“Sho-chan?” a feeble voice called out.
Startled, I looked up to find Himari crouched down on the porch, clutching her pink pirate teddy bear tightly in her arms, staring at me in shock. Then she stepped down off the porch and walked over to me, barefooted.
“You’re bleeding. We need to patch you up,” she continued in a watery voice.
How long had she been watching our exchange?
“Kanba left, and he’s probably not coming back. Let’s just stop here.”
“Stop? Stop what?” Her eyes filled with tears.
“Let’s stop pretending to be a family.” Except to me, it was never pretend. “You can blame it all on me. The Takakura family ceased to exist a long time ago… I can’t keep pretending it didn’t.”
“Are you serious about this?”
“Kanba’s gone, and now we’ve got that journo sniffing around. Staying in this house will only prolong our suffering. C’mon, Himari, let’s call it quits.”
“I’m not suffering!” Shaking her head, she grabbed the sleeve of my coat. “And I’m sure Kan-chan will come back, so—!”
“Tomorrow I’ll get in touch with Uncle Ikebe. You’re going to go stay with him.”
Himari was on the verge of tears, but she didn’t let them fall. She just stared at me for a long moment. Then, quietly, she nodded. “Okay.”
How sorely I wished I could take it all back, tell her it was a bad joke, and endure the silent treatment as punishment for the next three days. How I wished I could pretend that Kanba would come home tomorrow morning when he got hungry.
“Come on. We need to disinfect the wound,” she said quietly. Pulling me by the sleeve, she led me back to the porch, where she had left the sliding door wide open.
She was surely freezing to death wearing only a nightgown, and her expression was grim; it reminded me of the day I first met her. Yes…I was the one who made Himari a co-conspirator in the Takakura family’s crimes. And if we hadn’t taken Kanba in, he wouldn’t have had to pay the price in my stead. So really, this was for the best. No matter how badly it pained me, in the end, all that mattered was getting Himari to safety.
Inside, she pulled on a cardigan and some socks. Then she turned the light on in the living room and examined my face, her eyes wide.
“He really got you good, Sho-chan.” I knew she was sad, but she forced a smile nonetheless. “That’s what you get for starting fights,” she continued, and I could hear the tears in her voice.
“That bad, huh? I hope it doesn’t swell up too much or else I’ll never hear the end of it at school tomorrow.” My voice was so calm and quiet, it threatened to disappear into the tatami beneath me.
With her small, dainty hands, she poured disinfectant onto a cotton ball—“This is going to sting”—and pressed it against my lip. Sure enough, it stung like hell. It hurt so bad, I wanted to wail and scream. But I knew if I started crying, she would join in, so I suppressed it. Because that was what a good brother did.
Tabuki stood outside a ramen shop on the outskirts of town. Summoning his resolve, he opened the door. At last, he tracked down the last known hiding place of Takakura Kenzan and his wife Chiemi. It wasn’t even that far from the house where their children lived.
“Here? Really?” he muttered to himself. The interior was pitch-black, with no signs of human life. The whole place was covered in dust and spiderwebs—hard to say whether it had electricity or even plumbing. Hesitantly, he moved deeper inside. The reek of mold was overwhelming.
Then he glanced behind the counter and sucked in a breath.
“It can’t be…”
There lay two skeletal corpses, side by side, wearing sun-faded orange jackets with the KIGA emblem on the back. Reflexively, Tabuki grabbed the jacket and lifted it slightly. The name “K. Takakura” was neatly sewn into the chest pocket in navy blue thread.
“God…”
Takakura Kenzan was dead, and the skeleton beside him was probably Chiemi. The monsters Tabuki had chased after for so long had already met their end, right here. What was he supposed to do now?
At no point had Takakura Kanba actually met with his father Kenzan. It simply wasn’t possible. Was this the place where he died, or had someone merely dumped his body here after retrieving it from elsewhere? Tabuki had no way of knowing. It could take anywhere from a week to several months for a human body to fully decompose, depending on temperature and other factors. Judging from the earthy color of the bones, these corpses didn’t look fresh.
“I always had a feeling Takakura Kenzan was dead.”
Startled, Tabuki whirled around, bracing himself. Then he quietly let out the breath he was holding. “Yuri! What are you doing here?”
“Ironic, isn’t it? Turns out we already got our revenge a long time ago. We just didn’t know about it.”
Yuri was standing there, dressed in a collarless camel coat. In the darkness of the filthy abandoned restaurant, her face and hair glowed like an angel’s.
“You’re such a handful. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
He took a deep breath, then opened his mouth in preparation to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. He assumed she would have forgotten about him by now in her one-woman quest to find Momoka’s diary. Additionally, he found it odd that none of the news channels were reporting on the famous Tokikago Yuri’s failed marriage, but hadn’t thought too hard about it.
“Now then, let’s go home where we belong. This marks the end of our first couple’s spat.” She held out her hand, her skin as beautiful and white as snow.
“Home…” Slowly, Tabuki reached out to take it.
But just then, a figure in a black coat ran in from outside and slammed into them. When they pulled away, blood splattered to the dusty floor.
Just like that, their family reunion was over, without even a scream.
Unsurprisingly, Uncle Ikebe agreed to take Himari in. I didn’t tell him about Kanba or the journalist—instead, I said I felt Himari would be better off living with people who could look after her properly. Going forward, it was possible she could actually attend school in between hospital visits, at which point she would need a grown adult to sign the paperwork. Really, this was for the best.
Over the course of a few days, Himari packed her travel bags full with as much as she could carry. Then, on the day of her departure, she woke up bright and early to make an uncommon breakfast: eggs, toast, soup, and salad. The sky was clear, and the sunshine was warm.
Sleepily, I sat across the table from her, watching her long lashes sparkle in the morning light as I stuffed my mouth full of toast. She was dressed in a frilly blouse and a blue flared skirt; her long hair was thoroughly brushed and tied back with her favorite ribbon. Why was she wearing her Sunday best on a day like this? I didn’t understand.
Our final few days together were unusually quiet. I looked in the mirror and was horrified to find a fat purple bruise running down my left cheek to my jaw. Hastily, I cleaned and iced it. Then Himari asked me for a handful of recipes she hadn’t quite memorized yet, so I recounted them to her, and she wrote them down in her notebook. “Thanks,” she said with a slight smile.
Since Uncle Ikebe probably wouldn’t be able to see Penguin No. 3, she told me she was going to stop playing with it and acknowledging its presence. After all, if she tried to keep doing it in secret, they might think she smuggled in a pet. Neither of us said a word about Kanba.