GOTH:GOTH

GOTH

1

About 20 days after the end of summer vacation, on a school day, for the first time in awhile, I spoke with Morino.

Before the start of morning homeroom, having come to school, through the crowd of noisily chattering classmates, she unexpectedly approached my desk.

We didn't have any history of exchanging greetings. Morino stood in front of me, took a notebook from her pocket, and placed it on my desk. It was a notebook I'd never seen before.

It was palm sized; the cover was fake brown leather. It was an ordinary thing you'd find in any stationary shop.

"I found this," She said.

"Well it's not mine."

"Well I know that."

Presenting the notebook to me, she had a somehow cheerful air about her.

I picked the notebook up from my desk. The cover was smooth to the touch.

I flipped briefly through the contents; the first half filled with small, meticulous writing. The second half was completely blank.

"Read from the beginning!"

It was as she said, the owner was unknown; I looked carefully through his writing. Line after line of itemized writing.

May 10th

In front of the station, I meet a female named Kusuda Mitsue.

Age 16.

I started talking with her; a short while later we walked to my car.

Just like that, I took her to T mountain.

She kept staring outside the window, all the while telling me about a newspaper column her mother was interested in.

I stop the car near the summit of T mountain.

From the trunk, I take out the bag containing the knife, nails, and other tools. She laughingly asks me what it is.

............

The words continued like that.

I recognized the name Kusuda Mitsue.

......Three months ago, a family went on a hiking trip to T mountain. It was a family of one boy and two parents. Since it was a long-awaited holiday for the father, he slept as soon as they arrived at the mountain. The boy tried to wake up the father so they could play, but it was no use.

In the afternoon, the boy took a walk alone into the forest.

The mother noticed her son missing. And then, she heard a scream from deep in the forest.

The couple searched the forest, and then found the boy. He was found looking slightly upwards, unable to move.

Following their son's gaze, the father and mother immediately noticed the nearby tree trunk was stained dark red. And then, they noticed something strange nailed to the tree at eye-level. Looking around, they saw that all the surrounding trees had things attached to them with nails.

Those 'things' were Kusuda Mitsue. Someone had done a dissection on her, deep in the forest. The eyeballs, tongue, ears, thumbs, liver... They were all attached by nails to tree trunks.

On one tree, in order from the top, the left big toe, upper lip, nose, and stomach were attached; other trees had the rest of her remains, arranged like Christmas tree decorations.

The incident quickly had the entire country in a panic.

Inside the notebook Morino had brought: how Kusuda Mitsue was killed, which parts were attached to trees, what kind of nails were used; page after page of dry, detailed notes.

I knew a lot about this incident, since I had followed it on TV, magazines, and the internet. But still, this notebook spoke exhaustively of details that no media outlet had covered.

"So as I see it, her killer dropped this notebook."

Kusuda Mitsue had been a high schooler in a neighboring prefecture. She had been last seen by friends who parted with her at the building in front of the station. And then Kusuda Mitsue became the first victim of the bizzare murders, even now able to cause a stir throughout Japan.

There had been one more incident with the same modus operandi; they were believed to be serial murders.

"And there's something written about the second victim too."

June 21

I talked with a female holding a shopping bag, waiting for the bus.

She called herself Nakanishi Kasumi.

I offered to take her home in my car.

Upon realizing that I was heading towards H mountain and not her house, the girl began to cause a disturbance while in the passenger seat.

I temporarily stopped the car and struck her with a hammer; she became quiet.

I took her to a shed in H mountain.

............

The name Nakanishi Kasumi, a student at a vocational school, became known nationwide because of what happened one month ago. From the wildly spreading gossip sparked by the news and newspapers, I already knew about the discovery of the second victim while coming home from school.

She was inside a shed in H mountain. The building's owner was unknown, and remained that way for a long time. The roof leaked badly; the inside was covered with mold and stains. The walls and floor were wooden planking, and it was three meters square.

An elderly man who lived at the base [of the mountain] had come to H mountain to collect wild vegetables, and in the early morning, had discovered that the shed's door had been unexpectedly left open. Wondering at this, he tried coming closer, and then a terrible stench hit his nose.

