t was Sugino who first alerted Yuto to the existence of the blog. “Have you

heard of The Wings of the Kirin?” Sugino asked him. His face was intensely

serious.

“Kirin? What’s that?”

“I thought you wouldn’t recognize it. It’s the title of a blog. It’s written

in katakana: Kirin no Tsubasa.”

“A blog, eh? What about it?”

Sugino wouldn’t answer.

“See for yourself. Just google the thing,” was all he would say.

Yuto had no trouble finding the blog. Its full title was The Wings of the

Kirin—Dreaming of the Day It Will Take Wing. The writer seemed to be a

woman. This was the first passage that caught Yuto’s eye.

The kirin in our house is sleeping again today. I cut his nails,

which had grown quite long.

His hair and nails keep growing even though he’s asleep all

the time. Soon I’ll need to give him a haircut. Perhaps this time

I’ll go for a slightly more grown-up look.

Next week is the official start of spring. Let’s hope this year

will bring us good luck.

What the hell is this? Yuto thought. Just a load of rambling nonsense.

And who is this kirin anyway? A pet? A baby? It’s just twaddle either way.

He really couldn’t figure out why Sugino mentioned the blog to him at all.

Or was this the wrong one?

The blog included the occasional photograph: knickknacks and

outdoor shots, mainly. The pictures weren’t particularly eye-catching or well taken.

When one particular picture appeared on the screen, Yuto immediately

stopped scrolling.

It was part of the entry for January 1, New Year’s Day. The

photograph showed a young man in a wheelchair. He was dressed in a suit

and even had a necktie on. His hair was closely shaved.

His eyes, however, were tightly shut, so although his horribly

emaciated face was pointed toward the camera, he wasn’t actually looking

into it. A thick towel was rolled up behind his neck, presumably to keep his

head in position.

“Our kirin celebrating the New Year. A commemorative snap of him

in his brand-new suit,” the caption read.

Yuto was aghast. Now he understood what Sugino had been trying to

tell him.

The boy was Yoshinaga. And it was Yoshinaga’s mother who was

writing the blog.

Yuto went back and read the blog from the beginning. It had been

started more than a year earlier and the early entries made clear what it was

about.

The woman’s son was in a coma as the result of an accident he’d had

during summer vacation of his second year at junior high school. The

doctors had given up any hope of him regaining consciousness. The parents,

who were still hoping that he would wake up one day, had moved out to

Karuizawa, where they were looking after him. The mother’s goal in setting

up a blog was to create a record of her son’s condition and of their life

together.

Yuto froze at his computer.

Yoshinaga was alive—

Yuto had persuaded himself that Yoshinaga was long since dead.

About the time Yuto graduated from junior high, he’d heard rumors about

Yoshinaga still being in a coma, but he’d assumed that he couldn’t last long.

For him, Yoshinaga had died when the accident occurred. He imagined that

Sugino and Kurosawa probably felt the same way.

In fact, though, Yoshinaga was alive. He was asleep, just like back

then. Now he had someone looking after him, someone who believed that at

some point he would open his eyes.

Yuto was reminded of the wickedness of what they had done.

The episode was far from over and done. The whole Yoshinaga family

were still suffering because of it.

Yuto ran into Sugino a few days later and told him that he had visited

the blog. “Oh yeah?” Sugino said. “But … there’s nothing we can do about

it, is there?”

Yuto got the impression his friend was trying to persuade himself as

much as him.

There’s nothing we can do about it. That’s just the way it is. That was

certainly true. The time for them to take action had passed. They could

confess and say they were sorry, but that wouldn’t help Yoshinaga regain

consciousness. If anything, they would probably only make the parents’

lives even more unbearable.

But was continuing to do nothing really good enough?

Yuto started to check the blog on a daily basis. It wasn’t updated all

that often, so when there was no new entry, he would reread the old ones

instead.

One day, he came across this passage.

There was something I had to do, so for the first time in ages I

went back to Tokyo. I took advantage of my trip to visit the

Suitengu Shrine. While everyone knows Suitengu as the place to

go to pray for safe childbirth, another of the benefits it offers is

protection from drowning and water-related accidents. I often

went there after my kirin had his accident. Because Suitengu is

one of the Nihonbashi Seven Lucky Gods shrine group, I ended

up visiting the other seven shrines too. (They’re called the Seven

Lucky Gods shrines, but there are actually eight of them!!!) I’m

digressing a bit, but it was when I was doing the circuit and saw the statues on Nihonbashi Bridge that I came up with the title of

this blog. One thing I regret about moving out here is that it’s

pretty much impossible for me to visit the shrines anymore.

This was the moment when the words Suitengu and Nihonbashi Seven

Lucky Gods were seared into Yuto’s consciousness. The idea of doing

something didn’t come to him immediately. The shift from thought into

action happened almost by chance.

A relative was getting married. The wedding was held at a hotel close

to Suitengu Shrine.

Finding himself with time to kill, Yuto strolled out of the hotel and

went to take a look at the shrine. As it was a weekend, the shrine precincts

were packed. Most of the people there must have come to pray for safe

childbirth, as they were all busy patting the celebrated statue of the mother

dog and her puppy.

After tossing a few coins into the offertory box, Yuto offered a

heartfelt prayer for Tomoyuki Yoshinaga’s recovery. He then took a

photograph of the shrine from a certain distance. When he rejoined his

parents at the hotel, they asked him where he had been. Rather than tell

them, he fobbed them off with some plausible lie.

After three days of dithering, he finally made up his mind to post a

comment to the blog.

Hello. I’m a loyal reader of your blog and someone who

sincerely hopes that your kirin will wake up soon. A couple of

days ago, I got the chance to visit Suitengu Shrine, so I offered

up a prayer for him. In fact, I took a photograph too. Best wishes.

I am thinking of you.

He made the sender’s name “Tokyo Hanako.”

His comment elicited a rapid reply.

Thank you for your message. It means a lot to me. What sort of

picture did you take? Can you share it with me?

Her post made Yuto slightly uneasy. He certainly could email her the

photo. Provided he set up a fake account, he could keep his identity secret.

Would it stay that way, though? If she started asking questions, how could

he keep her at arm’s length?

In the end, he emailed the photograph. He didn’t want to upset her by

not replying.

Once again, he got a swift reply. Yoshinaga’s mother thanked him and

asked permission to upload the photo to her blog. He wrote back that she

was very welcome to do so.

The blog entry she uploaded the next day featured Yuto’s photograph

of Suitengu Shrine. She had added a brief caption: “Thanks to Tokyo

Hanako for sending in this picture.”

The moment Yuto saw the blog post, something inside him changed.

He felt as though something that had been sealed up deep inside him had

been cracked wide open. He knew it would never be enough to atone for his

actions, but he still felt it was better to do it than not to. If nothing else, it

beat simply trying to put the whole thing out of his mind.

Keen to see if he could take things a stage further, he made the circuit

of the Seven Lucky Gods shrines, photographing all the different shrines en

route. But that still wasn’t enough.

One day he wandered into a store that sold traditional Japanese washi

paper and found some origami paper. Inspiration struck. This is it!

Yuto secretly started making origami cranes. Although his original

plan was to make one thousand of the things, that turned out to be far from

easy. Instead, he began by making one hundred cranes using only pink

paper. He then took them to Suitengu Shrine, placed them on top of the

offertory box, and took a photograph of them. He emailed the picture to

Yoshinaga’s mother, who replied to him in no time. From her message, it

was clear how delighted she was. And she uploaded Yuto’s photo to her

blog the next day.

The next month, he made another one hundred cranes, this time using

only red origami paper. He took them not only to Suitengu Shrine but to

several other shrines in the Seven Lucky Gods group and photographed

them there. The following month, he made his cranes using the orange paper. It was brown the month after. His plan was to keep changing the

color to show that he wasn’t just reusing the same cranes over and over

again. He intended to keep at it until he had made at least one thousand

cranes in total.

However, something unexpected happened. Yuto was sitting at his

computer writing an email when his mother, Fumiko, called him

downstairs. It wasn’t for anything important, but right after, a friend called

him. He ended up staying down in the living room for quite a while and

when he went back up to his room, he bumped into Takeaki, who was just

coming out.

Naturally enough, Yuto kicked up a stink. “You can’t just barge into

my room like that.”

His father paid no attention. “What’s that?” he asked.

Yuto was horrified. The email interface was on the screen of his

computer.

“Did you read my email?” Yuto glared at Takeaki. “You may be my

father, but there are still things you just can’t do. You’re violating my

privacy.”

Takeaki waved his hand dismissively. “That doesn’t bother me. What’s

going on? Tell me! Who are you emailing under a girl’s name?”

“Screw you. I’m not doing anything wrong.” Yuto thumped Takeaki

on the chest and barged past him into his room.

He went and examined his computer. He had carefully saved all the

emails he had sent Yoshinaga’s mother. Not knowing how many of them his

father had read, he deleted them all on the spot.

Chagrin and disgust spread like a physical sensation through his chest.

He felt as though something he cherished had been soiled, as though

someone had blundered into a sacred space without even bothering to take

off their shoes.

He went to check the cardboard box he kept hidden in his closet. It

contained all the origami cranes he had made so far. As far as he could tell,

no one had touched them. Nonetheless, he crammed them all into plastic

bags, which he threw into the trash on his way to school the next morning.

Since that day, Yuto hadn’t emailed Yoshinaga’s mother. He deleted

his fake email account so that her emails would no longer reach him. And

he stopped making origami cranes or visiting the Seven Lucky Gods shrines

in Nihonbashi.

He also did his utmost to avoid his father. About six months later, his

father was killed.

Although Yuto often thought about the Wings of the Kirin blog, he

never went back to it. Yoshinaga’s mother must have been disappointed at

Tokyo Hanako suddenly breaking off all contact. He was too afraid to try to

find out how she was getting on. With time, the whole episode started to

fade from his memory.

That was why, when he heard that Takeaki had died in the Nihonbashi

district, he didn’t associate it with the blog. Besides, the location of the

actual stabbing was quite a way away from any of the shrines.

It was as if someone had emptied a bucket of cold water on his head

when Detective Matsumiya asked him about the kirins on Nihonbashi

Bridge. The statues of winged kirins—

Until then, Yuto had believed kirins to be real animals. When he had

done an internet search for “kirin,” “Nihonbashi,” and “statue,” he had

quickly come across a statue of a kirin. That particular statue, which was

quite famous, was of a different kind of kirin, a giraffe, which adorned a

modern building in Nihonbashi. He didn’t know that kirin was also the

name of a mythical beast. Yuto just assumed that Tomoyuki Yoshinaga must

have liked giraffes when he was a child.

Yuto’s assumption was wrong. What really happened was that, after

completing the Seven Lucky Gods shrine circuit one time, Yoshinaga’s

mother had looked up at the kirin statues when crossing Nihonbashi Bridge

and decided to name her blog after them. For her, the kirins spreading their

wings and gazing up into the sky were a symbol of her son waking up from

his coma and recovering.

When Yuto realized that, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Takeaki

had dragged himself all the way to Nihonbashi Bridge to lean up against the

base of the kirin statues after being stabbed. Was it really nothing more than

coincidence?

For the first time in months, Yuto decided to visit the Wings of the

Kirin blog. He found that it was still being updated. And it was then that he

discovered something shocking.

Tokyo Hanako was still sending in photographs on a regular basis.

The most recent photograph was of one hundred paper cranes made of lilaccolored

paper. There were eight of the pictures in total. Whoever took the

photos had been to all the Seven Lucky Gods sites in Nihonbashi.

Yuto went back and started reading the older blog posts. He found this

entry.

Tokyo Hanako, who has not been in touch for a while, just

emailed me a new set of photos. Apparently, her computer’s been

playing up! This time, she did the Seven Lucky Gods circuit with

some yellow paper cranes she’d made. She got herself a new

digital camera, so the pictures are gorgeous.

Frozen, Yuto stared at the screen for a while.

What the heck’s going on? he thought. Not only had someone taken

over the Tokyo Hanako moniker and started emailing Yoshinaga’s mother

with it, they had also appropriated his idea of the one thousand cranes.

He didn’t need to think too hard to figure out who it was. There was

only one possible candidate.

Yuto pictured Takeaki making the paper cranes. He saw him tying

them together with string and carrying them between Suitengu and Koami

Shrines. Startling though it was to picture such scenes in his imagination,

they were simple matters of fact.

Why did Takeaki do it?

