Chapter 9 (1/2)

Someone Else’s Name

The next day, Hinohara visited my house. He rang the doorbell several times with ten-second gaps, and while I did hear the sound of it, I had trouble hearing it as the doorbell, so it took me a while to notice my guest.

I slowly rose from bed, left my dark closed-curtains room, and went down the stairs while the light dazed me. I knew from his way of ringing the doorbell that my guest was Hinohara. It wasn’t uncommon for him to visit me in person without notice. Perhaps he’d quickly noticed what had happened to Hajikano, or Chigusa, or maybe both.

I opened the door and Hinohara drew close to me. Unusual for him, his face was full of concern and haste.

“How much do you know?”, he asked me.

“It’d be probably faster if you started.” I went past him and sat on the front steps outside. “How much do you know?”

Hinohara glared at me for a while like he wanted to say something, but eventually his shoulders drooped and he sat beside me.

“I got a call from Chigusa at noon yesterday.” He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it restlessly. “We’d traded numbers, but it was the first time she called me. I was surprised, and asked ”What’s wrong?” Then Chigusa said, “Are you listening, Hinohara? Listen closely to what I’m about to say.” I didn’t know what that was about, but I said sure.“

Noon must have been before I arrived at Chigusa’s house. So she’d not only left me a letter, but left a message with Hinohara in the form of a phone call.

Hinohara continued. ”It was short, but I couldn’t pa.r.s.e it at all. ”A number of strange things may happen from here on. But please, do not blame anyone,” Chigusa said. “Is that it?”, I asked. “That’s it,” she said. Right after that, she hung up. It was curious, alright, but the weather was good for stargazing yesterday, so I figured I could ask her in person later.“

”Strange things…”, I repeated. “Ogiue said that?”

“Yeah, that was it, word for word. And last night, I was the only one at the hotel. Was that the ”strange thing” Chigusa was talking about?, I wondered. But that didn’t seem right to me. I felt like Chigusa would’ve described an occurrence like this some other way, not “a strange thing.” So I considered, maybe the other three not showing up was just an influence of “strange things” that had already gone down?“

”So you called Ogiue.”

“Yeah. I called her house right at noon today, but n.o.body answered. I was getting a bad feeling, so I kept calling with some time between each call. In the evening, somebody finally picked up. Seemed to be Chigusa’s mother. I asked if she was there, and got an incoherent reply. Like she was really bewildered. I immediately sensed something real bad had happened. I told her I was a close friend of Chigusa’s, and all of a sudden she cried like a dam burst. And she told me Chigusa drowned this morning.”

“Drowned?”, I repeated instinctively. Chigusa had surely turned to seafoam and vanished with me right there. But to know the cause of death for sure, they must have found her body. “Where did they…?”

“She washed up on the coast in a neighboring town. They called an ambulance right away, but it was already too late. Chigusa’s mom had to go through some formalities for her daughter dying in an accident, and I guess she was getting the necessary stuff when I called. I was so shocked, I couldn’t even give condolences. Chigusa was dead? It was a little hard to believe. But at the same time, I knew deep down… so this was the ”strange thing.”“

Once Hinohara finished his first cigarette, he promptly lit up another. Like he was trying to cover up his emotions with smoke.

”I had to think Chigusa knew about her coming death. Which led to the possibility her death wasn’t an accident, but a suicide. But I couldn’t think of any reason why Chigusa would have to die. Sure, there was no hope for the love she had, it wasn’t going to be repaid, but she wasn’t a girl who would kill herself over that. All of a sudden, it occurred to me you might know something, so I called, but you weren’t at home. So next, I called Hajikano’s house.”

As soon as he uttered the name Hajikano, his mostly-level tone began to waver. More than being sad, it seemed he was incredibly angry about something.

“Hajikano’s mother answered the phone. I asked if Hajikano was there, and again got a vague, inarticulate answer. Like with Chigusa, I told her I was a close friend of Hajikano’s, but her mom was deeply cautious. After a long line of questioning, the phone suddenly got handed to a young woman. I think it was Hajikano’s older sister. She asked me some questions to make sure I really was a friend. Once she knew I wasn’t lying, she apologized for doubting me, then explained what happened to Hajikano.”

Hinohara stopped there, seeming to observe my reaction.

