Chapter 6: Pain, Pain, Go Away

Chapter 6: Pain, Pain, Go Away

The cirrus clouds that covered the sky were like the wings of a giant dove.

Crossing an arch bridge over a huge river made dark and muddy by last night’s rain, we went down a small path along a paddy field peacefully twinkling a golden yellow.

Only a few minutes after merging back into the main road, a small town came into sight. Familiar chain stores were aligned in a familiar order, as if placed there by a stamp.

We stopped the car in the parking lot of a tiny bakery and got out to take a big stretch. The autumn wind blew in and tickled my nose with a sharp smell.

Getting out of the passenger’s seat, the girl’s black hair fluttered up, revealing an old scar about five centimeters long from the corner of her left eye down.

It was a deep, straight wound, as if cut with a razor. She casually covered it with her hand to keep me from seeing it.

She didn’t offer any explanation, but I had little doubt it was inflicted by the man who would be her third victim.

A wound on her palm, burns on her arm and back, a slice on her thigh, a cut on her face. They’re all over her, I thought.

I almost wondered if it was something about her that caused others to be so violent. Even between domestic violence and bullying, the sheer number of injuries seemed odd.

Like a certain shape of rock makes you want to kick it, like a certain

shape of icicle makes you want to crack it off from its root, like certain kinds of petals make you want to pluck them off one by one… There exist things in the world that, regardless of how cruel it is, you just feel like destroying.

Maybe it was the same way with this girl, I considered. It could even explain my sudden impulse to attack her last night.

But I shook my head. That’s just the selfish reasoning of an aggressor. A notion that put the greatest blame on her. That couldn’t have been right.

No matter what properties she had about her, it was no reason to hurt her.

We bought a fresh cheese croissant, an apple pie, a tomato sandwich, and coffee for us both, then ate in silence on the terrace. A few birds circled around our feet due to the breadcrumbs we were dropping. Across the road, children were playing soccer on the playground. A large tree in the center cast a long shadow on the not-so-green lawn.

A man in his forties wearing a gray cap came out of the store and smiled at us. He had short hair, a chiseled face, and a neatly- trimmed mustache. The badge on his chest said “Owner.”

“Want a coffee refill?”

We agreed, and the owner filled our drinks with a coffee server.

“Where’d you come from?”, he inquired kindly. I told him the name of the town.

“Why, that’s quite a ways, isn’t it? …Then you must be here to see

the costume parade, I’ll bet? Oh, or are you taking part?” “Costume parade?”, I repeated back at him. “Is there a thing like that here?”

“Ah, so you didn’t even know? Lucky you. It’s really a sight to see. A must-see, in fact! Hundreds of people dressed in costumes march down the shopping district.”

“Oh, so it’s a Halloween parade?”, I realized, seeing the Atlantic Giant - a giant pumpkin - in the corner of the plaza.

“That’s right. The event only started three or four years ago, but it’s gotten more popular every year. I’m surprised so many people like costumes, myself. Maybe everybody has a desire to change into something else that they don’t show. After long enough, you get fed up with being yourself all the time. Who knows, maybe there’s all those people in grotesque costumes ‘cause they’ve got destructive tendencies. …Honestly, I’d like to take part myself sometime, but I just can’t take the plunge.”

After those half-philosophical comments, the owner looked at our faces again and asked the girl with great interest, “Say, what’s the relation between you two?”

She glanced at me, begging for me to answer for her. “Our relation? Go ahead and take a guess.”

He stroked his mustache in thought. “A young lady and her attendant?”

An interesting comparison, I applauded. Far more accurate than the “siblings” or “lovers” I was expecting, too.

Paying for the coffee, we left the bakery behind.

Following the girl’s directions - “Turn right here,” “Go straight for a while,” “…That was a left turn” - we arrived at the third revenge victim’s apartment as the sun was setting.

The 5 PM sunset colored the town like film faded over many long years.

There were no open spaces at the apartment, and nowhere we could park the car nearby, so we reluctantly parked in the lot for an exercise park.

The sound of awkward alto sax practice came from across the river. Probably a band member at a local middle or high school.

“I got this wound on my face in winter of my second year of middle school,” the girl told me, finally talking about the injury. “It was during skating lessons given once a year. One of the delinquent students any middle school is sure to have pretended to lose balance and purposefully hit my leg, knocking me over. What’s more, he then kicked me in the face with part of the skate. I’ll bet he only intended it as one of his usual minor harassments. But skates are easily capable of slicing off even a gloved finger. So the rink turned red with my blood.”

She stopped there. I waited for her to continue.

“At first, the boy insisted that I had tripped, fallen, and suffered the injury all my myself. But anyone could tell it wasn’t an injury you got from simply falling on ice. Within the day, he admitted to being the culprit, though it was concluded to be an accident. Even though he’d clearly kicked my face intentionally, and many students saw

him do it. The boy’s parents came to apologize and paid me as consolation, but the boy who inflicted this lifelong wound wasn’t so much as kept from attending.”

“Wish I’d brought skates,” I idly commented. “Would be nice to subject him to two or three “accidents.””

“Indeed. …Well, the scissors will do fine.” I felt I saw her smirk. “I believe he’ll be stronger than the others, so I’ll have you accompany me from the start.”

“Got it.”

Confirming that she had her dressmaking scissors hidden in the sleeve of her blouse, we left the car.

Going up the steel-framed stairs of the apartment, rusted reddish- brown after what must have been nearly thirty years, we stood in front of the room of the man who, after middle school graduation, was failing to find a stable job.

The girl pressed the intercom button with her finger.

Within five seconds, we heard footsteps, the knob turned, and the door slowly opened.

I made eye contact with the man who came out.

Hollow eyes. An awfully red face. Overgrown hair. Sunken cheeks. Unkempt whiskers. Bony body.

He reminds me of someone, I thought, then moments later realized I was thinking of myself. And it wasn’t just his appearance, but his general lack of vigor.

“Yo, Akazuki,” he said to the girl.

It was a hoarse voice. And for the first time, I learned that the girl’s surname was Akazuki.

He didn’t seem surprised about his sudden visitor. He looked at the girl’s face, turned away from the scar, and looked sorrowful.

“So if you’re here, Akazuki,” he began, “then I guess I’m the one you’re killing next?”

She and I looked at each other.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna resist,” he continued. “But I have some things to talk about with you first. Come on up. I won’t keep you too long.”

He turned his back to us without waiting for a response, and returned to his room leaving us with many questions.

“What now?”, I asked, seeking direction.

The girl was concerned about the unprecedented situation, and nervously clutched the scissors in her sleeve.

Ultimately, curiosity won out.

“We shouldn’t lay a hand on him yet. We’ll hear what he has to say.” The girl paused. “It won’t be too late to kill him afterward.”

But half an hour later, the girl would come to realize how naive her judgement was. Hear what he has to say? Not too late to kill him after?

She had so little sense of impending danger. We should have killed him as soon as possible.

Including her father, the girl had succeeded at three acts of revenge

so far. I suppose that track record made her proud, and subsequently careless.

Getting revenge is simple, and if I feel like it, I can make someone die just like that - that’s how we’d come to think.

----------

Passing through the kitchen with the smelly drain, we opened the door to the living room. The sun from the west hurt our eyes. Along the wall of the roughly 100-square-foot room was an electronic piano, and the man sat backwards on the stool in front of it.

Beside the piano was a simple desk with an old transistor radio and a large computer. On the opposite side was a Pignose amp and a peppermint-green Telecaster with the logo etched off.

So he seemed to like music, though I doubted he worked in it. I had no proof, so to speak, but people who fed themselves by music seemed to has this particular air about them. This man didn’t have it.

“Sit down wherever,” he told us. I chose a desk chair, and the girl sat on a stool.

As if to take our place, the man stood up in front of us. He took a stance like he was going to do something, then took a few steps back and slowly sat with legs crossed on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands on the floor and bowing his head.

“In a sense, I’m relieved. Hey, Akazuki, I know you might not believe

me, but - ever since the day I injured you, I’ve feared that, you know, someday you’d come to have your revenge. I never forgot that hateful, bloody face you looked up at me with from the rink. Yeah, this girl’s definitely gonna come back to get me someday, I thought.”

Taking a brief moment to look up at the girl’s expression, he brought his forehead back to the floor.

“And now here you are, Akazuki. My bad premonition came true. You’re probably gonna kill me now. But then I won’t have to be afraid anymore tomorrow. So that’s not so bad.”

The girl coldly looked down at the back of his head. “Is that all you wanted to say?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” the man replied, still in his apologetic pose. “Then you don’t mind if I kill you now?”

