The Children Reason Read online

  KONOHA’S WORLD SITUATION

  The white clouds seem tacked onto the sky, which itself is a deep, thickly daubed shade of blue.

  It all looks terribly fake to me, perhaps because I refuse to admit it was ever real at all.

  Rays of sunlight rain down, searing and blazing their way across the asphalt as they shimmer through the air.

  But the heat, and the smell of the asphalt, is nothing that I can feel for myself.

  “You must have realized it by now. You are incapable of remaining in this world. The queen is gone, and now, you are merely spent leftovers.”

  “Oh. You again. Wish I knew why you wanted to make it that way so badly…”

  Is this a conversation? Or am I simply talking to myself?

  Either way, it has been quite a long time since I last engaged in meaningful communication with anyone.

  Once I go back There, I suppose I’ll forget everything.

  Forget talking on and on, endlessly jabbering even more than I used to. It’s just embarrassing at this point.

  At the intersection ahead, marked by a cut in the trees that line the road, a girl staggers her way across the crosswalk, a vacant stare on her face.

  How many times have I watched this already? How many times did I just stand there and stare?

  I raise an arm, just as I always do. It’s easily within reach of her.

  “Stop. This is not your world. It is ‘theirs’ now. Unless one of you can find the other, there is nothing you can do.”

  The signal is flashing, but the girl does not seem to notice it.

  She is right in front of me. So close, I could embrace her.

  But no matter what I do, I cannot touch her. My extended hand slips through the girl, grabbing at air, feeling nothing.

  “Why?!”

  That fateful moment was almost here, heralded by its blood-curdling scream.

  Suddenly, my view of the scene twists and blurs, as if I’ve triggered some cosmic computer glitch that corrupted all the graphics.

  Looking down, I discover that my body has already ceased to exist.

  “He was the one decided upon. It is over. You may have strained, and stretched, and forced yourself in here. But do not be mistaken. Your continued existence is not a product of your own power.”

  “…Yes, it’s yours, isn’t it? You’re the one who gave me all this strength in the first place. How nice of you.”

  “It simply happened to be the body you desired. Pure and simple. Now, go back.”

  “Um, hang on. Just one more thing. Can you relay a message over to me on the other side?”

  “What is it?”

  “××××××××××××××××××.”

  “…I can make no promises.”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine. Thanks for everything.”

  This is probably it, too. Right up to the last millisecond, I’ve acted like such a dumbass.

  Ugh…If I could have one more wish come true…

  I wish I could reach out to her again.

  That girl who kicked my dumb ass all the time…

  KAGEROU DAZE 01

  From some indistinct, faraway loudspeaker, the old folk song “Sunrise and Sunset” echoed along, signifying the end of the school day.

  The sky, which had seemed so lustrous a blue a moment ago, soon splashed itself in rich shades of orange and pink as if stirred to action by the simple, tinkling melody.

  The distant green mountains, far beyond the glass window, projected the same air of unchanging, oppressive majesty they always did.

  I was, unfortunately, currently the lone passenger on the bus, as it lurched ominously and creaked its way along the hilly, uneven road.

  The classmate who got off at the last stop wasn’t a particularly close friend of mine, but the “Sunrise and Sunset” melody that always seemed to pitch up on cue with his departure never failed to stir up the familiar pangs of loneliness.

  Picking at the exposed foam poking out invitingly from the seatback in front of me, I peered at the scene beyond the window one more time. I was rewarded with a steady stream of electric poles whizzing past my eyes, a field resplendent with a bumper crop of something-or-other in the background behind it.

  It wasn’t the most effective way to make the time go.

  I sighed and closed my eyes.

  If only I could use my cell phone wantonly at times like this. Life would be joyous.

  Apropos of nothing, my mind recalled a scene on a city train, which I once saw on my friend’s TV.

  Everyone—man and woman, young and old—had been staring intently at their touchscreen phones, each person fully ensconced in their own little worlds.

