WHEN she reached her house, only the entrance and living room lights were on. The door was locked. When she felt the resistance of the locked doorknob, she remembered her mother was working the night shift at her part-time job. Lacking the will to even change clothes, Yura flopped down on her bed and lay there, spacing out for a good while.
She remembered she’d forgotten her laundry and padded reluctantly down the stairs. As she came down, she noticed the light on the answering machine was blinking on and off. She gulped.
She was getting more and more pathetic. Trembling, she peeked at the call log.
There was only one message, dated six days ago. Losing her energy, she stayed there, spacing out some more.
Pulling herself together, she pressed the playback button. The machine was set so that, when one hit the playback button, the call log was erased simultaneously. The voice pouring out of the machine after the pre-recorded message was Tomoko’s usual calm tone. She was saying they should go buy the things she needed for Home Ec after school the day after tomorrow.
“—and, oh yeah, I actually lost the list of things we need. What was it again? Can you tell me tomorrow? But anyway, three thousand yen should cover it, right?”
As she spoke, Yura could hear the smile in her voice.
Tomoko was the same, whether she was alone, or they were together. She chatted excitedly and offered a “Good night” with a laugh before hanging up.
“Well, see ya tomorrow. Good night!”
Yura instinctively reached for the pause button on hearing her voice. She was a second too late and heard the brief sound of the message being erased.
The house was suddenly quiet.
Tomo-chan…
Yura covered her face and approached the phone. Pressing her hands to her eyelids, she felt they were hot.
The voice on the phone sprang back to her mind. A voice from an average, sorrowless day. An ordinary day. Yura suddenly realized how irreplaceable such a thing was and lifted her head.
Tomoko’s smile suddenly appeared before her eyes.
As if her mood had changed, Yura began searching for her bike key.
She turned over the key holder above the shoe cupboard, and finally finding it, turned and ran out the door without locking up behind her.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE door to the shop wasn’t locked.
The darkened shop was only dimly illuminated by the faint light spilling out from the kitchen in the back. As Yura timidly stepped across the threshold and announced herself, she thought Tomoko’s lack of response at first was due to anger.
Shaking, she peeked in past the door, then gave an apology.
There was no reply.
Peeking around the kitchen as much as she could, she finally realized Tomoko had stepped out. The food Tomoko had made was on the table. Yura remembered that Tomoko would invite her to eat there whenever she was depressed.
“Whenever you’re feeling low, eat here with me. You can think things over in peace.”
The table, which normally held nothing more than snacks or drinks, held dinner for three tonight.
Yura suspected it was Tomoko’s, her father’s, and her little brother’s.
“If you just sit around thinking, you’ll get more and more miserable. But if you move your hands, that won’t happen. Sometimes, cooking while you think is better. Setting your worries on the backburner of your mind to simmer can yield delicious results. And some freshly made food.”
Yura crouched down as Tomoko’s words echoed through her mind. All of a sudden, tears spilled from her eyes, and she had to lower her voice.
Tomo-chan…
She was afraid Tomoko had become completely fed up with her.
She’d said herself that it was wrong—had quickly reached that conclusion—but she was ashamed of the way she’d still been able to do nothing but remain silent.
Weakling. That’s right. Apologize. Apologize and use that apology as a shield.
She never figured out what was truly wrong and right. She just apologized and covered her eyes and ears to reality as she did.
A bittersweet scent accompanied the smell of eggs wafting into her nostrils.
Tomoko’s specialty Chinese dish.
They probably wouldn’t ever get to eat it together again…
Not as long as Yura failed to change. As long as Yura couldn’t stop being a weakling or a coward.
She lifted her head and rose to her feet.
I thought I’d be able to do what I came here for before I was asked to leave or slunk out on my own: apologize to Tomo-chan, then take the night to think it over.
She thought of buying the ingredients she needed on the way home and making something she’d learned from Tomoko. Yura was bad at cooking and didn’t care for it in the first place, so she might end up focusing on that rather than her own problems.
She pulled her thin wallet from her pocket, looked around the shop, and suddenly spotted the mirror.
It was unchanged from the last time she’d touched it, but it’d been moved a bit further into the shop. Just standing there in a daze was uncomfortable, so Yura approached it and stood before the mirror for the first time in a while.
That boy…the one who lived inside the mirror.
She thought that perhaps that day was a turning point.
Yura wondered as she traced the fingerprints left on its surface.
Maybe it all started the day she saw him. It was only after that that those mysterious dreams filled her nights.
With the light pouring from the kitchen, the shop got a little brighter. In that little light, Yura concentrated on the decorative engraving.
Even in the dim light, if she looked hard enough, she could still see those letters from a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was because she was looking through tears, but the mirror seemed to glisten.
When she focused, the letters seemed to raise up on their own, one after the next, as if a spell had been cast upon them.
I can’t believe the trompe l’oeil technique existed when this was created.
A bright, circular line shone within the mirror, and Yura’s eyes widened. She turned around to see a car parking at a house across the way. The houses were all crammed in so tight that many didn’t have room for a driveway. So they all crammed in along the narrow shoulder, struggling to squeeze into their garage.
The headlights reflecting into the mirror seemed oddly beautiful. It shimmered so brightly, it seemed to shut out the moon. Shimmering and blurred in her tears, it was lovely.
When she thought about what might come next, she wanted to run away. She clamped her eyes shut and rested her head against the mirror.
I have to prepare myself. She can yell at me, scold me, be fed up with me, but I have to apologize. For my own weakness.
So I can fight on my own.
Suddenly, something shimmered in Yura’s vision. As if the morning sun were rising at the edge of her vision.
Yura opened her eyes. Suddenly, the mirror’s entire surface shone white. Almost uncannily so. Looking over her shoulder, she saw neither cars nor even people outside. Every car was parked in its spot.
A twinkling began to spread from between her fingers.
It was that script.
Where Yura had touched, the golden ivy became entwined and began to creep up. It ran along the circumference of the mirror, pushing its way through the grooves left from the engraving—slowly.
Like iron filling a delicate mold, the golden ivy crept its way along the mirror’s frame as Yura watched in awe. In just a short time, the glowing ivy had gone all around the mirror. The entire surface was glowing, illuminating the tiny shop. Like the water’s surface, light rippled within it.
A draft began to blow and, in that moment, Yura saw something unbelievable.
Playing at the corners of her vision, the bead curtain that separated the shop from the interior froze in the position the wind had blown it.
There were people outside. They had just stopped moving.
A driver who’d just gotten out of his car froze in place.
The clock on the wall had stopped moving, as if time itself had frozen.
This all happened instantly.
The moment seemed to last a frighteningly long time.
Only one thing moved when everything else had fallen still, albeit in slow motion.
The wind had begun to swirl.
A mouth like that of a large vacuum twisted open in the mirror. She could see the light rippling, as if blown about by the wind. Her hair began to flutter toward the hole—the inside of the mirror.
She was being sucked in.
The moment she realized what was happening, Yura was pulled toward the sparkling maw before her.
She had no time to resist before she plunged into the light. Her eyes were dazzled and all of her, up to the top of her head, was swallowed by the mirror. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, Yura melted into the gold and silvery light.