The girl lit a cigarette. She breathed the smoke deeply into her lungs, then let it all out with a sigh.
“Do you like to smoke?” the boy asked.
“Not really…” she answered.
The boy cocked his head to one side, curious. “Then why do you smoke?”
The girl cocked her head as well. “…Hmm…” the girl pondered. “I don’t know. Why do I smoke…? I don’t even like… cigarettes.” She didn’t even understand herself. It all seemed so strange.
“I wonder why?” the boy asked and smiled pleasantly.
“Well,” the girl answered, “y’know.”
As she inhaled, the tip of the cigarette glowed red.
“What?” the boy asked.
The girl breathed out a large puff of smoke and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“…I mean, c’mon… You’re dead.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Usually, after the rain, that thing called a rainbow comes out. But none had been seen lately.
Kagawa Rikoko pulled out her muffler, which was stuffed haphazardly into her school bag. Dusk was about to fall. In the town, rain had fallen, and the air had turned a little nippy.
Rikoko was playing hooky, wandering through town. She had stepped into a fast-food joint to kill time while waiting for the rain to stop. The rain had fallen for a couple of hours, but it finally stopped.
“……”
Since she had been inside a warm place, the air outside felt very cold. As if to add insult to injury, a cold autumn wind blew up her short, gingham-checkered skirt.
“Brrrr.” She trembled all over. Of course, she couldn’t make her skirt longer, so she contented herself with shoving both hands into her blazer pockets.
“Why is it so cold…?” She grumbled and complained at nature, but it didn’t do any good. The weather stubbornly stayed the same.
The sock on her right leg sagged lazily. With that foot she kicked an empty can on the road.
“Agh… I feel so sluggish…”
For some reason, her body felt extremely heavy. Maybe it was due to the temperature, or maybe it was because she had forced herself awake with just one cup of coffee, or maybe it was her headache that caused it. Most likely, it was a result of all of the above.
But the root cause of her problems was something she couldn’t readily tell anyone else. That made it hurt even more. It felt as if her very being ached, and her emotions turned ever more inward. Right now, Rikoko was depression walking around in a school uniform.
That uniform happened to be rather famous in these parts. Rikoko wasn’t exactly a pampered young lady, but her uniform nevertheless belonged to a rather respectable girls’ junior high and high school. Attending that school was akin to taking an escalator ride to the higher echelons of society.
Furthermore, the uniforms were quite cute. There were those who enrolled just because of them. So wearing said uniform garnered a bit of attention, both good and bad.
Plus Rikoko had refined facial features for a fourteen-year-old. She looked mature and sophisticated enough to turn heads. Often she would put on a little light makeup, so she very much looked the part of a modern high school girl.
Needless to say, guys frequently hung around her.
Just because I look this way, she thought, doesn’t mean I’m the same way inside.
Though we’ve all heard the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” generally speaking people still have a tendency to judge a person by his or her looks. That applied to this situation as well.
“Hey!” a voice called out from behind Rikoko.
Rikoko ignored it, acting as if she hadn’t heard anything. But the guy—or rather, guys—were stubborn. There were three of them. They surrounded Rikoko and wouldn’t let her pass.
“Hey, you,” one of them said. “We just want to ask ya a question.”
The guy, who had long hair tied in a ponytail and sported a tan as if it was still the height of summer, spoke with a smirk. His two friends looked and dressed the same, differing only in the lengths and colors of their hair.
Boring dudes, thought Rikoko.
The guy who seemed to be in charge, the one with the strangely white teeth, continued talking to Rikoko, oblivious to the fact that she was trying hard to ignore them.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re from Daijo,[1] right? We don’t really know much about this area. Can you give us a guided tour?”
Rikoko let out a big, obviously irritated sigh. These guys, she thought. Poor things… What idiots they are.
Daijo was the nickname of Oomigaoka Gakuen, the all-girl school Rikoko attended. It seemed that these guys were choosing girls to hit on based on school uniforms.
