Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Edogawa Ranpo

I. The Next Day

“They’re saying Father has passed away, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s true then.”

“But have you read this morning’s ○○ Newspaper article? Is that really the truth?”

“…………”

“Hey, pull yourself together.”
“I’m asking because I’m worried.”
“Just say something!”

“Yeah, thanks.”
“…There’s really nothing to say.”
“That newspaper article is correct. When I woke up yesterday morning, Father was lying in the garden with his head smashed in.”
“That’s all there is to it.”

“So that’s why you didn’t come to school yesterday.”
“…And has the culprit been caught?”

“Yeah, they’ve named two or three suspects.”
“But it’s still unclear which one’s the real culprit.”

“Was Father involved in something that would make people resent him?”
“The newspaper said it seemed to be a grudge murder, but…”
“He might have done that.”
“Something business-related…”

“It’s not some sophisticated plot. When it comes to Father, it was likely just a drunken brawl that got out of hand.”

“By ‘drunken,’ do you mean Father had violent tendencies when drinking?”

“…………”

“Hey, are you okay? …Ah, you’re crying.”

“…………”

“It was just bad luck.”
“It was just bad luck.”

“...I’m resentful.”
“While he was alive, he tormented Mother and us relentlessly—and even that wasn’t enough—he had to go and die in such a shameful way... I don’t feel the slightest bit of sadness.”
“I’m so frustrated I can’t stand it.”

“Really—you’re not yourself today.”

“It’s only natural you don’t understand.”
“No matter what—I didn’t want to speak ill of my own parent—so until today—I hadn’t told even you a single word about it.”

“…………”

“Ever since yesterday, I’ve been in this indescribably strange state of mind.”
“I couldn’t grieve for the death of my own flesh-and-blood father. …No matter how terrible a father he was, now that he was dead, I should undoubtedly feel some sorrow.”
I had thought so.
However, I didn’t feel the slightest bit sad now.
If only it hadn’t been such a dishonorable way to die, it would have been a relief that he was gone.

“A father who is thought of in such a way by his own flesh-and-blood son is, however, an unfortunate man.”

“Yes, if that was Father’s inescapable fate, then thinking it through, he’s a pitiable man.”
“But right now, I don’t have the space in my mind to think like that.”
“It’s nothing but pure resentment.”
“That much…”

“Father was a man who seemed born to squander the meager property Grandfather left behind on alcohol and women.”
“The miserable one was Mother.”
“How Mother endured such unbearable hardships—seeing that made us children hate Father so intensely.”
“...It might sound strange to say this, but my Mother is truly a remarkable woman.”
“When I think how she withstood that tyranny for over twenty years, tears spill from my eyes.”
“That I can still attend school like this—that our family hasn’t been reduced to wandering the streets and still lives properly in our ancestral home—it’s all due to Mother’s strength.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“That’s something you all could never even imagine.”
“Lately, it’s gotten especially worse—every single day there’s these disgraceful family quarrels.”
Father, disheveled and drunk despite his age, would suddenly show up from who knows where.
Father was already an alcoholic—from morning till night, he couldn’t live without alcohol.
And then, for utterly trivial reasons—like Mother not greeting him or making a strange face—he’d immediately raise his hand.
"For about half a year now, Mother’s body had been covered in fresh wounds that never healed."
"When he saw that—since Older Brother had a short temper—he’d grind his teeth and rush at Father…"

“How old was Father?”

“Fifty. You must think that’s quite an age.”
“In truth, Father might have already been half out of his mind.”
“Poisoned by women and liquor since his youth... At night, I’d come home without a second thought, open the lattice door to the entryway, and there on the shoji screen would be Older Brother’s shadow—broom raised, standing like a guardian demon.”
“I stood frozen in shock when a terrible clatter erupted—a lantern box came crashing through the shoji screen.”
“Father had thrown it.”
“Where in this world does such a disgraceful parent and child exist...”

“…………”

“As you know, Older Brother commutes to Yokohama every day working as a translator at XX Company—it’s pitiful how even marriage proposals fall through because of Father.”
“That said, he lacks the courage to live separately and can’t bring himself to abandon our wretched mother.”
“If I told you my nearly thirty-year-old Older Brother grapples with Father like that, it might sound absurd—but seeing it from his perspective, it’s actually not unreasonable at all.”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it.”

“It was the night before last, yes. Father, unusually, didn’t go out anywhere and instead started drinking from the moment he woke up in the morning. He’d apparently been grumbling and nitpicking all day long, but when around ten at night, Mother—unable to bear it any longer—finally spoke up a bit, and then he started rampaging. He finally smashed a rice bowl right into Mother’s face. It struck right on the bridge of her nose—Mother lost consciousness for a while. Then Older Brother suddenly lunged at Father and grabbed him by the collar; Younger Sister wailed and tried to stop him—can you even imagine such a scene? It’s hell, it’s hell.”

