Over the Wall

Jumping between the balconies was harder than it looked. It must have been two or three meters between them. I managed to land with a roll. Erisabe gave me a nod, then shut the door behind her. Only one way forward, now.

The curtain was drawn over the sliding glass door. Ayasa’s room was on the other side. This was no time to get self-conscious. There wasn’t any time left for that. I knocked with a rapid tap. For a few seconds, there was no response.

Then, there was a tiny crack in the curtain. Ayasa’s face was peeking out halfway, revealing one eye- wide open with shock. She cracked the door open a little, and with a trembling voice, told me what I was expecting.

“You…you can’t be here…”

“It’s okay. Let me in”

She didn’t budge.

“Your friend- she turned off the microphones.”

“Erisabe did…?”

“Yeah. We only have a few minutes.”

Ayasa waited a moment, then cracked the door open wider. I slipped in. She shut it behind us and drew the curtain closed again.

“Why did… why did you come back?”

Her voice was still wavering.

“Because we didn’t finish.”

“Finish…what?”

“Before you left…you told me to ‘figure out the rest myself.’ I’m here for the final piece of the puzzle.”

That sounded cool. Way too cool for this situation. I didn’t think Ayasa would be in the mood to-

Ow. Something had just hit my cheek- Ayasa’s palm? She slapped me!

“You IDIOT!”

Ayasa threw her arms around me, pinning me to the wall. I got a good look at her room- it was sparsely decorated, but there were a few things of note. A corkboard with some notes on it. A writing desk with a textbook open, and a few medals and awards on top of a small shelf. Nothing else. It bothered me, but not as much as not seeing Ayasa’s face right now. I couldn’t turn that far.

“I’m not the one who disappeared.”

There was a soft sobbing coming from my left- where Ayasa was leaning her head against the wall.

“You can’t stay here…”

“In your room? Yeah, you told me.”

“Don’t be stupid! You can’t stay in the North… If they find out who you are…”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Then why come here? You could get killed!”

“I told you. I’ve almost figured it out. I just needed the last piece.”

“Huh?”

Ayasa stepped back from the wall. She was a mess. Her face was red and swollen with tears. Her new hairstyle was haphazard- I hadn’t noticed the other day, but she had clearly cut it herself, taking all traces of Sayu with it. It was shabby and uneven.

“You.”

“What…me? You know who I am. You know about my situation. Why-”

“You’re right. I do.”

“Then why?”

“Because there’s something I don’t know. I know who you are- more or less. I know why you had to go back. I know why you can’t be seen with me. That’s all as clear as it needs to be. But…”

This was it. What I had been missing, ever since I met her. I had always looked at Ayasa in terms of what I wanted her to be. A replacement for Miho. A new friend. A Sayu Midorikawa, for whatever that was worth- and then, when I had grown dissatisfied of that, a girl who could be honest with her own feelings. All of that was driven by what I believed was right for her. All of that was wrong.

“I want to know what you want.”

“Huh?”

“I want to know if you want to be Ayasa Higashiyama, or Ayasa Okazaki, or maybe even Sayu Midorikawa. Or none of them, or all of them. It doesn’t matter. I just need to know.”

“You want me to make a choice like that? Now?

“I wish I could give you more time. We don’t have that long- only a few minutes. If you like your life now… then let me know. I’ll leave. I won’t come back. I’ll stop putting you in danger…”

Ayasa silently mouthed a “no,” but couldn’t bring herself to vocalize it.

“Or… If you liked being Sayu, or Ayasa- the Ayasa on the other side of the wall, I mean- I’ll support you with everything I’ve got. It doesn’t matter where we have to go. If we have to leave Japan, so be it. I’ll be there for you. I keep my promises. Well, I'll try to, anyway.”

She stood there in silence for a few moments.

“And if I don’t want to be either?”

“Then I’ll support your decision, however I can.”

“You came all this way to tell me that?”

“I guess I did.”

Ayasa turned and walked towards her desk. Her homework was laid open next to the reference textbook. It was a long assignment- she had missed at least a month of class.

“If…”

Ayasa couldn’t finish that question.

“Yeah?”

“If I said…”

I just nodded.

“If I said I wanted to go back - to meet Saijou, and Shinji, and all the other people there…”

I couldn’t finish her question for her.

“If I said I wanted to live like that… like Sayu did… could you help me?”

It was interesting- the way she had worded that question. Not if I would help her, but if I could help her. Her mind was made up already, wasn’t it?

“I can. Shinji is working on a way out. He said he’d try to find space for three people. I can’t guarantee anything, but… If you want to run away again, I’ll stick with you to the end.”

Ayasa stood silent, save for an occasional soft sobbing noise. She looked up at the trophies and medals on that thin shelf above the desk. I could just barely read the largest one now.

“FOR GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC - Awarded to Ayasa Okazaki, March 7th, 2021.”

“It’s worthless. It should have gone to someone else.”

I didn’t have any context for this award.

“Why’d they give it to you, then?”

“They were afraid of me. They all are, now. Even Erisabe and Manaka../”

She ran her finger across the homework assignment. There were notes there- not ones in her handwriting.

“They try their best.”

Erisabe, at least, had been willing to risk a great deal to get me here- even if was only to assuage her own guilt for spying on her friend for some nebulous organization.

“I don’t want to live like this any more.”

Ayasa said this with a sudden resolve.

“Then we should leave.”

It was almost seven. Our time was running out.

