Chapter 6—When the World Ends Where in the world were we going? Takeda didn’t say a word on the bus. Who was it that she wanted me to meet? We got off at a stop I didn’t recognize and I followed hesitantly alongside Takeda as she went down a broad walking path. The sky was dyed with a gentle sunset. I could feel that the air, which had seemed freezing cold a short while ago, had grown ever so slightly warmer. The weather reports had said that spring was right around the corner. The area around us had the feel of a growing neighborhood with rows of apartment buildings. All of the buildings were new. I heard a baby laughing, so I looked in that direction and saw a young mother sitting on a bench in a park lush with trees, apparently on her way home from shopping. She was peeking into a baby carriage at her side, playing with her baby. The mother’s gaze was placid and kind. Wait— I’d seen that woman before. I didn’t think there were any women I knew who could have had a baby. Her name wouldn’t come to me, either. But I was sure I knew her from somewhere… Her short-cut hair swayed gently around her slender neck. The baby reached a hand out of the carriage and she squeezed its fingers gently, a slight smile curving her lips, and she started talking to it. I looked to my side and saw Takeda had her empty gaze fixed on the mother and baby. Then the memory of a roof on a clear day in May surfaced in my mind. “I knew you were the one who killed Shuji. You were S, weren’t you?” A voice ringing out with denunciation under a piercing blue sky. Takeda had exposed herself to the murderer who’d revealed his true identity, and she had glared at him and yelled fiercely. But it had been someone else who Shuji Kataoka called “S.” She had once been the manager of the archery club and was now someone’s wife and was about to give birth— Rihoko Sena— No, Rihoko Soeda! Of course, that was Rihoko! She’d cut her hair and looked very different, so I hadn’t been able to tell. Was the baby in that carriage the one who’d been inside her that day? So Rihoko had given birth to the baby! But where was her husband? Where was Soeda? My pulse had risen out of shock and panic. Takeda had been convinced that Rihoko’s husband, Soeda, had been “S,” and she’d sent him threatening letters. Soeda had had an intense inferiority complex about Shuji Kataoka during high school, and he’d stabbed him with a knife on the roof. But Shuji hadn’t died. Rihoko’s words that “No, you’re no longer human” became a trigger pulled, and he’d thrown himself off the roof. Rihoko had never told her husband about that. When she became his wife, she had known that he’d stabbed Shuji and that he’d gotten afraid and tossed the knife away and that he’d fled from the roof, and she’d known about the bleak, helpless emotions Soeda felt for Shuji. When he heard Rihoko’s confession, Soeda had wept, “It would have been better if I had killed him.” He had wept, why had she married him when she’d loved Shuji? How was he supposed to live with her now, when they were going to have a child? It would be hell! Takeda had watched the two of them with cold eyes, like a soulless doll. “Rihoko.” All of a sudden, a placid voice called out in our ears. The sinking sun cast a fresh scarlet over the benches, the swings, the jungle gym. A long shadow stretched over the ground. Leather shoes approached leisurely. A gray suit, a light jacket. Eyes crinkled in a kind smile behind pair of glasses was Soeda. A sweet smile came into Rihoko’s eyes, too, as she met his gaze. Soeda bent at the waist and lifted the baby out of the carriage. He brought his face close to it and told it, “I’m home.” The baby laughed loudly. Rihoko pushed the carriage and Soeda carried the baby, walking toward us talking in low voices. Rihoko was the first to notice. She saw us and murmured, “Oh,” and then Soeda turned his eyes toward us, too, and a look of surprise came over his face. Takeda smiled innocently, like a puppy. “Hello. We were in the area, so I thought I’d come with Konoha. You told me before that you come to this park a lot with Nozomi to wait for her dad.” Rihoko and Soeda’s faces both softened. “Only when he comes home early.” “If I came home at this hour every day, I wouldn’t be able to feed my family.” They both had placid eyes, as if they were completely different people from the day I’d met them on the roof. The baby was making noises and squirming in Soeda’s arms. “Inoue…” Soeda looked at me, and his face became apologetic. “I did something truly inexcusable to you. Something was wrong with me that day. You looked like Shuji and… I’m sorry.” My heart skipped a beat, and I shook my head quickly. “Forget it ever happened. So you named your baby Nozomi, huh? It’s a girl?” Soeda’s eyes calmed. He looked down at the baby as if he was gazing at something he couldn’t help but treasure. “Yes. She brought us together.” His tone was visceral, as if savoring the thought. Soeda told us about everything that had happened. How it had hurt