/monster/ - The Last Bastion of Romance★

Nice to see you're not giving up on it.

Welcome back! I was worried when the old thread was wiped out by the April 1st hack.

“Catcher in the Rye. It wasn’t so bad. I had more trouble figuring out all the slang than what was going on.”

She glances at me, suspicion written into the lines of her forehead. “How did you even suffer through that? It was like torture! The main guy, the one you had to listen to for the whole book-- Holden was his name, right? Dumb name for a dumb kid– he was insufferable. Flat out. Always acting like the world revolved around him even though it took maybe five minutes for the consequences of his bad decisions to hit. Only time he was even a little sympathetic was when he talked to his little sister, but even that didn’t work because he’d spent so much time being a jackass already I knew he was pretending.”

Her knowing so much about that book is enough of a surprise that I’m willing to look past how she missed the point of it by a mile. “Of course he acts like a jerk. The book’s big thing is figuring out that Holden isn’t telling you the whole story. What he does doesn’t really come into it. It’s about how he tells you about it.”

The lines of suspicion shift into confusion as her eyebrows shift closer together. “You're telling me a book that spends, like, eighty percent of its time talking about this kid and everything he does has nothing to do with what he does?”

“Well, yeah.” I say. “No matter what he’s talking about, he always finds a complaint or someone else to blame for his problems.”

“But all he ever talked about was how great he was and how many memories he had everywhere! What’s the point in making a book about a total jackass of a main character but trying to make him sympathetic anyway? I can understand being torn up about having a shitty family and a dead brother and all, but why is he a total jerk all the time?”

“Because he doesn’t want to admit he’s torn up.”

She groans. “So, what, the book is about some stupid kid lying to himself and everyone else for a couple of days?”

The best response I can give to that is a shrug. “I wouldn’t call him stupid. He’s just seen a lot of crap and he doesn’t know how to work through it.”

Keiko rolls her eyes, ears swiveling along in exaggerated exasperation. “Well, at least now I have a nerd I can copy off of if I ever get in trouble.”

The lines that appear on my forehead break that look into a sheepish smile. “Sheesh, calm down, Nakai! I can make it on my own.”

“Whatever you say,” I murmur, and look down into my bowl.

“And I do say,” she answers, as enthusiastic as ever. “See you in class tomorrow, all right? Don’t be late!”

With that, she takes her leave. It’s just me and my bowl now, and soon not even that. I dump my dishes into the tub of soapy water and leave the cafeteria, worried by the nagging emptiness of my thoughts. I should have something, anything to say about all these new experiences, but I can’t manage any emotion at all-- at least, not one worth putting any thought into, so that rules out mulling over the five seconds I spent with Aowara.

damn gateway errors

I really can't connect to supersperg main characters like this.

What else, then? The curry was good. I’d eat it again. That’s about all I can manage.

I didn’t hate talking with Keiko. I don’t think we have very much in common, but maybe I can get her to read a book I like. I have trouble keeping up with her banter, but that says more about me than it does about her. “Interacting” with doctors for a couple of months has left my ability to hold a conversation to rot. It wasn’t at a mirror sheen at Kasugayama either, but it was better, I know that much. There’s no way I’ve always been this bad.

My feet take me back to the lobby. The library is right over there, but… I think I’ll pass. I have no idea what the workload is like here. I might not even have time to sleep, much less read. Besides, all I had to do in the hospital was read. I’m sick of it. Something tells me the collection won’t be much different, since this place is pretty much

Even as I tell myself that, a nagging feeling refuses to leave me. It’s not a mysterious one, either. All it tells me is that I need to find something to do here at Yamaku, or I’m going to have it even worse than in the hospital. I might even end up worse than Kenji. He’s a few songs short of an album, but at least he seems fulfilled.

I pretend I don’t care about all that and leave, going back to my dorm room. It was number 28, right…? Worried I’m going to have to put the key into half a dozen locks before I figure anything out, I pull it out of my jacket pocket and breathe a sigh of relief. The metal has been etched with the number, so the first door I put it in is the right one-- glancing over my shoulder as I open it to make sure I’m not about to be interrupted by Kenji. But his door stays closed as mine opens, swinging in and giving me a breath of… Carpet, I guess. There’s not much else. At least the bonsai tree hasn’t tipped over or gone yellow in the time I’ve been gone.

Right. Time. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. I’ve had my meal, so now it’s time for more medication. The printout sits beside the myriad orange bottles, dosages lined out in clear type within the spreadsheet’s many cells. I pick it up and read it, but nothing makes it into my head.

