After chatting with some girls near the door, Kyoko headed their way. She’d been wearing contacts lately instead of glasses, and had swapped out her childish braids for a medium-length style just past her shoulders. She was also wearing basic makeup, though it was limited to lip gloss.
Kyoko was as petite as ever, but she seemed more mature than before. Perhaps, Shinji reflected, it’s a shadow the incident cast over her once innocent expression...
“Morning, Kazama-kun.”
“Hey, morning.” Kyoko first smiled at Shinji, then whacked Kotaro on the back. “Hey there, Ono-D!” It was a surprisingly cheerful greeting from her. Despite the small alterations she’d made to her outward appearance, her personality hadn’t significantly changed.
“Hey,” Kotaro replied. “How’d it go?”
“How’d what go?”
“The tests at the hospital.”
“I get the results next week,” she told them. “I think I’m probably okay, though.”
“I see.”
“Oho,” she chortled, “were you worried about me?”
“Nah, just asking,” Kotaro told her, smiling cheerfully. Kyoko puffed out her cheeks and poked at him, and he poked her back. While the two of them flirted, the bell for fifth period began to ring.
“Wow, that time already?” Shinji asked.
“I’m just glad I made it,” said Kyoko.
“You’re such a teacher’s pet,” Kotaro scorned her. “I would’ve ditched the rest of the day.”
“Stupid.”
While the students chatted and got ready for class, Kotaro and Kyoko headed for their respective seats. Shinji could hear a male student, who was looking at his cell phone, speak up to his friend in front of him. “Hey,” he was saying. “It says there’s gonna be a war.”
“What?” the other boy asked.
“The news says there’s gonna be a war,” the first boy repeated.
“Where?”
“I dunno. All over, I guess. It just says war.”
“Hmm... Hey, put it away,” the friend whispered. “Fujisaki’s here.”
The entrance of their classic literature teacher put an end to the conversation, but Shinji continued to mull it over, thinking, What in the world? He furrowed his brow, but dismissed the news as likely being some border dispute in the Middle East or Africa. Right now, his Center Test took priority.
“Everyone here today? Then we’ll take our final quiz. I know you’re sick of it by now, but please give it your best. We’re almost at the end...” said the teacher, handing out the page of important grammar questions.
Shinji finally learned the details of the news on the train ride home by glancing at an exhausted office worker’s newspaper. He immediately felt a cold sweat rise on his back.
This wasn’t some African border dispute, he realized. The entities on the verge of war were two superpowers: the Western nations centered around America, and the Eastern Bloc centered around the USSR, were facing a serious military crisis that was on the verge of going nuclear. In Europe, in the Far East, in the Middle East, in the Arctic Sea... At least, that’s what the articles said.
This was serious.
Sure, he’d seen the warning signs on the news recently. First, a series of food and energy crises had added fuel to the ongoing fire on a worldwide scale, followed by a global financial crisis—a stock market crash the likes of which hadn’t been seen in a century. In the Soviet Union, leaders of a far-right faction had made a string of provocative comments that were receiving enthusiastic support from the military.
But could it really be coming to war? he wondered. Both sides were still only on high alert; the shooting hadn’t started yet. They were just pulling back their metaphorical coats to reveal their holstered six-shooters. But Shinji knew that if anything else went wrong, the consequences would be disastrous.
Yet inside the train car, things were as peaceful as ever. There wasn’t the slightest hint of fear among the passengers. How can they all remain so calm, he wondered, when the world is on the brink of nuclear war?
It might be the end to life as they knew it, yet all around him were entrance exam students fervently poring over their notebooks to memorize vocabulary. How can they be studying when the schools they’re trying for might not last the year? Shinji thought incredulously.
Suddenly, he wanted to talk to Sousuke. What would he say if I told him how I’m feeling? Shinji wondered. What would he, a man who crossed the line between war and peace so easily, make of this sight?