him to even see Rihoko’s face for a while, and he hadn’t returned home for several days in a row. Even after her due date approached and Rihoko went back to her parents’ home in Niigata, he never once went to see her. Rihoko talked, too. How she’d been extremely uneasy before Nozomi was born. How she’d been at the point of giving up, sure that she would never be able to repair her relationship with her husband. Even after Nozomi was born he didn’t come to the hospital. She was nearly crushed, sure that it was truly over between them, and she’d been unable to sleep at night. The day she was released, Soeda was standing outside the hospital. “Honestly, I’d gone there to talk about getting a divorce. But when I saw Rihoko holding Nozomi against her chest—when Nozomi turned to me and her face lit up—my feet carried me to them naturally and I hugged them both together. It was then that I could finally believe we would all share our lives.” Tears were forming in Rihoko’s eyes, as well. “I knew it, too—that we were going to be able to be a family.” Something warm welled up from deep in my chest. It made my heart rock wildly. That day at the beginning of summer—as Soeda wept on his knees on the roof, Rihoko had gone on murmuring to him, her face calm, as if all emotion had dropped from her. “We will live the rest of our lives in hell. It’s not so bad; as long as you’re prepared for it, you can live anywhere.” “We’ll go on with our peaceful, everyday lives, forever thinking about Kataoka, forever his prisoners. We’ll have this child and raise it. We’ll live in hell from now on. That will be our atonement to him.” Rihoko had told him, “We will live… in hell.” When she’d uttered those words that day, Rihoko had been terrifying. But she’d been suffering for a long time, too. The crime wouldn’t go away. They couldn’t pretend that the wrong they’d perpetrated had never happened. She’d said that they had to live normally and at peace even so, embracing that suffering and pain. Only now did I understand, to the point of trembling, that those words had revealed Rihoko’s resolve. And then also, why Takeda had brought me here. “People change. “… This time I’ll be the one who teaches you.” The couple who had been plunged into the utter darkness of despair, distrust, and atonement were spending their days peacefully, carrying the burden of their sinful past. Even knocked flat, gouged out, and defeated—as long as you’re alive, change will come. If you grit your teeth, set your resolve, and take one step forward— Takeda, who had wept for me to let her die, also peeked into Nozomi’s face and smiled brightly. It may have been a false smile, desperately constructed; even so, she was smiling—normally, happily. My heart churned at that smile. That someday she would be able to make the lie true— We were invited to dinner and politely declined; then we retraced the road we had come by. As we waited for the bus at the stop, illuminated by the light of a streetlamp, Takeda said with a cold face, “You won’t stay knocked down forever, either, Konoha.” Then she added starkly, “Ryu, either…” She thought about it a little, then shook her head. “No… maybe Ryu will be down forever. But… when I destroyed my heart, he was nice to me… I’ll be able to do that without a second thought, with nothing to gain… When he’s sad or lonely, I’ll be nice and spoil him. I’ll smile from the heart, happy…” Takeda’s voice grew softer and softer until finally she fell silent. Maybe Takeda’s feelings for Ryuto were slowly changing, too. That’s what I thought, but I didn’t say it. Takeda would probably realize it for herself someday. Though maybe she already had… I had to change, too. After school the next day, I went with Akutagawa to visit Miu at the hospital. Miu was going to be released next month. “I’m shocked to get a visit from you, Konoha. Did you come to ask me to mediate between you and Kotobuki?” She sat beside the bed and looked up at me teasingly. When I offered her the gift I’d brought of black tea pudding from the store she liked, her face shone with a little excitement. “You’ve come to see me before, right? So this time I thought I’d come see you.” At that she smiled even more excitedly and accepted the pudding. “Hmmph. I see.” “Thanks. For coming to see me again. I wanted to tell you that. And that you’ve changed. Uh, I mean that in a good way obviously.” “Is that all?” “Huh?” “For something like that, you have to say, ‘You’re so much more charming than before.’ Flatter me.” “Oh, uh… sorry.” “Don’t apologize when I tell you that! Geez, you’re as blind as ever to how girls feel. That’s why you’re burning through Kotobuki’s patience.” “You’re pushing it, Asakura.” “You’re such a nag, Kazushi. Be quiet and eat some pudding or something.” Miu roughly shoved one of the puddings I’d brought at Akutagawa’s chest. Then she peeled back the lid of a pudding, too, and still fuming, she scooped some up with a plastic spoon and started to eat. “Why am I surrounded by worthless guys?” After that complaint, she suddenly turned her eyes away and her tone of voice became awkward. “But… I wanted to apologize, too. For going too far before. So I’m glad you came today.” Miu’s cheeks were red. After fidgeting hesitantly for a bit, she held some pudding out to me, too, told me to eat it, and then continued speaking curtly. “You know, Konoha, the novel you wrote really did hurt me. If you hadn’t written that novel and applied for the new author prize, I might never have experienced that level of despair. I might still have been at your side, deceiving you… hating and loving your stupidity and innocence. But you know, Konoha.” Still holding her pudding, Miu looked up at me. Her eyes were straightforward and filled with the sincere desire to tell me this here and now. “Your novel also saved me. “When I heard the real final scene that you’d written for me in that planetarium, it felt as if the hatred and sadness in my heart were melting away. I thought, Aaah, I’ve wanted Konoha to say this to me for so long. “The words you gave me were very, very beautiful. I’m sure that I’ll think of them when I’m having a hard time in the future. And then I’ll be able to keep fighting.” Light shone into my heart like sunlight through trees. The words Miu spoke had also tolled a bell of warm celebration over me. My lips curved into a smile. Someone’s words could make me this happy and give me strength. “Thank you. This is the first time I can be glad I wrote that novel. Thanks to you, Miu.” Miu turned her face away in embarrassment again. “Hurry up and eat your pudding. Geez. And what are you doing just holding your pudding and spacing out, Kazushi?” “… Asakura.” With a serious face, Akutagawa informed her, “I can’t eat it without a spoon.” “—Urk. You’ve got to speak up about stuff like that sooner!” “Sorry. You were telling a nice story, so I didn’t have a chance to interrupt.” “Argh! You should have just taken one and not said anything, then.” Miu threw the entire bag with the spoons in it at Akutagawa. He took a spoon out and handed it to me. Apparently Miu had secured permission from her parents to live on her own. Akutagawa was apparently going with her to look for apartments. It turned out that Akutagawa’s requirements were even more exacting than Miu’s, and she was the one who was actually going to live in the apartment. He complained that it had to have automatic locks, that she needed surveillance cameras, that that place was close to a slot parlor and didn’t seem safe, and she wasn’t making any decisions, so it was getting to be a lot of trouble and he was getting upset. “And where exactly would suit your tastes?” “I would have the least to worry about if you would rent a room at my house. We have a spare room.” “What are you talking about?! Are you serious?” Miu wailed, red-faced. I laughed. “Akutagawa’s gonna be an overprotective father. There’s going to be trouble if you guys ever have daughters.” “Hey now, Konoha! Why do you have to start talking about kids over something like that? You’re acting like Kazushi and I are together.” She glared at me ferociously and I flinched. “N-no, it’s just that yesterday I saw the baby of someone I know. It was a girl and she was really cute. Her name’s Nozomi. You write it with the characters for ‘hope’ and ‘beauty.’ Her dad picked it out as soon as he saw her.” Rihoko had told us with an effusive smile that it was the name Soeda had given her when he’d embraced Rihoko and their baby in front of the hospital after chasing after them from Tokyo. It was at that point— Something tugged at my mind. Wasn’t there something similar between Rihoko’s story and the story of Tohko’s mom that we’d heard at the hospital in Iwate? The nurse had talked about how Fumiharu also hadn’t made it in time for the birth because of work… That Yui had seemed anxious about giving birth alone, that she’d looked worried about something… They’d decided that if they had a girl, they would name her Tohko—that her mother had seemed truly happy—no, that wasn’t it. The problem was something else. There was another— That’s it: the fact that Yui had a child at a hospital in Iwate. The fact that Fumiharu was in Tokyo for work and couldn’t go visit her. But Fumiharu’s coworker Mr. Sasaki had told us that before Tohko was born, Fumiharu would rush home when evening came to look after Yui. That he had sidelined his work and he was restless while he was at the office, and everyone had teased him. Yui was in a hospital in Iwate. Fumiharu didn’t go visit her. So then who was Fumiharu going to see after work?! The insides of my mouth grew suddenly dry. In The Immoral Passage, the author Arisa and the editor Haru weren’t in a romantic relationship. Kanako had told everyone that she and Fumiharu had a “chaste union.” But could Fumiharu and Kanako have had romantic relations? Could Fumiharu have been having an affair with Kanako during Yui’s pregnancy? Or maybe even earlier! And wasn’t Yui sad when she was in the hospital? An image came