"Ashita no Rondeau"
(Rondeau for Tomorrow)
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3. Nagareru Kawa no Shuube (Around a Flowing River)
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1971, the 46th year of Showa, Japan is in a period of high economic growth and rapid development, weird memories of a mysterious enemy wriggling in the darkness long buried and forgotten.
Also buried in a cloud of gloom and doom are three third-year highschoolers standing together in a miserable knot slightly apart from the rest of their peers in front of their final mid-term ranking board.
The negativity emanated from a single girl, a stiff, pretty thing with a bright yellow ribbon strung through her long, warm brown hair. The boys caught in the bubble with her were merely collateral casualties.
"The bottom... you two are in the bottom ranks..." she muttered downwards at her fists, trembling uncontrollably with a vicious, dark, rage waiting to explode. "WHAT HAVE YOU BOTH BEEN DOING ALL YEAR?"
"Ah~ah, don't be mad, Ruriko-hime!" The giant bear of a boy known commonly as Banchou cried, "I've been training really hard with my Gate, sometimes I fall asleep before I open my books! I'm very sorry, Ruriko-hime!"
"Isn't the truth that you fall asleep at the sight of your books?" His friend Ukiya Shun jabbed good naturedly. His roguish grin, which usually made Ikuzawa Ruriko's chest flutter in an inexplicable state of agitation, had no success deflecting her anger today.
"This isn't a joke, March is around the corner, we have to buckle down and raise your grades now!"
"Come on," he shrugged, "at least we got in the top ten,"
"FROM THE BOTTOM!" WHACK! Came the customary Ruriko anti-Baka-Ukiya-Attack. "At this rate... at this rate we won't even be able to graduate t..." She swallowed the last word at the last minute, suddenly over-conscious of what the word "together" might imply.
"Why not? You're firmly seated in the top thirty, there's no way you'll fail," Shun protested, rubbing the side of his sore head.
THWACK! She hit him again, to keep him from seeing the deep blush on her face. "Because… because at this rate I'll be infected by your idiocy too!" She yelled and stormed off.
.
"She'll beat me into stupidity if I wasn't before," he grumbled at his best friend hours afterwards as they worked side by side washing up after closing at a local noodle house, the Tekkotsuken. Tonight, they're scrubbing down the kitchen. Her hair pulled back under a kerchief and glasses fogging over from her physical exertions, Kurogane Megumi looked like a boy as she wielded a long-handled scrub brush with expert precision.
"Ikusawa's right," she said quietly, even though it would have killed her to say those words of Ikusawa Ruriko just a little over a year ago, these days it felt surprisingly inconsequential. "If you don't start seriously studying soon, you won't graduate."
"Come on, what's the big deal anyway?" Shun continued to rant, "even if we get a bad score or can't graduate right away, Shi..." he'd started to mention the Commander of AEGIS, the secret and mysterious Gatekeeper organization which operated under the cover of Tategami High School and to which he, Ikuzawa Ruriko, Banchou, and, once upon a time, Megumi, all secretly belonged, then remembered they were not alone. "SHOUCHOU," — the local municipal authority— he corrected himself unnaturally loudly, "the shouchou has already guaranteed us jobs! It's-one-of-the-terms-of-our-scholarship," he finished lamely, the last words tumbling out altogether in a rush.
If Megumi's father thought there was anything suspicious about that, he let it slide. It was best, Kurogane Yuuzei has come to accept, to let the young choose their own way in this new, changing world. After all, they know it better than their parents do. All any parent can do in this age is to support and love their children quietly, with faith, and not let the things they don't quite understand bother them too much.
"What if that was to fall through somehow?" Megumi countered unexpectedly.
Shun glared at her in shock and suspicion. "What are you saying, Megu?" He whispered, not wanting her father to hear.
"Nothing," she replied nonchalantly, not even noticing his sudden antagonism. Actually, it was one of the things she'd been working on.
Kurogane Megumi had once betrayed AEGIS and stood by the side of their greatest enemy, an evil Gatekeeper calling himself Shadow, against Ukiya Shun and his fellow Gatekeepers in a grand showdown that almost destroyed half of Tokyo. They failed, obviously, and for a time she had seriously contemplated seclusion and death rather than facing anyone again, the thought of having to carry that shame around was so crippling.
