Koji Suzuki - Edge

Eighteen years ago, when he had informed Saeko that he was calling off the search, she had been absolutely furious.

“He’s alive!” she had raged at him. “I can feel his pulse. Maybe he’s lost his memory. Maybe he’s out there somewhere and doesn’t know where his home is …”

Of course, Kitazawa had considered that possibility. He had inquired at hospitals and with the police, but there had been no profiles that fit the bill. Kitazawa shook his head slowly from side to side.

“Fine,” Saeko had declared. “I won’t ask you to go on searching for him. You can teach me how to do it instead. From this day onward, I want to be your apprentice.”

And sure enough, she had trailed after Kitazawa unrelentingly until he finally caved. How could he accomplish any sleuthing with a teenage girl constantly at his heels? He had no choice but to devote his spare time to teaching Saeko the ropes, and in the process they had forged a strong bond. It was this experience that had planted the seed for his detective school in Kitazawa’s mind, a project that later brought him quite a bit of success. And Saeko had wound up applying her investigative skills to her career as a journalist. You never knew where things led you in life.

With the file Saeko had handed him balanced on his knees, Kitazawa smiled wryly as he sipped his weight-loss tea. His wife had turned him on to it a decade ago, but it didn’t seem to have had any effect.

Saeko was now thirty-five years old and had been through both a marriage and a divorce. But had she ever really come to terms with the loss of her father? Kitazawa wondered. Even if it was her editor’s idea, the fact that Saeko was still walking around with a missing persons file after all this time led Kitazawa to suspect that she had never truly given up on her father, and the realization pained him.

Oblivious to Kitazawa’s concern, Saeko glanced hesitantly over her shoulder. “By the way, is Toshiya around?”

“Of course he is. He can’t wait to see you!” Kitazawa hit the button on his intercom, announcing, “Saeko’s here!”

Immediately, the door swung open and a younger man bounced into the room. His face was the spitting image of Kitazawa’s, but his frame was a size smaller and the energy he gave off was completely different.

“Sensei! Long time no see!” Toshiya greeted Saeko breathlessly, grinning from ear to ear. But the moment his eyes met Saeko’s, he averted them awkwardly, his gaze wandering off into space.

“It has been a long time, Toshiya. You’ve slimmed down, haven’t you?”

Kitazawa’s only child, Toshiya, was six years younger than Saeko. At twenty-nine, his entire being seemed to exude that odor of childishness of those who fled from reality. Saeko hadn’t seen him since Chieko’s funeral, but Kitazawa had brought her up to speed over the phone as to Toshiya’s recent activities.

An image flashed through the back of Saeko’s mind of Toshiya’s penis, half buried in foreskin, withering like a deflating balloon — evidence, surely, that the exact same image was flashing through Toshiya’s mind. Saeko retreated a half-pace, gazing off to the side to avoid looking Toshiya in the face.

Saeko, Kitazawa, and Toshiya. The three had been linked by student-teacher relationships. Kitazawa had schooled Saeko in the fundamentals of tracking down missing persons, and Saeko had worked as Toshiya’s private tutor.

Toshiya had been a roly-poly little sixth grader when they had first met. In time, at Kitazawa’s request, Saeko helped the boy prepare for his high school entrance exams, and Toshiya ended up successfully testing into his first-choice school.

Saeko was in college at the time. She based her approach on how her father had taught her, with special emphasis on the subjects of English, math, and physics. Thanks partly to that history, Toshiya eventually got into the engineering program at a national university where he went on to study information theory. Saeko hadn’t helped Toshiya prepare for his university entrance exams, though she did help him achieve top marks in math and physics.

When Toshiya was in his second year of high school, a year before he took his tests, she stepped down as his tutor. To Kitazawa senior, she claimed to be too busy job hunting. But the real reason was that during winter vacation that year, Toshiya had attempted to rape her.

Toshiya’s parents had been away, traveling on business. Saeko had lined up two chairs in Toshiya’s warm, cozy room and sat down with a page of physics problems for him to solve, oblivious to the fact that his thoughts were elsewhere and that he was in no state to study.

His expression distracted, Toshiya’s mind seemed to be churning over something. Muttering incomprehensively, he looked up from the page frequently to take a deep breath and let it out. Then his lips began to tremble, and he shook himself violently several times like a dog emerging from a river and shaking himself dry. It was then that Saeko began to notice the change that had come over Toshiya. Even from the side, she could see that his whole body was rigid with tension. He seemed to vacillate between hesitation and intention. Just as he seemed about to reach a decision, Saeko experienced a flash of wariness and suddenly drew back in her chair. At that moment, something seemed to well over in Toshiya, and he looked up with bloodshot eyes brimming with intensity and seized her shoulders with both hands.

“I’m sorry, sensei … I can’t take it any longer.”

What?!

Saeko tried to pull away, but it was too late. Toshiya pushed her down onto the bed behind her and climbed on top of her.

With close to eighty kilograms of body weight suddenly crushing her chest and stomach, Saeko’s breathing froze. Normally sluggish, Toshiya’s movements were uncharacteristically swift, and for a moment Saeko was too baffled by what was going on to even cry out.

Toshiya brought his mouth up to Saeko’s ear and whispered, “Sensei … I just can’t take it anymore. I’m so crazy about you. It’s okay, right?”

“W-Wait …”

But of course, Toshiya wasn’t about to wait. He pushed up Saeko’s skirt and tugged at her panties.

A fuse blew in Saeko’s mind, and all of the colors in the room ceased to exist. The fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling was a glowing ring on the back of her eyelids, but its light grew fainter and fainter. An intense urge to escape flooded her. The desire to free herself surged within her stronger than any feelings of fear or anger. If she couldn’t somehow escape from this big hunk of meat that was holding her down, she would be stripped of all human dignity. Saeko curled her body like a shrimp, flipped over, and tried to straighten herself again. But Toshiya’s soft body weighed her down, inhibiting her movements. Pushed down, immobilized, insulted, this was no time to bite back on her anger. Saeko gave full vent to her rage. Gritting her teeth, she tried to ram her chin into Toshiya’s head, but it was just beyond reach. When she finally wrenched one hand free from under his body, she clawed at his exposed skin and sank her teeth into his upper arm.

Toshiya howled and his upper body jerked away, creating room between their bodies and a momentary reprieve for Saeko. She seized the opportunity to twist herself sideways, channeling the momentum to drive a fist into Toshiya’s chin. Already unbalanced, the direct hit sent Toshiya tumbling off the bed. He landed with a dull thud.

As soon as she was free, Saeko yanked her panties back up and fixed her skirt. Then she kneeled on the bed and glared down at Toshiya. Roiling now with anger, indignity, and fear, she was unable to scream at him for a lack of words. Instead, she simply fixed him with a look of pure reproach. Then, all at once, she burst into tears.