On a Godless Planet:Volume1B Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Paperboy 04

–The morning sun shines on the moment of renewal.

●

“I died!!”

I was at a quiet location.

It was a terrace.

The ceiling and floor were semicircles and, to reveal my complete lack of vocabulary, the floor was super-duper smooth. I was lying down and couldn’t even get up without slipping because of how, well, smooth and slippery it was. Man, I really don’t have much of a vocabulary, do I!? Oh, but it was colored white.

It was a large area with glass around the outside. Everyone had restrained me and thrown me in here. Was this one of those rooms where you had to do something to be let out?

But things were pretty crazy outside the windows. That had to be outer space. It was the night sky but without a ground below it. It continued on forever and a whole bunch of lights were flying back and forth while things exploded.

Yeah, it was like a 3D version of a shoot ‘em up’s final stage.

Except I was being automatically flown through it, so was it more like a 3D theater? Was this Galaxian 3? Project Dragoon?

And someone stood there with all that in the background.

It was a girl.

I’m pretty sure I knew who she was.

She was…

●

I awoke with a start.

I felt like I just had an awful dream. Or rather…

“I died!!”

What I mean is, I experienced a shock that took my life away, leaving me dead. But it wasn’t a bad thing. I was surprised by something that made me to happy. I had wondered if something so good could really happen to me.

“Excellent.”

I caught my breath while just sitting in bed in a T-shirt and boxers with the morning sun shining in on me.

I checked the digital clock on the same shelf as the TV next to the bed and saw it was 08:05 of 8/5/1990. I liked how the time and date matched. Was this going to be a good day?

But that aside…

“Is this what it was??”

The reason I had “died” had fallen onto the bed. They were game glasses for an immersion game. That would mean I fell asleep playing a game. But in that case, what a game! What a story! Was that one of those porn games that keep coming out these days!? I hope so! The scene I was seeing would still be uncensored too! Wait, what do I mean “still”? Oh, who cares.

But in that case, I wanted to avoid continuing the porn game first thing in the morning.

●

Oh, right, I thought.

…It’s summer break! Now’s not the time to be sitting around playing porn games!

I had been spending all my time working part-time. On the last day of school, I had played Darius II in a Darius cabinet at the Oslo in front of Tachikawa Station. When I left the arcade just before it closed, a HiAce was parked there.

“The heck is this?”

“We’re gathering people for street vendor jobs in Ishikawa Prefecture. Wanna come?”

I of course hopped in the van and ended up cooking okonomiyaki in Ishikawa for about two weeks. Man, I’m stupidly impulsive at times. I gained a new skill plus 170,000 yen and thought I was set for life, but it was really annoying how none of my colleagues knew Japanese and we had no other language in common either.

Anyway, after spending the start of my summer break like that, I thought I would use that funding to buy a bike, some clothes, a bag, and other equipment for a trip.

I was thinking about getting a sleeping bag too since I was planning to camp out.

Which reminded me.

“I should go on a trip.”

Where would I go?

It wouldn’t count as a real trip unless I went further than Ishikawa.

I knew Ishikawa pretty well. On my 5th day working as a street vendor there, our “boss” gathered everyone together, spread out a map of Japan, and spoke with a fairly useless interpreter next to him.

“Listen up. One of you ran off, so let me be clear about this: You can only survive here because we took you in. You have nowhere to run to, okay? …Wait, what are you doing here? You’re Japanese!”

“It just kind of happened.”

And when he paid me…

“Where’s the payslip?”

He gave me a huge compliment for asking that: “You have a lot of guts, you know that!?” Not sure why, but okay.

●

Wow, I am being really exposition-y here, aren’t I?

●

I didn’t have any breakfast. Crap. I hadn’t expected the fridge to be empty.

I needed a full stomach before I left on a trip.

I did have money. As for clothes…

“What was my part-time job for again?”

The closet only had school uniforms. And I mean only new style summer ones.

Also…

“Why do I have women’s underwear in here?”

Had I awoken to a new fetish at some point?

●

“For real?”

These were clearly underwear. Women’s underwear.

When had I bought them?

And what did it mean? I could maybe understand a swimsuit…well, no. That would be weird too.

My life here had grown confusing in the blink of an eye.

This made no sense.

