“Sari said the person Yoshino went to see last night wasn’t Keigo Masuo, but I think it had to have been.” Mako was in the lobby of the Fairyland Hakata, answering questions from a police officer. “I heard from Suzuka Nakamachi that for the last couple of days no one knew where Keigo was. But if they wanted to get in touch with each other, they could have. So if she really wanted to see him last night they could have hooked up…”

Mako felt regretful. The young detective had urged her to tell him anything she might know about Yoshino, so she’d told him how Yoshino and Sari didn’t get along, and how Yoshino had met men online. Mako felt she’d given the detective a bad impression of Yoshino.

Mako and the young detective weren’t alone in the apartment-building lobby. Every so often a uniformed policeman would come over and report to the detective. Still, it was just the two of them facing each other across the lace-covered table, and talking with a police detective was, of course, a first for her. The young detective had a small scar from stitches next to his right eyebrow. His muscular upper arms strained the fabric of his suit.

“I’d like you to tell me more about these online friends of Ms. Ishibashi’s.”

At the beginning of last month, a Sunday, a cold rain had fallen since morning. It was just a light drizzle, but to Mako, looking out from the third-floor veranda of her apartment, it seemed as if the rain had erased all the sounds of the city.

Yoshino had stopped by to see her and stood looking out at the same scene. She turned to Mako and asked her to come with her to the convenience store. Whenever she did this, Mako always thought, The convenience store? Can’t you manage that on your own? But she never said anything, figuring it would cause a rift between them, and she never lied about having something else to do. After all, it wasn’t that big a deal.

They were walking, holding umbrellas, to the convenience store in front of Yoshizuka station, avoiding the rain puddles, when Yoshino said, “Take a look at this,” and held out her cell phone.

On the screen was a picture of a young man. “We started e-mailing each other recently,” Yoshino explained.

Mako looked at the phone, which had a few raindrops on the LCD. The photo wasn’t that good, but she could see the sort of rough look of the man, his dark skin, his nicely shaped nose, the lonely look in his eyes as he gazed at the camera. He was good-looking enough that she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“So what d’you think?” Yoshino asked.

“He’s sexy,” Mako replied honestly. If this is the kind of guy Yoshino hooks up with, Mako thought, maybe online dating isn’t so bad after all.

Apparently satisfied, Yoshino said, “But I don’t feel like seeing him anymore. I mean, I’ve got Keigo now and everything.” She intentionally banged her cell phone shut.

“What do you mean you don’t feel like meeting him anymore?… You mean you’ve already met him?”

“Yeah, last Sunday.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Remember the guy I was talking about who tried to pick me up at the park in front of Solaria?”

“What?” Mako said loudly.

“Don’t tell Sari, okay? That wasn’t just some pickup. We had a date.”

“No way…”

If you’re so embarrassed about meeting guys online, thought Mako, then why don’t you quit? She couldn’t figure Yoshino out sometimes. She acted embarrassed about online dating, yet here she was showing off the photo of one of the guys she met.

“He’s good-looking, all right, but a complete bore. It’s no fun being with him. Plus he’s a construction worker, which doesn’t turn me on.”

Yoshino continued talking about the guy as she folded up her umbrella and went into the convenience store.

Mako hadn’t gone to the store thinking to buy anything, but as soon as she went in she found she wanted something sweet.

“The only thing is, he’s good in bed,” Yoshino suddenly whispered in Mako’s ear, just as she was reaching for a strawberry pudding cup.

“Huh?”

Mako reflexively glanced around them. Luckily there were no other customers by the dessert counter, and the two clerks were back at the register, helping a woman mail a package.

“The sex is great,” Yoshino whispered again, a knowing smile on her lips, and reached for an éclair.

“Are you telling me… you did it with him already? The first time you met him?” Mako asked, eyes wide.

Examining the éclairs one by one, Yoshino laughed strangely. “Well, isn’t that the whole point?

“He’s like, so good at it,” she went on. “It’s like I completely lose it, and can’t help screaming. The way he moves his fingers is so smooth. I was on my back, but before I knew what was going on I was on my stomach, and his fingers were all over my back and butt. It was like all the strength had left me. I tried to move, but all he has to do is touch my knees and I’m a complete wreck. Usually I’m too shy to make much noise, but when I’m with him, I don’t care anymore. I shout as loud as I can. And the more I cry out, the more I lose control, and it’s like I know we’re in a small hotel room but it feels like we’re in some vast open place. I’ve never sucked a guy’s fingers as crazily as I did with him.”

Yoshino didn’t mind talking about such shameless things even in public like this, but Mako did, and glanced around anxiously. A part of her rejected lewd talk like this, but as she listened she pictured herself on the white sheets with the man, writhing under his touch. She could see the man in the photo, his fingers moving over her body, his voice telling her to just let go.

Outside the rain was gloomy and heavy. Yoshino changed gears and began instead to recount how squeamish she felt when she recently watched the movie Battle Royale with all its cruel, violent scenes.

“So you’re not going to see that guy anymore?” Mako asked.

A mean look flashed across Yoshino’s eyes. “If I dump him, you want me to introduce you?”

Mako was flustered. “No, no way,” she demurred. It felt as if Yoshino had seen into her mind and all her silly fantasies.

Mako could sense how Yoshino looked down on her as a woman. Maybe that was inevitable, for Mako was twenty and had never gone out with a man, which, unlike Sari, she didn’t hide. And of the three of them, Yoshino was by far the most experienced.

Strangely enough, though, Mako never felt inferior to Yoshino, no matter how much she bragged about her sex life. All her stories about hooking up with men from dating sites, and Keigo Masuo, were like something far away, like a TV drama, and Mako never felt contempt for her, or envy. But this time was different. For the first time, one of Yoshino’s stories took hold of her. She knew she should just let it go, but her rainy-day convenience-store fantasies about the man and his caresses made her overwhelmed by a mixture of jealousy for Yoshino, who really had been touched by this man, and contempt for her for leaping into bed with a guy she’d just met online, despite already having a boyfriend, Keigo. The more contempt Mako felt, though, the more uneasy she became, concerned that deep down she wanted to be just as shameless as Yoshino.

Mako knew she wasn’t the type to try to date men she met online. But she also knew she wasn’t like Sari, who was distressed that she couldn’t act like Yoshino, secretly trashing her because Yoshino could. If possible, Mako wanted to marry someone also from Kumamoto, settle down there, and raise a happy family. That’s all she really wanted-but the instant she pictured herself in the arms of Yoshino’s man, her dream evaporated.

“Um…”

The detective with the scar beside his right eyebrow looked at Mako.

Bright sunshine lit up the apartment-building lobby. The automatic front door must have had a slight gap in it, for the wind was blowing in, making a strange whistling sound. In addition to Mako and the detective interviewing her, five or six other policemen had entered and were making their way between the lobby and Yoshino’s apartment, on the second floor.