Chapter 08
Infiltration
Part One
It actually might have had something to do with a hormonal imbalance
in my brain. Like crashing and receding waves, my mania and depression
alternated, and that was how every day went. Just when I thought I felt
better, I wanted to die so bad the very next day that I wasn't good for
anything.
Despite using drugs to force myself to be more energetic, I couldn't
carry on once again after they wore off. Shame about my past and
anxieties for the future, as well as many other fears, assaulted me
simultaneously. This ensuing depression was a rebound from my ultrahigh-energy
periods and, as such, was completely, horribly severe.
Even Misaki's nightly counseling, which I should have grown
accustomed to by then, remained frightening. Anxiety of an unknown
origin had enfolded me, and the very uncertainty of that origin fanned
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my fear even more.
The initial, readily noticeable symptom was that my gaze started to
wander and I would become unable to look others in the eye while
speaking to them. Oh, I was just like some overly self-conscious middle
school kid. I felt embarrassed from the bottom of my heart. And because
I was aware of that embarrassment, my behavior would become even
stranger and more suspicious. It was a vicious cycle.
Anyway, for that night, I tried smoking to calm myself down in
front of Misaki. My hands, now prone to shaking, took out a cigarette
and lit it, using a cheap lighter. Damn—it was running out of fuel! How
can this he? This sucks! I didn't know what to do with the tobacco and
lighter I was holding, but I'd do anything possible to avoid the
humiliation of having to put them back in my pocket. I kept trying as
hard as I could to light it. Click, click, click, click. . . I kept struggling and,
finally, I succeeded—thank heavens!
I immediately turned away from Misaki and, instead, focused too
much on smoking my cigarette. I just kept smoking away, wasting five
yen with every puff. My lungs hurt and my guts hurt, too. The end of
my cigarette was shaking rapidly. On the back of my neck, a cold, sticky
sweat—
"What's wrong?" asked Misaki. As was usual for our counseling
sessions, we faced each other at night on one of the park benches.
"The problems caused by my chronic illness!" I replied.
"What do you mean by 'problems'?"
That's what really bothered me. Young girls these days didn't know
anything. Go study a little more! I wanted to yell at her; of course, that
would be impossible to do. The awful, useless traits acquired through
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several years of hikikomori life—my agoraphobia, fear of eye contact,
and all my other anxiety disorders—now held me down with
considerable power.
Hm. . . Did I lock my apartment door? Was I certain I'd put out my
cigarette? More important: Misaki, don't look at me like that with those
adorable eyes! Not to mention, stop being so silent. Stop watching me without
saying anything! It makes me unbelievably nervous. My stomach really does
hurt.
I had to say something fast. ”By the way, Misaki, do you like snacks?"
What the hell was that supposed to mean?!
"No."
"Usually, girls around your age always are eating some kind of snack,
twenty-four hours a day, right? Just like a little animal. . . crunch,
crunch, crunch, crunch. What's up with that? Is it because they're young
and have fast metabolisms, so they continually have to replenish their
calories or they'll die? That's got to be it, huh?"
Should I just die?
She didn't say anything.
Should I just die?
"I won't die! And that's because I'm an energetic man! This
overflowing energy is the best! I'm only twenty-two! My future stretches
out before me! 'A neeew toooomorrow is here, one of hopesssss. . . '" I
sang.
Misaki clutched my shirt sleeve.
"Hm?"
"Let's go into the city, the day after tomorrow," she said, continuing
to pull on my sleeve, "near the station, maybe. Together. Someone
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important once said long ago, 'Throw out your books and go to the city,'
or something like that. That's not a lie. It was written in a book I read
recently, so it's about time for us to go into the city. If we do that, I think
you'll definitely head in a good direction. Okay?"
Without thinking, I nodded.
Misaki's request had instilled a new fear within me. To go into the city,
in broad daylight, with a mysterious girl whose true identity I still didn't
know. . . No question, this rash action would put an unbelievable
amount of pressure on me. Completely overwhelmed by it, I
undoubtedly would do something embarrassing once again. There was
no chance that I would avoid doing something incomprehensibly
pathetic Ah, I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay locked up in my room.
Regardless, a promise is a promise. I reminded myself that the first step
to being an outstanding member of society would be to faithfully honor
my promises to others— I wasn't a member of society, though; I was just
a hikikomori.
