XCEL

A week later, dawn broke over a shivering Chiba City. To a degree, regularity and certainty brought comfort. The sun, for instance, always rose in the east—not due east, mind, that only happened at the equinoxes, but sayings never cared for specifics. Most popular aphorisms are half-forgotten anyway.

By his measurement, the sun that morning was off by an angle of around twenty-two degrees. Rinkaku Harigane had rolled up his bedroom window (which did face east—he had made triply sure), swung his legs out into the chill and sat, slouched, on the sill.

The boy was short, languid and lanky, a decent build—genetics, mostly. Folds and shadows underscored tired, scornful eyes. His attractive face wouldn’t have been so wasted on him had he given the slightest damn. Thick black hair, tousled in restlessness, bunched around his shoulders. Rin squinted at the sun and stretched out an arm, contorted fingers into a rough set-square and ran through a routine of mental trigonometry.

The sky was blissfully clear, refreshing.

His appraisal of the azimuth was a technique he’d developed to spite an astrophysics grad student seven years his senior who thought he could flex his oh-so-prized skill at astrometry. The look on the man’s face on losing to a highschooler was priceless. Rin didn’t have the remotest interest in astronomy. However, when it came to suspiciously specific and irrelevant dick-measuring competitions where someone else’s intellectual pride is on the line, he always won.

The sun had woken late that day, as had he.

They both shared the same attitude to winter mornings. Languid, slow, vaguely resentful: the pale winter sun peaked offset beyond the horizon and traipsed through the frosty morning. It had burned bright in his windows, past curtains he hadn’t remembered to close and phased directly through heavy eyelids, a rude awakening from his inextricably less-than-two-hours of sleep. Thick, layered blueprints of the latest ill-advised, poorly designed and aesthetically horrendous megacity—drafted by the latest desperate oilfield nation in the middle east—shrouded him in place of a duvet. Similar papers lay strewed across his room, a carpet of annotated snow. His laptop heaved under the weight of the usual seventeen million idle browser tabs. Practically all printed designs had been defaced with the angry red scrawl of a lunatic. How anyone with a functional pair of eyes, brain cell or substitute hamster wheel thought building a vertical line across a desert without any regard for basic infrastructure would’ve made his blood boil if it weren’t so hilarious. Irrespective, he’d have to continue his study and subsequent ridicule some other time. School awaited.

Another familiarity, another certainty; oh joy.

One hasty mouthful of last night's leftover egg-fried rice later, he bid everyone else in the house farewell with a silent, disappointed sweep of the empty suburban homestead. Why did he expect anyone else to be here? She was gone, and he… well, best he didn’t dwell. Malicious mail awaited beyond the door, and he nearly tripped. Rin sighed and stooped to thumb through the letters. Any for his father, he shredded and tossed over his shoulder with a mirthful spark. The last was for him: a formal invitation for the National Mathematics Championship. Rin’s lip curled, and he shredded that too. He’d turn up and win, regardless of their invitation, thank you very much. The parcel that almost caught his foot was hefty. The elaborately patterned tape sealing it shut was faded, a simple decorative measure. His name and address had been scrawled messily with permanent marker, beside a sticker from the—he squinted—Japanese embassy in Cairo? What was this supposed to mean? It was a shame, really. Egypt had some sensational monuments, and such a rich architectural history. Anything associated with that place, however, was tarred with a unfortunately bitter sentiment.

Rin’s eye twitched. After all this time, all his old man had to show for himself was a souvenir?

Then again, it was hefty. He shook the box, and a couple items—two, he intuited—thudded against the cardboard, cushioned slightly by some packing peanuts, or similar. Any word from his father was unhelpful at best. Brevity was the soul of wit; unfortunately, Katsuro Harigane was about as funny as a wet sock. He had anticipated some kind of postcard, a rambling letter about his latest “great discovery” which read about as smoothly as his academic papers (Rin had cross-referenced to make sure—the language was laughably identical.) Never would he have expected a parcel. His stomach curled on itself, a kind of innocent anticipation, a hopeful curiosity welled in his throat. Rin gagged and grimaced. Seemed some of that pathetic childish sentiment still remained. He’d have to beat that out of his subconscious later: self-administered cognitive behavioural therapy or iron bar, whichever worked. Then again, his eyes were drawn once more to the box.

