Tabi ni Deyou:Wings

(12% translated)

The boy looked up at the heavy, dark clouds in the sky.

Only some moments ago, it was still a clear blue sky, but then it slowly got caught up by clouds from behind and turned overcast. The speed of this happening could be called lightning-fast and the blue color that was there before was beyond imagination now, that one couldn't even tell anymore where the sun was.

Unaffected by this, the green that was surrounding them hadn't changed. From time to time they came by some farms that had been crushed by the snowfall last winter, but none of those could serve them as a rain shelter.

"...oh well. Looks like there's going to be a shower. I just hope we're out of here until then..."

"Don't worry! People always told me that I'm beloved by the sun."

"Too bad. I was always called the 'rain bringer'. Guess why."

"Uh-oh-"

The girl giggled while turning around. The clouds that had been gradually gaining thickness as time went by looked as though they would start pouring their contents over them at any moment.

What's so bad about getting a little wet, some may wonder. But that is a sentiment limited to those who have hot coffee and a dry towel waiting for them at home.

They required fuel to warm themselves up, they had to ignite their fires on their own and they had to dry their wet clothes immediately. They would be in big trouble should they catch a cold. Even if it doesn't lead to the worst case scenario, the two run the risk of starving to death if they are forced to stay at one place for several days.

"If things don't change, we're both going to catch a cold. Who would be the carer in that case?"

"Usually I think it's those who don't have enough power left to care for someone else that are cared for."

"It's a duel about who's recovered first, then!"

"I wonder... according to my personal prediction, you win that duel, but I'm the one who laughs best."

"...what do you mean by that?"

"Well, I can already see how you'll fall sick again after overhastily claiming the victory by reporting that you've 'recovered'. Without any foundation, of course."

"........."

He had hit the bull's eye. The girl used to be stubborn and overhasty from time to time. Indeed, the situation he described was definitely possible.

"And then I'll eat the melon all on my own! After all, it would hurt your stomach, wouldn't it?"

"You won't! We're eating that melon only after splitting it in a grand pinata contest! Got me?!"

The large melon they had received from the director was, just as he had estimated, almost ripe, giving off a nice sound when knocking on it. While the boy was simply waiting for the ideal time to eat it, the girl had apparently already decided how to eat the melon. The execution of a melon-splitting event had been scheduled - without taking his opinion into consideration.

"I admit your plan sounds great to me... but you realize that we don't have a bat?"

"Uhm... then how about this?" said the girl and kicked Cubby's muffler briefly.

"Don't even think about it! It's going to break if you do that."

Well, actually, Cubby wouldn't break yet just by removing its muffler, but he willfully kept silent about this. For one thing, he had not in the least the intention to hit the road with the roaring sound of a biker gang, and for another thing, destroying his dear vehicle, the Super Cub, just for a melon after getting it finally repaired some days ago seemed way too cruel to him.

"Mh, can't be helped. In that case we'll just have to look out for a fitting bat somewhere on the ground."

"There's no need to insist on splitting it with a bat, though. I mean, it's not like we couldn't get it cut somehow with a knife."

However, his idea had no chances of getting adopted to begin with. The preparation of the melon had already been set to splitting it with a bat in her head. And he had no rights to make any changes to this.

"Ah, a place where there is water would be great, too. I want to eat it cold."

The girl, who had as expected completely ignored his opinion, patted the melon on the backside rack.

The boy fully agreed with her about the fact that such a large melon would develop its true deliciousness only when solemnly split. It would be a waste to make it just a dessert. As in regards of this, both of them were of the same mind.

It's just that the boy couldn't be as optimistic as the girl was.

Leaving aside the bat, it seemed improbable to him that they would find a place with cold water so easily. Of course, a streamlet would do the job, but one had to consider the current look of the sky. It was way too dangerous to be around a river.

He didn't tell her, though, as he didn't see a need to damp her spirits.

Thereafter, the two travelers and their Super Cub just kept moving on for a while and drove past the occasionally appearing intersections at full speed without paying the least attention to the traffic lights.

