Chris Robinson, tenth grader, died last week from his leukemia.
This chapter is dedicated to him.
Please read. And think of a boy whose life was too short.
Chandelier
How many days has it been since she took in her last breath?
Too many, it seems, for me.
美
Yuu stands on the podium, in front of everyone, going through the entourage of announcements we always hear during every all-school assembly. Others might think this meeting is no different from others, that nothing has changed from the one before.
But I know, and the whole class 2-B knows, that something has changed in the manner of the announcements today. A solemn tone flows through Yuu's usually pitchy voice, and our class all wait for another special word from Shiki-san, the middle school principal himself.
I know what's coming. I don't want to hear it. Because it will make this all too real.
"…and now an announcement from Shiki-san."
Everyone claps politely as our middle school principal takes center stage, calm and poised as ever. Murmurs start as we all notice his new choice of dress. Rather than his usual snappy t-shirt and jeans, he has opted to wear a formal, all black ensemble, minus his white dress shirt and wine red tie. Some girls have the nerve to squeal under their breaths, "He is just so hot!"
Shut up.
"I could eat him, you know."
Shut up! This isn't the time to be pining over a man almost twenty years our senior!
"Good morning, everyone," he starts, fidgeting with his tie. Obviously, he isn't used to wearing such a collar. "Today, I'm afraid I have to deliver some sad news to you all. You see…"
No. Please stop. Don't make me go through this again.
I remember in this single second, in the space of his breath between the next, the moment where my own brother emerges from the hospital room with his hands held behind his back, dark indigo eyes avoiding the direct gaze of my own. "Hotaru," he whispers, coming over to my side and crouching down besides the chair I'm currently frozen too. "Hotaru, I'm sorry. She's-"
"Mikan Sakura is no longer with us in this world."
My body stiffens, building a protective layer of numbness to try to block the onslaught of words that comes next. Half of me wishes to hear the words he speaks, the words that inform me that he too has suffered from her absence.
Half of me wishes to scream and cry and pound my way through the others, hit him on the chest and wail in rage and fury and grief, "What's your loss compared to mine?!"
"Mikan was suffering through cancer, and had to experience numerous sessions of painful chemotherapy. She couldn't come to school often, and ended up repeating a grade because of all her absences. Yet every time I saw her, she was always smiling."
Why remind us of her smile? Yes, that beautiful spark of human goodwill and brightness which couldn't help but bring a small ray of light onto your face as well. Why remind us of something we will never see again in this world?
"It must have been hard for her. Her parents had left the world prior her, but at least with her companions and classmates, she wasn't alone. It was hard for her friends and those who stood by her to watch the transformation of their loved one from the process of treatment. But Mikan Sakura was happy, despite all these things, and left this world knowing she was departing to a better place."
What the hell was wrong with this world as it is? Why couldn't she have stayed here for longer?
Her friends are here. Natsume's here.
I'm here.
"Let us all hold a moment of silence in honor of Mikan."
The tears have already slipped through the corner of my eyes and are silently sailing down my white cheek. I close my lids to block their exit and clasp my hands together.
God…it's true. I've been a bit skeptical of you from before.
But please, if but for a pure heart's sake, let Mikan be happy in paradise.
In this small moment of prayer, only one person dares to break the solemn silence. A fist clenches my heart tightly, fueling the single, burning fire of rage inside of me. How dare they? I turn my head a quarter turn to the left, ready to tell off this rude offender with the usual Hotaru Imai venom, until I see the face of Nobara Ibaragi.
Her blue bangs are frizzier than ever, hanging in front of her face like a tangle of seaweed, trying in vain to cover her reddening eyes. Head on her hands, she sobs, attempting to stifle her cries by biting hard on her lip. Someone in the next seat, Shouda, pats her sympathetically on the shoulder, her own expression crumpled into a pained face.
Those of us who knew her, are all hurting. Some can't help but show our pain.
"Assembly…is now dismissed." Yuu has returned, voice cracking slightly at his last statement. People now stand up, slowly making their way towards the exits.
Outside, Ruka jogs over to my side, his blonde hair practically blinding in contrast to his midnight black suit. "We have to hurry to the funeral," he whispers, quietly slipping his hand into my own.
I nod without fuss. We start to walk over to the car surely parked outside of the academy gates until a horrible, arrogant voice rings in the air and interrupts our hurry.
"Well, that was depressing! Why the fuck would he announce that?"
"Come on Ta-chan. Someone of our community just died! We should pay our respects quietly."
"That stupid principal just ruined my whole day now. I wish I'd never heard of the name Mikan Sakura."
I struggle to breathe.
"Let's go, Hotaru." Ruka squeezes my shoulder and glares in the other direction. "Those kind of people will never be able to understand the feelings of the mourning until it's too late."
美
"Thank you."
I break my eyes away from her altar to find her uncle staring sadly at me. "Thank you for being a good friend to her."
A lump forms in my throat. I merely nod, afraid to say anything more.
The high school principal crouches beside me as others mill silently around the cemetery, sharing their stories and tales of the girl who sits underneath my very feet. "She said," he started, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, fingering the cellophane. "She said you were her best friend."
"She was mine too," I reply. I continue to watch the burning incense as the smoke furls and floats up through the air.
He finally rips the wrapper open and flicks his thumb for the carton to open. "She didn't worry about Natsume."
I finally look at him, befuddled. He continues to speak, twiddling a cigarette between his index and middle finger, still unlighted. "While she was wondering of, you know, the afterlife, she was always worrying. I thought her last words to me would be frightened, beseeching. Instead, she asked me…to take care of you."
"That idiot."
"I agree." He smiles faintly, wistfulness apparent at the edge of his eyes. "She was always worrying about others before herself, wasn't she?"
"She should have worried about her own ass."
He doesn't flinch at my choice of words. "Maybe. But that care was what made her Mikan."
I fold my arms around my legs, cradling myself as I can no longer maintain the coldness struggling to remain numb in my chest. The frost cracks and shatters, letting my heart break so it can heal. My shoulders shake, up and down, back and forth, as I rock side by side on the cold ground.
Her altar, her headstone, seems so drab and grey.
"I don't want to leave her here," I sob. Her uncle does not remove himself to comfort me. He knows, as well as I do, that I must come to terms with my feelings by myself. "I don't want to leave her all alone."
"She won't be alone," he comments gently. "Her body might be here, but her soul is with her parents."
"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. She's dead, and I won't be able to see her until I die. And even then, I may not end up in the same place as her." I wipe my eyes furiously, trying to ignore the growing, bubbling anxiety and anger inside of my stomach. "I wish death didn't exist. I wish it didn't take away our precious ones!"
"But that's life. For every thing we take, we will eventually have to give back. And that's the truth we have to live with."
He stays silent for a while as I continue to drip violent tears onto my dress. It's the dress I had spent the whole of last night trying to salvage from the depths of my closet, just for her. For her funeral.
For my goodbye.
Suddenly, he takes the pack of cigarettes in his hand and throws it with all his might, over to the trash can a whole ten meters away. It successfully hits the rim of the bin, and bounds forwards into the depths of the garbage. "Then as long as we live our lives," he says, getting up from the ground and stretching his arms, "let us not waste our precious years and hours. Let us live life deeply and fruitfully, for the sake of others."
"Just like our Mikan did."
He begins to walk away from her grave, and then stops. His back faces me, lean but strong, burning the humble image of a brother, uncle, and protector into my mind. "She would have liked your dress," he calls out to me. "She wasn't fond of black."
My dress is white.
White for snow.
White for purity.
White for Mikan.
美
