Vol 1 Epilogue (1/2)
Epilogue
It’s July 1998, and I celebrate a little in my head as I finish up the day’s
work early, just before lunch break I say “work” but really, I’m just more
of a secretary to Miss Tōko than anything,the odd job she
needs doing I’e
halfway
“Kokutō, isn’t today your weekly visit?”
“Yes, ht away”
“Oh, don’t delay on account of
more for you to do here today, anyway”
I have to say, Miss Tōko’s telasses are on is much
ood day for her too; since it’s the
day she cleans that car she’s so proud of to an immaculate sparkle She
always likes doing that
“Thanks, ma’am I’ll be back in about two hours”
“Bring oodbye just
before I close the door to her office
Ryōgi is still in the hospital, still in a co I
still go to visit her every Saturday afternoon She never told me about any
pain she was holding in, or anything she thought about I don’t even know
why she tried to kill me But at least she smiled in the end, even if it was a
faint one At least she sh
Gakutō had it right a long tiuess that’s
why I am the way I am today even after a brush with death
I still remember the last time we stood in the sunset lit classroom Under
that burning, blood red sky, asked me what part of her I believed in
And I still remember my answer
“I don’t have any basis, but I trust you I like you, so I want to keep believing
in you”
A premature answer, perhaps I said I didn’t have any basis, but the truth
is, I did I just didn’t know it at the time She didn’t kill anyone That, at
least, I could believe in Because kne painful murder was She,
above all others, knew the suffering that the victim and the murderer went
through
That’s why I believed: in , who couldn’t express herself, in shi+ki,
asn’t given a chance to be a person, in , as far from pain,
and in shi+ki, who knew nothing but pain
The three pieces now lie poised on the board
One a , and
on death, dependent
One a life in paradox eternal , and in death, pleasure
One a predator with origin awakened, and to death,
gnosis
Three noirl and dance, and in the spiral of
conflict they wait
84 • KINOKO NASU / LINGERING PAIN • 84
Part I: Lingering Pain
/ LINGERING PAIN • 85
When I was little, I played house a lot I had a pretend family, with a pretend
pet, a pretend kitchen, and I would cook pretend food
But one day, a real blade had accidentally been mixed up in the artificial,
pretend ones
I had never seen a toy that sharp before, and I used it to play, and in the
process cut ers
I approached my mother with red soaked palms outstretched, and I
re“I
know it hurts, but we’ll fix it,” over and over again
It was not her consolation thatme,
and so I started to cry as well
“Don’t worry, Fujino The pain will go away once the wound heals,” she
said while wrapping a bandage around my hand
At the ti to say
Because not even for a moment did I feel any pain
86 • KINOKO NASU
Lingering Pain
“Well, she certainly has her way of introducing herself,” the professor
remarks
The university science lab has that synthetic smell of chemical disinfectants
that reminds me more of hospitals But the laboratory equipment
dispels any notion of that quickly As does the white-coated professor who
Miss Tōko sent me to meet today, who now displays a reptilian smile of full
white teeth while offering a handshake I take it
“So you have an interest in parapsychology, eh?” he asks
“Not really I just want to know sos about the topic”
“And that’s what you call ‘interest’” He wrinkles his nose, satisfied at his
shoit “Well, it doesn’tless from
her associate I mean, she asks you to hand her business card as an introduction
She was always a unique one, and talented I wish our university
had more students of her caliber”
“Er…yes, I’ to
see where Miss Tōko gets her ability to ramble so much from “But I was
asking about—“
“Ah, yes, yes, parapsychology There are many different phenomena that
fall under that label Our university doesn’t really deal with it, however I’m
sure you can understand when I say it’s treated as quack science by most in
my field There are very few universities here in japan still giving grants for
parapsychology studies Even so, I’ve heard a few have had soinal
successes, though the actual details don’t really—“
“Yes, professor, I’d i, but I’m more
interested in how people end up having them in the first place”
“Well, to siames,
don’t you? What card gaht now?”
