Chapter 3

“…Bikes get going really fast on this path, huh? But I’m glad nothing happened.” When Minoru got his thoughts in check and repeated what she had said, Tomomi finally gave him a smile. “Yeah. Thanks, Utsugi, really. We’ve got a training retreat with other teams coming up really soon, so it would’ve been terrible if I’d gotten hurt. Utsugi, you’ve really always been…” She paused there, and Minoru inclined his head slightly. At this, Tomomi’s expression grew a bit hesitant. Then she went on speaking. “…So, there was one time in eighth grade where you really raised your voice in class—which was unusual for you, right, Utsugi? I remember it really well. You got angry because the teacher was saying bad things about your sister. I was really mad, too, and I wanted to talk back to the teacher, but I was too scared. That’s when I thought, Utsugi’s got some courage…and he’s a nice person…” Those words of Tomomi’s— Minoru had mostly stopped listening to them halfway through. He couldn’t breathe. His core temperature climbed, yet his limbs grew as cold as ice. He had to forget—it was a memory he should have already forgotten. It was a memory that not a single one of those who had been there should remember. He kept his eyes far down. He clenched his hands tightly. Somehow he managed to inhale and exhale through his closing throat. “…Utsugi…?” Tomomi said doubtfully. “I…I’ve got to get home soon or I’ll be late for school. Well, then…see you,” Minoru answered in a hoarse voice without looking at her. Then he turned to face the other direction and ran at full speed toward the stairs a little way ahead. Tomomi Minowa would think he was strange running away like this. To be precise, being thought of as strange would give him more memories to hold on to that he couldn’t easily erase. Knowing this, he couldn’t stand not running. …And I’ve been working so hard to blend into the background, too. Why, then, do people still remember me? Why won’t they just leave me alone? Solitude. He wanted to have solitude. He wanted to stay curled up forever in a blank world where he didn’t stick in anyone’s memories and he didn’t remember anyone else. Even after dashing down the concrete steps and entering a residential street, Minoru kept running as hard as he could. That abnormal phenomenon that had invaded him—or protected him—earlier was almost entirely forgotten. 2 No good. It was no good at all. It was trash that didn’t deserve to be called food. Hikaru Takaesu perfectly concealed his derision as he put down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin. When he lifted his wineglass and put it to his lips, he wanted to take the hard, smooth inorganic object and completely crush it in his mouth just to cleanse his palate—the urge welled up in him, but of course, he couldn’t act on it. After holding a mouthful of the white wine in his mouth and savoring it as if he were chewing, he swallowed. For how grandly the waiter had suggested it, both the flavor and the aroma of the wine were a bit lacking; still, it was much better than the food. With the glass still in his right hand, he looked down at the plentiful amount of pasta left on the plate. He had heard that the handmade fettuccine was the standout menu item at this restaurant, but if this was the best they could do, using dried noodles probably would’ve been better and more edible. Unlike dried noodles, when it came to fresh pasta that wasn’t prepared al dente because the core was left uncooked, if one didn’t pay close attention to the ingredients, the dough making, and the adjustment of the boil, it was easy to lose the firmness, which was the soul of the pasta. That was exactly the case with the fettuccine at this restaurant. The flour was bad, the way they kneaded it was bad, and the way they boiled it was bad. As a result, it had no firmness when chewed and was reduced to a slimy, gummy, tangled mass. Firmness. The factor that should be considered most important for all cuisine, not only the Italian food that Takaesu primarily critiqued, was not flavor or aroma or presentation, but firmness—the way it feels in the mouth. Biting, tearing, crushing, mashing. These actions activate primal instincts in humans and create satisfaction in the act of eating. Anyone would prefer the taste of a three hundred yen beef bowl made with sinewy imported meat over a Kuroge wagyu steak turned into a syrupy liquid with a food processor. Chefs who didn’t have the instinct to use texture to their advantage ultimately lacked talent in other areas as well. At this rate, the secondo piatto being served next would likely be a letdown as well. He would rather have just gotten up and left, but he couldn’t do that. He had come here at the suggestion of someone in the media who was a regular at this place, so he had no choice but to write an article that was flattering in its own way. He picked up his fork grudgingly, and as he was forcing down another mouthful of the fettuccine that was worse than dog food, a man in a chef’s coat walked out of the kitchen. The smiling, unshaven man who gave no impression of cleanliness was the restaurant’s chef and owner, if Takaesu remembered correctly. “Welcome, Mr. Takaesu! And how is everything thus far?” the man called loudly to Takaesu, who returned his smile for the sake of appearances only. “I’m quite