Chapter 3: Scoring Points
I thought that people in situations like these couldn't get any sleep. But after a hot shower, a change of clothes, and lying down in bed, my eyelids quickly got heavy, and I slept like the dead for six hours.
When I woke up, I felt surprisingly not bad. In fact, that oppressiveness I'd felt upon waking up for the past few months was gone.
I sat up to check my phone and found no messages. The girl still didn't need me, I guess. I lay down again and stared at the ceiling.
Why did I feel so good despite having run someone over last night? A total turnaround from yesterday's heavy regrets, my mind was clearer than ever.
Thinking about it while listening to the drips of rainwater from the gutter, I came to a conclusion.
Perhaps I was freed from my fear of falling lower and lower. Amid my miserable existence, I had felt myself rotting away. So I was full of anxiety over how much I'd fall, how bad I'd get.
However, the accident last night dropped me straight to the bottom. Upon falling as low as I could go, there was a kind of extreme comfort in that darkness.
After all, I couldn't go any lower. Compared to the dread of a limitless fall, the pain of hitting the ground was much more concrete and bearable.
There was nothing more I could lose. I had no hopes to betray, so I could have no despair.
So I felt at ease. There's nothing more dependable than resignation.
I went out on the veranda to take a smoke. A few dozen crows were perched on the power lines some distance away, and some flew around the area cawing hoarsely.
By the time I'd reduced about a centimeter of the cigarette to ash, I heard a woman's voice from the neighboring veranda.
"Good evening, mister shut-in."
I looked to my left and saw a girl meekly waving at me. She wore glasses, had a bob cut, and was dressed in nightwear.
She was the girl who lived next door, an art student in college. I didn't remember her name. But not because I didn't care about her or anything. I'm just bad at remembering names, just as it always is with introverts of my sort.
"Good evening, miss shut-in," I replied. "You're up early today."
"Give me that," requested the art student. "The thing in your mouth."
"This?", I asked, pointing at the cigarette.
"Yeah. That."
I reached out and handed her the partly-smoked cigarette. As always, her veranda was packed with decorative plants, like a miniature forest.
She had a small stepladder laid on top of the left and right edges serving as a flower stand, and a red garden chair was situated in the center. The plants were very carefully tended to and looked vibrant and lively, unlike their owner.
"So you went out yesterday," she observed, taking smoke into her lungs. "Not what I've come to expect from you."
"Aren't I great?", I replied. "Oh yeah... I was just about to call for you. You get the newspaper every day, right?"
"Yeah, but I only ever read the front page. What about it?"
"I want to read this morning's paper."
"Hm. Okay then, come over," the art student told me. "I was about to call for you too, for tonight's walk."
I went out into the hall and into her room. This made the second time she'd let me inside. The first time had been a request for some company to drink her sorrows away with, and I tell you, I'd never seen someone living in such a messy place in my life.
I mean, I wouldn't call it dirty. It was orderly enough. The size of the room and how much she owned just didn't agree. She must have been the type to never throw anything away - totally opposite from me, who only had basic furniture and the like.
The art student's room wasn't any cleaner this time. Indeed, there'd been even more things crammed into it.
Her living room served as her atelier, so there were huge shelves along the walls with art collections and photo albums galore, as well as a huge collection of records that tightly filled all available space.
On top of the shelves, cardboard boxes were piled to the ceiling, and I could only imagine the disaster a good-sized earthquake would cause.
One of the walls had a French movie poster and a calendar from three years ago. One of the corners had a corkboard slotted in, with artistic photos thumb-tacked on haphazardly covering the entire surface.
One of the two tables had a massive computer on top, with worn-out pens and pencils scattered in front. The other table was clean and neat, with only a record player in a wooden cabinet.
Sitting in the veranda chair, I looked over every line of the morning paper in the light of the setting sun. As expected, there was nothing about the accident I caused.
The art student took a look at the paper from beside me. "Haven't read the paper in a while... But I'm not really missing much, huh," she thought aloud.
"Thank you," I told her, handing it back.
"Don't mention it. Find the article you were looking for?"
"No, I didn't."
"Huh, that's too bad."
"No, the opposite. I'm relieved it's not there. Um, can you let me watch your TV, too?"
"You don't even have a TV at your place?", the art student asked, astonished. "I guess I hardly watch mine, so it's honestly not something I need, but..."
She went fishing under her bed, pulled out the remote, and turned it on.
"When does the local news start, anyway?"
"Pretty soon, I think. Weird to hear a shut-in interested in the news. Getting curious about the outside world?"
"No, I killed someone," I told her. "I just can't help but wonder if it made the news."
