The Days After

August 12, 2023

At the scene of the second-alarm fire in Harukawa, Naoko and Shiori had just emerged from the second house that had caught fire and were taking their masks and helmets off after having completed some overhaul on the second floor. As Naoko pulled her helmet off, she felt sweat pour down her face before she then took off her gloves and wiped her face with her bare hands. “Fuck, it’s too hot for this shit.”

“No argument there,” Shiori agreed.

Rumiko then walked over to them carrying two bottles of water with her. “You guys need water?”

“Yeah,” Naoko replied to her. As Rumiko handed both her and Shiori water, she asked her, “Where’s your sister?”

“She’s in the original fire building,” she replied as she pointed to it. “An investigator went in there, and they needed someone to escort him. I heard they called the FDMA and the NPA too.” Rumiko was referring to the National Police Agency, which oversaw all prefectural police departments in Japan and acted as their equivalent to the FBI, and Fire and Disaster Management Agency, the national government agency in Japan responsible for overseeing all fire departments and volunteer fire brigades, as well as providing assistance to them for major incidents and investigations.

“That’s not good,” Shiori sighed. “I’m sure your sister told you why.”

“Aren’t they called for fatal fires or whenever a firefighter gets seriously injured?”

“Exactly,” Naoko replied with a nod. “Although they can get called for any fire if they feel they’re necessary. If I had to guess, either one of those two old people we pulled out isn’t gonna make it or this fire has more… Human causes.”

Rumiko, realizing what she meant, asked with concern, “You mean arson?”

“I won’t say it was,” Naoko clarified to the younger girl. “But that could be a reason for the FDMA to get called here… Unless they think those two old people we pulled out are gonna die soon.” Changing the subject of the conversation, she then asked Rumiko, “Speaking of, you don’t have much longer until you’ll be able to join us.”

Initially confused, Rumiko replied, “Join you? Huh?”

“Rumiko-chan,” replied Naoko with an unimpressed face. “Did you forget what’s going on this coming week? Really?”

“Oh yeah! My final class and the test! I can’t believe I almost forgot about it!”

“I bet you can’t wait to finally be over with it.”

“Yeah,” Rumiko nodded. “Me and Sumire-chan are really looking forward to finally being able to join you guys.”

Naoko and Rumiko then looked over and saw Yui and Rentaro talking to each other while smiling and acting rather casual. Shiori asked the two of them, “What’s up?”

“Yui-chan and Nojima-senpai have been pretty friendly with each other during downtime,” Naoko commented. “I heard from someone that they walked home together from the Tanabata Festival.”

“Wait,” Rumiko replied, suspecting something was up. “Are you saying-?”

“They have been getting along pretty well recently,” Shiori realized. “But you don’t think they’re actually, like, together-together, right? This soon?”

“You never know,” Naoko replied. She then turned to grab her helmet, but found that it was not where she had thought she left it. “Oh, what the Hell? Where’s my helmet?!”

Rumiko turned her head to look for it and said, “I don’t see any helmets here that aren’t either next to someone or on someone’s head.”

“Well,” Shiori commented. “That’s not good.”

“Hey guys,” Yusei then called out as he walked over carrying an extra helmet with him. “Is anyone missing a helmet? The name on the inside is too smudged for me to read!”

“Shit,” Naoko then said as she got up. “It’s mine!”

As Yusei handed the helmet to her, he explained, “I found it near the front door.”

“Sorry about that. I must have forgotten it when I took it off.” She then put the helmet back on, but let the ear flaps up due to the heat. “God, it’s too hot.”

“You’re telling me. I’m sweating like a fucking pig.” True to his word, Yusei’s face was covered in perspiration, and several beads of sweat rolled down his face and eyes, causing him to wipe them to get the sweat out.

Three American military firefighters then walked over to them, about to head in to replace them for overhaul. One of them, who spoke Japanese rather fluently, asked them, “Did you guys just come out of the second house?”

“Yeah,” replied Naoko to the man. “How good is your Japanese?”

“I’m fluent enough to know firefighting terms,” he replied. “My two other guys here don’t know it too well, though. Where did you guys leave off?”

“We left off on the second floor in the rear bedroom. It’s all the way in the back, first door on the right when you go up the stairs.”

“Got it,” he replied before turning to the rest of his crew and talking to them in English. “We’re going to the second floor rear bedroom. It’ll be the first door on the right when we go up the stairs…”

When they walked away, Yusei said to the two girls, “I’m surprised they didn’t ask about how young you guys are.”

“Maybe they’ve been around here a while,” Shiori replied with a shrug. “It’s usually guys who just got here on a deployment that ask questions.”

“What surprised me was that none of them were locals,” Naoko noted. “Don’t the Americans employ a lot of locals as firefighters?”

