Chapter 2
Interpretation Is Open
The guard opened the rope barrier for me.
I thought I heard someone clicking their tongue behind my back, but that was not important.
There was only one way to go: straight ahead. At this moment, there was only one thing that mattered—to meet the blond man from earlier, who might become my muse.
I approached the inner door connecting the main hall to the chapel. Then I heard a low male voice from inside. I could not make out exactly what he was saying, but I was certain it was singing.
It sounded like he was singing alone, but was it because of the structure of the building? His voice was so grand and loud that it seemed to make the marble floor and ceiling of the chapel vibrate.
I pushed the door with all my strength. As the thick door opened, the lyrics flew toward me and struck my ears. The person singing in such a beautiful voice that it felt almost sacred was none other than the blond man.
“In dulci jubilo, now sing with hearts aglow.”
Ah, was this why humanity had been devouring religion all this time?
The blond man was singing solo. The moment I saw him, my brain stopped.
Under the hazy colors pouring through the stained glass, his blond hair was glowing red.
His eyelashes were so long that they cast shadows on his white cheeks. His face was shadowed by the candlelight and sunset, but his skin was smooth without a single blemish.
I swallowed a deep breath.
“O Jesu parvule, for Thee I long always. Comfort my hearts blindness, O puer optime.”
I could see perfectly well, yet I felt as if I had gone blind.
I felt my way forward along the wooden seats lined up on the way to the choir platform where he stood. His voice gradually became clearer.
“O Patris caritas, O nati lenitas. Deeply were we stained, Per nostra crimina. But Thou for us has gained.”
I sat in the very front row and stared blankly up at the man. Over the man’s clear voice, the soft voices of the young choir members gradually joined in.
It was a fantastic harmony.
It was the kind of sound that made me wonder if this was heaven.
I suddenly realized that I was breathing carefully.
Was the air getting thinner because there were so many candles? Even though the ceiling was this high?
“Blue…”
Could he have heard my voice?
The man, who had been looking at the sheet music, slowly raised his gaze. His eyes were an unbelievably vivid blue.
Like a sea burning with a clear, bright light.
When I saw my reflection in his eyes, I hurriedly closed my legs.
I was worried that the way I had been sitting with my legs spread wide looked ugly.
“In Nova Cantica And there the bells are ringing, In regis curia. O that we were there, O that we were there. O, that we were there.”
The hall, which had been filled with sound even without a single musical instrument, suddenly became silent.
As soon as the song ended, the blond man’s brows furrowed.
He put down the sheet music as if throwing it away. Then he took something from below the platform and immediately came down.
It was clear that he had heard the voice from a moment ago.
Step by step.
The blond man’s long legs were heading straight toward me.
“你好. 抱歉打扰你, 但你身上有一股类似猪粪的气味.”
Before I could react in any way, strange words flowed from the blond man’s mouth.
It was unmistakably Chinese, like something I had heard in some movie.
Could he really be speaking Chinese to me because I was Asian?
Here in Cambridge, in Britain, where people from all over the world gathered, he had chosen Chinese instead of English, the common language?
My eyes widened at the sudden racism.
The blond man frowned as if frustrated, then opened his mouth again.
“今晩は. 失礼ですが, あなたから豚の糞に近い匂いがします.”
This time, it was Japanese.
Thanks to the fact that I usually enjoyed Japanese anime, I could understand a few of the words he was saying.
Buta.
Kuso.
Nioi.
Pig, shit, and smell.
I could not understand the overall context, but I could tell that he was saying something extremely insulting.
“What did you say?”
I could not take it anymore.
When I answered him in English, the blond man’s furrowed brows relaxed.
“Ah, what a relief. You can speak English.”
“What does that mean? Did you think Asians couldn’t speak English?”
“No. It is not based on official statistics, but based on my personal experience, the percentage of tourists who cannot speak English is quite high, so I was trying to accommodate you in my own way.”
The blond man’s words made my head throb.
