"You're responsible then," Mamimi said. "I'll call you Takkun."
Chapter 2
Outside, it was as dark as if it were already nightfall. The autumn sun set early.
In the dullness of his unlit bedroom, Naota stared out the window from his bed.
On the balcony, the fog and the darkness of the night created a thick mass. It was like the bottom of the sea, dark and unreachable by the sun, Naota thought. A prisoner, trapped by water pressure. That's what I am now.
He heard the sound of a passenger jet flying high above the city. Perhaps that's a boat on the surface of the sea. They don't know about me, trapped in this underwater colony, and those tourists are probably traveling to some faraway land, a world outside that I don't know.
Naota lay on the bed face up. He was sleeping on the bottom bunk, so he could see the base of the bunk above him, the place where his brother Tasuku had slept until recently.
The people who had disappeared from Naota's life…
Leaning against the bed was the guitar, the one that had been pulled out of Naota's head when the satellite had descended.
She had smiled and told him it was his bat, and then she had left this petrified city. Where had she gone?
Getting up from the bed, Naota picked up the guitar and tried playing a chord. The single tone resonated across the bottom of the deep sea floor.
Finally, his father's voice called to him for dinner, and Naota descended the stairs. But when he entered the room, he instinctively stiffened and yelled.
"Aaah!"
It was her. There.
Who? The Vespa girl, of course!
"Hey." Haruko was sitting at the table calmly, looking entirely innocent; for some reason, she was wearing a colorful lei around her neck, looking like a Hawaiian tourist.
"You!" Naota's voice was shrill. "What are you doing here, acting like nothing has happened? You're a fugitive!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Kamon started to explain. "I let her take a vacation so she could go on a six day celebrity holiday to gorgeous Hawaii."
Over the past few days, investigators had come to the Nandaba house a number of times, asking about Haruko's whereabouts. Each time, Kamon had replied coldly that she had nothing to do with the people in that house. Even though he'd said he liked her before, as soon as the police had come, he'd acted like she was a stranger. Naota had been enraged over how selfish adults could be.
But now it seemed that Kamon hadn't been writing Haruko off, rather had known her whereabouts and kept the information hidden. It was a staggering realization for Naota: From the way Kamon was talking, he had definitely known where she was when she'd left the house.
"Look, Haruko brought us gifts from Hawaii." Shigekuni was currently showing Naota one of the presents she must have given them, a wooden bear with white chocolate. It was a common souvenir.
No, wait a second, Naota thought. A wooden bear? White chocolate?
"That's not from Hawaii!"
"Next time, I want to go with you," Kamon said, drawing close to Haruko.
"Hawaii chocolate really does have a different taste, doesn't it?" Shigekuni bit into the white chocolate with a very pleased expression.
The two of them were so elated by Haruko's return home that they weren't listening to Naota at all.
"Next time I go," Haruko said, "I want it to be just me and Takkun."
"What?!" Shigekuni and Kamon cried out together in dismay.
Naota was still standing frozen in place when Haruko took his hand and suddenly pulled him to her. She hugged his head to her chest and then, as usual, started rubbing his head up and down her.
"I'm not going anywhere with you! Stop that! It hurts!"
"You're blushing!"
"I wish she'd rub me up and down like that," Shigekuni muttered, looking jealous.
That really hurts.
Naota finished his dinner early and then got into the bath. In the bathtub, he touched his head where it had been rubbed against Haruko.
That hooligan!
From the window, he could hear laughter—Haruko, Kamon, and Shigekuni in their drunken revelry. Considering they were a wanted fugitive and people harboring said fugitive, Naota felt the adults in his house had lost all sense of the crisis and themselves.
"They're so loud," he complained, but Naota's expression contained a happiness it had not over the past few days.
It was deep in the night when, after having caused as much chaos as she could during their drinking spree, Haruko came into Naota's room as if everything were completely normal. When she turned out the light, she climbed up onto the top bunk as if her past few days' disappearance had never happened.
Of course, the top bunk was her place, but it still disturbed Naota, who was on the bottom bunk with his eyes closed but not yet sleeping.
He couldn't fall asleep. Haruko was in his room now, in bed right above him. It was such a small thing, but that alone seemed like a miracle to Naota.
Naota whispered in a low voice, "Are you asleep?"
Haruko didn't reply, though; he could hear only the sound of her gentle breathing. She must have fallen asleep straight away; she must have been really tired.
"Who on Earth are you?" Naota muttered half to himself. "Where did you come from really?"
"What's this?" Suddenly, Haruko popped her head out from the top bunk above and looked down at Naota.
"What, you were awake?!"
"Did you think you could confess your love for me while I was sleeping?"
"Idiot, of course not!"
"You're blushing."
He was annoyed by her smile, so he frowned at her. "Why did you come back?"
"For you, Takkun."
"Liar."
"Hey, should we do it?" Haruko lowered her voice.
"What?"
"C-P-R."
"You do it all the time, don't you?"
"Not that, the real thing—the adult thing, the amazing thick one."
"Stop with the thick."
Haruko had jumped down from the top bunk and was leaning over Naota in his bed, her face right up to his. In the middle of the darkness, Haruko's face was coming straight for him—her breath, the feeling of those sensual lips.
I can't. This is nothing but Haruko's usual mischief. I can't do this on her terms.
As she watched Naota's confusion with the bold look that was always on her face, Haruko smiled gently for some reason. Then, she murmured, "Do you want to come with me? Throw everything away and come away with me?"
Naota didn't know where she meant, but he didn't need to ask. He knew Haruko was inviting him to go to a world outside this one, somewhere not here. That was the place Naota had been dreaming of for so long.
"Why are you being so nice?"
"Takkun, you're still a kid."
Naota surprised himself when, in the next moment, he pushed himself with all his might against Haruko's chest. He clung to her, buried his face in her, and wept.
"Where did you go? You disappeared all of a sudden!"
When was the last time, Naota thought, I cried like this? I haven't cried for such a long time…
Haruko quietly comforted the crying Naota.
The suffocating feeling he'd been experiencing wasn't just about the town, it was about his heart, about discovering that it was only an illusion that the everyday things in front of you were the best things could get, about the loss of imagination and possibilities.
In this town covered with white mist, the feeling of being trapped had been eating away at Naota. Gradually, he had even started to forget there was another world. He had tried to get used to an ordinary world, where nothing amazing happened. But, Naota thought, then Haruko came. She's here, hugging me now, so I won't forget that there is a world beyond this place.