Zaregoto - Volume 2 Chapter 1

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3

 

My world is the coolest.

 

Rokumeikan Private University, located in Kinugasa, in Kita

 

Ward of Kyoto, has a total of three dining halls. Of the three,

 

the Zonshinkan Chika Dining Hall (lovingly abbreviated to

 

“Zonchi”) was thought to be the most lively. This was

 

probably because it had an extensive menu, and it was right

 

next door to the co-op bookstore.

 

That day, since I had no class during second period, I went

 

straight to the Zonshinkan Chika after first period. I’d had no

 

breakfast that morning—I’d accidentally overslept by a whole

 

hour—so I thought I might grab an early lunch.

 

“Man, it’s empty at this hour. Risky business,” I mumbled

 

to myself, doubting all the while that I was using the phrase

 

“risky business” correctly. I picked up a tray.

 

Now, what to eat?

 

I’m no foodie, so usually I just eat whatever without much

 

of a fuss. Be it spicy or sweet, I say bring it on. But lately

 

things had been just a little different.

 

It was only a month ago that I’d spent a hell of a week in a

 

place where I’d been served three gourmet meals a day.

 

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Now, as an aftereffect, my tongue was still stuck in Snootyville.

 

It had been a whole month since anything had made me

 

say, “Wow, this is good.” Every time I ate some-thing, it

 

always felt like something was missing, like some key ingredient

 

was lacking.

 

It wasn’t enough of a problem to merit being called a problem,

 

but I sure was sick of feeling that way. As far as solutions,

 

I had already thought of two.

 

The first was fairly simple: Just eat tasty food.

 

“Can’t hope for that to happen in a school dining hall.”

 

But that first suggestion was impossible to follow. Not, anyway,

 

without heading back to that strange, isolated little island.

 

I won’t say I was totally against the idea, but I certainly

 

had my reservations.

 

“So that’s no good.”

 

Yes, I was talking to myself.

 

This left one other possible measure, and it was a strongarm

 

tactic. It was the “beat the child who doesn’t listen” tactic.

 

Most problems in the world are solved by either giving or

 

taking.

 

I made my way to the donburi corner and placed an order.

 

“Excuse me. Large kimchee bowl, please. No rice.”

 

The lunch lady gave me a quizzical expression and said,

 

“That’s just kimchee, son,” but she dished it out all the same.

 

As if it were nothing, she plopped it in front of me, displaying

 

an admirable degree of professionalism.

 

A big, heaping, mountainous bowl of kimchee. I doubt

 

there was a single tongue in this world tough enough to chow

 

all that down and still preserve its sense of taste. I nodded

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5

 

with satisfaction, placed the bowl on my tray, and settled the

 

bill.

 

The dining hall was so empty that I could hardly decide

 

where to sit. In another hour, the place would be filled up

 

with students who had cut out of second period early. I was

 

never a fan of crowds, so I considered myself under a time

 

limit. I took a seat in the corner.

 

“Down the hatch,” I muttered, and took the first bite. . . .

 

This. Was. Awful.

 

I really had to eat a whole bowl of this stuff? Wasn’t this

 

what was commonly known as suicidal behavior? What cruel

 

fate had brought me to this pass? What had I done?

 

“Is this divine retribution?”

 

I guess they also say reap what you sow.

 

From then on, I wielded my chopsticks in silence. If I kept

 

on talking to myself, people would start thinking I was a

 

weirdo. And besides, it’s poor table manners to talk while

 

you’re eating.

 

And then, just as I hit my limit—my entire head had gone

 

numb from the tip of the tongue up, I didn’t know what the

 

hell I was doing, or, for that matter, who I was, or what the

 

word who meant, and even what the word meant meant . . .

 

“Yo.”

 

She sat in the chair across from me.

 

“Pull that tray back a little, will you?” she said. Then she

 

pushed my tray toward me and placed her own tray in the

 

newly opened space. Her tray was laden with a plate of

 

spaghetti carbonara, some tuna-and-kelp salad, and a bonus

 

fruit dessert for a grand total of three courses.

 

Oh, how bourgeois.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6

 

I looked to my right, then to my left. The dining hall was

 

empty as ever. You could practically call it deserted. So why

 

had she decided to eat her spaghetti directly across from me?

 

Probably some kind of dare.

 

“Oh my God, what is that?! It’s all kimchee!” she exclaimed

 

at the shocking sight of my lunch. “Wow! You’re

 

eating a whole entire bowl of kimchee!”

 

She was wide-eyed, her hands up in the air like she was doing

 

a banzai cheer. Maybe that was what she was doing, or maybe

 

she was surrendering. There was also the possibility that she

 

was just Muslim. Any of these was fine by me, but in reality,

 

she was probably just surprised.

 

Her shoulder-length hair had a reddish tint and was done

 

up in a sort of bob. Her clothes were nothing out of the

 

ordinary. They were ultra-plain, following the style of so

 

much of the Rokumeikan student body. All of a sudden, when

 

she sat down, she seemed much shorter—but then I realized

 

most of her height had come from her extra-tall London

 

boots.

 

She had a young face, so I couldn’t tell if she was my senior

 

or a peer. Judging by her demeanor alone, it would have

 

seemed plausible that she was my junior, except that being

 

that I was a freshman, that was pretty much impossible.

 

“Hey. Y’know, if you don’t respond, I’ll get lonely and

 

stuff.” She stared at me with puppy-dog eyes.

 

“Right,” I finally said. “Who are you?”

 

I was pretty sure this was our first encounter. But I’d

 

learned one thing in the past month: This weird little pocket

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7

 

of space known as a “university” had an unusually large

 

number of people who were friendly and genuine. These

 

strange people would strike up conversations with you like

 

you had been their close friend for the past ten years—even if

 

you had never seen them before in your life. For a guy like me

 

who’s bad at even remembering personal encounters, this made

 

things difficult from time to time.

 

And surely this girl was another one of those types. Fearing

 

the hassle of having to deal with a club invitation or,

 

worse, some religious thing, I went ahead and posed the above

 

question.

 

Doing so launched her into an over-the-top shocked pose.

 

“Hwa?!” she said. “Oh my God! You mean you forgot? You’ve

 

forgotten? You freaking forgot?! Ikkun, that’s so cold!”

 

Huh.

 

Judging from her reaction, it seemed this was not our first

 

encounter.

 

“Ohhh. I am shocked. But what are you gonna do, right?

 

Yeah, nothing, I guess. You’ve just got a bad memory after all,

 

right? Well, might as well introduce myself again.” She flashed

 

both hands at me and gave a full-faced grin. “I’m Aoii

 

Mikoko!”

 

This might prove to be a painful encounter.

 

Whether it was our first encounter or not, this was, to be

 

sure, my first impression of Aoii Mikoko.

 

Her story was simple. Mikoko-chan and I were classmates.

 

Not only were we taking the same core subjects, but we were

 

also in the same foreign-language class. We had met face-to-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8

 

face a number of times, and were in the same group for the

 

class training camp before Golden Week. We had even been

 

paired up before in English class.

 

“Man . . . from this conversation alone, I must seem like a

 

total nut for not remembering you.”

 

“I think you are a total nut!” She laughed lightheartedly.

 

To be able to laugh so cheerfully after someone had entirely

 

forgotten her existence took a special kind of vacuousness. I

 

figured she was probably a pretty nice girl after all.

 

“Normally, I’d find it pretty disturbing that you forgot me

 

like that. Or rather, I’d be pissed. But that’s just how you are,

 

right? Like, you don’t forget the stuff that’s really important,

 

but you forget normal stuff,” she said.

 

“Well, I can’t argue with that.”

 

She was exactly right. One time I had even forgotten if I

 

was right- or left-handed, and found myself in quite a bind

 

when I actually tried to sit down and have a meal. To top it all

 

off, when all was said and done, I turned out to be ambidextrous.

 

“Okay, and what’s happening with you?” I asked. “Why

 

aren’t you in class?”

 

“Class? Well, the thing about that is . . .”

 

For some reason she seemed abnormally happy. But I got

 

the feeling that “abnormally happy” was her default setting.

 

To be honest, even though I’d seen her before, I still could not

 

remember what she was like normally. But either way, it was

 

hard to be put off by this smiley-faced girl.

 

“I’m playing hooky.”

 

“Freshmen really ought to go to class,” I said.

 

“Aw, come on, it’s boring. Totally boring. What was it

 

again? Oh, yeah, my economics class. It’s just a nonstop

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9

 

stream of jargon. And it’s like a math class. I’m a humanities

 

person! And you’re skipping class too!”

 

“I don’t have a class right now.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep. Fridays I only have a first period and a fifth period.”

 

She flung her hands wildly in the air again. “Doesn’t that kind

 

of suck? That’s like six hours of boredom.”

 

“Boredom isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

 

“Hm, I thought boredom was practically the definition of

 

‘a bad thing.’ Different strokes, I guess.” She began winding

 

the spaghetti around her fork as she spoke. Unable to successfully

 

get it all on the utensil, it soon became a matter of

 

trial and error. I reckoned it would be awhile before the food

 

actually reached her mouth. Before I knew it, she had put the

 

fork down and switched to chopsticks. So much for stick-toitiveness.

 

“Say . . .” I said.

 

“Hm? What-what?”

 

“There are tons of open seats.”

 

“Yeah, for real. I think this place will fill up pretty soon,

 

though,” she said.

 

“But it’s empty now, right?”

 

“You said it. Something wrong with that?”

 

“I wanna eat alone, so let’s move along now, honey,” I

 

wanted to say. But then I saw her smile—a vulnerable smile

 

that showed she couldn’t possibly have imagined she was

 

about to be completely rejected—even I had to take pity.

 

“Nah . . . it’s nothing.”

 

“Hm? You’re a weird guy.” She gave me the pouty lips.

 

“Ah, but I guess if you weren’t weird, you wouldn’t be you.

 

Weirdness is like your identity, right?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0

 

I couldn’t help but feel like I was being inadvertently

 

insulted. But then again, it wasn’t as bad as completely

 

forgetting someone you had been regularly interacting with for

 

a whole month. So I swept the notion aside and switched my

 

focus back to the kimchee.

 

“Ikkun, you’re a kimchee fan?”

 

“Nah, not particularly.”

 

“But that’s a ton of kimchee. Not even Koreans eat that

 

much in one sitting.”

 

“Well, I have my reasons,” I said as I crammed some

 

kimchee into my mouth. More than half of it still remained in

 

my bowl. “Not very interesting ones, but still.”

 

“Reasons?”

 

“Try to figure it out yourself first.”

 

“Huh? Oh, right. . . okay.” Mikoko-chan crossed her arms

 

and began to contemplate my rationale. Of course, figuring

 

what circumstances could possibly require my eating an entire

 

bowl of kimchee wasn’t exactly easy. After just a few

 

moments of pondering, she let her arms drop back down

 

apathetically. She really was quick to throw in the towel.

 

“Oh, yeah, by the way, I had a question for you. I thought

 

this was a good opportunity to ask you. May I?”

 

“Uh, sure.”

 

Wasn’t the phrase “a good opportunity” usually used for

 

something that came up by chance? As far as I knew, Mikokochan

 

had come here and sat down in front of me of her own

 

volition.

 

Or maybe that was beside the point.

 

She was wearing the same smile when she posed her

 

question. “Ikkun, you know how you didn’t come to school

 

for a while in the beginning of April? Why was that?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 1

 

“Uh . . .” My chopsticks stopped moving. The bits of kimchee

 

they held plopped back into the bowl. “Uh, well . . .”

 

I must have had a troubled look on my face, because

 

Mikoko-chan was quick to start waving her hands around

 

frantically and say, “Oh, if it’s hard to talk about it, don’t

 

worry. I was just wondering, that’s all. It’s like, Unsolved Mysteries

 

Featuring Mikoko-chan.”

 

“No, it’s not hard to talk about. It’s a simple story, really.

 

I was just on a vacation. For about a week.”

 

“Vacation?” She blinked at me like a little forest animal.

 

Her expressions were also easy to read. It made it easy for me

 

to talk to her—she was a great listener.

 

“Vacation? Where’d you go?” she asked again.

 

“Out to some deserted island in the Sea of Japan, kind of

 

by accident.”

 

“By accident?”

 

“Yeah. A big accident. Anyway, that’s how I got myself

 

into this kimchee-eating situation.”

 

She scratched her head, which was probably a natural response.

 

But I am a fundamentally lazy person, so I couldn’t

 

be bothered to explain all the details. Or rather, just how the

 

hell would I?

 

“Anyway, just a vacation. Nothing particularly deep.”

 

“Huh. You don’t say.”

 

“What did you think it was?”

 

“Oh, nothing . . .” She blushed a bit. “I just thought maybe,

 

uh, like you hurt yourself somehow and had an extended

 

stay at the hospital or something.”

 

How and why such an idea would occur to her was a mystery

 

to me, but then again, for someone to suddenly take a

 

week off just after entering a university, there weren’t really

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2

 

any other plausible explanations that came to mind. At the

 

very least, it was a more likely explanation than “I was just on

 

a vacation.”

 

“I see. Sort of like a delayed graduation trip.”

 

“Yeah, something like that. I couldn’t get a reservation, so

 

it ended up eating into April,” I said with a shrug, but of

 

course the real facts were totally different. The very idea that I

 

had “graduated from school” was something I hadn’t

 

experienced since elementary school. I’d certainly never been

 

on a “graduation trip.” But all of the circumstances surrounding

 

what had happened would have required a pointlessly

 

long explanation, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing

 

I wanted to talk about at length anyway, so I just went with

 

her interpretation.

 

“Hmm . . .” She gave a sort of half-convinced expression.

 

“So did you go alone?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Gotcha.” And then, just like that, the cheerful smile was

 

back. It was as if all confusion had been cleared. It was like she

 

really didn’t put on any façades. She was so straightforward

 

with her emotions that I almost envied her.

 

Well . . .

 

Not really.

 

“So, Mikoko-chan . . . Why are you really here?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You have something to say, I assume? I mean, considering

 

you came and sat right here when there’s a whole roomful

 

of empty chairs.”

 

“Huh.” She narrowed her eyes and lowered her gaze a bit,

 

down to my chest. “So I can’t sit with you unless I’ve got

 

something specific to say to you?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3

 

“Huh?” This time it was my turn to scratch my head.

 

She continued talking in the meantime. “I mean . . . am I

 

bothering you? I just saw you when I was walking by, so I

 

thought maybe we could eat together.”

 

“Ah, gotcha.”

 

So she’d just wanted someone to eat with. I was the type

 

who preferred doing personal things, like eating, alone, but

 

there were plenty of people who viewed mealtime and talk

 

time as one and the same. Surely Mikoko-chan was one of

 

them. But having unexpectedly decided to skip class, she

 

couldn’t find a friend to eat with, so she went ahead and

 

struck up a conversation with the first acquaintance she

 

happened to see—me.

 

“Well, if that’s all it is, it’s fine by me,” I assured her.

 

“Thanks. That’s a relief. I don’t know what I would’ve

 

done if you had said no.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

“Hm? Yeah. Maybe something like this,” she said, pretending

 

to hold the edges of her tray in both hands. Then she

 

twisted her wrists in a sudden cracking motion. “Like that.”

 

“I see . . .” Even if she was just joking, I was a little relieved

 

I had refrained from saying no. I wouldn’t have put

 

such a reaction past her, in reality. Someone who expressed

 

happiness so freely might express anger just as freely.

 

“Well, I guess I’m free anyway. As long as you just want to

 

talk,” I said.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“So what are we talking about?”

 

“Oh, umm . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4

 

As I prompted her onward, she began anxiously scraping

 

her chopsticks together. She was probably trying to think of a

 

topic.

 

I may have forgotten who she was, but surely in the past

 

month it seemed like she’d at least managed to grasp the surface

 

of my personality. So just what kind of topic would she

 

broach with me? Me, who was so ignorant, and so lacking in

 

common sense, that I used to think soccer was baseball played

 

with your feet? I was strangely interested to find out, as if I

 

were watching it happen to someone else.

 

She clapped her hands as if she had suddenly thought of

 

something. “Don’t you think the world’s gone crazy?” she said.

 

“Huh? In what way?”

 

“I mean . . . er, you know, the prowler. Even you must

 

know about it.”

 

Even me.

 

Even me—the phrase was pretty enraging. Except that it

 

happened that I had no idea who the hell “the prowler” was.

 

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot! Of course I know!” An

 

angry outburst like that would have been fairly justified, but

 

“Shut up! How the hell am I supposed to know what that is,

 

stupid?!” just didn’t have the same ring of validity to it.

 

“Hm? What’s wrong, Ikkun?” she asked.

 

“Ah, nothing. What’s ‘the prowler’?”

 

Obviously I wasn’t looking for the dictionary definition,

 

one who prowls. She gawked at me in amazement.

 

“You’re kidding, right? Is this a joke? Ikkun, it’s been all

 

over the news. There’s no way you could have missed this

 

if you live in Kyoto.”

 

“There’s no TV in my house, and I don’t get the paper

 

either.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5

 

“What about the Internet?”

 

“Oh, I don’t have a computer. Don’t really use the ones on

 

campus much either.”

 

“Oh my God, Ikkun is a caveman!” she said, sounding almost

 

impressed in a way. “Is it some sort of ethical policy?”

 

“Maybe it is, in a sense. How do I put it . . . I don’t like

 

having possessions.”

 

“Cooool! You’re like an ancient philosopher! Wow!” She

 

clapped her hands with joy. I seriously doubted I would have

 

gotten the same reaction if she knew it was actually for a

 

practical—and completely lame—reason: My room was just

 

too small.

 

I mean, newspapers take up a lot of space.

 

“When you say ‘if you live in Kyoto,’ do you mean this

 

‘prowler’ thing is going on here?”

 

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s made a pretty big splash. ‘Panic in

 

the Old Capital!’ Some places have even called off field trips.”

 

“Wow . . . too bad for them.”

 

“Six people have been murdered! And it’s still going on

 

right now! With no known suspects!” She had become all riled

 

up, and there was a hint of excitement in her voice. “He stabs

 

them with a knife and then flings their guts all around and

 

stuff! Freaky, huh?”

 

“. . .”

 

Let’s set aside the fact that we were in the middle of

 

eating. After all, I was partly responsible for the fact that the

 

conversation had veered in this direction. But what did it say

 

of this girl that she was able to discuss the murder of others

 

with such absolute glee?

 

It’s scary how detached people can become.

 

“Six people, huh? Is that a lot?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6

 

“Yeah it’s a lot! It’s a hell of a lot!” She almost sounded

 

boastful in a way, as if she were the one doing the killing.

 

“Maybe not overseas, but serial killings are rare in Japan! It’s

 

become quite a sensation, you know.”

 

“Huh. So that’s why there are patrol cars circling around all

 

over the place.”

 

“Yeah. There are people from the mobile police force in

 

Shinkyôgoku. Makes me think of the Gion Festival.” She

 

chuckled to herself for some reason.

 

“Wow, go figure. I didn’t know anything about this.”

 

As I nodded along with her explanation, somehow I knew

 

Kunagisa would definitely get a kick out of this. Kunagisa, for

 

those new to my story, is the short version of Kunagisa Tomo,

 

one of my few friends. That is to say, my only friend. Kunagisa

 

Tomo was a nineteen-year-old electronic and mechanical engineering

 

professional shut-in of the mysterious variety, with

 

blue hair and a passionate interest in collecting information on

 

just these types of incidents.

 

Unlike me, she wasn’t constantly in the dark about what

 

was going on in the world. In fact, she was essentially an

 

information-collecting expert, and she was probably already

 

well aware of this prowler case without my having to say anything

 

about it. In fact, she was probably already taking action.

 

“So when did it start?”

 

“Around the beginning of May, maybe? I think that’s right.

 

Why?”

 

“Oh, I was just asking.”

 

I put the last piece of kimchee in my mouth. My tongue,

 

or rather the entire inside of my mouth, was completely

 

mangled. I would probably never take food for granted or say

 

“this tastes bad” again. If you thought about it, the fact that a

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7

 

single bowl of kimchee could so easily destroy all my principles

 

didn’t say much for my taste buds. Or maybe it was more

 

of a stomach issue.

 

“Well, I’m done. See you again sometime.” I put down my

 

chopsticks and began to get up from my seat.

 

“Ah! Hold on! Hold on, will you?! Where are you going?!”

 

Mikoko scrambled to stop me. “Wait a minute, Ikkun!”

 

“What do you mean, Where am I going’? I’m finished

 

eating so I figured maybe I’d drop by the bookstore.”

 

“I’m not done!” I took a look at her tray. Indeed, more than

 

half of her food was left.

 

“But I am.”

 

“Don’t make me sad. Stay with me till I’m finished.”

 

“Why should I have to do a pointless thing like that?” . . . is

 

exactly the kind of thing I’m not tough enough to say. I’m

 

more of the go-with-the-flow type.

 

“Okay. I’m free now anyway.” I didn’t have anything

 

urgent to do, and it wasn’t like I was full yet, either.

 

I figured I might as well eat some real food while I was

 

there. “Wait a minute. I’m gonna go buy something.”

 

I approached the register from the opposite direction

 

(which was against the rules) and took a look at the menu on

 

the wall, pondering whether I should order the beef bowl.

 

Geez, it was more expensive than Yoshinoya. Maybe something

 

else was the way to go.

 

“Kimchee again?” the lady at the counter interrupted

 

lightheartedly as I was trying to decide.

 

“Yes.”

 

Oops.

 

I had up and said it.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8

 

“No use crying over spilt milk.” Or wait, was this more of a

 

“hindsight-is-always-twenty-twenty situation”?

 

A few dozen seconds later, I received another heaping

 

bowl of kimchee (this time the lunch lady gave me a little

 

extra) and sat back down in front of Mikoko-chan.

 

“What the hell? Am I supposed to be following along with

 

something here?” she said.

 

“Don’t worry about it. So what were we talking about?”

 

“Hm? Uh, what was it? I forgot.”

 

“Gotcha. Well, then you want to talk about class?”

 

She shook her head firmly.

 

“Why? There were some things I didn’t really get in first

 

period today, so I was thinking maybe we could go over it

 

together. It’s a required class for freshmen, so you must have

 

gone, right? If you ask me, the professor’s inability to explain

 

things properly is to blame, but what do you think?”

 

“What do I think?’ I think that there isn’t a boy alive who

 

brings up something like this to a girl when there isn’t even a

 

test coming up!”

 

I was only kidding, but she seemed seriously put off by it.

 

“What’s the matter? You don’t like studying?”

 

“Nobody likes studying.”

 

“That sounds debatable to me. But if you hate studying,

 

why did you go to college?”

 

“Ah, that’s a forbidden question. If you ask that, it’s all

 

over. I mean . . . everyone’s like that, right?”

 

It seemed I had inadvertently touched a soft spot, and she

 

suddenly seemed a bit melancholy. Come to think of it, it

 

seemed to me that someone had once said Japanese universities

 

weren’t a place for people who wanted to study, and

 

that college was just a time to prepare for entering society.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 9

 

“Heh, that’s one way to put it.”

 

“Do you like studying?” she said.

 

I shrugged.

 

Of course not.

 

In fact, I hated it.

 

“But it’s not bad for killing time. Or as an escape from

 

reality, rather.”

 

“Usually studying is the reality.” She gave a heavy sigh.

 

Then, as if shifting her focus back to her meal, she picked at

 

her salad for a while in silence.

 

Hmm. Was a plate of spaghetti, a large salad, and a dessert

 

really a normal-size portion for a girl under the age of twenty?

 

I didn’t know anybody fit to use as a standard for comparison—everyone

 

I knew was either incredibly finicky, ridiculously

 

gluttonous, or always fasting or something—so I had no

 

standards for judgment. But seeing as Mikoko-chan was neither

 

too slim nor the opposite, perhaps it was, at the very

 

least, an appropriate portion for her.

 

“Umm, it’s hard to eat with you staring at me like that,”

 

she said.

 

“Oh, sorry.”

 

“S’okay.”

 

She resumed eating. When she was nearly done, she began

 

looking my way in a sort of probing fashion. Really, she had

 

been peeping up at me every so often the whole time, but

 

now she had suddenly become obvious about it, making eyes

 

at me like there was something she wanted to tell me.

 

And indeed, that proved to be an accurate speculation.

 

As if she had at last made up her mind about something,

 

she placed her chopsticks down without finishing her dessert.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 0

 

She gave a bit of a playful smile as she leaned her body

 

forward, bringing her face close to mine.

 

“So, Ikkun,” she said.

 

“Yeah . . . ?”

 

“The truth is, I may or may not have a favor to ask you.”

 

“You don’t.”

 

“I do.” She leaned back again in her seat. “Are you the kind

 

of guy who might be free tomorrow?”

 

“If you define free as not having any plans, then I sup-pose

 

I’m more apt to say yes than no.”

 

“Yeah, kind of hard to follow you.”

 

“That’s just how I am,” I responded as I chewed my kimchee.

 

“To put it more simply—I’m a free dude.”

 

“Really? You’re free? Oh, good!” She pressed her hands

 

together in front of her chest with a look of true joy. To cause

 

someone such teary-eyed happiness just by not having plans

 

on a Saturday seemed a bit much.

 

More important, this didn’t look good. I had the distinct

 

feeling I was about to get dragged into something.

 

“I see, I see, so if I’m free, something good happens to you,

 

huh? One hand washes the other. It’s also kind of like the

 

food chain. A magnificent circuit, if you will,” I said.

 

She wasn’t even listening. “Yeah. So anyway, if you’re free

 

tomorrow, I was hoping we could get together!”

 

Her hands still pressed together, she tilted them to the side

 

a bit as if to emphasize her request. It was such an earnest,

 

imploring pose that it almost felt like foul play. There was

 

scarcely a male life-form alive that wouldn’t have surrendered

 

to it. They would want to surrender.

 

Nevertheless, I refused without mercy.

 

“No,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 1

 

“Wha?! Why?!” she shrieked. “You’re free, right?”

 

“Well, yeah. But it’s like I said, I don’t dislike boredom.

 

Sometimes people like to just spend the day doing nothing,

 

right? Everyone feels like that sometimes. Everyone wants to

 

escape the hustle and bustle of the world sometimes, to free

 

themselves of the hassle of dealing with other people.

 

Everybody has a right to time to contemplate their own lives.

 

I just happen to have more.”

 

“But-but-but! How can you just refuse without even

 

hearing me out?! That’s crazy! It’s like a bunch of eighth

 

graders forming a band, but they all end up playing bass!”

 

It was a pretty great analogy.

 

On close inspection, it was apparent that she was about to

 

cry. That is to say tears were already brimming in the corners

 

of her eyes. This was not a desirable situation.

 

I looked around. It was about time for the dining hall to

 

start filling up, and students began trickling in, their numbers

 

gradually increasing. At this point, I wanted to avoid standing

 

out (by, say, making a relatively hot girl cry) as much as possible.

 

But come on, who cries just from one little rejection?

 

“Okay, okay, just calm down. I’ll hear you out. Come on,

 

have some kimchee.”

 

“Okay,” she said, sniffling.

 

Doing as suggested, Mikoko-chan placed some kimchee in

 

her mouth. “Uwa!” she peeped, and then the tears really

 

started flowing. It seemed she wasn’t much for surprises

 

(which I kind of knew).

 

“Ahh, hot . . .” she cried out.

 

“Well, it is kimchee. It wouldn’t be kimchee if it wasn’t

 

spicy.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 2

 

They say there’s also sugar-preserved kimchee, but I always

 

went with spicy, so I had never seen it. I wouldn’t mind if I

 

never did, either.

 

“Ohh, you’re terrible. You’re so mean. . . . Now, what

 

were we talking about?”

 

“That prowling killer?”

 

“No! We were talking about tomorrow!”

 

Bam! She slammed her hand on the table. It looked like she

 

was seriously a little mad now. Maybe I had gone too far, I

 

reflected.

 

“Umm, do you know Emoto-san?”

 

“Whether I know her or not, I don’t remember her.”

 

“She’s in our core subject classes. Her hair is like this.” She

 

stuck her fists to the sides of her ears, but even with this

 

striking pose, “Emoto-san” and her hairstyle remained firmly

 

beyond the grasp of my imagination.

 

“She’s a pretty noticeable girl. She’s always wearing shiny

 

things.”

 

“Huh. Well, I don’t really look at people much. What’s her

 

full name?”

 

“Emoto Tomoe. That’s the tomo from wisdom and the e

 

from blessing.”

 

Interesting name. Sounded like it could do a headstand and

 

start running around upside down. It felt like it rang a bell, but

 

I couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t want to just toss out

 

some answer like, “Oh yeah, yeah, I know that chick. She’s

 

the one with the contact lenses, right?” There was always the

 

chance that Mikoko-chan would throw it right back in my

 

face, like, “I tricked you! There’s nobody like that in our class!

 

Ahahaha, looks like the pants are on the other leg now! Nyanya-nya!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3

 

And then the egg would be on my face, my fraudulence

 

exposed. Not that Mikoko-chan would do something like that.

 

“Her nickname is Tomo-chan.”

 

“That’s not gonna work for me.”

 

“Huh? Why not?”

 

“No reason. Just my own personal thing.” I shook my head.

 

“Sorry. I don’t remember at all.”

 

“Figures,” she said, laughing. “But if you didn’t remember

 

me, I guess it goes without saying that you wouldn’t remember

 

her. If you did remember her, I’d be a little shocked.”

 

I didn’t quite follow her reasoning, but as long as my lack

 

of memory made her avoid feeling terrible, I guessed it wasn’t

 

totally worthless. Something definitely seemed off with the

 

logic there, though.

 

“Well, okay. How about Atemiya-san? Atemiya Muimisan?

 

I call her Muimi-chan.”

 

“Another classmate?”

 

She nodded. “Then there’s Usami Akiharu-kun. Akiharukun

 

is a guy, so you must remember him, right?”

 

“My memory functions in a gender-neutral environment.”

 

“But you sure don’t seem like a feminist.”

 

She let out a big, unintentionally exaggerated sigh. It was

 

like I had done something wrong. But it was my memory’s

 

fault, right?

 

“Anyway, so Tomo-chan, Muimi-chan, and Akiharu-kun.

 

We’re all going out tomorrow night for a little drinking.”

 

“Huh. What’s the occasion?”

 

“It’s Tomo-chan’s birthday!” For some reason she seemed a

 

tad boastful. It was hard to deny her adorableness as she sat

 

there with her hands on her hips, chest stuck out. “May fourteenth!

 

Happy twentieth!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4

 

If this Tomo-chan was a classmate, that meant she was a

 

freshman. Maybe she had entered college a year late. Or

 

maybe she was a returnee like me. It didn’t really matter.

 

“I’m only nineteen, by the way. My birthday’s April twentieth.”

 

“Huh,” I said.

 

I didn’t really care.

 

She continued. “Umm, so anyway, tomorrow’s Tomochan’s

 

birthday, so we figured we’d throw a really light, casual

 

kind of party.”

 

“Huh. Seems like an awfully intimate group for a party.”

 

“Yeah, well. We all like the rowdy atmosphere thing, but

 

nobody wanted there to be a ton of people, so what are you

 

gonna do?”

 

“Ah. Then four people is pretty appropriate, huh.”

 

“Huh?” She looked surprised.

 

“A fifth person would throw off the balance.”

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“Well, say hi to everyone for me. And happy birthday to

 

you.”

 

“It’s not my birthday! Hey, wait, I mean don’t just get up

 

and leave! You don’t know the other half of the story yet!”

 

“Well, they say knowing is only half the battle,” I said.

 

“That’s not what that means!”

 

She grabbed me by the sleeve as I started to leave and

 

forced me to sit back down. But even if the conversation was

 

only half-over, I could more or less tell what was coming next.

 

“Okay then. So now you’re going to tell me to partake in

 

this drinking party . . . or birthday party, rather. Right?”

 

“Gah! Wow, that’s exactly right.” She flung up her hands

 

in surprise, but this time it reeked of phoniness. Maybe it

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5

 

wasn’t that she didn’t put on any façades; she was just a lousy

 

actress. “Amazing, it’s like you’ve got ESP or something,

 

Ikkun.”

 

“Let’s not go there. Not a good subject.” I let out a light

 

sigh. “How did all this come about? I don’t even know these

 

people, right?”

 

“Yeah you do. They’re your classmates.”

 

Ah, right.

 

Maybe I had amnesia. I was never good at remembering

 

people, but lately it had gotten particularly bad. These three

 

classmates aside, there wasn’t a single person in all of Rokumeikan

 

University whom I had a clear picture of.

 

But there was a more likely explanation: that it was simply

 

the result of my apathy toward other human beings. It had

 

nothing to do with my mind’s functionality. It wasn’t a defect.

 

It wasn’t that some essential part was missing, either.

 

It was just that I was, from the very start, a broken thing.

 

“Could it be that I’ve just forgotten, and that I’m actually

 

good friends with these three people? Even I wouldn’t forget

 

something like who my friends are, I think.”

 

Mikoko-chan’s expression grew a little sad. “I don’t think

 

that’s the case,” she said. “You probably haven’t spoken much.

 

I mean, you’ve always got this narrow-eyed scowl as if you’re

 

thinking really hard about something or filled with contempt.

 

Even now. It makes you kind of hard to approach. It’s like

 

you’ve got a wall in front of you. Or your AT field is fully

 

operational. And in spite of all that, you always sit directly in

 

the middle of the classroom.”

 

I wanted her to leave me the hell alone. I wanted to tell

 

her not to bother talking to me if that was how she felt. But I

 

didn’t.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6

 

I finished my kimchee. As it turned out, two bowls ended

 

up being pretty excessive, and I felt dreadful fullness in my

 

stomach. I probably wouldn’t be having kimchee again for a

 

long time.

 

“But you and I are friends, right?” she asked.

 

“Are we?”

 

“Yes!” She slammed both hands on the table again. It

 

seemed she had a habit of hitting nearby things when she got

 

emotional. I’d have to remember to stay out of range of those

 

slender arms if I was going to make fun of her. That is to say,

 

I’d have to stay out of range when I made fun of her. Maybe it

 

was better to pick on her over the phone.

 

Er, I mean, why was I planning ways to harass her?

 

“And, so, naturally, I tell my friends about you sometimes,

 

right?”

 

“I guess.”

 

“And then my friends think, ‘Man, for a guy who’s always

 

got such a crummy face, he seems kind of cool,’ right?”

 

“I guess it’s possible.”

 

“So it’s not so strange that they would want to try being

 

friends with someone who seems kind of cool, even if he is a

 

weirdo. Right?”

 

“Yeah, I guess we all have temptations.”

 

“So that’s what I’m saying,” she said.

 

“What is?”

 

“That.”

 

She peered up at me with eager, expectant eyes. I pretended

 

I was drinking tea in order to escape her gaze. But a single

 

cup of tea sure wasn’t going to be enough to revive my

 

paralyzed mouth.

 

“Huh. I understand,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7

 

“You do?”

 

“It’s a good opportunity and all, so I think I’ll go spend the

 

night at my parents’ place tomorrow.”

 

“Don’t make plans’ You didn’t even go home during

 

Golden Week!”

 

She slammed the table again. I was a little disturbed that

 

she knew what I had been doing during Golden Week, but

 

then again, maybe I had told her and forgotten.

 

“But you know . . . it’s almost Mother’s Day and stuff.”

 

“That was last week! And besides, you’re not the kind of

 

guy who would go out of his way to show devotion to his

 

parents!”

 

That was rather harsh. And even if she was right, did she

 

believe that a seventeen-year-old guy who wouldn’t even go

 

out of his way for his parents would be any nicer to someone

 

who was just a classmate? Maybe she was so worked up she

 

didn’t realize what she was saying anymore.

 

“Come on, I’m begging you. I already told them I’d bring

 

you. I’ll lose face.”

 

“It seems like there’s a misunderstanding here, so let me

 

clear things up—I’m not the kind of guy you can have fun

 

talking to. They say I’ve got about as much pep as a storm

 

cloud.”

 

“Wow, that’s as disappointing as hearing about two budding

 

young authors, only one’s poison ivy and the other got

 

eaten by tent caterpillars.” She looked a little somber as she

 

chewed her lip. “Come on, Ikkun. Do it as a favor to me. I

 

know it’s selfish of me, but hey, I’ll even pay for drinks.”

 

“Sorry, I’m not a drinker.”

 

This was true.

 

“Why not?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8

 

“I once drank a whole bottle of vodka in one go.” I didn’t

 

dare tell her how things ended up after that, but at any rate,

 

ever since then I had sworn off alcohol. I may not be such a

 

smart guy, but I’m not so dumb that I don’t learn from my

 

experiences either.

 

“Wow, not even the Russians do that.” She was truly surprised.

 

“I see. . . . So you can’t drink. Hm, now what?”

 

She immersed herself in thought once again. It seemed she

 

had a firm understanding of what it was like for a non-drinker

 

to show up at a drinking party. Perhaps she was a lightweight

 

herself at least to some extent.

 

Nevertheless . . .

 

I wasn’t so cold-blooded that I felt nothing for this girl sitting

 

before me, looking so deeply troubled.

 

Dammit . . . I get dragged into things so easily. Going along

 

with something out of pity was one thing. But getting dragged

 

in just because the situation presented itself was totally lame.

 

“Okay, okay. As long as you’re okay with me just sitting in

 

the middle of the room scowling.”

 

“Hmm, I guess that would be an awful bother for you, but

 

you know, I think . . . Wait, you mean you’ll go?” she said.

 

She shot her body forward. Maybe it’s a rude analogy, but

 

she was like a dog who had just had food tossed in front of it.

 

A cat would have approached it with some caution, suspecting

 

the possibility of a trap, but Mikoko-chan was completely unguarded.

 

She may have physically resembled a cat, but she

 

was definitely more like a dog in personality.

 

“Is it really okay? Will you really come?”

 

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’m free anyway.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9

 

Even I was a little appalled by my own bluntness and

 

wondered if I couldn’t have put it a little more nicely. All the

 

same, she shrieked with joy.

 

“Waaah! Thank you!” She smiled innocently.

 

I replied by downing the rest of my tea. At some point she

 

had finished her dessert as well, so it was time I really should

 

start to leave.

 

“Ah, wait a sec. Let me know your phone number. I’ll call

 

you.”

 

“Hm? Ah . . .” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.

 

“Okay, it’s . . . uh, I forgot.”

 

“Figures. Okay, then I’ll give you mine, so dial me.”

 

I entered her number as told and sent it. A ringtone

 

emerged from her little bag. David Bowie. She had surprisingly

 

great taste.

 

“Okay, got it. Hey, Ikkun, your phone doesn’t have a

 

strap.”

 

“Ah, yeah. I don’t like that girly stuff.”

 

“Are straps girly?”

 

“Well, I’m no expert or anything, but they’re definitely not

 

very manly.”

 

“Mmm, guess not,” she said with consternation.

 

“Well then,” I said, stepping away from my seat with my

 

tray. “See you tomorrow, Mikoko-chan.”

 

“Yep! Don’t you forget about me again!”

 

She gave me a big wave, to which I responded with a small

 

one as I made my way out of the dining hall. After returning

 

my tray and silverware, I headed straight to the co-op bookstore.

 

Of course, being a university bookstore, its main selection

 

consisted of academic texts, and its recreational reading

 

selection was fairly limited. But on the plus side there was a

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0

 

10 percent discount on everything, and for some reason (I

 

wonder why) this particular bookstore had an unusually large

 

selection of magazines, so it got fairly crowded.

 

I made my way to the novels section and picked one out.

 

Wait. Huh? Something had occurred to me.

 

“Wait a minute. Did Mikoko-chan call me ‘Ikkun’?”

 

Now that I looked back on our encounter, that nickname

 

she used seemed to stand out. I hadn’t even noticed when

 

she’d used the nickname—but I didn’t think anyone had ever

 

addressed me with such an overly familiar nickname in the

 

past. I thought about it for a moment, but I couldn’t remember.

 

I had no specific memory of her calling me that before,

 

but then again, I didn’t remember her not calling me that,

 

either. After all, I hardly have any memory of Mikoko-chan

 

herself, much less a trivial thing like what name she called me.

 

“Eh, whatever.”

 

Either way was fine by me. Satisfied with that notion, I

 

began reading the novel inside the store.

 

Yup.

 

No big deal.

 

Hardly a life or death situation.

 

All was well with the world.

 

Even if Heaven was empty.

 

What is a fatal wound?

 

Cutting off someone’s head.

 

Yeah, obviously that’s one.

 

Crushing someone’s heart.

 

Again, obvious.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1

 

Destroying someone’s brain.

 

Naturally.

 

Stopping their breathing.

 

That’s another good method. Pretty final, too.

 

But when I say “fatal wound,” I’m not referring to these

 

trivial sorts of things.

 

I’m thinking of something else. A fatal wound is an impact

 

so intense, so devastating, that you fall into a state where

 

you’re no longer a human—even though you are. You’re no

 

longer able to lead a life even though you’re living. It means

 

being ground to bits after falling victim to a relative paradox

 

created by reason itself.

 

That is a fatal wound.

 

In other words, failure.

 

The key here is the fact that even after a profound failure,

 

we go on.

 

The world is brutally tepid.

 

It’s so kind that it’s cruel. It’s a devil’s Heaven.

 

To put it plainly, you don’t die by making a big mistake.

 

Or maybe I should say you can’t die.

 

Yeah, you don’t die.

 

You just suffer.

 

You simply suffer in agony.

 

And you go on. Forever, wherever.

 

Meaninglessly, you just go on.

 

Life isn’t a video game, not because there’s no reset button,

 

but because there’s no Game Over. Even though it was

 

“over” long ago, tomorrow shows up anyway. Even when night

 

falls, morning comes again after it. When winter ends, spring

 

rolls in. Life is wonderful.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2

 

It’s an absolute paradox—even though you’ve taken a fatal

 

blow, you can’t die. It’s like asking what a person sees when

 

he looks backward while traveling faster than the speed of

 

light. An unthinkable question.

 

Even though the potential to be you has long since been

 

cut off, you go on. You do it all over, again and again. You

 

redo your life again and again.

 

But it’s like making a million crappy copies, and each time

 

you make one, your “self” gets a little bit shoddier.

 

And eventually you get to thinking . . .

 

Am I really me, or . . .

 

. . . did I become something else

 

long ago?

 

Have I devolved?

 

Just as the central figure in an incident can’t all of a sudden

 

become just a disinterested bystander, you can’t become your

 

own spectator.

 

And that, my friends, is what’s truly fatal.

 

“In other words, it’s like mind over matter . . .” I muttered.

 

As I pondered these fruitless ponderings, I was trying the new

 

McDonald’s burger. The five hundred twenty-five yen value

 

combo.

 

The kimchee must have worked, because my sense of taste

 

had returned to normal. A McDonald’s hamburger tasted

 

pretty luscious again. After all, as a Japanese person, there was

 

no way I could have gone on with my life if unable to enjoy

 

McDonald’s.

 

The time was 7:30 in the evening.

 

The place: Shijôkawara-machi, Shinkyôgoku Street.

 

After fifth period had ended, I decided I wanted to see

 

those mobile police Mikoko-chan was talking about for

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3

 

myself, and my feet had taken me this far in an effort to kill

 

time.

 

Next to the tray with the hamburger on it was a single

 

magazine. What they call a “weekly infozine.” I had bought it

 

at the co-op, and on the cover it said, “Feature Story: Jack the

 

Ripper Resurrected in the Devil’s City!”

 

“Pretty tasteless.”

 

The ridiculously apocalyptic feel of the magazine was

 

actually the second reason I had bought it. The first was that it

 

featured a big story on the “prowler” incidents Mikoko-chan

 

had been telling me about.

 

I shoved two fries in my mouth, added a straw as well, and

 

sucked down some cola. I started flipping through the weekly.

 

The first page was set with an all too vivid picture of a corpse

 

as the background, and in big, Gothic letters, it read: “The

 

Homicidal Monster Who Shook Kyoto!”

 

Ominous indeed.

 

“So they let you show photos like this . . .” I muttered as I

 

flipped through the pages. I had already scanned through the

 

details of the articles, so I at least knew something about the

 

incidents now, if not everything.

 

The media had dubbed the crime spree the “Kyoto Prowler

 

Serial Killings.” Not the most imaginative name in the world,

 

but then again, maybe a case like this didn’t need one. Still,

 

the word prowler hardly seemed to be an accurate description

 

of the criminal. I always thought of as a prowler as a sort of

 

stalker, someone who stalks people on the street and causes

 

them harm. But in this case the culprit was luring the victims

 

into desolate areas, killing them with a sharp blade, and finally

 

dismembering the corpses. It seemed like maybe “serial killer”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4

 

was a better description than prowler. And you could definitely

 

make an analogy with the Jack the Ripper murders.

 

“Six people now, huh? Not bad,” I muttered as I stuffed

 

the magazine back into my bag.

 

Yeah, six people. Just as Mikoko-chan had said, six people

 

in less than two weeks’ time was quite a death toll. It was

 

probably unprecedented. By the third murder, the police force

 

had been dispatched all over the region for surveillance. Even

 

the riot police had been dispatched, and yet the murders went

 

on, as if the killer were laughing at them.

 

The victims had no apparent connections. They were

 

young and old, male and female: The killer showed no mercy

 

to anyone. The police (and everyone else, for that matter) had

 

deemed these incidents merely a series of acts of random

 

violence.

 

Therefore the sixth victim probably wouldn’t be the last.

 

The killings would go on. As long as this monster remained on

 

the loose—or until he decided to stop of his own volition—

 

there would be more murders. Perhaps even tonight. Perhaps

 

even right now.

 

“It’s all nonsense in the end, huh?” I stared out at Shinkyô-

 

goku Street from the entrance of McDonald’s.

 

It was the same scenery as always. Fewer tourists and students

 

on field trips, but it was still pretty crowded—a lot of

 

kids with dyed hair were milling around. I suppose you could

 

say that this was when they came out to mark their territory.

 

Nobody, absolutely nobody walking along this street right

 

now was seriously considering the notion that they could be

 

the next victim.

 

Of course, everyone was still being a little cautious. Some

 

were visibly unsettled by the mobile police units scattered

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5

 

here and there. “What a mess,” they might think, but that

 

about covers it. At most, they would go home a little earlier

 

than usual.

 

But deep in their hearts, everyone believed they would be

 

going home.

 

That’s how it is with these things. There are very few

 

people who can accept as a hard reality the possibility that

 

they might be the next to die.

 

It was true that the probability of becoming the next

 

victim was negligibly low: “Those victims must’ve had been

 

really unlucky.” A terrible thought, but what else could

 

people think?

 

Anyway . . . perhaps I should go ahead and mingle in with

 

this unguarded crowd? With that in mind, I got up from my

 

seat only to feel my phone vibrating in my right pocket. I

 

wasn’t familiar with the number on the display. But I didn’t

 

want to just ignore it. I went ahead and pushed send.

 

“Ciao! Mikoko-chan here!”

 

Hyper from the get-go. It was easy to imagine her giving

 

me the thumbs-up on the other end, even though I guess she

 

probably wasn’t actually doing that. But without even knowing

 

who she was talking to, she was so bubbly and friendly.

 

What would she have done if this was the wrong number? A

 

small fire ignited in my inquiring mind.

 

“Eh? Hey, it’s Mikoko-chan. What’s wrong?”

 

I didn’t reply.

 

“Uhh . . . This is Ikkun, right?”

 

Again, I was silent.

 

“Hellooo? This is Ikkun, right?”

 

I persisted in not replying.

 

“Did I mess up? Huh? I messed up!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6

 

I kept up the silent treatment.

 

“Gahhh! It’s like getting all prepped for the next radio

 

calisthenics session—you know, that exercise show broadcast

 

over the radio—only to have them go ‘We’re outta time, so

 

just do the chicken dance’! I’m sorry, I dialed the wrong

 

number!”

 

At that, I finally said something: “No, this is right. What’s

 

up?”

 

“Uwa!” she shrieked in surprise when I spoke. “Huh?

 

Wha?” she sputtered, confused. Eventually, she let out a sigh,

 

so I figured she had calmed down a bit. I also figured that it

 

was only a matter of seconds before her relief turned to anger.

 

“For crying out loud! It’s the phone! You have to say something!

 

I’ll freak out if you don’t! Ikkun, you jerk! You snake!

 

You . . . you monster!”

 

I didn’t think I’d done anything that bad.

 

“Sorry, sorry, I was just kidding around.”

 

I hadn’t meant to stay quiet for so long, but I also had

 

never expected she’d provide such a hilarious response either.

 

Before I knew it, my timing had been thrown off.

 

“God . . . It’s fine, I guess. Since it’s you and all.”

 

She let out a moan. It was hard not to feel a little sorry for

 

her. “Umm,” she started again, back to her normal self. “This

 

is a business call! Regarding tomorrow’s business!”

 

“You know, you don’t have to yell. It’s quiet here.”

 

“Hm? Where are you now?” she asked.

 

“Ah, uh, I’m at home. At the boarding lodge.”

 

“Oh. I’m still at school. I had to talk to Inokawa-sensei

 

about something, so I just got out of the research room. Isn’t

 

that place incredible?! Books everywhere!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7

 

Inokawa-sensei led the general-education class. A slightly

 

eccentric assistant professor, he was popular enough with his

 

students if you were willing to set aside the fact that he was

 

way too strict about punctuality. (If you weren’t in your seat

 

by the time the bell started ringing—even if you were in the

 

classroom and were in the act of sitting down while it was

 

ringing—he marked you absent).

 

“Umm, right, so about tomorrow. Will you be home tomorrow?”

 

“Yeah, that’s right. Are we meeting somewhere?” I asked.

 

“Uh-uh. If we set a meeting place, we might miss each other,

 

right? That’s no good, so I’ll come meet you at your boarding

 

lodge. I bought a scooter and I kinda wanna take it for a spin.

 

So, let’s say four o’clock. Can I go to your place at four?”

 

“Yeah, it’s fine, but . . . you know where the boarding

 

lodge is?”

 

“Huh? Oh, no problem there.” She seemed flustered. “I

 

mean, because we made that address list when classes first

 

started, so I know it.”

 

“Is just the address enough?”

 

“I know Kyoto well, so we’re a-okay. You’re at Senbon

 

Nakadachiuri, right?”

 

“Huh?” I asked. There was something suspicious about the

 

way she was acting, but if she said she knew it, I figured there

 

was no problem.

 

“Fine by me,” I replied.

 

“Okay. That settles that, then. Hmm, I’d like to talk more

 

since I went to the trouble of calling, but I’ve got to go to

 

driving school from here. I made an appointment, and if I

 

don’t go now I’ll be late.”

 

“Huh. You’re going to driving school.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 8

 

“Yep. How about you? Got a license?”

 

“I do. Just for automatic, though.”

 

If it wasn’t such a big hassle to get a license, I could

 

actually drive anything, but that was a secret.

 

“I see,” she said. “I’m going for a manual. I’m reaching that

 

age where I want my own set of wheels, you know? My dad

 

said he’ll get me a car once I get my license. Yup. Anyway, see

 

ya tomorrow. B-b-b-byeee!”

 

She giggled and hung up. I stared at the phone for a while

 

before putting it back in my pants pocket.

 

Right. We did have plans tomorrow, didn’t we? It hadn’t

 

completely slipped my mind, but it was close enough. At this

 

rate, I might forget again by tomorrow. Maybe it would have

 

been best to write “Plans with Mikoko-chan tomorrow” on the

 

palm of my hand, like an unusually dim-witted elementary

 

school student.

 

Oh, but if she was coming to meet me at my house, it

 

didn’t really matter if I remembered or not, I thought. I was

 

just going to be there all day anyway. I returned my pen case

 

to my bag.

 

This time I really did actually walk out of the McDonald’s.

 

It was already almost eight o’clock, and the shops outside

 

were preparing to close. Suddenly something occurred to me.

 

“Ah, that’s right. It’s a birthday thing.”

 

In that case, I should probably take the opportunity to buy

 

a present while I was out and about. It was only common

 

sense—not that I ever thought of myself as someone with a lot

 

of common sense.

 

Then again, I’d been sort of half-forced into going. Maybe I

 

didn’t have to go out of my way to be a good guy or anything.

 

As I thought it over, I peeped into a nearby souvenir shop.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 9

 

Emoto Tomoe. Now, what kind of a character was she? I

 

didn’t have a single memory of her. Once I actually saw her

 

face, I might remember her. But no matter how hard I

 

thought about it, I couldn’t remember a single thing about

 

her. Which meant she probably wasn’t a particularly eccentric

 

or remarkable person. Maybe she was a little more subdued

 

than most. The kind of person who reads a book before the

 

start of class instead of messing with her cell phone.

 

Wait . . . but hadn’t Mikoko-chan said she was a striking

 

girl who always wore shiny things? Huh. I had no idea after

 

all. Not even a vague image.

 

Then there were those other two: Atemiya Muimi-chan

 

and Usami Akiharu-kun, right? I tried to recall them as well,

 

but with no success.

 

“Eh, I guess if they’re Mikoko-chan’s friends, they can’t be

 

all that weird.”

 

“Tell me what company thou keepst, and I’ll tell thee what

 

thou art.” Cervantes said it, but surely you could’ve switched

 

it around and it would still make sense. Nothing to worry

 

about too much.

 

As my mind wandered, I picked up a box of snacks from a

 

display. They were yatsuhashi cinnamon cookies folded into

 

triangles and stuffed with red bean paste. A wholly

 

conventional Japanese snack. Thirty pieces, one thousand two

 

hundred yen.

 

“Hm . . .”

 

Kyoto and yatsuhashi—a confection made from rice flour,

 

cinnamon, and sugar—were synonymous with each other. If

 

there were no yatsuhashi, it wasn’t Kyoto, which meant that if

 

there were yatsuhashi, it was. Compared to yatsuhashi,

 

Kiyomizu Temple, the Daimonji Fire Festival, and the Big

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 0

 

Three festivals didn’t even matter. Shrines and Buddhist

 

temples were irrelevant. If you didn’t eat yatsuhashi, you

 

didn’t know 80% of Kyoto.

 

Okay, then, I thought.

 

And so it was settled that Tomo-chan would receive snack

 

food for her birthday. I didn’t want to burden her with

 

something nondisposable, and I figured it would be the perfect

 

thing to eat while drinking. Or wait, did sweet stuff go

 

with alcohol? I didn’t drink, so I didn’t know. At any rate, it

 

wasn’t like they would be inedible.

 

And then my back shivered.

 

It felt as though liquid nitrogen had been poured into my

 

spinal cord. As if my entire body had been frozen to absolute

 

zero and the heat of the outside air was about to scorch me.

 

Only a basic level of brain functionality remained. And then I

 

felt an intense pressure crushing me. If I couldn’t maintain my

 

composure, surely I would be pulverized.

 

But I didn’t look back. I just tried to collect myself as

 

coolly as possible, and thrust the box of yatsuhashi at the store

 

clerk. The clerk had a brown earring, a brown ponytail, and a

 

smile that wasn’t very professional.

 

“Welcome, now.” The clerk wrapped up the treats for me,

 

which I accepted as I fished for the exact change. “Please

 

come again there, now,” the clerk said cheerfully with a little

 

head bob. Surely it was this kind of heartfelt service that captured

 

the hearts of tourists, I thought, a little irrelevantly, as I

 

left the store and began on my way to Shijô Street.

 

And then I felt it. A gaze so intense it couldn’t be ignored

 

once detected, a gaze so ferocious there was no way not to be

 

aware of it. No, this was more than a gaze.

 

This was the intent to murder.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 1

 

It was a 100 percent pure murderous desire. Nothing—not

 

one of a million emotions; not animosity, aggression, or a

 

sense of mischief—diluted the purity of this desire. My entire

 

body ached with a terrible feeling. This feeling was long past

 

the point of unpleasant or unsettling.

 

I walked.

 

The feeling followed me.

 

I walked some more.

 

The feeling still followed.

 

“In other words, I’m being followed,” I muttered to myself.

 

Since when? From where?

 

I had no idea.

 

It was so blatant that I didn’t even need to look back.

 

It was so blatant that I didn’t even need to sense it.

 

That meant that whoever it was had surely noticed that I

 

had noticed. The fact that they continued to tail me anyway

 

was the most blatant thing of all.

 

“This ain’t good,” I sighed as I weaved my way through the

 

crowd. It was strange. I really thought I’d left all danger

 

behind me . . . back on that island on the other side of the sea.

 

Being tracked all the way to this country, to this city, no less,

 

seemed unthinkable, much less being killed. I had already

 

employed Kunagisa’s skills to confirm that.

 

In which case . . .

 

This was a random act.

 

The first thing that came to mind was the feature story

 

from the magazine in my bag.

 

The slasher.

 

“Aw, hell no,” I said to myself. What cruel fate had

 

brought me to this pass? If I were to put it like Mikoko-chan, I

 

might have said something like, “It’s like forming a second

 

Onyanko Club, but everyone’s a backup dancer.” On second

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 2

 

thought, I have no idea what that means. I guess you

 

shouldn’t try to be something you’re not, I thought. Clearly I

 

was panicking.

 

But even supposing the person one thousand feet behind

 

me right now was the famous prowler, or even supposing it

 

was just your run-of-the-mill psycho killer, or even supposing

 

that it was someone with a grudge against me . . .

 

Something was off. This just didn’t make sense. It was unfathomable

 

and absurd.

 

What I felt was uneasiness. Yes, like the uneasiness you

 

feel when you notice that reflection in the mirror is looking

 

back at you, that kind of absolutely mistaken textbook

 

explanation. I had now confirmed that that red line that’s

 

usually in front was, suddenly, behind.

 

“More nonsense?” Of course this was an illusion.

 

What mattered right now was that someone was following

 

me. This much was certain. That and, sometime soon, I would

 

be killed. This much was also certain. With these two

 

essentially definite facts in mind right now, I had no leeway to

 

be distracted by any other sensations. Ultimately, my options

 

were limited.

 

Give, or take.

 

“Ahhh, this is becoming a freaking hassle,” I muttered.

 

I made my way from Shinkyôgoku Street onto Shijô Street.

 

On the other side of a cluster of cabs was a long line of cars.

 

Shijô Street was extremely congested at this time of day, to

 

the point that it was actually faster to walk than to drive. In a

 

town like Kyoto, which had so many traffic lights it wasn’t

 

even funny, a bicycle was by far the number one most

 

effective way to get around.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 3

 

Number two, incidentally, was by foot. Maybe number

 

three was a boogie board.

 

I had come to school by bus, so number two was my only

 

option. I debated for only an instant about which way to go

 

before heading east.

 

After a pause at a red light, I crossed Kawara-machi Street.

 

If I kept straight on this road, it would take me to Yasaka

 

Shrine. From there, if I broke south, I would reach Kiyomizu

 

Temple. It was a textbook route for the Kyoto temple sightseer.

 

But I was no sightseer, and I had no intention of going as

 

far as Yasaka Shrine.

 

I was on pins and needles. I felt that high-pressure gaze

 

edging ever closer. And if it ever caught up to me, that pressure

 

would erupt into plain, simple violence.

 

“Ah . . . this is gonna be close.” May already and here I was

 

in a cold sweat. Just how long had it been since I had been this

 

nervous? Surely not since I’d left that odd little island. Yet at

 

the same time, what I felt now was somehow distinctly

 

different from what I had felt back then.

 

I am nervous, therefore I am at peace.

 

I became aware that, for me in this nervous state, failure

 

was something wholly improbable.

 

“Phew . . .”

 

And so I arrived at Kamo River. Instead of crossing the big

 

Shijô Bridge, I made my way down the staircase beside it and

 

emerged on the riverbank. Whenever the sun came out,

 

countless young couples would start crowding the riverbank.

 

In my personal opinion, this riverbank, lined with perfectly

 

spaced out boy-girl pairs, was one of the top three must-see

 

attractions of Kyoto. When the moon was out, the riverbank

 

offered itself as an after-bender hangout for drunks. After

 

drinking the night away, they could come here to sleep it off.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 4

 

The drunks ranged from college students all the way up to

 

salarymen.

 

The drunks and lovers had one thing in common: They

 

were both complete nuisances who went around shoving their

 

happiness in other people’s faces. But there was no time to

 

wax philosophical about. No matter what I thought about the

 

drunks and young lovers, only one thing mattered right now.

 

It happened to be that one brief moment of the day when the

 

riverbank was empty. The lovers had already gone home, and

 

the drunks were still getting drunk.

 

In other words, it was a perfect situation.

 

And being underneath a bridge made it even better, right?

 

I entered the shadow of the bridge as soon as I had

 

descended to the riverbank. The sounds of passing cars rushed

 

overhead. The chatter of people crossing the bridge. It was

 

one hell of a ruckus. But it wasn’t enough to cover this guy’s

 

footsteps.

 

Shuffle.

 

The sound of scraping grit.

 

I muttered something and turned around.

 

He made an incoherent noise as he faced me.

 

My feelings at that point were probably pure and simple

 

confusion. Ordinary, everyday confusion and nothing more.

 

There was a mirror in front of me.

 

Or so I thought.

 

His height was a bit under five feet, and he was longlimbed

 

and slender as a flower stem. He wore tiger-striped

 

shorts; nonskid rustic boots; a red, long-sleeved, hooded parka;

 

and a black tactical vest. Both hands were clad with gloves,

 

but they obviously weren’t for something as cowardly as covering

 

his fingerprints, as they were fingerless gloves. It was my

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 5

 

guess that they served a much more sinister purpose—to stop

 

the knife from slipping on sweat.

 

His long hair was tied up in the back and buzzed on the

 

sides as if he were a dancer. His right ear had a triple piercing,

 

and two straps that looked like they belonged on a cell phone

 

dangled from his left ear. His stylish sunglasses rendered his

 

expression unreadable, but the sinister-looking, obviously real

 

tattoo running down the right side of his face communicated

 

this person’s eccentricity loud and clear.

 

He was unlike me in almost every conceivable way. Our

 

similarities ended with age and gender.

 

And yet I felt like I was looking into a mirror.

 

So naturally I was confused.

 

And my new friend appeared to be just as confused.

 

Still, he made the first move. He inserted his right hand

 

into a pocket of the vest, and an instant later he was

 

brandishing a small, five-centimeter-wide knife. He made not

 

a single wasted motion. It was as if he had surpassed the limits

 

of the merely human. Light and sound seemed distorted

 

around him.

 

Even supposing I had been observing all this from the point

 

of view of an uninvolved bystander, even knowing that this

 

was a murderer, his technique was so perfect that I could’ve

 

only described it as artful.

 

There was no escaping it. There was no accepting it.

 

But I managed to dodge the knife by pulling my upper

 

body back. Of course, normally this would be impossible. I

 

wouldn’t say I’m any less athletic than average, but I’m

 

certainly no Mary Lou Retton either. I had neither the quick

 

eye nor agile body needed to elude a plausible contender for

 

the title of the world’s fastest knife fighter.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 6

 

However, supposing a dump truck was coming straight at

 

you at a hundred miles an hour, but you became aware of this

 

when it was a few miles away, I think we can all agree that

 

dodging it would be a simple task.

 

Likewise, I’d been anticipating my assailant’s slash attack.

 

It was so obvious that it was coming that it was if I had been

 

expecting it for the past five years.

 

I groped wildly for my bag, then swung it around, hoping

 

to smash him in the face. But with no more than a simple

 

motion of the neck, he managed to dodge my attack as if he

 

had been expecting it for ten years.

 

Because I had strained to dodge his attack, I tumbled

 

backward. Of course, I didn’t do anything as foolish as try to

 

roll back to my feet. Even a single arm wasted on such a

 

maneuver would surely have created a prime opportunity for

 

the killer. Just as I feared, he wheeled back from his initial

 

miss and came straight for my carotid artery. Not good. There

 

was no way to dodge from this position. I guess I could have

 

theoretically performed a stupid-looking roll and dodge this

 

one attack. But the next moment, or the moment after that,

 

regardless of how pathetically I scrambled around on the

 

ground, he would plunge that knife into my spine. I could

 

imagine it so clearly that I felt like a certain clairvoyant I once

 

knew.

 

In which case, dodging was beside the point. The key was

 

simply taking it. I swung my right elbow up at the knife.

 

My opponent twisted his wrist, altering the direction of his

 

swing. Consequently, the excess momentum from my elbow

 

had me swinging at nothing. This left my entire front side,

 

including all of my organs, not least notable of which were the

 

heart and lungs, completely exposed to the enemy.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 7

 

Behind the sunglasses, his eyes seemed to smile ever so

 

faintly.

 

With another twist of the knife, he aimed it directly at my

 

heart.

 

A moment’s pause.

 

And then the tactical knife swung down at double speed.

 

So strong was his will to destroy human life that it made his

 

body move at speeds that couldn’t be detected by the human

 

eye.

 

He left me not even time enough to gasp. That’s right: I

 

didn’t even have time to gasp.

 

But I had known this one had been coming before I’d even

 

been born.

 

!

 

!

 

The knife tore through a single layer of my clothing and

 

stopped. My left index and middle fingers had stopped it—by

 

pushing up my assailant’s sunglasses.

 

A stalemate.

 

He had my heart and I had his eyes. If you put the two on

 

a scale, their weights obviously differed, but this was no

 

matter to be weighed on a scale. For my opponent, tearing

 

through my flesh and bone to demolish my heart was simpler

 

than taking candy from a baby. But it would leave just enough

 

time for me to pulverize his eyeballs.

