Dozens upon dozens of light novels read and reread told Yaki Bata to offer something moderately profound in the beginning. It establishes the tone, reveals a little something about character, and most of all makes one look deep. And what sixteen going on seventeen year old young male doesn't want to appear more profound than they are?
Especially when it came to a girl. And not just any girl. One of those ones you have a one in a zillion shot of ever landing—you know, just enough hope that you run it over in your mind the way it will go and it never does. But the hope never dies.
She's in your class. She's in your periphery at lunch. She's in your mind when you go to bed. The unnaturally smooth black hair with the hairband keeping nary a strand out of place. The posture she sports as she sits attentively in class. The way she holds her pen and transcribes her notes. The way she turns her head and casts her gaze right through you like the nonentity you are.
At lunch she's eating at her desk at the front with a group of two or three girls and one less number of guys. Truth is Yaki'd never actually seen her put anything in her mouth. Food, he was talking, of course. He'd seen her sampling, maybe, another boy's tongue. But no. No, he hadn't seen that. That definitely never happened when the two of them sat in a booth at the family restaurant Yaki worked at part time. What was he supposed to be thinking about again?
Oh yeah, an ideal start. A smart line that keeps you wanting to read more. He was the book. What to say to have her wanting to continue reading him?
'Mari Soji, I think I love you.'
The words escaped him. They reached their target. She and a friend just happened to be passing by his desk and he'd caught a whiff of kinmokusei in the air. Mari and her friend spun on their heels and looked down on him. He had his hands clasped, forming a fist on his desk, and his chin placed in the cup formed at their union. Mari, this particular day, had her face masked, which to Yaki just accentuated her beauty. Just enough of a tease to titillate, with those eyes like opals stealing the show.
'You think you love me?' she said, not spitting the words at him, which he'd been afraid she'd do. Genuine curiosity sparkled on the readable parts of her face, and for a moment Yaki's heart skipped a beat.
'You mean you're not even sure?' her friend said, more biting.
'That's not…wasn't supposed to…that's not the line…'
His chin fell out of the cup. He didn't know where to look.
'What line?' Mari's friend, Mei Imada said.
Oh, what he would do for a do over. This wasn't the start that would make him an intriguing book. Though he did feel Mari's eyes still reading him. He pretended to rummage through the bag by his desk for a pen, or a knife that he could cut himself out of this hell of his own creation.
'Have you ever even talked to Mari before?' her friend said. Her friend, unmasked, also featured good looks, though with sharper qualities that made the thought of coupling together inconceivable.
Yaki dropped the pretence of being busy with his bag and looked at Mari. It was as if Mei's words had pierced his chest and he had but a few moments before death took him. He became all too aware of the heat of the burning hell he was captured in. But he looked her in the face, as one should when talking from the heart. It might not have been a good beginning but it would be a memorable ending.
That's what he conceded, but not before their encounter was interrupted by Tobio Rokugawa. He draped his arms over the two girls, who attempted to shrug him off but eventually surrendered to his intimate presence.
'What you two talking to Yaki Gaki about?' he said, not even acknowledging Yaki with a how's it hanging, as he often did with the other guys.
Yaki felt his chest tighten, almost as if the blow he'd been dealt by Mei's words that drained him of blood had allowed for Tobio to reach in and handle his heart like it was some sort of squeeze toy.
'Nothing,' Mari said, a modicum of alarm registering in her typically measured voice. 'Just stopped to say hey.'
'Yaki said he thinks he loves Mari,' Mei blurted out, receiving a slap from Mari on her shoulder. She couldn't contain her amusement. Tobio put on a matching look. He looked down on Yaki, burning and suffocating on a mix of emotions.
'That's funny,' he said, his grin growing. 'That the first thing you ever said to her?'
'I don't think he's ever even talked to Mari before now,' Mei said.
Tobio's look turned. 'Come on, bro. Try harder.'
The wound began to seep again.
'You really lack imagination, you know that?' He regenerated his smile as he redirected his attention on both girls.
Mari shook her head and manoeuvred out from Tobio's embrace. She didn't spare Yaki a look as she walked a path to her desk. The other two followed, flinging laughter in their wake.
The rest of the school day didn't reach the low he'd just experienced but came close when he received a failing grade on his trig test. It wasn't just that he failed but failed oh so spectacularly that he might have nearly been better off just handing the test paper right back to be graded when he received it.
Nothing came easy to Yaki. Not even his intent to keep his score a secret from the students around him, who caught a peek when the test carried on a breeze off his desk and dropped at the feet of a cohort. Nothing came easy; it ate at him and ate him before there was just skin and bone. Tests and girls so simple to succeed at for many, but beyond his limited capabilities.