But then it struck her that it only mattered as much as she let it. Sure, those who know and remember would look down on her with scorn and suspicion for the rest of her life, but it wasn't as though she didn't do it. She did, and when she really thought about it and was really honest to herself about it, she couldn't really think that she'd made the wrong choice. The others wanted to believe that Shadow had brainwashed her, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn't, so all that remained was living up to the consequences of her choice and accepting whatever scorn, anger, pity or suspicion that would ever come her way because of it.
"Just 'what if'? What would you do then?"
"He can always come work for us, won't you, Ukiya-kun?" Yuuzei threw in generously with a wide smile that looked to Megumi suspiciously like his sly salesperson expression. "Maybe one day I can pass this shop over to you. What do you say, young man?"
In those days, when old family businesses like the Tekkotsuken were passed down with great gravity and responsibility from father to son, it was almost as good as a proposal.
"Otou-san!" Megumi cast her father a withering look. He knew she didn't feel that way at all about Shun!
To her complete surprise, Shun blushed.
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What would have taken no more than forty minutes by car in 1969 took forever on foot in Kageyama's horrible new world.
It wasn't the world he'd envisaged and hoped for, nonetheless, it was his fault. He created this world when he trusted in a dream he'd glimpsed once in the heart of a reckless young man who'd cried in the face of his mortal enemy because he could not save him. He, Kageyama Reiji, no-one else, did this, by leaving the world to that young man and his friends. He should have known better. He should have been more responsible. He should have guaranteed the birth of that shining future with his own two hands. Ukiya Shun—what happened?
He didn't dare ask his... he wanted to call her his 'guide', but 'captor' seemed more in-line with her attitude towards him. Not that he could blame her in any good conscience, she's had to leave her partner to the largest army of Invaders he'd ever seen because of him.
Strange grasping structures loomed over an aging concrete city that was just as alien to him as what the Invaders had grown. Was this really Tokyo? Earth? If it wasn't for the Tokyo Tower cutting through the ruined skyline on his left, he would never have believed it. He wasn't even entirely sure the woman Lich, was really human, she seemed so harsh, so hard. He'd never met anyone with such a stoney heart as what he'd seen of hers inside the Minus gate's void, but it was not entirely new to him. He has seen it before, in Invaders.
She led them along a derelict expressway, weaving expertly between piles of abandoned vehicles fused together with rust. The six-hour trek was agony for Kageyama, being shoved, dragged and crammed along every which way to stay out of sight of wandering Invaders. The going got easier the higher they went. Though the air got harsher and they found less places to hide, they were able to stop every now and then for him to rest and look around.
The dirty orange sky drooped under the weight of a foul puce smog spewed out by comical mushroom-shaped chimneys, and the only green he has seen since he'd arrived was on the painted Invader suits. But what chilled him the most was what the expressionless, grey-faced creatures were doing.
They were leading human lives, or pretending to.
It was like an enormous, deathly silent, pantomime. Organised groups moved in neat ranks filing along cracked pavements and overhead bridges, waiting at long-broken traffic lights and crossing in perfect synchronisation. Pairs and trios of them marched in and out of various buildings, falling in step with one another and mimicking conversation. They sat at rotting desks in offices and schools, staring into space, in restaurants, lifting mugs and cutlery to their faces at regular intervals, behind shop counters, nodding slowly at each other, selling nothing, playing out every scripted motion with mechanical precision, occupying every urban space that'd once belonged to human beings.
"What are they doing?" He couldn't resist asking, peeking out at a roof full of Invaders blankly raising and dropping their arms in unison.
"Radio calisthenics, introduced in 1928 by Emperor Hirohito, reintroduced in 1951 by WHK-"
"No, not that," he interrupted. Radio exercises were already popular in 1969 as a way of building team morale and incorporating exercise into the urban man's daily routine. "The Invaders, all... all this," Kageyama stuttered, unable to explain.
