Super Cub Volume 1 Chapter 28 - End of the Job

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With about a week of summer vacation left, Koguma’s part-time job ended.

The joint staff training program between the high school in Hokuto City, where Koguma attended, and its partner high school in Koufu had come to an end, and as a result, Koguma’s job was inevitably eliminated.

Including the exam break, there were about forty days of summer vacation. She didn’t know if this life of driving a Cub back and forth from Hokuto to Koufu, a distance of about 20 kilometers, every day with one day off each week, helped her improve her driving skills, but she felt that she at least knew how to ride on the road now.

During the summer, on side trips after work or outings on days off, she had expanded her sphere of activity to the neighboring Nirasaki and even further to its neighboring city, Koufu, thanks to the fact that she actively rode her Cub to places she hadn’t ever been to before.

The world was big, but it was connected by roads. Koguma, who actually experienced being able to go anywhere as long as she stayed on those roads, wanted to go further.

There was one thing on Koguma’s mind the entire time she was working her part-time job.

How would she use the money she earned from this job and the days she had left in summer vacation after the job was over? 

Since she saved most of the money she received from her job each day, Koguma had a sizable balance in her bank account.

The minimum expenses for living were covered by the scholarship, so there was no urgent need to use that money for now, and Koguma’s Cub didn’t have any major expenses at the moment.

Koguma had something she wanted to do with that money and time.

It wasn’t particularly troublesome, but it was a purchase that threatened to drain all the money she had saved from her job over the summer, and she didn’t know if she had enough time in the little more than a week of summer vacation left.

She wanted to talk to someone about it. But there was no one she could ask about it at the moment.

She didn’t have a convenient acquaintance to give her a push on the back when she already knew the answer to her question.

After depositing her last paycheck into the credit union near her school, Koguma climbed onto her Cub, thinking that she would buy a nice meal today to celebrate by herself the successful completion of her job.

The cell phone in the waist pouch worn across her back rang. She turned the pouch around to the front of her body, hurriedly took off her helmet, and answered the call without even looking at the screen.

“I just got back. Do you want to come to my house?”

The very first thing her classmate Reiko, who she hadn’t heard from or seen all summer, said after opening her mouth was telling her to do something, same as ever.

Koguma thought about it for a moment in front of the credit union, cell phone in hand. The reason they hadn’t seen each other during the summer was because their relationship was no more than that. Koguma had no friends who would go to each other’s houses to hang out. She was used to it, and thought that had nothing to do with the loneliness that troubled the idle.

Thanks in part to the Cub, Koguma was in a content world of solitude. Even today, she was planning to splurge a little and buy takeout sushi at the supermarket, and then celebrate the end of her part-time job and the beginning of her holiday in her own apartment.

Reiko presumptuously stepped into Koguma’s world. With the one-sided reason that she, who said she was going to do some touring over the summer, was back home after a long absence.

Reiko was like that during the first semester. Her invitations to lunch were pushy, but when she was reading in the mornings, she only gave half-hearted answers when Koguma talked to her.

Thanks to the time they had spent talking about Cubs while eating lunch together, Koguma was able to talk to Reiko, who was also isolated from the rest of the class, more freely than their other classmates, but still, a stranger was a stranger. If she took up this invitation, she would probably be having a mentally exhausting time rather than enjoying a meal in her apartment alone.

After a very short pondering, Koguma spoke into her phone.

“I’ll go. Tell me the address.”

She decided to spend tonight a little indulgently. She was going to stop by the supermarket to buy some rice, fill up her Cub with gas, and return to her apartment near Hinoharu Station. Reiko’s house was just one more destination.

Reiko told her where to go, and Koguma put her helmet back on and got on her Cub. She started the engine and headed in the opposite direction of her home.

She had lived alone until now. That wouldn’t change in the future. But, that didn’t mean she was going to be stingy about a few detours. At most, she would have to pay more for gas.

With a Cub, it wasn’t much of a burden.

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