Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind.
Charles Dudley Warner
ePub
A4Chapter 3
T
omohiko Sonomura opened the door to a loud ringing of bells over his head. The café he’d been told to go was a tiny place, with a small bar and two dinky tables, one of which only sat two.He looked around, hesitating a moment before taking a seat at the smaller table – the other table being occupied. They’d never spoken, but Tomohiko recognised him as Murashita from Class 3. He was rail-thin, and his high cheekbones gave him an almost foreign look. It was the kind of face Tomohiko imagined girls went for. His hair was long and wavy, too. He wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a band. He was wearing a black leather waistcoat over a grey shirt, and tight jeans as if to show off his long, skinny legs.
Murashita was reading a copy of Shonen Jump. He looked up once when Tomohiko walked in but quickly went back to his manga. He might have been there waiting for someone but clearly it wasn’t Tomohiko. There was a coffee cup and a red ashtray on the table. Smoke drifted up from a lit cigarette in the ashtray. He didn’t seem to be worried that the guidance counsellor would find him all the way out here. It was two stops away on the subway from the station closest to their high school.
There was no waitress, just a greying man who came out from behind the counter and put a glass of water on Tomohiko’s table. The man smiled but didn’t say a word.
Tomohiko asked for coffee without even looking at the menu. The man nodded and went back behind the counter.
Tomohiko took a sip of water and glanced back at Murashita, who was still reading his manga. When the radio on the counter switched from playing Olivia Newton-John to the theme song to Galaxy Express 999, he frowned. Apparently Murashita preferred Western music to local fare.
It occurred to Tomohiko that Murashita might actually be waiting for the same person he was.
Tomohiko looked around the café. Usually places like this had a Space Invaders game in the corner, but there was nothing of the kind here. Tomohiko didn’t mind. He was already sick of Space Invaders. The rhythms of the game – when to shoot, how to score big – were already ingrained in his fingers. Put him in any arcade and he was confident he’d be at the top of the scoreboards in no time. If anything still interested him about Space Invaders, it was the code that made the game run but he’d almost finished learning all there was to know about that, too.
Out of boredom he opened the menu. He realised that this was, in fact, a speciality coffee shop. There were dozens of brands listed, some he’d even heard of. He was glad he hadn’t looked at the menu before ordering, otherwise he never would’ve had the balls to just order coffee. No, he would have ended up getting the Colombian, or the mocha, and spending an extra fifty or a hundred yen. Even little outlays like that hurt, these days.
The jacket had clearly been a mistake, maybe the worst yet, Tomohiko thought. He and a friend had gone into a men’s boutique shop to shoplift when the guy at the register caught them. His technique was simple: he pretended to be trying on a pair of jeans so he could stuff the jacket he’d brought into the changing room into his own bag. But when he brought the jeans back to the shelf and tried to leave, the guy at the register headed them off at the door. He remembered feeling like his heart had stopped.
Thankfully, the guy was more interested in making a sale than turning young punks over to the authorities. He treated Tomohiko as a customer who’d ‘mistakenly placed an object for purchase in his personal bag’. No police were called and their parents and the school didn’t hear about it, but he had to pay for the jacket to the tune of twenty-three thousand yen. Of course he didn’t have that much money on him, so the employee took his student ID and told him to go and get the money from home. Tomohiko ran home and scraped together all the money in his room, fifteen thousand yen, and borrowed another eight from his friend to pay for the jacket.
Of course, he’d come out of the whole thing with a trendy new jacket, so he couldn’t really call it a total loss. Except for the fact that the jacket wasn’t something he would have actually paid money for. He’d just grabbed it off the shelf when he thought no one was looking. Since then he’d regretted not having that twenty-three thousand at least a hundred times. He could have gone on a shopping spree. He could have gone to see a movie. But now, except for the money his mom gave him for lunch every day, his personal funds had been reduced to zero. Worse than that, he still owed his friend eight thousand.
Tomohiko took a sip of the two-hundred-yen coffee the man had brought him. It was good.
I hope this isn’t a waste of time, he thought, looking up at the clock on the wall. He’d come here to hear about a ‘job opportunity’. That was how Ryo Kirihara had described it.
It was five o’clock on the dot when Ryo showed up.
Ryo looked at Tomohiko first when he walked in. Then his eyes went to Murashita and he snorted. ‘Why aren’t you guys sitting together?’
Murashita closed his manga and scratched his head. ‘Yeah, I thought he might be here to see you too, but I figured it was better to read my manga than make a fool of myself.’
‘Same here,’ Tomohiko said.
‘Maybe I should’ve told you guys there’d be someone else,’ Ryo said, sitting across from Murashita. He looked over at the counter. ‘I’ll take a Brazil,’ he called out.
The old man nodded. Ryo must be a regular.
Tomohiko picked up his coffee and moved over to the big table. Ryo motioned him to sit down next to Murashita.
Ryo looked at the two of them, squinting, tapping the table with his right index finger. Tomohiko didn’t care for the way he was looking at them. Like he was sizing them up.
‘Eat any garlic lately?’ Ryo asked.
‘Garlic?’ Tomohiko’s eyebrows drew together. ‘No. Why?’
‘It’s complicated. But as long as you haven’t, you’re cool. How about you, Murashita?’
‘I ate some dumplings about four days ago.’
‘C’mere.’
Murashita leaned over the table, bringing his face up to Ryo.
‘Breathe,’ Ryo said.
Murashita coughed a little.
‘Harder,’ Ryo directed him.
Murashita breathed out a big breath and Ryo gave it a good sniff. He nodded and pulled a piece of peppermint gum out of his pocket.
‘You’ll want to chew this once we get going.’
‘Sure, whatever,’ Murashita said, growing a little irritated, ‘but what are we going to do? Spit it out, come on. I don’t like this mystery crap.’
Tomohiko felt relieved he wasn’t the only one completely in the dark.
‘I told you already. You’re going to go someplace, and talk to some girls. That’s it.’
‘Man, I don’t get it, I thought —’
Murashita was interrupted by the arrival of Ryo’s coffee. Ryo lifted up his cup, took a long sniff of the aroma, then slowly took a single sip. ‘Outstanding, as always.’
The old man smiled as he retreated behind the counter.
Ryo turned back to them. ‘Look, it’s not rocket science. You two will do just fine. That’s why I picked you.’
‘Just fine at what?’ Murashita asked.
Ryo pulled a red box of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his denim jacket, put one in his mouth, and lit it with a Zippo.
‘What I mean is, they’ll like you.’ A thin smile spread on his lips.
‘They… you mean the girls?’ Murashita asked, his voice low.
‘Yeah, the girls. Don’t worry. They’re not ugly or all wrinkled or nothing. Just totally normal girls. Maybe a little on the older side, but that’s a good thing.’
‘And our job is to talk to them?’ Tomohiko asked.
Ryo blew smoke at him. ‘That’s right. There’s three of them, by the way.’
‘Can you be a little more specific? Who are these girls and where are we talking to them and what are we supposed to talk to them about?’ Tomohiko asked, his voice growing a little louder.
‘It’ll be obvious when we get there. And as far as what you’ll be talking about – whatever comes up. You can talk about your hobbies or whatever you feel like. They’ll like that,’ Ryo said, smiling.
Tomohiko shook his head. He felt he had even less idea what they’d be doing now that it had been explained to him.
‘I’m out,’ Murashita said abruptly.
‘Yeah?’ Ryo said. He didn’t seem that surprised.
‘I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.’ Murashita stood.
‘I’m paying three thousand three hundred yen an hour,’ Ryo said, raising his coffee cup. ‘Three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, to be exact. That’s ten thousand in three hours. You can’t tell me you’ve had a better offer than that.’
‘OK, now I know it’s illegal,’ Murashita said. ‘Look, I stay out of that stuff.’
‘Nothing illegal about it. And as long as you keep this to yourselves, you won’t get any trouble. Guaranteed. And I can promise you one other thing: When you’re done, you’ll thank me. You can go read the help-wanted ads from cover to cover and you won’t find anything sweeter. Anyone would want to do this. But not everyone can. See, you two are the lucky ones. Because I spotted you.’
‘I don’t know…’ Murashita gave Tomohiko a hesitant look.
More than three thousand an hour, ten thousand in three hours – that was hard for Tomohiko to pass up. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I want you to tell me who we’re meeting and where. So I can psych myself up.’
‘There’s no need for any of that,’ Ryo said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘But fine, I’ll tell you once we’re outside. But I’m not taking just you, Tomohiko. If Murashita’s dropping out, I’m calling the whole thing off.’
Tomohiko looked at Murashita, who grimaced. ‘You sure we’re not going to get in trouble for this?’
‘Not unless you want to,’ Ryo said. Maybe it was the irritation in Tomohiko’s face that pushed Murashita, but eventually he nodded. ‘OK. I’m in.’
‘Smart boy.’ Ryo stood, thrusting one hand into the back pocket of his jeans to pull out a brown leather wallet. ‘Bill, please.’
The man raised an eyebrow and pointed at the table, making a circle with his finger.
‘Yeah, all together.’
The man scribbled on a piece of paper and passed it over to Ryo.
Tomohiko watched as Ryo pulled a thousand-yen note from his wallet and regretted not ordering a sandwich.
The kids didn’t wear uniforms at Tomohiko’s high school, thanks to the efforts of his predecessors back during the student protest days. They had organised and staged a demonstration against the uniform code and they had actually won. There was a standard, school-approved uniform you could buy, but it wasn’t compulsory, and only about one in five students bothered with it at all. Particularly after their first year, nearly everyone just wore whatever they felt like. It was also against the rules to get a perm, but hardly anyone paid any attention to that either. The same went for make-up, which was why some of the girls came in to school looking like they’d just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, an invisible cloud of perfume trailing them as they took their seats. As long as it didn’t interfere with the class, the teachers turned a blind eye.
Civilian clothes helped the kids blend in when they hit the town after school was out, too. If a shop assistant gave them trouble, they could just say they were college students. Which was why, on a sunny Friday like today, hardly any of them went straight home after school.
The only reason Tomohiko wasn’t out there today was because of the shoplifting incident. He was broke.
That was why Ryo had found him, earlier that afternoon, sitting in the back of the empty classroom, reading Playboy. Sensing someone, Tomohiko looked up.
Despite the fact that Ryo was in the same class as Tomohiko, they’d hardly exchanged a word in the two months since school started. Tomohiko wasn’t a recluse; on the contrary, he was already friends with about half the class. It was more Ryo who seemed to put up walls between himself and the other students.
‘You free today?’ Ryo spoke first.
‘Yeah, why?’
That’s when Ryo lowered his voice and told him about the job.
‘All you have to do is talk a little and I’ll pay you ten thousand. Not bad, huh?’
‘What, just talk?’
Ryo held out a piece of paper. ‘If you’re interested, be here, five o’clock.’
‘The girls should be there already,’ Ryo told them. When he wanted to he had a way of talking without moving his lips much.
They’d left the café and got on the subway. The carriage was mostly empty and there were seats to go around but Ryo remained standing by the door, possibly to avoid being overheard.
‘So who are they?’ Tomohiko asked.
‘Let’s call them… Ran, Sue, and Miki,’ Ryo chuckled, using the names of the members of a singing group that had broken up the year before.
‘Come on, you said you’d tell us.’
‘I didn’t promise names. And besides, it’s better for you if there aren’t any names. I haven’t told them who you are, either, or what school we go to. So let’s keep it that way.’
There was a hard light in Ryo’s eyes that made Tomohiko suddenly nervous.
‘What are we supposed to do if they ask?’ Murashita wanted to know.
‘I really don’t think they will but if they do just tell them it’s a secret. Or make up a fake name if you want.’
‘Just what kind of girls are these?’ Tomohiko asked, changing tack.
Unexpectedly, Ryo broke into a grin. ‘Housewives.’
‘Whoa! What?’
‘Bored housewives. No hobbies, no jobs, no one to talk to all day. They get frustrated. And their husbands sure as hell don’t talk to them. So they want to chat with some young guys. No harm in that, right?’
Tomohiko was reminded of a recent skin flick with something in the title about ‘apartment block wives’. He hadn’t actually seen it.
‘And they’re paying ten thousand, each, just to talk? I don’t know —’
‘Hey,’ Ryo cut him off, ‘don’t worry so much. They’re paying, just take the cash.’
‘So why me and Murashita?’
‘Because you got the look. I mean, you know you do, right?’
The way Ryo spoke was so unflinchingly straight, Tomohiko found himself stunned into silence. It was true he thought he had the face for the big screen if he wanted to go there. He dressed the part, too, despite being broke.
‘That’s why I said not everyone can do this job,’ Ryo said, nodding at the evident wisdom in his own words.
‘And they’re not old?’ Murashita said.
Ryo grinned. ‘Not that old. I’d say probably somewhere between thirty and forty?’
‘That’s pretty old, man. What are we supposed to talk to them about?’ Tomohiko was starting to get nervous.
‘Don’t even think about that. Just keep the conversation harmless and you’ll be fine. Oh, you’ll want to comb your hair when we get off the train. Get some hairspray on that too.’
‘I don’t have any,’ Tomohiko said, and Ryo opened his duffel bag to reveal a stash of hairspray and brushes. He even had a dryer.
‘I figured, why not go all out? Make you guys into some leading men, right?’
At Nanba station they switched from the Midosuji line to the Sennichimae line, taking that to Nishinagahori station. Tomohiko was familiar with the place. This was where the central library was located. In the summer, kids studying for college admission tests would be lined up to use the study rooms.
They walked right past the library, going several minutes further before Ryo stopped in front of a small, four-storey apartment building. ‘This is the place.’
Tomohiko looked up and swallowed.
‘What’s with the face? Try to loosen up.’
Ryo chuckled and Tomohiko absently massaged his cheekbones with his fingers.
There was no elevator, so they walked up the stairs and Ryo pressed the button by No 304.
‘Yes?’ came a woman’s voice over the intercom.
‘It’s me,’ Ryo said.
The door opened almost immediately. A woman wearing a skirt and black shirt with more than a few buttons open at the neck was holding the doorknob. She was short, with a small face and short hair.
‘Hi.’ Ryo smiled.
‘Hello,’ she replied. Her eyes were dark with make-up and two bright red round earrings hung from her ears. She might have been dressed young, but there was no mistaking her for a twenty-year-old. There were tiny wrinkles beneath her eyes.
She looked over at Tomohiko and Murashita behind him. He felt like she was scanning them from top to bottom, like the light on a photocopier.
‘Your friends?’ she asked Ryo.
‘I told you they were the real deal.’
The woman smiled at that. She opened the door wider and invited them inside.
Tomohiko followed Ryo in. A dining room and kitchen were just inside the entrance. There were chairs set at the table but no cupboards or pieces of furniture other than the shelves built into the wall, and no cooking utensils in sight, just a small, one-person refrigerator and a microwave sitting on top of that. It was clear that no one actually lived here. It must have been rented for the occasion.
The short-haired woman opened a sliding door to the back of the room, revealing a wide space that had been made by removing the divider between two smaller Japanese-style rooms. At one edge of the room sat a simple, steel-frame bed.
There was a television in the centre of the room where two more women were sitting. One had her brown hair in a ponytail. She was thin, but Tomohiko’s eyes were drawn to the ample swell beneath the breast of her knee-length jersey dress. The other woman was wearing a denim miniskirt and jacket. Her face was rounder and her shoulder-length hair had a gentle wave to it. She was probably the plainest of the three, but that might just have meant that the other two had on too much make-up.
‘We were wondering if you’d ever get here,’ the woman with the ponytail scolded Ryo. She didn’t sound particularly angry.
‘Sorry. It took a while to get everyone ready,’ Ryo apologised, smiling.
‘What, you had to lie to them about the old ladies they were going to meet?’
‘Never!’ Ryo said, stepping into the room. He sat down cross-legged on the tatami-matted floor and indicated with his eyes for Tomohiko and Murashita to join him.
The two other boys sat. Then, almost immediately, Ryo stood again and the short-haired woman took his place, leaving Tomohiko and Murashita surrounded.
‘Beer good?’ Ryo asked the women.
The three women agreed that beer would be great.
‘Beers all around, then,’ Ryo said, without waiting for Tomohiko and Murashita to reply. He went back into the kitchen, where they heard him taking bottles out of the refrigerator.
‘Do you drink a lot?’ ponytail asked Tomohiko.
‘Sometimes.’
‘I’ll bet you can hold your liquor,’ she said.
‘Not really.’ He tried to smile as he shook his head.
Tomohiko noticed the women exchanging glances. He wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but it seemed like they weren’t dissatisfied with Ryo’s selections. He breathed an inward sigh of relief.
It was a little dark in the room. Tomohiko glanced over at the window to see that the shutter had been pulled down on the outside. The only light in the room came from a single bulb that hung from the ceiling beneath a wicker lampshade. He assumed it was to hide the women’s age, but even in the dim light, when he looked at the woman with the ponytail, he could tell her skin was completely different from that of the girls in his class. It was even more obvious this close.
Ryo brought in three tall bottles of beer, five glasses, and a tray with peanuts and other snacks. Placing these in the middle of the room, he went right back to the kitchen. When he returned, he was carrying a large pizza.
‘You two are hungry, right?’ he said, looking at Tomohiko.
The women filled the boys’ glasses and everyone brought their glasses together in a toast that Tomohiko wasn’t convinced was necessary. Back in the kitchen, Ryo was going through his duffel bag. He didn’t seem to be joining them.
‘You have a girlfriend?’ ponytail asked Tomohiko.
