Hinoyojin!

September 4, 2023

“You’re curious about what Yui-san was talking about?”

“Yeah,” Sumire replied as she and Rumiko talked to each other in between classes at school. “Since you’re Tomoko-san’s little sister, I assumed you’d know more than me.”

“Well, you’d be right, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s a bit of a touchy subject,” Rumiko replied, unsure of how to proceed. “My sister doesn’t really like to talk about it too much either. I don’t know if I should really tell you.”

“I won’t tell a soul,” Sumire assured her. “Trust me, Rumiko-chan. I’ve told you things that you’ve kept secret from everyone else, right?”

“That’s true…”

“What makes this time any different?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.” Rumiko then took a deep breath, but just as she was about to tell Sumire of what had happened in the past, they both heard the door to their classroom open as a history teacher walked in. “It’ll have to wait.”

“Aw man,” Sumire dejectedly replied. “Don’t forget to tell me.”

“Good morning, everyone,” then said their history teacher as he placed his folders and books down on the teacher’s desk in the room. “Be sure to finish and hand in this past weekend’s homework by the end of the class if it’s not done already. Now, for today’s lesson, we’ll be starting with the expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan…”

As the teacher continued his lesson, Rumiko began to think to herself about what had happened in the past and her memory of the event in question. “I still remember Mom and Dad coming into my room to tell me about that call and to help my sister when she got home. When she came home, she was crying. I had never seen her so shaken before.”

…

Right after school had ended, Sumire and Rumiko began to talk to each other about the incident in question. “So,” Sumire said as they sat at an outdoor table. “Tell me all you know from beginning to end. This has been bugging me all day ever since we got interrupted during history class, Rumiko-chan.”

“This doesn’t leave the table,” Rumiko warned her. “Understood?”

“Understood.”

“It happened when my sister, Yui-chan, and Shiori-chan were first-years, and it happened right in front of our fire station,” Rumiko explained. “I’m surprised you don’t know about it since it was on the news quite a bit. There’s even a video of Yui-chan cleaning up, well…”

“A body?”

“Well, parts of. It has her sweeping up the ground and then washing it down with a hose.”

“I’m shocked they let her do that so young,” Sumire expressed with surprise.

“Me, too. So, what happened was a drunk driver hit a woman crossing the street with her young child and a dog, and all three of them were killed. The driver’s in prison now. My sister and Yui-chan had to hold back Yui-chan’s dad from going ballistic on the driver.”

Sumire now realized why this was such a touchy subject for Yui and, to a lesser extent, Tomoko. “Oh my God. That’s horrible.”

“It was such a terrible accident. The driver was from Nagoya and was in the area visiting relatives. I hate to say it, but a lot of people here shunned his relatives, even though it wasn’t their fault. My sister told me some info when she came home, but I heard a lot of the info later on after the fact…”

…

November 6, 2021

Tomoko, Yui, and Shiori were all at the fire station, all of them having just returned from classes they were taking. Tomoko had returned from a FAC-1 class, while Yui and Shiori had returned from an Advanced Firefighter class. Although it was late, they all remained at the firehouse to clean some equipment and chat. Tomoko asked, “You don’t want to take FAC-1 next year, Shiori-san?”

“Nah,” she replied. “After I get this Advanced class in, I’m gonna hold off on more classes so I can focus more on piano stuff. I got a lot on my plate between recitals, practice, and the firehouse, so taking a break from firefighting classes should help out a bit.”

“I’m sure I won’t be the only one in the class from Harukawa,” Yui assured Tomoko. “I hear Nakano-senpai is gonna finally have time to take it before she goes off to college to be a nurse. Besides, I don’t have any after-school activities besides this place and my family’s shop, so I got plenty of time. What I’m surprised about more is that you took FAC-1 before you took Advanced Firefighter, Tomoko.”

“It’s just a matter of preference,” Tomoko assured her. “I like firefighting, but ambulance work is fascinating, too. Getting to ride as an assistant aboard Ambulance 33 really got me thinking about it. I don’t know if I’d make it a career, though. My family would probably prefer a higher-end job for m-“

Suddenly, all three of them heard the sound of screams, followed by three loud thuds in quick succession and the sound of crunching metal and a loud boom. All three of them got up as Yui said, “Grab your gear and see what the Hell that was. I’m calling it in.”

