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Exams came up but I managed them. They were easy. Like taking candy from a baby.
In our classes, we got our answer sheets back and the problems were explained to us. Whenever each subject ended, Yuigahama went out of her way to report to me.
"Hikki! My Japanese history score went up! That study meeting was a good call after all," Yuigahama yabbered on excitedly, but I gave her the same cold reply every time.
"Good for you."
"Yep! And it's all thanks to Yukinon… oh, and you too, Hikki."
So Yuigahama said, but I did nothing at all.
If you studied more your results were guaranteed to go up. Period. Her praise was fundamentally hollow. I mean, Yuigahama had gotten those scores out of her own hard work.
Speaking of my exam results, I'd been defending my number three ranking in Japanese as usual. My score in maths was a 100/100. I nailed the difference equation. It was baby maths.
Oh, and not only was it the day we got the exam results back, it was the day of the event that had been looming over us for quite some time: the workplace tour. The students were called during recess and sent out to the workplace of their own choosing.
We went to Kaihin‐Makuhari Station. This area was quite densely packed with offices, and there were a surprising number of head offices operating there too. And as if at the same time it was aware of what had taken place the other day, it was a hive of activity. Makuhari was not called the new heart of the city for nothing. You could even say it was the capital of Chiba nowadays.
Our group consisted of Totsuka, Hayama and me.
Or at least, that was how it should have been. But in reality, people were gathering around Hayama like flies every time I looked his way. What was he, a dead body? Well, I never entertained the thought I'd be going with Hayama to begin with. I thought it would be pretty much a date with Totsuka ‐ just the two of us ‐ but when I looked around for Totsuka, he was being followed around by a flock of girls. Totsuka went around looking so shocked and dismayed you'd think he was being bullied if you didn't know him well.
Hayama was surrounded by the three guys who were supposed to be in a different group altogether along with Miura and the others. I could spot Yuigahama's figure among them. When I tried counting here and there, it seemed around five groups had turned up here.
Being with people is really not my forte. On those occasional holidays when I went out, just the sheer number of people around would make me want to crawl back home. Naturally, I ended up trailing well behind the rest of the group. How awesome was I, taking on the position of a lord on my own initiative? If I were a commander in the warring states era, I'd have deserved a medal.
The place our group (and by that I mean just Hayama) chose was an electronic tool maker whose name I'd heard of. Not only did this place function as a simple company office building and a research institution, it was also linked to a museum operating in the vicinity. It was an enterprise that perfectly incorporated interactive fun, what with the screen theatre that took up every square inch of the museum and so on.
If Hayama had picked this place without even being aware of how good it was, then that was a good thing about him: he had an excellent sixth sense. Once again, even if he had picked it knowing a huge crowd would gather around here, his level of attention towards the needs of other people was frankly astonishing.
More than any other exhibition, the work of a machine maker was fun to look at, even for a loner like me.
I pressed my face against the glass, staring with rapt attention at the whirring machines like a boy who wanted a new toy. Just looking at the machines was enough to get me pumped.
"We are not machines" were the words people spout when they rebelled against being controlled or used for hard labour, but it was completely spot on. We are not machines. And because of that, there were times when people fumbled the gears they didn't understand how to use. If it were a mini four‐wheeler, I'd be enquiring at Tamiya Corporation.
Strictly speaking, machines had such superfluous elements too. Ordinarily, those parts were 'for fun.' That was how you explained the purpose of the excess parts of the bike chain and the extra gears. Some might say that a mechanical body that takes it easy will have a longer service life. That was what one of the employees said today ‐ that machines and humans both needed their fun.
Well, not like anyone would ever invite me to have fun…
As I built up a moderate distance between myself and the group, I looked around at the cluster of machines. In front of me were the boys and girls who yabbered on and enjoyed each other's company. I looked behind me but there was no one.
The only thing that greeted me was a painful, deafening silence. But that utter stillness was soon broken by the clicking sound of hard heels against the floor.
"Hikigaya. So you're all the way here, huh?"
For once, Hiratsuka‐sensei was not wearing her white coat. That was because if she wore her white coat here, she'd be mistaken for one of the employees.
