Volume 2 Chapter 3

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Aoii-san, Emoto-san specifically asked her to pass you the
phone, from which one could deduce that she had something
to say to you.”
“She began to say something, but she didn’t. She just said
‘never mind,’ and hung up.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“And it was definitely Emoto-san on the phone?”
“Yes. I never mistake voices of people I know.”
She exchanged glances with Kazuhito-san behind her. It
looked like they were done questioning and about to be on
their way, but I couldn’t just sit idly by in silence.
“Umm, Sasaki-san, may I ask a question?”
“Huh?”
Her poker face broke down once again, naturally. Having
had a younger boy suddenly address her by her first name, it
would’ve been stranger if she hadn’t been surprised.
“Something’s been bothering me.”
“Uh-huh . . .” She exchanged another glance with Kazuhito-san.
He responded with nothing more than the slight
drop of his jaw. Apparently a sign of consent; Sasaki-san
turned back toward me. “Okay.”
This consent was most likely not spurred by sympathy for a
boy whose classmate had just been murdered, but by the
mean-spirited notion that they could use my question to see
into me. Not that I cared.
“Um . . . by any chance, was Aoii-san the one who discovered
the body?”
“That’s correct,” she answered coolly, providing no further
explanation. It seemed they had no intention of telling me
anything more than necessary to answer my questions. Of
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course, they probably wouldn’t answer all of my questions
either.
So I was right, after all. She had gone to drop off Tomochan’s
birthday present, but there had been no answer. She
tried calling, but nobody picked up. The door to the building
had an autolock, but surely that was easy enough to get
around. All she had to do was follow one of the residents
inside. In that sense, it hardly even passed as a lock.
Hmm . . .
Mikoko-chan.
How must she have felt at that time? She was always so
full of emotion. What could she have possibly felt at a time
like that?
“Maybe I should’ve gone with her. . . .”
But then again, how could I have known? Besides, I wasn’t
sure I would’ve been much help even if I had gone along. I
wasn’t worth that much. I might have ended up just making
her angry.
“Is that your only question?”
“No, I’ve got a few more. What was the time of death?”
“We’ve determined that it was sometime between eleven
p.m. on the fourteenth and three a.m. on the fifteenth.”
“In that case . . .” Mikoko-chan and I had left her apartment
at midnight, which meant that the crime must have
occurred between midnight and three a.m. “Er, and you say
she was strangled, correct? There wasn’t a knife involved or
anything?”
“That’s what I said.” She narrowed her eyes at my mentioning
of the word knife. Of course I didn’t tell her, not even
with my eyes, that I knew a certain knife-wielding killer.
“Was it a rope?”
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“It was a thin piece of cloth. She most likely died instantly
from vascular compression. I doubt she suffered much.”
This was most human thing Sasaki-san had said so far. But
to me, whether Tomo-chan suffered or not was relatively
trivial. Either way, she was dead.
I knew what it was to die. It isn’t death that people fear:
It’s nothingness. Pain is nothing more than a peripheral addon,
despair nothing more than decoration.
“Um, have you already gone to see everyone else?”
“Everyone eke?” Sasaki-san replied, even though she knew
damn well what I meant.
“Everyone who was gathered at Emoto-san’s place last
night. Usami-kun, Atemiya-san, and Aoii-san.”
I asked this without any particular expectation. I figured
she probably wouldn’t even answer. But to my surprise, she
answered immediately.
“Yes, we have,” she said. “We’ve finished questioning all of
them. Your address was a little hard to find, so we ended up
coming here last.”
“What was everyone doing during that window of time
when Emoto-san was killed?”
One more step. I cautiously took another step forward.
Sasaki-san’s lips curled up into a vague smirk. “Usami-san
and Atemiya-san say they spent the night singing karaoke in
Shijôkawara-machi. As for Aoii-san, well, it probably goes
without saying.”
It did. Mikoko-chan was staying with Miiko-san in the
room next door. I felt a little relieved. If you could believe
Sasaki-san’s claim, that meant that the top three suspects all
had alibis. Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan could only account
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for each other, so their alibi wasn’t exactly watertight, but it
was enough to loosen any suspicions toward them.
I felt the pressure of Kazuhito-san’s gaze grow even
stronger.
“Tch . . .”
How unseemly.
Much too late, I broke eye contact with the two of them.
Dammit. They had set me up to feel at ease. They had
caused me to let my guard down. I had been careless. These
two detectives aside, you were never supposed to let your
guard down around a police officer.
Shit . . . what had they seen?
“Is that all, then?” Sasaki-san asked without a hint of
change in her tone.
“Oh, no. One more.”
If I had ever known failure, surely this was that time.
Kazuhito-san’s penetrating gaze was minute subtlety compared
to what I was about to face.
But it was a subtlety that had flustered me enough to ask a
question I didn’t even have to ask, a question that I shouldn’t
have asked.
“Who do you suppose did it?”
It was a question that had already been answered. And I
had gone and repeated it.
“That’s currently under investigation,” Sasaki-san answered
with a meaningful gaze—and the smile of a predator who had
just bagged its prey. She rose to her feet. “Pardon us for intruding
for so long. I think we’ll be back again later to talk
more,” she said, placing her calling card on the floor. “If you
remember anything else, please give us a call.”
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I took the card in my hand. It gave a number for the prefectural
police as well as her own cell phone number.
“Well, take care, Mr. Student,” Kazuhito-san said with a
smirk, and began to make his way out of my room.
Interesting . . . so he was the real faker. I had committed
such a fatal misstep that I didn’t even deserve to call myself a
passive bystander anymore. I had completely mixed up the
roles of the two detectives.
In other words, it was Kazuhito-san who was rushing me
along while Sasaki-san had been absorbing everything I said.
And what’s more, Sasaki-san had purposely let down her
guard and invited me to attack.
The gall. The utter audacity.
“Oh, by the way,” Sasaki-san said as if just remembering
something. “About your alibi. For the time being, it’s been
confirmed by your neighbor, Asano-san. She said you can hear
people walking down the hallway from inside the rooms.”
She flashed me a refined smile. This was essentially a
checkmate. No, this didn’t even make for a match.
She even had the nerve to throw in this little scrap of
compassion at the end there.
Well, son of a bitch.
I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t dealt with them for
a long time, but I had completely underestimated the Japanese
police. Did my arrogance know no bounds? Who the hell
did I think I was?
It was the first time I had felt such defeat since my run-in
with that redheaded private contractor.
I chewed my lower lip. “Kazuhito-san,” I said to him as he
was leaving.
“Hm?” He looked back.
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“If you were better-looking, you’d be a dead ringer for
Matsuda Yûsaku.”
“Guess that means I’m not a dead ringer for Matsuda
Yûsaku.”
It was a bull’s-eye answer. My last hopeless jab at him had
been a big whiff, and with that, the two detectives were on
their way. I cleared away the cups and plopped myself onto
the floor.
It had been a decisive defeat. I hadn’t felt this sensation in
a month, and I hadn’t felt it this strongly in a whole year. But
in this case I could just abandon the emotion. When you
thought about the fact that someone had just died, it was all
too trivial.
“Tomo-chan . . .”
I tried whispering the name aloud. The first thing to come
to mind was our conversation from the previous night.
“Have you ever felt like, as a human, you’re damaged
goods?”
Now, now, Tomo-chan, that’s not the sort of thing one admits
out loud, isn’t it?
It’s better to not know things; it helps us go on living. As
long as we’re not too aware of ourselves, we can live in happiness.
You might compare us to an airplane that’s lost its
engine and wings. We’re nothing but insignificant nobodies
who can only soar like crows who can’t call out. Once you
start questioning things, it’s all over.
It’s not about denial. It’s about ignorance.
“You can get killed asking questions like that.” As someone
with experience, it wasn’t my job to just dish out empty
words of condolence. “If you put your mind to it, it’s only
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natural . . . whether you’re a person like us or not . . . Or rather,
if you don’t put your mind to anything, that is.”
Having realized these things myself long ago, I was now a
person living without purpose, just as Tomo-chan had been
living a life without meaning.
I closed my eyes.
And I opened them.
“Well, so much for mind over matter.”
