Because Kanako had high expectations of him; if it was through the lens he pointed at her, the image of her heart, so full of accumulated darkness, might be captured.
“I like taking photos of you, Kako. No matter how many I take, I’m never satisfied. Whenever I face you as a subject, I feel as though I’m being tested, that there’s more only I can see. You get it, right? I’ve been dating Kako for me. I’m much more selfish than you think.”
I have to treasure him, Kanako thought. Takumi was her treasure. That was why she had to break up with him.
“Kako, I love you.”
“Let’s stop.”
“I love you.”
“I don’t love you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I just can’t anymore.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll come to see you as soon as I get back. Until then, just take your time and think about it. Think about what I just said, and also what you said.”
“I can’t meet you…”
“We can’t decide it all now. Let’s give it some time, then talk about it when you’re like you, and I’m like me. I’ll come to your apartment tomorrow.”
“Don’t come.”
“I promise to come. I’m ending the call. Goodnight, Kako.”
Takumi was the one who hung up. He had never done that before. He was letting her go, and that was one of his many acts of kindness.
The receiver she’d taken from her ear gripped in her hand, Kanako sat vacantly for a while. Takumi claimed that he loved Kanako not for her, but for himself. Love was not something you did for your partner. Without an intense will to make yourself happy, perhaps you couldn’t make your partner happy, either.
In that case, breaking up, too, wasn’t something you did for your partner. I just tried to break up in the worst way imaginable. Takumi was trying to capture Kanako’s depths with his camera, and not because she had asked him to. I tried to hurt him, even though he loves me that much.
But imagining what lay beyond their current relationship, she thought his wounds would be lighter now.
She’d approached the daughter of the criminal who had killed her family and helped her plan a murder. A woman scheming a dirty revenge—Kanako had to chase that woman as far away from Takumi as she could.
When she glanced at the clock, she realized it was past eight.
She thought it would be torture to remain locked in her room for another five hours and prepared to go out.
She dressed lightly in Levi’s and trainers. She chose her sneakers from her shoebox. She struggled to get her feet into them, perhaps because she’d tied the laces so tightly. She tapped the toe against the floor and tried to force in her heel.
It was a sound she’d heard a long time ago.
For a moment, something passed by her like a lukewarm breeze, but replaying Takumi’s words in her mind, she withstood the memory that clung to that sound.
It was 8:20 in the evening when Kanako stepped onto the darkened road.
She transferred trains and arrived in front of Miho’s apartment building at a little past 8:50.
“What’s wrong?”
Miho’s eyes were wide with surprise at Kanako’s sudden visit.
“I was having a really rough time just waiting by myself…”
Miho had just finished changing to go to the bar. She kept careful watch for any curious neighbors as she let Kanako into her apartment. Kanako had to remain an imaginary girl.
“I have to head out to the bar soon, so you’ll have to wait alone until one anyway.”
“I know. But it was getting hard to breathe, locked up in my apartment for three days…Did you call him?”
“Done. He should be waiting in the office by himself, thinking I’m bringing an aspiring model.”
“Do you think he’ll really be alone?”
“I took an extra step just in case. I told him that since I promised to introduce her to him in particular, he has to wait alone.”
“Did you notice? There’s a cross by that apartment building.”
“A cross?”
“A church’s…When I looked at the map, there was a church mark right next to it.” She kept mum about how she’d visited the site.
“Oh yeah? Is there a problem with there being a cross nearby?”
“Not really.”
“Kako, are you Christian?”
“Not at all.”
“Even if God happens to be nearby, I’m not the type to get intimidated.”
Miho was trying to convince herself. It was as though a voice in her heart were telling her that she wasn’t just a killer but a killer who’d inherited the blood of a killer.
“Let’s have a round and get pumped, yeah?”
Perhaps she was anxious after all. Miho took a narrow bottle of alcohol out of the fridge.
“Zubrowka. It’s a strong vodka. If you take a shot, you’ll feel like you’re burning on the inside.”
She poured a somewhat viscous liquid into shot glasses from the frosted bottle.
They couldn’t find words to cheer to and simply clinked their glasses.
Kanako mimicked Miho and downed the shot. She felt like her insides were on fire and coughed. Miho exhaled as though she were breathing flames before standing up.
“Then I’ll be off.”
“I’ll be by at 1:30.”
“That’s in four hours.”
The alarm clock beside the bed read 9:20.
“When you leave, lock the door and drop the key in the post box downstairs,” Miho went over what to do.
“Got it.”
Kanako saw her off at the door.
Perhaps the black boots she wore at the bar were stored over there; Miho put on sneakers as she prepared to leave. Perhaps she wanted to be mobile just in case.
It had apparently been a while since Miho had last worn the sneakers, and she struggled to get her heel in. No doubt finding it too tedious to redo her laces, she tapped its toe on the floor.
That sound. It made a bell inside of Kanako resonate. Upon leaving her own apartment, she’d tapped the toe of her sneaker, too.