Up until last night, I was cooking okonomiyaki with my bottom-of-the-pyramid pals and enjoying myself by admiring the cute young women in yukatas, the fireworks, and the other festival sights. But then I get home to find women’s underwear in my room.

It was kind of scary, so I checked the bath and in all the drawers. I also looked under the bed.

“No one’s here.”

I started to worry there was some obsessive stalker in the room next door and this was their doing.

It would be pretty bad if they had their room covered in photos of me and they pressed their ear against the wall while making weird noises. Unless they were a hot, busty, and kind – then it’d be A-OK! Bring it on!

Oh, but the room next door is supposed to be empty.

Now I disappointed myself.

But what was with the women’s underwear?

“…”

I tried them on in front of the closet real quick.

“A perfect fit.”

Huh?

Is that what this was?

Had I done it? At least this meant I hadn’t stolen them.

“But wait!”

What did this mean? I began an investigation.

●

I grabbed my wallet from the kitchen, opened it, and checked the receipts inside.

I had just over 110,000 yen left. And the receipts said I must have gone to the FamilyMart in Sunagawa last night. Also…

“I bought these at Will? This ‘Women’s Under’ has to be it, right? I didn’t hop aboard a HiAce to go help out because the women’s underwear was in trouble, did I?”

But if I was helping out, why would they have charged me money? That makes no sense. But still…

“I don’t remember this at all.”

Why did I head out to buy women’s underwear one summer morning? I had no idea, but I could picture the scene at the register. It probably went something like this:

“Oh! I’d like these please! A bra and panties set of women’s underwear! No, 5 sets! Oh, do you have these in wine red!? Then I’ll have one set in that! That should be more exciting! For my family!? No, no! For me! Yes, and could I get a receipt please! Filled out anonymously? No! Fill out the receipt for Sumeragi Izumi! Yes, that’s my real name of course! And make sure the product is listed as ‘women’s underwear’. …Oh, it’s all ready!? Thank you so much!”

I was pretty sure I would have gone that far, but it was hard to say.

I should probably stop inventing memories.

Anyway, I didn’t remember doing it, but I had definitely bought the mystery underwear. The memory was entirely absent, but it was possible I had bought them by mistake somehow. However…

“That would be so boring.”

It is what it is, so can’t I just say something more interesting happened? I wondered.

Anyway, I had new style uniforms, so I could put one of them on and go shopping for casual clothing.

Then I could go on a trip.

But I didn’t want to bring too much with me. I could wash my pants and shirt at my destination, so I decided to pack two days’ worth and I could do the same with underwear. Anyway…

“Time to go shopping.”

●

“Okay.”

Once I was dressed, I headed out. My room was on the 2nd floor. The hallway was as large as a terrace and…

“–––––”

I felt like there was someone there.

But there wasn’t.

Of course there wasn’t.

The room next door was empty. I checked out of curiosity but didn’t sense anyone’s presence near the door.

I looked out past the railing, but…

“No one.”

There was no one there.

●

“Since when did I get so lonely?”

I tended to talk to myself, but that was due to playing too many video games.

But whatever.

There was no one there, like always. The garbage trucks would be out at this hour, so it seemed too early to go shopping.

But something wasn’t right.

No, everything was right, but that right felt wrong. Like something was asking me if I really wanted this to be right.

The feeling had been following me around all morning, but what was it?

“Oh.”

I remembered I had checked out some books at the library.

I couldn’t remember when I had checked them out, but it must have been a while back.

I also couldn’t remember why I had checked them out. Had I done it before summer break?

“That’s right, that’s right,” I said. I was trying to tell that odd feeling that things here really were right. I had to finish my preparations and then leave on my trip.

But would it be okay to keep the books checked out over summer break? I wasn’t sure. I was pretty sure the library was always open.

So I decided to go return them.

That would kill some time this morning.

They would probably be open by 9, so I could kill time there until around 10.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.”

Doing that felt “right” somehow and that seemed to drive me to action.

Something wasn’t right.

So I returned to my room, stepping out of the bright morning and into that dark indoor space, and felt some meaningless relief. But I felt a weird urgency, like I couldn’t stay here forever.

“The books.”

There they were.

●

In the kitchen, I found 5 books stacked up on top of the storage box next to the fridge.

I didn’t remember reading them, but that made sense. If I had actually planned to read them, I wouldn’t have gone to Ishikawa. And they were probably really overdue by now.

