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messiah novel (you are in shine, part 20)
This place, right next to Kagurazaka, was said to have been picked by the former Prime Minister, Ushio's grandfather Ushio Fuyunobu, who liked to go to the traditional Japanese restaurant there and wanted to be able to walk there after his retirement.
Eiri had accepted Ushio's numerous invitations and visited the house to work on homework assignments together.
All day every single TV station only talked about the second disarmament conference that would discuss World Reforming tomorrow. They talked about whether Prime Minister Ushio would be able to take leadership or not, and the commentators without any sense of responsibility just concentrated on how young people with no interest in it were buying sweets for White Day.
After getting a new email from Ushio, Eiri took the Oedo line to the Kagurazaka station and slowly headed to the Ushio household. He knew that someone was watching him from the stairs several hunderd meters away.
Eiri realised there was someone standing behind him as he stood in front of the gate and rang the intercom.
"Yuuichi Satou-kun."
He looked over his shoulder. Kaminari from the SP was standing there in a flimsy suit, not even wearing a coat.
"What is it?"
"Which section do you belong to?"
He asked, straight to the point.
"I don't understand what you mean."
"The Cabinet Information Research Office or the IAS?"
It looked as if Kaminari's eyes were drilling straight into Eiri's.
Even if the bodyguard department would have thoroughly looked through Eiri's profile as Yuuichi Satou, they wouldn't really be able to find any suspicious points. The false names Sakura uses for infiltration missions are given minimal data so their existence won't be doubted. Even if Kaminari suspected that Eiri was not Ushio Yoshiya's friend, he would have to go abroad to be able to check his past. A bodyguard SP shouldn't have the leeway for that right now. He wouldn't be able to find anyone nearby who could take over for him even if he found a hole in Yuuichi Satou's profile.
He had no choice but to just play ignorant. Eiri's facial expression turned puzzled.
"Um... I'm a friend from school of one of the people who lives here."
"If that's so, then let's carry out a body check. If you're a friend, then surely you know what sort of family lives here, right?"
Eiri reluctantly nodded. He had left his gun with Haku today. If something would happen after this, he could just contact him while he was on standby nearby.
Once the body check was done, Kaminari still didn't let Eiri go ahead.
"Today is no good."
"I got a mail from Ushio, asking me to bring him our homework. If you don't believe that, then feel free to ask him about it yourself."
"No good means it's no good. If you have the homework, I'll give it to him."
"That's..."
Eiri took his cellphone out of his pocket and quickly called Ushio. He immediately picked up.
"Hey. I'm in front of your house right now, but there's some strange guy who isn't letting me in."
Ushio said that Eiri should hand Kaminari his cellphone.
While Eiri and Kaminari were arguing back and forth for a few minutes, the door opened. Ushio was standing there in a jersey.
"Satou, come in. --- SP-san. Shouldn't you come inside as well?"
Kaminari clicked his tongue. He didn't have any reason to not let Eiri in right now. The authority of the SP went so far as to protect the safety of the target until the end, but they couldn't restrict the target's actions.
"I'll keep the cellphone. It might be a bomb."
Kaminari told Eiri to hand over his cellphone. Since Eiri already thought he might ask as much, he took a dummy along that he could hand over.
Kaminari signaled something to his SP colleague and then went inside.
Inside was another SP. Ushio was being guarded pretty strictly. But perhaps it was only natural that the security was at this level since Ushio had gotten shot at?
It was clear that for some reason Kaminari had sensed that Eiri wasn't just a normal person. What was the reason that he had asked him so directly who he was...? He didn't know if it was an order from Kaminari's boss or that he was just that forward. It was an ironclad rule in their line of work that you wouldn't reveal your standing to another person until the very end if they came from another department. Besides, no matter how you'd look at it, Eiri was a minor. It was unthinkable under the current Japanese law that minors would work for Public Safety.
The wide and empty entrance had an atrium's ceiling. There was a living room behind the hallway, like entering an apartment building.
