A Free Lunch

Shinya had a hunch that the murderer hadn’t stuck around. Usually, a killer tries to make his exit as soon as he can, hiding out of town, preferably out of the country. If he escaped from the Island, Shinya couldn’t follow; the only option left was to look inland. He had never really thought to explore beyond the city. His concrete cage seemed big enough to explore, and frankly he didn’t feel comfortable being exposed somewhere unfamiliar anyway. Beyond the city limits, he saw rows and rows of rice fields, terraced in the hills and deep in the valley. He saw buses depart from port into the rural hinterlands of the Island, and return with heaps of rice in straw bags. Shinya hadn’t bothered buying a rice cooker yet, mainly eating the junk food imported from the mainland rather than local produce since he didn’t know how to cook. He had become so accustomed to his poor diet he didn’t realize how fertile this land is, producing rice at record pace. Maybe that was just another cosmic irony in his life: here he was, trusted with nothing more than being a pack mule, breaking his back while the murderer was making bank farming. He swallowed his indignation and boarded the local line, starting his amateur investigation.

His initial impressions of the nearest village were not remarkable: it looked like most rural Japanese villages you could find around the country; after leaving the station, roads connected the local houses with fields next to their property. The difference was the people: there was a mixed group, some old folk likely priced off their land by developers and given a second chance here, but also young people, in their 40s, 30s, 20s, even children running about playing with each other and messing with the adults. This was a village with signs of growth instead of shrinking: even on that day, Shinya saw a family move into a new house, as if built especially for them. The fields were filled with more than rice: squash, fresh fruits, greens, and almost any imaginable crop filled the fields of this young village. He’d hazard to say the mood was hopeful, that opportunity and change were on the horizon. Staring at this family, he realized he hadn’t seen a single construction worker on this island. People were constantly moving in, there was room for expansion, and yet he didn’t see a single construction company set up shop here. The Construction Conglomerates would be salivating at a contract like this, so their absence seemed even stranger. It’s not like new buildings weren’t erected; he saw them all the time. Yet it occurred to him now that in his whole time here he’d only seen empty lots, and finished buildings: nothing in between. How could they be built so quickly?

Shinya ran his hand along the side of the wall, thoughtlessly inspecting the building as his mind wandered. Smooth drywall became coarse, as his eyes shot to a glaring defect: a portion of the wall covered in tiny, porous holes stacked atop each other. It was no material he had seen in his life, but it carried a passing familiarity. More importantly, it looked cheap. Flimsy. Were all our houses made of this crap? Were they even earthquake-proof! Half a dozen eyes bored into him as he saw the small family stare at him in dismay. He pointed to the holes on their wall, thinking it would explain itself. Instead, he was pointing at a pristine facade. Was he going crazy? He didn’t want to test that theory, so he escaped the village before they reported him as a stalker.