Journey Under the Midnight Sun

TWELVE

The rainy season had long since passed but still the rain in September was relentless, falling in a dusting of fine droplets that covered the city despite a forecast for clear skies that night. Noriko Kurihara walked past the shops outside Nerima Station in north-western Tokyo. The awnings would keep her dry for most of the ten-minute walk between the station and her apartment.

She passed by an electronics store and heard the sounds of ‘Say Yes’ by Chage and Aska – the theme song to a popular TV show – blaring out of some speakers. One of Noriko’s co-workers had recently been lamenting the fact that the show was about to end, but Noriko didn’t really care. She rarely watched television.

Past the shops there was nothing to shield her hair from the rain, so she pulled out a blue-and-grey checked handkerchief and draped it over her head. Just a little farther ahead she ducked into a convenience store where she bought some tofu and leeks. She was tempted to buy a disposable umbrella but balked at the price.

Her apartment stood right along the train tracks. Two bedrooms, for eighty thousand yen a month. If she had planned to live alone, a smaller place would have been fine, but she had expected to be living with a man. He had, in fact, slept over a few times. Now that was over, she was alone, living in a too-large apartment, but lacking the will to move again.

I should never have moved in the first place.

Rain soaked her apartment building’s walls, turning them the colour of mud. She walked up the outside staircase, careful not to brush her clothes against the stucco walls. There were four units on each of the building’s two storeys. Noriko’s was at the far back on the first floor.

She unlocked the door and opened it. It was dim inside as always. No lights were on in the kitchen, or the living room beyond.

‘I’m home,’ she said, hitting the switch on the kitchen wall. She knew he was there because of the dingy sneakers tossed haphazardly in the entrance. He didn’t own any other shoes.

She went through the living room and opened the door. This room was dark too, save for the wan light spilling from the computer monitor by the window. He was there, sitting cross-legged in front of it.

‘Hey,’ she said to his back.

His hand stopped over the keyboard. He twisted his torso and glanced at the alarm clock on the bookshelf before looking up at her. ‘You’re late.’

‘My boss made me stay. You must be hungry. I’ll make something. Tofu stew OK?’

‘Whatever’s fine.’

‘Great, it’ll just be a minute.’

‘Noriko.’

She looked around the doorway. The man stood, walked over to her. He put his palm to her neck. ‘You get wet?’

‘A little. It’s no big deal.’

He showed no sign of having heard her. His hand went from her neck down to her shoulder. She could feel his firm grip through her sweater. She fell into his embrace. He sucked on the skin below her ear. He knew all her spots. His tongue and lips moved cleverly, quickly. Noriko felt something like electricity run down her spine.

‘I… can’t stand,’ she managed to say.

He didn’t answer. When she tried to sit, he kept a firm grip, holding her up. Then his hands shifted and he turned her around until she was facing away from him, lifting up her skirt and pulling down her stockings and panties. When he had them to her knees, he stepped on them, lowering them the rest of the way to the floor in a single motion.

With his hands around her waist she couldn’t even sit, so she leaned forward and grabbed on to the door handle with both hands. The handle squeaked against the wood of the door.

Keeping his right arm around her waist, he began stroking her. Pulses of sensation shot through Noriko’s body, and she threw back her head.

She heard him hastily taking off his trousers and underwear. Something hard and hot pressed against her. Then there was pressure, and a sharp pain that spread. She gritted her teeth and bore it. He liked taking her this way.

Even when he was all the way inside, the pain didn’t stop. Then he started to move, and the pain increased. But that was as bad as it got. Noriko ground her teeth and then, suddenly, the pleasure hit and the pain disappeared so completely, it might as well have never been there.

He rolled up the front of her sweater and pushed up her bra, squeezing her breasts in both hands. His fingertips played with her nipples. She could hear him breathing, feel the warmth on her neck with each exhalation.

The orgasm approached slowly, like distant thunder. Noriko’s arms and legs went taut. The man’s thrusting became more violent, until his movements and the ecstasy inside her began to beat at the same frequency. Then lightning broke through her, and she cried as her body trembled. She lost her sense of balance and the world spun.

Noriko let go of the doorknob. She could no longer stand. Her legs were shaking.

The man pulled his penis out of her and she collapsed on the floor, shoulders heaving. A ringing sound filled her head.

Behind her, the man pulled up his underpants and trousers. He was still hard, but he uncaringly buttoned his pants over his erection. Then, as if nothing had happened at all, he returned to his computer. He crossed his legs and began to type in a smooth, natural rhythm.

Noriko slowly sat up, refastened her bra, and pulled on her sweater. She picked up her panties and stockings from the floor.

‘Guess I should get dinner ready,’ she said, putting her hand out to steady herself on the wall as she stood.

The man’s name was Yuichi Akiyoshi. At least, that was what he had told her.

She had first met him on a chilly day in the middle of May that year. She’d been walking back to her apartment when she found him curled up on the side of the road. He was skinny, around thirty years old from his looks. He was wearing black denim jeans, and a black leather jacket.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, peering down at him. The man’s face was twisted in a scowl, his hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead. His right hand was clutched to his stomach, but with his other hand he waved her away.

‘I’m fine,’ he croaked.

He didn’t look fine.

‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’

The man waved his hand again, and this time shook his head.

‘Has this happened to you before?’ she asked.

He didn’t respond.

Noriko stood there for a moment, then said, ‘Hold on a second,’ before going up the stairs to her apartment. She went inside and poured hot water out of an electric kettle into the largest mug she could find, cooling it off with a little water from the tap, then brought it outside.

‘Here, drink this,’ she said holding the mug in front of his face. ‘We’ve got to clean out whatever’s inside your stomach.’

The man didn’t reach for the cup. Instead, he said something that surprised her.

‘You got any booze?’

‘What?’

‘Booze – whisky’s best. If I drink it straight, the pain will go away. That’s what worked before.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘That’ll just shock your stomach. Drink this first.’ She offered the mug again.

The man frowned and glared at the mug for a few moments, then finally relented and reached out his hand. He took a sip of the warm water.

‘Drink the whole thing. It will help clean you out.’

The man’s frown deepened, but he said nothing, and drained the mug in one gulp.

‘You feel nauseous?’

‘A little.’

‘You should probably try to throw up. Can you?’

The man nodded and slowly got to his feet. Holding a hand to his stomach, he began to walk towards the back of the building.

‘Just do it here. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ she called out, but he ignored her and disappeared behind the apartment.

For a while, he didn’t re-emerge, though she heard the occasional groan. Feeling that she couldn’t just leave him, she stood and waited.

When he finally returned, he looked a little improved. He sat down on top of a bin by the road.

‘Better?’ Noriko asked.

‘Yeah. A bit.’

Still frowning, the man crossed his legs and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He put one in his mouth and lit it with a disposable lighter.

Noriko snatched the cigarette out of his mouth. He looked at her, still holding the lighter in his hand, his eyes widening.

‘Did you know that when you smoke a cigarette your stomach secretes dozens of times more acid than normal? That’s what makes people want to smoke when they’re full. But if you smoke when your stomach’s empty you could damage your stomach lining and get an ulcer.’

Noriko snapped the cigarette in two. Then she looked around for a place to throw it out before she realised the man was sitting on the bin.

‘Could you stand up?’

He got to his feet and she tossed the cigarette into the bin. Then she turned to him and held out her hand. ‘The box.’

‘What box?’

‘Your pack of cigarettes.’

The man grinned. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the pack. Noriko took it and tossed it into the bin. She closed the lid and clapped her hands as though she was brushing off dust.

‘You can sit back down now.’

The man regained his perch and looked over at her, interest in his eyes. ‘You a doctor?’

‘Not exactly,’ she laughed. ‘Though you’re not too far off. I’m a pharmacist at a hospital.’

‘Ah, that explains it.’

‘Do you live near here?’ she asked.

‘Pretty close.’

‘Do you think you can get home OK?’

‘Yeah. Thanks to you, I’m right as rain,’ he said as he stood from the bin.

‘You should go get yourself checked out when you have a chance. Acute gastritis can be pretty scary.’

‘The hospital near here?’

She blinked, not understanding. ‘There’s the General Hospital in Hikarigaoka. That’s pretty close.’

The man started shaking his head before she’d finished speaking. ‘I meant the hospital where you work.’

‘Oh. That’s the Imperial University Hospital, out west in Ogikubo.’

‘Right,’ the man said, beginning to walk. He stopped after a few paces and looked around. ‘Thanks.’

‘Take care of yourself,’ Noriko replied. He raised a hand and started off again, this time disappearing into the night.

She hadn’t expected to see the man again. Still, the following day at work, her thoughts kept drifting back to him. She didn’t expect him to actually show up at her hospital, but even so, she couldn’t resist the urge to take the occasional glance out at the waiting room, and every pharmacy request for stomach medicine for a male patient set her imagination wandering.

He didn’t show up at the hospital, but they did meet again. It was exactly one week later, in the same place they’d met the first time.

The man was sitting on the bin and she was just getting home from the evening shift. It was eleven o’clock at night and she didn’t recognise him in the darkness. The idea of a stranger sitting in front of her apartment building this late at night was creepy, frankly, and she had already hurried past him when she heard a familiar voice say, ‘They must work you pretty hard at that hospital.’

She turned. ‘You! What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you. Thought I should thank you for the other day.’

‘How long were you waiting?’

‘I forget,’ the man said, looking down at his watch. ‘Guess I got here around six.’

‘Six?’ Noriko’s eyes widened a little. ‘You’ve been waiting here for five hours?’

‘The last time I saw you was around six, so…’

‘Right. I’m on evening shift this week.’

‘You don’t say.’ The man stood. ‘Right, well, you’re here now. Let’s go get something to eat.’

She frowned. ‘There’s nothing open this late around here.’

‘Shinjuku’s only twenty minutes away by taxi.’

‘I don’t want to go that far. I’m tired.’

‘That’s too bad.’ The man lifted his hands. ‘Guess I’ll have to take a raincheck.’

He waved and began to walk off. He had only made it a few steps before Noriko stopped him. ‘Wait,’ she said.

He turned.

‘There’s a Denny’s down the street.’

The man took a sip of beer and declared it had been at least five years since he’d set foot in a Denny’s. He had plates of sausages and fried chicken in front of him. Noriko had ordered one of the Japanese dishes off the menu.

It was then that the man introduced himself as Yuichi Akiyoshi from Memorix, which was a computer software company, or so it said on his business card.

‘Basically, we take orders from other places and write software for them to run their computers.’ That was all Akiyoshi ever said about the work his company did and he never talked about work again.

He seemed very interested in Noriko’s work, however, wanting to know every detail. He asked about shifts, salaries, bonuses, and the kind of duties she was expected to perform. She expected it to bore him, but on the contrary, his eyes gleamed with interest.

Noriko had dated before, but she usually settled into the role of listener, mostly because she had no idea what sort of things a guy might want to hear. Small talk never came easily to her. But Akiyoshi seemed to know exactly what he wanted to hear, and he was always fascinated by what she had to say. At least it looked that way.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he had said when he left.

He called three days later. This time they met in Shinjuku. They had drinks at a bar and Noriko found herself talking to him about anything and everything again. He was full of questions. He wanted to know about her home town, how she was raised, what her school was like.

‘Where are you from?’ Noriko asked.

‘Nowhere in particular.’ He didn’t seem happy about the question and she resolved not to push. All she knew about him was that he was from western Japan, probably Osaka, and even that she’d had to pick up from his accent.

They left Denny’s and Akiyoshi saw her back to her apartment. All the while she was wondering should she just say goodnight, or should she invite him up? The closer they got, the louder the argument inside her head grew.

It was Akiyoshi who made the decision easy. There were just nearing the apartment when he stopped in front of a vending machine.

‘Thirsty?’ she asked.

‘I just wanted some coffee,’ he said, putting some coins into the slot. He looked up at the display and reached for one of the buttons.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I could make you coffee.’

His finger paused in mid-air. He didn’t seem particularly surprised, just nodded and gave the coin return lever a yank. The coins fell down with a clatter. He fished them out without saying a word.

Inside, Akiyoshi’s eyes scanned her apartment. Noriko made coffee and worried he’d see something of her ex-boyfriend’s.

He seemed to enjoy the coffee, and commented on how clean she kept her place.

‘Oh, I never clean these days.’

