“You sound just like Tajima when you talk like that.”
“Of course I do—we’re both MEs. And, by the way, so are you, Daiki.”
“Do you have some sort of problem with me?”
“What I’m saying is that we’re all in the same boat and that your experience is what we’re all going through.”
“I understand that.”
“No, you don’t. Even now you’re turning away from us.”
“What does that mean?”
“There are a lot of things about us that you simply let slip by you unnoticed. For example, do you have any idea what sort of ordeal I’ve been going through?”
“You’ve never said anything about it.”
“I shouldn’t have to say anything,” he replied mockingly. “After all, we’re both MEs.”
“So you’re saying that I don’t understand because I’m always looking the other way?”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”
“Of anyone, I thought you might have become disgusted with MEs, having run into a lot of dubious ones.”
Hitoshi’s face turned serious and he nodded. “I’ve told you about the ME who came to apply for welfare benefits, haven’t I? That was quite a shock, but after seeing my true self, I felt greatly relieved. Being able to reach out and provide a little assistance to that miserable self gave my existence some sort of meaning. But then more and more MEs, an endless stream of them, started showing up to apply for the position. It was unbearable . . . And now,” Hitoshi concluded, his frustration mounting, “99 percent of the applicants are MEs!”
“But you’re not sending them away anymore; you’re processing their papers, right? In that simple action you’re doing a lot for US, aren’t you? There’s no reason for you to feel discouraged.”
“Daiki, you do understand, don’t you? I’m not providing assistance to others; they’re all US. When I conduct interviews, we wind up coalescing. I, the supposed petitionee, become the petitioner. Try spending each day doing nothing more than processing two or three welfare applications. You get the feeling that you’ll be doing it forever.”
Again I felt like a sardine drifting aimlessly.
“That’s not all. Some of the applicants are revoltingly weird people. And in being confronted with their ugly personalities, I’m forced to see the worst aspects of myself in every single one of them. Let me put it another way: when I see any of those guys come in now, I think about killing them all and then myself.”
Hitoshi’s murderous daydream immediately struck home. I thought that if I were forced to confront Tajima’s face day after day, I would likewise fantasize about taking out both him and myself.
“And I’ve now become totally alienated from my coworkers. I stand out for zealously accepting all applications—and that means that everyone else looks at me with disapproval. Amazingly enough, no one will tell me to my face that they don’t like what I’m doing. It’s not that I’m some sort of young punk trying to cause mischief. If I have to put up with that sort of torment every day, I’d much prefer getting transferred out to some cushy but meaningless job.”
We all went silent. The only sound came from the TV that we had left on. I stared idly at the screen; the program was a roundup of the week’s news. The meteorologist noted the unseasonable heat. Among the office workers shown in the footage were a number of MEs.
The next story was about a public middle-school principal who had been arrested for being a serial molester on trains. He had also been involved in a prostitution ring of girls from another middle school. He was brought to trial and given four years in the slammer. The defendant, the judge, and the young reporter covering the case were all MEs.
“Yesterday,” Hitoshi remarked, “there was the trial of a random street slasher, a ME, who killed four people in Omotesandō. And he isn’t the only ME: so are the judge and everyone on the defense team. So are many of those who commit such utterly despicable and pointless crimes. I wonder whether the world might be a more beautiful place if it were swept clean of MEs. But by then we’ll be Planet ME, with no one left who isn’t one of US.”
“The first MEs I met were you and Nao, and we were really lucky,” I muttered to try to ease the tension, but there was no reaction.
After a moment, Nao said, “I wonder whether that’s true.”
“Why don’t you say what you mean?” Hitoshi responded provocatively. “No one is stopping you.”
“Right now I’m not sure that we’re so lucky. There’s no proof that we’re the only good MEs.”
“Recently Mizonokuchi asked me to put him up here for free,” Nao said. “He was in a financial pinch, and his electricity, gas, and water had been cut off. He told me he’d been thrown out of his lodging house, reduced to scrounging about each night for a place to sleep. Since he had no other friend to turn to, I of course said okay and brought him here.
