Chapter 8 Head Balloons (1) The Plastic Curtain at the Izakaya...
On a windy midnight, Yota Sato lifted the plastic curtain of the izakaya. His face and ears were red from the alcohol, and he was walking unsteadily. His colleague next to him quickly reached out to help him up: "Mr. Yota, please slow down."
Yota Sato's eyes were glazed over. His dark gray suit reeked of alcohol and barbecue skewers, and his tie hung loosely around his neck.
"Ah, thank you, Yoshida." Sato Yota patted the other's shoulder, pulled his hand away from the other's support, thinking he could stand up, but he stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Seeing this, Yoshida kindly continued to support him.
"Let me help you walk."
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Yoshida." As he spoke, Yota Sato hiccuped and chuckled. He thought about how he had boasted at the dinner table about how he had "made that guy obedient back in high school." That strange sense of satisfaction and pride was still swirling in his alcohol-filled brain. What kind of expressions did his colleagues have at the dinner table?
Yota Sato was still a little dazed. Yes! That was a look of surprise, admiration, and longing! Thinking of this, Yota Sato couldn't help but smile.
I'm such a man! My new beautiful colleague, Yui Kobayashi, is coming up. I'll find an opportunity and time to ask her out. I think she'll agree.
After all, even the adorable Yui showed an expression of admiration, probably completely captivated by his masculine charm, hmph~
Thinking of this, Sato Yota couldn't help but brag to someone about his high school days, so he pulled Yoshida aside and started telling him about his high school experiences.
"...That Yuko Nishimura, so skinny she looked like a bean sprout, and she dared to glare at me back then?" He kept nagging at Yoshida, "Do you know how I dealt with her?"
Yoshida looked embarrassed. He didn't really want to hear these things; he'd already had enough of them at the dinner table. But out of politeness, Yoshida still shook his head.
Sato has a bad temper, and he's been drinking, so it's best not to provoke him.
“I had my brothers throw her backpack in the trash can, and that girl cried there for two hours. It still makes me laugh when I think about it.”
Yoshida frowned uncomfortably; he disapproved of this bullying behavior.
"Hey, hey—Yoshida, are you even listening to me? Why do you look so dead? I'll beat you up if you're not careful." Sato Yota felt inexplicably annoyed that the other party didn't show any of the expected admiration or say anything nice to him. He grabbed Yoshida's collar, made a fist with his other hand, and waved it in front of Yoshida's eyes, pretending to attack him.
Yoshida was startled and had no choice but to force a fawning smile: "Is that so? Mr. Sato is really amazing, haha..."
Sato Yota, satisfied with the praise, finally let go of the other person. The moment his collar was loosened, Yoshida breathed a sigh of relief, silently despising the other person in his heart.
No wonder so many people advised against getting too close to Sato; he's a violent guy, and even a bully in high school.
Yoshida regretted helping the other person when they were about to fall. Such an arrogant and conceited person should be taught a lesson.
“Mr. Sato, we’ve reached a fork in the road. We’re not going the same way. You should walk on your own.” Yoshida helped the other man up, feigning distress, and said, “My wife is waiting for me at home, so I won’t see you off.”
Sato waved his hand, indicating, "You can go now, I can manage on my own."
“I’ve walked this road countless times, I could get home with my eyes closed. Yoshida, you’re really lucky, you have a wife waiting for you at home.”
Yoshida chuckled dryly a few times. "Then I'll take my leave."
After saying goodbye, Yoshida walked towards the other side of the road. Sato Taro watched his disappearing figure and muttered, "I'm so jealous of that guy. He just got a wife. But his wife is really pretty. I wonder what she's like in bed..." He gave a lewd smile and chuckled twice before walking to the other side of the fork in the road.
The road was rather dark, as most of the surrounding residents were asleep, with only a few windows showing faint light, perhaps from bedside lamps or table lamps that had been left on.
As for the road beneath his feet, Yota Sato knew it so well that even if he went blind one day, he could still find his way home by feeling.
His home wasn't far; he just had to keep walking straight, turn left at the intersection, and count to the fifth house.
Yota Sato felt that the proudest thing in his life was that he bought a house by saving up his savings without any help from anyone and relying solely on his own efforts.
This is something most people cannot do.
"Not enough, still not enough," Yota Sato muttered as he walked down the road. Even though he had bought a house and a car, he was still very poor.
He could have saved some money, but his gambling and drinking addictions have left him with no girlfriend as he approaches middle age.
His eyes darted around, and an idea popped into his head.
He has ways of making money, and it's not like it's the first time he's done it, is it? Otherwise, how could an ordinary office worker like himself be able to buy a house and a car?
