Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

I was surprised how shocked I was. It was only natural that I was upset that my secret was revealed, and by Kaori of all people, but I didn’t know what to say or do. More than feeling humiliation, more than wanting to hide my shame, all I could do was wish that it had never happened. I snatched the box from her and went to throw it in the trash, but I couldn’t. That disturbed me more than anything. I had no idea where to look. Kaori was right in front of me, and at that moment our eyes met.

“It’s nothing,” I said when I came to my senses.

But I didn’t know what to say next. Kaori was wearing a white sweater and white jeans. I closed the lid of the box and put it back in the drawer. I was thinking that I’d just have to walk out when she spoke in a soft voice.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“But …”

No matter what Kaori thought, for the moment I just wanted to get away from her. I needed time to come up with a plausible explanation, but she didn’t look like she was going anywhere. She just sat there, gazing up at me.

“It’s none of your business, is it?”

“That’s true, but what is it?”

She wouldn’t leave me alone. She was determined to find out what it was.

“My mom.”

Once I started, I knew I’d end up telling her the whole story.

“I pick them up because I think some of them might be my mother’s. I know they can’t be, but I collect them anyway.”

My throat was tight.

“Even now. Of course I know that there won’t be anything of Mom’s in what I’m picking up now, but I still can’t help myself. If I don’t, I feel like they’ll be gone forever.”

Kaori looked away.

“I even end up picking up the servants’ stuff too. If I don’t do it I get scared. Really scared. That might sound gross to you, but to me it isn’t at all. The servants kind of know about my habit. It’s embarrassing, so they clean the house every day.”

I couldn’t look her in the face. At the back of my mind I saw the mass of dried, discolored hair and the purple shreds of nail she’d just been looking at.

“You must have some,” she said suddenly. “There must be some of your mother’s in there. Definitely. So you must never throw them away.”

She spoke seriously, with a childish expression, but I was still a child myself. Her long hair was tied back, and her large eyes looked straight into mine as I stood there. That was probably the moment I started to fall in love with her. It was only some time later that I remembered she was an orphan.

AFTER WE FINISHED elementary school, Kaori and I were enrolled in the local junior high. Once again we were in the same class, but this time I thought Father might have had a hand in it. By the time we started, Kaori was only slightly taller than average, while I had shot up.

She was still a bit better at sports than the other girls, but no longer stood out as much as she had when she was younger. Since she was cheerful she had plenty of friends, but she wasn’t the center of the class. As always, schoolwork was the only thing I was good at, so I wrapped myself in jokes and frivolity. At the time, that was pretty close to my true personality. I hadn’t discarded my box of hair and fingernails, but I’d gradually stopped picking up new ones, and I’d also given up throwing living creatures off the cliff behind the house. I also liked telling jokes, and the lessons, mere repetition of what had already been drummed into me by my tutors, were simply boring. During classes I mucked around with the kids sitting near me, so the teachers often told me off.

I thought only of Kaori, fantasizing every day about our future. Marrying her, finding a job, I didn’t care what. If she wanted to work she could, and if she wanted to stay home that was all right too. If we had children, perhaps I’d be able to give them what had been missing in my life. To make her happy, I’d be a thoroughly decent person, and the malevolent strain that ran in my family’s blood would stop with me. I’d work hard and buy a house with a nice view, by the sea, maybe. It wouldn’t matter if it was small. In the evenings we’d go for walks along the beach. When we quarreled I’d always apologize, and if I thought she was in the wrong, I’d just keep my mouth shut. Maybe even then I’d be the one to say sorry. For me to marry Kaori, however, I’d have to be good enough for her. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but for the time being I persevered with my tedious, day-to-day studies. I took pains with my appearance, and thought up stories to make her laugh. I squeezed my darkness into this tiny piece buried deep inside me. All my pent-up energy, which had been trapped by my depression, burst forth directly, even obsessively, towards Kaori.

Almost every night I imagined having sex with her. If I could do it for real, I thought, that would be the happiest thing in the world. Seeing Kaori’s body, touching her all over, entering her. It seemed like a miracle, and it never occurred to me that most adults were enjoying the same pleasure. I thought it was only for me, in love with Kaori. Just as she had been in elementary school, she was listed as my relative, but for some reason walking home together had started to feel awkward. She joined the volleyball club, so we left school at different times and went home separately, but she still came to my room every day.

My entire happiness was right there in front of me, and I couldn’t touch it. Still, at least it was close by. While it was trying at times, all in all it was a good thing. It was enough to fill the mind of a junior high school boy like me. Gazing at her body as it grew soft and round, at the swelling of her breasts, was painful, but at the same time I was happy. My thoughts were fixed solely on her, to the almost total exclusion of everything else.

Kaori teasing me by hunting for my adult magazine became a regular game. I hid it in the bookshelf. I took volume Sa-Su of my encyclopedia out of its case and put the magazine in the box in its place, so she never found it. But I hardly needed it any more. My youthful sexual desires were fixated entirely on her.

“I know you’ve still got it, and I’m going to find it,” she said as she opened the closet, still in her school uniform.

“I don’t.”

“Aren’t you interested in girls anymore?”

“That’s not what I mean, but it isn’t here.”

That’s how we spent the year before I turned fourteen. Before Father was going to show me hell.

“YOU DON’T LOOK much like your father, Fumihiro.”

I don’t remember exactly when she told me that. She was staring at me intently, and I felt quite uncomfortable.

“Maybe not. His face is horrible.” I turned away, unable to look her in the eye.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

We were walking along a dirt road one evening, just after the rain had stopped.

“Somehow I feel like his face isn’t his alone.”

She was beautiful when she was thinking.

“It’s like there’s a whole lot of history and other people’s faces piled one on top of another. Sometimes I get really scared when he just looks at me. Like all this stuff, Kukis from the past, ancient events, come floating to the surface, all mixed up. It’s so freaky. I’m sorry, it’s just really scary somehow.”

She suddenly lowered her eyes, as if she was afraid. I noticed again how long her lashes were. If I was her boyfriend, I thought, at times like these I could put my arm around her. In reality, though, I couldn’t even touch the tips of her fingers.

“YOU’RE ALWAYS STARING at Ms. Yoshimi,” said Kaori, just before the summer holidays in our first year of junior high. “You like her, don’t you?”

Ms. Yoshimi was our music teacher. She always wore tight-fitting clothes, so all the boys liked her. Based solely on her dress, we’d already decided that she was a slut.