Shattered Memories

Chapter Two:

Chikashi Shuya's apartment would not be his apartment for much longer. The centre of Chiba houses the majority of the city's looming apartment blocks but, as commercial shopping malls and high streets give ground to the droning whistle of suburbia, the occasional building will stand on metallic and glass tiptoes above the rest. One such block, on the west side of Chiba, is still close enough to the shrieks of the city's heart to be steeply expensive- residence for people who simply cannot afford to be twenty minutes from their place of work. The place of work in Shuya's case is ugly, like most of the architecture around it. Komachi has only been inside it once, but loathed the chairs, the forcibly attractive receptionist, the stinging chill of a business that treated people impersonally and did not expect anything less from their customers.

They are an industry that make their profits from investing in other industries that might be successful, but their true expertise lies in finding someone else to blame if they happen to be wrong. That was how Chikashi described them to her. He had found himself in an internship there after graduating from Kyoto University and, over the next seven years, had started to move up through the pillars of departments and offices in the building. Throughout the piled hours of overtime and evenings spent in the city-centre instead of with Komachi, the apartment had gradually become too small for his paychecks; he is planning to find a more appropriate place for them soon.

Her boyfriend, when he finally finds the time to be separated from investments, is a sharp looking man who has an uncanny ability of knowing precisely what he wants and committing himself to its realisation exactly. They met each other on a bus- or rather, saw each other on a bus. Komachi only noticed him sitting three seats away from her, but Chikashi had seen her reflection in the windows and, in its immaculate reconstruction of her face gazing listlessly at the Chiba streets, had presumed to know her immediately as a woman that he would want. He approached her once they got off, his eyes flying between her black hair and her curled eyelashes with an intensity of the most breathless, delirious kind.

He insisted that they go on a date, and she'd allowed him to. They both allowed themselves to fall in love with each other. She, the pretty training-to-be schoolteacher and him, the investor whom, whether in speech, business or intimacy, seems perpetually in motion. Perpetually ready for something that Komachi can't quite pick up on.

Everybody who she introduced her boyfriend to had been, at the very least, impressed. Except one person. He'd called him a 'corporate slave', if Komachi remembered right. And she did. Neither of them managed to find the heart to get along. Chikashi often made an effort to talk to him, to see what kind of person merited the other half of Hikigaya Komachi's heart, but was always disappointed. It usually wasn't her partner's fault. He was never the kind of man to make compromis-

No. Remember the rule.

The tip of Komachi's shoe taps relentlessly on the solid grey floor. The elevator to the floor of their apartment, Floor 14, has always seemed too cramped to her- a steel coffin being lugged ungracefully up and down the walls of an ungraceful building. It has tall mirrors to either side which leaves the face of the person occupying it to be repeated again and again and again in the world of the glass. Komachi glances to the side at the Komachi staring back, and wonders if the face, wrinkled by the thought of the Saize restaurant and the Yukinoshita sisters, is the same pretty face that Chikashi decided should be the one he loved in the bus windows.

It was her and her alone that came up with the rule, though. The rule about what she could think about. She remembers when she wrote it down, and repeated it until it reverberated in her skull, for the first time.

Only think about the good.

If she was to think about her brother, then she could only think about what made her laugh. The parts of him that made her happy. She could not think about the bad parts of him. The times they disagreed, and she crie-

The rule.

My brother was the kind of man who liked to do things his own way.

This is better than 'he doesn't make compromises'. Phrased like that in Komachi's head and it's almost a good quality, not a bad. Now, she is only thinking about the good.

Hikigaya Hachiman was the kind of man who liked to do things his own ways. He was his own, and he couldn't change for anyone.

... Is that good or bad?

Originally, Komachi had not written 'Only think about the good' for her rule. It had been 'Only think about the truth'; the truth of who her brother was, for most of the time she could never have distinguished between the good or bad. She only cared for him, for when they spoke, the good and bad seemed altogether identical, and it didn't matter. She wrote 'Only think about the truth' because, if she lost sight of who Hikigaya Hachiman was, the good and the bad together, it was undoubtedly an insult.

But it had hurt. Thinking of them both. Thinking of the truth. So, now she just thought about the good.

The elevator begins to slow, and after the moment, the doors slide aside and she steps into the corridor of Floor 14. As she does, the mirrors of the elevator flash from the cut of the light overhead, and Komachi is reminded of what remains trapped between her fingers. The letter. The letter for her.