I swiftly rose to my feet.
Now then.
What to do now? There was nothing I was supposed to do,
but plenty of things I wanted to. For me, this was a fairly rare
condition.
First, I took out my cell phone. I checked the call history,
then began to dial Mikoko-chan’s number. But halfway
through, I stopped myself.
“Seriously, who the hell do I think I am?”
This was utter and complete nonsense. If I did call Mikokochan,
what did I possibly have to say to her?
So I put off calling her. At that moment, I just didn’t have
the right words to say to her.
“In that case . . .”
First things first. I cleared my phone and began reentering a
phone number. It was the one and only phone number I knew
by heart. With the phone at my ear, I tried to remember how
long it had been since we’d talked.
She picked up immediately.
“Ohhh! Ii-chan! A long time indeed, old friend! Do you
still love me?”
Her hyperness dwarfed Mikoko-chan’s by a factor of about
twelve; unlike Mikoko-chan, once you removed her stopper,
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the gushing would never end. If you let her alone, she would
shoot all the way up to Heaven like the Tower of Babel.
“What oh what oh what oh what is wrong? You never call
me! This moment is monumental! It’s the Himeji Castle! It
must be a diversionary tactic! Hyaooo! I wanna take a photograph
to record it, but a photograph can’t capture sound so
there’d be no point! Therefore, commence audio recording!”
“You don’t have to bother with the audio recording.”
I made an effort to keep my cool.
Muimi-chan had asked me if it was tough keeping up with
Mikoko-chan’s hyperness, but as I had told her, compared
with Kunagisa, Mikoko-chan was pretty much a piece of cake.
If Mikoko-chan was happy-go-lucky, then Kunagisa Tomo
was happy-go-crazy.
“Tomo, are you free much these days?”
“Nope! More on the busy side. Extremely occupado. My
processing power is facing an imminent meltdown! Emergency
memory expansion! Defrag imperative! I’m going to freeze!
Oh my God, it’s happening! It’s happening! Present progressive
form! Please reboot!”
“Is it this Kyoto prowling serial killer case?”
“Bingo! Wowww! You’re like Maki-chan! Or the red contractor!
Kyahahahahaha! Return of the ESP! And forever!
Mankind’s strongest! This is the end!”
“Sorry, Tomo, could you dial it down a notch?”
“Huh? What’s wrong? Well, whatever. Yep, it’s the Kyoto
prowling serial killer case! But you know what? It’s not going
the way I expected! This darn case! Hurdles! Serious hurdles!
Surely the killer is the reincarnation of Dread Jones! Wahaha!”
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“Let’s make a deal, Kunagisa Tomo,” I said. “I’ll give you
some information on this Kyoto prowler case. You’ll give me
information on a certain murder that’s come up.”
“Huh?”
She thought for a moment. I knew she wouldn’t ask me
why I had information on the prowler case or why there was a
murder case I was interested in. I believed in her, and she
trusted me.
Unnecessary explanations.
Excess clarifications.
Wasted words.
Inane questions.
Distracting chatter.
The very best thing about Kunagisa was that she had no
use for any of these things.
“Ehh, I don’t like this word deal, Ii-chan.”
“How’s bargain?”
“Awful.”
“Pact?”
“Almost there.”
“Conspiracy?”
“Not technically wrong, but something’s off.”
“Well, then what about a mutual complementing of each
other’s attributes?”
“Yeah, that’ll do,” she said happily.
Give or take.
At this point, I still hadn’t decided which.
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After finishing my call with Kunagisa, I went to visit Miikosan
next door. I knocked on her door.
“Yo,” came her response. Several seconds later, the door
opened. As usual, she was dressed in a jinbei. It seemed to me
that if she was going to take such an avid interest in Japanese
clothing, she ought to get herself a nice, pretty kimono. It definitely
would’ve looked good on her.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, I just wanted to thank you. They said you vouched
for my alibi.”
“I didn’t do anything remarkable. I just told the truth.”
“Yeah, but I created an unnecessary burden for you.”
“I don’t care. Happens all the time . . . but you’ve certainly
dealt with your own fair share of nuisances, haven’t you?” She
sounded more amazed than concerned. “You’re like the man
of a thousand disasters. So what about that girl? Based on
what the authorities were saying, it sounds like she was involved
as well.”
“Well, in a manner of speaking . . .”
“Gotcha,” she nodded. “Well, then, how do you intend on
thanking me?”
“I’ll treat you to tea.”
This was literally an invitation to go have real tea at a teahouse,
not just a regular coffee shop. It was sort of a Kyoto
thing, or maybe just a Miiko-san thing.
“Does that come with dango?” Dango—those tasty rice
flour dumplings—went really well with green tea.
“It even comes with hiyashi shiruko.” Yes, and sweet red
bean soup, too!
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“Where at?”
“The Oharame-ya in Gion.”
Miiko-san’s eyes immediately lit up. “Hold on, I’ll get
ready.”
She shut the door. For what it was worth, she was considerate
enough to change into normal clothes if she was going
out with somebody else. That level of thoughtfulness made
her a pretty rare specimen in my circle of acquaintances.
“And I’m back.” A minute later she was ready to leave. She
handed me a car key. I flipped it over once in the palm of my
hand before clutching it tight.
And so eight o’clock in the evening rolled around. Tea with
Miiko-san had ended and I found myself walking between
Shijô and Oike on Kawara-machi Street. Miiko-san had already
driven her Fiat back to her apartment.
“Don’t use me just to kill time and save on shoe leather.”
Those were the words she had left me with.
She could see right through me, all right. Miiko-san was
sharp, all right. But you had to hand it to her for accepting my
invitation anyway. She was a nice girl. Or maybe she just had
a sweet tooth.
I came to a stop and entered a nearby karaoke spot.
“Welcome,” the guy behind the counter said. “Party of
one?”
“Umm, I have a friend who should already be here.”
“May I have your friend’s name, please?”
“Zerozaki Hitoshiki.”
“Ah, Zerozaki-sama?”
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He briefly entered something into his computer. “Okay,
that would be room twenty-four,” he said, flashing me a
customer-servicey smile. I said my thanks and made my way
to the elevator. Room twenty-four was on the second floor. I
got off there and walked down the hall, checking the number
of each room.
“Dadadadadada dadadadadadadada! Dadadada! Dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada!
Ah! Aaaahhhh!”
Just as I was wondering who was the bozo with the rusty
pipes, I realized it was coming from room twenty-four. I gave
a little shrug and opened the door without even knocking.
“Wha?”
Zerozaki stopped his belting once he noticed me.
“Yo, Damaged Goods,” he said, waving a finger at me. I entered
the room without reacting and took a seat on the sofa.
“Hey, Human Failure,” I said.
He placed down the microphone and used the remote
control to end the song.
“You can keep singing if you want. You’re paying for this,
right?”
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m not really all that into singing, to be
honest. And I sure as hell don’t like imitating other singers. I
just do it to kill time.”
He sat down so that he was facing me and sighed deeply.
“Haven’t seen ya for a day. But, like, it don’t really feel that
way.”
“Eh, I guess not.” I nodded.
To be honest, I was surprised. Until a moment ago, I didn’t
even think Zerozaki would be here. Sure, after our conversation
the day before yesterday—I mean, yesterday morning—
we’d arranged to meet again. “I’ll be at the karaoke joint, so
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let’s meet up there,” he had said. But I didn’t think he would
actually show up. I guess he probably thought the same thing.
And that was no doubt the reason that I had come and the
reason he was here waiting.
The meaning of the phrase used to waiting: Here too lay a
justified contradiction.
From there, we began talking about a variety of things,
none of which mattered in the least. It was just like the night
we had first crossed paths. Ridiculous philosophy, boring facts
of enlightenment, irrelevant views on life. At times we veered
off-track a bit and got into discussions on music (“Guess the
one-hit wonder”) or literature (“What’s the trick to truly moving
your reader?”). None of it had any real point. It was as if
we were both just trying to check something.
“Say, Zerozaki,” I said somewhere around the four-hour
mark. “What’s it feel like to kill someone?”
“Huh?” he said, tilting his head at me. His face looked
blank, as if he hadn’t been thinking of anything in particular.
