Chapter 126

SUMMERTIME RECORD SIDE -NO. 2- (3) I couldn’t say how long I wandered around, no particular destination in mind. My mind was still a mess, but the cacophony of voices in my head had finally settled down. I no longer heard all their thoughts; it was just a slight undercurrent of static now. Somewhere far away, I could hear the distant echoes of a pop song—the music accompanying the fireworks show, I quickly realized. Without turning back toward it, I finally sat down by the levee. I must have covered a lot of distance. The babbling of the river in the darkness made the solitude all the starker for me. The dark-gray concrete was cold against my body, making me feel even more helpless. “Marie…” I couldn’t have possibly acted any more stupidly. Marie had been looking forward to this so much, but now it had all gone to waste. The fireworks and everything else. I’d thought I had come to terms with this. I had been prepared to forget about everything, for Marie’s sake. But try as I might, I just couldn’t keep my head cool. Not with their names listed on-screen like that. It must have hurt her, me latching onto her arm like that. I couldn’t guess what she must have been feeling when she activated “hiding.” …Well, no. I could easily guess. Whenever Kido or I activated our abilities, it was always because we were anxious. And that’s exactly what my hand had done to her back there. It had scared her. “…!” I couldn’t keep the tears from streaming down. I had no right to see her. It was back on that day, the day when the Kagerou Daze swallowed up my friends and our enemy. It left only me and Marie. She was unconscious, and I have only vague memories of carrying her back to the hideout. My memory only kicks back into motion when Marie woke up, looked at my face, and flashed a big smile. It was right after this epic battle where we lost our friends, and she was smiling. I couldn’t imagine. It made me realize that Marie had lost her memories. I couldn’t tell how much she remembered and how much she didn’t, but at the very least, any recollections she’d had of this most recent fight were completely gone. I wondered whether I should tell her. It was a thorny question. She had lost friends that were irreplaceable to her. They had sacrificed themselves, really, so we could live. We would have to live with that, from now on. …There was just no way I could tell her. I only had to think about it for a moment. One moment was all it took for her frightened, tearful visage to flash into my mind. It scared me. I had to throw it all away and keep that smile of hers with us. There was no need for her to recall a past that she had forgotten about anyway. If she did, I was sure it’d crush her. There was just no way I could make her go through that. So I just glossed over it all. Right up to today. I watched her favorite cartoons with her. Whenever there was some scary show on TV, we both sat on the edge of our seats, anticipating what would pop up next. When I found out about a new restaurant nearby that got good reviews, I splurged on it a little with her. She wouldn’t eat carrots, so I ate half of them for her. She was this innocent, unknowing girl, and I kept my eyes squarely focused on her. All my thoughts were about her. I didn’t want to give her a single shred of sadness. The city lights reflected off the river’s surface, shining like a starry night. Each one of those lights represented somebody’s life, the way they lived it—and as I thought about that, it just seemed so grossly, viscerally real to me. Everybody has a little darkness in their hearts that they foster, glossing over it as they live out their lives. Their lips might say “yes,” but their hearts say “no.” Their lips say “thank you” while their hearts say “just die already.” For me, having heard all those voices for as long as I could remember, this was all completely normal. Nothing strange about it. All the people in the world, living these incoherent lives. As beautiful as the world might look, just peel off a single layer of it, and it was a stagnant pit of hell. …I should know. I was fleeing from all the “voices” the world had for me when I first ran into that girl. Just like today. It all started that day because the voices from the people passing by on the street started sounding a lot like Kano to me. It was all exactly like him, so mean and disgusting, and it just drowned me in anxiety. My family were all nice people. Kano, Kido, my big sister… I almost feel bad about how nice they were with me. That’s why I was so incredibly scared of the darkness lurking in all of their hearts. What if Kano actually hates me? What if my sister thinks I’m just a burden? The moment those thoughts entered my mind, it was like someone had untied the bag I kept my ability in. I couldn’t control it anymore. In a single moment, a landslide of those awful, chiding voices swallowed me up. I couldn’t take them. Even when I ran back home, it didn’t let up a single