Chapter 5 The Apes Get Into Paradise

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1

“I want to discuss the program for the cultural festival,” said Minato, standing on a raised platform before the students.

The exams were finished at the end of the first semester, and after the final lesson which felt like an amazing performance, the closing ceremony was held in the gym.

The principle, who only appeared in public in the past few months, praised a few club activists for good results and gave instructions for the summer break. Preparations for the festival have already started, but be patient blah-blah-blah. No one was listening.

After this we returned to our classes, where the responsible-for-us Bizon announced that, “this class period has to be used to determine what we will do during the festival”, and “respecting the independence of students”, retired to his office. To my surprise, Minato rose to the platform with initiative.

“So what should we do?” asked she, clapping her hands together. “Any ideas?”

I looked around the class, whose attention was captured by Minato, standing on the platform. No one was planning on expressing their ideas - on the contrary, the class was wrapped in apathy. A wonderful scene.

“If there are no ideas, then do you not mind to accept mine? I think, a haunted house will do. Of course a lot of time will be needed, but if we combine our efforts, it will be a piece of cake. Tomorrow, the summer break will begin, and I want to start as soon as possible, so I want to ask you to come here starting tomorrow. Any objections?” Minato blurted out in one breath, but it doesn’t sound as if she had any interest in her speech. With her whole image, she showed that there wasn’t the slightest chance to object.

“I’ll let you know if something changes, so keep checking your phones,” Minato finished and walked off the platform.

***

“Hm, any questions?”

I asked Shibata what he will be doing tomorrow, after which I placed a smartphone in his hand, stolen from a person who didn’t put a password.

“Why me..? You could’ve done everything yourself,” Shibata said, unhappy that I shoved this job on him. His expression unambiguously said that he took this request with hostility.

“If you don’t come, I won’t be able to catch the right moment.”

“The same thing again?”

“Perhaps, this time will be even rougher.”

Shibata took a deep breath.

“And if I refuse..?”

“I will ask you again.”

I looked into Shibata’s doubtful eyes. I looked closely. Silence, uncertainty, confusion, I didn’t put up with any of this, I just looked. He was still acting neutrally towards me, even knowing about the things I’ve been doing, and I was encouraging him to finally make the choice between black and white.

“It will kind of be the end of everything,” I said. My vision began to swim before me, and it seemed as if the distance to Shibata decreased, and then increased. The proximity was turning on and off, and Shibata, being vaguely visible through the veil in my eyes, nodded slowly.

Finally, tomorrow.

When I thought about it, darkness rose from the depths of my mind.

***

That same evening.

To the sounds of flutes and drums, I slid through the crowd. Wherever you look, there would be people, but you stop, you would get trampled. The summer festival of fireworks didn’t attract as many people. From time to time I glanced behind, to make sure that Minato is still following me.

“Fireworks start at eight, right?”

“I don’t remember.”

I, dressed in an unusual t-shirt and jeans for this occasion, walked by Minato, who was dressed in a yukata. When I glanced at my watch, it showed half past seven in the evening.

“You want to eat something?”

“If it’s something tasty.”

“Caramel apples are tasty.”

Looking around, I noticed a tent with the sign <fruits in caramel>, to which we headed, maneuvering through the crowd. Apples and pineapples were selling on the counter, stuck on sticks and covered in caramel.

“There are pineapples.”

“I want to try apples.”

“Ok.”

I bought a caramel apple from the seller with a bandaged head for three hundred yen and gave it to Minato.

“Uh no, you forgot to take for yourself? Give us another one please.”

From the small wallet in Minato’s latch, she took out a coin of five hundred yen and bought another apple.

“Here, Idzono-kun, it’s my treat.” And smiling to her ears, she gave it to me.

Holding the caramel apple by the stick, we walked on. Taking off the plastic wrap, we tried the candy. They didn’t distinguish us from the crowd, many were eating on the go. I licked the candy in Minato’s hand, and she licked mine. With her little tongue, Minato licked my sweet apple, a bit larger than a ping pong ball. Losing my patience, I ate the apple in one go, but Minato stuck out her pink tongue and continued licking the candy enthusiastically. And this looked utterly touching.

I couldn’t think of a subject to talk about, so we just walked around. It was strange that nothing could come to mind. We lived together, and a conversation topic should be found by itself, but here all the options flew out of the mind. We kept silent, and gradually the rumble of the crowd began to seem painfully loud.

I didn’t find the catching of goldfishes and shooting at targets particularly interesting, so I didn’t know wether Minato would agree to go there if I offered. I wouldn’t be able to stand both of us trying to show that we are having fun.

Joyful cries in the distance only aggravated everything.

“Tomorrow, right?” Minato said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“The performance.”

“You’re right… So that’s it?”

“That’s it. The farewell to everyone. The preparations weren’t easy, but now everything will happen instantly.”

“What do you mean “preparations”?”

“Many different things, many. Followed you like a tail, collected the thrown out wallets, checked everyone in the class. I don’t even know anymore how much time I wasted.

I still didn’t understand, why Minato is going down this path. Maybe she really was getting revenge, but maybe, revenge was just an excuse. And in general, I knew very little about her. But I really want to know more, although this was nothing more than my selfish desire. At the same time, I was afraid that she will tell me some tearful story and will turn into some tragic heroine for me. And everything will lead to me trying to make a hero out of me, who wants to save her. So I was glad, that I invented a story for her myself.

I asked bluntly:

“You’re talking about how you blackmailed, broke into my home, and subdued me to yourself?”

“Didn’t I already tell you, Idzono-kun?” Minato answered my question with her own and stopped. I didn’t notice how we left the alley with rows of shops. Somewhere far away, the traditional drums rumbled loudly, and then the fireworks flew into the sky.

“For what purpose are you asking me of this?”

“What do you mean, “for what purpose”?”

“Give me a hint. You’re just itching for the answer, aren’t you? I always said, that I love you, but I was simply pretending to manipulate you… What would you do, if I told you that?”

I couldn’t answer her anything. The fiery flowers flashed one after the other, tearing up the sky, as if saying goodbye to the leaving month and its last day. And I was still thinking about what to answer.

And finally I came up with something.

“I will be grateful.”

That is what I answered.

“Grateful? Seriously?”

“Mhm. Thanks to you these past two months turned out to be fun. Even if you were just pretending, I liked everything. Thank you.”

A sudden grimace appeared on Minato’s face, as if she was in extreme pain. Under the flashes of the fireworks I couldn’t see anything else - only her. And then, Minato declared through laughter:

“What’s with you, did you fall from an oak?”

Maybe so, I said and laughed too.

***

We returned home.

“Tomorrow we’re getting together in class 2-4 at ten in the morning,” she wrote to all the students.

2

Just like yesterday, Minato stood on the platform, and just like yesterday, we settled in our seats.

“Thank you all for coming today.”

Half past ten. Half an hour after the appointed time.

Minato, who put up her bangs with a clip today, paused. Everyone was sitting. Only Shibata wasn’t visible, but a suitcase was standing by his desk, so everyone understood that he did come.

“As I said yesterday, this year, class 2-4 decided to make a haunted house for the cultural festival. Let’s clap.” Minato clapped her hands on the platform.

When I followed her example, everyone else repeated after me hesitantly.

“Today we will be deciding who will be responsible for what and what exact haunted house to make. I mean, in japanese, european, or chinese style. If in chinese, then there will be hopping vampires. Do you guys know anything about chinese vampires? These guys in black clothes with talismans on their heads.”

Minato spoke selflessly, jumping from one thought to another.

“I think everyone will be used to a haunted house in a japanese style. We don’t have a lot of room, so it will be good to have it pitch black to hide the lack of space.”

She wasn’t offering anything special. Meanwhile, cicadas began to sing somewhere. And at the same time the lock clicked - the door was locked. So that the students wouldn’t lock themselves in the class, there was no keyhole from the inside of the door. We were now locked in the room.

The key was turned by Shibata - from my request. At the right time, he activated the smartphone stolen by me. He registered it on a free service email address with a random name and with fumbling fingers sent out letters from it, that became real bombs.

My phone vibrated shortly, with a dull sound. Before my phone fell silent, someone else’s phone shook. After that the whole class was full of phone sounds. The vibration stopped, but after it came another letter. The class was filled with never-ending vibrations and ringtones. All the students, one after the other began to check their phones. There, messages kept coming without an indicated subject, but instead of text there was an indicator of an embedded image. The photos contained Tanabe. Naked. Her breasts. Groin. A sperm sprayed face.

With each new letter, the pointer went down and showed a new indicator of an image.

The class scanned them together, and Tanabe turned pale. The guys looked at her with curiosity, the girls - with disgust. The place where Tanabe Kyoko sat, the second desk to the back in the centre row, became the centre of the class.

The buzz in the class increased, as if forty year old computers were working everywhere. The reddened Tanabe stood up and walked through the desks, and the crowd moved before her like the sea before Moses. Stopping at one of the desks, Tanabe glared at the guy sitting in it. At Hara. Looking down at him, she grabbed him by the collar. The guy shook, and the chair under him screeched terribly and tell over. Tanabe began to scream something inarticulate.

And here I finally understood: she thought that the photos are being sent out by Hara. What a dumb*ss. And while she was screaming, we became the witnesses of a wonderful scene.

Tanabe took the scissors from Hara’s table.

She opened up the blades to the maximum, making a cross. This is the way scissors are held before someone’s hands will be covered in blood.

Heavily breathing, Tanabe angrily glared at Hara, but he simply smiled in return. He seemed to be admiring a dangerous animal, locked in a cage.

Try it, if you can.

Try to kill me.

