Emi Sekiyama [G5-E5] Dusk
She’s kneeling in the entrance hall, the day’s mail in her lap; her grades and rank for the year are clearly visible. The grades are all in the eighties and nineties; her rank in the single digits. The smile on her face is as smug as it is happy.
On the back: ‘Third year of junior high - grades arrive early~’
The sun had chased the overhanging clouds away hours ago. It now drifted in a haze of unseasonal heat, starting to lower itself toward the horizon, but casting stark shadows behind the crags of rock and within the gullies Emi, Miki, Kazuhiro and Harumi now walked along. Emi’s washcloth, originally sopping wet and nearly dripping down her front but now merely a little bit damp, was held fast over her face - she had taken it away earlier to climb a particularly steep area of the path, but the sun had immediately found her wound and mercilessly attacked it. She didn’t remove the cloth again.
“Maybe…” A rock threatened to trip Miki up as she made her way cautiously down a dip in the rocks, and she paused to kick the offender away. “Maybe we should come off the path. Everyone in the class is going to be taking these things, it’s too dangerous.”
“Actually, half the class is probably thinking exactly that and keeping away from the paths. I don’t think it makes much of a difference - and this way’s easier.” Kazuhiro’s back was turned to Miki. Emi, walking next to the latter, saw her make a face at him, but no one else did.
“Do you have any plans?” Emi asked Miki, whose face looked so sour she thought it best to change the subject.
“Nothing,” Miki replied shortly. “I don’t know what to do.”
“No, I don’t know either,” Emi replied. It was easier to say that than to announce the obvious - that anyone with a decent survival instinct should be thinking of playing. That the options were to roll over and die or start killing people.
But that wasn’t the kind of thing a girl with a cheese grater in a plastic bag can just say to someone with a machine gun. Emi had the kind of wariness of Miki, the kind of acute awareness of every minute movement, that one usually reserves for a wild animal whose territory they have inadvertently stumbled into.
The fear was making her palms prickle with cold sweat - and then sting horribly. She didn’t think her eyes had been dry of tears in hours now. She was probably losing more water that way than from the burns, and it was true that out of all of them, Emi was the one with a water bottle constantly clutched in her hand, although as much because of the soothing coolness of the condensation clinging to the plastic as needing to drink.
When the musical jingle blasted from somewhere nearby, she nearly dropped the bottle as she started in fright, and then in a flurry she was grabbing for map and pencil along with the others, biting her lower lip hard to stifle the tears. In the hours since Tatsutarou… since the explosion, the pain had slowly settled into an angry throb, but the movement, the wood against her hand, stung unbearably anyway.
And it wasn’t only that. It was looking down at the row of faces, at the one her right thumb was pressed over right then, the one almost beside her own, the two in a row near the centre. The fear of having to cross one of those out in a moment just like the others made her lip tremble. Her teeth stopped it moving.
But none of their names came, and Emi crossed out the ones that did in a daze. She stayed there for what seemed like an age, staring blankly at the sheet of paper and not really seeing it. It wasn’t until the voices that she realised anything else in the world existed at all.
“You don’t know shit!” It was Miki, glaring at Kazuhiro as though she would very much like to finish what she previously started. Emi stood up hurriedly, blood rushing to her head and making her sway on her feet as she hurriedly crammed the map back in her bag.
“Well, what I do know is that if we don’t get out of here soon, we might as well be on the next report!” Kazuhiro was getting visibly worried, shifting from foot to foot in his anxiety to just leave. Emi knew the feeling.
“Miki…. I’m sure he means well,” Harumi interjected; Emi wanted to agree with her, but her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.
“Just shut the hell up, both of you!” Miki screamed at them, and Emi wanted even less to say a single word.
If the names on the report had only been different, that might have been her right then, with that look on her face; Miki had been friends with a couple of the people on the report, hadn’t she? And it was with that that Emi found her heart wrenching for the girl.
Right up until Miki once again raised her gun and pointed it directly at Kazuhiro’s chest. Emi impulsively tried to back away; a sharp sideways glance from Miki made her stop.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
Irrationally, Emi wanted to slap the stupid out of him.
