Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Sakaguchi Ango

The tragedy of Anatahan Island would of course never have occurred without the war.
First, they would never have come to know each other's faces, and each would have lived out their lives in mutual irrelevance.

Yet incidents like Anatahan need not require war's existence to occur.

Men killing each other over a woman - such acts need no remote mountain camps resembling Anatahan's labor settlements. They could be found as commonly in the city's heart as stones on a path.

It seemed overly narrow-minded to assume that because Anatahan lacked both laws and detectives, people’s psychology there differed from ours in being more open, naturally giving rise to such disparities.

When thirty people lived together in a group, laws naturally emerged there.
Their mutual gazes constituted those laws.
Rather, thirty people would be an excessive number for the members within any individual’s social circle; generally speaking, even in urban life, we did not feel the gaze of thirty pairs of eyes behind our rivalries—a mere few would be the norm.

Even in the very heart of the city, there exist many people living as though upon an isolated island.
They might ride trains and buses to work or go shopping, but that constituted their public-facing existence; no small number passed their personal lives entirely as if dwelling within such an island.

As one such example, let us examine this story's heroine Miyako—referred to within her insular social sphere as Miyakō.

She worked as a barmaid at a single-unit bar on a corner of Tokyo's Menuki-dori, yet had never read newspapers or anything of the sort. She woke around noon, a time when the evening edition's first print run began distribution, making the morning papers naturally outdated by then—and though her life remained temporally out of sync with newspapers, her reason for not reading them wasn't this discrepancy, but simple disinterest. Even if she had read newspapers, there would naturally have been no articles relating to herself, yet the lives of people who couldn't feel alive without meticulously reading such things every day had seemed all the more mystifying to her.

Although it had been stated that there should naturally be no articles relating to her in newspapers, in her case matters might actually have turned out otherwise.

While salarymen encountered articles about things like 'the 10,000 yen base' or 'the Cold War' that seemed intimately related yet ultimately irrelevant to them, one hardly ever came across pieces directly addressing individual personal lives more than a few times in a lifetime.

Yet in Miyako's case, it wouldn't have been strange had her lovers' names appeared in the newspaper at any time.

Neither Guzuben nor Uhei were considered ordinary by anyone. Though he operated in the black market, his cash flow was suspiciously robust for such dealings, yet his clothing remained shabby—this incongruity had made Uhei’s reputation as a thief the established view. Miyako herself had concluded he was likely one of those notorious criminals currently stirring up society—no, more precisely, she was ninety percent certain he was exactly that.

Yet Miyako never once showed interest in reading newspapers to learn what wanted criminals might be causing a stir in society.

In other words, she didn't care whether Uhei was a thief or murderer.
She was indifferent to such matters.
She didn't care who they were in society.
She knew neither Guzuben's nor Uhei's workplaces, addresses, or even their real names.
That was her daily life in the heart of Tokyo.

Moreover, she had received passionate marriage proposals from both Guzuben and Uhei, and her response to each had been the same: "If only that person weren't here..."
To put it plainly, while she never explicitly said that if one were to die, her "if only they weren't here" implied their complete erasure from existence—in the end, the only conclusion left was that murder would achieve exactly that.
And so the two men had each naturally begun considering this course of action.

In cities and rural areas alike, such Isolated Islands exist everywhere.
And there too, incidents identical to Anatahan are carried out as a matter of course.

★

Guzuben was already forty-one.
He had been relatively honest with Miyako and the regulars of the isolated island about matters concerning his workplace and family circumstances, but it was simply that no one believed him.
And what denied him their trust had nothing to do with his moral failings—it stemmed rather from their shared conviction that no one in such a place would ever speak truthfully about their circumstances.
In other words, these others (Miyako included) had never revealed their true situations to anyone and had convinced themselves through sheer repetition that everyone else must have made similar resolutions.

Guzuben was called Guzuben at his company in the same way he was there.
No, it would be accurate to say that the only thing he gained by earnestly sharing his true circumstances at this bar - earning people's trust and being accepted there in the same way as at his company - was the nickname Guzuben.

