Chapter 6 - Forty Three

Chapter 6

Thursday Hori decides we are studying together after school.

She announces this the same way she announces everything, not as a question, not as an invitation, as a fact that already exists and she is simply informing us of it. "Library. After school. All of us." Then she looks at me specifically and adds "especially you" for a reason she doesn't explain.

Kaito agrees immediately. Yuma says yes before Hori finishes the sentence. Kenzou says yes while eating something he brought from home that nobody can identify.

Kurenai looks at me. I look at the window. "Fine," I say.

Hori smiles.

The library after school is quiet in a different way from my apartment. This is a quiet that has people in it. Occupied silence. Someone turning a page three tables over. The particular sound of pencil on paper.

I don't hate this kind of quiet.

We take the large table in the back corner. Hori arranges everyone like she has already decided where each person will be most effective, Yuma next to Kenzou because she is the only one who can redirect him when he gets distracted, Kaito at the end where he won't be disturbed, Kurenai across from me, Hori next to me.

I notice the arrangement. I don't comment on it.

For thirty minutes we actually study. This is a minor miracle given that Kenzou is present.

Then:

"Okay but where do you think they go," Kenzou says.

"Kenzou," Kaito says.

"The schools. The ones that disappear. Where do the students actually go."

"We are studying," Kaito says.

"I'm studying and thinking about it. I can do both." He looks at Yuma for confirmation. Yuma makes a diplomatic face that means she is not going to agree with this in front of Kaito.

"There was one last month," Kurenai says without looking up from her book. "Prefectural school in Niigata. Second year class. They were there on a Friday. Monday morning the school reported forty three students absent."

Everyone looks at her.

"I read the news," she says, still not looking up.

"Forty three," Yuma says quietly.

"That's a whole class," Hori says.

"Almost." Kurenai turns a page. "No bodies. No reports of violence. No contact from the students afterward. The families were told it was under investigation."

The library is very quiet around our table.

"Under investigation means they know something," Kaito says.

"Or it means they don't and they don't want to say that," I say.

Everyone looks at me. I have said more in this moment than I usually say in an afternoon.

"Either way," I say. "Someone knows where they went."

Kenzou is uncharacteristically still. Then he says: "do you think it could happen to us?"

Nobody answers immediately.

Hori puts her pen down and looks at all of us with the warm easy expression she always has and says "we'd be okay. We have each other right?"

Kenzou immediately looks relieved. Yuma smiles. Even Kaito's expression settles slightly.

I look at Hori.

She is looking back at me. Her expression hasn't moved.

"Right," I say.

We go back to studying. The conversation moves on. By the time we pack up and leave it feels like something that was said between other people.

I walk home alone and think about forty three students and a Monday morning and someone somewhere who knows exactly where they went.

I think about Hori's face when she said we'd be okay.

Nothing moved in it.