Another, Vol. 2 (4 page)

“What does that mean?”

“The student who had taken on the role of being ‘not there’ couldn’t bear the pressure and alienation any longer and compromised the class’s ‘decision.’ The student started begging with them, saying, ‘You think I’m not here? But I am. Take a good look, everybody! You’re gonna treat me like I’m here’…The strain became too great.”

“You’re saying that’s why the ‘disaster’ started?”

“It seems that way.”

I couldn’t help hearing a faint sigh escape Mei’s lips.

I didn’t know who they’d made “not there” that year, but because he (or maybe she) had abandoned that role partway through the year, seven people linked to the class had lost their lives. How had he (or maybe she) taken this cruel fact? How had he faced everyone in class, and himself? When I pictured it, tiny goose bumps rose on both my arms again.

“So,” Mr. Chibiki continued. “‘The casualty’ for 1996 was a student named Mami Asakura, whose name you see written there. But that name isn’t actually on the class list for that year. She was originally a student in third-year Class 3 three years earlier, in 1993. If you look back, you’ll see that she lost her life in the ‘disasters’ of that year.”

I flipped through the pages in the file and checked the class list for 1993.

Just as Mr. Chibiki had said, Mami Asakura’s name was listed there, right alongside a red
X
. In the space to the right, he had written “October 9—illness.”

“…This is what I mean when I say that at the time
everything is consistent, the way it’s supposed to be
. Incidentally”— Mr. Chibiki leaned forward across the counter and lightly flicked his index finger on an edge of the binder—
“between April two years ago and the following March, this didn’t look like this.”

“It didn’t?”

“As far as I remember, anyway. In April 1996, Mami Asakura’s name should have been on the class list since she was part of the class. And I’m going off of my memory now, but her name wasn’t where it belonged on the class list for ’93. Which tells me that it disappeared. And of course that includes the
X
next to her name and the note about her death.”

“You’re saying all of it disappeared?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Chibiki nodded without a smile.

“So you see, while the ‘phenomenon’ is in effect for a given year, it doesn’t matter where you search. You accomplish nothing. And it isn’t just the class lists. The same sort of thing happens to other records at school and official documents, even to people’s diaries or notes or photos or videotapes, and even computer data. It doesn’t matter what it is. Some kind of tampering or corruption occurs that common sense would tell you is impossible, and it conceals the contradictions that ought to arise when ‘the casualty’ mixes in with everyone. Details that shouldn’t match up just do.”

“But it wasn’t just things like records, was it? It affected the memories of the people involved, too, right?”

“That’s right. Take the example of two years ago. Even in my role as an ‘observer,’
I never had the slightest suspicion about the presence of Mami Asakura, even though she shouldn’t have been there
. In reality, she passed away at the age of fourteen in October 1993, but everyone had forgotten that fact. Her family, her friends, her teachers…Everyone.

“Not to mention that she was still fourteen at the point that she slipped in as ‘the casualty’ in ’96 and everyone believed the
false reality
that she was starting her third year. Absolutely no one doubted it. No one could have. The memories of the past and all the other details that involved her were tampered with and altered to make sense of it. And so a year went by, and when ‘the casualty’ vanished after the graduation ceremony, all our memories and records finally went back to
the way they were supposed to be
. And all of the people who’d been close to her—the minds of people like her classmates and family were at the core of it—they all lost their memories that she had ever appeared as ‘the casualty.’”

My eyes still fixed on the class list in the binder, my response died on my lips.
That’s beyond ludicrous.
Even if I were to say it aloud, it wouldn’t change anything. That’s how I felt.

“Why do these things happen? As I said before, the logic is utterly inscrutable. And the mechanisms behind it are inexplicable, as well. It could very well be that
no physical change is
actually occurring to make names appear or disappear on the class list
. I’ve tried to picture the situation in that way.”

“What do you mean?”

Mei was the one who asked the question.

Deep vertical lines creased the skin between Mr. Chibiki’s eyes. “I mean that
maybe the problem only arises in the minds of the people involved. Maybe it’s us
. Our minds are all interpreting physical changes that aren’t actually happening as ‘changes that are happening.’”

