Ukawa Ai
FOUR STEPS PRIOR to entering the deserted smoking room, Ai pulled out his lighter. By the time he was inside, he already had the cig between his lips. Right as the door shut, he lit it up and bathed his lungs in the smoke. This cigarette, one of countless dozens he had smoked in his lifetime, restored balance to his everyday life.
The first drag was like the first sip of a drink—the thirst-quencher. On the second drag, he let the scent rest on his tongue, and it was this second drag that seemed to help his brain process everything that had happened between his last smoke and now.
Teaching is so much harder than doing it myself, he thought idly as he stared at the wall. He suspected Akane wasn’t suited to the game and was already starting to get sick of it. But to him, neither of these were bad things. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses, and even though it was her idea to begin with, he accepted her growing boredom just as it appeared, without any fact-checking.
If that was how she truly felt, fine. If she wanted to improve in spite of that, he was happy to keep practicing with her, and if she wanted to stop, then they could stop. He didn’t want to force her into anything. He wanted the people close to him to be their true selves as much as possible. Thus, he would let Akane make the call.
He jiggled the cigarette over the ashtray, this time thinking back to the reveal that she’d had a run-in with pop star Gotou Julia. A chuckle tumbled out with the ash. As far as he knew, it was only recently that she’d taken an interest in Impatiens, immediately before seeing them live for the first time. How did she find the courage to speak to a group member in the wild?
Considering she’d struck up a conversation with him solely because he resembled a character in her favorite book, then went to his workplace to talk to his coworkers so she could surprise him for his birthday, it seemed social norms did frighteningly little to rein her in. Put simply, she seemed like the sort of person who charged headfirst after whatever (or whoever) tickled her fancy.
For now, this was the extent of his opinion of Itobayashi Akane.
She was an assertive and proactive teenage girl with a conventionally beautiful face. Though she was fairly precocious, she would sometimes say or do careless things, and he suspected she was popular with boys and girls alike.
On top of that, she was bashful enough to recoil at his touch! She was almost too perfect—but not enough so to raise red flags. Among his many friends were some who didn’t let people touch their things, and others who preferred to avoid skin contact as much as possible. Everyone had their own boundaries.
Around the time the paper tube of leaves cradled between his index and middle fingers had been reduced by one-fourth, he pulled his smartphone from his pocket. He’d received an email from Fujino, the coworker Akane had met with, asking him to trade shifts with her later this week.
“Sorry, I have plans.”
“Another woman?!”
“No, stupid!”
As he was goofing off with his colleague, the automatic door slid open beside him. He knew people only came in here to smoke, so he respectfully moved one step deeper into the room. What followed was the sound of a plastic lighter and a masculine sigh.
A short while later, after the room had gotten considerably more smoky, a voice called out: “Come here often?”
At this, Ai looked over for the first time. They were alone together, so he needed to figure out if he was being spoken to or if the other guy was on the phone. If the former, he’d have to ascertain what the guy was after: a simple chat, or mistaken flirtation?
Of course, there were some who hit on him knowing full well what they were getting into, but those were rare.
“I was watching you play, and you were killing it.”
Evidently this instance was indeed the most common of the three options. The best course of action was to let him know without delay.
“Eh, not really.”
At the sound of Ai’s voice, the young man reacted with exaggerated surprise. “Damn, you’ve got a nice, husky voice! I wasn’t expecting that! But you must get that a lot, huh, sis?”
Men like these occasionally got too focused on dishing out compliments to realize they were accelerating their own misunderstanding. But Ai knew how to handle this. “I’m not a sis.”
“Wait—are you her mom, then? You look so young!”
If Ai had to guess, the other man wasn’t lacking in intelligence, but overburdened with pride. He didn’t want to admit that he had hit on someone who turned out to be the wrong gender, nor did he want his buddies to find out. Thus, while it was quite possible that he was starting to realize the truth, he nonetheless prioritized the more convenient delusion. People were like this in all sorts of situations, not just romance.
He had the option of allowing this guy to believe he was Akane’s mother, but he strongly preferred not to lie where possible, even to someone he would never see again.
“I’m saying I’m a man.”
“…Excuse me?”
The other guy’s tone shifted not to confusion, but bluster and bravado. He pointedly flicked his gaze to Ai’s chest, then to his lower body. But because he was wearing a baggy sweater and skirt that day, there wasn’t much to see. The man didn’t seem to know how to react, so to show off his Adam’s apple, Ai tilted his head back and exhaled smoke at the ceiling.
“Just in case you were hitting on me.”
For the record, he was trying to give the guy an out. At times like these, if the other person knew how to save face, they would try to continue the conversation in spite of their surprise, e.g. “Oh, are you a drag queen? I’ve never met one before,” or if they were crude, “You’re telling me you’ve got a dick under all that?” Either way, it would be clear that they were de-escalating, and Ai could happily forget all about it.
But in this particular case, it wasn’t headed in that direction. The look on the guy’s face when he learned Ai’s gender suggested he wasn’t capable of following grown-up social codes. Forcing a derisive smirk that was likely fueled more by embarrassment than actual hatred, he crushed his barely-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. “Well, that’s gross.”
Ai was aware that he had an admittedly short fuse. Because he always tried to be his authentic self, he let his anger live freely in his heart without trying to ignore it or tame it into something else. That said, he didn’t blow up at every little thing anymore. He’d had opportunities to learn moderation and mature as a person.