There was Tomomi Minowa, both hands clasped in front of her chest. Her eyebrows, which were quite defined for a girl these days, were knitted impressively. Tears threatened to spill from her wide-open eyes, and her mouth was a stiff oval. Looking at this overly rich display of expression—
A little laugh burst out of him. Flustered, Minoru covered his mouth and apologized.
“S-sorry. You were just making this crazy face, Minowa.”
Tomomi blinked at this in bewilderment, and then her cheeks reddened.
“S-so what, I was concerned! Things have always shown too much on my face! More importantly, are you hurt?! The bike hit you just now!”
“…Yeah, but…”
Minoru adjusted his expression and showed Tomomi his right hand.
“It seems okay. I didn’t get hurt anywhere.”
“R-really? …I’m glad…,” she said, looking as relieved as possible. Then she bit her lip and her head sank down suddenly. “I’m sorry I was zoning out! And thanks for protecting me!”
“I-it’s fine… I’m glad you weren’t hurt, either.”
Even at this reply from Minoru, the petite track runner kept her head down for another five seconds or so, then raised it timidly.
“…I was almost hit by a bike here before. That’s why I’ve always done my road training at Akigase, but…”
The place Tomomi mentioned was a large park built on the embankment along the main course of the Arakawa River in the southwestern Sakura district of the city of Saitama, Saitama Prefecture. It was a popular spot with joggers, but Minoru didn’t make his way there much. When he went into any big park, not just Akigase, it stirred up old, old memories.
“…Bikes get going really fast on this path, huh? But I’m glad nothing happened.”
When Minoru got his thoughts in check and repeated what she had said, Tomomi finally gave him a smile.
“Yeah. Thanks, Utsugi, really. We’ve got a training retreat with other teams coming up really soon, so it would’ve been terrible if I’d gotten hurt. Utsugi, you’ve really always been…”
She paused there, and Minoru inclined his head slightly.
At this, Tomomi’s expression grew a bit hesitant. Then she went on speaking.
“…So, there was one time in eighth grade where you really raised your voice in class—which was unusual for you, right, Utsugi? I remember it really well. You got angry because the teacher was saying bad things about your sister. I was really mad, too, and I wanted to talk back to the teacher, but I was too scared. That’s when I thought, Utsugi’s got some courage…and he’s a nice person…”
Those words of Tomomi’s—
Minoru had mostly stopped listening to them halfway through. He couldn’t breathe. His core temperature climbed, yet his limbs grew as cold as ice.
He had to forget—it was a memory he should have already forgotten. It was a memory that not a single one of those who had been there should remember.
He kept his eyes far down. He clenched his hands tightly. Somehow he managed to inhale and exhale through his closing throat.
“…Utsugi…?” Tomomi said doubtfully.
“I…I’ve got to get home soon or I’ll be late for school. Well, then…see you,” Minoru answered in a hoarse voice without looking at her.
Then he turned to face the other direction and ran at full speed toward the stairs a little way ahead. Tomomi Minowa would think he was strange running away like this. To be precise, being thought of as strange would give him more memories to hold on to that he couldn’t easily erase.
Knowing this, he couldn’t stand not running.
…And I’ve been working so hard to blend into the background, too. Why, then, do people still remember me? Why won’t they just leave me alone?
Solitude. He wanted to have solitude. He wanted to stay curled up forever in a blank world where he didn’t stick in anyone’s memories and he didn’t remember anyone else.
Even after dashing down the concrete steps and entering a residential street, Minoru kept running as hard as he could. That abnormal phenomenon that had invaded him—or protected him—earlier was almost entirely forgotten.
2
No good.
It was no good at all. It was trash that didn’t deserve to be called food.
Hikaru Takaesu perfectly concealed his derision as he put down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
When he lifted his wineglass and put it to his lips, he wanted to take the hard, smooth inorganic object and completely crush it in his mouth just to cleanse his palate—the urge welled up in him, but of course, he couldn’t act on it.
After holding a mouthful of the white wine in his mouth and savoring it as if he were chewing, he swallowed. For how grandly the waiter had suggested it, both the flavor and the aroma of the wine were a bit lacking; still, it was much better than the food.
With the glass still in his right hand, he looked down at the plentiful amount of pasta left on the plate. He had heard that the handmade fettuccine was the standout menu item at this restaurant, but if this was the best they could do, using dried noodles probably would’ve been better and more edible. Unlike dried noodles, when it came to fresh pasta that wasn’t prepared al dente because the core was left uncooked, if one didn’t pay close attention to the ingredients, the dough making, and the adjustment of the boil, it was easy to lose the firmness, which was the soul of the pasta.
That was exactly the case with the fettuccine at this restaurant. The flour was bad, the way they kneaded it was bad, and the way they boiled it was bad.
As a result, it had no firmness when chewed and was reduced to a slimy, gummy, tangled mass.
Firmness. The factor that should be considered most important for all cuisine, not only the Italian food that Takaesu primarily critiqued, was not flavor or aroma or presentation, but firmness—the way it feels in the mouth.
Biting, tearing, crushing, mashing. These actions activate primal instincts in humans and create satisfaction in the act of eating. Anyone would prefer the taste of a three hundred yen beef bowl made with sinewy imported meat over a Kuroge wagyu steak turned into a syrupy liquid with a food processor.
Chefs who didn’t have the instinct to use texture to their advantage ultimately lacked talent in other areas as well. At this rate, the secondo piatto being served next would likely be a letdown as well. He would rather have just gotten up and left, but he couldn’t do that. He had come here at the suggestion of someone in the media who was a regular at this place, so he had no choice but to write an article that was flattering in its own way.
He picked up his fork grudgingly, and as he was forcing down another mouthful of the fettuccine that was worse than dog food, a man in a chef’s coat walked out of the kitchen.
The smiling, unshaven man who gave no impression of cleanliness was the restaurant’s chef and owner, if Takaesu remembered correctly.
“Welcome, Mr. Takaesu! And how is everything thus far?” the man called loudly to Takaesu, who returned his smile for the sake of appearances only.
“I’m quite enjoying myself, thank you.”
“Well, that’s great to hear. We’ll be serving you more carefully crafted dishes tonight, and, oh, it will be on the house. This next dish will be just the thing!” the chef said, placing a full flute of spumante rosso wine on the table.
Really, what kind of sense could this chef have? He had actually poured Takaesu’s wine—and sparkling wine at that—in the back of the restaurant without even showing him the bottle. Takaesu could feel his irritation rising again, but the chef gave no sign that he noticed and for some reason chose this time to go for a handshake.
With no other choice, Takaesu stood up, shook the man’s hand in return with a smile, and—
…Why don’t you bite him? something inside him whispered.
He lifted up a boorish, rough, tobacco-stained finger from a right hand that he couldn’t believe belonged to a chef and…took a leisurely bite.<
br />
After splitting open the skin and flesh and reaching the middle phalanx, he slowly applied more pressure. All the textures were there: First, the outer bone membrane split open, the compact bone snapped, and the haversian canals popped. Then the inner bone membrane staged the final resistance. When Takaesu bit down hard, the incredibly juicy marrow burst. Al dente. Al dente. A pleasurable al dente.
“…Sir?” the chef questioned, a bit of confusion slipping into his voice.
Takaesu blinked. He realized he was still clutching the chef’s right hand, and he let go with a smile still on his face.
“How rude of me. I was just thinking about how this hand created the wonderful food this evening, and it moved me.”
At this, the chef gave him a stiff smile in return as he massaged the right hand with the left.
“Oh, ha-ha. I’m the one who’s moved hearing that from someone of your stature, sir.”
The reason the chef was a bit nervous was probably not because Takaesu had shaken his hand for about five seconds, but because he did not make the bulk of the dishes himself. Takaesu, however, was not inclined to complain about that. The day he ate fresh pasta kneaded by hands that stunk of tobacco was the day he would need to give someone a thorough tongue-lashing in his magazine, even if he had to burn a bridge or two.