to mind and goose bumps rose all over my body. It couldn’t be—! That was what Ryuto had meant! The one who used the poison—! “Is something wrong, Konoha?” Miu’s face scrunched up as she asked. I heard her voice at a distance. “Sorry! I forgot that my mom asked me to run an errand. I should get going.” I made a faltering excuse and left the hospital. As I walked, head bent, down the tree-lined path while sunset closed in, my heart raced as if threatening to tear itself apart. Tohko had told me that the morning the Amanos died, Yui and Ryuto had eaten normal food and Fumiharu and Tohko had eaten a “meal” that Yui wrote for them. That Fumiharu and Yui had drunk coffee that Fumiharu had brewed. How had I overlooked something this important? If that was the only thing they’d both consumed, that would mean the poison had been added to the coffee. The one who’d brewed the coffee was Fumiharu. Which meant, the one who’d poisoned them was—! The core of my brain was on fire. Ryuto’s words echoed disturbingly in my ears. “Konoha, there’s some things… you’re better off not knowin’. And once you find out… you can’t go back.” Why had Ryuto been in such despair? Was it because he’d found out it wasn’t Yui or Kanako who’d poisoned the Amanos, but Fumiharu? The ambiguous, dreamlike scene Ryuto had talked about drunkenly. “She stuck a spoon into the coffeepot and swirled it around… and the silver dust spun in a smooth circle, dissolvin’ into it.” “… When I tried to help her put it in the cups, she told me I was too little and I might hurt myself. Then she picked up the coffeepot and poured it into some cups with flowers on them. That’s when the earth cracked open and turned dark.” Hadn’t Ryuto been watching Fumiharu brew the coffee, at his side? It may well have been Yui who’d hidden the poison in the heart-shaped violet bottle in her jewelry box. And maybe, like Ryuto had said, the one who’d given it to her was Takumi Suwa, who’d died in a car accident. But the one who’d brought the coffee to her was Fumiharu. Could Ryuto have convinced himself in the confusion of memory that the one who’d brewed the coffee and the one who’d poured the coffee were both Yui? And yet he’d realized. That Fumiharu was the one who’d ended it all— “… Someone points at a shelf—and they tell me. The sleepin’ powder of Ole Lukøje is up there—” As Ryuto pointed into the distance with a shaking finger, Fumiharu’s face, which I’d only ever seen in photographs, overlapped with his. A gentle smile— I didn’t know what it was in the Christmas photo that had given Ryuto such a shock. Or what he’d been searching for after. But if Fumiharu had had an affair with Kanako and Yui had suffered because of it—what if Fumiharu had known that Yui had poison? What if Fumiharu had been beset with guilt and used it? What if the one who’d planned the murder-suicide was Fumiharu and not Yui—? Just like in the novel Kanako wrote, fantasy and reality mixed together chaotically in my mind. A variety of emotions intertwined, eddied together murkily, and I could almost but not quite glimpse the truth. None of it was more than conjecture. As I walked quickly, panting, I pulled up Ryuto’s number on my cell phone and called him. I got his voice mail again. “This is Inoue. There’s something I want to talk to you about in person. Could you give me a call?” And then I headed for a place Ryuto frequented. I wonder what would happen to Fumiharu if he took poison. Would he die? Or, since he’s different from us, would he be fine? When we were all eating together at home, I asked that because my heart had reached its absolute limit. “I have the sleeping powder of Ole Lukøje. I would hate it if I was the only one who went to sleep and Fumiharu was the only one who stayed awake if we took the medicine together.” I said it as a joke, but I prayed for it to be that way. I wanted to sleep eternally and let Fumiharu be free. That day, you glared at me with a pinched-up face, Kana, and Fumiharu answered with a laugh. “I guess I won’t know until I have some. Though I think as a living creature we should have a certain amount in common as far as poisons and medicines go. But for myself, I would hate for my end to come dying from poison someone fed me. If I’m going to die anyway, I want to die for something more important.” “Like what?” “I live with the writings of authors as my nourishment. So I want to give something back. “I want to become the nourishment for an author’s writings. That’s why I chose to be an editor. “If I were to die, I would want that death, too, to be the nourishment of someone’s writing. When I die, would you write about it for me, Kanako?” Fumiharu’s eyes were gentle and dreamy. You told him irritably, “Don’t talk about such stupid things!” Even so… you probably will write about it. You would write about our deaths, if we were to die. After I got to the restaurant, I left my second message on Ryuto’s voice mail. Telling him that I was at Harumi’s restaurant and I wanted him to come. When Harumi