Villain a Novel (2010) (32 page)

Yoshino grabbed the man’s arm in a friendly way and started to talk with him. The whole time the man was looking over in Yuichi’s direction with this spiteful look in his eyes. It must be a coincidence, her meeting him here. Once she said hello, she’d come back to him.

As he expected, Yoshino soon walked over. Yuichi was about to open the passenger door, but anticipating this, Yoshino picked up the pace, opened the door herself, and said, “Sorry. Tonight’s not going to work out. Just transfer the money to my account. I’ll e-mail you the info later.”

Then she slammed the door shut and almost skipped back to where the other man was. It happened so quickly. So quickly he had no time to even open his mouth, let alone figure out how he felt.

The man standing in the road wasn’t looking at Yoshino as she approached, but at Yuichi, staring at him. He seemed to be smiling, laughing at Yuichi, but Yuichi couldn’t tell if that was just the way the light from the streetlight hit him.

Yoshino got in the man’s car without glancing back at Yuichi. The car was a dark blue Audi A6, the kind Yuichi could never afford no matter what kind of loan he put together. The car headed down the
empty, tree-lined road beside the park, its exhaust white in the freezing night air.

I’ve been abandoned, Yuichi realized. The little scene had been so abrupt. He felt his blood boil beneath his skin, as if his whole body were engorged by anger.

Yuichi stepped on the accelerator and sped away. The man’s car was up ahead at an intersection, about to turn left. Yuichi had shot off so fast it almost appeared that he intended to ram the other car from behind. Actually what he had in mind was to cut it off from the front and grab Yoshino to get her back. It was less an articulate thought, though, than a physical reaction.

After turning at the intersection, the man’s car headed straight toward the next light. Yuichi stepped on the gas, but the light changed and cars started to move in from both sides. There weren’t so many of them, though, and when there was break in the traffic he sped through the intersection, ignoring the red light. About a hundred meters later he caught up with the car carrying Yoshino.

Yuichi gunned his engine as if he was going to rear-end the other car, but right as he got up to it, he changed his mind. He was still enraged, but knew that hitting the other car would damage his own.

He sped up and pulled alongside the man’s car. As he drove, he glanced over at the car and saw Yoshino in the passenger seat, beaming as she talked to the man. All he needed was a word of apology from her. It was Yoshino who broke their date and he wanted her to tell him she was sorry.

The road headed toward the Tenjin shopping district. Yuichi slowed down and continued to shadow the car. Several other cars pulled into the space separating them, but by the time they reached the road heading to Mitsuse Pass, no other cars came between them, even when Yuichi opened up the gap.

Occasional streetlights lit up the red mailboxes and neighborhood notice boards along the dark street. The road started to rise, and Yuichi followed the headlights as they palely illuminated the pavement. It looked as if a clump of light were ascending the narrow mountain road.

Yuichi followed, maintaining an even distance. With each curve, the car’s red taillights looked brighter, and each time they lit up, they dyed the forest ahead a deep red. The man was driving fast, but was a poor driver. Even with curves that weren’t so sharp, the guy stepped on his brakes right away. And each time he did, Yuichi’s car got closer. Yuichi made sure to slow down, and the man’s car pulled farther ahead of him. Still, though, every time it rounded a curve on the dark road, Yuichi could spot the car’s lights through the thick trees.

The car came to an abrupt stop just near the top of the pass. Yuichi hurriedly braked and switched off his headlights. In the darkness, the red taillights looked like gigantic, glaring red eyes.

Hands on the wheel, Yuichi stared at those red eyes in the woods. It was as if only the pass itself were breathing. A moment later, the interior light of the other car came on, and the shadows of the man and Yoshino were moving. It all happened quickly. The door opened and Yoshino was getting out. The man kicked her in the back. Yoshino was like an animal struck by a car. She collapsed by the side of the road and struck her head sharply on the guardrail.

