I’m slightly shocked by my own appearance in the morning light. I’m covered in mud and scrapes, my clothes are torn, and the shoulder seam has come undone on my jean jacket so that the arm is falling off. My socks are stained a color I’ve never seen before, thanks to all the blood and dirt. But there’s nothing I can do about any of it. I can’t afford to buy new clothes, and the battery is dead on my phone. Besides, the stores won’t have opened yet, and I don’t know Tokyo, so I have no idea where I am in relation to anything else.
In an attempt to achieve the bare minimum of personal grooming, I hide behind the piles of construction materials to brush the dirt off my clothes and run my fingers through my hair. After that, I climb over the iron gate on the opposite side of the lot from the moat and step onto the sidewalk. A businessman who happens to be passing by looks at me in shock. He doesn’t say anything, though. He glances back a few times, but he keeps walking.
The sidewalk runs along a perfectly average street. According to a sign, it’s called Uchibori Road. I go into a convenience store nearby and plug my phone into a free charging station. While I’m waiting for it to turn on, a young male employee makes eye contact. He frowns at me for a while but ultimately says nothing and goes to the back of the store. A few minutes later, two high school girls around my age come in. When they see me, they stop a few meters away and whisper to each other. I can hear them saying, “Look, she’s not wearing shoes!” “That looks like blood!” “I wonder if she’s been abused. Should we talk to her?” They seem genuinely worried, so I start thinking up excuses in case they approach me.
Just then, my screen turns on with an electronic ding. I unplug the cable, stride over to a shelf with disposable batteries, and take one compatible with my phone. Then I use my phone to pay for it at the register. I speed-walk past the two girls, bowing to them as I go. I’m grateful for their concern, but I don’t want to talk to them.
I know where I’m going next.
After hooking it up to the portable battery, I pull up a map on my phone and plot my route to Ochanomizu Station.
The hospital closest to Souta’s apartment is a university hospital inside a building so tall I have to crane my neck to see the top. A broad, sloping approach leads inside from the sidewalk, and even this early in the morning, it’s dotted with people who appear to be hospital staff going to work. I wait for a moment when the guard isn’t nearby to jog inside.
I enter into a hall with a high ceiling and a café that isn’t open yet, then take the escalator to the second floor. No one is around, and the shutter is down on the outpatient reception window. I check a building map for my destination, then take the stairs to avoid running into anyone. I crouch down and walk quickly through a hallway with patient rooms on either side, reading nameplates as I go.
I finish checking the first floor of patient rooms and have just started on the second when I find a nameplate reading HITSUJIROU MUNAKATA. I try out the name in a whisper: “Munakata.” Then I place my hand on the bar of the sliding door. There’s only a momentary resistance before the door slides open.
The room is dim, and the hospital smell is even stronger than in the hallway. It’s a combination of disinfectant, freshly washed sheets, obligatory bouquets, and human bodies that have been in the same place for a long time. The vital-signs monitor is emitting a regular string of low, quiet electronic beeps.
It’s a double room, but the bed closer to the door is empty. A large form is sleeping in the bed by the window. I can tell at a glance that this is Mr. Munakata—Souta’s grandfather.
The resemblance is striking. The steep, beautiful line of the nose, the prominent forehead, the long eyelashes resting on his cheeks. Souta’s handsome face is still seared in my memory, and the old man’s face is an exact copy of it. But the powerful life force that animated Souta has drained away completely from his grandfather. Deep wrinkles line every part of his face, and his skin is like a sheet of paper. The long hair fanned out on his pillow is white as snow, as are his eyebrows and eyelashes. A small device is clipped onto his left pointer finger, and the fine veins on the back of his hand are nearly colorless. The indentations around his neck and collarbone are so deeply sunken they could hold little pools of water. Sleeping quietly on his bed, he reminds me of some large but gravely wounded wild animal on the verge of death.
“Souta failed, didn’t he?” a low, hoarse voice abruptly asks.
I stare in surprise. Mr. Munakata is talking with his eyes closed.
“I’m s-sorry—I came in without knocking!” I say, flustered. He hadn’t been sleeping. Or maybe my presence woke him. “Um, Souta told me you were in the hospital, and—”
“Ahhh…”
I can’t tell if he’s answering me or sighing. He opens his eyes. After staring at the ceiling for a minute, he slowly shifts his gaze to me.
“Did you get roped into this?”
His voice is another reminder of Souta—quiet and calm—and his eyes are the same vaguely bluish shade. The red veins on the whites stand out brightly.
“What happened to my grandson?” he asks.
“Um…,” I say, looking down. “He turned into a Keystone. He’s in Ever-After…”
“…I see,” his grandfather whispers like a sigh. His voice is emotionless. He turns his head toward the half-open curtains. “I saw the worm from this window yesterday. I wanted to go to it, but this old body doesn’t do what I want it to anymore.”
“That’s why—!” I say, stepping close to his pillow and asking the thing I’ve been desperate to know for so long. “Please tell me how to get into Ever-After!”
“…Why?”
“Uh…”