“I swear to God…”
“Come on, then. I dare you.”
Emi took another step backward, out of the possible line of fire, willing Harumi to do the same, but the girl seemed frozen in place. Miki looked, for a moment, ready to actually push the trigger, her face near savage in her anger.
But then it faded, and the gun dropped back to Miki’s side. “I’m going. Fuck you.”
She was turning away.
“Fuck all of you.”
The other three stared after her for a moment, dumbstruck.
And then before she could even think about it, Emi was dashing after her, slipping over the rocks in her haste and swaying on her feet. She barely registered the scrambling sounds behind her of Harumi hurrying to keep up as she followed Miki’s retreating form.
“Miki!”
- Her mother asked her two days ago why in the world the class rep position was working her up so much - she’d already been class rep for a year in junior high school, what did she need it again for?
Emi doesn’t care about class rep beyond the fact that she gets to feel important and put it on her resume. She loves the competition - she doesn’t want to win class rep. She just doesn’t want to lose class rep.
Keisuke’s scribbling on a piece of paper at one end of her desk - she imagines it to be a piece of music because lord knows it won’t be homework - as she sits at the other, making out two columns, diligently writing names at each one.
“What are you doing?” Keisuke suddenly asks, staring at her sheet. She twists it around and shows him silently. “Writing out everybody’s names. That hard remembering them all?”
“Course not,” she mumbles distractedly. “I’m figuring out who would vote for me in the class rep thing.”
There’s a short pause.
“Are you kidding me? You loser.” Keisuke takes another look. “Who says I would vote for you?”
Emi gives him the kind of look that scorches.
“Well, I, uh, think Kotone’s a bitch anyway.”
“Correct answer.” She likes Kotone, of course she does, but competition is competition. She turns the paper back to face her. There’s a few people she can’t decide on - those are the ones she’ll have to work on in one way or another.
“What’s Miki into?” she asks suddenly.
“Art, protesting shit and weed. Ask me another one.” Keisuke glances up at her and snickers. “You’re gonna make friends with Miki just to get her to vote for you?”
“Am I hell, who do you think I am.” She looks up and grins. “Do you want to get stoned this weekend?”
Keisuke stares.
“Well. You know Miki. Down with the Man! and all that. You put two class rep candidates in front of her and she’ll go for the pot smoker any day of the week.”
“So you’re going to buy some off her?…. You’re a retard.”
“Yup. I’ll be the retard representing the class.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Miki had turned and was giving Emi a nervous, somewhat annoyed look. Emi met it steadily; she didn’t dare look away.
“Why are you here?”
She took a deep breath. “I want to go with you.”
This was either going to work, or it was going to land her somewhere very, very bad. But she wasn’t going to end up like Kazuhiro. In one way or another.
Miki’s eyes were narrowed. “Why?”
“I… don’t know.” She met Miki’s eyes steadily. “I just feel that…. Well, I can trust you more.”
She trusted more that Miki would keep her alive long enough. Long enough to do what, she didn’t know. Find a weapon of her own - a way to defend herself. Make sure Tatsutarou didn’t happen again-
- Liquid, dark and viscous, shining on the rocks- a black, wet mass, still oozing liquid-
The urge to throw up rose in her throat.
She didn’t ever want to have to see that again. And this way, she wouldn’t.
Guns were so much more impersonal than other weapons. And even that made her mouth twist miserably - how could she be impersonal about killing her classmates? She didn’t think she could.
“Are you sure it isn’t because of this?” Miki was gesturing to her weapon and giving Emi what was suddenly a shrewd look.
“Well, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t,” she admitted slowly - Miki wasn’t stupid; she knew Emi wouldn’t be there if the gun wasn’t.
There was a long pause as Miki watched her closely. Emi didn’t trouble to keep her face straight - she didn’t think she could prevent the twisting of her mouth, twitching of her nose, struggling attempts to hold back tears, not even if she tried.
Finally, Miki shrugged.
“Do whatever you want. Just don’t try to kill me, I guess.”