"Oh, them," Lich ran a calloused hand through her fringe with a pained expression and retrieved a much-handled cigarette with about an inch of life left in it from a metallic black strap around her wrist. He would have called it a watch, except the glassy black disc embedded in it was blank and he could see no clock hands. "It's a demonstration. They're telling anyone left that the world belongs to them now," she said, fishing around her pockets for an odd little box with a hole on top just wide enough to fit the tip of a small twist of paper, or the end of a cigarette. There was a funny little pop as the tobacco lit. "Of course, there aren't enough of us left to matter anymore, but as turns out, they're too stupid to realise."
She offered him a puff, but he declined. Two minutes later, they were on the move again.
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It was hard to believe Megu did not have prophetic skills. By the time the cherry blossoms withered and gave way to green, everything had changed.
AEGIS Far East was in trouble.
The end of Invader activity within Japanese borders meant the Far East branch had become obsolete. Tokiwatari Tetsuya, the Regional Commander, fought it as long as he could, insisting that the threat to his country was not over. However, with mounting evidence to the contrary and a rising flood of suspicious occurrences in Europe and the Americas, AEGIS Far East was officially disbanded in the May of 1971 and absorbed into various other offices better situated to respond to the greatest global threats.
All Far East personnel were given the choice to retire or be reassigned except Tokiwatari himself. Worrying discrepancies in the Far East branch's operations, discovered during the administrative change-overs, called his leadership into question. The whole Shadow fiasco was a disgrace. How did the enemy agent Shadow go unchecked roaming rampant under his nose in his own school? For that matter, how was Shadow able to turn not one, but two, of his Gatekeepers against humanity and AEGIS if he had been doing his job? Why has he not pursued Kurogane Megumi the traitor?
There were further concerns, such as why he deemed it appropriate to appoint a sixteen year-old kid to head his mechanics department, or why Banba Choutarou, a street thug who shows no affinity towards Gate powers whatsoever, was given Gatekeeper level access to AEGIS resources; and even how he enacted the transfer of Feng Fei Ling from Shanghai to Japan without proper clearance from Central Command. But on the eve of his tribunal hearing, Tokiwatari Testuya became another unfortunate statistic bearing tragic proof to the growing dangers of Japan's exploding traffic conditions.
A formal assembly was held in his honour at Tategami Private High School, the place to which he had dedicated so many years of stalwart service. It was a sombre affair, well-attended and to-the-point. Some district official gave a speech on the importance of road safety and the tragedy of loss of life, the head teacher spoke about his public character and contributions to education as Principal of the school, and the Student-body President presented suitably touching words of gratitude and hope in his memory. No-one mentioned his career in Alien extermination, but Ukiya Shun recognised many AEGIS support personnel from their secret underground command centre amongst the mourning alumni standing in the back of the auditorium.
Asagiri Reiko, rising star of the international classical music world and Tategami Private High graduate, closed the ceremony with an eight minute rendition of Heller's "Warrior's Song" which was an odd choice for a mentor's eulogy; nonetheless, there was not a dry eye around when she was done.
Afterwards, she stood in the school nurse's office with the rest of her comrades-in-arms for more farewells. She and fellow Gatekeeper Konoe Kaoru had accepted new assignments in London, where a new kind of music was being born, and Cape Canaveral, the industrial city of an emerging Space Age, respectively. No-one dared comment on Kurogane Megumi's absence.
"Don't worry about Japan, I, Banba Chotarou, will protect it with my life while you are gone!"
"Work hard over there too, Kaoru-chan! Reiko-san!"
"But, Ukiya-senpai, I don't want to go if it's not with you!" Seventeen year-old Konoe Kaoru has had a crush on Ukiya Shun for three long years. One of her reasons for accepting the position was because a similar offer had been made to him. The power of the Gate of Gales would be invaluable to the defence of America's space programme and whatever they might find out there.
"Don't, Kaoru-chan, you should go!" Shun picked up her warm, slender hand, the most feminine thing about the young female athlete, and gave it a brotherly squeeze. "They promised, right? You will be able to compete as much as you want in America. Don't let anything hold you back!"
"Senpai..."
She couldn't fault him for it, Shun has been the man of his household ever since his father died years ago, and he refused to leave his mother and sister behind. It was a worthy reason, but she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She was so looking forward to starting a new life with him!
