Chapter 3.7 (1/2)

Mamizu had gradually started to talk less and less. I got the feeling that even speaking was tiring for her.

She started las.h.i.+ng out at me from time to time. She started arguments with me over trivial things. When that happened, she said things like “You actually should stop coming,” and “Goodbye.” These had already become standard phrases for her to say. I never really responded to them.

Unlike in the past, Mamizu cried often these days. It was possible that she had done her best to not cry in front of me up until now. It was possible that her las.h.i.+ng out at me was because she was hesitant to show weakness. With that being the case, strangely enough, I didn’t have negative feelings about it.

“Dying of illness would be annoying, so maybe I’ll have you kill me, Takuya-kun,” Mamizu said.

She was lively that day. And she was in a good mood, too. She was talking a lot, which was unusual these days.

“I don’t really want to go to prison yet, though,” I said.

“Then shall we commit a double suicide? Takuya-kun, will you die with me?” Mamizu said, making a joke that couldn’t be laughed at.

“Sure,” I said. “So, how do you want us to commit the double suicide?”

“Suicide by drowning is a bit common, isn’t it?”

“Do you really need to think so hard about this?”

“How about hanging?”

I tried imagining it. Our two corpses, dangling somewhere together. It seemed stupid to me.

“Then how about jumping off a building?” Mamizu suggested.

The two of us would fly through the air together. That seemed stupid as well. It was more like some kind of special fighting move than something romantic. Like Double whatever Buster, or something.

“Seppuku?” I tried suggesting.

“Isn’t that a bit too all-out?” Mamizu said. “And that would need someone to behead us to finish us off. One of us wouldn’t be able to die. It’ll be really painful if you fail to die, you know. I think a more casual double suicide would be better.”

“How about freezing to death?”

“But where would we freeze?”

“A snowy mountain or something?”

“That’s too far!”

“What about inside a freezer?”

“Will there be any that would fit two people inside?”

“An industrial-sized one.”

“We should find an industrial-sized one then, shouldn’t we?”

Although we were exchanging jokes like this, I didn’t really feel any better.

I actually wanted her to say more easy-to-understand, selfish things and laugh.

I wanted her to make me do something ridiculous that seemed like it would be a punishment game, then laugh at me as she watched me endure it, just like she did in the beginning.

“Don’t you have any more ‘things you want to do before you die’ left?” I asked.

“Well then, here’s the final one,” Mamizu said, looking at me directly.

The word “final” startled me.

“I want to know what happens after death,” Mamizu said.

Hearing those words, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

The day that Kayama saved me was in my mind.

Ever since that day, the day that I didn’t die, it had always been there.

I’d always felt like I was dead, even while I was living.

So, I thought of a good way.

“Mamizu. I’ll visit you one more time tonight,” I said, and then I left the hospital room.

Mamizu had a curious expression on her face. It was an expression that said, “I don’t understand.”

You’ll understand soon, I thought.

I returned home, calmed myself and thought about my idea. But it wasn’t an idea that I’d come up with on impulse. That was why I didn’t waver. I thought that this was the best idea.

I pressed my hands together in front of Meiko’s butsudan.

Meiko-neechan.

After you died, I wondered why you’d died, over and over. I thought about it about a hundred times. But I didn’t understand your feelings at all. I thought you were an idiot. I couldn’t understand the feeling of dying at all. I even gave up on trying to understand, thinking that it couldn’t be helped because we were two separate people, even if we were brother and sister. But still, it stayed on my mind.

If you died because your boyfriend died, then there was no way I could understand your feelings back then. I’d never liked anyone or had any serious troubles over the death of someone important.

But I finally understand.

I understand the meaning behind that despair.

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

The other day, I tried being hit by a car as well, and nearly got hit.

At that moment, I felt like I finally understood.

I thought I finally understood your feelings.

“Hey, how long are you going to be praying to Meiko for?”

I was pulled back into reality by my mother’s voice. I saw her busily putting food on the dining table.

“I’ll help,” I said, going to stand up next to my mother.

“That’s kind of odd,” she said.

Dinner was curry and rice. It was the dish that Meiko had liked. Even after Meiko died, my mother had continued making it every week without fail.

“The curry and rice we have is strange, isn’t it?” I said.

My mother made a completely surprised expression.

“I mean, it’s seafood every time,” I continued. “It’s normally meat, isn’t it? Is it to match Meiko-neechan’s tastes?”

My mother laughed. “Actually, it’s me who likes it,” she said. She’d never told me that before. “Your father dislikes curry, right? So, it was hard for me to put it on the dinner table until Meiko was born. But Meiko took after me. She liked seafood curry. That’s how I started being able to put it on the table with confidence.”

“So, in other words, you’ve always been making it just because you want to eat it yourself?”

“Exactly,” my mother said with a mischievous smile.

“Seconds, please,” I said, though I was honestly full.

“Go and get it yourself,” my mother said as she brought me a second serving.

“You know, Mom,” I said as I ate. “I’m alright now.”

For a moment, my mother made an expression that showed that she didn’t know what I was talking about. And then it turned into an expression of understanding.

It was hard to say everything that was on my mind, so that was the only way I could say it.

“Really?” my mother said, looking somewhat happy.

I felt a stab of pain in my chest as I looked at her.

“Yeah. I’m alright.”

After that, I took a shower, brushed my teeth and changed into a white s.h.i.+rt.

I went out onto the veranda and called Kayama.

“What do you want?” said Kayama’s voice on the other end.

“I’m transferring schools,” I said. In the end, I couldn’t tell him everything.

“Huh? That’s sudden.”

“My dad moved jobs.”

“Where?” Kayama asked.

“Where do you think?”

“Overseas?”

“Exactly,” I said, as if to say that I was impressed he knew.

“Things will get lonely around here.”

“Kayama, thanks for everything up until now.”

A little silence pa.s.sed after I said that.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” Kayama said plainly. “Okada, where are you now?”

I ended the call and turned my phone off.

After that, I gave Kamenosuke a large amount of food. Kamenosuke was wandering around his tank, looking at me with the same carefree, sleepy-looking expression. If I’m reborn, I want to be a turtle, I thought, despite thinking that there was probably no such thing as reincarnation.

I left the house after ten o’clock.

“Where are you going at this time of night?” my mother asked in a worried tone, stopping me. Perhaps she had noticed something.

“Just over there, not far,” I said.

And then I left the house.

In the middle of the night, I snuck into Mamizu’s room. When I went inside, Mamizu was waiting for me with bated breath.

“You’re late, Takuya-kun,” she said.

I took the wheelchair in the corner of the room and moved it next to the bed. Mamizu’s body had weakened so much that she was barely able to walk.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the roof,” I replied.

“Hey, the elevator only goes up to the seventh floor, so we can’t go all the way to the roof,” Mamizu said, meaning that we couldn’t use the wheelchair because of that. “Will you carry me?”

She sounded a little excited. So, I felt excited too.

I’d never carried a girl on my back before, so I wasn’t confident, but this wasn’t the time to be fl.u.s.tered or make mistakes. I calmly leaned over near the bed and gestured for her to get on.

Mamizu made a small noise as she jumped onto my back as if embracing me. At first, I thought for a moment that she was messing around, but I quickly realized that she no longer had the strength to slowly lower herself onto my back and rest her weight gently against me.

I opened the door and went out into the corridor.

There were no signs of the enemy, the nurses who would thwart us. It was fine.