‘Not right now.’
‘Really? Why not?’
‘Because… I don’t know, because I don’t have one.’
‘But I’m sure there’s lots of cute girls at school.’
‘I guess,’ Tomohiko said.
‘I know what it is. You’re picky. I bet you could have any girl you wanted. You should just start asking them out.’
‘I doubt that. Hardly any of them seem worth it, anyway.’
‘Really? That’s too bad,’ ponytail said, placing her right hand on Tomohiko’s thigh.
As Ryo had predicted, the conversation was completely harmless. They traded words without meaning until Tomohiko started wondering how it came to be that you could get paid for something like this, and why he hadn’t done it sooner.
The short-haired woman and ponytail talked the most. The one with the denim jacket just sipped her beer and listened. There was something a little stiff about her smile, Tomohiko thought.
The women were quick to keep the boys’ glasses filled to the brim. Tomohiko kept drinking whatever they poured. Ryo had told them on the way there that if they were offered alcohol or smokes they should just accept.
After about half an hour, Ryo interrupted, saying, ‘I don’t want to kill the conversation, but how about a little movie?’
Tomohiko grinned. He was already pretty buzzed.
‘Ooh, something new?’ the short-haired woman asked, her eyes gleaming.
‘Oh, it’s new all right. I hope you like it.’
Tomohiko had noticed Ryo back at the dining room table setting up a small projector and had just been about to ask what it was for.
‘What’s the movie?’ Tomohiko asked.
‘Watch and find out,’ Ryo said with a grin, flicking on the projector switch. A beam of light shot across the room where they sat, making a square on the wall in front of them. The white plaster of the wall made a pretty good movie screen. Ryo said, ‘Sorry, could you get the light?’
Tomohiko reached out and turned off the switch to the overhead light. At the same time Ryo started the film.
It was a colour 8mm reel. There was no sound, but it was obvious what kind of film it was from the first frame. The scene opened on a man and a woman, completely naked. Tomohiko gaped. There were parts of them plainly showing that he knew they never let you see in normal movies. He felt his heart beat suddenly faster. He had seen photos of this kind of stuff before, but this was his first time seeing the images move.
‘Wow, look at that!’
‘I didn’t know you could do it that way.’
The women were commenting and giggling. It was clear they weren’t talking to each other, but to Tomohiko and Murashita.
The woman with the ponytail leaned closer to Tomohiko and whispered in his ear, ‘Have you ever done something like that?’
‘No,’ he said, hearing the quavering in his own voice.
The first movie was over in about ten minutes. Ryo deftly swapped reels on the projector. While he was doing that, the short-haired woman said something like, ‘It’s pretty warm in here,’ and started taking off her shirt. She was only wearing a bra underneath. The light from the projector made her skin glow white.
The woman in the denim jacket stood abruptly. ‘Um, sorry —’ she said, then her voice faltered.
From beside the projector, Ryo asked, ‘You need to go?’
She nodded.
‘I see. That’s too bad.’
With everyone watching, the woman in the denim jacket stepped out through the dining room towards the door, taking care not to meet anyone’s eyes.
Once she’d left, Ryo closed the door behind her and came back into the room.
The short-haired woman was giggling. ‘I think the movie was too exciting for her.’
‘Maybe she just felt left out because you weren’t playing, Ryo?’ the woman with the ponytail said, lightly chastising him.
‘I was paying attention,’ Ryo said. ‘I just think she wasn’t ready.’
‘That’s a shame. After we invited her and everything,’ the short-haired woman said.
‘Who cares?’ said ponytail. ‘Let’s watch the next one.’
‘Right away.’ Ryo flicked the switch on the projector again.
It was halfway through the second show when ponytail took off her dress and leaned over until her bare arm was against Tomohiko’s. In a soft voice she whispered, ‘You can touch, if you want to.’
Tomohiko felt all his blood go to his crotch, though he wasn’t sure whether it was because there was a practically naked woman right next to him, or because of the movie. All he knew was he wasn’t getting paid just to make small talk.
His mouth was dry, but he forced himself to swallow. It wasn’t that he wanted to run away from the job. He just wasn’t sure he could do it.
Tomohiko was still a virgin.
Tomohiko’s house was near Bishoen Station on the Hanwa line, a little two-storey wooden house on the first corner after a short walk down a shopping street.
‘You’re back late. Dinner?’ Tomohiko’s mom asked when he came in just before ten. He used to get an earful if he was home after seven, but that had changed since high school started. Now his mom hardly spoke to him at all.
‘Already ate,’ he called back, before going into his room and shutting the door.
Tomohiko’s room was a small room on the ground floor. Originally a storage space, when he started high school his parents had cleaned out their things, repainted the walls, and given it to him.
He immediately sat in his chair and flicked the ‘on’ switch on the large contraption squatting atop the desk. This was a daily ritual. The contraption was a personal computer. If you were to buy it outright in a store it would have cost nearly a million yen. Of course he hadn’t bought it. His father, who worked at an electronics manufacturer, had used his connections to get one on the cheap in the hope that he’d be able to learn how to use it but he’d given up after two or three attempts. When Tomohiko showed interest, the computer became his, and after poring over books and hours of trial and error, he was now able to write simple programs.
Tomohiko turned on the tape recorder sitting next to the humming computer and tapped on the keyboard. The tape recorder lurched into motion, a warble of electronic static emitting from its speaker.
The tape recorder was for memory storage. Longer programs would be converted to magnetic signals, recorded on the cassette tape, and then read back into the computer’s RAM when it needed to access them. Cassette tapes were a huge improvement over the old punch cards, but it still took a considerable amount of time to read in data.
Tomohiko stepped away from his desk, returning to the keyboard twenty minutes later. He smiled. The shimmering fourteen-inch monochrome monitor displayed the words:
WESTWORLD
And below that:
PLAY? YES=1 NO=0
Tomohiko pressed the 1 key and Return.
Westworld was Tomohiko’s first creation, a simple computer game inspired by the Yul Brynner film. The game featured enemies that chased you, the player, as you navigated the twisting corridors of a maze in search of the exit. As he played, Tomohiko thought up ideas to make gameplay even more interesting. Whenever he had a particularly good one, he would interrupt the game and start rewriting the program. What had begun as a very barebones game grew increasingly complex and the joy he felt was, in a way, like watching something living grow.
For a while his fingers sped over the numeric keypad, controlling the movements of the character on screen. But though his fingers moved as fast as ever, he was having trouble getting his mind into the game. He quickly grew bored. It didn’t even bother him that much when he made a slight error and was caught.
Tomohiko sighed and pulled away from the desk. Leaning back in his chair, he looked up at the wall where he had hung a swimsuit poster. The barely concealed breasts and thighs filled his vision and, imagining touching that water-flecked skin, he felt a stirring in his groin, despite his world-changing experience of only hours before.
Yes, it had been world-changing, he decided, revisiting it in his mind. The intensity of it had faded somewhat, but he was certain it wasn’t a dream or his imagination running wild.
The sex had started after the third 8mm reel, Murashita on a futon with the short-haired woman, Tomohiko on the bed with ponytail. The two high school boys did as they were instructed, as their partners led them through the first sexual experience of their lives. (It was after they left the apartment that Murashita had confided to Tomohiko that he, too, had been a virgin.)
Tomohiko came twice inside ponytail. The first time he hadn’t really been sure what was going on. But the second time he’d gained enough distance from the act to fully appreciate it. The energy of a release he’d never felt masturbating blasted through his entire body and he felt as though he must have drained himself of semen by the time it was over.
Part way through the women had discussed swapping partners but ponytail hadn’t seemed that interested, so it never came to pass.
It was Ryo who suggested they wrap things up. Tomohiko glanced at the clock and saw that exactly three hours had passed since their arrival at the apartment.
Ryo hadn’t participated. Nor had the women invited him to, which made it seem as though this had already been established beforehand. Yet he did not leave the apartment, either. While Tomohiko and Murashita were busy entwining themselves into sweaty little piles of limbs, breasts and buttocks, Ryo sat at the dining room table. After Tomohiko came the first time he had looked towards the kitchen in a daze to see Ryo in the dim light, staring at the wall, quietly smoking a cigarette.
Once they’d left, Ryo took them to a nearby café where he handed them eight thousand five hundred yen each. The boys protested almost in unison that they’d been promised ten thousand.
‘I deducted expenses. You had beer and pizza, right? You got off cheap at one thousand five hundred.’
Murashita agreed this was reasonable, so Tomohiko couldn’t really protest. That, and he was still flying high after his first experience with a woman.
‘So,’ Ryo said, a gleam in his eye. ‘You boys have a good time? If you’re interested, this could be a regular gig. I expect to hear from the ladies again before long.’ He beamed with satisfaction for a moment, then his face hardened and he added, ‘Just one thing: I don’t want you meeting them on your own, got it? We need to do this businesslike to avoid any accidents. Get any funny ideas and try to solo this, and I guarantee you things will go badly. I want you to promise me right now you won’t meet either of them on your own. Deal?’