It would have seemed too weird to carry them in my arms, so I stuck them in a shoulder bag.

Then I left.

There really wasn’t anyone when I left my room.

●

Why did this all feel so weird?

●

I thought about a number of things while walking, but other than the weird empty spot in the junk food section of the convenience store I stopped at on the way, everything was normal.

The clerk responded in the usual doll-like fashion, so everything was normal.

“Are they out of ginger ale too? I could have sworn they kept it here.”

Something was beginning. My 7th sense said so.

But I couldn’t worry too much about that, so I bought a meat-filled steamed bun and a fruit and vegetable drink for an unnecessarily balanced breakfast.

●

Once at school, it was ten past nine, but the library wasn’t open.

“What the heck!? And I was hoping to look at the sex ed books and the gymnastics and swimming pages of the practical PE lessons! How dare you suck all the fun out of my summer break!”

I rattled the door like a monkey, but it wouldn’t budge. That pissed me off, so…

“Dammit! Do I have to take a dump in front of this door to teach you a lesson!?”

But I realized they definitely had security cameras in the hallways and doing that would only hurt me, so I abandoned the idea.

This had all been a waste of time. I thought about checking on my classroom, so I walked down the walkway to Building B.

And then…

“Ah! Sumeragi-chaaaan!”

Someone called to me from Building A.

●

I looked up from the walkway, wondering who it was, but…

“…”

There was no one there.

“Eh?”

The place was deserted. I still thought I could hear the voice echoing between Buildings A and B, but there was no one in the Building A hallway. None of the windows on its three floors were open.

I must have imagined it.

I was hearing things. Or to put it more simply…

“Is my true power awakening within me?”

I’m serious!

But I could have sworn I heard that phantom voice. Which I guess is how phantom voices usually work.

“Did it come from there?”

The eastern end of Building A was the club building. I didn’t belong to a club, but I decided to check it out.

●

I went there.

It was summer break and pretty early in the morning, so there wouldn’t be anyone there.

I wanted to go to Will at 10, so I had to kill time until then.

And while considering that, I noticed something.

“It’s like I’m trying really hard to find a reason to go there.”

●

The club building…or did they call it the school club building? Who cares.

It was a 3-story circular building with a courtyard in the middle.

The entrance was an opening through the first floor leading into the courtyard. When you passed through the building, there were shower rooms and such on the right and stairs and vending machines on the left.

It felt like you could live here if you wanted to.

It was really quiet at this time.

The sun was not yet shining directly into the courtyard, so it was only dimly lit.

“So this is what the place is like.”

And just as I said that…

“You suck so bad at this!”

“Ohhhh, sounds liiiike you’re having fuuuun.”

I heard voices.

They came from the room directly across the courtyard from the entrance. More than one person were doing something exciting inside.

It was still barely past 9, so if they were this heated up now, they may have spent the night there.

I was curious, so I decided to approach.

“Hey.”

But someone called out to me from behind.

●

I looked back to find someone I didn’t know. I got the feeling he was an upperclassman. He had a turban made from a few different colors of bandanna worn deep over his eyes.

“It hasn’t been deactivated yet, so you can come out, but you can’t go in. Circle around on the inside.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, yeah.” He leaned back a bit. “Fine. I’m headed in the same direction, so come with me.”

I didn’t know what any of this was about, but I did so.

Really, though. What was this about?

All we did was circle around the courtyard. We followed the inner wall and the upperclassman in front of me tapped on the wall or drain spouts along the way. And then…

“This is the place, right? The game club.”

“Oh, yes! This is it! Thanks!”

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone at first. And I’m partially to blame since I forgot to deactivate it this time.”

He reached for a door painted with an “Art Club” label.

“See you. You can head straight through on your way out.”

“Okay,” I said while he opened the art club door and went inside.

Was I imagining the smell of incredibly dry sand coming from in there?

A hot and dry wind blew out from the room.

“Ohh?”

Did the art club have a kiln for firing pottery?

I noticed something as the hot wind circling around the courtyard pushed on me.

At some point, I had grabbed the doorknob to the game club where I had heard those voices.

●

Would I do it?

Would I go in?

No, wait. I had to knock first.

The art club’s door was shut, but what about this one?

Could I open it?

Could I get in?

I was only going to take a peek to kill some time.