“But this guy,” he continued, pointing to Hitoshi, “absolutely refused and wouldn’t even let him get past the front door. I have no idea why, but there was nothing I could do, so I gave Mizonokuchi some money, told him to find an all-night gym or an Internet café, and sent him on his way. Daiki-san, you understand how I feel, don’t you? I’ve been stymied by one of my own, failing to help out a fellow ME when he was in a jam.”
“Why did you refuse him?” I asked Hitoshi.
“I’ve said this before: You two are enough for me. I don’t want to see or know any other MEs. I’m fed up.”
“I won’t put up with that kind of talk—Mizonokuchi isn’t just some other ME. So I told Hitoshi that this is my place and that I was going to let Mizonokuchi stay here. He responded: Well, I’m moving out then! I should have said, Then leave! But it would have been miserable to see him go—and a big shock for you, Daiki-san, if you had come home and found him gone. So we compromised: he agreed, for the time being, to pay for Mizonokuchi to hang out in an Internet café.”
“Hitoshi, you work on behalf of welfare applicants—why would you mind putting up Mizonokuchi here?”
“I didn’t have a problem—I said I didn’t care and could simply move out. But Nao here wouldn’t allow it.”
“Hey, that’s not fair—you were giving me two unacceptable options, which really meant having no options at all.”
“I understand,” I said, sympathizing with Nao. “I wouldn’t have been able to decide either.”
“Mizonokuchi soon stopped coming to school. I was worried sick. Then the day before yesterday I ran into him in Shinjuku. He was with a girlfriend. When I teased him about having landed a chick despite having no money, he grinned at me and said I should take a good look at her, which I did. She was a ME. The girl—yes, a female—was a ME!”
“Impossible!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, impossible, but there you have it. She was smirking too, pointing at me: So this is the guy . . . And then Mizonokuchi said: So you see, this is why I don’t need you anymore. I’m sure that’s what he said. I stood there like an idiot, totally dumbfounded. Nao, can you hear me? My girlfriend is a ME, so there’s a perfect understanding between us. She rescued me. So I don’t need you anymore. As he spoke, the two of them hugged right there in front of me.
“And it’s all this guy’s fault!” Nao went on, glaring at Hitoshi with outright hatred. “I wanted to recognize and accept myself—even just slightly—and so I valued and treasured both this guy and Mizonokuchi. I thought that if I could trust him, Mizonokuchi, and you, Daiki-san, it would show that I trusted myself as well. The fact is that for the first time in my life I had developed a little self-confidence. And that was the direct result of prioritizing US. But this guy wasn’t like that. He could be so cold to both Mizonokuchi and me because he doesn’t trust himself, because he can’t value and treasure himself.”
“If you’ve come this far in your understanding, Nao, you’re a full-fledged adult now,” said Hitoshi facetiously. “You’re finally ready to be independent!”
“Get out of here,
” Nao shot back. “Go. Now. This instant. Scram!”
I felt the impulse to scream as his voice grew louder, unable to believe that these were Hitoshi and Nao, fellow MEs, one and the same as myself.
“I too have reached the breaking point,” Hitoshi replied. “I’m past the limit, beyond forgiving and forgetting. Why do I have to be boxed in with a group of verminous MEs? What nonsense! Hordes of them come clamoring after me, pretending to be me, imitating me, capable only of copying . . . Incomplete people, never ever able to stand on their own two feet . . . I’m not like any of you. I’m not like the rest of you: cheap, mass-produced junk. Your substandard brand negatively affects my value. There’s no way I want to be lumped in with you. I can’t stand it anymore. I won’t put up with it. I’m going to crush everything.”
Hitoshi suddenly pointed at me and yelled: “Nao, you brat, you crybaby, head back to your mommy and go beddy-bye! An idiot like you will never grow up!”
