Still trembling under the threat of the Evil Eye, I continued my wait. I imagined Mizuo straddling her bicycle, speeding along the city streets toward home. She stared forward intently, pumping the pedals with such ferocity that anyone watching would feel compelled to ask her what the emergency was.
Frankly, I worried for her safety. Who knew if she was spotting the telephone poles and vending machines on the sidewalk as she hurtled along? She had a recklessness about her—and a tendency to leave herself wide open to misfortune. When you make your way through life like that, there’s no telling what might happen to you.
I would have liked to see her work on improving her general awareness, but given our current relationship, I was hardly in any position to offer advice.
Another quirk of hers was the way she smiled. From time to time and for no apparent reason, her lips would curl ever so slightly, even when she was all by herself. I had no idea what she found so pleasant and thought the behavior most perplexing. But I suppose there may be men who find it charming.
I waited and waited, but Mizuo did not show. Thinking perhaps her arrival had preceded my own, I circled around back to the parking lot and peered up at her window. No lights were on.
“Perhaps she headed over to the bookstore in Takano,” I mumbled to myself.
I’d been standing outside so long that the cold had penetrated me from head to toe. I shivered, and just as I did so, a shadow emerged from the dark of the parking lot and slinked toward me.
It was a man. His face caught the glint of the streetlights, but I did not recognize him.
“I’ll call the cops on you.”
His voice bordered on a low growl, but I saw immediately how little substance was behind it. Still, I had to account for the slight possibility of error in my judgment; there was a minuscule chance that he was actually as formidable as the character he made himself out to be. So I decided to respond to his insolence with caution and courtesy—and to watch how things played out. Meanwhile, my legs were taut as bowstrings, ready to launch into instant retreat if the need arose. I was quite impressed with my nimble response, both in body and in mind.
“I’m sorry? I don’t understand,” I said.
“Quit following her around, or I’ll call the cops.”
Whoever he was, he had clearly mistaken me for some nitwit obsessed with following Mizuo around. An insult of the highest order.
I felt a surge of anger over this stranger’s rude accusation, but I maintained my outward cool, knowing there was no need to stoop to his level. He hadn’t even offered his name.
“I believe you’re mistaken as to why I am here.”
“Cut the crap.”
“I beg your pardon,” I replied, now slightly raising my voice. “I’ve no idea who you are, sir, but I refuse to be spoken to in this manner.”
“Yeah? Well I know exactly who you are. So if you don’t back off, you’re gonna end up in handcuffs. There are laws against this kinda stuff, you know.”
“I demand to know who you are.”
“Well, I’m not gonna tell ya,” he snapped. “Look. She’s sick of you following her around, so I came here to warn you. That’s all you need to know.”
“Warn me for what? I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“I’m serious,” he said, jabbing his index finger in my direction. “Keep this up, and I really will call the cops.”
✦ ✦ ✦
I stared, carefully examining the man’s face under the harsh fluorescent white of the streetlights. He didn’t exhibit the babyish features of a first-year student. But neither did he possess the mature, worldly countenance of a fifth-year like me. Since he claimed to be an acquaintance of Mizuo’s, I had to assume he was in his third year—a hapless, middling sort of age.
His eyes were narrow and cold, but one would be hard-pressed to describe them as sharp. They flicked to and fro restlessly, like a child’s. I could tell immediately that he had less than a hundredth of the visual acuity of Lady Uemura. The thinness of his lips hadn’t escaped my notice, either. They trembled slightly as he expelled his harsh admonishments. His brows, too, were a bit sparser than average—but out of compassion, I decided to refrain from dwelling on that particular shortcoming.
His nose, I could admit, was quite masculine and well proportioned. But it, too, spoiled his appearance, as it only emphasized the deficiencies of his other features.
Allow me to be quite clear: I do not nitpick his facial construction as a means to vent my irritations. I’m not one to assert that a person’s inner makeup is in any way defined by external appearance. No doubt there are some great men in this world with facial structures not much different than his. Rather, I wish to point out that had he not exuded an overwhelming smallness and lack of refinement, I might have disregarded his unpleasant appearance entirely. As it was, his behavior warped and magnified his faults, such that his verbal affront was compounded by visual insult.
Based on an overall inventory of his looks and the clues there afforded, I concluded that his capacity as an individual was likely less than a tenth of my own. The gap between us was so overwhelmingly apparent that I knew that the most appropriate course of action would be to ignore him and quit the encounter. I had no reason to waste my time exchanging words with such a pathetic specimen.
However, there were a few other things I had to take into account. If he was indeed an acquaintance of Mizuo’s, there was a fair likelihood that he was also enrolled in the Faculty of Law. Preparations for the bar exam were famously labyrinthine, such that an average individual would be half transformed into a husk of his former self whilst navigating the infernal maze. But he could still conceivably possess enough knowledge of the law to outmatch a novice such as myself. Given his earlier, ungentlemanly accusations, this fear was probably unfounded. However, he could be laying a trap, waiting for some criminal or tortious misstep on my part, providing the opening he needed to unleash some decisive legal combo attack. Perhaps he intended to outargue me, perform a citizen’s arrest, and then drag me to the police station himself. This could prove problematic. Convincing the ordinary populace of my research’s importance was one thing, but even I lacked the confidence that my compelling arguments would satisfy the authorities.
I was incensed. It was humiliating to think that this individual—this man whose intellectual capacity couldn’t fill a kitten’s milk bowl—might have the final word in our exchange. But in the end, I concluded that disengagement was indeed the best course. I would magnanimously take his shortcomings into account and spare him my wrath.
He stood before me, as if ready to block my exit. But when I made to depart, he pulled away from me with a gasp and leaped backward. Once he realized I only intended to leave, he shouted weakly after me, “You hear me?!”
His relief betrayed his true nature. He had the composure and opacity of a wet tissue.
“I mean it!” he persisted. “You better stay away from her!”
I thrust a hand into my coat pocket, where my trusty digital camera waited, ready for action. After a few more steps of feigned retreat, I abruptly stopped and spun around. I aimed the lens at his face and snapped the shutter. He recoiled, a soldier under fire from an enemy blunderbuss. It made a fine impromptu counterattack, I decided, against a stranger who refused to state his name while branding me a criminal.
The candid photograph ignited a storm of anger and unease in his eyes. But he lacked the courage to lunge and wrest the camera from my hands. He simply dithered.
Assuming that any further interaction would only prove a hassle, I then executed my escape plan, pumping my legs as hard as I could in a swift skedaddle. I heard him shout after me once more, with a strained “Get back here!” But I paid it no mind. It was the vain protestation of a defeated man.