Volume 4 - CH 2.5

“…Who? Huh? What?”

Haruhiro looked confused. His reaction was natural. The question Mayuzumi posed to him was baffling. I, too, just stared at her, unable to comprehend her words. Then, she regarded Haruhiro with a smile that could almost be described as gentle.

Who are you?

I had heard the exact same words before.

Inside a coffin trapped under the rain.

“I mean…”

I sorted out what happened back then in my mind. Aya and Aya. Two sisters came to mind.

One was a damaged girl, and the other…

There was only one answer.

“You’ve been dead for a long time now.”

Mayuzumi uttered the words without a shred of hesitation.

“…What?” Haruhiro blurted after a long silence.

There was genuine bewilderment in his voice. He reached for his cheek. Bloody fingers touched his skin.

“…Huh?”

When he lowered his hand, the trail of blood stretched.

“…I don’t believe it,” he mumbled blankly.

His voice was trembling for some reason. Tears suddenly formed in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks. His whole body was shaking. I watched him with bated breath.

His reaction was far from normal.

His face scrunched up, and he screamed, “You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying!”

“No, I’m not. Take a look at this paper.”

She picked up the paper again.

A pale finger tapped the crimson letters. Mayuzumi read the story written indifferently.

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.”

Haruhiro’s eyes widened. I noticed an inconsistency in the story.

It was them who were grieving, and it was them who were given grace.

Not him.

“I heard the whole story from the hallway,” Mayuzumi went on, keeping the same smile. “It was quite interesting. I suppose observing from the sidelines once in a while is not so bad. It’s much less effort.”

Haruhiro was trembling, his face wearing the expression of a confused child.

“Let me ask you something.”

Mayuzumi sat down on an empty chair. The bottom of her black dress flared, softly covering her legs. She perched herself boldly on the seat where I had just been sitting. She placed her legs, wrapped in stockings, on the table and crossed them. Blood stained her thin ankles.

With the posture of a ruler looking down on the poor, she said, “You said that when you woke up, your memory was fuzzy. Why was that? Why on earth did they commit such a foolish act? Why was the fox right beside you when you woke up?”

They were questions that would naturally come to mind if you thought about it for even a moment. A whole tight-knit family committed suicide in such an unusual manner. It wasn’t hard to figure out the reason for that. The way they killed themselves—slitting their throats with bread knives—was too dramatic. And why was the fox there?

“The fox always makes unreasonable deals. I bet the price is much higher now than before. There’s so much ruckus these days, with the mass suicides and whatnot.”

Mayuzumi closed the parasol that had been resting on her shoulder. The red shadow vanished. She fixed her gaze firmly on the terrified Haruhiro.

“Four people died in this case. And there was only one person alive.”

On one side of the scale was the living, and on the other, the dead.

The parasol traced an arc as Mayuzumi slammed it down on the bowls and tableware on the table, breaking them. She pointed the red tip straight at Haruhiro.

As though she was holding a bread knife to his throat.

“You,” Mayuzumi declared.

Haruhiro touched his cheek vacantly, his fingers tracing the shape of his face, then moved his hand away.

There was something sticking on it.

Drip.

Elastic, white flesh stretched.

His face was beginning to crumble.

“Ahaha… Hahahaha.”

Then he started laughing. But the sound of his laughter was hardly different from weeping.

Sobbing, he continued laughing weakly.

“Hahaha… Hahahaha… A-Are you serious? No way…”

Bang.

He slammed his fist on the table. The remaining dishes spun around and fell to the floor. Porcelain broke into pieces, and butter and toast scattered everywhere. Blood mixed with scrambled eggs stained the floor.

Haruhiro lifted his head shakily and looked at his motionless family. His bemused gaze fell on the four bread knives lying on the table.

“Then why…?” he muttered in confusion.

Haruhiro stared at the faces of his mother, his father, his two sisters.

They were nothing more than mannequins that looked like a family.

Staring at their expressionless faces, he reached for the wounds.

Melting fingers stroke his sister’s throat.

“Why?” he asked between sobs.

But no one had the answer to his question.

Mayuzumi gave a small shrug. “Who knows? How should we know how you died and why your family decided to take the fox’s offer?”

No one knew how much sorrow was there, how much sweet-talking was involved.

But one thing was for sure: there definitely was profound anguish and immeasurable love there.

And that’s what makes it a tragedy.

“I see… So that’s what happened… Hahaha…”

Haruhiro sank down on the chair, as if his strings had been cut. He seemed to have recognized that he was dead. His face slowly melted away.

The chair shook perilously, but managed to bear his weight.

“This is so ridiculous,” he said shakily. “I was long dead. I was an imitation. Yet I felt so sad for so long.”

He said it was ridiculous, but he kept crying. Streaks of fiber slid down his cheeks. White flesh piled up on the floor. Denying his own existence was causing his small body to disintegrate.

His face crumbled as though he was shedding tears.

Slowly Haruhiro cast me a glance.

“Odagiri-san,” he whispered softly.

“…What is it?”

I couldn’t say anything else. I had no words. The child in my stomach turned. We could only watch as he disintegrated.

Sharp pain stabbed my chest. My stomach was ripping open. But to feel pain was plain hypocrisy. I accepted the reality in front of my eyes.

I can’t save him.

“I was… I was sad…”

He extended a shaking hand. His fingers, their bones exposed, clawed through empty air and crumbled like sand. Even with his hands gone, he went on, desperately.

“I was really… truly sad. I wasn’t faking it.”

“I know,” I replied. “I know.”

Haruhiro blinked a couple of times. Then as though completely giving up, he closed his eyes. A drop of tear trickled down his eye, mixing with flesh.

Gently he took one final breath.

“I miss them so much.”

With those parting words, his whole body crumbled. All that remained was a mass of flesh on the chair, illuminated by the light of summer. There was nothing alive on the breakfast table anymore. I stared at the paper that had fallen to the floor.

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

It must’ve been his cry. Haruhiro’s scream of despair when his family wouldn’t respond.

I clenched my fists tight. Mayuzumi didn’t say anything. Then I remembered.

Kill Mayuzumi Azaka.

She didn’t ask about my answer to his request.

The light of summer shone on the dining table, fierce rays announcing the coming of dusk.