Tokyo: The life of a literary giant begins with home self-defense!

Chapter 133: The -year-old but talented young man

Adachi-ku, Tokyo.

The economy here is the worst, and the governance ranks last.

17-year-old Takehiko Aoyama is a sophomore in high school and lives a repetitive life.

School, run-down house, convenience store.

It was another rainy day in mid-March.

The humid air probably wouldn't be enough to dry the clothes at home, so Takehiko Aoyama finished his part-time job at the convenience store and walked towards where he lived.

The rain shattered the orange-yellow street lights. It had been raining since mid-February.

The Akutagawa Prize incident made this already chaotic neighborhood even more chaotic. A young man who kicked a roadside trash can ran past him. Takehiko Aoyama didn't care about the mud on his legs, but instead raised his middle finger to the sky.

"I am back."

Takehiko Aoyama, who has always been a somewhat dull person at home, threw the magazine he bought at the convenience store on the table and looked around.

"Where's dinner?"

Qingshan's family is a single-parent family. His mother passed away early, and he depends on his father, who works as a plumber.

"No, just find something to eat."

His father was still fiddling with his old radio. Takehiko Aoyama muttered something and grabbed some bread to fill his stomach.

Eat and read novels and magazines.

This is probably one of the few entertainment activities that Takehiko Aoyama has.

"A teacher from school called and said you wrote on the career survey form that you planned to drop out after high school?"

The career survey questionnaire is about Japanese students' future plans and ideals. Takehiko Aoyama plans to drop out of school after graduating from high school, and the atmosphere becomes quiet for a while.

"Ah."

There were the sounds of wind and rain outside the window. Takehiko Aoyama flipped through the pages of the book and laughed out loud when he saw the interesting plot.

"Drop out of school? What can you do if you drop out of school at your age?"

The old radio in his father's hand made a rustling sound as if it couldn't receive any channels. Qingshan chewed the cold bread impatiently.

"Convenience stores, restaurants, if not, can't you, Dad, repair the pipes?"

It could be that the son's impatience was caught by his father, or it could be that the other party was not motivated.

The father, sitting on the sofa, was enraged.

"Is this what I sent you to private school for? Huh? Cashier? Waiter?"

Aoyama Takehiko's father pulled the clothes on the young man's shoulders and scolded him,
"Can't you be more motivated? Do you know how hard it is to work outside?"

It was a bit painful when his father pulled his hair. Under the dim light, the boy had earrings and there were faint black lines on the inside of his collar.

He said he was just bored at home.

Labels like bad boy and biker gang can be attached to the boy, and Takehiko Aoyama impatiently pushed the other person's hand away.

"What does it matter? Father, aren't you also a plumber? A banker's son is a banker, and a plumber's son is of course..."

Before Takehiko Aoyama could finish his words, the table in front of him was overturned.

Drinking water, bread, and magazines were scattered all over the floor.

The middle-aged man is not good at speaking and cannot argue with his son.

He angrily went to the balcony and threw away his son's strange clothes. He thought these things were harming him.

"Don't even look at this kind of stuff. If you can't get into college, get out of this house."

The middle-aged man tore Takehiko Aoyama's boys' magazine into two pieces, threw it down angrily, slammed the door and walked out.

The broken water surface dripped.

Takehiko Aoyama's father is a middle-aged man who is not very good at education.

The situation today is not so bad, at least I didn’t get beaten.

Takehiko Aoyama curled his lips and smiled, stood there for a while, and picked up the "Kodan Club" on the ground again.

This is a popular magazine published by Kodansha, which contains many interesting and useful gossip stories.

Takehiko Aoyama has been buying the book for a long time, and he plans to finish reading the half that was torn off by his father.

"It's so boring. Let's go to Tokyo and have some fun tomorrow." Adachi Ward is a suburb of Tokyo and is often referred to as a lower-class area by people in the city center.

Takehiko Aoyama has recently been hanging out in places like Shibuya with his fellow biker gang members, and much of the graffiti and vandalism was done by him.

Flipping through the pages casually, a novel caught his attention.
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"Rich people are all bastards."
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"Parasite, seeing a guy who acts like he's rich makes me want to vomit."

The vulgar phrases seemed like part of his daily life, so Takehiko Aoyama chuckled twice and continued reading.

