ya?”
“Who’s that?”
“One of my pals. She’s totally hot.”
“Really,” Worm said, not terribly interested.
“Going to Tachikawa and back in one day made me worn out. Good exercise, though.”
I’d gone out to Tachikawa to meet up with Worm, then pedaled all the way over to Suginami to Toshi’s, an incredible distance.
It was kind of a snide remark, but Worm didn’t seem to care. Instead, he asked, “Hey, tell me something. How come you talk like a guy? I thought it was weird when we talked on the phone yesterday. But when I met you today, you’re kind of cute—although you dress like a guy. What’s up with that?”
This was out of the blue, and I didn’t know what to say. I never really thought about why. I went to a girls’ school and was told I was kind of mannish, so as a kind of gag I started talking like a guy and then it became natural. Dahmer and Boku-chan also always used the rough word ore for “I,” and I think it’s the first-person pronoun that fits best. When I’m thinking about something or feeling something inside of me, I use the feminine word atashi, but someday I’m sure this will change to ore, too. Worm’s pointed question made me remember that incident—the one when the transvestite grabbed my chest, yelled at me, and roughed me up. This curbed the secret feeling of closeness I was starting to have for him. So he’s a guy, after all. The kind who hates women dressed as guys, who denounces them. Did that make him my enemy? I sullenly stayed quiet, but Worm went on.
“A while ago I saw the evening paper at the convenience store. An article about me. I wanted to see, like, what the world’s thinking about it. It didn’t seem real. It was like I was dreaming. I looked up and there on the TV was the front of my house and some reporter babbling away. ‘What sort of ominous thing dwells in this suburban neighborhood? What happened to this boy who’s disappeared? Is the same darkness in this boy hidden in this seemingly quiet neighborhood?’ It felt so weird.”
“D’ya feel like you wanna go back to the real world?”
“I can’t,” Worm said coolly. “This is my reality now.”
“So why’d you make a reality like that happen? It’s you who made things that way, right?”
I was a little irritated. I suffered more than anyone else because my mom died, and because I’m gay—but I wasn’t responsible for these things. And now here was this guy who, just the day before, had created a new reality, one where he’d killed his mother.
“I don’t know.”
Worm didn’t want to talk about it. Just like when I’d met him.
“I’d like you to pull yourself together and tell me about it.”
“Why? Why do I have to tell somebody else? It’s personal,” he said.
“I want to know.”
“How come?”
“I want to believe that if I’d been you, I’d have killed her, too.”
Worm didn’t say anything. Silence continued for a long time. I looked at the windowpane, the curtain still open. My blank face, cell phone pressed against it, was reflected in the glass. The glass was perfect, not a scratch on it.
* * *
The first time Worm called my cell phone was after dinner, when my dad and I were in the middle of a fight. Dad was so upset he could barely speak, all because I told him I wasn’t going to take the college entrance exams.
“Then what do you plan to do with your life?”
How should I know? If I had to give a quick answer, all I could think of was working behind the counter of the Bettina, or else learning to be a transvestite. If I said that, my father would definitely cry. Dad’s proud of working in the media, but he’s actually a boring guy who’s pretty conservative.
“So you’re going to be like Winnie the Pooh, huh? Knock it off!” He was really pissed. “It might sound good right now, but what about later? Stop acting like a baby.”
I wasn’t acting like a baby. I really didn’t have a clue what I should do. After I went into
“Who’s that?”
“One of my pals. She’s totally hot.”
“Really,” Worm said, not terribly interested.
“Going to Tachikawa and back in one day made me worn out. Good exercise, though.”
I’d gone out to Tachikawa to meet up with Worm, then pedaled all the way over to Suginami to Toshi’s, an incredible distance.
It was kind of a snide remark, but Worm didn’t seem to care. Instead, he asked, “Hey, tell me something. How come you talk like a guy? I thought it was weird when we talked on the phone yesterday. But when I met you today, you’re kind of cute—although you dress like a guy. What’s up with that?”
This was out of the blue, and I didn’t know what to say. I never really thought about why. I went to a girls’ school and was told I was kind of mannish, so as a kind of gag I started talking like a guy and then it became natural. Dahmer and Boku-chan also always used the rough word ore for “I,” and I think it’s the first-person pronoun that fits best. When I’m thinking about something or feeling something inside of me, I use the feminine word atashi, but someday I’m sure this will change to ore, too. Worm’s pointed question made me remember that incident—the one when the transvestite grabbed my chest, yelled at me, and roughed me up. This curbed the secret feeling of closeness I was starting to have for him. So he’s a guy, after all. The kind who hates women dressed as guys, who denounces them. Did that make him my enemy? I sullenly stayed quiet, but Worm went on.
“A while ago I saw the evening paper at the convenience store. An article about me. I wanted to see, like, what the world’s thinking about it. It didn’t seem real. It was like I was dreaming. I looked up and there on the TV was the front of my house and some reporter babbling away. ‘What sort of ominous thing dwells in this suburban neighborhood? What happened to this boy who’s disappeared? Is the same darkness in this boy hidden in this seemingly quiet neighborhood?’ It felt so weird.”
“D’ya feel like you wanna go back to the real world?”
“I can’t,” Worm said coolly. “This is my reality now.”
“So why’d you make a reality like that happen? It’s you who made things that way, right?”
I was a little irritated. I suffered more than anyone else because my mom died, and because I’m gay—but I wasn’t responsible for these things. And now here was this guy who, just the day before, had created a new reality, one where he’d killed his mother.
“I don’t know.”
Worm didn’t want to talk about it. Just like when I’d met him.
“I’d like you to pull yourself together and tell me about it.”
“Why? Why do I have to tell somebody else? It’s personal,” he said.
“I want to know.”
“How come?”
“I want to believe that if I’d been you, I’d have killed her, too.”
Worm didn’t say anything. Silence continued for a long time. I looked at the windowpane, the curtain still open. My blank face, cell phone pressed against it, was reflected in the glass. The glass was perfect, not a scratch on it.
* * *
The first time Worm called my cell phone was after dinner, when my dad and I were in the middle of a fight. Dad was so upset he could barely speak, all because I told him I wasn’t going to take the college entrance exams.
“Then what do you plan to do with your life?”
How should I know? If I had to give a quick answer, all I could think of was working behind the counter of the Bettina, or else learning to be a transvestite. If I said that, my father would definitely cry. Dad’s proud of working in the media, but he’s actually a boring guy who’s pretty conservative.
“So you’re going to be like Winnie the Pooh, huh? Knock it off!” He was really pissed. “It might sound good right now, but what about later? Stop acting like a baby.”
I wasn’t acting like a baby. I really didn’t have a clue what I should do. After I went into
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