A Murakami-esque short story

It was the most traumatic night of my young life. A chilling experience for a thirteen-year-old girl. I’d always been a light sleeper but I knew it wasn’t the wind or an earthquake tremor that woke me in the wee hours of the morning. It must’ve been two or three o’clock. I’d sensed an intruder and my instincts rarely deceived me. I’d always been very intuitive and able to sense danger. A gift that would diminish each year as I grew older.

A sliver of moonlight was breaking through the curtains, revealing a pair of fluorescent beady red eyes in front of me. They were as bright as the azaleas in our front garden. My eyes focused a little and I could just make out someone with a thick waist and slightly wider hips. A small, chubby girl was perched on the edge of the tatami in our living room which doubled as our bedroom. She looked from side to side before she placed one hand in front of the other and inched a little closer. I sat up and leaned both hands back against the futon. Reclining my back, I didn’t want to lean forward and get anywhere near this being in front of me. I blinked twice and my eyes focused even more in the dark. The girl with the strange, brightly-coloured red eyes began to slowly but ever so surely crawl towards me little by little on all fours. Her glowing pupils lit up her face as she approached and I realised I was staring at Saki-san, a student who had moved into a street not far from our home with her family two months earlier. Her first name was Sakiko but everyone called her Saki or Saki-san. She was in the same class as me at the local junior high school but she had no female friends and she’d made it very clear with her icy demeanour that she didn’t want any. Saki had deliberately distanced herself from nearly everyone in our class except for a couple of boys who were known for skipping school and smoking cigarettes in the alley behind the local pachinko parlour. Her ears were slightly pointy, her eyebrows were pencil thin, the end of her nose was too big for her face, and her lips were barely there. Her complexion was pasty, her shoulder-length hair was limp, and she was too short and stumpy for her age, even by Japanese standards. She was from Ehime Prefecture and she spoke with a rough Shikoku accent that had made everyone giggle when she’d given a presentation about her hometown in front of the whole class in August. You could tell that life would not be kind to her and she would become frumpy and unsuccessful as the years progressed if she had no desire to change, improve her attitude, or circumstances. As Saki approached me ever so hesitantly, I wondered why she was in our bedroom but I was too afraid to talk to her. I also wondered why her eyes were so red. I’d never noticed this before. I was sure they were dark brown when I’d watched her give that presentation two weeks earlier.

Saki flicked out her tongue a couple of times and hissed. Her tongue looked sharp with a silver glint, not rounded as it should be, but I couldn’t tell for sure. She was no longer in the light and I couldn’t see her face as clearly now. She reached the end of my futon, hissed at me again and sucked in air. A shiver went up my spine like a snake slivering up the skin of my back. Her hands began pawing the comforter as if she were hungry and rummaging for food. I gasped as she yanked at the end of my duvet. I finally found the strength to reach over to my mother’s futon and shake her shoulder. She instantly sensed something was wrong. My mother knew I’d never wake her unless it was absolutely necessary. She turned her head, opened her eyes, caught sight of Saki, jumped up off the futon, and pulled at the light switch. Saki sped past us, scuttled through the kitchen and jumped onto and out of the balcony in a flash. I was amazed she could move so quickly. I did catch sight of her eyes as she passed me and I noticed they were no longer red. They’d returned to their natural flat brown colour in the artificial light.

My mother left the light on and slipped back into bed as if nothing unusual had happened.

“It’s safe now Maya-chan. Go back to sleep.”

I believed her but I watched my mother’s caring, sweet face and listened to her gentle snoring for a long time before I shut my eyes and allowed sleep to envelop me. I didn’t dream but I didn’t sleep soundly either. I was restless and tired when I woke up the following morning.

My father worked the night shift for a security firm and almost always returned home at about eight. As usual, my mother was making dinner for him when I woke up. This morning she’d made raisin toast for me and she was preparing udon noodles for my father, but this day was going to start out just as confusing and inexplicable as the night before.