Yusei nodded and said, “Yeah. Maybe it’s just dumb luck we got a crew of all Americans.”

…

August 14, 2023

“So the old man died this morning, huh?”

“I’m afraid so,” Kana said to Yui as the two did a rig check on Ambulance 33 in the middle of the day. “But hey, we saved his wife. That’s gotta count for something.”

“I guess,” Yui replied as she turned on a cardiac monitor to check the battery level. “Battery’s good on the monitor.”

“Thanks.” As Kana crossed off another item on her paper checklist, she asked Yui, “What’s the deal with you and Nojima, by the way?”

Yui immediately froze upon Kana asking her that question. “Uh, me and Nojima? We’re just, uh…”

“Some people saw you two walk away from the Tanabata festival together, and you guys seemed pretty friendly with each other at the fire scene.” Kana inferred, “It sounds like you two went on a date during or after the festival.”

“What? No!” Yui blushed, denying that she had done anything with Rentaro. “We didn’t do anything weird!”

“Come on,” Kana lightly chided her. “You wouldn’t be the first girl from the school to find love at that festival, nor will you be the last. When I was a year younger than you, me and a boy from another school who lived in the village snuck out of the festival and had some fun in a secluded spot near the beach.”

“Had some fun…? What kind of fun?”

Kana, stupefied that Yui did not know what she meant, replied, “What do you think?”

“You had sex?”

“What else do you think a high school girl and a high school boy would sneak off to do at night during summer break?” Kana chuckled as she recalled what had transpired back then. “Admittedly, we didn’t get down and dirty right away. We skinny-dipped in the ocean first, since obviously we didn’t have swimsuits under our yukatas. We dated for about ten months before he broke things off.”

Knowing the dangers of going out to sea at night to swim, Yui asked her, “You went swimming late at night in the ocean?”

“Not my smartest decision,” Kana admitted. “But I lived. I mean, when he broke up with me later, I briefly wished in my head that he drowned. So…” Kana then closed two compartments on the ambulance and turned around back to Yui. “Did you fuck Nojima?”

“Okay, fine,” Yui finally admitted to her. “I did, but please, don’t tell my dad… Or my mom for that matter.”

“I won’t,” Kana assured her. “I was in your shoes once, Yui. When you’re a teenager, it’s easy to forget that the adults around you were once teenagers themselves.” She and Yui then opened up the rear door of the ambulance and stepped out. “By the way, are you two actually dating or…?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’d like to do something else with him, but we haven’t really talked since the fire.”

“Why don’t you give him a text or a call and ask if he wants to do something?” Kana then set down the clipboard containing the rig check paperwork on a table in the apparatus bay. “It wouldn’t hurt. I’m sure he’d love to, well, you know… Do you want to do that with him again?”

Yui blushed at the thought of having sex with Rentaro again, thinking to herself, “I actually do, but… Should I really say it to Lieutenant Hoshizora?”

Kana teased her with, “You do, don’t you?”

…

Later that day, Yui and Rentaro met up in front of the convenience store he worked at, with him having just gotten out of work. “I’m glad to be out of work,” Rentaro said with a sigh as the two of them walked down the street together. “I had to come in for six hours on short notice because some asshole no-call-no-showed and the other guy could only come in for two hours before his normal shift. Today was supposed to be a day off for me.”

“That sucks,” Yui replied, feeling bad for him. “How often does that happen?”

“Thankfully, it’s not often. Usually, we’ll fire the guy if they do that just once, maybe twice if we sort of like him. This guy, though… Yeah, he’s done.” As they rounded a corner, he then asked her, “By the way, is the fire brigade doing anything special for Obon this year?”

“We’ll be paying visits to the graves of our past members,” Yui explained. “And when the village releases floating lanterns en masse, we’ll be on standby for EMS and firefighting coverage.”

They then heard the sound of approaching fire engine and ambulance sirens, with both of them turning their attention down the street. “Sounds like the paid fire station’s got a call.”

“Sounds like everybody’s going, too, which means we’ll be up if a call comes in in the village.”

“I hate to say it, but I could use a good call. I need it to get my mind off the bullshit at work.”

“Just say that it’s really quiet out,” Yui humorously advised him.

Confused, Rentaro asked her, “Quiet? Why?”

“When people say it’s been quiet or slow, a call is more likely to happen. It’s a superstition. I’m surprised nobody in your Basic and SCBA Firefighting class mentioned it.”

“Huh… A superstition…” Deciding to test it, Rentaro commented to her, “Wow, it’s pretty quiet out, huh?” After a brief pause to see if anything would happen, Rentaro remarked, “It doesn’t work, I guess.”