“It’s not really the kind of thing that makes you feel this way
or that. I don’t really feel much of anything.”
“You don’t? It doesn’t feel good or refreshing or anything
like that?”
“Listen, dumbass, what do you think I am, some kind of
sicko?” he said with a heaping helping of condescension.
Committing grisly murders sure seemed like a funny way of
not being a sicko, but I decided to hear him out.
“ ’Cuz, you see, it’s like this. I mean, I am a murderer. But
I’m not what you would call a ‘lust murderer.’ That’s a tricky
distinction to make. I guess it doesn’t do any good for me to
make that kind of claim myself anyway. In the end, it’s the
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people around you who decide who you are. All I can do is go
along with it. I’m not really one for deep thoughts, you know.”
“Huh . . . yeah, I guess not. Okay, then how about I change
my question—what is murder to you?”
“Nothin’.”
I could find two meanings buried in that word.
It was worth nothing.
And therefore, it cost nothing.
“Now here’s a question for you, D.G. What is death to
you?”
“When you flat-out ask me like that, I’m at a loss. If I had
to answer, I guess I’d say it’s kind of like a battery running out
of juice.”
“A battery? You mean like with the AA and stuff?”
“Yeah. Well, something like that. I guess you could say
battery power is like a life force or something. Which I guess
would make you and your body the insulator.”
“I’ve been called worse,” he said with a little laugh. He
seemed to be truly enjoying himself. I wondered if I sounded
like him when I laughed.
“I guess my question was ambiguous,” I said. “How about
this, then? Do you understand why other people commit
murder?”
“Huh? That’s a bizarre one. But very you somehow. Let’s
see . . . nope.”
“You don’t?” I asked.
“Well, first of all, I don’t understand other people, period.
Whether or not they’re killers, and regardless of how evil they
may or may not be. Second of all, I don’t even understand
myself. I have no freaking idea what causes all that chaos and
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confusion swirling around in my guts. So all I can say is no, I
don’t understand people who kill others.”
“I see your logic there.”
“I might add that murder was never particularly what I was
going for,” he said as if it really was just an afterthought.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, this is going to get awfully conceptual, but in other
words . . . well, here’s an example.” He picked up the receiver
for the room phone. “Excuse me, could we get two ramens
please?”
Not much later, a staff member came in carrying ramen.
“Eat up. I’m payin’,” he said, and took some noodles with
his chopsticks. “Now this is a meal.”
“Yup. You didn’t even have to tell me.”
“They say food, sleep, and sex are the three basic desires of
mankind. But why are we eating this meal right now?”
“To ingest vitamins.”
“Yes. Without vitamins, people die. And thus eating food
brings pleasure. Sleeping feels good, too, and sex, well, that’s
obvious. Anything that you have to do to stay alive always
comes with pleasure.”
“Sure. That’s easy enough to understand. So?”
“Don’t rush me. 'So? So? So?’ You sound like Akutagawa
Ryu-freaking-nosuke.”
“Huh? Wasn’t that Dazai’s thing?”
“It was Akutagawa, dammit. Dazai wrote about it in an
anecdote on Akutagawa.”
Whichever literary figure it was, I decided to once again do
as told and hear him out. He paused for a moment before
speaking, as if to build up the suspense.
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“Now let’s imagine someone who’s obsessed with eating. In
other words, someone who eats not simply to take in vitamins,
but because he’s mad for the sensation of eating itself; for the
beauty in the very act. The stimulation of his taste buds. The
pleasure of feeling the food pass through his mouth. The joy
of mastication. The ecstasy of feeling that mushed-up gook
flowing down his throat. The feeling of fullness nearly destroying
his satiety center altogether. The euphoria taking over
his brain. In other words, I’m talking about a fat guy,” he said,
laughing. ‘To a guy like that, vitamins or lack thereof are totally
irrelevant. The means and the end have switched places
for him, so that his main goal is something subsidiary. Now
there’s your problem. Can you still say this guy is eating? No,
don’t answer. You and I both know the only possible answer is
no. What this guy is doing isn’t eating. He’s just eating the
concept of eating.”
“And you’re just killing the concept of killing? That’s a bit
of a stretch,” I said with a shrug. “It’s pretty perverse to try to
equate a natural appetite for food with the urge to kill. Are
you sure you don’t just have your priorities mixed up? Maybe
you’re mistaking killing for something else.”
“Ehh, that’s a tough one. It’s hard to say. I’ll say it again,
man—the act of killing itself was never my intention, nor was
the stuff that comes afterward. Y’know, the dismemberment.”
Then what the hell is your intention? Man, you’re a tough
guy to understand.”
“Not as much as you. I mean, I know that I’m hard to understand.
I just said that. Anyway, in the beginning, I thought
I was in it for the thrill.”
“The thrill,” I said.
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“Yeah. You’ve heard of ‘high risk, high return’ before,
right? In Japanese, I think we say, ‘If you don’t go into the
tiger’s den, you don’t get no cub.’ With murder, the risk is
high, but the return is low, right? It hardly seems worth it. It’s
stupid. That’s why most murders are almost always cases of
people ‘going too far’ or ‘using too much force.’ They’re not
trying to kill the person, but before they know it, they’ve gone
and done it. However . . .”
He pulled a rather dangerous-looking blade from his vest
pocket. “This here is what they call a dagger. You grip it in
your fist like this. So the first person I killed, I stuck this thing
in his carotid artery and just tugged it to the side. This was an
inexplicable act of murder. I had no particular intention of
causing the person suffering or pain. In fact, it was a rather
pleasant way to die, if you ask me. Now let me just say right
now that by no means was this a boastful act. I’m sure you
know this, but acts spurred by one’s pride are the most pathetic
actions a person can take. People who take pride in
causing harm are the lowest of the low. I’m just boasting
about my faults here. Seriously, all joking aside, that’s the only
kind of murder I can perform. Even when I went after you, on
the other side of the mirror.”
“Huh. You don’t say.”
“I do say. Like, let’s imagine that you and I ended up fighting
to the death again. Of course, logically speaking, it’s entirely
possible that you would kill me. But in the one time that
you could kill me, I could kill you nine thousand, nine hundred
ninety-nine times. Well, in reality you and I each only
have one life, but this is a metaphor. At any rate, I can only
kill for the sake of killing. In other words, I can affirm that the
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eight people I’ve killed up until now were not victims of me
‘going too far.’ ”
Eight people. In two days, the body count had risen by
two. Well, I guess you could say that Zerozaki had gone about
living his life while I had been living mine.
“So am I an idiot? Maybe. After all, it’s not like I’m getting
anything out of killing these people. Well no, I guess I am
getting something. Whatever’s in their wallets,” he said.
One of the alarming details of the prowler case had been
that the victims’ money and valuables had been stolen. This
was a rare thing in cases like this, in which the murders
seemed to have been committed for the thrill of it, but the
reason was simply that Zerozaki needed the money to support
his homeless lifestyle.
Even his karaoke money was probably coming out of one
of those victims’ wallets. If you looked at it that way, even this
ramen was tainted with sin, I thought as I slurped my noodles.
“But you could get that stuff just by working a normal job,
so it’s no reason to commit murder. If you think about the
effort that goes into killing one person, it makes a lot more
sense to just spend the day working somewhere instead. And
yet I choose murder. And therein lies my whole theory.”
“Ah, I get it. In other words, to Zerozaki Hitoshiki, the risk
is the return.”
“Yup. The means and the end aren’t just swapped, but unified.
The act itself is the purpose. The purpose is the act. The
act is complete when you’ve carried out that purpose. This is
actually not a bad theory at all.”
“But how is that any different from just losing sight of your
purpose? It’s like having a guy who loves to read, so he fills his
room with books until it’s completely buried in them. But he
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 118
still keeps buying new ones. Whether he buys books or not is
up to him, but he’s got so many books in his room now that
even if he spent his whole life reading them, he’d never get
through them all. But he just keeps on buying and buying.”
“Hmm. Ahhh, ah-ah-ah, I get it I get it. You’re talking
about processing capacity. Once you’ve surpassed your processing
capacity, means and end become one and the same.
