The half-completed ball of iron suddenly broke down into a kind of goo. It popped like a balloon, sending glops of the stuff flying off in all directions.
“Ew!”
Naomi piled a new stack of reference material on his desk. He had architecture texts, interior design books, and even a catalog from a fancy furniture store over by Shijo-Karasuma.
“Don’t assume anything’s impossible. Shrug off your doubts. Let your imagination soar.”
After flipping through the catalog for a while, Naomi picked a specific page, cut it out with a pair of scissors, and taped it to his wall. It was a listing for a desk with the staggering price tag of nearly 40,000 yen. Its design was quite simple; it had metal pipes for legs and a simple drawer.
This shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Naomi placed his right hand on the surface of his own desk, which was a simple slab of wood built into his closet space. He’d added on some shelves later to give it a bit more storage space.
He didn’t exactly dislike this desk. But if he was going to exhaust himself practicing with the God Hand, it couldn’t hurt to improve his furniture a bit while he was at it.
Naomi visualized, as best he could, that bewilderingly expensive desk.
“Believe that anything is possible. Tell yourself you’re a wizard from a fantasy novel.”
I’m a wizard, damn it. I’m a wizard!
The desk began to change form. The wood distorted and wriggled. With all his willpower, he pulled it into a brand-new shape.
The result resembled an avant-garde abstract art monstrosity. A mass of wood, having lost its purpose, stared resentfully at its creator with distorted, lumpy eyes.
Naomi piled up yet another stack of books. This time, he balanced them on top of the lid that partially covered his bathtub. Each book was sealed inside a Ziploc bag to protect it from the moisture. It was a trick he’d picked up some time ago.
“You can shape everything exactly as you want it. Give the world its marching orders!”
As he soaked in the tub, Naomi flipped through another book on physics, reviewing the basic concepts: the properties of matter, heat, entropy, and energy.
After finishing his chapter, he stepped out into the rinsing area. It felt kind of weird to be wearing just a glove while otherwise totally naked, but he didn’t have much choice.
He started off by washing his hair with soap and water normally. But then, instead of turning on the shower, he positioned his right hand directly over his head.
Visualizing a bath attendant pouring water from a bucket, he muttered the word “shower” to himself.
“Agh! That’s cold!”
Ice-cold water rained down on him from the glove. He jumped to his feet and stomped angrily on the ground. Hot water! I want hot water, dammit!
“Gaaah! Hot! Hot!”
This time, he hit himself with a blast of scalding water that sent him dancing across the bathroom. Apparently, he only had two output settings: zero degrees Celsius or 100.
Hadn’t Sensei told him water was supposed to be easy? Why did adults have to lie about everything?
In his frustration, he ended up practicing over and over until he finally managed to produce water at a perfect 42 degrees Celsius.
When he finally emerged from the bathroom after spending nearly two hours on this project, his mom grinned and asked if he had a crush on someone. She seemed to assume he’d been grooming himself in there.
Naomi couldn’t explain, of course, so the only retort he could think of was a sulky “leave me alone.”
There was a calendar hanging from a tree branch, turned to the month of May. Many of the days had already been crossed off.
Naomi looked back to his own hand with its glowing blue glove. He remembered all the hours he’d spent practicing with this thing. And with all the concentration he could muster, he squeezed his hand shut.
“Raaah!”
The glove trembled briefly.
There was something resting in his palm now—something with a bit of heft to it.
Slowly, he opened his hand.
“How’s that?”
Sensei made a ring with his fingers and peered down at the object. “Looks like copper, all right.”
Cu was 29th on the periodic table. It was only a little heavier than iron, but it had taken him quite a while to create it.
“Hey, we’ve still got time. Not that much of it, but some. Don’t get discouraged,” Sensei said, trying to counter the dejection that Naomi was clearly projecting.
Naomi hung his head slightly, squeezing the little ball of copper. There wasn’t much time left at all—that was the cold, hard truth.
He felt sorry for himself for a nice long moment...until he finally thought to check the time.
“Oh crap, I’ve got to go!” As important as this training was, he couldn’t start missing school, either.
“Hey, hold on,” shouted Sensei as he turned to run off. “You’ve got something coming up today, remember?”
6.
[May 17th—After school—Shelf-sorting duty]
THE TALL BOOKSHELVES TOWERED overhead like a castle rampart. Ichigyou Ruri stood before them with a small cart full of books at her side.
Having put away the books on the lower shelves, she was now contemplating the next stage of her job. The very top shelves were too tall for most people to reach; the library had a few three-level stepladders for accessing them.
Ruri stepped cautiously onto the first step of her stepladder with a single book in her arms. Rather than walking right up like most people would, she placed her other foot carefully on the first step as well.
There was a faint rattling sound. Were her legs shaking, or was it the stepladder? Maybe both.
Slowly, Ruri brought her right foot onto the second step, then followed with her left.
By the time she reached the third step, her face was blank, and her eyes were focused entirely on the gap in the bookshelf. She looked like a primitive robot, fixated solely on a single aspect of its task.
Gently, she pushed the book back into its space and, with her task complete, that blank look gave way to something a bit more human. She suddenly noticed the rest of the world around her.
Her gaze fell toward the floor.
Instantly, her face went pale. Then, she went limp.
“Unh…”
With a small groan, she tumbled from the top of the step-ladder—which was only about eighty centimeters off the ground.
“Gah!”
Naomi let out a frog-like croak as he absorbed the impact.
He’d fantasized about catching her in his arms, but that just wasn’t realistic. He didn’t have the necessary physique; realistically, the best he could do was act as a shock-absorbing mat.
Somehow, he’d never imagined a girl would feel this heavy lying on top of him. But, well, he couldn’t expect reality to be like fiction.
A while later, Ruri was lying on the sofa in the library’s cramped side room.
This place was a bit of a storage area, but also served as a break room. There were crammed steel shelves against the walls, overflowing with files and documents. In between the random piles of unopened cardboard boxes, someone had also deposited an old set of sofas; they were probably leftovers from some office renovation.