The man’s car shot away, leaving Yoshino crouching down, facing away from the guardrail. For a second Yuichi wasn’t sure what he’d just witnessed, and was about to take off after the man’s car. But as soon as he’d released his parking brake he could picture Yoshino, left behind beside the road. Lit up by his red taillights, Yoshino looked as if she were on fire. Yuichi hurriedly set his parking brake again. He yanked it so sharply there was a weird sound from the undercarriage.

Once the man’s car rounded the next curve up ahead, all color faded from the scene. Yoshino’s red-dyed figure was about to be swallowed up by the darkness of the pass. Yuichi wasn’t sure how much time had gone by after the man’s car drove off, but he nervously turned on his headlights. The lights didn’t quite reach to where she was crouched down, but it helped more than the weak winter moonlight.

He released his parking brake again and lightly stepped on the accelerator. The bluish headlights inched down the road toward Yoshino as slowly as water soaking into a cloth. When the headlights
finally reached her, she looked up fearfully, squinting into the brightness. Yuichi set his parking brake again and opened his door. Yoshino clutched her handbag defensively.

“Are you okay?” Yuichi called out, but his voice was swallowed up in the dark pass. The only sound was that of the car engine, like the earth rumbling in the distance.

As Yuichi stepped into the light, Yoshino’s expression changed.

“What are you doing here? Did you follow me? Just quit it!” she yelled, clutching her handbag to her and crouching by the roadside.

“Are you—okay?” Despite her yells, Yuichi continued to approach her, reaching out to help her to her feet. But Yoshino brushed away his hand.

“You saw it all?” she said. “You’re unbelievable!” She struggled to her feet.

“What happened?” Yuichi asked. As she staggered to her feet in her high-heeled boots, Yuichi took her hand, which felt as if pebbles were embedded in it.

“Nothing happened! I don’t have to tell you anything!” She brushed away his hand and started to walk off. Yuichi took her arm again.

“Why don’t you get in the car. I’ll give you a ride home.” When he said this, Yoshino glanced toward his car. The two of them stood there in the headlights, as if this were the entire world.

Yuichi tugged at her arm and she shouted, “Enough already! Leave me alone!” She shook free.

“You can’t walk back from here!” Yuichi retorted, pulling her arm hard. His timing was off and the movement made Yoshino, who was starting to walk, slip. She lost her balance, and fell right in front of the car. Yuichi reached out hurriedly to support her but his elbow pushed her right in the back. Yoshino twisted in a strange way and banged right into the grille of the car. As she reached out to break her fall, her little finger got stuck between the front of the car and the bumper.

“Ouch!” her scream echoed, enough to send a flock of birds sleeping in the dark woods shooting into the air.

“Are you okay?” Yuichi hurriedly tried to lift her up. Yoshino’s finger was still stuck. He put his arms under her sides and tried to lift her up again, but as he did so she screamed and her little finger bent back at an awful angle.

It all had happened in an instant. The blood drained from her face, lit by the bright headlights as she crouched there, and each single hair on her head stood on end.

“I … I’m sorry.… I’m really sorry.”

Yoshino, her faced twisted in pain, finally pried her finger loose, and clenched her teeth. “You murderer!” she screamed the moment Yuichi rested his hand on her shoulder. He pulled away.

“You murderer!” she screamed. “I’m going to tell the police! Tell them you assaulted me and kidnapped me. How you kidnapped me and almost raped me! We have a lawyer in our family, so don’t think you can get away with this! I’m not the kind of woman to go out with a guy like you! You’re a murderer!”

Yuichi knew it was all a lie, but he found his knees shaking.

When she’d gotten it all out, Yoshino started to walk away, holding her injured finger. Once away from the car, her figure was sucked up into the blackness of the pass.

“Hey—hold on a second,” Yuichi called out, but she walked on.

As the sound of footsteps grew farther away in the darkness, Yuichi ran after her.

“Don’t lie like that! I didn’t do anything!”