“Got it,” Shiori said as she and Tomoko raced to their lockers and put their gear on.

Yui meanwhile raced to the radio room and got a window to what had happened outside, or at least what she thought happened. She saw a car had hit a pole out in front of the firehouse, and the driver was not out of the vehicle at all. “Harukawa Fire Brigade to dispatch,” she called over the radio.

“Go ahead,” replied a dispatcher.

“We just had a car crash into a pole outside our fire station and I think the driver’s trapped,” Yui explained. “Dispatch the fire brigade and the fire department to this location for an accident with possible entrapment. I’ll get you further info when I start investigating.”

“Received. Accident with possible entrapment in front of the Harukawa Fire Brigade fire station at 2210 hours.”

Yui then ran out and grabbed her gear as the fire brigade began to get dispatched as she had requested. She kicked her shoes off and threw on her boots before pulling them up and grabbing her coat and helmet, not even putting them on before she ran outside to see what had happened. As she left the building, the siren began to go off, and she yelled to Tomoko and Shiori over its loud wail as she put fire gloves on, “Hey guys, what do we have?!”

“The driver’s stuck in the car,” Tomoko explained. “I can’t get the door to open, and he’s not really moving around a lot!”

“I can’t find any wires taken down,” Shiori also added. “So at least we don’t have to worry about that. I’m gonna go grab cones and flares to shut the road down.”

“Got it, thank you!” Yui then ran over as she put her coat and helmet on, joining Tomoko as they tried to pry open the car door with their gloved hands while Shiori went back to the firehouse. She yelled into the wrecked car, “Sir, can you hear us?! Hey, are you alright?!”

“I’m, uh…” The driver then looked around and began to panic. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, no! No, no no!” He flung open the door, almost hitting Shiori in the process, and stumbled out despite clearly having a broken arm.

“Sir, stay put,” Yui told him. “Your right arm is broken, and you’re gonna hurt it more if you move!”

“Them! It’s them!”

“Huh?” Yui then turned around, and what she saw when she did immediately chilled her to the bone. As she froze in place, her eyes focused on the mangled body of a woman lying in the street, while the headless body of a young child was just a few feet away. Then, she saw that two halves of the same dog the woman had been presumably walking were also strewn about on the road, while the blood of all three had left streaks on not only the road, but the car that had hit them, too.

As Shiori came out with flares and cones, Yui let out a scream of despair before running over to the bodies, trying to see if there was anything she could do. “Oh my God,” Shiori exclaimed as she dropped her road closure equipment and raced over to help Yui out. “Yui-san, what happened?!”

As Taichi, who was just a driver at this point and had not yet become chief again, ran over after putting his gear on in the firehouse, he yelled out to the girls, “What happened?! What was that scream?!”

Yui pointed at the dead dog in the road as she was bent down assessing the woman and yelled, “There!”

Taichi took one look at the bloody mess from the impact and muttered to himself, “Holy shit…”

Yui felt for a pulse with un-gloved hands, having taken off her fire gloves, but found nothing when she checked the woman’s wrists or her neck. It was obvious that the woman was deceased, as was her child and the dog she was with. As more volunteer firefighters descended on the horrid accident scene, the sirens of the paid firefighters from down the road plus police cars grew ever closer while Yui got up and put her gloves back on, taking a deep breath and stepping away since this was now a crime scene.

…

Present, September 5, 2023

Tomoko had just finished a student council meeting and was talking with Keiko in the council’s meeting room afterwards. “I got a few minutes to kill before I have to head over to the firehouse. We got a fire prevention event scheduled for tonight.”

“The monthly walk?”

“Precisely,” Tomoko nodded. “We got about fifteen of the brigade’s members to sign up this time, which is roughly average. It’s a fun little activity, but honestly, it’s not super necessary these days.”

“Not all traditions are super necessary,” Keiko pointed out. “But we do them anyway for one reason or another.”

Tomoko then felt her phone vibrate with a text. As she pulled it out to read it, her jaw dropped. “No fucking way,” she blurted out loud, startling the other members of the student council.

“What’s up?”

“The Vice Principal applied to join the fire brigade,” Tomoko replied to Keiko in disbelief. “Apparently they found a completely filled-out application packet in the mailbox with her name and signature on it.”

“Wait a minute,” she then asked Tomoko as she remembered something about the Vice Principal of the academy. “Wasn’t she a student firefighter a long time ago?!”

