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Airi’s stomach hurt.
It’d been a day she didn’t eat. It’d been less time since she didn’t drink anything. Thirst was more bothersome than hunger. She had to give in. Tea only made it hurt more. In the end, it masked how her body craved food.
I deserve it.
In another growl, she covered her stomach with one hand. She gripped her jacket. If she held on tight enough, her fingers would hurt. Then, she’d forget her stomach, which tortured her like a dagger.
I deserve it. It’s not even close.
Airi didn’t stop walking. Her head was light. As if she’d gotten up too quickly. A shiver went down her spine.
He didn’t deserve it, though.
She’d left a letter to her mom. Or to her aunt, whoever found it first. Both had to work that day. The sheet was folded, its tip coming out of a diary they didn’t dare touch. If they wanted an explanation, there it was.
“I’m alive. I won’t be back,” she’d written, “but it’s better that way.”
It was morning. There were few people outside. Contrary to common sense, Airi liked snowy mornings. There weren’t many; that was part of the reason. They were also quieter. Besides her jacket, her favorite one, she wasn’t wearing enough for that kind of morning.
Was it cold in the cell? She’d better get used to it.
Airi had nothing in her hands. The only personal belonging, besides her clothes, was a document in a pocket. It’d be easier if she showed it. She wouldn’t waste their time; the police were busy.
The quicker it ended, the better. She’d be put in a cell and wait until someone talked to her. They’d know what to do about her.
She had no evidence anymore. No proof, not even the weapon. Airi only had her memory and her conscience. Dense, so dense it engulfed her.
Sure. She had that specter, too. No one could see it but her.
Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. It’d been stupidity, plain and simple. She’d been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. But she’d put herself there. Hadn’t she…
I shot once and hit. I shot eight more times. To the head, as it was where I could see. No ammo left. I didn’t shoot anymore.
What if she’d taken the gun and ran? What if she’d only pointed it back at him? What if she’d only shot once? There were many “what if”. Reality was one single thing.
“What if” she’d never been there, at that place, at that time? Easy. There’d be no ghost in her dreams.
Airi hadn’t seen his face. Not even that. Not even once. Only an indiscernible red stain, pierced by eight bullets.
Her stomach hurt.
Her foot hurt, too. She tripped. The culprit was a loose tile on the sidewalk.
There wasn’t a lot of snow around her. There was even less of a crowd. Still. There were livelier and quieter parts downtown.
The first morning of January had a school break. Both to her, and to the kids in that playground. They spun on a merry-go-round, watched by a lady. Airi didn’t look at them much.
On the opposite side, there was a bench. No one occupied it. Then, it was hers. Just for a moment; just so the world wasn’t rocking to the sides. Sitting down, Airi hugged herself.
I’m shaking again.
It was cold, but that wasn’t it. It’d been happening since. October had a weird heatwave, and it happened anyway. Lying in bed, she stared at the ceiling, unable to breathe. Maybe it was the ghost, trying to take her with him.
Yeah, that can be it. That might be what he wants. It’d been better… if it had been me. Not him.
“Good morning.”
Airi held tighter on her arms.
The voice came from behind. She slowly turned back. It was a tall young man, hands in his pockets, staring at her.
He looked twenty-something and didn’t smile. His jaw had a stubble. His skin tone resembled hers when she used to swim in primary school. His reddish hair looked as if he cut it himself. Perhaps that sand-colored coat would be elegant on someone else.
He doesn’t look like a cop.
“Good morning,” Airi replied.
“Are you lost?” Oh. What a deep voice. “Do you need help?”
“No.” Airi relaxed her hands, leaving them on her lap. “I’m okay.”
What does he want? I mean, who knows… One of the kids on the merry-go-round cackled, challenging the others.
“‘Okay’, huh? You sure don’t look.” The young man frowned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Airi lowered her gaze to the roots by his side. “That’s ‘cause I did.”
“Oh. Is that so?”
Bad idea. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That young man would ask questions. Again and again, until he knew what he wanted. He was curious. No one knew. No one could.
If I carry this curse myself, it won’t exist anymore.
But… Airi exhaled slowly. What difference does it make? She’d go from there to the police station. They’d ask questions, too. So, better to let him know. Better to let someone else carry that curse with her. Someone had to know her true self. In her last moments on this side of life. The side of the free.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Huh.”
