Zaregoto Volume 2 Chapter 2

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 0
Tomo-chan resided in a students-only apartment complex
near Nishiôji Maruta-machi. Just looking at that steelreinforced,
concrete exterior, I could imagine the difference in
rent from my own place. Five times as much, or even ten
if you got swindled.
Mikoko-chan must have been there before, because she
entered the main lobby with an air of confidence. She pushed
the room number on the intercom and pressed the call button.
“Yellooo! It’s Mikoko-cakes.”
“Yo-yo. C’mon up.”
As the somewhat drowsy voice emerged from the intercom,
the firmly locked glass door slid open. An autolock security
system. Actually, maybe that’s too extravagant a term.
Whether that lock was there or not made little difference to
anyone trying to break in.
“Come on, hurry. Hurry hurry hurry hurry.” Mikoko-chan
passed through the door and beckoned for me to hurry along.
“Sixth floor, sixth floor! We gotta hurry!”
“It’s not like the sixth floor is going to get away.”
“Yeah, but it won’t come down to greet us either.”
“That’s true . . .”
I followed along as told.
“The sixth floor is the very top one. Tomo-chan lives in the
corner apartment, and there’s a pretty nice view, as views go.”
“Mm, nice view, eh?”
That was one thing I never hoped to see where I was living.
If you opened the window in my place, you got trees.
We called down the elevator and got in.
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“I wonder if Akiharu-kun’s here yet. Muimi-chan is pretty
much a given, but . . .”
Mikoko-chan was incredibly excited. Seeing her carefree
expression, even I couldn’t help but think about how nice it
must be to have friends. Whether or not it worked for me, it
must’ve been very nice for her.
We got off at the sixth floor. Mikoko-chan raced down the
hallway and stopped in front of the very last door. “Over here,
over here!” she shouted and beckoned. It made me want to ask
if she was just completely oblivious to the looks people gave
her.
She pushed in the doorbell. Ding-dong. The door opened,
and a girl revealed herself.
“Welcome,” the girl—most likely Tomo-chan—said drowsily,
a cigarette hanging from her lips. She was entirely different
than I had expected.
“So, Mikoko. On time for a change, eh?” She wore her long
brown hair in a sauvage—with her hangs long and the rest cut
at wildly varying lengths—and her fashion sense was impeccable:
Her light jacket and jeans combo was very stylish. She
was probably a little taller than me, and was so sickly thin that
if she said she had only one day to live, I probably would have
believed her. It was the perfect match for her slightly crooked
smile.
“Howdy, Muimi-chan!” Mikoko-chan greeted. “Haro haro!”
It seemed this wasn’t Tomo-chan after all, but Muimichan.
“Oops,” she said, finally noticing my presence. Without
a hint of shyness, she gave me a hard study from top to bottom.
“Maybe this is our first time talking, ‘Ikkun,’ “ she said
with a smirk.
“Yeah,” I said apathetically. “Hey.”
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It seemed my apathy had struck a chord with her. She let
out an exaggerated laugh. It was boisterous, and not very
feminine.
“Well how ‘bout that. You are an interesting guy. I think
we’ll get along.”
“Really.” It was more of a sigh than a response. Not the
kind of thing that warranted such judgment. It was just about
as enthusiastic as my greeting had been. “I don’t think so.”
“Heh, well, we don’t have to get into all that. Just come in.
Stupid Akiharu isn’t here yet. We just called and he was still
at home.”
“Oh my God, he’ll never change. Last time he claimed he
got confused by the time zone difference. That lousy tardyman.”
Mikoko sure was throwing stones at the proverbial glass
house. It was almost impressive. But I wasn’t in the mood to
start teasing her about it, so I stayed silent as I removed my
shoes.
At the end of the short hallway between the kitchen and
bathroom was a single door. It seemed this was one of those
sectioned-off one-rooms. Muimi-chan went ahead of us and
opened the door. The room inside was about eight or nine
mats in size, but the floors were hardwood. By the window
was a bed, and in the middle of the room, a mini-table covered
with cake, snacks, and a row of empty glasses. So this was
more of a drinks thing than a dinner-thing affair after all.
A girl was sitting daintily beside the table. This time it had
to be Tomo-chan. She was even more petite then Mikokochan,
and dressed in a strawberry-patterned one-piece. Her
hair was in pigtails. She gave me a little wave.
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She was just as shy as I’d imagined. And yet something
about her made me think she probably had a bad habit or two.
It was like there was more than meets the eye—as if her simplistic
form prevented you from being able to see through her.
Thinking about it made me feel as though someone had asked
me for the sum of all integers.
“No, wait.”
That’s all nonsense. Everyone feels that way when they
meet someone for the first time. It wasn’t technically my first
meeting with Tomo-chan, but I didn’t really know her, so it
was only natural that I had this impression.
Hmm. Come to think of it, it did seem as though we had
crossed paths a few times in our general education seminar. I
joined her at the table so that I was facing her, and tossed out
a simple greeting. “Yo.” She looked at me a little crookedly,
then gave me a politely deep bow.
“Thanks for going to all this trouble. Sorry to ask such a big
favor.” Her voice was pretty and calm, with a watery quality.
“I’ve always wanted to have a chat with you, so I hope you
have a good time today.”
I was a little moved by her good manners. It was something
I hadn’t seen much lately (especially in the last day or
two).
“Ahahaha, quick to break the ice, eh?” Mikoko-chan said as
she sat down next to me on her knees. Muimi-chan, in turn,
sat down next to her. This allowed enough room for Akiharukun
to eventually come sit between me and Tomo-chan.
“Ahhh.” Muimi-chan put out her cigarette with her own
finger, then deposited it in an ashtray. “So what are we doing?
We’ve got a brand-new guest here. Should we go ahead and
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start? It seems stupid to sit around wasting time just because
of that asshead.”
“Hey, we can’t do that,” Mikoko-chan interjected. “For
something like this we have to all be together! Right, Tomochan?”
“Yup, Mikoko’s right.” Tomo-chan nodded. “You know
he’ll be here soon, so don’t be so impatient. Right?”
“I don’t really care, but...” Muimi-chan gestured towards
me. “What about Ikkun here?”
“I don’t mind. I’m used to waiting.” To be sure, that didn’t
mean I was used to people making me wait. But it would have
been too much of a hassle to start an argument about it, so I
just fed her an easy line.
Muimi shot me an inquisitive look, but “Well, whatever
then,” was all she said. She pulled out a fresh cigarette, then
shot me another look. “Are you an antitobacco kind of guy?”
she asked.
