Another 2001
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Synopsis
IT HAS BEEN THREE YEARS since the “calamity” of 1998 that claimed the lives of many students in Yomiyama North Middle’s Class 3. After Sou Hiratsuka, an acquaintance of 1998 survivor Mei Misaki, discovers that he’s being placed into the cursed class, he and his peers develop a series of countermeasures to avert a new tragedy. But when Sou’s classmates and their family members begin dying in a series of horrific “accidents,” he and Mei realize that the calamity has taken hold of their town once again. To stem the tides of death, the pair will be forced to reckon with Yomiyama’s deepest mysteries…
Release date: December 13, 2022
Publisher: Yen On
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Another 2001
Yukito Ayatsuji
Spring had arrived. I had finally finished moving into my new place, and tomorrow I would start the new semester as a third-year student.
I say I’d finished moving, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. In terms of distance, I didn’t go more than a hundred meters horizontally and maybe a few dozen meters vertically. It was a pretty modest relocation. Practically the only things I’d needed to transport were my personal belongings…
We didn’t hire movers; instead, I just carried my things, bit by bit, in cardboard boxes over several days. And for the things I couldn’t carry on my own, Mr. and Mrs. Akazawa were kind enough to help me out.
Unit <E-9> on the fifth floor of the six-story apartment building, the “Freuden Tobii”—this was my new place.
The tidy little one-bedroom felt empty even after I’d moved in all my things. It was too spacious for a single middle school student. Of course, I was grateful for the Akazawas’ kindness, but it seemed like kind of a waste.
Mrs. Akazawa had offered to help me get set up, but I turned her down.
“Thank you. But I’ll be fine.”
Both the thank you and the fine had been genuine.
After finishing dinner at the main house, I headed back alone to my very own apartment.
The first thing I did was open up my large sports bag, the last piece of luggage I’d carried over that day. From it, I pulled out a black-painted wooden box that was wrapped in a bath towel. I opened the lid and quietly checked its contents.
Inside was a single doll.
A beautiful girl wearing a black dress. She was about forty centimeters tall and belonged to the category known as “ball-jointed dolls.” Among all my possessions, she was perhaps the most precious.
For the time being, I stored her box in a corner of a bookshelf that didn’t yet hold any books, and then—
I wandered out onto the veranda.
The cool evening air of early April was still chilly against my cheek, and my breath came out white.
There were only a few lonely stars in the sky. I was sure there was supposed to be a full moon that night, but it was obscured by clouds, so I couldn’t see it.
Placing both my hands on the railing, I straightened my back. Then, taking quiet, rhythmic breaths, I looked out over the landscape.
It was a little past eight o’clock, and darkness had already descended over most of the town.
In the foreground was the Yomiyama River, flowing downstream. Here and there, I could make out clusters of streetlights. Those gaudy, shimmering globs illuminated the other bank of the river.
That must be the shopping district in the Akatsuki neighborhood.
It had been two years and seven months since I’d returnedhere. This small village among the mountains—Yomiyama.
I’ve been told that I was born in the maternity hospital here in town. I’d lived here in Yomiyama City for less than a year. After that, my family moved to a seaside town called Hinami, where we stayed until the summer of my sixth grade in elementary school.
I say that I used to live here, but that was when I was a baby, so it’s not like I remember the place. There was nothing nostalgic about my return. Instead, it felt like a foreign country. The unfamiliarity had made me anxious initially, but…over the last two years and seven months, those feelings had also gradually faded.
…However—
I turned away from the Yomiyama night stretching out before me and looked down at my feet. Without meaning to, I let out a long sigh, then tightly shut my eyes.
But starting tomorrow—
Depending on the situation, I…
My eyelids still squeezed tightly shut, I sighed again, this time deliberately trying to release the tension, when—
I heard a hollow electronic tone ringing inside the apartment.
Oh, my phone?
2
Could it be a call from her? I thought, picking up my chrome-plated cell phone. My heart started to beat a little faster.
Unfortunately, my hopes were immediately dashed. An unregistered number was on the display.
“Heya, Sou? It’s me, Yagisawa. My cell phone’s busted, so I’m calling from my landline.”
Nobuyuki Yagisawa.