“She was, but I thought she burned those bridges by backing the plan to disband the program, even with her last-minute decision to switch sides.” Tomoko sighed and explained, “Look, I know she changed her mind, but some people in our fire brigade are still hurt by the fact she originally backed the plan. I don’t know what she’s able to do to win them back. Hoshizora-san in particular was really angry at her, so she might reject her attempt to get back in.”

…

Later at the firehouse, everyone present was talking about Noriko reapplying to the brigade. “I can’t believe she did this,” Taichi remarked to Fumio, Kana, and Yui. “I mean, she’s got the training from long ago, but still…”

“I want to accept her back, but…” Kana was still hurt by the fact Noriko had initially turned her back on them. “I don’t know, Chief. What she did still stings.”

“I understand, but she did save the Student Firefighter Program,” Yui pointed out. “And she even put her own job on the line. That’s something you don’t normally see. Going against the grain like that, especially when it’s against your boss, takes balls.”

“I mean,” Fumio then also pointed out. “She still has to get interviewed by the officers of the fire brigade. We’ll definitely ask her about what motivated her to switch sides and then come back.”

“Agreed,” Taichi and Kana said in unison.

Meanwhile, Shiori and Ayumi were talking near Utility 35, both of them dressed up in their blue and orange uniforms, about Naoko’s absence. “She just said she was busy without actually getting into detail why?”

“Yep,” Ayumi nodded to Shiori. “No explanation besides that. I decided not to be nosy and press it.”

“That’s fair. People that do that are assholes, anyway.”

“Speaking of people being nosy,” Ayumi then said as she got quieter. “Has anyone pestered you about being, well…?”

Shiori whispered back, “Being gay?”

“Yeah, that.”

“No one’s asked. Occasionally, I’ll get asked if I’m getting a boyfriend, but I just say I’m too busy for that, which… Well, I mean, I kinda am too busy to date someone.”

“I’m telling you,” Ayumi advised her with a pat on the shoulder. “Eventually, you gotta tell the guys you’re gay, Shiori-senpai. What if you do get a girlfriend one day? You can’t hide it forever.”

Shiori got quiet and sighed, knowing in her head that Ayumi was right. She thought to herself, “She’s right, but… Fuck, I don’t know how they’ll react. My parents are fine with it, the people I’m close to are fine with it, but still… I’m still afraid they’ll reject me.”

“Shiori-senpai?”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” she replied, snapping out of her thoughts. “I got lost in my own world, that’s all.”

…

Shortly after, the brigade took out Utility 35 and Mini-Pumper 32 with a total of thirteen firefighters, plus both of the chiefs in their own cars, to do a patrol around the village, with another six firefighters coming later to swap out with people for more patrols. This was a tradition that dated back to the hikeshi, or the Japanese volunteer firefighters of the Edo period, and was still conducted in many communities to this day. Although the technology was different and the buildings generally no longer made of wood, the idea remained the same as it had for centuries.

The firefighters would get out of their trucks and walk along the streets at night, clanking hyoshigi and shouting out warnings for the local residents to prevent fires. While they were usually done only in the winter months, some places did them year-round, such as Harukawa, which conducted one patrol per month in warmer weather and two patrols per month in colder weather, with the winter patrols often involving other members of the community who were not firefighters too. The secondary objectives of these patrols was to also get apparatus staffed in case a call occurred during the patrols as well as to act as a neighborhood watch to prevent crime.

In the neighborhood of the village immediately next to the sea, Tomoko, Yui, and Ayumi were all part of the group on Utility 35, and as they walked along the dimly-lit streets in bright yellow vests and orange work helmets, the three of them plus two other firefighters all chanted, “Watch for fire! Watch for fire! Watch for fire!” Tomoko and Yui held hyoshigi, while the other three held orange traffic wands. The fire engine, meanwhile, stayed close behind them, going slowly down the narrow streets of the oldest part of Harukawa.

At one point, Yui broke from the original chant after clanking her hyoshigi by saying, “Just one match can cause a big fire!”

Tomoko soon joined her as well. “Just one match can cause a big fire!”

They all then heard the ambulance from the paid fire station in the village begin to approach them. Hiro, one of the two other firefighters with them, remarked, “Well, that means we’re on the hook if there’s a second medical in town.”

