Once we were in private, however, that tiny smile faded.
“Kazune.”
“I know…”
“Look, I get how you feel. I know how much you love him, and I know that’s why you’re scared something bad might happen again. But…I don’t want him to be chained down by our fears.”
She didn’t speak, so I continued.
“I admit, there’s always a level of risk. What happened on New Year’s—the chances of that scenario were infinitesimally small, and yet it still happened. Looking at it that way, it might seem safer to stay together 24/7 and never set foot outside the house again. But if you ask me, it’s worth the price of admission to live our lives in the outside world. Every day is a gamble, but we all take that 1 percent of risk! If I stayed cooped up in my house because I was afraid of car accidents, I never would have met you, and Ryou never would have been born! We can’t rob him of those exact same happy possibilities.”
Over the past few days, I had spent a lot of time thinking about what exactly to say to her. I didn’t want to hurt her, but something needed to give. I decided to take the angle of Ryou’s best interests and what he stood to lose from her paranoia. I wanted him to have a life just as good—no, better than I had. And if she loved him like I did, then surely she’d feel the same.
However…
“You…” Her voice trembled along with her shoulders. “You only think that because you’re alive, Koyomi. Trust me, I know. Yes, happiness is worth a little risk—I agree with that. But…that’s only because we’re both alive…!”
Her body started to shake harder, and I started to think maybe I didn’t understand how she felt nearly as well as I thought I did. Admittedly, I hadn’t realistically considered the risk of death, and that was probably because I managed to defend Ryou from the threat that day. Deep down, it had convinced me that the next time something bad happened, I could protect him again, even though I had no guarantee. From her point of view, perhaps this was a reckless attitude to take.
“You only feel that way because the 99 percent success rate has never done you wrong. But what about that 1 percent? If there’s always one out of a hundred who pulls the short straw, then…is it so wrong to choose not to pull at all?”
I paused before answering. “Well, statistically, it seems like an awful shame to pass on a 99 percent chance of success out of fear of the last 1 percent—”
She grabbed my collar with both hands. “And I’m telling you that you can only say that because you’ve never gambled and lost!”
Behind her glasses, I could see tears welling up. Her eyes were full of despair, like they’d seen the darkest depths of hell itself. And the way she put that emphasis on a certain word… Something just wasn’t right. Why would she be so afraid of that 1 percent risk?
You can only say that because you’ve never gambled and lost. The way she phrased it, she made it sound like she had lost that gamble—
Just then, for some reason I can’t explain, my eyes were suddenly drawn to the white bandage wrapped around her left wrist. As I recalled, she was injured five days ago; I remembered coming home from work and being shocked to see the bandage. She said she wrapped it herself with her other hand and that’s why it was clumsy. In fact, it had looked an awful lot like it did now.
No…it was exactly the same.
Five days ago, she bandaged up her injury…and then she just left it as it was? Without changing it? Would she really do that?
“Kazune.” I grabbed her left arm.
She gasped. “No, don’t…!”
She squirmed and tried to shake me off. Being a man, I was stronger than she was. I yanked her arm close and unwrapped the bandages.
Underneath…there was no wound.
Instantly, I felt the resistance drain from her slender arm, and she slumped her shoulders without a word.
Why would she bandage herself if there was no wound? To hide something? If so, what? What could she need to hide on her left wrist?
“Kazune,” I began again, “where’s your IP band?”
Defeated, she meekly pointed to the vanity drawer. When I opened it, sure enough, I found an IP band hidden under her other things. I pulled it out and put it back on her wrist.
I powered it on, and the display read…013.
“Since when?” I asked quietly.
“…A week ago.”
One week ago—that was right when winter break ended and Kazune first started getting really anxious about Ryou. But that wasn’t my Kazune at all, was it? The paranoia, the helicopter parenting—it was all Kazune from World 13. And to prevent us from finding out, she pretended to have hurt herself so she could take her IP band off without suspicion. She then proceeded to spend the next week straight with Ryou. But why?
You can only say that because you’ve never gambled and lost.
There could be only one answer.
“Kazune… In your world, did he…?”
“…That’s right.”
I didn’t want to hear this…but…
“In my world…he was stabbed by that criminal… And he died!”
Tears streamed from her eyes. Her voice was halfway between a hiss and a whisper—probably to keep our Ryou from hearing—but I could tell she wanted to scream and curse the world into oblivion. Her body shook hard as she clenched her teeth, choking the sobs down, yet a few whimpers escaped. They tore my heart into shreds.
But all I could do was stand there and gaze down at the top of her head.
“It’s not fair, damn you…! Just thirteen worlds away…your Ryou gets to live…and play, and be happy…!”
This time, I was certain beyond a doubt. Under no uncertain terms did I “get how she felt,” and I regretted ever saying otherwise. I couldn’t possibly know how she felt. My entire argument was based on the fact that Ryou survived. If I had watched him die right in front of my eyes…I’d sure as hell never utter a word of that bull.
But Kazune had watched him die. She must have optional shifted here, to a world where he was alive. In rejection of the world where he wasn’t. And as a result…
Oh god.
That’s when I realized—if Kazune 13 was here, then my Kazune was trapped in a world where our son was dead.
“Kazune…!”
She must have known that I wasn’t calling for her, because Kazune 13 didn’t respond. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Kazune… Did you optional shift here?”
She nodded silently.
“Why is that?” I asked, as gently as possible.
She didn’t seem to want to answer this, but I wasn’t going to press her on it. I didn’t blame her whatsoever. Hadn’t she been through enough? If my world’s Kazune was the 1 face of a die, then this was her 6. They were both the same die. And I had vowed to love every her with every me.
“…I…”
At last, she began to speak. It’s okay, I mouthed as I stroked her hair.
“I wanted to…see him…”
I know.
“I wanted to see him…one last time…!”
That was where the dam burst. She pulled off her glasses and began to wail openly, wiping tear after endless tear. Mom and Ryou could probably hear her now, but I was in no position to ask her not to cry. The most I could offer her was a tight hug, rubbing her back as she sobbed like a child.
I thought about my next move. I would sooner tear my own face off than tell this Kazune to run back home. But in World 13 where Ryou was dead, my Kazune was sure to be grieving him too. I couldn’t just leave her there.
The closer a given parallel world was to your home world, the more frequently you’d shift to it, and the faster you’d shift back home. Conversely, the farther a world was, the less often you’d shift to it, and if you did end up there, it’d take a while to get back. World 13 was somewhere in the middle of these two extremes: not that close, but hardly far. Part of me felt like they might shift back on their own without me meddling—
“Mommy?” Just then, the door opened, and Ryou timidly peeked his head in. “Daddy? Why is Mommy sad?”
As soon as she heard Ryou’s voice, I felt Kazune’s arms tense around me. I gave her a reassuring little pat while I answered, “Oh, Mommy’s got a real bad stomachache. Could you come over and help her feel better?”
“Your tummy hurts?” Ryou came running right over to the bed, sat down next to Kazune, and reached out to her stomach. “Are you okay, Mommy?”
“Oh, Ryou…” She looked up, her face wet with tears, and gingerly stroked his hair. “Thank you, honey… You’re so sweet…”
“Don’t cry, Mommy,” he told her, though the look in his eyes suggested he might burst into sobs right along with her. “See, when you do this, the pain goes away.” He put his hand on her stomach and gently rubbed up and down, just as she always did for him whenever he had a stomachache. “How’s that? Feel better?”
“Yeah… I really do… Thank you, Ryou…”
Wiping her tears, she smiled at him…and I took that as my cue to step out of the room. Part of me wanted to give them a little more time together, and another part of me wanted to go reassure my mother that everything was okay. When I arrived in the living room, I found Mom staring blankly into space with the TV off.
“Mom?”
“Oh, Koyomi… How’s Kazune-chan?”
“She’s okay now. Ryou’s looking after her,” I replied, though in hindsight I wasn’t sure what exactly I meant by okay.
“All right, well—”
Before she could finish, however, a phone call came in. I looked at her, and she chuckled and gestured for me to answer it. I checked the screen.
“It’s Dad…? Sorry, Mom, I should take this.” I directed my attention to the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Koyomi. Got time to talk?” my father asked over the line.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Sorry for the short notice, but could you and Kazune-kun come to the lab ASAP?”
“Right now? Kazune too? What’s going on?”
The laboratory was open 365 days a year and employees took days off on rotation. It wasn’t unheard of for them to call me in like this, but I could tell from my father’s voice that something was amiss.
“Well, you see…”
The next words out of his mouth were beyond my wildest imagination.