"Second place again, huh......"
I muttered that while looking at the rank written on the report card I got back.
Modern Lit 2nd, Classics 3rd, English 4th, Math 8th, Chemistry 6th, Japanese History 3rd, Politics & Econ 1st. All seven subjects combined, I placed 2nd out of 312 in the third year. I thought I had studied pretty hard, but even this time I couldn't take the top spot.
I sighed and looked over at the few students gathered in the front right of the classroom.
"Whoa! Kazuki, you're first in the year again!?" a 1st girl student shouted, eyes wide. "That's amazing!"
"And you're basically first in almost everything! Hey, teach me how to study next time, okay~?" Another Girl Student added.
"I guess I have no choice," Sugawara Kazuki gave a small smile. "How about this Sunday?"
"Thanks, Kazuki~!" the 1st girl student 1 beamed.
Their loud chattering reached me. At the center of that noise stands the genius among geniuses, the one who has held the top spot for over a year now: Sugawara Kazuki. He and I have basically zero contact, but I've decided on my own that he's my rival.
Since I entered this high school, I've never once beaten him on a test. I didn't join any clubs, I turned down chances to hang out with classmates, and besides eating, bathing, and the reading time I set as my own quota, I did nothing but study. Still, I can't beat him.
Geniuses exist in every world, I guess. Sugawara is the total opposite of me: ace of the basketball team, student council president, and a scholarship student. He's the kind of guy who really does live up to "strong in both academics and sports," He's got looks and popularity too. He's a winner among winners in life.
Man, this world is unfair. No matter how hard you work, you can't break through the wall of talent you're born with. People call me a grind, they call me a weakling, and even when I keep pushing without giving up, I still can't beat a genius. Even though this is one of the top prep schools in the prefecture, only one or two people a year get into Todai. Sugawara Kazuki will almost definitely get in. I'm barely holding on to second place, and honestly I've lost that spot a few times, so I have no confidence I'll get in either. There's so much I can't reach no matter how hard I live. Meanwhile the genius Sugawara Kazuki has everything going his way. He swaps girlfriends left and right.
I couldn't stand how frustrating that was, and that is exactly why I never want to lose. Half out of stubbornness, I just keep working. I want to prove that a normal person's hard work can beat a genius. So even while walking to and from school, I keep reading my vocab cards -
"Watch out!"
A voice from far away cut through everything.
I didn't understand what had happened. I only noticed the world spinning around me, and then a loud noise and a bright light and a strong impact hit me, and I figured out that I had apparently been hit by a car.
"Ughf......!"
Getting slammed into the ground made a weird sound come out of me, and it felt kind of like it was happening to someone else. My whole body, which must have hit the asphalt hard, slowly started to feel hot. The area around me was in an uproar, and the students from my school who were heading home were all staring this way.
"Hey, are you okay......!" The same voice called from far away.
I heard a voice like that from a distance, but I couldn't answer at all. My whole body felt hot, but for some reason I had gotten cold. Along with the chills, a strong sleepiness hit me, and I let go of consciousness without being able to resist at all.
An ambulance was parked nearby. I couldn't hear the siren, but the red lights were flashing, spinning around and around. Several police cars were parked as well, and cops were calling out to a big crowd of onlookers. Yellow tape was stretched out, and inside it there was a spot covered by a blue sheet.
For some reason, I was watching that scene from above, about ten meters up. I stared at it with a blank mind for a few dozen seconds, and then I understood that I had died in an accident. So this is what they call an out-of-body experience. Pretty intense, I'd say. Not something you get to go through very often.
While that was going on, I noticed I was slowly rising into the sky. I was already about thirty meters up. This is really it. I am going up to heaven. The commotion below is getting harder to see.
One hundred meters up. When I climbed a mountain with a castle and looked down at the city, it felt like this. I can't really see what's happening below anymore.
A thousand meters up. It feels like looking down from a tall mountain like Mt. Fuji. I can see the whole city I live in. I don't have a beloved childhood friend or any especially close friends, so I'm not that attached to it. My family didn't seem to expect much from me either, and it was a boring life.
Ten thousand meters up, basically ten kilometers. I finally passed Everest. I can see the edge of the Earth curving. All I can tell down there now is whether there's a city or a forest. And here, my climbing speed shoots way up.
One hundred kilometers up. From here it is already outside the atmosphere. Goodbye, Earth, until we meet again. ......Though honestly, we might not meet again. I don't even know if reincarnation is real, and there's no guarantee I'd be born again as a smart life form on Earth. At least right after dying like this, I found out I still have a mind, so maybe reincarnation exists too.
Up......well, outer space, about ten thousand kilometers from Earth. I can see Earth's outline clearly now, and it is perfectly round. Earth was blue. Looking at Earth like this makes me a little sad. Where am I going after this? There's no contact from any god up here, and there was no heaven above the clouds. Since I'm going up, I shouldn't be headed to hell. My life had nothing good in it, but if I could go back, I want to return to Earth one more time. If it could come true, next time I would like to live a life where my hard work actually pays off. Looking back at my life so far, a dream like that doesn't seem possible. Earth is getting further and further away anyway.
I passed the moon, and Mars is close now. Maybe I'll become the first human in history to see the surface of Mars up close with my own eyes. Maybe all dead people do this, but if that were true, there'd be plenty of other dead people besides me, and I haven't seen a single other ghost. If everyone rose straight up from where they died, Japanese people and Brazilians would go in opposite directions, which means not every dead person gets to see Mars up close. People headed to hell would probably see tectonic plates or the mantle instead. So I guess I'm a lucky guy. Since I died in a traffic accident, lucky is lucky, but it's more like a small bit of luck inside a bad thing.
I could see Jupiter. It's pretty far, but I could tell it's huge. Every day I listen to my heart, not alone. No wait, I'm really going up all by myself right now. And where even is "heaven"? Isn't it toward the sun? For something called the heavenly path, that is weird.
......Is that Pluto? The sun looks pretty small now. I'm starting to feel lonely. How long am I going to keep moving? I want to go home already. I don't even have a body to go home to.
I'm getting tired. So this is the Milky Way galaxy I was born in, huh (deadpan).
The Local Group? Was that it? I don't know anymore. I really don't.
And so, some hours, or maybe some days, or maybe some years. For a while long enough that my internal clock (not that I have a body!) was completely frozen and I couldn't tell how much time had passed, I just floated there feeling the strange mystery of the universe, and eventually my mind grew faint. My vision blurred, it was bright, and I felt kind of warm, and then my mind, this time for sure, completely cut off.
Trivia:
- The narrator dies while reading vocab cards on the way home, which is the exact habit he built to try to beat Sugawara.
- The title claim "hard work will never betray me" is set up as ironic from page one: his hard work never once beat the genius he was chasing.
- His upward path after death passes the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto, then keeps going past the Milky Way and the Local Group, hinting reincarnation will drop him somewhere far beyond Earth.
Notes:
• Kazuki - Top student for over a year, basketball team ace, student council president, and scholarship student. Popular with girls, swaps girlfriends often, and has zero contact with the narrator, who sees him as a one-sided rival.
• Sugawara - Family name of Kazuki. The MC's rival before reincarnated.