“Whatever. Where are you?” I asked.
“Where are you, babe?”
So it was no more “Kirarin,” but “babe”? He was making fun of me, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“Who gave you the right to call me that?”
“Enough with the attitude. You want to meet me, right? Want to check me out? ’Cause I’m a murderer on the run. Babes like you enjoy checking me out. Put it on your blog, right? I know the type.”
“If that’s what’s you think, fine by me. ’Cause I’m out of here.”
“Suit yourself. I’m leaving, too.”
“How can you leave when I came all this way? Okay, have it your way—I’m going to go into a police station and tell them the boy they’re looking for is right around the corner. Give them your cell phone number, too.”
There’d been this echo like he was inside somewhere, but now I sensed he was leaving. His breathing got a little ragged, so I knew he was walking. I heard the sound of cars. Sounded like Worm was exiting the station. I stretched, looking outside, but didn’t spot him.
“We don’t have to meet today,” he said. “I’m out of here. Sorry.”
The phone clicked dead. It made me so angry. He wasn’t just going to leave me like this after asking me to come, was he? After all the money I’d spent on train fare? I ran outside, completely ignoring my ironclad rule about not pursuing things too far. There was a line of taxis outside the station, but no people. It was so steamy out that everyone was staying inside. I stood there, blankly, outside this nearly deserted entrance of the station. He wasn’t anywhere around. I’d been this close to seeing him. An oddly dry wind was blowing, messing up my long hair. My body had been cooled down by the AC inside, but now my arms and legs were getting hot. My back was all sweaty.
“That’s not a swimsuit,” a voice said from behind me.
Damn, he got me, I thought, my head getting hotter than the temperature outside. More than anything I hated to lose the game. Worm must have been watching me from a distance, thinking, This is Kirarin, checking me out before he made his move. Just like I do to guys.
I slowly turned around. This guy smiling at me was tall and thin, but terribly stooped over. Gone was the challenging attitude on the phone. He was totally casual now. I’d pictured Worm as this haunted-looking, sweaty, smelly guy, confused and saddened by what he’d done. But the real Worm was tanned and healthy-looking. He looked neat and tidy, with a clean white T-shirt on and oversize black shorts. Hoisting a dusty backpack. His hair was disheveled, cowlicks everywhere. Could he really have killed his own mother? He looked like some local high school kid on his way to cram school. I stood there, vacantly looking at Worm’s face, dizzy with the heat and frustration at having lost the game.
“So you’re Kirarin. You’re not like Toshi or Yuzan at all.”
“Really? I don’t know about that.”
“Come on, you know what I’m talking about. You play around with guys. I can tell by your face.”
“I don’t play around,” I said.
“You’re cute, but tough.”
“No, I’m not.”
I scrunched up my lips and made a sulky face, turning into flirty me. I like nothing better than to twist guys around my little finger, but when I meet a guy I turn all passive. Which might be because, like I said, I basically don’t trust guys. I hate it—here I am acting all flirty even with a criminal. Teru, get here quick! I thought. This guy’s the overbearing type I can’t deal with. What if he murders me?! Kind of calculating of me to rely on Teru, though…
“You’re not really going to go to the police, are you?” Worm asked.
“I just said that ’cause all of a sudden you said you were leaving.”
“Why are you lying? Lying’s a waste of energy.” Worm watched me, a hand held up to shield his eyes from the sun shining behind me. “Anyway, it’s too hot—why don’t we find someplace cooler to talk.”
Worm pulled a cap out of his back pocket, put it on, and set off down the street.
“Wait a second—what did you do with Yuzan’s bike?”
“I threw it away and grabbed another one.”
“You shouldn’t just throw it away, it’s hers. Don’t you feel bad?”
Worm glanced back at me, his eyes fixed.
“Nah, I think it’s okay. It’s an emergency. I’m in a war. So I don’t have time to think about things like that. The whole country, all one hundred million people, is in an uproar about this high school student who whacked his mother.”
I was wondering how such a skinny guy could have done it, killed his mom. They said he beat her to death, but with puny arms like that, could he really have killed a woman all by himself? What would it feel like to murder somebody, anyway? And your own mother? I was scared of Worm, but at the same time I had all kinds of questions I wanted to ask him. Worm pointed to a mall just ahead.
“That should be cool, let’s go there.”
As I followed after him I looked all around me like some gawking tourist. I felt okay, though, since I figured he wouldn’t dare kill me in a crowded mall. Worm motioned with his chin toward a bargain store.
“When I heard you were coming I washed up in the swimming pool and bought a new T-shirt and boxers in the store over there. Four hundred eighty yen for the shirt and three hundred for the underwear.”
“How much money do you have on you?”
“Not much. I started out with twenty thousand, but I’ve used it all.”
“What on?”
But Worm didn’t reply.
