“Let me ask you one final thing. What is it that you wish to do right now?”
He felt as if he’d heard someone ask that question, right before he passed out. The asker had been a boy, black-haired and dressed in what looked like a burial robe.
So this is Death, huh? That made sense to Kazushi, and he answered the boy.
Even if it turned out he was just talking to himself for the last time, he didn’t care.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was in bed in a hospital room.
Why am I alive? he thought. But according to the doctor and nurses, he’d genuinely sustained serious injuries. They told him that if he’d been reported even a minute later, he would have died.
The caller had sounded like a boy, but they still didn’t know who it was.
Apparently, his bandaged, gauze-covered face would never be the same. They weren’t sure if hair would ever grow over the wounded spot on the back of his head, either.
Two weeks after Kazushi was admitted, he slipped out of the ward, then headed straight for the police station. It wasn’t as if he had any way to pay his hospital bill.
He’d broken the tooth of a middle schooler who’d been hunting homeless people.
He’d illegally entered Suzu’s house countless times, and he’d killed five dogs.
He didn’t know how much of a sentence any of those things would carry. They were crimes, though. That much was undeniable.
And then…
…Kazushi found himself standing in that park.
Bright autumn sunlight streamed down over the bench, and fallen leaves covered the ground in a dappled carpet. When he drew a breath, he thought it smelled like light.
The figure he’d been searching for was there. Suzu was sitting on the bench, nodding drowsily, that chair-walker with the flower-patterned bag at her side.
Kazushi felt the depths of his throat begin to quiver. He realized he was biting his lip.
Even he didn’t know why he’d come here, after all this time.
But…
He went closer to the bench, dead leaves crackling under his feet. Suzu looked up. She blinked slowly, like a cat dozing in the sun.
Their eyes met.
I have to say something, he thought, but all his lips would do was tremble. His throat had gone dry, and he couldn’t make a sound. His heart was jumping around as if he’d developed an arrhythmia, and he felt his underarms grow damp with sweat.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Suzu said. The sun wasn’t all that bright, but she narrowed her eyes, as if it dazzled her.
She doesn’t recognize me, he thought.
She hadn’t registered who was standing in front of her. Her eyes were only vaguely turned in his direction; she might not even have realized there was a person there at all.
Or so he thought, but…
“Huh?”
Abruptly, Suzu knelt formally on the bench and bowed very, very deeply to him. She scuffed her forehead on the peeling paint, again and again. Her hands trembled, the wrinkles on them even deeper than they’d been in the gloom under that night-light.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve lost Chi. Even though she was so important to you. Even though I was happy that you’d counted on me, and that I could help you. I’m so sorry.” I’m sorry, she repeated over and over.
“…Oh.”
Kazushi tried to speak, but the words still wouldn’t come.
It couldn’t be—had Suzu searched for Chi so desperately because she’d been taking care of her for him?
Someone had finally been kind enough to count on her, she said. She’d finally been able to help someone.
Kazushi knew better than anyone how much it hurt when nobody needed you, how lonely and futile your life felt. If Suzu was like him…
Chi had suddenly vanished, and Suzu had gone around looking and looking for her.
She’d been silently apologizing to Kazushi the whole time.
If that was what had worn her down like this…
Don’t tell me…
When she’d finally started to see stray dogs that looked nothing like Chi as Chi… When her dementia had gotten bad enough to make that possible…
Had all of it been Kazushi’s fault?
In that moment, he felt something inside him break.
His eyes blurred. The strength went out of his knees, and he crumpled to the ground. Watery snot ran down the back of his throat, and he choked again and again. Even then, it took him a while to realize he was crying.
“I…ry!” he shrieked, shoulders shaking, sobbing like a child. He pressed his forehead to the ground, saying the words over and over with an intensity that nearly split his throat.
Kazushi had finally remembered. When the boy in the white kimono had asked him, “What is it that you wish to do right now?” he’d simply said, “I want to apologize.”
Even though apologizing wouldn’t help anything. Even though he knew he’d never be forgiven, that everything was broken past saving.
Even so, the truth was that he’d always, always wanted to say he was sorry.
Ever since he’d stood frozen in the entryway at his childhood home, dressed in his uniform, gripping his schoolbag with a sweaty palm.
I’m sorry I can’t do it right.
I’m sorry I can’t live properly.
I’m sorry I’m like this.
I made you unhappy. I hit you.
I made you die. I killed you.
“…I’m……ry.”
Kazushi repeated himself until his throat was hoarse. At some point, he realized Suzu had crouched down beside him.
Her warm hand was stroking his back. That painfully thin, wrinkled hand stroked him slowly, over and over, just as she’d once petted Chako.
As if she were caring for something weak and precious.
There was no longer anything he could say but I’m sorry. Even if those words had no meaning anymore.
Even so, the hand on his back was warm.
For now…I’m still alive.