Anyway, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. The tension and
unrelenting impatience reminded me of the feelings I used to have the
day before a test. For someone whose will was weak like mine, this
pressure weighed down heavily on me with a palpable force.
However, just as Dostoyevsky or somebody had written in a story,
along with pain that exceeded normal bounds also came an undeniable
pleasure. In essence, when stress surpasses a particular limit, humans get
high on it for some reason. Getting extremely run down, for example,
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might make a person rashly agreeable. This feeling, in turn, would raise
the excitement and the enjoyment.
"Right, Yamazaki?"
"Yes, sure. I have no idea what you're talking about, though."
Today, as usual, Yamazaki had been grinding away at his game since
the early morning. His body language somehow suggested that he might
be enjoying himself in some ghastly way.
"Let me see how far you've gotten," I said, but he blocked the
computer with his body. He must have been making an especially erotic
game
Well, whatever bizarre erotic game Yamazaki was working on
meant nothing to me now. I decided I should be eating breakfast right
about then and opened the fridge.
"Huh? What, Yamazaki, you're out of food?"
"Hey, you! Don't eat someone else's food every day as though it's
yours! And in their own apartment, no less!"
"No matter what you say, because I sold the fridge in my room to
that secondhand shop. . . " Trying to make suitable excuses, I took some
instant ramen from its usual place in the cabinet.
Just then, the doorbell rang. A visitor?
Yamazaki slowly stood up from his computer desk and opened the
door in the front hall. Standing there were two religious solicitors.
However, today's solicitors weren't Misaki and her aunt but a young
man around twenty, wearing a suit, and a roughly middle-school-aged
boy in a navy blazer. I wondered whether perhaps the routes had been
changed.
Either way, the solicitors' actions remained unchanged.
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"Um, we're handing out these magazines. . . " The solicitor handed
two pamphlets to Yamazaki. "Uh, see, we're spreading the word about
our religion. . . "
Yamazaki tried to chase the solicitors away with some appropriate
speech.
Watching them, I suddenly had a wonderful idea. Joining them at
the front door, I pounded Yamazaki as hard as I could on the back
before interjecting, "What are you saying, Yamazaki?! Earlier, didn't you
say that you were interested in such literature?"
"Huh?"
Ignoring Yamazaki, who had turned to give me a look that meant,
"What are you talking about, you idiot?" I faced the solicitors and rattled
on, in one breath: "Actually, we've been interested in your activities for a
while. Could we possibly convince you to let us attend one of your
meetings?"
Part Two
Last night, when we parted, Misaki had whispered, "Tomorrow, it's my
turn to present at missionary school, and I don't want to."
"What's that?" I asked, and Misaki falteringly described it.
Missionary school was apparently a kind of assembly where
"research students" could perfect their skills at "service activities." The
following day, she would have to give a speech in front of everyone.
She used so many technical religious terms that an outsider like me
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couldn't really understand what she was talking about. When I tried to
get her to explain more fully, Misaki quickly got up from the bench to go
home. She left, saying merely, "Anyway, as I have this thing that I have
to do tomorrow, we'll have to go into the city the day after that. Don't
forget your promise."
That was last night. Today, Misaki's religious group would hold a
meeting, and at that meeting, she would have to play a really difficult
role. Having put all this together, an idea struck me. Today was the
perfect opportunity to find out who Misaki really was! Summoning my
courage, I begged the solicitors, "Please, take us with you and allow us to
observe!"
Apparently, it was a rule that normally, outside observers first had
to attend the "literature research" that took place every Wednesday.
Thus, the two solicitors appeared uncertain what to do with me. I
continued to entreat them, "It must be today! Please, take us to the
meeting today!"
After I begged them for a few more minutes, they finally gave in.
They disclosed the location of the "Imperial Hall" and the meeting time.
"It starts at six o'clock in the evening. If you tell them you've come 'on
Kaneda's sponsorship,' you'll be allowed to enter."
It was early evening. Having disguised ourselves in strange clothing, we
quickly walked up the road toward the Imperial Hall.
My reason for infiltrating the meeting was to observe Misaki's
private life, so I could figure out her real motivations. This was the
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reason that I decided to disguise myself. In the beginning, Yamazaki
stubbornly resisted my attempts to get him to join me, but I finally
convinced him. "Infiltrating a religious organization is a once-in-alifetime
opportunity, you know! It'll be interesting!" Eventually, he
yielded to my half-assed argument and, in the end, happily disguised
himself.
