Real World Read online

  I noticed something and turned around. The manager was standing there, timidly trying to figure out whether he should say something. Remembering I was on the run, I decided to get out. No good for me to stand out too much. My cell phone rang just when I got outside. It was from Yuzan, the girl who helped me.

  “Hello. It’s me.”

  I probably shouldn’t say this, but talking to her is just like talking to a guy. Doesn’t do a thing for me. Girls should have a higher, cuter voice. Why? ’Cause they’re a different life-form, that’s why. So when I talk to this Yuzan I always feel like complaining. But I guess that makes me just as bad as my old lady—always wanting things to go my way. Guess we share the same blood after all. I smiled bitterly.

  “Hold on a sec,” I said.

  I looked for a shady place, but there wasn’t any in front of the convenience store. Just the roar of trucks and the blazing sun. I was bowled over by the heat reflecting off the concrete. My salt suit was melting, dripping down my skin, and sticking to it. I found a truck parked in the parking lot and slumped down in its shade.

  “What d’ya want?” I asked.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I wound up sleeping in a convenience store parking lot last night. Too many mosquitoes when you sleep outdoors. Then I ate some rice balls from the store and have been riding since morning.”

  “Where’re you at now?”

  “I don’t know. Out in the sticks,” I said, glancing around me. Somewhere out in Saitama Prefecture. “Around Kumagaya, I think.”

  “Supposed to be a really hot place. You okay?”

  Yuzan spoke very fast. The heat must have been messing up my brain, ’cause I couldn’t talk right.

  “I’m okay. But what’s happening with the cops?”

  “Toshi says they’re coming by every day. But what’d you expect? I saw your old man a little while ago. They had your mom’s funeral this morning. It was terrible, your old man was bawling.”

  He broke down? It felt like it had nothing to do with me. Killing my mom, wanting to kill my dad later, too—under this blazing sun it all felt unreal, like a myth from some far-off land. Were these people really my parents? I’d been thinking about this before, while pedaling my bike—the whole before then, after then thing. As I mulled over my hatred of my mom, it felt like I’d left after then way behind—and had crossed over to a completely different world. What the hell’s going to happen to me? With this salt suit on, am I no longer going to be human? For the first time, I started to feel worried.

  “I wonder what’s going to happen to me.”

  “Whatever happens, happens,” Yuzan said coolly. That part of her, I don’t like, I thought. I don’t know what her story is, but it’s like whenever I try to get a little closer she gets all cold and standoffish. Still, she’s curious about me. But I can’t figure her out, and I don’t like people I can’t figure out.

  “Did anybody from my school come to the funeral?” I asked.

  “No idea. I don’t think there were any high school students there.”

  “To them I was just a piece of trash they never noticed.”

  Yuzan chuckled. “Cooler to be a piece of trash.”

  Her words rescued me, and I felt strong all of a sudden.

  “So being on the run is cool?” I asked.

  “Yeah. What I mean is—what are you going to do now?”

  Her voice was filled with sympathy and curiosity. It was like she wanted me to be her stand-in in some great adventure.

  “I just have to keep running.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I have no clue.”

  I really didn’t. Yuzan gave this big sigh, like a little kid.

  “I wanna go with you somewhere.”

  “There’s nowhere I can go.”

  This time it was my turn to be abrupt. Yuzan had helped me, but it didn’t feel like I was dealing with a girl. Besides, she was a complicated type, kind of unapproachable. A gloomy person who blamed herself ’cause she was convinced her mother’s illness and death were her fault. As I talked with her on the phone I was thinking, You and I are very different. I’m much colder.

  “Guess you’re right,” she said. “Hey, is it okay if I tell my friends your cell number? They all want to call you.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  I don’t know why, but this idea got me excited. When I stole that girl Toshi’s bike and cell phone, what was most fun was being able to talk with all the girls whose numbers were in the contacts list. I’d like to meet the one named Kirarin.

  Yuzan acted all cool, like she’d seen right through me. “I see—so you’re a regular guy after all. Okay, I’ll let ’em know.”

  Damn, I thought, and was silent. If Yuzan tips off the cops I’m in a world of trouble. I hung up and took another swig of water. I was hungry but didn’t feel like going back to the convenience store. I plopped down next to one of the truck’s wheels. God, some yakiniku would taste great right about now.

  “Hey, get outta the way.”

  This voice came from above me and when I opened my eyes, there was a young man standing there. Blond hair and sunglasses, running shoes and shorts. The driver of the truck. A tough-looking guy.

  “Sorry.”

  As I stood up the guy grimaced.

  “I think I’m gonna puke, you stink so much.”

  “Sorry,” I said again. It pissed me off that I had to apologize to some guy I didn’t even know. I went over to the bike rack. I checked out an old lady’s bike, a black one, saw it was unlocked, and hopped aboard. Yuzan’s silver bike was cool-looking but stood out too much. Plus, it felt good to dump that pushy girl’s bike.

  The old lady’s bike was heavy. I pedaled off on the main road again and thought that I’d better go over the day my world changed or else I’d get sleepy again. Just then the cell phone rang. I stopped the bike by the side of the road and answered it. First, though, I hid the bike in some bushes so nobody would spot it and crouched down there.

  “It’s me. Toshi. From next door.”

  Yuzan didn’t waste any time giving her my number.

  “Oh, hey. Yuzan told me they had my old lady’s funeral today.”

  “That’s right,” Toshi said, her voice kind of gloomy. “I’m calling from my cram school right now, but your father and relatives were all crying at the funeral. My parents, too, and I couldn’t help crying, either. Hey, I can understand your wanting to run away, but don’t cause any trouble for Yuzan, okay? That’d make her an accomplice.”

  Who the hell does this girl think she is? Sounds exactly like my old lady. I was really disappointed. I mean, it’s like I murdered my mother for her sake. That’s why, right after I did it, when I ran across her outside it made me really happy. I offed my old lady for you, I wanted to laugh and say to her, so what’re you gonna do for me now? It was all for you, I wanted to tell her. But all I could get out was “Sure is hot today.” Pathetic.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s really hot here, so could you call back later?”

  “That’s pretty rude. And after I went to the trouble of calling you. See you.”

  She hung up the phone. For a moment, I was afraid she’d rat on me, tell ’em what happened that day, but then I figured that by now everybody knew I’d whacked my old lady, so who cares. I sat there in the bushes, hugging my knees. It was strange, I thought, why all these weird girls like Yuzan and Toshi were interested in me. Was I their hero? That was enough to cheer me up.

  A matricidal murderer. I knew I’d done something really huge, but thinking of it in those terms made me feel kind of strange. And the more I ran, the stranger it felt. I lay down on the grass and gazed up at the sky. While I was lying there, I wondered, What was Toshi up to at that cram school of hers? As I imagined her, I got an erection.

  From the east side veranda of my room I can just barely see into Toshi’s room. Her desk is near the window and when I’m lucky I can catch a glimpse of her studying there t