 

The opposite was also true.

 

I could sacrifice my own heart to destroy his eyeballs, and

 

he could sacrifice his eyes to obliterate my heart. Hence, a

 

stalemate.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 4 8

 

We stayed that way for as long as five hours, or maybe it

 

was five seconds, and then: “This is a masterpiece,” he said,

 

tossing his knife aside.

 

“It’s nonsense is what it is.” I retracted my fingers.

 

He backed away from me, and I rose to my feet slowly,

 

shaking the grit off my clothes and slowly straightening out

 

my posture.

 

Our fight had been a farce—but it had gone so harmoniously,

 

it was as if it had all been predestined. I felt overcome

 

by an incredible faintness.

 

“I’m Zerozaki,” my opponent said as he straightened his

 

crooked glasses. “Zerozaki Hitoshiki. So who the hell are you,

 

Mr. Doppelgänger?”

 

The question left a sour taste in my mouth. It was like

 

seeing myself asking someone else for my own name.

 

And that—that was the first encounter between the passive

 

onlooker and the homicidal monster.

 

Strangely enough, it was Friday the thirteenth.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 0

 

Misfortune and misery are underplayed.

 

Give me more despair. Give me more darkness.

 

Give me wholehearted depravity.

 

The thirteenth of any given month, by the way, is more likely

 

to fall on a Friday than any other day. Friday the thirteenth

 

occurs once a year at least, and three or four times a year on

 

average. But for a guy like me who wasn’t Christian—I don’t

 

even understand the difference between Catholic and

 

Protestant—Friday the thirteenth meant little more than that

 

the next day was Saturday the fourteenth.

 

Now, then. The next day was Saturday, May fourteenth. I

 

awoke inside my one-room Senbon Nakadachiuri apartment.

 

I looked at my clock to discover that it was about ten until

 

four p.m.

 

“Seriously?”

 

I was a bit . . . that is, fairly—nay, insanely—surprised. This

 

was a whole new oversleeping record for me. How many years

 

had it been since the last time I slept until the afternoon? And

 

it wasn’t only the afternoon—the p.m. was a third over

 

already. This would probably remain as a stain on my memory

 

for the rest of eternity.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 1

 

“But then again, I want to bed at nine in the morning, so

 

it’s only natural.”

 

Finally shaking away the sleepiness, I returned to my sense

 

and rose from my bed.

 

The room had four straw mats of floor space and a naked

 

lightbulb. This little pocket of space was unbelievably classic,

 

and so full of anachronisms that it made you wonder if it had

 

been around since the olden days when Kyoto was still our

 

capital. Naturally, the rent was deathly low. Deathly to the

 

landlord, that is.

 

I folded up my futon and stuck it on the closet. There was

 

no toilet or bath, but there was a washstand of sorts, so I used

 

it to wash my face, then got dressed. My wardrobe wasn’t

 

exactly jam-packed with options, so all of this took less than

 

five minutes.

 

I opened the window and let in the outside air. Kyoto is an

 

incredible place, in that once you’ve passed Golden Week,

 

you’ve already entered summer. It’s as if life is still being run

 

according to the old Chinese calendar—or as if fall and spring

 

don’t even exist.

 

Then there came a knock at my door. This apartment

 

wasn’t equipped with such modern amenities as telephone

 

intercoms. It was exactly four o’clock. Mikoko-chan was certainly

 

a punctual one. I was just a little bit dazzled by this.

 

People who were as anal about time as Inokawa-sensei were

 

just annoying, but I figured that if you really wanted to refer

 

to yourself as a human being, you had to be at least as punctual

 

as an analog clock. In that sense, Mikoko-chan passed as a

 

human.

 

“Yo, I’m coming.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 2

 

I unbolted the lock (now that’s what I call radically retro)

 

and opened the door. But to my surprise, it wasn’t Mikokochan.

 

“Sorry.”

 

It was Asano Miiko-san, my neighbor. She was twenty-two

 

years old, making her my senior, and she was a seasonal

 

worker. There was something strangely Japanesey about her

 

style, and even right now she was dressed in classic Japanese

 

summer casual wear. It was black cloth, with the word

 

Carnage printed on the back of her top in white letters, and

 

she had a distinctly samurai-esque ponytail. At first she

 

seemed unapproachable, but after you talked to her for a bit,

 

it quickly became clear that she was a pretty decent human

 

being. Maybe a little on the mysterious side, but that just

 

added to her charm.

 

“Miiko-san . . . right? Good morning.”

 

“Yeah. Were you sleeping?”

 

“Yeah, I actually overslept a bit, so . . .”

 

“If you slept this late, I don’t think it still qualifies as ‘a

 

bit,’ ” she said drably. With her subdued demeanor, it was

 

often hard to guess what she was thinking. It wasn’t that she

 

was completely expressionless. Instead, her default expression

 

was a glare, with changes so subtle that she might as well have

 

been expressionless.

 

“Oh, please come in. As usual, there’s not much to see,

 

though,” I said without a hint of false modesty. I stepped aside

 

to make way, but she shook her head.

 

“Nah, I just came to give you this.” She passed me a flat

 

box. It was wrapped in paper with the word Snacks written in

 

big letters.

 

“. . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 3

 

“They’re yatsuhashi. They’re a Kyoto favorite.”

 

“I know them, but—“

 

“They’re yours. They’re good, you know. Well, see ya . . .

 

I’ve got to get to work.”

 

She spun around, flashing the word Carnage at me. The

 

fact that she had offered no explanation as to why she had just

 

given me a box of yatsuhashi was hardly unexpected. She was

 

a woman of few words, and when you thought about how

 

much effort you would have to exert just to fish an answer out

 

of her, it was easy to justify leaving things unexplained. And

 

so I send her off with a simple “Thanks very much, I’ll definitely

 

enjoy them,” and nothing more.

 

She stopped in her tracks.

 

“Sounded like you got back just this morning,” she said

 

without turning around. “So, what’s the story?”

 

“. . .” Damn these thin-walled apartments. Actually I suppose

 

they do have their perks.

 

“Oh, I was just hanging out with a friend all night. Nothing

 

shady. Nothing exciting either.”

 

“A friend, huh? Wouldn’t happen to have been that

 

colorful blue-haired girl who came by around February, would

 

it?”

 

“Actually, Kunagisa’s an extreme shut-in. This was someone

 

else. A guy.”

 

She nodded with a look of complete and utter disinterest,

 

but I wondered if she would’ve perked up a little if I had said

 

“I was schmoozing with that killer everyone’s been talking

 

about under the big Shijô Bridge.” Then again, Miiko-san

 

being the way she was, it was entirely possible that she

 

wouldn’t have given me more than a “huh,” even if she knew I

 

wasn’t joking.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 4

 

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and proceeded on her way

 

down the planked hallway. She was headed to her part-time

 

job. When I first discovered those weren’t just her indoor

 

clothes, even I couldn’t help but vocalize my surprise.

 

I shut the door and returned to the middle of the room.

 

But why did it have to be yatsuhashi? Come to think of it,

 

these were the exact same yatsuhashi I had picked up the

 

previous day for Tomo-chan’s birthday. It was a terrifying coincidence,

 

but there it was.

 

“Well, whatever.”

 

I stacked the two boxes and stuck them in the corner of

 

the room.

 

Looking at the clock, I discovered is was several minutes

 

past four.

 

Thirty minutes later, it was past 4:30.

 

“Well, duh,” I said aloud and lay down on the floor.

 

Well now. Wasn’t Mikoko-chan coming to pick me up at

 

four? Of this I was certain. I may forget things, but I never

 

misremember them. This meant Mikoko-chan had either

 

gotten in an accident, gotten lost, or was just a sloppy person.

 

But no matter which it was, there was nothing I could do right

 

now.

 

“Time for some Eight Queens?”

 

Of course, there was nothing as extravagant as a chessboard

 

in my room, so I’d just have to play it in my mind. The

 

rules to Eight Queens were simple, and concise—just place

 

eight queens on a chessboard so that none of them can capture

 

any other. It’s one of those “brain exercise” routines. I’d

 

played the game quite a few times, so I basically knew the

 

solution. But with my poor memory, I always forgot the exact

 

arrangement, so I was able to enjoy the game every single time

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 5

 

I played it. Okay, not that it was really all that enjoyable. But

 

it was a good way to kill some time.

 

I started strong, but the trouble set in around the fourth

 

queen. The game was starting to lose its consistency. Queens

 

just don’t get along with other queens. There should never be

 

more than one party in power. Moreover, if I allowed my

 

thoughts to wander like this, I’d lose track of where I had put

 

all the pieces up until now, and I’d have to start all over.

 

The thrill of sectioning off your mind like this was indescribable.

 

You could say it was something like the feeling of

 

walking on a balance beam, only the more pieces you placed

 

down—that is, the closer you got to a final solution—the

 

harder it became. In that sense, it was very much like a game,

 

and great in that sense. In the case of failure, there was no one

 

but yourself on whom to vent your anger, and herein lay the

 

real thrill.

 

And just as I was trying to find the place for the seventh

 

queen, there came a knock at my door and a cry of “Ikkun!”

 

The chessboard went flying. Queens everywhere.

 

For an instant, my heart, not to mention my thoughts,

 

stopped.

 

I approached the door and swung it open. This time, it really

 

was Mikoko-chan. She wore a pink camisole with a red

 

miniskirt, exposing a healthy and refreshing amount of skin.

 

“Morning!” she said with a wave. Then came the full-faced

 

grin. “Ikkun, guten morgen!”

 

“. . .”

 

“. . .”

 

“. . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 6

 

“Morgen . . . gen . . . gen . . . It’s like the Doppler effect or

 

something.” She was as spastic and smiley as I’d come to expect

 

her to be. Her eyes drifted away from me off into space.

 

“Umm, I was just wondering, and I know this isn’t the kind of

 

thing you would do, but . . . Are you mad or resentful or hatefilled

 

or cursing my name or anything? Actually, cursing my

 

name does seem kinda like something you’d do.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Come on, let’s communicate! Hey! Don’t be so quiet!

 

When you get all quiet I feel like I’m about to have something

 

terrible done to me!”

 

“Your palm,” I said.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Hold the palm of your hand in front of your face like

 

this.”

 

“Okay . . .”

 

She did as told.

 

Smack! I smooshed her hand into her own face.

 

“Gwah!” she shrieked in unfeminine fashion. Satisfied for

 

the time being, I went back inside to fetch my bag. Now

 

where had I put those yatsuhashi?

 

“Uwa! You’re terrible!” she said as she came into my room

 

for some reason. “You’re being violent with me just for being a

 

little bit late? That’s abuse, you know. It’s like forming a jurybased

 

judicial system, only all the jurors are O. J. Simpson!”

 

Apparently forty minutes late was only “a little bit late” in

 

Mikoko-chan’s mind. Without waiting for an invitation, she

 

came into the middle of my room and took a seat on the floor.

 

Plop. She scanned her surroundings with a look of true curiosity.

 

“Oooooo,” she sighed in awe. “Wow, there’s nothing

 

here. Amazing!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 7

 

“You know, that kind of compliment isn’t particularly

 

flattering.”

 

“You really don’t have a TV! You’re like one of those

 

struggling students from the good ol’ days. I bet you study by

 

the light of fireflies! Does anyone else live in this apartment?”

 

“Uh, well, there’s one swordsman freeloader, one hermit,

 

a fifteen-year-old and thirteen-year-old brother and sister currently

 

running away from home, and then there’s me, so that’s

 

four rooms and five people. Up until recently there was an

 

aspiring singer here too, but she went to Tokyo to launch her

 

major-label debut.”

 

“Wow, so this place is kind of prosperous. Kind of a surprise.

 

So I guess that means there’s an open room here? Hmm.

 

It does have a certain ambience, huh? Maybe I should move

 

in!”

 

What could she have possibly seen in this apartment, in

 

this room, that would’ve given her such an idea? “Better not,”

 

I said, giving her the appropriate advice. “Well, let’s get going,

 

huh?”

 

“Ah, not yet. It’s still too early,” she blurted out.

 

“But won’t it be bad if we don’t leave soon? We’re already

 

pushing forty minutes here.”

 

“No, we just have to be there by six. Tomo-chan’s apartment

 

isn’t far from here, so even if we leave at five thirty we’ll

 

have plenty of time to get there.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Really,” she said with an index finger thrust skyward. It

 

was hard to deny the adorableness of her grandiose gesticulations,

 

but it didn’t seem like the thing I needed to go out of

 

my way to mention, so I didn’t. I didn’t want to get her all

 

excited.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 8

 

“Then why did you say four o’clock?”

 

“Huh? Oh, that. Well, you know. Ehh, I’m not so great

 

with time. It was just in case, just in case.”

 

“You mean there was a chance you might have been an

 

hour and a half late?”

 

Just thinking about it made me feel like blood might shoot

 

out of my ears.

 

“Huh?” she said, peeping at my face to catch my expression.

 

“What’s the matter?” she asked cheerfully.

 

“Nothing. I’m not thinking about anything. I’m definitely

 

not thinking about how you should maybe consider the feelings

 

of the person waiting for you to arrive. Or how you

 

should stick to the time that you designated. Or how you

 

should at least call if you’re going to be late. Or how you

 

should take better care of chessboards.”

 

“Chessboards?” She scratched her head.

 

Naturally she wasn’t supposed to understand that.

 

I found the yatsuhashi lying in the corner of the room and

 

cut the seal on one of the boxes. I placed it in front of her.

 

“Can I eat ’em?”

 

“Sure.”

 

I stood up and made my way over to the sink. I thought to

 

boil some water for team, but I didn’t have a kettle. I thought

 

of using a hot pot, but I had no burner in any case. So I just

 

poured her a cup of tap water and placed it in front of her.

 

Looking thoroughly baffled, she glanced at the liquid

 

thrust before her, but then pretended not to see it and didn’t

 

bother touching it.

 

She chowed down enthusiastically on the yatsuhashi.

 

“Asking this might be one of those things and all, but are you

 

poor, by any chance?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 5 9

 

“No, I’m not particularly strapped for funds.”

 

Living in an apartment like this, I had no evidence to support

 

this statement, but it was the truth. At the very least, I

 

had enough money saved up to pay for your years of college

 

without lifting a single finger. Technically it wasn’t money I

 

had earned personally, but it was in my possession.

 

“I guess you’re sort of an economist then, huh? Or is it a

 

philosopher?”

 

“I’m just bad at spending money. Sort of the opposite of a

 

shopaholic.”

 

I helped myself to some yatsuhashi as I spoke. She gave me

 

a halfhearted nod of comprehension.

 

As she knelt on the straw-matted floor of my room, I

 

stared at her from top to bottom. Huh. Not that I was thinking

 

anything in particular, but there was something very

 

awkward about having her sitting here in the middle of my

 

room. I don’t know if you would call it unnatural or risqué,

 

but something about it felt incredibly iffy.

 

I stood up.

 

“Huh? Where ya going? We’ve still got an extra forty minutes.”

 

“Forty minutes is just a ‘little bit,’ right?”

 

“Ahh! Ikkun, that’s the kind of thing a big jerko would

 

say!” she said, recoiling overzealously. “You don’t have to hold

 

it against me forever!”

 

“I’m just joking. Let’s go get a light lunch somewhere. It’s

 

no fun just picking at each other in this empty room.”

 

I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and headed toward the

 

door.

 

“Aww, that’s not true,” she mumbled as she followed me.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 0

 

Tomo-chan resided in a students-only apartment complex

 

near Nishiôji Maruta-machi. Just looking at that steelreinforced,

 

concrete exterior, I could imagine the difference in

 

rent from my own place. Five times as much, or even ten

 

if you got swindled.

 

Mikoko-chan must have been there before, because she

 

entered the main lobby with an air of confidence. She pushed

 

the room number on the intercom and pressed the call button.

 

“Yellooo! It’s Mikoko-cakes.”

 

“Yo-yo. C’mon up.”

 

As the somewhat drowsy voice emerged from the intercom,

 

the firmly locked glass door slid open. An autolock security

 

system. Actually, maybe that’s too extravagant a term.

 

Whether that lock was there or not made little difference to

 

anyone trying to break in.

 

“Come on, hurry. Hurry hurry hurry hurry.” Mikoko-chan

 

passed through the door and beckoned for me to hurry along.

 

“Sixth floor, sixth floor! We gotta hurry!”

 

“It’s not like the sixth floor is going to get away.”

 

“Yeah, but it won’t come down to greet us either.”

 

“That’s true . . .”

 

I followed along as told.

 

“The sixth floor is the very top one. Tomo-chan lives in the

 

corner apartment, and there’s a pretty nice view, as views go.”

 

“Mm, nice view, eh?”

 

That was one thing I never hoped to see where I was living.

 

If you opened the window in my place, you got trees.

 

We called down the elevator and got in.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 1

 

“I wonder if Akiharu-kun’s here yet. Muimi-chan is pretty

 

much a given, but . . .”

 

Mikoko-chan was incredibly excited. Seeing her carefree

 

expression, even I couldn’t help but think about how nice it

 

must be to have friends. Whether or not it worked for me, it

 

must’ve been very nice for her.

 

We got off at the sixth floor. Mikoko-chan raced down the

 

hallway and stopped in front of the very last door. “Over here,

 

over here!” she shouted and beckoned. It made me want to ask

 

if she was just completely oblivious to the looks people gave

 

her.

 

She pushed in the doorbell. Ding-dong. The door opened,

 

and a girl revealed herself.

 

“Welcome,” the girl—most likely Tomo-chan—said drowsily,

 

a cigarette hanging from her lips. She was entirely different

 

than I had expected.

 

“So, Mikoko. On time for a change, eh?” She wore her long

 

brown hair in a sauvage—with her hangs long and the rest cut

 

at wildly varying lengths—and her fashion sense was impeccable:

 

Her light jacket and jeans combo was very stylish. She

 

was probably a little taller than me, and was so sickly thin that

 

if she said she had only one day to live, I probably would have

 

believed her. It was the perfect match for her slightly crooked

 

smile.

 

“Howdy, Muimi-chan!” Mikoko-chan greeted. “Haro haro!”

 

It seemed this wasn’t Tomo-chan after all, but Muimichan.

 

“Oops,” she said, finally noticing my presence. Without

 

a hint of shyness, she gave me a hard study from top to bottom.

 

“Maybe this is our first time talking, ‘Ikkun,’ “ she said

 

with a smirk.

 

“Yeah,” I said apathetically. “Hey.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 2

 

It seemed my apathy had struck a chord with her. She let

 

out an exaggerated laugh. It was boisterous, and not very

 

feminine.

 

“Well how ‘bout that. You are an interesting guy. I think

 

we’ll get along.”

 

“Really.” It was more of a sigh than a response. Not the

 

kind of thing that warranted such judgment. It was just about

 

as enthusiastic as my greeting had been. “I don’t think so.”

 

“Heh, well, we don’t have to get into all that. Just come in.

 

Stupid Akiharu isn’t here yet. We just called and he was still

 

at home.”

 

“Oh my God, he’ll never change. Last time he claimed he

 

got confused by the time zone difference. That lousy tardyman.”

 

Mikoko sure was throwing stones at the proverbial glass

 

house. It was almost impressive. But I wasn’t in the mood to

 

start teasing her about it, so I stayed silent as I removed my

 

shoes.

 

At the end of the short hallway between the kitchen and

 

bathroom was a single door. It seemed this was one of those

 

sectioned-off one-rooms. Muimi-chan went ahead of us and

 

opened the door. The room inside was about eight or nine

 

mats in size, but the floors were hardwood. By the window

 

was a bed, and in the middle of the room, a mini-table covered

 

with cake, snacks, and a row of empty glasses. So this was

 

more of a drinks thing than a dinner-thing affair after all.

 

A girl was sitting daintily beside the table. This time it had

 

to be Tomo-chan. She was even more petite then Mikokochan,

 

and dressed in a strawberry-patterned one-piece. Her

 

hair was in pigtails. She gave me a little wave.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 3

 

She was just as shy as I’d imagined. And yet something

 

about her made me think she probably had a bad habit or two.

 

It was like there was more than meets the eye—as if her simplistic

 

form prevented you from being able to see through her.

 

Thinking about it made me feel as though someone had asked

 

me for the sum of all integers.

 

“No, wait.”

 

That’s all nonsense. Everyone feels that way when they

 

meet someone for the first time. It wasn’t technically my first

 

meeting with Tomo-chan, but I didn’t really know her, so it

 

was only natural that I had this impression.

 

Hmm. Come to think of it, it did seem as though we had

 

crossed paths a few times in our general education seminar. I

 

joined her at the table so that I was facing her, and tossed out

 

a simple greeting. “Yo.” She looked at me a little crookedly,

 

then gave me a politely deep bow.

 

“Thanks for going to all this trouble. Sorry to ask such a big

 

favor.” Her voice was pretty and calm, with a watery quality.

 

“I’ve always wanted to have a chat with you, so I hope you

 

have a good time today.”

 

I was a little moved by her good manners. It was something

 

I hadn’t seen much lately (especially in the last day or

 

two).

 

“Ahahaha, quick to break the ice, eh?” Mikoko-chan said as

 

she sat down next to me on her knees. Muimi-chan, in turn,

 

sat down next to her. This allowed enough room for Akiharukun

 

to eventually come sit between me and Tomo-chan.

 

“Ahhh.” Muimi-chan put out her cigarette with her own

 

finger, then deposited it in an ashtray. “So what are we doing?

 

We’ve got a brand-new guest here. Should we go ahead and

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 4

 

start? It seems stupid to sit around wasting time just because

 

of that asshead.”

 

“Hey, we can’t do that,” Mikoko-chan interjected. “For

 

something like this we have to all be together! Right, Tomochan?”

 

“Yup, Mikoko’s right.” Tomo-chan nodded. “You know

 

he’ll be here soon, so don’t be so impatient. Right?”

 

“I don’t really care, but…” Muimi-chan gestured towards

 

me. “What about Ikkun here?”

 

“I don’t mind. I’m used to waiting.” To be sure, that didn’t

 

mean I was used to people making me wait. But it would have

 

been too much of a hassle to start an argument about it, so I

 

just fed her an easy line.

 

Muimi shot me an inquisitive look, but “Well, whatever

 

then,” was all she said. She pulled out a fresh cigarette, then

 

shot me another look. “Are you an antitobacco kind of guy?”

 

she asked.

 

“I don’t smoke myself, but you can smoke all you like.”

 

“Ah. No, I’m good.” She broke in half the cigarette she

 

hadn’t even lit yet and deposited it in the ashtray. “I make it a

 

point not to smoke around nonsmokers.”

 

“Huh.”

 

Did that mean Mikoko-chan and Tomo-chan were both

 

smokers? The fact that she had asked only me seemed to indicate

 

such. Huh. I was a little surprised.

 

“Hey! Muimi-chan, you’ll make me sound like a smoker if

 

you put it like that!” Mikoko-chan objected once again. She

 

was giving us the puppy-dog eyes. For some reason she

 

seemed vehemently opposed to me finding out she was a

 

smoker.

 

“But you do smoke.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 5

 

“No I don’t! I was just going with the flow that one time!”

 

“Ah, right. Gotcha. My fault, my fault.” Muimi-chan gave

 

her a friendly pat as she threw her little tantrum. Meanwhile,

 

Tomo-chan watched on in delight.

 

Huh. It didn’t take long to notice the dynamic here. It was

 

the good girl, the bad girl, and the regular girl. This made me

 

Wonder what Akiharu’s role was. He finally showed up at

 

6:30, half an hour late.

 

“Sorry, sorry. I thought I’d be here on time, but the train

 

was crowded and stuff,” he said with good humor.

 

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Tomo-chan said as she greeted

 

him with a smile. The good girl.

 

“The train doesn’t arrive any later just because it’s crowded!

 

And you live in a boarding house, so you don’t even take

 

the train anyway!” Mikoko-chan, the regular girl. She had the

 

nerve to question his lame excuses.

 

“You think you can get off with a simple apology? You

 

gotta chug three beers,” Muimi-chan said, passing a beer bottle

 

over to him. The bad girl.

 

“Okay, okay. Don’t rush me so much, Atemiya. This is a

 

birthday, a birthday. Not a mayday. Goddamn I’m a clever

 

bastard. What the . . . ?” It seemed he had noticed my presence.

 

He gave a problem-child sneer. “Heh heh, so you really

 

brought him, Aoii,” he said.

 

He sat down next to me and said, “Well, good to meet

 

you,” with a slight bow.

 

I did likewise.

 

He had an easy-breezy air about him, with light brown hair

 

and a taste for street fashion. Maybe it wasn’t uncommon for a

 

university student to dress like that, but at Rokumeikan in

 

particular, it was kind of unusual. Judging from his build, it

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 6

 

looked like he was involved in some kind of sport, but I

 

couldn’t tell which one.

 

“Umm, what do I . . . wha? Are we all supposed to just call

 

you Ikkun then?”

 

“I don’t mind.”

 

“Really, really? Gotcha. You’re a good guy. Don’t you

 

think so, Aoii?”

 

He shot Mikoko-chan a meaningful look. She shot back a

 

flustered one. “Oh, uh, yeah.” Judging from her response, it

 

didn’t seem like she thought I was a very good guy at all. Of

 

course, considering how much I made fun of her, that was

 

probably only natural.

 

“Well, shall we start?” Muimi-chan said. She seemed to be

 

the leader of the four. She pointed at me. “Umm, you don’t

 

drink, right?” she said.

 

I nodded.

 

“Oh? What’s this now, Ikkun? You can’t go around being

 

finicky all the time, you know. Alcohol is a vital component in

 

man-to-man interactions after all, right? I mean, am I right or

 

am I right?”

 

“Akiharu! What did I tell you about pushing your bullshit

 

opinions on others?! I’ll fucking kill you!” Muimi-chan gave

 

him the look of death. Her cool, almost dazed demeanor from

 

a moment ago had sharpened into a knife of fury. “Did you

 

already forget what I told you last time? Huh?”

 

Akiharu quivered and tensed with fear. “Uh . . .”

 

“I’m not lookin’ for an ’uhhh.’ ”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“Not lookin’ for a ‘sorry’ either. Why the hell are you

 

apologizing to me? Huh?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 7

 

Akiharu-kun’s mouth opened and closed like he was a

 

suffocating fish. Then he looked over at me. “Please forgive

 

me,” he apologized.

 

“Okay, then,” Muimi-chan said with a look of satisfaction.

 

“Sorry there, Ikkun. He didn’t mean anything by it. Forgive

 

the guy, will ya?” She had completely returned to her origi-nal

 

self and smiled back at me. “Did he piss you off?”

 

“Uh, I don’t really care.”

 

Atemiya Muimi. She was definitely an ex-delinquent. No,

 

not even an “ex.” I thought that brown sauvage seemed a little

 

out of date.

 

Maybe I should call her Boss.

 

Meanwhile, Mikoko-chan poured some low-malt beer into

 

each glass and lined them up in front of everyone. She also

 

placed a single glass of oolong tea in front of me.

 

“So who’s going to lead the proceedings? Shall it be Tomochan,

 

our queen for a day?”

 

“Yeah, I believe it shall,” Muimi-chan said. “Tomo, let’s

 

have it.”

 

Tomo-chan raised her glass a bit reluctantly. “Okay then.

 

To my twentieth birthday and our new friend.”

 

Cheers.

 

I lightly tipped my glass.

 

“So the thing about friends is that they’re like, eh, you know,

 

like . . . y’know,” Zerozaki said with a cynical smile. The tattoo

 

scrawled across the right side of his face wrinkled unpleasantly.

 

“What do you think?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 8

 

“You’re actually asking me? I thought this was going to be

 

some kind of spiel.”

 

“Hah, don’t expect me to do everything. They say if you

 

want to figure out your own opinion, you gotta ask others

 

theirs, right? So let’s hear it. What do you think? What is a

 

friend?”

 

“It’s not such a hard question. It’s just someone you hang

 

out with, have meals with, joke around about stupid things

 

with. Someone who brings you peace. That kind of thing,

 

right?” he said.

 

“You got it. Exactamundo. If you look at it that way,

 

friends are such a simple thing, man, like pie. You hang out,

 

you eat together, act stupid and feel peaceful together, and

 

that makes you friends. If you come to each other’s rescue,

 

you’re close friends. If you smooch each other sometimes,

 

you’re lovers. Oh, what a treasure of life friendship is!” he said

 

with a sneer.

 

“So the question here is, how long do these friendships

 

last? A year? Five years? Ten years? Forever? Until tomorrow?”

 

“Is your point that even friendships come to an end?”

 

“My point is that all things come to an end.”

 

“Well, sure. But without endings, there could be no beginnings.

 

That’s the vital subtext. If you’re looking to gain something,

 

you’ve got to be prepared to sacrifice one-third of it. If

 

you want a payoff, you’ve got to take a risk. If you can’t do

 

that, you’re better off just living with what you’ve got.”

 

“Gahaha. I guess you must be that type.”

 

I had no need for things I would just lose in time. If it was

 

just going to end anyway, it didn’t have to begin. I had no

 

need for pleasure if it came accompanied by pain.

 

“Why? Are you any different?” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 9

 

If it meant never being sad, I didn’t have to be happy.

 

If it meant never fading, I didn’t have to succeed.

 

Evolution loaded with risk was a waste of time.

 

“Eh, but in reality, that’s all true whether you’re after

 

something or not,” I said.

 

“No doubt.”

 

Zerozaki laughed. I didn’t.

 

Be that as it may.

 

Three hours had passed since the party began. I won’t get

 

into what happened during those three hours. Nobody particularly

 

wants others to see what they’re like when they’re

 

drunk, and they certainly don’t want to have the details relayed

 

from person to person.

 

No matter how people feel while they’re drinking, it’s inevitable

 

afterward that good old shame comes to pay them a

 

visit. It’s difficult to determine which is real: the person you

 

are under the influence of alcohol, or the person you are when

 

you’re sober. But one thing’s for sure: A wild night spent in

 

good fun isn’t something you want to try to recount later on.

 

It’s one of those “unpaintable scenes” like Urashima Tarô

 

talked about.

 

Still, if I were to dare to share a little vignette of the

 

evening’s festivities just for kicks, it would go something like

 

this:

 

“So whaddaya call a rock made of oxygen and nitrogen?”

 

“Quartz! Gaaahahahaha!”

 

“That’s like a two-hundred shot barrage from a watercooled

 

heavy machine gun, only it’s an assassin squad!”

 

“Shit, that aside, it’s hot today. Why is it so hot in the middle

 

of May? Is it global warming? Is it the greenhouse effect?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 0

 

“What?! Listen here, chump, if you want to complain

 

about the summer heat, you answer to me! Bring it!”

 

“Are you the one they caught in Catcher in the Rye?!”

 

“It’s a tropical night, that’s what it is.”

 

“Then I guess that makes me a tropical fish!”

 

And so three hours passed.

 

At present, Mikoko-chan, Akiharu-kun, and Tomo-chan

 

were playing PS2. It looked like a racing game. Realistically

 

depicted four-wheeled machines sped around the narrow onscreen

 

circuit.

 

Huh. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it tantalizing, but there

 

was something rather pleasant about watching them all so

 

fully immersed in their fun. It looked like they were willing to

 

share some of that happiness with me, and somehow that

 

made me surprisingly lonely.

 

“Well, I guess even this is—”

 

Someone slapped me on the shoulder. It was Muimi-chan.

 

Apparently a heavy drinker, she didn’t seem any different

 

from when she was sober, even from a bystander’s point of

 

view.

 

She didn’t call herself Boss for nothing. Not that she called

 

herself Boss at all.

 

“Wanna go outside for a bit?” she said, pointing toward the

 

entrance. “Let’s go to the convenience store.”

 

“What about Mikoko-chan and the others?”

 

“We can just let ’em be. They don’t know what’s going on

 

right now anyway.”

 

She was right about that. I nodded and left the room with

 

her. We got back into the elevator, traveled down to the first

 

floor, and exited the building.

 

“Is the convenience store close by?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 1

 

“Eh, it’s a bit of a walk. But c’mon, let’s walk a little bit.

 

It’ll help me sober up.”

 

“You don’t really seem drunk though.”

 

“Maybe not on the surface, but I’m pretty far gone. It feels

 

like my brain’s flipped upside down so my cerebrum and cerebellum

 

are switched. Right now I wanna kick the crap outta

 

that sign.”

 

“Just don’t kick the crap out of me.”

 

“I’ll try,” she said with a little laugh. She shook her head

 

and looked up toward the sky.

 

“Doesn’t really feel like a birthday party,” I said. “I wonder

 

if this is really enough to make Tomo-chan happy. She’s still

 

drunk now, but I wonder if she’ll get depressed about it later.”

 

“Yeah, I wonder . . . But it’s still better than being depresssed

 

from the very beginning. Yeah. It’s all good. You

 

don’t need a good reason to get wild. Ahh . . . I’m groggy.”

 

“You look pretty exhausted, Muimi-chan.”

 

“Well, that’s what I get for hanging out with those guys.”

 

My sentiments exactly. Mikoko-chan was spunky enough

 

to begin with, but when she was inebriated she was four times

 

as bad. Then there was Akiharu-kun, and even Tomo-chan

 

was getting pretty rowdy.

 

“Man, if you think about it, I guess being able to hold your

 

liquor so well puts you at kind of a disadvantage. It must be

 

hard to follow along with the mood.”

 

“Exactly. I mean, it’s still fun, so it’s no big deal.”

 

“You think it’s okay to leave those three drunks in a room

 

unattended?”

 

“They’re not kids. They’ll be fine. Actually, it’s probably

 

more dangerous to be walking around outside in the middle of

 

the night,” she said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 2

 

A good point. We were in the midst of the Kyoto Slasher

 

serial murders. So that was why she bothered taking me along

 

with her. I may look scrawny and unreliable, but I’m still a

 

guy, in a manner of speaking.

 

“What a messed-up world, huh? What could be enjoyable

 

about chopping up a human being?”

 

“Well, different strokes, I guess.” I tried to brush off the

 

topic. If I was thrust into a conversation about it, there was a

 

chance I would let my tongue slip. It wasn’t that Zerozaki had

 

told me to keep my mouth shut, but it sure wasn’t the kind of

 

thing I wanted everyone and their mother to know about.

 

“I can’t understand it at all,” she said. “I mean, I’ve been

 

around for twenty years now. Even I’ve thought to myself

 

before, ‘I oughta kill that bastard.’ Actually, it happens a lot.

 

Even nowadays. Like, ‘this person would be better off dead.

 

Killing him would serve the greater good.’ ”

 

“. . . .”

 

“But what’s up with these random killings? I can’t understand

 

the idea of finding pleasure in the act of killing itself.”

 

“In general, they say serial killers who choose their targets

 

at random are fueled by resentment. So it’s just like when you

 

say to yourself, ‘I oughta kill that bastard,’ ” I said.

 

“Really? But then the killings aren’t random.”

 

“It’s a little different, though. In this killer’s case, he resents

 

the victims simply because they happened to walk by. He resents

 

the world as a whole. He hates the world that surrounds

 

him, a world that, for him, is as vague and nebulous as the air.

 

And so his killings appear to be random.”

 

“Hmm . . .” She nodded, but to be honest, I was only speculating.

 

I had no idea why he was committing acts of murder.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 3

 

We had only talked about stupid, irrelevant things the previous

 

night, and never touched upon the topic of his motives.

 

We were probably saving the best for last, childish as that

 

may sound.

 

“It’s just nonsense, though,” I said.

 

Muimi-chan scratched her head at me.

 

While we were talking, we eventually reached the convenience

 

store. She entered ahead of me and quickly made her

 

way to the liquor section.

 

“You’re buying more alcohol?”

 

“Nah, there’s already plenty of that. Let’s get some Pocari.

 

Gotta sober those guys up or they won’t be able to get home.”

 

“Ah, gotcha.”

 

We put three two-liter bottles of Pocari sports drinks in a

 

basket, picked out two or three types of snacks, and proceeded

 

to settle up at the register. Maybe I should’ve expected this,

 

but I ended up carrying everything.

 

As we left the store, Muimi-chan pulled a cigarette from

 

her pocket, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it with a coollooking

 

Zippo, all in one fluid motion.

 

“Ah!” she said and immediately went to extinguish it with

 

her finger.

 

“I don’t care if you smoke one. We’re outside, anyway.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Well, I guess it’s rude to smoke and walk at the same

 

time, but since it’s night and nobody’s around, it’s probably

 

fine as long as you don’t litter ashes everywhere.” And, indeed,

 

there was no one around who’d object to her blowing smoke

 

everywhere as she walked.

 

“Well . . . nah, it’s okay. I’ll stick to my decision.” She went

 

ahead and snuffed it with her finger. Then she curled up the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 4

 

cigarette butt and put it in her pocket. It seemed she wasn’t

 

the littering type. I was a little impressed: For a college student,

 

she had above-average morals.

 

“If you don’t mind my asking, isn’t that hot?” I said.

 

“Not really. I’m used to it,” she said with a slightly bashful

 

smile. “There was this Mafia boss bad guy in a movie I used to

 

like, and he did the same thing with cigars. With the palm of

 

his hand, like this. It was cool, so I started imitating it.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“Looking back, I just thought the actor was hot, but it’s a

 

habit now. Anyway, that aside . . . Ikkun, let’s talk seriously for

 

a minute.” Her expression immediately grew serious, changing

 

as abruptly as a circuit switch. I couldn’t help but be a little

 

surprised. “It’s pretty tough keeping up with Mikoko’s hyperness,

 

huh?”

 

“Not particularly.’’

 

“Huh,” she said. Her expression grew all the more serious.

 

She hesitated for a moment. “What do you think of her?” she

 

asked me.

 

“What do I think?”

 

Judging from her expression, she wasn’t looking for some

 

halfhearted bullshit answer.

 

But I couldn’t figure out what that question was supposed

 

to mean. I didn’t really think much of anything about her.

 

“Well, I think she’s got a little bit of red in her hair. She’s

 

around five feet tall, and may or may not weigh as much as

 

one hundred ten. From the way she acts, I’d guess she’s a type

 

B, and her astrological sign is probably one of the beasts. She’s

 

got a kind of koala-ish feel in general.”

 

“Did you really think I was looking for a half-assed answer

 

like that?” she asked.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 5

 

Whoops. Delinquent mode. Why oh why do I so love stepping

 

on land mines, I wondered. I broke eye contact with her.

 

“I dunno. I mean, she’s a nice girl, I guess. Sure she’s a little

 

overly hyper, which can be exhausting, but I know a girl

 

who’s even worse than her, so it doesn’t particularly bother

 

me.”

 

“Huh. How neutral of you.”

 

“Well, I don’t like making waves.”

 

“Is that a fact?”

 

She paused for a moment, then gave me a sort of sidelong

 

glance.

 

“You’re kind of a slimeball, aren’t you, Ikkun?” she said.

 

“I’m self-aware.”

 

“Self-aware, huh? I wonder. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, let

 

me give you a word of advice.” She took a step ahead and

 

turned to face me directly. I had no choice but to stop. The

 

apartment building was still about a hundred feet away. Surely

 

the others were still inside racing. Muimi-chan ran her fingers

 

through her sauvage hair and shot me a direct glare.

 

“Mikoko and I have been friends since we were just little

 

brats.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“If you hurt her, I’ll never forgive you.”

 

I scratched my head a bit. Why was she telling me this?

 

Could it be that she was mad because of all the times I had

 

teased Mikoko-chan up to now? It didn’t seem like the kind of

 

thing to take so seriously, but Muimi-chan sure didn’t seem to

 

be joking, so I answered with a shrug.

 

“It’s okay. Despite how it seems, I’m actually nice to my

 

friends.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 6

 

She blinked her narrowed eyes at me. “Hahahahaha!” she

 

laughed. A moment later, she spun back around. “I stand corrected.”

 

She recommenced walking. “You’re just clueless.”

 

It felt like a terrible insult, but at the same time, it was

 

probably the most accurate description anyone had ever applied

 

to me in all my nineteen years, so it was hard to get mad.

 

We returned to the room to find that the others were indeed

 

still racing. Surprisingly, Tomo-chan was apparently the

 

most skilled. Mikoko-chan was a lap behind.

 

“Yo! Guzzle down this Pocari, you goons! You drunken

 

bitches!”

 

For some reason Muimi-chan had suddenly gone berserk,

 

smacking the “drunken bitches” in the heads with Pocari.

 

Being hit in the head with a full plastic bottle should have

 

been fairly painful, but they were so thoroughly numb with

 

drink they didn’t even seem to mind.

 

I don’t like noisiness. I hate boisterousness. Loud situations

 

irritate me.

 

But on occasion, like maybe once a year, maybe these

 

things are kind of nice. Or so I thought.

 

I was wrong.

 

It was past eleven p.m.

 

“Well, thanks for tonight,” Muimi-chan said as she rose to

 

her feet. “Akiharu, take me home.”

 

“Aw, why?” Akiharu whined. He shot her an aggravated

 

look; he was sprawled out in the comer of the room. “Just go

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 7

 

yourself. I’m gonna rest a little before I go. Your place is far.

 

My place is in the opposite direction.”

 

“Are you a man? Don’t tell me you’re not even worth a

 

ride home.”

 

“Tch . . . fine.”

 

He stood up, still looking aggrieved, as if he knew there

 

was no point in objecting. His eyes shifted over to Tomo-chan.

 

“Well, here’s your birthday present,” he said, pulling a package

 

out of his bag.

 

“Ah . . . Muimi-chan said. “That’s right, you give presents

 

on birthdays . . .”

 

“Hm? What’s that you say? What? Come again, Atemiyasan?”

 

Akiharu-kun said with the glee of someone who had just

 

defeated an ogre. “Don’t tell me that you forgot to get your

 

dear friend a birthday present! Oh my goodness, I cannot

 

believe it! Is this a joke?! Ohh, what to do, what to do?! For

 

the love of God, tell me, what to do?! Huh? Huh?”

 

“Cram it, oaf. Isn’t my smile enough?” Muimi-chan said

 

sulkily and headed toward the entrance.

 

“Hey, wait up! Don’t get mad so easily! What are you, a

 

kid?! Ahh, here we go. See ya at school, Emoto! Adieu! Let’s

 

hang out again soon, Ikkun!” Akiharu-kun gave a light wave

 

and chased after Muimi-chan.

 

“Bye-bye. See ya again,” Tomo-chan said as she waved

 

sluggishly back. As soon as the two had left, her hands went

 

for the present. She undid the ribbon and neatly opened the

 

wrapping paper.

 

“I wonder what it is. Ikkun, what do you think it is?” It

 

seemed the alcohol was mostly out of her system. Her cheeks

 

still had a bit of red in them and her voice was a little shrill,

 

but her personality seemed to have returned to its default

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 8

 

setting. “I’m a little excited. This kind of thing always makes

 

me giddy.”

 

“Well, it’s probably not yatsuhashi, at any rate,” I said. Incidentally,

 

the yatsuhashi I had brought had already been

 

evenly divided among the stomachs of all five party members.

 

“Judging from the size, it’s probably an accessory or something.”

 

“Yeah, maybe. Oh, it’s a neckstrap. Pretty cool, huh?”

 

It was a capsule-style neckstrap with a liquid center. It

 

didn’t really look like a girly item, but as Tomo-chan had said,

 

it was pretty cool.

 

“Heheheh, it’s just what I was hoping for,” she said gleefully

 

as she immediately tried it on. “How does it look,

 

Ikkun?”

 

“It’s a good match,” I said, but I didn’t really know.

 

My eyes made their way from the gushing Tomo-chan over

 

to Mikoko-chan, who was snoozing in the comer. She looked

 

so peaceful that I couldn’t bear to wake her. Perhaps she was

 

planning to just spend the night at Tomo-chan’s place.

 

“Hey, Ikkun,” Tomo-chan said, suddenly straightening herself

 

out. “I want to say thanks again for coming all the way out

 

here today.”

 

“I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you have to thank me

 

for.”

 

“But you don’t like doing this kind of thing, right?”

 

Her question was a little awkward, but it also came out as

 

if it was something totally normal to her. She delicately raised

 

her face to view my expression.

 

It was like . . .

 

She was looking through me.

 

Like she was looking at my brain from the inside.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 9

 

“Uh, no, I . . .”

 

“You don’t like opening up to other people, right?”

 

“It’s all right. I don’t hate it. I actually kind of like goofing

 

around with everyone like chums.”

 

“That’s a lie.”

 

“It’s the truth.”

 

“It’s a lie.”

 

“Yes, it is.”

 

She snickered at me. But her eyes weren’t smiling. They

 

actually looked rather sad and lonely. The strange combination

 

of expressions had me puzzled.

 

What was wrong? What reason could she have for looking

 

so sad when she had spent her birthday surrounded by

 

friends?

 

There shouldn’t have been anything wrong.

 

Supposing there was . . .

 

“Mikoko-chan . . .” she said, casting a glance over at the

 

slumbering Mikoko-chan. “She’s really a great girl.”

 

“Yeah,” I responded. I was being unusually direct—by my

 

standards, anyway. “I bet she is.”

 

“I wanted to be like her.”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“But I couldn’t.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

She cast her eyes downward.

 

“And now here I am, twenty years old, still unable to be

 

like her. I’m sure it’ll go on like that. No matter how many

 

years pass, no matter how many decades. I’ll never be like her,

 

until the day I die.”

 

“What’s wrong with that? Everyone’s different.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 0

 

“Say, Ikkun,” she said, looking up again. “Have you ever

 

felt like, as a human, you’re damaged goods?”

 

I had no idea how to respond.

 

“I have.” She was smiling. It was the saddest smile I had

 

ever seen.

 

“Everybody does . . .” The words just came out. Whether

 

they were really from the heart, I didn’t know. They were just

 

words of comfort. I was probably just saying words I didn’t

 

really mean so as to not have to see Tomo-chan look so sad.

 

What a slimeball.

 

How comical.

 

How terribly unseemly.

 

“Everyone feels like that sometimes, I suppose. Nobody’s

 

perfect, after all. We’ve all got our strong points and our weak

 

points. That’s what makes us human.”

 

“Yeah, I know. Even I know that, but you probably understand

 

that that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about

 

something more finite, I guess, or more lethal, like a fatal

 

wound, I guess.”

 

Boom.

 

The words shook me.

 

“It’s kind of like that.”

 

“. . . .” So this was the real reason I couldn’t read Emoto

 

Tomoe very well. Perhaps this was really it.

 

In other words, a long time ago . . .

 

“There’s another me right here,” she said, pointing over her

 

own right shoulder. “When I get all rowdy and have fun with

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 1

 

Muimi-chan and Akiharu-kun and Mikoko-chan and you like

 

this, that part of me is just watching on, sighing. It’s looking

 

down on me with cold disdain as I have my fun, saying ‘What

 

you’re doing won’t amount to anything.’ ”

 

“Sighing,” she said. “I know I’ll probably never be like

 

Mikoko-chan until the day I die, but maybe I’ll be able to

 

once I really do die. If I’m reincarnated, I want to come back

 

as Mikoko-chan. I want to be able to laugh with complete innocence

 

like her, to get mad when I want to be mad, to cry

 

like crazy when I’m sad. That’s what makes a great life.”

 

“I . . .” This time I was speaking from the heart. “I don’t

 

want to be reincarnated. I want to just hurry up and die.”

 

“I’ll bet,” she said with a gentle smile.

 

Mikoko-chan woke up around one hour later.

 

“Uhhh.” She shook the sleep out of her head. She still

 

looked pretty tired.

 

“So what’re you going to do?” I said. “I’m going home. Are

 

you going to stay the night?”

 

“No, I’ll go . . .” She rose to her feet in a daze. “It’s okay,

 

I’ve sobered up. Give me ten more seconds.”

 

“Sure. I’ll take you home, then.” I was at least worth a ride

 

home, I wanted to emphasize, but she didn’t seem to get it.

 

She had been deeply immersed in sleep when Muimi-chan

 

left, so that made sense.

 

“Well, bye-bye, Tomo-chan.”

 

“Yep. See ya later.” She gave a little wave.

 

I took my bag and headed toward the entrance. I sat down

 

in the doorway and put on my shoes. They had messy laces, so

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 2

 

putting them on was always much more of a hassle than removing

 

them. Situations like these were an irritating waste of

 

time. Meanwhile, Mikoko-chan seemed to be having problems

 

with her own footwork, and a clumsy clopping noise could be

 

heard through the door separating us.

 

It probably wasn’t something to worry about. She appeared

 

in the hallway outside the entrance shortly after me.

 

“Ohh,” she moaned, rubbing her head. “My head hurts . . .

 

It’s spinning. It’s like a murder at a convenience store, only the

 

murderer is wearing Rollerblades.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re saying. Are you sure you don’t

 

want to stay here for the night? There’s no need to overexert

 

yourself.”

 

“It’s okay, I can go.”

 

She hobbled down the hall on unsteady feet. I gave a shrug

 

and followed after her.

 

“So did you have fun?” she said once we were out of the

 

building.

 

“Eh, I guess. But I think I’ll pass next time.”

 

“Don’t say that. Let’s do it again! With everyone! When’s

 

your birthday?”

 

“March.”

 

She looked defeated. “Mine’s in April. Ohh, I guess I

 

should’ve invited you sooner.”

 

“So where’s your place? I’ll take you back.”

 

“Near Horikawa. Horikawa Oike. But we’ve got to go to

 

your place first.”

 

“Why?”

 

“My scoot . . .”

 

Come to think of it, she had come as far as my place on

 

her bike.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 3

 

“Can you drive?”

 

“Sure . . .”

 

‘Okay then.” Obviously she was in no condition to drive,

 

but if she said she could drive, who was I to stop her? When

 

the time came, she could just call a taxi if she had to.

 

We took Nishiôji Street up to Nakadachiuri and broke east,

 

when for some reason, David Bowie music started playing

 

from somewhere. Thinking it was a nearby guerrilla concert, I

 

was a bit taken aback, but it turned out to be Mikoko-chan’s

 

ringtone.

 

“Hm?” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Hello? This

 

is Mikoko-chan, the spunky and energetic girl of Lake Ashi!

 

Hm? What? Tomo-chan?” It seemed it was a call from Tomochan.

 

“Yeah. Yeah . . . Yeah, he’s here with me right now.

 

He’s walking right in front of me. Sure, I guess. Okay, I’ll pass

 

it over.”

 

She passed me the phone. “It’s Tomo-chan. She wanted

 

me to give you the phone.”

 

“Me? Why?”

 

“. . . . ?”

 

I must have forgotten something at her place. I scratched

 

my head as I took the phone. It was more than a little smaller

 

than my own phone, so it felt kind of awkward.

 

“Hello?”

 

“. . . .”

 

“Hello?”

 

“Ikkun.”

 

A voice.

 

It was quivering, like she was afraid of something. It

 

could’ve been partially the phone’s fault, but something in her

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 4

 

voice was obviously different from when we had spoken moments

 

earlier at her place.

 

“Tomo-chan?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What’s wrong? Did I forget something? I’ve got my bag

 

here.”

 

“No, it’s not that. Um . . . I forgot to tell you something

 

earlier.”

 

Forget to tell me something?

 

“Yeah, what?”

 

“Never mind. See you.”

 

Click.

 

Suddenly the call was cut off. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.

 

Beeeep. After four rings, I took the phone away from my ear. I

 

scratched my head, stared at it for another three seconds, then

 

handed it back to Mikoko-chan. “Thanks.”

 

“Sure,” she said, taking it. “So what’d she say?”

 

“Nothing. I don’t know what that was about.”

 

“Huh?”

 

She gave me a confused expression, but I was the one who

 

was confused. Tomo-chan wanted to tell me something? Why

 

would she start and then stop like that?

 

“What? I wonder what it was. Maybe it was a secret or

 

something. Did you guys have some kind of secret talk?”

 

“No, nothing like that, but . . . oh yeah, Mikoko-chan.” I

 

switched trains of thought. “Is there somebody right here?” I

 

said, drawing a circle with my finger over her right shoulder.

 

“Huh?”

 

She raised a dubious eyebrow at me. Naturally.

 

“I mean, do you get the feeling someone is right there,

 

looking down on you?” I asked.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 5

 

“I don’t think so, but . . . why?”

 

“Eh, if you don’t feel it then don’t worry about it.”

 

“If somebody was there, it’d be pretty scary,” she said as

 

she imagined it. “But as for in here,” she said, pointing to her

 

own heart, “there is somebody.”

 

Huh. I nodded. Judging from her bashful smirk, she must

 

have been talking about her boyfriend.

 

In about ten more minutes, we had arrived at my apartment.

 

In the apartment parking lot, there was only a single

 

bike, so it must have been hers.

 

“Whoa, it’s a Vespa.” And a white vintage model, no less.

 

This girl called her Vespa a “scooter”? A Vespa is a Vespa,

 

and only a Vespa. Calling it a scooter was, to me, an insult.

 

And not just your everyday insult—it was the ultimate insult,

 

which threatened to shake my very existence. Everyone has

 

one thing that they’d sacrifice their own life for, that they’d

 

trade the world for, and to me, this was that thing. I wanted

 

to shout at Mikoko-chan. I angrily turned to face her.

 

“. . . .”

 

She was sleeping.

 

“I’m speechless.”

 

She was sleeping standing up. She had been awfully quiet

 

for a while. Was it possible that she had been sleepwalking?

 

She probably had been. This was the power of the human race

 

pushed to its absolute limit. I gave her a few taps on the

 

cheek, but she refused to wake up. I had the urge to start

 

stretching her face, but it seemed that there would be no way

 

to explain my way out of it if somebody happened to see us,

 

so I restrained myself.

 

“I wonder if I could just leave her here . . .”

 

If not, there were only two options.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 6

 

“Hup,” I groaned as I lifted her onto my back. She stirred a

 

little bit on the way, but didn’t wake up. Likely because she

 

was so short, she was actually quite light. Or maybe all girls

 

were like this.

 

With her still on my back, I entered the apartment, then

 

made my way up the stairs to the second floor. I clomped my

 

way down the boarded hallway to the room next to my own.

 

I knocked lightly.

 

“Yeah, wait one moment,” an answer came from inside.

 

Miiko-san soon appeared before us. She was dressed in yet a

 

different set of Japanese summer casual wear, which was red

 

this time. I was pretty sure this was the outfit with the word

 

Treachery printed on the back.

 

“Yes?” she said, eyeing the girl on my back suspiciously.

 

“You’re still under legal age, right?” she said after a moment’s

 

thought. “Well, of course I’ll let you hide out here, but speaking

 

purely out of kindness, I suggest you just turn yourself in.

 

Japan has a pretty capable police force. Not likely that you’ll

 

be able to escape.”

 

“Oh, it’s nothing like that this time. Er, this girl’s a classmate.

 

Looks like she drank too much and passed out. Would

 

you be willing to let her spend the night?”

 

“Huh?” She put her hand to her chin and thought for a

 

moment. “Why don’t you just put her up yourself?”

 

“Eh, but I mean, as you can see, she’s a girl. And it sounds

 

like she’s got a boyfriend, so I can’t just have her sleeping over

 

in my place, right?”

 

“Huh. Well, if that’s how it is, I guess I don’t mind. But

 

what is given today I will one day receive. To ignore thanks

 

where they’re due is a dastardly deed.”

 

“I gotcha. Want to go antiquing again?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 7

 

“Yes. Okay then. So what’s this girl’s name?”

 

“Mikoko-chan. Er, last name is Aoi, I think.”

 

“Aoi Mikoko? Heh, strange name,” Miiko-san said, taking

 

Mikoko-chan from me. Everyone should have a neighbor as

 

dependable as her.

 

“Well, I’ll be on my way then.”

 

“Mm. Get some sleep. You’d best not make yourself out to

 

be some afternoon-sleeping lollygagger.”

 

“Huh? I never sleep in the afternoon.”

 

“Is that so? Well, just forget that then. Good night.”

 

“Good night.”

 

I bowed and returned to my room, where I laid down my

 

futon and curled up on it.

 

“Time to sleep.”

 

And so the day ended. Saturday, May fourteenth. No, it

 

had already passed zero o’clock, so it was Sunday the fifteenth.

 

So at zero o’clock twenty-four hours later, it would be

 

the sixteenth. The next zero o’clock would be the seventeenth.

 

Zero o’clock.

 

Zerozaki.

 

Wondering if that human failure was currently killing his

 

seventh person or had perhaps already dismembered his

 

eighth, the damaged goods gradually fell into a slumber.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 9

 

No more.

 

I don’t want to think anymore.

 

When I awoke to a knocking at the door, it was already past

 

eight o’clock.

 

I brushed the hair out of my face with both hands and rose

 

to my feet.

 

“Uhhh.”

 

I opened the door to find Mikoko-chan. Her usual hyper

 

greeting had been replaced with a shy look of apologetic embarrassment.

 

“Did I wake you?” she said meekly.

 

“Eh. It was time to wake up anyway,” I answered as I

 

stretched out. “Morning, Mikoko-chan.”

 

“Good morning, Ikkun. Um . . . I’m sorry about yesterday.

 

I sort of, er . . . it looks like I fell asleep.”

 

“Eh, forget about it. Just be sure to thank Miiko-san.”

 

“Ah, right.” She nodded after a moment of ambiguous

 

hesitation.

 

“Isn’t she a good person?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 0

 

“Well, yeah, she is, huh? Kind of cool, I guess you could

 

say. So is she the ‘swordswoman freeloader’ you were talking

 

about?”

 

“Does she look like a thirteen-year-old little sister?”

 

“No, I guess not.” She awkwardly broke eye contact with

 

me and gave a brief pause. “I don’t know if it’s because she

 

practices sword fighting, but her clothes were kind of weird.

 

Sort of Japanesey, but like the kind of thing you’d wear to a

 

festival.”

 

“You mean her jinbei?”

 

“A djembe? What’s that?” Evidently Mikoko-chan had

 

never heard of it. “Oh, you mean like a jinbei shark?”

 

“Uhh, well, yeah. Have you ever seen the pattern on the

 

back of a jinbei shark? It’s just like they’re wearing that same

 

type of clothing. So we ended up naming that kind of Japanese

 

clothing jinbei, after the shark.”

 

“Ahh. You sure know a lot, Ikkun,” she said. “I’ll have to

 

teach that to Tomo-chan and the others.”

 

Yep. And if Tomo-chan and the others weren’t as cruel as

 

me, they would probably teach her the truth. Why did I tell

 

such meaningless lies? Perhaps it was time I gave that some

 

serious thought.

 

“So anyway,” Mikoko-chan said, changing the subject. “Are

 

you and that girl—Asano-san—are you two close?”

 

“She’s saved me from starvation a few times. But then I

 

saved her from being crushed under a pile of antiques, so

 

we’re even Steven. Those yatsuhashi you had yesterday were

 

from her too.”

 

“Huh,” she said with a complicated expression. “You know,

 

I don’t really like yatsuhashi.”

 

“Huh? Oh, you don’t say.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 1

 

“Too sweet.”

 

“Huh. Miiko-san likes sweet stuff.”

 

“Well, I don’t.”

 

For some reason she was getting a little serious. I scratched

 

my head at her, not sure where she was going with this.

 

“Well, that’s fine. So what are you going to do now?” I

 

said.

 

“Oh, er, I’ve got this,” she said, pulling a pink, wrapped

 

present from her purse. “It’s Tomo-chan’s birthday present.

 

Forgot to give it to her. Big mistake, huh? I should’ve given it

 

to her before we all got drunk. I got carried away trying to get

 

things going.”

 

“Hm. Well, why not go give it to her now? She should be

 

home.”

 

“Yup, that’s the plan.” At last, she showed her trademark

 

smile. “Well, thank you. Let’s get together again.”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

“Why do you say stuff like that?! Let’s do something!”

 

“Just kidding. Fine by me. If I’ve got time, I’ll spend as

 

much of it with you as you want, so please invite me again,” I

 

said.

 

I only said it to be polite, but seeing Mikoko-chan’s face

 

light up, the guilt kicked in. Thinking she’d probably burst

 

into tears or rage if I said “just kidding” again, I just said, “See

 

you next time,” instead.

 

She gave a big, energetic nod and spun on her heels.

 

Something came to mind. “Hey, Mikoko-chan. Let me just

 

say one more thing.”

 

“Hm? What is it?”

 

“Call a Vespa a Vespa. Calling it a scoot is just offensive, so

 

knock it off.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 2

 

“Wow, Ikkun giving an order?! It’s like a first-rate school

 

where you can wear your own clothes, but all the students

 

show up in uniforms anyway!”

 

“You got it or not?”

 

“Wow, you’re as scary as Muimi-chan . . .”

 

She seemed to seriously be a little scared. But I had to say

 

it firmly or she wouldn’t get it.

 

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be careful from now on.” She made

 

her way down the hall. When she reached the comer, she

 

turned back around. “Hey! I’ve got something I want to say to

 

you too!”

 

“Huh? What?”

 

She took a big breath. “My last name is Aoii! Not Aoi! I

 

told you not to forget!”

 

I wanted to tell her I knew that, but then I realized that I

 

had introduced her to Miiko-san as “Aoi Mikoko.” Miiko-san

 

was the kind of person who was hard to correct once certain

 

information had entered her brain (thanks to me, she still believed

 

Shakespeare was a flavor of a McDonald’s McShake), so

 

she had probably spent the morning calling her “Aoi” over and

 

over. Well, maybe not that many times.

 

To me it didn’t seem like the difference between Aoi and

 

Aoii was such a big deal, but I decided that was probably fairly

 

rude. Japanese are as proud of their last names as Italians.

 

“Okay. I won’t forget again. I promise.”

 

“Okay then. Also . . .” She turned halfway back around. “I

 

don’t have a boyfriend,” she said softly, then quickly made her

 

way down the stairs as if trying to escape.

 

“Huh?” I probably looked more than a little confused.

 

Er . . .

 

What was that about?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 3

 

She had probably heard that from Miiko-san as well. I did

 

seem to remember having that kind of conversation with her.

 

Something about Mikoko-chan not being able to stay in my

 

room because she had a boyfriend. But Miiko-san, she . . .

 

“I don’t go around regurgitating every little detail like that.”

 

Whoa. At some point she had appeared in front of me.

 

“Looks like we’ve got a couple people yelling in this dilapidated

 

apartment. Never mind that everyone can hear you

 

from their rooms; if you shout like that, the whole building’s

 

gonna come down.”

 

“Heh . . .”

 

“Now then, I have to go to work. Let’s hope that classmate

 

of yours learns to mind her p’s and q’s,” she said, and shuffled

 

her way down the hall. There was something frightening

 

about the fact that Rage was written on the back of her blue

 

jinbei. Maybe she and Mikoko-chan hadn’t gotten along so

 

well. Their names were sort of similar and all.

 

But in that case, the name thing seemed kind of dubious.

 

“Maybe she was actually awake last night . . .”

 

Sleeping while standing up is one thing, but walking

 

around while asleep isn’t all that easy. The power of the

 

human race pushed to its absolute limit isn’t something you

 

see every day. Maybe Mikoko-chan had actually been awake,

 

how lucid she may or may not have been at the time notwithstanding.

 

Maybe that was why she knew I had mistaken her

 

name and said she had a boyfriend.

 

She probably just didn’t want to bother with making the

 

trip home. But then she could’ve just said so without pretending

 

she was asleep. Some people sure do strange things, I

 

thought as I went back inside.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 4

 

Now then.

 

It was precisely that evening when the story started getting

 

altogether tiresome.

 

As I was alone in my room reading a fat book I had

 

checked out from the school library, a wild knocking came at

 

my door. Now, it’s only natural to be irritated when someone

 

interrupts your valued quiet time like this, but having become

 

rather accustomed to this kind of thing by now, I wasn’t particularly

 

angry. Wondering if it was that damned fifteen-yearold

 

brother coming to ask for money again, I opened the door.

 

“Oh.”

 

It was an older guy and a girl I had never seen before.

 

There was something particularly peculiar about the guy.

 

He was probably in his mid-to-late thirties, and not so much

 

tall as long-legged. Moreover, he had his hair slicked back.

 

Stranger still, even in this heat he was dressed in a black suit

 

and tie. It was a disturbingly bizarre way to be dressed. He

 

even had sunglasses on. If he had been a foreigner, I would’ve

 

been afraid it was the MIB here to erase my memory.

 

The woman, on the other hand, was dressed in a slightly

 

more normal suit and tight skirt. She had straight, black hair,

 

and was relatively pretty. But the look in her eyes was not ordinary.

 

Without a hint of the reservation normally expected

 

when meeting someone for the first time, her eyes met mine

 

with a penetrating, gouging gaze.

 

She took a step forward. “Have a look,” she said, flashing

 

me a police badge. “I’m Sasa Sasaki of the Kyoto Police First

 

Investigative Division.” It was the kind of name that threat-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 5

 

ened to make you bite your own tongue. Her parents must

 

have been awfully whimsical.

 

“Oh. Hey.”

 

I gave a little head bob for the time being. The woman—

 

Sasaki-san—seemed a bit surprised by my reaction. Maybe I

 

should’ve shown more surprise myself, but it didn’t take more

 

than a glance to tell that these two were obviously police officers.

 

The thought of these two stone-faced individuals being

 

anything other than police officers was, to me, unimaginable.

 

The male officer chuckled to himself a bit and showed his

 

own badge, “Ikaruga Kazuhito from the same division. Mind if

 

we come inside for a bit?” It was essentially coercion in the

 

form of a question. As a kid, I naturally felt the urge to defy

 

this coercion, but it didn’t look like this Kazuhito-san would

 

let it fly.