“I don’t smoke myself, but you can smoke all you like.”
“Ah. No, I’m good.” She broke in half the cigarette she
hadn’t even lit yet and deposited it in the ashtray. “I make it a
point not to smoke around nonsmokers.”
“Huh.”
Did that mean Mikoko-chan and Tomo-chan were both
smokers? The fact that she had asked only me seemed to indicate
such. Huh. I was a little surprised.
“Hey! Muimi-chan, you’ll make me sound like a smoker if
you put it like that!” Mikoko-chan objected once again. She
was giving us the puppy-dog eyes. For some reason she
seemed vehemently opposed to me finding out she was a
smoker.
“But you do smoke.”
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“No I don’t! I was just going with the flow that one time!”
“Ah, right. Gotcha. My fault, my fault.” Muimi-chan gave
her a friendly pat as she threw her little tantrum. Meanwhile,
Tomo-chan watched on in delight.
Huh. It didn’t take long to notice the dynamic here. It was
the good girl, the bad girl, and the regular girl. This made me
Wonder what Akiharu’s role was. He finally showed up at
6:30, half an hour late.
“Sorry, sorry. I thought I’d be here on time, but the train
was crowded and stuff,” he said with good humor.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Tomo-chan said as she greeted
him with a smile. The good girl.
“The train doesn’t arrive any later just because it’s crowded!
And you live in a boarding house, so you don’t even take
the train anyway!” Mikoko-chan, the regular girl. She had the
nerve to question his lame excuses.
“You think you can get off with a simple apology? You
gotta chug three beers,” Muimi-chan said, passing a beer bottle
over to him. The bad girl.
“Okay, okay. Don’t rush me so much, Atemiya. This is a
birthday, a birthday. Not a mayday. Goddamn I’m a clever
bastard. What the . . . ?” It seemed he had noticed my presence.
He gave a problem-child sneer. “Heh heh, so you really
brought him, Aoii,” he said.
He sat down next to me and said, “Well, good to meet
you,” with a slight bow.
I did likewise.
He had an easy-breezy air about him, with light brown hair
and a taste for street fashion. Maybe it wasn’t uncommon for a
university student to dress like that, but at Rokumeikan in
particular, it was kind of unusual. Judging from his build, it
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 6 6
looked like he was involved in some kind of sport, but I
couldn’t tell which one.
“Umm, what do I . . . wha? Are we all supposed to just call
you Ikkun then?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Really, really? Gotcha. You’re a good guy. Don’t you
think so, Aoii?”
He shot Mikoko-chan a meaningful look. She shot back a
flustered one. “Oh, uh, yeah.” Judging from her response, it
didn’t seem like she thought I was a very good guy at all. Of
course, considering how much I made fun of her, that was
probably only natural.
“Well, shall we start?” Muimi-chan said. She seemed to be
the leader of the four. She pointed at me. “Umm, you don’t
drink, right?” she said.
I nodded.
“Oh? What’s this now, Ikkun? You can’t go around being
finicky all the time, you know. Alcohol is a vital component in
man-to-man interactions after all, right? I mean, am I right or
am I right?”
“Akiharu! What did I tell you about pushing your bullshit
opinions on others?! I’ll fucking kill you!” Muimi-chan gave
him the look of death. Her cool, almost dazed demeanor from
a moment ago had sharpened into a knife of fury. “Did you
already forget what I told you last time? Huh?”
Akiharu quivered and tensed with fear. “Uh . . .”
“I’m not lookin’ for an ’uhhh.’ ”
“Sorry.”
“Not lookin’ for a ‘sorry’ either. Why the hell are you
apologizing to me? Huh?”
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Akiharu-kun’s mouth opened and closed like he was a
suffocating fish. Then he looked over at me. “Please forgive
me,” he apologized.
“Okay, then,” Muimi-chan said with a look of satisfaction.
“Sorry there, Ikkun. He didn’t mean anything by it. Forgive
the guy, will ya?” She had completely returned to her origi-nal
self and smiled back at me. “Did he piss you off?”
“Uh, I don’t really care.”
Atemiya Muimi. She was definitely an ex-delinquent. No,
not even an “ex.” I thought that brown sauvage seemed a little
out of date.
Maybe I should call her Boss.
Meanwhile, Mikoko-chan poured some low-malt beer into
each glass and lined them up in front of everyone. She also
placed a single glass of oolong tea in front of me.
“So who’s going to lead the proceedings? Shall it be Tomochan,
our queen for a day?”
“Yeah, I believe it shall,” Muimi-chan said. “Tomo, let’s
have it.”
Tomo-chan raised her glass a bit reluctantly. “Okay then.
To my twentieth birthday and our new friend.”
Cheers.
I lightly tipped my glass.
“So the thing about friends is that they’re like, eh, you know,
like . . . y’know,” Zerozaki said with a cynical smile. The tattoo
scrawled across the right side of his face wrinkled unpleasantly.
“What do you think?”
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“You’re actually asking me? I thought this was going to be
some kind of spiel.”
“Hah, don’t expect me to do everything. They say if you
want to figure out your own opinion, you gotta ask others
theirs, right? So let’s hear it. What do you think? What is a
friend?”
“It’s not such a hard question. It's just someone you hang
out with, have meals with, joke around about stupid things
with. Someone who brings you peace. That kind of thing,
right?” he said.
“You got it. Exactamundo. If you look at it that way,
friends are such a simple thing, man, like pie. You hang out,
you eat together, act stupid and feel peaceful together, and
that makes you friends. If you come to each other’s rescue,
you’re close friends. If you smooch each other sometimes,
you're lovers. Oh, what a treasure of life friendship is!” he said
with a sneer.
“So the question here is, how long do these friendships
last? A year? Five years? Ten years? Forever? Until tomorrow?”
“Is your point that even friendships come to an end?”
“My point is that all things come to an end.”
“Well, sure. But without endings, there could be no beginnings.
That’s the vital subtext. If you’re looking to gain something,
you’ve got to be prepared to sacrifice one-third of it. If
you want a payoff, you've got to take a risk. If you can’t do
that, you’re better off just living with what you’ve got.”
“Gahaha. I guess you must be that type.”
I had no need for things I would just lose in time. If it was
just going to end anyway, it didn’t have to begin. I had no
need for pleasure if it came accompanied by pain.
“Why? Are you any different?” I said.
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If it meant never being sad, I didn’t have to be happy.
If it meant never fading, I didn’t have to succeed.
Evolution loaded with risk was a waste of time.
“Eh, but in reality, that's all true whether you’re after
something or not,” I said.
“No doubt.”