“Like collective hypnosis?”

“Right. Maybe it’s something like that. Centered on this school and extending out to the entire town of Yomiyama. And sometimes farther, into the outside world.”

At that point, Mr. Chibiki gave another drawn-out sigh.

“Still, even that is just the irresponsible conjecture/delusion that I’ve reached after long years as an ‘observer.’ I have no evidence, and there’s no way to prove it. Even if it could be proven, I don’t know what that would mean.”

Neither of us could offer a response.

“Basically, I’ve given up.” Mr. Chibiki lifted both of his hands in an echo of his words. “You could say that after all this time, there’s pretty much only one thing that I’ve learned has any appreciable effect. That being the ‘strategy’ you two are currently using: the ‘strategy’ of turning someone in the class into someone who’s ‘not there.’ It’s a strange countermeasure that someone thought up ten years ago, I believe. But despite the years when the ‘strategy’ successfully contains the ‘disaster,’ there are also cases like two years ago where the ‘strategy’ fails partway through the year.”

“Two years ago…” Mei’s voice was unexpectedly reedy. Her body leaned snugly against mine again as she looked down at the binder in my hands. “Wasn’t Ms. Mikami the head teacher for third-year Class 3 that year?”

“Wha—?” I started and looked down at the class list again. And there it was. Ms. Mikami’s name was listed as the head teacher. “Hey, you’re right.”

“You didn’t know?” Mr. Chibiki wore a faint look of surprise on his face. He tapped the center of his pale forehead with the tip of the middle finger on his right hand. “She must have had a terrible time with it, too. And then for her to become the assistant teacher for Class 3 again this year…”

Mr. Chibiki told us a few other stories about the “phenomenon” for a little longer.

Speaking for myself, I was getting a lot of information for the first time. But that couldn’t have been true for Mei. Didn’t she already know more than a little of what she was hearing?

Information I was getting for the first time. One example of that was the rule about the “range” for the “disasters.” Mr. Chibiki, the self-identified “observer,” had worked it out based on the facts he’d been recording all this time.

“It seems the ‘disasters’ only reach as far as the members of the class and their family members within two degrees,”
Mr. Chibiki told us with deep gravity. “Meaning parents, grandparents, and siblings.
Blood relationship
is a condition, as well. Never once has a relative with no blood ties died, like stepparents or stepsiblings. I think it’s safe to consider them
out of range
.”

“Related by blood, huh?”

Mei had murmured the question.

Parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters related by blood. So then
aunts, uncles, and cousins
weren’t included.

“The ‘range’ also includes the issue of
geographic range
. I believe I mentioned earlier that the occurrence of this ‘phenomenon’ centers on this school and the town of Yomiyama. So it seems that
the farther away from town you go, the weaker its effect on you
.”

“You mean if you go far enough away, you’re safe?”

“To make a simplistic comparison, it’s similar to getting no service on a cell phone. To date, there hasn’t been a single case of a family member living in some other, distant location being affected by the ‘disasters.’ And there are extremely few examples of someone who lives in Yomiyama dying outside of town. So…”

Didn’t that mean that if it came down to it, you could just leave town?

“Um…Do you mind if I ask you something?” The memory hit me suddenly, so I wanted to ask. “Did anything ever happen on a class trip, a long time ago?”

I wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Chibiki’s brows knit morosely at that. “The tragedy of ’87.”

“…What?”

“There was a terrible accident during the class trip in 1987. At the time, the class trip was held during the first semester of third year. But since the trips went to other prefectures—were ‘out of range,’ in other words—the students in Class 3 had never been affected by the ‘disasters.’  But then—”

The lines between Mr. Chibiki’s brows furrowed even more deeply and as he spoke, his voice betrayed the faintest hint of pain.

“That year, the students were put onto buses by class number and then left Yomiyama for the airport. There was an accident on the way there. They were on the highway, right on the edge of town, when a truck going the opposite direction plowed into the bus the students in Class 3 were riding on. The driver had been asleep at the wheel.”

My eyes widened as a stab went through my heart. I looked to my side to see Mei’s reaction, but her expression hadn’t changed in the slightest. She must have known about this already.

