Peach Girl from Uchiura

Driving further down the road, flanked on one side by a steep rise and a view of the open sea on the other, Yoshiyuki was irked that he wasn't on a proper motorcycle such as his buddies had back in Tokyo. Nonetheless, he was determined to get himself up onto some mountain where there might be some cave to nap in.

“…”

But… no matter how far he has driven, the road never seemed to get any higher, and the bike seemed to get even slower…

And slower…

At one point, where the road had descended and was flanked by a seawall, it simply gave out and refused to start when he tried to. Huffing in frustration, he slumped over the handle and let the wind rush over his back.

     2. Peach Girl from Uchiura

A bit later, he was sitting on the wall facing the ocean. The wind was strong that day, and the thundering surf was strangely enough rubbing away all of the ill feelings of that morning. Here's sweet privacy at last. Out here on the lonely stretch of highway that led to nowhere, there would be none to disturb and even less to care about. A string of distant neighboring islands lay in faint outlines, vague bluish shadows as wispy as figments of the imagination. The flock of seabirds overhead were scattered, struggling against the gale. The restless sea roiled in shades of teal and brown and foamy white fighting for his attention.

He had heard from his father once. About a certain hill some distance away from the school he attended near Ibaraki, in a neighborhood where he grew up. An open space, bare and defenseless against the atmosphere. There were giant white windmills there. There he met his mother.

Why should he be remembering now, of all things, his parents?

He defiantly stretched out and lay flat right there on the concrete face of the wall. He is sleeping right there. He will stay here well into the night.

"…"

About half an hour later, Ai was still carrying her buddy on the way back to the bus stop when they chanced upon the scooter parked by the seawall. The driver was lying atop the wall and seemed to be napping. “Say, Ai-chu, let’s make off with that bike while we can, so we won’t to have to take the bus.”

“Kan-chan!?”

Snicker. “Na~nchat-te! Anyway, let’s look for other Nankaisei peeps, I hear quite a few are also doing track practice here.”

And off they went.

Huh?

Yoshiyuki lazily let an eye open. Well, the sky was as blue as ever; if anything, it was a sharper blue. But…

Where did the wind go? The heat was stifling. And there was a heavy silence. The sea must be flat as glass right now. And there was something else. His throat. His whole body. He felt so withered and dry. And it's not just from thirst.

Were those sandwiches that he saw back at the kitchen? Did he remember to pick one before he left? Tch. Guess he will have to drive back into town now. But he felt like a wet, deflated balloon, so he could only manage to turn his head toward the road.

The highway was still empty.

Isn't there anyone who'll help him up? Did he even have enough strength to call out? He let out, in a desperate howl, what merely amounted to a long, drawn-out, hoarse moan. He cringed at himself. Nobody's gonna hear that. He didn't have dinner last rainy night, going straight to bed despite his grandmother, and then he missed breakfast. And now, it's like… one in the afternoon?

When he turned his face back up at the sky… Whoa. A dangling strip the color of bread (or oranges?) hung mere inches right above his mouth. It nodded and bobbed up and down, teasing him as catnip would. What's a starved man to do? It bobbed. He chomped. It bobbed. He chomped. It bobbed…. Suddenly, he found the strength to sit up so he could catch the hanging treat.

Whut.

A girl's face was now taunting him with a playful expression. What? A student. She’s in some kind of P.E. uniform. Was she out jogging? And what was that bread…? Oh. Turns out what he was trying to catch was a loose lock of hair that stuck out off the top of her head like a sore thumb.

He chomped on the thing, anyway.

"Wahhhh!" yelped the girl with a slap at him. "I knew it! You’re a zombie!"

He fell face down. "I can't go on," he groaned pitifully. "Treat me out, please. I'll pay you back tonight."

“Heh?!”

“Please…”

She regarded him for a moment. He looked (and sounded) so pathetic she couldn't help but sneer just a bit. Yes, she could use him, after all.

"I've been whopping this for an hour now," she said of the vending machine. "I hurt two of my toes already. I can't let my 100 yen go to waste!"

Yoshiyuki gave a good kick to the roadside vendo, so much so that it rattled and dropped the can of thick, slurpy peach concentrate."Yatta!" went the girl, even as he looked on in exasperation. She made all sorts of funny noises while sucking down on the thick juice. "Hahah!" she giggled brightly. "This is why it's my favorite. Gao~" she growled.

