CHAPTER 5

When I woke the next morning, my husband was already up and about in the garden.

“Can I have a look inside the storehouse? I’d better wait until Yuu gets up, of course.”

“Sure, but I doubt you’ll find anything much of interest. I used to love exploring it when I was little, but I only ever saw farming stuff in there.”

“I don’t mind, I just want to see inside it!”

My husband had been such a recluse in Tokyo, but here he was so cheerful and energetic. I had the feeling that I was looking at my childhood self.

“Good morning! You’re up early.”

Yuu appeared on the veranda in a sweatshirt and pants.

“Good morning, Tomoya.”

“Good morning! Oh, it was my turn to make breakfast this morning, wasn’t it?”

My husband hurriedly slipped off his sandals and went back inside.

“I’ll help,” Yuu said.

“But then there’d be no point in taking turns! Just take it easy and enjoy the morning air. I want to try making miso soup with the wild herbs I picked yesterday.”

“Don’t make anything too weird, now,” I said, a little worried, but he was raring to go.

“It might be a little bitter, but I’m keen to taste it. Oh, how wonderful it is here!” he said, heading off to the kitchen.

“You’d better put something warmer on. Otherwise you’ll catch cold,” Yuu told me before heading off to the bathroom.

I sat down on the veranda, feeling the old wooden house creaking faintly as Yuu and my husband moved around inside.

Every morning after breakfast the three of us would go for a walk. Yuu had remarked that this was his habit, and my husband said he wanted to go with him.

First we went as far as the red bridge to get reception on our phones to check email and missed calls. Then we would walk slowly along the river until we reached the mountain trail leading to the next village, where we turned around and came back to the house.

Everything seemed novel to my husband. He wanted to go to the next village, but Yuu warned him that the mountain trail was quite tough and he grudgingly gave up the idea.

Sometimes we changed our route and either headed farther up the mountain or down to the abandoned school, but mostly we just wandered along the river.

Now and then we went to make an offering at my grandparents’ grave. On those occasions, Yuu always went back alone and never came with us as far as the grave.

Whenever we were walking, I was assailed by a very strange feeling. It was very odd to see my husband and Yuu walking along side by side. Until very recently, Yuu had belonged to my past and my husband to the present, and it felt like one had turned up out of a time machine.

My husband was always super excited and talkative when out walking.

“While I’m here, I want to take the opportunity to do things that humans absolutely don’t do.”

“Why’s that?” Yuu asked.

“Because that will undo my brainwashing,” my husband answered confidently. “Taboos are just a form of brainwashing too. Seen through an alien eye none of them are worth bothering about. They are irrational.”

“What sort of things do you want to do?”

“I dunno . . . eat something weird, like insects, for example.”

“I’m afraid people around here have always eaten bugs. And they eat grasshoppers in various other regions of Japan, don’t they, not just in Nagano?”

“Oh, really?”

“If you’re interested, I’ll buy some for you next time I go shopping. In some places they eat grasshoppers and hornet larvae, oh, and the pupae of those silkworms you love so much, Tomoya. Although my uncle told me that in this house they never ate the silkworm pupae.”

“Wow! I definitely want to try those. They’re so adorable.”

My husband and Yuu had been getting pretty close these past few days. Yuu was making a point of talking with him a lot, while also putting as much distance as he possibly could between himself and me.

“If the town we live in is a Baby Factory,” my husband said seriously, “this place is an abandoned factory, isn’t it? A factory where nothing gets produced anymore. And where nobody expects to make anything either. I feel so much more comfortable here. I wish I could live the rest of my life here as a discarded, worn-out component.”

“I still get hassled here sometimes, too, though. You’re young, the villagers say. Go get yourself a wife and have kids.”

“That’s the ghost of the factory. Abandoned places always have ghosts,” my husband said, his face serious.

Amused, Yuu laughed. “Yes, there are probably a whole load of ghosts in this village!”

I could hear the sound of water.

Water still flowed in the river that was so much smaller than it had been in my memory. Even after I had stopped coming to Akishina, its sound had been always there within me.

It was strange to see the real-life Yuu walking alongside the sound of flowing water.

On the other side of the river, I could see the graves of our ancestors. When I was in college, I overheard Uncle Teruyoshi and Dad talking on the phone about how the earth on my grandfather’s grave hadn’t fallen in yet. Over twenty years had passed since he died, but even now the mound covering his coffin still hadn’t fallen in.

