Chapter 6: Next Time, Try Not To Lose (Part 3)

The door creaked behind me as I stepped out into the hallway. I combed my hair with my own fingers, and as the red shade of bangs covering my vision were brushed away by my fingertips, I stopped.

Envision yourself walking on Kobe Harborland Park and you suddenly stumble upon a bundle of 10,000 yen bills. You’ll stop, right? Heart beating, eyes wide. Then you’ll ask yourself if what you’re seeing is real.

Because that’s what I’m feeling right now.

Kousaka-san is here.

She’s leaning against the wall like a misplaced painting. Her eyes were nailed somewhere, impatient even. As someone that started to question her reasons for showing up out of nowhere, I kept waiting and tried to take it as a chance encounter.

There was no sketchpad in her hands. No pencil or markers either. There was just her wearing our burgundy school blazers, which was the first time I saw her in it.

The light from the hallway window lit her golden hair in a way that made her seem unreal, like she’d been drawn by the hand of heavens and then colored in with care.

Realization kicked in—she wouldn’t leave, so I stepped closer.

"Bonjour. Have you waited for me?" I greeted.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she scanned my face with knit brows as if searching for flaws. There is none, except for the bandages on top of my cut lip, bruised temple and busted nose.

“What does it look like?”

“Err…let’s say you could’ve been just sketching,” I answered.

I’ve known her for so long to know that she always sat in weird places to sketch. Gossips say that she was once found sketching at the rooftop (which is a restricted area), at the abandoned storage room, and of course, the park bench. I’d normally assume that this particular ugly hallway would have inspired her artistic expression.

“I was, but I stopped halfway.”

"Because?"

She blinked, and turned away.

"I heard what happened. Is it true?"

“Yeah,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “It turns out fists are stronger than sarcasm.”

Silence stretched between us again.

Then, she turned back to me. Her eyes weren't sharp anymore. If I could describe it without a sugarcoat, it would be a look of disappointment.

I can say that to myself too. Letting yourself decked by three people wasn't courage, it was euthanasia.

“You shouldn’t have helped me.”

“I didn't help you. I just heard men speaking trash about you, and I just got punched when I tried to correct them.”

I heard a sigh before Kousaka-san spoke again.

“That’s not the point.”

I frowned. “Care to emphasize?”

She looked at me, like she was choosing her words carefully. Like they might cut if she didn’t. But that face betrayed her actions for the next second.

Her fist shot out faster than my reflexes, and the next heartbeat, I found myself falling to one knee, clutching my stomach and throwing a coughing fit.

Her strength was…unbelievable.

If this was her way to emphasize her point, then I should practice reading between the lines and reinforcing core muscles.

“There's a more civil way of handling my stupidity, don’t you think?” as I retched over the floor.

“Stupidity is what makes civilization stagnant. And civility is the comfortable illusion that lets it happen.”

I coughed, my throat raw, pushing myself up slowly. The pain was receding, but the shock was not. “A convenient illusion? You call this…physical critique…progress?”

“I call it a necessary wake-up call,” she countered, folding her arms.

“I was just joking around.”

“Save the jokes. You think people like me want to be saved?” she spat.

I didn’t answer. That prompted her to continue speaking.

“That if someone’s suffering, someone else should just come in and fix it? You don’t know anything about what I’ve lived through, and you decided you knew what was best? That’s not heroic. That’s just arrogance.”

Her words hit harder than her fist did. I tried to swallow them, but they scratched going down.

“You just walked headlong into a situation where you were physically outmatched and outnumbered, based on a fragile, emotional impulse. You substituted the effective calculation of risk for a sentimental, self-destructive gesture of 'help.' You didn't help me, Shimizu. You became a liability, trading a minor annoyance for a major complication.”

“As expected from those who didn't experience it first hand…”

Her eyes narrowed into slits, now replying in a voice laced with a biting contempt.

“So you're saying just by being an outsider makes me irrational?”

“No, what I'm saying is that you also don't know what I've lived through, so you cannot judge the course of my actions. I didn’t think I was helping you. I just didn’t want to stand there and watch them. For me, standing up for someone being maligned is secondary to survival.”

“Isn’t that arrogance? You’re practically trying to be superior to me. Why then? You think you’re the only one capable?”

“I can’t stand seeing people getting victimized and do nothing about it. It feels like I’m just seeing myself before in them, and I always knew that it only leads to more trouble later on.”

Her blue eyes met mine.

“I lived through days in constant anxiety and caution, because every time I relaxed, I became another victim.” I continued.

“Victim?”

For a brief moment, a memory crossed my mind. But the intensity of it made my head scream 'Not now' so I blinked away the image and shoved it inside.

“Nothing, just treat it as it is.”

Kousaka-san scoffed, a quick, dismissive sound.

“I am sorry for your circumstances. But that’s not a rational reason for screwing yourself over. I am unaware of what they said, and that equates to it never having been said at all.”

“Do you really believe that? That if you close your eyes, rumors just disappear? That pretending not to hear it makes it harmless?”

Her brows furrowed.

“If I don’t react, bullies get bored. People only poke things that scream.”

“Words don’t vanish just because you ignore them. A lie repeated becomes perception, right?”

Illusory truth, it is. Words will spread, shape how others see her, then eventually, accept the rumors as truth. That’s the kind of slow-burning damage I wanted her to realize, and to prevent.

“You preach logic yet charged in. So what? Weaponizing it now?”

I wanted to say that I would let myself fall victim with a clear conscience. That didn't leave my lips though.

Her eyes darted away.

“It’s survival, Shimizu.” she retorted. “If I ignore them, they can’t touch me. If I let it hurt, then they win.”

I stepped closer.

“But that doesn't wear you down?”

She didn't answer.

“If you let them keep doing it, they already won.” I added.

Her breath hitched—and her fingers curled against her blazer, gripping the fabric. She kept herself in that position, with her head slowly bowed in defeat.

“Mon dieu…that’s not your job.”

Giving her the umbrella in that rain wasn’t my job. Letting her in and cook into my poverty shack isn’t my job. Looking for her in the crowd and fighting for her isn’t my job. I always ignored people’s sufferings because they ignored mine—and that’s for the sake of balance.

Though why can't I act the same around Kousaka-san? Was it because she already saw the real me and wanted to reshape that image?

"I didn't care if you're used to people calling you out. I didn't care if you always let them. So I figured someone else should do something for once. Call this action barbaric, but to me, it's justice."

“T’as un complexe de héros, pauvre crétin.”

I blinked, slightly confused by the strange words she just said.

“Sorry?”

“Sigh…you’re still a crétin,” she said.

“Meaning?”

She stared at me for a while longer.

"You're an idiot."

"Part of my resumé."

We stayed standing idly, letting the clock tick like a metronome. It was a great moment for us to pause, to recollect ourselves emotionally, and come up for better topics to discuss.