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Koguma couldn’t wait for classes to end at school.
Koguma, who rode her Cub with goggles yesterday, was able to increase her speed, which she had been unable to do before without the wind hitting her eyes.
She could ride at the same speed as the flow of traffic on the main road where she used to be constantly overtaken by other cars.
Just because of that, Koguma felt like she could go anywhere on her Cub, and she returned to her apartment while suppressing her desire to ride more, in order to experience that feeling over and over again.
Even while she walked back to her apartment from the bike parking lot, even as she ate her dinner of just freeze-dried ingredients in a bowl of boiled pasta, and even as she took a bath, she relished the feeling that still remained in her body.
She hadn’t experienced this feeling when she first rode the Cub she bought at a used motorcycle shop. She was so focused on getting to her apartment and to school safely that she never thought about enjoying the act of riding itself.
It had been a few days since she started riding a Cub. The feeling that she was finally able to use the Cub as her own legs welled up in her heart.
It wasn’t the train or a car, but it was her own transportation machine that was in no way inferior to those.
She began to feel interested in the various places around her home she only saw on maps until now. She might be able to go to the neighboring towns she used to go to only when she had to make a big purchase.
Koguma fell asleep and even in her dreams, she was riding her Cub. She dreamed that she was riding her Cub in the center of Tokyo, somewhere she had visited a few times in middle school.
When she woke up the next morning, she was embarrassed about being so eager and greedy, no matter how you looked at it.
At any rate, after school today, she decided to drive her Cub a little further to try to get even a glimpse of her dream.
She had already gotten used to eating lunch with Reiko. Koguma didn’t have any friends in class to chat with, but Reiko seemed to have found out the unnoticed change within her, and she was grinning as she ate her lunch of naan with eggs and bacon.
“I also had half helmet I received as a gift in the beginning, so that was how I felt when I wore a full-face helmet for the first time.”
Koguma patted her steel box containing her helmet while she ate her lunch of ready-made chicken and rice.
“I think I’m going to try riding a lot.”
Reiko, as she patted the sun reflected off of the red box of her Postal Cub she was also staring at, spoke.
“Me too.”
The summer heat at the foot of the southern alps was milder than in the city. It was almost that time of the year to start sweating when having lunch outdoors.
Summer vacation was approaching.
After school. Koguma threw her schoolbag into the rear box of her Cub that had its engine on, then put on her goggles and helmet.
She lowered the goggles from her helmet to her face, slipped her fingers through the straps to adjust the position, and then put on her gloves.
Reiko, who was warming up her engine next to her, told her, “Well, take care,” and then drove off in her always noisy Postal Cub. Just when Koguma was about to set off as well, Reiko’s red Cub came back again.
Reiko held out a small piece of paper. There was something written on the back of the receipt.
“It’s my cell phone number. Call me if you need anything.”
It was only then that Koguma realized that she had not exchanged numbers with Reiko. She still wasn’t sure if she could call her a friend.
They both rode Cubs. Maybe that was a deeper relationship than being friends in the same class who chatted.
Koguma was able to have such an awareness because she and her Cub had become equals to other cars and motorcycles.
thanks for the chapter!
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