Shortly after I heard the tape, I skipped school and went to where I could see the gates of M**** High School.
M**** High School was a public high school, and only two stations from mine. The gates faced onto a busy road, but a tall, dark green hedge surrounded the school itself. The hedge was neatly trimmed, and it looked like a flat green wall. Above it, I could only make out the white roof of the school.
There was a convenience store across the street from the school entrance, and I stood at its magazine rack, watching the gates through the window. I spent about an hour pretending to stand and read, until classes had finally ended, and students began pouring out. The sun was already low in the sky.
As the students left through the gates, almost all of them crossed the street, passing in front of me. The station was on this side, and the sidewalk was much wider. I was able to check their faces, one by one.
Watching the flood of students pass in front of me, I remembered my sister’s voice.
I had listened to the tape again and again, and it had hit me just as hard each time. I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, but my thoughts took me nowhere.
My whole body felt woozy—from lack of sleep? As I turned the pages of the magazine, I glanced at the clerk, worried that he might be angry with me for standing here this long. Perhaps he even thought I was suspicious. I was scared he would say something.
I looked out the window in front of me. A group of five boys were passing by, talking happily, laughing. One of them met my eye.
He stopped in his tracks, surprised, and then he said something to his friends. I couldn’t hear him through the glass, but he was presumably telling them to go on without him. They moved on, leaving him behind.
I straightened up a little.
He came into the store and jogged over to me. “Kitazawa? What are you doing here?”
His name was Kamiyama Itsuki, and I’d known him in junior high. He’d been a member of the basketball team, and I’d been the manager. He had a bright, cheerful smile, an expression like that of a puppy. He was taller than me, but the way he ran up to me was more puppy than dog.
“What, don’t tell me you forgot me?”
I was so relieved he’d come up to me that I’d almost started crying. I suddenly realized how scared I’d been.
“Don’t be silly, of course I didn’t. It’s been a while, Itsuki …”
I remembered my sister’s funeral. Surrounded by relatives and my sister’s college friends, Itsuki had come running over to me, the two of us in our high school uniforms. He’d stayed with me the whole time. He hadn’t tried to cheer me up; he’d simply stood next to me. And that had been enough.
I’d remembered the crest on his uniform. That’s why I had known the boy who gave me the tape went to M**** High School. I didn’t know the boy’s name, so the school was the only way I had to find him.
“I’m surprised to see you here. Waiting for someone?”
I could hardly tell him I was watching the gates, waiting for someone who probably killed my sister, so I shook my head, not that. I don’t know what I must have looked like, but he grew serious.
“Something happen?” he asked, sounding concerned. “Or is it still your sister … ?” He knew about the friction between us. I’d told him all about it at the funeral.
The picture at the funeral had been taken just before she’d died, and that had made me want to talk about it with someone. It was a beautiful head shot of her, but it had been taken after we’d stopped being close.
“Not my sister.”
“But something’s bothering you? You said you wanted to talk to her again …”
“Yes, but … forget about it. I’m sorry about dumping that on you at the funeral.”
Itsuki looked at me with pity in his eyes. “Do the police have any idea who killed her?”
I stared at him.
“You just seem different.”
He had such good instincts. I shook my head. “The police still haven’t …”
“Oh,” he said, sighing.
As he sighed, the one I’d been waiting for appeared. The sun had started to set while I’d been talking to Itsuki, and it was getting dark out. But I could still see his face clearly through the store window as he crossed the street.
I was not certain the boy had killed my sister—but when I saw him out of the corner of my eye, I was instantly terrified, as if I’d been suddenly plunged into total darkness.
He was walking next to a female student, a beautiful girl with long hair. Both of them were equally expressionless.
They passed in profile across the glass beyond the magazine rack. Itsuki followed my gaze, wondering why I had suddenly fallen silent.
“Morino,” he said.
“Is that that boy’s name?”
“No, the girl’s name—she’s pretty famous. A teacher tried to molest her, but apparently she kicked his ass.”
Like Itsuki, they were both second-year students.
“Do you know the boy’s name?” I asked, a little too urgently. Itsuki looked taken aback. “Uh, yeah, he’s—”
He said a name, and I chiseled it into my brain, making sure I never forgot.
I put the magazine down and left the store. Cold air and exhaust fumes enveloped me.
I stood in front of the store, staring after him. I could see their backs as they headed toward the station.
She must have felt me staring, because the girl, Morino, turned around and looked right at me. She looked me over, and then she turned back around.
The shop door opened, and Itsuki came over. “I was in his class last year.”
“What’s he like?”
Itsuki stared at me for a moment, and then he shrugged. “I dunno … normal?”