Chapter 04 – What Matters Most
Although stone-faced, Mutta was feeling some intense emotions. When Itou Serika popped out of the fridge, the impact ran so deep that it bypassed any exterior expression. He felt his spirit leave his body for just a moment, and it stood by his side long enough, to scream from the outside, before fading back into his statuesque body.
She was not so motionless, however. Number 3 was shivering, and Mutta could not ascertain just how long she had been in the empty fridge. Her dark eyes were especially radiant, and it was as though the cold had somehow drained more life and color from her body—which appeared fairer in complexion now than when he first saw her—and her short, brown hair looked the slightest bit frosted over.
"And I… I think you should know that forming alliances just won't work in this exam," Serika began, her lips quick to return to a tight frown. "I just thought, you should know."
Mutta, as a first sign of life, lightly gasped, turning his head away from her quickly. "Are you so sure of that?" He mumbled. "I don't think anyone here is a bad person, and I'd like to trust him, trust you—"
"It doesn't work like that!" Serika cut in, her soft hands forming into a tight fist. "Makabe-san can't be trusted so easily."
Snapping his head back, Mutta laughed slightly and exclaimed, "Ahh, but I know for a fact Kenji is a good guy! He even saved my life, just a moment ago."
"It doesn't work like that," Serika repeated in a more frail tone, before glancing toward the door that led back to the Moon Chamber. "And out of charity, I am going to tell you the truth—trusting anyone with your life in this exam is dangerous." She took a deep breath and pried a glance at his face, trying to glean some sense of understanding from Mutta. "Don't you understand?"
She exhaled and continued resolutely, "Everyone here has a reason for being here, something to dream about, to fight for. For everyone here, despite any differences we see on the outside, wants the same thing. We all want to go to space—for everyone, that is what matters most. Along the way, people are not going to spare anyone's feelings… Or anyone's life, for that matter."
After she crossed her arms, Mutta decided it was his turn to speak, only the words were not rising to anything more than basic thoughts. He was too busy noticing the color returning in her cheeks, and how much confidence her eyes betrayed. At last he coughed and stammered, "That's… That's not true. I appreciate the warning, but, the only way we will get out of this is if we work together. If we are help one another and be totally honest with each other—"
"Start by telling me about your Diary," Serika interrupted, before taking something out of her black vest. Mutta considered the piece of clothing complementary of her scarlet dress. "Forgive me, Nanba-san… I will tell you about mine, first." Across her waist, she had the same belt that Mutta and Kenji wore, the same belt that he recalled seeing on Tomii when he was in the lobby, on Fukuda, and on Yamato. Just like them, she had been equipped from the start with a handgun and a combat knife.
In her hand now was a compact paper notebook, an empty page of which was in clear view. As she held it out to him, by some remarkable chance, an update occurred, echoed by the growling of Serika's stomach. The blank page suddenly filled with writing, despite how Serika was not putting her pencil to it. The message now read:
"Oh, boy! Extra-large helpings in the Breathless Room. Curry and rice—yum!"
In answer to the perplexed look Mutta was now offering her, Serika explained, "This is my Gourmet Diary. It tells me where I can find my next meal." She closed the journal and slid it back into its rightful place, the pocket of inside her jacket. Mutta noticed how red her face was now, and he was too busy being enamored with this change to identify the cause. In no way did he perceive the level of embarrassment she was feeling. "And what about yours?"
Mutta was caught off guard and struggled for a proper response. "I just need to be open and honest with her," his thoughts assured him. "That's all you have to do." He took a deep breath and was about to answer, when his mind shrieked, "But what if she thinks I'm weird!"
He pulled himself together and responded, "My Diary was my phone, and it was stolen, when I left it unattended…"
"You left your phone unattended?" Serika snapped. "Why would you do something like that?"
Mutta did not have a clue how to respond. He had presumed that if he did not tell her that he had accidentally flushed his phone down the toilet, he would be in the clear. This was not what he encountered—the need for an explanation for his supposed negligence.
"It was a total accident!" Mutta answered quickly. "And anyway, at least I am still here. Whoever has my Diary is not destroying it, so there are people who can be trusted."
