Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life."
Helen Exley
ePub
A4Chapter 36
A
s he stepped down onto the station platform, the chilly air stung his ears.Resisting the urge to shrink from the cold, Yuto took a deep breath and
drew himself up to his full height. I can deal with this cold, just like I can
deal with this situation, he thought. It may be uncomfortable, but we must
take it on its own terms.
Standing beside him, Kurosawa was looking up at the sky. It was
ashen. The scudding clouds suggested that rain was imminent. No, with this
cold, it’s more likely to be snow, he thought.
“Let’s go,” Yuto said. Kurosawa grunted in assent. He was holding a
paper carrier bag. It contained one thousand cranes, which they had both
made.
It was Yuto who had suggested coming to see Yoshinaga.
“We’ve got to tell his parents the truth. And we’ve got to say we’re
sorry. Both to the parents and to Yoshinaga himself. I don’t expect them to
forgive us, but we should apologize nonetheless. It’s about the only thing
we can do at this point.”
Kurosawa agreed. He had proposed that they make the one thousand
cranes.
Yuto doggedly set about making them up in his room. He bought
another six packs of Traditional Paper in Ten Colors for the task. (Sometime
after the case was solved, he had found several open packs in his father’s
car. All the colors from the yellow on down were gone. Yuto now knew
where his father had done his crane-making. He must have parked the car
somewhere on his way home and done it there.)
A multitude of thoughts ran through his mind as he folded the
individual birds. In the end, though, all he was left with were regrets. Why
hadn’t he come out and told the truth earlier? Why hadn’t he apologized to
Yoshinaga? Why hadn’t he had a man-to-man talk with his father?
Any one of those things would have been enough to keep things from
ending as disastrously as they had. His father wouldn’t have been killed.
Sugino wouldn’t have committed murder. Yuto had never met Fuyuki
Yashima, but he was just another victim of Yuto and his friends.
The two boys had finished all the cranes on the previous day. They’d
immediately called the Yoshinaga house. “There’s something we want to
tell you about your son’s accident. May we come and see you?” they asked.
It was Yoshinaga’s mother who answered the phone. If the detectives
had visited her to verify certain facts as part of their investigation into
Takeaki’s murder, she must have some idea of the situation. On the phone,
however, she didn’t ask any questions; she simply said she was looking
forward to seeing them. They took that to mean that she wanted to wait
until they were face-to-face before getting serious with them.
“Itokawa quit his job at the school,” Kurosawa said as the taxi drove
them to the Yoshinaga house.
Yuto merely grunted. He had nothing to say.
“I’m sorry, Ao. Things wouldn’t have turned out like this if I’d not
suggested sneaking into the school. This whole thing is my fault.”
Kurosawa was on the verge of tears.
“Don’t be stupid.” Yuto flicked Kurosawa in the chest with the back of
his hand. “If you go down that route, then everything is my fault, because I
didn’t stop you. We’re equally guilty. Which is why we’re both going to
apologize, right?”
“Yeah,” Kurosawa grunted.
After a while, the taxi came to a stop and the two boys got out. They
were in front of a large house. A wooden plaque with the name Yoshinaga
hung from the gatepost.
Yuto looked over the gate. The garden was blanketed in snow. At the
end of it was the door of the house. Tomoyuki Yoshinaga was asleep inside
at this moment.
Saying sorry isn’t good enough. We need to pray, Yuto thought. Pray
that he’ll wake up one day. Yes, we’re really here in order to pray. When we
see Yoshinaga, we’ll try talking to him. We’ll say we’re sorry for what we
did. Come on now, wake up! Wake up and then beat the crap out of us.
Come on, don’t keep us all waiting.
Yuto exhaled. His breath formed a little white cloud of vapor. He
slowly walked toward the house.
