here really are things that are irreparable. I’m always wanting to tell people this. It doesn’t matter who I say it to. It could be a rainy day and I’m standing on the station platform of the Keio Line, waiting for an express train that’s late. Or I’m standing in line at a convenience store where a brand-new employee is slowly working the register. Either way, I see myself muttering this without thinking. Like the phrase has wormed its way into my unconscious so much that, when I’m irritated, I can’t help but blurt it out.

I don’t think I could blurt it out to Yuzan or Kirarin, though. They’d just say, “Hmm. You could be right,” their eyes dreamily looking around for a bit, but then, as soon as the subject changed, they’d forget all about it. They’d drop it so fast I’d be left there feeling stupid and embarrassed. I’d hate that, so that’s why I don’t bring it up with them. It’d be like a lighthouse, where the spotlight rotates and, for an instant, illuminates something. But once the light moves on, everything melts back into the dark. They couldn’t care less. Unless you actually experience something that can’t be undone, you can’t possibly understand it. People like that just think it’s some phrase and misinterpret it. To them, it’s some cheap truism.

Toshi alone might react differently. On the surface she acts all casual, but she’s a sensitive person and is very intuitive. I bet she’d look me in the eye and try to tease out what I’m getting at. But not finding anything, Toshi, too, would soon be disappointed and turn to other things.

By “things that are irreparable,” I don’t mean something like Worm’s killing his mother. It’s not that simple. And it’s not something like the guilt Yuzan has over avoiding her mother’s death. It’s actually the opposite. How can I put it? Once you’re dead you can’t come back to life—it’s final. But to my way of thinking, those are also events that aren’t entirely irreparable, because they are the easy way out. I mean, death is something everybody’s going to experience someday, so it’s an easy-to-understand ending Worm’s chosen, and in that sense something close to defeat. Killing somebody is just payback motivated by all your anger, humiliation, and desires, and since it doesn’t put an end to problems, it doesn’t fit in the category of an irreparable action. Something that’s really irreparable is more like this: a horribly frightening feeling that keeps building up inside you forever until your heart is devoured. People who carry around the burden of something that can’t be undone will one day be destroyed.

Are my ideas too complicated? I’m the kind of person who thinks about difficult things more than others. That’s why at home and at school I’m always joking around. The reason’s simple—even if I exposed the real me to other people, they wouldn’t understand. Toshi might pick up a little of what’s going on, but I’ve yet to meet a person—child or adult—who really gets me.

There’s this huge gap between me and other people—a gap in ability, experience, and feelings. I’m really emotional, and bright. When I say bright I don’t mean good at schoolwork. I mean I can think abstractly. Some adults might think a high school student can’t do this, but they’re wrong.

I feel above human relationships, so I’m constantly holding myself in check. Controlling myself like this zaps all my energy, so I gave up on studying and don’t take it seriously. I figured out long ago that studying for exams is nothing more than figuring out how to work the system.

* * *

When I became a senior in high school, we all took this psychological test. It was a multiple-choice test with two hundred totally stupid questions on it and you had to choose things like “I tend to go along with what other people are saying.” I decided to see how far I could fool people, so I deliberately made a total mess of it. Toshi, Yuzan, and Kirarin—all the bright ones in our class—did the same thing, but the only one called into the guidance counselor’s cubbyhole office afterward was me. Seems my homeroom teacher had quietly put in a call to my parents.

So I went, partly curious, partly disgusted, and as you can imagine this middle-aged woman in a navy blue suit, no makeup, was waiting for me. She told me her name—Suzuki or Sato, some totally banal name—and I forgot it right away.

“You would be Kazuko Terauchi? I’d like to meet with you a few times to talk over things.”

“What kind of things?” I asked.

“What you think about, and any worries you might have.”

What good’s going come from talking with the likes of you? Why do I have to do this? Trying to hold back my rising anger, I gave my usual silly laugh. My weapon is that I can hide my feelings and say something stupid to cover them up. Toshi’s weapon is her made-up name, Ninna Hori. For Kirarin, it’s always pretending to be cheerful. Yuzan’s the only one who painfully exposes herself to the world.

“I don’t have any worries,” I said. “Other than college entrance exams.”

Entrance exams, the woman noted down on a sheet of white paper. I sneered inside. We met like that a total of three times. I made up a story about being afraid my friends might exclude me from their group and this seemed to satisfy her and no more summonses came to meet with her.

Each time I met her I became more and more frightened of adults. She just listened silently to my made-up stories, smiling. I was frightened by the optimism of adults, their stupid trust in science to treat a troubled heart. Afraid of their obsession with believing they have to treat troubled kids. I just wanted them to leave me alone, so how come they didn’t get it? But that’s the way it always is.

I’ve got to hand it to them, though—adults, that is. They’ve created this society where lies are uncovered. The woman told me proudly that these psych tests were able to ferret out any untruths you would tell. It turned out I’d scored the highest of anyone on the test. Higher than anyone in any other school or even school district. Which meant that they saw right through me, that I’m a person who wants to hide a lot of stuff. That much they definitely found out. But I don’t think they could pinpoint what it is I want to hide. There’s no way I want to get some treatment from the school, or a middle-aged guidance counselor with her know-it-all face. I mean, over these last five years, the only one who’s been thinking about all this is me. And the only one who really understands me is me.

Like I did with the counselor, I always say stupid things in order to be vague and evasive. Toshi, though, sees right through my attempt to dodge other people and it seems to bother her. One time, I can’t remember exactly when, she and I were talking about the future, something we hardly ever do, and all of a sudden she totally lost it.

“You’re laughing but your eyes aren’t,” she said.

I put a happy look on my face and pretended to smile. I had a bunch of dumb gags I knew how to use. All of which disgusted people.

“I am too laughing!” I said.

“That’s a lie. You can’t fool me, joking around all the time.”

“Dude. That’s just me. I’m gonna grab me one of those Tokyo or Hitotsubashi University guys, get married, and be a full-time housewife.”

“How can you give up like that?”

Toshi could always guess exactly what I was feeling. I tried whispering in her ear: Romance! But after staring back at me, she said, like there were no two ways about it, “Terauchi, you’re a total mystery.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Knock it off, okay? I know for a fact that you’re hiding something. Everybody knows it.”

“I’m not hiding anything. Dude—it’s true.”

“Forget it,” Toshi said, looking hurt.

Toshi had just been telling me about her typical high school woes—how even if she went to college, she had no idea what she wanted to be. She added that this was something she hardly ever told people. And she was pissed because I didn’t show any interest and basically made no effort to take her seriously. Then, abruptly, she looked at me with this worried expression.

“Tell me,” she said, “did you have some awful experience in your past?”

“No, nothing.”

Think some seventeen-year-old kid’s gonna trap me like that? No way. Of course, I’d just barely turned eighteen myself, but I really had no sense of how old I was. Was I a child, an adult, or a senior citizen? Toshi is smart and kind, and growing up with nice parents like that there’s no way she’d end up as complicated as me. You want to try to be like me? Be my guest. It’s funny how sometimes I act like an ordinary high school girl, eating lunch with the girls—Toshi, Yuzan, Kirarin—going out to karaoke clubs with them. But this is me faking it, trying to show people I’m just having a trouble-free high school life like any other girl.

The truth is, I’m a disagreeable person who’s always observing my friends with a cool, detached eye. So no wonder Toshi’s pissed at me. I’m this sort of contrary person who thinks the only people worth knowing are those who get angry with me, but when they do get angry, I cleverly hide myself.

Yuzan pretends to be complicated like me, but she’s really pretty simple. Right now, she’s basically troubled over how to accept herself, whoever she is. Once she accepts that she’s a lesbian, then she should be able to live that sort of life peacefully. With Kirarin, I think someday a guy will change her. So in that sense the two of them are basically wholesome. Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. I’m not being sarcastic or anything. I really feel that way.

* * *

“I want you to pretend you’re a boy who’s killed his mother and write a story about it.”

This is what Worm said to me on the phone. Naturally there’s no way I’m going to do what he asked. I have no idea what kind of person he is, and if it’s true that he murdered his mother, his mind has definitely reverted to the infantile. According to my theory, he’s chosen a life that’s the exact opposite of mine, since he avoided doing something irreparable and instead did something lazy. No need to waste my precious time creating something for a guy like that. The other three can baby him if they want. Someday there’ll be a day of judgment.

I can’t figure out why Yuzan and Kirarin would be interested in a guy like that. I’d like to see them nail Worm soon, haul him before a counselor like that middle-aged lady or a psychiatrist or somebody, and bombard him with questions day after day. Let him put himself into the hands of modern science, with its ideology that people can be saved, and see how his way of thinking fares then. Then he’ll see how twisted and petty he’s been.

