Chapter 7: A Wise Choice
The sound of crashing thunder woke me up. As I sat up to look at the time, my body ached all over.
I had terrible shakes and a headache. A sense of languidness, like even moving my fingertips took a cheer squad, covered my body.
I couldn't remember it much at all, but I felt like I'd had that dream about the amusement park again. Maybe I was just one to soak in childish nostalgia after severe shock.
In my dream, again, someone was holding my hand. And for whatever reason, as we walked along, lots of the people we passed by glanced our way.
Was there something on our faces? Or was our very presence not suited for this place? Either way, I just shook my head to say "Go ahead; you think I care?", and ostentatiously pulled the other person's hand.
That's where the dream stopped. The sound of the photoplayer lingered in my mind.
Suddenly, I had a thought. Maybe this wasn't the second, or even third time I'd had this dream. The deja vu was just too much. I must have been visiting this place in my dreams again and again, and simply forgetting about it.
Did I have that strong of an inclination toward amusement parks? Or maybe it simply represented an unfulfilled youth, just happening to manifest as an amusement park?
The clock indicated that it was around 2. Thick clouds covered the sky, making it dim enough to make you think it was night, but it was in fact 2 PM, not AM.
"Looks like we slept a pretty long time."
The girl, looking at me with her elbows on the table and chin resting on her hands, nodded in response. Her kindness from last night was all gone, and she was back to her sharp-edged self.
After washing my hands and face, I returned to the living room and asked "Who are you taking revenge on today?" But then, the girl quickly stood up and put her hand on my forehead.
"Do you have a fever?"
"Yeah, a little bit. Maybe I caught a cold too."
She shook her head. "Being severely beaten can get you a fever. It's happened to me."
"Huh," I remarked, feeling my forehead for myself. "Well, don't worry, it's not like I'm immobilized. Now, where should I be heading today?"
"To bed."
The girl thrust me backward. With unsteady feet, I easily fell over and landed bottom-first on the bed.
"Please, rest until your fever withdraws. You're not going to be any use like that."
"I can still drive, at least..."
"Drive what, exactly?"
I at last remembered that we'd lost the car yesterday.
"With this temperature, in this downpour, you'll collapse walking around in your condition. And you can't make proper use of public transportation, either. For today, it's best to stay put here."
"Are you okay with that?"
"I can't say I am. But I don't think there's any better choice."
She was right. The best plan at the moment was to rest.
I lay down sideways and let all the energy leave me, and the girl pulled up the neatly-folded sheets at my feet.
"Sorry to make you fuss over me. But thanks, Akazuki," I casually told her.
"You're free to apologize if you want," she began, turning her back to me, "but once I've had revenge on the fourth person, it's your turn next. Don't forget that."
"Yeah, I know."
"And please, don't call me that. I hate my last name."
"Got it." I thought it had a nice sound to it, but did it displease her?
"Good. I'll go buy us breakfast. Is there anything else you need?"
"Big bandages and fever relief. But I think you should wait for the rain to die down a little before you go out."
"There's no reason to expect anything to die down just waiting. With rain or with anything."
Leaving me with that, the girl left the room.
Not a minute later, I heard the door open. I thought she must have forgotten something, yet it wasn't the girl who came in, but the art student from next door.
"Whoa, sure enough, you look terrible," she remarked on my face. She wore warm-looking knit clothes, which contrasted the thin legs coming from her short pants and made them look skinnier than ever.
"At least ring the doorbell," I advised.
"That girl made a request of me," she informed me with a hint of annoyance. "We met in the hall and greeted each other, then she broke down in tears and begged, "He has a fever, and he's in so much pain!""
"That's a lie."
"Yep, it is. But the part about her asking me is true. She came to my room and asked, "Could you look after him while I'm out shopping?""
I thought a bit. "That's a lie too, right?"
"Nope, it's true. I mean, it's not like I'd be the one to start a conversation, right?"
The art student bent down to stare closely at my face. Then, her gaze moving to my right hand sticking out of the covers, she let out a "yikes."
"That's some injury. She had some pretty bad ones too, but that looks worse than all of them. Don't tell me you've got those everywhere?"
"The hand is the worst of it. The rest are no big deal."
"Huh. Even so, that's really bad, there. Hold on a second, I'll bring some first-aid from my room."
She hastily left the room, then walking quickly on her way back in, cut away the blood-soaked bandage with scissors and examined the pinky.
"Did you wash this?"
"Yeah. Very carefully with running water."
"And I'll just ask up front, do you want to go to the hospital?"
"Nope."
"I figured."
She began to treat my wound with clear expertise.
"You're good at this," I remarked, looking at my taped-up wound.
