messiah novel (you are in shine, part 27)

[devilism]

--- Ushio Yoshiya was safely protected near a police box in front of Umegaoka Station in Setagaya.

But since information about his abduction had been especially confidential within the police force, the police officer who protected him had absolutely no idea either that the son of the prime minister had been kidnapped by a spy from the North. He was told that Ushio Yoshiya had been tired of his bodyguards and confinement and managed to shake off his SP bodyguards and escape.

"Don't undertake careless actions. It's only for a while, so please always make sure to go everywhere with the SP."

After strongly instructing him to do that, the policeman had sent Ushio Yoshiya off to his house.

But he couldn't actually do that. Since the SP that had been embarassed by his target fleeing from him came rushing over.

Until the end that policeman just thought that the SP really were dumb.



Two weeks passed after that.

People wondered if the cherry blossoms would bloom tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and then gradually they started to bloom one by one. Before anyone knew it, the season was over.

A while later Eiri got the opportunity to visit the Ushio household. Strangely enough it was Yoshiya who had invited him, saying he wanted to see him.

"Well, as a Sakura it wouldn't exactly be praiseworthy to expose your face again, but in any case, the prime minister wishes for you to do so."

Ichijima added that as he gave Eiri special permission to go out.

As the disarmament summit ended peacefully the other day prime minister Ushio Junjirou suddenly became the man of the moment, but he just couldn't understand why his son had cooperated with the North.

Although they had investigated and interrogated his family and Public Safety, Yoshiya himself didn't open his mouth, no matter how many times they asked him about it and no matter which method they used. Everyone involved had given up since they weren't making any progress.

They needed to find out his motive for cooperating and the way they contacted him, or otherwise there would be a potential second of third Ushio Yoshiya. Since Eiri had interacted with him as a friend, they entrusted the investigation to him, since he was likely the only person who could find out his motive.

"It's been a while."

Eiri reunited with Ushio Yoshiya in the western-style house built by a famous architect in Yokoteramachi.

"I'm surprised. Satou was a spy from Public Safety. Even though all I could see was a high school student just like me."

Ushio sat down on the sofa, saying that he was truly surprised without any real sense of dissatisfaction.

There wasn't really anything Eiri wanted to talk with him about. Ushio Yoshiya wasn't his friend. He was the person he had to protect.

Eiri put down several documents on the low table.

"What are these?"
"They're records of your medical expenses this year."

Eiri had opened this house's mailbox more than once. The most easily obtainable personal information is mail sent to someone's house.

At the Ushio household a lot of mail was sent to the security. It seemed like the mother, Kayoko, had invested in a lot of foreign currencies. Few mail was addressed to the father of the household, and even less to the son, Yoshiya.

Eiri took one sealed letter from all that mail. The postmark was January 26th. The sender was a certain health insurance company. It was quarterly notice about medical expenses.

It had an amazing content. During the last four months Ushio had two expenses from dermatology departments, and ten from the internal medicine department. He had gotten psychosomatic medicine seven times. Moreover, it were internal medicine departments from different hospitals.

"When I saw this, I couldn't understand what kind of disease you had. I thought it was strange that you kept getting second opinions. It was from then on that I kept thinking about it."


After obtaining the insurer number, Eiri called the health insurance company, pretending to be family of the insured.

"I received a notice about medical expenses at my home."

The middle-aged lady who answered the phone replied with an experienced tone, as if this sort of thing happened every day.

"Ah, that's not a demand for money. If an insured person or any member of their family goes to see a doctor at a medical institution, we'll notify you of the medical expenses of four months all at once."

"Oh, so it's like that."

"Um, is there perhaps a hospital mentioned that you don't recall going to?"

Then Eiri told her Ushio's name and the name of his insured father, and the data showed up on the computer on the other side of the telephone.

"Did you receive a notice about the 26th of January?"

"Yes, it's mentioned at the very bottom..."

"Ah, they saw a doctor there twice in October, it's a dermatology clinic."

Just as he thought, that word came up. Dermatology. Yoshiya secretly washed his face during lunch break since he was worried about the acne on his face.