“Do you remember what we saw last night, okaasan?” I asked my mother as I sat down at the kitchen table and began nibbling on my thick piece of door-stop raisin toast smeared with lashings of butter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied with her back to me as she added a packet of white noodles to a pot of boiling water.

“That girl, if she is a girl, is a new student at my school. Her name is Sakiko Chikachikito. It’s a very strange surname, don’t you think? It sounds Spanish or Italian, but not Japanese.”

“Did you say her surname is Chikachikito?”

I nodded.

“That’s it. I’ve heard enough and I’m not going to discuss this anymore. You’re not going to school today either. You’re going to put all your belongings into boxes and then you’re going to help me pack up everything else in this house. We’re moving to Tokyo today. We’ll stay with your Grandfather until we find a place of our own,” said my mother.

“Sakiko isn’t my friend but more importantly what are you talking about? When did you decide we’re moving to Tokyo? Why didn’t you tell me? Just because I’m thirteen doesn’t mean you can make decisions about my life without me. I’m old enough to know what’s going on. You’ve always said I’m very mature for my age.”

My mother ignored me. I put down my toast and glared at her. “I don’t want to move to Tokyo. All of my friends are here in Nagoya. Don’t you want to talk about what we saw last night? Is that why you want to move?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You must’ve had a bad dream. Be a good girl for your mother and help me pack up everything when you’ve finished your breakfast. I’ve already called your father at work and he’ll be home soon to help us get everything ready.”

⁂

Forty years later

On a fine Thursday afternoon in September, I was walking home in a relatively good mood from our local Marudai supermarket, thinking about how much I enjoyed living in Tokyo rather than Nagoya where I’d spent my childhood. I even had a spring in my step as I walked past the bank and the dry cleaners carrying my shopping — a packet of dried shredded cuttlefish I’d bought at a reduced price and four bottles of Kirin Ichiban beer for my husband.

As I turned the corner at the end of the street my mood dropped, my eyes opened wide in horror, and my mouth fell open. An unimaginable sight made me stop dead in my tracks at the foot of our apartment building. A young man in his twenties, a woman about the same age, and a teenage girl with multi-coloured mohawks, studded leather jackets, and ripped jeans were slowly walking up the stairs in front of me whistling a tune I didn’t recognize. He was carrying a microwave, the woman was holding a pile of blankets, and the young girl had a rice cooker in one hand and a black kitten in the other. My eyes followed their every move as I watched them turn left on the landing above me and approach the apartment next to the home my husband and I had shared for the past thirty-two years.

As soon as the punks had entered their new apartment and closed the front door, I rushed up the stairs towards my own apartment. As I reached into my bag for my keys, I felt a sharp scratch on my left leg. Looking down I saw blood running down my calf towards my shiny black patent shoe. Their black kitten must have scratched me and run away. I entered my apartment in a panic. Once inside, I leaned back against the front door, breathing heavily and unable to think clearly. A minute or two later, my breathing returned to normal. I removed my shoes, arranged them neatly on the shoe rack, stepped into our small apartment, and put my groceries in the fridge. I grabbed a tissue and began dabbing my leg. I sat down at my well-polished table and wiped away the blood but when I looked at my leg again, I couldn’t see any scratches. I glanced at the blood on the tissue and back at my leg one more time. There was nothing there. No redness and no sign of a gash. I slumped against the table with my head in my hands, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Surely, they can’t be our new neighbours. The landlord would never have allowed it and why was there blood on my leg and no mark? I had definitely felt something scratch my leg and it hurt.

⁂

When Kenichi, my husband, returned home just after eleven, I was standing still on the small balcony at the back of our apartment with my phone in my right hand, gazing to the left with my head cocked to one side deep in thought. I’d been standing outside like this for the past thirty minutes waiting to hear a sound or to see any kind of movement coming from the apartment next door.

“Tadaima (I’m home),” yelled out Kenichi from the entrance. He was tired and slightly drunk as usual and he took no notice of the fact I was standing still out on the balcony.

