Chapter 2: The First to Die

It was dusk by the time Ikeda finally got home. His father wasn't back yet, probably still holed up in an izakaya.

He took a meal bar from the refrigerator, tucked himself under the kotatsu, and turned on the television. Apart from sleep, Ikeda treasured this time most, sitting in front of the TV, doing his homework and eating the junk food only the poorest households would stock.

From a very young age, television had been something like a father to Ikeda. His book contained these words, too: “The TV doesn't come home drunk. The TV doesn't leave me behind at the zoo. The TV doesn't hit me or yell at me. The TV is the one that teaches me how to be a person.”

More than once, he had imagined that, like the heroes in those stories, he might one day encounter aliens, meet a mysterious girl, be recruited by a secret government agency, or even be carried off to another world by a bolt of lightning, changing his life forever. More than anything, he wished he could be like the heroes in those films, someone people relied on instead of despising and bullying.

But every day, the moment he opened his eyes, Ikeda had to face cruel reality.

At seventeen, life was already so painful.

The deepest terror comes not from what lies before your eyes, but from the future; the most absolute despair comes not from uncertainty about that future, but from being able to foresee your own wretched life while you are still young.

At some point, the pen in Ikeda's hand stopped moving. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten twenty, and his father still wasn't home.

Ikeda got out from under the kotatsu, went to the front door, put on his shoes, and strode out into the night.

On the deserted street, the boy wore a look of determination he had never shown before. Behind his glasses, his eyes were almost frighteningly fierce.

Tian Yi's bookshop had already closed for the night. Ikeda wanted to go in and make sure one more time, but clearly no amount of knocking would get an answer.

“I've come this far. I'm not turning back!” That was what Ikeda told himself.

He walked for over an hour, reaching the school close to midnight. The campus was pitch-black, with only a little light still showing in the gatehouse.

By now, the guard on duty should have been asleep for some time. School regulations required the night guards to make one patrol between midnight and five, so these guys usually went to bed early, got up around four the next morning, then headed straight out after their rounds to buy breakfast or something.

The school gate wasn't very high and was designed to fold and extend sideways. Ikeda climbed over without much trouble and walked all the way to the classroom building before finally stopping.

Only after making it all this way on sheer momentum did he discover that the building's doors were secured at night with a loop lock. That might be no obstacle for fictional heroes, but Ikeda had no idea what to do.

“What was I thinking...” Ikeda gave a bitter smile.

He turned to go home, muttering to himself. “Nothing I can do... Besides, even if I'd seen this coming and brought a pipe wrench instead of coming empty-handed, damaging school property is a serious matter.”

Ikeda truly hated himself. He knew all this pointless talk meant nothing. The fact was that even when he made up his mind to do something, the slightest unexpected obstacle could make him give up.

“So I really am useless... I deserve to be called Soggy Mosquito Coil...” Ikeda began tormenting himself. Still unwilling to give up, he turned back for another look at the classroom building, as though he might yet find some glimmer of hope.

“That's...!” Ikeda's eyes suddenly widened. Hope really had appeared. Even his miserable life could hold an unexpected stroke of luck.

The closer he got, the more clearly Ikeda could see it. One of the ground-floor corridor windows hadn't been shut properly, leaving a tiny gap. It wasn't obvious at first glance, but he had spotted it when he looked back.

He approached the window and took a deep breath. The cold night air rushed into his head. He reached out and pulled the window open. A few seconds later, he had climbed into the corridor.

Ikeda couldn't contain his excitement. His whole body was trembling, and Tian Yi's words from a few hours earlier still rang in his ears. “Sneak into Matsuo's office at midnight and bring out any one of his possessions, and I'll let you read Miura's book.”

He didn't know why the man would make such a demand, much less why he knew Matsuo and Miura, but after those strange books filled with people's private thoughts, this hardly seemed so strange.

Even standing outside the staff office, Ikeda still couldn't say he was entirely resolved. He was Ikeda, after all, the Ikeda who didn't dare hit back when someone beat him. Even he could hardly believe he was doing something so far out of line, but this utterly new experience also gave him a thrill unlike anything he had ever felt. He was probably producing a little too much adrenaline by now, because his hand shook badly as he reached out to pull open the door.

The door opened. In the clear moonlight, the first thing Ikeda saw was a pair of feet.

A pair of feet off the floor, toes turned inward, swaying in midair.

Ikeda felt his heart stop. His gaze instinctively traveled upward, and soon he saw Matsuo's face.

His eyes bulged, his tongue jutted halfway out, and his face was purplish-black. He was clearly well and truly dead.

“Ah... ah... kh... mm...” Ikeda fell onto his backside and scrambled backward until his back hit the corridor wall. At first he wanted to scream, then to vomit, but in the end he clamped both hands over his mouth, forcing back both the cry and the stomach acid.

He couldn't scream, because if he brought the guard running, he couldn't explain why he had come to school in the middle of the night. Nor could he vomit, because that would leave obvious traces at the scene.

Even Ikeda didn't know how his thoughts could be so clear and logical. How had he reached such a calm judgment in such terrifying circumstances? Was he cruel by nature, or simply numb to death?

He couldn't afford to dwell on it. The question now was what he should do next.

“From the look of things, Matsuo most likely killed himself. But if I call the police, there's no way I can explain sneaking into school at midnight. Even if the investigation eventually proves I had nothing to do with his death, the school will definitely expel me.” After weighing things up, Ikeda pounded his thighs a few times, then struggled to his feet. His legs were still a little weak, but at least the pain had brought back enough feeling for him to walk.

Ikeda entered the staff office, deliberately keeping his eyes off Matsuo's ghastly face. He hurried around the hanging body, snatched a pen from the holder on Matsuo's desk, and ran without looking back.

He charged down from the second floor to the ground floor and reached the window he had climbed through. Just as he was about to climb out, he looked down and suddenly noticed something. There were two different kinds of shoeprint on the windowsill!

When he came in, the light had been behind him, and his own shadow had hidden the sill from view. Now, in the pale moonlight, the discovery made his hair stand on end. There were two shoeprints on the sill, both pointing into the corridor, and one was noticeably larger than the other. The smaller print was probably his, all right, but what about the larger one?

At a time like this, his mind was astonishingly quick. Ikeda soon had an answer. The larger print was probably Matsuo's. Around seven or eight in the evening, before going to bed, the guard would check every room in the classroom building and gymnasium, only locking up after making sure nothing was amiss. Matsuo therefore couldn't have killed himself before then. He must have sneaked into the school after eight and died afterward. That also explained why there were only prints leading into the corridor and none coming back.

Once he had worked that out, there was nothing to be afraid of. Ikeda climbed out through the window and carefully wiped away every shoeprint he had left going in and out. He even wiped his fingerprints off the window frame, but left Matsuo's print alone.

Satisfied that he had left no traces, Ikeda tucked his hands inside his sleeves and carefully pulled the window back into the position he had found it in. Then he quickly fled the campus and broke into a frantic run home.

Meanwhile, in the classroom building's dark corridor, a figure stood silently watching Ikeda's retreating back.