Locked in endless despair, there is no getting out of the circle.
In the afternoon, the TV news reported on an incident that resulted in the deaths of three high school students from a high school in the city. The reporter explained that the point of the incident was on the top floor of an abandoned residential five-story building in one of the unfinished neighborhoods.
A fifteen-year-old high school student, who was going to school after his mother's breakfast, was following the news at home. But he was stunned by the unexpected news-after a mature female voice named the victims, Makoto Sugiyama, Jiahao Inoue, and Takashi Matsuoka, unthinking shock flickered on the boy's face.
"Poor boys…" his mother stared at the television, illuminated by such terrible news. "These are students from your last school, aren't they? It's a good thing you transferred to another school… Be careful, Ichiro, and don't run into anyone, because today is the first day at the new school."
The student didn't respond.
The news also called the name of the killer, but Ichiro stopped hearing or perceiving anything. After finishing his breakfast, he left the house and walked quietly towards the school, walking through the crowded city streets. Standing at the front gate of the school, his eyes showed excitement.
Before he gathered himself through the gate, he glanced around for familiar faces, and his youthful hopeful eyes spotted a familiar teenage figure. A lean body and fair complexion people could find in everyone who passed, but Ichiro fixed his eyes on only one person. Tomoyuki, also dressed in a darkish school uniform, was innocently walking along the road, and Ichiro, not wanting to let him out of his sight, called out his name.
Responding, Tomoyuki, who had just joined the row of seniors, turned toward the teenager who approached him. They were the same age.
"Tomoyuki-kun, did you transfer here too? I see we're in the same school uniform."
"Oh… yes. I transferred."
Noticing the shaky, naive eyes of fifteen-year-old Ichiro, the blue-eyed young man asked if he was okay.
"Did you watch today's news?"
"What's new?"
"The murder of… three students from our old school. It was committed yesterday, but it wasn't reported until today… and the thing is, the victims of the assassination were those…"
"Who are you talking about?"
"Well… The ones who were the bullies among the high school kids. Sugiyama-san, Inoue-san, and Matsuoka-san. Surely you haven't heard anything about that?"
Being briefly confused, Tomoyuki regained his inner calm and took a step toward the school gate.
"I don't know."
"Haven't you often spent time with each other?" Ichiro confused him. "How can you not know about what happened?"
"Why, Ichiro-kun, didn't you dislike them? If it turned out this way, that means they deserved it."
"But no one deserves to die!"
"Are you to judge?" Tomoyuki interrupted him, turning his gaze to him. "Their whole lives were on the verge of perdition, for they gave despicable treatment by men like us. I have nothing close to them — wind your mind."
Ichiro could not express a word, only lowered his furious hands. He had known Tomoyuki since his old school: they had communicated a little earlier, but their relationship had broken down in an instant that neither he nor Tomoyuki wanted to revisit. Tomoyuki only rushed towards the school, concluding to himself that Ichiro could not give an objective assessment without trying to understand the situation itself. He knew about the incident with the high school students, after all, but he didn't bother to clarify it to his old friend, whom he no longer considered a loyal person.
After the traditional ceremony, all the students went into their classrooms and waited for the class hour.
"This is the beginning of my new life," Tomoyuki thought to himself: "The life of a man who will no longer make any mistakes, make true friends, and be sincere to himself. Oh, I will only choose the society that recognizes me as a real person."
Entering his classroom, where his new class of seniors was assembled with him, he sat down at one of the vacant desks. The first thing he did to begin erecting his much coveted bygone years dream was to set aside his cold face and resolve to look happily toward his classmates. He thought to make friends with them.
"What happiness…! Not to see familiar faces."
On that note, his new life began, eventually meeting his new acquaintances from his first grade class and urging a relationship with them, carefully choosing between their faces, analyzing which of them seemed hypocritical and duplicitous, and which were ordinary teenagers with pure souls. Soon the list of his buddies began to expand without looking back, for people liked his good naturedness and virtue.
But inside, Tomoyuki was aware that all he was trying to do was to forget the memories of the not-too-distant past. He seemed to be at arm's length from today to the bygone, and he could not tolerate such feelings of helplessness because he hated only memories that seemed reckless and awful to him, and to escape from this calamity that his shoulders were facing, Tomoyuki decided to remove the mask. A mask of despair that had kept him from being at ease for long periods of time.
Tomoyuki diligently developed as a person, trying to accompany his buddies with problems in their society. This developed into a desire to morally "alienate" problematic people who stood up for their opinions that were categorically opposite to the blue-eyed guy's. Tomoyuki, for whom the future was coming with rapid fluidity, recalled a situation with his classmate when she told him about her problems with new acquaintances harassing her. Tomoyuki helped her, morally and in the worst way, by humiliating the dignity of her haters in front of the school audience.
It turned out to be a few second-grade boys from another high school. Tomoyuki considered such people to be "two-faced scum" and vehemently told the audience to watch out for such "harmful parasites." Tomoyuki's high school students participated in the incident as witnesses, and the entire incident was originally planned down to the last crust. Tomoyuki worked on the plan for one day and a whole night, leading him to the "perfect plan." Hearing his girlfriend's appreciation, he experienced a surprising warmth of spirit, and he managed to find a vocation, albeit entirely spontaneously.
Determined not to stop at one fulfillment of justice, he continued his deeds, thereby changing his personality. He gained popularity among his classmates and consequently found out how strong the relationships among his acquaintances become when one's life is elevated in importance.
Eventually, when rumors reached the ears of people he didn't think were honorable about how Tomoyuki was solving his problems, a few bullies from another high school blocked his view. The three of them, since by the rules of fair fighting, fighting against one was considered beneath the plinth, but what was their shock when they were defeated in a street fight by a short high schooler. Tomoyuki, surprisingly, proved to be a strong opponent for people with no martial arts skills, and soon the young man was even more talked about — the school wondered how he with his unremarkable frail body managed to defeat a gang of three brawlers.
"The body doesn't decide," he jokingly declared, which really seemed to him to be the purest truth. "It's the drive and the confidence that decides."
After all, he didn't have all of that, which was why he, helpless, was getting a thrashing. It would not happen again, he thought.
He was unremarkable at school, although the stories involving him attracted the eyes of the students Tomoyuki tried not to stand out, wishing to become a "member of society". One school day, which did not bring him any enthusiasm for schoolwork, he met a familiar schoolgirl in the hallway. She had mid-length dyed pink hair, and from her dark red lenses Tomoyuki knew it was Akiko! However, meeting her foreshadowed the youngster's only denial to believe that he would meet another familiar face at his new school.
"I began to hear," Akiko added after their brief greeting, "that a certain Tomoyuki-kun had become popular among our first-grade pupils."
The blue-eyed man rewarded her with a mutual smile: "Y-yes, I didn't think I'd meet you here either…"
"I'm always glad to meet a familiar face!" she replied optimistically and glanced behind Tomoyuki's back. "I have to go now."
As soon as Tomoyuki said goodbye, the pink-haired girl was gone. The boy was desperate, and as he clenched his fists, he involuntarily remembered fragments of his past life. That's why he wasn't happy to see old acquaintances — they might have reminded him of high school, a place that had negatively influenced him.
"That's right," he muttered. "I won't be able to forget everything. No change in society will make me forget. Even by becoming a better version of myself, I'll... live with my burden until the grave. There are some things you can't influence. No one can."
Looking out the window that reflected his pale face, the boy's devastated eyes shook even more.
"And who do I think I am?"
The next day, Tomoyuki spotted Akiko again in the hallway, standing between girlfriends who were unkempt in their makeup and had an immodest disposition that hid one's filth underneath. He could spot such people from afar, trusting his gut, for he had met many two-faced peers in his life. They said hello to each other.
"Two-faced puppets," Tomoyuki thought, questioning Akiko's own propriety, "Trying not to look like empty-nesters. That's the kind of people you're friends with, A-ki-ko-chan. It's just like it used to be."
He remembered their first meeting. In the overcast weather of the entrance to the karaoke club, Akiko appeared before his featureless gaze, standing awkwardly with a couple of guys from her entourage.
"Haven't you changed since then? Have you remained the same blank you used to be?"
Tomoyuki's grim look seemed to be able to tip the very abyss upside down, leaving no hope of light. From that moment on, he was imbued with the importance of breaking Akiko's false face, wanting to know what she could have been in reality, had she been the least bit honest with herself.