Side Story for the 200th Chapter (2)
The sun beat down so hard that even sunscreen seemed unlikely to save a person's skin. Waves kept slamming the breakwater and surging up over it, and the air was thick with the smell of the sea—briny, and yet somehow so clean it could punch straight through a stuffed nose.
And right there, in the shade under the eaves of a poky little shop with a country air about it, the kind of place fishermen favored, a boy lay sprawled.
"Yaaawn."
Shin Tae-il.
He had lived through something as unreal as a previous life, and at present he was not in Korea at all, but in Okinawa, Japan. His father, who worked in sales, had caused an accident at the company and been shipped off to this backwater on what amounted to a punitive business trip, the blame pinned squarely on him.
Unfortunately for Tae-il, it would have been better if his father had gone alone. His mother, an employee at the same company, chose to come along as well. She said that staying at headquarters would have meant living under everyone's stares, and Tae-il could accept that much. Staying behind at his grandparents' on his own had been an option too, but he knew those old folks' tempers well enough to find the idea anything but welcome.
"My luck really is absolute garbage..."
At first, even he had enjoyed it. Palm trees planted right in the city, an exotic town unlike anything he'd ever seen in Korea, a sea the color of emerald—he had been thrilled. For about a week he forgot his age entirely and ran wild like a kid. Now he was sick of it.
That was how it always went. Give a novelty a week and it all turns familiar, and boredom comes rushing in. After that, the inconveniences stand out more than the fun. The internet was slow. Well, of course it was. Who would expect otherwise from a hot, humid tropical island? It was hot, it was humid, and it rained constantly. On top of that, typhoons—something he had barely experienced back in Korea—hit often enough that the power, the water, and the internet were said to cut out at the drop of a hat. As the days piled up, the sheer difficulty of adapting to a strange land dragged Tae-il's shoulders down of their own accord.
Maybe thanks to the U.S. military base, there were plenty of clubs and live houses, thick on the ground the way they were in Itaewon, but almost none of them had the atmosphere he actually wanted. Most were jazz joints, or places that straightforwardly bought and sold alcohol, which meant a minor like him couldn't set foot inside at all.
Slurp.
Tae-il sucked at a mango juice gone lukewarm and bland, drawing it up through the straw. But not even mango juice, common as dirt in Okinawa, could touch the thirst that actually mattered.
"Haa."
The biggest problem, as ever, was that the burnout from one enormous failure still hadn't gone anywhere. Just taking hold of a bass made his hands shake. It wasn't the weight. It was purely the trauma of failure, screaming at him to stay away from this world and never come near it again.
"Hey, Shin Tae-il!"
A sharp voice, catlike, from somewhere off in the distance. His ears—attached to a body draped listlessly over the bench in front of the shop—pricked up. He tipped his head back, and there was a girl brimming with healthy energy. Silver hair shot through with violet stirred over skin tanned a handsome bronze. She planted her hands on her hips and bent forward, and those bright, sparkling purple eyes, like the purple-sweet-potato tarts the region was famous for, filled Tae-il's upside-down field of view.
"You loafing around here again?"
"Yeah."
Sakuraba Sakuya. A character from a manga and an anime he had liked, once upon a time. How shocked he had been, running into her at kindergarten.
This place... no way?
He searched the internet just in case, and sure enough, there really was a school called Yuuma High in the Tokyo area. Timing-wise, the band BARD, which played a central role in the original, didn't exist yet, but he was able to confirm the Arisugawa family, to which one of the other leads belonged. It really was the world inside that manga. Astonishingly so.
And he had met Sakuya—one of the original's four leads—in her hometown, Okinawa. Another protagonist dropped into some spin-off might have enjoyed the situation. For Tae-il, the first thought was why? Was this supposed to let him feel, secondhand, the success of people who were guaranteed to make it the moment they debuted—the dream he himself had failed?
It's not impossible...
If he kept the relationship going until Sakuya became a high school student and enrolled at Yuuma, it was entirely doable. For something labeled an S-rank talent, the surroundings of the band called Burning Blaze were strangely bleak. The chief problem was Katsuragi Ayane, the one in charge of composition, and her frequent mental collapses, along with all the friction that came with them.