“Where to, then?”

“The school. We’ll meet Shinji there, and leave tonight.”

That was only if Hiroki had found an escape.

“Alright. The rest of the house is probably bugged. Don’t talk. We’ll leave out the front door.”

Ayasa was keenly aware that her house wasn’t ever a safe place to talk. She had known Erisabe was informing on her, after all.

We started out the door and down the first set of stairs. Unlike her room, the rest of the house was pretty opulent. A fine chandelier hung in the small entryway of the condominium, and expensive walnut furniture and art was everywhere. All the floors were hardwood. It would have been a billionaire’s house in the south.

“Is anybody else-”

“Shhh!”

Ayasa shushed me. Right, can’t talk here. The walls have ears. It was a straight shot down the stairway. We could talk more at school- at least there, we’d be harder to hear.

Something tingled the hairs on the back of my neck. Something wasn’t right. There were more footsteps than just our own.

The front door creaked open, and a man stepped inside. Horn-rimmed glasses. A dark khaki trenchcoat. I had seen this man before - just recently. He had been the one to administer my impromptu interrogation. He was from the Redeyes- or at least, that’s what Hiroki had thought.

“Ayasa, could you-”

He stopped, seeing both of us on the stairs.

“Dad…”

Huh? That was… her father?

“Ayasa, who is this- I thought I made it clear-”

“Touma. Run.”

Ayasa didn’t wait to hear the end of her father’s lecture. She dashed down the stairs, blowing by him. I followed. The man was a bit too stunned at this sudden disobedience to put up any sort of fight. I chased Ayasa out into the shadowed streets - the sun was almost down.

“Who was that?”

I caught up to her a few hundred meters away. The man was not chasing us, for some unknown reason.

“My father! We have to disappear, now! He’s got men all over the city. It’s only a matter of time before he alerts them all.”

Ayasa started sprinting again after a brief rest. I could barely keep the pace.

“We have to meet Shinji at the school! He’s our way out!”

Ayasa was sprinting in the right direction. She hadn’t forgotten.

We raced through the quiet streets. People were staring. Were any of them her father’s men? Were we about to get stopped at any moment? It would be certain doom if we were. Closer and closer, we wound our way through the industrial tangle that surrounded the school.

Ayasa reached the closed gate first, scrambling over it. I lunged over the brick wall next to it, struggling to pull myself over the crest. Ayasa grabbed hold, pulling me over. We fell with a hard thud onto the concrete courtyard.

“Where is he?”

“Check the nurse’s office!”

Ayasa didn’t bother with the door. There was a small bust- probably of some famous communist- sitting on a plinth about midway through the courtyard. She grabbed the entire statue and chucked it through the ground-floor window of the nurse’s office, shattering it instantly.

“Who was that?”

“He’s not important!”

Hiroki was nowhere to be found - not even cowering under the bed after such a violent entry.

“Shit. Let’s check the computer lab!”

We raced up the stairs to the second floor. The door to the computer lab was open, but nobody was inside. The ancient system was still sitting there, humming along on the boot screen.

“Where did he say to meet him?”

“Just at the school, tonight.”

“Try the roof. He might be around.”

I nearly tripped trying to make it up the two additional flights of stairs, but Ayasa shoved me back on balance. The door to the roof was locked.

“Shit. What now?”

“On three.”

“Do what on three?”

Ayasa answered with a body slam. We shoved through the creaky door with ease, collapsing onto the roof. Ayasa held herself over me.

“Are you okay?”
“Warn me next time…”

I dusted myself off. She could have easily broken through that door by herself. The roof was desolate- it didn’t even have any safety fencing to keep people from falling off.

“Do you see him?”

“No… and we’re out of time.”

Ayasa pointed back towards the front gate. Three black cars had formed a barricade, and half a dozen men were dashing across the courtyard towards us.

“They’re fast.”

“They always are.”

Was it over?

No, there was one last place to look. The wall, on the other side of the building. The roof of the guard tower was only three or four meters away and two meters down. We could make it with a running start. Over the wall- that was the only way. Even if it was crazy.

“Follow me.”

I took a running leap of the roof of the school and landed square in the center of the guard tower with a roll. Ayasa didn’t hesitate. She jumped straight after me, landing next to me and rolling almost up to my face.

There was razor wire lining the top of the wall, but thankfully the guards had left the backside un-lined. We jumped down from the roof of the guard tower.

“Hey! Who the-”

It was a voice I hadn’t heard before. I turned to face a familiar wall guard. It was the lazy one, the one who kept getting reprimanded every afternoon as I watched him goosestep back and forth. He was looking much worse now.

The guard looked us both up and down.

Then he nodded in the direction of the South.

“I’ll try to miss the first few.”

It was a sign. Jump now or die. I grabbed on to Ayasa and leapt over. The wall was high- but not so high as to be impossible to survive.

It felt like we were falling for an eternity.

Then we landed with a thud in a pit of mud.

Everything hurt.

No, there wasn’t any time for that. A shot rang out. Up above, the guard had unslung his rifle and was aiming at a patch a few meters away. Another shot.

“Let’s GO!”

Ayasa dragged me up- with what strength, I didn’t know. She dragged me over to the chain link fence.

A third shot. This one was closer. Something told me the next one would find its mark.

Then, something unexpected. The sounds of a large truck. It smashed through the chain link fence. I could read something on the side- MP. It was an American jeep.

Were we safe?