School started again. About a month and a half ago actually. So much for updating once every two days? Now that I'm writing again I'm hoping for a chapter of about 3k words every two weeks. Be patient with me. Luv you.
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I left Yukinoshita behind. I convinced myself that it wasn't worth it. I picked up a handful of books and the groceries.
I left down the street. It was hot and humid and my shirt was sticking to my flesh. I hated my flesh. I hated my skin. Let me out of my flesh prison!
"Ah, Hikki?"
"Wha?" I wondered looking up.
Almost automatically, my body slipped to the side, making room for the two people passing me by, one of whom was Yuigahama Yui. Along with her usual dumpling ball hairstyle, she sported the quintessential summer look: a black camisole, a hand‐knitted white cardigan, short shorts and gladiator sandals on her feet.
"Oh. It's you Yui. It's been a hot minute," I picked up.
"Yup, it's been ages!" Yuigahama grinned from ear‐to‐ear.
She must have been hanging out with a friend because someone's face was visible right behind her. It was Miura Yumiko. She was from Class F, but she was also the Queen of Fiery Hell who existed right at the very top of Soubu High's school caste system. Pretty much all the guys were frightened out of their wits by her.
I, for one, didn't care.
She was clad in an elegant mini one piece skirt that left her back bare, and the fairly expensive mules she wore on her heels scraped impatiently against the ground. Her eyes which peered at me were pitch black from mascara and eyeliner and eyeshadow, making her look like Orestes Destrade. What, did she have a day game today?
"Huh, it's Hikio." She only got the first four letters right…
Oh well. What were you going to do?
Although I couldn't help but feel she was making a serious fool out of me from the way she addressed me, that wasn't actually the case. More often than not, those boys and girls at the top of school caste don't bear any ill will towards people lower than them. You couldn't have any ill will when you had no interest in the first place. People are naturally indifferent towards things they don't care about.
"Yui, I'm gonna call Ebina now," Miura said, and without waiting for Yuigahama's reply, she took a few steps away from Yuigahama and into the shade. Since she had no interest in me, there was no reason for her to have anything to do with me.
That was the good thing about the popular kids whose lives were detached from yours. One's social standing is thoroughly linked to avoiding conflict. Many complications spring from class struggles. Conflict is born precisely because people who live in a different world are inserted into a single frame. If people were completely segregated, they would never meet in the first place.
Once Miura leaned against the wall and started talking on her phone, Yuigahama opened her mouth as if making sure of something. "I've been hanging around with Yumiko and some others today… what about you, Hikki?"
"Oh? Me? You know, its the darndest thing. I just ran into Yukinoshita. But I was just out and it was happenstance."
"Oh? Yukinon?"
"Yeah."
"So you weren't hanging out with anyone?"
"Nope. I've been shopping. For my little sister. You know?"
"Not really. It must be an older brother thing."
"Yeah. I guess. But don't paint me in that light. Don't do me that justice."
"What? That you're a good brother? You seem to be."
"Yeah but I do it so Komachi will have good memories just in case she finds my corpse. Not out of any sense of obligation to her. Don't do that. Don't put that evil on me."
"But it's vacation! You really were out alone?!"
It was amazing how, for her, vacation meant hanging out with someone. For me it meant time alone. I loved that time alone. I loved it.
"Vacation is for rest." I returned.
Somehow I managed to string four whole words together. All right, my conversational skills were slowly coming back to me. In my impatience, I tried to go for two sentences this time, but I had to catch myself from laughing giddily.
"…um, is something wrong?" Yuigahama asked somewhat worriedly.
She was probably concerned about my inability to say anything coherent. But wait! If she was really that concerned about me, she ought to start by not asking the person in question whether something was wrong.
"Not really," I said.
Yuigahama's doubtful expression did not change.
…well, to be fair, my attitude might have been a little different from usual. I was on my guard against Yuigahama Yui right then. Now that we'd pressed the reset button on our relationship… well, I was unsure of how to act.
But that was always true.
Trying to recall our usual conversations, I chose to play things off as lightly as I could. "I get like that when it's hot," I said finally. "I mean, my jaw slackens and stuff. The train rails expand and, like, dogs totally expand too. You know about thermal expansion?"
"That's got nothing to do with dogs. Oh, but our dog is all stretched out and stuff."
"It could have something to do with real dogs. It depends. I suppose its true for anything made out of matter."That reminded me of something. "What's the name of your dog again? Good at risky batting… Sab… Saburo?"
