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night.
     
     
    “The most important thing is to make sure we don’t get caught.”
     
     
    Sugioka was grinning to himself again as he took the usual route back home from school. He stopped at the concrete-block wall in front of the Flower Petal Women’s Junior College dormitory, where he liked to urinate. A wide street led to the dormitory but dead-ended at this wall, so cars were few and far between. What’s more, at three or four in the afternoon, which was when Sugioka usually passed by, most of the girls were away from their rooms attending classes. It was the perfect time and place for an inherently timid person like him to express his inner pervert by peeing in public.
     
     
    “After considering all these options, I’d say we’d best keep it simple—but with a bit of a twist.”
     
     
    Sugioka hadn’t stopped to play the video game at Kiddy Kastle that day. The only thing on his mind was the party to be held the following evening at Nobue’s apartment. The thought of the last party still made him grin. He had never been the center of attention before—never once in his life—and he felt extremely grateful. But who should I give thanks to? he wondered, and the answer was immediately obvious. Who else but Japan’s Number One Hunter?
    “Chanchiki Okesa” is tomorrow’s theme song, thanks to me, since Kato chose it after I played it for him. What a great song that is, practically a blues tune, a really sad song that makes you really happy, which is exactly what the Number One Hunter in Japan is all about, joy in the midst of sorrow. I think I’ll start jogging too, buy some jogging shoes and run through this rotten, dying town looking for game. Everyone agreed that murder was where it’s at, first time we all agreed about anything, except maybe that woman with the unbelievable body, but how awesome would it be to do her just like I did that clam-smelling Oba-san? Can’t do it alone, though, I’ll need everyone’s help. It’ll be a bonding experience, and what’s more important in a man’s life than cementing the bonds of friendship?
     
     
    “It’s essential to maintain a certain distance from the target too, right? He is a man, after all, and if you get too close you run the risk of being overpowered.”
     
     
    Might as well take a piss while I’m here, who’s gonna stop me, that ugly, ghost-white, sick-ass-looking junior college girl who acted all shocked when she saw my weenie the other day? Ha!
    Sugioka stepped closer to the concrete-block wall and opened his fly, and he had just pulled out his equipment when he noticed a woman in a red helmet slowly driving a motor scooter down the wide street toward him. She was wearing a black vinyl jacket and pants, and a smile seemed to gleam beneath the shadow cast by her visor. The woman was Iwata Midori. She brought the scooter to a halt a short distance behind Sugioka and said, “You’re not supposed to pee there.” She was holding the handle of a Duskin dry mop, duct-taped to the end of which was a razor-sharp, brilliantly polished sashimi knife, and when Sugioka turned to say, “Stuff it, lady,” the gleaming blade pierced deep into the flesh of his throat and came back out with a slicing motion. “Take that,” said a voice, and the scooter turned and was gone.

Chanchiki Okesa
     
    I
     
    Sugioka was still alive as the bike sped away. In fact, he lived a full two or three minutes after the first geyser of blood. What’s going on here? he wondered. Ironically enough, it was the first time he’d ever tried to think about phenomena in an abstract way. That leaden, sleep-deprived morning, placing the edge of his blade against the throat of the Oba-san in the white dress and slashing with all the esprit of commandos in the old war films he liked to watch, then seeing the Oba-san fall to the ground—it all seemed like something from a movie now. As he remembered it, the Oba-san had dropped at a more leisurely pace than anyone in any