Moving with the automatic disregard of a machine, she pushes herself over to the door that she and Chikashi come to open every day. The apartments in the building can only be opened by use of a keypad and code, which can be changed at the inhabitants leisure- for them, it is 42398. She punches the numbers in and the door clicks open.

Her back is soon pressed up against it, on the inside of the apartment. Komachi's eyes close of their own accord, ignoring the sight of the living room that was connected to the kitchen, with the only other rooms being the bedroom and the bathroom on the right hand side. The same layout as all the others in the block. What occupies it, makes it her and Chikashi Shuya's own, is memories; memories in the photos lining the surfaces, the times they ended up falling asleep together on the couch before rushing to work in the morning, the half-burnt memories of love indented in their bedroom. The fierce smell of them and their relationship in the corners of the apartment.

"... Shuya?" she calls out hesitantly, already knowing he is not back yet. Should he arrive back before her, he comes to greet her at the door, brings her to his lips, kisses her not quite with the consuming desire of their earliest weeks, but with the passionate comfort of the weeks that followed.

Her fingers run over the edges of the letter. It feels old and heavy.

Hikigaya Hachiman. My brother, they... these are his words.

She doesn't know if she wants to open them. She hasn't known what she wants for too long. The words of her brother are supposed to be gone. Cremated. The funeral was a long one, just like the one before. She has only been to two funerals in her life.

Hikigaya Komachi still doesn't know as the fingers find what they want themselves, and push at the already broken envelope, and lift the paper to the light.

This letter is intended for Hikigaya Komachi and Hikigaya Komachi only. Nonetheless, I find myself in a situation so dire it must be entrusted to Yukinoshita Haruno. Inevitably, you will not be able to resist opening the letter, just the same as you could not resist barging back into my life, so this first paragraph is addressed to Yukinoshita Haruno. I hope that not understanding what I have written about frustrates you; perhaps it will be the motivation you need to be useful. For once in your life, Yukinoshita Haruno, I request that you help someone for a reason other than your own selfish desires. Help my sister out of "curiosity", if you must, but do not obstruct her or divert her. For everything I have done, my sister deserves clarity.

That, my imouto, is also addressed to you. You are the one person in my life who I feel knows me exactly. Brutal honesty is more often than not what I strive to give, but if I was to lie, which has happened more times than I could count, then you know full well it is often for you. I have lied for others, yes, but if I were to sacrifice the truth entirely, then it would be for you. You know this, Komachi. I have even lied about lying for other people. Soon enough, in school, in afterschool clubs, in relationships, I find myself falling into the same old lies. And so, I write now in the hope that one day, you will be able to see that you meant far more to me than I could ever hope to express.

It is a bizarre thing, Komachi, to write about oneself in the past tense. It's not quite correct just yet, but it will be very soon. Here, I tell you what I know completely: I am going to die. I know that I am going to die, and I know exactly why, and how, and where. It has been planned, Komachi. I cannot say how long their plan has been in motion, but it is a good one. They have been planning it for a long time now, my imouto, and soon they will get what they want. But they won't get it precisely. With my last dying breath, I'll do everything I can to assure they don't get the satisfaction.

I am a spiteful person, Komachi. I am sorry that you were forced to know this. I have less regrets in my life than you would probably expect, but the majority of them come back to you. I was spiteful to you because you understood me; you were the one person who I knew would understand me no matter how despicably I acted, no matter the habits I fell into, no matter what I wrote. You were the one person who would somehow find a way to love me regardless. I am absolutely certain that, if I met me, I would find myself hateful too. And yet you always waited for me. I didn't wait for you, but you waited for me. You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi. You, above all, don't deserve the truth, Komachi. You deserve happiness. If there is any justice in the world, you will get both.

This whole mess began with death, Komachi. It's almost fitting that, like everything else, it should end with it too. It confused me at the time, but now I am beginning to realise why: on the day that we found out dad had been in the crash, I wasn't thinking at all about the fact we'd just lost our father. All I could think about was Kamakura. How they'd both died the same way- the fucking cat, and our own living, breathing father. Both of them gone without so much as a message of warning. I kept on thinking about how it only really got through to me when we buried the cat, and we watched as the dirt fell on his body. It was the same with father. It was only when his bones were in that casket and lost in the ground that I saw he wasn't going to be found again.

