“Well, I guess I should go now.” Himari pulled on her boots, then opened the sliding door and peered outside. She was wearing a thick fur coat with white trim and a cape, carrying a large bag, with No. 3 at her feet.
“Okay.”
She was smiling, but I couldn’t.
“Here, Sho-chan. Thanks for everything.” As she spoke, she opened her bag and pulled out a ratty old striped scarf, its colors dull and faded.
“You held onto it all this time?” It was the scarf I lent her, back before we were ever family, and I hadn’t seen it since.
“This scarf tied us together, but now I’m giving it back to you. Now we’re officially strangers.” Smiling, she pushed the scarf into my hands.
“I’m sorry.” My fingers tightened slightly, clutching the soft scarf, and I stared at the floor. Apologies wouldn’t fix anything at this point. We were both in the process of losing our only family.
“It’s fine. We’re strangers now.”
Confused, I looked up at her. Her eyes were swimming with tears, and yet she was still smiling somehow.
“The truth is, I always loved you, right from the start. But…I’m not a good girl.”
I wanted to call her name, but before I could, she ran right up to me, got up on her tiptoes, and kissed my lips. When she pulled away, tears started rolling down her cheeks. Then she dashed out the door, slid it shut behind her, and was gone, without so much as a goodbye.
Alone, I stood there, staring down at No. 2 as it swooned on the welcome mat.
Back when the house was occupied by three teenagers and three penguins, it felt cramped. Then when Kanba left, it got bigger all of a sudden. Now that I was alone, the house was massive, silent, and empty. Everything they left behind had lost its color. The penguin hat was no longer sitting on the globe; apparently Himari took it with her. That family outing at the aquarium felt like centuries ago.
Kanba’s belongings were all still here, as were more than half of Himari’s, but everywhere I looked—the corner of the hallway, the red curtains, the entryway—the reality that they were never coming back stared me in the face.
Every time I did the laundry, there was barely anything to wash. As the old machine rumbled and rattled, I opened the lid and gazed down at its contents, swirling with detergent suds. When we were young, Himari and I always loved to watch the washing machine. Together, we’d climb onto a stepstool just to watch the clothes spin. “How is that any fun?” Kanba would always ask. Then our mother would tell us to stop doing it because it wasn’t safe.
To this day, I still couldn’t explain what made it fun, but here I was. Except now I didn’t need a stepstool, and there was no one around to worry about me or watch it with me. But here I was, watching…all the while reliving the sensation I’d felt against my lips.
Later, I hung up the wet laundry while the sun was still high in the sky. For lunch, I ate leftovers from last night’s dinner. I didn’t feel like cleaning, and I probably didn’t need to go grocery shopping, since I’d only be cooking for one tonight. My sluggish body wanted nothing more than to lie down and do nothing, but it was still too early to pull out my futon on a weekend. Instead, my legs carried me to Himari’s bedroom.
She would never sleep in this room again, so I could get rid of the fancy sheets and cushions, take down the canopy—hell, I could take the whole bed apart if I felt like it. If I customized it to suit my own preferences, I would no longer have to deal with the hassle of moving a futon in and out of a closet every day. As my mind wandered, I sat down on her bed. Likewise, Penguin No. 2 hopped up next to me and sat down.
The bed was surrounded by large cardboard boxes full of summer clothes, books, sewing tools, plush toys, scrapbooks, colored pencils, and a cookie tin that contained her button collection. I needed to write her name and new address on a packing slip, take them to a package delivery company, and have them sent to my uncle’s house.
“Oh…”
On top of the sheets lay a single photograph: one of me, Himari, and Kanba as kids. We were all grinning from ear to ear, standing in front of the wall we’d just finished painting. Kanba had an adhesive bandage on his right cheek, Himari was wearing her hair in pigtails, and I’d gotten a splotch of paint on the tip of my nose. It was the first photo we ever took as a family, just the three of us; as I recalled, we used a tripod and the self-timer function to make it happen.
“And now they’re both gone.”
I stared into space for a moment, and then the next thing I knew, I was sobbing so hard my face hurt. In the end, I passed out in the living room with only a single blanket.
By the time hunger finally woke me, the sun had nearly set. I crawled out of the blanket and went to fetch the clean laundry. As I brought it into the house, I rubbed my eyes and contemplated what to eat for dinner. Then I watched No. 2’s round belly rise and fall as it slept nearby, and it occurred to me that I should probably check the weather forecast for tomorrow. Only then did I finally remember to turn on the television after days and days of forgetting it even existed.
“It’s cold…”
I no longer had to go out of my way to cook anything special. It didn’t really matter what I ate, as long as it was warm and filling. With that thought, I switched over to the cooking channel.
“Oden stew? Yeah, right.”
Oden was not something you cooked for a single person. As I stared blankly at the screen, time flowed like sand. Together, the chef and the female show host worked quickly to prepare a pot full of enough stew for four or five people. Then it was time for the taste test, and they gushed about how good it was, and then the show was over.
Naturally, my stomach was rumbling by that point. I knew I needed to eat something, but I was too lazy to do anything. Times like these, I wished the penguin would make me something as a token of gratitude for its caretaker. Then a news program came on, and I finally pushed myself up onto my leaden feet.
“Hey, wake up.”
I poked No. 2 with my toe, but it simply rolled over and went back to sleep. With a sigh, I headed to the kitchen. Then I overheard the phrase “near Ogikubo Station” and looked back at the TV, where the newscaster announced that a station wagon had flipped and crashed, killing the driver—a tabloid journalist.
They showed images of the scene taken by an eyewitness on their cell phone, and sure enough, it was the same station wagon the journalist I spoke to was driving, except now it was upside-down, exuding smoke, and fused with a telephone pole. The newscaster explained that the car hadn’t actually collided with anything—it just spontaneously rolled into the pole. This impact crushed the driver, killing him instantly. This journalist was in the middle of an investigation at the time of his death, but the details were unknown. For the time being, the police cordoned off the street with yellow tape to investigate the initial cause of the crash. Then the newscaster addressed a reporter live on the scene.