First, he needed to make black gunpowder. The history of black gunpowder went way back into the distant past. For example, it was used during the Genkou period of Mongolian invasions;[31] and the weapon called the tetsuhou,[32] which surprised the samurai, also used black gunpowder. Despite being an extremely primitive compound of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and coal, its force is tremendous. They say that when used in an enclosed space, black gunpowder generates enough power to break all the windows on an average car and instantly kill the people inside.

“What are you going to use a bomb for?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m going to blow up something!”

Well, yeah, that was true. It was, indeed, obvious. There was no other use for a bomb.

“I meant, what are you going to blow up? That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

“My enemies.”

“Who are your enemies?”

“Villains. I’m going to get those villains with my revolutionary bomb.”

“I see. Well, who are the villains?”

“Like politicians or something.”

“Do you even know the name of the current prime minister?”

Yamazaki grew silent and went back to his work. Before long, he’d completed the black gunpowder and the airtight iron pipe. His detonator, which used an analog clock, also was finished. The only thing left was to attach the detonator to the pipe, and then he could set it off at any time.

“Yay, I’m done! I’m a fighter! I’m a revolutionary!” Yamazaki was in high spirits. “They’ll all be blown up! I’ll kill all the villains!”

He was in high spirits, but he was also entirely self-aware.

“Ah, that was fun”, he concluded.

In the end, though, the bomb didn’t blow up any villains.

To start with, we didn’t know where to find any villains. Because there was nothing we could do about that, we tried to blow up the neighborhood park on Saturday night. So no one would see us, we crawled deep into the brush to set the detonator. The bomb actually did explode, but it was more a whimper than a bang.

It was a sad story.

Amid these distractions, Sunday arrived. As I had promised, I met Misaki in front of the station. We had our date, and I returned to my apartment.

I slept all night. When I awoke, it was morning. I had nothing to do and was bored. I decided to try ingesting my entire stash of stockpiled drugs. I started having a good time. Everything became pleasurable. I laughed.

Part Two