enjoying myself, thank you.” “Well, that’s great to hear. We’ll be serving you more carefully crafted dishes tonight, and, oh, it will be on the house. This next dish will be just the thing!” the chef said, placing a full flute of spumante rosso wine on the table. Really, what kind of sense could this chef have? He had actually poured Takaesu’s wine—and sparkling wine at that—in the back of the restaurant without even showing him the bottle. Takaesu could feel his irritation rising again, but the chef gave no sign that he noticed and for some reason chose this time to go for a handshake. With no other choice, Takaesu stood up, shook the man’s hand in return with a smile, and— …Why don’t you bite him? something inside him whispered. He lifted up a boorish, rough, tobacco-stained finger from a right hand that he couldn’t believe belonged to a chef and…took a leisurely bite. After splitting open the skin and flesh and reaching the middle phalanx, he slowly applied more pressure. All the textures were there: First, the outer bone membrane split open, the compact bone snapped, and the haversian canals popped. Then the inner bone membrane staged the final resistance. When Takaesu bit down hard, the incredibly juicy marrow burst. Al dente. Al dente. A pleasurable al dente. “…Sir?” the chef questioned, a bit of confusion slipping into his voice. Takaesu blinked. He realized he was still clutching the chef’s right hand, and he let go with a smile still on his face. “How rude of me. I was just thinking about how this hand created the wonderful food this evening, and it moved me.” At this, the chef gave him a stiff smile in return as he massaged the right hand with the left. “Oh, ha-ha. I’m the one who’s moved hearing that from someone of your stature, sir.” The reason the chef was a bit nervous was probably not because Takaesu had shaken his hand for about five seconds, but because he did not make the bulk of the dishes himself. Takaesu, however, was not inclined to complain about that. The day he ate fresh pasta kneaded by hands that stunk of tobacco was the day he would need to give someone a thorough tongue-lashing in his magazine, even if he had to burn a bridge or two. Watching the chef as the man hastened back to the kitchen, Takaesu straightened the collar of his custom-made suit and took his seat. He took a mouthful of the sparkling wine in his mouth, cooling that thing that throbbed in the soft tissue of his lower jaw. Thump. Thump. The source of this itchy, painful, uncomfortable, yet pleasant sensation was a lump with a diameter a little less than two centimeters. He hadn’t been to a doctor, but he was convinced that it wasn’t any type of tumor. He knew this because the red orb—just like the eye of a living creature—wasn’t something that had been born inside Takaesu’s body. The eye had come from somewhere outside. Outside of Tokyo…Japan…and maybe even the Earth itself. And one night three months ago, it slipped into Takaesu’s lower jaw and gave him two things. The first was the urge to bite. The second was the power to do it. From that point on, that thing—since it was already inside his body he should probably call it this thing—was constantly tempting Takaesu. Tempting him to take things in his mouth, bite them, chew them. Telling him that he was no longer human, that he was a predator swimming lithely along the bottom of the city hunting for prey. But for as long as Takaesu was able to call himself a gourmet food critic, he had no intention of putting things in his mouth if there was no value in biting them. Things like the fingers of the owner-chef from earlier that stunk of tobacco, for example. …Hold back just a little longer. When he whispered this to the eye inside his mouth, the throbbing gradually eased. But it probably wouldn’t be so well behaved for long. The last time he had bitten bone was one week ago today. Just as Takaesu was starting to remember that ecstasy-filled banquet seven days ago, the waiter finally brought over the secondo piatto. A veal saltimbocca without a shred of originality sat on the plate. He could imagine what it tasted like with just one look. On top of that, it was overcooked. If the meat had at least had bones… No, even if it had, he wouldn’t be able to take an entire bone in his hand and gnaw at it. Rather than sighing, Takaesu reached out a hand for his knife, forcing a smile that seemed to say he was enjoying everything tremendously. Full of relief upon exiting the restaurant, he shook his head and started heading toward the paid lot where he’d parked his car. The road was large, but for six o’clock at night there weren’t many people around. Even in the skyscrapers that towered above his head, most of the windows were cloaked in darkness. The name “Saitama’s new city center” sounded dynamic, but would there really come a day when it would take the place of Tokyo’s city center, Shinjuku? It was at least certain that the Italian restaurant behind Takaesu would be closing its doors by then. It really irked him that he was forced to write a flattering article about the restaurant. The slimy texture of the fresh pasta still clung to the inside of his mouth. If nothing else, he wanted to get back to his car quickly and brush his teeth. In his glove box, he had a bottle of mineral water and a travel toothbrush set on hand. He thought