But what surprised Eiri even more were the woman's next words.

"Ah, that's wrong. The bottom one is the Sugishita department of internal medicine, right? They went there a second time too. So many times."

Eiri thought that was suspicious. There was a second thing, so did that mean Ushio went to many hospitals? Moreover, a department of internal medicine..? Not a dermatology place?

"Although I got the medicine, I don't remember what it was."

"Really? I have the prescription for the medicine here. It's quite an amount."

"Do you know what kind of medication they gave?"

"The content of the medication is..."

The woman said.

Just being told that was enough. Moreover, it was another way to get it.


"After that I checked out your actions record. My boss must have felt something was off about your actions to specifically put us around you. And sure enough, a suspicious record showed up. It was an action you took half a year ago on September 14th."


At that time he had gotten the special bodyguards from the police meant for special people, SP.

However, according to the record, Ushio didn't have any remarkable actions on that day.

When he transferred from one line of the subway to another at Iidabashi and he got off at Ochanomizu Station. And he had loitered in front of the station, as if he had been searching for something.

The bodyguards had surely thought that Ushio was going to meet up with someone at Ochanomizu Station. But he was holding an odd memo. Ushio looked at a map of the surrounding area multiple times, like he was trying to confirm something about a place on his cellphone.

After walking around the station indecisively for about 15 minutes, he entered the internal medicine clinic on the first floor of a tall building. And when he left the building about 30 minutes later, he went into the pharmacy in tall building on the other side of the street and bought medicine. When he left that building, he held the medicine in a plastic bag.

Several photos had been taken, centered on the hand that was holding the plastic bag. He didn't know how many different kinds of medicine were in it, but they didn't seem like they'd last a week.

Judging by how he acted before entering the clinic, Ushio had never been there before. The bodyguard had also mentioned in the memo that it seemed odd. It also said that the fee for a first initial medical exam had been taken out of his account. For examinations for internal medicine you can tell if it's for an initial examination or a re-examination based on the money paid. That meant that Ushio didn't regularly go to that clinic.

They thought he'd get back on the train after that, but Ushio also went against that prediction. He then took out something that also looked like a memo out of his butt pocket and checked its content. Then he again looked restlessly at his surroundings, going back and forth across the street.

Then he walked for about two minutes. Ushio started walking more quickly, as if he had discovered something. He entered the telephone booth between the ramen shop from a chain franchise and the coffee shop, and made a phone call while looking at the memo.

After about one or two minutes a single woman suddenly came out of the bento shop. Eiri wondered if she was an employee, considering her cap had a bit of spilled oil on it and her apron was dirty. She was in about her mid-thirties, had pinned back her undyed bangs, and she had quite some makeup on her face. She didn't seem like she had much leeway in her livelihood.


When he saw the woman, Ushio left the phone box. Ushio handed over the plastic bag with medicine he had gotten from the pharmacy to the woman with an "um, here." The woman bowed and extended her hand. The woman's arms were full of stains, as if she burned herself a lot while making deep fried food.

Ushio just did that.

The delivery of the luggage happened on a sidewalk where anyone who passed by could see it. The woman thanked Ushio again and again, and then went back to the kitchen of the bento shop.


"Giving away the medicine you had just received from a medical examination to an unfamiliar woman. ... It's a strange thing to do, no matter how much I think about it."

"..."

Ushio didn't say anything. Like a child fed up with its parents telling it to study, he just turned away.

"It all becomes clear with this. You weren't ill at all at that time. You pretended to have caught a cold and got medicine for another family's sake. You were told through that route where the woman worked and how to give her the medicine. That woman had an unemployed husband and worked hard every day without a break.　Even though her third grader daughter got a fever, she couldn't take her to the doctor, and had to both take care of her and work a part-time job at the same time. Even with that, she could barely get by, and couldn't even use any public health insurance... The pitiful mother got threatened by the bento shop's manager that she would be fired if she was absent even for a single day, and so she hadn't taken a day off in over half a year. Since they didn't have health insurance and needed medicine for the high fevers, the mother had no choice but to send her daughter off to school despite being ill just so she could get medicine from the infimary there. The worried homeroom teacher told her again and again that this wasn't good, but she couldn't do anything else at the point where she could only barely cover their living expenses through working from morning until night. And so she turned to an organisation---"


"Child life support."

