Chapter three, 2017, shards, segment seven

She could feel it. For the first time Kyoko understood Yukio’s words about a stench of fear. And something was about to burst as well.

At the time being everything lay hidden beneath a blanket of forced anticipation, and for a lot of the students there was nothing forced about it at all.

Later this morning the cultural festival would open for relatives, which was the second occasion for Kareyoshi to celebrate. The first happened yesterday when the Korean, because she turned out to be Korean, rape victim dropped out of school.

Jeniferu, however, refused to become a third.

Kyoko couldn’t understand where Jeniferu got her strength from. Whenever asked she candidly responded that she had indeed been raped and that she hoped all eight boys and whoever lay behind it died horrible deaths. Unsurprisingly Jeniferu got called to the principal’s office on a daily basis, but for whatever reason she never broke down.

Right now she sat beside Kyoko scrubbing toilets. It felt just as demeaning as it was supposed to be, but Kyoko grit her teeth and kept scrubbing. The silence, however, was more than she could bear.

“Do you hate Japan?” she asked, not certain where the words had come from.

The silence was only broken by the sound of brush against porcelain, and Kyoko had just about given up the thought of a conversation when Jeniferu suddenly spoke.

“I hate what happened to me, but why should I hate this nation?”

“But… you know… the toilets...” The words felt clumsy and Kyoko let them peter off.

A giggle made her look up.

“The toilets are fine.”

“Huh?”

“In fact if it had been back home I probably would have refused.”

Kyoko shook her head and changed water in her bucket. “Why?”

Jeniferu laughed. “Everything is clean here. We’re scrubbing toilets that are already clean. I don’t even want to tell you what they would look like where I come from.”

So maybe it was true after all. Both Kuri-chan and Urufu were adamant things were cleaner here compared to Sweden. Maybe people in Japan were clean freaks.

“Does it bother you? That we’re overly neat I mean?”

“Are you stupid?”

Kyoko stared at Jeniferu. “No. I don’t think I’m stupid,” she said.

Jeniferu grimaced, and in her eyes Kyoko read an honest attempt at finding the right words. “I like clean. I like how Japan is clean. When I’m here I can see how people just don’t care back home.” A long sigh told Kyoko there was more to come. “It doesn’t mean I like everything with Japan,” Jeniferu continued. “It’s clean because people here care, but it’s also clean because no one dares.”

“Dares what?” Kyoko wondered. These were words strangely echoing of Urufu’s thoughts, and Kyoko desperately wanted to hear them voiced in a different way.

“People are selfish in groups here,” Jeniferu began. “So they lie in groups, but I prefer when people are selfish for themselves and lie alone.” She met Kyoko’s eyes. “I am myself. I’m responsible for myself. I don’t want to hide behind friends, or a school class, or a family. I want my strength to be my own; not something I borrow.”

It wasn’t what Urufu, or even Kuri-chan would have said, but it was very close. It was as if the similarities between Sweden and the USA were greater than the differences.

They switched toilets and finished the last ones in silence just in time for the festival to open.

Kyoko tagged along after Jeniferu to dispose of the buckets, and after that it was time to meet up with Noriko and a Chinese girl to start carrying out garbage. They weren’t really allowed to, but Noriko didn’t feel safe working outdoors in pairs after what had happened, so Kyoko decided it was worth a later scolding as long as Noriko felt better.

The incinerator lay behind the gym as well, and Kyoko shot Jeniferu a worried glance as they left the school building through a side entrance. The girl might not have said anything, but what did she think about going near that place? Would she even go there at all?

Gravel bit into Kyoko’s soles and a gust of wind tore through her cardigan. For a moment Kyoko regretted she had left her blazer in their classroom, but now it was too late.

Halfway to the gym they met the other pair, and Kyoko’s stomach churned at the instant relief in Noriko’s eyes. It wasn’t right. No one should feel that kind of fear going to school. At a loss for words she looked at Jeniferu to see how she felt.

“You know,” Jeniferu said as if she had read Kyoko’s intentions, “of course I don’t like going there, but we have a job to do so let’s get I over with.”

By Kyoko’s other side Noriko stiffened, and Kyoko wondered about her reaction. Ever since the two girls were assaulted Noriko had shrunk and started looking over her shoulder with something haunted in her eyes. From what Yukio had said, and from rumours about Red Rose Hell Kyoko put together a jigsaw puzzle she didn’t want to watch.

From the attack on Kuri-chan, through Yukio’s frightened words at the festival a year earlier to what had just happened. Kyoko always thought it began with Kuri-chan, but of course Yukio’s words pointed at a time before that, and the look in Noriko’s eyes just added to it. One way or another Red Rose Hell had survived. If not as a school then by seeping its ideals into Himekaizen, and behind that rot; Kareyoshi.

And with that Kyoko finally understood, and her legs buckled under her, and the stench of fear was the stench of something rotting in the school she had loved going to just half a year earlier.