Again Murashita promised right away, which made it hard for Tomohiko to even feign hesitation. ‘Fine. No meeting them on our own,’ he had said.
Tomohiko could still see the way Ryo’s lips had curled in a satisfied smirk.
He stuck his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a piece of paper, which he laid on the desk in front of him. It was a telephone number, with a name written beneath it: Yuko. Ponytail had slipped it into his hand just before they left.
Namie Nishiguchi was a little drunk. She wondered how many years it had been since she had been out drinking alone and couldn’t come up with an answer.
That’s how long it’s been.
No one had so much as tried to hit on her.
She went back to her apartment and turned on the lights, catching her own reflection in the sliding glass doors that opened out on to the veranda. She’d left the curtains open, she realised. She walked over to the doors, acutely aware of her reflected denim skirt and jacket and red T-shirt. None of it matched and it looked terrible on her. She could pull out her old clothes all she wanted in an attempt to look younger, but the result was painfully inadequate. Those high school boys, she was sure, would agree.
She closed the curtain and tossed off her clothes. Down to her underwear, she sat in front of her dresser, seeing a woman’s face looking out of the mirror at her. The lacklustre skin, the eyes devoid of any sparkle that she could see. It was the face of a woman who lived without purpose; aged without purpose.
She reached over and grabbed her handbag. Fishing out cigarettes and a lighter, she lit one and blew smoke at her dresser mirror. The smoke cast a gauze-like veil over her face for a moment and she found herself wishing she could always wear a veil like that. It would hide the wrinkles.
The film she’d half-watched in the apartment flickered in the back of her mind.
‘C’mon, you should try it! Just once can’t hurt!’
That had been Kazuko Kawada, her co-worker, two days earlier.
‘You won’t regret it, I mean that. Anything has to be better than the usual humdrum, right? Don’t worry. You’ll have fun. Women our age need to be around boys every once in a while or we get stuck in a rut.’
Normally, she would have refused on the spot. But there was something pushing at Namie’s back this time. The idea that she was ready for change – that she had to make a change, or she’d regret it for the rest of her life – had been growing on her recently. Hesitantly, she accepted the invitation, much to Kazuko’s apparent delight.
And yet Namie had fled. She’d stood on the threshold to another, bizarre world, and found herself unable to step in. Meanwhile Kazuko and the other woman had practically been oozing pheromones in front of those boys. It made her want to vomit.
She didn’t think what they were doing was bad. In fact, she understood how, for some women, what they were doing could be genuinely refreshing. She just wasn’t that kind of woman.
Her eyes went to the calendar on the wall. She’d wasted her day off. When she imagined her boss and the other women needling her, asking her if she’d gone on a date, she felt her stomach sink. I’ll go to work early tomorrow, get there before anyone else does. That way I’ll be working when they come in and they won’t talk to me. I’ll just set my alarm a little earlier than usual…
Namie ran the brush through her hair two or three more times before her hand suddenly stopped. My watch! She opened her bag and dug around inside, but couldn’t find it.
Great!
Namie bit her lip. That apartment was the last place she wanted to leave her watch.
It wasn’t a particularly expensive watch, which was why she never thought twice about where she wore it. She always imagined she wouldn’t care if she lost it, but after years of failing to lose it, she’d grown attached to the thing.
She remembered taking it off after going to the bathroom. She’d been washing her hands at the basin and taken it off from force of habit.
She reached out for the phone to call Kazuko. If she didn’t know where it was, she’d have to call that Ryo kid.
She knew Kazuko would get on her case about her walking out that afternoon, but she had to do something. She checked the number in her address book and dialled.
Fortunately, Kazuko was at home. ‘Well, well,’ she said, more chiding than surprised.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Namie said. ‘I just… I just couldn’t get in the mood.’
‘It’s OK, really,’ Kazuko said. ‘It was a bit much for you, I understand.’
Which means you think I’m a coward. Namie swallowed her pride and told her about the watch.
‘Sorry, we didn’t find anything,’ was Kazuko’s reply. ‘I’m sure the others would have told me if they had.’
Namie sighed over the phone.
‘Are you sure you left it there? Should I get someone to check?’
‘No, that’s all right. You know, maybe I left it someplace else after all.’
‘OK, if you’re sure. If you don’t find it, let me know.’
‘I will. Sorry to call so late.’
Namie hung up, a big sigh escaping her lips. What do I do now?
She could just give up on the watch. Had she left it anywhere else, she already would have. Anywhere but that apartment. Why had she worn that watch anyway? She had other watches.
After a few more drags on her cigarette, she put it out, her eyes fixed on a single point in space.
There was a way out of this. Namie worked it through in her head. It was crazy, but maybe not too crazy, and not that hard to pull off, either. At the very least, it wouldn’t be dangerous.
The clock on her dresser read just past ten-thirty.
It was after eleven when Namie left her apartment. Late to avoid being seen by too many people, but not so late she’d miss the last train home.
The subway was nearly empty. She sat, seeing herself reflected in the glass on the other side of the car. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses, a sweatshirt and jeans – nothing that would stand out, but also nothing to hide her thirty-plus years. She felt much more comfortable like this, she decided.
At Nishinagahori she walked down the street she’d taken with Kazuko earlier that day. Kazuko, who had been practically frolicking the whole way, wondering what kind of boys would come. Namie had joined in her laughter, even as she felt her enthusiasm begin to fizzle out.
She was able to find the apartment without any difficulty. She went up the stairs and stood in front of No 304. She tried the doorbell, her heart beginning to race in her chest.
There was no answer. She tried again, with the same result.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately tensed, looking down the hall from side to side to ensure the coast was clear before she opened the panel to the water meter off to one side of the door.
‘Once they get to know you, they show you where the key’s hidden,’ Kazuko had told her that afternoon.
Namie groped with her fingers behind the water pipe and touched metal. Another sigh of relief escaped her lips.
She opened the door cautiously. The light inside was on, but there were no shoes in the entranceway. Guess no one’s home. Even so, she was careful not to make a sound as she stepped into the apartment. The dining room table, clean last she had seen it, was littered with objects. They looked like some kind of tiny electronic devices and meters, though Namie wasn’t sure exactly what. Possibly someone had been fixing a stereo, or even the projector.
Regardless, it was clearly a work in progress. She swallowed. She would have to find that watch before whoever it was came back. She first went into the bathroom and searched around the basin. But the watch wasn’t where it should have been. She wondered if someone had found it, and if so, why they hadn’t given it to Kazuko.
She grew worried. One of the high school students might have found it and not told anyone. Maybe they wanted a keepsake. Or they might have thought they could get some quick cash for it at a pawnshop.
Namie’s skin prickled. She was getting angry, but she didn’t know what to do.
She took a few deep breaths and considered the possibility that she might have been mistaken. Maybe she hadn’t left the watch by the basin. She could have brought it back to the room with her and set it down somewhere.
Leaving the bathroom, she went into the back room with the tatami mats on the floor. The room was perfectly clean. Probably the work of that boy they called ‘Ryo’. The boy was a mystery to her. Obviously young, yet somehow aged on the inside far beyond his years.
The dividers that had been removed during the day were back in place, so she couldn’t see the half of the room with the bed. Gingerly, she slid the divider open.
The first thing she saw was a television screen. It was sitting in the middle of the room, displaying an image that was clearly not regular television. She leaned forward.
Several polygonal shapes were moving on the screen. At first she thought it was a simple test pattern, like the ones they showed on stations that had finished broadcasting for the day, but she soon realised that wasn’t it. Something shaped like a rocket seemed to be moving through a field of circular and square objects that drifted across its path.
A videogame, she thought. She had played Space Invaders a few times herself. But the way the shapes were moving on the screen wasn’t as smooth as the way the Space Invaders moved. Yet there was still something compelling about the way the rocket sped past the obstacles. It was so engrossing that she didn’t notice the sound of footsteps behind her.
‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a videogame fan,’ said a voice, and Namie gave a little cry of surprise. She whirled around to see Ryo standing in the room behind her.
‘I – I’m sorry,’ she managed to say. ‘I left something here, and, well, Mrs Kawada told me where the key was and —’
The boy didn’t seem to be listening to her. Pushing her to one side, he sat down in front of the screen. Then, picking up the keyboard on the table and putting it on his knees, he started typing with both hands.
Soon the motion of the objects on the screen changed. The obstacles began to move faster and became more varied in shape. Ryo kept hitting the keys as the rocket sped past obstacle after obstacle.
It took Namie a few moments to realise the rocket’s motions were no longer automated. Ryo was controlling it now, typing instructions to move it forward, backward, and side to side across the screen. Finally, the rocket hit one of the round obstacles head on. The rocket disappeared, and in its place a large X grew on the screen, followed by the words:
GAME OVER
Ryo swore under his breath. ‘Still not fast enough,’ he said. ‘Not even close.’
