Chapter 116 - Episode 103: A Story of Starting to Run on a Stolen Bike
The Academy Arc ends with this, court adjourned!
From next time, we will enter the final stage.
The boy, who had somehow managed to leave the scene while confused by Rei's sudden confession, was hurriedly heading toward the classroom assigned to him. He wanted to be alone now. If he continued talking with someone any longer, he felt like his head would go crazy.
Whether they had finished the barricade construction work, several female students led by Aki were walking down the hallway from in front of the boy. These girls, who had showered the boy with sharp gazes mixed with wariness and fear when he first came to the academy, now greeted him when they passed in the hallway or met eyes, as if they were interacting with a friend. But right now, he didn't even want to hear a greeting. To the boy who tried to pass by their side at a jog while ignoring the greeting, Aki called out from behind.
"Ah, that's right, I forgot. Sensei said to give this to you."
To the boy who shouldn't have stopped but reflexively did, Aki pressed a folded piece of copy paper she had taken out from her pocket. Between the present and this paper, that teacher seems to be forgetful about something. While thinking such a thing, the boy who opened the folded copy paper had his gaze nailed to the characters printed there.
"Career path survey...?"
"Yep. Though it's not the names of universities you want to go to like in the old days; Sensei said to write what you want to do next year. Like a New Year's resolution?"
Aki and the others seemed to be having fun. Come to think of it, since the Christmas party, it felt like the opportunities to see them laughing had increased. Yuko's attempt to give the students bright feelings might have been a success.
"What did you write?"
"For now, like, making a boyfriend. How about you?"
"I wrote that I'll lose 5 kilos. Well, my weight has been continuing to decrease all this year anyway."
Watching the students whose conversation was blooming, the boy felt something like a dark emotion spreading in his heart. Why can you be so happy? As soon as those words floated into his mind, he had crushed the career path survey in his hand into a ball.
"...Ridiculous. What New Year's resolution? Even though I and all of you might be dead tomorrow, let alone next year, there's no meaning in something like this."
"No, why are you getting so serious...?"
"In the first place, you guys are too easygoing! Even though your friends and teacher were nearly killed just the other day, you're carefree enough to have a Christmas party and New Year's resolutions... Don't you understand that things are different now from the old days?!"
At the boy who suddenly raised a loud voice, the bright air the students had been exuding went somewhere. In its place, a heavy air filled the surroundings. The students looked at each other as if they had remembered the situation they were placed in and dropped their gazes downward.
Yes, this is fine. These guys have forgotten reality because they were in a safe place for a long time. I have to forcibly turn the faces of these guys, who are indulging in fun things, toward the outside and teach them that there is no longer any future or hope in the world. While about to continue his words as he left himself to the dark emotion spreading in his heart, Aki opened her mouth before that.
"...Hey, is a way of living like that fun for you?"
"What was that?"
"I'm asking if you can enjoy life living like that. It's true that even I can understand that the situation outside is the worst. Corpses are rolling all over the village, and I haven't been able to get in touch with my father. But isn't it precisely at a time like this that we have to have bright feelings? Even if it's a small pleasure, isn't it fine if it leads to hope for living? If someone keeps their roots planted like you and is always thinking only about the worst situations, the will to live won't even well up."
He couldn't say anything back. To such a boy, Aki asked again.
"Hey, don't you have some kind of dream for the future? Once this worst situation ends and the world gets better, there's at least one thing you want to do, right?"
"...There's no way I have one. The world is already beyond help; even if things get worse, they won't get better..."
"I have one, a dream. I want to become a teacher. Everyone else has one too, right?"
When Aki looked back behind her, the students each said "Yeah..." "Me too..." while nodding their heads. The boy couldn't understand that. In such a worst world with nothing but despair, how can you live while harboring dreams for the future? Why can you unconditionally believe that the future will become something bright?
"You've probably had painful experiences that we can't even imagine. I sympathize with that, and I think it's a sad thing. But even at such a time, shouldn't you live while looking forward? If you only look at the painful reality before your eyes and don't think about anything fun, and are always predicting only the worst things, hope for living won't well up, will it?"
The boy truly couldn't say anything this time. The way of living where hope for living doesn't well up that Aki was talking about—isn't that exactly his current way of living?
No, I am not wrong. The boy immediately thought so. Dreams and hope, such things were lost long ago nine months ago. In their place, the world is filled with only despair and fear; I am merely living a way of life adapted to that.
Just as organisms that could adapt to changes in the environment survived and species that couldn't went extinct, I merely adapted to this world in order to survive. These girls, who haven't been able to do that, have no choice but to die unless they try to change. Yes, as long as they don't throw away things like the future and hope.
He tried to say that back, but his voice didn't come out. As if to pile on to such a boy, Aki said:
"You, what are you living for?"
That question pierced deep into the boy's heart. That question was exactly what the boy had been seeking for a long time. But the boy, exhausted from a long battle where life and death were at stake, had made living itself the objective.
Unable to say anything back, the boy ran away from them in silence. Aki said something behind him, but he pretended not to hear.
I must not stay here any longer. Something in his heart was whispering that. Even though he had established rules in order to survive in the new world and had lived according to them until now, the teacher and students of this academy continue to live by the rules of the old world. They harbor dreams and hope and even show them to the boy. In the rules the boy established, dreams and hope were defined as things that should be thrown away first.
If he continued to stay here, the rules he had gone to the trouble of establishing would be smashed by them. I must leave here immediately. While making such an excuse to himself, the boy returned to the classroom he was using.
Even though he should have been leading a life where he could flee at any time, his clothes and equipment were scattered all over the classroom. He hurriedly pushed them into his rucksack, and just as he was about to go out into the hallway with his gun shouldered, the boy's feet stopped.