I scratch ic “Erm…
poker, I guess?”
“Ah yes, poker I’ve had ame” He
clears his throat for a moment, then moves on “Let us say that human
brains are all playing a ga poker Most
everyone else in society is playing poker as well There are other games,
but we can’t play theame
we have to play, because that’s hoe define being nor
me so far?”
“So you’re saying that everyone plays a boring card game?”
/ LINGERING PAIN • 87
“But see, that’s what makes it better for everyone Since everyone plays
poker, we’re protected by arbitrary, but absolute rules of our own creation,
and thus we can live in a peaceful consensus”
“But if I’ames aside from
poker aren’t so clear cut?”
“We can only speculate Say soame with
rules that have an allowance for plants to communicate, and maybe other
ame that has rules that say you can move a body other
than your own These are not the saames as poker They have their
own consensus, their own rules When you play poker, you play by its rules,
but those playing by the rules of other games don’t conform To them,
poker doesn’t make a lick of sense
“So you’re saying that people not ‘playing poker’, so to speak, have some
mental abnormalities?”
“Exactly Consider a person that knew no other gaame
where you could coame, he
talks to plants, but he can’t talk to people People who see him then brand
him as crazy and put him in the funhouse If he really could talk to plants,
then that’s a person with paranorht there: a person that
plays a different gaame society plays
However, I’d iine most people with these sorts of abilities are still capable
of switching their mindsets, so that they can still live mostly unnoticed
in society”
“Which ame where you can talk
to plants a crazy person, since he lacks the shared subconscious experience
and consensus inherent in playing poker, aht? If he only knows
the other game, and can’t switch between the two, then he’s considered
ed”
“That’s right Society calls these people serial killers and psychopaths,
but I would phrase the paradoxes’: People
who, because they play by irregular rules of reality, make their existence
itself a contradiction to reality People who shouldn’t be able to exist, who
can’t exist” He pauses for a half beat to collect himself, then added “This
is all hypothetical, of course” As if he needed to say it
“Of course, professor Is there any way to correct a living paradox like
you said?”
“You’d have to destroy the very rules they play by within their minds
But destroying the brain just equates to killing them, so there’s really no
easy way, or really no other way but to kill them No one can just suddenly
alter a state of mind or ability like that If there was, then that person him-
88 • KINOKO NASU
self would also be playing a different ga
like solitaire I hear that game has some pretty complex rules in it”
The professor laughs heartily, apparently immensely amused at his own
joke I can’t say I share the sentiment
“Thanks, professor You’ve helped loads I suppose now I knohat I’ll
do when I encounter psychokinetic people” I say it only half sarcastically
“Psychokinesis? Like bending spoons, things like that?”
Oh, brother, here we go again “Or heck, why not a human arm?” That
one was less of a joke
“If we’re going by spoon bending, then you have nothing to fear The
force required to bend a spoon would take days to distort a human arm If
there was soest a hasty withdrawal”
Now that he ht time for a hasty withdrawal
myself “I’o
I have to get to Nagano, and I’d like to do it today Sorry for eating up too
much of your time”
“Oh, no, it’s quite alright Any friend of hers is a friend of mine Come by
any tiards to Aozaki, won’t you?”