What did he look like now under that earth? I had attended a number of funerals of the parents of friends or coworkers, but those had been cremations. His had been the only burial. I wondered if any of his hair or skin was left. I’d looked up how long it took for a body to completely turn to soil and found it was over a hundred years, so maybe he was less changed than I’d imagined and was watching us now.

“Natsuki, is anything wrong?” asked my husband, turning to look back at me still standing in the same spot.

I ran over to join them. I watched as some crows on the other side of the river began to cluster around the food we’d left as offerings on my grandparents’ grave.

Our fall vacation was to be one month. That was our limit.

If we stayed any longer, our savings would run out, and people from the Factory wouldn’t keep quiet either. If we were found out, we would be dragged back home.

“You’d better go back before winter, you know,” Yuu warned us. “It snows a lot here. Sometimes the first floor gets completely buried.”

My husband looked disappointed, but I knew we couldn’t expect to have any longer than that.

From the road outside the house, you could see a high mountain. Day by day it was turning redder, and now over half of it was covered in fall colors.

After our morning walk, we would eat grilled oyaki dumplings and discuss what to do that day. Yuu said he would do some gardening, while my husband said he wanted to look for sour dock. I wasn’t sure sour dock grew this late in the year, but he was raring to search for some and wasn’t about to let that stop him. I still couldn’t taste anything, so even if we did find any I wouldn’t be able to enjoy its sourness. That made me sad, so I decided to stay in the house and tidy up the tableware.

“These glasses really bring back memories. I wonder if Uncle Teruyoshi would let me take one home with me.”

“You’d better check with Aunt Ritsuko. She might want to keep them.”

“Okay.”

Beyond the veranda, the trees in the garden were also beginning to change color. Gazing at them, I murmured, “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Akishina in the fall. It was always summer when we came here. I can’t imagine what it must look like in the snow.”

Keeping his gaze averted from me, Yuu said, “The snow’s always deep here in winter.”

“I know, just I can’t picture it.”

“That’s because you only see the things visible to you, Natsuki,” he said pointedly.

I looked down. “But so does everyone,” I argued back in a small voice.

“Plenty of people look squarely at things they don’t want to see and live with them.”

It had begun to dawn on me since meeting Yuu again and telling him I was an alien that he despised me.

“I bet the snowy landscape is really beautiful, too, different again from the fall colors,” my husband said dreamily. “Having spent all my life in Tokyo, I’ve never seen deep snow. It must be so pretty!”

“It’s not as idyllic as all that, you know,” Yuu said, his expression softening as he smiled at my husband.

“But the harshness of winter is part and parcel of this village. I’d love to experience it,” my husband murmured, although he knew it was most likely impossible.

“This place really has gotten under your skin, hasn’t it, Tomoya?”

While Yuu chided my husband, he never contradicted him outright. This was the Yuu that I knew. Even when his own mother had treated him practically as a husband, and even when I’d pushed him to marry me, he had never once refused. Submission had been a coping strategy for him as a child I realized.

“Of course! I want to see for myself what it’s like here in winter and spring, but I don’t suppose I’ll get the chance. You never know what that Factory lot will do,” my husband murmured.

We both felt it. It wouldn’t be long before an envoy would arrive from the Factory. We were shirking our responsibilities as components and would soon be forced to return. And actually, I was longing for that envoy. We would be taken back to the Factory, where my husband would be put to work, and I would be calmly but coercively encouraged to have a baby. Everyone would lecture me on how wonderful it would be.

I was ready for it. This time everyone would ensure I was perfectly brainwashed, and my body would become a Factory component.

My womb and my husband’s testes did not belong to us. The sooner I was brainwashed the better. That way I would no longer suffer. I, too, would be able to live with a smile on my face in the virtual reality world in which everyone was living.

Had my wish come true? The very next day, an envoy arrived at the house in Akishina.

I had just finished lunch and was brushing my teeth in the washroom when I heard a knock on the door.

“Coming!” I called out.

I opened the door to see my sister standing there. She was holding my niece’s hand. I felt her briefly grin when she noticed I was still in pajamas.

“Natsuki, do we have a visitor?” Yuu called, peeking out of the kitchen. Seeing my sister there, his face instantly hardened.

“Good morning, Yuu. It’s been a long time. I’m Kise. Do you remember me?”

“Er, yes. It has been a long time.”

“You two seem to have extended your stay somewhat,” she said to me. “Mom’s beginning to get worried, so I came to check how things were going.” She sounded almost euphoric. The way she was talking was so contrived that I wondered whether she was imitating one of her TV dramas.

“Oh, Kise, how lovely to see you!” my husband said loudly, coming out of the living room. He sounded even more theatrical than she did.

