It was Natsume who replied, “No … not really. I just wanted to exercise my body since it’s been a while.”
“This detective apparently boxed when he was a student. He says he was once third in his prefecture. No wonder his footwork is good.”
“Oh …”
Miu went to another sandbag without showing much interest.
“Hey, Miu—” Puma Asami, who’d been practicing up in the ring, called to her. “Care to be my sparring partner for a bit?”
“No … Sorry, but I’ll pass.”
“Tsk, coward,” Asami snorted. She left the ring and went upstairs.
Miu seemed to be biting back her chagrin. With a sharp gaze aimed at the sandbag, she started hitting it.
“Ms. Aikawa—” Natsume called to Miu, who stopped moving and faced him. “Would you spar with me?”
Holy—what was he thinking? She was a woman.
“Detective, that’s a little …” the manager balked at this, too.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Natsume said to stir her up.
The mocking look he was directing at Miu made Nagamine wonder. He’d thought of his partner as a correct sort until now, but was he actually mean-spirited?
“Sounds like fun.” Miu put on headgear and got up into the ring. “In exchange, no pulling punches.”
“Of course.”
The manager, who’d been fretting, seemed to resign himself and put headgear on Natsume. “Only one round, then.”
What was Natsume thinking? What was he getting out of this?
The difference in their frames was manifest. Miu was twice as slender as Natsume and then some. Even her chest was flat, and she looked like a boy. There was also a considerable height difference.
Miu said they weren’t to pull any punches, but she probably thought they were fooling around.
But when the gong sounded, Natsume moved in ferociously. Without a hint of hesitation, he landed sharp punches all over Miu’s face and body.
The manager, of course, and the other trainees gazed at the ring in shock.
Miu, who hadn’t been able to counterattack at all, swiveled and escaped to Natsume’s back. The moment he turned around, she lay one into his torso. Natsume doubled over and paused for a moment. Immediately, with magnificent footwork, she treated his face to an upper cut.
Reversing his disadvantage in a second, Natsume slammed his fist into Miu’s own face next. Fresh blood flew from her nose, but instead of circling to his back, she sent punches into his body and chin. The sound of creaking flesh resounded through the gym. It was a fierce exchange of blows—
The gong sounded, and suddenly they stopped. They each moved back to their opposite corners.
When Miu took off her headgear, her face was flushed a bright red. Her shoulders heaved as she used a towel to wipe the blood dripping from her nose.
Natsume, in the corner right in front of Nagamine, was also completely out of breath and had a nosebleed.
“Detective—” Miu drew closer and threw Natsume the towel she had used. “You’ve got it in you.”
“You too—if you went pro, there’s no mistaking you’d be a champion.”
“And what’s that worth, a women’s boxing champ …”
“Does your mother know that you’re boxing?”
“Of course not. She’s the type who says women need to be ladylike. If she saw me like this she’d faint.” Miu laughed, then exited the ring and went upstairs.
Natsume wiped his face with the towel, then got down from the ring as well. The manager and trainees were throwing questioning looks at him.
“Sorry for troubling you.”
Jacket in hand, Natsume left the gym.
“What were you thinking?! She’s a woman. Why didn’t you go easy on her?”
“That would have been rude to someone who’d asked for a real match.”
What did he mean—
“But now, I’m convinced.”
With her hat low over her eyes, a pair of jeans, and a casual shirt, Miu walked into the train station at Mejiro. She took the Yamanote line and got off at Ikebukuro. Concealed amidst the surge of people, he and Natsume continued to follow Miu.
What in the world was Natsume thinking?
If they neglected to attend the investigation meeting, Yabusawa and the other chiefs would tell them off. Frustrated, Nagamine looked at his watch.
After passing through the JR gate, Miu entered a restroom in the station. Natsume stopped and watched intently.
After about ten minutes, she abruptly walked out. Pushing her way through the wave of people, she crossed the station compound.
“Kai—” Natsume called, to which a woman turned.
She looked fashionable, had long hair, and wore a skirt. As she gazed at him, her expression stiffened.
Studying the woman’s face for his part, Nagamine was shocked. Although it was hard to tell immediately with her makeup, the person in front of him was, without a doubt upon close inspection, Miu. Even her chest seemed larger, as though she’d put on padding.
“I’d like to talk to you a bit more …” Natsume said, accosting her.
“At a police station, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“I have two conditions.”
“What would they be?”
“I’ll talk to you. I don’t want to talk to a person who wouldn’t understand.”
“And the other?”
“May I change? I can’t relax looking like this. I have to dress up this way for my mom back home.”
Nagamine watched Miu’s face, and Natsume’s back, from beside the interrogation room door.
He was a little irked that he’d been relegated to writing the report while the jurisdictional detective took charge of the questioning, but it was a promise to Miu and couldn’t be helped.
“You’re Kai, Ayano’s lover, right?” Natsume began.
“What the hell?” Nagamine said, standing up.
“You be quiet for a bit, okay? I’ll tell you everything. I’ve accepted it. I won’t run or hide.”
At Miu’s words, he meekly sat back down. You better tell us, he thought as he glanced at her bosom, which was now flat.