/ 1 • 89
/ 1
Fujino Asagami, still in a state of confusion and disorientation, pulls herself
up in the
and ht isn’t turned
on No, not quite right There was no light in the first place, and darkness
stretches all over the roo in
She exhales a long sigh, and brushes her long, black hair lightly with
tre lazily on her left
shoulder is now gone, probably cut off by the man with the knife while he
was on top of her After re that, she slowly surveys the room
around her
This is– was –an underground bar Half a year ago, this bar ran into
financial difficulties, and it was abandoned Not long after, it became just
another abandoned establish city, a haunt for
various delinquents and robbers Much of the effects from its better days
still lay forgotten inside In the corner rests a banged up pipe chair In the
le pool table Everywhere in
the roo, half-finished piles
with cockroaches scrabbling all over the ree
is stacked haphazardly to one side In a corner, a bucket is almost
filled with urine, a communal container to compensate for the lack of a
working toilet The combined stench of it all is potent, and almost makes
Fujino vomit
With no light and no way to knohere you are, this dark, secluded
ruin could have been in a skid row of some far off country for all anyone
knows One wouldn’t even think there was a normal city on the other side
of the door on the top of the stairwell The faint smell of the alcohol lamp
thosethat maintains any sense of normalcy
“Umm…” Fujino mumbles She looks around slowly, as if this scene is
cootten up from the pool table, but her
up to do
She picks up a nearby wrist, flesh showing tears and seely twisted
off froital wristwatch,
and in glowing green text, it shows the date: July 20, 1998 The
time: 8:00pm, not even an hour after what happened
All at once, Fujino is assailed by sudden, blinding pain in her abdomen,
and she lets slip a strained grunt She staggers from the ache, and barely
90 • KINOKO NASU
stops herself fro herself with
her hands As soon as her palms touch the floor, she hears a soft splash
Re today, she realizes that the whole
roo else
She takes a lance at her abdomen, and sees the distinct
spatter of dried blood—right in the place where those men stabbed her
The man who stabbed Fujino was a familiar face to anyone in this part
of town He seeh
school dropouts and various drifters of similar minds and motivations
They did what they felt: stick-ups, assault, robbery, arson, drugs, you name
it They plied their trade in the forgotten maze of backlanes between the
buildings of the colance
could ever reach They ehts of the
peopled avenues for only short intervals, to catch their victih
coercion or force and had their twisted entertainht It is on
one such norht that this crew and Fujino crossed paths
It was a perfect setup A student of Reien Girl’s Acadeood
looking, Fujino beca public
vilification, Fujino never told anyone of how she was victimized This
fact eventually reached the ears of the men, however, after which whatever
hesitance theyfound out disappeared
They raped her again and again, bringing her to this underground bar after
school Tonight was supposed to be another routine night, like always, but
their leader apparently got tired of just doing Fujino
He brought out a knife, probably to bring so a little new to the
table He’d felt offended by what Fujino did: how she just lived her days as
if they hadn’t done anything to her at all, as if what they did to her didn’t
humiliate her He felt he needed more proof of Fujino’s humiliation and his
dominance And he needed just that little bit of violence, that little ounce
of extra pain for that, hence the knife
But Fujino didn’t even react, her face a blank expression, even when he
had a knife ready to dig deep in her face This made him truly incensed He
pushed her down to the table, and got to work
Casting her eyes doard, Fujino looks at her blood-soaked clothes
and thinks: I can’t go out looking like this
/ 1 • 91
Her own spilt blood is concentrated only on her abdomen, but she’s
soaked in their blood froet dirtied like
this Her foot hits one of their scattered liives a
little shake in response She considers her options
If she waits one more hour, the number of pedestrians will start to dwindle
And the fact that it’s raining only helps It’s summer, so it’s not too
cold She’ll just let the rain wash soo to a park
and clean herself up there
After co away from
the dark pool of water and blood, she takes a seat at the pool table, taking
a count of the scattered li on
the floor
One
Two
Three
Four
Four Four Four? No matter how many times I count, it only comes down
to four! A
“So, one of theed to escape,” Fujino murmurs to herself She
lets slip a sh
If so, I’ll be caught by the police If he’d already run to a station, I’ll be
arrested for sure But could he really tell the police? Hoould he be able
to explain what just happened? Would he tell them how they kidnapped
and violated me, and told me to shut up? He’d need a cover story And none
of theh for that
She lights the alcohol laet a better view Its
flickering orange glow illu the shadows
twirl and dance The story of violence in the room is quite visible now: sixteen
ars, four torsos, four heads, and wet blood spatters in
every direction Fujino is unfazed by the brutality of the scene before her
No ti one, which meant
she still had so to do
Do I have to take revenge?