As he shouted this and ran toward her, Yoshino halted, and turned around. “You better believe I’m going to tell them!” she yelled. “I’m going to tell them how you kidnapped me and raped me!” Even though he was in a mountain pass in the middle of winter, Yuichi’s ears were filled with the loud buzzing of cicadas echoing from all the hills. A buzzing so loud he wanted to block out the noise.

He didn’t know what he was afraid of. She hadn’t been kidnapped or raped. He knew it was a lie, but he turned pale as if he had really committed these crimes.
You’re lying! That’s a lie!
he desperately shouted inside his mind, but instead he heard the pass whisper back:

Who will ever believe you? Who in the world will ever believe you?

The only thing there was the dark mountain pass. There weren’t any other witnesses.
There’s nobody to testify that I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything!
He could picture himself trying to explain things to his grandmother. Himself, shouting out,
I didn’t do anything!
to the people surrounding him. He recalled his voice when he was a child at the ferryboat dock, explaining,
My mom will be coming back!
His voice when nobody believed him.

Yuichi grabbed Yoshino’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!”

As she pushed him away, her arm hit Yuichi’s ear. Pain shot through him as if he’d been struck by a metal rod. Instinctively, he grabbed her arm. As she struggled to get away, he pushed her down until he was sitting on top of her on the chilly pavement. Yoshino’s face in the moonlight was twisted in anger.

“I didn’t do anything.”

He held down her shoulders. In a voice at once pained and snarling, she shouted back, “Who’s ever going to believe you! You murderer! Help!” Yoshino’s screams shook the trees in the pass. Every time she screamed, Yuichi’s body trembled in fright. If someone ever heard these lies of hers …

“But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”

Yuichi shut his eyes. He was desperately pressing down on her throat, so frightened he couldn’t help it. No one could ever hear these lies she was spouting. He had to kill these lies quickly or else the truth itself would die. And the thought terrified him.

Several squid-fishing boats were tied up at the wharf. The lines that tied them up were slack, and schools of small fish swam up from the bottom of their hulls. A moment ago, a little girl had pedaled her tricycle over to where Mitsuyo and Yuichi stood on the wharf, then pedaled back to where her mother was at one of the stands.

Mitsuyo and Yuichi had left the restaurant without finishing their meal. By the time Yuichi had finished his story, the squirming legs of the freshly prepared squid on the platter had gone limp. Fortunately, no other guests had come into the second-floor dining hall. The middle-aged waitress, however, had checked in on them a few times.

When he finished speaking, Yuichi had simply said, “I’m sorry,” in a small voice. Mitsuyo was silent and he went on. “I’m turning myself in now,” he said.

Mitsuyo nodded, her mind blank.

Just then, the waitress came over and asked, “You’re not that fond of sashimi, then?”

“It’s not that,” Mitsuyo lied. “I’m just not feeling very well.”

Mitsuyo stood up and Yuichi looked at her, resigned. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. Yuichi was amazed; he had expected her to leave him there. When they apologized to the waitress for leaving all the food, she said, “It’s okay. It’s on the house.”

They left the restaurant and walked along the wharf where the boats were anchored. Without really realizing it, they were heading toward the parking lot. On one level, Mitsuyo knew she was going to get into his car, the car of a man who’d murdered someone, but as she walked along the cold, windswept wharf, there seemed to be nowhere else to go. She was amazed at herself for having listened to him to the end, without screaming, without getting up and running away. What he told her had been too overwhelming, so overwhelming that her mind wouldn’t function.

As they came to the end of the wharf, Mitsuyo stopped and looked down at all the garbage bobbing up against the wharf.

“I’m going to go to the police right now.”

Staring down at the flotsam, Mitsuyo nodded.

“I’m really sorry. I never meant to cause any problems for you, Mitsuyo.…”

Mitsuyo nodded again before he’d finished. The little girl on her tricycle was pedaling over to them again. A pink ribbon tied to the handlebars looked about to rip off in the cold, stiff wind.