Goth (23 page)

“He’s another classmate. The girl you buried was his girlfriend. His name is—”

The boy said a name, a name Saeki knew.

“Oh … so that’s him …”

He was the boyfriend the girl had spoken of.

He stepped down into the hole, bending down. All Saeki could see was his back.

He could hear him calling out and see his back shaking. He must’ve been shaking the girl’s shoulders.

He was talking to the girl. At first, he spoke quietly, like he was making sure she was joking—but when the girl didn’t respond, his voice grew louder and louder.

“Was there a mole on the face of the girl you just saw?” the boy asked. Saeki shook his head.

The bloodstained girl’s face was puffed up where he had hit her, but there was no mole.

“The girl you always passed by but didn’t see today … earlier today, you told me there was a mole under her left eye. That’s why I suspected you. I knew then you had mistaken that girl for Morino.”

“But there was a student ID in her bag …”

“Morino had lost it, and a girl who lived near her was taking it to her. Morino told me that today at school. That’s why I knew you had seen the photo on her ID when you mentioned the mole. At first, I thought you’d simply run over the girl. I thought her face had been crushed beyond recognition, and you’d only known what she looked like from the ID.”

Saeki looked down at his hand. By the time he’d pushed her into the car, he’d already beaten her face badly. He’d been unable to look directly at her bruised features, quickly placing the coffin lid on—without ever looking at her. He had simply assumed the ID belonged to her.

Slowly, he began to understand the extent of his mistake. Earlier that day, she’d been laughing underground. He knew now she hadn’t gone crazy. She’d been laughing because he’d addressed her by a different name. She had figured out Saeki’s mistake, and that had made her laugh.

He looked at the hole again. The boyfriend was sitting next to the girl Saeki had buried. Saeki knew nothing about them, had no idea how deep their love had been. But during the brief conversation he’d had with the girl underground, the way she’d spoken her boyfriend’s name suggested the weight of their relationship. In that small, dark, square space, she’d never allowed Saeki to conquer her. But her fear had been greater than he’d been able to imagine. The only hope she could see, the only one she could imagine saving her … was the name she’d mentioned.

He was sitting next to her now. He’d grown quiet, no longer speaking to her, simply staring silently down into the coffin.

“Saeki, I only knew you were hiding the girl somewhere in your home this afternoon when I was leaving and you stood at the gate. At the time, I had no idea where she was. But the moment you saw Morino alive and moving around, you went pale, looked at the garden, and ran back into it. So I imagined you had buried her somewhere in your garden.”

The boy had called Morino Yoru on his cell phone, deliberately showing her to Saeki to provoke a reaction. And that reaction had led the boy to the garden, and to monitor his actions.

“You …”

Saeki stammered, staring up at the boy. Who was this boy? He could only imagine the boy had come to get revenge for his classmate. But the way he spoke showed no sign of anger, no sign of contempt for Saeki’s sins. It was a quiet, calm voice.

If he had not met this boy, his crime might never have been discovered. Why had he become involved with him?

Only then did Saeki remember his badge. He had gone out to find it and had met the boy in the process.

“My badge—what happened to it?” he asked. The boy looked puzzled.

“You didn’t find it next to the park?” Saeki asked, and then explained his question.

The boy nodded. “That’s what you were looking for?”

But he hadn’t seen the badge.

“If you don’t have it, then where … ?”

“When did you last see it?”

“At work, it was in my jacket pocket …” Then maybe … Another idea sprang to mind.

“Would you check her body for me?” Saeki asked, pointing toward the girl. He couldn’t go near the hole where the girl and her boyfriend were. “She might have it.”

He had covered the girl with his jacket in the car, and she had woken before he had buried her …

The boy left Saeki, passing by the quiet boyfriend. He bent over and checked the girl’s pockets.

“Here it is,” he said, standing up, badge in hand. “And this would be her student ID. It was in her skirt pocket.”

The boy took them both back to Saeki.