Zerozaki laughed. I didn’t.
Be that as it may.
Three hours had passed since the party began. I won’t get
into what happened during those three hours. Nobody particularly
wants others to see what they’re like when they’re
drunk, and they certainly don’t want to have the details relayed
from person to person.
No matter how people feel while they’re drinking, it’s inevitable
afterward that good old shame comes to pay them a
visit. It's difficult to determine which is real: the person you
are under the influence of alcohol, or the person you are when
you’re sober. But one thing's for sure: A wild night spent in
good fun isn’t something you want to try to recount later on.
It’s one of those “unpaintable scenes” like Urashima Tarô
talked about.
Still, if I were to dare to share a little vignette of the
evening’s festivities just for kicks, it would go something like
this:
“So whaddaya call a rock made of oxygen and nitrogen?”
“Quartz! Gaaahahahaha!”
“That’s like a two-hundred shot barrage from a watercooled
heavy machine gun, only it’s an assassin squad!”
“Shit, that aside, it’s hot today. Why is it so hot in the middle
of May? Is it global warming? Is it the greenhouse effect?”
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“What?! Listen here, chump, if you want to complain
about the summer heat, you answer to me! Bring it!”
“Are you the one they caught in Catcher in the Rye?!”
“It's a tropical night, that's what it is.”
“Then I guess that makes me a tropical fish!”
And so three hours passed.
At present, Mikoko-chan, Akiharu-kun, and Tomo-chan
were playing PS2. It looked like a racing game. Realistically
depicted four-wheeled machines sped around the narrow onscreen
circuit.
Huh. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it tantalizing, but there
was something rather pleasant about watching them all so
fully immersed in their fun. It looked like they were willing to
share some of that happiness with me, and somehow that
made me surprisingly lonely.
“Well, I guess even this is—”
Someone slapped me on the shoulder. It was Muimi-chan.
Apparently a heavy drinker, she didn’t seem any different
from when she was sober, even from a bystander’s point of
view.
She didn’t call herself Boss for nothing. Not that she called
herself Boss at all.
“Wanna go outside for a bit?” she said, pointing toward the
entrance. “Let’s go to the convenience store.”
“What about Mikoko-chan and the others?”
“We can just let ’em be. They don’t know what’s going on
right now anyway.”
She was right about that. I nodded and left the room with
her. We got back into the elevator, traveled down to the first
floor, and exited the building.
“Is the convenience store close by?”
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“Eh, it’s a bit of a walk. But c’mon, let's walk a little bit.
It’ll help me sober up.”
“You don’t really seem drunk though.”
“Maybe not on the surface, but I’m pretty far gone. It feels
like my brain’s flipped upside down so my cerebrum and cerebellum
are switched. Right now I wanna kick the crap outta
that sign.”
“Just don’t kick the crap out of me.”
“I’ll try,” she said with a little laugh. She shook her head
and looked up toward the sky.
“Doesn’t really feel like a birthday party,” I said. “I wonder
if this is really enough to make Tomo-chan happy. She’s still
drunk now, but I wonder if she’ll get depressed about it later.”
“Yeah, I wonder . . . But it’s still better than being depresssed
from the very beginning. Yeah. It’s all good. You
don’t need a good reason to get wild. Ahh . . . I’m groggy.”
“You look pretty exhausted, Muimi-chan.”
“Well, that’s what I get for hanging out with those guys.”
My sentiments exactly. Mikoko-chan was spunky enough
to begin with, but when she was inebriated she was four times
as bad. Then there was Akiharu-kun, and even Tomo-chan
was getting pretty rowdy.
“Man, if you think about it, I guess being able to hold your
liquor so well puts you at kind of a disadvantage. It must be
hard to follow along with the mood.”
“Exactly. I mean, it’s still fun, so it’s no big deal.”
“You think it’s okay to leave those three drunks in a room
unattended?”
“They’re not kids. They’ll be fine. Actually, it's probably
more dangerous to be walking around outside in the middle of
the night,” she said.
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A good point. We were in the midst of the Kyoto Slasher
serial murders. So that was why she bothered taking me along
with her. I may look scrawny and unreliable, but I’m still a
guy, in a manner of speaking.
“What a messed-up world, huh? What could be enjoyable
about chopping up a human being?”
“Well, different strokes, I guess.” I tried to brush off the
topic. If I was thrust into a conversation about it, there was a
chance I would let my tongue slip. It wasn’t that Zerozaki had
told me to keep my mouth shut, but it sure wasn’t the kind of
thing I wanted everyone and their mother to know about.
“I can’t understand it at all,” she said. “I mean, I’ve been
around for twenty years now. Even I’ve thought to myself
before, ‘I oughta kill that bastard.’ Actually, it happens a lot.
Even nowadays. Like, ‘this person would be better off dead.
Killing him would serve the greater good.’ ”
“. . . .”
“But what's up with these random killings? I can’t understand
the idea of finding pleasure in the act of killing itself.”
“In general, they say serial killers who choose their targets
at random are fueled by resentment. So it’s just like when you
say to yourself, ‘I oughta kill that bastard,’ ” I said.
“Really? But then the killings aren’t random.”
“It’s a little different, though. In this killer’s case, he resents
the victims simply because they happened to walk by. He resents
the world as a whole. He hates the world that surrounds
him, a world that, for him, is as vague and nebulous as the air.
And so his killings appear to be random.”
“Hmm . . .” She nodded, but to be honest, I was only speculating.
I had no idea why he was committing acts of murder.
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We had only talked about stupid, irrelevant things the previous
night, and never touched upon the topic of his motives.
We were probably saving the best for last, childish as that
may sound.
“It’s just nonsense, though,” I said.
Muimi-chan scratched her head at me.
While we were talking, we eventually reached the convenience
store. She entered ahead of me and quickly made her
way to the liquor section.
“You're buying more alcohol?”
“Nah, there’s already plenty of that. Let’s get some Pocari.
Gotta sober those guys up or they won’t be able to get home.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
We put three two-liter bottles of Pocari sports drinks in a
basket, picked out two or three types of snacks, and proceeded
to settle up at the register. Maybe I should’ve expected this,
but I ended up carrying everything.
As we left the store, Muimi-chan pulled a cigarette from
her pocket, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it with a coollooking
Zippo, all in one fluid motion.
“Ah!” she said and immediately went to extinguish it with
her finger.
“I don’t care if you smoke one. We’re outside, anyway.”
“Really?”
“Well, I guess it’s rude to smoke and walk at the same
time, but since it’s night and nobody’s around, it’s probably
fine as long as you don’t litter ashes everywhere.” And, indeed,
there was no one around who'd object to her blowing smoke
everywhere as she walked.
