She returned to that same question. Do I trust them?
"C'mon, who is it?" Yukiko prodded.
Yumiko faced her.
She hesitated again but decided she'd tell her friend. At least, she'd bring it up. Whenever she needed advice, no one was a better listener than Yukiko.
"Hey," Yumiko said. "Can I ask you something?"
Yukiko tilted her head in confusion. "Yeah, what?"
Yumiko folded her arms, gathering her thoughts, then said, "So, do you think any of them really want to kill anyone? Any of our classmates, I mean."
Yukiko frowned. "Well. . . they're really. . . they're dying . . ." At that word—dying—her voice trembled. "They're all dying. You heard the announcement this morning. Nine already, just since we left. I can't believe they all killed themselves. And you heard that noise. It sounded like gunfire."
Yumiko tilted her head and spread open her hands. She noticed a small tear in the cuff of her left sleeve. "But look," Yumiko said, "we're scared here, aren't we? With both of us together. Right?"
"Yeah."
"I think everyone else is too. They all must be so afraid. Don't you think so?"
Yukiko seemed to mull it over, then said, "Yeah. Maybe you're right. I've been so caught up in my own fear that I never really thought about it."
Yumiko nodded once, then continued, "We've been able to stick together, so we don't have it so bad, but I think anyone who's alone has got to be absolutely terrified."
"Yeah."
"So let's say you were that afraid. What would you do when you stumbled upon someone else?"
"I'd run, of course."
"What if you couldn't?"
Yukiko seemed to consider it extremely carefully. Then, slowly she said, "I might. . . yes, I might fi-fight. If I was holding something, I'd throw it, and if I... if I had a gun, yes, I might shoot. Of course I'd try to talk. But if it was all of a sudden, and I had no other choice."
Yumiko nodded. "Right? So I think—what I think is—none of them actually wants to kill anyone else. They're just scared, and they're convinced the others are trying to kill them. And someone who believes that, even if no one attacks him, might go after the others."
Yumiko paused, uncrossing her arms, setting her hands on the floor. "I believe they're all just scared."
Yukiko pursed those small, full lips. After a moment, she looked down at the floor and said in a faltering voice, "I don't know. I don't trust them. Like Souma's group, or Kiriyama, or . .
Yumiko gave her a smile, shifted her legs beneath her pleated skirt, and settled back in a different position. "I'll tell you what I think, Yukiko."
"Sure."
"If we keep on going like this, we'll die. Remember the time limit? When twenty-four hours pass without anyone dying? Even if we survive until then, we'll be killed."
Yukiko nodded, her face frightened again. "That's true."
"And our only possible chance is for everyone to work together and come up with a way to escape. Right?"
"That's right. But—"
"I have to tell you something," Yumiko interrupted. She tilted her head ever so slightly. "Something bad happened to me because I didn't trust someone. Back in elementary school."
Yukiko looked into Yumiko's eyes. "What happened?"
Yumiko raised her eyes to the ceiling. She saw the face of her crying friend—and those pink sneakers.
She looked back at Yukiko. "I had this—it was really important to me . . . Well, you remember those Egg Cats that were so popular, right?"
"Yeah. They put those characters on everything. I had an Egg Cat pencil board."
"I had a tricolor pen—limited edition. It seems so unimportant now, but back then, I treasured it."
"Uh-huh."
"But one day, I couldn't find it." Yumiko looked down. "I thought one of my friends stole it. She'd wanted it so badly. And I realized it was missing right after first period gym class, and she'd excused herself early from gym because she wasn't feeling well, and she was the first one back in the classroom. And on top of that. . . well. . . this is terrible . . . but she didn't have a dad, and her mom worked at a bar, so she didn't have a good reputation."
Yukiko slowly nodded.
"I grilled her, but she said she didn't know about it. I even went to the teacher. He probably had his own pre-formed opinions of her, because he commanded her to tell the truth. But she was crying, saying she didn't know anything about it."
Yumiko faced Yukiko. "When I went home, I found the pen on my desk. I'd just forgotten it there."
Yukiko was quietly listening, so Yumiko kept going, "I apologized to her. She said it was fine. But I'd made things awkward, and in the end—I think her mother remarried or something—she soon transferred away, and I never heard from her since. But we had been really good friends. As much as you and me. But I didn't believe her."
With a frown, Yumiko continued, "After that, I decided I'd do my best to trust others. I want to believe in other people. If I can't do that, I know that nothing will work out. And I'm not talking like the old people at that stupid Halo Church. This is what I truly believe. I hope you understand."
"Yeah, I do."
"So, about now. Souma and the others—they look like they're bad. People say they are. But they can't be so bad that they actually would enjoy killing. There's nobody like that in our class. Isn't that right?"
After a moment, Yukiko answered, "Yeah."
"So," Yumiko went on, "if we could only reach out to them and explain, everyone would stop fighting. Then we could all figure out if there's anything we can do. And even if we can't find a way out, at least we could avoid all this killing. How about it?"
"Yeah . . ." Yukiko nodded, but she still seemed hesitant.
A little worn out from all the talking, Yumiko sighed and shifted her legs again. "Anyway, that's my opinion. But tell me what you think. If you're against the idea, I won't do it."
For a while, Yukiko stared thoughtfully at the floor. After two full minutes, she cracked open her mouth.
"Yumi," she said, "you told me once that I worry too much about what other people think."
"Hm? Yeah, I guess I did."
Yumiko stared into Yukiko's face. Yukiko lifted her head, and their eyes met.
Yukiko grinned. "I think you're totally right. That's my opinion."
Yumiko smiled back at her. "Thank you." She was grateful Yukiko had thought for herself before saying that. She saw it as proof that her own reasoning had been correct.
That's right. I have to do this. I'm not going to die without at least trying, not me. If there's a chance, I'm going to take it. It's like I told Yukiko, I want to believe. Let's try and see.
Then Yukiko asked, "But how are we going to do it—how can we reach everyone?"
Yumiko pointed to the megaphone lying in the corner of the room. "It's all up to whether or not that works."
Yukiko bobbed her head, then looked up at the ceiling. After a time, she said only this:
"If it works, I'll be able to see Nanahara."
Yumiko nodded. With a little feeling, she said, "That's right. We will."
29 STUDENTS REMAIN.
"All right, that's good," Kawada said to Shuya, tossing the needle and thread onto the daypack at his side. "Hand me that whiskey again, Nanahara."
Noriko's leg was stretched out on its side in front of Kawada. The wound on her right calf was sewn closed by coarse cotton thread; Kawada had managed to put in the stitches. They hadn't had any anesthetic, of course, but over the course of the ten-minute operation, Noriko didn't cry out once.
Shuya offered Kawada the flask. Next to him was a small fire pit fashioned from piled up rocks, and above the charcoal sat an open can filled with water at a rolling boil. (Kawada said he'd found the charcoal, along with the needle and thread, at the general store.) The boiling water had disinfected the needle and thread, but since pouring it directly onto Noriko's wound wasn't exactly an option, Kawada had cleaned the gash with
Shuya's whiskey before he stitched it up. Noriko took a deep breath and scrunched her face, preparing for the next splash.
Shuya looked at his watch. The water had taken a fairly long time to boil, and the time was already past eight.
"Okay," Kawada said. He pressed one of Shuya's bandanas, sterilized, against her wound in place of a proper gauze, then swiftly wrapped the other around her leg. "We're all done."
Then, with a note of concern, he added, "As long as no strange bug infected it already."
Noriko took back her leg, thanked him, then said, "You're good at that."
"I was always good at playing doctor," Kawada said.
Kawada pulled a pack of Wild Sevens from his pocket, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it with a cheap one-hundred-yen lighter. Shuya wondered if he'd pilfered those from the store as well, or if they were his own. They were a popular brand, up there with Busters and Hi-Nites.
Shuya stared blankly at the package, which for some reason was emblazoned with the silhouette of a motorcycle rider. None of his friends ever gave him a nickname, but that was probably because everyone already called him by the name of those cigarettes. The origin of this moniker was absolutely simple. Back in Little League, he was his team's ace in the hole. When they were in reach of evening up the score, he'd nail it. When he was on base, even if his teammates couldn't get in a hit, he'd steal bases to score another run. (He held the notable record of stealing home three times in one season.) With runners on base, he'd be counted on for a double play. When their pitcher tired out, he'd switch from shortstop and step up on the mound. He was the wild card. Mix that together with the first kanji in his family name—the number seven—and you get Wild Seven.
In eighth grade, Shuya became classmates with Shinji Mimura, the basketball team's expert guard. Shinji had his own nom de guerre'. The Third Man. The story went that Shinji got that name back in seventh grade, when he occupied the bench as the team's third-string shooting guard. With five minutes left on the clock and twenty points down against opponents who were favored to win, he—the literal third man—was sent to the court, and the Shiroiwa Junior High team breezed to victory. After that, he became a starter, and Shiroiwa now held a regular position among the top teams in the prefecture-wide tournaments. Still, because of the lasting impact of that dramatic win, and an association with the first kanji in his family name—the number three—everyone kept on calling him "The Third Man."
For this year's April intramurals, as a joke the class girls made the two boys a pair of jerseys—#3 and #7. Shuya and Shinji both wore them for the games. It all seemed so far away now. Again Shuya wondered, Where is Shinji now? I know we could count on him.
As if suddenly remembering something, Kawada dug through his pockets and produced a small leather pouch, almost like a coin purse. He took out a small foil and plastic blister pack of white pills, handed it to Noriko, and said, "Pain relievers. Take some, they'll help."
Noriko blinked in surprise. But she accepted the pills.
"Hey," Shuya asserted.
"What?" Kawada said. He exhaled, seeming to relish the smoke, and leveled his gaze at Shuya. "Don't look at me like that. It's just a cigarette. Junior high kids smoke them all the time. Besides, I'm old enough to be in high school. And didn't you bring booze out here anyway?"
Setting aside the assumption that it was fine for a high schooler to smoke, Shuya shook his head and said, "That's not it. Did you get those drugs at the general store?"
Kawada shrugged. "Well, yeah. They weren't for sale, but I took them out of a first aid kit behind the register. It's no big deal—just some headache medicine. It's called Anvil. Doesn't sound very good for your head, does it? Anyway, I'm sure it'll make her feel better for now."
Shuya pursed his lips. He might be telling the truth, but. . .
"Aren't you a little too prepared?" Shuya asked. "And where the hell did you learn how to stitch up a wound?"
The corners of his mouth turning up into a wide grin, Kawada offered another shrug. "My dad was a doctor."
"What?"
"Well, it was a small dump of a clinic in the slums of Kobe. I've seen him sew people up since I was a little brat. I have to admit, I was an outstanding doctor's aide myself—or at least I acted like I was from time to time. You see, my dad couldn't afford to hire a nurse."
Shuya didn't know what to say to that. Was that story true?
Holding the cigarette between his fingers, Kawada lifted his hand to cut off Shuya's response. "I'm not lying. If you think about it, you can see that medicine can become essential in this situation."
Shuya kept quiet for a moment, but then he recalled something else that had bothered him. "That's it."
"What's it?"
"Pardon me, um, but if I might ask you—"
"Skip the formalities, Nanahara. We're in this together."
Shuya shrugged once and went to his question. "You were trying to open the bus window. Did you notice the knockout gas?"
Noriko gave Kawada a questioning look.
Now Kawada shrugged. "You saw that? You could have helped."
"Sorry," Shuya said, "but I couldn't. How did you know what was going on, though? I couldn't smell anything."
"Oh, there was a smell, Nanahara." Kawada rubbed his half-spent cigarette into the ground. "It was faint, but anyone who knows it would have recognized it."
This time Noriko asked, "How do you know it?"
"Actually, my uncle works at a government lab, and—"
"Come on," Shuya interjected.
With a wry smile, Kawada said, "If I have to, I'll explain later. Anyway, I really screwed up. I should have caught on sooner. I never thought this would happen, you know? But enough about that. We need to focus on the present. Do you have a plan?"
The way he said, If I have to, I'll explain later, tugged at Shuya's mind, but Kawada was right: coming up with a plan for their escape was the priority. Everything else, Shuya set aside. "We're going to escape."
Kawada nodded as he lit another cigarette. Then, suddenly remembering it, he tossed dirt onto the charcoal in the fire pit. Shuya heard Noriko take a drink of water, swallowing the pill.
Shuya added, "Do you think it'll be hard?"
Kawada shook his head. "The question you should ask, Nanahara, is: 'Do you think it's possible?' If you did, I'd answer: 'The chance is extremely remote.' But what then?"
"These collars—" Shuya said, gesturing to his neck—and the object he had in common with Noriko and Kawada, "—mean they'll find us wherever we run."
"That's right."
"And we can't go near that school."
Sakamochi had said it: "Twenty minutes after the last of you has left, this will be a forbidden zone."And he hadn't needed to sound so cheerful about it, the bastard.
"That's right," Kawada said.
"But what if we could draw them out? We could take Sakamochi hostage. We'll make them disable these collars."
Kawada raised his eyebrows. "And?"
Shuya licked his lips and continued, "And . . . that's it. We'll find a boat ahead of time, and we'll take Sakamochi with us when we escape."
Even as he said it, he knew the plan was a long shot. Without any idea how to draw Sakamochi out of the school, the thought didn't even amount to a plan.
"You finished?" Kawada said, and Shuya could only nod.
Kawada took another drag on his cigarette, then said, "First, and most importantly, there won't be any boats."
Shuya bit his lip. "You can't know that."
Kawada grinned and exhaled smoke. "Didn't I tell you I went to the store by the harbor? No boats. Not a one. Even the old, busted-up ones, like you'd expect to see up along the shore—they've all been taken away. No, these guys were amazingly thorough."
"Then we'll use one of the guard ships. If we can take Sakamochi hostage—"
"Impossible, Nanahara," Kawada interrupted. "You saw how many soldiers there are. Besides ..."
Kawada pointed to the silv
er collar at his neck. "Those bastards can trigger these however they please, forbidden zone or not. That's anytime, and anyplace. The cards are stacked against us. Anyway, even in the off chance you succeeded, I bet the government wouldn't think twice before writing off someone like Sakamochi as an acceptable loss."
Again Shuya was speechless.
"Do you have any other ideas?" Kawada prompted.
Shuya shook his head and said, "No."
"What about you, Noriko?"
Noriko also shook her head but said something else. "Well, we were talking . . . and we were thinking about gathering the people we trust and thinking up a plan together. If we think as a group, we might come up with something good."
That's right, Shuya thought. I forgot to say that.
Kawada lifted a single scarred eyebrow. "But isn't it hard to know who to trust out here?"
Shuya answered enthusiastically, "There's Mimura. And Hiroki Sugimura. As far as the girls go, there's our class leader, Utsumi. But Mimura—he's really amazing. He knows everything. He's good with machines too. I'm sure he'd think of something."
Rubbing his hand though his stubble, Kawada watched Shuya's face. Then he said, "Mimura, huh?"
Shuya's eyes widened. "Did something happen?"
"No," Kawada said. He seemed to find this hard to say, but he continued, "But I saw him."
Immediately Shuya shouted, "What! Where?" He and Noriko looked at each other. "Where? Where did you see him?"
Kawada pointed eastward with his chin. "It was last night. He was just west of the school. He had gone into a house and seemed to be searching for something. He had a gun, and I think he noticed me."
"Why didn't you call out to him?"
Kawada regarded Shuya's critical tone with a quizzical expression. "Why should I have?"
"You saw him back at the school—he helped Noriko back to her seat. Didn't you see? And—"
Kawada anticipated the rest. "He suggested postponing the game because of her injury. Probably to buy everyone enough time to escape?"
Yes, he's got it. Shuya nodded.
Battle Royale (Remastered) Page 14