The month passed quickly. Yukiko and Chie were still cautious at first, but eventually warmed up when I didn't prove to be some kind of psycho yakuza enforcer out to shank them with a rusty spoon. It didn't hurt that I deliberately projected the image of a friendly, trustworthy and guileless sort of guy. Another legacy of a gutter rat. The old hands taught me to play the part of a meek high-school kid, and so I danced to that tune while taking money off the gullible.

Another bonus was that I didn't have to slice off any part of my finger. Dead giveaway, that. I liked being able to clench things properly, thank you very much.

Yukiko proved to be more than just a simple heiress. She was also hilariously weird, thanks to her obliviousness. Part of it was due to her sheltered upbringing, but a lot of it also stemmed from her natural shyness and consequent lack of social experience. The girl had little understanding of male-female teenage relationships, evidenced by the long trail of broken hearts and shattered male egos she left strewn throughout Yasogami High School. All of which she was, of course, blissfully unaware of.

"Yukiko's just like that, I guess," Chie had said, consoling the thirteenth(?) boy who tried to ask her out. "She wouldn't hurt a fly on purpose, so she didn't mean anything bad turning you down, okay? Just be a man, and walk it off!" She grinned and thumped her chest, trying to console the rather inconsolable kid.

He followed the "walk it off" part of the advice just fine. The manly part might have been asking too much of him though.

Chie sighed, listening to the retreating sobs in the background. "Hey Saito, that's the third one this month. How come so many guys are lining up to fess up to Yukiko, but you haven't yet? Any secret passions I ought to know about?" She grinned while nudging my side.

"Not really. I'm just not into chasing girls, I guess."

"Woah! Are you trying to say you…err, don't swing that way?"

I let Chie feel the full weight of my very-not-amused gaze. It's a very expressive thing, that gaze. It bespoke of disapproval, dude-not-funny and no-more-steak-for-you-missy.

She laughed nervously and backed off. I thought I heard her muttering something about rusty spoons under her breath. I relented and let her off.

"Look, I'll try tell you what I told all the guys who asked before; I don't have time for boy-girl relationships. Sure, we're all growing young men, but I just don't let the hormones get in control."

"Hmmm, kinda like mind over matter, huh?"

I shrug, "You could say that."

Chie slowly nodded, "Like those Shaolin monks I guess? Not letting the body control what you do, ignore pain and stuff like that."

I was thinking more along the lines of Bene Gesserit, but okay, that works too.

"Hey! Saito! I know! Can you head-butt a concrete slab? Or—or catch a cannonball with your stomach?"

That gaze seems to be in frequent demand these days.

It was refreshing; joking, messing around and dealing with mundane problems. Before I had ran off, I had managed to attend and graduate from middle-school, which I remembered fondly. It was nice being back in school, especially a rural one like Yasogami High. The kids here aren't like those in Tokyo. They weren't so obsessed with the latest modern trends. Except Ai Ebihara. She was so stereotypical alpha-female it wasn't even funny. Some, like the jocks Daisuke and Kou, were genuinely okay people in my book, despite the disconcerting rumours of Kou's fetish for basketballs.

As you can see, hanging out with Chie and Yukiko has done wonders to my social life in school. Now, I can actually claim to be friendly acquaintances with some of my schoolmates.

I said my goodbyes to Chie, who had to go retrieve Yukiko from the faculty office and walk her home. Eventually, I found myself walking alone across the Samegawa floodplain.

The quiet countryside magnified the sound of my footsteps. Here, the remoteness, the stark, empty skies, the feeling of sheer isolation grinded down on me. The crazy temp of Tokyo seemed so far away, like it never existed in the first place. Maddening silence echoed in ears long accustomed to the senseless bustle of a city. The fresh country air carried a hint of the staleness, the static, the immobility to life here.

My mood gradually turned more somber, as I remember my prevailing thought since arriving here.

Inaba is my prison. It's a dead end, a resting place for the old and dying. They totter about and struggle to remain relevant in a society that has left them behind. The young ones old enough to leave have already done so, seeking fortunes elsewhere, while the old ones…well, I've seen how the locals trapped here live. Like old man Daidara, wasting away in the boonies, living each day the same way he lived the previous one. Year after year passes, trapped in the same old town, in the same old shop, in the same old job, doing the same old things. No child, no spouse, no family. Just waiting for the day he goes to sleep and never wakes up again.

And guess who ended up waltzing in to join him? Apparently, he's one of those misguided souls who volunteered to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents like yours truly. I would have laughed in his face, except it was butt ugly and had a pair of scars crisscrossing it, so I wisely abstained. Besides, he spends most of his day angrily banging a hammer against red hot steel, on top of an abused anvil in between his nuts, so this was not someone to mess around with.

Fine by me, I could live with this guy, see what he wants. I didn't want anything to do with the underworld anymore. I thought I could leave it behind, make a fresh start, start living properly again.

I started looking for a job on the first day I arrived. Six months later, I still haven't found anyone willing to hire yet, not even the overworked Junes supermarket. It took the judge's orders and old man Daidara literally staring down the school governors for me to even enter Yasogami High. The locals, desperate for any new gossip, pounced on my history, sensationalizing it to new heights. Accomplice became perpetrator; fraud became assault, assault became homicide. Didn't it occur just how ridiculous that was? No judge was going to let a murderer loose, not even kids eligible under the juvenile category. It didn't matter to them though, it just sounded better and more interesting, so why let the truth stand in the way of a perfectly good story?

