Goth (31 page)

Before I could say anything to her, Morino spoke up. She had been staring fixedly at Kitazawa Natsumi’s face.

“Are you … Kitazawa Natsumi?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I thought so. You look just like the pictures of your sister in the newspapers.”

“The picture from before she changed her hair, right?”

“Yes. My hobby is investigating cases. I was looking into your sister’s. I couldn’t find any pictures of you, though. When I saw you standing here a few days ago, I’d thought you looked like her, but I hadn’t been sure then.”

“You were investigating her?” Kitazawa Natsumi asked, surprised. She looked at me for help.

“She seems to have found a source. She won’t tell me who …” I explained. Kitazawa Natsumi didn’t appear to know what to make of this.

Morino looked at me. She was as expressionless as ever, but it was clear from her voice that she was greatly interested. “So how do you know Kitazawa?”

Without answering, I took some change out of my pocket and put it in Morino’s hand. She stared at the coins for a moment, and then she asked what they were for. I explained that there was a vending machine a half mile down the road, and I asked politely if she would go buy us something to drink.

“I know there’s a convenience store right in front of us, but I would very much like to drink something from that vending machine in the distance. Of course, this is not an underhanded method of driving you away so you can’t hear us talk.”

Morino looked at me and then at Kitazawa Natsumi, hesitating. But eventually she turned her back on us and began walking toward the vending machine.

“She doesn’t know, does she? That the killer was targeting her?” Kitazawa murmured.

I nodded.

For a moment, we both watched her walking slowly away from us. Her black clothes almost vanished into the darkness around her; her small shadow whipped around her each time a car zipped past, headlines glaring.

“She showed me a picture of Hiroko’s body the other day.”

“Of her body?”

“Yes. Someone had given her a photo that never would have circulated publicly. It was definitely Hiroko’s face. The same hairstyle as the picture at her funeral …”

“Then, when you saw that … ?”

“I knew there was a chance the killer had taken it. I didn’t quite believe it … but if it was true, then that meant the person who’d killed Hiroko was also getting close to her, and she might’ve been his next target.”

“You were half-right, but he ultimately chose me instead of her.”

“When I saw you standing here, I knew he hadn’t yet made his move. You were acting strange, so I wondered if he’d approached you.”

“Yes … yes, he had. So that’s why you snuck into my room … looking for proof of that.”

“You never would’ve told me the truth.”

The light from the shop sent our shadows across the dry asphalt of the parking lot, like shadow puppets. She stared down at them, nodding.

“But, Itsuki, I never thought you had so little sense.”

“About as little as you.”

“I was worried last night … you just vanished. I called in the morning, but the call didn’t go through.”

“He broke my phone.”

I had once been in the same class as the boy who killed Kitazawa Hiroko. I hadn’t known him well, but if I’d spent a little more time with him, would I have noticed how unusual he was?

“What … what did you do, after?”

I had buried his body deep in the grass behind the hospital. All his cruelty had been sucked out of him by the silver flash of my blade—or at least, that’s how I chose to see it. When the knife had sunk deep into him and he’d groaned, blood spilling out of his mouth, the hand gripping the knife had felt like its thirst was sated.

“He ran away. I chased him, but I couldn’t catch up …”

He had looked down at the pool of his blood as if it made sense to him, as if this was simply another possible outcome. He had fallen to his knees, accepting his own death as easily as he had taken Kitazawa Hiroko’s. He had looked up at me, praised the quality of the knife, and stopped moving.

“Oh. Do you suppose we should call the police?”

“If you want. But I don’t want any trouble, so if you could avoid mentioning me? I did break into your house, after all.”

I looked back up the road. There was a tiny speck in the distance, visible as it passed under a streetlight but fading into the darkness beyond. A moment later, it appeared again under the next light. It was Morino, coming back.

“My dad was furious when I got home this morning,” Kitazawa Natsumi said, kicking the parking bumper. She was smiling. She had ridden her bicycle home. When she’d arrived home, her parents had already realized she wasn’t in her room, and they were in a panic. When she’d come in the door, looking exhausted, they’d yelled at her and hugged her tight.

