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  Takeo felt his mouth go as dry as a desert.

  Of course, a low sperm count was a very serious problem, but there was an even bigger problem. He already had a son, named Toshio.

  Yes, that there was the real problem.

  The young doctor continued his spiel, but when he saw the change in Takeo’s expression, he smiled stiffly and quickly said, “This is really

  nothing to worry about. Artificial and out-of-body insemination techniques have improved dramatically, and even in your case, there is a great chance that you can still have children …”

  But, Takeo’s agitation did not subside. Takeo wasn’t concerned with how things would go from here on, but with how they had proceeded up until now.

  “So, Doctor,” Takeo stared at the cool eyes behind the rimless glasses, and spat, “then how did I have my first kid? Answer me that, how in the hell did I have that first kid?”

  “You already have a child?”

  The young doctor was clearly taken aback by Takeo’s words. His face showed that he was clearly shaken.

  The doctor quickly dropped his gaze down to Takeo’s records. Tripping over his own words, the doctor stammered, “Urn, uh, Saeki-san, I am not saying that there was no chance for pregnancy from the beginning, but, um, just that the probability was low. Uh, shall we re-test you?”

  The doctor continued what sounded like a weak excuse, but Takeo was no longer listening.

  Toshio isn’t my kid? Toshio’s not my son?

  Takeo’s mind went totally blank, while circling around this question.

  Toshio isn’t my son? Then . . . then . . . whose kid is he?

  That day, the seeds of a great suspicion toward his wife were planted in Takeo’s mind.

  I’ve been betrayed. Damn it. Kayako’s got another man. Damn it. She betrayed me. She’s got another man. Damn it.

  Takeo was muttering over and over to himself in the train on the way back from the hospital. He noticed the stares of the other

  passengers, but he wasn’t in a position to really worry about that right now.

  He was planning to return to the office. They were swamped with work after the long weekend. But he couldn’t go to the office, not in his current mental state.

  Damn it. Kayako has another man. Damn it.

  Takeo muttered to himself, not even seeing the early summer scenery outside of the window.

  He never dreamed that his quiet Kayako would have another man in her life. He never even considered the possibility.

  When they first met, Takeo was twenty-five, and Kayako had just turned nineteen.

  Takeo, an illustrator for a design office in metro Tokyo, was living in an old, wooden apartment. Kayako was the only daughter of the landlord.

  The rent for the apartment was paid direct to the landlord, a rare system these days. Takeo took his rent money over to the Kawamata house, which was very close to his apartment. The Kawamatas were always out, so their daughter Kayako always took the rent money from Takeo at the door.

  She seems like a quiet girl.

  That was Takeo’s first impression of Kayako.

  Takeo made small talk with Kayako every month as he was passing over several ten-thousand-yen bills to her. Kayako, with her long, straight, black hair and no makeup on her face, was always silent and seemed to Takeo to be very introverted. She had no self-confidence, and her eyes were like those of a timid, fearful animal. She always wore white, and she often held her black cat in her slender, pale arms.

  Then, the landlords, the Kawamatas, died in a car accident while they were vacationing overseas. Takeo, as a tenant, showed up at their wake. He had expected Kayako to break down crying, but she didn’t.

  Kayako, as the only daughter of the deceased, sat resolutely at the front of her relatives. With a slightly melancholy look on her pale face, Kayako bowed her head to each and every mourner who came to offer incense. Seeing Kayako like this, Takeo thought for the first time that she was beautiful.

  Yes, dressed in her black clothing and lightly made up, Kayako was extremely beautiful to Takeo. Although the scene was a wake, and Takeo’s conscience told him that it was not appropriate, Takeo wanted to take her. There was no way he could help thinking that.

  Kayako was clearly very different from the other women Takeo had dated. The women he had chased were beautiful, but they were all high-handed gold diggers who only saw men as sources o{ money. They were women who would not give a man the time of day unless he would take them dancing all night in Roppongi in their mini-skirts and high heels, take them out for cocktails in hotel bars, or take them for drives in expensive, imported cars. They were women who used their sex appeal to financially exploit men. Chasing these women was a quick way for Takeo to lose his already too4ow salary.