It’s like Ishikawa Goemon said: ‘A splendid view, a splendid
view, even a thousand pieces of gold is too little to pay for the
beautiful sights of spring. I, Goemon, am worth ten thousand
ryô.’ Hmm. Yeah, maybe so,” he said with an impressed sigh
as he reclined into the sofa. “But you know, my man, even if
that is the case, it doesn’t have much to do with me. You
know why? Because that theory I’ve been talking about is so
totally wrong to begin with. Risk equals return? Now there’s a
bullshit equation if I’ve ever heard one. I’m just having fun
with logic here.”
“Huh. So what are you getting at?”
“Well, this story is a little generic,” he said, leaning forward.
“But let’s go back to when I was just a little brat. You
were a little brat once too, huh? Well so was I. What kind of
brat was I? Well, I wasn’t particularly weird or anything. I
even believed in God. If I got smacked, it hurt. If I saw someone
else get smacked, it hurt. I had all your average sensibilities.
I wanted to bring happiness to the people near me. I
knew gratitude. I knew unconditional affection for another
human being. That’s the kind of little brat I was. . . . But
sometimes, I would just sit. Not to read a book or watch TV
or something. I would just sit. I’d be there resting my chin in
my hands, my mind up in la-la land, just sitting there. Sooner
or later I realized that during these times, I would always
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naturally start pondering how one kills a human being. The
first time I realized what I was doing, I was seriously freaked
out. I mean, I was pondering, examining how you kill a person
as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The idea that
this was really me was the scariest thing,” he said.
“So it was something you discovered in yourself. But what
part of this story is supposed to be generic? It seems pretty out
there to me. You’re saying that from birth, you’ve had an
innate proclivity to murder?”
“I said don’t rush me. I thought that once myself, but that’s
not the case at all. I thought I was born with a murderous
mindset, with the urge to kill. But that’s not it. It’s that—and
this is where it gets generic—I’m attached to a rail.”
“A rail? What are you talking about?”
“It’s a metaphor. You hear it a lot. People talk about life on
a track, right? You go through middle school, you go through
high school, you go through college, you enter society, you
support yourself with a salary so that you can bag a lover, and
then you depart from the world. That’s the track of life. Well,
similarly to that, I’m on the murderer’s track.”
“Sounds more like you’re off the track to me.”
“Like you’re one to talk. Anyway, that’s not important.
The kind of track I’m talking about here isn’t necessarily the
one set up by society. It might be a track you’ve set for yourself.
Like, imagine there’s a kid who becomes obsessed with
Ichiro in elementary school and decides he wants to be a baseball
player. In that moment, he makes a track for himself.”
“I see. So that means we’re all on a track . . . except for
people who ‘drop out,’ I suppose.”
Except for people who have suffered a fatal blow.
Except for people who go off the rails.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 0
“Yup. I don’t know who laid down this track for me. I
might have done it myself. Someone else might have. But one
thing I know for sure is that I’ve taken the track too far. I’ve
made it too far down without suffering that fatal blow, and
now there’s no stopping me. I can’t even entertain the idea of
putting on the brakes.”
“Aha. So it just keeps going on and on.”
In other words, right now, he was in motion. And the him
in midmotion was entirely different from the him who had
first started running along this track.
“Yup. It’s like a curse from the past. And in my case, it’s
slowly killing me. It may sound boring living life on a track
someone else has laid out, but you know, it doesn’t make any
difference who laid it out if it if you get sick of it midway
through. Not that I could just quit at this point. Too many
strings attached now.”
“Must be even tougher not having anyone to blame.”
“That’s right. Especially for an outcast like me.”
“Might as well give it up. You may not break away from
the track, but you sure do break away from the rules.”
“Oh? Well you’re no Mother Teresa yourself, you know.”
“But I am a serious student at a university. I’m not like
you.”
“Doesn’t saying that depress you? It’s like looking into the
mirror and saying, ‘Who the hell are you?’ ”
“Exactly,” I said nodding.
“Anyway, it’s for that reason that I don’t view myself as a
murderer. Because killing isn’t my goal. You’ve heard of people
who ‘kill like it’s as simple as breathing,’ right? Well, for
me, if I don’t kill, it becomes hard to breathe. I’m just paying
the train fare for this track I got on long ago. Or it’s like I’m
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 1
perpetually repaying a loan. You could say I’m killing the act
of killing.”
“This is all becoming a little too idealistic and abstract for
me. Can’t you put it more realistically?”
“Not really. I mean, we’re talking about a vague concept
here. If you put it in realistic terms, the conversation would be
over with ‘I killed and dismembered someone times eight.’ ”
“That’s true . . .” I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
Talking with Zerozaki was interesting enough, and I had even
learned a thing or two, I suppose, but it wasn’t exactly useful
information. “Hmm. And here I thought a killer like you
would be the one most capable of understanding the heart of a
killer.”
Maybe I’d been wrong to assume that. After all, Zerozaki’s
MO and Tomo-chan’s cause of death were completely
different. I didn’t believe for a second that Sasaki-san had
given me the whole scoop, but she had at least told me that
Tomo-chan had been strangled with a thin piece of cloth.
Meanwhile, Zerozaki was cutting people up with a knife. The
similarities began and ended with the fact that both killers had
brought death to their victims.
Zerozaki killed people at random.
Tomo-chan’s killer had sought her out. It was most likely
the result of a grudge. Something spurred by a sticky, slimy,
disgusting personal relationship that had eroded away.
“Hah? Why do you say that?” he said.
“Well, it’s just that a classmate from my university was
murdered recently.”
“Murdered? Your classmate?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 2
“That’s what I said. Yeah, at first, I wondered if you had
done it, but it doesn’t match your style at all. They strangled
her with a piece of cloth.”
“Ah, yeah, that’s not my thing,” he said, waving his hands
with a grimace.
“So I thought. But I just figured one monster would understand
another.”
“You’re mistaken. And it’s such a you mistake. Monsters
don’t kill people; people do. And just as people don’t understand
monsters’ feelings, monsters don’t understand people’s.
It’s like comparing a platypus to the archaeopteryx.”
I didn’t know who was supposed to be the platypus and
who the archaeopteryx, but he was probably right. Guys like
Zerozaki were peculiar and dysfunctional, and that was why
they were so rare.
“So, what happened, then?” he said, sounding not particularly
interested. Figuring there was no need to keep it a secret,
I proceeded to tell him everything I had heard from Sasakisan.
I told him about Mikoko-chan, Tomo-chan, Muimi-chan,
and Akiharu-kun and about the birthday party. He occasionally
dropped in a brief remark or shook his head as he tried to
follow along with the story’s twists and turns, and just once,
he even flashed a look of concern.
“Hmm,” he said when I was finished. “I see. I see I see I
see. So that’s how it went down. So?”
“What do you mean so?”
“So means so.” He stared me directly in the eye. I didn’t
answer him. This silence continued for a whole hour.
“Okay, I got it,” he eventually said, standing to his feet.
“Let’s go.”
“Huh? Where?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 3
“To Emoto’s place,” he said like with all the casualness of a
good friend inviting someone over to hang out. With that, he
made his exit. This was all going just as I had expected, I
thought. I rose from the sofa and followed him out, leaving
our half-eaten ramen behind.
“But about that Aoii chick,” Zerozaki said apathetically as
we walked westward down Shijô Street. “Seems pretty obvious
that she’s got the hots for you.”
“What?” I couldn’t help but be surprised by this sudden
leap in our discussion.
It was already past midnight, meaning it was now Monday,
the sixteenth. Even on Shijô Street, which was a major eastwest
road, traffic had grown sparse. Occasionally we passed a
group of college students probably coming home after a night
of drinking, but the sidewalks were otherwise mostly empty.
I realized that the next day I had to go to school. And from
first period, no less. What’s more, it was my foreign language
class, where they always took attendance. And it looked to me
like this was going to be another all-nighter.
“Eh, what were we talking about again?”
“That Aoii chick,” he said irritably, knitting his brow at me.
“Hearing what you have to say about her, she’s got to have a
thing for you.”