 

“Oh, uh, well, sure. It’s small, though.”

 

I invited them into the room. They seemed surprised to

 

find that the inside of the room was just as small as I’d said,

 

but they passed it off with an impressive coolness. If I was

 

their boss, I would’ve given them a raise. Of course, not

 

being their boss, I didn’t give them squat.

 

“Please have a seat over there,” I said. I poured water into

 

two cups and placed them in front of the pair. Just as Mikokochan

 

had the day before, they ignored this completely.

 

“Allow me to be frank,” Sasaki-san said, eyeing me firmly.

 

“Emoto Tomo-san is dead.”

 

“Oh.” I prepared myself a glass of water and sat down

 

across from them. “Is that right?”

 

“ ‘Is that right?’ Is that all you have to say?” Sasaki broke

 

her poker face for the first time.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 6

 

“Oh, well, I’m not much for expressing emotion. I’m totally

 

shocked on the inside, so don’t pay it any mind.”

 

That and, by this point, I was becoming kind of used to

 

this sort of thing.

 

But I really was shocked. This was half because Tomoechan

 

had been killed, and half because the instant I had seen

 

these two outside my door, I had guessed they were here to

 

talk about Zerozaki.

 

I was half-relieved, half-stupefied. It was like a contradicttion

 

of emotions swirling around in my gut.

 

“Umm, is it safe to assume that since there are detectives

 

oil the case, she didn’t die under ordinary circumstances? Not

 

to mention that you’re from the First Investigative Division.”

 

Considering the kinds of cases First Investigative Divisions

 

usually handle.

 

“That’s correct.” Sasaki-san nodded. The seriousness of her

 

expression was pure and undiluted.

 

“So was it, by any chance, the ‘prowler’?”

 

She shook her head at my inquiry. “No.”

 

“Oh, really.”

 

It was like something had deflated. Part of me was relieved.

 

I couldn’t help but wonder why, but I quickly switched trains

 

of thought.

 

“What happened, then?”

 

“Her body was found this morning. She had been strangled

 

to death.”

 

“Strangled?”

 

Strangulation.

 

Emoto Tomoe.

 

Murdered . . . ?

 

I felt my heart going cold.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 7

 

Just how many people had I seen die? How long had it

 

been since I stopped counting dead friends? My first encounter

 

with death was before I could even remember.

 

“It’s been about a month since the last one, huh? That’s got

 

to be a new record.”

 

Sasaki-san gave me a sideways look. It was entirely different

 

from the kind of sideways looks Mikoko-chan gave me, a

 

purely intellectual pose completely devoid of any adorable

 

charm. Then again, in my whole life, I had never seen a pose

 

that was both intellectual and adorably charming, whether it

 

be from a male or a female.

 

“Did you say something?”

 

“No, just talking to myself. I do that a lot. They say I’m just

 

a nineteen-year-old soliloquy that can dress itself and walk

 

around.”

 

Although Sasaki-san looked satisfied with this answer, she

 

didn’t crack so much as a smirk.

 

Suddenly I noticed that Kazuhito-san had been closely

 

monitoring my expression. I kept quiet.

 

Interesting.

 

That explained the need for sunglasses. Sasaki-san was in

 

charge of doing the talking. Kazuhito-san was the observer. It

 

was marvelous nonsense. A true masterpiece.

 

It seemed I was a prime suspect.

 

“I guess that makes sense. I was with her all night.”

 

“Did you say something?”

 

“No, just your plain old, everyday nonsense.” I sat myself

 

up straight. Not that I was nervous, but maybe it was time to

 

start getting a little more serious. “So if she was killed, who

 

killed her?” I asked.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 8

 

“That’s currently under investigation. To tell you the truth,

 

that’s the reason we’ve come here today,” Sasaki-san said.

 

“Then tell me,” I wanted to say, but I refrained from provoking

 

her.

 

“You were in Emoto-san’s apartment from about six in the

 

evening to midnight. Is that correct?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Just to check, would you tell us the names of the other

 

people present during that period of time?”

 

“Umm.” Good luck, memory. “Emoto Tomoe-san, Atemiya

 

Muimi-san, Aoi . . . no, Aoii Mikoko-san, and Usami Akiharukun.

 

And then me.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You arrived with Aoii-san. Is that correct?”

 

“Yes. Aoii-san first came to my place—here, I mean—

 

then we went to Emoto-san’s place together. It was around

 

six p.m.”

 

“More specifically? Was it before six or after?”

 

“Before.”

 

She was barraging me with questions. The limitations of

 

my mind’s processing speed had been surpassed long ago, and

 

my head was spinning.

 

“So all of the guests were there at that time . . .”

 

“Please wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I can’t settle down

 

and focus if you keep throwing out questions one after another

 

like that. I think I mentioned that, but this all has me a

 

little mixed up.”

 

“Oh, sorry about that,” Sasaki-san said. It was the most

 

unapologetic apology of all time.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 9

 

I spent the next hour responding to her assault of

 

questions, divulging every last detail of the previous night’s

 

events. The things we talked about during the party. The

 

atmosphere of the party. My going to the convenience store

 

with Muimi-chan. Returning. Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan

 

leaving at around eleven o’clock. Akiharu-kun giving Tomochan

 

a present just before that. The neckstrap. My talk with

 

Tomo-chan after that. Leaving the apartment with Mikokochan

 

in tow. The phone call from Tomo-chan around the time

 

we reached Nishiôji Nakadachiuri. Leaving Mikoko-chan with

 

Miiko-san because she appeared to be sleeping (whether it

 

was the truth or not, I didn’t know). And then, sleeping.

 

Mikoko-chan’s short visit in the morning. The rest of the day,

 

which I spent reading.

 

I didn’t bother mentioning the intense pressure of having

 

Kazuhito-san peering over Sasaki-san’s shoulder the whole

 

time when she was already plenty scary on her own. We were

 

just sitting and talking, but I felt like I had wasted a great deal

 

of energy. And then there was Sasaki-san’s brilliant last line.

 

“Okay, so far this pretty much matches what we’ve already

 

heard.”

 

Boy, she was super.

 

The string of questions seemed to have come to an end for

 

the time being. “Hmm,” Sasaki-san said with a perplexed look.

 

But something about it seemed like an act. If Mikoko-chan

 

could be called a person of no façades, this woman, on the

 

other hand, was a person of nothing but façades, to the point

 

that they appeared to be her true personality. She certainly

 

wouldn’t be the easiest person in the world to deal with.

 

“So how about that phone call?” she said with a finger to

 

her temple. “She really didn’t say anything? According to

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 0

 

Aoii-san, Emoto-san specifically asked her to pass you the

 

phone, from which one could deduce that she had something

 

to say to you.”

 

“She began to say something, but she didn’t. She just said

 

‘never mind,’ and hung up.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And it was definitely Emoto-san on the phone?”

 

“Yes. I never mistake voices of people I know.”

 

She exchanged glances with Kazuhito-san behind her. It

 

looked like they were done questioning and about to be on

 

their way, but I couldn’t just sit idly by in silence.

 

“Umm, Sasaki-san, may I ask a question?”

 

“Huh?”

 

Her poker face broke down once again, naturally. Having

 

had a younger boy suddenly address her by her first name, it

 

would’ve been stranger if she hadn’t been surprised.

 

“Something’s been bothering me.”

 

“Uh-huh . . .” She exchanged another glance with Kazuhito-san.

 

He responded with nothing more than the slight

 

drop of his jaw. Apparently a sign of consent; Sasaki-san

 

turned back toward me. “Okay.”

 

This consent was most likely not spurred by sympathy for a

 

boy whose classmate had just been murdered, but by the

 

mean-spirited notion that they could use my question to see

 

into me. Not that I cared.

 

“Um . . . by any chance, was Aoii-san the one who discovered

 

the body?”

 

“That’s correct,” she answered coolly, providing no further

 

explanation. It seemed they had no intention of telling me

 

anything more than necessary to answer my questions. Of

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 1

 

course, they probably wouldn’t answer all of my questions

 

either.

 

So I was right, after all. She had gone to drop off Tomochan’s

 

birthday present, but there had been no answer. She

 

tried calling, but nobody picked up. The door to the building

 

had an autolock, but surely that was easy enough to get

 

around. All she had to do was follow one of the residents

 

inside. In that sense, it hardly even passed as a lock.

 

Hmm . . .

 

Mikoko-chan.

 

How must she have felt at that time? She was always so

 

full of emotion. What could she have possibly felt at a time

 

like that?

 

“Maybe I should’ve gone with her. . . .”

 

But then again, how could I have known? Besides, I wasn’t

 

sure I would’ve been much help even if I had gone along. I

 

wasn’t worth that much. I might have ended up just making

 

her angry.

 

“Is that your only question?”

 

“No, I’ve got a few more. What was the time of death?”

 

“We’ve determined that it was sometime between eleven

 

p.m. on the fourteenth and three a.m. on the fifteenth.”

 

“In that case . . .” Mikoko-chan and I had left her apartment

 

at midnight, which meant that the crime must have

 

occurred between midnight and three a.m. “Er, and you say

 

she was strangled, correct? There wasn’t a knife involved or

 

anything?”

 

“That’s what I said.” She narrowed her eyes at my mentioning

 

of the word knife. Of course I didn’t tell her, not even

 

with my eyes, that I knew a certain knife-wielding killer.

 

“Was it a rope?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 2

 

“It was a thin piece of cloth. She most likely died instantly

 

from vascular compression. I doubt she suffered much.”

 

This was most human thing Sasaki-san had said so far. But

 

to me, whether Tomo-chan suffered or not was relatively

 

trivial. Either way, she was dead.

 

I knew what it was to die. It isn’t death that people fear:

 

It’s nothingness. Pain is nothing more than a peripheral addon,

 

despair nothing more than decoration.

 

“Um, have you already gone to see everyone else?”

 

“Everyone eke?” Sasaki-san replied, even though she knew

 

damn well what I meant.

 

“Everyone who was gathered at Emoto-san’s place last

 

night. Usami-kun, Atemiya-san, and Aoii-san.”

 

I asked this without any particular expectation. I figured

 

she probably wouldn’t even answer. But to my surprise, she

 

answered immediately.

 

“Yes, we have,” she said. “We’ve finished questioning all of

 

them. Your address was a little hard to find, so we ended up

 

coming here last.”

 

“What was everyone doing during that window of time

 

when Emoto-san was killed?”

 

One more step. I cautiously took another step forward.

 

Sasaki-san’s lips curled up into a vague smirk. “Usami-san

 

and Atemiya-san say they spent the night singing karaoke in

 

Shijôkawara-machi. As for Aoii-san, well, it probably goes

 

without saying.”

 

It did. Mikoko-chan was staying with Miiko-san in the

 

room next door. I felt a little relieved. If you could believe

 

Sasaki-san’s claim, that meant that the top three suspects all

 

had alibis. Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan could only account

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 3

 

for each other, so their alibi wasn’t exactly watertight, but it

 

was enough to loosen any suspicions toward them.

 

I felt the pressure of Kazuhito-san’s gaze grow even

 

stronger.

 

“Tch . . .”

 

How unseemly.

 

Much too late, I broke eye contact with the two of them.

 

Dammit. They had set me up to feel at ease. They had

 

caused me to let my guard down. I had been careless. These

 

two detectives aside, you were never supposed to let your

 

guard down around a police officer.

 

Shit . . . what had they seen?

 

“Is that all, then?” Sasaki-san asked without a hint of

 

change in her tone.

 

“Oh, no. One more.”

 

If I had ever known failure, surely this was that time.

 

Kazuhito-san’s penetrating gaze was minute subtlety compared

 

to what I was about to face.

 

But it was a subtlety that had flustered me enough to ask a

 

question I didn’t even have to ask, a question that I shouldn’t

 

have asked.

 

“Who do you suppose did it?”

 

It was a question that had already been answered. And I

 

had gone and repeated it.

 

“That’s currently under investigation,” Sasaki-san answered

 

with a meaningful gaze—and the smile of a predator who had

 

just bagged its prey. She rose to her feet. “Pardon us for intruding

 

for so long. I think we’ll be back again later to talk

 

more,” she said, placing her calling card on the floor. “If you

 

remember anything else, please give us a call.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 4

 

I took the card in my hand. It gave a number for the prefectural

 

police as well as her own cell phone number.

 

“Well, take care, Mr. Student,” Kazuhito-san said with a

 

smirk, and began to make his way out of my room.

 

Interesting . . . so he was the real faker. I had committed

 

such a fatal misstep that I didn’t even deserve to call myself a

 

passive bystander anymore. I had completely mixed up the

 

roles of the two detectives.

 

In other words, it was Kazuhito-san who was rushing me

 

along while Sasaki-san had been absorbing everything I said.

 

And what’s more, Sasaki-san had purposely let down her

 

guard and invited me to attack.

 

The gall. The utter audacity.

 

“Oh, by the way,” Sasaki-san said as if just remembering

 

something. “About your alibi. For the time being, it’s been

 

confirmed by your neighbor, Asano-san. She said you can hear

 

people walking down the hallway from inside the rooms.”

 

She flashed me a refined smile. This was essentially a

 

checkmate. No, this didn’t even make for a match.

 

She even had the nerve to throw in this little scrap of

 

compassion at the end there.

 

Well, son of a bitch.

 

I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t dealt with them for

 

a long time, but I had completely underestimated the Japanese

 

police. Did my arrogance know no bounds? Who the hell

 

did I think I was?

 

It was the first time I had felt such defeat since my run-in

 

with that redheaded private contractor.

 

I chewed my lower lip. “Kazuhito-san,” I said to him as he

 

was leaving.

 

“Hm?” He looked back.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 5

 

“If you were better-looking, you’d be a dead ringer for

 

Matsuda Yûsaku.”

 

“Guess that means I’m not a dead ringer for Matsuda

 

Yûsaku.”

 

It was a bull’s-eye answer. My last hopeless jab at him had

 

been a big whiff, and with that, the two detectives were on

 

their way. I cleared away the cups and plopped myself onto

 

the floor.

 

It had been a decisive defeat. I hadn’t felt this sensation in

 

a month, and I hadn’t felt it this strongly in a whole year. But

 

in this case I could just abandon the emotion. When you

 

thought about the fact that someone had just died, it was all

 

too trivial.

 

“Tomo-chan . . .”

 

I tried whispering the name aloud. The first thing to come

 

to mind was our conversation from the previous night.

 

“Have you ever felt like, as a human, you’re damaged

 

goods?”

 

Now, now, Tomo-chan, that’s not the sort of thing one admits

 

out loud, isn’t it?

 

It’s better to not know things; it helps us go on living. As

 

long as we’re not too aware of ourselves, we can live in happiness.

 

You might compare us to an airplane that’s lost its

 

engine and wings. We’re nothing but insignificant nobodies

 

who can only soar like crows who can’t call out. Once you

 

start questioning things, it’s all over.

 

It’s not about denial. It’s about ignorance.

 

“You can get killed asking questions like that.” As someone

 

with experience, it wasn’t my job to just dish out empty

 

words of condolence. “If you put your mind to it, it’s only

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 106

 

natural . . . whether you’re a person like us or not . . . Or rather,

 

if you don’t put your mind to anything, that is.”

 

Having realized these things myself long ago, I was now a

 

person living without purpose, just as Tomo-chan had been

 

living a life without meaning.

 

I closed my eyes.

 

And I opened them.

 

“Well, so much for mind over matter.”

 

I swiftly rose to my feet.

 

Now then.

 

What to do now? There was nothing I was supposed to do,

 

but plenty of things I wanted to. For me, this was a fairly rare

 

condition.

 

First, I took out my cell phone. I checked the call history,

 

then began to dial Mikoko-chan’s number. But halfway

 

through, I stopped myself.

 

“Seriously, who the hell do I think I am?”

 

This was utter and complete nonsense. If I did call Mikokochan,

 

what did I possibly have to say to her?

 

So I put off calling her. At that moment, I just didn’t have

 

the right words to say to her.

 

“In that case . . .”

 

First things first. I cleared my phone and began reentering a

 

phone number. It was the one and only phone number I knew

 

by heart. With the phone at my ear, I tried to remember how

 

long it had been since we’d talked.

 

She picked up immediately.

 

“Ohhh! Ii-chan! A long time indeed, old friend! Do you

 

still love me?”

 

Her hyperness dwarfed Mikoko-chan’s by a factor of about

 

twelve; unlike Mikoko-chan, once you removed her stopper,

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 7

 

the gushing would never end. If you let her alone, she would

 

shoot all the way up to Heaven like the Tower of Babel.

 

“What oh what oh what oh what is wrong? You never call

 

me! This moment is monumental! It’s the Himeji Castle! It

 

must be a diversionary tactic! Hyaooo! I wanna take a photograph

 

to record it, but a photograph can’t capture sound so

 

there’d be no point! Therefore, commence audio recording!”

 

“You don’t have to bother with the audio recording.”

 

I made an effort to keep my cool.

 

Muimi-chan had asked me if it was tough keeping up with

 

Mikoko-chan’s hyperness, but as I had told her, compared

 

with Kunagisa, Mikoko-chan was pretty much a piece of cake.

 

If Mikoko-chan was happy-go-lucky, then Kunagisa Tomo

 

was happy-go-crazy.

 

“Tomo, are you free much these days?”

 

“Nope! More on the busy side. Extremely occupado. My

 

processing power is facing an imminent meltdown! Emergency

 

memory expansion! Defrag imperative! I’m going to freeze!

 

Oh my God, it’s happening! It’s happening! Present progressive

 

form! Please reboot!”

 

“Is it this Kyoto prowling serial killer case?”

 

“Bingo! Wowww! You’re like Maki-chan! Or the red contractor!

 

Kyahahahahaha! Return of the ESP! And forever!

 

Mankind’s strongest! This is the end!”

 

“Sorry, Tomo, could you dial it down a notch?”

 

“Huh? What’s wrong? Well, whatever. Yep, it’s the Kyoto

 

prowling serial killer case! But you know what? It’s not going

 

the way I expected! This darn case! Hurdles! Serious hurdles!

 

Surely the killer is the reincarnation of Dread Jones! Wahaha!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 108

 

“Let’s make a deal, Kunagisa Tomo,” I said. “I’ll give you

 

some information on this Kyoto prowler case. You’ll give me

 

information on a certain murder that’s come up.”

 

“Huh?”

 

She thought for a moment. I knew she wouldn’t ask me

 

why I had information on the prowler case or why there was a

 

murder case I was interested in. I believed in her, and she

 

trusted me.

 

Unnecessary explanations.

 

Excess clarifications.

 

Wasted words.

 

Inane questions.

 

Distracting chatter.

 

The very best thing about Kunagisa was that she had no

 

use for any of these things.

 

“Ehh, I don’t like this word deal, Ii-chan.”

 

“How’s bargain?”

 

“Awful.”

 

“Pact?”

 

“Almost there.”

 

“Conspiracy?”

 

“Not technically wrong, but something’s off.”

 

“Well, then what about a mutual complementing of each

 

other’s attributes?”

 

“Yeah, that’ll do,” she said happily.

 

Give or take.

 

At this point, I still hadn’t decided which.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 109

 

After finishing my call with Kunagisa, I went to visit Miikosan

 

next door. I knocked on her door.

 

“Yo,” came her response. Several seconds later, the door

 

opened. As usual, she was dressed in a jinbei. It seemed to me

 

that if she was going to take such an avid interest in Japanese

 

clothing, she ought to get herself a nice, pretty kimono. It definitely

 

would’ve looked good on her.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

“Oh, I just wanted to thank you. They said you vouched

 

for my alibi.”

 

“I didn’t do anything remarkable. I just told the truth.”

 

“Yeah, but I created an unnecessary burden for you.”

 

“I don’t care. Happens all the time . . . but you’ve certainly

 

dealt with your own fair share of nuisances, haven’t you?” She

 

sounded more amazed than concerned. “You’re like the man

 

of a thousand disasters. So what about that girl? Based on

 

what the authorities were saying, it sounds like she was involved

 

as well.”

 

“Well, in a manner of speaking . . .”

 

“Gotcha,” she nodded. “Well, then, how do you intend on

 

thanking me?”

 

“I’ll treat you to tea.”

 

This was literally an invitation to go have real tea at a teahouse,

 

not just a regular coffee shop. It was sort of a Kyoto

 

thing, or maybe just a Miiko-san thing.

 

“Does that come with dango?” Dango—those tasty rice

 

flour dumplings—went really well with green tea.

 

“It even comes with hiyashi shiruko.” Yes, and sweet red

 

bean soup, too!

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 1 0

 

“Where at?”

 

“The Oharame-ya in Gion.”

 

Miiko-san’s eyes immediately lit up. “Hold on, I’ll get

 

ready.”

 

She shut the door. For what it was worth, she was considerate

 

enough to change into normal clothes if she was going

 

out with somebody else. That level of thoughtfulness made

 

her a pretty rare specimen in my circle of acquaintances.

 

“And I’m back.” A minute later she was ready to leave. She

 

handed me a car key. I flipped it over once in the palm of my

 

hand before clutching it tight.

 

And so eight o’clock in the evening rolled around. Tea with

 

Miiko-san had ended and I found myself walking between

 

Shijô and Oike on Kawara-machi Street. Miiko-san had already

 

driven her Fiat back to her apartment.

 

“Don’t use me just to kill time and save on shoe leather.”

 

Those were the words she had left me with.

 

She could see right through me, all right. Miiko-san was

 

sharp, all right. But you had to hand it to her for accepting my

 

invitation anyway. She was a nice girl. Or maybe she just had

 

a sweet tooth.

 

I came to a stop and entered a nearby karaoke spot.

 

“Welcome,” the guy behind the counter said. “Party of

 

one?”

 

“Umm, I have a friend who should already be here.”

 

“May I have your friend’s name, please?”

 

“Zerozaki Hitoshiki.”

 

“Ah, Zerozaki-sama?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 111

 

He briefly entered something into his computer. “Okay,

 

that would be room twenty-four,” he said, flashing me a

 

customer-servicey smile. I said my thanks and made my way

 

to the elevator. Room twenty-four was on the second floor. I

 

got off there and walked down the hall, checking the number

 

of each room.

 

“Dadadadadada dadadadadadadada! Dadadada! Dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada!

 

Ah! Aaaahhhh!”

 

Just as I was wondering who was the bozo with the rusty

 

pipes, I realized it was coming from room twenty-four. I gave

 

a little shrug and opened the door without even knocking.

 

“Wha?”

 

Zerozaki stopped his belting once he noticed me.

 

“Yo, Damaged Goods,” he said, waving a finger at me. I entered

 

the room without reacting and took a seat on the sofa.

 

“Hey, Human Failure,” I said.

 

He placed down the microphone and used the remote

 

control to end the song.

 

“You can keep singing if you want. You’re paying for this,

 

right?”

 

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m not really all that into singing, to be

 

honest. And I sure as hell don’t like imitating other singers. I

 

just do it to kill time.”

 

He sat down so that he was facing me and sighed deeply.

 

“Haven’t seen ya for a day. But, like, it don’t really feel that

 

way.”

 

“Eh, I guess not.” I nodded.

 

To be honest, I was surprised. Until a moment ago, I didn’t

 

even think Zerozaki would be here. Sure, after our conversation

 

the day before yesterday—I mean, yesterday morning—

 

we’d arranged to meet again. “I’ll be at the karaoke joint, so

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 112

 

let’s meet up there,” he had said. But I didn’t think he would

 

actually show up. I guess he probably thought the same thing.

 

And that was no doubt the reason that I had come and the

 

reason he was here waiting.

 

The meaning of the phrase used to waiting: Here too lay a

 

justified contradiction.

 

From there, we began talking about a variety of things,

 

none of which mattered in the least. It was just like the night

 

we had first crossed paths. Ridiculous philosophy, boring facts

 

of enlightenment, irrelevant views on life. At times we veered

 

off-track a bit and got into discussions on music (“Guess the

 

one-hit wonder”) or literature (“What’s the trick to truly moving

 

your reader?”). None of it had any real point. It was as if

 

we were both just trying to check something.

 

“Say, Zerozaki,” I said somewhere around the four-hour

 

mark. “What’s it feel like to kill someone?”

 

“Huh?” he said, tilting his head at me. His face looked

 

blank, as if he hadn’t been thinking of anything in particular.

 

“It’s not really the kind of thing that makes you feel this way

 

or that. I don’t really feel much of anything.”

 

“You don’t? It doesn’t feel good or refreshing or anything

 

like that?”

 

“Listen, dumbass, what do you think I am, some kind of

 

sicko?” he said with a heaping helping of condescension.

 

Committing grisly murders sure seemed like a funny way of

 

not being a sicko, but I decided to hear him out.

 

“ ’Cuz, you see, it’s like this. I mean, I am a murderer. But

 

I’m not what you would call a ‘lust murderer.’ That’s a tricky

 

distinction to make. I guess it doesn’t do any good for me to

 

make that kind of claim myself anyway. In the end, it’s the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 113

 

people around you who decide who you are. All I can do is go

 

along with it. I’m not really one for deep thoughts, you know.”

 

“Huh . . . yeah, I guess not. Okay, then how about I change

 

my question—what is murder to you?”

 

“Nothin’.”

 

I could find two meanings buried in that word.

 

It was worth nothing.

 

And therefore, it cost nothing.

 

“Now here’s a question for you, D.G. What is death to

 

you?”

 

“When you flat-out ask me like that, I’m at a loss. If I had

 

to answer, I guess I’d say it’s kind of like a battery running out

 

of juice.”

 

“A battery? You mean like with the AA and stuff?”

 

“Yeah. Well, something like that. I guess you could say

 

battery power is like a life force or something. Which I guess

 

would make you and your body the insulator.”

 

“I’ve been called worse,” he said with a little laugh. He

 

seemed to be truly enjoying himself. I wondered if I sounded

 

like him when I laughed.

 

“I guess my question was ambiguous,” I said. “How about

 

this, then? Do you understand why other people commit

 

murder?”

 

“Huh? That’s a bizarre one. But very you somehow. Let’s

 

see . . . nope.”

 

“You don’t?” I asked.

 

“Well, first of all, I don’t understand other people, period.

 

Whether or not they’re killers, and regardless of how evil they

 

may or may not be. Second of all, I don’t even understand

 

myself. I have no freaking idea what causes all that chaos and

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 1 4

 

confusion swirling around in my guts. So all I can say is no, I

 

don’t understand people who kill others.”

 

“I see your logic there.”

 

“I might add that murder was never particularly what I was

 

going for,” he said as if it really was just an afterthought.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Well, this is going to get awfully conceptual, but in other

 

words . . . well, here’s an example.” He picked up the receiver

 

for the room phone. “Excuse me, could we get two ramens

 

please?”

 

Not much later, a staff member came in carrying ramen.

 

“Eat up. I’m payin’,” he said, and took some noodles with

 

his chopsticks. “Now this is a meal.”

 

“Yup. You didn’t even have to tell me.”

 

“They say food, sleep, and sex are the three basic desires of

 

mankind. But why are we eating this meal right now?”

 

“To ingest vitamins.”

 

“Yes. Without vitamins, people die. And thus eating food

 

brings pleasure. Sleeping feels good, too, and sex, well, that’s

 

obvious. Anything that you have to do to stay alive always

 

comes with pleasure.”

 

“Sure. That’s easy enough to understand. So?”

 

“Don’t rush me. ‘So? So? So?’ You sound like Akutagawa

 

Ryu-freaking-nosuke.”

 

“Huh? Wasn’t that Dazai’s thing?”

 

“It was Akutagawa, dammit. Dazai wrote about it in an

 

anecdote on Akutagawa.”

 

Whichever literary figure it was, I decided to once again do

 

as told and hear him out. He paused for a moment before

 

speaking, as if to build up the suspense.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 115

 

“Now let’s imagine someone who’s obsessed with eating. In

 

other words, someone who eats not simply to take in vitamins,

 

but because he’s mad for the sensation of eating itself; for the

 

beauty in the very act. The stimulation of his taste buds. The

 

pleasure of feeling the food pass through his mouth. The joy

 

of mastication. The ecstasy of feeling that mushed-up gook

 

flowing down his throat. The feeling of fullness nearly destroying

 

his satiety center altogether. The euphoria taking over

 

his brain. In other words, I’m talking about a fat guy,” he said,

 

laughing. ‘To a guy like that, vitamins or lack thereof are totally

 

irrelevant. The means and the end have switched places

 

for him, so that his main goal is something subsidiary. Now

 

there’s your problem. Can you still say this guy is eating? No,

 

don’t answer. You and I both know the only possible answer is

 

no. What this guy is doing isn’t eating. He’s just eating the

 

concept of eating.”

 

“And you’re just killing the concept of killing? That’s a bit

 

of a stretch,” I said with a shrug. “It’s pretty perverse to try to

 

equate a natural appetite for food with the urge to kill. Are

 

you sure you don’t just have your priorities mixed up? Maybe

 

you’re mistaking killing for something else.”

 

“Ehh, that’s a tough one. It’s hard to say. I’ll say it again,

 

man—the act of killing itself was never my intention, nor was

 

the stuff that comes afterward. Y’know, the dismemberment.”

 

Then what the hell is your intention? Man, you’re a tough

 

guy to understand.”

 

“Not as much as you. I mean, I know that I’m hard to understand.

 

I just said that. Anyway, in the beginning, I thought

 

I was in it for the thrill.”

 

“The thrill,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 116

 

“Yeah. You’ve heard of ‘high risk, high return’ before,

 

right? In Japanese, I think we say, ‘If you don’t go into the

 

tiger’s den, you don’t get no cub.’ With murder, the risk is

 

high, but the return is low, right? It hardly seems worth it. It’s

 

stupid. That’s why most murders are almost always cases of

 

people ‘going too far’ or ‘using too much force.’ They’re not

 

trying to kill the person, but before they know it, they’ve gone

 

and done it. However . . .”

 

He pulled a rather dangerous-looking blade from his vest

 

pocket. “This here is what they call a dagger. You grip it in

 

your fist like this. So the first person I killed, I stuck this thing

 

in his carotid artery and just tugged it to the side. This was an

 

inexplicable act of murder. I had no particular intention of

 

causing the person suffering or pain. In fact, it was a rather

 

pleasant way to die, if you ask me. Now let me just say right

 

now that by no means was this a boastful act. I’m sure you

 

know this, but acts spurred by one’s pride are the most pathetic

 

actions a person can take. People who take pride in

 

causing harm are the lowest of the low. I’m just boasting

 

about my faults here. Seriously, all joking aside, that’s the only

 

kind of murder I can perform. Even when I went after you, on

 

the other side of the mirror.”

 

“Huh. You don’t say.”

 

“I do say. Like, let’s imagine that you and I ended up fighting

 

to the death again. Of course, logically speaking, it’s entirely

 

possible that you would kill me. But in the one time that

 

you could kill me, I could kill you nine thousand, nine hundred

 

ninety-nine times. Well, in reality you and I each only

 

have one life, but this is a metaphor. At any rate, I can only

 

kill for the sake of killing. In other words, I can affirm that the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 1 7

 

eight people I’ve killed up until now were not victims of me

 

‘going too far.’ ”

 

Eight people. In two days, the body count had risen by

 

two. Well, I guess you could say that Zerozaki had gone about

 

living his life while I had been living mine.

 

“So am I an idiot? Maybe. After all, it’s not like I’m getting

 

anything out of killing these people. Well no, I guess I am

 

getting something. Whatever’s in their wallets,” he said.

 

One of the alarming details of the prowler case had been

 

that the victims’ money and valuables had been stolen. This

 

was a rare thing in cases like this, in which the murders

 

seemed to have been committed for the thrill of it, but the

 

reason was simply that Zerozaki needed the money to support

 

his homeless lifestyle.

 

Even his karaoke money was probably coming out of one

 

of those victims’ wallets. If you looked at it that way, even this

 

ramen was tainted with sin, I thought as I slurped my noodles.

 

“But you could get that stuff just by working a normal job,

 

so it’s no reason to commit murder. If you think about the

 

effort that goes into killing one person, it makes a lot more

 

sense to just spend the day working somewhere instead. And

 

yet I choose murder. And therein lies my whole theory.”

 

“Ah, I get it. In other words, to Zerozaki Hitoshiki, the risk

 

is the return.”

 

“Yup. The means and the end aren’t just swapped, but unified.

 

The act itself is the purpose. The purpose is the act. The

 

act is complete when you’ve carried out that purpose. This is

 

actually not a bad theory at all.”

 

“But how is that any different from just losing sight of your

 

purpose? It’s like having a guy who loves to read, so he fills his

 

room with books until it’s completely buried in them. But he

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 118

 

still keeps buying new ones. Whether he buys books or not is

 

up to him, but he’s got so many books in his room now that

 

even if he spent his whole life reading them, he’d never get

 

through them all. But he just keeps on buying and buying.”

 

“Hmm. Ahhh, ah-ah-ah, I get it I get it. You’re talking

 

about processing capacity. Once you’ve surpassed your processing

 

capacity, means and end become one and the same.

 

It’s like Ishikawa Goemon said: ‘A splendid view, a splendid

 

view, even a thousand pieces of gold is too little to pay for the

 

beautiful sights of spring. I, Goemon, am worth ten thousand

 

ryô.’ Hmm. Yeah, maybe so,” he said with an impressed sigh

 

as he reclined into the sofa. “But you know, my man, even if

 

that is the case, it doesn’t have much to do with me. You

 

know why? Because that theory I’ve been talking about is so

 

totally wrong to begin with. Risk equals return? Now there’s a

 

bullshit equation if I’ve ever heard one. I’m just having fun

 

with logic here.”

 

“Huh. So what are you getting at?”

 

“Well, this story is a little generic,” he said, leaning forward.

 

“But let’s go back to when I was just a little brat. You

 

were a little brat once too, huh? Well so was I. What kind of

 

brat was I? Well, I wasn’t particularly weird or anything. I

 

even believed in God. If I got smacked, it hurt. If I saw someone

 

else get smacked, it hurt. I had all your average sensibilities.

 

I wanted to bring happiness to the people near me. I

 

knew gratitude. I knew unconditional affection for another

 

human being. That’s the kind of little brat I was. . . . But

 

sometimes, I would just sit. Not to read a book or watch TV

 

or something. I would just sit. I’d be there resting my chin in

 

my hands, my mind up in la-la land, just sitting there. Sooner

 

or later I realized that during these times, I would always

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 119

 

naturally start pondering how one kills a human being. The

 

first time I realized what I was doing, I was seriously freaked

 

out. I mean, I was pondering, examining how you kill a person

 

as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The idea that

 

this was really me was the scariest thing,” he said.

 

“So it was something you discovered in yourself. But what

 

part of this story is supposed to be generic? It seems pretty out

 

there to me. You’re saying that from birth, you’ve had an

 

innate proclivity to murder?”

 

“I said don’t rush me. I thought that once myself, but that’s

 

not the case at all. I thought I was born with a murderous

 

mindset, with the urge to kill. But that’s not it. It’s that—and

 

this is where it gets generic—I’m attached to a rail.”

 

“A rail? What are you talking about?”

 

“It’s a metaphor. You hear it a lot. People talk about life on

 

a track, right? You go through middle school, you go through

 

high school, you go through college, you enter society, you

 

support yourself with a salary so that you can bag a lover, and

 

then you depart from the world. That’s the track of life. Well,

 

similarly to that, I’m on the murderer’s track.”

 

“Sounds more like you’re off the track to me.”

 

“Like you’re one to talk. Anyway, that’s not important.

 

The kind of track I’m talking about here isn’t necessarily the

 

one set up by society. It might be a track you’ve set for yourself.

 

Like, imagine there’s a kid who becomes obsessed with

 

Ichiro in elementary school and decides he wants to be a baseball

 

player. In that moment, he makes a track for himself.”

 

“I see. So that means we’re all on a track . . . except for

 

people who ‘drop out,’ I suppose.”

 

Except for people who have suffered a fatal blow.

 

Except for people who go off the rails.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 0

 

“Yup. I don’t know who laid down this track for me. I

 

might have done it myself. Someone else might have. But one

 

thing I know for sure is that I’ve taken the track too far. I’ve

 

made it too far down without suffering that fatal blow, and

 

now there’s no stopping me. I can’t even entertain the idea of

 

putting on the brakes.”

 

“Aha. So it just keeps going on and on.”

 

In other words, right now, he was in motion. And the him

 

in midmotion was entirely different from the him who had

 

first started running along this track.

 

“Yup. It’s like a curse from the past. And in my case, it’s

 

slowly killing me. It may sound boring living life on a track

 

someone else has laid out, but you know, it doesn’t make any

 

difference who laid it out if it if you get sick of it midway

 

through. Not that I could just quit at this point. Too many

 

strings attached now.”

 

“Must be even tougher not having anyone to blame.”

 

“That’s right. Especially for an outcast like me.”

 

“Might as well give it up. You may not break away from

 

the track, but you sure do break away from the rules.”

 

“Oh? Well you’re no Mother Teresa yourself, you know.”

 

“But I am a serious student at a university. I’m not like

 

you.”

 

“Doesn’t saying that depress you? It’s like looking into the

 

mirror and saying, ‘Who the hell are you?’ ”

 

“Exactly,” I said nodding.

 

“Anyway, it’s for that reason that I don’t view myself as a

 

murderer. Because killing isn’t my goal. You’ve heard of people

 

who ‘kill like it’s as simple as breathing,’ right? Well, for

 

me, if I don’t kill, it becomes hard to breathe. I’m just paying

 

the train fare for this track I got on long ago. Or it’s like I’m

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 1

 

perpetually repaying a loan. You could say I’m killing the act

 

of killing.”

 

“This is all becoming a little too idealistic and abstract for

 

me. Can’t you put it more realistically?”

 

“Not really. I mean, we’re talking about a vague concept

 

here. If you put it in realistic terms, the conversation would be

 

over with ‘I killed and dismembered someone times eight.’ ”

 

“That’s true . . .” I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

 

Talking with Zerozaki was interesting enough, and I had even

 

learned a thing or two, I suppose, but it wasn’t exactly useful

 

information. “Hmm. And here I thought a killer like you

 

would be the one most capable of understanding the heart of a

 

killer.”

 

Maybe I’d been wrong to assume that. After all, Zerozaki’s

 

MO and Tomo-chan’s cause of death were completely

 

different. I didn’t believe for a second that Sasaki-san had

 

given me the whole scoop, but she had at least told me that

 

Tomo-chan had been strangled with a thin piece of cloth.

 

Meanwhile, Zerozaki was cutting people up with a knife. The

 

similarities began and ended with the fact that both killers had

 

brought death to their victims.

 

Zerozaki killed people at random.

 

Tomo-chan’s killer had sought her out. It was most likely

 

the result of a grudge. Something spurred by a sticky, slimy,

 

disgusting personal relationship that had eroded away.

 

“Hah? Why do you say that?” he said.

 

“Well, it’s just that a classmate from my university was

 

murdered recently.”

 

“Murdered? Your classmate?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 2

 

“That’s what I said. Yeah, at first, I wondered if you had

 

done it, but it doesn’t match your style at all. They strangled

 

her with a piece of cloth.”

 

“Ah, yeah, that’s not my thing,” he said, waving his hands

 

with a grimace.

 

“So I thought. But I just figured one monster would understand

 

another.”

 

“You’re mistaken. And it’s such a you mistake. Monsters

 

don’t kill people; people do. And just as people don’t understand

 

monsters’ feelings, monsters don’t understand people’s.

 

It’s like comparing a platypus to the archaeopteryx.”

 

I didn’t know who was supposed to be the platypus and

 

who the archaeopteryx, but he was probably right. Guys like

 

Zerozaki were peculiar and dysfunctional, and that was why

 

they were so rare.

 

“So, what happened, then?” he said, sounding not particularly

 

interested. Figuring there was no need to keep it a secret,

 

I proceeded to tell him everything I had heard from Sasakisan.

 

I told him about Mikoko-chan, Tomo-chan, Muimi-chan,

 

and Akiharu-kun and about the birthday party. He occasionally

 

dropped in a brief remark or shook his head as he tried to

 

follow along with the story’s twists and turns, and just once,

 

he even flashed a look of concern.

 

“Hmm,” he said when I was finished. “I see. I see I see I

 

see. So that’s how it went down. So?”

 

“What do you mean so?”

 

“So means so.” He stared me directly in the eye. I didn’t

 

answer him. This silence continued for a whole hour.

 

“Okay, I got it,” he eventually said, standing to his feet.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

“Huh? Where?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 3

 

“To Emoto’s place,” he said like with all the casualness of a

 

good friend inviting someone over to hang out. With that, he

 

made his exit. This was all going just as I had expected, I

 

thought. I rose from the sofa and followed him out, leaving

 

our half-eaten ramen behind.

 

“But about that Aoii chick,” Zerozaki said apathetically as

 

we walked westward down Shijô Street. “Seems pretty obvious

 

that she’s got the hots for you.”

 

“What?” I couldn’t help but be surprised by this sudden

 

leap in our discussion.

 

It was already past midnight, meaning it was now Monday,

 

the sixteenth. Even on Shijô Street, which was a major eastwest

 

road, traffic had grown sparse. Occasionally we passed a

 

group of college students probably coming home after a night

 

of drinking, but the sidewalks were otherwise mostly empty.

 

I realized that the next day I had to go to school. And from

 

first period, no less. What’s more, it was my foreign language

 

class, where they always took attendance. And it looked to me

 

like this was going to be another all-nighter.

 

“Eh, what were we talking about again?”

 

“That Aoii chick,” he said irritably, knitting his brow at me.

 

“Hearing what you have to say about her, she’s got to have a

 

thing for you.”

 

“No way. What could’ve possibly given you a dumb idea

 

like that? That doesn’t even sound like something you would

 

say. I mean, she’s already got a boyfriend anyway.”

 

“No, she doesn’t.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 4

 

“Oh wait, that’s right.” Come to think of it, she may or

 

may not have told me that. “But still. I don’t think that’s the

 

case. I mean she does seem to be fond of me, but it’s like how

 

people are fond of animals. And even then, she probably sees

 

me as an iguana or something in the reptile family. You know,

 

like ‘Aw, that’s . . . kind of cute.’ ”

 

“An iguana? If you’re an iguana, then that makes me a chameleon,”

 

he said, and proceeded to laugh. “For example,” he

 

then said, immediately switching back to his serious tone.

 

“She knew your address, right? That’s extremely suspicious

 

right there. Who bothers looking up the address of someone

 

they don’t even have a crush on?”

 

“She didn’t even have to. It was in the address log from

 

class.”

 

“Aha. You said it yourself, man. You were on vacation

 

when class started and you missed the first week of your . . .

 

general education, was it? Whatever that class was. Hence,

 

there was no way your address could’ve been recorded in that

 

log.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Now there was an oversight. I certainly didn’t remember

 

telling my address to anyone else, and that meant there was no

 

way the address of my ancient ruin of an apartment building

 

could’ve been on the sheet. There wasn’t a single person at

 

Rokumeikan who should’ve known where I lived.

 

“But Mikoko-chan claimed she got it off the address list.

 

Was it just a misunderstanding? But misunderstandings like

 

that don’t happen, do they? So maybe she lied to me.”

 

“Eh, not so much a lie as an excuse. She probably followed

 

you home one day.”

 

“If she’d been following me, I would’ve noticed.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 5

 

“Maybe. At any rate, she probably learned your address

 

through fairly illegitimate means. She couldn’t tell you the

 

truth, so she just blurted out that thing about the address log.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“So let’s think about this. Have you ever met a girl who

 

would go that far just to learn the address of some random

 

guy? You might not put it past a guy, but we’re talking about

 

a girl here.” He flashed an unsavory smile.

 

I let out a sigh of a laugh. “Don’t act like you know what’s

 

going on.”

 

“What can I say, it’s who I am.”

 

“But I really think you’re wrong about this. I can say that

 

for certain.”

 

“Well, I’ll be damned. And what are you basing this certainty

 

on?”

 

“Well, she acts like she hates me.”

 

“Huh?” Zerozaki’s facial expression alone was enough to

 

make it clear that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

 

“Come on now, at least remember the stuff you said yourself.

 

You just said Aoii was fond of you, didn’t you? So what the

 

hell are you squawking about now?”

 

“Hang on, this isn’t a contradiction. I have sort of a dualistic

 

or Boolean view of the world. Shall I explain? In other

 

words . . . like, take the cars on this road. Let’s say there’s a car

 

going twenty-five miles per hour.”

 

“Yeah. You want me to tell you if that’s fast or slow?”

 

“Yeah. Which do you think?”

 

“It’s slow, isn’t it? At this time of night they could go faster

 

than that.”

 

“Okay, then let’s imagine the same car going at full speed. I

 

don’t know much about the limitations of automobiles, but

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 6

 

let’s just say it’s going one hundred miles per hour at full

 

throttle. Is that fast?”

 

“Fast works for me.”

 

“Finally, let’s imagine the car when it’s at rest. How about

 

this time?”

 

He gave a restless shrug. “It’s at rest. What the hell do you

 

think?”

 

“Just humor me.”

 

“Well, slow, I guess. You sure can’t call something that’s

 

not moving fast.”

 

“That’s right. Now let’s go back to the initial question—is

 

twenty-five miles per hour slow or fast? I would express it like

 

this: ‘It’s twenty-five fast and seventy-five slow.’ ”

 

“Ahh.” He gave a convinced nod. The cheek on the tattooed

 

side of his face curled up into a slight smirk. “So the

 

way you see it, what does Aoii think of you?”

 

“Well, to give an approximation, she likes me seventy and

 

hates me fifty. Approximately.”

 

“I guess that doesn’t add up to her liking you twenty.”

 

Indeed. The logic of arithmetical operations didn’t apply

 

when it came to human emotions. Besides, these numbers

 

were highly prone to fluctuate, making such calculations troublesome.

 

They could only be expressed as averaged values.

 

“Okay, so what about you, now?” he asked.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You. How much do you like and hate Aoii?”

 

“I like her zero and hate her zero.”

 

“Whoa . . .” He pulled back a bit in surprise. “My God,

 

man . . . you’re brutal.”

 

“You should talk.”

 

“Cram it, Captain Passive.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 7

 

I liked her zero and hated her zero. You might call it

 

apathy.

 

Sure, my words might have been a little exaggerated and

 

laced with apathy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t telling the

 

truth.

 

Because after all, I’m such a cold, dried-out person that I

 

can kill a person just by living. Indeed, I was as brutal as Zerozaki

 

made me out to be. I simply couldn’t take any type of

 

assertive action for the sake of a stranger.

 

“This is totally . . .”

 

“Totally.”

 

“A masterpiece,” Zerozaki said, laughing.

 

“Nonsense.” I didn’t laugh.

 

“Well, putting all that textbook mumbo-jumbo aside, don’t

 

you have the hots for anyone?”

 

“Huh. I don’t really know.”

 

“Even though they’re your emotions?”

 

“Because they’re my emotions.”

 

“Ah, I get it. Because you’re the passive spectator. You

 

understand other people better than you understand yourself.

 

I guess they say you can’t be your own observer. It’s like that

 

thing . . . what was it again? The uncertainty principle? Quantum

 

mechanics? Doppelgänger’s cat?”

 

“ ‘Doppelgänger’ can’t be right.”

 

“Ahh, who was it? It’s math, so it’s gotta be a German guy,

 

but . . .”

 

After that mildly racist remark, he sat and thought to himself

 

for a minute. But ultimately, he couldn’t seem to recall

 

whose cat it was. “Goddammit,” he said, slapping himself in

 

the left cheek. This seemed to relieve him.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 8

 

“Well then,” he said. “Here’s my conclusion: You’ve got a

 

fucking terrible attitude.”

 

“That’s probably correct. But. . .”

 

But.

 

What could I possibly have intended to follow that up

 

with? Might I have been considering saying somebody’s name?

 

Of course I was. But whose name that could’ve been, I don’t

 

know.

 

“It’s all just nonsense in the end.”

 

“Um, is that supposed to be, like, your escape line?” He

 

slumped his entire upper body dramatically as if my incredibly

 

delayed response had completely knocked the wind out of

 

him. Though not to the same extent as Mikoko-chan, it

 

seemed Zerozaki was also one for big reactions.

 

“Eh, then again, I guess I’m kind of like that too. Or rather,

 

I am like that,” he said.

 

We arrived at the Nishiôji-Shijô intersection. The Hankyû

 

Saiin Station was visible to the south. Of course, the final

 

train had long since made its stops, and the area surrounding

 

the station was desolate. We turned north. If we continued up

 

as far as Maruta-machi, we’d arrive at Tomo-chan’s apartment.

 

“Maybe we should’ve hailed a cab after all. We’re still only

 

halfway there.”

 

“It’s a waste of money. That is to say, I don’t have any

 

money. Or were you going to pay?”

 

“Nope. There isn’t a single student in Kyoto who rides in

 

cabs.”

 

“Huh. I’m not a student, so I wouldn’t know.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 9

 

Suddenly a doubt rose in my mind. I thought of Sasakisan’s

 

stern gaze for some reason as I asked Zerozaki my question.

 

“Are you on a most-wanted list or anything?”

 

“I don’t think so. Nobody’s ever tried to talk to me, and

 

nobody’s ever followed me. I’ve done my share of following

 

other people, though,” he boasted. It amazed me that someone

 

who stood out this much—I mean, he had a tattoo running

 

down half his face; maybe that kind of thing was normal

 

in Tokyo, but he was probably the only one of his kind in all

 

of Kyoto—hadn’t been arrested yet. But then again, if you

 

thought about it, whether he stood out or not probably didn’t

 

make much of a difference in a case like this.

 

“So we’re going to Emoto’s place from here, right? But . . .”

 

“What?”

 

“In reality, you can already pretty much deduce what happened,

 

right? I mean, who the killer is and stuff.”

 

“Deduce?” I parroted his word back at him. Could I really

 

figure out the answer based only what I knew at this point?

 

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I mean it when I say I don’t

 

really know what happened. I’m not some mystery novel or

 

movie . . .”

 

Detective.

 

The redheaded private contractor.

 

“Detective.”

 

“Well, of course not,” he said with surprising plainness.

 

“But I guess I also mean it when I say that I don’t think it’s

 

beyond figuring out. She was strangled to death. Inside a

 

room. The estimated time of death leaves a fairly narrow window.

 

The suspects all have alibis. We just need a few more

 

clues.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 0

 

And it just so happened that I currently had Kunagisa collecting

 

that very thing. And I myself was on my way to do the

 

same.

 

“Is it possible that it was just a random robbery?”

 

“Well, technically it’s possible, but the cops don’t seem to

 

think that’s the case.”

 

There was something very unordinary about both Sasakisan

 

and Kazuhito-san. It was hard to believe they were the

 

kind of people who would be sent out just to handle a simple

 

burglary-homicide case. Of course, that was just my hunch.

 

“Mmm.” Zerozaki’s eyes drooped lazily. “But I don’t think

 

you really have to go out of your way to investigate things. Is

 

there some logical reason for doing this?”

 

“Not especially. Listen, nobody’s making you come along.

 

Why don’t you go cut up some more people?”

 

“Nah, that’s okay. I’m not in the mood for that tonight.”

 

He took my suggestion more seriously than I had intended.

 

“Besides, I was the one who suggested we go in the first

 

place.”

 

Meanwhile, we’d arrived at Tomo-chan’s apartment building.

 

Apparently the police had already checked out, leaving

 

the area as desolate as the train station. We made our way

 

through the automatic door and into the main lobby.

 

Now then.

 

“Ah, right. You need an autolock card key to get in.”

 

“What now?”

 

“Here’s what we do.” I walked a step ahead of Zerozaki

 

and entered a random room number into the intercom.

 

“Hello?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 1

 

“Um, this is the person from room three oh two. I’m so

 

sorry to bother you, but I went and locked my own card in the

 

room. Would you mind opening the door for me?”

 

“Oh, certainly.”

 

K-chunk, the glass door said as it opened up.

 

“Thank you,” I said to the complete stranger, and Zerozaki

 

and I quickly made our way into the building.

 

“You don’t mind lying just like that, huh?” he said.

 

“What can I say, it’s who I am.”

 

We got into the elevator and went up to the sixth floor. As

 

we walked down the sixth floor hall, I produced some thin

 

white gloves from my pocket and slid them onto my hands.

 

“Not to make this awkward, but . . . were you prepared

 

with those gloves this whole time?”

 

“Yup. I planned this whole thing.”

 

“Wow,” he said as he pulled his own pair of gloves out of

 

his vest pocket and switched them with the fingerless ones he

 

was currently wearing. Of course, a guy like him probably just

 

carried gloves around with him every day.

 

We arrived in front of Tomo-chan’s room. When I tried

 

the knob, the door turned out to be locked, as expected.

 

“So how do you propose we clear this one?”

 

“Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. Any ideas?”

 

“I gotcha,” he grumbled, pulling a thin knife from his vest

 

pocket. Or perhaps drill was a more accurate word for it. He

 

jammed it into the keyhole. He rattled it left and right until

 

we heard the click of something settling into place. Then he

 

pulled the knife back out, spun it around once in his hand,

 

and closed it back up in his vest.

 

He turned the knob. “It’s open.”

 

“This can’t be safe, can it?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 2

 

“Not even a little bit. The killer could be anywhere.”

 

We shrugged and went in anyway.

 

We walked down the hall between the kitchen and bathroom,

 

and passed through the door at the end. The room

 

hadn’t changed much from my Saturday visit. It looked like

 

some things had been slightly moved around, but that was

 

probably owed to the crime-scene investigation.

 

And then there was the center of the room. White strips of

 

tape formed the shape of a person.

 

“Wow,” Zerozaki said with awe. “So they really do that. It’s

 

like something out of a TV show or a manga. Hey, that Emoto

 

girl had about the same build as me.”

 

“Looks like it.”

 

Tomo-chan was pretty small, even for a girl, but for a guy,

 

Zerozaki was ridiculously petite. They weren’t exactly the

 

same size, but they could’ve easily fit each other’s clothing.

 

“Incidentally, I prefer tall girls,” he said.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yup. But tall girls don’t like short guys, do they?”

 

“But none of your six victims were tall girls.”

 

“Who goes around killing the girls he’s into, idiot?” he said

 

angrily. It looked like I had touched on a difficult subject.

 

Nevertheless.

 

My gaze fell back on the tape on the floor. Tomo-chan

 

must have been strangled and then collapsed on the floor here

 

in this position, asphyxiated. But this tape hardly captured the

 

reality of it.

 

I looked back over at Zerozaki to find him immersed in

 

silent prayer. His eyes were closed, with his hands pressed together

 

in front of his chest.

 

I deliberated for a moment before deciding to do likewise.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 3

 

Afterward, I once again began inspecting the area around

 

the tape.

 

“Hm.”

 

There was something on the right hand of the human

 

shape. It was dark, so I couldn’t see it very well, but we

 

couldn’t just go turning on the light, either. I managed to

 

make out a small ring made out of black tape.

 

It seemed this was some sort of mark they had made during

 

the investigation.

 

“What’s this? Maybe something was on the floor here?”

 

“No, look closer,” Zerozaki said, crouching down next to

 

me. “Something’s written here.”

 

“Dammit, I wish we had a little more light.”

 

“Just wait a little longer. Your eyes’ll adjust soon enough.”

 

It assumed that we were working at our leisure here, but

 

right now that was our only option.

 

In time, my eyes did begin to adjust.

 

Thin carpet. On its surface there were red letters.

 

“x over y?” we both said.

 

The letter x was written in cursive handwriting. Then a

 

diagonal line below it. Then the letter y in the same cursive

 

handwriting. It was messy writing, so you had to struggle to

 

make it out. But it didn’t seem like it could’ve said anything

 

else.

 

“What’s x over y?”

 

“Beats me.”

 

“Is it red because it’s written in blood?”

 

“Nah, seems to be some kind of oil-based ink.”

 

Strange writing next to the body’s right hand. Could this

 

have been her dying message?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 4

 

“But hey, we don’t actually know that this is the right

 

hand. We can’t tell if the body was faceup or facedown just by

 

looking at this tape.”

 

“Ah, right. But, Zerozaki, I don’t think she could’ve written

 

this if she was facedown. Not that she was necessarily the

 

one who wrote it.”

 

“Yeah, that’s right. There’s still the possibility that the

 

killer wrote it. So what’s this x over y bullshit all about? Math?

 

But this isn’t an equation. You can’t take it any further than

 

this.”

 

“Maybe whoever wrote it didn’t finish.”

 

“If that’s the case, we’re pretty much at a dead end. I can’t

 

even imagine what they were getting at with this,” he said as

 

he walked over to a comer of the room and slid down against

 

the wall. “I’m sleepy,” he said with a big yawn. “Figure anything

 

out?”

 

“Just the fact that this may or may not have been her dying

 

message is a pretty good haul. Now, then . . .”

 

I scanned my eyes around the room. There were no signs of

 

a struggle. As far as I could see, nothing was broken or missing.

 

“Yeah, I don’t think this was just a burglary,” I said. Was it

 

all because of a grudge after all? But what could a girl who

 

had just turned twenty years old two days ago have done to

 

have inspired such hatred?

 

I continued examining the room as I pondered. Of course,

 

the police had probably already done this with complete thoroughness,

 

but right now it was necessary to see the crime

 

scene with my own eyes, in order to fill in the gaps in my

 

imagination. For later on.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 5

 

“What now?” Zerozaki said as he watched me moving

 

around. Judging from his current state, it didn’t look like he

 

intended to help me any further. Not that I was expecting him

 

to do anything. I’m not such an idealist that I would expect

 

anything from a mere water reflection.

 

“You seem strangely comfortable doing all this,” he said.

 

“Well, I’ve got experience.”

 

“What could a twenty-year-old have possibly experienced in

 

his life to have broken him so badly as a human being? I can’t

 

even imagine,” he said.

 

“You should talk. But I guess I’ll humor you anyway. I

 

guess you could say I haven’t lived a very respectable life. Or

 

no, my life has been plenty respectable, but I haven’t been.”

 

“Hmm. You know, I don’t like myself very much,” he said

 

plainly to my back. “But seeing you, I realize I’m not so bad.”

 

“You took the words right out of my mouth. I may be a

 

screwup, but I’m not as bad as you. When I look at it that

 

way, it’s kind of a relief.”

 

“I wonder.”

 

“I wonder.”

 

“Say . . . why do people die anyway?” he asked.

 

“Because you kill them.”

 

“Well, yeah, but I mean aside from that. Umm, what is it

 

again? Apoptosis? Darwinism? Genes? Cancer cells? Cell

 

suicide? All that good stuff. It’s like the termination point of

 

our functionality.”

 

“Come to think of it, I heard once that the longest a

 

human can live is somewhere around one hundred ten years,

 

regardless of the era or region.”

 

“Huh.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 6

 

“I mean, the bottom line is that living creatures have a lot

 

of diversity. But you know, whether you live a long time or

 

not doesn’t really make a difference. I don’t really think

 

there’s even much point in living two hundred or three hundred

 

years. I’ve lived for nineteen years and two months up

 

until now, but quite frankly. I’ve had enough.”

 

“You’re tired of it?” he asked.

 

“Well, it’s more like I just can’t endure it anymore. I’m still

 

okay for now, I guess, but if things go on like this . . . yeah, in

 

another two or three years, my ability to process reality will

 

have reached its limit.”

 

“But isn’t that just one of those things? Like, I’ll bet you

 

thought the same thing when you were fourteen, right? Like,

 

‘in another few years I’ll probably have committed suicide.’ ”

 

“Yeah, I did think that. But I didn’t have the balls to go

 

through with it.”

 

“Chicken.”

 

“Yeah, well. I always wanted to be a bird.”

 

“Not a chicken, I bet. They can’t even fly.”

 

“I’m joking. But I do think this: There isn’t a person on this

 

earth who’s lived for ten or twenty years without pondering

 

God and death, unless he’s just some slaphappy nut.”

 

“God and death, huh?”

 

“Yeah. But before he can contemplate those things, he has

 

to have learned about life. Some knowledge of life is necessary

 

in order to contemplate death, so you have to study life before

 

you can even begin to think about the fact that it will one day

 

end. It’s like that saying: ‘If you want to kill someone, your

 

victim had to have been alive to start with.’ No matter how

 

much effort I might exert, I can’t kill John Lennon.”

 

Nor could I kill Emoto Tomoe.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 7

 

“Now tell me, Zerozaki. What does it mean to be alive?”

 

“That your heart’s still beating?” he said off the top of his

 

head.

 

“Wrong,” I answered. “Showing signs of life and being alive

 

are not the same thing. But that aside, what if there existed a

 

person who had experienced death before life? What kind of

 

human being would he turn out to be? Could we even call

 

him a human being? A living creature who could reminisce

 

about his own passing, who had mourned his own death before

 

life even began. What would we label such an existence?”

 

“I guess that would be Death himself. It would have to be,

 

or else . . .” His eyes seemed to be searching for the right

 

words. He pointed a finger at me with an awkward look on his

 

face. No words came out. To be sure, they probably didn’t

 

need to.

 

“Eh, it’s just another mind-over-matter thing,” I surmised.

 

An escape line.

 

“Say, man. I know I already asked, but is there some reason

 

you’ve gone to all this trouble—I mean, illegally entering her

 

apartment, not to mention the fact that you’re supposed to be

 

the passive observer type—just to gather information about

 

the murder?”

 

“Yeah, there is,” I answered. I meant to say no, but for

 

some reason a confirmation leapt out of my mouth. I wasn’t

 

sure which one I really meant.

 

“Huh . . . you said yourself that you don’t like or dislike

 

Aoii, right? Then why should you do anything for her? And it

 

seems to me that you only met those other three through her,

 

like little add-ons.”

 

He slapped his hands together as if he had just thought of

 

something. “Is it for Emoto Tomoe?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 8

 

Tomo-chan.

 

A tragic figure, brutally murdered just after celebrating her

 

own birthday.

 

That alone wouldn’t have moved me, normally. If starving

 

children on the other side of the world were being shot to

 

death, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. If some giant

 

earthquake in some faraway country killed tens of thousands

 

of people, I wouldn’t feel a thing. Whether or not a string of

 

murders occurred in the town where I lived, it was no matter

 

to me. I just didn’t have that kind of spirit; it wasn’t much

 

more to imagine that I wouldn’t feel much sadness or despair

 

over the passing of even a nearby acquaintance.

 

However, there were always exceptions.

 

“I was hoping I’d get to talk to Emoto Tomoe just a little

 

more.”

 

Zerozaki said nothing to this.

 

“That’s all, though, really.”

 

“I see,” he nodded. “Well, whatever the case, what we have

 

here is a masterpiece for sure.”

 

Indeed, he was right that there seemed to be no compelling

 

reason for me to go to all this trouble. It wasn’t like I was

 

being somebody else, but it certainly wasn’t my usual style.

 

I realized I was being stupid. I just didn’t think I was

 

wrong.

 

“Ahh,” Zerozaki yawned again.

 

“If you’re bored, you can go.” That is to say, get lost.

 

But he shook his head. “It’s okay. Besides, how are you

 

planning to lock up without me?”

 

“Actually, I’ve got one of those things that allows you to

 

lock the door without the key.”

 

“That’s a pretty useless device.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 9

 

Of course, I was joking.

 

Zerozaki soon closed his eyes and began to doze off. It was

 

like watching my own sleeping face, which was a bizarre, alien

 

sensation, to say the least. I continued examining Tomo-chan’s

 

room until four in the morning, but didn’t come up with

 

anything that seemed like a decent lead.

 

“But . . .”

 

Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, halfway through, I

 

had entirely lost my will to search for clues and spent the rest

 

of the time staring down at the tape human.

 

And I reminisced. About the time I had spent here on

 

Saturday night. That wild, ridiculous night during which we’d

 

all left reason and rational thought behind.

 

If I could be allowed to say something a bit romantic, perhaps

 

this was my memorial to Tomo-chan. Now that wasn’t

 

my style, to be sure, but it seemed like a good enough reason

 

all the same.

 

“Okay, let’s go.”

 

“Satisfied?” he asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay.”

 

We left the building, and Zerozaki and I parted ways there.

 

We spoke no parting words, and made no plans to meet again.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 1

 

There ain’t no meaning.

 

Got it.

 

Got it.

 

Got it.

 

Got it?

 

Wednesday, May eighteenth.

 

With second period over, the afternoon break had begun.

 

Since the dining room got crowded at that time, I always

 

skipped lunch on days when I had a second-period class. So I

 

instead made my way directly to my general-education class.

 

General education.

 

Classmates.

 

Aoii Mikoko, Atemiya Muimi, Usami Akiharu, and Emoto

 

Tomoe . . .

 

I hadn’t seen a single one of these four people since the

 

week began. This was no coincidence; most likely, not a single

 

one of them had come to school. Being dead, Tomo-chan had

 

her reasons, but the other three had neither died nor been

 

murdered. Perhaps Tomo-chan’s death was to blame for them

 

not showing up, or perhaps this was just how college students

 

behaved after Golden Week.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 2

 

Things hadn’t progressed any further. The pair of

 

detectives—Sasaki-san and Kazuhito-san—hadn’t returned to

 

visit my apartment again, I hadn’t had any contact with my

 

three classmates, and I was still waiting for news from

 

Kunagisa. Naturally, I hadn’t met with Zerozaki again either.

