Chapter 1
Ring, ring, ring… The sound of the screeching alarm clock echoed loudly around my compact room. My eyes slowly creaked open at the painful sound. I shifted my body gently onto my back and looked up at the ceiling. I placed my hand atop my alarm clock and the piercing screech it was emitting ended abruptly.
(I had that dream again…)
For the past few days I have been experiencing a very cryptic, recurring dream. An empty world surrounded by bountiful and resplendent orbs of light and in an empty plane stood an old and creaking cottage. Outside the cottage was a very eerie wind turbine, that turned so slowly, it was hard to notice that it moved in the first place. I wanted to know what the dream meant. They say that your dreams display very deep desires or very dormant worries and fears. I try to think what exact worries or desires the dream could represent, but absolutely nothing came to mind.
I slid out of bed and open the curtains. The sky was a dull gray colour. That's what every day was like. Dull, boring and empty. The faint sounds of the city massaged my ears. Something about listening to cars drive by soothed me.
"God, its looks like complete shit outside…" I expressed aloud. I seemed to say that every morning despite the fact that I knew the weather would be like that. I guess, deep down, I was hoping for a sunny day to come. I sighed in disappointment and turn to my door. Throwing my slippers on and opening the door, I head into the cramped hallways of my "humble abode".
I walked slowly down the small hallway where all the bedrooms were stationed. I looked around at all the doors, reading the names above them and watching memories of those rooms flood back into my head. This seemed to happen every morning and I still loved it. All the old memories of when life wasn't just some boring old repeat of work, work and more work… Back then, you could be in space, or fighting a dragon or saving some maiden in distress; all that cliché bullshit you had when you were a kid. You look at all that stuff as weird now, but back then, all of that was a blast! Everyday felt like an adventure! But now, every day just felt like a drag. Like you've just done the exact same thing as you always did. It's like watching the same boring movie over and over again, to the point where you've already memorized all the lines and musical ques. Now, you can't go out into space, you can't go fight a dragon and you can't go save some maiden in distress… All you can do now, is work. That's what I've come to realize.
I stopped in front of the bathroom, steam flowing from under the door. Seems someone's already in there.
"Yo! Who's in there?!" I exclaimed to them.
"It's me!" Replied the soothing voice of my sister. I always enjoyed hearing that voice, it was somewhat nostalgic. My sister acted mostly as my guardian throughout my whole childhood, cheering me up, playing with me, taking me with her on trips, all sorts. It was awesome, I was never able to feel down when she was around and I still can't.
"How long are you going to be?!" I questioned.
"I dunno. About 10 minutes perhaps?" She replied. I sighed and walked on.
"Whatever, just be out soon!" I yell to her as I strut away.
"Okey-dokey!" She yelled playfully. I always enjoyed her playful attitude. Although, recently she seemed to be a lot more distant and serious because she had no time for fun anymore now that she's going to university. She started classes there about two months ago and had been noticeably quieter since then.
I made my way down the stairs, looking at the drab coloured wallpaper placed around the top floor. I never liked my mother's taste; she always picked strange and quite ugly looking colours for the house. I arrived into the spacious, bright yellow living room, where my mother was setting out plates around the dinner table in preparation for breakfast.
"What's on the menu this morning?" I asked her, even though I hardly cared anyway… I'd eat anything I was given as long as it was edible. I had no particular interests. Everything tasted the same to me, bleak and tasteless, as if all I was eating was just rice all the time.
"I decided I'd go for something a little more different and serve you what's known as a "Full English". A very famous dish in the United Kingdom!" She replied merrily. That irritated me a little. I knew my mother wasn't merry at all. I could see behind her eyes she still felt helpless and alone, like she always had ever since Dad died. Even if I didn't see what was so great about my father, my mother obviously did and has been heavily affected since his passing. Me, I saw him as a pathetic crook who only cared for his own selfish needs and would do anything to please them.
I took the seat to the far left of the table, right next to the picture of me and Kari when we visited Germany. It was a trip we all enjoyed, even when we were just a family of three. It was the first and only time since my father's death that I'd seen my mother truly happy. I stared down at my green plate, neatly decorated with yellow flowers and some brightly coloured stars. God, why is my mother's taste so bad?! This thing looks terrible! I've seen massacres that were better to look at than this damn thing! But obviously I didn't say that to her. She's very sensitive about her taste in furnishing and dishware.
