Kirarin gave a small sigh and hung up, ending her call with this Teru guy. She immediately started calling someone else. No doubt Yuzan or Toshi or Terauchi, one of her dumb group of friends. She was leaving a message. While I was asleep she must have stolen back the phone I requisitioned. The girl was more formidable than I imagined.
“Hi, it’s me, Kirarin. Call me, don’t send a text message. Something really big’s happening and I want to tell you about it. See ya.”
I got out of bed and yanked open the curtains. Beyond the rice field outside there was another love hotel much like this one. It was supposed to be like some European castle, though with a huge dome on top. And on top of that, there was a large orange crescent moon. Kind of surreal. Like a sickle stuck in the head of Atsushi ¯
Onita, the pro wrestler. I felt excited, like when ¯
Onita and Mr. Pogo are getting it on in the ring. I got all worked up looking at it.
“You slept really well. You were snoring.”
Kirarin hurriedly ended her call and said this in a sweet nasal voice. All of a sudden, I had this stupid memory of how I used to dream of a younger sister. There was a guy in our school who wrote his own porno manga and used to bring them to school, and he’d always have a young girl character in the story who calls the hero “Brother!” And of course this “older brother” commands his “little sister” to take off her school uniform and then takes his time while he enjoys violating her. The girl protests but removes her own panties. How stupid. The guy who wrote this is a superbrain, the kind you know could get into Tokyo University Law Department, so it’s kind of amazing how predictable his manga always were. What really makes me laugh is how when he used to read his manga aloud to everybody he always used this sweet voice for the young girl character. “Brother—please don’t punish me! I’m scared!” My point is that Kirarin’s voice was just like the voice that guy used when he acted out the young girl character from his manga. And it made me really pissed.
I don’t need a younger sister. I don’t need any women at all. I’ve been transformed. Maybe because I took a bath after we checked into this love hotel. As soon as my salt suit was washed away I completed my new personality. The soul of the former Japanese soldier.
I used to be way hornier than most guys. When we lived in that condo, I liked the young wife next door; I listened in on their lovemaking and even stole her panties. And after we moved, I enjoyed peeping in on Toshi. But not anymore. I was really happy at my transformation—or evolution, you might say. I had to change, or else I couldn’t steel myself for battle. So I cautioned Kirarin in no uncertain terms.
“Knock it off with that anime voice.”
“Well, excuse me,” she said, her face all gloomy. “But that’s my normal voice.”
“No, it isn’t. When you’re flirting with guys, your voice changes. That’s a part of you I’ll take care of, you can count on it. And who said you could use the phone, anyway?” I grabbed the phone back from her and shoved it in my pants pocket. “It’s been requisitioned by the military. And you stole it. You looking to go into the brig?”
“Brig? What are you talking about, you idiot?”
Kirarin turned away, angry. Her expression was still flirty, though—I could tell. She was getting a thrill being with me, the murderer. What a flirt.
“Nothing stupid about it. Are you going to follow orders or what?”
“No way. Who the heck do you think you are, anyway?” she complained. I didn’t like the way her lips stuck out when she spoke. It was pornographic. Now that I’d done my mother in, I had to mow down all the rest of the pornographic women in the world. Somebody’s got to give the order. I glanced around the room, looking for an officer. But no one was there.
“Stop talking like that.”
“How can you say that?” she said. “You make me so angry. Who paid for this hotel, anyway? You said you wanted to go to Karuizawa, but you were getting so sleepy you almost passed out on the street. I should have just left you. Without me, they wouldn’t have let you stay here. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so nice to you.”
“I collapsed because it was a long, hard march.”
“You’re schizo, you know that?”
Kirarin laughed shrilly. Her laughter hurt my ears, and I wanted to rip my head off. The reality came to me—I’m alone on the front line, the only one still fighting the war. Before that old Filipino man and woman can torture me, I’ve got to escape into the jungle. And regroup for the next battle. My war has just begun. That’s the world I’m in—my world. And I have to train this woman to be a combatant, as soon as possible. ’Cause I’m the veteran soldier.
“Hey there, recruit! Suck me.”
I said it just to harass her, but my penis started to visibly harden.
“Are you crazy? No way.” Kirarin brushed my hand aside with unexpected force and escaped to a corner of the room. “You’re the worst. Something’s wrong with you, you know that?”
“Of course it is. I wasted my old lady. I ran after her like this and smacked her a good one right in the head with my bat. Could you have done that?”
I snatched up a pillow and swung it around hard, like it was a bat. Fuzz and strands of hair and pubic hairs flew all over the place. Kirarin stared at the pillow, then at me, like she’d never seen such a gross sight in her life.
“No way I could do that,” she said. “I like my mom.”
“What about your dad, then?”
“My dad? That I might consider,” Kirarin said, her gaze suddenly flitting about the room. “My dad’s a totally cold person. When I was in junior high, we got this call late at night. When I picked up, a woman was on the other end and said, ‘Are you there, Daddy? If you are, give it to me. I’m gonna die.’ Is that the kind of thing you should say to a child? I don’t think so. I was so pissed. Go ahead and die, why don’t you, I thought. But I was still little, so I went and woke up my father. I was careful to make sure Mom didn’t find out. And Dad just pretended to be asleep and ignored me. So this is the kind of man he is, I thought—pitiful. I felt sorry for the woman, but one of them was as bad as the other. And I started to hate my mother, too, since she’d chosen this kind of guy to marry. I went through a stage where I was angry and distrusted all adults. I hate all you jerks, I thought. Especially my father. Many times I felt like killing him. But I don’t care anymore. I don’t feel like murdering him. ’Cause I’m old enough to do whatever I like on my own now. That’s why I think you were wrong. You went too far. I really feel sorry for your mother, you know. You’re going to suffer the rest of your life.”
This declaration of hers really pissed me off. My life proceeds at a different speed from other people’s. This is kind of an out-of-date way of putting it, but ever since the murder I’ve been turbocharged. I’m free to change my world any way I want to. No more being told what to do, having people lay a guilt trip on me. I’m in control. I’m the commander in charge of the battle to create my world. Still, Kirarin’s attitude made me uneasy.
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” I said. “You didn’t grab my weapon by any chance, did you?”
I rummaged around in my backpack, which I’d put next to my bed. The butcher knife I’d just bought had to be inside. My tool to kill them all before they get to me—before that scrawny old coot hauls me out to the main square and drop-kicks me, before the old hag spits all over me, before they bash me over the head with a hammer. The knife was still flat inside its box. Kirarin was covering her mouth with her hand, but she was clearly sneering at how upset I’d got.
She doesn’t get it. I suddenly realized this. This girl just doesn’t get it. I’m in the middle of a war and she doesn’t give a damn. Which is why she’s laughing. She just came to see me in the midst of battle. She, and all her little friends, are just having a ball observing me. You’re right. I killed my old lady. And I’ll probably cry about it the rest of my life. But enough with your cheap sympathy—I don’t need it. I got even angrier.<
br />
“If you think I’m weird, then get out of here! I’m not some public show for you.”
“Hmm—so you can be serious if you want to.”
“I am serious.”
I wanted to threaten her a bit, so I pulled the knife out of the box. I held on to the black handle and swooshed the knife around a couple of times. The butcher knife was long and sharp and scary-looking. I looked around for something to use so I could hang it around my waist, but all I could see was the belt to the bathrobe. That would look stupid, so I gave up the idea. Kirarin remained in a corner, frozen. But her eyes showed a lot of respect. Or maybe fear? Doesn’t matter. Anyway, this was the second time I saw a woman look this confused. I remembered how Mom looked when she saw me swing a bat at her, an awful feeling to remember. The instant she realized her whole world was crumbling around her. Or maybe she was repenting for how badly she’d treated me. At any rate, her face reflected the chaos that had overtaken her.
My mom was definitely at fault. She was guilty of creating a history between us, a past that justified me putting her in her place. Guilty of leading me around by the nose, messing up my life, revealing my secrets to the world. I was a colony and she was the occupying force. She created the rubber plantation, made me work from dawn to night, then took away the whole harvest for herself. A colony where everything was plundered. I don’t know what exactly was stolen from me. But most definitely the old lady continued to steal something. In Kirarin’s case, there was no reason yet to get rid of her. Being slutty wasn’t enough of a reason. I lowered the butcher knife. I’m still sane. Not crazy yet.
“I’m trying to help,” she said. “So stop threatening me.”
Even from a distance I could see that tears were welling up in her eyes. Hey, I thought you respected me. Finding it all kinds of strange, I put the butcher knife back in its box.
“You’re an enlistee,” I told her. “A comrade in arms. So I’d better treat you well. But listen, now that you’re in my unit you’d better obey orders. In the army you have ranks and orders and that’s it. I’m a veteran and you’re just a new recruit, so you have to take care of me.”
“You mean you want me to suck you, right?” Kirarin shouted disgustedly.
“That’s right. So get to it—on the double.”
I stomped over to her and grabbed her hair. “Knock it off!” she shouted, and easily brushed away my hand. Gooseflesh rippled up on my skin and I stood stock-still. I was remembering how it felt when I grabbed hold of my mom’s hair and thought, She’s a woman, but also how creepy my slutty old lady felt to me. What I mean is, I didn’t just wipe out my mom’s sins, but her sluttiness, too. So maybe her being slutty was part of what she was guilty of? The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t figure it out, and I gave the pillow that lay on the gray carpet a good kick.