What I find most interesting is how each of our personalities is reflected in how we’ve reacted to this whole affair. Toshi is kind, so she feels bad for Worm’s murdered mother and worries about what the future might hold for him. Yuzan’s projected herself onto Worm and helped him escape. And Kirarin, who’s taken off with him, has this whole illusory image of him and hopes she’ll be changed by being with him. Everybody knows that she hooks up with guys in Shibuya and was jilted by one guy in particular, but she acts like it’s some big secret.

My theory is that Yuzan and Kirarin are using Worm’s crime to look down on him. Toshi’s reaction is more what you’d expect, the standard attitude of your typical bystander. And me—well, I plan to confront Worm head-on and tell him where he’s wrong. Not about his killing his mother. What I want to criticize is, as I’ve said many times, his naiveté in thinking his actions are irreparable.

The door of my room suddenly swung open without a knock. Same as always, so I wasn’t surprised. It was my kid brother, Yukinari.

“Have you been online?” he asked. “They posted a photo of the guy.” Yukinari’s voice, which hadn’t changed yet, was raspy and sexless.

“What guy?”

“The kid from K High who killed his mother.”

I’d been lying on the bed but got up and went next door to his room. Yukinari was a freshman in an elite private junior high he’d just entered this spring. During the five years he’s attended cram school it’s like his personality’s changed. He’s become much more clever than me, more cunning. You’d never catch Yukinari doing something irreparable—he’s too smart to ruin his life like that.

The computer he got as a present for getting into junior high was plunked down in the middle of his desk, its LCD screen reflecting the pale fluorescent lights on the ceiling. On the screen was a photo of Worm wearing his school uniform. It was kind of grainy, like it was blown up from a school group photo. But his special look was clear enough. The small head jutting out of the uniform collar, the narrow eyes. He held his chin up high, so his neck looked long, and he had an arrogant expression. His eyebrows were set apart, the corners of his eyes turned up. He looked like those Japanese men from a long time ago, the kind you see in photo collections from the Meiji period.

“So Worm has this classical sort of face,” I said.

“Looks kind of like Shinsaku Takasugi, the Meiji Restoration leader.” After he said this, Yukinari, sitting at his desk, looked at me suspiciously. “The guy’s called Worm? How’d you know that?”

“Toshi told me.”

“It’s perfect. They said he goes to K High. A K High student who killed his mother—that’s enough to make him a hero. He looks pretty full of himself. Imagine a senior getting worked up enough to kill his mother.” Yukinari’s tone was sarcastic as he scrolled down the Web site with ease. The school that Yukinari attended was a private school one rank down from K High.

“He’s a hero because he’s in K High?”

Yukinari spit out his reply: “’Cause he’s an elite kid who fell.”

On the Web site bulletin board was a conversation thread titled “Support for A, the boy who killed his mother.” There were a ton of half-baked posts purporting to be sightings: “I saw him riding his bike down Highway 18.” “There was a guy that looks like him reading porno magazines in a convenience store in Kochi.” “I saw him in a public bath washing his back.” “He was at Disneyland dressed up as Goofy.?

?? Plus some irresponsible posts in support of him, saying things like “Hope you can elude them. I’m with you.” I realized that these supporters had ideas exactly like Yuzan’s: self-centered sentiments, easygoing sympathy.

Still, I couldn’t figure out why all these people were rooting for him.

“Maybe they’re supporting him ’cause he’s trying to escape on a bicycle?” I asked.

“Guess so. He’s kind of childish, though.”

Yukinari quickly slid his mouse down, scrolling farther down the page. At the very end was this: “Question. Why didn’t you kill your father while you were at it? Heh, heh, heh.” Right below this was a reply from somebody pretending to be A, the boy involved. “There’s already someone who killed both his parents with a bat. Pride in being from K High won’t allow me to do a copycat murder.” Yukinari pointed to the question part. “I wrote this one,” he said.

“You mean you want to kill Dad?”

“Don’t be illogical,” Yukinari said, annoyed.

We could hear the front door open, and it sounded like Dad had come home. He didn’t say, “I’m home,” or anything, but cleared his throat, so we knew it was him. He puttered around noisily, switching on the AC in the living room, taking a bath, opening the fridge door. Dad works at a metropolitan bank and leaves early in the morning and comes home late every night. Nobody was paying him any attention.

“Good timing,” I said. “Dad’s back.”

“What the hell for? Too bad he wasn’t run over. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll be hit by a taxi,” Yukinari muttered. I imagined this was how he spent every night, surfing the Web, muttering expletives.

“I wonder if the cops are checking out this Web site.”