“At least it’ll be a fast response,” Yui pointed out. “Did you hear what the call was anyway?”

“No,” Hiro replied. “I had my radio tuned to a talk-around channel.”

“It’s for an old man with abdominal pain,” Shiori then replied, holding out her pager. “I had my pager turned up so I could hear calls come in.”

They all then saw the ambulance go past them on the main road, which intersected with the small street they were on up ahead. Yui then turned and realized they were passing the convenience store Rentaro worked at. Getting curious, she asked the others, “Wanna see if Rentar-?” She then stopped, realizing she had used his first name and potentially given away that she was in a relationship with him. “I mean… Do you wanna see if Nojima-kun is at work?”

“Sure, but…” Hiro, getting curious, asked Yui, “Did you almost call him by his first name?”

“I mean, well,” Yui replied while attempting and failing to give a poker face. “I’ve known him for a while, and he’s a friend of mine, so, why not?”

“I don’t know,” Shiori then pointed out. “That can be a sign a girl is dating someone, Yui-chan.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Yui jokingly replied back. “I’m not dating anyone. I’m too busy for that between the diving shop and the fire brigade.”

Hiro then pointed out the convenience store Rentaro worked at. “It’s right up there. Let’s pay him a visit.”

At the front of the store, Rentaro was typing in the prices of two packs of cigarettes an old man was purchasing. “Alright, it comes out to 1600 yen.”

“Here you go,” replied the old man as he passed two banknotes to Rentaro before taking the packs. “Have a good day.”

“Same to you.”

Then, Yui, Shiori, Hiro, and Tomoko all walked into the store. The old man turned around, remarking to the four firefighters, “I see you guys are out on patrol.”

“Yep,” Hiro replied, recognizing the man. “Doing the usual. Remember, just one match can cause a big fire, Yamaguchi-san.”

“I’ve been hearing that phrase for all seventy-seven years of my life, Okubo-san. Of course, some people hear it for years on end and still do something stupid with fire.”

“Trust me,” Hiro replied with a chuckle. “We know how stupid people can be. We wouldn’t exist without stupidity.”

While Hiro and the old man kept talking, Yui and Rentaro got to talking at the front counter. “So, how’s work?”

“Going good,” he replied before yawning. “It’s deader than a doornail here. That old man Okubo-san’s talking to was my first customer in over half an hour.”

“Really? Usually it’s pretty busy around this time.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.” He then sighed and looked out the windows to the rest of the guys in the brigade walking around. “I wish I could be out there with you guys tonight. Oh well.”

“You’re not missing much,” Yui assured him. “It’s just the usual. Nothing too exciting today.”

“That’s fair.” Rentaro then leaned in and whispered, “Does anyone know about us yet?”

“No,” she replied in a similarly-hushed tone. “But some people are starting to ask questions.”

“Have you thought about just telling the truth?”

“I mean…” Yui then sighed. “I don’t know. Look, when I’m ready, we’ll tell them, okay?” She then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. “I gotta go. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Rentaro blurted out quickly. As the group left the store together, he looked on and thought about his relationship with Yui. “I want to tell others,” he thought to himself. “But I know I’d get some shit for it, not to mention the ire I’d get from my own captain. I know we’re only a year apart, but there’s that worry that some people still won’t like it since she’s a third-year and I graduated high school already. Besides, Yui clearly isn’t ready to go public yet.”

…

September 8, 2023

In the middle of the day, Rumiko was eating lunch with Sumire and another girl in her class named Miyako Kirishima as they were talking about their day so far plus the fire brigade. “So you guys can actually go into fires now?”

“Correct,” Sumire nodded. “If your house catches fire, we’ll be able to head on in and put it out.” Realizing that that sounded wrong, she assured the girl, “I mean, uh, I don’t want your house to catch fire. I hope it doesn’t happen, but, like, if it does, we can go in.”

“I get what you mean,” the girl assured her with a chuckle. “But isn’t that scary, though? Fire’s dangerous.”

Rumiko admitted, “I mean… Yeah? It is scary, but it’s a lot less scary when you’re with people you can trust.”

“I’ve given it some thought, but I don’t know if I could go inside a fire.”

“You don’t have to,” Sumire assured her. “You can stay outside, Miyako-chan. Only half of our brigade is actually certified to go inside burning buildings. The other half fights fires from the outside. There’s still some danger, but it’s not as dangerous as what we do.”