I could ignore the schedule and take whatever pills interest me, something tells me. Find out how many knots my organs will make before they give out. That’d be fun; fun like standing on the roof imagining what you’d look like on the pavement.

But that’s such a hassle. The more likely outcome is that I end up hunched over the toilet for a couple of hours, stomach acid eating away at the back of my teeth as I void my stomach into the bowl. All I’d have to show for my attempt would be a complete fuck-up of the no doubt meticulous medication schedule I’d been given.

I don’t think I could do that to the nurse. She was nothing but polite when she was dealing with me; even with one too many buttons open. I don’t think she even knew. For all I know, she has to unbutton her shirts that far to be comfortable.

She gave me a bonsai tree, even. There were a lot of them in her office, but taking care of those little trees is far from easy. Gifts like that are for people you care about, or at least, they aren’t for anyone you couldn’t care less about. So I have to do my best not to disappoint her too much. That means keeping myself together, body and mind, and I can get the first out of the way for a little while.

Opening and closing six different safety caps is a grind, especially when I have to do it over again for two of them on account of pouring an 8PM dose four hours early and a 1PM three hours late, but when it’s finished, my nightstand bears at least eight little pills. I struggle for a moment to scoop all of them into the palm of my hand and then make my way to the bathroom. After I turn the tap on, I start popping them two or three at a time into my mouth, tilting my head to suck up water as it streams from the tap. It’s like liquid sand in my mouth, but I gulp it down anyway. According to the doctors at Saint Martha’s, the taste means it’s doing me a lot of good.

So that’s taken care of.

Isn’t helping the exhaustion much, though. The bed is just firm enough to be noticeable when I sit down on it, holding my head staring at an interesting piece of nothing on the carpet. Moving at all seems like an unnecessary hassle. If I could, I would love to pass out on the spot, fully clothed. But my mind won’t stop spinning. Schedules. Side effects. Meals. Classes. Textbooks. Stairs. Assignments. Free time.

I can’t sleep like this. I don’t even think I can live like this. I need something to occupy myself; something beyond staring at a white ceiling, beige walls, and a bonsai tree. Fingers still to my forehead, I get up and leave the room, slamming the door shut behind me. The walk to the main building feels I’m on a treadmill, the pine trees adding a touch of cleaning fumes to the mix.

But the medication seems to be working. I make it up the slight hill and step back inside with my heart going like it always has.

The fact that nothing in the lobby changed pisses me off. If it were different, I could convince myself there was something afoot, that I was being played. But if there’s a joke being told here, the delivery is deadpan. I have not to stay at this school, and even less reason to leave the main building. There’s nothing in the dorms except my room, Kenji, and some vending machines, so I’ll take my chances in the school and all of its opportunities.

Opportunity, anyway. The cafeteria is home to conversations I won’t be welcome in right now and there’s nothing upstairs except classrooms. The only thing left is the library. The sole refuge of the weirdo loser is at the back of the lobby and its door opens with an easy push.

“Oh! Are you the new kid? The one from Kasugayama?”

An excited greeting is there for me as soon as I have both shoes on the carpet. That can’t be good for my heart. I turn, speedy with nerves, to look who it is. A tanned dog girl is looking at me with brows raised and black ears perked up, her tail thumping against the back of her chair. Her complexion and her cheekbones remind me of Esther, but the blue tee she's wearing is a complete 180 on my previous guide’s severe formalwear.

“Oh, yeah,” I manage to say. “I am.”

“Sorry to spook you then! I wanted to greet you as soon as I could.” The smile on her face is genuine, if a little sheepish, and then she continues. “I heard about you from my mama Esther. You met her, right? Well, I'm her daughter Helena. I thought somebody who did all that time at Kasugayama would look a little tougher, honestly, but you look like you belong here! The uniform really suits you.”

A mumbled “thanks, I guess” is the best I can manage. Even if I'm disappointed I already belong at a school for the handicapped,Helena's enthusiasm stays bright. The black fur of her tail keeps on with its brushing and swatting against her chair even though she’s half leaning over the library counter. It lets me see her skirt: a rich yellow, cut to just above her knees. Seems like a compromise between mother’s wishes and daughter’s spirit.

“Now since you're new I should give you a tour, but there’s better stuff to do! I know just the thing for a Cuss High transfer. Wanna come see?”

The alternative is walking the aisles by myself and leaving emptyhanded, and I don’t know how I could ever turn down that wagging tail. “Sure, I’ll take a look.”

