Chapter 95 - Chapter 0: The Story Before the Story Begins, Part 4
On the radio, they continued to broadcast breaking news with content similar to the TV. Riots occurring nationwide, many casualties, JSDF being deployed, and so on...
"Those listening to this broadcast, please strictly lock your doors right now and do not go outside. It is very dangerous outside; please do not approach those thought to be infected. ...It seems rioters have come to this broadcasting station too; I can hear shouting from below..."
The male announcer's voice mixed with noise flowing from the radio speaker was somewhat trembling. Was it my imagination that I also heard sounds like something being destroyed and screams?
"What are you going to do? When are the police coming?"
It seems it had been decided that when an evacuation center was opened, several police officers would be dispatched from the nearest police station to handle security. However, there was no sign of police officers coming to the school at all. On the contrary, a grand ensemble of sirens could even be heard from the direction of the city center. The southern sky where the city center is was faintly stained orange.
"There's no contact from the city hall either. For now, let's have several people go out and handle security. Teachers alone aren't enough; we must also recruit volunteers..."
While the principal who remained at the school called the teachers together, Yoshioka and I quietly left the staff room. Even after seeing the footage of the burning city on TV, the reality that Japan is being hit by an unprecedented disaster still hasn't welled up. Anxiety is starting to swell in my heart more than ever before, but on the other hand, there was also a part of me that optimistically thought it's no big deal.
"What's going to happen from now on, I wonder..."
"What do you mean what's going to happen? It'll just be what it'll be. They say the JSDF and such are also moving, so maybe it'll have settled down by tomorrow morning."
"Do you think it'll be resolved that easily?"
"It will."
The last word was not just for Yoshioka, but words directed at myself. It'll work out somehow; I decided to think that way. Today the same as yesterday, tomorrow the same as today will continue forever. I wanted to think so.
The mobile phone thrust into my pocket started to vibrate with an incoming call vibration. Looking, an email had arrived. The sender was Mom.
"I'm home now. I'm going to the school with Dad now."
It was a simple and curt text as usual, but I felt relieved at the fact that my parents were safe. I sent a reply email saying I understood and let out a big sigh.
"What's up?"
"No, an email from Mom. She says she's coming here with Dad now."
"I see, it's good they're safe. But is it okay? The radio said not to go out just now..."
"It's fine, it's fine, because it's fine. Look, even now, people are coming to the school more and more."
Looking out the window, there was still a sight of many nearby residents coming to the junior high school. If rioters like those shown on TV had appeared in the neighborhood, they would have rushed in with more changed expressions. However, the people evacuating are walking leisurely while chatting or fiddling with smartphones. They don't look like they're exposed to a life-threatening danger at all.
My house is at a distance of about ten minutes on foot from this junior high school. Soon, Dad and Mom will come. I didn't doubt that at all.
And just as I thought, my parents soon showed their faces at the junior high school. Dad in a suit and Mom, who seemed to have changed into plain clothes, came straight to the school from the direction of my house. I was happy to meet them safely, but since I also hated to be thought of as still not having left my parents if I conveyed that honestly, I met the two curtly.
"How was it in the city?"
"As far as I saw, there wasn't anything like people being killed as they say in the news. Well, it's already an hour ago, so I don't know how it is now. Trains and buses were stopped, and taxis were hard to catch. I finally got into a taxi with the people from the company and came home while stopping here and there, so it got this late."
It seems neither Dad nor Mom directly witnessed the so-called rioters. However, perhaps due to the power outage, traffic accidents seem to be occurring here and there. But at the accident sites, there was apparently no sign of police officers.
"Because accidents are happening all over, surely the police can't handle them all."
Among the nearby residents who evacuated, there are also the parents of junior high school classmates. My parents went to greet them. It's not like there's a PTA or a parents' association, and it's not like there are parents of high school classmates. Even so, the reason Dad and Mom wanted to talk with the parents of other students was probably for information gathering. Although, the talk about career-related matters would be the main thing.
As expected, Dad and Mom, and the parents, also seemed to be optimistic about this situation just like me. Talk about accidents and riots is secondary; they probably want to hear which university other children are trying to go to and the current grade situation. The concern of parents at this time is that first and foremost. Since it seemed certain that I would taste the feeling of being on a bed of needles if I were with them, I decided to withdraw early.
"Send a phone call if anything happens; we'll be in the gymnasium."
Dad said so and went back into the circle of conversation of high school students' parents who had started to gather in front of the gymnasium. Yoshioka and I, together, started walking toward the classroom building where the staff room is again.
"Was it okay not to be together?"
"It's fine; if I were there, I'd just keep receiving silent pressure like 'other children are so great but you'."
"Well, the adults who can talk leisurely even in this situation are also amazing... So, what now? Shall we wander around until the police or JSDF come?"
"Then, shall we try going toward the administration building?"
Yoshioka accepted my suggestion for some reason. The volunteer work was already being done by adults, and I felt it wasn't a place for children. It's a time like this, but I've visited my alma mater after a long time; I wanted to look around at what has changed and what hasn't changed from the past.
When I told that to Sensei, I was able to get an okay with him saying, "Then, check the patrol of the back gate while you're at it." The back gate is a small gate on the north side that is usually not used, and it had never been opened once when we were enrolled in this junior high school.
The back gate is usually locked and cannot be opened from the outside, but he wanted us to check just in case. Also to tell residents who try to enter from the back gate to go around to the main gate. It was as casual as asking us to get prints from the staff room, and in fact, Sensei probably doesn't think it's such a major role. Of course, we also thought the work given was not such a big deal. Checking whether it's locked is just an excuse; Sensei allowed us to walk around freely.
"Even so, this place has changed a lot, hasn't it."
Leaving the crowded schoolyard and heading toward the northern administration building, I was noticing that the sight in front of me was different from the junior high school in my memory. X-shaped steel frames were incorporated into the windows of the classroom building, and the pond that was in the courtyard has become a flower bed. The shape of the entrance had also changed.
"It seems it's been quite a while since it was built, so they were apparently planning to do seismic reinforcement work on the lunchroom during spring break. Well, in this situation, I don't know when the work will resume."
The lunchroom to the east of the classroom building and south of the administration building is used at lunchtime. In my junior high school, rather than bringing a lunch box at lunchtime, school lunch is distributed in the lunchroom.
The work seems to have stopped, and the lunchroom remained covered with dust sheets and work scaffolding, and construction materials covered with vinyl sheets were piled up in the staff parking lot.
The old-fashioned administration building was as it was before. The greenhouse for science teachers built on the south side and the pictures of composers in the music room slightly visible from the second-floor window are also as they were. In the gravel-paved staff parking lot, the types of cars lined up have changed, but not much difference can be seen.
"Nostalgic... we had a barbecue here once, didn't we."
"Ah, there was, there was. Was it instead of the field trip being canceled due to rain twice in a row, I think?"
While talking about such things, we walked around the administration building. Every time I took a step, nostalgia and sadness tightened my chest. Junior high school days when I didn't need to think about anything and there was only hope for the future. That has already become a distant past event. I was able to spend the three years of junior high school life without feeling at all the pressure like being strangled by a silk cord that I'm tasting now.
Thinking that way, I'm driven by a desire to reset the world once. In the future spreading before my eyes now, I feel there is neither dream nor hope.
University entrance has become a matter of course in this era, and to enter a good company, you must go to a good university. Although the economy is starting to look up, the employment rate of university students is still fallen compared to the previous level. If I don't choose a company, I could probably get a job immediately, but if the company I entered that way is a black company that uses up its employees, I can't stand it. If I don't want to be afraid of the crisis of layoffs or bankruptcy, I have no choice but to enter a large company, but only a handful of people can become that.
And even after graduating university and getting a job, I won't be able to have hope for the future. A birthrate that is not improved at all and increasing elderly people. Various taxes and insurance premiums continue to rise, but it's not limited that we can receive them properly in the future. Being despised as the Yutori generation and having to continue working while enduring being exploited—that was the prospect I currently hold for the future.
Of course, there will be adults who say what a brat who hasn't been out in society is talking about. But we've grown up being told only dark news since we were born. We've never tasted the high growth or the bubble era that adults talk about. Declining birthrate and aging population, financial difficulties, terrorism, major disasters... those words never disappear from the TV no matter how much time passes.
This society might have already reached its structural limit. Then there's no choice but to reset it once. Destroy the political system, social common sense, and everything once, and create a new world from there. Recently, I've been obsessed with only such desires.
If I talk about this to someone, they'll probably think I'm crazy or a terrorist-in-waiting. Of course, I don't really think such a thing. My current life is probably sufficiently rich, and if I actually go out into society, the future might seem brighter than I thought. However, it was also a fact that there is a part of me that continues to wish in a corner of my heart that this world would change.
While being aware of my own darkness, I went around the administration building to the north and headed toward the back gate. I was given the job of patrolling the back gate as an excuse for wandering around the school, but I should check it just in case anyway. I hardly thought there would be nearby residents trying to enter from the back gate, and I intended to finish the job quickly.
"Yes, okay."
I illuminated the back gate with the flashlight I'd borrowed from Sensei, but there was no abnormality. Even though it's called a gate, there's only a single-opening gate leaf that a single person can pass through. Both the key and the bolt are properly fastened. It cannot be opened from the outside.
"By the way, Yoshioka, you were found by the music teacher once trying to go out from here, weren't you."
"Yeah, I was scolded severely."
Although it's a back gate where passage is prohibited, it becomes the shortest shortcut for students who commute from the north side of the junior high school. So sometimes, a situation occurred where a student trying to go home secretly through the back gate appeared and was found and chased by a teacher working in the administration building. By the way, since the back gate is on the north side, the act of trying to go home secretly through the back gate was called "Defecting to the North."
"Then, where shall we go next——"
Just as I was about to say that, I felt like I heard a man's scream. The sound of sirens that had started to be heard all over the city was noisy, and I couldn't hear well. However, since Yoshioka was also looking around, it seems the scream just now wasn't a hallucination.
"Did you hear that just now?"
Before replying, a single silhouette could be seen running on the road outside the school and coming toward here beyond the gate leaf. The streetlights remained off due to the power outage. What was illuminated by the flashlight was a young man about a university student.
"Open it, let me in!"
"This place is closed, go around to the main gate on the south side..."
"I can't be doing such a leisurely thing! Please let me in quickly, otherwise I'll be killed!"
I was about to laugh saying that's an exaggeration..., but seeing red things sticking here and there on the man's face, I noticed that it was blood. When I directed the light of the flashlight toward the man's body, half of the white shirt he was wearing was stained bright red.
It seems Yoshioka also understood that he wasn't joking.
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean what do we do? Of course, let's let him in."
The man is desperately grabbing the gate leaf and shaking it back and forth. I don't know if he was involved in an incident or an accident, but for now, we should let him in and hear the story. And if it were a hero in a movie I watch, he shouldn't ignore someone's request at a time like this.
Without even listening to Yoshioka's reply, I removed the bolt of the gate leaf. Next, I removed the dial-type padlock hung on the handle of the gate leaf, relying on my memory. I've heard the number of the padlock that locks the gate from a friend. If the padlock hasn't been changed, the number to unlock it should have been 6443.
And just as I thought, the lock of the padlock was removed with 6443. Just as I was about to open the gate leaf, a roar like a beast shook the air and echoed.
I'm waiting for your opinions and impressions.