The Gate of Sorrows (12 page)

“Um, no. Sorry to butt in.”

“It’s perfectly all right. I appreciate it.”

Takako laid out the situation without further ado. About a week before, she’d received a call from Mika’s homeroom teacher, who told her Mika was being attacked on an unofficial school website. Mika herself hadn’t said a thing about it.

“I changed my schedule and saw the teacher right away. I’d already noticed Mika seemed a little down.”

“I see.”

“Her homeroom teacher—his name’s Soejima, he’s about my age—apologized and told me he’s not that familiar with the Internet, and he’s not very sensitive to the issues his girls get into conflicts about. He said he didn’t even know about the site until one of his students told him.”

She must’ve told him so he’d do something to help Mika.

“He was surprised to find out what was happening, so after he discussed it with the club advisor, he called me. He told me the bullying is only happening on the site. She’s not having any problems in class.”

Kotaro didn’t believe that. The teachers just didn’t notice it, or everyone involved was doing a good job hiding it.

“Did you talk to Mika about it?”

“Yes, right after I got back from Aoba.”

“What did she say?”

“She knew about the site but she didn’t think it was anything to make a fuss about. She gave me a hard time for worrying about it, to be honest.”

Right, because she doesn’t
want
you to worry about it.

“She told me everything would die down naturally as long she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t want to date this Gaku fellow. Anyway, he’s busy studying for exams, isn’t he? I mean, that’s that, don’t you think?”

This sounded way too optimistic. Maybe Mika and Gaku weren’t a happening thing, but the girls on the team didn’t see it that way. They could make things a lot worse for Mika if it suited them.

“I’m not really sure that’s the end of it, Mrs. Sonoi.”

“You’re still in school too.” Takako laughed gently. “It makes sense you’d be sensitive to things that go on between students. So listen, Mika says she’s fine now. You don’t need to worry.”

“But—”

“I know the comments on the site are terrible, but it’s hard to tell how seriously they mean them. When I was young, we put our feelings in our diaries and that was the end of it. But kids today put their frustrations online. They haven’t figured out that everyone can see what they write.”

She was right. Kotaro had witnessed this up close at Kumar. People were putting their personal feelings out there without understanding that the Internet
is
society, and that they were participants in that society.

“If you believe the things teenage girls say to let off steam, and criticize them for it, it could make the situation worse,” Takako said.

“Is that what their homeroom teacher says?”

“Yes, but I feel the same way. We had a similar problem here at work. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this sort of thing.”

Okay. All right. But adults and kids are different. They react to things differently.

“Mika goes off to school day after day in a great mood. She’s practicing hard too. True, she seemed kind of down for a bit, but that was when the comments were hot and heavy on the site. Things have quieted down.”

If what I saw was the quiet version, what were things like when it was hot?

“The comments still seem pretty bad to me.”

“They are bad, aren’t they? Very vulgar. But it’s just teenage name-calling.”

Takako
, c
ome on.
Kotaro gripped his phone.
You’re putting up a front.

Kazumi had nailed it. Takako was trying to put herself in the best light, not just to his mother but before the whole Mishima family. Or maybe for Takako, the Mishima family was a symbol of something bigger called “society.”

On the other hand, maybe Takako was actually frightened. Maybe she was so scared that she was forcing herself to dismiss what was happening.

“I hope you’ll let this drop. If Mika knows it’s not just Kazumi, but you who’re worried about her, she’ll feel so bad that she’ll probably hide under her desk.”

“Well … if you’re asking me to do that, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

Is that it? Was I just wasting my time? Then why can’t I breathe? Why do I feel so awful?

“Mrs. Sonoi?”

“Yes?”

“Let me know if you need any help.”

“Of course. I’ll do that.”

“I’m hoping you won’t need to, but anyway.”

“Um, sorry Ko-chan, my lunch break is over.”

She ended the call. To Kotaro, it sounded like she was running away. Was she really that optimistic, or was she covering something up? Protecting her reputation or secretly scared?

Let it go. Did that mean turn a blind eye?

The call left a strange taste, as though Takako had blown bitter grains of sand into his mouth.

He had the five to eleven shift at Kumar that night. Kaname stared as he took over from her.

“What’s up? You look weird.”

“How?”

“Your eyebrows are practically touching.”

Kotaro put a fingertip between his eyebrows and rubbed hard as he sat down.

“The media came to see the president today.” Kaname ducked behind the monitor and whispered. The rule at Kumar was no chatting on patrol.

“The media?”

“A TV crew. They’ve been following Yamashina around for a month, for a TV show.”

Kotaro hadn’t seen Kumar’s president on this latest visit to Tokyo, though it had started over a week ago.

“What kind of show?”

“It’s called
Movers and Shakers
. Ever see it? It’s on late. They do in-depth profiles. Yamashina’s going to be covered as one of Japan’s outstanding young company founders.”

“Did they shoot here?”

“Not Drug Island. I think they were down filming BB Island at work.”

“Bet you wanted to be on TV.”

“Ugh, don’t say that. No interest at all. I’m a serious student.”

The president had never struck Kotaro as having any interest in media exposure. Seigo once mentioned that more than one magazine had asked for an interview, but they’d always been refused. “A company in our business doesn’t need publicity,” he had added.

Maybe there was a reason for the change in policy. Maybe it had something to do with the move to Sapporo? Kotaro was thinking about the president again. He had to get to work.

There was a forty-minute break at eight. Kotaro didn’t feel like inviting anyone to eat with him. As he walked down the stairs to the front door, he ran directly into the person he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Hello, Mishima.”

