The Afterschool Peacekeeper
The conflict between the two forces was irreconcilable. Each side sought the eradication and eternal exile of their enemy from their “holy land,” with no room for compromise or negotiation. The roots of the conflict proved too deep for peace talks to make any headway. Each side’s hatred ran so deep that they would tear the other to pieces the moment they had the chance.
That day, both sides had gathered in the holy land to at last decide who had sovereignty there. The tension was like a powder keg as the forces stared each other down, each side roughly the size of an infantry platoon. That scale might sound small, but it was surprisingly large for this particular battlefield.
After all, the “holy land” they were fighting over was a residential children’s park.
One side consisted of thirty children, mostly boys from Sengawa Elementary’s Class 5-3; the other side, thirty-two children, composed mostly of interested parties from Shibasaki Elementary’s Class 5-1, alongside a few fourth years.
Both sides were armed to the teeth with plastic bats, old mops, cracked buckets and water balloons. For artillery support they had bottle rockets, firecrackers and poppers. (Incidentally, metal bats and rocks were forbidden by the rules of engagement negotiated by both sides, due to the threat of mutually assured destruction.)
From an objective standpoint, both sides were roughly equal. Nevertheless, each leader underestimated the other’s prowess and possessed total confidence in their own victory. This was an extremely bad omen; most of the worst quagmires of the 20th century had been the result of one army underestimating the other. For instance, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 had been conducted under the assumption of a quick victory. But the Soviet resistance had proved more persistent than expected, and the result was a bloody war that lasted four years and took millions of lives. Rather than learning from history, though, these elementary schoolers were doomed to repeat it.
Both armies’ commanders gave their final declarations.
“Beat it, shit-for-brains!”
“You beat it, dick-faces!”
It was a ceremonial declaration, as spoken in the orthodox language of children everywhere. At this point in time, it signaled to the sixty-two people involved in the conflict that the tensions over the children’s park had escalated to the point of no return.
A humid wind blew between them. Crows cawed in the distance. “It’s a Small World” played from a nearby crepe truck. And breaking the quiet was...
“Get ’em!” someone cried, and both armies charged.
Warriors armed with brooms and drawing boards advanced in a line like an ancient Greek phalanx. From behind them, smaller soldiers rained down firecrackers and water balloons. But these smart strategies wouldn’t last long—the battle quickly descended into chaos, punching and grappling without rhyme or reason. As war cries bellowed and firecrackers and poppers burst on both sides, a truly tragic sight unfolded. Some fled, some wept, some had their clothes torn off by rabid mobs.
“Crush ’em!”
“Ow, my nose!”
“Give ’em back, thief! Give back my undies!”
“Hold the line, dammit! Fight!” shouted Akutsu Yoshiki, a clever-looking boy in a green bandana. This was Shibasaki Elementary’s commander, who was swinging a broken broom around to keep his attackers at bay in the thick of a chaotic battle. He cheered on his allied soldiers, “We’re gonna push out those Sengawa Elementary assholes once and for all!”
Just then, a girl ran up to him, weaving through the chaos. “Yoshiki-kun!”
“Takami?! What are you doing here? It’s not safe! Get away!” Yoshiki warned her.
But the girl called Takami didn’t leave. Instead, she clung to his arm and shouted, tearfully, “Please, Yoshiki-kun! Please, stop fighting!”
“Shut up! Get outta here!”
“No, Yoshiki-kun! This... This isn’t right!”
“Is too!” he retorted. “Get off me. Get off me, dammit!”
“No!” Takami cried. “I won’t ever let go!”
“I can’t move! Get away, I can’t—” Slam! The next instant, a plastic wash basin came out of nowhere and struck him straight in the face. Yoshiki slumped to the ground with a moan.
But Takami only held him tighter. “Yoshiki-kun? Please, Yoshiki-kun! Speak to me! Please!”
“Y-You’re... throttling me...” he choked out.
“Don’t die, Yoshiki-kun!”
“Dying...”
“No, Yoshiki-kun! Don’t leave me!” Takami sobbed. “Yoshiki-kun! Yoshiki-kun!!!” Wailing and crying hysterically, Takami accidentally wrung Yoshiki’s neck, as her cries rang out across the chaotic free-for-all.
●
“My dog’s dead,” said Sasaki Hiromi. He was a small boy, the first year in charge of their equipment. His eyes, usually overflowing with curiosity, were now sunken and glazed over, reminiscent of a dead fish.