He wanted—no, needed—to open it.

A buzz from his phone told him indirectly to get a move on. The nerve. Rin sighed and threw the parcel into his satchel. He didn’t much care about being late for homeroom, but he couldn’t be bothered to deal with the scene it caused. Better to get a move on.

The street he lived on was a fair walk from the train station. It had been a pain at first, but pain dulled itself out over time. Everything did. The scuffing of his toes on the pavement before every step served a purpose: the friction disrupted the ice, made him less likely to slip and fall. Someone a few paces ahead did exactly that not half a minute later. Rin cackled, and kicked him in the shin. Idiot.

Both hands buried deep in pockets, bag swinging from shoulders, he cut down a side-street overlooking a park nearby—a nifty shortcut that put him in front of most early morning commuters walking to his station. Unawares, he approached a bench, and a small rectangular item hit the ground a few feet in front. His eyes twitched at the motion, but elected to ignore it.

“Young man? Oh, young man! If you could—”

An aged voice somehow managed to interrupt his ceaseless train of thought. Rin spun on a heel. The gentleman wore a tweed suit, flat cap, and mirrored, oval sunglasses. Thick dark hair thin lined with grey extended in a pair of sideburns. A walking stick trembled on the ground, grasped for dear life by hands that were losing their grip, day by day. Rin did a double take, eyes narrowed. The old man had the Harigane face: the curvature of the nose and cheekbones, like a grandfather he’d never known—but that was impossible.

“I accidentally dropped my wallet as I was trying to take out some money,” the man rambled, chuckling. “Would you mind picking it up for me? These old joints aren’t what they used to be.”

Rin eyed the old man for a good few seconds. He didn’t like the way the corners of his mouth curled into a pair of opposing C’s, as though watching a shitty daytime comedy show. Normally, this wouldn’t bother him. Maybe it was ire leftover from the package that nearly sent him sprawling over the porch, but Rin’s patience had worn as thin as his impromptu bedsheets that night.

“I saw you drop that deliberately. You’re not slick,” he said, voice flat. Bending down to retrieve the wallet, he exaggerated the effort with a comical groan, his back stiff. “What is this, some test of my character? Do you enjoy being a nuisance, old man? Do your folks not visit enough, so you fill the loneliness with pity tricks on strangers?”

The old man chuckled. “Now hand it back, sonny. That’s quite—”

“You know what?” Rin interjected, scratching the back of his head. “If you had just, you know, asked for some company, I might have actually indulged you.” Not a shred of a lie: he only cared about getting to school on-time to save himself the bother of having to tune out another bollocking. “Instead, you resorted to this. Elders deserve respect by setting good examples for the youth. What kind of example are you setting by trying to dupe your way into some shorthand pity from a stranger, gramps? Grow up.” He tossed the wallet into a storm drain, and walked off.

“Oh dear,” the old man muttered, gaze fixed on Rin’s retreating back. He didn’t sound the least bit offended. The comment came from a place of amusement, maybe tinged with a little pity. “That wasn’t kind, was it?”

Rin was too far out of earshot to hear, let alone care.

“Shibaru’s grandson, truly a chip off the old block.” Old Man Consequences shook his head, and the observant crow gave its haunting caw. The wallet floating in the drain vanished. He removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes glowing eerily white. The old man’s voice took a wispy, musical tone, “You come and go, you come and go...” The faded lyrics drifted into the wind, and he chuckled. “Misfortune accumulates like a cloud, the sum of deeds, checks and balances. Luck is but a flow, but fate is absolute. If you don’t change your path, Rinkaku Harigane, your fate won’t be a pleasant one.”

Rin should’ve seen the warning signs when the discarded mirror on the street smashed under his heel. Not so. He’d never been superstitious. Religion, the supernatural was a comfort, a stopgap for the masses’ lack of understanding and, when organised, proved an effective method of indoctrination and control.

All he could bear to think about was what was in that box.

