Mitsuhiro stiffened, as if lightning was running across his body. He hurriedly opened his bag, took out the key, and rushed to the front door, stepping all over the footprints.
From behind the front door, he heard Miyoko shouting “Sae!” The blood drained from his face as he inserted the key into the door handle and unlocked it.
The moment he pulled out the key and opened the door, the air behind him violently rushed past. He felt like something had entered the room with him, but he was in no state to think about it. Smoke was slowly drifting from the ceiling in the corner of the front foyer.
“Miyoko! Sae! What’s going on?”
Mitsuhiro threw down his bag and ran in, still in his shoes.
The smoke was coming from the kitchen. Miyoko was trying to put out a fire inside the open microwave with a wet towel while Sae stood behind her, shoulders hunched.
Mitsuhiro turned around and ran back, grabbing the fire extinguisher from the bottom of the shoe rack. Fortunately, by the time he got there, the fire was already out.
Miyoko coughed and turned the exhaust fan all the way up. As it loudly sucked the smoke away, Mitsuhiro covered his mouth and placed the fire extinguisher on the floor.
“What did you put in the microwave?” he asked Miyoko, who was blinking her apparently irritated eyes.
“It was Sae, but she didn’t mean to…”
Miyoko stopped talking, coughed, and backed away from Sae, who was crouching down to escape the smoke. Mitsuhiro frowned and picked up the towel that had been thrown into the microwave. Beneath it was a set of burnt tinfoil containers—probably the au gratin potatoes they had in the freezer. There were three of them stacked on top of each other. They were meant to be heated in an oven, or a toaster oven at least, but instead she’d just put the whole bundle in the microwave.
“You can’t do that!” he reflexively shouted. “You’ll burn the whole place down!”
He was taken aback by the intensity of his anger, while Sae turned pale and stared at him, shaking slightly.
“Don’t yell at her. I should have noticed it.”
Miyoko hugged Sae around her shoulders. Mitsuhiro’s anger quickly subsided, replaced by regret and self-loathing. He realized that his palpitations and thirst were making him prone to losing his temper.
“I’m sorry, Sae. That was too much.”
Mitsuhiro bent down. Sae pouted, looked at the floor, and began to cry.
“A fire is really dangerous, okay? I was scared, too, so I accidentally shouted at you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Sae. Mommy and Daddy aren’t angry at you anymore.”
“But I pushed the button,” Sae muttered in a small voice, her head bowed.
“If you put tinfoil in the microwave like that—”
“I pushed it! I pushed it!”
Mitsuhiro felt his anger rising again. “All right. One minute, okay? Daddy’s thirsty.”
He took a mug from the shelf, trying to calm himself down. He filled it up to the top, then drank it all in one go. He was thirstier than he thought, so he had some more.
“I want some, too,” Miyoko said, supporting her large belly with her hands, so Mitsuhiro poured some water into the mug he was holding and handed it to her. While Miyoko drank it down, Mitsuhiro stroked his sobbing daughter’s shoulder.
“Sae, does your throat hurt at all from the smoke?”
“I pushed the button…” Sae shook her head, repeating herself.
“Yes, but you can’t put tinfoil in the microwave.”
“Mommy said to push it.”
It finally dawned on Mitsuhiro what his daughter meant.
“Does she mean the oven function?” he asked Miyoko. Indeed, the multifunction microwave they purchased for their condo had a conventional-oven mode as well. Mitsuhiro didn’t use it all that often, so he had forgotten about it, but that mode wouldn’t have set the metal on fire.
“I thought we had it on. I must have not been paying attention.”
“Ahh, okay… I’m sorry about that, Sae.”
Sae sniffled and hugged her mother.
“Here, Sae, drink some water.”
As Miyoko comforted Sae and gave her a cup of water, Mitsuhiro checked that the burnt trays inside the microwave had cooled down enough and threw them away in the trash, along with the partially burned towel.
“I don’t think it’s broken…”
But as soon as he peered inside the microwave, a pungent odor assaulted his nostrils, and he recoiled. The stench of a crematorium.
No, that’s ridiculous. It’s just the smell of burnt tinfoil. He quickly dismissed the thought, grabbed some paper towels, dampened them with water, and wiped the inside of the microwave.
White powdery residue was clinging to the turntable and inner walls. Some of the aluminum had burned up and turned into ash. That’s what he told himself as he wiped away the powder, but that same powder was faintly covering the buttons and dials on the outside of the microwave. Why was it on the outside, too? Well, the lids were open, right? The ash must’ve blown out with the fire. There was no other explanation.
