I was so blindsided by this that I couldn’t answer for a moment.
“Who, me? No way—are you kidding? She’s like an apex predator; we’re not even on the same level of the food chain. If she’s a killer whale, then I’m a puny little jellyfish.”
“Uh-huh,” she grumbled dubiously.
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Well, you just seem awfully concerned about her.”
“I do?”
I was about to clarify that I really wasn’t, but then the words caught in my throat as I recalled Shohei saying almost exactly the same thing. The Stockholm syndrome conversation. Maybe it really did seem like I had a thing for Koharu from an outsider’s perspective. That wasn’t the case at all, to be clear. Sure, she had a pretty face, but her personality sucked. She was bossy, threatening, not to mention stubborn and selfish, while also a crybaby deep down… Wait. Hold the phone.
“Oh. Yeah, uh… I think I know why that might be.”
“Do tell.”
“Because she kinda reminds me of my little sister, in a way.”
“You mean like her face, or what?”
“Nah, her personality. Karen could be pretty stubborn a lot of the time too. Not in a selfish way—she’d throw fake tantrums and start crying and whatnot, but it was just a front she used to stop my folks from fighting or whatever. She was pretty calculating.”
Karen had been a super sharp kid. She realized early on that for a lot of families, it was the kids holding the marriage together. Anytime our mom and dad started having even a minor domestic dispute, she instantly picked up on it and start begging them to take us to the amusement park or the aquarium or whatever in an attempt to relieve the tension and force them to start making amends. I knew it hadn’t just been me imagining things either; she had definitely been stubborn on purpose.
“…Not sure I follow,” said Anzu.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m bad at explaining these things. But trust me, I definitely don’t have any deeper feelings for Kawasaki or anything,” I said conclusively, putting an end to the conversation before it could go any further off the rails. Then I asked a question of my own in rebuttal: “Besides, you seem pretty concerned about her too, y’know. What with all that genuine life advice you gave her.”
“That’s just because…her mom asked us to get along with her.”
“Pretty sure she meant ‘you kids play nice now,’ not ‘literally make my daughter see the error of her ways and turn over a new leaf’…”
“Yeah, well. Some of us are overachievers, Tono-kun.”
There wasn’t really anything I could say to that—especially since the proof was in the pudding. Anzu seemed to have had a genuinely positive impact on Koharu… For now, at least. Whether it would actually last was another question entirely.
On that note, the conversation died off, and we stood in silence for the remainder of the time it took for the bus to arrive. It wasn’t an unpleasant silence by any means. Sometimes just being alone with someone feels nice, even if there isn’t anything to say.
The next thing I knew, I was at the aquarium, surrounded by a world of ethereal blue. The circular floor lights in the underwater tunnel were dim, and there were few people around. Through the thick ceiling glass, I watched as a massive whale shark floated leisurely over my head. Off to my side, a school of sardines swam by, so densely packed that they almost looked like an even bigger fish than the previous one.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there—if for no other reason than that my dead sister was crouched in front of the glass beside me. Then the cogs began to turn in my brain, and I realized that there was only one real explanation for this bizarre phenomenon. I was having a dream, a dream of the day all four of us had taken a trip to the aquarium as a family, just weeks before Karen passed away.
“It’s so pretty,” Karen whispered, pressing both hands against the glass. However, the look on her face told a different story; she looked kind of lethargic. I assumed her legs were tired, judging from the way she kept shifting her weight from ankle to ankle. Wanting to share in this lucid dream with her as long as I could, I traced my memories back through the past and tried to respond with the exact same words I’d said back then.
“You wanna head home soon?”
“Mmm, nah,” said Karen, her ponytail swinging from side to side as she shook her head. “Mom and Dad still need time to make up. Let’s stay a little longer.”
Our mother and father were standing some distance away, watching over us as they talked about who knew what. I did hear them laughing from time to time, which led me to believe that things were on the upswing.
“Well, if your feet hurt, I could give you a piggyback ride,” I offered.
“Better idea! Let me ride on your shoulders!” said Karen, upping the ante.
“What? Here?”
“C’mon, pleeease?!”
Karen started yanking on the corner of my shirt, stretching the fabric as she whipped it from side to side. Begrudgingly, I knelt and let her climb on my shoulders, then held her ankles tight as I stood up, and she started giggling with glee. She rested her hands on my head, then gathered a big clump of my hair and bundled it together into a little topknot with a hair tie. This was my “control stick,” which Karen could pull whichever way she wanted to have me move in that direction. It was basically just a more advanced form of playing horsey, but we had fun with it.
“Forward, Brobot!” she would say, and I’d start marching forward while making hydraulic whirring sounds with my mouth for each footstep (she really liked when I did that). Then when I’d inevitably get tired, I’d say “Re-questing re-fuel,” and she’d hop down to give me a break. When she told me to fire my lasers, I’d kick over whatever small object lay in our path (not the most convincing laser beam, but we made do).
“Are you having fun, Kaoru?”
“Sure am,” I replied. If Karen wanted me to take her somewhere, then I wanted to go there too. Her smile was more than enough reward.
“Yeah? Good,” Karen took her hands off the control stick and gently ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m glad we came, then.”
I was awakened by the sound of my alarm clock going off, and I opened my eyes to the familiar sight of my bedroom ceiling. Specks of dust danced in the few beams of morning sunlight that managed to leak in through the curtains. I sat up in bed and switched off the alarm, still reeling from the lucidity of that dream.