Maybe he had pushed the kids a bit too hard,
especially those who were really the age they looked. Still, with the
Red Rose situation brewing he couldn't afford doing anything else. A
suicide was unexpected, even if he secretly was satisfied with the
outcome. Rapists deserved death. It was that simple.
Nakagawa looked out through the window and saw how
the fashion shots were wrapping up for lunch. Around him the dining
hall filled up with their middle management guests and through the
door opening to the lobby he could see how the Matsumoto kid ran up
the stairs to the rooms. Yukio, was it? Yes, I think so.
The Wakayama twins went straight for his table
with the sister giving her brother a bewildered look. You kids
aren't supposed to sit here. Ah, my bad, you're not the kids right
now, you're in charge of today's events. The brother apparently
had a much keener sense of the social game than his sister.
He greeted the twins as they arrived. Today they
were colleagues, not principal and students.
“Sensei.”
“Wakayama-san.” It felt strange to address a
student as a peer.
Further back in the hall the Takeida girl stood
searching for her friends among the tables with a forlorn expression
in her face. Nakagawa rose and waved to her. “Matsumoto-san is
upstairs on an errand,” he said to save her some face.
She turned and gave him a surprised look. Then she
must have seen the twins seated at the table and hesitantly walked up
to them.
“Ryu, have you seen Kuri-chan?” Takeida-san
looked at Nakagawa after asking the question. “Sensei.”
To his right Ryu smiled and nodded. “She should
be coming back from the beach soon enough. I had Yukio check up on
Urufu.” Then he turned his head and looked Nakagawa straight in his
face. “I'm out of tricks. If Yukio doesn't manage to get Urufu down
here I don't know what we'll do.”
“That makes for an interesting dilemma, wouldn't
you say,” Nakagawa said. There wasn't much else he could do. When
duty called, and when friends were in trouble, Hamarugen-san would
either rise to shoulder the burden, or he was so deeply traumatised
by his experience that they'd have to call in experts.
A waiter came with their food and all four of them
started to eat. It gave him some time to think about what had
happened and give it some context.
And I can only wait and see. Ten years since
Ashiga-san arrived and we failed so badly at bringing out his full
potential. That was a sobering thought. Meddling was needed, but
in Ashiga-san's case it had been the new arrivals who had made his
make a stand. Infuriating as his pranks were Nakagawa still preferred
to see his old student having a direction in his life once again.
“Is there anything I can do if we have a
situation?” Nakagawa asked. He wouldn't be party to actively
crashing Hamarugen-san's fledgling business if avoidable.
The Wakayama girl gave him a stare. “Sorry,
sensei, but I doubt it,” she said between mouthfuls. “I don't
know what your speciality is, but I doubt it involves proactive
processing in an event driven environment. After all our educational
system can hardly be called a complex ecosystem.”
Nakagawa stared at her. Hamarugen-san, what are
you doing to our kids? Changing Japan, starting with this school,
wasn't that what you were saying? “That's a novel standpoint,”
he observed in lack of anything else to say.
At that time the Matsumoto kid arrived with a
frown on his face. He went straight for their table without a
semblance of hesitation.
“Yukio?” Takeida-san asked. She looked as if
she couldn't decide whether to be happy to see her boyfriend again or
worried about the message he brought.
“Sorry, but he's not coming down here.”
“What do we do now?” Takeida-san asked after
sharing an exchange of looks with Matsumoto-san. “Where does he
want us instead?”
What are they talking about? And they don't
seem very worried.
Matsumoto-san shrugged. “He didn't say, but we
can't use the dining-hall anyway. The rest of the bunch are coming
down the mountain for late lunch, and after that I guess they're off
for the beach.”
“Yukio, sit down and eat. I'll take care of it.
As long as Urufu says he'll run the afternoon events I really don't
care what he's planned.”
The Wakayama twins grinned, and Nakagawa saw how
their worries ran off them. With the vigour of youth they started
devouring their food, and there was very little conversation around
the table after that.
He had another promise to take care of, one he had
given to Ageruman-san. Thinking back on how Ashiga-san had developed
over the years since his arrival her request made sense, even though
Nakagawa was certain she had nothing to worry about. Still, hearing
that from a medical expert would be the best way to feel secure.
With a sigh he rose from the table and went in
search for Ashiga-san. He wanted someone he trusted to handle the
local logistics before he took a taxi to the local airport.
With Hamarugen-san back in action and Ageruman-san
never out of it he felt reassured the Red Rose situation could be
contained at least until school started again. After that all bets
were off and with one of this years arrivals experiencing personal
hell in that rat hole Nakagawa could only hope that the problems
could be resolved during autumn. After that it would be touch and go
with him going into forced retirement.
But first he had that promise to keep. For the
first time in over twenty years he was going to ask the enemy for
help. They owed him anyway. They had as little interest as he with
the direction things were taking at Red Rose, but they were just too
involved with that school to afford getting involved with some dirty
problem solving.
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