I don't care what you do with me, Komachi. Not really. I suppose I should prefer that you burn me so it helps the environment or some shit like that, but I couldn't care less. Maybe there's something romantic in visiting a grave and dropping off flowers every week. I can see that. Being next to dad, maybe. That's the disadvantage of fire- in death, it's a little too permanent. But it's your choice; cremation, burying, leaving me on the side of the road. Like pretty much everything in my life, I entrust it to you. I trust you, Komachi. I know that, in your head, words and sentences that seem completely incomprehensible to anyone else will eventually make sense.

I trust you, Komachi.

Signed with as much love as I can manage,

Hikigaya Hachiman

While reading, Hikigaya Komachi finds herself wandering, as if she is a ghost, over to the couch where she and her boyfriend always sit. She finds herself almost falling into the cushions and staring at the typed words, staring and staring, reading where she can and accepting what she must.

Once she has finished reading, she closes the letter and places it gently on the couch beside her, like a mother with an infant. Her eyes, every part of her, have gone still, and she finds her attention has lurched away from paper and letters and onto the window that reveals to her the same tired secret every day. The building opposite, as unsettlingly dull as the apartment block she lives in, and Chiba beside it.

Her mind is blank.

Something in the city, the secret in the window, exhales. She follows it, uncertainly, and the stillness is gone.

"I am going to die. I know exactly why, and how, and wher-"

She blinks, and blinks again. He... he kne-

"They have been planning it for a long time now, and soon they will get what they wan-"

Komachi thinks she might have convulsed. She isn't sure. Her mind feels absent as something finds the muscle to lift her up and yank her over to the kitchen. The tap turns on and cold, hard water slams into her face, and she lowers her hands and tosses it onto her cheeks. Water droplets splatter over the ceramic surface as her hands rush to the edges to steady herself.

"If I were to sacrifice the truth entirely, then it would be for yo-"

Her body feels hot. Alive with a coursing, pumping blaze that brings red to her skin and blurriness to her eyes. The water is not cold enoug-

"You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi."

... My brother is... my brother was a good person. He was a spitefu... he was a stubborn man who couldn't change for anyone.

That is the good. The good parts of him.

"You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi."

She pulls out a fragment of her routine. They make drinks for each other. Her and Shuya. After work, if there are still hours of sunset clinging to the sky, then they get each others favourite drink and try to enjoy them together. She pours him the type of Sapporo bitter that he loves, and he makes her a mug of green tea. He usually makes another one for her, just before bed, every day. Komachi can definitely taste the rush of steam as he places it gently in her hands, the rush of his smile as he picks up his own glass, as she moves to the kettle. The water boils and she drops the teabag into the mug. T- this will help. This always helps.

The kettle, perhaps in response to the dismally hopeful thought, lets loose its high-pitched whistle. The noise suddenly sounds unconditionally like something else. The shriek of a landline phone. The landline phone on Chikashi's bed. The shriek that roused, woke, sat him up in his bed. The time of the call was 4:18 in the morning. There was the brief mention of his lips on her bare shoulder blades as he reached, snarling at the shattering of his dream, for the handset. He had thought it would be his work. It wasn't. His voice turned ripe with shock, and they both stood up in the unlit room.

Wiping sleep from her eyes, she could not keep the apprehension from her voice. "Shuya... what is it?"

"... Babe, it's... it's your brother."

"... What about him? Was that him on the phone?"

"No."

"Shuya? Tell me what's wrong."

"... Babe... Komachi, this is gonna be... this is going to be hard to-"

"What's wrong?"

"... He's gone."

"Gone? Gone where?"

"... He's gone. They found him in his flat. Someone broke in through the window or something and trashed the place, and he's... he's gone."

"..."

"It was... that was the police. They said he was already gone before they arrived."

Komachi pours the hissing water, and the steam gashes across her eyes.

"You, above all, don't deserve the truth, Komachi. You deserve happiness."

Don't deserve it... why would I not deserve the truth-

"Babe? You here?"

The jump at the click of the door, and the resonant voice that stands unified with it, causes her to spin around. She spins back at the crash. The mug of tea, the fragment of her routine, the promise of a regular evening of light and careless kissing on the couch, breaks, and scalding hot tea runs across the kitchen floor. Komachi steps back, her shoes now warm and damp, but she steps back into footsteps, into arms, strong arms beneath the sleeves of a black suit, the embrace of them.

"Babe, what happened?! Are you alright?"

"Shuya, I... the letter..." she chokes.

"The letter-"

"The letter... Onii-chan's letter..."

The spilled green tea that Chikashi Shuya makes for Komachi, every day, spreads to the heels of their feet. Stagnant.