“Kagawa-san, your socks are sliding down.”
“……”
Yanagihara was speaking to her, but she ignored him. Rikoko had nowhere in particular to go, so she simply wandered around. For some reason, Yanagihara was following her.
“You know,” he said, “it’s kinda uncool. You’re a girl, after all. You should take more care in choosing what you wear.”
Shut up, she wanted to snap at him. I don’t need you lecturing me. Give me a break. I’ve already got a headache, don’t give me any more grief.
She let out a sigh. She had sighed a lot today. It seemed that was all she could do. Of course, she had plenty of reasons for it. In fact, there were so many it was all a jumbled mess.
There’s a circus named “Depression” that’s started up in my head. Right now, they ’re in the middle of a performance. Sigh.
She hadn’t bothered to count the number of sighs, but she must have easily done over a thousand by now.
Rikoko pulled a white box from her bag. It was a pack of cigarettes. She pulled one out and put it in her mouth. She had just recently taken up the habit in order to take her mind off things. She didn’t look good doing it, though. Taking out the Zippo lighter stuffed between the cigarette box and the cellophane wrapper, she lit up.
She had practically forced someone to give her the Zippo lighter. “If you don’t smoke, then give it to me,” was what she had said when she’d taken the lighter, even though she hadn’t actually smoked at the time either. But now she did smoke, so that made it all okay.
Rikoko inhaled the smoke into her lungs and exhaled it with a sigh.
“Do you like smoking?” Yanagihara asked.
“Not really…” she answered.
The boy cocked his head in curiosity. “Then why do you smoke?”
The girl cocked her head as well. “…Hmm…” the girl pondered. “I don’t know. Why do I smoke…? Even though I hate… cigarettes.” She didn’t even understand herself. It all seemed so strange.
It was all about her. You like because you like. You hate because you hate. Couldn’t everything be that simple? Why can’t things always be that way?
“I wonder why?” Yanagihara asked and smiled as if he were truly enjoying himself.
Why is he able to smile? Rikoko asked herself. You shouldn’t be able to smile given your situation. But then… neither should I.
“I mean,” she ventured. “Y’know…” Rikoko inhaled, and the tip of her cigarette glowed red. She exhaled the smoke in a huff.
“What?” Yanagihara wondered, still smiling.
It pissed her off, just a little bit.
I can’t laugh about it, not at all…
Rikoko asked, “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?” Yanagihara asked, puzzled.
Give me a break!
“C’mon,” she exclaimed. “…You’re already dead!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Yanagihara Kazutomo. Junior high, second year. Deceased at age fourteen.
Three days ago, Yanagihara had died. It had been an accident. It had been raining every day, so the ground had been slippery. Yanagihara had caught an old lady who slipped on the steps of a pedestrian bridge. In the process, he had also slipped and had fallen straight down the stairs.
If it had just been broken bones, he might have gotten away with his life, but he had been injured in vital areas. So he had died. Just like that.
Since Rikoko lived nearby, she had been picked as the representative of her class from grade school and forced to attend the funeral. However, she’d barely known him. In fact, she would have hardly noticed him if it hadn’t been for “that” incident.
Yanagihara had seen Rikoko with her boyfriend. It wouldn’t have mattered to Rikoko, except that she and her boyfriend had been exiting a hotel together. She had panicked like crazy. Who would’ve thought she’d run into someone she knew at a place like that?
Now the only person who knew was dead. And she remembered, now, that ever since she had attended Yanagihara’s funeral, her headaches had gotten worse.
The face of Yanagihara, smiling in the display picture at the funeral, had really pissed her off.
What the hell are you smiling about? You got to escape from this crappy world. Are you enjoying yourself, now that I’m having so many problems? You dirty rat. You escaped.
“…So, why did you come back?” she asked Yanagihara. Rather, she asked the “ghost” of Yanagihara.
They were walking along the river bank. Rikoko stopped suddenly and faced Yanagihara, who had been walking directly behind her. Apparently he had visible feet.
“Ha ha ha! You’re still attached to this world, aren’t you?”
Yanagihara smiled vaguely at the comment even though there was nothing to smile about. Rikoko, meanwhile, felt dizzy. There surely was nothing to smile about in this situation.
All this time, Rikoko had been receiving strange looks from people passing by. Some even looked back at her and pointed fingers. Others would quickly avert their eyes, as if they had seen something ugly. And there were those who ignored Rikoko, as if she didn’t exist. She blamed it on Yanagihara.
I’m being treated like some weirdo!
It seemed the only person who could see Yanagihara was Rikoko. Even the three guys who had tried to hit on her earlier had decided she was nuts and scampered away when she suddenly started talking to the air beside her.
Give me a break. Argh, my head hurts.
—Ring.
The sound of a bell.
The sound rang inside her head. It was strangely loud and resonated deep in her ears.
A cat appeared by her feet, looking up at her. It seemed as if it had suddenly popped out of thin air. It was a strange-looking cat, with golden eyes and an excessively large bell attached to its collar. It would have been almost completely black, if not for the tip of its tail, which was white.
Rikoko felt an urge to play with the creature. “Come here, kitty. Come.” She bent down and called the cat over.
“Don’t get so friendly, human! Or you’ll find yourself in a world of hurt!”
The cat talked! It spoke in a cute voice, like a little boy’s, but it said such nasty things.
“Huhhh?” Rikoko was bewildered. She hadn’t wavered at the sight of Yanagihara’s ghost. But this time, her already wide-open eyes opened even wider.
“……”
Then, incredibly, a little girl also appeared out of thin air.