“My mother burst into tears the moment she saw me—only natural, after what happened to my sister. It really drove home that I was still alive, and so were my parents. We’ve decided to move early next year, somewhere far away.”

She looked up, down the road, her profile gleaming white in the light of the convenience store.

“I won’t see you again.”

Drinks in hand, Morino stopped a fair distance away, leaning against a telephone pole, watching us, her hair dancing in the wind of a passing car. She looked like a little match girl somehow.

“You done?” she called. Just a little longer, I said, and she muttered something listlessly, turning her back on us. We were too far away for me to hear; all I could do was stare at her narrow shoulders.

“Is Morino …” Kitazawa Natsumi said, looking at me and trailing off.

“What?”

“No, never mind … but she might have the wrong idea about us. You don’t plan to tell her what happened?”

“Not unless I have to. I never have.”

“Then she doesn’t know that you protected her. Itsuki, did you come there to save me? Or just to stomp out the flames before they could reach her?” She looked me right in the eye. “I’m right, aren’t I? Are you in love with her?”

This was not love … merely obsession. I chose not to say this out loud.

Kitazawa Natsumi looked away, staring into the distance. She placed her right hand on her left shoulder.

“Did you hurt your shoulder?”

She smiled faintly, shaking her head.

“He put his hand here, as he turned away.”

“He?”

“Never mind. How long are you going to make Morino wait?”

She was still leaning against the telephone pole. I called out, letting her know we were done.

Morino came silently over to us. She was only holding one can of citrus soda. I pointed out that there were three of us and she should have bought three drinks; she, in turn, pointed out that I had kept her waiting so long that she’d drunk two of them. Furthermore, she no longer had any intention of handing the final drink off to anyone else. You could never have guessed how foul a mood she was in by looking at her, though.

The three of us walked to the station. Kitazawa Natsumi and I walked together, chatting. We talked about moving, studying for college exams, nothing particularly interesting—but I was used to playing my part. She seemed to be happy, and she smiled often.

Morino followed a few steps behind us. I glanced back at her every now and then. She had her bag in one hand; in the other, she held the soda can, like she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She was staring at her toes. Her long hair fell forward, hiding her face.

She said nothing, making no attempt to participate in our conversation. Even as I glanced back at her, I pretended not to notice anything, carrying on like normal.

When we finally reached the clearing in front of the station, it was already dark out—but there were so many stores there, with brightly lit signs and windows, that it wasn’t actually very dark.

Schools were out, and most offices had closed as well. The station was packed with people heading home. The first floor of the massive station was carved into a square sort of tunnel—the station entrance. People flowed in and out like the building was breathing them.

I said goodbye to Kitazawa Natsumi at the station entrance. She waved and walked away, heading for the ticket machines. She slid through the crowd like a spaceship moving through the enemy fleet in a sci-fi film. There was a long line at the ticket machines, and she took up a place at the back of it.

Morino and I stood against the wall so as not to obstruct traffic. Neither of us really cared for loud, crowded places. Staying here long would give us each a headache.

The wall was a smooth white stone, probably marble. At regular intervals were large posters, advertisements for makeup with female models. Morino leaned against one of them.

“Surprised at how much Kitazawa Natsumi looks like her sister?” I asked.

“More important, doesn’t it wear you out, changing the way you speak depending on whom you’re talking to?” Morino folded her arms. I could see the end of the soda can in her right hand sticking out from under her left arm. I was sure her body heat had warmed it by now.

Morino looked across to where Kitazawa Natsumi stood in line. “I can’t understand how either of you can smile so naturally.”

“I’m not smiling because I’m amused.”

No matter what the conversation, I took no pleasure from it. I always felt like I was standing at the bottom of a dark hole. But I carried on an unconscious performance, making sure no one ever noticed anything wrong.

“And she hasn’t smiled much. She smiled a bit talking to me, but she hasn’t always been like that recently.”

