Confessions (8 page)

One day toward the end of June, Werther canceled math to hold a class meeting, even though exams were just a few days off. He told us he had something he wanted to talk about, and then he started waving this piece of paper at us.

“I found this in one of your homework notebooks,” he said. We could hear the kids in the front row kind of gulp, but from where I was sitting you couldn’t see anything.

“
There are bullies in this class!”
he said in this really dramatic voice, reading the words off the paper. I have to admit I was pretty impressed by the courage it had taken to write this—and it meant that somebody else wanted things to change, too. But I also realized that whoever wrote it had probably not thought it would be read out in front of the whole class like this. He—or she—was probably sweating it out about now.

“I’m not going to say whose notebook it was in,” Werther continued, looking around the room, “but I want us to discuss this problem as a class right now. I can tell, you know, I’ve been feeling that something’s not quite right. It’s not right when a good student like 
Sh
ū
ya
 is telling me for the third time this month that he’s ‘lost his notebook’ and has to get a new one. And it’s not just his notebooks—he’s ‘lost’ his gym clothes and his shoes, too. So I was just about to ask 
Sh
ū
ya
 what’s going on. But before I got the chance, some brave soul sent me this message asking for help…and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. But I have to say that what’s going on here can’t be called bullying. This sort of harassment isn’t bullying—it’s jealousy, plain and simple. The proof is that no one has dared to attack him directly; it’s just this constant messing with his things. 
Sh
ū
ya
 is one of the best students in the whole grade, and I’m told he won an award in a national science competition last year. So it’s pretty natural that some of you are jealous of him and that you might even go so far as to harass him because of it. Which is why I have no intention of trying to find out who did this. It’s your problem as a class.

“But I do have something to say to you—whether you’ve been involved in this or not. It’s clear that 
Sh
ū
ya
 is a very bright student, but that doesn’t mean that he’s better than the rest of you in any way. Being a good student and getting good grades is what
Sh
ū
ya
does well—it’s his own special gift. But each of you has his or her gift as well, and rather than worrying about 
Sh
ū
ya
, I want you to find that gift and spend some time developing it. I’m sure some of you have no idea what it might be, and if that’s the case I urge you to come see me. It’s only been a few months since we’ve met, but I’ve been watching you carefully, and I think I’ve got some ideas.…”

Just at that moment, the text tone went off on a phone, and Takahiro stuck his hand in his desk to kill the battery. “Shit,” he muttered. Having the phone wasn’t a problem, but we’re supposed to turn them off in class. Werther took the phone and then went on with his speech.

“This is serious stuff I’m trying to talk about,” he said. “But one joker who can’t play by the rules can interrupt the whole thing. Turn them off! Any first grader knows that!”

The sermon went on for a while after that, but it seemed like getting interrupted by Takahiro was a bigger deal than the bullying. So if the writer of that note had really been looking for help from Werther, he must have been sighing under his breath by then.

But the real nightmare hadn’t even started yet. The witch trials were about to begin.

It didn’t take long—in fact, it was that same day after school. I haven’t joined any clubs this year, but I did stay late to take my turn cleaning the classroom. I was just about to get my shoes out of the cupboard at the front door when Maki stopped me. Nothing has changed with Maki since you left: She’s still Ayako’s sidekick and gopher.

“Ayako has something she wants to see you about,” she said. “Can you come back to the room?”

I was pretty sure the “something” wasn’t going to be pleasant, but if I refused I’d just have to deal with it later, so I followed her back to the class. As I walked through the door, Maki shoved me from behind and I went down on my knees. When I looked up, Ayako was standing there. Then I realized that there were five or six kids forming a circle around me.

“You blabbed to Werther, didn’t you, Mizuho?” Ayako said. She was completely wrong, but I’d thought that something like this might be coming.

“No,” I said, staring back at her. “It wasn’t me.”

