Ergon V

Despite all this, Kazuto could at least settle for the fact he would soon reach his long-awaited destination: Shibuya High School. It was a private institution that had recently been acquired by Cytek along with a couple of other educational establishments and hospitals throughout the city. At first a school only for women, it had been fully renovated thirty-five years ago with brand new facilities and new doctrines of teaching. The acquisition of the energy tycoon boosted the school's previous focus on promoting international exchanges between students, teaching foreign languages—particularly English—, and developed a special scholarship program for students with financial difficulties. It also set the foundations for a modern education system with subjects related to recent scientific innovations. In practice, it established a learning base that warmed up its students for college careers akin to the job demands of the future and, above all, their own facilities. Kazuto often wondered whether such corporate practices were excessive, if not a bit monopolistic. To top it off, they stumbled upon the government's overall goals in education, which did not seem right.

A few more turns around the neighborhood and Kazuto finally found himself before the premises' entrance. Once there, he parked his bike on a designated area, jumped out of it, and headed towards his school, not without first catching a glimpse of a couple of students throwing their cigarettes on the floor as they put them out with their feet. He shook his head in reproval, amazed at how every single year he found more and more students who chose to poison their lungs, especially women, when the national tendency stated the opposite. Kazuto climbed the stairs past the V-shaped columns the held much of the main structure and went inside.

A few meters past the entrance doors, he ran into several students busy in their designated lockers, exchanging their regular footwear in favor of the typical light slippers designated for indoor use known as wabaki. These followed the traditional Japanese mandate of imposing its hygienic will, derived from the old houses with tatami floors which were quite difficult to clean. It was not as if it bothered Kazuto, who in fact found it quite constructive. What did bother him was gazing at two students sneaking around a small plastic bag with white powder. It was easy to imagine what its content was. Were their lives so hard they had to resort to such a thing to keep going? Once again, he shook his head. He was not going to tip them off, of course, mostly due to the indifference of the teachers and the consequences such an act would bring among his relationsh.i.p.s with his peers.

His classroom was one of the four located on the second floor of the west building, the northern one being intended for junior high school students. Once inside, Kazuto headed to the sixth desk of the sixth-row counting from the entrance and threw his school briefcase over his table. He then sat on his chair and rested his head on the table. Both pieces of furniture had an ergonomic design that adjusted itself to the physical and comfort demands of its user; a nice advantage of attending a rather expensive school. Kazuto did not even have the strength to look out the window, an activity that filled most of his daily class hours. But the night before had not been an ordinary one; he had been forced to rush to the hospital since his brother had been injured among the chaos that erupted at the heart of the city. While he could have avoided school that day, the young student had a certain sense of responsibility. Who knows, maybe he wanted to hear the nonsense his jokester friend Raisuke Kobayashi would have to say about it, whose voice interrupted his thoughts without any kind of warning in advance.

"Rough night, uh, Kazuto?" he said in his sort of boyish voice.

Sugiyama lifted his head, placing his chin over his briefcase to gaze at Raisuke, his arm resting on the support of his chair and his body turned towards him. What an idiot. That haughty smile amid his effeminate face, which exuded a self-confidence he would never possess. That orange-dyed hair, combed-over to a side in multiple layers that surely required maintenance and expensive products, yet another example of how his adoptive parents used to indulge him too much. How did he end up making friends with him? Kazuto barely remembered it. In his freshman year at high school, he had committed the terrible mistake of speaking to him, the new student from outside the city. If he had maintained his 'friendship' with him for so long, it was due to the fact that Kazuto was a hard guy to put up with because of his bad temper, and Raisuke was one of the few students who chose to spend time with him in spite of it. The more he thought about it, the more he believed his friend had to be a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t.

"Don't even mention it," Kazuto replied, then sighed in frustration. "My brother got into trouble, again, and he barely made it this time."

"Really? Is he okay?"

"Yup, they even had to perform him a surgery because his lungs weren't getting air, but he'll be fine."

"Wait…" Raisuke's vague mind wandered for a few seconds as he ordered his thoughts. "Was he involved in the incident last night?"