She blinked, still looking right at me. "Wait. What?"
"I ran a girl over last night. I was going fast enough to kill her, for sure."
"Umm... This isn't just some kind of joke, is it?"
"It isn't," I nodded. Since she was the same kind of person as me, I felt at ease telling her anything. "And when I ran her over, I was totally drunk on whiskey. I don't have even a shred of an excuse."
She looked at the newspaper in her hand. "If that's the truth, then it is weird that it didn't make the news. You think they haven't found the corpse yet?"
"Well, there were some circumstances, and I should be able to get away with it for nine days. In that time, I'm sure my crime will never be noticed. I'm convinced after reading the paper."
"Yeah, I don't get it." She crossed her arms. "Do you have the time to be talking to me? Shouldn't you be erasing evidence, running away somewhere, that kind of thing?"
"You're right, there are things I need to do. But I can't do them alone. I need to wait for a call."
"...Right. Well, I'm still having a lot of doubts, but what I'm getting is that you're a serious criminal."
"Yes, any way you slice it."
At once, the art student's expression brightened. She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, her face beaming more than simply "joyous" could describe.
"Listen, I'm like, extremely happy right now," she said. "I feel so much better."
"Schadenfreude?", I asked through a bitter smile.
"Yeah. I'm happy to know you're such a loser beyond all help."
It would be inaccurate to call her inconsiderate, as the art student smiled wide because of her consideration of my woes. Which made me feel a little bit better.
A reaction like this was more comfortable to me than awkward sympathy and worry. And at any rate, she was getting positive feelings thanks to me.
"So you've graduated from shut-in to killer."
"Isn't that a step down?"
"It's a step up in my book. ...Hey, let's go walking tonight. We'll waste that meager postponement of yours. Sound good? It's so comforting having you around."
"I'm honored."
"Great. How about a toast?" She indicated a bottle of beer in front of the shelves. "Isn't there lots you want to forget, want to not think about?"
"I'll hold off on drinking. I want to be able to drive right away when that call comes."
"I see. Well, it'll be water for you then, mister killer. Because, uh, beer and water is all I've got."
Watching her drop ice into her glass and pour the whiskey, I felt a pang of nostalgia. It was an odd sensation; I felt like we were in a picture book or a painting.
"Sorry, can I have a glass of that after all?"
"That's what I was planning to give you." She quickly filled the other glass with whiskey.
"So then, cheers."
"Cheers."
The rims of our glasses touched and made a lonely clink.
"I've never had a drink with a killer before," she remarked while squeezing lemon juice into her glass.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Be sure to savor it."
"I will," she grinned, slyly narrowing her eyes.
My shut-in art student neighbor and I got acquainted some time after I became a shut-in myself.
One day, I was lying down in bed and listening to music. Playing it at a loud volume without regard for anyone else, there was soon a loud knock on the door.
Was it a door-to-door evangelist? A newspaper salesman? I decided to ignore it, but they kept knocking. Annoyed, I cranked the volume up higher, and then the door slammed open. I'd forgotten to lock it.
The bespectacled intruder had a somehow familiar face. I supposed she was my neighbor, come to complain about the noise.
I prepared myself for her insults, but she just went to the CD player by my bed, took out the CD, switched it for another, and went back to her room without a word.
Her qualms weren't with the volume, but with my taste in music.
I pressed play without checking what she'd put in and was met with guitar pop as sweet as orange juice, which was a little disappointing. I'd be hoping she might have recommended me something really good, but alas.
So that was my first meeting with the art student. Though I didn't learn she was an art student until a while later.
She and I both hated to go outside, but did go onto our verandas frequently. The difference being that she went to water her plants and I went to smoke, but still, we found ourselves getting closer each time we saw each other.
There was nothing obstructing the view between us, so when I saw her, I bowed my head without too much familiarity. I'd greet her, and with a watchful eye on me, she'd return the greeting.
Then, one day toward the end of summer, she was out watering her plants, and I leaned on the left railing and spoke to her.
"That's pretty impressive, raising all those plants by yourself."
"Not really," she mumbled in a barely audible voice. "It's not hard."
"Can I ask a question?"
Still observing the plants, she replied, "Sure, but I might not answer."
"I don't mean to dig too deep, but have you not left your room at all in the past week?"
"...And what if I haven't?"
"Dunno. I guess I'd just be happy."
"Why?"
"Because neither have I."
I picked up a cigarette butt from the ground, lit it, and took a puff. The art student opened her eyes and turned to me.
"Huh, I see. So you know I haven't left my room because you haven't left yours either."
"Right. It's scary outside. Must be the summer."
"What do you mean?"
