Himari looked straight at Tabuki, her eyes large and round. “Tabuki-san. I will accept my father’s sins. So please…forgive Kan-chan and Sho-chan.”
Tabuki frowned slightly, but said nothing.
“No! Stop it!”
“Thank you, Kan-chan. But from now on, you need to live for your own sake.” Himari smiled gently. She chose her last words quickly. If she didn’t hurry, Kanba’s arms were going to be pulled into the pulley, and probably broken.
“No, that’s—” Kanba said only to himself as he looked upon Himari’s stalwart little face. “No. No!”
“And get along with Sho-chan, okay?” Slowly, she began to climb the grate, far too high for her even with the gondola’s slant.
“Stop it!!!” Kanba screamed, his voice echoing throughout the building. “I want to live for your sake!”
If Himari died, then what was any of it for? He didn’t care if his hands were shattered, or if he had to vow never to fight with Shoma again. He would never forgive Tabuki Keiju.
His hands, along with most of the rest of his body, started to go numb, and Kanba could no longer feel the pain.
As I ran up the staircase, a large crimson structure came crashing down through the nearby atrium. It plummeted through the scaffolding with a fearsome sound before colliding violently with the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt. “Himari! Aniki!” I shouted.
I continued to hurry up the stairs, almost at the final floor. When I reached the rooftop, I saw Oginome-san, standing near the staircase. “Oginome-san!”
“Why did you save them?” Oginome-san asked someone through tears. I didn’t see who she was talking to at first.
“Ringo-chan, don’t ever become like me.”
I turned at the sudden, familiar voice to see Tabuki Keiju on the elevator behind closing doors, a look of utter exhaustion on his face.
“Tabuki-san!” Oginome-san watched in shock as the elevator descended.
“Took you long enough, Shoma,” called my brother, his voice hoarse.
“Aniki!” I cried as he walked unsteadily toward me, an unconscious Himari in his blood-stained arms.
“That blood…” A shiver ran down my spine as I saw the blood soaking into Himari’s cardigan.
“I accepted the punishment. Don’t worry.” Before he could make it over to me, he collapsed to the ground, still holding Himari.
“Punishment…?” Had Tabuki done this to Kanba’s hands? I ran over to them both, staring at my brother’s trembling, bloody hands.
“What’s with that face?” Kanba smiled wryly.
“Seriously, what happened here?”
“More importantly, hurry up and call the hospital. Himari needs her—” He suddenly started coughing, and collapsed on the spot.
“Aniki!” I caught him on my knees.
On closer inspection, although Himari was dripping with sweat, she appeared unharmed. However, they both looked ragged, smeared with sweat and snot and blood. No matter how I shook or called to them, neither one would rouse.
Penguins No. 1 and 3 both toppled over on the spot as well, unmoving.
“Why is this happening?!” I raged at no one. I felt my insides roiling. “We never asked for any of this, did we? We just wanted…
a normal…” Oginome-san clung to me as my face dripped with the tears I could not hold back. My back felt warm, and I could feel her tears soaking into my clothes.
“I’m not like that,” she insisted. “I could never hate you all!”
The powerful warmth from her arms wrapped around me slowly melted into my heart.
“I don’t think anything is pointless, even the sad and painful things. If that’s fate, then I’m sure there’s some meaning behind it. I’ll accept that, and grow stronger. So…” she said, despite how I rejected her. “Please, don’t cry.”
She was right. No matter how senseless it was, if this was our destiny, then I had to accept it and grow stronger as well. I wiped my tears on my sleeves, refusing to lie to myself anymore. I would never run from anything again. Not from my fate, nor from Oginome-san.
As Tabuki stepped out of the elevator, he found Yuri standing under a streetlight, waiting for him with a smile.
“You, huh?”
Yuri’s hair was wild, the sleeves of her blouse torn. She held her half of the diary in her left hand.
“What’s with that get-up? I invited you all the way here, only for you to miss the big show,” Tabuki said lackadaisically, eyebrows raised.
“You used me.” Yuri glared at him through sharp eyes.
“It was convenient,” Tabuki coolly replied, yet his body was exhausted, his mind hazy.
“I can’t believe you’d do something like this.” Yuri lowered her long lashes.
“Same to you. What were you planning in inviting those two out?” You were thinking something along the same lines, weren’t you?
Yuri furrowed her brow and bit her lip, silent.
“It turns out we really were nothing but a sham couple. Both of us just using the—”
Not caring whether Tabuki was finished speaking, Yuri smacked him across the face.
“This really sort of seems like a breakup, doesn’t it?” said Tabuki. He adjusted his crooked glasses before slipping off his wedding ring, pressing it into the hand that Yuri slapped him with. “Farewell, Yuri.”
As Tabuki walked away, Yuri said nothing in parting. She didn’t try to follow him or even stop him.
Watching the scene from the shadows of a nearby building, Masako raked back her disheveled curls, held the front of her now-buttonless coat closed, and breathed a sigh.
“Goodness. We better crush them soon.”
She slipped her right hand gently into her coat pocket, making sure the torn diary half was still there.
“Kanba. I cannot leave you in that home a moment longer.” Masako narrowed her eyes, looking up at the half-constructed building from which Tabuki emerged. “Wait for me.”