If it were me, even so...
He was a bassist himself, as it happened. When Ayane caused trouble, he might be of some small help. And he could write the band its songs. Songs tangled together with the trauma of failure, carved so deep into his head that even now he couldn't forget them. If someone asked, he could recite not only the melodies but the chords, not a single one out of place.
The problem was this.
Are my songs even worth that?
Could the songs of a mere failure really be something a vocalist with a heaven-sent voice, Arisugawa Iris, ought to sing? Wouldn't he just be a nuisance? Tae-il's self-esteem burrowed deep underground all over again.
"Hey!"
Smack!
Sakuya brought both hands down across his cheeks.
"Wh-what the— you scared me..."
"Quit ignoring me! You are seriously arrogant, you know that?"
Little Sakuya huffed and puffed. Okinawa. You would think an island would discriminate fiercely against outsiders. It didn't. There were so many foreigners and tourists that prejudice against outsiders, or against nails that stuck up, wasn't as bad as people imagined it to be on the mainland. History being what it was, the people here were the ones who got discriminated against by the mainlanders, which said everything that needed saying.
Even so, Tae-il's clumsy Japanese was more than enough to make him a target of teasing, even for Okinawans. Children are pure. Pure, and sometimes merciless because of it. Sensing the mood in the air, he refused to mix with kids his own age and stuck stubbornly to being alone. Better alone than tangled up with children and worn out. That was his judgment.
The problem was that it wasn't a judgment any kindergartener had any business making. His mother, Yoo Ha-na, especially, worried over the future of a son drifting like a lonely islet in a strange land. A child's early surroundings leave a profound mark even after they grow, but she was buried so deep in work that she had no room left to look after Tae-il.
That was when Sakuya, the girl he had run into at kindergarten, stepped in. Even at that age her talent for being everyone's friend was enormous; she held a class-president sort of place in the room, trusted even by the kindergarten teachers. There was no way Tae-il was slipping her radar.
"Hurry up, let's go. Everyone's waiting."
"Waiting...?"
"Playing house!"
Playing house. Wasn't that exactly the sort of make-believe only little kids played?
You want me to play mommy and daddy with a bunch of kindergarten brats? Insane. I'd rather die!
Tae-il went pale and shot to his feet.
"Heh. You wanted to play with me too, huh? Come on, hurry up and take my ha—huh?"
He bolted. Tae-il tore off in precisely the opposite direction from the one Sakuya had come from. Only the mango juice left on the bench, its ice long melted, remained to greet her, lonely.
"You—youuuuu!"
Stood up by him, Sakuya fumed and took off after him, late as it was.
"Stop right there! Hey! Shin Tae-iiiiiiil!"
"No!"
Playing house? He would rather die. Tae-il fled for his life.
"If I catch you, you're not getting off easy!"
Sakuya laid down the threat and hunted him. It was a mercy, as far as Tae-il was concerned. If this had been even a little later, after Sakuya's eyes had opened to sports, she would have caught him on the spot.
"Heh heh. Kids these days sure know how to play."
"You're telling me. Hup—!"
"Get a bite?"
"Ate the bait and ran."
"A pro. A real pro."
"Haha."
And so the bond of the chaser and the chased began.
"Hup!"
Sensing the danger, Tae-il's eyes snapped open and he rolled hard to the right.
Whud!
A kick slammed into the spot where he had been lying. It was powerful enough to jolt the tatami underneath. If it had landed, he would have been hospital-bound with no say in the matter. The owner of that kick, having confirmed the dodge, smiled so wide the corners of her mouth nearly reached her ears.
"Ooh! Dodged it again today? You've grown."
"Are you insane!"
Tae-il, who had gone tumbling across the tatami, jerked his head up. The violet eyes that met his curved, sly as a crescent moon.
"Knew it. Togashi-sensei never misses!"
Sakuya, the very person who had launched a kick at the crack of dawn, lit up.
"The sleep presence-detection training the protagonist did on Greed Island actually works!"
"Stop applying manga training to real life, you filthy otaku!"
"Aww. You don't have to be that grateful. Ahaha!"
"Insane...!"
Faced with Sakuya, her brain steeped in otaku rot past any hope of saving, Tae-il smacked his own forehead without thinking.