“A chest binder?” Natsume asked her.
“Yes. I hate having breasts, so at work and at the gym, I wear one.”
“Gender dysphoria,” Natsume said.
Miu nodded. “You got it. I’m FTM.”
When your body’s sex is in disharmony with your conscious gender, you suffer from gender dysphoria, and FTM means being female in body but identifying as male, Miu explained.
“Way back from when I was still a kid, I had vague doubts about being a woman. I hated having long hair and wearing skirts, and the people I liked were always women. By the time I was in high school I was convinced that I was gender dysphoric, but couldn’t tell anyone. Ever since I was little, my parents always wanted me, their only child, to be ladylike … But it became hopelessly difficult, and just when I was trying to confess to my parents, my dad died in an accident. My mom was horribly shocked and I couldn’t worry her any more, so I ended up not being able to tell her I was gender dysphoric. For twenty-six years, I always felt alone.”
“You met her one year ago.”
“Yeah … when Ayano was being harassed by a weird man near my house and I tried to help her. But instead, I got beat up by Kamiya … Ayano brought me to her apartment and treated me. She was really concerned about the wounds on my face, so I told her it was a medal and laughed. And I confessed about the true me for the first time.”
“Then you started dating her.”
Miu nodded. “Even though I’d fessed up, I thought it wasn’t meant to be, but unexpectedly, Ayano said she liked me. After that … I busted my ass to become a man who could protect Ayano. I trained my body, and mentally, I did my fucking best to become a guy she could always rely on. Because I loved Ayano. Because it was the first time I had someone who was so dear to me. I thought Ayano als
o loved me in the same way. But I guess I was wrong …” Miu shrugged his shoulders with a lonely expression.
“That night, while doing roadwork, you saw Mr. Kaitani leave her condominium, is that right?”
“Yeah. I immediately went up to her room. I wanted to know why Kaitani had been in her condo. Then, when I looked around her room and found the condom, I tore into her. No wonder decent men ignored such a slut, I cursed her. Then Ayano got fired up too and said, ‘Who’re you to be blaming me?’ Ayano came closer and exposed herself in her bathrobe and spat at me, ‘Then satisfy me. Satisfy me completely. You can’t even do that, so don’t just blame me.’ It was humiliating. That’s the moment when my pride, which was always teetering, crumbled.”
“That was when you pushed her onto the bed and strangled her.”
“My mind went blank and I don’t remember much … But I remember trying my damned best to choke back tears.”
“Even from my viewpoint, I think you were pretty manly. That pride of yours set you apart from lowlifes who’re violent toward women and cause them harm.”
And what’s that worth, a women’s boxing champ—
What Miu had said at the gym came back to Nagamine as he listened to Natsume. Maybe what those words meant was that as a man, Miu didn’t want to be hitting women.
“I’d loved for you to have upheld that pride,” Natsume said.
“Right …” Miu hung his head. “May I ask something?”
“Go ahead.”
“How did you … figure me out?”
“At first it was just a suspicion. When Detective Nagamine called you a ‘tomboy,’ you lost your temper. However, to me that seemed a little strange. A woman who moves heavy packages as her job, and who boxes, should be used to such comments and would have learned to ignore them. But your anger was disproportionate. A tomboy ‘acts like a boy, even though she’s a girl.’ I thought perhaps the ‘even though’ bit ticked you off. Up until a little while ago I still wasn’t confident, but I thought I’d ask your body.”
“And … what did it tell you?”
“That gut punch was eloquent. I felt certain that your heart and soul were as unmistakably male as my own.”
“I’ve gotta say, I had a bad feeling from the moment we sparred.”
“In addition … If Ayano’s lover turned out to be you, it made sense that she’d move to Ikebukuro despite the risk of encountering Mr. Kamiya. Your workplace and gym are both near Ikebukuro. She must have wanted to spend as much time with you as possible.”
“Yeah … this past year was a special time in my life. If only I hadn’t witnessed that,” Miu sighed heavily.
“Did you take her cellphone because you’d be traced as a person she knew?”
“The texts would instantly tell you what sort of relationship we were in. I took it because I saw on TV or somewhere that even if they’re deleted, the contents can be restored in the hands of the police.”
Listening to Miu’s response, Natsume nodded.
“Why ‘Kai’?” Nagamine couldn’t help asking.
Natsume glanced at him, then looked back at Miu and guessed, “Miu is a very feminine name. You must have thought that there’d be a disparity between even a nickname like Mii and the manly person you were trying to become. Mi-u … U-mi … Umi as in ‘the sea’ … whose alternative reading is Kai … You probably went through that thought process to come up with your masculine nickname …”
Miu’s shoulders drooped, as though he’d been completely trounced. “Wow …”
“Apparently, she had said to acquaintances about you, ‘He’d protect me with his life. He’s the manliest person I’ve ever met.’ At the same time, she said that although she loved you to death, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be … There are many ways to protect your dear ones, I think. Was what happened the only possible conclusion for you two?”
Miu’s eyes moistened heavily at the pointed question. It was clear that he was doing his damned best to choke back sobs.
“Let it go … Men cry, too.”
