Summer Festival

August 12, 2023

Today was the big day for the fire brigade. Around three in the afternoon, about twenty members of the brigade met up at the firehouse, all of them dressed in their blue and orange work uniforms. As they all lined up to await their orders, Yui said to Rentaro, “Are you ready?”

“Hell yeah,” he replied. “The chief told me, Morishima-san, and Suwabe-san we’ll get to pack up and play today, so I’ll be able to do something. When do you think we’ll be done with it, though?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I, uh… I wanted to see if you wanted to enjoy the festival with me afterwards. I was gonna run home and get changed into a yukata.”

“Oh,” Yui replied. “Sure. I was gonna go with my dad afterwards, but now he says he’s not gonna go since he already went yesterday evening.”

“You’re not gonna go with the other student firefighters?”

“Nah,” she replied. “Tomoko-chan and Rumiko-chan are going with their family, Ayumi-chan is doing the same, Shiori-chan and Naoko-chan already went yesterday, and Suwabe-san is staying at the brigade’s booth afterwards alongside Naoko-chan and Shiori-chan.”

“Ah, okay.”

“To answer your question,” Yui explained. “We’ll need to do some cleanup afterwards, but we should probably be back here by six-thirty in the evening, maybe seven.”

Then, Hideaki spoke up, telling the whole group as they all fell silent, “Okay, listen up! Today, we’ll be burning an RV at the village’s Tanabata Festival. This will be our biggest fire we’ve had at the festival ever, and I want everyone to be at their one hundred and ten percent when we go down there. Already, Chief Mikazuki and Chief Ueda are down there giving the crowd a warmup of things to come, and the Yoshimatsu Area Fire Department was generous enough to provide a four-man engine crew as the ignition team and safety line in case anything goes wrong. I especially want the student firefighters to get a spotlight, since, as you may have heard, the principal of Harukawa Girls’ Academy wants to shut down the program, and we want to galvanize support for it. We already have passed out sheets for who will be riding where, and we will be responding as if it was a real vehicle fire.”

Yui looked at the sheet her father had passed out and found that she would be riding on Engine 31. “Hell yeah,” she thought to herself. “That’ll be the first fire truck to respond.”

“Engine 31 will respond first,” Hideaki continued. “They will roll out one line and attack the fire. I need three guys on the line and two guys to grab hand tools and saws and standby. Mini-Pumper 32 will respond next and roll out the second line, and for that, I need two guys on the line and two guys to grab hand tools and saws. Ambulance 33 will respond next and stand by for any potential injuries. Finally, Light Rescue 34 will respond and start laying out extrication tools. The idea is to roll out two hose lines, knock the fire down, and then overhaul the RV. Don’t go inside the RV until the fire is out or unless you’re told to do so by an officer, please. With all that said, let’s all get geared up and get on the trucks.”

The firefighters then calmly walked to their gear lockers and began to put their gear on. Tomoko told Rumiko, “We’re gonna make sure you’re on the nozzle since you’ll be on Engine 31 with Yui-san.”

“Okay,” Rumiko replied as she pulled up her boots to her upper thigh and then put her coat on. “I’m pretty excited, actually.”

“I bet,” Tomoko told her little sister. “I can’t wait to see you get up in there and hit that fire hard, Rumiko.” As they all finished getting dressed in their gear and walked to their assigned apparatus, Rumiko thought to herself, “Mom and Dad will be watching. I’m sure of it. They’ll know very soon I’m not a little girl anymore.”

…

At the festival grounds, many village residents, most of them dressed in traditional yukatas, all gathered around the empty lot where the RV was parked. All were kept at least fifteen meters away from the RV for safety purposes, of course. Also among the crowd were many visitors from beyond the area, many of whom brought cameras to record the proceedings. There were even a few foreigners among the crowd, including one man who spoke with a distinct English accent and was live-streaming the event. He said to the camera as the paid firefighters from the Yoshimatsu Area Fire Department began to get ready, “It looks like they’re about to light some flares. I think that means they’re about to start the fire. This is certainly something I would have never seen back home.”

Fumio walked over to the paid crew, having gotten packed up, and told them, “We’ll walk in from the side door and light that straw we put in the back.”

“Got it,” replied a paid firefighter. He then handed a flare to Fumio, who then put it on the ground before the two of them took their helmets off and put their masks on. Unlike the air packs worn by the volunteers in Harukawa, the air packs worn by the paid firefighters were a bit larger, were rated for about forty-five minutes of use instead of thirty, and had masks with regulators that mounted straight onto them. Additionally, the paid firefighters had largely tan gear with orange stripes that came with both pants and a coat, a stark contrast to the older style of gear the volunteers used. Once both were masked up and on air, they lit their flares and walked over to the RV.

