Brave Story (5 page)

Though the kids actually driving the car had been in the grade above, one of the injured students was in Wataru’s class. That’s why Kuniko had attended the emergency conference. When she got home she was seething.

“Why was he apologizing? Doesn’t anyone find that odd?” she said with a scowl to no one in particular. “I can’t believe the principal has the gall to claim it was his fault for parking the car where he did. Parking a car isn’t the problem! It’s the kids who stole it and drove around the schoolyard that are the problem!”

Apparently, even at the conference, the majority of the parents had looked to the principal to take responsibility for what happened.

“They say that kids are mischievous by nature, and so it falls to adults to watch out for them. Insanity! I even heard someone saying how impressed they were that sixth-grade kids could drive so well! I swear, what is the world coming to?”

Ultimately, the three students’ injuries were little more than bumps and scrapes, and so the whole affair didn’t get any larger than that. No police were informed, the newspapers didn’t pick up the story, and the principal didn’t resign. In the end, the net result of the incident was that Ishioka’s ranks swelled, and their power over the rest of the school grew.

Still, Ishioka leading an expedition to take pictures of a ghost? It didn’t make much sense. Wataru couldn’t see the connection.

“Maybe all those sixth-graders wanted was to get on TV?” he wondered out loud.

“Probably so,” Noriyuki agreed, glancing sideways at the building. “I even overheard one of them say that if they didn’t get good pictures, they would just fake it with a computer.” He chuckled.

“No way,” Katchan shook his head. “So, did you run into them here too?”

“Sure did. But that time it wasn’t just kids. There were two adults with them.”

“Reporters, no doubt,” Mr. Daimatsu said, his arms folded across his chest.

Noriyuki nodded. “When they saw us, they pretended to be parents, but they had that sort of hungry look you see with people in television.”

Wataru looked over at Katchan. “You hear anything more about that from your dad?”

Katchan shook his head. “Last I heard was that Ishioka’s father was boasting they were scheduled to appear.”

“Did any of you see the program?” Noriyuki asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Nope,” Katchan shook his head. “Ishioka’s dad doesn’t come to the bar anymore—oh, and by the way, my parents run a bar,” he said, giving them his best bartender’s grin. “Maybe the show got canceled. My dad hasn’t said anything about it.”

“Or maybe it just hasn’t aired yet.”

“That’s a possibility. Television programs take more time to put together than you’d think. That’s probably it.”

A wind blew, rustling the blue tarps. They all tensed.

“Look at us!” Noriyuki said with a laugh. “We’re as bad as the ghost hunters.” Everyone’s gaze was turned up at the building. “We of all people should know best that there are no such things as ghosts, and certainly not here. You’re looking a bit pale, too, Dad.”

Mr. Daimatsu grinned sheepishly and scratched his head. Wataru had seen that gesture so many times this night already that he wondered if it wasn’t the scratching that had given Mr. Daimatsu his big bald spot.

“That’s right,” he said quietly. “If you’re going to be scared of something you should be scared of people. They’re much worse than ghosts.”

To Wataru, it sounded like a perfectly rational adult thing one might say to children afraid of ghosts. Still, Mr. Daimatsu and his son Noriyuki seemed embarrassed. They both looked down at the ground, as though they had said something they shouldn’t have.

“Time to go home.” Noriyuki walked around behind Kaori’s wheelchair, and undid the brakes.

“You get in,” Mr. Daimatsu said, waving toward the van. “We’ll give you a ride back to your homes.”

“We’re fine,” Katchan said quickly. “We live right over there.”

“None of that. It’s our responsibility now that we found you out here. It’s an adult thing, don’t you know,” the man added with a wink. “In you go.”