his mood would lighten a bit once he was able to scrub his teeth as hard as he could with a toothbrush slathered in toothpaste. Scrub, scrub. Now, even if Takaesu went on brushing his teeth for hours, it wouldn’t hurt him at all. It didn’t used to be like that. When he got back to Tokyo, he would get ahold of his next bone and chew to his heart’s content with his clean teeth. He had readied four targets. He needed to plan more carefully than before, but the time spent coming up with all the details of his dinner menu was another part of the fun. He walked another twenty or thirty meters on the road that ran alongside Saitama Super Arena until he was back at the parking lot, the heels of his bespoke shoes clicking loudly. He stopped briefly at the entrance and gazed at his dark blue Maserati GranTurismo, which was parked in a space at the back. The glamorous body that overflowed with a sense of power. The oblong oval grille that glinted like a row of fangs. The three vents that were reminiscent of gills. This car was a shark. And what’s more, it was a mako shark, the fastest swimming of all sharks. Takaesu’s fourth favorite shark. His mood would probably improve once he had settled in the cockpit, jumped on the freeway from the nearby ramp, and put his foot on the throttle. Before that, it was first time to brush his teeth. When he stepped up to his car and was about to unlock the door—that’s when it happened. Takaesu abruptly stopped moving. Something smelled good. His nose twitched as he sniffed. Somewhere within the bone-chilling December air was a faintly sweet smell. It wasn’t flowers or perfume, either. It was the smell of healthy, well-developed, tightly packed muscle and bone. His sensitive hearing, second only to his sense of smell, picked up the tap, tap sound of nimble footsteps. Standing so he would be near his large car, Takaesu waited for the owner of the approaching footsteps. The person who soon appeared in his field of vision was a young woman jogging on the sidewalk wearing workout clothes. A middle school student or high school student. Her short hair was undyed, and she didn’t smell of cosmetics or any other chemical substances. The only smell coming from her sweat-dampened skin was the healthy scent of a person’s body, reminiscent of milk. It was a very good smell. He closed his eyes and focused his attention on the footsteps. Amid the dry sound of shoes hitting the asphalt, he picked up on the echo of bone. Takaesu was most fond of the leg bones—the harmony played between the carefree tibia and the graceful fibula. How wonderful. True to its name, the compact bone that made up the outer layer of bone was finely packed. She must have gotten plenty of high-quality calcium and vitamins ever since she was young. He felt as if he could see the outer bone membrane gleaming white like a pearl under her developed muscles. When the footsteps passed in front of the parking lot, Takaesu opened his eyes and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Thump, thump. The red eye throbbed in the middle of his lower jaw. Bite her, bite her, it invited him. “…Don’t be hasty, compagno,” Takaesu whispered back to it. After waiting a bit, he left the parking lot. The girl’s retreating figure had gotten quite a bit smaller. But as long as Takaesu had his sense of smell, honed like a shark’s, tracking her would be no trouble even if he lost sight of her completely. Turning up the collar of his coat, Takaesu started walking, a thin smile hidden behind the fabric. 3 The sky on Wednesday, December 4, was full of wispy clouds, heralding the low-pressure system that was approaching. Minoru rode his bike the six kilometers it took to get to the high school from his house at the northern edge of the Sakura district in Saitama city, crossing the Metro Express Saitama Omiya line, the JR Saikyou line, and the Touhoku Main line. He had a common city bike, not a sporty bike like the one he had nearly collided with yesterday. Six kilometers was a distance he would be able to run, but then he would have to change clothes at school. More importantly, Minoru would stand out if he imitated people on sports teams when he himself wasn’t on one. How would he be able to ride out the slightly more than three weeks left in 2019 safely, without rocking the boat? At the moment, that was Minoru’s biggest and sole concern. In that sense, he regretted his blunder yesterday morning. It had been completely stupid of him to lose his head and run off when he was leaving Tomomi Minowa. Even before that, if he had made a move right away after noticing the road bike coming toward them, he probably could have gotten Tomomi to take cover without having to protect her in that exaggerated way. From the beginning, a simple greeting would have been enough to finish things up without getting into a conversation that long. He thought he had understood that carrying on a long conversation with someone would only increase the memories he wanted to erase. But there was no use crying over spilled milk. Even as he prayed Tomomi would forget yesterday’s scene right away, there was probably nothing to do but avoid contact with her for a while. He had already changed his running route, starting this morning. Since they were in the same year, passing by each other on school grounds was unavoidable, but