“…Well, wait, hold on.” He looked up and slid back. From his initial reaction, I thought him a brave man, but he didn’t know when to give up after all. “To be honest, I’m not really prepared yet. And I’m sure you want to know how I predicted your arrival, Akazuki.” “Because my name came up on the news as a suspect?”, the girl immediately supposed.

“Nope. All anyone’s reported about is that your sister and Aihachi were stabbed.”

So Aihachi was the name of the woman who worked at the restaurant.

“And isn’t that enough information?”, the girl asked. “Someone

who was in that class could guess right away that I was the culprit upon seeing those two names. And you thought that if the killer was who you thought it was, she was very likely to come after you next. Isn’t that right?”

“…Well, yeah, you’re right.” The man’s gaze drifted.

“Then this conversation is over. You aren’t going to resist, you said?”

“Nah, I won’t. But… okay, well, under a condition.”

“Condition?”, I repeated. This could get troublesome. Was it wise to keep going along with this guy?

But the girl didn’t try to put a stop to this. She showed interest in what he was saying.

“I have a request for how I want to be killed,” the man said, raising his index finger. “I’ll tell you all about it. But… let me pour some coffee first. …I never get any better at playing instruments, but I’ve gotten really good at pouring coffee. Weird, huh?”

The man stood up and walked to the kitchen. He had a terrible stoop. Although, I might have looked the same way from the side.

I wondered what he could mean about “how he wants to be killed.” Was he simply talking about the method of murder? Or had he pictured a slightly more stylish setting for his death?

At any rate, we had no obligation to hear it out. But if granting a minor request meant him not putting up any resistance, it might not be so bad, I thought.

I heard water running. Before long, a sweet aroma came wafting in.

“By the way, guy in the sunglasses, are you Akazuki’s bodyguard?”, the man asked from the kitchen.

“I’m not here to have idle conversation. Just get to the point,” the girl snapped, but the man paid her no mind.

“Well, whatever the relationship is, I’m happy somebody out there would accompany a killer. Makes me jealous. Yeah… When I was a kid, they told me again and again, “a real friend will stop you when you’re about to do something wrong.” But I don’t think so. What am I supposed to trust about somebody who abandons their friend to become an ally of the law or morals instead? I think a better friend is when I’m about to do something bad, and they just join me in being a bad person without a word.”

The man brought two cups of coffee and handed one to the girl, one to me. “Careful, they’re hot,” he warned.

The instant I took the cup with my hands, I felt a strong blow to the side of my head.

----------

The world had turned 90 degrees sideways.

I think it took a few minutes to realize the man had punched me. That was how strong it was. Probably used some implement, not bare-handed.

I listened while I lied on the floor, but couldn’t get any meaningful information out of the sounds I was picking up. I had my eyes open, but I couldn’t piece together the images I saw.

The first thing I felt upon regaining consciousness wasn’t the pain of being punched, but the heat of the coffee spilled on my shin.

At first, the pain didn’t register as pain, but as a mysterious feeling of discomfort. With a delay, the side of my head finally felt like it’d been cracked. I put my left hand to the area and felt a lukewarm sensation.

I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t listen to me. He’d planned this from the start, I realized. This man was wary after all, watching for the moment we let our guard down.

I was trying to stay on my guard, but let myself be distracted as he handed me the coffee. I cursed my own stupidity.

My sunglasses had come off, probably when I was punched. I gradually was able to focus my eyes and bring together the fuzzy images. Then, I at last understood what was happening at this moment.

The man was hunched over the girl. The scissors she should have stabbed into him had ended up on the floor some distance from them.

The girl, pinned down with both hands, tried to resist, but it was clear who had the upper hand.

The man spoke with bloodshot eyes. “I’ve always been after you since middle school, Akazuki. Never thought I’d get my chance like this. You come waltzing right to me, and give me an excuse to claim self-defense? Now that is easy pickings, my friend.”

He held down her arms against her head with his right hand, and with his left, grabbed her collar and tore away the buttons on her blouse.

She refused to give up and struggled to the best of her ability. “Stop squirming!”, he shouted, punching the girl in the eyes. Twice. Three times. Four.

I’m going to kill him, I vowed.

But my legs didn’t agree with my will, and I collapsed back to the floor.

My retribution for my shut-in tendencies. Six months ago, I would’ve been able to move at least a little more than this.

A sound made the man turn around. He picked something up from my blind spot. An extendable baton with a black luster.

