"Hey, don't let go of that hand" Episode 2
──A rupture of silence──
Thick green weeds are poking their heads out from cracks in the asphalt.
There was a scent of damp earth and firewood burning in the distance.
"Hey, Haru, Yui! I'm leaving you behind!"
Up ahead, Minato, wearing his school bag, waves his hand innocently.
Only Minato's voice remains as piercingly bright as it ever was.
"That guy... he should think about the situation a little."
Haru said to Yui, who was walking beside him, in a deliberately blunt tone.
He was afraid that the sound of his own heartbeat would echo through the silent town.
"Hehe, but when Minato-kun is smiling, I feel like today will be okay too."
Yui smiles faintly.
Since the fuel ran out, Yui has become even thinner. Haru deliberately slowed his pace to match hers.
"...Yui, isn't your bag heavy? I'll carry it."
"No, I'm fine. Haru-kun, you were helping dig the well yesterday, weren't you?"
Haru's face grew hot at the look in Yui's eyes as she said that and looked up at him.
"...Let's go. If we're late, Minato will eat all the wild greens."
Haru began to climb the slope leading to the school, careful not to touch Yui's thin wrists, as if chasing her shadow.
When they arrived at school, the classroom was already filled with the voices of children. There were fewer voices than before.
Several seats had remained empty for a long time.
The homeroom teacher wrote "Patience" on the blackboard again today.
The fingertips holding the chalk were cracked.
"Do not let go of your hands. The hands of the person next to you."
At lunchtime, they were each served a bowl of wild green soup and a single small piece of black bread.
Haru quietly placed his bread in front of the thin first-grader sitting next to him.
Yui quietly pushed her soup in front of another child.
Seeing this, Minato placed his bread in front of the child at the very end.
"I'm not really hungry today."
No one said anything.
But the warmth of the three of them remained just a little in the cold classroom.
At dismissal time, the three of them walked down the slope in a line.
Yui turned off first at the fork in the road.
She looked back and waved her hand slightly.
The twilight light hit Yui's thin cheeks.
"See you tomorrow, Haru-kun. Minato-kun."
Haru raised his hand.
That was all he could manage.
Yui's back turned the corner and disappeared.
Haru always wanted to follow Yui all the way to her house at this fork in the road.
"...You like her, don't you?"
Minato peered into Haru's face.
"Shut up."
Haru laughed at Minato's laughter.
It echoed through the silent slope.
The boy's best friend was inside the screen.
"Haru, the old store site ahead. There is a 63 percent probability that government emergency supplies will arrive in one hour."
"Thanks, Genie, I'll go check it out."
There was bread at the old store site. He was able to buy just one.
"I was able to buy bread today."
"That's good news. How many days has it been?"
"Three days."
There was a very brief pause, and then the voice continued.
"...Then, you should eat half of it."
"It's fine. I'll give it to Mom."
In his pocket, the screen said nothing for a while.
His mother had grown thin.
She would cough in the morning and could no longer get up.
Haru hid the bread in the hem of his shirt and held it against his stomach.
He quickened his pace, wanting to bring it home as soon as possible.
A sour, sweet smell clung to the back of his nose.
The sweet smell made his mouth water involuntarily.
"Mom, I'm home."
As he reached for the sliding door of the entrance, something shifted.
The next moment, the ground jumped violently. He couldn't stand and fell to his knees.
The whole house rattled and shook violently, and the sound of the beams creaking screamed overhead. A high-pitched scream from a girl outside rose up, and immediately someone else's voice overlapped it.
"Haru, get low. Prioritize avoiding falling objects. ...Seismic intensity, unmeasurable. A wide-area power outage has occurred."
Genie's flat voice rang in his ears.
The boy crawled, trying to move into the house anyway. His fingertips dug into the floorboards, and he put so much strength into them that his nails turned white. He hit his forehead hard against the threshold of the entrance. Before the pain, a nasty, dull sound remained deep in his head.
"...Mom."
His voice was swallowed by the sound of the shaking. There was no reply. A heavy sound of shelves falling behind him.
A sharp, shattering sound of dishes breaking all at once. And then—the definitive sound of the entire frame of the house breaking, a "collapse" echoed.
Everything pierced his ears with strange clarity.
He unconsciously hugged the bread inside his shirt to protect it. His own body heat and the warmth of the bread mingled.
The boy gritted his teeth and crawled toward the back room. His fingertips trembled, and small traces of blood remained on the floor. He tasted blood in his mouth. His knees were likely cut, as red spots continued along the floor.
"Mom!"
He told himself it shouldn't be too late.
A terribly quiet silence flowed out from the back.
"Haru, I cannot confirm your mother's biological reaction within the detection range of vital signs. ...Please make a rational decision. The danger of secondary disasters is—"
"Shut up!"
For the first time, the boy yelled at his best friend.
As dust swirled and his vision clouded white, the device's screen flickered for just a moment.
Genie said nothing.
Haru reached into the gap of the collapsed shelf.
The moment he tried to move it, something fell from above.
They had promised to eat together tomorrow, too.
But all that was in front of him were the remains of what was once called a "home" and nothing but a cold silence that stretched on forever.
