Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Bitter And Murky ❯ Summer Doldrums ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Summer Doldrums

 

“I request your assistance in purchasing a gift for Yuigahama,” Yukino said, addressing my adorable little sister. Komachi perked up at this like a puppy and agreed. The following Sunday found us at the Chiba City Mall, a city-sized multistory arcology dedicated to consumption, materialism, and pulchritude. I am not a fan. Yukino turned up in a disguise, meaning she was wearing summer dress, a big pair of sunglasses, and her hair was in pigtails to either side. Yukino has a lot of hair, so they went some distance out and down. Komachi managed to contain her laughter and greeted our clubmate with cheer and enthusiasm.

“I wish to warn you that my sister is likely to appear. If you say her name three times, she just shows up,” Yukino warned us both. Komachi forgot this ominous threat immediately, but I did not.

“I am unfamiliar with commoner shopping arcades. I propose an organized and methodical search procedure, starting at the top floor and working our way down,” Yukino declared. I raised an eyebrow at this. She has said more than once that she lacks stamina and that distance of walking will put her unconscious with fatigue before we reach half-way.

“There must be a better way,” I objected.

We looked at the map. “My imoutou senses tell me to go to this spot to find shopping success,” Komachi declared, pointing at a cul-de-sac area on the bottom floor which advertised kitchen supplies, pet grooming, and the Destinyland outlet store. There was also a book store, which caused Yukino to perk up. She’d just recently finished reading another American literature novel, having moved on from Hemingway to Heller and Twain. Huck Finn had gotten her asking me questions, which required me to remind her that the book is from the 19th Century, from a time of turmoil in America over its owning slaves in certain areas but not in others. Considering that Africans and Muslims still practice slavery today, claiming that Americans were bad for having it after the English abolished it and replaced slaves with poor English workhouses, which is so close to slavery it would probably lose in court. The hypocrisy of the world is probably a permanent feature of our species. I don’t mind Yukinoshita getting interested in the wider world beyond Japan. It is probably good for her.

The three of us entered a cooking store, finding aprons. Yukino picked a black one for herself, and I selected a pink one with yellow polkadots on it for Yuighama. Yukino found a cookbook with foundational recipes to build skills for a young wife learning to cook, including pictures of a young wife and her proudly displayed wedding ring. If Yui wanted to be a bride, she may as well get some positive reinforcement.

Komachi found some pot holders with dogs on them.

“I think that maybe it is too soon to remind her of dogs. How about those polka dot ones?” I suggested. Komachi agreed and I helped her pay for it. We settled down, the three of us, on a bench in the middle of the end of the mall. It was green, and there was a set of escalators behind us for people to ascend to the next floors. There were lots of people.

“Yukino? Is that you? Sorry guys. I’ll see you later,” said a bubbly feminine voice, with undertones of danger, mystery, and probably fully developed bosoms. I turned to regard this and saw the cringing expression of my clubmate, and the curiosity of my sister at the similarities and differences.

“Are you on a date? You’re on a date aren’t you. Should I check his teeth? Open wide, let’s see those teeth,” poked the woman, getting in our faces. And I was right about the boobs. Big ones, and a fearless personality, way into my personal space. She reached for my mouth.

“Stop that, Haruno!” hissed Yukino.

“So what’s your name, then?” she asked, suddenly turning from my frown to Komachi.

“Hikigaya Komachi. This is my brother Hachiman,” she answered, observing this wild Haruno sort of like a big dog, that might cover you in slobber or run off with your slipper in its mouth, and you aren’t sure which.

“Oh? So you’re the Hachiman that’s nailed the top student roll since he started. Yukino is so mad!” she teased us both.

“I study all the time,” I answered honestly.

“Going to Todai?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided. If I do go I won’t be studying Archaeology or Turtle Civilization,” responded. Haruno pealed with laughter over my joke.