My husband hated my sister.

She was one of those who, upon becoming an adult, had achieved salvation in the Factory. As a child, she hadn’t been able to properly assimilate into society but had found redemption in becoming a tool of the Factory and had grown into its fervent devotee.

My husband always said disparagingly behind her back, “Even by Factory standards, she really gives me the creeps.”

I showed her into the living room and poured her some tea. My niece, who would soon be starting elementary school, was having fun running around the house.

“You’re not thinking of staying here forever I suppose?” my sister said to me. She didn’t touch the oyaki dumplings that Yuu had put out for her, claiming she’d just had lunch.

“Well, no, but—”

“You don’t want to outstay your welcome as a couple, you know. Do try not to be a nuisance to Yuu. Like you were back then.” Yuu paled when she said this. “You really must come back home soon, the two of you, and get back on with your lives. I’m sure you agree, don’t you, Tomoya?”

“Ah . . .” my husband answered vaguely and took a big bite out of a dumpling, as if even being polite was too much bother.

“Well, I only came today to see how you were getting on. Mom’s worried about you too. Staying here in this house with Yuu, of all people.”

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have gone away for a while,” Yuu hurriedly apologized. Maybe he felt awkward about the way my husband and I were sitting there, mindlessly letting her words go in one ear and out the other.

“It’s not your fault, Yuu. Haven’t the villagers said anything? I’m worried these two may be causing trouble.”

From the tone of her voice, it was clear that my sister was not speaking for herself but on behalf of society. I envied her ability to do that.

My niece was just beginning to get bored of playing in the house when my sister stood up. “Well, it’s time we were getting back,” she said.

“Oh, won’t you stay a little longer?” my husband said as he quickly stood up and slid open the living room door, eagerly ushering her out. “What a pity you have to go so soon,” he said several times as he placed her shoes ready for her to put on.

“I’ll come again.”

My sister seemed very well aware that my husband didn’t like her. She left the house without even reproaching him for the way he sent her packing.

I accompanied her as far as her car. “Did you drive up that mountain road yourself?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Ah, you’re a good driver! You always used to get so carsick on that road.”

“By the way, you know those people handing out leaflets at the station are in the news again?”

This was so out of the blue that for a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You remember not long ago that high school student in the neighboring town who was brutally murdered and his killer arrested? The talk shows are saying that there are similarities with Mr. Igasaki’s case, even though that happened over twenty years ago. So his parents have started handing out leaflets again. Normally a family would move out of a house where such a terrible thing happened, but they haven’t. Even the neighborhood association commented on that. There’s a rumor going about that his parents themselves are the murderers and hid the evidence. It’s really awful!”

“Wow!”

“You used to hand out leaflets for them too, didn’t you? How about helping out again?”

“Hmm, I’ll think about it.”

I watched her car pull off into the distance before sluggishly making my way back to the house.

My husband was in the altar room yelling, “Aaarrghhh!!! The bastards! They finally came.” He tripped over my bedding and had to grab on to my shoulder to stop himself falling. “She’s been completely brainwashed by the Factory. I’ll never be able to just be myself. And it’s all their fault!”

“Calm down, Tomoya. My sister can’t force us to go back. All she can do is put a bit of pressure on us like she did just now. We can still stay here for a while yet.”

“Did you see that woman’s eyes? She’s crazy! It’s like she thinks we’re criminals, and she’s just letting us get away with it for the time being. Why do I have to have her permission to be who I am? Who does she think she is?”

Yuu had watched this outburst in astonishment, but finally he collected himself. Laying a hand on my husband’s back, he said, “Calm down, will you? Anyway, it’s getting chilly. Let’s go and sit in the kotatsu, shall we?”

“Yeah, all right.” my husband said, looking sheepish.

As he soothed my husband, Yuu seemed preoccupied.

That night, while my husband was in the bath, I was on the veranda gazing at the stars when Yuu slid the shoji open and asked, “Aren’t you cold sitting out there?”

“I have a hot water bottle to keep warm.”

“I see.”

He sat down next to me. This was unusual I thought. Normally he went out of his way to avoid being alone with me whenever my husband was out of sight.

“Um . . . this might sound strange coming from me, but does Tomoya know what happened between us when were kids?”

“We’ve never really talked about the past. He’s my partner, but that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“It’s best to talk about that sort of thing with a partner. If he finds out later it might lead to a misunderstanding, and he’ll probably feel hurt.”

“What sort of misunderstanding?”

Yuu looked taken aback by my question. “That there is, er . . . a relationship between you and me.”