‘That why there’s dust on the ashtray?’

She blanched. ‘What ashtray?’

‘Up on top of your bookshelf.’

‘No,’ she said at length. ‘It has dust on it because I don’t smoke.’

Akiyoshi grunted.

‘We broke up two years ago.’

‘Wasn’t asking.’

‘Right… sorry.’

Akiyoshi stood. Noriko stood to show him out. But then his arm reached out to her and, before she could speak, he was holding her.

She didn’t resist. When he brought his lips closer to hers, she leaned into him and closed her eyes.

The light from the overhead projector lit the presenter’s face from below. He was from the Overseas OEM Department, a section chief, still in his early thirties.

‘We have every reason to expect that the United States Food and Drug Administration will approve our hyperlipidemia medication Mevalon. The handouts you have describe our sales proposal for the US market.’

Sounds a little nervous, thought Kazunari Shinozuka. He watched as the man licked his lower lip and scanned the faces in the room.

They were in conference room 201 at the Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals main Tokyo office, having a meeting about overseas sales for their newest products. Seventeen people were in attendance, most of them from sales, but he spotted a section chief from research and another chief from manufacturing among them. The highest-ranking person in the room was managing director Yasuharu. He sat in the dead centre of a C-shaped configuration of desks and his eyes were shooting daggers at the speaker. He seemed to hang on every word, unwilling to miss the slightest syllable. Kazunari saw it as a bit of a show, but it was one Yasuharu couldn’t afford to do without. He knew what people said about him riding on his father’s coat-tails, and he knew well the danger of risking even a single stray yawn in a meeting like this.

The silence in the room lingered for a moment before Yasuharu spoke.

‘The licensing agreement we were supposed to make with Slottermeyer is already two weeks late, according to the date we were given at the last meeting. What’s the holdup?’ He looked up from his handout and glared at the presenter. The rims of his glasses glinted under the fluorescent lights.

‘About that.’ A short man sitting in front of the presenter spoke. ‘There were some difficulties with our export procedures.’ His voice sounded strained, almost cracking.

‘Why can’t we just follow the same procedure we use for base powders. Like our exports to Europe?’

‘Right, well, it’s about the particulars in the handling of the base powders. There was a bit of a misunderstanding —’

‘This is the first time I’m hearing about it. Did I receive a report?’ Yasuharu opened the file in front of him on the desk. Not many of the board members brought personal files to meetings like this. As far as Kazunari knew, Yasuharu was the only one.

The short man exchanged a few words with the man next to him and the presenter, before turning back to Yasuharu.

‘We’ll send you all the related documents immediately.’

‘Do that.’ Yasuharu’s eyes went back down to his file. ‘So assuming that settles Mevalon, what about the antibiotic and the diabetes medicine? They should already have been submitted to the FDA for approval.’

‘Wanan and Glucoz are both still in clinical trials. We should have a report by the beginning of next month.’

‘Well, let’s move on that as soon as we can, then,’ Yasuharu said. ‘I’ve heard some of our rivals are pushing for more industrial manufacturing rights acquisitions from overseas, and we don’t want to fall behind.’

‘Of course,’ the presenter said. Several of the men around him nodded.

The meeting went on like that for an hour and a half. Kazunari was gathering up his things when Yasuharu walked over and whispered to him, ‘My office, fifteen minutes. There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘Yeah, sure thing,’ Kazunari replied quietly. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like company business, which meant Yasuharu was gearing up to break the rule both their fathers had set for them: no personal talk at the company.

Kazunari went back to his seat in Planning and Management, where he was deputy director – a post that had been created solely for his benefit. Until last year, Kazunari had gone through positions in general management, accounting, and HR. This was the standard course for a Shinozuka man. Personally, Kazunari would have preferred being down in the trenches with the new recruits rather than the sort of general administrative position he was in now. He had even requested reassignment once. But after a year in the company, he realised that as long as he was a member of the family that was impossible. In order to keep the complex system that was Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals running smoothly, management needed to wield a free hand when they ordered their underlings around. A Shinozuka doing grunt work would only be a rusty cog, gumming up the works.

Immediately next to Kazunari’s desk was a small blackboard-style placard where he was supposed to write his current whereabouts. He erased ‘201’ and wrote ‘Gen. Management’ in white chalk before getting up from his chair.

He knocked on the door and a low voice said, ‘Come in.’ Kazunari stepped inside to find Yasuharu sitting at his desk, reading a book.

‘Hey, sorry to drag you in like this,’ Yasuharu said, looking up.

‘No problem.’ Kazunari took a look around the room. They were alone in the office, which wasn’t particularly large – just a desk, a cabinet, and a simply apportioned meeting space.

Yasuharu grinned. ‘Did you see the look on those overseas guys’ faces? Bet they didn’t imagine I remembered those licensing agreement dates.’

‘I bet they didn’t.’

Yasuharu shook his head. ‘You got to wonder what they’re thinking, not telling their direct supervisor about the slippage.’

‘I’m sure they won’t underestimate their manager in future.’

‘Let’s hope not. Anyway, I’ve you to thank for it, Kazunari.’

‘Not at all,’ Kazunari said, waving a hand dismissively.

It had been Kazunari who had told Yasuharu about the slippage in the licensing agreement date. He’d heard it from a guy who joined the company at the same time he had, and was now in the Overseas OEM Division. Gathering titbits of information from each department and passing them on to Yasuharu was another one of his tasks. It wasn’t one he particularly relished, but it had been a direct request from the CEO – Yasuharu’s father.

‘You wanted to talk to me about something?’ Kazunari asked.

Yasuharu shook his head. ‘Don’t sound so serious. It’s not about work.’

A premonition rose in Kazunari’s stomach, and he felt his right hand clench into a fist.

‘Have a seat,’ Yasuharu said, standing and pointing towards the sofa.

Kazunari waited for Yasuharu to sit down before joining him.

‘I was just reading this, see,’ Yasuharu said, laying a book on the table. The cover read Etiquette for Ceremonial Occasions.

‘Should I be congratulating someone?’

‘Unfortunately, no, it’s not that kind of ceremony.’

‘Did someone die?’

‘Not yet. But soon.’

‘Do you mind me asking who?’

‘As long as you keep it to yourself. It’s her mom.’

‘Sorry? Her?’ Kazunari asked, though he knew the answer.

‘Yukiho,’ Yasuharu said, his voice crisp despite a slight blush that came over him.

‘What’s wrong with Yukiho’s mom?’

‘Yukiho called the other day, said her mom collapsed at her house down in Osaka.’

‘Collapsed how?’

‘A brain haemorrhage. She just found out about it yesterday morning. One of her mother’s tea students came over for a lesson and found her in the garden.’

‘And she’s been hospitalised?’

‘They took her in right away. Yukiho was there when she called me.’

‘I see,’ Kazunari nodded. ‘How’s she doing?’ he asked, though he knew the answer to that question, too. If Yukiho’s mother was on the road to recovery, Yasuharu wouldn’t be reading a book about funeral etiquette.

Yasuharu gave a slight shake of his head. ‘I called just a short while ago. She still hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors aren’t particularly hopeful either. Yukiho said this might be it. Never heard her sound so defenceless before.’

‘How old is her mother?’

‘Around seventy, I think. Yukiho’s adopted, right? Thus the age gap.’

Kazunari nodded. He knew all about that.

‘So why are you reading this, boss?’ Kazunari asked, pointing to the book on the table.

‘Don’t call me that. At least not while we’re talking about personal stuff.’ Yasuharu said, an exasperated look on his face.

‘I just don’t see why you’d be so concerned about her mother’s funeral.’

‘You mean I shouldn’t be thinking about the woman’s funeral before she’s cold?’

Kazunari shook his head. ‘No, I just don’t think it’s your place to be worried.’

‘Why not?’

‘I know you proposed to her. But she hasn’t responded yet, has she? That kind of leaves you, well…’ Kazunari paused a moment, trying to find the right words. ‘You’re strangers, really. What I’m saying is, the death of someone’s mother shouldn’t have the General Manager of Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals running around learning about funeral etiquette.’

Yasuharu leaned back in his chair and grinned at the ceiling while Kazunari spoke. Eventually, he looked back down and said, ‘“Strangers” might be going a bit far. She might not have said “yes”, but she hasn’t said “no” either. If there wasn’t a chance, she would have turned me down on the spot.’

‘If there was a chance, she would’ve already given you her answer.’

Yasuharu shook his head again. ‘You only say that because A: you’re young, and B: you’re not married. She and I know what it’s like to be married. That’s why, when the chance comes to make a household again you take things slow, cautious. Even more so when one of you is a widower.’

‘I suppose that’s true.’

‘Also,’ Yasuharu added, raising a finger, ‘if we were strangers, she wouldn’t have called me to tell me about her mother in the first place. I think the fact that she turned to me when the going got rough is an answer in and of itself.’

Which explained Yasuharu’s chipper mood, Kazunari thought.

‘Anyway, I think it’s proper when a friend is going through a hard time to reach out and lend a hand. Not just as a member of society, but as a human being.’

‘So that’s what this is? She’s going through a hard time? That’s why she called you?’

‘Well, you know how she is, tough and all. She wasn’t talking through tears or asking me to come save her or anything like that. She just called to let me know what was happening. Still, I don’t think it’s a stretch of imagination to say this is a hard time for her. Osaka might be her home, but she doesn’t know anyone down there any more. If her mother dies, then on top of the grieving she’ll have to deal with all the funeral arrangements by herself. That might even give the great Yukiho Karasawa cause to panic.’

‘See, that’s the thing with funerals,’ Kazunari said, looking his cousin in the eye. ‘They’re always being arranged by people who are grieving – that’s why they have them all programmed out in advance for you. All she has to do is make a single call to the funeral home. After that, she can just leave it to the pros. All she has to do is follow their instructions, sign on the dotted line, and pay some money. Then, if she gets a free moment, she can collapse in front of the photo of the deceased and cry if she wants to. It’s really not a big deal.’

Yasuharu drew his eyebrows together in exasperation. ‘Well, that’s a little cold. I thought you were supposed to be looking out for Yukiho, given that she was from your alma mater.’

‘Her school just took dance lessons with my club, that’s all.’

‘Details, details. Regardless, you are the one who introduced her to me.’ Yasuharu gave Kazunari a long stare.

Kazunari suppressed the urge to tell Yasuharu how much he regretted that now.

‘Anyway,’ Yasuharu said, crossing his legs and leaning back on the sofa, ‘maybe this isn’t the sort of thing one should really be preparing for in advance, but should something happen to her mother I thought I’d like to be ready. Of course, like you say, there is my position to think about. I’m not sure I’ll even be able to go down to Osaka if her mother dies. Which is why I wanted to talk.’ He pointed a finger slowly at Kazunari’s face. ‘Depending on the circumstances, I was hoping you might be able to go down to Osaka for me. You know the area. And Yukiho knows you.’

Kazunari had begun to frown before Yasuharu was finished. ‘Don’t make me do that, Yasuharu.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s mixing company business with private business. People will say I’m your personal secretary.’

‘Supporting a member of the board is part of Planning and Management’s official duties,’ Yasuharu said, glaring.

‘What does this have to do with Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals?’

‘Who cares? What matters is who’s asking you,’ Yasuharu said severely, then he grinned and looked up at Kazunari. ‘Yes?’

Kazunari sighed. So now he likes being the boss.

Back at his desk, Kazunari picked up the phone. With his other hand, he opened his desk drawer and took out his schedule planner. He flipped to the addresses in the back and opened it to the first page, finding the entry for Imaeda. He pressed the buttons on the phone, checking to make sure the number was right, held the receiver up to his ear, and waited. The phone rang a couple of times. He began to tap his desk with the fingers of his right hand.

After the phone had rung six times, it stopped. Not again, Kazunari thought. Imaeda’s answering machine was set to pick up after six rings.

From the other side of the line, he heard the computerised voice of a woman who sounded like she had a stuffy nose telling him that no one was home, and to please leave a name, number, and short message —

Kazunari hung up before he heard the beep.

He cursed under his breath, loud enough that the female employee sitting across from him jerked upright in her chair a little.

What’s up, Imaeda?

The last time he had met the private eye was mid-August. It had already been more than a month since then and he hadn’t heard a thing. Kazunari had called several times, but Imaeda was always out. He’d even left two messages, telling him to call, apparently in vain.

