Break My Body
Chapter 4 Part 1
It was now the middle of June.
I woke up at half past seven without an alarm clock, and the sleep on the couch didn"t even result in any body pain. I threw some breakfast into me, changed into my uniform and… prepared for being late, didn"t speed up at all and did all my morning business in my usual slow pace. Finally, I went to wake up Minato, she didn"t even think of getting up before my appearance.
No sooner had I come to my senses, than I was used to such a life.
The door to my room was slightly open. I knocked, and then opened the door. Minato wasn"t inside. Her form and bag weren"t there either. I searched at the entrance. Minato"s shoes and suitcase on wheels also disappeared.
With a bad premonition, I searched the entire dwelling. Her toothbrush disappeared from the bathroom, from the washing machine – her uniform, her phone charger didn"t stick out from the outlet. Everything disappeared.
I opened the closet. Storage room. Washroom. Shower. I took my smartphone and looked through my messages. The slider in the text history was crawling steadily, like a log on a quiet river. I was looking for messages that Minato unceremoniously sent me from time to time.
There were none. There was nothing. Even her email address in my contacts.
The floor under my legs seemed to turn into jelly, that had dragged me into its belly. It just couldn"t be, one single thought whirled in my head. Minato Rica. Does a person with such a name even exist? This was enough to blow up my brain.
Could this really have been a dream?
"Hey! Are you here?!" I asked, almost shouting. "Hey, come out already!"
There was no response. My brain began to fail. I scoured all the places that came to mind, opened all the doors that I saw and eventually collapsed on a chair. The clock showed almost eight o"clock. I clung to the faint hope, that she might have already left for school. Perhaps she left alone, while I was sleeping, and now she"s waiting for me there. This is what I though.
I quickly washed my face and began to change. And here a crumpled sheet of paper fell out of my pocket. The copy of the list of my cla.s.smates, the one I forced Katai to get me. It had both phone numbers and home addresses.
I enthusiastically ran my eyes through the list, and found it at the very bottom.
Minato Rica. Her name.
I eased with relief. And then another thing came to my mind. I sent Hara a text, in which I asked him to tell me if Minato has arrived, dressed in ordinary street clothes and flew out of the house, forgetting to lock the door.
In my phone I opened up a site with a map, put in an address and launched the search. A red arrow was pointing to the needed destination, and I ran, even hammering in the fact that if I would run into a policeman, he would stop me.
I ran up to the station and with transfers rode to the place indicated by the arrow. The train was travelling at the scheduled speed. Go faster. My body was practically itching from impatience. The stations pa.s.sed, were completely different, from the ones on my way home from school, and after a while I went off the train.
A restaurant with business lunch for three thousand yen opened before my eyes, and behind it was a sleeping quarters. I glanced at the map, ran a little more and finally got to the destination – a ten-story apartment building, in which the condos were clearly bigger than the standard.
I walked past the automatic gate, which I couldn"t have opened without a key anyways, and found the mail boxes. I looked for box number 506.
503. Kinsu.
504. Aoki.
505. Okata.
And there it was, 506. On the nominal plate was the required last name – Minato.
Having checked only this, I went up to the gates at the entrance of the building. I pretended to be waiting for someone, and hobbled over to the intercom and called the needed apartment. And only grew angrier when I didn"t receive a reply. How I regretted, that I didn"t guess to steal Minato"s keys earlier.
Some time pa.s.sed, and a man came up to the building, pushing a handcart with a pile of boxes decorated with the logo of a well-known carrier company. I made sure that the man pressed the call b.u.t.ton, and stumbled to the entrance.
The automatic lock on the door opened, I attached myself to the man who rolled the car inside, and also walked in. Good work, thank you for the qualitative delivery. These thoughts could be read from my fake smile by any decent local inhabitant.
On the elevator, I went up to the fifth floor. Walking past several apartment, I found the 506th. It was still possible to turn back, but this thought didn"t cross my mind. I reached for the bell and pressed it, hoping for an answer and also afraid of it.
How strange I became. I could"ve just left these Minatos in peace. Peacefully go to school. But I rejected the most adequate options and came here. I wanted to make sure that the consciousness of Minato Rica truly existed.
A foolish peep – and a ring behind the door was heard, calling to go to the intercom and to answer.
If someone were to come, who would it be? Maybe, the parents. Although it"s unlikely that the parents, who don"t care where their daughter spends the night, would be home at such a time. Or is Minato living all alone? Footsteps were heard from the door – it seemed that there really was someone home. I got tense in antic.i.p.ation, and through the negotiator I heard:
"Yes?.."
"Sorry, this is the cla.s.smate of Mina… Rica-san, my name is Idzono-kun."
Silence in response.
"I would like to talk. Well, about Rica-san."
"And… what about?…"
I was speechless. I was vaguely aware of my wish to know more about Minato. Any information would be useful, but most of all I wanted to know, why was Minato so attached to me? Why did she come to me? Why did she climb out of her skin just for me? And just in general, what is her nature, her hobbies, what kind of person is she? I simply knew nothing about her. I knew how she behaved, but didn"t know what she thought about. But after all, we lived together. And I didn"t dare talk about that.
"Well-l-l, okay, let"s say. I"ll listen to you."
I heard a key turning in a lock, and the door opened.
"I need to go out, let"s talk on the way?"
In the narrow crack, I saw the face of a woman about thirty five years old. Her clothes, lacking all sorts of frills, expressed the hostess" aspiration of maximum simplicity. Or the woman simply decided that she had no need to dress up for the walk for business.
"I beg your pardon," She said with indifferent politeness and went out into the corridor to me, and then shut the door with force, locked it and hid the key. In the inner pocket of her bag, something buzzed weakly.
What?
I have to say something, I thought, but nothing came to mind. Because how else, I myself didn"t fully understand why I came here. The woman walked past me to the elevator, and I followed her without a word. We walked into the elevator and silently rode it down.
What? What?
The elevator arrived on the first floor. My attempts to stay away from the woman in the tight elevator probably looked rather suspicious. I walked out of the elevator through the sliding doors, then pa.s.sed the main entrance and sped up. I overtook the woman on her right side, where her bag hung, and politely bowed my head.
"I"m sorry it"s so sudden."
"It"s fine, don"t worry."
Without raising my head, I made sure that the woman pa.s.sed by, and I went in the opposite direction. I looked back. The distance between us increased. A second later, I looked back again. The distance increased. I looked back one last time. The woman turned a corner and disappeared from view.
I put my hand in my pocket, and took it back out, holding the just-stolen key.
Edited by: Akshaythedon