Her body trembles as if to reinforce her lack of conviction No more
killing, she tries to tell herself, as earnestly as she possibly can But she
remembers what they did to her, and what they could do to her if she
doesn’t permanently shut the mouth of the one who escaped Her body
treht? A relishi+ng of
what is to coers in her
mind vanishes
92 • KINOKO NASU
On Fujino’s blood tinted reflection on the floor, a little smile plays across
her face
/ LINGERING PAIN - I • 93
Lingering Pain - I
July is about to end, but not before it dumps a lot of business in my plate
Starting froained
consciousness, to finishi+ng e
and working for Miss Tōko, and even having my sister who I haven’t seen
for five years co here to Tokyo for a visit, I’ve had little time to even
stop and take a breath I don’t know if starting my nineteenth summer like
this is the good earth’s way of saying “nice job” or “Mikiya Kokutō needs to
be screwed over with greater frequency”
Tonight is one of those rarest of nights, ht off, so I ith
so And before I could so
lance at an hour hand, I’d noticed it was late and the train had
long since o
back home Some of my friends took taxis home, but since my payday was
held off till toet can’t cooperate Left without a choice, I
decided to walk back home Fortunately, my house was only two stations
and a block or tay, not too far a distance
It was the 20th of July up until a few ht of
the 21st, I findas
tomorrow is a weekday, sees little foot traffic at this hour It had rained
particularly hard tonight Luckily, it stopped just as me and my friends were
going ho its potent
petrichor smell, and my footsteps make little splashes on the scattered
puddles of the streets and sidewalks
While the above 30 degree Celsius temperature and the humidity of
the rain work to make this the most miserable stroll in recent memory, I
co pressure on her
stomach with her hand like she was in pain That black school uniform she’s
wearing is one I’m familiar with The uniform, made to resemble a nun’s
habit, is the school dress of that academy of ladies of refined taste and
upright morals, the Reien Girl’s Academy Gakuto jokes that half the reason
for Reien’s popularity is precisely because of the uniform Not that I’m one
that goes in for that kind of thing; I only know it because my sister Azaka
studies there I know they’re a boarding school, though, which makes that
girl’s presence here at this late hour doubly suspicious Or maybe she’s just
soulations
Seeing as she’s fro hand
When I call out a simple “hello” to her, she turns to face me, and her black
94 • KINOKO NASU
hair, wet froh
quite silently, as if trying to suppress it Her face is small, with sharp features
She wears her long hair straight down her back, and it separates
around her right ear to foroes down to her chest It seems
there is supposed to be a similar tassel on her left ear but it looks like it’s
been cut That, along with her bangs, cut straight and clean in the school
prescribed hter of some rich, wellto-do
fa standards
“Yes, what is it?” Her voice is faint and her face is equally pale Her lips
are tinted purple, the mark of someone with cyanosis With a hand on her
sto her best to look at me normally, but the little muscle
movements and the folds in the face that mark a person in pain are obvious
“Does your stomach hurt?”
“No, er…that is, I…Ito be calm, but she’s
already stuile, like she could suffer
from a mental break down at any moment, not unlike shi+ki when I first met
her
“You’re a long ay from Reien Academy, lady Miss the train? I
could call a taxi for you”
“No, you don’t need to I don’t have any money anyway”
“Yeah, join the club” Before I’d realized it, I’d already given her an impolite
answer Try to salvage this one, Mikiya “Yeah…so I guess you must live
near here huh? I heard it was a boarding school but you probably have
soo out”
“Not really My house is quite far”
Right Scratch that
“So what are you, a runaway?”
“Yes, I think that’s the only thing I can do right now”
Oh, ht
through Maybe she couldn’t find an umbrella or a shade the whole time it
rained, because she is dripping wet all over The last time I was face to face
with a girl soaking wet in rain, I aluess that’s why I’m
so aard around this girl now You never can trust girls in rain Still, it’ll
be a waste of time if I don’t help her now
“So, you want to sleep over at ht?”
