บท 4: competition with Yukino Yukinoshita's'!
"Yukinoshita. Sorry to interrupt."
"A knock…"
"Sorry, sorry. Oh, don't worry about me—do go on! I just dropped by to
see how things were going." Ms. Hiratsuka leaned against the wall of the
classroom, smiling coolly at an exasperated Yukinoshita.
She looked back
and forth between the two of us. "I'm glad you two seem to be getting
along."
Why and where the hell did she get that idea?
"You keep working on fixing that twisted character of yours and
correcting those rotten, sordid eyes. I'm going back now. Go home by the
time school is over, you two."
"H-hold on a minute, please!" I reached for the teacher's hand, trying to
stop her. Immediately, I was wailing, "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow! Uncle! Uncle,
uncle!" as she twisted my arm. I frantically tried tapping out until she finally
let me go.
"Oh, that was you, Hikigaya? Don't stand behind me like that. I'll end up
using my moves on you rather ungently."
"Are you Golgo or what?! And you meant accidentally, right? Don't do it
ungently!"
"You sure have a lot of questions for me right now. Is something wrong?"
"There's something wrong with you! What do you mean, correct me?
You're making me sound like a juvenile delinquent! What the heck is with
this place, anyway?" I demanded.
Ms. Hiratsuka went hmm and put a hand to her chin, briefly adopting a
thoughtful expression. "Yukinoshita didn't explain it to you? In short, the
goal of this club is to stimulate personal transformation and resolve people's
worries. I guide students here who I believe are in need of change. Think of it
as the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Or would it be easier to understand if I just
called it Revolutionary Girl Utena?"
"That's needlessly difficult to understand, and those examples give away
your age."
"Did you say something?" She shot me a murderously cold look.
"No." I muttered quietly, hunching my shoulders.
Seeing me like that, Ms. Hiratsuka sighed. "Yukinoshita. It seems you're
having trouble correcting him."
"The problem is he isn't even aware of his own issues," Yukinoshita
replied, indifferent to our teacher's pained countenance.
Why did I suddenly feel like I wanted to bolt? It felt like that time in sixth
grade when my parents found out I had a porno mag and lectured me over
and over about it.
No, that's not what I should be thinking about right now.
"Um…you keep talking about my correction or transformation or
reformation or girl revolution or whatever and having fun chattering away
together without me, but I don't really want any of that," I said.
Ms. Hiratsuka tilted her head to the side, dubiously. "Oh?"
"What are you talking about? If you don't change, you'll be in deep
trouble, socially speaking." Yukinoshita regarded me as if her argument were
as sound as No more war! Abandon nuclear weapons! "From what I can see,
you are markedly lacking in humanity. You don't want to change that? Have
no desire to improve yourself?"
"That's not what I mean. Like…um…I'm saying I don't want to talk
about myself to people who are telling me, 'Change! Change now!' If I
changed just because someone told me to, that new person wouldn't even be
me, anyway! And besides, the self is just—"
"You just can't see yourself objectively," Yukinoshita interrupted,
preventing me from snatching a quote from Descartes in an attempt to sound
deep. It would have been a great line, really. "You're just running away. You
can't move forward if you don't change." She cut me down in a single stroke.
Why was she so sharp? Were her parents sea urchins or what?
"What's wrong with running? You keep saying, 'Change, change!' like
the village idiot who only knows one word. What'll you do next? Face the
sun and say, 'The brightness from the west is too harsh and keeps bothering
everyone, so today, please set in the east!'?
"That's just sophistry. Don't shift the conversation. The sun isn't even
what's moving, anyway—it's the Earth. Do you not know Copernican theory,
either?"
"It was obviously a metaphor! If you're calling that sophistry, then what
you're saying is sophistry, too! In the end, I would only be changing to
escape reality. Who's the one running now? If you're really not running, then you wouldn't change. You'd make a stand right there. Why can't I affirm
who I am at present and who I was in the past?"
"…If that were true, then no worries could be solved and no one could be
saved." The moment the words no one could be saved came out of her mouth,Yukinoshita's outraged expression became truly bloodcurdling. Reflexively, I
flinched. I was almost ready to break into an apologetic S-s-s-sorry!
