Loups-Garous
LOUPS-GAROUS
by
KYOGOKU
Natsuhiko
Copyright ©
2001 KYOGOKU Natsuhiko
All rights reserved.
Originally published in Japan by
TOKUMA SHOTEN PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with
OSAWA OFFICE,
Japan through
THE SAKAI AGENCY.
English translation
©
2010
VIZ Media, LLC
Cover Design by Frances O. Liddell
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.
HAIKASORU
Published by
VIZ Media, LLC
295
Bay Street
San Francisco,
CA 94133
ISBN 978-1-4215-4061-0
Haikasoru eBook edition, December 2010
Contents
THERE ONCE WAS
a beast called the
wolf.
If you saw a picture of one, you'd as soon assume it was some kind of dog.
At least that was what Hazuki Makino thought as she looked at Ayumi Kono's back, though why she was thinking about it in the first place was a mystery. It had nothing to do with anything. One minute she was just thinking how uncomfortable her school uniform wasâthe fabric too thick, making it hard to move around. Then, wolves.
Ayumi's short black hair was very
garçon manqué
; running long from her hairline to the collar of an off-white shirt, her crisp white nape.
Hazuki had first seen her at the area center's summer session, but later Ayumi became a common sight.
“Aren't you ever gonna grow your hair out?” she'd called out, and then, “Hey, I'm talking to you,” before Ayumi finally turned around.
Her eyes, tinted green, pierced through long eyelashes like a young doe.
“Smells feral.”
Ayumi ignored the question and kept her arms around her knees as she turned away from Hazuki.
“Feral?”
“Yeah. It's gross,” Ayumi said into her knees, tucking her head into the crook of her crossed arms. Hazuki, still seated, inched closer.
“What's that mean? I don't think I've ever smelled anâ¦animal before.”
“Me neither, dude.” Ayumi guffawed.
Then how do you know you're smelling it?
Hazuki asked. Ayumi thrust out her right arm.
It was white. It was thin. It was smooth like alabaster. Hazuki wasn't sure but it looked like the arm of a girl. Not a beast.
Hazuki lowered her nose to Ayumi's arm.
“It doesn't smell like anything. Just your shower gel, maybe.”
“Yeah?”
Ayumi put her arm back around her knees. She was looking far off into the distance. Hazuki scooted farther up so she was sitting diagonally right behind Ayumi. She had clean-cut features and a dignified profileâ
God, what a lame way to describe it
.
“What do you mean by
feral
?”
“I'm not sure. It's just the thought that came to me.”
Ayumi lowered her eyes. Hazuki looked to where Ayumi's gaze had just been fixedâa cityscape of no distinction that promised no futures. Buildings stood like CGI creations.
Utterly. Boring.
No movement.
What was she looking at?
Probably just staring off into the distance. Nothing, technically. Just the distance between them and the view itself. You couldn't measure distance in a computer monitor.
After a long silence she saw itâthe air, the wind, or something.
Hazuki and Ayumi always came here after their communication session ended. They'd sit at this spot and stare at the view in silence. They were supposed to go straight home after classes, but who ever did? If you were already used to going out on your own you weren't going to stop now, and if you weren't, this weekly class was the perfect opportunity to do so. Since the kids were forced to go out once a week anyway, it made sense to take advantage of the situation. The counselors stayed out after sessions too. It being a weekly encounter group on communication, it could be argued that one would actually be remiss not to learn how to interact with society; to go into town.
Still. It wasn't as if there were much else to do besides wander.
The town was vacant. What real boutiques existed only sold luxury and collector's items. These things weren't inherently interesting to the girls and were totally unaffordable for children. They didn't appreciate being under constant surveillance at the restaurants and coffee shops, and it cost money just to sit there anyway. Some of the kids went to the “amusement areas,” but it essentially amounted to camping before a bigger monitor screening the same “entertainment” you could get at home. Besides, half the time there were more adults than children. Not very fun. Mostly, the kids went to the park and pretended to play sports; they sat around and made idle conversation with each other. A useless endeavor that benefited no one. One would have to wait till nightfall to do anything more out of the ordinary, so there was no sense in using your weekly trip to summer school as an excuse to commit mischief, even something as innocent as detouring on your way home.
