Beyond the Lines
Only one thing did you promise me
That we will not separate twice because of this
I go for a walk, just to be alone
So that, for the second time,
I won't have to listen to this sad song.
—Hitori, The Gospellers (trans.)
Critical Altitude
April –th, 2003, evening.
Oreki Tomoe could never forget the sight of the hospital room, with its severe and blinding whiteness. Everything in it seemed so impersonal, so precisely clinical, and that was what scared her, because in the midst of the beeping machines and innumerable tubes and bandages slumbered her little brother—she refused to say the dreadful pronouncement that the doctor had given her.
Behind her seat by the bedside, the Oreki patriarch stood, the sadness in his frown apparent as he leaned on the wall beside the door. Every beep of the ECG was a precious moment, because it was, to Tomoe, a message of hope.
Beep. Houtarou is alive.
Beep. Houtarou is alive.
Beep. Houtarou is alive.
"How… did this happen?" her father finally asked with a rusty voice, and Tomoe thought she could distinguish another emotion in his broken tone. Anger. Of course.
Because who the hell could do this level of torture to two sixteen-year-olds?
Sick. Those bastards are sick.
I'll never forgive them.
Tomoe sniffled, and blushed when she realized that she had just done so. "I do not know, but the police said that maybe Chitanda Eru was the true object of the kidnappers, and Houtarou was just dragged along. That was what's pissing me off."
She traced the outline of bandage that was wrapped around Houtarou's swollen fingers, almost feeling every bump that signaled a fracture. "Whoever they are, they didn't know what they were up against when they decided to touch my brother, did they?" Her hand tightening over the unresponsive fingers on the white bed sheet, she stood up. "Dad?"
"What is it?" He looked up with a questioning glance, but Tomoe knew that he had already known what she was going to do. After all, the Oreki siblings have inherited much more than their mother's physical traits.
"I'm going," she said simply, standing up and glancing over her shoulder at Houtarou's passive form. "Please look after Houtarou while I'm away."
"Alright," he nodded, and smiling wearily, she left the insistent beeping, the white starkness of the room, and her false restraint.
She took out her phone from her bag, and dialed a number.
"Is this the Chitanda residence?"
May –th, 2003. Kamiyama High School was already in its second month of classes, while Houtarou quietly turned seventeen years old while still sleeping his endless sleep.
Satoshi visits every afternoon after school, watching Houtarou's chest rise and fall gently and listening to the regular beeps of the ECG. Occasionally, Satoshi engages Tomoe in conversation, helping her to draw her attention away from the bed, but only for every other couple of minutes before her gaze is again diverted by the elephant in the room. Sometimes, Mayaka joins Satoshi in those visits, but only very rarely. She was still in shock about what had happened.
And then, one morning, Tomoe notices Houtarou's eyelids tremble very slightly. It was such a little movement that Tomoe wonders for a moment if it was not caused by her imagination, until she sees his eyelids tremble another time, and then she was certain.
And when the flurry of doctors and nurses have subsided and Tomoe and her father was left watching Houtarou's hazy eyes blinking confusedly, taking in the world that he had shut out for so long.
"Houtarou?" Tomoe brushes Houtarou's wavy forelocks away from his bandaged forehead, and smiles gently as her little brother gazes at him with uncertain green eyes. The shape of his eyes are so much more like mom's. "Houtarou…"
"Ane… ki…" His words were halting, but he said them anyway, his brows drawing together with the effort.
"Rest some more," their father remarked worriedly behind Tomoe, but Houtarou shook his head.
"Aneki… Chitanda… Where… Chitanda is…"
"Houtarou, stop pushing yourself," Tomoe was saying, but then, Houtarou's eyes suddenly fixed themselves on a point on the ceiling and stilled, his mouth half-open. "Houtarou?"
"I'm… sorry, aneki," he said, blankly.
"What do you mean, Houtarou? What are you saying?" Tomoe allowed a small, concerned frown to cross her features.
"I'm sorry, aneki," he just repeated, and then, Tomoe might have imagined it, but a small tremor was in his voice.
Juumonji Kaho was busy sweeping fallen leaves off the main yard of the Arekusu shrine when the call from her grandfather came. Exchanging places with the other shrine maiden that had brought the news, Kaho hurried to the phone, nervously placing the speaker to her ear.
It was irregular that her grandfather chose to call when he knew that she was in the middle of performing her shrine duties, so his topic must be very urgent. So when she said her first "hello" into the receiver, her voice came out a bit higher than was usual.