“The head teacher, who’d been riding with them, and six of the students in Class 3 died in that tragic accident. A total of seven people. The bus behind theirs was involved in the accident as well, which resulted in a few collateral deaths outside of Class 3.”

“So then…That’s why the next year they started having the class trip during second-year?”

“That’s right.” Mr. Chibiki nodded, his brow still furrowed. “And not just the class trip, either. They won’t even go on field trips. Ever since that tragedy, third-years as a unit no longer have any activities in which the students get on buses and leave the school.”

Just then, the crackling bell announcing the end of sixth period began to ring.

Mr. Chibiki glanced at the clock on the wall and then slumped into the chair on the other side of the counter. He removed his glasses and once again began to polish them with his handkerchief.

“Let’s leave it at that for today. I warmed to my topic and talked much too long, I think.”

“No, thank you. Do you mind talking just a little bit longer?”

“What about?”

“Well, I’d like to hear about the effectiveness of the ‘strategy,’ if you don’t mind.”

I rested my elbows on the counter and fixed my gaze on the librarian’s wan face.

“You said this ‘strategy’ of making someone in the class ‘not there’ started ten years ago. What has the success rate been since then?”

“I see. That’s an issue that cuts close to home.” Mr. Chibiki leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, then took a single, deep breath. Without shifting his position, keeping his eyes closed, he replied, “In ’88—the first year—it was a success. Apparently there was no doubt that ‘the casualty’ had infiltrated the class in April, but no one ever died. The ‘tragedy of ’87’ had happened only the year before, so I suppose people were desperate to try anything when they worked out this new idea. Whatever the case, it was the beginning of the tradition that this ‘strategy’ must be implemented in an ‘on year.’

“And from the following year on up to today, not including the current year, there have been five ‘on years’ in total. As I mentioned, in the year before last, the ‘strategy’ failed partway through the year. Of the other four, I believe it succeeded twice and failed twice.”

“When you say it failed, you mean that the student who was chosen to be ‘not there’ abandoned that role, right?”

“No, not necessarily,” Mr. Chibiki replied, opening his eyes. “This ‘strategy’ involves a great many regulations, or guidelines, I suppose you could say. For example, you only need to treat the one selected like they’re ‘not there’ at school, but it’s fine to interact with them outside of school. But you can’t do it even outside of school during school activities. Things like that. Distressingly, it seems that none of these guidelines are absolute. Meaning that there’s no way to be sure what people did wrong to trigger the failure…”

“…That’s awful.”

“That’s how it is, as far as we know,” Mr. Chibiki said glumly, and pushed the bridge of his glasses up. “I’ve tried thinking up all sorts of analogies over the years. First of all, I don’t believe this is what you might call a ‘curse.’ To be sure, the incident with Misaki twenty-six years ago set the whole thing off in the first place, but these calamities are not raining down on us because of the workings of his angry spirit or a grudge he bore. And people don’t die because ‘the casualty’ hiding in the class has lifted a hand against them or somehow willed it to happen.

“
No one’s malice or desire to hurt people is behind this.
Not in the slightest. I suppose you could argue that there’s the malice of an invisible force befalling us. People sense that sort of thing in disasters. But that’s the same way people feel about any natural disaster.

“This is simply
happening
. That’s why it’s not a ‘curse,’ it’s a ‘phenomenon.’ A natural phenomenon like a typhoon or an earthquake, though a supernatural one.”

“A supernatural natural phenomenon?”

“I hope you understand my aversion to calling this a ‘supernatural phenomenon.’ I suspect that the logic behind the ‘strategy’ to prevent it is similar. For example—” Mr. Chibiki looked over at the window. “It’s raining. In order to prevent the rain from getting us wet, the best thing we can do is not go outside. If we wind up going outside anyway, our strategy is to use an umbrella. But it’s difficult to entirely prevent the rain from getting us wet, even using an umbrella. Even when the rain is falling in a predictable way, the angle you hold your umbrella at or the way you walk can cause you to get soaking wet. And yet, using the umbrella is far better than not using one at all.”