Super Cub Volume 1 Chapter 1 - A Girl with Nothing

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Hokuto City, Yamamori Prefecture.

The downward slope that stretched from Hinoharu Station on the main line became a gentle climb after crossing the national highway.

Beneath the early summer sun, a girl was pedaling her bike.

She was a petite girl who was wearing a jersey underneath her uniform.

She had bobbed hair and light apple-colored cheeks. Her eyes were too small and unrefined for her to be called a beautiful girl. Even if she lived in the suburbs of Tokyo or Kanagawa, she would only give the impression of being a country girl.

The girl’s name was Koguma. Even if she wanted to complain to the person who had given her that name which added to the rusticity of her appearance, it was impossible.

The second-year high school student Koguma had no relatives and was all alone in the world.

Koguma’s father died in an accident soon after she was born, and right after she entered high school, her mother, who had raised Koguma while burning her way through the not-very-large amount of money her father had left behind, disappeared, leaving behind a piece of paper declaring her disappearance.

Koguma lost her parent immediately after entering high school. Her grandparents, who had been estranged from her parents since they practically eloped to get married, had passed away a long time ago. She had no relatives to rely on.

After consulting with her high school and her local government, Koguma was able to receive a scholarship and continue going to her current high school.

Koguma, who managed to pass the academic test for the scholarship review, was relieved that she would be able to lead a peaceful life for now, and though she was no longer here now, she thanked her mother for not giving birth to a stupid child. 

Her sadness of being abandoned by one’s only parent, which was often highlighted in dramas and manga, was surprisingly weak even for her. 

She had never conversed with her mother much when they lived together. It wasn’t that she hated her, but Koguma was a girl who didn’t get attached to people.

There was no one in class who she could call a friend. She wasn’t in any clubs. She didn’t even have any hobby-like hobbies.

She never thought a life with absolutely nothing was particularly inconvenient.

As she approached what used to be the center of Mukawa Village before it became Hokuto City through a merger, the upward slope became steeper and steeper.

Koguma put all her strength into the ten-thousand-yen granny bike she bought at a home improvement store in the neighboring town. A student from the same high school as her passed her, riding a roadracer type bike. 

She wondered slightly if it would be fun to lead such an energetic life. In addition to school expenses, she lived on a scholarship that provided her with money to live modestly without interest. Every morning she made the box lunch in her school bag that was tossed into the front basket of her bike. She had enough saved up that she could even replace her bike if she needed to, but she didn’t feel like spending all her savings for that.

She approached the high school. It was almost time for the first bell to ring. The number of students wearing the same uniform as her increased around her.

Bikes, walking, the bus that went to the bus stop in front of the school. She was even saving money on the bus fare, but she didn’t have any particular goal.

Lately, she was starting to become aware of the fact that she had nothing.

She had no relatives, and because of her lack of interest in people, she had no friends either. She had no goals after leaving high school, and the things that could be called pleasures in her life were the cheap time killers of listening to the radio in her apartment or taking imaginary trips with a map, at most.

A motorized scooter passed by her along with a light and jarring sound. Since the public high school Koguma went to was built on a plot of land with a lot of slopes, they were allowed to go to school on motorcycles as long as they were motorized.

As Koguma watched the scooter drive away, she thought, That kid has a scooter. They were different from her, who had nothing. What she was pedaling right now was just a tool for her everyday life. It wasn’t anything to her. It didn’t change her empty life.

She wondered if having that thing called a scooter would change anything.

School ended without her feeling that she had gained anything in particular, and Koguma got on her bike that she had parked in the bike parking area.

The motorbike parking area that was next to the bike parking area had several scooters parked there. For the number of students, there weren't that many.

The town of Hokuto was located at the foot of the southern alps. In this land, which had longer and colder winters than Kanto with layers of snow and frozen roads, the scooter was not a very convenient vehicle.

Many of the students who came from places too far for walking took the bus, and those who rode scooters were students who lived in the middle of nowhere where it was too far from the bus route, or those who rode it by choice.

Koguma stared at the scooters in the motorbike parking lot for a while.

Ever since that scooter passed her this morning, she became strangely curious about scooters. With Koguma’s knowledge, all she knew was that it was something that cost a certain amount of money. It wasn’t something she could get her hands on with her scholarship savings.

After leaving the parking area, Koguma pedaled her bike in the opposite direction of the downward slope towards Hinoharu Station, near which her apartment was located, and went uphill to the villa area and the golf course.

She didn’t really have any goal in mind. However, this gentle slope seemed a lot easier to climb than the steep slope of the Hinoharu Shichiriiwa¹, which forced her body to struggle every day after school.

Or, maybe there was something that would make her no longer care about these slopes.

Koguma rode for several kilometers along the river and stopped her bike in front of a building.

It was a blue two-story building made of reinforced concrete that was slightly out of proportion with its surroundings. The signboard had a picture of a bike on it. It was a bike shop Koguma came across before when she felt like taking a short walk and rode her bike around.

The town of Hokuto was inhabited by people who lived in a valley between the mountains of the southern alps. She learned that going for a walk with a bicycle was not a good idea in a place where you had to climb hills to get anywhere, so since then, she had only used her bike for commuting to school and shopping. 

Koguma, who took a detour that was different from usual, began to look at the bikes lined up in front of the used bike shop from the edge.

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1 The Hinoharu Shichiriiwa is a tunnel.^↩

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