“Give it time,” Yui assured him. “It’s not always immediate. While we have time before a call seemingly inevitably comes in, wanna go to the beach with me?”

“But I don’t have a swimsuit,” Rentaro commented. “I’ll have to run home and get one.”

“That’s fine.” Yui then pulled aside part of her shirt to reveal a blue strap on her right shoulder. “I got a bikini on under my clothes anyway. We got time.”

…

Naoko and Ayumi both practiced swimming together in the school pool around the same time Yui and Rentaro were going on their first date while another girl in the Harukawa Girls’ Academy swim club timed them from the side of the pool. “Three, two, one, go!”

As Naoko and Ayumi dove into the water and then raced each other down the full length of the pool, Naoko thought to herself, “I hope we do well in the tournament on Wednesday. I’ve been practicing my ass off for the past two weeks!”

As the other girls in the club watched, Ayumi touched the end of the pool less than a second before Naoko did. The girl keeping track of their time said to the two of them, “Twenty-four point four seconds for Ayumi-chan and twenty-five point one seconds for Naoko-chan.”

“Looks like I win,” Ayumi playfully boasted to Naoko as she took her swim goggles off.

Naoko, a bit annoyed that she lost to Ayumi, replied while she took her’s off, “Damn it…” She then turned to the timekeeper and asked her, “Want us to start the one hundred meter freestyle now?”

“Sure,” she replied.

As the timekeeper girl was resetting her stopwatch and Naoko and Ayumi climbed out of the pool, the coach of the swim team, a woman named Ginko Matsumoto, walked over and asked the two girls in the water, “How are you two making out?”

“I beat Naoko-chan,” Ayumi replied to Ginko. “Almost a full second, too.”

“We’re about to do the one hundred meter free swim, Matsumoto-sensei,” Naoko then told her coach as she put her swim goggles back on alongside Ayumi.

“Don’t sweat it,” Ginko told her. “Your big thing is high diving anyway, Amano-san.”

“Yeah, but still, I wanna get better at freestyle swimming, too.”

The timekeeper then asked Naoko and Ayumi, “Alright, you guys ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Ayumi replied with a thumbs-up.

“Good. Three, two, one, go!”

Naoko and Ayumi then both dove into the water again and swam as fast as they both could to the end they originally started at for the fifty meter freestyle. As they flew through the water, Ginko remarked to herself, “Those two are almost inseparable…”

“I heard Tamura-senpai wants to try high diving,” then said another girl who was a first-year in the swim club.

Ginko, surprised, replied to her, “Wait, what? Really?”

“Yeah,” the same girl confirmed with a nod. “Since Amano-senpai wants to practice freestyle more, Tamura-senpai wants to try what Amano-senpai does.” Ayumi specialized in competitive swimming while Naoko specialized in high diving, the two of them being well-regarded among their peers in the club.

When they got to the end, Naoko and Ayumi both looked up at the other club member keeping time and simultaneously asked her, “Who won?”

“Tamura-senpai,” replied the girl who was keeping time, a first-year. “Although Amano-senpai was only a second and a half behind. Both scores are still among the best in our club.”

“Not bad,” Naoko said to Ayumi. “Looks like I’m catching up to you, Ayumi-chan.”

…

At the beach, Yui was sitting by the water with Rentaro, the waves slowly crashing into their feet as the evening sky settled in. “Some evenings, I’ll go to the beach by myself just to clear my head,” Yui explained. “Of course, I always keep my pager and more proper clothes to put on over my swimsuit in my bag just in case a call comes in.”

“Smart move,” Rentaro nodded. “You know, uh, about what we did the night of the fire…”

“Yeah?”

“Since we’re alone now, I was thinking we could talk about it, Kitagawa-san.”

“Call me Yui,” she insisted. “We’ve done enough by this point that first names should be used.”

“Right, Yui…” He then said to her after taking a deep breath, “I… I want to actually be in a relationship with you, Yui.”

Yui, surprised that Rentaro had said something so blunt right out of the gate, blushed slightly and replied, “You… do too?” Realizing what she had added to that sentence, she tried to backtrack. “I mean, uh, you do?”

Rentaro nodded. “Yeah. I do. I had fun with you during the festival before we… You know.”

“I did, too.” Yui then got up and looked out over the water, a light breeze flowing across the beach as the sea crashed against her feet. “I guess you can count this as our real first date… Although you don’t really hear of people having sex before the first date too often.”

“We got it all backwards, I guess.”

“We do.” Rentaro then got up and began to walk into the water. “Wanna go for a swim?”

“Sure.” Yui then followed him in, the couple letting the water submerge them both from the waist down. Yui then dove into the water, swimming out a bit deeper. “Come on, follow me!”

“Alright, alright,” Rentaro replied, swimming behind her for a bit before they both stopped, now with only their heads above the water. “How often do you go to the beach anyway?”