And if it wasn’t a good fit for me, I could just say bye and leave.

Was I going to do it?

I was.

Yes.

“Okay.”

Just as I decided to do it, I heard a voice from behind me.

“What are you doing here?”

●

I didn’t even need to look back. I knew who this girl was.

Yes. Her grades were 5th in our year and she had a crazy belligerent way of talking, but she was really easy to get worked up.

“Umm, your name was…”

“Hm? Wait a second.”

“Huh? What? You got a problem with me standing here!? You refuse to recognize me as a fellow intelligent being just cause I’m standing in front of a door!? You think I’m not worthy of standing in front of doors!? Oh! I see how it is! Well, fine then! I’ll use the back entrance!”

“I don’t care about any of that. …So what’s this? Do you remember my name?”

“Eh?”

My initial response was “of course I do”, but then…

“Huh?”

“What?”

Once she asked, I realized I didn’t know the name of this girl in a new type uniform.

No, I did know it, but…

“I know it, but I don’t?”

“What now?”

“Oh, I get it. I haven’t raised the proper flags yet. I didn’t meet all the conditions for this route.”

“What are you talking about?”

She gave me one hell of a glare.

But I shook my head.

I knew her, but I couldn’t find the memories. It was like the information I knew had to be there was sealed off and I couldn’t find it.

So was it actually in my head somewhere?

“Umm.”

I thought for a bit and it hit me.

“You have a body part in your name, don’t you!?”

“Like what?”

I gave her a closer look.

…Was it hips?

Even from the front, I could tell she had a nice butt, so “butt” was my real guess there. But I couldn’t exactly just say “butt” to a girl. So…

“Are you Oda No-boobs-naga of the Oda clan?”

“Kuwajiri. My name is Kuwajiri.”

“Cute-wajiri?”

“Kuwajiri!”

Then she walked over next to me.

Hooray, I’d never been so close to a girl before! But I had to avoid doing anything creepy. Then I’d get the cops called on me for the first time too. Besides, getting turned on just from being near a girl would make me pretty pathetic. Yes, I wouldn’t get turned on from being near just any girl. Only the busty ones. And did Kuwajiri count there? She did not. Which meant now was not the time to get turned on.

“Very logical.”

“What are you muttering about? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m functioning on pure logic here.”

She gave me one hell of a glare.

But I had calmed down. I wasn’t even trying to touch her or anything criminal like that.

“Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. You smell a lot like Karamucho and snacks like that. Are you okay?”

“What!?”

She glared at me, but she did take a test sniff of her own hair and arm.

She must have been near those snacks sometime recently. And…

“––––––––”

She glared at me again, but that was all. Then she reached for the game club’s doorknob that I had let go of.

“What? Did you want to join the club?”

“Eh? Um, well, to be honest, I was just trying to kill some time.”

“I see,” she said while turning the knob and pushing. “Then I’m sorry to say that no one’s in yet today.”

●

Eh? I thought. What is she talking about? Because…

“I just heard voices from in there.”

I followed Kuwajiri through the opened door, but…

“–––––”

There was no one inside.

●

There was no one there. Well, Kuwajiri and I were there, but in the large space past us, I only saw a table and six chairs. There was a window and lockers past that.

“Are you sure you weren’t just confused?”

She flipped on the lights and it felt kind of chilly.

But not because the air conditioning was on. The deserted room simply lacked the heated energy I had expected. But…

“No, I definitely heard voices from in here. They sounded like they were messing around. Oh! But I don’t mean that in a dirty way! They were both male voices, but it wasn’t that kind of messing around! Don’t get any weird ideas, okay! Man, that really sounded like I was talking about something dirty, huh!? If you point out it sounded dirty, it means you’re normal, but if you don’t, it means you’re a secret pervert! Which means you’re the stealth perv here.”

She ignored me.

But I had heard voices from in here.

There was a table.

There were things left on top of the table.

There were chairs.

“You can take a seat if you like.”

The frontmost seat on the far right was by the entrance, so it was probably meant for visitors like me.

I sat down and looked around.

“…”

It was a concrete room simply painted white. There were a few pipes running along the ceiling, but they were hard to see.

Further in, there was a window with lockers along the wall on either side of it. There were shelves up to the ceiling on top of the lockers and they had some kind of storage boxes and bags on them.