“…………”

“If that state of affairs had continued for many more years, we might not have been able to endure it at all.”
“Mother might even have died because of that.”
“Or perhaps one of us brothers might have killed Father before it came to that.”
“So, to tell the truth, my family was saved—in a way—by this incident.”

“Father passed away yesterday morning, right?”

“It was discovered around five o’clock—Younger Sister was the first to wake up.”
Then, when they noticed, one of the engawa doors was open.
"Since Father’s bed was empty, they must have thought he had woken up and gone out into the garden."

“So, the man who killed Father came in through there, then?”

“That’s not it.”
“Father was killed in the garden.”
“The night before had seen such a commotion that Mother fainted, so even Father must have found himself unable to sleep—he apparently rose in the night and went out to cool himself in the garden.”
“Mother and Younger Sister slept in the next room and noticed nothing, but given Father’s habit of going out to sit cooling himself on that large cut stone left in the garden at night, he must have been attacked from behind while doing just that.”

“Did they strike him?”

“They struck the back of his head with a not-so-sharp edged weapon—something like an axe or hatchet, according to the police analysis.”

“So the murder weapon still hasn’t been found, then?”

“Younger Sister woke Mother, and the two of them called out in unison to Older Brother and me sleeping upstairs.”
“From that shrill tone in their voices, I felt I’d already grasped the whole incident before even seeing Father’s corpse.”
A strange premonition had lingered since long before.
And so I thought—it had finally come.
When Older Brother and I rushed downstairs to look, through a gap in one open storm shutter, part of the bright garden appeared like a tableau vivant—and there crouched Father in a grotesquely unnatural pose.
“Strange how it feels at such times.”
“For a while, it was like watching a play—I’d slipped into some bystander’s state of mind.”

“……So, about when do you think the crime was actually committed?”

“They say around one o’clock.”

“Midnight, huh.”
“And as for the suspects—”

“There were many who hated Father.”
“But whether any hated him enough to kill—that’s another matter.”
“If forced to suspect someone from those mentioned earlier, there’s one I think might be it.”
“There was a man Father beat up at a small restaurant—he kept coming back demanding medical compensation, but Father would shout him off each time. In the end, he even called the police and had him arrested, ignoring Mother’s pleas.”
“We may have fallen on hard times, but we’re longtime locals here—he was just some shabby laborer type. With that imbalance…it wouldn’t come to blows. I can’t help thinking it’s him.”

“But that’s strange.”
“Sneaking into a house full of family members in the middle of the night would be quite difficult.”
“Would someone really take such risks just over being beaten?”
“And if they wanted to kill him, there were plenty of chances outside…… Was there any solid proof a trespasser came in?”

“The front door was unlatched.”
“The latch wasn’t fastened, and the wicket gate leading to the garden from there has no lock.”

“What about footprints?”

“That’s no good.”
“With this weather, the ground’s completely dried out.”

“……At your place, there don’t seem to have been any hired hands.”

“There aren’t any… Ah—so you mean the culprit didn’t come from outside? …That’s—no—that’s too horrible. However you look at it—that’s too terrifying.”
“It’s definitely him.”
“That man Father beat up.”
“If it’s a laborer—one of those reckless types—they wouldn’t even think about danger.”

“That’s uncertain, but…”

“Ah you—let’s stop this talk.”
“No matter what you say about it now that it’s over and done with—there’s nothing that can change things anymore.”
“Besides，it’s already time.”
“Let’s start heading into the classroom.”

2. Fifth Day

“So, are you saying the one who killed Father is among your family?”

“You hinted the other day that the culprit might not have come from outside.”
“Back then, I hated hearing that—partly because I already sensed it myself, like you’d touched a raw nerve—so I cut you off mid-sentence. But now I’m tormented by that same suspicion.”
“……This isn’t something you discuss with others.”
I had thought to keep it to myself if possible.
“But I can’t endure this anguish any longer.”
“At least… I needed to consult with you.”

“So, in other words—who do you suspect?”

“It’s Older Brother.”
“I’m suspecting Older Brother—who’s my own flesh and blood, and Father’s true son in life.”

“Has the suspect confessed?”

“Not only does he refuse to confess, but counterevidence keeps emerging one after another.”
“They say even the court is struggling with it.”
“The detectives often come to visit, talk about such things, and then leave.”
“That too, depending on how you look at it, might mean even the authorities suspect someone in my family and come to probe the situation.”

“But aren’t you getting a bit too sharp with your nerves?”

“If it were just a matter of nerves, I wouldn’t be tormented like this. There’s evidence…… Back then, I didn’t think something like that could be related to the case—I’d nearly forgotten about it myself and didn’t mention it to you either. But that morning, I picked up a linen handkerchief crumpled into a ball right beside Father’s corpse. Though it was filthy, the part with the sewn mark happened to face outward, so I recognized it instantly. That was an item no one but Older Brother or I could have possessed. Father was old-fashioned—he hated handkerchiefs and kept a folded hand towel in his pocket instead. Mother and Younger Sister carried handkerchiefs too, but theirs were small women’s ones, completely different. So whoever dropped that handkerchief had to be either Older Brother or me. But I hadn’t stepped into that garden for four or five days before Father was killed, nor did I remember losing any handkerchief recently. That leaves no choice but to conclude the handkerchief by Father’s corpse belonged to Older Brother.”

“But how could Father have possibly had that…”

“That’s not true.”
“Father was careless with outside matters, but he was quite meticulous about personal belongings like that.”
“I’ve never once seen him carrying someone else’s handkerchief before.”

“However, even if that was Older Brother’s handkerchief, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was dropped when Father was killed.”
“He might have dropped it the day before.”
“It might have been dropped even earlier.”

“However, Younger Sister kept that garden clean about every other day, and she had cleaned it on the evening before the incident.”
“Moreover, I know Older Brother never once went down to the garden until everyone had gone to bed.”

“Then if you examine that handkerchief closely, you might find something.”
“For example…”

“That’s no good.
“I didn’t show it to anyone and threw it straight into the toilet.”
“It just felt... contaminated somehow. But that’s not the only reason I suspect Older Brother.”
“There are more facts.”
“Though Older Brother and I sleep in different rooms on the same second floor—that night around one o’clock, I somehow found myself awake in bed and heard Older Brother going down the stairs.”
“At the time I thought he was just going to the bathroom and didn’t think much of it, but there was a long gap before I heard footsteps coming back up—so it’s not impossible to suspect him.”
“And there’s another thing.”
“When Father’s unnatural death was discovered, Older Brother and I were still asleep—we jumped up at Mother and Younger Sister’s panicked shouts and rushed downstairs. But Older Brother had taken off his nightclothes, thrown on a kimono without fastening the obi, grabbed it in one hand, and run toward the engawa.”
“But then—he stepped barefoot onto the engawa’s shoe-removal stone and froze right there. You might think he hesitated at seeing Father’s corpse—it was shocking enough—but then why did he drop the heko obi he was holding onto the stone?”
“Was Older Brother really that stunned?”
“This doesn’t fit with Older Brother’s usual temperament at all.”
“If he’d just dropped it, fine.”
“But he dropped it and immediately scrambled to pick it up.”
“It might be my imagination, but what he picked up didn’t seem to be just the obi.”
“It looked like some small black object—something that would show its owner at a glance, maybe a wallet—had fallen there. In that split second, he must have dropped his obi to hide it, then grabbed both when picking up.”
“That said, I was in mental turmoil myself—it all happened in an instant—so perhaps I imagined it.”

“However, when I considered the handkerchief, the fact that he had gone downstairs at that very time, and above all, Older Brother’s recent behavior, I couldn’t help but suspect him.”
“Ever since Father died, everyone in the house had been acting strange.”
“It wasn’t merely a matter of mourning the family head’s death.”
“Even more than that—there was an indescribable, unpleasant, eerie kind of air hanging about.”
“At mealtimes, even when the four of us faced each other, no one said a word.”
“They kept staring oddly at each other’s faces.”
“That state of affairs suggested that whether it was Mother or Younger Sister, they—like me—were suspecting Older Brother.”
“Older Brother, for his part, had been oddly pale-faced and silent.”
“It was truly indescribable.”
“It was just so utterly revolting.”
“I couldn’t stand being in that house anymore.”
“When I returned from school and stepped over the threshold of the house, a gloomy chill pierced through me.”
“In the house, already desolate from losing its patriarch, Mother and us three children had fallen silent—each lost in our own thoughts, doing nothing but exchange glances… Ah, it was unbearable—unbearable!”

“Listening to you talk makes me scared.”
“But that can’t be right.”
“There’s no way Older Brother… You’re actually being too sharp.”
“You’re borrowing trouble.”

“No—it’s absolutely not that.”
“It’s not just my imagination.”
“Now, if there were no reason—but Older Brother has a legitimate reason to kill Father.”
“How much Older Brother had suffered because of Father, and consequently how intensely he hated him… Especially that night—Mother was even made to suffer an injury.”
“A mother-loving Older Brother, in a fit of rage, might have suddenly conceived of something unthinkable—it’s not impossible to say.”

“…………”

“…………”

“That’s horrifying—but we still can’t reach a definitive conclusion.”

“So you see—it’s become even more unbearable for me.
If only things would settle one way or another—even for the worse—that would still be better than being trapped in this vague, horrifying suspicion. It’s truly unbearable.”

“…………”

3. Tenth Day

“Hey, isn’t that S? Where are you going?”

“Ah… Nothing…”

“You look terribly haggard, don’t you? Hasn’t that business been settled yet?”

“Yeah…”

“Since you haven’t been coming to school much, I was thinking of visiting your place today.”
“Are you headed somewhere?”

“No… Not really.”

“So it’s just a walk then?”
“Even so—you’re swaying strangely, aren’t you?”

“…………”

“Perfect timing. How about keeping me company for a bit? Let’s talk while walking. …So, you’re still brooding over something, aren’t you? You’re not even going to school anymore.”

