Previous | TOC | Next
Koguma ate her lunch with Reiko again today.
At first, it was a one-sided and forceful invitation from Reiko. That didn’t change, but today she had a reason for why she couldn’t wait for her lunch break.
As she settled down on the seat of her Cub, which had already become her regular lunch spot, Koguma spoke as she opened her bento.
“I would like to see your helmet. Um, after we finish eating.”
Koguma felt that she shouldn’t interrupt Reiko’s lunch with her arbitrary request, as she didn’t even know if they were friends yet, but Reiko easily replied, “Mmm, okay.”
Reiko ate her lunch of black bread with cheese with one hand and opened the large postal service box at the back with her other and grabbed the helmet inside. She then threw it at Koguma without batting an eyelid.
Koguma hurriedly hugged her own bento as she received Reiko’s helmet.
It wasn’t the first time she saw it. It was the familiar helmet Reiko wore on her way to and from school.
The helmet was a full-face off-road type with a blue cap and red visor. There were also goggles to cover the eyes.
“Wanna try it on?”
Koguma placed her bento on top of her Cub’s luggage box and put on Reiko’s helmet. It was different from her helmet that exposed her face. The view was like seeing another world from an enclosed place.
Reiko’s Postal Cub was a moped before the power was lessened due to environmental and noise regulations, and since it came into her hands, it had undergone all sorts of modifications and was said to be quite fast.
Koguma thought that this sense of being enclosed would lead to peace of mind at speeds that greatly exceeded what Koguma could reach with her Cub.
She looked at herself in the full-face helmet in her Cub’s mirror. It didn’t suit her uniform.
Koguma returned the helmet that she had taken off. Reiko carelessly tossed it back into her box.
“I wonder if it’s expensive.”
Reiko looked at Koguma rather than the helmet in the box and spoke.
“The price of a helmet is the price of protection, they say. Within limitations. It may not look like it, but it’s about the same price as your helmet.”
Koguma took out her own helmet from her box. She stared at it while holding her barely-eaten lunch in one hand and said,
“I want to keep the wind out of my face.”
Reiko reached out and touched the snap button on Koguma’s helmet.
“A shield. They sell them.”
“Where?”
“The closest bike parts shop around here is probably in Koufu.”
Koguma pondered. She knew she didn’t have to go to the manufacturer in Saitama to buy it, but would the city of Koufu, which was a little more than twenty kilometers from here, be at a distance she could travel with her Cub?
She wanted to go buy the item she needed to travel far on her Cub, but she was too far away from that shop. It reminded her of that department store slogan, “I don’t have any clothes to go shopping for clothes.”
Reiko, who had been looking at Koguma, the helmet, and the bento that was barely touched, got up from the seat of her Postal Cub.
“You can go buy it. Right now.”
Reiko said and pulled Koguma’s arm. Koguma followed her, carrying her half-eaten lunch.
There were a few students in the library during lunch.
Reiko walked to a different space from where the bookshelves were. The corner with desktop computers.
There was already a line of students in front of several computers that were set up, and a sign that read “No more than ten minutes per person.”
Reiko looked around the library, saw a teacher, and stopped her.
“We would like to use a computer for a daily necessity.”
The teacher, who Koguma didn’t recognize but who seemed to be acquainted with Reiko, pointed to the book preparation room.
“You can use the computer over there. It is a little noisy though, because of the construction work in the interior.”
Reiko thanked the teacher shortly and entered the book preparation room like she knew what she was doing. Koguma also bowed her head to the teacher.
The book preparation room was about as big as the library, with bookshelves and office desks. In a corner, a man in work clothes was removing wall material without even looking at them.
A laptop on a desk was turned on. Reiko sat down on a chair and prompted Koguma to sit as well. As she took the lunch she had been eating in the bike parking lot to her mouth, she operated the mouse.
Koguma remembered that she hadn’t been on the internet since her mother, who she had been living with, disappeared.
When she was living with her mother, they had a computer at home, but even then she had little memory of looking at anything on the internet.
Reiko, operating the mouse and keyboard of the laptop as though clinging to it, opened the browser, typed in an URL on the start page, and opened several sites.
“Wait! Let me take a look at this! It’ll only take a second! I just want to see if there’s any bargains!”
After searching for the parts she wanted on major American and Chinese auction sites, Reiko finished her search in about five minutes and looked at Koguma with satisfaction.
“Uh, what were we here for again? Oh yes, the helmet shield. Of course I haven’t forgotten about that.”
After switching seats with Reiko, Koguma saw a world she didn’t know existed beyond the monitor as she ate her half-eaten lunch.
Koguma’s impression of the internet was that it was something to look at only when necessary, and not a place to go to play or to kill time.
