And still everyone acts as if I were a criminal."
Doraemon did not say anything yet. He only approached slowly and sat by my side on the edge of the bed.
"And Shizuka-chan..." I continued, lowering my voice more. "She avoids me too. I don't know if it's because of the rumors or because of something I did or because of something I stopped doing. But she doesn't look at me the same anymore. And the worst part is that I don't even know how to ask her because every time I try to approach, she moves away."
I made a pause. I was not only thinking about the last few days, but about everything. About how little by little, since we started middle school, the distance between Shizuka and me had been growing without either of us naming it.
"Shizuka was supposed to be always with me. By my side." The tears kept falling without me being able to do anything to prevent it. "You yourself told me that in the future we would marry and live together forever. That we would be happy." I clenched my fists over my knees. "Then, how is it that things have reached this point? Does Shizuka really want to be with me? Or has everything been a farce from the beginning?"
The silence of the room extended for several seconds.
"Doraemon... do you think things are going to improve? Please, tell me something," I asked, looking at him.
Doraemon took longer than usual to reply. And when he did, he chose each word with a care that was not frequent in him.
"There are situations that do not improve by themselves, Nobita-kun. And I think that deep down you know it too." He made a brief pause before continuing. "But listen to me well. Even though we have seen what the future will be like, that doesn't mean that future is already written in stone. What you do now, the decisions you take today, also change what comes after. The future you saw is not a promise. It is a possibility."
I stayed looking at him.
"Then... what do I do?"
"That is the right question." He stared at me. "But this time you will have to find the answer all by yourself. There is no gadget that solves this."
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and looked at the ceiling.
"How useless you are sometimes," I murmured.
"I am an emotional support robot with limitations," Doraemon replied with total dignity. "Nobody warned me that the job would be so complicated."
I let out a short laugh without much humor. But something in my chest loosened up a bit.
I stood up to go wash my face, and when I turned around to tell him something else, I saw that Doraemon had gone back to his magazine, turning the pages normally.
Although he took a second longer than usual to turn the first one.
I didn't give it importance. I was tired, surely I would have done it too.
I went to the bathroom.
08/11/XX
That morning I woke up with a strange feeling in my chest.
It wasn't exactly fear. It wasn't sadness either. It was something in between, when you know that something is about to happen but you don't know exactly what or when.
I prepared to go to the institute in silence. Doraemon was in the kitchen, but he didn't say anything when he saw me come down the stairs. He only looked at me for a moment and then went back to his business.
That wasn't usual for him either.
The way to the institute was quiet. Too quiet. The usual streets, the same trees with their leaves already almost completely fallen, the same November cold that got into the collar of the uniform.
Everything the same as always.
And yet something felt different.
In the classroom, Shizuka arrived punctual as always. She sat down, took out her things, and did not look at me. Just like the last seven days. I had gotten used to that silence in a way that scared me a little. You stop noticing the pain of something because you have been with it for too long.
The last hour of classes was the longest of my life.
Not because the topics were difficult. But because in my mind, that strange feeling from the morning had not disappeared. On the contrary, it had been growing slowly throughout the entire day without me knowing why.
I gathered my backpack slowly.
Shizuka was already standing up, slinging her violin case over her shoulder. Normally I would have stayed behind waiting, looking for any excuse to leave together even if she didn't ask me to. But that day, for the first time, I didn't have the strength for another silence.
I left without looking back.
The hallway was full of the noise of the other students rushing out in a crowd, talking about the festival, laughing. I walked among them without listening to anything in particular, with my backpack slung over my shoulder and my look on the floor.
That was when I heard it.
A muffled sound, like something hitting against a wall, was coming from an abandoned classroom at the end of the hallway. Normally nobody used that classroom. The door was half-open.
I stopped.
It's none of your business, Nobita. Keep walking.
But something made me take a step forward. Then another. I peeked through the gap of the door and what I saw froze my blood.
"KYA!!"
A third-year boy, taller and heavier than me, had a second-year girl cornered against the wall. Her uniform was a total mess, with the fabric torn at the shoulder, and she was trembling with her eyes full of tears, trying to push him away without succeeding.
I recognized her instantly.
It was Mizue.
"Let her go!" I entered without thinking about it.
The boy turned toward me with an expression of absolute contempt.
"Get out of here, four-eyes. This is none of your business."
"Yes it is." I took a step forward, with my heart beating at full speed. "Let her go right now."
He let out a short laugh and stepped away from Mizue, but not to leave, but to face me. He was almost a head taller than me and he knew it.
"And if I don't? What exactly are you going to do?"
I did not answer. I stepped in between him and Mizue.
What happened next was fast and painful. He grabbed me by the shirt and threw me against the opposite wall with a force that completely cut off my air. The hit on my back was hard. I slid down to the floor, with my backpack to one side and my glasses crooked.