He was my classmate—we went to the same middle school, Yomiyama North Middle School (North Yomi for short). For the past two years, we’d been in the same class, and now we knew we would be in Class 3 together for our third year as well. Yagisawa and I had a certain something in common, and ever since identifying it not long after we met, we had maintained a pretty special friendship.
“What’s up?” I asked, reminding myself that calls from herwere few and far between anyway… “Something must be going on if you’re bothering to call from your house phone.”
“Nothing’s really up—just…aren’t you anxious? I mean, tomorrow we finally start the spring semester.”
“Hmm. You scared?”
“Duh! I keep imagining what might happen. But, like, I also keep telling myself that the worst-case scenario probably won’t pan out.”
“You’ve always said that, haven’t you?”
“I’m an optimist at heart,” Yagisawa replied.
“Well, you don’t need to be afraid for me, then, do you?”
“Come on now—I wanna hear you say you’re glad to have your best pal by your side!”
Despite his claims to the contrary, I could hear the fearwelling up in his voice. I tried to tell myself that I was probably just reading too much into things.
“When I think about what could happen,” Yagisawa continued, “I worry that you must be under some awful pressure right about now.”
“Oh? Well, you don’t need to be,” I responded in the calmest tone of voice I could muster. “I’m telling you, I’m fine. I’m not having a hard time at all.”
“…………”
“Anyway, we’ll have to see how things are tomorrow. Optimism is good, but…you know all about it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re okay with the worst-case scenario? You know we can’t back out halfway through.”
After a brief pause, the voice on the other end answered, “Y-yeah.” He sounded a touch overwhelmed.
“All right, bye,” I said and hung up the phone.
About an hour later, I got another call. This one was from Mrs. Akazawa.
“Ah, Sou? I forgot to tell you—make sure you come down to our place for breakfast tomorrow. You mustn’t oversleep and skip it, you know.”
That seemed to be her main reason for ringing me up. I answered with an obedient, “Yes, ma’am.”
“And make sure to bring your laundry to me every day. You’ve got your own bath in the apartment, so you can use that whenever you please.”
It seemed like all sorts of things were weighing on her in spite of having just said good night not two hours earlier.
“You’re not feeling lonely by yourself?” she asked soberly.
“I’m all right. I’ll be fifteen this autumn, you know.” I answered her just as seriously.
“Feel free to ask for help if you’re having trouble with anything…okay? You can always talk to us. If it’s urgent, you can ask Mayuko. She lives right above you.”
“Sure. Thank you, Auntie.”
Ever since three years ago—since they’d started looking after me in September of 1998—the Akazawas had been really good to me. They’d done their best to treat me kindly despite my…complicated situation.
Of course, I felt very grateful to them. But the truth was, their concern and kindness could feel constricting at times.
“All right then. Good night, Sou.”
“Good night.”
“Sou” was the name that my actual parents gave me. My surname was “Hiratsuka” at the moment, but I would probably replace it sooner or later.
I was thinking of changing it to “Akazawa.” It seemed like a real possibility, but I hadn’t settled on it just yet.
3
My personal relationships were a bit complicated, but basically—
The Akazawa family, who had been taking care of me in Yomiyama, used to be major landowners in the Tobii neighborhood long ago. The patriarch of the previous generation (though he was still alive) was a man named Hiromune Akazawa, who had three sons. The oldest was Haruhiko, the middle was Natsuhiko, and the youngest was Fuyuhiko. The person who I referred to as “Mr. Akazawa” was his oldest son, Haruhiko, and “Mrs. Akazawa” was his wife, a woman named Sayuri.
This couple—the oldest son and his wife—lived with their father, Hiromune, who led a quiet retired life in his old age. Their house had stood on the same plot of land in Tobii for a long, long time—their home was practically the definition of old-fashioned.
The Akazawa household had taken me into their custody two years and seven months back. I was no longer welcome in my previous home in Hinami, the Hiratsuka house…they’d driven me out.
Just a minute’s walk from the Akazawa family house stood the Freuden Tobii. The Freuden was an apartment building under the management of Natsuhiko, the middle brother. Details aside, the important thing to know was that he’d allowed me to live in one of the apartments there since the start of April.
During our phone call, Mrs. Akazawa (aka Sayuri) had mentioned someone named “Mayuko” living above me, which referred to Natsuhiko Akazawa’s wife. They occupied the penthouse. I thought of them as “Mr. and Mrs. Akazawa” as well, though calling them that could make things confusing.