An elderly woman with a bent back and hair streaked with grey was grappling with a transparent garbage bag. She bowed slightly when she saw Eiri's face.
"Minae-san, could you make some black tea? Or would you prefer cola, Satou?"
As if to say "please don't fuss over me", Minae put down the garbage bag, washed her hands and started boiling water using the electric kettle. But while the water was still boiling, she started shoving empty bottles into the garbage bag again, as if she was in a hurry.
"This is all a pretty big deal, huh?"
"The SP said it's until the disarmament conference is over."
"Are the SP those people from just now?"
"Yeah. So I will be set free again in two days."
He threw himself on the sofa with a sigh, clearly fed up with it all from the bottom of his heart.
Although it was during the morning on a weekday, the living room was brightly lit by a lamp. It was since the window shutter was closed.
Eiri guessed it was to prevent any sniper assassination attempts. Kaminari must have told Ushio in his strict way to never approach a window without a shutter on it.
"Come to think of it, how did you do on the mock exam?"
Eiri casually brought up a totally unimportant subject. Since the SP were listening along, he couldn't try to get any information out of Ushio by starting an unnatural conversation.
"Ah. The mock exam."
He let out a deep sigh.
"It was so-so."
"Hey, that's good, isn't it?"
"If it keeps going like this and the results are good next time, I think I can do the mock exam to get into J University."
It was a more curt reply than Eiri had anticipated. He felt a little uncomfortable. Although he had been so enthusiastic about taking the mock exam before, he now made it sound like it was someone else's problem.
"What is the next mock exam? The one from Y cram school?"
"Yeah."
"That's great, Ushio. It looks like you're trying to pass the university exams no matter what. Are you parents maybe nagging you about it?"
"... No."
Ushio seemed flustered for the first time at that.
"My parents... they say that nothing other than Tokyo University would be any good."
Ahh, Eiri understood. Since a lot of government officials came from Tokyo University, there was a tendency for them to be stubborn about wanting their own children to go there as well.
"I don't know this very well since I lived abroad, but your old man is the Prime Minister, right?"
He glanced through a glimpse from the corner of his eyes at the SP outside the door.
They must be able to hear this conversation. He had to pick his words carefully.
"Yeah..."
"Why didn't you take that middle school entrance exam?"
He suddenly breached that topic. As expected, Ushio gazed at him in wonderment.
"No, it's just since you're the son of a politician. I thought that it'd already be decided in elementary school that you'd go to Keio University."
Eiri felt that in order to truly protect this boy, he had to find out more about his deepest nature.
There's a reason for any actions any human takes. Even when it's just an impulse without any reason, the reason is that there is no reason.
It was as if an alarm slightly rang inside of his head. Don't overlook the reason as to why Ushio Yoshiya became "Ushio Yoshiya" here. Why would Ginzburg have bothered to shoot a ball of paint at the Prime Minister's son specifically?
There had to be some sort of reason for sure.
The reason behind the showy performance from the North. Ginzburg's sudden visit. The unnatural silence from Ichijima up until now.
And.. "World Reforming".
"... It's since I played baseball."
Ushio softly said, using few words. Eiri was surprised.
"Baseball? Come to think of it, you talked about those sort of things before. You knew in detail how the score was added up."
"But I was never able to become a regular in middle school."
"Did you stop playing baseball because of that?"
"No... That's not it."
It felt like he was so close to getting to the bottom of this. But contrary to Eiri's expectations, Ushio started to talk about something else.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"Don't you think that there are a lot of people in the world who are useless in the true sense of the word?"
"Huh?"
Eiri stayed silent. He couldn't decide in just a moment what kind of reply would be right.
"There's a reason why I don't want to go to Tokyo University. ... I think that people should be putting in effort for themselves. That way you can become a more useful person. If you just do everything as your parents tell you to do, then you won't be able to make any decisions yourself. What's important is that you do something that's needed by others. For me it's like this, Satou. I've always thought that I was a person who was essential for society."
"... H.. Hmm.."
