by Kōji Suzuki
“There was nothing there,” Takanori answered out of desperation, unable to explain what he’d seen.
Akane sighed, and an expression of relief returned to her face.
It was already past 4 p.m. The early summer days lasted long, and there was still some time until sunset. Having confirmed where the navigation had wanted to lead them, all that was left to do now was to return to the inn.
It was a mere five minutes away. During that brief span, Akane kept on talking. Takanori had never seen her so loquacious. She usually listened to other people as they spoke and then responded in turn, but now, ignoring the context, she went on talking all by herself.
Mouthing halfhearted replies, Takanori continued to think. Why hadn’t the navigation worked properly? Was it just some accident, or was it some premonition of the future?
If the mysterious phenomena had any meaning, it was important to scrutinize them for a hidden truth, taking care not to overlook anything.
Takanori’s intuition was telling him that the phenomena couldn’t possibly have been an accident.
After returning to the inn, they went out together to the open-air bath. Even the continuous flow of the hot spring water couldn’t wash away the two sights planted in his head by the locations where the navigation had led them.
6
More than a month had passed since then. Takanori had failed to ascribe any sort of significance to the old well poking out from the grassy field or to the tall cedar tree on the other side of the river, and meanwhile the freshness of that scenery was fading away.
He remembered exactly where they were located. They were places that he could easily revisit if he so wished. And if he did, he would discover that old well in the same spot. But he would never see that blue tarp spread out at the root of the cedar tree. He was able to distinguish reality from illusion.
Yet what worried him now, as he read the information in front of him about the death-row prisoner Kashiwada, was not the unnaturalness of the two locations. Their deed the following day had taken on greater importance. The result of that intercourse resided in Akane’s womb now, and it certainly was real.
Whether he counted based on her menstrual cycle or from the time between their dates, there was no doubt. She’d gotten pregnant when they’d embraced just before checking out of the inn.
The next day, they’d had a late breakfast at the dining hall and then returned to their room. They’d laid down on the futon, which was still spread out; as they’d caressed each other, one thing had led to another, and when it was over, he’d looked at the digital clock beside his pillow.
The time had been branded in his mind because he’d been worried about their 10 a.m. checkout….
10:04.
And now he saw the very same date and time on his monitor.
“On May 19th at 10:04 a.m., Seiji Kashiwada, convicted of abducting and murdering several young girls, was executed at the Tokyo Detention Center…”
Having risen at some point from the sofa, Akane was now standing beside him, her eyes riveted on the same screen.
With so many things that he needed to think about, Takanori’s mind was on the verge of shorting out. He couldn’t even spare the energy to speculate about what Akane was trying to glean from the pieces of info lined up on the monitor. He had to focus all his mental power on whether it meant anything that the time he’d finished being intimate with her matched the hour of Kashiwada’s execution.
Then it struck him that perhaps a hint might be hidden in the circumstances behind the Kashiwada case. He sent the content on his monitor to the printer.
Meanwhile, he led Akane over to the sofa to make her look away from the info on Kashiwada. It may have been mere information, but he wanted to keep the man at a distance from her.
Seeing that the print job was finished, Takanori went over to the table and began reading the article. The incidents had occurred over ten years earlier. Only a high school student at the time, he’d forgotten nearly all the details. As he read, he began to recall the facial expressions and tone of newscasters reporting on the story and other little nuances surrounding the case.
“Seiji Kashiwada was arrested as a suspect in a series of kidnappings and murders of young girls across Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, and Chiba Prefectures, and after being tried and convicted he was sentenced to death and executed…”
Skimming over the description of Kashiwada’s childhood and family makeup, Takanori reached the section detailing the first incident only to have to interrupt his reading.
“On July 28, 2003, the body of the first victim, aged eleven, was discovered near the ** River in Kannami Hirai, Shizuoka Prefecture.”
Having stopped right there, he was unable to proceed. His eyes went back over the same passage, again and again.
A bell had rung in his head. Putting the article on Kashiwada to the side for a moment, he brought up a map on his monitor.
The route down which he and Akane had been led by the car navigation system, starting from the hot spring inn where they’d spent the night one month earlier—he tried tracing it on the map again. Hirai, in Kannami…he was certain there was a tall cedar at the spot the navigation had registered all on its own as the second destination.
Takanori’s mind flashed back to old news footage. The slope near the river, the blue tarp covering the root of the cedar, detectives inspecting the area…Overlapping the vivid imagery flying around in his head was the voice of a female announcer.
“Today, at 4:30 p.m., the remains of a young girl were discovered on a mountain path in the township of Kannami in Shizuoka Prefecture. Investigators are calling it a homicide…”
Takanori knew that his intuition was correct. That news footage from over ten years ago had remained in the depths of his memory, revived when he’d beheld the same scenery, and shown him a false vision of a blue tarp.
If the second site to which they’d been mistakenly led by the navigation system was where the body of the first victim was discovered, then what was he to make of the old well at the first site? At this rate, he could hypothesize that the spot was connected to the Kashiwada case.
Takanori read on furiously, searching for an answer. No doubt, that old well on the outskirts of South Hakone Pacific Land was a place where one of the victims had been abandoned.
Yet the second victim’s body was discovered in Miura City in Kanagawa Prefecture, the third in Hachioji City in Tokyo Prefecture, the fourth in Kamogawa City in Chiba Prefecture, and the fifth…
Takanori looked up from the document. Akane was lying on the sofa with both hands folded over her heart. The shallow rising and falling of her chest was proof positive that she was alive.
You idiot. There was no fifth victim. Akane just barely escaped from the clutches of that monster.
He resumed looking at the document and proceeded to read about when Kashiwada had been caught in the act.
“Having been tipped off by local residents, Atami police rushed to a tangerine farm in the Kamitaga area of Atami City in Shizuoka Prefecture, where they discovered Kashiwada hiding in a patch of shrubs holding a young girl, and arrested him on the spot…”
Takanori brought up a map again and checked where the arrest had taken place.
The distance from Kamitaga in Atami City to South Hakone Pacific Land was about four miles as the bird flies. That was indeed close, but he couldn’t find anything in the document indicating a connection to the old well.
It looks like I have no choice but to revisit the site.
He could no longer afford to remain a bystander. Though he didn’t know the reason, the Kashiwada case was intimately involved with his and Akane’s lives.
Events which had seemed unrelated at first glance were starting to come together and form patches of black spots as though on a piece of flypaper.
It had all started with the live stream of a suicide by hanging saved onto a USB stick. Though it was saved data, the man in the video had begun to move, and the r
evelation that he was the serial murderer Kashiwada had thrown various connections to Takanori and Akane into relief. She had nearly been the next victim. The place where the first victim was discovered and the one they’d been led to by the car navigation were identical. And their deed, performed at the same time as the execution, had made Akane pregnant.
All these seemingly unconnected events were neatly lined up on that single piece of flypaper.
The problem was whether these strange phenomena—beginning with the USB stick brought by Kiyomi Sakata to Yoneda and passed along by Yoneda to him—could have a physical effect on him and Akane. If he just felt it was a bit spooky, the answer would be simple, and he could brush it off. Yet if there were some foreseeable physical harm, he needed to analyze the phenomena as far as he could perceive them, gauge the nature of the danger, and come up with some way to deal with it.
Unless he solved this mystery, his life with Akane would be far from peaceful.
His foe was likely not a person with any physical substance. But even if it were some unfathomable opponent, beyond all imagining, running away didn’t cut it.
Takanori made up his mind. He may have led an easygoing life, but the time had come to test his mettle as a man.
7
All of the spaces in the small bicycle parking lot were occupied.
If Takanori moved about three of the bikes to the side, perhaps he could make enough room for his, but that was a bit of a hassle. He also felt reluctant to touch other people’s bicycles, so he parked his on the sidewalk and entered the branch ward office. He was just getting a marriage registration form and family register, so he should only be a few minutes.
He’d never come to the branch ward office before, not even to get a copy of his resident card, and had been a stranger to the place until now.
After entering, he looked around. A female receptionist who was sitting on a round stool stood up right away and greeted him.
“How may I help you?”
“Hi, I’d like to get a marriage registration form.”
The woman smiled pleasantly and pointed to the leftmost counter.
“You can get one at the counter over there.”
When he went there as directed and applied, they gave him three things—a sheet of instructions, two marriage registration forms, and a relatively large-sized envelope.
He thought he might need his family register as well, so he asked the woman who had greeted him earlier.
“I need my family register for the marriage registration, don’t I?”
“Well…it was such a long time ago that I don’t remember,” she said.
“Huh?”
At a loss for words, Takanori looked at the woman’s face closely. She seemed to be in her sixties or so and gave the impression that she must have been quite a beautiful woman in her youth.
“Oh, I’m sorry. It was such a corny joke.” The woman gave him a big smile and continued, “For family registers, please fill out a pink form and submit it at the counter.”
Takanori burst out laughing at her response, which had caught him off guard. Yet he didn’t feel annoyed. In fact, she’d put him in a cheerful mood, and he wanted to thank her for it.
“Thank you.”
Walking away, he wrote his address and name on the pink form and submitted it at the designated counter, and almost immediately his name was called. The woman there held out his family register and an envelope but tilted her head for some reason. He wondered whether that was simply her habit or if something was wrong, but still in the dark, he paid the fee and received his family register.
All done, he thought. He put his knapsack on his back with all the necessary documents and was about to head for the bicycle parking lot.
“Best wishes,” a voice came from somewhere, and when he looked around, it was the female receptionist waving at him with a smile.
“Thanks.”
He raised his hand slightly in acknowledgment, and exiting through the automatic door, found himself in front of the cafeteria.
He’d intended to stop off at home and then drop by Studio Oz, but now he had second thoughts, preferring to have an early lunch before leaving. Slipping his arms out of the straps of his knapsack, he entered the cafeteria.
Thinking he’d kill time reading a book until the pasta lunch he’d ordered arrived, Takanori opened his knapsack and reached for a paperback titled Beyond the Darkness.
It was a nonfiction report on the details of the Kashiwada case. The author, Tsuyoshi Kihara, was a well-known nonfiction author held in high regard in the industry for his impartial research, persistence and patience in approaching his subjects, and refusal to be influenced by trends in forming his views.
It was a compilation of weekly magazine articles that originally appeared five or six years ago, and at the time Kashiwada’s death sentence hadn’t been declared yet. There were other works on the Kashiwada case as well, but none surpassed this book in terms of both quantity and quality.
Learning everything about the case could provide the breakthrough he needed to solve the puzzle thrust in front of Takanori…It was a time-honored method that he’d chosen to follow.
As he took out the book, his eyes fell on his family register, which he’d just obtained. Simply curious, never even having looked at his own before, he picked it up instead of the paperback.
There were two sheets bearing a flower print at the bottom left, the first one having to do almost entirely with his father and mother. His father’s birthday and his grandparents’ names were written on it, as was his mother’s birthday and the names of her parents.
Flipping to the second page, Takanori saw his own name.
Person recorded in family register: Takanori
Date of birth: February 17, 1986
Father: Mitsuo Ando
Mother: Ryoko Ando
Relationship: Eldest son
He failed to comprehend the content recorded below at first glance. Thus, initially, he was able to remain calm.
Person’s registry / Past status
Deletion date: July 22, 1991
Deleted item: Death
Reason for deletion: Court judgment permitting correction of family register due to mistakenly recorded death
Court judgment date: July 2, 1991
Filing date: July 22, 1991
PAST RECORD
Date of death: June 18, 1989
Time of death: 10 p.m.
Place of death: Toi-cho, Shizuoka Prefecture
Date of notification: October 11, 1989
Filed by: Mitsuo Ando
Date of removal: October 16, 1989
As Takanori read it again and again, the significance of what was entered in the record gradually dawned on him. He was compelled to admit that there was but one possible interpretation.
He had died in June of 1989 somewhere in Toi-cho, Shizuoka Prefecture, and four months later, a notice of death had been submitted by his father. On October 16th of that year, his name had been stricken from the register. That was his “Past Record.”
However, two years later, in July, it became clear that he’d been mistakenly declared dead. Still, it was no easy thing to undo an entry in the register, and a court had decided whether a correction was permissible. On July 2, 1991, his father’s claim was accepted and the correction was permitted, and then, on July 22nd of that year, his past record was deleted.
In other words, according to the register, Takanori would have been dead from June 1989 until June 1991, a full two years.
Looking up from the register, Takanori turned his face toward the ceiling. He inhaled and exhaled deeply and shut his eyes tight.
Only his sight was cut off; all his other senses were alive. His ears could still hear, and his nose could still smell. If he dug his fingernail into his neck, he would feel pain.
Well, seems like I’m still alive.
Opening his eyes again, Takanori confirmed that the world was still there.
“
I think, therefore I am.”
The French philosopher Descartes had said that. What should someone who’d found an entry in his family register about his own death say about life and death? The mere presence of a subject contemplating its own death didn’t guarantee that it was alive.
It felt as if the world before him was becoming warped. A waitress had brought his pasta and salad set, but he hadn’t noticed.
His formerly robust appetite had disappeared completely. Now his stomach was hinting that he was about to become violently upset.
If there’s any way to accept that I was dead for two years between the ages of three and five, I’d love for someone to tell me.
The places to which the navigation system had led them had some significance—it couldn’t have been a malfunction. This time, as before, it would be easy to chalk it up as a mistaken entry in his family register. The series of events, however, were refuting such a facile and convenient explanation.
He couldn’t help thinking that he really had been dead for two years.
The last tarot card I picked at Yoneda’s urging was “Death,” which meant “Rebirth from death,” didn’t it? Was it really just a coincidence that I picked “Death”?
When signs match, it often means that phenomena that appear unrelated at first sight are connected underneath.
He’d wondered for a long time why his parents treated him like a fragile object. He understood now. If he really did die once and come back to them, of course they’d be thankful just to have him.
Though he’d made up his mind only the day before not to flee from his enemy, no matter who it was, his resolve now seemed to be crumbling. It felt like the strength was slipping away from his toes as though he’d stepped through the floor and his body was falling away.
What Takanori needed was to feel and know that he was alive.
Please. Somebody hold me up, anybody.
He twisted his body and looked for the female receptionist on the other side of the smoked glass. He wanted her to reassure him about the family register in his hands, to smile and say: