Teach Me How To Fly (A Koutaro Bokuto Story)

Genma

Genma suddenly speaking to me surprised me. Though I guess when I thought about it, it did make sense. I mean, I was able to understand Fukunaga when he'd tried to speak owl to me, so why wouldn't I be able to talk with Genma?

"You dislike me, don't you?"

His question was one that I should have expected. I hadn't exactly given him any reason to think that I liked him even the slightest bit. But even so, I couldn't say I really disliked him. Then again, I didn't exactly like him either. "It's not you..."

"Then why?" Genma was quite calm about this, which I was grateful for. Better to have a calm Genma than the flirty one that I'd seen up until now.

"Where do I begin?" I said tiredly. In all honesty, I doubted that he'd believe me if I told him the truth. But I was no liar, so I said it anyway. Might as well have someone know the truth. "I... I'm not even supposed to be an owl. I was human and then all of a sudden I'm stuck in this little body."

Genma nodded and I guessed that meant that he believed me. Well, they do say that owls are supposed to be wise. At least, they always say that in stories. "But that's not all to it, is it?"

"No, there's more..." I admitted. Before I could say any more though, my attention was stolen by a small group of three: the setter and ace from Aoba Johsai and the one who'd stolen my heart. He was tossing a volleyball up and down as the trio talked.

"Your human is strange," Genma said observed, watching the three as well. Bokuto tossed the ball up, then he was distracted by someone talking to him, resulting in the ball falling right on top of his head. Beside me, Genma laughed. "He's quite an idiot."

As much as I wanted to, there was no arguing on that. "He is, but I love him all the same."

Things were quiet for a moment while Genma thought about it. "He doesn't know, does he?"

"That I'm hopelessly in love with him or that I used to be a human that he had a crush on?" I'm not really sure why I bothered asking that. Either way, the answer would be the same. Bokuto had no idea about any of this. In fact, I doubted that anyone had figured it out yet. I doubt anyone ever will figure it out. "No, Bokuto has no idea..."

Watching Bokuto and the others, I noticed a familiar scrap of newspaper in one of the boys' hands. Either Bokuto was showing it to them or he'd carelessly lost it again and was about to freak out over the guy from the other school touching it.

"Do you want to go back to being human?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that. I did, but I also didn't. Constantly I was going back and forth about it in my head. "That's kind of complicated," I sighed. Instead of saying anything, Genma waited patiently for me to go on. For such a flirty owl, he was turning out to be better than I'd first thought. I still wasn't interested in making little owlets with him though. "If I stay as an owl, I can stay right here by his side. But he might still miss the human me. If I go back to being human, I'll actually have the option of being with him. But I won't be able to be as close to him like I am now. Before all this, I couldn't even get anywhere near him without my heart going crazy. I couldn't even talk to him at all... all I could do was just keep running away..."

Genma thought quietly for a moment before speaking. "To put it simply: you can't make up your mind." Yeah, that would about sum it all up. Personally, I liked my explanation of it, but his was much simpler. "I can't really say much since I was born an owl and I don't know all that much humans even though I was raised by one. But I'm sure that if you can completely make up your mind about which path to take, then that's which way you will go."

That was actually a really smart thing. Too smart for me to even really understand what he was trying to say. It's not that I'm stupid; quite the opposite actually. I'm quite smart, but this was a little beyond my level. Luckily though Genma was nice enough to explain it in a much simpler way. "Basically: if you make up your mind about being human, then you might be able to be human again."

It was merely a theory, but maybe he was right. It couldn't hurt to try it, right? Worst case scenario, I'm stuck as an owl for the rest of my life. But even if I stay as an owl, I have Genma.

Some shouting drew my attention from Genma back to Bokuto and the Aoba Johsai boys. A small breeze that had come in through the open door had pulled the scrap of newspaper out of the one boy's hand. Unsurprisingly, Bokuto chased after it.

The wind blew it across the gym, Bokuto following right behind. No matter how fast he was, it was always just out of reach and getting closer to the door. Soon it was right at the door. As Bokuto dived forward to grab it, the wind carried it up and away into the sky.

"No!" The picture that Bokuto had been so protective of and refused to get rid of was now gone.