by Otsuichi
When the twins had played at hanging themselves, they’d probably taken off their shoes and placed them aside. Yoru had known that was what you did, and she had probably insisted on it. That knowledge was reflected in her drawing.
But not so with Yuu: She had taken off her shoes when they were playing and then forgotten all about it. She didn’t know the custom, and so she’d drawn herself hanging with shoes on.
The corpse in the shed had been barefoot, though. If Yuu had been playing at being hanged all by herself and had died when the support rope broke, then her body would’ve been wearing shoes.
Yuu was silent, listening carefully to nothing. Then her lips parted slowly and she spoke. “My sister with the black shoes died. And maybe I did hate her a little. But your guess isn’t completely accurate.” Her voice was very quiet. “You didn’t see the rope around her shoulders, did you? I didn’t cut it. It broke on its own.”
At around noon that day, her older sister Yoru had suggested they pretend to have hanged themselves, to surprise everybody.
Yuu had agreed, and the two had set to work in the shed just as it began to rain.
The dog was alive then, and it watched them work, looking puzzled.
“My sister piled up the boxes and wrapped the ropes around the beam. I stayed below, making sure the boxes didn’t fall over.
Yoru was on the boxes before the rain turned the ground soft, so her footprints were not in the shed.
Yoru alone was going to pretend to be dead, and Yuu was supposed to guide someone to the shed. Their preparations continued, and soon Yoru had both ropes around her body.
“And then my sister jumped.”
Yoru had kicked away the boxes and fallen. The moment it looked like she was hanging from her neck, though, she was actually caught by the rope around her shoulders.
She had looked down at Yuu and smirked.
“When she was tricking people, she always had a little twisted smile. She never used any expressions when she was talking with our family; when she was tricking people was the only time she seemed to be enjoying herself.”
But a moment later, the rope around her shoulders broke.
“I didn’t do anything. The rope simply wasn’t strong enough for my sister’s weight. It broke close to the ceiling. If you had seen the rope or had been told more about it, you would’ve guessed correctly. It broke much too high for me to have reached.”
Yoru hung there for a moment.
“I quickly tried to help. I wrapped my arms around her body and held her up. I was holding her in midair, trying to keep her from dropping any lower.”
In the shed, there had been a girl hanging from the ceiling by a rope around her neck, desperately supported by a girl who looked just like her. The hanging girl struggled, kicking her legs wildly in the air. The dog had been tied up next to them, and it began barking furiously. The sound of the dog barking and the girl suffering was deafening in the tiny room. It seemed like that moment lasted for eternity.
“I tried to stop my sister from dying. I wasn’t very strong, but I held her up. She kept screaming, though, her heels slamming into me.”
Morino sat hunched over in her chair, staring at the wall across the room, seeing nothing but the events of that day. The girl’s memories were nothing but a nightmare to her now.
If Yuu’s grip were to slip, her sister’s body would fall, and the rope would tighten.
Yoru’s eyes had been wide open in terror as she screamed at her sister—but she hadn’t been screaming encouragement.
“She said, ‘Hold tighter, stupid.’ ” Morino closed her eyes tightly, holding her emotions in check. “When I heard that, I stopped trying to save her. I let go.”
Yoru’s body had fallen.
Her toes had stopped just above the ground. Yoru had not been wearing shoes; she was barefoot. Her toes were spread wide, all the muscles contracted, shaking at first. The dog barked furiously, hurting Yuu’s ears. The convulsions and that barking seeped deep into her mind.
“Finally, her strength ebbed away, and her toes stopped moving.”
Yuu had stepped backward and felt the ground stick to her shoes. She’d left footprints.
“If it had been my weight alone, there wouldn’t have been footprints.” Her sister’s shoes had been placed on the ground next to her.
“I remember seeing those and deciding to lie to everyone. In that little shed … my sister’s body still swaying slightly, like the pendulum of a clock.”
The little girl’s immature brain had thought desperately and seen a path before her. She had changed into the black shoes, putting her own white shoes in their place.
Walking on dry ground, she had slipped out through the dog door. Her shoes were black, and black shoes identified her as Yoru. She had to call herself Yoru and act like Yoru.
“I could no longer smile like I used to. I had to keep my face blank, like my sister’s. We were always together, and I knew what my sister was like. I could imitate her. For nine years, no one ever guessed that I was Yuu.”
She gave a long, weary sigh.
At eight years old, she had watched her own funeral. She had lived most of her life never saying her real name. Nobody knew what was going on inside her, and those emotions had built up until she had slashed her wrist … all because of her sister and the name that had been buried with her. The road the young girl had decided to follow was one of sadness and isolation, one on which her entire existence depended.
The light from the windows was fading, turning gold. The pale yellow curtains were half-drawn, dimming the sun. I could hear the sound of the baseball team at batting practice echoing through the air. Time in the empty classroom ticked by in silence.
At last, Morino opened her mouth, still not sure if she should say it. “Do you remember where and when we first met?”
I believed it was in this classroom, at the beginning of our second year of high school. She looked a little disappointed to hear that.
“In junior high, I saw you at the museum, looking at a human body cut into slices. Then, in the spring when we entered high school, I saw you in the library reading a medical text on autopsies. I recognized you at once.”
That’s why she had known I was acting in class. It made sense. We each had detected what the other was hiding from those around us.
“I find it hard to believe that you used to laugh and smile when you were Yuu.”
“I know. I once was like that, but ever since I left the shed, I thought people would know I was Yuu if I smiled. I spent nine years trying not to have any expressions, trying to be my sister. Now I can’t smile, not even if I want to.”
She seemed ever so slightly forlorn; I doubted anyone else would have noticed it. She looked away from me as she continued, “I thought you might be the first to call me by my name.”
I stood up. “I have something for you. I took it with me from your home in the country.”
I removed it from a bag on my desk. “What?” she asked, not getting up.
“The rope you were looking for. I think it will fit nicely. Close your eyes—I’ll put it on you.”
Morino sat still, closing her eyes. I stood behind her, and her tiny shoulders stiffened; she was more than a little tense.
I wrapped a red rope around her neck. It was a dirty rope. I had found it in the shed, where it had been used to tie up the dog.
“I also know why you hate dogs so much.”
I gently tightened the rope around her long black hair and her pale slender neck.
As the pressure tightened, her shoulders shook. For a moment I stood there like that. Then I tied the rope, letting the ends of it hang down behind her.
“Yes … that’s it …” she sighed. All the tension poured out of her, everything inside her softening, releasing.
Yoru had died hanging from the dog’s rope, a fact that had been sealed away deep in Morino’s memories. She had never realized the rope she was looking for was the same one that had
killed her sister.
“I never hated my sister. She did horrible things sometimes, but no one could ever replace her …”
I picked up my bag and went home. When I passed her seat as I left the room, I turned back to look at Yuu one more time. She was sitting in her chair, her legs stretched out in front of her, her hands folded in front of her chest, the red rope around her neck tumbling down her back to the door.
Her eyes were closed, her lashes lowered. There was soft downy hair on her cheeks, like on a rabbit’s back. It glistened in the light of the setting sun, as though she were clad in light. A tear ran down her check, falling from her chin onto her uniform.
I left her alone, closing the classroom door behind me without a sound.
i
Kousuke was calling Saeki. The boy always sounded innocent and full of fun, but today he sounded downcast. Kousuke was a little neighbor boy who had just entered kindergarten.
“What is it?”
Saeki was in his garden, tending to the morning glories. It was summer, early in the morning. There was a faint mist in the garden, making everything glitter. Children were walking past the wall around his garden, heading for their group exercises. Saeki couldn’t see the children over the wall, which came up to his chest, but he could hear their footsteps and their chattering.
“Is my daddy still angry?” Kousuke had shown up at Saeki’s house the night before, crying, and he hadn’t gone home since.
When Saeki asked what had happened, Kousuke explained through his tears that he’d knocked over an antique his father had prized, breaking it. Kousuke had been told countless times never to touch the antique, but curiosity had gotten the better of him.
“No, I don’t think he’s angry anymore.”
Saeki told the boy how the child’s parents had come looking for him the previous night. When Saeki had met them at his door, they’d asked if he’d seen their Kousuke, looking very worried. Saeki had shaken his head, playing dumb. Then he’d helped them search for Kousuke.
“He’s really not angry?”
“Really.”
In front of Saeki, the stems of the morning glories were wrapped around bamboo poles that were sticking out of the ground. The bamboo had been dried, so it was light brown.
Saeki lived in an old house, with a garden larger than those of the homes around his. The property was an almost perfect square, with the house and garage flush against the east side. The rest of the grounds was open space, and Saeki had filled that space with trees. In the middle of summer, like today, the grounds were covered in leaves.
Saeki had always enjoyed gardening, even as a child. He’d raised the morning glories that bloomed along the wall around the garden himself.
That day, it was sunny. The sun was rising steadily into a cloudless sky, sunbeams slipping past the wall and the trees, and the bamboo poles supporting the morning glories cast long shadows across the ground.
He could hear Kousuke crying.
When Kousuke had knocked on his door the night before and begged Saeki to hide him, Saeki had let the boy in at once, peering out into the street to make sure nobody had seen the boy come in.
“You’re sure you didn’t tell anyone you were coming here, Kou?” Saeki asked again. The boy wiped away his tears, nodding. How reliable was a child’s word? lt occurred to Saeki that it was already too late for such concerns.
In the past, when he’d caught cicadas with Kousuke or watched him play with a cardboard box, an idea had been lurking in the corner of Saeki’s mind, a fantasy he could never allow himself to entertain. He hated himself for thinking about such horrible plans. But yesterday, it had been like there was a fog across his mind …
“Do you think I should say I’m sorry?”
Saeki felt his heart breaking. Kousuke didn’t even understand what was happening to him. He felt so sorry for the boy.
He didn’t hate the child. Saeki himself lived alone, his family long since gone, so he’d always thought of Kousuke like a little brother. He’d often babysat when Kousuke’s family was out, and the two had taken any number of walks together. Saeki was sure he loved the child as much as Kousuke’s own parents did. So why was he doing this? There was no turning back now.