When Fumio opened the door, the paid firefighter went in first and saw the straw in the back. “Is that it right there?”

“Yep,” Fumio replied. The two of them then dropped their flares into the straw, allowing it to catch fire and fill the RV with smoke as they exited. When Fumio turned around and shut the door to the RV, he took his helmet and mask off before walking over to Taichi and saying to him, “Let me speak to the crowd next.”

“Sure thing,” he said, handing over a wireless microphone he had been using to talk to the crowd beforehand. “I’ll take command of the fire.”

Fumio then cleared his throat and began to speak to the large crowd before him. “Now, as the fire grows inside the RV, you’ll begin to see and hear the windows break, the airbags explode, and the shocks explode. These are all risks that us as firefighters have to deal with whenever we respond to a reported vehicle fire. Don’t be alarmed if you see these small blasts. They’re normal for vehicle fires. They may startle you a bit, though. If you’re wondering how we set this fire in particular, we put some straw in the rear of the RV and left two lit flares inside. This is usually how training fires are set, since we are not allowed to use accelerants like gasoline due to safety concerns, and we especially cannot light certain synthetic building materials on fire inside burn buildings, which are the special training buildings we use to simulate structure fires.”

As the crowd watched, the fire inside the RV grew rapidly. Sure enough, as Fumio had predicted, several windows broke due to the heat, and after a few minutes of watching the flames consume the inside of the RV, the first airbag exploded, causing several people in the crowd to jump in shock. Taichi chuckled to himself at the crowd’s reaction as he reached for his radio and called out, “Chief 30-Alpha to Harukawa Fire Brigade Base.”

“Go ahead,” replied Hideaki from the officer's seat of Engine 31.

“Come on down. We got a well-involved RV, heavy fire on the inside.”

“Received. Engine 31 is responding with a crew of six.”

Taichi then stood around and waited as other fire apparatus began to call en route over the radio behind Engine 31, all of them departing from the fire station. As the crowd waited in anticipation, the sound of fire engine sirens began to draw nearer and nearer. Among the crowd were, in fact, Tomoko and Rumiko’s parents, who waited to see what their daughters would do. Their father, who looked like an older male version of Rumiko, said to their mother, “I wonder what they’ll have Rumiko do when she gets here. She was really excited to go.”

“Yeah,” replied their mother, who looked almost exactly like Tomoko albeit somewhat aged. “She must be really looking forward to seeing this.” By now, the fire was so large and so hot that the crowd could feel some of the heat, and smoke from the fire billowed high into the sky.

Then, Engine 31 pulled into the lot, with Hideaki shutting the siren down as it pulled past the burning RV and then came to a stop. The crew inside all jumped out with their masks on except for the driver, who was Shinichi. As Shinichi took a large black hard suction hose off of the engine and then used a manhole cover opener to access a hydrant, Hideaki told the crew, “Let’s go! We got a fire to put out!”

Rumiko and Hiro both opened up a compartment and pulled out two rolls of hose each, laying it out and rapidly connecting them together before Rumiko then grabbed a nozzle and ran to one end of the hose line to attach it while Hiro attached the other end to the pump. She then attached the low-pressure tube of her mask to her regulator to start breathing pack air before grabbing the nozzle and waiting for Hideaki to back her up. When he came to her, she said to him, “I’m ready!”

“Okay,” he replied. He then turned around as Hiro took the position behind him and twirled his right hand, telling Shinichi, “Charge the line!”

Shinichi gave a thumbs-up and shouted, “Here comes your water!” He then pulled several valves to fill their line with water.

Once it was ready, Hideaki patted Rumiko on the shoulder and told her, “Go, go, go!” She then opened up on the nozzle and began to flow water onto the raging fire before her, moving in closer as the fire began to get knocked down.

Meanwhile, Yui pulled out a rotary saw and set it on the ground before pulling the rip cord twice to get it started. Once she adjusted the choke, she revved it up twice to test it before setting it down and awaiting further orders. As she did, she told another firefighter with her, “And now we wait.”

Mini-Pumper 32 pulled up next, and as with Engine 31’s crew, its crew hopped out ready to go, although only two of them from the back had their packs and masks on. The other two aside from the driver ran to the back of Mini-Pumper 32, with one grabbing one of two air packs mounted in the back off and quickly putting it on while Sumire and Rentaro ran over to Engine 31 and pulled pulled several more rolls of hose out and began to deploy them much like how Rumiko and Hiro had done, with Rentaro on the nozzle and Sumire backing him up. The other one, who was not SCBA-qualified or being trained to get it, began to pull hand tools out and bring them over to Engine 31 to lay them out.

