Chapter 10

Space Facility

Until now, I've always been getting this feeling of how tiny I am when in front of this manmade structure. I tilt my head up and I can see Its size towering over me. If I estimate correctly, It's two times taller than Hope's Peak but of course, it's nothing compared to how tall the rocket ship my parents traveled in.

It would probably look pretty average to those people who came from the cities with all the towering buildings surrounding them, but this thing in front of me is the tallest building we have on the island.

I could remember the first time looking up at it this close, when I was around six years old—that was the first time our parents brought Chiaki and me to their workplace. The only difference with this marvel that screamed human ingenuity and technological progress comparing it to ten years ago, was that it was now in nature's hands.

It's walls are covered by thick tangled vines that are crawling to its top, as if it was trying to conquer it. I also spot thick layers of moss overlapping some of the building's surfaces and I can see the birds perching up in some of the ledges in the high areas of the structure, enjoying the island breeze, without a care in the world.

The sight makes me sigh internally.

Sometimes I wish I was a bird. I wouldn't have to worry about school or anyone else. No one could hurt me if I spent most of my life way up there.

Maybe that's why I always hanged out at the school roof top before Hajime came into the picture. Aside from avoiding people, it made me feel that I had a bit of freedom so I stayed on my school's rooftop after the end of every school day. I loved the feeling of relief that it gave me, even if it was just for a few moments.

I tilt my head back down and I fix my gaze back to what's in front of me.

I let my fingers glide over the glowing azure screen — a device to enter the password for the entrance door to the 'secret' facility.

The door wouldn't have been working if Hajime and I didn't visit the power room earlier. We had to turn on some of the machinery to get this part of the building to have electricity and to get the door's security turned on.

"So you've been visiting the facility since you were a kid?" Hajime asks with a raised eyebrow and skepticism in his voice. He's probably surprised because I have access to such a place.

"Yeah, I've been snooping around the area ever since I was little but I always wondered why this screen didn't work. I thought it was broken." I say while still staring at the screen. "Until two years ago, I found my dad's master key to the place. I visited the building like I always do every year but during that time, I gained access to some locked rooms of the building and one of them was the electrical room." I point my thumb to one of the doors located outside the building.

He gives me a small nod.

"When I got access to the room, I tinkered and randomly flicked some switches and that's how I got to power up this security screen to enter my parent's work place." I say with a shrug.

I enter a string of numbers on the screen and a small beep travels to my ears as the color of the monitor turns to green.

The locks slowly click and a gust of warm air blows out of the entrance as the heavy rusty metal doors split open. The sudden loud noise echoes throughout the deep forest, frightening the birds into panic as they fly away into a safe distance.

The twelve digit passcode to unlock this high-tech secure entryway has been engrained in my mind since our dad taught me how to input the code when I was seven years old.

Whenever Chiaki and I were brought here by our parents, dad used to carry me so I could punch in the numbers that he recited for me to press. I could remember the look of pride in his eyes the first time I input the code without him telling me what the numbers were.

The memory makes my heart clench and I can't help but wince a little from the pain. Thankfully, my face was still facing the screen, concealing my expressions from where Hajime is standing.

I turn around and I look at the brunette.

"Now come on, let's go."

He looks at me and gives me another nod.

We both enter the building, our footsteps hitting the metal flooring, giving out echoes throughout the absurdly long hallway that's brightly lit by white fluorescent lights.

Right after taking the first few steps, we are hit by the faint smell of dust. The only evidence of the building being unused and forgotten, aside from the structure being covered by vines and being overrun by the birds and their nests, there's a thick layer of dust resting on the floor.

If ever the whole place gets cleaned up, it would probably be as good as new and even though the building has been long abandoned, it still seems that everything is in a good and working condition, which is not at all surprising since the equipment like the door used in the facility are pretty heavy duty. It would probably still have a couple of years before it gets busted. It would probably even surpass my lifetime, if it had some maintenance here and there.

We take a few more steps into the building and I spot something peculiar on the flooring— aside from the trail that our shoes are leaving from stepping on the thick layer of dust, there seems to be two sets of footprints. One of them is trailing ahead of us, probably leading to the main facility room and another set of similar footprints are pointed to the opposite direction.

