“None of it? Ever?”
“Well, let me think. Stuff that’s on a level with ‘the Seven Mysteries of the school,’ at least, I’d say never.”
I had no idea how the conversation had made this sudden turn, but I had a strong feeling they were gearing up to tell me those stories. I thought I’d called it and beat them to the punch.
“I’ve already heard the story about the mass demise of rabbits and marmots.”
“Have you heard about ‘the hand in the lotus pond’?”
Teshigawara was the one to ask me that.
“Ha, you guys have a story like that, too, huh?”
“It’s that pond right there, man.”
Teshigawara extended a hand and pointed. A slight distance away I could see a small, square pond circled by concrete.
We came out of the three-story iron-ribbed school building that housed our classroom and walked down a path in the courtyard.
There was a school building of a similar size on the other side of the yard, which was Building B.
The building we’d come out of was Building C. Each of the structures was connected to Building A—the main building, with the teachers’ offices and the principal’s office—by a covered walkway. Past that, right next door, was a building called the Special Classes Building. This building, also abbreviated as Building S, was, as its name implies, where the special classrooms like the home ec room and the music room were.
And the pond Teshigawara was pointing at was a slight distance from the yard. We went as far as the entrance to Building A, then walked down the path away from it.
“They say that a human hand comes out of that pond, all wrapped in lotus leaves. Sometimes covered in blood.”
Teshigawara told the story in a menacing voice, but all I could think was, How idiotic. Besides, he said it was a lotus pond, but when we got closer and I could see, it looked as if it was actually water lilies growing there, not lotuses.
“Well, let’s leave the ‘Seven Mysteries’ for another time,” Kazami offered. “I wonder, Sakakibara. There are so many kinds of paranormal phenomena. Do you categorically deny them all?”
“Well, that’s true,” I murmured, casting a sidelong glance at the surface of the pond, covered in round lily leaves. “The word UFO means an ‘unidentified flying object,’ so in that sense they exist. Whether or not they’re flying saucers driven by aliens is a separate issue. As for superpowers, those people they show you on TV or in magazines are phonies, one hundred percent. When you see stuff like that, don’t you think that actually makes it harder to believe?”
Kazami and Teshigawara looked at each other, both wearing troubled expressions.
“Nostradamus’s predictions about what ‘the prince of darkness’ may or may not do is a story for next year. If we just wait a year and a couple more months, we should find out if he’s for real or not, even if we don’t want to…So? Do you guys think he’ll be right?”
When I asked the question, Kazami cocked his head ambiguously. “Who knows?”
On the other hand, Teshigawara replied, “I pretty much buy it, actually,” and twisted one corner of his mouth in a contrived smirk. “So since the world is gonna end in the summer of 1999, it’d be stupid to get myself all worked up over tests and whatever. Doing what I enjoy while I still can, that’s the way to go.”
I was having trouble telling exactly how serious he was, but what with all the fuss over the Aum Shinrikyo group, our generation had a surprisingly large number of “true believers” in this event. I’d seen data about that somewhere.
They’re not giving it any deep thought; they’re just using a prediction about destruction as a reason to avoid personal issues that are staring them in the face in the here and now. I don’t remember when it was, but my dad had instantly pointed out this interpretation after hearing about the attack, and I pretty much agreed with him.
“Getting back on track…”
When we’d gone past the lily pond and were heading toward the back of Building B, Teshigawara spoke up.
“You don’t believe in ghosts or curses or stuff like that then, do you?”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“Do you feel like something could happen that would make you believe?”
“I mean, if something like that popped up right in front of me, and it had proof that it was a ghost and shoved it in my face, I guess I’d start to believe in it.”
“Heh. Proof, huh?”
“Proof, is it?”
That last was Kazami. He pushed the bridge of his silver-rimmed glasses back up his nose with a furrowed brow.
God, what now?
What were these two trying to get at? I was starting to get kind of a bad feeling about them after all and my pace quickened.
“What’s that?” I turned back around to look at them, pointing at a building that had come into view just then on the other side of Building B. “Is that another school building?”
“That’s Building Zero. That’s what everyone calls it,” Kazami answered.
“Building Zero?”
“Because it’s so old. Until about ten years ago, the third-year classes were in there. There are a lot of reasons they stopped using it, but…the number of students dropped, so the number of classes dropped, too. Apparently Building A and all the others got their names later on, so that’s why people call the old building Building Zero…”
That “old building” certainly did look older than any of the other buildings I’d seen on campus today.
It was a two-story structure of massive red bricks. But the bricks in its walls were incredibly faded and, after a closer look, I saw that cracks had formed in places. All the windows to the original classrooms that marched around the second floor were shut tight. In places, boards had been put up, probably to replace broken glass.
Given the turn of the conversation up till now, this struck me as a perfect spot to generate fodder for whispered rumors of the supernatural, about ghosts or spirits or the “Seven Mysteries.”
“So it’s not being used for anything now?” I asked, taking a careful step forward.
