After throwing his randoseru backpack on, he stooped down from his newly grown-up height to put on socks. Then, once he made sure he had everything he needed, he noticed the slight throbbing in his chest.
That’s right, he thought, remembering again. Today is the first day of the new school year. Opening ceremonies first, and after that—the class assignments.
He’d failed to change his image, but that didn’t mean he was depressed. A faint feeling of hope, or anticipation, or something along those lines, fluttered in Ryuuji’s stomach, even if he wasn’t the type to show it on his face.
“…I’m off. Remember to lock the doors and change out of your pajamas.”
“Yuuup. Oh, hey, Ryu-chan, hey.” Still sprawled on her futon, Yasuko bit down on her spoon with her back teeth and smiled like a kid. “Ryu-chan, you’re kinda looking fired up! You’d better do your best as a second-year student! You’re going places I never got to.”
Yasuko had dropped out of school as a first-year in order to have Ryuuji, and so she didn’t know anything about the world of a second-year high school student. For a moment, Ryuuji started feeling sentimental. “I guess so.”
He smiled a little and raised a hand. It was his way of showing gratitude towards his mother, but it backfired. Yasuko let out a squeal and rolled around enthusiastically—then she said it. She said that.
“Ryu-chan, you’re so cool! Every day, you look more like your daddy!”
“Tch!”
…She’d said it.
Ryuuji mutely closed the front door, and then instinctively looked up at the sky. His vision spun around and around; he felt as though a deep whirlpool surrounded his feet, drawing him downwards. He hated it. No, he thought, no, stop it.
That was the one phrase he never, ever wanted anyone to say to him.
Especially on a day like today.
You look like your daddy.
It seemed Yasuko couldn’t understand how much that fact troubled Ryuuji. It was the whole reason he bought that magazine and tried out softer bangs.
On the way to school, Ryuuji’s face twisted into a sullen expression. His high school was well within walking distance of their house, but he still moved at a fast clip, taking long, straight strides.
He sighed and unconsciously pulled on his bangs. He hid his eyes out of habit. Yes, his troubles lay in his eyes.
They were bad.
It had nothing to do with his eyesight.
It was the way they looked.
Though his facial features had rapidly grown more masculine in the past year, that hadn’t made him extraordinarily handsome, or given him out-of-this-world good looks. Well, he wasn’t bad-looking, either… Not that anyone would say that out loud—but he thought he didn’t look too bad, at least.
His eyes were appalling, though. They were so awful, there was no way he would ever be considered handsome.
He had angular sanpaku eyes. The kind of eyes ringed by white on all sides. On top of that, his eyeballs themselves were huge; the blue-tinged whites threw off an intense, garish light. His dim, small black irises moved swiftly, as if trying to cut straight through whatever was unfortunate enough to be the target of their gaze. Despite Ryuuji’s intentions, his eyes seemed to possess the ability to strike panic into anyone that saw them… He understood that. He understood it all too well. It was so bad that even he had become flustered after seeing a kid with an absolutely livid expression in a group photo—until realizing he was looking at himself.
It wasn’t just his eyes, though. Thanks to his curt personality, his way of speaking probably also came off a little rough. Sometimes he got high-strung, too. More than that, though, was the fact that he was the type of person who struggled with the fine line between jokes and sarcasm. Because he lived alone with a woman like Yasuko, he’d probably also lost any innocence or meekness he once had… Really, he considered himself the real parent out of the two of them.
But even so, scenes like these kept happening…
“Wh-what, Takasu? Are you disobeying a teacher?! S-someone hold him back! Hold him back!”
You’re mistaken. I forgot about part of the presentation, so I just came to apologize.
“S-s-s-s-sorry, it wasn’t on purpose, I bumped into you because he p-p-p-pushed me.”
Who would get angry from just being brushed on the shoulder?
“I heard that damn Takasu guy crashed another school’s graduation in junior high and holed himself up in their announcement room.”
I’m not that bad an apple.
“…I guess I should start being more proactive about clearing up misunderstandings,” Ryuuji said, sighing at the bitter memories he’d unearthed.