“So, can you guys just leave school whenever you want if there’s a fire?”

“Not necessarily,” Rumiko replied. “We only can do it for certain fires, and we still have to make up the work we miss. Even then, we don’t have to go.”

Then, Miyako looked out to the horizon and noticed something in the sky. “Hey, what’s that?”

“Huh?”

Sumire looked out with Rumiko and then saw what Miyako had seen. “Hey, is that smoke, Rumiko-chan?”

“It’s… Black smoke,” Rumiko worryingly remarked as she packed up her bento box and stuffed it in her bookbag. “That doesn’t look good.”

“I’m right behind you,” Sumire added as she also packed her bento box away. “Miyako-chan, we may have to go to that.”

Surprised, Miyako asked, “Wait, right now?!”

“That’s something that we’d be allowed to leave school for. We might as well get going now.” As the two girls ran out of the classroom, they anticipated whether or not the brigade would get called. “Let’s see if we’ll go to thi-“

Then, the siren at the fire brigade’s station began to go off right as both of the girls sprinted down the hallway. Rumiko remarked, “There it is!”

…

About nine minutes later, Engine 31 pulled up to a fully-involved car fire in the village. Because the entirety of the paid fire station in the village was out on another call, the volunteers were the first to arrive. Additionally, neither of their chiefs had responded, meaning that the crew of the engine would be the first firefighters to arrive. Rumiko and Sumire were already masked up and ready to go when the engine stopped, and as both jumped out, Michio told them, “Go with Yui-san and roll out three lengths! Rumiko-san, take the nozzle!”

“Got it,” Rumiko replied as she quickly opened up a cabinet and rolled out a roll of hose before grabbing a nozzle and running over to connect it to her end of the hose. She then connected the low-pressure hose of her mask to her regulator and began to breathe pack air as Sumire and Yui finished rolling out the last of the hose and connecting it. “I’m ready on the nozzle!”

“Proceed, Rumiko-chan,” Yui commanded her as she began to get a partner saw ready with Michio. Once it was running, she signalled to the driver of the engine with her index finger and yelled, “Charge the line for them! They’re ready!”

Within seconds, Rumiko felt a slight kick as water filled the hose. She and Sumire then moved closer to the burning car before the former took a deep breath and pulled back on the bale, letting water flow from the nozzle. The fire immediately began to darken down as smoke and steam billowed from the blackened body. She told Sumire, “Move in! Move in!” As they moved in as close as they could, Rumiko began applying water to the steering column, immediately creating a flurry of sparks from the burning magnesium. This startled her for a second before she refocused on the fire in front of her. She asked Sumire behind her, “Back me up more!”

“I got you,” Sumire replied. Michio then walked over to the duo as he hooked his low-pressure hose in, prompting Sumire to tell him, “We’re all good here, Lieutenant!”

“I got Yui-san coming up with a saw,” he replied while pointing at the hood. “We’re gonna open it up and hit the fire in the engine.” He then smiled and remarked, “How’s your first time on a hose for a real fire, girls?”

“I feel great,” Rumiko assured him as the burning magnesium finally began to die down. “The magnesium startled me a bit, though.”

“It scared the shit out of you,” Sumire pointed out.

“It happens,” Michio assured her. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep applying a lot of water.” As they continued to put the fire out, Mini-Pumper 32 pulled up on the scene to assist, prompting him to tell the girls, “I gotta talk to the guys on the Mini-Pumper. I’ll be back!” By now, most of the fire had been put out, but some fire remained in the engine compartment.

Yui then walked over with the partner saw, telling the girls, “I’m gonna start cutting! Be careful!” She revved up the saw and then sank it into a corner of the hood, sending sparks everywhere as she made her cut. When she was finished, she took the blade out and moved to the other side of the car to make a second cut. The loudness of the blade slicing through metal pierced the air as a small crowd of several onlookers watched from a safe distance. Once the second cut was made and Yui set the saw down, the sixth firefighter on Engine 31 approached with a Halligan bar, prying open the hood and helping Yui place it on the ground, exposing the engine. “There you go, girls!”

Tomoko, who had come late on Mini-Pumper 32 and did not have a pack on, watched the proceedings as she placed cones around the site to help the police block the road. She smiled as she watched her sister fight her first real fire, thinking to herself, “She’s doing a good job, just like I thought she would.”