Apparently they also expected someone to fall for lines that wouldn’t even be included in a pick-up manual.
Why don’t you pick a stupider type of girl? Argh, how irritating. Argh, my head hurts. Argh, I just want to punch your lights out.
The guy had no clue that Rikoko’s irritation was fast reaching the critical point, and he kept talking with a stupid expression on his face.
“I mean…” the guy said. “Y’know.”
Argh, don’t even try being cute. Argh, why me? Argh, this is getting on my nerves. Argh, I just want to kill this guy. —All right, I’ll kill him.
Rikoko breathed deeply and gathered all her strength for one well-placed kick to the guy’s privates.
“……?!”
Startled by something, Rikoko stopped mid-kick and faced forward, her eyes meeting the guy’s gaze. Oblivious as always, the dude misinterpreted the moment.
“Huh?” he exclaimed. “What is it? Is there something on my face? Or maybe you’re interested in me or something?”
But Rikoko wasn’t listening at all. Instead, she looked around quizzically. Just now she’d thought that she’d heard someone calling out to her. If the person calling was someone she knew, it might be her chance to get out of this situation. And she wouldn’t have to come into contact with those pitiful things, his privates.
“…Kagawa-san.”
There it was again. But where had it come from? The voice sounded as though it was very close by.
“Kagawa-san, over here.”
Rikoko turned around and was immediately taken aback.
“Hey, there.” The one who was calling out to her raised his hand in greeting. He spoke with an extreme casualness. He had a very ordinary-looking face, one that left very little impression. Actually, they had also met the day before.
He was Yanagihara Kazutomo, a classmate of Rikoko’s from grade school.
“You’ve got a rather lively crowd with you, Kagawa-san.”
Rikoko couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded. What about this situation could possibly be called lively?
Why am I the only one who seems to get into situations like these? Her headache was becoming more painful by the minute.
In any case, it was true that Yanagihara was an acquaintance of sorts, but she couldn’t think of any reason for him to be acting this friendly toward her.
In contrast to the tanned and strong-looking guys, Yanagihara was plainly weak. He was pale and thin, and he looked like he might easily break in two if punched.
“How have you been, since that day…?” Yanagihara paid no mind to the situation unfolding around him and spoke absently, as if he was gazing at something far away. The three guys continued trying to talk to Rikoko.
She replied, but not to them, “…I met you yesterday, though.”
Just as she spoke up, Rikoko remembered something unpleasant about Yanagihara.
That’s right, she reminded herself, when it comes to this guy, there’s this “thing. ”
The thing that she’d been hoping to forget.
Argh, darn it! Oh no… Maybe I’m finally going crazy…
“Well,” Yanagihara said. “It was certainly a surprise. I never thought I’d run into you there, y’know?”
Whaddaya mean, “y’know”? Rikoko wanted to ask Yanagihara. She wanted to tell him that was her line, and he didn’t need to mention that place. In Rikoko’s opinion, Yanagihara needed to mind his own business.
Argh, how annoying.
Rikoko noticed something strange about the guys surrounding her. A few minutes ago they had been standing there with those stupid smiles on their faces, but now they stood staring at her, dumbfounded.
“What’s with you?! And you, showing up all of a sudden,” Rikoko ranted, turning back to confront Yanagihara. “What about that ‘thing?’ Do you want to complain about it now?”
“No,” Yanagihara answered calmly. “Not really.”
“Then would you just disappear!” she told him. “Just get out of my sight! That goes for you guys, too… huh?”
The guys who had surrounded Rikoko just a moment ago were no longer there. They had already snuck away. She watched their retreating backs as they walked off briskly.
What? What’s going on? Oh well.
She certainly hadn’t heard it, but the guys had called her a “creepy girl.” In a way, though, she sort of knew.
Why had they run away from her? She had a sort of intuition. But she convinced herself that it couldn’t be.
After all…