‘Tell the truth!’ Muta gave Yuichi a violent shake.
Yuichi felt his back pressed up against the wall, the coolness of the concrete through his shirt.
‘Honest. It’s not a lie! I didn’t say a word.’
‘Really?’
‘Really!’ Yuichi pleaded.
Muta glared at him for a moment, then suddenly released him. The boy to his right swore under his breath.
Yuichi put a hand to his own throat and swallowed. That was close.
But the next moment, Muta’s face twisted into a wicked grin. There was no time to react, not even time to shout. With the first hit, Yuichi was down on all fours.
He could feel the side of his face stinging and belatedly realised he’d been punched.
‘It was you!’ Muta shouted, and Yuichi felt something enter his mouth. He was already lying with his back on the ground by the time he understood it had been the tip of Muta’s shoe.
There was a cut in his mouth, and he tasted blood. Tastes like sucking on a coin, he thought, as a staggering pain washed over him. Yuichi put his face in his hands and curled into a ball as the boys kicked him in the ribs, over and over.
THREE
Tomohiko Sonomura opened the door to a loud ringing of bells over his head. The café he’d been told to go was a tiny place, with a small bar and two dinky tables, one of which only sat two.
He looked around, hesitating a moment before taking a seat at the smaller table – the other table being occupied. They’d never spoken, but Tomohiko recognised him as Murashita from Class 3. He was rail-thin, and his high cheekbones gave him an almost foreign look. It was the kind of face Tomohiko imagined girls went for. His hair was long and wavy, too. He wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a band. He was wearing a black leather waistcoat over a grey shirt, and tight jeans as if to show off his long, skinny legs.
Murashita was reading a copy of Shonen Jump. He looked up once when Tomohiko walked in but quickly went back to his manga. He might have been there waiting for someone but clearly it wasn’t Tomohiko. There was a coffee cup and a red ashtray on the table. Smoke drifted up from a lit cigarette in the ashtray. He didn’t seem to be worried that the guidance counsellor would find him all the way out here. It was two stops away on the subway from the station closest to their high school.
There was no waitress, just a greying man who came out from behind the counter and put a glass of water on Tomohiko’s table. The man smiled but didn’t say a word.
Tomohiko asked for coffee without even looking at the menu. The man nodded and went back behind the counter.
Tomohiko took a sip of water and glanced back at Murashita, who was still reading his manga. When the radio on the counter switched from playing Olivia Newton-John to the theme song to Galaxy Express 999, he frowned. Apparently Murashita preferred Western music to local fare.
It occurred to Tomohiko that Murashita might actually be waiting for the same person he was.
Tomohiko looked around the café. Usually places like this had a Space Invaders game in the corner, but there was nothing of the kind here. Tomohiko didn’t mind. He was already sick of Space Invaders. The rhythms of the game – when to shoot, how to score big – were already ingrained in his fingers. Put him in any arcade and he was confident he’d be at the top of the scoreboards in no time. If anything still interested him about Space Invaders, it was the code that made the game run but he’d almost finished learning all there was to know about that, too.
Out of boredom he opened the menu. He realised that this was, in fact, a speciality coffee shop. There were dozens of brands listed, some he’d even heard of. He was glad he hadn’t looked at the menu before ordering, otherwise he never would’ve had the balls to just order coffee. No, he would have ended up getting the Colombian, or the mocha, and spending an extra fifty or a hundred yen. Even little outlays like that hurt, these days.
The jacket had clearly been a mistake, maybe the worst yet, Tomohiko thought. He and a friend had gone into a men’s boutique shop to shoplift when the guy at the register caught them. His technique was simple: he pretended to be trying on a pair of jeans so he could stuff the jacket he’d brought into the changing room into his own bag. But when he brought the jeans back to the shelf and tried to leave, the guy at the register headed them off at the door. He remembered feeling like his heart had stopped.
Thankfully, the guy was more interested in making a sale than turning young punks over to the authorities. He treated Tomohiko as a customer who’d ‘mistakenly placed an object for purchase in his personal bag’. No police were called and their parents and the school didn’t hear about it, but he had to pay for the jacket to the tune of twenty-three thousand yen. Of course he didn’t have that much money on him, so the employee took his student ID and told him to go and get the money from home. Tomohiko ran home and scraped together all the money in his room, fifteen thousand yen, and borrowed another eight from his friend to pay for the jacket.