They were in the student council room after school. Hiromi let out a sigh from where he sat, at the corner of their usual large table. “He was a Shih Tzu,” he said sadly. “We’d had him for twelve years, and I played with him every day. We ate together, slept together... He was like my little brother. He died of heart failure two days ago. He was lying in my arms, drooling, seizing... I could see in his big eyes how much he was suffering, but I couldn’t do anything. I even tried cardiotonic drugs and palpitations. The vet came after he was dead and said there was nothing I could’ve done. But just an hour before, he was begging me for treats like always...”
“I... I see,” Chidori Kaname said reticently, even as she listened.
“I was in a fog after that. For hours, I lay next to his body, just staring up at the sky.”
“Th-That sounds rough...”
“I feel like... I don’t care about myself or the world anymore,” Hiromi said dully. “Even getting out of bed felt pointless.”
Kaname listened patiently through all of this, and at the end, she asked, “And that’s why you can’t write your essay for this month’s student council newsletter?”
“That’s right,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”
Sasaki Hiromi wrote a humorous essay for the Jindai News every month, which even the students loved. Around the time of the deadline, he’d taken two days off from school. And when he’d come back, he’d declared that he just couldn’t write it.
“It’s already past deadline and the other article drafts are in. It’s gonna be huge trouble for everyone else if we don’t have it. But you can’t write your article, because your dog died?” Kaname asked carefully, in a hushed voice.
Hiromi nodded listlessly. “Yes. I’m sorry,” he said, sounding half dead. “Even if you slap me with your fan or give me some embarrassing but delightful Boys Be-style comfort, I won’t be able to do it. Even if the principal came by and threatened to expel me, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I just don’t feel like doing anything anymore. Berate me all you like. Tell me it’s a shallow excuse. It won’t help. I don’t care about the essay. I can’t write a single line. The words won’t come to me.”
“Hmm. That is a problem,” Kaname concluded, and let out a small sigh. She was this month’s editor-in-chief and had been hoping to avoid blank space in the Jindai News if possible. Still, it was clear that there was no way Sasaki could write a lighthearted essay in his current condition. “Well, I guess we don’t have a choice but to—”
“Chidori. Let’s give him a little more time.” These were the first words out of the mouth of Sagara Sousuke, who had otherwise been sitting on the opposite side of the long table, silently doing editing work.
“Sousuke?”
“As ‘production assistant’ is my assigned mission, the completion of the Jindai News falls under my authority.” Sousuke stood up smoothly and walked up to Hiromi.
Hiromi looked up at Sousuke, eyes still glazed over.
“Sasaki,” said Sousuke, “Let’s assume that, during an operation in enemy territory, your comrade steps on a land mine and dies.”
“Er...”
“This was a comrade you’d fought alongside for twelve years,” Sousuke continued. “But now he’s dead. The enemy guerrillas will have heard the detonation and be coming to surround you soon. If you remain, they’ll catch you and tear you apart. Now, Sasaki: will you simply stay there, cradling your comrade’s dead body?”
“Um...”
“If you do, you will die. You’ll be throwing away even the possibility of survival. No matter how physically and mentally exhausted you may feel, you still have it in you to run from the enemy. You can still pull the trigger to fight back as well. There’s always something more you can do.” Sousuke spoke with his usual sullen expression.
Kaname just looked on, dumbstruck.
“If you try to escape but fail, and others come upon your battered corpse, they’ll laugh at you, calling you stupid or a coward. But never mind what they say. There are things that only those who have returned alive from the depths of enemy territory can understand, and these people will say a prayer to their various gods on your behalf,” Sousuke told him seriously. “Whether you fight to the end or give up halfway, your real comrades won’t blame you. The decision is yours, and yours alone.”
“Sousuke...” Kaname whispered.
But Sousuke ignored her and continued to peer into the listless face of Sasaki Hiromi. “What will you do? Will you just give up? Or will you at least try to fight? It’s up to you to decide.” And with that said, he returned to his seat as if nothing had happened and resumed his editing work.
About thirty seconds later, Sasaki Hiromi rose to his feet. He grabbed the laptop sitting on a corner of the table and told Kaname, “Wait just a little while. I can at least generate words to fill the space.” Then he listlessly left the student council room.
Kaname stared keenly at Sousuke, with open surprise on her face. “What in the...”
“What?”
“I mean, for once, you actually... encouraged someone in a reasonable way. I’m almost kind of impressed,” she said slowly.