“Well . . . nah, it’s okay. I’ll stick to my decision.” She went
ahead and snuffed it with her finger. Then she curled up the
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cigarette butt and put it in her pocket. It seemed she wasn’t
the littering type. I was a little impressed: For a college student,
she had above-average morals.
“If you don’t mind my asking, isn’t that hot?” I said.
“Not really. I’m used to it,” she said with a slightly bashful
smile. “There was this Mafia boss bad guy in a movie I used to
like, and he did the same thing with cigars. With the palm of
his hand, like this. It was cool, so I started imitating it.”
“Huh.”
“Looking back, I just thought the actor was hot, but it’s a
habit now. Anyway, that aside . . . Ikkun, let’s talk seriously for
a minute.” Her expression immediately grew serious, changing
as abruptly as a circuit switch. I couldn’t help but be a little
surprised. “It's pretty tough keeping up with Mikoko's hyperness,
huh?”
“Not particularly.’’
“Huh,” she said. Her expression grew all the more serious.
She hesitated for a moment. “What do you think of her?” she
asked me.
“What do I think?”
Judging from her expression, she wasn’t looking for some
halfhearted bullshit answer.
But I couldn’t figure out what that question was supposed
to mean. I didn’t really think much of anything about her.
“Well, I think she's got a little bit of red in her hair. She's
around five feet tall, and may or may not weigh as much as
one hundred ten. From the way she acts, I’d guess she’s a type
B, and her astrological sign is probably one of the beasts. She's
got a kind of koala-ish feel in general.”
“Did you really think I was looking for a half-assed answer
like that?” she asked.
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Whoops. Delinquent mode. Why oh why do I so love stepping
on land mines, I wondered. I broke eye contact with her.
“I dunno. I mean, she’s a nice girl, I guess. Sure she’s a little
overly hyper, which can be exhausting, but I know a girl
who’s even worse than her, so it doesn’t particularly bother
me.”
“Huh. How neutral of you.”
“Well, I don’t like making waves.”
“Is that a fact?”
She paused for a moment, then gave me a sort of sidelong
glance.
“You’re kind of a slimeball, aren’t you, Ikkun?” she said.
“I’m self-aware.”
“Self-aware, huh? I wonder. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, let
me give you a word of advice.” She took a step ahead and
turned to face me directly. I had no choice but to stop. The
apartment building was still about a hundred feet away. Surely
the others were still inside racing. Muimi-chan ran her fingers
through her sauvage hair and shot me a direct glare.
“Mikoko and I have been friends since we were just little
brats.”
“Huh.”
“If you hurt her, I’ll never forgive you.”
I scratched my head a bit. Why was she telling me this?
Could it be that she was mad because of all the times I had
teased Mikoko-chan up to now? It didn’t seem like the kind of
thing to take so seriously, but Muimi-chan sure didn’t seem to
be joking, so I answered with a shrug.
“It’s okay. Despite how it seems, I’m actually nice to my
friends.”
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She blinked her narrowed eyes at me. “Hahahahaha!” she
laughed. A moment later, she spun back around. “I stand corrected.”
She recommenced walking. “You're just clueless.”
It felt like a terrible insult, but at the same time, it was
probably the most accurate description anyone had ever applied
to me in all my nineteen years, so it was hard to get mad.
We returned to the room to find that the others were indeed
still racing. Surprisingly, Tomo-chan was apparently the
most skilled. Mikoko-chan was a lap behind.
“Yo! Guzzle down this Pocari, you goons! You drunken
bitches!”
For some reason Muimi-chan had suddenly gone berserk,
smacking the “drunken bitches” in the heads with Pocari.
Being hit in the head with a full plastic bottle should have
been fairly painful, but they were so thoroughly numb with
drink they didn’t even seem to mind.
I don’t like noisiness. I hate boisterousness. Loud situations
irritate me.
But on occasion, like maybe once a year, maybe these
things are kind of nice. Or so I thought.
I was wrong.
It was past eleven p.m.
“Well, thanks for tonight,” Muimi-chan said as she rose to
her feet. “Akiharu, take me home.”
“Aw, why?” Akiharu whined. He shot her an aggravated
look; he was sprawled out in the comer of the room. “Just go
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yourself. I’m gonna rest a little before I go. Your place is far.
My place is in the opposite direction.”
“Are you a man? Don’t tell me you’re not even worth a
ride home.”
“Tch . . . fine.”
He stood up, still looking aggrieved, as if he knew there
was no point in objecting. His eyes shifted over to Tomo-chan.
“Well, here's your birthday present,” he said, pulling a package
out of his bag.
“Ah . . . Muimi-chan said. “That’s right, you give presents
on birthdays . . .”
“Hm? What’s that you say? What? Come again, Atemiyasan?”
Akiharu-kun said with the glee of someone who had just
defeated an ogre. “Don’t tell me that you forgot to get your
dear friend a birthday present! Oh my goodness, I cannot
believe it! Is this a joke?! Ohh, what to do, what to do?! For
the love of God, tell me, what to do?! Huh? Huh?”
“Cram it, oaf. Isn’t my smile enough?” Muimi-chan said
sulkily and headed toward the entrance.
“Hey, wait up! Don’t get mad so easily! What are you, a
kid?! Ahh, here we go. See ya at school, Emoto! Adieu! Let’s
hang out again soon, Ikkun!” Akiharu-kun gave a light wave
and chased after Muimi-chan.
“Bye-bye. See ya again,” Tomo-chan said as she waved
sluggishly back. As soon as the two had left, her hands went
for the present. She undid the ribbon and neatly opened the
wrapping paper.
“I wonder what it is. Ikkun, what do you think it is?” It
seemed the alcohol was mostly out of her system. Her cheeks
still had a bit of red in them and her voice was a little shrill,
but her personality seemed to have returned to its default
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 8
setting. “I’m a little excited. This kind of thing always makes
me giddy.”
“Well, it’s probably not yatsuhashi, at any rate,” I said. Incidentally,
the yatsuhashi I had brought had already been
evenly divided among the stomachs of all five party members.
“Judging from the size, it's probably an accessory or something.”
“Yeah, maybe. Oh, it’s a neckstrap. Pretty cool, huh?”
It was a capsule-style neckstrap with a liquid center. It
didn’t really look like a girly item, but as Tomo-chan had said,
it was pretty cool.
“Heheheh, it’s just what I was hoping for,” she said gleefully
as she immediately tried it on. “How does it look,
Ikkun?”