How did she end up like this?
After he turned down playing house and ran, the two of them became bitter enemies. He did try, belatedly, to get close.
"Get close? Are you crazy? After you left me high and dry like that? Drop dead!"
Sakuya, as expected. The road to befriending her was anything but easy. The one mercy inside the misfortune was that she had, true to the original, set foot on the otaku road. He had seen it with his own two eyes—her secretly drawing pictures of pretty girls, convinced she was hiding it well—so he could be sure.
A chance to get close. That, as ever, was a shared hobby and a shared interest. So Tae-il made a point of openly enjoying Japan's most representative culture: subculture. The first thing he changed was his pencil case. At school he used, without a shred of shame, a case printed with a manga character so obviously otaku that anyone could tell at a glance.
"Y-you, that thing...!"
"Hm?"
As expected, Sakuya reacted immediately.
"Th-that's so otaku! And it's p-pink...!"
"What's it to you."
"Magical Girl Reina Magia...!"
"You know it?"
"A-a friend of mine watches it, so I just happened to...!"
In that same vein, Tae-il slowly dismantled her wariness and closed in, one careful psychological step at a time. Because they were enemies, her guard was absurdly high—but the fact that he was isolated in class worked in his favor, in reverse.
Even if she finds out I'm an otaku, she won't go telling other people, right?
That careless little assumption gradually loosened her defenses toward him. And in the end, the mask came off in front of Tae-il. In the worst possible way.
When her older cousin Miki moved out to live on her own and Sakuya was helping with the move, she ran into him, of all people. Of course, Tae-il had arranged the meeting on purpose. The two of them collided and went down hard. Naturally, everything inside the box Sakuya had been carrying spilled across the floor.
"Aaaah...!"
Sakuya went corpse-pale, as if she herself might actually be dead, and Tae-il picked up what she had dropped. All of it was doujinshi. The covers were so explicit that if they had been anime, they would have been buried under mosaics. A handsome man stripping the shirt off a feminine-looking man and kissing him was the tame end of the pile.
"Yaoi...?"
"Th-th-th-that...!"
Sakuya's mind had been bleached white. She couldn't get another word out. Someday, if anyone asked her to name the worst dark-history moment of her life, it would probably be this exact instant.
And so, the excuse that the things belonged to her cousin rang utterly hollow. Sakuya had been caught, by Tae-il, as an otaku.
"Y-you absolutely cannot tell anyone else!"
"Well..."
"Well!? D-don't tell me you're planning to blackmail me!"
"What?"
"Like in an ero doujinshi!"
"I get it. You've read so much doujinshi it's washed your brain squeaky clean."
"My grades are good, I'll have you know!"
"So you want me to blackmail you?"
"Kyaa! P-pervert! I knew it, you were after my body!"
"Hey, wa—! Say that here and what does that make me! Everyone's staring!"
"Oh."
"Pack it up, fast! Unless you want to be even more embarrassed!"
They grew close. Not, strictly speaking, in the direction Tae-il had wanted—but one way or another, the two of them ended up bound thicker than blood. Thick enough that when Sakuya went up to Tokyo, she dragged him along as her companion.
Of course, even with a separate living allowance, lodging under a girl's roof left him very little freedom. Just like right now.
"Come on! Change and get out here! Morning workout starts now!"
"I'm gonna lose my mind..."
It was entrance day, and still he had to exercise from the morning. Tae-il grumbled under his breath at Sakuya's brutal schedule. From the other side of the door she poked her head in, grinning.
"If you don't come out fast, I'm adding a hundred straight punches of gratitude."
"Nen doesn't exist in this world, you crazy bitch!"
"Ah-ah! You don't know that!"
Complete with a blazing background roaring up behind her, Sakuya thrust a clenched fist forward.
"Someone like me exists, after all. Who's to say there isn't someone even more incredible than I am?"
Sakuya was, in a word, a character out of a manga. Tae-il could have declared it with his head held high.
"What are you, the final boss of a shonen sports manga!"
"I mean, yeah?"
