Run Over Chapter 5.4

The Apes Get Into Paradise
Chapter 5 Part 4
I went straight home.

I opened the gate, then turned the key in the lock of my house, and here a strange feeling overtook me. When I turned the key to the left, the door turned out to be unlocked already. Although I had to have locked it when I left. Did I really make a mistake and not lock the door properly? When I pulled on the door handle, the door opened.

Entrance hall.

Angry at my own memory, I decided to take my shoes off and noticed here that further along the narrow hall, there was light coming from the living room. And here I remembered. About the one person who made themselves a duplicate of the house key. We haven't seen each other only two weeks, but they seemed so long, that I wanted to meet again with a great pa.s.sion.

I wonder with what expression she would meet me?

Feeling impatience and anxiety at the same time, I opened the door to the living room.

Made a step inside, then another.

And was. .h.i.t by something heavy over my head.

I flew into the wall, and the home phone fell. It hung on its wire, dangling, and hit my head a few times. Low waiting beeps escaped it. A swinging metal club flashed before me. A dull pain seized my head, my eyes lost focus, and everything swam before me.

I transferred my gaze from the tip of the club to the hand holding it, and saw peoples' faces there. One, two, three, four. Guy, girl, guy, guy. They stood in the kitchen, just to the left of the door.

What just happened? Chaos reigned in my thoughts. The scene before me was going in and out of focus, as if someone was setting the focus on a digital camera. Someone was saying something, but it was difficult for me to understand these words. Pain pulsated through my broken head, and my ability to focus was worsening with each beat of my heart.

"To murder so many. It's fun, isn't it?"

I managed to distinguish a woman's voice, the girl with the metal club was speaking.

I finally understood. Is.h.i.+hara.

Tanabe once called me to talk and took Is.h.i.+hara with her for sheer quant.i.ty. If I remember correctly, a guy named Nakata who I met at the literature club. His left eye was covered with a bandage, perhaps it was beat. The names of the other two I forgot, but all four were in the same cla.s.s as me. And they were standing on the wooden floor with dirty shoes, which angered me even more.

"What murders are you on about?" I asked, with my back leaning against the wall. I tried to stand, but my body seemed to be full of lead.

"What do you think?! You were the one who killed Kyoko!"

"Who?"

"Huh?… Playing the fool! Tanabe Kyoko, Tanabe Kyoko!"

Interrupting each other, the people stood directly in front of me, and in the light of the fluorescent lamp, I saw the splashes of saliva, coming from the speaker's mouth, and the pimples that densely inhabited their skin between the chin and throat.

"She killed herself."

"Who killed themselves?! It was you who sent all those photos?!"

"Huh? What are you on about?" I tried to smile, and then Nakata with the bandaged eye grabbed his smartphone, from the main dynamics of which a voice mixed with sounds was heard. Judging by the quality, he turned on some voice recording. There was a dull sound, as if a metal object hit another.

A male voice.

"Idzono, what'd you put in there?" Talking to me, the voice belonged to s.h.i.+bata.

"A mobile."

"Whose?"

"Fus.h.i.+mi."

The blood poured out of my head as fast as if it was on a falling elevator.

"Why do you have his phone?"

"I accidentally found it, by accident."

s.h.i.+bata looked at me with obvious distrust.

"And how did you know, that it was lost by Fus.h.i.+mi?"

"Huh? W-well… I dug through it."

The image before my eyes faded, and my head emptied rapidly.

Who made this recording? How'd these guys enter my house? Who gave them this recording? Who gave them the key?

There was only one answer. Only one person could do all this.

Is.h.i.+hara raised the club before her and dropped it. I immediately tried to dodge, and got hit on my left shoulder. Together with a vibration, sharp pain shot through my body, and I groaned involuntarily. My shoulders skewed, and the left became visibly lower than the right. A fracture? A dislocation? Or both at the same time?

When I rested my left elbow on the floor and tried to stand, I felt a sharp pain again.

Holding myself with the right hand, I tried to get up, and was. .h.i.t again on the sides of my legs. I managed to not fall, perhaps only thanks to the right hand resting on the wall. Another blow into my face, and I felt a thick stream of blood on my throat, coming from my nose. Looking at my condition, Is.h.i.+hara added a kick. She grabbed me by my neck and attempted to drag me across the floor, but didn't have enough strength, and she cried out to the guys: "Help me!"

This seemed funny to me, and I began to laugh. Is.h.i.+hara looked at me menacingly. And I said:

"Well, what do you know, everything is holding up on Is.h.i.+hara? Are you not ashamed, for shoving all the work on girls? Nakata, are you listening? Shoving everything on hysterics? And what is this look even? Your hands are empty? You could've taken some bat for decency, like Is.h.i.+hara. How were you planning to kill?"

I understood. Hitting me with the metal stick on my head was their limit. This was all their courage was capable of. None of them could do anything more. Garbage, what else is there to them.

I wanted to kill.

