In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter SS1

Short Story: Bicycles — Safety First 

I recently bought a bicycle. This might sound sudden, but I’ve caused three car accidents since I first started riding. I didn’t get any serious injuries, so I think I have pretty good luck when it comes to trouble caused by myself. 
The first accident happened when I was a first-year high school student. I began going to school by bike, and on the way, I had to go down a hill. It had a sudden, sharp corner in one spot, and since I was unable to see what was ahead, I hit a car. 
The impact made me land on the hood of the car and gave me a bit of a jostle, but luckily I wasn’t injured in any sense of the word. Sadly, the bike was left in an awful state. The front wheel was bent horribly and the basket flew away, never to be seen again. The precious bicycle I bought alongside my school enrollment was reduced to scrap metal in less than a month... 
The second accident happened when I had ascended into adulthood. Once again, I was going down a hill, and I wasn’t really going at an especially high speed, either. Anyway, someone had parked a car at the edge of the road I was riding down. It was clear case of on-street parking. I steered into the road in an attempt to dodge, and when I was about to pass it, the car’s door opened up on the road side. 
I couldn’t avoid it even if I tried, so I crashed straight into the flung-open door. The impact made me fly a short distance, land and roll on the road a few times. Yet still, I was left with only a few bruises. The bike was quite fine, too, but this event was the scariest of the three, simply because of the shock combined with the impact. 
The third accident happened when I was returning home from my part-time job. Unlike with the first two, the road was flat, but it was past six o’clock in the early winter, so it was pretty dark. I was riding normally, light on and all, when suddenly, a car came out of the road to the side and hit me without any warning. I flew into the air and hit the road hard. 
While I was still in the air, the world seemed to move in slow motion, giving me time to think... 

“Here we go again...” 
...I simply thought that, as if it was none of my business. It was the third time, after all. I began to accept it as some sort of custom. 
“Well, it happens, I guess,” and all that. Just like the other times, it left me pretty much without injury, too. 
But the bicycle ended up becoming scrap metal again; it was smashed by the car. I got the driver to give me money for a new bike. The bike I bought with that money, after many years of service and surviving countless flat tires, reached a point where it couldn’t even function without a front wheel replacement. 
I decided to just buy a new bike instead. 
In this volume of Smartphone, there’s a scene in which Touya creates a bicycle. That is the main reason I took the liberty of telling you this little story. But more importantly, I would also like to tell you to be careful when riding your bikes! 
I have a feeling that my luck has run dry. It probably won’t save me a fourth time, so I make sure to put safety above all else when riding nowadays. Take care of yourselves out there!