Goth (26 page)

It was an ordinary cassette tape, the kind you could buy at any convenience store. There was a sticker on it that read, “Voice 1: Kitazawa Hiroko.” It wasn’t handwritten but had been printed.

“What is this? Why does it have my sister’s name on it?”

“You’ll understand when you listen to it. Kitazawa Hiroko gave that to me when she was still alive. I wanted you to hear it, so I kept it. There are two other tapes. I’m saving those for another time. If you tell anyone about me, that time will never come to pass.”

The boy turned to leave.

“Wait …” I said, and I tried to follow him. But I couldn’t do it. My legs wouldn’t move; they were frozen, like they’d been when that groper had been standing behind me. I didn’t know why I was responding this way; the boy hadn’t threatened me—in fact, he’d rescued me. But without being consciously aware of it, my whole body had tensed up. I was sweating all over.

A moment later, the boy had turned the corner and was out of sight. I was left standing alone, holding the tape.

On the train back home, I sat down in my seat, staring at the tape he’d passed to me. The sun had already set, and it was dark outside. The windows were pitch-black, as if charcoal had been rubbed all over them, and I could see almost nothing through them. It felt like the train wasn’t moving. The sun had already moved on to its winter schedule. When my sister was killed, it had still been light out in the evenings.

Who was that boy? He’d been wearing a high school uniform, so he must be my age, or a year or two younger. He’d claimed to know my sister, but she’d never mentioned him to me.

If he’d first met her only shortly before she died, then it was more than likely she hadn’t had time to mention him, though.

He said she’d given him the tape. Did he mean my sister wanted me to hear what was on the tape? What did “Voice 1: Kitazawa Hiroko” mean?

The train slowed, and my body moved out of habit. I stood up and got off the train.

There were a lot of people around the station, but once I stepped onto the residential side street, there was nothing more than the asphalt road, shrouded in darkness. Shivering in the cold wind, I walked toward home. The only light in the darkness came from the houses on either side of the street. There was a family in each of them, seated at the dinner table, going about their lives—a notion that suddenly struck me as amazing.

The windows of my house were dark. However, this didn’t mean that no one was home. I opened the front door and went into the living room, calling out to let my parents know I had returned.

They were sitting on the sofa, watching TV, not talking, not bothering to turn on the lights. The light from the screen was the only light in the room. I flipped the switch, and they looked toward me, listlessly welcoming me home.

“You forgot to lock the front door again,” I said. My mother nodded absently before returning her gaze to the TV. There was no life in her at all; it was as if she no longer cared about anything.

They were not actually watching TV. Nothing shown on that screen reached their eyes. I turned my eyes away from the wrinkled clothes on their backs and went upstairs to my room.

Without changing out of my uniform, I dropped the bag on my bed and put the tape into my stereo. It was a small stereo, and a slightly bluish silver. It was on the second shelf from the top. I stood in front of it and took a deep breath to calm myself.

I remembered my sister’s face—not how she’d looked at me around the time just before she died, annoyed, but how she’d looked when we were younger and she’d grinned at me as we’d walked hand in hand.

I pressed Play. There was a whir as the motors began to move, and the tape began to play. I stared at the speakers.

The first few seconds were silent, and then came a hiss, like wind. My heart was beating quickly, betraying my nervousness.

What I had thought was the wind was not—it was someone breathing into the microphone.

Natsumi …

Suddenly, I heard my sister’s voice. She sounded very weak, exhausted—but it was definitely her voice. It must have been her breathing. The boy had not been lying. My sister really had left the tape for me.

Natsumi, will you ever hear this? Right now I’m talking into a microphone in front me, but I have no way of knowing if this message will ever reach you.

Where and when had she recorded this? Her voice was so thin that it almost vanished. She spoke slowly, haltingly, as if she was suffering, as if in desperation, leaving long silences between her words. But that made it sound all the more genuine—this was no scripted speech but an attempt to put her thoughts into words.

Listen, I’ve been allowed to leave you a message … told to say anything I want into the microphone, anything at all … but I can only speak to one person.

I thought of you instantly—I realized I have so much I need to tell you. I know it seems strange that I need to speak to you and not Akagi . . .

He’s holding the microphone out toward me … I can’t talk about him—he won’t let me. Sorry. He said he would deliver this message to you. He wants to enjoy seeing how you react to my words. I think that’s a really nasty thing to take pleasure from, but if my voice reaches you, I don’t really care …

I couldn’t move. A horrible suspicion was welling up inside me. A voice echoed through my head, warning me not to listen to any more of this. Terror awaited, and if I listened to that, I could never go back. So certain of this was I that I could barely stand it, and my breath came out like sobs.

I was not going to stop the tape. I stood perfectly still, listening to my sister’s voice.

Natsumi, I’m in a dark room. I can’t move. Concrete all around … It’s cold … I’m on a table.

I slapped my hands over my mouth, fighting back a scream. I knew exactly where my sister had been when she’d spoken into this microphone.

My sister was speaking through her tears now, sniffling.

This is … some sort of abandoned building …

There was a mournful echo as her quiet voice bounced off the cold, dark concrete walls around her. Her pain pierced my heart.

Without realizing it, I had reached out toward the tape deck speakers, touching the mesh that covered them with trembling fingers as if trying to capture my sister’s voice.

I’m sorry, Natsumi.

Her words passed through my fingertips and vanished. My fingers sensed the slightest of vibrations, like I had snared a slight portion of her voice. The sound of my sister’s breathing vanished, and all sound faded from the speakers. The recording was finished.

I turned the tape over and listened to the other side, but there was nothing recorded on it.

I was sure this tape had been recorded just before my sister died. I remembered receiving the tape from the boy in the bookshop: the tape had been inside an envelope, and he’d made me take it out and give the envelope back.

He hadn’t touched the tape, not even once. The entire exchange had been designed to avoid his leaving fingerprints. Had he been holding the microphone? Had he killed my sister?

I should give this to the police; that was the right thing to do. But I had no intention of doing so. As the boy had left, he’d told me not to tell the police if I wanted to hear the other tapes.

There was more to the message. I wanted to hear the rest.

†

Shortly after I heard the tape, I skipped school and went to where I could see the gates of M**** High School.

M**** High School was a public high school, and only two stations from mine. The gates faced onto a busy road, but a tall, dark green hedge surrounded the school itself. The hedge was neatly trimmed, and it looked like a flat green wall. Above it, I could only make out the white roof of the school.

There was a convenience store across the street from the school entrance, and I stood at its magazine rack, watching the gates through the window. I spent about an hour pretending to stand and read, until classes had finally ended, and students began pouring out. The sun was already low in the sky.

As the students left through the gates, almost all of them crossed the street, passing in front of me. The station was on this side, and the sidewalk was much wider. I was able to check their faces, one by one.

Watching the flood of students pass in front of me, I remembered my sister’s voice.

I had listened to the tape again and again, and it had hit me just as hard each time. I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, but my thoughts took me nowhere.

My whole body felt woozy—from lack of sleep? As I turned the pages of the magazine, I glanced at the clerk, worried that he might be angry with me for standing here this long. Perhaps he even thought I was suspicious. I was scared he would say something.

I looked out the window in front of me. A group of five boys were passing by, talking happily, laughing. One of them met my eye.

He stopped in his tracks, surprised, and then he said something to his friends. I couldn’t hear him through the glass, but he was presumably telling them to go on without him. They moved on, leaving him behind.

I straightened up a little.

He came into the store and jogged over to me. “Kitazawa? What are you doing here?”

His name was Kamiyama Itsuki, and I’d known him in junior high. He’d been a member of the basketball team, and I’d been the manager. He had a bright, cheerful smile, an expression like that of a puppy. He was taller than me, but the way he ran up to me was more puppy than dog.

“What, don’t tell me you forgot me?”

