“You kidding me? Of course not,” Akira replied. “Snow is like an everyday thing up there. Man, now you’re just making me jealous… Sure wish I was born down in Tokyo too.”
“Aw, come on. There are good things about living in Hakodate too, right? Like being able to go skating at school and all the tasty seafood and stuff.”
“I guess, but there’s way more stuff to do here in Tokyo.”
“Yeah, too much, if you ask me. And trust me—when there’s too many different options to choose from, you just end up getting decision paralysis most of the time.”
“Hmmm… Seems a little weird to me, but okay. Maybe it’s just one of those ‘grass is always greener’ things, I guess.”
We spent a little more time in the classroom after that, just making small talk about random school-related subjects—sharing anecdotes about specific kids in our class, discussing differences between how school events were handled here in Tokyo compared to Hokkaido, and whatnot. But after chatting for a while, I got the sense that we were running out of things to talk about.
I looked over at the door. “Should we get going soon?”
“Yeah, probably.”
We got up and walked out of the classroom.
At long last, we arrived at my uncle Kurehiko’s apartment building. I wondered just how long it had been, exactly, since we first set out from Hakodate. It felt kind of surreal to have finally reached our destination after all this time. We wasted no time making our way up the external staircase and then seeking out the door to his unit: Room 202. With bated breath, I placed my hand on the doorknob.
“…It’s locked,” I said.
Yeah, no duh, I thought to myself. What were you expecting, idiot?
“Where can we find the key?” asked Akira.
“Mmm… We’ve probably got a spare back at my place, but…”
It would be a pretty lengthy detour to walk all the way to my house and back. Even with the whole world at a standstill, that would feel like quite the waste of time. I racked my brain for any possible alternatives, but then Akira piped up.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. This is the second floor, right? Why don’t we just climb up onto the balcony and break in through the window?”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this girl was on a mission to break some windows today. At the same time, I couldn’t think of any other realistic options available to us. Plus, since it was a pretty old building, I knew it probably didn’t have state-of-the-art crime prevention measures in place, so it shouldn’t be that hard to break in from the second floor. I knew we’d only be creating a mess for the landlord to clean up later, but sometimes you had to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
“Okay, I’ll head up onto the balcony,” I said. “You just wait here.”
“M’kay, roger that.”
I left Akira at the front door, then circled around to the back of the apartment building. Once there, I hoisted myself up onto the railing of the first-floor veranda, gripped the rain gutter alongside it with my legs, and managed to climb my way up to my uncle’s balcony with surprising ease. Luckily, his sliding door was unlocked, so we wouldn’t have to break any glass today. I took off my shoes, then headed inside.
Apparently, the estate had yet to be liquidated, as the place had been left entirely untouched. The scent of oil-based paint fumes ingrained in the walls and floorboards was deeply nostalgic to me. I passed through the living area and unlocked the front door.
“S-so this is it, huh?” Akira said uncomfortably as she took off her shoes and stepped inside. There was a restlessness in her footsteps as she slowly walked into the living area, looking nervously from side to side.
The room was spotless and tidy, a testament to Uncle Kurehiko’s obsessively meticulous nature. There didn’t seem to be anything that might serve as a clue in here—which left only the adjacent Western-style room that my uncle had used as his atelier, and that felt far more promising to me anyhow. I slid open the thin paper door separating it from the main living area.
“Oh, damn,” said Akira, marveling at the sight.
The walls were covered from top to bottom with oil paintings, all of which had presumably been painted by my uncle. There were definitely a lot more of them now than the last time I was here. In the very back of the room was a single canvas—more than twice as large as any of the others—covered by a sheet of cloth. This lone painting had been wrapped up nice and neat and left sitting out of sight, as if it were too sacred to be profaned by mortal eyes. Akira and I looked at one another, then back at the canvas. I walked over and pulled the sheet right off.
It was a painting of a gigantic wasp—so massive and imposing that it felt as if it might burst forth from the canvas and devour us whole. I could almost hear its thrumming wingbeats. It seemed to be drawn as though it were being viewed in twilight, with its whole body cast in a sunset-orange hue. Upon closer inspection, I could see that it was not depicting an actual wasp. It was more like a collage comprised of countless pieces of discarded furniture and refuse—among them a broken TV, an electric fan, a billboard, a desk chair—all of which coalesced to form the shape of a wasp. It was a strikingly realistic painting, yet it wasn’t photorealistic either. It was hard to convey in words. It was more like it was just a stunningly intricate recreation of some fearsome presence the artist had actually laid eyes on. All in all, it was an overwhelmingly awe-inspiring work of art.
But also, for whatever reason…the longer I looked at it, the more I was filled with an odd sense of déjà vu. Like it was trying to evoke some strange sensation deep within me or call forth a latent memory. It almost felt like I was looking at—