The Devouring God Read Free

response.
    â€œWell,” the foreigner said, “how tall are you? Are you a long-­legged woman?”
    H aruma stood forlorn in the darkness. The girls from his study group had promised him a party, but instead they were performing a silent and complicated dance in a dim, stinking restaurant, and he was beginning to hate them for it.
    He had tried to join in at first, but he bungled the pattern again and again. The girls were weaving in and out, stepping in perfect unison without even looking at each other. They had obviously practiced this dance for hours and hours, practiced so they could do it with only the greenish glow of the exit sign to guide them. Perhaps they wanted to impress him, but it really wasn’t working.
    Close order drill was sort of a Japanese specialty, as far as Haruma was concerned. No flair or originality on display here, just the same lockstep precision of a Tokyo crosswalk, the great ant heap in motion.
    â€œGirls, this is great,” he said, rolling his eyes in the dark as he clapped his hands. “Think of how much better this would be with music and exotic drinks. I know places we can go to show everyone!”
    They didn’t look at him. They hadn’t brought him here to dance with him or entertain him or even let him take part. It was all clearly designed to make him more separate, to make him more the outsider. Haruma was used to being the outsider. Maybe the girls thought he felt at home with them at school, flirting harmlessly and joining in their breathless conversations about boy bands and fashion, but he was always on the outside. Every time one of the girls mocked him to establish her own place within the circle, his place was clear as day. Outside.
    Haruma’s deepest resentments led him only as far as avoiding those who had hurt him. He had learned not to hate, and he had learned not to feed his anger. The lessons reminded him of the teacher . . .
    â€œThis is boring,” he said. “Girls, thank you for the display, but I’m going to get some dinner at the Lotus Café, on Meiji Avenue across from the Black Gate. You should join me. My friend Koji will serve us. He’ll appreciate a tale about your dance in the darkness.” And Koji would be much, much more entertaining. Flamboyant and witty, utterly hostile toward pretension and imposture, Koji was currently the brightest light in Haruma’s life. Koji was only a waiter, but he had become what Haruma only hoped to be.
    â€œWell, I’m going, then,” he said to the echoing darkness, the shuffling of feet. They didn’t even look at him. “Stupid,” he muttered as he stepped into the pattern. The pattern tightened on him. Inexplicably, the girls quickened into a faster lockstep. Up close, even in the greenish half-­light they looked disheveled, unkempt. They brushed by him on all sides.
    He didn’t know how many there were—­he hadn’t stopped to count. There had seemed to be seven when he first walked in, but they had multiplied, or other girls had come out of the woodwork. It made no sense. They were two-­deep all around him.
    All at once, they grinned. Their mouths popped open in painful-­looking grimaces, baring their teeth in spastic smiles that stretched and contorted their lips. They grinned and grinned in a humorless, skull-­like rictus identical on every face.
    â€œThat’s horrible,” he said. “This isn’t funny.”
    He began to shove his way out. He was pushed back at every turn with no seeming effort. They simply moved with him, still milling about him two-­ or three-­deep no matter where he turned, still grinning the horrible grins.
    He pushed with all his strength, trying to break through. The crowd absorbed his push, and he felt a shocking, burning pain that ran up his arm. He pulled back his hand and stared at it. It was dark brown—­blood. It was crimson blood, brown in the greenish