Hitokiri Orange Road

Chapter 2.

Orange Armband of Daily Life

The first days were the toughest. After awakening on the cold roof, he had been given paperwork to fill out for other paperwork, sent from a bureaucrat with luxuriant ear hair to one with liver spots on his bald head to one who was immaculately dressed and back again. The first one worked slowly, the second worked slower, and the third worked slowest.

"Good. day. Mr. Kyosuke. Do. you. have. form. 2-A-6-1-J-3-6-9?" the third paper pusher asked.

Hunger wracked him. Only the cold distracted him from his hunger until his feet began to hurt in his poorly made shoes. The bureaucrats gave him an orange armband to wear around his right arm; it marked him as burakumin. Kyosuke reluctantly pinned it into place. After his work papers were straightened, he trekked to the the industrial sector.

He was not sure how he walked the distance. The air turned foul. Kyosuke began to cough as his eyes watered.

He was assigned to a slaughtering and canning factory. The sound and heat were awesome. The air stank of rancid fat and old blood. His manager, a portly man named Arisawa, showed him the operation. The early shift slaughtered and the next shift cleaned. The canning ran day and night. After a brief tour, Kyosuke moved crates. It was the hardest four hours of his life. He worked with an old man, who worked at Kyosuke's asthmatic pace. When the shift whistle rang, he was so sore that it hurt to breathe.

Dinner was a small bowl of brown rice with pickled vegetables and miso soup. He devoured it hungrily. Kyosuke was given a small locker and a bottom bunk. Since he did not have any clothes to change into, he slept in his dirty clothes.

The shift whistle blew during in the dark. Arisawa shook him out of bed. His manager was surprisingly good natured about Kyosuke's sluggishness. Arisawa surprised him further by ordering him to go to school for a single period, homeroom, and then coming back. The Great Leader required all school aged children to report for attendance.

Kyosuke felt embarrassed by his shabby clothes and greasy hair and face. Gray clouds continued to hang overhead. He half wished that it would rain to wash some of the grime off of him. He walked hunched, with his hands under his arms for warmth. The thin rice porridge surged up to the back of his throat several times. The concrete clock tower and blocky building was his Koryo High School. The students wore familiar black tunics and sailor suits.

Manami and Kurumi might be there or this world's versions of them. Would they recognize him? What about himself, would there be another Kasuga Kyosuke? What about Ayukawa? Hikaru? The questions bolstered his hopes, until he approached the school gates. The black uniformed students stared at him. When he turned, they looked away or challenged him threateningly. He thought that it was his appearance, until he noticed that their eyes always flicked to his orange armband and then his face. Half-familiar faces hardened into masks.

Silence hung around him in suffocating thickness. Kyosuke hurried to the front desk, where a secretary assigned him to a homeroom. She ignored him when he thanked her. He was late for homeroom. The homeroom teacher looked the same as his old one. Kyosuke still looked on with apprehension; he did not this man. The teacher had the same part in his hair and wireframe glasses, but Kyosuke had never seen the teacher's lips curled in such pure disgust.

"Hey you," the teacher said rudely. "What's your name?"

"Kasuga Kyosuke," Kasuga answered with a bow.

"You will address me with respect."

"Sir."

"We weren't told that we would have your kind here."

"I was assigned here, sir."

"Fine, just keep quiet. And what's that smell? Don't you know how to bathe?" chuckles filled the room.

Kyosuke's face flushed in shame. "I work in a slaughter house, sir."

"Whatever, just move a desk to the far wall."

Kyosuke's heart rose when he saw a familiar head of curled hair and his portly sidekick.

"Komatsu! Hatta!" the names burst from his lips.

Gasps erupted from the class.

"Do you know him?" the teacher demanded.

"Never!" Komatsu answered hotly. "I've never seen him in my life."

"Me neither," Hatta added.

Kyosuke stumbled back a step from their vehemence. The teacher struck slapped him to the back of his head.

"Apologize then," the teacher commanded.

Kyosuke's mouth worked uselessly like a fish's. The teacher repeated his command. Kyosuke looked around at his classmates. They returned his searching look with a uniform hatred. He flinched under the stare. With a dry mouth, he bowed deeply.

"I am very sorry, and must have been mistaken," Kyosuke announced.

"That's not good enough," the teacher said, seizing his ear. Kyosuke gritted his teeth. "Again."

Kyosuke suppressed the urge to rub his ear. The only lower bow was the kowtow. For a moment, he wanted to resist. He felt the pressure building in his mind to lash back at them, until he met their collectively cold eyes again. Like a pack of wild dogs, they could pounce. No one would blame them. Alone and surrounded, he fell face down to the ground.

"I am truly sorry, and must have been gravely mistaken. Please forgive my unworthy self!" Kyosuke said.

Komatsu and Hatta snickered. Kyosuke felt betrayed.

"A little better, now go in the corner before you stink up the class."

Kyosuke was relieved to slink out after everyone else had left and go back to the factory where he was merely anonymous.

At work, the other factory hands made neither an effort to include nor exclude him. It did not bother Kyosuke who barely had enough energy to clean himself and his uniform before dropping off for the night. Arisawa pointed out a used clothing store where he found some warm clothes. The manager lent him some powder to get rid of the fleas.

Kyosuke was assigned to cleaning the loading and slaughter pens. He gagged on the scent of blood and feces, but he tied strips of cloth around his face and head and went through with the cleaning. There was nothing else to be done about it. His system grew acclimated to even that stench. The weeks flew by in a haze of weary routine. When fall gave way to winter, each shift began and ended in the dark of night. Frost rimed the barrack windows.

The workers slept in a converted warehouse. Bunk beds lined the walls. Arisawa scheduled Sunday as their laundry and cleaning days. He ran a tight run ship. Kyosuke adapted to the daily labor and the cold nights. He learned to chew his food slowly and followed the other workers and spent the late part of Sunday haunting the closest bakery for day-olds and pound cake crusts. Vegetable stalls yielded bruised produce for discounts. Each yen and ration coupon counted

After the first few days, Kyosuke came to an uneasy truce with his classmates. He sacrificed a few precious minutes of sleep to arrive at homeroom early. The teacher would call his name with a disparaging remark and move onto the next name.

Kyosuke bore his daily dose of hostility by daydreaming. Each day, he hopefully looked at the empty seat by the window. The position matched Ayukawa's seat in his own time stream. He imagined her flowing black hair, cream-smooth skin, and spicy sweet scent. The distant days at the beach became inlaid with golden sunlight. Sometimes, he dreamed of simply being in the park next to his home. The grass was fragrant. He almost reach up to the light shining between the green leaves and touch the slivers of blue sky caught between. He was afraid to move until the harsh bell broke the silence.