"My little brother was always getting injured as a kid. I'd be reading a book in my room, and he'd come in and proclaim "Sis, I got hurt," proudly showing me his wound. So I took care of them. Not that he ever got a wound this bad. Don't tell him, he'd probably get jealous."
After checking on the condition of my other injuries as well, she shook her head and went, "Well. What on earth happened to you two?"
"We very cordially fell down the stairs together."
"Hmm?" The art student narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "And after hitting yourselves all over, you somehow got two wounds on your pinky like you were cut with something sharp?"
"Exactly."
The art student wordlessly hit my pinky. She smiled with satisfaction seeing me wince from the sudden pain.
"So, have any plans to fall down the stairs again sometime soon?"
"Can't say we don't."
"Do you two have some connection to those two women who were stabbed in the past few days?"
I glanced toward the girl's dressmaking scissors on the table - an extremely careless thing for me to do. But the art student didn't seem to notice the unnatural movement of my eyes.
I mentally complimented her for her good intuition.
"Dangerous times, huh? Well, we'll be careful."
"You're really not connected at all?"
"No, unfortunately."
"...Huh. That's boring," she pouted. "If you were killers who'd killed two people, I thought you might kill me too while you were at it."
"What do you mean by that?", I asked.
"Well, basically, if I found out you were a killer, then I'd threaten you. "I don't care what your reasons are, I can't overlook a friend doing evil. I'm telling the police!", I'd say, heading for the station. You'd try to stop me at any cost, but my resolve would be firm, so you'd decide you'd just have to kill me too, and stab me to death the same as when you killed those other women. Happily ever after."
I spoke accusingly. "I wasn't asking about how it would go down. Why would you want to be killed?"
"That's as hard as if you asked me "Why would you want to live?"", she shrugged. "I had you pinned as someone who, between the two, wouldn't want to live. But am I wrong? Is that change in your eyes in the past few days because that girl's given you something to live for?"
I remained silent, then heard a noise at the door. The girl had returned.
Entering the living room with shopping bags, she observed the tense atmosphere filling the room and came to a stop.
The art student looked back and forth between the girl and I, then lept to her feet and took the girl's hand.
"Hey, I can neaten up that hair for you," she told the girl while running her fingers through it. Then she whispered to me, "Don't worry, I won't sneak a bite."
"I trust your barbering skill, but you should check with her first," I advised.
"You'll cut my hair?", the girl asked blankly.
"Yeah. Leave it to me."
"...I see. Thank you. Go right ahead."
I was iffier about the decision than I let on, but decided to leave it up to the girl. I'd thought she didn't care much about her hair, so it was a bit surprising.
I had some uneasiness about what the art student would do to the girl, and what she might say, but on the other hand I was willing to trust her skill, and looked forward to seeing the new haircut.
At any rate, seeing something made more beautiful than before was always good.
The two vanished into the art student's room. I moved the shopping from the bag into the fridge, set Chaos and Creation in the Backyard in the CD player and played it at low volume, then fell back onto the bed again.
I stopped hearing thunder, but the rain seemed to get more intense. The driving rain assaulted the window with raindrops.
I was all alone for the first time in a while.
As a sickly child, I often spent weekday afternoons staring at the ceiling or out the window like this. Rainy afternoons when I took the day off school and slept all day alone gave me a feeling of being cut off from the world.
Sometimes I'd begin to worry that the world had ended outside my house, and unable to bear the silence, I'd go around turning on the TV, radio, alarm clocks, all the machines around the house.
These days, I knew that the world wouldn't so generously end, so I didn't go around making machines sound off.
Instead, I wrote a letter.
I myself had practically forgotten, but the events of the past few days had all started because of my correspondence with Kiriko.
It was because I'd broken off relations with her and then, so much time later, sought a reunion, that I was helping a girl commit murders and lying wounded in bed.
This may not be the proper way to describe it, but... The truth was, even after I stopped communicating with Kiriko, I kept writing letters. And if you asked me who they were directed toward, indeed, they were to Kiriko.
However, I only wrote about twice a year, and obviously never put them in the mailbox.
When I had something happy to report, or when I had something sad to report, or when I felt unbearably lonely, or when everything seemed futile.
To stabilize my mind, I wrote letters with no intent of sending them, even applying a stamp, then put them away in a drawer. I was aware how bizarre it was, but I knew no other means to console myself.
So I thought I'd do that, for the first time in a while. I put stationery on the table and grabbed a ballpoint pen. I hadn't been thinking about what I would write, but as I began to write about the last few days, I found myself unable to stop.
I wrote about driving drunk and running someone over. The girl who should have died standing before me unhurt. Her "postponement" ability. Coming to assist in her revenge.
