Chapter 09
Days of the End
Part One
To a hikikomori, winter is painful because everything feels cold, frozen
over, and lonely. To a hikikomori, spring is also painful because
everyone is in a good mood and therefore enviable.
Summer, of course, is especially painful.
It was a summer loud with the sound of cicadas. From morning to
night, they kept whining and whining. The summer was also cripplingly
hot. Even if the air conditioner ran constantly, it remained hot. I didn't
know if my air conditioner was wearing out or if this summer was just
especially hot. Either way, I was thoroughly boiled.
Sometimes, I wanted to yell, "Whoever is responsible, show
yourself!" I didn't even have the energy to do it, though. The summer
heat had worn me down completely. My appetite was depressed, and my
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nerves were exhausted. No matter how much Lipovitan D27 I swigged,
my weariness was impossible to dispel.
Only my next door neighbor was energetic. He unabashedly made
noise. From early morning until the middle of the night, anime songs
rang out at loud volumes. He said that recently, he needed only four
hours of sleep a day. He was working hard on his creative projects, with
the help of anime songs. Bloodshot eyes flashing, he vigorously applied
himself to these meaningless activities.
One day, Yamazaki said, "I've finally gotten through a big part of my
game."
"Oh, really?"
"Tomorrow, I'm going to start making a bomb."
"What?"
Without answering Yamazaki silently gnawed on some white bread.
It was a pretty half-assed breakfast. As I wasn't as lazy as he was, I
properly toasted my bread and quickly fried an egg.
"Like I told you before, don't take food out of other people's fridges
without permission."
I pretended not to know what he was talking about.
Misaki was wearing long sleeves even though it was summer. She was in
a good mood, though.
"This is so fun, so fun, so fun," she said. She really did seem to be
having fun. She was swinging happily on the swing set.
Of course, tonight felt tropical. It was so hot that I sweated even
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without so much as speaking.
Misaki, however, seemed cool enough. Hair streaming behind her as
she energetically swung back and forth, she said, "By the way, Satou, do
you want to eat the leftover cat food?"
At some point, the park's black cat had gone missing. It had been
quite a while since he had shown himself. Either he had been hit by a car
and gone to heaven, or he'd taken off on a journey somewhere.
At any rate, I turned her down. "I don't need it."
"I stocked up on that cat food. Ah, what a waste."
Jumping down off the swing, Misaki stepped into the cozy sandbox
next to the jungle gym. Picking up a green shovel that one of the
neighborhood kids had left behind, she started making something in the
sandbox.
I asked, "What is that?"
"A mountain."
She was right. It certainly was a mountain. Set in the middle of the
sandbox, it was a sharply peaked mountain. It angled steeply, like
Mount Fuji drawn by Hokusai,28 thus looking as though the slightest
vibration would make it crumble. But the sand mountain soon was
perfectly complete. It was wonderful work, using sand wet with the
evening dew.
Clapping her hands to brush off the sand, Misaki circled the
mountain once. She looked expectantly at me. I said, "It's a nice
mountain."
A little smile on her face, Misaki shouted, "Yaaah!" and aimed a
forward kick at the mountain. "Things with shape will one day fall
apart."
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"That's right." I nodded.
There was actually a huge variety to the books Misaki pulled out of her
backpack, night after night. She apparently borrowed them en masse
once a week from the library. There were novels, poetry collections,
practical guides, and reference books. Misaki read books of all different
shapes and sizes, and then she would read them to me.
"Well then, the text for tonight is The Last Words of Famous People.
Its title refers to the words that exemplary people leave behind at the
moment of their deaths. . . "
Refers to. . . ?
"Let's think about what life is!" she cried.
It was a dramatic line, and I was done in by Misaki's ability to make
such grand, unusual declarations with an utterly normal expression.
Then again, seen from another perspective—well, compared to
yesterday's topic of "Let's think about what it means to live," it wasn't
that big a deal.
Regaining my composure, I urged her to continue, and Misaki
immediately started reading the text aloud.
