My Career as a Precocious Literary Girlie

Osamu Dazai

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Chiyojo by Osamu Dazai

Let’s face it, women are no good. Or is it just me? I can’t speak for all women, but it’s beyond doubt that I, for one, am no good. And yet, even as I say this, an obstinate sort of self-belief, deeply rooted in some dark, hidden corner of my heart, insists that at least there’s one good thing about me . . . And that only leaves me all the more confused about myself, trapped in this oppressive, intolerable state of mind. It’s like having my head stuck in a rusty old cast-iron pot. I’m a stupid person. Genuinely stupid. And in the new year I’ll be nineteen. I’m no longer a child.

When I was twelve, my uncle in Kashiwagi submitted a student composition of mine for a contest sponsored by the magazine Blue Bird. My piece was awarded first prize, and one of the judges, a famous author, went hideously overboard in praising it, and I’ve been a mess ever since. That composition of mine is just embarrassing to me now. Was it really all that special? What was supposed to be so good about it? Titled “Errand,” it’s a simple story about being sent to buy some Bat cigarettes for my father. When the tobacco-shop lady handed me five packets, it made me a little sad that all of them were the same pale green color, so I exchanged one for a different brand in a vermilion packet. But then, sadly, I no longer had enough money. The lady just smiled, however, and said I could make it up next time, which was awfully nice of her and made me really happy. When I balanced the four green packets on the palm of my hand and placed the vermilion one on top, it looked like a blossoming primrose, so pretty that my heart seemed to skip, and I could hardly walk straight. That’s the gist of the piece, which I now find mortifyingly childish and cloying.

But it wasn’t long after that, at the urging again of my uncle in Kashiwagi, that I submitted another composition of mine, titled “Kasuga-cho,” and this time it was published not in the “Readers’ Submissions” section of the magazine but on the very first page, in big, bold lettering. The story begins with my aunt in Ikebukuro moving to Kasuga-cho in Nerima. She told me about the big garden in her new house and invited me to visit her there, and so, on the first Sunday in June, I boarded a train at Komagome Station, transferred to a Tokyo-bound train at Ikebukuro, and got off at Nerima Station, where I saw nothing but fields all around me. I had no idea which direction Kasuga-cho might be, and when I asked people working in the fields, none of them seemed to know, and I ended up fighting back tears. It was a very hot day. The last person I asked was a man of about forty who was pulling a cart filled with empty cider bottles. He stopped, flashed a lonely smile, and used a gray, soiled hand towel to wipe the sweat dripping down his face. He thought for some time, muttering “Kasuga-cho, Kasuga-cho . . .” Finally he said, “Kasuga-cho long way from here. You catch east train there, Nerima Station, east train to Ikebukuro. Transfer train to Shinjuku. At Shinjuku transfer local train, get off Suidobashi . . .” and so on, doing his best to give me these detailed directions in very broken Japanese. I knew right away that he was thinking of the other Kasuga-cho, the one in Hongo, but I also realized he was Korean, which touched my heart and made me all the more grateful to him. The Japanese people I approached feigned ignorance because they couldn’t be bothered, while this man from Korea, dripping with the sweat of his labor, takes the time to really try and help me. His information was wrong, of course, but I thanked him for his kindness and followed his directions, walking back to Nerima Station and jumping on a train for Tokyo. I seriously thought about going all the way to Kasuga-cho in Hongo, but that would have been silly, so I went straight home instead. Once there, I felt sad and out of sorts and decided to write down an honest account of what had happened. This account is what was published in huge print on the front page of The Blue Bird, and that’s when all my woes began.

Our house is in Nakazato-cho in Takinogawa. My father, who teaches English at a private university, is a son of Tokyo, but Mother was born in Ise. I have no older siblings, just a physically infirm little brother who entered middle school this year. By no means do I dislike my family, but I’m so lonely. Things were better before. They really were. Mother and Father both spoiled me rotten, and I was always joking and making everyone laugh. I was an excellent older sister too, very kind to my brother. But soon after my composition was featured in The Blue Bird, having won me another prize, I transformed into a truly cowardly, hateful creature. I even began talking back to my mother and arguing with her. The famous author Iwami-sensei, who was one of the judges, published in the same issue a commentary on “Kasuga-cho” that was two or three times the length of the story itself. It made me so sad when I read it. I felt as if I’d somehow deceived this great man, who was clearly a modest person with a heart much purer and more beautiful than mine.

And then, at school, Mr. Sawada brought the magazine to our composition lesson and copied out the entire text of “Kasuga-cho” on the blackboard, working himself into quite a lather as he harangued us for an hour, bellowing praise for each sentence. I could have died I had difficulty breathing, the world went dim and hazy before my eyes, and I had this horrifying sensation that my entire body was turning to stone. I knew I didn’t deserve all this praise; and what would happen the next time I wrote something mediocre or worse? Everyone would laugh at me, and it worried me half to death to think how embarrassing and painful that would be. Even at that tender age, I could tell that Mr. Sawada wasn’t impressed with the composition itself so much as with its having been featured prominently in The Blue Bird and lauded by the celebrated Iwami-sensei. But this realization only made me feel all the more unbearably alone. And the thing is, everything I was worried about actually ended up happening, in one painful, embarrassing scene after another. My friends at school suddenly began distancing themselves from me, and Ando, who had been my best friend, mocked me relentlessly, calling me “Ichiyo-san” and “Murasaki Shikibu-sama” and so on. Finally she stopped associating with me altogether, taking up instead with the Nara and Imai crowd, whom she’d previously despised. They’d huddle together, stealing glances at me and whispering, making nasty remarks, and bursting into squeals of laughter.

I told myself I’d never write another composition as long as I lived. Urged on by my uncle in Kashiwagi, I had submitted the piece without really thinking, and it was a big mistake. This uncle of mine is my mother’s younger brother and works at the ward office in Yodobashi. He’s thirty-four or -five and fathered a baby last year, but he thinks he’s still young and sometimes drinks too much and raises a ruckus. Whenever he comes to our house, he leaves with a handful of cash Mother slips him. When he entered university his plan had been to study to become a novelist, and although his teachers and mentors had high hopes for him, according to Mother, he fell in with an unsavory crowd and ended up dropping out of school. He apparently reads tons of novels, by both domestic and foreign writers, and he’s the one who urged me to send my stupid composition to The Blue Bird seven years ago and who’s made my life miserable in so many ways ever since. I didn’t like literature. I feel differently now, but at the time, with my silly compositions having been featured in two consecutive issues of the magazine, with my friends turning on me, and with my teacher openly giving me unwarranted special treatment, it was all just too much, and I came to hate even the thought of writing. I was determined that no matter how my uncle flattered and cajoled me, I would not be submitting any more works. When he pushed me too hard, I would just start wailing at the top of my voice and put an end to it. During composition class I didn’t write a single word but would doodle circles and triangles and paper-doll faces and things. Mr. Sawada called me into the teachers’ room one day and scolded me about my attitude, saying that there’s a difference between self-respect and arrogance. It was absolutely humiliating.

I was about to graduate primary school, however, after which I hoped incidents like this would be behind me. And indeed, once I began commuting to the girls’ school in Ochanomizu, I was relieved to find that not a single person in my class knew about my stupid essay having won some contest. In composition class I wrote with a carefree attitude and was happy to receive average marks. But my uncle in Kashiwagi continued to tease and badger me relentlessly. Every time he came to our house he would bring three or four novels and order me to dive in. I generally found these books difficult to understand and often just pretended to have read them when I handed them back.

When I was in the third year of girls’ school, my father received, totally unexpectedly, a long letter from the famous Iwami-sensei, the judge who’d selected and lauded my submission to The Blue Bird. In the letter, he called me a “rare talent” and said a lot of things I’m too embarrassed to repeat, praising me ridiculously and saying it would be a pity to waste such a gift. He urged my father to have me write more pieces and offered to help get them published. It was a serious letter, written in formal, self-effacing language that we were hardly worthy of. Father handed it to me without saying anything. When I read it, I once again felt admiration for the excellent sensei, but reading between the lines it was clear to me that my uncle’s meddling was behind this. He had somehow contrived a means to approach Iwami-sensei and trick him into writing the letter. I was certain of this, and I told my father as much. “Uncle put Iwami-sensei up to it. I have no doubt about that. But why would he do such a creepy thing?” I was near tears and looked up at Father, who gave me a little nod, showing me that he too had seen through it. And he didn’t look happy. “Your uncle in Kashiwagi means well, I’m sure,” he said, “but he’s put me in a difficult position. How am I supposed to reply to such a great man?”

