Take the trip home for example. I'm on a different bus, obviously. This one is travelling east. Behind me a group of Japanese girls are laughing and talking rapidly in Japanese. I suppose it's Japanese. One of them says "okay" three times in one sentence. I suppose it was one sentence.
The two girls sitting in front of me aren't Japanese. One has crinkly chestnut hair tied up in a topnot, the other has black wavy hair. They're wearing tops that are not identical, but an identical shade of violet. They're not talking. That's because one is reading. She is reading a small comic book.
I like to see what people are reading. And it's easy to do on a bus. Her book is called Bleach. It looks like a Japanese manga. The characters look fierce, or sad, and have those round eyes and spiked hair. She's holding it up quite high, so I can see. She turns a page. Now there's a cute animal character, that looks like a bear or a cat. Ichigo! it cries, in a speech bubble shaped like a star. Ichigo! I thought I told you to be gentle with me!
To be honest, I didn't learn anything from that. And anyway, I was more intrigued by the two girls' violet tops. One was a tee shirt and one was a hoodie. They weren't school uniforms. The girls were too old and one had long red nails. I wondered if they were sisters, or twins. The Mothra twins! But no...
It wasn't till later that I learned the story of Ichigo, Rukia, the Hollows and the Soul Reapers. And I didn't much care for it either.
But that's not the point.
