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After finishing her afternoon classes, Koguma put her textbooks and notebooks into her day pack as usual and picked up her helmet bag, which she kept next to her desk.
Today she was going on an outing with Reiko. For Koguma, who hadn’t had a friend to spend time with after school for a long time, it felt strangely uncomfortable to do so with Reiko, who she was only connected to by the fact that they both rode the motorbike called a Cub.
Honestly speaking, she was a little tempted to use some sort of errand as an excuse to escape, but she didn’t have a part-time job or club activities. She had nothing to do. Of course, she had no plans with friends.
The only thing she had to deal with at the moment was the problem, or rather indecision, about a luggage box for her Cub. Reiko seemed to have a solution.
Unable to refuse, Koguma left her seat just as Reiko came to her desk, like she had done at lunch time, and the two left the classroom.
Some students greeted Reiko as she left. She smiled at them and waved. They also called out to Koguma like they might as well while they were at it, but she made a small bow without making eye contact.
The walk from the classroom to the entrance was the same as it was at noon. From there, Reiko ignored the bike parking lot and headed for the school gates. Should I follow her? When she was wondering that, Reiko turned around.
“Sorry, I’m walking too fast. It’s a habit I got from riding my Cub. I tampered with the engine, so I have to keep stepping on the gas pedal or it’ll act up immediately.”
Koguma shook her head and walked quickly to follow her.
It had been a while since she walked out of the school gates. Reiko turned right and quickly walked down the prefectural road. She hadn’t explained at all where they were going.
Just when she got impatient and was about to ask her, Reiko suddenly stopped and walked into a small supermarket.
It was a supermarket where Koguma used to frequent before she started riding her Cub because it was close to school and she could stop by on her way home, where fresh groceries and instant foods were not so cheap.
Reiko, who entered the supermarket that was slightly bigger than a convenience store, headed towards the confectionary section without hesitation. She then picked up two bags of sweets.
“Are you fine with these?”
Reiko thrust the bags of sweets at Koguma.
“Buy these.”
She couldn’t understand what Reiko said. She was supposed to go home with Reiko today to do something about attaching a box to Koguma’s Cub. Or was she going to turn these sweets into a box like the Straw Millionaire?1
The sweets Reiko chose were Gokabou2 and fried dough cakes, which were subdued and understated choices for a high school girl. While wondering if Reiko thought these suited her, she headed for the register.
Maybe Reiko had forgotten about the box and decided to kill time by eating sweets at my expense? While thinking if that was the case, Reiko was an awful nuisance to others, the same as that noisy modified Cub she rode, Koguma opened her wallet, deciding to get through with this trouble in human relationships quickly. The two bags were just under three hundred yen. It hurt her pocket to think of the money wasted.
The lady at the register was holding a plastic bag in her hand and asked if she wanted to put them in the bag. When Koguma was about to refuse because she had her day pack, Reiko said from the side, “Paper bag, please.”
Hugging the sweets packed in a paper bag for books and hygiene products, Koguma followed Reiko as she quickly left the store.
The area around the high school where they were walking now was the center of Mukawa Village before it was merged into Hokuto City, and there were some stores and government branch offices scattered here and there. Reiko walked into a credit union in the area.
It was the credit union that Koguma also used to withdraw her scholarship money. Reiko headed towards the counter. A young female employee saw her.
“My, you’ve become a high school student in the time I haven’t seen you. The manager is in the back.”
Reiko said, “Well, I’ll be going now,” and walked out of the building through the side entrance next to the counter and went around to the back.
The back of the building was a parking lot. There was a business kei car3 parked there. Reiko went to a corner and spoke to a man who was drawing water from a waterway with his back to her.
“It’s been a long time, sir.”
The man with a receding hairline who looked over forty turned around and smiled, his eyes crinkling.
“Ah, you came. I’ll get it for you.”
That was all the manager of the credit union, wearing a business shirt and sleeve covers, said, before pushing something from inside an iron enclosure.
It was a Super Cub. It was a blue Cub, different in color from the one Koguma rode, and it had some equipment hers didn’t have.
“The dealer reserved the body of the bike, though. They said they’ll come to pick it up the day after tomorrow, so you can strip anything you want and take it with you.”
Reiko lightly bowed and then took hold of the Cub, beginning to inspect the equipment it was installed with.
Koguma also peeked at it from the side. It was a battered-looking Cub with over seventy thousand kilometers on the odometer, and it made a creaking sound every time you pushed it.
Reiko touched the transparent plastic windshield on the front of the Cub. The resin had deteriorated to the point where the windshield cracked just by holding and moving it.
“Nope, this is finished. But, since it has this…”
Reiko put her hand on the black iron box on the back of the Cub.
“Sir, lend us your tools.”
