Real World

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Hey, did you hear me?”

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “Yuzan said Kirarin got in touch with her. When she said she was with you, I couldn’t believe it. I guess I never thought she was interested in you.”

  I’m not interested in you anymore. The prisoner’s comment came back to me.

  “Your dad stopped by our house today.”

  “How come?”

  “Just to apologize for all the trouble. Seems like he’s making the rounds of the neighbors. He said he can’t sleep at night, wondering where his son is, wandering somewhere. He’s miserable about losing his wife, but he said that all he can think of is saving his son’s soul. At night when he’s all alone in the house, he obsesses over what happened and blames himself. He said sometimes he wants to die. And when he feels like that, he says he keeps himself together by staring at straight lines for all he’s worth.”

  “Straight lines?” I said in a loud voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Objects that are straight. Like the frame of a shoji screen or a pillar. Staring at things that are straight, he said, makes him feel like there’s a world that’s still stable and solid. He said he can be more objective that way. He can objectively keep his act together and wait for his son to come home.”

  What a load of crap. My old man was so full of it, I didn’t know what to say. A stable world this late in the game? The world had come undone and floated away long ago. The idiot. Objective—what sort of crap is that? That’s why all you can see is a totally flat world. I made up my mind right then and there—I might be confused, but I was going to forge ahead. Toward the even more incomprehensible, chaotic front lines. Confusion. If the old man looked at straight lines to keep his act together, I was going to stare at curved lines and go down in flames. My eyes flitted around the room, looking for curved lines. Wall, floor, ceiling, door, TV. Straight lines everywhere.

  Then I looked over at the body of my prisoner, lying in the bed.

  “Hey, Worm,” Toshi said. “Can you hear me?”

  I switched off the cell phone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TERAUCHI

  There really are things that are irreparable. I’m always wanting to tell people this. It doesn’t matter who I say it to. It could be a rainy day and I’m standing on the station platform of the Keio Line, waiting for an express train that’s late. Or I’m standing in line at a convenience store where a brand-new employee is slowly working the register. Either way, I see myself muttering this without thinking. Like the phrase has wormed its way into my unconscious so much that, when I’m irritated, I can’t help but blurt it out.

  I don’t think I could blurt it out to Yuzan or Kirarin, though. They’d just say, “Hmm. You could be right,” their eyes dreamily looking around for a bit, but then, as soon as the subject changed, they’d forget all about it. They’d drop it so fast I’d be left there feeling stupid and embarrassed. I’d hate that, so that’s why I don’t bring it up with them. It’d be like a lighthouse, where the spotlight rotates and, for an instant, illuminates something. But once the light moves on, everything melts back into the dark. They couldn’t care less. Unless you actually experience something that can’t be undone, you can’t possibly understand it. People like that just think it’s some phrase and misinterpret it. To them, it’s some cheap truism.

  Toshi alone might react differently. On the surface she acts all casual, but she’s a sensitive person and is very intuitive. I bet she’d look me in the eye and try to tease out what I’m getting at. But not finding anything, Toshi, too, would soon be disappointed and turn to other things.

  By “things that are irreparable,” I don’t mean something like Worm’s killing his mother. It’s not that simple. And it’s not something like the guilt Yuzan has over avoiding her mother’s death. It’s actually the opposite. How can I put it? Once you’re dead you can’t come back to life—it’s final. But to my way of thinking, those are also events that aren’t entirely irreparable, because they are the easy way out. I mean, death is something everybody’s going to experience someday, so it’s an easy-to-understand ending Worm’s chosen, and in that sense something close to defeat. Killing somebody is just payback motivated by all your anger, humiliation, and desires, and since it doesn’t put an end to problems, it doesn’t fit in the category of an irreparable action. Something that’s really irreparable is more like this: a horribly frightening feeling that keeps building up inside you forever until your heart is devoured. People who carry around the burden of something that can’t be undone will one day be destroyed.

  Are my ideas too complicated? I’m the kind of person who thinks about difficult things more than others. That’s why at home and at school I’m always joking around. The reason’s simple—even if I exposed the real me to other people, they wouldn’t understand. Toshi might pick up a little of what’s going on, but I’ve yet to meet a person—child or adult—who really gets me.

  There’s this huge gap between me and other people—a gap in ability, experience, and feelings. I’m really emotional, and bright. When I say bright I don’t mean good at schoolwork. I mean I can think abstractly. Some adults might think a high school student can’t do this, but they’re wrong.

  I feel above human relationships, so I’m constantly holding myself in check. Controlling myself like this zaps all my energy, so I gave up on studying and don’t take it seriously. I figured out long ago that studying for exams is nothing more than figuring out how to work the system.

