Low-speed Collision

“What school do you go to, Nishizawa?”

It was the first question Ayasa had asked me in something like half an hour. We were sitting in the shade of a big cherry tree in the park, though it had by now long lost its spring color. The first fifteen minutes of the move under the canopy had gone well, but had only consisted of some light conversation about Southern pop bands that were popular a few years ago. After that was a long, long silence. Ayasa was on this side of the wall, but even though I had managed to get her to view me as something beyond the source of all her recent troubles, there was still a barrier between us. Of course there was- she was a Northerner and I was a Southerner. Was there even anything we had in common besides our coincidental taste in music?

Eight hours is far too long for a first date, or even a first hanging-out-together-but-not-dating-period. I was completely out of conversation topics. Ayasa broke the silence a few times with questions, but they were usually the kind that didn’t require anything more than a single word response. The evening sun was now filtering through the branches and I still couldn’t think of a single thing to ask.

Well, I could, but none of them seemed particularly appropriate for the situation. Hiroki had said a lot of things about the military situation in the North, but what would a high schooler know about it? Come to think of it, was Ayasa even a high schooler? I had assumed since meeting her the night before that she was the same person I had watched through the window every 6th period, but the more and more I looked at her, the less and less like that girl she seemed.

“Akiba North. It’s a public school.”

A glint of recognition seemed to flash across her face- but it just as quickly vanished.

“Oh.”

It felt like this was going to be the start of another long silence.

“What grade level?”

Ayasa pre-empted the pause, apparently not satisfied to slip into another thirty minutes of waiting around.

“Freshman.”

“Hmm? Do they do that differently here?”

“Do what, grades? I’m a first year in high school.”

Ayasa pondered this for a few seconds.

“In the North, it’s 6 years in secondary school. You’d be a…fourth year, then?”

6 years sounded like far too many years to put in a single school building. If the North shoved middle school and high school into the same program, though, Ayasa’s math would check out.

“I guess so. Did you start calculus this year or last year?”

Ayasa gave a concerned look.

“Huh?”

Oh Crap. My question presupposed that she was a high schooler too- but that wasn’t anything I had actually verified. What if she really was a college-aged girl? She had made me for a high schooler right away. I didn’t stand a chance if that’s what was actually going on.

“Oh. You, uh, looked like you were a high schooler too.”

I realized that was probably the wrong thing to say a little too late to prevent the words from slipping out of my mouth. Any mature, college-aged girl would probably pitch a fit at being compared to a high school girl.

“No, I am in secondary school. 5th year.”

Huh? She was an upperclassman?

“Oh. So you’re ol-”

I stopped myself from saying older than me just in time. I don’t know why, but I really didn’t like the thought of Ayasa being older than I was.

“-so you’re a second year, then. Or that’s what you’d be in the South.”

Well, she was in the South.

“That sounds right. We started calculus this year.”

Something about that didn’t sound right-

A loud screeching of tires interrupted us. Then, a thunk and the sound of glass shattering. A car accident?

I stood up, looking for the source of the sound. Sure enough, it was a car accident. A little olive-colored military jeep had skidded into a telephone pole on the side of the street at the edge of the park. Judging by the red stars, it was Soviet. Two soldiers stumbled out from the side to inspect the damage. It didn’t look like anybody had been hit.

“What’s going on-”

Ayasa stopped, staring at the jeep intensely. I attempted to explain.

“Soviets. It happens a lot.”

It did happen a lot, enough to not even be a newsworthy item except on a very slow news day. Like the Americans, the Soviet soldiers had the run of the city. Apparently, the partition treaty allowed them to visit the South only on official business- but since the treaty had never actually defined what “official business” was, they had interpreted it to mean “getting drunk in Ginza and causing car accidents on the way back.” There were even businesses- so called “Katyusha bars”- that catered to them. A few years ago, a particularly nasty incident had killed an elementary schooler and her mother, causing a massive media frenzy and outrage against the soldiers, who had gotten off with only a traffic fine. It didn’t matter. As far as the treaty was concerned, they were above the law.

Ayasa was frozen stiff.

“Are they around in the North, too?”

“Huh? Oh, no… not really. There are… MP patrols, a few times a day.”

Something was off. Ayasa was way too much on edge over this.

“They’re not after you.”

They definitely were not after Ayasa. This sort of thing happened too frequently for that.

“Oh.”

That didn’t seem to calm her down too much. She was still watching the soldiers as they attempted to wheel the jeep back from the pole- to little avail.

“They probably just had a few too many.”

The memorial park was close enough to the route between Ginza and Checkpoint Dog - the border checkpoint reserved specifically for soldiers. It was back up in Akiba, a few blocks distant from the school. Watching out for drunken Russian soldiers was a well-known hazard for the people that lived in Akiba.

The sirens of a police cruiser rounded the corner. An officer stepped out of the car and approached the soldiers with a disapproving glare. We were standing a few dozen meters away, but we could feel the tension as he stepped towards the soldiers.