“It’s a good match,” I said, but I didn’t really know.
My eyes made their way from the gushing Tomo-chan over
to Mikoko-chan, who was snoozing in the comer. She looked
so peaceful that I couldn’t bear to wake her. Perhaps she was
planning to just spend the night at Tomo-chan's place.
“Hey, Ikkun,” Tomo-chan said, suddenly straightening herself
out. “I want to say thanks again for coming all the way out
here today.”
“I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you have to thank me
for.”
“But you don’t like doing this kind of thing, right?”
Her question was a little awkward, but it also came out as
if it was something totally normal to her. She delicately raised
her face to view my expression.
It was like . . .
She was looking through me.
Like she was looking at my brain from the inside.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 7 9
“Uh, no, I . . .”
“You don’t like opening up to other people, right?”
“It's all right. I don’t hate it. I actually kind of like goofing
around with everyone like chums.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s a lie.”
“Yes, it is.”
She snickered at me. But her eyes weren’t smiling. They
actually looked rather sad and lonely. The strange combination
of expressions had me puzzled.
What was wrong? What reason could she have for looking
so sad when she had spent her birthday surrounded by
friends?
There shouldn’t have been anything wrong.
Supposing there was . . .
“Mikoko-chan . . .” she said, casting a glance over at the
slumbering Mikoko-chan. “She’s really a great girl.”
“Yeah,” I responded. I was being unusually direct—by my
standards, anyway. “I bet she is.”
“I wanted to be like her.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But I couldn’t.”
“Uh-huh.”
She cast her eyes downward.
“And now here I am, twenty years old, still unable to be
like her. I’m sure it’ll go on like that. No matter how many
years pass, no matter how many decades. I’ll never be like her,
until the day I die.”
“What’s wrong with that? Everyone’s different.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 0
“Say, Ikkun,” she said, looking up again. “Have you ever
felt like, as a human, you’re damaged goods?”
I had no idea how to respond.
“I have.” She was smiling. It was the saddest smile I had
ever seen.
“Everybody does . . .” The words just came out. Whether
they were really from the heart, I didn’t know. They were just
words of comfort. I was probably just saying words I didn’t
really mean so as to not have to see Tomo-chan look so sad.
What a slimeball.
How comical.
How terribly unseemly.
“Everyone feels like that sometimes, I suppose. Nobody’s
perfect, after all. We’ve all got our strong points and our weak
points. That’s what makes us human.”
“Yeah, I know. Even I know that, but you probably understand
that that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about
something more finite, I guess, or more lethal, like a fatal
wound, I guess.”
Boom.
The words shook me.
“It’s kind of like that.”
“. . . .” So this was the real reason I couldn’t read Emoto
Tomoe very well. Perhaps this was really it.
In other words, a long time ago . . .
“There’s another me right here,” she said, pointing over her
own right shoulder. “When I get all rowdy and have fun with
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 1
Muimi-chan and Akiharu-kun and Mikoko-chan and you like
this, that part of me is just watching on, sighing. It’s looking
down on me with cold disdain as I have my fun, saying ‘What
you’re doing won’t amount to anything.’ ”
“Sighing,” she said. “I know I’ll probably never be like
Mikoko-chan until the day I die, but maybe I’ll be able to
once I really do die. If I’m reincarnated, I want to come back
as Mikoko-chan. I want to be able to laugh with complete innocence
like her, to get mad when I want to be mad, to cry
like crazy when I’m sad. That’s what makes a great life.”
“I . . .” This time I was speaking from the heart. “I don’t
want to be reincarnated. I want to just hurry up and die.”
“I’ll bet,” she said with a gentle smile.
Mikoko-chan woke up around one hour later.
“Uhhh.” She shook the sleep out of her head. She still
looked pretty tired.
“So what’re you going to do?” I said. “I’m going home. Are
you going to stay the night?”
“No, I’ll go . . .” She rose to her feet in a daze. “It's okay,
I've sobered up. Give me ten more seconds.”
“Sure. I’ll take you home, then.” I was at least worth a ride
home, I wanted to emphasize, but she didn’t seem to get it.
She had been deeply immersed in sleep when Muimi-chan
left, so that made sense.
“Well, bye-bye, Tomo-chan.”
“Yep. See ya later.” She gave a little wave.
I took my bag and headed toward the entrance. I sat down
in the doorway and put on my shoes. They had messy laces, so
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 2
putting them on was always much more of a hassle than removing
them. Situations like these were an irritating waste of
time. Meanwhile, Mikoko-chan seemed to be having problems
with her own footwork, and a clumsy clopping noise could be
heard through the door separating us.
It probably wasn’t something to worry about. She appeared
in the hallway outside the entrance shortly after me.
“Ohh,” she moaned, rubbing her head. “My head hurts . . .
It’s spinning. It's like a murder at a convenience store, only the
murderer is wearing Rollerblades.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying. Are you sure you don’t
want to stay here for the night? There’s no need to overexert
yourself.”
“It’s okay, I can go.”
She hobbled down the hall on unsteady feet. I gave a shrug
and followed after her.
“So did you have fun?” she said once we were out of the
building.
“Eh, I guess. But I think I'll pass next time.”
“Don’t say that. Let’s do it again! With everyone! When’s
your birthday?”
“March.”
She looked defeated. “Mine’s in April. Ohh, I guess I
should’ve invited you sooner.”
“So where’s your place? I’ll take you back.”
“Near Horikawa. Horikawa Oike. But we’ve got to go to
your place first.”
“Why?”
“My scoot . . .”
Come to think of it, she had come as far as my place on
her bike.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 3
“Can you drive?”
“Sure . . .”
‘Okay then.” Obviously she was in no condition to drive,
but if she said she could drive, who was I to stop her? When
the time came, she could just call a taxi if she had to.
We took Nishiôji Street up to Nakadachiuri and broke east,
when for some reason, David Bowie music started playing
from somewhere. Thinking it was a nearby guerrilla concert, I
was a bit taken aback, but it turned out to be Mikoko-chan's
ringtone.
“Hm?” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Hello? This
is Mikoko-chan, the spunky and energetic girl of Lake Ashi!
Hm? What? Tomo-chan?” It seemed it was a call from Tomochan.
“Yeah. Yeah . . . Yeah, he’s here with me right now.
He's walking right in front of me. Sure, I guess. Okay, I'll pass
it over.”
She passed me the phone. “It’s Tomo-chan. She wanted
me to give you the phone.”
“Me? Why?”
“. . . . ?”
I must have forgotten something at her place. I scratched
my head as I took the phone. It was more than a little smaller
than my own phone, so it felt kind of awkward.
