III
Takumi walked from the bench to the park nearby, looking tormented and drained. "I thought I had gotten better…" He muttered to himself, "This can't possibly be just nerves now…This has to be a fever…My head, my head!" Takumi stopped to catch his breath, now stuck in the middle of the park. It was quiet, not nearly as busy as the pavement or the lobby, only a dozen people occupied the place. Takumi stepped down to a small lake where lily pads floated, drifting slowly, and metal flamingo statues stuck into the riverbed. Takumi stared. There was nothing to do but stare at the sight of the water bubbles and listen to the sounds of the birds that clung to the pink leaves on the trees. He examined the color of the lily pads. A dark green, almost navy tone. The slight cut in its circular mouth, and the almost patternless texture. "How many are there…" Takumi thought. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…Nine lily pads in the small river.
"Anything to take my mind off of my brother…" Takumi looked at the flamingo. Its face was worn, the eyes smudged off of it. One could only guess how long it had stood there. It could have been there long before Takumi, and long before his father. He felt a touch on his shoulder. Takumi jolted to look behind him.
"Hello." Said an old man wearing a fishermen's hat.
"Hello."
"What's your name?"
"Takumi…"
"Takumi? Interesting…"
The old man looked out at the lake. Takumi stared at the old man for a moment then turned around to look too.
"When did you come here?" The old man asked.
"Sorry-Whe-When did I come here?" Takumi was taken by surprise at the question, jumping when he asked.
"You really are a jittery fellow!" Said the old man.
"Yes…You have to forgive me, I'm just nervous. And to answer your question, I arrived here last evening. I'm meeting my brother."
"That will be nice, a family reunion…"
"Yeah."
They stared out at the lake again.
"You know, I had a brother here too once…" The old man said.
"Really? Where did he live?"
"I've forgotten. It was some cabin up far west where he stayed. He is dead now though, long gone…"
"Oh…I'm sorry sir."
"It's fine." The old man said, still looking out at the lake.
"To be honest," He continued, "...I'm glad he died. He wasn't even my blood. Step brother."
Takumi, his face now contorted with shock, moved his head slowly over to the old man. The old man looked at him too, grinning.
"I know how that sounds, but you understand don't you?"
"I-Well I can't say I do sir." Takumi said as he slowly stepped back.
"I'm not sure if you have felt it yet…"
"Felt what?"
"The feeling of a loved one dying. It's horrible, no doubt, but there is peace in it. Like a weight being lifted off of your shoulders."
Takumi stopped retreating. He moved slowly back to the old man.
"A weight being lifted?"
"Yes, it felt as if a weight had been lifted. Not because he was a burden-never that-but because the worry was. He had dementia, my step brother. It came early and it was merciless. He was only fifty. Some days he knew me, some days he did not, and on others he knew nothing at all. Once he told me he was sitting in a small room on a rainy afternoon, playing chess with our father. He described it so clearly that for a moment I almost believed I had been there too, though it never happened. He smiled then, like an infant who had been given something precious, and waved his hands around as if he were still moving the pieces on the board. That smile stayed with me. It haunted me more, so much more than his confusion ever did. Because I could not tell whether he was remembering something real, or inventing a happiness his real life never allowed him. I worried constantly, not only for him, but for myself, for what would become of me if I had to keep watching him slip away like that. So when he finally died, and his eyes closed for the last time, I felt relief before I felt grief. And yes, it frightened me. I told myself it was because he was at peace, and maybe that is true, but I cannot be certain. Sometimes I think that death ends suffering, and sometimes I think it merely transfers it to the living. All I know is that when the worry stopped, I noticed the silence, the bliss it left behind. And that silence was…comfortable. You tell me, does that make me cruel, or does it only make me honest?" The old man turned his head back to the river and his grin turned to a frown.
"I…" Takumi's palms had grown sweat.
"Don't answer. I'm sorry, Takumi, I just wanted to say this to somebody."
The old man walked away from the river, his back turned to Takumi.
"He's right…" Takumi thought, as he walked the opposite direction from the old man, and back onto the pavement.
He had run back to his room. The idea that a walk would clear his mind was a foolish one, or at least that's what he thought. The old man had sent a feeling of fright, one that he had never felt before, down his spine. He checked his watch. 10:03. Time had flown by. The next time he left the building, he would have to be going to the Yakuza. Takumi ran a hand through his hair and sat on the bed.