Her stabbing her victims to death with dressmaking scissors without hesitation. Her having her legs give out, or throwing up, or losing sleep after her murders. Us staying to enjoy bowling and a meal after killing her second victim.
The severely painful counterattack made by her third victim. And I wrote about how, despite being bloody and beaten, we made it back home without anyone stopping us thanks to the Halloween parade.
"And I think none of it would have happened to me if I hadn't felt the urge to go meet you."
After wrapping it up with that, I went on the veranda to smoke. Then I went back to bed and took a nap.
Despite it being stormy outside, it was a peaceful afternoon. It almost had a holy feel to it.
If the girl hadn't postponed the accident, what would I be doing now?
I tried to avoid thinking about it too deeply earlier, but I couldn't help pondering that very real question while sitting around on my ownsome.
If I'd given myself in right after the accident, it would currently be over four days since my arrest.
The detective and prosecutor would have already done their investigation, and I'd either be preparing for questioning in court, or already done with that and staring up at the ceiling of a prison cell.
However, that was the optimistic prediction. It was possible that, in the post-postponement world, I had long since committed suicide. Truly giving up on life at the point I ran the girl over, perhaps I'd found a sturdy tree nearby and hung myself from it.
It was an scene easily imagined. Putting my neck inside the noose, I'd spend a few seconds thinking about the past, and let that hollowness push me off the edge. The tree branch would creak from my weight.
Many people think suicide takes courage. But I feel only those who haven't thought deeply about suicide would think that. It's a misjudgement to say "If you have the courage to kill yourself, you can put it to other uses."
Suicide doesn't require courage, only a bit of despair and a brief fit of confusion. Just a second or two of being at a loss can produce a suicide.
Essentially, people with courage to die don't commit suicide - people without courage to live do.
A prison cell, or hanging from a tree (or maybe at a crematorium). A depressing thought no matter what.
So that I could currently be lying in a comfy bed and listening to my favorite music was truly a miracle.
The CD had begun a second loop. I whistled along to Paul McCartney's Jenny Wren.
The rain ended up pouring all day.
Around 6 PM, I woke up from hunger. It occurred to me I hadn't eaten much of anything today.
I got up to go to the kitchen, one-handedly opened a can of Campbell's chicken soup the girl had bought into a bowl, added water and heated it. Just then, the girl returned.
The long hair that I'd come to strongly associate with her was trimmed to reach the base of her neck. Her formerly nearly eye-covering bangs, while still long enough to keep the wound under her eye not too noticeable, now had a refreshing lightness.
She did a good job, I thought to myself, impressed by the art student's hair-cutting skill.
She noticed what I was doing. "I'll do that, so just get to bed," she told me and shoved me into the living room.
I noticed the bruises on her face were gone. I wondered if she'd postponed them, but that seemed unlikely; the art student probably just covered them with makeup.
"Did she say anything strange to you?", I asked.
"No. She was very friendly. I felt she wasn't a bad person. Although there was a bit of a mess in her room."
I thought to explain that it wasn't a "mess," per se, but decided against it as there was no point convincing her of it.
"Pretty good, isn't she? I had her cut my hair once too, and she was considerably better than a bad hairdresser. She always had an undying hatred of going to hairdressers, or, I guess an undying hatred of hairdressers, so she cut her own hair and eventually ended up being that good."
"Please stop making idle talk. Your fever's never going to go down at that rate."
A few minutes later, the girl came with a cup full of soup. "Thanks," I said as I reached for it, but she brushed my hand away.
"Open your mouth," she sternly instructed.
"No, you don't need to go that far..."
"Just do it. Your hand's injured, isn't it?"
With no time to explain that only my right hand was injured and it wasn't my dominant one, the girl brought the soup up to my mouth. I reluctantly opened wide, and she poured it in.
It wasn't hot enough to cause burns, nor was it disgusting enough to make me throw up. That fact that it actually was just perfectly safe and comforting chicken noodle soup made me uneasy.
"Not too hot?", she asked.
"A little hot," I replied. She scooped it up with a spoon and blew on it before transporting it to my mouth. Perfect temperature. The spoon left my mouth. Slurp. Swallow.
"So, about your next target...", I began to say, but was interrupted by the spoon again being thrust in my mouth. Slurp. Swallow. "Be quiet and eat," the girl said. Slurp. Swallow.
The thought that I was being nursed by a person who I had killed in my own carelessness was more than I could handle.
"...I'm not really suited for this, am I?", the girl asked once I finished my soup.
"No, I think you did great," I replied with slight hesitation, and she tilted her head.
"I think you're misunderstanding. I was talking about revenge."
