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Keigo Higashino

The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

1

The moment she mentioned the word “marriage,” I lost interest in the woman. I could only see her large chest, her slim legs, and even her smooth skin as the parts of a mannequin.

I gave her an unamused look and then got out of bed. I put on my boxers that I had tossed aside and fixed my rumpled hair while looking in the mirror.

“What’s with that face?” The woman raised herself halfway up, flipping her long hair. “You don’t have to be so blunt and make such a sour face. ”

I wasn’t even in the mood to reply. I looked at the alarm clock. Five minutes before eight in the morning. Just the right time. I switched off the alarm that would’ve gone off in five minutes.

“I’m already twenty-seven, okay?” the woman added. “You could stand to listen to a little of that. ”

“I told you I’ve never thought about marriage,” I said with my back still facing her.

“You said you don’t think about it a lot. Not that you never think about it. ”

“Is that right. ”

I thought it might be this way, but when I see through something, I get bored. I started doing pushups by the bed. I was careful about the rhythm, and when I flexed, I exhaled. Just like my gym instructor told me.

“Hey, are you mad?”

I didn’t answer. I’d lose count of my pushups. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, then it got a little harder.

“Then let me ask, what do you plan on doing with me?”

I went down on the forty-second pushup. I rolled on the floor like that and thrust both my legs under the bed. Setup for sit-ups.

“I didn’t really have any plans. I liked you. I thought I wanted to sleep with you. So I did. That’s all there is to it. ”

“Meaning that you weren’t thinking of marriage.

“I thought I told you from the start. I wasn’t thinking about anything like that. Unlike you, I wasn’t thinking about it at all, and I don’t plan on starting now. ”

“And if I say that I don’t like that?”

“It’s useless. You’ll need to find a guy who’ll think about marriage. It should be easy for you to find one. ”

“You’re saying you’re tired of me?”

“It’s not that. We’ve only been dating for three months. But when there’s a difference in opinion, you can only give up. ”

The woman sunk into silence. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She was a woman with a lot of pride, so she wouldn’t say anything unbecoming. While she was thinking, I started my sit-ups. Since turning thirty, it’d become easier for my belly to put on fat. I couldn’t get away with not doing this every morning.

The woman said, “I’m going home,” and got down from the bed. It was pretty much the answer I’d predicted.

While I did sit-ups, she put on her clothes. A black dress. Without fixing her makeup, she took her bag in hand.

“You’re not getting any calls from me. ”

With those words, she left the room. I’d heard her voice still on my side by the bed.

She had a magnificent body, but it couldn’t be helped. It was true I was struck by that physique, but I didn’t feel like living with her for a lifetime. Of course, I could have used the technique of hinting at marriage as appropriate to keep dating her. Then, if the time came that I’d actually gotten bored, I’d just have to talk about breaking up. But doing it like that didn’t suit me. It wasn’t because it’d be on my conscience, but because it’d be a bother. I’d been in more romantic relationships than I could count now, including ones that were sustained through accumulating lies and compromises, but I knew deep down that it would do me no good.