“But…While all that was going on, I would sometimes meet up with Misaki secretly. Especially after we moved up to middle school and we started participating in more activities. And around that time, she found out that the two of us were originally sisters, too.
“Maybe it was a strange idea, but she and I felt this unbreakable connection. We’d been linked by sharing time together inside the same mother. We were each half of the other, which is such a clichéd thing to say, but that’s how it seemed.
“Oh, but in case you’re wondering, I don’t think it felt that nice. This mysterious sensation…that my other half is right over there…that was the strongest impression I got. Beyond that, well, Misaki had grown up in a family with her real mom and dad, while her other self had been sent to live with a foster family, where she had even lost an eye as a young child…I might have come out a little more cynical than her.”
All of a sudden, the windowpane rattled violently. Had the wind shifted direction? I started to feel as if someone were peering in through the window from outside—though that was impossible—and I instinctively turned to look behind me.
“Around then…This was happening last spring. That’s when Misaki got sick.”
Mei continued with her story.
“It was a really serious illness, in her kidneys. She would have to be on dialysis the rest of her life. The only way to avoid that was to get a kidney transplant.”
“A transplant…”
“Yeah. So Misaki got one kidney from her mother, Mitsuyo, and got admitted to a big hospital in Tokyo for the surgery. Actually, I wanted to give her my kidney. I mean, we were twins, even if just fraternal, and we were the same size, so wouldn’t you think that’s the best option for a transplant? They said transplanting an adult’s kidney into a child was pretty hard, what with the size difference and everything, so…
“But apparently there’s some guideline that says children under fifteen years old can’t be live organ donors, so I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I swore I wanted to. Although…Even if the hospital had made an exception, if she—if Kirika had found out, she would have dug her heels in and refused to let me do it.”
So that had been the “major surgery at another hospital” Misaki Fujioka had had before coming to the municipal hospital. All at once, Ms. Mizuno’s voice reawakened vividly in my mind, speaking those same words over the phone, and I squeezed my eyes shut reflexively.
“The surgery was at the beginning of the year and it was a complete success. But they needed to monitor her progress afterward, so when her condition stabilized, Misaki transferred to the hospital here. Even after the transfer, her recovery was on schedule. I would secretly go and visit her. Without telling Kirika what I was doing, of course.
“Misaki and I talked about all sorts of things, but then she said, ‘You have all those amazing dolls at your house. I’m so jealous.’ So I made her a promise. I showed her a picture of the dolls in my room and asked her which one she liked, and I told her ‘I’ll give you the one you like best to celebrate when you get out of the hospital.’ And that…”
“That was the doll you took to the memorial chapel that day?”
“…I promised her.”
Mei blinked slowly, sadly.
“I never thought she would die like that, all of a sudden…I really didn’t. She wasn’t having any problems in her recovery and they were saying she’d be able to go home soon. And yet, all of a sudden, she…”
…Right.
Ms. Mizuno had said that, too.
Misaki Fujioka’s condition had taken a sudden turn and before anyone could do anything, she had passed away. That had been April 27, a Monday. Ms. Mizuno had told me, “She was an only child, and apparently her parents were incoherent with grief.”
Certainly, I’d gotten an answer to the question that had so long been on my mind, but when I imagined what must be going through Mei’s mind, my heart clenched tight. It was hard to keep the tears from pouring down my face. However, at the same time…
A critical fact became inescapably clear.
“So she was never your cousin in the first place: You were sisters.”
Feeling an intense, tumultuous bewilderment, I reiterated the fact.
“Meaning that you and Misaki were actually second-degree blood relatives…”
“That’s right.”
“So that’s why you said what you did that day?”
My first day at school, the first time I’d encountered her there. During that conversation next to the flower bed where yellow roses were in full bloom, outside Building Zero…
You should be careful. It might have started already.
“When you told me ‘It might have started already’?”
“You’ve got a good memory. That’s right.”
“So it had started,” I said, my eyes locked on Mei’s face. “The ‘disasters’ for this year had already started in April.”
“…Probably.”
“Why didn’t you say so at the time?”
“I…Well, I…”
Without turning her eyes in my direction, Mei once again blinked, slow and sad.
“The fact that something like that had caused her—had caused Misaki’s death…I didn’t want to believe it. I could accept that something as irrational as a curse had caused it. So I…
“That’s why even when you asked me if I had any brothers or sisters, I couldn’t say yes. And when you asked me about Misaki, I could only say that she was my cousin. I didn’t want to say it.”
I remembered that.
After Yukari Sakuragi died as one the “deaths of May,” when I’d run into Mei for the second time in the basement of the gallery, she’d said, I guess I’ve only ever half believed it, in the back of my mind.
First that happened, then in May you came to our school and I told you all that stuff, but I still didn’t believe it a hundred percent.
“First that happened” must have meant Misaki’s death in April. And then if “telling me all that stuff” had been an allusion to her saying that “it might have started already”…
Mei’s head was bent, her fists balled around the sheets on the bed where she sat. Even as I tried earnestly once again to imagine what she must be feeling, I compiled the facts I had come to understand and couldn’t help speaking them aloud, sounding out the truth of them.
“The ‘disasters’ for this year’s third-year Class 3 started in April, just like they did for all those other classes. When Misaki Fujioka died in the hospital, she became the first victim…The ‘death of April.’ Which means…”
The gusts of wind rattling the window barreled into my body and clamped sharply down on my body heat. When that sudden sensation assaulted me, a chill carved down my spine and raised goose bumps over my entire body.
Mei’s head moved as if to say, I know…She lifted her face languidly. “I thought of that, too.”
“Meaning what?”
“After you got out of the hospital, you first came to school at the beginning of May. That was when we realized there weren’t enough desks in the classroom, so everyone believed that this year’s ‘disasters’ were erratic and starting in May. But if Misaki was the ‘death of April,’ that would mean we were wrong…”
“…Yeah, it would.”
Folding both arms over my chest and hugging tight, I nodded.
“Meaning that despite the fact that there were originally enough desks, the ‘extra person’ had already snuck into the class back in April, before I ever came to North Yomi…”