"Walking around under the sun makes me feel so miserable that it takes two, three days to recover. No, maybe guilty, or pitiful..."
"Hmm," the art student replied, pushing up the bridge of her glasses. "I haven't seen your friend lately. What happened to him? The one who looks like a drug addict. He was coming by almost every day."
She must have meant Shindo. True, on some days his eyes would look out of focus, and he constantly had these creepy vague smiles, and generally did come off as a drug addict, but it was amusing to hear her say it so bluntly.
I held back my smile. "You mean Shindo. Well, he died. Just two months ago."
"He's dead?"
"It was suicide, most likely. He fell off a cliff on his motorcycle."
"...Huh. I'm sorry I brought it up," she apologized in a hollow voice.
"Not a problem. It's a happy story, you see. The guy's dream has finally come true."
"...I see. I guess there might be people like that," she meekly supposed. "So then, you can't leave home out of sorrow for your friend's death?"
"I'd like to say it's not that simple, but..." I scratched my forehead. "Maybe it really is just that. I don't really know, though."
"Poor thing," she whimpered, like a 7-year-old sister consoling her 5-year-old brother. "Is that why you've gotten so thin in the past month, too?"
"Have I gotten that skinny?"
"Yeah. Not even exaggerating, you look totally different. Your hair's so long, and your whiskers are really something, and you're skinny as a pole, and your eyes are sullen."
It seemed obvious, and I guess it was. Not leaving the apartment meant I hadn't eaten nearly anything but snacks to go with my beer. Some days I didn't even eat anything solid.
Looking at my legs, I noticed that thanks to my lack of walking anywhere, they were as thin as a bedridden patient's. And having not spoken to anyone in so long, I didn't realize all my drinking had made my voice so hoarse; it didn't sound like my voice at all.
"You're really pale, too. Like a vampire who hasn't sucked any blood in a month."
"I'll check the mirror later," I remarked while feeling around my eyes.
"You might not see anyone in it."
"If I'm a vampire, yeah."
"That was the idea," she smiled, grateful for me playing along with her joke.
"So anyway, what about you? Why won't you leave your room?"
The art student put her watering can down at her feet and leaned on the right side of her veranda toward me.
"I'll save that for later. For now, I just thought of something really good," she told me with a friendly smile.
"That's good," I agreed.
That night, as part of her really good idea, we left the apartment dressed in the fanciest clothes we could dig up.
I wore a jacket and one-wash denim jeans. The art student wore a navy cocoon one piece with a necklace and mule shoes, also switching her glasses for contacts and neatly doing up her hair. Clearly inappropriate attire for wandering around at night.
Prior to this, there'd been occasions where I was forced to go out, such as for shopping or going to the bank. And every time I was dragged out like this, my dread for the outside worsened.
The art student reasoned that this happened because I was only ever going out reluctantly and passively, and started to hate going outside in general.
"First we need to actively go outside and teach ourselves that the outside is a fun place," she said. "All maladjustment is a result of mistaken teaching, thus adjustment can be achieved by erasing and amending that teaching."
"Who'd you rip that quote from?"
"I think Hans Eysenck said something like that. Pretty incredible thought, isn't it?"
"Well, a clear-cut idea like that sticks better than being told nonsense about broken hearts or contact or whatever. But what's the reason for the fancy clothes? It's not like anyone will see them."
The art student grabbed the sleeve of her one-piece and adjusted it. "We feel tense, don't we? That's pretty much the only reason, but I think it's something very important for us right now."
We walked aimlessly around town dressed like we were headed for a party.
Lately, the heat in the day had been intense, but the wind started blowing at night, making it feel cool and autumn-like. Fewer bugs swarmed around the streetlights, dead ones taking their place underneath.
Stepping around the bug corpses, the art student stood under a light. A huge moth flew about her head.
She tilted her head and asked me a question. "Am I pretty?"
Getting some fresh air again seemed to have her excited. She reminded me of a child on her birthday.
"You are," I answered. I honestly did think she was pretty. Faced with a picturesque sight like this, I could really understand that feeling of "beauty." So I told her she was pretty.
"Good." She gave a wide and innocent smile.
A half-dead brown cicada beat its wings against the asphalt.
Our destination that night was an empty train station in the area. The station, hidden amongst residences, connected out to all places like a spider web.
Sitting down, I lit a cigarette and watched the art student walk unsteadily on the tracks. There was a big cat up on the fence by the tracks, perched there as if watching over us.
That was how we began having our night walks. Every Wednesday, we'd dress up and go out.
Gradually, we recovered to the point where we could go out alone as long as the sun was down. Her idea, strange as it had seemed, was surprisingly effective.
