Azalea no Shinzou

Chapter 3

G.o.d, the Devil, You / Sunset Bus Stop

In the very back seat of the bus that I rode home from school on, was a boy. He was from the cla.s.s next to mine, with pale skin and short hair. I didn’t see him much at school, but on the bus, I always saw him with his elbow resting on the windowsill, and wearing a large pair of headphones. I could never tell what his thin, almond eyes were looking at. But something about him held my interest.

            Coincidentally, that day, the seat next to him was empty. Even though I would usually think of doing otherwise, I casually sat down in the empty seat. Slender arms, like a girl’s… As I reached to take out my phone from my bag, I stole a glance at him.

            At that moment, the bus suddenly brakes. All the pa.s.sengers and straps* in the bus swayed.

With a clatter, something fell down near my feet.

——A CD? I picked it up. On the cover were several people wearing masks that you might see on the killers from a horror movie.

“Oh, sorry. That’s mine,” the boy took off his headphones and said. I see, so this is the CD he’s always listening to. Unable to think of what to say when put on the spot like that, even I was surprised by the words that left my lips.

“This is the only alb.u.m of their’s that I don’t have.”
 

            A deep and heavy sound, with a quick tempo, came out of the speakers that my dad had bought for me when I’d just started middle school. I’d unexpectedly ended up borrowing his CD, and now I was just putting on repeat some foreign music that I couldn’t make any sense of.

            So this is the kind of music he listens to… Somehow, I wouldn’t have expected it just by looking at him.

            My lips loosened slightly.

I opened up the lyric booklet (probably completely in English) that I hadn’t looked through yet. The shouting voices flowing from the speakers turned into the text written in the booklet. I flipped through the pages, only able to recognize a handful of words, and when I reached the last couple pages, I found several loose sheets of paper stuck in between. I knew it was a little rude of me considering he’d lent it to me, but the words written on the pages in pen were more than a bit messy.

            They were translations of the lyrics that he’d written. As I read them, I found that, contrary to the slender handwriting, striking words about G.o.d and the Devil were written there.

            I flipped it over, and noticed that on the back of the paper, many numbers and names were written. I realized that they were the names and birthdays of his friends.

            On the back of a lyric card about G.o.d and the Devil…. I understood that it was so he wouldn’t forgot them, but here, of all places? I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
 

I wonder what I should say to him tomorrow.



t/n: trains and buses have straps that come down from the ceiling for standing pa.s.sengers to keep their balance when the vehicle is moving.



Sunset Bus Stop

 

The gap between days that come and go, and days where nothing changes at all.

Everything reflected in your eyes seems beautiful. Everything seems dismal.

This is a song about the days where even the difference between what’s right and what’re wrong hasn’t been decided.

© 2024 www.topnovel.cc