Confessions (9 page)

The results were just what I’d expected.

“Thanks for not telling anybody,” Sh
ū
ya said when I finished my story.

I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t kept this a secret for his sake—I just didn’t have a really close friend I could tell. But he was right: If I’d told anyone in our class, the attacks on him would have been even worse.

“But you believed everything else Moriguchi said?” he asked. I nodded. “And you’re not afraid to be alone with me here?” This time I shook my head. “You don’t mind talking to a child killer?”

I looked him in the eye. If he was a child killer, then what were the other kids in the class, the ones who had treated him like an animal? I was more afraid of myself for having thrown the milk at him than I was of 
Sh
ū
ya
. His cheek was still a little swollen. “I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to touch the red spot. Some part of me wanted to make myself feel what I’d done. The warmth of his skin sent a jolt through my body.

I don’t think the shock was because I’d been holding the cold can or because his cheek was hot from the swelling. I realized I’d been thinking he was a bloodless demon, but the moment I touched him I knew he was just a boy like any other.

“Why did you show me the test results?” This is what I’d been wanting to ask him.

“Because I think we’re a lot alike,” he said.

I put my finger on the pull-tab on the can and looked at him, not knowing what to say. So he hadn’t come out of the night to save me.

“Hold on,” he said. “Are you really going to drink all that?”

I looked at the can. I could have drank the whole thing, but I thought I understood what he meant—and I realized I was glad. “No, I don’t think I can,” I told him. Then I put down my can and he handed me his. It was still half full, and I took a few sips before I handed it back to him. He drank some and then handed it back to me—and when the can was empty we kissed a while. I haven’t told you, sensei, that there’s actually somebody else I like, but this was different. At that moment I felt like 
Sh
ū
ya
 was the only one in the world on my side.

He took me back to the convenience store, and then as we were saying good-bye he told me I had to come to school the next day. I really didn’t want to go, but I was afraid if I didn’t I would end up locking myself in at home for the rest of my life. And now, with 
Sh
ū
ya
 there, I felt as though I could stand the cruelty.

“I’ll be there,” I promised him.

The moment I walked in the door the next morning some of the boys started to whistle, and I heard giggling from girls who were looking up at the blackboard. Someone had drawn a heart on the board and written my name and Sh
ū
ya’s in it. I kept my head down, the way Sh
ū
ya always did, and went straight to my desk, but someone had drawn the same heart on the lid in permanent marker.

“Mizuho! Good morning!” It was Ayako, waving her phone at me from her desk, but I ignored her and opened the book I’d brought along.

It was the same way when 
Sh
ū
ya
 arrived. He got the same welcome, and he looked over at the blackboard, too. He had that same blank look as always, but when he got to his desk—which also had the heart—he put down his bag and walked over to Takahiro, who was still whistling.

“You got something you want to say, kid killer?” Takahiro said, grinning at 
Sh
ū
ya
. 
Sh
ū
ya
 didn’t answer. He just gave him this look and then he bit the tip of his little finger and ran it down Takahiro’s cheek. It was like this symbolic line—a line of 
Sh
ū
ya
’s blood—marking the end of punishment and the start of his counterattack. Some of the kids sitting nearby screamed, but then the room went completely quiet.

“You were the one holding down Mizuki, weren’t you?” 
Sh
ū
ya
 murmured close to Takahiro’s ear. “Were you sucking up to
her?
” he added, looking over at Ayako. Then he walked over to her and held up his hand. A trickle of blood ran from his finger to his wrist. Ayako had covered her face with her hands, but 
Sh
ū
ya
 reached down and picked up her phone in his bloody palm. She screamed.

“You act like a big shot,” he said, “and get everybody else to do your dirty work, but you’re too stupid to see that someone’s playing you exactly the same way.”

When he’d said this, he went and stood in front of Y
ū
suke, who had been watching from his desk in the back of the room as though none of this had anything to do with him.

“And that would be you, asshole, the one pulling her strings. You’ve been getting her to come after me.” And then he bent down and kissed Y
ū
suke on the lips. Everyone in the room froze, and Y
ū
suke looked like he was going to be sick. “Did you like that?” 
Sh
ū
ya
 asked, a big smile breaking out on his face. “You act all noble and talk about justice, but you knew Moriguchi’s daughter was going to the pool. If you’d told somebody, she’d probably still be alive. This is all because you’re feeling guilty, isn’t it? Did it make you feel better messing with me? They’ve got a name for people like you. They’re called hypocrites. Consider this your first and last warning—if you keep this up, the next kiss will have a lot of tongue.”

After that no one bothered 
Sh
ū
ya
 anymore.

In July, even after final exams had started, Sh
ū
ya and I met at that house almost every day. I told my parents I was going to study with a friend, and since I’ve never given them any trouble, they didn’t say anything even if I was a little late getting home. Sh
ū
ya said his dad had remarried when he was in fifth grade and they had a new baby at home, so he used his grandmother’s house to study in, and they barely seemed to notice if he didn’t come home for a whole week at a time.

There was a room at the very back that 
Sh
ū
ya
 calls his “laboratory.” He didn’t seem to be studying for exams. Instead he was working on an invention that looked a lot like a wristwatch, but when I asked him what it was, he refused to tell me. Still, I kind of liked sitting there watching him work on whatever it was. He finished it in the middle of July, and that was when he first told me it was a lie detector. He said there were sensors in the strap that could detect variations in the wearer’s pulse. When something changed, the dial would light up and an alarm would go off.

“Try it,” he told me.

I put it on my wrist, but I was pretty scared. What if it shocked me?

“Are you worried about getting shocked?” he asked, as though reading my mind.

“No, not really,” I said.