“Okaerinasai (Welcome home),” I yelled back. I shivered, even though it was a warm evening, and stepped back into the apartment before sliding the balcony door shut and making my way into the kitchen. Opening the door of the fridge to take out a beer for my husband I wondered if he was hungry. I snapped off the lid of the beer and poured the golden liquid into a small glass.

“What would you like for dinner?” I asked him. “I have some leftover curry in the fridge or I can make you oyakodon.”

“I’m not hungry. I’ve just eaten yakitori with the Deputy General Manager,” said Kenichi as he took off his jacket and sat down at the table. He pulled out a half empty packet of Lark cigarettes from the front pocket of his white shirt.

I sat down next to him, picked up one of his gold-plated lighters from the shelf next to me, and lit the cigarette now hanging from his lips. “There’s something important I need to ask you. Have you seen our new neighbours?”

Usually, I’d wait for him to drink a couple of beers before I’d start my daily chitchat, but I’d been constantly worrying about the punks for the past seven hours and I wanted to broach the subject as soon as possible to alleviate the pressure on my mind.

“I didn’t know we had new neighbours and no, I haven’t seen them,” replied Kenichi indifferently. It was late, he was tired, and he was never in the mood for local gossip and inconsequential conversation. All he wanted to do was drink a few more beers, have a bath and go to bed.

“Three punks have moved in. I can’t believe it — it’s outrageous!”

Kenichi set his glass down, placed his cigarette in the ashtray, raised his eyebrows, and showed a rare interest in my conversation.

“Are they real punks? Did they have mohawks and were they wearing Dr Martens boots?”

“I don’t know what type of boots they were wearing, but yes, they’re what you’d call real punks.”

“Finally, some interesting neighbours,” said Kenichi as he took another long sip of his beer and smiled. “Life has become so humdrum and boring around here lately.”

“How can you say that?” I replied, refilling his glass. “There could be all sorts of trouble – loud music – graffiti – even violence and I really like our predictable lives. I don’t need or want any drama at this stage in my life!”

“Have you forgotten I used to be a punk before you met me?”

I paused for a moment thinking about the best way to answer this question. Twisting the opal setting in my necklace and looked up at my husband, I laughed nervously. “Oh, that’s right! I’d completely forgotten about that, but if I remember correctly it was a phase you were going through that only lasted a couple of weeks.”

“More like a couple of years! You wouldn’t know this but when I’m on the train, on my way to and from work, I often listen to popular punk rock and metal bands like the GazettE on my iPhone. Have you heard of them? No, probably not!” He paused to sip his beer. I noticed his eyes had taken on a misty, nostalgic quality as he spoke to me. “Sometimes I think if I didn’t have to continue doing this boring, never-ending pharmaceutical job I could get back into the punk scene, dress like a punk, and even join a band. I was actually quite good at playing the bass guitar many years ago.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” I replied.

I took great pride in the fact we both led an orderly and conservative lifestyle. I didn’t know one person who’d say we weren’t a decent couple. I always wore the latest trends from well-known brands but nothing too lascivious. My husband owned just four very smart navy suits and a couple of polo shirts as well as two pairs of jeans for the weekend. Kenichi may have had a few garish t-shirts when I’d first met him many years ago, but nowadays he always looked plain and respectable and I was determined to keep it that way.

As I stood up and headed to the bedroom in a huff to prepare our futons for the night, my husband opened his last bottle of beer, poured it into his glass, and took a short sip as he glanced back at me with a schoolboy grin. I pulled out our comforters from the bottom shelf in the wardrobe and spread them out over the sheets covering our futons. As I fluffed up our pillows, I looked across the room again and watched my husband take out his earplugs and his iPhone. He scrolled down the screen for a few seconds before he eventually found a song he liked.  He was in a world of his own as he bobbed his head up and down and tapped his hands on the kitchen table in time with the music.