  Kayako, with her depth, with her quietness, was a breath of fresh air to Takeo.

  At the end of the next month, when Takeo paid his rent, he invited Kayako to a nearby coffee house. She was surprised at first, but accepted, albeit shyly.

  In time, they were eating meals together at restaurants, seeing movies together, and renting a car to go on a drive. Finally, one

  day, on the way back from a drive to Nishi Izu, Takeo said, “Kayako, I want you.”

  At that moment, Kayako’s expression changed. Takeo did not miss the fact that, although she had been hesitant up until then, with that one little phrase, he had her heart in his hand.

  “I want you,” he repeated, and Kayako nodded silently.

  Takeo made love to Kayako that night in a local hotel. He took her with a passion he had not known in the past.

  Although Kayako was not a head-turning beauty, her face had few flaws. Her bust was small like a young girl’s, but her figure was slim and dainty. She was pure, reserved, and graceful. And most of all, during sex, she gave Takeo an overwhelming feeling of conquest.

  Yes, conquest. Complete and utter conquest.

  Kayako answered all of Takeo’s requests and wants. Anything he asked, she would do. She would not refuse a single act or position. She shook her long hair, arched her slender body like a bow, whimpered, moaned, groaned, gave in like a whore and screamed like a beast.

  Takeo decided he wanted to be with this woman for the rest of his life.

  Takeo moved out of his apartment and into the house with Kayako. A few months later, he invited his family, who lived in Niigata, for a small wedding ceremony at a small church in Tokyo.

  In time, they had a son. Kayako, who had never pushed for her own way in the past, said that she wanted to name the son Toshio, and she would not give in. Takeo had no idea why she was fixated on the name Toshio, but he let her have her way.

  Although not a famous illustrator, Takeo was busy with work. He worked late everyday, but his wife and son were always waiting for him when he finally returned home. They went to play at a nearby

  park on the weekends, and in the summer they went camping or had barbeques. Sometimes they took trips together, the three of them. They were a typical family, and it was a time of happiness for Takeo that he would not trade for anything in the world. That happiness had lasted for six years, and he thought that it would last forever. But…

  But, that happiness was all over now.

  Damn it. Kayako, she’s got another man. Damn it.

  Takeo repeatedly clenched and unclenched his sweaty fists while muttering to himself on the train back home. He could not forgive his wife, who had betrayed him. He could never, ever forgive her.

  Toshio

  Toshio Saeki was drawing a picture on his paper with his crayons. It was a picture o{ his mother, slim, longhaired, and always wearing white, and his father, a strongly built man with thinning hair. His classmates, all in the first grade at elementary school, were also concentrating on their pictures, their faces innocent.

  Today’s third period class was Toshio’s favorite: art class. His teacher, Kobayashi Sensei, had told everyone to draw his or her family. Therefore, Toshio drew his mother and father. />
  At times, Toshio stopped drawing and closed his eyes. He was looking at his mother’s smiling face that he saw on the insides of his eyelids. He opened his eyes, and before he lost the image, he drew it on the paper. The result was a picture so realistic that even he was surprised himself.

  He did not want to criticize the other kids’ pictures, but he was amazed at how bad they were. Yoshida-kun, who sat on Toshio’s right, drew all the men in his family—his father, grandfather, and

  uncles—with the same face, so no one could tell who was whom. Miyuki Koike, who sat on his left, was just as bad.

  It would be great if I could have a job where 1 could draw pictures , like Daddy, thought Toshio, as he closed his eyes again. After a while, he conjured up another image of his mother, whom he could see just as clearly as if she was standing in front of him. She was wearing white, as always, and smiling almost embarrassedly.

  His mother was always wearing white. He hardly remembered her ever wearing another color.

  Once, he asked his mother, “Mommy, why do you always wear white clothes?” She thought for a moment before she replied, “Well, don’t tell your father, but a long time ago, a man I used to love told me that I looked good in white.”

  “A man … do you mean Daddy?” In reply, his mother shook her head side to side in silence.

  “Toshio, you can’t tell your father what I just said,” his mother told him as she looked out the window, almost as if she was remembering.