I don’t think Father had ever liked this uncle of mine much. When my composition was selected, both he and Mother had been thrilled and celebrated noisily, but Father alone protested, yelling at my uncle, saying that all this excitement was not in my best interest. Mother told me about this afterwards, sounding very disgruntled. She often speaks ill of her little brother, but she blows up when Father criticizes him in any way. My mother is a good, kindhearted, cheerful person, but it’s not uncommon for her and Father to get into arguments about this uncle of mine—the Satan of our family. Two or three days after we received Iwami-sensei’s courteous letter, they got into a terrible shouting match.

We were eating dinner when Father broached the subject. “Iwami-sensei has kindly gone out of his way to write such a heartfelt letter,” he said. “I’m thinking that, in order to avoid seeming disrespectful, I need to take Kazuko and pay him a visit, so we can apologize and she can explain exactly how she feels. Just writing a letter could give rise to misunderstandings, and I wouldn’t want to offend him in any way.”

Mother lowered her eyes and thought for a moment before saying, “My brother is to blame. Forgive us for all the inconvenience.” Then she raised her head with a little smile, dragged a straggling lock of hair back in place with her pinkie finger, and went on, speaking rapidly. “I guess it’s because we’re just a pair of fools, but when Kazuko was so extravagantly praised by the famous Sensei, we naturally wanted to ask his continued blessings. We wanted to try to keep things rolling, if possible. You’re always blaming us, but aren’t you being a little obstinate yourself?”

Father paused his chopsticks in midair and spoke as if delivering a lecture. “Trying to ‘keep things rolling’ is pointless. There’s a limit to how far a girl can go in the field of literature. She might be briefly celebrated for the novelty of it all, only to find afterwards that her entire life has been ruined. Kazuko herself fears this. The best life for a girl is to have a normal marriage and become a good mother. You two only want to use Kazuko to vicariously satisfy your own vanity and ambition.”

Mother paid no attention to what he was saying but turned away to reach for the hot pot on the charcoal brazier, then let go and cried out. “Ow! I burned myself.” She put her index finger and thumb to her lips. “But, listen. You know my brother has no ill will in all this.” She was still not facing Father, who now set his bowl and chopsticks down.

“How many times do I have to say this?” he shouted. “You two are preying on her!”

He adjusted the frame of his glasses with his left hand and was about to continue, when Mother suddenly let out a keening wail that quickly deteriorated into sobs. Dabbing at her eyes with her apron, she began bringing up financial matters, openly disparaging Father’s salary and our clothing budget and I don’t know what. Father looked at me and my brother and with a jerk of his chin ordered us to leave. I took my brother to the study, where for a full hour we heard them yelling at each other in the living room. My mother is normally an easygoing, openhearted person, but when she gets agitated she can say things so reckless and hurtful that it makes me want to stop up my ears with candle-wax. The next day, on his way back from teaching, Father called on Iwami-sensei at his home to express gratitude and apologize. That morning he had encouraged me to accompany him, but the thought of it frightened me so much that my lower lip started trembling and wouldn’t stop, and I just didn’t have it in me. Father returned at about seven that evening and reported that “Twami-san,” though surprisingly young, was a splendid gentleman who fully understood how we felt, to the extent that he ended up apologizing to Father, saying that he hadn’t really wanted to encourage the girl to pursue literature but had been asked repeatedly to write that letter and had finally done so, albeit reluctantly. He didn’t name the person who’d put him up to it, but obviously it was my uncle in Kashiwagi. Father explained all this to Mother and me. When I surreptitiously pinched the back of his hand, I saw him wrinkle his bespectacled eyes in a little smile. Mother listened, nodding calmly as he spoke, and had nothing to say in response.

For some time after that, my uncle didn’t come around much, and when he did, he treated me rather coldly and didn’t stay long. I forgot all about composition. When I got home from school each day I’d tend to the flower garden, run errands, help out in the kitchen, tutor my younger brother, sew, study my lessons, massage my mother’s shoulders, and so on. I was busy each day trying to be of service to everyone, and that kept me motivated and enthusiastic. 

