Part 7
After Hiyori disappeared, Rin went to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and she was now heading to Ko Samui in southern Thailand to take it easy.
Kagami came to see her off before she was about to take the long-distance bus that very same night.
“Want to come with me?”
As the departure time grew close, Rin invited him.
Rin was a pretty cute girl, so her words shook his heart.
Even if Kagami were to stay in Khaosan, he didn’t have leads on where to find Hiyori.
The idea of joining her on the bus and relaxing at the southern beaches didn’t sound too bad.
But Kagami turned down the offer.
He wouldn’t get anywhere unless he saved Hiyori first.
Rin then handed Kagami a 100 baht bill.
Kagami tried to refuse, but Rin was insistent.
“You’re the only one who came after reading the postcard I sent. I want to help Hiyori too. But if you ever use up all that money, go to the Embassy of Japan. Got it?”
Kagami politely thanked her and promised that he would return the money once he returned to Japan.
She then got on the large luxury bus that was considered VIP to the locals and disappeared into the darkness.
Kagami was all alone again.
“The ends of the earth, huh…”
As he walked down the dirty alleys, careful not to step in the feces of the stray dogs, he thought to himself.
“I might as well be at the ends of the earth too right now.”
But at the same time, he had another thought.
“But Hiyori’s probably not here.”
The next day, Kagami headed to the hotel Rin and Hiyori stayed at to see if he could find any leads.
It was next to a river far separated from the high street of Khaosan, hidden deep within an alleyway.
The owner of the hotel remembered Hiyori, but didn’t know where she could’ve gone.
He asked to at least see the room she stayed in.
But he couldn’t find any notable clues.
However, since the rooms were pretty clean despite the cheap hotel charges, Kagami decided to switch hotels.
After moving what little luggage he had to his room, that being anti-mosquito incense and water, he realized that he didn’t have anything else to do.
For the time being, Kagami decided to think about where Hiyori could’ve gone.
“The ends of the earth…”
Kagami felt like he’d like to go to a place like that too if it existed.
“I don’t have anywhere to go either… Even if I go back to that beat-up apartment in Tokyo, there’s nothing waiting for me there… Everyone’s gone, after all… It was so lonely…”
Suddenly he thought of Tendou’s words.
“Grandma once said. Whenever you’re lonely, you just have to go to a place that makes you feel even more lonely. One cannot come face-to-face with oneself until they experience true loneliness.”
Believing in those words, Kagami questioned his heart.
“If what he said is true, then that’s exactly what I’m experiencing right now. I couldn’t possibly be more lonely. But what good would come from me facing myself? I’m not gonna deal with something annoying like that!”
Irritated at himself, Kagami found himself driven by the urge to spend money for some reason and headed into town.
He bought some cheap underwear and t-shirts, ate an extra-large serving of katsudon at a Japanese restaurant he spotted on his way back, and then washed it all down with some cola he bought at a convenience store.
Upon returning to the hotel, he took a shower, cleaned his dirty clothes in a washtub on the roof, squeezed the water out of them, and hung them up on the antitheft wire mesh barrier to dry.
And then once again he ran out of things to do.
With nothing else to do, he sat down on the roof and gazed at the setting sun absentmindedly.
“If I had gone with Rin, right now I’d probably be…”
Wicked thoughts suddenly passed through Kagami’s head.
On that night, Kagami specifically ate at a food stand with a lot of people in order to stave off his loneliness.
Tourists from all over the world were eating together happily.
Their eyes lit up as they discussed where they’d go next.
Kagami watched them, thinking about how it felt like to be a tourist. And after he loitered around for long enough, he headed back to the hotel.
When he was alone in his room, he couldn’t help but feel hopelessly lonely.
In the middle of the night, he woke up from his light sleep, headed to the bathroom, and noticed a small bookshelf.
There were novels and tourist guidebooks tossed aside here and there.
Among them was an especially well-used paperback written by Endou Shuusaku, “Deep River”.
Since he had nothing else to do, he brought it back to his room and tried giving it a read.
And he quickly found himself immersed.
It was then that he realized where exactly was the ends of the earth that Hiyori had mentioned.
There was no doubt that it was the Ganges in India.
But that was only assuming that Hiyori had read that book…
Part 8
What caught Kagami’s attention in “Deep River” was the mention of the reincarnation theory.
The Ganges, a deep river just like the title, is a sacred river within Hinduism, and if one were to be bathed in its holy water, all their sins would be forgiven. And if the ashes of the dead were to be spread throughout its waters, the dead would be given the opportunity of reincarnation.
The portrayal of ghats as a cremation place truly brought to mind the ends of the earth.
“I want to be reborn at the ends of the earth.”
Hiyori’s feelings made perfect sense considering the circumstances of her birth.
Kagami was sure of it. Hiyori had read that book and traveled to the Ganges.
The next day, Kagami paid a visit to a travel agency in Khaosan that was run by a Japanese.
Since there wasn’t any land route from Bangkok to India, he had to go by plane.
He tried to look for the cheapest ticket possible, but he couldn’t find anything lower than at least around 60,000 yen, which was 20,000 baht.
The money Kagami had on hand had already been reduced to barely 100 baht.
“What do I do now?!”
Kagami’s feet naturally brought him to the temple.
He took off his shoes, headed into the main building, and faced the grinning Buddha statue.
Back when Kagami lost everything and was rendered completely hopeless after being given that sleeping drug, it was this temple that had granted him the fortune of finding that 10,000 yen bill inside that good luck charm.
Kagami felt that he’d come across another breakthrough solution if he were to come here again.
And that solution indeed manifested, albeit in an unexpected manner.
Kagami ran into that Thai man once again in that temple.
The man showed no guilt whatsoever despite having stolen everything from Kagami, and went as far as to smirk at him.
“Mai pen rai!”
Those words essentially meant “Don’t worry about it!” in Thai.
Even someone as clueless about Thai as Kagami had grown accustomed enough to understand that.
Indeed, he couldn’t move on with life if he kept letting what happened in the past bother him.
But he didn’t want to hear that from the man who deceived him.
Kagami held back his explosive anger.
Then, the man said that he’d treat Kagami to some Thai ramen at a food stall.
Kagami decided to go along with it.
“I’m trying to do good deeds right now”, the man said with a shit-eating grin as he watched Kagami slurp his ramen.
But the price of the ramen was a mere 20 baht, the equivalent of 60 yen. It wasn’t in any way comparable to the money that had been stolen from him.
Kagami, using his broken English to the best of his ability, told the man everything that had happened.
“You really are an unlucky guy.”
The man displayed his sympathy, despite being the very cause behind Kagami’s misfortune.
“Can you please give me back the money you stole from me?”
When Kagami made that plea, the man began laughing with glee for some reason.
Judging from his hand gestures, it seemed that he had spent it all on Muay Thai bets.
Kagami lost the energy to even be angry and surprisingly began laughing alongside him.
The man said his name was Nai. An apparently unlucky name.
“There was a metal belt in my backpack, wasn’t there? What’d you do with it?”
Nai had sold the belt to an organization that specialized in stolen goods. It seemed that he no longer knew its whereabouts.
Kagami once again fell into a slump. There was no telling what kind of scolding he’d get from Tadokoro if he were to find out…
“Mai pen rai!” said Nai.
“Like I said, I don’t want to hear that from you!”
Kagami yelled, but Nai laughed it off.
Nai brought Kagami to the food stand his mother and little sister ran, which sold Thai-style yakisoba and Pad Thai. The idea was that if Kagami were to work there, he’d be able to attract Japanese tourists.
Since Kagami had to make more money in order to buy a ticket to India, he agreed to work there.
Just as Nai thought, Kagami’s Japanese helped to attract Japanese customers.
But even after an entire day of toiling away, he only made a mere 90 baht.
Taking into account his hotel and meal costs, his total earnings came out to only be 7 baht.
Kagami noticed that there were a lot of Kansai backpackers, so he suggested selling yakisoba bread. Nai was reluctant toward the idea, so Kagami bought some cheap bread on his own and tried selling it himself.
The key point was using the ketchup that Kansai locals loved so much.
At first it didn’t sell that well, but as word gradually spread, it began to make a killing.
Upon adding hamburger buns and hot dog buns to the bread options, sales went up even higher despite the slight increase in price.
Within the span of two weeks, Kagami had obtained 30,000 yen.
He only needed 30,000 more to buy a ticket to India.
But the competitive Khaosan food stand rivals soon picked up on Kagami’s success and began copying him, which quickly lowered his sales.
Desperate to make more money, Kagami surrendered himself to Nai’s evil suggestions and headed to the Muay Thai stadium.
Unlike the ringside where all the overseas tourists sat, the second-floor seats—containing the locals who came for the purpose of betting—had a ridiculously overwhelming air to them.
Normally, Muy Thai bets are taken after seeing how the players do in the opening round.
But before the match had started, Kagami had staked everything he had on a certain player Nai heavily recommended.
According to Nai, the player was an undefeated champion who was overwhelmingly strong, so it was completely safe.
And then when the champion he staked all his money on entered the ring, Kagami gathered his enthusiasm and cheered with everything he had. After all, all the money he’d been working so hard to make was on the line.
The champion’s opponent then entered the ring.
“I’ll kill you if you win!”
Kagami shouted those words as he looked at the opponent.
“Wait… N-No way!”
The champion’s opponent was none other than Souji Tendou.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 