by Otaro Maijo
Shit!
But you’ve got to keep calm, Aiko. Keep cool.
Why were you suddenly the target? And what were you going to do about it? How could you fight back against so many girls? Or maybe you should admit you did whatever it was they thought you did and just apologize—though how do you apologize if you don’t know what you did?
You were about to be drawn and quartered, and you weren’t even sure what the charges were. As they’d been leading me into the bathroom, I’d wracked my brain, but I still had no idea. What was this all about?
Was it because I did it with Akihiko Sano? But lots of other girls did too. Kan and Miyon at least. Last year or the year before. The only reason I wanted to try him was because they’d said he was so fantastically awesome. “Sano’s a sex machine!” I’m quoting them here. So why were they after me now for actually doing it with him? It made no sense. Because I didn’t get in touch after I disappeared with Sano from the party last night? But when I left with him they must have known what we were going to do. No one said anything at the time, and it wasn’t the first time I’d left a party with some guy, so it shouldn’t have made any difference.
So maybe I did something at the party? I don’t remember much.
Or maybe before the party? Not likely.
So what then?
Why was I here in the bathroom? Why was I suddenly the target of the bully court?
I still didn’t know, but I didn’t have any more time to think about it. Miyon, who was standing next to Maki, spoke up first. “You probably know why we’ve called you here,” she said. No, no idea. Why? When I didn’t answer, Shima broke in. “Speak up,” she ordered. “Say something, Aiko. We don’t like your attitude.” If I said I didn’t know, they might take it wrong or someone might think I was being a smart-ass—worse still if that someone was Maki. But I had taken too long thinking this over. Out of nowhere came a slap to the side of my face. “Speak up, Aiko!” Maki shouted. I was shocked more than hurt. What did she think she was doing? So I shot back, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” and kicked out with my right leg, catching her in the thigh. And it worked, a bit anyway: Maki crumpled. I was in pretty good shape from kendo and tennis, and the kick must’ve hurt. She rubbed her thigh and muttered, “You think that hurt, bitch?” “You think I give a fuck?” I retorted, and as I did, I jumped on her, pushing her head down with the weight of my body and at the same time bringing my leg up. Gaaannn! I could feel her face smashing against my knee. It was a move my brother taught me. He had also taught me what to do when I was way outnumbered like this: he said you should try to take out the strongest one right away. Which is why I had gone after Maki. I grabbed her hair and smashed my knee into her pretty face over and over. “Wait wai…shit,” she gurgled. “Stop! Ouch! OUCH! SHIT! OUCH!” I saw something red on the bathroom tiles and knew Maki was bleeding from the nose, but I kept on cracking her face against my knee.
She was totally scary as far as I was concerned. We had a term for this kind of group ambush; we called it the Death Penalty—and Maki was known as the Executioner. The flavor of the day was the “Crucifixion,” which was the bathroom version they had planned for me: these really thin, sterile needles were run through the palms of both hands to nail the victim to the door of one of the stalls. There were other penalties, all with catchy names—the Butt Drill Tour, the Safety Pin Tattoo—but the Crucifixion was as scary as any. Actually, it was mostly the guys who used it, but Maki was just mean enough to want to try it.
A bunch of stuff went through my head as I was kneeing her face: no needles or hammer…but got to pound Maki…make sure she can’t fight back…but what was happening?…why were they doing this? I knew that the other girls weren’t like Maki, that I could probably talk my way out of this if it was just them. Anyway, when they saw what I was doing to Maki, they would probably back off. Which is why I was kicking the shit out of her right there in front of them. “You’re out of your league, Maki,” I shouted at her. “You little shit! You’re totally fucked!” The fights in girl manga were never like this, so I had to use stuff I’d read in guy comics, sound effects and all. Maki couldn’t talk anymore, just sputter. “Ahh, ahh, kaa, gaa.” The other girls were telling me to stop now, but of course no one actually stepped in to break it up. Chickenshits. No surprise. They yelled at me, and I kept on kneeing Maki in the face, smashing it up; but then suddenly they all drew back in a circle and got real quiet, so I slowly let go of her. Her nose had been bleeding all this time, so her face was completely red and gross. My thigh was red too, and there was a little blood on my skirt. As I let go of her, she slumped to the floor, but she put her arms down to catch herself; I suppose because she didn’t want to end up flat out on the bathroom tiles. She gasped or gagged or something and then tried to crawl out the bathroom door on her hands and knees. But I pulled her hair from behind and sat her down right by the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” I said. “Have a seat.” There was this little turn in the passage that led from the bathroom out to the hall, so the kids passing by out there couldn’t see her. She sat, bloody face buried in her knees. It was like a scene straight out of a horror flick. Her shoulders were heaving, and it didn’t look like she’d be getting up for a while.
Hiding my fear, I turned to face Miyon and the others.
They had all drawn back away from me, as far as they could get, and they looked a little nervous. Not scared exactly, but I was getting some kind of strange vibe. What? Why were they looking at me like that?
“What?”
“You’re a little scary, Aiko,” Shima said.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you do that to Maki? She just slapped you—you went way ape-shit.”
Ape-shit? There were six of them and one of me, and they were planning to crucify me. Here in the bathroom, with Maki as executioner—and I went ape-shit? If I hadn’t put her out of commission once and for all, if I’d left her anything to hit back with, I would have got double in return. She would have crucified me for sure, or worse.
“You brought her into this, you shits,” I said. They said nothing. I was done with them. No more partying with Kan or Shima or Miyon or Nakajima or Narucchi. Crucifixion in the bathroom, with Maki—that was the end. And then to try to make me out as the bad guy on top of that? No, that was too much. Way much. But fuck it. Whatever. I still had some friends. Yoshida and Marilyn. But I was done with this crowd. Though before I stopped talking to them forever, there was one more thing I had to do: find out why they were doing this.
So I just asked: “Why are you doing this?” I really wanted to know. Why had they suddenly hauled me off to the bathroom to crucify me? When we’d made plans to do all sorts of fun stuff together this summer, go to the beach and shit. Which we would not be doing now. Why was that? Why?
But they ignored my question and instead Kan asked one of her own.
“Aiko, where were you last night?”
Last night?
“I was home,” I said. What did she mean? Did they want me to tell them I’d gone to a hotel with Sano?
“But you left with Sano,” Kan said. “Where’d you go?”
Was this for real? They wanted to know about that?
“Who the fuck cares where I was,” I told her.
“We do!”
“Why should you? And why should I have to tell you?”
“You went to a hotel, didn’t you? Did you really go home last night?”
“Go ask Sano, if you’re so curious.”
And then they all stood there for a minute, staring at me with these weird looks.
What the fuck?
“But Sano didn’t come to school. Nobody’s seen him since last night. They’re saying he’s dead. Murdered. You didn’t know?”
What the fuck?
“What the fuck?”
“That’s right. That’
s what we’re asking you. What the fuck?” And with that they began closing in on me, and now their faces were real serious. Though I wasn’t sure that serious meant they were really serious…but whatever. I didn’t understand anything that was going on. What did they mean “murdered”? What the fuck? It probably wasn’t a “what the fuck” kind of moment, but I really didn’t have a clue. What the fuck?
“How was he killed?” I asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Shima shot back. “And were you involved?” Kan added.
“Hold on,” I said. “Is he really dead? Is this for real?”
“Would we be here now if it weren’t?” Narucchi said. “We don’t know for sure that he’s dead, but we know he disappeared.”
So just “disappeared.” Vanished, like the assistant in a magician’s trick? Then he’s more “missing person” than “murdered” person.
“So, like I said,” I said, “hold on a minute. I don’t understand a thing you’re telling me. Start from the beginning. How did Sano disappear?”
But Kan cut me off. “Forget it. We don’t have time for your questions. We want answers. You tell us, Aiko, where were you last night from ten to eleven?”
“I got home at ten-thirty and didn’t go out after that.”
“But where were you between ten and ten-thirty?”
“I was on the train home from Shinjuku.”
“The express from Shinjuku to Chofu takes fifteen minutes…”
“But I waited at Shinjuku and the train was a little late, and I had to walk home from the station. What are you saying?”
“Were you by yourself?”
“By myself?”
“Did you go home alone?”
“Of course!”
“And Sano?”
“He wasn’t with me.”
“So what happened to him?”
“How should I know? I got sick of him and left him at the hotel.”
“So you left him at the hotel! Why?”
“Like I said, I got sick of him, he’s disgusting!”
“Sick of him how?”
“Who cares? I left him there.”
“We care! Somebody killed him. What do you mean you got sick of him?”
Killed him? You just said you didn’t know whether he was dead or not! All you really know is that he’s missing.
“Wait a minute! You don’t think I did it, do you?”
“We don’t know who did it,” Kan said.
“You don’t know, but you think it was me.”
“We’re just trying to get the facts. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“What the—Why would I want to kill Sano?”
“You just said you got sick of him.” It was Shima this time. “So if you couldn’t stand him, you might have killed him. That’s like a motive or something.”
“And you’re like a moron or something. Do you kill everybody you can’t stand?”
Narucchi jumped in to defend her. “Shima wouldn’t kill anybody. It’s you we’re talking about, Aiko,” she said, and then all of us, me included, turned to look at Maki, who was still sitting on the floor, head down, pressing her handkerchief against her nose.
“Maki,” Kan said, “you should look up—the bleeding stops faster.” Maki shook her head but said nothing. It was obvious she was crying and didn’t want us to see her covered with blood and tears and snot.
Okay, point taken. I’m good in a fight. And I guess I did kick Sano in the face last night…
Whoa! It felt like somebody had just kicked me.
Now that you mention it, I did kick him in the face. Kicked him—sugaaan!—and knocked him flat on the floor.
But he laughed about it afterward. “Ouch!” he’d said. But then he giggled. But what if that kick was harder than I realized or I’d hit him in the wrong place? What if he’d started bleeding inside that stupid head of his? What if it got worse later and he died?
I felt the blood draining out of my head, my face going white. They were all staring at me, still looking funny. But wait a MINUTE! It’s not what you think. It was just one little kick. Nobody ever killed a boy with one little kick!