“Not as regular classrooms, anyway,” Kazami replied as he walked beside me. “The second floor is as good as abandoned, so no one’s allowed up there. The secondary library and art room are on the first floor, and the culture club.”
“You guys have a secondary library?”
“Hardly anyone uses it. Usually everyone goes to the main library in Building A. I’ve only ever been in there once.”
“What kind of books do they have there?”
“Documents about local history and antique books that alums have donated. It’s got a truly remarkable number of things like that, apparently. It’s more like a storage room for books than a library.”
“Huh.”
I wouldn’t mind taking a look at least once. My interest was piqued.
“This school has an art club, right?” I asked, having a sudden thought.
After a dragging delay, Kazami answered, “Yeah. Now we do.”
“‘Now you do’? What does that mean?”
“Extracurricular activities were suspended last year. They started up again in April.”
Teshigawara was the one who replied.
“Just FYI, the lovely Ms. Mikami is the sponsor. If I had any talent in that area, I’d be swearing how much I wanted in on the club, too. You gonna join or something, Sakakibara?”
I stopped walking and turned back to look at the bleached bobble-head, then shrugged my shoulders rather exaggeratedly. Teshigawara didn’t seem to take it badly, his eyes flashing with a grin.
“Hey, Sakakibara…”
I’d started walking again when Teshigawara spoke, as if trying to pull me back.
“There’s actually something we—”
But just then, I let out a surprised “Oh!” which served to interrupt whatever Teshigawara had been about to say. The sound had escaped me after an inadvertent tightening of my throat.
Magnificent flowerbeds had been set up in the yard between Building Zero and Building B, where we were headed. A few among them were resplendent with yellow roses in bloom. And just then, beyond the clusters of flowers bobbing in the placid spring breeze, I saw her—Mei Misaki.
Without a second to spare for thought, I started heading straight toward her.
“H-hey! Sakakibara!”
“What are you doing, Sakakibara?”
I heard the dismayed tone in Teshigawara’s and Kazami’s voices, but I ignored it. I hurried over, and even broke into a slight jog.
Mei Misaki—she was by herself, sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree on the far side of a flowerbed. There was no one else in sight.
“H-hey there,” I called out to her.
She was staring into space, as if sunk in contemplation, but she reacted to my voice. Her eyes—though the white eye patch hid her left one—turned to me and halted.
“Hey.”
I tried to act nonchalant and raised a hand casually.
“The name’s Misaki, right?”
I walked up to the bench where she sat. My heart was beating faster than it had this morning when I spoke in front of the entire class. I felt as if my breathing was getting more strained, too.
“We’re in the same class, huh? Third years, Class 3. I, uh, I transferred here today…”
“…Why?”
Her lips moved only slightly. The same tone of voice I’d heard in the elevator at the hospital, the same cool, detached way of talking.
“Why?” she repeated. “Are you sure about this?”
“Wha?”
I didn’t understand her questions. “Why?” “Are you sure about this?” I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was asking me in either case and could only stand there, shaken.
“Um-m-m, what I meant was…”
I scrambled for some way to keep the conversation going, but she turned her eyes from me and stood up from the bench in silence. That was when I got a clear look at the name tag hanging from her blazer.
It was a light purple card, indicating that she was a third-year. While I may have been imagining how very dirty and beat-up the paper looked, her name was written there quite clearly: “Misaki,” viewing the cliffs…Mei “Misaki.”
My mouth flopped, fishlike. I tried to tell her, “I saw you at the hospital the other day,” but the words wouldn’t come together. I was still trying when she said simply, “You should be careful.”
Then she quietly turned her back to me.
“W-wait,” I called out in a rush to try and stop her, but she kept her back to me.
“You…should be careful. It might have started already.”
Then Mei Misaki left me, as I stood rooted half in shock, and departed the shadow of the tree where the bench stood.
I watched her go.
She moved toward the entrance to Building Zero, then disappeared inside the aging building. As if melting away in the lingering gloom…
The bell announcing the end of lunch began to peal, releasing the frozen moment. I looked around me, feeling as if I had been jerked back to my senses.
“Hey! What’re you doing, Sakakibara?”
Teshigawara’s shout reached me.
“We’ve got gym next. The locker room is next to the gymnasium. We better hurry if we’re gonna be on time.”
When I turned around, Teshigawara’s lips were pursed so far out he might have been whistling. Beside him, Kazami was shaking his head incessantly over something, his face pale and bowed.
9
Gym class was divided into boys and girls.
I was sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree on the north side of the field, still in my uniform. I still wasn’t allowed to do vigorous exercise, according to the doctor’s instructions. So, as I’d told Teshigawara, there wasn’t any particular need for me to hurry over.
I was the only boy sitting out of the class.
Everyone wore matching white exercise clothes and ran around the 400-meter track. Despite the balminess of the afternoon sunlight, only ten or so figures moved about on the broad field. A slightly cold sensation went through me, for some reason, as I watched the scene.
