“Yeah, she called me a little while ago and asked me if I wanted to go out to eat with her.” Ringo was a little suspicious of the fact that Yuri wanted to see her out of the blue, and that she sounded weirdly happy the moment she heard Himari’s name, but there was no real basis for this suspicion.
“That’s amazing! Can I come, too?” Himari leaned in, cheeks reddening.
“Yeah. Yuri-san seemed really happy about it. Maybe it’s because I told her you were such a big fan of hers.”
“Thank you, Ringo-chan!” Himari sat back down in her chair, stroking No. 3 by her feet and beaming.
“Still, is it okay for you to be away from the hospital this long?” The temperature was dropping, and the sky was already turning colors.
“It’s fine! I still have time.” Himari sipped her café au lait, swinging her boot-clad feet. “I just really wanted to go out with a friend like this.”
“I’m glad you found a color of yarn you liked too.” Ringo enjoyed being with Himari. The topics she could discuss with her friends at school were limited, and she felt stifled by her own position: both as a student of Oukagyoen Girls’ High School, and as a daughter of the Oginome family. When she was with Shoma or Himari or Yuri, it didn’t matter whether she read Sixteen or not, whether she knew about the popular models of the day, or whether she was some kind of selfish stalker.
She felt like she could be her true self.
“So what’s Yuri-san like?” Himari’s long eyelashes fluttered.
“What’s she like? Hmm…” At the beginning, she thought of Yuri as a “blackhearted orca woman,” but her impressions of her changed into something more complex, something she couldn’t easily name. Yuri was beautiful, stylish, kind, and a little strange.
“She’s a very wonderful woman.”
Himari and Ringo looked back in surprise at the voice that suddenly interrupted their conversation. “Tabuki-san!” they said in unison.
Tabuki stood there, grinning at them.
The building to which Tabuki led the girls looked like it was still under construction, and naturally had no tenants inside.
Ringo believed Tabuki when he said that he arranged to meet up with Yuri, but she grew more and more uneasy as they boarded the elevator. The building was incomplete, consisting of only a few finished floors so far, and posted here and there were signs that read “Trespassing is Forbidden.” Moreover, there was clearly something different than usual about Tabuki’s manner itself. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he had none of his usual cheerfulness. Nor did he speak about wild birds. Plus, the elevator they were riding was eerily large, made almost entirely of red iron scaffolding. It was dusty, and rose with a rattling, scraping sound.
“Um, are we really supposed to be meeting up with Yuri-san here?” Ringo asked desperately, but Tabuki did not reply.
“I get to meet a big star like Yuri-san. I feel like I’m about to burst!” Himari was grinning, holding her little tote bag and the paper bag from Yozawaya and not appearing suspicious in the least.
“Hey, Ringo-chan,” Tabuki said in a low, soft voice.
“Yes?” she quickly replied. She tried to see his eyes through his glasses, but the light of the setting sun reflected off the lenses, and she could only read his expression by his mouth.
“Do you remember what I said to you once? There’s a reason for everything, even sad or painful things. Not a single thing in this world is meaningless.”
Of course she did. It was the same reason that she believed in fate and tried to carry out its whims. Now, she was slowly beginning to change, but she always kept Tabuki’s words near and dear to her. “I do. So…?”
“That’s good.” Tabuki smiled faintly. “To tell you the truth, the reason I invited you here is that there’s something I want you all to know.”
“Something you want us to know?”
“Yes. My reason for living.”
“Huh?” Himari finally looked up suspiciously, eyes darting between Ringo and Tabuki. Ringo reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Himari’s cardigan with her fingertips.
“Now I’m going to show you what that reason is.”
“Tabuki-san?” Ringo felt a strange foreboding, and gripped Himari’s cardigan tighter.
“It’s time,” Tabuki said ominously. The girls stared at him, a bit scared by this flat declaration. “Today, I’m going to deliver judgment upon the Takakura family.”
He removed his sunglasses and turned slowly toward them, his face half-lit by the setting sun. His eyes, as he smiled softly, were hollow and crazed.
Sanetoshi sat on the bed in his examination room, playing with a bright red apple. Shirase and Souya stood at either side of him, gazing out expressionless through the slightly open curtains.
“She’s not coming back, is she?” said Shirase as he watched an elderly man in his sleep clothes walking through the courtyard.
“Guess she’s not coming,” Souya continued, watching a nurse run out from inside the hospital toward the old man.
“What a bad girl.”
“What a wicked girl.”
Their eyes flashed to one another.
“Bad, wicked girls must be punished,” Shirase said quietly.
“Yes, they must be greatly punished,” Souya continued.
Sanetoshi lay back on the bed, chuckling. “Stunning, isn’t it? In the world of humans, the truth is not limited to what’s actually true. Humans will insist that the things they themselves want to see, their own hopes and desires, are the truth. They’ll even use this ‘truth’ as an excuse to kill others.” Sanetoshi laughed with vibrant glee. His long hair shone as though the evening sun dwelled in it, casting strange-colored shadows on the floor. “This is war. A war is on the horizon.”
Shirase and Souya did not say a word, nor did their expressions change in the slightest. They only turned slowly Sanetoshi’s way, looking at him with their red eyes, their fluffy black hair bathed in the same orange light.