Of course, he’d come out of the whole thing with a trendy new jacket, so he couldn’t really call it a total loss. Except for the fact that the jacket wasn’t something he would have actually paid money for. He’d just grabbed it off the shelf when he thought no one was looking. Since then he’d regretted not having that twenty-three thousand at least a hundred times. He could have gone on a shopping spree. He could have gone to see a movie. But now, except for the money his mom gave him for lunch every day, his personal funds had been reduced to zero. Worse than that, he still owed his friend eight thousand.
Tomohiko took a sip of the two-hundred-yen coffee the man had brought him. It was good.
I hope this isn’t a waste of time, he thought, looking up at the clock on the wall. He’d come here to hear about a ‘job opportunity’. That was how Ryo Kirihara had described it.
It was five o’clock on the dot when Ryo showed up.
Ryo looked at Tomohiko first when he walked in. Then his eyes went to Murashita and he snorted. ‘Why aren’t you guys sitting together?’
Murashita closed his manga and scratched his head. ‘Yeah, I thought he might be here to see you too, but I figured it was better to read my manga than make a fool of myself.’
‘Same here,’ Tomohiko said.
‘Maybe I should’ve told you guys there’d be someone else,’ Ryo said, sitting across from Murashita. He looked over at the counter. ‘I’ll take a Brazil,’ he called out.
The old man nodded. Ryo must be a regular.
Tomohiko picked up his coffee and moved over to the big table. Ryo motioned him to sit down next to Murashita.
Ryo looked at the two of them, squinting, tapping the table with his right index finger. Tomohiko didn’t care for the way he was looking at them. Like he was sizing them up.
‘Eat any garlic lately?’ Ryo asked.
‘Garlic?’ Tomohiko’s eyebrows drew together. ‘No. Why?’
‘It’s complicated. But as long as you haven’t, you’re cool. How about you, Murashita?’
‘I ate some dumplings about four days ago.’
‘C’mere.’
Murashita leaned over the table, bringing his face up to Ryo.
‘Breathe,’ Ryo said.
Murashita coughed a little.
‘Harder,’ Ryo directed him.
Murashita breathed out a big breath and Ryo gave it a good sniff. He nodded and pulled a piece of peppermint gum out of his pocket.
‘You’ll want to chew this once we get going.’
‘Sure, whatever,’ Murashita said, growing a little irritated, ‘but what are we going to do? Spit it out, come on. I don’t like this mystery crap.’
Tomohiko felt relieved he wasn’t the only one completely in the dark.
‘I told you already. You’re going to go someplace, and talk to some girls. That’s it.’
‘Man, I don’t get it, I thought —’
Murashita was interrupted by the arrival of Ryo’s coffee. Ryo lifted up his cup, took a long sniff of the aroma
, then slowly took a single sip. ‘Outstanding, as always.’
The old man smiled as he retreated behind the counter.
Ryo turned back to them. ‘Look, it’s not rocket science. You two will do just fine. That’s why I picked you.’
‘Just fine at what?’ Murashita asked.
Ryo pulled a red box of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his denim jacket, put one in his mouth, and lit it with a Zippo.
‘What I mean is, they’ll like you.’ A thin smile spread on his lips.
‘They… you mean the girls?’ Murashita asked, his voice low.
‘Yeah, the girls. Don’t worry. They’re not ugly or all wrinkled or nothing. Just totally normal girls. Maybe a little on the older side, but that’s a good thing.’
‘And our job is to talk to them?’ Tomohiko asked.
Ryo blew smoke at him. ‘That’s right. There’s three of them, by the way.’
‘Can you be a little more specific? Who are these girls and where are we talking to them and what are we supposed to talk to them about?’ Tomohiko asked, his voice growing a little louder.
‘It’ll be obvious when we get there. And as far as what you’ll be talking about – whatever comes up. You can talk about your hobbies or whatever you feel like. They’ll like that,’ Ryo said, smiling.
Tomohiko shook his head. He felt he had even less idea what they’d be doing now that it had been explained to him.
‘I’m out,’ Murashita said abruptly.
‘Yeah?’ Ryo said. He didn’t seem that surprised.
‘I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.’ Murashita stood.
‘I’m paying three thousand three hundred yen an hour,’ Ryo said, raising his coffee cup. ‘Three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, to be exact. That’s ten thousand in three hours. You can’t tell me you’ve had a better offer than that.’
‘OK, now I know it’s illegal,’ Murashita said. ‘Look, I stay out of that stuff.’
