“I’ve been looking online since yesterday, but I can’t find any news about the kind of accident you mentioned,” Soejima-kun said the next morning, tying the laces of his sneakers at the entrance of the house.
“You…”
“Huh?”
My mumbling was apparently unclear, as Soejima-kun looked at me with a confused expression.
“No, never mind,” I said, shaking my head to dismiss his question. I was just a little disappointed because I had expected him to call me by name.
Soejima-kun didn’t seem to notice my feelings at all.
As he stood up and adjusted his shoes with a tap, he seemed to remember something and said to me, “Oh, and just so you know, I won’t talk to you when there are other people around. I don’t want to seem weird.”
“Okay.”
I nodded in agreement. That was a fair point.
“Well, let’s go.”
Soejima-kun opened the front door. We decided to go back to those stairs in search of clues to my memory.
As we stepped outside, powdery snow was fluttering about. The breath from Soejima-kun, who was burying his face in his gray scarf, was white. I couldn’t feel it, but it was probably very cold.
Walking down the street, we passed by students in school uniforms and office workers in suits. I didn’t notice it because Soejima-kun was in casual clothes, but it might be a weekday. Was he skipping school to accompany me?
I glanced at Soejima-kun next to me, but he didn’t look at me at all, just walking along silently.
Remembering what he said about not talking when people were around, I closed my mouth too.
Still… I thought as I looked around. This feeling was entirely different from when I was heading toward the haunted mansion alone yesterday. I could feel the fleeting glances of people passing by.
Of course, it was not me who was drawing their attention. It was Soejima-kun, who was walking next to me. When I walked with Soejima-kun, I could feel the gazes of female students and office ladies.
I was drawn to him when I first saw him too.
Just by being there, he attracted attention. It was a stark contrast to me, who was invisible to everyone. I thought this as I admired his beautiful profile.
As we approached the Death God’s Mansion, the crowds thinned out.
As we turned a corner in the alley and saw the tiled stairs, Soejima-kun, who had been silent and avoided eye contact all the while, turned his face toward me.
“It may be cliche, but I was thinking we could try recreating the accident as far as you remember it.”
“Huh?” I looked at Soejima-kun in surprise.
“Are you ready for this?”
Soejima-kun gave me a skeptical look.
I hurriedly nodded my head repeatedly. My life is on the line. Of course I’m willing to do it.
“Try to remember how you fell down the stairs…”
Soejima-kun’s voice trailed off, and he looked at my hands. I quickly hid them. When he looked back up, he asked me, “Is it painful to recall the accident?”
I shook my head. My hands were trembling, just like yesterday. And yet I asserted, “I’m fine with that.”
“Are you sure?” Soejima-kun fixed his serious gaze on me.
“I’m afraid the Death God could reside in the mansion…” I admitted.
Even though I said I would follow, my legs froze when I stood before the long staircase.
“You don’t have to climb. I’ll do the reenactment. Just tell me what to do.”
With that, Soejima-kun stepped forward, intending to climb the stairs alone. I set my foot next to him and ascended one step. He looked up at me with a surprised expression.
“It’s fine. I’ll do it myself.”
Inwardly, I was scared of the Death God. But as a half-spirit, I’d had enough of things I couldn’t do.
If being unable to do anything in this world was what defined a spirit, then if I abandoned the few things I could do, I would truly become a spirit without any doubt.
Looking up the long staircase, I climbed step by step. Aware of Soejima-kun following a step behind me, I said, “What I remember is… it was raining heavily. I was running up the stairs when a gust of wind took my umbrella away. Distracted by that, I slipped and…”
“You fell,” Soejima-kun added as if to complete my sentence.
“The rain was hitting my body so hard it hurt, and the puddles around me were stained with blood. It was so cold it was chilling.”
“Why were you running up these stairs on such a day?”
As Soejima-kun asked me, I was about to answer when…
“Huh?”
Not noticing that I had suddenly stopped, Soejima-kun passed right through me and turned back with a surprised look.
I was holding my head. Suddenly, an intense, stabbing pain assaulted my head.
“Hey…”
Soejima-kun’s worried voice entered my ears, and I faintly opened my eyes, which I had tightly shut due to the pain. Seeing me, Soejima-kun looked around as if he had noticed something.
“Here, it’s the same as yesterday…”
A sound like clapping resonated in my head, and the pain pounded like it was about to split open. I barely opened my eyelids. Through my blurry vision, I looked in the direction of Soejima-kun’s gaze. The plants swaying in the wind next to the stairs entered my view.
Ah, yes. There was a black cat here yesterday. This is about halfway up the long staircase…
“Let’s go down. Can you move?”
Soejima-kun peered at me worriedly. I nodded while staggering, and descended the stairs I had just climbed.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I bent my body, hugged my knees, and took deep breaths while looking down.
The pain in my head gradually subsided.
Soejima-kun, looking down at me from the side, opened his mouth.
“I don’t know why, but… You can’t go up these long stairs anymore, can you?”
Still panting, I lifted my face.
“It’s hard to reenact it, huh?”
I shook my head left and right. As my head swayed, the subsided pain throbbed again.
“But these stairs are the only clue to my memories. The only way is to remember…”
Soejima-kun’s neat, sharp eyes momentarily shifted away from me, then caught me again. To match my eye level, he crouched down.
“Actually, I didn’t just look for you yesterday to apologize for what I said to you after my grandfather's accident.”
As he spoke, Soejima-kun began to unwind his gray scarf.
“A thing you said… caught my attention.”
“…What I said?”
When Soejima-kun began to unbutton his coat and the buttons of his shirt underneath, I was taken aback.
“Wh-What are you doing?” I retreated in surprise.
After Soejima-kun unbuttoned about three buttons on his shirt and spread the collar with his hand, he exposed the area under his collarbone.
When I looked at Soejima-kun’s chest, I gasped. When I raised my gaze from his chest, Soejima-kun was looking at me with a serious face.
“I’ve been told it looks like flower petals.”
On Soejima-kun’s chest, there was a small bruise that looked like flower petals.
My memory flashed back. The figure of Soejima-kun trying to leave the old man’s sick room appeared in my mind. I released my voice toward Soejima-kun’s back.
“The person whose fate to tie…”
“Do you remember anything?”
“No, I don’t.”
“…like flower petals.”
“To be honest, I thought I didn’t want to get involved. But, if I can see you, then maybe…”
“…You’re the one whose fate I have to tie?”
As I whispered quietly, Soejima-kun made a complicated face.
“When I thought of it that way, I felt as if I would ultimately cause your death, which made me feel bad. So, I searched for you.”
Soejima-kun began to rebutton his shirt.
“Why… did you keep silent until now?”
As I voiced the doubt I had been harboring, the hand of Soejima-kun, who had been adjusting his scarf, stopped abruptly.
“Because I thought it would be faster for you to regain your memory.”
Once Soejima-kun fixed his scarf, he checked on my condition.
“You seem to be okay now.”
After being told that, I realized that my headache had subsided.
“Let’s go.”
“Eh, where to?”
“The library. There should be local newspapers and such there. Let’s gather more information.”
Soejima-kun stood up straight.
“There must be other ways if we think about it. We don’t have to be obsessed with the long stairs.”
As he said that in his usual indifferent tone, he began to walk. I was still unable to move, though. I couldn’t understand what Soejima-kun was thinking.
The petal-shaped bruise… Perhaps to reassure me that there were other ways to return to my body, Soejima-kun told me about it.
Noticing that I wasn’t moving, the boy stopped and turned around, waiting for me. Startled back to reality, I stood up and ran toward him.