"Hello, Kaho-chan?" Her grandfather's tone was rather grave, the first sign that he was about to say something that could weigh heavily on Kaho's mind. "Sorry for suddenly calling like this, but…"
"No, it's alright, ojii-sama," she said cautiously, and adjusted her glasses uneasily. "Is there something the matter?"
"Well, I would ask you to please keep this to yourself first. I would have told you this later, but… she is your friend…"
"Ojii-sama, what…?" Kaho's eyes flickered back and forth between the scrolls hung on the wall before her, thinking hard.
Kaho felt her breath catch in her throat as he gave her his news, and the world stopped moving.
"E-Eru is? Ojii-sama—I…"
"You don't need to say anything more." Her grandfather's voice was gentle and firm. "I'm truly sorry to spring the news to you so suddenly."
"No, I…" Kaho swallowed. "It's okay. I'm fine."
"I think you should call it a day and let the others fill in for your duties for today," he said, the worry creeping in his voice again.
"No," Kaho said automatically. "No, I'll finish my work. Thank you for taking the time to tell me."
"She's a good girl," he remarked softly. "I had always believed that she wasn't dead."
They said their goodbyes, and hung up soon after. Kaho stared at the wall blankly for a long time after she had put down the phone, the memory of the past two years swirling before her eyes.
She remembered hearing of the news the first time, and of sitting stock-still in her seat as she stared blankly down at her lap. No, Eru cannot be missing, no, because just yesterday they were talking about how beautiful she had been in her living-doll costume, and… No…
Kaho had spent the rest of her high school years in Kamiyama High wondering about the mystery of Chitanda Eru's disappearance, questioning her parents, the teachers, and even the remaining members of the Classics Club about it. They all said the same thing. That there was only one key to this whole case.
Oreki Houtarou.
Fukube Satoshi, who had been her classmate last year, could only apologize with a strange melancholy as she bowed herself out of the Earth Science prep room.
But the first month of classes went by without her seeing any sign of the person that could have given her one definite detail about the loss of her childhood friend. Kaho could only find out from the snatches of information that she had collected accidentally that Oreki Houtarou was still in the hospital.
Why did he survive? If Eru did not, why did he?
She knew it was irrational to blame Houtarou for surviving, but even so, Kaho, who had been sheltered all her young life, could not think of a rational way to get back to the culprits of the kidnapping.
So when the door to her classroom opened one morning, two months after the opening ceremony, she could hardly believe her eyes when a vaguely familiar tall figure walked past the doorway to 2-A, accompanied by their terse-looking homeroom teacher.
"So, we have a late enrollee in this class," he said in a voice that was a little too bright. "Oreki-kun, introduce yourself. I think some of your new classmates do not know your name yet."
Her classmates were staring openly as well, some of them even gaping and making no move to hide the fact. Kaho could not blame them, because after all, the boy who stood before them looked as if he had just gone through hell.
Bandages were still wrapped around his head, covering most of his forehead. His hair had been cut shorter than the last time that she had seen him, which had not been so long ago, in retrospect. His hands were also bound tightly in bandages, and Kaho guessed that if he hadn't been wearing his winter uniform, which had long sleeves, they would have continued past his wrist and all the way up his arm. He also walked with a slight limp.
But it wasn't the physical details that Kaho was so intrigued to see.
"My name is Oreki Houtarou. Please take care of me." With a little bow, he closed his introduction and the teacher gestured for him to take a vacant seat near the back door.
Kaho noticed how mechanical, how practiced, his movements were.
It was as if she was watching a robot go through the motions of living a student life.
The days passed, and as Kaho became accustomed to the sight of Oreki Houtarou's dead eyes, her persistence in trying to make the matter clearer slipped away. She could never voice it out, but if there was one thing that had prevented her from asking him the questions that she had wanted to be answered, it was that this Oreki Houtarou was significantly different from the one she had known a few months ago.
The Oreki Houtarou that she had known as Satoshi's friend would have been laidback, afraid to exert the slightest unnecessary effort.
This Oreki Houtarou, who was now her classmate, actually volunteered for the post of Classics Club president.
The Oreki Houtarou of a year ago would have studied just enough to pass his exams.
This Oreki Houtarou was soundly beating his way up the lists, and in the midterm exams, he actually ranked sixth overall in their year.
The Oreki Houtarou of a year ago would have been dragged everywhere by Chitanda Eru.
This Oreki Houtarou was, like a note reverberating in the air long after the chord has been struck, all alone.
She remembered one time when, fed up with the way he acted like everything is normal with the world, she actually told him—
"How can you rest easy when you know that out there, Eru may be dying slowly because you're not by her side?"
He had given her a blank stare, which seemed to stretch for eons, before saying—
"I don't do anything I don't have to."