⁂

I spent the next few days hoping nothing would go wrong. Everything appeared to be normal, just like every other day, until the following Monday afternoon when I nearly barged into one of the new neighbours on my way out. The teenage punk was outside on the landing playing with her kitten. It tried to scoot into our apartment when I opened our front door.

‘Hello!’ said the punk girl in English.

I shut our door quickly to block the kitten as I stepped on to the landing. I looked the girl up and down wondering why she wasn’t at school. Both sides of her head were shaved but her mohawk was very long, purple at the roots and pink on the ends. This young rebel was wearing a monochrome striped t-shirt with a red spider image splattered across the front and a pair of ripped green camouflage jeans. She had three silver studs running up the edge of each ear and she was drinking from a can of Calpis soda.

‘Are you Japanese?’ I asked her.

‘Of course, I am,” she replied, reverting back to the Japanese language.

“If you’re Japanese then you should always speak in your native tongue to a Japanese person, especially someone older than you,” I said with haughty condescension. “You would know this if you went to school on a regular basis which you obviously don’t do. You should be studying in a classroom right now rather than standing out here speaking to me in a language I barely understand.”

“I’m not feeling well so I stayed home today,” replied the little punk who looked like she had the energy to run a marathon.

“What’s your name,” I asked her. “You don’t look sick to me,”

“Kaoru Chikachikito,” she replied.

Chikachikito, Chikachikito, Chikachikito, I repeated in my mind. It was such an unusual surname but somehow it sounded familiar. Where had I heard that name before?

“I don’t want your kitten coming into our apartment,” I said, breaking from my reverie. “It has already scratched me and if it gets in our home it will scratch the tatami flooring in our bedroom and all of our nice furniture. Do you understand?”

The young punk girl picked up the kitten in one fell swoop and twirled around in front of the door of her apartment, ignoring my question. As I was about to warn her again, I caught the young girl sticking out her tongue as she spun around and around.

“Don’t you dare stick out your tongue at me. You need to grow up and start acting like an adult. Only children create such unnecessary drama.”

The punk girl turned around and peered at me with squinting eyes. She took another sip of her drink and stuck out her tongue again, this time leaving it out as she did a little jig on the landing while she waved her kitten up and down with one hand.

I stepped back in horror when I noticed this girl’s oscillating tongue was split down the middle. “Your tongue – is – forked,” I said in a shaky voice. I suddenly decided I’d abandon my trip to the local shops so I could escape this situation as quickly as possible. The weather was also looking very feisty outside. Maybe another typhoon was on its way. My shoulders were trembling as I put the key back into the lock of our front door.

“My brother and sister have forked tongues as well. We think everyone in the world should split their tongues! It’s called tongue bifurcation. Doesn’t it look super cool?”

“It certainly does not!” I replied as I finally managed to pull open the door to our apartment. I could hear the girl giggling hysterically as I stepped into our entrance way and gently but firmly shut the front door. I decided to stay inside until my husband returned home. I was hoping he could talk to the landlord about the new neighbours and he could tell them to move to another neighbourhood, maybe somewhere in Shinjuku or Shimokitazawa and a long way from Sakura-shinmachi.

I went inside, took off my shoes and ran to the other end of the apartment to take down the washing that was hanging on the blue plastic laundry octopus above the washing machine outside. I was folding one of my husband’s shirts when I looked up and realised the sky had cleared but when I gazed down at the street below, I was surprised to see all the trees lining the pavement were covered in pale pink cherry blossoms, even though it was October. Cherry blossoms aren’t in season. They only start to bloom at the end of March or the beginning of April in Tokyo and they fall from their branches after just a couple of weeks, then the season is over until the following year at the beginning of spring. I suddenly remembered what a news reader had said some time ago on television. She’d explained how strong, gusty winds can occasionally affect the leaves and the buds on cherry trees and cause the blossoms to bloom much earlier than expected. Maybe it had something to do with the three typhoons that had swept through Tokyo in September. I shut my eyes, counted to five, and opened them again. The cherry blossoms were still there. I decided to have a bath to calm my nerves.

