Tomoyuki was about to leave alone after completing another school day. He walked along the narrow roads, knowing the shortcut to the bridge exit, and finally when he reached a major road, he began to walk up the bridge. His house was a block after crossing the road on that bridge.
As he climbed the stairs at the top, he noticed the familiar silhouette of a tall teenager dressed in a blue school uniform. His brown hair fluttered in the wind, and his restrained eyes, which seemed to flutter with calm weekdays, looked out into the distance, straight toward the scarlet sunset, which with its bitter rays wrapped the surroundings in warm color. Yamashita, stepping closer to him, called his name, thereby taking all his attention.
"Takashi-san."
As the teenager cast his gaze over him, Tomoyuki noticed how he held a burning cigarette with his right hand. He didn't ask, because Takashi's social circle, Tomoyuki observed, was similar to the interests of Japanese hooligans.
"You seem slow today," Takashi added quietly, looking at Tomoyuki's cloudy, gloomy eyes. "At least I wasn't going to wait for you, for I skipped my last class."
"Then what are you doing here? You could have gone home earlier."
Turning his gaze back into the distance, Takashi uttered: "Never mind, though. I've been crossing this iron bridge since I was in high school, and it's taken me a while to get used to it. I think this place has become something familiar and calming to me, and the road doesn't connect to the crowded streets, so there's never any traffic. You can gather your thoughts as much as you want, because no one will bother you. However, you showed up and now I have to share space with you on this bridge."
With a shrug, he said there was nothing he could do about it.
"But you can forbid me to cross the bridge," Tomoyuki didn't hesitate to reply. "There is nothing I can do about it because of my weakness, and you are stronger than me. You can break all ties with me without difficulty."
"You're really not going to do anything about it?" misunderstood Takashi. "I mean your weakness — how can you be sure that you can survive in a cruel world, being powerless?"and he glanced back toward the road, where several cars were driving. "Not that I'm worried about the minnows that are tied to me for money, but still, I can't understand your philosophy."
"I don't think it was important to me, especially since I haven't encountered situations in which I've been threatened for my health before. Perhaps for these people you were beating, life had previously seemed rosier, and they had only dreamed of a carefree life, and your appearance in their world was something new to them, causing their ideas about the essentials to be shattered."
Takashi, who had his back to the parapets, stepped back from them, and turning to the schoolboy, inadvertently wondered what was going on in Tomoyuki's mind. When they first met, he seemed more masculine and solid than he did now, which made Takashi determine that his appearance in Tomoyuki's world had hit the naive schoolboy's head pretty hard. Indeed, the willpower and drive in Tomoyuki was not enough to defy the brown-eyed high schooler.
"However, I don't think I'm in any danger when there are you to intercede. You, Takashi-san, told me yesterday that I was one of you, though I think you meant otherwise. In each case, on reflection, I realized that you would not leave me to be molested by bullies, because by doing so you risk losing the man who brings you money out of thin air."
With a smile, Tomoyuki led the teenager into a stupor. What was Takashi's dismay when he realized that Tomoyuki knew everything about what was going on around him from the beginning, without even bothering to report it before. Tomoyuki's smile spoke of his loss of morale, unwittingly making it clear to Takashi's unhearing ears that no will was left in him anymore, and he fully accepted his defenselessness.
Unintentionally, it hurt the brown-eyed teenager to realize that Tomoyuki's tired routine had turned him into a subordinate, but on the other hand, that was what Takashi had intended from the beginning. He recalled this strange feeling of loss, for he had once faced a similar problem as well. He thought, without a chance to cool his mind, that he had begun to abuse what he hated and renounced.
"You'll have to defend yourself," Takashi finally said, and Tomoyuki's chin lifted. "We won't be thrilled if our wandering money in our childish thoughts gets appropriated by second-rate punk kids. After all, we won't always be able to help you."
And even if Takashi's "help" meant protecting the man he was extorting money from, Tomoyuki still didn't understand what the high schooler was talking about.
"What do you mean?"Tomoyuki tilted his head sideways.
"Nothing. I told you not to bother thinking too much. Not every word I say is sincere; rather, I am capable of joking sometimes."
The next day, gathering after a short day after school, the four of them made their way to neighboring yards, and, crossing paths and climbing stairs up hilly terrain, they finally managed to get up to a cozy neighborhood that towered above the rest of the streets.
There was no particular purpose for their coming here; they only thought of sitting on the edge of the playground and looking out over the city from the top. Basically, the playground, where they sat on a bench, had exercise equipment. Tomoyuki, regardless of the angle, watching the three high school students he was walking with laughing and goofing around felt a little alive as he was interested in their conversations. At one point, when Jiahao made a silly joke, Takashi and Makoto laughed loudly, and Tomoyuki giggled too, but no one paid any attention to it and they continued to talk.
That's when Tomoyuki realized that there was no way he could fit into their group, because he was a completely different kind of person.
"Tomoyuki-kun," Takashi called out to him, "come over here."
As the teenager approached, Takashi immediately swung his fist at him, trying to land a straight punch, but stopping at the end, and the distance between Tomoyuki's face and his fist was a measly couple of millimeters. Without even having time to move, it wasn't until a second later that Tomoyuki realized that he might have received a swift punch whose swing he hadn't been able to see.
"Indeed, didn't even dodge it," Takashi added, sighing, and lowered his hand.
"Be careful," Jiahao retorted, jokingly, "you'll kill him that way."
"Tomoyuki-kun, why didn't you defend yourself? You didn't dare?"
"I couldn't see the blow, and I didn't think I could face something like that."
"Haven't you ever fought?" Jiahao was embarrassed, looking over the young man's frail shoulders.
The teenager shook his head. They had noticed his weak physical form.
"Why don't you start exercising?" the brown-eyed Takashi said, waving his hand toward the exercise equipment that surrounded Tomoyuki on the playground. "It doesn't hurt anyone to look slimmer, and maybe you'll pick up a girl."
"He was hardly interested," Makoto gave the teenager a tired look, causing Jiahao to rise from the bench.
"You should develop your strength," Jiahao stated menacingly, clearly not wishing Tomoyuki harm, "right now. The sooner you come to the realization of this, the sooner you will gain opportunities for broad direction."
After thinking for a while, Takashi's lips finally moved, "Come with me.
With Tomoyuki, he walked over to the pull-up bars, which matched the schoolboy's short stature.
"Come on, pull up," Takashi pointed to the bars, and Tomoyuki was puzzled.
Jiahao and Makoto watched as he, having a weak body, was about to pull himself up. In the end, even using all his muscles, Tomoyuki couldn't pull himself up above the height of the iron bar and collapsed to the ground.
Remembering themselves in the past, the seniors giggled merrily.
"Now you're going to train," Takashi crossed his arms, feeling like the gym teacher of some school, "and learn to do pull-ups at least five times."
"Five times?" sparkled an exclamation on the face of an animated Tomoyuki, making Takashi startled. "I can't even do one pull-up!"
"You'll learn, and you'll do as many pull-ups as you can until you get above the bar."
"B-but… why would you want to do that?"
"You can't imagine," Takashi huffed against the machine, "what emotions you'll be able to experience when you get to the top. You'll discover a world you've never seen before, and maybe you'll find something important."
The spirit of virtue manifested itself in Takashi, which made Tomoyuki, who was sitting on the ground, sparkle in the depths of his soul with wonder combined with rapture. This delight was summoned because of his desire to see Takashi's other face, his good-natured alter-ego.
"Learn, Tomoyuki-kun, while we're here!" Takashi stuck out proudly, showing off his muscles to the admiring fourteen-year-old schoolboy. Makoto was put to Spanish shame by this, and Jiahao, a mediocre workout enthusiast, had wide eyes. Makoto was brought to Spanish shame by this scene, and Jiahao, gifted with broad muscles, his eyes lit up.
"O-okay!" Tomoyuki got to his feet and took back the bar.
Tomoyuki, in the light of the crimson sunset, tried desperately to pull himself up over the bar at least once, and with each new failure he tried again and again until his muscles were exhausted.
Takashi, standing beside the restrained Jiahao, whispered his certain requests in his ear, to which the interested Makoto looked at them with disgruntled eyes.
"I see where you're going with this," Jiahao put his fingers to his chin. "To be honest, it seems to me, too, that there may be an unawakened will lurking in this boy. However, Takashi-kun, why would you waste your time on him?"
"I don't know," Takashi replied in his subdued voice. "The sight of him makes me cringe. Nevertheless, some, tiny part of me puts hope in him. Who knows, maybe I won't miss out..."
Sweat trickled down from Tomoyuki's face, barely catching his breath. Preoccupied with his attempts to climb above his head, he, imbued with training, did not hear the speech of the seniors.
"I see," Jiahao said, nonchalantly. "In this case..."
"Yes," Takashi was finally assured of his reflection, and cast his eyes over Tomoyuki. "Tomoyuki-kun!"
The fourteen-year-old schoolboy turned his confident and firm gaze to Takashi and surprised him with his determination to train on the crossbar.
"From now on, we'll be hanging around here all after school hours. I suggest you come along with us on weekends, too, for your own good."
Takashi's words were firm and straightforward, and even if his cold stare told you not to care about his statement, inside the teenager felt a sincere but unrecognizable desire to do Tomoyuki a favor.
"I..." Tomoyuki clenched his palms into a fist, lowered his head, and with a brief thought and clenched lips, finally gained the confidence in his own abilities that he had previously lacked, "...I can come every day!"
Hearing him, Jiahao came to a shock he could find the strength to continue training and at the same time teach Tomoyuki the basics. Involuntarily, he wanted to become the teenager's sempai, helping him with training advice from time to time. Subsequently, starting from the following days, Jiahao, without noticing it himself, took on the responsibility of coaching Tomoyuki.
After several days of Tomoyuki's hard training on the bar, he finally managed to achieve the desired result and rise above the bar for the first time. Before Tomoyuki's astonished eyes opened an expanse he had never seen before — he felt like a bird, feeling himself towering above the buildings and trees on the slope, and spotting the thin silhouettes of hundreds of tall buildings in downtown Tokyo a kilometer away. Jiahao and Makoto also marveled at how he'd managed it, and Takashi noticed Tomoyuki's bright and genuinely happy eyes, wide open as he gazed into the distance. Tomoyuki saw a real view from the top. A view that gave him new hope and genuine emotion.