Zaregoto

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 0

Aoii-san, Emoto-san specifically asked her to pass you the

phone, from which one could deduce that she had something

to say to you.”

“She began to say something, but she didn’t. She just said

‘never mind,’ and hung up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“And it was definitely Emoto-san on the phone?”

“Yes. I never mistake voices of people I know.”

She exchanged glances with Kazuhito-san behind her. It

looked like they were done questioning and about to be on

their way, but I couldn’t just sit idly by in silence.

“Umm, Sasaki-san, may I ask a question?”

“Huh?”

Her poker face broke down once again, naturally. Having

had a younger boy suddenly address her by her first name, it

would’ve been stranger if she hadn’t been surprised.

“Something’s been bothering me.”

“Uh-huh . . .” She exchanged another glance with Kazuhito-san.

He responded with nothing more than the slight

drop of his jaw. Apparently a sign of consent; Sasaki-san

turned back toward me. “Okay.”

This consent was most likely not spurred by sympathy for a

boy whose classmate had just been murdered, but by the

mean-spirited notion that they could use my question to see

into me. Not that I cared.

“Um . . . by any chance, was Aoii-san the one who discovered

the body?”

“That’s correct,” she answered coolly, providing no further

explanation. It seemed they had no intention of telling me

anything more than necessary to answer my questions. Of

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 1

course, they probably wouldn’t answer all of my questions

either.

So I was right, after all. She had gone to drop off Tomochan’s

birthday present, but there had been no answer. She

tried calling, but nobody picked up. The door to the building

had an autolock, but surely that was easy enough to get

around. All she had to do was follow one of the residents

inside. In that sense, it hardly even passed as a lock.

Hmm . . .

Mikoko-chan.

How must she have felt at that time? She was always so

full of emotion. What could she have possibly felt at a time

like that?

“Maybe I should’ve gone with her. . . .”

But then again, how could I have known? Besides, I wasn’t

sure I would’ve been much help even if I had gone along. I

wasn’t worth that much. I might have ended up just making

her angry.

“Is that your only question?”

“No, I’ve got a few more. What was the time of death?”

“We’ve determined that it was sometime between eleven

p.m. on the fourteenth and three a.m. on the fifteenth.”

“In that case . . .” Mikoko-chan and I had left her apartment

at midnight, which meant that the crime must have

occurred between midnight and three a.m. “Er, and you say

she was strangled, correct? There wasn’t a knife involved or

anything?”

“That’s what I said.” She narrowed her eyes at my mentioning

of the word knife. Of course I didn’t tell her, not even

with my eyes, that I knew a certain knife-wielding killer.

“Was it a rope?”

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“It was a thin piece of cloth. She most likely died instantly

from vascular compression. I doubt she suffered much.”

This was most human thing Sasaki-san had said so far. But

to me, whether Tomo-chan suffered or not was relatively

trivial. Either way, she was dead.

I knew what it was to die. It isn’t death that people fear:

It’s nothingness. Pain is nothing more than a peripheral addon,

despair nothing more than decoration.

“Um, have you already gone to see everyone else?”

“Everyone eke?” Sasaki-san replied, even though she knew

damn well what I meant.

“Everyone who was gathered at Emoto-san’s place last

night. Usami-kun, Atemiya-san, and Aoii-san.”

I asked this without any particular expectation. I figured

she probably wouldn’t even answer. But to my surprise, she

answered immediately.

“Yes, we have,” she said. “We’ve finished questioning all of

them. Your address was a little hard to find, so we ended up

coming here last.”

“What was everyone doing during that window of time

when Emoto-san was killed?”

One more step. I cautiously took another step forward.

Sasaki-san’s lips curled up into a vague smirk. “Usami-san

and Atemiya-san say they spent the night singing karaoke in

Shijôkawara-machi. As for Aoii-san, well, it probably goes

without saying.”

It did. Mikoko-chan was staying with Miiko-san in the

room next door. I felt a little relieved. If you could believe

Sasaki-san’s claim, that meant that the top three suspects all

had alibis. Akiharu-kun and Muimi-chan could only account

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 0 3

for each other, so their alibi wasn’t exactly watertight, but it

was enough to loosen any suspicions toward them.

I felt the pressure of Kazuhito-san’s gaze grow even

stronger.

“Tch . . .”

How unseemly.

Much too late, I broke eye contact with the two of them.

Dammit. They had set me up to feel at ease. They had

caused me to let my guard down. I had been careless. These

two detectives aside, you were never supposed to let your

guard down around a police officer.

Shit . . . what had they seen?

“Is that all, then?” Sasaki-san asked without a hint of

change in her tone.

“Oh, no. One more.”

If I had ever known failure, surely this was that time.

Kazuhito-san’s penetrating gaze was minute subtlety compared

to what I was about to face.

But it was a subtlety that had flustered me enough to ask a

question I didn’t even have to ask, a question that I shouldn’t

have asked.

“Who do you suppose did it?”

It was a question that had already been answered. And I

had gone and repeated it.

“That’s currently under investigation,” Sasaki-san answered

with a meaningful gaze—and the smile of a predator who had

just bagged its prey. She rose to her feet. “Pardon us for intruding

for so long. I think we’ll be back again later to talk

more,” she said, placing her calling card on the floor. “If you

remember anything else, please give us a call.”

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I took the card in my hand. It gave a number for the prefectural

police as well as her own cell phone number.

“Well, take care, Mr. Student,” Kazuhito-san said with a

smirk, and began to make his way out of my room.

Interesting . . . so he was the real faker. I had committed

such a fatal misstep that I didn’t even deserve to call myself a

passive bystander anymore. I had completely mixed up the

roles of the two detectives.

In other words, it was Kazuhito-san who was rushing me

along while Sasaki-san had been absorbing everything I said.

And what’s more, Sasaki-san had purposely let down her

guard and invited me to attack.

The gall. The utter audacity.

“Oh, by the way,” Sasaki-san said as if just remembering

something. “About your alibi. For the time being, it’s been

confirmed by your neighbor, Asano-san. She said you can hear

people walking down the hallway from inside the rooms.”

She flashed me a refined smile. This was essentially a

checkmate. No, this didn’t even make for a match.

She even had the nerve to throw in this little scrap of

compassion at the end there.

Well, son of a bitch.

I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t dealt with them for

a long time, but I had completely underestimated the Japanese

police. Did my arrogance know no bounds? Who the hell

did I think I was?

It was the first time I had felt such defeat since my run-in

with that redheaded private contractor.

I chewed my lower lip. “Kazuhito-san,” I said to him as he

was leaving.

“Hm?” He looked back.

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“If you were better-looking, you’d be a dead ringer for

Matsuda Yûsaku.”

“Guess that means I’m not a dead ringer for Matsuda

Yûsaku.”

It was a bull’s-eye answer. My last hopeless jab at him had

been a big whiff, and with that, the two detectives were on

their way. I cleared away the cups and plopped myself onto

the floor.

It had been a decisive defeat. I hadn’t felt this sensation in

a month, and I hadn’t felt it this strongly in a whole year. But

in this case I could just abandon the emotion. When you

thought about the fact that someone had just died, it was all

too trivial.

“Tomo-chan . . .”

I tried whispering the name aloud. The first thing to come

to mind was our conversation from the previous night.

“Have you ever felt like, as a human, you’re damaged

goods?”

Now, now, Tomo-chan, that’s not the sort of thing one admits

out loud, isn’t it?

It’s better to not know things; it helps us go on living. As

long as we’re not too aware of ourselves, we can live in happiness.

You might compare us to an airplane that’s lost its

engine and wings. We’re nothing but insignificant nobodies

who can only soar like crows who can’t call out. Once you

start questioning things, it’s all over.

It’s not about denial. It’s about ignorance.

“You can get killed asking questions like that.” As someone

with experience, it wasn’t my job to just dish out empty

words of condolence. “If you put your mind to it, it’s only

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natural . . . whether you’re a person like us or not . . . Or rather,

if you don’t put your mind to anything, that is.”

Having realized these things myself long ago, I was now a

person living without purpose, just as Tomo-chan had been

living a life without meaning.

I closed my eyes.

And I opened them.