Sousuke briefly stopped editing and scratched at the tip of his nose with his index finger. “They’re words... passed to me from someone else. Someone who saved my life said something similar to me once,” he said indifferently.
“Huh? Who?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Oh, c’mon. Just tell me,” Kaname said teasingly.
Sousuke cast her a sidelong glance. “You really... don’t know?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Sousuke waved his hand dismissively and changed the subject. “Still, Sasaki is a surprisingly promising person. Even after receiving a talk like that, putting the sentiment into action can be difficult.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “totally.”
“If that hadn’t worked, I was planning to point a gun between his eyes and say, ‘Write that lighthearted essay or I’ll start shooting, starting with your right knee. Now, write. And make sure it’s lighthearted.’”
“I take back what I said.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Kaname.
Just then, the student council’s president, Hayashimizu Atsunobu, and its secretary, Mikihara Ren, entered the room. As was typical for them when walking side by side, they looked like a young entrepreneur and his private secretary.
“Is the editing of the newsletter proceeding apace?”
“Affirmative. Sasaki has been struggling, but I remain optimistic,” Sousuke responded.
Ren frowned and whispered with lonely eyes, “Really? We just passed Sasaki-kun in the hall. He seemed deeply despondent, almost like Sugawara Bunta when his little brother was killed during a gang war...”
“No need to worry, Mikihara-kun. Under classic storytelling tropes, that’s when the counterattack begins. He’ll surely find his fire once more and throw himself back into the bloody brawl,” Hayashimizu promised her.
“Of course,” she said. “I hope you’re right, but...”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Kaname, their conversation bringing a cold sweat to her brow.
“At any rate, we have a visitor.”
“Yes... she’s right here.”
Hayashimizu and Ren stepped aside to clear the way. From behind them appeared a ten-year-old girl. She had short hair and large eyes, and carried a bag that was far too big for her.
“Who’s that?” Kaname asked. “Your daughter?”
Ren blushed self-consciously, while Hayashimizu remained unflappable. “Several students on the way asked us that, but I’m afraid I’m still only eighteen years old. I couldn’t possibly have a ten-year-old daughter.”
“That’s true, now you mention it,” Kaname agreed. “Though it seems hard to believe, somehow...”
“Still, this little lady is the matter at hand.” In a gentlemanly manner, Hayashimizu gestured the girl towards Kaname and Sousuke. “I found her wandering the building. She said she was looking for you and Sagara-kun.”
“For us?”
The girl then spoke for the first time. “Um... it’s been awhile, Sagara-san, Chidori-san.”
Despite the girl’s words, Kaname didn’t recognize her. A friend of her little sister’s, maybe? She turned it over in her mind but couldn’t put a memory to the face. “Um, and... who are you again?”
“Amemiya Takami. You don’t remember me?”
“A friend of Akutsu Yoshiki’s, I believe. We met her in that old hospital. Her primary physical characteristics are a match,” Sousuke said swiftly. His memory was a frightful thing at times.
“Yes. I was dressed as a ghost then, so you might not remember me, but...” said the girl, looking at her with upturned eyes.
“Oh, right, from that haunted hospital thing...” Kaname said, finally remembering. Akutsu Yoshiki was a boy Sousuke knew, and this girl was Yoshiki’s classmate. “So, um... Amemiya Takami-chan. What brings you here?” Kaname felt that, if she’d come to this school full of strangers, seeking out people she barely knew, there must really have been special circumstances at play.
“Well, er. The truth is... There’s something I wanted to ask your help with,” Takami told them reluctantly.
“What is it?”
“I want you to stop a war.”
The war was between the children of Sengawa and Shibasaki Elementary Schools, who had been engaged in a violent territorial conflict over a nearby children’s park. Takami and Yoshiki went to Shibasaki Elementary, and Yoshiki was the Shibasaki army’s commander.
“Both sides just want a place to play,” Takami explained. “The park is flat and paved, perfect for racing RC cars and playing basketball.” These were things you couldn’t do in a standard park, which tended more towards sandboxes and swing sets. “It started when the Sengawa kids made a Shibasaki kid cry for a silly reason, which inspired a gradually escalating cycle of revenge.”
“Like a yakuza turf war,” Kaname muttered.
“Yes,” Takami agreed sadly. “In the end, both sides decided that annihilation of the enemy was the only option.”