there was absolutely no reason Tomomi would strike up a conversation with a student of Minoru’s status in a place where other people could see. Tomomi, after all, had competed in nationals and was the track team’s best hope; in other words, she was on the highest rung of the school’s hierarchy. These thoughts flew around Minoru’s head as he finished biking the full six kilometers to school. He stopped his bike at the edge of the bike parking area for students and locked it up tight. He wanted to do whatever he could to avoid the trouble of finding his bike gone when he wanted to go home, so he used a tough wire lock that required a key. He put his water-resistant messenger bag back on, covered the bottom half of his face with his scarf, and walked toward the entrance, mixing in with the other students. Retrieving his school slippers from his shoe locker, he put his sneakers in and closed the metal door, spinning the three-number combination lock at random. Truthfully, using a little padlock would keep his things safer here, but the risk of standing out in a bad way was bigger. Once you reached high school, it was hard to imagine people pulling pranks like hiding shoes. Most students didn’t even use a combination lock, but that was Minoru’s nature and he couldn’t help it. At the end of the day, I guess I don’t trust people. It’s too late to change that now, so I guess I’ll just have to keep it from showing. Just keep quiet all day today without having unnecessary conversations with anyone. Anyway, I don’t think there’s anyone who’ll be concerned about my attitude. Minoru had spent the morning absorbed in this negative introspection. Someone behind him gave him a pat on the back. At the same time, an energetic voice called out, “Mornin’, Utsugi!” His whole body went tense in an instant, and he turned around awkwardly. Tomomi was standing there dressed in workout clothes from top to bottom, an innocent smile on her face. She was carrying a yellow day pack on her shoulders that seemed to have everything from notebooks to writing utensils to track equipment inside, and her forehead had a light sheen of sweat. She won’t strike up a conversation with me at school. Shuddering at the fact that this prediction from a few minutes ago had been contradicted just like that, Minoru somehow managed to return her greeting. “…Good morning, Minowa.” Since things had ended up like this, he knew he should get out in front of it and apologize for his sudden escape yesterday, but he didn’t know how he should bring it up. Even so, how would it help things to fall silent when Tomomi was right here? Somehow, he had to handle this in a natural way that wouldn’t cause offense… What came out of his mouth as a result of this super-speed thinking was, “Do you run to school every day?” At this, Tomomi nodded as she took off her running shoes and stepped onto the wood floor. “Yeah, but just a light run. By the way…you’ve gone past me on your bike a bunch of times before, Utsugi.” “Oh…s-sorry, I never noticed…” After apologizing, he asked another question about something that had him somehow concerned. “Are there other people besides you who do the same thing, Minowa?” “Hmm, as far as the track team goes, there are about three guys and girls other than me who do it. If you include all the sports teams, I think there are probably more? The sidewalks around here are wide so it’s easy to run.” “Huh…is that so…?” “Do you want to do it, too, Utsugi? Where was your house again?” “Oh, it’s near the water treatment plant in the Sakura district.” “Oh, over there? It’s pretty far, huh? About six kilometers one way?” “Yeah, something like that. How about you, Minowa?” “’Bout four kilometers. It’s pretty close to your place, Utsugi…but I guess that’s no surprise, since we were at the same middle school.” The reason this exchange happened so naturally as they walked from the school entrance toward the classroom was because Minoru was halfway zoned out. He was using half of his mind to consider if it would be possible for him to run to school, too. To avoid trouble, Minoru kept the things he carried around with him to an absolute minimum, so if he could get by without his bicycle, too, he couldn’t do any better than that. Six months ago he got himself into a mess once when he got a flat tire and had to walk his bike to the nearest bike shop. It hadn’t happened to him yet, but obviously the risk of running into a pedestrian or a car was higher than it would be if he walked. But still, there were definitely people who would think Minoru, who wasn’t involved in sports, was odd for running to school. He would also have to change bags and buy a backpack. He had enough savings for it, but his sister Norie had just this April bought the messenger bag he had now, so he would feel guilty if he stopped using it after just six months. The sales tax had just gone up to 12 percent, too… “…gi. Hey, Utsugi.” “Huh…? Oh, s-sorry.” “We’re at your classroom.” Hearing that, he realized that at some point they’d stopped in front of the door to Class One for the sophomores. Tomomi giggled and said, “If you do want to jog to school, let’s meet up somewhere in the morning and run together,” giving a wave as she dashed off toward her own classroom. Minoru groaned inwardly as he belatedly became aware that a lot of students had observed