“Well, so much for mind over matter.”

I swiftly rose to my feet.

Now then.

What to do now? There was nothing I was supposed to do,

but plenty of things I wanted to. For me, this was a fairly rare

condition.

First, I took out my cell phone. I checked the call history,

then began to dial Mikoko-chan’s number. But halfway

through, I stopped myself.

“Seriously, who the hell do I think I am?”

This was utter and complete nonsense. If I did call Mikokochan,

what did I possibly have to say to her?

So I put off calling her. At that moment, I just didn’t have

the right words to say to her.

“In that case . . .”

First things first. I cleared my phone and began reentering a

phone number. It was the one and only phone number I knew

by heart. With the phone at my ear, I tried to remember how

long it had been since we’d talked.

She picked up immediately.

“Ohhh! Ii-chan! A long time indeed, old friend! Do you

still love me?”

Her hyperness dwarfed Mikoko-chan’s by a factor of about

twelve; unlike Mikoko-chan, once you removed her stopper,

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the gushing would never end. If you let her alone, she would

shoot all the way up to Heaven like the Tower of Babel.

“What oh what oh what oh what is wrong? You never call

me! This moment is monumental! It’s the Himeji Castle! It

must be a diversionary tactic! Hyaooo! I wanna take a photograph

to record it, but a photograph can’t capture sound so

there’d be no point! Therefore, commence audio recording!”

“You don’t have to bother with the audio recording.”

I made an effort to keep my cool.

Muimi-chan had asked me if it was tough keeping up with

Mikoko-chan’s hyperness, but as I had told her, compared

with Kunagisa, Mikoko-chan was pretty much a piece of cake.

If Mikoko-chan was happy-go-lucky, then Kunagisa Tomo

was happy-go-crazy.

“Tomo, are you free much these days?”

“Nope! More on the busy side. Extremely occupado. My

processing power is facing an imminent meltdown! Emergency

memory expansion! Defrag imperative! I’m going to freeze!

Oh my God, it’s happening! It’s happening! Present progressive

form! Please reboot!”

“Is it this Kyoto prowling serial killer case?”

“Bingo! Wowww! You’re like Maki-chan! Or the red contractor!

Kyahahahahaha! Return of the ESP! And forever!

Mankind’s strongest! This is the end!”

“Sorry, Tomo, could you dial it down a notch?”

“Huh? What’s wrong? Well, whatever. Yep, it’s the Kyoto

prowling serial killer case! But you know what? It’s not going

the way I expected! This darn case! Hurdles! Serious hurdles!

Surely the killer is the reincarnation of Dread Jones! Wahaha!”

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“Let’s make a deal, Kunagisa Tomo,” I said. “I’ll give you

some information on this Kyoto prowler case. You’ll give me

information on a certain murder that’s come up.”

“Huh?”

She thought for a moment. I knew she wouldn’t ask me

why I had information on the prowler case or why there was a

murder case I was interested in. I believed in her, and she

trusted me.

Unnecessary explanations.

Excess clarifications.

Wasted words.

Inane questions.

Distracting chatter.

The very best thing about Kunagisa was that she had no

use for any of these things.

“Ehh, I don’t like this word deal, Ii-chan.”

“How’s bargain?”

“Awful.”

“Pact?”

“Almost there.”

“Conspiracy?”

“Not technically wrong, but something’s off.”

“Well, then what about a mutual complementing of each

other’s attributes?”

“Yeah, that’ll do,” she said happily.

Give or take.

At this point, I still hadn’t decided which.

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After finishing my call with Kunagisa, I went to visit Miikosan

next door. I knocked on her door.

“Yo,” came her response. Several seconds later, the door

opened. As usual, she was dressed in a jinbei. It seemed to me

that if she was going to take such an avid interest in Japanese

clothing, she ought to get herself a nice, pretty kimono. It definitely

would’ve looked good on her.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, I just wanted to thank you. They said you vouched

for my alibi.”

“I didn’t do anything remarkable. I just told the truth.”

“Yeah, but I created an unnecessary burden for you.”

“I don’t care. Happens all the time . . . but you’ve certainly

dealt with your own fair share of nuisances, haven’t you?” She

sounded more amazed than concerned. “You’re like the man

of a thousand disasters. So what about that girl? Based on

what the authorities were saying, it sounds like she was involved

as well.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking . . .”

“Gotcha,” she nodded. “Well, then, how do you intend on

thanking me?”

“I’ll treat you to tea.”

This was literally an invitation to go have real tea at a teahouse,

not just a regular coffee shop. It was sort of a Kyoto

thing, or maybe just a Miiko-san thing.

“Does that come with dango?” Dango—those tasty rice

flour dumplings—went really well with green tea.

“It even comes with hiyashi shiruko.” Yes, and sweet red

bean soup, too!

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“Where at?”

“The Oharame-ya in Gion.”

Miiko-san’s eyes immediately lit up. “Hold on, I’ll get

ready.”

She shut the door. For what it was worth, she was considerate

enough to change into normal clothes if she was going

out with somebody else. That level of thoughtfulness made

her a pretty rare specimen in my circle of acquaintances.

“And I’m back.” A minute later she was ready to leave. She

handed me a car key. I flipped it over once in the palm of my

hand before clutching it tight.

And so eight o’clock in the evening rolled around. Tea with

Miiko-san had ended and I found myself walking between

Shijô and Oike on Kawara-machi Street. Miiko-san had already

driven her Fiat back to her apartment.

“Don’t use me just to kill time and save on shoe leather.”

Those were the words she had left me with.

She could see right through me, all right. Miiko-san was

sharp, all right. But you had to hand it to her for accepting my

invitation anyway. She was a nice girl. Or maybe she just had

a sweet tooth.

I came to a stop and entered a nearby karaoke spot.

“Welcome,” the guy behind the counter said. “Party of

one?”

“Umm, I have a friend who should already be here.”

“May I have your friend’s name, please?”

“Zerozaki Hitoshiki.”

“Ah, Zerozaki-sama?”

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He briefly entered something into his computer. “Okay,

that would be room twenty-four,” he said, flashing me a

customer-servicey smile. I said my thanks and made my way

to the elevator. Room twenty-four was on the second floor. I

got off there and walked down the hall, checking the number

of each room.

“Dadadadadada dadadadadadadada! Dadadada! Dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada!

Ah! Aaaahhhh!”

Just as I was wondering who was the bozo with the rusty

pipes, I realized it was coming from room twenty-four. I gave

a little shrug and opened the door without even knocking.

“Wha?”

Zerozaki stopped his belting once he noticed me.

“Yo, Damaged Goods,” he said, waving a finger at me. I entered

the room without reacting and took a seat on the sofa.

“Hey, Human Failure,” I said.

He placed down the microphone and used the remote

control to end the song.

“You can keep singing if you want. You’re paying for this,

right?”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m not really all that into singing, to be

honest. And I sure as hell don’t like imitating other singers. I

just do it to kill time.”

He sat down so that he was facing me and sighed deeply.

“Haven’t seen ya for a day. But, like, it don’t really feel that

way.”

“Eh, I guess not.” I nodded.

To be honest, I was surprised. Until a moment ago, I didn’t

even think Zerozaki would be here. Sure, after our conversation

the day before yesterday—I mean, yesterday morning—

we’d arranged to meet again. “I’ll be at the karaoke joint, so

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let’s meet up there,” he had said. But I didn’t think he would

actually show up. I guess he probably thought the same thing.

And that was no doubt the reason that I had come and the

reason he was here waiting.

The meaning of the phrase used to waiting: Here too lay a

justified contradiction.

From there, we began talking about a variety of things,

none of which mattered in the least. It was just like the night

we had first crossed paths. Ridiculous philosophy, boring facts

of enlightenment, irrelevant views on life. At times we veered

off-track a bit and got into discussions on music (“Guess the

one-hit wonder”) or literature (“What’s the trick to truly moving

your reader?”). None of it had any real point. It was as if

we were both just trying to check something.

“Say, Zerozaki,” I said somewhere around the four-hour

mark. “What’s it feel like to kill someone?”

“Huh?” he said, tilting his head at me. His face looked

blank, as if he hadn’t been thinking of anything in particular.