 

As someone who doesn’t read the news or watch TV, I of

 

course had no idea what kind of press (or lack thereof) Tomochan’s

 

death had attracted. Nor did I know if the prowler had

 

struck again in the past three days.

 

It was something I had no desire to know.

 

Right now, I was only waiting. After all, that was one thing

 

I was used to.

 

“Man, it’s hot. . . . I wonder if I’m a slug,” I muttered as I

 

made my way across campus, from Meigaku Hall to Yôyô

 

Hall. It was less than three hundred feet away, but it was a

 

tough walk anyway. I had heard of boiling-hot climates before,

 

but I didn’t think they really existed. Neither Kobe nor

 

Houston had been this bad. This was the kind of heat and

 

body-soaking humidity unique to basin towns. I struggled to

 

endure it as my legs carried me along. I climbed a staircase,

 

which brought me directly to the second floor of Yôyô Hall. I

 

went inside and at last took a moment to catch my breath.

 

Just then, I spotted somebody familiar. But it wasn’t

 

because she was familiar that I noticed her. Rather, it was that

 

my eyes had been attracted to her against their better

 

judgment by her flamboyantly hot-pink jersey. It didn’t exactly

 

blend into the surroundings.

 

That brown sauvage. If only she was crouching on the

 

ground in front of a convenience store, the image would have

 

been complete.

 

It was Atemiya Muimi-chan.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 3

 

She was currently talking to some guy, probably a classmate.

 

Thinking it would be a little obnoxious if I were to butt

 

in and start up a conversation, I tried to slip by her unnoticed

 

when she called out to me.

 

“Whoa, it’s Ikkun,” she said.

 

“Yo,” her male associate greeted me informally. He had

 

light brown hair and an easy-breezy kind of smile. Wait, who

 

was this again? I didn’t know anyone with this sort of easy-golucky

 

surfer quality, did I? Was he from our general-education

 

class?

 

“Long time no see, huh?” Muimi-chan said with a weak

 

smile. “Umm . . . Geez, this is kind of awkward, huh? How

 

have you been since it happened?”

 

“I’ve been coming to school as usual.”

 

“Oh . . . heh, well, I guess you would.” She smiled, but it

 

seemed slightly forced. She appeared worn out, which probably

 

wasn’t forced.

 

“How about you?” I asked. “What’ve you been doing? I

 

haven’t seen you at school.”

 

“Oh, well, how do you put it . . .” She couldn’t seem to

 

find the words. She probably didn’t like the idea of exposing

 

her weakness to others. I’m not that type of person myself,

 

but her feelings weren’t beyond my comprehension.

 

“Well, I’ve got to prepare for a presentation. Time to get

 

outta here. See ya later,” the guy said to us, and rushed off in

 

the direction of the staircase.

 

“He’s sure an energetic son of a bitch, huh?” Muimi-chan

 

said we watched him take off. “He’s totally lazy until an

 

opportunity to be the center of attention comes along. Gen.

 

Ed. ought to be a good show today. I’ll be watching that bastard

 

from the front row.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 4

 

“Huh. So that guy is a classmate, then.”

 

Muimi-chan stood frozen for a few seconds before slowly

 

and stiffly turning her head toward me like her neck needed

 

an oil change. I almost expected to hear it creaking.

 

“Don’t tell me you forgot.”

 

“Hm? Oh, I guess Mikoko-chan didn’t tell you then, huh?

 

I’ve got a pretty bad memory, so I don’t really know who’s in

 

our class. I might remember him if I heard his name, though.”

 

But she wouldn’t tell me the guy’s name. She was staring

 

at me in shock for some reason.

 

At last, she opened her mouth. “Usami Akiharu.”

 

“Oh.”

 

There you had it.

 

This was shocking.

 

“Does he leave that little of an impression?” she said.

 

“Well, less than you, anyway. It’s not like he goes around

 

wearing hot pink jerseys.”

 

That was what I wanted to say, but I stopped myself.

 

Muimi-chan was the type of person who would probably

 

really start hitting you once you made her mad. And I probably

 

wouldn’t get off with just a jab or two. If I teased her the

 

way I teased Mikoko-chan, I’d be dead meat.

 

“It’s my memory that’s at fault here, that’s all.”

 

“If that’s the case, then do something about it.”

 

“Well, the weak impression thing may be an issue too. He’s

 

not as crazy as Mikoko-chan. I know a lot of eccentric people.

 

Actually, that makes it sound like I know a lot of people.

 

Correction: The only acquaintances I have are eccentric

 

people, so normal people just slip right out of my mind.”

 

“Normal people, huh?” She gave a wicked little laugh.

 

“What? Did I say something funny?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 5

 

“Oh, nothing, nothing, I was just thinking, you’re a surprisingly

 

poor judge of character.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Akiharu’s got a meaner personality than you think,” she

 

said in a way that seemed strangely meaningful as she stared

 

off in the direction he had gone moments ago. “Well, you’ll

 

figure that out eventually . . . eventually.” Something in her

 

soft tone seemed to suggest her words had a deeper meaning,

 

but a moment later her facial expression switched like someone

 

had pressed a button on a remote. She turned my way

 

again.

 

“This is perfect,” she said. “I wanted to have a chat with

 

you. Let’s go talk in the lounge.”

 

She began walking without waiting for my reply. After a

 

short walk, we broke to the right, where we came upon the

 

student lounge. I wondered if it would be crowded since it

 

was the middle of the afternoon, but looking through the

 

window glass I could see that, for some reason, fewer seats

 

were occupied than empty. There was a plate hanging off the

 

lounge door with No Standing written on it in red, Gothic

 

letters. It was a prank a student had carried out several years

 

back, and at this point nobody even bothered questioning it

 

anymore. As a result, nobody bothered getting rid of it, either.

 

We entered the lounge, and Muimi-chan took a seat. The

 

place was filled with cigarette smoke. Muimi-chan took one

 

whiff and immediately reached into her pocket for something,

 

but then stopped herself as if she had recalled her “policy” just

 

in time. It was nice of her to stick to it so fastidiously, but in a

 

place already this filled with smoke, it didn’t really make

 

much difference to me whether she smoked or not. But I

 

knew that even if I told her she could, she would just say

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 6

 

something like, “No, it’s my decision,” so I took my seat without

 

saying anything.

 

“So what did you want to talk about?”

 

“Don’t play dumb. What’s the one thing you and I would

 

have to discuss?” she asked.

 

“Tomo-chan?”

 

“Mikoko.”

 

She leaned forward with her arms on the table and glared

 

up at me. But I wasn’t so clueless that I wasn’t prepared to

 

meet her gaze.

 

“Have you seen Mikoko since then?”

 

“Since when?” I asked innocently.

 

“I told you not to play dumb. The police must have paid

 

you a visit, too.”

 

“Well, yeah . . .” I recalled my meeting with Sasaki-san and

 

Kazuhito-san, but to be honest, they weren’t really a pair I

 

wanted to think about too much. “So they visited you too?”

 

“Yeah. Kind of an unpleasant pair, weren’t they?”

 

“A man and a woman?”

 

“Yeah. The guy looked like he belonged on The X-Files, and

 

the lady looked like she paid regular visits to underground

 

cells. Regular cops piss me off enough already, much less these

 

two . . . uh, but that’s another story,” she said, righting her

 

posture. “Yesterday was Tomoe’s funeral.” She looked at me

 

in an accusatory fashion. “You didn’t come.”

 

“Well, nobody told me about it.”

 

“Mikoko didn’t come either. Akiharu and I went, though.”

 

“Well, what can you do, right? Her death must’ve been a

 

big shock to all of you,” I said.

 

“Yeah, must’ve been. You make it sound like this doesn’t

 

have anything to do with you,” she replied.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 7

 

“It doesn’t,” I stopped myself from saying. Ah, the art of

 

tact.

 

“You’re not at all shocked by the fact that Tomoe was

 

murdered?”

 

“Well, I was surprised enough when I first heard the news,

 

but after three days, well, what do they call it? Cleaning out

 

your heart’s drawers? I mean, the past is just memories.”

 

“As Tomoe’s friend, I want to be pissed at you for saying

 

that, but you’re pretty much right, huh?” she said, a bit defeated.

 

“I guess the human heart is conveniently constructed.

 

Especially for someone who’s thick-skinned like me. It’s only

 

been three days and I’m already back at the point where I can

 

go to school again. But it really was devastating at first. I

 

mean, I had just seen her, and then . . .” She snapped her

 

fingers.

 

And then, silence. I wouldn’t have called it awkward, but

 

it was a little unbearable. There was definitely a painful aura

 

flowing between us.

 

“It looks like Akiharu-kun’s recovered to some degree,

 

based on how he was acting just now.”

 

“Is that how he looked?” she asked.

 

“I thought so.”

 

“Well, maybe, if you say so.”

 

Again, she seemed to be getting at something, just like

 

when she had said, “Akiharu’s got a stronger personality than

 

you think.”

 

So what was she saying? She changed the subject before I

 

could figure it out.

 

“So apparently you were the last one to hear Tomoe’s

 

voice.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 8

 

“Yeah. Although it was over the phone. Did you hear that

 

from Mikoko-chan? Or from the detectives?”

 

“Mikoko,” she said, nodding. “I went to her place yesterday

 

after the funeral ended, but . . . I think she needs more time to

 

recover.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“And that doesn’t bother you at all?”

 

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.

 

“I mean you just heard that Mikoko is feeling down, and

 

I’m asking if that bothers you.”

 

“Everybody sure is hung up on that,” I said. Muimi-chan

 

looked a bit puzzled, possibly because of the word everybody.

 

She let out a big sigh and stretched. “Fucking clueless . . .”

 

“What’s that? I couldn’t quite make that out.”

 

“Ah, nothing. Listen, you might not want to hear this, and

 

frankly I’m the last person who should be telling you. I was

 

the one who was opposed to it in the first place. . . .”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Nothing. Okay, let me ask you a favor, then. It’s a simple

 

favor and there’s no catch. Just go visit Mikoko’s place, will

 

ya?”

 

She pulled a piece of paper out of her jersey pocket and

 

handed it to me. “Aoii Mikoko” was written on it in hiragana,

 

and below that were her address and phone number.

 

“Man, these are some round letters. Who wrote this?”

 

“Me.”

 

“Ah . . .”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? What up with that

 

expression, like you saw that answer coming or something?”

 

“Uh, nothing. That’s not what I was going to say.” I looked

 

down at the memo in an effort to escape her deadly gaze, and

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 9

 

confirmed Mikoko-chan’s address. Horikawa Oike. Come to

 

think of it, had I heard that before? It felt like I had, but it also

 

felt like I was learning her address for the first time. I couldn’t

 

remember.

 

“It’s pretty far from school. I guess that means she commutes

 

here on her Vespa.”

 

“Nope, bus. This school doesn’t allow bikes.”

 

“It doesn’t?”

 

Incidentally, I commuted on foot. I had a bike, but I didn’t

 

use it much, as a general rule. It wasn’t that I particularly liked

 

walking, but somehow it works for me anyway.

 

“Okay, so I go to Mikoko-chan’s place, and then what?”

 

“She’s down, so cheer her up. Just say stuff like ‘it won’t

 

do any good to just sit around feeling blue’ and ‘keep your

 

chin up.’ I’m sure that’ll do.”

 

“Oh, just the usual crap, huh? But wouldn’t that kind of

 

thing be better coming out of you? Oh, but I guess you already

 

told her yesterday. But if her good friend couldn’t even

 

cheer her up, I’m a lost cause.”

 

“It’s not that hard. Just go there and that’ll be enough.

 

Seriously, that’s all. Go see her, say a word or two of encouragement,

 

and then just play it by ear.”

 

Whatever that meant.

 

But then again, I didn’t really have any reason to refuse,

 

and it was a relatively convenient proposal, so I went ahead

 

and accepted. “Okay.”

 

“Try stopping by today after school.”

 

Just then, the bell indicating the start of third period rang.

 

“Oh, crap,” said the look on Muimi-chan’s face. My face probably

 

didn’t show it, but I pretty much felt the same way.

 

Inokawa-sensei, the Cerberus of time.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 0

 

“Ah, crap, that was the bell.”

 

“Even if we go now, we’ll be marked as absent. Or rather,

 

he won’t even let us into the classroom,” I said.

 

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Hate to

 

miss out on Akiharu’s studly performance, but let’s cut class.”

 

She was quick to make a decision. I hesitated to make a

 

decision for just a moment longer. But no amount of mental

 

effort would turn back the hands of the clock, so I just gave

 

up. “Fine.”

 

“So, what now? Wanna go eat?”

 

“The dining hall’s probably still crowded at this time,

 

right?

 

“Oh, right. Well, wanna stay here and chat a little more?”

 

“Well, then can I ask you something?” I said, thinking this

 

would make a good opportunity. “Was there anyone who

 

might’ve had something against Tomo-chan?”

 

Muimi-chan’s face immediately grew serious. It was like

 

she was deliberating over something. Or, more likely, she was

 

just mentally confirming something she’d already thought of.

 

“Nope, no one,” she said decisively, after a long pause and a

 

perplexed expression. “Logically speaking, nobody could have

 

had something against her.”

 

“ ‘Nobody could have had something against her’ . . . heh,

 

kind of a weird phrase. Sounds like a crappy translation or

 

something.”

 

“But I think it’s an accurate one. I mean, I think. I’ve

 

known her only since high school, though.”

 

“Speaking of which, how do you all know each other, anyway?

 

You said you’ve been friends with Mikoko-chan since

 

you were little kids, right?”

 

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“Mikoko and I were childhood friends, and then I met

 

Akiharu and Tomoe in high school.”

 

“Hey, wait. Isn’t that a little strange?”

 

“What?”

 

“Mikoko-chan is nineteen, and her birthday is in April.

 

Tomo-chan just turned twenty. . . .”

 

“Oh, no. Tomoe repeated a grade in junior high.”

 

“Ah.” So she hadn’t entered college late or returned from

 

abroad after all. She had just been held back a year. I hadn’t

 

even considered that option.

 

“The thing is, she was in the hospital for a long time. She

 

had to take about half a year off, and even after that she

 

tended to be absent a lot. She just didn’t have the attendance

 

record in order to pass. Apparently she was pretty sick. They

 

said she was near death.”

 

Near death.

 

Death.

 

Awareness of death.

 

“Hahhh . . .” I tried my best to be coolheaded about it, but

 

I wasn’t sure how well I managed to pull it off. “I see, so that’s

 

what it was.”

 

So that was Emoto Tomoe’s story. I nodded a few times so

 

that Muimi-chan wouldn’t notice my surprise.

 

“So anyway, it’s been the four of us ever since high school.

 

Apparently that was when Akiharu and Tomoe first met too.”

 

“I see. Go on.”

 

“Oh, right. So in other words, Tomoe was really good at

 

adapting. Or wait . . . maybe that’s not it. Maybe she was a

 

little bit like you, if you don’t mind my saying,” she said,

 

pointing at me twice. “You’ve heard of the ‘personal space

 

bubble,’ right? Well, she was extremely good at defining

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 2

 

them. She could get close to people as far as a certain point,

 

but she would never step over that line. She would never

 

come into intimate contact with anybody, and on top of that

 

she never let anybody come into intimate contact with her.

 

She always stayed at a cautious distance, never too near or too

 

far. Kind of like a master sword fighter.”

 

“. . .”

 

The term sword fighter made Miiko-san spring to mind for a

 

second.

 

“Tomoe was my friend, but . . . I don’t think she ever

 

opened up to me. I also don’t think I was ever any help to

 

her.”

 

“I doubt that,” I said, but my words probably didn’t mean

 

anything to her. They didn’t mean much to me either.

 

Whether her hunch about Tomo-chan was right or not, it

 

probably wasn’t very far from the truth.

 

But Muimi-chan, you mustn’t mix things up. It’s incredibly

 

rude to Tomo-chan. If you’re really her friend, you shouldn’t

 

be saying such things.

 

Tomo-chan and I weren’t alike. We were simply on similar

 

tracks. In essence, however, we were different.

 

The only ones who are really similar to me are the murderers,

 

Muimi-chan.

 

“Anyway, she was that kind of chick so by nature she

 

couldn’t have done anything to incite a grudge. I think you

 

can say that for certain.”

 

“Then who the hell killed her?”

 

“Like I know. Probably that serial killer.”

 

“The serial killer uses knives, I think.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 3

 

“Well, whatever. Somebody killed her. Those cops looked

 

pretty sharp, so I’m sure they’ll find who did it if we just let it

 

be. There’s nothing we can do right now anyway.”

 

She wore a stern face that didn’t match her passive comment.

 

Surely she was speaking these words against her own

 

will. Her beloved friend had been murdered, and there was

 

nothing she could do. She must have felt helpless.

 

But it really was beyond her control. It was probably true

 

that she had no idea who the killer could have been. She had

 

nobody at whom to direct her anger.

 

Hmm.

 

“What the hell is everyone doing?” she said, looking at all

 

the students walking by outside the lounge. “Seriously, what

 

the hell are they doing?”

 

“Everyone?”

 

“Everyone. Everyone here. It’s so stupid. They’re just

 

living. They’re just not dead, that’s all. They’re just fucking

 

living.”

 

They’re just fucking living.

 

She repeated the phrase one more time. “Ah, I’m groggy,”

 

she said, straightening up again. “I wonder if any of these

 

people really have a purpose. A purpose for living, or a future

 

goal or something. I wonder if they actually have those

 

things.”

 

“They must. I mean, I’m sure it varies from person to person.

 

But it doesn’t really matter either way.”

 

“That’s not really what I’m trying to say. I don’t know. It’s

 

not that complicated. Like, take those chicks over there,” she

 

said, pointing to a group of girls on the opposite side of the

 

lounge. They had a sophisticated air about them, suggesting

 

they were probably sophomores or juniors. I couldn’t make

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 4

 

out what they were saying, but even if I could hear them, they

 

were most likely chattering about something I wouldn’t have

 

understood anyway. They were laughing and slapping one

 

another on the back with giddy enjoyment.

 

“Now let’s say I had an assault carbine in my hands. An

 

M4A1. Then I aim at them, and . . . ratatatatata! What would

 

happen?”

 

I looked over at them once again. Their laughter was just as

 

giddy as before, but in my head, I saw them drenched in

 

blood, their bodies torn apart, pieces blown all the way out

 

the window.

 

“Well, I suppose they’d probably die.”

 

“Yeah, they’d probably die. But in that moment, what

 

would they be thinking? Would they have regrets? . . . I don’t

 

think they would.”

 

She glared at them with contempt, but none of them noticed.

 

They were fully absorbed in their own chatter, so much

 

that they didn’t even glance in our direction.

 

“They probably wouldn’t have a shred of remorse. Nothing

 

left undone. After all, they’re just living their lives without

 

any goals or aspirations. What could they possibly leave

 

behind?”

 

“. . . .”

 

“Of course, I’m not saying life is dull. It’s got its moments.

 

But all these people are desperate. They’re all desperately

 

looking for a way to kill tomorrow’s time. Suddenly they’re all

 

just thinking about ways to kill time. ‘How will I spend tomorrow?

 

And the next day? How can I kill twenty-four

 

hours?’ Like idiots, they desperately scramble for ways to fill

 

their schedules. But what is that? What’s the point in that?

 

Tomorrow might as well not come at all, if they’re just living

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 5

 

to kill time. If you’re just living, you might as well die. . . .

 

That’s what I think, anyway. . . . Ah, sorry, I guess that was all

 

kind of weird.”

 

“No, it was really interesting.”

 

And I really meant it.

 

Muimi-chan was probably thinking this, as well: In the

 

end, what about Tomo-chan? What was she thinking in that

 

moment when she was killed? For Muimi-chan, who had

 

never been able to step over that line into Tomo-chan’s heart,

 

this would remain an eternal mystery. But if I were simply to

 

speculate, if I were to speak from what I had seen as a passive

 

observer, I would bet that she was no different from the giddy

 

girls we were observing: Tomo-chan died with no regrets.

 

“The dining hall’s probably cleared out a bit by now.”

 

Muimi-chan checked the time on her watch and stood to her

 

feet. “Let’s get some food. If we go to Ryôyû Hall we can

 

probably get a seat.”

 

“Hey, I’m sorry, but would you mind just going alone? I’m

 

not really hungry.”

 

“Oh,” she said, tilting her head at me a bit. She started to

 

take off, but then came to a halt and looked back at me.

 

“By the way, how do you know Mikoko’s birthday is in

 

April and that she’s nineteen?”

 

“I heard it from her.”

 

“Let me rephrase that: Why did you remember something

 

like that? Your memory is totally crap. There’s no way you

 

would remember details like that, normally.”

 

It was a rude question, but she was probably justified in

 

doubting me, considering I had completely forgotten Akiharukun’s

 

face.

 

“Eh, well, I have my reasons. I won’t get into it.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 6

 

“Hmm?” she said with a puzzled look, but didn’t pry any

 

further.

 

“Let me ask one last question too,” I said. “Muimi-chan, do

 

you know what x over y is?”

 

“Hm? Probably means x divided by y, right?”

 

“Yeah, right.”

 

“I don’t know of any other explanation.”

 

“Okay, don’t worry about it. Thanks.”

 

“What’s this about?”

 

“It was Tomo-chan’s dying message. I don’t know what it

 

means.”

 

She looked a bit puzzled by the phrase dying message, but

 

again, she didn’t pry.

 

“Mmm . . . Well, see ya later,” she said after a moment’s

 

thought. “Don’t forget about Mikoko.” She waved a hand at

 

me and left the lounge.

 

I waved good-bye to her. From there, I stayed in the

 

lounge for a while, not thinking anything in particular, just

 

sitting in a daze. Soon enough my throat started to hurt from

 

all the cigarette smoke, so I made my way outside. I put my

 

hand into my pocket, where it touched a piece of paper. I

 

pulled it out to see that it was the memo Muimi-chan had just

 

given me with Mikoko-chan’s address written down.

 

“Guess I don’t have a choice. . . .”

 

Maybe I should have viewed this as another good opportunity.

 

Fortunately, the class after general education was a

 

lecture in which the professor never took attendance. I considered

 

my options for approximately three seconds before

 

settling on a self-declared holiday.

 

At the same time, I thought about the fact that when I

 

died, not only would I not have regrets—I would be relieved.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 7

 

And, walking by all those people who were just living utterly

 

without purpose, I left the lounge behind.

 

Mikoko-chan’s apartment in Horikawa Oike was even more

 

lavish and splendid than Tomo-chan’s. It was far too ritzy for a

 

mere college student; it had an almost sublime air about it.

 

“Now then . . .”

 

The bus deposited me in front of her apartment building at

 

just around two o’clock. The time right now, however, was

 

3:30. So, looking at the facts objectively and rationally, this

 

meant I’d spent an awkward hour and half just standing at the

 

building’s entrance.

 

“What was he doing all that time? Why, he was shaking in

 

his boots at the very idea of visiting a girl of his age in her

 

apartment where she lived alone.” I said aloud.

 

I tried to reaffirm the current state of affairs and apply a

 

personal interpretation, but there was hardly a point. It made

 

me feel kind of stupid. But if I thought about it, this was

 

possibly the first time I had ever made a decision to take an

 

action, and then still hesitated to the point that I wasn’t

 

moving at all. If it had been a close friend, I wouldn’t have

 

gone to such lengths to consider each and every little possibility

 

and detail, but I had only known Mikoko-chan for a few

 

days (or actually since last month). That didn’t bother me,

 

personally, but I didn’t want to accidentally put Mikoko-chan

 

in a bad mood.

 

That is to say, as an innately passive human being, I suck at

 

taking the initiative.

 

“Man, this is so lame. . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 8

 

Still, an hour and a half was a bit much, even for me. The

 

longer I stood there, the stupider I felt, but I at last made up

 

my mind and stepped inside the building.

 

Unlike Tomo-chan’s building, there was no autolock here

 

and thus no need for a card key, but there was a security

 

camera watching over the lobby. Much more effective than an

 

autolock, which is pretty easy to get past. Of course, the most

 

effective method was what they had in Kunagisa’s monster of

 

an apartment: a real live security guard.

 

I looked at the memo I had received from Muimi-chan.

 

Fourth floor, room three.

 

I boarded the elevator and pressed four. I arrived at the

 

fourth floor a moment later and began my way down the

 

narrow hallway. Then I spotted surveillance cameras in front

 

of the elevator and on both sides of the hallway. Wasn’t security

 

a bit too tight here? Even convenience stores didn’t have

 

this many cameras. Maybe a big celebrity was living here in

 

secret. Even though it was Kyoto. Or wait, maybe it was

 

because it was Kyoto.

 

My head full of these meaningless ponderings, I arrived at

 

the door of room three. Deciding that since I’d made it this

 

far, there was no point in hesitating anymore, I went ahead

 

and pushed the button for the intercom.

 

Inside, I heard a relatively normal-sounding bell ring, and

 

then the sound of someone moving around. Figuring that, as a

 

girl, she would probably take some time getting ready before

 

coming to the door, I prepared myself for the long haul and

 

leaned up against the wall behind me.

 

“Okay, I’m opening up now!”

 

Wha?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 5 9

 

Wow. That was freaking fast. I guess I should’ve been glad,

 

but something about it gave me a bad feeling. And as a passive

 

observer, my unpleasant premonitions boasted a 100 percent

 

accuracy rate. Crap. Something big was coming.

 

“This is pretty late for you, Muimi-chan. . . . Did something

 

happen?”

 

K-chunk.

 

The lock slid open with a satisfying sound and the door

 

opened.

 

I failed to respond, and Mikoko-chan couldn’t respond.

 

It was a dead freeze, and ctrl + alt + del wouldn’t fix it.

 

“Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . .” She turned bright red, then pale

 

blue. Then back to bright red.

 

“Ciao,” I greeted, for lack of a better idea.

 

“Eeeeeyaaaaahhhh!!!!” She let out an ear-piercing scream as

 

the door slammed shut with such an incredible noise and force

 

that I thought the entire frame might break. The whole world

 

distorted for a moment, and then came a silence, as if the

 

whole thing had never happened.

 

Well, if worse came to worst, at least the security cameras

 

could vouch for my innocence in regards to her scream.

 

“Well . . . then again . . .”

 

She was still wearing her morning face. Her hair was all

 

messy, and her bunny-print pajamas were partially unbuttoned.

 

So Mikoko-chan’s reaction to suddenly being confronted

 

by a member of the opposite sex wasn’t all that weird

 

after all.

 

“Why?!” came a voice from the other side of the door. She

 

sounded like she was just barely holding back tears. Or maybe

 

she wasn’t holding them back at all. “Why-why-why-why?

 

What are you doing there? Wasn’t Muimi-chan supposed to

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 0

 

be coming over? It’s like, gumshoe Asagi Semimaru solves the

 

case of the sealed room decapitation murders right away, but

 

the culprit was caught red-handed! Oh, my head! I don’t get

 

this! Why?! Nowaynowaynoway! You’re a ghost! This is a lie!

 

A dream! A nightmare!”

 

Aw, crap, she was panicking.

 

I wasn’t doing such a great job keeping my cool either, but

 

with her getting this flustered, I might just be able to keep my

 

wits about me. Interesting. So Muimi-chan was originally

 

planning to come visit her. Then that lazy punk passed the

 

role over to me, and she hadn’t even told Mikoko-chan about

 

it.

 

Okay, conditions confirmed. Proceed with maneuver authorization.

 

“This is creepy! You shouldn’t even know where I live!

 

You’re an illusion! This is all some vicious prank!”

 

“Well, I’ll explain everything later, so just let me in. No

 

point in standing her talking like this.”

 

“Go away! Hurry up and go! No wait, I’m sorry, don’t go!

 

I’ll go clean up and get ready, so wait a minute! Please! And

 

forget what you just saw!”

 

“I’ve already seen you once, so what’s the big deal? Just let

 

me in.”

 

“No!”

 

With that final, sharp rejection, I heard her stomp back

 

into the depths of her room. This was followed by what

 

sounded like full-on battle. She was probably cleaning up. She

 

really didn’t have to go to the trouble, I thought as I leaned

 

back against the wall again. I waited half an hour before she

 

finally let me in. It was past four o’clock.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 1

 

The structure of the apartment itself wasn’t so different

 

from Tomo-chan’s, but there was a ridiculous amount of furniture

 

and other furnishings. It seemed Mikoko-chan was a

 

woman who liked her material possessions. It wasn’t a messy

 

place, but you couldn’t deny there was a little clutter.

 

“Wait a sec, okay? I’ll pour some tea.”

 

She wore a pink camisole and shorts. The outfit exposed

 

far more skin than her pajamas from before, but I wasn’t

 

about to say anything. Her hair was also very nicely styled. It

 

was like she had become a completely different person.

 

She placed a cup on the low table. Of course it wasn’t

 

filled with tap water, but with delicious-looking barley tea. It

 

had three ice cubes in it and looked nice and cold.

 

She plopped down across from me. “Um-um-um . . . So

 

what’s going on, Ikkun?”

 

Perhaps still shaken up, she was acting a bit strange. If she

 

had been walking around Shinkyôgoku, the mobile police

 

would have stopped her for sure.

 

“Um, so yeah, Muimi-chan should be here any minute! It’s

 

already past the time we were supposed to meet, oh my God,

 

where is that silly girl?”

 

“Uh, I’m her substitute,” I said, waving for her to calm

 

down.

 

“Wha!” she cried in surprise, and then flashed an ambiguous

 

smile that seemed to express anger, embarrassment, joy,

 

and some other stuff I couldn’t put my finger on all at the

 

same time.

 

“Freaking Muimi-chan . . .”

 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not planning to be here long, so just

 

relax. I heard you were feeling pretty lousy, but I’m glad to

 

see you seem pretty alive.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 2

 

“Oh . . .”

 

“The word lousy seemed to spur a reaction out of her, and

 

she hung her head down. Perhaps I hadn’t been careful

 

enough with my wording, I thought, but that was the only

 

way I knew how to phrase it.

 

Yes. Not only had Mikoko-chan’s friend been killed;

 

Mikoko-chan was also the first one to see her friend’s corpse.

 

She was the first person to have the image of that still, lifeless

 

body burned onto her retinas. And that burned image probably

 

still remained, even now. It wasn’t something she could

 

just bounce back from.

 

“So you came here because I haven’t been going to school

 

and you were worried about me?”

 

“Yeah. Well, something like that.”

 

The reality of it was a little different, but I supposed the

 

difference was negligible.

 

This time she flashed a straightforward, happy smile.

 

“Thank you!” she spouted. “I’m so happy you came!”

 

“There’s nothing to thank me for. I didn’t even bring anything.”

 

I realized this as I said it. Showing up to another person’s

 

house without bringing anything was probably pretty thoughtless

 

of me. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t feeling

 

well. But since I had come directly from school, I didn’t

 

reckon there was anything I could’ve done.

 

“Oh, no problem,” Mikoko-chan said. “It’s not like I’m

 

incapacitated or something. It’s just that . . . if I go to school, I

 

know I’ll start thinking about Tomo-chan.”

 

“But it’s not like you don’t think about her when you stay

 

home, right?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 3

 

“Well, that’s true, but . . .” She laughed weakly. “But seeing

 

you has cheered me up. I’m okay. I’ll be going to school again

 

starting tomorrow.”

 

“I don’t really think the school thing matters one way or

 

the other. Have the police been visiting you?”

 

“Yeah, a few times. A big guy and kind of a scary lady. But

 

I was the one who found her body, after all, and this is a

 

murder case.”

 

“Who could’ve killed her?” I said, not so much asking as

 

talking to myself, but still loud enough so that Mikoko-chan

 

could hear.

 

“I don’t know.” Her weak response was no surprise.

 

“Tomo-chan wasn’t the type of girl to make enemies. That’s

 

for sure.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what Muimi-chan said, too. But I wonder . . .

 

realistically speaking, is it actually possible to live without ever

 

being resented or disliked by anybody? I have my doubts

 

about that.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I think it’s worth considering the possibility that you only

 

feel that way about Tomo-chan because you two were such

 

good friends, at that in reality, someone out there did resent

 

her. Even if that resentment was unmerited.”

 

She grew unbearably silent. She wore such an expression

 

of pain that I blurted out an apology. “Sorry.” She may have

 

been acting strong, but she was still in no state to be discussing

 

things like this yet.

 

“I shouldn’t have come here after all, huh?”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 4

 

I really hadn’t meant for her to hear me. But her face

 

swung back up at me. She’d heard. “Ikkun, that isn’t true. I’m

 

glad you came.”

 

“Come on . . . you’re just trying to look cheerful because

 

I’m here, right?”

 

A close friend, one who could speak frankly to her, like

 

Muimi-chan, would have been much better in this situation.

 

“But that isn’t true,” she persisted. “Even if I am just acting,

 

the more I do it, the truer it’ll become, right? I’m fine. I’m

 

really glad you came. Even if you were just doing what

 

Muimi-chan said and you really hate being here.”

 

“I don’t hate being here. . . . If I hate something, I say so.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Nah, I just thought I’d try saying it. I’m actually pretty

 

easy to push around.”

 

“I don’t doubt that,” she agreed.

 

I let out something like a sigh and stretched my arms. “All

 

joking aside, how are you really feeling? Are you finally starting

 

to get over the shock?”

 

“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just . . .” Her eyes shifted to my right.

 

I followed her gaze to see that there were scattered piles of

 

newspapers and magazines lying around. “Umm, do you mind

 

if I talk about when I was in elementary school and stuff?”

 

“Go for it. I’ll listen.”

 

“It was when I was in the third grade. The building my

 

class was in was undergoing construction, so trucks and bulldozers

 

were constantly coming and going. But then one day,

 

there was sort of a near miss, and a truck carrying a big load of

 

sand crashed into the first-grade building.”

 

“Gee, I wouldn’t call something that big a ‘near miss.’ ”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 5

 

“Well, maybe not. The wall was smashed in, and sand

 

spilled into the classroom, burying some of the first graders. It

 

was a mess. But you know, we were still kids, so to us it was

 

almost like a fun event. Muimi-chan was going wild, surfing

 

on the sand mound and stuff.”

 

“Heh.” She really did seem like she would’ve been that

 

kind of kid.

 

“So, then, the next day. I woke up early and went to read

 

the newspaper. Anybody would be proud to have their school

 

mentioned in the newspaper, right? I mean, it was just because

 

the accident had happened there, so it wasn’t really anything

 

to be proud of, but just the idea that my school was ‘in

 

the papers’ was enough to make me happy.”

 

“Well, you were just a kid.”

 

“But you know what? It wasn’t in the paper,” she said with

 

an uncharacteristically glum sigh. “To me, it was such a big

 

incident, but on a national level, it wasn’t a big deal at all. I

 

don’t remember what the headline article was that day, but in

 

that moment, it felt like someone was telling me, ‘Your

 

existence isn’t worth squat.’ Something so amazing to me

 

didn’t mean a damn thing to everyone else. It was the saddest

 

feeling.”

 

“. . .”

 

“I feel kind of the same way now,” she said, pointing to the

 

stacks of newspapers and magazines. I could see where she

 

was coming from. Sensational murder stories like this Kyoto

 

prowler were one thing, but the papers weren’t likely to dwell

 

for very long on something as ordinary (sorry to say) as the

 

murder of a single college student in her apartment. It would

 

be in the news the next day, and then maybe the next at best.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 6

 

But even then, it would be a brief article that didn’t take up

 

too many column inches.

 

I grew silent. Mikoko-chan did likewise. We remained in

 

complete silence like this for a while, but she was the first one

 

to break it, with a question that took things in a confusing

 

new direction.

 

“Ikkun, have you gone antiquing or anything with Asanosan

 

since the other day?”

 

“Huh?” I blinked at her. “What? What do you mean?”

 

“I . . . oh, I’m sorry! I don’t know where that came from! I

 

didn’t mean to ask that!”

 

“It’s okay. . . .”

 

Now how did she know that I went antiquing with Miikosan

 

sometimes? There was no way Miiko-san would’ve told

 

her something that personal. Come to think of it, I seemed to

 

remember that I might have promised to go with her again . . .

 

oh, yeah, that’s right. Was Mikoko-chan awake that time?

 

“Does it bother you, by any chance?” I asked.

 

“What what what? Does what bother me?”

 

I had asked because I thought she might be feeling bad that

 

I had to promise to go antiquing with Miiko-san just to thank

 

her for putting Mikoko-chan up for the night, but this nervous

 

reaction was not what I was expecting. There was just no

 

reading this girl.

 

“Anyway, don’t let it bother you. We do that a lot.”

 

“You do?”

 

“Yeah. She likes antiquing quite a bit. Did she show you

 

inside her closet? As small as that room is, she won’t stop

 

buying antiques. I guess she sells them after she’s enjoyed

 

them for a while, though. She says art isn’t something one

 

person should monopolize.” At the same time, however, she

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 7

 

was no saint herself. “Basically I’m there to carry her stuff.

 

Even a guy like me has some basic strength, and they say you

 

should always lend what you have to others. I’m not particularly

 

interested in antiques, but that doesn’t mean I hate

 

them or anything, so if she asks me, I go.”

 

“Huh. I see. So you and Asano-san go out . . . a lot . . . and

 

stuff.” For some reason her voice was trailing off.

 

“Not a lot, really. But you see, she’s been in Kyoto for a

 

long time. She said she’s been living here alone ever since she

 

dropped out of high school. I got her to show me around to all

 

the Buddhist temples and shrines once while we were

 

antiquing, like Seimei Shrine and the Philosopher’s Walk. Do

 

you know ’em?”

 

“Yeah. Well, I know the names, anyway. I’m not really interested

 

in that stuff.”

 

“Huh? Didn’t you say you knew Kyoto pretty well?”

 

How could she know Kyoto well if she wasn’t even interested

 

in the temples and shrines?

 

“Oh, uh, well, you know, yadda yadda yadda,” she said,

 

blatantly dodging the question. “How come you only remember

 

that kind of stuff? . . . Er, I mean, you and Asano-san must

 

be pretty close then, huh?”

 

This conversation was starting to sound familiar. She was

 

awfully hung up on the whole Miiko-san subject. Had something

 

happened between them? I couldn’t imagine what might

 

have taken place in just a single night. Why was she trying so

 

hard to bring me and Miiko-san together? It didn’t make

 

much sense to me.

 

“Yeah, well, she’s a pretty interesting person and all,” I

 

said. “But we’re not ‘close,’ per se; she kind of takes care of

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 8

 

me. Like sometimes she lends me her car. It’s a Fiat 500. You

 

know, the Fiat 500.”

 

“Huh . . . well, maybe it’s all okay then.”

 

Apparently having no interest in cars whatsoever (she

 

drove a ‘scoot,’ after all), she let my words pass right through

 

her and started babbling about something I didn’t understand.

 

“I wonder if she minds you coming to another girl’s house

 

like this.”

 

“Huh? Oh. Uhh, are you telling me to leave?”

 

“No, that’s not what I mean! I mean, you go out with her

 

and stuff, right? So, I mean . . . dammit, Ikkun, you pinhead!”

 

she shrieked, slamming her hands on the table, her face bright

 

red. Why she was getting so emotional over this, I had absolutely

 

no idea. All I could do was be confused. It all seemed

 

awfully unreasonable to me, but it was obvious that my presence

 

was only making her angry.

 

“I don’t really get it, but I’m sorry,” I said.

 

“Ahhh,” she moaned. “Fine, let me put it another way. You

 

and Asano-san go shopping and stuff together, right?”

 

“Well, yeah. Not to run the point into the ground or anything.”

 

“So would you go shopping and stuff with me too, then?”

 

Her logic here was beyond my comprehension, but her

 

face was written with such a sincere look of what could only

 

be described as “last-ditch desperation” that I just couldn’t

 

bear to point that out.

 

“Yeah, I guess I would. No reason not to.”

 

“Really? For sure? You’re not just saying that because

 

you’re on the spot?”

 

Her whole body leaned forward like her life depended on

 

the answer to this question. She chewed on her lip. She

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 6 9

 

looked for all the world like a little kid who was about to start

 

bawling. Her emotions were exposed so plainly that there was

 

no way you would guess she was a university student about to

 

turn nineteen.

 

“You sure are hung up on this. Did something happen, by

 

any chance?”

 

“Answer the question!”

 

“I mean . . . probably. I can promise, if you’d like.”

 

“Really? You really mean it?”

 

“I don’t lie. As a general rule.”

 

“You absolutely mean it?”

 

“If there’s something you want to buy, sure.”

 

“This is a promise! If you forget, I’ll be pissed!”

 

“Okay.”

 

Overwhelmed by Mikoko-chan, I had gone and let her pull

 

a promise out of me. But it wasn’t such a terrible thing, so I

 

decided to let it slide. This, at last, seemed to calm her down,

 

and she proceeded to drink down the tea in her cup in a single

 

gulp.

 

“Ahh,” she sighed. “I’m so sorry. Occasionally I get a little

 

emotional and I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

 

“Occasionally? Did you just say occasionally?”

 

“Er, well, all the time,” she nodded, sheepishly.

 

Huh.

 

The shock of Tomo-chan’s death. Certainly Mikoko-chan

 

wasn’t completely over it, but at least she wasn’t so down that

 

she was thinking about following after her by committing

 

suicide or anything. Somehow she was keeping herself together.

 

Some of the stuff she was saying didn’t make a lot of

 

sense, but that was forgivable. It seemed she was okay for the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 0

 

time being. She would probably be mostly recovered by

 

Saturday.

 

“Well, that’s it for me today,” I said, starting to get up. “I’m

 

afraid I’ve got to go.”

 

“What-what-what? You’re going already? Oh, I’m sorry, I

 

did put you in a bad mood, didn’t I?”

 

“I said I didn’t plan on staying long when I got here, right?

 

Well, let’s get together again soon.”

 

“Ah, um!” she said, stopping me as I tried to leave. “Um . . .

 

um, Ikkun.”

 

“What?”

 

“Um . . .” She hesitated a bit, a lot, rather, and thought for

 

a while before she spoke. “What do you think Tomo-chan

 

wanted to say that last time you talked to her?” she said.

 

The final phone call.

 

Tomo-chan had tried to tell me something.

 

“I have no idea, really. That day was the first time I ever

 

even talked to her, so how could I possibly know something

 

like that? I don’t even know why she was talking to me. But,

 

Mikoko-chan, you must have some idea, right?”

 

“I . . .” she dropped her head down. “I don’t know. I don’t

 

even have a clue.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Because Tomo-chan never talked to anyone.”

 

She never talked.

 

She never opened up to anybody. She kept her cautious

 

distance.

 

“It was like our friendship took place through an unbreakable

 

sheet of glass. She never told me anything deep about

 

herself, about what she felt in her heart.”

 

“. . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 1

 

Then why had such a person made an attempt to talk to

 

me? “Nonsense,” I muttered aloud.

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“I doubt I’ll get much of an answer out of you with the

 

current state you’re in, so I won’t ask a lot, but Mikoko-chan,

 

will you answer just this one question for me?”

 

“Wh . . .” She wore a puzzled expression. “What?”

 

“What do you think x over y means?”

 

She thought it over for a moment. “I don’t know,” she answered.

 

Oh, I see. How about that.

 

I nodded and said, “Well, see you at school. Sorry I bothered

 

you.” With that, I left her apartment. I proceeded out of

 

the building and began contemplating what to do next.

 

Horikawa Oike.

 

There was quite a distance between here and my apartment,

 

but even still, I could probably make it home in around

 

thirty minutes on foot. It seemed like a waste of money to

 

bother getting on a bus, so I decided to just walk.

 

It never crossed my mind that the world’s greatest entrepreneur

 

might be waiting in my room.

 

Near my apartment, by Senbon-demizu, I ran into Miiko-san,

 

who was out for a stroll, aloof from the world. When she

 

noticed me, she sped up to a pace unusually fast for her and

 

came over to greet me.

 

“Yo.”

 

“Hello. On your way to work?”

 

“Nope. Today I’m going to Mount Hiei.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 2

 

“Ahh, with Suzunashi-san?”

 

She nodded. Suzunashi-san, full name Suzunashi Neon,

 

was Miiko-san’s close friend. She worked part-time at Enryaku

 

Temple on Mt. Hiei in Shiga Prefecture. Some called her

 

“Violence Neon.” Others, “Blackout Suzunashi.” She was sort

 

of a cool lady, but prone to flipping out randomly. I occasionally

 

saw her myself, but she would lecture me about

 

something every time. For someone so young, she was

 

strangely fond of lecturing others. It was hardly her only major

 

personality issue, but I liked her more or less as much as I

 

liked Miiko-san.

 

“It sounds like she wants some advice on something, so I’m

 

going out there. I’ll be back by tomorrow, so watch over

 

things back here in the meantime. If someone comes to see

 

me, just get their name and tell them whatever you want. If

 

it’s someone freaky-looking, don’t worry about it.”

 

“Uhh, sure, no problem, I guess.”

 

“Also, you have a visitor.”

 

“A visitor? For me?”

 

“. . .”

 

“Yup,” she nodded.

 

“When I noticed her, she was breaking into your place. She

 

had a little pizzazz about her. Or rather, a ton of pizzazz. I

 

don’t know who it was, but her gender appeared to be female.

 

She didn’t seem to be up to anything in particular, so I just let

 

it be.”

 

A female? What woman was likely to come visit my place?

 

I didn’t have many friends to begin with, so it seemed like I

 

should’ve been able to narrow it down pretty easily. But the

 

way things had been going lately . . .

 

“Was she about this tall? If so, it was that detective.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 3

 

“No. That was no detective. Detectives don’t look like

 

that,” she affirmed with confidence. “Besides, I’ve met that

 

detective you’re talking about. I never forget a vibe I get from

 

someone. Oh yeah, and there was a car parked by the apartment

 

that looked like it was probably hers. Maybe it’ll give

 

you a clue. Well, see ya,” she said, and made her way towards

 

the parking lot. Today’s jinbei had the word Tranquility printed

 

on the back. Yep, she was in a good mood today, possibly

 

because she was going to see Suzunashi-san.

 

But what did Suzunashi-san want with her anyway? She

 

was the type of person who rarely called on others, so I

 

couldn’t get it out of my head. And just what kind of “advice”

 

was she seeking? She may have liked sticking her nose in other

 

people’s problems, but when it came to sharing her own problems

 

with others, Suzunashi-san was wholly passive.

 

“Something’s odd here.”

 

But the more pressing issue for me right now was: Who

 

was this “visitor” currently waiting inside my apartment? If it

 

wasn’t Sasaki-san, who was it? There was always Muimi-chan

 

and Mikoko-chan, but it was unlikely to be either of them.

 

And Kunagisa was an all-out shut-in, so it was highly improbable

 

that it could’ve been her.

 

I turned onto Nakadachiuri.

 

“Gah . . .”

 

Suddenly, everything was clear. Parked on the shoulder of

 

the road, as if to say that it was above all traffic laws, was a

 

spectacular bright red Cobra. Completely out of place in a city

 

like Kyoto, it was a monstrous, incredible specimen of machinery.

 

“Oh my God . . . I don’t want to go home.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 4

 

I seriously considered the idea of running straight to Kunagisa’s

 

place, but based on personal experience, I could

 

imagine the cruel fate that would be in store for me if it were

 

ever revealed that I’d attempted escape. Giving up, I went

 

back to the apartment, dragging my feet all the way.

 

I climbed up the stairs and headed for my room. The fact

 

that my locked door was no longer locked didn’t surprise me.

 

This was a woman who could mimic voices, pick locks, and

 

read minds: The most difficult task was for her as easy as

 

breathing. I opened the door to see the private contractor,

 

adorned in a wine-red suit as dark as blood, sitting on the windowsill

 

with legs crossed, as if her presence were the most

 

natural thing in the world.

 

Uncompromising.

 

Aloof.

 

“Hey, Aikawa-san.”

 

“Didn’t I tell you not to call me by my last name?”

 

“Hey, Jun.”

 

She gave me a slightly cynical grin.

 

Aikawa Jun.

 

Mankind’s greatest private contractor. I had met her a

 

month ago through the great fiasco that had occurred on that

 

island. She left me that day with the cool line, “If our fates are

 

linked, we shall meet again,” only to show up to hang out at

 

my university the next day. She was kind of weird like that.

 

And what’s more, she spent the following week making me do

 

her bidding, not even allowing time for sleep, until finally

 

having to leave Kyoto for a job. Speaking from that experience,

 

she was a woman with whom I didn’t particularly want

 

to get involved. She was perhaps the most unnerving person I

 

had ever met.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 5

 

Looking at her with all the objectivity I could summon, she

 

was extremely wild—and she was a beauty of such wicked

 

allure it was hard to resist her. She had any number of

 

eccentric mannerisms. And she was completely unapproachable.

 

She looked at me, searching my expression. “You don’t

 

seem at all surprised to see me.”

 

“Oh, no, I am. So you’re back in Kyoto, huh?”

 

“Yeah, well, y’know, duty calls. We can talk about that

 

later, though. . . . Ahh, I get it. You saw the flashing car outside

 

and it tipped you off, huh?”

 

“No, actually the girl next door told me.”

 

“Aw, and I was being extra careful not to be noticed. That

 

makes me extremely . . .” Aikawa-san’s expression grew sharp

 

as a knife for a moment, but it was only for a moment before

 

she reverted back to her normal sardonic smirk. “Eh, whatever,”

 

she said.

 

I removed my shoes and stepped into the room, then made

 

my way straight to the sink. I poured a cup of tap water and

 

served it to her. “Enjoy,” I said.

 

“Muchas gracias,” she replied, and drank about half of it

 

before placing it on the windowsill.

 

Geez, she took it as if there was nothing unusual about it.

 

Just once I wanted to see Aikawa-san get surprised about

 

something.

 

“So what’s going on? Why are you back in Kyoto?”

 

“I said I’ll tell you later. More important, allow me to

 

apologize for the period of neglect. But hey, you’ve got a nice

 

place here. It’s the perfect environment.”

 

“Exactly where do you see that?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 6

 

“That’s not what I mean. Come on, you know what I

 

mean, don’t you? Well, whatever. So what’ve you been up to

 

lately, anyway?”

 

“Nothing, really. I’m just your average university student.

 

I’m not living some yakuza lifestyle like you.”

 

“Just a regular old student, huh?” she said, chuckling.

 

“What’s so funny?”

 

“Nothing. Oh, except for the fact that you apparently define

 

‘average’ as someone who starts nosing around when one

 

of his classmates is murdered, and maintains friendly relations

 

with serial killers.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Ooh, there’s that surprised look. You’ve made me happy.”

 

She jumped down from the windowsill and plopped herself

 

down cross-legged on the tatami floor. Whether this was

 

something she felt compelled to do because she was wearing

 

such a short skirt, I wasn’t sure, but either way, I kind of

 

wished she hadn’t.

 

“How do you know about that stuff?”

 

“How do you think I know?” She grinned with unbridled

 

elation. But I had no idea what lurked behind this unbridled

 

elation. I was expending copious amounts of energy just standing

 

here talking to her like this. What’s more, she was a mind

 

reader of the highest order, so my emotions were all leaking

 

out of the pipes. It felt like we were playing poker, but with

 

my hand faceup on the table. She sure didn’t make such

 

things easy. She was like a piece of food that you couldn’t eat

 

no matter how long you boiled and grilled it.

 

But as long as she didn’t want something out of you, she

 

was a nice person, I guess. She was my type and all.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 7

 

“I have no idea,” I said. “Not even a clue. It’s not like I can

 

ever tell what you’re thinking.”

 

“Think. And then face it, man. I’m a lone wolf, but I’ve got

 

a quite a number of friends, in Kyoto and out.”

 

“Hey, that’s really something. It’s great to have a lot of

 

friends. Even I can acknowledge that. I’ll acknowledge it right

 

now. So what friends would you be referring to in this case?”

 

“For example, Sasa Sasaki.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Ikaruga Kazuhito.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Kunagisa Tomo.”

 

She pulled a single envelope from her black bag.

 

“Here you go, it’s from your sweet, sweet Kunagisa.”

 

“For me?”

 

“Yep. She said it’s the ‘thingy’ she promised.”

 

I accepted the envelope. Well, how about that. She must

 

have paid a visit to Shirosaki before coming to my apartment.

 

While I was just your everyday, boringly average university

 

student, Kunagisa Tomo was, with all her eccentricities, an

 

expert computer specialist. She and Aikawa-san knew each

 

other fairly well.

 

As ordered by Aikawa-san, I thought for a moment. It

 

looked like she had come back to Kyoto for a job. Then she

 

had gone to Kunagisa for help with said job, just as I had gone

 

to her for help investigating Tomoe’s death. Then when

 

Aikawa-san went to visit Kunagisa, Kunagisa had decided to

 

use her as a messenger. Was that what happened? But . . .

 

something was missing. There was no reason Kunagisa should

 

have to ask Aikawa-san to do such a thing, and there was no

 

reason Aikawa-san should agree to do it.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 8

 

This brought a much uglier scenario to mind, and it wasn’t

 

purely theoretical. To be more specific, Aikawa-san was . . .

 

“Well, now there’s just the simple matter of collecting your

 

fee. Tell me what you know about your pal, the Kyoto

 

prowler.”

 

Aikawa wasn’t a messenger—she was the collector.

 

“Jun-san, you mean you came to Kyoto . . .”

 

“Yup. To have a little chat about morals with that psychotic

 

nutjob.”

 

Aikawa-san made her living as a “private contractor.” This

 

involved anything and everything. Simply put, she was a jackof-all-trades,

 

a multitalented freelancer who didn’t limit herself

 

by specializing in any one particular field. Whether it was

 

walking dogs, solving locked-room murder mysteries, or

 

catching mass murderers who had already cut up ten people

 

into little pieces, as long as there was money involved, she

 

would take it on. Granted, there probably weren’t too many

 

nuts out there offering a big stack of cash just or walking their

 

dog. At any rate, she lived out each day “accomplishing the

 

impossible”—never bothering to make the distinction between

 

legal and illegal.

 

Be that as it may.

 

“The Kyoto slasher claimed a twelfth victim yesterday.

 

Seeing as you lived in another country for so long, maybe you

 

don’t realize this, but that number is unprecedented in Japan.

 

This kind of incident simply doesn’t happen in Japan, much

 

less in a provincial city. What’s more, the identity of the killer

 

is a complete mystery. At this point, it’s going to require government

 

intervention.”

 

“And so you’ve been called upon?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 7 9

 

She nodded. “It sounds like there are other people at

 

work on the case as well—Public Welfare, Walker, Texas

 

Ranger—frankly, I don’t really know who. Unfortunately, I

 

don’t have a lot of horizontal ties. At any rate, my job right

 

now is just to stop that maniac from claiming more victims.”

 

“Did Sasaki-san hire you?”

 

“Can’t tell you that. What do you call it again? The code of

 

confidentiality? Business ethics? Trade secrets?” She gave a

 

comical little shrug and laughed. “Anyway, it seems a lot more

 

worthy of my time than that crazy fiasco on Wet Crow’s

 

Feather Island ever was. That’s for sure.”

 

Worthy of her time. That’s all she had to say in regard to

 

the grisly murderer who had already chopped up twelve

 

people. The idea of taking on this anonymous monster didn’t

 

frighten her in the least. On the contrary, she was so laid-back

 

about the whole affair you’d think she was sashaying on her

 

way to a picnic.

 

Suddenly, I realized all over again just how dangerous this

 

crimson woman was.

 

And I also realized that I was currently face-to-face with

 

said danger.

 

“Now then. I heard from Kunagisa-chan that you know a

 

thing or two about all this. I don’t suppose you’d mind filling

 

in your favorite big sister—I am like a sister to you, aren’t

 

I—on the details now, would you?” she said in a soft, coaxing

 

voice, like one might use to address their pet cat, as her fingers

 

crept up my face. It wasn’t that I particularly minded that

 

voice, but the speaker herself was either a tiger or a panther,

 

and it was more than a mere tabby like me could resist.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 0

 

Damn that Kunagisa. What ever happened to helping each

 

other out? Without the slightest hesitation, she had sold me

 

out.

 

“What’s your problem? Why are you clamming up and

 

looking away? You’re being awfully uncooperative. Don’t tell

 

me you’re not going to tell me. Are you breaking your

 

contract? You promised this in exchange for what’s in that

 

envelope, didn’t you?”

 

“Well, yeah, but I said I’d tell Kunagisa, not just anybody. If

 

I went and told you, it would be . . . what’s the word? A betrayal?

 

Immoral? Divisive? Rebellious? Whatever. The bottom

 

line is that it feels like backstabbing, and that’s just not my

 

thing.”

 

“Excuse me?!” she said, her voice suddenly much more

 

stern. If looks could kill, I would already be dead. Which

 

sounded a lot better than what was really in store for me.

 

“Are you saying you can tell Kunagisa but you can’t tell

 

me? Well goddamn. I had no idea you were such a cold son of

 

a bitch. I see, I see. Gee, you make me sad. So you’ll listen to

 

Kunagisa, but you won’t listen to me? I had no idea you were

 

such a tough guy.”

 

“It’s not like that. It’s just that with Kunagisa, no matter

 

what you tell her, she’s harmless. But you’re planning on

 

taking some kind of action, right? Getting myself directly

 

involved with something like that, well . . . it’s just not in my

 

nature.”

 

“Excuse me, did you just call me harmful?”

 

“Well . . . aren’t you?”

 

As if she herself were aware of this, she refrained from objecting

 

to my remark, instead murmuring to herself thoughtfully.

 

She was, to a certain degree, someone who might listen

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 1

 

to reason. Once you had surpassed that degree, however, well,

 

you can imagine what happened then—that is to say, it would

 

backfire.

 

“Kunagisa will probably just tell me anyway. That girl has a

 

big mouth. I figured I might as well just cut out the middleman

 

and come straight to the source.”

 

“Er, yeah, I know, but . . . I just have my own reasons, or

 

rather, uh . . .”

 

“Hm? Ahhh, ah-ah-ah, I get it! Well, why didn’t you say

 

so?!” she said with a wickedly and ghastly grin. She beckoned

 

to me. Each stroke of her hand was so alluring, so graceful,

 

that it was mesmerizing.

 

“Uhh, you get what, exactly?”

 

“Just come to me. I’ll tease you to your heart’s delight.”

 

Seeing that I still wouldn’t budge, Aikawa-san instead

 

crawled over to me on all fours. She stared up at me with a

 

challenging, provocative gaze. She nestled her body into mine

 

and wrapped her arms around my back, forcing all of her

 

weight upon me. She applied some pressure, digging her nails

 

into my back.

 

“Now. What were you saying?”

 

“Um, I’m terrified of you.”

 

“By the by, did you know that my index finger is perilously

 

close to jabbing through your ribs into your liver?”

 

“. . .”

 

“Don’t tense up so much. It’s bad for you. It’ll make your

 

flesh all stringy. So just out of curiosity, who do you think is

 

scarier—me, or the serial killer?” As she said this, she ran her

 

tongue down the carotid artery on the right side of my neck.

 

The pleasure I felt from this delicate sensation, along with the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 2

 

more pressing sense of fear that she might actually take a

 

gigantic bite out of my neck, bored their way into my brain.

 

Dammit.

 

Indeed, the serial killer did make for better company than

 

this.

 

“Jun-san . . . I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to say no.”

 

“Oh, go right on ahead. But if you do that I won’t tease

 

you like this anymore.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Either way is fine by me. It doesn’t change the fact that

 

you’re going to talk. I’ve already decided that I’m going to

 

have you tell me about this killer. That’s a fact. But since

 

you’re a friend, I just thought I’d ask first. Now do you want

 

me to be nice? Or do you want me to make this painful?”

 

“Uhh . . . what’s the difference?”

 

The fact that we were in this embracing position was my

 

one saving grace; I didn’t have to see her face, and she

 

couldn’t see mine. But even still, my cold sweat and pounding

 

heart probably betrayed my terror.

 

“What do you think is the difference?”

 

Chomp. She bit down on my neck. She literally had my

 

life in her clutches. Softly, teasingly, she dug her canines into

 

my skin, but at the same time worked a healthy amount of

 

saliva onto her tongue, licking my flesh between her lips,

 

rubbing her body against mine, running her fingers down my

 

back.

 

“Okay!” I said, using every ounce of strength to pull myself

 

away from her. “I won’t disobey you anymore! Please forgive

 

me!” Sitting a little apart from me, Aikawa-san responded

 

with a sly yet somehow innocent smile.

 

“Don’t get so serious. It was just a little joke,” she said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 3

 

“Yeah, a bad joke. Bad for the heart, anyway . . .”

 

“Hahaha. Actually, I’m relieved. You’re a healthy young

 

man after all.”

 

“Come on, give me a break.”

 

I had to calm down. So I chugged down a cup of water. It

 

didn’t take long for my heartbeat to slow down, but the cold

 

sweating was out of my control.

 

I am no good at dealing with this woman after all. I should

 

have just run straight to Kunagisa’s place without worrying

 

what might happen later.

 

“Really now, this is nonsense.”

 

After that, Aikawa-san managed to fish out of me every

 

last detail about Zerozaki Hitoshiki, no stone left unturned. I

 

tried my best to weasel out of revealing the key facts, but with

 

her ability to read my mind, I wasn’t especially successful.

 

Every time I tried to hide something, she would see right

 

through me and threaten me, and then either through coercion

 

or trickery would pry the answer out of me. It served to

 

remind me that I was basically her prisoner.

 

The person known as Zerozaki. His appearance, build, and

 

clothes at the time we met. The way he spoke. The circumstances

 

surrounding our first meeting. What we talked about.

 

Even the details of our secret infiltration of Tomo-chan’s

 

apartment. Aikawa-san drew all of it out of me. At least, as

 

much as I could remember.

 

It wasn’t like Zerozaki and I were friends. We were just of

 

the same breed, and we were like mirror reflections of one

 

another. We hadn’t exchanged any sort of promise, and he

 

wasn’t preventing me from talking.

 

Nevertheless, I felt so spineless it was a wonder I didn’t

 

collapse.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 4

 

“Hmm . . .” After all that, Aikawa’s smile disappeared and

 

her expression grew more serious. She thought to herself in

 

silence for a few minutes. “So this guy . . . Zerozaki, was it?

 

Like zero and zaki put together?”

 

“Yeah. At least, that’s what he calls himself.”

 

“Zerozaki Hitoshi . . . ahhh, that’s a nasty name.”

 

Aikawa-san looked truly irritated, like the whole thing was

 

just a big hassle. It was the first time I had ever seen her wear

 

such an expression. It was almost refreshing.

 

“What do you mean? What’s wrong with it?”

 

“No, no no no . . . On second thought, maybe a ‘nasty

 

name’ isn’t the right expression. But ‘Zerozaki’? Sure is an unusual

 

name.”

 

“Oh, but you know, it might not be his real name. That

 

guy’s no fool. I doubt he would give someone his real name on

 

a first encounter.”

 

“That’s beside the point. Even if it’s an alias, the fact that

 

he would choose an alias like ‘Zerozaki’ is proof that he’s a

 

nut. And if it is his real name, well . . .”

 

She began thinking in silence again. Once this lady started

 

thinking about something, she sank into her own world, and if

 

you were there beside her, it felt like you had become

 

invisible. But then again, even an invisible man still exists. In

 

this case it was more like you had become empty space.

 

“Even as a joke, there isn’t an idiot on this earth who

 

would announce himself with a ‘killer’s name’ like that.

 

‘Zerozaki,’ huh? Damn, that’s right above ‘Susukino’ in rank,

 

isn’t it? I guess it’s still better than ‘Niounomiya’ and

 

‘Yamiguchi,’ but you know, I actually hope it is just an alias.

 

Or better yet, just a case of two people having the same last

 

name by coincidence. But there’s no way that’s it. There’s no

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 5

 

way something that convenient would ever happen to me.

 

Wow . . . so even Kunagisa, even an ex-member of the ‘team’

 

was of no use.”

 

“Uh . . . is there something wrong with the name ‘Zerozaki’?”

 

“Yeah, there is. It’s about as terrible as names come. It’s so

 

bad that to us, the worst possible insult you could call someone

 

was a ‘Zerozaki.’ That’s how bad it is. I don’t really want

 

to bother explaining any deeper than that. To be perfectly

 

honest, I don’t want to have the slightest thing to do with the

 

‘Zerozaki Ichizoku,’ and that includes giving explanations. Eh,

 

but actually it’s the name itself that I don’t like. In this case,

 

the individual is essentially irrelevant. He’s probably just some

 

irregularity . . . probably. But is this guy really the Kyoto

 

Prowler?”

 

“Yes, that’s what he said.”

 

“So you didn’t actually witness him in the act? You’re just

 

taking his word for it?”

 

“Well, you could say that,” I said, nodding.

 

“Hmm. So then there’s a chance that he might be some

 

delusional, lying bastard who’s just saying this stuff.”

 

“Yeah, there’s definitely that chance. I mean, I didn’t get

 

that impression, though.”

 

“Really? Come on, he’s got a big tattoo on his face, right?

 

And it covers the entire right side. Even in Chicago he’d be a

 

freak. He’s been standing out like that and he’s still able to

 

escape the cops without leaving a single clue behind?”

 

“Yeah, well . . .”

 

Naturally, I had considered this possibility myself as well.

 

But having heard what he had to say, there was no basis on

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 6

 

which to call him a fake, and frankly, I didn’t care all that

 

much to begin with.

 

Whether it was him or not, it didn’t make much of a

 

difference to me. Maybe he wasn’t the prowler.

 

“That guy is a murderer without a doubt,” I said to

 

Aikawa-san. “Aikawa-san, you must know that I haven’t lived

 

the most decent life, right? In Kobe, Houston, even here. Hell,

 

even on that island I was almost killed. I may still not hold a

 

candle to you, but I’ve seen my fair share of Hell in my time.”

 

And Heaven was still a long way from here.

 

“I never actually saw him kill somebody, but he did almost

 

kill me. He was just using a plain old short knife, and yet the

 

terror I felt was that of someone facing an opponent with a

 

naginata . . . no, with a machine gun.”

 

“Hmm . . .” Apparently convinced, she nodded several

 

times. “At any rate, I suppose the bottom line is that this expert

 

of dissection who calls himself the ‘prowler’ is somewhere

 

in Kyoto. Yeah. As long as I have that straight, that’s

 

enough.”

 

“It is?”

 

“Sure it is. Combined with the other information I’ve

 

gathered, it’ll give me a place to start. For now, anyway. I

 

think for the time being it’ll be faster for me to proceed on my

 

own two feet, if you know what I mean. If I don’t have a bit of

 

a challenge, things get boring and I can’t function anymore.

 

Know what I mean? Anyway, more importantly,” she said,

 

bringing the conversation back to me, “putting my stuff aside,

 

what’s going on with you? I heard from both Kunagisa and

 

Sasaki that you’ve been sticking your nose in some boring,

 

everyday kind of case.”

 

“I got caught up in it.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 7

 

“You got caught up and then you kept sticking your nose

 

back in, didn’t you? I mean, sneaking into the victim’s apartment?

 

Quit pretending you’re just some passive observer.”

 

Touché.

 

“Now what is it, exactly?” she pondered, looking at me

 

with a touch of awe. “You’re a hard guy to understand,

 

y’know? It’s like you have no conviction, or no style. What

 

you say and what you do are completely different things.”

 

“It’s that clash that gives me my flavor.”

 

“What flavor? Can’t you view yourself objectively?”

 

“Sure I can . . .”

 

“You’re more like the comic relief than a passive observer.

 

Eh, but whatever. Do whatever you like. It’s your life, I guess.

 

Not my place to butt in. Not my problem.”

 

“You’re a cold woman.”

 

“Not really. Keep studying, young’un. You do your own

 

dirty work. And if you set out to do something, do it to the

 

end. I told you before, didn’t I? Quitting midway through is

 

the worst thing a person can do. Oh yeah, and also,” she said

 

as if she had just remembered, even though that obviously

 

wasn’t the case, “a message from Kunagisa.” She pointed to

 

the envelope under my arm.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Don’t go having an affair now, Ii-chan. I’ll forgive a

 

smooch on the cheek and nothing above that. ‘I love youuu,

 

kiss kiss,’ ” Aikawa-san said, mimicking Kunagisa’s voice and

 

intonation and grinning. “She said.”

 

“Roger that,” I said, throwing my hands up.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 8

 

It had gotten to the time where it was technically okay to be

 

eating dinner, so I invited Aikawa-san to join me. But because

 

she was eager to proceed with her pursuit of Zerozaki as

 

quickly as possible, she refused and soon left.

 

In the very end, I asked her one final question. “What do

 

you think x over y means?”

 

“Don’t look to others to confirm what you already know,”

 

she said flatly. Touché, I thought.

 

I let out a sigh as I watched her disappear.

 

Zerozaki Hitoshiki.

 

Aikawa Jun.

 

She would probably find him in a matter of two days. I

 

hadn’t exactly provided a cornucopia of information, but it

 

was more than enough to serve Aikawa-san’s purpose. She

 

was in a state of mind beyond my wildest imagination, and

 

even that was something she was free to break away from

 

whenever she desired. The superiority of Aikawa Jun’s

 

cognitive faculties defied the imagination.

 

And the two would likely collide. Mankind’s Greatest and

 

the Human Failure would meet head-on. And if it came to

 

that, the outcome was obvious. If Zerozaki Hitoshiki was a

 

homicidal monster, then Aikawa Jun was the ultimate monster

 

hunter. Having a bit of a penchant for taking lives was

 

great for drawing attention, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop

 

her from sniffing him out. The nature of this scarlet woman

 

was one so transcendental, so elevated, that if there was one

 

thing you didn’t want to do, it was make an enemy of her.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 8 9

 

And making friends with her didn’t serve as a very good plan

 

B. If there was any one saving grace, it was that she had a

 

sense of the whimsical. But it was hardly something that could

 

be exploited.

 

“I wonder if he’ll get away . . .”

 

I was just a little worried. Not to mention incredibly sympathetic.

 

But I didn’t give it too much thought.

 

I had little interest in something that was to take place a

 

world away from here. Even if it was happening to my own

 

mirror image.

 

Now was the time to think about my own world.

 

I took the envelope from Kunagisa in my hand.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 1

 

Ilikeyoulikeyouloveyoulots.

 

On Saturday, May twenty-first, I woke up early in the

 

morning.

 

“Time to get up.”

 

I had had some kind of nasty dream. It seemed like I was

 

about to be killed, and like I was also trying to kill someone.

 

My entire body was being controlled by the sheer will to commit

 

harm, and at the same time, I was being harmed. I ran and

 

I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran, but sooner or later the

 

figure chasing after me turned out to be myself, and I was

 

gripped with terror. Certain death was just behind me, and

 

yet it was strangely exhilarating. It was that kind of awful

 

dream.

 

The sheer fact that I couldn’t remember it made it a nightmare,

 

and the fact that it was a nightmare made this a rude

 

awakening.

 

I rose up from my futon and checked the time. Five fifty in

 

the morning. My plans with Mikoko-chan weren’t until ten

 

o’clock, so I still had roughly four hours to kill. With nothing

 

in particular to do, I folded up my futon and pushed it into

 

the closet.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 2

 

I went outside, thinking it might be nice to go for a run for

 

the first time in awhile. I locked up just to be safe, but with a

 

lock of this quality, Aikawa-san wasn’t the only one who

 

could easily break in if so inclined. Not that there was anything

 

in that place I’d mind having stolen.

 

I ran east down Imadegawa Street and turned back once

 

Dôshisha University had come into view. I went directly back

 

to my apartment and changed out of my sweaty clothes. Why,

 

oh why had I thought it would be a good idea to run in this

 

heat? I wondered with the usual remorse.

 

I picked up the book I had borrowed from the school

 

library and reread the part I had previously stopped in the

 

middle of. That alone ate through a good chunk of time, so

 

from there I picked up the envelope from Kunagisa, the contents

 

of which I had already glanced over a few times.

 

The envelope contained police documents. Through what

 

means Kunagisa had obtained such a thing, I didn’t know, but

 

we had sort of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. What I did know,

 

however, was that Kunagisa could access pretty much any

 

place with electricity running through it, and that within her

 

circle of friends were criminals who knew just about everything

 

in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Of course, normally I

 

had little interest in criminal investigation. But these were

 

documents on the murder of Emoto Tomoe.

 

“But come on . . .”

 

I flipped through the paper-clipped sheets of A4 paper.

 

There wasn’t really any new information. The documents

 

elaborated on some of the more minor details, but most of

 

them seemed irrelevant, and it was all more or less what

 

Sasaki-san had told me. I was a little bit shattered to realize

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 3

 

that this was what I had endured Aikawa-san’s interrogation

 

for.

 

Still, it wasn’t a complete waste. There was some information

 

I hadn’t been aware of, and it was worth knowing.

 

“So here we have alibi relations.”

 

As logic may have dictated, the four classmates who had

 

been with Emoto Tomoe the night she died (us, that is) were

 

the prime suspects. Nevertheless, all four of us had alibis, at

 

least for the time being. Miiko-san next door had graciously

 

vouched for Mikoko-chan and me, while Muimi-chan and

 

Akiharu-kun were vouching for each other. The possibility

 

that they had committed the crime in cahoots was present,

 

but based on the police’s observations, that didn’t seem to be

 

the case. Sasaki-san had made it sound like Muimi-chan and

 

Akiharu-kun went to karaoke, just the two of them, but apparently

 

other people from school had been present as well. In

 

other words, Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan had a sound alibi,

 

just like Mikoko-chan and I. If anyone had a weak alibi, it was

 

me. After all, Miiko-san could only vouch for what she heard

 

(or didn’t hear) through the apartment walls.

 

But of course, I knew I wasn’t the killer.

 

“Okay then, that’s all clear . . .”

 

Next was the list of items in the apartment. When I snuck

 

in with Zerozaki, I didn’t think anything was missing, but apparently

 

I was wrong. The police documents gave a complete

 

list of everything inside Tomo-chan’s apartment, from the

 

largest piece of furniture to the smallest accessory. It was like

 

the concept of privacy no longer even existed, but at the same

 

time, it gave you a good idea of who this Emoto Tomo character

 

was.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 4

 

It was just that on this list, one thing was missing—the

 

liquid-filled capsule neckstrap Akiharu-kun had given Tomoechan

 

as a birthday present.

 

I had seen him give it to her with my own eyes, so it was

 

strange that it wasn’t on the list. The most logical explanation

 

to come to mind was that the killer had taken it, but that just

 

raised the question of why the killer would want such a thing.

 

“It wasn’t exactly worth a lot. . . .”

 

Meanwhile, the cell phone she had used to call me had

 

apparently been found in her pocket. The documents included

 

corroboration of the call based on the call history in her

 

phone’s memory.

 

No foreign objects had appeared in her apartment either.

 

Evidently the killer had left with the think cloth allegedly used

 

to strangle her.

 

“Cloth . . . cloth . . . cloth, eh?”

 

Next was a thoroughly documented account of Mikoko’s

 

discovery of the body, which was information I hadn’t been

 

able to draw out of her. She had visited Tomo-chan’s apartment

 

in the morning and called her room on the intercom.

 

But there was no answer. She wouldn’t pick up her phone

 

either. Thinking this was strange, Mikoko made her way

 

through the autolocked door as one of the other residents was

 

leaving and headed to Tomo-chan’s room. The door to the

 

entrance wasn’t locked. I had feared we might have another

 

damned sealed room on our hands, but apparently that wasn’t

 

the case.

 

“And finally.”

 

That x over y writing.

 

The police had deemed this the “work of the perpetrator,”

 

which made sense. Sasaki-san said herself that Emoto Tomoe

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 5

 

had died instantly, so it didn’t make sense that she could’ve

 

written a dying message. This was something I had realized in

 

time as well. Once again, this raised the question of why the

 

killer would do such a thing. Leaving a sign at the crime

 

scene—this was no Jack the Ripper after all.

 

“And that’s the end of that.”

 

Those were the facts I had deemed useful. But overall, my

 

ideas on the case remained largely unchanged.

 

And that was fine, I thought.

 

Based on this information, a number of minute possibilities

 

had been crossed out. From here I would gradually narrow

 

down the remaining possibilities. But for the time being, it

 

was safe to say that a basic process of reasoning was starting to

 

take form.

 

“But still . . .”

 

What the hell was I doing? Why did I have to do all this

 

stuff?

 

Was it for Tomo-chan?

 

Or for Mikoko-chan?

 

Going as far as obtaining these documents, dedicating copious

 

amounts of time—what the hell was I doing?

 

“I ought to talk to Sasaki-san again, huh . . .”

 

There were some things I wanted to ask. Some possibilities

 

left to be narrowed down. I wouldn’t use the word solution

 

until I had something 100 percent watertight.

 

I slid the papers back into the envelope, tore the envelope

 

to pieces, and threw it all into the garbage. In the unlikely

 

event that somebody caught a look at these documents, there

 

would be trouble. Besides, having perused them pretty thoroughly,

 

most of the information had been committed to memory

 

already.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 6

 

Now then.

 

There was still a little over an hour until Mikoko-chan

 

would be here. Two hours, if you factored in her lack of punctuality.

 

I lay down on the floor and thought a bit more.

 

About the murder?

 

No.

 

About my own ridiculousness.

 

Luckily, there was still plenty of time.

 

Life had only just begun.

 

Mikoko-chan showed up on time.

 

“I’m not late today!” she said, giving a gleeful German

 

salute with both hands. Though it was probably a given at this

 

point, she was so hyper that you might think she had blown a

 

circuit. She was dressed in a tight tank top and large, loose

 

overalls. She also had her head deeply inserted into a yellow

 

hat that looked like it belonged on a kindergartener (not to be

 

mean or anything). There was something adorable about her

 

reddish hair peeking out from under the brim. The tank top

 

was just a bit too small, making it look like she was wearing

 

overalls directly over nothing, which was, well, how do you

 

say . . . actually, I guess I didn’t mind.

 

“Well, shall we go?”

 

I started to leave, but she immediately stopped me. “Oh,

 

wait-wait-wait,” she said, pushing me back into the room and

 

entering herself without being invited. She had done this last

 

time too. Maybe invading houses was one of her hobbies. Not

 

a very sociable one, if you asked me.

 

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“I brought you a little something today. To say thanks for

 

spending the day with me.”

 

No sooner had she said it than she opened her bag—a

 

Boston bag different from her usual purse—and pulled out a

 

lunch-box-like item wrapped in a bandana. She unwrapped it

 

to reveal that it was actually Tupperware.

 

“Wow, what is it?”

 

“Treats,” she said boastfully, and opened it up. Inside were

 

six pieces of sweet potato shaped like Mont Blanc. I could tell

 

by the slight indents that these were handmade.

 

“Wow, so you do baking and stuff.”

 

“Yup. But don’t expect it to taste too good or anything.”

 

“Can I eat ’em?”

 

“Of course. Oh, right.” She pulled a thermos out of her

 

bag, handed me a cup, and poured the contents of it. It was

 

black tea, and Marco Polo, no less. So she had even come prepared

 

to compensate for the fact that I didn’t have anything

 

besides water here. This girl didn’t let anything get by her.

 

She prepared herself a cup of tea as well, and flashed a nice

 

smile. “Well, cheers.”

 

I clinked glasses with her and popped a piece of sweet

 

potato. Unfathomable sweetness immediately spread throughout

 

the inside of my mouth. Of course they weren’t called

 

sweet potatoes for nothing, but this didn’t seem like an ordinary

 

amount of sugar to me.

 

“Pretty sweet, huh?” I said, letting my true impressions

 

show.

 

“Yep. I looove sweet stuff.”

 

“You don’t say.” I nodded and popped the next one in my

 

mouth. Yup. Sweet. Come to think of it, I hadn’t had any

 

breakfast that morning, so this was quite the convenient little

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 8

 

surprise. But hey, hadn’t Mikoko-chan said she didn’t like

 

sweet stuff before? It seemed to me like she may or may not

 

have said that at one point. I couldn’t seem to remember.

 

Well, whatever.

 

She was a girl, after all. You know how fickle they can be.

 

Within five minutes, the sweet potatoes had been completely

 

consumed.

 

“Mikoko-chan, you’re pretty good at cooking and stuff,

 

huh?”

 

“Yep. It’s because I was a latchkey kid.”

 

“What’s a . . . latchkey kid?”

 

“Uhh, it means a kid who’s home alone a lot. Kids whose

 

parents both work have to bring a house key with them to

 

school, right?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Um, because if nobody’s home, the door is going to be

 

locked, right?” she continued, looking rather perplexed. “So

 

that’s why they call them latchkey kids.”

 

“Oh . . . I get it.”

 

I broke my eye contact with Mikoko-chan and stared up at

 

the ceiling to hide my facial expression.

 

Well how about that, I thought. So households like that

 

exist.

 

“Ikkun, did I say something wrong?”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

“You’re making a really weird face right now.”

 

She didn’t sound so much worried as nervous, almost

 

frightened, even. I shook my head and said, “No, it’s nothing.”

 

Yup, nothing at all. Why should something like that bother

 

me?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 1 9 9

 

“So should we really go now? Where do you want to go?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You wanted to go shopping, right? I think that’s what you

 

said. Shinkyôgoku? Kyoto Station? Or do you want to go all

 

the way to Osaka?”

 

“Oh. Umm. Umm.”

 

She started to get flustered, as if she hadn’t even thought

 

about it. Her eyes darted around looking for something or

 

someone to save her, but ultimately looked back at me and

 

said, “Uh, a-anywhere is fine.”

 

What did that mean?

 

“You can’t mean that. You’re the one doing the shopping.”

 

“There isn’t any place in particular you want to go with

 

me?”

 

“There isn’t really anything I need. Living in a room like

 

this, I only have space to buy things you can throw out quick.

 

It wouldn’t make any sense to go shopping. Not that I’m

 

against nonsense. There just really isn’t anything I need to

 

buy. What is it you wanted to buy?”

 

“Uh, well, you know, clothes and stuff.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“And I want to eat somewhere.”

 

“Well, then I guess Kawara-machi’s the way to go.”

 

“Okay,” she said.

 

I may not be the assertive type, but Mikoko-chan might

 

have been even worse. Why did I have to decide where she

 

would go shopping? Of course, such questions were pointless.

 

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, and we left the room together. We

 

walked for a bit until arriving at the Senbon Nakadachiuri bus

 

stop, where we stood and waited for the Shijôkawara-machi

 

bus. Within five minutes, the 46 line bus had arrived. We got

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 0

 

on and found a lucky pair of empty seats. We sat down with

 

me on the inside and her beside me.

 

“By the way, you came on your Vespa, right?”

 

“Yeah, my Vespa. My Vespa,” she said, looking a bit nervous.

 

It seemed my previous anger had left a strong impression

 

on her. I wondered if I might have gone too far last time, but

 

there are times when even I can’t hold back my emotions.

 

In fact, it happens a lot.

 

“So you’ll have to come back to get it . . .”

 

“It’s okay. As long as I take the bus, the price is the same!

 

It’s a flat fare within city limits!”

 

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

 

“So you’re not planning to buy a car or scooter or anything?”

 

“Nah. Things aren’t particularly inconvenient without

 

one.”

 

“Hmm . . .” She nodded ambiguously. “Tomo-chan was the

 

same way. She had a license, but she didn’t have any wheels.

 

She said she just wanted to use it as a proof of identification.”

 

“Yeah, that’s basically what I’m doing.”

 

“I see. Maybe everyone’s like that. But I want to start driving

 

once I get my license.”

 

Come to think of it, I did seem to remember her saying

 

something about going to driving school and getting her dad to

 

buy her a car once she had a license.

 

“I drive on occasion too,” I said. “Sometimes I borrow

 

Miiko-san’s car.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

The instant I brought up Miiko-san, Mikoko-chan’s

 

expression grew terribly bored. By this point, even I had come

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 1

 

to learn that Mikoko-chan wasn’t someone with whom you

 

could have a good conversation about Miiko-san.

 

“Wow, so Tomo-chan had a license too.”

 

“Yup. For what it’s worth.”

 

“I see. Hey, by the way, did you go to school yesterday and

 

the day before?”

 

“Yup. Didn’t see you there, for some reason.”

 

That was because I didn’t go to school yesterday and the

 

day before. With those documents from Kunagisa in hand, I

 

had a lot of things to think about. It wasn’t that my role as a

 

student was my lowest priority or anything, but it wasn’t my

 

top one either.

 

“I met up with Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan, though. I

 

talked to them about the idea of having an event in Tomochan’s

 

honor. You’ve got to come out when we do it.”

 

For a moment, for just a single instant, I hesitated. “Yeah,

 

for sure. Be sure to invite me,” I replied. I couldn’t tell if I was

 

genuinely agreeing, or if I was just saying that because I was

 

on the spot. Knowing my personality, it was more likely the

 

latter, but in this particular case, just maybe it was the former.

 

We arrived in Shijôkawara-machi and got off the bus.

 

“Ooookay! Today, we get crazy!” she declared, stretching

 

out both her arms. And then she flashed me the most beautiful,

 

awe-inspiring, liberated smile I had ever seen in my life.

 

“Say good-bye to the dark stuff. Today we’re having fun!

 

Right, Ikkun?!”

 

“Yes, that is correct.”

 

“Yeah! Mikoko-chan, full speed ahead!”

 

For the next six hours, Mikoko-chan did just as she’d

 

declared, running around Shinkyôgoku from one end to the

 

other, almost as if she really had forgotten about Tomo-chan.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 2

 

Skipping and hopping around.

 

Frolicking about.

 

Vanquishing evil.

 

Going wild.

 

Joking around.

 

Almost crazily.

 

Almost like she was broken.

 

Almost like shad had somehow faded.

 

Like she had melted away.

 

Dancing madly.

 

Flying about.

 

Spiraling.

 

Like she was scrambling for something.

 

Like something was holding her back.

 

Like she was on a self-abusive binge, and yet still somehow

 

mistakable for a pixie.

 

Like an innocent child, utterly free of sin.

 

A wholly pure existence.

 

Freely expressing her emotions—laughing, losing her

 

temper, and at times even lamenting with watery eyes, only to

 

return once again to that joyful smile.

 

Even I, even I, just some guy who happened to be there.

 

Me, Mr. Damaged Goods.

 

Or perhaps she had already made up her mind to confront

 

her destiny. For me, the one who couldn’t save her—no, who

 

didn’t save her—this was nothing more than an excuse, but I

 

still couldn’t help wondering.

 

Was she already aware of her fate?

 

“Wow, time just flies by, doesn’t it? I can’t believe it.”

 

“Well, it’s like Einstein said. There’s a world of different

 

between a minute spent with a pretty girl and a minute spent

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 3

 

with your hand on a stove,” I said, as if Einstein were an old

 

friend of mine.

 

“Huh?!” Mikoko-chan said with a look of pure triumph.

 

“Could it be? Are you saying you think that I’m pretty?”

 

“Well, I don’t suppose I’d deny it,” I said, simply for the

 

sake of the conversation. If there was one thing today had

 

taught me, it was that giving her too direct of a response

 

would result in me getting dragged into something unnecessary.

 

I currently had three paper shopping bags in my right

 

hand, two in my left, and two plastic bags on my back. They

 

were mostly filled with clothes, so none of it was all that

 

heavy, but it sure was a shock to see Mikoko-chan throw her

 

ten-thousand-yen bills away one after another. Kunagisa was a

 

big shopper too, but in her case it was all online from home,

 

so the reality of seeing someone splurging this heavily right

 

before my eyes was a fairly fresh experience for me.

 

“Well, then . . . should we eat something and then go

 

back?”

 

“Yeah, yeah! Wowww!”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m so happy you asked me!” she said with a big grin.

 

She was really hyper today. Why was she so damn happy?

 

From there, we went into a place in Kiya-machi that was

 

sort of a cross between a Japanese-style pub and a coffee shop.

 

The interior was decorated to look like a prison, with the staff

 

dressed in prisoner or policewoman costumes, but despite the

 

place’s peculiarities, the food and the prices were both decent.

 

I had come here once before with Miiko-san once, during

 

which we deemed it one of the top three restaurants in town,

 

but that was probably the kind of thing I shouldn’t bother

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 4

 

telling Mikoko-chan. Aikawa-san would only take me to Japanese

 

bars that only served Japanese liquor, Kunagisa only ate

 

junk food, and pretty much everyone else I knew was finicky.

 

If I really thought about it, having someone I could go to

 

places like this with was something to be cherished.

 

A (fake) policewoman showed us to our cell, where we sat

 

down.

 

“Would you care for something to drink?” she said.

 

Mikoko-chan ordered a cocktail, and I a glass of oolong tea.

 

“You really don’t drink, huh?”

 

“It’s kind of a policy. Like how Muimi-chan doesn’t smoke

 

in front of nonsmokers.”

 

“Haha, that’s right! You know, it was actually Tomo-chan

 

who asked her to stop. Tomo-chan rarely demanded anything

 

from her friends, so even Muimi-chan listened to her just like

 

that.”

 

“Come to think of it, she doesn’t seem the type to care

 

much about whether or not she’s disturbing others, normally.”

 

“Yeah, but you know, she said she’s quitting.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“It’ll be good for her health!” she said, sweeping away the

 

darkness about to form. At the same time, the drinks finally

 

arrived. The waitress placed the cocktail in front of me and

 

the oolong tea in front of Mikoko-chan. We ignored this for

 

the time being and placed our order.

 

“So you’ve been friends with Muimi-chan since elementary

 

school, huh?” I said.

 

“Yup. And even then she was a smoker.”

 

“And yet she’s pretty tall.”

 

“Yup. But I’ll bet she would’ve been even taller if she

 

hadn’t smoked.” Such a thing was virtually unimaginable.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 5

 

“You know, she used to be a bully. She reformed some time

 

during high school.”

 

“That’s pretty late.”

 

“She met Tomo-chan, and, well, some things happened.

 

You know, yadda yadda yadda.”

 

Some things.

 

Yeah, I’ll bet some things happened. They had certainly

 

spent enough time together.

 

“What about you?” I said.

 

“Hm?”

 

“You make it sound like Tomo-chan really had a big influence

 

on Muimi-chan, but what about you? And Akiharukun?”

 

She fell silent for a moment, then let out a deep sigh. “You

 

know, I always thought human relationships were all about

 

the long term,” she said. “You spend a long time getting to

 

know a person, and then one day you start to click. That’s

 

what I thought. But I was wrong. I was wrong, Ikkun. You

 

don’t need to know somebody for a long time or to ‘click’ in

 

order to be drawn to a person.”

 

“Why do you think Tomo-chan was killed?”

 

“H . . . how would I know something like that?” She hung

 

her head down. “There was no reason Tomo-chan had to die.

 

There wasn’t a single possible reason for killing her.”

 

“I think the reason people kill one another is actually quite

 

simple,” I said, ignoring her. “Interference. If some factor is interfering

 

with your life, the logical next step is to try and weed

 

it out. It’s just like kicking stones off a railway track.”

 

“But Tomo-chan—“

 

“Yup, Tomo-chan made it a point never to overstep people’s

 

boundaries or be invasive. In other words, there was no

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 6

 

reason for her to have been considered an interference to anybody.

 

She was too far out of range to begin with.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“To put it another way, she wasn’t even in a position to

 

become the object of somebody’s ill will or enmity or malice.

 

Thus, there was no reason for somebody to kill her. She

 

wasn’t disturbing anybody.”

 

You’re only living,

 

and that’s causing

 

disturbance to others.

 

“But it’s not that simple. I mean, Tomo-chan wasn’t some

 

hermit living in the forests of Mount Fuji. She was a normal

 

university student, living a normal university student’s life. As

 

such, she had to form personal relationships, whether she

 

liked it or not. Now let me pose you a question, Mikoko-chan,

 

and please answer with your own opinion. What does it mean

 

to form a personal relationship?”

 

“Umm . . .” she said, seeming a bit perplexed. “Well, I can’t

 

say for sure, but it’s like getting close to somebody, I think.”

 

“Yes, that’s right. That’s absolutely right, Mikoko-chan.

 

Now if you were to go and rephrase that, it essentially means

 

‘choosing somebody.’ But let’s think about that for a minute.

 

To choose someone means to not choose somebody else. The

 

act of ‘choosing’ and the act of ‘not choosing’ are just opposite

 

sides of the same coin. I’m not talking about things like how

 

you can only have one best friend or one lover. Such dilemmas

 

are irrelevant here. What I’m talking about is that it’s logically

 

impossible for a human being to be liked by everyone, to be

 

able to get close to anybody he or she hasn’t chosen.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 7

 

“Hmm . . . It may be hard—to be liked by everyone, I

 

mean—but I don’t think it’s impossible. Maybe not everyone

 

in the world, but I think it’s at least possible with the people

 

directly surrounding you.”

 

“I don’t think it is. That’s what I believe. People aren’t all

 

as kind as you think. There are monsters out there who only

 

view other people as subjects to be dissected. There are blue

 

things that can only process the world in terms of zeros and

 

ones. There are Mankind’s Greatest ladies who are cynical

 

about everything in the whole world, not to mention other

 

people. There are fortune-tellers who have seen all hope and

 

all despair in the entire world and still go on sneering away.

 

Artists who view their very existence—not to mention the existence

 

of others—as nothing more than elements in her style.

 

There are even people who can only accept human beings as

 

either good or evil.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Now don’t you think Tomo-chan’s awareness of this was

 

the reason she chose to avoid forming deep relationships with

 

people? She was trying to make as few enemies as possible.”

 

“Tomo-chan wasn’t . . . that kind of girl,” Mikoko-chan

 

said, fading in and out, but I mostly didn’t hear her. It seemed

 

she knew herself that such a claim had no basis. “But even if

 

that was true, the fact remains that she was killed.”

 

“You’re right. Tomo-chan made sure never to fall in too

 

deep with anybody, and yet at the same time, she showed superb

 

skill in not letting it show.”

 

It was the very thing I was incapable of.

 

No matter how hard I tried.

 

“But despite all that, she was murdered anyway. Tomochan

 

was murdered. Now at this point, Mikoko-chan, let’s

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 8

 

take a look at this serial killer who’s become such a sensation

 

as of late. This guy is an indiscriminate murderer. Just falling

 

into his field of vision or, conversely, not falling into his field

 

of vision, just happening to bump him on the shoulder, or

 

even not bumping him on the shoulder is enough of a reason

 

for him to kill you. He kills mechanically. Automatically. For a

 

killer like that, even Tomo-chan is a possible target. Even I

 

am.”

 

“So then Tomo-chan was killed by the slasher?”

 

“Apparently not. According to Sasaki-san—that detective, I

 

mean. Apparently, that’s the one thing that they know for

 

sure. Now then, if I might change the subject a little bit, let

 

me ask you this: Haven’t you ever thought there were just too

 

many people in the world?”

 

Taken aback by the suddenness of my question, she looked

 

away. Nevertheless, I silently waited for her answer.

 

“But that doesn’t mean you can just kill people,” she said.

 

“Ikkun, could you ever forgive someone for murder?”

 

“No,” I answered without hesitation. “It’s not a matter of

 

forgiving or not forgiving. There’s a far more fundamental

 

issue. That is, the fact that murder is the absolute worst thing.

 

That I can confirm. The desire to take a life is the most despicable

 

human emotion. To hope and pray and wish for another

 

person’s death is a hopelessly evil act. It is a sin beyond redemption.

 

It’s an atrocity beyond apology, and I’ll be damned

 

if it has anything to do with forgiveness.”

 

My voice was so rigid and merciless, I didn’t even sound

 

like me.

 

Complete nonsense.

 

Who was really the hopeless one here?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 0 9

 

“Anybody who’s taken a life belongs in Hell, without exception.”

 

“B . . . but . . .” She gulped in terror at my bold declaration,

 

but managed to muster up an objection nevertheless. “Like,

 

what if the person was in danger? Like what if you were walking

 

around Kamogawa Park at night, and then this Kyoto

 

prowler guy came at you with a knife? Would you just sit

 

there and let him kill you?”

 

“No, I suppose I would resist.”

 

“Right?”

 

“You’re right. And I might even use too much force and

 

accidentally kill him. The same thing goes for me as goes for

 

everyone else. But I would also realize in that moment, when

 

I’m taking somebody else’s in order to preserve my own—I

 

would realize my own sinfulness. I would acknowledge that

 

I’m guilty of a sin so deep that it won’t even be forgiven when

 

I’m dead.”

 

“But you were going to be killed! It’s only natural to defend

 

yourself in a situation like that, right?”

 

“If you start thinking like that, you’ve already committed

 

the sin. Let’s make one thing clear right now,” I said sternly. “I

 

am capable of murder.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Whether it be for my own sake or for someone else’s, I

 

could slaughter another human being. I could eradicate another

 

life, whether it be a friend or a family member. Why do

 

you think that is?”

 

“Why? I don’t know,” she said anxiously. “I don’t think

 

that’s true. You’re a kind guy. I don’t think you could do

 

those things.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 0

 

“I can. Without a doubt. The reason is that I can’t comprehend

 

other people’s pain.”

 

“. . .”

 

“For example, I have a certain female friend who lacks

 

most of the basic human emotions. She’s always super-happy,

 

having fun no matter what she’s doing, but that’s only because

 

she doesn’t know any other emotion. As a result, she can

 

barely comprehend when other people get sad or angry.”

 

It was the only way she could process the world. Never

 

able to distinguish between paradise and paradise lost.

 

“I’m the same way. No, I’m much worse. I can’t understand

 

the pain of others even a little bit. Why? Because I

 

myself can’t properly interpret my own feelings of ‘pain’ or

 

‘suffering.’ The thought of dying doesn’t even bother me. It’s

 

not that I want to die, but my will to resist it is abnormally

 

low. And thus this leads to what I was saying.

 

“There are a variety of ‘stoppers’ that prevent people from

 

killing one another. One of the most vital ones is having

 

thoughts like, ‘Gee, this probably hurts,’ or ‘Man, I feel sorry

 

for this guy.’ Isn’t that right? It is. For example, I’m sure

 

you’ve gotten the urge to hurt somebody before, right? But

 

you probably didn’t actually beat the crap out of them or

 

anything, did you?”

 

“Mm. I’ve never hit someone before.”

 

“But I’ll bet you’ve wanted to before, right?”

 

She didn’t answer. This was the clearest confirmation she

 

could’ve given. But this was no crime. Nobody can go through

 

life without ever harboring ill will toward someone, even if

 

you’re up in Heaven.

 

“I guess basically I’m talking about an ability to feel empathy.

 

You understand the other person’s emotions, you feel

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 1

 

mercy for them, and you conform to them. Of course, this

 

isn’t always a good thing. Jealousy and envy both have empathy

 

at their root. An understanding of another person’s

 

emotions. It’s both a merit and a demerit.”

 

And if, like the woman on that island, you knew everyone’s

 

emotions, all you could do was break down.

 

“But let’s not wax philosophical about loss and gain, here,”

 

I said. “The point here is that I don’t have these ‘stoppers.’ I

 

can’t make head or tail of people’s emotions. As a result, I

 

have to suppress myself. Doing so proves to be incredibly agonizing.

 

It’s not even funny. But somehow I’ve managed to

 

keep the demons down.”

 

I had some nerve, living life while harboring such a monster

 

within myself.

 

“Ikkun . . .”

 

“I could reach my limit any day now. And that is why I

 

can’t forgive a murderer. How could I? The very existence of a

 

murderer is detestable. Deplorable. I hate all murderers from

 

the bottom of my heart. I hate them heartily. I think I’d like

 

to crush them all.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Just kidding, I don’t think that at all,” I said.

 

Our food arrived. Mikoko-chan ordered more alcohol, and

 

I a glass of water. We sat for a while eating our food in silence.

 

“Say, Ikkun . . .”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Why are you telling me all this stuff?” she said, suspiciously.

 

It had been such a fun day.

 

Silently, I shook my head. It was no doubt a terribly cold

 

gesture. “I just figured you might want to hear it. Was I

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 2

 

wrong? No, right? And, well, I wanted you to know the extent

 

to which I was damaged goods.”

 

“Damaged goods? How can you say such a terrible thing?

 

And about yourself!”

 

“It’s because it’s about myself that I can say it. If I’m not

 

damaged goods, then I’m at least a human failure. Don’t you

 

think? Actually, people tell me that a lot. Anyone who’s

 

grown even slightly close to me has said so. ‘You’re out of

 

your mind,’ they say. ‘Abnormal.’ ‘A heretic.’ ‘Grotesque.’

 

‘Shoddy.’ And those are all correct.”

 

“Ikkun . . .” Mikoko-chan said nervously. “You sound like

 

you’re headed for suicide.”

 

“I won’t commit suicide. I promised.”

 

“You . . . promised?”

 

“Yeah. To the first person I killed.”

 

A pause.

 

I popped a cube of steak in my mouth. “Just kidding,” I

 

said. “Un fortunately, my life isn’t that exciting. And I’m not

 

romantic enough to make such an incredible promise. I’m just

 

an ordinary guy who’s missing some vital component. The

 

actual reason I won’t commit suicide is that, well, it just looks

 

bad. You know, like I’m running from my own flaws. Of

 

course, I am running from my flaws, but I don’t want to look

 

like I am.”

 

“Ikkun, I know you’re not like other people, but . . . if you

 

killed yourself, I would cry. I know I would. Forget about

 

what you’re missing. You’re living a normal life, aren’t you?”

 

“Broken things can be fixed. Things that are simply inadequate

 

can’t.”

 

Mikoko-chan let out a deep sigh. “It’s like I’m talking to

 

Tomo-chan.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 3

 

“Hmm? Did she talk about this kind of thing a lot?”

 

“Well, not really. I mean, she didn’t open up to people that

 

much. But if we ever had a ‘real’ conversation, I’m sure it

 

would’ve been something like this.”

 

“In that case . . .”

 

In that case, it was truly regrettable. I felt all the more like

 

I should have had a serious talk with Emoto Tomoe.

 

If I had . . . if I had?

 

What if I had?

 

Who would have been saved? Did I actually think she

 

might have been saved? As if.

 

Rather, wasn’t it because we had talked that she had . . .

 

“You know, about Tomo-chan,” I said without looking up

 

at Mikoko-chan. “I don’t think she would resent the person

 

who killed her. I’m sure she doesn’t, not even a little bit.”

 

“. . . Why do you think that?”

 

“Eh, just a hunch. No other reason. But that’s what I think.

 

I’m sure she’s not the type to resent others.”

 

I even had the gall to use present tense instead of past.

 

Present tense.

 

“Of course, they say she was strangled from behind, so she

 

probably didn’t even see the killer’s face. I don’t suppose she

 

could have resented the killer even if she wanted to, I said.

 

“The killer’s . . . face . . .” Mikoko-chan repeated. “The person

 

who killed her . . .”

 

“But Tomo-chan probably wouldn’t have had any interest

 

in something like that anyway. I mean, no matter who kills

 

you, the outcome is the same. In the end, being killed is nothing

 

more than just that. The fact that you die doesn’t change,

 

no matter whose fault it is. Plus, Tomo-chan was like me—she

 

had little resistance to the idea of death in the first place. I can

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 4

 

say this with a fair degree of certainty. She didn’t seem to like

 

herself very much. She told me so that day. She wants to be

 

reborn as you.”

 

Hearing that, Mikoko-chan looked like she was about to

 

cry. She managed to hold back the tears, but she continued

 

speaking Tomo-chan’s name softly to herself for some time.

 

“Tomo-chan . . . Tomo-chan . . . Tomo-chan.”

 

I watched this, unmoved. Honestly, truly, completely

 

without emotion.

 

“Mikoko-chan, who do you think did it?”

 

“You know, you sure do seem hung up on that,” she said

 

with just a hint of suspicion. “Have you been investigating or

 

something?”

 

“Yes,” I answered honestly. “Well, not so much investigating

 

as wanting to know. I want to meet whoever did it. I

 

want to ask some questions. Or rather, I want to interrogate

 

this person. You know, like, ‘Can you justify your own existence?’

 

”

 

“Ikkun,” Mikoko-chan said, “You’re really scary, aren’t

 

you?”

 

“Am I? I personally don’t think so, but maybe I am.”

 

“You apply your own rules to other people. I don’t know

 

how to describe it. It’s like while you view yourself as one part

 

of the world, you view all people as like . . . the world’s gears.

 

No, not gears. If a gear goes missing, the whole machine

 

breaks down, but you don’t care if a person or two disappears.”

 

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

 

“I really don’t think you’re the kind of person who could

 

just kill someone, Ikkun. But I’ll bet you also don’t hesitate to

 

tell someone to die.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 5

 

“. . .”

 

“Am I right? I mean, asking the person who killed Tomochan

 

a question like that is the same as saying, ‘You don’t deserve

 

to live.’ It’s cruel. It’s so cruel. Ikkun, do you realize

 

that?”

 

“Yes,” I shot back. “I’m fully aware of that. I’m as aware of

 

my own sins and of my own nonsense-sputtering nature as I

 

am of the fact that I’m the one who belongs in the depths of

 

Hell. Someone once told me that most murders are the result

 

of a person ‘going too far’ or ‘using too much force,’ but in my

 

case, I’m fully capable of fully premeditated murder. I’m one

 

of the rare, deplorable breed of people who can take a life

 

without any need for self-approval or self-deception or selfdenial

 

or self-satisfaction.”

 

“You sure are self-hating, though.”

 

“I’m a masochist,” I said casually. “And an extremely nasty

 

one, at that. But that’s my way, my style, my assertion. And I

 

have no intention of giving that up.”

 

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

 

She looked a bit sad.

 

It was as if she were looking at somebody in the distance.

 

Somebody who was already gone.

 

An ephemeral, painful gaze.

 

Her expression.

 

Her aura.

 

Surely it was because she never hid her emotions, nor even

 

tried to do so.

 

I could understand.

 

I could comprehend.

 

It almost felt like I had gone and understood somebody’s

 

feelings.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 6

 

“But that’s . . .” she said.

 

This was, among other things:

 

A feeling of affection.

 

A lovely presence.

 

An utterance of sentiment.

 

A truly aloof air.

 

A truly casual aura.

 

A singular impossibility.

 

An inability to remain apathetic.

 

A dazzling nightmare.

 

A feeling like reality itself would distort and collapse.

 

I desired a partner. I faced my partner.

 

The pleasure of being beaten down.

 

The pleasure of being run through.

 

The ecstasy of being dismembered.

 

Cut into little bits and pieces.

 

A vital component-stealing,

 

Heart-clutching,

 

Mind-penetrating

 

Smile.

 

“That’s the Ikkun I love,” she said.

 

A single, thuggish-looking person was crouched down in front

 

of my apartment. I approached closer, wondering who it could

 

be, only to discover (as half-expected, I suppose) that it was

 

Aikawa-san. Her hairstyle had changed a bit since Wednesday,

 

suggesting she had gotten it cut. It was a slick style like the

 

kind celebrities sometimes get, where the bangs in front form

 

a perfectly straight line above the brow. With her already

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 7

 

extraordinary proportions, the new hairstyle made her look

 

even more like a model. If only she hadn’t been squatting like

 

some high school thug.

 

“Yo,” she said upon noticing me. She stood up and came to

 

greet me. She had a heartless, somehow catlike sneer on her

 

face. “So how was your date?”

 

“You were watching us?”

 

“I just spotted you in Shinkyôgoku. So I came here to make

 

fun of you.”

 

“I . . . see.”

 

How much free time did this woman have? I was amazed.

 

She was completely ungraspable. There was no way to guess

 

what she might do next. A wily phantom of a woman.

 

“So you cut your hair, huh? Looking for a change of pace?”

 

“To be more accurate, I got it cut,” she said as she tweaked

 

her bangs.

 

“Well, yeah, I suppose.”

 

“Yup. Like this”—flick—“with a survival knife. If I had

 

dodged a second later, I wouldn’t have my left eye anymore. I

 

gotta admit, even I was scared.”

 

She must have gone to the worst hairstylist ever.

 

“I figure I might keep it short for a while. What do you

 

think? Does it work?”

 

“Aikawa-san, any hairstyle would look good on you. You’re

 

a beautiful woman.”

 

“Aw, you’re too sweet. But how many goddamn times do I

 

have to tell you not to call me by my last name?”

 

She put me in a headlock and noogied my brains out

 

before letting me go again. Then she flashed me that wicked

 

smile.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 8

 

You couldn’t hold anything against this woman. If you did,

 

you’d never get away with it.

 

“So? How was your date? What’s going on with that

 

younger girl? Hmm? Hmm? Come on, talk to me. If you’ve

 

got a problem, I can give you advice.”

 

“I think you’ve got it all wrong, er, Jun-san. She’s just one

 

of the people involved in this murder case.”

 

“Hmm? Oh. Really. Then . . . by any chance was it Aoii

 

Mikoko?” I nodded. Her face went blank. “Hmm,” she said. “I

 

see. Well, either way, I guess if you’re already back at this

 

hour, you don’t have much of a chance.”

 

Incidentally, it was eleven o’clock.

 

Mikoko-chan had imbibed a ridiculous amount of alcohol,

 

with all the inevitable consequences. She passed out in the

 

middle of the restaurant. I hoisted her onto my back and took

 

her all the way back to Horikawa Oike, entered her apartment,

 

put her to bed, locked up, and took the bus back home.

 

This time she didn’t look like she was fake-sleeping.

 

“Too bad, young’un. Want me to console you?” she teased

 

with genuine amusement.

 

“I’m telling you, it’s not like that . . . and more important”—I

 

decided to change the subject before I had another

 

annoyance to deal with —“so about this hairdresser who did

 

your bangs—was it Zerozaki, by any chance?”

 

“. . .”

 

Her facial expression distorted.

 

And became one of sheet delight.

 

“Yeah. Hell of a kid, lemme tell you. Still only a secondrate

 

killer, but as a knife wielder, he’s as good as they come.

 

He knows exactly how a human has to move which muscles

 

for maximum speed. And take a look at this,” she said, rolling

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 1 9

 

up her right sleeve. Her arm was wrapped in white bandages,

 

stained with crimson blood from underneath. “And he walked

 

away with hardly a scratch. Seriously, that’s one hell of a kid. I

 

guess he’s living up to the ‘Zerozaki’ name.”

 

“. . . Is he even tougher than you?”

 

“It’s not a matter of tough or weak. In terms of sheet

 

strength, I’m proud to say I’m several tiers above him. I’ll

 

admit that he is frighteningly quick, but he’s still a hundred

 

years too slow to deal with me.”

 

Aikawa-san, ever the narcissist. The possessor of unrivaled

 

confidence.

 

“Still, when he’s dead set on escaping, he’s really something.

 

He was unexpectedly calm too. As a homicidal monster,

 

I figured he’d be a little more hot-blooded. But he was

 

just like you said.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“He’s identical to you. I can’t exactly put my finger on one

 

specific similarity, but he’s just like you,” she said, her voice

 

full of cynicism. “The sick masochistic freak and the sick

 

sadistic freak. It’s a match made in freaking Heaven.”

 

“So in other words . . .” I said, choosing my words as carefully

 

as was humanly possible, “Er, in other words, you found

 

Zerozaki and you let him get away?”

 

“Hmm?!” She grinned creepily and pinched both of my

 

cheeks. “I’m sorry, did I just hear something come out of this

 

mouth right here? Huh? What was that? Aikawa Jun is just

 

some girl who likes to go around bluffing about herself, you

 

say?”

 

“No, I didn’t mean that. First of all, there’s no way you still

 

pass for a ‘girl’ . . .”

 

Squeeze.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 2 0

 

Huh. Who knew the elasticity of a human cheek was so

 

high?

 

“Eh, I guess you’re right,” she said, suddenly releasing my

 

face. She scratched the top of her head with a bored expression.

 

“I guess I’ve still got some things to learn. Oh, I wonder

 

if that tattoo face is still in Kyoto.”

 

“If I were Zerozaki, I definitely would’ve fled to another

 

prefecture.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” she said, slumping her shoulders. “Oh,

 

what a hassle. Not that I had any intention of letting him get

 

away.”

 

Seeing the icy cold look in her eyes as she said this, I

 

couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Zerozaki after all.

 

Aikawa-san looked pretty damn persistent.

 

“Well, I’m done bothering ya,” she said. She stretched out

 

her back and began to leave. Evidently she had come on foot

 

today instead of in the Cobra. “Or rather, I’m done trying and

 

failing to bother you. Well, whichever. Good night. Let’s both

 

have sweet dreams.”

 

“Jun-san. Can I ask you something?” I said to her back.

 

“What?”

 

“Could you forgive a murderer?”

 

“Huh? What kind of question is that? Is this some sort of

 

metaphor?”

 

“Eh, well, to say it more directly . . . do you think it’s okay

 

for one person to kill another?”

 

“Yup, I do.” She answered immediately and firmly. “People

 

who are supposed to die should die. Heh heh,” she laughed

 

cynically. “Like let’s say you kill me. Just relax, dammit. The

 

world goes on,” she continued coolly, then waved a hand at

 

me and disappeared from view.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 2 1

 

Geez.

 

“. . .”

 

If only I could be so defiant. So filled to the brim with

 

cynicism. How wonderful it would be.

 

“I really am half-baked.”

 

I was sick of myself.

 

Not just sick, disgusted.

 

“But either way, Aikawa-san, it’s all just nonsense.”

 

I went inside my apartment building and managed to make

 

it to my door without running into anyone. I reached into my

 

pocket to get my key when I felt a foreign object inside. I

 

pulled it out and took a look.

 

It was Mikoko-chan’s apartment key.

 

“. . .”

 

In order to get her back inside, I had taken it out of her bag

 

without asking her. I couldn’t just leave the door unlocked, so

 

I had borrowed the key to lock up. At first I considered dropping

 

the key through the mail slot, but it was attached to the

 

same key ring as the Vespa key, so I ended up bringing it

 

home, deciding to just drop it off tomorrow along with the

 

Vespa. It wasn’t like I just wanted an excuse to try out the

 

Vespa.

 

“Besides, the Vespa and the key aren’t the only things I

 

have to drop off.”

 

I might have been antisocial, clueless, and kind of a big

 

jerk, but spending that much time face-to-face with someone,

 

you couldn’t just ignore them.

 

Aoii Mikoko.

 

“I remember, Mikoko-chan.”

 

I entered my room and lay down on the floor without even

 

bothering to set out the futon.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTI CIST ■■■ 2 2 2

 

It was my first day of college after coming back from that

 

ridiculous island. I didn’t know right from left in regards to

 

the Japanese schooling system, and it was Mikoko-chan who

 

was the first one to strike up a conversation with me.

 

“Nice to meet you! Is there anything you don’t understand?”

 

She was beaming with friendliness. This was the caring

 

gesture of a girl looking out for a classmate who had gotten a

 

late start.

 

I was horribly irritated. And just a little grateful. Because

 

somewhere in that bright, innocent aura, echoed a slight resemblance

 

to that precious friend of mine.

 

This is a real masterpiece,” I said like Zerozaki Hitoshiki,

 

and closed my eyes.

 

No thinking about tomorrow.

 

No thinking about the case.

 

No thinking about the prowler.

 

No thinking about private contractors or my one and only

 

friend.

 

I didn’t want to think about anything anymore.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 2 4

 

I’m begging you, please stop getting my hopes up.

 

“I’ll be back tomorrow. Around twelve. You’ll have your answer

 

then.”

 

That was the note I had left for Mikoko-chan on her tea

 

table. Getting to Horikawa Oike took less than ten minutes by

 

Vespa, so I still had an abundance of time.

 

I awoke at eight in the morning. I did a little jogging to kill

 

some time, and after that I regretted it. Miiko-san invited me

 

to breakfast, so I went to her place and was fed. It wasn’t just

 

Japanese-style food, but full-blown Buddhist vegetarian cuisine.

 

As a result, the flavor left something to be desired, but

 

there was certainly a lot of it, so it at least took the edge off

 

my hunger.

 

“Well, I have to go to work,” she said around ten o’clock,

 

and left her apartment.

 

I returned to my own room to kill more time. I tried playing

 

a game of Eight Queens, just as I had done earlier, but my

 

brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly, and I gave up by

 

the fifth queen. I moved on to the Cannibals and Missionaries

 

problem, but again I got sick of it midway through. If only I

 

had owned a computer; I could have passed the time playing

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 2 5

 

video games. Maybe it was time I went and got one from

 

Kunagisa. But then again, it didn’t seem like a great idea to

 

decrease the amount of space in my room just for the sake of

 

having a way to kill time. Besides, time passes just the same,

 

whether you kill it or not. And like I had said to Mikoko-chan,

 

I didn’t particularly dislike being bored, and I was plenty used

 

to waiting.

 

. . .

 

As any child won over by shallow wit is oft to do, I read

 

The Little Prince at a very young age. I didn’t get it. The people

 

around me at that time told me, “You’ll get it when you’re a

 

grown-up.” Recently I had recalled this and tried reading

 

through it once again. I still didn’t get it.

 

“Zerozaki’s gone from Kyoto . . . there’s no way to contact

 

Aikawa-san . . . and Kunagisa’s a shut-in.”

 

I truly didn’t have a single normal acquaintance. Of course,

 

I never particularly wanted one. Still, sometimes it occurred to

 

me. I was just a single, lonely guy trying to live, but rotting

 

away in a cage instead.

 

“It’s a hopeless situation.”

 

In the end, there was no way for a guy like me, just a single

 

character in this great big world, to view my situation with

 

any kind of bird’s-eye perspective. Especially when, as

 

Aikawa-san had said, I wasn’t the main character or even a

 

supporting character, but merely the comic relief. I was just

 

sitting off in some corner away from the world, clumsily

 

babbling about the story.

 

And something this factual couldn’t even be written off as

 

self-deprecation.

 

“Well, I suppose I’ll get going.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 226

 

The time was currently eleven o’clock. It was still way

 

early, but I doubted I could be faulted for showing up ahead

 

of time. With that in mind, I left my apartment and made my

 

way out to the parking lot. I started up the vintage Vespa’s

 

engine and put on the helmet. It was the stylish, half-size

 

number Mikoko-chan had left in my room the previous day.

 

There was nothing I could do to make it suit me, but the size

 

was right, so it would at least uphold its role as a helmet, for

 

what that was worth.

 

Blast off! I rode down Senbon Street and turned east on

 

Maruta-machi Street. I broke east again onto Horikawa Street

 

and rode the Vespa straight ahead from there.

 

The sweet sensation of slicing through the wind. I could

 

almost forget about the fact that I was alive.

 

As expected, I reached Oike within ten minutes. I parked

 

the Vespa in the apartment’s underground parking lot and

 

locked it up, exited the lot, and walked around to the front of

 

the building.

 

“Did I really waste over an hour here last time?”

 

It was a pretty embarrassing memory. My brain had a

 

knack for remembering only this kind of thing. I guess the best

 

thing I could do was learn from these memories and not

 

repeat the same mistakes.

 

This time I entered the building without stopping. I gave a

 

quick greeting to the security camera and entered the elevator.

 

At this point.

 

At this point, I still hadn’t thought of anything.

 

How to reply to her confession.

 

What words I could use to respond to her affection.

 

I hadn’t thought of anything.

 

“Just kidding.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 2 7

 

In reality I had made up my mind long ago. I only had one

 

word to say to her. There was nothing to deliberate over. If

 

you thought about the kind of person I was and the kind of

 

person Mikoko-chan was and added them together, an answer

 

would emerge naturally, just like a mathematic equation. Of

 

course, reality never turns out like an equation. It’s more like

 

trying to figure out if the last digit in pi is odd or even. Meanwhile,

 

I was standing at the height of stupidity, off in outer

 

space with my equations and formulae and calculations, trying

 

to find the area of a triangle by multiplying the height and

 

dividing by two.

 

I was the kind of person who changed his opinion in the

 

end anyway, no matter what he had decided, so what I

 

thought about now was essentially irrelevant.

 

I got off the elevator on the fourth floor and walked down

 

the hall.

 

“Room three, was it?”

 

My memory was fuzzy, but that sounded right. I wondered

 

if she was awake yet. She certainly didn’t seem like she was

 

the kind of person who had low blood pressure and would

 

have trouble waking up, but considering how bad she was at

 

keeping time, I doubted she was much of an early riser.

 

I pushed the button on her intercom.

 

No reply.

 

It wasn’t simply that there was no reply through the intercom;

 

there was no reaction whatsoever. No noise coming from

 

the inside. Nothing.

 

“How odd . . .”

 

I pushed the button once again.

 

No change.

 

I couldn’t sense anyone moving about inside.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 2 8

 

Restless. Restless. Restless.

 

My heart throbbed.

 

My bodily functions grew abnormal.

 

I continued pushing the intercom button without speaking

 

a word.

 

Once, twice, three times, four times.

 

I quit counting after the fifth time.

 

I could feel it.

 

Not suspicion, but a premonition.

 

But closer still to precognition.

 

“It was like watching a nonstop stream of movies where

 

you already know the ending.”

 

Wasn’t that how that prophet had described it?

 

Like something you could never touch on the opposite side

 

of the boob tube.

 

Suddenly I understood her feelings, and I’d never even

 

wanted to.

 

Aoii Mikoko.

 

My classmate.

 

Always cheerful, sometimes sad.

 

The girl who said

 

She liked me.

 

Here now was an image.

 

A scene I had left behind somewhere.

 

A nostalgic view.

 

One that had been all too close to me for some time.

 

That I had forgotten somewhere along the way.

 

One that was unnecessary to recall.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 229

 

A terrible,

 

Detestable

 

View.

 

Death.

 

Nothingness.

 

. . . .

 

I mumbled a curse and opened the door to Mikoko-chan’s

 

room.

 

Aoii Mikoko was dead.

 

A brutal sight. A devastating sight.

 

I stood frozen in the center of Mikoko-chan’s room. It was

 

all I could bear to do.

 

I feel sick. I feel sick. I feel sick.

 

I feel sick. I feel sick. I feel sick.

 

I feel sick. I feel sick. I feel sick.

 

Eiffelzick.

 

I clutched my chest.

 

I was nauseous.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 0

 

It was like I had accidentally choked down some absolutely

 

undigestible object. My eyes fell on the bed. Mikoko-chan was

 

there, lying down.

 

Sleeping.

 

Could you call it sleeping?

 

Even supposing her body had ceased to function.

 

Supposing she had no pulse.

 

Supposing the hideous marks left by fabric remained

 

etched into her neck.

 

Supposing her eyes were never to open again.

 

Even then, there was no other term I cared to use.

 

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. I feel sick. I’m dizzy.

 

I’m dizzy. I’m dizzy. It’s spinning. It’s spinning. This is crazycrazycrazycrazy.

 

Or was it I who was crazy?

 

Right here, right now, I thought I might collapse.

 

My pulse was going wild.

 

It was hard to breathe.

 

It was hard to live.

 

I thought I might die.

 

The insides of my eyes were burning.

 

The inside of my heart was freezing.

 

I tried swallowing to calm myself, but to no avail. This was

 

agony. Agony. Agony.

 

“Aoii Mikoko was . . .” I said, as if making the announcement

 

to myself, “murdered.”

 

Whump.

 

I really did collapse, right there where I stood, right on my

 

rear end.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 1

 

I was used to people dying.

 

I was even used to people close to me dying.

 

Death was something close to me.

 

And still, this was agonizing. It hurt. It hurt too much.

 

It was excruciating.

 

I would probably never be able to forget this. To forget

 

Mikoko-chan’s “death itself” burning into my retinas the instant

 

I had entered the room. I would never forget her lifeless,

 

mindless corpse.

 

Somehow I managed to maintain consciousness. I shifted

 

my gaze back to Mikoko-chan’s body once more. She lay

 

faceup on the bed, her bloated, violet-hued face wrenched in

 

agony. Having known what her smile was like made this all

 

the more terrible.

 

She was no longer dressed in yesterday’s overalls. Now she

 

wore a snow-white bare shoulder top with a striking pants

 

skirt of the same white, but with more of a milky quality. I

 

stopped myself from thinking it looked like a burial outfit.

 

And then I remembered. This was one of the many outfits

 

Mikoko-chan bought during yesterday’s outing. It was the last

 

one she bought. She had tried it on and said, “How do I look?”

 

Finally tired of giving made-up answers, I looked at her and

 

said, “It’s a good match.”

 

It was that outfit.

 

When I had brought her home the previous night, naturally

 

I hadn’t made her change clothes. I just tossed her on the

 

bed with what she was wearing. This must have meant that

 

she had woken up later on and changed.

 

And then . . .

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 2

 

What had possessed her to put on this outfit? And who

 

was she waiting for? The power of my imagination was already

 

completely exhausted.

 

And then there were the red letters, right by her head.

 

x/y.

 

It was the exact same formula as the one we had found in

 

Tomoe-chan’s place.

 

“This has nonsense written all over it.”

 

I pulled out my cellular phone. I entered a number from

 

memory and sent it. She picked up on the first ring.

 

“Sasa here.”

 

“Hello . . .”

 

“Oh, it’s you,” Sasaki-san said before I had a chance to

 

announce my name. Apparently she could remember people

 

just by their voices. And we had only spoken once. If circumstances

 

hadn’t been what they were, I would’ve been impressed.

 

“What’s wrong? Did you remember something?”

 

She was cool and calm. This was somehow offensive. It

 

was objectionable. Objectionable.

 

“Sasaki-san, um, right, well . . . Aoii-san . . .”

 

“What’s that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Could you please

 

speak up a bit? What’s that about Aoii-san?”

 

“Well . . . she’s been murdered.”

 

Something changed on the other end of the receiver.

 

“Where are you now?”

 

“In Aoii-san’s apartment.”

 

“We’ll be there soon.”

 

Click. The phone cut off as abruptly as a human life. I stood

 

there with the phone held to my ear. Mikoko-chan remained

 

there in front of me.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 3

 

“Christ . . .” I said to her still body. It was a pointless act. It

 

was pointless and despicable. “What was I really planning to

 

tell you?”

 

Mikoko-chan.

 

There was no prospect of me getting rid of that nasty feeling

 

in the pit of my stomach. Not a chance.

 

The police burst into the apartment in less than ten minutes.

 

“Are you okay?” Sasaki-san embraced me. I must have

 

looked pretty damn miserable, because she seemed genuinely

 

concerned for me “Are you okay?” she repeated. Unable to

 

form a verbal answer, I simply raised an arm instead. She saw

 

this and gave a firm nod.

 

“Let’s get you out of her for now. Come on, hurry.”

 

Leaning on Sasaki-san’s shoulder, I was taken out of the

 

hallway. Police were filing in one after another from the elevator.

 

Hey, now. No Kazuhito-san. Hadn’t he come? Maybe

 

he was somewhere else, doing something else. Maybe, maybe

 

not.

 

“Ughhh . . .” My chest hurts. My chest hurts. My chest

 

hurts. “Ughhhh . . .”

 

I feel sick. I feel sick.

 

I really feel like I feel sick.

 

A discomfort, as if my chest were burning, like my insides

 

were being demolished, like something was raging inside my

 

guts, seeped into my blood and traveled throughout my whole

 

body.

 

It burns it burns it burns it burns.

 

The anguish was maddening.

 

Sasaki-san took me out of the building and helped me into

 

the rear seat of her Toyota Crown. She sat in the driver’s seat.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 4

 

“Have you settled down a bit?” she said, looking back at

 

me.

 

I shook my head in silence.

 

“I see.” She eyed me suspiciously. “I thought you were the

 

kind of person who didn’t mind seeing a dead body. Even if it

 

belonged to a friend.” She’d abandoned her courteous manner.

 

“I guess you’re more sensitive than I thought. You looked like

 

you were dying back there.”

 

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll take that as a compli—“

 

Just as I was about to get the “ment” syllable out, I felt the

 

urge to vomit. I clamped my hand over my mouth. There was

 

no way I could just toss my cookies in Sasaki-san’s car.

 

Somehow I managed to keep control of my internal organs.

 

Dammit. I couldn’t even mouth off.

 

“Hmm.” Sasaki-san nodded with a slight look of disappointment.

 

“You’re awfully spineless. I’m surprised Jun-san is

 

so fond of you.”

 

Ah, come to think of it, hadn’t Aikawa-san said something

 

about being old friends with Sasaki-san? Recalling this completely

 

irrelevant detail helped distract me a bit. I sat up from

 

my hunched position and rested my weight against the back of

 

the seat. I breathed in deep.

 

“Yeah, I’m surprisingly fragile. Of course, I can’t tell if it’s

 

brittleness, frailty, or if I’m just delicate . . .”

 

“What in the world are you talking about? You’re not

 

making a lick of sense.”

 

“Well, please wait till next time. Next time, ‘kay? I’m in a

 

very irregular state right now, so let’s wait till next time before

 

you judge what kind of human being I am. I’m not doing so

 

hot right now.”

 

“Guaahhh,” I groaned, and shut my eyes.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 5

 

Sasaki-san was silent for a moment. “From here, we’re

 

going to have to question you about the circumstances of this

 

case. This means I’ve got to take you to the police station. Can

 

you handle this?”

 

“As long as you drive carefully, I think I’ll be all right.”

 

“Okay. I’ll try not to make the ride too bumpy.”

 

She faced forward and began to drive. Mikoko-chan’s

 

apartment disappeared from the window view in no time at

 

all. I couldn’t make out the speedometer from where I was sitting,

 

but judging by my body’s response to the car’s movement,

 

there was no way Sasaki-san’s driving style could be

 

defined as “careful.”

 

“Sasaki-san, is it okay for you to be away from the crime

 

scene?”

 

“My job is more about intellectual labor than about that

 

stuff.”

 

“That sounds like, well . . .” I wanted to say it sounded like

 

we’d get along, but I stopped myself. No matter how you

 

looked at it, there was no way we would get along. “Um,

 

Sasaki-san?”

 

“Yeah, what is it?”

 

“How do you know Aikawa-san?”

 

She was silent for a moment—though it was plenty easy to

 

imagine the look on her face—and then said, “Sometimes I go

 

to her for help with work. Yeah, that’s all. Do you ever watch

 

detective TV shows and the like?”

 

“I know a thing or two about them.”

 

“Yes, well, you know how oftentimes the detective goes to

 

an informant to gather information that isn’t quite legal? Well,

 

it’s like that. We have a businesslike relationship.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 6

 

It was an awfully crude explanation. Or rather, she didn’t

 

seem to want to explain it at all. Then again, Aikawa was a

 

pretty inexplicable woman, so maybe there wasn’t much of a

 

choice.

 

“No, I don’t mean something that specific,” I said. “Can

 

you give me something more abstract? I mean, what kind of

 

person is she to you?”

 

“Do we absolutely have to talk about this right now?”

 

“It might take my mind off things.” I really meant this. If I

 

didn’t get something to distract me quick, my stomach was

 

going to burst. “Please, I’m begging you. Just talk about something.”