Ultimately, Wataru and Katchan were talked into accepting the ride. Wataru got in the van. His seat was right next to where Kaori sat strapped into her wheelchair. He could smell the shampoo scent of her hair. He felt that somehow he was too young by at least five years to be smelling a girl’s shampoo in the close confines of a car, but more than some sort of illicit excitement, he felt a pang in his heart. Kaori couldn’t move, couldn’t smile, couldn’t talk. She merely sat like a doll. And yet her hair smelled wonderful. It made it even more painful to see her pretty face, her skin the pure white of soap, and her delicately long and slender arms.

Because Bar Komura was closer, they dropped Katchan off first. Then they headed toward the apartment building where Wataru lived.

“You can just let me off at the corner.”

From the driver’s seat, Mr. Daimatsu chuckled. “You mean if we drive up in the car, it will make a noise, and someone might notice you snuck out at night?”

Wataru winced. “My dad gets home late every night, and I don’t want to run into him at the door.”

“But what if you get mistaken for a thief?”

In the end, they let him off on the street in front of his apartment. No one was at the entrance. The entire building was silent. Mr. Daimatsu and his son waited in the van until Wataru had reached the elevator door, then, flashing their headlights once, they drove off.

“You get caught?”

The following morning, Katchan came running up as soon as first period was over. “Let me guess: your mom was up when you got back, and she beat you within an inch of your life?”

Wataru shook his head. He had snuck quietly back into the house to find his mother still sprawled on the kitchen table, and his father not yet home.

“So you were totally safe! How come you look so sleepy then?”

“How could you sleep after that?”

“I zonked out as soon as I got home.”

“You amaze me, Katchan.”

Katchan gave his best innocent look. “So why couldn’t you sleep?”

Wataru had been thinking about Kaori. There was something about Mr. Daimatsu and Noriyuki that made him think they were hiding something. There was more to them, beneath the surface, and it aggravated him to not know what it was. The more he thought about it that night, the more agitated he became, and he couldn’t fall asleep until dawn.

“I dunno. They seemed pretty nice to me.”

“Oh, they were nice. Too nice.”

“How so?”

“Look, normally, when grown-ups find kids running around at a time and place like that, they get mad, right? But all they did was laugh. They didn’t even scold us a little bit.”

“Maybe they’re used to it, what with Ishioka and his gang already having been there.”

“It’s more than that,” Wataru said, staring blankly at his desk. This desk had been his since the beginning of the year. Whatever upperclassmen had used it before had left a present for him etched into the glossy wood finish of the top: the word “EVIL” written in all capital letters. What would possess someone to carve something like that? Wataru didn’t see the point.

“I’m sure that Mr. Daimatsu and his son had something far more serious on their minds than kids coming to play ghost hunter. Whatever it was, they were so wrapped up in thinking about it they didn’t even have time to worry about a few neighborhood brats. They were nice to us, because they didn’t
care
.”

Katchan scratched his head—his hair was cut so close it was almost a crew cut—and rolled his eyes in exasperation as if to say “there he goes again.” This had happened before. Wataru would be deeply concerned about something, and Katchan wouldn’t get it at all. It made Wataru frustrated, and several times he had snapped at his friend. It never occurred to him that, when he did so, his face looked exactly like his mother’s whenever she talked about those “Komuras and their filthy bar.”

“You think it has something to do with that girl, Kaori?” Katchan muttered. He said it quietly, as though he didn’t want Wataru to hear, but loud enough just in case he happened to be right.

Of course it does!

“Of course it does!” Katchan said, beating him to it. “How could it be anything else?”

That was my line
, Wataru thought, growing more irritated.
He
was the one who figured it out,
he
was the one who saw behind their kindly façade.

“You think she’s sick?” Katchan said, even quieter than before. “It was weird, I mean, she
looked
fine, except she was all limp. I wonder why she doesn’t talk?”

Wataru thought. They had said they were taking her for a walk, but that was odd too. If she didn’t like other people around, why couldn’t they go to a park, or the ocean, or somewhere else? Why did they have to take her out in the middle of the night?