Kazunari assumed he must be on vacation. It hardly seemed like the way to run a private detective business to him. In fact, he had specifically requested frequent reports when he first hired him.

Or, Kazunari thought, maybe he’s followed Yukiho Karasawa to Osaka. It was certainly a possibility, though he would have expected a report all the same.

The paper sitting at the edge of the desk caught Kazunari’s eye. It was the minutes from the meeting two days earlier. The meeting had been about a computer system that automatically determined the chemical compositions of substances. It was research Kazunari had a personal interest in, but this time he only mechanically scanned the page. His head was full of Yasuharu and Yukiho Karasawa.

Kazunari truly regretted having taken Yasuharu to her shop. He hadn’t even really thought it through when he got the invitation from Makoto Takamiya. That had been a mistake.

Kazunari vividly remembered the time when Yasuharu first met Yukiho. There’d been nothing about him to suggest he had fallen in love. In fact, he seemed to be in a bad mood. Even when Yukiho talked to him, he only offered gruff responses. It was only later that Kazunari realised that was exactly how Yasuharu acted when he was falling head over heels.

Not that there was anything wrong with him falling in love – it was a good thing, to be sure. There was no reason why a forty-five-year-old man with two children had to live the rest of his life single. Get remarried, Kazunari thought, but to the right person.

Yukiho was not the right person.

He had never been able to put his finger on exactly why he didn’t like Yukiho Karasawa. As he’d told the private eye, the mysterious way money seemed to move around her wherever she went was unsettling, yet even that felt like an excuse his rational mind had made up after the fact. In reality, it probably all went back to that first impression he had when they met at dance lessons.

Kazunari didn’t want them getting married, but he would need a very good reason to convince Yasuharu. He could tell him that she was dangerous, that he should give her up, but he was sure he could talk himself hoarse and never win that way. No, that would probably just piss Yasuharu off.

Which was why Kazunari really needed Imaeda to dig up some dirt. He needed someone to pull back the curtains and reveal Yukiho for what she really was – everything hung on that.

Yasuharu’s request flitted through the back of his mind. He might just have to go down to Osaka to meet Yukiho, support her in her time of need.

What a joke, Kazunari thought to himself. He remembered another thing: Imaeda’s theory that Yukiho didn’t love Yasuharu because she already loved someone else.

Me.

‘What a joke.’ This time Kazunari said the words out loud, keeping his voice hushed in the quiet office.

‘I’ll be away for two or three days,’ Akiyoshi said as Noriko stepped out of the bath one evening.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Research.’

She stopped by the dresser. ‘You’re not going to tell me where?’

He hesitated a moment before mumbling, ‘Osaka.’

‘All the way to Osaka?’

‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’

‘Wait.’ Noriko stepped away from the dresser and sat facing him. ‘I want to go too.’

‘Don’t you have work?’

‘I’ll take a few days off. I haven’t taken a single vacation day since last year.’

‘This isn’t a vacation.’

‘I know. I won’t get in the way. I’ll do some sightseeing while you work.’

Akiyoshi furrowed his brow for a moment. Noriko could tell he was taken aback by her request. Normally she’d never be so forward, but when she heard him say Osaka, she knew she had to go. For one, she wanted to see where he was from. He’d never told her the first thing about his family and this was her chance to find out more.

‘This isn’t some kind of tour. My schedule could change at a moment’s notice. To be honest, I’m not even sure when I’ll be able to come back.’

‘Not a problem,’ Noriko said.

‘Fine,’ he relented at last. ‘Do what you want.’

Noriko felt an almost painful stirring in her chest as he turned back to the computer. This was a big step. There would be no going back after this. Not that doing nothing was an option. If they kept on like this, they’d fall apart before too long, and she didn’t want that. Despite the fact that they’d only been together two months, Noriko was in deep.

They had started living together when Akiyoshi quit his job. She never got a straight answer from him as to why he left. He just said he felt like taking a break.

‘I’ve got savings, so I won’t starve, not for a while at least. I’ll have time to think about what’s next.’

She knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t the type to lean on anyone for help. Still it made her sad that he wouldn’t discuss these decisions with her, let alone ask for her advice. She wanted to be more than that: not just part of his life, a necessary part.

Living together had been Noriko’s suggestion. Akiyoshi hadn’t seemed that enthusiastic about it at first, but it had only taken him a week to change his mind. His worldly possessions consisted of a computer and six cardboard boxes.

So, in a small way, Noriko had realised her dream. She was living with the man she loved. He was there beside her when she woke up in the morning. It was a happiness she wanted to last. Marriage wasn’t an issue, she had decided. Not that she didn’t want to get married – that would have been fine. But she didn’t want to ruin what they had by pushing it, either.

Yet it wasn’t long before unease began tugging at the back of her mind. It started one night, when they were having sex. They had been going at it as usual on her thin futon. Noriko climaxed twice before Akiyoshi let himself come – their usual pattern.

They’d never used condoms, not even the first time. He would thrust hard, pull out, and ejaculate into a wad of tissue paper. Noriko had never noticed anything unusual about it, until that night. She wasn’t even sure what had tickled her suspicions. Maybe it was the look she saw in his eyes before he rolled over on his side.

She reached out to touch him between the legs.

‘Knock it off,’ he said, twisting away until his back was turned.

Noriko sat up and looked at him. ‘You didn’t come, did you.’

He didn’t say anything. His expression didn’t change. He just closed his eyes.

Noriko got off the futon and reached for the wastebasket.

‘I said knock it off!’

She looked around to see him sitting up, glaring at her.

‘Why do you want to do that for?’ he growled.

‘Why didn’t you come?’

He scratched his chin and didn’t reply.

‘How long has this been going on?’

He didn’t answer.

Noriko gasped. ‘Wait. You never came?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘It matters!’ she said, sitting down, nude, in front of him. ‘It matters a lot! Is it me? You can’t come with me?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Then what is it like? Tell me.’

Noriko felt the heat rise to her face. She was being made a fool of. It was wretched, and sad, and horribly embarrassing all at the same time. When she thought of all the times they’d had sex, it made her want to cover her face with her hands.

Akiyoshi sighed and shook his head. ‘It has nothing to do with you.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘I’ve never been able to come inside a woman. I can’t even if I want to.’

‘Is that something like erectile dysfunction?’

‘See, that’s the problem with you medical people. You want to classify everything into a disease.’

‘I don’t believe it. You better not be joking about this.’

‘No joke.’

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not something I feel like I need to fix.’

‘Of course you have to fix it!’

‘Look, it’s my dick and I’m fine with it. So leave me alone.’ He turned his back to her again.

She wondered at the time if that was it and they would never have sex again, but three days later he came on to her again. She let him do what he wanted. If he can’t come, neither will I, she thought, but the flesh wasn’t so disciplined. After the release, there was no lingering glow, no sweet sleep, just embarrassment and sadness.

‘It’s OK,’ he whispered, his voice unusually gentle as he stroked her hair.

Once he’d asked her if she could use her hands and her mouth. She did as she was told, curling her tongue and working her fingers rhythmically. But although he got an erection, there were no indications he would ever orgasm.

‘That’s enough. Stop. I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘No, I’m sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Why isn’t it working?’

Akiyoshi didn’t respond. He looked down at her hand, still gripping his penis. Eventually, he said, ‘They’re small, aren’t they.’

‘What?’

‘Your hands. They’re small.’

She looked down at her hands, but her head was filled with thoughts of another girl’s hands on his cock, a girl he was comparing her to, a girl who could make him come.

His penis had already gone soft in her palm.

And so Noriko had been worried for several days when Akiyoshi said something wholly unexpected.

He wanted to know if she could get some cyanide.

‘It’s for a novel,’ he said. ‘I might as well do something if I’m just loafing around, so I figured I’d write a mystery. Anyway, I want to use cyanide in the novel, but I’ve never seen any and I was just wondering if you could get some. I’m sure they have some lying around in a big hospital like yours.’

‘Well, I’d have to check, I’m not sure,’ she said, trying and failing to imagine Akiyoshi writing a novel. In fact, she knew that the pharmacy did have some potassium cyanide in special storage. It wasn’t for medicinal use, of course. Being a university hospital they had all kinds of poisons as part of their research collection. But only a select few at the hospital were even allowed near special storage.

‘You just have to see it?’

‘I just want to borrow it for a little.’

‘I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. This is cyanide we’re talking about.’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I haven’t figured out what I want to do with it yet. I have to see it first. Get some, if you can. Of course, if you can’t, or you don’t want to, I won’t force you. I have another route.’

‘What kind of route?’

‘I have connections to a number of companies through my last job. I’m pretty sure one of them can get me some cyanide.’

Noriko was ready to put her foot down and refuse, but the mention of other routes gave her pause. What if someone untrustworthy gave it to him? What if something happened?

She sighed and shook her head. This is a bad idea.

It was mid-August when she placed the small bottle of potassium cyanide in front of him.

‘Promise me you aren’t going to use this.’

‘Absolutely. You have nothing to worry about,’ Akiyoshi said, picking up the bottle.

‘Leave the lid on. You can look at it through the glass.’

He didn’t answer. He seemed transfixed by the colourless powder inside the bottle. ‘How much of this do you have to take for a lethal dose?’

‘Two hundred to three hundred milligrams.’

‘How am I supposed to tell how much that is just by looking at it?’

‘Just picture a quarter-teaspoon or so.’

‘Sounds potent. It dissolves in water, right?’

‘It’ll dissolve, but if you’re thinking of having someone put it in a glass of juice or something, you’d probably need more than a quarter-teaspoon.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because the victim would notice something strange on the first sip. It’s very bitter, they say. Not that I’ve ever tasted any.’

‘So you’d have to put enough in so they died on the first gulp? If it tastes so bad, wouldn’t the victim just spit it out.’

‘It has an unusual smell, too, so someone with a good nose might notice before they even take a sip.’

‘Smells like almonds, right?’

‘Yeah, but not the almond you’re thinking of. It smells like the almond fruit. The nuts we eat are the seeds.’

‘I think I read a book where someone dissolved cyanide in a solution then painted the back of a stamp with it…’

Noriko shook her head and laughed. ‘That’s not very realistic. You’d need a lot more solution than that to reach a lethal dose.’

‘How about mixing it in with lipstick?’

‘That wouldn’t make for a lethal dose, either. First of all, cyanide is highly alkaline, so it would make the skin sore. Also, that method wouldn’t get the cyanide into the stomach, so there wouldn’t be any toxicity.’

‘How so?’

‘Cyanide by itself is an inert substance. It has to get in the stomach in order to react with the acid there before it forms cyanide gas. That’s what poisons you.’

‘So you could poison someone with just the gas, right?’

‘Sure, but it’s difficult to pull off. For one thing, the killer might accidentally kill themselves. Cyanide gas can be absorbed through the skin, too, so it takes more precautions than just holding your breath.’

‘No kidding. Guess I’d better give this some thought,’ Akiyoshi said.

In fact, he spent the next two days sitting in front of his computer, thinking.

‘Let’s say you have access to the victim’s home – the bathroom, specifically,’ he said during dinner one night. ‘You could sneak into their house before they came home, throw some potassium cyanide and sulphuric acid into the toilet, and close the lid. You’d have time to get out of there before killing yourself, right?’

‘I would think so,’ Noriko said.

‘So now the intended victim comes home. They go into the bathroom. Unbeknownst to them, a chemical reaction is taking place inside their toilet, creating a large amount of cyanide gas. They open the lid, the gas comes billowing out, and the victim breathes it in – how’s that sound?’

Noriko gave it some thought, then agreed it would probably work.

‘It’s just a novel, so that’s probably good enough. If you started getting into specifics, you’d never get through the scene.’

Akiyoshi didn’t seem satisfied with that. Setting down his chopsticks, he pulled out a notepad and pen.

‘I don’t like doing things in half measures. If there’s a problem with this scenario, I want you to tell me. That’s why I’m coming to you with this.’

Noriko felt like she’d been slapped in the face. She sat back down. ‘It’s not that there’s a problem with it. I think the method you describe could work fine. It’s just that, in reality, it might not work one hundred per cent of the time.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because a closed toilet lid doesn’t form a perfect seal. The cyanide gas would fill the toilet bowl, then start to leak. It might even leak out through the bathroom door, in which case the intended victim might notice something was off before they even went in. Actually, “notice” isn’t the right word. If they breathed in a little bit of the gas, they might show signs of poisoning. Of course, if it was enough to kill them, I suppose that would be all right…’

‘But the leaked gas might not be enough to prove lethal, is what you’re saying?’

‘If the killer got unlucky, yes.’

‘No, you’re totally right, it’s not a fail-safe plan,’ Akiyoshi said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘You’d need to do something to get a better seal on the toilet.’

‘Well, it might be enough to just run the fan,’ she said.

‘The fan in the bathroom?’

‘Assuming the victim lives in an apartment that has one of those. That would be enough to siphon off the gas that leaked and keep it from going outside the bathroom door.’

Akiyoshi thought in silence for a bit, then looked up at Noriko.

‘Good. I’ll go with that. Thanks for the help.’

‘Good luck with the novel,’ Noriko said, glowing. Any worries she’d had when he first asked her to get the cyanide had since faded, replaced by the elation she felt at his gratitude.

A week later she came home from work to find Akiyoshi gone. She thought maybe he’d gone drinking somewhere, but he didn’t come home, even after the trains had stopped, and there was no call. She started to worry, realising that if something had happened to him, she’d have no way to find him. She didn’t know any of his friends, and she couldn’t even think of a place he might have gone. The only Akiyoshi she knew was the one who sat in her back room, staring at the computer.

It was close to dawn when he finally came back. Noriko was still up. She hadn’t taken off her make-up. She hadn’t even eaten.

‘Where were you?’ she asked almost as soon as he stepped through the door.

‘Doing research for my novel. Sorry, there weren’t any payphones around or I would’ve called.’

‘I was worried!’

Akiyoshi was wearing jeans and a grimy white T-shirt. He set down a duffel bag by the computer and took off his shirt. His skin was gleaming with sweat.

‘I gotta take a shower.’

‘Well, hold on a second, I’ll draw a bath.’

‘The shower’s fine,’ he said, carrying his T-shirt in his hand as he walked towards the bathroom.

Back at the door, Noriko straightened his sneakers and noticed they were incredibly dirty. It was as though he’d been walking through the mountains all night.

She had a feeling that Akiyoshi would never tell her where he had been, and there was something about him that made it difficult for her to ask. She was sure of one thing, though: he hadn’t been doing research for his novel.

A thought occurred to her. She could hear the shower running. Moving quickly, she went into the back room and opened the duffel bag.

On top were several file folders, like you might get in a filing cabinet. She pulled out the largest one, only to find it empty. All the other folders were empty, too, without any markings or writing, save for one that had a single sticker across the top that read IMAEDA DETECTIVE AGENCY.

Why would Akiyoshi have a file from a detective agency – an empty file at that? Maybe he took out whatever was inside?

She checked the rest of the bag. When she saw what was at the very bottom, she held her breath. It was the bottle of potassium cyanide.

Gingerly, she picked it out. It contained white powder, but only half as much as there had been when she gave it to him.

Her chest tightened and she felt sick to her stomach. Her heart pounded in her ears.

She heard the shower stop. Quickly she put the bottle and the folders back in the bag and zipped it shut.

Akiyoshi didn’t say anything as he came out of the bathroom. He just went over to sit by the window and stare outside. There was a hard, dark look to his face that Noriko had never seen before.

She could ask him where he’d been, and he’d probably tell her something, but she knew it would be a lie. What had he used the cyanide for? Just the thought was enough to make her stomach churn with fear.

When Akiyoshi came for her, it was swift. He practically tore off her clothes, taking her more roughly than he ever had before, like there was something he was trying to forget.

He wouldn’t orgasm, she knew, but he would keep fucking her until she did.

That morning, as the dawn light streamed in through the window, Noriko faked it for the first time.

The call came three days after Yasuharu had called him into the office to talk about Yukiho’s mother. Kazunari had just returned to his desk from a long meeting when the phone rang. A small light on the phone indicated the call was from an outside line.

The caller introduced himself as Sasagaki, with the Osaka police. Kazunari couldn’t recall ever talking to anyone with that name before, let alone a detective. From his voice he sounded like an older man, with a thick accent.

‘I got your name from a Mr Takamiya. Sorry to bother you at work like this,’ the man said, though from his tone he wasn’t sorry at all.

‘Can I ask what this is about?’ Kazunari asked, an edge creeping into his own voice.

‘I wanted to ask you some questions concerning a case we have under investigation. It should only take about thirty minutes, if you have the time.’

‘What investigation is this?’

‘It’s best if I talk to you in person about that.’

Kazunari’s interest was piqued. Whatever the case was, it must be important if the man was going to come all the way up to Tokyo to talk to him about it.

‘This also involves a Mr Imaeda – a private detective. I believe you’re acquainted with him?’

Kazunari’s grip on the phone tightened and his legs tensed, as though his body were getting ready to run. How did this man know about Imaeda – or more specifically, his connection to the private eye? He knew people in that line of work didn’t readily give up the names of their clients, not even when the police came calling.

A possibility occurred to him. ‘Has something happened to Mr Imaeda?’

‘I’d like to talk to you about that too,’ the detective said. ‘Can we meet?’ His voice sounded louder now, his question carrying the weight of a command.

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘Across the street. I can see a white building, about seven storeys high – that’s you, right?’

‘Right. Go in and tell the receptionist you’d like to speak with Kazunari Shinozuka in Planning and Management. They’ll be expecting you.’

‘Got it, be right over.’

‘I’ll be here.’

Kazunari hung up the phone, then picked the receiver back up again to call the receptionist and have them show Sasagaki to room seven. This was the room board members used whenever they had private visitors to the company.

Sasagaki seemed unusually fit for his age, with short-cropped hair that was peppered with white. The man had stood when Kazunari knocked on the door, and he was still standing. Despite the steamy weather outside, he was wearing a brown suit and a tie.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ the detective said, holding out his business card.

When Kazunari looked down at it, he blinked. It seemed a little bare. There was only a name – Junzo Sasagaki – an address, and a phone number. The address was in Yao City, Osaka. No police department affiliation, or even a title.

‘I never put anything official on my business cards,’ the man explained with a smile that deepened the wrinkles on his face. ‘Somebody took one of my old cards once and went around pretending they were on the force.’

Kazunari listened in silence. It had never occurred to him to exploit a business card that way. He felt he was getting a glimpse of a world that operated by very different rules from his own.

‘I still carry this, though.’ Sasagaki reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his badge.

Kazunari took a look, then motioned with his hand to the sofa. ‘Please, have a seat.’

The detective nodded and sat down. He frowned a little when he bent his knees, revealing his age. No sooner had he sat down than a knock came at the door and one of the women from the office came in carrying a tray with two cups of tea. She set it down on the table, bowed, and left the room.

‘Quite the office you have,’ Sasagaki said, reaching out for his cup. ‘Impressive companies have impressive reception rooms.’

‘Thanks,’ Kazunari said, even though, in his opinion, this reception room was rather austere. Despite its special status, the sofa and table set were the exact same ones they used in every other meeting room. The only thing that set it apart was the soundproofing in the walls.

‘So,’ Kazunari began, looking up at the detective. ‘What’s this all about?’

Sasagaki nodded and set his cup back down. ‘I understand you’re having Mr Imaeda do some work for you.’

Kazunari felt his jaw tighten.

‘I understand your alarm,’ Sasagaki said, ‘but I really need you to be completely candid. You should know that it wasn’t Mr Imaeda who told me about you. As a matter fact, he’s gone missing.’

‘What?’ Kazunari blurted. ‘Really?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Since when?’

‘Well…’ Sasagaki scratched his hair. ‘That’s not entirely clear. All I know is that around the twentieth of last month he called Mr Takamiya asking if he could meet that day or the next. Mr Takamiya told him to come the following day, and Mr Imaeda said he would call before coming. But no call ever came.’

‘So no one’s heard from him since the twentieth?’

‘That’s correct.’

Kazunari folded his arms across his chest and groaned despite himself. ‘Why would he go missing?’

‘That’s what I mean to find out. As a matter of fact, I met with him not too long ago myself,’ Sasagaki said. ‘Concerning an investigation. I tried contacting him once later, but no matter how many times I rang, he never picked up. So I came up to Tokyo yesterday and paid a visit to his office.’

‘And no one was there?’

Sasagaki nodded. ‘Quite a few letters stacked up in his mailbox, too. I had the concierge let me into his unit.’

‘What did you find?’ Kazunari asked, leaning forward.

‘Nothing much. No sign of an incident or any struggle. I let the local precinct know but I doubt they’ll put much effort into finding him.’

‘Might he have gone into hiding?’

‘Possibly. But I don’t think it’s very likely.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just think it’s more likely something happened to him.’

Kazunari swallowed. The inside of his mouth was bone dry. He took a sip of his tea.

‘Was he involved in anything dangerous?’

‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ Sasagaki reached into his pocket. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Go right ahead,’ Kazunari said, pushing the stainless steel ashtray from one corner of the table until it sat in front of the detective.

Sasagaki pulled out a Hi-Lite cigarette. You don’t see those much these days, Kazunari thought, staring at the classic blue and white packaging.

The detective blew out a thick stream of white smoke.

‘Based on what I picked up the last time I met Mr Imaeda, his biggest case involved the investigation of a particular woman. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who that is.’

The detective’s friendly smile vanished, and Kazunari almost flinched at the sharp, lizard-like look in his eyes.

No point in playing dumb, he thought, even as he realised it was probably the detective’s look that had disarmed him. He might be craftier than I gave him credit for. Kazunari nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I know.’

Sasagaki nodded again.

‘And you’re the one who requested he investigate Miss Yukiho Karasawa?’

‘You said you got my name from Takamiya,’ Kazunari responded, ignoring the question. ‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘It’s not all that difficult,’ the detective replied. ‘Nor particularly pertinent.’

‘Yes, but it still makes me wonder…’

‘So much that you can’t answer my question?’

Kazunari nodded, meeting his gaze. Against a lesser adversary he might have tried to glare, but he was convinced it would have little effect on the battle-hardened detective.

Sasagaki smiled and took a drag on his cigarette. ‘For various reasons, I too have a strong interest in Yukiho Karasawa. Which is how I noticed when someone else started looking into her. Naturally, I got curious about who that was, so I went to meet Miss Karasawa’s ex-husband. Takamiya told me that there was talk she was getting married again and someone from the groom’s family was looking into her. He gave me Imaeda’s name.’

‘And?’

Sasagaki picked up an old leather satchel and put it on his knee, opening the clasps. He pulled out a small tape recorder. A knowing smile on his face, he placed it on the table and pressed the play button.

There was a beep and then a voice, clear enough to understand over the hiss of the tape.

‘Hi, it’s Shinozuka, calling about the Yukiho investigation. I wanted to know how it’s going. Give me a call.’

Sasagaki pressed the stop button and placed the tape recorder back in his satchel.

‘I borrowed this from Mr Imaeda’s answering machine the other day. I’m correct in assuming the Mr Shinozuka on the line was you?’

‘Yes. That would’ve been from the beginning of the month.’ Kazunari said with a sigh. He thought a moment about protesting this invasion of privacy, then discarded the idea as pointless.

‘Right. So, I gave Mr Takamiya another call to ask him about you.’

‘And he told you everything?’

‘He told me enough. Anyhow, like I said, it’s not that difficult a thread to follow.’

‘As you say.’

‘Let me ask again, it was you who requested the investigation into Miss Yukiho Karasawa?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who wants to marry her?’

‘A relative of mine. But she hasn’t given him an answer.’

‘Mind telling me the name of this relative of yours?’ Sasagaki asked, opening his notebook.

‘Do you really have to know that?’

‘That’s what we do, in my line of work. We ask a lot of people a lot of questions. If you don’t want to say, that’s fine. No skin off my nose. I’ll just have to go around asking a lot of other people a lot of questions until I find someone who can tell me who it is that wants to marry Yukiho Karasawa.’

Kazunari frowned. That would be a disaster, and the detective knew it. ‘It’s Yasuharu – my cousin.’

Sasagaki scribbled the name. ‘I’m guessing that’s Yasuharu Shinozuka, correct? And he works at this company?’

Kazunari told him his cousin was managing director.

‘There are a few things I don’t understand, if you don’t mind?’ Kazunari said.

‘Not at all, though there may be some things I’m not at liberty to share.’

‘You said you had interest in Yukiho Karasawa for various reasons. I was wondering if you could tell me what those reasons are?’

A wry smile spread across Sasagaki’s face. ‘Unfortunately, that’s one of the things I can’t share.’

‘It’s confidential?’

‘To be frank, I’m just not ready to talk about it. There are still too many unknowns. You see, this whole thing goes back to a case that’s eighteen years old.’

‘Eighteen years?’ Kazunari shook his head, trying to picture an investigation spanning such a long period of time. ‘Can you tell me what that case was, at least?’

A brief moment of indecision passed across the detective’s face. Then he blinked and said, ‘Homicide.’

Kazunari straightened and breathed out a long sigh to steady himself. ‘Who was killed?’

‘You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t answer that,’ Sasagaki said, holding his palms out to indicate he’d given all he could.

‘But she – Yukiho was involved?’

‘Let’s just say it’s likely she holds an important key to understanding what happened.’

‘But wait,’ Kazunari said. ‘Isn’t the statute of limitations already up, if it happened that long ago?’

‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

‘But you’re still on the case?’

The detective picked up his box of Hi-Lites and jabbed a finger in, fishing out a second cigarette. Kazunari didn’t remember when he had snuffed out the last one.

‘It’s a bit of a long story, as you might imagine, and it’s not finished. Nor do I think it will ever reach its conclusion without me going back to the very beginning, if you follow.’

‘I’d love to hear it.’

‘Not today,’ Sasagaki said with a smile. ‘For one thing, it’s eighteen years’ worth of a tale, and I’m afraid we’d be sitting here a very long time in the telling.’

‘Some other time, then?’

‘Sure,’ the detective said, looking him in the eye and taking a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘Someday, when we have time.’

Kazunari reached for his tea and discovered that both their cups were empty.

‘Would you like some more?’

‘No, I’m fine. If you don’t mind, though, I have another question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Can you tell me the real reason why you asked Mr Imaeda to investigate Yukiho Karasawa?’

‘You already know that. I mean, it’s nothing unusual. Lots of people in our position like to find out about potential spouses before the wedding.’

‘I’m sure they do. What I don’t get is, why you? I can understand if it were the groom’s parents, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a cousin going out of his way to hire a private eye. And there’s another thing that makes it strange that you, in particular, would want to investigate Yukiho Karasawa. You’re old friends with her ex-husband. Go back further and the three of you were in the same dance club in college. So you should know quite a bit about Miss Karasawa without going through the trouble of investigating her. And yet you did.

‘That might be reason enough to wonder,’ the detective continued, ‘but in all honesty, it was something else that piqued my curiosity about you. It was the tape I found in Imaeda’s answering machine. Specifically, the way you said her name. It sent a shiver down my spine, Mr Shinozuka. Call it a hunch, but something in your voice made me think “this man fears Yukiho Karasawa”, and I want to know why.’

The detective snuffed out his second cigarette. He leaned forward, placing both hands down on the table. ‘I need you to tell me the truth. What was the real reason you asked Mr Imaeda to look into Yukiho Karasawa?’

Something had shifted about Sasagaki’s demeanour. The authoritative weight was still there, but he no longer felt threatening. Rather, he seemed warm and eager to help. He must use this face when he’s questioning a suspect, Kazunari thought. Immediately he understood that this, then, was the question the detective had come here today to ask. It didn’t matter to him in the least who wanted to marry Yukiho Karasawa. It only mattered why Kazunari suspected she was dangerous.

He chuckled. ‘Don’t go barking up the wrong tree, detective. I was being honest when I told you I hired Mr Imaeda purely for my cousin’s benefit. If my cousin hadn’t wanted to marry Yukiho, then I couldn’t care less what kind of woman she is or what kind of life she leads.’

‘I see.’

‘You were, however, right about one thing,’ Kazunari continued.

‘And that is?’

‘She does scare me.’

‘Ah.’ Sasagaki leaned back in the sofa, looking him in the eye. ‘And why is that?’

‘Well, it’s a little vague, and very subjective.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Sasagaki with a wry grin. ‘I live for vague subjectivity.’

Kazunari explained everything to Sasagaki in roughly the same fashion as he had when he first spoke with Imaeda: he sensed someone or something behind her, a shadowy backer with lots of money, and not a lot of morals. Everyone who got involved with her ended up meeting misfortune.

Despite the tale sounding increasingly ridiculous as he told it, Sasagaki listened to every word, a serious look on his face as he puffed at his third cigarette.

‘I see,’ the detective said once he had finished. ‘Thanks for sharing that with me.’ He put out his cigarette and bowed his head in gratitude, giving Kazunari a good look at his greying hair parted right down the middle.

‘I’m sure you think I’m letting my imagination run away with me.’

‘Not at all,’ Sasagaki said waving a hand in front of his face as if to brush away the mere suggestion. ‘To be honest, I’m a little surprised you understand the situation as well as you do. It’s impressive for someone your age to show such intuition.’

‘You mean… you think I’m right?’

‘That I do,’ Sasagaki said with a nod. ‘I think you’ve seen right through to the truth of Yukiho Karasawa. Unfortunately, few people possess your keen eye, especially when it comes to her. Even I was blind for a very long time.’

‘So my intuition about her, that’s correct?’

‘As far as I can tell,’ the detective replied. ‘Nothing good happens by getting involved with her, that’s for certain. And I have eighteen years of experience to verify that.’

‘Well, then, I’d sure like to introduce you to my cousin.’

‘As I would like to meet him and warn him. Though I doubt he’d listen. You’re the first person I’ve even been able to talk with openly about this.’

‘What I wanted – the whole reason I hired Mr Imaeda in the first place – was to get something decisive on her. A smoking gun,’ Kazunari said.

‘You learn anything from his investigation?’

‘Nothing, really. Just a few details about her stock trades. Imaeda was only getting started.’

Kazunari had already decided he would forbear mentioning what the private eye had said about him being the one Yukiho Karasawa truly loved.

‘Well,’ Sasagaki said in a low voice, ‘this is only conjecture, but I think Mr Imaeda might just have found something decisive, as you say.’

‘Proof of her backer?’

The detective nodded. ‘The other day when I was looking through Mr Imaeda’s place I couldn’t help but notice he had nothing on Yukiho Karasawa at all in his files. Not even a single photograph.’

‘What?’ Kazunari’s eyes widened. ‘You mean —’

‘Someone who was afraid of that particular investigation may well have played a part in Mr Imaeda’s disappearance.’

Kazunari shook his head. The thought didn’t even seem like a stretch, not any more. Yet there was still that faint whiff of unreality to it.

‘And you believe that,’ he muttered. ‘You believe someone would go that far.’

‘So you think she’s bad, but not that bad?’

‘Couldn’t his disappearance be a coincidence? Maybe he got wrapped up in something else?’

‘Doesn’t fit,’ the detective said with confidence. ‘Mr Imaeda gets two newspapers delivered, and when I checked with the delivery people they said that a man called to stop delivery last month on the twenty-first, because he was going on a trip.’

‘A man who could have been Mr Imaeda.’

‘True. But given that he had no reason to go on a trip without informing you first, I don’t think it was,’ Sasagaki said, shaking his head. ‘I think whoever made him disappear was trying to arrange things to attract as little attention as possible. If newspapers started piling up at his door, it wouldn’t take long before his neighbours or the concierge started asking questions.’

‘But if what you’re saying is correct, then whoever did this is a hardened criminal. I mean, we’d have to assume that Mr Imaeda was killed, wouldn’t we?’

An emotionless mask fell over the detective’s expression. ‘I think the chances of him still being alive are extremely small.’

Kazunari breathed out. This conversation was nerve-racking. His heart had been racing for what felt like hours.

‘But there’s still no way to directly connect whoever called the newspapers with Yukiho,’ Kazunari said, even as he wondered at himself. Why defend this woman I’m trying to expose? Maybe, he thought, it was because whatever evils he was trying to lay at her feet, murder seemed like one step too far.

Sasagaki went for his other jacket pocket and pulled out a single photograph.

‘Have you ever seen this man?’

‘May I?’ Kazunari took the photo from him.

The photo showed a young man with a thin face. He had broad shoulders and a cold look to his eyes that went well with the dark jacket he was wearing.

Kazunari had never seen him before in his life. He told the detective as much.

‘I see. That’s too bad.’

‘Who is it?’

‘A man I’ve been looking for. Can I borrow that business card I just gave you?’

Kazunari handed the detective back his business card. Sasagaki flipped the card over and wrote a name on the reverse side: Ryo Kirihara.

‘Who’s that?’

‘A ghost.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Mr Shinozuka, I’d appreciate it if you could commit this face and name to memory. If you should see or hear of him, anywhere, I want you to contact me immediately.’

‘That’s fine, but why should I see him? And you’re the police. Wouldn’t you have better luck putting up Wanted posters?’ Kazunari asked with a shrug.

‘I would, if I had anything to charge him with. And besides, I know the one place he’s most likely to show up – one you’re well acquainted with.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Near Yukiho Karasawa.’ Sasagaki wet his lips. ‘Ever heard about the goby and the shrimp?’

‘Sorry? Shrimp?’ Kazunari blinked.

‘Never mind. Suffice it to say, Yukiho Karasawa and Ryo Kirihara have what biologists call a symbiotic relationship. One can’t live without the other. They’re a pair for life.’

Outside the window it was all rice paddies and farmhouses, occasionally interrupted by large billboards proclaiming the virtues of one manufacturing company or the other. It was monotonous, boring scenery. Noriko would have preferred looking at towns and streets, but they had put walls up as sound barriers wherever the bullet train passed through anywhere really interesting.

Elbow resting on the windowsill, Noriko glanced at the seat next to her. Akiyoshi was sitting motionless, his eyes closed. He wasn’t sleeping, she realised, but engaged in some deep thought.

She looked back out of the window, feeling the tension weighing on her like a lump of lead in her stomach. This trip was a bad idea.

And yet this was probably her last chance to get to know him. She couldn’t believe they had been together so long and she had so little to show for it. It wasn’t for lack of interest on her part, although she did try to maintain the mindset that what was past was past. What mattered was the present. And right now, this man was something very important to her.

The scenery changed slightly. They were in Aichi prefecture now, proud home of Toyota. The number of billboards for car manufacturers increased. Noriko thought about her own hometown. She was from Niigata, on the north-west coast, across the Japan Alps from Tokyo. There had been a small automobile factory near her home, too.

Noriko had first come to Tokyo when she was eighteen, with no plans other than getting into university. She hadn’t wanted to become a pharmacist; she’d just gone with the first programme that accepted her, and right after graduation she had slid into her current job at the hospital on a friend’s recommendation. Those first five years after university had been some of her best, Noriko thought.

In the sixth year, she got a lover. He was an older man, thirty-five, working at the same hospital. It was serious – she was considering marriage. But there was one problem: he had a wife and children. He said he planned on divorce and Noriko had believed him. That was why she got her current apartment. It was a place for him to go once he left his wife. She wanted to give him a place to make a soft landing when he left his home.

But when she set her mind on their future, he started giving her excuses. He was worried about the kids, the alimony payments would be too big, it was better to take it slow, cautiously. Each word came like a blow to Noriko. She wasn’t sleeping with him so she could hear about his family problems.

The split came in an unexpected fashion. She went to work at the hospital one morning to find him missing. When she asked another of the nurses on staff, she said that he’d quit the day before.

‘He was swiping money from the patients,’ she told Noriko in a hushed voice, her eyes gleaming with the joy of the gossip. How much more brightly they would have gleamed if she had known about the man and Noriko.

‘Swiping?’

‘He was making it look like there had been errors when handling the bills, and erasing the records of patients paying for their hospital stays. Then he took the money they paid and put it in his own wallet. After a few incidents of people who had already paid getting delinquency notifications in the mail, they found him out.’

Noriko watched the nurse’s ruby-red lips smile as she felt her world crashing down around her. It was like a nightmare.

‘How much did he take?’ Noriko asked, desperately trying to keep her cool.

‘About two million yen, I heard.’

‘That much? I wonder what he was using it for?’

‘Someone said he was using it to pay back the loan on his apartment. You know he bought right at the peak of the bubble,’ she said, her eyes still bright.