The reason for this was the weather of course. It had kept getting worse, making the clouds even thicker than they had been before: even though it had only just been noon, it was already as dark as in the evening, and once in a while they could even spot a thunderbolt flashing up between the clouds, which looked like tightly compressed dust balls. From that sight they could easily judge that there wasn't much distance to the thunder-storm.

Then, when it became past four. Far ahead of the unchangingly dead-straight road, they discovered something.

"What's that? Doesn't that look like a warehouse or something?"

"No idea... I can't tell from this distance."

Somewhere ahead of their road, which cut through green scenery, there was an unpaved branch road that diverged at right angle. And further ahead, he could see something like a warehouse made of galvanized sheet iron that was completely corroded by rust.

With his bare eyes, he could naturally not see as much as the girl with binoculars, but what they saw should have been about the same from such a distance.

Also, being able to see something with just the eyes meant that it would only take a few minutes to arrive there on Cubby's wheels. Since there wasn't any other junction until there anyway, they decided to approach the building for the time being.

A few minutes later.

Along with a protesting cry of Cubby's break, they came to a halt and had their heavy load make the front suspension sink in deeply. From the engine fumed a steam-like heat, which could probably be attributed to the boy quite stepping on the gas.

The warehouse in question was in a much better shape than they had expected from the distance; it was indeed consumed by rust, but there were no holes to be seen in the walls and roof.

The girl got off the tandem and the boy parked the Super Cub under a roof that was situated at an unloading area.

It had still not started to rain, so they had somehow managed not to become like drowned rats.

"Whew, thank God we made it in time," said the girl relievedly.

"Yeah. It's not raining yet, but I suppose we're going to be fine here."

He looked up at the warehouse behind him.

The sheet iron building, which stood solely and surrounded by endless green, was actually not that big. In terms of size and shape it was comparable with a small sports hall.

At the front was a metal sliding door through which quite large objects could be transported, but like the building itself it was corroded by rust. From the look of it, this place hadn't been maintained very frequently. It would have been to be expected that there was at least a sign of the responsible company or something, but since there wasn't even something of that kind, it seemed like this storehouse was not in use at the moment.

After he had shut down the engine and taken off his helmet, a large truck besides the house caught his eye.

In contrast to the from-top-to-bottom dilapidated storehouse that almost seemed to crumble down to iron-oxidic powder any second, the truck was loaded with a shining silver container and parked alongside the building. It was clearly too new to suit this place and stopped under a overhanging roof, hidden from the road.

"...There's a truck. Looks like we may be able to get hold of fuel."

"Why don't you just snatch the whole truck? A journey with air-conditioning is waiting for us!"

"No way. Or do you think I own a truck license?" said the boy with a wry smile and put down the kickstand after moving the motorcycle a little more towards storehouse, so that it wouldn't get hit by the rain. Of course he didn't forget to carefully make sure of the balance because of their delicate luggage.

"Who cares about a license? We haven't happened upon one uniformed officer, not even a police car, during our journey yet. Besides, neither of us has a motorcycle license and still we're riding a Super Cub."

"What I mean is that I have no clue how to drive it! That thing's not like a moped where you can help yourself by deriving from your experience with bicycles. How do you expect me to drive a 4-tonner truck when I haven't even sneaked a peek at a driver's seat of one in my life?"

"Then have somebody who knows teach you," said she a little dauntedly.

The boy shrugged, "Sure, when there is somebody like that."

"There is!" she declared and got him eying her. A demand for foundation was writ large in his face.

"For one thing, footprints. Look," said the girl, pointing at the tracks at her feet. Dry footprints that looked different from their sneakers' were scattered all over the ground.

"Judging from the size it's a man. He seems to wear sports shoes, so he may even be about our age. Taking the level of dryness into consideration, I would assume these footprints were made during the rain about two weeks ago."

"...In short, someone has been here recently and might still be?"

"Exactly! How's that? That's what I call 'reasoning'."

