“Um, well.” At some point the fat man who seemed to be the manager had come to stand behind me. “The restaurant is unable to take responsibility for any damages incurred in our parking lot.”
“I know. I don’t intend to ask for reimbursement or anything.” I handed the towel and benzene to the waiter. “Thank you very much.”
“Would you like to contact the police?” the waiter asked.
“No, I don’t feel like making a fuss.” Police presence was the last thing I wanted. “It’s okay. Please go back inside.” I couldn’t help looking around, but there was no way the culprit would be nearby.
“Nothing like this has happened before,” the fat man said by way of an excuse. I gave no reply.
I came back into the restaurant, but I didn’t feel like taking my time drinking coffee, so I paid my bill and went outside. I got into the car to wait for Juri, but seeing the paint mark, I felt irritated. It was still the same new MR-S, but my affection for it was already diminished.
After about ten minutes, Juri came back. She was about to go into the restaurant, so I honked the horn once to get her attention.
When I told her about the spray paint after she got in, she looked surprised. She bothered to get back out to check on the damage.
“How terrible. I wonder if it was a motorcycle gang,” she said after sitting next to me again.
“A gang these days wouldn’t do something so silly. It’s most likely the work of local grade school or middle school kids.”
“Maybe.”
“By the way, how did it go with you? Did you pull it off?”
“Perfectly.” Juri made an okay sign with her fingers. “The key’s hiding place hadn’t changed, so getting inside was easy. And erasing the recording on the answering machine went well, too.”
“And you weren’t seen by anyone?”
“Do you think I’d make a mistake like that?”
“Who knows. Until just now, you’d forgotten the answering machine itself. I’d think that’s a pretty big mistake.”
“I remembered it and cleaned up after myself.”
“After coming all the way to Yokosuka.” I turned on the car engine.
After getting out of the parking lot, instead of immediately heading back, I went in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?”
“Just stay quiet and leave it to me.”
I’d come to Yokosuka in the past. Relying on those memories, I turned the steering wheel. Remembering a good portion of routes I’d taken before was something I bragged about.
I left the well-traveled highway and drove on a narrow road heading to the mountains. The houses thinned and the forest loomed closer. Finally, I saw a building illuminated by a green light diagonally in front of me. There was a parking lot sign. I slowed down.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Her tone was sharp.
“Just be quiet.”
“I can’t stay quiet. You never told me I’d have to go into a place like that.”
I ignored Juri and parked the car on the side of the road. I put on the handbrake and cut the engine.
“Well, let’s go then.”
“Where?”
“Where do you think? Into that stylish building.”
But Juri didn’t even take off her seatbelt. She sat stiffly, facing forward, and her expression was like stone.
“You’re being weird,” I said, guffawing. “You’ve been staying with me at my place all this time. You’re fine with that, but you have reservations about going into a love hotel with me?”
“But this place...”
“It’s meant for a specific purpose?”
Juri didn’t answer. I laughed again.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. We have a lot of work to do. We need a private room.”
“What work?”
“As part of our game, I mean. You thought we came all the way here just to erase a message on an answering machine?”
Relief and comprehension softened her expression. Even so, she drew her chin in distrustfully. “Then why aren’t you putting the car in the parking lot?”
“Hotels like this have security cameras in the parking space that can even make out plate numbers. Considering what we’re about to do, we can’t leave a record of my car.”
“Hmm.” With an ambiguous nod, she looked at me. “You know these places well.”
“I’ve done consulting for hotels like this in the past.”
The two of us walked side by side and entered the hotel, mindful of the cameras. The room we secured had a brusque monotone interior. The first thing I did was to open the window. I’d come to the mountains, but the sea looked surprisingly close by. Occasionally, I could hear a ship whistling.
“What are you going to do here?”
“You’ll understand soon. For now, could you wait over on that stylish sofa?”
But Juri didn’t sit on the sofa; she took a seat on the sheeted bed. With great interest, she looked around the room, possibly because it was her first time at such a place or because it was so different from similar rooms she’d been in — I couldn’t say.
I sat on the sofa and took out my notebook. With a ballpoint pen, I started writing.
“What are you writing?”
“Just wait a little.”
After she bounced on the bed to get a feel for it, she used the remote on top of the table to turn on the TV. After several channels, an adult video showed up on the screen. A male actor was parting a young, naked woman’s thighs and practicing some sort of mischief. Of course, the scene was censored with pixelated blurs and the crucial part wasn’t visible.
Juri turned off the TV hastily. Seeing that, I chuckled.
“You’re surprisingly naïve.”
“I just turned it off because it was trashy. If you want to watch it, I’ll turn it back on.”
“No, thank you. I’m in the middle of important work.”
“Huh.” Juri crossed and uncrossed her legs. “Men are weird. Why does watching something like that make them so happy?”
“There are women who are fond of watching stuff like that, too.”
“Not as many as men. In particular, older men are idiots. They don’t even have that much pocket money themselves but spend tens of thousands of yen to date a minor. They have to be wrong in the head. Do they not get that the girl’s toying with them?”
“‘Toying with’ sounds so predatory.” My hands stopped and I lifted my face. “Are you sure about that? These older men are fools who’re just being used by young girls?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Listen. Most of those guys are surviving in a harsh economic world. They know more than anyone the weight of a ten-thousand-yen bill. If they’re paying, it means they think it’s worth it.”
“But that’s what—”
“If you’re saying paying that much just for sex is foolish, it’s not. Just a generation ago, having sex with an amateur high schooler was a dream that not even several hundred thousand yen could buy. Now, it can come true for just a few ten-thousand-yen bills. It’s a bargain. Not jumping on it is weird. Those older guys are thinking, ‘These young girls selling something worth several hundred thousand, no several million yen for birdseed are such fools.’ The girls aren’t just undervaluing their bodies. They lowered the price on their own souls.”
“They don’t go as far as to sell their hearts. Girls like that say that it’s a business where they just sell their bodies.”
“They’re just telling themselves that. Sure, they won’t open their hearts as well to some old dude. But so what? Do you think the men are moved by that? When they make love to such girls, those guys are thinking, ‘I bet this chick hates having sex with me so much that she could die. But what do I care? I’ve paid for what I’ve paid for.’ In other words, by paying for it, they think they’ve earned the right to ignore the girl’s feelings. How is that not devaluing your soul?”
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