Koharu’s face went bright red—redder than a can of Cheerio Cola, you could say. Even I had to admit that it was pretty impressive for Anzu to teach the class queen bee a lesson in humility on her first day.
At the same time, it only cemented in my head the fact that I would never in a million years have a chance to get to know this girl. We would probably go all the way to graduation without ever exchanging a single word and then forget all about each other within a matter of months. She was clearly far too much of a free spirit to ever take an interest in a boring conformist like me, and it wasn’t like I felt some compelling urge to reach out to her either. The worlds we lived in were just too different to ever intertwine. Simple as that.
Despite all the excitement surrounding the new transfer student, the rest of the day went by as slowly and uneventfully as always. When sixth period got out and we were finally released for the day, I grabbed my book bag and stood from my chair—only to be accosted by a still very much pissed-off Koharu.
“Tono,” she muttered grumpily.
“What’s up?” I said, turning around to face her.
“Go buy me an ice cream.”
For reference, she was referring to the Sentan-brand old-fashioned vanilla cones they sold at the student store. They came prepackaged in a clear plastic shell, with a perfectly shaped sphere of processed ice cream on top. Not that it really mattered much.
“With what money?” I replied.
“What, you don’t expect me to pay for it, do you?”
From prior experience, I knew better than to talk back to her on this. Though it pained me to admit, she’d been treating me like her personal errand boy since the start of the current school year. I still vividly remembered that fateful day—I was walking down the hall, minding my own business, when out of the blue, she asked me if she could borrow a hundred yen, and I figured why not. Then she asked me for another hundred yen the very next day, and while I did voice a complaint, it was still such a small amount of money that I begrudgingly acquiesced. She’d pegged me as a sap ever since, and every now and again would come by to ask me for money or to go buy things for her. I took no pride in being easily manipulated, for the record—but every time I tried to protest, the third-year goons she always paraded around with would look at me like I was asking for a fight. I most certainly was not, so I always caved in the end.
“Fine, whatever,” I relented.
“Good. Now get going. Chop-chop!” she called after me as I headed out of the classroom to go buy her stupid ice cream. As I descended the stairs, however, someone poked my shoulder. Startled, I spun around—but it was only Shohei.
“Dude, you can’t let her walk over you that easily,” he said, shaking his head as he jumped down a few stairs to get on my level.
“Look, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, all right? And after what happened earlier, I really don’t think it’d be a good idea to rile the beast,” I said, trying to play it off with a joke.
Shohei wasn’t having any of it. He smacked me lightly in the back with his book bag and then shook his head with a disapproving frown. “Nah, man. The more you enable her, the more she’s gonna keep taking advantage of you.”
“Well, yeah, but I think you’re forgetting about her scary-ass boyfriend. I’m not trying to have her go tell him and his buddies to kick the crap out of me on my way home just because I said the wrong thing.”
“That ain’t gonna happen.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Dude, you really think a senior’s gonna risk getting expelled over something that petty during the most stressful part of his high school career? He’s probably worried enough as it is, what with entrance exams and finding a job and whatnot. Besides, we don’t even know if those two are actually dating. From what I’ve heard, no one’s ever seen ’em walking around together like a couple.”
“You mean you think Kawasaki might be letting those rumors swirl around to make people more afraid of her?”
“Hard to say. Maybe she’s the one who started ’em. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
I certainly couldn’t disagree with that. She did love her power trips, after all. “…Nah, I can’t believe she’d play into the rumors if there weren’t some truth to it. I mean, that’d only make things worse for her when he eventually found out and set the record straight, wouldn’t it? Anyway, don’t worry about me. I don’t care enough to kick up a fuss over such a small amount of money.”
I meant it too. If a few hundred yen was all it cost to keep me on Koharu’s good side, then it was a small price to pay.
Shohei let out another exaggerated sigh. “Man, you don’t have any backbone at all, do you?”
“I mean, do I really need one?”
“If you wanna be successful in life and not get bossed around all the time? Yes. Hell, just look at the new girl. You could learn a thing or two from her.”
“Pretty sure that amount of backbone only causes more problems in the long run. Besides, it’s not like I’m totally spineless or anything.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“It’s more like I’ve turned being spineless into my primary defense mechanism.”