Already hollow from whatever power Mari's words had and whatever strength Tobio's presence possessed, he had nothing in him to really process the shame and hopelessness he felt. He carried his husk all the way over to his part time job, performing below standard service for a below standard young man. He couldn't put to bed the opening he wanted to start the day with.
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word,
Mari, Mari, Mari, Mari
Mari, Mari
It was as if, he reasoned, if he had just opened with his deep self this day then he could live with whatever impression other people had of him. He'd still be the book that others read after all. No matter to one's tastes or not; still respected all the same. Instead he was some scrunched up failing test paper better to be lost in the bottom of a bag.
Yaki spent some time stocking the rack of glasses at the drink bar. More to it, he took time to appear to be stocking glasses at the drink bar. He didn't even hide the fact he was helping himself to refills of Calpis soda. Such was his state of mind that he kept up appearances in one way when it came to his work and dismissed them entirely when it came to his character. He earned a rebuke from his senpai colleague, Daiji Nakata, who always looked like he was a few inches off walking like one of those hunchbacked old ladies that occupy the malls on weekdays. He knew that cause he skipped school to attend the opening day showing of an adaptation of a light novel he liked.
'It would be the cherry on the cake if you fired me right now,' Yaki said to Daiji, burping up a gas cloud of Calpis soda. Yaki hadn't been so brazen to drink it in front of Daiji but to the patrons he hadn't tried to conceal the act.
'You know I don't hold that power,' Daiji said, taking over the job of stocking the glasses.
Yaki held his own half filled glass behind his back and emitted a smaller burp. He watched the diligent, honest work of his senpai. His guts churned the large volume of drink he had consumed. He finished his shift doing the work of one of the robot waiters who had malfunctioned. After delivering a hamburg steak to a sad, overworked and overweight, lone customer, he offloaded the rest of the orders on another colleague and pretended to be cleaning the accessible bathroom. Mari was in the bathroom with him. Even with the odds now one in two zillion, he didn't let go of her.
Is there anything more to him, he thought, as he scrubbed the seat for a good one second of work? A lovesick, failing student who lacked imagination, who lacked a proper work ethic, who lacked in even thoughts that went beyond his own small self.
With his shift ended, fatigue mainly plaguing his mind but affecting his body, he walked to the nearby train station and without tapping on, waited for a train on the JR Higashi Line. It was the next to last train of the day and he got on and slumped onto the seat, unable to think on anything anymore. The carriage he entered was sparse. The other riders either buried their heads into their phones or slept, mouth agape, chin raised to the roof. One had his phone on the seat next to him, lights out, with his tie askew and his face red all over. Another hauled a baseball kit bag on his back, head in a chemistry book, as he moved on to another carriage. There was even an elementary school kid with her sparkly randoseru. It wasn't too odd to see kids riding the train by themselves but he couldn't imagine what she was doing out late at this hour by herself. She was swinging her legs and looking very sleepy.
Tobacco and beer became an omnipresent aroma as the train stopped to pick up and let off passengers. After a time of immeasurable passing, he joined the sleeping bodies, fighting to stay awake with his stop coming up, but succumbing to its pull. The last thing he saw before his eyes shuttered close was a number of passengers getting on with suitcases as if they were off to some holiday destination. He woke with a start to a constant sweep of cool air from the open doors. He saw that the other passengers had all disembarked. Some still walked along the platform toward the gate. Brushing the sleep off his face, he joined the line and stood under the light of a cobwebbed lamppost. He came to, noticing the rather long procession of people and catching the scent of salt and sea in the air. He cursed aloud but not too loud at having missed his stop. He reached into his pocket to check the time on his phone but couldn't get the damn thing to turn on. He was still trying as he reached the front of the line and continued on through the narrow gates, determining to find the train schedule to see when the next train would come. There appeared to be nothing to indicate the time or the name of the station. The station itself was nothing more than a small open arched building with stripped and splintered wood pillar supports. A melody sounded from speakers, probably to notify end of service for the day; it sounded very childlike and unfamiliar.
Yaki discontinued his efforts with the phone and looked out from the arch of the entrance and beyond at the moonlit ocean. Directly before him was a taxi pool and a yokocho with shops and restaurants and bars that led to a busier strip of road that faced the coast. Before he could even question how he even ended up in a place where the train line to his home didn't even go—he lived in a semi rural town with rice fields and an expressway overpass and a cemetery on a hill—he felt a hand on his shoulder.
'Young sir,' the Stationmaster said, complete in uniform and cap, 'do you have your pass on you?'
'What?' Yaki said, startled and pulling back from the hand on his shoulder. 'Where is this, anyway? I have no idea how I even ended up here.'
'Would you come with me, please?' the Stationmaster said, directing him to a corner pocket of the building where a small work station was set up behind a partition.