  The sight, as viewed through the old picture-tube TV set, was more than enough to make any elementary-age country kid swoon. Especially if they were this far out in the country. Those city women—really, not that much older than I am—freely wandering around that glorious urbanity, smartphone at the ready…

  I bet they used those phones to contact each other, too, arranging meet-up times for their next big night out. They’d text and chat with their friends all night, share notes with each other over the ’Net—the fun never ending for them.

  Occasionally, this fantasy would inspire me to wander into the electronics shop that lay along the way home from school.

  Out this far from civilization, with hardly any kind of entertainment available with a price tag, the cash I received from my family as New Year’s Day gifts piled up to dizzying heights.

  Or by a kid’s standards, it did. It was really just a pitiful wad of bills, and I had taken all of it to the store, eagerly chirping out “Gimme a smartphone, please!” as I skipped inside. I had to explain what a smartphone was to the guy running the shop. He didn’t have much idea what one was, either.

  This, as you’d expect, didn’t bring me much closer to mobile bliss. The heavy, plastic, near-antique telephone receiver he showed me instead was, in a way, more character building of an experience than most of what I learned at school.

  Which is great.

  But right here, right now, “character building” was the last thing I needed.

  I’d trade away all that dippy “life experience” for a cell phone in an instant. But who would make that offer to me in the first place?

  If, for example, I tried asking those stubborn parents of mine, they’d call me impertinent. Ungrateful. They’d kick me out of the house long enough that I’d have to cower in fear of the stray dogs running around at night.

  Fending for my hide in the great outdoors without any supplies was low on my list of priorities. And even if I dared attempt such a purchase without my parents’ knowledge, there was no place selling them.

  I didn’t even have any opportunity to hit the city for one—we had no relatives there. City people ventured out to visit their hayseed relatives during New Year’s, or maybe at the Obon holiday in August. Us, we stayed here.

  Maybe I could convince someone to courier one over?

  Or can you even do that, really, with a cell phone?

  In terms of tech-gadget knowledge, all I really had to go on were that cell phones let you make voice calls, send text messages, and bump around on the Internet.

  I had my parents to thank for that, too, of course.

  Thanks to their misguided attempts at child rearing, and their Luddite habit of screaming at their only kid just for attempting to sneak a peek at a friend’s TV, I never had anything to contribute to my classmates’ conversations. Usually, I was the last to learn about trends, or fashion, or sometimes common sense.

  But a cell phone, at least, was something I could keep in my pocket. It wouldn’t draw my parents’ ire that easily.

  S
o, really, if I could just score one, I was set.

  The problem was how, and on that score, I didn’t have much to go on. The best idea was to ask someone.

  But, well…about that…

  “Yeah, if I could do that, this would be so much easier…”

  With a sigh, the words slipped from my lips.

  There was someone I could talk to.

  Or, technically speaking, it was possible to speak with her. But she wasn’t the kind of girl I could just sidle up and bare my soul to.

  That was how difficult I found it to approach this girl, Hiyori Asahina, and interact with her.

  Born into a fabulously rich family, easily among the top three powerbrokers in this stretch of our rural county, she had been learning things like piano, flower arranging, and ballet practically since she was in diapers. She was ferried off to the city on regular occasions, attending whatever recital or showing she was involved with next.

  Back a little while ago, I spotted her from a distance wielding a charmingly decorated cell phone, tapping away as if to symbolize her clear superiority over us all.

  She must have bought it in the city. Along those lines, she was my go-to girl when it came to phone issues.

  But I already knew that. That conclusion, I came to eons ago.

  The big issue here was twofold: One, Hiyori Asahina was a shockingly, hopelessly moody girl. Two, I was shockingly, hopelessly in love with her.

  “I know we live in this utter hellhole of a country backwater, but there’s one thing here better than anything you’ll find, anywhere else. That’s Hiyori Asahina. That’s you.”