I can’t tell if he believes me. Nor what he understood.
She held tighter on her hand. “It’s the spirit of a man.”
“That’s intriguing.”
Sir, what’s intriguing about that? Why do you want to know?
“Can I sit there?” he asked.
You’ll scare me less if you’re by my side. “Sure.”
The young man turned around the bench. He sat at a respectful distance from a girl he didn’t know. His posture, however, was pretty slouchy. He had his elbows on his thighs.
Looking a bit closer… he’s younger than I thought.
“How old are you?” she let out.
“Seventeen. I thought you’d ask my name first.” He side-eyed her. “It’s Oda, in any case. Nice to meet ya.”
“Likewise.” I don’t know if I should tell him mine. I don’t think so.
“For how long have you been seeing this ghost?”
“Three months now.”
“What does he look like?”
“He…”
Oda turned in her direction. He paid devoted attention to what she said. So much she stopped talking. If I’m the only one to carry the curse…
The whole world seems to not know. Only I do. Did it really happen then?
“It’s a man,” Airi repeated.
“You’ve said that already.”
“Sorry,” she stuttered. “Are you in a rush? You can go if you are.”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Oda wasn’t rude. Not exactly, at least. He was older than her. People still asked her when she’d finish primary school. He seems the type to treat everyone like that.
What he didn’t seem to be was the type to ask for her number. Nor the type to talk her into a private corner. Even less the type to offer her booze. Not that I’d accept. He could’ve been smoother. A lot smoother than opening it about a ghost.
Maybe I’d give him my number, though.
“I don’t know what he looks like,” she said.
“You don’t?”
“His face is…”
“Distorted?”
“Yeah… That. Something like that.”
“What’s there, instead of a face?”
Bullet holes. She’d never know what he looked like. Not even then, under the dim light of an alley. Later on? Even less. Not even with all the sunlight or all the lightbulbs in the world.
“Blood,” she said. “There’s blood on his face.”
“Nothing else? Nose, eyes? Not even a mouth?”
“No.” Airi gulped. “Only blood.”
“It’s one of those, then.” Oda pondered, one hand on his chin. He seemed to make a tremendous effort to think. “He might’ve had a violent death.”
He did. “Why do you think that’s interesting?”
“I write books.” Oda leaned on the bench, slouching in the opposite direction. “Might be a new idea. Who knows.”
I don’t know if I believe you.
“This ghost… This man’s ghost…” Airi was on the edge of trembling again. “He’s tried to hurt me.”
“Does he still try?”
“Sometimes. When I see him.”
Every day. Every morning when I wake up. Every night when I go to bed.
“You should go to a shrine,” Oda suggested. “It’s still time for the first visit.”
“It’s no use.”
Airi would rather stare at the tile she tripped on. His stare was piercing. It had the power of a huge audience. Whatever he tried to see in her, he was looking for it.
“Why?” he asked.
“He won’t leave me.”
“Yes, and why is that?”
Because I killed him, and he wants revenge. “He has a problem with me”
“With you in particular? Hm.” Oda gave up on looking at her. He seemed to stare at the tile on the sidewalk. “Do you know why?”
“Yeah.” Of course, I do. “I think.”
“What is it, then?”
I shot him nine times. The first on his chest. Then, I kicked him to the floor. His back hit the concrete. The other eight times on his head. There was no face left. Nine times. I remember exactly.
I still hear each one of them.
“Have you harmed that man?” Oda insisted. “So that he clings to you after death?”
“I have.”
“And has he harmed you?”
Yes. If I think it through, yes. Time was passing like water from a leak. Persistent, intermittent. Why did you talk to me?
The police would know soon. The world would. Oda looked like he could keep secrets, anyway. Let him know, too.
“Maybe,” she replied.
“What do you mean by ‘maybe’?”
“I can’t tell for sure.”
“What did he do, after all?”
He pointed a gun, unannounced. He covered my mouth and told me not to scream. He pushed me forward. I don’t know what was in the end. I don’t know what he wanted. I don’t… Still… Nine shots?
Did he deserve it?
“Has he hurt you?” Oda asked.
“No, I think.”
“You think?”
“He couldn’t.”
“That means he tried.”
