It was a sunny afternoon in an area where teenagers of all stripes hung out, and Tomoyuki and the others were sitting in a big club disguised as an ordinary restaurant. In the dark and noisy club, teenagers who knew the place existed sat for hours on end, and there were even regulars. Many of the teenagers in the club knew Takashi and his friends, so the nameless Tomoyuki had no choice but to sit on the empty couch, listening to the modern songs that were playing loudly in the background of the people dancing.
Takashi, while dancing in the dense crowd, also found time to socialize with his acquaintances. At this point, Jiahao and Makoto seemed to get lost in the crowd and went about their business. Tomoyuki was left alone, drinking mojitos alone. He, who had previously declined the alcohol offered by Takashi, wondered why minors were turned a blind eye in such establishments, where schoolchildren were allowed to drink at the bar.
Here, if one got into the spirit of youthful nonchalance, one could learn how openly things were traded that were clearly unacceptable to both children and all people under the law. Tomoyuki, not daring to go into detail, also turned a blind eye.
Soon a tired Takashi approached the withdrawn Tomoyuki and with a heavy sigh asked him what he was doing, to which Tomoyuki replied that all he was doing was sitting.
"That's the problem, brat," Takashi drilled the teenager with his insistent stare, and dragged him over to his familiar girlfriends who were standing near the tables.
Tomoyuki was aware that they differed in personality traits, but he still continued to stare at the ones Takashi was showing him. It came down to a girl he called beautiful and just Tomoyuki's type, adding that she was also a student at their school.
Her innocent face, giving off a lovely aftertaste of nonchalance, flashed back to Tomoyuki, seemingly not expecting to see people from his school here. It was a girl from his parallel class, with whom Tomoyuki, judging by his clearly captured gaze, was head over heels in love, though he hid his feelings in plain sight.
Takashi, ducking his ears, whispered to him, "I understand your feelings, because this schoolgirl, Fukumi Ayazawa, is really popular. No wonder if you're looking at her that way, but please don't reveal yourself so easily. It might affect my credibility."
When Tomoyuki nodded, Takashi suggested he talk to her, to which he received a refusal. The girls were talking to themselves, and a puzzled Tomoyuki felt completely uncomfortable, as if he were invisible. Takashi moved over to his friends and continued talking to them.
"Ayazawa-chan, I'd like you to meet someone."
Fukumi was surprised by the senior's friendly request, and together they walked over to the table where a thoughtful Tomoyuki was sitting. Eventually, they casually exchanged their greetings, and Tomoyuki, who felt Fukumi's sweet aura, inadvertently thought to himself if they were longtime friends. Then, Tomoyuki would have a much easier time with the opposite sex, for he had never had a relationship with them before.
Takashi comically told her about the funny things that had happened to Tomoyuki over the past few days. His manner of narration was very appealing, which made Fukumi giggle in a cute little voice for a long time, and Tomoyuki realized how well Takashi treated his girlfriends.
Eventually the senior asked if she had a boyfriend, to which Fukumi surprisingly replied that she was single right now. She got an unexpected phone call, at which point she immediately excused herself, thanking her for the pleasant conversation.
"There you go… Tomoyuki-kun, why didn't you talk to her while I was picking up conversation topics? No first impression you gave her, and you could have at least asked her something interesting."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't… I don't think I'll need it."
"What are you talking about? Wouldn't having a girl like that give you pleasure? Only a coward would sit idly by like you."
"That's easy for you, you know how to talk to them. I haven't… I haven't really had a relationship."
"Hmm, you have a strange outlook," Takashi retreated back to his acquaintances.
Tomoyuki was alone again. Immersed in his despair, he apologized for his stupidity, claiming that he could not appropriate such a thing for himself. He was unable to accept the truth of his lack of manhood. Walking out of the club, the guy headed toward the small park across the road. He sat on a bench and looked at the abundantly crumbling leaves of the pink sakura trees that grew in abundance in the place. The entire long path that ran diagonally across the park was littered with pink leaves, suggestive of peace of mind.
He regarded the visitors to such clubs as the embodiments of youthful recklessness and people who had crossed the thin line between the permissible and the ugly. Tomoyuki's views differed from the typical views of such a society of people who sat out their precious time drinking alcohol and consuming illegal substances — they literally destroyed both their health and the ladder to a happy life.