"Oh, you were? I thought you meant nursing me."
The girl lowered her head and stared into the empty cup. "To be honest, I'm scared about my next act of revenge."
"Anyone would be scared to kill a person. It's not like it's just you," I encouraged. "Besides, you've killed three people now. You can't say you're "not suited" for it, can you?"
She slowly shook her head. "It's killing three people that's made me feel that I've reached my limit."
"You're pretty timid, huh. Well then, do you want to give up on revenge, forget your resentment, and just live the rest of your days in peace?"
I said this meaning to instigate her, but contrary to my intent, she seemed to take it literally.
"...Honestly, that would be a wise choice, wouldn't it."
"After all," she quietly mumbled, "as you say, revenge is just meaningless."
November 1st. It was six days since the accident that killed the girl, putting us past the halfway point of her estimated expiration date of ten days.
In spite of this, she didn't get moving at all in the morning. My fever had gone, and the rain had reduced to a drizzle, but right after breakfast, she got right back to bed and pulled the covers over her head.
"I don't feel well," she said. "I won't be moving for a while."
It was clearly feigned illness, and she made no attempt to hide it, so I just asked directly.
"Are you giving up on revenge?"
"...Not at all. I'm just not feeling at my best. Please, leave me alone."
"I see. Well, tell me if you change your mind."
I sat down on the sofa and picked up a music magazine from the floor, opening up to an interview with an artist I'd never heard of.
I couldn't have cared less about it. I had no reason to be just relaxing and reading in a situation like this.
After finishing the 5-page interview, I flipped back to read it again from the start, this time counting how many times the word "pathetic" was used.
It came out to 21, which was far too many times, and I too felt pathetic for having counted. Didn't I have anything else to do with my time?
The girl poked her head out from the covers. "Um, could you go out walking somewhere for a while? I want to be alone."
"Got it. How long is a while?"
"Five or six hours, at least."
"Call me if anything happens. There's a public phone outside the apartment, but I'm sure the girl next door will gladly let you borrow hers."
"Understood."
I had no umbrella, so I put up the hood of my mod coat, put on my unforgettable sunglasses, and left the apartment.
The mist-like rain slowly seeped into the coat. The people on the road were driving with care with their fog lights on.
Having no destination, I stood at a bus stop and got on a bus that arrived 12 minutes late.
It was crowded inside, and the mix of body odors made a stale smell. The bus shook violently, and with my weak knees, I nearly lost balance many times. Indecent things were written on the foggy windows in childish writing.
I got off at a shopping district, but I'd given very little thought about how I was going to spend five hours here - practically none at all. I went into a cafe and sipped on coffee to think about it, but no good ideas came to mind.
No matter what I did now, it would have no effect on me once the postponement went away. In reality, I was "actually" in a prison cell, or had long since dropped dead.
I could accumulate good deeds or commit evil ones, spend a ton of money, show blatant disregard for my health - and once the girl died, it would all be nullified. I had the ultimate freedom.
I can do whatever I want, I thought. So I asked myself: What do I want to do?
But I had no answer. There was nothing I wanted to do. Nowhere I wanted to be. I wanted nothing.
What had I enjoyed in the past? Movies, music, books... Maybe I had slightly more interest in them than the average person, but not one of those did I feel so passionately about that I couldn't live without it.
Perhaps I came to enjoy their entertainment because, at one time, they filled a vast emptiness in me. I appreciated these works to stave off sleepiness and boredom, like downing bitter medicine.
But in the end, all I got from the effort was knowledge of the vastness and depth of my emptiness.
I'd previously thought that when people spoke of having a hole in them, they meant a space that should have been filled but wasn't.
But my perception had recently changed. It was a bottomless pit which would make anything you threw into it vanish. An infinite nothingness that you couldn't even call "zero." That's what I have inside me, I came to think.
The mere thought of trying to fill it was pointless. There was nothing else I could do but put up walls around it and do my best not to touch it.
Upon realizing that, my hobbies shifted from the "filling" type to "building walls." I came to appreciate works that purely aimed for beauty and pleasantness, rather than introspective ones.
That didn't mean I was able to deeply enjoy beauty or pleasantness, but it was preferable to facing up to my hollow insides.
But now, considering that I could possibly be dead in a few days, I didn't feel like building walls still. I was like a child with a new toy - shouldn't I be getting more honest enjoyment out of it?
I got an early lunch and wandered around the shopping district, looking for something to make my heart dance.
I noticed a group of college students on the opposite sidewalk. They were familiar to me; they were classmates in my department.
Quickly counting them, over 70% of my class seemed to be there. I thought about what kind of get-together it could be, and concluded they had probably finished an interim report on their graduate thesis topic. It was about that time of year.
