Interlude: A Certain Woman’s Confession 2
MY little sister remained quieter than the dead during my nineteenth winter. Spring arrived, I turned twenty, and then another year circled around, I turned twenty-one. So much stuff should’ve happened during that time, but not a single clear memory of it stayed with me.
Did I take part in the coming of age ceremony? I sort of remembered Mom’s puffy red eyes when she made me a long-sleeved kimono for the occasion.
Dad and Mom slowly began giving up on Rika ever recovering. Their daily visits to the hospital became every other day and then every three days. It almost seemed like a ceremony to bid their beloved daughter farewell over the years.
“You did nothing wrong, Hanaka.”
“Hanaka, please don’t blame yourself anymore.”
I was aware that it wasn’t Rika causing my parents to suffer but me. But I just couldn’t give up on my little sister for the life of me.
She had barely just turned eighteen.
She had been studying like her life depended on it.
She was driven to the depths of death before she had the chance to enjoy the best part of her youth, before she ever tasted the joys of being loved back by the man she loved.
✦ ✦ ✦
“RIKA!” I shouted as loud as I could from the other side of the road.
“Hana?” She stopped with the brightest smile on her face. She wasn’t swallowed up by the black hole at her feet.
Ah, thank God! I made it this time!
I always awoke from the dream just as I rejoiced.
Staring at the faint outline of the ceiling in the dark, I sluggishly pushed myself out of bed and turned the doorknob to the room next door.
An empty bed. An organized desk.
Where did that silly girl go? It’s already two in the morning.
I stood there in a drowsy daze for a while before that horrible memory settled in. The difficult to face reality that Rika would never again return to this room permeated my thoughts.
How many times did I have that exact same dream?
After the tenth time, the tears stopped coming. After the hundredth time, I stopped counting.
I was living in a waking nightmare that never ended.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE chances of Rika recovering from being in a vegetative state were close to zero. Her body would slowly atrophy, and her immune system would weaken. A lot of long-term coma cases like hers had patients dying within a few years from catching the slightest contagion.
Whatever the scientific diagnosis, Rika simply looked like she was sleeping when I saw her.
“Rika…I’m here.” I entered the hospital room after going through the sterilization process and held her pale hand.
See, her hand is still warm. How can they give up so easily on her?
“Call me Hana, Rika. Say it. Say H-a-n-a.”
Rika pretended not to hear my request.
You can’t react. Right. Sorry.
I switched my approach and told her about everything that came to mind, from the color of today’s sky to the type of flowers I brought to what our parents were doing. By the time I ran out of things to say, it was time for me to go home.
Leaving the hospital room was the hardest thing of all.
“…Just so you know…I’m waiting for you, Rika. I’ll always be waiting for you.” I reluctantly let go of her hand and left the room, constantly looking over my shoulder at her. I hated this moment the most.
I traveled all over the place confirming information I had found online or rumors I’d heard from others between my visits to the hospital. There were all sorts of weird things out there like a phone that allows you to speak with the dead or a mailbox where you could receive letters from the deceased.
Rika was still alive. Perhaps that was the reason I failed to find a way to bring her back no matter how hard I searched.
The turning point came during my twenty-fourth summer.
I had finally managed to find “him.”
That day, I went to this bridge in the neighboring prefecture where it was rumored I could see the person I wanted to see most in the world. Placing an offering of pomegranates at the bottom of the bridge on a specific day during the Obon Festival, the several day long festival dedicated to honoring ancestors, was said to grant you the ability to see someone you could never again meet in this lifetime.
I headed there at the exact time given in the rumors, placed an offering of pomegranates, and fervently chanted Rika’s name.
Please, Rika. Come back to me.
The bridge was famous for being a place where people came to pray, so people quietly walked away when they saw the pomegranate in my hand.
It was the devil’s hour of eventide when the cicadas cried the loudest.
Not a single soul was around.
A man appeared out of thin air upon the bridge where there was no one before. He materialized with the casual ease of the summer sediment drifting through the air.