“It was a different time and different place, but Hajikano had a drowning incident similar to Chigusa’s,” I said in his place. “Right?”

“What the h.e.l.l is happening?” Hinohara dropped his cigarette underfoot and squished it against the ground. “You know something, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t have any more info than that.”

“But you at least have some ideas?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Listen, Hinohara. I’m sorry, but give me some time alone. I still haven’t accepted everything, and I need to sort things out. If I come up with anything, I’ll contact you. So can you leave for now?”

Hinohara watched carefully for slight changes in my expression, trying to probe into me. And perhaps seeing that there was what looked like real sadness there, he gave a resigned sigh.

“I’ll do what I can to look into the cause of the two accidents. I’ll keep digging until I find an answer I’m satisfied with. And if I find out Chigusa’s death wasn’t an accident, but somebody else’s doing, I’m gonna find the culprit and beat them to a pulp. I’m willing to put them through the same as Chigusa, depending.”

Hinohara stood up and kicked the cigarette b.u.t.t into the gutter.

“Call me if you change your mind. See you.”

“Right, got it.”

After Hinohara left, I went back to my room and lied on my futon. Being told the official truth about Chigusa’s death, I felt a sense of loss like somebody’d secretly shaved away a portion of my body.

I told Hinohara “I don’t have any more info than that.” Obviously, that was a lie. I at least knew in detail the reality of Chigusa’s death. More than that, depending on your point of view, I essentially killed her.

And in the letter Chigusa left me with, there was information about the “sin” Hajikano was trying to atone for. What happened in those blank four days. Chigusa looked into it herself for me, and arrived at what she thought to be the truth.

“I suppose I should have told you all this earlier, f.u.kamachi,” she wrote. “But I was afraid of being seen as a disagreeable girl trying to eliminate her compet.i.tion, so I kept silent. I’m sorry.”

When I read that, I felt I had a gut understanding of why Hajikano had to kill herself at this particular time.

Perhaps Hajikano enjoyed those stargazing days more than anyone.

And that’s why she felt she couldn’t be the only one to keep on living.

*

I stood at the bathroom mirror, uncapped the marker, and marked under my eye. Even looking at it closely in the mirror, the black spot fit very naturally on my skin. A stranger would surely think it was a real crying mole.

Two days had pa.s.sed since Hinohara visited my house. In that time, I’d stayed up in my room with the curtains closed, questioning myself about this and that. Should I have not led Hajikano out of her room? Was it my meddling which led Hajikano to attempt suicide again? Was there really no way to save Chigusa? If I had given up on Hajikano sooner, could I at least save Chigusa’s life? Was it none other than me who led things to this worst conclusion?… Once I got thinking, I couldn’t stop. I felt like everything I had done completely missed the mark.

Lying in my futon and staring at the ceiling all day, I gained an understanding of why Hajikano stayed in her dim room. Once you’re caught in a vortex of regret, your mind becomes dominated with the powerlessness of thinking anything you do will only worsen the situation, and even leaving your room becomes an ordeal. And sometimes, a vague longing for death comes upon you. Like being under some kind of curse.

The cicadas were still ever-present outside the window, but had lessened compared to a week ago. The setting of the sun somehow seemed to have gotten much faster, too. Hot days were hot days, but I’d never experienced such unbearably hot days as the last ten or so.

Which would come first: the end of summer, or my death? If possible, I wanted to leave this world before summer ended. Before the c.u.mulonimbus clouds departed, before the cicadas went away, before the sunflowers wilted. The most lonely thing was always being the last to leave.

The morning of the 20th, I got a call. I had started to find even eating troublesome, but the instant I heard the phone ring, my body moved naturally. I guess my body still hadn’t forgotten the joy of when I was on the line with Hajikano.

The caller was Hinohara.

“I’ve been running around everywhere for four days,” he said. “But thanks to that, I’ve got a general idea of things.”

“A general idea?”, I repeated, thinking there was surely no way he’d figured out everything, down to the bets with the woman on the phone, in just four days.

“Yeah. I mostly get why the two of them fell into the sea. I went fis.h.i.+ng around in Chigusa and Hajikano’s history.”

“What? How?”

