“Ha ha ha ha! I knew you were a fake. I was an idiot for believing for even a second that you weren’t. I’ll use my own power to bring back the real Mabu.” Reo clawed at his chest, raking his fingernails over the fabric of his shirt before leaving.
It wasn’t as if all hope was lost.
“Just one more plate. As long as I can get one more Wishing Plate…!”
Skytree went dark at midnight. From Kazuki’s room, the tower was now only illuminated by the ring of light that ran across the perimeter of its observation deck and the high-altitude aircraft warning lights.
A hand slipped under the pillow on the top bunk, pulling out a single silver Wishing Plate. The intruder meticulously climbed back down and tiptoed to the door, but just as they were sliding it closed…
“Kazu-chan?” Haruka’s voice called out from the bottom bunk.
“Sorry. Did I wake you?” Kazuki helped his little brother up, and the two sat side by side on the bed.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Uh, yeah…for a bit.”
Haruka asked, “Again, without telling anyone?”
Kazuki’s heart jumped.
“I’m not as oblivious as I was before, you know,” his brother said.
Ahh, Kazuki realized. Haruka’s really grown. Maybe I’m the one who hasn’t. He gently wrapped an arm around Haruka’s shoulder. Kazuki knew his brother always felt relieved when he patted his head. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to help Enta.”
“Is it going to be dangerous?”
“It could be, but I’ve already made my decision. It’s my turn to do the saving this time.” Putting his feelings into words only seemed to strengthen them further.
“Yeah, Enta’s always helping me out, too,” Haruka happily revealed. “He always came with me every week for rehab.”
Enta, that jerk. He never said a word to me, Kazuki thought. Just as quickly, he realized, Well, knowing Enta, it makes sense he wouldn’t say anything.
“…I guess there’s a lot I didn’t know,” said Kazuki. So much had happened, and there was so much he’d missed.
“Enta and I had the same wish.” Haruka reached under the Sara mascot plush at his bedside, pulling out a plate-shaped headdress—the one Kazuki wore when he was cross-dressing as Azuma Sara. There was a small, folded piece of paper underneath the headdress. Haruka pulled it open and smiled triumphantly. “Our wish came true! Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” He passed it over to Kazuki.
“Is that me?” It was a drawing of Kazuki wearing a blue uniform and kicking a soccer ball.
“You’re going to run again, aren’t you, Kazu-chan?”
There was a doodle in one corner that Enta must have drawn as well. The two of them had been waiting for Kazuki this entire time.
The doodle seemed to have been drawn on the back of a flier. Kazuki absentmindedly flipped it over and glanced at the front.
“You used to love that guy, didn’t you?” said Haruka.
It wasn’t a flier—it was a poster of a soccer player that had been famous overseas when Kazuki first started the sport. The player stood out on the field, balanced on just his right foot with his left hand at his forehead. The pose definitely left an impression.
But he was pretty sure the first time he ever saw this pose was actually…
“If it breaks, it’s supposed to grant the wearer’s wish!” a boy told him, throwing a blue friendship bracelet down at him. With the sun at his back, he was a mere silhouette on top of Azuma Bridge, striking the same pose as that famous athlete. That boy was…
“It was Toi,” Kazuki gasped.
Toi had been the original owner of the friendship bracelet now tied around his right ankle. He knew now why Toi threw away his ball. But while Toi had turned his back on the sport, soccer became Kazuki’s light in the darkness. It was thanks to soccer that he met Enta, and the two became a Golden Duo. Even though Kazuki had thrown away the friendship bracelet once, Haruka had recovered it, and Enta had returned it to Kazuki.
He felt a gentle warmth climbing up his right ankle.
No matter how far apart we are, we’re still connected.
“Ehehe, I love seeing you run, Kazu-chan!” Haruka smiled gently. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
He had someone who promised to wait for him.
“I’ll be back,” said Kazuki.
And now he had somewhere to return to. That alone was enough to make him feel like he could run forever.
A shadow staggered tiredly across the desolate bridge between Takeshiba Pier and Hinode Pier. Dim streetlights flickered above Chikai, his face unreadable beneath the shadows of his glasses.
“You only get one life. It’s not a game where you can change out balls…”
If you die, it’s all over.
Every time someone died, he chanted that line to himself. If it was his turn this time, surely someone else would say the same thing.
“When things aren’t going well, just throw it all away…!”
That was what he’d done up until now.
My way is the right way, he thought.
“Brother!” It was the same voice he heard many times before, calling him from behind—a voice that belonged to his much younger brother. The only family he had left. Someone he had to protect.
“Ohh, hey, I was worried! Not hurt, are ya?” Chikai asked.
“…Nah.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. As he suspected, the gun in Toi’s hand was the same Tokarev TT-33 from their past. “Why do you have that gun?” And how many times have you fired it?
