by Otsuichi
Morino frowned. “She doesn’t usually smile? She seemed pretty cheery to me.”
I explained a simplified version of the friction between Kitazawa Natsumi and her sister: two sisters that looked alike, in an awkward sort of relationship for a long time. She’d been convinced she was hated and had been unable to smile.
Morino listened in silence, interjecting nothing.
“I went to Kitazawa Hiroko’s funeral, for the usual reasons. She told me about it there. But the other day, she found a tape recording of Hiroko’s voice …”
A chance encounter with her sister, whom she had thought she would never meet again.
I didn’t mention the killer or the events of the night before; it would just complicate things. But I briefly outlined the contents of the tape and the transformation it had presumably brought about within Kitazawa Natsumi.
I remembered how she had curled up on the floor, clutching the tape recorder.
I had stood there, knife in hand, wiping the blood off on his clothes. From the description on the tape, I could easily imagine how they had played together as children.
When I’d finished describing those memories, Morino remained leaning against the wall, arms folded. Her eyes turned downward in thoughtful silence. Her eyelids were half-closed, her eyes hidden beneath the shadows her eyelashes cast in the harsh overhead light.
“None of that was in my scrapbook,” she said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear her. She slowly lifted her head, looking toward Kitazawa Natsumi in line at the ticket machine.
The line had moved forward, and Kitazawa Natsumi was putting coins into the machine. She pressed a button and bought a ticket for a nearby station. Then she headed into the crowd, occasionally visible among the flood of people.
Morino unfolded her arms and looked down at the can of soda in her hand. Her back pulled away from the wall. A moment later, her long hair followed. She began walking like still river water that had begun to silently flow again.
It was such a quiet motion that it took me a moment to realize she was moving at all. Not sure what she was up to, I just watched her go. I didn’t begin to follow until she’d vanished into the crowd.
Her gaze was fixed on Kitazawa Natsumi, who had purchased her ticket and was headed for the platform gates. Morino Yoru headed after her, drifting as absently as a sleepwalker. She didn’t appear to be any good at walking in crowds, and she bumped into one person after another. She seemed to be trying to avoid this, but crashed into suit-clad businessmen and young women with unerring regularity. Each time, she bounced backward, clutching her nose, and then forged forward again. I had never seen anyone have this much trouble with crowds before. It was very easy to keep up with her.
Meanwhile, Kitazawa Natsumi passed through the congested gates. There were only a few gates serving a vast number of people, and a crowd had formed, waiting their turn. Their heads and backs blocked our view, and we could no longer see Kitazawa Natsumi. She had moved into the station without noticing Morino’s approach.
Morino slammed into someone again, a large middle-aged man; it was like seeing a tricycle crashing into a dump truck. She bounced away, staggered, and almost fell backward into me. As it was, her head slammed into my jaw. This was the single greatest damage I had taken over the last few months, despite everything that had happened. She didn’t appear to notice, all her attention focused on the direction in which Kitazawa Natsumi had vanished. She straightened up, gulped hesitantly, squared her shoulders, and called out, “Natsumi!”
I had never heard her voice that loud. It was like there was an amplifier hidden somewhere in her slender frame. All the noise and bustle of the crowd was instantly silenced. A lot of people stopped walking and talking, all turning to stare at her.
Morino began walking again, directly toward the gates through which Kitazawa Natsumi had vanished. Everyone who had heard her shout stepped out of the way, letting her pass. I followed.
Noise returned to the station, and everyone started moving again. Morino was already at the gates. She didn’t ride the train to school every day and so had neither ticket nor train pass, which prevented her from passing through the automated gates. They closed in front of her, and she stopped.
“Morino?”
It was Kitazawa Natsumi’s voice. She stepped out of the flood of humanity, appearing on the other side of the gates. She must’ve heard Morino’s shout and come back. She jogged over to us, looking surprised, and stopped with the closed gate between her and Morino. With Morino blocking one of the gates, the congestion around us had increased dramatically. Morino didn’t seem to care.
“Natsumi, this is for you,” she said, holding out the can of soda.
“Th-thanks,” Kitazawa Natsumi said, hesitantly taking it.
“I apologize for my bad temper earlier. I should’ve talked with you longer. I hear you were able to make things right with your sister.”
A lot of people were glaring at us, unable to get through the gate. Station attendants had noticed the commotion and were pushing toward us. I tugged Morino’s arm, trying to drag her away, but she resisted, refusing to move.
“I was also fighting with my sister, when … well, the circumstances weren’t exactly … I wanted to congratulate you, that’s all.”
And with that, she allowed me to pull her away from the gate. She was really light, like she was weightless. A flood of people passed around us. Kitazawa Natsumi was instantly swallowed by the crowd; but just before she vanished, I saw her smile, thanking Morino.
Morino followed my lead listlessly, as if exhausted. She’d lost her bag somewhere.
I looked around and found it sitting against the wall where we’d been standing earlier.
I pulled her hand until we were standing in front of the picture of a foreign lady again. It was hard work pulling her through the crowd. I had to keep a firm grip on her to keep us from being separated. She stared at the ground, never looking where she was going. Her lips were moving, muttering something, but I couldn’t make it out over the noise of the crowd—not until we left the crowd and had reached the spot where she’d left her bag.
