I slowly raised my head. A moment ago, I’d been in U, but now I was back in the abandoned classroom. My head was as fuzzy as if I’d woken from a dream. In front of me was the same disconnected video chat window. Then a NOW LOADING message appeared and the connection was restored. I heard Tomo’s voice through the speaker.
“Belle…? Can you see us?”
Tomo’s and Kei’s faces were peering into their laptop’s webcam. They had reopened our chat.
“Whoo-hoooo!!”
Cheers erupted in the small crowd gathered at the school. Everyone was jumping around and shouting joyfully. Only I was in a dreamlike daze.
“Suzu?” Shinobu said.
I looked up.
“Your feelings got through to them,” he said, smiling. His smile brought me back to reality. My heart danced with joy.
“Shinobu, I’m so happy!” I said and hugged him like a little kid. He hugged me back, patting my head.
“I know.”
I rubbed my teary cheek on him.
“I’m so glad…”
Kei and Tomo’s father heard a notification ping on his phone.
“…Hmm?” he muttered, looking down from his remote meeting to check it. He’d received a message with a video attached. He pressed PLAY.
On the screen, a vase toppled onto the floor and shattered.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
It was him.
“What the hell is this?”
Someone was spreading the video around. He frowned and strode out of his room.
“Write this down. Our address is—”
Just as Kei was about to tell us where he lived over the chat, the door to his room flew open with a bang and his father walked in.
“Hey! ” Kei and Tomo shouted, turning to look at him. Their father glanced around the room and spotted the laptop webcam.
“So that’s what you used! ” he said, heading straight for it.
Kei stood up from his chair and tried to intercept his father.
“Stop… Stop!!”
He desperately pushed away his father’s hands as they reached for the camera. Tomo jumped into the fray, too, but without success.
“Move! ” their father shouted, shoving away the two squatting children like they were inanimate objects. His terrifying face leered into the camera.
“You damn brats!! ” he shouted, reaching out like he was going to grab us through the screen.
He slammed the laptop shut. The same instant, an error message appeared.
An error occurred. Please try again later.
The connection was cut again.
“……!!”
All we could do was gape in shock. The choir members began whispering to one another.
“…I’m worried about those boys.”
“We’ve got to go protect them.”
“But where are they?”
“They didn’t get to tell us.”
Ruka interrupted haltingly. “I think I might know.”
“You do?!”
“I heard the evening chime playing in the background.”
“You could hear it over all that noise?”
Ruka looked down like she was replaying it in her head. “First was ‘The Sunset Glow’ and then ‘The Coconut.’”
“Those are standard songs that towns play at five,” Shinobu said right away.
“But two?” Ms. Nakai asked, looking at him.
“They must live on the border of two towns, where you can hear both.”
“Which two towns?” Ms. Yoshitani asked.
“I’ll look it up.” Shinobu took out his phone to search.
“I was able to pull up the recording!” Hiro said from her seat at a desk.
“Oooh, show us!” the choir members said, gathering around the big screen.
The image showed Kei’s chat screen at the moment the connection was cut. Hiro rewound until it showed Kei crouched beneath his father. Then she hit PLAY.
Outside the white room, two melodies were playing. “The Sunset Glow” and “The Coconut,” just like Ruka had said.
“There it is!” cried Ms. Nakai, sounding impressed.
“Great ears, Ruka,” Kamishin added.
Suddenly, Ms. Okumoto pointed to the edge of the screen. “What’s that outside the window?”
“Where?”
She noticed something out there.
“Enlarge it.”
Hiro zoomed in.
“What is that?”
As she corrected the image quality of the overexposed window, details emerged.
“An office building? An apartment complex?”
“Two of them?”
Two identical high-rises were clearly visible outside the window. Ms. Nakai shook Hiro’s shoulders.
“Where?! Keep searching!”
“How?? This isn’t enough to go on!”
There was no way to identify the buildings. Just then, Kamishin leaned toward the screen with his hand shading his eyes.
“…Huh? Hold up,” he muttered.
“What?” Ruka asked, looking at him. He thought for a few seconds, then pointed to the screen.
“Ruka, I know where this is.”
“No way!” Hiro shouted, turning around.
“Wait a sec, I’m trying to remember.”
Kamishin casually began searching on his phone.
“Hurry up!!” Hiro shouted. She sounded irritated.
Meanwhile, Shinobu had come up with an answer. “Got it!”
Hiro swiveled back to her keyboard. “Where?”
“There’s five places near Tokyo. The only one with high-rises is in between Ota Ward and Kawasaki!”
Hiro pulled up a map. The viewpoint jumped from our location on the Niyodo River, over the rest of Kochi Prefecture, and then east to Tokyo. Finally it zoomed in on the Tama River running between Ota and Kawasaki.
Kamishin jerked his face up.
