Saeki parked in his garage and quickly closed the large metal door, which shut with a loud screech that echoed through the quiet residential streets. He stood outside the garage, staring down at the piles of dry leaves. The trees he had planted grew right up next to the garage, and they were wrapped in branches, so when their leaves fell, they nearly buried his garage. He would have to rake away the leaves soon.
Since his parents and grandmother had died, Saeki was alone in the house. He had to do all the cleaning and laundry himself. And every time he did so, it reminded him how alone he was.
His recently married colleague showed up at work wearing starched shirts now, and Saeki’s boss had pictures of his children on his desk.
“Will you ever get married, Saeki?” a female coworker had asked once.
That would never happen, Saeki thought. Lovers, friends, family … all those things seemed very far away, out of reach. Saeki could manage casual conversation at work, but he didn’t feel comfortable forming any deeper bonds.
The secrets and anxieties he harbored had built an unconscious wall between him and other people. There was no one he could ever confess these horrors to.
A chilly breeze brushed against his neck. It was colder than the day before, and Saeki shivered as he watched the leaves blow across the ground. But the chill he felt was not entirely the fault of the coming winter. Saeki realized he was standing outside without his suit jacket on. His white dress shirt was covered in wrinkles, which reminded him of his newlywed colleague’s marital bliss. That man’s shirts were always ironed.
He shook his head. This was no time to be thinking of other people. He stepped inside the garage. There was a door on the side of the garage, and he walked through it, making his way over to the car and opening the back door. As he picked up his suit jacket, he noticed the stain on the back of the cloth. It must be blood. Saeki looked down at the girl lying on the backseat, bleeding from her mouth and nose. He hadn’t wanted anyone he might pass as he approached his home to see the girl lying back there, so he’d covered her with his jacket, hiding her.
The girl was still unconscious and didn’t move. She was curled up, her long hair falling over her face like a veil. If she hadn’t resisted, he wouldn’t have had to hurt her, Saeki thought, rubbing the back of his hand, a red line marking where the girl’s nail had broken the skin.
She had screamed as they grappled, her voice shaking the silent night air. Everyone around must have heard it.
He didn’t clearly remember what had happened after that. Before he knew it, he’d hit the girl in the face several times. She had slumped over and was no longer moving, but his hands were still flying, pounding into her cheek. He’d shoved her into his backseat, thrown his jacket over her, started the car, and sped away.
Saeki had almost never done anything violent, not even as a child. When he saw news reports on child abuse, his head was filled with loathing. But now he had punched a girl in the face. He could still feel the impact on his hand, which tingled as if insects were crawling all over his fist. He shook his hand in terror, trying to get them off, but the sensation wouldn’t go away.
He picked up the girl, carrying her out of the car and into the room at the back of the house. He left the lights off so that their shadows wouldn’t show on the window or shoji screens. In the moonlight, the girl’s arms and hair hung down, swaying as he walked. In the makeshift workroom, he laid her down in the freshly made coffin.
It fit her perfectly. It was like he had made the box specifically for her. But Saeki couldn’t look at her face, not with the blood running from her nose and lips, not with the skin changing color where he’d hit her. The darkness inside him was branded onto her features, and he could not face up to it. He quickly put a lid on the coffin, nailing it closed. There were two small holes in the lid where the breathing holes would go.
There was an open hole next to Kousuke’s grave, waiting for the girl. He had guessed that the events of the day would happen, and the hole lay waiting in the moonlight. The dirt taken from the hole formed a small hill next to it.
Saeki pulled the coffin out of the house, moving it directly from the porch to the ground below. An occupied coffin was very heavy.
He placed the coffin in the hole, fitting the pair of bamboo breathing poles into the holes on the lid. Then he filled the hole, scooping dirt onto the coffin. At first, there was a wooden tapping sound as the dry earth hit the coffin lid—but soon the lid was covered, and the task was silent. It took longer than Saeki expected to fill the hole. He was covered in sweat, and since he hadn’t changed after arriving home, he had dirt all over the legs of his work suit. At last the grave was full, and he patted the earth flat with his trowel.
He had buried Kousuke in summer, placing morning glories on the bamboo poles. Bur that was impossible at this time of year. Morning glories were originally tropical flowers, and they didn’t take well to cold. That left several unused brown bamboo poles in the weeds along the wall, but that would not arouse any suspicions. All he had to do was explain that he grew morning glories there in the summer, and all doubts would vanish.
So the freshly dug soil wouldn’t stand out, he brought some straw he had laid on the flower beds and scattered it around the bamboo poles. When he was done, it looked like the ground had never been disturbed at all.
Saeki put his trowel away and sat down on the edge of the porch. For a long while, he stared at the bamboo poles along the wall. The girl was buried there.
The area between the porch and the wall was the only part of the garden not covered by trees. There were several flower beds, a line for hanging laundry, and the bamboo poles. But on either side of the porch, the trees crowded close, looming like black walls in the night. When the wind blew, the looming shadows shifted. Saeki rubbed the spot on his hand where the girl had scratched him as he’d shoved her into his car. The numbness left over from having hit her had almost vanished. When Saeki touched his face, he found himself grinning broadly.
He went into the house and looked through the girl’s bag. There, he found a can of pepper spray and a student ID. There was a picture on the ID: a girl with a beautiful face.
Below her picture was a grade and class, a seat number, and the name Morino Yoru. Saeki stood on the porch again, gazing at the bamboo poles by the wall and whispering that name to himself.