A Postulate on Social Interaction

I’ve gotten so accustomed to my new life that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have special people in my life. I honestly don’t know how I even managed to go through life that way. That hasn’t been my life recently. You’d be surprised at how much math has really influenced how I viewed friendship. I used to view it as something that invited unnecessary chaos. It just seemed to be something inherently opposed to the language of logic. Until I realized that the language of math doesn’t oppose complexity, it invites it warmly like an old friend.

In geometry, we learned that the whole is greater than the part. A segment from whole is always going to be shorter than the whole it comes from. I then applied this principle to people. Everyone has a segment. They can be shared, because there’s no abject limit to what makes something complete. So people find others who can complete them. And sometimes people may find the same segment and share it in such a way that makes sure everyone is complete. That’s how I’ve come to reason about social interaction.

Eh… Maybe trying to logically reason social interaction is just opposed to something inherent about people, but I choose this outcome either way. There’s something about people to admire about. While I’m on this tangent, I think it’s necessary to address how constant paradox is just so enshrouded within daily life. It’s actually not a bad thing, but it’s something that I’ve noticed a lot recently.

When it comes to my daily routine especially, there’s always a rigid pattern at play. I do the things a high school student does every single day, and don’t deviate from this idea. But at the same time, there’s always randomness that always follows me around wherever I go throughout my day. Whether I get to see my friends walk down the hall or arrive early is just left up to things outside of my control. Nothing inherently changes.

On my usual days I wait for Daichi at the school gates. It always got crowded at the front doors, so we met outside. There were many days in which I couldn’t be sure of whether I’d ride the train home with Daichi or stay behind and help with the other things that I was involved in. I could’ve been helping Hinata with another one of her plans or come and watch the basketball team. But I still come home and I still text friends when all things are said and done. On this particular day, I didn’t have anything significant going on.

“Osamu, are you planning on taking the train?” Daichi said to confirm with me

“I think so. I don’t have much going on.” I responded, noticeably lacking any spirit.

Although lately, I’ve been helping Hinata in trying to make chocolate for Daisuke in time for Valentine's Day. Despite the fact that I’ve told her repeatedly that it’s currently late November. Though, even she admitted it was probably premature to start planning this early. She worked at her parent’s bakery and thought she was exaggerating the situation. So I blindly went along with the ordeal.

She brought me along to her parent’s bakery afterschool to make the chocolate and have me taste them. When I took the first bite, I completely understood why she had wanted to start as early as possible. My incoherent river of tears that followed was wrongly interpreted by Hinata as a sign that I had enjoyed her recipe. Thus, she spent an entire week trying to improve upon a recipe fit for a certain unlucky individual. She’s improved a bit, but I doubt I’ll be able to help much longer at this rate.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with planning beforehand. It might make things go smoother for everyone. Still… I have the feeling that something is bound to go wrong. If my hunch is right, I’d just rather not be there to witness it.

I explained the situation with Daichi beforehand, since he unofficially tasked himself with mitigating the span of Hinata’s schemes. But he actually burst out laughing when I managed to tell him. He did feel sorry for me, but insists that I’m too much of a worrywart about this kind of thing.

“Are you basing that on a simple guess, or did you somehow prove it with some of your math skills?” He told me, obviously poking fun of my tendency to try to see the math in situations like this.

“That’s Osamu for you.”

He admitted to somewhat expecting this kind of thing from Hinata in all his years of knowing her. But in the end, I was made the center fool. He really did like to try to find the fun in any situation possible, and found great enjoyment if it involved me. Eventually, I did manage to stumble upon a counter to such cases. To briefly sum it up, he was unlucky enough to decline being involved in one of her plans and ever since that’s been a real weakness of his. The thought of Hinata invoking some type of wrath, really does seem to mess with him a bit.

To this day, I still have no clue as to the punishment Hinata had conjured towards Daichi. There are rumors that claim Daichi’s bike tires were slashed in the middle of the night—going on to say that the slasher was actually trying to attract Daichi’s attention while doing so. It’s hearsay for sure… But I can’t really find any part of me that can’t say it couldn’t be Hinata. Even after he replaced his bike tires, Daichi still refuses to use his bike. I’m beginning to think that he’s scared of “someone” trying to slash them again and the reason why he conveniently takes the train.

Today was no day dedicated to scheming or supporting a certain basketball player. Instead it was the return of a normal that I hadn’t experienced in eons. I can’t remember for sure what I would usually do with the time I had with Daichi. I guess conversing came so naturally to us that I hadn’t noticed much of our patterns. I do remember the last conversation that we had a week ago.

The other day we were talking about some light novels. Lately, I’ve found myself reading less of them. It’s not that I don’t like them anymore, but it’s more like I haven’t had the time to. Daichi mentioned one that was particularly interesting. It was about an antisocial writer who journeys to find source material. He mentioned that it had to be read in order to really understand how good the novel is. Then, I see his eyes light up as if he had an epiphany. I could tell something was up with his abnormal yet accomplished grin.

“He reminds me a lot of you.” He said in a joking grin, clearly expecting me to say something to prove his point.

“Not every antisocial person is not me. Besides, I’m not that antisocial.” I responded defensively; trying not to fall into his obvious trap.

“Hmm… Maybe I’m wrong about that then.” He said while making sure that I’d noticed that he was deliberately looking at the tree to his right.

Did he really have to look at a decrepit tree while talking about my so-called lack of social skills? Maybe it was an apt connection but still… I just brushed it off, besides I made the friends of a lifetime with my social skills.

I wouldn’t even realize how much time we’d spend talking to each other as we headed home. Of course, it did lead to a couple of problems. We missed our train stop a few times while talking, and the uneasy feeling of seeing an unfamiliar cityscape restarted our awareness. Our hearts just sank with sheer embarrassment and half-heartedly blamed each other with empty accusations. We haven’t really talked about it to each other after that day. But to be fair, It has only been a week since it last happened. I’m now noticing there seems to be a problem with me forgetting about my surroundings…

We then would walk around for a bit, sometimes going into the bookstore nearby or the convenience store to get something quick and easy. We just wanted to spend time anyway that it favored what we wanted at that very moment. When we didn’t have money, walking around sporadically was more than enough for us. We knew we had to get back home, but time just seemed to move too quickly and yet slowly all the same. Eventually, we had to depart and eventually headed to our respective homes.