I searched the whole place from top to bottom. After all, it was possible the kitten was still around, just hiding somewhere, or maybe someone adopted it. And there was something I wanted to tell Himari, even if it was really only a pathetic platitude: No matter what happened to San-chan in the end, I don’t regret taking care of it with you. Saying goodbye hurts, but that doesn’t mean it was all a waste of time.
Unfortunately, Himari was nowhere to be found. Alone, I decided to go ahead and bring the cardboard house back to the trash dump. But when I peered inside, I found a little white piece of paper folded up in the towels. I opened it to find a letter from Himari addressed to me.
“Hey, Dad? What’s the ‘Child Broiler’?” I asked my father as he gazed out at the snowy scenery through the office window. He looked over his shoulder at me in alarm. “Well?” I pressed.
“It’s a place where children are sent when they’re forsaken by society. We can’t do anything about it, and we can’t save them. It’s a rusty, closed-off place,” my father explained in a low, quiet, yet somewhat pained voice.
“What happens to the kids who go there?”
“They become invisible.”
“What do you mean?”
“They never amount to anything.”
Based on his tone and expression, I could tell that he was dancing around the crux of the issue. Probably because I was just a kid.
“So they die?” In my pocket, I squeezed the letter from Himari. “How come?”
My father shifted his gaze back to the window. “Right this moment, there are countless children turning invisible as we speak, and this corrupted world continues to turn a blind eye to it. That is why we must purify the world and eradicate all corruption.”
But I wasn’t listening. The next thing I knew, I broke into a run.
Himari’s letter was poorly written and rife with spelling errors, and part of it was wet from melted snow. But to me, those wet spots looked like tears.
Dear Sho-chan,
Goodbye, and thank you for everything. I’m going to the Child Broiler.
It really meant a lot to me the first time you reached out to me. My mama never came back for me, so I decided to wait for you instead. Waiting for you was a lot easier, and I was never lonely.
I liked being a family with you and San-chan, so I’m going to take your scarf as a memento. No matter what happens, I’ll never forget you. Our memories together are a precious treasure to me. That’s why I’m not scared anymore. Even if I turn invisible, nobody can erase my memories, not even if I burn up in the fireplace like a tin soldier. I’m just happy there’s someone in the world who knows I existed.
The truth is, I do know the story of the first man and woman who lived on Earth. They were punished, and being alive was the punishment. But I was willing to be punished if it meant I could stay with you, Sho-chan. That’s why I wanted someone to choose me.
I didn’t know what the Child Broiler was, or where it was located, or how big of a deal it was to go there. It didn’t feel like a real place to me. But Himari was going there, and she was going to disappear without ever amounting to anything. I would never see her again.
I couldn’t really picture someone I knew dying. I wouldn’t be able to talk to her anymore, and I’d only just gotten her to smile, but now I’d never see her face again, either. Her long hair and pale skin would disappear, and the image of her shivering in the cold would be lost to the world around me, and the thought was painful.
As I ran through the darkness, snow slid into my sneakers and turned my socks into a sloshy mess. My legs were both frozen to the core, and as I ran, the chill turned to pain until eventually I went numb altogether. They were like two columns of ice, carrying me forward as fast as I could go to a destination I hadn’t yet specified.
Himari thought of me as her family, and I wanted to save her. I didn’t care about the “corruption of the world.” I was just desperate to get her back.
Together, the two of us shared many things—the sweet taste of candy, the chill of snow, the thrill of snowball fights, the pain of losing San-chan—but there were still many more ahead. I didn’t treat her like family so she would give up on living; I wanted her to realize that there were people in the world who cared about her and wanted to help. And I was going to make her see that—for her own sake, for San-chan’s, and for mine.
With my legs bogged down in the snow, I felt as though I was gliding along with the winter wind. In that moment, I was sure I would find Himari, no matter where she went. That was what I decided the moment I grabbed the door handle there in the middle of the blizzard. I was going to choose Himari—I needed to.
I couldn’t really tell what color or shape or size the door was, and it felt like the handle might fly off in the wind if I didn’t hold on tight. But with all my strength, I forced it open little by little, making it creak in protest. Inside, I could hear the whirr of a large, active machine.
“Himari-chan!”
It was a vast, empty space, and somehow it felt even colder inside. There was no wind, and yet the air seemed to sting my face. I could see some big, rusty fans spinning their blades, and a large group of children sat on the ground, packed in tightly, all of them with their knees tucked up to their chins.
“Himari-chan, where are you?!”
Without hesitation, I ran inside. The ice-cold air engulfed me, and as I shouted for Himari, every subsequent breath I took made me wheeze. Chunks of ice fell from the endlessly tall ceiling, impeding my path. None of the kids seemed to care that I was looking for someone; they all stared blankly at the ground. None of them looked especially cold, either—just depressed and defeated.
I snaked my way through the crowd, searching for Himari. The ice rained on me mercilessly, slashing at my face, my hands—any inch of exposed skin. Meanwhile, the temperature continued to plummet. At this rate, my whole body would freeze solid.