They were all laughing together, the relief of having finished something on their faces. Not a single person noticed me; they might have forgotten what I looked like entirely.
While I was at a standstill, time went on as usual for them. While I lived interchangeable days, they matured from their day-to-day experiences.
The fact that when faced with such a decidedly loneliness-inducing sight, I was hardly hurt at all, was indicative of a fundamental problem.
I had always been this way. If I could just feel hurt at a time this like a normal person would, my life would have been at least a little bit richer.
I recalled that, in my third year of high school, there was a girl I had a slight interest in. I would describe her as quiet, and she liked taking photos.
She always concealed a retro toy camera in her pocket, and would pull it out to snap a picture with no rhyme or reason that anyone else could understand.
She did have a single-lens reflex camera, but didn't like using it, claiming "I don't like how it seems like I'm threatening people with it."
From time to time, she would choose me as her subject. When I asked her why, she said "You're a subject well-suited to low-chroma film."
"I don't get what that means, but I don't think I'm being complimented."
"Nope, not really a compliment," she nodded. "But it's fun taking photos of you. Like taking photos of a disinterested cat."
As summer ended, a contest approached, and she took me around town.
Most of the places we went were cold, desolate ones - parks covered in weeds, big empty cutover areas, stations that didn't even get ten trains a day, abandoned lots with rows of old buses.
I would sit there, and she would click the shutter again and again.
At first, I found it somewhat awkward to have my image semi-immortalized, but upon realizing she viewed me from a purely artistic standpoint, that went away.
Still, when I watched her take great care in filing photos which contained me, my heart was at least somewhat moved.
When she took a good photo, she showed it to me with a childlike smile that she wouldn't have in the classroom. The thought that I might be the only one who knew that smile made me proud.
One clear autumn Saturday, I heard that the photos she took won a prize in the contest, so I walked out to the place where they were being put on display.
Seeing those photos with me in them displayed in a gallery, I thought, I'll have to treat that girl to a meal next time we meet.
By complete chance, I saw her at a general store on the way home. There was a man beside her - a college student, dressed handsomely and with hair dyed brown.
The girl tried to link arms with him, to which he sort of rolled his eyes but went along with. She had an expression I'd never seen before. So she can look like that too, I thought in wonder.
After seeing the two hide away and kiss, I left the store.
After the contest ended, she stopped talking to me. I didn't care that much for us talking without photography as an intermediary, so I didn't feel like going to talk to her either. So that was the end of our meager relationship.
And I didn't really feel hurt then, either. I thought maybe I just wasn't conscious of it and it would resound with me later, but it didn't.
I wasn't just quick to reconcile. Surprisingly, as soon as I saw her with him, I didn't feel a shred of jealousy or envy. I just thought "I'd better not bother them."
From the beginning, I must not have had any notion that she would be "mine."
People might say that's nothing more than a case of sour grapes. You can't get anything, so you're just pretending like you never wanted anything.
If that were true, then how great would that be? If there were a boiling desire simmering in my chest, ready to erupt at any moment - I'm just not noticing it.
But I'd searched within myself so much for such a thing, and found not a trace. Just a stale gray expanse.
Ultimately, I was a person unable to desire anything. I'd lost that ability so long ago, I didn't have any memory of ever having it. Or maybe I was never equipped with it from the very beginning.
And having so easily done away with the only exception to the rule, my relationship with Kiriko, now I couldn't even find a use for myself.
What was I supposed to do with... with this?
I went into an alley and down some sudden skinny stairs. There I found the arcade Shindo and I used to hang out at all the time.
As one could imagine from the faded sign, it was a place full of cabinets that were probably all older than I was, so it was hard to call it "youth-oriented."
The change machine covered in gum tape, the sooty ashtray, the sunburnt posters, the cabinets worn away at the edges with their fuzzy screens and cheap beeps and boops.
I associated this complete lineup of things that had long outlived their usefulness but were desperately being kept alive anyway with a giant hospital room. Well, morgue is more like it.
"The reason I choose to go such a boring place," Shindo told me, "is because I don't feel anything urging me on here."
I became fond of the arcade for that same reason.
I hadn't been there in months. I stood in front of the automatic doors and waited, but they didn't open.
There was a notice on the wall next to them.
"The arcade will be shutting down as of September 30th. Thank you for your many years of patronage. (Note: Closing time on the 30th will be at 9 PM.)"
I sat down on the stairs and lit a cigarette. I think someone threw out the contents of the ashtray, because there were hundreds of trampled cigarettes scattered around.
The cigarette butts, reduced to their brown filter, looked like empty ammo cartridges when soaked in the rain.