“…can I?” she asks, still crouching and looking desperately at me I nod
“I have a place all to uarantees
I’ht offend your
person, and as long as you don’t do any funny business, we can keep it that
/ LINGERING PAIN - I • 95
way If that’s fine with you, then you can follow me Now, since my employer,
in her infinite wisdoive
youyou”
She looks happy and smiles I extend a hand to her to help her up, and
she gently grasps it and stands I notice, for a moment, that there are red
stains on the sidehere she was sitting
Taking her with et us
both out of this wretched night
“There’s a short walk ahead of us Tella hard time I
can at least be burdened with one girl on my back”
“You needn’t worry My wound has already closed up so it doesn’t really
hurt anymore,” she says The hand that she has yet to re
on her stomach, however, says otherwise
“Does your stoain, as much for her own peace of
mind as mine
She shakes her head, saying “no” After that, we continue to walk, and
she keeps her silence for so for a few more minutes,
she nods
“Yes, it…it really hurts Is it…all right for me to cry?” When I nod an affirmative,
her face turns into an expression of contentment She closes her
eyes, looking like she’s drea
She hasn’t really told me her name, and I haven’t told her mine, and I
feel it’s more appropriate that it stay that way As soon as we reach the
apartirl asks me if she can use the shower, to which I say yes
She also wants to dry her clothes, so with the la a pack
of sive her some
tis
After an hour, I co room
sofa by sleeping on it With all indications pointing to tons of work tomorrow,
I decide to ood what little time I have left for sleep I set my
alar asleep, I take one
last look on her unifor it has the littlest of tears,
just around her midsection
I wake up the next
nothing Apparently she aiting for et up Once she sees me
awake, she gives a quick bow
96 • KINOKO NASU
“Thank you for what you did last night I don’t have any way to
repay you, but I can at least thank you” She stands up and makes for the
door
“Wait up, wait up” I call after her while rubbing my eyes awake I can’t
have her leave just like that when she waited for et up “I can at
least get you a breakfast”
That stops her Food ht, she’s just as
hungry as anyone else would be after her ordeal last night Now then, I’ve
got sohetti the obvious
choice for breakfast I quickly whip up two portions of it and carry it to
ether Since it seems like she’s not in a
talkingnews It’s the usual
diet of ho
“Ah, strange whodunits with a tinge of the weird Just the kind of news
that Miss Tōko would love” If I had said that in the office, I’d probably
already be smacked upside the head with a projectile shoe But the news
item is bizarre
The reporter on the scene told the story Seems four bodies were found
in an underground bar that had been abandoned for a half a year All four
of them had had their limbs torn off, and the crime scene was filled with
blood The scene is pretty close by, maybe four stations or so away from
where ere drinking last night
I make a mental note of the fact that the news said that their limbs were
“torn off” and not “cut off” Regardless, the news has nothing more on that
angle, and goes on to describe the details on the victiers,
and delinquents who frequently hung around the neighborhood It
sees too; corner boys They have a citizen on the
on the victims
“Those kids knehat they were getting into, and they got it I think
they deserved to die”
And with those words, I turn the TV off I hate it when people say those
things, and I hate it even ive
people like that the tiuest only to
find her with a hand on her stoht She hasn’t even
touched her food There reallywith her stomach
She looks down, such that I can’t see her face
“nobody deserves to die,” she says in between ragged breaths, causing
her next words come out in whispers “Why does it still throb? It’s already
healed over, but why—“
Suddenly, she stands up not altogether cal the chair fall to
/ LINGERING PAIN - I • 97
the floor with a noise, and runs to the door I start to stand up to go after
her, but with head still cast doards, she raises a palm towards me, as if
to say I shouldn’t come near her
“Wait, calm down I think I can—”, I start to say, but she cuts me off
“No, please Now I know…I can never go back” That face—a face of