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messiah novel (you are in shine, part 19)
According to those he started playing soccer since it was cheaper than studying or playing any other sports. He was ranked eleventh in the youth soccer team, and he just kicked around the only ball that he owned.
A long time had passed since downright poverty had disappeared from Japan.
He remembered that sometimes there was coverage in the news about cardboard houses by the riverside, but only a few people lived that way. Pretty much everyone ate breakfast every morning, went to school or to work, and dragged their worn-out body back home afterwards. Sometimes they indulged in luxury items like confectionery or alcohol while lamenting that they had no money, and enjoyed themselves in front of the television when the Japanese delegation advanced in the World Cup.
But for a long time Haku hadn't lived in a decent house with a TV and a bath.
In the apartment building his mother called home there were too many people coming and going, and he didn't have his own room to belong. It was a place where he couldn't feel comfortable for even a moment, let alone relax.
If he had small change, it was stolen, and he was beaten when he didn't have it. His mother's pimp always ordered him to take tobacco from the customers who came to the strip club downstairs. He painstakingly got them one by one, and once he returned home at midnight, he was beaten if they weren't the right brand. But if he didn't do what he was asked, he couldn't sleep at home.
It was only since the local welfare officer kept hounding his mother about it that Haku was able to go to elementary school.
Haku liked school. His desk was like a fortress, and he felt happy when he stuffed everything in there. He didn't really get bullied since he was tall. He was lucky for a kid with his kind of background.
Haku's daily activities were limited. He was always neglected, walked the same route, and repeated the same daily life over and over. He felt more secure that way, and could feel like he really was alive.
He didn't like change. He got uneasy if there was even a slight change, and it sometimes annoyed him. It was since not a single change had been good for Haku until then.
That's why those six years of elementary school, that felt like they'd last forever, were the most steady time for Haku.
Although he didn't have any lunch box with him on outings and his lunch fees were overdue, and he didn't even have enough savings for a school trip, he didn't know what to do about it since his brother Sou was in the same position as him.
But he still remembered it well, even now. ---- Since Mitsumi-kun didn't pay the fee for the school trip, he can't come along, sorry, it can't be helped. He didn't understand why his homeroom teacher had lowered her head and apologized. His female teacher was still in her twenties and had only just gotten married, and she always had to prepare during homeroom for school trips that Haku couldn't come along on.
'Nothing can be done about it', those words were the justification for everything. In other words, nothing would change. If it didn't change, nothing would ever be different.
For adults those words were meant to convince themselves, not the other person they were talking to. Since he didn't understand it back then, Haku wondered why this person was apologizing.
There was no need for his teacher to apologize because he himself couldn't pay the money. Even if he couldn't go, he enjoyed just watching people in the bus talk about this and that while his classmate picked groups.
That was when Sou was there for Haku.
Noisy Sou, who wouldn't give up, often badgered their mother for money for the school trips, and he'd get hit by their mother's pimp who said there was no such money. On the day of the school trip he would suddenly leave with bruises around his eye and the corner of his mouth, and he'd shoplift a lot of candy from some supermarket and come back.
The two of them ate from their candy-filled backpacks together under the bridge. He absolutely didn't want to throw away the empty box from that day and kept it hidden in a closet all along. Even as Haku looked at the packaging of candy now, he would remember the figure of Sou standing there with blue bruises around his eye.
It was a memento.
He didn't want it to be a useless day just because they couldn't go on a school trip that day. He wanted it to be a special day, just like it was for all of his classmates. That was why that empty candy box had to become something special.
It was from that moment on that empty space had become detestable to Haku.
After the brothers' special school trip was over, the flow of the muddy river that streamed under the bridge became the same as always again. Haku knew that the river would return to its original form before anyone would know it, no matter how much rain would heavily fall down on it. It seemed like it never changed, day after day.
But no matter how much Haku didn't want it, things did change. On the day a terrible cold wave closed in on the Kanto region his brother Sou was taken away by a foreign stranger. If he thought back on it now, it was so cold that day that even the insides of his ears were frozen. To Haku it seemed like the cold had come from Siberia to take him along to the North.
After that, once Sou had left town with the stranger, his mother died of a complication with her pneumonia due to her drug addiction, and Haku ended up losing his place in that ditch-like city block.
A half year before he'd graduate from middle school he was taken in by an orphanage from a neighboring town. Children lived there together, who were recognized by society as pitiful children, but didn't receive anything more than just that recognition.
Even as he started living with them, nothing changed for Haku. The beautiful spirit of sharing everything in the orphanage that you'd hear of it in nice stories wasn't at all present there, and everyone only thought of taking care of their own hunger. He lived while being very conscious of what he could and couldn't have. But since he was still given some things there, it might still have been a blessed way of living, materialistically speaking.
But there's a difference between being given things and feeling satisfied. Since his brother Sou had suddenly left before, Haku always felt kind of empty on the inside.
Inside of him was a vacuum and the fear of change.
The fear of loss.
He didn't go to a normal high school, and instead went to Maru School when Ichijima invited him to do so in order to face that empty space that couldn't be filled inside of him, no matter what. It felt like the void was like a puzzle that had to be solved in order to become an adult. If he didn't fill it, he wouldn't be able to face anything. And the one thing the boy who didn't like change wanted as to find out about his brother's whereabouts.
"You can find out where your older brother is in the North."
He was surprised at how Ichijima cut to the heart of the matter. Even though he had barely ever been surprised up until that point.
Ichijima had said that he knew how to fill the void. He had said that he could make sure that he'd meet his brother again. Haku, who didn't have anywhere to go anyway, entered Maru School on the condition that he could have his own room. After that they realised that his amazing memory was suitable for the special tasks a spy would carry out.
Becoming a Sakura was like a calling for Haku.
Moreover, you could get money by becoming a Sakura. The reward was a lot of money for a regular high school student who didn't have any other way to earn money.
He completely crammed the dorm room he was given full with the things he liked. There was only one thing missing. But after a short while he learned that he couldn't reunite with his older brother Sou that easily.
Sou had become a member of the Russian intelligence agency.
(I need to sort the information...)
He booted up the notebook computer, and as Haku tapped on the keys several information screens popped up. "Drainage", as the police department's data management system was called, reproduced all the data from every public agency, bank and financial institution in Japan in real time. Individuals are identified through it by their tax payment numbers. Although Sakura don't get government official IDs, they are assigned a personal number to view the database, so they're able to access it.
Of course the data is protected according to your rank within the police. Haku released it bit by bit, like untangling an entangled thread, and quickly browsed through the content. He was able to view most of the data with the ID he obtained, since the previous owner's rank was pretty high. He had to get as much information as possible before the owner would notice the ID was missing and suspend its use.
His speciality was remembering things ever since he was young. He could see in a moment if the position of the remote control in a room was changed even slightly. Haku rarely cleaned the room, since if the position of a thing changed, he would always update the image in his head. If that would happen too frequently, he would get a terrible headache.
(Eiri kept noisily telling me to clean, but this...)
"You can't throw things away. Since you're extremely afraid of losing things."
... His current partner Eiri had said so. Haku was impressed when he heard that fairly new insight.
He wondered if Eiri knew him well.
Even though his friends, family and companions who were always with him hadn't at all.
Eiri had unexpectedly surprised Haku. It was strange that he, who disliked change so much, didn't really mind the surprises that Eiri brought about.
When he heard that he was getting a new partner, Ichijima had called Eiri an invulnerable knife. His family had been killed by someone, and although he luckily got picked up by the mafia, he was still shot by his boss' enemies. But even so, he was still very much alive. That luck was the kind of power you couldn't get, no matter how much you'd train. Ichijima had added that it was the most important factor for Haku.
Messiah are a system unique to Sakura. A partner who is the only one who can save you while you're abandoned by your country and the law.
Haku had already had two partners. One was slaughtered while he was investigating Russian spies, and the other one was attacked while he was on a vacation completely outside of their missions. Both were retaliations for exposing the identity of Russian spies hiding as diplomats.
That was the public, official reason.
One of them had been found with all of his internal organs removed and candy having been stuffed in there instead.
The other one had all of his limbs cut off before he was stuffed into an oboe case and sent to Maru School. The head and some other parts were never found, but the results of a DNA test confirmed that it was Haku's Messiah.
A card with a message on it was planted inside each corpse. On it a passage from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" was written in Russian.
The attacks back then on the two of them, who weren't even used to missions yet, were both carried out by Russian spies. The Russian intelligence agencies have many tries that are unthinkable for Japan. One of them was a plastic surgery group called "Charo". The Russian people don't think anything special of putting a scalpel into the body that they received from their parents. It was fine as long as it could charm the mission's target, hence the name "Charo".