“I’ve already lost all ability to think—everything—about what I should do. It’s like hell. Being at home is terrifying…”

“The culprit still hasn’t been identified, has it? And you’re still suspecting Older Brother, aren’t you?”

“Please stop that talk—it feels as if my breath is being choked off.”

“But moping around alone is just pointless.”
“Tell me about it. I might have some useful advice.”

“Even if you tell me to speak of it, it’s not something that can be put into words.”
“Everyone in the house suspects one another.”
“Four people share one home without exchanging a word, just glaring at each other.”
“And when they do occasionally speak, they act like detectives or judges trying to pry out secrets.”
“Yet they’re all blood-bound family.”
“And among them—one is a murderer—a parent-killer or husband-killer.”

“That’s terrible.”
“That’s absurd—there’s no way such a thing could happen.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“It might be a neurasthenic delusion.”

“No, it’s absolutely not a delusion—though I’d be saved if it were.”

“……”

“It’s only natural you don’t believe me.”
“After all, no one could ever imagine such a hell existing in this world.”
I myself felt as though I were being tormented by a nightmare.
To think that I—I of all people—was being tailed by detectives under suspicion of patricide… Shh, I mustn’t look back.
They were right there.
“These past few days, whenever I go outside, they’re definitely tailing me.”

“What do you mean?”
“So you’re saying you’re under suspicion?”

“It’s not just me.
“Older Brother, Younger Sister—everyone’s being tailed by detectives.”
“The entire household is under suspicion.”
“And inside the house, they’re suspecting one another.”

“That’s… but have new circumstances actually arisen that make you suspect one another?”

“There’s not a single piece of solid evidence.”
“It’s just suspicion.”
“The suspects have all been released now.”
“There’s no other way but to suspect those within the household.”
“The police come every day.”
“And they search every nook and cranny of the house.”
“The other day, when Mother’s bloodstained yukata came out of the dresser, the police made an enormous fuss.”
“Nah, it’s nothing at all.”
“It was blood from when Father threw a bowl at me the night before the incident—it hadn’t been washed off.”
“When I explained that to them, things calmed down temporarily, but ever since then, the police’s thinking has completely changed.”
“If Father was such a violent man, their logic seems to be that the family members are even more suspect.”

“You seemed quite suspicious of Older Brother before, but…”

“Please speak in a lower voice—if the guy behind us hears, it’ll be trouble… However, that Older Brother—for his part—is suspecting someone. But it seems that person is Mother. Older Brother had once asked Mother in a perfectly casual manner: ‘Mother, haven’t you lost the comb?’ Then Mother looked startled, gasped, and retorted, ‘Why would you ask such a thing?’ That was the end of it. Depending on how one takes it, it was an utterly ordinary conversation—but that struck me like a bolt. ‘So… that time when Older Brother hid something with his obi—it was Mother’s comb after all…’”

“……”

“Since then, I began paying attention to Mother’s every move.”
What a wretched thing this was.
A son spying on his own mother.
I spent two full days watching Mother from corners with serpentine vigilance.
It was terrifying.
No matter how I considered it, Mother’s demeanor remained unnatural.
She seemed perpetually restless without apparent cause.
“Can you fathom this feeling?
The suspicion that one’s own mother might have murdered one’s own Father.
How horrifying that notion... I nearly resolved to confront Older Brother.
He likely possessed broader knowledge of external affairs.
Yet ultimately I found myself incapable of voicing such inquiries.
“Moreover, Older Brother himself now avoids me entirely—as though dreading my questions.”

“This is the kind of story that makes you want to cover your ears.”
“If even I, who’s just listening, feel this way, how much more unpleasant must it be for you, the one telling it.”

“That feeling of unpleasantness—I’ve already moved past it.”
“Lately, the world somehow seems like a completely different thing.”
When I see the carefree, optimistic faces of those people walking along the streets like that, I always feel a strange sensation.
Even those people, with their composed faces like that—I sometimes think they must have killed Father and Mother.
…He had moved quite far away.
“The tailing guy—since there are fewer people now—is coming from a whole block behind.”

“But you—wasn’t Older Brother’s handkerchief found at the scene where Father was killed?”

“That’s right. So it doesn’t mean all suspicion toward Older Brother has been cleared. Moreover, even with Mother—I’m not entirely sure whether it’s right to suspect her or not. The strange thing is, Mother herself is suspecting someone too. It’s exactly like a game of cat and mouse—not in any comical sense, but in an indescribably terrifying way…… It was yesterday evening. It had already grown quite dark. When I came downstairs absentmindedly, there stood Mother on the engawa. She seemed to be stealthily observing something, her eyes glaring unnaturally. Then when she noticed me descending, she startled and hurried into the room without lingering. Her behavior was so strange that I went to where she’d been standing and looked in the direction she’d been staring.”

“……”

“You—what do you think was there? In that direction stood a dense stand of young cedars, through whose leaves I could faintly make out a small shrine dedicated to Inari—and behind that shrine, something red flickered intermittently in and out of view.”

“When I looked closely, it was Younger Sister’s obi.”

