by Ao Jyumonji
Wait, who...?
There were four girls in their group: Flashy, the one with braids, the petite and timid one, and an even tinier girl who had to be shorter than 150 cm. That high-pitched voice didn’t sound like it belonged to Flashy, Braids, or Timid. It probably wasn’t Tiny’s voice, either.
“I appear, you know. I take the stage, you know. Where am I? I’m right heeeere!”
“Right where?!” cried Playboy, standing up and shouting.
“Don’t paaaanic! Don’t be alaaaarmed! But, still, don’t relaaaax. Don’t pull out your hair, eiiiither!”
Singing something like “Charararararahn, charararararahnrarahn.” a woman poked her head out from the side of the tower, where she had apparently been hiding.
Is her hairstyle what they call “twintails”? he wondered.
“Heeeey. Is everyone feeling fiiiine? Welcome to Grimgar. I’m your guide, Hiyomuuuu. Nice to meet youuuu. Let’s get along? Kyapii!”
A man with a buzz-cut ground his teeth loudly. “What an annoying speech style,” he muttered.
“Eek!” Hiyomu ducked her head back into the tower, but soon stuck it out again. “You’re so scary. So dangerous. Don’t get so maaaad. Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay?”
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste. “Then don’t piss me off.”
“Yes, sirreeee!” Hiyomu hopped out next to the tower, raising her hand in a salute. “I’ll be careful from now on, sir! I’ll be reeeeal careful, sir? Is this okay? It’s okay, right? Teehee.”
“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Aw, you could teeeell? Ah, ah! Don’t get mad! Don’t punch me, don’t kick me! I don’t like being hurt! Generally, I want you to be niiiice to me! Anyway, is it okay if I move things along now? Can I do my job now?”
“Hurry it up,” said Gangster in a low voice. Unlike Buzz-Cut, he didn’t look openly agitated. Still, his tone was intimidating.
“All righty, then,” Hiyomu began with a grin. “I’m gonna do my job now, okay?”
The sky was getting brighter by the moment. It was much brighter now than it had been earlier, which meant it must be morning, not dusk. The dawn was breaking.
“For now, just follow after meeee. Don’t get left behiiiind!” Hiyomu started to walk, her twintails swaying behind her.
Looking around, they saw a path from the tower leading down the hill. Grass fields spread out on both sides of a dark path of exposed earth that had been hardened with use, and there were large white stones scattered around the grass that covered the hill. A whole lot of them. Too many. It looked almost like they were in orderly rows.
It was as if someone had lined them up.
“Hey, are those...” Curly asked, pointing at the white stones. “Could they be... graves?”
He shuddered.
Speaking of which, he noticed some sort of writing carved into them. Flowers had been placed in front of some, as well. A graveyard. Could this hill be a graveyard?
At the head of the group, Hiyomu giggled without turning around. “I wondeeeer. Well, don’t you worry about that now. Don’t woooorry. It’s too soon for any of you. I hope it’s too soon for any of youuuu. Hee hee hee...”
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste again, kicking the dirt. He seemed pretty ticked off, but it looked like he still planned to follow Hiyomu for now.
Gangster had already started walking. Glasses, Flashy, and Tiny followed him.
Playboy shouted, “Whoa! Me too, me too! Me too!” and began chasing after them, then tripped.
It looked like there was no choice but to go along. But where was Hiyomu planning to take them? Where was this place?
He sighed, looking up to the sky. “Ah...”
What was that? It was pretty low in the sky. It couldn’t be the sun. It was too big to be a star, though. It wasn’t even a full circle, anyway. Its shape was somewhere between a half and a crescent moon. Did that mean it was the moon, then? That’d be a weird moon, though.
“It’s red,” he said out loud. He blinked, taking another look at it. No matter how many times he looked, it was still ruby red.
Behind him, Timid gulped audibly. He turned around to see she was gazing at the moon, as well.
“Ahh,” said Braids as she seemed to notice it, too. She blinked repeatedly, then chuckled. “Mr. Moon is red. That’s super pretty.”
The man with silky hair looked up to the red moon hanging in the dawn sky, standing still with an absent look on his face.
Curly said, “Whoa...” with a wide-eyed stare.