I wore the black suit I had bought when I entered college so that I
would look like a prize recruit. I pulled a tulip-pink hat down low over
my eyes and donned dark purple sunglasses. Even I thought I looked
ridiculous.
For his part, Yamazaki wore platform shoes to make himself about
four inches taller, put green contacts in his eyes—and on top of all that,
bleached his hair gold. I had no idea why he even owned such an idiotic
thing as platform shoes. Still, it was the perfect disguise.
Yet, I remained a bit anxious. I was afraid that our voices might
expose our true identities. "What do you think, Yamazaki? There's no
way we can change our voices, is there?"
When I expressed my worry on this point, Yamazaki dragged me
into the department store near the station, and we headed toward the
fourth-floor toy store. At the party goods section, he picked up some
helium gas. It had been popular a while ago because if you inhaled it,
your voice would sound like a duck.
"Ah! You're smart!" I thumped Yamazaki on the back.
He stuck out his thumb and grinned. He was having a great time.
In this way, we completed all our preparations and triumphantly
headed toward the Imperial Hall, which was located at the edge of the
shopping center near the station. People passing us—clearly a shady
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pair, squeaking in high "duck" voices—threw perplexed glances in our
direction. Normally, we would have been intimidated by their stares; but
only for today, we weren't scared of other people. My dark glasses
blocked the glances, and I had a friend in Yamazaki, who bravely walked
beside me.
More than anything else, the "energy-giving drug" I had bought
through the mail was working quite well. Only half a day earlier, I had
been suffering from anxieties I couldn't imagine escaping—but now, I
was suffused with energy. Apparently, just a few milligrams of generic
drugs could drastically change people's emotions.
"Is this it?" Yamazaki asked in his duck voice once we had exited the
narrow alley that ran next to the tracks, pointing at a four-story building
next to a convenience store.
I checked the map the solicitor had drawn for me. The information
board at the building's entrance also announced, ”Third Floor, Imperial
Hall." There was no mistake; this was it. It was great that we had arrived
at our destination, but I felt unexpectedly let down.
Contrary to its powerful-sounding name, the Imperial Hall was a
rather worn-out old building that rented out office space to small
businesses. The first floor was a real estate company and the second
floor housed a tax attorney's office, leaving only the third floor to be
occupied by the religious group. Colored red by the sunset, the rental
space looked even more faded. I had imagined a huge temple decorated
in gold leaf and the like, so I was taken by surprise.
Still, it was about time to start our infiltration. "L-let's go,
Yamazaki."
"Yeah, let's, Satou."
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Fortifying our will, we climbed the narrow stairs of the building.
In the end, our infiltration of the hall succeeded easily.
No one we passed even obliquely mentioned our strange disguises.
Although I had told yet another gigantic lie: "Actually, my eyes are so
bad, I need my sunglasses." I said this despite not having been asked.
And everyone said, "Oh my, how terrible," and took pity on me.
That's right: They were actually good people.
"Good evening."
"Welcome."
"Thank you for coming."
A housewife, a female middle school student, and a businessman
greeted us with invigorating smiles on their faces. Bowing our heads to
them, we continued up the narrow stairs and stepped into the meeting
hall. And once again, we tasted disappointment.
The interior of the hall lacked any religious atmosphere.
Adornments such as candles, crosses, and altars were nowhere to be
found. Instead, inside the room, a podium like those found in school
auditoriums occupied center stage, faced by rows of evenly spaced metal
folding chairs. The room could accommodate about one hundred
people. The floor and walls were painted uniformly in a soft cream color,
and the fluorescent lighting was bright. This relaxed space, the meeting
room, basically resembled a normal town hall.
For now, we sat in folding chairs at the very back, hunching down to
make ourselves as invisible as possible. However, that attempt soon
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failed miserably. Yamazaki and I were surrounded by hospitable, smiling
people—young and old, male and female. It looked as though the young
solicitor wed seen the previous day had told everyone to expect visitors
beforehand.
"I hear you're interested in the Bible," said a housewife with a child in
her arms. "After all, faith is an issue that everyone has to face."
A young man about my age said, "Please, take your time and watch."
A high-school-aged girl said—
They were all speaking to us at the same time.
