The Ability Inherent in "Acceptance"

I let out a deep sigh. It had only been a quick wipe of her mouth, but it felt like I'd drawn a line between heaven and hell. I really was a sinful man.

I looked down at the handkerchief. A trace of her saliva remained on it.

What should I do with this handkerchief? Should I treasure it? Or maybe give it a sniff?

No, a normal man wouldn't do something like that. And what if Ichinose suddenly woke up right now? I'd be dead for sure!

After thinking it over, I put the idea out of my mind and cleared my head.

I'd wiped away the mark at the corner of her mouth, but what was I supposed to do about the damp patch on my clothes? I looked at the dark, wine-red spot.

It should dry before we reached our destination, as long as nothing else happened...

I quietly closed my eyes.

About twenty minutes later, we arrived. Just as I'd expected, the warm, slightly dry air in the car had dried the damp patch.

I woke Ichinose.

"Mm, are we there already?" Ichinose rubbed her eyes and asked groggily.

"Yeah. We should get off."

Judging by her reaction, she didn't seem to realize that she'd fallen asleep leaning on my shoulder. That was for the best.

"Sorry for making you wake me up."

"It's fine. You asked me to remind you before you fell asleep, after all. But it looks like you really didn't sleep well last night."

"Yeah. Even now, I still want to sleep a little longer."

As she spoke, Ichinose and I followed the high school students ahead of us off the bus.

Waiting for us was a gate made from fitted and shaped natural stone.

"Mmm~ It feels like it's been ages since I last slept this well." Ichinose stretched, showing off her figure. I hurriedly looked away.

"Is your shoulder okay, Raku?"

"Mm, why do you ask?" I pretended not to understand.

"Because I think I fell asleep leaning on your shoulder," she said, embarrassed.

"Oh, you noticed." So she had realized.

"Yeah. I noticed when I woke up. Sorry."

"I didn't really mind. My shoulder's fine." As I spoke, I rolled my left shoulder. That might sound like a man putting on a brave front, but it really wasn't sore.

"Sorry," she said with a giggle.

I thought anyone would forgive her after seeing that expression.

"Shall we go, then?"

I quietly followed her energetic stride. She wasn't walking fast, but I was already mentally exhausted.

"By the way, Raku, you smell nice."

"Nice? That's the first time anyone's said that about me." I answered, somewhat surprised.

"Isn't that true?"

"No. Actually, I've been lucky enough to ride the bus a few times before, and people said some pretty harsh things about how I smelled, so I remember them well. Once, an old lady said, 'Why do you smell like shoe polish?' The other comments weren't very nice either." I shook my head.

That wasn't the only example. Everyone who caught a whiff of me seemed to find it unpleasant, except for that mentally unstable doctor.

"Shoe polish? That's awful. You smell like plants and trees. It's really soothing... Are you using some kind of essential oil?"

"I did at least take a shower before leaving."

"Then it must be your body wash."

"Maybe." I nodded, avoiding a direct answer.

In truth, the smell had nothing to do with my body wash. Well, perhaps it was connected in some small way, but it was mostly because of the medicinal baths. After taking them for so long, the scent of plants had permeated my body and gradually become a trait of mine. Even as time passed, the smell showed no sign of fading. It was something that troubled me quite a bit.

It was not a trait an ordinary person should have.

Ichinose and I passed through the gate side by side. A person checking people's belongings stood in front of us, holding an electronic scanner.

As expected, there was a check for prohibited items.

I spread my arms and let them scan me, then opened my shoulder bag for another inspector to look inside. I'd stuck the two tiny items beneath the zipper, so I wasn't worried in the slightest that he'd find them.

Once that was done, I took my first step into school life. The greenery around us was beautifully maintained, and the air was full of life. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and took a deep breath. For a moment, I felt vitality fill my entire body.

It was still spring, and the temperature was just right. My body seemed to radiate energy from within.

Now then,

Where was the classroom?

I cast a sweeping gaze across the enormous campus.

The Ability of "Acceptance"

There weren't many secrets in this world that could be kept hidden—not even the fact that someone had tried to end their life time and time again.

They had simply despaired of life.

Despairing of life had a common manifestation, which we could explain through the story of Sisyphus. Most people have probably heard his legend, but since everyone is different, I thought I should explain it here.

Sisyphus was a figure in Greek mythology, the founder and king of Corinth. He even captured Death for a time, leaving the world without death. But his actions offended the gods, and he was ordered to roll a massive boulder to the top of a mountain. Every time, though, the boulder rolled back down to the foot of the mountain under its own weight. No matter how many times Sisyphus tried, he could never fulfill the gods' demand.

In the end, even the resourceful Sisyphus could do nothing about it. Day after day, he struggled and despaired until his life was spent.

To give everything you have and still fail in the end, to see all your efforts come to nothing—that is the most terrifying thing. To work in vain, with no hope, year after year, endlessly busy, rushing through life, only to look back and suddenly realize that, like Sisyphus, you have gained nothing.

And so you despair of life and turn toward death.

I thought that was entirely reasonable. If there was anything regrettable about it, it was that I hadn't realized it sooner. At least, that was what I thought for now.

As I'd just said, that was only a manifestation. So what, then, was the underlying truth?

In one word: "acceptance."

In a sentence: "allow everything to happen."

It was much like "All things are illusory; all things are permitted." People today despaired because they weren't accepted.

When Sisyphus pushed the boulder to the top of the mountain, nature did not accept it. His actions were not recognized, and so he failed.

[When we watch the sunset, we don't force it to appear according to our wishes.]

