February 29, 1972

by Lain Taylor (December 14, 2022)

03:23

Kanichi was suddenly whisked away from his dream world by an undoubtedly primal urge.

Man, I gotta pee.

He slowly started to rise out of bed, taking care not to disturb Taeko’s slumber, and crept towards the door of her room, when he suddenly remembered—the drawer.

He quietly snuck over to her top drawer, opened it as slowly as he could, and grabbed as much paper as he could hold against his chest with his left hand, as he used the right hand to open the door to Taeko’s room and quickly shuffle to the bathroom.

Once Kanichi made it to the bathroom and shut the door, he immediately dropped all the paper onto the floor and turned on the light. The bulb flickered as he sat on his knees to look at the papers he had taken. There was a letter to her mom, a letter from her mom, a few receipts, and…a map.

At first, he couldn’t place where he’d seen the map before. It was a floor plan much smaller than the large paper it was drawn on, clearly by an amateur, with a pretty indistinguishable layout of a house, fully labeled with measurements. The house looked like an average middle class household, but the handwriting was oddly familiar, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen this somewhere before.

He stared blankly at the floor plan, his patience withering away with the seconds as he repeatedly smacked himself in the forehead, trying to bring to the front of his mind the situation he’d seen this map in.

Suddenly, it hit him. He picked up the map and slowly flipped it around to its backside, and there it was. A much larger and more detailed map that took up almost the entire paper, covered in handwritten notes—some in Taeko’s handwriting—with the title in big, bold letters at the top:

SOPHIA BRANN BANK OF NORTH AMERICA

He scanned the map over and over in disbelief, unable to process the fact that she had been hiding this the past two weeks they had been seeing each other; although, he acknowledged, she would be insane to have disclosed it.

Where the fuck did she get this map?

He glanced down at his watch and noticed it had been five minutes, and it suddenly hit him that he still had to pee.

He flushed the toilet and picked up all of the paper he had grabbed, then slowly snuck out of the bathroom to Taeko’s room, opened the top drawer, and stuffed all the paper back in, making sure to leave the map on the top sticking out as he found it. He got back in bed with Taeko, who shuffled a bit once he wrapped his arms around her again.

“What happened?” she asked, clearly still half asleep. “I got cold.”

“Sorry,” Kanichi whispered. “I just went to the bathroom.”

11:43

Kanichi stood in the telephone booth, waiting for Eiichi to pick up his call.

“Who is this?” Eiichi answered.

“Hey, it’s Kanichi,” Kanichi said hurriedly. “We need to talk. Can you get Shigeru, too?”

“What’s going on?” Eiichi asked, confused.

“I’ll explain later,” Kanichi replied. “Meet me at my place.” He hung up the phone and bolted in the direction of his house.

12:15

Kanichi stood by the entrance of his house, waiting and waiting for his friends to arrive, and suddenly heard three knocks on his front door.

He unlocked the door and swung it open.

“This shit better be good,” Shigeru said, clearly exhausted. “You know I don’t like when you call meetings without asking me."

“I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s important,” Kanichi replied, ushering in his friends.

They made their way to the dinner table and sat in a triangle.

“Okay, so you guys know I’ve been seeing this girl Taeko, right?” Kanichi began.

“Yes,” Eiichi replied. “You won’t shut up about her.”

“So I noticed some paper sticking out of her drawer yesterday while I was in her room,” Kanichi continued, ignoring Eiichi’s comment. “So I got up at night and checked it out.”

“And?” Shigeru asked, uninterested.

“She has a map,” Kanichi said. “Our map. The one you drew. The one we lost on the train last year.”

“So, what?” Shigeru said. “She has a type: bank robbers.”

“No, Shigeru, she is a bank robber. There were notes on the map in her handwriting,” Kanichi continued, frustrated at the lack of interest from his friends. “She’s planning to rob the same bank as we are with at least two other people.”

“So let me get this straight,” Eiichi began, straightening up in his chair. “You’ve been fucking this girl exclusively for two weeks, she’s been a bank robber the whole time, and you, a bank robber, didn’t know?”

“How the hell was I supposed to know?!” Kanichi yelled, standing up in his chair. “Guys, the point is, she is planning on robbing the fucking Sophia Brann Bank! We are also trying to do that! And she has our goddamn map!”

“Pipe the fuck down, Kanichi, that map was wrong,” Shigeru said sternly. “Remember? We found the one in the book and the safe was laid out differently.”

“I know, Shigeru, but still,” Kanichi replied, exasperated. “She’s probably going to find that one, too, and then we’re fucked. We have no idea when Taeko and whoever the hell else are planning to go through with it! It could be the same day as we are!”

“Why don’t you ask her then?” Shigeru replied. “Since you’re so fucking convinced we have to do something about it.”

“Forget it,” Kanichi replied, defeated. “I just wanted to let you guys know that we might have a problem on our hands. Clearly, you don’t wanna hear it.”

“Look,” Eiichi said, calmly. “If she has our shitty messed-up map, then I think it is safe to assume that she’s behind the curve. We’re probably going to beat her to it. I don’t see the issue here.”

Shigeru nodded. “I made the map, I should know. It sucked.”

Kanichi sat down. “I guess you’re right,” he conceded. “I still think we should figure out who the other people are, though.”

“Well, we’re not the ones fucking her,” Shigeru said. “You are. You know what to do.”