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On the morning of the second day of her scooter commute to school, Koguma woke up in her apartment near Hinoharu Station, where she currently lived
She had set her alarm clock to the same time as when she was riding her bike to school. The time she had to wake up hadn’t changed.
She took off her T-shirt and short pants that served as her pajamas, threw them into the laundry basket, and then took a shower. She put on her rustic navy-blue uniform of a vest and skirt, and filled the Tupperware lunch box she washed last night with rice from the rice cooker.
She washed down her breakfast of untoasted bread with butter and jam with apple juice, which she considered to be more of a vitamin supplement than an indulgence, and then hurriedly began to prepare for the day.
She tossed her textbooks, notebooks, pencil case, cell phone, a small pouch with her wallet in it, lunch box with only white rice and ready-made gyudon, and a flask of barley tea into her day pack.
She noticed that her supply of ready-made packs stacked on top of the fridge was getting low.
As Koguma was about to zip up her bag, she walked over to her folded futon and picked up the instruction manual for the Cub she had been reading yesterday before going to bed and put it in her day pack.
She put on her school-designated black leather loafers, picked up her helmet bag next to the door, opened the door and went outside.
She had more luggage and work to do than when she rode her bike to school. However, she didn’t think of it as a bother.
She released the handle lock on her Cub parked in the bike parking area of her apartment, and inserted the key. She stepped down on the kick lever.
The engine started up, and it did seem that the thing called a choke lever she read about in the manual yesterday was unnecessary.
She confirmed the rough position of it and tried pulling it with her finger. The Cub’s engine, which had been idling quietly, stopped. As she returned the choke to its original position and tried to kick-start the engine again, she realized that she shouldn’t have fiddled with it out of curiosity.
After doing a warmup drive as per the manual, Koguma put on the helmet and gloves she took out from the olive green helmet bag she made yesterday, and put the helmet bag in the outside pocket of her day pack.
Koguma straddled her Cub with her day pack on her back. She stepped it into first gear, turned the throttle, and headed off.
While thinking that she was able to ride much more smoothly than yesterday, Koguma parked her Cub in her high school’s motorbike parking area.
She still couldn’t make the speedometer needle tilt to the right and beyond from the middle, but she felt like she was getting better at looking behind her in the mirror and letting cars pass as they overtake her.
In the motorbike parking lot, where there were many scooter-type bikes, the red Postal Cub she saw yesterday was parked there.
What made it different from the Cubs parked at the post office was the blue modified parts attached to each part of the red Cub. The red and blue Cub that Reiko, the classmate who talked to Koguma yesterday, rode.
A Cub that was different from Koguma’s Cub. She looked at it one more time to see what was different. She had noticed yesterday that the front and rear tires were smaller, and that the handles were bare steel pipes like a bicycle, unlike the handles of Koguma’s Cub, which were covered with pressed steel plates.
Koguma spotted another difference with her Cub. A part of the bike body, which she thought was the same shape as hers. It was a size thicker than her Cub under the seat.
When she refueled, she learned that this was where the gas tank was. She wondered if Reiko’s Postal Cub could hold more gasoline than her own Cub.
While wondering if there were any other differences, she locked the handles of her Cub and put her helmet and gloves into her drawstring helmet bag.
After fixing her hair a little in the rearview mirror, Koguma hung her helmet bag from her shoulder and headed to class.
She turned around once and looked at the two Cubs parked side by side. Reiko’s red Cub and Koguma’s green Cub. It didn’t look like a pairing that matched, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to park next to it.
Koguma entered her classroom and faced her desk. She had no friends to greet and she needed to at least look at her textbook and notes before class.
She walked by a certain seat before she went to her seat that was right in the middle, a little far back. It was Reiko’s seat by the window.
Reiko was at her seat, reading a paperback novel. Since she was someone who spoke to Koguma more or less yesterday, she thought that it would be unfriendly to ignore her, so she tentatively lifted her hand.
“Good, good morning.”
“Mm? Yeah.”
That was all Reiko said before her gaze returned to her paperback. She stole a glance at the cover, and it seemed to be a book about motorcycle travel.
Koguma didn’t react to Reiko’s curt response and sat in her own seat.
She thought that with what happened yesterday, she had become friendly enough with Reiko to chat with her, a classmate who also rode a Cub, and felt burdened by that, but she realized that she had been mistaken.
Koguma was relieved. Yesterday was simply a confirmation that they were both scooter commuters, and for Reiko, Koguma was back to being one of her classmates that she no longer had to talk to or get to know.
It was probably the Cub Reiko was interested in, not me. That was also over with after yesterday. An ordinary Cub, nothing unusual about it. An existence not worthy of attention. Koguma opened her day pack, feeling a not-very-pleasant feeling.
In the five minutes before homeroom began, Koguma wondered which subject she should prepare for as she thrust her hand into her day pack. She took out the Cub manual she brought along with her textbooks, and read it until the homeroom teacher came.
Reiko, whose back could be seen from Koguma’s seat, had been absorbed in reading the travel journal from the time Koguma entered the classroom until class started.
The morning classes were over, and Koguma took out her usual bento.
She opened the lid of her lunch box that was packed with white rice, glanced at the microwave where there were several students lined up today as well, and then cut the seal on the ready-made gyudon that was still cold.
As she opened the gyudon into her lunch box, she glanced at Reiko’s seat. A classmate was asking her to have lunch with them. Koguma knew that Reiko, who had good grades and good looks, had been invited to lunch many times, but had always turned them down by saying that she had something to do.
As for Koguma, she had been invited several times when she first entered this high school, but she felt timid and declined, and eventually no one asked her to eat lunch with them.
It had always been like that, and it always would be like that. As Koguma focused her attention on her gyudon lunch, she heard Reiko’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I have plans to eat lunch with friends today.”
Reiko picked up her bento, stood up, and then turned in her direction. Koguma hurriedly dropped her gaze to her bento.
There was the sound of assured footsteps approaching. Reiko stood in front of Koguma and spoke.
“Shall we go eat, then?”
Reiko took the arm of Koguma, who was bewildered by the sudden words. Hurriedly taking her bento and chopsticks along, she was taken outside the classroom by Reiko.
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