They could change your face to a more Oriental style, change your fingerprints, even change your voice. Even if there was already data about you in Drainage, it would be difficult to confirm that you were the same person. Haku's two partners were killed by spies who had changed their appearance like that. Yuvin, who had fallen off that cliff at Okutama, had been part of the Charo as well.* After his Messiah having been killed in such cruel ways, Haku himself developed PTSD from losing people close to him. Death became like a void to him. Death was the biggest change that scared him. Within Maru School rumors started spreading about how everyone who was partnered up with Haku would die--- That he was a jinx.
That's why Ichijima had chosen Haku and Eiri back then to deal with Yuvin. It would be like a form of revenge. Perhaps he was curious if it would help cure Haku's PTSD at all.
Luckily he was able to get rid of one of the enemies who had killed his partners.
But Russian spies were everywhere. Even if you killed one of them, the next person who had changed their face would show up. It went beyond the level that counterintelligence could grasp.
Besides, only Haku knew that the death of his partners hadn't been carried out as a retaliation from Russian spies. If it had just been revenge, they wouldn't have put so much time and effort into mutilating the corpses.
One of the bodies had its internal organs replaced with candy.
Parts of the body were stuffed into an oboe case which was sent over.
There was a confusing message with a verse from Kafka's "Metamorphosis". The things done to the corpses was a message that only Haku would understand.
It was from his brother.
He was steadily gaining power as he changed his name to Egor Ginzburg under Kaminski, who was the leader of the Russian intelligence agency at that time. He was inviting Haku like this. Telling him to defect. Now he could work with them---
(Eiri might die as well as long as he's with me.)
Every time Haku remembered those two terrible corpses, he instinctively thought of that.
If he was killed, the void inside of him would grow once more. There was no way that he would stay sane this time. His broken brain would create meaningless voids one after another, painting the screen in his head a pure white.
(But Eiri is someone who managed to survive gunshots from the mafia.)
"He won't die. He can't die. He survived five gunshots to his stomach. At any rate, you should meet him."
Haku couldn't turn down Ichijima's strong recommendation.
Haku trusted Ichijima. As the chief of Section Five of Public Safety, who carried out these special tasks. As a skilled and pioneering spy. As long as he said Eiri was necessary for Haku, then it truly was so. Even if he wouldn't end up being enough to fill up the void inside of him.
Or did he end up doing just that?
(As his Messiah---)
The computer screen flashed as the dialog box asked for new search conditions. Haku thought of another way to contact Ichijima. Now it was obvious that he, for whatever reason, was restricted from contacting them. Why was that? Was there even a Russian spy within Public Safety? Or even in Sakura itself...?
Finally "World Reforming" was starting.
His brother who had come to Japan. Egor Ginzburg.
And the brother who had killed Eiri's family.
Ichijima, who they couldn't get in touch with.
The Russian spy within S School.
(The information isn't connecting well. How do I connect them...?)
Haku thought about it in the short time it took for search conditions to be entered and data to be retrieved. It was necessary to narrow down who in S School was handing over information to Russia. That's why he had to check things again and again so nothing would be overlooked.
Haku's gaze lingered on a report about a certain man. He had seen him with Eiri before, but it was information that still hadn't been provided to Sakura.
(Why aren't they forwarding it to Section Five...?)
There was a record of the actions that person had been undertaking during three hours. Reports of usage of health insurance to support themselves. And the title of a book he bought at the bookstore... Records of email sent on his cellphone. Looking at it just like this, it all seemed to be information that wasn't very relevant to this case.
He didn't know the reason as to why the upper brass of Public Safety wasn't making this information public. They must be wrecking their brains over this problem as well. They must want to discover the spy from the North whose target is Ushio Yoshiya as quickly as possible too, so why weren't they giving even a little bit of information to Sakura for that purpose?
There was no point in hiding this information.
... No, Haku shook his head. There was a point. Perhaps even something serious.
Haku silently look at the ID. The name of the ID's owner was displayed there.
Perhaps this was the key to solving the mystery of this case.
The mystery of the North's intentions, of Ichijima's actions, of Ginzburg.
To solve all those mysteries---
notes:
* yuvin is that guy from the first half of the novel that haku and eiri took care of. look back at part 5 of drive me crazy if you forgot!