Vol 2 Chapter 2 (2/2)

“There sure are people who do sick stuff. Why would they do something like this, huh?”

Yata shrugged but what he had said struck Fus.h.i.+mi.

“What did you just say?”

Yata raised his head and blinked his eyes.

“Hm? There sure are people who…”

People, had Yata said as if it was natural.

“Why do you think there are several people?”

“'Why’…these photos are somehow all other the place…it just seems to me like they were taken by various people.”

When Fus.h.i.+mi scrolled through the pictures in reversed order while looking at them once more he too understood why Yata thought of them as all other the place. The picture quality and the hue weren’t uniform and there was a fairly wide range of distance, viewpoint and recording time.

Various people….collectively….

He only thought about it for a short moment.

“Yata. There’s something I want you to request from Oogai Aya. You have my mailing app, with that you’re connected to her, right?”

“Okay, but a message from me? Couldn’t you just contact her?”

“She hates me, doesn’t she. She’d rather listen if you talk to her.”

Yata made a surprised face and while pulling out his own PDA he muttered: “I’m pretty bad with girls but I can’t help but feel like you’re unexpectedly slower than me…”

†

When they arrived at Fus.h.i.+mi’s place and waited in his room, the data was sent to Yata’s PDA through their usual mailing app roughly an hour after he had contacted Aya.

“It’s here, it’s here!”

Both of them peered into the display.

[You’re, like, asking because of Aya’s connections, right? You should at least be grateful. You wouldn’t get your information without Aya and Aya will, like, keep that in mind….]

They skimmed over the mail’s text which consisted of a long paragraph demanding grat.i.tude and only paid attention to the attached data. Aya was still a heavy user of «jungle» and had many “friends” she was connected to within «jungle» (in contrast to that she had no real friends). She had used those “friends” and gathered information about “missions” from the past for Yata.

Because they didn’t know what they were looking for they had made double sure and asked Aya to collect as many missions that had been offered during a certain time period as possible.

Fus.h.i.+mi was still not certain who it was who must not understand this information. But he believed that he could a.s.sure his a.s.sumption with this.

Yata was scrolling down the screen. The mission’s t.i.tles and summaries popped up one by one.

“Go back a bit…that one.”

Fus.h.i.+mi flicked the screen into the other direction from next to Yata’s finger. What caught Fus.h.i.+mi’s eyes was a mission recruiting spies.

In a bar in s.h.i.+zume City are criminal dealings carried out. The partic.i.p.ants have gotten instructions from a NPC “detective” and are supposed to go after the real facts, was the kind of story the mission followed. With that kind of appearance they had skillfully stimulated the users’ interest. The first order was to take pictures of the people who frequented the bar in question, bar “HOMRA”.

“Bingo. The pictures that are exposed on that website, they’re collected from this mission.”

Bar HOMRA —- the headquarters of “The Red Monster” and a gossiped about bar. It didn’t seem likely that this was mere coincidence. The one who had set this mission had gathered the pictures that had been secretly taken of “The Red Monster”’s gang and exposed them on the internet.

“Without letting the users know what they were actually made to collaborate with they partic.i.p.ated, thinking it was a game. With letting a lot of people indiscriminately partic.i.p.ate their real goal has been made unclear. a.s.suming “The Red Monster”’s gang would’ve thought of it as suspicious and thus caught the photographers they wouldn’t have been able to deduce the truth because the ones who took the pictures are middle and high school students, just like us. “The Red Monster” who destroys other gangs in s.h.i.+zume City and his gang are brutal, but even if they’d strangulate the ordinary people who are related to this mission one by one, they couldn’t destroy a gang or anything.”

“…uhh, I couldn’t keep up with what you said at all, but what exactly are we trying to find out?”

As Fus.h.i.+mi mumbled to himself to sort his thoughts Yata shook his head lightly and widened his eyes.

