“Really? Well, it must have been just around twelve, because I took the 12:05 express.” I looked casual as I said this, and the two of them wrote it all down. I’m glad I didn’t have to lie about that. Facts pile up like this, one after another. They’d find out soon enough that Worm had broken the lock on my bike and stolen it.
“If anything changes, or you remember anything else, please call this number. We’ll be coming every day, so if you’d like, you can tell us later.”
The female detective handed me her card, which had rounded edges, and I mumbled a word of thanks. After they left I felt on edge. The phone rang again, and thinking it might be Worm, I answered in a low voice.
“Toshi-chan—is that you? What’s the matter? You sound upset.”
The voice was the opposite of Terauchi’s—clear and bouncy. This was my friend who went by the nickname Kirarin. Me, Terauchi, Kirarin, and Yuzan. This was the group I was in throughout junior and senior high. Kirarin’s real name was kind of odd—Kirari Higashiyama—and even though she didn’t like it, we all called her Kirarin. She was cute, cheerful, a well-brought-up, proper young girl. The name Kirarin was perfect for her, and she was the only one in our group who could fit in nicely wherever she went.
“You lost your cell, didn’t you, Toshi? Last night the guy who picked it up called me.”
“What time was it?”
“About ten maybe?” Kirarin said lightly. “I went to a movie and was on the train back when he called. I couldn’t really talk a lot, but it was fun and I ended up talking about all kinds of things. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—the guy’s got a lot of nerve.”
I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say. Kirarin went on. “I told him you need your cell phone and he’s got to give it back. And he’s like, Sorry, I understand, I’ll definitely give it back.”
“Apologizing to you isn’t going to help. He’s got to tell me he’s sorry.”
“Totally.”
Kirarin laughed cheerfully. Come to think of it, she’s the only one of my friends I’ve never felt like killing. It’s like I was always praying that she’d stay as cute as she was and always be the one who smoothed things over among us.
“But hey—why aren’t you in cram school?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you about that later. I gotta go. I’ve got to ask Yuzan if she got a call, too.”
“Let’s all get together during summer vacation,” Kirarin said. If Worm had phoned Kirarin he might have called Yuzan, too. Both their names were in my contacts list, so he was just having fun calling them at random. What a jerk. I called Yuzan right away.
“Yeah, hello…” Yuzan said, her voice low and cautious.
“It’s me. Toshi.”
“Hey, Toshi. There wasn’t any caller ID, so I was wondering who it was. I heard you lost your cell phone?”
“The guy called you?”
“Yep. I thought it was you, but it was a guy. What a shock. We must have talked for thirty minutes.”
I didn’t know what to say. What could Worm have talked about for a half hour? And with my friend? It made me really angry—I couldn’t believe that she talked with him that long. This was the guy who killed his mother with a baseball bat! The guy who smashed her against a glass door! Who stole my bike and cell phone and ran away! It gave me the creeps how mellow he seemed about the whole thing. When I’d recovered enough to talk, my voice was sharp.
“Listen, Yuzan. How could you talk for a half hour with the guy who stole my phone?”
“Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But you know, he’s pretty funny. He was telling me all about killing his mother, so I told him I murdered my mom three years ago and he fell for it. Then we talked about exams and life, all kinds of things.”
“But your mom was sick. That’s why she died.”
I must have sounded kind of depressed, because what happened to Yuzan’s mother and what Worm did were so very different. Yuzan seemed upset and didn’t say anything. Losing her mom hurt her more than any of us could imagine and we all knew never to bring up the subject. Here I was rubbing salt in her wound. So how could Worm, who killed his own mother, and Yuzan have so much to talk about? I felt like I’d taken on a stupid, even comical role because I knew everything that was going on and I felt so upset by the whole thing. It was so idiotic. I had no idea what to do.
“I’m really sorry, Yuzan. Anyway, I want him to give me back my bike and cell phone.”
“Understood. I’m going to see him today, so I’ll get them back.”
“Where is he? I’ll go with you.”
“No, I can’t tell you. I promised.” Yuzan clammed up. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I told her everything that had happened since the day before. She listened without saying a word.
“So what’s the problem?” she said. “It’s not our business. Worm killing his mother has nothing to do with us.”
“I know,” I said, angry. “I don’t care about that at all. I just want my bike and my phone back.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure he gives them back.”
The phone clicked off. As I set it down, all sticky after talking so long, I thought, Damn! I happened to see a headline in the paper: “Housewife Murdered in Broad Daylight.” The article didn’t mention the missing son much, but anybody reading it would see that he was under suspicion: “The son’s bloody shirt was tossed into the laundry basket, and the police are searching for the boy in order to question him about the incident.” The incident? I couldn’t care less about that. I just wanted my bike and phone back. Behind this, though, a thought weighed heavily on me, namely that Worm had talked so much with Kirarin and Yuzan, not me or Terauchi. In other words, he didn’t think either I or Terauchi was worth talking to. I got irritated, realizing that I felt Worm had betrayed me. I mean, who cares about him, anyway?