The Shibasaki kids said, ‘There are three evils in this world: alcohol, gambling, and Sengawa Elementary,’ while the Sengawa kids said, ‘The kids of Shibasaki aren’t human. They’re slimes worth five EXP apiece.’ They couldn’t share space without a fight breaking out, and the conflict had turned the area near the park into a crucible of violence and terrorism.
“The park is currently a danger zone,” she continued. “The adults of the neighborhood all look the other way for fear of making it worse. It’s almost like East Timor or Northern Ireland...”
“Those are strange things for a child to know about,” Kaname observed.
“Don’t focus on that part,” Takami said calmly. “The point is, if nothing is done, Yoshiki-kun and the others will keep fighting until one side is wiped out. I was hoping you two would step in before that happens. Yoshiki-kun told me stories about you two, and I saw how fierce you were, breaking through all those traps in the hospital...”
“I’m not sure about ‘fierce’...” said Kaname, not entirely happy about that description. She looked at Sousuke beside her. “Based on what Takami-chan says, what do you think we should do?”
“Hmm...” Sousuke folded his arms and was silent a while, and eventually answered, “Very well. If you’d asked us to serve as hired guns on Yoshiki’s side, I would have refused. But I’m happy to play mediator. War is an unfortunate business.”
“Seriously? Thanks!” said Takami, her face lighting up.
Meanwhile, Kaname glanced dubiously at Sousuke and whispered, “Oh? Didn’t expect to hear that from you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her calmly. “I’m always opposed to pointless wars.”
“Are you?”
“I am. I’m thoroughly against wars being waged between aimless amateurs,” he clarified. “If you’re going into battle, the most psychologically effective way would be to first kill one enemy in as gory a manner as possible, then write ‘You’re next’ in blood, perhaps—”
An offhanded kick from Kaname sent Sousuke into silence.
In the end, with Hayashimizu’s blessing, the two headed for the park in question. His justification for letting them go was that it was a ‘matter of regional security.’ It took about fifteen minutes for Sousuke, Kaname, and Takami to get there from Jindai High by bus.
The children’s park turned out to be an empty square lot, paved in gray concrete, with basketball nets on either side. Large apartment buildings towered over the northern and southern sides. Their sterile walls flanked the lot, which made them perfect for practicing basketball passes or soccer goal shots. The lot itself was about half the size of a school gym. There was no playground equipment there, so if not for the low hedge that surrounded it, someone might mistake it for a parking lot.
Still, the lot was in a sorry state. It was deserted, for one thing. Typically, this far from sundown, a park would be filled with the sounds of children playing... but the only sound now was the distant cawing of crows. The ground was littered with trash and rubbish as well: broken mops, cracked buckets, dirty scraps of cloth, bent frying pans, broken bicycles, scraps of paper, broken water balloons, et cetera, et cetera...
And thick, sloppy graffiti could also be seen here and there. It read:
Fear and kayos to Sengawa Ellementary
Go home, Shibasakki pigs
Death too the Sengawa invadars
Droun Shibasaki in blud
“All the childish misspellings... kind of makes it more intense,” Kaname found herself admitting.
“Yes,” Sousuke agreed, “reminiscent of a serial killer or a suicide cult.”
They looked at each other, feeling a vague chill run up their spines.
“Now, Takami-chan. Why isn’t anyone here? We can’t work things out between the sides if we can’t see them,” Kaname said, striding out onto the paved surface.
“Oh, actually—”
Suddenly, Sousuke had drawn his pistol from his back. He pointed the gun right over Kaname’s head, where she stood at the center of the square. “Don’t move,” he shouted, and fired a shot.
Kaname froze up as, about a meter behind her, she heard an empty plastic bucket hit the ground. It would have hit her had Sousuke’s shot not sent it off-course.
“Eh?” Surprised, she looked up and around.
Several children stood on the roofs of each apartment building that straddled the park on both the northern and southern sides. They all stared blankly down at Kaname.
“Er...?”
The children silently raised plastic bottles and water balloons over their heads. Then, they began to rain them down on Kaname.
“Run, Chidori!” Sousuke urged her.
“Ah... ahh, ahh!” He didn’t have to tell her twice. Barraged by the bombs, Kaname dove left and right to dodge them and ran for dear life to the park’s edge. Water from the bursting balloons showered onto her. As she finally arrived back at where the others were standing, the assault from the children stopped. “Wh-What in the world?!” she exclaimed.