There was an air conditioner on the front end of the ceiling and two sets of two fluorescent lights.

It was a crudely designed place, but that made it feel like a home base.

“I see.”

Kuwajiri had opened the rightmost locker and stuck her head inside, but now she stepped back and took a breath.

She turned toward me.

“I’ll be leaving now since that was all I needed to check, but what about you?”

“Oh, then I’ll leave too.”

“You can kill time here if you want. No one will question it if you say you’re thinking of joining the club and we generally leave the place open.”

“Man, you’re careless!”

“Our upperclassmen are pretty influential, so generally no one would dare steal anything.”

She walked quickly toward the door.

“I’ll keep this open. …You’re headed to Tachikawa, right? You can wait until 10 reading those books you brought if you want.”

●

“She actually left me here.”

She really was careless.

But leaving now felt like it would only encourage her carelessness. And…

“I could have sworn there was someone here.”

I checked under the table, but there was no one there. Honestly, it would’ve been pretty scary if there was someone there, so I was glad there wasn’t.

“…”

That just left the lockers in the back. There was a 21-inch TV in front and I saw a Famicom in the TV stand below it.

“What were the people here doing?”

I went to check.

I stood up and checked inside the TV stand. I saw the Famicom as well as a box full of game cartridges.

●

Ohh, they’ve got a lot of classics here, I thought.

Most of them were multiplayer games. Famista was an obvious example. Same with the soccer game. Oh, the rules for Tecmo’s American football game were a bit confusing, but I loved how big the characters were in it.

“I was a Megadrive kid, so it’s nice having all these here to check out.”

They even had Penguin Wars.

“When you play against other people, it always puts you up against the CPU for the first round. I really wish they would fix that.”

Then I realized something.

I had discussed this with someone before.

●

“But with who?”

With a friend? No, I wasn’t the friend-having sort of person. I could say that with absolute confidence.

But what was this? I felt like I had discussed with a whole group of people before. Or more accurately…

“I discussed it with someone when several other people were present.”

But what did that mean? When would there be a bunch of people present and I was only speaking with one of them?

Oh, I know what it had to be!

“I was captured by an evil order of knights. They chained me up and surrounded me while my rival who betrayed me said, ‘This is for being so good at Penguin Wars.’ ”

No, never mind.

I tried to make it interesting and failed miserably. Besides, would anyone really betray someone just because they got beaten bad at Penguin Wars? Well, maybe. It is really irritating when someone beats you all at once. You have to be careful with multiplayer games because you can get so heated up it turns into a real life battle.

But what was this?

“Who was it?”

Who had I discussed this with?

No, I had to think more carefully.

“I don’t even have a Famicom.”

Well, Penguin Wars already existed back when I was in elementary school. It was in the arcades and was released for the MSX and Famicom afterwards. I had an MSX2 and 98 at home, so I might have played it with my friends back when I was still so pure and innocent in elementary or middle school. But…

“But the conversation I remember was more like discussing those older memories in the present.”

This was weird.

And then I found something else. I discovered a certain game in the box of Famicom games. It was called…

“Family Tennis.”

●

Once I spoke those words, the memories came rushing back.

●

“Yes. I used to loooove gambling when IIII was younger.”

“––––––”

“Sumeragi, you intentionally took a loss so ––––––––––––!? Who loses while using ***!?”

“Huh!? –––––. I give every challenge my very best shot, but when ■■ played against me using %%% and swung her body around along with the controller, I couldn’t take my eyes off her jiggling boobs and a game over was unavoidable! So –––––”

“But ■■-chan? The match against Sumeragi-chan might be a special case, but why are you so good at this game?”

“Eh? A-am I that good?”

“I think it worked in her favor that she focuses on her hands without looking at her opponent. With a ––––– TV, she can still see the whole screen while focused on her hands. And–––––”

“Kh. I can’t believe I ended up in 4th while using ???.”

“Well, I’m not too upset since I ended up in 2nd.”

●

“–––––!?”

The vision I saw was like a surprise attack.

But I did my best to remember it. Like it was something I had to memorize for a test. Because…

“This is super important for me!”

It was a clue. Yes. A clue to what, I didn’t know, but I knew it had to be one.

Interlude

“Hey, Kuwajiri, I’m hearing some weird noises from the game club.”

“Sorry, I’m off duty today, so I’m getting some homework done.”

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