him having a long conversation with the star of the track team. Running to school together every morning? It was ridiculous, inconceivable, and just thinking about it was frightening. Just rewind the clock five minutes. No, please, rewind it seventeen hours, until early yesterday morning. If that’s impossible, just erase the memory of Minowa and me talking from everyone in school. Minoru entered his classroom as he sent this prayer to the creator of the world. Of course, time did not go backward. And the memories of the students who saw Minoru and Tomomi as they walked and chatted did not disappear. School was out. When Minoru unlocked his shoe locker and opened the door, he noticed a small scrap of paper floating to the floor. It had probably been stuck between the door and the frame. Despite a keen sense of foreboding, he picked up the scrap that had fallen to the wood floor. A row of words was scribbled on the paper, which seemed to have been torn from a notebook. It said, “Come to the back of the dojo.” “…Oh…” Since this was the first time he’d received a summons like the one in his hand, the word had slipped out of his mouth involuntarily; he wasn’t able to put up a carefree front. He could either follow the instructions on the scrap of paper or ignore them. He had to think seriously about what choice would allow him to keep his life at school peaceful. For now, he changed into his shoes, went outside, and came to a stop again, glancing in both directions. If he was going to the bike parking lot, it was on the left, and if he was heading to the dojo, it was on the right. The air he sucked into his lungs changed into a long sigh and came out as a “hah.” Minoru turned to face right. The only reason that came to mind for someone to call him out was his conversation with Tomomi Minowa. Of course, Tomomi herself wouldn’t be the one waiting for him; it would be another person who had an issue with them talking. If Minoru could convince the person who had summoned him that he had no designs on her, he should be able to end this and make it an irregular onetime event. Once he had cut across a few corridors and passed the side of the gym, the square dojo came into sight ahead. There were small thickets at the sides of and behind the dojo, and it was fairly dark at this time in winter. It was the first time Minoru had set foot there. When he turned the corner of the building, walking carefully on the damp and slippery ground, he heard multiple voices coming from his destination. “Oh, he’s here, he’s here. You gotta buy me fried chicken now.” “Seriously? He didn’t hafta come.” “Hang on, weren’t you the one who told me to call him out?” Looking ahead as he walked, Minoru’s eyes fell on a few male students wearing matching Windbreakers. Judging by how they were talking to one another, the two leaning up against the wall were upperclassmen and the one standing a little way away was a sophomore. Coming to a halt about five meters away from them, Minoru observed the guys wordlessly. This school had never had full-on gangsters or delinquent students, but still, there wasn’t even a hint of danger in the appearances of these three. Although it seemed like they had had a little bet going about whether Minoru would come or not, they really just had the air of exceedingly normal jocks. Minoru stood there with a mixture of relief and wariness. One of the upperclassmen broke away from the wall and, with a friendly smile, said, “Uh, you’re Utsugi? Sorry for calling you out so suddenly.” “…It’s fine.” Minoru observed the three of them further, keeping his words to an absolute minimum. The long-haired upperclassman who had spoken to him was smiling, but the other one leaning against the wall, who had a bald head like a monk, was sullen despite winning that fried chicken. The sophomore seemed to be the one who’d written the summons and stuck it in Minoru’s shoe locker, but he probably just did it on orders. The long-haired one threw another question—the real question—at Minoru, who had lapsed into silence again. “It’s kind of a personal question, Utsugi, but are you going after our little Minowa?” Minoru was visited by two thoughts at the same time: I thought so, the confirmation, and No way, the surprise. He had thought the summons was related to Tomomi Minowa, but he couldn’t believe that just talking to her for the two or three minutes it took to get from the entrance to the classroom would be considered “going after her.” Minoru faced the three—who must be track team members, since they called her theirs—and answered with the words he had prepared. “We were classmates in middle school, so we were just talking a little.” He thought for a moment, then added, “…I’m not really going after her or anything.” But the long-haired one, a thin smile still on his face, tilted his head as if to say, “But still.” “But Utsugi, seems like you don’t normally talk to girls at all, do you? What’s with you only talking to Minowa?” “It’s not that I…never talk to them. If somebody talks to me, I’ll at least answer them…” “But according to my information, I guess you talked for a pretty long time? Ogucchi, how many seconds was it?” “W-well, I didn’t exactly time it. Um…I think it was roughly fifteen minutes or so…” Minoru wanted to ask if they really thought it took that long to get from the lockers to the