The communication sessions could get pretty long, depending on your district. Hazuki's was full of children sans legal guardians or who had other qualifying “special circumstances.” This meant the classes were easy and ended early. Of course, they said it was because public safety in the area was so well maintained. It was to continue keeping order, discipline. This was why group had always been able to end at 3:00 pm on the dot.
They had so much free time they couldn't stand it.
However, Hazuki was just as bored sitting around making idle conversation. There was no story. It wasn't as if they were staring into their monitors, so it seemed ridiculous to be talking about schoolwork. If she wanted the news she could get that at home. There was absolutely no reason why children had to face each other to talk.
On the other hand, one could reason, they'd gone out of their way to come to school anyway, so it would be pointless not to take advantage of the opportunity to make the detour. If it was going to be pointless, it should really be pointless, was another way of looking at it.
And that was how the two girls got to coming hereâlooking out into the city, their arms wrapped around their knees.
Ayumi used to come out here alone in the beginning. Hazuki happened to see her one day on her way back from school and found it curious. Ayumi had just transferred to the area four years ago. They were assigned to the same room, so she knew at least her name. Before that, it was as if she didn't exist. Hazuki was terribly curious about this new girl and started researching Ayumi's profile. They were the same age because they were in the same groupâshe knew that much. But the students in each group had different learning-level assignments. Theirs were identical.
The next week they were in group together, Hazuki tried to sit close to Ayumi. Not to make conversation or anything. Just to be near her. They'd stayed that close after warming up to each other.
It wasn't as if Hazuki was trying to be like Ayumi or become best friends with her. It being a group setting, this was the perfect place for Hazuki to behave totally pointlessly. And that was the reason itself for her actions. Since Ayumi never complained, Hazuki never left.
Ayumi put her nose to her arm once again, then opened her right hand wide. Staring into the empty space inside her palm, she suddenly clenched her fingers into a hard fist.
“What kind of smell?”
“I dunno. Maybe human.”
“You just said it was an animal smell.”
“Fine. I meant
living being
.”
“Then that's your own smell.”
“Yeah, but⦔
Ayumi was a beautiful young woman. Her hair was very short and her style plain, but, Hazuki thought, she was still more feminine than her own self, long-haired and accessory-laden.
Why can't I pull off short hair?
But as she started to mouth the next words out loud, Ayumi abruptly stood up and turned around. Hazuki turned her head.
Leaning against the handrail of the staircase was Mio Tsuzuki.
“You're going to get in trouble,” Mio said. “They told us to hurry home today.”
“What about you?” Ayumi responded. Mio grinned and leapt over the handrail to Ayumi's side.
“I'm bored.”
Her eyes were feline, her face compact.
Mio Tsuzuki was in the same class as Hazuki and Ayumi. But while they were the same age, she was far higher in level placement. It would be more accurate to say there was no other objective correlation between them than to claim one smarter than the other two. According to public records, Mio had completed her compulsory groups at the age of nine and finished her secondary groups in an astonishing two years. In following with the line of college curricula she'd completed, she was ten years ahead of her age group. Her learning speed was the best bar none.
She's what we used to call a genius
, adults would say.
Still. A fourteen-year-old was always a fourteen-year-old.
And in that respect, they were all the same.
“There's nothing to do,” Mio said.
“Why don't you go study?”
“I'm tired of it.” Mio sounded as uninterested as she claimed to be with life, and turned her back.
“Does that mean you've learned it all?”
Hazuki compared Mio's back to Ayumi's face.
She thought it unusual.
Mio was hard to like at first. Hazuki had transferred to this neighborhood ten years ago, but until today she had not once had a normal conversation with Mio. They knew nothing about her personal life, and Mio didn't seem to have anything in common with them anyway. There was clearly nothing to ask about, so naturally, there was nothing to talk about.
But it wasn't just Mio Tsuzuki. Hazuki and Ayumi were hardly in a position to have mundane social interactions, so they knew next to nothing about any of their classmates. In terms of the personal information you could gather on someone, excluding the public data everyone was legally obliged to provide for public consumption, there was no way of knowing if the arbitrary information people gave about themselves was true or not. Of course everyone agreed on this point. Besides all of which, the groupmates only saw each other for a few hours a weekâ conversations wouldn't last much more than five minutes if they happened at all. Hazuki always thought it strange that people could sit in front of a monitor for five hours without a problem.