WELL: Chapter 7

Previous TOC Next

The moment Ryousuke stepped into the café where the meeting was being held, a thick stench of sweat and dust hit his nose. At the center of the room, four small tables had been pushed together, around which about ten people were gathered, exchanging casual chatter like students during a break at school. A flashlight tied to a cord swung gently from the ceiling, casting flickering shadows.

“Ah, Shinobu. Sorry about earlier,” said a man in his late twenties with slightly protruding canine teeth, seated at the far end of the table, as they passed by.

Shinobu stopped and answered quietly, “No, not at all…”

“Thanks to you, really. I couldn’t have reached that high on my own.”

The shaved-headed man seated next to the one with the crooked tooth leaned in and whispered something, though Ryousuke caught it.

“What was the name of the guy next to Shinobu, the one with the bad leg?”

“Beats me…”

With those words in his ears, Ryousuke followed Tamura to two empty seats, where he and Shinobu sat down together. Even there, Shinobu was spoken to immediately by the man beside him.

“Hey, you shaved?”

The long-haired man, who had been stroking his own stubbled jaw, called out in surprise and leaned in to inspect Shinobu’s face closely. Shinobu replied simply, “I shaved,” but the man didn’t seem convinced, tilting his head repeatedly.

“Where’d you find a razor in this dump?”

“Tamura-san gave it to me when I asked.”

“Mmm,” the man hummed with folded arms. When he noticed Ryousuke watching, he gave a stiff nod and muttered, “Hey.”

“By the way, is it true you found a smartphone during today’s dig?” he added, already turning his attention back to Shinobu.

“Yeah.”

“So, how was it? Think it’ll work?”

Shinobu tilted his head. “I gave it to Tamura-san, but he said it was broken. It looked fine on the outside, though.”

The long-haired man clicked his tongue. “Again, huh? That guy—what was his name, Akatsuka or something—found one in some store too, and that was a bust as well. All the electronics are toast. Smartphones, computers, everything. Maybe whatever turned this place into a desert also fried the circuits with some kind of EMP or something.”

Once Shinobu started chatting with the guy next to him, Ryousuke found himself alone. The man on his other side was already in conversation with someone else. In this small circle, Ryousuke felt the distinct sting of exclusion. Of course Shinobu had broadened his network—he’d been outside the past two days, while Ryousuke had holed up inside. He had to admit: here, unlike Shinobu, he wasn’t really recognized by the others yet.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 9 PM, but it was delayed five minutes due to one late arrival. As soon as Tamura called out, “Let’s begin,” the chatter died instantly. That gentle voice and commanding presence—despite the fact that some of the other residents looked older than Tamura, he was undeniably the leader here.

“I don’t have much to report from my side,” Tamura said. “You’ve all already been introduced to our two new members. So I’ll turn it over to Ibuki for today’s external affairs update.”

“External affairs?” Ryousuke furrowed his brow at the term. Ibuki stood with a sour look and began to speak.

“This afternoon, I met with residents of the basement level of Matsui Department Store. They have twenty-five people. All men. They said women used to be there too, but just like here, they all died the next day. It’s led by a man in his forties named Katakura. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, but to get to the point—negotiations broke down.”

A murmur rippled through the room. Ignoring the noise, Ibuki continued.

“Matsui’s basement is a food court, so they’ve got no shortage of things to eat. They don’t have water in the same abundance as we do, but they make do with rainwater that falls from time to time. After discussing among themselves, they decided they’re better off staying independent. If, by chance, rescue ever does come, we’ve agreed to notify each other—but that’s all.”

The collective sigh that followed was thick with disappointment.

“That can’t be helped. Every group has its own way of thinking, and that’s something we can’t change. We had all agreed to send Ibuki to negotiate because I thought it would be good for us to join forces with the basement group at Matsui. I’m sorry it turned out like this. But honestly, I’m starting to think a smaller group might be easier to manage anyway.”

Tamura’s calm words slowly began to seep into the unsettled room, trying to steer the mood toward a reluctant acceptance of the failed negotiations. But that tentative calm was shattered by Ibuki’s sharp voice.

“Just because talks broke down doesn’t mean we should let Matsui’s basement group be. I propose we attack them.”

The room erupted into a commotion louder than when the negotiation breakdown had been announced.

“I can’t agree to that,” Tamura said firmly, his tone unusually stern. “I won’t condone conflict between people.”

“I don’t need your approval. I’m willing to go alone if I have to.”

There wasn’t the slightest hesitation in Ibuki’s words.

“Wait a second,” a pale man with an inflamed red ear interjected, cutting into the discussion.

“I don’t care how young we are on average, they’ve got the numbers. Even if we attack, we’ve got no chance of winning from the start.”

It was a fair point. But Ibuki remained unfazed, answering in a flat voice.

“The attack would be the last step. Before that, we’ll work to reduce their numbers through various means.”