“It’s not really the kind of thing that makes you feel this way

or that. I don’t really feel much of anything.”

“You don’t? It doesn’t feel good or refreshing or anything

like that?”

“Listen, dumbass, what do you think I am, some kind of

sicko?” he said with a heaping helping of condescension.

Committing grisly murders sure seemed like a funny way of

not being a sicko, but I decided to hear him out.

“ ’Cuz, you see, it’s like this. I mean, I am a murderer. But

I’m not what you would call a ‘lust murderer.’ That’s a tricky

distinction to make. I guess it doesn’t do any good for me to

make that kind of claim myself anyway. In the end, it’s the

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people around you who decide who you are. All I can do is go

along with it. I’m not really one for deep thoughts, you know.”

“Huh . . . yeah, I guess not. Okay, then how about I change

my question—what is murder to you?”

“Nothin’.”

I could find two meanings buried in that word.

It was worth nothing.

And therefore, it cost nothing.

“Now here’s a question for you, D.G. What is death to

you?”

“When you flat-out ask me like that, I’m at a loss. If I had

to answer, I guess I’d say it’s kind of like a battery running out

of juice.”

“A battery? You mean like with the AA and stuff?”

“Yeah. Well, something like that. I guess you could say

battery power is like a life force or something. Which I guess

would make you and your body the insulator.”

“I’ve been called worse,” he said with a little laugh. He

seemed to be truly enjoying himself. I wondered if I sounded

like him when I laughed.

“I guess my question was ambiguous,” I said. “How about

this, then? Do you understand why other people commit

murder?”

“Huh? That’s a bizarre one. But very you somehow. Let’s

see . . . nope.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

“Well, first of all, I don’t understand other people, period.

Whether or not they’re killers, and regardless of how evil they

may or may not be. Second of all, I don’t even understand

myself. I have no freaking idea what causes all that chaos and

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confusion swirling around in my guts. So all I can say is no, I

don’t understand people who kill others.”

“I see your logic there.”

“I might add that murder was never particularly what I was

going for,” he said as if it really was just an afterthought.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, this is going to get awfully conceptual, but in other

words . . . well, here’s an example.” He picked up the receiver

for the room phone. “Excuse me, could we get two ramens

please?”

Not much later, a staff member came in carrying ramen.

“Eat up. I’m payin’,” he said, and took some noodles with

his chopsticks. “Now this is a meal.”

“Yup. You didn’t even have to tell me.”

“They say food, sleep, and sex are the three basic desires of

mankind. But why are we eating this meal right now?”

“To ingest vitamins.”

“Yes. Without vitamins, people die. And thus eating food

brings pleasure. Sleeping feels good, too, and sex, well, that’s

obvious. Anything that you have to do to stay alive always

comes with pleasure.”

“Sure. That’s easy enough to understand. So?”

“Don’t rush me. 'So? So? So?’ You sound like Akutagawa

Ryu-freaking-nosuke.”

“Huh? Wasn’t that Dazai’s thing?”

“It was Akutagawa, dammit. Dazai wrote about it in an

anecdote on Akutagawa.”

Whichever literary figure it was, I decided to once again do

as told and hear him out. He paused for a moment before

speaking, as if to build up the suspense.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 115

“Now let’s imagine someone who’s obsessed with eating. In

other words, someone who eats not simply to take in vitamins,

but because he’s mad for the sensation of eating itself; for the

beauty in the very act. The stimulation of his taste buds. The

pleasure of feeling the food pass through his mouth. The joy

of mastication. The ecstasy of feeling that mushed-up gook

flowing down his throat. The feeling of fullness nearly destroying

his satiety center altogether. The euphoria taking over

his brain. In other words, I’m talking about a fat guy,” he said,

laughing. ‘To a guy like that, vitamins or lack thereof are totally

irrelevant. The means and the end have switched places

for him, so that his main goal is something subsidiary. Now

there’s your problem. Can you still say this guy is eating? No,

don’t answer. You and I both know the only possible answer is

no. What this guy is doing isn’t eating. He’s just eating the

concept of eating.”

“And you’re just killing the concept of killing? That’s a bit

of a stretch,” I said with a shrug. “It’s pretty perverse to try to

equate a natural appetite for food with the urge to kill. Are

you sure you don’t just have your priorities mixed up? Maybe

you’re mistaking killing for something else.”

“Ehh, that’s a tough one. It’s hard to say. I’ll say it again,

man—the act of killing itself was never my intention, nor was

the stuff that comes afterward. Y’know, the dismemberment.”

Then what the hell is your intention? Man, you’re a tough

guy to understand.”

“Not as much as you. I mean, I know that I’m hard to understand.

I just said that. Anyway, in the beginning, I thought

I was in it for the thrill.”

“The thrill,” I said.

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“Yeah. You’ve heard of ‘high risk, high return’ before,

right? In Japanese, I think we say, ‘If you don’t go into the

tiger’s den, you don’t get no cub.’ With murder, the risk is

high, but the return is low, right? It hardly seems worth it. It’s

stupid. That’s why most murders are almost always cases of

people ‘going too far’ or ‘using too much force.’ They’re not

trying to kill the person, but before they know it, they’ve gone

and done it. However . . .”

He pulled a rather dangerous-looking blade from his vest

pocket. “This here is what they call a dagger. You grip it in

your fist like this. So the first person I killed, I stuck this thing

in his carotid artery and just tugged it to the side. This was an

inexplicable act of murder. I had no particular intention of

causing the person suffering or pain. In fact, it was a rather

pleasant way to die, if you ask me. Now let me just say right

now that by no means was this a boastful act. I’m sure you

know this, but acts spurred by one’s pride are the most pathetic

actions a person can take. People who take pride in

causing harm are the lowest of the low. I’m just boasting

about my faults here. Seriously, all joking aside, that’s the only

kind of murder I can perform. Even when I went after you, on

the other side of the mirror.”

“Huh. You don’t say.”

“I do say. Like, let’s imagine that you and I ended up fighting

to the death again. Of course, logically speaking, it’s entirely

possible that you would kill me. But in the one time that

you could kill me, I could kill you nine thousand, nine hundred

ninety-nine times. Well, in reality you and I each only

have one life, but this is a metaphor. At any rate, I can only

kill for the sake of killing. In other words, I can affirm that the

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eight people I’ve killed up until now were not victims of me

‘going too far.’ ”

Eight people. In two days, the body count had risen by

two. Well, I guess you could say that Zerozaki had gone about

living his life while I had been living mine.

“So am I an idiot? Maybe. After all, it’s not like I’m getting

anything out of killing these people. Well no, I guess I am

getting something. Whatever’s in their wallets,” he said.

One of the alarming details of the prowler case had been

that the victims’ money and valuables had been stolen. This

was a rare thing in cases like this, in which the murders

seemed to have been committed for the thrill of it, but the

reason was simply that Zerozaki needed the money to support

his homeless lifestyle.

Even his karaoke money was probably coming out of one

of those victims’ wallets. If you looked at it that way, even this

ramen was tainted with sin, I thought as I slurped my noodles.

“But you could get that stuff just by working a normal job,

so it’s no reason to commit murder. If you think about the

effort that goes into killing one person, it makes a lot more

sense to just spend the day working somewhere instead. And

yet I choose murder. And therein lies my whole theory.”

“Ah, I get it. In other words, to Zerozaki Hitoshiki, the risk

is the return.”

“Yup. The means and the end aren’t just swapped, but unified.

The act itself is the purpose. The purpose is the act. The

act is complete when you’ve carried out that purpose. This is

actually not a bad theory at all.”

“But how is that any different from just losing sight of your

purpose? It’s like having a guy who loves to read, so he fills his

room with books until it’s completely buried in them. But he

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 118

still keeps buying new ones. Whether he buys books or not is

up to him, but he’s got so many books in his room now that

even if he spent his whole life reading them, he’d never get

through them all. But he just keeps on buying and buying.”

“Hmm. Ahhh, ah-ah-ah, I get it I get it. You’re talking

about processing capacity. Once you’ve surpassed your processing

capacity, means and end become one and the same.