Now I really was out of places to go. I left the shopping district for a random park.
Spotting a bench with no back, I swept away the pile of fallen leaves and lay down on my side, not caring if anyone saw me.
The sky was full of heavy clouds. A red maple leaf slowly danced to the ground, and I grabbed it with my left hand.
Putting the fallen leaf to my chest, I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds in the park. The chilly wind, new leaves falling on top of leaf piles, birds chirping, gloves catching softballs.
A strong breeze blew, dropping many red and yellow leaves on me. I don't want to take another step, I thought. I'll just let myself be buried under these leaves.
This is my life. Seeking nothing, my soul sputtering out without ever being lit aflame, a life that just progressively rots away.
But I still wouldn't allow myself to call it a tragedy.
I finished shopping and returned to the apartment slightly earlier than I was told to. I'd walked for about an hour with a carrying case over 20 kilograms on my back, so I was all sweaty.
I placed it on the living room floor, and the girl looked at it, took off the headphones connected to the CD player, and asked me, "What is that?"
"An electronic piano," I told her, wiping away sweat. "I thought it'd be boring for you to just sit around inside."
"I won't play it. I already gave up on piano."
"Oh, so it was a worthless purchase, huh?" I furrowed my brow. "Have you eaten anything since I left?"
"I haven't."
"You should get something in your stomach. I'll fix something right away."
I went to the kitchen and warmed up the same canned soup the girl had fed to me yesterday.
She sat on the bed staring out the window, then saw me holding out the spoon at her and looked between the two. After about five seconds of confliction, she shyly opened her mouth.
Yesterday, it had seemed like she had no resistance to this kind of thing, but apparently it was a different story when she was the one being nursed.
As I brought the spoon into her mouth, she closed her thin yet soft lips.
"I'm not going to play that piano," she insisted after taking a first gulp. "I'm sick too, after all."
"I know. You won't play it." I held out a second spoonful.
But an hour later, the girl was sitting in front of the piano. Apparently, she couldn't bear listening to me testing all the sounds right next to her.
I set it up in front of the bed, and she gently brought her fingers down on the keyboard. After briefly savoring this moment with her eyes shut, she warmed up her fingers by playing a few of Hanon's most important etudes, so accurately that you couldn't expect much better.
The volume was loud enough to be heard next door, but it was no problem, as I figured the art student would tolerate this kind of quality.
I don't have the best ears, but I could still tell that the girl made some major mistakes with her left hand. And her right hand's playing was wonderful, so it stood out terribly.
Her left hand, paralyzed where it had been cut, must have felt like a leather glove to her. Seemingly conscious of it herself, she'd sometimes loathsomely glare at the hand.
"It's awful, isn't it?", she sighed. "Before the injury, it was my one redeeming feature. But now, this is how it sounds. I feel like I'm using someone else's hand. Now I can only put on performances that make both the player and listener uncomfortable."
After making three mistakes with her left hand, she stopped playing.
"Well, why don't you try actually using someone else's hand?", I suggested.
"...What do you mean?"
I sat down next to her and put my left hand on the keyboard. She looked at me suspiciously, but with a look that said "Oh, very well," began to play the right hand part.
Luckily, it was a famous song even I knew: Chopin's Prelude No. 15.
I joined in at the third measure. I hadn't played piano in a decade, but the electronic piano's keys were lighter than a grand piano, and my fingers moved fairly smoothly on them.
"So you can play piano," the girl remarked.
"Only well enough to fake it. I just had a few lessons when I was a kid."
With my right hand injured, and her left hand paralyzed, we supplied each other the hands we lacked. And our playing meshed together quicker than I expected.
When the tone shifted at the 28th measure, the girl leaned toward me to reach for the low notes.
That sensation reminded me of when she fell asleep on my shoulder on the train two days ago. Though now I wasn't wearing a coat, so I felt her warmth more distinctly.
"Aren't you supposed to be sick?", I asked.
"I got better."
In contrast to her blunt tone, the notes she played had a kind sound and closely interacted with my own.
Playing this and that, three hours passed in a blink. We started to notice each other's fatigue, so we played the Bee Gees' Spicks and Specks as a cooldown, then turned off the piano.
"Have fun?", I asked her.
"It worked to stave off boredom," she replied.
We went on a walk and got dinner at a local restaurant. Back at the apartment, I made brandy and milk which we drank while listening to the radio, then both hit the hay early.
The girl spoke not a word about revenge that day.
Maybe she has given up on revenge. She claimed she would still continue with it, but I was sure she was just being stubborn.
Deep down, she couldn't really feel like killing any more people. What awaited her after the terrifying experience of murder was fear that made her legs give out, sickness bad enough to make her throw up, and guilt-induced insomnia. And there was the possibility of an unprecedented counterattack like two days ago.
