I looked up at him, and he gazed back at me with his usual, gentle smile. I could feel my heart skip a beat for the umpteenth time today—only this time, it wasn’t due to fear.
“Of course I did,” he said. “Don’t you remember what I said before? You’re like…”
He stopped short for a moment, then continued in a softer voice:
“…You’re like a little sister to me, Yuri…”
The moment I heard those words, a wave of melancholy washed over me.
“…Don’t call me that,” I muttered.
I’m not your little sister, I wanted to say.
Immediately, I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
“Sorry?” asked Akira, tilting his head curiously.
Apparently, he hadn’t heard me. Okay, phew. Thank god.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said, shaking my head.
Just then, a cloud of sparks started spewing forth from the house next door.
“Let’s go,” said Akira. “It’s not safe here.”
“Okay…” I replied.
But when I tried to stand up, a sharp pain shot down my right leg. And even after the initial stab of pain went away, there was a dull, throbbing ache that persisted. Terrified, I looked down to see through a hole that had been burned in my monpe that the pillar had left a large, bright-red welt on my thigh. Honestly, I was relieved at what I saw; as far as burns went, it could definitely be a lot worse. It still hurt quite a bit every time I moved my leg, though. Thankfully, Akira picked up on this and reached his arm around my back to help keep me upright.
“Doesn’t look like you’ll be able to walk on that,” he said. “Here—hop on.”
He crouched down in front of me, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. As he looped his arms around my legs, I suddenly felt rather embarrassed to be given a piggyback ride by him.
“Y-you know what, I’m fine,” I said, trying to push away. “I’ll just deal with it…”
Akira looked back over his shoulder at me, clearly confused.
“Wait…what are you blushing for?” he said, chuckling lightly.
“I-I’m not blushing!” I said.
“Really? Your face is bright red.”
“Shut up!”
I smacked him on the shoulder as hard as I could, but judging from his mischievous grin, it didn’t even seem to register with him.
“Come on,” he said. “Stop pouting and let’s skedaddle, already. I’m gonna run as fast as I can, so be sure to hold on tight.”
With that, he rose to his feet and hoisted me up before I could even get a word in edgewise. I didn’t know how to feel; since I’d never known my father, this was the first piggyback ride I’d ever been given by a man.
Akira immediately took off running. With his every stride, I could feel myself lurching upward; had I not been holding on tight, I probably would have already fallen off. I squeezed my arms tightly around his neck, clinging to his broad, muscular shoulders. As long as I held fast, I knew I’d be safe and sound—though I was embarrassed at the thought that he might be able to feel my fluttering heartbeat against his back.
Even still, I clung to him as tightly as I could. I wanted to be as close as physically possible—to never be apart from this man who’d run into a sea of fire to rescue me.
Suddenly, I realized that I hadn’t heard any bombs dropping in a little while now. The thought that the worst was over came as a slight relief.
Unfortunately, the terror had only begun.
The road leading to the Tsuru-ya Mess Hall was so utterly ablaze that it looked completely impassible, so we started making our way toward the largest river in the vicinity—the idea being that the fire couldn’t reach beyond the water.
Along the way, we passed through areas where the fire had already died down, simply because there were no more buildings left to burn. Clinging to Akira’s back, I could feel my blood run cold as I looked around at all the destruction.
“How could this…be…” I mumbled.
It was all I could think to say—but my voice was too quiet for Akira to hear as he ran full speed ahead, apparently. I gazed wordlessly at the smoldering remains of the streets I’d walked down just days prior.
The blood-red sky overhead.
So many houses, all charred, empty husks.
The smell of burning wood hanging in the air.
And the corpses—so many corpses, just lying in the streets.
Some of them carrying infants close to their breast.
Some of them siblings, hand in hand.
Some of them completely alone.
All of them motionless.
I could feel the reflex to vomit coming on again. I shut my eyes tight and tried my best not to think about the horrors I was seeing. But even without looking at them, I could still hear them burning—still smell the pungent scent of roasting human flesh. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I turned my head to the side and puked onto the ground as Akira ran. All I’d eaten this morning was a thin rice porridge with a few vegetable scraps mixed in. I’d already vomited that up earlier, so this time, all that came up was pure stomach acid. I was sure Akira must have heard me puking, but he didn’t say a word.
On our way to the river, we encountered yet another horrific sight—a man with his entire body on fire, screaming in pain as he rolled around in the street.
“Hold on, Yuri,” said Akira, setting me down.
He stripped off his jacket as he ran over to the man, then attempted to use it to bat away the flames. But the fire refused to go out, and before long, the man went limp as a ragdoll on the ground. He reached up a trembling hand in agony—but then it fell back against the hard earth as well, and the man stopped moving entirely.