Chapter 1: One Morning, After Opening My Eyes
Part 4
Shuu Fujiyoshi was a friend whom I’d known for many years. He wasn’t just a cla.s.smate to me, but a friend in the truest sense of the word.
While I was stumbling off to the bathroom, he had settled the whole affair with the rest of the cla.s.s, and walked home with me.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t&h.e.l.lip;”
“Forget the whole thing.”
“I can’t&h.e.l.lip;”
Shuu matched my naturally heavy footsteps with his own lighter ones.
“You know, you―”
He stopped suddenly.
Though Shuu was skinny, his body was packed with muscle, giving him the physique of a Chinese martial artist. Naturally, he was good at any sport. As for academics, he’d always maintained an above-average status. Unlike my other cla.s.smates, he wasn’t the type to simply go with the flow―once he’d decided on something he’d go through with it. His heart was nigh immovable―he was truly a “rock”, in the best sense of the word.
Shuu was manly. Or, even more concisely,
he was a man. A man among men.
Then in comparison, I was&h.e.l.lip;
“What’s past is past; there’s nothing we can do about it. Not only that, but if you keep fussing about the incident, it’ll just become more fodder for others to tease you with.”
“I can’t&h.e.l.lip;”
“Geez.”
Basically what he’d told me was that I was on the verge of breaking. Shuu was the only one who dared say things like that. In my quest for perfection and tidiness, I’d always acted on my own, and so I’d always thought of myself as one who wouldn’t break even after being bullied by his own cla.s.smates.
Shuu was the only person who could say that I was going to break.
I’d been hanging out with him ever since middle school. When we first met, he was the one who had come up to me first. Everyone around us stopped to see what he would say. At first, I’d been apprehensive of him, but I now held him in high regard, and saw him as a friend to whom I could show my only weakness.
Unlike how it was in elementary school, we didn’t get to walk together for long.
“Want me to walk you all the way to your house?”
“It’s fine&h.e.l.lip;”
I appreciated his comforting me, and I knew that he’d be fine with listening to me say “I can’t, I cant” over and over again, but, I, still striving to be perfect and tidy, knew that sticking around wouldn’t do me any good.
We split up at the fork in the road before us.
As we went our separate ways, he reached out and smacked me lightly on the b.u.t.t. I never thought of something like that, between him and me, as dirty or anything.
“That looks like s.e.xual hara.s.sment&h.e.l.lip;”
“Dumba.s.s.”
We parted and continued on our separate ways.