The sun faded behind the corner of a high rise building on the backstreets of Yongen-Jaya. In the midst of a crowd of people with nowhere to go, a boy in a drab olive hoodie and a girl in a sky blue blouse walked together with purpose.
"So where are we going?" Makoto said. He his swiveled left and right, and up and down and every which way, trying to find anything that looked like a place to do something.
"Patience, Senpai!" Kasumi dropped her head back. "You've asked me that ten times now. You'll see when we get there." A sign that looked like an actual advertisement flashed around the next corner on the road. "Oh, looks like that's it!"
Kasumi let go of Makoto's hand and ran ahead, up the stairs. "Kasumi, wait up!" Makoto followed slowly behind, fixated on the crossed baseball bats on the sign.
Inside, posters of men in striped shirts covered the walls. Some were depicted standing over a five sided plate, some sliding through a cloud of dirt, some chasing an unseen object in the sky. Makoto's breath grew heavier up the short flight of stairs, and his voice shaky. "Can you tell me now?"
Kasumi spun around on her heel, snapping perfectly in line with a flourish of her hands. With all the helmets, metal and alloy bats, and other blatant baseball paraphernalia all over the store interior, it was a wonder Makoto couldn't figure it out himself. "It's a batting cage!" Kasumi said.
"Oh," Makoto said. Looking around, having heard her say it, it suddenly struck him that he should have pieced it together a lot sooner. "But, I've never played baseball before."
"Neither have I," Kasumi said. "But hey, first time for everything. Right, Senpai?" She winked at him as she picked up one of the bats from a display rack. Then she put it down and picked up the next one, giving it a few swings to try its weight. "Actually, my father used to take me batting when I was a kid. I liked swinging the plastic bats around, but the steel and even the aluminum ones were too heavy for me." Kasumi clinked her bat against the guard rail. Makoto couldn't tell the difference between steel dings and aluminum dings, but it certainly didn't sound like plastic. Kasumi went on, "My elementary school PE teacher had us play softball a few times a year too. Never hardball though, so this still counts."
As Kasumi stepped into the cage, Makoto noticed a control panel outside the door. "Kasumi, I think the controls are out here," he said. "How fast do you want it?" He touched his finger to a slider that ranged from seventy to a hundred sixty five, and an unlabeled mark beyond that. A note posted over the panel asked customers to reset the slider to seventy whenever they finished.
"Hmm, just leave it alone for now," Kasumi said, in position and planting her feet apart. "I want to get into the feel of it before turning the speed up." A digital counter rapidly ticked up to 70.00 KPH, and Makoto heard a motor start churning.
The first baseball shot out of a machine and Kasumi swung and missed. She grumbled lightly and adjusted her posture, and landed a hit on her second swing, and her third, and even the fourth. The machine shot out ball number five, and Kasumi was just out of position and missed it.
"Wow," Kasumi said. "Even seventy is a little faster than I thought." The baseball machine's motor winded down as she left the cage. "Still, three out of five isn't bad, is it?"
"You were great in there!" Makoto said.
"Aw, thanks, Senpai!" Kasumi anchored the baseball bat to the floor to stretch her arms, and she looked to Makoto, more serious than usual. "Hey, Makoto. Is it fine if I keep calling you that?"
"Yeah, I don't mind," Makoto said. "It's just that, I don't feel like there's a whole lot I can do that you couldn't do on your own."
Kasumi shook her head. "Don't worry about that. I'm sure you'll think of something. Oh, yeah, you wanted to talk about stuff from yesterday, didn't you?" They sat at a booth table facing each other, with the bat propped up against Kasumi's seat.
Makoto racked his brain, thinking of where to start. "How much did you know Kamoshida?"
Kasumi tilted her head. "Not much, really. He only talked to me a few times. Oh, he did ask me to consider trying out for volleyball, but I didn't have time. He backed off pretty fast, actually, which seems uncharacteristic now that I think about it."
"He might have been occupied keeping everything with the volleyball team a secret," Makoto said.
"I'm not sure how much of a secret it was," Kasumi said. "I've only been here for a month and I already heard rumors about it, even before yesterday. But I wonder, if everyone knew, who let him keep doing it?"
Since Kamoshida was a teacher, it had to be the Principal enabling him. Not a whole lot else made sense, but Makoto still wasn't sure, and he kept the thought to himself. "I heard some of it too," he said. "I didn't know what to make of it, since I also heard a lot of odd stuff about me and the other transfer student."
"Oh, that's right!" Kasumi said. "You transferred here too. I don't want to presume too much, but you aren't an athlete, are you?" Makoto shook his head, unbothered. He didn't look like any sort of athlete, and he knew it just fine. "How much exposure did you have to Kamoshida?"
"Not a whole lot either," Makoto said. "Maybe more than you did, I suppose. Kamoshida wanted to talk to me about… Hope's Peak…" He sighed and leaned back. "I don't think I was the honor student he expected."
"He certainly wasn't the great coach we expected." Kasumi smiled wide, but drew it back when she saw Makoto still staring blankly ahead. She tucked her arm in and shrunk away from him, "Sorry, Makoto. That was probably in poor taste."
"He was kind of a weirdo," Makoto said. "There were two other people he brought up at the assembly. Shiho and someone named Takamaki."