Rin had no time for silly ideas like “gathering misfortune.” He had a train to catch.

* * *

The trainside platform already heaved with the to-and-fro of morning commuters. Students in their uniforms, stood alongside the workforce in their own. A faceless crowd, a standard for conformity, replicated at metro stations nationwide.

Rin suppressed a yawn with the back of one hand, looking down at his wrist. 7:49, it read. No doubt about it, he’d definitely be late for homeroom. A shame, but nothing he hadn’t managed to shrug off before. In any case, the distraction that had delayed him wasn’t his fault.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped. A familiar voice broke through his morning daze. Rin turned to see a girl, similar height, facing him with a smile.

Dressed in the same uniform, hers was a lot tidier and more stylised than Rin’s. She had tailored them herself, little frills along the collars and sleeves of her shirt. Her blond hair was out of place among the sea of black, but was well-taken care of. This girl even wore a hairpin: a long silver detail, shaped like a knitting needle. Rin by contrast looked like he had been dragged backwards through a hedge. It’d be difficult to find any reason why she’d be reaching out to him at all.

“Good morning!” She bowed as much as the bustling crowd would allow.

Rin grunted halfheartedly. Neither his face nor his eyes showed anything beyond that fatigue and carelessness of an unhealthy relationship with one’s bed.

Kinuka Amibari—why did she still bother?

“Are you alright?” She tilted her head, pursing her lips. “Are you getting enough sleep, Rin? You look tired.”

The train pulled into view, detracting from Rin’s attention. Her hand drew closer to his cheek, and his stare hardened. The train doors opened, and he slapped her hand away.

“Give it a rest,” Rin choked on his words a little. Eventually, a sigh. “Just forget it. I have nothing left to say to you, Amibari.”

The next she knew, Rinkaku Harigane had already disappeared among the sea of the faceless. She stood alone on the platform, her hand stretched out towards him, perhaps in the hope that he would look back and take it. He didn’t, not looking back even once.

Kinuka Amibari had just turned eighteen that morning. She had woken up alone, with no-one at home to celebrate, or even acknowledge. Now she stood here on the station platform, even more alone. Not even the commuters cared enough to stay and so much as wish her well. Why would they, after all? To them, she was just some girl, no-one of importance.

The automated announcer made her final call. In imminent danger of missing the train, she took off down the platform at a run.

She hoped he would’ve remembered from all those years ago, if not recently. What had she done wrong? She had hoped for a look in her direction; some nice wishes, perhaps; a smile, even, just like the ones that used to make her smile. Was that really too much to ask?

Throwing herself into the first open carriage, Kinuka shook her head and wiped bleary eyes, but nothing she did could stop the thin film of tears. She screwed them shut. Hopefully, by the time they opened again, they might see clearly once more.

* * *

For all intents and purposes, a school building should inspire its students. Was that not the purest purpose of education? To enlighten, to enthral, to cultivate the minds of the next generation to do and be the best that they themselves can offer, both for their own sake and others’. Architecture was far more than just brick-and-mortar. The layout, the holistic ethos that goes into pattern, placement and spacing is quintessential: what isn’t there is just as important as what is.

Senketsu Chiba Prefectural High should have been a bastion of aspiration. Rin could already see it: four slender towers standing bright and pure in the winter sun, stalwart around a central atrium open to the sky. Striated wooden panelling separating each floor, with each classroom conducive to self-reflection and open to communication. Intuitive walkways should make entrance and traversal accessible. That would have been ideal.

The ideal and the real would always juxtapose, however, and that fact irritated Rin.

The reality of this accursed institution hit one on the head like concrete, and good lord was there a lot of concrete. Rin leant back in his chair, eyes tracing the ceiling’s regular grid of fluorescent lighting. The bulbs, perpetually years beyond needing replacement, hummed and flicked like android insects trapped in painful, cylindrical isolation cells. Whenever his teachers said something interesting, he sat up and listened. To that end, he had spent most of the school day asleep, stirring only briefly when passed his recent set of practice exams. He was already going to college. The numbers—all high nineties—failed to mean much anymore.

