by Косюн Таками
Shuya understood. He saw no reason not to object. (Once again, he couldn't help but be impressed by Shogo's intelligence.)
But then—
The question he promised not to ask crossed his mind. Which was:
How did Shogo plan to beat a perfect, escape-proof system?
Before he could consider it, Shogo said, "Anyway, look, I have to apologize."
"About what?"
"About Noriko. I was wrong. We should have treated her sooner."
"No..." Shuya shook his head. "It's okay. Thanks. I would have been useless on my own."
Shogo exhaled and fixed his gaze on a part of the wall. "We'll just have to wait and see. If it's just a cold, then her fever will go down as soon as she gets some rest. And if it turns out it's from septicemia then the medicine should kick in."
Shuya nodded. He was grateful they had Shogo. Without Shogo, he would have been helpless, doomed to watch Noriko deteriorate. He was also sorry for saying to Shogo, "You can forget about our deal," and heading off here. It was immature. Shogo must have made his decision after carefully weighing the risk of moving during the day against Noriko's condition.
Shuya decided he should apologize. "Hey, I'm sorry. Saying you were on your own and all. I just got so excited—"
Still looking away from Shuya, Shogo shook his head and smiled. "No. You made the right decision. End of conversation."
Shuya took a breath and decided to let it go. Then he asked, "Is your father still a practicing doctor?"
Shogo shook his head as he took a drag. "No."
"What's he doing? Is he still in Kobe?"
"No. He died." Shogo said it casually.
Shuya's eyes opened wide. "When?"
"Last year, while I was playing this game. By the time I got back he was dead. He probably got in a scuffle with the government."
Shuya's face stiffened. He was beginning to understand the glimmer in Shogo's eyes when he'd said, "I'm going to tear up this fucking country." The moment Shogo ended up in the Program, Shogo's father must have tried some kind of protest. Which must have been met with a shower of bullets.
It occurred to Shuya that the parents of some of his classmates might have ended up the same way.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
"Don't worry about it."
Shuya paused and then asked another question, "Then you moved to Kagawa Prefecture with your mother?"
Shogo shook his head and again replied, "No. My mom died when I was a kid. I was seven. She died from illness. My dad used to cry over the fact that he couldn't even save her. But my dad specialized in surgery, like abortions. Nervous disorders were out of his field."
Shuya apologized again, "I'm sorry."
Shogo chuckled. "Hey, it's all right. We both don't have parents, right? And it's true about getting a lifetime pension. I've got enough to live on. Although they don't give you as much as they say they do."
Bubbles began to form at the bottom of the first large pot. The charcoal under the rice pot was still mostly black, but the charcoal under the large pot was flaming red. The heat reached the table where Shuya and Shogo were standing next to each other. Shuya sat up on the table, which was covered with a flower-pattern vinyl tablecloth.
Without warning, Shogo suddenly said, "You were good friends with Yoshitoki Kuninobu."
Shuya looked over at Shogo and looked at his profile. Then he looked ahead. It felt like a while since he'd last thought of Yoshitoki. He felt a little guilty about it.
"Yeah," he answered. "We've known each other forever." After hesitating a little, Shuya continued, "Yoshitoki had a crush on Noriko."
Shogo continued smoking, listening.
Shuya wondered whether he should continue with what he was about to say. It had nothing to do with Shogo. But he decided to tell him anyway. Shogo was a friend now. It was all right for him to know, and besides, they had time to kill right now.
"Yoshitoki and I were at this orphanage called the Charity House—"
"I know."
Shuya nodded and continued, "There're all kinds of kids there. I ended up there when I was five. My parents were killed in a car accident. But that's unusual. Most of them—"
Shogo understood. "They end up there because of 'domestic' problems. They're illegitimate children."
Shuya nodded. "So you know."
"A little."
He took a deep breath. "Well, Yoshitoki was illegitimate. Of course, no one at the orphanage told him, but there are ways to find out. He was conceived from an 'illicit affair' and both sides refused to take him in. So..."
The water made a gurgling sound.
"I remember something Yoshitoki once said to me. It was a long time ago, probably when we were still in elementary school."
Shuya recalled that moment. They were in the corner of the school playground, rocking back and forth on a big swing made of a wooden log and wire rope.
"Hey, Shuya. I was thinking—"
"What?"
Shuya responded in his usual casual voice, kicking at the ground to rock the log. Yoshitoki didn't put much effort into it, letting his legs dangle from both sides of the log.
"Well...uh..."
"What is it? Spit it out."
"Well...do you have a crush on anyone?"
"Oh, please," Shuya grinned. He knew it was something about girls. "So that's it? What's the matter? You have a crush on someone, huh?"
"Well..." Yoshitoki evaded the question and once again asked, "Well, do you?"
Shuya thought about it and then moaned, "Hmmm." By then he was "Wild Seven." So he'd gotten several love letters. But at the time he never fell head over heels for anyone in particular. As it turned out, he wouldn't until he met Kazumi Shintani.
He answered, "Well, I think there're some cool girls..."
Yoshitoki didn't say anything back so he assumed he wanted to hear more. He continued speaking in a light tone, "Komoto's not bad. She actually wrote me a love letter. I haven't, uh, responded though. Then there's Utsumi, who's on the volleyball team. She's pretty cool. That's my type. You know, real outgoing."
Yoshitoki looked pensive.
"What is it? I told you, now you tell me. Who is it?" But Yoshitoki only said, "No, that's not it." Shuya knit his brows. "What is it then?"
Yoshitoki seemed quite hesitant, but then he said, "You see, I never really understood."
"?"
"I mean..." His legs dangled passively as he continued, "I think if you really loved someone you'd marry her, right?"
"Uh, yeah." Shuya replied with an idiotic look on his face. "Yeah. If...if I loved someone, I'd want to marry her...I mean I don't feel that way about anyone."
"Right?" Yoshitoki said, as if it were only natural. Then he asked, "So let's say you just can't get married for some reason. If you ended up having a kid with her, wouldn't you still want to raise the kid?"
Shuya felt a little uncomfortable. He'd just begun to get the idea of how babies were made.
"Having a kid? Hey, you're still a kid. That's dirty stuff. You know I heard that that's—"
That was when Shuya finally remembered Yoshitoki was born as a result of an illicit affair and that neither of his parents wanted him. Startled, he held back what he was about to say.
Yoshitoki was staring at the log between his thighs. Then he mumbled, "My parents weren't like that."
Shuya suddenly felt really bad for him.
"H-hey, Yoshi—" He looked up at Shuya and said somewhat forcefully, "So I-I just don't know. Loving someone. I don't feel like I can trust that sort of thing."
Shuya continued pushing with his legs, but he had no choice but to stare back at Yoshitoki. He felt as if he were being addressed in a language from another planet. At the same time, it sounded like a dreadful prophecy.
"I think—"
His hands by his waist, Shuya gripped the corners of the table covered with the vinyl tablecloth. Shogo continued smoking, squinting his eyes.
"I think
Yoshitoki was a lot more mature at that point already. I was just a silly kid. And ever since then, Yoshitoki, even since we entered junior high, and I fell for someone," this was Kazumi Shintani, "he never brought it up. That kind of worried me." Another gurgling sound.
"But then one day he told me he liked Noriko. I acted like ' it wasn't a big deal...but I was so happy for him. And that was, that was..."
Shuya looked away from Shogo. He knew he was about to cry.
Once he managed to hold back his tears, he said without looking at Shogo and continued, "That was only two months ago."
Shogo remained silent.
Shuya looked at Shogo again.
"So you see, I have to protect Noriko to the very end."
After staring back at Shuya for a while, Shogo only said, "I see," and rubbed out his cigarette out against the tablecloth.