It’s like Ishikawa Goemon said: ‘A splendid view, a splendid

view, even a thousand pieces of gold is too little to pay for the

beautiful sights of spring. I, Goemon, am worth ten thousand

ryô.’ Hmm. Yeah, maybe so,” he said with an impressed sigh

as he reclined into the sofa. “But you know, my man, even if

that is the case, it doesn’t have much to do with me. You

know why? Because that theory I’ve been talking about is so

totally wrong to begin with. Risk equals return? Now there’s a

bullshit equation if I’ve ever heard one. I’m just having fun

with logic here.”

“Huh. So what are you getting at?”

“Well, this story is a little generic,” he said, leaning forward.

“But let’s go back to when I was just a little brat. You

were a little brat once too, huh? Well so was I. What kind of

brat was I? Well, I wasn’t particularly weird or anything. I

even believed in God. If I got smacked, it hurt. If I saw someone

else get smacked, it hurt. I had all your average sensibilities.

I wanted to bring happiness to the people near me. I

knew gratitude. I knew unconditional affection for another

human being. That’s the kind of little brat I was. . . . But

sometimes, I would just sit. Not to read a book or watch TV

or something. I would just sit. I’d be there resting my chin in

my hands, my mind up in la-la land, just sitting there. Sooner

or later I realized that during these times, I would always

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naturally start pondering how one kills a human being. The

first time I realized what I was doing, I was seriously freaked

out. I mean, I was pondering, examining how you kill a person

as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The idea that

this was really me was the scariest thing,” he said.

“So it was something you discovered in yourself. But what

part of this story is supposed to be generic? It seems pretty out

there to me. You’re saying that from birth, you’ve had an

innate proclivity to murder?”

“I said don’t rush me. I thought that once myself, but that’s

not the case at all. I thought I was born with a murderous

mindset, with the urge to kill. But that’s not it. It’s that—and

this is where it gets generic—I’m attached to a rail.”

“A rail? What are you talking about?”

“It’s a metaphor. You hear it a lot. People talk about life on

a track, right? You go through middle school, you go through

high school, you go through college, you enter society, you

support yourself with a salary so that you can bag a lover, and

then you depart from the world. That’s the track of life. Well,

similarly to that, I’m on the murderer’s track.”

“Sounds more like you’re off the track to me.”

“Like you’re one to talk. Anyway, that’s not important.

The kind of track I’m talking about here isn’t necessarily the

one set up by society. It might be a track you’ve set for yourself.

Like, imagine there’s a kid who becomes obsessed with

Ichiro in elementary school and decides he wants to be a baseball

player. In that moment, he makes a track for himself.”

“I see. So that means we’re all on a track . . . except for

people who ‘drop out,’ I suppose.”

Except for people who have suffered a fatal blow.

Except for people who go off the rails.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 0

“Yup. I don’t know who laid down this track for me. I

might have done it myself. Someone else might have. But one

thing I know for sure is that I’ve taken the track too far. I’ve

made it too far down without suffering that fatal blow, and

now there’s no stopping me. I can’t even entertain the idea of

putting on the brakes.”

“Aha. So it just keeps going on and on.”

In other words, right now, he was in motion. And the him

in midmotion was entirely different from the him who had

first started running along this track.

“Yup. It’s like a curse from the past. And in my case, it’s

slowly killing me. It may sound boring living life on a track

someone else has laid out, but you know, it doesn’t make any

difference who laid it out if it if you get sick of it midway

through. Not that I could just quit at this point. Too many

strings attached now.”

“Must be even tougher not having anyone to blame.”

“That’s right. Especially for an outcast like me.”

“Might as well give it up. You may not break away from

the track, but you sure do break away from the rules.”

“Oh? Well you’re no Mother Teresa yourself, you know.”

“But I am a serious student at a university. I’m not like

you.”

“Doesn’t saying that depress you? It’s like looking into the

mirror and saying, ‘Who the hell are you?’ ”

“Exactly,” I said nodding.

“Anyway, it’s for that reason that I don’t view myself as a

murderer. Because killing isn’t my goal. You’ve heard of people

who ‘kill like it’s as simple as breathing,’ right? Well, for

me, if I don’t kill, it becomes hard to breathe. I’m just paying

the train fare for this track I got on long ago. Or it’s like I’m

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 1

perpetually repaying a loan. You could say I’m killing the act

of killing.”

“This is all becoming a little too idealistic and abstract for

me. Can’t you put it more realistically?”

“Not really. I mean, we’re talking about a vague concept

here. If you put it in realistic terms, the conversation would be

over with ‘I killed and dismembered someone times eight.’ ”

“That’s true . . .” I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

Talking with Zerozaki was interesting enough, and I had even

learned a thing or two, I suppose, but it wasn’t exactly useful

information. “Hmm. And here I thought a killer like you

would be the one most capable of understanding the heart of a

killer.”

Maybe I’d been wrong to assume that. After all, Zerozaki’s

MO and Tomo-chan’s cause of death were completely

different. I didn’t believe for a second that Sasaki-san had

given me the whole scoop, but she had at least told me that

Tomo-chan had been strangled with a thin piece of cloth.

Meanwhile, Zerozaki was cutting people up with a knife. The

similarities began and ended with the fact that both killers had

brought death to their victims.

Zerozaki killed people at random.

Tomo-chan’s killer had sought her out. It was most likely

the result of a grudge. Something spurred by a sticky, slimy,

disgusting personal relationship that had eroded away.

“Hah? Why do you say that?” he said.

“Well, it’s just that a classmate from my university was

murdered recently.”

“Murdered? Your classmate?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 2

“That’s what I said. Yeah, at first, I wondered if you had

done it, but it doesn’t match your style at all. They strangled

her with a piece of cloth.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s not my thing,” he said, waving his hands

with a grimace.

“So I thought. But I just figured one monster would understand

another.”

“You’re mistaken. And it’s such a you mistake. Monsters

don’t kill people; people do. And just as people don’t understand

monsters’ feelings, monsters don’t understand people’s.

It’s like comparing a platypus to the archaeopteryx.”

I didn’t know who was supposed to be the platypus and

who the archaeopteryx, but he was probably right. Guys like

Zerozaki were peculiar and dysfunctional, and that was why

they were so rare.

“So, what happened, then?” he said, sounding not particularly

interested. Figuring there was no need to keep it a secret,

I proceeded to tell him everything I had heard from Sasakisan.

I told him about Mikoko-chan, Tomo-chan, Muimi-chan,

and Akiharu-kun and about the birthday party. He occasionally

dropped in a brief remark or shook his head as he tried to

follow along with the story’s twists and turns, and just once,

he even flashed a look of concern.

“Hmm,” he said when I was finished. “I see. I see I see I

see. So that’s how it went down. So?”

“What do you mean so?”

“So means so.” He stared me directly in the eye. I didn’t

answer him. This silence continued for a whole hour.

“Okay, I got it,” he eventually said, standing to his feet.

“Let’s go.”

“Huh? Where?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 3

“To Emoto’s place,” he said like with all the casualness of a

good friend inviting someone over to hang out. With that, he

made his exit. This was all going just as I had expected, I

thought. I rose from the sofa and followed him out, leaving

our half-eaten ramen behind.

“But about that Aoii chick,” Zerozaki said apathetically as

we walked westward down Shijô Street. “Seems pretty obvious

that she’s got the hots for you.”

“What?” I couldn’t help but be surprised by this sudden

leap in our discussion.

It was already past midnight, meaning it was now Monday,

the sixteenth. Even on Shijô Street, which was a major eastwest

road, traffic had grown sparse. Occasionally we passed a

group of college students probably coming home after a night

of drinking, but the sidewalks were otherwise mostly empty.

I realized that the next day I had to go to school. And from

first period, no less. What’s more, it was my foreign language

class, where they always took attendance. And it looked to me

like this was going to be another all-nighter.

“Eh, what were we talking about again?”

“That Aoii chick,” he said irritably, knitting his brow at me.

“Hearing what you have to say about her, she’s got to have a

thing for you.”

