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The high schooler-like couple went into the room one door before the end of the hallway. Direction-wise, that'd be "1702," I guess. The door next to that one, someone who'd been carrying room service food was banging on it a little while ago. Partway through, they started tapping out a lively three-three-seven clap rhythm, not very bellboy-like. Seeing that young, blond guy knocking so cheerfully, it kinda makes my own face soften a bit. In the end, I guess no one was in that room. They didn't come out, anyway. And also, I've been hearing a cell phone ringing from over there for a while now. My phone is desperately waiting for a signal from her, and that phone over there is waiting for someone to answer its signal. Well, it's not like that means anything, but I guess I find it kind of interesting how hotels have all sorts of people, passing each other in the hallways, sometimes interacting just a tiny bit. That feeling of amusement makes me forget my other thoughts and gives me a little bit of mental breathing room, so I try to actively embrace it. I was taught that it's important to do your best to enjoy yourself, no matter the situation.
But the people passing by, there aren't many who are alone. Makes sense, I guess. This is a floor with twin rooms. But it's still pretty rough on me. It's different from how I feel about those lovey-dovey couples you see at the station; a more raw, vivid kind of emotion wells up.
Other than that, this is probably the second time I've passed by a young woman dressed as a cleaner. From what I've seen, she's quite young for a cleaner. A bit of a Chinese-style beauty. If I were to put a number on it, about a seventy Anjou. We exchanged smiles and nods again, which, for some reason, makes me feel a bit empty. I'm starting to wish I could just go home already. Why am I getting something like homesickness, me? I really don't handle pressure well, me and my stomach both.
Ah, I can feel the vibrations from the hall a little ways off; the elevator's stopped on this floor again. Don't come this way, I thought, but it seems like the opposite of what you're thinking is always what happens in this world. This time, it was a guy about my age in a suit and a green hat, and a middle schooler... couple. Couple? The difference in their height and appearance makes me imagine some other, more dangerous kind of relationship.
The two of them walked off in the opposite direction from that earlier couple. Brother and sister? They don't really look alike for that. The girl, without any warning, suddenly leaped up and spun around. She turned back, taking long strides, and walked right up to me. Then, looking up at me, she sidled closer and spoke. With a smile that held a hint of suspicion.
"Hey you, do you like mushrooms?"
"Huh?" The word "psychic" came riding on the back of my question. The girl's query about mushrooms slid in as if escaping the incinerator of time located diagonally to the left of my head.
"Mushrooms. Mmm, fungi in general, you know."
The girl spread her arms out wide to her sides. She looked like the D-pad on a game controller that's been used so much it's squashed, I thought. Though if you asked me how she looked like that, I'd deliberately dodge the question.
"Mushrooms, huh." Am I supposed to feel some kind of fate or gravitational pull from this question or something?
"No, I hate 'em. Like, really hate 'em." I tried answering honestly, for starters.
"Ohh. Well then, what about bat moths?"
"Bat moths? Never heard of 'em. What are they?"
"Hmm, then never mind. Truth is, I don't really get it either."
...Two antennas specializing in receiving human relationship signals just popped up. Is this kid one of those pop-and-cute quirky types whose head is filled with sugary sweets?
The girl said, "Let's go," grabbed the hand of the man who had trotted over, and walked away from me with her long strides. The man, looking somewhat bewildered, gave me a slight bow, as if apologizing for the girl's over-familiarity. I waved my hand a little from side to side, as if to say, "Nah, it's cool," and watched them go.
...Right then. I open my cell phone again. The screen hasn't changed. Well, I've got the ringer volume set to max anyway, so unless both my eardrums burst, I won't miss it. If a sound did ring out in the hallway, I feel like I'd "receive" the tension myself and jump.
"...Aargh," I sigh. I stare at the top right of the LCD screen, and my head droops. It's because I got an email at noon saying her train was delayed due to an accident involving a person, and she'd be about an hour later than planned. We were supposed to meet around two, so, well, sometime after three. Until then, I've still got about thirty minutes to go. If I have to endure another thirty minutes like this, my nerves are going to fry. Calm down. Times like these call for deep breaths. Okay, first, I need to figure out a way to calm down enough to even take a deep breath.
He was a strangely restless guy.
Hanasaki Tarou (Detective) & Touki (Girl)
2:30 PM
Being a detective, I couldn't help but notice the person standing in front of the vending machine in the hallway. That said, my work mostly consists of investigating romantic entanglements or searching for lost cats and dogs, so my habit of observation doesn't often come in handy. Real detectives don't handle murder cases, you know. That's the police's job.
