Check The Neck

Were you thinking I really broke my neck at the end of chapter 5? You fool, you absolute fool! Of course I didn’t, there’s so much story left to tell. I’ll die when I decide to die, and not a second sooner.

Now you might be thinking that this means no necks were broken on that day, this is distinctly untrue. The backflip definitely happened, 100%, I would not lie to you about that. I just happened to land on someone else’s neck, snapping it very cleanly. And it might not even be wrong to say that I snapped my neck since all living things are ultimately one and the same.

You couldn’t possibly have known there would be someone there to break your fall! I hear you say. Wrong. Incorrect. Embarrassingly so. You’d do well to remember who is telling this story, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

People are merely NPCs existing in the open-world adventure game that is my life and, because my life was rushed to market, characters with a non-unique design tend to have pretty predictable pathing. That’s how I knew, for absolute certain, that there would be a rather skinny boy beneath the window ready to prevent my otherwise certain death.

On the Monday morning, my first morning at Yūkan, I had made sure to wake up extra early and scout out the entire school. On the Tuesday morning I had done the same thing to try and cover some of the spots I’d missed.

During my deft sleuthing, I had come across Nanami Hoshii, a second-year who looked like his BMI was a negative number. A quick perusal through his personal files (don’t ask me where I got them) told me that the reason for his admission Yūkan was his power of manifestation. Essentially, he could create objects out of thin air. It seems he had been earmarked as a potential solution to the problem of entropy, but just entering his second year, the faculty had already given up on him.

Nanami had the one flaw that no Yūkan student can have, a poor work ethic. His abilities had barely improved throughout his first year, so he was still only able to create things about the size of his hand. The persistent beratement from all of his teachers and even his demanding family had taken a toll on him mentally, so he had turned to smoking. Naturally, smoking is banned on Kabutekisuto island, which is where Yūkan is situated. Because it should be impossible to get banned substances onto the island, the faculty don’t perform checks for such things. This left a window of opportunity for Nanami; every morning, just after the break of dawn, he would manifest a cigarette and a lighter and go to town. He needed to choke on smoke before he could face the rest of any given day.

Now some of that involved speculation on my part but I played an hour and a half of Umineko no Naku Koro Ni when I was 13, so I consider myself quite good at putting pieces together when they’re handed to me. And I turned out to be right, based on my assumptions and calculations, he was there to break my fall with his puny neck when I needed him to be.

He will not be missed.

Anyway, I still had a couple of hours until homeroom started and I wasn’t about to waste them. I hadn’t actually seen Motoko on either of my morning excursions up to this point, but she seemed like the kind of girl to go for a morning jog. Given that, I deduced she’d be arriving at the vending machines outside the dorms in a matter of minutes.

With time of the essence, I rolled Nanami’s body off the cliffside into the ocean and sprinted for the courtyard.

***

“What’s up princess.”

The very second Motoko arrived at the vending machines, I tossed her a Pocari Sweat. Judging by the sweat dripping off her subtly toned body, it was a well-earned one. Her running gear covered scarcely more than her hips and chest, and I was very much enjoying that.

She caught it one-handed as she came to a stop and looked at me confused. That didn’t stop her from ripping off the cap and downing it. I wouldn’t typically buy something for a woman, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Ahh! Needed that. Thanks, uh… Anthony, yeah?”

“Melo, actually.”

Wonder how she got those two mixed up. Those names aren’t remotely similar and I can tell by the look of her she’s never been to New York.

“Melo, that was it. Guess I never introduced myself; name’s Motoko!”

Motoko put her arm out for a handshake which I promptly returned. She put a lot of force into her grip as if to say ‘I could kill you’ without ruining the mood on her face. I did not care, to kill me she’d have to hit me and the FBI had compared me to a young Muhammed Ali in their file on me. ‘Simply too nice with it to be worth pursuing’ were the concluding remarks, if memory serves.

“Nice to meet you, Major.”

“What?”

“I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.”

Her grip tightened instinctively as I said that.

“Do not ask me about the room.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

My hand was released from its prison in an instant. As it fell by my side, I shoved it straight into my pocket to not show any signs of weakness. Strong women have always been a pain to deal with, they want you to prove you’re stronger than them before they’ll give you the time of day. Not that that part is particularly difficult, I’m built like you wouldn’t believe. The problem was that strong women tended to also be stubborn women, so getting them to admit you were their superior typically took more time than I’d like.

“Oh. Then I don’t mind, fire away.”

“Hachitama isn’t being very forthcoming, I want to know what her dream is.”

Motoko’s smile tightened a little bit, going from genuine to forced at the mention of Hachitama’s name.

“So it’s about that huh? Shizuko mentioned that you might try something like this.”

“What the fuck was she saying about me?”

“She said to ignore you. Not to give you what you were looking for.”

“Any way I can convince you to not ignore me.”

“You don’t have to. Listening to other people is a hobby for the weak and uncertain.”

Motoko looked me up and down like she was checking me out. She was checking me out because I was checking her out in turn. It had been obvious since the other day that she was strong but now that I’m paying attention to her, she’s also fairly tall for a girl, only 3 or 4 inches smaller than myself. Her arms and legs looked less like a student's and more like an athlete's and she was sporting a wonderful six-pack. Not that I was into any of that, such a build was unbecoming of a woman, I told myself.

“Do you think you can handle yourself in a fight?”

“I could beat the shit out of any girl at this school.”

“Good, then meet me back here after class.”