“Hello?”
“. . . .”
“Hello?”
“Ikkun.”
A voice.
It was quivering, like she was afraid of something. It
could’ve been partially the phone’s fault, but something in her
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 4
voice was obviously different from when we had spoken moments
earlier at her place.
“Tomo-chan?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong? Did I forget something? I’ve got my bag
here.”
“No, it’s not that. Um . . . I forgot to tell you something
earlier.”
Forget to tell me something?
“Yeah, what?”
“Never mind. See you.”
Click.
Suddenly the call was cut off. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.
Beeeep. After four rings, I took the phone away from my ear. I
scratched my head, stared at it for another three seconds, then
handed it back to Mikoko-chan. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” she said, taking it. “So what’d she say?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what that was about.”
“Huh?”
She gave me a confused expression, but I was the one who
was confused. Tomo-chan wanted to tell me something? Why
would she start and then stop like that?
“What? I wonder what it was. Maybe it was a secret or
something. Did you guys have some kind of secret talk?”
“No, nothing like that, but . . . oh yeah, Mikoko-chan.” I
switched trains of thought. “Is there somebody right here?” I
said, drawing a circle with my finger over her right shoulder.
“Huh?”
She raised a dubious eyebrow at me. Naturally.
“I mean, do you get the feeling someone is right there,
looking down on you?” I asked.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 5
“I don’t think so, but . . . why?”
“Eh, if you don’t feel it then don’t worry about it.”
“If somebody was there, it'd be pretty scary,” she said as
she imagined it. “But as for in here,” she said, pointing to her
own heart, “there is somebody.”
Huh. I nodded. Judging from her bashful smirk, she must
have been talking about her boyfriend.
In about ten more minutes, we had arrived at my apartment.
In the apartment parking lot, there was only a single
bike, so it must have been hers.
“Whoa, it’s a Vespa.” And a white vintage model, no less.
This girl called her Vespa a “scooter”? A Vespa is a Vespa,
and only a Vespa. Calling it a scooter was, to me, an insult.
And not just your everyday insult—it was the ultimate insult,
which threatened to shake my very existence. Everyone has
one thing that they’d sacrifice their own life for, that they'd
trade the world for, and to me, this was that thing. I wanted
to shout at Mikoko-chan. I angrily turned to face her.
“. . . .”
She was sleeping.
“I’m speechless.”
She was sleeping standing up. She had been awfully quiet
for a while. Was it possible that she had been sleepwalking?
She probably had been. This was the power of the human race
pushed to its absolute limit. I gave her a few taps on the
cheek, but she refused to wake up. I had the urge to start
stretching her face, but it seemed that there would be no way
to explain my way out of it if somebody happened to see us,
so I restrained myself.
“I wonder if I could just leave her here . . .”
If not, there were only two options.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 6
“Hup,” I groaned as I lifted her onto my back. She stirred a
little bit on the way, but didn’t wake up. Likely because she
was so short, she was actually quite light. Or maybe all girls
were like this.
With her still on my back, I entered the apartment, then
made my way up the stairs to the second floor. I clomped my
way down the boarded hallway to the room next to my own.
I knocked lightly.
“Yeah, wait one moment,” an answer came from inside.
Miiko-san soon appeared before us. She was dressed in yet a
different set of Japanese summer casual wear, which was red
this time. I was pretty sure this was the outfit with the word
Treachery printed on the back.
“Yes?” she said, eyeing the girl on my back suspiciously.
“You’re still under legal age, right?” she said after a moment's
thought. “Well, of course I'll let you hide out here, but speaking
purely out of kindness, I suggest you just turn yourself in.
Japan has a pretty capable police force. Not likely that you’ll
be able to escape.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that this time. Er, this girl’s a classmate.
Looks like she drank too much and passed out. Would
you be willing to let her spend the night?”
“Huh?” She put her hand to her chin and thought for a
moment. “Why don’t you just put her up yourself?”
“Eh, but I mean, as you can see, she's a girl. And it sounds
like she’s got a boyfriend, so I can’t just have her sleeping over
in my place, right?”
“Huh. Well, if that’s how it is, I guess I don’t mind. But
what is given today I will one day receive. To ignore thanks
where they’re due is a dastardly deed.”
“I gotcha. Want to go antiquing again?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 7
“Yes. Okay then. So what’s this girl’s name?”
“Mikoko-chan. Er, last name is Aoi, I think.”
“Aoi Mikoko? Heh, strange name,” Miiko-san said, taking
Mikoko-chan from me. Everyone should have a neighbor as
dependable as her.
“Well, I’ll be on my way then.”
“Mm. Get some sleep. You’d best not make yourself out to
be some afternoon-sleeping lollygagger.”
“Huh? I never sleep in the afternoon.”
“Is that so? Well, just forget that then. Good night.”
“Good night.”
I bowed and returned to my room, where I laid down my
futon and curled up on it.
“Time to sleep.”
And so the day ended. Saturday, May fourteenth. No, it
had already passed zero o'clock, so it was Sunday the fifteenth.
So at zero o'clock twenty-four hours later, it would be
the sixteenth. The next zero o’clock would be the seventeenth.
Zero o’clock.
Zerozaki.
Wondering if that human failure was currently killing his
seventh person or had perhaps already dismembered his
eighth, the damaged goods gradually fell into a slumber.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 8 9
No more.
I don’t want to think anymore.
When I awoke to a knocking at the door, it was already past
eight o’clock.
I brushed the hair out of my face with both hands and rose
to my feet.
“Uhhh.”
I opened the door to find Mikoko-chan. Her usual hyper
greeting had been replaced with a shy look of apologetic embarrassment.
“Did I wake you?” she said meekly.
“Eh. It was time to wake up anyway,” I answered as I
stretched out. “Morning, Mikoko-chan.”
“Good morning, Ikkun. Um . . . I’m sorry about yesterday.
I sort of, er . . . it looks like I fell asleep.”
“Eh, forget about it. Just be sure to thank Miiko-san.”
“Ah, right.” She nodded after a moment of ambiguous
hesitation.
“Isn’t she a good person?”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 0
“Well, yeah, she is, huh? Kind of cool, I guess you could
say. So is she the ‘swordswoman freeloader’ you were talking
about?”
“Does she look like a thirteen-year-old little sister?”
“No, I guess not.” She awkwardly broke eye contact with
me and gave a brief pause. “I don’t know if it’s because she
practices sword fighting, but her clothes were kind of weird.
Sort of Japanesey, but like the kind of thing you’d wear to a
festival.”
“You mean her jinbei?”