Namie had no idea what he was talking about. She knew only that she wanted to leave the apartment as soon as possible. ‘I should probably go,’ she said.
Without looking around, Ryo asked, ‘You find what you’re looking for?’
‘I guess I must’ve left it someplace else. I’m sorry.’
He grunted.
‘Goodnight,’ Namie said. ‘I’ll show myself out.’
She turned and was walking towards the door when she heard him behind her.
‘You’ve been working at that bank for ten years? I never took you for a banker.’
She stopped and turned to see him standing up. He held out his right hand, the watch dangling from his fingers. It had been a gift from her employer, engraved with her name and the name of the bank where she worked.
‘It’s yours, isn’t it?’
For a moment she almost tried to deny it, but then changed her mind. ‘Thanks.’
Ryo walked back to the dining room table in silence. In the midst of the electronics was a shopping bag from the supermarket. He sat down, reached into the bag, and took out two cans of beer and a pre-packaged meal.
‘Dinner?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he seemed to get an idea and lifted one of the cans. ‘Beer?’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Right.’ He opened the can, sending a tiny spray into the air. He took a sip before it could spill over the side, all the while paying absolutely no attention to Namie.
She grew bolder. ‘You’re not angry?’ she asked. ‘That I came in here, I mean?’
Ryo’s eyes turned slowly in her direction. ‘Nope.’ He began unwrapping the dinner.
Namie could have left right then, but something held her back. He knew where she worked now, but she still knew nothing about this boy. More, she was afraid that if she left without saying anything, the knot she’d carried in her stomach since that afternoon might never go away.
‘And you’re not angry about before?’
‘When you walked out on us?’ He shook his head. ‘Nah. It happens.’
‘It wasn’t that I was scared,’ Namie said. ‘I was never really that interested from the start, but I felt like I had to accept the invitation —’
Ryo was waving his chopsticks at her. ‘Look, I really don’t care.’
Namie’s mouth snapped shut and she stared at the boy. He ignored her and began to eat. His meal looked like some variation on fried pork cutlets with rice.
‘Maybe I will have a beer,’ Namie said.
He jerked his head to indicate the remaining can was hers. Sitting down across from him, she opened it and drank a gulp.
‘You live here?’ she asked.
Ryo ate in silence.
‘You don’t live with your parents?’ she asked again.
‘What is this, an interrogation?’ He snorted.
‘Why do you do what you do? Is it the money?’
‘Is there anything else?’
‘You don’t have sex?’
‘I do when I need to. If you hadn’t gone home today, I would have done it with you.’
‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t have to, then.’
‘I wasn’t glad to lose the money.’
‘Look at you, a big businessman. This is all just a game to you, isn’t it? You’re like a little boy.’
‘What did you say?’ Ryo glared at her. ‘Say that again.’
Namie swallowed. She hadn’t expected the look she was seeing in his eyes, and she felt embarrassed to have flinched.
‘I said you’re a little boy. What do you think these ladies are, your toys? No wonder you don’t have sex with them. I bet you can’t even get them off before you blow your wad.’
Ryo took another sip of beer. No sooner had he set down the can than he was out of his chair, rushing her with feral speed.
‘Wait! What are you —’ she managed to shout before he had her off the chair and on her back in the living room. She hit the tatami mats hard enough to knock the wind out of her and leave her gasping for breath.
She tried to sit up and he was on her again. He’d already undone the zipper on his jeans.
‘You want this? C’mon! Use whatever lips you want, baby, I ain’t picky!’ He gripped her face in his hands and thrust his penis towards it. ‘What’s the matter? I’m gonna blow my wad fast, right? Show me what you got!’
His penis was growing erect, twitching. She saw a vein in clear relief running down its side before she managed to get her hands on his thighs and push, struggling to turn her head away.
‘What’s the matter?’ he growled. ‘My little-boy cock scare you?’
Namie closed her eyes and groaned. ‘Stop – please, I’m sorry.’
Several seconds later, she was released to fall back on the floor. Ryo was walking back towards the dining room table, zipping his fly as he sat down and went back to eating. It was as if nothing had happened. Only the way he jabbed at his food with his chopsticks gave any hint of his irritation.
Namie steadied her breath and smoothed back her hair. Her heart was still racing. Her eyes flickered to the television in the next room. The same two words still hung on the screen:
GAME OVER
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘There are so many other jobs you could do. Why this?’
‘I’m just selling something people want. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Just selling something… right.’ She stood and walked towards the door, shaking her head. ‘I guess I’m too old to understand.’
She was past the table and at the door putting on her shoes when he called out to her. ‘Hey, lady.’
She looked around, one foot still raised in the air.
‘Interested in a job opportunity?’
‘What kind of opportunity?’
‘Nothing crazy,’ he said. ‘I got something needs selling.’
It was Tuesday of the second week in July and summer vacation was so close Tomohiko could taste it in the air.
He went up to get his graded English exam when his name was called and immediately wished he hadn’t. He’d been ready for a disappointment, but this was worse than he’d imagined. Every subject this term was the same. He didn’t have to look hard for the reason: he hadn’t studied for exams one bit. This was unusual for him. He might have a little bit of a bad streak, and there was the shoplifting every now and then, but for the most part Tomohiko took school seriously.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. He’d sat down at his desk to take a stab at learning the bare minimum he thought he’d need to pass his exams. But his mind was so thoroughly elsewhere that no matter how hard he attempted to focus on his studying, his thoughts dragged him away.
Which all led to the test result he held in his hand.
Better not let Mom see this one. He sighed and crammed the paper into his bag.
After classes Tomohiko headed to the café in the lounge at the New Japan Air Hotel in Shinsaibashi. It was a sunny, spacious place, where you could look out through large windows at the hotel’s central courtyard.
As always, Yuko Hanaoka was there, reading a book at a corner table. She had on a white hat that hung low over thick-rimmed sunglasses.
‘Why are you hiding your face? What’s up?’ Tomohiko said, sitting across from her.
The waitress came over before she had a chance to respond. Tomohiko was about to wave her away, when Yuko whispered, ‘No, order something. I want to talk here.’
Tomohiko raised an eyebrow at the tension in her voice and ordered an iced coffee.
Yuko reached out for her Campari soda, already two-thirds gone, and drained the rest. She sighed. ‘How long till school’s out?’
‘End of the week.’
‘You working over summer vacation?’
‘You mean… my regular job?’
She smiled a little. ‘Of course. What else would I be asking about?’
‘I don’t plan to, no. Lot of hours, not a lot of money. Why bother?’
She pulled a pack of Mild Sevens out of her white handbag. Lifting the cigarette to her lips, she paused, a flash of irritation crossing her face.
Tomohiko’s iced coffee came. He drank half of it down in one gulp. He was terrifically thirsty.
‘Why aren’t we going to the room like always?’ he asked in a low voice.
Yuko lit her cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. Then she stubbed it out in the glass ashtray even though there was hardly a centimetre of ash at the end.
‘There’s a problem.’ She glanced around the café then stared right at him. ‘I think the old man found out.’
‘What old man?’
‘My husband, you idiot.’ She shrugged as though she were trying to make light of it and failing.
‘You mean he found out about us?’
‘Not everything. But it’s only a matter of time before he does.’
‘Whoa…’ Tomohiko felt the blood rush to his face.
‘It’s my fault,’ Yuko said. ‘I should have been more careful.’
‘How’d he find out?’
‘A friend of my husband’s saw me talking with a young man. Having a little too much fun. You get the picture.’
Tomohiko looked around, suddenly conscious of the other people in the café.
Yuko chuckled. ‘According to him, he suspected before his friend said anything. I was acting different, he says. He’s right, you know. I do feel like I’ve changed in a lot of ways since I started seeing you. Maybe that’s why I forgot to be careful.’ She scratched her head through her hat.
‘So, what, did he interrogate you or something?’
‘He wanted to know who it was, of course. He wanted a name.’
‘You told him?’
‘Of course not. I’m not that stupid.’
‘I wasn’t saying that!’ Tomohiko drank the rest of his iced coffee. Still thirsty, he gulped down his glass of water.
‘I just played dumb. He doesn’t have proof. Not yet, anyway. He’ll get it, though. Knowing him, he might even hire a private detective.’
‘That’s not good.’
‘No, it’s not. And there was something else I noticed.’
‘What now?’
‘My address book. I think he was looking at it. I had it hidden in my dresser drawer… it had to be him.’
‘Don’t tell me you wrote my name in there.’
‘No name. Just a phone number. But he might have figured it out anyway.’
‘Can you get someone’s name and address from a number?’
‘I don’t know. I bet if you really needed to you could find a way. He’s pretty well-connected, my husband.’
Tomohiko was beginning to form an image of Yuko’s husband in his mind and it frightened him. He’d never imagined what it might feel like to be the target of a grown man’s anger. Now that he knew, he didn’t like it.
