by Meg Mezeske
“No, sensei, you don’t understand.” His voice came shuddering through his clenched teeth, and Jordan thought she saw a glint of wetness in his eyes before he ducked his head. Ryusuke took a few slouching steps away before returning and repeating the circuit. He paced and ran a hand through his spiky hair, eyes to the floor, seeming to forget he was not alone. Jordan frowned, feeling sorry for his obvious distress but also confused by what seemed to her to be an overreaction.
“Ryusuke, this will all blow over,” she said in what she hoped was a tone of reason. “Why don’t you head back to class and wait for Kenji?”
He slowly looked up, still lost in thought, before offering the barest shadow of a smile.
“You’re right, sensei.” He didn’t seem convinced but he nodded and turned to leave. “Make sure Nakamura-kyoutou doesn’t eat him alive, okay?”
“I’ll try.” She chuckled, and Ryusuke’s smile widened for the briefest of moments before he raised his hand in a parting wave, let it fall to his side, and walked away.
Sixteen
Jordan dipped her head to her chest, bracing against the cold wind and snow until only her eyes were visible between her scarf and ear-flapped hat. Her booted foot quailed at a patch of ice, shooting to the side, but she managed to right herself before falling into the snow. Jordan let out a sigh of relief, breath unfurling in smoky curls, when she saw the school just a few yards away. It bobbed in her vision, grey and spliced with static-like snow.
A few students trickled inside, but one boy shot through the open doors, hurrying outside.
Kenji.
He clumsily tried to juggle his book bag and coat, one arm halfway through each, before making a noise of frustration and increasing his pace. He threw his items to the ground, uncaring of the slushy snow his coat sank into, and began to fumble at his bike lock. Jordan approached cautiously, uncertain of whether he would welcome any interaction, even with her.
“Kenji?” When she spoke, he spared her a brief look over his shoulder before returning to the lock. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” he said simply and choked back a noise in his throat.
“You haven’t been expelled, have you?” After the fight a couple of days before, she had heard nothing about how Kenji and Tadao were to be disciplined. She had watched the door to the principal’s office for what had seemed like hours, as the silhouettes of the boys, the principal, and the vice principal played across the window’s frosted glass. Eventually, she had gone home without an answer, and she now felt a pinch of worry in her chest.
“No, Jordan-sensei.” Kenji shoved his dripping belongings into the bike’s rear basket and wrangled it onto the sidewalk. His bare hands held the handlebars in a strangling, shaking grip and his handsome features contorted with a look of intense sorrow. “Ryusuke’s dead.”
Without another word, he swung onto the seat and pedaled away through the snow, flakes as big as leaves falling.
Jordan’s breath thickened in her throat and she simply stared, watching the furrows of the bike tracks collect snow. She thought she heard someone call her name, but the sound was muffled by the wind whistling through the wool against her ears and the pulsing of her heart through every muscle. Disbelief and grief overtook her, seeped into her inch by inch, as if she were lowering into a gelid lake toe-first, slowly, until her head sank far below the surface.
Unable to move, much less think, she felt for the cell phone in her pocket. The slim device rested in her gloved palm, feeling heavy as she methodically brought up Toshihiko’s number. She watched her fingers tap out a message seemingly of their own accord, like a planchette sliding across a spirit board. She read over the short text—Ryusuke is dead. What’s happening? Where are you?—pressed Send, and waited. Minutes passed without a response. The bell signaling the start of class rang, and still she stood as the winds began to pile snow at her feet.
Seventeen
Jordan felt strangely nervous as she waited for Toshihiko at the izakaya outside Yamagata City Station. Not the sort of girlish nervousness that had bubbled up before their first few dates, but leaden, murky worry.
Toshihiko’s reply to Jordan’s text message about Ryusuke had been kind and consolatory, but brief. This was followed by nearly a day of silence, and then Toshihiko’s suggestion that they meet in person. Something was amiss about his messages, though Jordan couldn’t put her finger on what. Toshihiko was always to the point, but now his few words hinted at hesitation, or obfuscation.
Or maybe she was overthinking it, she conceded. Thoughts of Ryusuke’s death were ever present, and Jordan’s moods were constantly ping-ponging between utter grief, numbness, anger, and disbelief. Probably anything Toshihiko could have said would have strummed an over-tight nerve. Even the weather seemed willfully dreary—outside the izakaya’s windows, the snow cast a cold pallor as it hustled to the ground, grey and wet.
Jordan had arrived early, but as minute after minute passed with no sign of Toshihiko, her nerves bunched impossibly tighter. When he finally emerged through the curtained door—perfectly on time—it was with a flash of dumb relief that Jordan rose and walked to him.
“Toshihiko,” she said as she encircled him with her arms. She had meant for it to be a quick embrace, but Toshihiko’s comforting sturdiness made her tighten her hold and press her cheek to his chest. Through the chilly specks of snow on his overcoat, she could feel the warmth of his body, and she sighed gratefully.
The press of Toshihiko’s hands hugging her back was firm but short-lived, and he soon pulled away. This wasn’t unusual—nor was the lack of a kiss—but worry crept back to Jordan.
“Hello, Jordan.” Toshihiko gave a small smile. “How are you holding up?”
“Not well, to be honest. But I’m better now that you’re here.”
“You give me too much credit,” he said, and his eyes skirted away to latch onto a nearby booth. He gestured toward it. “Shall we?”
They settled in and placed their orders, Jordan eyeing Toshihiko when he requested only hot tea. Not even a beer, as was his usual.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I can’t stay long, I’m afraid.” As Toshihiko spoke, he removed his glasses and began to wipe off a smudge of melted snow, not meeting Jordan’s eyes.
Jordan waited while Toshihiko deliberately cleaned and returned his glasses, but no further explanation came as to why he had to leave so soon. Overthinking it, she reminded herself, and forced her voice into a pleasant timbre.
“Well, I’m glad you were able to spare some time to see me. I need the pick-me-up.”
“I am sorry about Ryusuke,” Toshihiko said. His words were soft and held genuine warmth, but this gesture of kindness lanced Jordan with incongruous anger.
If you’re so sorry, why aren’t you doing anything about it? Why couldn’t you stop this? Jordan came dangerously close to blurting out her thoughts but was interrupted when the waiter served their drinks and her meal. Jordan stared at the chicken drooped over the plate, her appetite supplanted by aimless fury. She took a swallow of sake, more to allow her temper to cool than for the enjoyment of it.
“So why can’t you stay? Because of an investigation?” Jordan said. Though it was a Saturday, Toshihiko working through the weekend was not unheard-of, and she allowed herself to hope that he was working on the investigation. If he wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, she resolved to keep pressing. After so long, she was done tip-toeing around his notions of propriety.
As though he had heard her thoughts, Toshihiko pinned Jordan with a firm look over his glasses before he continued.
“Yes, I’m working on an investigation. Actually, that’s why I asked to see you today.”
“You’ve taken up Ryusuke’s case?” Jordan felt a burst of something close to happiness, despite the circumstances, when Toshihiko nodded in reply. Yet this was quickly tempered by a dark look that shadowed his eyes.
“Jordan. We can’t see
each other anymore,” he said simply.
“Wh-Why not?” Jordan huffed, too incredulous to muster more words. Not that she could have voiced them through her choked throat.
“Ryusuke’s death has reopened Ogawa’s other case files. As you know, we began our relationship only after investigation of the suicide club was tabled and I was reassigned. This was quite purposeful on my part—to avoid any conflict of interests, you see.”
As Toshihiko spoke, Jordan could only look on, searching his face for…what, she wasn’t sure. His tone and demeanor had shifted ever so slightly, and Jordan realized she was no longer facing Toshihiko as she had grown to know him, but rather Toshihiko the cop. Investigator Toshihiko Sakurai.
With each word that passed Toshihiko’s lips, Jordan felt the last few weeks with him fall away and disappear, one by one. When he had finished, it was though they had walked backward through time and she was looking into the eyes of the stranger who had just been hit by a fly ball and dropped his briefcase.
Jordan fumbled through her thoughts and fought against the prickling sensation that threatened to coax tears to her eyes, so she said nothing for a long moment. Silence didn’t typically faze Toshihiko. If anything, he would gladly wait out the other person and let them fill in the space, but now he shifted and cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, Jordan. Perhaps I made a mistake by pursuing you in the first place.”
“Oh?” Jordan said hotly, any trace of tears evaporating. “So sorry to disappoint.”
“No, that’s not—Please allow me to explain,” Toshihiko said and ran one hand through his already mussed hair—a telltale sign that he was flustered. “I always believed it was likely that the investigation into your students’ deaths would continue. And now that it has resumed, I have to maintain a professional distance—from you.”
Jordan’s ears pricked at that: Toshihiko’s belief that the investigation had never been truly over. Had he suspected that more students were at risk, or simply that new evidence would come to light? Despite the numbness piling atop her, a spout of curiosity broke through too quickly to quell.
“You thought more students were going to die?”
“Jordan.” It was equal parts a sharp reprimand and warning to tread lightly. He even looked a bit shocked that she had asked.
Both of them refused to break the taut silence that followed, but Jordan finally gave in, reluctantly returning to the subject at hand.
“Don’t I get any say in this? Relationships are usually a two-way street, you know.” She hated the note of defeat in her voice but didn’t know how to overcome it. Toshihiko’s pronouncement had already settled heavily on her shoulders, too oppressive to shrug off.
“You’re too close to the case, Jordan. I can’t let partiality sway my inquiries, or my judgment,” he said as though it were the obvious, and only, solution.
“Partiality. That’s a funny way of putting it,” Jordan said dryly as she poured another glass of sake and drank it in a single gulp. “You might want to brush up on your sweet nothings before wooing other women.”
Toshihiko was taken aback, and he said nothing for a long while. For the first time that night, Jordan saw unchecked emotion color his face. He looked pained, and then disconsolate. It was such an alien expression on Toshihiko that Jordan felt her chest constrict with reflexive sympathy.
With stubborn resolve, she tamped down the feeling and watched Toshihiko’s turmoil play out through his lowered eyebrows, his tense shoulders, his bobbing throat. Finally, he forced words past his drawn lips.
“Don’t you understand?” His voice was reined, despite everything. “I’m interested in you, not other women. That’s the problem.”
“Oh, I’m the problem now?” Jordan was on her feet in an instant, grabbing at her purse and jacket as she scuttled away from the table.
“Jordan, you know I didn’t mean that—”
“You won’t have to worry about me troubling you anymore,” she said loudly and stabbed her arms through the jacket’s sleeves, already halfway to the exit. When she reached the door, she paused and turned to spare a last look at Toshihiko. He was on his feet, his expression distraught, but he made no move toward her.
“Jordan…”
The threat of tears again lanced at her eyes and she ducked her head as she pushed out the door of the izakaya and onto the street. Jordan took several lunging, sliding steps along the snow-strangled road before stopping at the sound of a voice calling out. But when she looked over her shoulder, there was no one behind her.
She waited for the izakaya’s door to fly open, for Toshihiko to push through the pall of snow to her side. She waited, and then walked away.
Eighteen
Jordan didn’t go to Ryusuke’s funeral, or the wake. Simply imagining Ryusuke lying too-still in a black suit, his skin pale and smiling mouth drawn, caused tears to sting her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ryusuke,” she said to the black marble pillar standing before her, nearly as tall as the boy had been. The stone surface was glassy, lined with morning sunlight along its tiered corners. Jordan could recognize the thick, brushstroke-like symbols of Ryusuke’s name only upon close inspection, but his grave marker stood out among the thicket of carved stones that dripped down the hillside.
Bundles of flowers coated the low mantle as though they were growing from the grave itself. A single crimson flower rested between the others’ snowy petals like a pinprick of blood. Jordan wasn’t sure what the red flower symbolized but felt its uniqueness spoke of deep affection. Below the flowers, small offerings were placed—a bowl of the crisp, golden pears that Ogawa was famous for, a mikan orange, and a shallow dish of clear liquid.
