After Being Cheated On, I Drove and Took in a Junior College Killer

by Napoleon1815

I got blitzed and wrote this oneshot, under 10k words, no sleep. Warning: mentions of suicide, self-harm, graphic depictions of violence and NTR.

After Being Cheated On, I Drove and Took in a Junior College Killer

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It's one of the most recurring things in those B-rate movies you watch. The kind you see on the television when the midday reality show, where contestants engage in the absurd practice of splattering paint against each other or attempting to scale a drenched slide while those phony, despicable hosts babble on with their nonsense is over and there's three hours before supper. It always takes place in a high school setting. A young girl falls head over heels for a boy, and they get together for a while. Somewhere along the line, a snake enters the fray - often, another girl presents herself and steals away the boy's heart. The first girl, in a fit of rage, murders the other girl, apparently out of love for the other boy. The boy, having fallen for the other girl, now sees his former lover as a cold-blooded murderer. I always had an inkling on how those kinds of relationships end.

It begins with a girl again. She was a Junior college student. Excellent academic rapport, passed every exam with flying colors. She had a friend who was a year older than her, a Senior student. The whole fiasco started when the Junior's boyfriend, a good-natured Chiba Basketball varsity player, was seduced by the Senior. An initial scuffle ensued in which the three parties were all drunk and behaved badly towards each other. The Senior didn't show any remorse for her betrayal. The Junior, overwhelmed by the betrayal of her supposed friend, allowed herself to be consumed by hatred. The naive boyfriend, on his part, did say that if he were to choose, and he did, he'd choose the Senior girl. The Junior then ran off, leaving the two to themselves.

The Junior later tracked her boyfriend's Corvette down to a seaside park in Sodegaura city, where the two planned to consummate the night together. A second confrontation. This time, the Junior brought a knife with which she surprised her friend with a series of vicious stabs and slashes. The boyfriend watched in horror. It all happened so quickly, he later said. The Junior asked the Senior a few questions. The Senior replied in a supercilious tone, relishing her triumph over the Junior. That was when the younger girl took out a nine inch fillet knife from her backpack, the boyfriend reported, and with frightening deliberacy, stabbed the Senior girl. The guy told the news report crew that he was stunned by how much blood had poured onto the hotel room floor.

I saw it on the news the next afternoon. The reporter later credited the swift death of the Senior due to the "surgical" nature of the Junior girl's attack. Ironically, the Junior was a pre-med student. I know for a fact that it was easy to sever the arteries just above the kidney if you pulled the blade in a lateral motion, and it would result in unconsciousness from blood loss in under fifteen seconds. The news reporter noted that while the boyfriend was covered in blood when they got there, he was physically unharmed. I know exactly how he felt. I wish like hell that the story ended there.

Seven hours later, I was driving along the east coast of Tokyo Bay, in Ichihara, headed to the city to meet my sister. It was probably four in the morning. I slept little, and there was no point dawdling in the motel so I set out. At this hour, the road was sparse and only truckers drove this early to get their cargo delivered before the morning traffic began. Before I got on the expressway, I was surprised to find a student trudging the bend of the street. She looked lost, though she continued to walk towards the highway.

Nevertheless, I slowed down my car along the curb just before I passed by to her. My cat, Nagoya, who had been sleeping in the backseat stirred, sat up to lick a paw and scan the world outside the door windows, and purred, as if to ask me "why did we stop here?"

I lowered my window and watched the girl. She was strapped with a heavy-looking backpack and wore an oversized Chiba Uni sweater, which fell down almost to the hem of her skirt, making her look impish and cute. Her hands were hidden in her pockets. Considering how cold the morning was, it was strange that she didn't wear any stockings. It didn't occur to me how stranger it was to find her near a highway, alone, at this hour for that matter. When I finally slowed down to her, she said, not looking, "I don't need a ride." I asked her if she was sure, because Chiba was six miles away, which was where she seemed to be heading.

Nagoya had noticed the girl. When she suddenly jumped into the front seat and meowed at the student, her demeanor changed. The girl warmed up and waved at the cat. Nagoya had that effect on people. She was more enthusiastic than Kamakura, our late family cat. Nagoya was a black cat with iridescent green eyes, whom I received from a friend of mine. I thought it was an insignificant gesture, but she walked over and got into the front seat. When she recognized me, she sighed. I suppose when Nagoya quickly nuzzled up to her chest, curious at the new person, she forgot all about the burden she was carrying.

Nagoya started to whine and dig into her sweatshirt so notoriously that it was embarrassing. I had to pick her up by the back of the neck just to keep her from bothering the girl too much. They always seem to have a loose fold of hide where if you pinch it just right, it neutralizes the cat effectively. It was an instinct, so I read from a book. "Don't mind her," I said. "Nagoya is always too nosy with anyone."

"Where's the grey tabby, sensei?"