I shut all the curtains in my home and ran the bath, making sure there was plenty of hot water. I removed my clothes in our bedroom and crossed through the kitchen naked before stepping into the bathroom. Crouching on a small pink plastic stool, I washed my hair and scrubbed myself from head to toe before I doused myself with at least ten buckets brimming with steaming hot water. Stepping into the ofuro, our square, steep-sided wooden bathtub, I knew something wasn’t right. I realised this as soon as I began lowering myself into the tub. It was easy to get in but the water was up to my shoulders and my slender frame was nearly fully immersed even though I was still standing up. There was no way I could crouch down and hug my knees like I usually did. What’s going on? I asked myself.

I pulled myself up out of the bath, afraid I’d drown in the same bathtub I’d been using every day for over twenty years if I sat down. Putting on my clothes I decided to watch the news on TV until my husband came home. After an hour of watching NHK, I started to feel like normality had been restored. The breaking news and daily analysis were full of fairly depressing stories, but nothing out of the ordinary flashed up on the screen. The surprise appearance of cherry blossoms wasn’t mentioned when they discussed the weather. They only said it was a bit windier than usual with a small chance of a shower or two in the east.

Kenichi didn’t even have time to take off his shoes when he arrived home later that night, just after eight o’clock. I was waiting for him at the entrance to our apartment with my hands on my hips.

“You need to talk to the landlord about the neighbours and if he can’t get them to move then we’ll have to move. I met one of the punks today and she has a forked tongue. They all have forked tongues. It’s not safe here anymore. You’ve heard me say in the past I’d like to live in Daikanyama so why don’t we move there?”

“Let me get inside,” said Kenichi, pushing me back with the palm of his left hand as he kicked off his shoes and placed them on the shoe rack to the right.

“So, the neighbours have forked tongues. I don’t think there’s a law against that. Did they hurt you?”

“No, but they could be dangerous,” I blurted out as I stepped back, allowing my husband to cross the threshold and pull out a chair at the kitchen table.

“You’ve been watching too many foreign movies,” said Kenichi as he sat down. “You know I used to be a punk and although they may have looked scary, I can assure you my friends and I never caused any trouble when we were young.”

“But they look so frightening with their ripped clothes, their mohawks, and their strange tongues. And I hate to say it but some strange things have started happening.’

“Strange things? Like what?” my husband asked me, raising one eyebrow.

“Don’t worry,” I replied, retreating into the bedroom. “I’m probably just tired and scared.”

“You’re reading too much into this,” my husband yelled out to me. “Some Japanese punks have set ideologies but their style is usually just a fashion statement. I know they play alternative music and they can be a bit uncouth but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure there won’t be any problems in the future. Now, come back here. Have you prepared my dinner? I’m starving.”

⁂

I tripped on the stairs three times over the following week in my rush to get in and out of our apartment building and avoid the punks. I wanted to believe my husband’s reassuring words but I still felt very nervous. When another fortnight had passed and I’d neither seen nor heard anything from the new neighbours living next door I began to relax but I still had my own reservations about them. Everything seemed to have returned to normal. I didn’t see their black kitten again, there were no cherry blossoms outside now and I avoided having a bath and showered instead.

On the last Friday in November, Kenichi called me from his cell phone just after midnight to tell me he’d missed the last train and he was going to stay at the Capsule Value Kanda hotel near Otemachi Station. I didn’t like being alone in our apartment at night, especially when I knew there was only a single wall separating me from the punks next door, but I went straight to bed after the phone call and I fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I had no idea what time it was when I woke up to find my husband kneeling beside me. The blackout drapes always kept the bedroom very dark and it was difficult to know exactly what time it was without sitting upright and twisting to the left to look at the clock. I rubbed my eyes and peered up at my husband but I had sleep in my eyes I and I could barely see him in the dark. “Oh good, you’re home. Is it time to get up?”