So that’s what he hit me with. Talk about well-prepared.

As the girl took the opportunity to try and grab the scissors, he brought the baton down on her knee. A dull sound. A short scream. After confirming the girl wasn’t moving, he came walking toward me.

He thrust his heel on my right hand with which I was trying to get up. My middle finger, or ring finger, or maybe both, made a moist chopstick-snapping sound.

The two letters “ow” filled my mind hundreds of times, and I couldn’t move until I’d proceed them all one at a time. Sweat ran down me, and I wailed like a dog.

“Don’t interfere. We’re just getting to the good part.”

With that as his warning, the man gripped the baton and hit me with it repeatedly. Head, neck, shoulder, arm, back, chest, flank, everywhere.

My bones creaked with every blow, and my will to resist slowly left me.

Gradually, I came to be able to process my pain objectively. I wasn’t feeling pain, I was feeling “the pain my body’s feeling.” By putting that extra cushion, it became distanced from me.

The man folded up the baton, put it on his belt, and squatted down slowly, still standing on my squirming hand. He didn’t seem to be tired of hurting me yet.

I felt a sharp sensation around the root of my pinky.

The moment I realized what that meant, I sweat like a waterfall.

“Some real sharp scissors we have here,” the man admired.

He seemed lit aflame with excitement. It seemed impossible to put the brakes on his violence.

People in situations like this don’t know hesitation. What’s more, this man was in a position where his acts of violence could be seen as self-defense. If need be, he could get away with that excuse.

“Is this what you were planning to stab me with?”, he asked with quickened breathing.

With that, he put force on the handles. The blades ate into my flesh of my pinky.

I imagined the pain that would come after the surface skin was cut.

The image of my pinky falling off my hand like a caterpillar arose behind my eyelids.

My lower body lost strength, as if I’d been dropped off a cliff. I was afraid.

“Nobody’ll notice if a killer has a finger or two cut off, will they?” You might just be right, I thought.

Immediately afterward, he put all his force into the hand gripping the scissors.

They was a horrific sound. Pain ran up to my brain, and my body felt like it was filling with tar.

I screamed. I desperately tried to get away, but the man’s foot stayed still as a vice. My vision dimmed, half-filled with blackness. My train of thought stopped.

It’s off, I thought. But the pinky was still on my hand. Though bone was visible through the wounds on the side and it bled dark red, the blades of the dressmaking scissors were unable to cut it.

“Aw, I guess bone is too much for scissors,” the man remarked with a click of his tongue.

Though the girl diligently sharpened the points, perhaps she hadn’t given the edges that kind of care.

He put power in the scissors once more, cutting into the second joint of my pinky. I felt the blades on my bone.

The pain numbed my brain. But at least this wasn’t an unknown pain. It didn’t stop my thoughts.

Clenching my teeth, I took the car key from my pocket and positioned it so the point stuck out from my fist.

The man thought he had trapped my dominant hand. He didn’t know I was left-handed.

I thrust the key forcefully toward the leg that held my right hand down. It was force that even surprised me.

The man howled like a beast and jumped back. Before he could grab the baton from his holster, I lifted up his ankle and threw him off-balance.

In falling, the man suffered a strong hit to the back of his head. He would be defenseless for at least three seconds. Now it was my turn.

I took a deep breath. For now, I had to shut out my imagination; it was key to abandon all hesitation.

Over the next few seconds, I couldn’t imagine my foe’s pain. I couldn’t imagine his suffering. I couldn’t imagine his anger.

I sat on top of the man and punched him hard enough to break his front teeth. I kept punching. The clashing of bone separated by skin echoed through the room at a fixed rhythm.

The pain in my head and pinky fueled my anger. My fist was soaked with the man’s blood. I gradually lost feeling in the hand I used to punch him. But so what? I kept punching.

The key was not hesitating, the key was not hesitating, the key was not hesitating.

Eventually, the man stopped resisting. I was completely out of

breath.

I got off the man and went to pick up the scissors beside him, but my left hand was numb from keeping it clenched so tightly. I slouched down and reluctantly grabbed it with my right, but my fingers were trembling too much to get a good grip.

While I was fumbling around, the man stood up and kicked me in the back, then went to grab the scissors.

I miraculously dodged the baton that came swinging toward me the moment I turned around. But losing balance, I was completely defenseless for the next attack.