In the first place, words like save aren't really something a high schooler
usually says. I had no idea what it was that drove her to feel so strongly about
this.
"Calm down, both of you." The sound of Ms. Hiratsuka's level voice
relieved the current stormy atmosphere…or rather, the storm that had been
there from the start. I looked at the teacher's face, and she was honestly
grinning and joyful. She looked like she was having fun.
"This has gotten entertaining. I love developments like this. It's sort of
like Shonen Jump! Great, right?" She was getting excited about this for some
reason. Though a grown woman, her eyes sparkled like a little boy's. "Since
time immemorial, the way of shonen manga has been to resolve a clash of
perspectives on justice by means of competition."
"Uh…what are you talking about?" I was talking, but she wasn't listening.
Our teacher unleashed a boisterous laugh, faced us, and loudly
proclaimed: "So let's do this. You're going to guide the lost lambs who come
to you. Save them according to your individual principles and prove their
veracity as much as you see fit. Who can serve others the best? Fundamental
Fight! Ready? Go!"
"No." Yukinoshita refused bluntly. Her gaze conveyed an iciness
equivalent to what she'd been leveling at me a moment earlier. Well, I felt the
same way, so I figured I'd nod. Plus, G-Gundam is old.
Discovering her students' shared feelings on the matter, the teacher bit her
thumbnail in frustration. "Ngh… It would have been easier to understand if
I'd said 'Robattle,' huh?".
"That's not the issue here…" Medabots? That's way too obscure.
"Teacher, please stop getting carried away in a manner unbefitting your
age. It's really painful to watch." Like hurling an icicle, Yukinoshita flung
her sharp, frigid words at our instructor.
That seemed to cool Ms. Hiratsuka down, and after the color of shame
faded from her face, she cleared her throat as though it had never happened.
"A-anyway! The only way you can prove that you are righteous is through
action! I told you to compete, so you're going to have a competition! You
have no right to refuse."
"This is complete tyranny…"
She's an utter child! The only adult part of her is her chest! Oh well, I just
have to pretend I give a crap about this competition and then be like, "Tee-
hee! Aw, I lost! " Participation counts, as they say. What a wonderful and
convenient idea.
But that horrid little-girl-on-the-inside, giant-boobs-on-the-outside
woman child continued spewing her absurdities. "In order to make you two
fight with all you've got, I'll give you an incentive. How about the victor
being able to order the loser to do anything?"
"Anything?!" Anything means, you know, that. That is to say, anything.
Gulp.
There was the sound of a chair scraping as Yukinoshita drew back two
meters and adopted a defensive stance. "With him as my competition, I feel a
threat to my virtue, and so I refuse."
"That's prejudice! Second-year boys aren't necessarily always thinking
obscene thoughts!" We're thinking of, um…lots of other things! Like…world
peace? Yeah…we're not thinking of much else.
"So even Yukino Yukinoshita is afraid of something… Are you that
unsure of your ability to win?" Ms. Hiratsuka asked, her face adopting a
nasty semblance.
Yukinoshita looked a little sullen. "Fine. Though I find it rather vexing to
give in to such cheap provocation, I will accept your challenge and deal with
him while I'm at it."
Whoa, Yukinoshita sure hates losing! What gave me that impression, you
ask? Only an extremely competitive person would have added that I can tell
you're provoking me part. But what did she mean by dealing with me? That's
scary. Cut it out.
"So it's settled." The teacher smiled smugly, ignoring the mental daggers
Yukinoshita was tossing at her.
"Huh? What about what I want?"
"From that leer on your face, I don't even have to ask."
Well, yeah, but…
"I will be the judge of this competition. My judgment will be arbitrary and biased, of course. Don't overthink it; just do whatever… I mean, do your best
to be reasonable and appropriate."
Tossing that line over her shoulder, our instructor exited the classroom. In
her wake stood myself and a very unhappy-looking Yukinoshita. Of course,
we weren't talking to each other.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง