His arm came across my field of vision, and I could no longer see anything. I was trapped in darkness, embraced from behind, with one arm around my neck, the other covering my face. If he squeezed, my neck would break with a snap. My breath brushed against his arm. I could feel the heat of my own breath. The boy’s chest was against my back. I could feel his warmth through my clothes.
“Please … let me hear the rest of her message.”
I could hear her voice, even with the boy’s arms over my ears. I had never heard this about Akagi. It was like a thread unraveling, explaining everything about my sister’s strange behavior.
The joints of the arm around my throat contracted and expanded, as if testing the bones inside. The arm over my face was ready to break my neck, moving my head back and forth, like an athlete warming up for a short-distance run.
My neck felt like the stem of a delicate flower. It would snap so easily if someone went to pick that flower.
Even after I knew the truth, there were no problems between us. That had merely marked the start, and real love had bloomed between the two of us. It was me he loved, what lay inside of me …
But I was nervous.
My chest hurt, listening to her quiet voice.
“You might be right,” the boy whispered softly. His voice came from right next to me, his arms around my head. I could feel his chest vibrate as it pressed against my back. My heart beat faster.
“I had two candidates for my second victim … one was Kitazawa Natsumi, and the other was a girl at my school.”
“Morino? I saw you walking with her …”
My voice sounded muffled, blocked by his arm. My heart was beating faster and faster, and blood was racing through my veins. Gentle pressure on my throat, my veins pulsing—my head grew hot.
“Kamiyama Itsuki told you her name, right? In the end, I chose you as my next victim, and that might have been for the reason you mentioned.”
The voice at my ear seemed less like he was telling me and more like he was asking himself. Perhaps he didn’t clearly understand the workings of his own mind. The thought, strangely enough, made me feel like we were friends.
I never told Akagi, either … that he had seen you, not me. I couldn’t tell him.
I had been so blind. I had known nothing about my sister. Wrapped in the boy’s arms, listening to her monologue, I was overcome with shame.
I had been so sure she was filled with confidence I didn’t have. I thought she’d been bright, outgoing—a strong girl whom everyone loved. But the truth had been so very different …
I couldn’t even look at you … We’re so very much alike. I directed all my irritation at you, changing my hair and clothes so I would be less like you … because I knew how you felt about Akagi.
My sister had actually been locked in a constant struggle with her own fears and anxieties. Unable to tell me about Akagi, she’d clutched that secret to her heart. The lipstick in my pocket … she had used that to hide her own fears from the world around her.
I wished I’d noticed while she was alive. If I’d only known, I could’ve put my arms around her and assured her there was nothing to be nervous about.
His arms tightened. He was done warming up. He began to embrace my head tightly. My head was squeezed inside his arms. In the darkness, I felt less like I was about to die and more like I was wrapped in a loving embrace.
When my sister’s voice ended, my neck would be forcibly twisted. The arm tightening around my throat and twisting my head would put too much pressure on the bones in my neck, and they would snap. Somehow, I was sure he would time my death to that moment.
Even as I record my last words like this, I wish … I wish I’d told you all of this, months ago.
With his arm as my blindfold, I could heart my heartbeat getting louder. I could hear it pumping blood through my body as clearly as I could hear my sister’s voice.
I could feel his heartbeat too—feel it where his chest pressed against my back.
I felt a tightness in my chest, like I wanted to cry. I felt no hatred or anger toward him; he felt like something as inevitable as death itself.
My sister’s confession was almost over. I could tell from the tension in his arms and the strain in her voice.
I was glad I’d heard the tape.
“You knew you were going to kill me … that’s why you came to my house to get the tapes, so the police wouldn’t find them when I didn’t come home,” I said, careful not to talk over my sister. She had left me these words as the last thing before dying. It was my duty to hear every last word of it.
But I can’t turn back time. Natsumi … I did love you.
“Natsumi,” the boy said, the arm around my neck loosening. The tension in his muscles slackened, weakened. I hadn’t expected this, and I was confused. “I’ve never been in your house.”
I couldn’t understand him at first. He hadn’t taken the tapes? Before I could ask, there was a sound at the entrance of the operating chamber.
Someone had stepped into the room.
His arms might have loosened, but they were still wrapped around my face, and I could see nothing. I couldn’t see the third person in the room. His arms were tight enough that I couldn’t move, either—all I could do was listen to this new set of footfalls.
“Who … ?” I gasped.
The footsteps came through the door, past the operating table where the boy and I were. I could hear them on the dusty linoleum floor.
The boy slowly unwrapped his arms from my head. I was free. I could see again—there were now three shadows on the wall in front of me.
I said a lot of things that made you sad … but none of it was your fault.
Not me, not the boy, but the third shadow bent over. I heard him press Stop. My sister’s voice vanished. The room was quiet again.
Still seated on the table, I turned my head. The boy was behind me, his back to me, looking at the back of the room. Beyond him, next to the wall, stood Itsuki.
Itsuki was just taking his finger off the tape deck’s button. “I took the tapes, Natsumi.”
I had assumed I would never hear his voice again. Why was he here? Was I imagining this? No, he was definitely real: The light was casting his shadow on the wall. He was no illusion.
“The hospital is so large that I had trouble finding you. If I hadn’t heard Hiroko’s voice, I might never have known where you two were.”
I remembered him calling that evening. I’d told him I was outside my school because he’d asked where I was. He’d been making sure I wouldn’t come home while he was in my room.
In the restaurant, I’d told him how my parents always forgot to lock the door.
That was how he’d gotten in so easily. And he’d found the cassette tapes with the sinister names. That explained what he was doing here. The end of the second tape had given the time and place.