“No way. What could’ve possibly given you a dumb idea

like that? That doesn’t even sound like something you would

say. I mean, she’s already got a boyfriend anyway.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 4

“Oh wait, that’s right.” Come to think of it, she may or

may not have told me that. “But still. I don’t think that’s the

case. I mean she does seem to be fond of me, but it’s like how

people are fond of animals. And even then, she probably sees

me as an iguana or something in the reptile family. You know,

like ‘Aw, that’s . . . kind of cute.’ ”

“An iguana? If you’re an iguana, then that makes me a chameleon,”

he said, and proceeded to laugh. “For example,” he

then said, immediately switching back to his serious tone.

“She knew your address, right? That’s extremely suspicious

right there. Who bothers looking up the address of someone

they don’t even have a crush on?”

“She didn’t even have to. It was in the address log from

class.”

“Aha. You said it yourself, man. You were on vacation

when class started and you missed the first week of your . . .

general education, was it? Whatever that class was. Hence,

there was no way your address could’ve been recorded in that

log.”

“Oh.”

Now there was an oversight. I certainly didn’t remember

telling my address to anyone else, and that meant there was no

way the address of my ancient ruin of an apartment building

could’ve been on the sheet. There wasn’t a single person at

Rokumeikan who should’ve known where I lived.

“But Mikoko-chan claimed she got it off the address list.

Was it just a misunderstanding? But misunderstandings like

that don’t happen, do they? So maybe she lied to me.”

“Eh, not so much a lie as an excuse. She probably followed

you home one day.”

“If she’d been following me, I would’ve noticed.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 5

“Maybe. At any rate, she probably learned your address

through fairly illegitimate means. She couldn’t tell you the

truth, so she just blurted out that thing about the address log.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So let’s think about this. Have you ever met a girl who

would go that far just to learn the address of some random

guy? You might not put it past a guy, but we’re talking about

a girl here.” He flashed an unsavory smile.

I let out a sigh of a laugh. “Don’t act like you know what’s

going on.”

“What can I say, it’s who I am.”

“But I really think you’re wrong about this. I can say that

for certain.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. And what are you basing this certainty

on?”

“Well, she acts like she hates me.”

“Huh?” Zerozaki’s facial expression alone was enough to

make it clear that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Come on now, at least remember the stuff you said yourself.

You just said Aoii was fond of you, didn’t you? So what the

hell are you squawking about now?”

“Hang on, this isn’t a contradiction. I have sort of a dualistic

or Boolean view of the world. Shall I explain? In other

words . . . like, take the cars on this road. Let’s say there’s a car

going twenty-five miles per hour.”

“Yeah. You want me to tell you if that’s fast or slow?”

“Yeah. Which do you think?”

“It’s slow, isn’t it? At this time of night they could go faster

than that.”

“Okay, then let’s imagine the same car going at full speed. I

don’t know much about the limitations of automobiles, but

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 6

let’s just say it’s going one hundred miles per hour at full

throttle. Is that fast?”

“Fast works for me.”

“Finally, let’s imagine the car when it’s at rest. How about

this time?”

He gave a restless shrug. “It’s at rest. What the hell do you

think?”

“Just humor me.”

“Well, slow, I guess. You sure can’t call something that’s

not moving fast.”

“That’s right. Now let’s go back to the initial question—is

twenty-five miles per hour slow or fast? I would express it like

this: ‘It’s twenty-five fast and seventy-five slow.’ ”

“Ahh.” He gave a convinced nod. The cheek on the tattooed

side of his face curled up into a slight smirk. “So the

way you see it, what does Aoii think of you?”

“Well, to give an approximation, she likes me seventy and

hates me fifty. Approximately.”

“I guess that doesn’t add up to her liking you twenty.”

Indeed. The logic of arithmetical operations didn’t apply

when it came to human emotions. Besides, these numbers

were highly prone to fluctuate, making such calculations troublesome.

They could only be expressed as averaged values.

“Okay, so what about you, now?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“You. How much do you like and hate Aoii?”

“I like her zero and hate her zero.”

“Whoa . . .” He pulled back a bit in surprise. “My God,

man . . . you’re brutal.”

“You should talk.”

“Cram it, Captain Passive.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 7

I liked her zero and hated her zero. You might call it

apathy.

Sure, my words might have been a little exaggerated and

laced with apathy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t telling the

truth.

Because after all, I’m such a cold, dried-out person that I

can kill a person just by living. Indeed, I was as brutal as Zerozaki

made me out to be. I simply couldn’t take any type of

assertive action for the sake of a stranger.

“This is totally . . .”

“Totally.”

“A masterpiece,” Zerozaki said, laughing.

“Nonsense.” I didn’t laugh.

“Well, putting all that textbook mumbo-jumbo aside, don’t

you have the hots for anyone?”

“Huh. I don’t really know.”

“Even though they’re your emotions?”

“Because they’re my emotions.”

“Ah, I get it. Because you’re the passive spectator. You

understand other people better than you understand yourself.

I guess they say you can’t be your own observer. It’s like that

thing . . . what was it again? The uncertainty principle? Quantum

mechanics? Doppelgänger’s cat?”

“ ‘Doppelgänger’ can’t be right.”

“Ahh, who was it? It’s math, so it’s gotta be a German guy,

but . . .”

After that mildly racist remark, he sat and thought to himself

for a minute. But ultimately, he couldn’t seem to recall

whose cat it was. “Goddammit,” he said, slapping himself in

the left cheek. This seemed to relieve him.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 8

“Well then,” he said. “Here’s my conclusion: You’ve got a

fucking terrible attitude.”

“That’s probably correct. But. . .”

But.

What could I possibly have intended to follow that up

with? Might I have been considering saying somebody’s name?

Of course I was. But whose name that could’ve been, I don’t

know.

“It’s all just nonsense in the end.”

“Um, is that supposed to be, like, your escape line?” He

slumped his entire upper body dramatically as if my incredibly

delayed response had completely knocked the wind out of

him. Though not to the same extent as Mikoko-chan, it

seemed Zerozaki was also one for big reactions.

“Eh, then again, I guess I’m kind of like that too. Or rather,

I am like that,” he said.

We arrived at the Nishiôji-Shijô intersection. The Hankyû

Saiin Station was visible to the south. Of course, the final

train had long since made its stops, and the area surrounding

the station was desolate. We turned north. If we continued up

as far as Maruta-machi, we’d arrive at Tomo-chan’s apartment.

“Maybe we should’ve hailed a cab after all. We’re still only

halfway there.”

“It’s a waste of money. That is to say, I don’t have any

money. Or were you going to pay?”

“Nope. There isn’t a single student in Kyoto who rides in

cabs.”

“Huh. I’m not a student, so I wouldn’t know.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 2 9

Suddenly a doubt rose in my mind. I thought of Sasakisan’s

stern gaze for some reason as I asked Zerozaki my question.

“Are you on a most-wanted list or anything?”

“I don’t think so. Nobody’s ever tried to talk to me, and

nobody’s ever followed me. I’ve done my share of following

other people, though,” he boasted. It amazed me that someone

who stood out this much—I mean, he had a tattoo running

down half his face; maybe that kind of thing was normal

in Tokyo, but he was probably the only one of his kind in all

of Kyoto—hadn’t been arrested yet. But then again, if you

thought about it, whether he stood out or not probably didn’t

make much of a difference in a case like this.

“So we’re going to Emoto’s place from here, right? But . . .”

“What?”

“In reality, you can already pretty much deduce what happened,

right? I mean, who the killer is and stuff.”

“Deduce?” I parroted his word back at him. Could I really

figure out the answer based only what I knew at this point?

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I mean it when I say I don’t

really know what happened. I’m not some mystery novel or

movie . . .”

Detective.

The redheaded private contractor.

“Detective.”

“Well, of course not,” he said with surprising plainness.

“But I guess I also mean it when I say that I don’t think it’s

beyond figuring out. She was strangled to death. Inside a

room. The estimated time of death leaves a fairly narrow window.

The suspects all have alibis. We just need a few more

clues.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 0

And it just so happened that I currently had Kunagisa collecting

that very thing. And I myself was on my way to do the

same.

“Is it possible that it was just a random robbery?”

“Well, technically it’s possible, but the cops don’t seem to

think that’s the case.”

