Ktok, ktok.
Ktok, ktok.
The footsteps drew nearer, quarter notes in a steady beat.
Mio couldn’t move.
Kaname kept his hand on her back.
“The blackout was probably just a high-voltage pulse sent to the entire building from the electrical substation, which shattered the fluorescents. That would have flipped the hospital’s breakers, nothing more.”
Ktok, ktok.
“Consider this…”
Ktok, ktok.
Ktok, ktok.
“If he happens to stop at his ‘family members” rooms, it’s only because he figured out where they’d be before the blackout. He’s not using some kind of psychic phenomenon to sense them or anything like that.”
Ktok.
Ktok.
The strides themselves were getting longer, and the sound of the footfalls was growing duller. What had been a regular rhythm was noticeably changing pace, drawing Mio’s attention and gnawing at her mind.
She couldn’t stop imagining hundreds of things getting into her sleeves. Things that rustled like needles and were textured like armor…
She wanted to scream.
Centipede legs, crawling all over her skin beneath her clothes. The snake writhing on her back was now two. She couldn’t move.
Thousands of earthworms entered her body through her feet…
Kaname’s hand went from her back to her sleeve. He grabbed both of her wrists, closing off the sleeves, squeezing hard enough that it hurt.
“If you feel anything unpleasant, it’s a result of your fear. You are the cause of those sensations. You’re fine; there’s nothing scary here.”
Ktok. The footsteps stopped.
At some point, the horrible freezing cold inside the room had eased.
The door opened. It wasn’t an especially heavy door, yet it made a spectacular sound as it came open.
A man wearing glasses peeked through the crack.
He was dressed in a shabby old suit. His lenses caught the light, making it hard to see the color of his eyes, or the look in them. There was an unsettlingly powerful menace coming off his thin frame.
Had Kaname’s companions outside not tried to stop this man? Did the trap they’d set fail? A siren blared like lightning outside. The noise split the atmosphere in the room.
Kaname exhaled, as if to say, “Finally, we meet.” Then he spoke to the unfamiliar man.
“It’s been a long time…Dad.”
Lightning flashed.
There was no rain, and no storm clouds covered the sky, but a bolt illuminated all of existence. A short while later, its thunder reached the hospital, roaring and close.
The sound was like that of living trees cracking apart. Flames rose somewhere past the window. Perhaps a nearby tree had been struck. Mio didn’t know. Her eyes were trained on the man’s face, not the blaze.
The man’s face slowly warped at Kaname’s words, and the expression behind his glasses became clear.
Despite the menace that triggered Mio’s fight-or-flight response so powerfully…
He looks like a normal person.
Just a normal man, about my dad’s age.
Like someone’s nice, normal father.
On the news, field reporters occasionally flagged down passersby to ask for opinions. A tipsy man might wait by a train station until someone with a microphone caught him. “Sir, may I have a moment?” the reporter would ask. “Sir, aren’t you afraid your wife will scold you for this?” Sir, sir, sir. It was a term applied to any middle-aged man. And here was one of them—someone’s normal-looking father.
Mio’s eyelids widened a bit.
At last, her body could move again. She glanced at Kaname and sucked in a sharp breath.
She’d never seen this expression from him before. Since their recent reunion, his resting face had been closer to a smiling one than back in high school. That was gone now, though. His features were screwed up, like he was about to cry from rage.
The bell rang.
It wasn’t Kaname. His hands were supporting Mio’s shoulders. He stared straight ahead, at the father of the family.
The fury in his eyes was an indescribable mixture of searing anger and grief. And all of it was focused upon the man who’d just entered.
They started coming to Mio’s mind, one after the other.
All of the things Kaname had said.
The things he’d mentioned about the father.
“It’s the first time he’s lost three at once, so I’m sure he will. We’re waiting for him now.”
“Waiting for whom?” Mio had asked.
“Father.”
And that wasn’t all.
“That’s right. Yotsumiya Foods is Father’s company.”
“I’ll wait inside. If Father comes, let me know.”
Father.
Father.
When the man finally, abruptly appeared, Kaname addressed him directly.
“It’s been a long time…Dad.”
Noises sounded in Mio’s head.
The bell’s ringing grew louder and deeper. There was more than one, in fact. Many, many bells, and their sounds overlapped, shattered, and scattered; an entire mass of formerly unified sound splintered and broke apart.
Concerned, Mio had asked Kaname. “Aren’t you worried that you might become the elder son?” He’d looked shocked until he regained his poise.
“I’m fine. Thanks for your concern, but that won’t happen. It would be truly ridiculous if I became his son.”
Oh…
The flash of the lightning strike died out, leaving the man standing in the doorway looking rather shocked. It was clear, even from behind the glasses, that he was staring at Kaname. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s, as though pulled by an invisible thread.
“Kaname,” he said.
Kaname’s face scrunched up. He looked ready to cry.
Their faces were very similar. Heavy, puffy lids. Hooked noses. Sloping eyebrows.
Because they were father and son.
Actual father and son.
“Dad.” Kaname took one hand off Mio’s shoulder and arched his back, seemingly resonating with the chimes coming from outside the room. He reared back like he was taking an enormous breath, then straightened up, bell in his hand.
Ding!
Mio heard the rustle of wind passing through bamboo, the sound she’d always heard outside her family home.
“Dad!” Kaname cried. “Come back!”
“Eeyyaaaaaaahhh!!”
There was a scream.
The wind billowed, whipping up the flames outside, which grew and stretched to reach for the sky. They struggled, anguished, as though in the throes of death…
The fresh scent of bamboo filled the hospital room, accompanied by the sharp, charred stink of something burning.