The man kicked into my stomach. I lost my wind, saliva drooled out of me, and as I looked up in preparation for the baton strike that would be coming in seconds, time stopped.

So it felt.

After a pause, the man slumped to the ground. The girl holding the bloody scissors looked down on him hollowly.

He desperately crawled at me, either running from the girl or seeking my help. The girl tried to give chase, but stumbled and tripped from her wounded knee. But she looked up, undeterred, and crawled after the man regardless with her arms.

Gripping the scissors with both hands, she plunged them into the man’s back with all her might.

Again, and again, and again.

----------

What a clamor there’d been in the drab-walled apartment room. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the police show up.

Yet the girl and I lied unmoving next to the man’s corpse.

Our pain and fatigue was no problem. We felt an primal sense of achievement for “winning the battle.” Wounds and exhaustion were just steps toward that achievement.

When was the last time I felt so satisfied? I went back through my memories, but looking in every nook and cranny, found that no experience had made me feel like this victory did.

The satisfaction I felt about my perfect pitching at the semifinals in my baseball days was dirt compared to this.

I didn’t feel a shred of apathy. I felt like I was alive.

“Why didn’t you postpone it?”, I asked. “I thought for sure you’d postpone as soon as things took a bad turn.”

“Because I couldn’t quite despair,” the girl answered. “If I’d been attacked alone, that probably would have activated it. But since you were here, I couldn’t let go of the hope that you might manage something.”

“Well, yeah. I did do that.”

“…Is your finger okay?”, she questioned, barely audible. She might have felt somewhat guilty about the wounds inflicted on my pinky with her scissors.

“It’s okay,” I smiled. “It’s like a scrape compared to all the injuries you’ve taken.”

Though I claimed such, to be honest, I was still about to faint from the agony. Looking at the pinky the man had tried to cut off again

nearly made me nauseous. All cut up with the scissors, it was more of a… pinky-like object.

Okay, I thought, whipping my aching body to stand up. We couldn’t just stay here forever. We had to get away.

I picked up my sunglasses and put them on, cautious of the pain on the side of my head.

Offering my shoulder to the girl with a wounded knee, we left the apartment.

It was gloomy outside, and rather cold. Compared to the bloody apartment room, the air smelled fresh like a snowy mountain.

Luckily, no one even passed us by on the way to the parking lot. Thinking about how when I got back, I’d take a shower, tend to my wounds, and sleep soundly, I took out the car key from my pocket and put it into the cylinder.

But the key stopped halfway; it wouldn’t fit all the way in.

I immediately realized why. When I’d thrust the key into the man’s leg, it hit his bone and became warped.

I tried to force it in, then tried putting it on the parking bumper and stepping on it to straighten out the distortion, but to no avail.

The girl and I had bloody clothes, and noticeable bruises and cuts on our faces. My finger was still bleeding, and the girl had runs in her black tights.

The one silver lining was that my wallet and cellphone were in my jacket pocket. But we couldn’t call for a taxi dressed like this. And

our changes of clothes were in the trunk.

I kicked the car in anger. Shivering from pain and cold, I tried to think. Before anything else, we had to do something about our suspicious appearance.

I couldn’t ask for our bruises and wounds to heal right away, but couldn’t we at least change our clothes? But two people bloody and covered in bruises going to buy clothes from a store… we’d obviously get arrested.

We couldn’t buy clothes because of our clothes. Steal washing from someone’s house? No, it was too risky to even come near a residential area looking like -

I heard music in the distance. An eerie, yet cheery and silly song. I remembered the words of the bakery shop’s owner.

“Hundreds of people dressed in costumes march down the shopping district.”

Tonight was the Halloween parade.

I reached toward the girl’s face, and using the blood from my pinky, drew red curves on her cheeks.

She quickly guessed my intent. She tore up the sleeve of her blouse, and used the scissors to haphazardly cut away the hem on the shoulders and skirt. I too used the scissors to make cuts in my shirt collar and jeans.

We turned ourselves into the living dead.

We took a good look at each other. Exactly what we were shooting

for. With the addition of our excessive destruction, the bruises and even blood could only be seen as cheap makeup.

What would be important now was our expressions.

“So if someone comes up to you, make a face that says, “well of course I look weird.”” I faked a smile as an example.

“…Like this, then?” She raised the bridge of her mouth to a restrained smile.

My reaction came late, because for a brief moment, I felt the illusion that she was actually smiling at me. “Right, perfect,” I told her.

