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.
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.
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.
“Looks like we slept a pretty long time.”
“Do you have a fever?”
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?”
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.”
“Drive what, exactly?”
“Are you okay with that?”
I lied 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.
“Yeah, I know.”
“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?”
“There’s no reason to expect anything to die down just waiting. With rain or with anything.”
“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’s a lie.”
I thought a bit. "That’s a lie too, right?”
“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?”
“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.
“Yeah. Very carefully with running water.”
“Nope.”
“You’re good at this,” I remarked, looking at my taped-up wound.
“We very cordially fell down the stairs together.”
“Exactly.”
The art student wordlessly hit my pinky. She smiled with satisfaction seeing me wince from the sudden pain.
“Can’t say we don’t.”
I mentally complimented her for her good intuition.
“Dangerous times, huh? Well, we’ll be careful.”
“No, unfortunately.”
“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?”
Entering the living room with shopping bags, she observed the tense atmosphere filling the room and came to a stop.
“I trust your barbering skill, but you should check with her first,” I advised.
“Yeah. Leave it to me.”
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.
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.
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.
I myself had practically forgotten, but the events of the past few days had all started because of my correspondence with 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Around 6 PM, I woke up from hunger. It occurred to me I hadn’t eaten much of anything today.
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.
“No. She was very friendly. I felt she wasn’t a bad person. Although there was a bit of a mess in her room.”
“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.
“No, you don’t need to go that far…”
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.
“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.
“I think you’re misunderstanding. I was talking about 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?“
“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.
“After all,” she quietly mumbled, “as you say, revenge is just meaningless.”
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.”
“Are you giving up on revenge?”
“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.
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.
“Got it. How long is a while?”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.”
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
But I still wouldn’t allow myself to call it a tragedy.
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.”
“Oh, so it was a worthless purchase, huh?” I furrowed my brow. “Have you eaten anything since I left?”
“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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
“So you can play piano,” the girl remarked.
When the tone shifted at the 28th measure, the girl leaned toward me to reach for the low notes.
“I got better.”
“Have fun?”, I asked her.
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.
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.
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.
As I stared at the ceiling dimly thinking it over, the brandy took effect, and my eyes drifted shut.
I was overlooking some things.
For instance, there was a feeling of wrongness over the past few days that I couldn’t identify.
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.
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.
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.
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 thanked Shindo.
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.
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.
She pulled the covers back over her and held them with her arms. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
“…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?”
“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?”
“Are you that desperate to get my good graces?”
"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?
"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.
I was talking about love.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Those words were enough to freeze the world over.
“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?”
“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.
“I’m not lying. I know you won’t believe it. I’m probably the most bewildered one here.”
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.
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.
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.
I was stunned, and she looked at me smugly.
“…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.”
“Exactly. I’m very displeased.”
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.