Detective talk aside, that weird student-looking guy seemed obsessed with opening and checking his phone, so... well, he's probably anxiously waiting for a call from someone. It's pretty straightforward, but that's all I can come up with.
This time, Touki's question was even weirder than usual, so I ended up paying more attention than I normally would. I wonder if that student type is diligently cultivating shiitake mushrooms in a mine shaft or something. Not that it matters. I was taught it's important to keep your antennas of interest tuned to all sorts of miscellaneous things, but this is a bit much, huh.
Still, "I got the same scent from him just now as I get from myself."
"The lolicon scent?" Touki says, without turning around.
"Yeah. It's just a hunch, but I get the feeling he'd end up giving in to any request from a middle school girl."
"Huh. So he's a lolicon with a higher target age range than you, Luigi."
"It means he's a 'fan of younger girls' with a less precise preference,' that's all."
We walk halfway down the hall, and Touki stops in front of room "1723." Tugged by the hand, I stop too and take out the card key I had shoved in my jacket pocket. "Hurry, hurry," Touki urges, pointing at the thin slot on the door. "Yes, yes," I say, finding an unparalleled charm in her childlike gesture, and insert the card key into the door. A green light appeared. Proof that the lock was disengaged.
The moment I pull out the card key, Touki immediately twists the doorknob and pulls the door open. The door hinges creaked faintly, but it opened smoothly. While I hold the open door with my hand, Touki says,
"Wow, so 'a business hotel that's grown some hair' is an expression you use for times like this, huh."
Voicing this cheeky opinion, Touki strides (that's one of her things) towards the center of the room. She kicks off her shoes haphazardly as she walks, scattering them, and jumps onto the bed barefoot.
A quick sigh.
"Whee! Boing, boing, bounce... Oww-ow-ow!" Touki writhes, clutching her neck. It seems she was expecting the common scenario of jumping on a fluffy bed, sinking in and bouncing up, with dust poofing into the air, but this room's bed apparently wasn't suited for that. After attempting to bounce on it about three times, she seems to have hurt her neck. Hmm, just as expected of my ideal woman. Let me be clear, she's not a "little girl." The age of a middle schooler makes her a perfectly respectable "young woman." Let there be no misunderstanding.
While placing the duralumin case on the desk, I glanced at the window that incidentally came into view. There was no clear sky outside the window. A building-like structure directly opposite occupied the windowpane as a dreary townscape. "Not exactly the kind of view you'd gaze at upon waking to feel refreshed," I thought, pulling out a wheeled chair from under the desk—the kind an elementary schooler might use with their study desk—and sat down. The travel fatigue that had accumulated like a weight in my lower back sagged down with gravity, settling warmly into my rear and hips. Allowing a gravelly "Aahh" to escape me, I used the back of the chair to stretch my spine. A ringing in my ears rose like a water level, and Touki's groans momentarily faded from my hearing. Unsure whether blood was pooling in my head or draining from it, I let my vaguely hazy thoughts do a breaststroke and savored a brief rest.
"How long are we staying this time?"
Touki, lying prone with her chin resting on her clasped hands, asks about our plans. I finished stretching and shook my head side to side a couple of times before answering.
"Same as always, until the job's done."
"Right, so I'm asking what your target is for when you plan to finish it."
"Hmm..." Finding myself at a loss for an answer, I take the novel I was reading on the bullet train out of the case and quickly check if the cover is bent. I align its height with my eyes, make it level... This much should be fine.
"It'd be good if it's over in about three days. Setting aside whether there's a common rule among travelers to stay three days at any destination."
"Three days, huh... Then it might be over in one."
"What kind of prediction is that? You think it'll be faster? Are you trying to overestimate me?"
"Luigi, you've never been on time for various things. So, for once, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."
"Well, thanks for that." I carefully stick the book into my jacket pocket and stand up from the chair. With the up-and-down motion, the green hat on my head shifts, and I remember, ah, right, I was wearing it.
Because I always have it on my head, I'd started treating it like a part of my body. I don't think there are many people who check every time they wake up if their head is still there. For me, my hat is that kind of presence. It's not like it has some profound sentimental attachment, like it belonged to a deceased first love, or it's a straw hat entrusted to me by a red-haired pirate, nothing with that kind of fate and bond. But I've been wearing it ever since I was a student.
I take off the hat for a moment and brush my head. Without using a mirror, I casually arrange my hair with my fingers. I'd planned in early spring to get it cut soon, since it's oppressively hot in the summer, but before I got around to actually doing it, summer proper had ended. Has the flow of time sped up now that I'm an adult, or am I just simply a procrastinator?
"If we only eat out, our nutrition will get unbalanced. I want to eat your cooking again soon, Luigi."