"It's Sable!"
So it was Sable, huh? Oh, right, Saburo was a baseball player. He had come back to the Chiba Lotte Marines this year, so I expected good things from him. Anyway, so dogs stretch themselves out a lot, I see. Not just their bodies but their tongues too.
"Come to think of it, Hikki, why can't you stand summer even though you were born in summer?" Yuigahama asked me.
I put my hand on my mouth. "How did you learn I was born in summer, I wonder?" I answered, slightly snobbishly. "Are you a stalker?"
"What's that?! A Yukinon impression?! You kinda nailed it!" Yuigahama burst out laughing. But if Yukinoshita were here, we'd be dead. But I nailed it, huh? The results of practicing in front of the mirror whenever I got in the bath were bearing fruit. Man, what have I been doing with my life?
"But seriously, how do you know that? It's creepy."
"Nah, you were using it as a pickup line when we went to karaoke the other day."
"Y‐you idiot! I wasn't using any pickup lines! I wasn't indirectly trying to tell Totsuka my birthday!"
"You were aiming for Sai‐chan?!" Yuigahama cried in horror.
C'mon, who else was I gonna use a pickup line on?
"Well, in the first place, you know what it's like when you're born in summer. The only time your parents spoil you is when you're just born, so I was brought up with air conditioning and never learned how to stand the heat. As a result, I have no resistance to it."
"Aha. I see how it is." For some reason, she nodded along brightly. It was troubling that she actually believed something I had so obviously pulled out of my arse.
"So anyway, your birthday's coming up soon, Hikki, so let's hold a birthday party!"
"Nope. Rejected. Stop."
"You shut me down so quick! And you did it three times!"
"I mean, look… generally speaking, it's way too embarrassing for a girl to hold a birthday party for a guy who's already in high school, so give it up."
More than anything, I had no idea what sort of expression to show if something like that were to happen. Was I supposed to smile? Back in middle school, I had rehearsed a reaction of exaggerated shock, thinking that the others had been preparing a surprise party for me, but I had stopped altogether after realising there was no possibility of that happening. Ah. Memories.
"Ah, if you don't want a party, then let's all hang out together, okay?"
"Who do you mean by 'all'?"
If I didn't make things clear beforehand, I'd be in serious trouble. There was this one time soon after entering high school when I was invited to hang out with people way chattier than I was. I ended up knowing hardly anyone there. Plus, it was the very first event after the start of classes, so you were promptly served the loner course if you didn't speak up, no side dishes allowed. In student life, "let's all hang out together" was code for religious branding. First of all, you're either invited or not, and if you're actually part of the invited group, you get ranked according to your relationships with the others.
"Yukinon and Komachi‐chan and Sai‐chan, I guess?" Yuigahama suggested.
I bobbed my head a little.
Then Yuigahama said, "I‐if you don't like that, then… we can go together…" She peered up at me, playing with her fingers as she did so. When I saw how she looked at me, my heartbeat quickened. My eyes darted to the side and I lifted my head.
"It's not like I'm totally against it. More like I'm all for it, especially the Totsuka part!"
"Just how much do you like Sai‐chan?!"
"So I'm a little gay. So what?"
"You actually meant all that?"
"I did. I might be a little gay for Saika. I confess it."
"Oh my god. You're actually attracted to him."
"Yeah. I am." I agreed.
Oh man… I lost focus and got swept up in Yuigahama's pace. I'd been consciously trying to maintain distance between us to prevent misunderstandings, so this was quite worrying. But hanging out with Totsuka somewhere was a great plan.
Today I had looked at him directly yet found it impossible to call out to him. Geez! I have no balls! I'm a weakling! Scum!
"So what do you wanna do?" I asked.
"The fireworks display!" Yuigahama answered brightly. "Let's go to the fireworks display!"
"I can see the marine fireworks from home. I don't wanna go all the way outside."
"How selfish!" She pointed her finger at me accusingly. Yuigahama let out a drawn‐out groan, and then thought for a while. "Then how about a test of courage!"
"I'm scared of ghosts, so no."
"That's your reason?!"
I mean, the haunted locations in Chiba were no joke, relatively speaking… when I came across them on the internet at midnight I honestly couldn't sleep. There's Ojagaike or Tokyo Wan Kannon or Yahashira Cemetery. There are marks of an execution in front of a certain university and there's a certain place where the radio signals got lost. Even if Totsuka wrapped his arms around me by some happy accident, there was a higher probability I'd be the one chickening out. Even though I had rejected her, Yuigahama went on, undaunted.
