Amazake
New Member
Fumiyo Takahane
First-year student
Yurigaoka Girls' Academy
STR 3 DEX 2 WIL 4
Sunday, 1944年04月02日
Maebashi Station, Gunma
Participants:
Amazake
as Fumiyo Takahane,
Daylight Fantasy
as Hanako Okita,
Meehrwillow
as Kariko Amazuka,
Evie Maiden Of Apples
as Ui Tsubaru,
viviionne
as Honami Awaji,
withinasapphire
as Shiho Kimura, and
deadly king
as Homura Oyama.The girl's eyes slowly opened as she awoke to the sound of screeching brakes, indicating that she had arrived at her destination. Correcting her posture, she noticed that the other girls sitting beside and in front of her had risen from their seats as they prepared to disembark. Not wanting to be jostled, she decided to wait until the carriage was fairly empty before getting off. She had intended to sit back and relax while looking out of the window, but since the carriage she was in was directly behind the locomotive, the grey smoke and white steam emitted by the Hachiroku obscured the view to the point where the platform was invisible. So she pretended to be busy checking her luggage, even though she was carrying only a leather suitcase and a kinchaku bag made of cloth with a bouquet pattern that was clearly not of Japanese origin.
After a moment of waiting and seeing that most of the other passengers had left the platform, the girl slung the strap of her kinchaku bag over her shoulder, stood up and lifted her heavy leather suitcase with her two small hands. Her wooden sandals clicked loudly as she walked towards the exit of the carriage and down the platform. She noticed that other girls had gathered there. Not one of them was accompanied by an adult, and many of them looked worried and confused. The girls were all dressed differently; some wore western style clothes, while others wore school uniforms reminiscent of sailors' uniforms, complete with ribbon ties, pleated skirts and Mary Jane shoes. The majority, however, wore komons, informal kimonos with repeating patterns that were worn on a daily basis. The girl continued to observe the other girls and noticed that some of them were also dressed in hakama-style work pants called monpe over their kimono and air raid hoods made of thick fabric to protect their heads from the debris and sparks caused by enemy bombs. Such strange and unfashionable clothing had been introduced at school ever since she could remember; she even still recalls learning how to put on a gas mask in primary school.
Seeing the other girls' clothes made her want to check her own. She placed her leather suitcase on the platform floor and turned to see her reflection in the train window. Her reflection in the window was staring back at her with brownish eyes that matched her own. The girl tried to smile and saw her reflection do the same, but she felt her smile was forced. There was clearly a lot going on in the girl's mind. She thought she looked silly in her red air-raid hood, which made her face look chubbier than it really was. And like most of the other girls, she too wore komon. Her kimono was white, almost monochromatic if not for the small pink cherry blossoms scattered across it. Looking down, she noticed the monpe she was wearing. It was white, just like her kimono, but it gradually took on a pink hue as it reached her ankles. In addition, the monpe had a more vivid and detailed floral pattern than the kimono she was wearing, and was clearly made of a higher quality fabric. The beauty of the designs on the silly looking trousers, which were far from feminine or elegant, brought tears to her eyes. This was because she remembered the original shape of the clothes before they were transformed into a monpe.
Fortunately for her, the cold breeze blowing into the station brought her back to reality and she wiped away her tears. The girl realised that she could see the steam from her breath, so she rubbed her hands together and blew her warm breath onto her pale, tiny fingers, which she hadn't realised had turned red from the cold. Turning away from her reflection in the train window, she continued to warm her hands as she looked around until her gaze settled on a wooden sign hanging from the ceiling of the station that read "Maebashi Station". Her train ride had been relatively short; her mother had brought her from their home in Nakaochiai, Shinjuku, to Ueno Station around two in the afternoon, which served as an assembly point for children being evacuated to the mountainous interior of the Kanto region. The Hachiroku steam train took them northwest for about an hour and a half to Takasaki Station, where many of the children evacuated to Mount Haruna disembarked. The train then travelled northeast for about 30 minutes to Maebashi station, at the foot of Mount Akagi. Although the journey was short, the cold air of Gunma's mountainous region made the girl feel as if the train she was on had transported her back a few months to a time when it was still winter. She remembers a similar story in a western novel she had never read, but had heard about from her mother's colleagues.
Soon after, the girl heard several men shouting the names of schools, including her own, Yurigaoka Girls' Academy. The girls huddled on the platform quickly moved from their positions in the direction where the man was shouting their respective school names. As the station began to empty, it was then that the girl could finally look out of the station and see Mount Akagi in the distance, its peak still covered in snow. The girl knelt down to pick up her leather suitcase, and as she followed the others out of the station, she looked up and saw that the sky was grey. It was still bright outside, but she couldn't see the sun anywhere. Whether it was the fault of the weather or not, when she looked around and saw the buildings around her, their paint seemed washed out, monochromatic. Even the blossoming petals of the cherry trees around the corner from the station had faded to a lifeless shade. Her gaze fell on the army trucks and cabriolets lined up along the road. The red of their flags also seemed dull. The girl watched as uniformed soldiers milled around the stations, ushering the girls into orderly lines. For some reason, however, those accompanying the Yurigaoka girls all wore white armbands with the words 'Kempei' written in red. The girl joined the line at the back, clutching her leather suitcase tightly. One by one, her new schoolmates climbed into the back of the truck with the help of the soldiers. She noticed a bespectacled, middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat over his army uniform standing near one of the trucks with a clipboard in his hand. He looked up occasionally to study the girls' faces before scribbling notes and shuffling his paperwork. As the girl waited her turn to board, a strong gust of cold mountain wind suddenly whipped through the area. The girl held her breath as she watched the fierce gales rustle the cherry trees, ripping a flurry of pale pink petals from their branches and scattering them into the grey, sunless sky until they disappeared completely from sight.
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