The elderly man checked the inside of the shed through the entrance. In the beginning, there was no way he could have realized what had happened.

On the floor of the shed, Nakanishi Kasumi had been arranged. Like the first victim, each part had been separated. She had been distributed methodically, in 10 centimeter intervals over the floor, in a 10 by 10 pattern. In short, her body had been turned into one hundred small clumps.

Inside the notebook, the scene of the production process was described.

In two incidents, no one had seen the criminal; the person who had killed them had not been caught.

The mass media was still making a fuss about these two cases, as a bizzare serial murder case.

"I like seeing these kinds of cases in the news."

"Why?"

"Because they're abnormal."

Morino said indifferently.

I also constantly watched the news for that same reason. And so I understood well what she was trying to say.

People had been killed, and then separated into pieces. People who had that done to them, and people who did that, actually did exist.

Morino and I held a special interest in these kinds of miserable stories. We would always seek out episodes that you'd want to hang yourself out of misery upon hearing.

I had never directly mentioned this strange trait, but we had both silently sensed it in each other.

Perhaps normal people would grimace at this. Our emotional sensitivity was out of sync. Which is why, when talking about, for example, the different torture devices around the world, and different methods for execution, we would talk in especially low voices.

Morino raised her face from the notebook and looked out the window. I knew that she was imagining the scene of Nakanishi Kasumi's various parts being arranged on the floor.

"This notebook, where did you find it?"

When I asked, she began to explain.

It seems that last evening, Morino was at her favorite coffee shop. The owner wasn't nosy, and the shop was gloomy and quiet, she said.

She was drinking coffee that the shop's owner had poured, while thumbing through the pages of "Cruel Tales of the World."

Suddenly, she heard the sound of rain. She looked outside through the window to see a furious evening shower coming down.

Morino watched the customers that had been standing up to leave, sit down again. They were likely thinking to wait a little for the rain to stop.

At that time, there were five customers in the coffee shop, not including herself.

Morino left her seat to go to the restroom. On the way, she felt something strange under her shoes. On the floor of black wood, someone had dropped a notebook, which she had happened to step on. She picked up the notebook and put it in her pocket. Apparently she wasn't planning to return it to its owner.

Even returning from the restroom, the customers were just watching the rainy scenery through the window; their number hadn't changed.

She could tell the fierceness of the rain by looking at the clothes of the shop owner, who had gone outside for a moment for some errand. They were completely soaked.

Morino forgot about the notebook and returned to reading.

The rain stopped, and once again, the sun came out.

Several customers stood up and left.

The summer sun's rays quickly dried the road.

It seems that it was only after she had returned home that she remembered the notebook, and read the contents.

"I went to the restroom twice. The first time, there was no notebook. Immediately after that, the rain started; which means the number of customers were fixed. When I went the second time, the notebook had been dropped there. The murderer was in that shop. The murderer lives in this neighborhood."

She made a fist in front of her.

Two corpses had been found in places that were 2 or 3 hours away from the town we lived in. One couldn't ignore the possibility that the murderer lived in this town.

But still, it wasn't realistic to say that.

This incident had doubtless been talked about far and wide. Much was still unresolved, and there were seekers-of-the-bizarre still interested in it. It had been discussed all across the country, even in elementary schools.

It had become overly famous.

It was hard to believe that the murderer would be living here.

"Couldn't this notebook just be a work of imagination based on the news reports?"

"Just read the the rest of the notebook."

"Please, welcome." It was with that kind of feeling that Morino spoke.

August 5th

I gave a ride to a female named Miguchi Nanami.

I met her at a soba restaurant near S mountain.

When we went to the forest on the south side of the mountain, we found a Shinto shrine.

I took her into the forest.

............

Inside the forest, the owner of the notebook stabbed a knife into the abdomen of the female named Miguchi Nanami.

According to the contents of the notebook, her body had been destroyed. In meticulous handwriting, the way both her eyes had been plucked out, the color and luster of her uterus, and so on, had been described.

And then her body had been disposed of in the forest.

"Are you familiar with the name Miguchi Nanami?"

Morino asked. I shook my head.

There had, as of yet, been no reports of the discovery of Miguchi Nanami's body.

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.