2014
When Shintaro stepped inside, the house felt emptier than usual. His siblings were probably still out somewhere.
Shintaro knelt to take off his shoes in the genkan, his fingers slightly stiff from the cold. He was usually not that cold at all, but the weather had been exceptionally freezing lately. That winter chilliness clung to his damp hair and skin, seeping through his jacket and straight into his bones.
"I'm home," he called out as he stepped further inside.
"Shin-chan, welcome," his mother called from the kitchen. The scent of miso soup wafted through the air.
"Yeah," Shintaro muttered as he entered the kitchen area, slinging his bag onto one of the kitchen chairs. "Where's everyone?"
"Your father's at work, your sister's still at cram school, and your brother—" his mother waved a hand dismissively. "Out with his friends, as usual."
Typical. Shintaro sat down, not bothering to ask when everyone would be back; it wasn't like it mattered.
"Oh, by the way," his mother started after a moment, glancing over her shoulder at him as she started preparing an evening snack for him. "I saw Kyomoto-san today. You remember Taiga's mother, don’t you?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"She mentioned that Taiga is changing school to the one you're going to. Apparently he has grown up even more and his hair's longer now, I wonder if you'd even recognize him these days! It’s been so long since you two saw each other. You used to follow him around everywhere when you were kids."
"Yeah," Shintaro muttered, looking down at his plate. A flicker of a memory surfaced all of a sudden. Shintaro hadn’t thought about Kyomoto Taiga in years.
When they were kids, he and Taiga had been nearly inseparable. Shintaro had been ten and Taiga twelve, and Shintaro had practically half-lived at the Kyomotos' house back then, especially that one summer. Taiga’s parents had always been welcoming, and Taiga himself had been one of the coolest person Shintaro had known.
Taiga had hit a growth spurt early, suddenly shooting up to be almost two heads taller than Shintaro, which had only added to his mystique.
He’d taught Shintaro how to play Super Mario, let him borrow his manga, and even once helped him fix a broken toy that Shintaro’s big brother had written off as useless. To young Shintaro, Taiga had been like a second big brother, the kind who had been like a role model as well as a friend at the same time.
But then their paths had diverged. Shintaro couldn’t even remember why or when exactly it had happened. Maybe it was when Taiga's family had moved a little bit further from them, or when their interests had started to shift. Whatever the reason, they hadn’t seen each other in years.
"Maybe you should go and visit them sometime," his mother suggested with a light tone. "It’s good to keep in touch with old friends."
"Maybe," Shintaro said noncommittally
His mother placed a plate in front of him, a couple of rice balls, pickled plums, and a cup of tea.
"Thanks," Shintaro said, taking a bite and swallowing a big mouthful of rice as his eyes drifted to the turned-on television.
The news was on, as it always was at that time of evening. The anchors in black suits spoke in polished tones, detailing some international story. At first, Shintaro didn't pay attention, his mind still on the laps he had swum earlier and the homework waiting for him upstairs. But then a word caught his ear: "virus."
The screen switched to shaky footage of a hospital. A few people lay in beds with IVs, their faces blurred for privacy, while doctors in white coats shuffled through.
"...The World Health Organization is monitoring the situation in Pakistan closely. Experts aren't sure how exactly the infection spreads but assure the public that global transmission risks are low. Japan's Ministry of Health has issued no warnings at this time…"
A map flashed on the screen, marking the affected areas in deep red. Those red regions appeared to be somewhere near India. Everything about it felt distant, like every other disaster Shintaro had ever heard about before—floods and famine in countries he couldn't even identify on a map, wars that felt more like history lessons than actual events.
The broadcast shifted to an interview. "So what if this outbreak spreads globally? What if it becomes uncontainable?" a somber-faced interviewer asked.
The specialist, a man with graying hair, adjusted his glasses before answering. His voice was somewhat clipped and precise.
"If that happens- we lose."
"What do you mean by 'we lose'?"
"I mean exactly that," the specialist said. "We lose our ability to contain it. We lose the systems we rely on. We lose lives. If it's a fungus and it spreads unchecked, society as we know it will unravel. It’s that simple."
The interviewer looked somewhat speechless for a moment before he turned back to the camera to state firmly that they'd get back to the studio.
His mother paused, the knife in her hand stopping mid-air. Her eyes moved to the screen where the announcers kept going on about the situation. Shintaro shoveled another bite of rice into his mouth.
"Doesn't sound great," he said, mostly to fill the silence between them.
"It's far away," his mother replied quickly. She resumed chopping, and the sound of the knife against the cutting board was sharp and rhythmic. "We don't need to worry about that here."
Shintaro leaned back in his chair, sipping the rest of his tea while the broadcast moved on to different topics. The anchors started talking about some political situation, and then there was footage of experts debating the effects of the upcoming elections on global markets. It was boring stuff. There was no word about the virus anymore and Shintaro wondered why it was discarded just like that.
Then again, it didn’t matter. The real question was why he’d even thought about it. Shintaro shrugged it off. Like his mother always said, it was just another news story. Those things happened somewhere else, to someone else. Not here. Not to them.