The computer program

8. Honey-drenched strawberry

I couldn't focus.

For the rest of the week, I couldn't focus on my lectures. My mind was spinning, but not with the grandiosity of it all but of the pure quality of the meeting.

I didn't hear from Hashirama, and I didn't try to contact him either. He was on my mind but in the back of it, pushed away by what was happening. It was just so dizzying that my heart didn't have room to grieve Hashi on top of everything. 

"Mr Uchiha... Mr Uchiha!"

I jerked.

"Yes?"

"Answer?"

I looked around me. I was in the lecture theatre, but I hadn't concentrated in a good fifteen minutes or so. I wasn't worried; I had complete faith in that I could nail my exams without attending any lecture. But the situation was embarrassing.

"Sorry, I was thinking about human robots", I said sweetly, playing shyness. It worked; everyone laughed, including the lecturer.

It was true, though. I couldn't stop thinking about my meeting with him.

The weekend passed, and I sat down at my desk. Okay, Izuna. Enough of this. You sit the fuck down, and you study for at least two hours.

I obeyed my inner voice and actually got a lot of work done. But then I rewarded myself by thinking about the meeting yet again.

There was a certain feeling connected to it, a feeling I'd felt before. I concentrated to try to capture the essence of it, to try to find out when I had felt it, what it reminded me of. It reminded me of...

It reminded me of one summer when I had tried running before breakfast every other morning. It had been an unusually sunny and warm summer, and while others had complained it was too hot, I had thrived. I would run in the summer sun, to the harbour and along it, standing for a little while to watch the pretty little sail boats bobbing over the glittering surface, splashes of red from the tiny red cottages that were used as storage enchanting the scene. I would come home and have muesli with yoghurt and strawberries and honey, and think "This is life".

That was how the interaction with him had felt; like a honey-drenched strawberry that was so simple, yet provided so much happiness into an ordinary life that it made me feel like I was living my life to its fullest.

Monday came, which meant the day for Hashirama's lecture. And I realised I didn't want to see him.

I phoned one of my friends in the morning. I considered telling him a lie about going to the dentist, but then realised it would sound ludicrous that I would have an appointment every Monday before lunch.

"I don't want to attend Professor Senju's lectures anymore", I said. "He bores me. You give me the notes, and I'll give you my notes for the morning lecture so you can have a sleep-in every Monday?"

It was too good a suggestion for my friend to say no. I suspected my friends knew something was up between me and the professor, but he was too polite to say anything.

I was curious as to what Hashirama would think when he noticed I stopped attending his lectures, but I realised I didn't care. I sat down in the library and studied from the moment Hashirama's lecture started until lunch, munching raisins.

I felt happy.

Seeing a man whose dead body you'd witnessed standing up in front of you, very much alive, did something to you.