Real World

by Natsuo Kirino

  I noticed something and turned around. The manager was standing there, timidly trying to figure out whether he should say something. Remembering I was on the run, I decided to get out. No good for me to stand out too much. My cell phone rang just when I got outside. It was from Yuzan, the girl who helped me.

  “Hello. It’s me.”

  I probably shouldn’t say this, but talking to her is just like talking to a guy. Doesn’t do a thing for me. Girls should have a higher, cuter voice. Why? ’Cause they’re a different life-form, that’s why. So when I talk to this Yuzan I always feel like complaining. But I guess that makes me just as bad as my old lady—always wanting things to go my way. Guess we share the same blood after all. I smiled bitterly.

  “Hold on a sec,” I said.

  I looked for a shady place, but there wasn’t any in front of the convenience store. Just the roar of trucks and the blazing sun. I was bowled over by the heat reflecting off the concrete. My salt suit was melting, dripping down my skin, and sticking to it. I found a truck parked in the parking lot and slumped down in its shade.

  “What d’ya want?” I asked.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I wound up sleeping in a convenience store parking lot last night. Too many mosquitoes when you sleep outdoors. Then I ate some rice balls from the store and have been riding since morning.”

  “Where’re you at now?”

  “I don’t know. Out in the sticks,” I said, glancing around me. Somewhere out in Saitama Prefecture. “Around Kumagaya, I think.”

  “Supposed to be a really hot place. You okay?”

  Yuzan spoke very fast. The heat must have been messing up my brain, ’cause I couldn’t talk right.

  “I’m okay. But what’s happening with the cops?”

  “Toshi says they’re coming by every day. But what’d you expect? I saw your old man a little while ago. They had your mom’s funeral this morning. It was terrible, your old man was bawling.”

  He broke down? It felt like it had nothing to do with me. Killing my mom, wanting to kill my dad later, too—under this blazing sun it all felt unreal, like a myth from some far-off land. Were these people really my parents? I’d been thinking about this before, while pedaling my bike—the whole before then, after then thing. As I mulled over my hatred of my mom, it felt like I’d left after then way behind—and had crossed over to a completely different world. What the hell’s going to happen to me? With this salt suit on, am I no longer going to be human? For the first time, I started to feel worried.

  “I wonder what’s going to happen to me.”

  “Whatever happens, happens,” Yuzan said coolly. That part of her, I don’t like, I thought. I don’t know what her story is, but it’s like whenever I try to get a little closer she gets all cold and standoffish. Still, she’s curious about me. But I can’t figure her out, and I don’t like people I can’t figure out.

  “Did anybody from my school come to the funeral?” I asked.

  “No idea. I don’t think there were any high school students there.”

  “To them I was just a piece of trash they never noticed.”

  Yuzan chuckled. “Cooler to be a piece of trash.”

  Her words rescued me, and I felt strong all of a sudden.

  “So being on the run is cool?” I asked.

  “Yeah. What I mean is—what are you going to do now?”

  Her voice was filled with sympathy and curiosity. It was like she wanted me to be her stand-in in some great adventure.

  “I just have to keep running.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I have no clue.”

  I really didn’t. Yuzan gave this big sigh, like a little kid.

  “I wanna go with you somewhere.”

  “There’s nowhere I can go.”

  This time it was my turn to be abrupt. Yuzan had helped me, but it didn’t feel like I was dealing with a girl. Besides, she was a complicated type, kind of unapproachable. A gloomy person who blamed herself ’cause she was convinced her mother’s illness and death were her fault. As I talked with her on the phone I was thinking, You and I are very different. I’m much colder.

  “Guess you’re right,” she said. “Hey, is it okay if I tell my friends your cell number? They all want to call you.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  I don’t know why, but this idea got me excited. When I stole that girl Toshi’s bike and cell phone, what was most fun was being able to talk with all the girls whose numbers were in the contacts list. I’d like to meet the one named Kirarin.

  Yuzan acted all cool, like she’d seen right through me. “I see—so you’re a regular guy after all. Okay, I’ll let ’em know.”

  Damn, I thought, and was silent. If Yuzan tips off the cops I’m in a world of trouble. I hung up and took another swig of water. I was hungry but didn’t feel like going back to the convenience store. I plopped down next to one of the truck’s wheels. God, some yakiniku would taste great right about now.

  “Hey, get outta the way.”

  This voice came from above me and when I opened my eyes, there was a young man standing there. Blond hair and sunglasses, running shoes and shorts. The driver of the truck. A tough-looking guy.

  “Sorry.”

  As I stood up the guy grimaced.

  “I think I’m gonna puke, you stink so much.”

  “Sorry,” I said again. It pissed me off that I had to apologize to some guy I didn’t even know. I went over to the bike rack. I checked out an old lady’s bike, a black one, saw it was unlocked, and hopped aboard. Yuzan’s silver bike was cool-looking but stood out too much. Plus, it felt good to dump that pushy girl’s bike.

