Chapter 11
We drove to a rental storage facility on the outskirts of the city. It had been five years since I’d last been there.
“Is it here?”
Shinji asked as he walked behind me.
“Yeah, but it’s been sitting here for five years, so I’m not sure if it’ll actually start….”
Saying that, I unlocked the door and reached for the shutter. When I lifted it with all my might, there was a rattling sound, dust, and the smell of oil.
Covered by a tarp was a motorcycle. A Kawasaki—I think it was from the “Ninja” series.
“Whose is this?”
“My dad’s. What do you think? Can you ride it?”
Shinji removed the motorcycle’s cover, straddled it, turned the key, and revved the engine. A roaring sound and a cloud of dust filled the air. A wave of nostalgia washed over him.
“I think I can handle it.”
“Okay, put this on.”
I handed Shinji a jacket that was hanging in the warehouse. There were even two helmets, so we were ready to go at any moment. It started up so smoothly, you’d never guess time had stood still.
“Is it really okay to take it without asking?”
Shinji asked, holding a helmet in his hand. I replied briefly,
“The owner… isn’t here anymore.”
I said nothing more and put on the helmet. I closed the garage door and locked it securely.
I’ve decided on the destination.
The place where my maternal grandparents’ house used to be. It’s a mountain village, and hardly anyone lives there anymore. There used to be an elementary school nearby, but I heard it’s now closed. The mountain pass road is often used as a touring route, so it was a perfect place to ride a motorcycle.
I was very close to my grandparents. My maternal grandparents doted on me as their first grandchild, and I loved them dearly for treating me so specially.
Whenever I had a long break, I’d stay at my grandparents’ house deep in the mountains. There were so many adventures there—the kind you can only experience in the countryside—and I loved my grandparents’ house.
I remember that my grandfather was a very righteous person. He would often say, “Always do the right thing, even when no one is watching. The sun is always watching during the day, and the moon is always watching at night.”.
Whenever my parents scolded me, we would often play a game called “Do-Over”. We would try to figure out why I was scolded and then explore what I should have done to avoid it. It was a game of imagining “what if”.
One time when we went back home for New Year’s, I broke a toy Santa had given me for Christmas. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents, so I lied and said my little sister had broken it.
But such children’s lies are easily seen through. My mother scolded me harshly.
“Why did you tell such a lie!”
My mother would scold me, but my grandfather spoke gently.
“Natsumi must be confused after breaking her precious toy and doesn’t know what to do. I’ll have a word with her.”
With that, my grandfather led me out and bought me a hot cocoa from the vending machine in front of the house.
“Natsumi, what do you think went wrong just now?”
My grandfather asked me, and I thought about it.
“… Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the toy with me?”
If I had left it at home, it wouldn’t have broken.
“That’s true. If you hadn’t brought it, it might not have broken, but is that the problem?”
I know what my grandfather is trying to say. The problem was that I’d told a lie. I should have just told the truth. I should have said, “I’m sorry for breaking it”.
“I should have just said I’m sorry.”
“Yes, that’s right. So, what else?”
“What else?”
“That’s right. Before you got here today, Natsumi, you could have made all sorts of choices, couldn’t you?”
Choices.
It was still a bit of a difficult concept for me, a young elementary school student. Still, Grandpa patiently explained each one to me, one by one.
If only I had played with the toy more carefully.
What if I had asked Santa for a different toy?
That’s how we considered each possibility, one by one.
There really wasn’t a “right” answer.
Even so, it was really fun for the two of us to think about what might have happened if I had done this or that.
And throughout those conversations, my grandfather always made me think about, “What was the right thing to do?”.
Before I knew it, adolescence arrived.
I spent more time with friends than with my parents, and I went to my grandparents’ house less and less. We stopped playing make-believe, and I began to forget what “the right thing” was.
One day, I went to a general store with a few friends. One of them joked,
“Hey, I’ll distract the clerk, and in the meantime, you guys grab something.”
That’s what she said.
Shoplifting.
I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. As I stood there silent, my other friend actually said…
“Sounds fun!”
Looking back now, I wonder why I couldn’t clearly say “I can’t do that” at the time. Was it because I thought refusing would mean we wouldn’t be friends anymore? After all, kids who suggest shoplifting probably aren’t friends to begin with. But back then, I just couldn’t say that.
“That was a piece of cake!”
On the way home, we walked with lip balm that we had “borrowed” from the store in our hands.
I don’t know what the other two were thinking. But I was overcome with an indescribable sense of guilt and nausea, and I felt like I was going to cry.
“Always do the right thing, even if no one is watching.”
My grandfather’s words echoed vividly in my mind.
I deeply regretted that I had tainted myself.
What should I have done?
Should I have just said, “Let’s not do this”?
Should I have stopped them back then, even if it ruined the mood or caused me to be ostracized?
If I had chosen my words carefully, I might have been able to stop it without ruining the mood. For example, if I laughed and jokingly said, “Come on~, stop making weird jokes~!”, then maybe the kid who started it would have just casually replied, “You’re right.”
Or should I have changed the subject?
For example, I could have made up a crush who didn’t even exist and steered the conversation towards love stories. If I had done that, we might have skipped all that and been having a great time at the nearby park, talking about the people we liked.
There should have been other choices.
That day, I felt truly, deeply sorry for my grandfather.
That same grandfather passed away after I graduated from high school. When I visited that old house in the countryside for the first time in a long while—a place I’d grown distant from—the same familiar scenery spread out before me, and I felt as if my heart had been cleansed.
Do the right thing.
I engraved those words in my heart once more.
It might be getting a bit too sentimental to think that if I go to that place, my grandfather will guide me. But I desperately wanted to feel that sensation again, as if my spirit were being cleansed, and perhaps I could do what was right.
“Then, please.”
It’s a bit strange for me to be the one asking, but I said that and straddled Shinji’s back. As I wrapped my arms around his waist, I sensed a faint resemblance to my late father.
My father passed away a few years after my grandfather’s death. He was a kind and doting father to his daughter. If he knew his own daughter was helping a bank robber on the run… he might be lamenting in heaven right now, I thought, and I couldn’t help but smile a little.
It’s been about an hour since we left the outskirts of the city where the warehouse is. Even with breaks along the way, my body is aching. I wonder if they’ve found Shinji’s abandoned car by now. How close are the police hot on our heels? My anxiety knows no bounds.
Especially that detective, Yasuhara.
I don’t want him to find us.
The reason Shinji only got a stroke when he touched him was a mystery. The female detective named Kamiya would be fine……
Anyway, there are just too many unknowns. If it’s possible to keep running like this—if that’s the only way to break out of this loop—then Shinji and I will have to live out our lives as fugitives.
“That’s impossible.”
My sigh was drowned out by the sound of the motorcycle engine on the highway.
Sads Translates 