She bounds out of her seat and through the swinging door separating students from staff, her stride long and bouncy. “C’mon then!" I have to work to keep up with her. Exercise is good for me, I remind myself as I go halfway to a jog to follow behind the Anubis. We pass by the books, then the large print, then the Braille and audiobooks, and still keep going. Our stop is the back of the shelf at the very back of the library, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

There’s no books there. No CD cases either. Nothing but flat edges of cardboard worn ragged at the top and bottom. The only thing distinguishing them from another are the labels above the shelf, the type in neat English and Japanese and completely meaningless to me. The Beatles. Foreigner. . Queen. Rush. Van Halen. I pull out a sleeve at random and flip it over, giving the white triangle with the beam coming in and the rainbow going out a blank stare.

“This, Mister Cuss High, is where we keep the rock and roll.”

“Rock and what?” The string of English-made-Japanese loses me in the middle. Hoping for some kind of clue, I turn the sleeve onto its edge and slide my fingers into the opening, pulling out something rough: a broad disk of some black plastic. A worn sticker at the center informs me that this is The Dark Side of the Moon.

“Rock and roll,” she repeats, slower this time. “It’s a genre mostly from the United States and England. You can recognize it mostly by the usage of electric guitar, since a lot of the time it gets its own solo part of each song to show off. Most of the bands have a pretty basic vocals-drums-bass-electric format, but you’d be surprised how many ways you can twist it. Some of the later ones, seventies or eighties or so, they really like their synthesizers too.”

“And what's this?" I ask, holding up the disk.

“That’s what the music’s on. It's called a vinyl.” She points at it and draws circles in the air with her finger. “It's got a bunch of grooves carved into it with the music, and you play it back by putting it on a turntable with a needle in the grooves. If you wanna give it a shot we can lend you the player.”

I look at the vinyl and the sleeve, turning the black circle over in my hands while I turn the idea over in my head. What do I have to lose? Barring an unforeseen stumble on a hill that ends with me as shattered as everything I check out, I guess it can't end that badly. I replace Dark Side in its case, mind made up.

“Well… I guess, if you've got recommendations? Some beginner's guide to rock and roll." I sound more like I'm convincing myself than asking her a question.

“Sure do!” She reaches for the shelves, pulling covers out and sliding them back in to find the ones she needs. A few don't go back in, and after a little while she has a modest stack in her arms. "And I'll take that one from you…” I give her the black cardboard decorated with the prism and she replaces it on the shelf. “Not that Floyd is bad at all, it's just not beginner material. Now, let's get you checked out.” Arms laden with vinyls, she walks me back to the front counter. After a few taps on the space bar to wake the computer up, she picks up each one and scans it in, re-stacking then once she's finished.

“Now let me get the player. Hang tight here.”

“Sure.”

I flip through her selections while I wait, checking the back for any where the artist or album is unclear. Foreigner and Rush I saw on the shelf, but The Who and Deep Purple are new.

“Here you go!”

The tanned Anubis comes back, a door behind the counter clicking closed. She sets a large-ish black box down beside my records, the mesh of a speaker covering one side and a swing arm over the top, where the round table sits with a small spike in the middle. She points out the power cord, switch, volume control, and gives me a quick explanation of the needle, the rotation speed, and starting and stopping. Seems simple enough.

“Now, let's make sure you got all that. I'll plug this in back here…” She grabs the cord and ducks behind the counter. “Now pick one of your albums and we’ll make sure you got all that.”

I'll just go with the one on top. Looks like it's from Rush. I slide the vinyl out of the cover and slip the hole in the center over the spike, then flick the switch from off to 33. With the record turning, I take the arm and lay it on one of the outer ridges. The speaker crackles and hisses, but the needle stays where it belongs.

“That's it, Nakai! Now just listen, and listen good. This is one of the best ever made.”

>>303804

>This is one of the best ever made

That better be 2112, Hemispheres, or Moving Pictures

It starts out with a synth in gradual descent, a regular drum beat behind it. Vocals come next: high, but anything but feminine.

“A modern day warrior mean mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride.”

The guitar-- and everything else that follows– are like nothing I've ever heard before. What started as basic taps from the drums turn into a regular river of rhythm, bouncing off the resounding guitar to create an incredible open sound. The instruments alone have their hooks into me, to say nothing of the soul in the lyrics. I can't parse a good deal of the English with my attention split between vocals and backing. I don't think I need to, either. The sheer spirit of it all, lyrics or no lyrics, makes my hair stand on end. I wouldn't notice if the shelf beside me caught fire. The guitar rises to a pitch I've never heard before in its solo, followed right after by a flurry from the drums.

