The Miniest Skirt (second part)

Towards the end of April, Mitomu had already befriended a few of the more outgoing boys in 1-F class. Kenta, a talented, but sensitive and jejune comedian of many moods, was the first friend Mitomu had. There is something about this first contact that one must remember--as if all the stories that one has read about the immemorial adventures of childhood cronies is an inevitable fact of life, in any place or time. Mitomu was surprised to befriend Kenta. He felt as if the most random occurence such as being assigned neighboring desks for the first month of school was evidence that they were connected by some relation of another world. In the first few weeks of Mitomu and Kenta's freshman year, there was that selfless bliss coursing through these endless hours--an uncalculated, unexamined, once in a lifetime shower of light and beauty that unmixed, youthful devotion sheds like petals from a mature bud.

"Kenta, did you get what Mr. Kimura was saying today about biishiki?"
"No, man. I can't follow his class at all. It's as if he wants us all to become bushi and live in a past that is dead."
Mitomu ignored Kenta's comments, "It had to do with being conscious of the beautiful--that it is satisfying, upon the moment one has attained happiness, to celebrate its passing away? He called it "emotional aestheticism" didn't he? To live a brief, intense life of beauty and then disappear--like the cherry blossoms."
"Well shit Mito--"

The chime rang signaling the end of lunch. The next class was calligraphy, upstairs on the third floor. It was an elective class that Mitomu had chosen out of his muted attraction to things that seemed old and elegant. He didn't read manga and or play video games like Kenta or his other friends. But during this period, Kenta went off to music class while Mitomu climbed the stairs to the ink-smelling classroom.