The kid fell to the ground with his hands clasped around his groin. Too bad for him I didn't forget my cleats that day, Masato thought. He walked away with his bloody hand and now bloody shoe. He picked up his bag and carried it out to the car that was waiting for him. He threw his stuff into the back seat and hopped into the front. His brother, Tadayoshi, was in the drivers' seat.
After a minute, he said, "For the sake of my windshield, please put on your seatbelt." He did. "Thank you." Tadayoshi started the car and drove home. They didn't speak on the way back, mostly because Tadayoshi couldn't hear him anyway. When they got there, their parents' van was not in the driveway.
"I'll leave a note on the door. Grab whatever stuff you still want to keep and leave the rest. Tap me on the shoulder if you need help, okay?" Masato tapped the dashboard twice, and then got out of the vehicle. His brother and his girlfriend were the only ones sympathetic to him. But they didn't show him pity. They just helped him adapt to being dead.
He went straight to his old room to grab some of his video games and such, mostly the ones his brother didn't already have, plus all his Pokémon games. He crammed them all into the sports bag that held all his spare clothes for soccer. He proceeded to sling that over his back, grab a single hat, and head out to the car. He met his brother there, and they went to his brother's place.
He had been walking to soccer practice when he was hit by a drunk driver. The man had plowed through him as if he wasn't there, and then crashed into a telephone pole. Masato had walked around the van to see his own corpse crushed between the driver and the pole. He had the privilege to watch himself officially die three days later. He continued to go to school, but nobody took any notice in him. That is, until he got so fed up with death that he threw a pencil from somebody else's desk at the teacher. The boy nearly got in trouble until he did it again.
His parents were forced to admit that he was still there after that, but didn't want to deal with their dead kid. So he and his brother decided it was best for Masato to live with Tadayoshi in the apartment in Karakura Town until he, well, passed on.
"We're here."
They arrived in front of a two-story apartment building. It was a pleasant beige color with plain handrails and bland wooden doors. Very well-kept.
Masato walked up the stairs with his stuff. While waiting for his brother to come and unlock the door, he saw the door next to his open and a girl walk out. She was a very pretty woman in her late teens, her red hair reaching her waist. Her dress was two different shades of purple and bore pictures of flowers. When she looked up at Masato, she seemed to look at him, and not at his bag. The girl smiled.
"Hello. I'm Inoue Orihime. I don't think I've seen you around here before. Do you live here?"
It took Masato a few seconds to realize that she was talking to him, and a few more to find his voice. "H-Hi. *cough* My name is Yamashita Masato. I am actually just moving here now."
"Good. Well, you'll like Karakura Middle School."
"I'm a high schooler. Senior."
She looked a little blank at that. "Aren't you a little-"
"Small?" He finished for her. "Yeah, I got that a lot." He'd always been small for his age, and there probably wasn't a chance of a growth spurt now. Then he froze up. He hadn't meant to use past tense.
Orihime didn't seem to notice. "Hopefully you get transferred into my class. Anyway, we have a spectacular soccer team, and a bunch of nice people there." Yeah, people like you who can see and hear me. Good Bye." She walked past him towards the stairs. Masato heard his brother's voice.
"Good afternoon, Orihime."
"Hello, Tadayoshi. I'm just on my way to the grocer."
"Have a safe trip. Don't let those Hollows trip you up."
"I won't. Bye"
Tadayoshi came up the stairs, shaking his head. He looked a bit above his little brother's bag. "I swear, if she wasn't so naïve, I'd ask her out on a date. Hollows, huh." He unlocked the door.
"What are hollows?" Masato asked, slinging his bag onto the couch. His brother just ignored him, heading straight for the kitchen. Masato grabbed his bag roughly, as to make noise, and took out his whiteboard to repeat the question in writing.
"Hollows? I have no idea, but the way she talks about them, it's like they are monsters that had their hearts ripped out. Or something." He opened the fridge and grabbed some soda out of it.
Masato wrote some more.
"Really? Well, maybe there is some truth to her stories. But if I know one thing, it's that you are going to have a good life here." He kept on going, not noticing his misuse of vocab. "If the first native you meet here is someone you like, or in your case, can see and talk to you, it's and omen. We are up for an exciting summer."