When I ran, I liked to do long distances and short distances. I liked using exercise machines and swimming, too. What I didn’t like was soccer, or basketball…basically, I’m terrible at team sports.
I wish I could run, I thought. I tried taking a few deep breaths, and I didn’t feel anything strange in my chest. Which just made me want to join in even more.
And yet, there was a part of me that cringed in terror. That felt as though, if I were to run and jump around recklessly, a hole would immediately open up again somewhere in my lungs.
“You’re not going to have a third one.” That’s what my dad had told me, but that wasn’t nearly convincing enough for me to take seriously. If I was stupid and pushed myself too far, I would have to go through all those horrible feelings again, and I was done with that. What I had to do now was take it easy for a while. That was my only option.
The girls were doing long jumps in a sandlot on the western side of the field.
I thought I would see her among them—Mei Misaki. I squinted my eyes to look, but they were pretty far away and I couldn’t really make anyone out.
Considering she had an eye patch over her left eye, maybe she was sitting out. In which case, she’d be on one of the benches nearby…
I spotted a person who might have been her.
Standing all alone a short distance from the sandlot in the shade of a tree, wearing a uniform—was that her?
Because of the distance, I couldn’t tell if it was Mei or not.
And I couldn’t exactly stare at the girls all class long. A sigh escaped me as I laced my fingers behind my head and reclined into them. I squeezed my eyes shut and, all at once, I heard the shrill voice of Ray the mynah bird asking “Why?” ringing in my ears.
I guess it was about five or six minutes after that.
“Um, Sakakibara?”
Someone was talking to me.
Surprised, my eyes opened. Just three feet away, I saw a girl in a navy blazer.
It wasn’t Mei Misaki, though.
She wore not an eye patch, but silver-rimmed glasses. Her hair was cut not in a short bob, but grew to her shoulders. It was Yukari Sakuragi, the class representative.
“Are you sitting out of gym for now?”
Taking care that she wouldn’t notice the slight disappointment I was feeling inside, I replied, “Yeah. It’s only been a week since I got out of the hospital and all. The doctor told me to hold off on exercising and see how I feel. Are you sitting out, too? Do you feel sick today?”
“I fell yesterday and twisted my leg.”
Yukari Sakuragi dropped her eyes to her leg. That was when I noticed the painful-looking bandage wrapped around her right leg from the top of her knee down to her shin.
“Um…you didn’t happen to fall on the hill outside the back gate, did you?”
I asked it half as a joke. When I said it, Sakuragi smiled, as if letting go of some kind of tension.
“Luckily it happened somewhere else. You already know about that jinx, huh?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“So then—” she began, but I ignored it and seized the chance to cut in.
“I wanted to thank you for coming to the hospital the other day.”
“Oh…we were happy to do it.”
“Do you want to sit down?”
I stood up, offering the bench to the injured girl. Then I changed the subject.
“Can you tell me why there aren’t two class groups in this gym period?”
I’d been wondering about that for a little while.
“I thought it was normal for a class split up into boys and girls like this to join up with the class next door? Especially in public school? Plus, there are two teachers for the boys and the girls, so with just the one class, there’s h
alf as many students as there should be…”
At least with this few people, we wouldn’t be able to have a soccer game in class. Not that I could care less about that missed opportunity.
“The other classes are different,” Sakuragi answered. “Class 1 and Class 2 have gym together, and Class 4 and Class 5 have gym together. Class 3 is the only one by itself.”
“Why Class 3?”
I could understand since there were an odd number of classes in third year, but then why was Class 3 the one by itself? Wouldn’t Class 5 usually be the odd one out?
“You were with Kazami and Teshigawara during lunch, right?”
This time, she was the one to change the subject.
“Yeah, I was. What about it?”
Still sitting on the bench, she cocked her head and looked up at me. “Well, did they…tell you anything?”
“Kazami and Teshigawara?”
“Yeah.”
“They gave me a quick tour of the school. Basically, hey, that’s Building A, behind that is Building S where the special classes are—like that. They told me the ghost story about the lotus pond, too.”
“That’s all?”
“We went to Building Zero last, so they told me a little about what the old school building’s for.”
“And that’s all?”
“Pretty much, I think, yeah.”
“…Oh.” Yukari Sakuragi bowed her head with a quiet whisper, then lowered her voice even more. “…I have to do this right, or Akazawa’s going to get mad at me…”
I caught only snatches of what she was murmuring to herself. Akazawa? Wasn’t “Akazawa” one of the students who didn’t come to school today?
Sakuragi slowly got up from the bench, wearing a pensive expression. I could clearly see how her movements accommodated the injury to her right leg.
“So, Sakuragi—”
I decided to just try asking her.
“I mean, where’s Misaki?”
“…What?”
She tilted her head to one side.
“The girl in our class, Mei Misaki. You know, with the patch over her left eye. Is she sitting out of gym class, too?”
Sakuragi kept cocking her head and repeating “What? What?” She looked completely baffled, for some reason. Why? What was making her react so bizarrely?
Another, Volume 1 Page 5
