Dead Hours の続きを読むにはログイン
The Long Way Round の 18 ページ中 3 ページを読みました。続きを読むにはログインするか、無料の Inkroost アカウントを作成してください。すぐに終わり、サイト内の他のすべての無料チャプターも読めるようになります。
参加は無料です。すぐにこのページへお戻しします。
テキスト版 この話の文字版 — アクセシビリティ、スクリーンリーダー、検索のためのものです。
3:12 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store. Amano Yuki — the night-bus driver who lives in the small hours by trade the way Kaito lives in them by accident — parks her empty bus at the kerb, comes in with her dented steel thermos, and makes Kaito an offer: the empty bus, the long loop, one hour, just the two of them riding the night route. All he has to do is leave the counter — a post he has not abandoned once in six years. Kaito treats the offer as an impossibility to be disproved, spiraling over whether a man is even allowed to leave his post. Rin cheerfully offers to cover for him — and then quietly manufactures every reason he can't go: a delivery due, a spill to mop, a float to count. Three times Kaito reaches for his coat and three times sets it back with the same dead-eyed '...can't.' A ladder of regulars delivers verdicts nobody can verify: the tracksuit regular says a man who leaves his post never stands at it the same again; a drunk salaryman swears the store will rob itself; a cheerful jogger insists everyone should ride the night bus once before their loops run out. Near the end of Yuki's short layover Kaito finally decides — coat on, calm, walking to the door, the running beat inverted at last — and Rin, out of tricks, drops the sabotage and tells him the plain truth instead: if he goes, she is the only one left in here, and that is the whole thing. He hangs the coat back up and stays. The bus pulls away from the kerb empty; Yuki, dry as ever, reads the night in a glance and drives her loop alone. Rin got exactly what she wanted and hates that she won, naming it only as not wanting to be the last person left in the dead hours. Kaito gets the counter he already had and nothing else. Dawn fills the spotless store exactly as the night began, the kerb outside bare where the bus had stood.
ページ 1
A wide establishing shot across the empty 24-hour convenience store at three in the morning. Rain streaks the tall front window and the wet street outside is dark and empty — no bus at the kerb yet. Behind the register counter stands KAITO, slouched and tired, hands flat on the counter, name tag reading KAITO. At the end of the counter RIN leans against the shelving, one earbud in, phone raised, name tag reading RIN. Fluorescent tubes buzz overhead and the coolers glow. KAITO: ...Another quiet one.
ページ 2
Three panels. First, through the rain-streaked window, a large plain single-decker night bus pulls up and parks at the kerb, its destination display blank, its interior dark and empty. Inside, Kaito glances up from the counter. KAITO: ...3:12. The glass door opens and YUKI steps in — thirty, a night-bus driver in a dark navy transit uniform jacket with the sleeves rolled to the forearm over a light shirt, short black hair tucked behind both ears, a dented steel thermos in one hand, white driver's gloves in her chest pocket, a small whistle on a lanyard at her neck, tired eyes with faint shadows. Rain sits on her shoulders. YUKI: Bus is empty tonight. At the counter she sets the thermos down and tips her head toward the bus beyond the window. YUKI: One loop. The long way round. An hour, maybe. YUKI: Come with me.
ページ 3
Four panels. Close on Kaito, deadpan but thrown, eyes flicking down to the counter under his hands. KAITO: Leave the counter. His view of the empty store — quiet aisles, glowing coolers, the register — his two hands flat on the counter. KAITO: I haven't left it. Not once. He holds up one finger, grave, stating it like a law of physics; Rin lowers her phone a fraction to watch him. KAITO: Six years. KAITO: That's not a thing a person just... leaves. Yuki unscrews her thermos, unbothered, leaning on the counter. YUKI: It's a chair and a till. Not a lighthouse.