“You can’t go home again, Kou,” Saeki said, his voice shaking despite himself. The morning glories in his garden were each wrapped around a single bamboo shaft. Two of the bamboo shafts were marginally larger than the others.
Kousuke’s voice trembled. He must’ve sensed that something was wrong. “Why not?”
His voice came from the thick bamboo shaft stuck into the ground. lt was hollowed out, allowing sound to travel from the coffin buried underground up to Saeki’s ears. Kousuke didn’t know that he’d been buried alive. How sad.
The day before, when Kousuke had come into his house, Saeki had made up his mind. He’d led the boy into a back room. “Hide inside this box,” he’d said, pointing at a box in the center of the room. lt was just big enough for Kousuke to lie down inside.
Kousuke almost always did exactly what Saeki told him to. And he was too scared of his father’s anger to suspect anything, so he climbed right inside the box.
Kousuke hadn’t noticed, but that box was a coffin Saeki had made just for him.
Saeki put a lid on the box, nailing it shut. There were two air holes in the lid of the coffin, one over Kousuke’s head and the other at his feet. Even though he was nailed inside, the boy could still breathe.
He left Kousuke’s coffin in the room and went out to the garden, where he’d been digging a hole opposite the porch, in front of the wall. He only had to make it a little bigger, and it would be large enough to bury Kousuke’s coffin.
When Saeki was finished with that task, he went back to the room, carrying the coffin out to the hole. He told Kousuke he was putting him somewhere his father would never find him. lt was a struggle getting the coffin off the porch into the garden, but Saeki had managed, and he’d lowered it down into the hole.
He fit the hollowed-out bamboo into the holes in the lid. Then he scooped dirt on top until Kousuke was completely underground.
Saeki thought it looked strange to have two bamboo poles sticking out of a patch of bare ground, so he transplanted some morning glories he’d been raising elsewhere, along with the bamboo stalks he’d been using to train them. He’d carefully transferred two of the morning glories from their original poles to Kousuke’s breathing tubes, disguising their primary function so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
“What do you mean? I want to go home!” the bamboo pole cried.
Poor Kousuke, buried alive, Saeki thought, calmly holding the bamboo pole steady while he packed the earth around it, making sure it would stay upright.
What was wrong with him? He knew he loved this child. He had once seen Kousuke about to be hit by a car. The boy had been chasing a ball, and he never saw the car coming. When the car had braked just in time, Saeki had been so relieved that his legs had gone out from under him. So how could he do this to the boy now?
Saeki had grown up in this house. At first, he’d lived with his parents and grandmother. Both his parents had worked, so he’d spent most of his time with his grandmother. While the other children were playing basketball or making models, Saeki had spent his time gardening with her, filling pots with dark earth and planting the flower seeds inside. Saeki’s classmates often had made fun of him, telling him he was like a girl. He was a frail boy, and strangers occasionally thought he was female, which always stung. But when he was with his grandmother, watering the flowers, she always told him he was a gentle child. Whenever his spirits were down, he remembered her words, and he promised himself he would live a good life, never letting her down.
Then, somehow, the fantasy of burying someone alive had taken over. Before he knew it, that was all Saeki could think about.
He liked watering his garden, often doing so on sunny days—a hose in hand, his thumb over the mouth. The pressure built up, and the wate
r sprayed quite a distance. A fan of water aimed at the trees, glittering in the light. When Saeki saw that, or when his grandmother smiled, he was so happy that it was as though the world grew brighter.
But at the same time, there was a dark place inside him where that light could never reach. He thought about putting his grandmother in a box and burying her in the ground. Every time the thought crossed his mind, he was instantly horrified.
How could he imagine such devilish things? There were times when he couldn’t even bring himself to look at his grandmother, terrified that she would guess what he’d been thinking.
Was there some fatal scar inside his heart that had made him like this? He could think of nothing, but perhaps he had simply forgotten. Or—and this was his greatest fear—perhaps he’d simply been born that way.
A few years after Saeki had come of age, his parents and grandmother had died in an accident. Saeki had been informed of it at work.
Until then, his family had always been around at home, and his contact with them had been a constant reminder of his position in society. But after that, he’d been alone in the house, and there was nothing to keep his fantasies in check. Every day, he left work and came home; with no one to talk to there, he found himself thinking about the same thing, those same ideas that had been in his head since childhood. He tried to shake them off, though, telling himself that even thinking such things was unforgivable, and this served to increase his interest in gardening.
When his family had been there, he’d grown a few plants in pots and weeded the garden. But now he brought in better dirt, improving the quality of the earth in the garden, and the number of plants along the wall began to increase in number.
Saeki spent the whole year digging holes to plant trees. That was all he did outside of work. He showed no interest in anything other people his age did, instead spending all his time making holes in his garden and planting trees in them.
At last, there were trees all around the house: inside the garden walls, every inch was covered. If you poked your head over the wall, you were barely able to see the house through the forest. Only one part of the garden was left unforested, the area he could see from the porch. There was nothing blocking the line of sight from there to the wall. That ground was filled with flowers, and it was in bloom all year long.