Returning their greetings in my duck voice, I felt increasingly
anxious. This is bad. At this rate, we'll stand out. Or rather, we're already
standing out plenty. Misaki doesn't seem to have arrived yet; the way it's going,
though, it's only a matter of time before she sees through our disguises.
For the moment, we decided to retreat temporarily. Asking the
housewife where the bathroom was, we hurried from the meeting hall.
"This is no good, Satou."
"It's bad, isn't it, Yamazaki?"
We caught our breath while relieving ourselves in the sparkling
clean bathroom.
"Why are those people being so friendly to shady people like us?"
"I'm kind of moved." I was somewhat surprised by myself. This was
the first time in my long life that I had ever experienced anything like
this. A large number of people had openly welcomed me with smiles on
their faces. I had no idea how to deal with it.
"Ha ha ha ha, maybe I should convert!"
I heard Yamazaki, who had gone into the private stall, suddenly
burst into laughter. Next came the sound of toilet paper unrolling. I
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heard him blow his nose, and then he came out of the stall. The pupils of
his eyes had dilated behind his colored contacts. White powder stuck to
his sleeves.
"How about you, Satou?" Yamazaki held out a plastic packet filled
with the drug. I gently refused. As my espionage activities were about to
begin, I couldn't afford to lose my level-headed judgment.
Putting tissues inside my mouth, I changed the contours of my face
creating an even more perfect disguise. Yamazaki, an off-the-chart smile
plastered across his face, meanwhile busied himself walking in circles
around the bathroom.
A short time later, we heard a choral hymn coming from beyond the
bathroom wails. The assembly seemed to have begun.
Casually, we headed toward the meeting hall.
As I mentioned, the meeting hall's interior lacked any sort of religious
atmosphere at all. It looked like a youth training center. Even so. . .
Why had I gotten goose bumps up and down my spine? I was
moved. It might have been a side effect of the drugs I'd taken before
leaving the apartment. My emotional amplification might have been
nothing more than a side effect. But. . .
Almost one hundred people had gathered in this hall, and they were
singing without hesitation, with remarkable spirit. Older men, older
women, young men, young women—they had turned in unison to face
the lectern and single-mindedly sang a hymn praising God. Here, I could
certainly feel holiness. Oh, this is true religion! This is wonderful!
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Anyway, wrapped up in the hymn, I moved quickly along the wall of
the meeting hall and arrived back at a seat along the very edge. When
the hymn ended, a middle-aged man standing at the podium began to
pray. He seemed to be the most important person there.
"Great Creator, who made the heavens and this Earth, too, along
with us humans, may praise and glory be returned to your great name."
Everyone looked forward, listening attentively to his prayer. No one
looked at us.
It was going as planned.
Or so I thought. As he was finishing his prayers, the important man
at the podium said something like, "Thanks to the aid of the Holy Spirit,
you were all able to gather here again today. Many children, as well as
new people. . . "
New people? Who? Who are they?
They were us.
Everyone's gazes immediately turned toward us. I pulled the tulip
hat even farther down over my eyes. Yamazaki, as though competing
with everyone else, flashed his insane smile.
At the edge of my peripheral vision, I could see Misaki. She was in
front of me, in the seat closest to the pedestal. She hadn't realized we
were there. Relaxing, I stopped Yamazaki, who was trying to wave to
everyone.
"Well then, we give you all our thanks in the name of the Son, Lord
Jesus Christ, and give you our prayers."
"Amen." The congregation spoke as one. Only our duck voices stood
out terribly in the chorus.
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The purpose of this meeting was to improve proselytizing techniques.
This was why it was called "missionary school."
First, a veteran male follower stood at the podium and spoke as an
example to follow. After that, the missionary students expounded on
various subjects for six minutes at a time. At the end, the "director" gave
a three-tiered assessment ("good," "work harder," or "needs
improvement") to each student's discussion.
At least, that's how the housewife sitting next to me explained it.
Bowing politely to her, I casually assessed the scene. Even though it
was a weekday evening, a decent number of people had gathered. What
caught my eye first was the huge number of housewives. They were all
extremely normal, middle-aged women, like the kind you'd find
shopping at any nearby supermarket. In addition, there were
businessmen, corning straight to the assembly on their way home from
work. Finally, there were young people on their way home from school.
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