Jon p. 18-23The classroom door burst open. Outside, some punk, who still only looked like a toddler no matter how hard he tried, ran his bloodshot eyes over the room. A week had passed since the start of the term. Our eyes met. Ignoring his piercing stare, as if nothing happened, I returned my gaze to the introduction to molecular anthropology spread out on my desk. He stepped into the classroom. The recess bell had just rung, and most of the kids stayed inside. They all simultaneously took out loose coins from their pockets to place bets with their fellow classmates. The punk passed by the teacher's desk and steadily advanced towards where I was sitting in the last row. I closed the textbook and put it back in the drawer of my desk. But I also kept my hand inside the drawer. This punk stood in front of my desk, off to one side. I stayed seated while he peered down at me. Then I raised my eyes and glared at his face. He breathed violently through his nose. It must have been an overpowering anxiety. His face got blue, like kids before the start of a foot race. Even his firmly tightened lips were cut dry. Better to hit 'em fast-- --I thought. If he started to beat me now, while still in this position, I actually didn't stand a chance. But in every case so far, not one of them ever started the fight. Not even one. Thanks to this, up until now I had ruled the school as "undefeated for twenty-three fights." That punk was about to open his mouth, so I opened mine first. I was sick of all the one-dimensional discriminatory remarks. "I'll make you famous." This was my Billy The Kid self, drawing my guns. He opened his mouth, but just leaked out a shallow breath without firing any words. A "?" floated up above his head. After grabbing hold of the palm-sized ashtray I had put in the drawer, I smartly drew out my hand and got up, all at once. A color of deep fright grew in his eyes the instant they seized on the ashtray. He took a protective stance pretty quickly, raising his hands... but I was faster. You oughta get in that first hit, after all. I hurled the ashtray at the protruding part of his left eyebrow-- or more precisely, the supraorbital ridge-- like I wanted to scour it. The skin's thin in this part, and easy to cut. It made a thud: the sound of hitting the sweet spot. While stumbling back a little, the punk reflexively secured his left hand to his brow. His eyes were barely in focus. He fell into a panic. I should have finished him off then, but still I waited a while. I had to have them see this from the gallery. Blood started to stream out from the gaps between the fingers of his left hand after several seconds. There are two types of reactions bleeding people have: either they lose the will to fight, or instead they get excited and increase their bloodlust. Because I didn't know which type this punk was, and because I had no plan to make any uncertain gambles, I decided to do him in quickly. With my body weight, I drove a kick into the joint of his right knee. He tumbled to the floor, knocking into the desks around him while he toppled. He lay at my feet, so after moving my own desk to the side to open up some space, I repeatedly kicked him in the stomach. But with the top of the foot, not the tip of the toes. It's hard to fine-tune a toe kick, and if you do it wrong, there's a danger it might rupture the internal organs. And besides, it doesn't make a sound. With the instep, you can make modifications as you go, and because it makes a thump or a smack when you do it well, it scores an A+ as an effective threat to the gallery kids. I stopped kicking. He trembled, curled up like a newborn baby. An intense pity struck me. This guy was once somebody's blessed child. I took a deep breath and returned my desk to its original position. Replacing the ashtray in the drawer, I took out a small jar of balm from my backpack and chucked it at the punk. It should've stopped the bleeding soon after he applied it. Really, though, showing that kind of sympathy isn't good for the future. The gallery gang'll choose to spread rumors like "That Sugihara's gotten soft." The cat's away, so it'll be the new thing for more mice like this punk to come for a "challenge."* But it should end up all right. This time's "ashtray, blood, and kicking sound" was pretty showy, so by after school the story should be something in the neighborhood of "brick, cranial hemorrhage, and shrieking." If things clam down by then, then they'd be too jolted to "challenge" me, even until the start of summer break. Malcolm X, a leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement, said it like this: "I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence." I hate violence, too, just like Malcolm X did. But you don't have any choice in some situations. Do you present your right cheek after having been struck in the left one? No. 'Cause there are guys that go for your vulnerable spots, not the cheeks. Basically, I was beaten even though I never did anything wrong.. I headed towards the classroom exit, passing by the punk's side-- he was still trembling. I felt the stare from the gallery so much it hurt. Three hundred-yen coins laid on the desk by the exit. Three guys surrounded them. I stopped and said to no one in particular, "Who'd ya bet on?" The three of them dropped their eyes at once. I left the classroom after taking all the coins in my hand. As soon as I left, I realized that that was the first time I had spoken to them. Despite being in the same class for three years. Arriving at the cafeteria, I bought some milk with the hundred yen I had just gotten a hold of: calcium replenishment is essential when you're aggravated. The cafeteria was pretty packed, so I found a long, eight-person table with only one seat open and sat there. Almost at the same time, the seven other kid's conversation stopped. Just like always, so without particularly caring, I inserted the straw into the milk box and drank up. Three minutes after I got there, everybody disappeared from the table. Once I finished drinking, I wasted my time knocking over and re-standing the empty milk box. Katou sat down opposite me after twenty some odd re-standings. A sly grin clung to his face. "So you broke his head to pieces with a wrench?" Somehow, at this point in time, it seemed to have become a wrench, and not a brick. I shook my head. "It was an ashtray, just like your time." Katou nostalgically narrowed his eyes and lovingly rubbed his strong, prominent nose over and over. The high school I had entered was metropolitan, private, and all male, so the school's deviation score was only as high as the number of calories in an egg white. But from my perspective-- having received an ethnic Korean education in elementary and middle school, and having barely studied just under a year for entrance exams-- it meant as much as entering Tokyo University. That day I passed the exams, with the start of the term only two weeks away, the school summoned me in. I was shown into the reception room and asked a favor by the vice-principal and the man in charge of first-year students: "Because there exists a fear that various problems would arise, we want you to attend school under a pseudonym, and not with your real name." In short, there was a possibility of being bullied if I attended with my Korean name, so they wanted me to use a Japanese name and conceal my heritage. "I take pride in the ethnic name inherited through the generations from my ancestors. Hiding that name, I might as well throw away my pride. So I will not accept your offer." I didn't say such depressing things. I obediently accepted the suggestion. Why? Ever since indicating that I wanted to advance on to a Japanese high school, the Korean school instructors bullied me severely. I was called an "ethnic betrayer" by them-- essentially a traitor. I was called worse, but I think I'll leave that for later.
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