Kawashima and Taku-chan sometimes drew pictures together, and Taku-chan’s were always the same. He’d smear the whole sheet of paper with black or dark blue or purple, and in the middle he’d paint a naked little boy whose body was pierced from head to foot with arrows — dozens of them protruding in every direction, like quills. ‘Who’s that?’ a counsellor once asked him, and Taku-chan said, ‘Me.’ The counsellor said, ‘Well, if it wasn’t you, Taku-chan, who would it be?’ ‘If it’s not me,’ said Taku-chan, ‘I don’t care who it is.’
Kawashima decided he might as well head for the all-night convenience store down the street. He was walking slowly to calm himself, but his heartbeat still wasn’t back to normal. The cold seeped up through the soles of his shoes, and each exhalation was a small white cloud, a visible reminder of how fast and irregular his breathing was. Across the street was an apartment building of reinforced concrete, and at the window of a corner room on the third floor a woman with short hair was smoking a cigarette. She used her sleeve to wipe a circular clear spot on the misty glass and looked down at the street. That building, Kawashima recalled, consisted entirely of studio apartments for single women. The light was behind her and he couldn’t see her face, but judging by her hair-style and the way she smoked the cigarette he could tell she was no longer young. Late thirties, maybe.