A story out of Saitama Prefecture almost sounds like the script to a heartwarming movie. In an apartment house in Kawaguchi City, until a few days ago, two senior citizens were living next door to each other. The men shared a love of beer, and since they were both living alone, would even sometimes pass off their excess food to one another if they happened to buy too much at the grocery store.
Sure, 64-year-old Shingo Tsutsui didn’t like the noise his 70-year-old neighbor made walking around the hardwood floors of his thin-walled apartment, but that little bit of cantankerousness just adds to the Odd Couple-like appeal of the story, doesn’t it? Or at least it would, if Tsutsui had responded by contorting his face into comically frustrated expressions instead of what he actually did, which was to attack his neighbor with a kitchen knife.
As shocking as that is, though, it’s not nearly as unexpected as the victim’s reaction: inviting his attacker in to have a couple of beers together.
On the evening of January 7, the unemployed Tsutsui found himself once again sitting at home, with his only company the sound of his unnamed 70-year-old neighbor’s footsteps. Unable to put up with the situation any longer, he got up and went to knock on his neighbor’s door. When the man opened the door, Tsutsui, without saying anything, drove a kitchen knife with a 20-centimeter (7.9-inch blade) into his chest.
▼ 20 centimeters being the optimal size for carving a roast, chopping onions, or murdering the elderly.
But as Tsutsui swung the blade sideways, it collided with the victim’s rib, and the blade broke without wedging itself deep enough in his flesh to cause grievous injury. And while most of us would respond by screaming in shock and/or viciously counterattacking, after 70 years of life experiences apparently nothing surprises Tsutsui’s neighbor.
“I didn’t know why he cut me,” the victim recalls, “but I told him, OK, OK, why don’t you come on in.”
▼ When you live by yourself, sometimes the apartment just feels empty without family, friends, or a knife-wielding maniac around.
The 70-year-old credits his calm to the fact that he’d been drinking before the incident occurred, and thus his senses were dulled to the point where he reports not feeling very much pain from having a piece of sharpened metal snapped against his ribcage. As a matter of fact, after Tsutsui stepped into his home, the victim asked his attacker to sit down and join him for a drink. “Since I’d already been drinking, I told him to drink up too,” he said.
Etiquette guides are surprisingly lacking on how to handle post-shanking social invitations. Obviously, rushing off after the first beer would make it look like you weren’t enjoying yourself at all and couldn’t wait to get home, so we think Tsutsui handled the situation graciously by staying at his neighbor’s for two cans of beer, as the pair spent the next 60 minutes knocking back brews.
Just to be clear, it wasn’t that the victim hadn’t noticed the violent original purpose of Tsutsui’s visit. As a matter of fact, he even told his slightly younger neighbor, “Next time, let’s go bare-handed instead. I know I can take you.”
▼ In our opinion, though, you’re better off not fighting a guy using his body as a weapon when said body is capable of shattering knives.
At some point after Tsutsui took his leave, the victim realized that he should probably see a doctor. You know, on account of his day being slightly more stabby than usual. It was while being examined that the significance of the blade breaking, and thus the force Tsutsui had put into the attack, became clear to the man. “That jerk tried to kill me!” he realized.
Still, it seems like the neighbor may have been willing to forgive and forget, if not for the final glaring faux pas Tsutsui committed. Even after four days had passed since the incident, Tsutsui had still not apologized over the whole attempted homicide hubbub. In light of his lack of remorse, his neighbor finally decided to report what had happened to the police, who have since invited Tsutsui to hang out with them for a while as he awaits trial.
Somehow, we doubt they bought a keg of Ebisu beer to share during his visit.
Source: FNN via Golden Times
Top image: Pakutaso (1, 2) (edited by RocketNews24)
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2, 3)