Chapter 1 Part 5

Chapter 1 Part 5

PE, one of the few classes I enjoy.

Our PE teacher is pretty old, so he lazes around during class. After doing some warm-up exercises and running one lap with us, he appoints a person to grab a box of basketballs and some badminton gear.

After that it’s usually laissez faire, the boys organize teams to play basketball, the girls play badminton with each other, and the PE teacher hides to god knows where. If there’s an incident, our class president just phones him and he miraculously appears.

I’m not into sports, I’m into the freedom.

I occasionally participate in a game of 3v3 basketball, but I mostly just chill.

Percy dislikes sports, but he loves PE class, especially when he can hide in a corner of the school and do his favorite pastimes.

For example, “observation”.

His unique hobby got worse after 11th grade.

Like a bird watcher, Percy seeks an unnoticeable place with a good angle. Armed with his notebook and pen, he focuses intently on observing. Somehow he converts those observations into data, and records it down.

Of course..... sometimes he also chooses to sketch.

This hobby of his has always been a secret. Because the target of his observations is....

Women.

The first time I caught Percy doing this, my initial thought was to report to the school officer¹ that 11th grade class B’s Bryce Lee had just captured a pervert in the wild and that he hopes to be awarded.

But after discussing this hobby with him, I suddenly understood his viewpoint.

Percy said that women are the universe’s most mysterious and profound beings and that he hopes that he can dedicate his whole life to observing and exploring women.

TN:

1. In Taiwanese schools, there is usually one “officer” who wears a military uniform and cares for the discipline of the school/students. He isn’t really affiliated with the military. If any school incidents happen he would be the one in charge of protecting the students. Also some basic military training is given - Taiwanese schools are still fairly deep in the military traditions that the nationalistic government instilled.

Plus, this type of behavior is in no way perverted because observation is profound and noble, just like social observation, animal observation.... wait, this should’ve been a new field of study already and a great school of thought! He just has bad luck and likes to only observe women.

I ask him, then why don’t you observe men?

I only hear him reply with disdain, “Such disgusting creatures....”

After he saw me roll my eyes, he quickly explained that the job of observing women took up everything he had already, so he couldn't divert his energy to observing males as well - that job could be left to other observers.

He explains frantically for a while but I got tired of listening to a peeping tom explain.

In the end, he gave me the data on a couple of girls in exchange for my silence.

However, after I used the data he gave to go after those girls, all of them turned me down terribly. So whether or not Percy baited me with that data is still a mystery.

During this PE period, his observation target is 12th grade Class C.

We are on the top floor of the arts building, and Percy is currently using his binoculars to observing the multitude of senior girls. This kind of behavior is only possible during PE when there is no one walking in the halls, otherwise it would be discovered quite easily.

Sitting on a randomly placed bench, I bite the straw to my drink while enjoying the cool breeze on the roof.

“How’s the development between you and the Starside chick?” I must acquire intelligence on the enemy.

“Mmm.... not bad actually.” Percy replies in a serious tone trying to throw me off, “We often use Line to talk and message each other about random things.”

Shit, he can communicate with girls online over long periods of time now. Things aren’t looking good.

He used to be called the Girl Conversation Terminator, he wouldn’t even need to message more than two lines before the girl would say “I’m going to take a bath”, “Someone is calling me.”, “I have to get ready for school tomorrow.” to stop the conversation.

Yet here we are, he can even chat about random things!

After that, I think of my interactions with Jess. Other than the art class project, we really had no conversation between us.

“She’s just like me, we both like reading books, so it’s fun discussing what books we are reading.” He adds in order to remind me of the gap between us.

“Heh.” I laugh coldly and say deviously, “What if I told that Starside girl that you enjoy peeping at girls? I believe.... the relationship would end right here.

“Sigh, the people of this world don’t understand me.” He didn’t even appear to be worried. “Plus, Bryce Lee isn’t that type to intentionally sabotage me just because he can’t win, is he?”

“.......”

I didn’t say anything. To be honest, I didn’t even have a clue on how to contact that girl from Starside.

Percy puts both hands on the railings and sighs as he lowers his binoculars. “That’s your fourth sister isn’t it, yea.... even though she's twins with your fifth sister, she doesn’t even look similar. Women are truly extraordinary creatures.”

I chuck my drink at the back of his head and exclaim, “Don’t even think about hitting on my sisters you nerd failure."

"Where's this 'nerd failure'."

The rusty door to the roof is pushed open, we didn’t even have time to react before hearing a voice.

Both our eyes stare at the metal door, the person that has come to pay us a visit isn’t our loving school officer, but our classmate Jess.