‘So what do we do?’ Tomohiko asked, his mouth already dry again.
‘I don’t think we should see each other. Not for a while at least.’
Tomohiko nodded listlessly. Even as a junior in high school he saw the sense in what she was saying.
‘But, since we’re here anyway,’ she said, downing the last drop of her Campari soda and picking up the bill, ‘shall we?’
Their relationship had already been going on for a month, beginning with the encounter at the apartment. Yuko Hanaoka had been the woman with the ponytail.
It wasn’t that he’d fallen for her, Tomohiko told himself. He just couldn’t forget how his first time had felt. When he masturbated, it was her he’d see in his mind’s eye. The sheer intensity of the act had swept away all his other fantasies. He’d lasted three days before he called her. She was only too eager to suggest they meet.
He’d first learned her full name between the sheets of a hotel bed. She was thirty-two years old. Tomohiko told her things, too. His real name, what school he went to, his home phone number. He tried not to think about his promise to Ryo. The reality of it was that her skills in bed had disarmed him to the point where he had trouble thinking straight about anything.
‘It was my friend who invited me to that party,’ she told him. ‘You remember, the one with short hair? Anyway, it sounded like she’d been a few times before, but that was my first time. I was so nervous. I’m glad it was you, Tomohiko,’ she said, snuggling under his arm. She knew how to make him melt like that.
Tomohiko was surprised to hear that she had paid twenty thousand yen for the party. That meant Ryo had taken more than half for himself. No wonder he had been so businesslike about the whole thing.
Tomohiko met with Yuko two or three times a week. Her husband was always busy, she said, so she could come home a little late without raising any suspicions. On her way out of the hotel she would slip him five thousand yen, telling him it was his ‘allowance’.
Even though he knew that sleeping with another man’s wife was wrong, Tomohiko was drunk on the attention and the sex. Their regular routine continued, even when his finals loomed close. Which was what had landed him in his current quandary with his grades.
‘I don’t know if I like not being able to see you,’ Tomohiko said. They were in bed.
‘You think I’m happy about it?’ she said from beneath him.
‘Isn’t there something we can do?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t think now is the best time.’
‘So when will be a good time?’
‘I don’t know that either. The sooner the better, of course. I’m not getting any younger.’
Tomohiko embraced her slender body and went at it again. Thinking this might be their last time, he didn’t want to leave anything undone. He wanted to pour all of his energy into her. Again and again she screamed, each time arching her body backwards like a drawn bow, her hands and legs extending, trembling.
It was after the third round that she announced in her usual languid voice that she had to go and pee.
‘Sure,’ he said, rolling away. She sat up in bed, naked, but then she gave a little gasp and lay back down again. Tomohiko thought she must have felt faint. It had happened many times before. But this time, she wasn’t moving. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep and gave her shoulder a shake. She didn’t stir. A horrible scenario flashed through Tomohiko’s mind. He got out of bed and tried tapping her eyelids with his fingers. There was no response.
He began to tremble violently.
No way. This isn’t happening!
He held his hand to her chest. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat.
Tomohiko was almost home when he realised he still had the hotel room key in his pocket. He gritted his teeth. If the key wasn’t in the room the hotel staff would suspect something. He shook his head. They’ll suspect something when they find a woman’s dead body in their bed.
Tomohiko had considered calling the hospital from the hotel room. But then he would have to admit that he was with her. He couldn’t do that. Besides, what was the point in calling a doctor, he thought. She was already gone.
He had changed quickly, gathered everything that was his, and fled the hotel, trying to avoid everyone he could on his way out.
He was already on the subway when the realisation dawned on him that running hadn’t solved a thing. There was someone who knew about him already, possibly the worst person of all: Yuko’s husband. He would put two and two together and realise that a high school student named Tomohiko Sonomura had been with his wife and he would tell the police. Once the police were on it, the truth would come out in a matter of hours.
It’s over, he thought. Once word gets out, I’m ruined for life.
He arrived home to find his mother and younger sister in the middle of dinner. He told them he’d already eaten and went straight to his room. Sitting at his desk, he thought about Ryo Kirihara.
If the police found out about Yuko, they’d find out about what was going on in that apartment and that would be bad news for Ryo. What he was doing was enabling underage prostitution. He was a pimp – even if his prostitutes happened to be boys, and his johns women in their thirties.
I need to talk to him.
He ran out of his room and picked up the hallway phone. The television was still blaring in the living room. He prayed that whatever his mom and sister were watching, it was interesting enough to hold their attention for five minutes.
Ryo answered immediately. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, his tone revealing that he already expected something was up.
‘It’s bad,’ was all Tomohiko could say before his tongue twisted in his mouth.
‘What’s bad?’
‘It’s hard to say over the phone. And it’s kind of a long story.’
Ryo was silent. Finally he said, ‘This better not be about those women.’
Tomohiko’s mind went blank. All he could hear was Ryo sighing on the other end of the line.
‘Right. Let me guess: ponytail?’
‘Yeah.’
Ryo sighed again. ‘No wonder she hasn’t been coming lately. So, what, she work out a business deal with you?’
‘No, there was no deal.’
‘What was there, then?’
Tomohiko rubbed his mouth. He couldn’t think of what to say.
‘Whatever. You’re right, this isn’t something to talk about over the phone. Where are you now?’
‘Home.’
‘Be there in about twenty minutes,’ Ryo said and hung up the phone without waiting for a reply.
Tomohiko went back to his room and tried to think. But his head was a swirl and time kept slipping by.
It was twenty minutes later on the dot when Ryo arrived. Tomohiko went to the door and opened it. ‘Hey, you ride a bike?’ he asked, nodding towards Ryo’s motorcycle out front.
‘That’s hardly important right now,’ Ryo said, pushing past him.
They went into his room and Tomohiko sat at the desk. Ryo sat cross-legged on the floor, right next to a square of blue cloth covering a lump about the size of a small television. This was Tomohiko’s personal computer – his pride and joy and usually the first thing he’d show friends who came to visit.
‘OK, talk,’ Ryo said.
‘I’m not sure where to start.’
‘How about we start with the part where you broke your promise.’
Tomohiko cleared his throat and slowly began to tell the story of what had happened.
Ryo listened without expression, but it was clear that he was angry. When Tomohiko got to the events of that day, his mouth gaped open.
‘Dead? You mean she actually died?’
‘Yeah. I checked her, man, more than once. I’m pretty sure.’
Ryo spat under his breath. ‘That alcoholic bitch.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. She must’ve got too excited and it got to her heart. That’s what happens when you’re over forty and you drink like you’re in college.’
‘But she was only thirty-two,’ Tomohiko said.
Ryo broke into a grin. ‘Idiot. No, trust me. She was an old lady with a thing for little boys. You’re the sixth I introduced her to, you know.’
‘But I – but she never said —’
‘Oh please, really?’ Ryo said, his look of disappointment turning swiftly into a glare. ‘Where is she now?’
Tomohiko summed up the situation as quickly as he could, adding that he was pretty sure there was no way they’d be able to fool the police on this one.
Ryo groaned. ‘OK, I think I get the picture. If her husband was on to you, you don’t really have many options. Guess you’re going to have to let the police question you,’ he said, and the way he said it made it sound like an order.
‘I know,’ Tomohiko said. ‘But I have to tell the truth. Everything. Even about the apartment.’
Ryo frowned and rubbed his temples. ‘That’s not going to work. That makes things a lot more complicated, understand?’
‘But if I don’t tell them about it, how will I explain how we met?’
‘Easy. Tell them you were hanging out in Shinsaibashi and she picked you up.’
‘I’m not sure I can lie to the police like that. I mean, what if they press me hard and I slip up?’
‘Well, if you do…’ Ryo slapped his hands down on his knees. ‘Then I’m sure the people backing me will have something to say about it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You think I’m running this operation solo?’
‘Yakuza?’
‘Something like that.’ Ryo stretched his neck to both sides until it made an audible pop. The next instant, he had his hands on Tomohiko’s collar. ‘Listen,’ Ryo snarled. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you won’t say anything more than you have to, or you’re gonna learn there’s people in this world a hell of a lot scarier than the cops.’
Tomohiko swallowed.
Ryo released him and stood, his speech finished.
‘Ryo…’
‘What?’
‘I – never mind.’ Tomohiko’s eyes went down to the floor.
Ryo snorted and turned to leave, knocking the cloth off Tomohiko’s computer.
‘Hey,’ Ryo said, his eyes widening. ‘This yours?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not a bad rig,’ Ryo said, kneeling down to examine it more closely. ‘You program?’
‘Basic, mostly.’
‘What about assembly language?’
‘A little,’ he said, startled that Ryo knew about computers.
‘You write anything big?’
‘Just a game or two.’
‘Show me.’
‘What? Now?’
