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, 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.
“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 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 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-a-lifetime 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 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.