“I mean, I live near it. My family runs a shop right on the beach. I’d say almost every day I come here, even if only for a few minutes.” The two of them turned their heads towards the sea and then spotted a gray ship in the distance. “Hey, look over there!”

As Rentaro looked at the ship while keeping his head above water, he asked Yui, “Is that an American ship or a Japanese ship? I can’t see its flag too well.”

“Hang on,” Yui replied. “Let me see if I can make out the hull number.”

“You know all those?”

“When you see ships from the naval base in Inoue as frequently as I do, you can tell who is who.” Yui then squinted her eyes to take a better look. “It looks like a JMSDF ship. The font for the numbers is different from American ships. Also, I think that’s a Rising Sun flag flying from the back.”

Rentaro, flabbergasted that she was able to pick up on such a small detail, replied, “Wait, it was that easy for you?!”

“Like I said, I see these ships pass by here quite a bit, so you start to see the differences.” She then dove under the water, prompting Rentaro to look around to see where she was in confusion before she suddenly popped up behind him and startled him by grabbing his back. “Hey there!”

“Ah!” Rentaro then laughed, amused by her. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“That’s not so bad,” Yui then recalled. “One time, I got Tomoko-chan really good when we were third-years in middle school and I swam up behind her. She howled when I grabbed her leg.”

“How far do you go back with her anyway?”

“Since the start of middle school,” she replied. “I’ve known Ayumi-chan and Naoko-chan for longer, since late elementary school. Shiori-chan, though, I’ve only known her since I began going to Harukawa Girls’ Academy since she was originally from the Town of Hoshino. Her old house was right on the eastern border with Yoshimatsu City, or the Western border of Hoshino if you look at it from that way. Even so, when we began to work together in the fire brigade, I guess our own friendship just came naturally.”

“Wow… Truth be told, I didn’t really have a lot of friends in town,” Rentaro admitted. “Since the closest high school for boys is in Yoshimatsu, the few friends I did have are all from there. Half of them moved away after graduation, though.”

“What made you want to join the brigade anyway?” Rentaro blushed upon being asked the question, prompting Yui to playfully pinch his cheek and say, “Come on, spit it out.”

“Okay, okay. I guess… One reason I joined was because of the Student Firefighter Program…”

Confused, Yui asked him, “Wait, how? The program’s only for Harukawa Girls’ Academy, so by default, it’s for girls only.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing… I’m a young guy, so…”

Yui realized what he meant and began to laugh hard. “No way… No fucking way! You joined to work with the girls?!”

“Come on, it’s not funny! That’s not the only reason anyway!”

“Sorry, sorry. I just don’t hear that very often… What was the other reason anyway?”

“Well… I thought firefighting was pretty cool, and always hearing the siren go off and you guys rush to calls was interesting, so…”

Yui nodded, understanding the other reason well. “Makes sense. That’s why my dad joined the fire brigade. He thought it looked cool. Twenty-four years, four years as chief, and one daughter later, here we are.” She then patted him on the shoulder. “Look, Rentaro, it’s fine. We all have our reasons for joining. What you do after you join is what matters, and you take this seriously, so I like that.”

“You’re the first person I’ve told that to, you know. I didn’t tell anyone else because I thought it was stupid.”

“I mean, I hear girls talk about how they think all firefighters are hot. You’re just like that, but in reverse.”

After a few more minutes, the couple returned to shore and walked back over to their belongings. Rentaro said to Yui as they used towels to dry off, “Well, that was fun.”

“Yeah. I really enjoyed that, actually.” She then playfully gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, once again making him blush. “Just let me know when you’re free so we can go on another date.”

“Oh, uh, yeah…”

Yui then checked her phone and saw that she had two texts and a call from Tomoko she had missed. She called Tomoko back and waited for an answer. After three rings, Tomoko came through on the other end, her voice clearly in a state of panic. “Yui-san, they made a decision about the program, and they want us all at the school in an hour!”

“Wait, what?! An hour!”

“Yeah,” Tomoko replied. “Hurry up and get down here! Come in your school uniform! The student council, members of the fire brigade, and some more students will all be here.”

“Well, do you know what they decided, Tomoko-chan?”

“No, I don’t! That’s why I’m kinda panicking!”

“Alright, I’ll be down there.” Yui then hung up the phone and told Rentaro, “I gotta get dressed in my school uniform and head back to the school. They made a decision about the Student Firefighter Program.”

Rentaro replied as Yui quickly packed her things and put on a shirt and shorts over her bikini. “They did?! What did they say?!”

“They haven’t said anything. They’re waiting for all of us to be there in an hour. You should come, too.”

“Alright. I’ll go with you.”