What she was doing—from where I stood, only the edge of her obi was visible, so I couldn’t tell at all—but there shouldn’t have been any reason for her to be behind that shrine.

I was just about to call out Younger Sister’s name.

But what I suddenly remembered was Mother’s strange behavior earlier.

And then—the entire time I was looking toward the shrine—I felt Mother’s gaze on my back. I thought this was no ordinary matter.

“It might be that all the secrets are hidden behind that shrine—and could it be that Younger Sister holds those secrets? I felt that intuitively.”

“……”

“I thought I would investigate behind that shrine myself.”
“And from yesterday evening until just now, I had been desperately waiting for that opportunity.”
“But no matter what, I couldn’t find an opportunity.”
“First of all, Mother’s eyes were relentlessly following my every move.”
Even if I just went to the bathroom and came out after finishing my business, sure enough, Mother would come out onto the engawa and keep watch in a way that pretended not to.
This might just be my paranoia.
I want to believe that—if I can.
But was that just a coincidence?
From yesterday until this morning, wherever I went, Mother’s eyes were always watching.
Then, what was strange was Younger Sister’s behavior.…

“As you know, I often skip school.”
“So no one particularly suspects me for having been absent all this time.”
“But then Younger Sister asks me, ‘Brother, why aren’t you going to school?’”
“She’d never asked me that even once before, but since the incident, she’s already asked the same thing twice.”
“And at that moment her expression was truly peculiar—as if thieves in cahoots were nodding in mutual understanding—giving a signal that unmistakably said ‘I’ve grasped everything, so rest assured,’ no matter how you looked at it.”
“Younger Sister is definitely suspecting me.”
Younger Sister’s eyes were also gleaming.
When I finally managed to slip away from Mother and Younger Sister’s watchful eyes and went out into the garden, unfortunately, Older Brother was peering down from the second-floor window.
“In that way I simply couldn’t find an opportunity...”

Moreover, even if an opportunity were given, looking behind the shrine would be a task requiring tremendous courage.
When it comes down to it, I might be too scared to do it.
Not being able to determine the culprit—that’s unbearable, of course. But confirming that it must be one of my own family members—this too is terrifying.
Ah… what on earth should I do?

“……”

“While we were talking about trivial things, we’ve ended up in a strange place—what on earth is this town called? Let’s start heading back.”

“……”

IV. Eleventh Day

“I finally saw.
“I finally saw behind that shrine……”

“What happened?”

“Something terrifying had been hidden.
Last night, after waiting for everyone to fall asleep, I ventured out into the garden.
Since Mother and Younger Sister were sleeping right there on the lower engawa, I couldn’t possibly go out that way.
Yet even if I were to go around through the front entrance, I would have had to pass right by where they were sleeping.
So, taking advantage of the fact that my second-floor room faced the garden, I climbed down from its window via the roof to the ground.
The moonlight illuminated the area as brightly as daylight.
The eerie shadow of me creeping along the roof was cast sharply on the ground.
I felt as though I myself had become a terrifying criminal.
Wasn’t it actually me who killed Father? The thought abruptly crossed my mind.
I recalled stories about sleepwalking.
Hadn’t I gone to kill Father that night in the same way—climbing along the roof?
……I shuddered violently.
But when I thought about it properly, there was no reason for such an absurd thing to be possible.
That night, at the time Father was killed, I should have been wide awake in my own room.”

I cautiously listened for footsteps as I went behind that shrine. By the light of the moon, when I looked closely, there were signs of digging in the ground behind the shrine. Thinking, *This must be it*, I tried digging through the soil with my hands. I dug deeper, an inch or two at a time. Then, unexpectedly, I felt resistance at a shallow depth. When I took it out and looked, it was something familiar. It was our family’s axe. On the rust-red blade, a thick black clot of blood clung so conspicuously that even in the moonlight it was discernible……”

“The axe?”

“Yeah, the axe.”
“Are you saying your sister hid it there?”

“I can’t think of it any other way.”

“But I can’t believe your sister is the culprit.”

“I don’t know about that. Anyone can be doubted if you start suspecting them. Mother, Older Brother, Younger Sister—even myself—we all held resentment toward Father. And likely everyone wished for Father’s death.”

“The way you speak is too harsh. Putting aside you and Older Brother—even if Mother, after all those years with her husband, wished him dead… I don’t know how awful he was, but family bonds aren’t meant to be like that. Even you—now that your father’s gone—ought to feel some sadness……”

“But in my case, it’s an exception.”
“I’m not sad at all.”
“Whether it’s Mother, Older Brother, or Younger Sister—not a single one of them is grieving.”
“It’s deeply shameful, but it’s the truth.”
“They’re more afraid than grieving.”
“They’re afraid their own flesh and blood might produce a serious criminal—someone guilty of patricide or uxoricide.”
“They don’t have the mental space to think about anything else.”