Emi just caught herself before replying, ‘I should be saying that to you’.
Miki was already walking away. Emi and Harumi both found themselves hurrying to keep up.
“You’re coming too?” The question was directed at Harumi, who blinked, the curtness seeming to catch her off guard.
“Yes…. I trust you both more.” She paused and glanced at Emi. “Besides…. Emi’s still hurt. I can help.”
Momentarily overwhelmed, Emi bowed her head to hide the tiny, watery smile blooming across her face. “Thanks, Harumi.”
There were really good people here. And it wasn’t fair.
“I think we need to find water. This is a mountain range; the water up here should be... drinkable.” Harumi took a look at the map and pointed forward. “If we keep going west, there’s a river in F5.”
Miki shrugged, not slowing down. “Sure, that works.”
And so they walked in silence. Miki’s face was unreadable as Emi glanced at her some way down the next ridge, but Harumi looked worried, face set in concentration as she scrambled over the rocks and occasionally stopping to help Emi herself whenever using her blistered and oozing hands became a necessity.
She couldn’t imagine these girls dead. And she didn’t much want to.
But-
“Guys?” Emi called softly, just loud enough for Miki, a short distance ahead, to hear. She didn’t stop.
“One minute - we’re nearly at the river. It’s already dark, we need to hurry up.”
And sure enough, the sound of running water reached them just a few hundred yards on. Following it, they soon reached the fast running water, cascading past them down the mountain.
“I think we’ve gone even further. I think we’re in E5.” Harumi squinted at the map, staring around her, and Emi was absurdly glad to have someone like Harumi with her. She herself would surely have stumbled into a danger zone by now.
She really did need these two.
Miki waited just long enough to nod at the girl’s words before kneeling down at the water’s edge, lowering first one water bottle, and then the other into the river; Emi wasn’t so graceful as she stumbled over, knelt and plunged her hands into the freezing water with a grateful whimper, then dunking her entire head into it momentarily, scrubbing her head with her fingertips before gingerly wiping her face with her cloth. She barely registered Harumi beside her doing the same.
Finally, she felt clean. In some way, she could maybe cast away Tatsutarou now. His remains had covered her for hours, blood drying on her face and cracking in the heat, with each change of expression - a constant reminder of what happened and a constant feeling of nausea deep in her gut.
She repeated the process for everything she wore, gingerly stripping down and changing her clothes, washing the blood from her uniform with fervour and avoiding the eyes of Miki and Harumi, embarrassed not at her nudity but at the rawness of what she was doing. This wasn’t just hygiene - it was a cleansing.
“I…” She wrung her hair out and glanced at Harumi and Miki in turn. There was no better time to say this. “I think we should play.”
The reaction was predictable; Harumi let out a shaky breath and looked away; Miki’s jaw set.
“I thought you would say that at some point.”
“What other choice is there?” Her voice was steady; the chill of the water still tumbling over her hands and cooling her face calmed her. “We won’t escape. Smarter people than us have been sent here and no one’s ever done it.”
She met Miki’s eye. “Do you want to die?” Harumi’s. “I don’t.”
“I don’t agree.” Harumi’s voice was quiet. “We can’t give up hope yet.”
“I already have,” Emi said simply. Harumi didn’t reply. Miki too was silent.
She was good at this. Good at making decisions. Calmly planning them out. “Harumi and me need weapons-“
Harumi and Miki both opened their mouths to speak - Miki got in there first.
“Until then, I’m your weapon,” Miki cut across her.
Other people carried them out.
One third through the game is usually the turning point for students. Those who have not committed suicide or been killed by this point are often contemplating active killing or are already doing so; those who do not will perish.
Viewer ratings tend at this point diverge interestingly. Female viewers will tend toward the character dramas between classmates - women are more likely to watch groups of students than lone students; men more often pay attention to students who are playing, in a group or alone. Exceptions tend to be escape attempts… and sex. The fornication of Kiku Mori and Akimitchi Tsurikan, despite the… unusual nature of the contestants, was the most popular scene in the Program so far, setting ratings records across the board.