Secondary

The rules were pretty simple. If you were friends with someone, you called them by just their first name. If you didn’t, you called them “Comrade.” You did this even if you weren’t their comrade or didn’t like them. The teachers- you could call them comrade, or comrade-sensei. You never used English loanwords, but you could use Russian ones if you wanted. Other than that, it wasn’t too much different than the South.

My self-introduction as “Ichiro Shelley” caused a few murmurs in class 2-B, but not any major commotion. I had dialed back my terrible fake Hokkaido accent a bit, but I tried to avoid sounding too much like a Tokyo native. The Northerners spoke differently, but compared to Osaka, it wasn’t that much different. Class resumed after a short break to handle the introduction. I was seated in the back, away from the windows.

It was math class- this would be easy, at least. History class might take a bit more work to catch up to, given that it would no doubt be recounting events through a distinctly socialist lens. Even Modern Japanese might be difficult to adjust to- the Northerners used a lot of simplified kanji for very common words. I could probably pass off my use of the more traditional characters as just being the way we did things out in the Hokkaido countryside, but it would be difficult to follow along. What I dreaded most was the inevitable Russian language class- I didn’t know a single word more complex than “Da.”

I wasn’t here to study, though. I only needed to keep the facade up long enough to- what was I here to do? Talk to Ayasa? Bring her back with me? That would all have to wait until I could confirm her feelings- and mine. To do that, I needed to get closer to her. A direct approach was off limits. “Comrade Okazaki” had made that pretty clear.

Was her name really “Ayasa Okazaki?” She was still responding to Ayasa, but nobody seemed to think it strange to call her “Okazaki.” I thought back to when she had first introduced herself as Higashiyama. She had struggled- if only for a second- to find that name. It made sense. She knew I had given her a fake name, and she had responded in kind. Ayasa Higashiyama had never existed before that night.

That didn’t really matter now. I had to find a way closer to her. Fortunately, my luck had held- class 2-D was home to one Elisaveta Ivanovna - “Erisabe,” as the students in the class called her. She was one of the two friends Ayasa had mentioned in the few times she talked about her life before crossing the wall.

Erisabe didn’t look half-Russian. No, except for the color of her eyes, nothing about her appearance suggested any foreign ancestry at all. She was a little taller than most of the girls in the class- taller than Ayasa, even- but not so tall as to stand out. She wore her hair at shoulder length - longer than most of the girls in the class, who mostly resorted to identical short bob cuts. In that way, she stood out a little.

When class was dismissed, Erisabe quickly left. I had no idea what the schedule looked like, but Saturdays apparently had a long afternoon free period for club activities. I followed her out, being careful not to get too close, too soon.

Erisabe made her way over to the Gymnasium, but turned to go around back instead of inside. She was the only one going out this way. I followed her around back, peeking around the corner. She unlocked a small shed attached to the Gymnasium and went inside.

That was it. This was the best chance to contact her. If she really was Ayasa’s friend, she’d have a way of getting a message through. First, I had to confirm that- what if there were two Erisabes here?

“Oh. Are you here to join the team, transfer student?”

Erisabe noticed me instantly as I opened the creaky door to the shed.

“The- the team?”

She spun around. She was holding a large rifle in her hands- well polished blued metal sitting in a brightly varnished wooden stock. I jumped back a little. I had never seen one this close. It was a little threatening.

“The competitive rifle team. I’m Elisaveta, the team captain.”

“Oh…no, I was…is that a Kalashnikov?”

Hiroki’s rantings had gotten the better of me. Erisabe looked down at the rifle she was holding.

“This? No, it’s an SKS. We don’t use the Kalashnikov on the target team. It’s not a very good target rifle. This one can at least be made accurate enough. If you’re starting out, though, everyone has to use the rimfire training rifles first.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I’m not here to join.”

Erisabe frowned.

“That’s a shame. I hear Hokkaido has many great target teams. I was hoping you or the other transfer student might have some experience. We don’t get transfer students from that far north often.”

Erisabe turned back and started to disassemble the rifle she was holding, wiping each part down with rags.

“So?”

“Uh…so?”

“If you’re not here to join the target team, why did you follow me out here?”

Crap. I had been able to sneak past dozens of soldiers last night, but that didn’t make me an expert in not being seen. Oh well. There was only one answer.

“It’s about Ayasa.”

She paused, still holding the disassembled bolt from the SKS in the oily rag she was using to clean it.

“Comrade Okazaki, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Then why talk to me, transfer student?”

“I heard you were her friend.”

“From who?”

“Ayasa.”

She set the bolt down on the table.

“Are you friends with her?”

“In a way. She showed me around earlier.”

It was still too early to reveal the whole truth. Erisabe couldn’t yet be trusted.

“I see.”

That was a distressingly closed-form reply. Whatever was going on, she didn’t want to elaborate.

“Are you her friend?”

“I guess so. What’s this about? If you’re thinking of confessing, don’t bother. Okazaki won’t accept.”

“Wh- no, no- that’s not what-”

Erisabe stared at me.

“Then what?”

“I wanted to talk to her. In private.”

She went back to polishing the rifle.

“That so?”

“Yes. It’s very important. I need to find a place where we can talk- alone. I was hoping you knew how to get her there.”

Erisabe slammed her palm down on the workbench.

“Transfer student. I don’t know what you want with Okazaki, but I’ve gotta warn you. Don’t get too close to her.”

I was expecting that she might react like this. It was clear to me by now that Ayasa was in some kind of danger, but from what? And was Erisabe trying to protect her- or me?

“Why not?”

“Okazaki is a special case. She missed a lot of school lately.”

“And that’s a reason to stay away?”

Erisabe eyed me with suspicion.

“Yeah. You don’t want to be associated with that. Especially with all the rumors flying around.”

“What rumors?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I really need to talk with her.”

Erisabe sighed, then walked over to a desk sitting at the corner of a shed. She tore something out of a large bound notebook., then wrote something down.

“Here.”

It was something that looked like an address.

“This is…”

“Okazaki’s house. Only go there between the hours of six and seven in the evening.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask me that sort of question. You won’t like the answer.”

Erisabe went back to her work. I went for the door. The conversation was clearly over.

“Transfer student. If you are who I think you are…”

“Huh?”

“No. Never mind. Just keep your head down.”

Was everyone in the North always this cryptic?

I met Hiroki on the roof after classes were done for the day.

“Find anything, Nishizawa?”

“Ayasa’s home address. That’s it.”

“Oh? You talked to her again?”

“No. Her friend gave it to me.”

“Hmm? Why not just meet somewhere else? If she’s being watched, her home is definitely going to be a key target.”

“It’s because she’s being watched. If she goes somewhere unusual…”

Hiroki nodded along.

“Ah, yeah. That would be trouble.”

“Did you find anything, Taniguchi?”

“Nothing relating to Ayasa, no. But, I did find something else interesting. There’s a computer with a Zvesdisk player in the lab.”

“Zvesdisk? Oh, that was the thing Kanamaru-”

Hiroki pulled a translucent case out from under his uniform. The label read “K-1104.”

“You brought that thing with you?”

“Where else was I gonna find a player? If it’s a piece of junk, we can just throw it out.”

“Is that really important right now?”

“I figured I might as well solve that mystery now. If it’s information worth anything, it’s not gonna last forever.”

“Alright. But we have bigger problems.”

Hiroki’s sly smile broke up.

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters: where are we going to sleep?”