Flash back to ten days prior.
It was mid-June. Spring had long since come and gone, but the true heat of summer had only just reared its ugly head. I walked out the front door at the usual time, and already I could feel the muggy midmorning air grease my skin as I straddled my bike and kicked off to start my commute. I assumed last night’s rain had something to do with the increased humidity; the smell of leftover puddles simmering on the asphalt filled the air. Overhead, the scattered remains of ash-gray clouds, now withered and spent, dotted the cerulean sky like tiny motes of dust.
After breaking away from my neighborhood and passing the rows of cookie-cutter apartment buildings, I emerged into acres upon acres of cultivated farmland. The submerged rice plants swayed in the gentle breeze, their long blades waving at me as I whizzed down the single lane of pavement that cut straight through the paddy fields. The strong scent of muck and meadow flooded my nostrils, carried on each wisp of wind that brushed my face while I pedaled past.
Tsubakioka was a no-name, backwater country town. Its seldom-serviced roads carried little other than elderly drivers—self-declared by the four-leaf clover decal on their half-size pickups—and the local news rarely contained anything other than obituaries. The once-charming little downtown had been shuttered and depressed for so long that it could almost qualify as an abandoned historical site. The only new construction of note in years had been a headquarters for in-home caregivers.
While I wondered idly to myself how long it would be before there was no one left in this town but senior citizens, one of the aforementioned pickup trucks went speeding right past me and splashed an impressive torrent of muddy water and poetic irony in my direction. I winced, but with no shoulder for me to veer onto, I could do little but watch helplessly as the mud splattered all across my bike and lower body. Panicking, I squeezed my brake handles as fast as I could.
I sized up the damage—my entire right pant leg was drenched from the thigh down. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of dirt that might stain, but there was no way all this water was going to dry off naturally by the time I made it to school. I watched as the offending truck driver sped away, as if feigning obliviousness.
I let out a sigh despite myself—then, from behind me, I heard the screech of brakes and the scrub of tires against the pavement. I turned around to see that another schoolboy on a bicycle, wearing the same uniform as mine, had stopped to gawk at my misfortune. It was one of my classmates, Hasumi; he wore a look of empathetic distress on his face as he gazed out from beneath his frizzy, unkempt bangs.
“Dude… Kamiki,” he said.
“What is it?” I replied.
“You’re, like…soaked, man.”
“Yeah, thanks. I noticed. You say that like you didn’t see the whole thing happen.”
I had to wonder if he was only acting incredulous to make me feel worse. Either way, I really didn’t feel like walking onto campus looking like I’d wet myself in spectacular fashion. Hoping to buy myself a little extra time to dry off, I opted to walk my bike the rest of the way to school. A few steps later, Hasumi apparently decided to do the same, as he rolled his bike up to walk alongside me.
“Man, what a lame way to start the day,” he said. “Pretty funny, though, I gotta say.”
“It’s not funny. Trade pants with me if you want to laugh. I swear, they really need to hurry up and fix these potholes.”
“Pfft, c’mon. You know that’s not gonna happen. Pretty sure they haven’t touched these roads since we were in elementary school. Wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”
“Yeah, I know… Just part of living in the goddamn sticks, I guess.”
I couldn’t help but throw a curse in there for good measure; I’d never liked my hometown. Not one bit. Tsubakioka was about as boringly rural as a town could get, and it couldn’t even commit to being that properly. Sure, there was plenty of farmland, but there was also an AEON Mall nearby, plus a pretty respectable business district near the local train station. In many ways, though, this half-baked ruralness was more infuriating than growing up in the unabashed middle of nowhere. At least then the inconvenience of being far from civilization would be made up for by clean air, beautiful scenery, and an abundance of nature that I could be proud to live amid. But Tsubakioka was just miles and miles of paddy fields and farmland—a far cry from the great outdoors. The air quality certainly wasn’t great, and there was still too much light pollution to even enjoy a sky full of stars at night. It was just dreary and dull, the sort of place that makes one feel unlucky and inferior for having been born into it. Which was why I intended to leave this town for good as soon as I graduated from high school.
Just as I concluded this mental review of the many grievances I held toward my hometown, we reached the end of the long road through the rice fields, and I could see the old, gray school building just up ahead—our very own Tsubakioka High.
Hasumi and I walked through the main entrance together. My pants still felt cold against my skin, but the wetness had at least dried to the point that it wasn’t obvious anymore. It felt just as muggy inside the poorly ventilated building as it did outside—and the high concentration of students and resultant commotion certainly didn’t help. Virtually all of them had switched over to their short-sleeved summer uniforms by this point.
Everyone seemed to be in a bit of a rush, perhaps because the bell for morning homeroom period was about to ring. I needed to hurry up and get to class too. But when I made my way over to the shoe cubbies for Class 2-A, I spotted a familiar light-haired boy and let out an audible ack. Taking care so as not to be noticed by this particular student, I quietly reached for my indoor shoes—only to watch helplessly in despair as they both slipped from my grasp and clattered loudly to the ground. The boy instantly looked in my direction, and we made eye contact.
“Morning, Sakuma,” he said, his husky voice lingering in my ears as he greeted me with a smile cool and refreshing enough to thwart even this sweltering humidity.
This was Ushio Tsukinoki, a half-Japanese, half-Russian student regarded as one of the most attractive boys in school (though more in the pretty-boy sense than the hunky dreamboat sense). He absolutely had the looks to have been a model or an actor, had he not been unfortunate enough to have been born in a backwater town like this. On top of that, he was the star athlete on the school’s track and field team, good enough to compete in larger regional meets, and an outstanding student to boot. By all accounts, he was the very picture of an ideal high schooler—and perhaps most impressive of all, none of these things seemed to give him a swelled head. He was a humble, good-natured boy who was friendly to everyone. Personally, I didn’t much like being around him.
“O-oh, hey,” I said. “Morning.”
“Wait, hang on. Your pants look a little wet… Did you take a nasty tumble on the way here or something?”
“No, I just got splashed by some idiot truck driver driving through a puddle…”
“Oh, wow. That’s pretty rough. Why not change into your gym pants, then? You’ll catch a cold if you don’t take those things off.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be okay. They’ll dry off soon enough.”
“You sure? Well, if you say so.”
Over Ushio’s shoulder, I could see a girl halfway down the hall waving in our general direction. With her bleached blonde hair tied up in two long pigtails, and her skirt short enough to ruffle some faculty feathers, she certainly stood out from the crowd.
“What are you doing, Ushio?! Hurry up—we’re gonna be late!” she shouted. This was Arisa Nishizono, a rather gaudy girl who apparently thought the school dress code was merely a suggestion, judging from how loosely she adhered to it. I didn’t much like being around her either, albeit for entirely different reasons.
“Okay, I’m coming!” Ushio shouted over his shoulder, then turned back to me. “Well, Sakuma… Guess I’ll talk to you later, then.”
He hurried down the hall toward Arisa, and the two of them proceeded to link up with a few other students who’d apparently been waiting on Ushio as well. I watched in silence a moment as they all laughed and made lighthearted chitchat on their way to class.