For me, the important thing was—
The last of Hiromune Akazawa’s three sons, Fuyuhiko, was none other than my biological father. But he had passed away fourteen years prior, just after I’d been born. I had only found out much later, after starting middle school, that he’d taken his own life out of grief.
4
I opened up most of the other cardboard boxes that I’d used to transport my stuff. By the time I’d finished putting away the bare necessities, it was almost midnight.
Tomorrow was the opening ceremony, so I didn’t have much of anything to put in my school bag. I pulled my uniform and a shirt out of a box and hung them up on hangers. With that, all my immediate preparations were more or less complete.
I was living alone in a studio apartment, but it was only a temporary arrangement.
My room had neither a television nor refrigerator, and since I had a cell phone, there was no need for a phone affixed to the wall, only an Internet connection for my computer.
After taking a shower break, I opened my laptop PC on the living room table and booted it up. I had one purpose in mind. All I wanted to do was check my e-mail, but—
There were two new messages.
The first was from Yomiyama Town News, a free newsletter that was sent out twice a month—largely pointless regional affairs and local notices. I’d discovered it about a year ago and subscribed to its mailing list for some reason.
The other was from Shunsuke Kouda.
We’d been classmates back in our first year of middle school and were also members of the biology club. This April, he would become the club president. Naturally, he was also friends with Yagisawa, who had called me earlier.
The program for the coming year’s club activities comprised the majority of the e-mail’s content. Shunsuke was always a very meticulous kind of guy, so it wasn’t hard to imagine him writing and sending a notice like that. However—
At the very end of the e-mail, there was one line that made me gasp in surprise.
I’LL BE PRAYING FOR YOUR SAFETY.
In principle, the special circumstances of Grade 3 Class 3were supposed to be kept a secret from outsiders. Nevertheless, it seemed like Shunsuke had heard something about it. Although to be honest, it would have been more surprising if he hadn’t heard anything at all…
I looked over this second e-mail, then picked up my cell phone, which was sitting beside my PC. Other than the phone call from Mrs. Akazawa—Sayuri, that is—no one else had contacted me.
Letting out a little sigh, I turned my gaze back to the computer screen.
No calls, not even an e-mail. I had expected at least that. From her. From Mei Misaki.
Mei—I wonder when the last time I talked to her was.
Once at the start of this year… No, I had two chances to speak with her.
We’d exchanged a few words over the phone just after New Year’s.
The other time was around the start of February, in person, when I’d visited “Blue Eyes Empty to All, in the Twilight of Yomi,” the doll gallery in the neighborhood of Misaki.
Back when we’d met in February, we talked for a while about the accidents. I was close to starting Grade 3, so I’d asked her if there was any possibility of avoiding them.
Several days after the graduation and school closing ceremonies had ended, when I knew that I was going to be a member of Grade 3 Class 3 in April, I’d worked up the nerve to call her. However, no matter how many times I rang, she never picked up. I even tried going to the gallery in Misaki once in early April, but there had been a CLOSED sign on the door…
I assumed she’d gone on a long vacation with her family or something. Even if that wasn’t it, she would be starting her third year of high school in the spring. She had her own present and future problems to worry about and must have had a lot on her plate…
I’d decided to send her just a single e-mail, a report of sorts.
To tell her that the hunch she’d had way back then was on the mark. That my Grade 3 class was going to be Class 3, like she had surmised.
Of course, I didn’t include a plea for her to do something about it. Even if I was in Class 3, it remained to be seen whether this was going to be an “on year,” after all.
I sighed again and was about to close my PC when it happened.
Suddenly, I heard a slight noise. It was the notification tone for an incoming e-mail.
Reflexively letting out a small “ah!” I gripped the mouse again. Then I turned my attention to the e-mail software display.
The message was untitled. But the sender was…
“Oh!”
I let out another involuntary noise.
The name of the sender was “Mei M.”
Mei Misaki!
DEAR SOU,
SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW, DOESN’T IT?
BE CAREFUL.