That’s what Hara’s expression said.

Tanabe raised the scissors above her head and stopped.

And here.

Clap… clap… clap.

The clapping of hands was heard.

The sound came from an elevation, where stood Minato. Looking at her, I also began to clap. Our actions had a contagious effect, and the people around me joined in. Surely many didn’t understand the reason, but the applause was transmitted from one to the other, like an infection. Even if someone didn’t understand why, when one student began, the neighboring one involuntarily mimicked him, and the office was filled with the claps.

Just try to kill.

Tanabe’s face twisted.

Minato walked off the platform and tugged at the front door handle. The locked door gave a distinctive dull sound. I checked the back door, which also made the low sound.

Tanabe’s face swelled like wax on a burning candle.

I lifted my right hand to my neck. Put the index and middle finger together and ran them across my throat.

In the centre of the class, Hara grabbed Tanabe’s hand. The shaking hand with the scissors. Slowly he led it to her neck and looked at the girl closely.

“Quickly,” said he.

“Die,” he ordered.

Forty people were gazing at Tanabe, and each gaze was different. Curiosity. Disgust. Mock. Bewilderment. Confusion. Shock. And something else. These were the looks that surrounded her from everywhere. Everyone made their contribution to trample Tanabe. Slowly but surely, she turned into nothing.

I remembered the scene I saw in the park, thanks to Hara. The huge flock of pigeons, ripping up a single piece of bread. A swarming gray mass of a multitude of living creatures, driven by one goal. The grey mass, wriggling like earth worms or leeches and devouring food without leftovers.

Tanabe is right in the centre.

Encouraged by the claps, she tightened her grip on the scissors. Hara let go of her hand, and the girl slowly brought it to her neck.

The grey mass only stops its movements, when there is no more feed.

That’s how it was a year ago.

Tanabe, you understood it, don’t you?

Tanabe slowly pressed the open blades to her neck and submerged it under her skin.

We clapped our hands again.

Come on, don’t stop.

Tear yourself apart.

Tanabe tore her skin, and blood gushed out of her neck, pulsating like a waterfall, watering Hara and a few others near him. The blood flowed out of the wound as if from a hole in a leather bottle with water.

Tanabe froze for a few seconds, and then shook from dizziness. It might have seemed that she had fainted, like an anemic girl on a date, but, looking at the fountain of blood it was easy to see that she was actually in pain. Tanabe’s legs buckled, and she fell onto Hara’s desk, who barely managed to get out of the way.

Tearing off the someone-else’s-blood-soaked hair and clothes from his skin, Hara looked down at Tanabe, who was spread on the table. Interested in what was with her, I got up and looked at her from afar.

Hara sat back down, rested his elbows on his knees and examined the dead body. Still sitting, he stretched out his hand and touched Tanabe’s left breast. The blood from her neck stained the blouse, and the undergarments shone through it whose colour was now impossible to determine. Hara groped the chest and squeezed it.

The scissors fell out of Tanabe’s hands and hit the floor. The loud sound returned everyone to reality, but no one moved.

Hara picked up the scissors, opened them and began to cut off the buttons on Tanabe’s blouse, one after the other. When he cut off the fourth, the blouse opened up, exposing Tanabe’s upper body. Hara shifted the yellow bra, the left part of which was reddened from blood so that a nipple was exposed. He flipped over the short skirt, showing off the panties. Still sitting, Hara ran a finger over them and licked the blood stained nipple.

The muscles of the dead girl relaxed, and urine flowed down her legs. The blood dripped from desk to the floor and mixed with the urine in one puddle. Arai, sitting behind Hara, fell over onto her knees, she began to vomit. The smells of vomit, urine, and blood mixed into a disgusting bouquet, in which space for a corpse smell wasn’t left.

Fushimi, sitting a few metres away rose to his feet and turned to Hara with a glazed look. Fushimi’s body stiffened, but after a few seconds softened, and he began to hobble. The people standing nearby tried to stop him. Then finally one of the girls screamed, but the scream resembled more of the sound of a broken tv.

The people around Fushimi grabbed him by the arms. Resisting, Fushimi took out a knife from his pocket, made an arc in the air with the blade and accidentally slashed Nakanishi’s right shoulder. To the smells of vomit, blood, and urine, the smell of sweat was added, and someone else vomited. Covered in blood, Nakanishi pulled a mop out of a cleaning container and directed it at Fushimi. Sasaki and Ogawa also both grabbed mops and repeated after their classmate. And the way Fushimi moved back in fear, looked so absurd it could lead to laughter.

A circle was formed very quickly around Fushimi, and those guys that didn’t want to be included, stepped back and headed for the exit.

But. The surrounded Fushimi screamed. The people around him, not saying anything, gestured for him to drop the knife. I say by the exit, and the ones wishing to escape made a foolish fuss by me. Behind me, as if an infant, Takemura crawled on all fours.