“Why are you so obsessed with the army? Are you like one of those military nerds?”
Kirarin took a can of Pocari Sweat out of the fridge. I didn’t tell her how I figured out that the soldier tortured by the Filipinos and I were one and the same. No sense in telling a slut such things. Kirarin sipped at her drink like it tasted really bad and said, “Why’d you kill your mom? And how’d you do it?”
I shrugged.
“Telling you isn’t going to help any. Stop acting like a prosecutor.”
“But I want to know,” she insisted.
Kirarin swung her crossed legs. I was surprised to see that the downy hair on her legs was blond. The hair on my mom’s legs was dark like a guy’s. It always struck me as animal-like and grossed me out.
“Why’s the hair on your legs like a foreigner’s?”
“I bleach it,” Kirarin said, making fun of me again, with this look on her face like, How in the world have you survived up till now without knowing that? “In the summer girls don’t shave, they bleach it. While you guys are studying your butts off and jerking off, we girls are up to more clever things.”
“Do that with mine, too.”
“I didn’t bring any bleach with me.”
“Go buy some. There’s gotta be a convenience store nearby.”
Kirarin laughed her head off. “Now why would you want to do that? I thought you were on the run.”
The answer was clear enough. I wanted to change into a different person, somebody much tougher. I thought it’d be cool to have blond leg hairs as my weapon, instead of the old salt suit. I got back in bed and lay down. I felt like I could still sleep forever. Kirarin inserted a couple of hundred-yen coins into the room TV. She flicked through a couple of news programs before finally settling on a music show. She turned around and said, “There’s nothing on the news about you. The world’s forgotten all about you.”
I stood up.
“Really?”
“They were all so worked up about it, now there’s nothing.”
“Hey, who’s the smartest of your friends?”
“Terauchi,” she replied immediately. “She’s got to be the brightest. Her face is kind of classically pretty, and she’s a little frumpy, but not too bad. But she’s kind of dark sometimes, and you can’t figure out what she’s thinking. She’s always fooling around saying dumb things, but when it’s exam time she knows what she’s doing and does a great job. She’s kind of a mystery woman. No matter what, though, our group tends to rely on her. She can get on your nerves sometimes, and I can’t stand it, but she can be a lot of fun, so I like her. Terauchi’s dark side is kind of like yours. I’m not sure how, exactly. She might actually be nuts, just like you.”
When I was calling all of the girls on Toshi’s cell phone, Terauchi was the one who abruptly hung up on me. I found her reaction more soldierly than that of Yuzan or Kirarin. She’s a real cadet. By cadet, I mean those elite officers who graduate from the military academy. The reason she says all kinds of stupid things is she’s dumbing herself down to the level of girls like Kirarin and Yuzan. But when the pedal hits the metal, you could count on her to know what to do, ’cause she’s a real soldier. All of sudden I thought maybe Terauchi was the only one who could help me out.
“Tell me more about her!”
“Hey, knock it off with that tone of voice, like you’re ordering me around.”
Kirarin stuck out her lips, her old flirty habits.
“Stop flirting,” I said. “And sit up straight.”
Kirarin frowned, clicked her tongue, and said something. I heard some voice mumbling this: “Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather.”
“What was that you just said?” I asked. “You really know a lot more than I do.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Kirarin shot me a little disgusted look. So what was this—the hallucination hour? I was really happy. Who knows, maybe I am a genius after all. Problem is, nobody knows it. It’s all my old lady’s fault, her and her views on raising kids, and the kind of education she and my school forced down my throat. I should have told the world what a genius I am, but I blew it by not leaving any note behind in my room. Before I completely lost it, I should have written something down.
“They say juvenile offenders are most often precocious and extremely bright, people who can’t adjust to the education system. So I think I should leave behind a novel or poem or something, like that murderer Sakakibara did, something to shake people up. Something to let people know how gifted I am.”
“I don’t know,” Kirarin said. “Most of the time don’t they just complain about their home life? How their parents mistreated them, or got divorced, how they weren’t loved enough? But yours was a decent enough family.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I want to write a manifesto for my crime.”
“So why don’t you?”
Kirarin didn’t seem to get it, and took another reluctant sip of her Pocari Sweat.
“I can’t,” I growled. “I don’t have the time. They’re chasing me. Plus, I have to get back to Tokyo to kill the old man. Who has the time?”
“So forget about it.”
“I’m not going to forget about it. I want to get something down on paper before I kill my dad.”
“Are you for real?” Kirarin shot me a serious look. “I say give it up. It’ll just get the media all worked up again.”
I ignored her. This was no time for logical arguments.
“I’ll get Terauchi to write it. You said we’re kind of alike, right? She’s smart and efficient. So I’ll have Terauchi ghostwrite it for me. Make her part of my military staff. The head of propaganda.”
“That’s a dumb idea.”