‘Just show me,’ Ryo said, grabbing Tomohiko’s collar again, this time with one hand.
Blanching, Tomohiko pulled a folder off of his bookshelf and handed it to Ryo. This was a collection of flow charts and code, describing the programs he’d written in detail.
Ryo pored over it for a few minutes. Then he closed the file and, at the same time, his eyes. He sat without moving for a long moment.
Tomohiko almost asked him if he was OK, when he saw Ryo’s lips move as if he was talking to himself.
‘Tomohiko,’ Ryo said suddenly. ‘I need your help.’
‘What?’
Ryo turned to look him square in the face. ‘You do exactly what I say and I’ll get you out of this. You won’t have to talk to the police. That woman dying and you will have nothing to do with each other.’
‘How?’
‘Can you follow instructions?’
‘Yeah, sure, anything,’ Tomohiko said.
‘What’s your blood type?’
‘What?’
‘Your blood type, are you deaf?’
‘O.’
‘Perfect. You used a glove, right?’
‘A condom? Yeah, of course.’
‘Good,’ Ryo stood back up and extended a hand toward Tomohiko. ‘The key, please.’
It was in the evening two days later when the detectives came. There was one in his forties wearing a white open-necked shirt, and another wearing a light-blue polo shirt.
‘We’d like to have a few words with your son, Tomohiko,’ open-neck asked his mom. He didn’t say what it was about. Tomohiko’s mom was aghast.
They took Tomohiko to a nearby park. The sun had already set but the benches were still warm from the day. Tomohiko sat down next to open-neck. Polo shirt remained standing, facing him.
Tomohiko had tried to avoid saying anything on their way there. He just let himself look as nervous as he really was. ‘It’s suspicious if a high school student acts like it’s no big deal to talk to detectives.’ That had been Ryo’s advice when he briefed him two days before.
Open-neck held up a photograph. ‘You know this woman?’
It was Yuko. It looked like it might have been taken on a vacation somewhere. She was standing with the ocean behind her, smiling at the camera. Her hair was cut a little shorter than he remembered it.
‘That’s Mrs Hanaoka,’ Tomohiko said.
‘But you know her first name too, don’t you?’
‘Yuko, I think.’
‘That’s right. Yuko Hanaoka.’ The detective put the photograph away. ‘How do you know her?’
‘Whatcha mean?’ Tomohiko said, mumbling his words a little. ‘I just know her.’
‘Which is why I’m asking how you know her,’ open-neck said. He spoke softly, but there was a ring of irritation to his voice.
‘My advice,’ polo shirt said, ‘be honest, kid.’ He had a mean smile on his face.
‘I was in Shinsaibashi, ’bout a month ago. She came up and talked to me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That if I was free, maybe I could get some tea with her.’
The detectives exchanged glances.
‘Did you go?’ open-neck asked.
‘Yeah. She said it was her treat.’
Polo shirt snorted at that.
‘So you had tea, what then?’
‘That’s it. We hung out at a café for a bit, and then I went home.’
‘OK. That wasn’t the only time you met her, though, was it?’
‘No… We met twice after that.’
‘How did that go down?’
‘She called saying she was in Minami and if I had some time, maybe I could come down and we could have tea again. Something like that.’
‘Your mom answer the phone?’
‘No, I did. Both times.’
That answer didn’t seem to please the detective. He stuck out his lower lip and asked, ‘So you went?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened then? Don’t tell me you just had tea?’
‘Actually,’ Tomohiko looked up at him, ‘I had iced coffee. And we talked a little. Then I went home.’
‘And that was everything?’
‘Yeah. Was I supposed to do something else?’
Open-neck scratched his head and stared at Tomohiko, trying to read his expression. ‘Look, your school’s coed, right? You must have a girlfriend or two. Why bother hanging out with some old lady?’
‘I had some free time, that’s all.’
The detective grunted. ‘What about cash? She give you anything?’
‘I didn’t take anything, sir.’
‘You mean she offered you money, but you didn’t take it?’
‘That’s right. The second time we met, she tried to give me five thousand yen, but I didn’t take it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It just… I hadn’t done anything to earn it, I guess.’
Open-neck shook his head and shot polo shirt a look of disbelief.
‘Where was this café where you met?’ polo shirt asked.
‘The lounge at the New Japan Air Hotel.’
Here he told the truth, as he was pretty sure one of Yuko’s husband’s friends had seen them there.
‘So you’re telling us you went to a hotel just to have tea? No going up to the room afterwards for some hanky-panky?’ polo shirt asked, his voice rough. Clearly he didn’t think much of any high school student who entertained bored housewives to pass the time.
‘No, we just drank and talked. Like I said.’
Polo shirt snorted.
‘How about the night before last?’ open-neck asked. ‘Where did you go after school?’
‘The night before last?’ Tomohiko wet his lips. This was it. ‘I was hanging out at Asahiya – you know, the bookstore in Tennoji.’
‘And what time did you go home?’
‘Seven-thirty.’
‘And you were home after that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You see anyone other than your family?’
‘A friend came over around eight. He’s in my class at school, name’s Ryo.’
Open-neck made a note of that. ‘How long was he at your house for?’
‘Until nine.’
‘Nine. And what did you do after that?’
‘Just watched TV, and talked on the phone with a friend…’
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘A guy named Morishita. We went to middle school together.’
‘When did you talk?’
‘He called around eleven, so we probably talked until after midnight.’
‘He called you?’
‘That’s right.’
There was a trick here. Tomohiko had actually called Morishita first, when he knew he’d be out at work, and told his mom he wanted him to call when he came home. This was all according to Ryo’s instructions.
The detective’s eyebrows knitted together and he asked for Morishita’s phone number. Tomohiko told him on the spot. He had it memorised.
‘I got another question. What’s your blood type?’ open-neck asked.
‘My blood type? O. Why?’
‘O? You’re sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. My parents are both O, too.’
Tomohiko detected a sudden drop in the detectives’ interest in him. He remembered Kirihara asking him his blood type, too, but he’d never explained why.
‘Um,’ Tomohiko asked hesitantly. ‘Did something happen to Mrs Hanaoka?’
‘You don’t read the paper?’ open neck said.
Tomohiko had seen the little column in the evening paper the night before, but he shook his head.
‘She died. The night before last, at a hotel.’
‘What?’ Tomohiko acted surprised. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious. ‘How?’
‘Who knows?’ The detective stood from the bench. ‘Thanks; you were a big help. We might have more questions for you later, but that’s all for now.’
‘Oh – OK.’
‘Let’s go,’ open-neck said to polo shirt. They walked off without a single glance in Tomohiko’s direction.
It wasn’t just the detectives who paid a visit to Tomohiko.
Four days after talking to the detectives he was walking away from the front gate of the school when someone tapped his shoulder from behind. He looked around to see an older man with slicked-back hair and a bland smile on his face.
‘Tomohiko Sonomura?’
‘Yeah?’
The man’s right hand slid out in a practised motion. He was holding a business card which read IKUO HANAOKA.
Tomohiko could feel the colour drain from his face. He knew he should act cool, but his body stiffened.
‘I was hoping we could have a chat?’ The man spoke in a deep baritone, the kind that rumbled in the chest.
‘OK.’
‘Let’s talk in the car,’ the man said, pointing to a silver-grey sedan parked by the side of the road. Tomohiko got into the passenger seat.
‘Some detectives from the Minami station visited you, right?’ Hanaoka said, sitting in the driver’s seat.
‘Yeah.’
‘I thought so. See, I was the one who gave them your name. Your number was in my wife’s address book, but I guess you already knew that. Sorry if they caused you any trouble, by the way, but there were a lot of things that just weren’t adding up.’
Tomohiko was under no illusion that the man had any real concern for him. He held his tongue and listened.
‘The detectives said she called you a few times?’ He smiled with his lips, but not his eyes.
‘Yeah. We talked, in a café.’
‘So they said. And she was the one who called you, not the other way around?’
Tomohiko nodded. He heard Hanaoka chuckle.
‘She always had a soft spot for pretty boys. At her age, getting all giddy over the little rock stars. And look at you. You’re young; your face fits the bill. I bet you were just her type.’
Tomohiko clasped his hands together on his knees. There was something viscous about the man’s voice, like tar. He could almost feel the jealousy oozing out of the cracks between his words.
‘So you just talked?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘She never invited you to do… anything else? Like go to a hotel?’ Hanaoka was acting innocent, but there was nothing light about his tone.
‘Not even once.’
‘That’s the truth?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Tomohiko nodded seriously.
‘Then there was something else I was hoping you could tell me. I was wondering if you knew anyone else she met like that.’
‘You mean, other than me?’ Tomohiko shrugged. ‘No.’
Tomohiko could feel Hanaoka’s gaze, a grown man’s eyes, staring daggers at him.
Just then, someone knocked on the window by Tomohiko’s head. He looked up and saw Ryo looking in. Tomohiko opened his door.
