Shuya’s mind jumped to Kazumi. She was a grade ahead of him, and until last year, they had been in the music club together.
Rock music would never make it into the repertoire of a school in the Republic, but when the music club’s advisor, Mrs. Miyata, wasn’t around, the band often played rock to kill time. That’s really why the students joined up. The only female saxophone player in the ensemble, Kazumi Shintani was better than any of the boys at rock sax. She was tall (nearly as tall as Shuya’s one-hundred-seventy centimeters), and a little chubby, but when she had that alto sax in her hands, and her hair gathered at the sides of her neck, and she got that mature, world-wise expression, she was really cool. The sight made Shuya’s heart race. Then she taught him difficult guitar chords. (“I played a little before I started sax,” she’d said.) After that, he practiced day and night, and by the middle of eighth grade, he had become the best in the club—all because he’d wanted Kazumi to hear.
One day after school, Shuya and Kazumi found themselves alone in the music room. He sang and played “Summertime Blues” for her, and she said, “That was incredible, Shuya. Really cool.”
That night, he bought himself his first can of beer to celebrate. It was delicious. But three days later, when he told her straight out, “Um, I … like you,” she was as straight with him.
“Sorry, I have a boyfriend.”
She graduated and went on to a high school with a music program—the same school as her boyfriend.
There’s more to the story of Shuya and Yoshitoki fishing at the reservoir that spring day. After telling Shuya about Noriko, Yoshitoki asked, “Do you still like that older girl?”
Shuya answered, “Yeah, I like her. Probably will for the rest of my life.”
Yoshitoki looked perplexed. “But hey, she’s already got someone.”
Shuya had said, “So what?” and with an overhand cast, sent his silver lure as far as it could go.
Shuya grabbed the cookies from Yoshitoki, who was still looking downward, and said, “If you eat them all, Noriko won’t get any.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.”
Shuya returned the package to Noriko and said, “Sorry about that.”
“Oh no,” she said. “It’s all right. You two eat them.”
“Really? The two of us shouldn’t get to have all—”
Just then, Shuya noticed who was sitting next to Noriko. Shogo Kawada (Boys #5), his large frame clad in the school’s uniform, leaned against the window glass, arms folded, eyes closed, and still. Asleep, maybe. Kawada’s hair was cropped so short as to be almost nonexistent, and his face, vaguely reminiscent of some carnival food vendor, wore a faint layer of stubble. Stubble, everyone! Didn’t he look a little old to be in junior high?
Well, actually, that could be explained. Though the same group of students in Class B had been carried over from the eighth grade, Shogo Kawada had transferred in from Kobe only the month before. And whether due to illness or injury (likely the latter—he didn’t seem the type prone to illness), he had missed over half a year of school and had been held back. This made him a year older than most of the class. Though Kawada had never spoken of any of this himself, Shuya had heard it all the same.
And what he had heard was, frankly, not good. According to rumor, Kawada had been nothing but a thug, and he’d received the injuries that had taken him out of school in a fight. Scars all over his body seemed to confirm the speculation. One long slash across his left eyebrow came from what appeared to be a blade. And in the locker room, Shuya had shivered when he saw the scars on the youth’s arms and back. (As an aside, Kawada’s muscular body, reminiscent of a middleweight boxer’s, impressed even Shuya.) On his left shoulder were two peculiar round marks, one right next to the other—just like gunshot wounds, as impossible as that would be.
These rumors came paired with another, shared by whispers: Someday, Kawada and Kiriyama are going to fight. Just after Kawada transferred in, Ryuhei Sasagawa, reckless and posturing, got in the new student’s face. What went down and how it ended were only hearsay, but Ryuhei came back looking pale and ran crying to Kiriyama, who gave no response, save for a disinterested glance. At least so far, the two would-be rivals had not yet given any impression that anything serious was going to happen. Kiriyama didn’t appear to have any interest in Kawada, and the feeling seemed mutual. Thanks to that, Class B remained at peace, happily ever after.
In any event, between the age difference and the rumors, the other students would avoid Kawada. But Shuya didn’t like to judge people from rumor. Someone once said, “If you can see it with your own eyes, you don’t need to listen to the word of others.”
Shuya looked at Noriko and gestured to Kawada with his chin. “Is he asleep?” he asked.
“Hmm,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah, I didn’t want to wake him.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who eats cookies, anyway.” Noriko giggled, and just as Shuya began to crack a smile, the voice came.
“I’m fine.”
Shuya again looked at Kawada.
The firm, deep voice lingered in Shuya’s ears, unfamiliar, but evidently belonging to Kawada. He must have been awake, though his eyes remained closed. Shuya realized he’d almost never heard him speak, despite the new student having transferred in over a month before.
Noriko glanced again at Kawada, then back to Shuya, who shrugged and stuffed another cookie into his mouth.
After that, he and Noriko and Yoshitoki went on talking, or so he thought.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was just before ten when Shuya noticed something was off.
Something felt wrong inside the bus. In the seat to his left, Yoshitoki breathed softly, asleep. Shinji Mimura’s body had slumped over, dangling into the aisle. Noriko Nakagawa’s eyes were closed. No one was talking. Everyone seemed to have fallen asleep. Of course, it was past bedtime for kids who really cared about being healthy, but with the excitement of having just left on their school trip, wasn’t it a bit early for everyone to be sleeping? They all should be singing. Wasn’t this bus equipped with one of those hateful, vulgar karaoke machines?
Worst of all, Shuya himself felt incredibly tired. In his stupor, he tried to look around, but his head, too heavy, flopped against the backrest. His vision swam, and at the shadowy front of the confined cabin, in the windshield mirror, Shuya saw the bus driver reflected in miniature.
A mask covered the driver’s mouth, with some hoselike object trailing down and a thin strap hooked around his ears. What was it? Aside from the hose hanging downward, it looked just like one of those emergency oxygen masks from an airplane.
Was the air inside the bus unbreathable? Ladies and gentlemen, the bus will be making an emergency landing due to engine trouble. Please fasten your seat belt, put on your oxygen mask, and listen for the flight attendants’ instructions. Yeah, right.
A scratching noise came from the right, and Shuya, with considerable effort, inclined his neck in that direction. His body felt heavy, like he was moving through jelly.
Shogo Kawada had lifted himself from his seat and was trying to open the window. But whether it was rusted shut or had a broken lock, the window wouldn’t budge. Kawada began to pound on the glass with his left hand, trying to break it. Why?
But the window didn’t break. Kawada attempted to strike it one more time, but his arm lost its strength and fell slack. He slumped back into his seat. Shuya thought he could faintly hear that low voice say, “Damn.”
And then Shuya slept.
✦ ✦ ✦
Around that same time, the children’s families back in Shiroiwa were visited by men in black sedans. The parents must all have been equally speechless, called to their doors in the middle of the night and presented with the government document stamped with the peach emblem.
Nearly all would silently nod and think of the children they would likely never see again. But some would lash out, only to be beaten unconscious with a single blow of a tactical baton—or, if they were unlucky, showered in a stream of hot lead spat out by submachine guns and taken from this world just a little ahead of their beloved young.
✦ ✦ ✦
The bus for Shiroiwa Junior High’s Ninth Grade Class B had long since peeled off from the school trip caravan and turned back toward Takamatsu City. It entered the city, wound through the local streets, then stopped, its engine fading to silence.
The driver was in his forties, a good‑natured‑looking fellow with salt and pepper hair. The oxygen mask still strapped to his slightly haggard face, he looked back at the students of Class B with a hint of sadness in his eyes. But when a man arrived outside the window, the driver’s expression cleared. He gave the Republic’s distinctive salute and pushed the switch to open the door. As the men in military uniforms and gas masks swarmed inside, the driver gazed off into the distance.
Beneath the moonlight and beyond the bone-white concrete pier, the ship that would carry the “players” swayed atop the vast jet-black sea.
✦ ✦ ✦
42 students remain.