Free Real World by Natsuo Kirino

murdered her.”

“I know what you mean,” the boy agreed. “It’s the same with me.”

“Did your mother really die?”

“I already told you,” he yelled, irritated.

“Tell me how it happened.”

“I’ll tell you after I’ve got it all straight in my head. It’s hard to explain—it was like it just—happened. But I do remember this one weird thing. When I grabbed my mother by the hair, I thought, Wow, her hair’s just like a woman’s. I really felt like, Hey, she’s a woman. But the person in front of me was just this crabby, complaining old bitch who was talking nonsense. It was like I thought, Shut the hell up! and pushed the off button on a machine.”

A chill shot up my spine. His voice sounded like it was filtering up from some dark whirlpool. Even if he didn’t kill her, I thought, I bet he beat up his mother.

He was ending our conversation. “The guy’s making his rounds of the park.”

“Where are you?”

“At Tachikawa Park.”

“Can you stay overnight there?”

“If I hide I can,” he said. “But the mosquitoes are terrible.”

We agreed to meet the next day at the McDonald’s in Tachikawa Station. He hesitated a little, but I pushed him to agree. I had to hear the rest of his story.

I knew beforehand from Toshi’s phone call that what he said was true, but I’d felt right from the start that he was telling the truth. Otherwise, I never would have told him what I did.

When I actually met him the next day, he was sunburned, his red face all gloomy. He was skinny, too, like a string bean. His navy blue Nike T-shirt was kind of dirty, with bits of grass clinging to it. As he stood in the McDonald’s trying to find me, other people looked at him funny. ’Cause he stank. They’re gonna catch him any minute, I thought, and tried to think of how I could help him run far away.

“You’re just what I expected,” I told him. It was funny how Toshi’s description of him fit perfectly.

“What’d Toshi say?”

“She said you’re like a worm.”

“That’s awful!” He laughed. When he laughed, he was kind of cute.

“You smell bad,” I said. “You gotta change your clothes.”

“I’ve got only one change of clothes and don’t want to waste them. It’s so hot I thought I might as well just keep these on.”

“Makes sense.”

Worm didn’t seem to hear me. He was staring vacantly out the window. The sun was going down, but the asphalt was still scorching.

“Is it true you’re going to K High?”

Worm nodded, still gazing out the window.

“Aiming to get into Tokyo University?”

“I don’t think I can anymore.”

Don’t think you can anymore? You better believe it. They’re gonna run you through a ton of psychiatric tests, turn you into some guinea pig, then throw you into juvie. Society’s erased you from its board, pal. You can forget about entrance exams and Tokyo University. What a moron! Still, I felt sympathetic toward this guy who just didn’t get it.

“Have you got it all straight in your head now—about what happened?”

“Not yet,” he said, looking out the window again. “I haven’t really searched my conscience yet, so I guess I can’t.”

“Guess not.”

Worm startled me by suddenly bolting straight up in his chair.

“I gotta go. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve got to hurry.”

“Where’re ya going?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere. I just feel like I have to go somewhere, right now. ”

“Then you’d better go. Leave your bike, though. I gotta get it back to Toshi. You can take mine.”

I motioned with my chin toward my bike parked outside. Worm looked kind of embarrassed.

“You rode it all the way here for me?”

I brought out a brand-new cell phone and laid it on the narrow little McDonald’s table.

“You can have this, too,” I said. “But give me back Toshi’s.”

Worm pulled out Toshi’s phone from the pocket of his dirty jeans and tilted his head.

“Thanks. But why’re you doing