According to the records of Section Two of Public Safety it was a relatively new NPO with only four members.

They offered recycled clothes and used books, and arranged used household appliances and other daily necessities for the children of fatherless or welfare families. If a family asked for it, they could get the toolbox, stationary, backpacks or gym clothes they needed for school.

For poor families it was as if the group was sent from heaven. Their services were often used in particular by families where the father didn't have a job, or fatherless families where the mother only had a temporary contract.

"The problem was that this NPO was a branch office for another country's intelligence service."

"... ch."

Eiri didn't miss that Yoshiya's eyes, which were pretending to look out of the window, froze up for a moment.

The cause of that was Yoshiya's "good intentions."

Since that "child life support" asked him to, he used his own insurance card to get the medicine and bring it to those who were waiting for it.

People who were burdened without an insurance card talked about the current symptoms to "support." Then "support" would pick someone among the cooperative people with good intentions who were registered. Someone who was relatively easy to contact and could get the medicine. That person was instructed through email to visit a medicial institution.

It was necessary to go to a new institution every time so no one would get suspicious of the re-examinations. When you'd go to a clinic you had never gone to before, you wouldn't have any prior medical record. So even if it'd seem like you were catching a cold every month, it wouldn't be noticed as something particularly suspicious. It would just be a simple interview.

Of course it was illegal to use your insurance card in order to get medicine for other people by faking your condition. But the people with good intentions who were registered with the organisation were aware of this and still continued their aid activities. They would get medicine for people who didn't have health insurance and bring it to them. 30% of the costs would be paid by "child life support." Or if you were still a student like Yoshiya, you could just get money for the hospital fee from your parents by saying you went to the hospital.

"I know what you were doing. What's important is when and how you got involved with that "support"."

That was why Eiri had pointed out the records of the medical examinations at various medical institutions over the past few years.

If you'd trace those suspicious records of medical examinations, you'd be able to figure out when Yoshiya started being involved with these activities.

"You visited a dermatologist for a medical examination three years ago on May 14th."

He said it was the Fuku Dermatology Clinic.

That was on the second story of a highrise building a short walk away from Kasuga Station. It was a modern and neat clinic.

It seemed completely new from the outside, with a water dispenser and a play room. It hadn't been long since the business was opened, since the opening was said to have been four years ago. It had a tropical interior like a beauty salon to create an atmosphere where young people could easily enter. You could make a reservation online, and they sold laser hair removal and diet supplements at your own expense. Rather than serving the local community, it felt more like a doctor's office that targeted young people exclusively.

They certainly had medical cures for someone who was desperate enough to thoroughly wash his face every single day, like the latest acne treatment with a carbon dioxide fractional laser or chemical peeling.　Presumably his mother, who was unable to just watch her son's acne and not do anything about it, introduced him to a dermatologist which served as her own favorite beauty salon.

"That clinic is a pocket."

"Pocket..?"

Pocket was jargon for a place that spies used to collect as much data from the public as possible. Hospitals were most suitable for that case, since they collect data from insurance cards that serve as ID.

In other words, that Fuku Dermatology Clinic was a branch office of Russia's intelligence service.

By opening a hospital, Russian spies could freely use that place to copy the insurance cards of many thousands of patients that they'd obtain. And it was also possible to get sleeping pills and dangerous kinds of medicine for their own convenience.

(That's right. Everything started there. The ambitions of the North, and vice chief Kurusu's plans too.)

Haku had noticed that once it was determined that Ushio Yoshiya participated in this series of events, the information was frozen within the upper layers of Public Safety.

The fact that Ushio Yoshiya had been undertaking suspicious actions was necessary information for this mission as Ushio Yoshiya's guards. But that information had never been conveyed to Eiri and Haku. Someone concealed the information. Of course Ichijima hadn't known either. If Ichijima hadn't stolen vice chief Kurusu's ID, they would never have known who was trying to shelve the information.

There was only one reason to shelve useful information. And that was that there were people who thought it wouldn't be good if that information was known and used. Moreover, these people were within the police force.


"It would've been fine to have been just the score taker back then."

Ushio suddenly murmured.

"If I could play baseball... I wanted to be a regular if that was possible, but I knew I wouldn't be chosen for that. I knew it the whole time. I couldn't even say in public that I was doing sports. I haven't hit a homerun even once. I couldn't do pinch-hitting nor could I hit a bunt. I just couldn't put out good results. I always sat on the bench, taking score, picking up balls, making shaved ice, or wringing towels to cool the pitchers' hand or shoulder... Even though it wasn't some big deal baseball club, I was still part of it for three years. I was still glad. I liked taking score, and taking care of the injured guys, and I didn't even hate turning the camera for a year. I like it. I liked everything about baseball."

I liked it, he corrected himself in past tense.

"But those guys weren't like that. They couldn't stomach that I wasn't becoming a regular."

"Those guys."

Eiri guessed from the flow of the conversation that he must mean his parents - prime minister Ushio and his wife.

He spoke on like he was spitting the words out,

"When I was in my third year of middle school and those guys heard that I still wasn't a regular, they stormed into the school to ask why that was. They thought it might be due to bullying. I always went to school early. I started liking baseball more by going early and doing some of the world and feeling the gratitude. I did it since it was the only thing I could do. I hadn't scored a single hit. Although I was useless, I was still allowed into the baseball club. I was asked to be the score keeper, but even though I had already been there for three years, I couldn't get a number on my back. So the coach recommended that I'd at least be able to have a voice on the bench that way. I was excited because I could yell the score from the bleachers. Being a score keeper or a manager, anything was fine. I was happy just watching the diamonds in front of my eyes for three years. But those guys... Even though they didn't know anything, they started yelling in the staff room whether it wasn't just bullying, or whether the school or the teacher's level was just too low. They told me that I was only being used, and that I had to wake up. Heh... What did I have to wake up from? I already knew that I couldn't do anything. I'm bad at baseball. If I said that, I'd have to quit the club."

He hung his head a little, like he was embarrassed and regretful.

Ushio Yoshiya's mother went to the school, angry that he couldn't become a regular at the baseball club even after three years. But that was nothing but a shame to him.

He himself knew very well that he was inferior compared to his juniors. He would have been happy if he could have continued the club activities even as just the score keeper, but his parents forced him to quit. After three years, before the last summer, Ushio had to quit the club and abandon his friends, right at the most important time for the baseball club. It must have been extremely frustrating.

"Those guys said it was useless to do something if there's no results. And that I had greater talents. Hah, talent!"

Ushio opened his eyes wide and laughed.

"All that talk about talent, talent. Hey, listen up, Satou. It's about talent. Those guys said I had talent. They said that since I'm the eldest son of the Ushio family, I will one day become a politician and lead the country-- that I'm going to become a cabinet minister. For that sake I had to quit the baseball club since I wasn't getting results there and concentrate on other things. But I always already thought that I didn't have any talent. Even if I'd quit baseball, I wouldn't develop any other talent. It's impossible. It's impossible, impossible. Totally impossible. It's impossible for me to be that talented son they wanted. Even children would understand. I already know what kind of person I am in society. I'm below average. I'm an uninteresting person. I don't have any talent!"

Bang, he hit the table. A remorseful expression immediately appeared on his face. It probably hurt his hands.

"No matter how much I tried, I'm a below average and less than ordinary person. Continuing the baseball thing was my last chance to get in the circle. I'm such a boring guy that can barely get friends by being a handyman. That's why I was desperate. But those guys ruined all of that. Calling it bullying and abuse. Even though they knew nothing. All of my school activities... Those guys didn't even once.. No matter how much I asked, they never came to see even a single match--!"