Watching the chef as the man hastened back to the kitchen, Takaesu straightened the collar of his custom-made suit and took his seat. He took a mouthful of the sparkling wine in his mouth, cooling that thing that throbbed in the soft tissue of his lower jaw. Thump. Thump.
The source of this itchy, painful, uncomfortable, yet pleasant sensation was a lump with a diameter a little less than two centimeters. He hadn’t been to a doctor, but he was convinced that it wasn’t any type of tumor. He knew this because the red orb—just like the eye of a living creature—wasn’t something that had been born inside Takaesu’s body.
The eye had come from somewhere outside. Outside of Tokyo…Japan…and maybe even the Earth itself. And one night three months ago, it slipped into Takaesu’s lower jaw and gave him two things.
The first was the urge to bite. The second was the power to do it.
From that point on, that thing—since it was already inside his body he should probably call it this thing—was constantly tempting Takaesu. Tempting him to take things in his mouth, bite them, chew them. Telling him that he was no longer human, that he was a predator swimming lithely along the bottom of the city hunting for prey.
But for as long as Takaesu was able to call himself a gourmet food critic, he had no intention of putting things in his mouth if there was no value in biting them. Things like the fingers of the owner-chef from earlier that stunk of tobacco, for example.
…Hold back just a little longer.
When he whispered this to the eye inside his mouth, the throbbing gradually eased. But it probably wouldn’t be so well behaved for long. The last time he had bitten bone was one week ago today.
Just as Takaesu was starting to remember that ecstasy-filled banquet seven days ago, the waiter finally brought over the secondo piatto. A veal saltimbocca without a shred of originality sat on the plate. He could imagine what it tasted like with just one look. On top of that, it was overcooked.
If the meat had at least had bones… No, even if it had, he wouldn’t be able to take an entire bone in his hand and gnaw at it.
Rather than sighing, Takaesu reached out a hand for his knife, forcing a smile that seemed to say he was enjoying everything tremendously.
Full of relief upon exiting the restaurant, he shook his head and started heading toward the paid lot where he’d parked his car.
The road was large, but for six o’clock at night there weren’t many people around. Even in the skyscrapers that towered above his head, most of the windows were cloaked in darkness. The name “Saitama’s new city center” sounded dynamic, but would there really come a day when it would take the place of Tokyo’s city center, Shinjuku? It was at least certain that the Italian restaurant behind Takaesu would be closing its doors by then. It really irked him that he was forced to write a flattering article about the restaurant.
The slimy texture of the fresh pasta still clung to the inside of his mouth. If nothing else, he wanted to get back to his car quickly and brush his teeth. In his glove box, he had a bottle of mineral water and a travel toothbrush set on hand. He thought his mood would lighten a bit once he was able to scrub his teeth as hard as he could with a toothbrush slathered in toothpaste. Scrub, scrub. Now, even if Takaesu went on brushing his teeth for hours, it wouldn’t hurt him at all. It didn’t used to be like that.
When he got back to Tokyo, he would get ahold of his next bone and chew to his heart’s content with his clean teeth. He had readied four targets. He needed to plan more carefully than before, but the time spent coming up with all the details of his dinner menu was another part of the fun.
He walked another twenty or thirty meters on the road that ran alongside Saitama Super Arena until he was back at the parking lot, the heels of his bespoke shoes clicking loudly. He stopped briefly at the entrance and gazed at his dark blue Maserati GranTurismo, which was parked in a space at the back. The glamorous body that overflowed with a sense of power. The oblong oval grille that glinted like a row of fangs. The three vents that were reminiscent of gills. This car was a shark. And what’s more, it was a mako shark, the fastest swimming of all sharks. Takaesu’s fourth favorite shark.
His mood would probably improve once he had settled in the cockpit, jumped on the freeway from the nearby ramp, and put his foot on the throttle. Before that, it was first time to brush his teeth.