“Finding food and a place to sleep isn’t so tough, but what’s hardest is taking a bath. There aren’t many public baths around, and even if I found one they probably wouldn’t let me in ’cause I’m too filthy. So it’s a real headache. Now I know why homeless old guys stink so much. They won’t let ’em into public baths. If I could solve that problem I could keep running forever.”
“You wouldn’t be able to run away for the rest of your life.”
“Yeah? You really think so?”
Worm spun around and faced me. His eyes were sharp, penetrating, and he looked pretty intelligent. I remembered my old boyfriend, the one I was so crazy about who stabbed me in the back. His eyes looked like this, too, sometimes. From way down inside me, hatred still boiled up. I hate him, I really do. The guy who made me suffer. Since I was quiet, Worm went on.
“Why do you think I won’t be able to run away?”
“Why don’t you try it, then, if you think you can?”
“I’m going to.”
“But you couldn’t your whole life. I mean, you’re only seventeen, right?”
“You probably think you’re going to have a long life.”
I froze.
“Yeah, I do,” I replied.
“That all depends on the person.”
Worm went into the mall ahead of me. It was a huge one, with a movie theater inside. In the middle of the building was some sort of sculpture that was supposed to be angels all intertwined, I guess, and around it were benches filled with high school couples making out. I bought a can of iced tea from a nearby vending machine. I thought about it for a bit, then sprang for a can for Worm, too. He’d long since plunked himself down on one of the benches and accepted the can of tea from me like he’d been expecting it all along.
“I don’t think any of these people would believe me if I told them I killed my mother. It’s amazing they kept my photo out of the media. It’s all over the Internet, though. Do you use the Internet?”
“On my phone, yeah,” I said, flashing him my clamshell phone. “That’s about it. I don’t own a computer.”
The couple next to us stopped kissing and, hand in hand, walked off, so I used this chance to ask him what I’d been wanting to know. “Why did you kill your mother?”
“I forget why. Reasons don’t matter, anyway. I just got pissed off. What’s more important is how an experience makes you go off to another world, how you live your li
fe there. In that other world. And what you think about the world you left behind. Know what I mean?”
“‘Know what I mean?’ Stop acting so stuck-up.”
Worm stared at me in surprise.
“It’s strange that girls like guys who act all big and then get angry about it. Kind of inconsistent, if you ask me.”
“I’d think it’s strange if it wasn’t.”
To tell the truth, I liked talking like this. It got me excited. Sure, Worm wasn’t that appealing on the outside, but he did think about all sorts of things. And more than that, he was a guy who’d killed his mother, who’d seen this “other world,” so talking with him kept me on my toes. I was wondering how far my experiences would take me in a sparring match with him. This was another kind of game.
“So you’re never going back home?” I asked him.
“I was thinking about going back. How I’d need money to get back. But I won’t do that until after I’ve run away some more. It’d be a waste if I don’t experience being on the run some more.”
Worm stretched out his skinny legs and gazed up at the ceiling. The domed ceiling had a stained-glass picture on it depicting most of the city, and the midsummer sun tinted the white floor in darkish, dirty colors.
“Why would you go home?”
“I want to kill my old man,” he said, shooting me a glance. “How about you? Anybody you feel like killing?”
I thought it over for a while. I wouldn’t mind killing that jerk, the guy who destroyed my trust in men. I wonder what he’s doing now. The sadness and frustration I felt when he betrayed me changed me forever. He just split, leaving me behind, never the same again.
“Well, I guess there is.”
“Why do you want to kill him? ’Cause his existence makes you suffer, right? ’Cause you’d be better off if he wasn’t alive?”
“I don’t know….” I said, tilting my head. “I’d like it if he died, but what I’d really like is to get revenge on him, make him suffer, make him regret he did a stupid thing like betraying a great girl like me.”
“Nah, that’s too wishy-washy. You have to make him totally vanish from the face of the earth. Otherwise, if he’s still alive, you won’t ever get rid of the darkness that’s in your heart.”
“But killing him will make that even worse, won’t it?”
“No. You’re saying that ’cause the darkness in your heart isn’t that deep. The deeper that darkness gets, the more you have to get rid of it. No matter what.”
Worm was so weird. He was starting to scare me.
“Aren’t you sad that your mother died? And you’re the one who killed her? Don’t you feel sorry for her?”
Just then my cell phone rang. It was Teru.
“Kirarin? Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m in a mall in front of the station.”
“I’m going to get on the Takasaki Line pretty soon. I’ll call you when I get there.”
So Teru was coming to be with me. Relieved, I opened my bag to put away my cell phone. Worm reached out and grabbed the phone away.
“The army’s requisitioning this.”
“Stop it. What do you think you’re doing?”
