Super Cub Volume 1 Chapter 3 - First Ride

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No parents, no friends, and incidentally, no hobbies. Koguma, who had nothing and lived on her scholarship money, welcomed a motorized scooter into her life. She was nervous as she rode her Super Cub home for the first time, but she somehow managed to make it home. 

Her apartment was located near Hinoharu Station on the main line. When she and her mother moved here from Tokyo at the same time she entered high school, they were living in a ready-built house in the northern part of Hokuto City, but she moved here in order to live on her scholarship.

It was a two-story women-only building built for the workers of several factories in Hokuto City. 

The residents of the eight one-room apartments were a girl who was living by herself like Koguma and attended a high school at the next station, and some women who worked in the factories. 

Since they all left their apartments at different times, there was almost no interaction between the residents.

Although it was reasonably close to the station, the location was a bit inconvenient for commuting to the high school in the center of the former Mukawa Village before it merged into Hokuto City. 

The first drive from the bike shop to her apartment near the station, via the high school and up the Hinoharu slope, was honestly more exhausting than riding her bike home. 

Koguma parked the Cub in the bicycle parking lot of her apartment. After parking near the middle where there was just the right amount of space, she parked again near the edge where she could see it through the large window of her apartment.

Returning to her apartment to take a breather, Koguma opened the window and stared at the Cub. Her own motorbike. It was the first thing she acquired when she started her current life, and for the time being, it was an asset. Koguma, who had been looking at her Cub, turned around to her apartment.

A bed, a desk, and some clothes. Recently, whenever she looked at her apartment which only had daily necessities, she began to feel unsatisfied, but now she had a Cub. Koguma, who returned to her apartment temporarily, picked up a rag and walked out the front door to polish her Cub in the parking lot.

As Koguma wiped the Cub, she was thinking that she would have to go to the nearby hardware store next Sunday to buy a chain lock for her scooter.

Even though the bicycle parking lot was located at the back of the apartment premises, theft was still a concern. When she was living in Tokyo, her mother once had her bicycle stolen, and she looked much angrier than she did when she scolded Koguma.

She wondered how tiring it would be if she had to go back and forth up the hill that led to the main road from in front of the station until she reached the hardware store that was along the main road. But she then realized that she wouldn’t have to pedal anymore, and her cheeks relaxed unconsciously. 

She finished polishing the Cub, then returned to her apartment and took out barley tea from her fridge and drank it. After taking a break, Koguma realized she still had time until dinner and decided to try riding the Cub once again. 

When she was about to reach for her helmet and gloves that she tossed into her apartment, she drew her hand back. To be honest, she was still nervous about operating the vehicle called a scooter.

Until now, she had often seen scooters on the streets, and everyone seemed to be riding one. The few kilometers from the old man’s bike shop to her home had made her very tired.

She had managed to learn how to drive with the gear up to the third gear, but she could only go as fast as pedalling a bicycle. Even if she tried to turn the throttle any further, she felt fear. She recalled cars surpassing her in succession from behind, and shivered slightly.

She was reminded once again that the people who she usually saw delivering newspapers and food, or riding their scooters to school, were doing something incredible. She didn’t think it was a mistake to use all her scholarship savings to buy the Cub, but she was beginning to think that it might not be a magical vehicle that would take her where she wanted to go.

Just as a bicycle consumed physical calories, a scooter imposed a mental burden corresponding to the distance and speed. Apparently, a scooter was not meant to give you a ride, but to ride with you.

Deciding that she would ride the Cub a little more tomorrow, Koguma began to prepare dinner.

After a lazy meal of frozen pilaf in her apartment at dusk in early summer, she took a bath and did a review and preview of her lessons that consisted of quickly skimming through her textbooks.

She seemed to be tired from the introduction of something different into her life that was routine until recently, and crawled into her futon earlier than usual.

Koguma woke up in her futon.

She looked at her alarm clock next to her pillow and saw that it was a little after midnight, a time she usually didn’t wake up at. She wanted to go back to sleep, but before doing that, she got out of bed and opened the large window in her apartment.

It was a bit hot in the daytime, but the town on the plateau near the southern alps had a cool breeze blow through it at night. From her window, Koguma looked at the Cub that was being illuminated by the street lights near her apartment.

After confirming that the toy she had saved up her money and bought hadn’t been stolen, Koguma slipped back into her futon again, but she was wide awake and couldn’t sleep.

She recalled the fear she had the first time she rode a Cub during the daytime. Not an uncomfortable fear, but the feeling of knowing she was scared but wanting to make sure.

At any rate, she finally bought the Cub. The sooner she could learn to ride it well, the better. With that excuse, Koguma took off her pajamas and put on her school jersey.

It was much easier to ride in the area around the Hinoharu Station late at night than she expected. 

She was riding at a speed that was about as fast as a person running, and there were no cars to overtake her, as well as no pedestrians to witness her unsightly driving. Above all, the night breeze felt good.

Koguma, who thought she was only in the area around the station, found herself descending from the slope from the station to the national highway. She wasn’t scared if the speed was about the same as when she rode her bike, but she felt slightly unsatisfied, so she tried going a little faster. She turned back and climbed the slope. She could climb the slope that always made her sweat on her bike and her muscles scream with just a twist of her right hand. She could do things she couldn’t do before.

She crossed the highway and went to the vicinity of her school, feeling like a rehearsal for her scooter commute to school, and then went to Route 20, where there were constantly cars driving even at night. Koguma, who was increasing what she could do little by little, stopped the Cub at a convenience store along Route 20. 

It wasn’t that she had anything in particular to buy, but she wanted to see a convenience store with the lights on at midnight. Koguma, who was beginning to think that she could do these kinds of things freely from now on, and that it was a good idea to buy a Cub, tried to start the engine by stepping on the kick pedal of the Cub.

The Cub’s engine wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t start no matter how many times she kicked it. Koguma was at her wit’s end, thinking that she should have never bought a used bike.

The Cub was heavy as she pushed it and walked. Can I climb that slope and go all the way home, or should I call the bike shop for help at this time, or should I entrust the Cub to the convenience store and pick it up tomorrow, and first and foremost, will I be able to make it home tonight?

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