classroom as a retort, but he held back. Even if fifteen minutes became three minutes, that didn’t change the fact that it had been a conversation. So what if I am going after her? It wasn’t like he didn’t have any desire to give a cool retort like that. But if he did, the other guys probably wouldn’t be able to back down anymore, and Minoru would surely go home and sit with his head in his hands, groaning in regret for an hour or more. Whenever there was trouble, he kept his head down and let it pass. That’s how he’d lived for these eight years. “…Um, I have absolutely no desire to get involved with Minowa, really,” Minoru stated clearly, his gaze fixed somewhere around the long-haired one’s chest. But his enemy was more persistent than expected. “Hmm. But still, what are you going to do if Minowa talks to you again?” “I d…” He started to say, “I don’t know,” but corrected himself just in time. “I’d say hi, since she’s an acquaintance, but—” “Enough, I’m tired of this.” The guy who suddenly broke in was the bald one resting his back against the wall behind them. With both hands still stuck in the pockets of his Windbreaker, he sprang upright using just the strength of his body, passing the long-haired one and walking toward Minoru briskly. Coming to a stop right before Minoru, his nose at the same height as Minoru’s eyes, he snorted and murmured in a deep voice, “You’re a math and science guy, right? If so, you should just keep your nose in those books. There’s seriously no way you can mess with our girls.” He was given no opportunity to say that he wasn’t messing with them. The bald one pulled his left fist from his pocket and casually drove it into Minoru’s stomach—more precisely, he tried to drive it into Minoru’s stomach. Minoru reflexively bent forward and backed away. But there was no way he could have dodged the punch with those movements. The fist, muscled like an adult’s, plunged into his solar plexus. Minoru stopped breathing, getting a clear premonition of the hopeless pain that accompanies being hit in the abdomen. But that pain never became a reality. That phenomenon was triggered once again. His field of vision changed hues. All sound disappeared and both his feet left the wet ground. Exactly as if he were detached from the world. The bald one’s punch dug into his abdomen. Yet there was no pain, no impact, and not even the sensation of touching something. It was exactly the same as yesterday morning when he had made contact with the handles of the racing bike… No. They weren’t touching. With both his eyes wide open, Minoru had seen it clearly. Between the suspended fist of the bald one and the uniform Minoru was wearing, there was a gap, if only just a few millimeters. Was he pretending to punch me…? Did he stop right before the impact…? When Minoru looked up as he thought these things in the silence, what he saw was the bald one’s violently contorted face. It wasn’t rage—pain probably. He took another breath, and at about the same time, the mysterious phenomenon faded away. The color, the sound, and the feeling of touching the ground returned. The punch hadn’t connected, but Minoru backed away, his body still in the position of escape he had moved himself into. His feet slipped on the damp fallen leaves, and he landed on his backside. From behind them, the long-haired one gave a compassionate smile, while the sophomore had an odd, tense one. Neither had noticed the strange force that had come over the bald one. Holding his left fist in his right hand and gritting his teeth, the bald one seemed as if he was desperately suppressing a scream that threatened to burst forth from him. It was the expression of a person who had hit not a soft human body but something like a concrete wall with all their might. Once the pain seemed to lessen after a few seconds and the bald one exhaled slowly, he looked down at Minoru seated on the ground with an odd look in his eyes. “…You…,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. He was probably wondering what in the world the sensation he had just experienced was. Luckily, he didn’t seem up to taking deep breaths, so he spit out in a low voice, “Don’t get cocky. Next time, it won’t end so easily.” When the bald one headed off at a quick pace, the sophomore followed him at a half run. As the long-haired one passed by after the other two, he called out, “Sorry, Utsugi, but we’re just teaching you the ways of the world.” Minoru was barely listening. Inside his head, the words what if were playing over and over. What if…what if, what if in that moment, he hadn’t backed away as fast as he could of his own accord? What if he hadn’t been able to respond to the punch and just stood there bolt upright? Was the bald one’s fist smashed up all the way down to the bone? He wasn’t basing this on anything; it was just a gut feeling. But if that had truly happened, Minoru would believe it without a doubt in his mind. What was that just now? Just what did that bald guy hit? Still sitting on the ground in a state of shock, Minoru lifted his right hand and touched his sternum over his uniform. Nothing was there. But there was something. Something…living. “…Did you do it?” The question came out like a gasp, and no voice rose to answer it. How did I get home from school—? When Minoru came back to reality, he was on the porch of