"Are you looking around, sensei?"
"Yeah, something like that," Hiratsuka‐sensei responded, although her gaze never strayed from the dazzling machinery, not even to spare a glance at her students. "Heh… Japanese machinery is amazing." She paused. "I wonder if they'll ever make a Gundam while I'm still alive."
She really did have the brain of a little boy. She was admiring those steel bodies with sparkling eyes. No, please, stay that way.
The thought occurred to me that this would be an excellent time to make a break for it. Hiratsuka‐sensei must have noticed the sound of my footsteps when I began walking, because she matched her pace with mine.
"Oh, that reminds me, Hikigaya. About your hypothetical contest…"
The contest… that referred to the one between Yukinoshita and I, where we were to decide whose method of helping people worked better through the Service Club. The winner would decide the loser's fate.
Sensei hesitated over the subject she had brought up herself.
I urged her to continue with my eyes alone.
At that, sensei opened her mouth once again, this time with renewed resolve. "There was too much interference from outside factors. The current framework is unable to cope with that. In lieu of that, I propose we alter one part of the system."
Her language was peppered with the same kinds of excuses a game company would use, but to cut a long story short, it seemed sensei's capacity was overloaded, causing her to crash.
"I don't really care either way…" I muttered.
No matter what I did, the rules of this contest were written by Hiratsuka‐sensei. She'd change the rules on a whim regardless of what I said. The conditions for winning and losing were decided according to Hiratsuka‐sensei's biased judgment in the first place.
Resistance was futile.
"In reality, it's already decided, isn't it?"
"No…" Hiratsuka‐sensei said as she scratched her head. "There's still one person who's hard to handle."
Hard to handle. When I heard that, Yuigahama was the first one to spring to mind. She was the one girl who had joined our club after it had started ‐ the club meant only for Yukinoshita and I.
You could call her an irregular existence. An outside factor was fitting too. Without being part of the original plan, she had snuck her way into the heart of the current Service Club.
In that case, perhaps it was a contest among the three of us: me, Yukinoshita ‐ and now Yuigahama.
"Hmph, it appears this is the end of the line for the Mecha Mecha Road." (What the hell is a Mecha Mecha Road?) "If you decide to make a new Service Club, be sure to let me know. Come now, I won't do anything evil," Hiratsuka‐sensei said with a grin, but it all sounded like a villain's stock lines to me…
After that, Hiratsuka‐sensei went back to the original Mecha Mecha Road. I saw her go and then I turned to the exit.
I'd spent too long chatting with Hiratsuka‐sensei. Hayama and the others were already gone, and the loudest sound I could hear was the rustling of the early summer wind in a deserted bamboo thicket. I tried looking around the secluded entrance when the sun began to set and the sky's colours started to change.
And there, I caught sight of a familiar dumpling ball hairstyle. Inadvertently, I had found her.
The girl was sitting on the curb stone, hugging her knees and pressing away at her cell phone. For a moment, I deliberated about calling out to her. But in my hesitation, she ended up noticing me instead.
"Oh, Hikki, you're late! Everyone's gone already, y'know?"
"Oh, yeah. My bad, I was distracted by my inner robot… so, just where did everyone go?"
"Saize."
High school students in Chiba really love Saize. It was Chiba's landmark family restaurant since the beginning of time ‐ man, was it overrated. The food was cheap and tasty so it was no surprise, though.
"Aren't you going?" I asked her abruptly.
"Huh?!" Yuigahama blinked. "Oh, y'see, I was kinda waiting for you, Hikki. Like… I'd feel bad if you were left behind, y'know."
As she played with her fingers, Yuigahama peered at me hesitantly. Seeing her like that, I broke out into a smile without thinking about it.
"Yuigahama, you're so nice."
"Huh?! Um, what?! Th‐that's not true at all!" Yuigahama waved her arms wildly, her face bright red, perhaps because of the setting sun. I had no idea why she denied it, but I knew Yuigahama was a nice girl.
She was a good person, I thought. That was why I had to tell her straight out. "You know, you really don't have to worry about me. I saved your dog by coincidence, and plus I'd probably be a loner in high school even if that accident never happened. There's no need to worry yourself sick over it. That's what I've always said myself."