Apparently, the hospital didn’t mean to press charges. As long as he paid the money back they were going to sweep the whole thing under the rug. They didn’t want word getting out to the press.

For the next few days, she heard nothing from him. She had trouble focusing on her work and began making so many slip-ups that her co-workers began to suspect something.

She considered calling him at home, but when she imagined someone other than him picking up the phone, she couldn’t bring herself to dial the number.

One night, very late, her own phone rang. She knew it was him, although his voice on the other end of the line was hushed and thin.

‘How’ve you been?’ he wanted to know.

‘Not good,’ she told him.

‘Yeah, I thought not.’

She could picture his pained smile.

‘You’ve probably already heard, but I won’t be going back to the hospital.’

‘What are you going to do about the money?’

‘I’ll pay it. In instalments. They’re giving me that much.’

‘Can you pay it?’

‘Well, I’m going to have to. There’s no way around it, even if I have to sell the apartment.’

‘It’s two million, right?’

‘Two point four, to be exact.’

‘Can I help?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I have some savings. I can probably handle two million.’

‘I don’t know —’

‘No, you could pay it off, and then you could leave —’

Your wife, she was going to say, but he cut her off.

‘No, I can’t.’

She gasped. ‘Can’t what?’

‘I can’t let you help me like that. I need to do this myself.’

‘But —’

‘My wife,’ he said, ‘we borrowed money from her father to buy this place.’

‘How much?’

‘Ten million.’

Noriko felt a lump in her stomach. A bead of sweat trickled from her armpit.

‘If I’m going to get a divorce, I have to do something about that first.’

‘But you never said anything about that before.’

‘What good would that have done?’

‘What does your wife think about all this?’

‘What do you care?’ he said, sounding displeased.

‘I care. Is she angry?’

Noriko was hoping that his wife would be so angry he might be forced to get a divorce. But his answer surprised her.

‘Heh. She apologised.’

‘To you? Why?’

‘She was the one who wanted this apartment in the first place. I resisted quite a bit at first. The loan was going to be too difficult for us to pay back, I thought. Which is how we got to the current situation.’

‘Oh…’

‘She’s going to get a part-time job to help pay the money back.’

What a perfect wife. ‘So,’ she said after a moment, ‘I guess I can’t expect anything to happen with us any time soon.’

He was silent for a while. She heard him sigh. ‘Can you just stop it with that?’ he said.

‘With what?’

‘That pretending-to-be-angry thing you do. You knew the deal as well as I did.’

‘What deal?’

‘I was never going to get a divorce. That was just part of the game we were playing.’

Noriko was speechless. She wanted to get angry, to tell him how serious she had been. Except she knew how miserable she’d feel the moment she said it. Her pride wouldn’t let her utter a word – which was of course exactly what he wanted.

Then she heard a voice behind him asking who he was calling at this time of night. It must be his wife.

‘It’s a friend; they called because they were worried about what’s going on,’ he told her.

A moment later he spoke again, his voice quieter than before. ‘Right, anyway, so that’s that,’ he said.

That’s what? Noriko wanted to say. But the emptiness that had spread to fill her entire body robbed her of her voice. Seeing that his work was done, he hung up without waiting for her reply.

It was the last time they spoke. She never even saw him again after that.

She got rid of all of the things he had left in her apartment. His toothbrush, his razor blade, shaving cream, condoms.

The only thing she forgot to throw out was the ashtray, the dust accumulating on it like the scar tissue forming over the wound he had left in her heart.

Noriko didn’t see anyone for a while after that. It wasn’t that she had decided to go it alone. Rather, she wanted more than ever to get married. She wanted to find the right man, have kids, and live the quiet, family life.

About a year after breaking up with the man from the hospital she paid a visit to a matchmaking service, intrigued by their new computer system that promised to help find the perfect match. She decided she could only find her life partner by cutting romance out of the equation. She had had it with romance.

A middle-aged woman with a kind smile asked her questions and typed her responses into the computer. Several times she paused to assure Noriko not to worry, she would find the right man.

As promised, the matchmaking service started introducing men they thought she would like. She looked at the results and chose six of them to actually meet. Five of them she only met once. They were the kind of people who made you depressed just seeing them. Disillusioned. Some of them looked nothing at all like their photographs. One guy had registered with the service as being unmarried, but it turned out he had a kid.

One man out of the six, however, she met for two more dates after the first. He was a little over forty, but serious enough, and Noriko started contemplating the idea of marriage. It was on the third date that she learned that he was living with his mother, who had dementia. Apparently he had specifically requested a woman with ‘medical experience’ on his application to the company.

‘I wish you the best,’ she said, and left him. She was being made a fool of. Not just her, but every woman.

After the sixth introduction, she stopped her contract with the matchmaking service, feeling as if she had wasted precious months of her life.

Six months later, she met Akiyoshi.

It was evening by the time they reached Osaka. They checked in at their hotel, and Akiyoshi took Noriko out for a tour of the town. Despite his hesitation at taking her when she had first proposed the trip, he seemed unusually generous today. Maybe, Noriko thought, it was the effect of coming home after a long time away.

The two of them walked downtown by the famous Dotonbori Moat and ate takoyaki octopus skewers – the local speciality. It was the first time they had ever taken anything resembling a trip. And while Noriko was still uneasy about what was to come, it made her happy. It was her first time ever in this part of the country.

‘Is the place where you grew up far from here?’ she asked as they shared beers at a restaurant overlooking the moat.

‘Only five stations away by train.’

‘That’s close.’

‘Osaka isn’t all sprawled out like Tokyo is,’ Akiyoshi said, looking out the window. A large neon sign for Glico chocolates shone outside.

‘Say,’ Noriko ventured after a moment of hesitation, ‘would you take me there?’

He looked up at her, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows.

‘I’d like to see the town where you lived.’

‘I think we’ve done enough touristy stuff.’

‘But —’

‘I have work to do,’ Akiyoshi said, looking away. His mood was clearly dampened.

‘I’m sorry…’ Noriko said, her head hanging.

They finished their beers in silence. Noriko watched the people busily crossing a bridge over the moat. It was a few minutes after eight o’clock. The Osaka night was just getting started.

‘It’s a worthless place,’ Akiyoshi said abruptly.

Noriko looked over at him. He still had his eyes out the window.

‘A dull town. Dusty, dirty, filled with worthless people who squirm like so many insects. But their eyes are sharp, beady. A town where no one lets their guard down, not ever.’ He finished his beer. ‘You still want to go there?’

‘I do.’

Akiyoshi thought for a moment, then putting down his beer glass he stuck his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a single ten-thousand-yen bill. ‘You mind paying?’

Noriko took the bill and went over to the cash register.

Outside, Akiyoshi hailed a cab. He gave a destination to the driver, but the names were all unfamiliar to Noriko. Still, it was fascinating to hear him talk in the Osaka dialect. Just being here made him revert to his native tongue. Noriko had never heard him speak like that.

Akiyoshi barely said a word in the taxi. He just stared out of the window. Noriko worried that he might be regretting his choice.

The taxi went into a narrow, dark street. Akiyoshi had begun giving the taxi driver turn-by-turn instructions. Finally the taxi stopped, right next to a park.

They got out and Akiyoshi went into the park. Noriko followed. It was a big park, large enough to play baseball in, with swings, a jungle gym, and a sandbox.

‘We used to play a lot here as kids.’

‘Baseball?’

‘Some. Dodgeball, too. Even a little soccer.’

‘Do you have any pictures from then?’

‘Nope.’

‘Oh. That’s too bad.’

‘There was no other wide-open space like this around here, so this park meant everything to us. This park, and that…’ Akiyoshi said, pointing to the other side of the park.

Noriko turned around to look. An old building was standing right behind them.

‘That building?’

‘We used to play in there all the time.’

‘What kind of games did you play in a place like that?’

‘Time tunnel.’

‘How?’

‘The building wasn’t finished when I was a kid. They’d built about half of it before abandoning the project. So only the rats and the neighbourhood kids ever went in.’

‘Wasn’t that dangerous?’

‘Why would we play there if it wasn’t?’ Akiyoshi said with a grin. But the humour quickly faded from his face. He gave a little sigh and looked up at the building. ‘One day a kid found a body in there. A man’s body. He’d been murdered.’

Noriko felt a sharp pain in her chest. ‘Did you know him?’

‘A little,’ he said. ‘No one much liked him at all. I guess it comes with the territory when you run a pawnshop. Still, I didn’t like him either. I doubt anyone was much surprised when he got it. Just about everyone in town was a suspect.’ He pointed up at the side of the building. ‘Check out the artwork.’

Noriko squinted in the dim light. It was hard to make out; the picture had mostly faded, but it was a man and a woman, naked, making love. It was a mural, though there was nothing particularly artistic about it.

‘After the murder, the building was entirely off-limits until someone came along and actually rented the place. They covered it in plastic sheets and went to work finishing it. Their little artistic embellishment was hidden until construction wrapped and the sheets came off.’

Akiyoshi fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with a match from the restaurant.

‘Pretty soon, shady-looking guys started to show up. They’d go in one at a time, looking around to make sure no one was watching. I had no idea what was going on in there at first. None of the other kids knew either, and none of the grown-ups would tell us. But finally, one of us got some information. It was a place where men could buy women, he said. Pay ten thousand yen and they could do whatever they wanted to them, even what was in the painting on the side of the building. I didn’t believe it at first. Ten thousand yen was a lot of money at the time, but even more than that, I couldn’t imagine a woman who would do that kind of work.’ Akiyoshi chuckled dryly, breathing out smoke. ‘I guess I was still pretty naive. I was in elementary school, after all.’

‘I think if I’d heard something like that in elementary school I would’ve been pretty shocked.’

‘I don’t think I was too shocked by it. But I did learn something. I learned what the most important thing in this world is.’ Akiyoshi took another puff of his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, even though it was only halfway gone. He put it out with his shoe. ‘Anyway, I doubt you care about any of that.’

‘Akiyoshi,’ Noriko said, ‘did they ever catch the one who did it?’

‘The one who did what?’

‘The murder in the old building.’

‘Oh, that,’ Akiyoshi said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve got no idea.’ He started to walk. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘There’s a subway station down the street.’

They walked down the narrow, darkly lit road, side by side. The houses were packed in tight along the sides of the street – old terraced houses with their doors opening right on to the road.

After they had walked for a few minutes, Akiyoshi stopped. He was looking up at a house on the other side of the street. It was large for the area, a two-storey Japanese-style building. A metal shutter covering part of the front made it look as if they ran some kind of business there on the first floor.

Noriko glanced up at the upper storey. There was an old sign on it: KIRIHARA PAWNSHOP.

The letters were mostly faded.

‘You know this place?’

‘A little,’ he said. ‘Just a little.’

They had only gone ten metres from the pawnshop when a stocky woman about fifty years old came out of one of the houses. There were a dozen or so potted plants in front of the house, about half of them actually sitting on the street. The woman was wearing a tattered T-shirt and carried a watering can in her hand.

She looked up as the couple passed, curiosity in her eyes, and gave Noriko the once-over. Her eyes had the look of someone who didn’t care whether she was caught staring.

Next her eyes slid over to Akiyoshi, but then she reacted in a very unusual way. She had just been stooping down to water one of her plants but now she stood straight up.

‘Ryo?’ she said, staring straight at Akiyoshi.

He didn’t even look in her direction. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her speak. His pace didn’t quicken, he just kept going straight ahead, leaving Noriko no choice but to follow him. They passed in front of the woman, who was still staring at him.

‘Looks just like him,’ Noriko heard the woman mutter to herself as they passed. Akiyoshi didn’t seem to hear that, either.

But the woman calling out that name, ‘Ryo’, stuck in Noriko’s head. As they walked, she could hear it echo back and forth, growing louder and louder.

Noriko had to spend their second day in Osaka by herself. After breakfast, Akiyoshi left, saying he had some research to do and wouldn’t be back until that night.

Not wanting to sit around the hotel all day, Noriko decided she would take a walk downtown, near the moat where they had gone for dinner. She passed an area with upscale boutiques, the kind that you might find in the Ginza in Tokyo, except in Osaka the fancy storefronts stood side by side with game arcades and pachinko parlours. They didn’t seem to put as much value on appearances here in Osaka and business was business.

She did a little shopping, but was still left with plenty of time on her hands. She started feeling like she wanted to go back to the place where they had gone the night before – that park, and especially the pawnshop.