Would I give my life for his, I wonder? I mean… would he want that? Did he even want to live? Besides the smell of garbage and gunpowder, her memory brought mold and alcohol. There are many like that in the streets. They don’t look like they want to live… not like that, at least.
“You didn’t allow him to hurt you… by hurting him?” Oda asked. “Did you take revenge on him?”
“That can be it.” Airi wanted to nod. “You can call it like that.”
“So, he started it. You only fought back.” It doesn’t mean I could. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“And when’s your birthday?”
“September 26th.”
“Oh, it’s one month before mine.” Oda stared at her again. You’re not going to ask for my number, are you? Not after I said… that. “And what’s your name?”
At this point… “It’s Airi.”
“Airi-chan.”
“My friends call me that.”
What would they think, if they knew what he does?
“Do you have a family?” he asked.
“My mom and aunt.” How many of my classmates still have their dads?
“I see.”
Oda had a lost gaze, facing the horizon. Way, way further. Airi peeked at him. What was he thinking? Everything at once? Nothing at all? It could be either, or any other third option.
“Do they take good care of you?” he said.
“Yes, but I have to work.”
“Where?”
“A music store.”
“Cool.” You don’t seem too interested. “Can you play any instruments?”
“The bass. Only in the store and at school. I couldn’t buy one yet.” Airi held out her left hand. “Look.”
“What?” Oda approached his face with her fingers. “Oh. They’re calloused.”
“It’s normal.”
“I’ve heard as much.” Oda took his hand out of his pocket. He wore gloves. “I have a scar on my palm. I can show you if you’re not scared.”
“I don’t think I will be.”
Not after I did what I did.
Oda pulled his glove by a finger and showed her the scar. A dark red blemish. A horizontal one, where his fingers and his palm connected. Airi’s eyes widened.
I have one, too.
It was in the same region. She’d accidentally touched the barrel. It was hot as embers. She’d spent weeks without playing the bass. It’d hurt like a punishment from Hell itself.
“It was a burn a few years ago,” Oda said and said no more.
“Does it fade eventually?”
“No idea.” He shrugged. “And I don’t care.”
You, too?
“Airi-chan,” he called.
“Yes?” Airi stuttered. “What is it?”
“What do you wanna work with?”
“The store isn’t bad.”
“I mean, after school. If you finish. What would you like to do?”
“If I could choose…?”
“Yeah, if you could choose anything.”
“Uh. It’s a bit lame when I say it…” They always tell me to be more down-to-earth. More normal. “I’d like to sing. I’d like to play, too. On a stage. And record my songs.”
Is that normal? Am I normal? What I did… Can you call it normal?
“How much would you learn about that in three years?” he asked.
“A lot. I’d improve a lot.”
“Would you stop studying music for three years?”
“No. Why? If we were short on money… and I had to work two jobs… Still—”
“What about seeing your family?”
“Huh? No, either—”
“What about going to school? Walking outside? Riding the train? Choosing what to eat, and how to dress, what to do, and when?”
What are you talking about?
“Would you let go of that,” Oda said, “for nothing in return?”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing at all.” He put on his glove again and buried his hand in his pocket. “If you stopped having an ordinary life today, and only had it back… only had the chance to have it back in three years. Would you give all you have for nothing in return?”
“Why would I?”
“Can I see your hand again?”
Airi stared at him, and he stared back. He said nothing; she said nothing. He knows. He knows what I did. Not who the man was. Not even I know that. But he knows I’ve made the same mistake.
I’ve lied to everyone. “I burnt myself in home economics.” They believed me and left me alone. They didn’t even ask further. You know the truth. Only you do. Why do you have the same mark?
Why are you so kind?
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Oda waved a hand, closing his eyes. “Anyway—”
“I threw it out.” I don’t have to explain anything. “In a dumpster.”
Oda stared at her again, only listening.
“It was at home for a few days. My family doesn’t enter my room. I cleaned every stain. All of them. It looked like a new one. I took the train a while later… I left it at a normal place. Normal for that, I mean.”
Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo. I’d never been there before. It has an aura to it. It was an afternoon. I opened the dumpster, threw it out, and left. No one saw me.
“All the time, all the time…” Airi continued. “I think someone knows. Someone found out. I’d watch the news all day. I’d listen to the radio. Even in class, I found a way. I started buying newspapers. No one mentioned it anywhere.”
“No one?”