That sentence explained the meaning of "acceptance."

When we watch the sunset, we don't force it or command it to look a certain way. And when we see it, we think, "Ah, so this is what a sunset looks like." At that moment, we accept the legitimacy of the sunset, and so it is allowed to exist.

Yet something so simple becomes extraordinarily difficult in human society. Not for any other reason, but because "hell is other people."

However, my example was different from Sartre's "hell is other people." I was talking about the existence of a worldview. When you build your own world, trespassing into someone else's can only have three possible outcomes.

One is that your world and theirs become compatible in some way, merging into a world where both can coexist. Another is that your world completely shatters theirs, bringing about their destruction. The last is your own downfall.

Whether you can rise from the ashes after your fall no longer matters. You will undoubtedly become something rejected by one world or the other—in other words, something that has not been accepted.

People are born alone, yet they have no choice but to rely on others.

That is a deeply contradictory state of affairs.

Still, no matter how much you think about it, nothing surprising will come of it. (Of course, if you're particularly passionate about this world, please don't take what I say to heart.) From a philosophical standpoint, the universe has no meaning; things simply happen. Humans are just another objective presence in the world, no different from anything else. The meaning we talk about is something we give to things ourselves.

So we might as well enjoy one grand release.

Well, something like that.

I shook my head, casting those complicated thoughts into space for the blazing sun to burn as it pleased.

"Mm, what's wrong?" Ichinose noticed my strange behavior and asked with concern.

"I felt a little stifled."

Ichinose nodded in understanding. "The bus was pretty stuffy."

I'd only been trying to figure out how to fit into a class. How had I ended up thinking about all that? Come to think of it, making friends wasn't that hard either. Why did I have to think about all these things?

I followed Ichinose into the classroom. It was spacious and nearly empty, with only three or four students scattered around. There were forty desks in total, each with a nameplate on it. I glanced around, found the desk with my name on it, and sat down.

It was in the last row by the window, a pretty good spot. Sunlight streamed in at an angle, giving the place a lazy feeling. It settled my wavering resolve between escapism and energy conservation.

Lazy—no, energy conservation it was.

After reaffirming my convictions and setting down my shoulder bag, Ichinose came into view.

"What a coincidence. I didn't expect us to be sitting one behind the other."

"Yeah, I guess."

What an annoying coincidence. It would make energy conservation a lot harder.

I sat listlessly at my desk. Since there were so few students, most were already in their seats, looking over the school materials or staring into space. I didn't seem to have brought anything with me. What should I do in the meantime? According to my principles, I should sleep or zone out.

Just as I was thinking about what to do next, Ichinose finished organizing her things and spoke to me.

"Raku, aren't you going to introduce yourself to the other students?"

"There's no rush. There aren't many people around yet."

"True. Let's wait until there are more people before we go say hello."

That was one close call...

But did I really need to make the first move? Making friends might be easier with Ichinose taking the lead, but I was probably better off staying quiet.

After agonizing over it for a while, I decided to escape the boredom by taking a nap.

People often said, "It's shameful to run away," but there was a reason it had been passed down as a strategy.

And so—I was called awake by Ichinose without ever noticing I'd fallen asleep.

The students had all arrived, and a beautiful woman in a pale pink outfit was standing at the teacher's desk.

"...Can you explain what's going on?"

While everyone was heading back to their seats, I turned to Ichinose and asked.

"Sorry. You were asleep, and I couldn't bring myself to wake you, so you didn't get to meet the other students in the class."

So I really had fallen asleep without noticing.

"I don't mind." I shook my head.

"Anyway, she's probably a teacher. She called us back to our seats to announce something."

Just as Ichinose finished speaking, the teacher at the front continued.

"Yahallo~ Hello, new students! I'm the homeroom teacher for Class B. My name is Chie Hoshinomiya. I'll be teaching math. Students at this school don't change classes every year, so I'll be your homeroom teacher and study alongside you for all three years until graduation. I look forward to working with you!" Teacher Hoshinomiya smiled brightly, though a faint smell of alcohol lingered around her.

"The entrance ceremony will be held in the gym in an hour. Before then, I'm going to hand out some information about this school's special rules. You were given this during the entrance orientation as well, though."

The entrance orientation... So I'd missed a whole section? Damn it, he hadn't even mentioned that.

I quietly watched as the materials were passed forward from one student to the next. Then I received one myself, a "magazine" with a conceptual illustration of the whole school on its cover.

Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School

99.9% of graduates find work in their desired field. Equipped with the latest facilities.

From the outside, it looked less like a school and more like an artificial island city. In addition to the school, the campus included facilities such as karaoke rooms, movie theaters, cafés, and clothing stores. It wouldn't be wrong to call it a small shopping district. According to the brochure, the campus covered at least six hundred thousand square meters.

The school also had another distinctive feature: the introduction of the S System.

It wasn't yet clear what the S System did. The explanation simply called it a "competitive evaluation system," which left a lot to the imagination.

"Now I'm handing out each of your student IDs, which also function as phones. I don't need to explain what they're for, do I? You can use them for social networking, shopping, and paying for entertainment and other facilities."

"Each person only gets one. If you lose it, you'll have to spend points to get a replacement."

"Has everyone received one?" Teacher Hoshinomiya looked around the classroom to check, then continued once she was sure.

"Here at this school, the school covers your daily living expenses. That doesn't mean you can just take whatever you want from the campus, though. Instead, the school deposits money into your accounts every month."

"Now, please check your accounts. Each of you should have been given an equal amount of one hundred thousand points. If your balance is different, be sure to let a teacher know."