Kapitel 28: Prologue
HELLO GUYS THIS IS START OF VOL 2 HOPE YOU LIKE MAKE COMMENTS SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE STORY.
BYBY
____________&&&_&_______&_____&_____________
Golden Week was over, and the temperature had gradually been rising of
late. Students were getting rowdier during lunch, making it feel even hotter
than it actually was. By nature, cool, hard-boiled guys like me don't do well
in the heat, and so I headed somewhere less crowded in search of even the
slightest bit of relief. The basal temperature of the human body is
approximately thirty-six degrees Celsius. Put in terms of weather, that's not
just a summer day; it's a sweltering heat wave. Even I couldn't handle such
intense heat and humidity. Cats are the same way. When it's hot, they seek
out places where no one's around. I, too, head for empty locales to seek
refuge from the blistering heat. It's not because I don't fit in with the class or
because I feel awkward. Not at all.
This behavior is instinctual, and actually, it's the kids who don't follow
this biological imperative who are, as organisms, flawed. Basically, they're
weak, so they form groups and adopt a herd mentality. Acting as a collective is the sign of a weak-willed life-form. They're no different from herbivores
that move in herds so that, when attacked by a predator, they can offer up
someone as a sacrifice. Innocently munching their grass, they turn their backs
as friends become food.
Well, you get the idea. Strong beasts don't flock together. You've heard
of a "lone wolf"? Cats are cute, and wolves are cool. In other words, loners
are cute and cool.
Considering these sublimely trivial matters, I meandered along. I was on
the landing that connected to the roof. Unused desks cluttered the area,
leaving just enough room for one person to barely squeak through. Usually,
the door to the roof was chained with a cheap padlock, and it should have
been shut tight. But that day the padlock was undone, dangling from its loop.
It was probably just some gaggle of airheads who'd ventured up to the roof to
get loud and caterwaul at each other. What they say about those types and
high places really is true.
Figuring I might as well just trap them up there, I piled up about three
desks and two chairs. True to form, I was an amazing man of action. So
masculine. Eek, hold me! But then I noticed that things were awfully quiet on
the other side of the door. Odd. So far as I know, these normies fear
quiescence like beasts fear flame. They believe silence = boring without
realizing they are the boring ones, and so they just chatter, clamor, and frolic
away. But then when they're talking to me, their lacking loquaciousness tells
me, You're kinda boring. The hell is with that, seriously?
No, no, don't get the wrong idea; I actually like peace and quiet. And that
degree of calm meant there wasn't a clique up there. Maybe no one was there
at all. Being a loner means a sudden euphoria when you realize no one's
around. But a loner isn't just meek in public and a monster at home. Rather,
loners are just always considerate and avoid bothering others.
I relaxed the emotional barricade I'd built around myself and put my hand
on the door. I was a little bit excited. It was the kind of anticipation you feel
the first time you happen to stroll into a soba shop by the station, or the thrill
of a deliberate expedition out of Chiba city to buy porn in Yotsukaidou. It's
the characteristic delight you feel precisely because you are alone.
Beyond the door stretched the wide blue sky and the horizon. Now this
was my own private roof. Rich people like having private jets and private
beaches. Loners, who exist in perpetual private time, are the winners in life. Basically, I'm saying there's status in being a loner.
The May sky was thoroughly sunny, as if the world were telling me that
one day I would escape this sheltered world. If you were to put it in terms of
a classic movie, it was like The Shawshank Redemption. Not that I've seen it,
but based on the title, I think it was like that. Gazing at the distant haze of the
sky is rather like taking a good, hard look at your future. That's why the roof
was an appropriate venue to entrust my dreams to the Workplace Tour
Application Form in my hands.
The workplace visit was looming right after my next test. I committed ink
to paper with the career I wanted and the workplace I wanted to tour. I always
have a plan firmly in mind for my future, so there was no hesitation as my
pen scratched along, and I had completed the form in under two minutes.
And that's when it happened. The wind blew. It was a fateful wind and
seemed as if it were carrying away the languid air that lingered after school
was over. It launched that sheet of paper on which my dreams were written
into the future like a paper airplane. I make it sound poetic, but of course, I
mean it blew away the form I'd just been filling out. Hey, you stupid wind,
don't give me this crap, seriously! The paper skimmed along the ground, and
just when I thought I'd caught it, it flew up high again as if toying with me.
Oh, whatever. I'd get another form and write it over. My motto is "When
the going gets tough, give up," so something like this doesn't rattle me. Also,
"If at first you don't succeed, give up" works, too. Shrugging my shoulders, I
began walking away, when…
"Is this yours?"
I heard a voice. I glanced around, looking for the source of that slightly
husky, somehow apathetic tone, but it seemed I was alone. I mean, I'm
always alone, but not that way… I mean I didn't see anyone on the roof
besides me.
"Over here, stupid." The voice originated overhead, scoffing at me
derisively. I guess this is exactly what they mean by being talked down to.
By ascending a ladder, one could climb even higher—from the roof up to
the water tower. She was leaning against the tower, fiddling with a cheap
hundred-yen lighter, as she looked down on me, and when our eyes met, she
quietly slipped the lighter into the pocket of her uniform.
Her long, bluish-black hair hung all the way to her waist. She went
without the uniform's ribbon, leaving her blouse open at the chest with her shirttails tied loosely in the front. Her long, supple legs looked capable of a
swift kick. What left an impression, though, were her listless eyes, which
seemed to be idly gazing into the distance. There was a mole like a teardrop
on her cheek, adding to that languorous effect. "This yours?" she repeated,
her tone the same as before.
I didn't know what year she was, so I just nodded silently. 'Cause, you
know, if she was older, I'd have to speak respectfully, and it would be pretty
embarrassing if I was wrong, right? Silence is always best.
"Hold on a sec," she said with a sigh, putting her hands on the ladder and
swiftly descending.
And then…the wind blew. Blew like it was casting aside some heavy,
dangling blackout curtain—that kind of fateful wind. That single strip of
cloth and the dreams entrusted to it fluttered in the divine breeze that the sight
it revealed might be branded on my eyes forevermore.
I made it sound poetic, but basically, I saw her panties. Hey, you pulled it
off, wind! Nice job, seriously!
She released the ladder's rungs halfway and hopped down. I got my
glimpse of them just before she handed me my paper.
"You're an idiot," she said, brusquely shoving the form as me, just shy of
throwing it. When I took it from her, she spun around on her heel and
disappeared into the school.
I'd missed my chance to say Thanks or What do you mean, "retard"? or
Sorry for seeing your panties and was left standing there. Holding the paper
she'd returned in one hand, I scratched my head. The bell signaling the end of
lunch sounded from the speakers on the roof. Taking that as my cue, I
stepped toward the door.
"Black lace, huh…?" I muttered with a sigh that was neither blue nor off-
color, and that exhalation was blown away on the summer-tinged wind and
intermingled with the smell of the sea, eventually to be carried around the
world.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein