Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [20]
Yutaro seemed engrossed in his discussion, and the classroom was pretty noisy. Wataru figured his chances of calling out softly enough to get his attention without making a scene were close to nil. He looked around for another in, but none of the other faces he could see in the classroom were familiar enough for him to start a conversation with.
In Joto Elementary, if you were in a different class, you used a different water fountain, and that meant students from different classes rarely met. In fifth grade, some subjects like music or P.E. brought multiple classes together, or split them off into boys and girls, allowing a rare chance for cross-class communication, but like an unspoken rule, any friendship that developed lasted only for the duration of those periods, and no longer. Wataru knew Yutaro only because they were in the same class at cram school.
Wataru drifted toward the entrance at the back of the classroom and lingered there for little while. Yutaro was still too involved in his discussion to notice him. Wataru had a timid streak that came to the surface at times like this, and he found himself unable to step boldly through that doorway into unfamiliar territory. Moments later, the bell rang to signal the end of break.
Whatever, I’ll just talk to him tonight.
Wataru spun on his heels to make for his own room, and walked right into something large and black looming before him.
“Ow!”
The thing he had collided with made no noise. It smelled faintly of cough syrup. It was a boy in a black sweatshirt. For a fleeting moment, Wataru thought he was looking in a mirror, so much did the boy resemble himself.
“S-sorry,” he managed to say, and the illusion faded. The face bore some passing similarity to his own, but that was all. Too bad, because the boy was incredibly handsome. Wataru stood staring, his mouth gaping open. He had something of a reputation as a funny guy and he wore that title like a badge, always turning over a potential joke or a good comeback in the corner of his mind. It was like he had graduated from some sort of comedy boot camp and now, in overdrive, his brain crackled at super speed, turning over snappy oneliners in his head, considering and discarding one every thousandth of every millisecond.
What is this? National Good-Looking Boys & Girls Week? He abandoned the line as soon as it occurred to him. Too smug. Then he noticed the name tag on the black sweatshirt: “Mitsuru Ashikawa.”
“…Mitsuru Ashikawa. He grew up overseas, you know…”
It’s him! The transfer student!
Before Wataru could think of something clever to say, Ashikawa slipped past him into the classroom. He moved so swiftly that Wataru stood staring at the blank space where he had been standing for a full two seconds before he realized the boy was gone. When he finally turned around to look back into the room behind him, most of the students were seated at their desks, and the period bell (actually a computer-generated tone) tolled over the P.A. system for the last time, its final synthesized note shimmering and fading into silence.
Wataru sprinted back to his own classroom. His heart was racing.
After school, Wataru walked home, and then headed back out to cram school a bit earlier than usual. He knew that Yutaro often came early as well, and could be found quietly studying in a corner.
Kasuga Seminars was a five-minute bike ride away, and occupied the entire third floor of a four-story building. It was divided into three classrooms, and Wataru’s fifth-grade class met three times a week in the northernmost corner room. He attended a two-hour class focusing on Japanese and math.
He arrived to find Yutaro sitting by himself, as expected, in his favorite place in the corner of the classroom. He was looking at a textbook, with his handwritten