Volume 4 - CH 2.3

Haruhiro stood in front of the locked glass door. Slowly he inserted the key in his hand.

The key turned with a click. It felt like he was wrenching open a casket, and I shivered. It was currently around four o’clock in the afternoon. Too early for dinner. Above all, locking the kitchen was not normal.

Haruhiro did not seem to find it weird. The same smile was plastered on his face. Cold sweat trickled down my spine. I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud.

“It’s locked. I see.”

I had to find out what was inside.

Haruhiro put his hand on the sliding door. With a smile on his face, he turned around.

“Come in.”

The chill of wrenching open a casket.

The smell of fresh bread and butter.

The aroma of a savory breakfast wafted around the room. Steaming corn soup was poured into a porcelain cup. A large bowl of lettuce and tomato salad. Plates of half-cooked scrambled eggs with a thick slice of toast. Butter melted slowly, soaking into the burnt surface.

Beside each plate were four long bread knives. Bizarre objects in an otherwise peaceful table.

But that wasn’t even the strangest thing of all.

“Dad, could you pass that for me?”

“Yuko, less talking. You need to eat faster.”

“Yayoi, where’s my coffee?”

“I have club activities today, so I’ll be coming home late. Can I have money for dinner?”

The dead were having a nice, casual conversation around the table.

The fingers of a girl who looked to be in middle school stirred a spoon, swirling the soup in her cup.

A high school girl spread red jam on her bread, spilling a little bit of it on the white plate.

A bespectacled man flipped through the newspaper. He went back to the first page. An article must have caught his attention.

A woman in an apron spoke to the man. She laughed softly and took a cup in her hand.

Haruhiro walked toward the table and sat on the empty seat.

At the head of the table, where no food lay.

Only an empty plate.

And one bread knife.

The middle school girl brushed up her short hair and whispered something, and the high school girl quickly objected. Laughter erupted. Haruhiro smiled brightly.

The laughter of a happy family.

I took a step back, then planted my feet firmly.

I could make sense of the scene before me.

The dead, who were supposed to be buried in the dirt, had come back to life. I recognized the sight.

Yet it looked somewhat different.

“Come, Odagiri-san. Sit down.”

Smiling, Haruhiro indicated the seat across from him with the palm of his hand. A sixth seat that wasn’t supposed to be there. My heart raced. Haruhiro rested his chin in his hand.

He was waiting for me.

Mayuzumi had yet to show up.

Bracing myself, I pulled up the chair and took a seat. The backrest hit the refrigerator.

Red letters flashed in my vision momentarily.

I turned around. There were all sorts of notes pinned to the fridge. And I saw it mixed among them. Words written on white paper with red crayon. A sentence at the end, however, had been added using a ballpoint pen. Satirical words in messy handwriting.

I turned back front. Haruhiro was on his seat, smiling.

He was the only one not participating in the family conversation.

I shifted my gaze to the paper again. Then I read it.

There was once a family.

Who loved each other, and lived a modest life.

They were blessed, their happiness perfect as a sphere.

But one day a crack appeared.

Their grief was so profound that their tears beat upon the earth like rain.

Sometimes the misfortunes that befall people can be completely outrageous.

It doesn’t matter if they’re young or old, rich or poor.

Whether it’s a good family or a bad family.

A truly heartbreaking story.

So the Lord gave them grace.

Laughter returned to their home, and they continue to cut bread today.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

May they be showered with happiness and joy.

“But come to think of it, who said that this Lord was God himself?”

Haruhiro uttered the last sentence. I followed his gaze. His dead family was having a lively conversation in front of him.

My juice, please. We’re going on a trip during the holidays. I heard from the neighbor. By the way, at school. Apparently there’s suspicious people lurking about. Listen to me.

Laughter returned to the table, where he was supposed to be alone.

Haruhiro was the only one who didn’t join their conversation.

I corrected my posture and turned my gaze back to him. We stared at each other, with his family cheerfully talking between us. He interlaced his fingers and gave me a sharp glare. He was smiling.

But his smile did not touch his eyes.

“…I have a question,” I said.

“What is it?”

I took a deep breath. I licked the inside of my mouth, dry and burning from the tension. Haruhiro kept his gaze fixed on me. I pulled my eyes away from the smiles and looked into his eyes.

The boy’s eyes were as dark as the abyss.

His expression was that of someone familiar with grief.

“…Are you having fun?”

Everything froze. The spoon stopped moving, and the butter knives halted. The sound of laughter and newspaper flipping faded away. All expressions vanished from the faces of the frozen family. Their rigid figures reminded me of puppets made of celluloid.

Haruhiro’s expression changed drastically.

A big smile appeared on his face.

“Nope. Not at all.”

The frozen family started moving again. Four hands reached for and grabbed the bread knives. Long blades gleamed. Leaning forward slightly, they extended their arms.

They then pressed the knives against the neck of the one sitting in front of them.

Two pairs—the two girls, and the man and woman.

Knives cut across the table like two bridges.

A second later, they pressed the knives deeper into the skin.

Blades moved back and forth, tearing through flesh.

Blood sputtered into the salad bowl. Red drops dripped down onto the bright green leaves. Blood soaked into the toasts, and scrambled eggs were stained red. The way they silently cut each other’s throats was almost mechanical. Haruhiro and I watched in silence.

I didn’t even so much as yelp at the gruesome scene.

This was in the past. There was nothing we could do to undo what happened.

Eventually, the family became still. They plopped down on the table and stopped moving.

Silence descended.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Odagiri-san. Waiting for a while now, as per the Lord’s order,” Haruhiro muttered with a sigh.

His voice was hoarse, like that of an old man who had lived a hundred years. Leaning back in his chair, he cast a weary glance at the ceiling.

“It was fun. At first,” he began, slowly.

With vacant eyes, he picked up the bloody lettuce. Viscous blood slid down the leaves. It looked like a revolting food sample in the summer light. Abruptly he released his fingers, letting it fall to the tablecloth.

Splat.

“Is this… the family you lost?” I asked.

“This? That’s a cruel way to refer to them. Me saying it is one thing, but it doesn’t feel nice hearing it from others. Though I guess there’s no other fitting pronoun.”

Haruhiro’s lips lifted in a sardonic smile. Rocking his chair, he went on.

The cool breeze from the air conditioner caressed my cheeks. The smell of blood overpowered the breakfast’s aroma.

One bread knife on the table remained pristine.

“One day, when I came to, I saw this scene in front of me. I had fainted, apparently, but my memories before and after were fuzzy, and I couldn’t process a lot of things. Why my family was dead, what happened to them, and why I was the only one who survived. After that, there were a series of similar group suicides, but even after reading the articles, I didn’t find anything that would answer my questions. To this day, I still don’t know what caused my family’s death.”

His voice was quavering slightly. But it soon regained its level tone, devoid of sorrow. As if he had left the pain far behind him.

As though the months since he lost his family were equivalent to a hundred years.

“Then I met him. The Lord, that is. I don’t have to tell you who it was, do I?”

The chair creaked. Haruhiro flashed a provoking smile.

He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew who he was referring to.