 

“You pose a difficult question, you know,” she said, after

 

awhile. “For example, would you believe a story about a person

 

who took a point-blank shot to the gut from a sawed-off

 

shotgun and survived? How about the one about someone

 

who can walk around in the midst of a storm of rifle fire with

 

a normal, straight face? How about someone who leaped from

 

the fortieth floor of a burning building a walked away without

 

a scratch? You wouldn’t believe it, would you? Whenever I

 

talk about Jun-san, people think I’m lying. So it’s a tough

 

subject to discuss.”

 

“. . .”

 

I understood exactly how she felt, so I didn’t dare press any

 

further.

 

In another ten minutes, we had arrived at the police station.

 

She took me inside the building.

 

“Looks like it’s exactly twelve o’clock—lunchtime. Would

 

you like something to eat?” she asked.

 

“Could we get katsu-don or something like that?”

 

“I don’t see why not. They’ll bill you for it later, though.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 7

 

The government was anal.

 

“Eh, never mind,” I said, shaking my head. If I tried to eat

 

anything now, I would just throw it up anyway. That I could

 

say with a fair degree of certainty.

 

“Hmm, well, then go on into that room and wait for me.

 

I’ve just go to make a quick report. I’ll be back in two minutes.”

 

She led me into a small conference room and made her

 

way back down the hall alone. Well, at least it wasn’t an interrogation

 

room, I thought as I sunk myself into a chair.

 

I want to smoke, I thought for an instant.

 

I had never smoked a cigarette in my life.

 

Was I bored?

 

Was I trying to escape reality?

 

Or was I just suicidal?

 

Any one of those was of equal worth, if you asked me.

 

These were pointless thoughts.

 

This was starting to get pretty bad.

 

One more push, and this existence known as “me,” this

 

state of being known as “myself,” was going to be over.

 

“Sorry for the wait,” Sasaki-san said upon returning. She

 

was carrying some sort of item wrapped in pink. “Are you

 

okay? You’re looking worse and worse by the second. Even

 

your hands are sweating.”

 

“I’m sorry, could you show me where the bathroom is?”

 

“Down that hall, on the right. It’s at the very end, so I

 

don’t think you’ll miss it.”

 

“Thanks,” I said, and raced out of the room, clamping a

 

hand back over my mouth. Suppressing the nausea.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 8

 

I found the bathroom right where she had said it would be,

 

entered one of the stalls, and vomited everything that had

 

built up in my stomach.

 

“Gwaaahhh . . . glllaaahhh . . .” Unpleasant noises that

 

sounded very unlike they were coming from myself spilled

 

from the depths of my throat.

 

An acid taste remained in my mouth. I had vomited so

 

profusely I thought my guts might have flipped upside down.

 

Slowly, I drew in a deep breath and rose to my feet, wiping

 

my mouth with a handkerchief.

 

I flushed the toilet.

 

Phew . . .

 

I made my way over to the sink and washed my face. I

 

scooped some water into my hands and rinsed out my mouth

 

as well. I looked into my own reflection in the mirror. Okay,

 

so I did look like I was at death’s door, but at least I was

 

feeling decidedly better than I had even moments ago.

 

“Okay,” I said.

 

Revitalized, I muttered as I left the bathroom behind. I

 

made my way back to the room, where Sasaki-san was still

 

waiting for me. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

 

“I’m okay. I puked, and now I feel a lot better.”

 

“I see. Here,” she said, placing the packaged item from before

 

in front of me. “It’s my lunch. Want it?”

 

“Is it okay?”

 

“I won’t bill you for it, don’t worry.” She chose a chair and

 

sat down across from me. I graciously accepted her lunch. It

 

was a fairly generic bento lunch, but my stomach was now

 

empty. I scarfed it down pretty fast.

 

“Okay, then,” she said once I was finished. “So what’s going

 

on here?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 3 9

 

“That’s what I want to know.”

 

“. . .”

 

Seemingly a bit offended by my phrasing, she grew silent

 

and gave me the death stare. I recoiled and diverted my gaze.

 

“Well, then please give me the facts, in simple terms.”

 

“Er, to do that, I’ll have to back up to last night, so it’ll be a

 

little long.”

 

“Go right ahead. Until we solve this case, you and I will be

 

spending a lot of time together.” She was smiling a little. Her

 

eyes, however, weren’t smiling, which was frightening. I decided

 

to quit with the mouthing off for a while and be straight

 

with her.

 

“Yesterday, Aoii-san and I went out. We were in the

 

Shinkyôgoku area. Then, well, she drank a little too much.”

 

“Oh, really? . . . And then?”

 

She sharpened her gaze on me as if she had been waiting

 

for this opening. Surely she wasn’t going to get on my case

 

about underage drinking. I realized I couldn’t let my guard

 

down.

 

“Yeah, so then I took her back to her apartment. I went

 

ahead and took the key out of her bag and put her to bed.

 

Then I took the bus back to my place.” I went ahead and

 

skipped the part about running into Aikawa-san, figuring it

 

wasn’t necessary to recount. “After that, I just went to bed like

 

I always do.”

 

“Did you lock up before you left?”

 

“I did. Her Vespa was still parked in my apartment parking

 

lot, so I was planning to bring the key and Vespa back together

 

tomo—today. So then today, I went to her place on the

 

Vespa. When I opened the door and went inside, well, things

 

were as you saw them.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 0

 

“Hmm . . . how about the door? Was it locked?”

 

“Huh?”

 

I looked up at her as if the question had taken me by

 

surprise. I made an expression as though I were searching

 

through my memory for as long as five seconds.

 

“No, it wasn’t locked. I don’t have any recollection of using

 

the key.”

 

“I see.” She wore a suspicious look on her face, but nodded

 

along anyway.

 

“That place has a lot of surveillance cameras, right. I think

 

they should be able to corroborate my story if you take a look

 

at those tapes.”

 

“Most likely. We’ve already arranged with the management

 

firm for a viewing,” she said coolly. “Now, this is just to make

 

sure, but—you didn’t touch anything at the crime scene, did

 

you?”

 

“No. As pathetic as it sounds, I was just too petrified. I

 

couldn’t even run over to Aoii-san.”

 

“You took a very appropriate action,” she said. From there,

 

she shut her eyes and thought to herself.

 

So “intellectual labor” was her major job responsibility.

 

That was already more than clear enough from the time she

 

had visited my apartment. That chess-game mindset of hers

 

was unforgettable, even if you wanted to forget it.

 

“I didn’t even touch Aoii-san’s body, so I don’t know, but

 

was she really dead?”

 

“Yes. That I can confirm. She had likely been dead for

 

around two to three hours. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy

 

results before we can confirm the specific details, but the incident

 

is believed to have occurred between nine and ten a.m.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 1

 

“This may be useless to you, but . . .”

 

“Go right ahead. Nothing in this world is useless.”

 

That was a line I thought I might like to try saying once

 

myself. But I doubted a guy like me would ever have the

 

chance.

 

“When I put her to bed last night, Aoii-san was wearing

 

overalls. But that wasn’t what she had on today, was it? So I

 

think that means she woke up at some point, either in the

 

morning or the middle of the night. And I locked the door last

 

night, so maybe Aoii-san let the killer in herself.”

 

“I see . . .”

 

“Oh, and just for your information, that outfit she had on

 

today was something she bought yesterday when we were out

 

shopping.”

 

“Really.” Sasaki-san nodded. I noticed that she hadn’t been

 

taking any notes. Come to think of it, that was true during the

 

time she visited my apartment as well. She was just listening

 

to me talk without recording anything.

 

“You’ve got a pretty great memory, huh?”

 

“Sorry? Oh, well, it does the job,” she replied as if it was

 

nothing special. But to me it was an extremely enviable trait.

 

“Also, as it happens, I was eating breakfast at my next-door

 

neighbor’s place during that nine o’clock to ten o’clock time

 

frame, so I think I have an alibi, for what it’s worth.”

 

“Ah, I see,” she nodded with an apparent lack of interest. It

 

was as if to say she had more important things to think about

 

than my damn alibi.

 

“You know, when you first called, I thought you were

 

probably the killer.”

 

“. . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 2

 

This sudden declaration left me speechless. “You certainly

 

are direct. Excuse me if I’m a little surprised.”

 

“Yes, well, you would be. But it’s true. The fact is that I

 

did think that, and I’m certainly not trying to hide the facts. I

 

thought you killed her and then tried to pretend you had discovered

 

the body. But it seemed you were feeling genuinely

 

ill, and time of death and such aside, there was no murder

 

weapon at the scene of the crime. Which means it would have

 

been physically impossible for you to have done it.”

 

“. . .”

 

“That is, of course, unless you’re hiding it somewhere in

 

your clothes right now.”

 

“Care to check?”

 

“No, that’s fine,” she said, but by no means could this be

 

considered negligence of duty. Sasaki-san had already finished

 

checking me out back when she took me out of Mikokochan’s

 

apartment. Unable to walk on my own, she had lent me

 

a shoulder to lean on. It was kindness—injected with a touch

 

of shrewdness.

 

I didn’t particularly have a problem with that.

 

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

 

“I’m sure your innocence will be proven beyond any doubt

 

once an official time of death has been established and we

 

take a look at those surveillance tapes. But only then.”

 

She looked me directly in the eye.

 

“Who do you suppose did it?” Sasaki-san asked. I’d already

 

asked her the same question twice before on other occasions.

 

“Well . . . I don’t know.”

 

“Nobody comes to mind at all?”

 

“Nobody,” I answered promptly. “I mean, Aoii-san and I

 

weren’t really all that close to begin with. It was only very

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 3

 

recently that we had started hanging out together and going

 

out to eat and stuff.”

 

“Allow me to be a bit direct,” she said. “Were you and

 

Aoii-san romantically involved?”

 

“The answer to that is a no. A no and nothing more.

 

Thinking about it now, I’m not even sure we were even

 

friends.”

 

“Ahh, I see. Come to think of it, Jun-san did say you were

 

‘like that,’ didn’t she?” she muttered, seemingly satisfied with

 

whatever explanation she had recalled.

 

“Aikawa-san? She said what about me?”

 

“Well, I can’t tell you that.” This tease of a statement was

 

sure to bother me, but it occurred to me that this too could be

 

part of Sasaki-san’s strategy, so I was careful not to press any

 

further. It was easy enough to imagine the kind of judgment

 

Aikawa-san had passed in regard to me anyway.

 

From there, Sasaki-san posed several more detailed questions

 

and ended with a simple, “I see.”

 

“Now then, do you have any questions for me?” she added.

 

“No, nothing this time,” I said after a moment’s thought.

 

“I’d rather just get home and rest as soon as possible.”

 

“I see. Well, that should be enough for today. Allow me to

 

take you back.”

 

She stood up from her chair and exited the room. I followed

 

close behind, and together we exited the building.

 

After getting into her Crown, I sat in the same seat in the

 

back. Sasaki started the car and accelerated even more aggressively

 

than before.

 

“Nakadachiuri, was it? Off Senbon?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 4

 

“Okay. Throwing up was surprisingly refreshing.”

 

“You know,” she said while driving. Her voice was stripped

 

of all emotion. “I can’t help but feel like you’re still hiding

 

something.”

 

“Hiding? Me?”

 

“That’s what I said.”

 

“No, nothing in particular. As you can see, I’m just an honest,

 

harmless, and well-behaved young man.”

 

“Wow, really?” she said in a rare display of sarcasm. “You

 

sure don’t look that way to me, but I guess if you say so yourself,

 

it must be true.”

 

“You sound like you mean something by that.”

 

“No, not especially. If it sounds that way to you, it’s probably

 

because you’ve got a guilty conscience. Although I do

 

doubt that an honest, well-behaved young man would go

 

around breaking into crime scenes illegally.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Open bag, withdraw cat.

 

Naturally, I’d been prepared for this risk from the very beginning,

 

but Sasaki-san had certainly caught me off guard.

 

There hadn’t been a single word about this in those documents

 

from Kunagisa, so it had never been clear if I had been

 

found out or not.

 

She continued staring straight ahead at the road as she

 

spoke. “At any rate, please just relax,” she said as if she could

 

see right through me. “That information hasn’t gone beyond

 

me yet.”

 

“You?”

 

“That’s what I said.” Her voice lacked intonation. And yet

 

there was a meanness to it. Yeah, somehow it was very reminiscent

 

of mankind’s greatest private contractor.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 5

 

“I don’t know what possessed you to break into Emotosan’s

 

room, but I suggest you exercise a bit more discretion in

 

your actions. Consider this a piece of advice.”

 

“Not a warning?”

 

“No, no, just advice.”

 

But there was something very offensive about her wording.

 

Granted, my actions had been totally rash, and her attitude

 

was entirely justified, but still.

 

“Sasaki-san, I’m just asking, but . . . why hasn’t that information

 

gone beyond you ‘yet’?”

 

“Well, I have my ways. I won’t go into detail, but I just

 

want you to realize that I have that advantage over you. That’s

 

all. But please be sure not to forget it.”

 

All I could do was sigh. My shoulders slumped and the

 

energy drained out of my body. This damn pattern again?

 

Why were these the only kinds of people I ever met?

 

“Everybody I know is either extremely smart or has a terrible

 

personality. They all had that same damn character. Just

 

once I’d like to meet somebody who’s nice. I don’t even care if

 

they’re stupid.”

 

“Well,” Sasaki-san said without even cracking a smirk. “I’m

 

sorry to hear that. But I have no intention of forfeiting my

 

position.”

 

And we arrived at the Senbon Nakadachiuri intersection.

 

“Would you like to come inside?” I asked.

 

“I’m working,” she said. I didn’t find this particularly unfortunate,

 

nor did I think the opposite.

 

As a final thought, she opened her window. “What do you

 

suppose x over y means?” she asked.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 6

 

“Search me,” I said after a moment’s contemplation. I knew

 

she’d never be satisfied with this answer. But she simply nodded,

 

closed the window, and took off in her car once again.

 

I stood there awhile, unmoving, then felt the sheer pointlessness

 

of my inaction. I returned to the building, walked

 

down the second-floor hall, and entered my room.

 

This quiet space.

 

Not a single sound.

 

Not a single person.

 

A room Aoii Mikoko had twice visited.

 

Once I had set out yatsuhashi; once she had come with

 

handmade sweet potatoes.

 

I wasn’t much for sentimentality. I was no pessimist,

 

either. Nor was I a romanticist. Rather, I was a misguided

 

trivialist.

 

“I guess I can’t say this was a complete surprise,” I muttered.

 

“I won’t say that. No, no I won’t.”

 

I recalled my conversation with Mikoko-chan from the

 

previous day. A conversation we would never have again.

 

“It was all nonsense, huh?”

 

Let us hypothesize as to Mikoko-chan’s feelings towards

 

her killer. She probably wasn’t resentful. Accusing, maybe,

 

but that’s it. That was the kind of girl I took her for.

 

There must have been something.

 

Something I should have said to her.

 

What was I really supposed to say to her yesterday?

 

“This is like crying over spilt milk,” I said to myself.

 

My terribly lukewarm soliloquy. I realized that this was

 

probably the kind of situation that usually makes people cry.

 

The person over my shoulder sure thought so.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 7

 

Night fell.

 

Miiko-san visited my room looking concerned. “Eat this,”

 

she said, thrusting a bowl of rice porridge at me. She wore an

 

innocent expression, but her eyes were serious. Knowing her

 

gesture had come straight from the heart, I started to feel

 

guilty.

 

Christ. Just how many people had I caused extra grief by

 

now?

 

“Thanks a lot.” I scooped some up with the spoon Miikosan

 

had provided (there were only disposable chopsticks in my

 

place), and helped myself to a mouthful. She wasn’t an especially

 

good cook, but this porridge was pretty tasty.

 

“Did something happen?” Miiko-san didn’t ask. She never

 

asked that type of question. She was just the neighbor who

 

silently and protectively watched over me. A neighbor in the

 

truest sense. This was probably something entirely different

 

from true kindness, but she was a kind person all the same.

 

Come to think of it, hadn’t Mikoko-chan given me the

 

same compliment? That I was kind?

 

“Mikoko-chan . . . she died,” I said without any introduction.

 

“I see,” Miiko-san nodded. She sounded like she didn’t particularly

 

think much of it. “That night,” she said, “by which I

 

mean the night when the young girl stayed in my room, she

 

was strangely grouchy when she woke up the next morning.

 

At first I thought it was probably due to a hangover, but that

 

didn’t seem to be it.”

 

. . . .

 

“I asked her, ‘How do you feel?’ She answered, ‘this is the

 

worst morning of my life.’ . . . That’s the whole story.”

 

“That’s plenty,” I said. “Thanks so much, Miiko-san.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 8

 

“You really do lead a difficult life, don’t you? The road you

 

walk is not steep, but it is shaky and brittle. And yet you’re

 

able to go on without slipping. You have my honest admiration.”

 

“I slipped and fell through the cracks long ago. But this

 

path has a sort of strange gravitational pull, and I’m clinging to

 

the bottom of it now.”

 

“Whatever the case may be, you’re entering a crucial phase

 

now,” she said, her voice deepening a bit. It almost sounded

 

like a threat. “If you lose your grip now, you’ll never make it.

 

Everything you’ve endured and built up and worked for will

 

spill right down the drain. You probably don’t care either way,

 

but just remember that your life isn’t something you made all

 

by yourself. Don’t forget that there are those you have saved

 

just by being alive.”

 

“There are no such people.” Perhaps there was too much

 

self-loathing in my statement. Possibly as a result, Miiko-san

 

gave me a pitying glance.

 

“You carry too much of a burden,” she said. “Don’t think

 

you can really affect people so much. Only the weak turn red

 

when they cross paths with scarlet. As long as you can exercise

 

their own judgment, you’re less easily influenced by others.

 

Your existence isn’t such an annoyance to others.”

 

“Mmm, maybe not.”

 

It was just extreme self-consciousness in the end.

 

Whether I was alive or not made no difference.

 

Even if there were a murderer in my midst, the world

 

would go on.

 

“Still, I’m sure there are those who love you. There are

 

those who have unconditional affection for you, that much is

 

certain. That’s part of the world’s cycle. You may not under-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 4 9

 

stand it now, but remember what I say. There will come a

 

time when you understand. At least stay alive that long.”

 

Those with unconditional affection for me.

 

Today, one of them had died.

 

So then how many people were left?

 

“I won’t tell you to cheer up. That’s a problem for you to

 

sort out on your own. Just know that that young girl’s death

 

wasn’t your fault. I can guarantee you that. I don’t have any

 

basis for my belief, but I feel sure of it all the same . . . Those

 

who die just die.”

 

“But . . . it’s like I killed her,” I said.

 

“Did you?”

 

“Well, no, but if . . .”

 

If.

 

If I hadn’t left her alone in her apartment, if I hadn’t gone

 

home, or if I had just brought her with me, things would have

 

turned out differently.

 

“And I say you’re taking on too much of a burden. Do you

 

realize the pointlessness of such thoughts?”

 

“Yes. But Miiko-san, I still had something left to tell her.”

 

That one last thing.

 

I hadn’t yet told her that one last thing.

 

“It’s useless to regret what’s done and gone. That’s all I can

 

say.” Her gaze wandered just a bit. “Also, I forgot to tell you

 

this morning. Suzunashi sends a message. She told me to make

 

sure I told you.”

 

“It’s from Suzunashi-san?”

 

She nodded. I sat up straight. It wasn’t like Suzunashi-san

 

was in the room or anything, so I knew there was no need to

 

do so, but something about that name just made me reflex-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 0

 

ively fix my posture. Something about that Suzunashi Neon

 

character.

 

Miiko-san opened her mouth. “There are two types of

 

people—those who are frightening because you don’t know

 

what they’ll do, and those who are frightening because you do

 

know what they’ll do. But you’re not very frightening at all, so

 

you don’t need to worry about such things.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

“Make sure you do. She said she’ll come visit from Hiei

 

next time, so let’s all go out for lunch. I think she wants to

 

give you a good lecture.”

 

“Well, you had me up to the lecture. But I’m definitely

 

okay with lunch. Just . . .”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Oh, nothing. Thanks a lot for the food.”

 

I returned the porridge bowl to her. She took it, said good

 

night and left my room. The word Impermanence was written

 

on the back of her jinbei. It was the second time I had seen this

 

one.

 

“Seriously . . .” I mumbled to myself. This was a troublesome

 

existence. Maybe it was about time I had a day-long

 

lecture from Suzunashi-san.

 

But.

 

“But I really don’t want to go to that restaurant again for a

 

while . . .”

 

When would this mind-over-matter business be over?

 

I didn’t know.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 2

 

Kill every suspect, starting at one end.

 

The one left standing is your culprit.

 

Three days later, it was Wednesday, May twenty-fifth. I

 

awoke at eleven fifty in the morning.

 

“I guess it’d be cheating to say it’s still morning, huh?”

 

I rose from bed feeling fairly awful. Lately it had been like

 

this every day. I couldn’t wake up at a normal time at all anymore.

 

I guess you could say my body had been rejecting the

 

idea. Naturally, once I had overslept, I couldn’t get into the

 

mood to attend classes, and if I wasn’t in the mood to attend

 

classes, there was no reason to.

 

And thus began my fifth straight day of skipping school

 

since Thursday of last week. For a freshman to already be

 

doing this in May, it wouldn’t be strange if I ended up having

 

to repeat my freshman year. I realized this, but I wasn’t particularly

 

opposed to the idea. There was no one to object—I

 

was paying for my schooling with my own money, after all.

 

. . .

 

Since the recent incident, Sasaki-san had come to visit on

 

both Monday and Tuesday with Kazuhito-san in tow. She

 

made a number of detailed inquiries regarding Mikoko-chan’s

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 3

 

murder, and in exchange for my answers, provided several tidbits

 

of seemingly vital information.

 

She informed me that Mikoko-chan’s time of death had

 

been narrowed down to between nine thirty and ten o’clock.

 

They had also confirmed beyond a doubt that she had been

 

killed by strangulation with a thin cloth, and that it was the

 

same type of cloth that had been used in Tomo-chan’s murder.

 

From this the police had determined that the same killer

 

was responsible for both murders.

 

‘‘What’s different from Emoto-san’s case is that Aoii-san

 

appears to have been strangled from the front.”

 

“From the front?”

 

“Yes. Emoto-san was strangled from behind. You can tell

 

by the shape of the marks.”

 

“In other words, Mikoko-chan saw the killer?”

 

“It’s possible,” she said, without emotion. It probably

 

didn’t make any difference to her whether the deceased had

 

seen the killer’s face or not. It was certainly a rational viewpoint.

 

She also went over the alibis of the various involved parties.

 

Muimi-chan was out sightseeing with her younger sister

 

(named Muri-chan, as it were). Akiharu-kun didn’t have an

 

alibi. And of course, I was with Miiko-san. But all three of us

 

had alibis when Tomo-chan was killed, so none of us were

 

really prime suspects, so to speak.

 

“I personally don’t agree, but it seems the big shots upstairs

 

are considering the possibility that these were just robberies

 

gone awry, or possibly some stalker who went too far.”

 

“If either of those were the case, there wouldn’t have been

 

multiple incidents. It’s too strange to be a coincidence, and

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 4

 

besides, nothing was even stolen, right? There weren’t any

 

signs of a struggle, either.”

 

“I know. It’s just that neither of them had the ‘enemies’ to

 

account for it being a simple vendetta case. I guess it would be

 

one thing if it was some ‘enemy of the world’ kind of thing—

 

but then we’d have another indiscriminant killer like the

 

prowler.”

 

Speaking of which, the slasher case had come to a standstill.

 

The number of victims had yet to exceed twelve. In other

 

words, since encountering Aikawa-san, Zerozaki hadn’t had

 

taken any fresh victims. He probably wasn’t in Kyoto anymore

 

after all, just like Aikawa-san and I had talked about. I wasn’t

 

even sure he was still in Japan. Then again, if I had made an

 

enemy of Aikawa-san, I probably would’ve fled to the South

 

Pole. Or outer space, even.

 

“Still, there’s something strange going on,” Sasaki-san said.

 

“Strange? What?”

 

“The surveillance camera. That apartment had surveillance

 

cameras set up as a crime-preventing measure. You said so

 

yourself last time.”

 

“Right.”

 

“But on the camera videos, there wasn’t a single person

 

who seemed like a possible suspect.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Exactly what it sounds like. We checked all the tapes from

 

the time Aoii-san returned home—or rather, when you carried

 

her home—at ten thirty, but the only people to appear were

 

other residents of the building and you, from when you

 

showed up the next afternoon.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 5

 

What did that mean? Was the entire apartment building, in

 

essence, a locked room? What a joke. It was too unrealistic.

 

But then again, if it was a fact, such criticism was meaningless.

 

“But the camera in the hallway must have a blind spot

 

somewhere,” I said.

 

“Yes. We tried it out. It is possible to reach Aoii-san’s room

 

without entering the camera’s field of view. The stem of the

 

camera kind of swivels like this, see. But it’s nearly impossible

 

without having practiced it beforehand quite a bit, and even

 

then, your chances of success would be relatively low. Why

 

would a person go to all the trouble?”

 

“Well, what if they didn’t? What if they came in from the

 

veranda or something?”

 

“Not possible. It’s simply too high and too risky. At any

 

rate . . .” She let out an exhausted sigh that didn’t seem very

 

characteristic of her. “I think this is going to turn into a war of

 

attrition,” she said.

 

She was probably already in the middle of one.

 

“A war of attrition . . .”

 

But no matter how much new information she was willing

 

to divulge, I had already stopped thinking about this string of

 

incidents. Of course I wasn’t at such an elevated level of enlightenment

 

that I didn’t even have split-second thoughts

 

about it anymore, but I had been at least half-successful in

 

suppressing that part of me.

 

On the contrary.

 

On the contrary, I was hoping the truth behind the incidents

 

would never come to light. I didn’t want to have anything

 

more to do with it, in any form whatsoever.

 

But that was impossible. Sasa Sasaki-san was a detective of

 

immeasurable brilliance. This had become evident through my

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 6

 

several conversations with her up to now. It was clear how she

 

and Aikawa-san could be friends. It wouldn’t be long before

 

Aikawa-san uncovered the truth. Maybe she wouldn’t figure

 

out every little detail, but enough to form a consistent story.

 

And thus there was no need for me to do any more thinking.

 

Or to put it more plainly, I could already see most of the

 

facts. One more step and I would have the whole picture figured

 

out, and that was one step I didn’t want to take. Nor did

 

I feel much like condemning criminals. I had gone as far as

 

breaking into Tomo-chan’s room and enlisting Kunagisa’s

 

help, and here I was ready to throw in the towel, to leave

 

things as unfinished as a baboon without a butt.

 

But frankly, that’s just who I am. Half-baked all the way.

 

I’ve never put up a struggle. I’ve never shown any enthusiasm

 

for anything.

 

“Okay . . .” I stretched out my torso, took a deep breath,

 

and switched channels in my brain. “Maybe I ought to pay

 

Tomo a visit for a change.”

 

As a complete shut-in, it was essentially guaranteed that

 

she would be home, so I knew it wouldn’t be a waste of time

 

to just head there now. She might have been asleep, seeing as

 

it was the afternoon, but I didn’t care. It would serve as a good

 

chance to give her a stern talking-to for selling me out to

 

Aikawa-san.

 

Besides, being with her was sure to cheer me up.

 

With that decision made, I changed clothes and stuck my

 

cell phone into my pocket. I debated with myself for a while

 

over whether I should borrow Miiko-san’s Fiat, walk, or ride

 

my bike, but ultimately I decided on walking. It just felt like a

 

good day for walking. Of course, that would take a good three

 

hours, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 7

 

I left my room, locked up, and exited the building.

 

It was nice out. It had been muggy lately, but that day it

 

was pleasantly dry and crisp. I thought about how nice it

 

would be if the weather was always like this, but even I wasn’t

 

sure that I exactly meant “always.”

 

“Huh?”

 

After walking for a bit, I spotted someone familiar. I

 

couldn’t remember who, but it was definitely someone familiar.

 

Just who was it? It felt like we had met before, but . . .

 

He was a dressed in street fashion with light brown hair

 

and the face of a playboy. He was toting an abnormally large

 

bag that left a strong impression, but it was a poor match for

 

his street fashion.

 

I’ve always wondered why street fashion looked so bad on

 

Japanese people. It wasn’t so much that it didn’t suit them; it

 

was just that it always made them look like they were posing.

 

I suppose you could call it a national trait.

 

That aside, who in the world was this?

 

Upon noticing me, he ran over to me. “Yo!” he said casually.

 

“Hello,” I replied, but of course I still couldn’t remember

 

him. I knew he was a Rokumeikan University student, but I

 

didn’t remember knowing anyone like this.

 

“How ya been? Maaan, I don’t know this place too well.

 

You know, the geography ’n shit. I’m totally lost.”

 

“Ahhhh . . . yeah,” I improvised. “Yeah, those things sure

 

happen.”

 

“Start coming to school again, man. I had to come all the

 

way out here. I mean I know you’re shocked about the whole

 

Aoii thing, but man, you’re gonna end up having to repeat a

 

year. People will call you ‘Double Dragon’ ’n shit.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 8

 

Aoii? Did he just mention Aoii?

 

Oh, right. Got it.

 

“Akiharu-kun, right?”

 

“Whoa. What the hell, man? Don’t tell me you just figured

 

that out.”

 

Akiharu-kun had a boisterous, lighthearted laugh. I felt as

 

though he could see right through me and just the thought of

 

it had me in a cold sweat.

 

“You mean you came to see me?”

 

“That’s what I mean. Just some minor business. Come on,

 

follow me.”

 

He started walking. His explanation was not very convincing,

 

but I went ahead and followed after him as told. There I

 

was, just going along with the flow again.

 

“Where’re we going?”

 

“Kitanotenman Shrine. It’s parked there.”

 

“What’s parked there?”

 

“That’s the surprise,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite

 

sit right with me. “Man, I knew you were a gloomy guy, but

 

your face right now is like a full-fledged gloomathon.”

 

“You, on the other hand, seem cheerful.”

 

“Well, you know. It’s like, there was the Emoto thing,

 

right? It’s like that toughened me up. Maybe I’m still not over

 

the shock. Man, life sure likes to just peace out on ya, huh?”

 

It was an awfully casual way to put it, but I got the feeling

 

he was trying to laugh something off. What was it? I pondered

 

this for a moment, but came up empty-handed.

 

“Akiharu-kun, didn’t Gen. Ed. class just start? Should you

 

really be here just messing around like this?”

 

“Ah, whatever. I don’t care about school anymore,” he

 

laughed. “I just want to get this favor out of the way so I can

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 5 9

 

relax again. Let the dead rest, y’know? Besides, I hate that

 

Inosen guy, so I’m not really a big fan of Gen. Ed.”

 

That was short for Inokawa-sensei, by the way.

 

“Really? I think he’s a pretty good guy.”

 

“Well, I think there’s a difference between good and selfrighteous.

 

It’s not just the time thing, either. That guy’s always

 

trying to force his beliefs on other people, am I right? It’s

 

that kind of thing, man. I don’t like it. I mean I guess he’s not

 

a hypocrite or anything, but . . . eh, something like that.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“Besides, I’m not gonna lose any credits just for skipping

 

class a couple times. Our school is easy-peasy, man. They say

 

it’s famous for letting you pass classes blindfolded. Number

 

two in all of Kansai.”

 

Where the hell is number one? I started to ask, but I cut

 

myself off. The less I knew about that, the better.

 

We arrived at Kitanotenman Shrine within five minutes.

 

Despite its being a national treasure, something about its

 

proximity to home made it a lot harder to appreciate, and this

 

was actually the first time I had ever set foot on the premises.

 

“This way, this way,” Akiharu-kun said, bringing me to the

 

parking lot. “Here ya go, man.”

 

He pointed proudly to a white Vespa. It was a vintage

 

model. I took a glance at the plate and saw that this was, in

 

fact, the very Vespa that had belonged to Mikoko-chan, that I

 

had ridden to her house on that day.

 

. . . .

 

“Oh yeah, and this.” He handed me the key as I stood

 

there, flabbergasted. He pulled the helmet out of his bag and

 

gave that to me as well. I had thought it was a suspiciously

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 0

 

large bag, but who would’ve guessed there was a helmet inside?

 

“Akiharu-kun, this . . .”

 

“What do you call it again? Distribution of possessions?

 

That’s all this is.”

 

“You mean . . . I can keep this Vespa?”

 

“Yup. You like it, right?” he said casually. He sat down

 

backward on the Vespa seat. He let out a boyish giggle. “Aoii

 

was saying the Vespa was the only thing that tripped your

 

alarm.”

 

“Hey, that’s not true . . . but is it really okay? I mean, these

 

things are pretty valuable. Shouldn’t we give it to her family

 

or someone?”

 

“We got permission. Don’t worry.”

 

“But, I mean, it’s only me. We just met.”

 

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s fine. This was Aoii’s will. Her actual

 

will, I mean. Funny how the two words sound the same,” he

 

said contemplatively. “Anyway, that’s what it comes down to.”

 

“What do you mean, her ‘will’?”

 

“Oh, that’s to say, awhile back—last week, maybe—she

 

said it. If something happened to her, if she was killed like

 

Emoto, I should give her Vespa to Ikkun. She’s terrible, man. I

 

wanted this thing too. I told her that, and you know what she

 

said? ‘Hell no. Go die. Worse yet, go live.’ What the hell is

 

that, man? We’d been friends since high school.”

 

“If something happened to her?” Something? If what happened

 

to her? “What does that mean?”

 

“Well, I don’t know. Aoii was Aoii, man. She must’ve been

 

thinking about stuff, what with Emoto getting killed and all.

 

But I bet she didn’t really think she would be next, that’s for

 

sure.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 1

 

No . . . you’re wrong.

 

It has a deeper meaning than that.

 

You really haven’t noticed?

 

“Anyway, just take it. Think of it as a present from her.”

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

I played with the key in the palm of my hand, then stuffed

 

it into my pocket.

 

“Get your own insurance. I don’t really know much about

 

applying. Ahhhhh . . .” Still straddling the Vespa, he stretched

 

his arms up toward the sky. He gave himself a good stretch,

 

then slouched weakly into the seat. “Things have gotten

 

crazy.”

 

“Yeah.” I absolutely concurred. “How’s Muimi-chan

 

doing?”

 

“Ohhh, her. She’s awful, man. This might be a bad way to

 

put it, but . . . honestly, I couldn’t bear to see her,” he said,

 

casting his glance away from me.

 

Perhaps he was thinking of Muimi-chan, perhaps not. Either

 

way, these words had revealed that underneath his lighthearted,

 

casual demeanor lay true compassion toward others.

 

Interesting; so he was that kind of guy. Such a decent

 

human being that he couldn’t even acknowledge it himself.

 

Believing he wasn’t anything special, he hid his true values

 

under the façade of a bad boy. He was a sheep in wolf’s

 

clothing.

 

The complete opposite of a wolf in sheep’s clothing—

 

like me.

 

“After it happened—Aoii’s death, I mean—I went over

 

there once. To Atemiya’s place. It’s in the middle of

 

Senbontera-no-uchi. Anyway, she was even more depressed

 

than Aoii was when Emoto died. Eh, but what can you ex-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 2

 

pect? Those two were buds from way back in the day. I mean,

 

they grew up together.”

 

“She was that bad?”

 

“Dude, you should’ve seen the way she looked at me. Me,

 

man. I mean, come on. Where does she come off glaring at me

 

like that? And she’s not eating. Probably not sleeping, either.

 

If we just leave her be, I think she’ll die. I want to do something

 

for her, but . . . it’s like, what can a guy like me possibly

 

say? I only knew Aoii since high school. We were never that

 

deep.” Meanwhile, I had only known her for a short time in

 

college. Even if that hadn’t been the case, I had no words for

 

Muimi-chan. “She’s gonna end up massacring whoever did

 

this.”

 

“Muimi-chan?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past her. That’s how

 

friends are, right?”

 

“But she’d still be committing a crime, even if her victim

 

was a murderer.”

 

“Well, sure. You’re right about that. But don’t these things

 

happen? Like, aren’t there moments where you just toss all

 

the laws of society and common sense to the wind?”

 

“Toss them . . .”

 

“Yeah. I mean they really are just moments, like a flash.

 

Then you come back to your senses. But it’s never pretty.

 

Hmm, but that kind of thing never happens to a guy like you,

 

huh?” he said with a strange amount of confidence.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean you already look like you throw everything to the

 

wind all the time,” he chuckled, pointing a finger at me. “Heh,

 

but I’m just stealing Aoii’s lines. Say, would it bother you if I

 

talked about Aoii?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 3

 

“Not especially.”

 

“In that case, gather ’round, buddy. I feel like talking about

 

her,” he said. “Apparently she was pretty sure from the first

 

time she ever saw you. ‘I’ll probably fall for that guy,’ she

 

said. . . . You already knew she had a thing for you, right?”

 

“You could say that.”

 

“To be honest, I didn’t really get it at the time. It’s weird

 

saying this as a friend of hers, but she was a pretty desirable

 

girl. I don’t just mean she was hot. That has nothing to do

 

with a girl being desirable. A pretty girl is just a pretty girl.”

 

“Do you not like pretty girls?”

 

“I hate ’em. They always look like they’re up to something.”

 

That didn’t seem like it was the pretty girls’ fault to me,

 

but I didn’t bother interrupting.

 

“But with her, well . . . even if she was up to something,

 

she would always spill her guts about it. She let all of her

 

emotions show. There was no front and back to her. She was

 

more like double-sided tape.”

 

I didn’t really follow his analogy.

 

“I’ve never met anyone in my whole life who had their insides

 

as exposed as much as she did, and that includes back in

 

grade school. I thought she must be an idiot or something at

 

first. Anybody would, seeing someone like that, right? You

 

think, ‘Aw, man, what’s wrong with this chick?!’ ”

 

“I concur.”

 

“Yeah, but she was no fool. She wasn’t a ditz either. It

 

wasn’t even that she was emotionally immature or that she

 

had a low IQ or anything like that. She was actually pretty

 

sharp and clever, in her own way.”

 

“I agree with that, too.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 4

 

“As soon as I realized all this, I got jealous, to be honest. I

 

mean, I can’t do that. It sounds simple enough just to be able

 

to cry when you want to cry, laugh when you want to laugh,

 

but guys like us, we can’t do it. We act tough or apply strange

 

logic to everything. Basically we’re all warped. That’s why

 

Aoii was so lucky; she could get pissed off if something bad

 

happened. She could enjoy herself to her heart’s delight if

 

something good happened. But I couldn’t even acknowledge

 

my own envy. It just turned into anger.”

 

“Isn’t there a class on that kind of thing?”

 

“Yeah. Educational something-or-other theory. I’m taking

 

it too. What did they say again? Modem youth lacks a sufficient

 

vocabulary? I think that’s pretty true. We don’t have

 

enough words to express ourselves, so we don’t even know

 

what we’re getting mad at. Even when we’re really just sad,

 

we say we’re pissed off. But Aoii was different. She expressed

 

exactly what she felt.”

 

“You’ve sure got a lot of good things to say about her,” I

 

said as passively as possible. “Akiharu-kun, didn’t you ever

 

consider going out with her?”

 

He gave a bashful chuckle, but his expression was otherwise

 

unreadable. “Well, I’m a guy, too, after all, so I won’t say

 

I never had feelings like that. Especially since I was still a virile

 

high school student when we met. And I didn’t believe in boygirl

 

friendships back then.”

 

“Ah yeah, I’ve heard of guys like that.”

 

But I also didn’t really believe that same-gender friendships

 

were possible either.

 

“But it wasn’t really like that with her, actually. This goes

 

for Atemiya and Emoto too, but it’s like, you look at them

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 5

 

and they’re definitely easy on the eyes, but it’s like . . . you

 

just don’t feel the fire, or like, you wither.”

 

“ ‘Withering’ is a good way to put it. I can’t say I don’t follow

 

you on that.”

 

“Right? So that’s how it was with her. Anyway, she was a

 

nice girl. Emoto too, but she always had this sort of distance

 

about her. Not that it was her fault, but still.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Well, anyway. I liked Aoii, romantic feelings aside. It

 

wasn’t like I was going out of my way trying to make her

 

happy, but I didn’t want to see her unhappy. I wouldn’t let it

 

happen. So when she fell for someone, I had to help out,

 

y’know?”

 

“Huh.”

 

“You’re that ‘someone,’ man.”

 

“Yeah, I know. She told me herself.”

 

“Oh,” he nodded. “Listen, I don’t know if I should be saying

 

this . . .”

 

“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want.”

 

“No, I should. It’s just that at first, I was opposed to it. Not

 

just me—Atemiya and Emoto, too. Especially Emoto. She was

 

unusually upset about it, saying stuff like ‘anyone but him.’

 

She even threatened to cut off Mikoko-chan if she pursued

 

you.”

 

“So you guys didn’t like me.”

 

“You’re not surprised?”

 

“I’m used to not being liked. On the contrary, it’s being

 

liked that’s weird for me.”

 

“Oh. But we didn’t actually dislike you. We had barely

 

even talked to you. But the thing is—I still feel this way now,

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 6

 

even knowing you’re a good guy, but thing is, there’s just

 

something freaky about you.”

 

“. . .”

 

“Like you could easily kill a person.”

 

“Hey now, let’s not go nuts,” I said.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, man, I’m not saying you did kill

 

someone, but it’s like you could kill someone, and you’re just

 

suppressing it all the time with a completely straight face.

 

What you’ve got built up in your belly would take ten regular

 

people like me to choke down. It’s like you’re just pretending

 

to be human.”

 

“Geez.”

 

I responded as coolly as possible, but on the inside I was

 

whistling. If I had the coordination, I would’ve applauded and

 

praised him as well. Being so thoroughly figured out in less

 

than a month’s time was an entirely fresh experience for me.

 

It was no wonder he and Tomo-chan were friends.

 

“But Aoii was really stubborn about the whole thing. She

 

had no intention of giving up on you, so we gave in. But we

 

told her to let us make a test. You know, to see if this Ikkun

 

character was really right for her.”

 

“Is that what that birthday party was all about?”

 

“You guessed it. I mean it really was Emoto’s birthday and

 

all, but still.” He let out an exaggerated groan and hunched

 

forward. “But the story just cuts off when someone dies. That

 

goes for Emoto and Aoii both.”

 

“Akiharu-kun,” I said, deliberately cutting the intonation

 

out of my voice. “Who do you think killed Mikoko-chan?”

 

“Like I would know. I don’t even want to know. If I find

 

out, I’ll end up hating, despising whoever it was. But I don’t

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 7

 

like hating people and holding grudges and stuff. It totally

 

sucks, man, I mean, am I right?”

 

“Huh.” I chewed on his words in my head for awhile and

 

nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

Interesting. So Akiharu-kun was living on his own terms.

 

What about me? What terms should I have been applying to

 

life?

 

I felt somebody’s eyes on me and turned around. The only

 

people there were tourists and a group of students on a field

 

trip.

 

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Akiharu-kun asked.

 

“Oh, nothing. It felt like someone was watching me.”

 

“Hmm. Probably just your imagination.”

 

“Yeah, maybe. But lately I’ve been getting that feeling once

 

in awhile when I leave my apartment.”

 

“Maybe it’s Aoii’s ghost or something.”

 

“Yeah, could be. Yeah. Maybe.”

 

He was probably only joking, but to me, there was truth to

 

his words.

 

“Hup,” he groaned as he jumped down off the Vespa.

 

“Well, that’s enough chitchat for today. Anyway, it’s in your

 

hands.’

 

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

 

“Be sure you do. It’s Aoii’s memento.”

 

“Yeah. I’ll call it the Mikoko.”

 

“Ahh,” Akiharu-kun groaned, “I think you’d better not,” he

 

said. “You shouldn’t attach names to vehicles. It’s just needless

 

sentimentality.”

 

“If it’s a memento, it’ll be sentimental either way.”

 

“Ah, gotcha.” He nodded. “But don’t call it the Mikoko.”

 

He stretched out one more time. “Ahhh. Well, I’ve passed on

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 8

 

the Vespa, I’ve said my piece about Aoii; I can die happy

 

now.”

 

“Huh?” Something about his phrasing bothered me. A

 

blurt of suspicion leapt from my tongue, but I posed my question

 

anyhow. “What’s that supposed to mean? You make it

 

sound like you’re on your way to the afterlife or something.”

 

“Hahaha. Nah, it’s just . . .” His mouth curled into a smile

 

of defeat, or possibly resignation. “I just figure I’ll probably be

 

the next one who gets killed.”

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“It means just what it sounds like. Or maybe it doesn’t

 

mean anything at all. Anyway, see ya later,” he said without

 

giving me a straight answer. He waved a hand at me, turned

 

his back on Kitanotenman Shrine, and started walking. I

 

thought to stop him, but decided against it just before saying

 

anything.

 

I sighed.

 

The bequeathed Vespa.

 

I wondered if it was really okay to use it, but somehow I

 

knew that if I didn’t, nobody would. It certainly would make

 

life more convenient. And I wouldn’t have to borrow Miikosan’s

 

Fiat as much. Maybe that was what Mikoko-chan had

 

been hoping for all along.

 

There was something a little amusing about that idea. Just

 

a little.

 

“Guess I’ll have to buy myself a parking space.”

 

I didn’t know how that was done. Deciding I’d have to ask

 

Miiko-san about it, I returned home.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 6 9

 

Whoa. Is that Mikoko-chan over there?

 

Yup, that’s right. Long time no see, Ikkun.

 

Uhhh, oh. I get it. This is a dream.

 

Ahaha. You catch on quick, Ikkun. I guess that’s about what you’d

 

expect from such a realist. Or are you a romanticist? Or maybe you’re

 

a classicist. Half and half, maybe. And then you’re one-third

 

pessimist.

 

I’m not sure that adds up.

 

True.

 

Hey, you’re not really Mikoko-chan, are you?

 

Oops. You got me. Well, who do you think I am?

 

Beats me. Who?

 

You decide. It’s your dream, after all.

 

Okay, you’re Tomo-chan, then.

 

Why do you think that? You might be wrong. I could be Kunagisasan

 

or Aikawa-san or Muimi-chan or Akiharu-kun or Miiko-san or

 

Suzunashi-san or anyone else.

 

I can talk to everyone else whenever I want. I can’t talk to

 

you. You’re the only person I want to talk to that I can’t.

 

Liar. You know there are others.

 

No, no, no. I don’t want to talk to them anymore.

 

Okay, fine. If you say so. Well then, let’s talk. Let’s discuss all the

 

things we didn’t get to that day.

 

Really? Okay, sure. In that case, there’s one question I’ve

 

wanted to ask you.

 

What?

 

Do you hate the killer?

 

The one who killed me? The answer is just as you thought—not

 

even a little bit. We talked about it on that day, didn’t we? I said I

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 0

 

want to be reborn. It was myself that I hated. I don’t think of my

 

death as unfortunate in the slightest.

 

Sounds like you’re just saying that.

 

Well, sure. Anything you put into words sounds that way. Say,

 

Ikkun, do you ever read mystery novels?

 

I don’t read much in general. I used to, but now I just do it

 

when I need to kill time. But I basically know what mystery

 

novels are like.

 

I see. I’m a big fan. I’ll read anything, but mysteries are my

 

favorite. They’re easy to understand. But one thing I don’t like is how

 

they always put so much emphasis on the criminal’s motives. I mean,

 

I know you must need a pretty good reason to do something like kill

 

a person. After all, the risk is so high.

 

Yeah. A peer of mine said something like that once. The

 

risk is high, but the return is low. Of course, that guy turned

 

out to be a human failure who could only prove himself by

 

killing others.

 

But, you know, a motive is nothing more than an excuse. It’s just

 

a plea to a person’s sympathies. When you think about it, it all comes

 

down to the morals of the individual. Do you know this saying?

 

‘A gentleman kills not for himself, but for justice and for the sake of

 

others.’ But hang on a second there. What does that mean, ‘for the

 

sake of others’? What is ‘justice’? I don’t know the answer.

 

I don’t know either. Sounds like it’s just a means of selfjustification.

 

I don’t know what your killer was thinking. Or

 

maybe I just don’t want to know.

 

Why not?

 

Because I can’t sense any rhyme or reason to it. I mean,

 

things obviously aren’t that clear regarding Mikoko-chan’s

 

death either, but in your case it’s like everything was totally

 

uncalculated. Like your death was just improvised.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 1

 

Yeah, maybe. But does it matter? I’m not angry about it, and I’m

 

not sad that I’m dead, either. Really, it’s no lie. I’m not the least bit

 

resentful.

 

And so now you’re going to be reborn as Mikoko-chan?

 

Yup.

 

But she’s dead too.

 

She is, isn’t she?

 

How do you feel about that? Your own death aside, how

 

do you feel toward the person who sent Mikoko-chan to

 

death? No resentment there either?

 

I guess I don’t really have an opinion.

 

Isn’t that a little cold? You were friends, weren’t you?

 

It’s a little funny hearing that from you of all people.

 

I’ve got a friend myself.

 

Kunagisa-san? Or could it be Miiko-san? I know it’s not Muimichan

 

or Akiharu-kun, right? But I think you’re like me, Ikkun—even

 

if a friend dies, I don’t feel sadness. I know how to be sad, but I just

 

can’t seem to set foot into that domain. I must have less emotion

 

than the average person.

 

I can’t say I don’t understand.

 

Maybe it’s a matter of distrust toward human beings? Like I’ve

 

suffered some fatal wound that’s destroyed my trust in others. A

 

person once persecuted can never believe in another human being

 

for the rest of their life.

 

I think you’re going too far there.

 

You don’t think that.

 

Yes, I do.

 

No, you don’t.

 

No, I don’t.

 

People who realize how much human beings love to discriminate

 

can never trust anyone. Japanese people are particularly like that.

 

Like, let’s say someone’s friend is being victimized by some group. It’s

 

one person versus many. Now obviously, the right thing to do is to

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 2

 

stick up for the friend. But the average person wouldn’t do that. They

 

would go with the group. Human beings crave to belong to a group.

 

They don’t even care who the group is. All that matters is that they

 

have a group and that people are with them. What kind of group it is

 

doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t have any meaning or value. And once

 

you realize this cruel fact, it’s impossible to trust people. For

 

example, do you have a family, Ikkun?

 

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t exist.

 

That’s not what I mean.

 

Yeah, they’re alive and well. I think they’re somewhere

 

around Kobe. We haven’t seen each other in years, though.

 

Now that you mention it, Mikoko-chan once told me that I

 

didn’t seem like the type to show any devotion to my parents.

 

True enough. I haven’t seen them since I was in junior high.

 

You probably could call me a bad son.

 

Sounds like your household has some issues.

 

Nah, not really. Not at all. We didn’t have any problems,

 

actually. If I had been aware of any problems at all, I probably

 

wouldn’t have turned out like the person I am. What about

 

you? Do you have a family?

 

Uh-uh. Not anybody that really feels like one. That’s why I

 

decided on a university so far from home. Mikoko-chan and the

 

others apparently had similar situations.

 

You mean you all couldn’t trust your own families?

 

Yeah, that’s right. I can’t even trust myself. I don’t remember who

 

it was who said “there’s nothing sure in this world,” but that’s about

 

what it feels like. It feels like the whole world is fragile and

 

threatening to topple over and shatter to pieces at the slightest

 

nudge. But in reality, that isn’t the world, but myself.

 

Sounds like you’re damaged goods.

 

You said it. I mean, think about it. Would you define a person who

 

has never cried since the day she was born as well rounded? I can

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 3

 

form a smile, but is that enough for you to be able to say I’m a decent

 

human being?

 

I’m the same way. I used to try to write it off as individuality.

 

What about now?

 

Not now. Individuality can go eat some shit. Being different

 

isn’t necessarily good. Anyone who’s ever thought about

 

the effect being radically different would never preach such

 

nonsense. People talk about “the chosen ones,” gifted individuals

 

who have left their mark on history. Most of those people

 

were probably totally messed up. But they were just regular

 

people, all the same. They weren’t outcasts. They were just

 

regular people, except that they were broken. But Tomochan.

 

From what you’re saying, it sounds like you don’t trust

 

Muimi-chan, Akiharu-kun, and Mikoko-chan, nor do you have

 

any faith in them.

 

Yeah. I won’t deny that. In fact, I’ll confirm it. You know, I think

 

you of all people must understand how inferior that makes me feel.

 

You know what a nice girl Mikoko-chan is. Akiharu-kun’s a good guy,

 

too, and Muimi-chan is of a rare breed nowadays whose loyalty to

 

friends runs all the way to the bone. The idea that I can’t trust people

 

like that, that no matter how hard I try, I can’t truly think of them as

 

friends, makes me feel like a filthy human being. They’ve shown me

 

so much love, and I can’t give anything back.

 

I know how you feel. It’s a sense of guilt.

 

Yeah, that’s it. So it’s good that a flawed specimen like me

 

passed on.

 

What about Mikoko-chan?

 

That’s Mikoko-chan’s problem. I’m already dead. There’s nothing

 

I can say. And, Ikkun, that’s not really what you’re here to ask, is it?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 4

 

Well, I dunno. There were a ton of things I wanted to talk

 

about. No, actually there were only a couple. By which I mean

 

there was just one.

 

Go ahead.

 

Is it okay for me to be alive?

 

Ahhh, now that is a fine question.

 

As a member of this colony known as mankind who contributes

 

nothing toward their collective gain, do I have a right

 

to live?

 

I think I could have easily presented the same question myself. I

 

mean, if I weren’t already dead. Well . . . in regards to that question, I

 

only have one word for you.

 

Huh? What is it?

 

It’s —

 

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep

 

I awoke to an unpleasant electronic noise, groaned, and

 

got up.

 

Not from my futon, but directly off the floor where I had

 

apparently been sleeping. I had had an awful dream. It had

 

progressed so arbitrarily and with such self-indulgence that it

 

made me disgusted with myself. As if I had completely figured

 

out Tomo-chan’s inner psyche after less than an hour of

 

talking to her.

 

And yet I couldn’t shake the odd feeling that the dream

 

had been real.

 

“But what the hell am I doing holding debates with dead

 

people?”

 

Could it be that I was still feeling a bit regretful?

 

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep. In other words, even now—

 

beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep—even now, I—beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep—

 

Nah, let’s set that aside for now.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 5

 

This wasn’t my alarm clock. It was the ringtone from my

 

cell phone. Despising musical ringtones, my phone was still

 

set to its default ring, but even that wasn’t very pleasant. I

 

picked up the phone and pressed the send button.

 

“Yes, hello?”

 

“. . . .”

 

Huh. No answer. But I could sense breathing on the other

 

end. Maybe it was a weak signal.

 

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

 

. . . . .

 

“Hello? Can you hear my voice? Not so much?”

 

Silence. It was strange. Maybe the phone itself was broken.

 

I had recently thrown it into the laundry with my pants, after

 

all. But modem electronics weren’t so fragile. In which case,

 

maybe it was a crank call.

 

“If you don’t say anything, I’m gonna go ahead and hang

 

up, okay? Is that okay?”

 

With inappropriate timing, my mind began to wander to

 

the time Mikoko-chan had called and gotten all flustered

 

thinking it was a wrong number.

 

“Okay, I’m hanging up. Commencing countdown. Five,

 

four, three, two—”

 

. . . .

 

Whoa. I’d heard something. But it was too soft to make

 

out.

 

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t catch that. Could you say it again,

 

please?”

 

“Kamogawa Park.”

 

“I’m sorry? Kamogawa?”

 

“I’m waiting at Kamogawa Park. . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 6

 

The voice faded in and out, my eardrums just barely able

 

to pick it up. I couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, adult or

 

child. There was no discernible intonation, so I couldn’t even

 

determine what emotions the caller was attempting to convey.

 

“I’m sorry? Please say that again. And who is this?”

 

“Mikoko.”

 

The voice said only that, and the call ended.

 

I tossed the phone on the floor, stood up, and stretched my

 

hands up toward the ceiling. It was low enough that I could

 

reached it if I exerted myself. Who lived above me again?

 

Oh, right, the fifteen-year-old brother and thirteen-yearold

 

sister. Those two shared a closeness that made even me

 

smile. Of course they were just barely surviving, so maybe

 

that wasn’t an appropriate reaction.

 

The apartment building was three stories tall, with two

 

rooms per floor, meaning there were a total of six rooms, two

 

of which were currently vacant. The brother and sister upstairs

 

lived next to the old hermit. He was into Christianity,

 

which meant he probably would’ve clashed quite a bit with

 

Miiko-san’s ultra-Japaneseness, but by no means were they

 

enemies. Both rooms on the first floor were vacant, but the

 

landlord said someone would be coming in next month. Even

 

a place like this had a pretty impressive draw of tenants.

 

I plopped back down on the floor and picked up the abandoned

 

phone. Checking the call history, I discovered that, sure

 

enough, the call was from an unknown number.

 

Now let’s think about this. “Kamogawa Park. That’s definitely

 

what they said.”

 

So they were waiting there? Okay, fine. That was fine, for

 

now. The problem was with what the caller said after that,

 

when I asked for a name. How had they answered?

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 7

 

“ ‘Mikoko’ . . . yeah, I definitely heard ‘Mikoko.’ ”

 

There wasn’t likely to be another person on earth with a

 

bizarre name like that. But at the same time, it couldn’t have

 

been Mikoko. She was dead. If dead people could use telephones,

 

the whole telephone infrastructure would’ve gone to

 

hell in a handbasket long ago.

 

. . . .

 

With what little information I currently had, thinking

 

would do no good at all. Something about that made me feel a

 

little empty inside.

 

I deleted the call from the phone’s history and checked the

 

time on the LCD display.

 

Eleven thirty at night.

 

Wednesday, May twenty-fifth.

 

. . . .

 

Huh. How had I spent the day again?

 

I seemed to remember waking up at just around noon.

 

Then I had gone out to visit Kunagisa, had run into Akiharukun

 

along the way, inherited Mikoko-chan’s Vespa, returned

 

to my apartment to ask Miiko-san about the parking-space

 

thing, gotten frustrated by the hassle of the parking-space

 

thing, and gone to bed in a huff.

 

“In a huff? What’s wrong with me?”

 

What was I, a little kid?

 

Anyway, that was around two in the afternoon. I had no

 

recollection of what had occurred between then and now,

 

meaning I had slept for nearly ten hours. That was enough to

 

make even Sleeping Beauty gawk in disgust. I had been awake

 

for less than three of the twenty-four hours in May twentyfifth.

 

“I’ve been sleeping like mad lately. . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 8

 

Anyway, then had come the phone call. A bizarre, garbled

 

phone call with no context, just words. I didn’t know its

 

meaning. Or rather, its meaning was the only thing I knew.

 

“Well, whatever.”

 

I had two choices. One, I could obey the caller’s request

 

and head down to Kamogawa Park; or two, I could ignore it.

 

Now, obviously, common sense would dictate that the latter

 

was the correct choice. But I didn’t know a thing about common

 

sense. And besides, I couldn’t just sit idly by when the

 

caller was throwing a name like that around. It didn’t take

 

long for me to reach a decision.

 

I washed my face and changed clothes.

 

“This is the first real piece of nonsense I’ve encountered in

 

awhile,” I said to myself.

 

I left a note behind and left the building. I mounted my

 

Vespa, which was tentatively parked illegally in a nearby alleyway

 

until I was able to secure a parking space. I could’ve just

 

walked, but Kamogawa Park was a bit far. The caller hadn’t

 

designated any specific meeting time, but I figured the sooner

 

the better.

 

I turned east onto Imadegawa Street and drove straight

 

ahead.

 

Still, I wondered, returning to my original train of thought,

 

what was that dream all about?

 

I didn’t believe in ghosts or apparitions or the afterlife or

 

that sort of thing, nor was I sure they didn’t exist. People do

 

have unexplainable experiences, after all, and I wasn’t so hardheaded

 

as to claim I didn’t believe in something about which I

 

truly knew nothing. Having said that, this wasn’t some piece

 

of classical literature, so it wasn’t like somebody else had en-

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 7 9

 

tered my dream. It had been a product of my consciousness,

 

and mine alone.

 

“Was it lingering attachment? Desire?”

 

Either way, it was only an illusion. Nothing to lose sleep

 

over, so to speak. The important thing was that it was Tomochan

 

who had appeared in my dream, not Mikoko-chan.

 

Surely this was a crime.

 

“Face your crimes. That is your punishment.” So

 

Suzunashi-san had told me one day in February. She was no

 

psychic, but she could see through me. She was the kind of

 

woman who commanded respect, yet never made you feel

 

inferior. Perhaps that was a rare thing.

 

I passed Horikawa, Torimaru, and Kawara-machi Streets,

 

eventually arriving in Kamogawa. Even if it was the middle of

 

the night, I couldn’t just ride a scooter through the park, so I

 

parked it by a bridge and headed down to the riverbank, also

 

known as Kamogawa Park.

 

“Ahh, so, now what?”

 

The name Kamogawa Park, in reality, represented a ridiculously

 

enormous area of land. It wasn’t spacious, exactly, just

 

long. And the opposite side of the river was considered part of

 

it. There wasn’t an idiot in all of Kyoto who would arrange a

 

meeting here without designating a specific street name.

 

“Well, whatever.”

 

I probably didn’t have to take a random phone call like

 

that so seriously anyway. I began walking down the river in

 

the direction of the current. Looking at my watch, I saw that

 

it was already past midnight. It was Thursday, May twentysixth.

 

It occurred to me that there wasn’t much left to the

 

month of May. Being here reminded me that it was along this

 

very river that Zerozaki had nearly killed me, right under the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 0

 

big Shijô Bridge. At the time, neither Tomo-chan nor Mikokochan

 

had died yet.

 

That felt like ages ago. And I didn’t think it was just my

 

imagination.

 

I looked back. It was hard to tell because it was so dark,

 

but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Even though I

 

had felt something.

 

A gaze.

 

“Hmm . . .”

 

I had felt it this afternoon when I was with Akiharu-kun as

 

well. He had suggested that it might have been Mikoko-chan’s

 

ghost, but what was a more realistic possibility? The most

 

likely explanation seemed to be that the police had sent someone

 

to tail me. After all, I was involved in the deaths of both

 

Tomo-chan and Mikoko-chan.

 

“But come on, at this hour?”

 

Besides, there was no reason for them to have to sneak

 

around. So on to the next possibility. A being of origins unknown

 

had summoned me on the telephone, and when I arrived

 

at the designated place, I felt somebody’s gaze. There

 

was really only one possible explanation here.

 

. . . .

 

I boosted my alertness a tad and kept walking. The strange

 

gaze seemed to vanish. It was around Maruta-machi Street

 

that I began to feel like a doofus. What the hell was I doing

 

here?

 

“I suppose I could just leave.”

 

I climbed back up the embankment onto the road. I

 

crossed the bridge to the other side of the river and descended

 

to the park below. I thought it would be a nice change of

 

scenery if I switched sides for the walk back. Looking out at

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 1

 

the river, I saw some ducks swimming around. Was that why

 

it was called Kamogawa—or Duck River? It seemed peculiar

 

that someone had actually named the river that for such a

 

bland reason.

 

I thought about hurrying back home to get to bed, but

 

then I realized I had just slept. Since I had come all the way

 

out, it might not have been a bad idea to take the Vespa for a

 

spin around Kyoto. If I kept parallel to the river, I could drive

 

to Maizuru. It would be good for getting used to my newly

 

acquired vehicle, not to mention for killing time.

 

Even as I pondered this, I continued walking straight

 

ahead. When I was approaching Imadegawa Street, I spotted a

 

shadowy figure huddled on the ground in front of me. Next to

 

it was a fallen bicycle. It was hard to make out because of the

 

darkness, but it looked like the figure was actually a person

 

who had collapsed. It lay motionless with its back to me. I

 

wondered if it was a sleeping homeless person, but if that

 

were the case there probably wouldn’t have been a bike

 

nearby. Perhaps someone had gone drinking out in Kiya-machi

 

and fallen off their bike passing through the park. Though I

 

had little sympathy, I couldn’t just leave a person there like

 

that. The figure’s long, black hair led me to believe it was a

 

woman.

 

“Are you all right?” I called out, but received no reply. It

 

almost seemed like the person was dead. Frankly, it was a

 

definite possibility. Just falling off a bike was enough to kill a

 

person if they had a bad landing. All the more if the person

 

was drunk. I considered the idea of just passing on by, but it

 

just didn’t seem right, so I ran over and tapped the figure on

 

the shoulder.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 2

 

“Are you all right?” I checked one more time. The figure

 

didn’t move an inch. “Are you all right?” I asked a third time,

 

and decided I should at least turn the figure onto its back. The

 

instant I gave the shoulders a tug, the figure, which had been

 

completely still until now, flipped over with incredible nimbleness

 

and sprayed some kind of mist in my face.

 

I tried to spring backward, but my timing was off. A dull

 

pain ran through my left cheek. As I realized I had been

 

struck, I slammed down into the riverbank onto my back

 

without even managing to roll.

 

My attacker stood up.

 

Not good. Either because I had been struck or because of

 

whatever that mist was, my eyes wouldn’t focus. What the

 

hell was that stuff? My eyes didn’t hurt enough for it to be

 

Mace. I forced my hobbling body up to a kneel and tried to

 

push myself up with my left hand, but the attacker was closing

 

in fast. I gave up on that idea and began rolling away instead,

 

spinning myself around more times than was even

 

necessary. When I had distanced myself about thirty feet from

 

the attacker, I managed to rise onto one knee.