“There are people who think of “The Red Monster” as an obstruction, right? With a method “The Red Monster” can’t destroy they make people take action in s.h.i.+zume City, a feint like this, a demonstration…”

“Um? So, who does that? «jungle»?”

“….who is «jungle»’s service provider anyway?”

Halfway through Fus.h.i.+mi wondered that himself. While he turned his eyes towards his PDA his focus wasn’t on it but on the empty s.p.a.ce right above the screen.

“Well, ‘who’, isn’t it just some kind of company? It’s written somewhere in the terms and conditions, right? Well, I haven’t read them so I wouldn’t know.”

“They’re definitely hiding their real nature. It’s not how you say, in the core of «jungle»’s structure is…”

Because the phone started to ring Fus.h.i.+mi startedly cut off his sentence.

It wasn’t the PDA of either of them. The irksome sound came from the first floor. Fus.h.i.+mi looked doubtfully towards the door.

“It’s the phone, right? And the maid isn’t here right now either, is she?”

Yata said that suggesting that Fus.h.i.+mi obviously had to go get the phone, but Fus.h.i.+mi was hesitating to stand up. The landline phone in this house seldom rang. Keeping the telephone line was unnecessary, was how little the phone rang. That woman was a person with many business and personal contacts, but everybody probably knew that she was barely at home so if they had a concern with her they contacted her directly on her PDA. And Fus.h.i.+mi knew nothing about that guy’s contacts and acquaintances. He didn’t know what that guy usually did when he was outside, and he didn’t want to now either.

When they waited for a few moments like this, the ringing stopped.

“They hung up, huh.”

“……was probably just telephone selling.”

For some reason Fus.h.i.+mi felt relieved and took his eyes off the door.

“Um, so? Saruhiko, you were saying something, right? In the core of «jungle»’s service is…?”

“…There was something I had always sensed…I can’t explain it properly, but, y'know, there is “malice”… I always disliked that.”

“Malice….?”

Yata made a meek face and swallowed.

“I told you countless times that «jungle» implants a spyware, right? The spyware sucks out the personal information in the PDA. The majority of the information from common people is useless trash, but if there is a fairly high-level text a.n.a.lyzing algorithm then they could with high accuracy salvage the useful information from within the sea of useless trash. If they’d use this algorithm they could for example extract “malicious words”. In our first year there had been that group chat mistakenly delivered to your PDA, right? It had been the reason why you had gotten excluded.”

“Eh? Ah, y- yeah, that had happened back then…right?”

Said Yata sounding like he had completely forgotten about it, and frowned.

“They are able to extract “malicious words” out of the vast amount of messages that are exchanged in «jungle» and turn them into usable data. Additionally they a.n.a.lyze the data and can so identify the person who the malice is aimed at. Then they send it to the very person….with the spyware they can of course also draw out the mail address. I’m just guessing, but what happened in our first year might have been a test use of that algorithm. You unfortunately had received those insults…..”

It wasn’t like Fus.h.i.+mi had just recently noticed that. He had come to this presumption more than half a year ago because online had been a rumor that “«jungle» collects people’s insults”. It seemed like users from the whole country had experienced the same thing like Yata and, Fus.h.i.+mi didn’t know how much of it was true, but they had even talked about suicide attempts and cases in which arguments had turned into a.s.sault and murder—even though something like this had happened the number of people who use «jungle» continued to grow. You should just quit, are you all stupid or what, is what Fus.h.i.+mi thought. It’s probably…because everybody uses it n.o.body can quit. You all really are stupid, is what Fus.h.i.+mi concluded.

“Though I don’t know what a tasteless thing like a.n.a.lyzing insults could be used for. The real purpose could be for example, to get the pa.s.sword to access confidential national information from the trifling e-mail exchanges of the state’s influential people’s families…well, it could be something like this.”

“Hoaa… That’s really amazing, Saruhiko, that you thought of something like this.”