Did I look like a tourist?
It was not as if I was walking around with a camera taking pictures of fire hydrants.
“I’m a student here.”
“Oh, is that so? I apologize, but your level of hygiene was so deplorable that I mistook you for someone who was not a student of this university. I am sorry for judging you according to my own standards.”
The blond man used “apologize for” instead of “sorry” and apologized in an extremely polite manner.
After insulting me thoroughly, he had the nerve to do this now.
My lips naturally twisted.
He continued speaking as if he did not care about my expression at all. His eyes were still looking down on me.
“It seems there has been a problem with communication, so I will repeat what I said in Chinese and Japanese.”
“……”
“Hello. There is a smell coming from you that resembles pig manure. Judging from it, I believe it is a mixture of the smell of strong reducing molecules such as methyl mercaptan and the rancid smells of butyric acid and valeric acid. I am terribly sorry for asking such a personal question, but have you not showered for a long time?”
He was right.
I had not written a single word of my paper for the past three weeks.
Thanks to that, I had entered a perfect period of isolation.
Other than reading the books necessary for writing my paper and doing the minimum activities required for survival, I had done absolutely nothing else.
Showering was one of those things.
Showering would not make me able to write.
I wanted to argue with the man.
Something like, “If you were in my situation, would you shower?”
What kind of pathetic thoughts was I having?
It was an emotional appeal with not even a trace of logic.
I bit my lip hard and swallowed my words.
The man had clearly presented his standards.
Then, naturally, I should respond with corresponding logic.
But no matter how much I racked my brain, all I could think of were complaints about how unfair this was.
Someone who wanted to become a great scholar had to admit what needed to be admitted.
The man was stronger than me.
If the other person was superior to me, I had to treat him accordingly.
That was the attitude of learning.
Suppressing the sorrow rising inside me, I folded my fingers one by one.
I was trying to remember when I had last showered.
Ah.
It was so long ago that I could barely remember.
“Ugh.”
At that moment, I heard a sound of nausea from the top of my head.
I looked up and saw the blond man covering his mouth.
His pupils shook violently, and my vision became blurry.
Was my smell really that disgusting?
But I’m a pretty boy.
My mind went completely blank.
Ah.
Was this what shame felt like?
“Our choir is currently practicing for the end-of-year performance. It is quite an important event for me, but your stench is severely interfering with my concentration. I am sorry, but could you please leave the chapel?”
“I’ve only gone three days without showering.”
I mumbled the lie.
I did not actually remember how many days it had been.
The blond man showed no willingness to listen and covered his nose with the hem of his robe.
“Please. I’m begging you.”
Then, with the hand that was not covering his nose, he pointed toward the inner door of the chapel.
I got up from my seat and trudged toward the door.
I was supposed to feel sexual desire.
I had definitely come all the way here intending to use that man as a research subject.
So how had things ended up like this?
I was too upset to leave.
I stood in front of the inner door and turned around.
The blond man was spraying the spray he had picked up earlier in every direction and wiping down the seat where I had been sitting.
Should I go back and protest?
Would I be able to use that man as a research subject if I did?
But what was I supposed to say?
As I hesitated, unable to move my feet, the conductor who had been standing on the platform came down.
The conductor approached me and blocked my view with his thick belly.
“I’m sorry, but outsiders aren’t allowed in while the choir is practicing. Could you leave the chapel?”
The conductor did not look like someone from the university.
He was probably a member of King’s College or someone from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge.
Cambridge had private institutions called colleges, to which the students belonged.
The power of these colleges was enormous.
Even if you successfully completed your academic program, you could fail to graduate if you came into conflict with your college.
“Haa…”
Even though I was a genius and would probably be remembered for generations, even in the twenty-third century, I was afraid of college officials.
I had no choice but to leave the chapel.
The sunset sky had already become gloomy as night descended.
93.4 days until the paper submission deadline.
A major obstacle had appeared in my great plan.