"Don't tell Noriko. I'll tell her about Yoshitoki once we've gotten out of this game."
Shogo nodded and replied, "All right."
22 students remaining
43
Five hours had passed since the Macintosh PowerBook 150's connection to the internet had been cut off with a warning beep. Shinji Mimura scrolled through a document in one of the windows on the display monitor of the 150 that was now reduced to a word processor.
He'd worked on the phone, checked the connections, and rebooted over and over but the gray monitor responded with the same message. Finally, after disconnecting all the modem and phone cords, he came to the conclusion his cell phone had completely broke down. Without a phone line he couldn't even access his home computer. And of course, calling all the girls he'd ever gone with and sobbing over how he was, "About to die, but I loved you the most," was out of the question. He still believed he could get to the bottom of this and considered taking apart his cell phone—but then stopped.
A chill ran down his spine.
It was obvious now why he wasn't able to dial in anymore. The government had managed to locate the line test number used by the DTT technician, the number used for the special phone with the counterfeit "Second ROM" he'd painstakingly built. They'd cut off all connections including this one. The question was...how had they managed to do this? His hacking had been flawless. He knew that much.
The only way he could imagine the government discovering his hacking was through some method outside their computer's internal security system, their warning system, and other manual monitoring systems. And now that they knew—
The moment Shinji realized what it was, his hand went for the collar around his neck.
Now that the government knew, it wouldn't be all that surprising if the bomb went off, would it? They probably wouldn't spare Yutaka either.
Thanks to this realization, the government-supplied water and bread they had for lunch tasted even worse.
After Yutaka saw Shinji turn off the laptop, he asked for an explanation. Shinji only replied, "It's no good. I don't know why, but it's not working. Maybe the phone's broken."
Ever since then Yutaka's mood became gloomy, and he slouched back to the way he'd been earlier that morning. Other than the occasional gunshots and brief exchanges it remained silent. Shinji's great escape plan that mesmerized Yutaka had completely fallen apart.
But—
I'll still make them regret they didn't kill me right away. No matter what.
He thought a little, then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out an old pocketknife he carried around with him ever since he was a kid. There was a small tube tied to the keyring on the knife. Shinji examined the scratched up tube.
His uncle had given him the knife a long time ago. And the tube was, that's right, like the earring on his left ear, another memento from his uncle. Like Shinji, his uncle had kept it chained to a small knife and always carried it around.
The thumb-sized tube, with its rubber ring under the cap, was a waterproof case used by soldiers. It was normally used to hold a document with name, blood type, and history of illness in case of injury. Others used it as a matchbox. Until his death, Shinji assumed his uncle kept that sort of thing in it too. But after he died, when he opened the tube, Shinji found something completely different inside. In fact the tube's casing itself was carved out of a special alloy and contained two smaller cylinders inside. Shinji took out the two cylinders. He had no idea what they were. The only thing he could tell was that their contents were supposed to be mixed.
The thread of the screw from one of the cylinders fit perfectly into the other one. The reason why they were kept apart was that it was risky to connect them. And once he found out what they were for, after some research (no wonder they were separate—otherwise, you couldn't carry those cases around), he still had no idea why his uncle carried this around wherever he went. It served no particular purpose. Or maybe like the earring Shinji wore, his uncle had merely held onto it to remind himself of someone. Anyway, it was another piece of evidence from his uncle's past for Shinji to ponder over.
Shinji turned the squeaky cap and opened it. He hadn't opened it since his uncle died. He dropped the two cylinders into the palm of his hand. Then he opened the seal of the smaller cylinder.
It had been stuffed with cotton to make it shockproof. There was the dull yellow of brass underneath the cotton.
After examining it, he returned both cylinders back into the larger container and screwed the cap back on. He'd thought that if he ever had to use this, it would be after they escaped the island, or after messing up the school computer. It might have been handy after they equipped themselves and attacked Sakamochi and the others—but now this was all they had.
