Summer，Fireworks，and My Corpse

by Otsuichi

  Behind him, some of the mothers were whispering to one another. They were talking about me and my mother, saying that she had searched for me through the night and how sad it all was. Even though it had all happened just last evening, word had already spread throughout the village. The police would begin their search of the forest in the afternoon. But since nobody had yet found any evidence of wrongdoing or any clues as to my whereabouts, the women doubted that anything would turn up in the woods. And some were saying that I was another victim of the serial kidnapper.

  Ken was eavesdropping on the women, gathering all the information he could. Two facts were plain: the police were coming, and my sandals hadn’t been mentioned in their conversations.

  Ken stared off into the distance, lost in thought, and Yayoi clung to his arm, gazing up anxiously into his face.

  *

  As soon as they got home from exercising, Ken and Yayoi went straight through their back door to the forest. While walking the gravel road as it cut through the dried paddy fields, Ken made a suggestion.

  Since the sandal had apparently not been found yet, they just needed to find it first.

  That way, Ken’s reasoning followed, there wouldn’t be any evidence that I was still in the forest. Everyone would surely assume I had been kidnapped and taken somewhere else.

  And so they made their way deeper into the forest, searching for my sandal as they went. Ken wanted to look on the steep slope below the tree and so was wearing a pair of baseball cleats instead of his usual straw sandals. But first they checked the area around the ditch where I was hidden. Finding nothing there, the two headed back up the path toward the tree where I died, their eyes focused down along the ground. Ken thought that maybe the sandal had fallen off my foot when he carried me slung over his shoulder on the way to the ditch.

  “The slope is too dangerous, Yayoi. Why don’t you go on home? Just let your brother handle it from here.”

  Ken was trying to be considerate, but Yayoi just shook her head, wrapped her arm around his, and stood firm.

  “No! I’m going with you!”

  “All right.” He looked down at her and spoke like a father dealing with a stubborn child. “Go take another look at the area where Satsuki died. You remember what the sandal looks like, right? See if you can find it.”

  Yayoi’s cheeks flushed. “Okay, but if I call for you, you’d better come right away. I mean it.”

  Ken gave her a reassuring smile and nodded, yes, yes, I will.

  They had arrived at the place where I died. But still no sandal. Our tree stood above the southern slope, quiet and peaceful, as if the day before had never happened. The rock had been wiped clean and showed no traces of blood. The broken branches and fallen leaves were gone too. Ken and Yayoi had carried them off. All they had left to fear was a single out-of-place sandal with a single flower on it somewhere in these woods.

  Maybe it’s fallen all the way down the slope, Ken thought as he gazed down the incline. The village shrine, elementary school, and the faraway cluster of houses looked small in the distance.

  Yayoi looked down at the same landscape, thinking the same thoughts as her brother. The slope was probably too steep for her to climb down without cleats. She could slip and get badly injured, or even die.

  The two children steadied their resolve for the search ahead.

  Then Yayoi cried out, “Oh no! Brother, look!”

  She pointed to a small road visible from the slope. The road climbed up into the forest, passing right by the ditch where I was hidden. Cars almost never used that road, but at that moment, there were two.

  Ken and Yayoi both realized immediately what the two brown passenger cars must be. Police. Ken had figured they would come around noon to start the search, and there they were.

  Ken got a thrill watching the cars make their way up the road.

  Yayoi, her face twisted in fear, tightly held on to Ken, following him as he rushed down the hill.

  The two cars turned off the road and into the forest, passing—of all places—right over my hidden body. Dust fell onto me through the cracks between the concrete tiles. But I couldn’t move aside, and I couldn’t close my still-open eyes or mouth.

  The cars stopped in a small clearing connected with the forest trail. Several men, all of them dressed for hiking, emerged from the vehicles, and by the way they talked I could tell they had come to search for me. I could also tell, from some scattered laughter, that they doubted I was lost in the forest.