brought over the milk tea I’d ordered, she was worried about Ryuto, too. “Ryuto’s been acting funny lately. He’s always had this quality like a big, unruly kid, but his mood swings have been especially bad lately. I wonder what happened to him.” I called my mom to tell her I didn’t need dinner and stayed at the restaurant until nearly nine. During the day it was a fast-food restaurant, but at night it turned into a bar and the number of customers coming to drink increased steadily, so I was forced to leave. As I walked alongside the roadway illuminated by neon lights, I was trying to call Ryuto again when— I caught sight of Ryuto himself right in front of me. A shiver went down my spine. He looked even more wasted, like his mental balance had crumbled even further than when I’d seen him on Saturday night. He looked tormented by suffering, as if he’d abandoned everything, just like Kurosaki had at Amemiya’s funeral. He looked like a ghost, wandering aimlessly. His steps were light and unsteady, and he didn’t seem to know where he was, or even where it was he was trying to go. “Ryuto!” When I ran up to him, he looked down at me with languid eyes. Had he not showered this entire time? He stank of sweat. “… Konoha.” “Great, so you got my messages?” “… Messages?” “You didn’t?” “… I threw my phone away.” A lump stuck in my throat. Ryuto’s voice was incredibly hoarse, his panting breaths were uneven, and his bloodshot eyes never focused on anything. Deep in his black eyes, maddening pain and despair flickered like a fluorescent light being shut off. “No one… is willing to kill me. They all say they love me or they adore me or whatever, but when I ask them to kill me, they get all scared and run away.” He took several shallow breaths as he murmured indifferently, but I shuddered. “My kid… is gonna be born in the fall, y’know. If I die now, I wonder if I could get reborn inside that kid. Get born from Maki’s body. Call my own mom ‘Maki.’ Do the whole thing over again.” Cold sweat ran down my spine. There was no end to the electric charge, as if blades were running along the back of my neck. Ryuto’s eyes… shot… to the road, and he whispered, “I see a cat.” A car with its headlights on was screaming toward us. I didn’t see anything that looked like a cat, and I didn’t hear one, either. “What are you talking about, Ryuto?” Ryuto had his eyes fixed on the road. “See it? Over there. There’s a black cat in the middle of the road mewing…” Takumi Suwa was hit by a car trying to protect a cat—Maki’s words came back to me and my heart went cold. I didn’t think he saw a cat, but did he think that he could?! Like a sleepwalker, Ryuto started to take unsteady steps toward the road. “Wait! There isn’t any cat, Ryuto!!” My shout was erased by the sound of an engine. Ryuto wasn’t stopping. He just kept going. I reached out a hand and was trying to grab his shirt when— “Ryu.” A cheerful voice called his name. Takeda was standing in front of Ryuto wearing a milk-colored coat. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she was looking up at him with an adorable, puppylike expression. Everything after that was like a slow-motion scene on TV. The corners of her mouth still curved into a smile, Takeda drew closer. With a glint, a knife appeared from behind her back. And with it She stabbed him. Deeply—into Ryuto’s chest! The knife she held was the folding knife that Kotobuki had tossed aside in the underground storage room. He’d been trying to leap into the road, and she stabbed him, as if to bind him to this place, to drive a wedge into him to hold him back! He couldn’t believe it. That’s how it looked when he opened his eyes wide and looked down at her. Takeda gripped the knife she’d plunged into his chest firmly in both hands and smiled brightly, her eyes syrupy. It was a kind, sweet smile. Ryuto’s eyes crinkled as well. The corners of his mouth pulled into a wisp of a smile, and his expression grew peaceful and fulfilled, as if this was the happiest moment he’d ever lived. The sounds around us grew distant. Any number of cars drove past the two of them. Ryuto reached out an arm and pulled Takeda close. He put his cheek against her fluffy hair, breathed in the scent of it, and for one moment his eyes looked pained, on the verge of tears. Then he smiled again slightly and closed his eyes, as if he was being called into the most blissful rest. Ryuto collapsing against Takeda… Takeda crouching in the road with Ryuto circled in her arms… Her face transforming into emptiness like a doll’s… The blood seeping from Ryuto’s chest spreading steadily over the sidewalk and passersby screaming— I watched the entire tragedy, all of the love happening right in front of me, in mute shock. I don’t want to make anyone write anymore. But there are people whose destiny it is to write. People who must continue to write, taking hatred, suffering, sadness, death and the loss of people important to them—even topics like that as their nourishment.
Chapter 203
24 min read