“I found it! Look!”
He thrust out his phone. On the screen was a group picture with him striking a pose in the center of the front row. It was the same one he’d shown us before. Behind him, on the other side of the Tama River, were two identical tall buildings.
The map shifted to a 3D view. As Hiro circled us around Musashi-Kosugi, the same two identical buildings appeared. She compared them to the image captured from the live chat and the picture Kamishin had AirDropped her.
“All three match. It’s a go!”
Shinobu and Kamishin gave each other a high five.
“Nice one!”
Ruka and Hiro high-fived, too.
“We did it!!”
Ms. Yoshitani was politely placing a phone call. “Hello? So sorry to bother you, but there are two children in immediate need of protection in the location I’m about to describe.”
She was talking to the child welfare office. But her face quickly clouded over.
“What? You can’t go right away? Rules? Forty-eight hours?”
There seemed to be a rule stating the agency must check on the children’s condition within 48 hours.
“But what if something happens in the meantime?”
I turned toward her. “I have to go!!”
My body took off running on its own.
“Suzu!”
“We’ll drive you to the station!”
Ms. Nakai and Ms. Kita ran after me.
“Suzu!” Shinobu called.
I flew out of the classroom. I didn’t have time to answer.
The engine of Ms. Kita’s Daihatsu Move Canbus started up with a purr and the headlights clicked on. White smoke puffed from the tailpipe as she swiveled the car around in the schoolyard then sped away from the old school.
We had about half an hour until sundown. Ms. Kita gripped the steering wheel and raced down the highway along the Niyodo. From the passenger seat, Ms. Nakai reached back to where I was sitting and showed me the information on routes to Tokyo that she’d pulled up on her phone.
“It’s too late to catch a flight,” she said.
Ms. Kita threw her a worried glance. “So…she’s going straight to Tokyo?”
They dropped me at Ino Station, where the limited express Ashizuri 16 was leaving on time at 7:15 PM. They saw me off from the platform.
“Think she’ll be okay by herself?”
“It was her own decision.”
They really did sound like moms.
The Ashizuri 16 arrived on Platform 2 at Kochi Station at 7:28 PM. The sun was already down, the sky a bluish-black.
The bus bound for Tokyo Disneyland Bus Terminal West left Kochi Bus Terminal at 8:10 PM and headed north on the Kochi Expressway.
The world outside the windows was pitch-black. I watched dots of light in the towns scroll slowly into the distance. I knew Dad must’ve been worried about me not coming home. Thinking about it made my chest tighten up. I tapped out a message to him on my phone.
Dad, I didn’t say anything before I left, but I’m going on a kind of long trip.
I got a notification that he’d read my text, then a few minutes later, an answer:
The choir ladies messaged me.
So they’d already let him know. That was a relief.
Sorry for always doing whatever I feel like, I wrote.
I’m sure you have your reasons.
Someone I care about is in trouble
And you’re trying to help them.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to though.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken so openly to Dad.
You’ve been so sad and lonely ever since your mom died. But you stuck it out. I know it wasn’t easy, but you’ve grown into such a kind young woman. You understand what other people are going through.
My chest tightened further.
Suzu, your mother raised you, and that’s why you’re such a good person.
I could sense the warmth in his words. My vision got so blurry I could hardly read.
Now go be a good person to that friend of yours!
Teardrops splashed onto my phone screen.
Thanks, I answered.
The next morning at 6:15, the bus pulled into Yokohama City Air Terminal. I transferred to the Toyoko railway line, and by 7, I was walking through the ticket gates at Tamagawa Station.
Outside the station, raindrops were starting to spatter the pavement. I looked around with growing anxiety. I’d never been to this station before. The streets and buildings were all unfamiliar. Would I be able to find them?
I started running through the light rain.
I sprinted uphill with the Tama River at my back. Houses bigger than any I’d seen in Kochi sat in dignified rows behind ginkgo trees. The street was abandoned. Every now and then, a large car drove quietly past.
I stopped at an intersection and looked around. I was overwhelmed with the fear that I’d get myself lost. Finding the right house among all of them felt absurd. I started running again, hoping to shake off my unease.
Panting, I stopped at a corner next to a luxury condo and took another look around. Ripples spread across a puddle. The rain was falling harder now.
“Huff… Huff…”
I felt my energy draining away as I peered anxiously at my surroundings. My arms hung limply by my sides from exhaustion. I was never going to help him at this rate. I had to find him, and fast…
As that thought crossed my mind, I stumbled.
“Ah!!”
I fell forward on the wet sidewalk. I lay there moaning, momentarily unable to move. Planting my hands on the ground, I lifted my aching body and wiped my wet, muddy face with the back of my hand. I had to keep going. I clenched my teeth and started running again, my eyes trained ahead of me.