“No way. What could’ve possibly given you a dumb idea
like that? That doesn’t even sound like something you would
say. I mean, she’s already got a boyfriend anyway.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 4
“Oh wait, that’s right.” Come to think of it, she may or
may not have told me that. “But still. I don’t think that’s the
case. I mean she does seem to be fond of me, but it’s like how
people are fond of animals. And even then, she probably sees
me as an iguana or something in the reptile family. You know,
like ‘Aw, that’s . . . kind of cute.’ ”
“An iguana? If you’re an iguana, then that makes me a chameleon,”
he said, and proceeded to laugh. “For example,” he
then said, immediately switching back to his serious tone.
“She knew your address, right? That’s extremely suspicious
right there. Who bothers looking up the address of someone
they don’t even have a crush on?”
“She didn’t even have to. It was in the address log from
class.”
“Aha. You said it yourself, man. You were on vacation
when class started and you missed the first week of your . . .
general education, was it? Whatever that class was. Hence,
there was no way your address could’ve been recorded in that
log.”
“Oh.”
Now there was an oversight. I certainly didn’t remember
telling my address to anyone else, and that meant there was no
way the address of my ancient ruin of an apartment building
could’ve been on the sheet. There wasn’t a single person at
Rokumeikan who should’ve known where I lived.
“But Mikoko-chan claimed she got it off the address list.
Was it just a misunderstanding? But misunderstandings like
that don’t happen, do they? So maybe she lied to me.”
“Eh, not so much a lie as an excuse. She probably followed
you home one day.”
“If she’d been following me, I would’ve noticed.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 5
“Maybe. At any rate, she probably learned your address
through fairly illegitimate means. She couldn’t tell you the
truth, so she just blurted out that thing about the address log.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So let’s think about this. Have you ever met a girl who
would go that far just to learn the address of some random
guy? You might not put it past a guy, but we’re talking about
a girl here.” He flashed an unsavory smile.
I let out a sigh of a laugh. “Don’t act like you know what’s
going on.”
“What can I say, it’s who I am.”
“But I really think you’re wrong about this. I can say that
for certain.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. And what are you basing this certainty
on?”
“Well, she acts like she hates me.”
“Huh?” Zerozaki’s facial expression alone was enough to
make it clear that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Come on now, at least remember the stuff you said yourself.
You just said Aoii was fond of you, didn’t you? So what the
hell are you squawking about now?”
“Hang on, this isn’t a contradiction. I have sort of a dualistic
or Boolean view of the world. Shall I explain? In other
words . . . like, take the cars on this road. Let’s say there’s a car
going twenty-five miles per hour.”
“Yeah. You want me to tell you if that’s fast or slow?”
“Yeah. Which do you think?”
“It’s slow, isn’t it? At this time of night they could go faster
than that.”
“Okay, then let’s imagine the same car going at full speed. I
don’t know much about the limitations of automobiles, but
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 6
let’s just say it’s going one hundred miles per hour at full
throttle. Is that fast?”
“Fast works for me.”
“Finally, let’s imagine the car when it’s at rest. How about
this time?”
He gave a restless shrug. “It’s at rest. What the hell do you
think?”
“Just humor me.”
“Well, slow, I guess. You sure can’t call something that’s
not moving fast.”
“That’s right. Now let’s go back to the initial question—is
twenty-five miles per hour slow or fast? I would express it like
this: ‘It’s twenty-five fast and seventy-five slow.’ ”
“Ahh.” He gave a convinced nod. The cheek on the tattooed
side of his face curled up into a slight smirk. “So the
way you see it, what does Aoii think of you?”
“Well, to give an approximation, she likes me seventy and
hates me fifty. Approximately.”
“I guess that doesn’t add up to her liking you twenty.”
Indeed. The logic of arithmetical operations didn’t apply
when it came to human emotions. Besides, these numbers
were highly prone to fluctuate, making such calculations troublesome.
They could only be expressed as averaged values.
“Okay, so what about you, now?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You. How much do you like and hate Aoii?”
“I like her zero and hate her zero.”
“Whoa . . .” He pulled back a bit in surprise. “My God,
man . . . you’re brutal.”
“You should talk.”
“Cram it, Captain Passive.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 7
I liked her zero and hated her zero. You might call it
apathy.
Sure, my words might have been a little exaggerated and
laced with apathy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t telling the
truth.
Because after all, I’m such a cold, dried-out person that I
can kill a person just by living. Indeed, I was as brutal as Zerozaki
made me out to be. I simply couldn’t take any type of
assertive action for the sake of a stranger.
“This is totally . . .”
“Totally.”
“A masterpiece,” Zerozaki said, laughing.
“Nonsense.” I didn’t laugh.
“Well, putting all that textbook mumbo-jumbo aside, don’t
you have the hots for anyone?”
“Huh. I don’t really know.”
“Even though they’re your emotions?”
“Because they’re my emotions.”
“Ah, I get it. Because you’re the passive spectator. You
understand other people better than you understand yourself.
I guess they say you can’t be your own observer. It’s like that
thing . . . what was it again? The uncertainty principle? Quantum
mechanics? Doppelgänger’s cat?”
“ ‘Doppelgänger’ can’t be right.”
“Ahh, who was it? It’s math, so it’s gotta be a German guy,
but . . .”
After that mildly racist remark, he sat and thought to himself
for a minute. But ultimately, he couldn’t seem to recall
whose cat it was. “Goddammit,” he said, slapping himself in
the left cheek. This seemed to relieve him.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 8
“Well then,” he said. “Here’s my conclusion: You’ve got a
fucking terrible attitude.”
“That’s probably correct. But. . .”
But.
What could I possibly have intended to follow that up
with? Might I have been considering saying somebody’s name?
Of course I was. But whose name that could’ve been, I don’t
know.
“It’s all just nonsense in the end.”
“Um, is that supposed to be, like, your escape line?” He
slumped his entire upper body dramatically as if my incredibly
delayed response had completely knocked the wind out of
him. Though not to the same extent as Mikoko-chan, it
seemed Zerozaki was also one for big reactions.
“Eh, then again, I guess I’m kind of like that too. Or rather,
I am like that,” he said.
We arrived at the Nishiôji-Shijô intersection. The Hankyû
Saiin Station was visible to the south. Of course, the final
train had long since made its stops, and the area surrounding
the station was desolate. We turned north. If we continued up
as far as Maruta-machi, we’d arrive at Tomo-chan’s apartment.
“Maybe we should’ve hailed a cab after all. We’re still only
halfway there.”
“It’s a waste of money. That is to say, I don’t have any
money. Or were you going to pay?”
“Nope. There isn’t a single student in Kyoto who rides in
cabs.”
“Huh. I’m not a student, so I wouldn’t know.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 9
Suddenly a doubt rose in my mind. I thought of Sasakisan’s
stern gaze for some reason as I asked Zerozaki my question.
“Are you on a most-wanted list or anything?”
“I don’t think so. Nobody’s ever tried to talk to me, and
nobody’s ever followed me. I’ve done my share of following
other people, though,” he boasted. It amazed me that someone
who stood out this much—I mean, he had a tattoo running
down half his face; maybe that kind of thing was normal
in Tokyo, but he was probably the only one of his kind in all
of Kyoto—hadn’t been arrested yet. But then again, if you
thought about it, whether he stood out or not probably didn’t
make much of a difference in a case like this.
“So we’re going to Emoto’s place from here, right? But . . .”
“What?”
“In reality, you can already pretty much deduce what happened,
right? I mean, who the killer is and stuff.”
“Deduce?” I parroted his word back at him. Could I really
figure out the answer based only what I knew at this point?
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I mean it when I say I don’t
really know what happened. I’m not some mystery novel or
movie . . .”
Detective.
The redheaded private contractor.
“Detective.”
“Well, of course not,” he said with surprising plainness.
“But I guess I also mean it when I say that I don’t think it’s
beyond figuring out. She was strangled to death. Inside a
room. The estimated time of death leaves a fairly narrow window.
The suspects all have alibis. We just need a few more
clues.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 0
And it just so happened that I currently had Kunagisa collecting
that very thing. And I myself was on my way to do the
same.
“Is it possible that it was just a random robbery?”
“Well, technically it’s possible, but the cops don’t seem to
think that’s the case.”
There was something very unordinary about both Sasakisan
and Kazuhito-san. It was hard to believe they were the
kind of people who would be sent out just to handle a simple
burglary-homicide case. Of course, that was just my hunch.
“Mmm.” Zerozaki's eyes drooped lazily. “But I don’t think
you really have to go out of your way to investigate things. Is
there some logical reason for doing this?”
“Not especially. Listen, nobody's making you come along.
Why don’t you go cut up some more people?”
“Nah, that’s okay. I’m not in the mood for that tonight.”
He took my suggestion more seriously than I had intended.
“Besides, I was the one who suggested we go in the first
place.”
Meanwhile, we’d arrived at Tomo-chan's apartment building.
Apparently the police had already checked out, leaving
the area as desolate as the train station. We made our way
through the automatic door and into the main lobby.
Now then.
“Ah, right. You need an autolock card key to get in.”
“What now?”
“Here’s what we do.” I walked a step ahead of Zerozaki
and entered a random room number into the intercom.
“Hello?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 1
“Um, this is the person from room three oh two. I’m so
sorry to bother you, but I went and locked my own card in the
room. Would you mind opening the door for me?”
“Oh, certainly.”
K-chunk, the glass door said as it opened up.
“Thank you,” I said to the complete stranger, and Zerozaki
and I quickly made our way into the building.
“You don’t mind lying just like that, huh?” he said.
“What can I say, it’s who I am.”
We got into the elevator and went up to the sixth floor. As
we walked down the sixth floor hall, I produced some thin
white gloves from my pocket and slid them onto my hands.
“Not to make this awkward, but . . . were you prepared
with those gloves this whole time?”
“Yup. I planned this whole thing.”
“Wow,” he said as he pulled his own pair of gloves out of
his vest pocket and switched them with the fingerless ones he
was currently wearing. Of course, a guy like him probably just
carried gloves around with him every day.
We arrived in front of Tomo-chan’s room. When I tried
the knob, the door turned out to be locked, as expected.
“So how do you propose we clear this one?”
“Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. Any ideas?”
“I gotcha,” he grumbled, pulling a thin knife from his vest
pocket. Or perhaps drill was a more accurate word for it. He
jammed it into the keyhole. He rattled it left and right until
we heard the click of something settling into place. Then he
pulled the knife back out, spun it around once in his hand,
and closed it back up in his vest.
He turned the knob. “It’s open.”
“This can’t be safe, can it?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 2
“Not even a little bit. The killer could be anywhere.”
We shrugged and went in anyway.
We walked down the hall between the kitchen and bathroom,
and passed through the door at the end. The room
hadn’t changed much from my Saturday visit. It looked like
some things had been slightly moved around, but that was
probably owed to the crime-scene investigation.
And then there was the center of the room. White strips of
tape formed the shape of a person.
“Wow,” Zerozaki said with awe. “So they really do that. It’s
like something out of a TV show or a manga. Hey, that Emoto
girl had about the same build as me.”
“Looks like it.”
Tomo-chan was pretty small, even for a girl, but for a guy,
Zerozaki was ridiculously petite. They weren’t exactly the
same size, but they could’ve easily fit each other’s clothing.
“Incidentally, I prefer tall girls,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yup. But tall girls don’t like short guys, do they?”
“But none of your six victims were tall girls.”
“Who goes around killing the girls he’s into, idiot?” he said
angrily. It looked like I had touched on a difficult subject.
Nevertheless.
My gaze fell back on the tape on the floor. Tomo-chan
must have been strangled and then collapsed on the floor here
in this position, asphyxiated. But this tape hardly captured the
reality of it.
I looked back over at Zerozaki to find him immersed in
silent prayer. His eyes were closed, with his hands pressed together
in front of his chest.
I deliberated for a moment before deciding to do likewise.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 3
Afterward, I once again began inspecting the area around
the tape.
“Hm.”
There was something on the right hand of the human
shape. It was dark, so I couldn’t see it very well, but we
couldn’t just go turning on the light, either. I managed to
make out a small ring made out of black tape.
It seemed this was some sort of mark they had made during
the investigation.
“What’s this? Maybe something was on the floor here?”
“No, look closer,” Zerozaki said, crouching down next to
me. “Something’s written here.”
“Dammit, I wish we had a little more light.”
“Just wait a little longer. Your eyes’ll adjust soon enough.”
It assumed that we were working at our leisure here, but
right now that was our only option.
In time, my eyes did begin to adjust.
Thin carpet. On its surface there were red letters.
“x over y?” we both said.
The letter x was written in cursive handwriting. Then a
diagonal line below it. Then the letter y in the same cursive
handwriting. It was messy writing, so you had to struggle to
make it out. But it didn’t seem like it could’ve said anything
else.
“What’s x over y?”
“Beats me.”
“Is it red because it’s written in blood?”
“Nah, seems to be some kind of oil-based ink.”
Strange writing next to the body's right hand. Could this
have been her dying message?
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 4
“But hey, we don’t actually know that this is the right
hand. We can’t tell if the body was faceup or facedown just by
looking at this tape.”
“Ah, right. But, Zerozaki, I don’t think she could've written
this if she was facedown. Not that she was necessarily the
one who wrote it.”
“Yeah, that’s right. There’s still the possibility that the
killer wrote it. So what’s this x over y bullshit all about? Math?
But this isn’t an equation. You can’t take it any further than
this.”
“Maybe whoever wrote it didn’t finish.”
“If that’s the case, we're pretty much at a dead end. I can’t
even imagine what they were getting at with this,” he said as
he walked over to a comer of the room and slid down against
the wall. “I’m sleepy,” he said with a big yawn. “Figure anything
out?”
“Just the fact that this may or may not have been her dying
message is a pretty good haul. Now, then . . .”
I scanned my eyes around the room. There were no signs of
a struggle. As far as I could see, nothing was broken or missing.
“Yeah, I don’t think this was just a burglary,” I said. Was it
all because of a grudge after all? But what could a girl who
had just turned twenty years old two days ago have done to
have inspired such hatred?
I continued examining the room as I pondered. Of course,
the police had probably already done this with complete thoroughness,
but right now it was necessary to see the crime
scene with my own eyes, in order to fill in the gaps in my
imagination. For later on.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 5
“What now?” Zerozaki said as he watched me moving
around. Judging from his current state, it didn’t look like he
intended to help me any further. Not that I was expecting him
to do anything. I’m not such an idealist that I would expect
anything from a mere water reflection.
“You seem strangely comfortable doing all this,” he said.
“Well, I've got experience.”
“What could a twenty-year-old have possibly experienced in
his life to have broken him so badly as a human being? I can’t
even imagine,” he said.
“You should talk. But I guess I’ll humor you anyway. I
guess you could say I haven’t lived a very respectable life. Or
no, my life has been plenty respectable, but I haven’t been.”
“Hmm. You know, I don’t like myself very much,” he said
plainly to my back. “But seeing you, I realize I’m not so bad.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth. I may be a
screwup, but I’m not as bad as you. When I look at it that
way, it’s kind of a relief.”
“I wonder.”
“I wonder.”
“Say . . . why do people die anyway?” he asked.
“Because you kill them.”
“Well, yeah, but I mean aside from that. Umm, what is it
again? Apoptosis? Darwinism? Genes? Cancer cells? Cell
suicide? All that good stuff. It’s like the termination point of
our functionality.”
“Come to think of it, I heard once that the longest a
human can live is somewhere around one hundred ten years,
regardless of the era or region.”
“Huh.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 6
“I mean, the bottom line is that living creatures have a lot
of diversity. But you know, whether you live a long time or
not doesn’t really make a difference. I don’t really think
there’s even much point in living two hundred or three hundred
years. I’ve lived for nineteen years and two months up
until now, but quite frankly. I’ve had enough.”
“You’re tired of it?” he asked.
“Well, it’s more like I just can’t endure it anymore. I’m still
okay for now, I guess, but if things go on like this . . . yeah, in
another two or three years, my ability to process reality will
have reached its limit.”
“But isn’t that just one of those things? Like, I’ll bet you
thought the same thing when you were fourteen, right? Like,
‘in another few years I’ll probably have committed suicide.’ ”
“Yeah, I did think that. But I didn’t have the balls to go
through with it.”
