Chapter 8: Sleepy Night

Chapter 8: Sleepy Night

Chapter 8:

Sleepy Night

I T WAS AFTER 11 P.M., well past lights out, and yet it seemed like everyone was still awake in our shared room, spending time looking at their phones and having hushed conversations. When we first arrived, I had felt somewhat uncomfortable around the unfamiliar people in our group, but that feeling must have gone away, as now I didn’t mind at all. While I was watching videos on patchwork and occasionally jumping into conversations with Hashimoto, Oda, and my juniors while nodding along, my phone briefly vibrated.

“Are you still awake?”

It was Hiyori.

“I am. All the guys in the room are up, so don’t worry about it.”

I sent her that message in reply, letting her know that it’d be fine if she sent me messages in succession.

“Thank you. Actually, I just noticed this now, but Yamamura-san isn’t here.”

Yamamura wasn’t there? Leaving the room after lights out was expressly forbidden by the rules.

“You mean that she’s out like she left the room? Have you tried her phone?”

“It seems as though she left her phone in the room. I was agonizing over whether I should go look for her now, but…I was wondering if perhaps you could help, Ayanokouji-kun.”

I was betting that, most likely, saying that Hiyori wasn’t be good at that sort of thing was being generous. On top of that, if Hiyori couldn’t be stealthy, then she was bound to be immediately spotted by a teacher making the rounds. Hiyori had probably made the right decision in coming to me for help in this. Even if the camp event was going to be over soon, it seemed like it would be better not to leave Yamamura be.

She had an extremely depressed look on her face yesterday too, when we were playing cards. I could think of some reasons as to why. I decided that I’d better go looking for her right away.

“Got it. I’ll go check on her, so you wait on standby in the room, Hiyori, so I can confirm that Yamamura is back inside the room when she heads back that way.”

She responded with a cute animal sticker that said, “Thank you very much.”

“I’m stepping out for a minute,” I announced.

“Huh? Wait, dude, it’s already past lights out. They’re gonna be mad if they find you,” warned Hashimoto.

“I’m going out looking for something. I’ll try my best not to get caught and be back before you know it. On the off chance something does go wrong, we can all be mad at me together,” I replied.

Convinced, Hashimoto and the others didn’t try very hard to detain me. Rather, they sent me off with cheerful smiles, like they were having fun.

Obviously, the hallway was cloaked in darkness and silence because the lights were out.

Now then…where to look first?

Wandering around aimlessly certainly would not be efficient, by any stretch. I couldn’t imagine Yamamura to be the type of person who would casually break the rules. There were two possibilities: Either someone called her, or she left the room voluntarily. However, in this instance, the possibility of the former being true was quite low, because she left her phone behind, so I determined she must have left voluntarily and proceeded with that assumption.

The next thing to consider would be why she left after lights out, and what would make that necessary. Amid the silent stillness of the night, the mind often filled itself with myriad miscellaneous thoughts—sometimes thoughts that one might even want to run away from. And it wouldn’t be surprising that one would unconsciously seek a safe place where they could feel at ease at a time like that. If I were trying to reach the same conclusion that Yamamura Miki had come to, based on her own thought process, it would be…

Immediately after I entered the lobby without making a sound, I felt the presence of someone and ducked into the shadows. It looked like a patrolling teacher was walking about the area with a flashlight in hand. Although visibility was poor, I could easily tell where the teacher was by looking at the glow of the flashlight. The teacher was shining the light around the perimeter and didn’t appear to be looking for a rule-breaking student who had escaped from their shared room, but rather handling routine duties.

For that reason, it was quite easy for me to slip past, and after a short wait, the lobby was again devoid of people. Apparently, the teacher had gone to check out the cafeteria. Considering the route, the teacher would likely be going on to the shared rooms or the experiential classrooms after that, which gave me a bit of leeway. I took advantage of that opportunity without hesitation and headed to where the vending machines were.

I’d gone there assuming that the chances of her being there were high, and I immediately saw that my assumption was correct as I spotted a lone girl sitting with her back resting against the vending machine, her face downcast. It was chilly in the hallway, so perhaps she was there to keep warm, and—actually, that would probably be reading too much into it.

I thought that she might notice me any minute now, but she didn’t seem to sense my presence at all. It didn’t look like she was thinking about anything. She wasn’t changing her facial expression, sighing, or anything like that. She simply stared at the floor, not moving a muscle.

“I bet the teachers would never think a student would be in a place like this,” I remarked.

I couldn’t just stand there and watch her forever, so I decided to call out to her.

“Ah… Huh?!” she wailed.

A startled Yamamura turned to look at me. Her eyes were filled with terror, but that fear quickly disappeared when she realized it was me.

“Wh-wh-wh-why are you here…?” she stammered.

“The teachers will get mad at you if they find you. I came to bring you back before that happens,” I replied.

“I’m confident that I won’t be found… Or, I was, rather… But I suppose I can’t use that logic since you found me, Ayanokouji-kun…”

But knowing Yamamura, I was sure that she’d be able to evade the teacher’s surveillance and even make her way back to her shared room.