He then turned to Nao and shouted: “Daiki, haven’t you yet understood that a moron can’t become a photographer? Do you even know how worthless your shitty pictures are?” And with that he left us, still standing there in open-mouthed amazement.
We sat there like mute lumps of jelly. Nao, his expression unchanged, was silently shedding tears. His sadness made its way to me, having originated from Hitoshi. Nao was weeping because he understood Hitoshi’s malice and that momentarily he too would be caught up in it.
And in that I was the same. I did not want to think about that spirit of limitless, fathomless hatred. Hitoshi had only just before directed it at us. It had now swallowed us up and was expanding everywhere. Of its intractable power I wished to remain ignorant.
“It wasn’t on purpose, you know,” Nao said in a frail voice, referring to Hitoshi confusing the two of us.
I nodded, then repeated his words: “It wasn’t on purpose.”
We both knew why he had done it. This too was what hate had wrought. So intense was Hitoshi’s loathing of all MEs that he was seeking to cut himself off from the entire horde of US. And that horde was indeed nothing more than a formless blob, so that however much one might assert his individuality, an outside observer would see no difference. As soon as Nao and I were fully subsumed within the blob, Hitoshi could no longer distinguish us. And that meant that he himself had somehow managed to extricate himself from it. I sensed intuitively that this was only the beginning, and the boundless depths that I wished neither to see nor to know once again made me tremble.
“Do you think he’ll be back?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“If he does come back, it could be dangerous.”
“I know.”
“What should we do? Are you going to stay here?”
“What about you, Daiki-san?”
“I’m going back to Hiyoshi. I think I can make the last train. Do you want to come with me?”
Nao shook his head. “I’ll stay here tonight. If Hitoshi returns, so be it. I’ll think about what to do after my classes tomorrow. I’ll call you.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m a ME, so I’ve got Hitoshi figured out.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves—we’ve got to face reality.”
“I hear you.”
I refrained from saying more than needed to be said. The truth of the matter was that we knew our situation all too well. I could sense Nao’s thoughts as he sat across from me, and I was sure that he felt the same way. I stood up.
“Well then, I’ll wait to hear from you,” I said simply, and left Our Mountain.
* * *
Even though it was a Sunday evening, the last train was relatively crowded. I put on headphones and closed my eyes, determined to grin and bear it. On board were a number of MEs, exchanging furtive glances. The unsettling thought suddenly occurred to me that Hitoshi might be among them. After leaving Our Mountain, had he been lurking, waiting for me to emerge so that he could ambush or stalk me? I looked around at the MEs but could not make him out.
If I thought that he was trying to waylay me, it meant that he too would have thought of it. My anxiety was feeding my delusion. There could be no doubt about it: Hitoshi was close by.
I approached my apartment, trying to keep my wits about me. When I put the key in the lock, my heart skipped a beat, as I thought I heard a sound from within. My hand was shaking on the knob. Should I go in? But if Hitoshi had indeed tracked me, such, it seemed, was my fate. To hell with it! I yanked the door open.
In the darkness all was quiet. There was no sign of anyone except myself. I turned on the light and called out for Hitoshi but received no answer. I stepped in and searched all about, yet there was no sign of any intruder.
At last I felt a measure of relief and sent an e-mail to Nao telling him that I had arrived home safely. I then took a shower.
I still hadn’t received a reply from Nao as I was getting ready for bed. I tried calling him but the line kept ringing, without an answering machine picking up. There was nothing I could do, so I dove into the futon and, like on a normal night, was instantly spirited away by Morpheus.
Chapter 4
Disintegration
As I was eating breakfast before work the next morning, the doorbell rang. It was too early to be a delivery. On high alert, I peered through the peephole and called out loudly: “Yes? Who is it?” The person I saw on the other side of the door was a late-middle-aged woman—and a ME.
“It’s me,” came the reply. “I forgot my key.”
I inquired again: “Who is it?” This time I let my wariness become apparent.