The smog alert groaned out again. I was wondering why I didn’t hear that woman’s usual languid announcement, so I looked outside. There were even more reporters than before, all sweating and staring at the house next door. A random thought occurred to me. There aren’t any hidden speakers for the smog alert. They must use a PR truck that drives around and makes the announcements.
* * *
That night, around ten, the doorbell rang. Mom had just taken a bath and, thinking it might be the police again, she frowned as she went to the front door.
“Toshiko, it’s Kiyomi. A little late, don’t you think?”
“I know, but she’s got something she’s got to tell me.”
“It’s hot out, so have her come inside.”
Mom was taking out some cold barley tea from the fridge as she said this, a dubious look on her face. Dad was still out late, as always. One day after the shocking murder and he was back to his old routine. I went outside and was hit by the stifling, muggy air. I could feel the moisture on my AC-cooled skin grow sticky. There weren’t any reporters now, and the road was deserted. Yuzan was standing in front of our gate, holding my bike. She had on a T-shirt and Adidas shorts, Nike sandals and a backpack. If you saw her from far away you might take her for a short high school boy. She was huffing and puffing so much she must have ridden all the way here.
“Sorry to come so late,” she said, out of breath.
“It’s okay. Thanks for bringing it.”
I put the bike inside our gate. As I did, my arm rubbed against Yuzan’s bare arm. Her arm was all sweaty. Startled, I pulled away and our eyes met.
“Is that the guy’s house over there?” Yuzan motioned with her chin. Worm’s house was dark and still. Until last night the place had been crawling with investigators, but now it was deserted, like a discarded, empty shell.
“Yeah, that’s it. I think his room’s on the corner there, on the second floor.”
I pointed to the pitch-black window. Yuzan gazed at it for a while, then sighed and looked away.
“Yuzan, where did you guys meet up?”
“In Tachikawa. It sure was a long way to come here.?
??
“What’s he doing in Tachikawa?”
Yuzan took out a plastic water bottle from her pack and took a drink.
“He says he’s hiding out in a park there. Said he used to swim in the pool there when he was little. Said he used to have a good time, so he wanted to see the place again. He must have spent the day hanging out around the pool, ’cause he’s totally tanned.”
I tried to imagine Worm at the pool with his mom wearing her silver-framed glasses, and his dad with his ascot, but I just couldn’t picture the three of them together like that.
“What’d he say?”
Yuzan screwed the cap back on her water bottle. “Said he feels like he’s in a dream. Like the past, too, is all a dream.” She gazed back up at the empty house and I decided to go ahead and ask her something: “Did you feel the same way about your mother?”
“Um.” Yuzan nodded. “Sometimes I can’t even believe she ever existed.”
Yuzan and Worm shared this emotion, I could tell, something I would never be a part of. This didn’t make me sad exactly—it was more a feeling that my own world was too simple, too smooth, too boring and worthless. The most I could do was have another name, Ninna Hori.
“Oh, I’ve got something for you. He told me to say he’s sorry.”
She carefully extracted my cell phone from a pocket of her backpack. I switched it on and found that the battery was almost dead.
“Well, gotta run,” she said.
Yuzan started walking off toward the station.
“What did he say he’s going to do? Keep on running?”
“Yeah. I gave him my own bike and cell phone, so he says he’s going to run as far as he can.”
I looked at Yuzan, astonished. She passed by me and stared up again at the deserted house next door. I stood there, clutching my cell phone, wondering if Worm would get in touch, suddenly realizing I was hoping he would. I didn’t want to be an accomplice, but I did want a taste of adventure, like what Yuzan was doing. Kind of a lame attitude, I know, but that’s the way I am sometimes. That realization put me in a gloomy mood for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER TWO
YUZAN
I can still picture Toshi’s surprised look. She was in shock about the woman next door getting murdered, plus her bike and cell phone being stolen. I’m sure she never imagined I’d help out Worm that much. Well—I guess I’m pretty surprised myself.
Toshi acts all laid-back and careless, but she’s built a Great Wall around her heart. It looks like you can get inside but it’s not easy. That’s ’cause she’s much more fragile than other people. She’s been hurt a lot in the past. But that’s what I like about her. She’s timid, but she manages to take care of herself. I think she’s actually the toughest out of the four of us. So when I told her about what I’d done and she gave me this sort of what-are-you-talking-about look, I felt uneasy. Like because of this whole incident I’ve been expelled to some universe far away from the world Toshi lives in. It’s not like I feel alienated from her or anything. It’s more like from this point on, the two of us were going to walk down very different paths.