“Yuu, you’re acting like someone in a TV drama. Of course there’s a relationship between us. We’re cousins.”

“This isn’t a drama. It’s real life. If you are misunderstood, Natsuki, you’ll be even more cut off from the Factory. Anyone who contravenes their logic will be punished.”

“Tomoya is all right. He’s an even more ardent believer in Planet Popinpobopia than I am.”

Yuu sighed. “Natsuki, we aren’t children anymore. That kind of crazy reasoning won’t work. You have to do better. As an adult, you have to squarely face up to problems.”

“What problems? Do better than what? Look, Yuu, I already explained it clearly to you. I told you about Tomoya and me. You’re just not listening. You’re too busy tuning into society’s noise. However much we talk, it’s just meaningless babble to you.”

I looked up at him. He had grown a little taller than me.

“Lucky you,” I went on. “You’ve been completely brainwashed, haven’t you? The sooner I am too, the better. I’m not like Tomoya. I don’t yearn for an alien eye. I want to get an Earthling perspective, and as soon as possible. It would make everything so much easier.”

Yuu sighed. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you, Natsuki? It’s really like you’re frozen in time.”

Yuu despised me. But there was nothing I could do about that. The alien eye had already been downloaded into me. It was the only way I could see the world.

“I’ll talk to Tomoya tomorrow. Since you say it’s that important, I’ll follow the Earthling rules. It’s not as though I’m trying to rebel,” I told him, hugging the hot water bottle tightly to me. It was only lukewarm.

The next morning over breakfast, I told Tomoya that there was something I wanted to talk to him about. Before I could go any further, he said happily, “Me too. I’m going to try having sex with my grandfather.”

Yuu choked, spraying miso soup over the kotatsu.

“Why?” I asked my husband, handing some tissues and a dishcloth to Yuu.

“Incest isn’t very common, is it? It’s taboo. Therefore I can use it as a step toward liberating myself from the brainwashing.”

“Hmm, you think so?” I was skeptical. His idea was rooted in a human sense of values, and I couldn’t help thinking it was a typically human concept.

“I want to try whatever people find most taboo. Other than murder.”

“Hold on a moment,” Yuu said, flustered. “How can I put this . . . ? Anyway, sex without consent is a crime.”

“It’s all right. Tomoya’s grandfather is in a vegetative state in the hospital.”

“That’s even worse!”

“Why?” I looked Yuu in the eye. “That sort of thing happens everywhere, you know. We just don’t see it. Even now, someone somewhere in the world is being used as a tool. It’ll happen again today too. That’s all it is.”

“Natsuki, what you are talking about is a crime. It’s abnormal.”

“So what? Adults are expected to turn a blind eye to anything abnormal, aren’t they? That’s the way it is. Why so virtuous now? You’re just a regular adult, after all. All you have to do is ignore it, just like any other regular adult.”

I had no intention of condemning the crime my husband was planning to commit. If he wanted so much to become an alien, that was fine by me. And if he wanted to injure someone with his testes, then he should go right ahead I thought. If he actually went through with it, then at least he could become a monster. When I tried to imagine it, my hands shook, and there was a loud buzzing like a cicada in my right ear.

“There’s some truth in what you’re saying, Yuu,” he said. “Now that I think about it, of course it would be a crime. It’s just I thought that my grandfather wouldn’t realize, so I wouldn’t be prosecuted for it. That was wrong of me.”

“Why?” I asked coolly, feeling my fingertips trembling. “What is crime, anyway? Earthlings are always doing it, right? They’re forever carrying out crimes without any qualms at all.”

“Ah. You’ve got a point there, Natsuki. You are from Planet Popinpobopia, after all,” he said. “Mom is really busy with caregiving and doesn’t have time for anything else, so I’ll try out incest with my brother. Of course, I’ll explain it to him properly and get his consent.”

“Hold on. What do you hope to achieve with this?” Yuu asked.

My husband looked at him strangely. “To become an alien, of course. How many times do I have to explain that to you?”

“But even if you do do something like that, it won’t change the fact that you’re human.”

“I won’t know until I try. Anyway, I want to give it a go. I want to discard my humanity before I’m dragged back to the Factory.” My husband’s gaze turned to me. “I’m sorry, Natsuki. I’ve been doing all the talking. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, when Yuu and I were in elementary school, we thought we were lovers, and we even once had sex. We held a secret wedding ceremony too.”

My husband sighed. “I can’t believe you’re worried about something like that, Natsuki. I suppose the Factory must be getting to you after all. I’m quite disappointed I must say.”

