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Having finally completed all the mandatory activities of the first day, Futaba was the first to leave the classroom.
Such an incredibly long experience, by her standards, of being in the same space with clueless ordinary people, made her feel nauseous – more mentally than physically – and required her to restore her mental strength. Dismissing the idea of going outside, where she would surely have to push through the crowd to get from one point to another, she headed up the stairs – to the very flimsy metal door, behind which lay the path to the roof. Fortunately, it was not locked – she only had to pull it hard and overcome the resistance of the unfriendly hinges.
A gust of wind, still fresh from the street but already with hints of warmth, ruffled her hair and clothes, but helped her to come to her senses a little. Closing the door, Futaba walked across the roof, which was not yet badly damaged by the weather, and stopped in the least windy spot. Taking a cigarette from the pack, she twirled it in her fingers, gently kneading the contents with a slight crunch – a meaningless gesture, but one that had become a habit – and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, she struck a match. The fierce wind, as always, did its best to prevent this, but the seasoned lafrenian's skill in preserving the flame paid off – the tobacco caught, although one side of the cigarette had to be touched up. Inhaling and holding the first puff of smoke, Futaba leaned against the railing and surveyed the surrounding area. The school grounds themselves did not offer anything particularly interesting for several kilometers around – randomly scattered forests, fields, and houses. Down in the schoolyard, the little ones were bustling about, running, waving their arms, and shouting something to each other, like children enjoying the spring weather.
"Smile and enjoy every day," a classmate's words flashed through her mind. Maybe, of course, there was something else meant by that, and it was said differently, but that's how she remembered it.
Futaba hated this type of people with all her soul, because they reminded her of her own, illusion-filled past, and the pathetic helplessness she found herself in when the familiar ground beneath her feet turned into quicksand. To some extent, she felt sorry for this girl – given her youth and inexperience, she still had to experience what real life was like. This pity was caused by Futaba's unwillingness to see more broken people around her.
However, a distinctive negative trait of people like her is that if they survive this misfortune through luck, some initially advantageous life circumstances, or with someone else's help, they will not be fully grateful to the universe for it, but will perceive this resolution as something they are entitled to, which will only make them even more arrogant in the future. Perhaps punishment from the universe would be good for her, who knows?
Futaba took another drag, dwelling on this thought. Somewhere down there, the little ones began to wave the newly issued weapons – weren't they fools?
A fresh memory came to mind of how immature teenagers eagerly chose weapons for themselves, trying to look cooler in each other's eyes:
"Protagonists of stories use a sword!" – just a laugh. Get a haircut, or you'll miss the first blow.
How many of them had held a weapon before? Who had used it in battle? Who had participated – had they defended their own lives, or just waved it around to get praise or win a chocolate medal in their village?
Futaba weighed the bat in her hand and examined it from all sides. Here and there, chips were visible, some nails were bent, and some had their heads torn off. Once, a piece of barbed wire was wrapped around it, but one day it broke, and she couldn't find a new spool.
Before going to school, the sekiharomori girl tried to make her weapon look as decent as possible, so that it wouldn't look too terrible, but she only managed to do it partially. In many places, both the wood and the metal parts were covered with ominous dark spots, which were so ingrained in the material that they could not be cleaned.
Futaba could remember the genesis of almost every one of them and every bent nail by digging into her memory – such cases were much better imprinted in her than the dull and dreary everyday life. It wasn't that inflicting pain on bad people, whom they deserved, gave some kind of special perverse pleasure – but rather a feeling of grim satisfaction, which any hero of justice feels when overthrowing evil in the name of a higher ideal. Only, instead of a sword, the "protagonist" here used something else.
Stubbornly sucking the last, bitter as existence itself, millimeters of the cigarette to the filter, Futaba took the butt between her fingers and flicked it away with a strong snap – the butt was picked up by the wind like a feather and disappeared from view on the other side of the school fence.
And she could easily be in its place right now – nothing could prevent her from doing so. She just had to group herself correctly so that her head was at the bottom. Maybe jump like a fish into a lake? Or go the other way from the roof – where a piece of fence with sharp, ornate spikes awaits you below.
Two thoughts prevented this from happening – to a lesser extent, the instinct for self-preservation, the fear of pain and the unknown. To a greater extent – the stubborn unwillingness to give the bastards the joy of realizing that she herself had made their task easier.
"Living well is the best revenge on ill-wishers," she had heard somewhere, sometime. In her case, the question of "good" or "bad" did not arise, because the answer to it was already clear.
Heaving a sigh, shivering from the gust of wind that had blown in, and spitting the remnants of the tar from the roof, Futaba headed back into the building. Ahead lay an exciting student life, full of bright events, intense emotions, the search for oneself and one's destiny, fun, warm, friendly moments, and good laughter. (no)
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