Then came the storm. At New Year’s when I was in my fourth and final year of girls’ school, my primary-school teacher Mr. Sawada paid us a visit. Mother and Father were taken aback somewhat but pleased to see him again and wined and dined him generously. Mr. Sawada told us he’d quit teaching primary school and was now working as a private tutor and living a more carefree life. He certainly didn’t strike me as being carefree, however. I had assumed that he was about the same age as my uncle, early forties at most, but now you might have taken him for fifty-something. He had always looked older than he was, I suppose, but in the four or five years since I’d last seen him he seemed to have aged about twenty. He came across as exhausted, lacking the strength even to laugh; and whenever he tried to force a smile, his hollow cheeks were creased with deep wrinkles. I didn’t feel pity for him so much as a kind of repulsion. He still wore his hair closely cropped, but it was predominantly white now. He praised me personally, which he’d never done when I was his student, and it left me somewhat confused at first, and then very uncomfortable. He remarked on how pretty I was, how ladylike, and so on-transparent flattery, delivered with an absurd degree of deference, as if I were somehow above him. He gave Mother and Father a frightfully tedious account of my primary school career, focusing on my compositions, which I, for one, had already happily forgotten about.

“Such a waste of talent.” he said. “At the time, I was not particularly interested in juvenile compositions and knew nothing of the teaching method by which creative writing can actually be used to enhance a child’s innocence and wonder. I have a firm grasp on the subject now, however, having done extensive research, and I’m confident in my mastery of the latest methods. What do you say, Kazuko-san? Why not have another go at studying composition under my tutelage? I can guarantee . . .” blah blah blah. He was quite inebriated by now, having drunk several cups of sake. Sitting with one fist on his hip, elbow out, he concluded this grandiose nonsense by insisting we shake hands to seal the deal. Mother and Father were smiling, but I could tell they didn’t know what to make of all this. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Mr. Sawada’s proposal wasn’t just drunken bluster. Ten days or so later he showed up at our house, acting as if we’d been expecting him.

“Very well. We’ll start by going over the fundamentals of composition,” he announced.

I was flabbergasted. I later found out that Mr. Sawada had found himself in trouble over something to do with entrance exams and had been forced to resign from the school, after which, in order to survive, he’d begun making the rounds of his former students’ homes, presenting himself as a highly qualified tutor and pressuring the families to hire him. Shortly after visiting us at New Year’s, it seems he discreetly wrote a letter to Mother, once again enthusiastically praising my so-called literary talent. He also informed her about the current popularity of the essay form and the recent ascendance of a number of young girls who were being acclaimed as literary geniuses. He was obviously trying to entice her into contributing to his scheme. Since Mother, for her part, still retained lingering regrets about my abortive literary career, she promptly fell into his trap, writing back to ask if he’d be willing to give me weekly lessons. She told father that her main intention in doing so was to offer some assistance to Mr. Sawada in his efforts to support himself, and Father reluctantly agreed, apparently feeling that it would be wrong to refuse a man who had once been my teacher. Such was the situation, and from then on Mr. Sawada showed up each Saturday to lecture me in the study, where he would proclaim the most ridiculous nonsense. I hated every minute of it.

“To master writing, the first thing one needs is a solid grasp of the use of postpositions.” He’d make obvious statements like this and then beat them into the ground, as if they were matters of supreme importance. “Taro plays in the garden,’ right? Taro wa niwa wo asobu, is incorrect. Taro wa niwa e asobu, is also incorrect. Taro wa niwa nite asobu’ is the proper way to say it.” When I giggled at these ludicrous examples, he glared at me reproachfully, as if trying to burn a hole in my face. Then he heaved a deep sigh and said, “Your problem is that you lack sincerity. However great a person’s talent, without sincerity he or she will never achieve success in any field. Are you familiar with Terada Masako, the one they call “the baby-girl genius”? Born into an impoverished home, the unfortunate child’s greatest desire was to study, and yet she lacked the means to purchase so much as a single book. The one thing she did have, however, was sincerity. She faithfully followed her teacher’s instructions, and that’s why she was able to produce that masterpiece of hers. And her teacher too must have been a zealous fellow. If you had a little more sincerity in you, I’m certain I could make you every bit as successful as Terada Masako. In fact, because you happen to be blessed with favorable circumstances, I believe I can make you into an even greater writer than she is. Why? Because in one respect, at least, I’m more advanced than her teacher was. I’m talking about my grasp of moral education. Do you know who Rousseau was? Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He lived in the sixteen hundreds-or rather the seventeen . . . Wait. Was it the eighteen hundreds? Oh, that’s right, go ahead and laugh. Laugh your insincere little head off. You have some nerve, mocking your own mentor because you think all you need is your talent. Listen to me. Long ago, in China, there was a man named Gankai, who . . .”

