“Interpreted—”
“Remember that’s what I said in the beginning,” Hinako said. “The character boku means determining a fortune. It is not a prediction or a look into the future. It takes what is going on now and prepares you for what may happen next. A divination is the utterance of this suggestion. As it stands, nothing is positive or negative, so we don’t have any determinations on how to interpret events. People are confused by this, which is precisely why once they’ve surpassed understanding the physical they make a positive or negative determination and label events as such. That is the nature of divination.”
“I see…”
Shizue finally understood. At the least it was a more manageable explanation than anything at the communications center. Hinako had always seemed frightened during interviews. Unless she was talking about something she was very familiar with, she never had such cogent arguments.
It all amounted to the fact that nothing was learned from counseling.
No matter how much data they collected, it was just an accumulation. Meaningless. If you didn’t know how to read the information, it was pointless. Merely organizing numbers couldn’t even let you know a person’s face.
“Prayer is the same,” Hinako continued. “Sincere prayer to a god is not unreliable. But today there are more people who don’t rely on it.
Prayer is thought of as unreliable.”
“Well—”
“But that’s because people pray with a vehemence for some divine intervention to magically alter the course of nature. Consequently they are asking for a ready blessing, an answer to their prayers. That is the problem.”
Probably.
“I feel very differently about these answers to prayers,” Hinako said. “Blessings are just positive phenomena, and in simpler terms they’re just luck or fortune. Many people believe prayer is requesting good luck from a god. In that case prayer certainly is evil. But they are mistaken. Luck and fortune are rewards for particular actions. Prayer, in actuality, is to announce what actions you are about to undertake before God and to ask to be able to accomplish your goals.”
“Like a declaration of resolve?”
“Yes, but before God, which is more powerful than proclaiming to man.”
“God…”
It was inevitable they’d talk about God.
Shizue didn’t want to start dwelling on this. That was probably why she’d never gotten much further than this point in the conversation.
Shizue tried in life never to dwell on this subject.
However.
There was one thing she was sure of. This Hinako Sakura was no victim of delusion. Shizue had probably wanted to perform this interview to make certain of that. In that sense she could say this was a fruitful interview.
“So I wanted to ask…” Shizue said with some force. Hinako immediately returned to being a shy girl.
Hinako lowered her gaze, shrugged, and said, “Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I talked too much.”
“That’s not true. I think I really understand now. I’d like to hear more about it later.”
She was half serious. Hinako demonstrated an indecipherable, impatient attitude.
“Oh…did you not want to have a conversation about this with me, perhaps?”
She probably didn’t want any of this on record.
Hinako nodded weakly.
“I understand. Well, if I ever want to hear more I’ll just come over.”
Hinako certainly wouldn’t want to hear that from Shizue. It would be unnatural for a counselor and her charge to meet and speak privately.
Shizue’s voice dropped off, and she nervously looked down. Who was the charge here?
“I wanted to ask about Yuko Yabe,” Shizue managed, if clumsily.
She was apprehensive.
“Was Yuko asking you these kinds of questions as well?”
“Umm…”
She didn’t like how long Hinako paused. Once this door was shut she knew it would be difficult to swing open.
Hinako stole a quick glance at Shizue’s eyes as if beseeching permission to speak.
Shizue nodded.
This was how she knew Hinako normally behaved.
“That girl just wanted me to read her a divination.”
“Like tell her fortune?”
“Yes. It seemed she was frightened of medical exams.”
“You mean the physical checkups we did recently at the center?”
That day, Hinako had run into Yuko Yabe.
“That girl’s illness would probably go undetected in a simple medical exam.”
“Illness?”
Shizue didn’t know of any medical conditions that deserved special mention, and she’d just looked at Yabe’s file not a day ago.
The results of her physical were good.
In fact her condition was excellent. Yabe was in the top tier of health. Level A, and even in that level she was in the top 10 percent.
“Was Yuko somehow convinced that she was sick?”
“She didn’t appear to know beforehand,” Hinako answered. “But she did say someone had indicated it to her.”
“Indicated?”
“Yes. If it really were this illness, her life was in grave danger.”
“Her life? She has a life-threatening illness?”
“But it was something that went undetected in the medical exam, so…”
“That’s not possible,” Shizue said.
Those physicals were quite meticulous.
Today’s physicals bore no comparison to the ones Shizue underwent as a child. Today’s physicals included a cancer screening and a full-body scan.
They were scrupulous but apparently still had discrepancies.
In the first place, the Food Agency and the Science Council and other central administrative departments lurked in the background to encourage extra diligence in these already minute exams performed on every child in every community center in the care of the National Youth Welfare Department.
What started it all was a sharp rise in deteriorated liver function in minors. A new division was formed to look into the cause in the preparation of elements of synthetic food products five years earlier. These exams were the result of those first tests.
There was no medical link established between the food and liver problems, but since there was no ubiquitous distribution of synthetic food products in the past, the central administration decided to be cautious.
“Is there such a disease that can’t be detected by those exams?”
“I don’t think there is,” Hinako said. “That girl was…If there were a sign of misfortune following her, she thought it might be this illness.”
“So were the results of your divination not good?”
“Terrible,” Hinako answered in a soft voice.
“According to what you were saying earlier, Hinako, does that mean you determined that whatever her situation is now or is about to become would, uh, be bad?”
“It means not that she should stop being optimistic, but that she must be prepared for anything.”
“I suppose I wouldn’t understand the basis of that statement.”
“You aren’t supposed to, in principle. Occult actually means ‘to hide.’ Still…”
“Yes?”
“Her results were so unusual,” Hinako said apologetically.
“Unusual how?”
“She would encounter a wolf.”
“A wolf? You mean like the animal?”
“Yes. An animal that’s been extinct since the last century.”
“I know that much, but you said she was going to encounter one?” What did that mean?
As if detecting Shizue’s hesitation, Hinako said, “It’s probably an omen. Like, a warning to avoid a situation.”
“Avoid a situation?”
“That’s the fortune I determined for her. As I said earlier, this is not a cut-and-dried prediction that she wo
uld encounter an extinct animal.
Whatever does or doesn’t happen to her…is simply avoidable. That’s what the fortune meant.”
“Avoidable…”
“Yes. I wanted to tell her as soon as possible, but simultaneously I was hesitant.”
No doubt telling someone bad news would be difficult.
“But Yuko begged me not to send her the results virtually.”
“Really. Was there a reason the results couldn’t be sent in a message?”
“Otherwise I had no choice but to tell her at the communication session. But…”
Yuko Yabe did not come to lab that day.
Did that mean she had in fact encountered a wolf?
Shizue was confused.
CHAPTER 011
HAZUKI FORGOT WHERE she was for a moment.
The old-fashioned low-rise building. An old-fashioned human figure standing on the roof of it. It was all unreal. Hazuki thought it would actually look more real on her monitor. It would look less deceptive trapped in the frame of her screen with Arabic letters running along the bottom.
There was the sound of some atonal animal voice.
Meow. Meow. Meow.
“Meow cats!” Mio yelled. Mio’s line of vision went straight to the person on the roof.
The girl in the red embroidery looked down, sans expression.
Mio looked intently at Ayumi’s face. Ayumi didn’t move. From where Hazuki stood she could not see what Ayumi was looking at. Hazuki kept her focus on Ayumi and walked up. Mio moved between them and, facing the cat-girl on the roof, took a wide stance and said out loud, “Meow. We have to talk.”
Mio stepped forward a few steps and then looked back at Ayumi. Ayumi was still. Mio was likely not visible in the scene reflected in Ayumi’s eyes. That gaze was fixed directly on the girl on the roof.
Mio yelled out for Mao to come down. But she wouldn’t. Her long straight hair billowed across her face. She didn’t even bother to pull it away from her eyes.
Mio kicked the ground once. “Look over here!” she yelled. She was angry.
Mio was…
Mio wanted this girl to look at her?
Yes.
No matter how loudly Mio spoke, Rey Mao made no indication of listening. She just continued to stare Ayumi down. Hazuki discerned that Mio wanted everyone to look at her.
“Hey!” Mio stepped forward. Rey Mao still refused to look at her.
It was just her dry voice, carried by the wind, that reached as far as Hazuki.
“Sorry, I’m busy.”
“Busy?”
“Yeah, busy,” Rey Mao repeated.
“Stop acting like you’re important. You know full well kids aren’t busy.”
“Kids, huh? I’m not a kid. I don’t have any kid friends.”
“What?” Mio clasped her hands behind her head and made as if to flip backward.
“What the hell are you talking about? You’re my age. We used to play when we were little. Have you forgotten? You can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. You are a kid. A kid!”
“Out here, a kid is someone who can’t gather their own food.”
It wasn’t a conversation Rey Mao was entertaining so much as it was a sermon she was giving.
Since she wasn’t even looking at the person she was talking to—Mio.
“Food? You’re talking about economic independence. Well then, you ought to know we’re not allowed to work, so we can’t make money. That makes you a minor.”
“And?” Rey Mao lowered her chin and dropped a laser-focused glare onto Mio.
“What do you mean and?” Mio winced.
It doesn’t matter how badly Mio wanted to be looked at, she still cannot handle the effect, Hazuki thought to herself.
“There aren’t any delineations like ‘kids’ or ‘minors’ out here. I don’t know, but it sounds like something your people came up with. I have nothing to do with it. That stuff doesn’t translate out here.”
This girl…she had no nationality. She had no ID card or monitor.
As though she’d had enough, Rey Mao turned her back to the girls.
The small, mewing animals followed close at her feet.
“No offense, but I don’t hang out with children.”
“Really.”
Just then…
Suddenly.
Ayumi spoke.
“Really arrogant. Tsuzuki, your friend’s really arrogant.”
Ayumi’s words ripped through the delicate embroidery at the center of Rey Mao’s back. The cats on the roof reacted instinctively to the voice and stopped dead in their tracks.
Hazuki took a deep breath. Her heart was racing.
Ayumi hadn’t spoken very loudly, but the words were clear. In the midst of this fake-looking situation, her voice was unusually real.
Rey Mao stood there silent.
With her eyes still piercing her back, Ayumi continued.
“I don’t know the difference between children and adults, but you know, I don’t really care.”
Rey Mao’s back quivered at the sound of Ayumi’s voice.
“Besides,” Ayumi continued. “Sure the animal that can forage for its own food is on its own, but you’re not going to tell me you’re not human animals now, are you?”
Rey Mao threw in without turning her back, “I don’t want to hear your pompous theories. Humans are still animals.”
“Sure. Humans are animals. But they are not wild animals.”
“What?”
“What you’re talking about is the logic of wild animals.”
“What do you mean ‘wild’?”
Rey looked over her shoulder again at Ayumi.
Ayumi’s look repelled the cats.
“An animal that lives simply to survive is a wild animal. Stop pretending you don’t live in the same sheltered neighborhood we’re in.”
“Sheltered, you say? This neighborhood?”
“Sure. You are sheltered in this neighborhood. You are by no means totally on your own. And I can prove it. You can’t step one foot out of here, can you?”
Rey Mao turned around without any change in her expression.
“You’re an undocumented resident, right? It’s nothing to beat yourself up about, but I wouldn’t brag about it either. It doesn’t make a difference to anyone. But you can’t live anywhere besides this Section C, correct?”
“Are you making something of it?”
“I’m right, aren’t I? This shit environment is the only one you can get your food in. One step out of here and your kind is powerless.”
Ayumi quietly menaced Rey Mao.
“You’re right that we live off the graces of guardians. We couldn’t feed ourselves on our own.”
“I bet you can’t.”
“We have it brought to us, as they say.”
“Have it brought? You mean you are fed by someone else.”
“That’s not necessarily true. Without obtaining the food ourselves, we have the food obtained for us. We’re not just a bunch of idiots with mouths open waiting for food to be poured in. Baby chicks have an insight on life that’s only theirs.”
“Insight?”
“Insight. There are no more guarantees that a parent bird is going to bring food. It’s not that kind of world anymore. You can’t just laze there waiting for something to come to you.”
“Let me guess…and there isn’t enough love or nurture. Spare me the sob story.”
“Oh no. Animals don’t care for their children out of love.”
Ayumi rebounded off Rey Mao’s interjection.
“It’s instinct. Because animals don’t experience things like love,”
Ayumi asserted.
“I don’t know the specifics, but living beings are all programmed to behave the way they do. Rather, that’s the essence of life. Children aren’t raised because they are cute. They are raised to protect the seeds of the future. Love is a convenient word humans devised to differentiate themselves from animals.�
��
Hazuki’s eyes widened.
What is she saying?
Ayumi appeared to her like someone from another planet.
Hazuki had never seriously thought about the meaning of the word love. The existence of love wasn’t something she debated.
But.
Ayumi stared into the eyes of Rey as she slowly continued her story.
She was outside Hazuki’s permissible scope.
“And what about it?” Rey Mao’s voice.
“And so humans are the same. If humans can’t care for children today, it’s not the fault of bad homes or bad people. It’s arrested development. It’s an illness. They say approximately 30 percent of the world’s population suffers from it. It has nothing to do with economic circumstances or living environments. Of course the situation is worse for poor people because their circumstances give them no other recourse. We’ve caught a stray blow from the thoughtless idiots of the twentieth century. As a result, we kids of the twenty-first century can’t just go to sleep without a care. Because once you’re born, you have to live.”
“Then go get your own food.”
“We’re not allowed to,” Ayumi responded. “Tsuzuki said it herself. We have to use our heads and survive in this cage of a boring society. Those who can’t, die. You don’t have to be in a fatal environment to die of malaise.
“Of course we have to live by this rule,” Ayumi continued. “We’re risking our lives by accepting food in our cage. There’s no point in telling kids like you playing pretend ‘great outdoors’ in the completely sheltered preservation areas that you’re outside the cage because you’re not.”
“Playing pretend great outdoors?”
“Isn’t that all it is? If it’s not, let me ask you this. Why do you feed cats? You think you’re protecting the weak?” Ayumi said, louder now.
“I-it’s none of your business what I do.”
“It isn’t. But don’t get all cocky about it. Aren’t you always feeding the cats? You’ve decided for yourself that they are weak and have enforced your protection of them, for yourself. That doesn’t give you the right to lord it over us. Real animals of the wild live only to survive because to do anything other than what was required would lead to death. They’re not in a position to be starting charities.”
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