“Of course they are,” Yukinari answered coldly, and was printing out the photo of Worm. “You can have this, sis. Put it up in your room.”

“Why?”

“A nice memento. Or you can give it to Toshi.”

This startled me. Yukinari had no idea that the four of us were in contact with Worm. The photo most definitely would be a souvenir of our involvement in this whole affair. And a memento revealing the essence of who we really were. If Worm got caught, the photos posted online would be of the four of us, with some caption like, “The four high school girls who aided and abetted.” Kirarin would no doubt be the most popular. I took the photo of Worm out of the printer and went back to my room. Right then my cell phone rang.

“It’s me. So how’re you doing with it?”

It was Worm. No “Hi, can you talk now?” or anything. The guy wouldn’t know good manners if they bit him on the leg. I switched over to my control-the-temper mode. His last call was last night. Which means they haven’t caught him yet, I thought, as I gazed at the photo of him, at his scrawny neck.

“What’d ya mean, ‘it’?”

“My criminal manifesto.” Worm must have been outside, because every once in a while I heard cars driving by.

“Didn’t you say you wanted it to be a novel?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. A poem’s fine. Some cool lines, like from a play. I’m counting on you.”

Since he’s having somebody else write it, you know that in the end if he doesn’t like it he’s going to change parts, or maybe toss the whole thing anyway.

“Why not just take something from a manga?” I asked coldly.

“It’s gotta be original. I’m a high school student, for God’s sake! Can’t wind up losing out to some fourteen-year-old kid.”

“Then I think you’d better give up the whole idea. You’ve already totally lost out.”

“You’re a real slut, you know that?” Worm sounded more relaxed than the night before. “You’re getting to be just like my old lady.”

I decided then and there I was never going to have any kids. The last thing I want is to give birth to some idiot like him.

I pretended to be hurt. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Sorry…”

“Okay then. I’ll start writing the thing,” I said, lying through my teeth, but trying to sound meek and obedient.

“Then get going. Have to get it done before I can go kill my father.”

I didn’t go there; instead I asked him where he was.

“Karuizawa,” Worm answered, not wary at all. “It’s nice and cool here. We broke into a vacant summer cottage. Taking a break. Tomorrow we move out to the front lines.”

“Is Kirarin with you?”

“Hello? Terauchi? It’s me, Kirarin.”

Instead of Worm answering, Kirarin came on the line all of a sudden but soon stopped talking. “Go away,” I heard her say, and then Worm complained, “I’m not listening.”

“Dude. Sounds like you and the murderer are getting along just fine,” I told her.

“Stop it. Nothing’s happening. I’m with him ’cause he threatened me.”

For somebody being threatened, she sounded pretty cheerful.

“I hear you’re in Karuizawa.”

“That’s right. We just got back from eating ramen. Mount Asama looks totally weird at night,” she said tranquilly. “I’m going back to Tokyo tomorrow, so don’t worry about me. But there’s something I wanted to ask you, Terauchi. I don’t see anything about Worm in the papers or on TV. Do you have any idea of how the murder’s being reported?”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything in the media about it. His picture’s online, though. On the Internet people seem to really be into it.”

With my toe I played with the photo of Worm. So Kirarin was doing it with a guy who looked like Shinsaku Takasugi, I thought, strangely moved.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “What should we do? They know what he looks like.”

Kirarin let out this exaggerated sigh. She was taking Worm’s side now, I noticed. Worm came back on the line.

“Is my photo really online? Gotta be those jerks at school. What a crappy thing to do. Course, if I was in their shoes I’d probably do the same. I knew it was going to happen sometime, but didn’t figure it’d be this soon. But I’ve got a girl with me, so they won’t recognize me.”

When he said this, it struck me that Kirarin wasn’t coming home as easily as she thought. Worm found it convenient to have Kirarin with him, and he was too sly to let her go. Kirarin was a cute girl whom everybody liked, so maybe I shouldn’t have let on about his photo being on the Internet. But being with Worm was something Kirarin had decided on her own. A Kirarin who was totally different from me.

“So you’re serious about wanting a manifesto?” I asked.

“Yep. Any good ideas?”

“How about this? ‘Why didn’t you kill your father while you were at it? Heh, heh, heh.’” What my brother had written online.

Worm reacted immediately. “That’s just not me. Writing someone else’s impressions is not going to get us anywhere. ‘Death is lighter than a feather, and I’m resigned to it.’ Now that’s pretty cool.”