By now, she concretely understood the pointlessness of revenge.
Today must have been an extremely peaceful day for her. She got to lie down under the covers wearing headphones and listening to music all day, play piano as she pleased, eat out, drink brandy, and go back to bed.
Such days seemed like they were rather rare in her life.
I hope she can accept this kind of life, I thought. She could forget all about her revenge, and until the day her postponement's effect runs out, enjoy meager yet definite happiness like today.
Buying clothes, listening to music, playing piano, going out and having fun, eating tasty food. She wouldn't have to have her legs go out, or throw up, or get beaten by anyone.
I, too, wouldn't have to serve as an accomplice to murder anymore, and might avoid being "subjected to a suitable fate" as her fifth victim.
Was there any way I could guide her toward abandoning revenge? The piano, I felt, was a pretty good idea. I wondered if there were anything else she might like. Maybe I could talk with the art student about it?
As I stared at the ceiling dimly thinking it over, the brandy took effect, and my eyes drifted shut.
Even while I slept, my brain kept thinking.
I was overlooking some things.
For instance, there was a feeling of wrongness over the past few days that I couldn't identify.
It hit its peak yesterday, when the girl said: "After all, as you say, revenge is just meaningless."
I should have been longing to hear those words. The girl becoming passive about her revenge should have been a very happy occurrence to me.
Should have been, yes.
So then why did I feel such an intense disappointment?
The answer came relatively quickly. Maybe I didn't want to hear her being so timid. I didn't want her to so quickly reject what she'd been doing up until then. I didn't want her to so easily discard that passion, that intensity.
In a way, I looked up to the girl as she acted as an embodiment of anger.
But is that really all?, I heard a voice ask.
Yeah, it is, I replied. I wanted to always feel that powerful passion I felt from her, because it was something that would never, ever come out of me.
Wrong, the voice said. That's just an after-the-fact interpretation. You were disappointed for a simpler reason. Don't confuse yourself.
I heard a sigh directed at me as I puzzled.
All right, I'll give you a hint. First and only. If you don't get it after this, I'll be wasting my time saying anything else.
I'll only say this once.
"Is that "passion" you feel really coming from her?"
That's all.
I closed my eyes and thought about it again.
I smelled a nostalgic aroma of flowers.
I thanked Shindo.
I'd realized what was wrong.
I lept awake in the middle of the night. My heart was racing. Something welled up my throat - not nausea, but an urge to shout.
My head was clear, like I'd woken up for a decades-long sleep. As I stood up, I stepped on a CD case and heard it crack, but I didn't care about that right now.
I filled a glass with water from the sink and drank it down, turned on the lights in the living room, and shook awake the girl, sleeping with the covers pulled over her face.
"What do you want at this hour?" She checked the clock beside her, then pulled up the covers to escape from the light.
"We're going to do your next act of revenge," I explained, pulling away the covers. "There's no time. Wake up and get ready."
She pulled the covers back over her and held them with her arms. "Can't it wait until morning?"
"It can't," I insisted. "It has to be right now. I feel like by tomorrow, you won't be a revenger anymore. I don't want that."
The girl turned over to put her back to me.
"...I don't understand why you would be so enthused," she mumbled. "Wouldn't it be more convenient for you if I did quit revenge?"
"I thought that, too. But I've changed my mind after having two days to sit and think about it. Or I guess maybe I just noticed how I really felt. The point is, I want you to be a merciless revenger. I don't want you to take the "wise" choice."
"That sounds like exactly the opposite of what you've been saying. Weren't you the one who said revenge was pointless?"
"That was so long ago, I forgot it."
"Not to mention," she yawned, curling up and hugging the sheets tighter, "after killing my next target, you do realize you'd be next?"
"Yeah. But so what?"
"Are you that desperate to get my good graces?"
"No, this has nothing to do with "scoring points.""
"Okay, so you've just gone mad," she muttered. "I'm going to sleep. You sleep too, and cool your head. Once it's morning and you've calmed down, we can talk about this again. ...Now turn off the lights."
I pondered. How could I explain this so that she would understand?
I sat down on the sofa and waited for the right words to come to mind.
"Come to think of it, there were signs since your first murder." I chose my words carefully. "When you killed her, your legs gave out, right? Honestly, I found myself thinking "What a cowardly murderer." ...But it wasn't you acting strangely, it was me. Your reaction was normal, and mine wasn't. How could I remain so calm witnessing the death of a person? It didn't have to be as extreme as your reaction; even just being sleepless with anxiety would be enough."
The girl said nothing, but seemed to be listening closely.