I didn’t exactly feel happy when I read her message but rather a kind of meager relief. As I stared at her words on the display, an image of her—of Mei Misaki—appeared in my mind’s eye. But for some reason, I wasn’t seeing her as she had looked when I’d seen her back in February—rather, I’d pictured her as a fifteen-year-old girl, on a summer day three years ago, with her left eye hidden behind an eye patch…
“…I’ll be fine,” I whispered quietly to myself.
I pursed my dry lips and straightened my back up as best I could.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll do everything right.”
5
Since moving to Yomiyama, I would get up every morning at around 6:30 unless I was sick or worn out. I would always set an alarm just in case, but it was rarely necessary.
Although I was an early riser, I wouldn’t immediately get out of bed.
Instead, I’d lay there on my back, staring at the ceiling for several minutes while checking my breathing, my body temperature, my heartbeat. As I lay there, I’d focus my consciousness on the undeniable fact that I was alive right then.
I’m sure that it’s because of what happened to me three years ago, an aftershock of that bizarre experience. Even in a new location, this process that I went through between waking and rising remained the same as ever.
“All right,” I muttered to myself, nodding and sitting up.
In the year 2001 of the Western calendar, April the 9th, that was a fact.
Mm, okay.
I got dressed, left my apartment, and locked the door behind me.
Beside the entrance was a small plate on the wall that displayed the room number, <E-9>, beneath which was a metal frame for inserting a nameplate. I wasn’t really sure what I should write there, so for the time being, I’d left it empty. My mailbox in the entrance of the building was the same.
Yesterday, Sayuri had apparently gone to speak to the tenants in the two apartments on either side of me so that they wouldn’t think me suspicious. I rarely got any mail, and even if something was to come for me, it would go to the Akazawas’ house like it always had, so that wouldn’t be a problem.
In this apartment building, the first-level rooms were all As, the second-level rooms were all Bs, and so on… The letters indicated the floor. Most of the other apartments on E, the fifth floor, had nameplates; unlike <E-9>, most were configured for families.
As I headed down the deserted early-morning hallway toward the elevators, I happened to glance over at unit <E-1> across the hall. Like my own apartment, <E-9>, it also lacked a nameplate beside the door…
…This place.
Suspicion flickered through my mind.
Here?
This apartment…
In that moment, just for an instant, the whole world went black.
There came a low, reverberating thumping just beyond my hearing—I felt it rather than heard it.
It was like…this is a weird metaphor, but it was like someone standing outside of this world had just clicked a camera shutter to capture the scene. Or maybe as though someone had fired off a strobe light. Regardless, it was a bizarre thought, one that left me just as quickly as it had arrived.
I don’t really need to worry about anything. It was just a second, after all. Less than that, even. I was probably just paying too much attention to my own blinking is all…
The suspicion that had flickered across my mind a moment earlier was already evaporating.
“Mm. All right, then.”
Nodding, I reshouldered my bag, then pushed the elevator call button.
6:50. Still plenty of time before school starts.
6
After stopping by the Akazawa house and eating my fill of breakfast, I still had plenty of extra time before I needed to report for school.
“All right, I’m going.”
Nevertheless, in my most indifferent voice, I announced my departure to Mrs. Akazawa and left the house. Kurosuke (a black tomcat, estimated to be about eight years old, who had been in the care of this household for longer than I had) walked as far as the gate with me, meowing the whole way.
He’s seeing me off… No, that can’t be it.
I almost never went straight from the house to school. A direct course took me only fifteen minutes even if I was dragging it out, so as long as the weather wasn’t awful, I liked to take a kind of detour and stroll down the Yomiyama River floodplain. I enjoyed the time alone. I’d started doing this on a whim one morning last summer, and, well, it had become almost like a routine—
The flow of the Yomiyama River was very calm that morning. Perhaps because we hadn’t had any heavy rain for a while, the water level was so low, it seemed like I could cross the river on foot.
Although the sky was slightly overcast, it wasn’t too cold out. My outfit, a student uniform with long sleeves and a stand-up collar, was just perfect. But when a cold wind blew past me from time to time, I would reflexively hunch my shoulders against the chill.
As usual, I strolled lazily along the small path that followed the riverbank. Partway down, there was a small group of stone benches, and I took a seat on one of them.
I gazed over at the opposite side of the river and saw a row of beautiful cherry trees stretching down the bank. They were just past full bloom. Before long, the petals would start scattering in the wind, which would be even more impressive.