“I truly sympathize on that point, but……”

“But although the murder weapon was found, we still have no idea who the culprit is.”
“It’s still pitch-black.”
I buried the axe back in the soil exactly as it had been and returned to my room along the roof.
After that, I didn’t sleep a wink all night.
Various illusions swirled mistily before my eyes.
“Scenes of Mother raising an axe with both hands, her face twisted into a demonic mask; Older Brother roaring with unidentifiable fury, veins bulging like the raging Ishikari River as he swung the murder weapon downward; Younger Sister creeping up behind Father with something hidden behind her back—stealthily, ever so stealthily…”

“So you didn’t sleep last night, did you? No wonder you seemed so worked up. You’ve always been a bit neurotic. Getting so worked up like this will strain your body. Why don’t you try calming down a bit? Listening to your story is so gruesome it makes me feel sick.”

“Maybe it’s better for me to keep acting composed. Just as Younger Sister buried the murder weapon in the soil, perhaps I too should bury this discovery deep within my heart. But no matter what, I can’t bring myself to feel that way. Of course, it must absolutely be kept secret from the world, but at least I alone want to know the truth of the matter. I can’t possibly feel at ease unless I know. Living day after day with everyone in the house constantly suspecting one another is unbearable.”

“It’s pointless to say this now, but… are you really okay with revealing such terrifying matters to someone like me?”
“At first, I was the one who asked you about it, but lately, listening to your stories has become terrifying.”

“You don’t need to worry.”
“You wouldn’t betray me.”
“And besides, if I don’t confide in someone, I simply can’t endure it.”
“It might be unpleasant, but please be my sounding board.”

“Well, if that’s how it is, then fine.”
“So, what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.
“I don’t understand anything—Younger Sister herself might be the culprit.
“Or perhaps she hid the murder weapon to protect either Mother or Older Brother.
“And then there’s how Younger Sister acts like she suspects me—I can’t make sense of that.
“Why on earth does she suspect me?
“When I recall her gaze, I shudder.
“Younger Sister, sensitive precisely because of her youth, might be sensing something in the air.”

“…………”

“It does seem that way.”
But I don’t understand what it is at all.
In the deepest recesses of my mind, there’s something that mutters incessantly.
When I hear that voice, I can’t bear the anxiety.
“I myself don’t understand, but maybe only Younger Sister knows something.”

“You’ve really gone strange.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“As you yourself said earlier—if you were wide awake when Father was killed and lying in your room—there shouldn’t be any reason for suspicion whatsoever.”

“Logically that holds true.”
“But somehow... while suspecting Older Brother and Younger Sister... I found myself growing strangely uneasy.”
“I can’t definitively claim complete innocence regarding Father’s death.”
“This feeling persists relentlessly.”

Five: Approximately One Month Later

“What’s wrong? Even though I visited many times, I couldn’t meet you, so I was terribly worried. I thought you might have lost your mind, you know. Ha ha ha ha ha. But you’ve really lost weight. Your family was acting strange too—they wouldn’t tell me any details—but what exactly was wrong with you?”

“Heh heh heh heh heh. I must look like a ghost. Today again, I looked in the mirror and got scared. I thought mental anguish could make a person so haggard... I won’t last much longer. I can barely manage to walk to your house like this. Strangely, my body feels weak, as if I’m riding on a cloud.”

“And the diagnosis?”

“I don’t know what it is.”
“The doctor is spouting nonsense.”
“He says it’s severe neurasthenia.”
“I’ve been having a strange cough, you know.”
“It might be tuberculosis.”
“No—it’s more than a possibility.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain it is.”

“You’ve started your old routine.”
“I couldn’t stand being as neurotic as you.”
“You must have overthought that issue with Father again.”
“Why don’t you just forget all that already?”

“No, that’s already settled. It’s been completely resolved. Actually, regarding that matter, I came to your place to report, but…”

“Oh, I see.”
“That’s good.”
“I wasn’t paying attention to the newspapers either—so you’ve identified the culprit then?”

“That’s right.”
“But here’s what shocks—don’t be startled—the culprit was me.”

“What?! You killed Father?—Let’s stop this talk.”
“Instead, how about we wander around here?”
“And make some brighter conversation, shall we?”

“No, no—you there, sit down please.”
“Anyway, let me lay out the reasoning properly.”
“That’s precisely why I made the effort to come here.”
“You seem concerned about my mental state, but there’s no need to worry on that account.”
“It’s absolutely not that I’ve gone mad or anything.”

“Because you’re spouting utter nonsense—claiming you’re the one who killed your own father.”
“When you consider all the circumstances, such a thing is completely impossible.”

“Impossible? Do you really think so?”

“That’s right, isn’t it? At the time Father died, you were awake in your futon in your own room, weren’t you? A single person can’t be in two places at once—that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Well, that settles it then. There’s no way you could be the culprit.”

“But even if I was lying on the futon in my room, it doesn’t necessarily mean I couldn’t have killed someone outside. This isn’t something anyone would notice right away; I hadn’t even considered it myself until recently. However, it was just two or three nights ago. I suddenly realized it. The thing is—it was around one o’clock when Father was killed—outside my second-floor window, the cats were making an unusual racket. Two cats were making a terrible commotion for a long time, as if heaven and earth were turning upside down. Because they were making such a racket, I got up intending to open the window and shoo them away—but in that very moment, I suddenly realized.”