Touki squirms across the bed while still lying down and reaches for the table. She picks up the hotel's restaurant guide, which is as thick and shaped like a restaurant menu, and flips through it. After putting my hat back on, I recall my boss at the detective agency where I work and a colleague of mine, both with their feet up on a desk, leaning back and napping, and I give a wry smile. One is an old guy whose secret nickname is "Hida Beef," and the other is a foreigner who speaks fluent Japanese and calls himself an "alien." They're quite the merry band.
"As for me, I'd like to get back to diligently working on my main job of finding dogs and cats soon, too."
I really get how a detective would want to search for dogs. After all, at our agency, an infidelity investigation is a "major case." We get one a year, if that. Usually, we're just catching lost dogs and cats, and then maybe once every six months, we search for runaway teens. So, I've never planted a listening device, nor do I own any equipment to detect them. I end up having to solve cases with just my own two hands, so to speak. Usually, I'm dealing with animals, so that works out, but when my opponent is a bipedal creature, it's a bit more troublesome.
Still, it's a wonder that our tiny agency of three, including the boss, manages to stay afloat, however modestly. Maybe it's because we also have a sign out for a judicial scrivener's office as part of a diversified business approach. As for me, it'd be nice if things weren't so "bloody" when work isn't involved. But it rarely turns out that way, and I end up being told I have a "detective's constitution."
I open a different, more formal-looking hotel guide than Touki's and glance through a few pages. After skimming the emergency exit locations and the hotel manager's greeting, I close it and toss it onto the desk.
"Well then, I'm heading out for a bit."
"Mm, see you later."
Without looking up from the guide, Touki waves her hand flutteringly. It's a gesture that could also be taken as "shoo, go away."
"Come to think of it, Luigi, has there ever been a time when the other party didn't find out you're a detective?"
"...With dogs and cats, I guess." I scratch my nose. It was a gesture to hide my embarrassment because I wasn't confident.
"Hey, Luigi."
"Hm?"
As she moves the restaurant guide away from her face, Touki's hidden smile suddenly blooms into my vision. That alone is enough for me to abandon the pursuit of philosophy and still not lose my reason for living.
"Be back before four, and let's go eat cake. There was a place near the front desk earlier, right?"
"Okay. I pride myself on never being late for a date with you, so leave it to me."
When she's involved, even acting two hours ahead of schedule isn't a pain for me. In fact, the waiting time itself is part of the date.
Now, it's just a matter of whether I take the card key or not.
"Touki, will you be okay without the lights on?"
"You won't be late, right?"
"Of course not, I promised you a date."
"Then I don't need it. I probably won't go out anyway."
"Mm."
After putting the card key in my pocket, I left the room. I trod quietly on the hallway carpet and let out a soft breath.
Standing in the hallway, quiet enough to feel solemn, I naturally recall how the boss was yesterday. The middle-aged man in his fifties, who runs around the office like a chicken shouting, "Hey, it's a big case!", was now making even this hotel hallway lively with my auditory hallucinations. To be noisier than the ringing in my ears is quite something. For a hallucination, his belly fat also jiggles realistically, just as I remember it. The feel of that belly is on par with the fine skin of an early-teen girl, so I secretly hold a sense of respect for it. Because when I mentioned it publicly the other day, I got punched.
"Right then."
This current job is an infidelity investigation concerning the novelist, Tachibana Eiji.
The client is a woman in her twenties who claims to be his lover.
Tachibana Eiji lives in hotels and has already been staying here for about a month.
His room number has also been identified through preliminary investigation (well, I just heard it from the client, though).
This time, should I be looking for "proof that he is cheating," or "proof that he is not"?
Though hesitant, I started walking towards room "1707," stepping firmly on the carpet with my heels.
......Now then, how should I go about approaching him this time?
Which was it he was approaching, Heaven or Hell?
Shiina Kouji
2:10 PM
The cold sweat, guilt, and impatience caressed my skin as if they'd judged it to be hell.
I've never tried rock climbing, but this must be exactly what it feels like. Unfortunately, the only thing I felt in response to this thrill was terror; I couldn't experience any of its appeal.
My eyesight is excellent for my age, so the ground below isn't blurry. I wonder if that's a plus or a minus in this situation.
Clinging to the hotel's outer wall, clinging... even so, I was starting to regret my initial decision, thinking it might have been a mistake. Because I hadn't calculated where I could get back inside the hotel from. The option of enduring it silently on the outer wall until the heat died down, then returning to room "1701" and making a quick retreat, was impossible because my guts, fingers, and feet didn't seem like they could hold out. The sweat seeping from my palms was whittling away at my life, and my nerves, worn out by fifty-three years, were screaming numbness in response to the strain.
