Quantum Leap - Vol. 2 Exile Island (formerly Till Death Do Us Part)

C008 Adventure

I creaked open the door of my room slowly and nearly tiptoed to the shared bathroom at the end of the hallway. Luckily no one was using it so I slipped off my sandals and changed to the one inside the bathroom. I washed up my face and wiped off the tear stains and snot carefully. My questions were answered when I discovered a scrubbing board, some detergent and a place for drying the clothes. Small drainage was placed at the bottom that would capture the rivulets of dripping water from the laundry and let it flow outside to the back of the boarding house. Simple and yet very practical.

Afterwards, I left the bathroom, slipped on my indoor sandals and walked to my room. I placed the slipper outside and walked barefooted inside and once again I studied the room carefully after I had switched on a mellow overhead bulb that was hanging in the centre of the room. It was a single solitary light bulb and it was enough to illuminate the whole area.

As the rent was cheap, basically there was no attached bathroom as well as a small kitchenette to prepare our own food inside. It was a basic tenancy type only with a single bedroom except for a few electrical outlets to install a desk fan, a small bar fridge, a hairdryer as well as a laptop and an electric kettle. Basic and minimalistic and it is alright with me. At least I was able to see such appliances once again after spending some months in the laid back low tech Bamboo Village...!

I plopped on to the tatami mat and hugged one of the pillows while the other was placed underneath my head. The window was still left open and there was a slight draught that was blown in from time to time. I was wondering how come I could think about my late mother in this series at all. Maybe because  Kenzo was born as an orphan and had somehow relied on Mrs Kuwahara to provide me with lodging and food.

It's quite a mystery and I decided to unravel it during my stay here in this real or parallel world. At the meantime, I decided that I should not hurt the feelings of Kagome and her mother nor disappoint them in any way possible.

Very soon, I was heavy with sleep and closed my eyes. Within a short while, I had begun to doze off. I was awakened some hours later by the ringing of a bicycle bell downstairs near where my window was and I opened up my eyes and peered through the window. 

A lady in a white and blue uniform was on her bicycle making rounds of delivering fresh milk to her regular customers. She looked up and waved, "Good morning Kenzo-kun, would you like to buy some milk for yourself?" I peered at her and was delighted to have such services delivered straight under your second storey window and replied positively as I grabbed my coin purse and headed downstairs.

Meiji was the common household brand in Japan for milk. Earlier I had checked my small bar fridge and it only contained some plain water and some chocolate snacks, so I decided to get a carton of milk. It costs me ¥270  with the delivery charges. Otherwise, it would cost me only ¥240 at the Maxivalu Shimizu Yasaka Shop.

When I was about to head up for the stairs, I bumped into Kagome. She was wearing a pair of bunny slippers, and a pair of matching pyjamas which depicts Pikachu having some battles with other Pokemon monsters. She looked rather like a small loli than the student that I had around me last night... Hahaha...!

Her hair was not tied into a ponytail but was let down around her slender shoulders. Her ample breasts were straining under her shirt and her pants was a knee-length type. Overall, even if she had just woken up or had just freshened up, she looked perfect to me in any way and best if I get to have a sneak peek of her knickers like last night. Hahaha...!

"Ohaiyou Kagome" we exchanged greetings as she subconsciously brushed her clothes straight. "Ohaiyou to you too. Do you have enough of rest last night? You wanted to have breakfast with us later on then?" I bounded up the stairs before highlighting that I would be down for breakfast with her and the landlady. I smiled to myself as I made my way to the room and wore a look like I had seen an angel in the morning while humming, "Walking in the Rain" by XJapan.

I placed the newly bought carton of milk in the bar fridge, took my large towel and bounded to the bathroom with my small bucket of toiletries. Seeing Kagome alone could really lift my spirits multifold. Being the first one to use the bathroom once again, I quickly stripped and jumped straight to the shower and turned the tap head after adjusting the red and blue tap knobs to regulate the heat for the heater to my convenience.

Right after the shower I changed into a clean shirt and long black pants and bounded off again like a rabbit to the ground floor. Today is a Sunday and somehow I had lost track of the timeline and had skipped telling about the events that had happened on Saturday instead. 

Was it a time-lapse or maybe it is just a slip that I was unable to recover from. I then took my coin pouch with me along with some notes as I bounded downstairs just in case we would be spending some of my hard-earned money. Ah well... I think since I had transmigrated and exchanged body with Kenzo, I guess skipping work for these two days would be alright,  I rolled my eyes at Mr Director as a sign that he should not be repeating this in the future.

I greeted Mrs Kuwahara who was boiling water to make either hot tea or coffee in the kitchen and asked what's the activities for the whole of the day. In my past experiences, one of the best ways to get a feel for a city was to have a stroll around on a Sunday. 

The pace is slower, you'll see people doing what they would during their free time such as shopping, dining out and enjoying the day with families, friends and couples alike. It is just a form of an excuse of not cooking at home so they could spend their hard-earned money in the nearby restaurants for their meals. Hahaha...!

None of the daily grinds, none of the hurries, everyone was out and about at their leisurely pace. In short, Sundays generally paint a different view of a city from what you would find in the tourist guides –or in the movies, indeed. Basically, you would not be able to find many people sleeping longer than their usual on a Sunday except for those sleepyheads.

