As the bus entered the prefectural capital city of Takamatsu, the scenery slowly shifted from pastoral to urban. With the city came lights in multicolored neon, headlamps from oncoming traffic, and in offices left to shine through the night. A group of men and women in sharp business suits stood talking in front of a roadside restaurant, perhaps waiting for a taxi. Weary, cigarette-smoking youths squatted in the sterile parking lot of a convenience store. A blue-collar worker, perched on his bicycle, waited for the crosswalk signal to change. The evening was still a bit chilly for May, and the man’s disheveled, threadbare windbreaker made him stand out—just one of many fleeting impressions flowing beyond the bus windows, swept away by the low rumble of its engine. The digital clock above the driver’s seat changed to 8:57.
Shuya Nanahara (Boys #15, Ninth Grade Class B, Shiroiwa Junior High, Shiroiwa Town, Kagawa Prefecture) was seated on the left-hand side of the bus, gazing off into the nighttime scenery. He had to lean forward a bit to see around Yoshitoki Kuninobu (Boys #7), who occupied the window seat, rustling through his travel bag. With his right leg stretched out into the aisle, Shuya flexed his toes against the inside of his Keds sneaker, the canvas torn inside the heel, frayed threads sticking out like cat whiskers. Those shoes were hard to come by these days, although supposedly that hadn’t always been the case. The brand was American, and the sneakers were made in Colombia. Though this was 1997, and the Republic of Greater East Asia certainly wasn’t lacking for goods—if anything, it overflowed with them—imported commodities were extremely difficult to acquire. Well, such was only to be expected with the national policy of quasi-seclusion—especially so with a hostile country like America (government officials called it the “American Empire,” as did school textbooks).
From his seat near the back of the bus, Shuya surveyed the cabin. Under the dim fluorescents filtering through dingy ceiling panels, he had a view of the other forty-one students who had been his classmates since the eighth grade. After leaving their school in Shiroiwa less than an hour before, the kids were all still excited and chatting away. They weren’t overjoyed that their school trip was beginning with an overnight ride imposed on them either out of cheapness, or possibly due to an overly packed schedule. But once the bus passed over the Great Seto Bridge, got onto the Sanyo Expressway, and was on its way to their destination in Kyushu, they would calm down a little.
Toward the front, a rowdy cluster of girls bubbled around the teacher in charge of their class, Mr. Hayashida. Among them was Yukie Utsumi (Girls #2), class leader and representative for the girls’ side, with braided hair that looked good on her. Also in the group were Haruka Tanizawa (Girls #12), her teammate on the volleyball team and quite tall for a girl; Izumi Kanai (Girls #5), daughter of a town councilman with a prim attitude to match; Satomi Noda (Girls #17), a gifted student whose round-framed glasses suited her calm and collected countenance; Chisato Matsui (Girls #19), ever meek and demure; and a few others. They formed the popular group, or anyway the middle‑of‑the‑road group—though to call them a group at all might not be quite right. Girls tend to form cliques, but not so in the Shiroiwa Junior High Ninth Grade Class B, where there weren’t really any to speak of. The closest to a clique would be the group led by Mitsuko Souma (Girls #11), who was a little rough around the edges and, to be frank, a juvenile delinquent. Hirono Shimizu (Girls #10) and Yoshimi Yahagi (Girls #21) made three. From his position, Shuya couldn’t tell where the girls were sitting.
The first row behind the driver’s seat was slightly elevated, and its shorter backrest revealed two heads side by side, belonging to Kazuhiko Yamamoto (Boys #21) and Sakura Ogawa (Girls #4), the closest couple in class. Every so often their heads shook, likely in shared laughter at some joke. Well, with a pair as reserved as Kazuhiko and Sakura, the most trivial talk might seem hilarious.
Shuya glanced up the aisle to see an immense school uniform protruding into the space just ahead. Inside that uniform was Yoshio Akamatsu (Boys #1). Yoshio was the largest kid in the class, but he was sensitive, the type that ends up teased and picked on. He was scrunching his bulky frame forward, buried in the latest popular portable video game.
The jocks, Tatsumichi Oki (Boys #3, Handball Team), Kazushi Niida (Boys #16, Soccer Team), and Tadakatsu Hatagami (Boys #18, Baseball Team), sat together, flanking the aisle. Shuya himself had been in Little League (and was even called the ace shortstop) and used to be good friends with Tadakatsu until the two had drifted apart—possibly because Shuya had quit playing baseball. Replacing the sport with more “unpatriotic” hobbies, like the electric guitar, was likely part of it too. Shuya had seen Tadakatsu’s mom get uptight about those kind of things.
After all, rock music was banned in the Republic. There were, of course, ways around the ban. Shuya’s guitar wore an official permit sticker that read use of this musical instrument in the production of decadent music is strictly prohibited. “Decadent music” being rock.
Now that he thought about it, Shuya realized he had made a completely new set of friends.
A quiet laugh came from the seat behind big Yoshio Akamatsu. It belonged to one of those new friends, Shinji Mimura (Boys #19). Around the edge of the seat, Shuya caught sight of Shinji’s short hair and the finely crafted earring in his left earlobe.