"You know about it?"

"You kidding? The whole damn world knows about it! Although, for some strange reason, no one caught anything from the weird subject who drove the sports bike."

"Yeah, I had enough of that already," Kazuto said as if what had happened had not been anything extraordinary.

"Be more considerate!" his friend insisted. "If that 'vigilante' hadn't intervened, your brother would surely have died." Raisuke took a moment, his face conveying the feeling his mind was involved in some sort of reflection process. "Oh, I forgot. You always keep your emotions at bay in order to better deal with things, right?"

"It's not that, Raisuke. I just don't want to talk about it."

With his chin still over his briefcase, Kazuto turned his gaze towards the other students in his class, meddling among their usual chats with their friends, laughing at the odd joke or, why not, paying attention to their textbooks. On his way across the classroom, one woman caught his attention. Kazuto looked over to the second desk in the fifth row, where he found no one else than Saori Yoshimura. It was just impossible to miss her. Her cold, delicate square face stood out above the others, mingling Western and Oriental features, framed by straight, stylized dark hair up to her neck. Unlike his friend, she had dyed it with a subtle bluish tint that was fashionable at the time. Yoshiro used to tell him that if a woman looked good with short hair, she was truly beautiful. And he was right. But above all else were her dazzling cat-like light blue eyes, the kind that invited one to lose in them for countless hours and forget about whatever was going on the surroundings…

"Forget it, Kazuto. Saori is way out of your league," Raisuke's voice broke in, always so perceptive.

Kazuto squinted at his friend, offended. "Define 'out of my league'. As far as I'm concerned, she's not a being from another planet or a goddess."

"Well, she's not far from being one. I mean, a beauty without equal, comes from a good family, cold as ice... A shame she's so distant with everyone, though." Almost in direct response to his words, a shy young woman with glasses and classmate of them, Mayumi Hanekagawa, approached Saori with a query. While she maintained her casual attitude, she did not seem upset by her presence or her request. "Well, somewhat distant."

Kazuto eyeballed Raisuke, still not convinced of his argument. "And...?"

"And she has rejected every single man who has confessed to her when she was in the other course! And if that's not enough for you..." Both students stared at the third seat of the first row, where they came across Hayato Yoshimura, with his regular cold and implacable expression accompanied by eyes as blue as his sister's. He even had the same dye in his fringed dark hair. He was resting his elbows on his desk, the fingers on his hand crisscrossed, and his attention evidently focused on something important. "Her twin brother, Hayato. Like most older brothers, Hayato is sure to be overprotective. Also, he's just as intelligent and indifferent as she is.."

"'Like most older brothers', huh?"

Raisuke flared his nostrils. He never seemed comfortable when talking about his not-so-little sister.

"Well, you know Hanako, so…"

"Whatever. By the way, being twins, how do you know he's the eldest?"

"Well, I suppose that…" his clumsy mind failed yet again to process the information at once. Kazuto never understood how a student as smart as Raisuke sometimes seemed so gawky. Maybe he was just good with the numbers and remembering things he was into after all. "It doesn't matter! The only thing you have to understand is that you shouldn't have any kind of illusions with her."

It was not as if Kazuto did since, in his opinion, it was likely that a girl like her would not be interested in regular boys and had somewhat more refined tastes. In spite of appearance, Kazuto understood he was just another teenager charmed by a good-looking face, even if he was intrigued to meet the young woman behind it, mysterious and apathetic in the eyes of most students as his friend had mentioned. Still, that word seemed to be the most accurate one to define her: refined.

"Stand up," said a female voice that lacked any kind of elegance, although it did have a lot of enthusiasm and, above all, familiarity. What should have been familiar to Kazuto was what occurred next; as he raised his head, he was battered by the metal slit of a school briefcase.

"Hey! That hurts, Nozomi!" snorted the victim of such an atrocity, while he messed up his hair rapidly with the palm of his hand in a vain attempt to reduce the pain.