“First, Chigusa,” he continued, ignoring my question. “There was nothing clearly amiss in her history. She never had disputes with others, and seemed to live a calm life. The one exception was that from elementary school up to very recently, she was in a wheelchair. She damaged her vertebrae in an accident and couldn’t stand for long periods, but recently was finally able to walk again.”

“Well,” I prodded, “what about Hajikano?”

“Just the opposite,” he said like reading bad news. “I went around asking former cla.s.smates of Hajikano’s, and they all told me the same thing. ”She wasn’t always like that.” “She was honest, cheerful, liked by everyone.” It seems most attributed that change to the birthmark that appeared on her face in winter, second year of middle school. Her personality gradually changed after that, and she was like a different person half a year later. That was the general consensus. …But some had different ideas. In summer of her third year, Hajikano had a four-day absence from school without any warning. And those four days marked when honest, cheerful, liked-by-all Hajikano turned into the silent and gloomy girl of today… That was their view.“

Through the phone, I heard him sitting down on a sofa.

”Logically, the former is more reasonable. People’s personalities don’t change in four or five days. But for some reason, I felt like those blank four days were the key to answering my doubts. …To get to the point, my hunch was right. Hajikano was absent just before summer break started, around July 12th. I went checking up on what happened to Hajikano within that timeframe. Expanding my scope from her cla.s.s, to her year, to her whole school, I came upon a curious incident. It happened in a neighboring town, on the second day of those four blank days. On that day, the charred corpses of two middle school girls were found in some ruins in the mountains. The news said it was suicide, with a definite note left behind.”

Struck with admiration for his detective skills, I spoke. “I remember that. It made the news, even got mentioned at a school a.s.sembly.”

“Yeah, it was a well-known incident around here. But at the time, I couldn’t see any common points between the two dead girls and Hajikano. But I had an unusual conviction. It was absolutely no coincidence that their deaths and Hajikano’s blank four days overlapped. As I kept digging, sure enough, I found the thread connecting them to Hajikano. The three of them were in the same cla.s.s for one year in elementary school. …Now, here’s where I made a slightly crazy leap. What if the gruesome suicide by fire in the ruins wasn’t planned for two people,but for three? What if there was meant to be three charred corpses instead of two, but one of them ran away?”

I had no words.

…Had Hinohara really gotten this far in just four days?

He went on. “It was an interesting theory, but too much of a leap of logic. I didn’t have a shred of proof. If I knew what the suicide note said, the truth would be clear, but unfortunately I don’t have those kinds of connections. Just as I was giving up, I got a call from a friend who heard I was questioning Mitsuba Middle School students. Turned out he knew a teacher at the school. He told me I could meet him anytime if I was interested.

”So the next day, I went to meet that teacher, and told him my ridiculous theory with deadly seriousness. I thought he’d deny it out of the gate. But once I was done, the teacher put his fingers to his brow and rubbed it, then said this. ”You won’t hear anything from me, but it wouldn’t be strange if that happened.” …Don’t you think that’s odd? Shouldn’t you normally imply denial after you say “you won’t hear anything from me”?“

”There’s nothing odd about it,” I said. “In short, you’re saying your idea was right?”

Hearing my stifled laugh, Hinohara got annoyed. “What’s so funny?”

“No, I’m not laughing at you, Hinohara. It’s just too funny that you arrived at a truth I couldn’t reach after a month in just four days.”

Hinohara gulped. “I knew it. You knew all this?”

“Yeah. Though I only knew the reason for Hajikano’s suicide after she jumped into the sea, so it was all too late anyway.”

What Hinohara was telling me was largely the same as what Chigusa wrote in her letter. Their approach to the mystery and thought processes had some overlap, and their conclusion was exactly the same. The two separate lines of logic filled in each other’s holes, and it seemed there was no more room for doubt: Hajikano was involved in the suicide of those two middle school girls from the neighboring town.

I stopped laughing and collected my breath. “Hey, Hinohara. I don’t know when, but I’ll be able to meet Hajikano in the hospital soon. When that happens, will you come with me? She’s fond of you.”

“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” he coldly refused. “I’m still not certain about the connection between Chigusa’s illogical death and Hajikano’s suicide attempt. But there’s one thing I can say. For some reason, whenever Hajikano tries to die, she doesn’t, but people around her do. …Or maybe my theory that Hajikano led Chigusa to suicide is wrong. And the cause behind her death is somewhere completely different, and I’m over here just making up conspiracies. But at any rate, three people who were deeply connected to Hajikano are dead. That’s an undeniable fact.”