“Um, it was me who told Natsuki to tell you about it. Sorry,” Yuu hastily butted in. “I thought you would have a hard time of it should there be any misunderstanding.”

“Hard time of it? Really? Well, from my point of view, it’s you who’s having a hard time of it,” my husband said, peering at Yuu in concern. “You’re lucky enough to be living in an abandoned factory, but here you are still apparently under the Factory’s spell. But never mind, someday you, too, will be able to download the alien eye.”

Yuu was staring at my husband with narrowed eyes, although I couldn’t say whether this was because he found the light too bright, was being hostile toward him, or simply felt sleepy.

My husband stopped eating his rice and, still holding his bowl, continued, “You see, that’s when you’ll be able to see the real world, the pure world that your eyes are really seeing, unsullied by your brain. That perspective will be the greatest gift from us as a couple to you.”

Yuu opened his mouth ready to argue back, but no words came out, and he just sat there staring vacantly, as though swallowed up by the force of my husband’s gaze.

“Yuu, I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” my husband went on. “I am truly grateful to you for letting us come and take refuge here. I want to return the favor. I just hope we have enough time to do that before we’re forced to go back to the Factory.”

He put his bowl down and looked alternately at me and Yuu. “At any rate, I’m going to go to my parents’ place this weekend. I will have sex with someone in my family before coming back here. Of course with their consent and without hurting anyone. If all goes well, I want you to celebrate my success. If I can have both of your blessings, I believe I will feel very happy.”

“Okay,” I said. Despite my husband’s calm explanation, my fingertips wouldn’t stop trembling.

That night I couldn’t sleep. There was still a buzzing sound in my right ear.

My mouth had remained broken all the way through school. I couldn’t taste anything, so I lost a lot of weight. ­Everyone around me was gradually beginning to function as components of the Baby Factory, while I found myself being left behind. Before they knew it, they had all been brainwashed. My classmates all longed to fall in love, and they began to try hard to be the sort of girls suited to romance.

“Why?” they would ask me when I said there wasn’t anyone I fancied. All the other girls liked talking about boys. They were concerned if someone didn’t join in.

I was looking for a church where I could confess. I wanted to take all the words out from inside my body and show them to someone. I chose someone of the same sex simply because I’d had absolutely no contact with any boys and didn’t think they would understand me anyway. The sooner I could lay to rest the words within me the better.

When I was in senior high school, I summoned my courage and tried to talk to my friend Kanae. We were from the same neighborhood, we went to the same school, and we got along well. I also had the feeling that she would be less biased since she’d been to a different cram school.

“Kanae, do you remember when that teacher from the cram school by the station was murdered?”

“Oh, you mean that really cool teacher, right? I was in a different cram school, but I remember that. The poor guy.”

“I was in his school.”

“Really? Everyone there seemed really close. I remember being so impressed seeing you all handing out leaflets together.”

“But you know what? That teacher was a bit weird. I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but . . .”

“What do you mean, weird?”

“Well . . .”

I plucked up my courage and told her what had happened. About the sanitary napkin, and about him putting his thing in my mouth, doing my best not to be too explicit.

Kanae pulled a face. “Ew, what is that? You’re saying he was your boyfriend? Like, an elementary schoolgirl with a university student?”

“What? No! That’s not what I meant . . . I mean, he was a pervert.”

Kanae burst out laughing. “No way! Are you sure you didn’t just dream it all? After all, you were only in elementary school back then. From what I saw of his photo on the news, he must have been really popular. Sounds like a fantasy to me.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong. I hated him.”

“If you didn’t like it, you should have told him! It’s your fault for not turning him down. Apart from anything, if you hated him so much, you shouldn’t have gone to his house, right?”

“Well no, but—”

“Even if it’s true . . . After all, he was so cool you must have purposely let down your guard. That’s basically consenting, isn’t it? I can’t understand why you’re playing the tragic heroine, really.”

“No, you’re wrong. It wasn’t like that at all.”

Kanae heaved a big sigh. “Well, look, just what is it you want me to say? Why are you telling me? It’s such a turnoff!”

She kept her distance after that. Another friend told me that she was going around telling everyone I was a liar.

The second time I came out about it was when I was in university, and my friend Miho told me that she was often groped on the train. This time I cautiously chose someone who was also a victim for my confession.