When both Sumire and Rentaro were ready, the former asked the latter, “Are you on the nozzle?”

“Hell yeah I am,” he replied as they both hooked their tubes into their regulators and then picked up their line, with Sumire going behind him. “You’ll back me up, okay?”

Sumire turned around and twirled her left hand, yelling at Shinichi, “Charge the second line, Kasuya-san!”

Once it was filled with water, Hideaki turned away from Rumiko briefly to tell the two of them, “Hit it from the side parallel to us!”

“Got it,” Rentaro replied with a thumbs-up before he then opened up on his nozzle, spraying down the fire alongside Rumiko, Hideaki, and Hiro. As they did, another airbag blew up, briefly startling Sumire before she quickly regained her footing while Rumiko remained unfazed. The smoke and the steam from the fire was thick, and as they both got right up against the RV, their visibility went down drastically.

Hideaki then told Rumiko, “We’re gonna go inside now.” He turned and told Rentaro and Sumire, “Shut your line down! We’re gonna go in!” As Rentaro shut his nozzle off, Hideaki radioed, “Engine 31 Officer to Firefighter Kitagawa.”

“Go ahead,” replied Yui.

“Bring yourself and Firefighter Hanae Ryohei up here with a rotary saw and some hand tools. We need to get inside this thing.”

“Received,” Yui replied. She then began to walk up towards her father, with Ryohei coming in close behind. As they walked up, Yui said to him, “You’re not here with your day job?”

“Nah”, he replied. “I was here yesterday with Yoshimatsu on overtime anyway. This shit beats sitting at a booth any day!”

When they both reached the RV, Hideaki told Yui, “Cut the whole door out so we can get in! We’re gonna pretend the door’s jammed and we can’t get in normally!”

“Got it!” Yui then got up right next to the RV as Ryohei backed her up and revved up the rotary saw before sinking it into the metal door of the vehicle, sending sparks all over the place as she tore into it and moved the blade down. She repeated the process horizontally up top before then cutting down on the other side of the door. Due to the fire, the metal had weakened significantly, making it even easier to cut through. Once she was done making the cuts, she backed out and let Ryohei use a pike pole to rip down the door, allowing Hideaki and Rumiko to head in. “Go on in!”

Meanwhile, the crews of Ambulance 33 and Light Rescue 34 stood by, watching the proceedings with joy. Naoko remarked to Ayumi as the two of them laid out the extrication equipment off of the rescue unit, “This looks really awesome, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Ayumi replied as she set down the spreaders. “I’m kinda jealous of Rumiko-chan right now. She got to be on the first line.”

“She must be having a blast right now.”

“Oh, I bet.” Ayumi then looked up and saw Rumiko spray out of the RV, with some of the water accidentally landing on several of the firefighters from Ambulance 33 and Light Rescue 34, including her and Naoko. She wiped away some water from her helmet and said, “I think she got us wet.”

“It’s the summertime,” Naoko pointed out. “I’m not gonna complain. If it was the dead of winter and it was below freezing, I wouldn’t be a happy camper, though.”

To say the crowd was happy with the demonstration would have been an understatement at this point. All of them were mesmerized by the efforts of the village’s volunteer firefighters, and the children in particular were very excited. Many of them cheered on the firefighters, and some even began to clap. While they did not fully understand the technical aspects due to their age, they knew that what was happening before them was still amazing to see regardless. Meanwhile, the adults looked on, many of them impressed in particular with the work of the student firefighters of the brigade. The same streamer from before said to his viewers in English, “I heard, uh… I heard from someone in the crowd that several of these firefighters are actually high schoolers. I guess in this village, they have a program that allows students from the local all-girls’ school to join the fire brigade, which I think is pretty cool. I certainly couldn’t tell the difference until someone pointed it out to me, which… That definitely speaks to how well they must train them.”

…

Around eight-thirty at night, Yui and Rentaro, both of whom had since changed into yukatas, were strolling around the festival grounds, having gotten back from the firehouse, showered, and changed at their respective homes before meeting up. The festival was still packed with visitors, including both locals and tourists. “You know,” Yui said to Rentaro as they walked past an idol stand. “Before the pandemic, the festival here would often see almost four thousand people attend. 2022 saw half that due to restrictions, but I think this year, we finally met our 2019 levels.”

Surprised, Rentaro replied, “Four thousand? That many for a small town like us?”

“Yeah,” Yui nodded. “That’s how special this festival is to us. Granted, not all of the attendees are residents, but most are. I’d say about a quarter of them are from out of town.”