"Oh, don't be so whiny," said Nozomi Tanaka, his childhood friend. She was a bold-looking girl, the exaggerated wide grin on her face at the time framed by her long, wavy light-brown hair. Once her satisfaction found its conclusion, she showed her big amber eyes, bright and striking as gold. Always so impulsive, so unpredictable. Of course, the circ.u.mstances of life had thrust her down that path. Her father had abandoned her family, leaving her alone with her mother, who did not share much time with her because of her work. To make matters worse, her older brother had died shortly afterward in a confusing and rather misfortunate accident. She was forced to fend for herself and had to be strong for her mother. Kazuto concluded that the smile she used to display was some kind of personal reminder that she should maintain a positive attitude in spite of adversity. "Remember, we're freaks who heal fast, not to mention we hardly ever get sick," she added, winking at him.

That had always amazed Kazuto. Whenever he had suffered an injury as a child, either because of some clumsy movement or some quarrel with another minor, it had always healed more quickly than what was common for other people. Whenever he had fallen ill, his parents found it difficult to explain the almost dizzying pace of his recovery. In addition, both Kazuto and his friends were taller than their peers' average. Even Nozomi, although shorter than both, was as tall as most of the men in his class, a fact that contributed to her intimidating image among them. That was something he never comprehended, and he was sure he would never make sense of it.

"So, tell me. What were you guys talking about?" she said, seemly interested in their conversation.

"That Kazuto likes Saori," Raisuke lied shamelessly.

"If I'm looking at a girl it doesn't necessarily mean I like her," Kazuto replied, with not even the slightest hint of embarrassment.

"Sure, that's why you look at Nozomi as if she were hideous—"

Such an offense was worthy of earning some punishment. Nozomi employed her deadly briefcase against Raisuke, who instead of feeling hurt or upset looked cheerful. It seemed as if he had enjoyed what had happened to him for no apparent reason. "You deserve it," she said "You're lucky I'm your friend. If you told that to another girl, we would be digging your grave for sure."

"But not all girls are like you, Nozomi. You are more man than the two of—" Raisuke took yet another lethal blow. But at any rate, he was still amused by the situation. It looked like he was, in fact, a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t.

For her part, Nozomi used to deny her tomboy attitude. After all, she had a fairly toned muscle structure given her judo training, and her constant physical altercations with school boys trying to get under her skirt—some of them literally, amid unpleasant events in the hallways—gave her an intimidating air. And men did not like it when a girl beat them up. "Idiot," she said at once, her eyes closed as her face relaxed and acquired a neutral expression. It was her usual way of trying to couple with her frustration. Then, her regular smile seized her face once more. "Anyway, no girl in her right mind would pay attention to someone who spends all day playing video games and reading Manga."

"Comic books. There's a difference," Raisuke said, feeling proud.

"Perverted guys and their harems, women with muscles in tight and revealing outfits... Huge difference, right?"

For a brief moment, the false self-esteem in Raisuke's face vanished. Before he had the chance to answer her back, the bell that dictated the beginning of their class period echoed throughout the room. It was a shame. After all, it had interrupted their melodramatic but always entertaining chat. Yes, those clumsy and innocuous conversations where the only reason Kazuto wanted to be in his school. He cared nothing about their vague and shallow content; in fact, it was because of that very same reason he enjoyed taking part in them. They drew him away from his belief that life was nothing more than a cruel and disappointing experience and left a brief but satisfactory impression inside of him. For something so crude and simple, Kazuto Sugiyama could feel happy even if only for a few moments, to the extent that his own face shared his short-lived joy.

As their teacher entered the classroom, the students scrambled to their seats and settled themselves properly on them. Kazuto stretched his arms for the last time, ready to carry on a new day of school. He leaned his elbow on the desk and set his eyes on the clear blue sky outside the window, lost in that brief sensation of joy. So focused he was on it he had failed to notice that Saori was staring straight at him. For a brief moment, he met her eyes, until he felt intimidated by her gaze and darted his own away from hers, now looking at the blackboard as if whatever his teacher was doing there had some sort of genuine interest for him.