Anyone could guess what “various means” implied—it was a thinly veiled suggestion of murder.

“Killing is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Nothing good comes from that,” Tamura said, looking stricken as he appealed to Ibuki.

“I agree with Tamura-san,” chimed in the man with the protruding canine teeth who’d spoken to Shinobu earlier. He raised his hand as he spoke. “Right now, I don’t see any reason to attack Matsui’s basement group. We’ve got our own system here, and it’s working fine. Why mess with that?”

“You’re all too damn complacent!”

The shrill hysteria of Ibuki’s voice tore through the air, silencing the room in an instant. His hands were clenched into fists, and he trembled with emotion.

“Do any of you actually understand the situation we’re in? We’ve only got enough food for maybe another month. Meanwhile, they’ve got piles of it. If we could get our hands on their supplies, we could survive a lot longer!”

One month really wasn’t much time at all. A quiet dread spread through Ryousuke’s chest—uncertainty about the future he’d avoided thinking about until now. Judging by the darkened expressions around him, everyone else felt the same.

“I don’t want to starve to death. I want to live. I want to live!”

Ibuki’s anguished cry stirred something in Ryousuke. He remembered what it felt like to be starving, to feel that same desperation only a few days ago.

Tamura lowered his gaze quietly.

“Ibuki, your thinking is wrong. Just because you want to live doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill people who have nothing to do with us. We should be grateful we even survived this far. There’s still a chance someone might come to help us before the food runs out.”

“Don’t say things you don’t really believe,” Ibuki spat back, laughing bitterly, shoulders trembling with contempt.

“No one’s coming to help. Never. We’re all going to starve to death right here. Sure, go ahead and play the good guy for now—cling to your morals, your sense of decency. But when push comes to shove, when we’re down to the last scraps, there’s going to be a war over food.”

The argument spiraled on while the rest of the room watched in silence, no one daring to speak.

“The other day, Tamura-san said we were like people who accidentally boarded Noah’s Ark... and now I think that was a pretty apt metaphor. At the time, I naively believed we were chosen. But the truth is, we didn’t get on Noah’s Ark—we boarded a leaky boat. This isn’t some land of hope. It’s hell.”

“Ibuki, that’s enough.”

A man in a worn, indigo T-shirt shouted from across the table, arms crossed. He looked to be in his early thirties—probably the oldest one there.

“I’m against fighting too. We still have food for a month, don’t we? Maybe we’ll find a better solution before then.”

“A solution like digging through rubble all day and finding a single can of mackerel wedged between crushed corpses? Sounds like a real efficient method to me,” Ibuki said, laughing.

The man in the T-shirt—referred to as Akatsuka—grimaced in an instant.

“If you hate Tamura’s way so much, then leave. Go off and start your damn war alone.”

“Please stop, Akatsuka-san,” Tamura stepped in, shielding Ibuki.

“Ibuki’s just worried about us in his own way. I was the one who put him in charge of food distribution—it’s no wonder the pressure’s getting to him.”

Akatsuka clamped his mouth shut, clearly still dissatisfied, and silence fell over the room again. A strained tension now filled the air, making it difficult for anyone to bring up another topic.

The one who finally broke the silence was the long-haired man seated beside Shinobu.

“Uh, can I say something? I was just talking to Shinobu, and he said if you go to Tamura-san, you can get a razor and stuff?”

“What, you didn’t know that?” the guy with the protruding canine teeth replied.

“Wait, everyone else knew?” the long-haired man asked, clearly shocked.

The guy with the protruding canine teeth looked at him with an exasperated expression.

“No wonder you’re the only one with a full beard. I thought you were doing it for good luck or something.”

“That's messed up. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“We didn’t think you didn’t know. Didn’t it strike you as weird that everyone else’s face was clean-shaven?”

Looking embarrassed, the long-haired guy lowered his head.

“I just thought... everyone had really sparse beards.”

That, of course, sent the room into a burst of laughter. With the silence broken, voices rose here and there, and the room filled with easy chatter.

“Still, we really don’t know anything, huh? Like what exactly happened, or how far this desert even stretches...” said Taki.

“I think it’s pretty bad,” someone said calmly—most likely the guy with the protruding canine teeth. “I mean, something’s wrong if rescue hasn’t come after this long. At the very least, maybe an entire prefecture’s been turned into desert.”

“Maybe it’s all of Japan,” Akatsuka muttered gravely.

To that, the buzz-cut guy leaned back in his chair and joked, “And what if it’s only this little area that got turned into desert? Like, we’re being quarantined or something for ‘radiation contamination,’ and just over the border, kids our age are chilling out and prepping for exams. That’d seriously piss me off.”

“Whatever the case is,” Tamura said smoothly, tying everything up, “we should be thankful we survived. What matters now is cherishing each day and working together until help arrives.”

Even as Tamura brought the discussion to a tidy close, Ibuki’s sour expression didn’t change.