I tried to grab it back, but he stuffed it in his pocket. Desperately, I looked around. There were two young mothers nearby with small children. They were smiling at us, probably thinking we were a couple having a little spat. No! I wanted to scream. This guy’s nuts! He’s the guy who beat his mother to death. He’s running away on a bike. How could I make them understand the situation? I stood up, thinking I’d find a security guard, but Worm grabbed my arm and pulled me back. He held both my arms tight and looked into my eyes.
“Kirarin, you really like me, don’t you?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. No way.”
“I’ll make you like me. Come on.”
What the hell did he mean? I didn’t know how to react. Pulling me by the arm, Worm headed for the exit.
“You told somebody you were going to meet me, didn’t you? You came to see me ’cause you wanted to see something scary, so why don’t we get changed together? I can make you into a new person. And we’ll wipe the smug smile off your old boyfriend’s face.”
“How’re we going to do that?”
As I said this, I was thinking there was nothing in the world I’d rather do.
“We’ll do some bad things together. Then we’ll go back to Tokyo and kill my old man. And I’ll take you to a whole different world.”
A whole different world. The world that lay just beyond that door I never could open. It was appealing and frightening, all at the same time. Worm stamped hard on the welcome mat at the entrance of the mall and the cheap automatic doors slid open. My skin was hit by the blazing heat outside.
“Okay—first we gotta grab a cab.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’re near the Nakasendo Highway and that goes to Karuizawa. It’s nice and cool there.”
“I thought you said you don’t have any money.”
“It won’t cost anything. I’m tired of riding around on a bike.”
“But it won’t work.”
“Well, check this out. I bought a knife.” Worm shook his backpack proudly. “Paid ten thousand yen for it. Totally sharp.”
So he was planning on hijacking a cab.
“I don’t think you should do that.”
“How come?’
Worm stood still and looked at me. He had that metallic, rusty sort of smell that young guys have. Sometimes there’s a guy like that among the ones who try to pick me up in Shibuya. They’re always the ones who are dying to have sex. With Worm, though, it isn’t sex so much as some other desire that’s driving him. Something I can’t figure out. Still, I remembered that guys with a smell like that didn’t particularly turn me off.
CHAPTER FIVE
WORM, PART 2
The first thing I heard was a woman’s whispered laugh. And then I opened my eyes and saw some heavy, dingy green curtains. The same crummy curtains my old lady had bought at Peacock for my room, so at first I was sure I was back in my house. It was the first time I’d slept in a bed in days and I’d slept so soundly my memory had flown away. I totally forgot that I’d beaten my mother to death; to me, at that moment, the old lady was just an annoying woman I had to put up with. I was positive she’d slipped into my room while I was asleep and was whispering something. Shut the hell up! Get outta here! The old lady, after all, was the only woman I was close to, so I figured it had to be her.
“No, I’m fine. Believe me.”
But it wasn’t my mother talking. It was the girl I’d just met, this high school girl who went by this kind of embarrassing nickname. Finally the memory came back to me—my mother was dead. Thank God, I thought, she’s no longer in this world. She’s vanished forever. I was so relieved I started to laugh, silently. The skin from my cheek to my chin was wet. I was flustered at first, thinking I must have been crying in my sleep, but it turned out to be drool. I quietly wiped it all away with the back of my hand, pretending to remain asleep while I listened in on Kirarin’s conversation. I had no idea what this girl was thinking, why she would want to be with me. As head of military affairs, I should have done a better job of investigating my opponent’s mind-set beforehand. Why I should know a term like “head of military affairs,” I had no idea, but I knew everything now. Ever since I was riding my bike, trying to stay awake, the spirit of that tortured Japanese soldier was with me.
“I understand that you’re worried, Teru, but I’m fine. I’m okay. I appreciate your worrying about me, I really do. He’s kind of weird, but interesting. I mean, when we met at the station we were arguing about what we were wearing. And he insisted he was dressed like an army private. Kind of crazy, right? A weird guy. But I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. I don’t know why, but I feel sure of that. So you can go home. I won’t tell you where we are. It’s a love hotel. What? No, we’re not doing it. No way! I
wouldn’t do it with a guy like that. Yeah, okay. I’ll call you if that happens. Just don’t worry. I’ve hung out with guys in Shibuya, so I’ll be okay. And you know what? He’s made me want to get revenge. No, not on my mother. On Wataru. The guy who did those horrible things to me. I loved Wataru, that’s why I let him come inside me. And then he went and slept with another girl, the bastard. And a complete idiot, no less. When I realized he did it ’cause he looked down on me, I couldn’t forgive him. This was more than a year ago, but it still makes me totally depressed. I’m thinking of meeting him, and killing him. I feel dark. Dark Kirarin. Not the cute, cheerful Kirarin everybody’s used to. But it feels good, somehow. You know what I mean? You really do? This is the first time I ever felt like taking revenge on someone. It makes me feel great, happy like never before. So anyway, wait, huh? Yeah, you’re right. Even the way I speak’s gotten a little tougher….”