"I want to become a person who's doing something, rather than someone who's doing nothing."
"....."
Eiri frantically tried to organise this information about Ushio inside of his head.
For a while Ushio talked about how meaningless it was to go to Tokyo University just because his parents wanted it, about what he wanted to learn at university, about what kind of job he'd get, and what his future image of himself was.
Eiri realised from everything Ushio was saying that his thoughts all came from his surroundings being so suppressed by his father and now from being monitored by the SP.
A plain boy. The problems that come from kids' prejudice due to him having a famous family. The anxiety that comes with exam periods.
And finally.. stress.
----- The irritation from things not going well, and impatience.
He didn't have anything that made him stand out. All children at that age-- No, all people had that chronic disease.
But he felt oppressed.
How did an ordinary boy feel so overpowering?
Suddenly Ushio saw his face reflected in the glass, and he pulled a wry face, as if he was seeing someone he disliked.
"Stress has started to pile up. Recently I've gotten acne around my mouth, and it's just tormenting me. The doctor said that the stress is causing the whiteness around my mouth."
He sighed, and said that at least it got better again.
Although Ushio still had a lot of acne in the photos of the school trip, it had been cured nicely in the photos of when he first went to high school.
What did he do to cause his severe acne to go away so easily?
Did it heal naturally? Or what else...?
(It felt like it was the key to something.)
After talking about exams for some time, Eiri left Ushio's house. There weren't any weak points in the security due to the SP guarding him from so close for now. The only thing that could be suspicious was the housekeeper who fed Ushio meals. Ushio had said the housekeeper, Kazumi, had already been living with the Ushio family for over fifty years as a housekeeper. Her identity had already been investigated, alongside any weak points that could led her into being persuaded by the North. If there was anything suspicious, the SP wouldn't have let her stay in that house.
He had actually wanted to plant a wiretap, but if he had done that, the SP would have found it right away. Since the SP didn't know of their existence, Haku had to stay in the car which had been parked where he and Eiri had gone their seperate ways, and would have had to rush over from there if anything had happened.
It was at the very best a nuisance for two departments to have been double booked like this. Those SP knew nothing about them. Only the top brass knew of Sakura and would easily overlook them. Someone at the novice level like Kaminari could only bark at him like a dog.
He put on his sneakers and left through the front door. He shared a glance with Kaminari, who was in the corridor, for a moment.
"So, are you going to give back my phone?"
Without saying a thing, Kaminari handed over Eiri's dummy phone back to him. Even though he should have had plenty of time to look through its contents, there wasn't anything unnatural in it. Inside of it was just contact with his family as "Yuuichi Satou", silly trivial complaints and emails he had exchanged with his friends about shopping news.
He slowly passed through the gate.
Eiri headed to the station, trying to pretend like the security camera next to the garage's shutter wasn't there. After heading around a corner, he took out his cellphone and called a "friend".
It was Haku.
He was about to tell him to say where he should head to since he was done when Haku said,
"Eiri, hang up the phone."
As he heard that, his breath stopped.
"What..."
"The SP rushed out of the Ushio residence. It's Kaminari. He's pursuing you."
He hung up and quickly looked back. Kaminari was there. He was coming after him.
He reflexively tried to calculate his chances by comparing their bodies. But it was for sure that Kaminari would arrest him without letting him argue back.
What should he do?!
"Wait!"
As he shouted that, Kaminari leaped upon Eiri.
Eiri shielded his right arm, which had been injured by Ginzburg, and instantly reached around Kaminari's body with his left arm and grabbed his arm. Kaminari looked stunned, as if he had never expected Eiri to fight back.
"I knew it, you-- you're...!"
"What are you talking about?"
Before he could finish talking, the other SP shouted at Kaminari as he ran over in his direction.
"Kaminari, it's at the back! It seems he was put into a large box that was sitting outside to be used as a garbage disposal. The housekeeper said the young master was put into the garbage box and it was taken away with a car by foreigners!"
With those words Eiri immediately knew that they were talking about Ushio Yoshiya.