“Oh, the classics. Thank you for that,” she guffawed. I think that was the first genuine emotion I saw on her face. For such a beautiful woman she was layers of lies and deceit. The exact type all the philosophers warned about. Never get involved with a woman who has character. She is trouble.

“We are here buying birthday presents for our friend from club.”

“So are you the middle schooler we got special permission to attend club?” Haruno asked Komachi, surprisingly informed over that detail.

“You know about that?” I asked her.

“Mother is on the school board,” Yukino visibly shuddered.

“I’m tutoring my sister in math so she can pass the entrance exams for Soubu this winter,” I explained. “If she wasn’t allowed here she would fall behind.”

“So is it true the two of you posted a video of Shizuka-chan about the Streisand Effect?” Haruno teased.

“I can neither confirm nor deny the origin of any such video,” I responded with a totally straight face.

“Oh, I like you,” Haruno teased. “Mom was so furious she called up Shizuka-chan and chewed her out, then they went drinking together and forgot all about it.”

“Sensei goes drinking with mother?” Yukino confirmed, horrified. “No wonder we didn’t hear from her about it later. Though the video DID remove interest in that other rumor circulating about Hayama.”

“Which one of you thought of that idea?” Haruno asked.

“I’m naturally hostile to stupidity. Yukino was the one smart enough to video us,” I answered. “We opted to post it anonymously after that.

“How amusing that a fan of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche would be subtle and clever enough to leverage social media to resolve a problem caused by social media,” Haruno confessed happily.

“Every man should test his own limits and decline to be held back by other’s weaknesses.”

“Ah, the Superman delusion. The Great Race had a fine example of that idea taken to absurdity. And it has Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon,” she said, pronouncing the L properly. Ah, that is right. Like Yukino she had also spent several years overseas in America before returning to Japan so their father could run for office. And win. He was a seated member of the Diet.

“I should probably watch it someday when I am in the mood for absurdity. At present I am studying most of the time and have none for entertainment.”

“What? No fun? No arcades, no video games or movies or novels or manga?” Haruno objected. “What sort of a Japanese boy ignores the majority of culture directed to Japanese boys?”

“One with aspirations for my choice of universities to attend, and qualifying for scholarships,” I added. I’d already qualified for one that covers cram school this summer. Saki would be joining me there. And our siblings as well.

“Still, that is really sad, having no time for popular media culture. You’re missing out on so much of what Modern Japan has to offer. How will you connect with your own age group?” she asked me seriously. I blinked.

“Connect? Do I care? I have no intention of becoming some miserable salaryman, suffering an incompetent boss at some black company like my parents do. And pure research doesn’t care about getting along with others. Real life is bitter, not happy,” I answered. Haruno looked frozen at my outburst.

“Well, that’s interesting,” she answered, slowly backing away. “You certainly keep interesting company, Yukino-chan.”

“You said interesting… twice. I’m not used to seeing you at a loss for words, neesan,” Yukino commented.

“Right. I must be going,” Haruno said, standing, smoothing her dress and scurrying away.

“I think that’s never happened before,” Yukino said. Komachi just observed the disappearing woman in silence, considering. Hanging around with high school students is probably a whole education all by itself.

I suppose if a certain dog were still alive, our clubmate might have followed the dog to our seat, assumed we were on a date, and gotten really upset about losing the guy she was trying to date seriously. But none of that happened. The following Monday afternoon we presented our gifts to Yuigahama, who cried tears of happiness, one of those female traits I have never understood. I have caught Komachi watching Kanon and weeping at the ending. She did the same with certain other romance anime that end in tragedy. Or happy endings, which also makes her cry. She’s still in middle school, but female emotions are confusing for men. I try not to understand or sympathize, for that way lies madness.