No. The sense of déjà vu went back even further.
A cab was being made to wait outside the tourist hotel. The laces on the sneakers she’d pulled out of the shoebox were knotted tightly. All of the teachers had gathered to see her off so she had no time to bother to retie them. She took the quick route and tapped her toes to try to force her heel in.
The night of her school trip. The night she was told that her family had met with an accident and that she was to return to Tokyo.
She could hear a chime. Had the hotel entrance’s chime rung? No, that wasn’t it. Miho tapping her toes against the floor, that ominous sound, approached Kanako and rent her skin, dug deep into her flesh, and stirred up her complex nervous system, shaking its core. Her mouth flooded with saliva. Swallowing it down, she felt as though she were drowning in her own spit. Her heart started to beat an uneven rhythm. The pump in her chest moved raggedly as it sent blood throughout her body.
Ah, it was starting. Why now?
Perhaps, she thought, it was inevitable that this would happen. These past few days, she had been tense and sleep-deprived. But no, perhaps the reason was something more mysterious. Perhaps by starting the “four hours” now, something was trying to stop her from heading toward crime.
Who? God?
“What’s wrong?” Miho asked, having finished putting on her shoes and watching Kanako who stood still against the doorframe. Miho had noticed that something was going on.
The strength began to leave Kanako’s lower legs. She sank limply down to the dining room floor.
“Hey, Kako!”
“I’m all right…”
Kanako fought her fading consciousness, frantic to at least say this one thing. She would lose her sense of reality in a few seconds.
“It’s all right…In four hours, I’ll wake up, just leave me, as is, don’t worry, just leave me, I
think I can still make it to the bar…”
“Kako, hey Kako, what’s wrong?!”
Someone was shaking her shoulder. That sensation also faded away as though she were being put under anesthesia.
The four-hour trip from the highlands to Tokyo was starting again. She would go back to when she was twelve. She would be jostled by the taxi and cross the boundary between the time prior to her transformation and the time after, and once again step into the dark morgue at the medical examiner’s office where her family’s remains lay. She would have to experience that fear and despair all over again.
Kanako put on her shoes, at the center of attention of the teachers.
An accident? What kind of accident? Her whole family in an accident?
She wasn’t even given a chance to respond.
Her sneakers, liberally covered in dirt from the lakeshore athletic course, accepting her feet at last, bore the weight of her whole body.
3
Mr. Maruoka, in charge of Class 4, carried Kanako’s backpack to the trunk of the taxi.
Should she say, “I’ll see you later”? Perhaps “Goodnight” was more fitting. Unable to find the right words, Kanako gave a little bow to the teachers who were seeing her off and climbed into the taxi’s backseat with Mr. Ihara.
It was a night in May. It was past 11 p.m. The highland air was crisp and cold.
“The Aisei Hospital in Tokyo, yes?”
The driver’s name was Mr. Ikeda. He glanced back at the rear seat and repeated their destination back to Mr. Ihara. Mr. Ikeda was also privy to why he needed to transport a child like Kanako from her school trip back to Tokyo in the middle of the night.
Their destination would eventually change to the medical examiner’s office, an unfamiliar name. Kanako knew how it would end in four hours and contemplated telling her younger self but decided to let the passage of time carry her.
She shifted her body and peered into the mirror of the driver’s seat. A twelve-year-old version of her was reflected back. She stared curiously, surprised at how innocent her face looked and how plump her cheeks were. She might still be able to see the dimples that she had since lost. But now was not the time to smile.
She glanced at Mr. Ihara. Behind his thick glasses, he seemed uncertain about the important role he had been given.
“…What’s wrong, Akiba?”
He had noticed Kanako’s gaze. She must have stared hard at Mr. Ihara, too. “It’s nothing,” she said, and looked outside the window.
After experiencing it many times, Kanako had learned that the recurring “four hours” was not an exact replay of the “four hours” from eight years ago.
It was probably because her consciousness was still that of the twenty-year-old Kanako. The younger her from eight years ago wouldn’t have stared at Mr. Ihara until he had asked her, “What’s wrong?”
Her consciousness had gradually changed.
Her psychiatrist had analyzed her condition and suggested it was a type of “age regression.” Such patients spoke as though they were young again and relived their traumatic memories, but he claimed he’d never seen a case like Kanako’s where she revived the actual four hours from memory. She never fell into the “four hours” in the doctor’s presence so there had been no way for him to analyze her condition any further.
If she tried, she could probably influence the events from eight years ago playing before her eyes. For example, she wondered what would happen if she turned to Mr. Ihara now and said, “I know everything. We’re on our way to see my family who all had their heads smashed in.”
But Kanako was too scared and couldn’t do it. She’d rather let the flow of events from the past carry her and quietly wait out the “four hours.” She felt as though she would do irreparable damage to her brain if she tried to deviate from the script from eight years ago.