“It’s still early. Stay where you are. I’ve come to tell you I’ve just been chatting with our new neighbours. I caught the first train home this morning and when I arrived at our front door the three of them came out and invited me into their apartment about an hour ago. We’ve been drinking Whisky and playing guitars. I’m surprised you didn’t hear us.”

I could smell the liquor on his breath but I couldn’t see him properly. My eyes were still blurry. I rubbed them, trying to focus in the dark.

“You’ve been talking to the punks?” I said to him as I stretched my arms above my head, trying to wake up.

“Oh yes, they’re very nice,” replied Kenichi. He leaned forward and smiled but when he opened his mouth I reeled back under the covers, terrified. I could see his face more clearly now.

“Your eyes are bright red just like . . . oh no . . . and your tongue is forked just like those young punks next door!” I squealed.

“Yes, it is!” replied Kenichi with matter-of-fact pride. “Now, I want you to stick out your tongue.”

“No, go away!” I shrieked.

Increasingly afraid of my husband’s forked tongue with its metallic glint, I pulled the comforter up around my neck and retreated back even further away from him. I wanted to hide or escape but I couldn’t stop peeking out from under the covers and staring into my husband’s unusually kind and strangely hypnotic red eyes.

“No one else can see you. Go on, stick out your tongue,” encouraged Kenichi. He tenderly placed his hand behind my left shoulder, drawing me towards him.

I poked out my tongue just a little and Kenichi leaned forward bit by bit, slowly edging his face towards me. I was still clinging on to the top of the comforter with white-knuckled fear when his tongue swiftly slithered towards me and slipped straight into my mouth. I felt Kenichi’s forked tongue scissor my tongue down the middle and split it in half. I felt no pain. In fact, I was almost euphoric. ‘What have you done?’ I asked.

“I’ve just given you a forked tongue and right now I think you look absolutely beautiful,” he said as he gently laid my head back down on the pillow.

“Hontou ni? (Really?)” I whispered. I smiled meekly as I felt my cheeks turn pink. It had been a long time since my husband had paid me a compliment.

“Is this a dream?” I asked as I pulled back the comforter and made room for my husband to slide in beside me.

He sidled up to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pulled me towards him.

“Do you think you’re dreaming?” he asked me.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I replied, caressing his face and his lips. As our tongues became entwined, my heart melted and a passion burned inside me like I’d never experienced before. We were no longer two, we were one.

___________

About the Author:

Renae Lucas-Hall is an Australian-born British novelist and writer at Cherry Blossom Stories. She grew up in Melbourne but has been living in the UK for the past 15 years. She completed a B.A. in Japanese language and culture at Monash University and an Advanced Diploma in Business Marketing at RMIT University. Renae taught English in Tokyo for several years and continued to teach English part-time to the wives and children of Japanese expats when she returned to Melbourne. She also worked for several Japanese companies in Australia. Renae now lives in Gloucestershire in the UK with her British husband and their Siberian husky.

Renae is the author of Tokyo Hearts: A Japanese Love Story (2012, ranked #1 in Coming of Age books on Amazon Japan) and Tokyo Tales: A Collection of Japanese Short Stories (2014). Connect with Renae on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Visit her website cherryblossomstories.com.

Read her Review of Murakami’s Killing Commendatore.

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*The title, “Stick Out Your Tongue in Secret” is adapted from the Japanese proverb: 内緒で舌を出す (Naishō de Shita wo Dasu)

“Stick Out Your Tongue in Secret” is entirely a work of fiction. This short story was written to pay homage to Haruki Murakami and the genre of magical realism. It is not fanfiction and it was not written to plagiarise Murakami’s writing in any way or form. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this story are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

This short story is copyright to Renae Lucas-Hall and Books on Asia in 2019. This story has been published subject to the conditions that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be sold or circulated without the author’s or publisher’s prior consent in any form.

Feature image: Gratisography