There was something very unordinary about both Sasakisan

and Kazuhito-san. It was hard to believe they were the

kind of people who would be sent out just to handle a simple

burglary-homicide case. Of course, that was just my hunch.

“Mmm.” Zerozaki's eyes drooped lazily. “But I don’t think

you really have to go out of your way to investigate things. Is

there some logical reason for doing this?”

“Not especially. Listen, nobody's making you come along.

Why don’t you go cut up some more people?”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’m not in the mood for that tonight.”

He took my suggestion more seriously than I had intended.

“Besides, I was the one who suggested we go in the first

place.”

Meanwhile, we’d arrived at Tomo-chan's apartment building.

Apparently the police had already checked out, leaving

the area as desolate as the train station. We made our way

through the automatic door and into the main lobby.

Now then.

“Ah, right. You need an autolock card key to get in.”

“What now?”

“Here’s what we do.” I walked a step ahead of Zerozaki

and entered a random room number into the intercom.

“Hello?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 1

“Um, this is the person from room three oh two. I’m so

sorry to bother you, but I went and locked my own card in the

room. Would you mind opening the door for me?”

“Oh, certainly.”

K-chunk, the glass door said as it opened up.

“Thank you,” I said to the complete stranger, and Zerozaki

and I quickly made our way into the building.

“You don’t mind lying just like that, huh?” he said.

“What can I say, it’s who I am.”

We got into the elevator and went up to the sixth floor. As

we walked down the sixth floor hall, I produced some thin

white gloves from my pocket and slid them onto my hands.

“Not to make this awkward, but . . . were you prepared

with those gloves this whole time?”

“Yup. I planned this whole thing.”

“Wow,” he said as he pulled his own pair of gloves out of

his vest pocket and switched them with the fingerless ones he

was currently wearing. Of course, a guy like him probably just

carried gloves around with him every day.

We arrived in front of Tomo-chan’s room. When I tried

the knob, the door turned out to be locked, as expected.

“So how do you propose we clear this one?”

“Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. Any ideas?”

“I gotcha,” he grumbled, pulling a thin knife from his vest

pocket. Or perhaps drill was a more accurate word for it. He

jammed it into the keyhole. He rattled it left and right until

we heard the click of something settling into place. Then he

pulled the knife back out, spun it around once in his hand,

and closed it back up in his vest.

He turned the knob. “It’s open.”

“This can’t be safe, can it?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 2

“Not even a little bit. The killer could be anywhere.”

We shrugged and went in anyway.

We walked down the hall between the kitchen and bathroom,

and passed through the door at the end. The room

hadn’t changed much from my Saturday visit. It looked like

some things had been slightly moved around, but that was

probably owed to the crime-scene investigation.

And then there was the center of the room. White strips of

tape formed the shape of a person.

“Wow,” Zerozaki said with awe. “So they really do that. It’s

like something out of a TV show or a manga. Hey, that Emoto

girl had about the same build as me.”

“Looks like it.”

Tomo-chan was pretty small, even for a girl, but for a guy,

Zerozaki was ridiculously petite. They weren’t exactly the

same size, but they could’ve easily fit each other’s clothing.

“Incidentally, I prefer tall girls,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yup. But tall girls don’t like short guys, do they?”

“But none of your six victims were tall girls.”

“Who goes around killing the girls he’s into, idiot?” he said

angrily. It looked like I had touched on a difficult subject.

Nevertheless.

My gaze fell back on the tape on the floor. Tomo-chan

must have been strangled and then collapsed on the floor here

in this position, asphyxiated. But this tape hardly captured the

reality of it.

I looked back over at Zerozaki to find him immersed in

silent prayer. His eyes were closed, with his hands pressed together

in front of his chest.

I deliberated for a moment before deciding to do likewise.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 3

Afterward, I once again began inspecting the area around

the tape.

“Hm.”

There was something on the right hand of the human

shape. It was dark, so I couldn’t see it very well, but we

couldn’t just go turning on the light, either. I managed to

make out a small ring made out of black tape.

It seemed this was some sort of mark they had made during

the investigation.

“What’s this? Maybe something was on the floor here?”

“No, look closer,” Zerozaki said, crouching down next to

me. “Something’s written here.”

“Dammit, I wish we had a little more light.”

“Just wait a little longer. Your eyes’ll adjust soon enough.”

It assumed that we were working at our leisure here, but

right now that was our only option.

In time, my eyes did begin to adjust.

Thin carpet. On its surface there were red letters.

“x over y?” we both said.

The letter x was written in cursive handwriting. Then a

diagonal line below it. Then the letter y in the same cursive

handwriting. It was messy writing, so you had to struggle to

make it out. But it didn’t seem like it could’ve said anything

else.

“What’s x over y?”

“Beats me.”

“Is it red because it’s written in blood?”

“Nah, seems to be some kind of oil-based ink.”

Strange writing next to the body's right hand. Could this

have been her dying message?

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 4

“But hey, we don’t actually know that this is the right

hand. We can’t tell if the body was faceup or facedown just by

looking at this tape.”

“Ah, right. But, Zerozaki, I don’t think she could've written

this if she was facedown. Not that she was necessarily the

one who wrote it.”

“Yeah, that’s right. There’s still the possibility that the

killer wrote it. So what’s this x over y bullshit all about? Math?

But this isn’t an equation. You can’t take it any further than

this.”

“Maybe whoever wrote it didn’t finish.”

“If that’s the case, we're pretty much at a dead end. I can’t

even imagine what they were getting at with this,” he said as

he walked over to a comer of the room and slid down against

the wall. “I’m sleepy,” he said with a big yawn. “Figure anything

out?”

“Just the fact that this may or may not have been her dying

message is a pretty good haul. Now, then . . .”

I scanned my eyes around the room. There were no signs of

a struggle. As far as I could see, nothing was broken or missing.

“Yeah, I don’t think this was just a burglary,” I said. Was it

all because of a grudge after all? But what could a girl who

had just turned twenty years old two days ago have done to

have inspired such hatred?

I continued examining the room as I pondered. Of course,

the police had probably already done this with complete thoroughness,

but right now it was necessary to see the crime

scene with my own eyes, in order to fill in the gaps in my

imagination. For later on.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 5

“What now?” Zerozaki said as he watched me moving

around. Judging from his current state, it didn’t look like he

intended to help me any further. Not that I was expecting him

to do anything. I’m not such an idealist that I would expect

anything from a mere water reflection.

“You seem strangely comfortable doing all this,” he said.

“Well, I've got experience.”

“What could a twenty-year-old have possibly experienced in

his life to have broken him so badly as a human being? I can’t

even imagine,” he said.

“You should talk. But I guess I’ll humor you anyway. I

guess you could say I haven’t lived a very respectable life. Or

no, my life has been plenty respectable, but I haven’t been.”

“Hmm. You know, I don’t like myself very much,” he said

plainly to my back. “But seeing you, I realize I’m not so bad.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth. I may be a

screwup, but I’m not as bad as you. When I look at it that

way, it’s kind of a relief.”

“I wonder.”

“I wonder.”

“Say . . . why do people die anyway?” he asked.

“Because you kill them.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean aside from that. Umm, what is it

again? Apoptosis? Darwinism? Genes? Cancer cells? Cell

suicide? All that good stuff. It’s like the termination point of

our functionality.”

“Come to think of it, I heard once that the longest a

human can live is somewhere around one hundred ten years,

regardless of the era or region.”

“Huh.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 6

“I mean, the bottom line is that living creatures have a lot

of diversity. But you know, whether you live a long time or

not doesn’t really make a difference. I don’t really think

there’s even much point in living two hundred or three hundred

years. I’ve lived for nineteen years and two months up

until now, but quite frankly. I’ve had enough.”

“You’re tired of it?” he asked.

“Well, it’s more like I just can’t endure it anymore. I’m still

okay for now, I guess, but if things go on like this . . . yeah, in

another two or three years, my ability to process reality will

have reached its limit.”

“But isn’t that just one of those things? Like, I’ll bet you

thought the same thing when you were fourteen, right? Like,

‘in another few years I’ll probably have committed suicide.’ ”

“Yeah, I did think that. But I didn’t have the balls to go

through with it.”

