Special Property (BxB)

Chapter 48. Reinjured

Language was given to humans as a divine gift, allowing us to exchange thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions, setting us apart from the animal kingdom.

With language, comes responsibility. We can lift someone up with kind words or crush them with evil words.

Profanity is as old as language itself. From the first blasphemous or obscene thought sprang the first word to describe it.

It is unloving and ungodly to use such language to assault the ears of unwary listeners, evoking in their mind mental images of indecent things best left unmentioned.

I regret my actions of using such language before a man of God and will pray for forgiveness.

—Kensuke Takahashi

Day 9

Kato was starting to settle into a routine. There was some small comfort in that. He knew where he needed to be and what time he needed to be there, every day. He got up, ate breakfast at the chow hall, then went to class.

For today's English class, Sister Mary rolled a TV into the classroom and played a 30-minute video from an American comedy. The emphasis of the instruction was wordplay and humor. He learned about a concept called "double entendre." He inwardly groaned that he had to learn a French word to describe an English concept. But it was explained that approximately 45% of English vocabulary comes from French. Still, he just hated pronunciation of these foreign words.

Kato was glad that Takahashi kept quiet during the whole class. He really did not want to see him get into more trouble. He worried that bruises on top of old bruises may cause some permanent damage.

The rest of the morning's classes went along without incident. At lunch, Kato made some idle chitchat with Murata. Takahashi was at lunch, but as usual, simply made eye contact and kept eating. It irked the shit out of Kato when he did that.

He took a nap after lunch then went to the afternoon class. Then when that was over, he decided to wait outside for Takahashi to arrive so that they could walk to the Sports Complex together. Murata and Nakamura came out first. They exchanged pleasant greetings.

"What's on the agenda today, Kato-san?" Murata asked with a friendly smile.

"Racquetball. You?" Kato responded. He had made sure to look at the schedule before he left yesterday.

"Ah, nice. I have track."

Kato was surprised. "Track? I didn't know you liked to run."

"Oh, yeah. I used to run every day before coming here. Kind of miss it."

"Nakamura-san, what sport are you assigned today?" Kato asked very politely.

"Kyūdō."

"You're an archer? Wow, that's so cool," Kato replied.

Takahashi walked up. "What are you all doing just standing around?"

"Not waiting for you," Kato snidely replied.

"Oh, is that so? He grabbed Kato in a headlock and started messing up his hair.

"Come on, you two love birds. Let's go," Murata laughed.

Takahashi quickly let go and Kato blushed. Then they all laughed and started the walk.

"Takahashi-san. What sport do you have this afternoon?" Kato asked.

"Football."

"But your ankle!" Kato complained.

"Ah, it will be fine."