Midterms were the rest of that week. My hard and continual study paid off and I felt confident I’d done well. The week ended and so did school for the summer. I checked the board with test scores and found I’m ranked #1 again. This feeling does not get old, being better than everyone else. It is a transitory state and requires excessive work to retain this position, but there are additional bonuses to being the top student. Naturally, this annoyed sensei, Yukinoshita, and probably Hayama, though I don’t care about him. I went to cram school every day. They had weak air conditioning, but it was better than the heat at home. Saki and Taishi, her younger brother and the boyfriend of Komachi, all joined us in classes there, though Saki and I were in the upper level room for college entrance exams cramming. We did pre-tests and went over areas for special knowledge which certain schools required you to know and others did not. I do qualify for Todai, actually. I also qualify for CIT and a dozen other major universities, in any program I choose. And while I find wicked enjoyment from reading classic German philosophers of the 19th century, I won’t be studying that as a major since the final exam is famous for its single question: How will you make a living with a degree in philosophy? Every degree should ask that question.

There was a long weekend break for cram school, four days’ worth. Of course sensei called on the morning of the second day and ordered the Service Club members to pack bags and meet up to act as camp counselors for the elementary students. Komachi was really happy about this, so I got my swim trunks, flip flops, and a favorite teeshirt bearing the English phrase: “Invest In America. Buy A Congressman.”

We met up at the Chiba station downtown and sensei arrived with a van able to hold all of us. I noticed that Yoshi and Yuigahama were holding hands, so apparently their project of investigating the chain mail had brought them together. I wish him well. She is a busty and genki girl, probably with enough energy to raise children. They can learn to cook together. Yukino observed them uncomfortably. Is that romantic jealousy? How unusual.

We piled into the van and began our journey, with sensei cranking up old anime hits from ten years ago. The journey was several hours into the mountains, and we eventually arrived at Chiba Village, sponsored by the Yukinoshita family, the Chiba Shipyards, the Longshoreman’s Union Local 137, and several other Chiba-based corporations with enough money to fund a small and relatively cheap camp to teach kids about nature. It was a win-win for them and the school district. And we got to be free labor. Rather than be annoyed, I took the opportunity to observe the pre-teen children milling around, concerned only with children’s problems and concerns. This did not stop little girls from being bitchy, but nothing does.

The first project announced by the camp coordinator, a fat and cheerful man of indeterminate age, was orienteering, with compasses and directions and paces walked. Most people get the pacing wrong, or hold the compass near a magnet, like a cellphone or a belt buckle, and are surprised to learn that not all paces are the same length and you have to count and do math to work that out at the beginning, or you end up in the wrong place. We high school students were stationed in the woods to act as unofficial waypoints and keep an eye on the elementary students so they wouldn’t get lost. There were noisy kids, popular kids, sports kids, bullies, RBFs, and outcasts of both genders. So they were pretty typical. After orienteering the kids were herded over to an outdoor kitchen to make curry, which several of us supervised. I taught kids how to cut onions, and the difference between restaurant style onion dicing, which is fast and makes your eyes hurt, and French style, which is slower and does not. It has everything to do with how the knife is used and the direction the cuts are made. The French method keeps the noxious chemicals, which taste good, inside the onion rather than leak out into gas. I then taught them why you cut carrots diagonally, because they don’t roll off the board, and finally the smart way to cut bell peppers. By the end I got many thank yous from the children and a certain amount of awe.

“Are you a restaurant chef, Mister Hachiman?” asked a 10 year old boy.

“Every man should know how to cook a meal, better yet cook all his own meals. We can only rely on ourselves, as men, and all men should aspire to cook good food for ourselves, because nobody else will care. It is our own responsibility. Restaurant food is full of salt, and will give you stomach cancer. Tofu is poisonous to men, and gives women cancer. Aspire to maintain your own health, because others don’t care.”

“Really?” asked the boy, taken aback.

“Ask your father someday when your mother is not around,” I suggested. My own never would, but father is a broken man, and mother isn’t much better. The kid backed off, and I turned away, eating my own curry dinner quickly, and finding a place in the dark to sit and listen to the night. A silhouette approached.