“Since hostilities were declared earlier this week, anyone who enters the park is now attacked indiscriminately with water balloons and buckets. Countless preschoolers, senior citizens and high school couples have fallen victim to it,” Takami explained calmly.
“A free-fire zone,” Sousuke muttered, taking a few steps out.
“What are you doing?”
“First, a declaration of intention.” He told her. Then, he shouted to the roofs, “Forces of Shibasaki and Sengawa Elementary Schools! We are the Jindai High School Student Council Executive Committee! This children’s park is henceforth under our jurisdiction! Any further hostile action is forbidden! Please lay down your arms and come down at once!”
In the shadows of the roofs, small human forms could be seen moving. Eyes flashed with murderous light, but no answer came.
“Hmm...”
“Well, obviously ordering them around like that won’t do any good. At times like these, you need to invoke universal truths.” Kaname pushed Sousuke aside, stepped forward, took in a deep breath and shouted, “Listen, kids! We heard what happened! You’re getting innocent people hurt, and it’s getting a little ridiculous! Think of what your parents would say! Just come down already!”
“That seems similar to what I said,” Sousuke muttered.
But Kaname repeated, “Just come down! You hear me? You need to stop this wicked behavior at—”
A water balloon hit Kaname in the head.
“Chidori?!”
“Nngh...” As she stood there, looking like a drowned rat, the children began to shout taunts at her in addition to their attacks.
“Get lost, horse-face!”
“Go whore yourself out, stupid bitch!”
“No one wants you here. Screw off!”
Kaname was silent for a moment, her eyes glazing over. But then a new aura of anger blazed out of her, and she whispered, too soft for others to hear, “I’ll... kill them...”
She was about to run out when Sousuke stopped her.
“What?!” she snarled.
“Calm down, Chidori.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! We came out here in good faith to mediate, and that’s how they act?! I’m not letting that slide! I’m gonna drag them all down from those roofs and teach them what good manners are!”
“You can’t let them rile you up,” Sousuke said with determination.
“Grr... B-But... they just...”
“I said no,” he told her sternly. “A mediator who loses their cool will mire the situation even more. Please, just leave this to me.”
“Wh-What are you going to do?”
“Negotiate. If I patiently talk it out with each side, I’m sure we can find a point of compromise. It’s the first step towards forging a peace treaty.” He spoke with utmost confidence, walking away from them as he strode up to the northern apartment building.
Sousuke had decided to start with Shibasaki, since he had inroads there. He climbed over the fence of the fire escape and swiftly ascended until he reached the roof, where a group of about fifteen children were waiting for him. As expected, they were armed to the teeth with plastic bats, kettles, and pots.
“Is Akutsu Yoshiki here?” he asked politely. “I wish to speak to him.”
“What is it, Sagara-san?” Yoshiki asked, cutting through the wary crowd. “What do you want? Takami called you in, right?”
“Something like that,” Sousuke admitted. “I was asked to mediate.”
At this, complaints burst out from all around them:
“Stupid Takami!”
“No one asked!”
“Girls suck ass!”
Yoshiki looked just as mad as the others were. “Sagara-san. Sorry, but you need to butt out here. We’ve got nothing to say to those Sengawa jerks. They started it, anyway.”
“Tell me your side,” Sousuke suggested.
“We were using this park first,” Yoshiki insisted after a glance down at the lot below, and then to the opposing building’s roof where the enemy stood. “Nori-RC is really popular at our school right now.”
“Nori-RC? What is that?”
“It’s a new kind of RC car, from a company called Geotron Toys. It’s mounted with a CCD camera that sends a real-time video feed to an HMD, so it feels like you’re driving a real car when you use it. It’s super lifelike. You can also customize it like a mini-4WD.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Sousuke asked, confused.
“You gotta drive a Nori-RC on pavement,” Yoshiki explained. “If you try to drive ’em off-road, the feed bounces all around and it makes you motion sick. So this park is the only place where we can race ’em.”
“I see.”
“But then the Sengawa kids showed up and busted up Kenji’s car with their basketball! They won’t pay for it or even apologize. They’re assholes, right?”
“Was that how the conflict started?” asked Sousuke, avoiding the question.
“There’s other stuff too,” Yoshiki told him. “Like the fact that their boss, Ehara, has it bad for Takami. I think that’s the real reason he wanted to start shit with us.”
Upon hearing this, the other children cackled.
“I’ll ask the other side for their perspective,” said Sousuke, turning around and heading for the other side—the south-side apartment across the lot.