But Sano was pretty scrawny. And my kick did get him pretty much straight in the face…
No, no, no! People aren’t that fragile! Nobody croaks from one girl-kick.
I was now completely tongue-tied, unable to think about anything but my kick. I was almost too frightened to speak. Somewhere in the back of my head a white guy was telling me all that stuff they say when they arrest you: “You have the right to remain silent; you have the right to an attorney…” Had I really killed Sano? I sure hadn’t meant to. This was not premeditated. Murder in the second degree? Involuntary manslaughter? But hold on, we don’t even know whether he’s dead or not!
“Say something, Aiko!”
“Did you remember something, Aiko?”
“Tell us, Aiko!”
“I didn’t do anything,” I finally managed to mutter, but this only threw gas on the fire.
“Didn’t do what? Tell us everything!”
“Don’t be stupid! Tell us!”
“What happened last night?”
“Why did you get so mad at him?”
Shut up shut up shut up shut UP!
Kan finally seemed to realize what was going on. “She can’t answer if we’re all yelling at her,” she said. “Quiet, girls.” Then she turned to me. “So tell us what happened, Aiko. I don’t know why you got so mad at him, but you did. So did you also beat the shit out of him like you did Maki just now?”
No!
It wasn’t anything like Maki.
But it also wasn’t true that I didn’t know what I’d done to him—so I decided to exercise my right to remain silent.
But then they were all over me again, trying to get me to confess. And I knew if I told them I’d only kicked him in the face, they’d never let up. Then a girl came into the bathroom—a little awkward with the would-be Crucifixion in progress. Of course the new girl would need to know what was going on, and this forced Kan to backtrack a bit.
“So, Aiko, tell us. What happened with you and Sano?”
“Katsura and Sano?” The new girl—Riko or Emiri or something—was suddenly all ears. I wanted to tell them nothing had happened, that I had nothing to do with Sano, but I wasn’t so sure myself anymore. My legs felt weak, and I was shaking.
“Aiko, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Even Nakada was getting into the act, though there was a smirk on her face. But I didn’t—have anything to say for myself, not at the moment.
Then, as I stood there, more girls started coming in—it was a restroom, after all—and when they realized they had walked into a Crucifixion-in-progress, they didn’t want to leave. So the place got crowded and crazy, and that, in the end, was what saved me.
Because suddenly, Yoji Kaneda came wading into the circle of girls, shouting, “What’s going on in here?” I wasn’t at my best, but here he was anyway—in the girls’ room. He ignored the screams for him to get out and pushed through to find me covered in blood—Maki’s blood—in the middle of the crowd. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Shut up!” Kan shouted, trying to drown him out.
“No, you shut up! What were you going to do to her? No, don’t tell me: you were going to crucify her because of Sano. But do you know how crazy that sounds? Did you know that somebody sent a toe to Sano’s house?”
A shock ran through the room.
Through me too.
A toe?
You mean somebody cut off his toe?
And sent it to his house?
But I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known. “No!” someone gasped, and then everybody started to scream all at once.
“You didn’t kno
w?” Yoji said, a puzzled look on his face. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to mention it. Forget I said anything! I’ll be in trouble for sure.” He sounded like an idiot, but he had managed to deflect attention from me. The girls started pressing him for details, but he just laughed. “No, no. Forget I said anything. Ask the cops. But no more bullying people like this. You’re finished here.” So saying, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the bathroom. In the confusion, they couldn’t stop him. Bye, Kan. Bye, Miyon. Narucchi. Nakajima, Shima. They had all been such good friends…
Yoji pulled me down the hall. When he finally let go of my hand, I realized where we were. The nurse’s office. Why? Then I remembered the blood on my knee.
“You should let them look at that,” he said. I felt my face go red, but there was nothing to do but tell the truth.
“That’s not my blood, Yoji.”
“It’s not? Whose is it?”
“Maki’s.”
“Maki? Maki Saito? How? Why?”
“It’s a long story…”
“Was she in the bathroom?”
“I think she’s still there.” A lot of girls had wandered in and out, and I wasn’t exactly sure.
“Then I’m going back to see if she’s okay. But what did you do to her, Katsura?”
“I guess I hurt her.”
“You stupid—You stay here and think about what you’ve done,” he said, laying the palm of his hand on my forehead for a moment, as if miming a slap. Then he turned and ran off down the hall. I could hear him bounding up the stairs two at a time.
And then I didn’t know how to feel.
Happy? Sad? Both at once?
He had saved me, which was a good thing…
I would just leave it at that.
I guess.
But there I was, abandoned outside the nurse’s office, and as I was standing there thinking about what to do next, this teacher—I didn’t know his name—came bolting down the hall. Not good! I was sure he’d say something to me, but then he passed right by, ignoring me. He pounded on the door to the nurse’s office and then opened it. And as he did, I caught sight of Maki inside. She had made it out of the bathroom ahead of me and come straight here. There she sat with a big patch of gauze taped to her nose—at least it looked really big compared to her tiny face. The tape was still white, but the gauze was already bright red. From either side, her eyes were looking out—right at me. It was like they were shooting some invisible laser, and when it hit me, my heart stopped.
