章 71: 67
Exposed rocks appeared where the woods headed toward the sea. Now a low wall formation of those rocks faced the sea. Shogo seemed to have worked on it with his knife. Two large branches had been stuck into the rock wall, and on top of them were leafy branches serving as a roof to block the rain. Raindrops came flowing off the branch tips.
After he was given strong painkillers that Shogo had brought from the medical clinic, Shuya told him about the lighthouse. Shogo boiled water in a can with charcoal, and its gurgling sound overlapped with the sound of pouring rain.
When Shuya was done, Shogo said, "I see." He took a deep breath, and put another Wild Seven into his mouth. He held the Uzi in his lap. They decided it was best Shogo hold onto it. Shuya held the CZ75, and Noriko had the Browning.
Shuya shook his head feebly. "It was awful."
Shogo blew out some smoke and removed the cigarette from his mouth. "Yukie forming such a large group ended up backfiring."
Shuya nodded bitterly. "It's so hard to…trust someone."
"Yes, it is." Shogo looked down. "It's very hard." He continued smoking and appeared pensive. Then he said, "In any case, I'm glad you made it."
Shuya recalled Yukie's face. He was alive. He was alive thanks to Yukie's group, but they were gone now.
Shuya looked at Noriko, on his left. Hearing about the deaths of her friends Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa must have been hard on her. Once she saw the water was boiling, she took out some dried bouillon Shogo must have found and tossed two cubes into the can. The smell of broth came drifting up.
"Can you eat, Shuya?" Noriko asked.
Shuya looked at Noriko and raised his brow. He knew he had to eat, but he had just thrown up—and besides the images of the stiff gray lumps around Tadakatsu Hatagami and Yuichiro Takiguchi still flashed through his mind. (He hadn't told them about that. The "lumps" were at work only a hundred meters or so away from them__He only said that he threw up from the pain of his wounds.) He couldn't work up an appetite.
"Eat, Shuya. Noriko and I already had lunch," Shogo said, cigarette in mouth. His stubble had thickened. He grabbed the edge of the can with a handkerchief, poured the soup into a plastic cup, and offered it to Shuya.
Shuya took it and slowly put it against his mouth. The taste of broth spread through his mouth. Then the warm liquid slid down his throat and into his stomach. It wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Noriko offered him bread. Shuya took a bite. Once he started chewing, he was surprised to find he could eat. He ended up eating it all instantly. Regardless of the mental state he was in…his body had been starving.
"Would you like more?" Noriko asked and Shuya nodded. "A little more soup." He raised the empty cup. Noriko refilled it this time.
Taking the cup, Shuya said, "Noriko."
She looked up at him. "What is it?"
"Are you feeling all right now?"
"Uh huh." She smiled. "I've been taking cold medicine. I'm fine." Shuya looked at the side of Shogo's face. Shogo nodded, cigarette dangling between lips. He'd taken another antibiotic syringe kit from the medical clinic, but it turned out that was unnecessary. Shuya turned around to Noriko again and smiled back at her. "That's great." Then she asked the same question she'd been repeating over and over. "Shuya, are you really all right?" Shuya nodded. "I'm fine."
In fact, he wasn't, but what else could he say? He could see over his cuffs how his left hand had grown pale compared to his right hand. He wasn't sure whether it was due to his shoulder wound or elbow wound. Or it might simply be because the bandage was too tight around his elbow. He felt his left arm get stiffer and stiffer.
He had another sip of the soup and put the cup down by his feet. Then he called Shogo. Shogo, who was checking the Uzi, raised his brow and looked at Shuya. "What is it?"
"It's about Kazuo."
That's right. As he contemplated the events that had occurred since yesterday, the question that had been occupying him right before he split up with Shogo and Noriko suddenly came back to him. The gunfire he'd heard right after he left the lighthouse also reminded him. In other words—as he'd yelled out before,
"What's the hell's he doing!?"—meaning, what kind of person was Kazuo Kiriyama?
