Never again would she look at me with those big, round eyes. Never again would she speak to me, and her natural scent would be overwritten with the stench of death. Her bedroom at the Takakura house would never be occupied again, nor would the room Uncle Ikebe set up for her at his place. Instead, traces of the life she once lived would remain scattered throughout the world, and every time I saw one, I would feel her absence and question myself all over again.
I thought about Tabuki Keiju. When the cause of death was illness, there was no real way to fight it; without an outlet, any lingering resentment would build up indefinitely. But if you knew exactly who caused the death of your loved one, perhaps it was only natural to bear a grudge against them and contemplate revenge.
“Hello? Sorry for calling so late. I was just wondering if something happened. I don’t think we need the clothes anymore, so please just come see Himari while there’s time. I’ll be here when you get here,” I told Oginome-san’s voicemail. Then I flipped the blanket back, sat down on the cot, and stared into space.
Of all the absurd and fantastical events that happened to us thus far, it was this moment—this dark hospital room—that didn’t feel quite real to me. I felt so numb, I couldn’t tell if I was scared or sad. I told Oginome-san to come see Himari, but deep down, what I meant was come see me. It was by no means a happy occasion, but maybe with her around I could keep myself together long enough to figure myself out.
Just then, the windowpane shattered, and the curtains began to rustle in the wind. Startled, I looked up. It was Kanba, one foot on the windowsill.
“An—Kanba,” I hastily corrected myself. He wasn’t my aniki anymore. The chilly breeze helped sharpen my senses.
“I came to get Himari,” he told me in a hard voice.
“You came to…get her…?”
I rose to my feet and staggered toward Himari’s bed. Kanba always said he would save her, but at the same time, he was quite possibly a murderer. I couldn’t begin to know what he was thinking.
“This world is corrupt. You know that, right?” He hopped down into the room and looked at me intently. I couldn’t read any emotion in his eyes, but he didn’t seem to be glaring at me—just looking.
“What are you planning to do with her?” I demanded.
“We have to make our parents’ dream come true,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“What are you talking about? What the hell is wrong with you?! Himari’s on her deathbed!” I screamed at him, purely on impulse. Then it occurred to me that the nurses might come running. What would happen then? Would my brother hurt even more innocent people?
“This senseless world is going to change. Same day, same time, at the place where our fate resides. And Himari’s life will be saved.”
He was practically incoherent. He always used to be the smart one, the rational one—what happened to that? Now his words were vague and emotionally driven.
“What, so you’re planning to sacrifice hundreds of innocent lives? That’s not going to save her!”
“Takakura-san?”
A nurse was calling from out in the hall. I started to panic. If they caught him in here, there was zero chance he would apologize and surrender quietly. “Uh—”
But before I could say anything, Kanba shoved me out of the way, then pulled a slightly singed jackknife out of his pocket and stabbed it into the handle of the sliding door, jamming it.
“Takakura-san, is something wrong?” the nurse called. I could hear her trying to open the door, but she couldn’t compete with Kanba’s strength plus that of the knife. “Takakura-san?”
“Kanba!”
This was nothing like his usual style. It was just violent, with no rationality.
“If you don’t see society for how it truly is, you’re blind. This world will never give us fruit. That’s why we gotta change it,” he told me as he held the door shut behind him.
“No. That’s not acceptable.”
He was lying when he claimed it was all for Himari. He didn’t care about me or her—we didn’t even enter his line of sight. If anyone was blind, it was him.
“I don’t care if you accept it.” His eyes gleamed scarlet. “Don’t get in my way.”
He lowered the zipper on his coat just enough to pull a small black handgun from an inside pocket. I didn’t know anything about the different types of guns, so I couldn’t tell what it was or even if it was real. All I knew was that my brother was pointing a gun at me with his finger firmly on the trigger.
“Maybe part of me always wanted to do this to you.”
The gunshot was louder than I expected, and a second later, everything went dark.
I recognized this twilit beach. I was standing with my white boots buried in the wet sand, tired but enjoying the smell of the sea, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat that felt too feminine for a boy. The summer sun was still high in the sky, but the tide was rolling in, and we were scared we wouldn’t be able to find what we were looking for.
What we sought wasn’t clams or seashells or shards of glass—not even cute little crabs. With my pail and shovel in hand, I dashed through the groups of families heading home for the day, calling her name, just like the day we first became a family ourselves. But this time we were closer, and we knew each other much better.
“Shoma!”
I turned to find my father standing there. Like usual, my mother was right beside him. She was always hovering in his vicinity, and at the time, I found it reassuring. The sight of them standing side by side was a soothing one.