Hara removed the urine soaked panties and threw them away.

Takemura stretched out his hand to the exit behind my back, and the locked door screeched in protest. Nakanishi hit with the mop’s handle, and its corner drowned in Fushimi’s stomach. Fushimi threw the knife. It pierced Murakami’s stomach, who stood by Nakanishi, and more blood started to pour out. Sasaki banged Fushimi with the mop, who didn’t have any experience with weapons. Screams were heard again and again, but what was yelled was impossible to make out. A bunch of people rushed back and forth between the front door and the back door. To prevent me from getting knocked over, I took a few steps to the side.

Hara stuck his finger inside Tanabe.

The avalanche of people slammed Takemura into the door he was trying to open. Painful! You will crush me! His low yells quickly died out. The dumb jerks were ready to break themselves against the door, just to knock it out.

But this wasn’t happening in a manga, and the door turned wasn’t that easy to knock out. The support rollers were bent, and the sliding doors were completely jammed. But the people were still pushing it. I walked up to the platform. Fushimi was already gone from view. Takahashi already had his knife, blood sparkling from the blade. The handle of a mop stuck into Takahashi’s eye socket, and a transparent liquid with red specks poured out of it.

What is it like when the eyeball is being crushed? This is the first time I’ve seen something like this.

Again, dozens of phones began to ring. Their resonance amid the horrible noise of the crowd set off a new wave of panic. The messages to the students’ phones - ugly with horror, locked in this class - were sent by us. Those who were still sitting at their desks, keeping their minds sane, jumped up nervously, and their thoughts surrendered under the attack of the chaos.

Come on, it’s time to rot.

I waited a lot.

Everyone’s killing, so you should too.

Don’t you love what everyone is doing?

The rules of the class, are the rules for everyone. The rules for everyone are determined by everyone. The fact that someone is being bullied is done with overall permission. This is how they work.

Everyone is killing now, so you should too.

I stared at how the fools hesitated.

There was nothing surprising in the fact that some people would get over excited and fall into a panic in this turmoil. Somehow with intuition, you can understand that they’re looking for forgiveness and in the end, the suppressed anger explodes from within.

Hara took his finger out of Tanabe and glanced at it.

“Though dead, she’s still wet,” he said.

Trying to escape through the window, Nomura placed her foot on the window frame. Someone pushed Noda, who slightly touched the girl’s shoulder. With waving arms, Nomura fell. Iwata, an unteachable idiot, also tried to escape through the window and also fell. Fourth floor. If they wouldn’t fall back into the class they could die.

The mobile phones didn’t stop vibrating.

I climbed the platform where Minato stood and observed the class.

There was an excellent view from there. With horrifying howls, some fools were killing, others attempted to escape, and the third were dying.

Outside, some teacher started screaming. In the window on the door, appeared her face. Katai. She threw a glance into the class and was stupefied.

The small world of the small schoolchildren was falling apart.

I made sure that there was no one hiding under the teacher’s desk, and took Minato by the hand.

And I laughed, admiring the madness before us.

3

“I’ll inform your parents,” Bizon said. When I gave him the phone number of the hospital where my dad lay, a car door closed behind me.

After this, the teachers, holding fire extinguishers, rushed back into the class. Some of them threw up, and immediately became useless. And those who were able to move, pacified the resisting students and dragged them to a different room. Simply speaking, what the adults were doing was just beating teenagers until they lost their consciousness. And when they would begin to come round with great difficulty, unable to put two words together, they weren’t allowed to sit calmly, as their guardians were called and they were sent home.

They weren’t able to get to my mother, so I was led to the car of the class leader. We’ll probably call the police later, was the only thing Bizon said in the sedan, in which he drove to work.

No one knew how many people from our class weren’t affected. However, so many ambulances and patrol cars appeared at the school that the fingers on both hands wouldn’t be enough to count them. Flashing beacons illuminated the schoolyard in red, an amazing scene.

Laughing from time to time, I opened the door of my own house, and despite the early hour, fell into my bed and quickly fell asleep. It was enough to turn off the lights, in the room that sunlight didn’t reach, and darkness would fall upon it straight away.

I fell into a deep sleep.

Dreams visited me one after the other. Every time I woke up, I wanted to see the continuation and fell back asleep. I forgot the contents of the dreams, but they seemed important enough to finish watching them no matter what. When I got enough sleep, the short arrow on the clock pointed at one.

I didn’t know whether this was one in the day or one at night. So I ran a finger along my phone screen, laying at the head of the bed, and narrowed my eyes from the abrupt light. It showed eight past two, telling me that I almost slept for a whole day. While I was sleeping, I missed a bunch of missed calls from Shibata. My throat was terribly dry and when I tried to say something out loud, my voice sounded disgustingly hoarse. Somehow opening up my basically stuck together eyelids, I rubbed my eyes. I stood up and walked over to the fridge to pour me water. It was as if there was some vacuum in my stomach and I was feeling nauseous. I gnawed on a few toasts, took a shower and finally felt like a normal person.