"They have a run-down vendo out here in the wilds," he murmured, "and couldn't put up a stupid gas station nearby?"

And that's just one of those things about this dead-end island.

Yoshiyuki lay back against the sofa listening to soft music playing in the dark living room, where only the aquarium provided some low illumination, that and the light from the half-closed door of Grandma's real-estate office, where she was unwinding after a day's business. The sounds of a late-night variety show filtered through to him, but it was something far removed from him, almost from another house altogether.

Since Day One on this nowhere of an island, I have been quite disoriented. Yesterday I was carefree in the big city and all of a sudden I was out in the elements pumping gas in some forsaken corner of the ocean—for good? Just like that?

The Camels taken from him made it all the worse.

Even now I am not entirely sure if that encounter earlier was just another wild dream brought on by starvation or fatigue. Or both.

The girl got for him two more cans of extra-thick juice. "There. I have treated you already."

"Eh?" he blurted raising an eyebrow over the strange drink. "I was thinking you would at least have melon bread."

"O-K!" she chimed taking them back. "That's one-hundred yen you owe me."

"H-Hey—I got no…. and in return for nothing?"

"She tossed back one can to him and proceeded to poke a straw into hers. She made funny and horrific slurping noises as she enjoyed the juice. "Sai-kou! You can't do this with any other brand."

He only stared at the can. Welp. For a guy stranded in the wilds with a weird islander without any cash to spare, he should be more than happy to at least have something in his stomach.

I wonder. Are people out here like her? Am I going to put up with ridiculous provincials for the rest of my life?

And there was exactly one highway in the entire island. There were only two bus trips, one in the morning, and another in the evening, probably to the tune of the opening and closing of the islands' lone high school, Nankaisei Academy. (There was a rather shady van rental which charged a more-or-less arbitrary price for those unfortunate enough to miss those two trips.) An economy ferry braved the Pacific every week (or two) and a single flight came every other month, and sometimes not at all if the weather turned sour.

And everywhere he went it was either empty or there were a couple of people walking at snail's pace, making things seem even slower. The next thing he knows, time itself has already stopped moving.

"Hey," mumbled the girl as they walked side-by-side while he walked the scooter. "Aren't you going to molest me?"

"Eh—?"

"See, I'm a gal," she said in an overly innocent voice, "and you're a guy and we're out here on our own, and—"

"You get me a full solid lunch, and drinks that don't make me sick, and then I'll think about it."

"Hah!" she suddenly beamed with a loud clap. "Alright! I'll take you downtown. There's a café there by the police station."

But, speaking of downtown, lately winds of change have started to blow at the Kyunin Islands—mostly at the "main" island of Otou-san, where he resides, and at the harbor area in particular. Well, little by little people have been coming over from the mainland for years. But just two years ago a café would have been unheard of. It really all began when a cruise company operating out of the Izu peninsula began offering regular trips to the islands, at about the same number of trips per month as the ferry. Once the tourist torrent was unleashed, there was no turning back. The number of permanent establishments serving tourists increased noticeably, especially when a theme-park company called Izu Mite opened a portion of its Izu Mite Islands park there, not too far from school. Fixed establishments pulls in more fixed residents, and thus followed a fixed general high school.

So chances are that sassy seaside lass was not actually raised here. Does not make her any less ridiculous or provincial, though.

Oh, now he remembers.

"I came with my family from Uchiura. Over there. There!" she motioned with a wide flail of her arm at the sea.

"Uh, where's that… Uchiura, exactly?"

"Hah?! Were you born under a rock? Uchiura is in Numazu, and Numazu is in Shizuoka, and Shizuoka is on Earth!"

"Well, I'm sorry," he said with only a bit of irritation. "I came from someplace they call Tokyo. I don't remember under which rock that is."

"Uwoooo!" she exclaimed in awe. "How did a Tokyo dude end up here?" It was a long story, and he didn't feel like telling it right now. "Are you a tourist? But you certainly didn't look like a tourist when I found you," she added.

"Then what did I look like?" This talk was getting pointless by the minute.

"You looked dead! I mean there's all those seagulls perching on you and it looked as if they're feeding on your corpse and I was like, what? did somebody get murdered? And then I took a closer look and drove away the seagulls."

He held himself back from believing whatever yarn this stupid provincial might be spinning around him. He certainly has enough annoying people to deal with. Grandma alone was more than enough.