I'd nodded off, and a notification on my phone woke me up.
I hurried to collect my thoughts. I remembered as far as drinking with the art student, having our usual walk, going home and taking a shower. Maybe I fell asleep immediately after.
It was 11 PM. I picked up my phone and listened. The call was from a public phone, but I had no doubt that it was the girl I'd run over.
"So you didn't tear up that last page," I said into the receiver.
There was silence for many seconds, the girl's way of showing her pride. She didn't want it to seem like she was depending on me.
"You called this number because you want me to do something, right?", I asked.
Finally, the girl spoke. "I'll give you a chance to score some points. ...Come to the bus stop from yesterday."
"Roger that," I affirmed. "I'll head there right away. Anything else?"
"I don't have much time to explain. Just come here."
I grabbed a motorcycle jacket and my wallet, and left without even locking the door.
There were about ten lights on the way, but they all turned green for me right as I approached. I arrived at the destination much sooner than anticipated.
At the same bus stop where my first day's duty had concluded, I found the girl in her uniform alone, burying her face in a dark-red scarf and sipping on a can of milk tea as she watched the stars.
I decided to look up too, and saw the moon poking out from between the clouds. The clearly visible shape of its shadow reminded me less of the man in the moon, and more the blotted skin of an old man who'd spent too much time in the sun in his youth.
"Sorry to make you wait."
I got out of the car and went around to the other side to open the passenger door. But the girl ignored me, instead sitting in the back seat, throwing her school bag off, and exasperatedly closing the door.
"Where should we go?", I asked.
"To where you live." The girl took off her blazer and tightened her necktie.
"Sure, that's fine. But can I ask why?"
"It's not a big deal. I attacked my father, so I can't stay at home anymore."
"Did you have a fight?"
"No, I just decided to hurt him. ...Look at this."
The girl rolled up the sleeve of her blouse.
There were many black bruises on her thin arm. Even if they were just burns, I supposed they must have been at least a year old.
With eight of them neatly lined up along her arm, I suspected they had been made in an unnatural way.
I recalled how after the accident, the girl called off her "postponement" of the wound on her palm for the sake of explanation, then pulled up her sleeve and said "If you don't believe that, I can show you another example."
This couldn't have been the same arm I saw then. So she must have still been postponing these burns at the time. And in the time between then and now, something had happened to call it off.
"These are marks my father made by pushing a cigarette into my arm," she explained. "They're on my back, too. Want to see?"
"No, that's fine," I said, waving my hand. "So... You attacked your father as payback for that, and ran away from home?"
"Yes. I tied up his arms and legs with bands and hit him about fifty times with a hammer."
"A hammer?" I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right.
"I have it here."
The girl took a double-ended sledgehammer out of her bag. It was a small one, like you'd use to pound nails in elementary school arts and crafts. It seemed old; the head was rusted, and the handle was blackened.
Seeing how disturbed I was by this, she smiled proudly. Ironically, that was the first age-appropriate, honest smile she ever showed me.
I guess she'd dropped one of the numerous bags burdening her.
"Revenge is a great thing. It's so relieving. I wonder who should be next? Because I don't have anything to lose anymore. ...Oh, yes. Naturally, you'll be helping me too, mister murderer."
With that, she laid down across the back seats and swiftly fell asleep. She must have hit the limits of exhaustion. After getting revenge on her father, no doubt she just grabbed everything she could and ran away.
I slowed down and drove carefully so that I didn't wake her up.
She probably purposefully let the burns "happen" to justify her retribution, I realized.
By no longer averting her eyes from her father's violence toward her, and accepting those wounds and the cause of them, she also earned the right to take revenge.
I wonder who should be next?, she'd said. If she had such a decision to make, there had to be at least two others worth taking revenge on, maybe more.
She must have lived a truly harsh life, I thought.
Back at the apartment, I opened the door, then returned to the car to carry the girl to my room.
I took off her loafers and socks, laid her down on the bed, and pulled the covers over her. Then she restlessly reached up and pulled the covers up to her mouth.
Afterward, I heard about two or three bouts of sniffling. She was crying.
This girl's really busy between smiling and crying all the time, I thought.
What was making her sad? Surely the shortness of the time she had left? Or did she regret hurting her father? Was she remembering an abusive past? A lot of possibilities came to mind.
Maybe she didn't even know the reason for her tears. There were likely a lot of emotions going on in her; feeling lonely when she should be happy, feeling happy when she should be sad.
I laid down on the sofa and absentmindedly stared at the ceiling, waiting for morning. What should I say to the girl when she wakes up? What should I do? I thought it over at length.
And so began the days of revenge.