Villain a Novel (2010) by Shuichi Yoshida Page A

anyway?” Norio tried to change the subject but he saw a slightly disgusted look on Yuichi’s face. “Bet you get ten kilometers to the liter.”
    “No way. It depends on the road, but if I get seven I’m doing okay.” Yuichi’s tone was curt, but he perked up at a conversation about cars.
    Already the line of cars headed for the city was starting to show signs of turning into a traffic jam. If they had come thirty minutes later they would have been caught in a massive tie-up.
    The road they were on was the only interstate that ran north and south along the Nagasaki peninsula. In the opposite direction, past the city, the highway ran past an abandoned offshore industrial island called Battleship Island, so named because of its shape; pastTakahama Beach, crowded with people in the summer; then past the swimming beaches at Wakamisaki; and finally, at the end of the highway, the beautiful lighthouse at Kabashima.
    “Hey, how’s your grandpa? Still not feeling so good?” Norio asked as they continued down the highway toward the city.
    There was no response, so Norio asked, “Is he going to go back in the hospital?”
    “I’m taking him there today after work.”
    Yuichi was looking out the window, and his reply was half blown away by the breeze.
    “You should have told me. You could have taken him first and then come to work.” Most likely Fusae had told him to go to work first, but Norio thought this was a little cold of her.
    “It’s the same hospital as always, so it can wait till evening,” Yuichi said, protective of his grandmother.
    For the last seven years Yuichi’s grandfather had suffered from a severe case of diabetes. He was getting on in years, and no matter how often he went to the hospital he never seemed to improve. When Norio called on him once a month to check on how he was doing, he was struck by the older man’s increasingly ashen complexion.
    “I know it’s my own daughter’s fault, but I’m really happy Yuichi’s with us. Without him I’d have a heck of a time getting Grandpa back ’n’ forth to the hospital.”
    Recently every time Norio and Fusae saw each other she’d say the same thing. Yuichi might be helpful to have around, but the more Fusae said this, the sorrier Norio felt for his quiet cousin—whom he treated like a nephew—as he was practically bound hand and foot to this elderly couple. Besides this, Yuichi was almost the only young person in his village. The rest of the residents were old couples, or old people living alone, and Yuichi was kept busy shuttling not just his grandparents but other elderly neighbors to the hospital. But he always brought his car around without a word of complaint.
    For Norio, Yuichi was like the son he’d never had, which is whyhe’d been so upset when Yuichi had taken out a loan to buy his flashy car. Once Norio had calmed down, though, he started to feel sorry for him—since the whole point of having the car seemed to be to ferry old people back and forth to the hospital.
    Unlike the other young guys on the construction site, Yuichi never overslept and he always worked hard. But Norio had no idea what made this young man happy.
    On this particular day Norio made his usual rounds to pick up the other workers. Yuichi was the only one of all of them who wasn’t in his late fifties—the others, including Norio, filled the van with cigarette smoke and groans about married life, about how much their knees ached, or how much their wife snored.
    They all knew Yuichi wasn’t talkative, so they barely spoke to him. When Yuichi had first joined their construction gang, they tried to take good care of him, inviting him to boat races, or out to bars in Doza in Nagasaki. But at the races he wouldn’t even make a single bet, and wouldn’t sing even one karaoke song when they went drinking.
Young guys these days are no fun at all
, they concluded, and washed their hands of him.
    “Hey, Yuichi! What’s the matter? You look pale.”
    Norio