Without a word, my brother broke into a sprint. I followed behind him, equally silent. We ran down the stairs to see a crowd of people near a stage, beneath a schedule for the sea lion show.
“Himari!” My brother shoved his way to the center of the crowd. I followed behind him, shouting, “Sorry, that’s our sister! Please let us through!”
I tripped.
In the middle of the murmuring crowd, Himari was faceup on the ground.
“Himari! Himari!” Kanba held her up gently, shouting, but she was completely unresponsive, her eyes firmly shut, her pale pink lips open slightly.
“We’ve called an ambulance, so let’s get her to the medical office right away,” someone said. The voice was nearby, and probably belonged to an employee of the aquarium. But between the beating of my heart, and the sound of blood pounding in my ears, I could not tell who spoke.
“Please,” Kanba murmured, as Himari was whisked away on a stretcher.
Once more, I felt the vivid sensation of being paralyzed and unable to act, the muscles in my face frozen.
Himari, who laughed and smiled not so long ago at all, was now as silent as a doll, unconscious in the ICU. An IV was taped to her arm, her face was covered by an oxygen mask, and numerous tubes that we could not make heads or tails of snaked around her. A small monitor indicated that her heart was still beating, though it was faint.
“Takakura-san! Takakura Himari-san!” the doctors called over and over again, but she did not reply.
We could only call out to her from the other side of a large glass pane. The doctors and nurses kept moving around frantically, the sight of which alone told us that her condition was critical.
“Her pulse is dropping!”
“Doctor!”
Just as Dr. Washizuka rushed to Himari’s side, the small blips on the monitor ceased moving, the line going flat. All the numbers dropped to zero.
Both my brother and I understood what this meant, but neither of us could say a word. We knew what would happen next. Some nurse or doctor confirmed the time on the clock, and then looked sadly at us. And then, they stated it: the hour and minute at which Himari’s life had run out. And then, their condolences.
“Takakura Kanba-kun, Shoma-kun, we are sorry to say that your dear sister has passed away,” they said to us.
I felt the temperature in my body drop. My legs felt like they were floating. I’m certain that in that moment, my face was even paler than Himari’s, who lay still in that bed, no longer breathing.
“Aniki,” I managed to wring out.
Kanba stared at Himari like a statue, his face unchanging: not smiling nor crying, not showing anger, nor hatred.
“Takakura-san—or, no, Kanba-kun, Shoma-kun. Please allow me to offer my condolences.”
Dr. Washizuka’s speech ended before we realized it had even begun. Just what in the world did he mean by “condolences”? It seemed to suggest something like, “well, that’s unfortunate, the poor thing.”
If only this were a dream. I could open my eyes, slap my brother awake, and run to Himari’s room. It might be three in the morning, or six. Kanba, always a grouch on waking, might kick me away, or complain loudly. It didn’t matter—I would sit by the side of the large canopy bed where Himari slept, calming my frantic breathing, watching over her until the sun rose.
The surfaces within the high-ceilinged morgue became strangely translucent where the evening sun shone through. A strange and solemn atmosphere filled the room, like it was a church in some foreign land.
Atop the small bed, Himari was wrapped in unadorned white sheets, a white cloth over her face. Kanba slumped against the wall and stared blankly as I clutched the sheets, my face a mess of tears.
“Himari, why did you have to go so soon?” I whimpered. My throat was so tight, I could hardly speak.
“Guess that doctor wasn’t such a quack after all…” said Kanba, his voice cold and blank. “He said that it was strange that she could even be walking around in her current condition. He said that we should be prepared for it to happen at any moment.”
Even with the sun coming through, the morgue had a vague chill. The distinctive smell of dead people hung in the air, and Kanba’s voice echoed.
“This was her fate,” he said. “She got to go in a place from her favorite memories, without pain or suffering. At the very least, I think she was happy.”
He took a deep breath and pulled away from the wall. As I held back my sobs, listening to his words, my face now twisted up for a different reason.
“Anyway, we should get in touch with Uncle Ikebe. There’ll be a lot of arrangements and procedures to deal with.”
“How…” My voice was quiet, still strained but steady. I shot up, turned, and grabbed my brother hard by the collar. “How could you, in front of Himari? How could you say something so cold in front of our little sister?!” I squeezed at his chest with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
“I’m just accepting the facts as they are,” he coolly replied.
“What about this is fact?!” Still gripping his lapels, I shoved him against the wall. A thud echoed in the room, but neither his stance nor expression were shaken. “How is this fate?! Why Himari? Why would this happen to her?! She was a girl who would say that just eating breakfast with her family made her happy—why her?!”
I started to weep again, looking down so that he could not see my face. I’m sure that my eyes were already red and swollen.
Kanba rested his hand softly atop my head. I lifted my face and saw his eyes. His expression was lonesome, his eyes wide and wild and unexpectedly kind.
“Because this was probably the punishment that we earned.”
I felt as though a nail had been driven through my heart. It was not as though I hadn’t considered this. But I decided it was a coincidence, nothing more than a passing fancy of my wildly childish imagination. I locked the thought away inside a little black box that sat at the corners of my mind, and thrown away the key.
Punishment. Of course. We were children who could only expect to be punished. Children who were probably hurting others just by continuing to live as we were. And Himari had taken on that burden. Our little Himari, all on her own.
“Survival Tactiiiiic!!”
The two of us nearly leapt out of our skin at the sudden loud voice. Kanba looked toward Himari’s body, and his eyes went wide. I slowly turned around as well, my shoulders tensed.
Somehow, Himari sat up, with the penguin hat that we just bought her at the aquarium gift shop atop her head. The white cloth that covered her face fluttered to the floor.
“H-Himari?” I said.
The loud voice sounded like an imitation of Himari’s. It was certainly the same voice, but the strength, intonation, and force of delivery were all completely alien.
Perhaps because of the light of the setting sun, her eyes seemed to glow red, staring out from a hollow expression.
“We have come from the place where your fates reside. Rejoice! We have deigned to extend this girl’s life. Kneel before us and show your gratitude, cretins!”
I was lost for words. I glanced at Kanba, but he was of course equally speechless.
A strange smile leapt to Himari’s lovely face, and she continued, “If you wish for this girl to continue to live…” She spoke only that far, her words cut off with a haughty grin.
I leaned forward, continuing to listen.
Suddenly, her posture shifted, and she looked at each of us with cold eyes. Then she lowered her head slightly, and her hat slipped forward and plopped down on the sheets.
“Oh!” I reflexively reached forward to pick up the hat, then said, “H-Himari? Is that really you?”
I quickly forgot about the hat, peering at Himari’s blank face.
“Where… am I?” she asked, looking nervously at the bed she had been lying in. “What was I doing?”
“Oh, um…” I didn’t know what to say. I’d been certain that the Himari speaking now knew nothing about what was going on. Who had spoken before, then? And how was a girl who should have been dead sitting up and looking at me this way?