  Ken and Yayoi couldn’t see any of this from the slope. Ken listened to the sound of the cars stopping. He had probably predicted that they would park in the clearing. He smiled, maybe because his assumption was correct, or perhaps because the irony of the tires crossing right over the ditch in which he had buried me pleased him.

  “Change of plans,” he said. “We’re going to hide. Let’s spy on the police from behind the trees.” He wanted to find out as much as he could about their search.

  Ken gently took his sister’s hand and led her off the trail and into the woods where people normally never went. He walked along, carefully choosing a route where Yayoi wouldn’t slip or get hurt, where she could walk easily, and where they wouldn’t be spotted by the search party.

  Ken held the entire layout of the forest clearly in his head, and within a half hour or so he knew how many people were searching, what they were doing, and even where they were at each moment.

  The search party, however, was completely unaware that they were being watched.

  And as the search party—expert investigators all—began their investigation, and the two children, familiar with the forest, shadowed them, the cries of the cicadas echoed through the summer forest.

  *

  By evening, the search party had found nothing, and their search grew half-hearted. I couldn’t fault them for it. They didn’t know if I was even in the forest or if their efforts mattered at all. As they tired, the search started to wind down.

  Throughout the forest, the members of the search party welcomed the announcement that came over their radios. The search was called off for the day, and the teams of detectives headed back to the clearing.

  Ken was somewhat disappointed, but Yayoi, pressed up against him, let out a breath of relief.

  “They’re all meeting back up now,” Ken whispered. “We should go too.” He hoped to overhear more valuable information when the search party gathered at the clearing, and he pulled at Yayoi’s arm to leave. She followed, her shoulders hunched from fear.

  As they passed near the ditch that hid my corpse, Ken saw something that made him stop.

  Close to the ditch the two children had camouflaged with dirt and mud stood two policemen in matching blue uniforms. The taller one was saying something to his partner, a short man with a cigarette in his hand.

  Yayoi paled. Ken grabbed her by the shoulders and hid in the tall grass. They held their breath and listened. Ken took in every word of the officers’ conversation without so much as a single drop of sweat forming on his expressionless face.

  “Hey, would you just forget about it?” the cop with the cigarette was saying. “We’re done for the day, and everyone’s waiting with the cars. We’re supposed to go out for drinks tonight, you know.”

  “Don’t be like that,” the taller one replied. “I mean, that girl . . . What was her name? Satsuki, right? I know she was probably kidnapped, but . . . doesn’t something about this area strike you as odd?” He gestured at a section of the forest—right in the direction of my body.

  Ken’s mind was racing. What does he see? That ditch should be completely hidden by the dirt, like just any other part of the forest. The boy’s face remained confident.

  “Not particularly, no.”

  “Look, see over there? There’s a bunch of markings in the ground, like from cleats. Children’s cleats. Probably ones for playing baseball.”

  Ken hadn’t thought of the consequences of wearing cleats to climb down the slope. He ke
pt silent as he listened to the two detectives talk, but his eyes began to work back and forth as if he were measuring something in his mind.

  “Yeah, but we’re looking for a girl, right?” the smoking cop said after a drag from his cigarette. “Besides, the mother said she was wearing sandals.”

  Disregarding his partner’s lack of interest, the taller man walked over to where I was hidden and stooped down to inspect the dirt.

  Yayoi, frozen with overwhelming dread, could only stare at the scene unfolding in front of her.

  “Whatever, we’re quitting for the day,” the disinterested cop continued. “It looks like we’re all going to have to come out here again tomorrow. Dig all the holes you want then. Come on, everyone’s waiting for us.”

  Ignoring his partner’s protests, the man closer to me brushed away a layer of dirt with his gloved hand, revealing the gray slab of stone beneath. “Hey, there’s concrete here. A small waterway, maybe? Hidden under the dirt.”

  “Come on, hidden? Look around you. There’s dirt everywhere. That dirt probably accumulated over time until it was just another part of the forest floor. It’s part of nature.”

  But the taller one wasn’t buying it.

  He slowly lifted one of the concrete slabs.

  Yayoi gave a silent scream.

  “See? Nothing there,” said the smoking cop, flicking ash to the ground. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of crawling around in the dirt for one day. I’m leaving.”

  Beneath the slab was only a dried-up empty space. The detective was standing just a little bit down the ditch from where I was hidden. If he had lifted up the tile three to the left, he might have seen my toes.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry.” The taller officer’s voice was firm. “We’ve got decades left to drink before we die.”

  He moved one tile to the left and lifted. One tile closer to me.

  “Bzzzt!”

  “Would you shut up!” The policeman at the ditch was indignant. “Go ahead, have your laugh now, and just see if I let you borrow any money from me ever again.” He put his hand on the next tile. Just one more after that . . .

  “Brother!” Yayoi was crying now, unable to withstand the terror any longer. “We need to get out of here! Run!” She tugged forcefully at her brother’s arm. But Ken made no signs of moving. His eyes, fixed on the two policemen, were sharp and cold, not those of a weak child.

  The cop with the cigarette said mockingly, “Sorry, sorry. Keep going, who knows, maybe there’ll be something under the next one!”

  “Yeah, yeah. You’ll be sorry all right.”

  The next slab lifted, and a slash of sunlight fell across my big toe, delivering the living warmth of the summer heat to a part of my cold corpse. If the policeman just lowered his head a little, he might have been able to see the tip of my toenail. But his face showed no signs of recognition. Just one more tile and even a complete fool would notice me.

  “Brother!” Yayoi implored, almost shrieking, but not loudly enough to be overheard from the clearing.

  Ken, giving no response to his sister’s cries, picked up a rock larger than his fist from the forest floor. Yayoi watched him move, trying to guess at what he planned to do with it.

  “That’s it, one more, and we’re going,” the uninterested cop said. “Not that it’ll make a difference anyhow.”

  The detective at the ditch moved to the next tile. “Fine, this will be the last one. But we’ll be back to do the rest tomorrow.”

  He gripped the edge of the slab. Lift it. Just lift it and you’ll see my feet.

  Yayoi’s pulse was racing. The pounding of her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

  Ken acted. He took the rock in his hand and swung it upward, bashing it against his own face. Again and again he swung with all his might.

  The officer braced himself and began to lift up the concrete slab.

  Blood streamed from Ken’s nose and started dripping from his chin.

  Reflexively Yayoi shouted, “Brother!”

  Her scream sounded like a piece of silk fabric tearing right down the middle.

  Shocked by the sound, the detective let the concrete slab fall from his fingers. Both officers turned to face the source of the yell.

  Ken, his face covered in blood, gave his sister a stage wink and walked slowly out into the open.

  He stood in front of the officers, faking loud cries of pain. Yayoi was still clinging to him.

  “God, his nose is gushing blood!” the cop with the cigarette exclaimed.

  His partner, standing only inches away from my body, called out, “Kid, what happened to you?” and started to walk over to the blood-soaked boy. Away from me. “Come here, let me take a look at you.”

  The receiver hanging on the back of his belt announced, “We are waiting for you at the meeting point. Report back immediately,” and the two detectives exchanged bitter smiles. The day’s search had ended.

  “Well, the first aid kit is in the car, anyway,” the taller cop said. “I’ll take the boy over there. You’d better put that slab back on straight, otherwise we won’t be able to drive the cars out of here.” He took Ken, still wailing, and Yayoi, crying from shock and fear, by the hands and started to walk away.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” his partner yelled after him. “You’re the one that dropped this thing! Pick up your own damn mess!”

  But the taller one just kept on walking, children in tow. Yayoi was worried. The police have us, she thought, repeatedly looking back over her shoulder in panic. What if the other one looks under the concrete? If they figure it out, we’ll never get away.

  The other policeman, muttering a string of complaints, slid the heavy tile back into place.

  Meanwhile, the detective asked Ken in a gentle voice, “So kid, how’d you get hurt? What happened?”

  Ken toned down his crying enough to reply, “I slipped and fell.” A sob. “Down the steep hill.” He lifted up a hand and pinched his nose together to stop the blood.

  Whether the cop was satisfied or not, he didn’t ask any more questions.

  Ken’s clothes were soaked dark red with blood. Drops of blood rolled down from his hand holding his nose and dripped from his elbow.

  Yayoi was still clinging to his side, and the blood fell onto her long hair—the hair she’d grown out just to be a little more like Ken’s crush, Midori.

  *

  Earlier that day, Midori sat on the wooden steps of the shrine, two steps from the bottom and three from the top.

  She had stopped in at the Tachibanas’ and had been considering if there was any way she could help with the search when she decided to make a detour to the forest shrine.

  Her long hair flowed down from underneath a white wide-brimmed hat, and her white skirt rippled in the soft breeze. The skirt was long enough that she had to hold its hem with her small, delicate fingers to keep it from resting on the earth. She looked up at the cicadas noisily chirping away in the trees and remembered that the fireworks show was coming soon—only two more days.

  The children bought the fireworks with money collected door-to-door—not much, just a few hundred yen at a time—from the villagers. They couldn’t buy the serious stuff, just the smaller fireworks you could buy in any store, but everyone looked forward to the show anyway—even the adults, who came each year to pray to the gods of the shrine and watch the fireworks.

  Midori recalled that the collection box was usually positioned right on the steps on which she was sitting. Lost in her memories, she sat and watched the sunlight spill through the gaps between the leaves. The patterns made by the light and shade flowed and changed, never forming the same pattern twice.

  Midori traced her finger along the lines of the old wooden steps and wondered aloud, “How many times did I come here to play when I was a child?” The grain of the wood was rough to the touch.

  Midori had told me once that she was from here. She even told me about this boy she liked, and how he had rejected her.
She had joked about how Ken resembled that boy.

  “Oh, is that supposed to be a picture of a dog?”

  Midori had noticed the figure drawn in the dirt at her feet—the picture I had drawn the day I died. She leaned down to get a closer look at the drawing, her waist-length hair swaying in the breeze, and said, “I used to make drawings like this, back when I didn’t care if I got mud on my fingers.”

  A dog barked.

  Startled, Midori snapped her head up. In front of her, poised to pounce, was a white dog.

  “Oh, hello there, Six-Six. It’s been a while.”

  Six-Six, tail wagging, leaped at Midori, licking at her face and covering her white clothes with muddy paw prints.

  “I’ve missed you, boy.”

  Six-Six rolled onto his back and looked up at her, his tongue lolling out in a dog’s version of a grin.

  “I guess this is where I used to bring you treats, isn’t it? Although I admit it was pretty mean of me to throw them down below the stairs.”

  Midori had told me once that she was the one who gave Six-Six his strange name.

  “By the way,” she said, tapping the dog on his nose with a dainty finger, “you’ve earned quite the bad reputation around here!” Her smile beamed like the sun, as if she had been reunited with a long-lost childhood friend.

  “I hear you’re a shoe thief now. So where do you keep your stash?”

  Six-Six gave a short yip and circled around behind the staircase. The side of the stairs had an opening big enough for a dog to fit through.

  Midori peered in after the dog.

  “I knew it, here they are!” she said, satisfied with herself. “But there’s so many of them!”

  Beneath the stairs was a jumbled pile of unmatched shoes. Once she had recovered from the initial shock, she found herself impressed at the number. The dog had sprawled out among his spoils in a manner both regal and shameless.

  Shaking her head, Midori started to straighten up, thinking that maybe she should check back with the Tachibanas. Perhaps something had turned up in the search. But something she saw when she raised her head made her stop—one solitary item at the edge of Six-Six’s mountainous collection.