Yata gaped his mouth open and heaved a sigh. It was only a guess but Fus.h.i.+mi thought that Yata felt a bit down because the truth of the incident from two years ago had been dug up. Yata was slacking with an expression as if he was terribly tired, but he suddenly made a somewhat nasty snicker and softened his face. Seems like he isn’t feeling down after all.

“You know Saruhiko, I believe that somewhere in this world there is some kind of huge power we aren’t told about. That there is some guy who possess the power to affect the world, not a politician or anything, but someone unthinkably stronger. Remember when we had chased the blimp? At that time I believed that kind of power certainly exists. But, y'know, I couldn’t have thought of that  myself. Because I am an idiot and can’t think of more than what is right in front of my eyes.”

A bit embarra.s.sed, Yata scratched his cheek and after he had said that, he heaved himself up and moved towards Fus.h.i.+mi.

“Saruhiko, you showed it to me. You made sure that I’d also be able to experience the existence of a world like that. I don’t understand half of the things you think about, but only listening to what you say, makes me more excited than ever.”

This time it was Fus.h.i.+mi who had been surprised, and he gazed back into Yata’s sparkling eyes. With the praise and affection directed straight towards Fus.h.i.+mi, for him Yata was an as mysterious being as “the world with some kind of huge power” Yata had talked about. Somehow that was a feeling that had his body itching to do something…like a hot propellant was plunged deep into his body, a feeling like that.

Two years ago, the time when they hadn’t been able to catch the blimp, that is, the time when Yata had firmly believed that there existed some kind of amazing power, In that time Fus.h.i.+mi had felt let down. Nothing had changed, is what he had thought.

But, since that time something might have started to change little by little.

“We had talked about making our own headquarters a while ago, but can’t we really do it? We said after graduating from middle school, but there is no time to put it off. Let’s actually do it right away! Let’s make a base to figure out the true colors of «jungle»’s “malice”. Our base.”

Proposed Yata, completely caught up in the moment.

“What will you do about the exams? You’re a useless guy running away, remember?”

“Ugh…th- that is, well, what about it?”

When he was pushed away for the time being, Yata got discouraged and frowned, but Fus.h.i.+mi was already making up his mind.

“Misaki. I won’t go to high school. Up until middle school is enough. Being forced to listen to adults’ long talks any more is only unpleasant and pointless. If you’d say this then it’d be a useless guy running away, right. So if I invite you then that’s a good excuse.”

Invite…huh. Somehow that was a fresh word. Had this kind of word lied on his tongue from his birth until now?  Inviting somebody and doing something together with them, until now Fus.h.i.+mi hadn’t had this kind of principle for his conduct.

“Quit with exams and stuff. Your parents will be angry, right, but just blame me, I’ll be the one your parents will resent.”

“I- I won’t blame you or anything. Don’t just proceed with the conversation on your own.”

Replied Yata promptly with an angry face.

“I decided to bear my own responsibilities. I understand already. I…won’t go to high school either! Today I’ll stop being an examinee!”

Yata cheered, jumped up with his whole body and landed face up on the bed.

“Ah, I feel refreshed somehow!”

Yata started to flail his arms on the bed and immediately baffled Fus.h.i.+mi. “You’re too carefree…” is what Fus.h.i.+mi said, but he smiled fondly at Yata and let out a small laugh.

Fus.h.i.+mi didn’t particularly hate studying, so he didn’t feel like the exams were difficult. But why did he have to be judged by people who were below him?

There was no need for school. They didn’t need any adults in their own world. Even if they wouldn’t be cared for by adults that didn’t inconvenience them and it would be very easy to live like that.

Building a base for two middle school students to confront an intrigue that was secretly spun somewhere in the world — only thinking about it made it seem stupid, but this seemingly stupid thing, Fus.h.i.+mi believed they could seriously succeed in doing it.

They weren’t hesitating or dreading. They weren’t even thinking of failure. There was nothing but impudence right now.