The unsettling thought occurred to him that her condition might have something to do with the haunted building. That would explain why Mr. Daimatsu snuck her out so late at night when they wouldn’t be noticed, and brought Kaori to such a strange place.

“Hey,” Katchan said, growing restless at his friend’s silence. “I asked my old man about Ishioka’s dad.”

Because of their profession, Katchan’s mother and father worked late every night. But they always made sure to get up early the next morning and eat breakfast together. “The family that eats together, stays together,” they would say. They loved those kinds of sayings: “One kindness every day,” and “Friendship is priceless”—things like that.

“He said he didn’t know. Ishioka’s dad hasn’t come to the bar for a long time.”

“Hmph,” Wataru snorted in response.

“So, we’re done with that haunted building, right?” Katchan said with a grin. “I wouldn’t be caught dead following in that jerk Ishioka’s footsteps.”

Wataru was silent. Katchan scratched his head again, said something about that being the end of that, and nodded goodbye before heading back to his own desk just as the beginning-of-period bell began to ring.

From his desk, Wataru could see the back of Katchan’s head. Katchan’s father cut his son’s hair himself with an electric shaver, and there was always a little bald spot. Every time he had it cut, the bald spot would move slightly to one side or the other, or change its shape. Katchan never complained. His father would laugh while he cut it, talking to Katchan and his mother, threatening to cut off Katchan’s ear if he moved.

Someone cut Kaori’s hair too. Wataru remembered how it smelled. That fresh, clean scent of shampoo. Someone washed her hair, shampooed it, tied it up in a ponytail. Maybe they talked to her—her face a silent mask. Probably it was her mother. She must be very sad. How horrible it must be to know that Kaori would never answer her. It was like she was dead, even while she still lived.

What had happened to her?

Wataru realized that he utterly lacked the means to imagine what life must be like in the Daimatsu household. He couldn’t even make a good guess.

The day passed by in a blur. When Wataru got home, Kuniko was in the living room, having draped laundry for ironing over every available surface. Her hands moved mechanically as she smoothed out dress shirts and pants, her eyes glued to the television the entire time. She didn’t have to look, she never made a crease. Akira always said she was the only person he knew who could make ironing a performance art.

Wataru’s usual homecoming routine was to call out a perfunctory “Hi, Mom, I’m home,” and go straight to his room. But this time he stopped, and spoke to his mom. “Have you heard anything lately about that haunted building next to the Mihashi Shrine?”

“Sorry?” she said, not turning around. It was unlikely she had even heard what he said.

“That half-built building, the one being put up by Daimatsu Properties, or someone. Have you heard that Mr. Daimatsu has a daughter in junior high?”

Kuniko slapped the creases out of a dress-shirt collar while shaking her head. “No, I hadn’t heard that.” For the briefest of moments she wrenched her gaze away from the television and looked down at her hands. Her fingertips ran along the collar, found a stray thread, picked it up, and threw it to the floor. She looked back to the television.

“Maybe your friend, the one whose husband is the real estate agent, would know something?”

Kuniko didn’t answer. She was watching an afternoon soap opera. On the screen, the heroine opened an unlocked apartment door and stepped inside a darkened room. A body was lying on the floor. She screamed and a commercial came on. At last, Kuniko looked up at Wataru. “What? Did you say something?”

Wataru almost went to ask again, but then felt suddenly like he didn’t want to. “It’s nothing,” he muttered.

“Strange child. There’s some cheesecake in the refrigerator. You have cram school today, right? You’re not going by bicycle. They’re doing repairs on Clover Bridge. Did you wash your hands? We’re out of mouthwash, but there’s a new bottle under the sink.”

It was times like this when Wataru fancied that, as long as he said his hellos and goodbyes, he could eat breakfast, go to school, and come back home a slobbering, hairy werewolf, and his mother wouldn’t notice a thing. He stood up to snatch his cheesecake and go to his room, when the phone rang.