Once she has money, Yui Kobayashi will definitely dump her boyfriend and choose to be in her arms.
Thinking of this, Yota Sato walked along humming a song, swaying as he came to the corner.
"Huh, what's that?" The drunken Yota Sato squinted as something floated in the dim light around the corner and flew toward them.
It wasn't until the object passed under the streetlights that Yota Sato could roughly make out what it was.
It was a gigantic human face! The face was bigger than the pickles in an izakaya, as white as soaked paper, and the eye sockets were sunken like two black holes. It was slowly flying towards Yota Sato.
Sato Yota's eyes widened, and what made his scalp tingle was that the face, that face was actually Nishimura Yuko's face! Even the position of the small beauty mark under her left eye was exactly the same.
"Damn it." Sato Yota staggered back half a step in fright. In all his life, who had ever made him look so embarrassed? He was Sato Yota! He feared nothing! But the balloon looked exactly like Nishimura Yuko, which made him angrier and angrier.
For a moment, he clenched his fists, his chest filled with anger.
He grabbed an empty beer bottle that wasn't thrown into the trash can and tried to throw it at the other person.
The balloon seemed to know what the other was thinking, and floated up lightly, hovering just in the shadows where the streetlights couldn't reach.
Strange sounds seemed to be mixed in with the midnight wind, thin and like a covered wind chime, or like someone hiding behind a trash can sobbing.
He shuddered.
"Damn it!" Sato Yota spat, but he was much sober now and didn't dare look any longer. He lowered his head and ran towards his house. His suit wrinkled as he ran, and his back was covered in cold sweat, as if wrapped in a damp, cold cloth.
The gaze seemed to follow him the whole time, until he reached the door of the house, trembling as he pulled out his keys from his pocket, opened the door, went inside, and quickly locked it again before finally letting out a sigh of relief.
Yota Sato leaned against the door, panting for more than ten minutes. He ripped off his crooked tie, took out some cold barley tea from the refrigerator, and drank half a bottle before he could catch his breath.
"It must be some jerk who deserves a beating..." he muttered to himself, intending to say it was a prank, but it all felt so real. The moment he closed his eyes, that pale, large face appeared before him, making Sato Yota feel weak all over. He felt as if the dark holes in those eye sockets were crying out to him.
This reminded him of the ugly, tearful face of Yuko Nishimura when he bullied her.
“She deserved it.” Sato Yota didn’t think it was his fault, even if it was, it was someone else’s fault.
Yota Sato took off his coat and inner lining, and went into the bathroom to take a shower and go to bed.
After taking a shower, he relaxed a lot and didn't pay much attention to what had just happened.
This strange thing should have passed. After lying down, Yota Sato slept soundly in the latter half of the night, as if he were submerged in water, and kept feeling someone gently knocking outside the room.
In a daze, Yota Sato felt as if someone was standing by the bed. Looking down, he saw Yuko Nishimura from his high school days. She was wearing a faded sailor uniform, her eyes were swollen and she couldn't open them, and tears were streaming down her cheeks onto the floor.
"Sato Yota..." Her voice trailed off, murmuring her own name, her mouth opening and closing: "Why..."
Yota Sato was somewhat annoyed and wanted to yell "Get out!", but a strange force blocked his throat, preventing him from saying anything. He began to panic.
He wanted to move, but he couldn't move at all.
"Why did you tear up my notebook?" Yuko Nishimura looked up, her face covered in tears. "Why did you make everyone lock me in the toilet?"
"Why..." She moved closer and closer, her face growing larger and paler. She was still crying, sobbing softly, her tears gradually turning into red blood, until she swelled up into the shape of the balloon she had brought back. She pressed down on him, and a strange, fishy smell filled Sato Yota with a deep-seated fear.
"Ah! Ahhh—" Sato Yota sat up in bed, his shirt soaked with cold sweat, his suit jacket falling off the bed to the floor. The sky outside the window was already turning pale, and the morning sunlight was streaming in through the gaps in the curtains.
He rubbed his throbbing temples, picked up his phone from beside his pillow, and saw the screen was lit up. It was a news notification from 3 a.m.: "Ten victims of school bullying recount their experiences: Ten years have passed, but we will never forget the faces of our bullies."
Yota Sato stared intently at that line of text for a long time, then suddenly became enraged and grabbed his phone, smashing it against the wall.
"Damn it." He gritted his teeth, but somehow, the faint sobbing he heard when he got home yesterday seemed to seep into the room through the crack in the door, lingering in his ears and refusing to disappear.
Sato Yota immediately shuddered.
Above the house he was unaware of, a black dot floated up and down in the air.
A note from the author:
----------------------
The typos have been corrected.
Some bugs were corrected by readers.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
