‘Hey, don’t run! What’s wrong?’ he called out.
She walked even faster.
She’s taking this the wrong way, he realised.
‘Hey Eriko! It’s me, Kazunari,’ he called out, and finally she stopped and turned with a surprised look on her face.
‘Believe me,’ he said as she came over to the side of the car, ‘if I was out cruising for chicks, I’d do it when it wasn’t raining.’
She smiled, the rain running through the matted hair on her forehead and down her cheeks to drip from her chin.
Eriko had a floral-patterned handkerchief. She used it to wipe her hands and face, then ran it over her neck. She’d taken off her drenched jacket and placed it over her bare knees. Kazunari told her she was welcome to put it on the back seat, but she declined on the grounds that it would only get his seat wet.
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise it was you. It was too dark to see your face.’
‘That’s OK. The way I was calling out like that, no wonder you got the wrong idea.’ Kazunari eased the car around a tight corner. He was taking her home.
‘It’s just, sometimes it happens and you have to be careful.’
‘Strange men in cars call out to you often?’
‘Well, no, not me. But when I’m walking with Yukiho…’
‘Speaking of which, where is she?’
‘She had an errand to run.’
‘That explains why you were alone. Still,’ Kazunari glanced over her, ‘why were you walking? Why weren’t you running? Everyone else around you was.’
‘Well, I wasn’t in a particular hurry.’
‘But you were getting wet.’
‘If I ran, it would just make the rain hit my face harder. Like that,’ she said, pointing at the windscreen. What had been a light drizzle was now a full-on downpour. Droplets bounced off the glass and rivulets streaked behind the sweeping path of the wipers.
‘But wouldn’t it reduce the amount of time you were getting rained on?’
‘Believe me, I’ve thought about this. At the speed I run, it’d only cut three minutes off the trip, tops. I don’t want to run along a wet road for three minutes. I might trip and fall.’
Kazunari laughed.
‘I’m not kidding. I trip all the time. I even fell over today in class and stepped on Yamamoto’s foot. He pretended it didn’t hurt, but I saw the look in his eyes – the look of a man in true pain,’ Eriko said, rubbing her legs where they emerged from her pleated skirt to warm them.
Kazunari chuckled. ‘Getting used to the dancing?’
‘A little. But I’m still terrible at it. Yukiho, she’s practically a pro already.’ She sighed.
‘You’ll get better in no time.’
‘I wonder. It’d be nice.’
Kazunari stopped at a red light and took a sidelong glance at Eriko. She had hardly any make-up on, as usual. In the light from the street lamps, her skin looked perfectly smooth. Like porcelain, he thought. A few strands of wet hair were stuck to her cheek. He reached out and brushed them aside. She flinched away.
‘Sorry, you had some hair on your face.’
Eriko brushed her hair back behind her ears. Even in the dim car interior, he could see her blush. The light turned green and the car lurched back into movement.
‘How long have you worn your hair like that?’ Kazunari asked, his eyes on the road ahead.
‘This?’ She put a hand to her wet head. ‘Since not long before graduating from high school, I guess.’
‘I thought so. That’s a Seiko cut, right? Like the singer’s? Pretty popular these days – maybe too popular. Everyone’s got it, whether it suits them or not.’
It was a semi-long cut, with a fringe left to hang and the sides brushed back.
‘You don’t think it suits me?’
‘Well…’ Kazunari shifted gears before saying, ‘To be brutally honest, no, not really.’
‘Oh.’ Eriko began brushing her hair back with her hands again.
‘You like it?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t really care that much. It was Yukiho’s idea.’
‘Her again. Please don’t tell me you do everything she says.’
‘Of course not.’
Kazunari glanced over and saw Eriko looking down at her lap. An idea occurred to him. He glanced at his watch. It was a little before seven.
‘Do you have plans tonight? I forget if you have a part-time job or anything.’
‘No, nothing. Why?’
‘Think you might join me for a little?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing weird,’ Kazunari said, putting his foot down.
He stopped at a phone booth and made a quick call, but he didn’t tell Eriko who he was calling. He saw her looking a little worried and smiled.
They stopped in front of a building – their destination was on the first floor. Eriko took one look at the sign and took a step back. ‘A beauty salon? Why?’
‘I’ve been going here for years,’ he told her. ‘They’re very good. You don’t have anything to worry about.’ He put his hand on her back and gently pushed her towards the open door.
The hairdresser was a man in his thirties with a little growth of bristle beneath his nose. Several awards hung on the wall – apparently he was something of a celebrity in the beauty salon world. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said when he saw Kazunari walk in.
‘Sorry it took so long.’
‘Not at all. I can always spare a few minutes for you, Kazunari.’
‘I was hoping you might have an idea for her hair,’ Kazunari said, indicating Eriko with his hand. ‘Something that suits her.’
‘Excellent,’ said the hairdresser, taking a long look at Eriko’s face, his imagination working. Eriko blushed.
‘Also,’ Kazunari turned to the hairdresser’s female assistant standing nearby, ‘maybe give her a little make-up? Something to go with the new look?’
‘Absolutely,’ the assistant said, her eyes sparkling.
‘Kazunari?’ Eriko said feeling extremely out of place. ‘I actually don’t have that much money with me today. And I never wear make-up —’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘Just sit and let them work their magic.’
‘But I’m afraid my folks will worry – I didn’t tell them I was going to a beauty salon.’
Kazunari looked back at the assistant. ‘Can we borrow your phone?’
She brought them the phone sitting on the counter. It had a long cord so customers could take calls while having their hair done. Kazunari held it out to Eriko.
‘Go ahead, call home. Tell them you’re stopping for a haircut. I’m sure they’ll understand.’
She took the receiver. The hesitation was plain on her face, but she seemed to have accepted that resistance was futile.
Kazunari sat on the sofa in the corner of the shop to wait. A part-time employee who looked like she was still in high school brought him coffee. He was surprised to see the girl’s hair was very close-cut up the sides, almost a buzz cut, and wondered if that was going to be the next fad.
Kazunari couldn’t wait to see Eriko’s transformation. If his instinct was right they would be uncovering her true potential tonight.
He wasn’t sure what it was that drew him to Eriko but he’d been obsessed from the moment he laid eyes on her. All he could say for certain was that their relationship – if that’s what this was – was one he had initiated. There had been no introduction. She hadn’t come on to him. He had spotted her, and that satisfied him greatly. He couldn’t say the same about any of the girls he’d dated thus far.
Now that he thought about it, the same thing was true about more than just girls in his life. His toys, his clothes – everything had always been given to him before he even had a chance to want it on his own. He wondered if he ever would have wanted any of it, really.