He paused a few seconds, like giving his words time to sink in.

“I want absolutely no involvement with her anymore. You better watch it too, f.u.kamachi. Or else you might just be number four. …And now that Chigusa’s gone, I have no reason left to go to that rooftop. Our stargazing days are over. Goodbye.”

The call ended.

I put down the receiver, returned to my dark room, and lied down on the futon once more. I spotted the telescope case lying in the corner of the room. The day we saw the Perseid Meteor Shower, Hinohara said “I completely forgot a telescope would only get in the way,” and had me keep it at my place. Though for a time he didn’t even let me touch the telescope, lately he could tell how pa.s.sionately I was studying stargazing, to the point that he’d even let me hold onto it.

The telescope I had done everything to get for Hajikano’s sake. Now I got fed up even looking at it. It was a symbol of my failure, a symbol of defeat. These past few days, I had tried to avoid even letting the telescope enter my sight, but I felt its presence in the corner even if I wasn’t looking directly at it. I should really return it to Hinohara already, I thought.

I lifted my heavy body, picked up the case containing the lens tube and tripod, and left the house. The sun was still s.h.i.+ning, but its rays felt weak; none of that scorching, skin-burning sensation. The road was dirty with mud dropped by a tractor. Maybe from a barbecue, the lukewarm smell of burning sausage was carried on the wind.

As I tightly re-gripped the telescope case so as not to drop it and started walking, a familiar blue car stopped in front of my house. Masafumi appeared from the driver’s seat. From what I could tell, it wasn’t like he just happened to see me and stopped the car.

“Aya’s calling for you,” Masafumi said, and pointed to the pa.s.senger seat. “Get in.”

I nodded and got in the car.

*

“Just to let you know, it’d be a waste of time asking me the situation.”

Masafumi picked out a cigarette b.u.t.t with relatively more leaf left from a tray packed with them like sunflower seeds, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a cigarette lighter. Then his face scrunched up like it was disgusting, and he breathed out the smoke.

“Aya just asked me to come get you, so I have not a clue about any details. She’s waiting at the hospital, so ask her anything there you want to ask there. All I was told is that her sister is in the hospital, and she’s open for visiting as of today.”

“In other words, Aya wants me to meet with Hajikano - er, her sister?”, I asked half-believing.

“I told you, I dunno,” Masafumi said unhappily with the cigarette still in his mouth. “Maybe Aya just has to stay near the hospital, y'know?”

I nodded. He was right. The possibility existed that Aya just wanted to talk to me, but had to look after Hajikano at the hospital, so she asked Masafumi to bring me to her.

After the top of a narrow, winding hill was a tiny local hospital surrounded by thick forest. Masafumi dropped me off at the rotary, said “I’ve got tons to do back at the lab, so find your own way home,” and drove off in a hurry. I looked around for Aya, but didn’t spot her. Figuring it was safer to wait here rather than run around searching, I sat on the planter in front with the telescope case on my lap and waited.

A large river ran in front of the hospital. The riverbed was covered with plants as tall as people, and it wasn’t clear how much was ground and how much was river. The thick vegetation even spread deep into the side of the road on the bank, and it really didn’t seem to be in any state for people to walk on. Past the river, I could see dense green mountains, and a few steel towers rose from the foot of the mountains up to the middle. While waiting for Aya, I gazed absentmindedly at the peaceful scenery without any particular focus.

After some time, Aya appeared from the front entrance. She had a worn T-s.h.i.+rt and a denim skirt with frayed edges. Her makeup was messy, as was her hair, and she looked like she’d aged three years since we last met.

“Sorry to call you all of a sudden.” Aya gave me an exhausted smile. “I’ll have to give Masafumi some compensation later too. …Well, let’s go.”

“Hold on a moment,” I hurriedly stopped her. “Are you taking me to meet Yui?”

“Well, obviously. Or is there someone else in the hospital you know?”

“Nothing like that. But I felt that me meeting Yui right now would have an adverse effect. Have you told her that I’m coming?”

“I haven’t. But relax, it’s fine.” She smiled at me, but her eyes were hollow. “Yui seems more peaceful than she’s been in years. Just -”