bit. I ignored my family’s concerned questions and flew outside, running like mad. I think it was the longest I had ever run at once. I ran, I ran, I ran…and eventually, I stopped hearing anyone’s voice. By the time I noticed how deep I was in the mountains, far away from any human settlement, it was well into the night. I had no idea how to get back, nobody I could rely on. I was just stuck in the silent darkness…and I couldn’t have been more comfortable. That was when I heard that girl’s voice for the first time. It was huge shock to me, like a paintbrush of golden light was doing its work on the black sheet of darkness around me. There was no front or back to it, not a single speck of mud or dust. It simply changed the world, her beautiful voice, and it filled my soul with the happiness to come, stealing my heart in an instant. I ran toward it, dragging my aching legs forward, and right there in that house I found Marie. Her light-pink eyes, framed against her soft, white hair, were as pure as jewels, reflecting me perfectly in the pupils. Then, even as young a child as I was, I realized: I was born to protect this girl. From that point forward, she became the only thing on my mind. But unlike her own fantasies, the world spread out before her was a cruel place. It was all a den of corrupted minds and swirling hatred. If someone as innocent as her ever stepped out into it, it would stain the pure canvas of her heart a hateful shade of black forever. All I thought about was how I could become stronger for her. If it meant keeping her safe, I was happy to be just the storybook prince she wanted. I seriously thought that. In this world, buried in the voices of the dark and corrupt, that was about the only reason I could find to keep on living. Even when I heard the voice of “clearing” once it occupied my father—even when I learned it had set things up so my entire family, me included, was reported dead—Marie was all that occupied my head. I couldn’t leave her alone. I absolutely refused to let her have any sad thoughts. And the more I thought that way, the more I began to neglect my family, my friends. My heart grew black, ugly, corrupted. The night before our final battle, when I heard Kano’s shouting, I kept the facade going, bottling up what my heart wanted me to blurt out. Kano was…a nice guy. Really. I wish I could’ve helped shoulder the burden of whatever he carried in his mind. He was kinder than anyone else; he knew what I thought more than anyone else. He just had an awkward way of acting on that sometimes. As siblings, we couldn’t have been much more alike. But I even weighed him on the scales against Marie in my head. And despite all that, I couldn’t do anything in the end. I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t abandon her… I just kept running away, and now here I was. That girl’s smile meant everything to me. It was the only thing that brought me happiness. That was a proven fact in my mind. But now… Now, the echoing of my own voice couldn’t escape my ears. I was wrong. Suddenly, a sentence dredged itself up from my mind. I cowered at it, and my own wretched self, and I couldn’t stop crying. “I’m sorry, Ene. I just can’t do anything…” During the final battle, when Azami summoned the Kagerou Daze to swallow up “clearing,” I had been prepared to stake my life for the cause. Just like Kano and everyone else. It pained me to leave Marie and go off by myself, but all I could do was trust in Ene and the rest. I hoped they could find a way to save Marie for me. But right after the Kagerou Daze appeared, I heard Ene’s determined voice booming in my ears. “It’s all right. I’m going in. You’re the only one who can protect her, aren’t you?” Why didn’t I realize, right at that moment, that she meant those words for me? I didn’t realize that she gave her life for me until after it was all over, when I saw Kano’s broken phone by my feet on the floor. Driven by my memory, I took my phone out of my pocket. There was nothing but a picture of Marie, with the current time on top. No new messages from anyone, of course. If I’d had the courage to fight, would something have changed? Would anything have gone differently, in this script to a tragedy I could barely even conceive of? …No. I couldn’t have done anything. I’m so weak that I couldn’t even hold on to Marie’s hand. No matter what I did, I’m sure it would have amounted to nothing. I clenched the phone display with all my might, gritting my teeth. Why am I, of all people, going on about protecting Marie? I was coddled. Protected. I kept running and running. Of all the outrageous things I could have thought of! My friends, my family… They’re all gone. No more voices left to hear. I wanted to see Marie. I wanted to see my friends. They could hate me and scorn me all they liked. I just wanted to talk to them all, one more time…! “…Are you crying?” A voice. “Are you okay? …Are you lonely, by yourself?” I could definitely hear Marie’s