The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop. Koji Suzuki

checked the sleeping faces of his wife and daughter. No matter how tired he was when he got home, he always did this.

      There was a note on the dining room table. Mr Takayama called. Asakawa had been trying to call Ryuji all day long, but he hadn’t been able to catch him at home. He was probably out and about on his own investigations. Maybe he has something, thought Asakawa as he dialed. He let it ring ten times. No answer. Ryuji lived alone in his East Nakano apartment. He wasn’t home yet.

      Asakawa took a quick shower, opened a beer, and tried calling again. Still not home. He switched to whiskey on the rocks. He’d never be able to get a good night’s sleep without alcohol. Tall and slender, Asakawa had never in his life had an illness worth the name. To think that this was how he was sentenced to die. Part of him still felt it was a dream, that he’d reach ten o’clock on October 18th without having understood the video or figured out the charm, but in the end nothing would happen and the days would stretch out before him as they always had. Oguri would wear a mocking expression and expound on the foolishness of believing in superstitions, while Ryuji would laugh and say, “We just don’t understand how the world works.” And his wife and daughter would greet their daddy with these same sleeping faces. Even a passenger on an airplane falling from the sky can’t shake the hope that he’ll be the one to survive.

      He drained his third glass of whiskey and dialed Ryuji’s number a third time. If he didn’t answer this time, Asakawa was going to give up for the night. He heard seven rings, then a click as someone picked up the receiver.

      “What the hell have you been up to all this time?” he shouted, without even checking to see who he was talking to. Thinking he was addressing Ryuji, he allowed his anger full vent. Which only served to emphasize the strangeness of their relationship. Even with his friends, Asakawa always maintained a certain distance and carefully controlled his attitude. But he had no qualms about calling Ryuji every name in the book. And yet, he’d never once thought of Ryuji as a truly close friend.

      But surprisingly, the voice that answered wasn’t Ryuji’s.

      “Hello? Excuse me …”

      It was a woman, startled from having been yelled at out of nowhere.

      “Oh, sorry. Wrong number.” Asakawa started to hang up.

      “Are you calling for Professor Takayama?”

      “Well, ah, yes, as a matter of fact I am.”

      “He’s not back yet.”

      Asakawa couldn’t help but wonder who this young, attractive voice belonged to. He figured it was a safe bet she wasn’t a relative, since she’d called him “Professor”. A lover? Couldn’t be. What girl in her right mind would fall for Ryuji?

      “I see. My name is Asakawa.”

      “When Professor Takayama returns, I’ll have him call you. That’s Mr Asakawa, right?”

      Even after he had replaced the receiver, the woman’s soft voice continued to ring pleasantly in his ears.

      Futons were usually only used in Japanese-style rooms, with tatami-mat floors. Their bedroom was carpeted, and had originally had a Western-style bed in it, but when Yoko was born they took it out. They couldn’t have a baby sleeping on a bed, but the room was too small for a crib and a bed. So they were forced to get rid of their double bed and switch to futons, rolling them up every morning and spreading them out again every night. They laid two futons side-by-side and the three of them slept together. Now Asakawa crawled into the open space on the futons. When the three of them went to bed at the same time, they always slept in the same positions. But Shizu and Yoko were restless sleepers, so when they went to bed before Asakawa, it was less than an hour before they had rolled around and sprawled all over. As a result, Asakawa ended up having to fit himself into whatever space was left. If he was gone, how long would it take for that space to be filled, Asakawa wondered. It wasn’t that he was worried about Shizu remarrying, necessarily. It was just that some people were never able to fill the space left behind by the loss of a spouse. Three years? Three years would be about right. Shizu would move back home and let her parents take care of the baby while she went to work. Asakawa forced himself to imagine her face, shining with as much vitality as could be expected. He wanted her to be strong. He couldn’t stand to imagine the kind of hell his wife and child would have to live through with him gone.

      Asakawa had met Shizu five years ago. He had just been transferred back to the main Tokyo office from the Chiba bureau; she was working in a travel agency connected with the Daily News conglomerate. She worked on the third floor, he worked on the seventh, and they sometimes saw each other on the elevator, but that was the extent of it until one day when he’d gone to the travel agency to pick up some tickets. He was traveling for a story, and as the person handling his arrangements wasn’t in Shizu had taken care of him. She was just twenty-five and loved to travel, and her gaze told how much she envied Asakawa being able to go all over the country on assignments. In that gaze, he also saw a reflection of the first girl he’d ever loved. Now that they knew each other’s names, they started to make small talk when they ran into each other on the elevator, and their relationship rapidly deepened. Two years later they married, after an easy courtship with no objections from either set of parents. About six months before their wedding they had bought the three-room condo in Kita Shinagawa—their parents had helped with the down payment. It wasn’t that they’d anticipated the spike in land value and had therefore rushed to buy even before the wedding. It was simply that they wanted to get the mortgage paid off as quickly as possible. But if they hadn’t bought when they did, they might never have been able to afford to live in the city like this. Within a year, their condo had tripled in value. And their monthly mortgage payments were less than half of what they would have been paying to rent. They were constantly complaining that the place was too small, but in truth it constituted quite an asset for the couple. Now Asakawa was glad he had something to leave them. If Shizu used his life insurance to pay off the mortgage, then the condo would belong to her and Yoko free and clear.

       I think my policy pays twenty million yen, but I’d better check, just to be sure.

      His mind was clouded, but he mentally divided up the money in different ways, telling himself that he must write down any financial advice that might occur to him. He wondered how they’d rule his death. Death by illness? Accident? Homicide?

       In any case, I’d better reread my insurance policy.

      Every night for the past three days he had gone to bed in a pessimistic mood. He pondered how to influence a world he would have disappeared from, and thought about leaving a sort of last testament.

       October 14—Sunday

      The next morning, Sunday, Asakawa dialed Ryuji’s number as soon as he woke up.

      “Yeah?” answered Ryuji, sounding for all the world like he’d just woken up. Asakawa immediately remembered his frustration of the night before, and barked into the receiver.

      “Where were you last night?”

      “Huh? Oh. Asakawa?”

      “You were supposed to call, weren’t you?”

      “Oh, yeah. I was drunk. College girls these days sure can drink. Sure can do other stuff, too, if you know what I mean. Whoo-whee. I’m exhausted.”

      Asakawa was momentarily at a loss: it was like the past three days were just a dream. He felt foolish for having taken everything so seriously.

      “Well, I’m on my way over. Wait for me,” said Asakawa, hanging up the phone.

      To get to Ryuji’s place Asakawa rode the train to East Nakano and then walked for ten minutes in the direction of Kami Ochiai. As he walked Asakawa reflected hopefully that even though Ryuji had been out drinking the night before, he was still Ryuji. Surely he’d found something. Maybe he’d even solved the riddle, and he’d gone out drinking and carousing to celebrate. The closer he drew to Ryuji’s apartment the more upbeat he became, and he began to walk faster. Asakawa’s emotions were wearing