Villain a Novel (2010) by Shuichi Yoshida Page A

fishing co-op gave them to me this morning, and Yuichi’s the only other one here who’ll eat them.” Fusae turned around and pointed to beneath the table. A single drop of water dripped down from the tip of the cleaver onto the dark, shiny floor.
    Norio looked under the table and found a single yellowtail in a Styrofoam container. He carried the yellowtail, case and all, over to the front hall, then went upstairs. The door to Yuichi’s room was right at the top of the stairs.
    Norio felt a bit hesitant about knocking, and instead called out “Hey!” and opened the door.
    Yuichi was in his underwear, probably about to take a bath, and he nearly collided with the door as Norio opened it.
    “You going to take a bath?” Norio said, gazing at Yuichi’s upper body, the muscles visible under a thin layer of skin.
    “A bath, then eat, and then the hospital.” Yuichi nodded and started out of the room. Norio twisted to one side to let him pass.
    Norio was going to follow him downstairs, but he saw a pamphlet entitled
Getting Your Crane License
that had fallen on the floor.
    “Ah, so you
are
thinking of getting your license.”
    There was no reply, just the sound of Yuichi stomping down the stairs.
    Norio drifted into the room and picked up the pamphlet. Yuichi’s footsteps faded off down the hallway downstairs.
    Norio sat down on a flattened cushion and let his eyes wander about the room. On the tan walls there were several car posters, fixed to the wall with yellowed Scotch tape, and a pile of car magazines on the floor. But other than that the room was empty. No pinups, not even a TV or a radio/cassette player.
    Fusae had once said, “Yuichi’s real room isn’t here, but his car,” and Norio could see that this was no exaggeration.
    Norio tossed aside the pamphlet and picked up the pay envelope on the low table. He’d given the envelope to Yuichi last week, but the moment he felt it he knew it was empty. Next to the envelope was a receipt from a gasoline station. Norio hadn’t planned to look at it, but found it in his hand anyway. It was from a station in Saga Yamato, for ¥5,990.
    “Yesterday,” Norio said, looking at the date.
    Yuichi had insisted that he hadn’t driven anywhere far yesterday. Norio tilted his head, puzzled.

    Fusae slipped the head of the yellowtail off the cutting board. It hit the sink with a loud thunk and slid toward the drain, its half-open mouth facing her.
    She turned at the sound of footsteps in the corridor and saw Yuichi, in only his underwear, chewing on a piece of
kamaboko
he’d grabbed from the table as he headed toward the bath.
    “Did Norio go home already?” she asked his retreating figure.
    Still chewing on the
kamaboko
, Yuichi turned and silently pointed upstairs to his room.
    “What’s he doing in your room?”
    “No idea,” Yuichi said, sliding open the door to the bath. The door, glass set in a wooden frame, creaked loudly like a thin sheet of corrugated iron as it bowed inward.
    There was no changing room attached to the bath, so Yuichi just dropped his underwear where he was and, shivering, rushed into the bath, his white rear end like a blurred afterimage. There was another loud bang as he slammed the door to the bath shut.
    Fusae shifted the cleaver in her hand and began slicing up the flesh of the yellowtail.
    Footsteps rang out coming down the stairs, and when Norio called out “Auntie, I’ll be going,” Fusae was dissolving miso into a pot and couldn’t see him off.
    “Thanks for stopping by,” she called out.
    The old front door creaked and then slammed shut, shaking the whole house. After the sound of Norio’s footsteps faded, the only sound was the pot, bubbling away.
    It’s so quiet
, Fusae thought.
Only Katsuji, nearly bedridden, and me, an old woman in the house
. And young Yuichi, of course, there in the bath. But the house was so still it was scary.
    As she leaned over to sniff the miso, Fusae called out to Yuichi. “I hear you had a