“The Imperial Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors. Fits you to a T.”

“Guess so,” Worm replied, giving my indifferent response a bit of thought. Then, as if he’d roused himself, he said, “Okay, now that I have a slogan, maybe I should go and kill the old man?”

What’re you talking about, slogans? This isn’t China, pal. And I had my doubts about whether such crummy words would do. Worm didn’t understand the concept of something that can’t be undone, after all. At this point, Worm meant nothing to me. Less than a foreign body or a speck of poison.

“Don’t ask me. How should I know? Hey, where exactly are you in Karuizawa?”

“We just left a ramen place along Highway Eighteen. We’re gonna stop by a convenience store and then go back.”

“Yeah? Well, take care then.”

I said this without meaning it and hung up. I immediately dialed Toshi to give her an update. I’d already told her about last night and was sure she wanted to catch up on everything.

“So Kirarin’s planning to stay with him?” Toshi said. “This is the worst possible scenario.”

“I suppose so, but you have to remember that’s what she chose to do.”

“Terauchi, you really are cold, you know that?” Toshi said in her usual tone.

“Can’t help it. Kirarin’s seventeen and an adult.”

“I know, but what’re we going to do?”

“When they arrest him, they’ll check his cell phone records and then we’ll be in deep trouble. Man—how could this happen?”

“I know,” Toshi agreed. “I never imagined I’d get involved. An accomplice to murder—and aiding and abetting a fugitive. Or maybe just the aiding and abetting part? This is all because Yuzan helped him out.”

“But didn’t it start out by you lying?”

Toshi clammed up. Finally she let out a painful breath.

“I guess so,” she said. “I felt sorry for the guy. I didn’t want to help him, but I also didn’t want him to get caught. So I just let things run their course, which means, yeah, I’m pr

etty responsible here.”

“I think that he wanted us to get involved,” I said, voicing a doubt I’d been having for a long time. “I mean, it was strange from the beginning that he’d phone all of us like that using your cell phone.”

“But why would he want to do that?”

“You got me.” But I felt I could understand what Worm was feeling. Loneliness. Sometimes that awful feeling causes you to do something stupid.

“You know,” Toshi said, “I still can’t fathom what Yuzan did. Why she had to leap into it like that. And speaking of Yuzan, I haven’t heard from her. Has she called you?”

I could pretty much guess why there’d been no word from her. She realized that Worm didn’t like a mannish girl like her, so she didn’t feel like helping him run away anymore.

Right after I talked to Toshi I could faintly hear a car pull up into our apartment’s parking lot. I’d closed the window because of the AC but now I opened it and looked down to the street level, seven floors below. Over in the corner of the lot was a four-wheel-drive vehicle backing into a spot. Not Mom’s car. She wouldn’t be back this early. I lay back down on the bed and gazed at the photo of Worm. It was too stressful, so I tossed it underneath the bed, where it stirred up the dust. I was in a self-induced depression. Welcome to my Real World.

* * *

I’ve taken the train to school ever since elementary school. My parents wanted me to go to a private elementary school in the city. It takes thirty-five minutes from P Station in Fuchu City, the Tokyo suburb where we live, to S Station in Shibuya Ward. Since the train goes all the way into the center of Tokyo, it’s always packed.

I think it’s cruel to make a little elementary school girl ride the train like that every day to school. P Station is in the suburbs, so the train isn’t crowded when I get on. It’s not like I can always get a seat, but there are usually very few people standing and you can relax. Mom told me when she saw how uncrowded the train was she felt confident I could commute by myself. At first Dad said it’s okay, he’d go with me, but after a while he was transferred to some other city where he had to live by himself. So I was left alone. Dad came back to live with us when I was in fourth grade, but he didn’t work in a downtown office anymore.

I’d squeeze myself into a space next to the door and stand there. With each station the number of passengers increased and I’d start to get squashed. One time I was pushed from behind, fell forward, and cut my cheek on the metal clasp of a woman’s handbag. Another time my backpack hit an office worker who was sitting at the end of the row of seats and she shoved me away. After that I stopped standing next to the door.

Countless times I tried to get off at S station, where my school was, only to find myself stuck between people, unable to shake my backpack loose, so I’d have to get off at the next station. One time I felt faint, leaned against some old guys, and wound up going all the way to Shinjuku. But never once did any adult try to help me.

“Why is an elementary school kid riding such a packed train anyway?” this middle-aged office worker once complained to the guy sitting next to him when my backpack was poking him in the side and he had to twist away. I looked up then, trying to gauge the reaction of the other passengers. The middle-aged guy he’d spoken to just smiled sympathetically at what the other guy had said.