We stand face to face for a while, with an extra pair of eyes due to the third person.

Percy puts his binoculars and notebook away guilty and pretends to stare at the distant clouds. And just like that, combined with the setting sun’s orange glow, he becomes a meteorologist.

“You don’t like going to PE, just like me.” Jess sits on an exhaust vent, dangling her legs.

“Oh yea, I need to turn in a late assignment. I nearly forgot.” The nerd failure says as he walks towards the door, “I’ll head down first, or else the teacher might leave.”

The nerd failure flies down the stairs.

“That classmate sure is busy.” Jess laughs.

“He sure is busy.” I laugh as well.

“Actually I wanted to discuss something with you so it’s better that he leaves anyways.” Jess massages her thighs a bit, acting as if she was home, “Otherwise.... it would be a bit embarrassing.”

Embarrassing stuff?

I look around rapidly, the entire roof of the arts building is empty except for me, Jess, and the gentle breeze. Even though there isn’t anyone around, talking about embarrassing stuff in a public space also makes me a bit shy.

Not only that, when did my relationship with Jess finally go to the point that we could discuss embarrassing topics?

I went on cloud nine again, this is unprecedented.

“Classmate Bryce, can you tell me more about yourself?”

“Myself?”

“Yea, I want to listen to anything about you.”

“W-why?”

“If we aren’t well acquainted with each other, we won’t be able to take a meaningful photograph, plus.... I won’t let you be at a disadvantage and tell you anything you want to know about me as well.”

So it’s like this..... all for the project huh.

I couldn’t avoid being a bit disappointed, but since she wanted to know, I had no reason to hold back either.

I start off by simply introducing my family, a father, five sisters, and as for the mother, I’ve never seen her before. My father isn’t home most of the time, and to me big sis has the role of a father, fifth sis as my mother, so I didn’t have much regrets.

During elementary, a couple of idiots used to call me an orphan, saying I had no father or mother. Big sis got a group of people to “educate” them after hearing about that. Weirdly enough we all became peaceful after that, and nothing else really happened in elementary.

Honestly my story is pretty normal, there isn't many things to talk about.

After my ten minute rundown, I see Jess smile at me when a big gust comes by, blowing up her skirt, but since I’m sitting beside her, she is able to quickly secure her skirt until the wind was over. Thus I missed out on that beautiful image completely.

To that end, I feel a deep sense of regret.

“Do you have any regrets?”

She raises her head and asks me quietly.

Shoot, I didn’t think my thoughts would be so obvious and written on my face. All I can do is shake my head and say, “Not at all, not at all, I didn't want to see at all.”

Jess bursts out in laughter.

“I was asking if you regret not having either parent around while you grew up..... I didn’t think you wanted to look at.... my....”

It is too embarrassing, so Jess stops before finishing the sentence.

Seems like my image has been shattered into pieces by that gust of wind.

“Sorry... I, I-I.....” I stutter for a long while, unable to come up with an excuse.

Jess pats my elbow, and comforts me, “It’s fine, even if you missed it this time, you’ll get a chance next time.”

“........”

It was weird, to say the least, for her to comfort me.

I didn’t really have the face to continue talking, so Jess starts her own bio. She hates rats, loves celebrating her birthday, doesn’t put effort into making friends and has always been an independent person, living peacefully in the school.

After that, she tells me that she loves to watch tokusatsu²- finally we have something in common. When I was a kid, second sis and I used to watch a lot of tokusatsu together, so I was also greatly enamored by the transforming heroes who fought monsters.

I told Jess that my second sis has a big collection of digitized versions of the old series on DVD that were made in Japan. I could borrow her a couple DVDs as the repayment of my earlier crime

I didn’t think that Jess would be so excited. She kept nodding her head yes, and envied my family's collection just a bit.

We ended up chatting until the bell rang.

PE is the last period of the day, so even if I didn’t want to, it is time to head home.

Plus, I am not brave enough yet to ask her out to dinner.... so we can only say goodbye.

At the rooftop door, Jess was about to head out when she stops suddenly and turns back.

“Do you really want to see?”

She asks me, completely confusing me with where she was going with this.

Following that, Jess, in the fading light of the sunset, without care of the strengthening winds of the night.....

Lifts her skirt all the way to her chest!

I am in completely shock.

Turns out it is black.......

TN:

2. Tokusatsu is a type of Japanese TV shows that featured a lot of effects and CGI. Famous examples of this type of filmography would be Godzilla, Kamen Rider, and Power Rangers. This stuff used to run on TV all the time when I was a kid :).