Excerpt from Najimi 3
The smell of burnt plastic and old laundry hung in the air. When I pulled up my underwear I discovered they were wet from the beer I had spilled on the bed. Still I left them on, savoring the cold, damp sensation. At the window, smoking a cigarette, stood the impenetrable Masao. There wasn't a kind bone in that man's body but he made me laugh, especially after he'd had a few beers. Turning popular songs into exercises in pornography.
The noise in the street—a new candidate for the Diet blasting his empty rhetoric at ear-splitting volume—had worn my nerves so thin I thought I was going to snap. Two butts remained in the tray near the TV, both from cigarettes I had rolled from previous butts. I picked up the longest one and blew off the ashes.
Then Masao came and planted himself in front of me, looking down with that idiot's grin he wore whenever he wanted to play. I'd had enough, I told him, suggesting we take a walk. The moment I felt the ring on his left hand strike my temple, the noise outside stopped.
I understood—the cigarette would have to wait.