At his transport company, he had been a driver since before the war and was both the most senior field employee and a supervisor.
The field employees here had fixed income from the company along with side earnings from their assignments, so despite his black marketeer-like appearance, the supervisor actually earned more than real black marketeers.
Therefore, the reason people didn’t believe his accounts of his circumstances lay precisely there.

The fact that his clothing was not merely careless but even unkempt stemmed from having lost his wife three years prior.
The eldest daughter had graduated from middle school and handled household chores, but with three younger siblings below her, this young unpaid housekeeper could not extend her attention to her father's personal care.
Moreover, ever since meeting Miyako, Guzuben's life had undergone a complete transformation—he was often away from home and provided his children with only just enough living expenses to barely survive.
Because of this, he and his eldest daughter found themselves in a somewhat cold war-like relationship.

All these matters were facts he had disclosed to people at Fuji no Ie (the name of the bar), but it was simply that no one believed them.

Even Guzuben knew it was unwise to fully expose one's background in a place like Fuji no Ie with its particular atmosphere, yet driven by his single-minded desire to marry Miyako, he had earnestly laid bare the truth. Because he believed it was only natural that women would prefer to marry men who could openly share their background rather than those who might be thieves or murderers.

But there exist women who have no need to concern themselves with a man's background. And the fact that Miyako was such a woman eventually became clear to Guzuben as well. The reason Miyako allowed Guzuben to have her was not for marriage, but for money. Miyako did not engage with men who had no money.

It was an everyday occurrence for her to have several lovers present before her and determine who would play the role of that night's partner based on the amount of cash they carried that day. Of course, she didn't openly compare their cash holdings, but after subtly gauging their financial means,

"You go home tonight."

She would whisper.
Ultimately it amounted to openly comparing cash holdings, yet through her machinations a system naturally took shape where the lovers had no choice but to comply.
In extreme cases all regulars would be driven out, leaving behind some newcomer making their first appearance that night.
This newcomer could sustain his delusion of being the sole attractive man only until dawn; once he grasped how things worked by the next encounter, he'd typically vanish without returning.

There was, of course, rivalry.
However, when the Queen of the Isolated Island made these monetary transactions so explicit, it became akin to licensed prostitution—indeed, among the veteran regulars, practices resembling the rotation systems of brothels were often conducted with undisturbed calm.

It was no rare occurrence for men to persist in their original resolve to marry her despite knowing what kind of woman she was.
That was what love was like.
If anything, such relationships must have been more earnest.
At the very least, Guzuben was earnest.

Many lovers came and went, but those who remained until the end without changing were Guzuben and Uhei.
Though he called himself Uhei, it likely wasn’t his real name.
When drunk, he would deliberately,

“Whooee!”

Exclaiming this, he would place both hands on the table and demonstrate prostration.
The hoarseness of his voice and his demeanor suggested a past as a street hustler or something similar, but his current occupation bore no resemblance to such trades and remained unclear.

However, his financial situation was remarkably good.
Thus, they had likely established a ninety-percent consensus that he was a thief.

Every regular who came to this bar had at some point been involved with Miyako; some found it easier to settle for one-night flings that might occasionally recur when desired in the future, while others naturally resigned themselves to the notion that this Nee-chan was hopeless without money. To these relatively composed men, the increasingly unhinged rivalry between Guzuben and Uhei appeared to have reached a point where nothing short of one killing the other could resolve it.
In other words, the intensity of these two men’s desire to monopolize Miyako was visible even to outside eyes.

Among the relatively composed regulars, some had begun to suspect that Miyakō might actually have a genuine lover beyond those two.

Miyakō was merely a waitress at this bar.
The owners were a repatriate couple who had no experience in this business and, while not only holding no affection for it but even harboring disgust, seemed to run it reluctantly for survival.
The owner couple had completely turned their backs on customers and appeared to have entirely left bar management to Miyako.

Miyako stayed overnight at the bar and casually let customers remain in her room.
However, she often went out somewhere past noon—something early-arriving regulars naturally noticed.