"How…I felt like I was only outside for ten, no longer than twenty minutes…" Takumi said, rocking back and forth. The walls of the room seemed to have compressed themselves since yesterday. The air ventilation gave off a low, loud hum, which stopped and then started again between intervals. Had that sound been there only ten hours earlier? Takumi did not know. The woman on the balcony had stopped singing. She had gone inside her house actually, the chair now was empty. Takumi smelled something.. It was the strong scent of the room-An artificial smell, filtered air along with plastic. Takumi opened up the suitcase and grabbed the letter. It was creased, with dog ears on the edges, and wrinkles across the sheet. The writing was tiny, so it could all fit on one page. He had to move it right up to his face to see the words. He looked down at the instructions. Number three was the one he would have to focus on.
3. In the morning, take a taxi to the intersection of Shirokane-dori and Minami-Shirokane 6-chōme. Tell the driver to stop just past the corner, near the vending machine and the low stone wall. Pay him there and leave the car immediately.
"The intersection of Aoyama-dori and Minami-aoyama 6-chōme…" Takumi repeated, "Aoyama-dori and Minami-aoyama 6-chōme…" He stood up, the letter in his hand. He folded it and crammed it into his pockets, the ones filled with Yen. With his right hand he picked up the gift suitcase. Slowly he stepped to the door. His hand fell onto the knob. When he opened the door, he could not turn back. Or so he told himself, though he had turned back from things before, many times, and with less reason. The hand did not move. It stayed on the doorknob. It was warmer than he expected, he had never put notice to the warmth. Maybe someone had come into his room and touched the door knob, maybe a worker fixed his bed up-he couldn't remember if it had been messy or not. People were always touching things. He wondered why that unsettled him. He could still let go. Nothing would happen if he let go, or if he opened the door. If he opened the door, he would just feel the grimy air of the hallway, the real time to be hesitant was when he'd get out of the taxi after telling him the instructions and then turn left and forty paces and then once you get to the third house another ten and then back and then knock once, knock twice, and it's all too much! Takumi shoved open the door and walked, no, jogged to the stairs and down to the lobby. The woman he had met last evening was at the desk, and it had become a lot less crowded. The clerk watched him. She watched him and with the corner of his eye so did he watch her. "Why can't you just keep your beady eyes off of me…" He growled, not loud enough that she could hear him. The door swung open and he made it outside. "No thoughts now, Takumi…" He said to himself, as he moved to the edge of the pavement and shakily waved his left hand for a taxi. Beads of sweat piled along his forehead, thick and salty, blurring his vision whenever he moved his head so much as an inch. "This damn sun…" Takumi thought, feeling it bear down on him as if it were another witness. A taxi drove up to Takumi. The window rolled down. A man of fifty, his beard clean shaven and wrinkles beneath his eyes, appeared.
"Where are you headed?" He said, his voice dry and flat. Takumi did not reply but instead rushed around the front and into the passengers seat, laying his suitcase below him once he closed the door and almost ripped his seatbelt on. The driver did not look at Takumi even once as he did this, and instead tapped the wheel in a rhythm, humming as he did. Takumi pulled out the letter and unfolded it. The driver finally looked at him.
"Ok, ok…Take me to the intersection of Shirokane-dori and Minami-Shirokane six-chōme!" The letter shook violently. The driver glanced at the paper once, then back to the road.
"That's not an address," He said casually.
Takumi stiffened.
"It's instructions!" He cried out, his hands extended to the driver with the letter.
"Instructions…" The driver added, as if correcting a receipt.
"Yes,"
The driver nodded. "Ok then." The car started, slowly but strengthily and made its way onto the road. The driver did not speak, not at all unlike Yamada. Takumi slumped back into the seat.
"Stop that." The driver groaned.
"Stop what?"
"-Hopping around like a bunny rabbit. Just sit still. Are you on drugs?"
"No! No drugs, no…"
Takumi sat up and looked at the letter. "Tell the driver to stop just past the corner, near the vending machine and the low stone wall." He read it again, and then again.
"Hey…" Takumi said, his voice high pitched and shaky.
"Once we get there can you stop just past the corner? Near the uh, the vending machine and the low wall?"
"I haven't been here often. I don't know what that looks like."