Ayuko Yamashina was wearing a white polo-neck shirt under a black business suit and matching three-inch stiletto heels. She was carrying a large briefcase and a fawn-colored coat over her arm.

“Oh, hi.” Kotaro still didn’t know how to address her properly. “So, um, heading home? Take care.”

“Is this your dinner break?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and cocked her head curiously. Her raven hair was braided and gathered on top of her head. Loose, it reached to the middle of her back. The source of this intelligence was Kaname.

Ayuko Yamashina was thirty-five years old, five-foot-eight and slender, with long, shapely legs. During her days at one of the top prefectural high schools in Nagoya, she’d been captain of the women’s ballet club. She still loved to exercise and made it to the gym whenever she could. She always used the stairs except when she was with clients.

“I was just leaving, but …” She smiled. “Are you a soba guy, Mishima?”

“A what?”

“
Ehh
, wrong answer. ‘Yes, Ms. President, I love soba.’ That’s what you say. Let’s go.” She gave Kotaro a hearty slap on the shoulder and led him to the basement of a building just behind the office.

Instead of the simple eatery he’d expected, Kotaro found himself in an elegant, expensive-looking restaurant. The room was half full. The atmosphere was relaxed and quiet. Classical music played softly in the background.

Ayuko glanced at the menu and ordered from the chef, whom she seemed to know, without consulting Kotaro. “We’ll be here an hour,” she told the chef. She took her smartphone out and wrote a quick mail.

“I let Sei-chan know you’re in an interview with the president. Don’t worry about the time.” She certainly was efficient.

“Oh. Uh, thanks.”

Ayuko looked across the table at Kotaro, a cup of soba tea in one hand. “Sei-chan tells me you’re working hard for us.”

She calls him Sei-chan, as if they’re still in school.
Kotaro had never heard Seigo call her anything other than Yamashina. What was their relationship? Business partners? Friends?

“I think it’s more than that,” Kaname had told him once. She didn’t usually show much interest in people’s private lives, but she made an exception for Ayuko, whom she admired in every way.

Were Seigo and Ayuko lovers? They didn’t seem to be living together, but from the way Seigo talked, it sounded like they were in and out of each other’s homes fairly often.

Kotaro thought a lot more about Seigo and Ayuko’s relationship than Kaname did. It wasn’t mere curiosity. It had reached the level of an obsession.

Kotaro was struggling with his feelings. He certainly admired Ayuko, but he was in a different position than Kaname. Ayuko was much older, and their relationship was that of company president and part-time employee. In his own mind, Kotaro wasn’t enough of a male to have the right to say he was in love with anyone … yet.

But he was in love. That hot summer day, standing in the bookstore reading
Kumar of Jore
, he’d been moved; he wanted to know more about the person who cherished that story. When he met her at his employment interview, he was startled to discover that the company founder was a woman. Moreover, he’d never met a woman so beautiful, so masterful.
No wonder I feel the way I do
, he thought, though it wasn’t as if anyone had asked him to explain.

Kotaro’s hands were trembling now. He sat stiffly at attention, hoping to hide them. He also hoped Ayuko would attribute his flushed cheeks to the warmth of the room. Here he was, having dinner with the president. He doubted the chance would come again.

“I’m still learning the ropes.”

“Really? Sei-chan says you’re an asset to the team.”

The first course arrived, several small dishes on tiny individual trays. “Let’s eat. You must be hungry.”

She took up her chopsticks smoothly. Kotaro’s hands wouldn’t work; he almost dropped his chopsticks, which made his cheeks burn even hotter.

“It must be hard, balancing the kind of work we do with your studies. Is everything all right?”

“It’s okay. Kaname covers for me.”

“She’s smart, like you.” Ayuko began to laugh, her eyes sparkling at the memory. “She eats a lot, doesn’t she? I couldn’t believe it. Where does she pack it away with that slim figure of hers?”

“So you knew?”

“I found out six months ago. We went to an all-you-can-eat Korean restaurant.”

That must’ve been her interview. Ayuko was vetting each part-timer herself.

And that’s all this is. An interview.
It wasn’t special treatment. The only reason he was sitting here was because he’d run into Ayuko on the stairs.

Kotaro was crestfallen. It was stupid, but he was still disappointed. What had he expected?

“I hear Sei-chan had you working with BB Island on the Toe-Cutter Bill case. He has this thing about serial killers.”

How can she eat, talk, and look so beautiful at the same time?

“I’m concerned about him. He’s been worrying for ten years now that serial killings like the ones in America are going to start happening in Japan.”

“There are some strange things going on.”

“But the circumstances are different. The scale is different too. They say there are maybe thirty serial killers at work in America at any given time, killers no one knows about yet.”

After only three days on the case, Kotaro suspected there were at least that many people in Japan with the potential to become serial killers. Some of the amateur detectives posting to the forums obviously derived intense pleasure from visualizing the killer’s point of view.

“I don’t think it’s just the serial killers we don’t know about,” Kotaro ventured.

“You mean people with the potential to kill who haven’t acted on it yet?” Ayuko asked. Kotaro chewed his soba sushi and nodded.

“Unfortunately, I agree,” she said. “That’s why I try not to think about it.” Chopsticks in midair, she gracefully placed a slender elbow on the table. “If people think about something long enough, sooner or later they’ll do it.”

Can thinking make things real?

“I haven’t studied psychology,” she continued, “so I don’t know if this fits, but have you heard of the collective unconscious? It’s like everyone having the same software installed in their subconscious minds. I think serial killers all have the same MO. How they operate, what motivates them. Information comes across the ocean and affects certain people, triggers something in their minds. If people in Japan were isolated from the world, they might never end up committing certain types of crime. But with outside influence, it can happen.”