Real World Read online

We could hear the front door open, and it sounded like Dad had come home. He didn’t say, “I’m home,” or anything, but cleared his throat, so we knew it was him. He puttered around noisily, switching on the AC in the living room, taking a bath, opening the fridge door. Dad works at a metropolitan bank and leaves early in the morning and comes home late every night. Nobody was paying him any attention.

  “Good timing,” I said. “Dad’s back.”

  “What the hell for? Too bad he wasn’t run over. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll be hit by a taxi,” Yukinari muttered. I imagined this was how he spent every night, surfing the Web, muttering expletives.

  “I wonder if the cops are checking out this Web site.”

  “Of course they are,” Yukinari answered coldly, and was printing out the photo of Worm. “You can have this, sis. Put it up in your room.”

  “Why?”

  “A nice memento. Or you can give it to Toshi.”

  This startled me. Yukinari had no idea that the four of us were in contact with Worm. The photo most definitely would be a souvenir of our involvement in this whole affair. And a memento revealing the essence of who we really were. If Worm got caught, the photos posted online would be of the four of us, with some caption like, “The four high school girls who aided and abetted.” Kirarin would no doubt be the most popular. I took the photo of Worm out of the printer and went back to my room. Right then my cell phone rang.

  “It’s me. So how’re you doing with it?”

  It was Worm. No “Hi, can you talk now?” or anything. The guy wouldn’t know good manners if they bit him on the leg. I switched over to my control-the-temper mode. His last call was last night. Which means they haven’t caught him yet, I thought, as I gazed at the photo of him, at his scrawny neck.

  “What’d ya mean, ‘it’?”

  “My criminal manifesto.” Worm must have been outside, because every once in a while I heard cars driving by.

  “Didn’t you say you wanted it to be a novel?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. A poem’s fine. Some cool lines, like from a play. I’m counting on you.”

  Since he’s having somebody else write it, you know that in the end if he doesn’t like it he’s going to change parts, or maybe toss the whole thing anyway.

  “Why not just take something from a manga?” I asked coldly.

  “It’s gotta be original. I’m a high school student, for God’s sake! Can’t wind up losing out to some fourteen-year-old kid.”

  “Then I think you’d better give up the whole idea. You’ve already totally lost out.”

  “You’re a real slut, you know that?” Worm sounded more relaxed than the night before. “You’re getting to be just like my old lady.”

  I decided then and there I was never going to have any kids. The last thing I want is to give birth to some idiot like him.

  I pretended to be hurt. “Don’t say things like that.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Okay then. I’ll start writing the thing,” I said, lying through my teeth, but trying to sound meek and obedient.

  “Then get going. Have to get it done before I can go kill my father.”

  I didn’t go there; instead I asked him where he was.

  “Karuizawa,” Worm answered, not wary at all. “It’s nice and cool here. We broke into a vacant summer cottage. Taking a break. Tomorrow we move out to the front lines.”

  “Is Kirarin with you?”

  “Hello? Terauchi? It’s me, Kirarin.”

  Instead of Worm answering, Kirarin came on the line all of a sudden but soon stopped talking. “Go away,” I heard her say, and then Worm complained, “I’m not listening.”

  “Dude. Sounds like you and the murderer are getting along just fine,” I told her.

  “Stop it. Nothing’s happening. I’m with him ’cause he threatened me.”

  For somebody being threatened, she sounded pretty cheerful.

  “I hear you’re in Karuizawa.”

  “That’s right. We just got back from eating ramen. Mount Asama looks totally weird at night,” she said tranquilly. “I’m going back to Tokyo tomorrow, so don’t worry about me. But there’s something I wanted to ask you, Terauchi. I don’t see anything about Worm in the papers or on TV. Do you have any idea of how the murder’s being reported?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything in the media about it. His picture’s online, though. On the Internet people seem to really be into it.”

  With my toe I played with the photo of Worm. So Kirarin was doing it with a guy who looked like Shinsaku Takasugi, I thought, strangely moved.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “What should we do? They know what he looks like.”

  Kirarin let out this exaggerated sigh. She was taking Worm’s side now, I noticed. Worm came back on the line.

  “Is my photo really online? Gotta be those jerks at school. What a crappy thing to do. Course, if I was in their shoes I’d probably do the same. I knew it was going to happen sometime, but didn’t figure it’d be this soon. But I’ve got a girl with me, so they won’t recognize me.”

  When he said this, it struck me that Kirarin wasn’t coming home as easily as she thought. Worm found it convenient to have Kirarin with him, and he was too sly to let her go. Kirarin was a cute girl whom everybody liked, so maybe I shouldn’t have let on about his photo being on the Internet. But being with Worm was something Kirarin had decided on her own. A Kirarin who was totally different from me.

  “So you’re serious about wanting a manifesto?” I asked.

  “Yep. Any good ideas?”

  “How about this? ‘Why didn’t you kill your father while you were at it? Heh, heh, heh.’” What my brother had written online.

  Worm reacted immediately. “That’s just not me. Writing someone else’s impressions is not going to get us anywhere. ‘Death is lighter than a feather, and I’m resigned to it.’ Now that’s pretty cool.”

  “The Imperial Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors. Fits you to a T.”

  “Guess so,” Worm replied, giving my indifferent response a bit of thought. Then, as if he’d roused himself, he said, “Okay, now that I have a slogan, maybe I should go and kill the old man?”

  What’re you talking about, slogans? This isn’t China, pal. And I had my doubts about whether such crummy words would do. Worm didn’t understand the concept of something that can’t be undone, after all. At this point, Worm meant nothing to me. Less than a foreign body or a speck of poison.

  “Don’t ask me. How should I know? Hey, where exactly are you in Karuizawa?”

  “We just left a ramen place along Highway Eighteen. We’re gonna stop by a convenience store and then go back.”

  “Yeah? Well, take care then.”

  I said this without meaning it and hung up. I immediately dialed Toshi to give her an update. I’d already told her about last night and was sure she wanted to catch up on everything.

  “So Kirarin’s planning to stay with him?” Toshi said. “This is the worst possible scenario.”

  “I suppose so, but you have to remember that’s what she chose to do.”

  “Terauchi, you really are cold, you know that?” Toshi said in her usual tone.

  “Can’t help it. Kirarin’s seventeen and an adult.”

  “I know, but what’re we going to do?”

  “When they arrest him, they’ll check his cell phone records and then we’ll be in deep trouble. Man—how could this happen?”

  “I know,” Toshi agreed. “I never imagined I’d get involved. An accomplice to murder—and aiding and abetting a fugitive. Or maybe just the aiding and abetting part? This is all because Yuzan helped him out.”

  “But didn’t it start out by you lying?”

  Toshi clammed up. Finally she let out a painful breath.

  “I guess so,” she said. “I felt sorry for the guy. I didn’t want to help him, but I also didn’t want him to get caught. So I just let things run their course, which means, yeah, I’m pr