  Several weeks ago, a classmate of mine sent a love letter along those lines to Hiyori Asahina. Her response: “…Gross,” spoken with practiced, honed disdain. I’m not sure the classmate will ever recover.

  But that demonstrated just how charming Hiyori Asahina was. It wasn’t a matter of outclassing the rest of the school. No, she was even a level above the child stars and models you saw in magazines and posters.

  She was a hit with every male student in the school, of course, and you’d always hear things like “Hiyori Asahina’ll make men out of our boys ’round here yet” and “You can’t even spit without hitting one of Asahina’s secret admirers” among the bemused local adults.

  Not that I was different. I was another Asahina admirer…or maybe Asahina addict, to be more accurate. Compared to the Johnny-come-lately Asahina casuals surrounding me, I was confident that no one could beat me in terms of faith, dedication, and amount of (unofficial) merchandise in possession.

  To a top-level general in the Asahina Army, morning always came early.

  Every morning at six, I greeted my fluffy, stuffed Hiyori doll (made by yours truly) with a smile before reporting to breakfast, poring over the timetable I made of Hiyori’s daily activities and figuring out where I had the best chance of “naturally” running into her that day.

  Before leaving home, I always made sure to pick a selection from my carefully curated gallery of Hiyori Asahina instant photos, thrusting it into the holder for my bus pass as I smirked to myself the entire commute.

  Once on school grounds, I took a deep breath to take in as much of Asahina’s pheromones as I could—different people reacted in different ways to them, but to me, it was an unobtrusively pleasant scent, like bacon—and if I ever managed to spot her in the hall, I’d flash a smile and observe.

  If I ever found myself approaching her, of course, I would never greet her with a rude, thoughtless “hey.” That was how you could tell a wannabe casual from a true Asahina Army foot soldier.

  A fresh recruit to the Army would always attempt to force a conversation, latching on in a barefaced attempt to curry her favor. That never had anything but the opposite effect on Hiyori Asahina.

  Just this morning, in fact, I found myself gnashing my teeth as I witnessed just one such upstart make his doomed approach. A simple swipe from Asahina’s jeweled dagger (“Ugh, move,” as she put it) was enough to instantly KO him.

  The unlucky suitor was apparently later dragged into the gym’s storage room by a particularly radicalized member of the Asahina Royal Guard. It’s better for the sake of one’s moral character not to even try to imagine what happened to him next.

  Thus, a true Asahina rank-and-filer would never attempt something so crassly brash. Instead, they would look on from afar, bathing in the radiant light of her beauty to gain the vitality to push them forward another day. It was a divine vocation, in other words.

  So how could someone like myself, engaged in what was honestly God’s work, bring up such a silly and pointless topic as mobile telephony with Hiyori Asahina herself? That’s where the problem lay. I would never allow myself to as much as hope she would lift a finger for me.

  Intellectually, I knew that.

  But in my heart, I found baser desires constantly whispering their temptations.

  Yes. The true desire secretly hidden underneath my lust for a cell phone:

  “…I want to text with Hiyori Asahina.”

  No. Not just text. I want to voice with her. While we’re on the bus, of course, but in the evening, too, unbeknownst to anyone, night after night.

  “I gotta do it with her…”

  The thoughts bubbled out from my mouth. I shut my eyes, balling my hands into fists, but the dream remained far away, reminding me yet again of how incapable I was of reaching it.

  “Yeah, that’s great, but this’s your stop, kid.”

  The words suddenly thrust at me dragged my mind back into the real world in an instant.

  I turned upward, seeking out the scoundrel who tossed this sharpened stone at my unguarded soul. As expected, the bus driver’s gaze pounded down at me, accompanied by a grin that all but shouted, “Oh, this is hilarious!”

  Shame coursed into my mind, faster than I could formulate any other thought.

  “Agh…Uh. Sorry! I’m getting off!”

