“Mina-san, it’s been a while since we had a classical performance, so I’m sure you are all pumped up for our rising star!”
The hall was jampacked and there was soft murmuring everywhere that reached even backstage. The burgundy-haired girl tried to suppress her worries. This sort of muffled chatter was not good for a piano performance. She wasn’t the type to pander to an audience. No one even told her there would be this many—she was only informed of her recital this very same morning.
“Take this,” said the girl’s father as they stood in the shadows.
“I don’t…” she said softly, “I don’t need it.”
“Look at your hands, dear.” They were trembling.
“It’s alright, Papa.”
“No. Take it.”
She stared at the Etizolam tablets with a bit of irritation. When did it come to this? She loved the Music Room. She loved the grand piano. She loved playing her fingers. She even played for the school welcome and graduation ceremonies. When exactly did she start needing a pill to go on stage?
“Our prodigy is from Tokyo and will perform a medley of classical and contemporary music.
“I’m sure you’ve been waiting long enough.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let us all welcome…
"Where does the mundane end?"
Whack!
"And the fantastic begin?"
Whack!
The high-schooler tried mightily to keep pace with the onslaught of baseballs shot at him again and again by the tube of the mini-gun. Yet somehow, he kept hitting every single pitch, sending every last ball far out to the ocean. Whilst blindfolded.
Whack!
He was all alone on a sandbar out in the middle of nowhere, practicing. And he kept asking himself these questions. Perfecting his every swing. Hitting the ball every time. All the while, a bevy of press people photographed him just behind the gun, to chronicle his every move. "Sugeeeeh..." gawked one. They can't have enough of him.
"A wise man once said, 'In a workout you can only go so far as your body odor dictates.' "
Heh.
"Not anymore."
The gun would not stop, would not run out of baseballs. At the same time a hole in the sand by his feet spat out an extra ball every so often. Tough work. But, still, he hit them all. Nothing can stop him now with his new body wash. Nothing could possibly hinder absolutely anything he set his mind to!
Suddenly, a watery spray blasted in his face from the sand at his feet. That was… a blowhole?
Yoshiyuki woke up in a fit of wheezing and raging cough. Just outside his window by his bed Grandma had pushed a pole under yesterday's catch of rain off the tarp that shaded the window. The shade wasn't fastened to the window frame all the way through, sending half the water right into the room… and onto his bed.
"Ah, gomen, gomen," she smiled apologetically. "Silly me. Really now, I should have put you in the spare-room."
He glared at his feet and muttered to her, "You did it on purpose, didn't you?"
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#1. Chance! Catch Him as He Falls!
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Grandma went off to the yard, humming. Actually, there was no reason to hole up in bed on such a fine, clear day. The air seems to have been refreshed by the passing summer storm. The sky never seemed bluer and the boisterous uproar of the nearby sea enlivened one's nerves.
And it was only nine in the morning.
None of those mattered. His privacy was paramount. That, and his pack of Camels. He felt about under the mattress where he cleverly concealed three of them under layers of bubble wrap. But Grandma was cleverer. Cursing, he stormed out of the room down to the kitchen where a hearty spread of pancakes were laid just for him, and the teapot was humming along with the stiff sea breeze gently tapping the closed windowpane. He left all the cupboards open and sailed right across the living room to her small real-estate office, where he also ransacked the drawers and left those open.
He bounded out to the yard where he found her pruning a few low bushes. "Where are my sticks?" he demanded.
"You were saying?" she called back pretending to be hard of hearing.
He walked up to her and did not tone down his voice. "Where did you keep them?!"
"Them? Are they good to eat?"
Realizing the futility of it, he went over to her electric scooter parked by the fence. "Hey," she called, "don't get that! You will…" But her grandson has already strode to the thing and started it with the keys he had spirited out of one of the drawers. “Wait!” she said trying to get to him, but he had already driven away.
"….the battery's low…"
At a beach not far away from the house, the waves tumbled onto the sand. Further down the beach there was a low wooden pier where you had to stoop to cross under, and a little after that a pebbly shore, where the waves dragged the stones back and made an eerie white noise. The sea looked frightening even though it politely kept itself to the shoreline. It was like this all along the coast road where the bike was now making its way.