his house locking up his bike. Looking at his watch, the time was 6:30 p.m. The sky had already gone completely dark, and warm light poured from the living room window as he looked into it from the small garden. His sister Norie had probably come home already. Hit by a sudden realization, he peered into his bag. The library books he’d meant to return on his way home were gone, replaced by different books. Somehow, he’d apparently managed to get to the city library, return the books, and check out new ones while on autopilot. He walked toward the door to the entryway, thinking absentmindedly that he was lucky he didn’t cause an accident. He had never told Norie this, but on the days when she came home before him, he got just a little bit nervous when he was opening the door. Even though he knew in his mind there was no way it would happen, he ended up picturing it no matter what he did. He wondered if, when he entered the house, he would find Norie on the floor covered in blood. Minoru traded his bike key, which was still clutched in his left hand, for a large dimple key. They had a house rule that they always had to lock both the front door and the back door, even when they were home. When he slid the key into the keyhole and turned it to the left, Minoru heard the reliable clunk of the door unlocking and exhaled a bit. Before he could take his shoes off, he heard the pitter-patter of slippers running toward him. Next, he heard a voice that was gentle in tone but full of energy. “Welcome home, Mii!” “Hi.” It had taken him a whole year before he could naturally return her greeting. As he thought this, he changed from his sneakers into the slippers that were there just for him and stepped into the hallway. Standing before him was a young woman wearing an apron and clutching a ladle in her right hand. She was about the same height as Tomomi Minowa, but even though Minoru had long ago surpassed her in height, she didn’t feel petite. Was this because she was related to him as his adoptive sister? Eight years ago when Minoru had lost his family, Norie Yoshimizu had taken him in and raised him. “Um, Miss Norie, I’ve said this a lot, but you don’t need to meet me at the door when you’re in the middle of cooking…,” Minoru said, looking at the ladle. Norie’s smiling face transformed into an unhappy one. “And I’ve told you a lot that you don’t have to call me Miss Norie, Mii!” “Even so, I’ve gotten so used to it by now… Uh, something’s rattling around in the kitchen.” At Minoru’s words, Norie fell silent for a moment. “Aaah, the pot’s going to boil over!” she yelled, bounding back down the hallway. Minoru exhaled a puff of air and started up the stairs. As he went, he heard another shout. “We’re having gyoza today! Now hiring one person to fold the dumplings!” “…I’ll be there right away after I change clothes!” Minoru yelled back, dashing up the stairs. Minoru’s large room had tatami mat flooring and was on the second floor of a four-bedroom house built fifteen years ago. Following his policy of having as few possessions as possible, he didn’t have much furniture. There was a low bed along the eastern wall, a bookshelf built into the western wall, and a simple desk and chair next to a floor-to-ceiling window on the south side. There was a notebook computer on top of the desk that was a hand-me-down from Norie, but he didn’t have anything like a TV, video recorder, or gaming system. There were only about thirty novels and academic books lined up on his bookshelf, and supposing someone came over to hang out, he would have trouble figuring out how to pass the time. But for better or worse, he didn’t have any friends he was that close to. Minoru put the top and bottom of his school uniform on a hanger and took off his collared shirt and T-shirt. Opening the closet in just his boxer briefs to take out a change of clothes, Minoru’s hand stopped suddenly. There was a large mirror mounted on the inside of the closet door. His half-naked reflection in it drew his gaze. Minoru had often heard indirectly that people considered him a gloomy guy, and he thought that was exactly right. His eyes had a skeptical look about them, and his mouth was so tight that it seemed he had forgotten how to smile. His bangs, which had grown down past his eyebrows, got in the way when he ran, but he didn’t feel like cutting them any shorter. His build was more feeble that it was thin, and the weakness of his neck and shoulders in particular was just like a girl’s. Moreover, the somehow diluted feeling of his hair color confirmed his dreary image. It wasn’t that his hair was white, but depending on how the light hit, it could look gray. This wasn’t the color he had been born with; it became like this after that night eight years ago. It would be easy to dye it black, but his teachers and classmates had never said anything about it, so he left it alone. Minoru, checking that nothing about his body had outwardly changed, fixed his gaze last on his bare chest—the exact center of his visible ribs. His white skin showed no injuries, no hollows, and no protrusions. Still, there was no denying it any longer. What had happened three months ago was not a daydream. Something was lurking there. The thing had brought about a mysterious phenomenon, preventing the handles of the bike and the fist of Minoru’s classmate