author's note~ this chapter feels more erratic. Perhaps it should sorta serve to mirror Kuroha's unorganized sense of time and events. I introduce Ayano and Ayaka (her mother) and for now, I wouldn't consider them important characters - maybe symbols at best - but more as tools for Kuroha to "bring the family together". I will leave that phrase to interpretation ^^
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Accidents happen. Droplets cling to paper, adhesive forces yearning for their meeting. The magic touch needed to break the surface, to smear the paper, comes from the hand of the unremarkable artist. The canvas gives the illusion that the painting is purposeful, to have been brushed gently by a deft hand. But red paint feels disturbingly similar to freshly oozed blood, there being no line to tell the two apart.
It took a long while, a long string of accidents, to have them together. The boy who heard thoughts, the girl who turned invisible, the boy who told lies: tidy and whole, the family was together. Except for one.
"My queen, you always wanted to have kids."
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"What have I done?" he muttered to himself. He was soaked waist-down and held a still-limp hand. He inspected it for a moment, questioning why he chose to pick it up from the tangled mess at his feet.
The sun balanced uncertainly at the horizon: eight thirty PM. Dark wisps of clouds gathered above. The alleyway had not been lightened up by a lamp. Instead, the space between the two buildings was stuffed with darkness, blending into the evening street view. Dimly reflected from the dark, a pair of yellow eyes lingered.
A groan rose from the mess at his feet. His eyes flicked down. It took a second to register. He hesitated. He thought he smiled. Quickly, he returned to a frown.
"What have I done, indeed."
Rain poured, washing away the decorated scarlet lines, the blunted fingernails, even the dull ache in his stomach.
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The white-haired maiden painted by the large windowsill on cool days, mornings after a nighttime rain left the trees glistening and clean. She happily retrieved paints from the closet, a remnant hobby from her mother. Her steps were light, her spirits high, a silly grin decorating her face. She held the brushes like sticks with tips bluntly frayed and clumsily mixed different colors which should not have been, but still she continued, delighted by the patches and streaks of greens and blues. It was a forest.
He waited until she retreated further back into the cottage, escaping the high noon sun. After her lunch of a fruit salad, after her cup of chamomile, she settled into an afternoon nap while he entered from the dark, unoccupied crevices.
He emerged from darkness, clad in black.
Ignoring her body, strewn lazily on the couch, he stepped over the lines of long, white hair on the floor. Traces of her—her hair, her smell, her touch—draped her cottage, the tea still wafting, the air still unsettled. Her half-finished painting dried by the window, paints lying carelessly on the bookshelf and floor.
He resisted approaching the painting from the sunlight. The bright light scalded him, his eyes never able to fully adjust. Still, painfully, he stooped down and picked up the tube of red paint off the lit floor. A necessary action. Later, she would wake up to find her cottage empty again, stepping out to view her painting, only to slip on the tube, fall onto her easel, and lose an eye, her loud screams silencing the forest as slowly she bled to death. Around him he could see the blood pooling on the floor.
Such a clumsy girl, he thought, should have died. But still, what should have happened was irrelevant. What was an accident and what wasn't was irrelevant. Unaffected, he dutifully moved the paint. She would not die. She would not even injure herself. She was his only.
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"How do you want it? The coffee?"
"Black."
"Mmmhm. Yeah, you really look the type." The man across the counter smiled. The man handed him the coffee.
He looked in the cup. Red.
"I used to have a lady pass by every day. She drank it black and for some reason she always spilled it on her nice, white lab coat. Clumsy. Said she needed the caffeine, she was something like an archeologist." The man vacantly smiled.
"Used to…" he said, looking back up at the man.
The man's smile faded, melancholy, as a moment passed.
"There was a bit of a landslide where she worked. She –"
"She's dead."
The man looked at him funny. The man's mouth formed a word. He looked again at the man. Then the cafe was empty. A droning sound came to his ears. He looked again; he was in the alleyway. A car passed by on the main street. A ball of light hung endlessly at the edge of the skyline: eight thirty PM. He looked down. A young woman lied mangled at his feet. He felt something wet hit his head. He looked up. The rain droned on.
No, no, no.
His fantasy. His memory. It meshed—no, it stopped. And started. There was no such man. There was no such coffee. There was no such ...
"Can you tell me why you didn't adopt those children in time?" he asked.
She shook her head. He backed her up into the alleyway against the wall. She opened her mouth to call for help; he shut it with his hand.
Several seconds passed.
"Why does it seem you always have to die?"
The woman gurgled an inaudible scream through his fingers. He shoved her head further into the concrete wall. Her lab coat fell down to the ground.
"Why can you not be like her?"
The woman struggled, legs pounding him and the ground, arms braced by his free hand. Her eyes widened, pleading. Beads of blood gently dripped down onto the coat.
A few seconds later, it gushed.
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Reset. Reset. Reset.
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It always took an extra step to get to her.
"Do you want siblings?"
The girl nodded her head.
"Tell your mother about adoption. Point to them that building."
The girl nodded again and scampered away. She seemed satisfied.
He shook his head. It was that simple.
In a week, everyone would be together.
Still standing there, it occurred to him that because of this, the girl would kill herself. That, for all of them to be together, she must die. Still, he held no sympathy. She was still just a normal child. Her figure skipped across in the distance, a red hairclip her only adornment. Like mother like daughter.
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There came a world where happiness ended. He was not there when it happened. The white-haired maiden sat by the window. She had continued painting the forest. Her hand weaved up and down. He sat behind her, watching.
He wanted to confess. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to wring her neck. He wanted to listen to her screams. He wanted to have her in his palm. He wanted to be satisfied with her the way it was.
He could not. A moment passed before he decided what to say. There was something beautiful in how simply she held the brush, how fragile and breakable she was. There was nothing for him in the outside world, its people filthy and dependent. Yet here he was, touching and interacting with them, lowering himself to their level. It was unfaithful, even. The idea rolled carefully around in his head—an apology.
"I'm sorry."
She turned, having heard something. Faintly, a breeze passed through the cottage.