We proceeded down the alley leading to the main street. The music gradually became more audible. The noise piled on endlessly as we approached, eventually getting loud enough to feel in my stomach. We could hear guides here and there shouting from megaphones. The smell of sweet candy wafted about.

The first thing to catch my eye as we left the alley was a tall, pale- faced man. In contrast to his complexion, his lips were bright red. His cheeks were torn, his gums extending wide. The eyes lodged in black sockets glared at us from between the gaps of frizzy hair.

What a well-made costume. The wide-mouthed man seemed to think the same looking at us.

He smiled at us and opened his mouth, making it obvious that the teeth and gums were just carefully painted onto his cheeks. I smiled back.

We felt more confident at once, and began to walk proudly down the streets. Many people gave us unreserved looks, but they were all looks of approval for our “costumes.”

There were voices of admiration and praise here and there. So realistic, they said. Well, naturally. They were real wounds, real bruises, real blood. The girl dragged her pained leg along, but even that looked like an act to them.

The costume parade reached the road. The sidewalks were flooded with spectators; making it even a few meters was quite an undertaking, and they could only see just a part of the parade.

At this point, I took notice of a group of about twenty people wearing costumes related to horror movies.

Dracula, Jack the Ripper, the Boogeyman, Frankenstein, Jason, Sweeney Todd, Scissorhands, the twins from The Shining… They had the old and the new.

Because of their makeup, I couldn’t tell their exact ages, but I’d say they were mostly in their twenties and thirties. While there were some costumes accurate enough to mistake for the real thing, others seemed to simply demean the source material.

Along the sides of the road stretched two endless lines of jack- o’-lanterns, lit out their eyes and mouths by candles inside. Nets like spider webs were hung from between trees, and a few giant spiders hung up there as well.

Half the children on the streets were carrying orange balloons, wearing black tri-corner hats and capes.

“Hey!”

Turning around as my shoulder was slapped, I saw a man with his face wrapped in bandages.

The only reason I didn’t immediately run was because I felt like it wasn’t a voice I’d never heard before.

The man unwrapped his bandages to show us his face. It was the owner of the bakery shop, who’d told us about the Halloween parade.

“Well now, that’s not very kind of you. You should’ve told me if you were going to participate,” he teased, giving me a light shove. “Weren’t you the one telling us you weren’t going to take part?” “Well,” he laughed with embarrassment. “You leaving the parade already?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Already had my time in the spotlight. I’m amazed at all these people. I got my foot stepped on five times already.”

“Were there this many spectators last year?’

“No, this is a real big step up. Even the locals can hardly believe it.” “I always thought Halloween didn’t have much of a hold in Japan, but…” I took a look around. “Seeing this, I think that might not be the case at all.”

“Our people love communicating anonymously, y’know. It suits that nature real well.”

“Er, is there a second-hand clothes store around here?”, the girl interrupted. “I accidentally left the bag with my other clothes on the train. I can’t go home looking like this, so I just need to buy

something else to wear. It’d be awkward touching brand-new clothes with my painted-up hands, even if they’re dry, so I’d prefer a second-hand shop…”

“That’s quite a misfortune,” he remarked, and pondered as he fiddled with his bandages. “An old clothes shop… I think there should be one on the other end of that arcade.” He pointed behind us.

The girl bowed her head and pulled my sleeve. “You in a hurry?”

“Yeah, somebody’s waiting for us,” I answered. “I see. Too bad, I wanted to talk a little more…”

The owner held out his bandaged right hand for a handshake. Considering my injuries, I hesitated, but firmly grabbed his hand. Without a moment’s delay, he roughly grabbed mine, pinky included.

Blood seeped through the bandages. I endured and faked a smile. The girl casually shook hands with him as well.

The arcade was particularly crowded, and it took nearly ten minutes to reach the clothes shop about a dozen meters away.

It was a small place with a floor that creaked with every step. We quickly picked out clothes, put them in a basket, and went to the register. The girl didn’t agonize over it this time.

The clerk donning a white mask seemed used to customers like us, and asked “Do you mind if I take a photo?”

I came up with some excuse to deny him and pulled out my wallet,

then was told “Oh, it’s half-off for Halloween.” A discount for costumed customers, apparently.

We wanted to change right away, but first we had to clean up the blood all over us.