If he suddenly disappeared, Yuko, Aki, and the others would be perplexed. Shouldn't he at least give one parting greeting?
...Just as he thought so, the boy shook his head and brushed away that thought.
In the first place, he and they only had a give-and-take relationship, and it wasn't as if they were that close. A parting courtesy isn't necessary. In the first place, for him, others should have been existences only for the purpose of utilizing.
He thought so, but the boy turned back into the classroom, took a piece of scattered paper in his hand, and wrote: "This life here doesn't suit me, so I am leaving." And after a short while, he added "Goodbye" to that paper and pinned it to the blackboard with a magnet.
In the grounds, Aoi and the others were continuing shooting training that didn't use ammunition. He had left the Browning Automatic Rifle with Aoi ever since Yuko was abducted, but he didn't have the time to have it returned. Since there was no spare ammunition and it would be over once it was fired off, he felt like he had also lent the Tokarev automatic pistol he picked up to someone.
Most of the guns and ammunition the other students had were things the boy had found in the village. If he collected all of them, it would be a considerable amount, but he had already lost even the will to have them returned. The boy boarded the van, which was still loaded with weapons and ammunition, and drove the car toward the school gate.
"Oh, Sergeant-dono. Where are you going?"
"I'm going to the village."
"I see, please be careful."
Aoi, who noticed the boy, approached the car, but she sent the boy off without particularly doubting him. On the contrary, she even went as far as the school gate and even opened the heavy gate. The other students also merely saw the boy off, and there was no one who tried to hold him back. They have faces that don't even dream that he won't return anymore.
The boy took the car out from the gate Aoi opened and drove the car toward the south. He didn't even understand himself why he had told Aoi a lie and left the academy. Did he not want to make them anxious?
If he headed straight south, he would come across the village from the other day, but the boy took an eastward course once he left the forest. He wanted to go to a place where they would never be able to follow, an unknown land.
However, as he moved away from the academy, something began to fill the boy's heart. Different from the dark emotion earlier, a sense of emptiness was scraping away the boy's heart like a bug.
Sadness and loneliness spread in his heart, and the boy was perplexed. Why, even though he made the choice to leave by himself, did he need to be sad or feel lonely? Rather, considering each other's situations, this should be fine. Just as oil and water do not mix, the values of the boy and the people of the academy will never match. Even if he had stayed at the academy as he was, the students would have eventually shunned the boy, who was nothing but a foreign object, and the boy would have also harbored irritation at their way of thinking. Continuing to stay at that academy should have been nothing but an unhappy thing for both parties.
Yet why am I... The boy, who emerged from the forest, turned the steering wheel toward the east. Why was I so concerned about them?
If others are nothing but tools to be utilized for survival as established in the rules, he shouldn't harbor such feelings. Even if he leaves, he would just move out of the academy dispassionately, like a salaryman who only does transfers. If others were truly existences with no value other than utilizing, he wouldn't go out of his way to harbor sentimentality.
He wouldn't have argued either. If he were indifferent to everything other than himself, he wouldn't care at all no matter what others said. But the boy rebelled against Aki's words, and in the end, he couldn't say anything back. He was even shaken by Rei's confession and ended up leaving the academy as if running away.
The car continues to drive through the bleak rural area. Only desolate fields can be seen on the left and right of the road. This field probably won't be plowed by anyone anymore... The boy, who was thinking so, suddenly understood why he had deviated from the rules he had established himself.
He was envious of Yuko, Aki, and the others who continued to lead a peaceful life.
They had survived these nine months without killing anyone and without losing comrades. Such girls continued to harbor things like hope and dreams for the future that the boy had lost. That sight was envious, and it was also jealous.
In the end, what he was trying to do was to try and force his own unhappiness onto others as well. He killed his parents, let his comrades die, killed his comrades, his goodwill backfired and brought death to many people, he couldn't save anyone, and he continued to kill people to live. Even though only he is falling into such unhappiness, the people of the academy have lived until now without experiencing such things. That was why, for the very selfish reason that "you guys should become unhappy just like me," the boy had continued to deny their thoughts and actions. Even going out of his way to take them to the village and show them corpses was nothing more than a harassment to smash their thoughts and have them taste the same experience as himself.
But what he truly wanted to deny might be his current way of living.
"You, what are you living for?"
The words Aki said were resurrected. Having lost the purpose of living and before he knew it making living itself the purpose, he has degraded into the same existence as the infected who continue to move according to instinct.
But it's not like he can start over now. After continuing to lose various things, he cannot so easily change his way of living that he finally derived. He has no choice but to keep moving forward. Precisely because he thought so, the boy jumped out of the academy, saying their way of thinking was wrong.
If he had stayed at the academy as he was, the boy might have eventually come to have the same way of thinking as them. But for the boy who lost everything and established rules and decided on his current way of living at the end of that, that was something unacceptable. His current way of living and rules are built upon the foundation of his parents and comrades who died. If he were to be dyed by the way of thinking of those girls who live a way of life the exact opposite of that, wouldn't those sacrifices become in vain?
When he lost all his comrades, the boy threw away his former self and chose a completely different new way of living than before. He was afraid that throwing away the common sense and thoughts he had held until then would make him feel like he himself was disappearing, but he had no choice but to do so in order to live. He didn't want to taste that experience once more. He feared that the experience he had accumulated until now and the answers he had derived from it would all become in vain.
He knew it was a trivial clash of wills. But he couldn't change his way of thinking; as long as he didn't try to change, he couldn't stay at the academy forever. That was why the boy fled, fearing that he himself would change again.
While gripping the steering wheel, the boy looked into the rearview mirror where no one but himself was reflected. He has become alone again. If he had stayed at that academy, the people of the academy might have accepted him as a comrade. But he can no longer return—.