kscans

Chapter 12 - The Morning of the Adventure

The next day, it was snowing.

A late-season cold snap had set in, and the temperature had been dropping steadily since dawn. You'd freeze if you weren't dressed for midwinter. Tsukie carefully placed her favorite frilly blouse and a red plaid skirt into her backpack, making sure not to wrinkle them.

She was going to lend them to Akina. She had to look cute for her first meeting with her dad in a long time. Picturing what was in Akina's locker, she pulled out anything she thought was missing from her own dresser and packed it.

A cardigan with a flower motif her mother had knitted. Tights and woolen socks. Would she need woolen underpants?

She broke her piggy bank and transferred the rest of her New Year's money into a wallet with a picture of Cutie Honey on it. After stuffing some chocolate and candy into the pockets of her red coat, she left the house with her father.

"You've got a lot of stuff today," her father commented. "Mom asked me to bring it," she replied, and they parted ways at Kita-Juni-Jo Station.

While Akina's mother, Akemi, was out of the room, Tsukie quickly packed Akina's boots, coat, hat, and gloves into a paper bag and carried it down to the first-floor women's restroom in the outpatient wing. She placed the paper bag and the backpack she'd brought from home inside the janitor's closet. Hidden there, it was unlikely to be found for at least an hour unless something unusual happened.

In fact, she had recently seen a movie with her father that had a scene of someone escaping from a hospital. In the movie, the character had hidden their shoes and jacket in a restroom, changed there, and then walked out mingling with the outpatients. She was copying it exactly.

After the morning rounds, Tsukie and Akina went out into the hallway together. They told Akemi they were going to play on the staircase landing. The day before, her daughter had been moping under the covers, but today she was heading off to play cheerfully, so Akemi seemed relieved.

It must be very hard for a mother when her child cries. But no matter how young, a child couldn't recover from the shock of not being able to go home in just one day. Akina was betting everything on her adventure with Tsukie. Her heart was swelling with the hope of seeing her father.

That was why she was bravely forcing herself to act as she normally would.

It was the same for Tsukie. If their escape from the hospital failed, she might really be banned this time. She knew that there was no excuse for trying to take a sick child outside without permission.

That's why she had to succeed.

She had to lie, even to the people she loved most. Her small chest ached with guilt, but even so, she wanted to help Akina see her father. And she believed she was the only one who could.

After changing in the outpatient restroom and putting on their coats, they looked just like any other outpatients. Akina was wearing an eyepatch, so they joked, "You must be here for the eye doctor," and laughed. Tsukie shouldered her backpack, which now only contained their bento, and hid the paper bag with Akina's pajamas back in the janitor's closet. Then they walked straight to the main entrance and went outside.

The moment the door opened, a cold, snowy wind blew in, grazing Akina's cheek. She instinctively stopped and ducked her head. Tsukie held out her red-gloved right hand and said, "Let's go." Akina took it with her own matching-gloved left hand.

It was the same left hand from which the bandages had been removed just recently.

Tsukie squeezed back gently, careful not to hurt Akina's hand. The warmth of their hands, their body heat. Akina blushed, moved by the fact that this was the first time she had held hands with her left.

And so the two of them stepped out into the snowy city.

Walking straight south along the Hokkaido University wall, Sapporo Station came into view on their left. It was just a fifteen-minute walk for a child. Akina was giddy, opening her mouth to catch the snowflakes falling on her face and deliberately making footprints in the freshly fallen snow.

Tsukie, too, wrote in the pure white canvas with her footprints.

"akina." Seeing it, Akina jumped and wrote her own letters, adding:

      tsu
     a k i n a
      e

A cross made from their two names—a vow of eternal friendship.

The little girls looked from the letters in the snow to each other's faces and smiled in satisfaction.

They bought tickets at the north exit of Sapporo Station. They weren't tall enough to reach the counter and had to stand on their tiptoes just to buy two tickets.

At the ticket gate, an attendant punched their stiff tickets. The Sapporo Station punch made an 'M' shape. Every station in Japan had a different shape. The two of them stared at the shape, then smiled and put the two punched edges together.

"It's a ribbon!"

"If you put two together, it makes a ribbon."

At their girlish observation, the station attendant chuckled and saw them off.

A rotating flap-style departure board was installed on the platform, and the sign displaying the destination, train name, and departure time appeared with a whirring rotation. The two of them boarded the train bound for Asahikawa and claimed a spot by the window.

After leaving Sapporo Station, the train passed Naebo, Shiroishi, Atsubetsu, Oasa, and then came to Nopporo. The two of them read out the hiragana station names on the signs as they gazed at the monochrome scenery outside the window.

Snow, whipped up by the train, had collected in the corners of the window. The faintly frosted glass was a canvas just for them. With her fingertip, Tsukie drew Akina dancing in a gorgeous dress. Akina, in turn, drew Tsukie in a frilly dress with a big ribbon on her head. They looked at each other and giggled softly.

The train soon arrived at Nopporo Station. Nopporo Station was a railway junction where trains came and went constantly.