The book collected the last words of famous people from all around
the world, from ancient times to modern days. I listened quietly and
respectfully. As she read from the book, however, Misaki seemed to
grow bored with it, and her theme changed along the way.
"'More light. . . ' Well then, whose words could these be?"
What, a quiz?!
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176
"Three. . . Two. . . One. . . Time's up! The answer is Goethe. Well,
that line is too cool, isn't it? I think that Mr. Goethe must have thought
it up far, far ahead of time."
"M-maybe he did."
"Okay then, next question. 'Mikka Tororo29 was delicious.'"
I knew this one. "It's the marathon runner Kokichi Tsuburaya's
death note."
"Ping pong, ping pong!30 That's right! It's amazing you knew that."
I couldn't really brag about knowing famous people's last words, but
Misaki praised me anyway. She sounded oddly taken with the contents
of that death note, "Mikka Tororo. . . this is like some kind of joke, isn't
it?"
"Conversely, that might be why people are struck by it."
"I see. That really clears things up for me," she said, nodding
repeatedly. "Tsuburaya, the runner, apparently went home to the
countryside right before he died. Then, he ate grated yam with his
mother and father, it says."
"Hm."
"I guess everyone wants to return to their hometowns before they
die, after all."
"Now that you mention it, Misaki, are you from this city?"
"No, I'm not. The north star is in that direction. . . so I'm probably
from over there." Misaki pointed in a north-by-northwest direction.
She said the name of a town I didn't know and explained that it was
a small town on the Sea of Japan, with a population of five thousand.
According to her, it supposedly had a beautiful cape, but that cape had
become a somewhat notorious spot for suicides.
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"Ever since some famous person jumped off its cliff during the Meiji
era, it's like it's become a Mecca for suicides. They say that so many
people either jumped deliberately or slipped and fell accidentally that
they had to construct safety barriers to prevent further incidents. When
I was little, I didn't know anything about that and was always, playing
on those bluffs. One day, I saw a strange woman there."
Misaki continued, "She was by the cliff's edge, on the high cape. It
was a beautiful early evening and the sky was a bright red. The woman,
too, was beautiful."
"And?"
"I took my eyes off her for just a moment, and she vanished. Even
now, I sometimes see her in my dreams. It might have just been a dream
to begin with, though. I mean, she had a really cheerful smile on her
healthy-looking face. Alone, she stared at the ocean and late-afternoon
sun. And then, in that one short instant, as I glanced away, she
disappeared. A strange story, isn't it?"
It was a strange story.
"What could have happened? I think she should have at least left a
suicide note—maybe about grated yam or something," I joked, trying to
lighten the mood.
"I want to eat some grated yam."
"It makes you itchy."
"Yeah." She nodded.
"It's delicious, though, isn't it?"
The conversation had begun to stray. I, too, was exhausted, after all.
But Misaki was laughing. "Ah, how fun, how happy. You think so, don't
you, Satou?"
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"Sure."
"We're coming to the end. The last day of the project is
approaching." Misaki returned the book to her bag. "I've given all these
helpful lectures, Satou, so you should be just about ready to become a
model adult, right?"
Standing up from the bench, she said, "You understand now, don't
you? Why you've become a worthless person? Why you've become a
hikikomori? You should understand by this point."
I didn't answer.
"If you think about it properly, you should definitely understand."
Still seated on the bench, I looked up at her. The park was so dark
that only her silhouette was illuminated. I couldn't see the expression on
her face.
"I'm nearly out of time. I can't cause any more trouble for my aunt
and uncle, so I'm going to leave town."
Her tone was absolutely casual, so I listened to her calmly.
"Where are you going?"
"A city. . . someplace where there are lots of people; someplace where
no one knows me; someplace where I don't know anyone. That's why, by
the time I go, Satou. . . Satou, you have to become an outstanding
person."
I couldn't tell where the discussion was going; then again, she was a
girl who said terribly unreasonable things.
Dazed, I shook my head from side to side.
"That won't change anything," said Misaki.
"Okay, I understand. I'm fine now." All I could do, at that point, was
try to convince her of her success. "No, because of you, I really have been
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reborn. You should rest assured of that and start a life of your own in a
new city."
She still seemed somehow dissatisfied.
In an optimistic tone, I said, "Thank you! I owe you my life. Oh,
that's true. Want to take my stereo with you? It's a necessity for living
alone. If you want it, I'll give it to you as a present. . . "
"That isn't what I mean."
"It isn't what you mean?"
I waited patiently for her to continue, but Misaki turned her back on
me without saying anything else.
I stood up, too. "Well then, goodbye."
I started walking toward my apartment; as I did, Misaki called out.
"No! Wait a second!"
"What?"
"Let's go on a date. It'll be your graduation exam to test whether you
really have become an outstanding, socially adept person, Satou. Meet
me at the station, Sunday at noon. And we're definitely going even if it
rains!"
With this defiant declaration, Misaki quickly strode away.
Meanwhile, Yamazaki really was making a bomb. He had gotten hold of
a bomb recipe from the Internet and was really, truly manufacturing a
bomb.
First, he needed to make black gunpowder. The history of black
gunpowder went way back into the distant past. For example, it was
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used during the Genkou period of Mongolian invasions31; and the
weapon called the tetsuhou,
32 which surprised the samurai, also used
black gunpowder. Despite being an extremely primitive compound of
potassium nitrate, sulfur, and coal, its force is tremendous. They say
that when used in an enclosed space, black gunpowder generates enough
power to break all the windows on an average car and instantly kill the
people inside.
"What are you going to use a bomb for?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? I'm going to blow up something!"
Well, yeah, that was true. It was, indeed, obvious. There was no
other use for a bomb.
"I meant, what are you going to blow up? That's what I wanted to
ask you."
"My enemies."
"Who are your enemies?"
"Villains. I'm going to get those villains with my revolutionary
bomb."
"I see. Well, who are the villains?"
"Like, politicians or something."
"Do you even know the name of the current prime minister?"
Yamazaki grew silent and went back to his work. Before long, he'd
completed the black gunpowder and the airtight iron pipe. His
detonator, which used an analog clock, also was finished. The only thing
left was to attach the detonator to the pipe, and then he could set it off at
any time.
"Yay, I'm done! I'm a fighter! I'm a revolutionary!" Yamazaki was in
high spirits. "They'll all be blown up! I'll kill all the villains!"
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He was in high spirits, but he was also entirely self-aware.
"Ah, that was fun," he concluded.
In the end, though, the bomb didn't blow up any villains.
To start with, we didn't know where to find any villains. Because
there was nothing we could do about that, we tried to blow up the
neighborhood park on Saturday night. So no one would see us, we
crawled deep into the brush to set the detonator. The bomb actually did
explode, but it was more a whimper than a bang.
It was a sad story.
Amid these distractions, Sunday arrived. As I had promised, I met
Misaki in front of the station. We had our date, and I returned to my
apartment.
I slept all night. When I awoke, it was morning. I had nothing to do
and was bored. I decided to try ingesting my entire stash of stockpiled
drugs. I started having a good time. Everything became pleasurable. I
laughed.
Part Two
In general, drugs can be classified into one of three large categories:
uppers, downers, and psychedelics. Uppers are drugs that make you
energetic. Cocaine and stimulants are famous uppers. Downers are
drugs like heroin, which make you sluggish. I'd never tried them, so I
didn't know firsthand, but it seemed that taking them would feel really,
really good. And psychedelics are hallucinogens. LSD and magic
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mushrooms represent that category.
For the most part, I really preferred legal hallucinogens. They had
few side effects—unlike uppers and downers—and more than that, they
were easy to get because they were legal.
On the day after my date, I took drugs again. I decided to take a
rather aggressive approach.
First, I set the groundwork with thirty milligrams of AMT. AMT is
an antidepressant that was studied by Russian scientists. After they
discovered that a large dose could cause hallucinogenic effects, it was
prohibited for medical use. Still, it was originally just an antidepressant.
After taking it, for the first two hours, a person would be plagued with
terrible nausea; once that was over, however, it became entirely
pleasurable. It also happened to be the best thing ever for combating bad
trips.
Next, I boiled down the seeds of a harmal plant and drank the
yellow layer of liquid that floated to the top. Harmal, a plant I think is in
the goathead family, originated in Tibet and contains the Indole-type
psychedelic components harmine and harmaline. Using it by itself
doesn't produce any real effect; in combination with other hallucinogens
like magic mushrooms or DMT, though, the effects are amplified
dozens of times over. That's the Ayahuasca method. As harmal is an
MAO inhibitor, it could be life-threatening if ingested with cheese or
other dairy products; but as long as those foods are avoided, it shouldn't
cause any problems.
Well, my real opportunity had arrived. My consciousness already
was dimming, and the edges of my vision wavered wildly—but here, my
true trip would begin. I would keep going and going!
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Grinding five grams of dried magic mushroom with a mortar and
pestle, I washed the powder down with a single gulp of orange juice. On
top of that, I screwed up my courage and ingested a ten-milligram crystal
of 5-MeO-DMT. DMT is a drug containing only the effective
components of hallucinogenic plants like chacropanga, which natives of
the Amazon use in their Ayahuasca ceremonies. Though legal, this drug
is reputedly one of the strongest anyone can find. According to one
theory, the hallucinogenic effects are more than one hundred times more
powerful than those of LSD. It's truly the ultimate psychedelic.
In just one second, I had become paralyzed! The drugs had taken
effect!
The Satou Special—my wonderful, ultimate method, devised
through research and trial-and-error—was complete.
By effectively combining four types of drugs into a single cocktail, I
was promised the ultimate trip, one that even illegal drugs couldn't
touch. With a hard thrust, as if riding a rocket ship, I was shot into the
far reaches of outer space. Time stopped entirely. Space began to warp
thoroughly. My physical body disappeared.
"This is no good, Satou. I found out something terrible! I've had an
epiphany!" Yamazaki declared. "This is really, really bad!"
I tried to say something but my mouth wouldn't work.
Yamazaki was getting agitated. "Are you listening? Listen closely:
This is a really bad thing!"
As there was nothing else I could do, I listened closely.
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184
Pulling himself to his full height and wearing the largest grin
imaginable, Yamazaki said, "I was able to logically prove that I am the
monotheistic God who created the cosmos!"
I died.
Then, I came back to life.
"Please watch, and I'll clean up your room now, using my
superpowers." Yamazaki pointed his finger at the rubbish scattered
about the floor and screamed, "Move!"
Naturally, the rubbish did not so much as twitch.
"Hey! I'm ordering you! Why are you resisting me?" Yamazaki
fumed.
Observing this situation, I felt something rise up inside of me. It was
a strange sensation, bubbling up from the very depths of my body.
Folding my arms, I thought carefully about this feeling. Finally, after
what seemed like an eternity, I realized what it was. I know, this is. . .
It was nausea! I was attacked by violent nausea. I tried to dash to the
bathroom, but the path there was challenging. My legs wouldn't move
forward. The hall seemed to have stretched into a fifteen hundred foot
tunnel. The bathroom was so far away. Would I make it? Could I get to
the bathroom before spraying-vomit everywhere?
I'll be fine. Calm down.
Yamazaki had just said it. He had said, "I am God."
But I knew. I knew that his words were completely mistaken. How
did I know? Because I was God! I had confirmed that truth just a
moment earlier, using a thoroughly logical thought process.
I would definitely make it in time. I am God. I will make it to the
bathroom in time.
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I made it.
Prostrating myself before the toilet, I threw up. Afterward, I felt
much better. Then, I became energetic. I was enjoying myself. Skipping
slowly back into the room, I found Yamazaki squatting there, still
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