When I sat in the living room because there was nothing to do, my phone vibrated:

Shibata was calling.

<Hello?>

“Hello.”

<I-Idzono?! It’s me, Shibata?>

“Ah.”

His voice was trembling for some reason

“I haven’t done anything. Our stupid comrades murdered each other themselves.”

<Murdered, yeah.>

“Did you clear and drown that phone in the toilet?”

<Mhm.>

“Then everything is fine.”

Silence.

I was waiting for the end buzzer, but Shibata wasn’t hanging up. He spoke up again.

Shibata spoke restlessly, not understanding what his actions led to. And I began to tell him everything that happened. How the photos sent by Shibata affected the class. How big the explosion was that happened because of them. Letters, images, scissors, claps. Blood. Death.

For some time, Shibata kept listening, and then burst out laughing for a long time.

With all my heart, I felt that I crossed a certain line.

<You’re so broken…> With a barely audible whisper, my classmate repeated what the phrase he once said.

This concluded our conversation. Shibata called me broken, but at the same time called me out for dinner, so he wasn’t afraid of me. Very surprising.

I ordered pizza to my house, and connected a game console to my tv. Without stopping, I ate the pizza and played. Three days late, a policeman appeared accompanied by my teacher and asked me to talk to him, but only grimaced from my story.

Somehow photos were sent by mail, on which Tanabe was having sex, Tanabe went crazy, people clapped, she killed herself, then Fushimi went crazy, people tried to stop him, everyone lost their minds and began to die one after the other.

From such a story, the young, about twenty years old, police officer was obviously disgusted.

I repeated the same thing over and over again, and he just couldn’t digest what he heard.

I was asked whether I knew anything about what had preceded the incident, but I answered, nothing. When the interrogation was finished, I wanted to talk with Minato and called her a bunch of times, but she didn’t answer.

***

About two weeks passed, and Shibata called me for lunch. Although nothing luxurious was meant by this, we went to a private booth in a conveyer restaurant. We could have also taken alcohol, but weren’t in the mood, so we just got some snacks and slowly gnawed on them.

Two weeks passed, yet there were still no suspects, so Shibata, whose voice sounded very nervous last time, quite unlike him, now regained his composure, and his gaze returned to its normal cynical one. In addition, Shibata talked about the incident as a complete stranger and was only worrying about whether it was also his responsibility, even though he didn’t take part in the action himself.

“There will be no second semester for us. The school will close down.”

“Right. By the way… how many people died?”

“No clue.”

“The news didn’t say?”

“Well, the newsmen didn’t want to announce much. They barely said anything, they kept silent about the number of victims. Haven’t you seen it on tv yourself?”

“Nope. I was stuck at home, didn’t watch tv, and didn’t go onto the net.”

“Wow. You’re just like some caveman. So what have you been doing?”

“Playing.”

“Not a caveman. And what did you eat?”

“Pizza delivered to my house.”

“Three times a day?”

“I didn’t eat breakfast in the morning, so twice a day.”

“You’re some marginal then.”

“It was stupid of them to not let us leave our homes, but my parents didn’t return anyways.”

“I didn’t know that it was possible to live only on pizza.”

Chuckling, Shibara sipped his oolong tea. A pile of ice cubes were poured into the glass and they were melting in the blink of an eye. Wetting his throat, Shibata said again:

“We will probably be transferred to a different class.”

“Of course.”

“That’s strained.”

“What’s there to do, you can’t just put together people that killed each other.”

“Well yeah. And in general, I think, the school will also have to be changed. Who would want to learn with the same person who was with him in that ill-fated class?”

“Mhm. It’s interesting, where would we go, if it gets to that.”

“I don’t know. But if I was the principal, I’d definitely shove everyone as far as possible.”

We both laughed. Our present disintegrated, like an air castle, and we seemed to be soaring in the air, losing our support beneath our legs. Any adult looking at us now, would probably think that we overplayed video games and would have hit us on the ears. Feeling a light hunger, we stood up from the table and left the restaurant.

“I wonder if Hara will still be bullied until the transfer?” I whispered suddenly, looking at the gloomy sky, lighted by streetlights.

“Hara, will probably get out of the hospital first.”

“What? He wasn’t badly hurt, was he?”

“Huh, you haven’t heard?” Shibata said surprised. “Hara’s not himself right now. Though before he was all easy-going and calm, there are rumours that he went “crazy”.” His tone sounded, as if he was talking about rainy whether. “He will have to receive medical treatment.”

Shibata became silent.

“Where is he doing to undergo treatment?”

“You’re right, and where?”

“You don’t know?”

With silent giggles, we shook our heads.