“That wish of yours surpasses the realm of what is allowed for humans, Hanaka.” Golden hair tousled by the wind, the corners of the man’s perfectly shaped lips curled up. Every hair on my body stood on end, warning me of his inhumanness. “Do you still wish it regardless? Wish for the return of Rika.”
“I wish it.”
Those clear blue eyes that were like looking into the deepest ocean turned blood-red in the evening sunlight.
“We have a deal then. Play a game with me with your little sister and your very own life as the prize.” The man grinned from ear to ear with blissful rapture and began detailing the rules of this game.
My heart and mind had long since broken, for I swallowed that man’s existence and the words he said hook, line, and sinker. I listened attentively to the sweet promises he whispered in my ear.
January of the next year—on the same day of Rika’s accident—I was going to break away from this world. I was going to move over to a new world of his making and participate in a game of his choosing. My excitement dissipated the second he mentioned another world.
“You want to send me to another world? I don’t believe you’re capable of something like that. Give me a more realistic deal,” I demanded.
He shrugged it off. “You’ve greatly insulted me, but I’ll play nice for now. You haven’t become my contractor yet, after all. Only God is capable of making a world from scratch. But it isn’t too difficult to make a new world based off of a template that already exists.”
“…It’s not? Are you a demon or something?”
I didn’t understand even a fraction of the man’s logic, but he didn’t appear to be lying through his teeth either. If he is a demon, I might be able to exchange my soul in return for Rika. I stared at the man with that desperate hope.
“Call me whatever you wish. Judging what is good and evil is a task too great for humans. You can think of me in whatever way suits you.”
Perhaps he was just a megalomaniac who was getting kicks messing with my mind. But there was nothing else for me to cling to. Out of sheer desperation, I decided to take on this deal of his.
“…Explain how it works to me in more detail.”
“Now you’re talking. Hm, let me think,” he paused and rubbed his chin between his thumb and index finger. “Why don’t we set the stage as a music love simulation game? The one and same game Rika was obsessed with. Doesn’t that make things more entertaining?”
The man had a creepy level of knowledge about Rika. The more we spoke, the more my faith in him grew. I asked him an array of questions and confirmed the roles assigned to Rika and me.
“You win if you clear the music school director’s route,” he explained. “Upon winning, you will reveal the truth about everything to Rika, and she will be granted the opportunity to choose. Does she want to stay in that world or return to her old world?”
The man seemed to be having the time of his life. “My blood is boiling with excitement over my first legitimate bet in eons,” he admitted. I wasn’t even listening to him at that point.
It’s a chance for Rika to relive her life. There’s no way I’d pass this up. I agreed on the spot.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Good, good. Such a good girl. You’re such a sweet, gentle girl it makes me want to barf. Just for that, I’ll mix fragments of myself into the character you have to win over. I can enjoy myself more that way. You can rest easy knowing that he is a very beautiful and cruel creature. Don’t you forget, Hanaka. You must become a cute little girl who falls madly in love with that creature.”
“…I’ll try my best.”
Tomoi’s face came to mind. Five years had passed since I dumped him, and yet, I still loved him dearly. Can I be more shameful? I tightly balled my fists, using the pain of my nails digging into my palms to stop from thinking further.
He licked his lips at the sudden pain flashing across my face. “Haha. Marvelous. Your despair and selfish desire to sacrifice yourself shall taste most delicious.”
He dug his long nails into my neck as a sign of our contract. The sound of his nails piercing through my flesh was followed by the sensation of dripping blood. The pain was so agonizing I thought I would die; tears sprung to my eyes in a visceral reaction to it. But I viewed even that pain and suffering as proof that I was paying the price in Rika’s place.
The man slowly thrust his blood-soaked nails into his heart. “With this, the contract is formed. I will protect both you and Rika from death in that world until you turn eighteen. But don’t ever forget—I will be with you at all times.”
To this day, I can vividly recall his honeyed voice that sounded like he was whispering sweet nothings to a beloved new pet.