When he stepped up to his car and was about to unlock the door—that’s when it happened.
Takaesu abruptly stopped moving. Something smelled good. His nose twitched as he sniffed. Somewhere within the bone-chilling December air was a faintly sweet smell. It wasn’t flowers or perfume, either.
It was the smell of healthy, well-developed, tightly packed muscle and bone.
His sensitive hearing, second only to his sense of smell, picked up the tap, tap sound of nimble footsteps. Standing so he would be near his large car, Takaesu waited for the owner of the approaching footsteps.
The person who soon appeared in his field of vision was a young woman jogging on the sidewalk wearing workout clothes. A middle school student or high school student. Her short hair was undyed, and she didn’t smell of cosmetics or any other chemical substances. The only smell coming from her sweat-dampened skin was the healthy scent of a person’s body, reminiscent of milk.
It was a very good smell. He closed his eyes and focused his attention on the footsteps.
Amid the dry sound of shoes hitting the asphalt, he picked up on the echo of bone. Takaesu was most fond of the leg bones—the harmony played between the carefree tibia and the graceful fibula. How wonderful.
True to its name, the compact bone that made up the outer layer of bone was finely packed. She must have gotten plenty of high-quality calcium and vitamins ever since she was young. He felt as if he could see the outer bone membrane gleaming white like a pearl under her developed muscles.
When the footsteps passed in front of the parking lot, Takaesu opened his eyes and his tongue darted out to lick his lips.
Thump, thump. The red eye throbbed in the middle of his lower jaw.
Bite her, bite her, it invited him.
“…Don’t be hasty, compagno,” Takaesu whispered back to it.
After waiting a bit, he left the parking lot.
The girl’s retreating figure had gotten quite a bit smaller. But as long as Takaesu had his sense of smell, honed like a shark’s, tracking her would be no trouble even if he lost sight of her completely.
Turning up the collar of his coat, Takaesu started walking, a thin smile hidden behind the fabric.
3
The sky on Wednesday, December 4, was full of wispy clouds, heralding the low-pressure system that was approaching.
Minoru rode his bike the six kilometers it took to get to the high school from his house at the northern edge of the Sakura district in Saitama city, crossing the Metro Express Saitama Omiya line, the JR Saikyou line, and the Touhoku Main line. He had a common city bike, not a sporty bike like the one he had nearly collided with yesterday.
Six kilometers was a distance he would be able to run, but then he would have to change clothes at school. More importantly, Minoru would stand out if he imitated people on sports teams when he himself wasn’t on one. How would he be able to ride out the slightly more than three weeks left in 2019 safely, without rocking the boat? At the moment, that was Minoru’s biggest and sole concern.
In that sense, he regretted his blunder yesterday morning. It had been completely stupid of him to lose his head and run off when he was leaving Tomomi Minowa.
Even before that, if he had made a move right away after noticing the road bike coming toward them, he probably could have gotten Tomomi to take cover without having to protect her in that exaggerated way. From the beginning, a simple greeting would have been enough to finish things up without getting into a conversation that long.
He thought he had understood that carrying on a long conversation with someone would only increase the memories he wanted to erase.
But there was no use crying over spilled milk.
Even as he prayed Tomomi would forget yesterday’s scene right away, there was probably nothing to do but avoid contact with her for a while. He had already changed his running route, starting this morning. Since they were in the same year, passing by each other on school grounds was unavoidable, but there was absolutely no reason Tomomi would strike up a conversation with a student of Minoru’s status in a place where other people could see. Tomomi, after all, had competed in nationals and was the track team’s best hope; in other words, she was on the highest rung of the school’s hierarchy.
These thoughts flew around Minoru’s head as he finished biking the full six kilometers to school. He stopped his bike at the edge of the bike parking area for students and locked it up tight. He wanted to do whatever he could to avoid the trouble of finding his bike gone when he wanted to go home, so he used a tough wire lock that required a key.
The Biter Page 3