“A djembe? What’s that?” Evidently Mikoko-chan had
never heard of it. “Oh, you mean like a jinbei shark?”
“Uhh, well, yeah. Have you ever seen the pattern on the
back of a jinbei shark? It’s just like they’re wearing that same
type of clothing. So we ended up naming that kind of Japanese
clothing jinbei, after the shark.”
“Ahh. You sure know a lot, Ikkun,” she said. “I’ll have to
teach that to Tomo-chan and the others.”
Yep. And if Tomo-chan and the others weren’t as cruel as
me, they would probably teach her the truth. Why did I tell
such meaningless lies? Perhaps it was time I gave that some
serious thought.
“So anyway,” Mikoko-chan said, changing the subject. “Are
you and that girl—Asano-san—are you two close?”
“She’s saved me from starvation a few times. But then I
saved her from being crushed under a pile of antiques, so
we’re even Steven. Those yatsuhashi you had yesterday were
from her too.”
“Huh,” she said with a complicated expression. “You know,
I don’t really like yatsuhashi.”
“Huh? Oh, you don’t say.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 1
“Too sweet.”
“Huh. Miiko-san likes sweet stuff.”
“Well, I don’t.”
For some reason she was getting a little serious. I scratched
my head at her, not sure where she was going with this.
“Well, that’s fine. So what are you going to do now?” I
said.
“Oh, er, I’ve got this,” she said, pulling a pink, wrapped
present from her purse. “It’s Tomo-chan’s birthday present.
Forgot to give it to her. Big mistake, huh? I should’ve given it
to her before we all got drunk. I got carried away trying to get
things going.”
“Hm. Well, why not go give it to her now? She should be
home.”
“Yup, that’s the plan.” At last, she showed her trademark
smile. “Well, thank you. Let’s get together again.”
“We’ll see.”
“Why do you say stuff like that?! Let’s do something!”
“Just kidding. Fine by me. If I’ve got time, I’ll spend as
much of it with you as you want, so please invite me again,” I
said.
I only said it to be polite, but seeing Mikoko-chan’s face
light up, the guilt kicked in. Thinking she’d probably burst
into tears or rage if I said “just kidding” again, I just said, “See
you next time,” instead.
She gave a big, energetic nod and spun on her heels.
Something came to mind. “Hey, Mikoko-chan. Let me just
say one more thing.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Call a Vespa a Vespa. Calling it a scoot is just offensive, so
knock it off.”
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 2
“Wow, Ikkun giving an order?! It’s like a first-rate school
where you can wear your own clothes, but all the students
show up in uniforms anyway!”
“You got it or not?”
“Wow, you’re as scary as Muimi-chan . . .”
She seemed to seriously be a little scared. But I had to say
it firmly or she wouldn’t get it.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be careful from now on.” She made
her way down the hall. When she reached the comer, she
turned back around. “Hey! I’ve got something I want to say to
you too!”
“Huh? What?”
She took a big breath. “My last name is Aoii! Not Aoi! I
told you not to forget!”
I wanted to tell her I knew that, but then I realized that I
had introduced her to Miiko-san as “Aoi Mikoko.” Miiko-san
was the kind of person who was hard to correct once certain
information had entered her brain (thanks to me, she still believed
Shakespeare was a flavor of a McDonald’s McShake), so
she had probably spent the morning calling her “Aoi” over and
over. Well, maybe not that many times.
To me it didn’t seem like the difference between Aoi and
Aoii was such a big deal, but I decided that was probably fairly
rude. Japanese are as proud of their last names as Italians.
“Okay. I won’t forget again. I promise.”
“Okay then. Also . . .” She turned halfway back around. “I
don’t have a boyfriend,” she said softly, then quickly made her
way down the stairs as if trying to escape.
“Huh?” I probably looked more than a little confused.
Er . . .
What was that about?
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 3
She had probably heard that from Miiko-san as well. I did
seem to remember having that kind of conversation with her.
Something about Mikoko-chan not being able to stay in my
room because she had a boyfriend. But Miiko-san, she . . .
“I don’t go around regurgitating every little detail like that.”
Whoa. At some point she had appeared in front of me.
“Looks like we’ve got a couple people yelling in this dilapidated
apartment. Never mind that everyone can hear you
from their rooms; if you shout like that, the whole building’s
gonna come down.”
“Heh . . .”
“Now then, I have to go to work. Let’s hope that classmate
of yours learns to mind her p’s and q’s,” she said, and shuffled
her way down the hall. There was something frightening
about the fact that Rage was written on the back of her blue
jinbei. Maybe she and Mikoko-chan hadn’t gotten along so
well. Their names were sort of similar and all.
But in that case, the name thing seemed kind of dubious.
“Maybe she was actually awake last night . . .”
Sleeping while standing up is one thing, but walking
around while asleep isn’t all that easy. The power of the
human race pushed to its absolute limit isn’t something you
see every day. Maybe Mikoko-chan had actually been awake,
how lucid she may or may not have been at the time notwithstanding.
Maybe that was why she knew I had mistaken her
name and said she had a boyfriend.
She probably just didn’t want to bother with making the
trip home. But then she could’ve just said so without pretending
she was asleep. Some people sure do strange things, I
thought as I went back inside.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 4
Now then.
It was precisely that evening when the story started getting
altogether tiresome.
As I was alone in my room reading a fat book I had
checked out from the school library, a wild knocking came at
my door. Now, it’s only natural to be irritated when someone
interrupts your valued quiet time like this, but having become
rather accustomed to this kind of thing by now, I wasn’t particularly
angry. Wondering if it was that damned fifteen-yearold
brother coming to ask for money again, I opened the door.
“Oh.”
It was an older guy and a girl I had never seen before.
There was something particularly peculiar about the guy.
He was probably in his mid-to-late thirties, and not so much
tall as long-legged. Moreover, he had his hair slicked back.
Stranger still, even in this heat he was dressed in a black suit
and tie. It was a disturbingly bizarre way to be dressed. He
even had sunglasses on. If he had been a foreigner, I would’ve
been afraid it was the MIB here to erase my memory.
The woman, on the other hand, was dressed in a slightly
more normal suit and tight skirt. She had straight, black hair,
and was relatively pretty. But the look in her eyes was not ordinary.
Without a hint of the reservation normally expected
when meeting someone for the first time, her eyes met mine
with a penetrating, gouging gaze.
She took a step forward. “Have a look,” she said, flashing
me a police badge. “I’m Sasa Sasaki of the Kyoto Police First
Investigative Division.” It was the kind of name that threat-
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 5
ened to make you bite your own tongue. Her parents must
have been awfully whimsical.