I had never actually uttered those words, but I knew myself well enough to know they were true. I would probably ‐ no, definitely ‐ not have been surrounded by friends if I had entered high school normally.
"Y‐you remembered, Hikki?" Yuigahama gazed at me in open shock, her eyes wide.
"No, I don't remember it, actually. It's just that there was this one time you came over to my house to thank me. Komachi told me about it."
"Oh, right… Komachi‐chan told you…" Yuigahama laughed feebly, a hollow smile on her face. She lowered her head furtively.
"Sorry, looks like you went out of your way for me. Well, you don't have to worry about me from now on. I was a loner from the beginning and that accident had nothing to do with it. You don't have to feel sorry for me or act out of obligation." I paused, and then I went on. "If you're nice to me out of concern for my feelings, then stop it."
For a moment there, I was keenly aware of how roughly I spoke. I practically snarled those words at her. I wondered why I did that. It wasn't something to get so riled up over.
I scratched my head as a way of hiding my irritation. That was the desperate sound of clutching at straws. The silence rang out between us, an extension from the stillness of before, and it made me sick.
It was the first time I was unable to stomach the silence.
"Well, uh, um…"
We both opened our mouths, vainly attempting to form the words we knew we were supposed to say, but nothing came out. As our words clashed against each other, Yuigahama let out a fake, cheerful laugh.
"Um, y'see, how do I put it? That's not really how it is. You know?" As she went on laughing, she looked down pointedly, her face contorting with pain. "I mean, it really isn't like that…"
I couldn't make out her expression after she hung her head. And yet she spoke so feebly, her voice trembling slightly.
"It's not ‐ not like that… not like that at all…" she murmured.
Yuigahama had always been a nice girl, and she would probably be one for the rest of her life. If reality is a cruel mistress, then a lie is a kind one. And so kindness itself is a lie.
"Um, well, look," Yuigahama began. She whipped her head up and glared at me. Her eyes were blurred with tears, and yet still she stared me down resolutely without averting her gaze. I was the one who had to look away. "…you're an idiot."
And with that, Yuigahama turned and ran. But after a couple of metres, her footsteps began to drag and she slowed down to a somewhat plodding walk.
I watched her until she was gone, and then abruptly I turned away.
Yuigahama might have gone to Saize where all the others were waiting. But that had nothing to do with me.
I hate being with people.
And I hate nice girls.
They follow you wherever you go and yet they're forever out of reach, like the moon beaming down at you from the night sky. The distance between you and them is insurmountable. You can't stop thinking about them after a simple exchange of greetings and your heart flutters when you text them. When they phone you, you stare dumbly at your call history all day.
But I know how it works. That's what kindness is. I nearly always forget that those who are kind to me are also kind to others. It's not as if I don't feel their kindness or anything. No, I feel it. You could even say I feel it too much. And because of that, I get an allergic reaction.
I've already lived through it all once. A practiced loner is once bitten, twice shy. Confessions of love as penalty for losing at rock‐paper‐scissors, fake love letters written by boys who copy down what girls dictate to them ‐ I want nothing to do with them. I'm a veteran of war. There's no one better at losing than I am.
Forever having expectations and forever getting the wrong idea ‐ at some point I just gave up clinging to false hope.
And so I will forever hate nice girls.
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"You trusted me to win the tennis match. You trusted me to come up with a solution to Kawasaki. I need to know why."
"Are you asking me why?" Yuki ishita asked.
"I am."
"The tennis match is easy. I heard Totsuka say you're a skilled tennis player. Was it really too much to believe in that?"
"For you. You wouldn't gamble on anything less than a sure thing. You needed to know."
"Perhaps you don't know me so well as you believe."
"And perhaps not," I agreed. Would she understand Lovecraft's lore? Would she understand mine? "I helped Kawasaki."
"You did. Why?'
"I still try and do good. And I think that that is good. But I know it is futile. It shall be dust and echoes."
"I knew you'd pull through."
"How?" I didn't even know that. How could she possibly know me better than I knew myself?