She took the subway from the main station in town. She still remembered the names of all the stops and was pretty sure she could find her way back to the park from the station once she got there.

After she had bought her ticket, a thought occurred to her and she stopped by a small station shop to buy a disposable camera.

Reaching her destination, she walked down the street, retracing their steps from the night before in reverse. The town looked remarkably different in the daylight. Many of the shops were open and there were a lot of people on the street. There was a strength in the eyes of the people she saw working in the shops and the passers-by. Not a mercantile energy so much as an attitude. Everyone was looking for something – a weakness. No one let their guard down. It was just like he said.

She walked slowly, taking pictures every now and then. She wanted this record of Akiyoshi’s hometown for herself. She knew she could never tell him about it.

She arrived at the pawnshop to find it closed. In fact, it might have been closed for some time. She hadn’t noticed at night, but seen in the daylight it had a distinctly abandoned feel to it.

She took a picture.

Then she came to the old building by the park. Some kids were playing soccer. She took more pictures, hearing their shouts as they played behind her. She even took a picture of the pornographic mural. Then she went around to the front of the building. It didn’t seem as if they were doing any business here at all now. It was just another abandoned building, like so many that had been abandoned after the economic bubble burst, just a lot older.

Back on the main street, she grabbed a taxi back to the hotel.

It was after eleven that night when Akiyoshi returned. He looked as if he was in a terrible mood and exhausted.

‘Did you finish your work?’ she asked, somewhat fearfully.

He threw himself on the bed and took a big sigh. ‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘Everything’s finished.’

She almost said ‘good’, but something about the tone of his voice made it hard for her to speak. In the end, she said nothing and they went to sleep in silence.

Kazunari rolled over in bed. It had been too hot to sleep comfortably the last few nights and now his conversation with Sasagaki was stuck on a loop in his head. The whole situation strained belief – and yet, when he let it in, the reality of it hit him like a ton of bricks.

Though he might not have used the word ‘murder’, the old detective had all but said that Imaeda had been killed. At the time Kazunari had listened to everything Sasagaki told him as if it was a story about other people, not him – something he might have seen on television or read in a novel. Even though he knew, intellectually, that these events affected people directly around him, they lacked visceral impact when heard in the meeting room at Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals. Which was why he hadn’t really worried when Sasagaki told him that he should be careful, too.

But once he was alone in his room with the light off, lying down in bed with his eyes closed, anxiety gripped him and he broke out in a cold sweat.

He knew Yukiho was dangerous. He’d just never imagined he might be placing Imaeda in harm’s way by putting the private eye on her case. For the hundredth time he wondered just who Yukiho was.

And that man, Ryo Kirihara.

Sasagaki hadn’t been very forthcoming about him – except that he and Yukiho were a pair and the detective didn’t know where he was hiding, even after searching for nearly twenty years.

Two decades. Kazunari couldn’t understand how something that had happened so long ago in Osaka could be having such an effect on his personal life in the here and now.

He opened his eyes, staring out at the darkness, and grabbed the remote control for the air conditioning off his bedside table. He pressed the switch and sighed as cool air filled the room.

Just then, the phone rang. Starting up, he turned on the lamp. His alarm clock showed that it was one a.m. For a moment he worried that something had happened to his parents – he had been living alone downtown since buying his apartment the year before.

He coughed to clear his throat and picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Kazunari. Sorry to call so late.’

Yasuharu. A feeling of dread came over him. The premonition quickly turned to certainty. ‘Did… something happen?’

‘Yeah – the matter I mentioned to you the other day. I just got a call from Yukiho.’

Yasuharu’s voice sounded hushed over the phone – and not just because it was the middle of the night.

‘Her mother?’

‘She passed away. Never regained consciousness.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Kazunari said, the words only a reflex.

‘You good for tomorrow?’ Yasuharu asked. It wasn’t a question.

‘You still want me to go to Osaka?’

‘Yeah, I’m completely tied up. Some people from Slottermeyer are coming, and I have to see them.’

‘I was supposed to be at that meeting.’

‘Not any more. Get on the first bullet train you can, got it? Thankfully it’s already Friday. I’ll probably have to go out with our guests tonight, but I should be able to head down there Saturday morning.’

‘What do we tell the boss?’

‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow. His old body can’t take getting woken up at this time of night.’

The CEO – Yasuharu’s father, Sosuke – lived in a residential area of Setagaya, on the western side of town, close to the house Yasuharu had moved into at the time of his previous marriage.

‘You ever introduce him to Yukiho?’ Kazunari asked, hoping he wasn’t sounding too nosy.

‘Not yet, no. But he does know I found a potential bride. You know how he is. He’s probably too busy to worry about his forty-five-year-old son getting married anyway.’

Public opinion said Sosuke Shinozuka was a very open-hearted, generous man, and he’d never been very controlling with his son or with Kazunari when it came to private matters. But Kazunari had long understood that this was because his uncle was first and foremost a company man. He just didn’t care about anything outside of business. As long as his son’s intended didn’t do something outrageous to besmirch the family name, he honestly didn’t care whom he took for his second wife.

‘So, thanks for doing this,’ Yasuharu said.

Kazunari wanted nothing more to do with Yukiho and yet he couldn’t think of any good reason to refuse.

‘Where in Osaka am I going?’

‘I got a fax with the address of the funeral parlour and the mother’s home, so I’ll send that along. Your fax number is the same as the phone, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, I’ll hang up. Give me a ring once the fax comes through.’

‘Sure.’

Kazunari got out of bed. He looked up at the glass doors set in his bookshelf, behind which stood a bottle of Remy Martin and a brandy glass. He took the glass out and poured himself a finger, tipping it back without bothering to sit down. The brandy hit his tongue and he drank in the fragrance and the taste and the sting of the alcohol. His blood stirred. His nerves were ringing.

Ever since Yasuharu had come to him with his feelings about Yukiho, Kazunari had considered pulling an end-run by bringing his concerns to his father in hopes that he might talk to his uncle, Sosuke. But vaguely defined worries would lack the weight he needed to stop Yasuharu’s marriage. Yasuharu was positioned to eventually become the most powerful member of their extended family, and he could already hear his father telling him to worry about his own life before he started worrying about Yasaharu’s. Besides, his father had been recently appointed CEO of Shinozuka Chemicals. He had enough on his plate without worrying about his nephew’s family plans.

Kazunari arrived in Osaka just before noon. For a moment he just stood on the platform in the station, feeling the humidity and the heat on his skin. Even though it was already late in September he could feel sweat trickling down his back. Summer lingered longer down here than it did up in Tokyo.

He went down the stairs and out through the ticket gates. The main exit was right in front of him, and beyond that, a taxi stop. He was making a beeline for the first taxi when he heard a voice calling out his name. He stopped and looked around and saw a woman in her mid-twenties waving at him. She was wearing a dark navy suit with a T-shirt underneath. Her hair was in a long ponytail.

‘Thanks for making the long trip,’ she said, with a respectful bow that made her ponytail bob up and down like its equestrian namesake.

Kazunari had seen her before. She worked at the boutique in South Aoyama.

‘I’m sorry, your name is?’

‘Natsumi,’ she replied, handing him a business card.

‘How did you know I was coming?’

‘Miss Karasawa told me. She said she thought you’d get in just before noon, but there was so much traffic, I’m afraid I was a little late.’

‘No, not at all. Where is Yukiho?’

‘Miss Karasawa is speaking with the funeral director at home. She asked me to take you directly there.’

‘Lead on, then.’

Yasuharu must have called while I was on the train. He could hear him now, telling Yukiho, ‘I’m sending you my best man to lighten your load. Don’t you hesitate to order him around.’

‘This must have come very suddenly,’ Kazunari said as their taxi took off.

Natsumi nodded. ‘We knew things were bad, which is why I came down yesterday, but no one thought it would happen quite as soon as it did.’

‘When did she pass away?’

‘We got the call from the hospital last night around nine o’clock. Her condition had taken a turn for the worse and the hospital wanted to let us know. She was gone by the time we arrived.’

‘How did Yukiho take it?’

‘Not well,’ Natsumi said with a frown. ‘She’s not the kind to wail and carry on, but I don’t know how many hours she sat there, pressing her face into the comforter on her mother’s bed. I’ve never seen her like that.’

‘I’ll bet she didn’t sleep much last night, then.’

‘Not at all, I think. I woke up once myself and walked down the hall past her room. The light was on and I heard her inside. I think she was crying.’

Whatever Yukiho Karasawa was hiding in her past, or her present for that matter, her grief was probably very real. From what Imaeda had told him, being adopted by Reiko Karasawa had given Yukiho a freedom she had never known.

Natsumi began giving specific directions to the driver and Kazunari noticed from her accent that the girl was originally from the area. He could see why, of her many employees, Yukiho had chosen to summon this one to help when the time came.

They went past an old temple and into a quiet neighbourhood where the taxi came to a stop. Kazunari made to pay the fare, but Natsumi adamantly refused.

‘I was told that under no circumstances was I to let you pay,’ she said with a smile.

Yukiho’s mother’s home was a traditional Japanese-style house with a tall wooden fence and proper gate. Kazunari pictured Yukiho as a high-schooler, waving to her adopted mother as she skipped, carefree, down the path. It was a beautiful image and one he wanted to hold on to, though he couldn’t say why.

A small intercom hung by the gate. Natsumi pushed the button and Yukiho answered almost immediately.

‘I’ve brought Mr Shinozuka.’

‘Please bring him right in. The door’s open.’

Natsumi looked up at Kazunari. ‘In we go.’

He followed her through the gate. The front door was wooden with vertical slats, a standard in traditional construction. Kazunari couldn’t remember the last time he had gone into a house like this.

He let Natsumi lead him down the hallway. His eyes took in the details. Everything was perfect. Even the wooden floorboards beneath his feet shone with a lustre that could only be the result of years upon years of polishing by hand. The wooden posts along the walls, too. He felt as though he was gaining, in a weird way, an insight into the person who had been Reiko Karasawa, the woman who had raised Yukiho.

He could hear talking from up ahead. Natsumi stopped and turned toward a closed sliding door in the hallway. ‘Miss Karasawa?’

‘In here,’ said a voice from the other side.

Natsumi opened the door part-way and he heard Yukiho saying, ‘Please show him in.’

Natsumi motioned with her hand, and Kazunari stepped into a room that was a curious mix of Japanese and Western sensibilities. There were tatami mats on the floor, but a carpet had been spread over them on which sat a table and two sofas. A man and woman were sitting in one of the sofas and across from them sat Yukiho. She stood when Kazunari entered.

‘Thanks for coming all the way down here,’ she said, bowing her head to him. She was wearing a dark grey dress and looked a great deal thinner than when he had last seen her, the picture of a woman in mourning. But although her make-up was light, and her face hung with weariness, there was an undeniable allure to her. Genuine beauty never takes the day off.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said.

She nodded, but if she said anything, her voice didn’t reach his ears.

Yukiho turned to the couple on the sofa and introduced Kazunari as a business associate. The couple, as Natsumi had told him, were from the funeral parlour.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Yukiho told him. ‘We’ve been discussing arrangements for hours now and it’s really all too much for me to decide.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have much experience in this sort of thing either,’ Kazunari said.

‘All the same, two heads are better than one.’

‘Then my head’s all yours for what it’s worth.’

The meeting stretched another two hours. Kazunari learned that they were planning a wake and that both the wake and the funeral itself would take place at the funeral parlour, a seven-storey building only ten minutes away by car.

When all the details had been decided upon, Natsumi and the funeral directors left for the funeral parlour, leaving Yukiho at home to wait for a package to arrive from Tokyo.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Kazunari asked her once they had gone.

‘Mourning clothes,’ Yukiho told him. ‘I’m having one of the girls from the shop bring some down. She should be arriving at the station any time now.’ She glanced at her watch.

‘Have you told anyone from school yet?’

‘No. I don’t think I will, either. I hardly see any of them any more.’

‘Not even anyone from dance club?’ Kazunari asked.

Yukiho’s eyes widened for a moment, as if he’d touched a sore spot. But the look faded quickly. ‘No, nobody needs to come for this.’

‘Right,’ Kazunari said, crossing off an item in the list he had made in his notebook in the train on the way down.