"Tsurumi-san, you know that Kamakura passed away. I had her for a few weeks now."

She didn't buckle her seatbelt. I didn't really feel like telling her. Tsurumi Rumi might be a student in my lectures, but she was just that. She was the silent, reserved student with a pretty face but an icy attitude. Instead she hugged her backpack tightly and curled in her seat, leaning her head against the door frame. My mind had questions otherwise. "What are you doing here at this hour, so far from school?" I asked quietly.

"Girl's night out," she mumbled. She shifted a bit. "Hey listen, sensei. I don't think I can keep my eyes open," she said. "Please wake me up when we're there."

I had an album of James Brown playing in the stereo, and in consideration, I dialed it down a bit. "Is the music fine?" I asked.

Tsurumi Rumi nodded. "It's OK." she said. "I like the noise. What I can't stand is silence."

Tsurumi Rumi hadn't slept that night. Unknown to me, she had passed the hours hiding into alleys, ducking into doorways, and cautiously soliciting rides from strangers who, like me, didn't listen to the news that evening. Later, I thought that it was impressive that she'd evaded police capture thus far, considering her boyfriend had witnessed what she did, in front of him. In the car, she slept hard. Her lips even whistled a bit as she breathed shallowly. I understood the fatigue from a lack of sleep. I, for one, crashed in a mattress room after thirty hours of staking out in front of the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters, when the hit was finally put out.

You may be wondering what I was doing out there on such a day. I was making a retreat from some nasty business of my own. For eight months I was living with my girlfriend, Orimoto Kaori, in Mihama. She's an actress, after I helped her get a part in a production by throwing in a word with an industry director, Toshiro Riichi, who everyone called Richie. Kaori first started by posing for advertisement agencies, but she eventually became a full-fledged model. Even though I had to coax Richie by threatening to strike his entertainment company and even have him killed, he put Kaori in another movie as a prime character after seeing her perform fairly well in the first one. She's no Kate Winslet, but she could hold herself on stage with just about anyone.

I was still involved in business along the sidelines, not because I was good at it or loved the life, but because I was first a wiseguy before a substitute languages professor. My sister convinced me to get a healthy, legitimate job where I could get accustomed to a less turbulent sort of living, or so she says. But I was still an underboss in the Ieyori family in Chiba city, where I ran the numbers game, pachinko parlors and the casino in Centennial hotel, in Makuhari beach. I oversaw the bootlegging and wholesaling business down in the bayside, and even had a hand in the construction industry. In short, everything was objectively perfect until it wasn't.

One day I was dealing around the construction site of a new commercial complex downtown, in Inage district. The cranes had stopped and the dozers had finished their work and were parked back on the beds. It was all bricklaying and mano y mano work now. I was fronting as a foreman, and had received a tip. The vans from the Yukinoshita Constructions company were coming around. There's no faster way to lose a working crew than corporate labor agents, and so I decided to pay everyone off and quit the work early for the day.

When I arrived at our apartment I expected Kaori to be at rehearsal. At least, I expected to pick her up from rehearsal at the studio that night. I always took her out to dinner on Saturdays. You can imagine how surprised I was to discover her there with Takano, her manager from the Fuji Television agency. He'd managed Kaori in several modeling and movie shoots, and she even brought him over to our place for dinner more than a couple of times.

Now, they were doing one of Richie's comedies in which Kaori had to giggle a lot. She had been practicing her giggle around the apartment for two straight weeks. It still sounded phony and overly-annoying to me, but what do I know about acting? Maybe it was supposed to sound like that.

When I walked in, somehow I suddenly knew what was going on between them. My sister Komachi, when she later heard about it, said, "well, duh. You are so clueless when it comes to picking up crucial nuances, nii-san. Honestly, I'm surprised you figured it out even then."

It's not like I walked in on them in the bedroom. But there was this thick, suppressed vibe lingering in the air of our living room. I don't know how else to put it. You know how sometimes, you'll interrupt a conversation and feel there in that momentary, awkward silence that the topic of the conversation had been you - and that they weren't exactly holding you in a good light?

They were sitting on the sofa with the script open on the coffee table. There were two empty wine glasses and a wallet on top of the script, and Takano's shirt was misbuttoned. Kaori was fumbling with her skirt and squirming in the corner of the sofa. They both looked flushed and guilty, talking too much and too quickly about the incidentals having to do with staging of the play. I inwardly understood as I stood there quietly that this wasn't a new thing, but in fact a regular thing.

I retreated to the kitchen. I would've opened a bottle of Heineken, but I reconsidered. In a sudden hypocritical streak, I thought of how childish drinking to my problems was. I ran my hands under the slow water of the sink, filled a glass with water, and turned my eyes to look at the pictures of us on the refrigerator. The utter silence in the room confirmed it. When I got back to the room, they were both gone.