Morino frowned. “She doesn’t usually smile? She seemed pretty cheery to me.”

I explained a simplified version of the friction between Kitazawa Natsumi and her sister: two sisters that looked alike, in an awkward sort of relationship for a long time. She’d been convinced she was hated and had been unable to smile.

Morino listened in silence, interjecting nothing.

“I went to Kitazawa Hiroko’s funeral, for the usual reasons. She told me about it there. But the other day, she found a tape recording of Hiroko’s voice …”

A chance encounter with her sister, whom she had thought she would never meet again.

I didn’t mention the killer or the events of the night before; it would just complicate things. But I briefly outlined the contents of the tape and the transformation it had presumably brought about within Kitazawa Natsumi.

I remembered how she had curled up on the floor, clutching the tape recorder.

I had stood there, knife in hand, wiping the blood off on his clothes. From the description on the tape, I could easily imagine how they had played together as children.

When I’d finished describing those memories, Morino remained leaning against the wall, arms folded. Her eyes turned downward in thoughtful silence. Her eyelids were half-closed, her eyes hidden beneath the shadows her eyelashes cast in the harsh overhead light.

“None of that was in my scrapbook,” she said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear her. She slowly lifted her head, looking toward Kitazawa Natsumi in line at the ticket machine.

The line had moved forward, and Kitazawa Natsumi was putting coins into the machine. She pressed a button and bought a ticket for a nearby station. Then she headed into the crowd, occasionally visible among the flood of people.

Morino unfolded her arms and looked down at the can of soda in her hand. Her back pulled away from the wall. A moment later, her long hair followed. She began walking like still river water that had begun to silently flow again.

It was such a quiet motion that it took me a moment to realize she was moving at all. Not sure what she was up to, I just watched her go. I didn’t begin to follow until she’d vanished into the crowd.

Her gaze was fixed on Kitazawa Natsumi, who had purchased her ticket and was headed for the platform gates. Morino Yoru headed after her, drifting as absently as a sleepwalker. She didn’t appear to be any good at walking in crowds, and she bumped into one person after another. She seemed to be trying to avoid this, but crashed into suit-clad businessmen and young women with unerring regularity. Each time, she bounced backward, clutching her nose, and then forged forward again. I had never seen anyone have this much trouble with crowds before. It was very easy to keep up with her.

Meanwhile, Kitazawa Natsumi passed through the congested gates. There were only a few gates serving a vast number of people, and a crowd had formed, waiting their turn. Their heads and backs blocked our view, and we could no longer see Kitazawa Natsumi. She had moved into the station without noticing Morino’s approach.

Morino slammed into someone again, a large middle-aged man; it was like seeing a tricycle crashing into a dump truck. She bounced away, staggered, and almost fell backward into me. As it was, her head slammed into my jaw. This was the single greatest damage I had taken over the last few months, despite everything that had happened. She didn’t appear to notice, all her attention focused on the direction in which Kitazawa Natsumi had vanished. She straightened up, gulped hesitantly, squared her shoulders, and called out, “Natsumi!”

I had never heard her voice that loud. It was like there was an amplifier hidden somewhere in her slender frame. All the noise and bustle of the crowd was instantly silenced. A lot of people stopped walking and talking, all turning to stare at her.

Morino began walking again, directly toward the gates through which Kitazawa Natsumi had vanished. Everyone who had heard her shout stepped out of the way, letting her pass. I followed.

Noise returned to the station, and everyone started moving again. Morino was already at the gates. She didn’t ride the train to school every day and so had neither ticket nor train pass, which prevented her from passing through the automated gates. They closed in front of her, and she stopped.

“Morino?”

It was Kitazawa Natsumi’s voice. She stepped out of the flood of humanity, appearing on the other side of the gates. She must’ve heard Morino’s shout and come back. She jogged over to us, looking surprised, and stopped with the closed gate between her and Morino. With Morino blocking one of the gates, the congestion around us had increased dramatically. Morino didn’t seem to care.