The camp belonging to the Sengawa faction seemed more or less the same as Yoshiki’s. Sousuke faced the sixteen children armed with sports equipment and kitchen utensils and spoke. “Is Ehara here? I was told he’s your leader.”
A boy about a head taller than the rest emerged from the crowd. He had almond-shaped eyes and a crew cut, and wore a baggy graphic print T-shirt. This appeared to be Ehara. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m the representative for peace negotiations,” Sousuke told him. “I’m here to mediate a ceasefire.”
“Drop the college words. What do you really mean?”
“I want you to make up and get along.”
Ehara’s eyes opened wide in outrage. “You gotta be kiddin’ me! Why should I make up with those Shibasaki asswipes? They’re the ones who started it all!”
“Tell me your side,” Sousuke requested again.
“This park was our turf originally. Back when it was just an empty lot, it got used by older Sengawa Elementary kids for ages.”
“Oh?”
“Six months ago, an ‘under construction’ sign went up on the lot,” Ehara continued. “We figured they were building another apartment, so we gave it up and started playing basketball on the school athletic field. But they’d always kick us out at 4:30. It sucked.”
“I see.”
“But instead of building an apartment, they put up a playground, see? And when we came to check it out, we found the Shibasaki guys already using it. Just running their stupid RC cars around like a bunch of lousy jerks.”
“I see.”
“So we started playing basketball and they ran one of their stupid RC cars into our game,” Ehara explained. “Then they asked us to pay for breaking it! It’s bullshit. They suck!”
“In other words, this was your land in the past?” Sousuke clarified. “And you only returned to it recently?”
“Yeah, but it was our park forever,” said Ehara. “They took it over without our permission!”
“You can’t agree to a rotating schedule for its use?”
“No way. I might think about letting ’em use it once a week if Akutsu gets down on his knees and begs me. But he’d never do that in front of the girl he’s got a crush on.”
“What girl?”
“Takami. He’s always tryin’ to look cool in front of her.”
The children around him cackled at this.
“Understood. Goodbye.” Sousuke nodded and walked away. He climbed down the fire escape, walked along the edge of the park, then spoke with Kaname and Takami, who were waiting for him.
“How’d it go?” Kaname asked.
“They’re at quite an impasse,” Sousuke admitted. “I suddenly understand what Swedish diplomats and UN representatives go through.” With greasy sweat rising on his brow, he walked back to the Shibasaki Elementary faction’s camp.
Upon being presented with the other side’s terms, Yoshiki and the others exploded with anger, brandishing their weapons and stamping on the floor. “No way!” Yoshiki declared. “Make them apologize to us on their knees. That park is ours!”
“Would a constructive compromise be conceivable?” Sousuke asked. “A three-to-four day usage one week, followed by a four-to-three day usage another?”
“No way,” Yoshiki said defiantly. “We’re not disarming until we chase ’em off forever.”
“I see.” Sousuke nodded seriously and returned to the Ehara faction’s roof.
He explained the situation to them, and the Sengawa children exploded with even greater rage:
“Is that supposed to be a joke?!”
“Don’t bug us with this useless stuff. You suck!”
“Yeah, you suck. You’re like a kid on his first errand!”
Sousuke, the messenger, felt the brunt of their anger. But he remained patient and spoke soothingly, “What would satisfy you, then? Let’s work together to find realistic solutions. You can’t annihilate your enemy and it’s pointless to try. Do you have a more flexible suggestion that would allow us to reach a compromise?”
But Ehara and his men rejected the possibility. “Shut up! If we give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile! Besides, they gotta apologize before we even touch it!”
“Hmm...” At this, Sousuke persistently returned to Yoshiki’s side, where he was once again on the receiving end of jeering:
“Boy are you useless!”
“Bet you’re working for them!”
“Get outta here!”
Some of the boys even threw scrap paper, plastic bottles, and raw eggs at him.
Nevertheless, with tremendous endurance, Sousuke continued to travel between sides, proposing compromises and asking for concessions.
The entire time, Kaname and Takami were watching from the sidelines like disinterested spectators. They remained squatting beside the hedge at the park’s entrance and watched as Sousuke came and went, heads turning back and forth like at a tennis game. From their perspective, Sousuke seemed to be growing more and more exhausted. Each time he came down from a roof, there was a little more trash on him. It seemed like the stress was really starting to weigh on him.
“Maybe it’s not possible after all,” Takami said.
