“Hey.”
“Hm?”
“I actually know someone who’s got a crush on you.”
Now it was Noriko’s turn to open her eyes wide. “Really? Why me?” She said this innocently, but the expression on her face vanished quickly. Shuya saw the fading light from the window reflected as an obscure rectangle in her pupils. She asked, “Is he a classmate?”
Shuya slowly shook his head. As he recalled those warm eyes, he thought, damn, how nice and peaceful it would have been just to be able to get worried over a romantic triangle involving a longtime friend. But that would never happen. No siree. It just won’t.
“No.”
Noriko looked somewhat relieved as she looked down at the knees of her skirt and only mumbled, “I see.” Then she looked up and said, “So who could it be? I wasn’t in any clubs or teams. And I don’t have friends in any of the other classes.”
Shuya shook his head. “I’m not telling. I’ll tell you once we’re out of here.”
Noriko looked slightly skeptical, but didn’t pursue the matter.
After they fell silent for a while Shuya looked up at the ceiling. Even though tidiness was mandatory in a clinic, the fluorescent light hanging here had dusty covers. The lights didn’t work. They couldn’t turn them on anyway even if they did.
“Megumi-san—” he said. He added the polite “san” to her name. Boys can be so fickle, “…and Yukiko-san. If it’s true… what could they have possibly liked about me?”
It was becoming pitch black, but Noriko appeared to be smiling a little. “You mind if I share my opinion?”
“Sure.”
Noriko tilted her head. “Everything about you.”
Shuya chuckled and shook his head, “What do you mean?”
“That’s what it means to love someone.” Noriko’s suddenly sounded serious. “Isn’t that how you feel about that girl?”
Shuya thought of Kazumi Shintani’s face. He thought about it. He hesitated, but thought he should be honest. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“If it’s not, then it’s not real,” Noriko said as if she were amused and then let out a quiet laugh.
“What?”
“I’m jealous. Even in this situation, it’s still hard.”
Shuya looked at her face—it was no longer discernible in the dark—and hesitated whether he should tell her, but then decided he should be honest with her.
“I can relate to the guy who had a crush on you though.”
Noriko looked up at Shuya. Her well-defined brows seemed to quiver slightly. Her lips seemed to be forming a slightly melancholic smile.
“You’re so wonderful,” Shuya said.
“That’s nice to hear even if it’s not true.”
“But it is.”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
Shuya opened his eyes wide as if asking, “What is it?” but he wasn’t sure whether Noriko could see his reaction. Noriko then leaned over slightly and gently put both of her hands on Shuya’s upper arms, putting her head against his shoulder. Her shoulder-length short hair brushed up against Shuya’s cheeks and ears.
They remained like this for quite some time until the dimness outside the window turned into moonlight.
46
Before the dusk turned to darkness, Hirono Shimizu (Female Student No. 10) emerged from the thicket she’d been hiding in and proceeded west. It was unbearable. Her body was on fire as if she were walking in a desert under a burning sun.
Water.
She needed water.
Kaori Minami had shot her in the upper left arm. After tearing open the sleeve of her sailor suit drenched in blood, she discovered the bullet had penetrated her arm. The skin on the exit wound was torn up
badly. It seemed the bullet had barely missed the major blood vessels. The torn sleeve she wrapped around her arm as a bandage seemed to have stopped the bleeding for a while. But then… the wound started to burn and the sensation spread all over her body. The initial chill was replaced by a numbing heat. By the time Sakamochi made his announcement at 6 p.m. Hirono had finished off her entire supply of water. After she killed Kaori she ran approximately two hundred meters away from Shuya and hid in the thicket, but she ended up using a lot of water in her attempt to clean her wound (which she ended up deeply regretting).
Almost two hours had passed since then. For a while she’d been sweating profusely underneath her uniform, but now she wasn’t sweating at all. Most likely she was approaching dehydration. In other words, unlike Noriko Nakagawa, Hirono was actually suffering from septicemia. And because she hadn’t disinfected her wound, it came on quickly. Of course she had no way of knowing any of this.
The only thing she knew was that she needed water.
As she cautiously moved through the green woods of the mountain, Hirono’s head spun with thoughts of hatred towards Kaori Minami. Her burning body and thirst only intensified these thoughts.
Hirono Shimizu had no intention of trusting anyone in this game. Of course she’d been tight with Mitsuko Souma forever, and according to student number she immediately preceded Mitsuko. So if she’d managed to avoid Hiroki Sugimura, who came in between their departures, she could have met up with Mitsuko, but she chose not to. Because she knew how terrifying Mitsuko really was. Like when Mitsuko took on a bad-girl leader from another school (who’d by then become the mistress of a yakuza gangster). That girl ended up getting run over by a car. The injury was nearly fatal. Mitsuko didn’t say anything about it, but Hirono knew Mitsuko had some guy do it. There were plenty of guys willing to do anything for Mitsuko.
If Hirono had decided to meet up with Mitsuko, Mitsuko would have probably used her as much as possible only to finally shoot her in the back. Even though she was part of the group too, the somewhat clueless Yoshimi Yahagi might trust Mitsuko (which reminded her of how Yoshimi was dead, and Hirono had a hunch that Mitsuko was the one who killed her), but Hirono was having none of that.
She couldn’t imagine trusting anyone else in her class. The ones who acted nice were the ones that wouldn’t think twice about killing the others now. She might have only been fifteen years old, but those fifteen years had taught her that much.
At the same time though she wasn’t too thrilled about killing off her classmates. She’d done prostitution and drugs, and she constantly fought with her parents who treated her like a lost cause, but murder was taboo. Of course the rules of the game permitted it, so it wasn’t a crime here—but while she’d done some bad things, they were never all that harmful towards others. Even though she’d prostituted herself, compared to other girls who pretended to be proper at the same time that they “phone-dated” (she knew Mayumi Tendo was one of those), at least she went the whole nine yards working with professionals through her connection with Mitsuko Souma. As for drugs, what was wrong with asserting her individual freedom to choose? And it wasn’t like she was putting the mall’s cosmetics department out of business by stealing stuff from there. They have huge capital backing anyway. Yes, she bullied others around, but they deserved it. And as far as her fights with students from other schools, they all knew they were out to hurt each other and what they were in for. I mean, come on, grow up. In any case, she was not the kind of girl who’d go around murdering people. She knew that much.
But, but…
…it was different if she had to defend herself. And if she ended up surviving in this game, then she’d open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Or if time ran out and she died—her thoughts weren’t very clear on this matter. Anyway there was nothing she could do about that.