I don’t know if Mochizuki was trying to be considerate, but eventually he went home, leaving Mei with me. As he was departing, he murmured, “Oh, right,” and pulled something out of his bag.
“I meant to give this to you. I’ll make a copy for you, too, Misaki.”
What Mochizuki then handed me was the “commemorative photo” we’d taken in front of the gate when we’d arrived at the Sakitani Memorial Hall the evening of August 8.
“So, Misaki—how long did you know?”
I waited until Mochizuki left before I asked Mei the question that I’d been wanting to ask the whole time I’d been hospitalized.
“That Ms. Mikami…Reiko was the ‘extra person’? When did you…?”
“When was it?” Mei put a hand to her forehead in a deliberate gesture. “…I forget.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I piled on another question, my face earnest.
“I thought it wouldn’t help anything even if I did tell you. Until I heard what was on that tape. Plus…” Shifting the hand on her forehead to the eye patch over her left eye, Mei continued, “I just couldn’t tell you. How could I have? Ms. Mikami looked so much like your mother, who was already gone. When I saw the yearbook and when you showed me all those pictures at your house…I thought, They’re exactly alike. She was important to you, right? Ms. Mikami—Reiko.”
“Yeah…But…”
“But what?…You found that tape and I found out that there was still a way to stop the ‘disasters,’ so…that’s why.”
That’s why…Yes, she had truly wrestled with it.
If we returned “the casualty” to Death, the “disasters” would stop. Who was that “extra person”? She could already see who it was. So then what should she do? What did she need to do?
In order to solidify her own resolve, she’d wanted to hear what was on Katsumi Matsunaga’s tape for herself and confirm what he’d said. And before she did that, she’d looked at the group photo of third-year Class 3 from twenty-six years ago with her own eyes and confirmed that Misaki Yomiyama had the “color of death” in that picture. This was how she had worked through things on her own and made the decision alone, and tried to put an end to everything by herself…
“Before, when I called you from the hospital,” I said, changing the subject slightly, “I tried calling your cell phone first, but I couldn’t get through.”
“Yeah. After the trip, I threw it into the river.”
Mei said it so casually.
“I told Kirika…told my mom that I lost it in the fire.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because although I do think it’s convenient, it’s still an awful machine. There’s no reason people need to be that connected to each other all the time.”
Smiling faintly as she answered, Mei Misaki fit exactly the impression I’d formed of her that day at the end of April when I’d first run into her by the elevators in the inpatient ward.
“Still, she’ll probably force me to get a new one soon.”
“When she does, can I call you sometimes?”
“Only if it’s sometimes,” Mei replied, smiling faintly again.
Want to go visit some art museums in Tokyo together one of these days? I tried to say the words, but I swallowed them again.
One of these days…How far in the future would that be from this moment? I no longer felt a vague apprehension about that, like I had before.
One of these days…I knew I would see Mei someday. That’s what I thought. Even after I left this town the following spring, I knew it. Even if we didn’t make a promise right then and there. Even if the connection I felt right then got broken somehow. One of these days, I knew we would meet again.
✦ ✦ ✦
After that, we looked together at the photos Mochizuki had given me.
There were two of them. The first was the one Mochizuki had taken. The other was the one Teshigawara had taken. In the bottom right corner of the shot were numbers, showing the date the pictures were taken.
In both, there were five people in the picture.
The gatepost of the Sakitani Memorial Hall was in the center, and one photo showed, in order from right to left, me, Mei, Kazami, Teshigawara, and Ms. Mikami—Reiko. The other one showed Mochizuki in place of Teshigawara and, per Teshigawara’s instructions, he was right up against his “beloved Ms. Mikami”…
“Reiko shows up.”
Still staring at the photos, I said it aloud to confirm the fact with Mei.
“I guess Mochizuki couldn’t see her.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Any color?” I asked. “How does Reiko look?”
In response, Mei removed the eye patch from her left eye and took another look at the photo. Then, quietly, she answered, “It’s the ‘color of death.’”
“…Oh.”
I slid out of bed and got to my feet to open the window of my room a little. Outside it was bright and sunny, but for some reason the breeze that blew in felt surprisingly chilly.
“I wonder if we’re going to start forgetting soon, too,” I said, turning to look at Mei. “Of course we’ll forget what happened that night on the trip. But we’ll start to forget everything else that involves Reiko Mikami that happened between April and that night, too. Like Mochizuki and the rest of them.”
…Even the fact that I had, with my own hands, returned her to Death.
“And even if we do like Matsunaga did fifteen years ago and leave behind a recording of the facts we remember or write them down somewhere, the most important parts will probably disappear, like they did on that tape.”
“Maybe, yeah.”
Returning her eye patch to its place, Mei gave a small, mute nod. Then she asked me a question.
“Do you want to remember it that badly? You never want to forget?”
“…I don’t know.”
Forgetting would be better. I felt that way, too. Even now, a pain, distinct from the issues with my lung, lingered deep in my chest. If it meant that pain would disappear completely…Maybe. But still…
I turned slowly back to the window. I still had the two photos in my hands. Dropping my gaze to the photos just once…I went into a reverie.
I didn’t know if it would happen in a few days, a few months, or even after a few years. But if all the information about the “extra person” from this year disappeared from my memories someday…
That day…
What would I see in the blank spot that would arise in these photos? What would I feel about it?
Another breeze blew in through the window, ruffling my hair. It really was unexpectedly chilly.
The final gust of the midsummer breeze. With that phrase flowing through my mind, the summer when I was fifteen was coming to an end.