“Maybe. But... it’s kinda weird. I’m not used to seeing Sousuke so determined to solve things through talking,” Kaname mused.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Usually he’d just pull out his gun and order them to get along like adults.”
“Hmm...” Takami muttered, looking up at the sky stained with the first colors of sunset. “Maybe because he wants to look good in front of you, Chidori-san?”
“Huh?” Kaname’s eyes went wide as this idea caught her off guard. “N-No way. That’s silly. Ha ha.”
“You think? If that were so, it’d explain things for me, too...” Takami said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?” Kaname asked.
“Well, Yoshiki-kun and Ehara-kun and I originally went to the same kindergarten. They both proposed to me then.”
“Aha...”
“And they’re both still nice to me,” Takami told her. “Really nice. So, I was thinking that maybe the reason neither of them will give in is because I’m watching. And, I mean... it’d be kind of nice if that were the case.” she looked down, smiling.
In that moment, Kaname felt the girl seemed even more mature than her. Dang... she’s precocious...
While Kaname looked on in silence, Takami snapped back to her usual childish expression. “Am I being strange?”
“Nah, not really. In fact, I think your idea as to why neither of them will compromise might be on the money,” said Kaname. “Which makes Sousuke’s effort even more pointless. Maybe it’d be faster if you went to each of them and told them to make up?”
“I’ve been doing that, but neither one will listen...”
Just then, Sousuke returned to them from the southern apartment.
“Well, Sousuke? Do you think you can do it?” Kaname asked, thinking it likely to be impossible.
Indeed, as expected, he slowly shook his head. “It’ll be difficult. They don’t seem willing to compromise at all.” He seemed extremely disheartened. Were this a manga, there would be a black smoke cloud hanging over his head. Finally he said, “I may have to employ a different method.”
“What do you mean?” asked Kaname.
Sousuke didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped out onto the grounds of the park, where the agitated children began to throw more dangerous rubbish at him. He ignored the barrage, walked up to one basketball hoop and started rigging something up to the backboard.
Kaname blinked at him questioningly.
He did the same thing to the other one. Then he walked to the middle of the playground. “Listen to me!” he shouted. “Despite the various compromises I’ve offered, you have been unwilling to engage with any of them. But Jindai High School has no intention of allowing you to continue your conflict!”
As Sousuke shouted, a large pumpkin fell with a splat nearby.
“Shut up, you stuck-up jerk!”
“Get outta here!”
“We’ll tell the PTA on you!”
As usual, the feedback was negative. It felt like anarchy.
Yet Sousuke raised his voice again, unfazed. “Therefore, I’m going to remove the origin of your conflict. Then you’ll have nothing left to fight over!”
At this, the children tilted their heads in confusion.
“Prepare yourselves!” With that, he pulled a small shotgun from his bag. Blam! The gunshot rang out over the desolate park.
The group went quiet, holding its breath... but they soon realized that Sousuke’s slug had only broken the concrete at his feet. As Kaname and the others watched, Sousuke fired the remaining rounds of the shotgun randomly at the ground around him.
“And there’s more,” he continued, pulling out a remote control and casually working it. Bwoom! The basketball nets on either side of the park simultaneously toppled. Their steel poles snapped and their backboards crashed into the ground.
Sousuke then swiftly approached the girls, told them to get down, and pressed another button on the remote control. The plastic explosives he’d scattered here and there on the ground began to blow, leaving holes far bigger than what his gunshots had done.
As the smoke gradually cleared, they could see the staring faces of Yoshiki, Ehara and the others on the roofs of the opposing apartments.
Sousuke nodded firmly and proclaimed, “You may now play basketball and drive RC cars here as much as you want. That is all!” Then he turned his back on the demolished park and strode away. As he neared Kaname, who’d been rendered speechless by the extremity of his actions, he said, plainly, “I feel like I’ve finally recovered my senses. At any rate, the matter is resolved. Let’s return.”
In response, Kaname dealt Sousuke a powerful spin-kick.
The next day, Takami gave Kaname a call. She said that Yoshiki’s faction had lost the desire to fight over the playground and that they’d called off their feud with Ehara’s faction. Sousuke bragged when he heard it, but Kaname wasn’t in any mood to praise him for it.
Incidentally, Sasaki Hiromi also finished his essay for the newspaper. The experimental content received mixed reviews, but he seemed satisfied with it.
〈The Afterschool Peacekeeper — The End〉
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