Sakuya, who had personally demolished the opposition with solo play in the Inter-Middle volleyball final, admitted it without a flicker. Otaku. Tae-il, only a light one himself, had badly underestimated the passion of a true hardcore otaku. Yanked around by her, and yanked around again, living through days that felt like a threat to his life, he was convinced that today would be the day of destiny.
The day of the Yuuma High School entrance ceremony...!
Time to collect what he was owed for all the years he had endured, cleaning up after Sakuya. A little earlier than in the original, but he would make contact with Ayane. And then, just as in the original, he would pull Iris into the band.
Dawn. Running side by side down streets that were still chilly, rather than bright with any crisp spring air, Tae-il asked.
"What do you figure your glorious high school life is going to be like?"
"Hmm?"
Sakuya slowed and tilted her head.
"Based on me sitting in and looking around a bunch of clubs last time..."
"Based on that?"
"I think there's going to be a ton of great material!"
There were an awful lot of weird upperclassmen for a place full of elites, she said, already raising her voice, full of anticipation for athletic-club life.
"Manga-style?"
"Manga-style."
Middle school had already been turbulent enough. Thinking that high school, too, would keep spitting out situations straight out of a manga, Tae-il felt the road ahead go dark. Reading the worry on his face, Sakuya grinned and smacked him on the back.
"Hey now! Fix that face. You can afford to take high school easy, Tae-il."
"What?"
"No matter what anyone says, youth only comes once in a life, right?"
She smiled and jabbed his side with her elbow.
"You've gotta enjoy it too. Youth."
"Easy for you to say. You think it works just because you decide to enjoy it..."
"Ahaha! I think it will, for you. You've got the temperament."
"What temperament?"
"The temperament of a romcom male lead?"
"That's an insult."
"Of course it's an insult! How could being told you resemble a romcom male lead possibly be a compliment?"
"Still, someone on Rito's level is likable, isn't he?"
"Him...? He's likable if he crossdresses, I'll give you that. You gonna crossdress too?"
At the word crossdress, Tae-il shook his head hard.
"Then what about Grandmaster Hachiman?"
"Ugh. Otaku, hard pass. Honestly, it's only fine because he's fictional. I would not want to get close to a kid like that in real life. Poor Yui..."
"Didn't you say you were on Team Naa? Anyway, what about Fantasy Massacre, then?"
"That one's not even a romcom anymore, is it?"
"Tough. A likable protagonist."
"Right?"
When Tae-il sullenly pushed his lips out in a pout, Sakuya laughed so hard her breathing fell apart, then muttered, small.
"Do you have any idea how much I went through to drag you out here..."
"What?"
"Nothing! Just stay like that for the rest of your life!"
"Have you finally lost it?"
"Eh? Me, you say?"
Sakuya laughed his insult off, infuriatingly.
"But if you're going to enjoy your youth, just keep that one thing."
"Which."
"During competition season, no matter what it is, help me first. Can you do that?"
As naturally as anything, Sakuya, running a half step ahead of him, stopped. Her shoulders shook. Sweat-soaked bangs had fallen forward, and her expression was hidden. Tae-il caught his breath and looked at her. Their eyes sat at nearly the same height. He let out a short breath of a laugh, tapped her shoulder with his fist, and took off running again on his own.
"Of course."
Adding something a little obvious as he went.
"Pfft."
Sakuya laughed and chased him.
"Bwahaha!"
"Quit laughing, you're bothering the neighbors!"
"No!"
Even with him trying to stop her, Sakuya laughed, blowing out great breaths.
"How am I supposed to stop when your face is that red!"
"Shut up!"
Tae-il forced his pace up, trying to get away from her. Sakuya caught him immediately. Then she kept on laughing, as if to show him.
"Ahahaha!"
As if this moment, right now, were nothing but joy. They ran, and they ran.
But a few days later, because of the girl Tae-il brought with him—
"Say hello."
Sakuya dropped the paper cup of water right out of her hand.
"This is Katsuragi Ayane. She and I decided to start a band together."
"I-I'm Katsuragi Ayane...! N-nice to—meet you!"
"You've gotta be kidding me."
They had been enrolled for what, a few days? And already Tae-il had appeared in front of her with a pretty girl plastered tight to his arm, right up to the point of setting her blood boiling. There was hardly any time left at all.