61. Way of Thinking
“There’s the term called ‘Mind Concentration’. It has a strong resemblance to Buddhism, and if you look that up in a dictionary, those professionals explain it as something like that. Just think of it as many different types.”
“H-Huh……”
I was told in a cross-legged position like I was meditating. They call it zazen, but since I couldn’t do it properly like what was in my mind, those masters, I just sat there cross-legged like I normally would. But, that seemed to be just fine. If anything, putting my legs on my knees just led them to freeze up, and that wouldn’t let me feel the vibrations in the air, which would be the improper way or something along those lines. Not like I had any intention of doing that anyway.
Since this didn’t hurt or was any uncomfortable, I just listened carefully while closing my eyes.
“The ‘Kanjou-ryu’, just as the name ‘Kan’ suggests, heightens your observation. It’s split up into two-types, one being ‘Mind Concentration’, whereas the other is called ‘Mind Extinguishment’.” [TN : Kanjou-ryu, or in English would be ‘Observation Style’]
Kan…hm, what? Did you speak Japanese just now? Or it was so old Japanese, that I couldn’t get the meaning? Can you say it one more time but in English? I’m kind of Bohemian American myself, you know?
I couldn’t catch the meaning. Shinomiya-senpai must have seen me in confusion, and delivered an explanation.
“Just think of these two as vertical bar graphs. In the case of ‘Mind Concentration’, you can control the various bars that represent your emotions to keep them at an average level. You might think that ‘Anger’ and ‘Sadness’ could go out of control, but you can just control them by adjusting other emotions.”
Hm? Ah, hmm… I see. Wow, this sure is amazing. So amazing. I’m so calm, and thanks to that, I can even handle a gyaru from now on. That being the case, looking forward to spending time with you.
No no no, listen here…I’m really happy for the explanation, but I still can get it. I mean, graphs? Negative emotions? What is this? Another math after I just recovered? What’s next? A, B, or X…?
“On the other hand, ‘Mind Extinguishment’ allows you to completely cut off any emotions. If I were to use the example of the vertical bar graphs from before, you could completely put all of the bar values to zero. By the way, these kinds of qualities were seen as a danger back in the era of the warriors. After all, this would allow you to kill people without feeling anything. Now that we are living in a peaceful time and this being allowed, it makes you more of a super human than anything.”
Hmmm!? Did she just say something dangerous?! Something about killing or whatever… What are you going to teach me?! Something violent like that… I can’t do that, you know? I’m more about Love & Peace. I love white doves and New York. Ahh, now I’m craving some dove sable cookies. [TN : White dove, can mean love, and the Statue of Liberty, which is in New York, can in a way, mean peace]
“Either way, today we will observe just what disposition is a better fit for you, brat. You don’t need to think about anything, just meditate and turn your heart into ‘nothingness’. Doesn’t have to be by definition either, it has to be your own ‘nothing’.”
“Eh? Huh?”
“Why are you so surprised! I told you to turn your heart into ‘nothingness’, didn’t I?!”
Hiik…!!
The old man slammed the wooden sword on the floor again. Because of the shock, I let out a little shriek yet again, but I somehow managed to go back into the position in a hurry, and just closed my eyes, emptying my heart.
Slowly… I slowly let myself fall into drowsiness. My plans for this summer holidays popped up in my head, and I started getting excited again.
…No, wait a second. How do you even empty your heart? They told me like it was nothing, but I ain’t got the foggiest. Umm, ehmm… hmm……
─────────────────────
『”…………Wataru……”』
─────────────────────
Bwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!?
Why!? Why did I suddenly end up with some lewd fantasy about Natsukawa!? Is my adolescence suddenly coming back!? No wait, I’m still in the middle of it! Calm──calm down, me! When this happens, you need to think about some boring shitty stuff! Calm down, my short and small son!!!
Crap, this is bad, I can’t focus at all. The more I try not to think about it, the weirder the fantasies get in my head. Let alone inside my head, I can’t show any of this on the outside. Hauff… Alright, focus up.
─────────────────────
『”…………Kaede.”』
『”…………Hayato.』
─────────────────────
Gyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!?