He must have found out about the Wings of the Kirin blog when he

read Yuto’s old emails. The emails must have raised his suspicions. Why

was his son corresponding with this particular blogger? Why was he

making cranes? There was no shortage of unlucky people in the world, so

why was Yuto concerned about this woman in particular?

At some point, Takeaki must have worked it out. Worked out that the

“kirin” who appeared in the blog was the kid from Shubunkan Junior High who had had the accident at the pool. Worked out that he was in the year

below his son.

That must have only provoked new doubts. There wasn’t anything

wrong with praying for the recovery of a classmate who had been involved

in an accident. So why use a false name? Why send emails in which you hid

your connection to the event?

The simplest way to get those questions answered was to ask Yuto

directly. Takeaki, however, hadn’t done so. Was it because he sensed that a

dreadful secret was lurking just beneath the surface?

What Takeaki did was to start making paper cranes. He decided to take

over Tokyo Hanako’s duties from Yuto. One of the older blog entries

mentioned that Tokyo Hanako was using the Traditional Paper in Ten

Colors brand for her paper cranes. Takeaki must have gone to considerable

trouble to procure the same brand.

Yuto had no way of knowing what was motivating his father. Perhaps

it was his way of saying he was sorry. Whatever the circumstances, maybe

Takeaki felt guilty for having stymied his son’s prayers and had decided to

continue with them on his behalf, at least until the truth came to light.

There was a set of lilac cranes on the blog. Lilac was the last color

from the Traditional Paper in Ten Colors pack. That meant that his father

had completed all one thousand origami cranes.

Yuto now understood why his father had forced himself to go all the

way to Nihonbashi Bridge when he was on the verge of death. Takeaki

wanted to send him a message. “Be brave! Don’t turn your back on the

truth! Do what you know to be right!”

Yuto seemed to hear his father’s voice. The tears welled up in his eyes

and a flame of hope ignited deep inside his chest. At the same time, he felt a

sense of deep remorse and self-loathing. Why hadn’t he made more of an

effort to understand what his father was feeling and thinking?

I should be proud of my dad. My father would never do anything

sordid like covering up a workplace accident. No one else may want to

believe in him, but I will, he thought.

He had a handkerchief clutched tight in his hand. He needed it to wipe away

the tears that came streaming from his eyes. He couldn’t understand. Why

should he be crying so hard now, when he hadn’t cried at all when his father

had actually died? He felt no shame.

“Thank you for being so honest with us,” Kaga said, speaking

tenderly. “The origami cranes your father offered at Suitengu Shrine were

yellow. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why your father used a color

from the middle of the pack, but reading the blog cleared that up. Your

father was taking over from somebody else.”

“I couldn’t believe that Dad did it. I didn’t feel in the least

embarrassed about it, though. I was more like, what the hell were we

thinking? We’d completely wrecked another person’s life and we were just

going about our own lives as if nothing had happened. It was inhuman.”

“Which is why you tried to get together with the others for a talk.”

Yuto nodded.

“It’s not too late for the three of us to tell the truth and to take our

punishment. That’s the only way we can become halfway decent human

beings. That’s what I was going to tell them.”

Kaga abruptly pulled in his chin and looked at Yuto intently.

“You’re a smart kid to realize that. We all make mistakes; what really

matters is how you deal with them. Run away from them or ignore them

and you’ll just go on to make the same mistake again.”

“But, Detective, tell me something. What’s the link between the pool

accident and the murder of my father? That’s something I just can’t

understand.”

Kaga’s eyes darted briefly off to the side. He seemed to be hesitating.

Yuto was taken aback. He had never seen the detective behave like that

before.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Matsumiya got to his

feet, walked across the room, and exchanged a few words with someone

outside, then whispered something into Kaga’s ear. Something big must be

kicking off.

Kaga shifted in his chair.

“We’ve located Tatsuya Sugino. A local policeman who was out on

patrol found him. Sugino was on a station platform at Shinagawa Station,

getting ready to throw himself in front of a Keihin-Tohoku train.”

Yuto was dumbfounded.

“Throw himself in front of a train? Sugino? Why? What does it

mean?”

“I’m told that Tatsuya Sugino,” Kaga said, then he paused to catch his

breath, “has admitted to murdering Takeaki Aoyagi, your father.”