Chương 28: I'm A Sneaky Guy

I am Batman. What am I even thinking? I shake my head around, and a smile spread on my face as I feel no water coming off my hair, my cloak hood doesn't even fall. AHHHHH! I LOVE MY NEW CLOAK! That's because of it that I feel like batman actually. Look at me. Alone, in the middle of a silent raining street... wait. I turn around. Look behind me. There's no one, none, the rain is particularly heavy today, and even if I saw some people on my way there. There wasn't as much people as usual.

Also, it didn't help that I made sure to take the least popular streets. Because. I mean, look, I wouldn't mind having an early try at removing the pain plaguing my body, really I wouldn't, still, there's a reason why I didn't jumped off a roof yet. I still have hope to remove this disease of mine. Even if today. I kind of gave up in believing that it was just a normal thing that would leave me when I grow up. Still have the blue flakes in my eyes and all. And to be honest, the pain is kind of getting worse?

It's subtle. But... even with my training, my meditation, and everything. I'm sure it's getting worse, I don't know why, and still don't know why. But I'm sure it's getting worse. It started getting extra worse after my first birthday for some reason. I tried stopping my training and meditation for two weeks straight, was trying to see how my body would react. And it reacted by giving me more pain. Which... uh, was annoying.

I stopped the two weeks plan early when I reached 101% level of pain, and in fear of forever worsening my condition, I kept up my training. Fortunately, after one month of training again, the pain came back to my usual baseline. Which is... great? I guess? It's still horrible but it wasn't worse, so, it was a victory, no matter how bitter it tasted. Still, that proved something to my young and impressionable baby mind. My training is working, well, at least it's keeping it in check.

I'm like one of those patient with a bad condition, the kind of thing with no fix, where the only thing they can do is be healthy, train, and take their meds to make sure the condition doesn't get worse. I don't have meds but I have meditation and training.... which isn't enough. If you remember well, I started this whole monologue of mine by saying that yes. My disease, my condition, whatever you want to call it. Is getting worse. And that wasn't a joke.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Those last few months, I felt the pain grow, slightly of course, it wasn't anything crazy. But I'm so aware of it nowadays that any little changement is pretty obvious. So you can guess my reaction when I understood that the change in my pain was a bad change. Even with all of my training. Even with all my meditation.

Even with the enlightenment that I call Nirvana now, even with all of this, it's getting worse. And I don't know what to do. I just don't know. Training only gives me a temporary fix, meditation doesn't fix shit, just makes me able to support the pain more. I just don't know what to do anymore. I want to give up. The sound of the rain tapping over my cloak and around my feet is relaxing.

Looking around the street one more time, seeing no one else around, no one behind me, and no one in the dead end in front of me that lead to the library. I stay with my thoughts for a while. I feel the pain coursing through my body, growing in intensity as my limbs recover from the workout I put them through. I would love to drop down and do more pushups until my body fucking breaks down, but getting an injury seems like an even worse idea since I wouldn't be able to train after.

And then the pain will permanently get worse. Fuck. For a long moment, I stay there. Alone, in the street, rain falling on my cloak. Felt like a badass superhero with my cloak a second ago, ready to go on a mission. Felt like batman. But now I probably really feel like batman, a guy in a bat costume, alone, in the rain, with nothing but the pain from the death of his parents inside of him. Which is.... Kind of sad. But closer to batman so....

Closing my small little fist tight, I force myself to wake up from those dumb thoughts and get ready to spy around the library! I have things to do! This is... the only path to... To what? TO LEARN HOW TO READ! Why the fuck would I want to learn how to read? I'm in medieval Japan. Well... I guess being educated will help me in the future? Won't take care of the pain though..... Maybe I should stop thinking and just move. Following my own advice, I finally move from my place.

Which was in the middle of the street, alone, under the rain, and finally. I get closer to the library. The layout of the street and library is pretty peculiar, the sole goal is probably to show the importance of the library, and therefore knowledge. Because of you know. The wide streets on my left and right, who are spread wide to show the view of a big building. Which is the only building in front of me, the library. It's one of the biggest building I've seen in this life. Which...

doesn't mean much, but it's taller than most houses around, it's the size of a school building I'd say, not one for teenagers, more for childs than anything. Still. In this dingy village, it's pretty impressive. They really wanted to make sure everyone passing in this street knew that they took knowledge seriously. But it doesn't work much here. First, because there's no one around the street. The only street that leads to, well, the library. And secondly because the library in itself is fucking dying.

How does a building dies you ask? Well, a wooden building dies by rotting. And IT'S ROTTING! I'm not joking. Like most of the houses in this entire village, the library is made of wood. And some part of the wood is rotting, it's genuinely fucking rotting. I'M NOT JOKING IT'S ROTTING! IT'S ROTTING MAN! The library as a whole isn't rotting of course, but some parts are rotting. And it's enough for the sign that probably says 'library' or something like that, above it's door, to hang off.

And it's not a good hanging off. It's more like a dying man hanging off a cliff kind of hanging, and the man only has one arm, and he's tired, and actually an animal just gnawed two of his fingers off, and-! Oh it fell off. It's... on the ground now. Ignoring the sign in front of the doubledoors I look at the sides of the building, the reason I know why it's a library even if I couldn't read the now dead sign, is because there's windows. Pretty big windows.

I need to get on my tiptoes, but if I do, I can see the inside. Which is... in a pretty sad state, but SHELVES! WITH BOOKS! An evil laugh resonates in the street, as I stand under the window. Rubbing my hands like a fly, thinking about all the books I'll manage to st-!

"What in the fucking h&## is this creature?" I jolt out of my skin, almost falling down, but my extensive -not childish- training manages to keep me on my toes for long enough to look up at the woman in front of me.

"Why are you snoop&#&# around kid?"