For a second, everything became blurry.
Get up.
I got up.
I don't know very well where I got the strength from, but I stood on my feet, adjusted my glasses as best as I could, and stepped between the two of them again without saying anything. My knees were trembling. My chest was burning from the hit.
But I did not move.
The boy stared at me, as if he didn't completely believe what he was seeing. Then he looked toward the door, calculating. The noise of the hallway was coming from outside. People passing by, voices, steps.
Too many potential witnesses.
He picked up his backpack from the floor, threw a final warning look at me, and left the classroom in a big hurry without saying anything else.
I stood breathing with difficulty, leaning against the wall with one hand. My back hurt and I had my shirt wrinkled and half out of my pants. Mizue was still in the corner, hugging herself with her eyes wide open, looking at me as if she didn't know very well what had just happened.
I extended my hand toward Mizue with care.
"He already left. You are safe."
She looked at me with her eyes still full of tears. She kept trembling, with her back pressed against the wall and her arms crossed over her chest. I understood that she was in shock, that her mind still had not processed that the danger had passed.
"Mizue... it's me, Nobita. I am not going to do anything to you." I approached one step closer, slowly. "Can you stand up?"
"D-don't come near me!"
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Her words were not directed at me. I knew that. But still I stayed still, with my hand still extended in the air and without knowing very well what to do.
That was when the door burst open behind me.
I turned around.
Shizuka. Dekisugi. Gian. Suneo.
The four of them at the classroom entrance, looking at the scene.
And at that moment I understood perfectly what they were seeing. A girl cornered with her uniform destroyed and her eyes full of tears. And me, standing in front of her, with my hand extended toward her and my shirt wrinkled and half out of my pants from the hit from before.
"Nobita!" Gian's voice made the walls vibrate.
"W-wait! It's not what it looks like! She was..." I tried to explain, but the words rushed out over each other.
Nobody let me finish.
I saw Gian advance toward me with fury. I saw Dekisugi and Suneo stay motionless at the entrance. And I saw Shizuka.
I saw her look at me.
And in her eyes there was no anger. There was something worse. There was a cold and absolute certainty, as if everything she had suspected for weeks had just been confirmed all at once.
The blow arrived before I could say anything else.
Dry. Quick. On my right cheek.
I turned my face from the force of the impact and stayed still, with my look on the floor. The burning on my cheek was the least of it. What left me without words was hearing her voice, broken and full of tears, saying things that deep down I knew were not entirely about me.
But that still hurt as if they were.
Each word fell like something that could not be taken back.
The rumors. The exhaustion. The mockings she had endured because of me. Everything I had ignored believing it would fix itself.
They end by themselves, I had said.
I kept my head down while she spoke. Not because I had nothing to say, but because at that moment I understood that nothing of what I said was going to change what she was feeling. And that trying would only make things worse.
So I stayed in silence.
Until the last words arrived.
"I have realized that you have only been a nuisance to me."
I felt something break in some place that I don't know how to name well.
"I... am leaving. Don't come looking for me again."
Her steps resonated in the hallway and then disappeared.
The silence that remained was so heavy that even Gian, who kept standing by my side, did not say anything.
I heard voices around me. Dekisugi was talking with Suneo in a low voice, with that calm and analytical tone of his that he had even in the most tense moments. I did not understand what they were saying. The words arrived like a distant murmur.
I did not raise my head.
After a few seconds, I heard steps. Two pairs. Moving away toward the hallway.
Dekisugi and Mizue.
Then silence again.
The three of us stayed alone in the abandoned classroom. Gian, Suneo, and me. With the afternoon light entering through the dirty window and the echo of some words that nobody had picked up from the floor yet.
Nobody spoke for a good final stretch.
Until...
"HEY, IF YOU KEEP WATCHING IN SECRET, I SWEAR I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU A BEATING!"
It was Gian, who shouted with all his strength toward the classroom entrance. And the people who had been listening on the other side ran away as if their lives depended on it.
So there were also students listening from outside.
I did not know what would happen the next day, but I had the feeling that it would not end well.
I kept my head down, lost in my own thoughts, when suddenly I felt a large and clumsy hand rest on my back. With care, as if he didn't know very well how to do it.
It was Gian.
"Hey... are you... okay?" he said, with a voice that I hadn't heard from him in a long time. A voice that had nothing of his usual brusqueness.
"I... don't know."
I kept my head down, without strength or desire to make up an excuse.
With Shizuka's shout still resonating in my head, Doraemon's words took on a meaning that before I hadn't wanted to fully accept. People change, Nobita. Shizuka was not the exception. She never had been.
"Hey... Gian," I called him in a low voice.
"W-what?" he replied, as if he weren't sure of what he was going to hear.
I tried to smile.
I couldn't.
The tears fell on their own, without me being able to do anything to prevent it.