He flipped out the blade from his pocketknife. The sun had moved west, and the bushes reflecting against the silver steel were dark yellow. Then he pulled out a pencil from his school coat pocket. It was the pencil they all used to write the phrase, "We will kill," before the game began. Because he'd used it to mark the forbidden zones and check off the names of dead classmates, its point was now blunt. Shinji sharpened the pencil with his knife. Then he pulled out his map from another pocket and turned it over. It was blank. "Yutaka."
Yutaka had been hugging his knees and gazing at the ground. He looked up. His eyes were shining. "Did you come up with something?" he asked.
Shinji wasn't exactly sure why Yutaka's response ticked him off. It might have been the tone of his voice, or maybe the words. Shinji felt like saying, what the hell—here I am banging my head against the wall trying to come up with an escape plan and all you've been doing is sitting on your ass! You swore you were going to get back at them for Izumi Kanai, but you haven't done squat. You think this is a fast food restaurant where I'm working the register? You want some fries with that?
But Shinji restrained himself.
Yutaka's round cheeks were sunken and his cheekbones stuck out. It was only natural. He must have been worn out by the pressure of this game that could end at any moment for them.
Ever since he was a kid Shinji was always the best athlete in the class. (Although this changed in his second year in junior high, when he was joined by Shuya Nanahara and Kazuo Kiriyama. He could beat them in basketball, but he wasn't sure about other sports.) His uncle had taken him mountain climbing ever since he was a kid, and he was confident in any competition that required stamina. But not everyone was built like The Third Man. Yutaka was a poor athlete, and when the cold season came he was often absent. Fatigue must have been overwhelming him, and it might be numbing his thinking too.
That was when Shinji realized something important. Wasn't the fact that he was even a little upset at Yutaka an indication of his own fatigue? Of course, given how their chances of survival were close to nil, it would have been much stranger not to be worn out. No.
I have to be careful. If this were a basketball game, you'd just feel bad about losing—but in this game you end up dead.
Shinji shook his head.
"What's wrong?" Yutaka asked.
Shinji looked up at him, forcing a smile. "Noth
ing. Hey, I just want to take a look at the map. Okay?" Yutaka came over to Shinji.
"Hey," Shinji raised his voice. "There's a bug on your neck!"
Yutaka touched his neck.
"I'll get it," Shinji stopped him and approached Yutaka. He fixed his eyes on the nape of Yutaka's neck—but he was searching for something else.
"Oh, it's moved," he said and got behind him. Shinji examined his neck again.
"Did you get it?"
As he listened to Yutaka's shrill, terrified voice, Shinji took a closer look.
Then he lightly brushed away the nape of Yutaka's neck. He crushed the imaginary bug with the sole of his sneakers and (pretending) he picked it up and (pretending once again) tossed it out.
"I got it," he said. He was now facing Yutaka and added, "Looked like a little centipede."
"Oh man," Yutaka rubbed the nape of his neck and looked over where Shinji had (apparently) tossed it, grimacing.
Shinji broke into a slight grin and said, "Come on, let's look at the map."
Yutaka looked over, then knit his brows when he saw that it was turned over.
Shinji waved his index finger to get his attention and scribbled on the back of the map. His writing wasn't very neat. Several scrawled letters appeared at the edge of the paper.
They can hear us.
Yutaka's face twitched and asked, "Really? How can you tell?" Shinji quickly put his hand over Yutaka's mouth. Yutaka understood and nodded.
Shinji released his hand and said, "I just know. I know a lot about insects. That one wasn't poisonous." Then just to be sure, he scribbled again, Pretend to check map. Don't say anything to make them suspicious.
"Well, now that the computer's failed, there's nothing we can do," Shinji said, providing some fake commentary. Then he wrote: They heard my explanation and cut the Mac connection. I screwed up. They know some of us are going to resist so they're monitoring our conversation. Should have known.