"Well okay then, how about the beach…? Or maybe the pool?"
"…er, uh, that's kinda, you know. It's too embarrassing, so let's not go there."
"Yeah… I'd be kinda embarrassed too…" Yuigahama shuddered and looked down, blushing. Oh come on, don't suggest it if it's embarrassing. It did make me feel less embarrassed, though.
"Nothing else?"
"I've got it! Camping!"
"There are bugs, so no way in hell. Just the bugs rule it out, honestly. Sorry."
"You're so picky! And you're a couch potato! I give up! You're a stupid idiot!" Yuigahama delved deep into her shallow vocabulary to tell me off. With a huff, she turned her back on me crossly and started stomping off.
"…you know, we don't have to do anything all summer‐ish. Just something normal."
Yuigahama's feet ground to a halt. When she looked back over her shoulder, all her anger had been washed away, replaced by a faint trace of a smile. "Ohh… I see. 'kay, I'll call you later."
"Uhh, that ended up being vague," I told her. Yuigahama had already swung back around and was sprinting off towards Miura.
Miura, who had an expression of extreme boredom on her face, looked far from pleased, but she seemed to cheer up immensely when Yuigahama clapped both hands together in an apology. She poked Yuigahama jokingly on the head, and then the two of them started walking off together. Once I saw them go, I headed off for home.
The gigantic column of clouds stretching out overhead was turning dark red. A cool breeze started blowing. It was just the right thing to nurse my flushed face. I decided to walk home alongside the cool change brought by the evening wind. The twilight was a mixture of indigo blue and dark red. It would still take some time before I could peer into what lay beyond, it seemed.
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Sleep was kinda cookie.
I rolled the ice around in my whiskey. I stol some from my dad's stores. He wouldn't know. Was that smart? No. Was alcohol a propsychotic? Yes. Was alcohl a depressant? Yes. Was I drinking anyways? Yes.
I just hoped my sister wouldn't need anything and I could drink alone. Because when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself. Dadadada or however that song and dance goes.
Well, what my sister didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And it wasn't like I was drinking every night. Just on the off occasion.
Sleep was kinda cookie.
We look forward to it every night. We love it. Can't get enough. It lets us escape reality through dreams. It lets us die. It lets us live. Without it we would surely die or go mad. Or in my case more mad. They say Einstein never slept but not me. I slept. I loved it. I wasn't Einstein.
Sleep let us escape reality by microdosing death. And I truly believed that's what sleep is. We, along with everything more sophisticated than an earthworm, slept. Why is that?
You'd think evolution would weed out everything that slept. Just on principle. Unless sleep granted access to some problem solving skills unmatched in their non-sleeping cousins. So that's probably what it did. Unlocked new levels of problem solving otherwise evolution would have done away with it. We needed it. We love it. We love dying every night.
So here's a riddle for you, if I'm not supposed to kill myself, then why does sleep feel so good?
Yukinoshita called that a non-sequitur. She could be right. I just had no idea. Did I sound like a lunatic when I said something like that or was that normal? I had no clue. So I watched a little melee and drank. Low tide city. No big names besides Axe. It was still entertaining to watch the fox dittos. I loved fox dittos. They were so fast and stocks melted. A come back from one stocks to four was possible in fox dittos more so than any other matchup in the game. I loved that. It made me feel good about my chances against Terrance Tao. If I could solve the sofa couch problem when he couldn't then… that would mean something I guess?
But still. If I'm not supposed to kill myself then why does sleep feel so good?
Even if I solved every problem on my bucket list that problem would remain. It kept me up at night when I should be enjoying the sweet embrace of sleep. I loved being unconscious. I loved it. So what was wrong with me that made me think such things. Azathoth? My basilisk? The permanent upper bound on the sofa couch problem? The Riemann Zeta Hypothesis? What was up with that?
The inner mysteries of this world were truly maddening. I had no perspective besides my own. And it was so limited. I was trapped in myself never to experience another. I watched Low tide city and loved the fox dittos but the experience of something creeping up behind me remained. I felt watched. But from where? It was just me, my computer, and some notes in a big empty room.
So I had no idea. I had no clue. Not really. Not about this, that, or the other thing. I had no clue if I should kill myself. I felt truly lost. I felt truly alone. I had no idea if I should tell my sister about this kind of thing. She couldn't help me. Nobody could help me except god and it wanted me in pain.
