Manhattan Reborn 1978

Island country.

night~

About 100 kilometers west of the Tokyo metropolitan area, at the foot of Mount Fuji.

Fire rock hot spring hotel in the northwest suburb of Fuefuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture.

The dinner party, which everyone felt had a strange atmosphere, was over.

The "unconventional" performance of the host Naokami Iwasaki at the dinner made them all feel that they had a new understanding of Asperger's Syndrome, which has been temporarily classified as a mental illness by the medical community. .

According to Iwasaki Naokami's self-report of "answering all questions", he has been what people call "other people's children" since he was a child. He has no sense of the "school terror" that makes his classmates angry after hearing about it. In the eyes of teachers, he is obedient and obedient. He is a top ten student who behaves according to the rules, has excellent academic performance, never loses his temper at will, and never makes mistakes on purpose. .

Even if he does something wrong, he will admit it immediately and consider it as a "stain that has been washed away" on himself, always reminding himself that he will not make similar mistakes again. .

But his character and principles of life, from the perspective of his family and classmates ~

Iwasaki Naokami is an eccentric, rigid and monotonous person who cannot joke and has no sense of humor. He often says unreasonable things and does unreasonable things. He is difficult to get along with, selfish, alternative, and indifferent. .

Although he has been trying his best to establish connections with other people since he was a child, and make friends with a few peers to prevent himself from continuing to be "lonely". .

But his skills in social language communication are inherently deficient, and his extremely low emotional intelligence makes it impossible for him to be popular. .

This situation lasted until Iwasaki entered high school.

By chance, through the introduction of an elder in his family, he met a psychology professor at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine, which made his life "turn around."

After the professor had several in-depth conversations with Iwasaki Naokami, he did not comment on his "illness". Instead, he asked him to read the works of Morita Masama, a well-known Japanese psychologist, published decades ago. "I Have Neurotic Fragility", "The Road to Self-Awareness and Enlightenment", "The Autobiography of Masama Morita---The Successful Process of My Neurotic Therapy", etc.

At that time, Iwasaki Naokami had never heard of Morita Masama, and he never realized that the biggest "problem" in his life was some kind of "flaw" he was born with. .

So after repeated thinking, he decided to find out these books first, and then consult a psychology professor at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine.

As he learned more and more about psychology, he gradually overcame his inner resistance to acceptance and resistance to his "illness". After deciding to study psychiatry and psychology, he slowly found the issues that troubled him from a more professional perspective. A decade of “answers to the puzzle.”

Asperger's syndrome, named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, has been classified as a psychiatric autism spectrum disorder after more than 30 years of research and demonstration by the medical community.

Patients with Asperger syndrome generally have symptoms such as social and communication difficulties, stubbornness, and narrow interests.

In addition, there will also be inability to understand the world of people or being particularly dogmatic about certain rules; emotional instability towards sudden changes; emotional maturity is much lower than that of peers; often obsessed with one or more specific eccentric behaviors; often Taking the jokes that other people blurt out when they are emotional outbursts seriously, etc. .

The "problem" that Iwasaki Naokami often encounters is~

When he interacts with others, it is difficult for him to "read" the humor and irony in people's words, the subtext or the "overtones", "strangeness" and so on.

He will also often take the other person's casual jokes as the other person's true thoughts and make some emotional and irrational behaviors. .

For example: When he was in high school, he had a crush on a girl~

The girl's family background was also very good. She didn't care about Naoami Iwasaki's status as one of the direct heirs of the Iwasaki family of the Mitsubishi Consortium. She only regarded him as a relatively "interesting" silly boy. .

So when the girl was alone with Iwasaki Naokami, she joked: "I don't think Iwasaki-kun is a weirdo, he is very cute~"

Iwasaki Nao Shang took her words seriously, saying that it was a bit ambiguous between young men and women. .

He believed that the girl he had a crush on for a long time was giving him a clear "response signal" for dating, and he was happy about it for a long time. .

But when he mustered up the courage to confess his love to the girl, the girl suddenly dropped out of school and got married. .

It turned out that the girl had been engaged since she was a child, and it turned out that going to high school was just a "window period" for her to enrich her life while waiting for marriage. .

Therefore, after the "upright boy" Iwasaki fell out of love, he put more time and energy into studying, so that his "heavily injured" heart would not feel so painful. .

However, today, ten years later, when David and others heard Naokami Iwasaki mention this past incident, they could still feel his "heartache" and "unwillingness" from his story.

(Note: The law of the island country stipulates that the legal age of marriage is: 18 years old for men and 16 years old for women. Theoretically, men in the island country can get married after graduating from high school, and women can get married when they reach the age of high school.)

. . .

Under the clear night sky~

Naokami Iwasaki invites everyone to come to the huge backyard and enjoy the pleasure of soaking in the hot springs and completely relaxing.

David and others naturally followed them to the backyard casually, and found that the hot spring here was deliberately divided into two areas for men and women. They were about twenty meters apart, with a piece of grass and some half-person-high courtyards placed in the middle. decorations.

Manqi, Brotney Mejia and little secretary Maggie, who were wearing bathing suits in their bathrobes, followed the waiter to the ladies' hot spring area.

Iwasaki Naokami led David, Kanes, Bill, and Little Peter to the men's hot spring area and briefly introduced some things that need to be paid attention to when soaking in the hot spring.

Otis Parker and Makihara Nobunari did not follow them to the men's hot spring area. Instead, they found a secluded place on the other side of the courtyard and communicated in a low voice.

. . .

In the men's hot spring pool, David raised the hot spring water in the tub and poured it over himself from top to bottom. After feeling like he could adapt to the temperature, he stepped into the hot spring.

He sat down little by little in the steaming pool water, and kept sucking in the air-conditioning, which seemed a bit exaggerated. .

"Hi~hoo!"

Carnes, Little Peter and Bill also repeated similar actions to David, slowly sinking into the hot spring pool and sucking in the air-conditioning. .

Wearing swimming shorts like David and the others, Iwasaki went straight up and sat in his usual spot in the hot springs, looking at the smiles of the others and asked.

"How do you feel?"

"So hot!"

"not bad."

"Why do I feel cramped in my feet?"

"Bill, help me!"

"Huh.."

"It doesn't matter if you cramp up as much as you want, as long as you don't pee anywhere here!"

"Hahaha~"