YUKARI WAS ON break, but she didn’t much feel like doing anything, so instead of going out she lay on her bed in her room and read one of the books she’d bought in Yokohama. This one was titled Zionism and Islamic Society.
She heard the quick path of footsteps approaching and someone opened her door without knocking.
“Hoi! You won’t believe how much fruit I nabbed, Yukari! Let’s eat.”
Yukari groaned and set her book down next to her pillow. “Just no durian, please.”
“No problem! I’ve got nuts and rambutan and jackfruits and figs.”
Yukari frowned. “Hey! No dirty sacks on my bed!”
Matsuri moved her satchel onto the floor and sat crosslegged on a chair. “What will it be?”
“A fig, I guess.”
Matsuri handed her the fruit and Yukari began peeling it, a disinterested look on her face. Matsuri dug the flesh out of a rambutan with her army knife. The two ate their tropical meal in silence, tossing skins and seeds into a wastebasket and using tissues to wipe the juice from their lips. Only their hands and jaws moved.
Though Matsuri was customarily cheerful, she had never been a big talker. By comparison, Yukari hardly ever stopped talking, until now. She hadn’t been much in the mood for conversation since Akane had left.
After several minutes of eating in silence, Matsuri wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and said, “So I met Akane in the jungle.”
Yukari froze. “What did you say?”
“I said I met Akane in the jungle.”
Yukari jumped from her chair. “You met Akane?” she shouted, fig seeds spraying from her lips. “In the jungle! Here?”
“Where else?” Matsuri asked.
“Why? How? Where?”
“I already told you. In the jungle. She was doing solo survival training. She’s going to fail if she doesn’t make it back before midnight tonight.”
“Wait, but that means—” Yukari’s eyes swam as her brain worked overtime to process the new information. “That means Akane hasn’t failed! They lied to us!”
“Sounds like it. They probably lied so we wouldn’t help her.”
Yukari’s face flushed with rage. Why that weasel! She dashed for the door, then stopped and whirled around. “Where was she, exactly? Was she far?”
“She was in the hills about three klicks from the eastern edge of the runway. She seemed pretty pooped.”
Three kilometers was a long way in the jungle.
“She was tired? Well, what did you do? You helped her, right?”
“Nope. I left her there and went looking for more fruit.”
“You didn’t even show her the way back?”
“She asked me not to help her.”
“Of all the—!”
Yukari stormed out of the room in a rage, ranting under her breath as she went. I don’t care why she did it. I’m going to give that woman a piece of my mind! I don’t care if it was technically the right thing to do.
Yukari ran, first to the women’s dormitory in search of Satsuki Asahikawa, and when she wasn’t to be found there, on to the training center. She ran up the stairs and knocked on the door to the lab.
The door was locked, but no one was inside.
Yukari checked around the center until she was sure no one was there.
“If she comes walking up tomorrow like nothing’s happened—”
It was time for Plan B. She could go help her, but then again, Akane was one to play by the rules to a fault. Yukari wondered if there were any way she could lead Akane to the base without her even knowing it.
She checked her watch. It was five o’clock. Hardly any time left to do anything.
She would just have to wait and trust in Akane’s ability. Even though she didn’t trust it at all.
What if she’s already here, just a little ways away? Yukari walked faster. The light outside was already an orange yellow. She made for the main gate, trailing a long shadow behind her. She told the guard she was just going out for a stroll and went through. Outside the base, Yukari stopped and held her breath. She was looking at the back of a white lab coat.
There you are.
Satsuki turned around, a look of surprise on her face. “Yukari? What are you doing outside at this time of day?”
“Just going for a little walk,” Yukari replied, a bit too quickly.
Satsuki wouldn’t know that her secret was out yet, and Yukari had nothing to gain by telling her. But what was she doing outside? Surely not waiting here for Akane’s return?
“Here to meet someone, Satsuki?”
“You might say that.”
“A guy?”
“Could be.”
“You’re not telling?”
“Do I have to?”
“No. Not really,” Yukari said.
The conversation died on the spot. The two stood, about five meters apart, both standing facing toward the jungle.
It wasn’t long before the sun brushed the ridgeline of the mountains to the west.
A hum rose from the forest as birds sang to one another, ascertaining the safety of their roosts. Far away, over the tops of the trees, Yukari saw something like a stream of black smoke.
“Bats,” she said.
“That’s what that is?” the doctor asked.
“They fly out of their caves in the evening like that. Matsuri told me.”
“They don’t attack people, do they?”
“Who knows?”
The last rays of light disappeared behind the tips of the trees.
“Yukari?”
“Yeah?”
“Look—”
“Yeah?”
They heard footsteps behind them. The two women turned. It was Kinoshita.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said bemusedly. He was dressed casually in a cotton shirt and loose-fitting slacks, but his hair was carefully combed back.
“Ooh! So you were waiting for Kinoshita?” Yukari teased.
Kinoshita and Satsuki exchanged quick glances.
“I’ll leave that to your imagination,” Kinoshita replied.
“I don’t want to be a third wheel…”
“Not at all.”
Kinoshita joined Satsuki by the big SOLOMON SPACE ASSOCIATION sign and the two stood there, showing no indications of going anywhere.
Because the sun set straight down in the tropics, it got dark very quickly. Yukari squinted, peering into the jungle, but she couldn’t see any movement at all. Already an hour had passed since she came through the gate. Satsuki had made no attempt to restart their earlier conversation, and standing around in silence was growing pretty boring.
Frustratingly enough, her anger had entirely disappeared. She was still upset that no one had trusted her, but she wasn’t entirely sure that she could have kept herself from interfering had she known. She could find absolutely no fault with them wanting Akane’s final test to be a fair one. By now, they had probably realized she was onto them, anyway. Still, if the cover story was that Kinoshita and Satsuki were having a dalliance, she didn’t want them to think she was being rude. Yukari was just about to say something when a fourth person came up behind them.
“Hoi, Yukari! Akane show up yet?”
With a few simple words, Matsuri turned the situation on its head.
Yukari looked up. Satsuki and Kinoshita were staring at the two of them in silence.
“Not yet.”
“Well, she’s still got six hours. She’ll be fine.”
“So you knew,” Kinoshita said. It wasn’t a question.
“Oh, I ran into her in the jungle today around lunchtime.”