I couldn't trust god. I could trust myself. And that wasn't capital 'g' God. Not Azathoth. Not Spinoza. Not necessarily. I couldn't tell. It was just a being higher up on the food chain than I was. Whatever that meant. I imagined I had to be pretty low on the food chain. So I avoided sleep and enjoyed my alcohol in my little glass from my father's liquor supply. He trusted me with it. That was a mistake but he did. I wasn't sure what I would do without it. It was fortunate that he trusted me. Or not. As the case may have it. It wasn't good for you. Alcohol. It killed brain cells and was a strong depressant. It wasn't good for adults. It wasn't good for kids.
Axe got a tail spike on Ginger. I figured he'd lose anyway. Ginger's fundamentals were too good. Axe's pikachu would lose. It was a shame too. Axe deserved a win. Maybe not more than Ginger but he deserved a win. He worked hard out here with that mid tier.
Did I deserve a win?
It was a hard question. I had no big proofs or theorems to my name despite my study of linear combinations of sines and cosines for the sofa couch problem. And I might never. Did I deserve a win?
It felt like tonight I sure didn't. It felt like tonight I was on the verge of tears over nothing. Over absolutely nothing.
Axe lost. It was a shame. He was working from inferior tools against Ginger's falco.
If Terrance Tao couldn't figure out the Riemann Hypothesis what hope did I have? Realistically? What hope did I have? The age of the lone genius was over. Or so it seemed. Nobody did anything alone anymore. Nothing big at least. Even getting the twin prime conjecture down to six infinitely often was done in a group with Terrance Tao leading the charge. But still as a group. What hope did I really have?
I couldn't do it. Of that I felt sure in my low state. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't that talented. I wasn't that hot of shit. I wasn't that slick.
I drank my alcohol. I enjoyed it too even I wasn't really drunk. Nothing got me drunk. I once played a drinking game where I could continue drinking so long as I could perform calculus. I never reached a point where I couldn't do calculus.
My phone buzzed on my desk.
I stared at it.
It buzzed again. Defiant little thing.
When I looked at the screen, a single text was waiting in my inbox.
The sender was Hiratsuka‐sensei.
I closed the message screen.
Heh, I've got it down… now I just had to respond late at night with 'soooorry, my battery ran out' or 'looks like I was out of range for a bit' or something and I was set. If you respond like that, the other person can't blame you for it. Source: me. Back in middle school, I mustered up the courage to text girls, only to get that response forty per cent of the time. Incidentally, I got no reply thirty per cent of the time, and the other thirty per cent consisted of texts from some foreigner called MAILER‐DAEMON. It's not worth putting in the effort.
My cellphone beeped again.
What? What kind of burger's cheap today? I thought, reaching for my phone, only for it to start ringing for a ridiculously long time. Through some mystery, I was receiving a call. Judging from the amount of time that had passed since I had gotten that earlier text, it was probably from Hiratsuka‐sensei.
I didn't know many people who would normally be elated over receiving a call from their teacher, and I was no exception. Plus, since I'd ignored her just before getting the call, there was a possibility she'd flay me for it if I answered now, so once again I decided to leave it alone. In the meantime, my phone suddenly fell silent, indicating that she had perhaps given up.
And in that short lull, a flood of texts had stormed my inbox.
What the‐? This was creepy. Was she like this to her boyfriend or whatever? Dreading that another flood would storm my inbox, I looked at the texts with great trepidation.
I opened the text at the very top of the folder – in other words, the most recent one.
Sender: Hiratsuka Shizuka
Subject: "This is Hiratsuka Shizuka. Please contact me once you check this."
Body: "Hikigaya‐kun, I would like you to contact me promptly about the Service Club's summer vacation activities. Please contact me ASAP. By any chance, are you still asleep? (Haha) I've texted and called you countless times just now. Are you actually reading this right now? Hey, tell me you're reading this. Pick up the phone."
I was. What of it? Leave me alone Hiratsuka Sensei.
Holy shit! I almost pissed my pants! I think I caught a glimpse of one reason why Hiratsuka‐sensei couldn't get married. Damn, just how much did she like me? Creepy. Just creepy.
When I scrolled up the messages, they were all pretty much the same. Basically, they said, "Participate in a volunteering activity over the vacation period."
No joke. This was one of those cases where feigning ignorance was necessary at all costs.
I switched my phone off without hesitation. At times like this, it's handy how loners don't get contacted by others!
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-WG