The manager put a toolbox next to her before Reiko asked. She took out a screwdriver and a wrench, sprayed the screws at the bottom of the box with a lubricating spray, and then handed the tools to Koguma.
“Do you want to try taking it off yourself?”
Koguma accepted the tools and tried to undo the screws with the screwdriver. Reiko meddled from the side.
“Push. Push the screwdriver in firmly and then turn it. Hold the lower nut with the wrench.”
When she used to ride a bicycle, she could fix a punctured tire by herself, so thanks to that she was able to remove rusty screws. After Reiko lifted the still-rusty black box from the back of the Cub, she bowed again to the manager.
”We’ll take this then.”
The manager scratched his head, looking awkward, and replied,
“If you had called me a little sooner, I would have given you the body too. But the dealer wanted it regardless of distance or model year, so I’m sorry.”
Koguma, holding the metal box, couldn’t believe it. Did that mean she could take it? For free, too.
Reiko nudged Koguma’s back. Realizing one thing, Koguma hurriedly put the box on the back of the Cub.
“Thank you very much. I also ride a Cub, but I can’t load baggage on it, so I am very grateful for such a useful box. I will treasure it.”
Koguma bowed awkwardly and pulled out the paper bag that she had stuffed into the outer pocket of her day pack.
“If you would like, please eat these with everyone.”
The manager looked at the bag of sweets Koguma was holding out and at first tried to refuse, but then looked a little thoughtful. Then, perhaps thinking that it was his duty as an adult to teach her that there are problems in the world that could be solved smoothly and harmoniously with a box of cakes, politely accepted the bag of sweets that cost less than three hundred yen.
Reiko was already going through the box to see if there were any missing bolts and stays for securing the box in place, as well as keys to lock the box against theft. Nodding, Reiko lifted the box and handed it to Koguma.
“Well, that’s it for us. I apologize for interrupting you during work.”
“Call me again when you want to exchange parts for the next business bike. We’ll make an arrangement so that you can take the bike body with you next time.”
After a quick goodbye, Reiko immediately headed for the parking lot’s exit. Koguma, holding the iron box, bowed repeatedly as she left the credit union’s parking lot.
The way back. Reiko talked about the advantages of the box’s convenience and the anonymity of the Cub with the black iron box attached, no matter where it was parked.
“I think it was the year before last? The president of a restaurant chain got shot, right? With a twenty-five caliber weapon like a toy. Do you know why no one who witnessed the criminal appeared afterwards? The assassin, you know, took a Cub to the crime scene at the time when newspaper Cubs were running around and working, and then escaped on the Cub.”
In her euphoria over the unexpected acquisition of the box, only half of what Reiko said entered Koguma’s head, but she only understood that if she ever ended up doing something bad one day, the Cub would be a powerful weapon.
Reiko and Koguma went straight back to school. The two of them attached the box to Koguma’s Cub.
It only took about five minutes to fasten the four screws. The black box was now attached to the back of Koguma’s Cub. A black box attached to a Cub used by banks and insurance companies for business. A Cub with a black box that could be seen anywhere.
“Your face is relaxed.”
Koguma put her hands to her cheeks. She didn’t know if she was as happy as she was when she got new clothes when she was a little kid.
She thanked Reiko as well, and was about to leave when the vice principal of the school approached her. They were holding something big.
“You bought a Cub recently, right? If you want, you can use the front basket of the Cub we have left over?”
Koguma looked happy. It took about a tenth of the time it took to get the iron box earlier.
Reiko told her to take it, so Koguma took the slightly warped and rusty front basket and attached it to the front carrier of the Cub.
In the motorcycle world, there is a saying that parts go around and around.
When you needed some kind of part, if you asked around, you could sometimes get parts you didn’t need. In many cases, this was after you had given up on getting them from your friends and had paid money for them.
The iron box at the back. The basket that looked like it was used for newspaper delivery at the front. Koguma’s Cub still looked like a Cub that could be seen anywhere, but its loading capacity had increased substantially.
When Reiko finished mounting the front basket, she quickly got onto her own Postal Cub and left. Koguma also decided to leave and picked up the day pack she had thrown to the side, but set it down after she was about to carry it on her back and threw it into the box in the back.
Koguma went on her way home on a Cub with a box and basket. From now on, she can carry anything with this Cub.
The feeling of being so light and free wasn’t just because she wasn’t carrying her bag on her back.
Koguma kept smiling on her way back home.
1 The Straw Millionaire is a Japanese legend about a monk who becomes wealthy through a series of trades, starting with a piece of straw.↩
2 Gokabou is a type of Japanese sweet that is made of rice and rolled into a cylinder shape.↩
3 A kei car is also known as the Japanese minicar and the vehicle category for the smallest highway-legal passenger cars.↩
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