The story didn't interest him at the beginning. A young man went back to his hometown and saw a little bit.
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"The last book I read was last summer," said the mouse. "I forgot the title, and I forgot the author, but it was a novel written by a woman."

Takehiko Aoyama didn't like novels with educational significance, but the content later in the book attracted him.
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"The author, then, came to the seaside to escape the summer heat, and she comforted herself all the time from the moment she arrived there to the moment she left. In the bathroom, in the woods, in bed, in the sea, she didn't know where to go."

Haruki Murakami particularly likes this style of writing, where the sexual part suddenly begins in a relaxed tone.

It's like a dirty joke, grabbing people's attention but not appearing dirty.

Takehiko Aoyama chuckled twice. At his age, he was particularly interested in this.

As the author's light-hearted and humorous tone played out, the more Aoyama Takehiko read, the more confused his eyes became.

He couldn't figure out what he felt, but he always felt that the person inside was somewhat similar to him.

I had one of my front teeth broken by the police, but I just showed the broken tooth to the four-fingered girl and said softly, "It's all over."

In fact, Takehiko Aoyama is not the kind of young man who is born decadent, or most of them are not.

He had good grades in junior high school, but gradually fell behind after entering high school.

Everyone is making progress, but it seems that his brain can only be used here.

Not wanting to be seen as having achieved nothing after all his hard work, he chose to muddle through and joined some clubs to attract other people's attention.

When people look at me in amazement, I feel a sense of satisfaction from the inside out, as if I were a victorious general.

But what's behind the satisfaction?
Takehiko Aoyama continued flipping through the pages and saw a short story.

A famous work said to be "The Well on Mars" by American writer Hatfield

This is a bizarre, absurd and terrifying story.

The story goes that a young man drilled into one of the countless bottomless wells on the surface of Mars.

These wells were estimated to have been dug by Martians tens of thousands of years ago.

The young man kept walking in the well, exploring aimlessly.

By the end of the walk, the watch had stopped long ago, perhaps for two hours, or perhaps for two days, and I no longer felt hungry or tired.

At a certain moment, he suddenly noticed the sunlight, and it turned out that the horizontal hole was connected to other wells.

He climbed up the wall and returned to the surface.

At that moment, he felt something was wrong and began to talk to the wind.

At the end of the story, the atmosphere trembled slightly, the wind smiled, and in an instant, the eternal silence once again enveloped the surface of Mars.

This little story left Takehiko Aoyama stunned.

The 40,000 words made him feel relaxed and happy, but the loneliness that came over him was like a tsunami or a landslide.

They are broken young people and also young people who are not understood.

Takehiko Aoyama silently turned to the end of the story.

The words "To be continued" were written there, as well as a short phrase by the writer.
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I am a person who doesn't like to annotate my own articles.

The phrase was quite arrogant. The corners of Takehiko Aoyama's mouth twitched and he continued reading.
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At the age of eighteen, it is easy to be hurt, deceived, misunderstood, and go through many unspeakable experiences.
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All kinds of people will come to you to confide in you, and then pass through you with a sound like crossing a bridge, never to return.
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I didn’t say much in this novel, but I think it all comes down to that statement.
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'We are wandering in time, from the birth of the universe to its death.'
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We are all a gust of wind in the dust of the universe.
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There is no such thing as life or death, and naturally there is no such thing as loneliness.
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Those deep wells beneath the surface of Mars are interconnected, and we will eventually be able to reach the surface.

After reading all the stories, Takehiko Aoyama was stunned.

He stood up stupidly, walked around his house, and then sat down again.

I want to do something but I don't know what to do.

Finally, in the corner of the magazine, I saw the words that the arrogant young man left for the readers.
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"The Cemetery by the Sea", a work by French poet Paul Valéry.
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The first sentence of the fourth part I want to dedicate to all the lonely and confused people who are reading my book.
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Le vent se lève! il faut tenter de vivre!——
Many people like to translate it as: When the wind blows, the only way is to try to survive!
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But I want to say
Sitting in the dilapidated home, in the messy prologue that Takehiko Aoyama pieced together.

He seemed to see the young man holding the golden pen.

他 说:

Even if there is a strong wind,
Never give up in life.

(End of this chapter)