“Chicken.”
“Yeah, well. I always wanted to be a bird.”
“Not a chicken, I bet. They can’t even fly.”
“I’m joking. But I do think this: There isn’t a person on this
earth who’s lived for ten or twenty years without pondering
God and death, unless he’s just some slaphappy nut.”
“God and death, huh?”
“Yeah. But before he can contemplate those things, he has
to have learned about life. Some knowledge of life is necessary
in order to contemplate death, so you have to study life before
you can even begin to think about the fact that it will one day
end. It’s like that saying: ‘If you want to kill someone, your
victim had to have been alive to start with.’ No matter how
much effort I might exert, I can’t kill John Lennon.”
Nor could I kill Emoto Tomoe.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 7
“Now tell me, Zerozaki. What does it mean to be alive?”
“That your heart’s still beating?” he said off the top of his
head.
“Wrong,” I answered. “Showing signs of life and being alive
are not the same thing. But that aside, what if there existed a
person who had experienced death before life? What kind of
human being would he turn out to be? Could we even call
him a human being? A living creature who could reminisce
about his own passing, who had mourned his own death before
life even began. What would we label such an existence?”
“I guess that would be Death himself. It would have to be,
or else . . .” His eyes seemed to be searching for the right
words. He pointed a finger at me with an awkward look on his
face. No words came out. To be sure, they probably didn’t
need to.
“Eh, it’s just another mind-over-matter thing,” I surmised.
An escape line.
“Say, man. I know I already asked, but is there some reason
you’ve gone to all this trouble—I mean, illegally entering her
apartment, not to mention the fact that you’re supposed to be
the passive observer type—just to gather information about
the murder?”
“Yeah, there is,” I answered. I meant to say no, but for
some reason a confirmation leapt out of my mouth. I wasn’t
sure which one I really meant.
“Huh . . . you said yourself that you don’t like or dislike
Aoii, right? Then why should you do anything for her? And it
seems to me that you only met those other three through her,
like little add-ons.”
He slapped his hands together as if he had just thought of
something. “Is it for Emoto Tomoe?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 8
Tomo-chan.
A tragic figure, brutally murdered just after celebrating her
own birthday.
That alone wouldn’t have moved me, normally. If starving
children on the other side of the world were being shot to
death, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. If some giant
earthquake in some faraway country killed tens of thousands
of people, I wouldn’t feel a thing. Whether or not a string of
murders occurred in the town where I lived, it was no matter
to me. I just didn’t have that kind of spirit; it wasn’t much
more to imagine that I wouldn’t feel much sadness or despair
over the passing of even a nearby acquaintance.
However, there were always exceptions.
“I was hoping I’d get to talk to Emoto Tomoe just a little
more.”
Zerozaki said nothing to this.
“That’s all, though, really.”
“I see,” he nodded. “Well, whatever the case, what we have
here is a masterpiece for sure.”
Indeed, he was right that there seemed to be no compelling
reason for me to go to all this trouble. It wasn’t like I was
being somebody else, but it certainly wasn’t my usual style.
I realized I was being stupid. I just didn’t think I was
wrong.
“Ahh,” Zerozaki yawned again.
“If you’re bored, you can go.” That is to say, get lost.
But he shook his head. “It’s okay. Besides, how are you
planning to lock up without me?”
“Actually, I’ve got one of those things that allows you to
lock the door without the key.”
“That’s a pretty useless device.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 9
Of course, I was joking.
Zerozaki soon closed his eyes and began to doze off. It was
like watching my own sleeping face, which was a bizarre, alien
sensation, to say the least. I continued examining Tomo-chan's
room until four in the morning, but didn’t come up with
anything that seemed like a decent lead.
“But . . .”
Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, halfway through, I
had entirely lost my will to search for clues and spent the rest
of the time staring down at the tape human.
And I reminisced. About the time I had spent here on
Saturday night. That wild, ridiculous night during which we’d
all left reason and rational thought behind.
If I could be allowed to say something a bit romantic, perhaps
this was my memorial to Tomo-chan. Now that wasn’t
my style, to be sure, but it seemed like a good enough reason
all the same.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
We left the building, and Zerozaki and I parted ways there.
We spoke no parting words, and made no plans to meet again.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 1
There ain’t no meaning.
Got it.
Got it.
Got it.
Got it?
Wednesday, May eighteenth.
With second period over, the afternoon break had begun.
Since the dining room got crowded at that time, I always
skipped lunch on days when I had a second-period class. So I
instead made my way directly to my general-education class.
General education.
Classmates.
Aoii Mikoko, Atemiya Muimi, Usami Akiharu, and Emoto
Tomoe . . .
I hadn’t seen a single one of these four people since the
week began. This was no coincidence; most likely, not a single
one of them had come to school. Being dead, Tomo-chan had
her reasons, but the other three had neither died nor been
murdered. Perhaps Tomo-chan’s death was to blame for them
not showing up, or perhaps this was just how college students
behaved after Golden Week.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 2
Things hadn’t progressed any further. The pair of
detectives—Sasaki-san and Kazuhito-san—hadn’t returned to
visit my apartment again, I hadn’t had any contact with my
three classmates, and I was still waiting for news from
Kunagisa. Naturally, I hadn’t met with Zerozaki again either.
As someone who doesn’t read the news or watch TV, I of
course had no idea what kind of press (or lack thereof) Tomochan’s
death had attracted. Nor did I know if the prowler had
struck again in the past three days.
It was something I had no desire to know.
Right now, I was only waiting. After all, that was one thing
I was used to.
“Man, it’s hot. . . . I wonder if I’m a slug,” I muttered as I
made my way across campus, from Meigaku Hall to Yôyô
Hall. It was less than three hundred feet away, but it was a
tough walk anyway. I had heard of boiling-hot climates before,
but I didn’t think they really existed. Neither Kobe nor
Houston had been this bad. This was the kind of heat and
body-soaking humidity unique to basin towns. I struggled to
endure it as my legs carried me along. I climbed a staircase,
which brought me directly to the second floor of Yôyô Hall. I
went inside and at last took a moment to catch my breath.
Just then, I spotted somebody familiar. But it wasn’t
because she was familiar that I noticed her. Rather, it was that
my eyes had been attracted to her against their better
judgment by her flamboyantly hot-pink jersey. It didn’t exactly
blend into the surroundings.
That brown sauvage. If only she was crouching on the
ground in front of a convenience store, the image would have
been complete.
It was Atemiya Muimi-chan.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 3
She was currently talking to some guy, probably a classmate.
Thinking it would be a little obnoxious if I were to butt
in and start up a conversation, I tried to slip by her unnoticed
when she called out to me.
“Whoa, it’s Ikkun,” she said.
“Yo,” her male associate greeted me informally. He had
light brown hair and an easy-breezy kind of smile. Wait, who
was this again? I didn’t know anyone with this sort of easy-golucky
surfer quality, did I? Was he from our general-education
class?
“Long time no see, huh?” Muimi-chan said with a weak
smile. “Umm . . . Geez, this is kind of awkward, huh? How
have you been since it happened?”
“I’ve been coming to school as usual.”
“Oh . . . heh, well, I guess you would.” She smiled, but it
seemed slightly forced. She appeared worn out, which probably
wasn’t forced.
“How about you?” I asked. “What’ve you been doing? I
haven’t seen you at school.”
“Oh, well, how do you put it . . .” She couldn’t seem to
find the words. She probably didn’t like the idea of exposing
her weakness to others. I’m not that type of person myself,
but her feelings weren’t beyond my comprehension.
“Well, I’ve got to prepare for a presentation. Time to get
outta here. See ya later,” the guy said to us, and rushed off in
the direction of the staircase.
“He’s sure an energetic son of a bitch, huh?” Muimi-chan
said we watched him take off. “He’s totally lazy until an
opportunity to be the center of attention comes along. Gen.
Ed. ought to be a good show today. I’ll be watching that bastard
from the front row.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 4
“Huh. So that guy is a classmate, then.”
Muimi-chan stood frozen for a few seconds before slowly
and stiffly turning her head toward me like her neck needed
an oil change. I almost expected to hear it creaking.
