“The punishment was meant for me,” I explained slowly. “If the Takakura family deserves punishment, then it should be dealt to me alone.”
“What do you mean?” Furrowing her brow, Oginome-san looked at me in concern.
“I’ll never forgive my parents. Their actions killed countless people, and your sister was one of their…”
Victims. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. Faltering, I looked down at my feet, where Penguin No. 2 sat, looking back at me.
“It’s not your fault, Shoma-kun,” she told me gently. Slowly, I shook my head.
“The crimes of the Takakura family are my crimes and no one else’s.”
“Why do you say that?”
I broke eye contact with No. 2.
“I chose Himari to be part of my family. I made her a Takakura. I dragged her into this mess.”
I had tried my hardest to forget this truth, and in fact, it felt like I had succeeded. I had erased the memory from my past.
As I recounted my story, Oginome-san looked at me and listened in perfect silence.
Eight winters ago, I was sitting in a room in a high-rise condo building—the office where my father worked. Reason being, my parents were both very busy, so they couldn’t leave me at home or else I’d be on my own for hours and hours. Thus, my father always brought me here to the office. But even then, I was still on my own.
They called it “the office,” but looking back, it was just a room in a condo that my parents’ organization designated as their headquarters. My father stood in the center of a big group of grown-ups, all of them wearing the same work uniform, and as he gave his long speeches reminiscent of a school assembly, I sat there watching, bored to tears.
“On that day, a tiny fragment of this corrupted world was purified by our holy fire. But our mission has not yet been achieved. Society calls us criminals, and on that day, many of our comrades were unjustly taken prisoner. But that is not enough to extinguish the flames of the torch we carry in our hearts. Now is the time to lie low; the name change was necessary just to shake off those fascist pigs. Instead, we must solemnly prepare for the next Day of Reckoning. Peace!”
My father held his hand up high in a peace sign, and his audience followed suit. It was a popular gesture here at my father’s workplace, but I wasn’t sure what exactly it meant. All I knew was that it looked like “scissors” from rock-paper-scissors. Or was it like “V for Victory”?
Here at the office, I would occasionally meet other kids around the same age as me. There were two siblings—a boy and a girl, both with narrow eyes and fancy clothes, who were much better behaved than I was. They always paid attention to the speeches.
As I retrieved my down jacket from the chair in the corner and wrapped myself up in my scarf, the girl called out to me: “You there! Where are you going?”
Her hair was curly, and her voice carried very well.
“Aren’t you going to listen to the speeches?!” she continued in an accusatory tone, after I failed to answer her first question.
“He’s probably bored,” her brother shrugged, tossing a bright red apple back and forth between his hands.
“But the next speech is even more important! Our father will be speaking!” the girl protested. Her brother, however, merely shot me a glance without saying anything.
I didn’t say a word to him, either. Instead, I stepped into my sneakers, opened the door, and dashed out of the office. The sharp chill made me flinch.
Truth be told, I was sick to death of sitting around while my father did his work. I tucked one of the apples from the office into my jacket pocket, but I didn’t particularly like apples to begin with. I scanned the quiet building’s square-shaped hallway, then started walking. A few steps later, I pulled the apple out of my pocket. In this foggy white world, it gleamed like a ruby.
Leaning against the railing, I rolled the apple around on my palm as I peered down into the courtyard, square-shaped and covered in dead grass. Up above, I could see an equally square-shaped piece of the winter sky. And on the floor below mine, I could see a small figure crouched in one corner.
Pushing the apple back into my pocket, I casually descended the staircase, hoping I found someone I could play with. But when I got a good look at the girl sitting against the railing, I started to have second thoughts. She had long hair, and despite the weather, she was only wearing a wool jersey dress and a pair of plain boat shoes with no socks. Both the dress and the shoes were grimy with dirt, and the girl in question seemed like she was in a daze. In one hand, she clutched the paw of a large peach-pink teddy bear.
“Hey, do you live here?”
I didn’t strike up a conversation purely out of boredom; no, I was a tiny bit worried about her, too. She looked at me with big, round eyes, her gaze tinged with suspicion.
“What are you up to?”
At the very least, she didn’t look like she was having fun playing by herself. If she was lost, I figured I could get my father to help.
“…I’m waiting for Mama,” she muttered after a long moment.
“How long have you been waiting?” Maybe she really was lost.
“The whole time,” she said in a monotone voice.
“And how long is that?”
Minutes? Hours? Based on her dirty clothes, I suspected it was more like days or weeks. The thought frightened me a bit.
“I don’t know.” She blinked at me in confusion.
“Wanna play?”
She shook her head. “I have to wait for Mama.” But she clearly looked miserable.
“Aren’t you cold?”
Even in my down jacket, I could feel the stinging chill against my cheeks and through the gaps in my pants. She fell silent and stared at the ground, exhaling white fog. Of course she was cold. So I took off my bright blue-and-yellow striped scarf, crouched down, and wrapped it around her neck instead. “You can borrow this.”
The girl looked at me in shock. She didn’t say a word, but she reached up and touched the fabric of the scarf, her eyes as round as saucers.