With all these worries running through my head, I hurried down the dark road. The neighborhood was quiet. I was afraid there might be cops staking out Worm’s house, but there were only a few office types coming from the station. The trees that hung over the road gave off a heavy dampness, like when rain has just let up. The ground was still midsummer hot, and I felt like my body was slicing through the wet air.
In earth sciences class we learned that only fifty percent of the sun’s energy reaches the surface of the earth. Our teacher printed up two graphs on his computer to explain it to us. “This one’s the breast of a young woman, this one, that of an old granny,” he explained, a serious look on his face. The young woman graph was supposed to show how the heat energy accumulates a lot around the equator, while the old woman graph was flat and showed solar energy radiating away. How dumb can you get, I thought, but there were only five of us in the class so we all had to pretend it was funny. The teacher himself said that explaining things like that might constitute sexual harassment. Like I cared. What a loser.
He went on, saying, “At the equator the amount of heat absorbed is more than the heat radiated away, so it’s a heat source. The polar regions are the opposite—they’re cold sources.” A cold source. The vague thought crossed my mind then that that’s exactly what I’d been back then. By then I mean my mom’s death and one other thing that happened. I was just radiating away heat, like the poles, and in my whole life I’d never be warm. That made me sad, and I got depressed.
Toshi, Terauchi, and Kirarin all have both parents and pretty affluent families, and I doubt whether they have the kind of worries I have. After my mother died I was left with my pain-in-the-butt dad, and grandparents who worry over everything. I doubt they have any idea how I really feel.
Sometimes my friends will start to say something about their mothers, then notice my expression and get all flustered. Before this happens, though, I try to say something, something stupid like my teacher said. Or even dumber. Or else fill in the gap by asking something about their mothers, like, “Hey, Kirarin, is your mom coming to the school festival or what?” Is there any other high school student who has to be walking on ice like this all the time? What a joke.
I feel so alone. And there’s a good reason for this. Mom’s death only made me lonelier, lonelier than anybody. Worm felt a little lonely and killed his mom, perfecting his solitude. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I want to perfect mine, too. Maybe life would be easier then. I’ve only talked about this with Terauchi—not because she’s so gloomy, but because her gloominess and mine are similar. Toshi and Kirarin are too gentle and kind to talk to about this. I figure being gentle means you must be happy. Terauchi, though, is more edgy. I like the edgy, risky types, and feel closer to her. But I haven’t told her yet about Worm. I’m not sure why.
The cell phone in my pack buzzed against my back. I stopped, took it out, and saw that I had a text message.
Thanks for the bike and phone. I’ve come to Iruma, but got tired so I stopped at a convenience store. I’ll rest for an hour and then take off again.
It was from Worm. I lied when I told Toshi I’d given Worm my cell phone. She’ll find out someday, but she looked so astonished I couldn’t tell her the truth. Actually, I bought him a new cell phone. But lending him my bike—that part’s true. Don’t worry about it, I told him, you can get rid of it anytime you like. Otherwise people will find out I helped him.
I was thinking I’d phone Worm, and glanced at my watch. It was past ten fifteen p.m. I had to get back home or Dad would have a fit. Ever since that incident last summer, he’s started to meddle in everything I do. I keep telling myself just to hang in there until I graduate from high school. I figured I’d call Worm after I got home, so for the time being I sent him a text message.
I gave the phone and bike back to Toshi. Call her to apologize, okay? Take care of yourself.
I stared at the message. I was helping a guy escape—a guy who had killed his mother. I have no idea what made him do it, but I wanted him to run away and never get caught. I don’t really know how to put it, but it was like I didn’t want him to come back to stupid, boring reality, but instead create a new reality all his own.
I heard this sticky sound of footsteps like something being crushed underfoot, and I shoved my cell phone into my pocket. The tip of a cigarette glowed in the dark like a firefly. I was a little tense but then saw that it was just a young office-type girl in mule sandals. The weird sound as she walked came from her bare feet sticking, then unpeeling, from the sandals. As the girl passed by me, she flicked her cigarette butt aside. My nose was hit by the strong stink of nicotine.
“Don’t throw your butt away like that!”
I said this without thinking and the woman turned around and glared at me. She was a hefty girl, about five-seven. She had on green phosphorescent
eye shadow, and a blue camisole that barely fit her broad shoulders. One of your sulky, penniless Office Ladies. She looked like an unpopular, down-on-his luck transvestite. I suddenly remembered the shock I felt last year when a transvestite in the Shinjuku 2-chome entertainment district roughed me up, and I held my breath.
“Don’t preach to me, you bitch,” the woman said in a shrill voice and briskly walked off. I stood stock-still under the streetlight and remembered that night last summer in Shinjuku, when I was in my second year of high school.
In the 2-chome district there are several small bars that cater to only women.