He would go on and on, talking about all sorts of random things, but as soon as an hour had passed, he’d switch it all off. “We’ll pick up from there next week,” he’d airily announce, then stroll out of the study into the living room, where he’d chat awhile with my mother before taking his leave. I know it’s naughty to say things like this about a teacher from primary school, to whom I’m supposed to be indebted, but I couldn’t help thinking that the man was losing his grip. He would flip through his little notebook, then come out with insanely obvious statements. “Description is an important part of writing,” he said one day. “If the description doesn’t work, readers won’t know what you’re trying to say.” After returning the notebook to his breast pocket, he turned to look sternly out the window, where countless small snowflakes were drifting down, like something out of a kabuki play. “For example, if you wanted to describe the way the snow is falling right now,” he said, “it would be wrong to say it’s falling heavily. That doesn’t feel like snow. Falling rapidly? Same problem. How about fluttering down? Still not quite right . . . Sifting down-now, that’s close. Now we’re zeroing in on the feeling of this snow. Yes, yes, very interesting.” He waggled his head and crossed his arms, terribly impressed with himself. “Softly falling-how’s that? Well, ‘softly’ is an adverb we normally associate with spring rain, so, no. Shall we settle on ‘sifting,’ then? Wait. ‘Sifting softly’—combining the two might be one way to go. Sifting softly, softly sifting . . .” He narrowed his eyes while whispering the words, as if savoring the taste of them. And then, suddenly, “No! Still not good enough. Ah! Do you know this line from the old Noh play? ‘Like goose down, the snow scatters and swirls.’ That’s the classics for you-solid stuff. ‘Goose down,’ in and of itself, is a truly ingenious device. Kazuko-san, are you beginning to understand?” He turned to face me for the first time since peering out the window. I hated him and felt sorry for him at the same time and was nearly in tears.

In spite of scenes like this, I stuck it out for some three months, absorbing the same sort of dreary, unfocused drivel every Saturday, but eventually I couldn’t bear even to look at the man’s face anymore and told Father everything, asking him to put an end to Mr. Sawada’s visits. Father heard me out and said that he hadn’t expected this. He’d been against bringing in a tutor from the beginning but had gone ahead and agreed after being persuaded that it was primarily to help my former teacher support himself. He had no idea that I’d been receiving such irresponsible instruction; apparently he’d simply imagined that a weekly lesson from the man couldn’t hurt and might even help me with my schoolwork. Once again, he and Mother got into a terrible quarrel over this. They were in the living room, but sitting in the study I could hear every word, and I ended up crying my eyes out. Knowing that all this turmoil was because of me, I felt like the worst, most unfilial daughter in the world. I even wondered if I should go ahead and wholeheartedly study the art of writing, if only to please Mother. But I knew I didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t write anything at all now, and in fact I never had possessed the literary talent some people ascribed to me. Even Mr. Sawada was better at describing falling snow than I, and I, who can’t actually do anything, was the real fool for laughing at him. “Sifting softly” was a word-picture I could never have come up with. Overhearing Mother and Father’s shouting match, I couldn’t help seeing myself as a truly horrible daughter.

Mother lost the argument that night, and we saw no more of Mr. Sawada, but bad things continued to happen. From Fukagawa in Tokyo emerged a girl of eighteen named Kanazawa Fumiko, who wrote beautiful prose that won universal praise. Her books sold far more than even those of the most celebrated novelists, and the rumor was that she became fabulously wealthy overnight. This was according to my uncle in Kashiwagi, who reported it to us triumphantly, as if he were the one who’d hit the jackpot. Listening to him, Mother got all worked up again. She babbled on enthusiastically as we cleaned up in the kitchen after lunch.

“Kazuko too has the talent to write, if only she’d try! What is your problem, Kazuko? It’s no longer like the old days, when a woman had to confine herself to the home. You should give it another shot, and let your uncle from Kashiwagi guide you. Unlike Mr. Sawada, your uncle actually spent time in college, and you see all the books he reads. Say what you like, that makes him a lot more reliable. And if there’s that much money to be made, I’m sure even your father will agree.”