“Miyakō has a lover, doesn’t she?”

Even when asked this, the owner couple would respond,

“Why would we know anything about that girl?”

Their reply suggested hostility not merely toward Miyako’s private affairs, but toward all customers involved with her.

This couple seemed consumed by one thought alone—to avoid at all costs showing their faces to adversaries or engaging in pointless talk, instead focusing entirely on pressuring Miyako behind the scenes to ruthlessly extort money from their enemies.

Guzuben alone received somewhat humane treatment from this couple.

This was partly because Guzuben would visit the bar during his days off—not Sundays—arriving from noon onward, which generally coincided with Miyako's outings, leading him to naturally converse repeatedly with the owners. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say this couple had somehow taken a liking to him.

That said, he was never treated as a close friend nor did he gain their trust. At best, they showed him a level of familiarity one tier above what they might extend to sworn enemies, thieves, or murderers.

As a result, Guzuben came to grasp a deeper reality than the other regulars.

He was called Guzuben, but if you thought him merely an average dimwit, he'd have you beat.
He certainly wasn't sharp-witted.
And he was the type that was easily mocked by such people.

For example, when he was in military service, even sharp-witted individuals would have their government-issued items stolen.
Then, to replenish them, they would target Guzuben's belongings—meaning that people had convinced themselves he was a pitiful figure who constantly became the sacrifice for sharp-witted individuals.

However, in reality, Guzuben rarely became the sacrifice. For he possessed an intense instinct - having known since birth his predisposition to such predicaments - that naturally drove him to prevent them. Though this timid instinct made him appear all the more dimwitted, it was precisely this instinctive caution that ensured he seldom suffered actual harm. Moreover, when harm did befall him, he had a gift for replenishing his losses unnoticed while maintaining an innocent facade. No one knew of this gift. Because they remained convinced he was a dimwit incapable of such things. He even possessed an instinct to exploit being easily perceived as a dimwit.

At first glance, this might appear as simple as a chameleon's color-changing instinct, but in humans it could actually be an extraordinarily refined talent.

He was sincerely in love with Miyako and ardently desired to marry her, so beneath his veil of dimwittedness, this talent had begun operating with remarkable secrecy unknown to anyone.

And he had been the very first to uncover even the identity of Miyako's true lover.

★

Until about half a year ago, there had been a part-time student who would sometimes come to this bar to eat oden. Since he never drank alcohol and only ate oden with rice, he never stayed long, never developed connections with the regulars, and didn’t even have the money to win Miyako over—so no one considered him an issue—but this student named Nakai was Miyako’s true lover.

When Guzuben, through various situational judgments and on-site reconnaissance, discovered that Miyako's daytime destination was Nakai's apartment, he immediately instinctively recognized this as the true formidable enemy.

Because Nakai was a part-time student who shouldn't have had any money.
For Miyako keeping company with a man who lacked money indicated—so he saw—what could be called a genuine romantic affair, different from her dealings with other men.

Guzuben had long harbored suspicions regarding Miyako's use of money.
According to the owners of Fuji no Ie,

“Miyako doesn’t need food expenses or taxes, yet she sells her body nearly every night—there’s no telling how much money she’s got.”

they said.
As for kimonos and handbags and such, they were mostly things men had bought for her.
It was primarily Uhei, but Guzuben, not wanting to be outdone, would buy her clothes and accessories once or twice a month.
However, he couldn’t match Uhei, who was flush with cash like a thief.
Miyako’s wardrobe was sufficiently provided for by the items Uhei and Guzuben bought for her, and in fact, almost no traces could be found of Miyako having purchased anything with her own money.

Moreover, Miyako didn't even own a chest of drawers. And whenever the seasons changed, the kimonos men had bought and given her would vanish without a trace, leaving nothing but a permanent bed visible in Miyako's attic bedroom.

Miyako was a heavy sleeper. She slept deeply, her true nature nowhere to be found. This likely proved there wasn't a single thing worth stealing in that room.

"I wonder if her real room exists somewhere."