Thinking the best course of action would be to use a multi-function toilet, we searched tenant buildings and small department stores for one, but they were in use everywhere we turned. People were probably using them to change into and out of their costumers.

Tired of walking, I wondered if we should just buy a body sheet and slowly wipe ourselves clean with it. But as I looked up, between buildings, I saw a large clock tower on the roof of a middle school.

Hopping the fence, we intruded onto the campus. An elevated washing area behind the building, surrounded by dead trees and with no lighting, was perfect for secretly getting ourselves clean.

The place was serving as a storage area, with numerous remnants from the culture festival lying around. A stage for a play, cartoon costumes, banners, tents, that kind of thing.

I rolled up my shirt and soaked my hands and feet in the numbingly- cold running water. I took the lemon-scented soap near the faucet, made it bubble up, and scrubbed over the blood.

Dried blood wouldn’t come off easily, but I kept patiently scrubbing hard, and it soon reached a certain limit of cleanliness. Soap bubbles seeped into the cuts on my pinky.

Looking beside me, I saw the girl taking off her blouse with her back to me. Her thin shoulders with burn marks were left bare. I

hurriedly turned my back to her as well and took off my T-shirt.

My teeth chattered from the cold of exposing my wet skin to the night breeze. Struggling to make the hard soap bubble, I cleaned off my neck and chest, and put on a T-shirt from the clothes shop that had a tree-like smell.

The last problem was hair. Blood had congealed in the girl’s long hair, and cold water wouldn’t get it out. As I considered what we could do, the girl took out the scissors from her bag.

Just as I was thinking she couldn’t be thinking it, she cut short her beautiful long hair. It looked like she cut up to 20 centimeters off all at once. She tossed the hair fallen on her hands off into the wind, and it quickly vanished into the darkness.

By the time we were fully done changing, we were chilled to the core. The girl burying her face in the collar of a knit coat, and me shivering in a duck jacket zipped all the way up, we walked to the train station.

On the way, the girl gave in to the pain in her leg, so I walked the rest of the way with her on my back.

While trying to buy tickets amid the crowd, I heard the announcement of the train’s arrival. Walking quickly across the overpass stairs, we boarded the train emitting a blinding light.

Disembarking 20 minutes later and buying tickets for seats at that station, we transferred to the bullet train. After sitting for about two hours, we got off and again took the regular train.

By this point, I’d hit the limits of exhaustion. Not thirty seconds after we arrived at our seats, I fell asleep.

I felt a weight on my shoulder. The girl was leaning on me as she slept. I felt the gentle rhythm of her breathing, and a faint sweet smell. Oddly, it felt nostalgic.

It was still a long way to our destination, and there was no point in forcing her awake. I’ll keep her from feeling awkward when she wakes up, I decided, closing my eyes and feigning sleep.

While hanging just a step away from dozing off, I started to hear familiar stations being announced.

“We’re almost there,” I whispered into her ear, and still lying against me with her eyes closed, the girl immediately replied, “I know.”

How long had she been awake?

Ultimately, she leaned against me all the way up to the moment I stood up out of my seat to disembark.

----------

We arrived at the apartment after 10 PM. The girl took a shower first, put on the parka that served as her bedwear, swallowed a painkiller, and dove into the bed with the parka’s hood over her.

I quickly changed into pajamas too, applied vaseline to my wounds and put bandages over it. I took painkillers with water - one more than was prescribed - and lied down on the sofa.

A sound woke me up in the night.

In the darkness, the girl was holding both her knees on top of the bed.

“You can’t sleep?”, I asked. “As you can see, no.” “Your knee still hurt?”

“It does, sure, but that’s not a major problem. …Um… I’m sure you’re well-aware by now, but I’m a coward,” she mumbled, burying her face in her knees. “When I close my eyes, I see that man behind my eyelids. That blood-covered man kicking and punching me. I’m too afraid to sleep. …Isn’t it ridiculous? I’m a killer.”

I searched for the right words. Magic words that would calm the storm of all that anxiety and sadness and let her sleep peacefully. If only there were such a thing.

But I really wasn’t used to these kinds of situations. I had no experience whatsoever consoling people.

Time up. Some truly tactless words came out of my mouth. “How about you have a light drink?”

The girl quietly looked up at me. “…That wouldn’t be so bad,” she answered, pulling away the hood.

