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Keigo Higashino

A Midsummer’s Equation

One

Kyohei found the transfer gate from the bullet train to the express line without any difficulty, and by the time he ran up the stairs to the platform, the train was already there. The sound of people talking inside the car spilled out through the opened doors.

He stepped on at the nearest door and immediately frowned. His parents had said it wouldn’t be that busy, now that summer was almost over, but most of the four-person booths were already full. He walked down the aisle, scouting for that elusive booth with only one or two people in it.

Most of the passengers were here with families. He saw a lot of kids his own age, all looking far too happy.

Idiots, Kyohei thought. What was so great about going to the ocean? It was just a lot of salty water. It was way more fun to play in a pool, especially one with a waterslide. They didn’t have those at the ocean.

At last he spotted an empty seat way in the back. There was someone sitting across from it, but he would have a whole two-person bench to himself.

Kyohei threw his backpack down on the empty seat and glanced at the man sitting opposite him. He was wearing a dress shirt and blazer and didn’t look much like a tourist. His long legs were crossed, and he was reading a magazine through rimless glasses. The cover of the magazine had some complicated pattern on it and a bunch of words Kyohei didn’t know. Nose buried in his reading, the man hadn’t noticed him.

Across the aisle, a heavy, older man with white hair and an old woman with a round face were seated across from each other. The woman poured from a plastic bottle into a cup and handed it to her husband. He took it from her with a scowl and drank it down, mumbling something about her giving him too much. These two weren’t dressed like tourists, either.

The train lurched into motion. Kyohei opened his backpack and took out a plastic bag with his lunch inside. The rice balls wrapped in aluminum foil were still warm. A small Tupperware container held some fried chicken and grilled egg, both favorites of his.

He drank some water out of a bottle and crammed one of the rice balls into his mouth. He could already see the ocean outside the window. There was a blue sky today, and sunlight glittered off the waves in the distance, beyond the white spray closer to shore.

“It’ll just be for a little bit, while we’re in Osaka,” his mother had told him. That was three days ago. “You’d rather go play in the ocean than stay up here alone, wouldn’t you?” Until then, Kyohei had never considered the possibility of going all by himself to stay with relatives so far away.

“You sure he’ll be okay?” his father had asked, tipping back a glass of whiskey. “Hari Cove’s a long way away. ”

“He’ll be fine. He’s in fifth grade already. You know, I heard that the Kobayashis’ little girl Hana went all the way to Australia by herself,” his mother had replied, her fingers typing away at her computer. His mother made a habit of tallying sales for the day in the living room each evening. “Hari Cove is only in Shizuoka. That’s practically next door. ”