I was so relieved he’d come up to me that I’d almost started crying. I suddenly realized how scared I’d been.

“Don’t be silly, of course I didn’t. It’s been a while, Itsuki …”

I remembered my sister’s funeral. Surrounded by relatives and my sister’s college friends, Itsuki had come running over to me, the two of us in our high school uniforms. He’d stayed with me the whole time. He hadn’t tried to cheer me up; he’d simply stood next to me. And that had been enough.

I’d remembered the crest on his uniform. That’s why I had known the boy who gave me the tape went to M**** High School. I didn’t know the boy’s name, so the school was the only way I had to find him.

“I’m surprised to see you here. Waiting for someone?”

I could hardly tell him I was watching the gates, waiting for someone who probably killed my sister, so I shook my head, not that. I don’t know what I must have looked like, but he grew serious.

“Something happen?” he asked, sounding concerned. “Or is it still your sister … ?” He knew about the friction between us. I’d told him all about it at the funeral.

The picture at the funeral had been taken just before she’d died, and that had made me want to talk about it with someone. It was a beautiful head shot of her, but it had been taken after we’d stopped being close.

“Not my sister.”

“But something’s bothering you? You said you wanted to talk to her again …”

“Yes, but … forget about it. I’m sorry about dumping that on you at the funeral.”

Itsuki looked at me with pity in his eyes. “Do the police have any idea who killed her?”

I stared at him.

“You just seem different.”

He had such good instincts. I shook my head. “The police still haven’t …”

“Oh,” he said, sighing.

As he sighed, the one I’d been waiting for appeared. The sun had started to set while I’d been talking to Itsuki, and it was getting dark out. But I could still see his face clearly through the store window as he crossed the street.

I was not certain the boy had killed my sister—but when I saw him out of the corner of my eye, I was instantly terrified, as if I’d been suddenly plunged into total darkness.

He was walking next to a female student, a beautiful girl with long hair. Both of them were equally expressionless.

They passed in profile across the glass beyond the magazine rack. Itsuki followed my gaze, wondering why I had suddenly fallen silent.

“Morino,” he said.

“Is that that boy’s name?”

“No, the girl’s name—she’s pretty famous. A teacher tried to molest her, but apparently she kicked his ass.”

Like Itsuki, they were both second-year students.

“Do you know the boy’s name?” I asked, a little too urgently. Itsuki looked taken aback. “Uh, yeah, he’s—”

He said a name, and I chiseled it into my brain, making sure I never forgot.

I put the magazine down and left the store. Cold air and exhaust fumes enveloped me.

I stood in front of the store, staring after him. I could see their backs as they headed toward the station.

She must have felt me staring, because the girl, Morino, turned around and looked right at me. She looked me over, and then she turned back around.

The shop door opened, and Itsuki came over. “I was in his class last year.”

“What’s he like?”

Itsuki stared at me for a moment, and then he shrugged. “I dunno … normal?”

I hesitated. Should I chase after him? But Itsuki was with me. And Morino was with him. This didn’t seem like the time to ask questions about the tape of my sister’s voice. I abandoned the idea.

“Something wrong?”

I shook my head. The two of us began walking to the station, the same direction they had gone. They were already out of sight.

The shop signs and vending machines lined up along the road glowed, their lights shining brightly. As we walked, the sun set, and the cold winter darkness thickened, the vending machines’ light the only thing that remained distinct.

As we walked, Itsuki and I chatted about recent events in our lives. All I talked about was entrance exams, which seemed like a safe enough subject, whereas he had all kinds of funny anecdotes about school, his friends, places he’d been …

They were nothing extraordinary, just the normal stories any high school boy would tell, but they went a long way toward helping me relax. Perhaps Itsuki had noticed my tension, and he was deliberately trying to cheer me up.

Cars sped past us, their headlamps on, the lights flickering over our faces. “Want to talk in there?” Itsuki asked, pointing at the family restaurant in front of the station. Through the windows, it looked brightly lit and warm.