For now, what she needed was protection against the wind for her helmet. She didn’t think it was good to entrust the solution to Reiko right after the box from last time, but since the person herself got into it and was willing to research, she decided to take her up on it.
Koguma used to think that when she encountered difficulties or problems, she had to solve them with her own power, but since she started riding the Cub, she had come to realize that going with the flow, relying on others, and waiting for the situation to change for the better was another way.
Her opponent was the wind, a natural phenomenon that was beyond Koguma’s power. It was of course stronger than her and her Cub. It wasn’t something you could win against by opposing it straight on.
Reiko opened the page of a major motorcycle accessory retailer and searched for a shield for the Arai Classic Koguma was using. The results were immediately displayed.
There were several types of shields available on the internet. Some were transparent, some were a thick smoky color, some were mirrored, some had simple shapes, and some were hemispherical, called bubble shields.
When Koguma saw the shields displayed on the product shelves on the monitor, she made her first comment.
“They’re so expensive…”
Most of the shields, from the official products to the externally made ones, were in the price range from the high end of 3000 yen to 4000 yen, except for a few that cost close to 10,000 yen. Even if you thought of that as relatively inexpensive, it would become expensive after shipping costs were added.
Reiko helped with the operation and looked at other shopping sites, but the prices were similar.
Koguma calculated the remaining money for this month in her head, and thought, It’s a painful expense, but it can’t be helped if it will keep me safe, as she operated the computer. In exchange for this splurging, her meals would become very meager until the next scholarship payment.
The parts she needed were never in short supply and freely available for a fee. Koguma frowned as she held her bento’s chopsticks in her mouth, not yet knowing how happy that made the motorcyclist, who was constantly battling against the discontinuation of parts.
“Wait, let me take a look at something,” Reiko said again, and then opened a domestic auction site and searched for used parts for her Postal Cub, which were not readily available in general distribution.
After going back and forth between e-commerce sites to find something relatively inexpensive, Koguma pointed at the monitor.
“It doesn’t have to be this flashy.”
She was shopping for something to deal with the wind hitting her eyes. Koguma didn’t need a shield that would cover her whole face like the ones on the shopping sites. Protecting her eyes was enough, and she could manage by wrapping a muffler around her mouth.
“If there’s something like that helmet…”
The goggles that were attached to Reiko’s motocross helmet. Those were good. If she was going to be forced to spend the same amount of money, she would rather protect her eyes while still feeling the wind.
Reiko heard Koguma’s words, changed the search word to “goggles” and searched. This time, Koguma was confused because there were too many results in terms of price and design.
A little tired of the one-sided information being pushed at her from the monitor, Koguma stretched out in her chair. The book preparation room was undergoing interior work. In the corner, there was a man on a stepladder removing wall material.
He was wearing work clothes. He had a scraper in hand, and he was wearing a mask and protective glasses, which seemed like overkill for a task like removing wall cloth.
They were goggle-like glasses that protected one’s eyes from dust and chemicals, like underwater glasses used for diving or the ones used by firefighters. Koguma suddenly stood from the computer chair.
Koguma half-ran to the worker, who looked at her and asked what’s the matter.
“Sir, what are those glasses you are wearing?”
The worker, who had spare time as he was finishing his work, quite politely taught her. They were protective glasses. They were durable and comfortable to wear, and many people used them for riding motorcycles. He told her that if she wanted a pair, she could order it from their supplier, but it wouldn’t arrive until next week, and they were sold at home improvement stores and work supply stores around here where the price was cheaper, so it was better to buy them there.
After being taught the basics, Koguma gave him a deep bow and returned to the computer desk.
She spoke to Reiko, who was giggling at the sight of her for some reason, as she pointed at the monitor.
“Sorry. I don’t need these anymore.”
After the lunch break that seemed fruitless but at the same time not, Koguma couldn’t wait for her afternoon classes to end. As soon as class was over, she flew out of her classroom and rushed to the home improvement store she went to several times on her Cub. The wind still hit her eyes.
Just as the worker told her, protective glasses could be found in the safety supplies section of the store.
A simple model with clear lenses set in a slim rubber frame with a sponge cushion.
She put them on and looked at a mirror in the section. They were oversized and covered half of her face, but they strangely didn’t look unattractive.
She went to the register and paid for them. A thousand and one hundred yen. Whether this was a good purchase or a waste of money would be decided in the future. This kind of excitement has become more common ever since she started riding a Cub.
After just shopping for a pair of goggles, Koguma returned to the bike parking area where she had parked her Cub. She put on her helmet and quickly unwrapped the goggles, then adjusted the strap, and wore them over her helmet.
The large goggles, which covered half of her face, fit the helmet’s opening as though they were made for it, and there was almost no reduction in visibility.
With her goggles that protected her eyes, Koguma took her Cub onto the main road that led home.
Thanks for the chapter.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete