On the surface, Barbosse was never involved with any of those cases, and despite how suspicious it seemed, no one had ever confronted him about it. No one could. That’s how much control Volf Barbosse held over this country. The most Solye could do was hold the reins back a little to keep the minister and his men from going too far. More often than not, the king couldn’t even do that.
Solye looked down at his powerless hands. Even though he hadn’t taken any direct action to hurt all of those people, he saw his hands soaked in blood. When he faced the minister after losing his first daughter, he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he was the only one who could protect his family from this beast wearing the skin of a man.
“...Feel free to be disgusted with me, Rook.”
For the first time in a while, Solye addressed his friend by his name. They had known each other since Solye was born. They were raised by the same nanny and brought up in the same way. To this man, whom Solye had spent more of this life with than anybody else, he could show his honest weakness.
His friend answered the feeble suggestion with a chuckle.
“On the day you fall to the Darkness Below, Solye, I will be by your side.”
Rook didn’t say this because he was the king’s butler but because he was Solye’s friend.
A nostalgic view spread out before Herscherik... returned to the body of Ryoko Hayakawa. She could tell that she was in a dream. Her body felt weightless, and the view before her was monochrome like a film from a bygone era. Ryoko recalled reading in some magazine column once that dreams were, by nature, generated so that people could organize their memories and that they were always colorless; it was only her mind colorizing them as she processed the dream upon waking.
She stood before her parents’ home. The house was 25 years old at the time; they had moved into it when Ryoko was still in grade school. Soon after that, her youngest sister was born. Ryoko recalled taking care of her first younger sister while her mother worked hard to pack up their old house with her father. 25 years had taken its toll on the once brand-new house, but it was her home, filled with precious memories, nonetheless.
Under the darkened sky, she could see that the front door was adorned with a ceremonial decoration indicating a wake, and next to that stood a sign that read “Hayakawa.” People dressed in mourning were coming and going through this door.
A funeral...? Or a wake?
As if she was being drawn by an unseen force, Ryoko walked into her home with faltering steps. Although she passed by some black-clad family members she hardly recognized, no one seemed to notice or talk to her.
The front door opened onto the living room where she found her niece sitting on the couch. Her eyes were swollen red, and she had a handkerchief clutched in her hands. Next to her, her niece’s father watched over his daughter, concerned. Ryoko found it surprising that her rebellious niece was sitting quietly by her father.
Through the living room, Ryoko arrived at the traditional Japanese room. Years ago, since it was the sunniest room in the house, it had been occupied by her grandmother until she was consumed by dementia. The people in mourning seemed to be going in and out of this room in particular. Ryoko peeked inside. Her eyes widened.
Oh, that’s what’s going on.
Albeit slightly shocking, Ryoko made sense of what was happening. The room was filled with the smell of incense, as well as her family and bosses and numerous bouquets and gifts of sympathy. Ryoko found the funeral photo of herself, and her own body lying motionless on her bed.
This is my wake.
It seemed too vivid to be a dream. In fact, she recalled how dreams were supposed to be a simple reorganization of memories. Ryoko wondered why she was imagining such a scene when it obviously was not one of her actual memories. More than anything else, it felt bizarre to see herself dead.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one seemed to see her, Ryoko approached her body on the bed and observed it up close, from head to toe. For one thing, she was relieved that her body wasn’t torn to bits in the accident. She had heard once before that terribly damaged bodies were wrapped in bandages like mummies or put in a closed casket for their wake. She had never been to any event like that, though. Now that the mortician had done up her face, Ryoko thought her corpse looked prettier than she did when she was alive. She didn’t know how to feel about that.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you for coming.”
Ryoko turned toward a pair of voices to find her direct supervisor from work speaking to her mother. In the place of her father, who sat there staring at the funeral photo with an empty expression, Ryoko’s sisters had been greeting the extended family and acquaintances.
“Thank you for giving us the picture. She wasn’t good with photos... I was looking all over for a recent one when you brought us that picture from your company retreat.”
...I just don’t like being in pictures, mom.
Ryoko never hated her face, per se, but she never particularly liked it, either. Ever since grade school, she had been bullied and called ugly for it, and whenever she took a photo with someone else in it, her face always seemed too big in comparison. So, even when Purikura photo booths were all the rage among her peers, Ryoko had always refused, no matter who was asking or what meal they offered to buy in exchange.