I knew it was best to avoid mixing painkillers and alcoholic beverages, and that alcohol and injuries weren’t a good mix either. But I didn’t know any other way to soothe her pain. I could trust the central-nervous-system-depressing properties of alcohol more than the kind of comforting I’d give, what with my lack of life experience and sympathy for others.

I made two cups of a mixture of warm milk, brandy, and honey on

the stove. I tended to make it for myself on winter nights when I couldn’t get to sleep.

As I went to the living room to hand the girl the mug, I recalled how that man had dropped my guard in this same way.

“It’s tasty,” she mumbled after a sip. “I don’t have very good memories of alcohol, but I like this.”

Quickly finishing her own cup, I offered her my own, and she gladly drank it too.

The only light was a headboard reading lamp, so I didn’t quite notice the girl’s face flushing from drunkenness.

Sitting together on the side of the bed, I was just staring at the bookshelves when the girl spoke with a lisp.

“You don’t get it at all.”

“Yeah, I think you’re probably right,” I agreed. It was the truth: I couldn’t tell what she was saying at all.

“…I think this is when you should score some points,” she told me, staring at her knees. “Since I’m in need of consoling, for once.” “You know, I was just thinking that,” I remarked. “But I really don’t know how to do it. As the one who killed you, nothing I say would be very convincing. In fact, you’d hear it as disgust or sarcasm.”

The girl stood up and put the mug on the table, lightly flicked it with her index finger, and returned to sit on the bed.

“Then I’ll forget about the accident temporarily, and in the meantime, you rack up those points.”

It was seeming like she actually did seek my comfort.

I decided to take kind of a big risk.

“Is it okay if it’s a sort of weird way of going about it?” “Sure, do what you like.”

“Can you swear you won’t move until I say I’m done?” “I swear.”

“You won’t regret that?” “…Probably.”

I sat on my knees in front of the girl and took a close look at the painful bruise on her knee. What had at first been red and swollen ad now turned a violet-ish color.

Touching a fingertip right next to the bruise, her body jolted slightly. I saw her eyes take their wary color. Now, she’d be focusing closely on my hand’s every movement.

The tension gradually surmounted. With the carefulness of literally touching a sore subject, I slowly laid each finger one by one on the bruise, ultimately covering it fully with my palm.

It was now a situation where I could, with just a slight application of force, send significant pain through her knee. That choice admittedly had its own charm.

Though the girl feared, she kept her promise not to move. She kept her lips tight and watched things unfold.

For her, it was clearly a vexing moment. I dared to prolong it for a while.

When the tension reached its maximum, I said those words.

“Pain, pain, go away.”

I removed my hand from her knee and waved it toward the window.

I did it with as much seriousness as I could muster. The girl stared at me in disbelief. I thought I’d failed. But after a brief silence, she began to snicker.

“What was that? That’s so absurd,” she said, failing to keep a straight face. There was no sneer to her laughter. She laughed honestly, happily, from her heart. “I’m not a little girl.”

I laughed along with her. “You’re right, it is stupid.”

“I was so nervous about what you were going to do. You had all that build-up, and then just that?”

She fell back on the bed and covered her face with her hands, laughing.

Once her laughing fit concluded, she asked, “So where did you send my pain away to?”

“To all the people who weren’t kind to you.” “Well, that’s fortunate.”

She fumbled to sit back up. Her eyes were bleary from laughing so much.

“Um, could you possibly do that again?”, she requested. “This time, on my head full of terrible memories.”

“Of course. As many times as you want.”

She closed her eyes. I put my palm on her head, and again recited the silly soothing spell.

Not satisfied with that, she requested me to perform it on every one of the injuries she had postponed. Her sliced palm, the burns on her arm and back, the cut on her thigh.

Once I finished with the cut under her eye, she looked so peaceful that I could imagine her pain really had been sent away somewhere. I feel like a wizard, I thought.

“Um, I need to apologize about something,” the girl mumbled. “I said “there was no one kind to me, helpful to me, no boys I like or used to like, no one.” Do you remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a lie. There was once someone kind to me, helpful to me too. A boy I really loved.”

“Once? So, there isn’t anymore?”

“In a sense, yes. And in fact, it’s my fault.” “…What do you mean?”

But she wouldn’t tell me the rest. She just shook her head, as if saying “I’ve said too much.”

As I discarded my desire to draw it out of her, she gently took my wrist, told me “I'll do it for you, too,” and softly blew on my bandaged pinky.

Pain, pain, go away.