Guzuben had long been thinking this. Otherwise, it made no sense. Where could all those belongings be disappearing to? He concluded there must be someone in the shadows controlling her savings passbook.

Because he had long harbored these suspicions, Guzuben acted with abnormal tenacity to uncover Miyako’s daytime whereabouts. And when he discovered that this was Nakai's apartment, he immediately understood that Nakai was Miyako's true lover. Then he realized something terrifying.

★

Whenever Guzuben pleaded for marriage, Miyako—

“Well... You’re a reliable man, and I do want to marry you, but Mr. Uhei’s just as earnest.”
“If I were with you, we’d both end up killed by Mr. Uhei.”
“Even now—since he thinks you’re in the way—it seems he’s planning to kill you and keep me all to himself.”

She said this.
And she added.

"If only Mr. Uhei weren't here, you and I could be together..."

And she would put on a show of sighing—"Aah"—like that.

Before Guzuben learned of Nakai's existence, those words had truly sounded nostalgic, heartrending, and agonizing to his ears.
But now that he understood Nakai's presence, this was clearly a line that was taking him for a fool.

Miyako stressed that she couldn't marry him because Uhei would likely kill them both—and even if that didn't happen, Uhei was intent on eliminating Guzuben.
She would heave a sigh and say with feigned anguish, "If only Uhei weren't here, you and I could be together"—but given how this was her standard refrain, she must have given Uhei the same rehearsed line whenever he proposed to her.

Therefore, the assertion that Uhei was stalking Guzuben to eliminate him as a marital obstacle had to stem from Miyako's own will before becoming Uhei's intention.

To Miyako, both Uhei and I were nothing but hindrances.
She was likely hoping these two nuisances would kill each other - one dead, the other a vanishing criminal.
Because Nakai would soon graduate.
"The era when those other two men served any purpose was already ending."

With this, everything had crystallized, Guzuben thought. And until that moment he hadn't felt it so acutely, but now he realized the grave significance of Miyako's words—that Uhei was lying in wait to kill him—and sensed the danger closing in.

For the fact that this stemmed not from Uhei's will but Miyako's own meant it carried far greater capacity for execution than any intention Uhei might have conceived—a reality Guzuben now had no choice but to comprehend.

"Miyako will surely have Uhei kill me.
And make Uhei take the fall."

This was more likely than Guzuben killing Uhei.
Uhei had always been the sort others naturally assumed was a thief and murderer—a man of brute strength versed in violence.
He probably already had prior convictions too, with other unsolved crimes undoubtedly attached.
Uhei’s prison sentence would only grow longer because of it.

The fact that this bar was an Isolated Island within the city had already been stated; but this was particularly true of the psychology of its residents and regulars.

Neither he nor Miyako knew anything about Raskolnikov’s psychology or Stavrogin’s psychology.
They knew nothing of modern novels' psychologies, nor even of contemporary detective novels.
What they knew were the circumstances and actions of figures like Takahashi Oden, Murai Chōan, and Daki no Ohyaku—these were the actual forces driving them from within and without.

Guzuben began to fight in earnest to protect himself from the danger closing in on him.

Around that time, as car robberies had become extremely frequent, the drivers at Guzuben’s company hired an instructor to take self-defense classes.
The instructor was a master of the jitte baton, and the drivers began practicing wrench combat techniques.
Guzuben was the very first to participate in this training.

“You’re a truck driver, so you’ll be fine,”

people told him, but

“Nah, you never know what’ll happen to trucks now.
When hire cars get cautious, next it’ll be the trucks’ turn to be targeted.”

Guzuben’s training was more earnest than anyone else’s.

However, Guzuben had not abandoned his original intention to marry Miyako. Rather, he became even more serious. And so, to become the last man standing who would overpower Uhei when he attacked, repel Nakai’s assault next, and claim Miyako for himself, he devoted himself to practicing wrench combat techniques.

One evening, Guzuben was Miyako’s lover for the night.

In the attic bedroom where she was helping Guzuben change clothes, Miyako found a wrench inside the lining of his overcoat.