"Be careful on your own, Reiko-senpai, I'll never forget you!" The weeping, sniffling wisp of a boy bawling his eyes out behind thick round glasses is Kanetake Meguro, simply called Glasses (Megane).
"Arara? It'll be okay... Ono-san is coming with me too so I won't be alone desu..." Reiko reassured him with a smile, though for some reason, it made him cry harder.
"Hey, don't cry," Ikusawa Ruriko interjected, "it's not like we won't ever see them again!"
"Of course not!" Kaoru cried, locking her arms around Shun's. "I'll make sure to come back and visit you often, Ukiya-senpai!"
"That's right," Ruriko smiled, forcing herself to ignore the other girl's shameless, open, display of affection. That lout Ukiya! He shouldn't be allowing such a young girl to get so close to him, either! Even though Kaoru was only a year younger than Ruriko and Shun. "We can all meet next year for the Winter Olympics!"
This was met with unanimous approval, but the reality is, the next time they all meet will be longer away than any of them could have imagined then.
Time marches on.
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There was nothing familiar to Kageyama about Nikotama River district except its name. What had once been a booming shopping district was now a stagnant wasteland, razed completely flat and reminiscent of a giant crop circle, if the crops were high rises.
Crossing that threshold was like stepping into a completely different dimension. The ground glowed faintly, almost green and a little bit of red, with a strange, course, sand that crunched like glass underfoot and cut Kageyama's hand immediately when he tried to scoop up a handful.
"We'll camp here and wait for Ruka. Don't wander off."
Lich seemed reluctant to enter the dead zone.
Kageyama nodded mutely, entranced, and kept walking.
Something in a distance tugged on the edges of his perception, like a tiny whisper just out of earshot, or a vague, very vague, feeling of something important trying to surface out of his consciousness and be recognised. It felt like... people? A faint sense of warm, simple contentment? The sun was setting on the horizon in front of him. He was surprised to feel its warmth.
The sand seemed to sing and glow brighter where the light touched it, welcoming him in. Kageyama laid down and folded his hands together above his navel, feeling the aches and pains ebb out of him. He has never walked so far or so long all at once in his life, not even when he'd lost his home and ran away to live on the streets, several lifetimes ago. Small memories edged forward in his new-found tranquillity: his mother's voice, his father's hand, the delighted gasps of his friends when he performed his little magic tricks, a lullaby, and something else his mother used to sing, once, a long, long time ago...
This time, the shock was not so great when Lich, rousing him for dinner, squeezed his hand. Perhaps it was because they were not mired in the eye of a Minus gate, perhaps because her mind was on other things. He felt... pain, a deep, dull, old hurt from her that was how he imagined a lifetime of guilt and regret would feel like, and something else, flashes of better times, and worse times, strange times, a girl called Minoru, fruitfulness, in a different Tokyo from any he's seen and a different Invader Invasion from what he'd first glimpsed, a mad kaleidoscope of dreams, tears and memories.
"Ogawa-san... What happened to you?" The question brushed lightly past his lips, into the quiet night.
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Lily-decked chapels with stained-glass windows and pearl-studded veils paired against pure white wedding gowns have always been her dream. Ikusawa Ruriko basked in it all and sighed. The only shame of it was it wasn't her wedding.
"Congratulations, Isogai-san... ah, iie, it's Nakamura-san now, isn't it?" She beamed at the blushing bride and her bridesmaids, artfully disguising her disappointment at not having been asked to be one of them.
"Ikusawa-san! It's great of you to come!" "It's been too long! How are you doing?" The usual civilities.
The woman of the hour was Isogai Ayako, her old classmate from Tategami Private High. Ruriko had to take a moment to put a face to that name when she received the invitation. It was Shun who remembered first, surprisingly, and Shun who rattled off a complete string of names and anecdotes reminding Ruriko of all sorts of things about their high school friends and days outside of AEGIS. Shun, who had trouble reciting his higher multiplication tables in high school!
The bridesmaids, Takanashi Satoko and Okamori Yasue, wore matching yellow sundresses done up in beautiful butterfly bows. Both of them had wedding bands over their matching scallop-edged white gloves, which they were comparing when Ruriko entered the room.