Mrs Kuwahara had planned that we spend the day outdoors since its a glorious morning and it's a Sunday where almost everyone is out and about. "So where would we be heading to, Kuwahara-san?" I inquired with a bright twinkle of my eye. "It's a secret..." laughed Mrs Kuwahara as she poured hot water into a porcelain kettle with tea leaves sitting in it. 

"Want some tea or perhaps coffee?" she asked as she sauntered to the cabinet and took a sachet of AGF brand Blendy Cafe Latory Rich Royal Milk Tea and another sachet of AGF brand Blendy Cafe Latory Rich Caramel Macchiato and passed it to me.

"Which one does Kagome loves to drink?" I asked innocently and suddenly remembered that I should rephrase the question to avoid raising any suspicion. I should have asked "Which one does Kagome prefers instead of loves to drink" but luckily Mrs Kuwahara didn't notice it much as she pointed out, "Kagome-Chan loves to drink the milk tea instead," and arranged for two cups in front of me.

I tore open the sachet and poured it's contents inside the cup before adding hot water from the whistling kettle and placed a stirrer with a honey-coated tip inside it. I did the same likewise for mine too.

A short while later, Kagome emerged from her bedroom dressed up in a cute little red knee-length dress with lace frills at her shoulder, end of her sleeves and at her waist. She stood there with matching red shoes and white stockings. She held a small clutch bag with straps made of yellow coloured metal chain. 

She seemed to exude an air of elegance even though she may be dressed like Santa's little helper. Hahaha...! Overall, she was simply dressed up but she simply looked like a knock out gorgeous girl. I can't help myself ogling at her as I feasted my eyes on her bosoms that seemed to be pushing at the front of her dress as if welcoming and beckoning me to say very good morning to it. Hahaha...!

Mrs Kuwahara can't help but reached out to push my chin up and closed my jaw and laughing lightly!

"You look gorgeous today, Kagome!" I almost shouted my words out as I admired the unblemished beauty that exuded from her. "You don't look too bad yourself, Kenzo.." she finally said after she fumbled and straightened her dress as if finding any faults after I admired at her a tad bit too long. She was twirling in front of her bedroom door as though she was a little girl that pleased for attention.

Mrs Kuwahara looked longingly at the two of us and ordered us to sit and have our drinks first at the dining area. She too had long prepared herself for the Sunday's trip by wearing a knee-length blue one-piece overcoat with an oversized belt buckle that accentuates her well-contoured shapely figure.

"Are we going to walk or take a ride in a taxi?" asked Kagome as she looked down at her flat platform shoes. If she was wearing heels definitely she would not be able to walk too long as it would be uncomfortable after some time.

"Of course we going to take a taxi, Kagome. The place we are going would only be a 10minutes ride from here. Don't forget to bring your mobile phone to snap some pictures afterwards." Mrs Kuwahara advised Kagome as she checked the contents of her handbag as well to ensure she got enough cash inside.

I later learned that the Kuwahara family does this Sunday's trip almost every week, going to 2 or more different places, one after the other. Only the previous week, they had gone to Shimizukiyomigata Park Sports Center, where there's a facility for swimming and volleyball. A park with barbecue pits was outside with a scenic line of trees against the natural background.

After spending some time there, they headed to the boat ramp at Yokosuna to watch tourists heading for a trip near Mount Fuji while eating some street food that the vendors had set up there and stayed there till late evening before they headed back home.

Today itinerary would be the Chibi Maruko Chan Land, a type of propped up cartoons setup in a real-world kind of stage in Irifunecho with an amusement park outdoors. If the weather is fine and not too hazy at sea, they planned to take a public ferry ride close to Mount Fuji from the Shimizu Harbor Bay Cruise. It is just like in the west where tourist can take a boat ride up close to the Niagara Falls where the water cascades into the large body of water. Not the other way round. (near the top of the waterfall, unless one considers suicide. Hahaha)

The cruise operated from 1130am—3 pm. If time does permits, they would be planning to visit the Verkehr Shimizu Port Terminal Museum where models of wind-powered sail ships and junks from the forgotten era would be placed on display right till the modern times of sea transportation.

It is a good opportunity to catch up on our maritime history with hands-on experiences of Shimizu. So off we go for our little adventure, cutting back on my part-time work at the Sports Shop to spend time with the family.

=*=

Fast forward...

School days and my part-time work at the Sports Shop occupied most of my busy week. I was not sorely missed by the Store Manager and was able to outperform myself in whatever tasks handed down by the Store Manager. By entertaining more customers and enticing them to buy the equipment and complete sets of other accessories, I managed to get a bonus of ¥1500 for that particularly busy and profiteering week.

The Store Manager was delighted that I had taken the initiative to provide value-added services to the customers that milled around the store and ended up buying quite a number of accessories along with the new equipment that they had intended to buy.

It was now a Monday and the start of the exam week. The exams had longer breaks in between to help the students take off the pressures of their preparations and ease the anxiety before they got to the next paper.

We had about 10 subjects so it's evenly broken up into 2 exams per day for 5 straight consecutive days. It was going to be hell week for the rest of us...!

We were all cramming during our school days and even made our last minute in preparation of the exam papers by having study groups. We all hoped to achieve higher results in our academic even though its a mid-term one. If they can score higher marks in their mid-year exams, even if they scored lesser than average on their end year one, their overall marks would be pulled up and assisted by their mid-year one.