from touching him. The result was that it protected him from harm, but instead of gratitude, he had a creepy feeling. He thought about all the abnormal things going on, which couldn’t be explained by the common sense of the world Minoru had been living in. As he contemplated this, goose bumps popped up all over his exposed skin. But. As he whispered, “…Common sense…,” in a low voice, his shivering left him. Common sense. Common sense. Under the “Common sense” section in Minoru’s dictionary, a piece of writing by the nineteenth-century novelist Ogai Mori was quoted. “Common sense is the capacity to comprehend normal occurrences and take appropriate measures.” If common sense was the ability to understand ordinary things and act accordingly, Minoru had lost sight of that. He wasn’t clear on where the line between normal and abnormal was. Was running ten kilometers every morning normal? Abnormal? Was not having any friends to hang out with on days off normal? Abnormal? How about having someone come into one’s house and murder their whole family? And is it normal for the person responsible to not get caught, even after eight years? Is it abnormal? If all of those things are normal—then one wouldn’t be shaking in their boots when their running time improved or when they didn’t get injured when they should have because of something that fell from the sky and slipped into their body. Despite the fact that there had been a big fuss when signals broadcasted by an extraterrestrial civilization were captured by a telescope on the moon, things had gone completely silent in less than six months. Anything that can happen will happen. Or in this world, anything can happen. Minoru tore his eyes from his reflection in the mirror, put on an old sweatshirt and cotton pants, and left his room. When he went into the living room after carefully washing his hands in the first-floor bathroom and gargling, Norie padded over to him quickly from the kitchen at the back of the house holding a big bowl. “Nice timing, Mii! I just finished getting the ingredients ready.” “Oh, then I’ll…” As he started to say, “Then I’ll help you right now,” he looked down at the bowl and was speechless for a second. “…Hang on, won’t this be too much?” The dense mixture of gyoza ingredients—cabbage, bok choy, green onion, garlic chives, minced meat, and roughly chopped Shiba shrimp—rose to the top of the bowl. Norie and Minoru were the only ones living in the house and neither of them were big eaters, so no matter how he looked at the situation, it seemed like they’d have a lot left over. But as Norie placed the bowl on the dining room table, she said with a self-satisfied air, “Even if we make too many, they last for a pretty long time when you freeze them. Apparently, the trick is to flash-freeze them after adding a little flour.” Minoru sat down in a chair, thinking that what Norie had said meant gyoza day would be coming again before too long. Lined up on the table, there were dumpling wrappers (premade as usual), a big stainless steel tray to put the finished dumplings on, and a bowl full of water that they would use to seal the dumplings. Norie sat across from Minoru and gave him a fearless smirk. “We’re going to compete to see who can make more, Mii,” she said, suddenly declaring war. “L-let’s not compete over speed… I can’t see anything but a depressing future for us if we don’t seal the wrappers well enough.” “I’m going to grill the gyoza, so even if there’s a little bit of an opening, it’s totally fine! On your mark, get set, go!” …No wonder she’s the deputy chief examiner at the prefectural office. Minoru rushed to grab a spoon as he whispered this inwardly. He performed his work quickly, scooping up the right amount of ingredients, putting them in a wrapper, creating a fold, and crimping it together. He had intended to concentrate on what he was doing, but his thoughts wandered little by little to the past. Eight years ago, when Minoru had been brought into this home after being orphaned, Norie never ran out of smiles, always working to fulfill the roles of both sister and mother. However, at the time, Norie had just graduated from college and begun working at the prefectural office. He had always thought of her as an adult, but at the time she was a mere seven years older than Minoru was now. Seven years from now, when Minoru was twenty-three, he really couldn’t imagine himself looking after a child about whom the only thing he knew was their name. Come live with me. That’s what Norie had said to a downcast Minoru back then. In a voice without an ounce of indecisiveness or hesitation, smiling gently. Most of Minoru’s relatives had shown an unwillingness to take him in after he lost his family one night in that gruesome incident. Norie’s father, who was still living at the time, had also apparently thought it would be difficult; he had already lost his wife (Norie’s mother) and was living with just his daughter. But it seemed that Norie had fervently tried to persuade him. To Norie, Minoru was the child of a cousin on her mother’s side, meaning he was her cousin once removed. Why did Norie, fresh out of college, take a child who she had met few enough times to count on one hand, a child who was separated by five degrees of relatives, and make him into family? He had never asked Norie herself directly.