And here's one of those subtle details that mean nothing at the time, but resurface only later, after much deliberation. As I was standing there at the kitchen sink taking miniscule sips of water, my mind continuing to kindly remind me of the treacherous scene - the red marks along Kaori's neck, and how her bra was clearly loosened from her pert, little breasts beneath her blouse, and the stupid bastard's wallet from which a condom wrapper poked out and the untouched scripts - of all the details that a "wiseguy" like me could supposedly pinpoint from a mile away while blindfolded, only one detail piqued my interest: it was that wooden block filled with kitchen knives sitting right beside the sink.

Later when I was back at my club playing cards with my friends in the basement, in a sudden openness of heart I told them some about what happened. "My girlfriend and I messed up," I say instead, not wanting to turn all the wrong against her.

Kawasaki Saki, one of my closest friends, said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not going to give you the whole song and dance bullshit." She said, "but forget about her. Kaori's such a little tramp, and you don't have to worry about her anymore. She doesn't deserve you."

Tobe Kakeru, also a colleague of mine, spoke. "You'll find another girl, Hikigaya-san," he said.

I would have attempted to explain to them, out of some sort of self-denial and need for a reason, but I found myself not knowing where to begin. Kawasaki said, "see, this is what happens when you become too complacent with your relationship. What, did you really think she was keeping the house while you're away, like a good wife? The problem is you're too soft on her, letting her forget who put her in the fucking movies in the first place."

At first I did not understand my friend's frustration. It was as if Kawasaki Saki was actually insulted and outraged on my behalf, despite my relationship with Kaori not concerning her. It wasn't that I felt nothing when I discovered Orimoto Kaori's betrayal. But Tobe later explained to me that "while you chose her, and pushed away Yuigahama-chan and Kawasaki-san who really had feelings towards you, it turns out that Orimoto had been lying to you all along." He said, "That's why Kawasaki-san was frustrated, because you rejected her before and now you have to realize your mistake the hard way."

I didn't think it was a mistake. I really loved Orimoto Kaori. It wasn't that she was the last woman who captured my affection, but because she was the first. People cannot begin to understand what first love means to a person, because it is special. Unique. My friends find it hard to believe when I tell them this. But this was the second time Orimoto Kaori had betrayed my feelings. The first was when I first fell for her.

The day after that awkward living room scene in which I slowly realized I was the third point in a ridiculous lover's triangle, as I was getting dressed to teach a lecture at my college again, Kaori apologized. She said what you'd expect someone in her situation to say, that she never intended to hurt me, and that she didn't know how strong her feelings for Takano were until she was past the point of no return. At that, I was a bit relieved, because it would've been worse if she continued to deny, and it meant that it wasn't out of some malicious desire against me.

But it was like she was talking to me on one of those kid-made phones, a string between two plastic cups. I had to strain to listen to her. "Orimoto-san, I can't understand what you're saying," I said. "I do not have time to talk right now."

Kaori started to cry. She said, "Hachiman, please. Don't leave. I can explain." She went up to me, holding my arms, and in between sobs Kaori said that she would've ended it all before the awkward living room scene, except that Takano was afraid of me. He'd heard the folks around talking about me, and Richie must've been prattling about how I was a Mafioso and all that nonsense. How the only reason why he put Kaori in the movies was because I threatened to get rid of one of his starlets. Takano must've feared that I'd pull a gun on him or send a button man to find him afterwards. I'm not a gunner. I wouldn't have shot him, but murdering him? With a knife I could've done it, but I didn't feel the need to. Later, I would realize why.

I suppose there were things I could have said back to her. At that moment, I just stared at her as she talked. When she was done, I couldn't remember anything she said. I simply smiled at her and left the apartment. She cried and continued to go after me, pulling my arms, begging me not to go. I remembered how I used to wail and beg my mother not to leave me in the classroom back in kindergarten. She pretended that if I traced the butterflies on our activity test nicely, she would stay. It was so long ago. Kaori was trying to block my way, making such a noise that the other tenants were taking glances out of their windows. "Please don't leave me! I can't lose you!" She screamed. I firmly pushed her aside and never looked back.

She didn't understand I had work to do. I wasn't so consumed by vengeance that I needed to throw her out of the place I lived in, but it was done, and I couldn't have lived with her any longer. I met the landlord that morning to pay for three months of rent in advance, and decided to fetch the rest of my belongings in the evening. As it turns out, I was ready to move on and just didn't really notice.

Komachi explained to me that this is what's wrong with me. This is my issue, my "disorder" as she puts it - I become apathetic towards any challenging emotional conflict or confrontation, and begin to perceive it in a detached, insensitive way. That I simply go through life in a more and more cynical way. I swear, those doctors were full of shit. Especially Dr. Miura Yumiko, who keeps telling me I'm "chronically insensitive". Believe me, they get paid to tell you that kind of stuff. It's not that I'm insensitive, but I have no more patience to explain to people over and over again why.

