Slow Hope

Waking up the next morning, Komaru felt like she’d gone back in time. Wrapped up snug in a bed, with Fukawa’s warmth beside her, it was like the world had never ended. The sound of Fukawa’s breathing was slow and even, reassuring.

Or it should have been reassuring. Komaru couldn’t help remembering the situation they were in. That the bed they were sharing belonged to a girl who had been murdered. That Monaka had recreated the torture that Fukawa and Komaru’s brother had been put through ...

Komaru couldn’t go back to sleep. She slipped out of bed and dressed as quietly as she could.

Outside the dormitory, the sky was just as blue as it had been the day before. They’d have to tear the dome down, she thought. Dismantle the walls. This could be the start of their town, if the class would be okay with that. Komaru had been able to make a home in Towa City, despite the pain she’d seen there. And proper plumbing was a pretty good reason to stay. Komaru hadn’t expected all this – the building complex wasn’t just intact, but seemed new. A place you could live, without having to build it first – that’s what it had been meant to be. Before Monaka.

‘Naegi-san.’

Komaru started; Shingetsu had come out the building behind her while she was daydreaming.

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Did you sleep well?’

He hesitated. ‘It took a while,’ he said. Watching his face, it seemed to Komaru that he wanted to say more. He was thinking of Monaka, she thought.

‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ Komaru asked. ‘Not that there’s far to go.’ She gestured to the walls that were the sky, and tried a smile.

Shingetsu nodded.

‘Do you think it’s still a good idea?’ he asked, as they headed out towards the lawn. ‘Leaving to find the others, when things are like this.’ The other group had been put to sleep before the rest of the site locations had been decided – the plan had been to meet them on the coast, and decide things from there.

‘Well ... it can’t get any worse, can it?’ And they’d stopped Monaka, even if she had given herself up rather conveniently. ‘Someone has to go.’ She glanced at Shingetsu. ‘Would you rather wait here?’

‘No! I mean, I’ll go where you go.’ He ducked his head. ‘But I don’t trust her. Just giving up like that ...’

‘It was the same way before,’ Komaru said. ‘Remember?’ Monaka had led them a merry chase, and then left it all behind, running away to space.

‘She got away then,’ Shingetsu said. ‘It wasn’t giving up at all.’

‘Ah, maybe you’re right.’ Komaru had almost lost Fukawa, chasing her.

They’d made their way to an area that was more like a garden. It was quiet, without any birds or insects to break the silence.

‘It really is a dome,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe they made all this.’

‘I don’t trust it,’ Shingetsu said. ‘We should be starting new. Not trying to replicate what things were like before. That’s how come ...’ He glanced at her.

‘They might not want to stay here after everything anyway,’ she said. ‘But we should wait till everyone’s together to decide, I think.’

‘Is it okay to leave her till then?’

‘What else can we do?’ Komaru met his eyes, but he didn’t have any more answers than she did. ‘Maybe Toko-chan will stay behind,’ she said. ‘I know she’s not far along, but it seems safer somehow.’

‘I don’t think I’d want to tell her that,’ Shingetsu said, and made Komaru laugh.

‘She’s that scary, huh?’ It was hard for her to take any of Fukawa’s posturing seriously. Even Genocider she couldn’t be scared of. ‘I think I just got used to it.’

‘You put up with a lot,’ Shingetsu said, in a quiet voice.

‘Not really ...’

‘I don’t just mean Fukawa.’

It was seeing Monaka, she thought. That’s why he was in this mood. It wasn’t something she could make better for him.

‘Toko-chan would tell me off if I moped,’ she said.

They finished their circuit around the garden, arriving back where they’d started. It hadn’t taken long.

‘Really, I’m a wuss,’ she said. ‘I never could have done this if Toko-chan hadn’t done it too.’ She looked back up the steps toward the main building. ‘Like right now, I really wish I didn’t have to go up there and try to deal with things.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Shingetsu said.

They both stood facing the steps.

Komaru laughed, and covered her face. ‘What am I saying?’ she said. ‘We might not have expected Monaka-chan, but we knew what we were getting into. They don’t even remember why they’re all here. How must they feel?’

Shingetsu looked back at her. He knew what she was doing, Komaru thought – that this was her pep-talking herself. She should have felt embarrassed, but she didn’t. She didn’t mind.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go get breakfast.’