She would quietly endure the “four hours.” She would accept the fear and pain as they replayed and swallow it all down. This wouldn’t be the first time.
They left the hotel roundabout and drove onto the street of the inn district. She looked back up at the hotel where everyone else remained asleep. She could almost hear all one hundred fifty of them breathing in their sleep.
At the sensation of moving over the dark road, she couldn’t help but conjure the associated image of blood spilled on the surface of the road. All four members of the Akiba household had perished in a traffic accident. She knew that that was not how they had died, but she couldn’t avoid picturing her family being carted away in an ambulance.
“You must be shocked.” She heard Mr. Ihara’s voice from directly beside her.
“An accident. Was it a traffic accident?”
Kanako pointlessly imagined how her family might have gotten in an accident.
“I don’t know the details myself. We were just told that everyone in your family was hurt.”
She would eventually learn that that was a lie.
They crossed a bridge. She heard a gushing sound. They were supposed to have a campfire along the riverbed the next day. She was able to dance the folk dance with Yohei Murakami two weeks later at her farewell party.
They entered the national highway from a T-junction.
“If you’re feeling sleepy, go ahead and get some shut-eye.”
“I’m all right.”
After the words left his mouth, Mr. Ihara realized that there was no way she could sleep in this situation and looked embarrassed at his poor choice of words. Kanako decided to try to relieve her teacher of some of his tension.
“The college student from before that the police arrested on the school grounds…”
The college student who’d participated in a game of hurdles on the school grounds half-naked had apparently had a history of mental illness. Kanako had asked what kinds of treatments psychiatrists provided.
Mr. Ihara had told her that they went back to the patients’ childhood and unraveled their memories to analyze them.
“Do people grow up weird if something happens when they’re kids?”
The topic had moved to dangerous territory. Mr. Ihara looked even more tense.
“Do kids who lose their families in traffic accidents also grow up to be weird? Can you tell when you become weird?”
“Akiba, let’s stop talking about this.”
“Mr. Ihara, if I become like that but can’t tell, will you tell me?”
Back then, she hadn’t understood what was going on as she’d fired off her questions. Now, she interrogated him already knowing the answers. She knew very well how she had grown up a mess.
“I promise not to cause trouble for anyone.”
This alone she had continued to believe for eight years. It was why Kanako never shed tears in front of people. She pretended that she had recovered from the wounds of her past with her aunt and suffered all by herself. She was tired. Kanako was absolutely exhausted.
The tollgate came into view. They were about to enter the freeway.
“After this, it’s just one straight road,” Mr. Ikeda said, trying to reassure his passengers. It was not that simple a route. Eventually, Mr. Ihara’s angry shouts would fill the car’s interior.
The taxi rapidly accelerated after entering the passing lane. All she could see outside the window were dotted lights from houses that looked like holes ripped into black paper, and a moonless sky. There was a changing red light on the edge of her vision. The taxi’s meter. She had never seen the numbers jump up so rapidly on a meter before, and she wouldn’t thereafter either.
Averting her eyes from the climbing numbers, she saw a large truck glittering with decorative lights on the other side of the guardrail. The image of the morning sun rising over Mount Fuji reminded her of when she went to the public bath with her family.
Her father went into the men’s bath alone. Her two younger brothers got into the women’s bath with Kanako and her mother. Within the baths, the five family members had counted to one hundred in loud voices, splitting t
he numbers between them. She had wondered how many family members she’d lost. How many ways would they split the numbers now?
The answer was one. Kanako counted to one hundred alone.
“We’ll have to redo the school trip for you, Akiba,” Mr. Ihara said. He went out to Okutama Lake with his family every summer break. He said he’d like to invite the entire class this year.
In the end, the opportunity never arose. She wondered how she had managed to smile so much at the farewell party. She had fun doing the folk dance. She had gone all out during dodgeball. Her twelve-year-old self had been a profoundly mysterious creature.
“Are you okay with the bathroom? We’re approaching a parking area,” Mr. Ikeda informed them. They decided to have him stop. Mr. Ihara needed to call the tourist hotel. Any contact from Tokyo would go to the school trip destination first. Mobile phones were still uncommon back then.
The taxi parked in a spacious lot. Kanako stepped outside with Mr. Ihara and headed to the bathrooms.
“Well, I’ll wait right here.”
She hadn’t sensed anyone’s presence in the large women’s bathroom. No, there was someone. Someone was vomiting in a stall in the back.
Kanako sat on a Western-style toilet but barely anything came out.
She exited the stall and faced the mirror by the sinks. The fluorescent lights made her face look pale and sickly.
She had to make sure to burn the sight of herself prior to the change into her memory. In less than three hours, she would undergo a massive change.
Kanako tried to smile. She had to make sure to memorize her smiling face as well. It had been a while since she had seen her dimples. They’d disappeared from Kanako’s face as she had grown and gained mass over the past eight years.
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