I keep on driving the car a steady fifty-six miles an hour, cruising along the expressway like a swallow into the night. It was a 1969 Camaro given to me by my friend, the boss of the Ieyori family, Hanzo. They had picked it right up from the unloading bay at the pier, from a Hoegh autoliner. The only thing was that it was a second hand, outdated sedan model, and when we took it to the workshop I had it fitted with new, comfortable seats and tinted windows. Regarding the engine, it was in an immaculate state, so there were no troubles with that. However, the common gripe from my friends is that my car has no color. After it was given a clean number and stripped of paint, I decided it was better off with just the base, dull, dark-gray coat.

After we passed by a tollbooth and crossed off from the expressway and into Wangan-doro avenue, I stopped just before an intersection. I had a binder of all the addresses and names of the students who attended my lectures, though I do not remember where Tsurumi Rumi lived. I concluded that it was best to simply drop her off at Chiba University, which was only a few minutes more away. I turned off the stereo and killed the engine shortly, and it must've been the sudden lack of noise and motion that prompted Tsurumi to wake up. She had that sleepy look that kids have when they come around. She stretched her arms and yawned into her backpack. She noticed that we were by a convenience store.

Further down the avenue was the theatre where Kaori attended her debut with me. I recalled how the industry director received her onstage, and all the applause that followed. Richie awarded her a coveted trophy for being the most popular cover model of Cinema Girls Japan. Nevermind that I had a part in rigging the polls just to get her to that end, she had a centerfold in that magazine. I remember the first time I saw it, how I immediately got hard. I found myself smiling as I recalled the times we banged around the house, having sex without a care in the world, and breaking a couple of vases in the process. Alas, all good things have to end. I finished pulling out a bill from my wallet and noticed Tsurumi looking in the direction of the theatre.

Tsurumi said quietly, "my mom once took me to a preview of a movie there. She was an assistant of the director. I guess I was about six, or seven. It was a pretty generic movie, but looking back I thought it was scary. She would've gotten a promotion as a choreographer for the films, but my daddy interrupted her. He said that she was needed in the house, even though I was an only child, and I learned how to do chores properly. I used to entertain the thought of becoming an idol, or an actress. I think he was just trying to spite her. I suppose my mom started hating me for that, ruining her job."

"Is that where you're headed now?" I asked. "To see your parents?"

Tsurumi Rumi looked away. She said, "no. I don't imagine I'll see my parents again."

I took the car keys and opened my door. "You want anything?" I asked her.

"No thanks," she answered. "I don't think I want anything else."

"I'll be right back," I said. Nagoya was now wide awake, and to prevent her from coming out into the streets with me, I picked her off my lap and handed her to Tsurumi. It wasn't that Nagoya couldn't come, she used to follow me out of our apartment and walk behind me as far as across the bridge, into Inohana, before going back as I continued towards the college. I feared that the cat would follow anyone, and then she'd get into trouble. I saw Tsurumi smile for the second time when Nagoya again leaned up to lick her face.

The lady sitting behind the counter glanced up from her nap, and greeted me in recognition as I strolled in the place. It was a cozy little shop. Nobody would think that a Lawson convenience store was one of the mob's fronts, and it was. In the back room, there were cases of wine that had just been driven down from the airport in Narita yesterday, so I went in to help myself with a few.

When I came out of the restroom, I picked up a few more items; a Double Mint, a short string of those tasty, ready-to-eat sausages and two cranberry juice boxes. I whistled idly as I tossed a pack of cigarettes on the counter for my own personal pleasure. While I was paying, the lady behind the counter said, "looks like your girl took off."

"Come again?"

"The girl in your car. Is she your sister, Hikigaya-san? She took off into the streets while you were in the restroom."

The passenger door of the gray Camaro stood open. Nagoya was gone. I hurried out and threw the bags inside before walking down the streets, towards the intersection. I clenched my teeth and hissed to call Nagoya. I would've called out Tsurumi Rumi's name, but I knew she was unlikely to answer. I strained to listen, and heard distant meows further across the intersection. That meow was a response to my call, but the continued noise Nagoya made was in reaction towards something that had happened along the way.

The whole stretch of Wangan-doro avenue was sparse, with almost no cars even at five o' clock. It was still too early. The streets were brightly lit, and all the billboards and LED signs and storefronts were open, but there were no people. It's like a beautiful ghost town, or rather, a city. Sometimes, one could hear the loud crack of a shotgun roll down the avenue, coming from a tenement or alley, which was a reminder of the darker side of the city. As long as Nagoya kept meowing, I walked. I mentally triangulated her location and eventually reached a shadowy turn from the street.

I realized later that it was good I had taken the ignition key with me, as I usually did, when I got out of the car because otherwise, my ride could've been hijacked by none other than my student. I stepped into the mouth of an alley and peered to find Nagoya posed tensely beside the wall. Tsurumi Rumi was facing away from me, fumbling with her backpack on the ground. She had taken off her oversized sweater. I approached her to ask what was the matter, and that was when she turned towards me. The front of her dress shirt was stained with an ugly, splotchy mass of dark red. I knew it was blood, because while it turned a brownish color when it dries long enough, her wearing a sweater over her shirt kept it from oxidizing.