The people who were universally admired in this society, in his opinion, could be commensurate with the leaders of the lower hierarchy, who imagined themselves to be unrivaled lawless men.
In the midst of his inaccurate musings, he did not notice Fukumi approaching him as she walked along the path. As soon as he sensed her admiring presence, the schoolgirl asked him if she could sit beside him. Tomoyuki did not refuse.
"How noisy the club was," Fukumi sighed wearily. "It took my breath away when I went outside. What a relief…"
"And you…" Tomoyuki inquired, discreetly, "do you entertain here often?"
"By golly, of course not! My girlfriends called me — it was an invitation I couldn't refuse, for most of the familiar faces here are also gathered."
"I thought hanging around in clubs like this wasn't for ordinary people. I felt out of place."
"You know, Yamashita-kun, it could also depend on the mood. You shouldn't imply that all visitors to such clubs are bad people. Rather, they go there to take the edge off and forget their immediate problems, if only for a couple of fleeting hours."
Such a girl, surprisingly Tomoyuki, who is considered a role model at school, leaving only a trace of feminine naïve flawlessness, might also have acquaintances in the spirit of Takashi Matsuoka. This fact shocked the teenager, completely shattering all his perceptions of cute girls who seemed harmless on the outside.
He asked if she recognized him, for he was in a parallel class, to which Fukumi hesitated.
"Uh-huh…"
Her answer meant that she could hardly remember people like Tomoyuki, even considering the fact that they went to the same school.
Afterward, she asked him why he started walking with Takashi, to which Tomoyuki was puzzled. He couldn't move his tongue, thinking that he might have accidentally given away a secret. Tomoyuki also considered his relationship with Takashi a secret.
"Don't answer that!" Fukumi waved her palms. "I got it, sorry for the inconvenient question."
Takashi approached the park looking for Tomoyuki and saw him sitting with Fukumi from afar. When Tomoyuki tried to call him back, he didn't even notice her sitting at her phone watching her private messages on her phone, texting with a caller whose number she had written as "Sweetie." The young man's keen eye, noticing this inscription, was dazed with misunderstanding.
He was curious, and out of the corner of his eye found scraps of their correspondence, but it was enough to baffle his easy-to-remember brain and understand the meaning of her address to her chatty friend.
[Sweetie: "I love to hear you moan."]
[Sweetie: "I won't have anyone all night again tonight."]
Fukumi, after reading the last messages, happily turned off her phone, due to her stupidity not realizing that she had been caught red-handed by a peer.
"You called for me?" she only responded, smiling.
"No."
Tomoyuki, whose darkened eyes again hid beneath the covering of his hair, slumped down. He sat there, overpowered by the desire to look at her face, already disfigured in his mind after learning of her hidden deeds. She only appeared to be a girl hiding her persona under a mask of a fragile and joyful schoolgirl.
"Sorry, I got a bad message from an acquaintance."
Tomoyuki only mooed. Before she left, she asked him not to tell anyone that she was at the club and talking to the people there, asking him to forget that he had even seen her. Her tone of voice was charmingly kind, which confused Tomoyuki.
A lifeless and hazy look flickered in her direction as soon as she turned away and began to walk away. The only thing he longed for was for her to leave as soon as possible, so that she would no longer share the same air with him.
When they parted, Takashi walked over to the bench and asked him why he wasn't in the club, to which Tomoyuki merely stated that he had decided to ventilate himself from the children's noise.
"Well?" sat down next to him Takashi, whose eyes were literally blazing with interest. "Did you get to talk to her? Although I saw your absent-minded face toward the end and decided to call you off so you wouldn't ruin her whole impression of you."
"We did talk. Except I'd rather not cross paths with her anymore."
"Hmm? There you go again. Where did you get this crazy fear of the female gender? If you don't talk to people well, you should change something in your life."
"That's not the point at all, Takashi-san…"
"Stop talking out of your ass. Private word, this approach of yours doesn't suit me, it's annoying!"
"That's no excuse…!"
"Stop it," Takashi interrupted him obscenely. "I see your attitude toward people. You think you'd be more cleverly suited to the vocation of invisibility."