Miyako took the wrench in hand and stared at it fixedly, her eyes gradually beginning to gleam.
Then she said:

"You're targeting the people downstairs, aren't you?"

"You idiot.
I'm not like those Guren gangsters who go around targeting people.
It's dangerous these days, so I carry this for protection."

“Hmph. I’d been thinking about it too—that someone might target the people downstairs. After all, none of our regulars are saints. First off, those downstairs are clinging too tightly. They insist on running this business without extending credit—and actually managing it too! Forcing me to keep it afloat against my will. Because of that, even I have to give strange services to nasty customers while they squeeze them dry and hold on tight—of course they’d get targeted! Someone had to do it—it’d be weird otherwise. But... I never dreamed you’d be first to take aim. People really aren’t what they seem.”

“Cut it out,” he said. “I’ve got a proper company job—a real monthly income over fifty thousand yen. After the war, I even built my own house, small as it may be. I’m a different breed from the other regulars who drink here—though I say so myself. I carry this wrench ’cause you never know when that bastard Uhei might come attackin’.”

“I’m begging you,” she pleaded. “Don’t kill the people downstairs. They’re unpleasant, but we’re living and working together here. In a sea of blood, with eyeballs popping out like rotten fish... I don’t want to see them beaten to death.” She shuddered violently. “Oh, I’m shaking all over!”

“Hey, don’t say such nasty things.”

“But come on,”
“I’m terrified.”
“Men are all terrifying.”
“They’ll do something drastic on impulse.”
“When you’re desperate for money, targeting someone might be fine—but you shouldn’t go after anyone you recognize even slightly.”
“No matter how awful they are—even knowing how tightly they cling—they’re right below where I sleep.”
“I can’t bear it.”
“If I woke to screams like that—I couldn’t endure it.”
“Oh—how dreadful!”

However, even after that, Guzuben did not let go of the wrench from his person.

Then, in front of the many regulars drinking there, Miyako—

“This man has a wrench.”
“He’s never let it leave his side!”

She laughed and spoke bluntly.
Guzuben turned red with embarrassment,

“I’m a driver, so I’ve gotta watch out for truck hijackers.”
“It’s tough being in a business where you can’t let your guard down.”

However, Guzuben did not overlook the change in Uhei’s complexion.
Miyako averted her smile and looked thoroughly satisfied.

“Why did you say that?”

Later, when Guzuben confronted Miyako,

“But come on,”
“Because I’m worried, you know?”
“You’re targeting the couple downstairs—that’s why I’m scared.”
“If I put it that way, even you couldn’t just carelessly beat the couple downstairs to death with your wrench, could you?”
“I’m begging you, just don’t do that.”
“Even I would have trouble sleeping after that!”

Miyako contorted her pallid face and spoke with a look that declared she could no longer endure it.

★

Nearly a month had passed since then.

That night's lover was Guzuben.
Since there were almost no customers that night, Guzuben—at Miyako's request to maintain the bar's sales quota—had drunk far too much.
Not just that night—during lean times, it was this bar's customary practice that unlucky customers would be forced to cover others' tabs.

Guzuben awoke at dawn.
His throat burned with dryness.

He naturally recalled drinking too much last night.
He’d drunk himself into near oblivion.
With customers scarce that night but Guzuben drinking copiously in their stead, they closed shop around eleven and he staggered up to the attic.
Then he remembered—someone had come knocking.

It seemed the old woman downstairs had come out to declare they’d already put up the closed sign.
However, as things seemed to be getting tangled, Miyako stood up,
“I’ll go take a quick look.”

“It’s Uhei.”
“That’s not right.”
“Put up the closed sign.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Miyako descended from the attic.
Before long, the downstairs fell quiet, and Miyako returned.

"It wasn't Uhei," Guzuben thought.
If it had been Uhei—with his free-flowing cash—they would've reopened after putting up the closed sign just to serve him.
Even after bedding down customers in the attic, they always let Uhei keep drinking, leaving those attic guests utterly neglected during his sessions.
Resenting this preferential treatment, Guzuben had started making his own unreasonable demands after closing time too—and found they still poured for him.
There'd even been moments when this petty victory pleased him.