“…How did you know that… I wasn’t in my room?” she asked.

“Not by any special means, of course. It was simply that Hiyori noticed you were gone and told me. She was worried about you,” I replied.

“I’m sorry… I just…I really wanted to be alone…” said Yamamura.

“Yeah, I guess if you’re in a shared room, you can’t really be alone unless you hole yourself up in the bathroom or something,” I replied, nodding slightly to indicate that I understood.

“Can’t I stay here like this for a little longer…?” asked Yamamura.

“Does it have to be next to the vending machines?” I asked in return.

“Yes. I always find that listening to the sounds of the vending machines helps drown out the extraneous voices in my mind…” said Yamamura.

It sounded like this behavior had become customary practice for Yamamura, as a means of protecting herself.

“Okay then, I guess this is the only place that’ll do, then. So? Did you manage to get rid of those so-called extraneous voices?” I asked.

“Wh-why are…you asking about that?” she asked in return.

“Because if I bring you back without resolving that issue, you might slip out again. And besides…sorry to say this, but what you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Usually, I stop hearing them right away, and the issue gets resolved… Usually…”

Meaning, in other words, this time was different. Yamamura’s somber expression expressed the seriousness of the situation.

“If something’s bothering you, you can just say it,” I replied.

“…No. I’m…fine,” said Yamamura.

“Really? Because it didn’t look that way to me at all in the five minutes I was watching you,” I answered.

“F-five minutes?! You were…?!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry. Five minutes was a lie. It was closer to thirty seconds,” I answered.

Yamamura probably wasn’t aware of what was going on around her, since she didn’t suspect anything about the timeframe that I just randomly made up.

“Do you not like talking to other people about your emotional problems?” I asked.

“It’s not that I like it or dislike it. It’s…it’s just…I’ve never had experience with that sort of thing in the first place,” said Yamamura.

It was easy to imagine that Yamamura spent her life thus far not saying much. She probably spent a lot of time alone, with her mouth shut instead of open, from a very young age. Although our environments and circumstances were quite different, I could tell that our situations were similar.

“Fundamentally, I’m not particularly good at talking either. Even if I have some minor problem, I’m the type of person who either keeps it to himself or works to resolve it. That’s why I don’t have many opportunities to talk to anyone about my worries,” I told her.

“You, too, Ayanokouji-kun? But, to me, I…I think you seem normal. You seem to have lots of friends too. Like Shiina-san. She’s cheerful and cute… I…envy her.”

I suppose it probably wasn’t unreasonable for someone to feel that way if they were only looking at the way things were right now, but everyone has an immature side of themselves that they’ve grown past.

“Do you know what I was like before, early in the year before last?” I asked.

Back then she probably hadn’t been working with Sakayanagi yet and thus would have no way of knowing.

“Now that you mention it…no, I don’t know anything about that,” said Yamamura.

“I figured. That’s because I know that I was a student who didn’t leave much of an impression on anyone when I first got here. Fortunately, my lively classmates pulled me in, and I was able to build relationships to some degree. Although that wasn’t something I was prepared for,” I told her.

“So, how did you get to be like you are now, then?” asked Yamamura.

“Even now, I don’t really have good enough relationships with the people around me to be able to talk like I’m an expert,” I explained, “But I’m sure it’s at least partly due to the fact that, over the past two years, I’ve started making an effort to close the distance between myself and other people a little bit. It’s only since then that I’ve been able to say the things I’ve wanted to say.”

That was something Yamamura still couldn’t understand.

“I… I’m probably scared. I’m scared to speak my mind. And I’m scared that the things I’ve ended up saying will spread, unintentionally. And I’m scared people will know,” said Yamamura.

I’m sure that Yamamura’s approach up until this point—picking up other people’s ideas from the shadows and communicating them to a third party—had been the complete opposite of that. It wasn’t surprising that the person accustomed to knowing would feel a strong aversion to becoming known.

“I’m not going to force you into anything. You can judge for yourself , ” I told her.

I slowly sat down in front of the vending machine, keeping enough of a distance between us so as not to make her too mindful of my presence. I could feel the slight vibrations from the vending machine on my back and hear the sound of the fan whirring. Yamamura wasn’t the only one who feared loneliness. Human nature was the same whether we were talking about Yousuke or Kei, Ryuuen or Sakayanagi, or any other student for that matter. People cannot bear loneliness and cannot live alone.

That was exactly why it’s important to have someone you can lean on, without the need for compensation. Even though I felt like it didn’t apply to me personally, I understood that that was one solution. The contradiction within. No, facts like that weren’t important right now. The person before me wasn’t stupid. Yamamura didn’t think that solitude was the correct answer and wasn’t seeking it out. If she had someone by her side who could offer a helping hand in the right way, she wouldn’t make a mistake.

“…Would you listen to what I have to say?” asked Yamamura.