"Takashi-san," Tomoyuki retorted sharply, stalling his interlocutor with his hardened tone of voice. "Somebody listen to me already."
Takashi, feeling a rush of darkness emanating from Tomoyuki's back, pricked up his ears. And then Tomoyuki continued:
"I'm impotent. Ever since I was a child."
The brown-eyed schoolboy's eyebrows rose up in surprise at this turn of events, and he hesitated to find the right words as quickly as possible. It was like he didn't even know what face to make to look loyal to Tomoyuki's revelations.
"Hey hey, Tomoyuki-kun, don't take it so personally! It's just a regular joke."
"Okay…"
"Is that what made you seem like a rotten fish alone with Ayazawa-chan?" Takashi tried his best to change the subject to come with his own thoughts. "Is something wrong?"
"It's like revealing a person's innermost secret, after which comes total disappointment in their personality. She always instilled confidence in me just by being in the same office, because with her vibe she made everyone feel true human femininity. I thought of her as a regular girl who wouldn't dare mingle with the herd in the clubs."
"Jesus," Takashi put his hand to his forehead, saying to himself, "Tomoyuki-kun, should I take that as an insult? What a straightforward man you are."
"I understand," Takashi finally replied, "what you're getting at. Your conception of life, I suppose, collapsed because of one girl, of which there are billions. As a result, you began to redefine human nature. Each of us has philosophized at least once, but please note that when one feels a change in one's environment, one changes with it. In what direction depends on the improvement or deterioration of the environment itself.
Startled by the humble Takashi's ambiguous opinion, the teenager realized what he meant by his words. One thing was clear to Tomoyuki: The high schooler was unrestrained in his efforts to cheer him up.
"One day we will all change. Absolutely all of us. Who knows if the person you interacted with in your youth will end up next to you in the future and wear the same robe as you do. That's why the world is so mysterious and interesting. That's why it's so interesting to live and connect your perceptions with something new. Things that prove whether or not you live is why I want to live longer and take on the burden of being a sinner, because by doing so I would also continue to discover new things that even my perception could not think of."
The blue-eyed young man was fascinated by his mate's reflections, for in that moment alone they succeeded in giving him hope not to be discouraged and to continue to strive forward.
"All humans are equal," Takashi looked at the sakura petals falling to the ground, eyes that had so enchanted him to see both fear and sorrow. The thoughts that flowed from his lips were genuine and had grounding in the boy's personal life experience.
"All are equal…"
"What makes them different is whether or not they are willing to accept this change. It's probably in that change that all life lies. By accepting the present, one has the opportunity to step into the future."
After hearing his speech, Tomoyuki remained impressed by Takashi's ambitious thoughts for a long time, and as he accepted his words, he lifted his chin with a smile to see the sunlight streaming through the open corners of the sakura tree branches.
"Thank you, Takashi-san. Your words were just what I needed to get rid of the anger I had accumulated. Anger at people… for their deeds."
"By the way…" Takashi turned to him. "About you. You made a joke about your impotence so I'd stop interrupting you, didn't you? Admit it, otherwise it annoys me to be in the dark!"
Smiling frankly, Tomoyuki responded softly, "Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get your attention. You were going to tell me off for another hour."
"Ugh, and I thought… Anyway, you're having a hard time!"
"Huh? Why, I'm just a regular schoolboy, though I've had no experience with girls!"
"By the way, how do such… individuals live with their defect? Do they have to use all sorts of drugs to make their device bother to stand up?"
"They don't seem to have the ability to satisfy women."
"Oh, that's unfortunate. They have to enjoy life from a completely different angle."
Tomoyuki thought casually about his words. What vision of life could Takashi have had with the understanding that he saw Tomoyuki as a chain dog and an object of extortion? Even though he was giving the teenager life advice, real friendly emotion, which they didn't have, was priceless. If Takashi wanted to live longer, then Tomoyuki assumed he wasn't going to die from a revolver, at least not yet. This was what confused Tomoyuki, as he found a double standard in Takashi's appearance, akin to fickleness in his assertions.
"Um, listen."
"What is it, Takashi-san?"
"Do these people… masturbate at all?"