  Mommy … He called out to his mother in his heart, recalling the moment. The image of his mother inside his eyelids tilted her head as if she was answering, “What?” Toshio opened his eyes and quickly drew his mother’s face, before he lost the image.

  “Toshio-kun.” He lifted his head. His teacher, Kobayashi Sensei, was standing there.

  “Toshio-kun, you’re a very good artist. You’re probably much better than even I am … If I had this picture, I bet I could pick out your mother and father from a whole crowd of people.”

  The tall, thin Kobayashi Sensei smiled at Toshio as he said this. Toshio felt a bit embarrassed and happy at the same time.

  Toshio really liked the young, kind Kobayashi Sensei. He felt lucky to be in this class. It was much better than the scary Aoyama Sensei’s class or Kawakami Sensei, who never smiled. If he was in either of their classes, he probably would have hated school.

  He was very glad to be in Kobayashi Sensei’s class.

  Toshio, thinking this very thought, closed his eyes, and this time conjured up his father’s face on the inside of his eyelids.

  Takeo

  When Takeo arrived home, Kayako was not there. She was probably out shopping.

  Takeo went straight up to the bedroom on the second floor. The east room was Kayako’s room when she was growing up, and it was their bedroom now. The closet was still full of his wife’s personal things. That was what Takeo was looking for.

  Takeo was not in the habit of entering people’s private rooms or going through their personal belongings. However, that day, Takeo was not his usual self. When Takeo got to the bedroom, he opened the closet, pulled out the cardboard boxes that were stacked there, turned them upside down, and dumped their contents all over the floor.

  He saw Kayako’s old textbooks and notebooks, a sewing set and a box of paints, sketchbooks, a wooden box with a calligraphy set inside, a pencil case, a ruler, a box cutter, novels, a school yearbook, letters and postcards, CDs, cassettes and video tapes…

  And then he found it.

  That old brown scrapbook. It was filled with Kayako’s sloppy penmanship.

  Takeo’s gaze fell on the scrapbook. There he saw the characters, “Kobayashi-kun.”

  “… Today, KobayashUkun and I locked eyes … Kobayashi-kun and I passed in the hallway, but he didnt notice me … I sat behind Kobayashi-kun and could smell his lemon-scented cologne … Kobayashi-kun forgot his dictionary, so I lent him mine. When he returned it, he told me I looked good in the white sleeveless dress I had on. I was so happy I thought I was going to faint… Today KobayashUkun was walking with our classmate Manami Midorikawa. 1 am so worried, so worried, I think I may go crazy . . . Today, I picked up the butt of Kobayashi-kuns cigarette from the ashtray in the cafeteria, and took it home and smoked it. 1 couldnt stop coughing but I couldnt stop myself from smoking it. . . I dont know what Kobayashi-kun could possibly see in that little flirt Manami Midorikawa .. . Today I bought the book I saw Kobayashi-kun looking at in the bookstore. It was Dostoyevskys The Idiot… That woman, where does she get off going after my KobayashUkun … Today I picked up a strand of Kobayashi-kuns hair from his desk. It is my treasure …” … Kobayashi-kun … Kobayashi-kun … Kobayashi-kun … Kobayashi-kun…

  Takeo tried to calm himself. The date on the scrapbook was from nine years ago, before Takeo and Kayako even began dating. Yes, the scrapbook was nine years old.

  Takeo, with trembling hands, continued turning the pages. It was adorned with her terrible drawings and several out-of-focus photos.

  Kobayashi-kun smiled … Kobayashi-kun and I bumped shoulders… Kobayashi-kun… Kobayashi-kun… Kobayashi-kun… Kobayashi-kun…

  Kayako’s infatuation with this man was not normal. Although Takeo knew in his head that this was all nine years ago, he still had to fight for control over his jealousy.

  Takeo turned the pages of that scrapbook. Then, finally, he stumbled upon a fact that left him dumbfounded.

  The truth was so frightening to Takeo that he wanted to scream. You see, he found out that Kobayashi-kuris first name was Shunsuke.