We imagined adults gathering around Hara and saying, “You get better.” What is Hara’s disease, no one understands. No one understands what they’re supposed to “make better”. People around will just tell him again and again to get better. But it seemed to me that he wouldn’t get better until the whole class would surround him and ask for forgiveness for everything.

Be that as it may, this news didn’t bring me happiness.

4

I went straight home.

I opened the gate, then turned the key in the lock of my house, and here a strange feeling overtook me. When I turned the key to the left, the door turned out to be unlocked already. Although I had to have locked it when I left. Did I really make a mistake and not lock the door properly? When I pulled on the door handle, the door opened.

Entrance hall.

Angry at my own memory, I decided to take my shoes off and noticed here that further along the narrow hall, there was light coming from the living room. And here I remembered. About the one person who made themselves a duplicate of the house key. We haven’t seen each other only two weeks, but they seemed so long, that I wanted to meet again with a great passion.

I wonder with what expression she would meet me?

Feeling impatience and anxiety at the same time, I opened the door to the living room.

Made a step inside, then another.

And was hit by something heavy over my head.

I flew into the wall, and the home phone fell. It hung on its wire, dangling, and hit my head a few times. Low waiting beeps escaped it. A swinging metal club flashed before me. A dull pain seized my head, my eyes lost focus, and everything swam before me.

I transferred my gaze from the tip of the club to the hand holding it, and saw peoples’ faces there. One, two, three, four. Guy, girl, guy, guy. They stood in the kitchen, just to the left of the door.

What just happened? Chaos reigned in my thoughts. The scene before me was going in and out of focus, as if someone was setting the focus on a digital camera. Someone was saying something, but it was difficult for me to understand these words. Pain pulsated through my broken head, and my ability to focus was worsening with each beat of my heart.

“To murder so many. It’s fun, isn’t it?”

I managed to distinguish a woman’s voice, the girl with the metal club was speaking.

I finally understood. Ishihara.

Tanabe once called me to talk and took Ishihara with her for sheer quantity. If I remember correctly, a guy named Nakata who I met at the literature club. His left eye was covered with a bandage, perhaps it was beat. The names of the other two I forgot, but all four were in the same class as me. And they were standing on the wooden floor with dirty shoes, which angered me even more.

“What murders are you on about?” I asked, with my back leaning against the wall. I tried to stand, but my body seemed to be full of lead.

“What do you think?! You were the one who killed Kyoko!”

“Who?”

“Huh?... Playing the fool! Tanabe Kyoko, Tanabe Kyoko!”

Interrupting each other, the people stood directly in front of me, and in the light of the fluorescent lamp, I saw the splashes of saliva, coming from the speaker’s mouth, and the pimples that densely inhabited their skin between the chin and throat.

“She killed herself.”

“Who killed themselves?! It was you who sent all those photos?!”

“Huh? What are you on about?” I tried to smile, and then Nakata with the bandaged eye grabbed his smartphone, from the main dynamics of which a voice mixed with sounds was heard. Judging by the quality, he turned on some voice recording. There was a dull sound, as if a metal object hit another.

A male voice.

“Idzono, what’d you put in there?” Talking to me, the voice belonged to Shibata.

“A mobile.”

“Whose?”

“Fushimi.”

The blood poured out of my head as fast as if it was on a falling elevator.

“Why do you have his phone?”

“I accidentally found it, by accident.”

Shibata looked at me with obvious distrust.

“And how did you know, that it was lost by Fushimi?”

“Huh? W-well… I dug through it.”

The image before my eyes faded, and my head emptied rapidly.

Who made this recording? How’d these guys enter my house? Who gave them this recording? Who gave them the key?

There was only one answer. Only one person could do all this.

Ishihara raised the club before her and dropped it. I immediately tried to dodge, and got hit on my left shoulder. Together with a vibration, sharp pain shot through my body, and I groaned involuntarily. My shoulders skewed, and the left became visibly lower than the right. A fracture? A dislocation? Or both at the same time?

When I rested my left elbow on the floor and tried to stand, I felt a sharp pain again.

Holding myself with the right hand, I tried to get up, and was hit again on the sides of my legs. I managed to not fall, perhaps only thanks to the right hand resting on the wall. Another blow into my face, and I felt a thick stream of blood on my throat, coming from my nose. Looking at my condition, Ishihara added a kick. She grabbed me by my neck and attempted to grad me across the floor, but didn’t have enough strength, and she cried out to the guys: “Help me!”

This seemed funny to me, and I began to laugh. Ishihara looked at me menacingly. And I said:

“Well, what do you know, everything is holding up on Ishihara? Are you not ashamed, for shoving all the work on girls? Nakata, are you listening? Shoving everything on hysterics? And what is this look even? Your hands are empty? You could’ve taken some bat for decency, like Ishihara. How were you planning to kill?”

I understood. Hitting me with the metal stick on my head was their limit. This was all their courage was capable of. None of them could do anything more. Garbage, what else is there to them.

I wanted to kill.