There was no bullying. He was just wrongfully resented by others because his parents caused such a great fuss.

After that Ushio Yoshiya took an entrance exam for S School. He had given up due to the loudly shouting voices of his parents, who said public teachers just had an all around poor quality. No matter how much he had confronted his parents about wanting to play baseball, all the passion he had in elementary school was already gone from him when he went to a local middle school.

He couldn't say anything. He couldn't go against his parents. That's how things are for children.

(Was that the cause for his acne getting worse?)

Eiri's heart sank with a thud as he understood. Ushio continued.

"Since I was so worried about my acne, I went to a determatologist around that time."

"... Is that so."

"It seemed like severe acne. I quit the baseball club, and it got worse as I started attending two cram schools. It was terrible that it just didn't get better, no matter what medicine I took - vitamins or antibiotics. It was so itchy and painful every day that I couldn't even study. It was a miracle that I passed the entrance exam for S School."

Outward appearance is the most important thing to people. When pimples started appearing all over the originally delicate Ushio's face, he couldn't stand the ugly redness. He visited various dematologists. But since the condition of his face didn't get better at all, his upset mother took him to a dermatologist once she heard about a supposedly good one.

And the clinic that his mother introduced him to happened to be a pocket of the North.

"And when you went there to get your acne cured, you learned about the activities of "child life support" at the Fuku Dermatology Clinic."

Your insurance card is the same as your ID. The desk staff members from the North used the insurance cards they gathered at the Fuku Dermatology Clinic to screen people. And so Ushio got involved in this.

"The husband of the last director, Fukushima Asuka, is a member of a left-wing organisation that was previously checked out by Public Safety's section two. It's unclear how she ended up in the pocket, but section two wanted to investigate even beyond that."

He was forced to leave the baseball club, caused problems at school and his father was strongly opposed to him being admitted to S School. As a reaction to all of that, it was easy for him to start participating in the activities of "support".

Eiri's instinct told him that this was thinning.

Other countries spies that were active in Japan, weren't just there to take scientific data and other secrets.

Training influential cooperators. Educating new spies. Securing the money necessary to spy in other countries.

And thinning.

Trying to aggressively win over the family of people who are strongly opposed to them, like Ushio Yoshiya's father.

For example inviting their wife to a religious organisation that was being run by spies, swindling their elderly parents out of a great sum of money, or manipulating the ideas of their child and taking them in.

Spies giving children an ideological sort of brainwashing was called thinning.

"You were getting prescriptions with feigned illnesses."

"I knew that was a violation of the law. But I didn't really give anyone trouble by doing it."

He brushed up his long bangs and spoke with a curt tone that was like a cold wind.

"The problem is that children might die even if the government might try to do something about it, since it'd take a long time for them to change the laws. They'd go slow on purpose in order to save face, considering they were helped with their election by the medical association."

It was a bitter criticism of the government that you'd usually hear from the opposition parties during a relay broadcast of the parliament.

"You wouldn't understand, right? Satou--- Ah, is Satou a false name? It doesn't matter who you are right now. I'll say this for now. The fools who represent my father in this country are more than anything scared of being criticized. They'll avoid the big problem of who's responsible and don't do anything. Even if a million people are saved by a law, if just one person appears and complains about it with a loud enough voice, then said law becomes something bothersome and they stop carrying it out. Why do you think that is? To be honest, if you take responsibility in this country, you might have to quit your job. Or even go to prison--- But is taking responsibility really that simple? I've been thinking about that. How have murderers and robbers taken responsibility while having spent many years in jail? Did they make up for the crime they committed? Shouldn't that mean that those guys should be doing dirty and painful work that no one else wants to do for free for the rest of their life? But that isn't how the Japanese law works. It's not. There's only the usual things written in there. Those guys get the wrong idea about how to take responsibility because no one ever shows up who wants to take responsibility. Because there's no one who can take responsibility in the right way. But, Satou. I will take responsibility. It would have been fine if they had arrested me. If I had been brought to court, arrested and thrown into a youth detention center--- Well, that wouldn't have happened either way. But if you don't think you should be taking responsibility, that still doesn't mean you don't feel guilty. With the current rules, everyone just does what they want."

He passionately said that it had all been to save them.

"I just did what I could do. I don't want to die, just like those people who do nothing. I believe this is the right way, even if it violates the law or doesn't follow the rules. Because I saved a lot of people. There are a lot of people who really have to be saved. People should be doing more to save others."

Even now Ushio Yoshiya still believed that it had been a noble volunteer activity in order to help out poor children.

But it actually had been ideological training. He was blaming and criticizing the current government without realising, and inclining towards the North's point of view. Moreover, the North had a good source for trying to threaten Ushio's father by using the fact that his son was involved in illegal activities.

In the end he was just being used. His very small courage. His very small, but beautiful sense of justice.


"I won't just be trash."

Suddenly his words unexpectedly moved Eiri.

"When people are born, all of them are trash. They're not angels. They're just trash."

He remembered the words Huan always said.

"That's why you can't just eat from your parents or your country. Living is all about trying to become something other than trash."

You are trash.

I was trash as well.

From this point on, he'd climb up and become something other than trash. Get out of the garbage bin. He'd escape his rubbish dump-like family...

(I was trash as well. I could only run away when my parents were killed, just a weak child. Without talent. Without money. Useless to the typical society---)

But people are trash who can't stand independent from their parents at first.

And even adults, every human being in this world is trash as well. And in order to become something other than trash, they desperately look for something only they can do. They want to be needed by someone. They want to be praised by someone. They want to be useful. They want to show off the power they have.

It isn't just Yoshiya. It's a conflict everyone goes through when they're young. A road everyone walks. But unfortunately Yoshiya was used by spies from the North. Just like how water slowly soaks dry land, kids like him are educated.

And a few years later they grow up to become fine spies for the North, and go out into society.

So they could become convenient hands and feet for Kaminski and his guys.

Someday Ushio would be arrested by Public Safety as a Northern collaborator. And when he'd be prosecuted as a political criminal, would he then regret his actions? Eiri thought about it.

Ahh, he'd think about how he wished he would have had no sense of justice back then. Acting dumb by not noticing the distortions in society, slowly graduating from university, slowly getting a job through his parents' connections, never leaving the house, depending on his parents, never bringing money home, indulging his body in games, not spending time with the opposite sex and letting his friendships become distant, not knowing what to live for, being driven by life itself, common sense and duty, taking the morning commute train again and again--- If he hadn't been arrested, he would have repeated that kind of life.

Just like Eiri's father, who once walked through the Kaukasus, wanting to be a journalist. 　

Why was a sense of justice like a light trap you'd kill insects with? Every person that embraced it in this world was usually beyond saving. While everyone praised it, saying that it was beautiful.

That thought made Eiri very miserable.

"--- Even if I told you that the country's spies are extravagant people, you wouldn't understand, Satou. Ah, Satou is a fake name, right?"

"My name is certainly not Satou."

"Then tell me your real name. --- But as a spy you're not supposed to say that it's a fake name, right? It's kind of scary how you can change your name like that. If you get any order from above, you just carry it out. You approached me, and pretended to be my friend. If you don't have a name anymore, then you won't exist anymore either."

"They call me.. Suregi."

"Suregi?"

"It means 'trash'."

Ushio had a terribly surprised facial expression, since it must have been an unexpected answer.

"Trash isn't just something bad, Ushio."

Eiri slowly stood up from the sofa.

He had already confirmed the motive and the way the North contacted him. He had no more use for him. He could only still do something as a friend.

"If I could say one thing as a friend, it's that you shouldn't commit fraud with the medical examinations. Register as an actual volunteer at a facility where they look after kids until the late hours, and just play with the kids. And treat them to a meal sometimes..."

(Just that.)

No matter what would happen after this, the memory of the intense smell of cooked white rice being piled on in bowls would make Eiri feel happy again and again.

The stars that were seen through both a long and narrow scope and a telescope lens.


That always saved him.　

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