I put my thumbs and index fingers together to form a rectangular frame, then peered through it at the scenery. I imagined the click of a shutter. I really would have liked to snap a picture if I’d had a camera on me, but as it was, I was content to capture the image with the one in my mind.
Kweeh!
I heard the call of an animal.
Shifting my gaze, I watched the owner of the voice alight on a little island that had formed upstream. It was an unexpectedly large bird.
White feathers, a long neck, and long legs…a heron?
That was my first thought, but no, it was different from the white herons I sometimes spotted along the bank. This bird was larger, and on closer inspection, its feathers were more of a bluish-gray than white. A black band stretched from its forehead around to the back of its head, and its wings were spotted with black speckles here and there… Still a heron, but a blue heron maybe?
It was the first of its kind that I’d seen here.
I unconsciously stood up from the bench, and as I lined the heron up in my imaginary viewfinder, an idle thought struck me.
Someday…I’d like to get myself a genuine single-lens reflex camera and travel to all sorts of places, taking all sorts of photos. That’s always been in the back of my mind, for sure. Like Teruya…
Teruya Sakaki, my uncle on my mother’s side, who’d died three years ago.
When I’d first started middle school in Yomiyama, the Akazawas had advised me to join an after-school club…and despite his influence, I’d chosen the biology club over the photography club.
But I had never felt that I’d made the wrong decision. At the time, I’d been thinking that I had to follow in Teruya’s footsteps in my own way—and that was what I’d chosen. So…
“…It’s not time yet.”
My vision could wait a bit, at the very least. I wasn’t at that stage of my life yet.
There were things I had to do first. There were challenges I had to overcome.
I sat back down on the bench and closed my eyes softly.
The sound of the flowing water, the feeling of the wind brushing my skin… It felt somehow unreal. When the bird called out again, it, too, seemed distant.
I kept my eyes closed like that for a little while. When my mind grew calm, I left the bench behind.
The blue heron was no longer anywhere to be found; in its place, a group of smaller white birds was flocking close to the river’s surface.
Before long, a pedestrian bridge called the Izana Bridge came into view. It was an old structure, just wide enough for two people to squeeze past each other, and the wooden support pillars and handrails looked kind of suspect. I got close enough to get a good look, then went back to the path along the riverside.
“Hiratsuka?”
Someone was calling out for me.
“Hiratsukaaa!”
The voice was coming from about ten meters behind me on the same path along the river. I could make out someone waving at me.
Is that…?
It was a girl wearing the North Yomi uniform. Her long hair fluttered behind her as she jogged over to catch up with me.
It is…
Hazumi—Yuika Hazumi.
I remembered being in the same class with her when we were in Grade 1. We were in different classes in our second year, but this year we were going to be in Class 3 together. We’d hardly ever had a real conversation, but I knew her name and face well enough to recognize her, of course.
Nevertheless, I didn’t stand there and wait for her. I started walking away alone.
Why is she here right now?
I thought her presence was a little fishy, but…well, it wasn’t a question I wanted to waste time answering.
“Ah!” Hazumi caught up with me, making flustered noises. “Wait for me, Hiratsuka!”
I stopped when she bade me to wait. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to make a break for it.
Hazumi reached me before long. The boys in her class had propped her up as a “beauty” ever since Grade 1. Whether I agreed with their assessment or not, I couldn’t deny that she had delicate, handsome features. She possessed a fairly mature presence for her age.
She was about the same height as I was, average for a guy my age. Her chest-length hair had a brownish tint, but I couldn’t tell whether it had always been that way or if she’d dyed it.
“I’m talking to you, Hiratsuka!” Yuika Hazumi exclaimed, staring at me anxiously. “Why? Why did you keep on walking even after I called your name?”
Her words seemed somehow childlike, at odds with her typically grown-up demeanor. When I didn’t respond, she tilted her head slightly and asked again, in an immature manner, “Hey, why are you ignoring me? I heard that you walk along the dry riverbed every morning super early.”
Hmm? Is that true? She went to the trouble of finding out when I come here and followed me?
“Hey, Hiratsuka…”
“It’s just a habit,” I answered as indifferently as possible, without looking at her.
“Nothing is set in stone yet, but when we go to school today, if…?”
“If…?” I mumbled the word back at her.