His classroom was like any other, so regular and repeated. No distinction was permitted, no beauty to be found in its orthodox confines. The beige on the walls washed out to the point it mirrored the utter indifference of its captive body of students. No wonder the country faced such a shortage of hope among its youth. The seldom joy they could find in a society that barred self-expression was isolating and frowned upon, because of course it was. Every time he gazed out at the world beyond the glass, Rin wouldn’t have been surprised to find iron bars.

That was another thing about regularity and certainty. It might have comforted some, but it bored Rinkaku Harigane to tears.

It was the architecture of defeat. Whoever was responsible for this travesty had given up years before they’d even started. He pitied them. He imagined the poor sod rotting away at some desk, wiling away their sacred time, fulfilling responsibilities with no more effort expended than was expected: a good little citizen. There were just so many of those. Functional, suffocating, the building stifled any creative thought, buried any spark of ambition beneath mountains of exams, clinical highways of acceptable career paths, behavioural counselling, and a harsh ironing out of anything remotely remarkable. Rin shut his eyes—not, he hoped, out of cowardice—to avoid letting the sight beguile him any longer. The shades of grey failed to emulate any nuance. The ethos was black and white, so infantile he could cry. A headache thudded against the back of his skull.

It wasn’t for lack of funding. Senketsu was top-rated academically. His record might’ve played a significant part in that—who was he to say? The buildings themselves were relics of post-war Japan’s utilitarian streak—cold, grey monoliths that served their purpose without ever asking if they should aspire to more. The school had undergone a few cosmetic touch-ups in decades following, but beneath the occasional coat of fresh paint, the same depressing skeleton of steel and stone sucked the life and joy out of youth. Rin's fingers drummed against his desk. Oh, what Senketsu High could have been, if the architects had bothered to care.

Worse still, somehow, no-one else seemed to notice, much less care. His classmates were indistinct, good little students, and shuffled in and out of class like sleepwalkers, ambitions as threadbare as the linoleum underfoot. The place mirrored its inhabitants—both unremarkable, both content to exist without bothering to wonder what lay beyond.

What would the world look like in four dimensions? He had to know.

Unfurling his notebook, pages thick and matted not with love but sheer neuroticism and weight of ink, he clicked open a pen and brushed stray locks of hair behind one ear. Schläfli had first conceptualised the polychoron in the 19th century. A polyhedron made of polyhedra, a hidden axis beyond human comprehension. Rin felt a spiritual connection to his memory, and the pioneers of theoretical hyperspace that followed. He would continue their lineage. Just as a three-dimensional man would appear godly to beings in a two-dimensional world, such would be true in further increments. If only he could ascend to the fourth dimension. For now, he could only conceptualise. He had turned tesseracts, cubes within cubes, into hyperstructures. On the next full-page spread, he had systematically detailed a house that could seamlessly transition between several separate rooms simply by viewing from a different perspective on the fourth axis. This had the potential to revolutionise the very concept of living spaces. If only anyone else could see that.

That was the root of the issue. Very few bothered to look beyond the third dimension. Others had done in the past, the point where mathematics melded with philosophy, but their work was seldom known, much less understood. He had been curious ever since he could remember. Why wasn’t everyone else? Turning the page, he kept sketching. Rin focused in on the scratching of his pen, until all noise faded away until he was left with only the workings of his mind.

“Harigane.”

A voice, familiar enough—unfortunately—to rouse Rin’s consciousness from the depths of whatever dimension it had faded into as he slept on his desk.

“Oi, Harigane!”

Maybe—Rin thought—if he pretended he’d gone deaf, the annoyance would give up and leave.

“Harigane! Wake up, damn you!”

A ruler rapped him sharply on the back of the head. Rin yelped and sprang upright. Peeling the notebook page that had glued itself to his cheek with drool, Rin noticed he had filled in another ten whole pages. A lot more time had passed than he’d been aware of. Everyone else chatting animatedly to their neighbour, or to another close by: class in remission. A growl in his stomach told him it was more likely lunchtime.

“What the hell was that for?” Rin massaged the wound. While he slouched to a near-unhealthy extent, the newcomer stood properly, with cropped black hair and a distinct parting. The irritation in his glare was returned tenfold.