I feel my eyebrows press together as I observe the footprints in front of me, all the while, still continuing to walk with Hajime right behind me. The tracks that are ahead of us are covered in a thin layer of dust, which means it must be a few days or a few weeks ago when someone entered and exited the facility. It couldn't have been me, since the last time I visited the place was exactly a year ago and I doubt the prints would still be here for me to see.

I look over to Hajime, who seems to be lost in thought. He doesn't seem to notice the footprints or my concern at all. I try to shrug it off — thinking that it must be a past employee returning to check out the place or something.

"Hey, Nagito?" Hajime asks all of a sudden, causing me to jump a little.

"What is it?" I ask, looking at our nearing destination, as we pass a number of other doors.

"You told me people believed that this would be a school right?"

"Yeah," I look at him and I nod.

"How could this building be pulled off as a school if you said that this was used as a space facility. Didn't anyone even inspect or visit the place?"

"Well, civilians weren't allowed to enter the premises unless they had 'school' ID's or special permission by uncle Tengan. Although, there have been a few cases before where only a handful of people — who aren't part of the school — who have inspected the place."

I look back over to the end of the hallway and I finally spot the main door which was now a few steps away, all the while watching the brunette, using my peripheral vision. Hajime still has his eyes wandering all over the place.

"But those inspectors were brought to the 'front' part of the facility which wasn't that suspicious, considering the rooms looked like normal lecture rooms." I continue.

"And I'm guessing that's why the door we just passed through is hidden at the back of the building?" he says.

"Yeah, you've got that right."

"I see." He says softly into the air.

We continue with a few more steps to the main door at the end of the hallway, this time the door doesn't have any locks or passcodes in them. As we finally step in front of it, the door makes a soundless swoosh, automatically sliding open.

We step into the dark room, and I flip the switch to turn the lights and the equipment on.

The different machineries in the large room combine it's booting up sounds together and starts it's nostalgic symphony of soft electrical humming. Multicolored lights flash around us and different computer screens turn on and finally a flash of white hits the room as all the fluorescent lights turn on at the same time.

As soon as my eyes adjust to the brightness, I fix my sight on the floor, inspecting where the footsteps from earlier are heading. My eyes trail off to where the tracks lead. It seems like whoever the prints belonged to, moved around the room and climbed up using the ladder that lead to the rooftop where the mini observatory is located, but another trail told me that whoever has been up there probably left because another set of footsteps led to the opposite direction at the base of the ladder just like what I saw earlier. But still, I need to make sure that no one's up there.

"Whoa…"

Hajime's voice startles me again. I look at him and he's wearing a look of amazement.

I watch him as he gazes around the room and rests his eyes on something at center of the room.

I look at what he's gawking at and it seems to me that he's staring at the only pod thing in the room.

I see Hajime's heading for it and I try to grab him but he's already too far ahead of me.

"Hajime, wait," I shout, fearing that he might touch something that may cause us harm. I've never touched anything before since my dad always reminded me that some of the machines here can cause danger, if not used properly.

Hajime steps in front of the machinery, and I stand beside him, grabbing his shoulder.

He looks back at me. "Relax, I think I know what this is. This looks like one of our probing pods."

I let go of his shoulder. "Probing pods?"

"Yeah probing pods. This is what we use to observe your planet's animals once we get them onto our ship." I watch him as he presses a combination of two buttons that causes it to open up. It splits down the center and it doesn't make any noise. "The seniors at our school, even sometimes 'borrow' humans for their projects, storing them into the pods."

My eyes widen which causes him to hold up his hands defensively. "Don't worry, it's not like we dissect them or anything. It's kind of illegal and immoral for us to do that… at least." He says. "It's more for observational purposes."

I just shake my head. "Never mind," I cringe at the thought of dissecting people. "Anyway, please don't touch anything else."

Hajime just shrugs and I see him press the buttons to close the pod. "Your people are catching on with technology. These things look like the old modeled pods we used years ago."

"Uncle Tengan ordered the stuff. He wanted the latest equipment." I say.

"Must have costed him a fortune." Hajime says. "So uhh… why are we here anyway?"

I look to the footsteps at base of the ladder once again.

It can wait…

"I just wanted to visit the place where my parents used to work.".

"Oh, okay." He pauses for a bit as I inspect where the rest of the footprints went to. "Um… Would it be okay if you tell me the rest of the story?"