So my uncle once again began showing up at our house almost daily. He would drag me into the study to harangue me, saying things like, “First of all, you need to keep a diary. Just write what you see and feel. That alone can make for real literature.” He also lectured me about a lot of difficult, convoluted literary theories, but I had zero interest in writing anything and let it all go in one ear and out the other. Mother is a person who’ll get all excited about something but soon lose steam. Her enthusiasm this time lasted about a month before turning to indifference; but my uncle, far from cooling off, was now all the more determined to make me into a real writer, and announced as much with a perfectly straight face.

“Kazuko really has no choice but to become an author!” he shouted at Mother one day when Father was out. “Girls with this weird sort of intelligence aren’t cut out for a normal marriage. Her only option is to give up on all that and devote herself to the artist’s path. 

Mother, understandably enough, looked offended at such an outrageous statement. “Oh?” she said with a sad smile. “Poor Kazuko. It doesn’t seem fair.”

Maybe my uncle was right, though. The following year I graduated from girls’ school, and now, though I passionately despise his devilish prophecy, or curse, some small part of me wonders if won’t prove to be true. I’m no good. I’m definitely stupid, and I’m not even sure who I am anymore. I changed, suddenly, after I finished school. I’m bored every day. Helping out in the home, tending to the flower garden, practicing the koto, looking after my brother-it all seems silly and meaningless. I’m now a voracious reader of scandalous, off-color books that I hide from my parents. Why do novels focus so much on exposing people’s evil secrets? I’ve become an indecent girl who daydreams about unmentionable things. I now want to do just as my uncle taught me and restrict my writing to things I see and feel, as a way of asking God for forgiveness, but I don’t have the courage. Or, rather, I don’t have the talent. I can’t bear this feeling, as if my head is stuck in a rusty old iron pot. I cannot write, even though these days I often think I want to try. The other day I broke in a new writing brush by scribbling in my notebook a piece I called “The Sleeping Box,” about a trifling incident that happened one night. I later had my uncle read it, but before he got halfway through it he cast the notebook aside.

“Kazuko, it’s past time for you to give up on the dream of becoming a lady writer,” doing a stunning about-face and looking seriously fed up. It wasn’t advice so much as an admonition. “Creating literature requires a special kind of genius,” he informed me, with a wry smile. My father, on the other hand, takes a more lighthearted approach to it all, laughing and telling me that if I enjoy writing, I should go ahead and write. Mother sometimes hears gossip about Kanazawa Fumiko, or other young women writers who’ve become suddenly famous, and gets all worked up again.

“Kazuko, you could write just as well as this girl if you tried, but you don’t have the tenacity to stick to it. Do you know the old story about Kaga no Chiyojo? Long ago, when Chiyojo first called on a great haiku master she hoped to study under, he gave her the task of writing a haiku with the title ‘Nightingale.’ She quickly turned out several attempts, but the master declined to approve any of them. So, what did Chiyojo do? She spent an entire sleepless night racking her brains, endlessly repeating the proposed title in her head, until she noticed that the sun was rising, at which point, without giving it any thought at all, she composed the famous ‘Nightingale,’ I cry, / ‘Nightingale, sing for me,’ and / now day is breaking. When she showed this to the master, he praised her for the first time, slapping his knee and shouting, ‘Chiyojo’s done it!’ Do you see what I’m trying to say? Perseverance is vital in all things.” Mother takes a sip of tea after this pronouncement, then mutters the poem again under her breath. “‘Nightingale,’ I cry, ‘Nightingale, sing for me,’ and now day is breaking.’ Brilliantly executed,” she says, thoroughly impressed with her own story.

Mother, I’m not Chiyojo. I’m a dimwitted little imitation literary girl. Lying with my legs under the kotatsu covers to keep warm, reading a magazine and growing sleepy, it occurred to me that the kotatsu is a sleeping box for human beings, but when I wrote a story about that and showed it to my uncle, he tossed it aside without even finishing it. I reread the story later and realized he was right: it wasn’t the least bit interesting. How does one become skilled at writing stories? Yesterday I secretly sent a letter to Iwami-sensei. “Please don’t forget about the little girl genius of seven years ago,” I wrote. I think I might be losing my mind.