“If the smell doesn’t go away, maybe I should just buy a new one,” he muttered to himself, quickly wiping down the outside of the microwave with the paper towels and throwing them in the trash. Then he suddenly remembered the trail of footprints leading to his door. His heart skipped a beat. An unusual sense of anxiety swarmed over him. He pulled the trash bag out of the bin, roughly tying it up.
“I’m gonna take this out.”
“Oh, Daddy! You’re still wearing shoes!” Sae, who had finally calmed down, pointed at Mitsuhiro’s feet.
“Hey, you left footprints. Make sure to clean the floor, too.” Miyoko smiled and stroked Sae’s head.
Sae suddenly smiled. “Yeah, Daddy. You gotta clean the footprints.”
“Okay, okay.”
Mitsuhiro smiled back at them, took off his shoes, and realized that he was desperately trying to suppress the urge to clean them immediately.
He had to wipe those footprints away. If he left them, there’d just be more and more. Driven by this urgent thought, he took his shoes and a trash bag and headed for the front door. No, no, he didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to touch those bizarre footprints. A childish voice cried out from somewhere in his head, but he forced it down with all his might.
In his condo, there was now one set of white footprints here and there. They were his. His bag and house keys were still lying on the floor.
Mitsuhiro left his shoes and trash bag at the front door, picked up his keys, put them in his pants pocket, and took his bag to the bathroom. He placed it on the floor, took out his jacket, hung it on the edge of the washing machine, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Suddenly, he noticed his tense face reflected in the mirror above the sink. He looked away. He didn’t want to see the glimmer of fear in the depths of his eyes.
Opting against using a rag, he instead grabbed the floor wiper and attached an adhesive sheet to it. This way, he wouldn’t have to touch that white substance directly.
Quickly, he wiped the dust from the kitchen to the hallway. Miyoko and Sae were preparing dinner now, as if nothing had happened.
After he was done with that, he put on his shoes and wondered if he should wipe up the common hallway as well. The floor out there had a nonslip surface, which meant the floor wiper might not work on it, but he had no choice but to try. He had been living in apartments like this long enough that he no longer even owned a broom or dustpan.
As soon as he faced the front door, which had closed itself automatically, his heart began to race again. What were all those footprints out there? It was too elaborate to be a prank. His mind desperately sought some kind of rational explanation as dread crept into his heart. Maybe someone from Tamai Construction was responsible. They probably sensed that Mitsuhiro was suspicious of them, so they tried to frighten him and make their story sound more plausible. After all, they were the kind of people who’d do anything to achieve their goals.
For the time being, that reasoning was enough to suppress his fear. Having this happen right at his doorstep was beyond unpleasant, though. If he told Miyoko, she might become so afraid that she’d want to move out, but he’d cross that bridge when he got to it. First, he had to build a logical explanation credible enough to soothe his own mind.
His heart was insisting to him that he didn’t want to go out the front door, but another concern now pushed that thought aside. What if people thought his family had tracked footprints all over the hallways? The other residents might complain, and the manager would definitely reprimand them over it. He had to clean it up quickly—or “purify” it, borrowing a phrase from Tamai Construction.
Mitsuhiro gripped the handle of the floor wiper again and opened the door with a new determination. He was afraid someone from Tamai Construction might be there, but the coast was clear. Completely clear. In fact, there was nothing to wipe up at all. As if it had all been neatly blown away by the wind during that fracas in the kitchen, there wasn’t a single footprint anywhere in the entire hallway.
Was it all just a mirage? Had he convinced himself he’d seen something that wasn’t there, because of the lighting or something? Did his assailants from Tamai Construction decide they’d given him enough of a fright and cleaned it all up before leaving? Or did the footprints themselves have a will of their own and just walk off somewhere?
Whatever the case, there were still a lot of questions to pursue, but he felt a rush of relief. Nothing more needed to be done. Mitsuhiro placed the wiper on the floor, leaned on it like a cane, hung his head, and took a deep breath.
“What on earth was all that?”
He raised his head, leaned the floor wiper against the wall of his front door, picked up the trash bag, and headed for the trash drop-off on this floor.
Or maybe they went into his home?
The thought suddenly crossed his mind. But Mitsuhiro’s more rational side decided that he couldn’t remain in a state of constant fear all night, so he instantly shut out the thought and ordered himself never to consider it again.
Thanks to that, by the time he returned from the trash room, he felt not only relieved but even a bit joyful. He had tackled a problem, and now it was over.