Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Yukako Kabei is a Japanese novelist. She graduated from Gakushuin University with a degree in Business Management from the Faculty of Economics.

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Kieli, Vol. 3 (novel)

Yen Press

CHAPTER 1

AT THE VERY TOP OF THE SLOPE

“Um, it’s my birthday….”

Harvey wondered what expression he must have worn when she started talking timidly that morning. If he were to make a comparison, he figured it was probably something like the face you’d make hearing some alien language from the edge of space while wondering, “What the hell is she saying?” That’s just how estranged he was from that word. He didn’t even remember if he had a birthday, and if he did, it would just make him feel empty, so he didn’t want to think about it.

He turned these thoughts over in a distant corner of his mind as he gazed into her black eyes for about five seconds, and then answered, “Oh, I see.”

He knew his reaction was lacking somehow. “Oh, do you want something?” he tried again, but that wasn’t quite right either. Wasn’t there something you were supposed to say before you got to such a materialistic question?

“No. I don’t need anything.” He thought she would get depressed or start sulking or something, but, unexpectedly, she answered as if it didn’t really bother her that much. Just as he’d come to expect each morning, she briskly readied herself to go out; finally she pulled the radio’s cord over her head and said, “But it would be nice if you were home tonight.”

“… If that’s what you want.”

“Promise. No matter what,” she emphasized, so he couldn’t help responding, “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled happily. “Well, I’m off, then!” She spun around and cheerfully left the dining area.

He heard the door open and close on the other side of the mere token of a hallway that led from the dining room, and her nimble footsteps went farther and farther down the hall outside.

Sigh…

The exchange reminded Harvey of just how easy life had gotten, and he felt oddly uncomfortable; he turned around on the sofa and rested his chin on its back. The springs creaked slightly underneath him. The somewhat seasoned sofa had been pushed under the window overlooking the street below, and lately that had become his established spot.

The sofa for two, a rusty dining table, and a tiny storage shelf that had been there before they moved in were all that fit in the combined living, dining, and kitchen area of the commonplace, cheap apartment that also included a bedroom, a bathroom, and a short hall. It had been almost one month since they’d started renting a room on the third floor of this five-story, iron-framed building that looked out on the squalid hill road that overflowed with a sense of liveliness.

Living in an apartment. He got the feeling it was ridiculously unlike him, and he wanted to laugh.

What am I doing…?

The chilly but pleasant air of the early-spring morning came in through the open window. He shifted his gaze through it and saw Kieli hop down from the outdoor staircase on the side of the building. As soon as she got out onto the street, she turned at a right angle and passed under the window.

As he casually watched her go, he realized (after thinking for a while) that if it was her birthday, she must be fifteen now. Maybe it was because he saw her every day, but he didn’t feel as if she had changed at all; if he had to find something different, it would be that her short hair had grown just a little, and her clothes had gotten somewhat more mature. A spring blouse, cropped pants, sandals—no, he was just imagining it. The clothes proved only that it really was spring.

“It’s just…,” he muttered, not knowing himself what it “just” was, and let his gaze wander to the sky diagonally above him. Just then, a long, narrow shadow fell before his eyes.

A fork.

The kind used for eating, of course.

Harvey reached out instinctively, and nearly slipped and fell as he leaned out the window frame and caught it just in the nick of time. He snatched it without thinking, so normally the fork’s tines would have stabbed his hand; but fortunately, he had reached out with his prosthetic right arm, so all the tines did was create a dry, metallic sound.

“Nice…”

He breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for both his own reflexes and those of his false arm, and, still hanging limply out the window, he looked down at the street below to see Kieli pattering by directly below him.

He watched her go, then craned his neck to glare at the floor above.

He could make out a short silhouette in the window two floors up, but the instant he thought their eyes met, it disappeared.

They’re upgrading their weaponry….

Two days ago, a paper airplane; yesterday, a glass marble; and today, a fork. It was looking as though tomorrow it would be a meat cleaver or a wall clock. At this point, he couldn’t let them keep doing whatever the hell they wanted anymore.

“Good morning.”

As soon as he climbed the outside stairway to the fifth floor and stepped onto the walkway, a man who seemed to be a resident of the floor greeted him. Harvey had a habit of walking around at times when he wouldn’t run into too many people; so although he was meeting this man for the first time, having no intention of bothering with anything like neighborly relations, he ignored the man and kept walking past him. (He did have some idea that his manners had gotten incredibly bad lately.)

The resident shrugged and went down the stairs.

Harvey watched him go out of the corner of his eye, then faced front again. A narrow walkway, built exactly the same way as the one on the third floor, led inside. When he looked forward, doors lined a concrete wall on his right, and the wall of the building behind them stuck to the left of the hallway so closely that there was almost no space between them. He didn’t know which building had been built first, but either way, he was impressed with however they managed to do it.

He stood in front of the door equivalent to theirs on the third floor and started to ring the bell beside it but stopped. He didn’t really have any reason to bother with civility. He noticed that the doorknob was rusty, and there was a light layer of dust over it.

When he reached for it, the man from before popped out from the corner of the stairway. “You want to rent that apartment?”

“No…”

“That place is trouble. You’d better forget about it,” the man rattled on one-sidedly, wearing an expression as if something had given him chills, and didn’t give Harvey a chance to answer. “No one’s lived there for two years. There’s no one there, but you can still hear sounds and voices…. I’m not lying. I live next door. But the landlord’ll tell you that no one will rent it because I keep putting ideas in people’s heads. Ah, if he sees me here, I’ll be in trouble again.”

He looked around, as if the landlord actually frightened him more than the eerie phenomenon, and with a hurried “Later,” he disappeared down the stairs in a panic.

“……”

I guess it takes all kinds...