I was worried she might accuse me of lying like Kanae had, but I steeled myself and this time described what happened as a criminal act without bothering to sugarcoat it. I hid the fact that he was dead and any other information that might arouse any sympathy for him and carefully selected just the episodes that might gain sympathy for myself. Everything I said was true, but apparently I’d given Miho the impression that Mr. Igasaki was not a good-looking young student but a fat and ugly middle-aged man. That made it much more relatable for her.

“What the hell? That is just so gross, an old man like that. You poor thing, Natsuki!”

I was relieved that she was so enraged. However, when I entered my second year of college, then my third, and still made hardly any effort to meet boys, her focus began to shift.

“Look, I know what you went through was awful, but aren’t you letting him win? Finding happiness is the best revenge. The longer you continue to mope, the longer that dirty old man will be rejoicing.”

“Yeah.” I always agreed with her.

“Look,” she went on, I hate to be the one to say this, but he didn’t even force you to go all the way, did he? So I kind of wonder why you’re acting so traumatized. I mean, I’ve been groped loads and it’s horrible, but we just have to put up with it, right? If we let that sort of thing stop us from hooking up with anyone for our whole lives, the human race will die out pretty quick! Some of my friends suffered way worse, and they all have boyfriends now. Everyone else does their best to forget the past and look to the future, Natsuki. You’ve got as far as college without even so much as speaking to a boy. It’s a bit weird.”

She was probably right, but I just laughed it off.

One day I went to meet Miho only to find she wasn’t alone. There was a guy with her.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Someone I want to introduce you to.” She laughed and turned to the boy. “I’m sorry, she’s got issues with men. But hey, you said you liked the innocent type, right? I thought the two of you would be just right for each other.”

I was glaring at Miho without moving a muscle. The boy looked a bit scared.

“Who is he?” I repeated.

I no longer knew who Miho was or why she was making such a fuss or why was she so determined to get me to have sex with someone.

Furious, I walked away. Behind me I heard the boy laugh and say, “I know I said I’d prefer a virgin to used goods, but that’s too much!”

I was keenly aware that I was unable to fulfill my duty as a tool for the Baby Factory. Being a Popinpobopian, I just couldn’t understand Earthlings. On Earth, young women were supposed to fall in love and have sex, and if they didn’t, they were “lonely” or “bored” or “wasting their youth and would regret it later!”

“You have to make up for lost time,” Miho was always telling me.

But I couldn’t understand why, when it meant doing something I didn’t want to do.

We would soon be dispatched to the Factory. Those who were already prepared would guide those who weren’t yet ready. Miho was my guide.

Earthlings baffled me. If I were an Earthling, though, I suppose it would be absolutely natural for me to be controlled by my genes, too, just like Miho was. It must be a peaceful, secure way of life.

It was just before Christmas, decorations and ornamental trees adorned the streets, and there was romance in the air.

Society was a system for falling in love. People who couldn’t fall in love had to fake it. What came first: the system or love? All I knew was that love was a mechanism designed to make Earthlings breed.

I took a train back to Mirai New Town. At the ticket gates, I saw Mr. Igasaki’s parents handing out leaflets. People walking past were ignoring their grief-stricken faces and pleas for information, casually avoiding taking the leaflets urged on them by the aging couple. They had attracted a lot of sympathy at the time of the murder, but now they were treated as a nuisance, like foreign matter in the town.

I quietly averted my eyes, hoping they wouldn’t see me, and headed for home.

Humans got really worked up when an organism that had inherited their genes was killed. Even now, Mr. Igasaki’s parents were still driven by grief and rage.

Unlike when I was little, there was now a shopping mall and retail outlets around the station and the area was bustling with people. There were lots of families out walking among all the Christmas decorations and couples in school uniforms holding hands.

The Factory seemed to be putting more and more effort into promoting how wonderful it was to fall in love and how fabulous it was to produce a human at the end of that.

In my belly I already had a womb primed for this Baby Factory. I was getting to the age where I would soon be censured for not letting this organ be used for the benefit of the Factory.

The next morning I awoke to find my husband already dressed and ready to go out.

“Won’t you have breakfast before you go?”

“No, I’ve already called a taxi. I’ll only be gone one night. I want to carry my plan out as quickly as possible and come back here.”

“I see. Good luck!”

My husband had just left when Yuu came downstairs.

“Where’s Tomoya?”

“He’s gone already.”

“What, already? I told him I’d give him a lift!”

“He’s a bit reckless.”

Yuu sighed. “Okay, well I’ll leave, too, after breakfast.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go down the mountain and stay in a hotel tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“Surely even you can understand why we two shouldn’t spend the night here together on our own?”

Evidently everything we’d told him had washed over him. He was only listening to the voice of society. Yuu’s propriety was, to me, proof that his brainwashing was complete. I envied him.