I walk over to some of the computers where it looked like the footsteps were indistinguishable since the person probably moved around a lot, maybe because the person tinkered with the computers. I see some of the buttons were pressed since it had clean circular marks surrounded by a veil of dust. "Rest of the story?" I ask, looking back at my companion.

"Yeah, like what happened after everything? I admit, I know little about your laws but shouldn't Uncle Tengan be in prison right now for operating an illegal research facility and for launching a rocket into space without any form of license or permission?" He says, narrowing his eyes.

"I… I don't know…" I've been thinking about that since I was a kid. I knew Uncle Tengan should have gotten into serious trouble. Everything seemed like a blur afterwards but I remember something weird happening during the whole ordeal.

"You don't know?" Hajime asks. He gives me a quizzical look.

"More like I kind of forgot. I remember that morning the news announced the space crash." I bite my lip as I feel another pang to my heart. "Uncle Tengan told Chiaki and me to stay at home. While we were home all day. The T.V. was running and I remember wanting to turn the T.V. off but Chiaki insisted on wanting to know more about the crash. She believed our parents were still alive and they'd be on the news. I guess she couldn't accept that they passed away. But I told her they were dead anyway and she started crying hysterically. She started shouting how wrong I was and that they'd be home soon."

The pain in my heart starts getting more intense and prolonged, like something is gripping on it but I fight through the pain and I continue telling the boy in front of me of what had happened.

"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to stop her from crying but she needed to know the truth. Her sobs died down immediately when we saw the research facility on television and a picture of uncle Tengan flashes on screen. You see, everyone was after Uncle Tengan, according to the news. The reporter told the viewers that uncle Tengan would be arrested and I remember the camera panning to the side, showing our country's government agents and some police officers surrounding the research facility while a mob of our town's people were shouting for his arrest. I panicked at the sight and I started shouting at Chiaki. I told her that Uncle Tengan wasn't coming back either and that we'd be living on our own. With what I said, Chiaki started crying again. I turned the television off and went to my room, locking the door behind me and leaving Chiaki in the living room."

Hajime doesn't say anything and waits for me to continue while staring at me with wide eyes. I notice a look of sadness in them but there's also a blanket of warming comfort that surrounded his green orbs.

"I stayed at my room the whole day, writing on my journal and crying. I fell asleep at one point and when I woke up, it was already dark outside. I went back downstairs but Chiaki wasn't there anymore and that was when the door opened with uncle Tengan who was sheepishly smiling outside with a bag of take-out. I heard Chiaki's footsteps behind me and I guess we both felt relieved that he was able to make it home but we were also disappointed that it wasn't our parents."

"What? how in the world did the old man escape from the authorities?"

I look back over to the other computers to check more fingerprints and I just shrug. "I don't know, the next day everyone seemed to forget what Uncle Tengan did. I asked him about it a few times after a few years later but he just either changed the subject or didn't entertain my question at all. So I just gave up."

"Well, that's weird. My best guess is he must have lied to the public."

"That's what I was thinking. That's why I don't really trust him that much, but when I think about it, it would be impossible for him to get away with what he did. If he ever did lie, no one would believe him since information was leaked, and it was him against the whole island. Some of his employees even admitted that he was the mastermind of the whole thing." I stop inspecting the other computers, they've all been messed around with too. I look back at the boy and it looks like he's really trying hard to solve what happened years ago. "I tried researching about it, but nothing came up. It was just the crash that was recorded on the town's news reports." I say.

"Have you tried asking other adults on what happened?"

"I did, they said they didn't know what happened. They just knew that my parents were in charge of the research facility and that they were responsible for the crashing of the rocket ship. When I told them it was uncle Tengan who was in charge of the whole thing, they just laughed at me."

"What about your sister. She should know about uncle Tengan too right? Since she was with you during the news report.""Ahh… yeah… Actually, we haven't talked about it since then."

Hajime scrunches his eyebrows together. "About your sister, I've noticed you've been avoiding each other. Has something happened between the both of you in the past? Is that why you guys haven't been talking to each other?"

I just shake my head and give out a long sigh "I don't know why she stopped talking to me… Let's talk more about this later, I have to check on something really important right now. Just follow me." I move over to the ladder. I want to make sure no one's up there, if this place falls into the wrong hands, who knows what could happen?