"You aren't a bad person Hikigaya."
She must have known I was feeling fragile. She must have known I was weak. She spared me the insults and blows.
"Am I?" And I truly wondered. I wondered in those moments if I were a force for chaos. By the board surrounded by figures.
"You are," She gave me this small smile.
I decided that I hated it. I looked away from her and back to the board in the little room we shared. Her with her book. Me with my figures.
"Do you know Lovecraft?" I asked.
"I've certainly heard of him. I've never read his works."
"If you get knocked down, such that you can barely rise it was because the other person was like a god to you. And so they barely noticed knocking you down if they noticed at all. Or worse, they pulled their punch so that they could gain pleasure from watching you continue to struggle. This is space as Lovecraft envisioned it."
I pressed on. "It so happened that I was sat in the sun with a book and just as I was about to nod off a little voice called up at me. 'Excuse me? What is this for?' A small ant had crawled across the page of my book. And it was now sitting staring up at me."
"'What?' I asked."
"'Excuse me, what is this for?' The ant wondered up at me."
"'What is what for?' I wanted clarification."
"'This great black and white expanse I'm standing on. What is this for?' The ant tapped a leg on the book."
"'Look,' I said. 'You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you.'"
"'That might be so,' the ant said. 'But though I am very small, I am also very curious. And I don't want to turn to dust having known nothing at all. So if you would, please, what is this for?'"
I had Yukinoshita's rapt attention. She was struggling to spot the riddle or wrinkle in my words. There was none. There wasn't a trick. I continued.
"He stood up on his two back legs with antennae at the attention most respectfully. Eagerly awaiting my answer. I sighed and said 'Its like this, you're standing on a page. Pages are made from trees. We put lots of them together and make a book.'"
"'What is a book for then,' the ant asked."
"'Well it stores thoughts,' I said. 'That way we can transmit them to people very far away.'"
"'How?' The ant demanded."
"'Now look this isn't the time or place,' I said, a little too firmly. The ant bowed his tiny head and his antennae wilted a little. 'Look,' I said. 'You see those little black and white scribbles. Or to you rather large black and white scribbles about the page. Those are words and numbers.'"
"'They don't look like words or numbers,' the ant protested."
"'They represent them,' I said."
"'Hmm,' the ant said. And he thought about this for a while."
"'Do you understand?' I asked him."
"'Not really. You were right it's beyond me. But although I'll never be as clever as you animals. I'm at least a little more clever than I was a few moments ago. So thank you for that.'"
"'You're welcome,' I said."
"'Well good luck on being a thing in the world,' the ant said."
"'Good luck to you too,' I replied. The little ant made off on his way and went off into the grass. I read to the end of my page but I couldn't forget the little ant. Eventually I looked up from the book to the trees to the mountain to the sky. The moon was climbing up in the sky. Birds were migrating in the distance."
"I called out. 'Excuse me, what is this for?'"
"'What?' Came a booming voice."
"'This great green and blue sphere I'm standing on now.' I patted the ground with my foot. 'What is all this for?'"
"'Look,' the voice said. 'You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you.'"
"'That may be so!' I shouted back. 'But though I am small I am also very curious and I don't want to turn to dust having known nothing at all. So if you would, please, what is this for?'"
"The voice sighed. 'It's like this,'" I finished my story and looked at Yukinoshita.
"The moral of the story being we are like the ant. We see the world and process it but we don't truly understand the meaning behind it. We see the scribbles on the page and mistake them for reality."
"And what is the reality?" I asked Yukinoshita. She hesitated. And she thought about this for a moment. "What does god say to the man who talked to the ant?" I hammered her. "How does he explain the cosmos to the man? What can he say?"
"Well he can start by explaining what reality isn't," Yukinoshita endeavored.
"And what's that?" I demanded.
"I don't know. No one does."
"No one does. No one can. Do you think that's on purpose or by mistake? Does god make mistakes?"
"God doesn't make mistakes," Yukinoshita murmured at me.
"Then explain me and my hallucinations."
"You proposition that you are intentional. You are functioning as designed by this higher power."
