“We’re a real family.”
My chest ached. No, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. She was just trying to rattle me. I couldn’t let her get under my skin.
“I refuse to accept this,” she declared. Then, with a glance at Kanba, she lowered the gun and walked off into the rain, her black tights sopping wet.
After she was gone, I realized that my shoulders were so tense, I nearly forgot to breathe. I exhaled, then inhaled again deeply on reflex, pulling the icy air into my lungs until I started to cough. I heard the sound of a car door close, followed by the rumble of an engine.
“I guess she’s gone,” Kanba muttered flatly, his back still turned, staring in the direction in which she left.
It doesn’t matter what SHE thinks. We’re a family, I thought to myself over and over and over. But I wasn’t brave enough to ask Kanba for reassurance.
“Sho-chan…” In my arms, Himari opened her eyes a crack.
“Himari, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“It’s not healthy for her to be out in the cold. Let’s get back inside,” said Kanba. He pulled his uniform jacket off and draped it over her upper body. Once he hoisted her up into his arms, he shot me a look.
“My soul mate…” With a faint smile, Himari reached out and touched my cheek with her pale, frozen fingertips.
“Huh?”
That Reminder Bullet didn’t hit her, right? Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep, snoring quietly—too quietly for my liking.
“We should draw her a bath,” I said, my voice cracking, as if I hadn’t heard a word she said. Then I dashed into the house, ran to the bathroom, and when my feet finally reached the cold tile floor, I reached up and touched my stiffened face.
Then I turned on the bathtub faucet, twisting the handle as far as it would go. The thunderous stream of water joined in a chorus with the patter of the rain, blocking out my every thought. I needed to bounce back to my normal self, fast. Then I needed to put Himari in the tub, get the stew started, and fold up that clean laundry. I shot a glance at Penguin No. 2, standing beside me like my loyal pet, then let out a heavy sigh.
I couldn’t shake the earthy smell of nature from my nostrils, and it pained my heart.
As Himari lay collapsed on the muddy earth, rapidly losing consciousness, she felt the cold rain seep into her clothes—into her bones. And then she remembered her truth.
She could recall a large, rusty fan creakily spinning up above her. Everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by children who all looked to be about the same age as her. They all sat with their knees tucked up to their chins, dead-eyed and haggard. She adjusted the striped scarf wrapped around her neck and perked up her ears, eavesdropping on the conversation behind her.
“Where are we?” a mournful voice asked. New kid, Himari thought to herself.
“You don’t know? This is the place where unwanted children are thrown away,” another child answered in a low, matter-of-fact tone of voice. It was the kind of levelheaded response that suggested the one who said it had already given up on the world.
“And we’re the unwanted children,” Himari murmured, reconfirming to herself something she already knew full well.
“If you stay here long enough, you’ll turn invisible and disappear.”
“Disappear? For real?” the new kid asked, shocked and slowly losing hope.
“Yeah, for real. You’ll get colder and colder, and then once your heart’s frozen solid, it’ll shatter into a billion pieces and you’ll turn invisible.”
Himari looked up and saw tidy rows of giant shredder blades floating all around them, glinting as they spun. Those blades would crush the unwanted children into pulp and render them invisible to the world. With a shrug, she buried her face in her scarf and pressed a hand to her chest in hopes of calming herself down. Even if she vanished, she would surely still get to keep this scarf. She had nothing to fear.
“I never amounted to anything, so now this is goodbye.”
Without a sound, the ground under her suddenly transformed into a conveyor belt, shuttling all the children in a downward spiral toward the shredder. Himari quietly closed her eyes and attempted to keep her mind as blank as possible.
“Stop!” a familiar voice called out in the distance. But it wasn’t fuzzy like an auditory hallucination—no, it was right there. “Don’t do it! Don’t go!”
“Who’s there?” Himari called out into the empty air, her eyes wide.
“It’s me! I’m here to take you home!” Just like that, the voice was suddenly right beside her; she could feel it against her skin.
“What home? I have no home.”
Then the owner of the face leaned right up to her face and shouted: “You’re coming back to my house with me! We’re going to be a family!”
“But how? I’m not related to you.”
If only I was, she thought to herself. But it was merely a wish, and even if there was a God out there, she knew well enough that He wouldn’t hear her prayers. But then the owner of the voice turned her entire world upside-down.
“It’ll work out. We’ve got magic on our side.” The boy held up a shiny red apple for her to see. “Now let’s share the fruit of fate.”
As she struggled to process this, a ray of hope shone down, lighting her world anew.
“Thank you for choosing me.”
As Himari rose to her feet, the ground was no longer a conveyor belt carrying her to annihilation inside the shredder. They were standing in a grassy field awash with the invigorating smell of flowers; the Child Broiler was nowhere to be seen. And the young boy standing in front of her, smiling softly? It was Shoma. He gently placed the apple in her little palm.
His smile hadn’t changed a bit, nor had his soft, messy hair. He was no knight in shining armor, nor was he a god; he wasn’t even particularly strong or handsome or rich. Nevertheless, he chose to stay with her. He gave her a place to belong. He was always there to lead her by the hand or stroke her hair.
Himari’s truth…Himari’s secret past…was Shoma, the boy with whom she shared the fruit of fate.
“He’s my soul mate.”
Back then, Kanba was not yet a member of the Takakura house.