by Otsuichi
Ken looked at his sister, pleased. But part of him was disappointed to have it end. He was enjoying this.
As Ken tore the bandage from his face, he wondered if that clever policeman from the day before was just then lifting the concrete tiles from over the ditch and if his loudmouth partner was having a good laugh. Ken’s cut had closed over, forming a scab. He tossed the bandage into the trash and opened the closet door to start cleaning like he’d promised his mother. That old vacuum cleaner should be in there somewhere.
“Come on, Yayoi, let’s clean up the room before we nap. Mother will be suspicious if we don’t.”
“Oh, right.”
“I’ll help too.” The door slid open, and the two children were startled, eyes wide and bodies stiff, at the sight of the unexpected visitor.
“Midori!”
“Hiya! I brought you a brand-new kind of ice cream today.” Midori looked proudly at the children, white plastic sacks dangling from her hands. Droplets of water had formed on the plastic. “It’s not even in stores yet, so you’d better thank me!”
“Sure, Midori,” Ken said, sliding the closet door shut behind his back. “Let’s go eat in the living room.” Yayoi nodded her support. But Midori didn’t go along with it.
“No, Mrs. Tachibana—your mother is passed out in the living room. Let’s eat here. Hey, I’ll even help out with your homework.”
Yayoi looked nervously at Ken, who, seeing no way out of it, nodded.
“Oh, well, I don’t see why not,” Ken said. “Hold on, I’ll get the floor cushions out.” As he opened the closet door, Yayoi held her breath. He took a cushion from the lower compartment, handed it to Midori, and then took one for himself and one for his sister and laid them on the straw tatami mat floor.
Midori looked up at the fluorescent light.
“Hey, didn’t you used to have a string attached to the light?”
“It broke off,” Ken said quickly. “It was pretty old.”
“Yeah? That’s funny, usually that kind of string is a lot tougher than that.”
They all reached for the ice cream at the center of the table.
“Wow,” Yayoi said. They hadn’t seen that style of ice cream before. The containers were tall and transparent, and the ice cream looked extravagant, like a chocolate parfait you’d get at a nice restaurant.
They took the attached long wooden spoons, also something of a novelty, and started eating.
“It’s delicious!” Yayoi exclaimed.
“Of course it is, it’s from our factory. Be sure to tell all your friends. But this ice cream is special. It costs more than our usual products.”
The three continued to talk as they ate, and when Yayoi had finished hers, she scraped the insides of her cup for any precious remains with her spoon and licked it with her tongue. They chatted for a while and then moved on to Ken’s and Yayoi’s homework.
“Let’s see, A Summer Friend.” Midori picked up Yayoi’s summer workbook. “Some friend! These workbooks haven’t changed a bit since I was your age. Now, what’s your assignment for today?”
On the front of the book were the words A Summer Friend, and below that, Grade 3. I had been given that same book when the spring semester ended. It was still sitting on the desk in my room.
“Hey, nice work, Yayoi. You’ve done very well. Ten years ago I fed this stuff to my dog. Just kidding.”
Ken looked at Midori and asked, “You turn twenty this year, right?”
Embarrassed, she scratched her face and admitted it.
Midori looked through Ken’s workbook and said, not without amazement, “And it looks like you’re doing even better, Ken.”
Ken and Yayoi started their studies, asking Midori, who was lounging behind them, whenever they had a question.
After that had gone on for about thirty minutes, Midori became bored. She started to talk about me.
“Really, I wonder what happened to Satsuki. I hope she’s all right, but . . .” She looked at—no, observed—their studying figures.
In stark contrast to Ken, who hadn’t shown any movement, Yayoi’s shoulders twitched.
The motion was not overlooked by Midori. Her dark, emotionless eyes bore down on the two children.
“Yeah,” Ken said. “I just hope she wasn’t killed by that serial kidnapper.”