The Yubari Railway Line, built to transport coal from Japan's largest coal mine, the Yubari Coalfield, to Otaru, connected Nopporo Station on the Hakodate Main Line to Kuriyama Station on the Muroran Main Line, and Shikanotani Station on the Yubari Line (now the Sekisho Line), before terminating at Yubari Honcho Station.

The single-track Yubari Railway used Platform 3. The two little girls waited for the train on the snowy platform, chatting away.

Before long, a single-car railcar pulled into the platform. A cream-colored body with red lines. A silver roof. It was a vehicle with a design called a "Shonan Face," with two windows lined up in the front. Its sides were lined with windows like a bus.

It was completely different from any passenger car Tsukie had ever ridden, and her eyes lit up.

"Wow! What a cute train, Akina-chan!"

Akina, her eyebrows now white with snow, nodded happily, her cheeks flushed red.

"It gets even more fun once it starts moving."

The two of them briskly brushed the snow from each other's coats and climbed aboard the car as if in a dance. They sat down primly in the middle of a long bench seat that ran along the side of the car.

"'Kiha 251' sounds like a secret code, doesn't it?" The number was written on the side of the car. The unusual shape of the vehicle was so novel that Tsukie was bubbling with excitement.

The Kiha 251. Built by Niigata Engineering Co., Ltd. in 1953, it was Hokkaido's first diesel railcar with a hydraulic transmission. The code-like symbols that represent the vehicle type are actually classified in a very straightforward way, and you can generally tell what kind of vehicle it is just by looking at these symbols. Railway enthusiasts probably find a certain aesthetic in this sort of thing.

Incidentally, the ki in Kiha indicates whether the vehicle is an electric train or a diesel railcar. Ki is for a diesel railcar equipped with an engine. Ha is for an ordinary passenger car. The 2 in 251 indicates it has a diesel engine. The 5 indicates it's an express type. The 1 indicates its order of appearance in this series.

Departing from the starting station of Nopporo and passing the first station, Hokkai Koki-mae, the tracks suddenly curved sharply to the right. Leaving the Hakodate Main Line, the train cut a shortcut through the undeveloped wilderness toward Kuriyama, where it would meet the Muroran Main Line.

As the car picked up speed, it began to sway violently from side to side, and the hanging straps began to dance in unison from right to left, matching the car's motion. Swaying and returning, swaying and returning, the straps hit the metal pipe of the luggage rack jutting out from the ceiling, making a hard, crisp sound.

Chak, chak, chak, chak...

The rhythm carved out by the straps and the rack continued with a delightful beat. The little girls swayed their bodies left and right in time with the sound, intoxicated by the rhythm.

"I've never ridden a train like this before!" Tsukie said, her cheeks flushed, clapping her hands to her chest. Her heart was pounding with the new experience.

"I'm so happy to be with you, Tsukie-chan," Akina said in a soft whisper.

"Hee hee..." Tsukie laughed shyly and rested her head on Akina's shoulder. Akina leaned her own head against Tsukie's.

Matching red coats, red boots, red gloves. Sitting side-by-side felt so right, as if they could understand each other's feelings completely without saying a word.

The Yubari Railway journeyed on through the snow, keeping a lively rhythm. As far as the eye could see, a single track stretched on and on through a desolate, monochrome plain. There was nothing to obstruct the view, a landscape as pure white as the future the little girls held, a pristine view untainted by anyone.

Kamiebetsu, Shimonotsuki, Bansui, Namporo...

The further they got from Sapporo, the more intense the unseasonal snow became, until the view outside the window was completely blocked by a blizzard.

An old man who got on at Namporo sat down next to them. He smiled at the girls, the deep wrinkles on his cheeks crinkling.

"Where are you little ladies headed?"

"To Kuriyama," Akina answered immediately.

"Ho ho. Is that so? You little ladies should remember this train well. Long ago, triple-headed steam locomotives used to pull freight cars full of coal right here..."

"Triple-headed?" Tsukie repeated the unfamiliar term like a parrot. The old man narrowed his sunken eyes and said:

"They had to link three of those incredibly powerful locomotives together to haul all the black diamonds they dug up. There'll probably never be another mountain like that again, before or since."

Hearing about three locomotives, Tsukie wondered if it was even possible to link those big, black, tough-looking engines together.

"Where are you going, Grandpa?" Akina asked.

"Me? I'm not going anywhere. I just ride to the last stop, or get off at a station along the way and walk around. Won't be able to do this for much longer, you see."

The little girls couldn't quite understand the old man's story of riding the train with no destination, but he looked so happy that they just nodded along.

And then, the old man got off at the next station, Soyo. He was going to walk around the station, he said with a laugh. As they watched him from the platform, the two girls waved, wondering why an adult would be so eccentric as to get off at every station and walk around on such a snowy day.

"Three locomotives, huh?" Akina said, dangling her feet from the seat.

"That's amazing. I bet there was lots and lots of smoke," Tsukie said, making a puffing motion with her hands.

"Since there were three, it must have been lots and lots and lots of smoke," Akina said, drawing three columns of smoke with her arms.

After Soyo came Kita-Naganuma, and then the tracks curved gently to the right, arriving at their destination, Kuriyama.

The two of them bid farewell to the car filled with the pleasant rhythm of the hanging straps and stepped out onto the windswept platform.