Real World Read online

  “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