“Ummm, I mean…” She paused for a second or two. “…If there aren’t enough desks and chairs in the classroom?”
“That’s right. At that point”—I turned to look at her—“we’ll know, won’t we?”
“Yeah.” Hazumi nodded meekly but quickly put on a smile and turned to me. “So, look, I just thought I would say thanks ahead of time.”
“And you came all the way out here to say it?”
“I did.” Her cheeks were slightly red. She was probably flushed from running to catch up with me.
“That’s… Well, I appreciate you making the effort,” I replied.
“In either case, we’ll find out soon, but if it happens, I just wanna say thanks in advance.”
That was all the conversation I wanted to have with Hazumi at that moment. She seemed to have more she wanted to say, but it would have felt awkward to walk to school together or something, so—
“Well, see you around,” I announced before turning to continue my trip down to the riverbank.
“Later,” she replied.
Before I walked off, I paused to add one more thing. “Oh, and Hazumi? If you don’t mind, from now on, would you please call me Sou? I don’t really like being called by my last name.”
7
I arrived at school at 8:45.
The opening ceremony was scheduled to start at nine.
There was a bulletin board hanging beside the entrance to Building A, the central edifice that housed the principal’s office and all the staff rooms, where the class rosters for the new semester were posted. Printouts with all the class lists for each year were also being distributed. The staff had already conveyed the information about Grade 3 Class 3 to anyone it affected, but just in case, I checked to confirm that my name was indeed listed there. Then I headed for the gymnasium, where the ceremony was being held.
We got into rows, sorted by our new class assignments…and I did my best not to make eye contact with the other students. I avoided looking at Yagisawa, who had called me the night before, and everyone else who I would share a class with from now on. I had met them all for the first time at the “handover ceremony” and “strategy session” held back in March.
I didn’t make eye contact and obviously didn’t speak to anyone… Instead, I stood in the back of our row, mostly letting my mind drift away from the teachers making speeches up onstage, passing the time allotted for the ceremony in a daze. I was there in body, but not in spirit.
Once the opening ceremony was over, all the students headed for their classrooms. Grade 3 Class 3 was on the third floor of Building C.
By the time I stepped foot into the room, more than half of the other students were already inside. However, there was none of the usual racket that you would expect in such a situation, just a few small groups whispering to one another. Everyone else was silent…
Nothing was written on the blackboard. Even though it was the start of the new semester, one of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling was already flickering and failing… Beneath the erratic illumination, the orderly lines of desks and chairs seemed somehow ominous.
No one made a move to sit. No one set their bags down on the desks, either.
“Let’s take our seats for now, everyone,” called out one of the girls.
She was articulate, with a crisp, sharp voice…
Could it be? Who does that voice belong to?
—Thud.
My heart gave a low reverberation, and the world went pitch-black for a split second. Then I remembered. She was one of the students who had been selected as a “countermeasures officer” at the “strategy session” in March…
“Sit in cardinal order according to what’s written on the printout… Actually, you know what? Close is good enough, so let’s all just take a seat somewhere, please.”
At her urging, a few of the students obediently started to move. The reaction from most of them, however, was to uneasily tilt their heads and stare at one another.
But for some reason, a few shot glimpses in my direction. Yagisawa, who had been so sure that the “worst case” wouldn’t come to pass, was one of them, along with several others. Casually glancing around, I could see that Hazumi, who I had encountered that morning by the river, was also peering at me. She looked like she wanted to say something.
Ignoring them all, I took up a position near the back of the classroom, beside the door.
Just in case it happens…
That’s right. It would be dangerous for me to sit down with everyone else so soon.
At the moment, it wasn’t yet clear whether I would need to conduct myself with that level of caution. It hadn’t been established whether such strict rules were in place. But…
I’d made up my mind to take every precaution.
Eventually, our teacher arrived.
By that time, fewer than half of the students had taken their seats.
“Good morning, everyone,” greeted our homeroom teacher, Ms. Kanbayashi. (Female. Approximately age forty. Main subject was science. Probably single.) She placed both hands on the lectern as she addressed us. “Well done making it through the opening ceremony. I’m sure you’ve all been feeling…apprehensive.”
The tension in the room was palpable. It was perhaps even greater now than it had been when we’d met in March.