“And that makes it less pathetic how, exactly?”
“Well, think about it like this. Did you know that most utility poles are actually hollow on the inside? It’s because that makes them sturdier and less likely to fall over under their own weight in the event of an impact. I’m basically doing the same thing. By being spineless from the get-go, I’ve got nothing to lose. No matter how hard someone might hit me, I’ll only bend—never break. I know it might sound counterintuitive to someone like you, but it’s actually a pretty high-level strategy.”
Shohei looked extremely dubious. “You’re screwin’ with me, aren’t you?”
“Mostly, yeah.”
He immediately kneed me in the thigh.
“Ow! All right, all right! Cut it out!” I whined, barely managing to dodge out of the way as he went in for a second strike. Phew, that was close. One might be forgiven for thinking a simple knee to the femur wouldn’t hurt that bad—but boy, did it ever.
“You’ve gotta start takin’ this crap more seriously, dude,” said Shohei.
“That was a cheap shot, man…”
I was still rubbing my thigh in a vain attempt to make the pain go away quicker when we arrived at the student store. I hurried over to the freezer, belatedly remembering that ice cream products always sold out fast this time of year. Thankfully, one of the aforementioned vanilla cones remained, the tip of its cone sticking out of the trove of other assorted frozen treats.
“Phew, thank God. All right, lemme just buy this and then we can get outta here.” I reached down to pull it out of the freezer.
“Hang on. Let me see that thing for a sec.”
“Okaaay…” I said, handing it over begrudgingly.
“Now watch this,” Shohei said, then flicked the tip of the upside-down cone with one finger. It snapped right off and shattered inside the plastic casing.
“Hey! What the hell, man?!”
“Well, would ya look at that. Guess being hollow ain’t always the best strategy after all.”
“Yeah, wow. You really proved your point with that cheap ice cream cone. Great job.” I snatched it back from him to size up the damage. “Oh, great… This thing’s gonna dribble out all over her shirt while she’s eating it…”
“Heh. And how is that a bad thing, exactly?” Shohei said with a snicker.
“Yeah, easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’ll have to deal with the fallout.”
“Aw, don’t worry about it, dude. She probably won’t even notice until after she opens it up. And if she does, you can say it was like that when you bought it. Besides, it was your money—you deserve to get at least a little payback for your buck.”
“I’m not sure payback’s what I’m looking for…”
“Well, it should be.” Shohei turned to look me straight in the eye. “You’re not a hollow utility pole or a flimsy ice cream cone, dude. You’ve gotta stand up for yourself sometimes. Show a little backbone! Stand up to her!”
“…If she ever pisses me off enough, I will.”
“Heh. Yeah, that’ll be the day…” Shohei scoffed under his breath.
After delivering Koharu’s ice cream cone, I bolted off campus like a bat out of hell. Then, just like every other day, I headed home via the same train that brought me to school in the morning. It was a pretty short commute, all things considered; I typically gazed out the window or played around on my phone, and it was over before I knew it. When the train pulled into my station, I got up and showed the driver my rail pass. By this point, he knew me well enough that this was really just a formality; he didn’t even glance over to examine it. I pressed the OPEN button next to the double doors and hopped off the train, whereupon I was greeted by the same searing heat and cicada choir I’d suffered that morning. In no time at all, I could feel the sweat starting to seep through my shirt, and I found myself wishing that someone would add an extension to the rail line just so I could take the nice, cool train all the way to my front door.
I followed the white line down the shoulder of the road, keeping my head lowered so as not to be blinded by the harsh rays of sunlight. Just along this street, past an independently owned rice dealer and an old fire station I’d never once seen with its doors unshuttered, was my humble abode. It was still only the very beginning of summer, yet the black pavement shone like a mirror, shimmering as though it were covered in a thin layer of water. I remembered seeing a TV documentary once about these particular road mirages that said they only appeared when the temperature rose above thirty-five degrees Celsius. Thirty-five degrees. No wonder it felt so blisteringly hot. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I gazed up at the sun and squinted to convey my disapproval. Finding it much too bright to keep staring at, I brought my eyes back to the road. That’s when it happened.