“Aoki and I advanced together grade by grade. It was the same private junior high and senior high, but every year we were in different classes. Until the very last year—boy, did it feel ugly when we came face-to-face in that classroom. The way he looked at me, it pried open my gut. I could feel that same slime come oozing out again.”

Ozawa pursed his lips and stared down at his coffee cup. Then he glanced up at me with a slight smile. From outside the plate-glass windows came the roar of jet engines. A 737 shot straight off like a wedge into the clouds and vanished from sight.

“The first semester passed pretty uneventfully. Aoki hadn’t changed a bit since the eighth grade. Some people don’t grow, and they don’t degenerate; they keep on exactly as they always were. Aoki was still at the top of the class; he was still Mr. Popular. Though to me, he was still a disgusting creep. We did our best not to look at each other. Let me tell you, it’s no fun having your own personal demon in the same classroom. But it couldn’t be helped. Half the blame was mine, anyway.

“Then summer vacation came around. My last summer vacation as a high-school student. My grades were okay, okay enough to get me into an average university, so I didn’t really cram for the entrance exams. My folks didn’t raise a fuss, so I just studied as I always did. Saturdays and Sundays, I went to the gym. The rest of the time I read and listened to records.

“Meanwhile, everyone else was going bug-eyed. Our whole school, junior high up through senior high, was a typical cram factory. Who got into what university, what ranking by how many matriculations into where—the teachers couldn’t talk about anything else. The same with the students. By senior year, everyone was hot under the collar, and the atmosphere in class was tense. It stank. I didn’t like it when I first started school there, and I didn’t like it six years later. Plus, to the very end, I didn’t make one honest friend. If I hadn’t taken up boxing, if I hadn’t gone to my uncle’s gym, I would have been pretty damn lonely.