“Poor kid. Elementary school children should go to their local school.”

“Little girl, you have it tough every day, don’t you? Aren’t you worn out?” the first middle-aged guy said, giving me a hard time. “Were you the one who said you wanted to go to a private school? I really doubt it.”

“Have you told your mother how tough it is for you riding the trains? How you’re causing trouble for other passengers?” said the guy next to him.

They were blaming my parents, not me, but I was the real object of their criticism, the weakest link, a tiny girl lugging a heavy backpack on a packed train. This was like heaven’s punishment on my parents for choosing this cruel commute for me. A punishment which consisted of the unfair maliciousness, the truly awful way I was treated. This was my reality.

One morning I’d caught a cold and wasn’t feeling well. It was pouring outside so the windows were shut tight, clouding up with all the CO2 the passengers were breathing out. I started to feel really bad, suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore, and threw up my breakfast on the lap of a person seated in front of me. It was a nicely dressed young woman, an office worker by the look of her, and when she saw this mess—the half-digested toast and stinky yogurt—all over her blue skirt, she was close to tears.

“Damn! Why’d you do that? I’m going to work now and what am I supposed to do?”

There wasn’t much she could do. With tears in her eyes, she did her best to wipe herself off with a tissue. The other passengers didn’t say a word, putting up with the stink of my vomit, trying their best to edge away whenever I frowned and they thought I might hurl again. No one tried to console me or comfort me. After that, I avoided standing in front of the seats, too.

When I got into the upper grades in elementary school, I got physically stronger and no longer threw up or had trouble getting off at the right station. But worse things began to happen. Perverts would surround me on the train. It was always the same men. I knew what these guys looked like, so I tried all sorts of things to avoid them—taking a different car, changing the time I left for school or home. But even if I could avoid this group of perverts there were always new ones, no matter which train I rode.

A few men would surround me and when I couldn’t escape, they would feel me up. One liked to stroke my bare thighs. Another stroked my butt. And another would press my breasts, which were just beginning to show. If I yelled, they’d quickly turn away, transformed in an instant into ordinary office workers and students. But then after a while they’d be back at it. I was easy prey for perverts. I was young, weaker than them, and an obvious target. I couldn’t stand it. Even though I was only in grade school, it taught me a painful lesson—that adult men are dirty and my enemies. I complained to my parents, telling them I didn’t want to go to school anymore, didn’t want to ride the train. But I never told them the real reason. I worried about them finding out that they’d put me in a situation where I had to suffer like this. As I continued to commute, before I knew it I was acting more adult than my own parents.

One day when I felt the perverts start to approach, I laughed out loud, this foolish laugh. And guess what? The pervs looked startled and scared. When I laughed at each one, he’d give me this revolted look and edge away. I’d finally discovered a method to drive them away: by changing something inside me, exchanging it for something else, and acting like an idiot. This is what I mean by something irreparable.

Actually there’re other irreparable things, too. One of them started when my mother was having an affair. I guess it’s more accurate to say she fell in love, rather than just had an affair. If I brought it up with Kirarin, she’d probably say something like “Nothing unusual about that. Happens all the time” and give examples of other people who were having affairs. Toshi would sympathize with my mom and say, “Even mothers fall in love at least once.” Only fastidious Yuzan would look down at her feet, not trying to find the right words to say.

If Worm found out that his mother was having an affair, maybe he’d still hate her, but I wonder if he might not have killed her. Even though this is the road to something that can’t be undone.

I could live with the fact that Mom was having an affair. Not for Kirarin’s reasons—that it’s a commonplace event, nothing to worry about. Or for Toshi’s—that everyone should be free to fall in love. I didn’t accept it because of any reasonable arguments like these; rather, I could forgive the unforgivable because I loved my mom more than anybody else, so I accepted what she was doing. I submitted to her, in other words—kind of like the way I accepted riding the train to school every day. When you don’t have the strength to fight against fate, you just have to accept what comes. That’s something that can’t be undone.

When my kid brother started elementary school, my mother, who’d left her job for years to raise her children, decided to go back to work. I was in sixth grade at the time. My mother worked as a freelance producer. At the time I didn’t know what this sort of work involved, that’s just what it said on her business card. It isn’t like a movie or TV producer, Mom explained to me—what she did was create business plans, helping to bring people together. I’d always had this one image of my mother and I remember what a shock it was when I saw this totally different side of her. For thirty-eight, she was still young and beautiful. She was a forceful person, overflowing with energy; since she never hesitated to argue with Dad, it’s no exaggeration to say that in our family she was the one in charge. At the same time, I wasn’t yet the “complicated” person I later became.

Mom stayed away from work for so long because Dad didn’t want her to go back until my kid brother started elementary school. When my kid brother began attending the local public school, I remember the argument Mom and Dad had on the first day of classes. Mom wanted to put my brother into an after-school program, but Dad felt sorry for him and said he was too young. I was listening in the next room, thinking, Hey, if you feel sorry for him, think about me, riding the packed train to school every day! But Dad was confident he was doing the right thing, sending me to this expensive private school because I could get a better education there. Even if I told him what it was really like for me, I doubt his confidence would have wavered.

I should state up front that this is all just conjecture. I really don’t know exactly what my parents thought about my commuting and my kid brother’s after-school activities. But I think my father, who worked at a bank, was the kind of person who had a deep-seated prejudice against nursery schools and after-school programs and the like, and secretly felt that children whose mothers worked never amounted to anything. Ever since I was little, Mom fought Dad over this and gave in to him.

In the end, they wound up sending my brother to abacus class, a swim club, and various other lessons to fill up his time after school. From second grade on, they sent him to an after-hours cram school, thinking it was more efficient to consolidate it all in one school. Since then, his life has been filled with lessons and studying. The poor kid, some people might say. Others might think he’s a victim of adults’ lives. But that was our family’s new lifestyle.

But I don’t feel that it’s anybody’s fault that my brother and I led this kind of forced life. I can understand my parents’ desire for us to get a better education, and I can really understand my mom’s wanting to go back to work. I can even, to a degree, understand my dad insisting that kids need their mothers at home. Everyone insisted on getting what they wanted—that was the only way. And this new life of ours, where everyone sort of compromised on their desires, began when my kid brother started elementary school.

* * *

I’m not sure when my mother, now out working, began to change. Maybe in the early spring, just after I finished my second year in junior high. All of a sudden she stopped coming home at night on the weekends (as a freelancer, she often worked on odd days). When I asked her about it, she said that they were busy at work and often had to pull all-nighters. Did any of us work up the nerve to go to her office to check out her story? No way.

I started to feel anxious about the way Mom began to speak and act, the way she just sort of stared off into space half the time. I sensed that when she was home, her mind was on some destination far away from us, and it started to scare us. The reason being that, like I said, Mom ruled at home. Perhaps our life had changed because of her desires, not Dad’s. Plus, there was the fact that Mom had way more charm and personality than Dad.

Every time Mom went on a trip I was afraid she’d never come back and I had terrible nightmares. I can still remember one in which she was dead. Dead, but still talking to me, repeating this one line over and over: “I’ve got to go.” I thought I’d never see her again, which made me so sad I couldn’t stand it, and in the dream I tried to stop her, and was crying. I still needed her.

My mom always came back from her trips, but she seemed sad and didn’t look like herself. I sensed something was going on with her, but didn’t have the courage to ask her directly. When I saw her and Dad going at it, I imagined she was sad because she wanted a divorce, but I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to leave him so much. He was stubborn, to be sure, but other than that was a pretty decent person. Adults did such stupid things, yet they remained a mystery, making me suffer. That’s when I decided I had to do some investigating if I wanted to really know what was going on.

One day, in my second year of high school, I stole her cell phone from her handbag while she was asleep. There were tons of e-mails from this one guy.

Sorry I couldn’t call you today. I was so busy at work I couldn’t find a moment to call. Next time we meet I have lots to talk about. All I think about is you. Good night. Love you!

I’ve been thinking about you, and about what you said. The two of us are like air plants. Our roots don’t grow in the soil. Which makes me wonder what’s keeping us together. Can love alone nourish a life? I don’t know. I love you.

So Mom was in love with some unknown man. Finally it dawned on me that she’d totally abandoned us all—Dad, me, and my kid brother. She was no longer the mother I used to know. I struggled like crazy to find traces of the former phantom mother in her, because now she was living in a world made up of only her and this guy. Once I found all this out, I wrote down the man’s name and cell phone number and phoned him.

“I’m Mrs. Terauchi’s daughter,” I told him straight out. “What sort of relationship do you have with my mother?”

The guy didn’t know what to say.

“I work under Mrs. Terauchi,” he finally replied. “I’m happy to be able to work with her, and respect her very much. That’s the only relationship we have.”