As far as he could tell, Kazuo wasn't the only one willing to participate. Tatsumichi Oki, whom Shuya had fought, possibly Yoshio Akamatsu, and if Hiroki was right, Mitsuko Souma might also be in the same category. But…Kazuo was absolutely merciless. His coldness and calmness. The strange vibe he always got from Kazuo suddenly exploded in this game and assaulted them. Shuya once again recalled the flames erupting from the machine gun, and the cold eyes behind them. He felt a chill run down his spine. Shogo remained silent, so Shuya continued, "What…what's up with him? I just don't get it." Shogo looked down and tinkered around with the Uzi's safety device, equipped with a full-auto/semi-auto switch.
Didn't Shogo say there was no need to understand? Shuya wondered whether Shogo would give him the same reply.
But Shogo had a different response this time.
He looked up. "I've seen people like him before."
"In the previous game?"
"No." Shogo shook his head. "Not there. Totally outside of this game. You see a lot of things when you're the son of a doctor working in the slums." Shogo took out another cigarette and lit it. He exhaled and said, "A hollow man."
"Hollow?" Noriko asked.
"That's right," Shogo nodded. "There's no place in his heart for logic or love, no. For any kind of values. That kind of person. On top of that…there's no reason for the way he is." No reason, Shuya thought, or did he mean he was just born that way? That's—
Shogo took a puff and exhaled. "Hiroki warned us about Mitsuko Souma, right?" Shuya and Noriko nodded.
"We still haven't seen for ourselves whether Mitsuko's really up for this game. But from what little I've seen at school, I think Mitsuko and Kazuo are similar. The only difference is that Mitsuko's abandoned all reason and love. There was probably something behind that. I have no idea what it was. But Kazuo doesn't have any cause. The difference is crucial. There's no explanation behind Kazuo." Shuya stared at Shogo and mumbled, "That's scary."
"Yeah, it's scary," Shogo agreed. "Just think about it. It's probably not even his fault. Of course you can say that about anyone. But in his case he probably could never grasp 'an unknown future.' Nothing could be more terrifying than to be born that way."
Shogo then continued, "What I mean is that, even a dumb ass like me can think everything's pointless. Why do I get up and eat? It all ends up shit anyway. Why am I going to school and studying? Even if I happen to succeed I'm going to die anyway. You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. Of course, this kind of meaninglessness might suit this crappy nation. But…but, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not amount to much. But they fill up our emptiness. That's the only explanation I have. So…these emotions are probably missing from Kazuo. He's got no foundation for values. So he merely chooses. He doesn't have a solid foundation. He just chooses as he goes___Like for this game he might just as well have chosen not to participate. But he decided to. That's my little theory." He said all of this at once and then concluded, "Yeah, it is scary that someone could live a life like that…and that we have to take on someone like that right now."
They fell silent. Shogo took one more drag from his shortened cigarette and then rubbed it out against the ground. Shuya took another sip from his cup of soup. Then he looked up at the cloudy sky over the edge of Shogo's thatched roof.
"I wonder if Hiroki is all right."
He'd mentioned the gunfire he heard after he left the lighthouse. He was still worried about it.
"I'm sure he's all right," Noriko said.
Shuya looked at Shogo. "I wonder if we'll be able to see any smoke." Shogo nodded. "Don't worry. We can see smoke coming from anywhere on this island. I'll check periodically."
Shuya then remembered the bird call. It led him to them. But why did Shogo have such an odd thing to begin with? He was about to ask him when Noriko said, "I wonder if Hiroki met up with Kayoko Kotohiki."
"If he did, we'd be seeing smoke," Shogo answered.
Noriko nodded and then mumbled, "I wonder why he had to see Kotohiki." This came up when they were in the medical clinic. Shuya's response was the same. "Beats me."
"They didn't seem all that close."
But then Noriko said, "Oh…" as if she'd realized something.
Shuya looked up. "What?"
"I don't know for sure." Noriko shook her head. "But maybe…" She emphasized her last vowel. Shuya knit his brows.
"Maybe what?"
"That would be…"
Shogo interrupted them. Shuya looked over at him. Shogo was tearing the seal off a new pack of cigarettes and continued, his eyes glued to the pack, "…too corny…in this fucking game."
"But…" Noriko continued, "…it's Hiroki, so…"
Shuya looked back and forth at them, utterly perplexed.
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