For a brief moment, Shuya found himself in the familiar surroundings of his classroom.
Of course, this classroom wasn’t that of Ninth Grade Class B, though it did have the teacher’s podium and lectern, washed-out blackboard, large-screen TV elevated on a stand to the left, and rows of desks and chairs of plywood and steel. On the corner of the desk where Shuya sat, someone had used a metal tool to carve antigovernment graffiti: The Leader is hot for women in uniform. Together on the bus until only moments ago (at least as far as he could tell), all forty-two students were seated at the desks, the boys in their standing collar button-up jackets and the girls in their sailor fuku, but asleep, slumped haphazardly onto their desks or back in their chairs.
Seated beside the frosted glass windows on the hallway side of the room (assuming this place had the same layout as his own school), Shuya surveyed his surroundings. None of the other students appeared to be awake. To the left and a little forward, near the center of the room, was Yoshitoki Kuninobu, with Noriko Nakagawa behind and Shinji Mimura on his left, each of them deep asleep on their desks. Lanky Hiroki Sugimura had been deposited at a desk next to the exterior windows at the room’s left. Shuya came to the belated realization that everyone had been placed in the same assigned seats as their class in Shiroiwa Junior High. Then he noticed what had been feeling off about the room—the windows on Hiroki’s side were covered with black panels. Steel plates, perhaps? Dingy light from rows of ceiling fluorescents reflected coldly off the panels’ surface. The frosted glass windows near Shuya were also submerged in darkness, possibly covered from the hallway side. Shuya couldn’t tell what time of day it was.
He looked at his watch. Exactly one o’clock. Morning? Or afternoon? The date read THU/22. If his watch hadn’t been tampered with, either three hours had passed since that peculiar exhaustion overcame him in the bus or this was the afternoon of the next day. Okay. No point in dwelling on it.
Shuya looked around at his classmates.
Something was strange. Well, everything about this was strange. Yet something was wrong.
Shuya quickly recognized what it was. Noriko was slumped on her desk, and just above the sailor collar of her uniform, a metallic silver band snugly encircled her neck. Barely visible at the edge of Yoshitoki Kuninobu’s buttoned collar was a matching object. And Shinji Mimura, Hiroki Sugimura, and every one of his classmates all had one around their necks.
Struck with a sudden realization, Shuya touched his right hand to the back of his neck.
He felt something hard and cold. There was no doubting it—he had one too.
He gave the object a little tug, but, firmly in place, it refused to come off. Now that he had become conscious of the band, he felt like he was suffocating. A collar! A goddamn collar. I’m no dog!
Shuya fidgeted with the thing for a time before giving up.
And what had happened to the school trip?
Shuya noticed his gym bag lying at his feet. The night before, he’d stuffed it with clothes and a towel, a travel notebook handed out by his school, as well as a flask of bourbon and whatever else he thought he would need. Everyone else’s bags were beside them as well.
Suddenly, the sliding door at the front of the class clattered open. Shuya looked toward the entrance.
A man entered the room. He was alone.
He was well built, though a little on the short side, with undersized legs that seemed only an afterthought to his torso. He wore plain, light beige slacks, a gray suit coat, a crimson tie, and black loafers, all of them shabby. A peach-colored pin on his collar identified him as a government official. He had rosy cheeks. But what stood out the most was his hair, straight and down to his shoulders in a style popular with younger women. Shuya was reminded of the grainy photocopied cover of a Joan Baez cassette he’d copped off the black market.
The man stepped onto the teacher’s podium and surveyed the class. His eyes landed upon Shuya, the only student awake (unless it was all a dream).
The two stared at each other for at least one full minute. But as the other students began to stir, and the sounds of uneasy breathing grew, the man looked away. Some of the students called out to wake up others who were more deeply asleep.
Shuya looked across the classroom. The other kids had started to awaken, their eyes yet unfocused, and with no idea of what was happening. Yoshitoki Kuninobu turned in his chair and met Shuya’s gaze. Shuya pointed to his own collar and tilted his head to the side. Yoshitoki’s hands scrambled for his neck, and shock sprang to his expression. Then, for some reason, Yoshitoki shook his head several times, finally looking to the front of the class. Noriko Nakagawa also gazed at Shuya, her eyes distant, but Shuya could only offer a shrug in response.
Finally, when everyone was awake, the man spoke, his voice cheery, “All right, is everyone awake? Did you sleep well?”
No one said a thing in reply. Not even the two class clowns, Yutaka Seto and Yuka Nakagawa (Girls #16).
42 students remain.