"I must be. Right? I am experiencing what god wants me to. And god wants me to have bugs in my eyes and ears. God wants me to be so distracted by dead voices I can't see straight sometimes. That's what god wants."
"Why?" Yukinoshita asked.
"Why does there have to be a reason for why people suffer?" I shrugged. "In the Lovecraftian view the suffering is the point. We are here to suffer. And death won't even be enough to save me from this. Not if it's perpetuated by god."
"You're insane," Yukinoshita observed.
"We've established that," I agreed. "I don't understand sleep. I know that we die without it. I know it's necessary for higher intelligence for some reason. It seems to me like sleep is a little like death. Sleep is just death being shy. And we fucking love sleep. We love sleeping. As a species. We love it. We love our own deaths. If I'm not supposed to kill myself, then why does sleep feel so good. Why do I suffer?"
"Non-sequitur," Yukinoshita protested.
"Is it really?" I demanded. "It's quite simple. We die every single night. Whatever death is, it happens to us every single night. To what end? I ask you? Why design a universe where conscious beings have to sleep unless sleep is a trap. It's a trick."
"You're not planning on killing yourself soon. Are you?" Yukinoshita asked.
"No. Not soon. But soon enough. I'm tired. I want to rest. I want to sleep away the centuries. Let them pass me by. Why should I care? So that I can try and make sense of some scribbles on a page? Shadows on a cave wall? What's the point?"
"I don't know. But surely the point isn't to kill yourself. That can't be the meaning of life."
"Why not? Is it any more crazy than anything else anybody else has ever suggested?"
"I suppose not… promise me you won't end your life tonight. Promise me."
"Very well. I promise," I vowed.
"Maybe the man could explain things to the ant better?" Yuknoshita hedged.
"How so? It's an ant. You can't even converse with literal ants. I have given this ant so much more faculty than any other of it's kind. And it's still not enough. I made it into the best ant. The brightest ant. And still the man couldn't explain it to the ant."
"That wasn't the ant's fault…"
"I didn't mean to imply that it was. If I did, I do apologize and retract whatever implications therein."
"No… you didn't. Not really. I just took it that way. It seemed like you were blaming the ant but you could have been blaming the man too."
"The man did all he could. Didn't he? He only had so long of the ant's attention. He only had so many hours to fill the ant's time. How would you explain a book to the ant?"
"I don't know. I never considered it," Yukinoshita confessed.
"Most people never do. How would god explain the universe to us? The cosmos and all the eternities of space and time. How would that happen? I think about it all the time."
"You suffer. Because you're ignorant," Yukinoshita pointed out.
"I suffer because I'm ignorant," I agreed. "A riddle for you. What is a person?"
"A person is…" Yukinoshita trailed off.
"What? A rational animal? A featherless biped? What? What is a man? Bees and crows can do math. Elephants worship the moon and have language. Dolphins hunt for sport. Rational? What is rational? And of course I shan't even address the notion of a featherless biped. It's ridiculous."
"Why?"
"Imagine a plucked chicken. It's not a man. Is it? I am a man. And I don't even know what that is. I don't know what I am. I live in ignorance. I want to be shown the light. But could I even handle the light? So, I beg you. What is a man?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows," Yukinoshita confessed.
"These mysteries haunt me. They make me wish I was dead. They make me wish I had never been born. It drives me crazy but I can't stop thinking about them. Even though it brings me misery. I like it. I like chasing the rabbit hole."
"You're masochistic. You must be. To torment yourself so."
"Perhaps I am."
"You can't live this way. Nobody has the answers you're looking for. You're setting yourself up for failure."
"I am. Aren't I," I agreed.
"How do we make you stop?" Yukinoshita wondered.
"I don't want to stop. I like this. I like the question."
"You'll die and be miserable."
"I know."
"What about your family?"
"What about them? I cling to life for Komachi. 'With the effort it takes me to cling to life and reason I could have built the pyramids.' Kafka said it. I agree with it."
"You have to be able to live without the answers to your questions."
"No I don't. I can die."
"I don't want you to die. Is it really so hard to live with the ignorance?"
"Yes. It is. So hard."
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-WG