  Takeo recalled how Kayako was adamant that she wanted to name their son Toshio. The ideogram for “Toshi” was the same as the “Shun” of Shunsuke.

  For a moment, Takeo’s mind went completely blank. He was confused. Then, like a jigsaw puzzle, all the facts fell into place, painting the whole picture in his mind. He recalled the doctor’s words to him only a few hours ago.

  “A sperm count under 20 million per cc reduces the chances of natural fertilization. A sperm count of less than 5 million per cc reduces these chances drastically. A sperm count of less than 3 million per cc … makes those chances almost zero.”

  Oh, I see now. I get it. Toshio isn’t even my son. He’s their child, Shunsuke Kobayashi and Kayako s child. I’m like a whippoorwill raising a cuckoo’s chick, happily raising another man’s child.

  Takeo’s hands moved mechanically, turning the pages of the scrapbook. The entries stopped one day nine years ago … but then, then he chanced upon something he could hardly believe. The entries started again, about a month and a half ago, with Kayako’s words of surprise.

  “… Oh, God. What does it all mean? KobayashUkun is Toshio’s teacher! Oh, God, please help me! What do you want of me?”

  They, Shunsuke Kobayashi and Kayako, were still involved with each other!

  At that moment, something inside of Takeo broke. Yes, Takeo actually heard the sound of his mind snapping.

  It was clearly written there in Kayako’s scrapbook that she and Shunsuke Kobayashi had coincidentally bumped into each other, and just as clearly it was written that they hadn’t seen each other for nine years. If Takeo thought calmly, he could clearly see that it was simply not physically possible that the six-year-old Toshio could have been Kobayashi’s son. But, there was no calmness left within Takeo. “Damn it… Kayako … she looks so damned innocent. .. damn it.” That’s when he heard the front door open and Kayako’s voice proclaiming that she was home.

  Kayako

  The front door was unlocked. That’s how she knew Takeo, who had been at the hospital to get the results of his sperm-count test, was home.

  She wondered if he didn’t have to be at work today, and then remembered that he had gone to get his sperm-count test-results today. Even though she had not been able to become pregnant after Toshio, Kayako was sure that she was able to have another child. After all, the gynecologist performed many tests, but, just as she thought, they came back nor
mal. Takeo was not convinced, and he took time off from his busy work schedule several days ago to have his sperm tested. They had been waiting, somewhat tensely, for the results to come back.

  “I’m home,” called Kayako from the entrance, to Takeo, who she was sure was somewhere in the house.

  “Oh, you’re home.” Takeo greeted her with a smile from the stairs that led to the second floor. The steps bent ninety degrees in the middle, with a wide landing at the bend. Takeo was standing on

  the landing. His hairline was a lot higher now than it was when they had married, but his smile was always the same.

  “You didn’t go back to work? How were your test results?”

  “Yeah, um, Kayako, I want to tell you something, can you come here?” Takeo waved her up the stairs, still smiling.

  “What? Is it good news?” Kayako smiled back, taking off her shoes and bounding up the stairs.

  Then it happened, just as she had almost gotten to the top of the steps where Takeo waited. Takeo’s face changed. Kayako wondered how he could go from smiling one instant to a demon the next.

  A demon. Yes, that’s it. Takeo was definitely a demon.

  In that instant, Takeo’s foot lashed out, connecting in the middle of Kayako’s chest, right in the center of her white dress.

  The kick was not particularly strong, but it was enough to cause Kayako to lose her balance. She fell backward, like a competitive diver jumping off the springboard. She panicked and scrambled with her hands but could not find anything to catch onto. Her arms simply flailed in the air and her nails merely scratched at the walls. Kayako’s body tumbled down the steep stairs with a horrendous crash.

  First she felt the pain in her lower back, then the middle of her spine, then the back of her head, and finally, darkness.

  “Hey, wake up! I said wake up, damn it!”

  Kayako awoke to the sound of Takeo’s voice and the sensation that her hair was being pulled. At first, Kayako had no idea what had happened to her. Her entire body screamed in pain and she had a sharp ache in the middle of her head. She instinctively tried to bring her hands to her head, but they wouldn’t move. She then