Author's Note: Okay... I tried to update fast for this chapter. But let me tell you, it was hell to write. I had no idea how to get where I wanted to go from how I ended the last chapter... but here it is. The chapter you've been waiting for. Sorry it's so short. And by the whole "solving it the American way" thing, I mean no offense to Americans or America or anything. (Hey, I'm an American!) I just needed something to put there. Enjoy.

Chapter Seven—Danger Versus Tragedy

Time slowed to a near stand-still. As people crept by, Mizuki stood, completely shocked. In her mind, various pictures of her mother dying crowded in. She imagined Eiko driving down the road, perhaps to buy groceries, and getting hit, head-on by a semi... She imagined her mom accidentally getting shot in a drive-by shooting... Each image of her mother's death was more dramatic (and unlikely) than the last. A view of her mother, slowly dying of cancer, floated into her mind... her mother dying of cancer with her ungrateful younger child in a completely different country... Her mother next died of falling off a cliff, then of being stabbed to death by a jealous ex-lover, then being poisoned with a tincture meant for the king of some far-away country... Then Mizuki gathered herself and asked Shizuki, "Mom's dead? How?"

The answer was one of the few causes of death that had not flitted through her mind in that panicked minute or so. "Well, um..." Shizuki cleared his throat, then mumbled something that sounded like "blue is white."

"What?"

Shizuki appeared extremely uncomfortable, as if he had just wet himself or something, and couldn't wait for the entire situation to be over. "The cause appeared to be... ahhh... suicide."

Mizuki stared. Suicide? Her mother had never been the suicidal type... Never! Never even been depressed! What the hell is going on? Mizuki wondered. She knew she couldn't have been told the whole truth. That couldn't be the whole truth! Her heart pounded and her brain worked overtime as she studied her brother's face. "Suicide?"

Shizuki cleared his throat again. "Let's discuss it in the car, shall we?" And with that, he grabbed her suitcase and strode towards the SUV waiting in the parking lot.

Mizuki hung behind for a moment, still shocked at the news, and narrowed her eyes at her brother's back. The grief hadn't set in yet, and she hadn't fully realized that her mother was dead. All she knew right then was that something was most certainly not right.

oOo

In the car, Shizuki kept his mouth clamped shut, refusing to talk about the, as he called it, "unfortunate circumstances" of their mother's death. Mizuki could barely believe this was her brother... "unfortunate circumstances" her ass. He sounded like a complete (hearltess) imbicile!

Mizuki propped her feet up on the dashboard and tapped her fingers rhythmically on her thighs, thinking hard. How could Mom have commited suicide? She's just not suicidal! She's not! She... she didn't commit suicide...

"Shizu... please. Just... tell me. What did she do? Where was she found? Was there a note? Come on! Tell me! I deserve to know, I'm her god damn daughter!"

Shizuki sighed deeply, then said quietly, "Are you entirely sure you want to hear this? It's rather..." His voice trailed off.

"I want to hear," insisted Mizuki.

"Fine. Okay, she was found in your..." he coughed quietly, then continued, his voice pitched quieter than Mizuki had ever heard it, "...your bedroom. Clutching the telephone, actually. A bottle of... well, there were pills there once..." He looked about to cry. "Don't make me go over this with you... can't you just look for yourself when we get home? We have a photograph of the scene... and... we have the note..." A tear slid down his cheek, which he forcefully brushed away.

Mizuki nodded.

oOo

Back at their house, Mizuki found her usually hyper dad sitting listlessly on the couch, eyes swollen and a box of tissues in hand. Shizuki walked over and took the lone photograph from the glass coffee table by their father's feet. Silently, he handed the photo to his sister.

Mizuki was almost afraid to look, but it was as if some magnetic force was pulling her eyes to the picture.

It was a dark picture, the details of the room (and, she noticed, with a sick feeling in her stomach, her mother's body) just barely discernable. Her mother was lying crumpled on the floor with the telephone clutched to her ear and a bottle of pills lying open on the floor. She was lying between the door and Mizuki's bed, as if she had stumbled in the door and fallen, dropping the pill bottle, already dying. Mizuki thought she was going to throw up, and collapsed into an armchair, her eyes glued to the photograph. Shizuki quietly offered her the handwritten note.

Dear everyone,

I have no choice but to do this. I can't explain why, though. It would put you in danger. Grave, grave danger. Please cremate me and keep the urn. You will know where to spread me, and when to do it.

But please know that I really, truly love you all.

Love,

Eiko

Mizuki stared at the note for a moment after she read it, not comprehending a word. Then, blinking out the tears that were blurring the words in front of her eyes, she read it again. The flowing, dancing script of her mother's hand sat on that page, not offering a single hint as to why she had done what she had done. Mizuki dropped the note and the photograph to the floor and curled up in the armchair. She sat just staring at her knees, at first, but then a single tear coursed down her smooth cheeks.

Shizuki picked up the photograph and note, set them on the table, and disappeared into the kitchen, where Mizuki heard him cry quietly.

What could have forced her mother to do such a thing? Such a... a vile thing! She had had "no choice," as she put it. No choice? No choice? So she decides to rip apart my family to "protect" us? What the hell could have her—us!—in such danger that she had to do this? She had to choose between putting us in danger and making our lives a Shakespeare-worthy tragedy, didn't she? Well. I can't decide which would be worse. Mizuki thought bitterly.

oOo

A full seven hours later, Mizuki got up from the armchair, unfolding herself and walking to the refrigerator. She was going to solve this the American way—eat. Her movements were jerking and articulated at the wrong moments. She looked like a stick insect crawling along a branch.

When she got to the refrigerator, she helped herself to some orange juice and an apple. Something's not right about this.

She sat down at the kitchen table to eat and think. But then her thoughts drifted back to Japan... back to Sano. Mizuki! You shouldn't be thinking about him at a time like this! her inner voice scolded.

But another voice inside her whined, But he said to call...

MIZUKI! YOUR MOTHER IS DEAD! shrieked the first voice.

Mizuki Number Two replied, But Sano said to call. I... I love him, I want him to share my pain.

You don't want to burden him with it, reasoned Mizuki One.

Mizuki picked up the phone, ignoring Mizuki One. She dialed the number of Sano's cell phone, glad that it was an international model.

Riiiing. Riiiiing. Rii—"Hello?"

Mizuki's dead insides tried to fight back alive at the sound of Sano's voice.

She slammed the phone back into it's cradle.