Misa was no longer wavering. She would break up with him.
This younger high-school girl was much better at love than Misa.
But Misa was not so resigned to being unhappy that she didn’t feel a twinge of envy, and she still had a sliver of pride left.
Mondo Yakujin Station
Mondo Yakujin is the second-to-last stop on the Imazu Line and the station nearest to the eponymous temple. At the New Year, extra services are laid on here, especially from New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day, when trains operate continuously to shuttle the throngs of people paying their first visit of the year to pray for safety and prosperity. The locals refer to the talisman at the shrine there as Yakujin-san, and though the area is urban, the temple sits on a small rise dotted with rice paddies that give the surrounding residential streets the rustic feel of an earlier era. Or so it had been described by a local classmate to Kei’ichi when he arrived here for university.
Even so, despite how close it is to campus, I still haven’t been there yet myself, Kei’ichi mused to himself. His thoughts were then disrupted by the boisterous pack of high-school girls that had boarded the same car. Older passengers were blatantly glaring in their direction but Kei’ichi was the kind of person who, in such situations, could easily flip a switch in his brain. Still, every so often the girls’ coquettish voices pierced through the headphones he was wearing, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t understand they could be aggravating.
But, being a first-year university student, he wasn’t so far removed from the experience of having fun and camaraderie either.
Once the train glided into the platform, the number of passengers on this humble little commuter line would reach its peak – having accumulated six stations’ worth already, it would take on one more station’s travellers, quite the throng even on the weekend – before reaching the terminal.
In trying to avoid the oncoming crush from the passengers boarding the train, a girl with a short haircut who had been leaning against the window on the door collided with Kei’ichi, who was also standing there. She looked over her shoulder and ducked her head in an apologetic shrug, perhaps a bit apprehensive about his slightly punk appearance.
The title of the book sticking out of the tote bag on her shoulder was the same as the textbook that Kei’ichi had tucked under his arm. It was for a compulsory course in the core curriculum, written by the professor himself and quite expensive. Students grumbled that he must be raking in the royalties by assigning his own book as required reading for first-year students. A questionable practice, to say the least, and unscrupulous, at worst, it had earned the professor the anger of most of the student body.
Kei’ichi assumed, from the sight of this infamous textbook, that she must be in the same year as him, though he didn’t recall seeing her in class. She was neatly dressed in trousers, her look unassuming – especially when compared to the group of girls who were trying to stand out and reminded him of a flutter of butterflies.
Once the passengers had packed their way inside the car and there was a little more space in front of the door, she distanced herself somewhat from Kei’ichi. Do I look that threatening? he thought to himself, a bit offended, but then he saw her bend and crouch a little in order to peer out at the scenery.
Is there something to see? Kei’ichi wondered, already feeling a sort of affinity with her because they had the same textbook. He stooped his tall frame to peek out of the upper part of the window.
It made her turn towards him in surprise. No wonder – a sudden awkward movement above your head would give anyone a start.
This time it was Kei’ichi’s turn to nod apologetically. ‘Uh, sorry. I wondered what you were looking at,’ he said. In response to her wary expression, he showed her the textbook under his arm.
No further explanation needed. Her guardedness instantly dissipated, to be replaced with a bashful smile. For the first time since acquiring the textbook, Kei’ichi was glad he’d shelled out the money for it.
In the crowded train carriage, she ceded some of the space between them as she pointed at the sky.
‘I thought some kind of accident must have happened over there.’
Her intonation had none of the local Kansai dialect that Kei’ichi had grown accustomed to hearing. He was from the countryside and wondered if she might be too. He thought he detected the trace of a Kyushu accent, while perhaps she could hear his own Chugoku inflection.
He looked in the direction that she had pointed and off in the distance, in a blue sky that heralded the summer to come, he could see the dark shapes of five helicopters in formation.
‘Ah, no – that’s not what you think,’ he replied automatically. ‘Those are Self-Defence Force utility helicopters. News media helicopters don’t fly in such a precise formation. See how, even at that altitude, they look like they’re all flying along together smoothly as a single unit? And the intervals between them don’t change either. There’s an air base in Itami so occasionally they fly over. I don’t know if they’re doing training drills or something else.’
Kei’ichi suddenly realized that her gaze had grown round-eyed as she looked at him.
Crap, I did it again, he thought, jogging an unpleasant memory.
Back in high school, before he came up to the city for university, some girls had labelled him an army geek and made fun of him. He’d been in the school light music club and the other members were reasonably popular with girls, but Kei’ichi alone was teased mercilessly. Occasionally a group of girls would ask him something about weapons or military stuff and, because he was so keen on these topics, he’d respond too enthusiastically, and then they’d laugh at him, saying, ‘He really is an army geek …’
Kei’ichi had been hurt when another member of the club told him this, which was still painful for him to recall. ‘They even said, “Too bad, because if he wasn’t so into that stuff …”,’ which only made Kei’ichi feel worse.
He’d vowed that, at university, he would conceal his military geekdom and reinvent himself, and now look what he’d done. He gnashed his teeth.
‘That’s amazing.’ The girl said this with what appeared to be genuine admiration, which Kei’ichi had a hard time accepting at face value, caught up as he was in past experiences.
‘Sure. You probably think I’m an army geek.’
‘What’s an army geek?’
He was disarmed by her sincerity.
‘Uh … someone who’s obsessed with military stuff and weapons? Kind of like a railway buff.’
‘Ah, I’ve heard about people who are into trains. Like, they know all kinds of things about train carriages, or what series train it is. They can recite timetables, they set themselves up on the platform with amazing cameras.’
I’m not into photography, I don’t even own a telephoto lens, he thought to himself – but don’t get started on how they’re actually called telelenses …
‘You can tell the different types of helicopters?’
‘It’s hard to know for sure, from this distance. I’d say those are most likely UH-1Js.’
‘Ah, but you can make a pretty good guess – it’s impressive.’ As she spoke, she bent her knees and crouched again in an attempt to follow the formation as they disappeared behind the rows of houses. ‘What an incredible thing to get to see today!’
Her expression seemed so delighted that it served to defuse his somewhat cynical attitude.
‘You really like those?’
Despite the fact that he knew they went to the same university and were in the same year, he could hardly believe that he was able to talk with this girl so easily.
‘Well …’ She gave her head a little tilt. The helicopters were no longer visible so she turned to face Kei’ichi. ‘Doesn’t it make you happy to discover something unusual or that you didn’t know about? That’s why, when I ride the train, I always position myself so that I can see outside. In particular, my favourite spot is by the door, where there’s a big window.’