And it wasn’t just us students. Naturally, our instructor was also anxious. Maybe even so strained that she wanted to make a break for it.
Pushing the bridge of her delicate metal-frame glasses back up her face with one finger, Ms. Kanbayashi surveyed her silent pupils.
“Anyway, all right, everyone, please have a seat. You can sit wherever you like.”
She gave the same instructions as the countermeasures officer girl. The students who had been hesitating to sit down did as they were told. Only I refrained from moving, opting to remain standing near the door in the back of the room. I’d intended to stay that way until the end, and of course, my teacher grasped that as well.
And then the situation quickly became clear—once everyone except for me was seated.
Every desk and chair that had been set out in the classroom was occupied. The numbers were exact. In other words, there was no place for me, the sole person who remained standing, to sit. There was one desk missing.
“Ah…”
A quiet, trembling noise fell from Ms. Kanbayashi’s lips as she stood at her podium. In response, many of the students made similar sounds…expressing a variety of emotions.
Yuika Hazumi was sitting behind the very last desk in the row closest to the windows. While everyone else stared straight ahead, pointedly avoiding looking in my direction, she alone turned my way.
I nodded silently at her.
Next, I looked toward Ms. Kanbayashi at the podium. She noticed my gaze and gave me a small nod while averting her eyes, so I left the classroom without saying anything. I had to fulfill the role that I had taken upon myself. I would be the class “non-exister” this year.
Yagisawa’s optimistic observations had been too hopeful after all. Just because there had been two “off years” in a row didn’t mean that it was over. Just because we had entered the twenty-first century didn’t mean it was over. There would be no end to this.
The peculiar “phenomenon” that had beset this class since the death of Misaki twenty-nine years ago was happening again, twenty-nine years later…and so. Just as I had always suspected, this year—2001—was an “on year.”
8
“Everyone had the best of intentions when they started dealing with it in the wrong way. Misaki’s death, that is.” I recalled the words that Mei Misaki had spoken when we’d met back in February. “Death is death, and they should have come to grips with it. If only they had accepted the truth… But instead…”
That was apparently what had started it all.
Misaki, who was supposed to be dead, appeared in the class’s graduation photo. That was when the mysterious “phenomenon” had started happening to Grade 3 Class 3 of North Yomi Middle School. The incidents began the following year.
The first sign of trouble came in April, when there had been one too few desks in the classroom at the beginning of the new semester. The reason, they say, was because—
“There was an extra student in the class…and nobody knew who.”
I’d known a bit about the “phenomenon” even before I entered middle school. I had heard about it from Uncle Teruya before his passing three years ago.
Still, back in February, when I was about to advance to the third grade at North Yomi, I’d felt the need to confirm everything all over again. That’s why I’d enlisted the aid of the girl who had experienced an “on year” in her own Grade 3 Class 3—Mei Misaki.
“There’s no way to know who the ‘extra person’ is. No matter how you investigate or who you ask…everything related to the class, from the roster to the records that the school and city hall keep, even the memories of people associated with the class…they’re all altered somehow, changed to agree that the new student belongs there.”
Altered records.
Rewritten memories.
“There are ‘on years’ and ‘off years’ for the phenomenon…which means it’s not guaranteed to happen every year. It’s typically happened at least once every two years so far, but it’s unclear whether there’s any kind of regularity to it. Even if you end up in Class 3, there’s no problem if it’s an ‘off year.’ But if it happens to be an ‘on year’—”
“The ‘accidents’ start happening, right?”
“Right. In the years when there’s an ‘extra person,’ the class will suffer a series of unthinkable disasters. Every month, at least one person, up to many ‘related individuals,’ will succumb—they’ll be pulled down into ‘death.’”
Deaths by accident, illness, suicide, homicide…all sorts. According to the rules extrapolated from all the past incidents, the phenomenon could apparently affect “blood relatives two degrees of separation or closer to active members of the class.” That meant the students themselves, plus their parents, siblings, and even grandparents.
I’d asked why having an “extra person” in the class induced these “accidents.”
“Because the true identity of the ‘extra person’ is the ‘casualty,’” Mei had answered.
Her explanation went like this:
“I suspect that the incident with Misaki twenty-nine years ago kicked it all off. Ever since, Grade 3 Class 3 at North Yomi has been somehow close to ‘death.’ I think the class attracts the ‘casualties.’