 

The shadowy figure stood still before me. I could see that

 

it was a person of considerable height, but I couldn’t make out

 

the body frame. My vision still wasn’t coming back. But that

 

wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t stable. My feet, my knees,

 

and my head were just as bad. I thought I might collapse any

 

second. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. It was more like I was

 

falling into something. Yes. To put it simply, I felt . . . sleepy.

 

The knee that was supporting me collapsed.

 

Spray anesthetic? And this wasn’t your ordinary antipervert

 

concoction; this was high-powered stuff. Not only my

 

eyes, but all of my physical faculties had been disabled. Maybe

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 3

 

this kind of stuff is common in America, but I had never even

 

laid eyes on it (literally) in Japan.

 

My assailant approached me, one step at a time. Even with

 

my blurry vision, I could make out the knife in this person’s

 

right hand. A knife. Zerozaki Hitoshiki. The Kyoto prowler.

 

My mind was a mess.

 

“Why?”

 

“Who? Why? Of course, neither of these things mattered

 

in regards to the current problem at hand.”

 

Even with my mind all fogged up, I knew exactly how bad

 

it would be if I fell asleep at a time like this. It would mean

 

either death or something close enough.

 

Dammit. This was no time for hesitation, but I just

 

couldn’t work up the nerve to do anything that would cause

 

myself harm. I couldn’t help but hesitate. Naturally, my

 

attacker approached at a leisurely pace. I would be asleep in

 

no time anyway. But I knew this would be my one and only

 

opening.

 

Right hand or left?

 

I deliberated for only a moment before deciding on the

 

right. “Jesus Christ, man. Who am I, Nenbutsu no Tetsu?”

 

I gripped the thumb on my right hand with my left hand. I

 

hesitated for just one more second, then gave it a yank as hard

 

as I could in the wrong direction.

 

“Gyyyyaaaaahhhhh!” I let out a scream so piercing that

 

even my own ears hurt, and it reverberated throughout all of

 

Kamogawa Park.

 

It was now either broken or dislocated. Either way, my

 

sleepiness had cleared up. I recollected myself all at once, and

 

my vision, physical functionality, and alertness returned to

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 4

 

normal. Pain ran through my entire body as I stood to face my

 

enemy.

 

My attacker was clad all in black, complete with black ski

 

mask and black leather gloves. No hair was visible. The long

 

black hair I’d seen before was a wig. My vision had restored

 

itself, but it was still hard to make out my assailant’s figure

 

against the dark background. This must have been why I

 

thought it was a shadow at first. It occurred to me that the

 

attacker had definitely showed up dressed and prepared for

 

an ambush. This person looked far more like a killer than

 

Zerozaki—and far more like a prowler.

 

“Dammit . . . who are you?”

 

Naturally, there was no answer. All I could hear was the

 

attacker’s creepy breathing. Whoever it was pointed the knife

 

at me and slowly closed in. I didn’t have a single item that

 

might have been used as a weapon, and I had left my cell

 

phone in my room. I couldn’t even call for help.

 

“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. . . .”

 

I got into a fighting stance, and began to close in on the

 

distance from my end. Evidently surprised by this action, the

 

one in black came a second late with the knife. I attempted to

 

deal a palm strike to the jaw, which of course missed as the

 

enemy leaped backward and once again brandished the knife

 

at me.

 

The one in black was the next to make a move. He lunged

 

at me with the knife. But it was the motion of a novice. This

 

person was nothing compared to Zerozaki, and dodging was a

 

simple task. However, as I jerked my body backward, my

 

thumb bumped into the side of my torso. An intense shock of

 

pain shot through me.

 

!

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 5

 

I regretted breaking it. I probably could have just torn a

 

nail off or something. Or, if I absolutely had to break something,

 

I should have gone with the pinky. Why would I choose

 

the thumb? What was I, an idiot? There’s such a thing as

 

limits.

 

Naturally, the one in black didn’t let the opportunity slip

 

away, and gave me a hard shove. Already off balance, I toppled

 

over onto my back. Without sparing a second, the enemy

 

mounted me. I took a moment to reminisce with inappropriate

 

calmness about how this same thing had just happened

 

last month. Now how had I dealt with the situation last time?

 

Without giving me a moment to think, the knife came

 

down. It was aimed directly at my face—no, my carotid artery.

 

I used every ounce of strength left in me to dodge my head to

 

the right, mostly avoiding the blade. It managed to slice

 

through a single layer of skin. I was bleeding. The one in black

 

pulled the knife back out from the earth of the riverbank it

 

had lodged into, and readied it for another swing. Just as I

 

thought there would be no escape this time, my attacker’s

 

hand came to a halt. Looking down at me as if making some

 

observation, my assailant tossed the knife away.

 

Without any time to contemplate the meaning behind this

 

action, the attacker plunged a fist into my face. The same left

 

cheek from before. The next moment, the opposite cheek

 

took a similar blow. Next, the left cheek took a third blow.

 

Then the right again. The attacker continued this endless barrage

 

of punches to my face, leaving no spaces in between.

 

I had long since stopped thinking about the pain. I could

 

just feel my brain rattling.

 

. . . . . ,

 

Suddenly, the pummeling ceased.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 286

 

But it didn’t take long for me to learn that this was no act

 

of mercy. The one in black clamped both hands around my

 

left shoulder. It was easy to guess what the plan was from

 

here. I tried to resist, but my body would not move the way I

 

commanded it. That paralyzing spray had eaten its way into

 

my core. Coupled with the pain, I was sure to pass out any

 

minute.

 

Except.

 

Except that at that exact moment, a deathly excruciating

 

pain shot through my left shoulder with a terrible cracking

 

sound, jarring me back to a fully conscious state. The one in

 

black had dislocated my shoulder joint without the slightest

 

hesitation. On top of that, the attacker then began pummeling

 

it.

 

“Nggaaaaaahhhh!!!” It was a shriek from Hell. I had never

 

known my own vocal cords held such destructive force.

 

Who the hell was this person? What were they doing all of

 

this for? They didn’t want to kill me. This wasn’t an act of

 

murder; it was a simple act of destruction. To this attacker, I

 

was nothing more than an object to be dismantled. Something

 

to be pulled apart like a chain-link puzzle.

 

Next, my assailant went for the right shoulder.

 

“Ghrr . . .” I had regained consciousness fully. I raised half

 

my body up, shook off the attacker’s grip, and swung my fist

 

right into the attacker’s heart. The impact was strangely unsatisfying,

 

as if I’d punched a magazine. That black shirt must

 

have been concealing some kind of protective gear.

 

Having bashed my already broken thumb, I couldn’t bear

 

to use my right arm anymore. The one in black brushed it

 

aside like it was nothing and gripped my right shoulder firmly

 

again.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 7

 

I wasn’t lucid enough to shake it off a second time. I heard

 

a dull, cracking sound as if from a great distance. But the pain

 

was right there with me. A torturous pain ran up from both

 

my shoulders into my brain, even managing to penetrate the

 

numbness.

 

Then, just like before, the attacker began pummeling the

 

newly dislocated joint. And, from there, went straight for my

 

heart—as if exacting revenge. The sound of cracking bone.

 

The impact spread out to my disconnected shoulders, and a

 

dull pain followed an instant behind.

 

“Uhuhh . . . ahhh . . .”

 

I gasped for air. The impact of the punch had dealt significant

 

damage to my lungs. Whether that had been my attacker’s

 

aim or not, I didn’t know, but either way, it made for

 

a prime opening. The attacker gripped my face by the jaw.

 

Hey, now, hey, now, are you serious? That’s the most painful

 

thing you can do to a person. But there was no time to make

 

inquiries. I thought I ought to chomp down on the attacker’s

 

finger, but I let myself hesitate.

 

The one in black gave a forceful yank on my jaw. There

 

was a far lighter cracking sound than the one from my shoulders,

 

but the pain was incomparably intense. Then, as had

 

become the routine, the attacker gave my dislocated jaw a

 

swift uppercut.

 

No voice came out. I couldn’t even be bothered to scream

 

anymore.

 

Allow me to correct myself.

 

This was an act of murder. The destructive nature of it was

 

irrelevant. It was clear now that this person was going to

 

torture me to death. They would make me suffer until I was

 

dead.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 8 8

 

Dissect me, piece by piece.

 

The one in black hesitated for a bit, most likely pondering

 

how to inflict the next dose of agony.

 

From there, the one in black grabbed the wrist of my limp

 

right arm and held it up, gripping the thumb in one hand.

 

My already broken thumb.

 

!

 

Hehehe.

 

I heard the attacker chuckle.

 

I was in utter shock. There was nothing as fearsome to me

 

and terrifying in this world as a person who could beat and

 

torture someone this much and still have a good laugh.

 

The one in black muttered something I couldn’t make out,

 

then released my thumb in favor of my index finger. I could

 

tell that the plan was to break it. And not only my index

 

finger. From there, the attacker would move onto the middle

 

finger, ring finger, pinky, and then the left hand. Then would

 

come my feet. Maybe they were going to break every bone in

 

my entire body. Then they would tear apart the flesh. And

 

then, once I had been thoroughly dismantled, maybe they

 

would be kind enough to kill me.

 

I had already lost the will to fight back. In fact, I didn’t

 

even know why I had tried fighting back in the first place. I

 

should have just let the spray put me to sleep in the very beginning.

 

At least then I wouldn’t have had to go through all

 

this torture. Why the hell did I break my own thumb? But

 

then again, I probably would have awoken to this pain anyway.

 

I would have gone through the torture either way. If that

 

were the case, then the outcome would have been exactly the

 

same. I had just taken a different route.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 289

 

This was just like last time—a farce enacted with predestined

 

harmony.

 

I felt like I was watching myself from afar.

 

I was watching myself about to be killed from the opposite

 

side of the river.

 

What was I thinking, seeing myself like that?

 

Oh, come on, really now.

 

This is truly ridiculous.

 

Trivial and pointless.

 

What a load of nonsense.

 

“Whattaya doing over theeeeeeeere?!”

 

A thunderous howl.

 

My vacant eyes shifted toward the direction of the voice

 

coming from the opposite riverbank. But nobody was there. A

 

small-framed, shadowy figure was charging this way against

 

the river’s current.

 

I didn’t even have to wonder who it was. I knew this

 

person as well as I knew myself.

 

“Heeeeeeeyyyyy!”

 

Zerozaki.

 

Zerozaki Hitoshiki.

 

Zerozaki Hitoshiki hollered as he leaped from the river and

 

charged up the bank. The one in black seemed momentarily

 

startled by this new contender, but after assessing the situation,

 

released my finger and backed away from my body. My

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 0

 

attacker must have been aware that Zerozaki was not an

 

opponent you could take on from a sitting position.

 

With a bit of distance remaining between Zerozaki and us,

 

Zerozaki hurled a single drawing knife in this direction. This

 

wasn’t aimed at my attacker, but rather a warning used to

 

distance the attacker from me. Having arrived on this side of

 

the riverbed, Zerozaki got between the attacker and me. The

 

one in black went for the knife that had been tossed aside

 

earlier, and brandished it defensively at Zerozaki.

 

“Hahhh . . .” Zerozaki exhaled deeply as if adjusting his

 

breathing. “Why do you let people bully you like that? Stand

 

up for yourself, man!” he said mockingly. I thought about

 

saying something in response, but with my jaw dislocated, it

 

was impossible.

 

“Well, whatever. I guess you’re the one I should be talking

 

to now,” Zerozaki said, facing the one in black. “So what’s

 

your deal? You probably don’t want to hear this from me, but

 

you know you’re committing a crime, right? Assault and battery,

 

attempted murder. Do you realize that? Are you aware

 

of what’s allowed and what’s not?”

 

There were probably any number of comebacks the attacker

 

could have made in this situation, but none were

 

spoken.

 

The one in black took a cautious step backward. It seemed

 

this unknown assailant viewed Zerozaki, in all of his casualness,

 

with his utter lack of caution, as a true threat.

 

“Hmm. This sack of damaged goods here has some pretty

 

nasty wounds to be attended to, and I’m not really looking to

 

draw any more attention by killing someone, so if you want to

 

run away, feel free,” Zerozaki said after a moment’s thought.

 

The one in black took another step back, carefully attempting

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 1

 

to size up Zerozaki. It seemed they were still trying to make a

 

decision.

 

“What’s the matter? I’m telling you I’ll let you go, so hurry

 

up and chase yourself somewhere. Quickly now.”

 

The one in black didn’t respond.

 

Zerozaki let out a deliberate sigh. “If you still want to do

 

this, I’d be happy to kill you. You’ll be in pieces before you

 

even feel anything. I’m not such a nice guy that I’d show

 

mercy to someone going out of their own way to get cut. But,

 

hey, at least you’ll get to be lucky number thirteen. I’ll chop

 

you up and line up the pieces for everyone to gawk at.”

 

And that was the decisive remark.

 

The one in black spun around and dashed away in the direction

 

of Imadegawa.

 

“Go on, go on,” Zerozaki said, laughing. Then he turned to

 

face me. That tattooed face entered my field of vision, only to

 

go blurry an instant later. It seemed the anesthetizing effects

 

of the spray had reached a new peak.

 

“Hm? Hey, don’t go to sleep on me. At least give me your

 

address first.”

 

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. Of course,

 

my shoulders were both dislocated, so this hurt like a bitch,

 

but at this point, I didn’t even care.

 

“Ugh . . .” With the last few drops of my consciousness, and

 

through a dislocated jaw, I told him my address.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 2

 

My next memory began Friday the twenty-seventh, at right

 

around nine o’clock a.m.

 

“Yo. Morning, sunshine.”

 

Zerozaki was right by my pillow. I looked at his face in a

 

daze, having no idea what was going on. Zerozaki himself, on

 

the other hand, seemed relaxed, and genuinely glad that I had

 

woken up.

 

“Man, this place is incredible. It was impossible to find

 

from that address. And the people here are crazy. I went to

 

borrow some bandages and stuff from that chick next door,

 

and she wasn’t even surprised by my face. I’ve never met a

 

chick like that. But I’m glad you’re awake. You must’ve been

 

pretty sleep deprived, huh? I guess you’ve been through a lot.”

 

“Uhhh . . .”

 

I planted my right hand down in an attempt to prop myself

 

up. An intense pain ran through me. “Gah!” I reflexively

 

pulled my hand away and began to fall back down, but somehow

 

managed to catch myself with my left arm.

 

“Nice one, man. It’s broken, you know. Your finger, I

 

mean. I jammed your jaw and shoulders back in place best I

 

could, but there’s nothing I can do about a broken bone. I did

 

some emergency first aid, but I think you’ll probably want to

 

take a visit to the hospital later.”

 

Looking at my right hand, I saw that my thumb had been

 

stabilized with a large amount of bandages, wire, and a splint.

 

Though far from orthodox, it did seem as though he had cared

 

for it properly. I could also feel something strange on my face.

 

It seemed my jaw had also been stabilized, with plaster and

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 3

 

gauze. Zerozaki must have been taking care of me while I was

 

sleeping.

 

“Thank you,” I said.

 

“Forget about it,” he said, waving a hand at me irritably.

 

“But that thumb is looking pretty bad. It’s gonna make life

 

hard, you know,” he teased. I guess one man’s pain is another

 

man’s amusement, killer or not.

 

“No worries. I’m ambidextrous.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Originally I was left-handed, but I corrected it when I was

 

young and became right-handed. But I had a teacher I hated

 

who used to say ‘chopsticks go in your right hand,’ so I

 

switched back to left out of spite. That was back in the third

 

grade.”

 

“You’re kidding.”

 

“Yeah, sorry.”

 

I struggled to return myself to full consciousness. I could

 

get up just fine, but my head was swimming.

 

“Hey, by the way, where’s the Vespa?”

 

“Huh? What’d you say?”

 

“Ah, nothing.”

 

It was probably still sitting abandoned by the bridge in

 

Imadegawa. I just had to go retrieve it at some point. If it

 

hadn’t been towed away, that is. More significant was the fact

 

that Zerozaki had carried me all the way back here on foot

 

with that small body of his. His physical strength was truly

 

admirable.

 

Zerozaki, meanwhile, didn’t seem to think anything of it,

 

and was as calm as ever.

 

“But what the hell was that back there? I can’t believe you

 

and I ended in a standoff, and yet you still let a clumsy oaf like

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 4

 

that get the better of you,” he said. His reasoning was a little

 

sketchy.

 

“That thing with you was special. Yeah . . . I mean, kind

 

of.” I lifted myself up, taking care not to do anything to my

 

thumb. “Yesterday . . . wait, was it yesterday? I got a call saying

 

to come to Kamogawa Park. In retrospect, it was an obvious

 

trap, but anyway, I fell for it. Hence, my current

 

situation.”

 

“Wow. What are you, an idiot?”

 

Indeed. “Yeah, I know it was dumb,” I said. “But let me ask

 

you something. What are you still doing in Kyoto? Didn’t you

 

leave?”

 

“Huh? How’d you know?”

 

“The killings stopped.”

 

“Ah, right, that. Yeah, I did leave for a while. I got attacked

 

by some weird lady in red. She was like this crazy maniac on

 

speed, man. I hit her with my bike and she kept coming at me

 

like it was nothin’. It’s a liter bike, man. What the hell kind of

 

shape is she in? Anyway, she was dead set on catching me, but

 

I was no match for her, so I fled to Osaka. Of course, she

 

came after me. So I came back to Kyoto, cuz you know what

 

they say, the darkest place is right under the candlestick. Anyway,

 

so the day I came back, I was trudging around when I

 

heard a howling like a whipped dog. Being the card-carrying

 

dog lover that I am, I couldn’t just sit around and listen to

 

that, so I ran toward the direction of the voice only to find

 

that it was you, getting your ass handed to you by that thing in

 

black.”

 

“So that’s what happened. I gotcha.”

 

He’d rattled out the second half of the explanation awfully

 

fast, as if he’d gotten tired of explaining. But I basically got the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 5

 

point. Basically, what it came down to was that I’d gotten

 

really, really lucky.

 

Either that, or the one in black was unlucky.

 

“But man, who the hell was that red lady, anyway? I

 

thought I had run into the Red Death.”

 

“It’s Aikawa-san,” I said. It wasn’t my way of expressing

 

gratitude, it was just that it seemed unfair to give Aikawa-san

 

information on him and then not show him the same courtesy.

 

Then again, I wasn’t sure a guy like me should be using a word

 

like unfair.

 

“Aikawa?” Zerozaki said, his tattoo twisting into a dubious

 

grimace. “Did you just say ‘Aikawa’? You mean that was

 

Aikawa Jun?”

 

“Oh, you know her? I guess that means I don’t have to

 

bother explaining, then.”

 

“Nah, I just heard about her from the ‘General,’ that’s all.

 

Dammit, why, of all people, did it have to be Aikawa Jun?” he

 

whined. “There’s no hope now.”

 

“Is she famous or something?”

 

“She’s infamous. Do you have any idea what they call her?

 

‘The Sturm and Drang,’ ‘The Mighty Warrior,’ ‘The Laughing

 

Red Tigress,’ ‘The Killer of Mountain Men,’ ‘The Desert

 

Eagle’ . . . They told me not to have anything to do with her.”

 

“You forgot one.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“ ‘Mankind’s Greatest Private Contractor,’ ” I said, to

 

which Zerozaki didn’t respond. His expression was more serious

 

than I’d ever seen him. When confronted with an opponent

 

like Aikawa Jun, even he couldn’t play it casually.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 6

 

“Shit, man, this is not good. This is just too much of a

 

masterpiece . . .” he muttered to himself. He gave a weak nod.

 

“Well then.” He rose to his feet. “I’m gonna go.”

 

“What? Already?”

 

“Yeah. I shouldn’t really be lingering around doing nothing.

 

It looks like I’ve got some things to think over. There’s nothing

 

to do here anyway, and you’re really in no shape to be

 

talking at length. Besides, I’m a wanted man right now. I can’t

 

stick around in one place for too long.”

 

“Ah, okay.”

 

This was all true. When I gave Aikawa-san a description of

 

Zerozaki, the word must have spread all the way to the police.

 

She wasn’t his only enemy now. For Zerozaki, spending a

 

whole day in this one room was like stepping into the red

 

zone.

 

“What if you just turned yourself in?”

 

“Not a bad idea, but I’m gonna pass on that,” he said with a

 

grin. “Just be sure you take care of your problems. I saw it in

 

the paper and all. That Aoii girl you were talking about got

 

killed, huh?”

 

“Yeah, well.”

 

“Looks like we’ve both got some shit to sort out.”

 

“Yeah. This has been the biggest hassle ever.”

 

“Same here. But hey, that’s life. These are the tracks we’re

 

riding. Anyway, that’s it for me.”

 

“We probably won’t meet again after this,” I said.

 

“No doubt,” he said, laughing. “Farewell.”

 

With that, he left from my room. Left alone, I returned to

 

my futon and lay down. He had either done a fine job of taking

 

care of me, or my wounds hadn’t been that bad to begin

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 7

 

with, because I hardly felt any pain. Of course I would probably

 

have to go to the hospital to check out that broken bone.

 

Right now, though, I needed sleep. Was the anesthetic still

 

active? No, that didn’t seem plausible. So this was just regular

 

old tiredness. Why had I been sleeping so much lately?

 

“Ah, I get it. I was sleeping, but I wasn’t asleep.”

 

At last, I had reached my limit. I shut my eyes, deciding to

 

put off going to the hospital until after I had slept. I was

 

probably getting myself in too deep lately. I kept trying not to

 

think about Tomo-chan and Mikoko-chan, but I was thinking

 

about them all the while. That dream I had was sure enough

 

proof of that. I still hadn’t figured out a conclusion to this

 

murder case.

 

For now, I just needed rest. I decided to put off thinking

 

about that phone trap and the one in black until after sleeping.

 

“Hey.”

 

But right now I wouldn’t even be allowed to sleep. I heard

 

knocking, and a voice coming through the door. I got up and

 

hobbled over to answer it. Zerozaki had returned.

 

“What? Forget something?”

 

“Yeah, sort of. I was going to tell you one more thing.” He

 

entered the room again and sat down cross-legged. I returned

 

to my futon and sat down as well.

 

“Yeah, what is it? You made such a big show of leaving.”

 

“Well, I forgot about this. What do you want me to do?

 

Hey, check your phone.”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

“You got a few calls while you were sleeping.”

 

“Huh. Around what time?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 8

 

“Just this morning. It kept going ‘beep beep beep beep.’

 

So annoying. Isn’t that what woke you up?”

 

I took a look at the phone’s call history as I listened to Zerozaki

 

rambling on. The calls had come from a familiar number.

 

I knew I had seen it before.

 

“Ahh, right, it was Sasaki-san,” I said, realizing. This number

 

belonged to that detective currently absorbed in a war of

 

attrition, Sasa Sasaki-san. Between eight and nine o’clock this

 

morning, my phone had received seven calls from her number.

 

“I wonder what she wants.”

 

“I didn’t pick up, so don’t ask me. I shouldn’t be answering

 

your phone, right? If you’re curious, just call her back.”

 

“I will.”

 

I entered in her number.

 

“Who’s Sasaki again? I feel like I know that name.”

 

“I think I mentioned her that time at karaoke. She’s that

 

hotshot detective.”

 

“Ah, right,” he said with a complex expression. The word

 

detective probably didn’t sit too well with Zerozaki these days.

 

Of course, it didn’t leave such a great impression on me

 

either.

 

The signal seemed to connect, and it continued to the dial

 

tone. I waited a few seconds.

 

“Yeah, Sasa here,” came Sasaki-san’s voice.

 

“Hello, it’s me.”

 

“What were you doing earlier?”

 

“Nothing, just sleeping.”

 

“I see . . . Yeah, that’s fine.” There was something strangely

 

cool and reserved about her. It sounded like she was forcing

 

herself to be cool and reserved. Which meant that right now,

 

she wasn’t really cool or reserved at all.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 2 9 9

 

“Sasaki-san, did something happen? Or is there something

 

else you wanted to ask me?”

 

“Something happened,” she said. “Usami Akiharu-san was

 

murdered.”

 

Suddenly.

 

Everything.

 

Connected.

 

“Usami-kun, you say?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“Do I seem like the kind of person who would make up a

 

lie like that? This morning a friend discovered the body at

 

school. He’s been strangled, just like Emoto-san and Aoii-san.

 

I’m at the scene right now.”

 

Now that she mentioned it, it did sound like she was

 

speaking so as not to disturb the people around her. She was

 

probably surrounded by police officers, medical examiners,

 

and gawking onlookers.

 

Akiharu-kun.

 

Hadn’t he said he would be next? Oddly, his words had

 

become a reality.

 

“Really . . .”

 

But this was probably no simple coincidence. If Akiharukun

 

had figured out the truth, then it would make sense that

 

he could foresee his own death. And yet even knowing this, he

 

had let himself be killed all the same.

 

“I’d like to ask you some things, if you would come . . .”

 

“Before that,” I interrupted, “I want to ask you about

 

Akiharu-kun’s body. Do you mind?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 0

 

“Go ahead.” As if she could sense through my voice alone

 

that something was different about me, she made no objection.

 

“I’ll answer anything I can.”

 

“I just have one question. Is there another ‘x over y’ left

 

behind at the crime scene?”

 

“Yes,” she softly affirmed after a moment of silence. “But

 

this time it’s strange. We can’t say anything for certain yet,

 

but this time evidence suggests it was written by the victim

 

himself. Yeah. But why do you ask? Have you thought of

 

something? Did you figure out what x over y means?”

 

No, that wasn’t it.

 

I had already figured out the meaning of that formula long

 

ago. Or rather, at this point, it had no meaning. That wasn’t

 

the issue right now.

 

“No, that’s not it. Okay, so should I head down to the

 

police station later?”

 

“I’d appreciate it. What time is good for you?”

 

“This afternoon . . . no, this evening.”

 

“Okay, then I’ll—”

 

I hung up while she was talking. If I hadn’t, I would’ve said

 

something regrettable. I wasn’t so coolheaded myself right

 

now. I threw my cell phone at the floor with a violent force

 

normally unthinkable for a guy like me.

 

“Hey now, what are you doing?” Zerozaki said in surprise.

 

“Are you crazy? Don’t throw your phone. Look at the poor

 

thing.”

 

“This is what they call venting,” I said dimly. “That is, suppressing

 

your anger by taking it out on an inanimate object.”

 

“Yeah, I know that.” He picked up the phone, checked to

 

see that it wasn’t broken, and then put it down away from me.

 

“What happened?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 1

 

“Akiharu-kun was just murdered.”

 

“Ah, that’s, wow . . .” he said curiously as if impressed.

 

“That’s the third person, huh? Pretty hot stuff, whoever this

 

is. When’d it happen?”

 

“I don’t know when he was killed, but they just found the

 

body now. So the murder must have been between Wednesday

 

afternoon and this morning.”

 

“Hmm. That’s quite the masterpiece. Three strangulations

 

in just ten days. That’s crazy. Ah, but I guess I can’t say stuff

 

like that. So what about the killer? Whodunnit?”

 

Zerozaki asked as if it was the most trivial matter in the

 

world.

 

I sputtered angrily. The killer? You mean the one who

 

killed Emoto Tomoe who killed Aoii Mikoko, who attacked

 

me in Kamogawa Park, and now has killed Usami Akiharu?”

 

“Who else would I mean?”

 

“It should be obvious.” I declared the name with such rigidity

 

that even I was taken aback. “Obviously it was Atemiya

 

Muimi.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 3

 

You actually know, don’t you?

 

It’s not often that I get complimented on my personality even

 

now, but back in the days when those around me still referred

 

to me as a young boy, I suppose I had an abnormally unpleasant

 

personality. To be sure, there was a time when I thought

 

myself highly intelligent and gifted, when I was in love with

 

myself and naturally looked down on those around me. I

 

believed I knew things nobody else knew, I had noticed things

 

nobody else had noticed, and as the years rolled by, I grew

 

arrogant.

 

That probably explains it.

 

If I was posed with a puzzling question and couldn’t soon

 

find the answer, I would get antsy. That was how capable I

 

thought I was, and it was also true that after managing to wipe

 

all my doubts away simply by thinking about them, I always

 

felt like I had accomplished something remarkable. Like I had

 

become somebody.

 

However, as I was discovering the answers to a series of

 

difficult questions that emerged—no, after I finished answering

 

all of them—I found that I was left with a void.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 4

 

Everybody else was just going on enjoying their lives

 

without having to do such things. They were living happily

 

without ever having to come up with these answers, or even

 

questions, for that matter.

 

They laughed, they cried, at times they got angry.

 

I thought this was because they were ignorant.

 

I thought they were all just naively frolicking about in a

 

minefield. I thought that one day they would come to curse

 

their own foolishness.

 

When they stepped on a mine and everything was over,

 

then they’d regret it.

 

But I was wrong.

 

I was just some lonely kid living in a world I had made for

 

myself, inventing questions and answering them just to make

 

myself feel better. I seriously thought I could just use theories

 

to compensate for real-life experiences, and I thought that if I

 

wanted, even I could be happy.

 

I was being a boy incorrectly.

 

Nevertheless, the world didn’t come to an end.

 

The game went on.

 

Even thought I was already so behind that there wasn’t

 

even a smidgen of a chance of victory, my life went on. There

 

was a period where I considered ending it myself, and in fact I

 

did try to do so, but I even failed at that.

 

In reality, maybe I wasn’t even an onlooker: I was a loser.

 

I was just a sad, pathetic loser.

 

And so at some point, I stopped being able to actively

 

pursue answers to my questions. It wasn’t that I became passive,

 

it was that I became apathetic toward the questions.

 

Answers have no real point.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 5

 

They’re vague and ambiguous and unsound, and things are

 

fine that way. In fact, they’re better.

 

Causing real change is a role that should be left up to the

 

true “chosen ones,” outstanding individuals like that scarlet

 

Mankind’s Greatest, and the Blue Savant, and it was never my

 

responsibility.

 

It was no job for a common loser. For the comic sidekick.

 

Being oblivious to the mines, even if you stepped on

 

one—now that was the way to live.

 

Even if you knew about the mines but pretended you

 

didn’t, sooner or later you would really forget about them.

 

That’s what I believe, even if people say you’re incurable at

 

that point, that it’s just some proposal for compromise, that

 

you’re only pretending to be a human being.

 

That’s what I thought, as I looked into the mirror at the

 

me who hadn’t lost.

 

Wasn’t it simple?

 

If I hadn’t been a loser, I would’ve just been a failure.

 

If being a homicidal monster was the alternative, being a

 

loser was fine.

 

I’m sure he felt the same way.

 

If being a loser was the alternative, being a homicidal

 

monster was fine.

 

Both statements were nonsense.

 

They were nonsense, and they were masterpieces.

 

And that was fine. That was enough.

 

Everything was fine the way it was.

 

The girl who asked me if I ever felt like damaged goods.

 

The girl who said she liked me. The boy who prophesied that

 

he would be the next to die. And you, who called me clueless.

 

Okay.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 6

 

It may not be my role to change things, but ending the

 

nonsense I’m responsible for starting is up to me indeed.

 

Let’s stick to tradition and put a clean end to this.

 

Muimi-chan.

 

I jammed the stiletto knife Zerozaki had loaned me into the

 

keyhole and jiggled it around. In about a minute, I heard the

 

sound of the bolt unlatching. I gripped the knob and gave it a

 

pull. The chain was up, so the door only moved a few centimeters.

 

I hesitated for but a moment. I swung the knife in the gap

 

and broke the chain off. The links were more brittle than I

 

expected, and they scattered everywhere, one even hitting me

 

in the face. I didn’t care. The door released from its bondage, I

 

pulled it open and entered the room.

 

The spectacle inside was enough to leave me speechless.

 

The wallpaper was torn up, with shards of shattered dishes

 

strewn about on the floor. I thought it might be dangerous to

 

remove my shoes, and although I knew it was rude, I entered

 

the room with them still on. Proceeding deeper into the room,

 

the decor only got worse. It was pure destruction. There probably

 

wasn’t a single item in the whole room that remained in

 

its original condition, no matter how small or large. Literally

 

everything had been demolished. Clothes torn to confetti and

 

tossed around the room. Broken furniture. Ripped-up books.

 

A shattered television screen. A smashed computer. The

 

filthy, stained carpet. A mirror cracked from the center in an

 

outward wave. An overturned wastebasket. Shards of lightbulbs

 

scattered across the floor. A hamster torn limb from

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 7

 

limb. A pillow with the insides on the outside. Vegetables

 

torn to ruin, to the point that they lost all meaning. An overturned

 

refrigerator. The air conditioner with a giant dent in

 

the middle. A tea table scrawled with disturbing graffiti. A

 

cracked fish tank and nearby dead tropical fish. Writing

 

utensils split in two without a single usable one remaining. A

 

clock that no longer worked. A shredded-up calendar. A

 

strangled teddy bear.

 

And.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Her, crouched by the window, staring this way with

 

cursing eyes.

 

Without a doubt, the most broken thing in this room was

 

none other than her.

 

“Muimi-chan.”

 

No reply.

 

Only that dreadful gaze, piercing through me like a dagger.

 

Her hair, that long, brown sauvage, had been diced up into

 

something hideous.

 

Looking a little closer I saw that remnants of that hair were

 

strewn around the room. I never believed that hair was a girl’s

 

life, as they say, but there was something terrifying about this

 

all the same.

 

This was completely her domain. A barrier barely maintaining

 

balance, threatening to break down any minute.

 

There were curses in the air, and all of them were directed

 

towards me. Muimi-chan’s death glare wasn’t the only thing

 

piercing through me. Everything in this thoroughly destroyed

 

room was sending ill will, enmity, hostility, and malice directly

 

at me.

 

It felt like the world itself had become my enemy.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 8

 

“You know, I’d appreciate if you didn’t glare at me like

 

that.”

 

“Shut up,” she said in a deep voice. “Why did you come

 

here? How dare you?”

 

“Relax. I’m not here to save you or anything. I’m not that

 

good a guy, and I’m no protagonist.”

 

I used my right foot to clear a path in the debris on the

 

floor and sat down across from Muimi-chan. I noticed her destroyed

 

cell phone on the floor next to me.

 

“Aha. I see. So that’s why Sasaki-san couldn’t get a hold of

 

you. She might come here directly at some point. I guess you

 

can’t just sit around here.”

 

“Why did you come here?”

 

“Basically I’ve already figured it out,” I said with deliberate

 

plainness. Of course there was the fact that it wouldn’t have

 

been very wise to upset her emotions at a time like this, but

 

this was also just about the only voice I could muster in my

 

current state. “I guess you could say my imagination did most

 

of the work. But there are some things I still can’t figure out

 

no matter how I think about them. I wonder if you’d be

 

willing to tell me.”

 

“. . .”

 

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.” I paused for a moment.

 

“I’ve got things figured out as far as the part where you attacked

 

me. But why did you kill Akiharu-kun? That’s what I

 

don’t understand. There was no reason for you to kill him.”

 

“Ha. Hahahahahahaha,” she suddenly started cackling

 

maniacally. It was the most expressionless laughter I’d ever

 

heard. Heartless. It was nothing more than a conveyance of

 

her insanity. She shot me another glare. “Look at those

 

wounds.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 0 9

 

“You must be stupid setting foot in here with wounds like

 

those. Nobody’s gonna come to your rescue here. Or is your

 

knight in shining armor waiting outside the room?”

 

“No, nothing like that. That guy’s showing up the other

 

night was just a coincidence to begin with. Don’t worry about

 

him,” I said, recalling the precious night’s events. I touched

 

my thumb and the gauze on my face. Of course my shoulders

 

and jaw were still far from fully recovered. I was in no state to

 

be meeting someone face-to-face.

 

“At first I wasn’t sure enough to come to a conclusion on

 

the subject. That person in black was wearing a knit ski mask,

 

so they couldn’t have had long hair. So I thought it must not

 

be you, but now that I see you’ve cut your hair, I’m convinced.

 

I don’t suppose that was why you cut it, was it?”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

 

Figures. I shrugged.

 

“You’re just a more cautious guy than I expected. You

 

cover your tracks. And I couldn’t attack you in your apartment

 

because it’s such a run-down dump with paper-thin

 

walls.”

 

“Ahh. The perfect environment, huh?”

 

I tried my best to imitate Aikawa-san’s cynical tone, but I

 

couldn’t really pull it off.

 

“But using Mikoko-chan’s name to lure me out was a big

 

no-no. Not a very clean method.”

 

“Don’t you ever say that name.” She shot me the devil’s

 

glare. “You have no right.”

 

“Hey, thanks.”

 

“I don’t want to talk to you, but I’ll ask you one thing.

 

Why’d you reject Mikoko?”

 

“I wasn’t really rejecting her . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 0

 

“Why!?” She slammed her arm into the wall as hard as she

 

could. The entire room shook under the impact of that

 

merciless fist. I sensed no concern on her behalf regarding the

 

well-being of my body. It wasn’t like she had hit me, but it

 

sent a shiver up my back.

 

Even the homicidal monster was more pleasant company

 

than this destructor.

 

“Why? Why couldn’t you reciprocate her emotions? It’s

 

not like it was a lot to ask. Why couldn’t you do something

 

that simple? Why was that the only thing you couldn’t do?”

 

“I asked my question fist. I’d like an answer. I’ll ask again,

 

as many times as it takes. Why’d you kill Akiharu-kun? There

 

was no reason for that. Everything else is clear, but that one

 

thing is still completely hazy. I said this before, but I know

 

why you attacked me. You had your reasons. I can understand

 

that. But why did you go kill Akiharu-kun from there?”

 

“If I answer, you’ll answer my question?”

 

“I promise.”

 

Even then, she continued glaring at me for a while.

 

Several minutes later . . .

 

“It’s simple,” she said. “It felt like the natural thing to do.”

 

“Natural, huh?” I said as I tried to read her expression. “But

 

Akiharu-kun was your friend, wasn’t he?”

 

“Yeah, he was a friend. I liked him. Just not to the point

 

that I would never strangle him to death.”

 

There wasn’t a single hint of a lie in her words or in her

 

gestures.

 

“Being friends is no reason not to kill someone. It’s just a

 

simple matter of order of priorities.” She spoke honestly, from

 

the heart.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 1

 

I narrowed my eyes at her, but gave a slow nod. Priorities.

 

Friends. Order. Friends. I chewed on each of her words for a

 

while in my head. I searched for the right words with which

 

to respond.

 

“Or do you mean to tell me you would absolutely never

 

kill a friend? No matter what the reason, you would never do

 

it?”

 

“Anybody I might kill, I don’t consider a friend.”

 

“Well, that’s just fucking splendid,” she scoffed. “What a

 

hypocrite. Why couldn’t you have shared a little bit of that

 

phony virtue with Mikoko? It’s your turn to answer.”

 

I repeated what I wanted to say three times in my head

 

before putting it to my lips.

 

“Probably because I didn’t like her.”

 

I thought she was sure to lunge at me and start pummeling

 

me, but she didn’t even move. She just sat and glared at me.

 

“Oh,” she said softly. “I guess you’re not just some clueless

 

jerk. You’re downright cruel.”

 

“And if I am?”

 

“I told you before, didn’t I? I’m certain I told you. If you

 

hurt Mikoko-chan, I’ll never forgive you.”

 

I narrowed my eyes at her as she seemed ready to explode

 

any minute. I gave another shrug. “So what about you, then? I

 

can’t comprehend it. I understand the philosophy behind your

 

actions, but I don’t know if you can say it was really for

 

Mikoko-chan’s sake.”

 

“I told you not to say that name. Don’t talk about Mikoko

 

like you know her! You don’t know shit!” Muimi-chan said.

 

“I know her. I know everything about her. We’ve been together

 

since elementary school. I know her better than I know

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 2

 

myself. If there’s one thing I don’t know, it’s how she fell for a

 

cruel bastard like you.”

 

“That’s simple,” I responded without hesitation. Having

 

already figured it out, it seemed all too obvious to me. “It was

 

a misconception. An illusion. A deception. A simple error. A

 

miscalculation. An assumption. Just some darling young girl in

 

love with being in love. She probably just wasn’t a very good

 

judge of character.”

 

“Are you done?”

 

Her rage was already beyond disguising. She was ready to

 

detonate any time now. This was probably about as far as

 

we’d get with just words.

 

“Actually no, there’s one more thing. It’s a promise I made

 

to Mikoko-chan, so I’d better uphold to it, Muimi-chan.”

 

My final question.

 

Can you forgive you own—

 

“Can you forgive your own existence as a murderer?”

 

“What’s to forgive?!” She had cracked at last. “I haven’t

 

done anything wrong! Nothing! There’s nothing wrong with

 

what I did for Mikokodel! I’m the one who cares about her

 

the most! I’m not looking for criticism from someone like you!

 

It was all for Mikokodel! I’ll do anything for her! I would kill

 

or die without a second thought!”

 

For justice. For faith. For truth.

 

To save another. For the sake of a friend.

 

She killed.

 

“I cared about Mikoko-chan, unlike you! You don’t care

 

about anyone, you don’t consider anyone else, you just go on

 

living without a care in the world, don’t you?! You can’t do a

 

single thing for anyone! You’re just damaged goods! You don’t

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 3

 

have a single human emotion inside of you! So you shut your

 

goddamn mouth!”

 

Because it was for somebody else’s sake.

 

Without hesitation, without deliberation.

 

Without a hint of uncertainty.

 

Without even regretting it.

 

Without ever feeling shame or reflecting on her actions.

 

She killed.

 

“If only you hadn’t showed up! Then Tomoe and Mikoko

 

and Akiharu and I would still all be living happily! If it weren’t

 

for you! We all got along so well! Since elementary school and

 

high school, and even in college! As soon as you appeared we

 

all went to shit!”

 

Because they were an annoyance.

 

Because they got in the way. Because they were a hassle.

 

Because they were bothersome.

 

Because they irritate. Because they’re unstable. Because

 

they’re revolting.

 

She killed.

 

“It was all for Mikoko! She’s mine, and I’m hers! We’re

 

best friends! I would kill my own parents for her, and she

 

would kill even you for me!”

 

Because it was for someone important.

 

She would kill anyone.

 

She would kill any number of people.

 

Dozens. Hundreds.

 

Herself or anyone else.

 

Even a best friend.

 

“I’m not wrong! I’m right! That’s why I’ll do it again and

 

again! Even if I could go back in time, I would do the same

 

things over again! Mikoko forgives me!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 4

 

With no excessive force.

 

Without going further than intended.

 

As simply as taking a breath.

 

Like a prowler and like a monster.

 

Like damaged goods and like a human failure.

 

She killed.

 

“I . . . I forgive myself!” She screamed as she stomped a

 

foot down on the debris-ridden floor.

 

“Huh.”

 

As I watched her, my eyes were no doubt extremely calm.

 

“Are you done?”

 

She shot me a glare. I didn’t care.

 

“That’s enough, then. Please, shut up. Your voice is offensive

 

to the ears and your presence offensive to the eyes. So

 

you do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want

 

to say. Great. Does that satisfy you? You’re completely broken.

 

Ruined.”

 

“Ruined? Me?”

 

“Exactly what have you done for Mikoko-chan’s sake?

 

You’re just putting the blame on her, aren’t you?”

 

“Like you know a damned thing.”

 

I could see that she was struggling to stop herself from

 

lunging forward. If I hadn’t brought up Mikoko’s name, surely

 

she would have.

 

Right now, Aoii Mikoko was the only thing keeping

 

Muimi-chan together.

 

“Well . . .” she said in a low voice like a growl from the

 

depths of Hell. “What about you?! You don’t feel the least bit

 

responsible for her death?! Answer me!”

 

“No, I don’t. Not at all. Those who die just die.”

 

“. . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 5

 

I could see her turning pale. Her mind was already past the

 

point of enraged. Nevertheless, I made no attempt to cut my

 

speech short. I just continued on, spouting words like a

 

machine.

 

“I’m not so arrogant that I’d attempt to interfere with

 

people’s lives. People should take responsibility for their own

 

actions. You’re no exception.”

 

“What’s your problem? How can you think like that? How

 

can you have such a disgusting outlook? You’re nuts. You’re

 

not human.”

 

“I just don’t approve of people clinging to others to the

 

point that they swallow them up. I’m annoyed by people who

 

live life saying ‘Oh, I did it for this person, I did it for this

 

person, like that’s supposed to grant them full pardon for

 

whatever they do.”

 

It was like I was looking at myself. “I once said you and

 

Tomoe were similar, but allow me to correct myself,” Muimichan

 

said as if cursing the devil himself. “Tomoe was the

 

embodiment of an inferiority complex, keeping herself distant

 

from everyone, but you . . . you’re just plain hostile.”

 

“Hahh . . .” I let out a deliberate sigh. I couldn’t argue with

 

her, nor did I feel like doing so. What I wanted to do was say,

 

“You just realized that?” Things that are similar but not the

 

same are, in the end, different. It was as simple as that.

 

“Well, whatever. Do what you want. We’re just two people

 

with nothing to do with each other. I don’t have any interest

 

in getting your way, but . . . killing Akiharu-kun was a

 

bad move, Muimi-chan. They’ll be coming to arrest you soon

 

enough. I doubt that’s what Mikoko-chan wanted.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 6

 

“I couldn’t care less about the law. So I’ll be arrested. I bet

 

I will. But there’s still some time before that. Plenty of time to

 

make you suffer. To kill you.”

 

Muimi-chan got onto one knee, putting herself at eye level

 

with me. A knife she had apparently been pointing at me for

 

some time now reflected a ray of light and caught my eye. It

 

was the very knife the attacker in black had used that night.

 

The one that had grazed past my carotid artery.

 

“Nothing’s gonna get in the way this time.”

 

“What’s going to happen when you kill me?”

 

“Like I care. Talk all you want, but the time has come to

 

take responsibility for hurting Mikoko.”

 

“. . . . .”

 

Oh. I get it.

 

So even you’ve missed the point here. You’ve been going

 

on and on about how you did it all for Mikoko-chan, it was all

 

for Mikoko-chan, it was all for Mikoko-chan, but that’s just an

 

excuse. A plea. An attempt to defend yourself.

 

Your actions are spurred by simple jealousy toward me,

 

ordinary remorse for what happened to Mikoko-chan, and

 

your own boring sense of guilt. That’s all.

 

“Your nonsense is good, Muimi-chan,” I said without even

 

giving heed to the knife in her hand. “So are we going to pick

 

up where we left off last time? You’re going to beat me and

 

beat me and hurt me and hurt me and make me experience

 

pain and suffering, and then kill me off?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“You don’t say.”

 

I clutched my right index finger in my left hand.

 

“So, for example, you might break my fingers, like this?” I

 

forced the finger backward, snapping the bone.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 7

 

There was a sound like a tree branch snapping off.

 

Muimi-chan’s face froze in shock.

 

An overwhelming, maddening pain ran through my hand,

 

but I didn’t even flinch as I flashed my broken finger in

 

Muimi-chan’s face.

 

“Satisified?”

 

I had nothing to say that.

 

“You’re not, are you? Why would you be satisfied with

 

that? That’s not nearly enough to cheer you up. You’ve hated

 

me and hated me and hated me, so there’s no way you’re

 

satisfied yet. Because if it’s for Mikoko-chan, morals, laws, and

 

common sense don’t mean a thing.”

 

“Rrr. Rrrr.”

 

She trembled.

 

It was the first time I had ever seen her shaking from

 

emotion.

 

I didn’t care about this either.

 

“I guess the middle finger is next?” I said, clutching my

 

middle finger.

 

It was as if I were a doll.

 

That’s why I had no nerves.

 

That’s why I had no heart.

 

That’s why I could just snap my own bones.

 

Crack.

 

“Ring finger next?”

 

I bent my ring finger the wrong way.

 

Pop.

 

“And finally, the pinky?”

 

I twisted my pinky around in an impossible direction.

 

Crack.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 8

 

“Well, my right hand’s completely destroyed. I won’t be

 

able to defend myself very well now either.”

 

“Ah . . . ah . . . ah.” The blood was rushing to her face. This

 

wasn’t just fear, but panic. The fundamental sense of horrified

 

anxiety one feels toward something beyond his or her own

 

comprehension. This was a fatal wound of an emotion, far

 

more gripping than anger.

 

“Shall we continue to the left hand?”

 

I pointed the four fingers on my left hand toward the floor.

 

From there, I threw all of my body’s weight onto my left arm.

 

Crack crack crack crack.

 

It was a satisfying quartet of sounds.

 

“Why don’t we twist ’em around a bit more?”

 

Crunch. Crunch crunch crunch.

 

“Now let’s see if I can still applaud things—“

 

“Wh . . . what the hell are you doing?!” she screamed.

 

Tossing the knife aside, she grabbed my wrist. “You . . . you’re

 

crazy! What is this?! What are you doing?!”

 

“I was just saving you the trouble of doing what you were

 

going to do anyway. It’s no different than if you have done it

 

yourself. Or, by your logic, if Mikoko-chan had done it herself.

 

Right?”

 

I held my hideously gnarled fingers up before Muimichan’s

 

eyes. She reflexively looked away, suggesting that even

 

in her current mental state, she couldn’t bear to look at

 

something so disturbing.

 

“D . . . doesn’t that hurt?!”

 

“Meh,” I said casually. “No big deal. Not to me, anyway.

 

No matter how much I get tortured or beaten, I don’t feel a

 

thing. You could even kill me if you wanted. Do whatever.

 

But to me, death would be nothing more than a release.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 1 9

 

“What are you—”

 

“I’m so damn sick of everything. Of living, of the people

 

around me, the people not around me, all of the various

 

intentions that make up this world and all the ones that don’t,

 

of you, of Mikoko-chan, and of course of myself. It’s all just a

 

damned headache. I’m the one who’s disgusted here. Living

 

only brings pain. I see no value in this place. Frankly, I don’t

 

give a rat’s ass if the world gets wiped out tomorrow or if I’m

 

wiped out today. In fact, I’d be glad. So killing me would be

 

pointless. I wouldn’t have minded of you killed me the other

 

night, either.”

 

. . . . !

 

“Still, I’m sure killing me will put your mind at ease. But it

 

won’t amount to revenge or justice or loyalty to a friend. It’s

 

just self-relief. Nothing more than a distraction from the

 

truth. You’ll cheer up, but that’s all. Causing me pain will

 

clear away your jealousy, making me suffer will help you forget

 

your remorse, and killing me will wipe away your guilt,

 

but that’s all you’ll be doing.”

 

“You’re wrong!” She clutched her head and shook it back

 

and forth like a madwoman. “You’re wrong! You’re wrong!

 

You’re wrong! Don’t turn this around! You’re so full of shit! I

 

did everything for her, and y—”

 

“Well then, go ahead and kill me. Kill me with your own

 

hands. The world will just go on.”

 

Just for yourself.

 

Without saying it’s for anyone else.

 

No excuses, no pleas, no defenses.

 

Just kill me by your own will.

 

Commit your profitless crime.

 

“Rrrrrrrrr . . . aaaaaaahaahhhhh!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 0

 

She picked up the knife. With a spiteful, demonic glare,

 

she chewed down on her lip as if choking back a curse, and

 

grabbed me by the neck, With her other hand, she dug the

 

edge of the blade one layer of skin deep into my neck, right

 

along that carotid artery.

 

And she hesitated and waited and deliberated and contemplated.

 

“Rrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

 

And she stayed that way.

 

. . . . .

 

I closed my eyes and left it up to time.

 

But I soon got tired of this as well.

 

“I wonder what went wrong,” I said, casually brushing her

 

hand aside and distancing myself from the knife. I stood up

 

and watched Muimi-chan huddled on the floor groaning for

 

awhile, then gave my back a good stretch.

 

“When did people stop being able to do things just for

 

themselves, Muimi-chan?”

 

It was always out of some sense of duty or sense of justice.

 

Out of some feeling of fellowship or friendship.

 

“Don’t you think it’s all just nonsense?”

 

Muimi-chan gave no reply. I wasn’t sure if I should have

 

been asking the question in the first place. I hadn’t done anything

 

for anyone else, much less for myself. I had never done

 

anything for anyone.

 

“So what?” Muimi-chan said, as if looking for some savior.

 

“What could I possibly do for Mikoko? What should I have

 

done for her? What should I do?”

 

Don’t ask me that.

 

That just leads to a dead end.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 1

 

Thinking you can do something for others is nothing more

 

than a happy delusion. But once you realize it’s only a delusion,

 

as you have now, there’s no place left to go. Just like

 

Tomo-chan and I, you’ve got no place left to go. What’s ahead

 

of you now isn’t even despair, but a pitch-black void.

 

It’s a dead end.

 

But I had no intention of telling her things we both already

 

knew. Even if she didn’t know, I wasn’t about to go out of my

 

way to tell her.

 

“To be honest,” I said, turning my back to her, “I came here

 

hoping you’d kill me. I could have you do that. You wanted to

 

kill me and I wanted to be killed. Seemed like a match made

 

in Heaven. So I thought I’d come get it over with already. But

 

I’ve changed my mind. I won’t be killed by someone like you.”

 

“Then . . .” she said, staring at the floor. I turned toward

 

the entrance of the room in order to avoid eye contact.

 

Like a stressed-out strand of yarn torn to shreds, she

 

choked out a sentence muddled together with tears and

 

weeping.

 

“Then kill me now.”

 

“Not my business. Die yourself,” I replied, and didn’t look

 

back. I had no desire to.

 

“Yo. Is it over?”

 

As I exited Muimi-chan’s apartment, Zerozaki, leaning

 

against a telephone pole, waved a hand and called out to me. I

 

kept walking oast him without stopping.

 

“Yeah, it’s over,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 2

 

“I’ll be damned,” he said, catching up to me and matching

 

his pace to mine. “Whoa! What the hell happened to your

 

hands?! Am I crazy, or did the number of broken bones multiply

 

by nine?”

 

“Yup, it did.”

 

“She broke them? Holy cow, man, Atemiya’s like that

 

Nenbutsu no Tetsu guy! That’s some risky business.”

 

“Nah, I broke them myself. All of them.”

 

“Are you crazy? Come to think of it, you did say you were

 

the one who broke your thumb, too, huh? Are you a

 

masochist? Are you a freaking masochist? Doesn’t that hurt?

 

Do you not feel pain? Have you had a lobotomy?”

 

“It hurts like shit. It hurts so much I can’t even faint. I

 

might cry. I’m actually headed for the hospital right now.

 

We’re near Nishijin Hospital, right? . . . I’m not really a

 

masochist, no. The situation just called for a little shock

 

treatment, that’s all.”

 

“You know, broken bones don’t always go back to normal.

 

You may never play baseball again.”

 

“No worries. If it comes to that, I’ll just play soccer.”

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said in awe. “So how’d it

 

go?”

 

“Well, now it’s just a matter of sweeping up the mess.

 

That’s Sasaki-san and Kazuhito-san’s field. I’m sure they’ll be

 

thorough about it. Muimi-chan will be arrested, all the facts

 

come to light, and that’ll be that.”

 

That is, if Muimi-chan maintained her sanity for that long.

 

That is, if she was even still alive.

 

Zerozaki folded his hands behinds his head with a disappointed

 

expression. “Aw, man. That’s not dramatic at all.

 

Couldn’t it at least have been a little romantic?” he said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 3

 

“What can you do? This is reality.”

 

“Mmm. I guess. Say, man. Do you have parents and stuff?”

 

Zerozaki had suddenly posed a completely unrelated

 

question, but I had a feeling he would ask something like that,

 

so I wasn’t surprised.

 

“Yeah, I do. In Kobe. I think they’re still alive and kicking.”

 

“Huh. So are you grateful to them and stuff?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I mean, how do you feel toward them?”

 

“About what?”

 

“About bringing you into this world, dammit.”

 

“What about you, Zerozaki? I guess I probably don’t even

 

have to ask, do I?”

 

“Answer should be obvious.”

 

“Yeah, it is.”

 

For an instant, we shared a glance.

 

“I’m sorry . . .”

 

“For being born.”

 

“Huh. I guess it was not Akutagawa after all,” Zerozaki

 

laughed.

 

“I like Mushanokôji best.” I didn’t laugh.

 

“How do you feel about Kikuchi Kan? I’m kind of a big

 

fan.”

 

“I don’t read him. In fact, I don’t really like reading.”

 

“Oh yeah, you said that, didn’t you? . . . Huh.” For some

 

reason, he gave a convinced nod. “By the way, how’s about

 

giving me my knife back? I don’t have a whole lot of that

 

type.”

 

“Oh, this thing? Listen, Zerozaki. I don’t suppose you’d be

 

willing to give this to me, huh? It’s really handy. You can just

 

unlock doors without using anything high-tech.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 4

 

“Those things are expensive, jerk. Can you pay me one

 

million five hundred thousand yen right now?”

 

“Geez, why’s a little steak knife like this so expensive?”

 

“Cram it. So what’s it gonna be?”

 

“How about I pay you one hundred and fifty in annual

 

installments?”

 

“You know, we probably won’t actually meet again.”

 

“Ah, right.”

 

With no other alternative, I reluctantly gave him back the

 

knife. He took it by the handle, spun it around, and closed it

 

back inside his vest. Evidently he had knives placed all over his

 

body. I wonder what would happen if he ever fell.

 

“Well, maybe it doesn’t matter, but there’s still some

 

things that bother me. How’s about answering a few questions?”

 

Zerozaki said.

 

“Sure. What?”

 

“It seems to me that when Emoto and that Aoii chick were

 

killed, Atemiya had a solid alibi both times. She was at

 

karaoke the first time and with her the sister the second time.

 

Isn’t that right? I don’t know about Usami and you, but how

 

could she have killed those two girls? And it seems like you

 

realized Atemiya was the killer as soon as that detective called

 

about Usami being killed. And you already seemed to know

 

she was the one who attacked you in Kamogawa Park, too.

 

How the hell did you know it was her? When did you realize

 

that?”

 

“Hmm. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

 

Zerozaki scratched his head at me. “What do you mean?

 

Like it was just intuition or something? Oh, or was it because

 

all the other people involved were dead, so it had to be

 

Atemiya by default? Who are you, Kindaichi?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 5

 

“No. But do I have to explain? I might get argumentative.”

 

“Hey. I don’t mind. Come on, you made me tell you all

 

about my prowling exploits. Whatever happened to give and

 

take? Come on, leave me with a good memory.”

 

“What are you, dying?”

 

“I might. Some red creature’s been chasing after me.”

 

Indeed, it was entirely plausible. It was even possible that

 

Aikawa-san would appear before us right this instant. Considering

 

the facts, Zerozaki’s life was like a candlelight flickering

 

in the wind right about now.

 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. . . . Okay, so how far back

 

should I go?” I said.

 

“From the beginning, of course. How’d you know Atemiya

 

was the one who killed Emoto, Aoii, and Usami, and attacked

 

you?”

 

“See, there’s your first mistake,” I said. “Muimi-chan didn’t

 

kill Tomo-chan or Mikoko-chan. She had alibis, so that should

 

be obvious.”

 

“Wha?” he said, his jaw dropping.

 

“She killed Akiharu-kun. And she assaulted me. That’s all

 

she did. Oh yeah, and I don’t suppose she’ll be getting her

 

apartment deposit back, but that’s it.”

 

“Hold on,” he said, spinning around in front of me and

 

grabbing me by the shoulders. He was grinning, but not

 

smiling. “Just a few hours ago, you were going on and on with

 

all that confidence and that matter-of-fact tone about how

 

‘she killed Emoto Tomoe,’ and ‘she killed Aoii Mikoko,’ and

 

‘she attacked me in Kamogawa park,’ and ‘she killed Usami

 

Akiharu,’ and ‘it was obviously Atemiya Muimi,’ were you

 

not?!”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 6

 

“Indeed,” I answered plainly. “But you see, the thing about

 

that is I was just telling a confident, matter-of-fact lie. Time

 

was of the essence, so I just kind of glossed over the facts. It’s

 

actually a little more complicated than that.”

 

“Hang on. So what the hell have I been doing for the past

 

few hours, wondering, ‘How in the world did Atemiya manage

 

to kill those two? What a puzzling brain-teaser!’?”

 

“I told you. I’m a liar.”

 

“I’m going to kill you,” he muttered sinisterly, and returned

 

to my side. I took a step away from him. “Err, all right. Let me

 

rephrase the question, then. So who did kill Emoto? If it

 

wasn’t Atemiya, who was it?”

 

“Aoii Mikoko.” I answered with her name alone. Zerozaki

 

wasn’t surprised to the point of vocalizing it. Perhaps he’d half

 

been expecting it. But he furrowed his brow at me, crinkling

 

his facial tattoo.

 

“So then who killed Aoii Mikoko? Don’t tell me you’re the

 

punch line. . . .”

 

“Nope. That was just a suicide.”

 

“Suicide?” This time he was clearly surprised. “Aoii killed

 

herself?”

 

“Yup. That explains why nobody showed up on the surveillance

 

cameras, right? Of course it does; there was no

 

‘killer.’ Anyway, so Mikoko-chan committed suicide, which

 

made Muimi-chan go bananas and kill Akiharu-kun and try to

 

kill me. But I didn’t want to be killed, so I broke my hand

 

instead. There you have it. QED.”

 

“You’re using that phrase wrong,” he retorted, then

 

clutched his head in thought. “Hang on, hang on. Explain this

 

to me step-by-step. You can’t just give me a big, crazy

 

summary like that up front.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 7

 

“Fine, I’ll explain it right. Errr, okay, so you understand

 

that Mikoko-chan killed Tomo-chan, right? Okay so far?”

 

“Yeah. No, wait, not okay. Aren’t you the one who

 

vouched for Aoii’s alibi? Or your neighbor, rather? Don’t tell

 

me you and Aoii were in cahoots.”

 

“No. Why are you so suspicious of me? What happened

 

was I was thoroughly tricked that night, and only that night.

 

Miiko-san too. Well, she wasn’t tricked, exactly, she just

 

didn’t notice.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“Try thinking about it yourself. Tomo-chan was killed by

 

Mikoko-chan. If you know that, there are only so many

 

possibilities.”

 

“Ahh,” he said ponderously. “So you left Emoto’s apartment

 

together, right? Then you got a call from Emoto when

 

you were around Nishiôji Nakadachiuri. You walked back to

 

your apartment together, and then you left her with your

 

neighbor, Asano-san. Then the next morning Aoii woke up

 

early, went to your room, then went to Emoto’s place. . . .

 

Oh, is that it? When she was supposedly ‘discovering’ Emoto’s

 

body, she was actually killing her?”

 

“Not likely. That conflicts with the established time of

 

death. So it must have been at night.”

 

“So she snuck out of Asano-san’s apartment?”

 

“Couldn’t be. Miiko-san is highly sensitive to noise. She

 

would’ve been caught. And Miiko-san had no reason to cover

 

for Mikoko-chan.”

 

“Then what was it, some kind of remote-control trick?

 

Then again, this was a strangling, not some sealed-room

 

mystery.”

 

“So there’s only one possible answer left,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 8

 

“What? Does it have something to do with that ‘x over y’

 

thing?”

 

“Nope. You don’t need to worry about that. It’s like a side

 

order of fries. Just set it aside.”

 

“Come one, just tell me already. You sure know how to

 

beat around the bush.”

 

“It’s simple. There was no point at which Mikoko-chan

 

could have interacted with Tomo-chan once we left her apartment.

 

Which means she must have killed her before we left.”

 

“Huh? What does that mean?” Zerozaki said. “If that’s the

 

case then all pretenses all crumble. Emoto was killed between

 

the time she called you and three a.m., right?”

 

“Suppose,” I said, “that that call hadn’t occurred. Then

 

couldn’t Mikoko-chan have killed her?”

 

“No, it’s still impossible. You left the apartment together.”

 

“Aha. We left together, but not at the exact same time.

 

There was a slight lag. I mean incredibly slight. But I left the

 

room before Mikoko-chan did. As I was leaving, I had to put

 

on my shoes, right? At that time, naturally I wasn’t facing the

 

inside of the room. In other words, I wasn’t facing Mikokochan

 

and Tomo-chan’s direction. I was looking at my

 

shoelaces.” I raised a foot to show him. “What’s more, there

 

was a door between the hallway and main room. I couldn’t see

 

what they were doing in there.”

 

“Wait a minute. There must have been a scream or some

 

kind of noise. Even if it was happening behind you, there’s no

 

way you wouldn’t have noticed someone being killed.”

 

“If it was a stabbing or a beating, maybe. But a person can’t

 

scream when they’re being strangled. There were noises, but I

 

never would’ve guessed it was the sound of someone being

 

killed. I thought Mikoko-chan had tripped or something.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 2 9

 

“Ahh.” Zerozaki began rubbing his temples. If you tried

 

hard enough, you could see a slight resemblance to Nose

 

Keiko. But you had to really try.

 

“Wait. It doesn’t take you ten to twenty minutes just to tie

 

your shoes, does it? Supposing what you’re saying is true, even

 

if Aoii did strangle Emoto, she wouldn’t have died that fast.

 

People can live for up to ten minutes without breathing.”

 

“Zerozaki, could it be that you’re just misunderstanding

 

the situation because you’re a knife expert? Strangle victims

 

don’t all necessarily die from suffocation. They can also die

 

from lack of blood flow to the brain. You just have to pull

 

upward, like this. If you manage to cut off the carotid artery,

 

it takes less than a minute. If you’re good, it only takes a

 

couple dozen seconds.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really. So after that, Mikoko-chan opened the door,

 

looking completely innocent, and came out into the entrance.