“I’ll go. I’m the freeloader here, after all.”

“But you can’t drive, Natsuki. There’s only one bus a day, so it’s simplest if I go,” he said irritably and went to the washroom.

Given that my husband and I were causing Yuu so much trouble, the least I could do was prepare breakfast I thought. I was just on my way to the kitchen when I heard a car pull up outside. I went to see who it was, thinking my husband had probably forgotten something, to see an unfamiliar orange vehicle.

A suntanned man got out. Noticing me, he approached with a dubious look on his face.

“Yota?” The name came to mind the moment I saw his face. He was Uncle Teruyoshi’s eldest son, one of the kids I’d run around with during the summer here.

“Natsuki?” He looked surprised.

I nodded.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came with my husband to stay a while.”

“What about Yuu?”

“He’s inside.”

Yota looked troubled.

Just then Yuu came out. “Hey, Yota!” he called, looking relieved. “Good timing. Will you have breakfast? I’m going out straight afterward.”

“Sure, but what about Natsuki’s husband?”

“You just missed him. Some business came up in Tokyo, and he won’t be back tonight, so I thought it best to go down to the valley to stay in a hotel.”

“Yes, that seems best. But what’s up with him? For all that you two are cousins, going out and leaving you alone together . . . That’s not normal, is it? Surely he should have taken Natsuki with him?”

“That’s what I thought too,” Yuu said, looking reassured.

Yota’s sense of propriety seemed to resonate with Yuu, and this enabled them to really connect with each other deeply I thought. Yuu looked far more relaxed than I’d seen him until now.

Yuu smoothly explained my husband’s sudden absence, replacing the provocative word “incest” with other words such as “work.”

“Well, I guess if that’s the case, it can’t be helped,” Yota said, apparently more or less satisfied. “How about staying at my place, Yuu? Paying for a hotel is a waste of money.”

“Well, if you don’t mind.”

Yota lived in Ueda with his wife and children. I was impressed by how well he was functioning as a Factory component.

“I’m sorry that I was a bit sharp with you earlier, Natsuki,” he said. “You know, after, er . . . what happened, the relatives stopped gathering together here for the summer. I had no idea why, and I really missed being here. Then when Granny died, everyone came again, except you. When I asked why you weren’t there, Dad told me I was old enough to know what had happened and explained what you’d done that night after Grandpa’s funeral. To be honest, I was shocked and disgusted.”

Yuu nodded as he listened to Yota. He somehow looked pleased, even though he was being told he himself was disgusting. There was no trace of the uneasy expression he wore when he was around me and my husband; he looked as though he had recovered his self-confidence. Normality was contagious, and exposure to the infection was necessary to keep up with it. Yota was probably supplying him with some of the same strain of normality as his own for the first time in a while.

“Since Yuu started living here, this place has been on my mind, and I’ve been dropping by occasionally. And then meeting you again after all this time, Natsuki, somehow those days came back to me, and I got the jitters.”

“I know, I know,” Yuu said, eagerly pouring more tea for Yota.

“Hadn’t you two met up since then?”

“No, we hadn’t been in contact at all since that night,” Yuu answered immediately.

“I don’t suppose you could,” Yota said with some emotion. “Your mom stopped visiting after that. After all, she was practically disowned by the family. I only found out about her suicide at her funeral.”

“She committed suicide?” I was shocked. My sister hadn’t told me how she’d died.

“Didn’t you know?” Yota asked, staring at me.

“Nobody told you anything either, I suppose?”

“No . . .”

“After that all the relatives fell apart, you know. I really think what we did was wrong,” Yuu muttered.

“Wrong? I suppose that’s how you see it, Yuu.”

“Anyone would!” Yuu looked me in the eye. “We were wrong.”

I gulped and was about to make a retort when Yota changed the subject and in a bright voice said, “But look how run-down Granny’s house is! The tatami floor in the altar room is looking all worn.”

“It really is! I can hardly believe that all us cousins used to play here in the living room.”

“It’s true!”

Yuu and I both chimed in.

“We always had fireworks in the garden every summer, didn’t we?”

“Wow, it’s all like a dream now.”

Yuu narrowed his eyes as if trying to remember. “You always got told off for taking two sparklers, didn’t you, Yota?”

“Yeah, those things were so lame. Remember how Dad always used to launch some big rockets for us too?”

“And those parachutes . . . remember how we used to fight over them too?”

Together we talked about our memories of that time. In the other world of the past, we really had all sat on this veranda eating watermelon. That was something you never saw these days.