“No one. As if it was made up. As if I’ve dreamt it. Made it up myself. I didn’t even have bangs back then. I cut them at home. I didn’t dye my hair. The school wouldn’t let—”
“What did he tell you?”
The victim? Airi had to slow down. Her heart was pounding.
“That day?” she asked. “Nothing. I mean… He said I’d be worth a good price. That was all.”
“People should be worth no ‘price’ at all.”
Yeah. That’s true.
“I don’t know who it was. Before you ask.” Oda tried to cover up his disgust. “I think he was in debt, though. Needing a lot of quick money. And he was a first-timer.”
“That’s why…”
“Yeah. That’s why you’re still here.”
I wouldn’t have gotten the gun if he was experienced. I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have…
“And you,” Oda said, “are you in a rush?”
Airi lowered her gaze. The kids in the park were leaving. “I don’t know anymore.”
“If I figured where you were headed to, I couldn’t go with you.”
“I know that.”
As they’re looking for you, more than they’re looking for me, I think.
“You’d get just three years in youth detention. I’m seventeen. I don’t have that luxury.” Oda sighed. “Still, three years is a long time. Too long, even.”
It’s one-fifth of my entire life.
“Also.” Oda threw his head back, his eyes closed. Snowflakes surrounded him. Some landed on his face. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“So, it didn’t happen.”
“Not to the rest of the world. It’s better that way.”
What should I do? It was definitely a question to ask. Maybe he’d have answers. Maybe he doesn’t. He isn’t even that much older.
“With all due respect,” Oda said, “if he put a price on you… good riddance. He should come to terms with God.”
“Are you religious?”
“Perhaps.” Oda looked at her, still slouching on the bench. How can you “perhaps” be religious? “God is intriguing. That, He is. He doesn’t ask me for a lot. Not now, at least. I’ll come to terms with Him when it’s my time.”
“What about me?”
“Me, and you, and every person who’s ever lived on Earth. Have them a little or a lot of sin.” Oda cleaned a snowflake from his cheek. “Does that ghost still haunt you?”
Yes? No? Perhaps…?
“If you need an exorcism, I know a place. They’ve been good at that for centuries now.” Oda straightened his back for the first time. “Way better than where you were going, at least.”
A place…? Oh. A church. I can confess at the church.
“I can go with you to that one,” Oda said. “I’m not in a rush.”
Airi got up. “I am.”
Oda got up and stretched. He put himself by her side, and they left in silence.
The shortest route followed the riverbank and its flow. Towards the parts of the city where there was more life. One shop or two had their doors closed and lights on. The heat was inside. Luckily, the customers would be inside, too. Even if it was the first morning of the year.
One part, however, was taciturn. There were only good-sized houses, and traffic was rare. Keeping up with his pace was no easy task. Airi was a good thirty centimeters shorter. A long stairway was troublesome in particular.
The church appeared. The snow made it more beautiful. It had a wide terrain, surrounded by a grid made of dark iron rods. Airi checked the pedestrian entrances one by one. They were all locked. She followed Oda. He knows where he’s going.
A gate was open on the corner of a block. Inside, a parking lot with two or three cars. They stopped before that.
“I don’t think I’m going to see you again,” Oda said.
Something tells me you come here often.
“It’s okay.” Airi looked at him. I won’t bother you, though. “That’s just life.”
“About the book part.” Oda scratched his head. “They’re based on people. Not always. Sometimes. I normally don’t ask. But I’m in front of you, so…”
“Hm?”
“What name would you like to have, if I write one?”
“Other than mine?” Airi thought, burying her hands in her pockets. “I think… none. I like my name. Do you know the spelling?”
“No. Too many possibilities.”
“It’s ‘love’ and ‘reason’.”
“It suits you.”
Airi giggled. “My friends say I don’t love anyone.”
“Ah. Well. If I don’t see you again…” Oda tapped one shoe on the sidewalk to clean it from the snow. “See you in the afterlife.”
Airi stepped into the parking lot. She turned around to face him. “Or in another life?”
“In the end, who knows, huh?” Oda shrugged. I don’t, at least. “Happy new year.”
“Happy new year.”
Oda waved and left. He wasn’t gone the same way they got there. At some point, he disappeared among the nameless and motionless streets. Back to being just a stranger. God knew where he was going.
I don’t know about him. I’m going to exorcise a spirit.