“One result of the group’s proximity to ‘death’ is that the ‘casualties’ are able to slip in unnoticed. You could also argue that the class gets closer to ‘death’ with each ‘casualty’ that appears.
“Because of that, it becomes easy for everyone connected to Grade 3 Class 3 to die, and ‘death’ swallows them up.”
Formally, the school refused to officially recognize the existence of these strange “phenomena” and aberrant “accidents.” There was probably no way that a public institution like a middle school could openly confront something so unscientific as a “curse.” In the past, however, the administration had discreetly attempted a number of “countermeasures.”
For example, they had tried changing the classrooms around. The thinking was that the “curse” was probably connected to the physical location of Grade 3 Class 3. Tragically, this hunch had ended in failure. The “phenomenon” and “accidents” occurred regardless of where Class 3 was placed.
In another instance, the staff tried renaming the classes from Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, and so on to Class A, Class B, Class C. This, too, had been a failure. The “phenomenon” and “accidents” still struck the students in Grade 3 Class C.
One year, they tried omitting Class 3 altogether and reconfigured the groups as Class 1, Class 2, Class 4, Class 5, and Class 6. But this resulted in tragedy as well. The “phenomenon” simply skipped over the missing Class 3 and afflicted Class 4 in its stead, and the “accidents” started anew…
After trying various approaches, a little over ten years ago, the school finally discovered an effective “countermeasure.”
“To offset the ‘extra person,’ the class designates someone to serve as a ‘non-exister.’ By doing that, the room goes back to the amount of people it should’ve had. The numbers balance out, you see. It’s like the ‘nonexistent’ neutralizes the harmful influence of the ‘extra person,’ who isn’t originally supposed to be there.”
That was how Mei had explained it.
“If all goes well, the ‘accidents’ won’t start up, even during an ‘on year.’ There are actually a number of instances where this ‘countermeasure’ worked out successfully, and no one ended up dying. So ever since that was discovered, every year, Grade 3 Class 3…”
Class 3 started holding the aforementioned “strategy session” at the end of March. The meeting that Ms. Kanbayashi had facilitated—
First, the group elected at least one countermeasures officer. They would be in charge of dealing with any trouble surrounding the “phenomenon.” Next, the class selected a candidate to shoulder the burden of being the “non-exister,” in preparation for the possibility that it was an “on year”…
…The “non-exister.”
Despite being a member of the class, they would be treated as if they didn’t exist.
Their classmates, their homeroom teacher, and the rest of their instructors would ignore the selected individual all year long, as though they weren’t even there. From the start of the first semester, up until graduation next spring.
At the meeting, the staff asked us who would undertake that important duty this year in case the worst came to pass.
If no one volunteered, the class would hold a discussion to decide, and if they still couldn’t reach an agreement, they would draw lots. The specifics of how they determined the “non-exister” differed from year to year, but that was the basic selection process—
“I’ll do it.”
I had raised my hand without hesitation at the meeting.
“I’ll take on the role of the ‘non-exister.’”
Every person in the room had turned to me with eyes full of surprise, as well as a mix of other conflicting emotions.
“Are you sure?” Ms. Kanbayashi seemed shocked, too. “Is that really okay…?”
“Yes.” I straightened up, aware that everyone was looking at me, and answered, “It’s fine.”
Starting in April, I would carry out my duty as the “non-exister” in our class for a year. If we could avoid any “accidents” by my doing so, then—
—Then in that case, I’m happy to do it. I’ll never flinch or run from what needs doing.
I had made up my mind about this long ago, assuming the situation would arise.
It was no big deal to me. Considering my firsthand experience with “nonexistence” three years prior, I didn’t mind playing the part of the “non-exister” now with everyone’s consent and cooperation.
I can do this—I’d insisted to myself.
I can do this. I’ll do it right. I can handle it.
…But still—
After I volunteered, there had been an unexpected development.
“Excuse me, teacher.”
The person who spoke up was none other than one of the newly selected countermeasures officers, a female student named Etou. Making no attempt to conceal the anxiety and fear in her expression, she threw out a question, eyes shining darkly.
“I just wonder if that’s enough. I mean, is that really the only ‘countermeasure’ we need to take?”
After further discussion, we decided that we would make one major modification to our strategy this school year.
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