Tsurumi Rumi's ocean-blue eyes had filmed over with a dark, erratic look. Anyone's first reaction would be to conclude her as a goner, someone who had lost it in the head and committed the most heinous of crimes. In her hands, she was clutching a blood-encrusted kitchen knife. Her hands began to shiver. She stared at me wide eyed, with an almost frightened look. Her lips quivered.

"I'm so sorry, sensei," she said in a fragile voice.

"It's okay," I said calmly. "You can leave the knife down on the ground."

There was always a saying that when facing a man with a gun, you charge straight at him, but when facing a man with a knife, you run away. In some way, the absurd logic behind it almost seems reasonable. A gun will kill you at any distance, but a knife is only dangerous at an arm's reach. At that moment, I didn't know yet whose blood exactly was soaked into Tsurumi Rumi's shirt, but I understood her next actions. She was a frightened animal, fearful, and now cornered, there was no room to escape. A cornered animal will fight. The dreadful, pained expression in her eyes was easy for anyone to read. It was that peculiar, but very recognizable look of guilt only particular to having taken the life of another human being.

Without warning, she lunged at me once I had approached close enough. I think she also knew that it was futile, that I knew what she was about to do. She risked being imprisoned and losing a big part of her life and her freedom by leaving me alive as a witness. I understood her perfectly. When she thrust out the knife in her hand, I easily skirted it and grabbed her wrist. She wasn't a very strong girl, but she could've put up a fight if she wasn't exhausted. Our short scuffle ended with her back against the wall, and my other hand pinning her neck still.

Again, this was one of those small nuances that resurface later on in hindsight. I don't think my friends see me as someone who is a cold-blooded killer. I was nothing like those other guys in the mob, I didn't think so. There were plenty of other men who sat at the same table as me, who had put to death a frightening number of other men. Such is the awesome capacity of these individuals to kill, in the same manner no different from a daily routine, as easy as fixing breakfast. I am not one of those men. And when my friends heard of what I had done back in Shibuya, they had avoided me for two weeks. Do you know the feeling of nausea, just as the bile has risen up to your esophagus, in prelude to vomiting? Imagine that, but for two whole weeks. That was the symptom of having put to death a great number of people.

And the way she easily dropped the knife when I twisted her wrists, and how a look of fear shot over her face when I clamped down on her throat, I knew Tsurumi Rumi wasn't meant to be a killer. She must have seen the look in my eyes. She knew I had done bad things too. I released her after a moment and moved away, continuing to watch her. Nagoya had fallen silent now, curiously eyeing the both of us. I picked the cat up in my arms.

Back in the car, I said coldly, "you do not have to say anything. When I told you to leave the knife on the ground, you should have listened."

"I'm sorry, s-sensei," was all the answer from her.

"I do not know what has happened to you, and it is none of my concern. But in this state, you will do more harm to yourself and to others."

She stared at me with big eyes. "You won't report me to the police?" She asked.

I stare back at her. "I told you to dump the knife in the garbage bag because it is bad habits to be carrying a murder weapon around with you. They never check anything going to the landfills. And besides, they already know who you are, Tsurumi-san, so you should have just left it at the scene."

Tsurumi Rumi was silent. She was holding her knees close to her chin, like how those kids who play the streets in my neighborhood curl up when their mothers arrive, armed with a slipper and the intent to punish. I wasn't sure if she was sad, or guilty, or washed with relief even with the knowledge that I was not going to turn her in. And why would I? What would that make me, a moral citizen? Such things mattered little to me anymore. But I do not care to help her at all, this was her ordeal, and hers alone to deal with. At this point, you must think that I'm some kind of sophisticated psychopath, but I'm not. I still held the minimum requirement of concern for humanity, and so I worried a bit for her well-being.

I punctured a straw into a juicebox for myself, but glanced at her. "Want some cranberry juice?" I offered.

"Yes." She took it from my hands too eagerly and started to suck up the drink. She was parched. "Where is it you're going?" She asked, coughing a bit.

"Slow down, Tsurumi-san. You'll choke yourself," I scolded. I said, "my sister lives in Tokyo now. Her husband's a big-time financial lawyer in Minato. They own this incredible condo along Daiichikeihin avenue, a real posh, fancy place. She wants to invite me over for dinner after I broke up with- " I shook my head, and instead offered her another juicebox. "Have another. Anyhow, she invited me over for dinner to 'celebrate', wherever her cause to rejoice stems from…" I muttered. "She's dishing out a nice curry, and her husband is supposed to cook up a real good rib-eye. I have the honor of bringing the wine."

"Can… Can you take me with you?"