“Oh?” Midori’s perfect lips formed a half-amused smile. Her expression and voice were filled with interest. “You think Satsuki was kidnapped? They haven’t said anything about that on the news.”
“Could it be anything else? The search party hasn’t found anything, so it must have been that kidnapper. The news was saying they never found any clues with the other kids either. And the kidnappings were all in prefectures near here. Mother was even saying how it was odd that none of them happened in ours.”
“Hmmm. You have a point. But maybe the kidnapper had a reason for staying away from the children in this prefecture. Still, I didn’t know you were such a smart boy, Ken.” Midori meant the praise.
Ken’s face turned a deep red. Embarrassed, he blurted out, “Um, I’ll—I’ll get some coffee,” and left the room.
Midori watched him with a smirk and turned to face Yayoi.
The girl had slumped onto her desk, asleep.
Midori giggled. “Oh, did you fall asleep? You must be so tired.”
Careful not to wake her, Midori gently laid the child down on the tatami floor. When she saw the pencil-mark math equations imprinted in reverse on the girl’s cheek, it took an effort to keep from laughing.
She sat there fondly watching Yayoi sleep, but after a moment Midori quickly rose.
“I’d better cover you up with something before you catch a cold. Where’s that yellow towelket I gave you?” Walking softly so as not to wake the young girl, Midori moved toward the closet.
Slowly, quietly, she slid the closet door open.
“There it is!”
She saw it right away. Right in front of her face lay Yayoi’s yellow towelket. Well, I should be a little more precise. It wasn’t just lying there—it was hiding my feet, which stuck out from the rush mat, a thin, fragile barrier between me and discovery.
Midori grasped the edge of the towelket and started to pull.
The towelket gently slid toward her, and the light pressure against my leg slowly lifted.
Just as the far edge of it was about to slip off, it caught on my toenail.
Midori was suspicious. She pulled harder, and the towelket broke free, and she held it completely in her hand. My feet were uncovered. But at that very instant . . .
“Aaah!”
Ken had fallen down, knocking into Midori. She went tumbling to the woven-straw tatami floor. The boy collapsed on top of her, dropping the small round plates and the cups of iced coffee that rested on them, spilling their contents everywhere. The glass coffee cups didn’t break, and the three of them had somehow avoided the flying splash of coffee, but it was still a terrible mess.
Yayoi was awakened by the clatter. Rubbing her eyes, she looked up and saw my pale blue feet.
Her breath caught, and she snapped completely awake, but she wished it was all a dream.
“Ow ow ow ow . . .” Midori looked around at the floor and said, half angry, half laughing, “Ahh, the floor is soaked. But at least I’m still dry. Ken, I know you want to cool off in this heat, but that was really too clumsy of you.”
She hadn’t seen me.
While Midori was still inspecting the floor, Yayoi rushed over to the closet and shut the door. Midori didn’t seem to notice that either.
“I’m so sorry,” Ken said as he gathered up the dishes, the cups, and the ice that had been in them. “My foot must have caught on something. I tell you, it’s been causing me nothing but trouble lately.” When Midori wasn’t looking, he signaled a thumbs-up at his sister.
Yayoi brightened and chirped, “I’ll go get a washcloth!” As the girl ran to the door, Midori called to her.
“Yayoi, wait
.”
She froze and looked uneasily at Midori, who was helping Ken pick up the spilled ice.
“Careful not to wake up your mother. If she saw this mess, she’d freak.” She raised her pointer fingers to her forehead, making little devil horns to illustrate her point.
“I won’t!” Yayoi said and ran out the door.
*
Night fell. It was time for those still living to rest.
Once the roads had emptied of the villagers, Ken and Yayoi started to transport me out toward the shrine. They took care not to be seen. It was crucial not to be.
Yayoi rubbed her tired eyes, savoring her lingering dreamlike haze, and asked, “Brother, what time is it?”
Ken was carrying me over his shoulder. His voice was sharp and sober. “Half past three. We need to hurry if we’re going to make it by dawn.”
The two of them—or should I say, the three of us—had just left their home, which was quite far from the shrine. Even the normally unflappable Ken was daunted by the distance.
No matter how much he talked like an adult, he was just two years older than me. It was hard work to carry me by himself.
“Are you okay?” Yayoi asked, holding the flashlight aimed at the gravel road in front of them as she walked by his side. “Do you want me to carry her legs? Brother, are you okay?”
The round light of the flashlight spilled over the sides of the road, bringing the long slender green shapes of the rice leaves to dim light.
The shrine was still far, and Ken was slowing down.
“Yeah, let’s do that. Thanks, Yayoi.” He held my legs out to her. She transferred the light to her brother and took my legs with both hands, a look of distaste crossing her face.
Ken was struck with an uncharacteristic regret. I should have brought a wheelbarrow from the shed.
For the first time he truly understood how far away was the shrine, and how heavy my corpse.
The light of the moon and the stars was faint, and the two children walked through the darkness. Occasionally they would stop, rest, say a few needed words of encouragement to each other, and then start again.
“Brother, I’m tired.” She paused, out of breath. “Can’t we just finish this tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” He considered it. “Well, the fireworks are tomorrow, but I suppose by this hour everyone should have gone home. But where would we hide Satsuki tonight?”
Yayoi’s youthful face scrunched up in thought. Ken took a moment to come up with an idea, waving away bugs that were drawn in by the flashlight. But he had set out to carry me to the stone foundation and throw me into the hole that night, and that was what he still meant to do.
“Come on, Yayoi, we’re almost there. Just a little farther, and we’ll be able to make sure that no one will ever know what happened to Satsuki.”
He summoned every last bit of his willpower to move forward. Yayoi, who had sat down on the gravel, stood back up.
If they threw me into that pit, would anyone ever find me? The stone foundation was as big as a warehouse. No matter how much trash all the boys threw down there, the vast, empty, black space within would never fill. The structure had withstood the wind and the rain. It had lasted long after the people who built it, and it would last long after the memories of the kids who played on it faded away.
But just as they had gathered the resolve to carry me again, they saw it.
“Brother, look! Over there!”
Ken had noticed it at the same time. Far off, near the end of the road, from beyond a row of houses, came a light. It was a flashlight, and it was being carried. It was too far to see if a person was holding it, but if it wasn’t a person, what else could it be?
Ken and Yayoi’s flashlight, which they had set down on the ground as they rested, illuminated them from below. Did the other person notice it? Even if their figures weren’t visible, surely the light was.
“Brother, what are we going to do?!” Yayoi cried out in complete panic. “Brother!”
Ken was focused in thought and didn’t respond.
“Brother!”
The light was approaching them. It was drawn to their flashlight, no different from the insects.
Ken, having come up with a plan, quickly looked at their surroundings to make sure it was without fault.
The figure of the person carrying the flashlight was not yet visible. And there weren’t any places to hide. The road was surrounded only by the expanse of rice fields.
“Yayoi, over there!” Ken grabbed his sister and pushed her into the dark green carpet of leaves behind them. Next he picked me up, and taking care not to obstruct the light of the flashlight, he ran in after her.
They ran through the field until they could barely see their flashlight, and then they sat. The rice, reaching up to receive the life of the sun’s rays every summer day, had grown just enough to hide us as it swayed in the breeze.
They held their breath and silently watched the light approach. The night was hot, and soon Ken and Yayoi began to sweat. The fresh scent of the young crops was stifling.
Their timing had been good. The fields were being dried and the earth was bare. Otherwise, their feet might have gotten stuck in the mud as they ran. If the field had been submerged, Ken may not have even thought to hide in it.
“Brother,” Yayoi started to whisper, but Ken cut her off with a clipped shush.