‘I’m sorry,’ Yukiho said suddenly, ‘I haven’t offered you tea. Something cold, or coffee perhaps?’

Kazunari waved a hand dismissively. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘It’s no trouble at all. I have beer if you prefer?’

‘Tea’s fine. Cold if you have any.’

‘I’ll get you some oolong.’

Alone, Kazunari stood and looked around. Though the furnishings were mostly Western, he spotted a Japanese tea chest in one corner. He was no interior designer, but somehow it all seemed to fit.

There was a sturdy wooden bookcase along one wall filled with books. In between books on the tea ceremony and flower arrangement he spotted some old textbooks and a beginner’s piano book. He imagined Yukiho sitting in the room, studying, and looked around for a piano but there was none to be found.

Spotting some sliding doors on the opposite side of the room from where he had entered, he opened them and peeked out into a small sunroom. A pile of old magazines sat in the corner. Kazunari stepped out into the sunroom and looked out at the garden. It wasn’t very large, but the few twisted trees and rustic stone lantern were perfectly placed to create a little self-contained scene, the quintessential Japanese garden. It looked as if grass had once carpeted the space beneath the trees, but this had all withered. Tending to even a small garden was no mean feat for an elderly woman.

Several potted plants sat close to the house, most of them cactuses, the round ball-like ones, bristling with spikes.

‘Isn’t it miserable? I haven’t done a thing with it,’ he heard a voice say behind him. Yukiho had arrived carrying a tray with glasses.

‘It’s not too far gone,’ Kazunari said. ‘That’s an impressive lantern you’ve got out there.’

‘Too bad there’s no one left to look at it,’ Yukiho said, putting the tea down on the table.

‘Have you decided what you’re going to do with the house?’

‘Not yet,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘I don’t want to just let it go, though. Or let someone tear it down,’ she said, resting her hand on a part of the sliding door where the frame had been scratched, giving it a thoughtful rub with her thumb. Then she looked up at Kazunari as though she had only just noticed him standing there. ‘Thank you so much for coming down. I was afraid you might not.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I mean…’ She looked down at the floor before returning to meet his gaze and when she did, her eyes were red, and bright with tears. ‘I mean, I know you don’t particularly like me.’

Kazunari tensed. ‘What possible reason would I have to not like you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re mad that I divorced Makoto. Maybe you have another reason. I just sense it. You don’t like me. You try to avoid me.’

‘You’re imagining things,’ Kazunari said with a light laugh.

‘You honestly mean that?’ she said, taking a step in his direction so that the two were almost uncomfortably close.

‘Really. I have no reason to dislike you.’

‘I’m glad, then,’ she said, closing her eyes. She gave a sigh of relief and Kazunari found himself disarmed by her nearness. She was standing close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. She opened her eyes. The redness had gone, leaving nothing but the impossibly deep brown of her irises, so deep he felt like he might topple and fall into them.

Kazunari looked away, and took a step back. Too close, and he could feel her latching on to him, unseen hooks burrowing into his skin.

‘So,’ he said, looking out at the garden. ‘Your mother liked cactuses, did she?’

‘She did, despite the fact they don’t fit in at all. She used to give them away as presents.’

‘What will you do with them?’

‘Good question. They’re pretty low-maintenance, but I can’t just leave them there.’

‘I’m sure you can find a home for them.’

‘Care for a cactus, Mr Shinozuka?’

‘I’ll pass.’

She smiled. Then she crouched to better look out over the garden. ‘They’re like sad little children without their mother.’

A tremble passed through her shoulders. Soon, her whole body was shaking. He heard her sob. ‘I don’t have anyone either,’ she said in a choked voice, and Kazunari felt a flutter in his chest as he stood behind her. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

Her white fingers moved up till they lay across his hand. Her skin was cold to the touch. The quaking in her shoulders grew softer.

Then Kazunari felt a sudden, inexplicable rush of emotion, something that had been locked inside until now, unknown and inaccessible even to him. It grew, changed, becoming an impulse. His eyes went to the porcelain-white skin at the nape of her neck.

Just when it felt as if his last defences might come tumbling down, the phone rang. He took his hand from her shoulder, her fingers slipping away.

Yukiho stayed there for several seconds before she stood and walked over to the table.

‘Hello? Junko? You just get in? Thanks for doing this. Could I have you take them by taxi?’

Kazunari listened, half in a daze, as Yukiho gave her assistant directions.

The funeral parlour was on the fifth floor. Just outside the elevator was a small space like a studio, with an altar at the back. Folding chairs waited in neatly arranged rows.

The woman from the shop in Tokyo had arrived there before them with Yukiho and Natsumi’s mourning clothes. Natsumi had already changed.

‘I’d better get changed myself,’ Yukiho said, taking the hanger with her clothes on it and disappearing into the dressing room.

Kazunari sat on one of the folding chairs and looked up at the altar. He had overheard Yukiho request the best that money could buy, but Kazunari was hard-pressed to see how the altar in this room was different from any other he’d seen.

He thought back to earlier at Yukiho’s mother’s house and felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine. If the phone hadn’t rung precisely when it had, he almost certainly would have put his arms around her, and who knew what would have happened then? He didn’t even understand where the impulse to hold her like that had come from. How could he have let his guard down so completely after months of telling himself that Yukiho was bad news?

He resolved to not let himself slip again. He couldn’t let her draw him in. Yet, a whisper in the back of his mind said what if? Maybe, just maybe, he had her all wrong. Those tears and those trembling shoulders weren’t for show, he was sure of that. This was a person who could feel, who had felt, genuine emotions. He was forced to admit that the picture of her weeping over the cacti was utterly different from the one he had been carrying around for so long.

Maybe she really was that teary-eyed girl. Maybe that was the true Yukiho, and the one in his mind was just a warped image, grown out of years’ worth of misunderstandings. Maybe Makoto and his cousin Yasuharu had been looking at the true woman all this time, the Yukiho he had never really seen until today.

Something moved in the corner of his vision. Kazunari looked up to see her walking towards him, resplendent in her mourning gown.

A black rose, he thought. That’s what she is. He’d never seen a woman so vibrant, so brilliant. The black frame of her dress only served to increase her enchantment.

When she noticed him, a faint smile came to her lips. But her eyes were moist with tears – dewdrops on a black flower petal.

Yukiho drifted over to the reception counter that had been set up near the back of the hall. She exchanged a few words with the other women, who were going over the routines for greeting guests. Kazunari watched from a distance.

People started showing up to attend the wake. By and large they were middle-aged women, Reiko Karasawa’s students in the tea ceremony and flower arranging, Kazunari surmised. One by one they came up and stood by the photograph of the deceased that had been placed on the altar. There, they pressed their hands together and, almost without exception, they cried.

Those who knew Yukiho came over to clasp her hands and share stories of her mother. And each time, in the middle of the telling, they would have to stop to weep. But Yukiho listened to every one of them, never hurrying them away, until it was hard for Kazunari to tell exactly who was comforting whom.

After Kazunari exchanged a few words with Natsumi about how the funeral would proceed, little remained for him to do. Food and beer had been set out in an adjacent room, but he felt out of place standing in there all by himself.

He began walking around aimlessly until he discovered a vending machine with some coffee by the stairs outside the room. He wasn’t that thirsty, but he fished in his pocket for loose change.

He was buying his coffee when he heard women talking – Yukiho’s assistants from the shop. They were standing on the other side of the doors to the stairs.

‘Well, the timing on this worked out perfectly,’ Natsumi was saying. ‘I mean, it’s a shame she passed and everything, but still.’

‘No, I totally understand. She could’ve gone on a long time without ever regaining consciousness. That would’ve made it even harder,’ Junko agreed.

‘For a while there, I was afraid we’d have to delay opening in Jiyugaoka.’

‘I wonder what the boss would’ve done if her mother hadn’t died?’

‘Oh, probably showed up for opening day and gone back down to Osaka, I guess. To be honest, that’s what I was most afraid of. Imagine some of our repeat customers coming in to celebrate the opening and her not being there.’

‘Close call, then.’

‘I guess. Anyway, it’s really better for everyone that this ended soon. Comas can be really tough when they go on for ever. She was over seventy, right?’ Natsumi asked. ‘I mean, I almost asked the boss if pulling the plug was an option.’

‘Natsumi!’

He heard the girls giggle.

Coffee in hand, Kazunari slowly walked away from the door. Going back to the ceremony room, he set his cup down on the reception counter.

What Natsumi had said about pulling the plug echoed in the back of his mind, demanding attention. No, don’t even think that, he told himself. And yet the gears were already turning.

Reiko Karasawa had passed away just after Natsumi arrived in Osaka. She had been there with Yukiho when the call came, which gave Yukiho an alibi. But what if she had called Natsumi down there expressly so she would have an alibi. She could remain the picture of innocence while someone else crept into the hospital to play mischief with her mother’s life-support system.

Ridiculous, Kazunari thought. But it stuck in his head, jostling for space with the name Detective Sasagaki had written on the back of his business card: Ryo Kirihara.

Natsumi had said she heard sounds from Yukiho’s room that night. She had thought Yukiho was crying, but what if she had been making contact with the person she sent to do the deed? Kazunari glanced over at Yukiho. She was talking with an older woman, nodding sympathetically. Kazunari shook his head and went to get another coffee.

By ten at night the number of visitors to the wake had dwindled and Yukiho told her assistants to head back to the hotel.

‘What about you, boss?’ Natsumi asked.

‘I’m staying here tonight. It’s a wake, after all.’

There was a room for mourners to stay just off to the side of the hall.

‘Will you be OK by yourself?’

‘I’ll be fine. Thanks for all your help today.’

The girls left and Kazunari realised he was once again alone with Yukiho. He cleared his throat. It felt like the air had grown thicker. He glanced down at his watch and was about to say he should be heading out too when Yukiho turned to him and said, ‘You want something to drink? You have a little time, right?’

‘Sure, I’m good.’

‘Great,’ she said, walking ahead.

There was a room in the back with tatami mats, looking like a traditional Japanese hotel room. An electric kettle and teapot had been placed on the table. Yukiho poured some tea.

‘It’s strange being here with you like this, Kazunari.’

‘I know.’

‘Makes me remember those dance club days. And the trip we went on before the big competition.’

They’d all gone on a retreat just before the competition in hopes they could brush up their form a little and leave their mark on the scoreboards.

‘The boys were particularly well behaved,’ she said. ‘The girls were on full alert for a midnight raid, but it was all for nothing. A little disappointing, really.’ She smiled. ‘I’m joking of course.’

Kazunari took a sip of his tea and smiled back. ‘You would have been off-limits anyway. You were already going out with Makoto.’

Yukiho laughed and shook her head. ‘Oh, I’m sure he told you all sorts of things about me.’

‘Not as much as you might think.’

‘It’s OK, I know how it is. And a lot of it was my fault. I think that’s why he drifted, in the end.’

‘He seemed pretty certain that the fault was his, though I’m sure these are matters that only the two of you will ever understand.’ Kazunari cradled his teacup in the palm of his hand.

Yukiho sighed. ‘I’m just no good at it.’

Kazunari looked up. ‘No good at what?’

‘Love,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘I don’t know how to love a man.’

Kazunari looked away. ‘I’m not sure that there is a proper way.’ The air had grown heavier. Kazunari loosened his tie, almost gasping for air.

‘I should go,’ he said abruptly, standing.

‘Oh. Sorry to have kept you so late,’ she said.

He nodded and turned away. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’

‘Thanks.’

He put his hand on the doorknob and had given it a turn when he felt something behind him. He didn’t have to look around to know that Yukiho was standing right there. He felt the touch of her hand on his back.

‘I’m scared,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m scared to be alone.’

Kazunari felt his heart wrench inside him. The impulse to turn to her came over him like a wave. But at the same time the warning lights in his mind had gone from yellow to red and a voice said if you look into her eyes now, you’re done.

Kazunari opened the door. Then without looking around he said, ‘Goodnight.’

As if those were the words to some magic spell, her presence and the hold it had over him disappeared like a puff of smoke. In its place he heard her voice, as dispassionate and collected as it had been before. ‘Goodnight.’

Kazunari walked out of the room, hearing the door close behind him. Only then did he allow himself to look back over his shoulder.

He heard the click of the door into the overnight room locking.

Kazunari stared at the door for a moment.

Are you really alone?

He began to walk, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor.