"It seems like the commotion downtown has finally been cleared up and the Odori subway stations have been restored to their full operation."
Akio Sasaki wakes up to the exuberant voice of the morning radio host. Groaning, he turns over onto his other side, facing away from the alarm clock.
'Too tired...'
He tries to smother out the noise with a pillow, but to no avail - morning was here, whether he liked it or not.
"So that's good news for all of you kids listening out there that are returning to school today." The radio host adds with a laugh.
Akio's eyes immediately open.
He lunges out of bed and into his open closet then shuffles through his pile of clothes, throwing them across the room as he digs deeper and deeper into the pile.
'Oh wait, I hung them up so that they wouldn't get wrinkled.'
He looks up and sees the light blue school uniform, hanging neatly above his head. He quickly puts on his uniform shirt, pulls on the pants and slips on his pair of sneakers. The whole ordeal takes less than a minute.
As he is about to leave the room, he remembers the pair of goggles lying on top of his bedside dresser.
Would it be weird if I showed up to school wearing those?
He walks over to the dresser and holds them up, and starts to put them on over his head.
'But wait, wouldn't I get into trouble if I wore them to school?'
Defeated by his second thoughts, he removes the pair of goggles from his forehead and throws them into his backpack.
...
Akio flies out of the front door of the house, a piece of buttered toast poking out from his mouth and the buttons of his uniform shirt undone, revealing the white tee shirt which he had worn to sleep last night, beneath it.
He is greeted by a friend, who leers at him as he glides toward her.
"Looking sloppy as usual, I see." Setsuko Kimura says, after giving him a quick look-over. She wore the same blue uniform, except hers was properly buttoned and arranged neatly enough as though it had been ironed this very morning. Even her short, light brown hair seemed to fall in place perfectly, defying the wind.
"I was in kind of a hurry." Akio says, while he proceeds to button his shirt. "You must have to get up at four in the morning to have everything so neat and tidy."
Setsuko glares at him, but he pretends to not have noticed it. They begin walking together.
"Well I'm guessing that, in your state of panic, you didn't see the message Ryota sent us earlier this morning." She begins to say, and when Akio gives her a questioning look, she further clarifies, following a slight groan, "He said he's going to skip."
Akio freezes in his tracks, an expression of bewilderment on his face. "He's going to skip, on the first day of school?"
"I know, right? I warned him against it, but his mind seemed pretty set. He said he'll be at the Odori all day."
"At the Odori? That just sounds plain boring." Akio says. He couldn't imagine why somebody would rather spend an entire day at an empty park than go to school. "What's he even gonna do during all of that time? Play with his cards?"
Setsuko shakes her head but says nothing.
Akio could remember when Ryota had received his first pack of Digimon cards. It had been his eleventh birthday, and, on a whim, Akio had decided to buy him a booster pack for a gift. He could remember the first card in that booster pack as Ryota opened it - a Patamon #26 - and how excited he looked, as he beheld it.
Since then, collecting and trading Digimon cards had become a passion of is. Perhaps even an obsession, Akio thinks grimly.
'Skipping school just to play with Digimon cards? That's taking it a little too far.'
"Hey Aki, isn't that your dad's ride?"
A shiny black car whizzes past the two. It is the only car they had seen on the road that morning.
They stand still and watch as it disappears down the street.
Akio nods. "Yeah, that's my dad. Off to work again." He looks down at his feet timidly.
With a sigh, Setsuko places a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder.
"Hey, how does jogging the rest of the way sound? That is, if you haven't fallen too badly out of shape over the summer break."
Akio smiles meekly.
'What would I do without you, Setsuko?'
"I'm in. But wait, let me get something out of my bag first." He takes out his pair of goggles and puts them on, over his eyes. He felt like he was being reunited with a part of himself then, and he could feel a new kind of energy burning within.
"Say, Setsu, how's about we turn this into a race?" Akio says, grinning mischeivously as he begins to speed up. "Last one to the subway is a rotten digi-egg!" He starts to run and she chases after him.