But no matter how far I went along the outer wall, it obviously wasn't designed for humans to traverse, so there was no way I'd find an entrance or exit. I thought that as I tried to move forward. On the other hand, clinging to the hope that my path forward wasn't completely cut off, I turned my head to the right. That was it. Since a cat had walked here, there must still be a way leading inside. Specifically, a guest room window. Anywhere would do; if there was one left unclosed, I'd get in through there and... if there was a guest inside, well, I'd even threaten them to snatch their card key... or rather, borrow it. After all, in this hotel, you can't use the elevators without a card key, meaning you can't get to the first floor. There are emergency stairs for fires and such, but it seems the world isn't in as much of an emergency as I am, so they should be locked right now.
My ragged breathing was jarring to the ear, but it also served as a reminder of how desperate the situation was. Right now, rather than getting ahead of myself fantasizing about such escape methods, I had to break through the current situation.
And then, luckily, I found an open window. Setting aside my usual conduct, misfortune had been piling up this year as if it were an unlucky one for me, so maybe this luck was a small bit of interest paid back from my "misfortune savings." Feeling the mechanics of the phrase "a stroke of good luck amidst misfortune" firsthand, I reined in my impatient heart, desperate for salvation, and aimed for the window of the next room, probably "1702." I was truly grateful that the distance I had to move was minimal. If I'd had to go to a window on the complete opposite wall, I'd definitely end up being reported on local radio for about twenty seconds as "suicidal pervert guy." If that happened, my remaining daughter might follow suit, and there's even a chance our distinguished family could face total annihilation this year. I wanted to scream, "Give me a break!"
To "live enough for my son too" is an impossible wish. I wouldn't wish for such a thing in the first place. The reverse might be possible, but there's no way my remaining years could hold more value than the future of my son, who passed away before living even a third of his life. So I, so... how should I live? I can get as far as thinking that "ordinary" won't cut it, but... I was bad at envisioning the path of the future.
Somehow, while forcing my heart through hardship by trying to act while taking deep breaths, I arrived in front of the window of the next room. It was a long journey. A little over a meter in five or ten minutes – a snail's fast-paced journey. Praying it wasn't an optical illusion, I slowly lowered my right hand towards the window, which seemed to be open just a tiny crack.
While moving my right hand, I had to support my body with my left hand and both feet. Every time the wind blew, five or six chestnut burrs would rapidly grow in my chest and writhe inside my body. I feel like I'm going to die.
Sweat dripping from my forehead got into my eye, and half of my right eyeball was stinging. I didn't have the luxury of wiping it. Just like that, I somehow managed to lower my right hand to the very bottom of the window. I grasped it. When I put strength into my fingertips, it almost slipped because of the sweat, and I panicked greatly. The sweat stung my eyeball, making it cry out in pain, but I wanted to yell at it to read the damn room for a change.
I pulled with my right hand to try and open the window a little wider. It opened. While I was at it, I peeked inside, and it looked like no one was there. My luck was holding. The "Bank of Misfortune" seems more generous than actual banks these days with their interest rates. With a creak, I pushed open this stiff window too with the fingertips of my right hand. The sound it made as it opened momentarily freed my heart from its constraints and let me relax a bit.
For a moment, I almost deluded myself into thinking that with this, all my problems would resolve themselves in a chain reaction, as if a fuse had been lit.
I didn't have the energy left for any actions like hooking my leg over the windowsill or arching my body, even temporarily. If I could just get to a place where there was plenty of ground beneath me, I wouldn't ask for anything more.
I thrust my upper body into the room, fell headfirst, and did a sort of breakfall with my left shoulder. Sharp pain shot through me, and the impact resonated to the back of my jaw, but I forced myself to see it as good luck, thinking it was better than crashing to the ground from the seventeenth floor. Heat gathered in the lower part of my face as if blood were rushing there, and my hands and feet went numb all at once.
For a while, I couldn't move, feeling the bliss of being able to lie down on that dirty floor. On top of the air conditioner not running, heat was trapped inside the reinforced concrete structure. My sweat wouldn't subside at all. Because of the released tension, if I let my guard down, even my bladder felt like it might loosen. I remembered how the dog I used to have at home would languish in the summer, and imagined I was probably panting now in the same posture and with the same expression.
Why have I encountered such a situation? Is it because I was told to come here? Is it because the phone rang? Is it because my car's rear tire was flat just now, so I came to this hotel by bicycle? Or perhaps the cause was riding the elevator up to the seventeenth floor with that strangely elated-looking student-type guy? There must be a cause somewhere. But I don't know it now. It's probably because I haven't reached the conclusion of this whole affair yet.