She had struck him full across the face.
"How can you say that!"
And now, the news that her grandfather had delivered had shaken her world once more.
"Eru-chan is..."
Because if it was true, then…
This Oreki Houtarou, the one who spent two years without searching for Eru, might not have been as idle as everyone thought.
This Oreki Houtarou, the one who attracted attention because of his sudden outburst of brilliance, might have done everything for a purpose.
"Fuyumi. So you say that this Oreki Houtarou-san has already found Eru-kun?"
Irisu Fuyumi crossed her legs and straightened out the crease on her skirt, her phone held to her ear as she lounged at her desk. "Yes, father," she said lightly, and eyed the papers on her desk. I have so much to do, and yet here I am, concerning myself with an affair I shouldn't be prioritizing. "However, I fear that, figuratively, they have disappeared from the face of the earth. They might be entering into some danger right now. And the worst thing in this scenario is that we do not know how to help them if so." She flicked her reading lamp on. "I can only trust in Oreki-senpai's judgment for now."
"I see." Her father was silent for a thoughtful while. "Was Chitanda-san's family aware of this yet?"
"I don't know. I left the matter of alerting Eru's family to Oreki-senpai's discretion." Fuyumi sighed. "Consequently, I do not know if the other great clans are also aware of this. I seem to remember that the Juumonji family is close friends of the Chitandas, so if the heiress to the Chitanda lands is recovered, they might be some of the people who could be interested about this."
"Leave the affairs of Kamiyama to Kamiyama, Fuyumi," her father sighed. "And just focus on your studies. Are you doing good?"
"Extremely well." Fuyumi smiled lightly, but the expression did not reach her eyes, leaving them as cool and unruffled as ever. "I at least want to do you some credit."
"Good. Oh, and Kugayama-san called me the other day," her father suddenly said, and she paused from grabbing a pen and starting her work. "She said that Muneyoshi told her that you two have met in Tokyo."
"Father, if you are again pushing for an arranged marriage to one of the distinguished families of Kamiyama, then I'm afraid that you do not truly know me." Fuyumi paused to let her words sink in her father's mind. "Kugayama Muneyoshi already has a girlfriend, I believe."
"I don't think that matters to his mother," he said. "Fuyumi, don't forget that our family is relatively new to Kamiyama compared to—"
"But it matters to me, father," she said simply, and with a clipped "goodbye", she hung up.
Losing interest in her homework, Fuyumi stood up and stretched with a short exhale of breath, her raven hair cascading down past her shoulders in a graceful fall. Noting the time announced by the wall clock, she wondered if Tomoe was online at this hour, and quickly moved to her computer. Logging on the chat room, her slender fingers moved quickly over the keyboard.
Log No. 102345
Anonymous : senpai?
When Tomoe did not answer for three long minutes, Fuyumi sighed and stood up once more, debating whether to do her homework or give herself time to think over the past few days. It had been all so fast and slow at the same time.
"You care for him, Fuyumi."
"Senpai," she sighed aloud, "Why do you always have to point out the most disturbing facts?"
Lying on the bed, she thought, I'm not myself today.
And after rejecting the idea of befriending the heirs of the Sarusuberi and Manninbashi clans, now my father is scheming to marry me off to the Kugayama family. Great. If I'm not wrong, he'll mention the Tougaitos next. I'm not exactly enemies with Masashi, but… we're not friends either.
She remembered the disgruntled look on Tougaito Masashi's face when she had first asked him about Oreki Houtarou.
"Sharp kid. Too sharp, if you ask me…"
She had remembered thinking back then, Well, sharper than you are, at least.
Coming back to the present, she asked herself, Why do the Irisus even have to become friendly with all of them in the first place? The Chitandas should be enough.
She remembered Eru's huge violet eyes and porcelain-pale skin, her charming smile and curious expression at the taller girl that her parents had just introduced to her.
"Eru-chan, this is my daughter Fuyumi," Irisu-sensei had said with a cheery undertone that Fuyumi rarely ever heard in his voice. "Get to know each other, okay? We're going to talk about something in the other room."
Eru had just nodded, and then interestedly watched Fuyumi for a whole minute after the adults had walked out. Her gaze was so intense that Fuyumi was forced to say, "Please don't stare like that. It's uncomfortable."
"Oh! I'm sorry," Eru had gasped, putting her hands over her mouth almost automatically. "But you were… just so pretty," she added breathlessly, and Fuyumi was, even if she would not admit it, flattered at the way Eru said it with barefaced sincerity.
"Thank you," Fuyumi had then said with a stately grace, and from then on, if they did not become friends right away, they at least parted with a clear respect for each other.