So if it had been an unprofitable night like last night, first off, the couple downstairs wouldn't have dragged their feet like that.
They would've immediately let Uhei into the shop, called Miyako over, and made her pour drinks—that was certain.
So it probably hadn't been Uhei after all.
Guzuben gradually pieced together these recollections.

Guzuben's throat burned dry, so he decided to go downstairs to drink water. Moving between the attic and downstairs required using an ordinary ladder that became dangerous without caution.

When he carefully descended each rung and reached the bottom, he found himself in the kitchen, with a shoji screen partitioning off the couple's room on one side. Though midwinter now, they were the kind of pair who kept their shoji tightly shut even through midsummer swelter. Yet now it stood open.

This is weird, Guzuben thought. Everything felt wrong in some indefinable way. Suspicious... Drawing from his training, he instinctively shifted into a defensive stance, but the wrench's absence disrupted his positioning—without that familiar weight in hand, his posture felt incomplete and dangerously exposed.

Then came something truly strange.
Undeniably, there lay a wrench right at his feet.

Of course, all wrenches look alike—there was no feature that would let anyone recognize this one as mine at a glance.
Guzuben, stunned by this bizarre turn, hastily grabbed the wrench.

Something thick coated his hand.
"Oil?" he wondered.
Looking closer—blood.
The wrench dripped crimson.

Peering through the pitch-dark shoji screen to the other side, he found the situation off.
Taking a step or two closer and peering inside revealed utter chaos.
When he finally mustered the courage to step through, there lay the couple—dead in a sea of blood, their eyes bulging outward like rotten fish.

★

Guzuben recalled the subsequent events in his police cell as if they were a dream.

Everything was hopeless.
If it was going to end like this, why hadn’t I gone straight to the police at that time?
In any case, I should have woken Miyako and discussed how to handle things together before taking action.

It was at this moment that Guzuben’s inherent self-defense instinct naturally guided him.
It had been effective for secretly replenishing government supplies stolen from the barracks, but proved utterly inadequate for resolving a crisis of this magnitude.

Guzuben climbed up to the attic and searched through his overcoat pockets.
His wrench wasn’t in any of the pockets.
He searched the pockets of his suit and every nook and cranny of the attic.
The wrench was nowhere to be found.

"So this is my wrench!"

Guzuben panicked completely at that point.
While he had lost his composure, his innate chameleon-like self-defense instinct alone had stirred into motion.
And as was always natural for him, he acted guided by it.

He put on his suit, threw on his overcoat, scanned the area for any dropped items, descended from the attic, concealed the wrench in his pocket, muffled his footsteps, and stepped outside.

That was to secretly dispose of the wrench.
At last, he succeeded in throwing the wrench into the river.
But there, he was drained of all vigor and spirit.
He could no longer manage returning to the attic and feigning innocent sleep, so he let his feet carry him and began wandering aimlessly.

On the second day, he returned home.
He was apprehended by the police who had been lying in wait.

No matter how much he insisted on the truth, it wasn’t accepted.
His insistence seemed nothing but blatant lies.

The interpretation that he had killed and fled fit all the facts a hundred times better than his excuses. Moreover, the wrench he had discarded turned up exactly where he'd confessed to disposing it. While this seemed obvious on its face, it too became a hundred times more likely to prove his guilt than exonerate him.

Under such circumstances, even if they had determined him to be the culprit, there would have been no grounds to challenge it as a miscarriage of justice. For instance, had any fingerprints besides Guzuben's—thick with blood—appeared at the crime scene, they might have provided compelling evidence to actively refute his guilt, but nothing of the sort materialized.

Moreover, the footprints at the scene had been made by someone walking in Guzuben’s shoes. In other words, the criminal had worn Guzuben’s shoes to commit the murder. The small number of barefoot footprints were also Guzuben’s. These were the footprints Guzuben left when he discovered the scene. Since both were Guzuben’s, there was absolutely no way to handle it.