Rentaro, remembering someone he had seen earlier, told her, “I heard a guy speaking English earlier. I think he was live-streaming.”

“I noticed him, too. I think he even live-streamed the RV fire demonstration we had, which I think is pretty cool. People have posted videos of our previous demonstrations online for a while now. There’s a video of our extrication demo from last year that has about ten thousand views.”

“Ten thousand? Not bad…”

After a brief silence, Yui said to him, “You said you were gonna be late by a few minutes, by the way. Was something up at home?”

“No, no,” Rentaro replied. “I just had to clean some stuff in my room.”

As they walked past the stand for the fire brigade, Naoko saw them and waved over, saying to them, “Hey guys!”

Yui turned to her and replied, “Hi there, Naoko-chan.”

“So,” she then joked with her. “How’s your little date with Nojima-san going?”

“It’s not a date,” Yui denied with a slight blush. “Come on. We’re just here as friends, right?”

“Yeah,” Rentaro also denied. “Just as friends.” He then turned to Sumire and asked her, “So, how was it on the nozzle?”

“It felt pretty great,” Sumire said as she nodded. “I think I did a pretty good job.”

“I think you did,” Kana told her as she approached from behind. “You, Rumiko, and Nojima-san are all gonna make great firefighters once you complete your classes.”

“Awww, thanks,” Rumiko replied to her with a smile.

“By the way,” Rentaro then asked Kana. “How’s Lieutenant Yamada doing with you?”

“She’s doing better,” Kana told him. “Right now, she’s walking around the festival with her son. She really enjoyed working the RV fire demonstration. She told me it took her mind off of the whole divorce thing, even if only for a few hours.”

“Man, this week’s been horrible for her,” Yui remarked. “Between the fight, that affair, and the divorce, it seems like everything’s going wrong at once for her.”

“Sadly, you’re not wrong,” Kana agreed.

“Well,” Yui then said to them. “We’re gonna keep walking around a bit. We’ll see you guys later.”

“Bye-bye,” Naoko said to her as she and Rentaro walked away. “Have fun!”

As the two of them walked down the row of shops and stalls, passing many other visitors to the festival, Rentaro asked Yui, “Does Amano-san tease you a lot about me?”

“It’s harmless,” Yui assured him. “I tease her about Hirayama-san sometimes.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about him. How’s his dad and dog doing?”

“They’re all better now. I think Hirayama-san has the hots for Naoko-chan.”

Rentaro joked with her, “To be fair, I would too if I saw the girl who saved my dad and my dog flash me her boobs.”

Yui stifled a laugh. “Yeah. I still can’t believe that dog ripped her bikini top off. Well, at least he got a preview of what to expect during sex in case those two ever do actually start dating.”

Rentaro made no such effort to hide his laughter, unlike Yui, after she told her own joke. “Yeah, yeah, that’s true!”

“My dad accidentally walked in on my mom once while she was completely naked right when they started dating apparently,” Yui then recalled. “They were both teenagers, about like fifteen I think, and she was getting changed in a room at my dad’s house when he walked in. I guess the two just stared at each other for almost half a minute before he quietly walked out without saying a single word.”

“Oh man, they must have almost died of embarrassment.”

“Yep. At least they didn’t argue or break up over it. If they did, I probably wouldn’t exist, first off. I guess they began, uh, going all the way soon after that. For obvious reasons, I don’t like to imagine how that went down between the two of them.”

“Understandable,” Rentaro agreed. “I don’t want to imagine my parents having sex either.” Both of them shared a laugh, amused by their conversation. “Man, this night has been pretty good.”

“Yeah. I’ve always loved going to these ever since I was a little girl. My parents first took me when I was only a toddler in a stroller. I actually met Tomoko-chan and Rumiko-chan here when I was six years old. Without this place, I wouldn’t have the friends I do now, and neither of the Morishima sisters would be firefighters right now.”

“Wow… This festival is that important to you, huh?”

“You know…” Yui then stopped Rentaro as they reached the sidewalk of the main road in the village. “I, um… I really am enjoying tonight, actually. I was thinking you could come over to my house for a bit if you want. My mom is running a booth with one of her friends, and my dad will be out with a few of the other officers tonight at a bar in Yoshimatsu, so I’ll be home alone. If we get a call right now, the only officers we’ll have will be the chiefs, Lieutenant Hoshizora, and Lieutenant Yamada. Everyone else is out with my dad.”

Rentaro’s eyes widened. “You… You want me to go with you back to your house?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Uh… Okay… Yeah, we can do that.”

Yui then leaned on him slightly, causing him to blush. “We can relax there. Maybe we can talk a bit more… Openly, too.”