The installation continued for nearly thirty seconds. For a Neurolinker app, it was pretty huge.
Haruyuki swallowed hard and stared as the indicator bar displayed below the burning title logo finally reached 100 percent. Kuroyukihime had said it would destroy his world. What did that actually mean?
The indicator disappeared, and the logo vanished as if it had burnt itself up. The remaining orange flames produced text reading WELCOME TO THE ACCELERATED WORLD in a small English font, which quickly turned into sparks and scattered. What did that mean: accelerated world?
For ten seconds or so, Haruyuki sat and held his breath, waiting for something to happen. However, no sign or omen of the change to come appeared either in his body or in the scene around him. As usual, sweat was trickling down under his uniform, and the critical gazes inflicted on him from the surrounding tables seemed to grow even more intense.
Letting out a long, thin breath, he looked at Kuroyukihime suspiciously. “Um…this Brain Burst program, what exactly…?” he asked in neurospeak, and the black-clad senior murmured something far removed from Haruyuki’s doubts, the smile on her lips never disappearing.
“So you’ve managed to install it. Although I was certain you had the aptitude for it.”
“A-aptitude? For this program?”
“Mm. Brain Burst can’t even be installed in people without high-level cerebral nerve reaction speed. For instance, high enough to get an absurd score in a virtual game. When you saw those phantom flames, the program was checking your brain’s reactions. If you didn’t have the aptitude, you wouldn’t have even been able to see the title logo. But…still, you surprised me somewhat. After all, the old me hesitated for nearly two minutes about whether or not I should accept such a dubious program. I worked out a whole speech to persuade you, and it seems that I wasted my time.”
“O-oh…I’m sorry. But, um, it…it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening. Is it an app you launch instead of a resident app?”
“Don’t be impatient. You need to mentally prepare yourself a little first. We can get to the detailed explanations once you do. We have plenty of time.”
Haruyuki glanced at the clock continuously displayed in the bottom right of his field of vision. Lunch break was already nearly half over. It didn’t exactly seem like they had so much time as all that.
Almost painfully aware of the way the room around him was a mix of curiosity and disgust, Haruyuki leaned forward. The chair beneath him groaned. It was a sound he was used to hearing, but it almost felt as if even the chair were laughing at how ugly and ridiculous he was, and he bit his lip. No one could possibly love him the way he was now. If he could change everything, he’d do it, no matter what the change ended up being.
“I’m already prepared. Please tell me what this program is—” He had gotten this far when the voice he least wanted to hear rang out from the lounge entrance behind him.
“Hey! Pi—Arita! You got a job to do!!”
Reflexively, he flinched and jumped out of his seat. He turned around to see Araya standing red-faced in front of him, even though he normally never came down from the roof before the end of lunch.
At the same time as the expression on Haruyuki’s face shifted from shock to terror, Araya’s shifted from rage to doubt. By standing up, Haruyuki had revealed the slender figure of Kuroyukihime, who had been completely hidden in his enormous shadow, along with the cable extending from her Linker and connecting to Haruyuki’s.
Even frozen in place, Haruyuki was keenly sensitive to the nearly imperceptible shift in the mood of everyone around him except the members of the student council. They must have all instantly grasped the nature of the relationship between the large Araya wearing the same green necktie as Haruyuki, small vertically but big horizontally. But the mood of the students was of course not a reproach of Araya, but rather a sense of consensus, as if to say, Oh, of course.
Stop. Just stop now, Haruyuki fervently chanted to himself. He seriously hated the idea that Kuroyukihime would know he was being bullied. He offered a stiff smile to Araya with the intention of communicating that once his business here was finished, he would go right away to buy the buns and come up to the roof, so please just be quiet and wait a minute or two.
Upon seeing this, Araya’s florid face grew even redder in fury. Haruyuki shuddered as he watched Araya’s lips move to form the word pig soundlessly. He had completely misunderstood the meaning of the smile on Haruyuki’s lips as he directed with the most popular student in school.
Eyes glittering as he raised them, Araya slipped without a word through the hedges separating the cafeteria from the lounge. He approached in a straight line, stepping on the heels of his indoor shoes and making a scuffing sound. Subordinates A and B trailed after him, slightly nervous looks on their faces.
It’s all over, Haruyuki thought, taking a step backward.
Araya was so tall and sculpted of solid muscle from karate that it was hard to believe he was also thirteen. On this body, he wore a too-short blazer and a light purple shirt that was conversely way too long, and his pants too were sloppily wide. His hair, dyed a nearly white gold, stood up in points like the flower holders in flower arrangements, and with his very thin eyebrows, piercings decorating both ears, and his almond eyes, he was the very definition of danger.
Umesato Junior High School was a high-level private school focused on getting kids into university, but in this era of extremely low birth rates, almost no junior high schools still had entrance examinations. Thus, martial artists like Araya sometimes signed up with the idea of an easy ride.
Having been easily taken down by this type since his first day of school, Haruyuki flinched and stared up at Araya standing in front of him, practically leaning against the smaller boy as he glowered down at him.
“You making fun of me?” As these words issued between lips twisted into a sneer, Kuroyukihime’s clear real-world voice resonated crisply and clearly before Haruyuki could try to force some menial apology from his mouth.
“You’re Araya, yes?”
After a moment’s surprise flitted across his face, Araya smiled flirtatiously. Even a guy like this could apparently be pleased that the Kuroyukihime had remembered his name. But the words that followed astonished not only Araya but Haruyuki as well.
“I heard about you from Arita. That you might have been sent to junior high school from the zoo.”
Araya’s jaw dropped suddenly, and Haruyuki stared in dazed amazement at how it trembled. “Wh-wh-wha—” The sound Araya was making was exactly what Haruyuki wanted to scream.
Wh-what are you talking about?!
However, he had no chance to give voice to that thought. Araya emitted a fierce, angry bellow. “What the hell?! That’s it! You are so dead, piiiiig!!”
Haruyuki froze with a start while Araya tightened his right hand into a fist and raised it up high. At the same moment, a sharp voice within his brain gave Haruyuki an order. “Now! Shout it! ‘Burst link’!”
Haruyuki couldn’t tell if he shouted the short command with his real voice or in neurospeak. But the sound became a vibration that seeped into every corner of his body.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Burst link!!”