I hesitated. Should I chase after him? But Itsuki was with me. And Morino was with him. This didn’t seem like the time to ask questions about the tape of my sister’s voice. I abandoned the idea.
“Something wrong?”
I shook my head. The two of us began walking to the station, the same direction they had gone. They were already out of sight.
The shop signs and vending machines lined up along the road glowed, their lights shining brightly. As we walked, the sun set, and the cold winter darkness thickened, the vending machines’ light the only thing that remained distinct.
As we walked, Itsuki and I chatted about recent events in our lives. All I talked about was entrance exams, which seemed like a safe enough subject, whereas he had all kinds of funny anecdotes about school, his friends, places he’d been …
They were nothing extraordinary, just the normal stories any high school boy would tell, but they went a long way toward helping me relax. Perhaps Itsuki had noticed my tension, and he was deliberately trying to cheer me up.
Cars sped past us, their headlamps on, the lights flickering over our faces. “Want to talk in there?” Itsuki asked, pointing at the family restaurant in front of the station. Through the windows, it looked brightly lit and warm.
Inside, it was filled with the hum of people’s voices as they ate their dinners. The waitress led us to a booth at the back. The partitions and wall were covered in silver decorations, which glittered in the lights above.
“How are your parents?” Itsuki asked.
I shook my head. “Not good. They never leave the house.”
I told him what it had been like since my sister died: the dust in the corners, the TV on but the lights off, how they always forgot to lock the door.
“So they still aren’t over Hiroko’s—?”
“Yes, especially since they both saw … her body.”
He nodded. I’d mentioned at the funeral that her condition had been far worse than the news had reported.
“Will they ever be better?” I murmured, picturing their blank faces. I couldn’t imagine them recovering from that. All I could see was their slumped shoulders, the spark of life forever gone.
“What about Akagi?”
“He came by a number of times after the funeral, but recently …”
Akagi, my sister’s boyfriend … he was one of those left most devastated by her murder. He attended the same college as her; although I wasn’t completely certain, I thought he’d probably met her there. She’d brought him home with her, and I’d spoken to him a number of times. He’d stayed with my parents at the funeral, supporting them.
“Maybe I’m the one who killed Hiroko,” he’d said after the funeral. “We had a fight the day before she died, and she ran out of my room, and …”
The next day, she’d been found in the abandoned hospital. Akagi was the last person to see her alive.
If they hadn’t fought, she never would’ve met the killer, and she never would’ve died—that’s what Akagi told me as he covered his face with his hands.
“I’d better be going,” Itsuki said. It was time for his train.
“I’m going to sit and think awhile.”
“Okay, so …” He took a step away, and then he turned back. “If you have anything you need to talk about, please call me.”
As I watched him leave, I thanked him silently. I sat alone, sipping coffee, watching the family across the aisle. I didn’t want to be too obvious about it, so I watched them out of the corner of my eye.
They were here eating dinner, a young couple with their kids, infant daughters.
They reminded me of my own family. The younger sister was too young to speak, and she kept her fingers in her mouth, watching everything wide-eyed. As I glanced sideways at them, I met her eye.
I remembered my sister.
When we were children, the two of us had gone on a long walk together. It must’ve been a warm spring day. I had just started elementary school, and the guardrails and posts towered over me.
We climbed a long hill, passing house after house. At the top of the hill was a forest. We looked down at the city below from the shade—tiny little houses, as far as we could see.
There was a bird in the sky above, with long white wings. A big river ran through town, so I decided that it must’ve lived there.
It glided on the wind, drifting elegantly, its big white wings barely moving. I watched it for ages without ever growing bored.
My sister looked at me and smiled, flashing her teeth. Her canines always jutted out, even after she got her big teeth in, and we often played vampires. But I hadn’t seen my sister smile—hadn’t seen her canines—for an awfully long time.
When she’d dyed her hair, I wondered aloud if I should do the same.
“Don’t, it would look awful on you,” she’d said. I couldn’t take this as kind advice. There was an edge to her voice; she’d snapped at me.
Every time she did something like that, I felt like she didn’t want me around. Why had she died? I couldn’t believe anyone had hated her enough to kill her. And what was it she’d wanted to talk to me about before she died?
A shadow fell on my table. I looked up, and a boy in a black uniform was looking down at me. It was the boy who had passed in front of the store, walking with the girl named Morino.
“Kitazawa, you were waiting for me to leave school.”
I was not terribly surprised. I felt it was only natural he would suddenly appear like this. I didn’t stand up; I just looked up at him and asked, “Did you kill my sister?”
For a moment, he said nothing. At last, his lips parted quietly, and words emerged: “Yes, I killed her.”
His quiet voice faded from my ears, fading into the soft hum of the restaurant.
✦ ✦ ✦
iii