…………
……You can’t fight on an empty stomach. It is also called “the snake in your bosom,” so first of all, I’ll have to settle this one down.
Wiping my face with a wet tissue and giving my hair a quick run-through, I finish a few simple toiletries.
Today has some good weather. The sky spreading above is crystalline blue, though likely to grow hot as the day presses on.
It really is wide, enough to press to the edge of my eyes. Probably because there aren’t any tall buildings around.
And just around the time I begin growing bored of looking around, mixing its black smoke into the summer sky, the bus arrives.
Kei: …………
It rushes by like I’m not even there.
Did they just ignore me!?
From my position where I stood at the roadside, meaningfully close to the stop indicator, I desperately run to the center of the road and wave my two hands around.
Kei: There’s a passenger here, you know—!? I’m a passenger—!!
It must be a lucky thing it wasn’t going very fast, as it pulls to a stop tens of meters away.
With a short run, I head to the bus’s belly, take a numbered ticket as it spouts from the machine and climb the overly large stairs.
Bus driver: I’m sorry, this is actually the first time I’ve ever taken a passenger at this stop. In all my history on the job, I haven’t had one disembark here, either.
The still young-looking bus driver lowers his head through the back mirror.
Bus driver: I almost feel like I’m being bewitched by a fox.
Kei: ……That makes two of us.
The protests of my stomach bugs, far shorter of temper than myself, are thankfully drowned out by the loud engine rumbling.