 

At that time, she was blocking my view inside, so I couldn’t

 

see anything. Then we left Tomo-chan’s room together and

 

exited the building.”

 

“Yeah, that all adds up . . .” he said, still seeming dissatisfied.

 

“But that’s all assuming you hadn’t gotten that phone

 

call, right? But in reality, Emoto did call you. That means she

 

was still alive after you left the building. Don’t tell me she

 

came back to life for an instant.”

 

“You keep making nonsensical predictions. Of course that’s

 

not it. Tomo-chan died instantly. It’s simpler than that. Really

 

simple. If you just think about it, you’ll figure it out. The call

 

was for me, but it wasn’t on my phone, right?”

 

“Right . . . it was Aoii’s, wasn’t it? But wasn’t that because

 

she didn’t know your number?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 0

 

“Well, let’s go back to the basics for a second here. What is

 

the advantage of a cell phone to begin with? It’s that it lets

 

you make a call from anywhere, is it not? That call didn’t

 

necessarily come from Tomo-chan’s apartment. And on top of

 

that, phones don’t let you see the caller’s face, right?”

 

“So you’re saying Aoii had an accomplice? And the accomplice

 

used Emoto’s phone to pose as her?”

 

“No, there wasn’t an accomplice. I’m pretty sure this was a

 

spontaneous crime to begin with. The murder weapon seems

 

to indicate that as well.”

 

“You mean the thin cloth?”

 

“Yeah. Most likely, it was the ribbon from the present

 

Akiharu-kun gave to Tomo-chan. A ribbon would be fairly

 

well cut out for strangling someone. It’s flexible and fits to

 

your skin. It works even better than rope. But anyway, considering

 

the murder weapon was just something that happened

 

to be there, not something that had be prepared, it’s

 

hard to think this was a premeditated crime.”

 

“Then who made that phone call?”

 

“Mikoko-chan didn’t need an accomplice. She placed the

 

call herself,” I said. “She just had to have Tomo-chan’s phone

 

in her pocket, and then call her own phone on speed dial. Of

 

course there was nobody talking on the other end, but she just

 

pretended it was a call from Tomo-chan. And then she passed

 

the phone to me.”

 

“But when you were on the phone, didn’t you speak with

 

somebody? Wasn’t she trying to tell you something she had

 

forgotten?”

 

“Yeah, but that was Mikoko-chan. At that time, I was

 

walking a step ahead of her. It was the same thing that happened

 

at the apartment. I didn’t realize that Mikoko-chan was

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 1

 

right behind me whispering into Tomo-chan’s phone. By the

 

time I turned back around, she had already slipped it back into

 

her pocket.”

 

The method of murder and the method of creating an alibi.

 

Both had been extremely risky, without question. If I had just

 

turned my head around on a whim, the whole jig would’ve

 

been up. But if you thought about it, the chances of that

 

happening were fairly low. The risk was big, but the chance of

 

success was extremely high. If you weighed things in terms of

 

value, it was certainly a risk worth taking.

 

“Anyway, so that gave her an alibi. Then the next day, she

 

went to Tomo-chan’s place, returned the phone, and called

 

the police. Usually they say you shouldn’t trust the one who

 

discovers the body first, but she already had an alibi, and she

 

had probably hidden the murder weapon in her own apartment

 

or something before going back to Tomo-chan’s.”

 

Of course, Mikoko-chan was the only one who knew all of

 

the minute details, so you’d have to pay her a visit to get the

 

full story. And that sure wasn’t happening. But that was the

 

basic gist of it. I might not have had every single fact right, but

 

it all sounded more or less reasonable.

 

Mikoko-chan had probably written that “x over y” formula

 

down at the time she “discovered” the body. The previous

 

night, she had neither the time nor the notion to do such a

 

thing.

 

“Well, that definitely makes Aoii sound like the killer. But

 

it’s still just a possibility, right? I mean, you don’t have any

 

proof, do you?”

 

“Well, no. That’s true. Strictly speaking, there’s no proof.

 

To be sure, it could’ve just been some burglar.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 2

 

“There must be something. Some sort of peculiarity or

 

something.”

 

“At any rate, that explains the Tomo-chan incident. Got

 

any other questions?”

 

“Yeah,” Zerozaki said with a frustrated expression. He

 

looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the

 

right words. “Nah, forget it,” he said. “Okay, then on to the

 

Aoii incident. Why was it a suicide? Even the police said they

 

thought it was a homicide, right?”

 

“Well, that gets to be kind of a long story, but her motive

 

for suicide should be obvious, right? After she killed Tomochan,

 

her conscience got the best of her.”

 

“Murderers have a conscience?”

 

“Not everyone’s like you, you know,” I said jokingly.

 

“That’s what was written in her suicide note, anyway.”

 

“Ah. I guess if it was in her suicide note, that pretty much

 

settles it. It at least proves that Aoii chose death on her own. I

 

sure don’t understand it though. Suicide, that is. I guess there

 

are all sorts of killers in this world. But if she was going to do

 

that, she should’ve just not killed Emoto in the first place. . . .

 

Hey wait, hold on a sec”

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“What do you mean, ‘suicide note’?”

 

“In other words, an essay of sorts that one writes before

 

committing suicide in order to leave something behind in this

 

world. Not to be confused with the will and testament.”

 

“Thank you, Detective Columbo,” he said, simultaneously

 

kicking me in the hand. Naturally, this was excruciatingly

 

painful since all of my fingers were broken.

 

“What’re you doing? What if my bones don’t set properly

 

now?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 3

 

“Play soccer. So what’s up with this suicide note? This is

 

the first I’ve heard of it.”

 

“Yeah. You see, before that. . . well, think about it. Didn’t

 

it seem strange in the first place?”

 

“Didn’t what seem strange?”

 

“What do you think?”

 

It was the very thing Sasaki-san had pointed out.

 

“Look at me.”

 

Me, a loser of a human being who had broken long ago.

 

Who didn’t have a single nerve remaining intact. Who desired

 

death more than anything else.

 

“Do you really think I would get so sick just from seeing

 

the strangled corpse of somebody I knew?”

 

“Ah. So you mean, you felt so sick because it wasn’t a

 

murder, but a suicide?”

 

“No. A corpse is a corpse, whether it was a suicide or

 

homicide.”

 

He said nothing.

 

“When I arrived at Mikoko-chan’s place, I pushed the

 

button on the intercom. There was no reply. Realizing, based

 

on various experiences, that this was probably a bad sign, I

 

hurried into her room. And what did I see? The dead body of

 

Mikoko-chan, who had strangled herself, lying on the bed.”

 

Strangled to death.

 

This was why Tomo-chan had been strangled from behind

 

and Mikoko-chan from the front.

 

“She strangled herself? Is that even possible?”

 

“It’s actually a fairly common suicide method. Of course,

 

in Mikoko-chan’s case, it wasn’t her arteries that were cut off,

 

it was her windpipe. It’s an extremely agonizing way to go.

 

Your face gets all bloated with blood. It ain’t pretty.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 4

 

You had to be pretty damned determined to choose a

 

death like that.

 

As for Aoii Mikoko’s determination . . .

 

“So by the bed there was a suicide note. Addressed to me.

 

It had a lot to say. It talked about how she had killed Tomochan,

 

and what she wanted me to do from there.”

 

“What she wanted you to do?”

 

“She didn’t want people to think it was a suicide. She

 

didn’t mind dying, but she didn’t want people to think she

 

was the horrible person who had killed Tomo-chan.”

 

“I’m not following you here. Say it straight, man.”

 

“What I mean is, she asked me to get rid of all the evidence.

 

The neckstrap she had stolen from the scene of the

 

murder, and then of course the suicide note itself as well as

 

the ribbon, which would have given itself away as the weapon

 

with which she had killed both Tomo-chan and herself. And

 

there were some other things as well.”

 

“Ahh, I get it.” Zerozaki slowly nodded and looked up at

 

the sky. “Yeah, it’s starting to click. So you did what she

 

asked. Come to think of it, something did seem strange. I

 

noticed it myself. Something about the time was off. You left

 

your place at eleven o’clock, arrived at Aoii’s place within ten

 

minutes, the cops arrived within another ten minutes, and you

 

arrived at the police station within yet another ten minutes, at

 

which point it was exactly twelve o’clock. That leaves thirty

 

minutes unaccounted for. Were you doing something during

 

those thirty minutes?”

 

“Yeah. But obviously I didn’t leave Mikoko-chan’s room, or

 

the surveillance camera would’ve caught me, and obviously I

 

had to have reported it to the police. So what do you think I

 

was doing?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 5

 

“And you said you were frisked as you were leaving the

 

apartment, right? Hmm . . . then, could it be . . . oh, man . . .

 

did you eat everything?”

 

Yup, I nodded.

 

Anyone could’ve guessed by this point.

 

And this was Zerozaki Hitoshiki, no less.

 

“You ate it all?”

 

“Yup. It was delicious,” I answered casually. “People who

 

do that are traditionally known as ‘stuffers.’ But that’s not

 

important. At any rate, I can’t eat what I can’t digest, so I had

 

to suppress the urge to vomit as I called the police. I was planning

 

to hold it in until I got home, but I couldn’t make it, and

 

I ended up hurling in the police station.”

 

“You ate the goddamn evidence . . .” Zerozaki said in awe.

 

“The ribbon, too? Do you realize you ate something that killed

 

two people? That’s insanity, man.”

 

“Yeah, no doubt. I never said I was sane.”

 

“But why did you go along with Aoii’s request? You

 

could’ve just ignored it, and you wouldn’t have had to cross

 

such a rickety-ass bridge, metaphorically speaking.”

 

“Yeah, well, I guess I was brooding over some things myself.

 

You could call it a form of redemption,” I said, breaking

 

eye contact with Zerozaki. “Anyway, that sums up the death

 

of Aoii Mikoko. She killed herself. In reality, the story should

 

have ended here, but . . .”

 

“But the incidents kept occurring, contrary to expectations,

 

huh?”

 

“Yup,” I sighed. “That . . . that really was a surprise.”

 

“So what about Atemiya, then? Why’d she kill Usami?”

 

“Well, that has to be left up to speculation. I wasn’t involved

 

in that incident at all. But I’ve got a theory that seems

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 6

 

to hold water. It’s just your regular, everyday murder case,” I

 

said. “Muimi-chan probably thought something was fishy

 

about Mikoko-chan’s death in the first place. In fact, let’s assume

 

that Mikoko-chan talked to her herself about killing

 

Tomo-chan, and that Muimi-chan subsequently realized that

 

Mikoko-chan’s death was a suicide.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“So what did she do?”

 

For the sake of someone else.

 

Not for herself.

 

“What could she do for Mikoko-chan? Zerozaki, what

 

would you have done?”

 

“Nothing. Aoii was already dead.”

 

Indeed.

 

Even for someone who was still alive, Zerozaki wouldn’t

 

have done a thing. Nor would I. It was that simple.

 

“But Muimi-chan tried to do two things. The first one was

 

revenge. The second was to protect Mikoko-chan.”

 

“By revenge, you mean killing you? Well, I guess you kind

 

of rejected Aoii, after all. Makes sense. Isn’t that exactly what

 

I said? That Aoii had the hots for you?”

 

“Don’t act like a bigshot about it. Even I realized that.”

 

“You mean you knew and you were just ignoring it? Man,

 

then you have no right to complain about almost being killed.

 

But what do you mean she was trying to ‘protect’ her? How

 

did killing Usami add up to protecting Aoii?”

 

“It’s just like what I did. Muimi-chan was trying to guard

 

Mikoko-chan’s honor. If a third murder occurred, nobody

 

would suspect that the second victim—Mikoko-chan—was

 

actually the one who had killed Tomo-chan, that she had

 

killed a close friend.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 7

 

“Okay, fair enough. But why Usami? She could’ve just

 

killed anybody. She didn’t have to kill her own friend.”

 

“No. She killed him because he was a friend. If the third

 

victim had been someone completely unrelated to Tomoechan

 

and Mikoko-chan, the police might not even consider it a

 

‘third incident,’ so to speak. So the most likely candidate for

 

the next victim was either Usami Akiharu or myself. And I

 

know what you’re thinking, Zerozaki. Why didn’t she just kill

 

me, then? Indeed. But I mean it when I say my apartment is

 

ancient. There’s no harder place to kill a person.”

 

With walls that thin, even the sound of walking down the

 

hall could be heard from the rooms. Sneaking in, having a

 

scuffle, and killing a person in my apartment were all impossibilities.

 

“So Usami was the next best thing? But even if Aoii was

 

Atemiya’s close friend, Usami was a friend too, right? How

 

could she do that?”

 

“I had the same doubts myself. Not to mention that Tomochan

 

was Muimi-chan’s friend as well. I couldn’t figure out

 

why Muimi-chan would forgive the person who had killed

 

her. So I asked her. And this was what she said: It was a

 

matter of ‘order of priorities.’ Basically what that means is that

 

to Muimi-chan, the already deceased Mikoko-chan was worth

 

even more than Akiharu-kun, who was still alive, or Tomochan,

 

who had been Mikoko-chan’s victim.”

 

“That’s terrible. Usami got screwed more than anyone.”

 

“Maybe so.”

 

Akiharu-kun had prophesied that he would be next, and

 

claimed he could die happily. Just how much of the truth had

 

he figured out? This was a mystery to me. Was it too romantic

 

to suppose Akiharu-kun had discovered the truth in its

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 8

 

entirety and still let Muimi-chan kill him? If that truly was the

 

case, then Usami Akiharu was the only respectable one in this

 

whole series of events.

 

Namely, because he had fully accepted his friends for who

 

they were.

 

“Say . . .” Zerozaki stood there in deep thought like a Rodin

 

sculpture for a while, then uncrossed his arms and looked up

 

at me. “I understand the logic and all, but I’ve got the same

 

doubts I had with Aoii. This is all based on the pretense that

 

Atemiya really did kill him, right?

 

“Aoii left a suicide note behind, so that’s one thing. But in

 

Atemiya’s case, you’ve just got to be some master speculator

 

like Kindaichi or something. You figured it all out just from

 

that one phone call, without even seeing any evidence. Either

 

you just figured Atemiya and you were the only ones left so it

 

had to be her, or I don’t know what the hell you did.”

 

“Do you have some problem with Yokomizo?”

 

I couldn’t help but sense some hostility in Zerozaki’s numerous

 

references to Kindaichi. Nevertheless, he simply shook

 

his head.

 

“Nah, not really,” he answered. “But the book jackets are

 

always too scary so I only watch the TV dramas. I don’t really

 

like him or hate him, to be honest.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“So is that all it is?”

 

“No. Think back. Remember what I asked Sasaki-san?”

 

“Ah, right. Whether that ‘x over y’ mark was there, right?

 

And? I thought you said that wasn’t important.”

 

“The meaning of the mark is irrelevant. It was nothing

 

more than random symbols at that point. It only meant something

 

in the case of Tomo-chan’s death. But the fact that the

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 3 9

 

same mark was found at the site of Akiharu-kun’s death

 

suggests something very odd.”

 

“What?”

 

“That ‘x over y’ mark found at each crime scene was a secret.

 

It was known only to the police. Sasaki-san didn’t even

 

mention it at first. The only other people who could’ve known

 

about it were you and me, since we broke into the crime

 

scene, and anyone I happened to ask, ‘What do you suppose

 

x over y means?’.”

 

Namely Aikawa-san, Mikoko-chan, and Muimi-chan.

 

“There must have been other people who knew about it.

 

People working on the case and such.”

 

“Indeed. There were plenty of people who knew. But

 

Muimi-chan was the only one who thought it was a ‘dying

 

message.’ ”

 

“Ahh, because the police thought it was the killer’s doing.

 

And?”

 

“In Akiharu-kun’s case, Sasaki-san reported that evidence

 

suggested the victim had written the message himself. Why

 

only this time? Most likely because the killer coerced her

 

victim into writing it before killing him, in an effort to emphasize

 

that this was the ‘third incident.’ ”

 

“And she wouldn’t have had that idea in the first place if

 

she hadn’t thought the mark was a dying message, huh? So

 

Atemiya didn’t know what ‘x over y’ meant?”

 

“Probably not.”

 

If she had known the mark’s meaning, she probably

 

wouldn’t have used it that way.

 

“And that was enough for you to figure out that Atemiya

 

was the killer?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 0

 

“Well, of course it was partially speculation. I kind of

 

figured she seemed the most likely to do such a thing. Even I

 

was impressed by her loyalty to Mikoko-chan.”

 

“No you weren’t,” he laughed. “Man, I’m not trusting a

 

thing you say anymore. You’re not just a passive observer;

 

you’re a freaking liar.”

 

“I believe I told you that.”

 

“Don’t flaunt your faults.”

 

“Yeah, I know I shouldn’t,” I said casually. “Anyway, it

 

looks like you don’t have any other questions. Can we close

 

the books on this case?”

 

“Not a very grand finale, but . . . hahhh, how do you say it?

 

Hearing the whole story laid out like that makes it seem like

 

such . . .”

 

“A masterpiece?”

 

“No, nonsense,” he said, as if he had just heard the most

 

disappointing joke of all time.

 

I felt pretty much like that myself.

 

It was something terribly grotesque, terribly warped, terribly

 

vile. It was like a joke, a comical anecdote, an unsightly,

 

unbearable figure.

 

In the end, there was no way to stop thinking, no matter

 

how much you willed yourself not to. Your brain would keep

 

thinking automatically.

 

Who and what were in the wrong? That was probably simple

 

enough in and of itself. It was an issue anyone could comprehend,

 

upon which everyone could reach a unanimous

 

agreement, for which everyone would feel sympathy. Something

 

close to us all.

 

That was what made it so unpleasant.

 

I don’t know.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 1

 

If only I could have abandoned everything. How nice that

 

would’ve been.

 

“Well, without prying too deep,” Zerozaki said, looking off

 

the other way with utter disinterest. “I don’t figure you’ll give

 

me a straight answer anyway. But . . . eh, forget it.”

 

“What? You’re awfully quick to give up.”

 

“Well, I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve, but will you tell

 

me one thing, oh babbler of nonsense?”

 

“What is it, my dear homicidal monster?”

 

“What are your thoughts?”

 

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, how do you feel about the fact that three people

 

have just died around you?” he said, suddenly growing much

 

more interested. He was like a little boy, happily looking at his

 

own reflection in a mirror. “You had people killing friends,

 

killing themselves, killing for their friends, being killed for

 

friends, and as a bonus, you were almost killed. So how do

 

you feel about all that?”

 

. . . . .

 

It was a straight question that I doubt I could have delivered

 

myself.

 

I tried to fold my arms and make like I was thinking in

 

order to buy some time, but my broken fingers wouldn’t even

 

allow that.

 

“Zerozaki, here’s how I feel about this string of incidents.”

 

“Okay, let’s have it.”

 

“I talked a little too much this time. My throat hurts

 

almost as much as my fingers.”

 

. . . . .

 

Zerozaki froze. His face twitched for an instant before he

 

exploded into laughter.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 2

 

“Gahahahahaha! I’ll bet it does,” he said. “In other words,

 

you don’t even care if your friends die, right?”

 

“No, even a guy like me undergoes some shock at the death

 

of a friend. It’s just that these people hadn’t become friends

 

yet.”

 

Of the lot of them, I was closest with Emoto Tomoe, and

 

surely that closeness was to blame for why she was the most

 

distant.

 

I couldn’t respond to Aoii Mikoko’s affection with affection,

 

and Atemiya Muimi’s aggressive displays of emotion

 

were totally foreign to me.

 

Likewise, Usami Akiharu’s graciousness was something I

 

lacked.

 

“You live a crippled life,” Zerozaki said.

 

“Not really.”

 

“Yes you do. You restrict yourself.”

 

“Better than having others restrict me. What exactly do

 

you think it means to be free, Zerozaki? Does freedom to you

 

mean killing people?”

 

“Ahh, my idea of freedom, eh?” he said with a strange

 

snicker. “Well, to be honest, I hate that damn word. I despise

 

it. It gives me goose bumps.”

 

“Yeah, I don’t like it either.”

 

“It’s a cheap word in Japan, huh? People just throw it

 

around in any context. They use it like an excuse. You know,

 

like ‘Don’t I at least have the freedom to dye my own hair?’

 

What a load of crap. But I pretty much just do what I want,

 

whether you call it freedom or not. To hell with being restricted,

 

whether it’s by yourself or others.”

 

“Fair enough.” I sighed and nodded. “Then I guess if I

 

hadn’t restrained myself, I would’ve been like you.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 3

 

“Does that mean if I had restrained myself, I would’ve been

 

like you?”

 

How wholly unappealing.

 

“I think I’ll pass on that.”

 

“Yeah, that’s a big no thank you.”

 

Zerozaki laughed, and I didn’t laugh.

 

As our pointless chatter went on, at some point the hospital

 

appeared before us. Apparently we had been conversing

 

at a standstill for some time now. I hadn’t noticed at all. At

 

this point, I really had been talking too much.

 

From there, we continued talking about things that had

 

nothing to do with the murders. Things that had nothing to do

 

with anything besides us. For probably two whole hours.

 

Ridiculous things that would serve no purpose in life. Things

 

that would bring neither help nor harm to the world.

 

Some topics he would bring up.

 

Some topics I would bring up.

 

If you had three wishes, what would you wish for? If you

 

found a hundred million yen, how would you spend it? Which

 

is more beautiful, an isosceles triangle or an equilateral?

 

Which is bigger, a kilometer or a kilogram? Would you rather

 

belong to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the

 

Rosicrucian Order? Is it possible to have a 115-by-l 15 block

 

magic square? What the hell is Eighty-eight Othello, anyhow?

 

We conversed like two good friends.

 

But Zerozaki was no friend of mine, and I was no friend of

 

his. We may as well have been talking to ourselves. It was all

 

meaningless, worthless small talk. I thought it neither

 

enjoyable nor unenjoyable. It was an act of reflection on how

 

I’d lived these past nineteen years. A reflection of light.

 

Zerozaki Hitoshiki.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 4

 

It was a wholly inconceivable chunk of time, but sure

 

enough, the hands of that magical clock slowly made their

 

way to zero.

 

“Well, that puts my doubts to rest,” he then said. “I guess

 

this is farewell.”

 

“Yeah.” I agreed with no resistance.

 

“Nice killing time with ya,” Zerozaki said, lifting his rear

 

end off the banister he had been sitting on. “Say,” he said, giving

 

me a sideways glance. “You planning on staying in Kyoto

 

permanently?”

 

“Hard to say. I’m kind of a wanderer, really. I reckon I’ll be

 

here as long as I’m in college, but you never know when I

 

might drop out.”

 

“Gotcha. Well, then what’s a place you don’t think you’ll

 

ever go in your whole life?”

 

“Hmm . . . I doubt I’ll ever go to the North or South Pole,

 

among others,” I said, giving a stock answer after a moment’s

 

thought. “The one place I definitely don’t want to go to is

 

Texas in America. Especially Houston. I’d rather break every

 

damn bone in my body than go back there.”

 

“Huh.” He nodded. “I guess I’ll go there, then.”

 

“Can you speak English?”

 

“I went to junior high school. Besides, a knife gets through

 

where words don’t. Of course,” he said caustically, “your knife

 

probably wouldn’t.”

 

I shrugged at his biting comment. “Well, I guess we won’t

 

meet again.”

 

“Fine by me. I don’t really like seeing you anyway.”

 

“Yeah, true enough.”

 

It was probably true. I wouldn’t have any desire to see him,

 

nor him to see me. It was nothing more than an impossible

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 5

 

chance meeting to begin with, so such was the logical

 

conclusion.

 

In the end, I posed one final question. I pulled out the

 

deepest, darkest fragment of my being and took a good look at

 

it head-on.

 

“Tell me, Zerozaki.”

 

“What?”

 

“Is there someone you love?”

 

“Hell no, man. Does it look like there is? Incidentally, I

 

hate myself the most. Or maybe you. Why do you ask?”

 

“I’ve got someone.”

 

He looked just a bit surprised, but then gave a gloating

 

sneer. “I asked you before and you said, ‘Ehh, I don’t really

 

know,’ you jerkoff.”

 

“Yeah, I was lying.”

 

“Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess that’s the difference between

 

you and me.”

 

“Yeah, guess so.”

 

“I guess you’d better keep on living, then. Don’t become

 

like me.”

 

“Same to you.”

 

He turned his back on me and began walking toward

 

Imadegawa Street. I turned my back on him and began walking

 

toward the hospital reception.

 

Neither of us said a word, but I’m sure we were thinking

 

the same thing.

 

“Now then . . .”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 6

 

To me, this marked the end of the story. But even if a

 

world or two had crumbled down on the other side of the

 

mirror, I could think of at least two people who had no intention

 

of letting things end this way, and there was something

 

depressing about that.

 

Maybe this too was a form of divine retribution.

 

“That’s all this damn life is, eh, Human Failure?”

 

So muttered the “Damaged Goods.”

 

I was speaking to myself.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 8

 

With all of my fingers besides the left thumb placed in braces,

 

the doctor told me they would take about two weeks to heal

 

to a point of not interfering with my daily life, as long as I

 

went easy on them. The following day, I headed for

 

Kunagisa’s condominium in Shirosaki, the highest-class residential

 

area of Kyoto. I thought it would be nice to show up

 

looking cool on the Vespa I had inherited from Mikoko-chan,

 

but the finger braces wouldn’t allow it, so I gave up. It seemed

 

I would have to wait a bit longer before I could enjoy that

 

sweet feeling of going for a spin.

 

The braces proved to be more of an inconvenience than I

 

had initially expected. At first, I figured, “Oh, so my fingers

 

won’t be able to bend as much for a while, big deal,” but

 

within the first night alone, I realized that this was going to

 

place a considerable strain on my daily life. Even getting

 

dressed had become a big chore. I realized that this was going

 

to cause me to become even more of a burden to Miiko-san

 

next door, and this launched the beginning of a very pessimistic

 

phase.

 

And so it was that my mode of transportation this day was

 

my own two feet. Three hours was a bit intense for someone

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 4 9

 

suffering from injuries, and I could’ve just as easily taken a bus

 

or taxi, but considering the high cost of the medical bills for

 

my finger treatment, I had decided to save my money instead.

 

“But she is going to be there, right?”

 

Muttering such things to myself all the while. I eventually

 

arrived in front of Kunagisa’s condo. It was a posh, brick

 

building that looked more like a fortress than a condo. The

 

thirty-first and thirty-second floors both belonged to Kunagisa.

 

I passed through the gazes of a number of rocklike security

 

guards sitting firm as rocks in the entrance (they knew my face

 

by now) and headed for the elevator lobby. The elevator was

 

already on the first floor before I even pushed the call button.

 

I went ahead and pushed it, opening the doors, and went

 

inside. I used a key to open the button case, exposing the buttons

 

for floors thirty-one and thirty-two, and pressed the one

 

for thirty-two.

 

The sensation of gravity gone awry continued for a whole

 

minute.

 

I exited the elevator once it stopped and approached the

 

steel door straight ahead of me. As vastly superior as this place

 

was to my own, it still lacked an intercom. Kunagisa almost

 

never received any visitors, so there was no need.

 

I opened the lock with a key and fingerprint scan, and entered

 

the room.

 

“Tomooo, it’s meee. I’m in your plaaace,” I called out as I

 

walked down the hallway (although I didn’t feel right calling it

 

just a “hallway.” The staircase alone was bigger than my entire

 

place). On the thirty-first floor below, most of the walls had

 

been knocked down to make space for a ridiculously enormous

 

computer, whereas the thirty-second floor was more like

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 0

 

a maze, making it easy for me with my poor memory to get

 

mixed up. Now where was that girl?

 

I realized I should have called her ahead of time, but my

 

fingers were in no condition to be operating a telephone. My

 

left thumb was still functioning normally, of course, so I could

 

have done it with enough effort, but I was in no mood to

 

exert that effort.

 

“Tomo, where are you?” I continued walking down the hall

 

as I called out again. I began to see bizarre cords and cables of

 

various unknown varieties tangled along the floor. Of course I

 

had set foot in this place any number of times by now, but for

 

a guy like me who didn’t know the first thing about mechanical

 

or electronic engineering, this place was still like a magical

 

kingdom. If I wasn’t careful, I could easily trip on something

 

and fall, so I made sure to take caution as I proceeded.

 

“Tomo, it’s me. You’re somewhere on here, right?”

 

“Yo, I’m over here, thisaway, thisaway.”

 

The responding voice didn’t belong to Kunagisa.

 

As expected, it was a red voice.

 

Not that voices have colors.

 

“Actually I thought you might not be here . . .”

 

Is life ever that easy?

 

I continued walking in the direction of the voice until at

 

last arriving in an empty room about ten mats wide. In this

 

disgustingly big mansion of a condo, there were rooms even

 

Kunagisa Tomo couldn’t find a use for. Of course I supposed

 

it was also just a matter of time.

 

Then again, I guess you need rooms like that if you’re

 

going to have guests over.

 

“Yo. Long time no see.”

 

Inside the room, Aikawa-san and . . .

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 1

 

“Wawawawa, it’s Ii-chan!”

 

Kunagisa Tomo were sitting across from each other, drinking

 

cola out of cans.

 

She had Hawaiian-blue hair, the small frame of a child,

 

and a 100 percent undiluted smile. It was the first time I had

 

seen her in awhile. Since Golden Week, in fact, so almost a

 

whole month. But it felt like it had been ages.

 

It was as if I had returned to where I belonged.

 

Perhaps this was what they called nostalgia.

 

“Wawawa, Ii-chan, what happened to your hands? Is it just

 

me, or did they get a lot fatter?”

 

“The skin’s hardening. It’s Flictonic Cliple Weber Syndrome.”

 

“Ooh, I see.”

 

“No you don’t. Actually, there was a string of various incidents.

 

Including my face injuries, it’ll be about two weeks

 

until I’m fully recovered.”

 

“Hawawaa. Wowee, Ii-chan, cooool. You’re dyn-o-mite,

 

Ii-chan, yayyy. Did you have a run-in with Nenbutsu no Tetsu

 

or something?”

 

“No. Let’s not talk about that guy.” I sat down to join

 

them, effectively forming an isosceles triangle with myself at

 

the peak. My eyes shifted towards the object of my fears.

 

“Hello, Jun-san.”

 

“What’s up, Main Character?” She grinned, cola in hand.

 

She looked like she was up to no good, as usual. On the other

 

hand, she seemed to be in surprisingly high spirits. But

 

Aikawa-san’s moods changed like mountain weather, so it was

 

hard to really pass judgment on such things.

 

“What are you doing in Kunagisa’s top secret headquarters?

 

Come to find out more about the prowler?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 2

 

“No, no, nothing like that. The prowler thing’s been settled

 

for the time being.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yup,” she nodded.

 

“We were just talking about that now, Ii-chan. You wanna

 

participate too? Three heads are better than two.”

 

“Nah, not really interested.”

 

I was lying, though.

 

Still, I guessed this meant Zerozaki hadn’t gone to America

 

after all. Maybe Aikawa-san had caught up with him at the

 

airport and put an end to things once and for all. If so, he had

 

my condolences. He had had such a gallant departure only to

 

follow it up with a big flop. That’s just too shameful, Zerozaki

 

Hitoshiki.

 

“Hey, Kunagisa-chan,” Aikawa-san said. “Sorry to do this in

 

your own house, but would you mind leaving us alone for a

 

moment? I’ve got something to talk to Ii-chan about.”

 

“Hmm?” Kunagisa said, scratching her head. “Is it a secret

 

something?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Hmm. Okay.”

 

She stood up and tip-tapped out of the room. Most likely

 

she would head off to some computer in another room and

 

start working away. Unlike me, whose only way of passing

 

time was Eight Queens, Kunagisa had a near limitless supply

 

of methods.

 

Left alone with Aikawa-san, I was first to speak. “You

 

know, I can’t help but notice you just kicked Kunagisa out.”

 

“Indeed I did. You wouldn’t want her to be present when

 

we’re having a serious talk, would you?” Aikawa-san said unapologetically.

 

“You ought to be grateful to me. Don’t get so

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 3

 

angry. Geez, I set Tomo-chan aside for two seconds and you

 

lose your cool.”

 

“Then why won’t we just go somewhere else to talk?”

 

“No can do. I’m a busy woman. Tomorrow I’m needed in

 

Hokkaido. I’ll be heading there as soon as I leave this place.

 

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d get to see you.”

 

Just lucky, I guess.

 

“So . . .” Realizing that there was no way to talk my way

 

out of anything with this woman, I gave up and encouraged

 

her to begin. “So what are we talking about this time?”

 

“First, an update on the Zerozaki case,” she said. “I’m sure

 

you’re interested to know, right? I won’t let you say you’re

 

not.”

 

“Well, as much as the next guy, I guess. But what did you

 

mean, it’s been ‘settled’?”

 

“Last night, I finally found that little snot. We had a little

 

round two.”

 

“And?”

 

“We came to a friendly agreement,” she said. “He’ll stop

 

killing people, and in return, I’ll leave him alone. It’s a

 

bargain.”

 

“Is that good enough?”

 

“Sure. My job was only to stop the Kyouto prowler. Nobody

 

ever said to catch him. To be honest, I’d rather avoid

 

getting into a killfest with the ‘Zerozaki Ichizoku’, so this is

 

good enough for now. For now.”

 

For now.

 

I didn’t want to think about the meaning lurking within

 

those words. This was undoubtedly a domain with which I

 

didn’t want to get involved.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 4

 

“Then I guess that means that at the very least, there won’t

 

be any more prowling incidents in the city of Kyoto huh?”

 

“Exactly. And if it hadn’t been for your cooperation, it

 

never would’ve come to this conclusion, so I suppose I ought

 

to express my gratitude,” she said, sounding much like an actress.

 

“Reallyyoudon’tsaythat’sgreatlet’sgogetKunagisa.”

 

“Hold it right there,” she said, interrupting my attempt to

 

weasel out of a discussion. “You know, I had a nice little chat

 

with Hitoshiki-kun . . .”

 

“You did?”

 

“I did,” she said, scooting toward me on her knees. “We

 

talked about you, and you, and you, and you . . . you know,

 

the usual stuff.”

 

“That’s creepy.”

 

That bastard. What had he gone and blabbed to her about?

 

To Aikawa-san, of all people. Then again, I did the same

 

thing. Maybe this was what he meant about having “a few

 

ideas up his sleeve.”

 

“But you know,” she said, looking truly impressed, “that

 

was some smart detective work you did. Even I was taken

 

aback. Who would’ve thought that Aoii Mikoko had killed

 

Emoto Tomoe before you even left her apartment, and that

 

her own death was a suicide? I didn’t see that coming at all.”

 

“Forgive me if this whole speech sounds staged, Jun-san.”

 

“Don’t get so serious. I have no plans to make enemies

 

with you. I wanna be your friend, Ii-chan, really. But you

 

know, I figure I might as well clarify things.”

 

“What things?”

 

She didn’t answer right away. She was silent for a while, as

 

if trying to read my response.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 5

 

“The details of this string of incidents,” she eventually said.

 

“You mean you’re not satisfied with my reasoning again?”

 

“No, I’ve got no problem with your reasoning. It’s you I’m

 

not satisfied with. At all.”

 

“. . . .”

 

“It sounds like you weaseled your way out of explaining a

 

few things to Zerozaki, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes, but they were all little details. Just trivial stuff, stuff

 

you could explain however you want, or conversely that I

 

couldn’t even imagine an explanation for. So it doesn’t

 

really—”

 

“For example, the reason Aoii Mikoko killed Emoto

 

Tomoe.”

 

“Well, that’s . . .”

 

That was something I hadn’t told Zerozaki. Something I’d

 

left unexplained.

 

“Or what about the reason that neckstrap was taken from

 

the scene of the crime?”

 

“Well, I . . .”

 

“And why would an apathetic boy like you go to all the

 

trouble of making Aoii Mikoko’s suicide look like a homicide,

 

even if it was requested in her suicide note? But what I really

 

want to know most is, just how long did you know about

 

everything?”

 

. . . .

 

“You made it sound like you first learned the truth upon

 

reading Aoii Mikoko’s suicide note, but . . . well, that just

 

can’t be, now can it?” she said with a grin. “So when?”

 

I couldn’t muster an answer.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 6

 

“As much as I underestimate people, I know you’re pretty

 

hot stuff,” she said. “I certainly don’t believe you didn’t realize

 

the truth at all until seeing that suicide note.”

 

“You’re overestimating me. I’m not that—“

 

“Well then, shall I provide more concrete evidence? For

 

example, you said something to Zerozaki along the lines of

 

‘Seeing the dead body of someone I know isn’t enough to

 

make me feel sick,’ but it seems to me that that’s not the only

 

part of the story that wasn’t very you, so to speak.”

 

“What else is there?” I knew where she was going with this,

 

but I posed the question anyway. “I don’t have a clue what

 

you mean.”

 

“Go back to when you first heard the facts from Sasaki.

 

She asked you about the phone call you got from Emoto, and

 

what did you say? That it was definitely Emoto’s voice. That

 

you never forgot a voice once heard. Or something to that

 

effect. You’ve brought up your terrible memory any number

 

of times by now. So how could you be so sure?” She patted

 

me a couple of times on the shoulder teasingly. “How could

 

that busted memory of yours possibly confirm such a thing?

 

You had only met the girl one time, and this was over the

 

phone, no less. There is no way you could’ve confirmed such a

 

thing. Don’t you think that’s why Aoii Mikoko thought to use

 

such a trick in the first place? She was anticipating your lousy

 

memory. At the very least, there’s no way you could say it was

 

‘definitely’ her voice.”

 

“And?”

 

“And that means you deliberately lied to Sasaki-san. Now

 

why would you do a thing like that? Well, here’s what I

 

think—you can’t fake something you don’t know about to

 

begin with, but you can fake something you do know about.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 7

 

When Sasaki came and told you about Emoto’s death, that

 

was when you realized the truth about Aoii’s trick and that

 

she was the one who had killed Emoto Tomoe, wasn’t it?”

 

The cat was essentially out of the bag. There was no point

 

in staying silent any longer. Before the eyes of this scarlet,

 

multitalented wonder, such a course of action was more

 

worthless than worthlessness itself.

 

“I didn’t really have everything figured out at that point,” I

 

answered relatively honestly. “I didn’t have any evidence or

 

anything at that point. It was just a guess. It was just a vague

 

idea I had, like, ‘It could have happened like this,’ you know?

 

You certainly couldn’t call it a solid conclusion. But Jun-san,

 

even supposing that were true, that I had figured everything

 

out at that point . . . is there some problem with that?”

 

“Indeed there is. A freaking huge problem. Now, if you told

 

me you were just lying to cover up a friend, I’d be fine with

 

that. Anybody would tell a lie if it meant saying a friend. But

 

the problem here is that Aoii Mikoko wasn’t your friend. Regardless

 

of how she felt toward you, you didn’t feel anything

 

toward her. She was just an acquaintance. A classmate. Simply

 

put—you weren’t covering for her. You were stalling her.”

 

Stalling.

 

And for what purpose did I need that extra time?

 

To reach a decision.

 

To give, or to take?

 

“And then on that particular day, you pointed the finger at

 

her. ‘Can you forgive your own existence?’ Or something like

 

that.”

 

“You talk as if you had seen it all yourself. Were you

 

watching us, by any chance?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 8

 

Come to think of it, hadn’t Aikawa-san said something

 

about spotting Mikoko-chan and me that Saturday? But what

 

if she had followed us after that? I may have been able to

 

detect the deadly Zerozaki or Muimi-chan, the novice of

 

novices, but I doubted I would’ve noticed if Aikawa-san had

 

been on our tail.

 

And yet Aikawa-san denied it. “No, I wasn’t watching you.

 

But I can at least guess what you would’ve said. I share

 

Zerozaki’s opinion—I don’t believe for a second that a person

 

capable of murder would let their own conscience drive them

 

to suicide. Anyone likely to hold regrets wouldn’t commit the

 

murder in the first place.”

 

“But statistically speaking, a fair percentage of murderers

 

do commit suicide.”

 

“Statistically speaking? You’ve been around for nearly

 

twenty years and statistics is the best answer you can come

 

up with?” She raised a scoffing eyebrow and snorted at me.

 

“Don’t tell me you believe in something that idiotic. Something

 

that only happens once in a hundred thousand tries

 

happens on the very first try. The first person you ever meet is

 

one in a million. The lower the probability, the more you see

 

it happen. ‘Statistics.’ What a joke. There’s nothing more

 

average than a miracle.”

 

It was a ridiculously wild view on the subject, but there

 

was no arguing with the Aikawa Jun. Speaking from personal

 

experience, she was entirely out of my league.

 

“But I digress. At any rate, Aoii Mikoko didn’t commit

 

suicide out of guilt. She did it because you accused her. Or

 

rather, you questioned her. After that, she had no choice other

 

than death.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 5 9

 

Can you forgive your own existence?

 

I’ll be back tomorrow. Around twelve.

 

You’ll have your answer then.

 

“You mean just because I said that? If that alone was

 

enough to activate her conscience, she wouldn’t have committed

 

the crime in the first place,” I said. “And to commit

 

suicide over a thing like that—“

 

“But don’t you see? Aoii murdered Emoto for you.”

 

I was speechless.

 

“Ehh, I guess saying it was ‘for you’ is going a little too far.

 

Aoii made the decision to do it on her own, and you’re not

 

responsible for anything. Basically it came down to a matter of

 

jealousy, if you want to put it simply.”

 

I didn’t answer.

 

Aikawa-san continued. “Emoto Tomoe never opened herself

 

up to anybody, never got any closer than she absolutely

 

had to. And yet she spoke quite candidly with you on the very

 

first night you met.”

 

A fatal wound. Damaged goods.

 

They were similar, but different.

 

What if Mikoko-chan had been half-awake during that

 

conversation? What if she had been conscious at that time,

 

just as she had been during my conversation with Miiko-san?

 

“If you consider the facts, it’s obvious why she stole that

 

neckstrap too. Why would Aoii need a thing like that? It was a

 

gift from Usami Akiharu. But remember what you said about

 

it? ‘It’s a good match,’ or something to that effect. You, who

 

almost never compliment anybody, went and said that. So

 

Aoii stole it. She didn’t need it, per se, she simply wanted to

 

take it, and so she snatched it from the crime scene. I suppose

 

this too was an act of jealousy. The point is, Aoii Mikoko

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 0

 

couldn’t bear the thought that you and Emoto Tomoe were

 

becoming close.”

 

“So that’s why she killed her? That was her motive? That’s

 

idiotic. Can you imagine being killed for a reason like that?

 

That’s appalling.”

 

“You’re right, it is appalling. And that’s why you couldn’t

 

forgive her, isn’t it? She tragically robbed a human being of

 

her life for something so stupid. And so you made her take

 

responsibility for it.”

 

“Do you really think I would do something like that?”

 

“No I don’t. Not if this had been some random, spontaneous

 

act. If it was just a matter of someone having ‘gone too

 

far’ I’m sure you would’ve just forgiven her and looked the

 

other way. But that’s not what this was. This was a premeditated

 

crime. It wasn’t the ‘power of alcohol’ or something like

 

that. She even had a murder weapon prepared from the very

 

beginning.” She let out a snicker. “I know you don’t really

 

think she used a ribbon to do it. Apparently you told Zerozaki

 

the murder weapon was the ribbon from Usami’s gift, but

 

obviously that wasn’t the case.”

 

“I don’t know about that. It seems like it would’ve made a

 

good—”

 

“But the neckstrap was the only thing taken from the crime

 

scene, right? It was written down in those police documents.

 

That means the ribbon was still there. Which means that the

 

murder weapon had to be something else, by the pretense that

 

the cloth used in Aoii’s suicide matched the cloth used to kill

 

Emoto. So what does that mean? It means that Aoii Mikoko

 

had already prepared a murder weapon before even arriving at

 

Emoto’s apartment.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 1

 

“I mean she made a prediction. She could detect the similarities

 

between you and Emoto from the get-go. She sensed

 

something about your ‘aura’, if you will. And if her prediction

 

turned out to be on the mark, she was going to kill Emoto.

 

She had planned it like that from the start. This wasn’t just

 

some gimmick that any old sucker of a college student

 

could’ve thought up off the top of her head.”

 

“That’s rather laughable,” I said without even cracking a

 

smirk. “She kept going on and on about how they were such

 

great pals, and then she killed over something as trivial as that.

 

And what’s worse, I know she wasn’t lying about them being

 

friends. That was no lie, Jun-san. She really did care for

 

Tomoe-chan.”

 

Just not to the point that she wouldn’t kill her.

 

If she got in the way, Mikoko-chan would kill her without

 

mercy.

 

Kill.

 

Die for me.

 

Truly this girl had nerves of steel.

 

“So you deliberated for awhile, but ultimately decided to

 

denounce her.”

 

“Denounce her? Just to be clear here, Jun-san . . . I didn’t

 

suggest that she kill herself. In fact, I waited until she was in a

 

relaxed state before I even approached her about it, specifically

 

so she wouldn’t go overboard and commit suicide or

 

something. At the very least, I left three options for her. She

 

could kill herself, turn herself in, or just pretend she didn’t

 

know what I was talking about and never cross paths with me

 

again. As a bonus option, she also could have killed me.”

 

“Weren’t you hoping she’d go for the bonus option?”

 

Yeah, right. I shrugged.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 2

 

“I had expected her to choose to turn herself in . . . but she

 

didn’t. When I went into her room, she was dead. So I . . .”

 

“So you acted like you didn’t know it was suicide. There

 

was nothing about that written in the suicide note, was there?

 

And you’re the one who left that ‘x over y’ mark, aren’t you?”

 

It was true. Mikoko-chan hadn’t made any such request.

 

Swallowing everything was all my idea. The fact that she

 

hadn’t turned herself in meant she didn’t want people to

 

know what she had done. And so I decided, more or less on a

 

whim, to help out.

 

And to be honest, I also felt a little responsible.

 

“ ’Responsible’, huh . . . personally, I think of that as a

 

word people use when something comes as a complete

 

surprise to them.”

 

“Well, to be sure, I hadn’t seen it coming. It was a surprise,

 

it really was. I agree with you and Zerozaki that it’s not really

 

feasible that a person capable of murder would commit

 

suicide out of guilt. That’s why I was surprised to find that she

 

had committed suicide. I’m not even sure whether or not it

 

actually was the indigestible objects in my stomach that made

 

me so queasy, Jun-san.”

 

“But it wasn’t necessarily guilt that pushed Aoii to suicide.

 

It’s possible that she died because you pushed her. Because of

 

what she’d done, you were disgusted with her. She had made

 

an enemy out of you, and in so doing, lost all hope.”

 

“If that’s the case, that just makes me even angrier. So she

 

kills one person, and that alone distresses her to the point of

 

dying? She wasn’t even qualified to be a killer.”

 

“Ahh, so that’s what you meant about feeling responsible.

 

Not for Aoii, but for Emoto . . . I see. Huh . . . an interesting

 

concept. But say, doesn’t a person’s affection mean anything

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 3

 

to you? She may have taken it in a twisted direction, but Aoii

 

really liked you.”

 

“Saying ‘I like you so you’d better like me’ is just an intimidation

 

tactic. Unfortunately, I’m not some blind reciprocator.

 

People who kill to serve their own passions make me sick.”

 

“Would you say the same thing about Atemiya?” she asked

 

rather politely. “The thing that impresses me the most is that

 

you were able to predict all of this, including its conclusion,

 

from the very beginning. That’s why you implanted that false

 

idea in Atemiya’s head about the ‘dying message.’ You

 

explained to Zerozaki that Atemiya ‘misunderstood’ the

 

meaning of those markings, but in reality, it was you who

 

caused her to do that. That way, it would be immediately obvious

 

that Atemiya was the culprit if the murders continued

 

even after Aoii’s death. Even when you snuck into Emoto’s

 

apartment, you weren’t looking for clues; you were looking for

 

something that nobody would know about.”

 

“It was just a sort of insurance, I guess. It wasn’t all that

 

thoroughly calculated or anything. Don’t make it sound like I

 

had everything in the palm of my hand.”

 

In the end, he was the one who had actually done the

 

killing, she was the one who had done the dying, and that girl

 

over there was the one who had committed suicide. I hadn’t

 

done a single thing. I hadn’t even manipulated anybody. How

 

could someone as clueless about people’s emotions as me even

 

try to manipulate someone?

 

Now that was nonsense.

 

“So Sasaki and Kazuhito . . . yesterday they took Atemiya

 

Muimi into custody, but . . . they say she was on the verge of

 

suicide. She was about to jump off the roof of her building,

 

and they managed to rescue her just in time. Apparently she’d

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 4

 

completely lost it, and they couldn’t even understand the

 

words coming out of her mouth. They’re not sure she’ll ever

 

be back to normal.”

 

“Really.”

 

“Did you say something to her?”

 

“No,” I answered without hesitation. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m

 

not interested in people who kill to serve their own passions.”

 

“I’m pretty sure you said they make you sick.”

 

“You probably misheard me.”

 

She glared at me in silence for a moment. “Hahh,” she

 

sighed. “Well, either way . . . so that’s why you condemned

 

these girls who each only killed one person, yet completely

 

overlooked the multiple, indiscriminant, merciless killings of

 

Zerozaki? To give or to take, huh? Gee . . . you really are

 

cruel, huh?”

 

“I get that a lot.”

 

Aikawa-san swigged down the last remaining drops of her

 

cola, rose to her feet with a grunt, and looked down on me.

 

“Dust to dust . . . well, whatever. When all is said and done,

 

your crimes and your punishments are yours and yours alone.

 

I’m not sure how you see I, but you weren’t in the wrong

 

here. If you can be faulted for anything, it’s that you are who

 

you are. You’re guilty of the crime of being you, and so, too,

 

shall that be your punishment. And I have no intention of getting

 

in the way of that. I was just a little curious. So here’s my

 

final question,” she said, sounding much more lighthearted

 

than she had until a few moments ago. But I knew it was

 

when she got like this that she truly shined.

 

“Sure. what?” I said, just a little bit nervous.

 

“What was really written on Aoii’s suicide note?”

 

. . . . “Just one line,” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 5

 

“Wow. What was it?”

 

“Forgot. Bad memory.”

 

And then I remembered:

 

“ ‘I wanted you to save me.’ “

 

“That’s a pretty rough line,” she said, laughing. “Still, it’ll

 

stick with you. Her confession to you would’ve made for a

 

nice last memory, but that’s just plain bitter. You’ll never forget

 

her for the rest of your life now. Maybe that’s what she

 

was shooting for.”

 

“Not really. I’ll have forgotten it in another three days or

 

so.”

 

This sounded like bitter retort itself, but I meant it in all

 

honesty, and it would probably come true. My insides were

 

already thoroughly saturated with bad memories. Sure, I may

 

have gained another two or three or four crosses to haul

 

around on my back, but they’d be buried soon enough. That

 

was all there was to it.

 

“Figures,” Aikawa-san said. She gazed at me for a while

 

before her face grew cynical again. “Say . . . you didn’t really

 

care either way, did you?” she said.

 

. . . . In regards to what?

 

There were so many possibilities, I had no idea what she

 

was referring to.

 

But still.

 

Whatever the intended question was, there was only one

 

possible answer.

 

“Nah.”

 

“Figures,” Aikawa-san said. “Well, I’ll see what I can do

 

about Sasaki, see if I can get her to drop the charges on you.”

 

“Charges? What charges?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 6

 

“Falsifying information in regards to the Emoto case, encouraging

 

Aoii’s suicide, not to mention concealment of evidence,

 

plus withholding information and having that little

 

rendezvous with Atemiya. Normally they’d have your ass for

 

all that, which I’m sure you were well aware of, but I’ll take

 

care of it for you. Although I suppose even if I didn’t, Kunagisa

 

probably would. . . . You’d better start doing some favors

 

for some people.”

 

“Sasaki-san said something like that too.”

 

“I’ll bet. I taught her that line.”

 

“You don’t say.”

 

Lately I’d been up to my ears in debts owed to various

 

people for favors they’d done. And it hadn’t even been a full

 

five months since I’d returned to Japan. Would even the remainder

 

of my life be enough time to repay everyone?

 

I probably didn’t have much of a choice in that matter.

 

“Well, let’s do this again,” she said.

 

“We won’t have another chance to meet, will we?”

 

“Oh, I think we will. I have a feeling we’ll be meeting again

 

real soon.”

 

“I don’t suppose that means you’re going to show up again

 

tomorrow to hang out, like last time. . . .”

 

“I told you, I’m off to Hokkaido tomorrow . . . some real

 

sticky-sounding job. Not sure I’ll make it back alive this time.

 

I’m pretty excited.”

 

“You don’t die even if you’re killed.”

 

“You neither,” she said. “Well, so long.” With that, she left

 

the guest room. It was an extremely simple farewell, like we

 

really were going to meet again tomorrow.

 

And we probably would meet again at some point.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 7

 

And surely she would once again forcefully expose my insides,

 

flashing a cynicism-ridden smile all the while. And no

 

doubt, she would put another end to another story that had

 

already ended.

 

She would solve what had already been completed,

 

Complete what was already solved.

 

Because that was the role of this red contract worker.

 

Now that, that was some real grade A.

 

“Aikawa-san, you just don’t know when to quit.”

 

In an uncharacteristic moment, it occurred to me that

 

being killed didn’t sound so bad, if she was the one doing the

 

killing.

 

“Now then . . .”

 

I stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling that looked to boast

 

twice my height if I jumped with my arms stretched up.

 

Spacially speaking, this room was somewhere between five

 

and ten times the size of my lodge.

 

That aside.

 

“I think you can come out now, Kunagisa.”

 

“Gah,” leaked a voice from somewhere, but made no effort

 

to show herself. It looked like she intended to continue

 

playing dumb. How could someone so smart be such a knothead?

 

Then again, it was still a lot better than being dumb and

 

a knothead like me.

 

“If you don’t some out now, you’ll miss your chance. Is

 

that okay?”

 

“Uni. It’s hard to time these things.”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 8

 

As she spoke, a single plate opened in the ceiling, and her

 

face peered out. She snickered guiltily. “Teehehehe. You knew

 

all along?”

 

“Yup-yup. I think Aikawa-san noticed too.”

 

“Aww. What’s the point of this stupid secret passageway,

 

then?”

 

In a display of baffling logic, she proceeded to jump down

 

at me as if diving into a swimming pool. I might reiterate at

 

this point that the ceiling was twice my height when jumping and

 

stretching. At the same time, I couldn’t just dodge out of the

 

way, so I took the impact straight in the gut.

 

“Ii-chan, you okay?”

 

“Not so much . . .” With my fingers broken, I couldn’t

 

even guard myself. I had been reduced to a human cushion.

 

“Tomo . . . please, get off. I think you broke some ribs.”

 

“I believe I’ll waive that suggestion.” She squeezed up

 

against me, pushing me all the way over. It was a position

 

fairly reminiscent of the one Aikawa-san had put me in several

 

days earlier, but this was much nicer. A heartfelt embrace, if

 

you will.

 

Squeeze.

 

“Hee-hee. I missed you! I liked you!”

 

“Well, I appreciate the ‘I miss you.’ . . .”

 

She was pure innocence.

 

She had heard everything I had just discussed with

 

Aikawa-san, and still she hugged me like this.

 

I had cruelly antagonized two people, and yet completely

 

overlooked a mass murderer. And Kunagisa didn’t harbor a

 

single negative sentiment toward me for it.

 

. . . .

 

Aikawa-san had been wrong about just one thing.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 6 9

 

But it wasn’t her fault. She probably just didn’t have me

 

fully figured out yet. By no means do I consider myself a deep

 

person, but I do recognize that my sins run so deep there’s no

 

way to see all the way to the bottom. The depths of me were

 

invisible, no matter what kind of contract work you did.

 

The reason I didn’t want to have that discussion in front of

 

Kunagisa wasn’t because I was afraid of her judging me. It was

 

because I knew she would never judge me that I never wanted

 

to expose my ugliness or my ego to her.

 

Hers was an all-embracing love.

 

Unwavering, undiluted affection.

 

If I killed a person directly, she would probably forgive me

 

even then.

 

She would love me all the same.

 

To me, that love was just a little too heavy.

 

I could feel it crushing me.

 

That wide-open devotion.

 

It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel affection toward others. It was

 

that I couldn’t receive affection from others.

 

No matter how much adoration Mikoko-chan showed me,

 

all I could respond with was disdain for a murderer. No matter

 

how much her feelings for me had inspired her actions, all I

 

could see was another homicide.

 

And thus I was damaged goods.

 

And thus I was a human failure.

 

“Nonsense.”

 

“Hmm?” Kunagisa lifted her body up just a bit to give me a

 

puzzled look. “You say something, Ii-chan?”

 

“Nah, I’m not saying anything.”

 

“Hmm. Ah, that’s right. Ii-chan, wanna go on a vacation

 

with me?”

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 0

 

“Vacation? That’s pretty rare. I thought you were supposed

 

to be a shut-in.”

 

“Well, actually I don’t really wanna go, either, but I’m

 

helping someone out, so I’ve gotta.”

 

“Ah. Well, okay, let’s go. I haven’t seen you much lately,

 

anyway.”

 

“Okay!” she said with a gleeful smile. It was the only expression

 

she knew. But it was still more than I was capable of.

 

Not being able to respond to a smile with a smile . . . it really can

 

give a guy an inferiority complex, eh, Tomoe-chan? I thought with

 

a fair dose of self-deprecation.

 

“When do we leave?”

 

“Well, there’s a lot to be taken care of first. Ahh, Professor

 

Kyôichirô’s place is so far. But we’ve got to rescue Satchan.

 

It’d be better to go after your wounds are all healed, so I’m

 

thinking probably around the start of July.”

 

“Okay, gotcha.”

 

“Mark your calendar. Ehehee,” she chuckled.

 

I remembered something. “Hey, Kunagisa. Do you know

 

what ‘x over y’ means?”

 

“Huh?” she bent her neck to look up at me again. “What’s

 

that? A formula?”

 

“A dying message . . . well, not really, but you could think

 

of it as one.”

 

“Hmm.” She thought for a single second. “Ah, is it in cursive,

 

by any chance?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then it’s simple. You just look at it in the mirror, then rotate

 

it,” she said as if it really was that simple for her.

 

“Correct.” I said.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 1

 

What was going through Mikoko-chan’s mind when she

 

left that mark? She had left it by Tomo-chan’s body, just like

 

some kind of dying message. All you could do was speculate,

 

but indeed you could speculate.

 

Mikoko-chan probably didn’t really want to kill Tomochan.

 

And of course, Muimi-chan didn’t want to kill Akiharukun.

 

“But me . . .”

 

Maybe I wanted to kill both Mikoko-chan and Muimichan,

 

in reality. After all, the me on the other side of the mirror

 

was a murderer.

 

Either way, I fully accepted those puzzling symbols she

 

had left behind. Why not? Nothing worth holding a grudge

 

over ever made it through the mirror to this side. And the

 

mirror itself had already crumbled.

 

A whole world had crumbled.

 

I took a look at Kunagisa.

 

When would it be my turn to crumble?

 

That contemptible “soothsayer” had prophesied that it

 

would be another two years. But she was an even bigger liar

 

than I, and I couldn’t accept those words as the truth. I

 

doubted my mind would last that long.

 

Mind aside, what about my heart?

 

Whatever the case, my time was sure to come.

 

A time you might call my final judgment.

 

“Uni? What’s wrong, Ii-chan?”

 

She blinked at me with those big, pure pupils.

 

That azure hair.

 

Exactly the same as five years ago.

 

And now it was five years later.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 2

 

Sooner or later, the time would come.

 

When I’d buckle under the weight.

 

And the urge to destroy her would arise.

 

Even then, she was sure to forgive me.

 

Even if she was murdered or destroyed, she would forgive

 

me.

 

Just as she had done five years ago, with that innocent,

 

beaming smile, as if nothing had even happened.

 

There’s a difference between being forgiven and being

 

saved.

 

Nonsensical though this may be.

 

Before these things occurred.

 

Not to serve your passions. but simply to serve yourself, to

 

do something that should be done.

 

Please.

 

Quickly.

 

“Tomo.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I love you.”

 

Just saying.

 

They were hollow, entirely empty words.

 

Words anybody, anybody could say.

 

Just substanceless vocabulary.

 

“And I love you.”

 

Kunagisa laughed.

 

And that was all there was to it.

 

Ultimately, that was all.

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 3

 

“That’s the Ikkun I love.”

 

And thus, “I wanted you to save me.”

 

I had just one response to that.

 

A single phrase I wanted to send to Mikoko-chan.

 

Likely, they were the same words Tomo-chan had for me.

 

And indeed, they were suitable.

 

“Don’t be so spoiled.”

 

<Easy Love, Easy No> is a BAD ENDING. . . .

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 4

 

So you often hear people say, “Don’t be choosy about how

 

you achieve your goals,” but as a human, I feel we should at

 

least be allowed to choose how we go about achieving something.

 

If you really sit down and think about it, trying to

 

achieve a goal without carefully choosing a method could end

 

up being disastrous. For example, if your ambition is to become

 

a professional baseball player, you’ve got to get there by

 

playing baseball right? If, however, you instead proclaim, “No,

 

I don’t want to be choosy about how I achieve this goal! Curse

 

those who dare select their own methods!” and go out and buy

 

a rugby ball, it seems to me that you’re more likely to end up

 

becoming a rugby player. Now what if, instead, you were to

 

buy a knife, and what’s more, practice swinging it a thousand

 

times a day? Who here among us would take a look at such a

 

person in the park at night and predict that he was destined

 

to become a major leaguer? Of course, I know that’s not what

 

this saying is supposed to mean, but I just thought I’d put my

 

own little spin on it.

 

Meanwhile, the writer of this very book could be thought

 

of as the all-star representative player for people who aren’t

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 5

 

too choosy about their methods, but upon serious contemplation,

 

I’m surprisingly unsure of whether or not I really even

 

chose the goal in the first place. “Hmm, so why is that what

 

you want to do?” people will say, thereby effectively questioning

 

the purpose of your purpose, at which point most people

 

are prone to becoming very silent. And should we be even

 

further interrogated, wherein we’re confronted about the purpose

 

of the purpose of our purpose, or the purpose of the purpose

 

of the purpose of our purpose, or the purpose of the

 

purpose of the purpose of the purpose of our purpose, well, at

 

that point we just give up, resulting in a silence to end all

 

silences.

 

Thinking about it conversely, there’s something wholly unappealing

 

about the idea of a person who could provide concrete,

 

logical answers to such questions. (“Well, the purpose of

 

the purpose of the purpose of the purpose of the purpose of

 

my purpose is this and this and that. Clear enough?”). Humans,

 

in all their humanity, are much more cut out for living

 

their lives constantly mistaking vague, unrealistic illusions for

 

goals and/or methods.

 

This book, Zaregoto 2: The Kubishime Romanticist, sees the

 

appearance of a homicidal monster who’s lost sight of his goal

 

and a murderer who can’t find a method. This monster and

 

this murderer think to themselves, “This is pretty weird,” but

 

they go on committing their acts all the while. The homicidal

 

monster continues exercising his method, and the murderer

 

continues pursuing her goal. Meanwhile, the side character

 

that is our narrator sees these characters and scratches his

 

head, thinking, “They’re pretty weird,” and yet he goes and

 

projects himself onto them, and in comes the self-hatred.

 

After all, to anyone with ugliness inside themselves, there’s no

 

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 3 7 6

 

greater displeasure than taking a look in the mirror. Of course,

 

if you don’t have a mirror, you can’t see yourself at all.

 

As was the case with the last book, The Kubikiri Cycle, there

 

is a ridiculous number of people whose combined strength is

 

to be thanked for the publishing of this novel. Above all

 

others, I am most greatly indebted to my editor, Kastushi Otasama,

 

and my illustrator, take. Thank you so much.

 

NISIOISIN

 

TYPED OUT BY A FEW ANONS ■■■

 

Born in 1981, the prolific NISIOISIN has already revolutionized the

 

Japanese literary world with his fast-paced, pop culture-fueled

 

novels. He debuted with The Kubikiri Cycle in 2002, beginning his

 

seminal Zaregoto series, and Bakemonogatari was published under

 

Kodansha’s popular Kodansha Box imprint. 2007 saw the magnificent

 

conclusion to his twelve-month consecutive serial novel, Katanagatari—for

 

which NISIOISIN wrote one novel a month for an entire

 

year—also for Kodansha Box. NISIOISIN has also created novels

 

based on popular manga franchises: xxxHOLiC: ANOTHERHOLiC, based

 

on the series by superstar artist collective CLAMP, and Death Note

 

Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, based on Tsugumi

 

Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s blockbuster series.

 

Born in 1983, take made his debut with the gorgeous, ultramodern

 

illustrations for NISIOISIN’s Zaregoto series. Just as that novel

 

cemented NISIOISIN’s reputation as one of the leading lights of

 

Japanese pop culture, take’s illustrations for these best-selling novels

 

made him a star in his own right. His first-class character designs

 

have captured readers’ hearts, and he is now ranked as one of the top

 

young illustrators in Japan. take loves cats and manga genius Osamu

 

Tezuka.

 

If you enjoyed this book—and you did, didn’t you?—please

 

consider buying it to support its original creators.