She gave herself airs, putting her hands on her hips, whereas the boy just breathed out a sigh.

"...If he were as old as us, he couldn't possibly know how to drive a truck, could he?"

"..."

The girl froze in the posture she had taken.

"Either way, if those footprints belong to a grown-up that knows how to drive a truck, do you think he would just leave it to us?"

She was at a complete loss of words.

Even the girl was aware of how fatal it was to lose one's vehicle in the middle of this savage --- no, I mean "vast" land.

Of course she was! There was no way of forgetting the trouble they'd had with Cubby's engine some days ago.

"Well, if we're lucky we can at best get some fuel from him. But I suppose trucks of this kind are diesel-engined, so is there even gas?"

"......"

Her mouth was still closed. Apparently, she wasn't too happy about her conclusion being spoiled.

He turned away from his sullen partner and opened the mouth widely to get a loud voice from it.

"Hellooooo? Is there anyoone?"

There was no answer. Still, the walls were made of sheet metal, so his voice should have passed through them.

"Shall we just enter the house for now, before it starts to rain? Besides, we may find a rod of some sort which we can use for splitting the melon."

A high creak resounded as the blockade of the metal door was being broken.

They went for the large entrance that was designed to transport things through it. It was a pain to open the door with his bare hands, but the ordinary entrance on the side was sealed with wire wrapped around the knob and the rear entrance was locked. Consequently, this was the only way inside. Of course they could just have broken a window and entered from there, but they decided against it, for this would go too far.

They didn't know whether that sealed door was the deed of "the inhabitant", but judging from the red rust all over the wire, it hadn't been opened for months.

The same, however, applied to the sliding door. This became evident when rust started falling down from the top rail while it was being opened by the boy's frantic use of both his hands and feet.

Hence, it didn't seem to be used either. The owner must have been taking the rear entrance.

"Heere... we go...!"

Along with a noise, red rust rained down on his head.

He somehow succeeded in opening the door by squashing his shoulder and legs in between. It seems like using force can go well, too, once in a while.

"Well well... Hellooo? Is there anyoone?"

The girl hopped into the warehouse without even trying to understand the hardships he just went through. Concerning him, he was stretching his legs on the ground and breathing exhaustedly. The icing on the cake was the rust that was all over him.

From what they could see, there were no leaks through which the rain could enter and it seemed stable enough to withstand the storm. The temperature was rather cool, too, making it "comfortable" overall - if it were just for those aspects! However, due to the horrible moldy stench and the dark and gloomy air, they could not call it that at all.

Seen from outside, it had seemed like a simple barrack made of sheeted metal, but this was not exactly the case. While the ground really was left bare, heat insulating material had been used for the ceiling and there were also fluorescent lamps, though turned off. There was even some weak air-conditioning for work purposes.

At any rate, it was a thousand times better than camping outside. Hence, they set this warehouse as the day's camping ground.

While dusting the rust sticked to his hands, the boy took a look around.

"This building isn't used as a warehouse, as it seems."

"What do you mean?"

While untying her hair - she used a hair tie because her hair would get in the way otherwise - she turned towards the boy.

"Can you see any commodities? Even just traces? All that's here is this..."

What he was talking of were the rather unfamiliar things that could be seen there. For one thing there were hand-made metal maintenance stands. On some desks, workbenches apparently, there were tools, much much better than the ones in his own possession, and various strangely-shaped utensils and measuring instruments.

As a whole, they looked as though they served one certain purpose.

Right, it was like...

"...A garage?"

"Yeah. I think those tools are for maintaining or assembling something."

All of the tools were directed towards the maintenance stands installed in the center and seemed to cohere. He didn't know what was to be fixated on those stands, but he sensed that this place must have been for a lot of people to work on one thing.

"Who's there?"

The two were startled by a sudden voice and hurriedly turned their gazes towards the other end of the warehouse, just to have their hearts miss a beat yet again.

"Tz...! How dare you open the door and nestle in here, damn couple... What are you doing in my house?"

