Exile from Reality

Nina does not know what she has gotten into this time, but she doesn’t care. She is sitting in a beach chair by the large swimming pool in Tsujiai’s back yard, and the music blasts into the night sky, emanating from the beating, throbbing speakers. Around her is a party. There are people, eating, drinking, talking, and talking very closely. Most of them are Tsujiai’s friends from school, from around and everywhere else.

She is clad in a sleeveless red top, patterned with silver, and jeans. Around her is Tsujiai’s blue jacket, with the words “Shuei Tennis Team” printed at the back. The evening atmosphere is warm and windy, and she smells something heavy in the breeze. She huddles closer into the jacket.

“Nina, right?” a bright-eyed young man approaches her, with two plastic cups in his hand. They are filled with a pink-orange liquid, and from where she is Nina can smell something like alcohol.

She nods and smiles at him. The young man offers her one of the cups, and Nina accepts it.

“So…are you new in the neighborhood?” he asks, grinning slightly. Nina nods again, not knowing what else she is supposed to say. Out of habit, she scans the large crowd of partying teenagers for the face of Ayu, but does so in vain.

Plastic cups and paper plates are strewn on the floor, and rock music blares so loudly that it makes Nina’s heart beat a little faster. People crowd around the buffet tables and swim in the pool. Everything seems to be heavily-laced with some sort of trance-inducing aphrodisiac, but Nina does not seem to notice. Bodies dance to the beat of the music, sometimes close together, sometimes apart.

The air is filled with a different kind of magic.

“Woohoo! Go Tsujiai!”

The shouts of the crowd suddenly come louder and more excited. Nina’s eyes widen and she turns her head sharply, wondering why they are so riled up. She sees them, looking a bit drunk, with cigarettes being crushed under the heels of their shoes and eyes that dance with the music of the night.

They are pointing to the roof.

Nina stands up, and this time, it is Tsujiai that she sees. He is standing on top of the roof of his house, with an unreadable expression on his face, and his arms are pumped up into the air.

A breath catches in Nina’s throat as she realizes what he is planning to pull.

“I LOVE DRUGS!” He screams to the gathering crowd below, “I LOVE ROCK N’ ROLL! I LOVE NINAAA!”

And then, Tsujiai jumps from the roof, plummeting into the swimming pool with a giant splash. The people gasp and start talking excitedly, swarming around their friend and pulling him out of the blue, lighted water.

His expression is still unreadable, but it is evident that Tsujiai has had too much to drink. Nina watches them, and him as well, eyes widening, with a hand covering her mouth in surprise and amazement.

This was a totally new side to Tsujiai that she had not known before. The drunk Tsujiai, the one that jumps from the roof and yells crazy things to the people before falling into the pool. It was such a contrast to the other Tsujiai…the one who was always calm and collected and witty and extravagant. That one was ordinary. This one was beyond extraordinary.

Nina smiles, and is glad that she had seen him in all his insane, drunken glory.

“I LOVE NINAAA!” he had screamed, just before he had jumped. And to her, it mattered, because she loved him too. The ordinary him, as well as the other him, and probably, all his other selves as well.

Nina does not know what she has gotten into this time, but she doesn’t care.