"I feel like I've seen Takamaki somewhere before." Kasumi hummed as she thought about it. "I think it was in a magazine? Not sure. I didn't know she went to our school." Makoto didn't want to say anything, but he'd seen those same magazines Kasumi was talking about. Definitely not his, though. "And Shiho…" Kasumi said.
"Yeah…" The less said about Shiho, the better. They both suffered at Kamoshida's hands. Everyone did, really. Maybe that was where things ended. Maybe there just wasn't anything left to say.
"Makoto, ready to get back to it then?" Kasumi stuck one leg out and grabbed the handle of the bat. When Makoto nodded, she stepped up on both feet and handed the bat to him across the table. "Alright then. Cause it's your turn."
"Wait, what?" Before he could come up with a good protest, Kasumi shoved the bat right into his hands and Makoto found himself walking into the batting cage, stepping over the plate.
"Just tell me when you're ready, Senpai!" He saw Kasumi at the control panel, hands behind her back.
Makoto gave the metal bat some practice swings as he adjusted his grip on the handle, a little up, a little down, and shuffled his feet around. "Okay, I'm ready."
Kasumi flicked the slider to the right. The baseball machine's motor roared to life. The display rushed past seventy, ninety, a hundred, and settled on 110.37 KPH. Makoto gulped and braced for impact.
It wasn't Friday yet, but here he was. Makoto found himself back at school. He stopped outside the gates of Shujin, still thinking about how Kamoshida said he thought of the school as a castle. He tried to imagine it, and if he looked at it right, he could see what he meant, or at least he could see how it looked like a castle of some sort.
He checked his phone, and saw a pinned text message from Kasumi he still hadn't answered yet.
Sorry again about the speed, Senpai. Had to do it to you! Oh yeah, let's see if Sumire can tag along next time. It's been two months, so I'm sure she's eager to see you again.
And below it, the message he came to school a whole day early for.
Makoto, please make time to come to school today. There's something I need to tell you about before classes resume tomorrow. Haru Okumura.
He was glad Haru signed the text, because it turned out he never saved her phone number. Makoto quickly corrected that and replied, I'm here. He tried the front door, but the campus was still locked up. It seemed Haru chose to meet at school just because she didn't have anywhere else in mind, which was fine.
He looked around and found a girl in a pale purple sweater seated at an outdoor table in the courtyard. That was her, and Makoto bowed before sitting across from her. "Good afternoon, Senpai Okumura," he said. "Oh, right, Haru, I forgot-"
Haru smiled back at him. "It's fine, Makoto. Good afternoon to you, too. I'll get right into it then. After school on Monday, following Kamoshida's statements, the Principal called for me immediately as the student council president, but apparently he was expecting you. He seems to have genuinely confused you for someone else."
That was the story of Makoto's life since before the school year even started. The other transfer student. The other Ultimate Lucky Student. The other student council president. The other Makoto. It was no surprise the Principal had the same confusion.
Haru went on. "As it happens, there was a student here named Makoto Niijima. She would have been a third year like me, but she transferred to another school, in a very last minute process. Niijima would also have been the student council president. I can only assume this is why Principal Kobayakawa is having difficulties telling things apart."
She would have been a third year… "But I'm a boy," Makoto said.
"I don't want to speak badly of Principal Kobayakawa, but even so, I'm not surprised he did not notice that. Have you spoken to him in person before?"
"Um, once?" Makoto said. "For a few minutes, on my first day here. I'm sorry if I got us a little off topic. You sounded like you were going somewhere."
"Right." Haru refocused on the matter at hand. "It's likely Principal Kobayakawa will ask you to take on some sort of investigation into Kamoshida and the circumstances around his open confession. It will probably be justified as student affairs, which is in the student council's purview. As president, it should be my responsibility, which I reminded him about on Monday, but he insists that you do it. And I'll admit, it's something I don't really want to do. But a responsibility like this shouldn't be so easily pushed onto someone else."
"It's okay, Haru. I get it," Makoto said. "I think. I'll listen to what the assignment is, and I'll choose then."
"I just don't want you to feel like you have to agree for my sake," Haru said. "If what he tells you seems wrong, you tell him no, that it's my responsibility, and I'll handle it." Her voice trembled at the end.
"You don't want to investigate your classmates, do you?" Makoto said.
Haru shook her head. "I don't think that's something anyone would want to do. And I've kept to myself for so long, I wouldn't even know where to begin. In your situation, it can't be much easier. But it's not about what I want. It's… it's what Principal Kobayakawa wants."
"No, that's wrong. Just because the Principal says it, doesn't mean it has to happen." Haru's head perked up at the suggestion. Defying the Principal, abetting whoever exposed Kamoshida, protecting their classmates. Not in a lifetime would Kobayakawa want that, but maybe right now, it was the right thing to do. "It doesn't have to be about what he wants either. It's about what's right."
"Hmm…" Haru was deep in thought. She didn't answer for a while, and in truth she was reconsidering more than just whatever the Principal has in store for tomorrow. "You may be right, Makoto. But still, it's not an easy responsibility to get out of. I suppose we'll just have to see what happens tomorrow. Whatever decision you make, I trust it'll be the right thing to do."
They both got up and made their way home. On the train, Makoto passed the grander gates of Hope's Peak Academy again. For the first time, seeing what he left behind made him think things had turned out for the better after all.