His grades weren’t bad. He was never late or absent. He’d never hit anyone—he’d never even had a heated argument with anyone before. Long story short, Takasu Ryuuji was a very ordinary young man. But, simply because he had a fearsome look in his eyes (and maybe because his only parent was in the bar business), everyone believed he was a terrible delinquent.
If anyone stayed in the same class with him for a year, those stupid misunderstandings would eventually be resolved. But a year wasn’t short, especially not to a high school student, and today he would have to start all over again. On top of all that, his attempted image change had been a failure.
Nonetheless, he looked forward to the class rotation. There was someone in particular he wanted to share a class with. But when his thoughts started running through the hardships that lay ahead, his hopes seemed to whiz away and deflate to half their size.
It was all because of that unwelcome comment Yasuko had made… No, that wasn’t right. It was all because of the unwelcome genes branded into him by his father.
“Your daddy’s in heaven, now. He was so cool—he had a coif with shaved sides, and he wore these really pointy patent leather shoes that he always shined… And on his neck, he had a gold chain, like thiiiis thick, and a baggy suit, and a Rolex. Oh, and he always layered a weekly magazine over his stomach. When I asked him what that was for, he said it was so he’d be safe if he ever got stabbed. Ahhh! He was so exciting.”
He remembered Yasuko’s enchanted expression when she recounted all that. Afterwards, she’d shown him the only picture left of his father.
His father looked exactly as Yasuko described.
He stood posed with his legs spread arrogantly wide. He had a carrying case under his arm. He wore a white suit with an incredibly showy open-neck shirt, several gold rings glinted on both his hands, and a diamond stud adorned one ear. His lower jaw was thrust out, as though jeering towards the camera. One of his hands groped at the breast of a younger version of Ryuuji’s mother. She held an enlarged stomach, and her carefree laugh was almost audible from the picture: “Ha ha!” His father’s front teeth were gold.
He was really kind, and sincere, and never raised his hand against a civilian even once, and on and on Yasuko would go. Yet, a person who was kind and sincere wouldn’t join the yakuza to become a mobster, nor would they get what had likely been a much younger high school student pregnant. Beyond all that, however, were those sharp eyes of his.
They were eyes that would make you drop your wallet without a fuss if ever they stared straight at you. Just his gaze by itself threatened unreasonable violence. An unpleasant thought had risen to Ryuuji’s mind: That same look is stuck on my face… Ordering people not to get the wrong idea was probably impossible. After all, even Ryuuji imagined his father as a scary man, and he had no memory of him.
All that said, his father was probably still alive. According to Yasuko, he’d been turned into Swiss cheese while saving an underling and had been dumped into a Yokohama harbor somewhere—but there was no grave. There was also no memorial shrine. There were no ashes or earthly possessions left behind, or Buddhist tablets, either. Ryuuji had no memory of any of that happening. And when Yasuko was drunk, she would sometimes put on a sly smile and say, “If daddy suddenly came home, what would Ryuu-chan doooo? Hee hee hee hee, I wonder.”
Ryuuji’s father was probably serving time behind cold iron bars. That was what his son thought.
“Yo, Takasu! Morning—sure is a nice day!”
Ryuuji noticed the voice behind him and turned around to raise his hand. “Yo, Kitamura. Morning.”
There’s no helping it, Ryuuji thought, as he stopped to wait for Kitamura Yuusaku, his close friend and classmate for another year, to catch up. From an outside standpoint, his eyes glared at Kitamura, as if saying, “I’ll get that guy!” But, of course, that wasn’t the case. He was just thinking calmly as he watched him approach.
There was no helping the misconceptions people might have about him. If another one happened, he’d just clear it up. After all, even if it took time to win them over, there were always some people like this guy who would figure it out eventually. He didn’t like it, but…it was the only option, so what else could he do?
He looked up at the sky and squinted at its radiance. The day was beautiful, without even a breeze. The sakura petals fell without a sound, gently landing in Ryuuji’s hair.
Still carrying all that stubborn, painful, mental baggage, he took another long step forward in the loafers he’d shined the night before.
It was wonderful weather for the opening ceremony.