“Liar!” she barked. “It couldn’t be anybody else. But you are so wrong! What did you mean, ‘bullying’? That’s total crap! What we’re doing here is punishing a killer. Don’t you have any sympathy for Moriguchi-sensei? Or are you sweet on that murderer?”

There was no sense trying to reason with her, so I just shook my head, rejecting everything she’d said.

“So you’re not sweet on him? Well, prove it then,” she said, holding out a milk carton. “Hit him with this and we’ll believe you.”

As I took the carton from Ayako, I suddenly noticed 
Sh
ū
ya
 lying on the floor on the other side of the room, his arms and legs bound with tape. Ayako and the rest of them turned to look at him with these nasty grins on their faces.

If I didn’t throw the milk at him, I knew I’d be getting the same treatment tomorrow—or, worse yet, they would probably start doing all the stuff to me they were too scared to do to 
Sh
ū
ya
.

Then our eyes met. I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking, but I knew 
Sh
ū
ya
’s eyes weren’t pleading with me or trying to make me mad—they just looked really calm. As I stared into his eyes, I suddenly understood: He wasn’t thinking about anything, wasn’t feeling anything at all. He was the perfect image of a heartless killer. I know you said that Naoki was the one who actually killed Manami, but if 
Sh
ū
ya
 hadn’t been there, none of this would have happened!

Murderer! Murderer! Murderer! Suddenly I had no more doubts.

I got up and took a few steps toward him. Then I aimed at his chest, shut my eyes, and threw the carton as hard as I could. I could hear it bursting, and at that instant, I felt this weird kind of ecstasy come up from somewhere deep inside me.

I want to hurt this bastard! I want to make him pay! I want to make him taste his own medicine!
Stuff like that went through me like an electric current, round and round in my head…until it was finally stopped by the sound of the kids laughing. What was so funny? As I opened my eyes, I could see. Milk was dripping down 
Sh
ū
ya
’s face, and a red spot was swelling on his cheek. I’d missed his chest, but I’d hit him right in the face.

“Nice, Mizuho!” Ayako muttered, and they laughed even harder. But I couldn’t understand what they found so funny—not while 
Sh
ū
ya
 was still staring at me with those eyes. And now I thought I knew what they were saying.

Do you really have the right to judge me?
He suddenly seemed to me like some sort of saint, persecuted by the mindless horde.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, and I knew right away that Ayako had heard me.

“Wait a
minute!
” she shouted. “Did I just hear you
apologize
to this killer? Mizuho’s no better than he is! Let’s give her what she has coming!” Ayako can get really dramatic, like she’s channeling Joan of Arc or something…though I doubt she’s ever heard of her.

In a flash they had my arms pinned behind my back. I knew it was one of the boys in our class who grabbed me, but I’m not sure who. It hurt. I was scared. I wanted somebody to help me—that’s about all that was running through my head.

“From this day forward!”—Ayako was still putting on a show—“You and this boy are one!” Then they pushed me to the floor, and I came to rest with my face just a few inches from 
Sh
ū
ya
’s.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” They started to clap and chant. I wanted to yell at them to stop, but I was frozen with fear. The boy who was pinning my arms took hold of the back of my head with his other hand and pressed forward until my face met 
Sh
ū
ya
’s and I heard a clicking sound.

“Look, Ayako, I got it!” As Maki spoke, my arms were released and I turned to find the whole group gathered around her to look at her phone. They were still laughing.

“Was that your first kiss, Mizuho?” Ayako said, taking the phone from Maki and shoving it in my face. The picture on the screen showed 
Sh
ū
ya
 and me with our lips pressed together. “Now what we do with this is up to you, Mizuho,” she said.

Moriguchi-sensei, I know that Naoki and 
Sh
ū
ya
 are murderers, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive kids who would do something like this.

I don’t really remember how I got home that afternoon. My clothes smelled like milk, so I got out of them and took a shower. Then I shut myself in my room and didn’t come out for dinner.

I had a vague feeling that someone was still holding my arms behind my back, and the sound of laughter rang in my ears. I couldn’t stop shaking. I wanted the night to last forever, or for a nuclear missile to come and annihilate everything—and I couldn’t even sleep because the whole horrible scene came back to me the minute I closed my eyes.

Around midnight I heard a text coming to my phone. I was afraid they might be sending me the picture, but when I looked, it was a number I hardly recognized: 
Sh
ū
ya’
s. He wanted to know whether I’d meet him at a convenience store nearby. I thought about it for a minute and then decided to go.

Sh
ū
ya
 was standing next to his bicycle at the edge of the parking lot. I had no idea what to say or even how to look at him, so I stood facing him over the bike. Without a word, he reached into the pocket of his jeans, fished out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and held it up. The streetlights were pretty bright, but I still couldn’t see what it was. I had to strain my eyes, but finally I could tell it was some numbers, and with a little more effort I saw that it was the results of a blood test—with his name written at the top and a date from last week.

“It was in the mailbox when I got home,” he said, folding the paper and putting it back in his pocket.

“I knew,” I said.

He stared back at me with a surprised look on his face—not the look of a child killer but a look full of feeling, one I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” I said. He went over to a vending machine and bought two cans of juice. Then he put them in the basket of the bicycle and told me to get on the back. Even an empty parking lot in the middle of the night was too public for what we had to talk about.

I wondered what we looked like riding double on the bike through the dark town. Not that there was anyone to see—we passed almost no people or cars—but I was a little nervous, even though there was nothing between us.

His back was broader than I thought—I’d assumed he’d been losing weight. As we rode through the dark, it seemed as though he’d arrived to rescue me, just as the world was coming to an end. But if he’d appeared out of the night to save me, then I had to tell him.

After we’d been riding for about fifteen minutes, the buildings began to thin out and he pulled up in front of a one-story house next to the river. It looked empty and I was pretty sure he didn’t live here, but he got off the bike, produced a key, and opened the door. He must have been able to tell I was hesitating, because he turned around to explain that it had belonged to his grandmother and that his parents were using it to store stuff for their shop now that she was gone.

Once we were inside, he turned on the light and I could see piles of boxes lining the hallway. They must have blocked the breeze from getting in, because the air was heavy and humid, so we decided to sit down on the entrance step just inside the door. He gave me a can of grapefruit juice and I rolled it between my hands as I started to tell him what I’d done that day.

The
day when you told us about Naoki and Sh
ū
ya, there was just one part of the story I couldn’t really believe—the ending. It was the scariest part, of course, and it was you, Moriguchi-sensei, I was afraid of.

After you left, Naoki ran out of the room and everybody else followed him. I was just about to leave, too, when I noticed the box by the blackboard with all the empty milk cartons lined up in the slots with our names. My first thought—the class president reflex—was to wonder who was on cleanup duty, but then I realized no one would want to touch the cartons, which was when I found myself looking for Naoki’s and 
Sh
ū
ya
’s.

You’d been talking a lot about looking at things logically that day, so maybe that’s why I found myself wondering about
your
logic. I could sort of understand the pain and sadness you must have been feeling, but I knew I couldn’t really know how you felt. I’ve got people I love just like anybody else, but they’re all alive, and even if I try imagining how I’d feel if they died, it’s still only imagining. But I was pretty sure that you would have some ability to be rational no matter how much you hated Naoki and 
Sh
ū
ya
.

That day I found a plastic bag in the cleaning cupboard and wrapped up the two cartons to take home. I realized I couldn’t leave the box with just Naoki and 
Sh
ū
ya
’s missing, so I took the rest of the cartons to the garbage bin behind the gym. I ran into a couple of teachers on the way, but they didn’t say anything. Why would they suspect the class president when she was taking out the garbage? When I got home, I cut open the cartons and tested the milk left in them with a chemical that reacts with blood (strange, I know, but I had some on hand).