The Road to Kancho's Studio
People in this world, by and large, care far less about others than you might expect.
Of course, there are those who look after the people around them. Plenty of them stick their noses into the business of complete strangers, too. But even then, most of the time they’re just getting high on the idea of being the kind of person who helps others.
I’m not trying to call that hypocritical. I was always the sort who believed that even hypocrisy counted as good so long as it wasn’t done with malicious intent. I only mean that even people who do volunteer work will look away from whatever makes them uncomfortable.
How many associations and government departments are there, full of people crowing about how much they’re contributing to society—while turning a blind eye to the ones who actually need help? Anyway, like I said, I’m not trying to badmouth them. Right now that indifference, that looking away, is more convenient for me.
If someone had stared openly at me hopping along in shabby clothes with a tree branch for a cane, I would have felt pretty embarrassed. The fact that it was a weekday morning and the streets were nearly empty helped, too. The occasional people I did see hurried on their way as if terrified of even meeting my eyes, and I could feel how much they wanted to avoid running into me.
That felt rather pleasant. In games I’d only ever seen people who were hostile toward me. But out here in reality there were people who avoided me of their own accord, and that was amusing.
So that woman next door was the unusual one. She didn’t avoid me, and she didn’t get high on the idea of helping me either. She just casually scolded me and went on her way.
Thanks to all that looking away and indifference, I managed to reach the bus stop without any trouble. My body was tired, though. If I’d been moving on just one thin leg I might have collapsed halfway, but with a cane at least, this distance was walkable—more or less.
Unfortunately the benches at the stop were full even at this quiet hour. My plan to sit and rest until the bus came was dashed. Still, you don’t necessarily have to sit to rest. Leaning against the wall roughly still gave a bit of relief.
The sound of the tree branch tapping the ground must have bothered them; people glanced my way and then hurriedly averted their eyes. In the past, seeing them look so uncomfortable would have made me feel bad too. Maybe because I’d been cursed out so much in games, I didn’t feel a thing.
Then one man stood up while making an obviously exaggerated phone call.
“Hello? Yes? Ah, yes. Just a moment—I’ll stand up and check right now.”
There was space between his head and his hand, and a glance at the screen showed only an ordinary lock screen. Not the display that appears during a real call, yet he was pretending to talk on the phone. He stood, glanced this way for a second, then moved far away from the stop and stared at the road.
I couldn’t understand what he was doing. But the people who, like me, had stood to wait for the bus somehow didn’t sit in that empty seat. Maybe they thought the man had only risen briefly and would come back. Well, I’d had experiences like that, so I could roughly empathize.
On the subway, when I stood up for a moment to check how many stops were left, someone from far away would throw their bag and claim the seat. Since I was the one who’d stood, it was unpleasant but I couldn’t really complain. No one wanted to give that man the same unpleasantness, so everyone just stayed on their feet. I was the same. Or if, while I was heading for that empty seat, someone else sat down first—then I’d only look more ridiculous. It hadn’t been my seat to begin with.
So I spent about five minutes in that strange atmosphere of a bus stop where no one sat even though a seat was empty. Then the bus I needed finally arrived.
“Welcome. Welcome. Welco… me.”
The driver, who had been cheerfully greeting the passengers boarding ahead of me, hesitated when it was my turn and offered a half-hearted welcome. My father saying I looked unlucky must have been a truly objective assessment. In a comic it might be different, but in reality a person with bright red eyes would put anyone off. It wasn’t just the eyes. My clothes were shabby, and I was missing a leg. If I’d been in a wheelchair or on crutches it might have been different, but I was using a tree branch like a cane. Even I would worry that someone like that might cause trouble.
Still, the driver didn’t kick me off. He simply kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror until I sat down, as if worried I might start causing problems for the other passengers. Thanks to that, it seemed I would be able to ride sitting down.
I took my phone out of my hoodie pocket and checked once more how many stops it was to Kancho’s Studio, and how to get there after getting off. I carefully noted the surrounding landmarks as well. Checking a phone while walking with a cane seemed too dangerous. The reason a person can stand on two legs is the constant, organic balancing of soles, ankles, and legs. When one of those legs is replaced by a cane, staggering becomes natural. Even then you have to grip it with both hands just to keep balance and move forward; hold the cane with one hand and get distracted, and you fall right over.
Even though I’d become a woman, my head hadn’t gotten any worse. Five stops later, get off, walk one more block in the bus’s direction, turn into the alley, office above the bakery. Memorizing that route wasn’t particularly difficult.
Ah—now four stops. I’d just passed one.
Without much thought I stared blankly at the passengers boarding. It wasn’t that I was studying their appearances; my eyes simply went to them because people were moving. Even in games your gaze doesn’t linger on the still background. Looking at moving objects is natural.
Two college students who seemed to be friends. An ajumma with an empty shopping basket. A stylishly dressed grandfather who looked like he was headed somewhere special. These extremely ordinary scenes felt distant from me. Even as they passed right by, they seemed very far away.
Ah—the grandfather didn’t pass by. Apparently there were no seats farther back, so he simply stood holding the handrail next to me.
“Ahem.”
Then he cleared his throat. No matter how dense I was, I could tell at once that this was a gesture for a young person to give up their seat. It was absurd that he’d come next to me of all the many people on the bus. Well, whatever. I must have looked the easiest to push around.
So I stood up from my seat. At that exact moment the bus started moving, and I staggered.
“Ah.”
The hands that moved exactly as I wanted when I was gaming failed to adapt inside the accelerating bus. I tried to keep my balance with the cane and one leg, but the collapsed balance pulled me straight to the floor. If I was going to fall, better to get less hurt—I let go of the tree branch and went down flat. Hitting a chair or pole could break bones.
“Ugh…!”
“Hey, student! That’s why you should get up carefully. Wait a minute—your leg…”
“Whoa, that grandpa told a kid with one leg to give up the seat?”
“That’s really too much…”
“N-no! I never told anyone to move! This student stood up alone to give up the seat and fell! Don’t look at me like that!”
It was disgusting how everyone murmured against the old man even though no one had offered a seat first. But people are all like that. When it’s not their business they play dumb; when tearing someone else down they get excited and jump right in. No one was helping me while I lay on the floor, yet their mouths were very much alive. I hadn’t expected any help to begin with.
At least I was lucky I didn’t pass out the way I had when I fell in the bathroom. I had to reach Kancho’s Studio on time. If I’d lost consciousness and ended up in the hospital, I would have been branded a cheater who ran away scared of explaining myself. My hands and arms for gaming were fine. My elbow throbbed a little, but this much was bearable. If a bone had broken or cracked, the pain wouldn’t have stopped at this level.
“Ah…”
The problem was that the cane had broken. It was just a tree branch I’d picked up on the way home, so you could say I’d used it for a long time if you stretched the truth. But for it to snap now of all times. Maybe I really shouldn’t have come out. Should I just go home even now? What was I thinking, trying to explain a hack in my condition? Shouldn’t I have simply let the curses come, taken whatever food the downstairs neighbors gave me, and when it was time to be gutted, just gotten gutted as I was?
It wasn’t that I had any particular affection for the cane. But when the thing I’d picked up and been using reasonably well broke, my heart felt broken too. So I was going to contact Kancho and Celesti.
……The phone screen was shattered as well.
Really, nothing was going right today.