‘What are you doing, Tomohiko? The teacher’s looking for you,’ Ryo said.
‘What?’
‘He’s in the office. You better get there quick.’
Tomohiko met Ryo’s eyes for a moment, then looked back at Hanaoka. ‘Um, are we done?’
‘Yeah, we’re done,’ Hanaoka said, though it was clear from his tone that he was far from satisfied.
Tomohiko got out of the car and walked back towards the school with Ryo.
‘What did he ask you?’ Ryo asked in a whisper.
‘He wanted to know what we did.’
‘You play dumb?’
‘Course.’
‘Good. Very good.’
‘What’s going on, Ryo? What did you do?’
‘You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘Yeah, but —’
Ryo gave him a whack on the shoulder. ‘He might be watching us, so you’d better get inside. Go out the back when you leave.’
The two of them stood in front of the gate to the school.
‘OK,’ Tomohiko said.
‘See ya.’
Tomohiko watched Ryo leave and then went inside as instructed.
He never did see Yuko Hanaoka’s husband again. Nor did the detectives from Minami Precinct ever pay him a second visit.
On a Sunday in the middle of August, Ryo took Tomohiko back to the apartment in Nishinagahori.
This time Ryo opened the door himself with one of many keys dangling from the ring in his hand.
‘In you go,’ Ryo said, removing his sneakers.
The dining room and kitchen were largely unchanged from the last time Tomohiko had been there: same cheap table, chairs, refrigerator and microwave. The only difference was a noticeable lack of perfume in the air. Ryo had called him the night before, saying he wanted to show him something, laughing and saying ‘it’s a secret’ when Tomohiko asked what it was. The laugh threw him more than anything. It was a genuine laugh, the kind he’d never heard from Ryo before.
Tomohiko had frowned when he heard they were going back to the apartment.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to sell your body,’ Ryo said. He laughed again, but there was no warmth in it this time.
Ryo went in first and opened up the divider between the two back rooms. This was where he’d first met Yuko. No one was there today, but when he saw what was his eyes went wide.
‘Thought you’d like it,’ Ryo said with a grin.
Four computers were set up on a low table, along with a dozen peripherals.
‘Where’d you get all these?’ Tomohiko asked, amazed.
‘I bought them. How else?’
‘You know how to use these, Ryo?’
‘I do OK. But I need your help.’
‘Me?’
‘That’s why you’re here.’
Just then, the doorbell rang. Tomohiko stiffened. He hadn’t been expecting anyone else to be here.
Ryo stood. ‘That’ll be Namie.’
Tomohiko went over to the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the room and peeked inside the one on top. It was packed full of new cassette tapes. If all of the boxes were full of these, that made a considerable number of tapes.
The front door opened and he heard someone coming in. ‘Tomohiko’s here,’ Ryo said. A woman answered him.
She came in, a plain-faced woman, probably a little over thirty years old. She looked somehow familiar.
‘Long time no see,’ she said.
‘Huh?’ Tomohiko gaped and the woman laughed.
‘She’s the one who went home early. You remember,’ Ryo said.
‘You mean – oh!’ Tomohiko looked back at her. She didn’t have much make-up on today, which made her seem even older – or rather, how she probably really looked.
‘Don’t bother her with too many questions, OK? Her name’s Namie. She’s our accountant. That’s all you need to know,’ Ryo said.
‘Why do we need an accountant?’
Ryo took a folded piece of paper out of his jeans pocket and handed it to Tomohiko. On it in black ink had been written:
Unlimited Designs
Sellers of all varieties of games for personal computers.
‘Unlimited Designs?’
‘That’s the name of our company. We sell games on cassette tapes through the mail.’
‘OK.’ Tomohiko nodded, a picture starting to form in his head. ‘Those might sell.’
‘They will sell. No doubt about it,’ Ryo said.
‘Where do we get the software from?’
Ryo walked over to one of his computers and pulled a long sheet of paper out of the printer beside it. ‘Our big seller,’ he said, showing it to Tomohiko.
A program was written out on the paper. It was long and complicated, beyond Tomohiko’s talents. At the top was written the word Submarine.
‘Where did you get this game? Did you make it?’
‘Does it matter? Namie, you come up with a good name yet?’
‘I came up with something. I’m not sure if you’ll like it or not.’
‘Try me.’
‘Marine Crash,’ Namie said a little hesitantly.
‘Marine Crash,’ Ryo repeated, hands across his chest. ‘Great, let’s go with that.’
Namie smiled, looking relieved.
Ryo glanced at his watch and stood. ‘I’m going to the printers.’
‘The printers?’ Tomohiko asked. ‘What for?’
‘You can’t sell anything without advertising it first,’ he said, putting on his sneakers as he went out of the front door.
Tomohiko sat cross-legged in the back room, scanning the code for the program. Namie was sitting at the desk, punching something into a ten-key calculator.
‘Hey, Namie,’ he said. ‘Do you know what the story is with Ryo?’
‘What do you mean? I thought you were friends.’ Her hand stopped.
‘I know him, he goes to my school. But I never even noticed him until he invited me here the other day. He doesn’t have any friends and I’ve never seen him do much in class – and yet he’s doing this in his free time?’
Namie turned around to look at Tomohiko. ‘There’s more to life than school, you know.’
‘Sure, but, it’s just – he’s so hard to pin down.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m guessing it’s better not to pry too deep when it comes to Ryo.’
‘Hey, I’m not prying. I was just wondering, that’s all. I mean when —’ Tomohiko stopped, unsure of how much he should say.
‘When Yuko died?’ she offered, her voice calm.
‘Yeah,’ he nodded, relieved. ‘How did that just go away? It’s like black magic or something.’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yeah, of course I do.’
Namie frowned and scratched behind her ear with a ballpoint pen. ‘From what I heard, they found the body around two in the afternoon the day after she checked into the hotel. They sent someone to speak to her since it was past checkout time, and no one was answering the room phone. They found her lying completely naked on the bed.’
Tomohiko nodded. He could imagine that scene particularly well.
‘The police got there right away, but they decided pretty quickly it hadn’t been murder. Their opinion was she had a heart attack in the middle of sex. Time of death was estimated as some time after eleven o’clock the night before.’
‘Eleven o’clock?’ Tomohiko shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound right —’
‘Room service saw her,’ Namie said, staring at him.
‘What do you mean, they “saw her”?’
‘She phoned the front desk around eleven o’clock and asked for some shampoo. They brought it to her door, and Yuko answered.’
‘No way. When I left that hotel —’ He stopped because Namie was shaking her head.
‘Room service clearly stated that they gave the woman in the room shampoo at eleven o’clock.’
Tomohiko’s mouth hung open. If they wore Yuko’s sunglasses and big hat, anyone could have taken that shampoo. Even —
Tomohiko looked at Namie. ‘It was you, wasn’t it.’
Namie smiled and shook her head. ‘No, not me. Do I look like the kind of person that could pull something like that off? I’d be too nervous to talk clearly.’
‘Then who?’
‘Another thing not to think about too much,’ Namie said crisply. ‘Isn’t it enough to know that someone, somewhere saved your ass?’
‘Sure, but —’
‘One other thing,’ Namie said, lifting a finger. ‘The police, they pulled you out of your home for questioning, but then they just left you alone. Care to know why?’
‘OK, why?’
‘Because they know whoever was having sex with Yuko that night had type AB blood.’
‘They found blood on her?’
‘Semen, in her,’ Namie said without blinking. ‘Semen from someone with AB blood.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘But that’s what they found. AB type semen inside her vagina.’
The word ‘inside’ struck a chord in Tomohiko’s mind and he gasped. ‘What blood type is Ryo?’
‘AB,’ Namie said, turning back around to the desk.
Tomohiko put a hand to his mouth. He felt sick. A chill ran down his spine, in spite of the summer heat.
‘You mean he… with her —’
‘Sorry, we’re not having that discussion,’ Namie said, her voice cold.
Tomohiko couldn’t think of anything to say. He noticed his fingers were trembling.
The door opened.
‘We’re all set,’ Ryo said walking in. He handed the paper in his hand to Namie. ‘Exactly on budget, am I right?’
Namie took a look at it and smiled, a little stiffly, Tomohiko thought.
Ryo seemed to notice the atmosphere in the room had changed. He looked between the two of them, then went over to sit next to the window and have a cigarette.
‘What happened?’ Ryo asked, flicking his lighter.
‘Hey,’ Tomohiko said, looking up at him.
‘Yeah?’
‘I just wanted to say…’ Tomohiko swallowed; his mouth was dry. ‘I’ll do anything. OK? Whatever you need. I’m good for it.’
Ryo stared a long time at Tomohiko’s face before looking toward Namie, who nodded. A cold smile spread across Ryo’s lips, and he took a long drag of his cigarette. ‘Of course you are.’
He turned to look out the window at the darkening blue sky.