"After your second murder, too, I was perfectly indifferent, feeling no disgust or guilt. Instead, I noticed a separate, unknown emotion that I'd never experienced before. It must have overshadowed the usual negative impression I'd get from murder. By the time you committed your third murder, I think I'd almost realized what it was. But I didn't fully open my eyes to it until just this moment."
The girl sat up like she was shaking off numbness and looked at me with confusion.
"Er, what on earth are you talking about?"
What was I talking about?
I was talking about love.
"I think I'm in love with you."
Those words were enough to freeze the world over.
All the air fled out through cracks in the room, leaving the silence of a vacuum.
"...Um?", she finally spoke after a long silence.
"I know I have no right to such a thing. And I know I'm the person least suited to be feeling this way in the whole world. It's impudent, even. After all, I'm the one who took your life. But I'm saying this with all that in mind: It seems that I'm in love with you."
"I don't get it." She lowered and shook her head repeatedly. "Are you sleepwalking?"
"You have it backwards. I've been sleepwalking for 22 years. And I just now woke up. A little late, I know."
"I don't understand a single thing about this. Why would you feel compelled to love me?"
"When you first killed someone in front of me," I began, "when your blouse was stained with blood splatter, and you looked down on the corpse, gripping your deadly scissors, I looked at you and thought, "She's beautiful." ...At first, I didn't even pay any attention to the fact I had that feeling. But now I realize it may have been one of the greatest moments of my entire life. It was my first ever experience falling for someone, actually. I, who'd seemingly given up on praying and hoping for anything so long ago, thought, "I want to experience that moment again." That was how impressively beautiful the sight of you taking revenge was."
"Please don't just make things up." The girl threw a pillow at me, but I blocked it and dropped it on the floor.
"You're trying to get in my good books like this? I won't be fooled," she said with a glare. "I don't like it. This method of yours is my least favorite of all."
"I'm not lying. I know you won't believe it. I'm probably the most bewildered one here."
"I don't want to hear it."
The girl covered her ears and closed her eyes. I grabbed her wrists and pulled them away.
We met eyes at close range. A beat later, she averted her gaze downward.
"Listen, I'll say it again," I sighed. "You're beautiful when you're taking revenge. So please, don't say that it's meaningless. Don't settle for that common, ready-made conclusion. At least to me, it's meaningful. In terms of beauty, it's more valuable than anything. So I'm praying you can get revenge on at least one more person. Even if I might be included in it."
Her hand brushed me away, and she forcefully pushed me in the chest. I fell onto the ground.
Of course she'd react this way, I thought, staring at the ceiling. What person could just accept being told "I've fallen for you" from the person who killed them?
In fact, I hadn't intended to say so much. I just wanted to leave it at "I sympathized with your revenge, and I was right to do so, so I don't want you to stop here."
What the hell was I saying, "it seems that I'm in love with you"? I'd never properly felt such feelings in my life - and directing them at a cowardly killer five or six years my younger? Was I just experiencing Stockholm syndrome?
My sigh touched the girl's hand, outstretched toward me.
I timidly reached for it, and she grabbed it firmly and pulled me up.
Something like this had happened before, I recalled. It was raining terribly then.
There was a long silence, with her still holding my hand. Her expression said "What am I doing?" Staring at our hands, she seemed to be deep in thought about the significance of her subconscious action.
Suddenly, her fingers stopped holding on, and she quickly pulled her hand away.
"Hurry up and get ready," she told me. "We might be able to make the last train if we're quick."
I was stunned, and she looked at me smugly.
"What's wrong? You like me when I'm taking beautiful revenge, don't you?"
"...Yeah, that's it," I replied at length.
"That's hard for me to understand," she said with a sneer. "Being liked by you of all people doesn't give me any joy."
"I don't care. You don't have anyone but me to rely on, so I know I'll be able to accompany you no matter how much you don't like it."
"Exactly. I'm very displeased."
She stepped on my foot. But not forcefully enough to be painful, and as we were both barefoot, the smooth touching sensation was pleasant; it almost resembled something an animal would do as a display of affection toward others.
It was freezing outside, so we left wearing winter coats. Under the apartment overhang was parked a rusty bicycle that probably belonged to some tenant. I borrowed it without permission, had the girl sit on the luggage carrier, and rode out of the saddle to the station.
My hands on the handlebars were quickly chilled, my eyes hurt in the dry wind, and the wounds on my pinky ached in the cold air.
After climbing a long hill, there was a thin downward slope leading to the station. The screeching sound of brakes echoed through the sleepy residential street.
Probably feeling a sense of peril from the increased speed, the girl clung to my back. If only for that reason, I wished that slope could go on forever.