GOTH:GOTH

2

My first introduction to Morino was when we ended up in the same class upon graduating to the second year. I had felt from the beginning that there was someone else like me, living life unconcerned with others. Even during break time, even walking the halls, she would always shun others. In short, she didn't seem to like crowds.

In our class, I only noticed this particular trait in Morino and I. Even so, I didn't coldly regard our classmates' merry-making like Morino did. For me, if someone struck up a conversation, I would reply, and to smooth the mechanism of human relations, even joke. I did the minimum required to have a normal life.

However, the superficial socializing, and the smiles I gave to my classmates, were essentially lies.

From our first conversation, Morino had seen through to that part of me.

"Could you teach me how to make that same expression too?"

One day after school, Morino had stood in front of me, expressionless, and said that. Maybe she was scoffing at me inside. That was around the beginning of May.

After that, we would talk from time to time.

Morino only wore black. Everything, from her long, straight hair, to the tips of her shoes, was wrapped in darkness. In stark contrast, her skin was whiter than anyone's I had seen; her hands were as if made of porcelain. There was a small spot under her left eye, in a similar design to that of Pierrot, giving her an atmosphere of black magic.

It's not that her face was less expressive than that of normal people. For example, when happily reading a book about the horrific murder of 52 women and children in Russia. There was no trace of the deathly green face she had when in the midst of noisy classmates. Rather, her eyes sparkled.

Only when talking to Morino would I not fake my facial expressions. If I was talking to someone else, they would probably wonder why I had such a blank, unsmiling expression. When talking with her, there was no problem with that.

Perhaps she had similar reasons, because during idle times, she would choose to speak with me.

We both disliked standing out. In the classroom, we were hidden in the shadow of our boisterous classmates; we quietly lived our lives.

And then, summer vacation came, and then I came to read the notebook.

Following the school day, after we met at the station, we boarded a train headed for the base of S mountain.

Both for meeting outside of school, and seeing Morino in normal clothes instead of the school uniform, it was the first time. As usual, she had chosen dark colored clothes. I noticed from her glance, that she must have thought the same about me.

The inside of the train was quiet; it was free of crowding. Without talking, we both started reading. She read a book about child abuse; I read a book written by the family members of a famous juvenile delinquent.

Upon getting off at the station, we asked an old woman working at the tobacco shop in front of the station, how many soba restaurants there were near S mountain. We learned that there was only one, and that it wasn't far. Afterwards, Morino made a sharp observation.

"Tobacco kills many people, but tobacco vending machines snatch away and kill that old woman's livelihood."

An especially clever reply didn't seem to be necessary, so I ignored her remark.

We walked along the side of the road until we reached the soba restaurant. The road began to slope upwards; it was curving near the mountain side.

The soba restaurant was part of a row of restaurants at the base of the mountain. Business looked to be bad there; the atmosphere was lonely, without many people or cars. The soba restaurant's parking lot was completely empty, yet even though it might as well have been closed, there was still an "OPEN" sign. We went inside.

"Ah, so this is where the murderer met Miguchi Nanami."

Morino looked around the restaurant as if sightseeing some famous place.

"Excuse me. I'm just speculating; what you would call the hypothetical stage. Since whether it's true or not is what we came here to find out."

I ignored her and read the notebook.

It was written with a blue ballpoint pen.

Inside the notebook, there was more than just the accounts of the murders of the three women. In addition, the names of a few mountains were written. That was on the first page, so it seemed to have been written before any of the accounts of the women's murders.

In front of the names of the mountains, there were markings like ◎ and ○, △ and ×. For the three mountains where the bodies had been disposed of, ◎ had been marked, so I inferred that maybe this was a list of mountains that were convenient for disposing bodies.

There were no indications as to the owner of the notebook.

There had never been any thought of giving the notebook to the police. Even if we didn't do anything, he would be caught sooner or later.

If we sent the notebook to the police, perhaps the murderer would be caught sooner. And the number of victims in the end would probably be less. Obviously, there was an obligation to give this to the police.

Unfortunately, our consciences didn't bother us for acting as if we hadn't picked up any kind of notebook, and keeping silent; we were cruel, reptilian high school students.

"If there's a fourth victim, that would definitely be our fault."

"That's terrible."

Morino and I slurped at our soba while having that talk. She didn't have any "That's terrible" face; her voice was casual, as if only interested in the soba of a second-class restaurant.

We asked about the Shinto shrine at the soba restaurant.

While walking, Morino looked at the notebook. She traced the front cover many times with her fingertip, perhaps touching the same place that cold-blooded murderer had touched. From those actions, I could tell she felt a sense of awe for the murderer.

Inside, I felt a little like that too. I also knew it wasn't proper to feel that. Criminals, of course, must be punished. One should not think of them as revolutionaries or artists.

At the same time, I knew that famous murderers would be worshipped by some abnormal people. I knew that it was wrong to become like that.

However, we were in thrall to the horror of deeds of the notebook's owner. This criminal had, in the moments of everyday life, crossed over a line; crushing people's individuality and dignity, and completely destroying the bodies.

It had the irresistable charm of a nightmare.

In order to reach the Shinto shrine, from the soba restaurant, we had to walk even further towards the summit, up a long flight of stairs.

For both of us, the idea of moving our bodies stirred up an almost irrational anger.

So we had no love for the mountain slope and the stairs.

By the time we reached the shrine, we were exhausted. We sat for some time at a stone monument that had been constructed on the grounds, and took a break. On the trees that had been planted on the grounds, high branches spread out, and looking up, you could see the midsummer sun peep through the leaves.