Once again, I was reminded that the sheep of the world were blind, blinkered and dumber than a bag of hammers.

"I'm home!"

Old man Daidara looked up from his newsletter and grunted in greeting. I spared a glance around the shop, looking for any customers. Not surprisingly, no one was around. Honestly, selling weapons in the countryside… The only people here are folks so old, the last time they swung a katana was at actual samurais, or young kids who would put it to less than legal use.

Maybe the old man's business ended up fueling his charity?

"How's yer day been?" asked the old man.

Shrug.

"Not much. Another guy confessed to Yukiko today. Chie and I had to stay back a while to deal with the fallout."

"Hmph. I always said the Amagi girl would grow up to be a heartbreaker."

I found no reason to refute that astoundingly acute observation. He lapsed back into silence and returned to his reading, which I took as a sign that I'd been dismissed. That was a pretty accurate microcosm of our interactions so far. He would provide some token display of guardianship, then shut up and let me run off to do my own thing.

I didn't get him at all. Maybe he wanted company. Maybe he was atoning for some kind of mistake. Maybe he was just some creepy old pervert. Lord knows, the world has no shortage of those sorts. Whatever it was, I just couldn't figure out what he was getting out of this deal, and that bugged me. For the yakuza that adopted me, it was for the income I could bring in. For the judge, it was probably for the feel-good publicity he got, showing mercy to a street urchin in front of the media. No one, no self-respecting person on this planet, did anything for free. Second thing I learned in the orphanage. So it bugged me that I couldn't figure out old man Daidara's motive. Like they say, it's the stuff you don't know that comes around to bite you, and the old man was one big pile of don't-bloody-know to me.

I changed and went out in the evening. It was my turn to make the dinner run, and I walked over to Junes. We'd already eaten Aiya's yesterday.

Hmm…sushi or boxed bento?

"Hi! Can I help you?"

I turned around. It's a friend of sorts from my class, Yosuke Hanamura.

He recognized my face when I turned to face him, and we both broke into a friendly grin.

"Eating out again, Saito?"

"Yep. You know the old man and I can't cook to save our lives."

"Haha! I guess that's what happens when you have two bachelors living together. All you have to forward to is an endless line of take-outs and instant ramen."

"I guess that must make me your most loyal customer. Can I get a discount?"

"Is that extortion, Saito? I could call security in here and have your delinquent butt kicked out in a flash."

Aaand…this is one of the problems I have with him. He makes the most tasteless jokes at the expense of other's issues. I know it's not in mean spirit, but it still stung, having a sort-of friend remind you of your place.

"You want to explain to old man Daidara why you detained his charge on baseless accusations? Or worse, why you delayed his dinner?"

Its petty, but I savor Yosuke's grimace.

"Dude, not funny! That guy scares me. His face looks like a namahage mask, all red and frowning. I can just imagine him stalking around going, "Who's a little crybaby? Who's been naughty?" He'd have kids crying and running away all over town."

"You're scared of him. Who's the little crybaby now?"

We banter back and forth. It's a slow day, so he helps me scan my bento boxes at the cashier counter. If ever there was someone who could take my place as Inaba's public-enemy-number-one, he was it. The son of the Junes' manager, he was an easy target for those whose pointless, monotonous lives were interrupted by the invader. Generally, this consists of local shop keepers blaming Junes for stealing business, old folks complaining about anything modern and therefore, unfamiliar and automatically wrong, and housewives whining about the lower qualities of groceries. All of the vitriol got focused on the hapless fellow.

So what does the guy do? Roll over, whine and wallow in self-pity? Nope.

He mans up, throws himself into helping his dad in the supermarket and tries to help his school mates get jobs. That's how I got to know him. He helped submit my job application, and put in a few good words. Unfortunately, the-powers-that-be in Junes had made it a policy not to hire those with a previous record. He came back thoroughly apologetic and slightly apprehensive. I think he was afraid I would take it out on him.

Eventually, the subject turns to the kid who confessed to Yukiko today. Yosuke seems unusually interested. I can tell he's not merely curious, and my gut tells me he might attempt the Amagi challenge soon.

I swear, it's like some kind of silly rite-of-passage in Yasogami High.

"So, errr…Saito?" He says, hesitantly handing me my groceries.

"…how do I put this? You, hang out with Yukiko-san a lot right?"

I knew it. That train's never late. I nod and wait for him to continue.

The words spill out from his mouth messily. "W-What do you think she likes? Like flowers? Or chocolates? Or plush toys? I mean, NOT that I'm going to get her anything, it's just, y'know hypothetically, if I WERE to get her something and I wanted it to be something she liked, what would it be?"

I pretend to contemplate it deeply. Stroke my chin, look up into the ceiling, breathe in deep and slow…the whole routine. Yosuke stares at me anxiously. With great ceremony, I nod and come to a decision.

I might owe him a favor, but this was something I couldn't help at all.

Taking the bag of groceries from him, I reply, "I don't know. Why don't you ask her yourself?"

I walk away before I give in to the temptation to look back at his reaction.