Previous | TOC | Next
Koguma remembered that when she bought the Cub in the morning, she remembered that the old man in the shop had put several papers in a case next to it.
She used a ten-yen coin to undo the screws and opened the Cub’s side case. There were insurance documents and a manual inside.
She read the manual by the light of the convenience store. There was a heading for what to do when the engine wouldn’t start. The first thing that came up was the problem of having no gasoline in the tank.
It was there that Koguma recalled that the scooter was a vehicle one needed to fill with gasoline. When she lifted the seat and looked at the fuel gauge near the tank opening, she saw that the needle was pointing to the bottom.
Going by the manual, Koguma thrust her hand into the round hole of the leg shield and twisted the fuel valve to the reserve position.
After waiting a little bit, she stepped down on the kick lever with prayer-like thoughts. The Cub’s engine started up easily at the third kick. Koguma returned the manual and side cover back to their original places and realized that she was drenched with sweat.
On the national highway, Koguma recalled from the memory of a bus ride taken here that there was a gas station a little bit further from here, and rode along the highway at night. She found herself able to drive along the edge of the road without getting in the way of other cars.
At the self-service gas station open 24 hours with no customers except for Koguma, she filled up her Cub with gas with the manual spread out again. A full tank was a little over five hundred yen. She wondered if it might be able to go as far as Koufu on the main line. How far can this Cub go?
While suppressing the impulse to try it out, she returned to the highway before the early dawn of early summer arrived and climbed the slope that led to Hinoharu Station. Koguma parked the Cub when she returned to her apartment and threw herself down on the floor as soon as she entered her apartment.
She was able to return home safely. She keenly felt how grateful she was for that. She rode around her neighborhood on her Cub and ran out of gas, so she switched to reserve, refueled, and came home. She felt like she had a little adventure with just that. It was something she didn’t have in her life until now.
One thing was for sure, after this much driving, she wouldn’t be scared when she went to school tomorrow.
Koguma fell asleep, still wearing her jersey, and slept more deeply than she ever had before.
The next morning. Koguma was awakened by her alarm clock, took a shower, and put on her school uniform.
The rice cooked in the rice cooker, which was cooked with a timer, was transferred to a big Tupperware lunch box called a “Dokaben”1 by her classmates, and it was garnished with a reserve ready-made oyakodon.2 This was the most efficient and lazy way to prepare lunch. She poured the barley tea she made at home into a water bottle.
Her textbooks, notebooks, and cell phone that didn’t have internet were in her school bag. She put her wallet, lunch box, and water bottle into it. She looked out her window to check today’s weather. Her Cub parked outside entered her field of vision.
Koguma looked between the Cub and her unfashionable black leather school bag for a while, then dumped the contents of her bag onto her bed and took out the day pack she hadn’t used since she bought it at forest school in middle school. There was no time to leisurely prepare, but she repacked her things.
Unlike walking, she couldn’t carry a school bag with a Cub. While thinking how nice it would be if there was a basket to toss her bag into like for a bike, she stared at the bathroom mirror. She felt like the undyed canvas day pack added a little color to her completely navy and rustic school uniform. Koguma carried her bag on her back, went to the front door and put on her leather loafers. She would have no trouble stepping on the Cub’s pedals with these shoes.
She went outside with her helmet in her arms and started the engine of her Cub parked in the bike parking lot. It was meaningless since she filled up the tank last night, but she opened the seat and checked the fuel gauge.
She resolved herself to get into the habit of checking the fuel gauge before she rode from now on so that she would never run out of gas again. According to the manual, a warmup was necessary, so she overly conscientiously checked the time on her phone, even though only a few hours had passed since she rode last night, and departed after warming it up for five minutes.
On the road to school where there were many downward slopes, the time it took to go to a school with a Cub wasn’t particularly different than with a bicycle. It was just that it became considerably easier to go up the short slope near the school. She was sure that the return trip up the steep hill near Hinoharu Station would be much easier.
She felt like the students who were riding their bikes or walking to school were all looking at her. The school had a good number of students who commuted by scooter. She also felt like no one was looking at her. She had thought for a moment that they might be laughing at her for riding a scooter that a working person would ride despite her being a high school student, but one thing was for sure: she was happier on her way to school now than she was yesterday.
The high school life of the lonely Koguma, who had nothing, now had a Cub starting today.
From now on, the girl with nothing will start living with the best scooter in the world.
 |
| Heavy... |
1 A portmanteau of Dokagui (eating a lot) and bento (lunch box).↩
2 Oyakodon is chicken and egg on rice.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment