Koushun Takami - Battle Royale

Kayoko wrapped a handkerchief around her head to shield herself from the rain. Thanks to the branches over her, the rain didn’t hit her directly, but her shoulders were drenched. She was cold. And of course more importantly, she was terrified.

Kayoko had first hidden on the eastern side of the northern mountain peak, in sector C-8. So of course she witnessed Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano getting killed in front of her very own eyes. She held her breath. She knew that their killer was near, but she instinctively thought she would be risking more by moving. She stayed absolutely quiet. As noon and then night passed, she managed to avoid any attacks.

She moved twice in accordance to the forbidden zone announcements. The second time she moved was immediately after noon today, because the southern side of the peak, sector D-7, was going to become forbidden at 1 p.m. So the northern mountain peak was now surrounded by three forbidden zones. Her allocated area was definitely shrinking.

She hadn’t met anyone yet. She heard a lot of gunfire, sometimes in the distance, sometimes near. She even heard an explosion, but she just remained still and absolutely quiet. The announcement every six hours made it clear though, the number of her classmates was steadily diminishing.

At noon there were supposedly fourteen remaining. And then there was more gunfire. Was it now just twelve? Or ten?

Since the beginning of the game, Kayoko put the heavy gun (Smith & Wesson M59 Automatic, manual included, but Kayoko of course could care less about the gun’s name) down by her feet and massaged her right-hand fingers with her left hand. She’d been holding the gun all this time, and now the muscles in her fingers had gone numb. The palm of her hand was flushed red and imprinted with the gun-grip pattern.

She was completely exhausted, both from sleep deprivation and the threat of attack. Because she was too scared to enter a house that might be occupied, the only food she ate was the bread and water that came supplied with her day pack. She was hungry and thirsty. Her water intake was grossly inadequate. She did her best to save the supplied water and only drank over a liter since the game began. If there was one good thing about the rain, it was that she could collect water by putting the recently emptied water bottle under a dripping branch, but it wasn’t even a third full. She would intermittently remove the handkerchief from her head and wet her dry lips with it, but of course this did nothing to relieve her dehydration.

Kayoko let out a long, weary breath, combed back her short, shoulder-length hair, and took up the M59 again. She was in a daze.

As she sat, dazed, she thought of that face again. She kept on thinking of that face ever since the game began. He wasn’t as familiar as her parents and older sister, whom she thought of as well, but he was very important to her.

She just began learning tea ceremony when she first saw him at an event conducted by the school where she attended tea ceremony class. It was the fall of her first year in junior high.

Sponsored by a government park for an autumn holiday, the tea ceremony was held outdoors for tourists. The actual practitioners performing that day were all adults, so Kayoko and other students her age took care of menial tasks, like arranging outdoor seating and preparing biscuits. He was one of the masters of the tea ceremony.

He arrived around noon, much later that day. He was good-looking, but he still looked boyish, as if he were still a college student. Kayoko thought, oh, this guy must be helping out too . But he addressed Kayoko’s teacher (a 42-year-old woman) at her seat, “I’m sorry I’m late,” took her place, and prepared the tea.

His preparation was very impressive. He handled the tea whisk and bowl incredibly gracefully, and his posture was impeccable. Despite his age, he didn’t look odd in traditional clothes.

Kayoko put her tasks on hold and was gazing at him when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and saw her senior in the Tea Ceremony Club at Shiroiwa Junior High, the one who’d invited her to attend the tea ceremony school.

“He’s pretty hot, huh? He’s the grandson of the headmaster. Well, to be more accurate, he’s the master’s mistress’ grandson. I’m a fan too. I mean, basically I’ve been going to tea ceremony class just to meet him.”

The senior informed her how he was nineteen years old, and how after graduating from high school he was already ranked as an instructor with many disciples. Kayoko’s only reaction at the time was, Oh, he’s from another world, so there’re people like him. That was all but then…

She began spending more hours in front of the mirror whenever there was a tea ceremony school event, or whenever she knew he would be appearing as a guest in her class. Given her age she didn’t use makeup, but she did wear her traditional kimono immaculately, kept a comb in her hair, and carefully inserted her favorite dark-blue hair clip. Her flowing brows, and although not very large, curved eyes, and although short, well-shaped nose, wide lips, nicely shaped at the center, she thought, sure, I might not be stunning, but I do look pretty mature….

The reason she fell head over heels for this man adored by adolescent girls to middle-aged women alike may have been pretty simple. After all, he was handsome and intelligent, cheerful and considerate—basically the kind of ideal man you hardly believed existed. On top of that, he apparently didn’t even have a girlfriend.

Kayoko had two important encounters with this man, although from someone else’s perspective they might not have seemed all that special.

The first one occurred at the tea school’s demonstration ceremony the spring she became a second-year junior high school student. The ceremony was held at the headmaster’s home in Shido-cho near Shiroiwa-cho. Almost immediately after the event began, there was a problem. A special guest, the central government’s regional cultural representative, suddenly began complaining about the tea ceremony. It wasn’t the first time. They were government officials who announced their “absolute loyalty to preserve the nation’s absolute sanctity,” but many of them in fact abused their power. Some would even request kickbacks in return for arranging increased national traditional arts funding which the headmaster would politely refuse, so this could have been a way to get back at them by stirring up trouble.

The problem was that the headmaster was absent because he was hospitalized. The heir who substituted for the headmaster and his heir were both so completely intimidated their incompetence could have led to the school being shut down. But the nineteen-year-old master saved the day. He took the belligerent official to another room, then returned alone and said, “The official has left. He seems satisfied now, so there’s no need to worry, everyone.”

He said no more, and the attending established members of the school also refrained from inquiring any further. As a result the rest of the ceremony proceeded smoothly. But Kayoko was concerned. Knowing him, he could very well have assumed full responsibility, saying something like, “I am in charge of today’s ceremony,” and if that were true then the official could get back at him by concocting a report and arranging his arrest for being a malign influence against the government (and as a result sending him to one of those “reeducation camps”).

After the ceremony came to an end with no further interruptions, they began to clean up the area, and she waited for him to be alone. When he went to move the seat cushions, she decided to call on him.

“Sir…”

He stopped, still holding the cushions, and elegantly turned around towards Kayoko. His sad eyes made Kayoko’s heart race, but she managed to continue, “Is everything all right, sir?”