Beep, beep, beep, beep…the face of the lie detector flashed, and it rang like a cheap alarm clock.

“It worked!” 
Sh
ū
ya
 crowed. “Fantastic!”

“Fantastic,” I repeated after him, actually feeling pretty impressed. This seemed to embarrass 
Sh
ū
ya
. He laughed. Then he grabbed my wrist and pulled it toward him.

“That’s all I really wanted,” he said. “Just somebody to notice me.”

I realized he was talking about what had happened with Manami. It was the first time he’d said anything about it. I lay my free hand on top of the hand holding my wrist.

“You know how little kids try to coax you along to get what they want?” 
Sh
ū
ya
 said. “Well, maybe I should have done that to get their attention. Someone could have said,
I found a dead cat in a field
. Really?…well, actually I’m the one who killed it.
No!…
But it’s true! Sometimes I kill cats and dogs.
No!…you really do?
But I don’t just kill them.
What do you mean?
I use the Execution Machine I invented.
You’re kidding! That’s fantastic!
…Open it. There’s a surprise inside…Mizuki, do you think I’m a murderer? Mizuki? What am I supposed to do now…?”

Sh
ū
ya
 was crying, and I had no idea what to tell him. So I just held him in my arms. I’m not sure why, but the alarm on the lie detector went off again.

It was nearly dawn when I got home the next day.

Werther was really happy when he realized that the bullying had stopped. Sh
ū
ya was smiling again in class, and he got the top scores of the entire grade on the final exams. Everybody assumed that Y
ū
suke would be elected class representative, but then some kids started saying how they might even vote for Sh
ū
ya. Werther seemed elated. I even saw him winking at Sh
ū
ya once in the hallway as he was being complimented by one of the English teachers. It made me want to puke.

But Werther still had a big problem: Naoki. If he didn’t start coming to school again soon, he wouldn’t be able to graduate and go on to high school and college.

I’m not really sure how you feel about this, but I’ve been thinking about what it takes to admit you can’t do something when you really can’t do it. I know you don’t like kids to give up when they haven’t even tried—I know that’s wrong—but I think you also have to be really brave to admit you can’t do something when you really just can’t. I guess what I’m saying is that I wish Werther had been brave enough to admit that he couldn’t get Naoki to come to school.

Or maybe if he’d just talked to one of the other teachers about it. Maybe they could have suggested that he go to some other school or something—

Because the reason he couldn’t come to school was right here in this class.

After school on the day before first quarter ended, Werther and I went to pay our usual visit to Naoki’s house. It was about six o’clock, but the sun was still high in the sky and I was really sweaty as we stood outside the door.

I’d brought along a letter I’d written to Naoki that day, because I didn’t think it was fair to tell 
Sh
ū
ya
 the results of the test on the milk carton and not tell Naoki. Of course I didn’t think I could just tell him what I knew and get him to come back to school. I didn’t really care whether he came or not. I just wanted to give him one less thing—a really big thing—to worry about.

Naoki’s mother had barely opened the door when Werther handed her the class notes in an envelope and the card we’d all signed, which he’d wrapped up like a present. I was amazed he hadn’t brought the card before this—and I wished he had forgotten about it altogether.

When her arm came out of the crack in the door, I could see she was wearing a heavy, long-sleeved shirt. Maybe she had the air conditioner on, but it still seemed a little weird for such a hot day. I didn’t really get a good look at her face. But I did try to hand her my letter before she shut the door—but just then Werther wedged his foot in the crack and started to yell.

“Naoki! If you’re in there, listen to me! You’re not the only one who had a hard time this term! Some of your classmates have been bullying 
Sh
ū
ya
! It’s been pretty bad! But I’ve managed to convince them that they’re wrong. It wasn’t easy, but I did! They got it! So how about it, Naoki? I know you’re hurting, but I think I can help! Why don’t you give it a try! I think we can face your problems together. And I know I can help you solve them! I want you to trust me! I want you to come to school tomorrow, come to our closing ceremony. We’ll be waiting for you!”

As I stood there listening to him, I got really, really mad. He’d been so wrong—about everything. He’d said they weren’t bullying 
Sh
ū
ya
, that they were really jealous of him, but now that it’s stopped, he calls it bullying. When I looked up at Naoki’s window, I thought I saw the curtains move a little.

Werther was so worked up by this point that he looked pretty crazy. His eyes were all buggy and out of focus as he bowed to Naoki’s mother and shut the door. You could see some of the neighbors looking at us from their windows, but Werther just smiled at them and turned to me.

“Mizuho,” he said, “I want to thank you for coming with me all this time.” He was talking to me, but his voice was a lot louder than it needed to be—loud enough for everybody on the street to hear him. It was almost like he’d been putting on a show from the start, and I’d been his audience from the first act right through to the final curtain. I’d been brought along as the witness, so I could testify to the fact that he’d made all these “house calls,” that he’d been a totally devoted teacher. I felt the letter I’d brought, still in the pocket of my skirt, and I crumpled it into a ball.

That night, Naoki killed his mother.

They cut short the closing ceremony for the first quarter and the PTA ran a special meeting for us that afternoon.

“Last night, one of your classmates was involved in a serious incident. We still don’t know all the details, but we want you to know that you’re not in any danger.” That was all the principal told us—but everyone knew anyway. We’d been talking about it in class and we knew Naoki had done something terrible, but we wanted to know more. There was a strange excitement in the room. We went back to homeroom after the closing ceremony, but Werther said nothing about it. I could tell he wanted to talk to us, so the school must have put on some kind of gag order. Then homeroom ended and everybody was sent home—except me. I was told to stay after. I wasn’t surprised, since I’d been at his house just a few hours before it happened. Before he left, 
Sh
ū
ya
 gave me a good luck charm.