The only oddity was that Guzuben’s clothes showed no bloodstains—though judging by the scene’s condition, he should have been drenched in it. However, there were no traces of blood on his suit or overcoat, nor on the yukata he had discarded in the attic.

It was a rare case for someone to go out naked in midwinter to commit murder.
Washing off a blood-soaked naked body with ice-cold water was quite a challenging task.
But compared to the gravity of murder itself, bathing in cold water during midwinter hardly mattered.
After all, didn't people undertaking winter pilgrimages bathe in water even at midnight during the coldest season?

He received a death sentence verdict at his first trial.

★

Around that time, in a certain part of the red-light district, a woman began working under the name Chiyoko.

With her decent figure and beauty, she began attracting a considerable number of clients, but she would smirk and say such things to people.

“The reason I’m working in a place like this is because I need to hide for now. I’m being targeted.”
“From your ex-husband, I suppose?”
“Well, something like that.”
“Then this ain’t ever gonna get resolved, is it? Planning to hide forever?”
“Until someone gets executed. I don’t really know, but that’s how it goes.”
“Is your husband in prison?”
“I don’t know.”

It was a rambling conversation.

Before long, a gigolo became close with this woman.
The gigolo was handsome, strong-armed, and a feared senior gangster in this district.

Eventually, the woman opened up completely only to this gigolo.
because she had come to think that marriage might be acceptable.
The woman was Miyakō.

"So Nakai's the culprit?"

“That’s right. After closing up when there was some drunk making a racket outside, I went down. It wasn’t a drunk—it was Nakai. He begged me to let him stay, but I couldn’t have him in my room, so I told him to sleep in the shop until dawn and just left him there while I went upstairs. Because I thought it was dangerous, I quietly pulled up the ladder so he couldn’t get up to the attic. Just as I thought. Nakai killed the couple downstairs and stole the money.”

“Aren’t you going to tell the police?”

“Well, Nakai made me keep quiet about it. I did everything I possibly could for him, and now I don’t care one bit. There’s no need to protect him, you know. Who even cares who did it?”

“But it’s the death penalty, isn’t it?”

“Since people were killed, even if someone’s executed, there’s no helping it.”

“Tch! You’re lying through your teeth! You’re the accomplice, ain’t ya?”

“My, what an awful thing to say.”

“What’re you yappin’ about? Then how’d Guzuben’s wrench get stuck in Nakai’s fist? Huh? Hey—this don’t make sense! Someone hadda pass it over—no way that happened on its own, right?”

“It was like this. When Guzuben got plastered and started fiddling with that wrench, I took it away and stashed it under the shop table. I’d clean forgotten about it. Never crossed my mind Nakai’d come grab it to kill someone.”

“What’s Nakai up to?”

“I don’t know.”
“That guy’s an ingrate.”
“Even though I put him through school.”
“He sold off all my things, and on top of that, went and got himself a lover.”
“But when I think about it, I wasn’t really in love with Nakai, was I?”

“You dumped every last bit of your precious savings on him—of course you were head over heels!”

“That’s a lie.
"He just apparently wanted to try doing something like that."
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“From now on too, if I wanted to do such things, I could do them countless times.”
“I don’t want revenge on someone like Nakai.”

“Don’t you even want to save Guzuben?”

“I don’t think so.”
“Honestly—the world works best half-assed.”
“If everything’s done all proper-like every time, I couldn’t stand it.”
“You know—I’d vaguely thought how nice it’d be if someone killed those downstairs.”
“Who cares who kills who anyway?”
“Everything’s business.”
“There’s the business of killing and the business of catching killers—so what if they grabbed the wrong guy? Just means swapping out men. Keep fussing over that and how’re we supposed to work the streets?”
“War’s the same way.”
“Everyone half-asses things—that’s why the world spins smooth. Heh.”
“If Guzuben being the killer bothers you that much, quit coming to the brothel.”

“My bad.”

“Ha ha ha!”

The conversation between the two seemed to have ended there.
Guzuben would likely be executed eventually.