Even at such an early hour, she had not been the first visitor. Beside the pears, a thin line of blue-white smoke twisted from a stick of musky incense. Perhaps the grave had been visited by his mother and father, who remained with their son even then, in a way. Their engraved names joined Ryusuke’s on the coal-dark marble, painted in red until their ashes, too, were to be interred in the family altar.
With the back of her gloved hand, Jordan wiped at her nose, raw from the cold and crying. Uncertain of what else to say to the lifeless, somber stone—so unlike Ryusuke—Jordan let her eyes stray.
The path to the cemetery branched from the road between Jordan’s apartment and the high school, climbing in a tight zigzag up the narrow, tall hillside. Below, Jordan could see the road to Ogawa High School where it bisected columns of rice paddies—fallow and brown but gilt with a layer of early-morning frost. The school building was also visible in the distance. She could even see tiny figures filing through the doors and realized she would have to leave soon to be on time for class.
Jordan took a deep breath of frosty air and faced her shadowed, distorted reflection in the stone. She recalled that Japanese people were bestowed new names upon death so that when families and friends spoke of those who had passed, their spirits would not be summoned back. She wondered, then, if they believed the deceased could hear their old names upon their loved ones’ lips, spoken in sighs and empty rooms.
“Goodbye, Ryusuke.” She turned and left quietly.
“Kenji hasn’t come back.”
Jordan barely heard Ms. Tatsuya’s meek voice over the mingled sounds of the teachers eating their lunches. Ms. Tatsuya had directed her comment at her plate, but the principal answered.
“I just received a phone call from Kenji’s mother this morning.” Many teachers set down their plastic chopsticks on their lunch trays as they paused to listen. “As you may know, the Ito family has lived in Tsuruoka for years now. But Kenji commuted here with his father every morning, to learn alongside his old friends and classmates. Because of…what happened, he has elected to finish his schooling closer to home. Ms. Nakamura, let’s talk about his transfer paperwork later.” Principal Kikuchi finished speaking quickly and returned to his soup.
“And he will simply get away with fighting and disorderly conduct,
I see.” Vice Principal Nakamura added with a terse sniff.
“Kenji has been through enough. With his best friend gone, why should he come back here?” Ms. Tatsuya said with enough heat to contend with the vice principal’s icy shell. But Ms. Nakamura merely raised a single eyebrow and pursed her lips at the edge of her teacup.
“Well, Tadao has been temporarily suspended and will serve detention when he returns. As well he should,” Mr. Mori said, nodding toward the vice principal, almost hopeful for her approval. “For what it’s worth, Tadao was sincerely apologetic, and he insisted he was merely defending himself. Maybe Ogawa High School is better off without Kenji, after all.”
A few teachers murmured—some in agreement, most decidedly not. Ms. Nakamura gave no comment, looking as though she had just sipped lemon juice instead of tea. They resumed eating and all conversation gave way to the slurping of broth and the click of chopsticks against plastic bowls. Then came a firm knock at the door, followed by a soft whish as it opened to admit someone. The visitor smoothly announced his arrival.
“Please excuse me. I decided to let myself in.”
Jordan nearly dropped her bowl at the sound of the voice, splashing soup on her fingers as she spun to face the door. Inspector Toshihiko Sakurai stepped inside and bowed.
“I’m sorry for disturbing your meal.” He took in the room as he spoke. “Unfortunately, in light of Ryusuke Suzuki’s death, I must resume my investigation from last year. Kikuchi-kouchou, I trust you received my message.”
“Yes, of course, Inspector.”
Principal Kikuchi stood up to greet him, and the teachers resumed eating their lunches only after the curiosity of the inspector’s arrival had died down. As the inspector and principal exchanged pleasantries, Toshihiko didn’t look at Jordan once. She realized this with irritation, watching him like a hawk as she finished her plate.