She skipped merrily over to me, grabbed the plate and skipped right back over to the kitchen to bring me my food. I sat patiently waiting for her, looking around the room at all the decorations and paintings. For some reason we had a painting of a boat on the wall and I never knew why… My mother would say it was an antique and that my father loved it, but all I see is some bland boat at a dock, looking bland, acting bland and sounding bland. Everything about it was bland. Hell, it couldn't even sound bland because the supposed boat in the picture didn't even have a horn! What kind of boat doesn't have a horn for god's sake!
But I eventually just forgot about that and continued to inspect the rest of the room. I noticed one of the dishes was smashed… She must have started crying while cleaning again… Geez… It had been almost 14 years now and she was still affected by it. I didn't understand how. Love seemed like a completely nonsensical concept and I honestly couldn't see how it could affect people so badly.
My mother had skipped back into the room just how she had left it, this time holding a plate full of food. She gently placed it in front of me.
"Here you go sweetey! Eat up!" My mother playfully remarked.
"Thank you for the meal…" I blandly replied. And then I dug right into the meal. It tasted bland, just like everything else. Great. I could tell this was going to be another fantastic breakfast of empty taste. I only just ate to stay alive really and to keep in decent shape. Although I was weak and my muscles were very small, I was still very healthy, most likely healthier than most people my own age. I just had a very high metabolism and spent hardly any time exercising, if not none.
I finished my meal and went right back upstairs to see if Kari had gotten out of the shower yet.
"Hey, Kari! You out yet?!" I questioned to her.
"Yeah! You can go in now!" She casually replied. I made my way over to the bathroom but she called out to me once more.
"Oh yeah! Hikaru?"
"Uh huh?!" Her voice seemed kind of serious… I wandered what she wanted?
"Have you thought about getting a girlfriend yet?!"
(Eh! Crap! She asked it! The one question I always dreaded a loving sister to ask!)
"Uh….Well…. Um…"
"Jeez! You're so hopeless! How do you expect to get anything from high school if you don't get a girlfriend?!" She yelled at me.
(She can really be thick sometimes…)
"Oh, I don't know… Maybe learning? You know that thing they made school for?" I sarcastically replied.
"And what is knowledge without someone to share it with?!"
I hesitated. I didn't quite know how to answer that question.
"Life's meant to be spent with others!" She had a bit of a serious look. She gives me this lecture quite often, but I never truly take it to heart. I've spent a lot of my life after childhood as a complete introvert. I avoid people as often as possible and only talk when I really have to. It's not that I'm shy, I just really dislike people.
"I told you… I'm not good with people…"
"Well then get better! You can't spend you're your whole life like that." I knew that. But I couldn't accept it. I ignored her and continued walking. I didn't have any response.
I looked at myself in the mirror, making sure everything was spot on. I began to play with my hair, which refused to stay in a decent state. I always sort of hated my hair. It made me look like some generic manga character. It was big, it was spiky and it was blonde. Perfect right? It pretty much just tells everyone "Hey! I'm foreign! Please proceed to segregate me and treat me like dirt!" I guess that's Japan for you…
I fondled the spikes of my hair more and more, pushing me closer and closer to complete rage.
(Why won't you look tidy damn it!)
I always start thinking aggressively when tidying my hair. Eventually, I adjusted my hair into a state where it's somewhat acceptable and headed over to my bag. I looked through it quickly to make sure I had everything I needed and rushed out.
"I'm going!" I shouted, in a bored tone.
"Alright! Be safe!" My mother replied.
"Don't come back until you have a girlfriend, okay?!" Kari joked.
"Isn't going to happen!" I stepped outside and slammed the door behind me. I sighed and begun to walk the path to school.
I didn't mind walking to school as much as others seem to. I used it as time to explore my mind and creativity. I liked to play out strange scenarios in my mind. I'd just have two random characters have a random conversation in some random place for some random reason. It was all just completely random.
I looked around with almost no interest what so ever. I stared up at the sky to see a large, black curtain of fluff hanging above the city. It's quite depressing to see that every day. Although, I was just depressed in general.
After the death of my Dad, everything sort of just fell apart. The relationship between my Mum and I become almost non-exist for most of my childhood. During those times I had absolutely nothing. I refused to make friends. I refused to play any games. I even refused just going outside in the first place.
But I needed something. I spent most of my childhood cooped up in my bedroom, reading books about Science, Mathematics, Language, all sorts; just to keep going. In retrospect, that really helped not just then, but in the future as well. In school I'm known as the "Genius". I get maximum marks in all exams, I finish lesson activities in mere minutes and I can recite over 75 different poems perfectly from the top of my head. Those are the sorts of things I'm known for. But no one actually knows who I am. I'm just "Genius". That's it. No one knows anything about my personality or my interests. Just that I'm a "Genius". Genius. I grew to hate that word. People wouldn't even address me by my name. Hey Genius! What's the answer to question two? Hey Genius! What's the quadratic equation? Hey Genius! What's the atomic mass of Nitrogen? That's all I'd ever get.
People became reliant on checking my answers and letting me answer all of the teachers questions. So I just refused to do anything in class. I just slept or looked out the window after that. I'd just stare at the black, cold, dead sky. That was just a normal day for me.
I crossed over to the left side pavement and made my way over to the bus stop. By that point it had begun raining. Of course, I was stupid enough to not bring an umbrella so I got completely drenched. I was shivering like someone had just poured ice cubes down my pants.
I stood under the shelter of the bust stop for about five minutes before I noticed someone walking over. It was a girl, about my age. She was a little short; I'd say about five foot six. She was wearing the same uniform I was wearing. That struck me as odd. I'd never seen anyone from my school come to that bus stop.
At that moment a large gust of wind blew across the street and her hair fluttered marvelously in the breeze. Then I noticed the hair colour. It was an odd shade of pink. Magenta? I was terrible with shades.
A boy once laughed at me for calling teal, cyan. Me, being the short tempered runt that I was, countered by throwing a few obscenities at him. He then jammed his fist right between my eyes.
When she had reached the bus stop, she stood completely still, staring right down at the ground. I glanced at her as she stood there. She looked quite normal. But something seemed a little off about her. I felt like I knew her from somewhere, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
I thought about talking to her, but the moment I tried to say something, my body completely just froze and my voice had completely abandoned me. I was never good at speaking with people, let alone people of the opposite sex.
I only ever had one crush and that just ended with tears. Her name was Miyazawa Tamiko. I had built up the courage in Middle School to ask her out and was rejected almost immediately. I was stupid enough to make the mistake of asking out the girl I thought was "cute". Turned out she was a complete bitch. She told me that she'd never go out with "a disgusting loner, who spends all his time messing around in the computer club". She might as well have just kicked me in the stomach, would've hurt just as much.
I stood there for a while, having an inner conflict with myself.
"Go over and talk to her idiot!" Screamed one part of my conscience.
"No! What if she thinks I'm weird then tells all her friends?" The other part responded
"Then you take it like a man! You won't get anywhere by just standing still and thinking about talking to someone! You've got to ACT!"
This heated debate lasted about 2 minutes, before the girl noticed I was staring at her.
"Um… Excuse me, but is there any particular reason you're just standing there staring at me?" The girl asks, sounding slightly annoyed.
"Uh… N-Not really…" I mumbled and then averted my eyes away from her and to the floor.
(Well that went well…)
The bus arrived about 3 minutes after that and the two of us stepped on, showing the driver our bus passes as we walked by.
We sat opposite each other for the whole ride, without saying a word. I'd never felt so awkward. But what I really couldn't stop thinking about was where I recognized her from. I was thinking so hard that my head literally began to ache. I knew this was going to be on my mind all day.
As the bus journey continued, we both stared out the window, watching cars pass by and pedestrians walking along. The awkwardness was so heavy in the room I could probably inhale it. It was that bad. Like some kind of awkward smoke. I then mustered up the courage to speak.
"Um, hey… Did you just recently move here or something?" Might as well ask a casual question first. If I jumped right into the whole "have we met before?" thing that would've just made the situation even more tedious.
She turned to me with a slightly curious expression.
(Did I just ask a weird question? It seemed normal… at least in the movies anyway.)
"Kind of… I just moved from one block down." She responded.
(Great. We're getting somewhere.)
"Oh… So you've always gone to this school?"
"Yes. I'm even in your class…"
(Wait, what?! Wow… I just made myself look like a complete idiot… Well, at least I know where I recognized her from…)
"O-Oh… R-Really?! Ha-ha! I never noticed!"
(Damn it. Now it feels awkward again…)
"That's not much of a surprise. I hardly speak in class and we're on completely opposite sides of the room." She said in a fairly bored tone.
(I guess that makes a little more sense…)
We sat there for a while saying nothing. I thought starting a conversation would lower the awkwardness, but it seemed to have increased it. That's the power of socializing!
The bus came to a halt.
"This is our stop…" She muttered and hurried off the bus.
(Perfect, I scared her off… Well Kari, at least I tried…)