He was about in the middle of his twenties. His clothing consisted of simple slacks and a T-shirt, and while his body couldn't quite be called an Adonis body, it was one of a sportsman.

Just.

Just, what shocked them more than anything was his face.

Pure white it was. The decolorization the director had suffered stood no comparison with it. What could be seen of his skin was completely white as if he was part of a black-and-white photograph.

No, since there was shadowing, pure white might not be fully correct. He lacked color so much that it seemed as if he had been cut out and replaced by monochrome film.

"What? Is a visage like mine that unusual?"

"...Quite so. It is the first time I see someone that has progressed this far..."

"I'm no attraction. Get lost if there's nothing you want from me."

"Oh, actually there is. It looks like it's going to rain and our motorcycle will not get us far. Please let us spend only a night here. Furthermore, may we borrow a rod or something that is suited for splitting a melon?"

The man raised an eyebrow.

"......A rod?"

"Yes. We have received an extra-large melon from a kind person whom we met underway, but we had trouble finding a tool to cut it. So why don't use the opportunity and have some fun splitting it, we thought. However, we lacked an appropriate rod in our luggage" told the girl fluently with a perfect ingratiating smile and for a few moments the man just kept suspiciously gazing at her.

"...Help yourself and use what you want. But hands off the stuff I'm using!" said he, when he had finally given up, and left them, going towards a cot that was installed at the back of the room. Apparently, he used a corner of the warehouse, which he had divided from the rest, as some sort of nap area.

The girl breathed out lightly and turned around.

"Heard him, boy? Let's accept his good will and go searching for a rod as part of a nice break."

"Y-Yeah..."

He joined the search with a light dread of her forcing smile that would not let him refuse.

After all, one ought not to defy her at the wrong time.

For starters, the two went to a line of racks, which were stocked with tools and stuff, and started looking for a tool that fit their needs.

"Boy? How about this?"

"You intend to split a melon with a spanner? ...well, leaving aside the idea, that length won't work out. Too short."

"How's this then?"

"A hammer, huh... it'll turn into mush!"

"Mmmhh... then it must be this."

"What on earth do you plan on doing with that wire stripper?"

The boy was a little stunned at the girl who randomly showed him what was in reach.

But he noticed that the tools here, too, were a little strange.

There were all kinds and sorts of them, but they all were rather small. There he thought he could find bolts and nuts in many different diameters, but even the largest sized were much smaller than the usual standard.

The man had sat down on a pipe chair and was watching them through his dull eyes bustle about searching.

"...hmph. A trip in twos, giving a shit about school? You kids must be full of yourselves, huh?"

The girl did not overhear the mumbling voice behind her.

Without stopping her fumbling hands, she ventured a counterattack with a small voice.

"Oh? I think that's still a good deal better than being a drunkard who's legless already in the daytime."

The air tensioned. He had heard her for certain.

"......as if a little brat like you could understand me..."

"Oh, but I believe I can understand part of a tiny little bit of you!"

She swiftly stood up and turned towards him - and threw something so fast it couldn't be traced by the eyes.

The object that landed before his feet with its pages fluttering open was without a doubt her student notebook, which she always carried around with her.

"Take a good look at that student card."

"......what's the point..."

The man picked it up grudgingly but frowned when he saw the open page - as though he was looking at something that made no sense.

Her photograph that was attached to the student card had already faded so much that one could hardly tell whether there was anything at all.

Her name and student number had been lost entirely, which indicated that quite some time had passed since she started "vanishing".

The man rounded his eyes slightly.

"My symptoms haven't progressed as much as yours, but before long they will! It's just a matter of sooner and later if you ask me. Or do you disagree?" boasted she for some reason, which made him give her a slightly queer look, though he averted his eyes right after it.

"...hmph. It really is just a tiny bit..."

"Wha...!"

To stop her from countering, he tossed her the student card and turned from them.

"......You'd better eat that melon quickly and get out of here."

Leaving behind only these words, he stood up, moved the partitioning and disrupted their field of vision.

[in translation]