(Garbage? Thinking about it now, the housekeeper had been preparing to take out the garbage just now---)
It was an abduction.
Eiri gasped internally.
(So it happened like this?!)
Judging by what Kaminari's colleague was saying, Ushio seems to have been put inside of a garbage box that was sitting outside near the kitchen door and taken away.
If that housekeeper forgot about the garbage collecting day every week, it'd be a habit for her to always put out the garbage at the last moment. --- And if the spies from the North knew about that habit, it'd be easy for them.
(If you wanted to kidnap Ushio, that'd be the perfect opportunity. After all, there's always a gap between going in and out of the room and the kitchen door to collect the garbage. They could go inside from there and stun Ushio. If they carried Ushio off the premises like that, they would get caught by the SP, but if they put him inside of the garbage collection box, the housekeeper would carry it to the garbage gathering point for them. The box would probably have some way to make it easier to carry if that old person had to take out the trash. Even if it'd be a bit heavier than usually, the housekeeper wouldn't think of questioning it since she'd be in a hurry...)
And then they just had to pick Ushio up at the garbage gathering point.
But once the SP heard the housekeeper, they ran after Eiri, thinking it was his fault.
(The SP, those idiots!)
Eiri clicked his tongue.
Kaminari looked at the colleague that had called out to him and then back to Eiri.
He couldn't avoid getting caught and restricted by them in a place like this. ... Right at that moment there was the sound of a car violently slamming on the brakes. A domestic black car that Eiri recognized had hurried towards him.
It was Haku.
"Get in!"
Eiri jumped into the passenger's seat. They were going to get away from this place so they could shake off Kaminarimon.
"They predicted this perfectly."
Haku said.
"The North must have overheard that you were going to the Ushio residence today. On top of that they used the fact that the SP suspects you're a spy. The timing, where they kidnapped Ushio Yoshiya just as you were leaving the house, is too perfect for it to be anything else. Don't you think so too?"
Eiri silently nodded.
He hadn't realised that the spy from the North hadn't just been around S School, but also around the Ushio residence. But here it was. They had made their way through the SP bodyguards' security gap, stunned Ushio and thrown him into the garbage collection box. It was Eiri's mistake that he hadn't noticed it.
"While the SP are only paying attention to us Sakura, those guys will already have escaped to a safe spot. They should be making a declaration of their criminal intent soon. They won't do it publically, but they'll somehow get it through to Prime Minister Ushio during the disarmament conference. --- If you value your son's life, you need to turn over to the side that wants to do away with the disarmament, or else..."
"Yeah."
Haku said that he had already cleaned up their temporary hideout. Even if the SP went there now, they'd just find a completely empty place. They wouldn't be able to find a single fingerprint from either of them.
The main problem was that the SP would go after Eiri from now on. They would have the mistaken assumption that they as Sakura were the culprits and would proceed to investigate them. But the actual culprit would slip away from them while they were doing that.
There was nothing as useless as chasing after a fellow ally even for a minute or a second.
"Isn't there some way or another to stop those bodyguards?"
"We can only leave that up to chief Ichijima. But we can't contact him from our side. Not even through the cellphones."
If he could just return to Maru School, there might be someone who knew about the circumstances. If he was lucky, he could even speak to Ichijima there. But the rule was that they weren't allowed to approach Maru School until the mission would end and a formal order to return was issued.
They had no place to return to.
(I can't go back to Maru School.)
Eiri grinded his molars. All they could do was to just continue the mission they had been given.
Guarding Ushio Yoshiya, that is-----
"We have no choice but to find him."
Haku, who was holding the steering wheel with one hand, slurped his Nanny instead of verbally agreeing.
Rather than using the SP, the police department would most likely put together a secret team to search for Ushio Yoshiya's whereabouts. They had to find him before them.
Before Prime Minister Ushio would have to announce Japan's decision at the World Reforming conference.
(Can we really do that? Haku and I are just two people.)
At that moment there were already only 16 hours left until the starting time of the conference.