'I'm sorry, could you just tell me when the next train is coming?' said Yaki, hoping to appear worried but not outright frightened like he'd lost his parents or anything. 'I fell asleep and missed my stop and I just—'
The Stationmaster pulled a chair out for him and sat opposite. His age was difficult to place. He could have been anywhere between twenty-five to forty-five. A square jaw and gaunt cheeks with spider black eyes gave him a look of refined maturity. A toothless smile offered youthful softness.
'Your pass please, sir,' said the Stationmaster, hand out.
'I don't even know where I am,' Yaki said. 'As I said, I missed my—'
'Your pass then for your stop?' said the Stationmaster, still patient and considered in his tone.
Yaki handed over the pass that he hadn't used to swipe on for the train. It only worked between the station closest to his school and home, so he couldn't tap on at the station near his work. If he had been questioned, he would have made an excuse to say he had forgotten to do so at the station nearest his school. Without looking at the pass or checking it in one of those machines that he'd seen station staff do, the Stationmaster just shook his head; the smile fading from his face.
'You have committed an offence, Mr. Free Rider,' said the Stationmaster. 'A serious offense, indeed.'
'I didn't—free rider? What are you…'
'I see no other way for your debt to be paid.'
'Debt? How much is a ticket? I have some money, I can pay—'
'Always the easy way for you, isn't it?' The Stationmaster's smile lacked the subtlety of their initial encounter and now resembled something all together more sinister.
'I'm sorry, but how do you even know me?' Yaki looked around the cordoned off space and noticed a heading on a plaque that labelled here as 'Gokushima Station.'
'Well at least I haven't died,' Yaki said, meeting the Stationmaster's concentrated look before wilting under its intensity. 'For a second there I thought this might be—hold on, is this but a dream? This isn't real at all, is it? It's a dream.'
The weight lifted off Yaki's shoulders. So much for lack of imagination. Gokushima wasn't anywhere he ever heard of. And yet—
'As I was saying,' the Stationmaster continued, 'you must pay for your offence. Not with some fine, so you can just put behind what you've done, but you will work for me until you have paid off what you owe.'
'I don't think you can do that,' said Yaki, wishing that a train would pull up and he'd be able to dash and make his escape.
'Here, im free to do as I see as necessary,' said the Stationmaster, taking off his cap and revealing slicked back black hair with nary a strand out of place. 'You want to be a free man, right, Mr. Free Rider?'
'Why do you keep calling me that?'
'Of course being free doesn't mean you are free to fly in the face of—or should I say, ride in the face of the rules.'
A lump caught in Yaki's throat. 'Have I died? Are you the devil?'
'Do I look like a devil?'
'I don't…know…no.' Yaki sensed a cold heat radiating off his face.
'Do you feel dead?'
'No, I feel the same as ever,' said Yaki, relieved for some reason that no matter how sad the reality he was in he was still living it.
'So it's done,' said the Stationmaster, producing a pen and recording a note in an open book before him.
'Hold on,' Yaki said, trying to sneak a look at what he was writing. 'I have school. I need to get home. I can't just work for you. If I admit I've done wrong, can't we find some other way. I don't know I can, uh…'
Oh man, he really did lack an imagination.
'Fine, how bout I…I'll come back on Sunday before my part time job and I help you then. Can we call it square then?'
The Stationmaster stopped scribbling and put down his pen. Fingers intertwined, he said, 'So you wish to negotiate some arrangement? Tell me, is this the first time you've evaded the train fare?'
'Umm, yeah I was tired, it was a mistake and I forgot to tap on.'
The Stationmaster smirked, placed unevenly on his face.
'I can't tell you what is worse, your negligence of the law, your disrespect of society at large, or your lies.'
Yaki shuddered, working to close off his mind, too afraid that the Stationmaster could peer right in.
'But I'm fair man, so let's negotiate. If you are able to best me right here right now, I'll wipe clean your slate of crimes.'
A light gust of wind echoed through the building. Yaki even discerned the sounds of revelry from the yokocho. Faint music amongst raucous laughter.
'Best you? You mean fight you?'
'Of course.'
'I've never fought in my life,' Yaki said.
'Neither,' said the Stationmaster smiling. 'Then it will be a fair contest.'
Yaki studied the perfect contours of the man's face, detecting nothing that could prove the man's insanity.
'I don't want to fight you,' Yaki said, for some reason contending with that sense of hopelessness that earlier in the day he battled. It now felt so long ago, he had trouble recalling the origin of its metastasis.
'Okay then,' the Stationmaster said, picking up the pen and retaking his notes. 'The work you will perform under me will not be easy, I warn you. Though I don't know if you would best me, I applaud you for finally taking the harder route for once in your life.'
Yaki pinched himself, resolute that this was all a dream and he was still asleep in that train car. Soon the doors would open and an announcement would alert him to it being his stop.
Even in his dreams, he endured nothing but suffering.