  The old lady’s bike was heavy. I pedaled off on the main road again and thought that I’d better go over the day my world changed or else I’d get sleepy again. Just then the cell phone rang. I stopped the bike by the side of the road and answered it. First, though, I hid the bike in some bushes so nobody would spot it and crouched down there.

  “It’s me. Toshi. From next door.”

  Yuzan didn’t waste any time giving her my number.

  “Oh, hey. Yuzan told me they had my old lady’s funeral today.”

  “That’s right,” Toshi said, her voice kind of gloomy. “I’m calling from my cram school right now, but your father and relatives were all crying at the funeral. My parents, too, and I couldn’t help crying, either. Hey, I can understand your wanting to run away, but don’t cause any trouble for Yuzan, okay? That’d make her an accomplice.”

  Who the hell does this girl think she is? Sounds exactly like my old lady. I was really disappointed. I mean, it’s like I murdered my mother for her sake. That’s why, right after I did it, when I ran across her outside it made me really happy. I offed my old lady for you, I wanted to laugh and say to her, so what’re you gonna do for me now? It was all for you, I wanted to tell her. But all I could get out was “Sure is hot today.” Pathetic.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s really hot here, so could you call back later?”

  “That’s pretty rude. And after I went to the trouble of calling you. See you.”

  She hung up the phone. For a moment, I was afraid she’d rat on me, tell ’em what happened that day, but then I figured that by now everybody knew I’d whacked my old lady, so who cares. I sat there in the bushes, hugging my knees. It was strange, I thought, why all these weird girls like Yuzan and Toshi were interested in me. Was I their hero? That was enough to cheer me up.

  A matricidal murderer. I knew I’d done something really huge, but thinking of it in those terms made me feel kind of strange. And the more I ran, the stranger it felt. I lay down on the grass and gazed up at the sky. While I was lying there, I wondered, What was Toshi up to at that cram school of hers? As I imagined her, I got an erection.

  From the east side veranda of my room I can just barely see into Toshi’s room. Her desk is near the window and when I’m lucky I can catch a glimpse of her studying there t
hrough a gap in the lace curtains. When that happens, I turn off all the lights in my room and peek out. I can see her face in profile, lit by the lamp beside her. Sometimes, probably when she’s reading manga, she laughs out loud or else she frowns. You’re not so bright, I want to tell her, so why bother with studying? What’s the point? You’re a girl, so that’s plenty! That’s enough to see you through life, right? Who cares if you don’t do well in school? That’s what went through my head. I had a lot of mixed feelings toward girls for a long time. And why not? Girls don’t have to compete—just being a girl means guys will fall all over themselves for you.

  Ever since I realized I’m not too bright, I couldn’t help but think that maybe girls are way smarter than me. And thinking about Toshi in particular gave me an inferiority complex, ’cause she wasn’t so bad-looking, and probably a whole lot happier than me. I can’t explain it, but I started to feel that way. Whenever I ran across her at the station, she’d nod a hello, but for some reason I couldn’t nod back. I know you might think that’s no big deal, but I started to feel inferior to her. A cleverer guy would be able to get to know her better, but every time I thought of talking to her she’d give me this indifferent look and then vanish.

  I always heard people laughing in her house, like they were having fun. Whenever that happened I’d think that homes with young girls are the cheerful ones, and that’d make my complex even worse. I might go to a school like K High, but that means absolutely nothing to anybody else. Still, my old lady, the moron, is convinced it’s a big deal. The upshot is I’m crushed between the world’s opinion and the old lady’s. It’s like that’s the duty I have to perform.

  Soon after we moved into our house I discovered that from the veranda of my old man’s study you can see into the bathroom in Toshi’s house. If the window is open you can see the bathtub. The time I first realized this, unfortunately it was her father who was in the bath. Her mother was always more cautious and made sure to shut the window tightly. Toshi, though, was a little slow on the uptake, and sometimes she’d take a bath without closing the window, especially if her father bathed first and left it open.

  Once I found out all this, I started to look forward to watching her when she was studying, and whenever she went to take a bath I’d crouch down on the veranda, waiting. There was only a one-in-twenty chance of success. And it only worked in the summer, when the window was open, when her father had taken a bath before her. Even when everything fell into place, if my old man was in his study, forget about it.

  On that particular day it must have been divine intervention, because everything went perfectly. Toshi turned out the light next to her desk and seemed to be heading off to the bath. I quickly went over to the window, stuck my face out, and peeked down at the bathroom. Steam was coming out, so I knew the window was open. Her father must have just taken his bath. Fantastic! Totally excited, I went out of the room and halfway down the stairs to check out what was going on below. Dad had come home already but I could hear him still eating dinner.

