Because the drugs still hadn’t worn off, Yamazaki was loose-tongued. He kept talking incomprehensibly. “This happens a lot. Dramas where two young, good-looking actors, arguing about youth or love or something, fight each other in a park, where everything is wet with rain. ‘You don’t really understand love!’… ‘I love Hitomi with all my heart!’… ‘Bang! Crack!’ That sort of thing…”

Doing stretching exercises, I nodded for him to continue.

“In my heart, I really do long for that kind of drama because there is truth in those television shows. Because there’s the introduction, development, turn, and resolution, there’s an explosion of emotions, and there’s the conclusion… On the other hand, our lives continually are filled with dim, dreamy anxiety, and there are no easily understood dramas, situations, or confrontations—nothing at all like that… Isn’t that sort of absurd? I’m twenty, and you’re twenty-two, Satou. Even so, we’ve never really loved anyone, hated anyone, fought as a result of love or hate, or had any of those experiences at all. It’s terrible!”

At this point, Yamazaki violently shook me by the shoulders as I stretched my Achilles tendons.

He said, “Let’s try fighting dramatically! Beautifully, swiftly, and roughly! Let’s fight with those concepts in mind!”

“Yeah!” I let out a brave yell and got into my fighting pose.

And so we started beating each other. Our fight was distressingly pastoral. There were some things that hurt, but punches from a weak man hopped up on drugs had limited force.

Yamazaki desperately was trying to make the fight as exciting as possible, and so he began yelling dramatic (although entirely abstract) lines, “Satou, you don’t understand anything!”

I couldn’t let his effort go to waste, so I also shouted something that felt appropriate. “You’re the one who’s wrong!”

“What part of what I’m saying is wrong?!”

I was at a loss, having been unexpectedly questioned in a concrete manner. The fist I was swinging around stopped as I thought about it for a little while. “For example, how about the fact that you went to the Yoyogi Animation Institute?” I responded hesitantly.

As I said that, Yamazaki abruptly aimed a kick at me. “Don’t make fun of Yoyogi Animation!”

“Ow! Why are you suddenly kicking me for real, you—“

“Don’t think you can talk so big even though you’re a hikikomori!”

The blood rushed to my head. “Die, lolicon! Die, you erotic game otaku!”

I swung my right fist as hard as I could, smashing it into Yamazaki’s stomach. He groaned, charged, and tackled me, still groaning as he did. Tangled up together, we fell to the ground. Yamazaki straddled my head; I could see the moon behind him. I would be beaten to a pulp if I stayed like this.