"No."

I stared at her, trying to keep the wheel steady on the road. Tsurumi pouted, as she sipped on her second juicebox sulkily. "You did not even think about it," she said.

I did not answer. Nagoya hopped onto the compartment in between our seats. She was purring impatiently at me. I reached into the bag in the backseat and fished out the string of ready-to-eat sausages. I glanced at her. "Tsurumi-san, can you cut loose a sausage with your knif- nevermind," I said.

Tsurumi stared at me even more. I handed over the string to her. I told her to eat, as she looked absolutely famished. She hadn't eaten anything since yesterday, having also skipped dinner before setting out on her little mission. It didn't matter, because along the way, now that I could smell her in the car, she must've vomited a few hours before I'd first picked her up. She tore off a sausage and allowed Nagoya to take it from her fingers. It brought a small smile to her lips. Afterwards, she began to devour the sausages one after the other. When I started to chuckle, Tsurumi laughed a bit. It was a guilty, unintentional laugh, but a genuine laugh nonetheless.

I think this was what Komachi meant when she said that I was always too detached, too nonchalant about everything occurring in my life, and able to move on from pain, death, suffering and betrayal with ease, to the extent that I could share breakfast and the company of a blood-soaked murderer in my car, and still find an opportunity to laugh. I could pinch and shoo away my cat as she tries to alert me. Good heavens, I could pick up someone wandering along a street, four o' clock in the morning, and be trivial about it.

Tsurumi spoke up, as she finally started to slow down from eating. "What's her name?"

"Nagoya?" I said.

"Does Nagoya like cranberry juice?" She asked.

"You can let her lick from the tip of the straw," I suggested. The black cat perked up to lean towards her. "Though don't feel too obligated."

Tsurumi moved the straw down to Nagoya and she started to lick at it. Tsurumi laughed when the cat started to lick her chin with her rough, fruity tongue.

"But the real reason why my sister invited me over is so she can help me put my life back in order. She believes, given time, that she can fix me," I continued.

"Fix you? Are you broken?"

"No more than anyone else, sweetie," I said to her, smiling. "But she's got an incredible plan for me that I couldn't have come up with in a million years for myself," I add sarcastically. "Oh, just toss the empties down in a corner. Don't worry about it."

"What's the plan?" She asked.

"The plan involves less solitude and cigarettes and more 'good socialization with friends' as she puts it. The plan involves church on Sundays, babysitting my friend's little girls, and finding a good woman who isn't an actress, and fitting in with the community. By fitting in, I take it she means staying in one place for a while. Family, she says, is the key component of the plan. I have to admit, it does sound right."

"Well," she mumbled. "That sure is a plan." She looked directly at me. "Good luck, and I hope you find what you're looking for, sen- Hikigaya-kun."

"And what about you?" I asked.

Tsurumi gave a sad sort of smile, and laughed. "My plan sort of blew up in my face. But I should've stuck to it anyway."

"You're a student in my languages lectures, aren't you?"

Tsurumi Rumi looked away, out into the window. "My boyfriend is. Was. Still is, I guess. My ex-boyfriend."

She said it in a way that even I knew not to inquire any further. It allowed me to put in the final piece into the mystery of what had happened with her that fateful night.

Later that afternoon, after being received with a warm welcome into the home of my sister Komachi and her husband, I turned on the news and rooted myself in an armchair. Sure enough, after the stupid commercials finally ceased and the news channel popped back up, my Junior student's story made the headlines. Looking back, it all made sense. If you asked me if I had noticed the smell of blood on her, I couldn't have, because the car windows were down as we drove that morning. Up until now, I was only quite certain that she had hurt someone gravely. I learned that Tsurumi Rumi had slain her close friend and Senior colleague. The reporter showed a picture of a beautiful looking girl with wavy brown hair and a nice smile. I never took the effort to remember her name.

At dinner, the three of us had quite an entertaining discussion. It began with my sister's husband who, oblivious to the dual nature of my Junior student's story, and what I knew of it, said, "what would you feel if you were in the same room with a crazed killer who could, at any moment, use a table knife against you, like that girl from the news?"

I understood that he meant it all in jest. But I smiled coldly at him. "She was just an exhausted kid," I said. "She was no more a crazed killer than me or you."

Komachi laughed. But in her voice, I knew I'd done it again and the atmosphere became foul. There was a tense lull in the air that she tried to remedy. She said, "Well! I think we can all agree that she's done a bad thing, and that the victims deserve to be done justice. Don't you think, nii-san?"

"The problem with that theory, sis," I said curtly, "is that if a crazed killer was sitting amongst us right now, you wouldn't have had an idea of what she'd really done, and most importantly, why." I added, just to cleverly stoke the fire a bit more, "she was a very sweet girl. Sassy, but polite. She could've been your daughter, Komachi. For all we know, she could have been anyone."