“Four years ago… I switched it out before you threw it away,” answered Toi.
“Aha, clever. Should’ve expected as much from my own little brother.” Chikai slipped his left hand behind his back as he proceeded forward, one step after the other.
“Are you…going to throw away me too?”
Chikai stopped in his tracks when Toi posed that question.
Toi was sure they couldn’t go back anymore, but that didn’t stop him from trying. “I don’t care if you are rotten to the core,” he said. “You’re still my older brother.”
Someone steals from you, you take back what’s yours! Every time someone swiped something from him, that was what he’d told himself. Toi stole someone’s life with this gun. He’d stolen his own brother’s life. If anyone was going to steal everything from him, it had to be Chikai.
“…You’re a bit too perfect to be my little brother.” Chikai held a Colt Junior in his left hand. “In this world, it’s only the bad people who survive…”
Toi slowly closed his eyes.
BANG!
Scene 5
BY THE TIME he realized what was happening, Toi was on the ground. He could hear the splatter of thick liquid dripping onto the pavement.
“Guh…hah…” Dark red circles were forming at his brother’s feet.
“I did iiiit!” Taka roared from where he stood on a boat anchored nearby.
Chikai immediately aimed his Colt and fired.
BANG!
“Urgh…!”
The range of Chikai’s gun was just barely enough to take the other man down. After the deed was done, Chikai turned his attention to his own stomach, and the red stain on his shirt that was growing. “Bastard!” he cursed as he staggered toward the water bus stop. Toi belatedly chased after him.
Toi was ready for his brother to take his life.
He covered for me again.
And this time, there would be no going back.
The sign on the red and blue water bus read Out of Service. Chikai made his way to the rooftop deck.
“What the heck are you doing? We have to get to a hospital…” Toi wasn’t talking to his brother so much as he was saying it for his own sake—so he wouldn’t panic or lose control.
“Forget it,” said Chikai. “Wouldn’t change things anyway.”
It was the exact answer Toi anticipated. He had no idea how to reply. He just watched as his brother hobbled forward, leaving puddles of blood in his wake as he headed toward the front of the ship.
“Brother!”
They were approaching the Great Chuo Bridge. Through the moonless darkness, its white pillars shone like cold gravestones.
Chikai slowly turned back. His lips were pulled up in a grin. He looked up at the bridge towering above them and fell backward.
As if finally broken out of his paralysis, Toi went stumbling and tripping after his brother. Even now, a dark red circle was forming beneath Chikai as he lay there on the ground. “Everything…should have gone smoothly,” he started.
“Don’t talk anymore…!”
“It’s your fault…that my plans got all messed up…”
“I’m sorry!” shouted Toi. “Just…stop…”
Chikai’s trembling hand reached up, digging through his shirt pocket. He pulled out a crumpled ten-thousand-yen bill. “Use this to take care of…your meals for a bit…” The blood-splattered bill smeared red across Toi’s cheek before it, together with his brother’s hand, fell to the ground. There were other ten-thousand-yen notes stuffed haphazardly in Chikai’s breast pocket as well. Sandwiched between them was what looked to be a white piece of paper. Toi had a feeling he knew what it was.
“Dammit…” mumbled Chikai.
Toi slipped the paper out, careful to avoid his brother’s notice, and flipped it over.
“Emotional attachments are…a real pain in the ass…”
It was their family photo, scribbled over numerous times with a black marker. Both of their parents’ faces were covered over, but Chikai’s was the least visible among them. The one place the scribbles stopped—the one place still visible—was the spot where a young Toi’s smiling face was.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!” Toi threw himself over his brother’s corpse and sobbed. It was as if all the tears he’d held in for these past four years were coming out all at once.
His brother had always been by his side. The day they went to the Sanja Festival, the day they sold soba outside Sobakyuu, the day they went to Hanayashiki, the day Toi first showed interest in soccer, the day he bought a soccer ball, the day he was first able to do ten lifts, the day he joined the soccer team, the day he first scored a winning goal, the day his parents died, and the day he shot someone.
Always.
Toi was happy—privileged, even—that he was in a position where he could selfishly insist on the two of them staying together. It would have been better if his brother had kept living, though, even if it meant being far apart. Now, no matter what happened in the future, no matter if Toi was happy or in pain, his brother would no longer be with him.
The boat the two boarded was now approaching the Eitai Bridge, lit up all in blue.
Toi gradually lifted himself up. The wind tugged the bill Chikai had been holding loose and sent it flying. Once Toi was back to his feet, he tossed his opened backpack through the air.
“Dammit!” he screamed.
Hundreds of ten-thousand-yen bills went dancing through the air, scattering. It was only their crumpled family photo that remained, wiggling in the wind.