At that same road, taking advantage of the brisk weather, he passed by a pair of local high school girls jogging in their P.E. uniforms. A honey-haired lass trailed by a redhead trying to catch up.
“Kan-chan!” wailed Ai. “Wait up!” She finally sank to her knees breathing heavily.
Kanako jogged back to her. “Ai-chu we’re not even halfway done, zura.”
“I… I… I can’t keep up to you. I just can’t!”
“Aren’t you worried about your weight?”
“Well… I don’t know. I guess my weight is pinning me down. I can’t run any great distance when I’m too heavy. But… I gotta run to shed pounds. Wahhhh… Kan-chan, what shall I do?!”
“Simple,” she said with a wink. “I’ll dig up a beetle and stick it into your pants, that’ll get you running, zura.”
“Kan-chan!”
Laugh. “Kidding…” She sat down to her level. “Looks like we must make a program suited to you. Say, you remember those barbell guys on YouTube? You must do something only heavy guys can do.”
Ai pouted. “I’m not like that, Kan-chan, I’m not that heavy.”
“Hora,” she said standing up, “carry me on your back and let’s go back to the dorm.”
“Eh? Can I really do it?”
She went behind her and clung to her back. “You won’t find out if don’t try, zura.”
With a determined look, Ai began to stand up whilst lifting Kanako. She made slow progress wailing through gritted teeth.
“Show no mercy, Ai-chu!”
“Uhhhh!”
“No prisoners! No mercy!”
“Uggggh!”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing!”
“Urrggggh—”
“Great power... Great responsibility!”
“Ahhhhh!”
“Life is a box of… chocolates!”
“Arrggggh—”
With a final furious roar Ai finally got to her feet—to her surprise. “Huh? Wow, Kan-chan you’re actually pretty light.”
She chuckled embarrassingly. “It’s more like you’re stronger when you’re on your feet, zura. I should have just climbed up the seawall first, so you didn’t have to lift me from the ground…”
Ai laughed and spun around with her delightedly. “Come on, cutie pie, I’m taking you home with me!” And off they went.
Driving further down the road, flanked on one side by a steep rise and a view of the open sea on the other, Yoshiyuki was irked that he wasn't on a proper motorcycle such as his buddies had back in Tokyo. Nonetheless, he was determined to get himself up onto some mountain where there might be some cave to nap in.
“…”
But… no matter how far he has driven, the road never seemed to get any higher, and the bike seemed to get even slower…
And slower…
At one point, where the road had descended and was flanked by a seawall, it simply gave out and refused to start when he tried to. Huffing in frustration, he slumped over the handle and let the wind rush over his back.
A bit later, he was sitting on the wall facing the ocean. The wind was strong that day, and the thundering surf was strangely enough rubbing away all of the ill feelings of that morning. Here's sweet privacy at last. Out here on the lonely stretch of highway that led to nowhere, there would be none to disturb and even less to care about. A string of distant neighboring islands lay in faint outlines, vague bluish shadows as wispy as figments of the imagination. The flock of seabirds overhead were scattered, struggling against the gale. The restless sea roiled in shades of teal and brown and foamy white fighting for his attention.
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He had heard from his father once. About a certain hill some distance away from the school he attended near Ibaraki, in a neighborhood where he grew up. An open space, bare and defenseless against the atmosphere. There he met his mother.
Why should he be remembering now, of all things, his parents?
He defiantly stretched out and lay flat right there on the concrete face of the wall. He is sleeping right there. He will stay here well into the night.
"…"
About half an hour later, Ai was still carrying her buddy on the way back to the bus stop when they chanced upon the scooter parked by the seawall. The driver was lying atop the wall and seemed to be napping. “Say, Ai-chu, let’s make off with that bike while we can, so we won’t to have to take the bus.”
“Kan-chan!?”
Snicker. “Na~nchat-te! Anyway, let’s look for other Nankaisei peeps, I hear quite a few are also doing track practice here.”
And off they went.
Huh?
Yoshiyuki lazily let an eye open. Well, the sky was as blue as ever; if anything, it was a sharper blue. But…
Where did the wind go? The heat was stifling. And there was a heavy silence. The sea must be flat as glass right now. And there was something else. His throat. His whole body. He felt so withered and dry. And it's not just from thirst.
Were those sandwiches that he saw back at the kitchen? Did he remember to pick one before he left? Tch. Guess he will have to drive back into town now. But he felt like a wet, deflated balloon, so he could only manage to turn his head toward the road.
The highway was still empty.
Isn't there anyone who'll help him up? Did he even have enough strength to call out? He let out, in what he meant to be a desperate howl, a long, hoarse moan. He cringed at himself. Nobody's gonna hear that. He didn't have dinner last rainy night, going straight to bed despite his grandmother, and then he missed breakfast. And now, it's like… one in the afternoon?
When he turned his face back up at the sky…
Whoa.
A dangling strip the color of bread (or oranges?) hung mere inches right above his mouth. It nodded and bobbed up and down, teasing him as catnip would. What's a starved man to do? It bobbed. He chomped. It bobbed. He chomped. It bobbed…. Suddenly, he found the strength to sit up so he could catch the hanging treat.
Whut.
A girl's face was now taunting him with a playful expression. What? A student. She’s in some kind of P.E. uniform. Was she out jogging? And what was that bread…? Oh. Turns out what he was trying to catch was a loose lock of hair that stuck out off the top of her head like a sore thumb.
He chomped on the thing, anyway.
"Wahhhh!" yelped the girl with a slap at him. "I knew it! You’re a zombie!"
He fell face down. "I can't go on," he groaned pitifully. "Treat me out, please. I'll pay you back tonight."
“Heh?!”
“Please…”
She regarded him for a moment. He looked (and sounded) so pathetic she couldn't help but sneer just a bit. Yes, she could use him, after all.
"I've been whopping this for an hour now," she said of the vending machine. "I hurt two of my toes already. I can't let my 100 yen go to waste!"
Yoshiyuki gave a good kick to the roadside vendo, so much so that it rattled and dropped the can of thick, slurpy peach concentrate."Yatta!" went the girl, even as he looked on in exasperation. She made all sorts of funny noises while sucking down on the thick juice. "Hahah!" she giggled brightly. "This is why it's my favorite. Gao~" she growled.
"They have a run-down vendo out here in the wilds," he murmured, "and couldn't put up a stupid gas station nearby?" Or charging station. Whatevs.
And that's just one of those things about this dead-end island.
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Yoshiyuki lay back against the sofa listening to soft music playing in the dark living room, where only the aquarium provided some low illumination, that and the light from the half-closed door of Grandma's real-estate office, where she was unwinding after a day's business. The sounds of a late-night variety show filtered through to him, but it was something far removed from him, almost from another house altogether.
Since Day One on this nowhere of an island, I have been quite disoriented. Yesterday I was carefree in the big city and all of a sudden I was out in the elements pumping gas in some forsaken corner of the ocean—for good? Just like that?
The Camels taken from him made it all the worse.
Even now I am not entirely sure if that encounter earlier was just another wild dream brought on by starvation or fatigue. Or both.
The girl got for him two more cans of extra-thick juice. "There. I have treated you already."
"Eh?" he blurted raising an eyebrow over the strange drink. "I was thinking you would at least have melon bread."
"O-K!" she chimed taking them back. "That's one-hundred yen you owe me."
"H-Hey—I got no…. and in return for nothing?"
"She tossed back one can to him and proceeded to poke a straw into hers. She made funny and horrific slurping noises as she enjoyed the juice. "Sai-kou! You can't do this with any other brand."
He only stared at the can. Welp. For a guy stranded in the wilds with a weird islander without any cash to spare, he should be more than happy to at least have something in his stomach.
I wonder. Are people out here like her? Am I going to put up with ridiculous provincials for the rest of my life?
And there was exactly one highway in the entire island. There were only two bus trips, one in the morning, and another in the evening, probably to the tune of the opening and closing of the islands' lone high school, Nankaisei Academy. (There was a rather shady van rental which charged a more-or-less arbitrary price for those unfortunate enough to miss those two trips.) An economy ferry braved the Pacific every week (or two) and a single flight came every other month, and sometimes not at all if the weather turned sour.
And everywhere he went it was either empty or there were a couple of people walking at snail's pace, making things seem even slower. The next thing he knows, time itself has already stopped moving.
"Hey," mumbled the girl as they walked side-by-side while he walked the scooter. "Aren't you going to molest me?"
"Eh—?"
"See, I'm a gal," she said in an overly innocent voice, "and you're a guy and we're out here on our own, and—"
"You get me a full solid lunch, and drinks that don't make me sick, and then I'll think about it."
"Hah!" she suddenly beamed with a loud clap. "Alright! I'll take you downtown. There's a café there by the police station."
But, speaking of downtown, lately winds of change have started to blow at the Kyunin Islands—mostly at the "main" island of Otou-san, where he resides, and at the harbor area in particular. Well, little by little people have been coming over from the mainland for years. But just two years ago a café would have been unheard of. It really all began when a cruise company operating out of the Izu peninsula began offering regular trips to the islands, at about the same number of trips per month as the ferry. Once the tourist torrent was unleashed, there was no turning back. The number of permanent establishments serving tourists increased noticeably, especially when a theme-park company called Izu Mite opened a portion of its Izu Mite Islands park there, not too far from school. Fixed establishments pulls in more fixed residents, and thus followed a fixed general high school.
So chances are that sassy seaside lass was not actually raised here. Does not make her any less ridiculous or provincial, though.
Oh, now he remembers.
"I came with my family from Uchiura. Over there. There!" she motioned with a wide flail of her arm at the sea.
"Uh, where's that… Uchiura, exactly?"
"Hah?! Were you born under a rock? Uchiura is in Numazu, and Numazu is in Shizuoka, and Shizuoka is on Earth!"
"Well, I'm sorry," he said with only a bit of irritation. "I came from someplace they call Tokyo. I don't remember under which rock that is."
"Uwoooo!" she exclaimed in awe. "How did a Tokyo dude end up here?" It was a long story, and he didn't feel like telling it right now. "Are you a tourist? But you certainly didn't look like a tourist when I found you," she added.
"Then what did I look like?" This talk was getting pointless by the minute.
"You looked dead! I mean there's all those seagulls perching on you and it looked as if they're feeding on your corpse and I was like, what? did somebody get murdered? And then I took a closer look and drove away the seagulls."
He held himself back from believing whatever yarn this stupid provincial might be spinning around him. He certainly has enough annoying people to deal with. Grandma alone was more than enough.
Mrs. Yoshiko Hatase was his paternal grandmother. Her little agency used to handle all sorts of projects in the vicinity of Tokyo, including a few within the Metropolitan Area. She met Izu Mite and followed them out here, keen on colonizing new territory after tiring of saturated markets on the mainland, not to mention focusing on a small island was better for her advancing age. She had a particular liking for out-of-the-way areas where new developments are on the rise. She was previously involved in one such development way back near Ibaraki (where her son grew up) where arose a renewable energy complex, a specialist engineering school, and a large shopping mall.
"Yoshiyuki?"
His eyes popped open and he was surprised to find himself lying on the sofa. It's morning. The soft rays of sunshine made faint spots if light on his shins.
"Yoshiyuki," said Grandma in concern, "It's the first day of school already and you haven't registered yet." She scratched her head, almost cluelessly. "I was hoping I won't have a recluse in the house."
He sat up wearily. "I wasn't a recluse in Tokyo," he grumbled groggily.
She looked at him in surprise. "Well, I didn't really think you were."
He only frowned. Is this another case of "miscommunication?" Whatevs. "Never mind."
But she just warmed up and dismissed it all with a hearty laugh. "I only meant it would be a shame if you didn't go out in the sun and meet new people. The Kyunins are a wonderful destination. It's on the top trip advisory lists and it got a World Heritage site to boot. Not everyone gets the chance to live in the midst of paradise."
"Hai, hai," he said cutting her off and making his way to the kitchen.
Later that morning, he was sitting on a long bench just outside the registry office, where the secretary was perusing his papers, including some school records of his from Tokyo, and a letter from his grandmother. He had been sitting in silence for almost an hour, and then came the bell announcing lunch. His solitude was broken by the peals of laughter and chattering in the distance where he could see boys and girls on the way to the cafeteria, or wherever they were wont to eat. It was then that he was called inside the office.
"Mr. Hatase," began the secretary, a forty-something woman in a prim suit, "you have had some fine grades. It was only your attendance in your last school that was questionable." A public school his parents hastily shifted him to when they got into a spell of tight finances. "Did you, um, have a problem with the environment back there?"
"…"
He silently declined—well that was a tad too personal to just spill out to a random secretary. Of course she already knew; she had seen which neighborhood in Tokyo it was in.
"Well then, Mr. Hatase, I am pleased to inform you we are a privately-run school, so I highly advise you to immerse yourself in the community here.
"However, as you have enrolled late, there are quite a few classes I can hardly assign you to. Hmmm. 1-B is full. So is 1-C. Let see… I guess you could only choose between 1-D, and 1-E…"
"Take 1-D!' yelled a voice from the door.
Eh?
He was assaulted by a sudden grab on his arm, much to the consternation of the secretary. It was her. Orange-hair. Oh, man…
"How…" mumbled Yoshiyuki. "How…?"
"I found you!" she declared. "I saw you from the corridor before you went in. I can recognize you from a mile away!"
The secretary cleared her throat. The girl quickly realized she was in an office. "Ah! I-I'm sorry! I really am." Nervous chuckle. The secretary and Yoshiyuki could only stare in disbelief. "But you know, Madam," she continued, "he should be counted in 1-D because… Eheheh…"
"But Miss Nitta," said the secretary, "you're not even the same year as him. He's first year, and you're second."
Another apprehensive giggle. "I know, but…"
"Yatta!" cheered Miss Nitta back at 2-C as her classmates crowded around a bewildered Yoshiyuki. He was brought straight here instead of his actual classroom. "From now on we'll be seeing him everyday! See what a fine specimen he is!" Her classmates duly gazed curiously at him. "Hah! You probably never thought a Tokyo boy can be so tall."
"What am I, a koala in a zoo?" he murmured.
"But An-chan," commented one of the girls to orange-hair, "is it alright to have a first-year with us here?"
"Bleh. It doesn't matter. His room's just directly across the hallway from ours. He can now visit us everyday, right, Tokyo boy?"
"Visit your face," he retorted.
"Moh! Such a spoilsport."
"Anju-san," said another classmate to the girl, "I don't think we have properly introduced each other."
"Ehhhh? But he'll introduce himself in 1-D, anyway. Hahhhh… Very well." The girl called Anju now turned to Yoshiyuki. "This isn't class, so if you must say something about yourself, you must do it like a Tokyo person does. Cool and captivating!"
He hung his head in frustration. So this is the community the office wanted him to immerse himself in? Oh well. If they're going keep calling him out on his place of origin, he better make the most of it.
"Alright," he said in a rich, deep stunned them and sent the girls whispering. "They append to me such a pathetic mortal's moniker of Yoshiyuki Hatase, but if I must reveal my true form, then so be it." He made a stylish goth-cum-bishonen pose that left them gaping. "I am Yohan. Fallen from grace. I wander the earth endlessly and shrinks before no mortal soul. I endure to the very ends of eternity. Be overwhelmed… by my Cool Allule!"
"…"
Their amazement slowly melted away.
"…A-Allule?"
"Huh—" His façade has cracked. I-I mean allure! Allure! That's… that's just a fallen accent!"
But everybody's faces were now blank. Except Anju's. "Grrrr. And I had such high hopes! I'm so ashamed of you!" she cried as she shoved him out the door and slammed it in his face. Oh, and one more thing. "You still owe me a hundred yen!" Bam.
Hanging his head yet again, he turned toward his first-year room. Class was to about to resume. But wait. A group of boys and one girl was watching from the door. The gentlemen quickly darted back in, leaving the cute honey-haired girl gazing at him goggle-eyed, before being yanked back in.
Great. He is now the star of a freak show in two classes.
Thus begins Yoshiyuki Hatase's first ever year in faraway Nankaisei.