“Oh boy. This won’t be pretty.”

It usually was not. I had seen this event play out in person once before, a few years ago. Ayasa was still paralyzed, watching the interaction but saying nothing.

It was hard to hear, but the Officer was trying his best English to demand the Soldiers produce their identity documents. The Russian was likewise responding in English with the canned phrase “I wish to speak with an American military officer.” This back and forth continued with little progress- and a significant degradation of the quality of the English used by both parties.

“What’s he doing?”

Ayasa seemed to have recovered from her fear by watching this farce.

“The Soviet soldiers won’t answer to anyone but an American.”

“Is he- the policeman- trying to arrest them?”

“I guess. It’s pretty hopeless, though.”

More police cruisers rounded the corner, forming a cordon around the crashed jeep. The officers got out of their cars but didn’t get closer. They kept the doors open to form a wall around the scene.

“I’ve never seen anyone act like that in front of them. The Soviet troops.”

“Do they get drunk and crash in the North, too?”

“Sometimes, but I’ve never seen it.”

The police officer and the leader of the soldiers were now engaged in a shouting match. The message was still the same- the policeman demanded the Soviet show his papers, and the Soviet demanded to speak to an American. A small crowd of spectators was now gathering behind the police cars.

“Are there a lot of them in the North?”

Ayasa turned back to me, blinking a few times.

“Soviets? Not usually. There have been a lot more recently, though.”

“Oh? What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. It’s never a good idea to ask about that.”

Huh. That was news to me. Maybe Hiroki might know more about it.

“Hmm.”

A camouflaged truck rounded the corner. The white lettering on the side marked it as belonging to the Tokyo Garrison Military Police - the Americans had finally shown up. A sunglassed officer stepped out of the truck and approached the bickering pair. Now it was a three-way argument. The Soviet soldier refused to even look in the direction of the policeman, who was working himself up into a furor. The American officer tried to mediate between the two with no success.

“We should go.”

Ayasa looked at me, curious as to what had prompted this.

“Why?”

“There’ll be news cameras here any second. We should probably stay off that. Remember what Miho said?”

“Try to keep a low profile. Yes, I remember.”

“Let’s go back to her place. It’s probably late enough.”

The evening sun was still shining through the canopy. If we walked back, it’d be close enough to eight.

Miho lived in a house large enough to be separated into its own block. I had been here a few times in middle school, but it was still a little daunting. I hovered in front of the detached doorbell, not pushing the button. What if someone other than Miho picked up? Her family knew who I was and probably knew about what our relationship had been. It would be awkward just showing up out of the blue again.

“Touma. I thought I said after Eight. It’s 7:23.”

Miho was behind us, wheeling a bike to her front gate.

“Oh. Sorry, there was trouble at the park. We had to leave early.”

Miho sighed.

“Well, it’s close enough.”

She flipped a key fob out of her pocket, placing it next to the electronic reader on the gate. it swung open.

“You go on ahead, Higashiyama.”

Ayasa nodded and walked in the door, apparently sensing that Miho wanted to speak with me- and just me.

“So? Did you find a place for her?”

Miho paced back and forth in front of the gate, which was being propped open with her bicycle.

“Shinji’s giving up his apartment to her, for the time being.”

Miho gave an even longer, more exasperated sigh, supporting her head with her hand.

“Touma, you really need to learn some boundaries. I thought you said he had a spare?”

“He did. He doesn’t anymore.”

“You impose on your friends too much.”

“I- He- Shiniji volunteered to do that!”

Miho leaned against the gate, arms folded.

“Shinji might be a nice guy, but it’s still an imposition you forced on him. Don’t be that kind of scumbag that makes his friends do all the heavy lifting.”

“It’s only temporary. Shinji wanted to see his family more, anyway.”

Okay, that last part was my addition. I had no idea if Hiroki was really feeling homesick or not.

“Temporary? How long is temporary?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. Miho stood up again and walked towards my face. It was close. Too close.

“Touma. Sooner or later you’re going to have to figure out a plan here. A real plan, not some temporary arrangement. This was your responsibility. Higashiyama doesn’t have anyone else.”

Miho produced a stack of papers- I’m not sure from where- and shoved them hard into my chest. I couldn’t see them that well in the fading light, but they looked official.

“What’s…?”

“Read those. All of those. I did some digging.”

“Digging?”

“Did you even consider Higashiyama’s situation? She could be in a lot of trouble if you do things the wrong way.”

I had considered the consequences of going back. Ayasa had made it clear- going back meant disappearing. But I hadn’t really considered the consequences of staying. I’m pretty sure there were laws against just showing up one day in the country unannounced. If Ayasa ran afoul of those, then there really wasn’t anywhere she could go.

“Touma. This is something you have to do. You could be a little grateful that your friend has given you a head-start.”

“Thanks, Miho.”

Miho turned away from me. I couldn’t see what kind of face she was making. I didn’t need to, though. It was clear just from the tone of her voice.

“Idiot. I didn’t do this for your sake.”

She was lying.