  I slipped off quietly to his study and sneaked out to the veranda. Down below, Toshi was yelling something. Probably she was pissed ’cause her dad had left the bath a mess. I could hear water splashing. I sat there, waiting in anticipation, concerned a little about what my old man was doing. And the moment I’d been waiting for finally came. Toshi, naked, stepped into the tub, her legs momentarily spread wide. Yes! I did a quick fist pump, and at that exact moment somebody grabbed me by the hair from behind.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  It was my mom, keeping her voice down. Both hands clutching my hair, she dragged me back into the old man’s study, trying not to make any noise. And then back into my own room.

  “Nothing special,” I said.

  “You were peeking into their house! That’s disgusting. You’re scum, you know. Human scum.”

  The old lady had taken off her makeup and was in her pj’s, light blue pj’s she’d bought at Peacock. Without her penciled eyebrows she looked homely and weird, plus her stomach was sticking out. You’re the one who’s disgusting scum, I wanted to tell her, and besides, why do I have to be yelled at by somebody like you?

  “Sorry that I’m scum.”

  “You should be. This is all you do instead of studying. What in the world are you thinking? What about college entrance exams? You’re a criminal, you know that? Why are you doing this?”

  “A criminal?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “A peeping Tom. You did the same thing in our old place and that’s why we had to move. We had to get out of there before people found out about you, and it was very hard for Father and me.”

  “You just moved because you wanted to build a single-family home.”

  The old lady’s face stiffened.

  “How can you say that? People were about to find out about what you were up to, so we had to take off. Father and I were worried sick because we didn’t want anything to hurt your future. It wasn’t because of me. Something’s wrong with you. What should we do? What could you possibly be thinking? What should we do?”

  What should we do? What should we do? What should we do? The old lady glared at me, demanding a reply. Behind her silver-framed glasses, her eyes were bulged and burned with anger and contempt. It shocked me to think that a moron like this had contempt for me. Her anger was really jealousy, I suddenly realized. I mean, she was so totally angry. Shut up, old bag! Maybe I should just kill her. The thought sprang up in my mind. If she was out of the way, imagine how free I’d be. As long as she’s around I’ll never be free. She’ll decide which university I should go to, pick out who I should marry, and wind up bossing my kids around. You can count on it.

  “I’m going to tell Father what happened here,” she said, and left the room. Not that the old man could say anything. He doesn’t scare me. I’m taller than him, and stronger. Predictably, after a while the old man lumbered upstairs and without a word shut himself in his study. Tomorrow, I decided, after the old man’s gone to work, I’m going to murder my old lady. With the metal bat in the corner of my room. Then I’ll really be a criminal. Excellent. The Triple Crown: a criminal, a pervert, and a mother-killer. Imagining the bat humming down on the old lady’s head, I took a couple of practice swings. But what she’d just said was still floating around in my mind.

  People were about to find out what you were up to, so we had to take off.

  Here’s what happened. Before we came to Suginami-ku, until I was a freshman in high school, we lived in a suburban town with a population of about 150,000. In this huge housing project with about two hundred other families. The kind of huge apartment building you see everywhere, with long open hallways and tricycles and co-op boxes outside every door.

  But that’s where I was brought up, so I liked that town and our building. There were still fields around our apartment, and my friends and I played baseball there until it got dark. On rainy days we’d chase each other around the building. Most of my friends lived in the building, so we were all pretty much from the same sort of background.

  Mom, though, hated the apartment. She said it was constructed shabbily, that you could hear people talking through the walls and sounds from above and below. Her real complaint, though, was that this apartment didn’t measure up to her idea of the good life. Which to her meant a single-family home within the Tokyo city limits. You’re a doctor, she told Dad, but look at us, living in the same sort of place as people who just work down the street. Dad just gave a contented laugh. What a stupid couple. After I passed the exam to get into K High, the old lady complained about this more and more. “I hate this place, I hate it!” she said.

  Since I was happy living there, I didn’t want her to get her way. Plus, a young couple moved in next door, which suddenly made me oppose moving even more. Because every single night I could hear them groaning and sighing.

  My room and their bedroom were right next door to each other. In most of the apartments, the six-mat roo
m was the children’s room and the Japanese-style room, the same size next to it, was the parents’ bedroom. Which meant that in your typical three-bedroom apartment the kids’ room was separated from the neighbor adults’ bedroom by just a wall. Talk about racy. As soon as I heard them start to groan I’d clap my ear to the wall. The young woman next door was very friendly, with a cute face like a charming little kitten. Her hair hung down straight, like a junior high girl’s, exactly the way I like it. To imagine that young woman giving off groans like that!

  Hearing them wasn’t enough. I wanted to see them in the act. So I quietly opened the door to the veranda and leaned out. There was only a plywood partition separating our veranda from theirs, a board that was flimsy, so in case of a fire it could be easily broken through. All I had to do was get around that and I could spy into the couple’s bedroom where they were going at it. Damn, I thought, what I’d give to be the Invisible Man.