"That," Serika said, "Or the person will use it as a tool of bribery."
The confidence with which she spoke left Mutta wondering, "How could such a pretty woman not only want to be an astronaut, but be so strong?"
She continued, "You had better be careful, Nanba-san. Next time we meet, I may have to kill you."
Inside Mutta's cranium, underneath the thick growth of afro, the metaphorical gears were turning. The realization hit him, and his thoughts burst forth, "She told me to be careful! Serika-san cares about me and wants me to be safe!" He was now smiling wide, unblinking, with a light blush to his face.
Serika, a bit unnerved, began to show signs of nervousness at this strange behavior, and upon seeing her strange reaction, Mutta concluded furthermore in his head, "Serika-san, you really do care!" Even as Serika passed him by, he wore the same expression.
"I will be on my way now," she stated, briskly approaching the exit to the right. "Good luck, Nanba-san." The door closed behind her, and eventually Mutta turned toward the direction of her departure.
His face slackened into seriousness, and he said to himself aloud, "Serika-san is just like Fukuda-san… Both care so much about their dreams that no fight is an obstacle for them." He glanced curiously toward the fridge. "But unlike Fukuda-san, Serika-san spared me. She may not trust anyone now, but I must be someone she can trust." A prideful glow enveloped him, and he became like a shimmering star in the food pantry. "I, Nanba Mutta, will be there the moment she asks! She will learn how to trust me, and together, we will make it out of here."
With a sense of duty wrapped around his conscience, he approached the door on the right and thought to himself, "But in the meantime, I must watch over her and make sure she stays safe. Makabe-kun has the right idea. I will be her silent guardian now, and later, a true friend to the beautiful Serika-san!"
Above the unfolding events in the JAXA basement, the office of Director Nasuda was locked and dark. The grand orchestrator was himself busy in another room, a room that had just recently been completely torn apart and started anew. All evidence of any prior purpose to the room had been swept away, and thanks to some nameless JAXA peons, the large room had been converted into a small miniature golf course.
Director Nasuda was merely practicing his game. While space was his primary interest, he had full intentions of strengthening his golf skills during his significant downtime. With Hoshika and Tsurumi taking reins over the exam, he had reserved a more observatory role. So long as he checked in now and then on the pair, he could rest easy and merely wait for the game to progress.
In this case, his body was concentrating on a golf game, while his mind was drifting toward the people below. "Let's see," he murmured thoughtfully, "Number 1 has acted just as I would have expected him to, and Number 2 as well, although in a totally different way…"
He was halfway through the game, and sweat was beginning to slide down his forehead. In his hands he clasped a golden golf club, and in front of him, was a peculiar ball. Rather than a simple, white golf ball, he had been driving what looked like a miniature scale of the moon toward the hole. After calculating the distance from the ball to the hole, he gave the small moon a strong swing of the club—which sent the ball flying far past the hole, into a sandy portion of the course. Director Nasuda stomped his foot and intermediately tapped the club against his leg. He went on forward.
"Number 3 is particularly strong in all areas," the Director resumed speaking. "She is smart, physically strong, and has a natural drive… But I wonder: Will she be too soft for this exam, hmm? Number 4 was off to an aggressive start, from what I have heard, yes. As for Number 5—" He stopped to whistle at his own bleak odds; the ball was treacherously far from the hole now. "—his progress will be especially interesting. Like Number 3, he is at first very impressive, but contestant Number 7 may prove even more interesting. There is something about him, yes—" He raised the club. "—Something promising!" He swung and launched the ball far, just enough to distance to make it into the hole, but his direction was way off. Now his ball was in the shallow water.
"As for all the rest of them," he continued, "Nanba-san and Number 10 intrigue me. I really like Number 11, hmm— he is such a character." Director Nasuda chuckled softly into his hand. When he reached his new destination, he plucked the ball out from the water and set it a few feet away from the hazard. "This game will start off calm, yes," Director Nasuda said. "But give it time, hmm… Even Nanba-san will have to fight for what matters most to him, eh?"