Blood flowed from the dissected temple, flowed in a stream around the ear and descended to my neck. Ignoring the blood drenched shirt sticking to my skin, I continued speaking. My left shoulder was still disgustingly lowered.

“Hey, Ishihara, give Nakata the club.”

Ishihara stared at me.

“Give it to him.”

I grabbed the metal club by the opposite end, directed at me, and pulled. The handle slid smoothly out of Ishihara’s hands and I gave it to the person near her.

“Come on, Nakata.” The club thrown by me hit the floor. “You came to open up my skull, did you not? You’re in the right spot, do you hear me? What are you waiting for?”

Laughing, I tapped my head, split from the pain, with my fingertip. And the guys that came here to finish me, stood in the narrow living room as if paralyzed, just staring at me.

“Why did you even come here at all? To stupidly stand and gawk? Stop suffering, trash.”

Ishihara left to the cramped kitchen. Nakata remained before me, and I poked him in the shoulder with my right hand, stole his wallet from his pocket and threw it at the astonished guy. It was difficult to move the hardened left hand, and the painful right. Nakata didn’t even understand what happened.

“If you can’t do anything, get the f*ck out of here. Write your sh*tty stories in your club and lick your wounds.”

As if breaking off his chain, the reddened Nakata grabbed the club lying at his feet. I put my foot on it, opened the cupboard underneath the sink, took a knife out of there and drove it into the shoulder of the bent over Nakata. The blade rested at the bone and stopped right away.

Nakata screamed, and I removed my leg from the club, swung it and hit the knife’s handle, driving the knife a few centimetres deeper.

After that I continued waving the club with all my might. Ignoring the broken glass scattered around the kitchen, I sent the club at the heads of my classmates. Hit it once, it got the head. Hit another time, it got the chest.

I swung the club again and again. Until the classmates, whose names I didn’t even remember, fell unconscious.

“Minato?” I asked. Then clarified my question, to make it understandable. “The recording was given to you by Minato?”

I stepped over Nakata, running out of blood by the fridge, and asked Ishihara the question. The knife was still sticking out of Nakata’s shoulder blade, and he could’ve easily taken it out and attack me from behind. He could’ve easily killed me.

“Uh-h-h.”

“Answer the question.” A swing with the club, a sideboard smashed to smithereens. “Did Minato Rica give you the recording?”

Ishihara’s empty hands fell helpless to her body, she nodded.

“And the key?”

Another nod.

“And if I had came earlier, what would you have done?”

Silence.

“Although you had a spare key, you wouldn’t be able to prepare the ambush if I came earlier! So I am asking, what would you have done!”

I tightened my grip on the club.

“W-w-we knew… where you were.”

“How?”

“In-in the phone… In our phones, we got a program of GPS tracking.”

I poked around in my pocket and took out my phone, very slowly because of the whole situation.

“Get your phone,” I ordered Ishihara, took her cell and touched the screen. Locked.

“What’s the password?”

She didn’t answer.

The metal club drove into Ishihara’s stomach, the girl moaned and fell into a coughing fit.

“Eight, one, nine, two…”

I touched the screen a few times and it unlocked.

“Where did you see my location?”

“In browser…”

I opened it hastily. A white circle spun, and the program appeared on the screen. A red dot flashed on the familiar map. It was impossible to understand, which floor it was pointing at, but located exactly on the house where I lived.

The battery on my phone died, and I charged it. The dross remained behind the closed door of the drawing room. I turned on the other phone and carefully examined the map. A low-charge warning appeared on the screen.

Having put on my shoes, I opened the door. I left the idiots, who weren’t able to kill me in the house, and I stepped outside. The dangling left hand ached, as if creaking from the pain, but my legs quickly led me forward.

Two smartphones and a wallet in my pocket.

And a right hand, able to steal anything.

In the end, my weapons were limited to this.

***

Turning on my phone again, I pressed it between my index and middle finger, and the other one, between my index and thumb.

Looking at how mine was loading, I transferred my gaze to the other device, and when I took it out of sleep mode, the screen showed my location again. I opened a new tab in browser and looking at my phone, put in a URL.

The page refreshed, now it was showing the map of a different place with a point on it.

I sprinted there.

My body burned as if the blood boiled and flowed in the opposite direction.

I just ran.

I thought of taking a taxi, but in the end didn’t use one.

I went on my own two, pushing away from the earth with great strength legs.

Time went passed ten in the evening. I ran out of the almost emptied sleep region. From time to time looking at my phone screen, refreshing the map, checking whether the destination changed, and continued running.

I jumped onto another street, more alive. I ran past some girl, and my phone flew into the purse on her shoulder.

I sped up. Got tangled in my own feet and fell forward. My two hands ached from their meeting with the asphalt, and I landed right on the twisted left shoulder.

A throbbing pain pierced me.

I had to shift the displaced shoulder. Painful. The pain was binding, but I didn’t succumb to it.

