October 31

I was at Takumi’s place again. I hated it. The place always smelled dirty and damp. There was always black stuff near the corners of the house and in the kitchen. I had to play with Takumi. I always had to play with Takumi, and I hated it. He was a year older than me and bigger than me. Takumi and I were in the same chorus group, but we weren’t even friends. Our parents just liked each other. My Daddy would bring me over to Takumi’s house and then he and Takumi’s mom would go upstairs and lock the door. I wouldn’t see them again for a couple hours or more.

Today, Takumi asked, “Do you wanna play cops and robbers?” He had a lumpy cloth on the central kotatsu with a bunch of things under it.

I smiled and said okay because that seemed better than his other suggestions. Usually he would want to play samurai or demon hunter and we would fight and it would hurt when he got hits in. A robber doesn’t fight. He runs away.

Takumi stuck a hand under cloth and pulled out a ring with a gemstone on it. He gave it to me. I looked at it for a while. It looked like a really nice ring.

“Is this real?” I asked.

“Of course it’s real,” Takumi said. He pointed a finger at me. “And you stole it! You stole the crown jewel!” He grabbed a pair of plastic handcuffs from under the cloth and started chasing me. I laughed and ran way. There wasn’t that much room to run.

I circled the kotatsu a few times and ran towards the front door, but Takumi shouted, “No outside! No outside!” I turned around, but he was already blocking the hallway. I tried to shove past him, but he wrapped his arms around me and brought me to the ground. He tugged my arms back behind me really hard.

“Ow, be careful!” I shouted. He didn’t answer.

He got the plastic handcuffs around my wrists and led me to a plastic chair next to the kotatsu. He sat me down. He took out two strands of rope from under the cloth and tied my legs to the legs of the chair.

“You don’t need to do that!” I said.

“You are a robber. I need to make sure you don’t run away,” he said.

When my legs couldn’t move, he stood up and said, “Okay, I am Officer Chris. What’s your name?”

“I’m Renya. Why aren’t you Detective Conan? You should be Detective Conan,” I said.

“Shut up, criminal!” He shouted. “I’m Officer Chris. Answer me, did you steal the crown jewels?”

I smiled a big evil smile and nodded.

He pointed a finger at my face and said, “Who were you working with? Name your accomplices!”

“What’s an accomplice?” I asked.

“They’re like friends. Who helped you steal the jewels?” he said.

I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “Nobody. I did it all on my own.”

“That’s impossible!” he said. “How did you get past the guards and cameras?”

“I can turn invisible,” I said.

“That’s not real! You’re a liar. You’re a lying criminal!” he shouted.

“No it’s real! I turn invisible. You can’t see me!” I shouted back.

At this, Takumi took out a knife from under the cloth. Not a play knife, but a really big kitchen knife. He pointed it at me. “Tell me the truth or I’ll stab you.”

I was eyeing the knife very carefully. I could feel sweat going down my face. I said, “You shouldn’t use that. My dad will get angry.”

“Your dad’s not here, criminal,” he said. “Tell me the truth or I’ll stab you.”

“I turn invisible! You can’t see me!” I shout again.

“No you don’t! I can still see you!” he shouted back.

That was it for me. I shouted, “I don’t wanna play anymore! Let me out!”

“Come on, we’re just having fun,” Takumi said.

I shook my head. “I don’t wanna play anymore!”

“FINE!” Takumi shouted, the loudest so far. “You’re invisible, okay?” His eyes shifted around. “Woah, where did you go, criminal?!”

I smiled again. I tried to get out of the handcuffs and rope, but they were too tight. I was thinking of scooting the chair away, but Takumi could see the chair.

Takumi took the knife and swept back and forth with it, inching closer to me. “Are you still here, criminal?”

I leaned as far back as I could, but it was not enough. The knife swept from my shoulder across my upper chest. At first, it was cold, then the stinging came, then the pain, then the blood running down. It felt like ants running across my chest, and then it started to hurt.

I opened my mouth and cried so loud that they were also screams. I screamed and cried and shouted, “DADDY! DADDY! I WANNA GO HOME!”

Takumi looked nervously upstairs and said, “Shut up, criminal! Shut up, shut up!”

Nobody came. No footsteps. No noise.

After a few seconds, Takumi smiled. His smile was more evil than my most evil smile. He said, “I’ll ask again, criminal. Who were you working with?”

I didn’t answer. I was just trying to get my Daddy to come downstairs.

Takumi took out a power drill from under the cloth. “Tell me, criminal, or I’ll take a tooth.”

“I WANNA GO HOOOME!” I shouted at the top my lungs.

I heard the high pitched whirl of the drill. I was shaking in my chair, trying to get loose. The plastic handcuffs had a button to release them, but I couldn’t find it behind my back. I screamed and shook back and forth in the chair until I felt the drill hit my front tooth.

It was the most painful thing I ever felt. The pain shot through my teeth, into my head, and down my neck and mixed with the pain from the big cut. The noise was so loud, and it was inside my mouth. Without thinking, I threw my whole body to the left side and knocked over the chair. Takumi fell on top of me, holding the drill, but now it was drilling into my head. It was so loud. I could feel the pressure on the right side of my head.

Shouting wasn’t working, so I started singing. I sang the only song I could think of: The Japanese National Anthem “Kimi Ga Yo.” It was was the first song we learned in chorus.

“Kimi ga yo wa…”

Then pain. More painful than the tooth. Every part of my body from the chest up was a chorus of pain, singing together and making harmony. Different but the same. I could even hear Takumi singing with me.

“Chiyo ni yachiyo ni…”

I could hear the tone of the drill get lower as it hit my skull, but it was just as loud.

“Sazare—”

I woke up in a pile of sweat in the middle of the moldy house. I was wearing a mask, but I still felt that the mold was seeping into my nostrils. I was breathing heavily, which wasn’t helping. With shaking hands, I took out my notebook and scribbled the notes you see at the top.