We sat beside each other, unconcerned by the voices of the cicadas falling from above. Drops of sweat started to form bit by bit on Morino's brow.

Before long, she wiped the sweat away while standing up. The search for Miguchi Nanami's body had begun.

"Ah, so the murderer and Miguchi Nanami walked in this place together."

Morino walked beside me while humming.

Leaving the shrine, we headed towards the forest.

For what distance, and in what direction the murderer walked, I did not know. For that reason, the search was fumbling and uncertain.

While randomly searching, one hour passed.

"I think it might be over there."

So said Morino in parting; before long, from far off, she called my name.

I walked towards the voice, and then, at the bottom of a cliff, I saw her from behind. Her arms hung loosely by her sides. She turned to the side, so I looked there also.

And there was Miguchi Nanami.

In between the forest and the cliff, in the shadow of a large tree, in the middle of that faint summer gloom, she sat naked.

Her lower half was resting on the ground; her back was resting against the tree trunk. Her arms and legs, devoid of power, were sprawled carelessly.

From the neck up, there was nothing.

The head had been separated, and placed in her stomach.

Both eyeballs had been plucked out, and placed respectively, in the left and right hands.

Instead, the eye sockets, now just holes, had been packed with mud. Even the mouth; moldy leaves had been plastered inside.

Around the tree trunk that the back was leaning against, something had been wrapped. That something had once been the contents of Miguchi Nanami's abdomen.

Signs of blood remained black upon the ground.

Slightly further off, her clothes had been dumped.

We stood in front of her, unable to move, looking quietly.

Unable to say anything.

Only looking quietly at the corpse.

The next day, I got an email on my cell phone from Morino's cell phone.

"Give me back the notebook."

Her emails were always concise and short. She never added anything unnecessary. Likewise, I knew that she held a kind of hatred for clattery and noisy keychains and straps.

I was the one who had taken the notebook home. When we had left the place where Miguchi Nanami was, I hadn't returned it to her. On the train home, Morino, not yet recovered from the shock, had only stared into the distance.

When we were leaving that place, Morino had picked up Miguchi Nanami's fallen clothes, and stuffed them into her bag. The clothes had been almost completely torn into pieces, but the hat and the bag, and its contents, were untouched.

Inside Miguchi Nanami's bag, there were things like makeup, a purse, and a handkerchief. On the train home, I looked through them.

According to the student card in her purse, I found out that Miguchi Nanami had been a high school student in a neighboring prefecture. Inside the bag, there was also a notebook for sticking photo booth pictures. From her student card, and the photo booth pictures, I could see what her face had been like when alive.

Miguchi Nanami's many friends were all smiling in the small photo booth picture.

The afternoon that I got the email, Morino and I met at the McDonald's in fron of the station.

Morino, unlike usual, was not wearing dark style clothes. Because of that, I didn't realize who she was at the start. Since the hat she wore was the same as the kind she had picked up from beside Miguchi Nanami's corpse, I realized that the clothes must have been meant to resemble hers as well.

The hairstyle, makeup, and everything, resembled the Miguchi Nanami in the photo booth pictures. Since the original clothes were torn up, she must have searched for something similar.

She accepted the notebook, and seemed extremely happy.

I asked about that.

"Are you going to tell Miguchi Nanami's family about the corpse in the forest?"

She thought for a moment, and then announced her intention to stay uninvolved.

"I wonder when the police will find her."

Morino, while looking like Miguchi Nanami up until her death, talked about her death.

I wonder what Miguchi Nanami's family is doing right now. I think she probably has a boyfriend? I wonder what her grades were like.

Morino was a little bit different from usual. During the conversation with her, her style of talking and gesturing had diverged from her usual manner. She paid attention to how her bangs fell, and created the atmosphere of a couple sitting in separate seats, with the topics she brought up. This was behavior that Morino had never displayed up to now.

Miguchi Nanami and I had not known each other. Still, looking at Morino, I had to wonder if Miguchi Nanami hadn't created this same impression.

Morino placed her elbows on the table, while acting cheerful. She had beside her what was once Miguchi Nanami's bag. Attached to the zipper pull was a keychain mascot

"So are you planning to stay dressed like that for awhile?"

"Of course, it's amusing, isn't it?"

This was Morino's make-believe play. But it was more than just a normal smiling manner, and looking into the mirror, checking her eyelashes type of imitation of a normal female high school student. It was more as if Miguchi Nanami had enroached upon Morino's basic nature.

When leaving McDonald's, Morino suddenly and spontaneously took my hand as we walked. She herself didn't notice this until I pointed it out.

Almost certainly I was holding the hand of Miguchi Nanami, who was supposed to be dead.

After parting with Morino in front of the station and arriving home, I immediately turned on the TV. On the news, they covered the bizzare murder case.

There was a report about the first and second victims. Up until this point, they were still going over old news; nothing new was being said.

Miguchi Nanami's name didn't appear at all.

There was a slideshow about the two victims, pictures of grieving friends and family.

On the TV screen, a large picture appeared -- photographs of the two victims......

I thought of Morino, and a bad premonition came over me. Yet, the odds of something like that happening were extremely low. And so I dropped that thought from my mind.

The two victims, as they had appeared in the photographs, in their hairstyle, and their clothes, both resembled Miguchi Nanami.

So, in short, you could say that today, Morino was the same type that this cold-blooded murderer went for.