Sensing no hostility from me, Yamamura started to speak up about the things that she had been bottling up.

“Ever since the previous special exam ended,” she said, “a question has been floating around in my mind…”

She was talking about the details of what happened in Class A during the Survival and Elimination Special Exam. In a situation where it was determined that Sakayanagi had to choose a person to be expelled, she instead had people draw lots. No matter what method someone used to decide something like that, it was inevitable that there would be arguments for or against it. Since not everyone’s abilities were the same, there was no way to make everyone happy, whether you decided by nominating someone or deciding via rock paper scissors.

Sakayanagi probably thought that a lottery was the closest thing to an equal decision that she could make, since she saw all the students other than herself as being the same. However, she now realized that it had been a bad move. She should have made sure to keep the people who were convenient for her, even if it meant being met with disgust from those who were spared. If Kamuro had remained, Sakayanagi’s weakness would not have been exposed; however, it was not only Sakayanagi who had been wounded. Yamamura was one of the last two people to choose from in the lottery, standing on one side of the scale that separated life and death.

“When I hesitated to draw my lot, Sakayanagi-san said that she would stop the lottery. She said that…if I didn’t have the courage to draw a lot, it meant the same thing as abstaining…” explained Yamamura.

If someone refused to draw their lot for a long time, it certainly wasn’t unreasonable to be presented that choice. However, Yamamura felt that it had been too quick a decision, without enough consideration.

“In other words, Sakayanagi cared about Kamuro and was going to cast you aside?” I asked.

Yamamura nodded quietly. That wasn’t just an idle conjecture; it was Yamamura’s conviction.

“In that moment, what I felt from Sakayanagi-san was that she strongly wished for me to be expelled,” said Yamamura. “I know that it was entirely reasonable, there was nothing I could say about it. At least, if you compared me with Kamuro-san, the value of having me expelled was clear to see. I didn’t want Sakayanagi-san to give me special treatment, and I didn’t want to be greedy, like, ‘please think of me as a friend.’ But…I was shocked… I realized that my existence amounted to only that much, that she was willing to just throw me away in an instant… Even though she told me that I was valuable and used me…”

Yamamura, after spending a long time being on her own, was discovered by Sakayanagi, who highly valued her abilities. However, Yamamura ended up learning that the difference between herself and Kamuro too different for Yamamura to even compete with her. Even though Yamamura was prepared for the fact that Kamuro would ultimately be the one Sakayanagi chose, she had thought that she would at least hesitate. The self-deprecating Yamamura’s small wish would have gone mercilessly unfulfilled.

“There might indeed have been a difference between you and Kamuro, from Sakayanagi’s perspective. But, Yamamura, isn’t the question of whether she didn’t care about you a separate issue?” I asked.

“…I want to believe that, but…” she protested.

I could guess that she probably hadn’t had any contact from Sakayanagi since that day, which meant that she must have been alone all this time, wondering to herself and asking the same questions over and over.

“I’ve been wanting to contact Sakayanagi-san the whole time during this camp. But, as anyone would expect, I couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to her,” said Yamamura.

From the sounds of it, Yamamura had spotted Sakayanagi several times, but ultimately, he wasn’t able to approach her. I’m sure that for Yamamura, who usually waited for other people to call out to her, being in a shared room must’ve been a high hurdle.

“There are many, many more people who hang around her all the time, more than you’d think. Tokitou-kun even got wrapped up in trouble, in the middle of it all… It seems like he’s had a challenging time,” added Yamamura.

Yamamura told me about how Tokitou had tried to reach out and offer his hand to a listless Sakayanagi. However, Tokitou had been seen, and was called out to the experiential classrooms, to be interrogated.

“As a result, Tokitou-kun, he… Ryuuen-kun and the others physically held him down and threatened him.”

That was probably an appropriate decision from Ryuuen, as he was facing tension in the face of the final exam for the school year. If the opponent you would be fighting from hereafter had unexpectedly become weak, then you should either leave said opponent alone or make them even more vulnerable. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Ryuuen was slightly too extreme, though. It sounded like he intended to put out strong feelers and keep a watchful eye to make sure he was fully prepared for the final exam.

Having a confirmed match-up against Sakayanagi in the final exam, it was natural that Ryuuen didn’t want anyone to encourage her and help inspire her to make a comeback. He was desperately eager to take advantage of a situation where she’d been hobbled after an unexpected defeat. Which, if we were to turn that around, that would be proof that Ryuuen recognized that Sakayanagi had no weaknesses and wasn’t an opponent he could drop his guard around.

Yamamura told me that the attempted purge of Tokitou looked like it was going to go smoothly and quickly, until Housen and Utomiya from his same group appeared, ready for a fight, and there was risk of an all-out brawl breaking out. As a result, a number of students heard the commotion and the group dispersed, causing the situation to fizzle out without incident.

“Anyway, I’m impressed. You saw the whole thing from start to finish and no one noticed you,” I remarked.

“That’s all I can do, though…” replied Yamamura.