“Oh. Hey.”
I gave a little head bob for the time being. The woman—
Sasaki-san—seemed a bit surprised by my reaction. Maybe I
should’ve shown more surprise myself, but it didn’t take more
than a glance to tell that these two were obviously police officers.
The thought of these two stone-faced individuals being
anything other than police officers was, to me, unimaginable.
The male officer chuckled to himself a bit and showed his
own badge, “Ikaruga Kazuhito from the same division. Mind if
we come inside for a bit?” It was essentially coercion in the
form of a question. As a kid, I naturally felt the urge to defy
this coercion, but it didn’t look like this Kazuhito-san would
let it fly.
“Oh, uh, well, sure. It’s small, though.”
I invited them into the room. They seemed surprised to
find that the inside of the room was just as small as I’d said,
but they passed it off with an impressive coolness. If I was
their boss, I would’ve given them a raise. Of course, not
being their boss, I didn’t give them squat.
“Please have a seat over there,” I said. I poured water into
two cups and placed them in front of the pair. Just as Mikokochan
had the day before, they ignored this completely.
“Allow me to be frank,” Sasaki-san said, eyeing me firmly.
“Emoto Tomo-san is dead.”
“Oh.” I prepared myself a glass of water and sat down
across from them. “Is that right?”
“ ‘Is that right?’ Is that all you have to say?” Sasaki broke
her poker face for the first time.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 6
“Oh, well, I’m not much for expressing emotion. I’m totally
shocked on the inside, so don’t pay it any mind.”
That and, by this point, I was becoming kind of used to
this sort of thing.
But I really was shocked. This was half because Tomoechan
had been killed, and half because the instant I had seen
these two outside my door, I had guessed they were here to
talk about Zerozaki.
I was half-relieved, half-stupefied. It was like a contradicttion
of emotions swirling around in my gut.
“Umm, is it safe to assume that since there are detectives
oil the case, she didn’t die under ordinary circumstances? Not
to mention that you’re from the First Investigative Division.”
Considering the kinds of cases First Investigative Divisions
usually handle.
“That’s correct.” Sasaki-san nodded. The seriousness of her
expression was pure and undiluted.
“So was it, by any chance, the ‘prowler’?”
She shook her head at my inquiry. “No.”
“Oh, really.”
It was like something had deflated. Part of me was relieved.
I couldn’t help but wonder why, but I quickly switched trains
of thought.
“What happened, then?”
“Her body was found this morning. She had been strangled
to death.”
“Strangled?”
Strangulation.
Emoto Tomoe.
Murdered . . . ?
I felt my heart going cold.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 7
Just how many people had I seen die? How long had it
been since I stopped counting dead friends? My first encounter
with death was before I could even remember.
“It’s been about a month since the last one, huh? That’s got
to be a new record.”
Sasaki-san gave me a sideways look. It was entirely different
from the kind of sideways looks Mikoko-chan gave me, a
purely intellectual pose completely devoid of any adorable
charm. Then again, in my whole life, I had never seen a pose
that was both intellectual and adorably charming, whether it
be from a male or a female.
“Did you say something?”
“No, just talking to myself. I do that a lot. They say I’m just
a nineteen-year-old soliloquy that can dress itself and walk
around.”
Although Sasaki-san looked satisfied with this answer, she
didn’t crack so much as a smirk.
Suddenly I noticed that Kazuhito-san had been closely
monitoring my expression. I kept quiet.
Interesting.
That explained the need for sunglasses. Sasaki-san was in
charge of doing the talking. Kazuhito-san was the observer. It
was marvelous nonsense. A true masterpiece.
It seemed I was a prime suspect.
“I guess that makes sense. I was with her all night.”
“Did you say something?”
“No, just your plain old, everyday nonsense.” I sat myself
up straight. Not that I was nervous, but maybe it was time to
start getting a little more serious. “So if she was killed, who
killed her?” I asked.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 8
“That’s currently under investigation. To tell you the truth,
that’s the reason we’ve come here today,” Sasaki-san said.
“Then tell me,” I wanted to say, but I refrained from provoking
her.
“You were in Emoto-san’s apartment from about six in the
evening to midnight. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Just to check, would you tell us the names of the other
people present during that period of time?”
“Umm.” Good luck, memory. “Emoto Tomoe-san, Atemiya
Muimi-san, Aoi . . . no, Aoii Mikoko-san, and Usami Akiharukun.
And then me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You arrived with Aoii-san. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Aoii-san first came to my place—here, I mean—
then we went to Emoto-san’s place together. It was around
six p.m.”
“More specifically? Was it before six or after?”
“Before.”
She was barraging me with questions. The limitations of
my mind’s processing speed had been surpassed long ago, and
my head was spinning.
“So all of the guests were there at that time . . ."
“Please wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I can’t settle down
and focus if you keep throwing out questions one after another
like that. I think I mentioned that, but this all has me a
little mixed up.”
“Oh, sorry about that,” Sasaki-san said. It was the most
unapologetic apology of all time.
ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 9 9
I spent the next hour responding to her assault of
questions, divulging every last detail of the previous night’s
events. The things we talked about during the party. The
atmosphere of the party. My going to the convenience store
with Muimi-chan. Returning. Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan
leaving at around eleven o’clock. Akiharu-kun giving Tomochan
a present just before that. The neckstrap. My talk with
Tomo-chan after that. Leaving the apartment with Mikokochan
in tow. The phone call from Tomo-chan around the time
we reached Nishiôji Nakadachiuri. Leaving Mikoko-chan with
Miiko-san because she appeared to be sleeping (whether it
was the truth or not, I didn’t know). And then, sleeping.
Mikoko-chan’s short visit in the morning. The rest of the day,
which I spent reading.
I didn’t bother mentioning the intense pressure of having
Kazuhito-san peering over Sasaki-san’s shoulder the whole
time when she was already plenty scary on her own. We were
just sitting and talking, but I felt like I had wasted a great deal
of energy. And then there was Sasaki-san’s brilliant last line.
“Okay, so far this pretty much matches what we’ve already
heard.”
Boy, she was super.
The string of questions seemed to have come to an end for
the time being. “Hmm,” Sasaki-san said with a perplexed look.
But something about it seemed like an act. If Mikoko-chan
could be called a person of no façades, this woman, on the
other hand, was a person of nothing but façades, to the point
that they appeared to be her true personality. She certainly
wouldn’t be the easiest person in the world to deal with.
“So how about that phone call?” she said with a finger to
her temple. “She really didn’t say anything? According to