‘Nothing illegal about it. And as long as you keep this to yourselves, you won’t get any trouble. Guaranteed. And I can promise you one other thing: When you’re done, you’ll thank me. You can go read the help-wanted ads from cover to cover and you won’t find anything sweeter. Anyone would want to do this. But not everyone can. See, you two are the lucky ones. Because I spotted you.’
‘I don’t know…’ Murashita gave Tomohiko a hesitant look.
More than three thousand an hour, ten thousand in three hours – that was hard for Tomohiko to pass up. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I want you to tell me who we’re meeting and where. So I can psych myself up.’
‘There’s no need for any of that,’ Ryo said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘But fine, I’ll tell you once we’re outside. But I’m not taking just you, Tomohiko. If Murashita’s dropping out, I’m calling the whole thing off.’
Tomohiko looked at Murashita, who grimaced. ‘You sure we’re not going to get in trouble for this?’
‘Not unless you want to,’ Ryo said. Maybe it was the irritation in Tomohiko’s face that pushed Murashita, but eventually he nodded. ‘OK. I’m in.’
‘Smart boy.’ Ryo stood, thrusting one hand into the back pocket of his jeans to pull out a brown leather wallet. ‘Bill, please.’
The man raised an eyebrow and pointed at the table, making a circle with his finger.
‘Yeah, all together.’
The man scribbled on a piece of paper and passed it over to Ryo.
Tomohiko watched as Ryo pulled a thousand-yen note from his wallet and regretted not ordering a sandwich.
The kids didn’t wear uniforms at Tomohiko’s high school, thanks to the efforts of his predecessors back during the student protest days. They had organised and staged a demonstration against the uniform code and they had actually won. There was a standard, school-approved uniform you could buy, but it wasn’t compulsory, and only about one in five students bothered with it at all. Particularly after their first year, nearly everyone just wore whatever they felt like. It was also against the rules to get a perm, but hardly anyone paid any attention to that either. The same went for make-up, which was why some of the girls came in to school looking like they’d just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, an invisible cloud of perfume trailing them as they took their seats. As long as it didn’t interfere with the class, the teachers turned a blind eye.
Civilian clothes helped the kids blend in when they hit the town after school was out, too. If a shop assistant gave them trouble, they could just say they were college students. Which was why, on a sunny Friday like today, hardly any of them went straight home after school.
The only reason Tomohiko wasn’t out there today was because of the shoplifting incident. He was broke.
That was why Ryo had found him, earlier that afternoon, sitting in the back of the empty classroom, reading Playboy. Sensing someone, Tomohiko looked up.
Despite the fact that Ryo was in the same class as Tomohiko, they’d hardly exchanged a word in the two months since school started. Tomohiko wasn’t a recluse; on the contrary, he was already friends with about half the class. It was more Ryo who seemed to put up walls between himself and the other students.
‘You free today?’ Ryo spoke first.
‘Yeah, why?’
That’s when Ryo lowered his voice and told him about the job.
‘All you have to do is talk a little and I’ll pay you ten thousand. Not bad, huh?’
‘What, just talk?’
Ryo held out a piece of paper. ‘If you’re interested, be here, five o’clock.’
‘The girls should be there already,’ Ryo told them. When he wanted to he had a way of talking without moving his lips much.
They’d left the café and got on the subway. The carriage was mostly empty and there were seats to go around but Ryo remained standing by the door, possibly to avoid being overheard.
‘So who are they?’ Tomohiko asked.
‘Let’s call them… Ran, Sue, and Miki,’ Ryo chuckled, using the names of the members of a singing group that had broken up the year before.
‘Come on, you said you’d tell us.’
‘I didn’t promise names. And besides, it’s better for you if there aren’t any names. I haven’t told them who you are, either, or what school we go to. So let’s keep it that way.’
There was a hard light in Ryo’s eyes that made Tomohiko suddenly nervous.
‘What are we supposed to do if they ask?’ Murashita wanted to know.
‘I really don’t think they will but if they do just tell them it’s a secret. Or make up a fake name if you want.’
‘Just what kind of girls are these?’ Tomohiko asked, changing tack.
Unexpectedly, Ryo broke into a grin. ‘Housewives.’
‘Whoa! What?’
‘Bored housewives. No hobbies, no jobs, no one to talk to all day. They get frustrated. And their husbands sure as hell don’t talk to them. So they want to chat with some young guys. No harm in that, right?’
Tomohiko was reminded of a recent skin flick with something in the title about ‘apartment block wives’. He hadn’t actually seen it.