The three of us had breakfast together, then Yota and Yuu drove down the mountain.

Yota was concerned about me. “Will you be okay here on your own, Natsuki?” he asked. “Do you want to come with us? You can sleep in my wife’s room.”

“She doesn’t have her husband’s permission,” Yuu said immediately. “It wouldn’t be right.”

He glared at me disdainfully. People can easily pass judgment on others when they’re protected by their own normality.

“I’ll sleep here alone,” I told Yota.

My husband returned soon after lunch the following day. I was lazing around in the kotatsu when I heard the front door open, and he came in looking pale.

“Hi Tomoya, how was it?”

“They’re after me. I have to hide right now.”

Before I could get any more information from my trembling husband, there was the sound of a car pulling up. He shrieked. I hid him in the kitchen and went outside to find not his pursuer but Yuu getting unhurriedly out of his car.

“I saw a taxi and thought it must be Tomoya’s. Is he back?”

“Well—”

Before I could answer, there was the sound of yet another car outside. When I nervously went to see who it was, this time I found a big black car.

A glowering figure alighted from the driver’s seat. I grabbed Yuu’s hand and hurriedly pulled him into the house, locking the door behind us.

“What shall we do, Yuu? It’s an envoy from the Factory chasing Tomoya.”

“Envoy?”

My husband huddled in the kitchen.

Before long, the glowering figure loomed behind the frosted glass in the door.

“Tomoya! Come on out. I know you’re in there!”

“Who is it?” Yuu whispered in my ear.

“Tomoya’s father.”

Yuu’s eyes widened. “In that case, we have to invite him in. We can’t just turn him away, you know.”

He turned to the door. “Hold on a moment, sir! I’m the current resident of this house. I’ll open up right away.”

He opened the door to see my father-in-law standing there, his face and neck tinged crimson with rage.

“Excuse me, but is my son here?” my father-in-law demanded courteously, before pushing his way in and storming through the house yelling “Tomoya!”

Eventually he dragged my husband out of the kitchen. “You stupid brat!”

It’s like a TV drama I thought as I watched him beating my husband. As a child, I’d often been amused by drama series, however serious the theme. Seeing one now being played out right before my very eyes, acted with such deep conviction, I almost burst out laughing.

“Come on, let’s keep things calm, shall we?”

Yuu was a good actor, too, playing the part of someone desperately trying to get a father to calm down and stop beating his son. He blended completely into the scene being brought to life by my father-in-law.

“Stop, please! Help!” my husband screamed pathetically, making a dash for where I stood as Yuu held my father-in-law back.

“Do you really want me to save you?” There was a grass-cutting scythe by the front door. “Do you, Tomoya? If you really want me to save you, then I will do my very best.”

My husband realized what was in my line of sight and quickly shook his head. “No, no, actually I don’t really want you to help me.”

“Really? Okay, fine.”

I watched as my father-in-law shook off Yuu and again grabbed my husband, resuming the family drama. “Stop! Someone help me!” my husband screamed. “You worthless piece of shit!” my father-in-law roared, absorbed in his script as he began beating my husband again.

One of my husband’s teeth flew out and landed at my feet. It was covered in blood. I picked up the bloody tooth and put it in my pocket.

“Please stop!” Yuu implored. “Calm down!” There at my husband’s side, he was playing the part of the wife better than I was.

Putting together what my father-in-law was yelling, my husband had actually gone to his elder brother’s house and, with all sincerity, proposed committing an incestuous act with him. He had apparently fervently explained that by not having a romantic relationship but instead committing an incestuous act, he might be able to become something nonhuman.

My brother-in-law worried that he might be involved with a religious cult and secretly recorded their conversation on his iPhone as he tried to soothe him and treated him to a meal. When my husband got drunk and fell asleep on the sofa, my brother-in-law went to see their father to ask for advice on how to handle the situation. My husband was then woken from sleep by a furious phone call from his father and in a panic fled back to Akishina by bullet train then taxi. My father-in-law had contacted my parents, who gave him the address in Akishina, and he had easily caught up with his son.

Once my father-in-law had finished beating my husband, he dragged us outside and pushed us into his car. “Both of you, you should know better at your age. Pathetic!” he said, stepping angrily on the gas.

I was being returned to the Factory, just like I had been that summer’s day in my childhood. The normal people were once again bringing me back to that town.

I glanced out of the window and saw Yuu standing rooted to the spot outside the storehouse staring after us openmouthed.

His figure rapidly receded into the distance as the car sped off.