Shinji appeared to be sitting next to his buddy from grade school, Yutaka Seto (Male Student No. 12), the class clown. Yutaka must have cracked another joke, because Shinji was laughing.

Hiroki Sugimura (Male Student No. 11) sat behind them. His tall, lanky body barely fit into the narrow seat. He was reading a paperback book. Hiroki was reserved and studied martial arts, so he projected toughness. He didn't hang out with the other guys much, but once you got to know him a little he turned out to be nice. He was just shy. Shuya got along with him. Was he reading that book of Chinese poetry he liked so much? (Chinese books in translation were fairly easy to obtain, not surprising considering the Republic claimed China as "part of our homeland.")

Shuya once came across a line in an American paperback novel he'd dug out from a used bookstore (he managed to get through it with a dictionary): friends come and then they go. Maybe that's how things were. Just as he and Tadakatsu were no longer friends, there might come a time when he wasn't friends with Shinji and Hiroki anymore.

Well, maybe not.

Shuya glanced at Yoshitoki Kuninobu, who was still digging through his bag. Shuya had made it this far with Yoshitoki Kuninobu. And that would never change. After all they were friends ever since they wet their beds at that Catholic institution with the bombastic name, "the Charity House"—where orphans or other children who, due to "circumstances," were no longer able to be with their parents. You could say they were almost cursed to be friends.

Maybe we should cover religion while we're at it. In fact this country, under a unique system of national socialism ruled over by an executive authority called "the Dictator" (Shinji Mimura once said with a grimace, "This is what they call 'successful fascism.' Where else in the world could you find something so sinister?"), had no national religion.