So the girl had his badge all along. She’d probably kept it to identify her captor if she saw a chance to escape. After she was nailed into the box, she’d probably hoped the badge would be found with her, leading to her killer’s arrest. And her actions had been the albatross that brought Saeki’s destruction.

The girl had defeated him from underground. The moment he had buried her, he was already caught in her trap.

“Saeki, you’re …” the boy said, staring down at the badge.

He knew what the boy was thinking. On his hands and knees, Saeki hung his head.

“Yes, I am.”

He had not wanted anyone to see that.

Saeki could not look at the boy. The boy’s gaze pained him, and all he could do was stare at the ground. Shame washed over him like fire, and his body shook, convulsing.

What the boy had found and brought out into the moonlight was a police badge in a brown leather case. On the front was the prefectural police department’s name in gold lettering; when you opened it, there was a picture of Saeki above his name and rank.

This never should have happened. Saeki had worked hard, and people trusted him. As he made his rounds, he would exchange friendly greetings with the shopkeepers. Kousuke’s parents had trusted him with their young son. There had been a time when he never doubted he was the kind of person who should be working a job like his. But he had betrayed the law, his position, the grandmother who had called him gentle, and everything that made up his world.

“Please … I know … so please, don’t say anything …” he pleaded. His knees on the ground, his face down, Saeki heard footsteps coming toward him.

“Raise your head,” the boy said.

Hesitantly, he obeyed. The boy was holding out the badge, offering it to him.

Saeki bowed his head and took it. He could not bring himself to stand and was stuck sitting
seiza.

“Saeki, there’s still something I want to ask. When I learned you had mixed up Morino and that girl, my first thought was that there had been a traffic accident. That seemed the most likely explanation for why you hadn’t known what she looked like.”

Saeki listened, his hands clutching his police badge tightly.

“But there was no blood on the ground, and there were no marks on your car. And when I checked the girl just now, she had clearly been hit, having broken a bone, but her only fatal injury was the one to her neck, which looked more like suicide. You didn’t bury her there to hide the fact that you’d killed her by accident.”

Saeki nodded. The boy put his hands on his knees, leaning forward. “So why did you bury her?”

He was not chastising Saeki for having driven a girl to her death. He simply sounded like this was something he wanted to know. Saeki could think of no clear answer to the question; after a long silence, he simply shook his head. “I have no idea. I buried her because I wanted to.”

He was being honest.

Why had he killed Kousuke? Why had he been possessed by the terrifying urge to bury people alive?

There was no reason. Saeki had buried the two of them as if he had been born to do so.

“I buried them because I wanted to,” he said again, his chest aching. This was not the answer a human being could produce. His hands shook, and he dropped his police badge. “I …”

How was he supposed to go on living? He had found his true self at last, and it was horrifying. What was someone like him supposed to do?

Why had he been born with such a tainted heart? Why was he not like other people? The more his mind flooded with questions, the more his heart flooded with sadness.

He had wanted to live like an ordinary person, one unable to receive any pleasure from murder. He had never wanted to fantasize about burying people alive, to dig holes in the middle of the night to calm himself … He had simply wanted to live a life that caused no harm.

He hadn’t wanted much. He would’ve been content with very little. He’d just wanted an ordinary, normal life—like his colleague with the pressed shirts or his boss with the pictures of his kids on his desk. How much better things would have been if he’d been that lucky.

Tears spilled quietly down Saeki’s cheeks. He sat there on his knees, the tears disappearing into the earth beneath him. He had no idea what to do next. The world was covered in darkness, and Saeki felt trapped in an invisible coffin, barely able to breathe.

†

For a moment, he lost track of time. Before he knew it, Saeki was sitting on the porch. it was still dark out, but he could hear the birds singing and knew it was almost dawn.

The lights were on inside, and someone was walking around. He lacked the energy to go investigate. His hands were still shaking.

He turned his head, and at last the boy passed across the brightly lit entrance.

Their eyes met, and the boy asked if he was feeling better. Apparently, the boy had helped him to the porch.

“I’m missing a few memories.”