Then wailing filled the interrogation room.
Day Off
What time are you coming home today?
It was as he left the company that the message came from Ryuta.
Atsuro Yoshizawa slowed his pace. Today, together with his subordinate Hattori, he had to entertain important clients. He would probably be out late.
“Let me send a reply real quick,” he told Hattori, who was walking next to him, before typing on his phone, I’ll be late entertaining guests, so eat ahead of me. Your veggies too.
Just a handful of seconds after he sent it, the reply came in three English letters: YES.
Rather curt—
“Your son?” Hattori asked, to which Yoshizawa nodded. “How old was he again?”
“Fourteen—second year of middle school.”
“You must be close if you’re texting each other.”
“You think?”
“Around that age, don’t they usually rebel?”
The rebellious age—for now, Ryuta wasn’t showing any symptoms.
“Well, I guess my son is beyond that,” Yoshizawa answered with some pride as they headed to the station.
That day’s entertainment ended much earlier than he thought.
After parting ways with Hattori at Iidabashi station, Yoshizawa got on the subway.
He mixed in with the salaried workers heading home on the train just after ten o’clock. Holding on to a grab handle, he thought over the day’s achievements.
The person he’d entertained that day was in charge of stocking a supermarket chain of over forty stores in the metropolitan area. Sounding out the client’s opinion of the new snack that would be sold next month, Yoshizawa saw that it was going over well.
The reflection of his face in the window caught his eye. He looked tired. He would be. Since he’d been promoted to sales manager four months ago, he’d barely taken any time off.
I shouldn’t be complaining, not in these times, he chided himself, drawing back a sigh.
He looked around the carriage. It wasn’t just him. Most of the other passengers were also working their heads off for their families. For their families …
Hattori’s words came back to him: Around that age, don’t they usually rebel?
Ryuta wouldn’t. He was a good kid who didn’t cause his father trouble, perhaps partly because he’d lost his mother early.
Ryuta’s mother Akiko had succumbed to breast cancer seven years ago, when the boy was in his first year of elementary school. He was alone often, so there had to be times when he felt lonely, but he never complained or whined to Yoshizawa. It seemed like Ryuta had come by some of his father’s grit. He even had good grades, put energy into club activities, and did all of his chores.
But lately, Yoshizawa had noticed that they weren’t conversing as much.
He’d always called home if he was going to be late at work while Ryuta was still in elementary school. They were just ten-minute conversations, tops, but he used to listen to his son go on about school and his friends. Then they switched to cellphones, and at some point, to texting.
He arrived at Oizumi Gakuen station before eleven. His condominium was about a ten-minute walk from there.
Lately, he’d been coming home past midnight more often than not and couldn’t have real conversations with his son, but Ryuta might still be awake at that hour.
Yoshizawa walked homeward across the dim residential district at a brisk pace.
A white minivan idled at the park near his condominium. His march slowed when he saw someone getting out of the vehicle; he recognized the boy. Wasn’t it was one of Ryuta’s classmates—Jumpei Higuchi?
What could he be doing this late at night?
Yoshizawa thought of calling out to him, but when a second silhouette emerged from the car, he froze.
Ryuta? He gawked at the boy, who was wearing a sweatshirt and a backpack. There was no doubt. It was Ryuta—
&n
bsp; A young man who’d come out from the driver’s side and was saying something to Ryuta pulled some bills out of his wallet and handed them to him.
Ryuta took the money and walked off toward the condominium with Jumpei.
After the two boys’ forms receded, Yoshizawa approached the minivan, slowly.
The young man who’d given Ryuta money was smoking a cigarette outside the car and cackling. There was another guy inside. They seemed to be twenty, give or take. Their tank tops left several tattoos exposed between them.
Passing by the minivan’s side, Yoshizawa cast a glance through the open door as if he didn’t really mean to. The interior was loaded with what looked like steel wire or bundles of cable.
The men might have been doing some sort of construction work, but why were they with Ryuta and Jumpei?
Part time work, he thought for a moment, but doubting that was the case, he dismissed the idea. There was no chance that they’d hire middle schoolers.
What was it?
He wanted to sprint right away to Ryuta and ask, but couldn’t.
The look he’d just seen on his son’s face was burned into his mind. The Ryuta who’d taken the money wore a dark, brooding expression that Yoshizawa had never seen on him until now.
Suddenly, he was walking faster. The path to his condominium seemed terribly long.
When he reached his unit, he struggled over whether to ring the bell or to unlock the door himself. In the end, he went for his keys.
“I’m home—”
When he opened the door, Ryuta was right near the entrance. Yoshizawa seemed to have caught his son as he was heading to his own room. Meeting Yoshizawa’s eyes, Ryuta looked surprised for a moment.
“You’re early …” he muttered, averting his eyes ever so slightly.
“Yeah …”
Yoshizawa wanted to question his son there and then, but his rehearsed words would not come out. Taking off his shoes and stepping up from the alcove, he pulled a snack from his briefcase.
“Our next new product … Wanna try it with me in the living room?”
“I’ll pass for today. I have school tomorrow,” Ryuta replied, his eyes turned away, and went into his room.
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