“Tamura-san, your god...” he muttered suddenly, slowly raising a finger to the ceiling.

“He might be up there—but my god lives inside me. That’s why I’ll do what I believe is right.”

“You’re still going on about that crap?”

Akatsuka instantly bristled, ready to snap. Ibuki met his hostility with bloodshot eyes.

“No matter how pretty you make it sound, we’re just animals at the end of the day. The strong and the clever survive. The weak die off. That’s just nature. It’s how it’s always been.”

Spreading his arms wide, Ibuki whipped them about with almost manic force.

“The strong eat the weak. That’s why we eat cows and pigs, not tigers or lions, right? What’s so wrong about eating something weaker than you? What’s wrong with surviving off them?”

As he listened to Ibuki’s twisted logic, Ryousuke finally understood why he had been treated so cruelly. Just like the “blind man” who’d been killed, Ryousuke was, in Ibuki’s eyes, one of the ones meant to be culled—the weakest of the weak.

The meeting ended on a sour note, dispersing without ceremony. Throughout the discussion, Ryousuke had been so distracted by Ibuki’s words that he’d forgotten about Shinobu entirely. But now, alone with him again, Shinobu took up space in Ryousuke’s mind like a heavy shadow. This guy really was an idiot. If it were Ryousuke, even if he’d had romantic feelings for another guy, he never would have confessed them. Not in a million years.

As they made their way back to the shoe store from the café where the meeting had been held, Ryousuke solidified his stance.

“Hey, Shinobu.”

He called the name the moment they sat down in the back of the shop. Shinobu, who had been hanging his head, slowly looked up.

“Don’t touch me. Unless I’m leaning on you to walk, don’t even lay a finger on me.”

Shinobu’s eyes brimmed with tears, his face tightening into the verge of a sob.

“If I’m the one who touches you, that’s one thing. But if you touch me first, even once, I’ll hit you. You should be grateful I’m not telling you to get out.”

His voice trembled as he responded.

“I still haven’t heard your answer, Ryou-chan…”

Ryousuke hadn’t even realized Shinobu had been waiting for a reply—he hadn’t taken that confession seriously. So to be asked for an answer now caught him off guard.

“You sure you want to hear it? ‘Cause I don’t lie.”

Across from him, Shinobu’s hands clenched tight on his knees.

“I’ll be honest—it grosses me out. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being gay, but I don’t understand it. That’s it. End of story.”

Shinobu said nothing in response. And true to his word, Ryousuke kept his distance as they lay down to sleep. Not that two people could get very far in a space the size of two tatami mats—at most, fifty centimeters. A single turn would’ve bridged the gap easily.

After that confession, Ryousuke couldn’t help reexamining all of Shinobu’s past behavior. The first kiss had been back in the underground shelter. If only he’d noticed something was off then. But nothing about their lives had been normal at the time, so it hadn’t struck him as abnormal either.

Back in junior high, he’d had a girlfriend in ninth grade, and they’d had sex for the first time. He remembered obsessing over it, constantly trying to find the right time to invite her home. His head had been filled with nothing but sex.

They’d spent nearly their entire lives together. If Shinobu said he loved him, then surely he’d also wanted that next step… to sleep together. The thought alone was revolting. Not even that—it was unimaginable. The idea of being naked, pressed up against Shinobu, was beyond the bounds of what his brain would even allow.

“Ryou-chan.”

His name was called out in the dark.

“I want to hold hands.”

“Don’t screw with me.”

He shut it down instantly. Until the confession, he’d always thought those kinds of requests were just because Shinobu was lonely. But now he knew better—they were soaked in murky, needy feelings he didn’t want to touch.

“I’m scared. I keep having bad dreams.”

“Liar.”

He spat the word into the darkness.

“You just pretend to be scared because you want to cling to me.”

“That’s not—it’s not like that. I really… I can’t sleep unless you’re there, Ryou-chan…”

His rambling voice grated on Ryousuke’s nerves more with every word, until he finally shouted.

“Shut the hell up and go to sleep already!”

Shinobu let out a wailing cry like a little kid, and Ryousuke covered his ears.

“I mean it! I really can’t sleep!”

“If you keep being annoying, I’ll throw you out of this room too.”

He knew Shinobu wouldn’t leave. He never did. And if he actually did go, Ryousuke would be the one in trouble. He needed someone there—because if he were alone, he might end up dead. In Ibuki’s eyes, after all, Ryousuke was someone who deserved to be culled.

Whether he was murdered as part of the “natural order,” or simply starved to death when the food ran out—it was hell either way. Without help, there was no bright future. And on top of that already hellish existence, he’d been hit with Shinobu’s confession, the worst kind of bonus. Since this world had gone to hell, not a single thing had gone right.

“Stop crying. You’re seriously pissing me off.”

In the echoing room filled with Shinobu’s hitching sobs, Ryousuke finally drifted off into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

Previous TOC Next