The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories by Kyotaro Nishimura Page B

he died at the end of last year, my confusion continued unabated. Or, more to the point, it had grown even worse.
    I slowly stood up and, purposely averting my eyes from her, I undressed and went down to the water’s edge. In five days’ time, my final summer vacation at high school would be over. I would have to go back to Tokyo, where the aftermath of student protests and a tough baseball club training camp awaited me.
    I waded into the water up to my ankles and swung my arms in wide circles, flaunting my youth. I was tall, with well-developed muscles. My former classmate Yukibe had once told me, “Wow, what a great body!” Yukibe’s real name was Yukiko Kamiki. She had left school after being punished for participating in the student protests. Quite a few other classmates had also left school. Whenever I thought of them I felt guilty of my lifestyle and attitude governed by a “decadent bourgeois mentality.” When I was with her , though, my thoughts were consumed with her alone. She controlled me.
    I started swimming out to sea. I was of course still aware of her. I looked good when I was swimming. I didn’t want to look like a poser, though, so I roughed up my style a bit. I deliberately struck the water hard with my arms. Further out the water abruptly chilled, but I continued at a furious pace. I had to keep it up for a hundred meters or so. Even she would be a little awed by that.
    When I drew level with the tip of the headland, I stopped swimming and turned round triumphantly.
    The parasol was there, but she had disappeared.
    Suddenly I felt the strength drain from my body. Swimming so far so hard had been really dumb, like something a manga character would do. Floating on my back and drifting with the waves, I gazed up at the sky reproaching myself. Crap , I thought. Feeling hopelessly wretched, I closed my eyes. Out of the blue I recalled meeting Yukibe in Shinjuku just before the start of the summer vacation. She had left home at the same time as school. When I asked Yukibe where she was living now, she laughed and replied that she was living on the streets. She’s awesome.
    She’s fighting against something . But I—
    Back on the beach, my thoughts were once again filled with her . She had left her book there under the parasol. I picked it up in my wet fingers. I felt a slight thrill, as if I was peeping into a little secret of hers. But then I saw the book she had been so absorbed in was by that awful guy, a friend of my late father who postured as a top novelist although all he wrote was tedious romances that set your teeth on edge. I couldn’t stand his novels. And to think that she had been so engrossed in one of those!
    I felt furious with both of them and hurled the book into the sea.
    When I returned to the villa a while later, a self-important looking bright red sports car was parked outside. I didn’t need to see the license number to know who it belonged to. He was here again. I spat loudly, and went round to the bathroom.
    As I turned on the shower and started soaping my body, I could hear her laughter rippling from the living room. There was something different from its usual brightness. When we were alone together, just the two of us, she would laugh a lot too, but then it just sounded bright. Now it was clouded with an awareness of the opposite sex. I deliberately made as much noise as I could in the shower.
    I got dressed and went through to the living room.
    â€œWas the sea cooling down already?” she asked me. I quickly glanced at both of them before shaking my head.
    â€œNo, it wasn’t cold at all.”
    â€œIt’s great to be young. So full of energy! How old are you again?” he asked, but I didn’t reply.
    She replied for me, “He’ll be graduating from high school next year, you know,” and then turned to me, “Mr. Takeda was watching you.”
    The novelist ran his slim fingers up through his long