"I'm so relieved I'm finally joining you guys, Satoko, Yasue," Takanashi, soon-to-be Mrs Nakamura, confided, continuing the conversation. "For a while I was really afraid I was going to be left on the shelf!"
"Deshou? None of us are getting any younger!"
Ironic words, considering the Women's Liberation movement sweeping across the nation recently, and especially since these three were founding members of Tategami Private High's Political Awareness Society, back in the day.
"What about you, Ikusawa-san? Your husband must be really glamorous and prominent!"
The question caught Ruriko off-guard. "Uh... I'm sti... still single," she stammered, causing an immediate embarrassed silence.
"Oh, how like Ikusawa-san, she's too busy working on her career like a strong modern woman to date just anyone, isn't that right, Ikusawa-san?" Isogai offered kindly.
"Ah, yes, that's what it is," Ruriko laughed awkwardly.
"It'll take a really special man to measure up to Ikusawa-san! Not like my Takeshi, you know, he's just like a child..."
"Oh, I know! You know what mine said the other day..."
The women started dishing about their husbands and in-laws. Ruriko just nodded and laughed where she thought appropriate, feeling very small and lost. She remained that way throughout the ceremony and reception, and all the way home. It felt like life has moved on since high school she has been left behind.
.
Strolling down the banks of Nikotama River at lunch time with her long-time boyfriend, she felt just the tiniest pang of guilt for not mentioning him to anyone at the wedding.
"Shun, how long have we been together?"
"Ee? Why all of a sudden?"
"Well, you know, my parents have been talking to me lately and I've been thinking a lot too, I have some money put away and we've been going out for a while now..." She trailed off poignantly, hoping he would catch her hint, but when she looked up to see his reaction, she saw him chatting away with one of the amateur fishermen dotting the walkways and realised he hadn't been listening at all.
"Come look at this, Rurippe!" He called out enthusiastically, like a child with a new toy. "Have you ever seen such a beautiful trout? Hey buddy, how much for it?"
She probably wouldn't have noticed if Yasue and Satoko hadn't been gossiping in front of her the other day, but it's true, she does often feel like a babysitter when she's with him.
"Awesome! Look at that," he beamed, jogging back to her with the fish still flopping around in a dripping shopping bag. Ruriko shied away.
"Shun! Watch out for my dress!"
"This will go great on the grill. Why don't you come over for dinner after work, Rurippe?" For other couples, this usually meant a romantic date. With Shun, this meant a rambunctious family affair in the alley behind the little eatery where he works with however else was free to join the table, which usually meant him, his mother, his sister Saemi, Bancho, who'd started working at the shop upon his return to Tokyo last year, and sometimes Kurogane Yuuzei, his boss. Ruriko's heart sank.
"What were you saying just now?"
"Oh! Uh... you know," Ruriko fumbled, and missed her chance to a tinny alarm beep from his wrist. They glanced down at his watch at the same time, a regular cheap old thing sold to children in neighbourhood stationery shops.
"Why aren't you wearing the watch I gave you?" She asked unhappily.
"Huh? Saemi got me this one because yours is too precious to wear to work," he replied without the slightest realisation of her mood. He was right, of course, who in their right mind would wear a forty-seven thousand yen Casiotron to work in a hot, steamy, greasy kitchen?
"Ack! Sorry, Rurippe, I've got to get back. Come over tonight and you can tell me then, okay?"
Even though it was phrased as a question, he was already heading off towards the bus station in a run. He really is just like a child, she thought gloomily as he turned at the edge of the road to wave her goodbye. She raised her hand to shoulder height and waved back reservedly.
She didn't really feel up to facing everyone at the dinner table that night, but it would be embarrassing for her not to go. The fish was a masterpiece, according to everyone else, but she barely tasted it. She ate a little, to be polite, and pleaded an early night.
"Rurippe, wait up, I'll walk you," he slurped up the rest of his soup and stood up so quickly he bumped against the table and almost spilled everyone else's drinks and soup. She waited for him because everyone was watching and she didn't want them to think anything was wrong, but part of her really wanted to just keep walking.
"You know it's dangerous out on your own in the dark," he muttered as he caught up to her. It's been several years since either of them has seen any large scale Invader attacks, but the threat was still there and occasionally they still do spot things that seem suspiciously Invader-like out of the corner of their eyes.