“It’s me. Your mother. Are you still asleep? And isn’t it time you were off to work?”
“I’m sorry, you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”
The woman raised her voice and said, “I’ve done no such thing! I’m not so senile that I don’t know my own house! Hurry up and open the door!”
“I live here alone. You’ve made a mistake.” I was terrified by the delusion that Hitoshi would instantly come flying at me.
The woman began pounding. “Enough of this nonsense! Open up! I’ve just come off the night shift. I’m exhausted and in no mood for games.”
“I tell you, you’ve got the wrong address. My mother lives in Saitama.”
“What are you saying? Who are you? Aren’t you Mak-kun? Makoto? Are you some sort of intruder, squatting in someone else’s house? I’m going to call the police!”
“Be my guest. It’s you they’ll arrest.”
“So you want to bar your weary mother from coming inside? What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t you have a cell phone? You should call home and have someone come get you.”
“My home is here! Who are you? Let me see your face!”
Thinking it might be a good idea for her to see me, I turned the lock, while keeping the chain in place, and as I opened the door a crack I watched her step back. I put my face to the opening and said, “This is me.” I watched her agitated red face drain of color.
“I’ll call the police about an unlawful intruder!” she declared, her voice trembling with fright. She backed away from the door and made a hasty retreat.
I locked the door again and returned to my room. From the balcony I could glimpse the woman running. But then she paused in her tracks and turned around, glancing back toward the apartment building. She stood there for a moment, her head slightly tilted in apparent bewilderment, then turned once again and plodded off.
She looked so forlorn that I felt a slight twinge of compassion. I was painfully aware of the feeling she was experiencing, for it was not that of another: I sensed that I had been through it myself. I wondered whether she could, in fact, be my mother, a woman who had gone on working alone to bring me up, along with my older sister, after our father hanged himself in the wake of his factory’s bankruptcy. Through an acquaintance she had obtained part-time work and paid my tuition for photography school. She had at first encouraged me
, saying that while she had given up on herself, I should persevere for her sake. But then when I failed as a photographer and jumped between odd jobs, she had railed at me.
“You’ve ruined not only your own dream but also that of others. Here I’ve been killing myself with work—and for what? So that my son can drift from one gig to another? You should have gone straight to college the way your sister did! Pitiful, just pitiful! It’s shameful!”
I couldn’t take any more and so I left home . . .
But no. That couldn’t be the way things really were. My hunch was that I had finally run off because of my self-righteous father, who forever hounded me about getting a job. I remembered how he would lecture me: “You’re kidding yourself that you can feed yourself as a photographer, so go join a normal company and get real!” And then, having been nudged toward pursuing the career path of my own love and choosing, I still opted for a life of lenses and shutters, to which he said, “You’re the son of a man without talent. There’s no way you can make it in that line of work!”
My mother only dithered, refusing to mediate; my sister responded with scornful laughter—no, no, I didn’t have a sister. And yet the day before I had gone to my sister’s house. Who was she? Needless to say, she was a ME. So was my mother. There was a kid there too. They were all MEs . . .
Oh, it didn’t matter. It was all the same. The one thing that didn’t change was the fact that I had failed in life, that I had been unable to become a photographer, and that such weaklings and losers were bound to be despised by their parents. There was nothing to be done but accept that reality.
But perhaps my father and mother were in the same boat. Perhaps they were reproaching themselves for having allowed their own child to grow up to be a parent-abusing failure. And that regret was something no one could understand or share. It was a responsibility that one had to embrace alone. Such was the feeling that the retreating figure of the woman suggested.
It was as if she had said, What am I doing here? What am I to do with myself, having nowhere to go? No matter where I am, I don’t know what to do with my meaningless existence. I thought I was considered somewhat useful in my son’s home. I thought I sensed some sort of purpose in my life. But it was all an illusion. If I’ve been such a failure, it would have been the same if I had never been. My existence or nonexistence is the same.
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