"I'm sure you will be able to recognise it. Just, remember-past the corner, near the vending machine and the low stone wall…"
"Okay."
The car swerved around a corner and made it out of the main street. They were in a quiet neighbourhood hill, with houses that rose upwards. Takumi suddenly felt as if he was on a rollercoaster, and that the car would tilt back and fall backwards down the road. A memory from his childhood came back to him. He went to an amusement park with his brother and mother when he was nine. It was only one year before he left them. They had been talking about the fair a week prior, everybody had, but when they got there they were too scared to go on any rides. Their mother, visibly feeling bad for them, bought three cotton candy sticks and ran over to the biggest rollercoaster, encouraging them to come on with her. Himself and his brother sat down, their hearts beating faster than they had ever at that point, and rode it. The biggest drop was one where they would get to the top, but then it would fall backwards again, and send them flying. By the time it was over they all got sick and continued to vomit for the next three days somehow. It brought a faint smile on Takumi for only a moment, before the darker thoughts came back to him.
"We're coming up on your address now." The driver said. Takumi couldn't help jolting up when he spoke.
"Already?"
"Yes, already."
"Ok, well just-try look for the…" Takumi looked at the instructions. "Try to look for the low stone wall. Past the corner."
"Yes, yes, I'm looking…"
Takumi stared at the street. The houses looked nice. They looked like the type of houses you would save up a long time to get. The houses were nice, but the things on the street weren't so much. A garbage bin had been tipped over, and a mucky slosh was pouring out of it. Flies circled around it. Posters, ripped posters, stuck to the lamp posts. A half-black half-white cat strolled down the street and then seemed to vanish after Takumi blinked.
"Is it here?" The driver asked. Takumi jerked his head. There was a stone wall. A low stone wall. He looked to the right. There was also the vending machine. Takumi did not say a word. He panted heavily and pushed open the door, grabbing his suitcase and shoving his letter into his pockets.
"Hey! You have to pay me!" The driver yelled, as Takumi had half of his body out of the car. Takumi flew back in and scrambled through his pockets. Three thousand Yen coins were thrown out and scattered onto the car floor.
"There! There's your money…I'm sorry I have to go!" And Takumi slammed the door. He had never felt like this before. His teeth shook, they actually shook from anxiousness. His entire body had sweat, his forehead the most. His lungs filled with liquid, he could vomit at any second. He walked, his head down and his hands almost dropping the suitcase from the sweat. He made it to the vending machine. He pulled out the letter with his right hand. Instruction number four: turn left and walk along the narrower residential road. Walk at a natural pace. Do not hurry, and do not slow down Takumi.
"Don't hurry…Don't slow down…Don't hurry…Don't slow down…" Takumi started to walk, the letter still gripped tightly in his hand, now moist and wrinkled completely. He looked at the letter again. Forty paces. Forty paces it said. He hadn't counted. Oh no! Oh he hadn't counted! Takumi ran back to the vending machine and turned left again, almost passing out while doing so. Now walk. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He counted under his breath, "...Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven." Suddenly the sun disappeared and a dark grayness took over above him. A sound of thunder, then rain. Water began to pour down, messing up Takumi's hair from the combed sturdiness he tried so hard to maintain. He did not stop walking. And he did not stop counting. "Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty." The rain poured down harder. Then harder again. A cold shudder ran through Takumi and just then, at that very moment, he would have liked nothing more than to run back to the capsule tower in the rain, go to sleep in his room, then book a plane with his money back to Fukuoka. But he did not. He kept counting. "...Twenty-five…Twenty-six…Twenty-seven…" A flash of light. Takumi froze for a heartbeat. Thunder. He thought for a moment, a very short moment.
"It's going to get worse…I'll get soaked and lose my steps-" Keep counting. "Twenty-eight…Twenty-nine…Thirty…" He opened up the letter again. He would need to read what was next. What was next after the forty steps? He did not know. As Takumi stood frozen in the downpour, his clean grey jacket reduced to a color of pure black, he stared at the letter. It was soaked. The ink had been wiped off.