“Chicken.”

“Yeah, well. I always wanted to be a bird.”

“Not a chicken, I bet. They can’t even fly.”

“I’m joking. But I do think this: There isn’t a person on this

earth who’s lived for ten or twenty years without pondering

God and death, unless he’s just some slaphappy nut.”

“God and death, huh?”

“Yeah. But before he can contemplate those things, he has

to have learned about life. Some knowledge of life is necessary

in order to contemplate death, so you have to study life before

you can even begin to think about the fact that it will one day

end. It’s like that saying: ‘If you want to kill someone, your

victim had to have been alive to start with.’ No matter how

much effort I might exert, I can’t kill John Lennon.”

Nor could I kill Emoto Tomoe.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 7

“Now tell me, Zerozaki. What does it mean to be alive?”

“That your heart’s still beating?” he said off the top of his

head.

“Wrong,” I answered. “Showing signs of life and being alive

are not the same thing. But that aside, what if there existed a

person who had experienced death before life? What kind of

human being would he turn out to be? Could we even call

him a human being? A living creature who could reminisce

about his own passing, who had mourned his own death before

life even began. What would we label such an existence?”

“I guess that would be Death himself. It would have to be,

or else . . .” His eyes seemed to be searching for the right

words. He pointed a finger at me with an awkward look on his

face. No words came out. To be sure, they probably didn’t

need to.

“Eh, it’s just another mind-over-matter thing,” I surmised.

An escape line.

“Say, man. I know I already asked, but is there some reason

you’ve gone to all this trouble—I mean, illegally entering her

apartment, not to mention the fact that you’re supposed to be

the passive observer type—just to gather information about

the murder?”

“Yeah, there is,” I answered. I meant to say no, but for

some reason a confirmation leapt out of my mouth. I wasn’t

sure which one I really meant.

“Huh . . . you said yourself that you don’t like or dislike

Aoii, right? Then why should you do anything for her? And it

seems to me that you only met those other three through her,

like little add-ons.”

He slapped his hands together as if he had just thought of

something. “Is it for Emoto Tomoe?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 8

Tomo-chan.

A tragic figure, brutally murdered just after celebrating her

own birthday.

That alone wouldn’t have moved me, normally. If starving

children on the other side of the world were being shot to

death, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. If some giant

earthquake in some faraway country killed tens of thousands

of people, I wouldn’t feel a thing. Whether or not a string of

murders occurred in the town where I lived, it was no matter

to me. I just didn’t have that kind of spirit; it wasn’t much

more to imagine that I wouldn’t feel much sadness or despair

over the passing of even a nearby acquaintance.

However, there were always exceptions.

“I was hoping I’d get to talk to Emoto Tomoe just a little

more.”

Zerozaki said nothing to this.

“That’s all, though, really.”

“I see,” he nodded. “Well, whatever the case, what we have

here is a masterpiece for sure.”

Indeed, he was right that there seemed to be no compelling

reason for me to go to all this trouble. It wasn’t like I was

being somebody else, but it certainly wasn’t my usual style.

I realized I was being stupid. I just didn’t think I was

wrong.

“Ahh,” Zerozaki yawned again.

“If you’re bored, you can go.” That is to say, get lost.

But he shook his head. “It’s okay. Besides, how are you

planning to lock up without me?”

“Actually, I’ve got one of those things that allows you to

lock the door without the key.”

“That’s a pretty useless device.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 3 9

Of course, I was joking.

Zerozaki soon closed his eyes and began to doze off. It was

like watching my own sleeping face, which was a bizarre, alien

sensation, to say the least. I continued examining Tomo-chan's

room until four in the morning, but didn’t come up with

anything that seemed like a decent lead.

“But . . .”

Maybe it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, halfway through, I

had entirely lost my will to search for clues and spent the rest

of the time staring down at the tape human.

And I reminisced. About the time I had spent here on

Saturday night. That wild, ridiculous night during which we’d

all left reason and rational thought behind.

If I could be allowed to say something a bit romantic, perhaps

this was my memorial to Tomo-chan. Now that wasn’t

my style, to be sure, but it seemed like a good enough reason

all the same.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

We left the building, and Zerozaki and I parted ways there.

We spoke no parting words, and made no plans to meet again.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 1

There ain’t no meaning.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it?

Wednesday, May eighteenth.

With second period over, the afternoon break had begun.

Since the dining room got crowded at that time, I always

skipped lunch on days when I had a second-period class. So I

instead made my way directly to my general-education class.

General education.

Classmates.

Aoii Mikoko, Atemiya Muimi, Usami Akiharu, and Emoto

Tomoe . . .

I hadn’t seen a single one of these four people since the

week began. This was no coincidence; most likely, not a single

one of them had come to school. Being dead, Tomo-chan had

her reasons, but the other three had neither died nor been

murdered. Perhaps Tomo-chan’s death was to blame for them

not showing up, or perhaps this was just how college students

behaved after Golden Week.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 2

Things hadn’t progressed any further. The pair of

detectives—Sasaki-san and Kazuhito-san—hadn’t returned to

visit my apartment again, I hadn’t had any contact with my

three classmates, and I was still waiting for news from

Kunagisa. Naturally, I hadn’t met with Zerozaki again either.

As someone who doesn’t read the news or watch TV, I of

course had no idea what kind of press (or lack thereof) Tomochan’s

death had attracted. Nor did I know if the prowler had

struck again in the past three days.

It was something I had no desire to know.

Right now, I was only waiting. After all, that was one thing

I was used to.

“Man, it’s hot. . . . I wonder if I’m a slug,” I muttered as I

made my way across campus, from Meigaku Hall to Yôyô

Hall. It was less than three hundred feet away, but it was a

tough walk anyway. I had heard of boiling-hot climates before,

but I didn’t think they really existed. Neither Kobe nor

Houston had been this bad. This was the kind of heat and

body-soaking humidity unique to basin towns. I struggled to

endure it as my legs carried me along. I climbed a staircase,

which brought me directly to the second floor of Yôyô Hall. I

went inside and at last took a moment to catch my breath.

Just then, I spotted somebody familiar. But it wasn’t

because she was familiar that I noticed her. Rather, it was that

my eyes had been attracted to her against their better

judgment by her flamboyantly hot-pink jersey. It didn’t exactly

blend into the surroundings.

That brown sauvage. If only she was crouching on the

ground in front of a convenience store, the image would have

been complete.

It was Atemiya Muimi-chan.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 3

She was currently talking to some guy, probably a classmate.

Thinking it would be a little obnoxious if I were to butt

in and start up a conversation, I tried to slip by her unnoticed

when she called out to me.

“Whoa, it’s Ikkun,” she said.

“Yo,” her male associate greeted me informally. He had

light brown hair and an easy-breezy kind of smile. Wait, who

was this again? I didn’t know anyone with this sort of easy-golucky

surfer quality, did I? Was he from our general-education

class?

“Long time no see, huh?” Muimi-chan said with a weak

smile. “Umm . . . Geez, this is kind of awkward, huh? How

have you been since it happened?”

“I’ve been coming to school as usual.”

“Oh . . . heh, well, I guess you would.” She smiled, but it

seemed slightly forced. She appeared worn out, which probably

wasn’t forced.

“How about you?” I asked. “What’ve you been doing? I

haven’t seen you at school.”

“Oh, well, how do you put it . . .” She couldn’t seem to

find the words. She probably didn’t like the idea of exposing

her weakness to others. I’m not that type of person myself,

but her feelings weren’t beyond my comprehension.

“Well, I’ve got to prepare for a presentation. Time to get

outta here. See ya later,” the guy said to us, and rushed off in

the direction of the staircase.

“He’s sure an energetic son of a bitch, huh?” Muimi-chan

said we watched him take off. “He’s totally lazy until an

opportunity to be the center of attention comes along. Gen.

Ed. ought to be a good show today. I’ll be watching that bastard

from the front row.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 4

“Huh. So that guy is a classmate, then.”

Muimi-chan stood frozen for a few seconds before slowly

and stiffly turning her head toward me like her neck needed

an oil change. I almost expected to hear it creaking.

“Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Hm? Oh, I guess Mikoko-chan didn’t tell you then, huh?

I’ve got a pretty bad memory, so I don’t really know who’s in

our class. I might remember him if I heard his name, though.”

But she wouldn’t tell me the guy’s name. She was staring

at me in shock for some reason.

At last, she opened her mouth. “Usami Akiharu.”

“Oh.”

There you had it.

This was shocking.

“Does he leave that little of an impression?” she said.

“Well, less than you, anyway. It’s not like he goes around

wearing hot pink jerseys.”

That was what I wanted to say, but I stopped myself.

Muimi-chan was the type of person who would probably

really start hitting you once you made her mad. And I probably

wouldn’t get off with just a jab or two. If I teased her the

way I teased Mikoko-chan, I’d be dead meat.

“It’s my memory that’s at fault here, that’s all.”

“If that’s the case, then do something about it.”

“Well, the weak impression thing may be an issue too. He’s

not as crazy as Mikoko-chan. I know a lot of eccentric people.

Actually, that makes it sound like I know a lot of people.

Correction: The only acquaintances I have are eccentric

people, so normal people just slip right out of my mind.”

“Normal people, huh?” She gave a wicked little laugh.

“What? Did I say something funny?”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 5

“Oh, nothing, nothing, I was just thinking, you’re a surprisingly

poor judge of character.”

“Huh?”

“Akiharu’s got a meaner personality than you think,” she

said in a way that seemed strangely meaningful as she stared

off in the direction he had gone moments ago. “Well, you’ll

figure that out eventually . . . eventually.” Something in her

soft tone seemed to suggest her words had a deeper meaning,

but a moment later her facial expression switched like someone

had pressed a button on a remote. She turned my way

again.

“This is perfect,” she said. “I wanted to have a chat with

you. Let’s go talk in the lounge.”

She began walking without waiting for my reply. After a

short walk, we broke to the right, where we came upon the

student lounge. I wondered if it would be crowded since it

was the middle of the afternoon, but looking through the

window glass I could see that, for some reason, fewer seats

were occupied than empty. There was a plate hanging off the

lounge door with No Standing written on it in red, Gothic

letters. It was a prank a student had carried out several years

back, and at this point nobody even bothered questioning it

anymore. As a result, nobody bothered getting rid of it, either.

We entered the lounge, and Muimi-chan took a seat. The

place was filled with cigarette smoke. Muimi-chan took one

whiff and immediately reached into her pocket for something,

but then stopped herself as if she had recalled her “policy” just

in time. It was nice of her to stick to it so fastidiously, but in a

place already this filled with smoke, it didn’t really make

much difference to me whether she smoked or not. But I

knew that even if I told her she could, she would just say

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 6

something like, “No, it’s my decision,” so I took my seat without

saying anything.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“Don’t play dumb. What’s the one thing you and I would

have to discuss?” she asked.

“Tomo-chan?”

“Mikoko.”

She leaned forward with her arms on the table and glared

up at me. But I wasn’t so clueless that I wasn’t prepared to

meet her gaze.

“Have you seen Mikoko since then?”

“Since when?” I asked innocently.

“I told you not to play dumb. The police must have paid

you a visit, too.”

“Well, yeah . . .” I recalled my meeting with Sasaki-san and

Kazuhito-san, but to be honest, they weren’t really a pair I

wanted to think about too much. “So they visited you too?”

“Yeah. Kind of an unpleasant pair, weren’t they?”

“A man and a woman?”

“Yeah. The guy looked like he belonged on The X-Files, and

the lady looked like she paid regular visits to underground

cells. Regular cops piss me off enough already, much less these

two . . . uh, but that’s another story,” she said, righting her

posture. “Yesterday was Tomoe’s funeral.” She looked at me

in an accusatory fashion. “You didn’t come.”

“Well, nobody told me about it.”

“Mikoko didn’t come either. Akiharu and I went, though.”

“Well, what can you do, right? Her death must’ve been a

big shock to all of you,” I said.

“Yeah, must’ve been. You make it sound like this doesn’t

have anything to do with you,” she replied.

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 7

“It doesn’t,” I stopped myself from saying. Ah, the art of

tact.

“You’re not at all shocked by the fact that Tomoe was

murdered?”

“Well, I was surprised enough when I first heard the news,

but after three days, well, what do they call it? Cleaning out

your heart’s drawers? I mean, the past is just memories.”

“As Tomoe’s friend, I want to be pissed at you for saying

that, but you’re pretty much right, huh?” she said, a bit defeated.

“I guess the human heart is conveniently constructed.

Especially for someone who’s thick-skinned like me. It’s only

been three days and I’m already back at the point where I can

go to school again. But it really was devastating at first. I

mean, I had just seen her, and then . . .” She snapped her

fingers.

And then, silence. I wouldn’t have called it awkward, but

it was a little unbearable. There was definitely a painful aura

flowing between us.

“It looks like Akiharu-kun’s recovered to some degree,

based on how he was acting just now.”

“Is that how he looked?” she asked.

“I thought so.”

“Well, maybe, if you say so.”

Again, she seemed to be getting at something, just like

when she had said, “Akiharu’s got a stronger personality than

you think.”

So what was she saying? She changed the subject before I

could figure it out.

“So apparently you were the last one to hear Tomoe’s

voice.”

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 8

“Yeah. Although it was over the phone. Did you hear that

from Mikoko-chan? Or from the detectives?”

“Mikoko,” she said, nodding. “I went to her place yesterday

after the funeral ended, but . . . I think she needs more time to

recover.”

“Ah.”

“And that doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean you just heard that Mikoko is feeling down, and

I’m asking if that bothers you.”

“Everybody sure is hung up on that,” I said. Muimi-chan

looked a bit puzzled, possibly because of the word everybody.

She let out a big sigh and stretched. “Fucking clueless . . .”

“What’s that? I couldn’t quite make that out.”

“Ah, nothing. Listen, you might not want to hear this, and

frankly I’m the last person who should be telling you. I was

the one who was opposed to it in the first place. . . .”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Okay, let me ask you a favor, then. It’s a simple

favor and there’s no catch. Just go visit Mikoko’s place, will

ya?”

She pulled a piece of paper out of her jersey pocket and

handed it to me. “Aoii Mikoko” was written on it in hiragana,

and below that were her address and phone number.

“Man, these are some round letters. Who wrote this?”

“Me.”

“Ah . . .”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What up with that

expression, like you saw that answer coming or something?”

“Uh, nothing. That’s not what I was going to say.” I looked

down at the memo in an effort to escape her deadly gaze, and

ZAREGOTO: THE KUBISHIME ROMANTICIST ■■■ 1 4 9

confirmed Mikoko-chan’s address. Horikawa Oike. Come to

think of it, had I heard that before? It felt like I had, but it also

felt like I was learning her address for the first time. I couldn’t

remember.

“It’s pretty far from school. I guess that means she commutes

here on her Vespa.”

“Nope, bus. This school doesn’t allow bikes.”

“It doesn’t?”

Incidentally, I commuted on foot. I had a bike, but I didn’t

use it much, as a general rule. It wasn’t that I particularly liked

walking, but somehow it works for me anyway.

“Okay, so I go to Mikoko-chan’s place, and then what?”

“She’s down, so cheer her up. Just say stuff like ‘it won’t

do any good to just sit around feeling blue’ and ‘keep your

chin up.’ I’m sure that’ll do.”

“Oh, just the usual crap, huh? But wouldn’t that kind of

thing be better coming out of you? Oh, but I guess you already

told her yesterday. But if her good friend couldn’t even

cheer her up, I’m a lost cause.”

“It’s not that hard. Just go there and that’ll be enough.

Seriously, that’s all. Go see her, say a word or two of encouragement,

and then just play it by ear.”

Whatever that meant.

But then again, I didn’t really have any reason to refuse,

and it was a relatively convenient proposal, so I went ahead

and accepted. “Okay.”

“Try stopping by today after school.”

Just then, the bell indicating the start of third period rang.

“Oh, crap,” said the look on Muimi-chan’s face. My face probably

didn’t show it, but I pretty much felt the same way.

Inokawa-sensei, the Cerberus of time.