I strained both my hands and ran again.

Bicycle signal, car signals. I didn’t care about them. All of you, f*ck off me.

My legs creaked under the pressure of a fifty kilogram body.

I swung my hands with such force that they nearly fell off, and my shoulders howled with unbearable pain.

My lungs almost burst from each breath that was too big.

My heart, from which the whole body required blood, worked to deterioration.

Just you crack.

If you’re breaking, then break altogether.

People can’t tolerate pain, because they feel bad for themselves.

I didn’t feel bad.

I just ran.

Ran.

Rushed.

Rushed. Rushed. Rushed.

The path went down, and my legs confidently led me down the slope. There a small hill was waiting for me. On it, lonely swings, bench, lamp, and hedge, well-made, but not needed for anyone.

And there. Slowly swinging on the swings.

While I was at a loss for choosing words, Minato Rica noticed my appearance.

Minato Rica stopped the swing in an instant, made a few steps towards me and spoke.

***

“Is there something wrong, Idzono-kun?” It sounded so ordinary, that I was dumbfounded at first, but then, as if pulling out a fuse, answered:

“Why did you betray me?”

“I didn’t betray you. Didn’t I tell you?” She fell silent, to draw air into her chest. “We’ll kill everyone.”

I smiled vaguely.

“Go ahead and kill. Ishihara and Nakata are more alive than anyone.”

“I know. So I gave them the recording and the spare key.”

“Thanks to you they ambushed me.”

“But they got beat by you?”

“I didn’t kill them.”

“I don’t mean that you killed them.”

Minato spoke of this like it was something funny, forcing me to smile.

“I think, they were feeling a sense of loss. If I say it like that, will you understand?”

Just like that, as if passing by, Minato gave out the reason of her betrayal, or rather, the reason she destroyed the class to its foundation.

“Understood.” I said with one word, that I understood everything.

What exactly.

If you destroy your environment, completely break all the ties, you will experience some sense of loss. Passionately wanting to feel it, she did all this.

A surprisingly simple motive.

With this she sympathized with me.

I acted the exact same way.

I perceived the surrounding people in a mechanical way, I cooled to almost everything, and the state, in which nothing was able to stir up some emotion, strangled and tormented me.

This is why I imagined how everything is collapsing and crumpling.

If such a calamity happened, even such an unimpressive guy like me, would feel something. This is that meaningless, disgusting, hypocritical wish.

Now I understood this.

“How did you find out, where I was?” Minato asked in her turn.

“You have keychain on your phone?”

Minato took out her phone from her pocket. Since the time of the game centre, a keychain in the shape of a small dog dangled from it. Then I couldn’t even imagine that it would all turn out like this.

“Open the zipper on its back.”

Minato somehow unzipped the sewn zipper on the back of the keychain dog and took out a piece of plastic the size of two-three five hundred yen coins put together.

“GPS?”

“Right...”

“Of course I am. When I was preparing the plan, I used them so many times.”

Preparing the plan. This is how she described her actions, leading to the massacre. And I understood it perfectly. What other explanation was there to how she found out where Fushimi and Tanabe, and Kiyama and Katai were f*cking. Minato wanted to achieve her goal so badly that even she got frustrated.

“I left it there a few days before your disappearance. I got worried, so it goes.” I said.

I was tormented by stupid thoughts of what I should do, if Minato disappeared suddenly.

“With your actions, you took away the sense of loss from me.”

“Forgive me.”

“I tried to love you, and in the end I succeeded.”

However, it didn’t work. Because then, the thing that happened, happened. Something changed, she blindly believed in her chosen one, tried to hold on to the love in her, abandoned him, but it didn’t work.

“I didn’t suit you?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a pity,” I said, lost in words. “I love you.”

Minato looked at me. And then, as if joking, said:

“What are you on about? There is blood coming out of your head because of me. And you still love me?”

I touched my temples. The bleeding stopped, the skin on my neck was pulled into a film of mixed dry blood and sweat.

“I don’t know. But I still love you.”

With my index and middle finger I rubbed the dried blood, and it stuck to the tips.

“Stop it…”

Ignoring Minato’s word, I continued:

“You’re sweet, and said that you love me. You even fulfilled my desire to kill everyone. You’re too perfect, I even feel guilty myself.”

This is why I endured the distance between us.

“You’re such a b*tch for betraying me.”

Because of this.

“Because of this, I love you. You are too perfect for me. You’re a b*tch, who doesn’t feel guilt. That’s why I’m telling you this now. I love you.”

Minato made a few steps towards me and stopped.

She was shorter than me, and when she lowered her head, I lost sight of her face.

Minato approached and then clung to me, and then rose to her toes. Slowly raised her right hand, straightened out the index and middle finger and dragged them along my neck.

I didn’t die. Minato couldn’t kill me.

And then.

“Idio-o-ot.”

And Minato laughed playfully.