Back at the dining hall, people were arguing about who should have to take food to Monaka – and whether or not she deserved food in the first place. They sort of straightened up when Komaru came in, like she really was their elder. Shingetsu didn’t make her feel like that.

‘Maybe they’ll feed her,’ someone said.

Komaru would have preferred not to, but she was aware that they were still outsiders – and they’d known Monaka before. ‘I’ll do it,’ she volunteered.

‘I can go with you,’ Shingetsu said.

‘It’s okay.’ Komaru smiled at him. ‘She’s not going to try anything.’

She hoped.

---

They’d used one of the classrooms as a makeshift cell. Someone had given Monaka a mattress and a blanket, and perhaps she’d been dozing, but she woke when Komaru came in.

‘You picked the short straw, huh?’

Komaru didn’t have to respond to her; she just had to deliver the food and leave. She put the tray down in front of Monaka, and turned to go.

‘Aren’t you going to take me to the bathroom first?’

Komaru froze.

‘Come on, Komaru-neesan,’ Monaka said. ‘I’ve been holding on all night.’

Komaru couldn’t very well tell her to wet herself. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you already.’

She helped Monaka into her wheelchair. It was unnerving, the way Monaka put her arms around her, as if she trusted Komaru. As if Komaru trusted her.

As Komaru escorted her out, Monaka said, ‘I bet you’re wondering why I did it.’ She sounded too cheerful.

‘It doesn’t matter why you did it,’ Komaru said. ‘There’s nothing that could justify it.’ There was no real reason Monaka had turned out the way she had, after all – it was just the way she was.

‘Don’t be so boring, Komaru-neesan. Why’d anyone pick you to the one of humanity’s survivors, I wonder? Is it cos you’re his sister?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Komaru said, even though she knew it was. If she hadn’t been Makoto’s sister, it would never have occurred to the Future Foundation to send her forward. If she hadn’t been Makoto’s sister, she never would have ended up in Towa City, been tested there. ‘I mean, it doesn’t matter why. What I want to know –’ it was a bad idea to ask Monaka anything – ‘is how you got here.’

‘You think no-one would pick Monaka? That’s mean!’ Monaka huffed at her. It wasn’t as charming as when she’d been a little girl.

‘You were in space! I’m surprised you even came back down.’

‘I didn’t,’ Monaka said. ‘Not back then.’

‘What?’ Komaru stopped to stare at Monaka.

‘You didn’t know?’ Monaka asked.

‘Know what?’

‘It’s a spaceship, silly.’ Monaka mimed the blast of a rocket launch with her hands, and laughed.

‘No way.’

‘It wasn’t a big deal to intercept it,’ Monaka said. ‘I was already up there, after all. You really didn’t know?’

Komaru tried to think if Makoto had told her any such thing. But if it had been decided after Komaru had been put to sleep ...

‘I didn’t know,’ Komaru said. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘How should I know? Maybe in case the asteroid landed right on top of Towa City. And then ... boom. Can I pee now?’

Komaru took Monaka into the bathroom. She couldn’t help but look at the building differently now. Had the whole giant dome really been a spaceship? They’d built a school inside a spaceship?

Maybe Monaka was having her on. But she knew it was true that Monaka had gone to space. And it made a certain kind of sense. Even if the facilities on earth had been destroyed, a space ship could have survived. Those sixteen kids could have made it.

Only someone like her brother could have come up with such a futile vision.

---

When Komaru arrived back at the classroom with Monaka, Fukawa was waiting.

‘What were you thinking taking her anywhere?’ she said.

‘Well, I couldn’t let her wet herself ...’

‘Good morning to you too, Toko-neesan,’ Monaka said, rolling past Fukawa into the classroom. Komaru could almost see the steam rising from Fukawa’s ears.

‘S-someone like you doesn’t get to call me that,’ she said. ‘C-come on, Komaru, you don’t need to waste any more time on her.’ Fukawa dragged her out by the arm, shut the door to the classroom hard, and locked it.

‘You shouldn’t be alone with her,’ Fukawa said.

‘She didn’t try anything.’

‘She convinced three of those kids to kill one another! Wait for me next time.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Komaru said. ‘I’ll wait.’ They walked back to the dining hall, and Komaru ran her hand along the wall of the stairwell. ‘Do you think this dome could’ve been a spaceship?’

‘What?’

‘Something Monaka-chan said.’

Fukawa’s hackles went down, and she considered it. ‘It would make sense,’ she said. ‘Even if no-one on earth made it, the people on board could still survive.’

‘So, you think she’s telling the truth?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to believe just anything that girl said ...’ Fukawa sighed. ‘You’d think they could’ve had it come down a bit closer to where we were though.’

‘Right?’ Komaru said. ‘And we still have to go meet the others ...’ She remembered what she’d talked about with Shingetsu that morning. ‘Do you think that’s still okay?’ Komaru stopped outside the door to the dining hall, rather than go in where the others could hear her.

‘You’re worried about Monaka? I don’t think they’d actually kill her,’ Fukawa said. She looked over at the door. ‘They’ve got to know better by now, right?’

‘That’s probably true.’

Fukawa turned back to eying her. ‘You don’t think we should leave.’

‘Well ... I’m worried about those three too.’

‘I don’t think they’d kill her either.’

‘Of course not,’ Komaru said. ‘But what if Monaka said something? Those kids have already got to be suspicious of us, right?’ She included Shingetsu and the others in her us. ‘I don’t know ... I thought I should ask you to stay behind ... I don’t know.’

‘I’m not babysitting while you go off on your own.’

‘Shingetsu-kun would still be with me,’ Komaru said.

Fukawa gave her a long look. ‘That little brat,’ she said. ‘This was his idea, wasn’t it?

‘It’s not like that ...’

‘You can’t keep thinking like he’s a kid, Omaru –’

Komaru winced.

‘He’s a teenage boy. He wants me to stay behind so he can get you on your own. And after that ... ’

‘Don’t say it!’ Komaru squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Heh. You’re so naive. Such a good girl ...’

‘What about you and Togami-san, then?’

‘Wh-what?’ Fukawa’s eyes went wide. ‘You can’t ask about that! It’s not for peasants like you to know!’

Komaru tried not to grin. She’d mostly wanted to distract Fukawa, but she was curious. She’d never imagined that Togami would actually condescend to sleep with Fukawa, despite Fukawa’s wretched fantasies. It was hard for her to believe they’d actually done it.

‘You’re worried about the little Togami? Should you be travelling while you’re pregnant?’

‘I’m not that far along,’ Fukawa said. She seemed relieved by the question. ‘And the morning sickness should be over soon ... it’d be more dangerous if I stayed here worrying about you.’

‘Aw, Toko-chan.’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Fukawa said. Even though it was only fondness. ‘I’m coming, and that’s that.’

---

Komaru explained the plan to the others after breakfast.

‘The other group should be making their way to the mainland here,’ she said, pointing to a spot on the coastline, using Shingetsu’s map. ‘The three of us were planning to go meet them –’

‘You’re going back out there?’ Momota interrupted. ‘I want to go too!’

Harukawa gave him an odd look. ‘Are you sure that’s alright? You’ve been sick.’

‘Ah, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘Being cooped up here, that’s the problem. What do you say, Saihara? Shall we head out to the new world?’

‘Of course Saihara-chan won’t go!’ Oma said. ‘He has to stay and help interrogate the mastermind.’

‘Whaddaya want to interrogate her for?’ Iruma said. ‘We already know she did it.’

‘There are still a lot of unanswered questions,’ Saihara said. He seemed grateful that Oma had spoken up. ‘But Harukawa-san, you should go.’

Komaru still had her finger on the map. ‘Anyone’s welcome to join us,’ she said. ‘We don’t know how long it will take, though, or how safe it will be.’ She didn’t really want a big group, but she couldn’t very well force anyone to stay behind.

‘I’ll go,’ Harukawa said.

‘Gonta wants to come too! Gonta not like being cooped up here.’

‘And plus, you might get to find some new bugs,’ Oma said, clapping Gonta on the arm.

‘Bugs? Ah, well, there were certainly plenty of those, weren’t there, Toko-chan?’

‘R-right.’

‘Well, you can count me out,’ Iruma said. ‘The rest of you losers can go sleep with bugs or whatever. I’m staying here.’

No-one else put their hands up to go. ‘So then that’s six,’ Komaru said. She drew their attention back to the map, and the preparations they would have to make. The plan was to leave the next morning.

She just had to hope Kotoko and the others could cope with Monaka on their own.