“Oh, it’s you.” Rin made a noise halfway between a sigh and a groan, one that ended up sounding like neither. “What do you want, Bingo?”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” The boy whacked Rin over the head again. “My name isn’t Bingo!”

“I don’t care.”

“You never have.”

“What do you want? I’m busy.”

“With what?” Dentaku Bango cast a scathing glare at Rin’s notebook. “Oh. More deranged diagrams? Very important.”

“Won’t waste my time trying to explain,” Rin yawned. “Come back to me when you’ve figured out what the Kobayashi–Hitchin correspondence is.”

“It relates the—”

“Not an invitation!” Rin interrupted, dragging his palm down his cheek. “If I wanted someone to tell me what I already know, I’d be talking to the mirror!”

“Do you ever intend on paying anyone any respect at all?”

“So far, no-one deserves it. Oh, speaking of—” Rin dived down and fished an additional wad of papers from his bag. “I read your proof of the Ramanujan Conjecture—”

Bango’s surprise quickly gave way to a frown. “You stole it.”

“Stealing implies it’s worth a damn.” Rin rifled through the paper, revealing reams upon reams of angry red scrawl. “It’s dreadful. Did you get a toddler to write this? I went through at least ten ink cartridges before I was halfway through.”

“You critiqued it?”

Rin barked a laugh. “Hardly. I was about to tear my hair out after you messed up your Dirichlet series for the nth time; ended up designing a tensegrity skyscraper instead, see?”

Flicking to about halfway through, Rin opened the booklet and shoved it in Bango’s face. The impressive schematic was scrawled in scratchy red pen over the carefully derived formulae.

“I got bored after that.” Rin tore out the page and tossed the rest of the proof to the floor. Crumpling the page into a ball, he tossed it at Bango, hitting the boy square in the forehead. “Want my autograph? That design will be worth millions. Thank me later.”

Resisting the urge to throttle him, Bango spied Rin’s test results. Revenge. He snatched them up and held them aloft. Rin screeched and grappled in vain. Bango grabbed the boy’s forehead and held him away at arm’s length. Rin clawed like a savage dog.

“One-hundred percent?” Bango raised an eyebrow. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” Rin slapped the hand from his face. “What’s it to you?”

“So you do care.”

“Jealous, Bongo? Scored another ninety-six this time?” If Rin was any better at being this smug, he could list it on his job application.

Bango looked seconds away from an aneurysm. “Of course not,” he lied, tucking his own results further into his back pocket. “I can’t afford to have you slip up before the real thing. I came to check up on the state of my competition.”

“Not this again.” Rin pinched his nose. “You really think I’m competing with you? We’re not even playing the same game.”

“Whatever.” Bango ended their delightful conversation there, slapping Rin’s results back down onto the table like a set of divorce papers. He picked up his briefcase and rubbished proof and turned away. “I trust you received the invite to the championships? You had better be there. I’ll show you up for good. I’ll tear that smirk from your face if it’s the last thing I do.”

Rin, having exhausted all other ways to demonstrate his exasperation, rolled his eyes and let his head fall onto his desk as though he were an ostrich burying it in sand.

“I—” He banged his forehead against his desk after every word. “Do. Not. Care. Go. Away.” After that, he just lay there.

Bango clicked his teeth in frustration. “You will.” Slinging his briefcase over his shoulder, he cut through the crowds of milling students and made swift exit.

A good few minutes later, Rin lifted his head off the desk to find a glorious absence of Dentaku Bango, as well as most of the other students. He checked his watch. The lunch hour had begun. No wonder he was the only one left. The mathematics championships: of course Bingus chose that as his opportunity to rear that childish rivalry again, the only track on his broken record. At this rate, it seemed he’d never get the hint.

Rin laboriously lifted himself from the chair, retrieving satchel along with. The convenience store bento rumbled comfortingly inside its nebulous depths, along with that strange package. All thoughts of Mango immediately vanished. Rin nearly vaulted over the desks, making a beeline for the rooftop. That wellspring of childish curiosity bubbled up in his throat. Time to see whether that dusty deadbeat had anything to say for himself after all.