They could now make out the figure that was walking toward them, and they recognized him at once. Old Man Thunder. That was what all the kids called him, partly because he looked like a character from a manga called Mr. Thunder, and partly because he often yelled at us when we played too much. He and several of the other elderly residents of the village met at the shrine each morning before the radio exercise to play gateball. I think he might have even been in charge of the group.
Old Man Thunder walked up to the flashlight the children had abandoned in the road and inspected it with a tilt of his head. Keys jangled on a key chain hung at his waist. They were the keys to the shrine’s storeroom, where the gateball equipment and various other things, including farming implements, were kept.
Ken and Yayoi watched him, rapt. Yayoi pressed up against her brother to stop herself from shaking. The wind was still that night, and the two were dripping with sweat. Their sweat mingled together as it dripped onto the rush mat that covered my body, which lay on the dry earth.
Yayoi was barely keeping herself together.
Old Man Thunder lifted the flashlight from the ground. His thoughts were plain to see in his puzzled expression. Why would a switched-on flashlight be lying in a place like this?
From that expression, Ken knew that they hadn’t been seen. His assumption had been correct—if all they could see of him was his light, then he couldn’t have seen anything but theirs.
But they weren’t safe yet.
The old man switched off their flashlight and panned his own over the area. He was thorough, as though searching for a fleeing rat. Thunder felt like he had seen something running into the field as he had picked up the flashlight, and he carefully passed his light back and forth over that direction. Ken and Yayoi stiffened, and each time the rice in front of them was bathed in the bright light, they feared that their shadows would be projected onto the plants behind them. Why does he keep pointing the light over here? they both thought, feeling like escaped convicts under a searchlight’s pursuit. Each time the light passed over Yayoi, she could feel the police on her trail.
After a time, Old Man Thunder noticed something. In the direction he thought he had seen someone run, the rice was waving back and forth. But the rest of the field was still in the now windless air.
He stepped into the field, and as he pushed his way through the rice plants, he felt the dry earth crumble into dust beneath his feet.
The children sensed him drawing nearer and froze completely. Ken’s mind raced.
Even if he finds us, as long as he doesn’t find the body, won’t we be fine? But if he tells ou
r parents, how will I explain it?
The old man was walking straight at them, and soon he was only one row in front of them, reaching his arms to push a path through it.
Yayoi’s eyes were filled with tears, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
It’s now or never. I have to stand up and lie to him and say that he caught us pulling a prank. And I have to do it now.
That was his only plan. If he’d had a weapon to kill the old man and keep his mouth shut forever, it would have been different.
And just as Ken was about to stand up, a voice called out to Old Man Thunder.
“What are you doing out there?” It was the old man’s wife. “We need to set up for gateball. Everyone will be there soon.”
Old Man Thunder scratched his head in embarrassment. “Well, I just . . .”
He walked back to the gravel road and away from the two children and me.
He showed her the flashlight. “Look, I found this on the road here.”
“Oh,” she remarked. “I wonder whose that is, dear.”
She was curious, but not curious enough. She took her husband’s hand and started walking in the direction of the shrine. Old Man Thunder kept looking back at where we hid, but he went with her.
“They’re probably all there by now,” his wife said as they walked away. “You know we have to get everything ready and start practice soon, before we lose the space to the kids on summer break and their radio exercises.”
They kept talking as they disappeared into the distance.
“That was close,” said a relieved Yayoi. She felt light, even giddy. All her tension had been hanging by a thread, and the thread was cut. Ken couldn’t help but laugh at the unforeseen turn of events.
But quickly his expression darkened.
“What do we do now though?” he whispered. If the gateball club was already at the shrine, they might be seen lifting me up onto the stone foundation. Had they missed their chance?
Worry returned to Yayoi’s eyes. “Brother . . .”
“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Ken smiled reassuringly. They had lost their flashlight, and dawn had not yet broken the darkness of the night, but Yayoi could tell he was smiling without having to see it.
