“The face, aim for the face!”
“Put out his eyes! Get ’im!”
The jeering voices weren’t young so much as childish. They belonged to middle schoolers who attended the cram school in front of the station.
He’d blown it. The park hadn’t had any other homeless residents because it was a “hunting ground” for middle schoolers trying to vent the stress from their entrance exams.
At the time, though, Kazushi was more angry than afraid.
He was mad enough to kill.
The next thing he knew, he’d grabbed the collar of a kid who hadn’t made his escape fast enough, pulled him down, then slammed two or three kicks into him. The boy’s groans turned into sobs, and he curled up like a caterpillar. He was shaking, his face a mess of snot and tears.
After one last kick, which he aimed at the kid’s face, Kazushi left the park. His shoe felt weird. When he checked the sole, a broken front tooth was stuck in the tread of his sneaker like a pebble.
Oh crud, he thought.
If he’d only bruised the kid’s face, he might have skated under the radar, but this level of injury was definitely going to get reported to the police. He probably wouldn’t be able to go near that park again.
If they found him, that would be it: They’d dispose of him as summarily as if they’d smashed him with a slipper.
Like a cockroach.
Something whose mere presence was unpleasant. A pest that had to be crushed for the good of the world.
And in that case, why should he be decent to other people? Roaches were only roaches, after all.
Subsequently, all he could say was that the devil got into him.
The next thing he knew, Kazushi was in front of Suzu’s house, unlocking her front door. She’d told him she kept a spare key hidden in the flowerpot by the entrance, just in case she accidentally dropped hers.
He was planning to steal some money from her wallet while she was fast asleep. He figured if she woke up, he could tie her up with an electrical cord and threaten her with a knife from the kitchen.
When he stepped in through the front door, he found himself in a living room with an old-fashioned warmth to it. Suzu was there, lying on a futon. She was sleeping like the dead. Only the night-light bulb of the fluorescent lamp was on, and in the dimness, her face could have belonged to an actual corpse.
His heart thumped beneath his ribs. In an impulsive attempt to make sure she was breathing, he reached out toward her face, and then…
…pain shot through the base of his little finger.
It was a dog.
Chako had crawled out from under the comforter, and she crouched low, growling, her muzzle wrinkled. A second later, when he saw beads of blood well up in the outline of a set of teeth, he realized she’d bitten him.
It was as if she’d completely forgotten about Kazushi, who’d lived with her until just a few months ago.
He felt as if she’d told him, I don’t want you.
The words he’d once heard his mother say came back to him vividly.
Why are you alive?
For a moment his vision went black, and Chako flew through the air, struck the wall, fell to the floor, and went limp.
At first glance, it looked like she was sleeping, with her tongue out, but she wasn’t breathing. Her heart had stopped. Her body was warm, though—it seemed like he might still be able to fix this somehow.
…Until dawn, when he went outside and buried her body under a tree in the garden before Suzu woke up.
After that, it just kept happening.
Suzu would wander through town, looking for the vanished Chako. Kazushi would take the opportunity to creep into her house, borrow the bath, and scavenge for leftovers to keep himself alive.
Before long, Suzu brought home the second “Chi.” Kazushi killed that dog, too, but he didn’t have the energy to dig a hole in the garden to bury it. He just tossed it into the storage compartment under the kitchen floor and pretended it wasn’t there.
Maybe he’d wanted Suzu to notice. However, three dogs, four, five—the number kept growing, and every time, the smell in the house got worse.
He couldn’t think about what had happened before, or what might happen later. He couldn’t think, period.
He just didn’t know anymore. He had no idea how he should live.
One phrase kept going around and around in his mind:
Why are you alive?
And now…
…Kazushi was running desperately down a rainy residential street.
No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t relax. It felt as if he were in a nightmare with no exit.
He knew why: He was being pursued.
He could hear rough panting. Four-legged footsteps were closing in on him. Even if he turned, he wouldn’t see any dogs. But they were right on his heels.
If he stopped, he was done for. Even if he kept running, they’d overtake him eventually.
Spurred on by fear and anxiety, he kept sprinting blindly. He was winded, and his harsh, noisy breathing sounded like a set of bellows.
Then…
“Huh?”
…out of nowhere, a familiar scent cut right in front of him.
It was an animal smell—the stink of a rain-wet dog.
It passed me! Just as he realized this, something solid hit him below the knees.
Before he even had time to gasp, he’d pitched forward. He put his hands out to catch himself; gravel bit into his palms, and he scraped his knees up royally. Just now, something had definitely run into his legs.
“…Ghk. Ow…”
When he groaned and tried to get up, he realized he was right under a streetlamp. Pallid, artificial light poured down over a shallow puddle on the pavement.
Splish. A small ring of ripples spread over the surface.
Splash-splash, splash.
It was as if invisible dogs were running through the puddle. He heard a low growl. The footsteps edged closer to him from all sides.
He was surrounded.
“Ee, eeep!”
Kazushi bolted like a rabbit, and then another impact ran through his legs.
He couldn’t even put his hands out to catch himself this time, and his face plowed into the asphalt. He hit his forehead so hard, he saw sparks. The fall took off a big patch of skin, and a second later, thick blood welled up, spilling over. His face was practically covered in it.