“I think you’re my opposite, Kamiyama,” she was whispering, over and over. She was going to have to get home alone from here. I had to take the train, so she would have to walk by herself. But it seemed highly dubious that she could manage that in her current condition.
“At first, I thought you were like me. You reminded me of my sister. But you aren’t. We’re nothing alike.”
Morino’s bag was a simple black one. I picked it up and put it in her hand. It fell to the ground a second later.
I picked it up again, putting her fingers around the handle, but it was useless: She was too out of it to hold on. Her fingers couldn’t stand up to the weight of the bag, and it slid right out of her hand.
“Sometimes I think you’re smiling with nothing inside you at all, Kamiyama. I’m sorry if you take that personally, but that’s what I always think when I see you acting happy around everyone else. And sometimes, I feel really sorry for you.”
She said all this without looking up at me. Her voice was trembling, like a child about to burst into tears.
“But I’m the reverse.”
She looked up now, looked me right in the eye. I was taller than her, and from this distance, she had to look up at me. Her expression was as blank as ever, but her eyes were a little red, and they seemed damp.
“I know,” I said.
For a long moment, she stood in unmoving silence. Finally, she lowered her head and nodded. “Okay then. I’m sorry I babbled on like that.”
I held out her bag, and she took it like nothing had happened. This time, she held it firmly and didn’t drop it.
She looked at the crowd passing by, people heading to our left and to our right. I didn’t know exactly what she was looking at, but there was nothing in front of us but the crowd.
She opened her mouth and said quietly, “I’m genuinely glad for Natsu
mi. And I envy her.”
Morino was herself again, no longer needing my guidance. We moved in opposite directions, without even saying goodbye.
Hello, I’m the author. This is the Bunko edition of a book I wrote called GOTH. For reasons I don’t quite follow, it was divided into two volumes for this release. My editor, A-san, said, “Write an afterword—something interesting and easy to read.” I get requests like this because I used to enthusiastically write funny and interesting afterwords. I’m starting to get fed up with it.
†
Anyway. I wrote GOTH the year after I graduated from college; I believe I was twenty-three at the time. I wrote the short story called “Goth,” collected in Yoru no Sho, and my editor really liked the characters; suddenly, I found myself creating other stories with them. The short stories that resulted from this all have the main characters getting involved with gruesome murders. Together, they formed the work known as GOTH collected here. Killer after killer appears, secretly taking lives—and the more I wrote, the more worried I become that these events just seemed terribly unrealistic. In the real world, it’s absolutely unthinkable that so many crazy people could live in the same town.
I was trying to write a dark fantasy, like the series Youma Yakou, published by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. In that series, each story involves a unique youkai causing trouble, and I was trying to write my own version of that without the consent or permission of Group SNE (the company that created the series). I do apologize, SNE-san! So the killers that appear in GOTH are not human, but youkai. And the male protagonist is also a youkai, with the same power as the enemies, whereas the female lead has a powerful psychic gift that attracts youkai. As I didn’t use any items or jargon to suggest that this was not our world, people tend to believe the book is set in reality; but in my mind, it absolutely is not.
Because I wanted to write about killers as if they were monsters, I wasted no time talking about their reasons for killing or traumatic pasts. If I wrote about their motives, I would be writing about humans, and that seemed to be rather missing the point. Writing about what led them to the desire to kill sounds inherently fascinating, but that seemed like something I should do in some other work. This was a battle between monsters. Clash of the youkai. Add a little romance, and you get the rather slapdash work known as GOTH.
I named the book GOTH for the entirely arbitrary reason that the lead female seemed to be sort of Goth-y. When I was a teenager, I had Goth friends, and we often loaned each other that kind of book, so Goth culture was as familiar as air (to me). But at the same time, it wasn’t well-known (among the general public), and any number of people asked me to explain it. I nearly panicked when I saw someone post on a friend’s home page, asking if I had made up the word. Of course not! And if I gave the impression that I had, I must sincerely apologize to everyone who loves Goth culture.
It was not a well-considered title. As you will understand once you read the book, there is little to no description of Goth culture in the work itself. As a result, I have created a connection between Goths and murders. Paying no attention to the soul of Goth culture, I’ve simply added a superficial aspect of the fashion as a selling point for my book. I knew I would have to write something apologizing for that eventually, as I’ve received a letter telling me off for it. Everything written in that letter was absolutely true, and I found myself bowing apologetically as I read it. I wanted to write back, but there was no return address, so I’ve been forced to use this space to offer my apology. I am extremely sorry for having taken advantage of Goth culture.
There is one other thing I must not forget to mention: This book was awarded the Honkaku Mystery Award. I never imagined that a book like this would win an award, and I didn’t even know that the Honkaku Mystery Award existed. I received a letter informing me that my book had been selected for the final round but had been so convinced I wasn’t the type to win awards that I completely forgot about the letter, and I never even mentioned it to my editor.
That bears further explanation. GOTH was originally written as a “light novel.” Defining the term “light novel” is fraught with danger, but the point is that, at the time I wrote it, there were no prizes for which light novels would even be considered. In other words, the possibility that GOTH would win an award was absolutely out of the question. All light novelists are writing under the assumption that their work will never win any prizes, and I was just one of those.
So I may be forgiven for completely forgetting the date on which the prize was announced and going to see a play with a friend of mine. It was completely impossible, after all. The judges were all die-hard mystery fans and would never vote for a light novel. Yes, it was published as a nice hardcover with no manga-style illustrations, or any illustrations at all—but the stories “Goth” and “Wrist-Cut” (collected in the other [Bunko paperback] volume) were originally published in a light novel magazine, so it seemed like everyone would assume the work was a light novel.
I went to see a play with the writer Y-san. I have only just remembered, but the play we went to see that day starred Yukiko Motoya-san. I’ve spoken to Motoya-san four times since then, and her conversation speed is frighteningly fast; for someone like me, who rarely speaks, it’s rather like being caught in a tornado. At the time, however, I hadn’t met her, nor even seen her on stage, and she hadn’t yet become a radio personality, nor had I ever heard her on the radio.
At any rate, I was headed to the spot where I’d agreed to meet Y-san. On the way, my cell phone rang. “You appear to have won the Honkaku Mystery Award,” my editor said, sounding quite perplexed. My editor had been unaware the book was even up for the prize until she was informed that it had won, so she was naturally quite unprepared. “Get over here, now.” I was forced to abandon plans to see a play and hurried directly to where the prize was being awarded. All kinds of astonishing events awaited me there—but what, exactly? You’ll have to read the afterword in the other [second paperback] volume of GOTH to find out.
—Otsuichi
June 2005
Hello, I’m the author. I’ve been forced to write an afterword for the second half of the Bunko edition of GOTH. The deadline is tomorrow, and I haven’t written a thing. Instead, I’ve spent the day returning DVDs to Tsutaya, eating a natto set at Sukiya, putting away my kotatsu, and generally procrastinating—much like the astonishing amount of cleaning one does before exams. Like I mentioned in the afterword for the first half, I was asked to write something interesting and funny. This is my own fault for once actively trying to write that kind of afterword. I have no idea how to stop.
The book known as GOTH was awarded the Honkaku Mystery Award. This afterword will begin by talking about that prize.
†
I know little about the publishing industry and had no idea what kind of prizes actually existed in Japan. So when GOTH won the Honkaku Mystery Award, the first thing that went through my head was surprise that such a prize existed in the first place. The Honkaku Mystery Award was created by the Honkaku Mystery Writer’s Club and is given to the best Honkaku Mystery novel published that year.
“Honkaku Mystery? What’s that?” many of you are probably thinking. Everyone I knew in college certainly did. Honkaku Mystery is a subgenre of mystery focusing on deductions, tricks, and the surprising moment in which the truth is revealed. Kindaichi Case Files or Case Closed probably qualify (the actual definition seems to vary from person to person, so I’m not really sure about this … ).
GOTH does have a few tricks and deductions. I believe it was these elements that allowed a light novel to receive the Honkaku Mystery Award. When I wrote GOTH, I was making a deliberate effort to incorporate elements of Honkaku Mysteries in it. I even believed I was trying to write a Honkaku Mystery (but only at first). I decided to do so because I wanted light novel readers to understand what was so interesting about mysteries.
When I was a teenager, a friend of mine, K-san, brought a book called Slayers to my house. That was w
hen I began reading voraciously. Before that time, I had read fewer than ten novels a year; but after Slayers, I read every light novel I could get my hands on. I won’t attempt to define the term “light novel” here, but they tend to have manga-style covers and illustrations as a big selling point. I’m not at all sure that the term had been created at the time, but Slayers is what we would call a light novel. I also read Zanyaruma no Kensi, Sword World, and Tamago no Ouji: Kairuroddo no Kunan. I would go to the store almost every day and pour over Sneaker Bunko’s green spines or Fujimi Fantasy Bunko’s yellow or blue spines. For five years at technical school, I had no friends, but there was a classmate with whom I could talk about light novels once every three days or so, which was one of the few saving graces.
Then one day I was reading a gaming magazine, and I found a column saying, basically, that light novels weren’t considered proper books, but trashy things that only a child would read. Oh. I’d had no idea, but the world of publishing frowned on light novels. This came as quite a shock. I was sixteen, though, and no matter how furious I was at the lack of respect given to light novels, there was nothing I could do to change that. And it made little difference to my life what the world thought of them. Shortly after that, I fell in love with mysteries and read a bunch of mystery novels. Light novels and mystery novels are the two pillars of my reading experience.
One day, I looked at the word processor in my room and had an idea. “I should practice typing while I still have time. But if I’m doing that, I might as well write words that mean something … like a novel. It would be nice if I could make a living writing novels or manga. If I write constantly, I might be able to write something good by the time I’m thirty.” And a few twists and turns later, I was a published writer. Once I began writing professionally, something unexpected happened: I was constantly running up against the problem of how light novels were looked down upon, something I had assumed would never actually affect my life. If I were to describe all the light novel discrimination I’ve been a victim of, this would become an extremely brutal essay, so I shall not.