voice. Confused, I stood up, looking intently at my surroundings. I couldn’t see Marie around me. Was that “hiding” in effect…? No. That voice had been…closer. Like I could almost touch her. Why? What was going on…? “S-Seto! I’m right here!” I doubted my ears for a moment. Marie’s voice was coming from the phone in my hand. Shocked, I looked at the display. “What?” Marie was there, floating in the screen, just like Ene used to. I blinked helplessly at it, unable to speak. “Ahh, you finally noticed! I’m sorry! Did I surprise you?” “Y-yeah…?” My mind still hadn’t caught up with this. My heart beat itself into a whirlwind. I couldn’t stop it. What I was seeing had to have been engineered by Ene’s ability. Right now, counting her original “locking eyes,” Marie possessed four skills. It wasn’t like there was any ban on her using them, but…first “hiding,” and now this? “Marie, what are you…all of a sudden… Like, where’s your body?! You didn’t leave it somewhere, did you…?!” “Ah! Um, um, calm down, Seto! It’s all right; it’s…around, so…” Her face clouded a bit on-screen. “Around where?! Let’s go right now! Tell me where…it…” I was cut off by an intense, burning pain that spread across my body. “Let’s go”? Where do I get off saying that? Tricking Marie like this, making her forget about her own friends… What would “meeting” her again accomplish? What could I even say to her? Did I seriously think that keeping up this charade of lies, day in and day out, would achieve anything for her? …I had known all along, really. I wasn’t any kind of prince at all. I couldn’t stop thinking about Marie, but I couldn’t forget about my friends, either. I was a monster, unable to make up my mind about anything. It no longer mattered to me if it was too late. Maybe telling her would make her cry. But I didn’t want to dirty this girl’s mind with lies anymore. “…Marie, listen to me. I want to tell you something.” I couldn’t bear to look at her face. What did she think I was gonna say? How much time would it take to explain every piece of it to her? And when I was done, would she be willing to accept any of it? Marie doesn’t know a thing. I’m sure of it. She’s so pure and innocent. She needs me to protect her. …Yes. I believed all that, no matter how little I knew about her. Until she replied to me. “…I want to tell you something, too.” She spoke to me in a voice that I didn’t know. “So let’s go, Seto. Everybody’s waiting.” I went up the stone stairway, one step at a time. There wasn’t any light in the hanging lanterns. All I could see, in the groves of trees on both sides of me, was darkness. I was unable to hear Marie’s voice on the phone. Unable to ask her much of anything. The only sound was the repeated grinding of my feet against gravel on the steps. Even the commotion of the faraway fireworks was gone now. There wasn’t the cry of a single insect, or any other creature. It was a silence I had only felt surrounding Marie’s house when I was there. Was it meant to keep people away? Or was there some other meaning to it? Either way, I began to vaguely realize that this was Marie’s “hiding” at work. In a silence that seemed to house nothing but death, I could only hear Marie’s voice fade in and out in my mind. She’d said she wanted to talk about something. That “everybody’s waiting.” I wondered if she knew something that I didn’t…and why she wanted to tell me. It was awful. I couldn’t even guess at what it was. Maybe I thought, somewhere in my heart, that I knew absolutely everything about her. Seriously, a fool like me, being some royal savior for her. How presumptuous can you get? Everything’s going to end today, I’m sure. But despite that conviction I had, I couldn’t even begin to guess what that “end” would bring. Finally, I arrived. I was at the open grounds of a Shinto shrine, and as the lack of sound indicated, it was deserted. But then I swallowed nervously, there on the stone path to the main building, as I spotted a figure of pure white ahead. “…Why?” I spotted her in an instant. It was Marie, turning to see me, and she had transformed right back to how she’d looked on that long-ago day. Those scales that covered her cheeks—and those eyes, red with burning blood. Her slitted, snakelike pupils narrowed, as if responding to my question. “Thank you for coming. This was the best place I could find for this.” She spoke just like Marie, but her usual timid body language was all gone now. Before I could ask what was going on, she interrupted, anticipating the question. “Was it all right to use ‘stealing’? I’m sorry; I was so scared that I couldn’t keep ‘hiding’ under wraps…” I couldn’t hide my surprise at all of this. Had she ever used the names of those abilities before? Sensing my confusion, Marie didn’t wait for me to offer a reply. “…I’ll go first. I have to apologize to you about something. I knew I wanted to say it at some point, but I just couldn’t before.” Marie dolefully averted her eyes. I couldn’t even nod at this