He paused, his voice dropping to a murmur. “The workings of the human mind are truly strange, aren’t they? We go about nonchalantly, having completely forgotten something of grave importance.” His fingers twitched against his knees as if grasping at phantoms. “Then through some chance opportunity, it suddenly resurfaces—emerging in a terrifyingly large, monstrous form like a spectral figure rising from a graveyard.”

The words hung between them before he continued, more to himself now than to his friend: “When you think about it, the way humans carry on their daily lives—what a precarious tightrope walk it is. One wrong step, and you’re risking your life in a terrible accident.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “It’s a wonder people in the world can go on living with such carefree expressions on their faces.”

“So, what was it you actually did in the end?”

“Now listen.” At that moment, I remembered why I had been awake around one o’clock on the night Father was killed. In this incident, this was the most crucial point. I’m the sort who doesn’t wake up until morning once I fall asleep. For me to have been clearly awake at one o’clock in the dead of night—there had to be a reason. Until then, I hadn’t noticed it at all, but the cats’ cries made me remember everything completely. That night too, they’d been making the same racket. “That was what had awakened me.”

“Did it have something to do with cats?”

“Well, there was. By the way, do you know Freud’s concept of the unconscious? Anyway, to put it simply—the desires that constantly arise in our minds—most of them get discarded without ever being acted upon. Some are impossible delusions; others are desires that could be possible but are socially forbidden. So what happens to all these countless desires? We ourselves imprison them in the realm of the unconscious. In other words, we forget them—but forgetting doesn’t mean we erase those desires completely. It just means we’ve locked them away deep in our hearts so they can’t escape. That’s why in the darkness at the bottom of our hearts, the ghosts of unfulfilled desires swarm about. And they wait there, ready to burst out at the slightest opening—to burst out. They watch for when we’re asleep and come crawling into our dreams wearing all sorts of disguises. If they escalate further, they can become hysteria or even madness. If they’re handled well through sublimation, they can turn into great art or grand achievements. If you read just one book on psychoanalysis, you’d be shocked at how terrifyingly powerful these imprisoned desires are. I actually had some interest in this stuff before and read a bit about it.”

“In that school of thought, there exists what is called the ‘Theory of Forgetting’.”
“There are times when one suddenly forgets something they knew perfectly well—no matter how hard they try, they can’t recall it—what’s colloquially called ‘losing track.’”
“They claim that’s never a coincidence.”
“If it is a case of forgetting, there must be a reason for it.”
“When there is something inconvenient to recall, they say we unconsciously imprison that memory in the realm of the unconscious.”
“There are various examples, but for instance, there’s this story.”

“Once, a person forgot the name of a Swiss neurologist Heragus and couldn’t recall it no matter how hard he tried, but several hours later, it accidentally came to mind. Wondering why he had forgotten a name he knew so well, he traced the sequence of associations—Heragus led to Herabatto Batto (‘bathhouse’), then to bathing, then to mineral springs—emerging in that order. And at last, the riddle was solved. That person had once contracted a disease that required him to undergo a mineral spring cure in Switzerland. He realized it was that unpleasant association that had obstructed his memory.”

There was also an experimental account like this by psychoanalyst Jones.
The man was fond of tobacco, but whenever he thought he shouldn’t smoke so much, in that very moment, the pipe would vanish.
No matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find it.
Then, when he had forgotten about it, it suddenly emerged from an unexpected place.
It was his unconscious that had hidden the pipe.
“…This might sound like a lecture, but this psychology of forgetting holds the key to solving this case.”

“I myself had actually forgotten something monstrous… That the one who killed Father was me…”

“I tell you, educated people’s delusions are such a nuisance.”
“You take utterly preposterous things and explain them with such meticulousness and these overly elaborate academic theories—you, forgetting a murder? Where in the world does such a ridiculous notion exist?”
“Hahahaha.”
“Get a hold of yourself!”
“You’re truly not right in the head, are you?”

“Wait—hear me out till the end before saying anything you like.”
“I didn’t come here to tell you jokes.”
“What I remembered when hearing the cats’ cries was this: that night when the cats made the same racket—didn’t one leap onto the pine tree beyond the roof? It must have leaped—and now that I think of it, I believe I heard something like a swishing sound too……”

“This is getting really strange.”
“What does a cat leaping onto a pine tree have to do with the actual cause of death?”
“I’m genuinely worried.”
“Your sanity…”

“You know the pine tree, don’t you?”
“That absurdly tall giant tree—the one that marks our house.”
“And at its base lies the cut stone where Father always sat… Now you see where this leads… When the cat jumped onto that pine tree, it must have hit something left on a branch—and that thing fell right onto Father’s head.”

“So are you trying to say there was an axe placed up there?”

“That’s right.”
“It was precisely placed there.”
“A tremendous coincidence.”
“But it’s not impossible.”

“But then, that’s just a freak accident—it’s not your crime or anything, is it?”

“However, the one who placed that axe there was me.”
“I had completely forgotten about it until just two or three days ago.”
“That point is what’s called the psychology of forgetting.”
“When I think back, I placed the axe there.”
“Rather than that, it was half a year ago that I left it forgotten in the fork of the tree.”
“Since then, I had never once remembered it.”
Since there was no subsequent need for the axe, there naturally arose no opportunity to recall it—but even so, one would think I should have remembered it at some point.
There should have remained a deep impression significant enough to be recalled.
The fact that I had completely forgotten that must have some reason.

“This past spring, to cut the dead branches of the pine tree, I took an axe and a saw and climbed up it. Because it was dangerous work perching on the branches, I would set the axe in the fork of the tree while working when not using it. That fork was located directly above the aforementioned cut stone. The height was slightly above the second-floor roof.”

As I worked, I thought: If the axe were to fall from there, what would happen? It would undoubtedly hit that stone. If someone were sitting on the stone, it might kill them. At that point, I remembered the formula for "work done by a falling object" that I had learned in middle school physics—at this distance, with acceleration factored in, there would naturally be enough force to crush a human skull.

And sitting down to rest on that stone was Father’s habit. I had been thinking of killing Father without even realizing it—though it was merely a thought in my mind, I involuntarily turned pale. No matter how wicked someone might be, to even think of killing their own parent—what kind of monster does that make them! I wanted to quickly shake off such an ominous delusion. Thus, this heinous desire was imprisoned beneath consciousness.

And that axe, inheriting my malicious intent, remained waiting precisely in the fork of the tree for its moment to come. The fact that I had forgotten this axe—needless to say, according to Freud’s theory—was a deed commanded by my unconscious. Even when we speak of the unconscious, it does not signify an ordinary accidental error; rather, it arises precisely from my own will: If I leave the axe forgotten there, given certain circumstances, it might fall... And if at that time Father had been sitting on the stone below, it could have killed him.

Such a complex plan had been harbored in darkness—moreover, even I myself had been unaware of that evil scheme. In other words, while I had prepared the device to kill Father, I intentionally forgot about it and pretended as if I were a good person.

“To explain in detail, the villain in my unconscious realm was deceiving the good person in my conscious realm.”

“I can’t really grasp it—it’s too complicated—but somehow it feels like you’re deliberately trying to cast yourself as the villain.”

“No—
“That’s not it.
“If you knew Freud’s theory, you would never say such a thing.
“First of all, how could I have completely forgotten about the axe for half a year?
“Haven’t I even witnessed that very same bloodstained axe?
“This is something no ordinary person could do.
“Secondly, why did I leave the axe in such a place—and knowing full well how dangerous it was?
“Thirdly, why did I deliberately choose that dangerous spot to leave the axe?
“Three unnatural things have aligned.
“Can you still claim there was no malice in this?
“Can that malice be canceled out merely because I had forgotten?”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“Of course, I intend to turn myself in.”

“Very well.”
“But no judge would ever convict you.”
“Well, at least that’s one thing to be relieved about.”
“And what became of all those various pieces of evidence you’ve been mentioning since before?”
“Things like the handkerchief and Mother’s comb.”

“The handkerchief was my own. When cutting the pine branches, I wrapped it around the axe handle and left it forgotten there. That’s what fell along with the axe that night. As for the comb—though the exact details are unclear—it was probably dropped by Mother when she first discovered Father’s body. There’s no doubt Older Brother hid it to cover up for her.”

“And what about your sister hiding the axe?”

“Since my sister was the first to discover it, she had ample time to hide it.”
“Having immediately recognized it as our family’s axe, she must have concluded someone in our household was the culprit and resolved to conceal the primary piece of evidence at all costs.”
“She’s a rather quick-witted girl, you see.”
“Then when the detectives began their house searches, ordinary hiding spots became untenable—no doubt she chose to move it behind that shrine.”

“So after suspecting everyone in the household, you’ve ended up realizing the culprit was yourself.”
“It’s like catching a thief only to find…”
“Doesn’t it all reek of comedy?”
“Even now, I find myself oddly unable to feel any sympathy.”
“In short—I still can’t properly swallow that you’re the criminal.”

“That’s a ridiculous misunderstanding. That’s what’s terrifying. It’s truly a comedy. But the very fact that it seems comical to the point of absurdity is proof that it’s no simple case of forgetfulness.”

“If you put it that way, perhaps that’s how it might be.”
“However—rather than mourning your confession—I feel more like celebrating how these days’ cloud of suspicion has cleared.”

“On that point I too felt relieved.”
“That we all suspected each other actually meant we were protecting one another—that none among us could’ve been evil enough to kill even such a Father.”
“Every last one stood unmatched in goodness.”
“Yet among them—the sole villain being me who doubted everyone—”
“If only through my suspicion’s intensity alone—I proved truly villainous.”