Why did Sis and Yuuki-senpai suddenly───Gah!? Disgusting! I feel disgusted for actually having this kind of fantasy! Why did I even ever think of such a wild fantasy!? Why did that even pop up in my head anyway!? Who am I!? Who’s Wataru Sajou!? A hottie!?
“Hmm…Oi, open your eyes!”
“Huh? ……!!?”
“~~m~~~…!?”
Senpai sounded a bit bothered, so when I did as I was told, I found her right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t let out a voice caused by the shock, and just stared back at her.
……Eh? Why is she so close? Our noses are about to touch! Is this some kind of guidance…? Why is Shinomiya-senpai shaking, even more than me?
Oh right! Normally, when a boy and a girl our age acted like this, they’re usually in panic! So, what was that hair touching of Natsukawa about!? She wasn’t flustered at all!? I kind of understand that she doesn’t hate me, but now I’ll just get my hopes up because of that… How should I behave in front of her from now on!?
───Ah, it’s summer holidays. Probably, the awkwardness will be gone before we meet again. I’m glad, good….. Ahh, so lonely.
“S-Sajou…!? Why do you look like you’re about to cry!?”
“I see… we won’t be able to meet for a month……”
“What are you talking about!? Me!? Is it me!?”
What did I even do last year… Natsukawa didn’t have a smartphone yet, so… Oh yeah, I saw her during an evening shopping trip, and started to track her timing for shopping after that… Wait, isn’t that bad? I was being a stalker there…. hmm? What’s this memory of me carrying very heavy goods? Why did I even carry them? Ah, I remember my arms shaking in pain at that time.
Natsukawa Aika…… Ahh, even the fantasy in my head is cute. Isn’t it crazy how reality and fantasy actually match up for once? Was there even a better destiny than that?
───Aahh…
My memories from the end of spring were coming back. I saw myself in the mirror with my useless brown flashy hairstyle, and a subtle fakeness on my uninteresting face. With this odd matching that I had, not even the word ’ugly’ or ‘handsome’ came into my mind, I just started to feel disgusted with myself.
Have I ever doubted… Why was I even working this hard?
That’s right, it’s not me, it was never me. Look at the goal. Look there, let alone Natsukawa, there isn’t even──Yeah, right. Didn’t I think hard about it already? Even if I was next to her, all the other guys would just try to nibble me about this and that every day. That’d just, wear me out, and make my life harder…
“───ey───jou!!”
That’s why I want ‘it’…… a normal shitty daily life, repeating the same things again and again, an easy comfortable life……
“───Hey! Sajou!”
“Whaowehh!?”
I suddenly felt something shake me hard, which was why I let out a weird voice.
“What is it!? An enemy attack──Wait, what?”
I accidentally ran my mouth. Probably because I played too many FPS games.
“Don’t give me that! Your eyes were like the void itself!”
“ ‘Kanjou-ryu’ isn’t that creepy!”
“Creepy……”
Just by hearing ‘Eyes like the void itself’, I felt my chuunibyou (eight-grader syndrome) soul burning up, but hearing the word ‘creepy’ directed at me by a pretty girl hurt quite a lot. That was a big shock. Where did that cute face from before have gone?
“Seriously… what were you thinking?”
“I mean, I was just trying to turn my heart into ‘nothingness’ ───”
“You can’t really turn your heart into ‘nothingness’, brat.”
“…..Excuse me?”
The old man spoke up from the side. But, what a contradicting word he spoke.
Huh…? I mean, why did you make meditate in the first place then? I became desperate, and started thinking about nonsense, you know? Mostly wicked desires, though. If I knew not thinking about anything was impossible, I’d have at least thought of this being just some kind of supernatural thing.
“There’s no way a thinking living being like a human can not think about anything. I was just telling you to ‘empty your heart’ so that we would find out what you’re thinking. That’s the intention.”
“They were mostly wicked desires.”
“Towards Rin?”
“No, not at all.”
“Why!?”
I mean, ever since I met Natsukawa, she’s pretty much the only person who can make my heart skip a beat for real. It’s true that Shinomiya-senpai was pretty cute just now, but I definitely didn’t skip a beat or anything…?
“So you’re the ‘Mind Extinguishment’ type.”
