Life’s Ragnarok

Winter break had blown past like a storm, and now it was mid-January.

It was the kind of season that made even stepping outside feel like too much trouble.

Lunch break in a mildly warm classroom. Maybe I was just in an awful spot, or maybe the window just wasn’t shut right, but from time to time, a cold breeze slipped through to my seat by the window.

I breathed on my numb hands, trying to warm them enough to use my chopsticks, and opened my lunchbox.

“Aikawa!”

With a beaming smile, a short-haired girl came over and tried to sit down right on my chair. The one I was already sitting on.

It turned into a fight for one chair, like the stubborn last two players in a game of musical chairs.

Or rather, she just wanted to sit with me, which left me half hanging off the edge and leaning against the window for