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December 3 came two days after I heard the second tape. In that time, I hadn’t gone to the police. Instead, I’d gone about my life as I always did—going to school, studying for exams.
In the hall after class, a friend stopped me in the hall. “Natsumi, we should go somewhere this Sunday.”
She seemed to be worried that I didn’t smile much since my sister had died. She often tried to cheer me up.
“Okay … but if I end up not being able to, I’m sorry.”
“You have plans?” she asked, puzzled.
I did not—but there was no guarantee I would come home alive that night. I planned to follow the instructions the boy had left on the tape. I’d made that decision the moment I first heard his message.
If I went to the abandoned hospital, I might get to hear the rest of my sister’s message. In exchange, I might not come home alive. I didn’t know why he had summoned me, but it might well be to kill me.
“No plans, but …” I said, suddenly wanting to throw my arms around her. What kind of life would she lead? Until a few days before, we’d both been utterly ordinary people. We’d gone to school yawning and then spent the day copying everything from the blackboard into our notebooks. Every day was the same. These were ordinary, happy lives.
But now I didn’t believe that life lay before me. I’d spent too much time with death to lead a peaceful life. My friend still had a future, though, and when I thought about how I might never see her again … I loved her very much indeed.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, waving.
I left the school, feeling the cold December wind against my cheeks. The sun was not yet setting, but there were gray clouds covering the sky, and it was pretty dark out. I held my coat tightly closed, watching my feet as I walked.
My phone rang near the school gates. It was Itsuki.
“Now? School just finished. I’m just going through the gates.”
I stopped next to the gates as I talked to him. There were cars rushing by, and it was hard to hear him between the traffic and the wind.
“What did you say? I can’t hear,” I said, louder. “Oh, yeah, thanks again for … No, I’m fine …”
This might well be the last time I ever spoke to him. The thought made me want to sob into my phone loud enough to be heard over the roar of the wind and traffic. I’d known Itsuki since junior high, and he was like a little brother.
“Can you talk louder?” I closed my eyes, trying to pick his voice out of the din. “I said I’m fine … I didn’t mean to make you worry. Hmm? No, I’m not crying …” Our conversation ended a moment later.
I checked my watch on the train home. It was already five. The sun had begun to set on the road to the station, and it was dark outside. I had six hours until I would meet that boy.
I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t shaking with fear. My heart was calm, and I sat with my eyes closed, feeling the movement of the train. My senses were already shut down in the face of the danger to come. My sister’s teeth in the restaurant had been the anesthetic. Everything felt numb, nothing felt real.
I had never even considered trying to fight the boy. I would go to the hospital without any weapons, without telling anybody. All I cared about was hearing my sister’s voice. I needed nothing else—even if that boy planned to harm me.
My parents had forgotten to lock the door again. I went inside and told them I was home.
My mother was in the tatami room, folding laundry. She smiled faintly when I spoke to her, but she looked like she would topple over if I nudged her.
My father was in the living room, slumped over the kotatsu. I couldn’t see his face. When we were kids, my sister and I would hang from his arms. His tiny back reminded me just how long ago that had been.
“I’m home, Dad,” I said, kneeling down next to him. He didn’t respond. Thinking he was asleep, I rose to leave.
“Natsumi,” he said. “I’m sorry … we’re making you worry.”
“What are you talking about?” I had said the same thing to my friends today.
“People always told us you looked like Hiroko, but I never realized how much you do. I never noticed while Hiroko was alive, but now that there’s only you … they’re right.”
My father raised his head and looked at me. He said he sometimes mistook me for my dead sister. His eyes were half-kind, half-sad.
“But, Natsumi … did you just come home from school?” I nodded. He looked puzzled.
“I thought I heard someone going upstairs …”
“Not Mom?”
“She was in here.”
The footsteps had come in without the doorbell ringing first, so they’d assumed it was me.
I went upstairs to my room. The tapes were gone.
That boy must have snuck in and taken them away. I could imagine him doing that easily.
If I hadn’t come home that night, the police would’ve found the tapes in my room, and they would find out about him. He’d taken them to prevent that scenario from occurring.
That meant he didn’t plan to let me come home.
I felt like all the strength was flowing out of me. I sat down heavily on the chair.
For two days now, I had guessed I would be murdered. And now I knew for certain.
If I followed the instructions on the tape and went to the hospital, I would die.
What was death? That boy had said death was the only thing that really existed.
He had to experience people’s deaths the way a vampire had to drink blood.
For a long time, I sat on my chair, not moving at all. Silence surrounded me. I tried to imagine him killing my sister. Soon, my own face replaced my sister’s. But it was not as big a shock as I had expected.
Once, I had seen a firm divide between life and death. I was alive. My sister, my parents, everyone was alive. That had been obvious. Now that divide had become very fuzzy, like white and black had mixed together and formed gray where I stood. My parents had been the same since they saw her body: one foot in the world of the dead, frozen there.
But my sister … my sister was definitely dead. To me, the recording of her voice was alive, though. She existed on those tapes; she was still breathing, still thinking, still trying to speak—and waiting for me.
I could no longer understand what separated life from death. But I knew I was standing right on top of it.
“Natsumi,” my mother called from downstairs. “Dinner!”
I stood up and tried to say, “Coming!” If I didn’t go, it would be just the two of them. They would be too exposed.
We were all a mess since my sister’s death, but we’d been careful to eat together as much as possible. Although the extra chair kept us from saying much of anything, meals were the last thing that kept us feeling like a family.
Today, however, I started to stand, and then I stopped halfway.
“Natsumi?” my mother called again, surprised that I hadn’t responded. Remembering how my father had looked at me, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital if I ate with them. If I didn’t come home, how would they survive? Love—or perhaps pity—would be a chain, keeping me here.
“Dinner?” she called again.
My eyes found a cylinder on my desk. I stared at it, unable to take my eyes off it.
It was the bloodred lipstick I’d taken from my sister’s room.
I closed my eyes and made up my mind. I sat back in the chair. “I’m not hungry,” I said.
The door was closed, and I couldn’t see my mother, but I could sense her presence: she stood at the bottom of the stairs staring up at my door for a long time.
Guilt pierced my heart, and I clutched my chest. When my mother knew her daughter was not coming down, her shoulders slumped, and she moved away from the stairs. I could almost see her.
I sat on the chair, apologizing to my parents again and again. But no matter what, I would not change my decision. I was a terrible child. I was going to that hospital, and I was leaving them alone.
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iv