  Hurrying myself off the bus would do nothing to alleviate this sordid state of affairs, but I shot up off my seat anyway, unable to withstand any more of it. I had to show my bus pass before departing, however, which meant more frantic fumbling and flailing through my backpack.

  “Uhh, bus pass, bus pass…Ah, jeez, where is it…? No, I got it, I got it! Just gimme one second…”

  I rifled through every pocket and pouch of my backpack, but the bus pass that I knew I placed inside this morning had disappeared without a trace.

  “Oh, crap, did I leave it at home…?! But I couldn’t have…”

  Now things were even more sordid. The shame had already blanked my mind, like an eraser to a whiteboard.

  “Huh? Aw, don’ worry about it. I can let it slide one day; yer always showin’ it to me erry day anyway.”

  The exasperated driver gave me a pat on the head as he smiled. A breeze of relief wafted across my chest.

  What a guy. He had every right in the world to haul me in for skipping out on my bus fare, and yet his kindheartedness saved my life.

  “Uh, uh, are you sure?! I’m sorry, I swear I’ll have it tomorrow…”

  “Sure, sure, ’s fine! But, hey, kid…?”

  The driver took his hand off my head, his expression suddenly stern as his eyes sparkled.

  “Buh? Ah! Yeah?”

  The anxiety stabbed into my heart once more. I knew I shouldn’t have forgotten my pass…

  “Oh, jus,’ y’know, the ‘I gotta do it with her.’ Hee-hee-hee! Boy, I tell you, kid, that’s all I thought about when I was your—”

  “Thank you very much!! See you tomorrow!!!!”

  Like a frightened jackrabbit, I sprang out of the bus before the driver could finish his painfully misinformed observation. The moment I hit terra firma, I hung a right, dodging the weather-beaten bus shelter.

  Soon, I was tearing my way down the sidewalk, summer grass growing wild to the side.

  I could hear “Have a good one!” faintly from behind me. That guy was bad news. Really bad news.
I couldn’t articulate exactly how, but he was plainly bad news. I had to forget about him as soon as possible.

  Slowing down, I stretched my upper body straight up. On the far end of a one-lane road that seemed to stretch on to infinity, the faintly dark mountains slowly began to consume the sun.

  Sunset came pretty late into the evening this time of year.

  The nights were still obstinately chilly, but the air was nonetheless infused with a reminder of the sun’s heat, letting you taste the incoming summer on your skin.

  “Wonder what I’m gonna do this summer. They had me helpin’ out in the field the whole time last year. Hope they give me a break this time…”

  I had made it into my teenage years without making good on my intent to escape from this backwoods dump. The main thing I associated summer with was fieldwork, caked in mud, under the blistering sun.

  “Wish we could go on a trip somewhere…not that we will. Not like we got the money for that. Man, I bet I know who does…”

  I knew Hiyori Asahina had the free money to travel wherever she wanted, to enjoy a storybook summer in the exotic retreat of her choice. I had no way of confirming it, but the image came to mind too readily for my tastes.

  She came from a different world, a different perspective, a different everything. She’s seen sights and done things a thick country hick like me couldn’t even imagine.

  I knew that well enough. That was why I looked up to her. Why I fell for her.

  Taking in the setting sun, I stole a glance at the nearby orange-tinted fields as I dwelled on my eternal conundrum. Then I spotted my house, a little ways away from the village itself, a single plume of smoke rising from its tiny chimney across the vast stretch of meadow.

  When was the last time I left this village? I couldn’t recall, which I assume meant it was a while ago.

  And I’m still just a teenager, too. That’s how boring and unmemorable it must have been.

  When would I earn my next chance to ditch this village?

  Suddenly, I conjured an image of my future self with Hiyori Asahina, glancing at the destination sign as we boarded a fancy sleeper train, smiling at each other.

  I felt a twinge from somewhere near my chest. A warning, wordlessly telling me how ludicrous the idea was.