Chapter 3.5 (1/2)

Soon, the season would change from summer to autumn. Autumn, the season when Meiko died.

I often remembered Meiko during this season. And so, as autumn approached every year, I became more melancholic. This year in particular was the worst. I kind of disliked that I myself was going through the autumn of my first year of high school, the period of time my sister had last lived.

Two weeks had pa.s.sed since I completely stopped seeing Mamizu, and the school festival was coming up the next day.

Even the students who hadn’t normally been partic.i.p.ating in practice for the play were partic.i.p.ating now that the performance was a day away. There was the aspect of acting as a character, and wanting to take part in such a youth-like event was probably a part of human nature as well. Everyone was fairly busy, but relatively little work had been allocated to us members of the main cast, so we were actually quite free. I didn’t really feel like offering to help, either.

“At last, it’s tomorrow, huh,” said Kayama.

I was leaning against the teacher’s lectern, and Kayama tossed ma a can of fizzy drink that he seemed to have purchased from the vending machine on the first floor.

“Okada, why are you playing Juliet?” It was only now that Kayama asked this obvious question.

“Well… Actually, Mamizu wanted to play Juliet,” I said.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mamizu always tells me to do the ‘things she wants to do before she dies’ in her place, and then tell her about them.”

“So tomorrow, should I pretend that you’re Watarase Mamizu while I’m acting?”

“How tragic.”

The drink fizzed inside my mouth.

“Two more months, right?” Kayama said, in a tone that sounded like he expected me to already know.

I looked at his face in surprise. “Did Mamizu say that?”

I remembered that Mamizu had been told how long she had to live at the beginning of summer vacation. At the time, I had been too scared to ask her exactly how long it was.

“Yeah, when I went to her hospital room with her. You didn’t know, Okada?”

It was a shock to me. It was a shock that Kayama knew when I didn’t, but the figure of ‘two months’ was a blow to me as well. I felt like I’d been thrust into a pool of cold water.

“Hey, Okada. Why do beautiful people have to die while a piece of s.h.i.+t like me lives? That’s crazy, right? Don’t you think so?” Kayama said.

I wondered who he was talking about. Was it Mamizu, his older brother, or both? I wanted to ask, but I felt like I didn’t need to, so I stayed silent.

I tried to think of something else to say instead.

“I was rejected, too. By Watarase Mamizu.” I finally told Kayama that.

But Kayama didn’t look surprised at all. “Someone who’s always by my side, but whom I can never touch.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what Watarase Mamizu said about the guy she likes.”

It was my first time hearing this.

“She said that herself?” I asked.

“That’s right. So, she’s probably talking about you.”

“No, that’s not right. Mamizu and I cut ties the other day, and I don’t see her anymore.”

“Cut ties… are you a kid?”

“Indeed.”

Indeed, I am a kid, I thought.

‘Hey, one day, if I said don’t come anymore no matter what, would you still come and see me?’

Finally, I remembered Mamizu’s words all of a sudden.

The night wore on. At the end, we did a careful rehearsal of the play.

First, Juliet drinks the potion and enters a near-death state.

Next, Romeo kills himself, mistakenly thinking that Juliet is dead.

Finally, Juliet feels despair at Romeo’s death.

Nothingness. [無]

When the ones we love die, we must commit suicide.

The phrase that Meiko had drawn a red line under floated into my mind.

It takes bravery or some kind of strength to sneak into a hospital at night. I’d already done it multiple times, and perhaps I’d gained something like courage after I met Mamizu.

With that said, it’s too good to be true for it to go well every time.

That was the case here.

With the real performance of the play coming the next day, I wanted to see Mamizu’s face no matter what, so I snuck into the hospital late at night on the way back from school. And then I was caught by a nurse. It was the nurse named Okazaki, the one I’d talked to that time when Mamizu collapsed at the store.

“Sit down there.”

She sighed and gestured for me to sit on a chair at the nurse center.

“Your name? Tell the truth.”

“It’s Okada.”

“Full name!” Okazaki-san said in a very harsh tone.

“Okada… Takuya.”

“As I thought.”

I didn’t know what was as she thought, but that was what she said.

“Once visiting hours are over, outsiders are prohibited from entering the rooms,” she continued.

“Yes… I’m sorry.” Now that things had come to this, I had no choice but to apologize. I hung my head and looked at the floor.

“Well, that doesn’t matter, does it?” Okazaki-san said, maintaining the serious expression on her face.

I lifted my head in surprise.

“More importantly, why did you suddenly stop visiting Watarase-san? You two are going out, aren’t you?”

I was shocked. It seemed that Okazaki-san was greatly misunderstanding something. I’d thought that she’d be too busy to keep track of who visited whom. It had never occurred to me that she’d know I’d been frequently visiting Mamizu’s hospital room.

“Did you have a fight? Or do you hate her now? Did it become painful to watch her grow weaker and weaker?”

“That’s not it. It’s just… She hates me,” I said. “She told me she doesn’t want to see my face.”

“So, that’s why you’re not showing it to her anymore. Hmm.” Okazaki-san reached her leg out towards me and kicked me lightly with the sandal on her foot. “Don’t be so half-baked about things.”

“… But I can’t help it, can I? She said she doesn’t want to see me. I have no choice but to draw back, do I? Or are you the type who feels moved by warped, stalker-ish love, Okazaki-san?” For some reason, I made a joke that was inappropriate given the situation. Even I knew that I was going nowhere with this.

“You don’t know anything. You don’t think badly of yourself for not knowing. You think you’re right. You’re just intoxicated on the sense of being right. It’s common, but nasty.” Okazaki-san said, throwing out profound sentences one after another as she stood up. “It’s time for me to make my rounds, so I’m going to go. You should go home, too. Without waking up sick patients in the middle of the night.”

I slowly stood up as well.

“While I’m on duty, I make my rounds around the patients’ beds at night. Lately, Watarase-san has been crying in her sleep. Ever since you stopped coming to visit, non-stop, you know. I don’t think she’s even aware of it. I can’t say anything about it, either. I can’t interfere with each individual patient’s feelings like that. She’s always saying, ‘Takuya-kun, I’m sorry.’ That’s your name, isn’t it? She’s apologizing to you every night. What made her like that? I don’t know the answer,” Okazaki-san said.

She said all of that very quickly. I wondered if she would have been better suited to being a comedian or politician.

“All I know is that the only person in the world it could be is you.” With that, Okazaki-san went to leave the nurse center.

“Wait!” I shouted, without thinking.

“Quiet. It’s night time.”

“I’m sorry. Umm, tomorrow, my cla.s.s is performing a play. Tomorrow is the real performance. That’s why I wanted to see Mamizu’s face. I thought that I’d do my best for Mamizu’s sake. Could you tell her that for me?”

“If I feel like it,” Okazaki-san said, and then she left.

In the end, I obediently went home without seeing Mamizu.

Before the cultural festival performance, I was going through quite a painful experience.

“Don’t move, Takuya-kun.”

As I was playing Juliet, I’d been captured by the girls of the cla.s.s and was being forced to put on make-up in the cla.s.sroom. Wearing an oversized dress, too. I’d heard that I’d be wearing a dress, but I hadn’t heard that I’d be wearing make-up as well.

“You don’t really have to go this far, you know…” I said, feeling fed up.

But the cla.s.s had already become carried away and weren’t listening to me. I could hear the guys snickering. I could hear voices saying things like, “Okada-kun looks better with makeup, doesn’t he?” “He might be prettier than me,” and, “Actually, you look pretty good, Okada,” which wasn’t comforting at all. When I looked in the mirror, my appearance couldn’t be described as anything but comical. I wanted to call it quits and run away.

“Okada, you’re feeling nervous, aren’t you?” said Kayama as he approached me, dressed like a n.o.bleman. He looked at my makeup with a clearly curious expression.

“Not at all,” I said.

I wanted to say, “Aren’t you the one feeling nervous?” I could see a stiff expression on Kayama’s face.

“I hope it goes well, Okada,” Kayama said.

The moment I stepped out wearing a woman’s clothing, there would be no avoiding Shakespeare’s tragedy story degrading into a comedy.

“You should have dressed up as a woman as well. Romeo is a woman as well, a new, sensational yuri play,” I said.

That would have been a tragicomedy instead, though.

“So, the actors are two guys, huh?”

“That’s hilarious.” Though I said that, it wasn’t actually funny at all.

Still… Although I was already feeling sick of this, I intended to carry this out seriously.

Because this wasn’t something that I was doing for myself.

I’d been quite serious during practice as well. So, it would be alright.

“It’s alright, right?” I asked Kayama, suddenly feeling anxious.

“Yeah, you look good.” Kayama said, giving me his impression on my female clothing for some reason.

My make-up was finished, so I gave him a push and stood up.

At that moment, the phone in the pocket of my uniform that I’d tossed into the corner of the cla.s.sroom began vibrating. I hastily went over to it and looked at the screen.

‘Watarase Mamizu’ was displayed on the screen.

And it was a video call.

“Oi, Okada, the real thing is about to begin,” someone said.