Takumi somehow did not pass out right there and then–instead he stood, he stood for a long time staring. The letter was just a yellow soggy piece of paper, that had black letters blurred and moving off the page every second. It was no use. The rain kept coming down. He dropped the letter onto the ground. It became utterly useless almost instantly, when he started to move again and stepped on it, ripping it in half. He thought."It's gone, it's gone, everything is gone!" Takumi's head became at once something distorted. His feet lost their pacing, his limbs lost their will to move in a way that would be considered human. He counted. But the numbers blurred and melted, just like the soggy letter. "Thirty-No! Thirty-four! Thirty-six, seven, No! It's wrong! I have to go back to the vending machine! No, I can't go back to the vending machine. If I go back then I'll forget the steps after the forty paces!" Takumi stumbled, almost falling on his face. The suitcase was beginning to slip. He grabbed it up again. "How many? How many steps have I done? How many am I left with!" He shouted this outloud, a desperate attempt…Maybe the gods would listen to him. The street began to tilt, the houses loomed, the vending machine behind him shrank, then expanded, his feet moved, his feet moved. Did they move? They moved, but not as he willed them to–"betrayal, betrayal, my body betrays me." He wanted to stop. What was the point in it all? He messed up. He messed up badly. There were no more steps, and now they would kill him! They would kill him he thought, finally he thought the dawning fact that this was all a setup! It was all a lie, all a facade from the brother and they would chop his hands off, chop his feet off, then blind him, and they would–Stop. The houses. He recognised the houses. The memory in his mind from the letter. The first house had a metal gate, second had a clipped hedge, third had the dark wooden fence! Yes! The dark wooden fence was here! But what next? "Do I go up to it now?" He thought, "Now? Do I knock!? I know I have to knock in a special way…Something like one knock first then three…No, two…No, wait! I have to walk ten steps first, act like I am casual! Casual casual casual casual Takumi you fool!" Takumi straightened up. He put his hands in his pockets. He walked ahead of the dark wooden fence. Then he started to count. "One, two, three, four," Lighting flashed again. Takumi saw everything twice: the letter, the steps, the vending machine, his own sweating, shaking hands. "What is the point in it all? This will not matter in ten minutes, will it? Will this decide my fate? Forgetting the instructions? Will this kill me damn it!" Takumi thought he had said this out loud, but it was just a thought in his frenzied head. "Eight, nine, ten…Ten!" Takumi slowly turned himself in the other direction. He began to walk back to the fence. "Do it Takumi." He said to himself, no longer thinking but saying, "Do it…When you get to the door…Knock! Knock once, then…Then twice yes! Knock once then twice! Once then twice, once then twice…" He made it to the fence. The rain had a sudden effect on him. Every drop, every single drop he felt on his hairs, his body, his face. Thunder again. The rain poured down harder. It had turned into a merciless sheet, a roaring curtain of water that obliterated everything. It drummed on the rooftops and the gutters, it sang its sound of hitting the metal on the cars and the leaves. It hurled itself from the sky in violent rhythms, blurring edges, distorting shapes, and swallowing all in its advance. It nearly blinded Takumi. He raised his fist which was curled and trembling violently, the knuckles white beneath the skin. With a sudden impulse, as if something else took a hold of his body, he struck the dark, towering fence once. He froze again, like he always has, waiting, listening to the lines of rain. His mind had dissolved, he had lost his soul in the water the way cotton candy evaporates when touched by the same thing. He was a living organism in pure terror, breaking down. He was barely conscious. There was no fear, no excitement, just the instructions. The instructions to knock once, wait, knock twice. And so Takumi did. He knocked twice more, harder and faster this time. His heart was the only alive thing in his soul–it thundered in his chest just like the thunder outside. It was frantic, uneven, a drumbeat that seemed to ricochet off the walls of his ribs, skipping stuttering, then hammering with a force that made his teeth rattle. His mind came back, but not in a smartened way–he was a vicious creature inside of his brain.
"Stop it… stop it now… I want to go home… Why do I feel this way? I can't think… I don't understand…" Takumi ruffled his hair madly, " I don't want to do this, they will kill me! Why will they kill me why am I scared like this why am I scared like this–"
The fence door swung open. Three men wearing bright suits whom Takumi had never seen before stood before him, holding guns in each of their hands. Takumi pulled his hands out of his hair, and in that moment his brain seemed to reset. All of a sudden he realised the absurdity of what he was doing. The street tilted back to its original place, the houses went normal, the vending machine no longer grew and shrank in sizes, and Takumi let off a loud sigh, audible for the men with guns.
"I'm here to see Kage Ishikawa. I'm his brother."