Evil and the Mask Read Online Free PDF

with Ms. Yoshimi, and she looked like she was going to cry.”
    She was watching me with a grin.
    “What are you on about?”
    “Well, it looks like Mari’s going to tell you she’s got a crush on you, so you should go out with her.”
    Mari was a quiet girl who was always drawing. Once when we were cleaning the classroom after school, the bucket she was carrying was about to tip over, so I carried it for her.
    “No, I won’t. Sorry, but …”
    “What? Do you like someone else?”
    Still smiling, Kaori was looking right into my eyes. Her face, bathed in orange sunlight, was lovely. I was still too young to be able to face her directly.
    I was in a turmoil. I remembered the girls’ comics Kaori read, TV dramas. Couples were always breaking up because of misunderstandings, or missing each other through bad timing, or going at it all wrong. I hated them. Before I knew it, my body went rigid.
    “I can’t go out with her because I like you.”
    In those days I was probably a little odd. Kaori was startled. I was also taken aback by my own words, but I couldn’t unsay them.
    “I don’t mean I want to go out with you or anything. What I mean is, I planned to tell you when we were older, so I hope we can put it on hold till then, carry on the same way we’ve always been.”
    “Carry on the same? That’s impossible. But you’re so brave.”
    She sighed admiringly. Then she said that if I liked her I should kiss her. Noting my surprise, she corrected herself, telling me that she liked me too, so I should kiss her, please.
    We walked to a nearby shrine, hand in hand and staring at the ground. After waiting patiently for a drunk lying on a bench to leave, we kissed, just a little. I felt like I was entering anunknown world. As we walked back we kept holding sweaty hands until we saw the gates of the estate. It was six months until my fourteenth birthday, when my father had promised to introduce me to hell.

AFTER THAT SEVERAL things happened far, far away from me.
    In line with the Western powers’ hidden agenda, the civil war ended in the small African country where my father’s second son—my brother, in other words—had been working to make money through reconstruction. The Japanese government announced a large aid budget. The surviving members of the religious cult that had occupied the nuclear power plant and then committed mass suicide appealed against their sentence. A shadowy citizens’ group was holding demonstrations outside the courthouse, calling for the death penalty for those involved in planning and preparation. These events sailed quietly overmy head. Father had gone to Tokyo and wouldn’t be back for quite a while. Kaori and I passed the time lost in our own little world.
    Every day after school she came to my room. We turned on some music so that people wouldn’t wonder why it was so quiet, and then we’d kiss. We spent hours in each other’s arms, tongues locked together, me touching the bulge of her breasts, though without removing her clothes. I felt that maybe we were still too young to be doing this, but I didn’t care what anyone else thought.
    Before long I managed to undress her and kissed her nipples. Then she started sneaking to my room every night. Naked under the bedclothes, we explored each other’s bodies with our fingers and tongues, full of curiosity and desire. The only reason we didn’t go all the way was that Kaori was scared to, but for me it was more than enough. To my immature mind, the reality of sex was overwhelming. While the news was causing a stir in the rest of the world, we were alone in my tiny room. I came many times in Kaori’s hand, and I often kissed her and licked her private parts. We smothered our cries, soaked with sweat in my little bed. Over and over she told me that it felt good, as though I was filling a gap in her life, and I told her the same. Until then she had been moved from one institution to the next and had endured many things, wearing a