  * * *

  When I became a senior in high school, we all took this psychological test. It was a multiple-choice test with two hundred totally stupid questions on it and you had to choose things like “I tend to go along with what other people are saying.” I decided to see how far I could fool people, so I deliberately made a total mess of it. Toshi, Yuzan, and Kirarin—all the bright ones in our class—did the same thing, but the only one called into the guidance counselor’s cubbyhole office afterward was me. Seems my homeroom teacher had quietly put in a call to my parents.

  So I went, partly curious, partly disgusted, and as you can imagine this middle-aged woman in a navy blue suit, no makeup, was waiting for me. She told me her name—Suzuki or Sato, some totally banal name—and I forgot it right away.

  “You would be Kazuko Terauchi? I’d like to meet with you a few times to talk over things.”

  “What kind of things?” I asked.

  “What you think about, and any worries you might have.”

  What good’s going come from talking with the likes of you? Why do I have to do this? Trying to hold back my rising anger, I gave my usual silly laugh. My weapon is that I can hide my feelings and say something stupid to cover them up. Toshi’s weapon is her made-up name, Ninna Hori. For Kirarin, it’s always pretending to be cheerful. Yuzan’s the only one who painfully exposes herself to the world.

  “I don’t have any worries,” I said. “Other than college entrance exams.”

  Entrance exams, the woman noted down on a sheet of white paper. I sneered inside. We met like that a total of three times. I made up a story about being afraid my friends might exclude me from their group and this seemed to satisfy her and no more summonses came to meet with her.

  Each time I met her I became more and more frightened of adults. She just listened silently to my made-up stories, smiling. I was frightened by the optimism of adults, their stupid trust in science to treat a troubled heart. Afraid of their obsession with believing they have to treat troubled kids. I just wanted them to leave me alone, so how come they didn’t get it? But that’s the way it always is.

  I’ve got to hand it to them, though—adults, that is. They’ve created this society where lies are uncovered. The woman told me proudly that these psych tests were able to ferret out any untruths you would tell. It turned out I’d scored the highest of anyone on the test. Higher than anyone in any other school or even school district. Which meant that they saw right through me, that I’m
a person who wants to hide a lot of stuff. That much they definitely found out. But I don’t think they could pinpoint what it is I want to hide. There’s no way I want to get some treatment from the school, or a middle-aged guidance counselor with her know-it-all face. I mean, over these last five years, the only one who’s been thinking about all this is me. And the only one who really understands me is me.

  Like I did with the counselor, I always say stupid things in order to be vague and evasive. Toshi, though, sees right through my attempt to dodge other people and it seems to bother her. One time, I can’t remember exactly when, she and I were talking about the future, something we hardly ever do, and all of a sudden she totally lost it.

  “You’re laughing but your eyes aren’t,” she said.

  I put a happy look on my face and pretended to smile. I had a bunch of dumb gags I knew how to use. All of which disgusted people.

  “I am too laughing!” I said.

  “That’s a lie. You can’t fool me, joking around all the time.”

  “Dude. That’s just me. I’m gonna grab me one of those Tokyo or Hitotsubashi University guys, get married, and be a full-time housewife.”

  “How can you give up like that?”

  Toshi could always guess exactly what I was feeling. I tried whispering in her ear: Romance! But after staring back at me, she said, like there were no two ways about it, “Terauchi, you’re a total mystery.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Knock it off, okay? I know for a fact that you’re hiding something. Everybody knows it.”

  “I’m not hiding anything. Dude—it’s true.”

  “Forget it,” Toshi said, looking hurt.

  Toshi had just been telling me about her typical high school woes—how even if she went to college, she had no idea what she wanted to be. She added that this was something she hardly ever told people. And she was pissed because I didn’t show any interest and basically made no effort to take her seriously. Then, abruptly, she looked at me with this worried expression.

  “Tell me,” she said, “did you have some awful experience in your past?”

  “No, nothing.”

  Think some seventeen-year-old kid’s gonna trap me like that? No way. Of course, I’d just barely turned eighteen myself, but I really had no sense of how old I was. Was I a child, an adult, or a senior citizen? Toshi is smart and kind, and growing up with nice parents like that there’s no way she’d end up as complicated as me. You want to try to be like me? Be my guest. It’s funny how sometimes I act like an ordinary high school girl, eating lunch with the girls—Toshi, Yuzan, Kirarin—going out to karaoke clubs with them. But this is me faking it, trying to show people I’m just having a trouble-free high school life like any other girl.

  The truth is, I’m a disagreeable person who’s always observing my friends with a cool, detached eye. So no wonder Toshi’s pissed at me. I’m this sort of contrary person who thinks the only people worth knowing are those who get angry with me, but when they do get angry, I cleverly hide myself.

  Yuzan pretends to be complicated like me, but she’s really pretty simple. Right now, she’s basically troubled over how to accept herself, whoever she is. Once she accepts that she’s a lesbian, then she should be able to live that sort of life peacefully. With Kirarin, I think someday a guy will change her. So in that sense the two of them are basically wholesome. Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. I’m not being sarcastic or anything. I really feel that way.

  * * *

  “I want you to pretend you’re a boy who’s killed his mother and write a story about it.”

  This is what Worm said to me on the phone. Naturally there’s no way I’m going to do what he asked. I have no idea what kind of person he is, and if it’s true that he murdered his mother, his mind has definitely reverted to the infantile. According to my theory, he’s chosen a life that’s the exact opposite of mine, since he avoided doing something irreparable and instead did something lazy. No need to waste my precious time creating something for a guy like that. The other three can baby him if they want. Someday there’ll be a day of judgment.

  I can’t figure out why Yuzan and Kirarin would be interested in a guy like that. I’d like to see them nail Worm soon, haul him before a counselor like that middle-aged lady or a psychiatrist or somebody, and bombard him with questions day after day. Let him put himself into the hands of modern science, with its ideology that people can be saved, and see how his way of thinking fares then. Then he’ll see how twisted and petty he’s been.

  What I find most interesting is how each of our personalities is reflected in how we’ve reacted to this whole affair. Toshi is kind, so she feels bad for Worm’s murdered mother and worries about what the future might hold for him. Yuzan’s projected herself onto Worm and helped him escape. And Kirarin, who’s taken off with him, has this whole illusory image of him and hopes she’ll be changed by being with him. Everybody knows that she hooks up with guys in Shibuya and was jilted by one guy in particular, but she acts like it’s some big secret.

  My theory is that Yuzan and Kirarin are using Worm’s crime to look down on him. Toshi’s reaction is more what you’d expect, the standard attitude of your typical bystander. And me—well, I plan to confront Worm head-on and tell him where he’s wrong. Not about his killing his mother. What I want to criticize is, as I’ve said many times, his naiveté in thinking his actions are irreparable.

  The door of my room suddenly swung open without a knock. Same as always, so I wasn’t surprised. It was my kid brother, Yukinari.

  “Have you been online?” he asked. “They posted a photo of the guy.” Yukinari’s voice, which hadn’t changed yet, was raspy and sexless.

  “What guy?”

  “The kid from K High who killed his mother.”

  I’d been lying on the bed but got up and went next door to his room. Yukinari was a freshman in an elite private junior high he’d just entered this spring. During the five years he’s attended cram school it’s like his personality’s changed. He’s become much more clever than me, more cunning. You’d never catch Yukinari doing something irreparable—he’s too smart to ruin his life like that.

  The computer he got as a present for getting into junior high was plunked down in the middle of his desk, its LCD screen reflecting the pale fluorescent lights on the ceiling. On the screen was a photo of Worm wearing his school uniform. It was kind of grainy, like it was blown up from a school group photo. But his special look was clear enough. The small head jutting out of the uniform collar, the narrow eyes. He held his chin up high, so his neck looked long, and he had an arrogant expression. His eyebrows were set apart, the corners of his eyes turned up. He looked like those Japanese men from a long time ago, the kind you see in photo collections from the Meiji period.

  “So Worm has this classical sort of face,” I said.

  “Looks kind of like Shinsaku Takasugi, the Meiji Restoration leader.” After he said this, Yukinari, sitting at his desk, looked at me suspiciously. “The guy’s called Worm? How’d you know that?”

  “Toshi told me.”

  “It’s perfect. They said he goes to K High. A K High student who killed his mother—that’s enough to make him a hero. He looks pretty full of himself. Imagine a senior getting worked up enough to kill his mother.” Yukinari’s tone was sarcastic as he scrolled down the Web site with ease. The school that Yukinari attended was a private school one rank down from K High.

  “He’s a hero because he’s in K High?”

  Yukinari spit out his reply: “’Cause he’s an elite kid who fell.”

  On the Web site bulletin board was a conversation thread titled “Support for A, the boy who killed his mother.” There were a ton of half-baked posts purporting to be sightings: “I saw him riding his bike down Highway 18.” “There was a guy that looks like him reading porno magazines in a convenience store in Kochi.” “I saw him in a public bath washing his back.” “He was at Disneyland dressed up as Goofy.�
�� Plus some irresponsible posts in support of him, saying things like “Hope you can elude them. I’m with you.” I realized that these supporters had ideas exactly like Yuzan’s: self-centered sentiments, easygoing sympathy.

  Still, I couldn’t figure out why all these people were rooting for him.

  “Maybe they’re supporting him ’cause he’s trying to escape on a bicycle?” I asked.

  “Guess so. He’s kind of childish, though.”

  Yukinari quickly slid his mouse down, scrolling farther down the page. At the very end was this: “Question. Why didn’t you kill your father while you were at it? Heh, heh, heh.” Right below this was a reply from somebody pretending to be A, the boy involved. “There’s already someone who killed both his parents with a bat. Pride in being from K High won’t allow me to do a copycat murder.” Yukinari pointed to the question part. “I wrote this one,” he said.

  “You mean you want to kill Dad?”

  “Don’t be illogical,” Yukinari said, annoyed.