Read Real World for Free Online Page B

stifling, muggy air. I could feel the moisture on my AC-cooled skin grow sticky. There weren’t any reporters now, and the road was deserted. Yuzan was standing in front of our gate, holding my bike. She had on a T-shirt and Adidas shorts, Nike sandals and a backpack. If you saw her from far away you might take her for a short high school boy. She was huffing and puffing so much she must have ridden all the way here.

“Sorry to come so late,” she said, out of breath.

“It’s okay. Thanks for bringing it.”

I put the bike inside our gate. As I did, my arm rubbed against Yuzan’s bare arm. Her arm was all sweaty. Startled, I pulled away and our eyes met.

“Is that the guy’s house over there?” Yuzan motioned with her chin. Worm’s house was dark and still. Until last night the place had been crawling with investigators, but now it was deserted, like a discarded, empty shell.

“Yeah, that’s it. I think his room’s on the corner there, on the second floor.”

I pointed to the pitch-black window. Yuzan gazed at it for a while, then sighed and looked away.

“Yuzan, where did you guys meet up?”

“In Tachikawa. It sure was a long way to come here.”

“What’s he doing in Tachikawa?”

Yuzan took out a plastic water bottle from her pack and took a drink.

“He says he’s hiding out in a park there. Said he used to swim in the pool there when he was little. Said he used to have a good time, so he wanted to see the place again. He must have spent the day hanging out around the pool, ’cause he’s totally tanned.”

I tried to imagine Worm at the pool with his mom wearing her silver-framed glasses, and his dad with his ascot, but I just couldn’t picture the three of them together like that.

“What’d he say?”

Yuzan screwed the cap back on her water bottle. “Said he feels like he’s in a dream. Like the past, too, is all a dream.” She gazed back up at the empty house and I decided to go ahead and ask her something: “Did you feel the same way about your mother?”

“Um.” Yuzan nodded. “Sometimes I can’t even believe she ever existed.”

Yuzan and Worm shared this emotion, I could tell, something I would never be a part of. This didn’t make me sad exactly—it was more a feeling that my own world was too simple, too smooth, too boring and worthless. The most I could do was have another name, Ninna Hori.

“Oh, I’ve got something for you. He told me to say he’s sorry.”

She carefully extracted my cell phone from a pocket of her backpack. I switched it on and found that the battery was almost dead.

“Well, gotta run,” she said.

Yuzan started walking off toward the station.

“What did he say he’s going to do? Keep on running?”

“Yeah. I gave him my own bike and cell phone, so he says he’s going to run as far as he can.”

I looked at Yuzan, astonished. She passed by me and stared up again at the deserted house next door. I stood there, clutching my cell phone, wondering if Worm would get in touch, suddenly realizing I was hoping he would. I didn’t want to be an accomplice, but I did want a taste of adventure, like what Yuzan was doing. Kind of a lame attitude, I know, but that’s the way I am sometimes. That realization put me in a gloomy mood for the rest of the night.

CHAPTER TWO
    YUZAN
    I can still picture Toshi’s surprised look. She was in shock about the woman next door getting murdered, plus her bike and cell phone being stolen. I’m sure she never imagined I’d help out Worm that much. Well—I guess I’m pretty surprised myself.

Toshi acts all laid-back and careless, but she’s built a Great Wall around her heart. It looks like you can get inside but it’s not easy. That’s ’cause she’s much more fragile than other people. She’s been hurt a lot in the past. But that’s what I like about her. She’s timid, but she manages to take care of herself. I think she’s actually the toughest out of the four of us. So when I told her about