"I wonder how Reiko-san and Kaoru-chan are doing?" She asked out of nowhere.
What the young Gatekepers hadn't realised when faced with AEGIS Central Command's reassignment offers five years ago, was the meaning of "secret organisation". Once reassigned, Asagiri Reiko and Konoe Kaoru were whisked away into clandestine new lives where any contact with non-AEGIS personnel not deemed necessary to maintain one's cover is strictly forbidden. By refusing a new position within the organisation, Ruriko and Shun (and Bancho, although in his case he was never offered a place) were no longer members of AEGIS. It was only months after they had made their decisions that they realised the reality of their choices and just how much freedom they had enjoyed under Commander Tokiwatari Tetsuya in the Far East branch, although sometimes Shun wondered how much of that was real and how much of it was simply because they were too naive to notice.
"Ne, Shun, do you ever regret it? Not continuing on in AEGIS?"
She'd expected him to think about it, or be a little bit wistful at least. That's normal, right? But there was not a speck of hesitation or confusion in his firm "No."
"But..."
"There are many things I have to protect," he continued, "and if continuing on with AEGIS meant that I can no longer do that, then what was the point of going?" It was very much his kind of answer.
"What about you, Rurippe? You could have gone if you'd wanted to,"
Old resentments bubbled up sneakily with embarrassment. She reached out and smacked him across the back of the head without thinking, but these days he was so much taller than her that her out-stretched hand only just reached between his shoulder blades.
"I stayed to be with you, Ukiya-kun no Baka!" It took them two more years after AEGIS Far East was dissolved to get anywhere with each other, between one thing and another, and a lot of tears and frustration she really could have done without. Why is love in the real world never smooth the way it should be?
Now would have been appropriate for him to blush. She would have thought it cute if he did. Instead, Shun laughed. "Maa, how was I to know? You never said anything!"
"Don't laugh, it's all your fault!"
"Well, boys can be pretty slow about that stuff and I was just a boy," he kept chuckling, making a comical show of dodging her blows.
"You still are! Dim-wit!"
"Hmm?"
"I mean, have you even thought about when we'll get married?"
It slipped out in a huff. She stopped and clapped her hands to her mouth, what am unladylike thing to say! But the worse was when he shrugged nonchalantly, the laughter from teasing her still dying in his chest and said:
"You know, I really haven't given it any thought,"
And she stopped dead in her tracks.
Her father has never approved of Shun. It was stupid class discrimination, as far as Ruriko was concerned. She didn't see why it would be okay for her to be with someone who worked at a desk in an office building but not someone who ran his own shop in the neighbourhood market district. There was the question of a man's finances and how he would be able to support her, but it wasn't as if she would be an expensive wife, and anyway, didn't both their families use to live in the exact same neighbourhood before the government moved everyone away in order to build the National Olympic Stadium? What made the Ikusawas better people than the Ukiyas?
But now, she was starting to think maybe there was some merit to her father's bias. While Ruriko has grown into a sophisticated modern woman, Shun was still and forever just a simple, well-meaning country boy, all rough around the edges; and while she may not feel the difference very much now, what about five, ten years from now? He was never going to be the kind of boy to bring her to fancy restaurants and tropical holidays like she is used to at home, or even the kind to buy her nice, classy, things – he truly lacked the taste, even if money were no object.
He was the boy who would make the trip to Nikotama every weekday afternoon to bring her lunch and walk her along the river bank, then dash on back to make ramen and other home style dishes for a shopful of old regulars and high school kids until every last customer was gone; a boy who makes dinner every night for as many of his friends and family as would bother to turn up for it, who insists on calling her by a childish nickname she has long since given up on trying to argue out of, and who would walk her home at night not because it was gentlemanly but because he knew what might lurk in the dark.
She wasn't a hundred percent sure if she needed more, the way her father said, but maybe this is for the best.
"I see... well, forget I said anything," she showed him a forced smile and left him under the streetlamp in a hurry.
"Marriage, huh?" Shun asked aloud at moth dancing around the lamp light, mulling the concept over in his head.
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Next Time:
4. Yasashii Tomoshibi