“That was dark, Hikigaya,” offered Hiratsuka sensei from out of the gloom. The simmering pots of curry were getting served to the children now that the sun was down and it was getting dark. Lanterns were lit for the tables, casting yellow light over small exhausted faces. They would sleep well tonight. Bug repellent rings smoked here and there, but mosquitos and moths still circled the lanterns, bouncing off the hot glass. Cicadas sang in the trees.

“I wish someone had warned me about that five years ago. If men don’t teach children to be careful of the dangers in life, and their responsibilities and expectations as they grow, what sort of men will aimless children produce? Addicts to cellphone social media? Our civilization would collapse from such weakness,” I countered. Sensei froze at that.

“Imagine if all the men you’ve dated were forthright about their intentions, sensei. Imagine if that first one had proposed and given you a ring, and you’d be married with a couple kids at home. Strong men do not rely on others. We do what we must, and let none hold us back from our true potential. How different would today be if all the men we see were like that? If black company executives were pushed off of rooftops, and thrown down stairs, as a warning to others. Japan in 1980 had more justice than today, which is so very ironic, don’t you think?” After all, the Yakuza mass arrests in the early 80’s cleaned up Chiba City and its shipyards, but people were complacent now, and the Yakuza shifted from its usual extortion and prostitution to Pachinko Parlors and festival stalls selling spoiled food and rigged games. The Yakuza were still here, and it was just another multilevel marketing scam, only with tattoos and debt collectors and food poisoning.

“Your view of history is twisted, Hachiman,” sensei replied, a snap of a lighter showing her face momentarily, and the long inhale of a Seven Stars cigarette. She moved to sit beside me in the growing stygian darkness, and the eerie lights and chattering children, completely oblivious to our debate. She took a drag off the cigarette, thinking about what she would say next. Of all the teachers, sensei was most willing to truly communicate with the students. The others were clearly given up on such idealism. And sensei was having a rough time, I suspect. All her obvious anger stemmed from somewhere.

“I see history as it is, a bunch of people with motives, written by other people with motives and bias, and the philosophies and scientific paths that lead from one discovery and invention to the next. And each shapes society. If Japan hadn’t been so desperate for steel and coal, it might not have invaded Korea and China, and committed war crimes that to this day remain unforgiven in the rest of the world. If Hitler had actually built the VW beetle instead of his war machines, and promoted passenger aircraft, Junkers and Messerschmitt might be just as well-known as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. Germany would have dominated the world economy and traded for raw materials rather than be bombed flat in World War Two. So many good ideas set aside, delayed, or reinvented by other people who got the credit… and Japan suppresses innovation by refusing to reward those who create good ideas. We live in a nation of serfs, of peasants. We aren’t going to get a fair deal working for other people, sensei. In another year or two, you’ll be transferred to another school, with new teachers and students, maybe an hour away from here, and completely new circumstances. How are you going to cope with all those changes? Will you meet Mister Right, finally, and settle down and have one point four children? Or will you feel even more lonely and disrespected, and treated like fool, tricked into all the jobs nobody wants, like running the summer camp volunteers?” I asked her pointedly. She gave me a stink eye over that.

“Hachiman, I have to say that your tendency to make pointed comments puts people off. It is not a socially acceptable means of communication in polite society. Try that outside a school and you might get punched. No, you WILL get punched. And cops would haul you off and tell you to stop riling people up, and being right is no defense against fists.” She took a long drag from her cigarette, then stubbed it out in her portable ashtray.

“Thank you for your concern, Sensei. I will take that under advisement.”

I drank water before bed but woke to snoring around midnight with my bladder painfully full. I found the bathroom under the moonlight and on return noticed a certain Oujou pouting in a clearing outside the girls’ cabin.

“Who’s there?” Yukino asked as I stepped on a twig, naturally.

