“Kanba!” I called to him. But he didn’t look up. He was standing upright, but he was as still as a corpse.
Barefoot, Himari dashed up the white fabric path to reach him. The white lace of her nightgown brushed against her slender arms, waist, and thighs, enveloping her, spreading out to engulf the entire space in one fluttering motion.
“Kan-chan, wake up!” she called out, her voice carrying through the teddy bear cage that surrounded him. Her bare feet were now completely buried in the frilly fabric floor, as if the space itself was contained entirely within the bounds of her nightgown. “I came to get you, Kan-chan. Let’s go home now, okay?” Her long hair swayed as she tilted her head.
“Home? What home? I can’t go home yet…I still haven’t achieved my…”
Before he could finish his sentence, she pushed her way through the teddy bears and wrapped her arms around him. The bears started to spin, their eyes glinting scarlet.
“Himari!” I attempted to climb up the frilly path created from her nightgown, but every step was so pillowy, I could scarcely keep my balance.
The bears spun in a circle around Himari and Kanba, causing a rainbow of ice shards to rain down on them. In the light, the cold ice cast beautiful patterns on the white fabric, like a stained-glass window. But the chill froze Himari’s body and slowly started to damage the white fabric world.
“Look—life is its own punishment, right? The whole time I lived in the Takakura house, I was dealt dozens of little punishments,” Himari explained, cupping Kanba’s cheek and smiling. One of the bigger ice shards struck the back of her hand, and the wound swiftly began to bleed, trickling across her skin.
If life really was its own punishment, then the three of us had endured punishment for years now—right from the moment we were born. Slowly but surely, I made my way up the soft, pillowy path.
“Sho-chan’s very particular about stuff. Did you know he keeps all the seasonings in a specific order? Salt, pepper, soy sauce, rice wine, mirin, soup mix. And he nags us like he’s our mom too. ‘Quit eating chips or you’ll spoil your appetite!’ I swear, he treats us like little kids. And you always fall into a food coma right after we eat. We keep warning you that you’ll turn into a cow, but you always ignore us. Of course, if I tried to do that, you’d get mad at me, you hypocrite!” She giggled. “You always leave your used tissues everywhere, and you always leave the toilet seat up. That’s why Sho-chan makes fun of your filthy playboy germs.”
Icicle arrows in red, blue, yellow, and green came flooding down in a torrent far more intense than that of rain or snow, all of it aiming for Himari. Her fluffy long nightgown was torn to shreds, and her body was dotted with bloody cuts.
“Himari!”
Truth be told, I didn’t choose to have Kanba in my life. I never understood why he got to be the “older brother” when we were both born on the same day. Nevertheless, on the day Mom and Dad brought him into the family, I was told to call him Aniki. But things weren’t that simple. We couldn’t just start being brothers from that day on. I never even wanted an older brother.
I staggered again and again, fighting my way up the white fabric to reach the place where they stood. At the rate things were going, Himari was going to bleed to death. That wasn’t her punishment—it was meant to be mine.
“But even then, we still stayed together. And no matter how small or boring the punishments were, the next thing we knew, it all turned into special memories. I mean, it’s thanks to you and Sho-chan that I feel like I really lived. I was Takakura Himari—I laughed, I cried, I got mad…and I loved you.” There was no pain in her voice, and she refused to pull away from Kanba. “I don’t want to forget you… I don’t want to lose you.”
But Kanba kept staring out at the sparkling ice arrows.
“Himari! Kanba!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, but I couldn’t tell if my voice could reach them. They still felt so far away.
“Kan-chan, please, come home.” Himari squeezed him tighter, and the teddy bears hit her with even more ice—enough for them to disappear behind.
“I can’t. I still haven’t given you anything,” he replied in a flat, emotionless voice. “I can’t give you anything.”
My eyes widened. All this time, Kanba stood there unscathed—but now, suddenly, he was bleeding.
“Kanba!”
The bright crimson looked so gruesomely vivid against the white background. The fabric at their feet turned from pink to deep scarlet—and the pool of blood was spreading quickly. Kanba’s back arched as he screamed in pain.
“Kan-chan! It’s okay! You’ll be okay, Kan-chan!”
Himari pulled back slightly. Then she reached up, looking directly into his eyes, and cupped his face with both hands. His blood fell onto her forehead, cheeks, and the bare skin beneath her shredded nightgown. But she kept staring at him, unblinking.
It was Kanba who first suggested we repaint the wall of our house. I was originally against the idea. We were already social pariahs; I didn’t want us to draw even more attention to ourselves. But Kanba said he didn’t care what anyone else thought—he just wanted to make our house the kind of place Himari would always want to come home to, no matter what it took. He told me if it caused any problems, he would handle it himself.
Looking back, that was probably the moment that I finally acknowledged Kanba as my older brother. Somehow I sensed that he was willing to stand up and protect us. After that, things stopped being awkward between the three of us. Calling Kanba “Aniki” felt natural—comfortable, even. Over a long, long time, we gradually became real siblings, and after that, we were a real family.
“Kan-chan! Kan-chan!” Himari wiped the blood from his cheek and smiled. “You’ve done enough, Kan-chan. You don’t have to go this far.”
At her voice, Kanba stopped wailing. The light was returning to his eyes—the same headstrong eyes I remembered so fondly.
By now the majority of Himari’s world was stained red, and it had already reached my feet. But I stepped into that pool of blood without hesitation. They were so close.
“See? It doesn’t hurt, does it?”
No, it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t sad or scary. I accepted and loved Kanba as my brother, and he probably loved me, too. This was not a punishment meant for one person alone.
His blood formed dozens of bright red apples that rose up into the white fabric world, one by one. Then they formed an even bigger circle around the circle of teddy bears and slowly began to rotate.
“Himari…” It was Kanba’s voice, without a doubt.
“Kan-chan! It’s you! Welcome home.”
Himari smiled brightly, then collapsed on the spot. Kanba caught her and wiped the blood off her face with his palm. Gently, he ran a finger over the cut on her forehead. Only then did I finally reach them; I doubled over, gasping for breath.
“I had a lot of fun all these years,” I grinned. “Thank you, Kanba. I’ll give you back everything you gave me—including the life you shared with me.”
Gingerly, I pulled out the precious treasure burning brightly in my chest.