Dragging my body, I somehow managed to raise just my upper half. I moved to the wall and leaned my back against it. My leg muscles were twitching as if a weak electric current were running through them. I feel like I've turned into an electric eel or something.
I have to get out of this room quickly. And then, back to room "1701"... Ah! I put the card key in those shoes! That means I can't get in from the front! Even if I ask the hotel front desk, it's not the room I'm staying in, so it's probably no use. In that case, through the window again... is that my only option? Luckily, it's the closest room from here. How much easier it would be if I could casually affirm repeating that same maneuver again. I have a fear of heights, you know! I usually don't even want to go up to the third floor of my office building.
My body is refusing to go out the window again without a break. Nausea and dizziness are washing over me, desperately trying to sap my willpower. There's no sign of any guest's luggage in the room. I hope this is an empty room. It didn't look like such a bustling hotel—convenient assessments like that flew through my mind, and unable to resist gravity and fear, I crouched down.
My veins were prominent, and trying to calm my trembling wrist, I half-consciously put my hand into the inner pocket of my rumpled suit. My fingers touched the corner of a box, and I pulled it out. Cigarettes. It's similar in shape to a cell phone, but I realize I forgot to bring my phone today. I must have been incredibly nervous before I left.
Cigarettes... I'd quit for many years, but after my son died, I found myself reaching for them again. The family members who used to complain about the smoke are gone from the house, so there's no one to tell me off anymore. My wife doesn't say anything in particular either.
Inside the box were a few cigarettes and a folded photograph. It was a photo taken on a trip when my whole family was still alive. Apparently, if you carry something like this around with you all the time, it's easy for "flags" to be raised, or something? I don't really get it. There was a word like that in one of the novels that filled my son's bookshelf.
Am I trying to fill the loneliness in my heart, even a little, with something at my lips? It was a fact that when my lungs filled with unhealthy smoke, I would gasp and feel a faint sense of satisfaction. But it doesn't last long. So I smoke again. Filled. Dissipates. Smoke. My recent days off are wasted in that cycle. Even though I'm supposed to be a parent, my senses are somewhat numb, and my perception of time becomes vague. The fact that I no longer write my work schedule in my planner as much as before—is that another sign that I'm slacking off?
"Having lost my family, I've started making efforts to die an early death"... I make all sorts of comical excuses like that, but it might just be simple nicotine addiction. Come to think of it, what was the reason I first tried smoking? As I try to recall the process through the numbness in my brain, my hands fumble through my clothes, searching for a lighter. I had a smoke before entering the hotel to calm my nerves; where did I put it afterwards? Every time, I put it away carelessly, so next time I inevitably end up going through this extra trouble.
...My trip down memory lane finished before I found the lighter. The first time I smoked was in the first semester of my third year of high school. It was over thirty years ago now, but back then, the rules in Japan as a whole were still lax, and even if a student smoking off-campus ran into a teacher, there wasn't any harsh reprimand. There were even times I'd be next to that same teacher at a pachinko parlor on a day off. That, I admit, made me a bit wary. And so, it started when I joined a group secretly smoking in the judo/kendo hall's clubroom during lunch break at school. At first, it just made me feel sick, but gradually it became a habit. Well, I admit it's an addiction. But it's funny, because it was through that process of having a smoking habit that I ended up meeting my wife... Oh, found the lighter. The flame shares its light with the tip of the cigarette in my mouth. Thinking about where to put the lighter, I took a deep drag of smoke. That purplish smoke, which made me choke at first, is now pleasant.
I take the cigarette from my mouth for a moment and exhale the smoke forcefully. I worried for a second what would happen if the rising smoke touched the fire detector on the ceiling, but then I came to my senses, thinking I should be more worried about my own future. I felt like fifty-three years of perseverance couldn't compare to the hardships of this single day.
Slowly, as the smoke flowed from my lungs, my stiff muscles relaxed. Seizing the opportunity, even sleepiness boldly intruded. My eyelids, serving as gates, seemed about to droop as if declaring, "Doors locked!" Unable to resist, my eyelids fell, creating night without permission. Even as I worried irrelevantly that the cigarette would go out, my consciousness faded. I felt like I could hear my own snoring coming from my nose.
And then my consciousness was rent by some metallic sound, and when I realized it, the official occupant of this room had come in. Was it the sound of a card key being inserted and the lock disengaging, or a doorknob being turned from the outside? I hardly noticed until they came in. Reality, already wrung out tight like a squeezed rag, was piercing my brain, yet my body showed no reaction at all. The other person was still silent, too.