confession, so unexpected it was. “Ever since that day…when the battle ended, I’ve been lying to you.” The mention of the word “battle” was like a shot to the heart. A word that I had deliberately avoided from that day to this one. “N-no… The ‘battle’? Marie, did you remember…?” “I remembered it all this time. I haven’t forgotten anything. I smiled, back there…and I guess you took that the wrong way.” Marie’s face took on an even grimmer look. The expression, and her words, effectively threw my brain into a blender. She hadn’t forgotten anything? That was…crazy. That couldn’t be. Marie had smiled at me in the hideout, after we got back from the fight. One look at that, and I was positive that she didn’t remember a thing. If she did, why did she smile? Uncontrollable sobbing would be one thing, but smiling? That couldn’t be… …Smiling? A single thought came into my mind, making the shallow assumptions I had put so much trust in collapse. No. Marie hadn’t smiled because she was happy. There was another meaning to it. No… “…You did it because you didn’t want me to be worried?” Marie nodded lightly, giving me a weak smile. “Yeah… I mean, Seto, you looked so sad back then. If I started crying, too, you’d be even sadder, wouldn’t you?” A soundless wind blew through the empty shrine grounds. Faced with the truth, my body drained itself of energy, as if someone had cut my strings. My legs, losing their support, collapsed, both my knees falling to the ground. I felt a dull pain from them, but my mind was so clouded that I couldn’t even process that normally. This girl had been helping me this whole time. She’d smiled on that day so she could make me smile. She’d kept pretending she had lost her memories so I wouldn’t be sad anymore. Had knowing her friends were dead crushed her? Not at all. She’d accepted that, and then she’d stepped up to keep me safe. Did I even get a full look at her face? Did I even listen to her? Was that shopping trip, and her offer to help with the chores, just part of her fervent effort to support my fake life? Unable to respond, just standing there without a word, I listened to Marie go on. “But I started thinking that this couldn’t go on. You tried so hard to forget about everything, and it was all my fault. So I thought about it a little…with him.” Marie pointed a finger into the air, above my head and behind me. I turned around, still kneeling on the ground—and found a fellow member, someone who had just made it up the shrine steps. He wore a sky-blue shirt, a vest, and a pair of shorts—just as he had on the day of the battle. “Hibiya…” He scratched a cheek at my feeble greeting. “I wasn’t trying to trick you or anything. She just said I should keep quiet about it.” “Thank you for coming, Hibiya. I-it’s okay. I already told him.” I valiantly tried to keep up with their conversation. Why was Marie in contact with Hibiya? Of course I knew why. Because she had “opening” at her disposal. Marie remembered everything about that battle. She recalled how bravely they’d all fought, how much they’d protected us, how hard they’d tried to carry out our plan. We’d sworn never to give up on the future, and Marie had never forgotten about that. She was far, far stronger than I gave her credit for. She wasn’t afraid of dirtying her mind at all. Ever since that day, she must have been using her abilities to form a plan with Hibiya. Amid the pain of losing her friends, and the pressure of having their futures in her hands, she’d never revealed any of it to me for a moment. And Hibiya had worked with her, driven by the same thought. I’m sure his eyes were just as focused on the future the whole time. That was why he was here. …Ahh, I can’t stand it. I can’t give them a single word. I gave up everything for Marie, unable to do anything else. Me. The only one. And here’s Marie, fighting fiendishly against all this despair…! Kneeling there, in the middle of the shrine, I let out a long, deep sob. It went beyond shame or dishonor. I just felt so pathetic, unable to reward them for any of their efforts. I just wished someone would judge me for it. Kill me for being a coward. Please. Anyone… “…Don’t be so scared. It’s all right.” A voice rang in the darkness. “You can’t berate yourself for this, Seto.” No, Marie. Stop. “Nobody’s hating you for this, Seto. I know you were fighting for us.” I have no right to feel your embrace. There’s no way I could receive your forgiveness. “Thank you for protecting me this whole time. Thank you for thinking so much of me.” That voice, unchanged from that day, was now destroying my world. I’d dedicated my whole life to that voice. And now… I… “Thanks to you, I’ve come to love this whole world.” Opening my eyes, I set them upon the most beautiful tears in the world. Whether you compared them to light, or a flower, or hope, there weren’t enough words in the world to describe how priceless they were. I just wanted to keep her safe. I wanted to get her out of this endless summer.