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“Hm? Oh, I guess Mikoko-chan didn’t tell you then, huh?
I’ve got a pretty bad memory, so I don’t really know who’s in
our class. I might remember him if I heard his name, though.”
But she wouldn’t tell me the guy’s name. She was staring
at me in shock for some reason.
At last, she opened her mouth. “Usami Akiharu.”
“Oh.”
There you had it.
This was shocking.
“Does he leave that little of an impression?” she said.
“Well, less than you, anyway. It’s not like he goes around
wearing hot pink jerseys.”
That was what I wanted to say, but I stopped myself.
Muimi-chan was the type of person who would probably
really start hitting you once you made her mad. And I probably
wouldn’t get off with just a jab or two. If I teased her the
way I teased Mikoko-chan, I’d be dead meat.
“It’s my memory that’s at fault here, that’s all.”
“If that’s the case, then do something about it.”
“Well, the weak impression thing may be an issue too. He’s
not as crazy as Mikoko-chan. I know a lot of eccentric people.
Actually, that makes it sound like I know a lot of people.
Correction: The only acquaintances I have are eccentric
people, so normal people just slip right out of my mind.”
“Normal people, huh?” She gave a wicked little laugh.
“What? Did I say something funny?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 5
“Oh, nothing, nothing, I was just thinking, you’re a surprisingly
poor judge of character.”
“Huh?”
“Akiharu’s got a meaner personality than you think,” she
said in a way that seemed strangely meaningful as she stared
off in the direction he had gone moments ago. “Well, you’ll
figure that out eventually . . . eventually.” Something in her
soft tone seemed to suggest her words had a deeper meaning,
but a moment later her facial expression switched like someone
had pressed a button on a remote. She turned my way
again.
“This is perfect,” she said. “I wanted to have a chat with
you. Let’s go talk in the lounge.”
She began walking without waiting for my reply. After a
short walk, we broke to the right, where we came upon the
student lounge. I wondered if it would be crowded since it
was the middle of the afternoon, but looking through the
window glass I could see that, for some reason, fewer seats
were occupied than empty. There was a plate hanging off the
lounge door with No Standing written on it in red, Gothic
letters. It was a prank a student had carried out several years
back, and at this point nobody even bothered questioning it
anymore. As a result, nobody bothered getting rid of it, either.
We entered the lounge, and Muimi-chan took a seat. The
place was filled with cigarette smoke. Muimi-chan took one
whiff and immediately reached into her pocket for something,
but then stopped herself as if she had recalled her “policy” just
in time. It was nice of her to stick to it so fastidiously, but in a
place already this filled with smoke, it didn’t really make
much difference to me whether she smoked or not. But I
knew that even if I told her she could, she would just say
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 6
something like, “No, it’s my decision,” so I took my seat without
saying anything.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“Don’t play dumb. What’s the one thing you and I would
have to discuss?” she asked.
“Tomo-chan?”
“Mikoko.”
She leaned forward with her arms on the table and glared
up at me. But I wasn’t so clueless that I wasn’t prepared to
meet her gaze.
“Have you seen Mikoko since then?”
“Since when?” I asked innocently.
“I told you not to play dumb. The police must have paid
you a visit, too.”
“Well, yeah . . .” I recalled my meeting with Sasaki-san and
Kazuhito-san, but to be honest, they weren’t really a pair I
wanted to think about too much. “So they visited you too?”
“Yeah. Kind of an unpleasant pair, weren’t they?”
“A man and a woman?”
“Yeah. The guy looked like he belonged on The X-Files, and
the lady looked like she paid regular visits to underground
cells. Regular cops piss me off enough already, much less these
two . . . uh, but that’s another story,” she said, righting her
posture. “Yesterday was Tomoe’s funeral.” She looked at me
in an accusatory fashion. “You didn’t come.”
“Well, nobody told me about it.”
“Mikoko didn’t come either. Akiharu and I went, though.”
“Well, what can you do, right? Her death must’ve been a
big shock to all of you,” I said.
“Yeah, must’ve been. You make it sound like this doesn’t
have anything to do with you,” she replied.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 7
“It doesn’t,” I stopped myself from saying. Ah, the art of
tact.
“You’re not at all shocked by the fact that Tomoe was
murdered?”
“Well, I was surprised enough when I first heard the news,
but after three days, well, what do they call it? Cleaning out
your heart’s drawers? I mean, the past is just memories.”
“As Tomoe’s friend, I want to be pissed at you for saying
that, but you’re pretty much right, huh?” she said, a bit defeated.
“I guess the human heart is conveniently constructed.
Especially for someone who’s thick-skinned like me. It’s only
been three days and I’m already back at the point where I can
go to school again. But it really was devastating at first. I
mean, I had just seen her, and then . . .” She snapped her
fingers.
And then, silence. I wouldn’t have called it awkward, but
it was a little unbearable. There was definitely a painful aura
flowing between us.
“It looks like Akiharu-kun’s recovered to some degree,
based on how he was acting just now.”
“Is that how he looked?” she asked.
“I thought so.”
“Well, maybe, if you say so.”
Again, she seemed to be getting at something, just like
when she had said, “Akiharu’s got a stronger personality than
you think.”
So what was she saying? She changed the subject before I
could figure it out.
“So apparently you were the last one to hear Tomoe’s
voice.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 8
“Yeah. Although it was over the phone. Did you hear that
from Mikoko-chan? Or from the detectives?”
“Mikoko,” she said, nodding. “I went to her place yesterday
after the funeral ended, but . . . I think she needs more time to
recover.”
“Ah.”
“And that doesn’t bother you at all?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean you just heard that Mikoko is feeling down, and
I’m asking if that bothers you.”
“Everybody sure is hung up on that,” I said. Muimi-chan
looked a bit puzzled, possibly because of the word everybody.
She let out a big sigh and stretched. “Fucking clueless . . .”
“What’s that? I couldn’t quite make that out.”
“Ah, nothing. Listen, you might not want to hear this, and
frankly I’m the last person who should be telling you. I was
the one who was opposed to it in the first place. . . .”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Okay, let me ask you a favor, then. It’s a simple
favor and there’s no catch. Just go visit Mikoko’s place, will
ya?”
She pulled a piece of paper out of her jersey pocket and
handed it to me. “Aoii Mikoko” was written on it in hiragana,
and below that were her address and phone number.
“Man, these are some round letters. Who wrote this?”
“Me.”
“Ah . . .”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What up with that
expression, like you saw that answer coming or something?”
“Uh, nothing. That’s not what I was going to say.” I looked
down at the memo in an effort to escape her deadly gaze, and
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 9
confirmed Mikoko-chan’s address. Horikawa Oike. Come to
think of it, had I heard that before? It felt like I had, but it also
felt like I was learning her address for the first time. I couldn’t
remember.
“It’s pretty far from school. I guess that means she commutes
here on her Vespa.”
“Nope, bus. This school doesn’t allow bikes.”
“It doesn’t?”
Incidentally, I commuted on foot. I had a bike, but I didn’t
use it much, as a general rule. It wasn’t that I particularly liked
walking, but somehow it works for me anyway.
“Okay, so I go to Mikoko-chan’s place, and then what?”
“She’s down, so cheer her up. Just say stuff like ‘it won’t
do any good to just sit around feeling blue’ and ‘keep your
chin up.’ I’m sure that’ll do.”
“Oh, just the usual crap, huh? But wouldn’t that kind of
thing be better coming out of you? Oh, but I guess you already
told her yesterday. But if her good friend couldn’t even
cheer her up, I’m a lost cause.”
“It’s not that hard. Just go there and that’ll be enough.
Seriously, that’s all. Go see her, say a word or two of encouragement,
and then just play it by ear.”
Whatever that meant.
But then again, I didn’t really have any reason to refuse,
and it was a relatively convenient proposal, so I went ahead
and accepted. “Okay.”
“Try stopping by today after school.”
Just then, the bell indicating the start of third period rang.
“Oh, crap,” said the look on Muimi-chan’s face. My face probably
didn’t show it, but I pretty much felt the same way.
Inokawa-sensei, the Cerberus of time.