†

The phone in the first floor was ringing again. Fus.h.i.+mi could count on one hand how often it had  happened that the phone in this house rung twice in one day since his childhood.

It was after Yata had left. Fus.h.i.+mi was lying down on his bed in his room and twiddling with his PDA but he took his eyes off it and turned his face towards the door.

It just didn’t stop ringing. They’re persistent this time, what the h.e.l.l…

With no other choice left Fus.h.i.+mi rose to his feet and left the room. In summer the air conditioner was overworking in the house, but when it became this kind of season then it was outside his room  just as chilly as outdoors. Because Fus.h.i.+mi had gotten out of his room barefooted his toes immediately became cold when he stepped on the hard floor that was meant to be walked on with shoes. In the first floor where no signs of humans were only continued the phone to ring. When Fus.h.i.+mi stood in the living room’s doorway the phone which was in a dusty nook made a green lamp flicker as if it was trying to remember its own capacity after such a long time.

Fus.h.i.+mi took the telephone receiver and answered.

“…..yes.”

No “h.e.l.lo”, no “Here is Fus.h.i.+mi”.

“h.e.l.lo. Am I right that this is Fus.h.i.+mi Niki-san’s home?”

Hearing that name right from the beginning made Fus.h.i.+mi feel regret about having answered the phone.

It was a man’s voice. It wasn’t the voice of a debt collector nor the voice of a haughty policeman, it was the calm voice of an older man.

“h.e.l.lo? Am I right that this is Fus.h.i.+mi Niki-san’s home?”

Because the man asked again seemingly worried, Fus.h.i.+mi finally answered. “…yes.”

Though he didn’t know if this place could be called the “home” of a person who comes back only for a few days in a month.

“I’m doctor at the XX general hospital. My name is Fujimine. You are the son, right? I am your father’s attending doctor. Is your mother home?”

Son? Father? Mother? When Fus.h.i.+mi heard in succession these words n.o.body in this house used, his heart quickly got cold.

Expressly denying it towards another person was a pain but Fus.h.i.+mi didn’t want to affirm it either so he answered: “There is n.o.body but me here right now.”

“I see… In what year are you? If I talk to you will you understand me?”

“I’m a middle school senior. I’ll understand it.”

Petulant, Fus.h.i.+mi used a mature-sounding voice to answer.

“Okay, please stay calm and listen. Your father’s condition took a sudden turn to the worse. It’s a situation where I’d like for the family to come over quickly, just in case. It is harsh but even if his condition would improve tonight, entering the new year might be difficult for your father in any case.”

Ah- come to think of it, has that brute even issued a health insurance?  Things like that were half of what Fus.h.i.+mi was thinking about while he listened to the doctor’s voice. Receiving support despite not being a human, this country’s system was really bulls.h.i.+t.

“Is everything okay? Can you hear me?”

“I hear you. I understand.”

“That’s a relief. Then could you contact your mother right away? I’ll wait for you. You can enter through the after-hours staff entrance, please talk to the person on duty. I’ll make sure that they understand right away. Stay calm. It’s nighttime, so please be careful.”

That man’s attending doctor was too good for him. He seemed like a doctor with a good personality.

After the conversation ended Fus.h.i.+mi couldn’t move for a moment. He then put the phone receiver back in a slow movement.

“……Haha.”

He let out a laugh in a tone he himself thought was rare. He turned towards the ground and his shoulders trembled.

Today there had been a lot of good things. It felt like change had slowly, slowly come and when it had been here it had immediately received positive energy and increased its speed.

Hm, I’m hungry…I wonder if I should go buy something to eat. Even his mood had become rarely energetic and Fus.h.i.+mi went away from the phone. He never thought back to the phone call’s content again.

—-

1. the word used here is 鉄砲玉 (teppôdama), a yakuza term for a person who exists just to kill an enemy and doesn’t care about the consequences for themselves.

<script>