“No his mind is not for rent, to any God or government…”

And it just keeps going. That same driving drum beat follows the song all the way to the end. By the time it's over, I feel like I've had carbonated coffee slammed into my veins. I'm not sure I took a breath between the start of the vocals and the fade out. The soft scratch as Helena pulls the needle awapy from the vinyl registers, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

“You alright, Nakai?”

Helena has her eyebrows pushed together, concern’s signature on the lines of her face.

“Yeah,” I answer, not knowing why my voice is shaking. “Just… never heard anything like it before.”

She closes her eyes and gives me a sage nod. “Yep, it'll do that. Sounds like you wanna keep listening, though. Am I wrong?”

I nod faster than I ever have in my life. It takes me a second to realize.

“I mean yeah, I do want to keep listening, not that you're wrong.”

She smiles, the satisfaction in it reminding me of the cat from the cafeteria. Without a word, she scans something on the other side of the record player and turns to the computer. A few keystrokes later and I hear the telltale sound of a receipt printing out. With Helena ducking behind the counter to unplug the player, that's everything.

“Alright, Nakai. You're good to go. The records are due back in two weeks, and technically the player should come back with them, but nobody really asks for those, so you can keep it as long as you wanna keep listening. Just don't go breaking it, yeah?”

I nod in understanding. Two weeks to listen to four albums is plenty. Plus, I don't have to worry about hauling the record player back and forth from the dorms.

I’m in the middle of gathering everything up when I hear the door squeak open. A cane makes soft taps on the carpet in front of her as she steps into the library, her short stature making her journey even slower. The ears on her head are small and rounded and the color of caramel. Her hair’s not long at all, but it has a certain volume. The underside of it looks snow white. I’d guess she's a kobold, Shiba Inu type, and the pale colors of her fur make a strong contrast with the black sunglasses over her eyes. There's a big square something in her other hand. Looks like an album cover.

“Hana! Come on in girl, you're just in time.”

elena!” she answers, the bright smile on her face going against everything those dark lenses stand for. “What's up? Did we get another big donation?”

“The opposite, actually. There's finally someone else checking the records out. He's right here in front of me.”

“Never thought I’d see the day,” she says as she makes her way up to the front counter. “Is it his first batch?” The end of her cane taps against my shin once, but only once, and then she comes to a stop in front of me. Somehow, she looks even shorter up close.

“Sure is,” Helena answers for me. “Never even heard of it before. He’s gettin’ his cherry popped.”

“Wow. What’re you givin’ him?”

Helena nudges my back. “Go on, cherry boy. Tell Souzoushi what you're gonna listen to.”

Hana Souzoushi is her name, then. I turn to the counter for a moment, flipping through the albums to refresh my memory.

“Uh… Foreigner, Rush, Deep Purple, and The Who.”

Her ears come together, eyebrows raising above her sunglasses. Neither of the girls say anything.

“Did I say something?” I can feel my cheeks prickling at my possible mistake.

“Oh, no!” Hana assures me, looking up at my face. Well, "looking.” “Not at all. It's just, what’s your name?”

“Uh… Nakai. Hisao Nakai.”

She nods in thought. “Same as everyone else here, huh…” I don't have a clue what she's getting at. "You surprised me a little, Nakai.”

“How?”

“I thought you had Japanese as a second language there. You said The Who like you were speaking English."

I glance at Helena, who in turn has her eyes on me.

“Did I?"

The dark-haired canine furrows her eyebrows."Yeah. I think you did, anyway.”

“The Who,” I repeat, checking my own work. I guess I can hear it. “English wasn't all that difficult for me, so that might explain it.”

Hana nods. “I would have thought you were a square-jawed foreign exchange from the sound of it. I guess you still might be, even with such a Japanese name. Are you?”

“No, no I was born in H. Prefecture. I’ve never even been outside the country.”

Hands nods again, and I shoot a look at the librarian to tell her that I would like to leave now, before the kobold asks any more questions about the way I talk.

“Anyway, Hana, you here to return that?”

“Oh, yeah!" She lays the album she brought in on the library counter and I take the chance to grab my check-outs and scoot towards the exit. I do manage a look at the album while it’s sitting there. It’s a young boy with angel wings behind a couple packs of cigarettes. “Van Halen,” the text at the top reads, flanked on either side by dense Roman numerals that I’m in no mood to try and parse. I decide to slip out now, arms heavy with records and a player, Hana and Helena all the while chatting with each other about events and deadlines of some kind or another.

I'm not sure if leaving without saying goodbye is more or less embarrassing than those probing questions. They didn't even notice me walk out.

>>286709

Why'd you have to remind me of my first playthrough?

>>306717

>doesn't bother reading the update

>only posts in thread to scream at people posting less than 30 minutes later

You. Fuck off.