Fuyumi became a sister-figure of sorts to Eru over the years, the two of them naturally sticking together every time they attended functions that included the Chitanda and Irisu families. When Eru finally entered Kamiyama High a year after Fuyumi, she was the one who acquainted Eru with the system that ran the school. And Eru helped her, as well, in ways that Eru didn't know she did.
Senpai might have suggested Oreki-kun first, she mused, but Eru was the one who brought him to me.
And the one to take him away as well, she realized with a bitter laugh.
But still... one cannot deny the fact that we were friends.
When Chitanda Eru opened her eyes again the next morning, she found that Houtarou was already gone from her side. She wondered what time it was, as it felt late.
She detected traces of Houtarou's scent from the covers around her, warm and comfortable and strangely familiar, and with a slight smile, guessed that he must have just let her sleep in his room rather than bother carrying her back to her room. However, if hard-pressed to answer how she knew that Houtarou was that kind of person, she would have said that she did not know.
He must be in my room, then.
Eru made as if to rise, and then heard a gasp from a corner. Startled, she looked around to where a girl with carefully-braided hair knelt with a trapped expression, blue eyes quivering behind oval spectacles.
"E-Eru…?" she said, and Eru could see her lip trembling. "Is that really you?"
"Sorry?" Eru narrowed her eyes, but the blank that she was drawing as to the identity of this girl was frustrating her. "Sorry, but your name…"
The girl looked concerned, and then sighed. "So this is what Oreki-kun meant about your… memory loss."
Eru tried to smile, but the expression felt forced on her lips. "I'm sorry."
"No, don't be, Eru." The girl smiled sympathetically. "I understand. You've been through a lot. Now, you're safe." She raised her eyebrows, hesitating. "Oh, that's right. My name is Juumonji Kaho. You can say that our families are really close."
"Juumonji… Kaho?" Eru frowned.
Kaho nodded. "Don't force yourself. I'm sure it will all come back after a while."
"I… I hope so." Eru didn't bother pointing out what she already knew—that it had already been two years, and that there had been no signs of her memory loss letting up. "So, this house…"
"It's my family's house, yes," Kaho affirmed. "We're very near the shrine."
Eru looked around once more. "Um, Oreki-san… Is he—?"
Kaho was visibly startled at the question. "He's gone out this morning. He left me a note to give to you." She smiled regretfully. "I may have misjudged him. He seems very concerned for you."
"He went out?" Eru looked worried, and Kaho approached her, drawing a note from her pocket. "But…"
But I thought he wouldn't leave me again.
She took the note from Kaho's obliging fingers, and unfolded it. Inside was written:
Don't do anything rash. I'm going to return soon. You can trust Juumonji. Oreki.
Her chest felt tight at these words. "Juumonji-san?" she said tentatively.
"Eru, you can just call me Kaho," was the reply.
"Kaho-san, then." Eru looked up from the piece of paper. "What did Oreki-san do before he went out?"
"Oh." Kaho frowned. "It was quite trivial and maybe irrelevant, but…"
"Anything," Eru persisted.
Kaho glanced at the door, before saying, "Well… He borrowed my copies of Hyouka early this morning."
"Hyouka…? The anthology?"
"Yes." Kaho shrugged. "That was about it." She rose to her feet, and headed to the door. "Eru, do you want something to eat? It's already an hour before lunchtime, but maybe you'd like something light…"
"No, thank you, Kaho-san," Eru said politely. "I'll just wait until then." Rising to her feet as well and rolling the futon up for storage, she then noticed the glint of a glossy paperback on the floor beside the futon. Frowning, she picked it up. Perhaps Oreki-san was reading this yesterday?
"Kyoufu… no Tani," she read the title with some wonder. "Is Oreki-san a horror fiction fan?" She flipped to the title page, where a name was scribbled in messy writing. "Hmm… I wonder who 'Fukube'-san is…"
"Eru?" Kaho poked her head back into the room, making Eru look up. "Would you like to see the garden to pass the time?"
"Ooh, I'd love that!" Carefully replacing the book on the floor and stowing the futon away, Eru went after Kaho's steady steps, the matter pushed to the back of her mind for now.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
So… Kamiyama becomes disturbed at the rumors of the return of the Chitanda heiress. And enter, Juumonji Kaho.
I'm going so fast in updating... I might already finish this in two or three chapters. I need to finish this before school badgers me again.
"Hitori", from which I got the lyrics for this chapter, is a really marvelous song—it's one of the songs that the A Capella Club sang during the cultural festival. It's as sad as the title would suggest.