Blood flowed from the dissected temple, flowed in a stream around the ear and descended to my neck. Ignoring the blood drenched s.h.i.+rt sticking to my skin, I continued speaking. My left shoulder was still disgustingly lowered.

"Hey, Is.h.i.+hara, give Nakata the club."

Is.h.i.+hara stared at me.

"Give it to him."

I grabbed the metal club by the opposite end, directed at me, and pulled. The handle slid smoothly out of Is.h.i.+hara's hands and I gave it to the person near her.

"Come on, Nakata." The club thrown by me hit the floor. "You came to open up my skull, did you not? You're in the right spot, do you hear me? What are you waiting for?"

Laughing, I tapped my head, split from the pain, with my fingertip. And the guys that came here to finish me, stood in the narrow living room as if paralyzed, just staring at me.

"Why did you even come here at all? To stupidly stand and gawk? Stop suffering, trash."

Is.h.i.+hara left to the cramped kitchen. Nakata remained before me, and I poked him in the shoulder with my right hand, stole his wallet from his pocket and threw it at the astonished guy. It was difficult to move the hardened left hand, and the painful right. Nakata didn't even understand what happened.

"If you can't do anything, get the f*ck out of here. Write your sh*tty stories in your club and lick your wounds."

As if breaking off his chain, the reddened Nakata grabbed the club lying at his feet. I put my foot on it, opened the cupboard underneath the sink, took a knife out of there and drove it into the shoulder of the bent over Nakata. The blade rested at the bone and stopped right away.

Nakata screamed, and I removed my leg from the club, swung it and hit the knife's handle, driving the knife a few centimetres deeper.

After that I continued waving the club with all my might. Ignoring the broken gla.s.s scattered around the kitchen, I sent the club at the heads of my cla.s.smates. Hit it once, it got the head. Hit another time, it got the chest.

I swung the club again and again. Until the cla.s.smates, whose names I didn't even remember, fell unconscious.

"Minato?" I asked. Then clarified my question, to make it understandable. "The recording was given to you by Minato?"

I stepped over Nakata, running out of blood by the fridge, and asked Is.h.i.+hara the question. The knife was still sticking out of Nakata's shoulder blade, and he could've easily taken it out and attack me from behind. He could've easily killed me.

"Uh-h-h."

"Answer the question." A swing with the club, a sideboard smashed to smithereens. "Did Minato Rica give you the recording?"

Is.h.i.+hara's empty hands fell helpless to her body, she nodded.

"And the key?"

Another nod.

"And if I had came earlier, what would you have done?"

Silence.

"Although you had a spare key, you wouldn't be able to prepare the ambush if I came earlier! So I am asking, what would you have done!"

I tightened my grip on the club.

"W-w-we knew… where you were."

"How?"

"In-in the phone… In our phones, we got a program of GPS tracking."

I poked around in my pocket and took out my phone, very slowly because of the whole situation.

"Get your phone," I ordered Is.h.i.+hara, took her cell and touched the screen. Locked.

"What's the pa.s.sword?"

She didn't answer.

The metal club drove into Is.h.i.+hara's stomach, the girl moaned and fell into a coughing fit.

"Eight, one, nine, two…"

I touched the screen a few times and it unlocked.

"Where did you see my location?"

"In browser…"

I opened it hastily. A white circle spun, and the program appeared on the screen. A red dot flashed on the familiar map. It was impossible to understand, which floor it was pointing at, but located exactly on the house where I lived.

The battery on my phone died, and I charged it. The dross remained behind the closed door of the drawing room. I turned on the other phone and carefully examined the map. A low-charge warning appeared on the screen.

Having put on my shoes, I opened the door. I left the idiots, who weren't able to kill me in the house, and I stepped outside. The dangling left hand ached, as if creaking from the pain, but my legs quickly led me forward.

Two smartphones and a wallet in my pocket.

And a right hand, able to steal anything.

In the end, my weapons were limited to this.

***

Turning on my phone again, I pressed it between my index and middle finger, and the other one, between my index and thumb.

Looking at how mine was loading, I transferred my gaze to the other device, and when I took it out of sleep mode, the screen showed my location again. I opened a new tab in browser and looking at my phone, put in a URL.

The page refreshed, now it was showing the map of a different place with a point on it.

I sprinted there.

My body burned as if the blood boiled and flowed in the opposite direction.

I just ran.

I thought of taking a taxi, but in the end didn't use one.

I went on my own two, pus.h.i.+ng away from the earth with great strength legs.

Time went pa.s.sed ten in the evening. I ran out of the almost emptied sleep region. From time to time looking at my phone screen, refres.h.i.+ng the map, checking whether the destination changed, and continued running.

I jumped onto another street, more alive. I ran past some girl, and my phone flew into the purse on her shoulder.

I sped up. Got tangled in my own feet and fell forward. My two hands ached from their meeting with the asphalt, and I landed right on the twisted left shoulder.

A throbbing pain pierced me.

I had to s.h.i.+ft the displaced shoulder. Painful. The pain was binding, but I didn't succ.u.mb to it.

I strained both my hands and ran again.

Bicycle signal, car signals. I didn't care about them. All of you, f*ck off me.

My legs creaked under the pressure of a fifty kilogram body.

I swung my hands with such force that they nearly fell off, and my shoulders howled with unbearable pain.

My lungs almost burst from each breath that was too big.

My heart, from which the whole body required blood, worked to deterioration.

Just you crack.
If you're breaking, then break altogether.
People can't tolerate pain, because they feel bad for themselves.

I didn't feel bad.

I just ran.

Ran.

Rushed.

Rushed. Rushed. Rushed.

The path went down, and my legs confidently led me down the slope. There a small hill was waiting for me. On it, lonely swings, bench, lamp, and hedge, well-made, but not needed for anyone.

And there. Slowly swinging on the swings.

While I was at a loss for choosing words, Minato Rica noticed my appearance.

Minato Rica stopped the swing in an instant, made a few steps towards me and spoke.

***

"Is there something wrong, Idzono-kun?" It sounded so ordinary, that I was dumbfounded at first, but then, as if pulling out a fuse, answered:

"Why did you betray me?"

"I didn't betray you. Didn't I tell you?" She fell silent, to draw air into her chest. "We'll kill everyone."

I smiled vaguely.

"Go ahead and kill. Is.h.i.+hara and Nakata are more alive than anyone."

"I know. So I gave them the recording and the spare key."

"Thanks to you they ambushed me."

"But they got beat by you?"

"I didn't kill them."

"I don't mean that you killed them."

Minato spoke of this like it was something funny, forcing me to smile.

"I think, they were feeling a sense of loss. If I say it like that, will you understand?"

Just like that, as if pa.s.sing by, Minato gave out the reason of her betrayal, or rather, the reason she destroyed the cla.s.s to its foundation.

"Understood." I said with one word, that I understood everything.

What exactly.

If you destroy your environment, completely break all the ties, you will experience some sense of loss. Pa.s.sionately wanting to feel it, she did all this.

A surprisingly simple motive.

With this she sympathized with me.

I acted the exact same way.

I perceived the surrounding people in a mechanical way, I cooled to almost everything, and the state, in which nothing was able to stir up some emotion, strangled and tormented me.

This is why I imagined how everything is collapsing and crumpling.

If such a calamity happened, even such an unimpressive guy like me, would feel something. This is that meaningless, disgusting, hypocritical wish.

Now I understood this.

"How did you find out, where I was?" Minato asked in her turn.

"You have keychain on your phone?"

Minato took out her phone from her pocket. Since the time of the game centre, a keychain in the shape of a small dog dangled from it. Then I couldn't even imagine that it would all turn out like this.

"Open the zipper on its back."

Minato somehow unzipped the sewn zipper on the back of the keychain dog and took out a piece of plastic the size of two-three five hundred yen coins put together.

"GPS?"

"Right…"

"Of course I am. When I was preparing the plan, I used them so many times."

Preparing the plan. This is how she described her actions, leading to the ma.s.sacre. And I understood it perfectly. What other explanation was there to how she found out where Fus.h.i.+mi and Tanabe, and Kiyama and Katai were f*cking. Minato wanted to achieve her goal so badly that even she got frustrated.

"I left it there a few days before your disappearance. I got worried, so it goes." I said.

I was tormented by stupid thoughts of what I should do, if Minato disappeared suddenly.

"With your actions, you took away the sense of loss from me."

"Forgive me."

"I tried to love you, and in the end I succeeded."

However, it didn't work. Because then, the thing that happened, happened. Something changed, she blindly believed in her chosen one, tried to hold on to the love in her, abandoned him, but it didn't work.

"I didn't suit you?"

"I don't know."

"That's a pity," I said, lost in words. "I love you."

Minato looked at me. And then, as if joking, said:

"What are you on about? There is blood coming out of your head because of me. And you still love me?"

I touched my temples. The bleeding stopped, the skin on my neck was pulled into a film of mixed dry blood and sweat.

"I don't know. But I still love you."

With my index and middle finger I rubbed the dried blood, and it stuck to the tips.

"Stop it…"

Ignoring Minato's word, I continued:

"You're sweet, and said that you love me. You even fulfilled my desire to kill everyone. You're too perfect, I even feel guilty myself."

This is why I endured the distance between us.

"You're such a b*tch for betraying me."

Because of this.

"Because of this, I love you. You are too perfect for me. You're a b*tch, who doesn't feel guilt. That's why I'm telling you this now. I love you."

Minato made a few steps towards me and stopped.

She was shorter than me, and when she lowered her head, I lost sight of her face.

Minato approached and then clung to me, and then rose to her toes. Slowly raised her right hand, straightened out the index and middle finger and dragged them along my neck.
I didn't die. Minato couldn't kill me.

And then.

"Idio-o-ot."

And Minato laughed playfully.

Edited by: Akshaythedon