Chapter 6:
Death and the Properties of Light
AFTER WE PAID HONOR to our ancestors for Obon, we got a call from Yukari’s mother, telling us that Yukari had died. It was because of some kind of experiment, she said. There was an accident big enough to destroy the building, and little of her body remained. A Japanese Jaunt representative came to Japan with a small urn and told her parents, “We’re sorry, but we went ahead and cremated her because it was so gruesome an event.”
They said they didn’t know the details, but that was what they were sent to tell them, and Jaunt’s representative couldn’t provide more information about the accident that killed Yukari because it was classified. Shocked, Yukari’s parents wept. Yukari’s mother, brother, and sister flew into an open rage, yelling at the Jaunt representative. “How could this happen, less than half a year after Yukari left?!” they demanded.
Yukari’s father asked quietly, “Will you please give us more information? We want to know the facts. An experiment? What kind of experiment? What kind of safeguards were you taking in a place where children were? National secrets? Confidentiality? What about human rights? What about how we trusted you with our child?! If you don’t give us some satisfactory answers, we’ll have a thing or two to say about it!”
Anyone who knew about Yukari’s eyes ought to have been able to see that her death was super fishy, whether or not they were her bereaved parents. Then, I was too dazed to think about anything.
Maybe they expected it or maybe they respected the influence Yukari’s father still commanded at the National Police Agency even after he retired, but in any case, Jaunt gave Yukari’s father permission to inspect the organization. They said they didn’t see the necessity, but they would make a gesture of goodwill. See for yourself and you’ll understand how critical matters are here, they said.
Yukari’s funeral was held in Japan, at Yukari’s house, quietly. It was all adults there. There were police and government bigwigs too. I was the only kid present. None of our old classmates had been invited—not even Nanami.
Thinking back on it, maybe Yukari’s parents knew about Nanami’s trauma, and how Nanami started getting over it as a result of Yukari’s departure. Maybe that’s why they didn’t reach out to her. That said, I’m not going to call them cold.
At that time, I myself didn’t give a flying fig for Nanami. Not only did I not care that Nanami wasn’t there, I was too preoccupied to even think of it, standing there silently in summer in a desolate winter forest of scattered adults dressed in somber black.
I remember facing the coffin laid on a platform of plain wood and thinking, Huh, Yukari’s body’s not in there. Time had frozen for me.
Everything seemed dark and bleak in my eyes.
Then something gold flashed in the corner of my eye. In my drab, black-dotted field of vision, the color stood out so conspicuously, I was entranced. It took me a second to register that it was the color of someone’s hair.
Yeah, I remember that hair color, the shape of that back. She looked totally different in her black clothes and tied-up hair, but there was no mistaking it. Before me was the one who’d taken Yukari away.
“Alice…?”
My voice was practically a whisper, yet the blonde girl turned as if pulled in by the sound. We made eye contact. Beneath her swollen eyelids, her eyes were as cloudy as those of a sick fish, terrified and totally lacking the audacious sparkle they once held. Before I could open my mouth, though, Alice averted her eyes and walked away, turning her back to escape my gaze. She promptly disappeared down the hall.
Before I knew it, I was running after her. I didn’t care that everyone was looking at me. I ran down the hall and out the door. Even though we were in the middle of a funeral, the sky outside was shining bright, and it made me dizzy for a second. Despite my hustle, Alice was gone. I looked around and spotted a long, black car on a street far from Yukari’s house. Alice had just opened the door. “Alice!” I shouted.
Alice flinched. She obviously heard me, but she didn’t look at me. She just got in the car and closed the door. I couldn’t see her face through the tinted window. I ran after the car. The engine revved and the car drove off, but I didn’t stop. I kept running, glaring as the car got smaller. The pain of pebbles stabbing my feet alerted me that I wasn’t wearing shoes. I’d run so hard, I’d flown out in my socks. But even so, I willed myself onward. When the black car completely disappeared from my vision, all at once my feet and my whole body shook. I slumped to the ground right where I was. At last, I realized I was crying.
The tears wouldn’t stop.
Alice ran away from me. Alice, who once called me a nobody and picked an unending fight with the entire world. Alice, who told me I couldn’t protect Yukari.
Alice, who bragged that she and Jaunt could.
She ran away from me.
My fists clenched in rage. But what then made them quiver was neither anger nor indignation, but doubt. Why would Alice run—Alice, who was so proud? Why did she run away from me like a skulking mouse? Did she do something wrong? Was it that she failed to protect Yukari? Was it that she’d talked a good game and then let her die a meaningless death?
Weren’t you Yukari’s friend? Did you do something that makes it impossible to call yourself that anymore?!
If not, why would you run in the middle of her funeral?
If I had thought about it objectively, I should have been able to see it: no matter how precocious she was, no matter how much of a genius she might be, Alice was still a child. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see her run, unable to face me. But I wanted something to rely on, to shield me from a reality I didn’t want to believe. I had to have something to cling to or I’d lose my mind. For that reason, I assumed that Alice ran because she was ashamed.
Maybe Yukari’s death wasn’t an accident…
I didn’t have any real proof. I was mostly just taking out my frustration. Yet I got stuck on that idea. I needed it. A color to paint my blank mind. Something to burn on the fuel of my feelings so I wouldn’t have to think.
A goal.
At last, I’d found an excuse to avert my eyes from the reality I didn’t want to face. With a strange sense of satisfaction, I thought: If you want to run, run all you want, Alice. I won’t let you get away. Not until I find what it is that’s eating you up inside.
I can grieve after that.