"Hikigaya-sama, I understand that she was a student of yours," my sister's husband said.

I smiled again. "Do you?"

"But put yourself in the victim's shoes. For that matter, I suppose you already are." He said, "Don't you feel anguished to learn that one of your students has turned out to be a bad person, someone who had endangered your other pupils' safety? I'm not justifying the punishment doled out by our country's system, but do you think of terrible violence as excusable?"

I sat back, inwardly impressed by the cleverness of lawyers. They're such tricky little punks, able to do more havoc with their little briefcases and fountain pens than a hundred wise guys with guns could. If I wanted to win an argument against a woman, winning over lawyers was the first step. I produced a pack of cigarettes from my overcoat and lit one up without my sister's permission.

"Mr. Watari, have you ever fantasized about killing someone?" I asked him.

"I- well of course not, I'm not a killer," he answered.

"But like everyone else, you've entertained the thoughts."

"I fail to see the relevance," he said, admitting his check. "You must know as well as anyone the difference between thoughts and actions."

"This is the difference right here." I raised my glass of wine with a smile. "Now tell that story. Tell me what you would've done," I said. "Tell about that darkness that lurks in the corner of your prim little imagination. Tell about our true human nature. Turn that finger on yourself. Not your smiley, dopey lawyer self, but the real you."

You'd think that the story would end there, with a foggy ending that left narrow room for much speculation. For the next few days, for the first time in a while, I hoped like hell to find that my student was still alive and kicking. She was a wanted fugitive, a criminal at large. She was an intelligent, but also surprisingly dumb, emotional girl. I wouldn't have allowed my emotions to get the better of me, but I guess that's what made her more "normal" than I am. I've unfortunately disobeyed the guidelines posed by my sister and instead spent my time in Minato city isolated in my apartment hotel room, leaving myself with a generous amount of time to reflect.

Six months later, I would be charged and arrested on sixteen counts of murder, an assortment of other crimes and an indication of conspiracy and racketeering. Do you know that Al Pacino movie about the Cuban who flees into the U.S. and decides to embark on a personal quest to fame and fortune? He nearly met an early, gruesome end of being torn in half by a chainsaw after dealing with Colombians. Anyhow, I would not attempt to even analogize that to my life. When I first watched that movie with a friend of mine back in high school, the ending really dazzled and shocked me. Somehow, I saw myself losing everything in the foreseeable future and dying in a dramatic fashion. Well, maybe not in a dramatic fashion, which is what I'm mostly afraid of next to marriage and bees: dying a lame death.

Thanks to my ex-girlfriend, I've had the honor of experiencing our country's penitentiary system first-hand. Respite came in the form of visits from several close friends and a certain student of mine. While I wait for my lawyers to beat the cases and bail me out of jail, which shouldn't be long now, my Junior student comes to visit me almost every other day at the mess hall, where mostly, the wives and girlfriends of my fellow inmates come to bring them bentos and kisses. I fear that Tsurumi Rumi has grown too chummy with me. Now, I write one more letter to her in case any unexpected things happen again. Yes, I write this letter to you.

One week after the incident, I returned to Chiba in order to lecture my classes again, this time as a fully appointed languages professor. The brief vacation allowed me to straighten several things out, in business and in family, before I resigned to a more pleasant position as the Boss of Chiba, and substitute teacher to a class of unruly college students. I was in the faculty room that day, acquainting myself with my co-teachers when my phone rang a notification. Looking back, I realized I was somehow anticipating that particular message. I was relieved to find out it was my Junior student, Tsurumi Rumi.

Ever since that evening she decided to embark on her personal quest of vengeance, life had been harsh on her. I do not think she is familiar with the concept of consequences, and facing the music when it comes. I understood her fear, her regret. The classroom had moved on, same as usual, and after a while she was forgotten. She did not matter much in the grand balance of things. Anywhere else, they mourned the absence of the Senior and sympathized with the boyfriend. That evening, Tsurumi Rumi asked to see me. "Please forgive me, sensei. Meet me at the Keisei-Chiba station," she texted on the phone.

I initially didn't recognize her, as she had tied her hair up into a bun and wore a face mask over her nose and mouth to avoid detection. Those ocean-blue eyes seemed to brighten when I showed up. She still wore the same Chiba Uni sweatshirt over her skirt. Her shoes looked dirty, but she was fine. The best I'd seen her in a long time, and she must've been taking midnight baths at the onsens, when nobody watched her. I took it that she needed someone to talk to, someone who could understand her plight. The police and the judges hardly would, and it wasn't like she had any other friends left, save for me, a mob boss and Nagoya, a cat. As we walked down the staircase in the station and along the empty platforms, Tsurumi Rumi and I spoke.

Tsurumi started telling me and explaining to me a lot of things that had happened, and how it came to be, and why. She said, "I'm really sorry about what I did. Nothing can change now, I know that. I could never forgive myself for what I've done. But still, I just can't let go of it. I killed my friend because she betrayed me. She took the guy I loved away from me. What did I do to deserve such punishment? I didn't want to kill her… I just wanted to get rid of her for good." She asked, "do you understand me, Hikigaya-san?"

"I hear you," I answered.

"Have you ever… killed someone?" She asked.

I could only smile at her. She was frightened by my silence, but continued.

"T-Then you must understand. For the past few days, I've been living in hiding, and I felt awfully alone. I'm scared of being caught." She said "I don't want to go to prison. I- I'm not a bad person. I said I was sorry."

"I understand. It's okay, you've yet to come to terms with what you've done."

Only then did I realize that Tsurumi was on the verge of crying. Her face wasn't contorted into a look of pain or anguish, but it was serene, nonchalant, like how she always looked. Beads of tears quietly brimmed in her eyes. I saw apathy in her, something I easily understood. But there was a child-like semblance in her eyes. She was truly afraid, like how young children reacted upon committing a mistake, and ordered to lay down on the floor for a beating, and at that moment realizing the very real punishment that was about to befall them. When faced by such a basic, such human fear, it can only trigger a need to escape. To run away, and keep on running.

She said, "I wanted to kill myself, Hikigaya-san. That day, after you picked me up on the road, and when I ran out of the car, I was going to kill myself. That was why I still had the knife with me. I'd planned to take your car, but, well..." She trailed off.

"You wanted to commit suicide?" I asked. "And I assume you planned to drive my Camaro into a wall, to kill yourself?"

"Y-Yeah."

"I have it noted never to leave my car keys in the ignition, especially around you. Also, car crashes are pretty excruciating, Tsurumi-san."

She froze. "I couldn't do it," she said. Tsurumi started to laugh softly. "I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm so useless, I couldn't do that one simple thing. I don't want to die painfully. I'm starting to be afraid of knives. I keep having nightmares about that night. I promised myself that if nobody showed up, I would jump off of the platform and into the tracks."

I was astonished. "If I didn't come… you would've jumped in front of a train?"

She nodded slowly. "I don't want to die," she suddenly said in a fragile voice. She said, "I can change. I don't want to- I…"

Her answer was never finished, it was contradictory, but it was perfectly clear.

There was one time I witnessed a jumper inside a subway station in the metropolis. Did you know that in an event of a train-related suicide, the station would be forced to evacuate all of the passengers and commuters from the entire premises? I've seen it happen once. A student, probably still a high schooler, had been standing just before the platform edge that day. I was minding my own business. When it had happened, soon after an officer on the loudspeaker declared, "attention all passengers. Due to a reported emergency, the station is now being shut down. Please evacuate promptly."

I happened to be meeting with a very important representative of another family. As I started to hear the approach of the train, that was when the suicide happened. The student had thrown herself right into the rails, where the heavy tram was careening along with great momentum. You'll be surprised how easily the human body is turned to mincemeat by a few seconds of being sandwiched in between under a train and a hard place. It was no instant death however. Memory vividly reminded me of the scene: it was a bloody mess of ribbons, like some sort of wicked after-party. That's where the expression "scrape you off the rails" might've come from. Wiseguys sometimes scared people by threatening to kick them off the platforms when they least expected it. But there was almost no way to stop a jumper once it's too late.

I held her hand tightly. I didn't say anything else. I suppose there were things I could've said to comfort her, to soothe her pain and fears, but I guess that's where I fall short. We heard the horn of the train signalling its approach, echoing as it rolled down down the tunnel and made the platform vibrate, as it bypassed us. We stood together as we watched the thunderous beast of metal slide past the station, and continue its journey. Again, it's a subtle nuance I understood later on, but I was glad that she'd been standing beside me, and not anywhere else. Tsurumi Rumi broke down in tears and started to sob. I drew her close to me and embraced her tightly. It was what I would've done to family, if I ever got to have one of my own. I'll make sure not to end up like the megalomaniac Cuban in that Al Pacino movie.

I squeezed her hand as she shed all of her burden, all the weight she'd been carrying thus far in tears. Komachi always told me that it was natural to cry. That it was even important. Eventually I'd have to agree. Otherwise, this girl would've been destroyed from the inside by her own emotions. I knew. When another person makes you suffer, it's because she suffers deeply within herself, and her suffering is spilling over. She doesn't need punishment; she needs help. That's the message she's trying to send. Or so that's what the annoying doctor at the clinic in Inage, for all she's worth says. So I keep on holding her, and don't let go.

I've thought, and come to think of it, I've never really made a real good plan for myself. I decided my sister Komachi was right. Now, what the hell am I going to do with this girl? But if anyone's got a better, million dollar plan to change me from being a cynic, god damn it. Let me know.

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(Where do I even begin? This is a one shot, any reviews are highly appreciated. This is some of the alternate plots I scrapped, but decided to turn into a stand-alone story.)