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in a rich household like ours, so if Kaori and I ran away together he could easily track down a couple of penniless teenagers. And if my various schemes failed, things could turn really bad. If he discovered my treachery he might speed up his plans. In his usual detached manner, he might set things in motion immediately. The safest thing for us would be if my first act ofrebellion could put an end to it—that is, if he disappeared. As long as he was alive, Kaori and I were always in danger.
    Was it always wrong to kill someone? Was it a crime to kill someone who was absolutely determined to harm you and the person closest to you? Was this just our selfishness? Weren’t we being forced to break the rules to protect ourselves from this powerful madman? Perhaps society would tell me no. You shouldn’t kill your father. First of all you should tell people about his wickedness, even if that’s unlikely to succeed, you should appeal for help to the police and the child welfare service. That you’ll both be taken straight to hell if you fail, that’s just your imagination. Perhaps your father will take your rebellion to heart and be reformed. You’re too quick to make judgments, to dismiss other possibilities. That’s what society would probably tell me. Maybe they’d say that I was the evil one. But I didn’t care.
    The most valuable thing in my life wasn’t virtue or society or God, but Kaori. I didn’t care if it was wrong to protect the most precious part of my world. Maybe I was misguided, but I believed that the things of greatest value must transcend ethics and morality. If your new-born baby was about to be killed, would you just watch and do nothing? If you could kill the person who was threatening your child, wouldn’t that be okay? Even if you could get away without killing them, wouldn’t it still be acceptable if it made the baby safer? Even if it was wrong? At least that’s what I thought at the time. If my father died unexpectedly it could cause chaos in the Kuki Group and spread ripples through the wider community, but of course that didn’t bother me at all. I proceeded with my plan.
    My first idea was poison. It was hard to get hold of, but among the many mushrooms on the hill out the back was a deadly variety called East Asian brown death caps. When I was eleven I’d looked them up in an illustrated book of plants, thinking I could use them if I needed to get rid of Father. But it would be tricky getting him to eat them, and even if I put them in his drink to make it look like suicide, there was no guarantee that the dose would be lethal. If he received immediate treatment, he would very likely survive. If he didn’t die and if the police discovered that the substance came from poisonous fungi, eventually they would find out that those mushrooms were growing nearby. Then it would be obvious that the perpetrator was someone in the household.
    In Father’s study was a hunting rifle. I considered using that to shoot him. Of course if I chose such an extravagant method everyone would know straight away, but perhaps that wouldn’t matter. Brazenly shoot my father with his own gun in his own room, like it went off of its own accord. If I shot him from an unusual angle, maybe it would look like I shot him by mistake when he was showing me how to use it. The only person in the house who knew of my murderous intent was Kaori, and no one would think I’d done it on purpose. Even if they were suspicious, they couldn’t arrest me unless I confessed. The only proof would be hidden inside my head. What’s more, by law they couldn’t prosecute a child of fourteen. Even if the whole story came out I wouldn’t go to jail. The worst that could happen was that I’d end up in juvenile detention. In this country anything a minor does is not a crime, and they can’t be punished for it. In the eyes of society, guilt is exonerated byyouth. That fact gave me courage. If I couldn’t think of any other method, I