"Shizuka... really hates me, right?"
Gian did not reply immediately. His hand kept resting on my back, motionless. I heard how he let out a long sigh before speaking.
"I don't know," he said finally, with an honesty that I didn't expect from him. "But what I do know is that what just happened... was not normal. Shizuka-chan is not like that."
"Then, why...?"
"Hey," Suneo intervened suddenly, from the other side of the classroom.
I raised my look for the first time since Shizuka had left. Suneo was standing next to the window, with his arms crossed and a serious expression that did not fit with his usual face.
"Do you know anything about Shizuka-chan's situation lately?" he asked, staring at me.
"His situation?" I repeated, without understanding.
Suneo and Gian looked at each other for a second.
"Nobita..." Suneo sighed and approached slowly. "Her dog, Hachi, is in critical condition. They admitted him to the veterinary hospital a few days ago and since then she barely sleeps because she has to take care of him when she is at home. On top of that, the situation with her parents is not good because she left piano classes to focus on the violin and they did not accept it. And if that weren't enough, in the music club she has been receiving mockings from other girls for days because her performance has dropped due to exhaustion."
I stayed in silence, processing each word.
"How... how do you know all that?" I asked.
Suneo and Gian looked at each other for a moment.
"She told us herself," Suneo replied in a low voice. "A few days ago, when she couldn't take it anymore. She found us in the hallway and... she simply let it all out. I think she needed to tell it to someone."
The silence that followed was the heaviest of all.
Shizuka had told them.
To Gian. To Suneo. Maybe to Dekisugi.
But not to me.
I did not know whether to feel relief that at least someone knew, or something more similar to a small and silent wound opening up in some place.
Because for a week I had been there, trying to approach, asking if she was okay, offering myself to help. And she had chosen to tell them.
To that point had I stopped being important to her?
I clenched my fists with strength, with a feeling of helplessness that I did not know how to describe.
So Shizuka had not wanted to tell me anything.
But...
"I... want to help Shizuka-chan," I said, raising my look toward Gian and Suneo. "If she keeps going like this, at some point she won't be able to play as a soloist. And the festival is just around the corner."
"Are you sure, Nobita?" Suneo asked in a serious tone, although a spark of genuine concern toward me could be noticed. "After everything that just happened, you also need to recover."
"If I am honest with you... I am very sad." I lowered my look a moment before continuing. "Especially because she did not tell anything to me. That hurts more than any other thing. But I cannot stay with my arms crossed knowing what is happening. She is going through it much worse than me."
I made a pause.
"Even if at the moment she doesn't want to know anything about me... at the least I want her to be able to play at the festival. It has always been her dream, to play the violin in front of everyone. She has worked too hard for everything to collapse now."
Gian and Suneo looked at each other for a moment. Then Gian crossed his arms and looked at me with an expression that mixed doubt with something similar to respect.
"And how would you do it?" he asked. "She is not going to accept your help just like that. After what happened today, if you approach her the most probable thing is that she runs away in the opposite direction."
"Or something worse," Suneo added in a low voice.
"I know," I replied. "But with Doraemon's help, it can be done without problems."
A brief silence formed.
"You are a lost case, Nobita," Gian murmured.
But he did not say it with contempt. He said it with that voice of his from when something seems bigger to him than what he expected.
Suneo averted his look toward the window, as if suddenly the gray November sky were very interesting to him.
"Do what you have to do," he said finally, in a low voice. "We haven't seen anything."
I nodded in silence.
With Doraemon's help, I would solve it. I was sure.
But while I was walking back home, with the November cold getting into the collar of my uniform, my thoughts went to a place I didn't expect.
I owe a lot to Doraemon. And also to Sewashi.
If it weren't for the two of them, my future would have been an absolute disaster. They opened my eyes. If Doraemon had never appeared, I would have married Jaiko and I would have never known the version of my life that I deserved to live.
But the more time passed, and the more I saw how everyone around me was taking their own paths, the more I realized how much I still had left to improve.
Acting lazy every day. Disappointing my parents time and time after again. Not listening to my mother. Abusing Doraemon's gadgets with a frequency that was embarrassing. Always getting bad grades. Crying with ease when things didn't go well. Depending on Doraemon for absolutely everything. And not to mention the times I had entered Shizuka's bathroom by mistake, or even on purpose.
I really am the worst.
I didn't understand how Doraemon had endured for so long with someone like me. I recognized each one of my defects with a clarity that hurt. And still I kept being the same.
Until now.
"It will be the last time I will ask you for help," I murmured to myself, looking forward. "I promise, Doraemon."
The neighborhood was quiet at that hour. The streetlights were starting to turn on one by one and the November cold settled over the streets with that silent calmness that only the end of the day has.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept walking.
Doraemon, you will always be by my side, right?