So the man was a younger guy who worked at her office. I remember Mom saying he was a nice guy, who had a daughter Yukinari’s age. I suddenly felt empty.

“I understand,” I said. “That’s fine.”

I didn’t ask my mom anything, so the man must have gotten in touch with her about it, because she came to my room soon afterward and said, “It’s not what you think. Don’t worry, there’s nothing between us.”

Her eyes betrayed her, but I went ahead and nodded. I had all the proof I needed. The e-mails. The fact that she didn’t come home. That sort of drunk look in her eyes. Those secretive conversations on her cell phone. The curt, abrupt way she and Dad talked to each other.

But it never came to anything. I didn’t want to lose my mother, so no matter how much pain and humiliation it involved, all I could do was give in. So I chose humiliation.

“It’s okay. I get it,” I said.

“Well, that’s good to hear.” She looked uneasy, but once she realized there wasn’t anything left to talk about, she left my room.

Now, a year later, Mom’s still coming home really late. Mom with her lies, me pretending not to notice. Maybe I’m being childish. No, that’s not it. The last thing I want to hear is the sound of our relationship—Mom’s and mine—cracking in two. I can’t trust her, but I have to trust her to keep on going. Maybe I’ll have to rework this whole trust thing.

I started to avoid Dad. The hatred I had for Mom spilled over to him. I couldn’t express the hatred I felt for her directly, since I didn’t want to lose her. Dad being Dad, he probably directed his own hatred for her toward me and my brother for the same reason. Back and forth with this twisted, misdirected hate, and it’s choking me.

I’ve hidden my distrust of my mother and am doing my best to trust her and love her. But it might not work out. Because I love somebody I don’t trust anymore, I’ve lost all faith in myself. I bet it’s like this when parents abuse their children. Kids lose their trust in the parents they love, but still accept them, so they end up not trusting themselves anymore. Check it out, Worm. This is what I mean by something irreparable. Not murdering your mother.

I checked my watch. Eleven p.m. The air was smoggy, the sky around the sliver of moon all distorted. Mom still hadn’t come back. I took a telephone card out of the desk drawer. Ever since I got a cell I haven’t used telephone cards much and this one was unused, with a hundred units on it. I stuffed the house key, cell phone, and telephone card in my pocket, went out into the hallway, and listened to what was going on in the rest of the house. My kid brother was in his room, surfing the Web as usual, while Dad was snoring away in the living room, a lonely sort of sound.

Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, I opened the door to our apartment. The night was muggy, without a breath of wind. Everybody must have been in bed in the neighborhood, because there was no one else out. But over in Karuizawa, Worm and Kirarin were still awake, planning how they were going to murder his father. In my heart, I’d murdered my own mother long ago, over and over.

I walked down the road, looking for a pay phone, my sandals slapping as they stuck to the hot asphalt. The road still hadn’t cooled down. There were two pay phones, one next to the other, in front of the station. They were lit by a faint bank of fluorescent lights, and three taxis were lined up beside them, waiting for fares. Would they be able to trace the call? I turned around and looked for a pay phone in some darker corner of the neighborhood and spotted one next to a convenience store. Through the plate-glass front of the store, I could see several customers milling around among the rows of goods. I took a deep breath and pulled out the phone card.

“This is nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

A middle-aged guy’s nasal voice, full of suspicion. I took the plunge and spoke.

“I have something I want to tell you about the boy who killed his mother with a bat.”

“What is it you want to report?”

I noticed, with a bit of happiness, how his tone of voice turned serious.

“I know where the boy is right now. I heard that he’s hiding out in a vacant cottage in Karuizawa.”

“And what is your name?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I hurriedly hung up. I had to get out of there or else they’d trace the call. I was concerned about leaving fingerprints on the receiver, but figured what’d it matter—when Worm and Kirarin got taken into custody, they’d check their call list and find my name on it, anyway. I hadn’t given the police Kirarin’s name, though, hoping that somehow she’d escape before Worm got caught.

When I got back to our apartment building, there was somebody standing in front of the elevator. My mom. She had on a black sleeveless sweater and white slacks. When I got near her I noticed a soapy fragrance that wasn’t the smell of the soap we use at home. I averted my face.

“What are you doing out this late?” she asked.

“I made a call and ratted out somebody.”

My mom turned pale when she heard this. “Who did you call?”

“Does it matter?”

I slipped my arm inside my mom’s stiffened arm. I really shouldn’t hurt her, I thought.