“You cried the whole time.”

Saeki touched his cheek and found it still damp.

“I assumed you wouldn’t mind if I came in,” the boy explained.

Saeki looked out at the garden again. There was no sign of the hole he had dug, and there were four poles. For a second, he felt like none of it had happened.

“Those bamboo poles were designed to pass through the coffin lids, allowing the occupant to breathe, right?” the boy asked as he stood next to Saeki. Apparently, the boy had filled the hole back in. But why had the boy not called the police immediately? Why had he filled in the hole?

There was no sign of the girl’s boyfriend. Was he sleeping somewhere inside the house, shut down like Saeki had been?

The girl in the ground had believed he would find her and that he wouldn’t leave her alone. Saeki could never pay for the sin of having shattered their love.

Saeki turned to look back into the house.

The boy had his cell phone out and was calling someone, a student contact book in his hand.

“I just found your ID on the street,” the boy explained. Clearly, he was calling the real Morino Yoru.

She apparently hung up as soon as he’d finished the sentence, as the boy was staring down at his phone, muttering, “Right, it’s awfully early.” Apparently, Morino was never to know the profound effect of her lost ID on Saeki’s life.

The sky was turning pale. Looking east from his porch, Saeki could see the row of evergreens. Beyond the black shadows of the trees, the sky was glowing red. The white mist was gone.

The boy came and sat on Saeki’s left.

They stared at the bamboo poles for a while. The trowel he’d used to fill in the hole was lying on the ground next to the boy.

The morning sun rose beyond the trees, striking the pale cheeks of the boy next to Saeki. Saeki blinked, blinded by the sudden brilliance. The boy’s profile glittered, the rest of his face lost in shadow, making his eyes all the more memorable.

The boy’s eyes had no emotion. They were utterly blank. They were exactly like Saeki’s own eyes had looked when he’d seen his own face in the rearview mirror while he was out searching for a victim. They were eyes that contained unfathomable darkness.

Saeki felt his emotions quieting. His tears had long since faded, and he was no longer dizzy.

“I …” Saeki said.

The boy turned toward him, listening closely, backlit by the rising sun.

“I think I should tell the police what I’ve done,” he said, the words spilling over his lips. All the tension faded out of him. Tears began to flow again. But this time, they were not tears of despair. They glittered, pure as the morning light.

This would be the end of his life. Many people would hate him, their glares stabbing his body. But he wouldn’t mind. He would confess his own sins and wait to be judged—his final choice as a human being.

“I’m glad … I’m glad I could make that choice.”

How many times had he mourned his own lack of humanity? How many times had he cursed his own nature, one that led him to do and imagine such terrible things? But now his remaining humanity had scored a quiet victory.

“I don’t think my sins will vanish, but I’m proud to have made that choice.”

The boy opened his mouth. “I won’t stop you from turning yourself in, Saeki—but will you wait another six months?”

When he asked why, the boy stood up.

“I’m going home now. Saeki, wait six months—or if not that, at least one month. If you are at all grateful, then please. And tell the police that you did everything yourself and that you decided to turn yourself in all on your own.”

He made Saeki swear not to say anything about Morino Yoru or the boy.

“Remember, this is what he wanted. You need not feel guilty about it. Even if you try to rescue him, he will refuse. But you must tell the world that it was your doing. I have left no proof, so nobody will believe I was here, even if you claim I was.”

The boy slipped on his shoes, stepping off the porch.

Saeki could not understand what he was saying. Before he could ask, the boy left the porch, heading for the gate in silence, without saying goodbye, without turning around. He simply vanished into the evergreens, leaving only the morning, the garden, and Saeki behind.

Then Saeki realized … If the boy was going home alone, then where was the boyfriend, who Saeki had assumed was lying down in the house somewhere?

He stood up.

He had a hunch.

Staggering, he crossed the garden, barefoot, his breath turning white in the cold morning air.

The bamboo poles at the end of the garden were standing perfectly upright under the brightening sky. The coffin the boy had buried again was under these poles.