An excessively large, but seemingly quiet, man let out a low groan.
He didn’t know where this was. Where had he come from? How had he gotten here? He didn’t know those things, either. He couldn’t recall. But... there was just one thing he was certain of.
The moon in that other place wasn’t red.
A red moon was just weird.
1. All These Things We Don’t Know
In some parts of the town, the streets were lined with stone buildings, while in others there were nothing but wooden ones. The cobblestone street twisted and turned, making it hard to see far ahead. Next to the wide road there was an aqueduct, with water flowing through it that was mostly pure. At times there was a foul odor, likely of excrement, but as they walked onwards, it stopped bothering them.
Hiyomu led the group of twelve men and women into the town beyond the hill. From what she had said, this town was called Alterna. There were people living here, as might be expected from something called a town, and though it was early morning, they passed no small number of people who seemed to be residents. The residents all stared at the twelve as if they were an unusual sight. But the twelve found themselves staring right back. After all, the people were all dressed weirdly.
Wait... weird how? Compared to the twelve, their clothes were simple and shabby, not showy at all.
“So, like, this place...” started Playboy, “is it, like, you know... a foreign country or something...?”
“Uh...” Curly turned his head, trying to come up with an answer. “...A foreign country? A country? Come to think of it, what nationality am I, anyway? Huh? Weird, I can’t remember... Actually, I can’t remember my address and such either. Huh?”
“What, you hadn’t noticed?” Gangster said in a low voice. “My name is about all I still know.”
The phrase still know caught his attention. It probably meant something different than just not having known at all. Maybe Gangster had been hit with that feeling of trying to trace his memories back only to feel them vanishing, too.
“My name...” Curly thumped his chest. “My name is... Ranta. Other than that... Yeah. No clue. Whoa. Seriously? I’ve got memory disappearance...”
“I think you mean...” He broke in without meaning to, and then immediately regretted it. Still, he couldn’t very well stop now. “...memory loss, right?”
“Listen, buddy...” Curly said with a sigh. “If you’re going to be the smart guy, can’t you do it better? It requires a certain spirit, you know. When you half-ass it like that, it’s awkward for me as the guy playing the fool for you. It kills the mood. Well, whatever. I’ll overlook it this once. So, who’re you?”
“You’ll... overlook it...”
In what way had Ranta been playing the fool? What a horrible attempt at humor. He wasn’t fully convinced but...
A name.
What was his own name?
“...I’m Haruhiro. I think?”
Curly, a.k.a. Ranta, made an exaggerated tripping gesture, like a pratfall. “You think? Hold on, buddy, you don’t even know your own name? Okay, I know we’re talking about how my name’s all I know, but...”
This guy’s pretty annoying, Haruhiro thought, glancing over at Gangster, who was walking behind Hiyomu. He wondered what Gangster’s name was. He kind of wanted to ask, but he was too scared of the man. Though he didn’t intend it as a replacement for asking Gangster, he turned to the slender man with silky hair
and asked, “How about you?”
“Oh,” replied Silky with a smile. He was a rather eloquent man. “I’m Manato. Do you mind if I call you Haruhiro? No honorifics, or anything?”
“Oh, sure, that’s fine. Then can I call you just Manato, too?”
“I’m fine with that, of course.”
When Manato smiled at him, he couldn’t help but smile, too. He looks like a good guy. I can probably trust him, he thought.
Ranta was annoying. Gangster scared him, and Buzz-Cut had a scary face. Flashy felt like she came from a world far removed from his, and it was hard to approach an intelligent-looking guy like Glasses. Braids, Timid, and Tiny. What about those three girls?
Timid he had talked to a little already, and she was close by. He figured he’d at least try to get her name. But, when it came to actually asking, he was a bundle of nerves.
Haruhiro cleared his throat. “Uh, hey.”
“Y-Yes...?”
“N-Now, it’s not anything important, but, uh...”
“I’m Kikkawa, yesh!” Playboy suddenly exclaimed, striking a weird pose. “Hey, hey! Forget the guys, let’s hear from the ladies! You want to shoot off some introductions, or not?!”
Braids shook her head. “Not.”
“No way!” Playboy, a.k.a. Kikkawa, looked pathetically shot down.
Haruhiro couldn’t help but feel a little gleeful. Still, Kikkawa’s attempt had given him the momentum he needed.
“Um,” Haruhiro tried to ask as straight as he could. “What’s your name? It’d be easier to address you if we knew. Well, compared to us not knowing, at least.”
“Ah...” Timid looked down, pulling at her bangs. Was she trying to hide her face? Her eyes, nose, and lips were modest, but she was pretty cute. There was nothing she needed to hide, at least. “...I’m... Shihoru. That’s my name, I mean. More or less. Sorry...”
“No, you don’t need to apologize.”
“Sorry, it’s a habit. I’m sorry, I’ll try not to...” Shihoru was trembling like a newborn fawn.
Was this girl going to be okay? He was worried just looking at her. It stimulated a protective instinct in him.
“You’re a big guy,” said Manato, who was talking to the gentle giant. “How tall are you?”
“Huh?” said the big man, blinking absently. “My height? I’m 160 cm...”
“160?!” Ranta interjected. “That’s smaller than me, the guy who’s a self-proclaimed 170 cm, you know?!”
“I got it wrong. It was 180... 86? Around there. I think. Ah. My name is Moguzo. Probably.”
“Give me 10 of your centimeters, right now, Moguzo!” Ranta demanded, jabbing Moguzo in the side. As if that were possible. “If I get 10 centimeters from you, I’ll be 178! You’ll be 176! What a turnaround! That’d be wonderful! Wouldn’t it?!”
“If I could give them to you...” replied Moguzo.
“Hold on...” Haruhiro could only curse himself as he started to correct Ranta again. “In that case, your height isn’t over 170: you’re really 168.”
“Oh, shut up. So-rry! You look like you’re about the same height as me, anyway!”
“I’m just barely 170.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?! You’re a fiend who discriminates against people over a measly two centimeters!”
“This guy is such a pain,” Haruhiro muttered.
“Huh?! I didn’t hear you quite right. Did you say something?! You did, didn’t you?! You said something!”
“Nothing, nothing. I didn’t say a thing, honest.”
“You liar! You lying, perverted, deviant bastard! Don’t underestimate my devilishly good hearing! This is what you said: ‘You and your natural curls can go to hell, you bastard!’”
“No, I seriously did not say that.”
“You called me ‘Curly’! That’s the one thing you can’t call me! That word is banned, damn it!”
“Yeah, and I didn’t say it. Listen when people are talking...”
“I was listening! I was listening so well, I’ve got callouses on my ears! Anyway, I don’t forgive anyone who calls me ‘Curly’! That’s an executable offense! Don’t you forget it!”
“Curly,” Gangster turned around and said, “you’re annoying. Shut up.”
“...Yes, sir,” said Curly, a.k.a. Ranta, in a tiny voice. “...Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
Haruhiro shrugged. “Weren’t you never going to forgive that?”
“You moron.” Ranta said quietly. “I’m a guy who chooses the right time and place. They call me Master Choice. I’m gonna be the Decision King!”
“Yeah, you go ahead and do that...”
“I’ll become a king of discernment! Not detergent, discernment! The Decision King! That’s what I’ll be!”
“Curly,” Gangster stopped and turned around again. “Shut up.”
“Eeek!” Ranta quickly did a jumping kowtow. “I-I’m sowwy...!”
“Rather than the King of Decision,” Haruhiro said, looking down at Ranta, “why not become the King of Kowtows, instead?”
“That’s it!” Ranta raised his head and snapped his fingers. “Wait, no, that is not it! Being the King of Kowtows would be way too lame! No matter how high my kowtow skill is!”
“Curly.” Gangster sounded ready to kill him. “This is the third time.”
“Eeeeek!” Ranta did another kowtow, rubbing his forehead on the cobblestones. “I-I’m sorry! Won’t happen again! Forgive me, pleeeeeease...!”
This guy’s already the King of Kowtows, thought Haruhiro, but he decided not to say so. If he said anything, they’d probably just start arguing again, and that would be a pain. After that, they continued on in silence until Hiyomu stopped in front of a two-story stone building.
The building was flying a flag with a red crescent moon on a white field. There was a sign out front, as well. On the sign, it said, “Altern Fronter Arm Voluter Solder Cops Red Mon,” which seemed weird. On closer inspection, many of the letters had lost their color or peeled off.
“Ta-dah!” said Hiyomu, pointing at the sign. “We’ve finally arrived, yes we have. Here. It. Is! The office of the famous Volunteer Soldier Corps of the Alterna Frontier Army, Red Moon!”
Haruhiro whispered, “Red Moon,” and looked to the sign again. It made sense now. If you read it with the missing bits, it did say “Alterna Frontier Army Volunteer Soldier Corps Red Moon.”
“Come in, come in!” Hiyomu gestured them into a large room that was like a beer hall, with tables and chairs scattered around and, at the back, a counter. Behind the counter was a man with his arms crossed. Haruhiro, the others, and Hiyomu were the only other people there.
“Well, that’s it for me!” Hiyomu said with a bow to the man behind the counter. “I know I do this every time, but give them the rundown, ’kay, Bri-chan?”
The man she called Bri-chan gave a light “Righty-o” in response, and waved good-bye to her with his arms still crossed. For some reason, he shook his hips as well as waving his hand.
“I’m leaving noooow! Bye-byeeee!” Hiyomu said as she left. Once she closed the door behind her, a strange tension spread through the room. Likely because Bri-chan was closely examining Haruhiro and the others. That must have been it. After all, Bri-chan looked pretty suspicious. Way too suspicious.
Bri-chan bent over, resting both elbows on the counter, and rested his chin on top of his clasped hands. It was a cleft chin. But, well, that detail didn’t matter so much, because it was his hair color that set off warning flags. It was green. On top of that, he must have had lipstick or something on, because his lips were black. He had pale blue eyes surrounded by long, thick lashes, and though their color was beautiful, that only made him more terrifying. It seemed like he’d used rouge on his cheeks, too. He had thick makeup overall, even though, no matter how you looked at him, Bri-chan was a guy.
“Hm...” He nodded to himself a number of times, then stood up. “Very nice. Come here, my little kittens. Welcome. I’m Britney
. I’m the chief and host here at the office of Red Moon, the Volunteer Soldier Corps of the Alterna Frontier Army. You can call me Chief, but Bri-chan is fine, too. Though, if you do call me that, make sure you say it with lots of love, okay?”
“Chief,” Gangster walked straight up to the counter, cocking his head to one side. “Answer my questions. I know that this town is called Alterna. But what is this Frontier Army and Volunteer Soldier Corps stuff about? Why am I here? Do you know?”
“You’ve got spunk,” Bri-chan said with a chuckle. “I’ve got a thing for boys like you. What’s your name?”
“It’s Renji. And I hate fags like you.”
“Oh, do you now...”
For a moment, Haruhiro wasn’t sure what Bri-chan had done. His movements had been not only fast, but smooth, and all too natural.
“Renji, let me give you a tip.” Bri-chan pressed a knife against Renji’s throat, his eyes narrowing threateningly. “Nobody who calls me a fag lives for long. You look like a clever boy; I think you catch my meaning. Or do you want to try it again?”
“Well,” Renji said.
Haruhiro gulped.
Renji seized the knife’s blade with his bare hand. Though he had the blade fixed in place with his palm and fingers, there was blood dripping from the base of his thumb.
“I never wanted a long life, and I don’t care to give in to threats,” he said. “If you think you can take me, do it, Chief Fag.”
“In due time,” Bri-chan replied, licking his lips and stroking Renji’s cheek. “I’ll take you hard. As many times as I like. And when I’m done, you’ll never be able to forget me.”
“...Hey,” Ranta whispered to Haruhiro. “When he says he’ll take him, I’m pretty sure he means it a different way.”
“What way?” Braids asked Ranta with a blank look.
“Huh? Uh, well, like putting something in a place where things are supposed to come out of... Basically, uh, how do I say this? Hey, Haruhiro?”
“Don’t look to me to get you out of this. You dug this hole, get out of it by yourself.”
“You’re cold, man... You’ve got a kindness deficiency... You’re at the absolute zero of human kindness...”