He swung, and as this small moon spun in the air, as it hurtled toward the goal, Director Nasuda shouted, as though his words were in pursuit of it, "Even the most gentle of them will become killers, no? And those who think they can slide by on their morals, who think they have what it takes to put their dreams aside and give up—they will find themselves with the harder battle. They are the ones who will suffer the most! It is much easier to pursue your dream, through the bloodshed! Anyone who thinks he can escape this chaos, is mistaken… They will fade away fast, as though descending into a black hole, never to dream again."
The golf ball in the likeness of the moon dropped into the hole, and Director Nasuda smiled with approval. This was a fantastic, exhilarating game and personal passion—and his golf game had not been bad, either.
After parting with Nanba Mutta and passing through his door of choice, Makabe Kenji recognized that he was in a long hallway that seemed to him like a direct copy of the hallway he had first wandered through to get to the Lobby. It was as though the Red Hall had been photocopied and placed here, with the only sign of change being a paint job.
In the Blue Hall, Kenji could see that at the far end, there was nothing but a wall to bar his continuance. Despite the clear dead end, he crept forward, at a hesitant pace. With each step, he surveyed the area before his feet, as though expecting a land mine to be hidden beneath the floor.
"H-how is this possible?" Kenji asked, when he reached the end of the Blue Hall. He looked back at the door that led to the food pantry. Number 5 in this game of JAXA's had been cool in demeanor while listening to Tsurumi, before the contest began. He had been the first to enter the room, in fact, and Tsurumi was vocal in noting how punctually early Kenji had been, and how he must be so eager.
"This opportunity means a lot to me," Kenji had answered, when just the two of them were in the room. "I am doing this for my daughter." He sat down, alone along this expansive table, eyeing each chair. He imagined how, in a short time, the other finalists would be seated around him, each with their own ambitions, each questioning whether the person next to them deserved to go to space.
Without knowing the details of the competition before him, without the willingness to probe too much into what he suspected the finalists would be like, Kenji felt nervous about this whole situation. Perhaps Tsurumi saw it, as he meandered his way closer to him, or perhaps Kenji really was appearing too collected on the surface to betray the real fear.
"It will take a lot of ambition for you to pass this exam," Tsurumi began with an additional slowness. He stood directly behind Kenji now, and he went so far as to place his hand on the finalist's shoulder. He leaned forward slightly and whispered, "How about I give you a head start?"
Kenji looked back at him with both gradual astonishment and eagerness. He just looked at him, with these open, aware, black eyes. His slicked back, black hair had a strand hanging down across his forehead, and at this particular moment, it cut through the center, as if creating a line of symmetry. On one side, however, his eyebrow was flat across, and on the other—in a minutely perceptible manner—the eyebrow was arched in interest.
"I can give you a little gift," Tsurumi whispered, a smile fleeting across his tired face. "And it will come at only a small price. I will offer this to no one else, and I will offer it just this once, before anyone else gets here."
Kenji switched his object of attention from this JAXA official to his own hands on the table. They were not even shaking, which he felt a modest pride about. One of his hands rose and went to his chin, where he placed his thumb on one corner of his lips, while his fingers gently touched his cheek. It was the visual display of his active mind. He gave Tsurumi a nod and asked, "I appreciate it… What is it you're offering?"
And now Number 5 was melting away on the surface, in this long hall in which he was away from Mutta, away from Yamato, away from Fukuda, away from the man with the long purple hair that he noticed leaving the restroom shortly after arrival. He was melting; Kenji was fumbling through the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He flicked out a green card that had been hiding inside, and he read the back of it once more, pensively. It read:
"Head through the Moon Chamber and to the food pantry. From there, take the door on the left, where you will find the Blue Hall. There you will find a small box, and inside that box is something that will be of great use to you. If you go against your end of the bargain, however, more than the item you are to receive will be taken from you."
Kenji took a deep breath and concealed the green card once more within his jacket. Once more he surveyed the expansive emptiness of the Blue Hall. "Did he trick me?" Kenji asked himself, his bottom lip twitching into a mild quiver. "Or did someone get here first?" He did not know which was a more frightening possibility.
At that moment, when Yamato's gun seemed like a heavy presence inside Kenji's jacket pocket, he felt the sudden vibration of his phone within the other pocket.