“Eh, am I some super human?”
“Rin made it sound like that, but not quite. Hearing ‘meditation’, you generally think of something holy, but ‘Mind extinguishment’ is fairly rare. Yet, you brat keep lying to yourself, and even thinking such…the youth these days.”
Eh, he’s angry at me? Isn’t it good if I’m the ‘Mind Extinguishment’ type? Being able to empty my heart like that, isn’t that pretty amazing? Or wait, is that some forbidden talent that shouldn’t exist in today’s world? Also, lies……Well, the last part might have been one.
“The ‘Mind extinguishment’ type… It reflects the strength to clear the inside of you depending on the situation. You brat didn’t try to clear and erase anything, and just pushed it aside, you fool.”
“……!”
“G-Grandfather… I didn’t bring him here only for him to get lectur──”
“Ahh no, it’s fine, Senpai.”
‘Push it aside’… Not totally wrong. Since I’ve some things I pushed aside. I’ve known about this. I knew about my inferiority complex, but isn’t it fine if for being aware of the position and rank that I have in society? Isn’t it better to fit in and behave accordingly? It’s probably true that I’ve no intention of aiming for something higher, I mean, what’s so good about purposely going along a path full of pain? Of course, things change if it’s about my salary.
“So, what is the criterion for the ‘Mind Concentration’…?”
“ ‘The strength to put yourself outside of you’… In other words, being in an objective point of view is the key point. Basically, think of this reality as a book, and you as the writer or the reader of the book.”
“I-I really thought that Sajou was more the ‘Mind Concentration’ type……”
“Even if you had any kind of basis for that, was this guy always a ‘related party’?”
“Ah……”
Is he talking about my first meeting with Shinomiya-senpai and Inatomi-senpai? Now that I think about it, I wasn’t a related party back then. I didn’t force my way of thinking on her, I only talked on and on from an outsider’s perspective, that’s all.
…I see, with my fantasies just now, I really was seeing myself as a participant of the story, so I didn’t succeed in the ‘Mind Concentration’ at all. Looking at it from the position of a spectator, it really is someone else’s business, and I don’t think my eyes can just end up devoid of any emotion. This spiritual arts… isn’t half bad. But then, what was that fantasy about Sis about? No, forget it, just forget it.
That said, are dreams good judgment materials…? Ah, the dreams that you just watch from the sidelines? I mean, there are dreams that you spend as yourself… Well, though I don’t remember much, now that I think about it, I feel like, the dreams where I spent as myself occurred a lot more than not.
◆
Just as they declared, once they understood my, thought process? I was freed. Because I felt some obscurity within myself, I think it was a great opportunity to dig into that part of me. Not to mention my way of sorting out my heart─── Well, I was only thinking about myself, but now I had learned that there were other ways of doing this as well.
However, the only thing that left me dejected was Senpai’s grandfather giving me a gaze along the lines of ‘Don’t ever come here again’ when I wanted to honestly thank him for the guidance. Though, I felt like he was just bad at dealing with today’s youth in general. Leaving Senpai aside, of course.
“Well, you know, Senpai.”
“W-What is it, Sajou?”
“I feel like being a disciplinary committee member might be too heavy for me.”
“T-That’s……”
With me learning about many other ways of approaching things, even if I could use that as a measure, I didn’t think I could set this way of thinking as my natural thought process.
Being called an inexperienced fool by that grandpa, who probably laid the basis for the current disciplinary committee president Shinomiya-senpai’s character, I didn’t think I could fit into the disciplinary committee which required reading of ambience and human relationships. Even more if Inatomi-senpai or Mita-senpai already experienced this kind of thing.
“Anyway, I’ll be seeing you once the second term starts, Senpai.”
“Ah……”
I split up with Shinomiya-Senpai, and left through the main gate── No, ‘main gate’? It was a normal home, could you call it a gate in this case? Well anyway, it felt like I was in some public facility.
It wasn’t like I had a sudden change of heart or anything. Even so, a nostalgic feeling when I got too carried away with myself, the days when I was being foolish, came back playing in my head again and again like crazy.
TN: Join my discord channel if you want.
Thanks for chap