Hajime looks at me with confusion but he follows my orders anyways.

We both climb up the ladder until we end up on the roof. The afternoon heat's intensity has cooled down since it's an hour away before sunset now. I feel the island breeze hit me, making my hair and clothes dance with it.

I look over the rooftop's ledges and the image of the whole island sweeps me way. I get a bit lost in the moment for a while until Hajime snaps me out of it. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, right," I say. I blink a few times before heading towards the observatory.

"I saw the observatory when I was roaming the place with my spaceship." he says. "But I wonder what that huge antenna thing is at the corner of the roof top." He says as he points to the tall metal beam sticking out of the building with something on top of it.

I eye it for a few seconds but I dismiss it as unimportant. "I have no idea." I shrug and I continue to slowly take a few steps to the observatory.

I glance at the vine covered dome and I see some of the vines have split.

Someone must have rotated the observatory, that's why the vines are snapped like this. I don't remember where it was pointing before, but now, it's rotated to point at the same part of the sky that my window is facing.

I use the five metal steps to enter into the observatory and it seems like no one's inside. I know they probably left since the foot prints gave evidence to them leaving the area, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. I sigh in relief.

I immediately look to Hajime who already has his eye pressed on the telescope's eyepiece.

"I told you not to touch anything." I say a little bit irate.

"You told me not to touch anything down there and not up here…" He smiles while he looks into the telescope. "Wow this telescope is pretty powerful. I can see a number of stars."

My irritation gets replaced with curiosity. "What? You can see stars? In the broad daylight?"

"Well, yeah. I've spotted around three already." he says, pulling his face away from the eyepiece. "Here, have a look."

I shudder at the thought of looking at the stars. Those celestial lights are what brought my parents up there in the first place.

"No, uh, let's just go."

"Uhm, O-okay,"

I get back out from the observatory and Hajime follows suit.

"Is everything okay?" he asks.

"Yeah. It's almost getting dark. I'm sure Uncle Tengan's waiting for us already."

.

.

The sun's already setting. We are surrounded by hues of orange that's cascading all over the island. Sweat trickles down my forehead as I lift my head up slightly to gaze upon the sky.

It's been a long and tiring day, both physically and emotionally. I wipe the wetness on my face with my hand. I just want to get home and fall asleep right after a cold shower but he grabs my shoulder, delaying me from the rest that's awaiting me.

I stop in my tracks and I face the boy but I look to my shoes instead of meeting his eyes.

He sighs. I expected it, but I didn't expect it to happen this soon.

"Is something wrong, Nagito? You've been distant for the past couple of days."

I don't answer him. I grip my bag's straps that are resting on my shoulders.

"I thought the reason you were acting all cold is because of what you told me today. You've spoken to me and answered my questions a while back but now that you're done for today, you're back to being distant."

I pick up hints of irritation in his voice.

"It started after the day I told you about me…" His voice quivers. "Is it because you found out I was different?"

I widen my eyes in surprise. I look at him and it's like he's hurt with his own assumption.

"No, of course not!" I tell him with emotions rising in my voice.

"Then what is it?" He says and he looks at me with his piercing narrowed green eyes.

I look to where we stopped. It's just right beside the shore where we arranged the rocks to form his school's crest.

"Is this about me leaving again? I told you I'm going to come back. I'm going to visit you and Chiaki because we're friends."

No… he's wrong. It's not that. What's bothering me is I can't understand these mixed up emotions I have for him.

What if all these emotions mean I like him? Then what? Do I tell him? I don't think he's going to like me back. Hell, I think he likes my sister and besides, even if he does like me back, he won't be staying here on earth. He won't be staying here for me.

If I act like nothings wrong and keep on hanging out with him I'll surely fall. Fall deep. And when he leaves… it will feel like losing my parents all over again.

It's not fair. I already have him as a friend by my weird feelings has to get in the way of everything.

Whatever happens, one thing is for sure. I can't tell him about these feelings.

I guess there's only one way out of this…

"Hajime, I don't think I want to be friends with you anymore."

Something flashes in his eyes as he narrows them even further. He doesn't say a word as I turn my back on him.

I continue walking home and He doesn't follow me.