“Father Christmas,” I answered.

“Its July.”

“Father Christmas takes summer vacation. He works all winter,” I countered. “So I suspect you said something mean, upset someone, and there were probably tears and harsh words, and so you’re standing under the moon having a moral and ethical crisis?” I asked her, curious if she’d answer truthfully.

“Hachiman, your directness is irritating. Have you no courtesy? Subtlety? Are these ideas anathema to you?” she complained sharply.

“I noticed that both you and Haruno enjoy a certain immunity to consequences of your own actions. Like a certain Toyota Century and a certain dog belonging to a certain classmate and clubmate of ours. Whom you have shown a surprising degree of envy towards over romantic issues. That surprised me a little. I was under the impression that your maidenly interests were not inclined to romance, preferring historical poetry and bitter wordplay. Was I wrong?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm at the end.

Yukino was probably glaring at me, but since it was moonlight I couldn’t really see her that well to know for certain. Because being certain is beyond expectation at this point. It is possible that I take delight in riling up the Oujou-sama, and her ways impress in only the most contrary sense.

“Good night, Hachiman,” she finally bit out and stormed back into the cabin, opening the door violently, but shutting it without a sound. I snorted, then returned to the boys’ cabin and better sleep.

 

The following morning was free time, which included girls in bikinis playing in the stream. It never really cooled off overnight and was hot and sweaty by midmorning so this was actually a good idea. A small angry feral girl of 10 was glaring at my sister and the bouncing temptation of my female classmates and sensei. My hormones demanded I attend to the bouncing flesh, but my mind overrode this minute by minute. I am the master of my fate, and I want peace, not debt. Every marriage is a potential alimony settlement, and the man always loses.

“Shouldn’t you be frolicking with those women?” asked the girl suddenly. I turned to regard her. She looked like an angry dog, curled up and licking her wounds.

“One of them is my sister, so no.”

“But the rest aren’t. So why aren’t you?” she asserted.

“There are financial reasons, and philosophical reasons, and academic reasons.”

“Academic reasons?” she asked, picking that out.

“I’m the best student at Soubu. I have to study all the time to stay that way. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, socializing, or a surprise pregnancy and shotgun wedding.”

“What’s a shotgun?” she asked.

“A gun that fires lots of pellets, all at once. Never played any video games?” I asked her.

“Ugh. No. You said you’re at Soubu?” she asked. The cheerful shouts of girls splashing in the river continued with giggling and cheers.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“My mom teaches Home Economics there,” she offered.

“Oh? I have her class.”

“I saw you teaching knife work to the kids. You aren’t terrible. Kind of condescending, but not terrible.”

“Oh, thanks,” I reply sarcastically. “So why aren’t you out there playing with the booby women?” I ask.

“I’m ten. I don’t have boobs. What would be the point?” she replied drily, with a voice as weary and tired as any comedy office oneesan.

“So being ten, do you have big plans for your life?” I ask her.

“Avoid people, get a free house in one of those dying towns in the countryside, take up rice farming and subsistence gardening. People suck,” she said with all the seriousness a ten year old can muster. It was honestly impressive.

“That’s a good plan. Gonna find a husband and raise some kids too?” I asked her.

“Depends,” she answered.

“On what?” I asked.

“I’m only ten. How do I know how I will feel about men when I’m grown up?” she responded.

“Good point. Question withdrawn,” I answered.

Afternoon events followed by another dinner preparation, followed by ghost stories and a test of courage, very tame, of course. Another night of better sleep, and the following morning I packed up my bag, joined the service club and my sister, loaded up into the rental van, and returned to Chiba City.

On arrival at the local station I noted that certain Toyota Century, and the smarmy boob princess with too much personality emerged, engaging Defcon level threats at Yukino-chan. We stood by and watched as she reluctantly entered the vehicle and did not hear from her again for the rest of the summer. Probably. It had that kind of tone, you know?